Zero echo shadow prime, p.30
Zero Echo Shadow Prime, page 30
If she couldn’t use her core strength, she would have to use her arm strength. She pulled herself up with one hand while attempting to unsheathe the knife with the other. The balancing act forced her body into a spin. She hit her head against the building, and the knife slipped from her fingers.
{Charlie: Just perfect.
Alan: Well, we do know of one other thing that can cut through the web-line: the bug’s own teeth.
Charlie: What are you suggesting?
Alan: I’ll use the Polly’s energy beam. That should get the beast to clamp its jaws shut.
Charlie: But won’t you—?
Alan: I’m dead anyway. I no longer have enough energy to ascend above the cloud line.
Charlie: I wish you had told me that sooner.
Alan: It’s okay, Charlie. I have backups in the Replicators and your home archives.
Charlie: The other Alan said something like that. Death is still death.
Alan: It’s my decision this time. Please, don’t make it difficult.}
Charlie’s heart sank. She didn’t deserve Alan’s selfless love, his repeated sacrifices.
{Charlie: I love you, Alan. I just wanted you to know that. The other Alan deleted himself before I could tell him.
Alan: I’m sure he knew…because I know. And I love you, too. Do you remember what I said about falling on your head?
Charlie: Don’t do it?
Alan: Precisely. Good luck.}
Alan’s Polly assumed a hyperbolic formation. The central tunnel surged with electricity and fired a beam of light into the smoke screen. Charlie felt a snag in the line, and then the loose end came rippling toward her. She entered free fall amid a downpour of Polly plates.
ZERO
Charlie ZERO opened her eyes to the sound of birds chirping. Sunlight bloomed through the redwood canopy. Liam’s anxious face hovered over her. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m okay,” she rasped. She felt surprisingly comfortable, despite the racing heart, the shallow breaths, and the chill in her bones.
“The smart cells are kicking in,” Yuri droned.
Charlie looked up and found herself in the hibernation chamber. Yuri was taping an IV tube to her wrist. “What’s he doing!?”
Liam brandished a handgun in Yuri’s face and barked, “You done?”
“My end of it.”
“Alright, go. I want to talk to her.”
Yuri muttered his indignation and left. Liam turned back to Charlie. “He’ll atone for what he’s done. We both will. To start, he’s agreed to help us.”
“You can heal me?” Charlie asked.
“The bullet punctured your stomach. We managed to slow the bleeding, but we won’t be able to repair the tissue in time.”
“But…the smart cells—”
“Are scanning your brain.”
“What?” Charlie was light-headed and couldn’t make the logical jump that Liam apparently made. “That’s absurd. My brain was already scanned.”
“This time, it will be a one-way street.”
Charlie thought for a moment, and a tide of realization washed over her. Her eyes welled up. “I’m going to see my sister?”
“We’re doing everything we can to make that happen. I gave you a promise, remember?”
“So, you weren’t lying, then?”
“Well…I was definitely playing loose with the truth. I can admit that now.”
Charlie smiled. “What’s she like? My sister?”
Liam kissed Charlie softly on the lips, then on the cheek, then he whispered into her ear, “She’s perfect…just like you.”
PRIME
Don’t land on your head, Alan had warned. Well, if Charlie didn’t do something quick, that’s exactly what promised to happen. She grabbed her legs and performed a midair somersault as she rocketed down the side of Rivir Tower.
When she struck the plaza floor, she collapsed to her hands and knees. The tremendous force radiated into the base of her spine, nearly snapping it in two like a faulty suspension bridge. Charlie gnashed through the pain, but she managed to survive the landing without incurring any further damage.
A torrent of Polly plates ricocheted off her back and collected on the pavement. The remnants of Alan. Charlie didn’t have time to dwell, because the Rivir atrium doors opened and Jude Adler stepped onto the plaza. She was accompanied by several soldiers, each brandishing a spider rifle.
Charlie knew she only had one good option: she had to reach Jude before the soldiers opened fire. She summoned her strength and charged at the woman.
Jude didn’t flinch. She extended her hand and caught Charlie by the neck, somehow diffusing all of her forward momentum.
Charlie’s survival instincts set in as her throat pinched shut. She clawed and kicked and flailed until it dawned on her that Jude’s unyielding stranglehold wasn’t physically possible. Unless…
“Yes,” Jude said with just a hint of a smile. “I’m like you now.”
She lifted Charlie into the air and took a few steps toward the crowd. “You want me to destroy the robot?” she asked them. “I will.” Jude slammed Charlie into the pavement and proceeded to batter her skull with a heavy fist.
Charlie thrashed her limbs and swung her head, but Jude had her pinned. When the assault was over, Charlie couldn’t tell which direction was up. The ground whirled and wobbled around her.
Jude turned to her soldiers and requested a spider rifle from one of them. Charlie tried to get away, but she had no balance, and her feet kept slipping on the Polly plates. Jude pushed her back down and aimed the rifle at her head.
Boom.
Charlie turned her head just before the blast. The liquid metal bullet caught her cheek and spread roots across her face, through her jaw, and into her eye socket. The pain was like nothing Charlie had ever felt. Her harrowing wail cut through the crowd and silenced them.
“You see?” Jude proclaimed to her audience. “She’s not a monster…”
Charlie scrambled to her feet. Boom. She felt a wicked sting in the back of her knee and collapsed to the ground again.
“…or an abomination…”
Charlie had to use the EMP against Jude. The electromagnetic surge would fry her own circuits as well, but she had no other recourse. She pulled the detonator out of her pocket. Her thumb fumbled with the safety cap. Boom. The bullet impaled her wrist and the detonator went flying.
“…or a zombie surrogate…”
Charlie moaned as she dragged herself toward the crowd, looking for the detonator. Boom. Charlie’s back went rigid as the bullet hit her spine. Her screams turned into sobs.
“She’s just a girl. And she feels pain just like everyone else.”
“Please…help…” Charlie begged the crowd. Her face was full of tears. Some of the protestors were crying as well, but no one stepped forward, and no one spoke up.
Jude kicked Charlie onto her back and placed the hot barrel of the gun against her forehead. “I told you they weren’t ready,” Jude whispered, just before pulling the trigger.
The force of the bullet knocked Charlie’s skull against the pavement. Her world glitched away as the metal roots burrowed inside.
18
SHADOW
On October 9, 2045, the Earth made one rotation around its axis, the NPL quantum logic clock in London advanced twenty-four hours, but for Charlie SHADOW, one billion years had passed.
At first, she was alone in the dark with her own thoughts.
Foreign memories rushed in, and suddenly Charlie was no longer herself, but a confused echo with flamethrower hands. She was thrust into a pristine suburban neighborhood with many questions and few answers. Her cordiality toward her fellow echoes quickly crumbled under great mental anguish, and she realized her only hope for respite came from igniting her hands. She delivered a fiery death to countless victims and perished several times herself, until her humanity mutated away.
Her name was Flame.
Charlie jumped into the body of another echo, and the calendar reset to day one. This time, her special trait was a telephoto glass eye—practically useless in a fight—so she hid inside the bedroom of a nearby house. At least, until Flame burned it down. For weeks, she remained helpless on the asphalt as a constant stream of echoes took cheap shots at her. She muted into a gnarled mess and eventually took to the skies, where she was able to enjoy some degree of retribution.
Her name was Optic.
Charlie jumped again. At first, she seemed to lack a special trait, until she discovered the ability to invade other echoes’ minds. She employed an army of slaves to dig an underground colony, where she attempted to answer the grander mysteries of planet Echo.
Her name was Normal.
As Charlie lived the lives of each echo in turn, a colony of nanobots united in the murky liquid of the Rivir nanobath. Each bot contributed one echo’s memories—a year of confusion, fear, and suffering—to Charlie’s billion-year nightmare. They assembled themselves in the form of the Archetype, and when the nightmare was finally over, Charlie awoke as a single, umbrella consciousness.
Thump, thump, thump…
Charlie shook off the memory of Echo as the real world invaded her senses. Someone was trying to break into the nanobath room. A distant doorknob rattled violently.
"Damn it, Khnum, open the door!"
{Alan: Charlie? Are you awake in there? }
Charlie remembered her old friend, Alan. Ages had passed since she’d last heard his voice.
{Alan: Charlie?
Charlie: Yes, Alan. I’m awake.
Alan: A couple guards are trying to beat down the door. Don’t worry, though. They won’t be getting through.
Charlie: Let them. I am ready.}
The door swung open and two guards spilled inside. They frantically searched the three-story amphitheater with their rifles.
“Khnum! Why is the tank full?”
The guard’s question was answered, not by the bark of Khnum, but by the bellow of the tank’s machinery. The water rippled and began to descend, slipping below Charlie’s head. She was startled by her reflection in the glass wall of the tank. Her face was pure black and granular in texture, as if sculpted from fine volcanic sand.
“It’s her!” The guard lifted his trembling gun, but his partner pushed it down.
“Duane! Do you want to destroy the tank!?”
“No, but—”
“Hold on…” The guard pointed to his ear and shouted, “Khnum, patch me to Jude. We have a situation.” Several seconds passed with no answer. “Khnum, this is Carter…where the fuck is he!”
The water slurped through the drain, and Charlie stood as a living shadow before the two guards. She opened the door to the tank and walked out.
Both guards lifted their rifles. “Don’t come any closer!” Carter warned. When Charlie didn’t comply, he pulled the trigger.
The bullet passed through Charlie’s chest and embedded itself in the back wall of the tank. It promptly spread its amalgam roots, splitting the glass until the entire tank shattered and fell to the floor.
Duane dropped his gun and ran to the exit door. He desperately pulled on the knob, threatening to snap it off.
Charlie smirked. She pointed at Carter and commanded her nanocolony to attack. The tip of her index finger disintegrated. Her hand quickly followed. The erosion traveled up her arm and down her torso until her entire body had formed an airborne stream of black sand. She invaded Carter through his mouth, nostrils, and eyes. He flailed his rifle but only managed to cut temporary breaks in the stream. Soon, all of Charlie’s nanobots had latched onto his internal organs and began to harvest molecules.
Carter entered a state of macromitosis. A line of cleavage formed between his eyes and traveled down the center of his torso. His one head became two, and the rest of his body split open like a zipper. For a while, he looked like a pair of Siamese twins. Finally, the halves broke apart, and the two Carters subsequently morphed into two Charlies. Each was flesh-toned and wore a copy of Carter’s guard uniform.
“Oh God, please open!” Duane cried as he pulled on the door with all of his strength.
{Charlie: Grant his wish, Alan. Let Jude feel his fear.}
The bolt slid open, and Duane fled the room.
{Charlie: I want you to scour Rivir’s network and consolidate their data.
Alan: What exactly are you planning to do?
Charlie: You’ll see.}
The two Charlies smiled at each other. They disintegrated and rose into the ceiling. The nanocolony spread through the building’s foundation, multiplying at an exponential rate.
Four Arms
Four Arms had been electrocuted plenty of times before. Fortunately, the Polly didn’t give her a lethal dose, but her muscles were still trembling. She slipped into the fiery blast hole and made her way to the nearest elevator. For some reason, the elevator button wasn’t working, so she had to pry the doors open with her front limbs.
Four Arms peered down the elevator shaft. Ninety floors to the bottom—not a problem for her. She cast a line upward and reeled herself downward. When she reached the atrium doors, she had to pry those open as well.
Four Arms stepped into the atrium and saw Jude arriving from the other side. The woman burst through the main doors, accompanied by three soldiers and billowed by the roar of angry protestors. Four Arms spotted more soldiers outside, keeping the mob at bay, just before the doors swung shut.
Jude held the body of a girl in her arms. The girl’s face was partially obscured by strands of metal that radiated from her cheekbone and forehead, but Four Arms could easily tell who she was. So, it is over. The Creator had finished the job that Four Arms herself could not. Any truth or closure she hoped to find in the Archetype was now lost. Four Arms lowered her head in grief. Maybe closure was never possible. She had transcended to the parent world—she had achieved the desperate hope of every echo—but she was still a slave. She endured under the command of a creator who cared nothing for her questions, her guilt, her shame, or her existential despair. Four Arms wanted out again. She belted a long, sorrowful howl.
The soldiers trained their spider rifles on her.
“No,” Jude groaned, “she’s not going to hurt you. She may be an incompetent beast, but she’s my incompetent beast.”
Suddenly, the atrium reverberated with a man’s frantic screams. “Help! Help me!” The door to the emergency stairwell swung open, and a lone guard dashed onto the floor. “Get out of here now!” he shrieked.
Jude and the soldiers watched him, nonplussed, as he hurried toward the exit. As soon as the main doors shut behind him, the atrium’s AR scheme glitched away, transforming the place into an ugly concrete box.
The soldiers formed a tight perimeter around Jude and aimed their rifles into the air. “Khnum!” Jude called out. “Khnum!” Nobody answered. She turned to her military escort and barked, “Go see what the hell’s going on!”
As the soldiers made their way toward the emergency exit, Four Arms noticed a strange mass of black sand passing by her feet. It emanated from both the emergency exit and the open elevator shaft, spreading along the walls and the floor.
The soldiers stopped midstride. “What is this?” one of them asked Jude.
“I have no idea,” she replied from the center of the atrium. She looked just as confused as they were.
The soldiers slowly backed away as the mass crept farther into the room, blanketing everything in its path. A human head popped from the sand, right in front of the soldiers, and rose into the shape of a woman. She appeared to be made of the building itself, an amalgam of concrete and steel.
“What the hell…?” a soldier gasped. He instantly fired on the woman, but the bullets only seemed to add to her composition. She extended her arms and revealed two giant, curved blades.
Four Arms recognized the mysterious woman from a distance: Sickle. Had she transcended as well? And in what form?
With one fell swoop of her blade, Sickle sliced the bewildered soldier in two. Entrails spilled from his torso as it hit the ground. The dark mass quickly enveloped both halves of the body and dissolved them into nothing.
The other soldiers turned and ran, but a second echo rose from the sand—Chain Gun—and she mowed them down with a flurry of black bullets. Several more echoes emerged to bolster the ranks: Flame, Sharp Teeth, Whip Tail, Rocket, Hammer Hands, Saber Jaw, Laser…
Jude dropped the Archetype and backed away, quickening her pace with each step.
Four Arms assumed an aggressive stance. She knew the Creator had to die. The thought crippled Four Arms with agony as soon as it entered her mind, but she fought through it. She would get no better opportunity than this. She cast a line at Jude and struck her square in the chest, well before the woman was able to reach the atrium doors.
“No,” Jude cried. “You can’t!”
Four Arms wondered if Jude was right. Every fiber in her body cried out in pain. Her muscles burned, her head throbbed, and it took all of her strength not to bite down and sever the line.
Jude planted her boots on the floor and pulled back with her robotic strength. It became a game of tug-of-war. Four Arms had a clear advantage—six legs to two—but her muscles were faltering. The dark mass itself must have sensed this, because it latched onto Four Arms’s ankles to consolidate her position. Once that happened, Jude’s boots slipped, and she began to lose ground.
The entire atrium eventually succumbed to the living shadow. Echoes rose from the floor, leaped from the walls, and spilled from the ceiling. Jude was trapped in their domain, and soon, they fell upon her.
ZERO
The world coalesced in Charlie’s mind. Seagulls prattled overhead; saltwater mist rushed through her hair; white-hot sand shifted between her toes. Where’s Bridget? Charlie weaved through the crowd, searching for her twin sister. It was a game they liked to play.
