Code Breakers: Alpha (13 page)

It was cool inside. Quiet too. Like a mausoleum. Gerry had only ever been in one: his parents’. Though that was much smaller—just big enough for two sarcophagi.

A tingling in the back of Gerry’s head sent a shudder down his spine as if he’d just been plugged into a power source. His thoughts became lighter. The slow, heavy thoughts of his non-AIA brain quickened, and he started to feel like his old self again. There was something else. The only way he could think of it was a permanently morphing fog surrounding him, almost as if it were reaching out towards him.

They quickly ascended a spiral staircase, dodging broken stairs and gaping holes as they kept up with Len’s urgent strides. He loped like a great dog.

Two more black-clothed people stood beside the entrance to a hallway. Both leaned against the wall wearily, their guns hanging by the sides. They nodded curtly as Len passed them.

“Here. Number 24.”

Len entered a code on the keypad, and the door creaked open. “Go inside.”

The hairs on the back of Gerry’s arms rippled—both from the cold and something more primal. One does not simply enter an unknown room in a strange hotel without the lizard-brain amygdala kicking out its survival signals.

The place stank of steam and mould.

Within the gloom, a bright, blue neon light glowed from behind a paper screen. In front, and sitting opposite each other on tattered sofas, were three more people wearing the same black cloth outfit and face masks. Gerry unconsciously held his breath as he walked in, wondering if the masks were needed to breathe properly in this steam, which now he was fully enveloped within and felt cold and wet.

He swallowed, breathing slowly through his nostrils.

Gabe and Petal followed him inside.

“I recognise this,” Petal whispered to Gerry. “It’s just like Old Grey’s room. Keeps the CPUs cool.”

“Is it safe to breathe in ’ere?” Gabe said, approaching one of the men on the sofas.

The figure didn’t answer, didn’t move. Even when Gabe reached out to grab the man, he just sat there. Gabe’s hand went right through it, causing ripples of holographic pixels to flow around his hand.

“Please excuse my rudeness. These images won’t hurt you. I just like their company.” Len closed the door behind him and approached the paper screen as the hologram peeled away and morphed into another figure standing by a partially curtained window.

“It also doesn’t hurt to have some figures walking about, just in case, you know?”

“In case of what?” Gabe said, frowning. “What are you so scared of?”

“Who. Not what. The Undersiders, of course. They want this.”

He pulled the screen back and revealed a matte black box as big as a wardrobe. A multitude of wires wormed out from its rear and trailed across the hotel room’s floor.

“It’s the node,” Gerry said as he rushed forward to it. He touched his hand against its thrumming chassis. The weird tingling sensation in his head and spine matched rhythms with the node, like two opposing tides becoming one, waves growing larger and faster. Sickness overcame him, and he fell to his knees.

“Gez, what’s wrong?” Petal placed a cool hand on the back of his neck. “You’re burning…”

Gerry swallowed, kept his eyes closed, tried to ride out the sick feeling. And as quick as it came upon him, it went away, leaving him feeling as if he’d been shocked by a stun-baton again. The holograms had risen from their seated position and now formed a protective circle around the node.

They stared silently with an implied malevolence like sleeping snakes.

“What’s so special about this computer?” Gerry asked.

“I take it you’ve heard of Old Grey?” Len responded as he stepped forward.

“Are you saying this is the same model? An old-school AI?”

Len shook his head. “No, this has no intelligence that I can find, and yet…” He trailed off, apparently unsure of how to explain.

“Yet what?” Gerry urged him to continue.

“And yet, Seca has killed many of us Upsiders for it. It’s the backbone of the entire Meshwork. His main access into City Earth. Without it, he would be severely crippled. It’s his launchpad.”

“And you let him access it freely?” Gerry stood, shaking his head with disbelief. “Why don’t you just switch it off and prevent Seca from accessing it?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

Gerry exhaled hard. “How can he access it without power?”

“Look.” Len walked Gerry to the rear of the machine. “There is no power supply. You can’t switch it on or off. It cannot be killed with EMP like what killed every other computer on the planet during the Cataclysm. It generates its own source somehow. Probably some kind of mega fuel cell or reactor. It created and maintains the Meshwork, but when you log in—which it allows freely—there’s no AI in there, or at least none that I can find. Just an old pre-Cataclysm operating system from AppSoft.

“The damn thing is indestructible. And I make it my mission to keep it out of Seca’s hands as much as possible. He still has remote access occasionally, but I’ve found that if I keep it moving, it causes him problems.”

“Will you let me access it? To find Seca’s location.”

Len dropped his shoulders and breathed in. Considered.

Across the room, standing in front of the windows, Gabe circled one of the holograms, poked at it, and made its form shimmer. Other than that odd effect, there was no way of telling they weren’t corporeal meat bodies. Still, Gerry wondered just how much of a defence they could be. Not being solid makes it somewhat difficult to wield a weapon or stop someone.

“Yes, but you must do something for me in return. The payload. I need you to install it in Seca’s network. None of my hackers are capable of bypassing his security. But you’re different… there’s something about you. Something I think will help you crack his firewalls.”

“What does it do?”

“It’ll crack the security on the main compound where he keeps his vaccines and food resources. It’ll hopefully shut down most of the servers that control the drones, cameras and locks. Once that has been bypassed, I’ll have a couple of my people on standby to break in and get the resources we need.”

Gabe turned away from the hologram and regarded Len with a pointing finger. “Look, man, ya could be setting us up with some dodgy bioSoft. How do we know it ain’t gonna fry our brains? I’ve been on the wrong end of some shifty viruses in the past, and let me tell ya now, I ain’t having none of that again.”

The man took off his mask, exposing the mutated face and bloated tongue. Gerry wanted to look away from the sight of Len’s disfigured lips twisting awkwardly as he spoke.

“Take a good look. This is the work of Seca and his buddies at the Family.”

“His buddies? He’s one of the Family?” Gerry asked, stunned.

“Yes. They instigated the Cataclysm. Poisoned the land and made all our parents freaks giving birth to more freaks, until all the interbreeding created people like me. People made to live Upside, scratching for survival among the dust.” Len’s face sneered with hatred as he worked up into a rage.

“All the while he and his people retreated to an underground city safe from the bombs and the poisons. For decades he’s lived there, rebuilding himself, living luxuriously while everyone on the surface fights each other for safe territory and resources. And now his ego has grown too big!

“He wants revenge for being left behind by the Family as their experiment got out of hand and they built a Dome for their precious offspring. But what about us? What about our children that no longer live beyond a few weeks before their mutated genes kill them or twist them into hideous shapes? Who’s going to look after us? It’s all right for you Dome people living a life of complete safety and privilege as the Family’s playthings. All your wants and needs are taken care of while the rest of us are forsaken.”

Gerry tried to interject, ask some questions. The details were too much, too fast. But Len was frothing at the mouth as he continued his tirade.

“And now he wants to bring a war to us again. As if we haven’t suffered enough! No, I can’t stand idly by and watch us die out. All there will be left is AI ’borgs and robots. No more humans. Do you understand? No more humans! You take my payload and release it in his network. Then we’ll see who’ll survive a Cataclysm once we mount an offensive!”

“Dude, just chill. We’ll do it,” Petal said.

Gerry spun round. Petal stared back at him as if to say ‘trust me’.

Gabe nodded at Gerry. He had no option but to agree. He wanted to just get this done as quickly as possible so that he could run all the ramifications through his head. Despite his newly active and faster working brain, it was still too much of an info dump to understand what was really being said.

Len reached into his jacket pocket, took out a DigiCard and a piece of paper, and handed them to Gabe. “When you get to Darkhan, look for an alehouse called ‘The Blighty’. It’ll be safe for you if you show them that piece of paper. They’ll know what it is and what you need to do. The landlady will give you access to a secure node. Beyond that, you’re on your own.”

Len replaced his mask, turned his back, and approached the door. As he walked out, he turned and regarded Gerry. “She’s all yours. You’ve got five minutes. Don’t get distracted when you’re inside. Get in and get out. I don’t want your Helix signature floating about on my nodes.”

With that he closed the door and left them alone—apart from the hologram guards, who now split into multiple copies of themselves until there were six standing in a ring around the computer and Gerry. Petal and Gabe made to move into the circle with Gerry, but as they moved towards the holograms, a piercing green line of laser light created a ringed barrier. Petal moved closer until the beam touched her leather jacket, burning it instantly.

“What the hell?” Petal said.

The holograms turned in unison. Their eyes glowed.

“Be quick, man,” Gabe said, backing off and dragging Petal away.

Gerry swallowed, approached what he thought was the front of the machine, and touched his hand to the warm chassis. Unsure of what to do, he turned to ask Gabe or Petal for some guidance when a stabbing pain shot through his brain, switched off his vision, and conjured an image of an old-fashioned computer screen in his mind. A pair of folder icons sat on the right-hand side of a dull blue-grey background. He mentally requested the opening of the one marked ‘logs’, and as he thought it, a pointer graphic moved across the screen, clicked the folder, and a set of files sprang open, arranged in date order. He opened the most recent and read the contents. A single line stuck out like a beacon:

—Darkhan:SIP:800:9220:892—D-185-%SECA—

It was a location registration with the same ID number as the file on Old Grey.

That’s it. Seca’s location.

Gerry committed the numbers to memory and converted them to map points. He closed the file and the folder and requested a log-out. The computer disconnected him, and he found himself on his back, looking up at the glowing eyes of the hologram guards.

“Time’s up,” one of them said before its eyes glowed even brighter.

How could that have been five minutes? It felt like split seconds. Where had the time gone? And more worryingly: what had he, or the server, been doing during that time? He shook his head and backed away from the guards until he rejoined Gabe and Petal.

“Got it?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah, I got a lead on his location.”

Chapter 14

T
he sun blazed like a beacon of hope high above them as their truck, kindly offered to them by Len, for three thousand bins, trundled across the black, scorched earth towards the city of Darkhan.

They were heading for a small district on the outskirts: a place the Upsiders had made their own. Len had dealt with this other group a number of times and developed a solid and trustworthy relationship with them, which enabled him to trade resources and, more importantly, get information on Seca and his group’s movements and plans.

It was from that location they would be able to infiltrate Darkhan’s tightly controlled security and gain access to a storage unit that contained the vaccines. Or at least, that was the plan. Len didn’t give them much hope of breaching Seca’s security after so many before them had failed. But Len knew Gerry was different somehow and entrusted him with a slither of hope.

Petal snored like a kitten next to Gerry in the front of the vehicle. He sighed quietly as Gabe piloted their way around craters big enough to swallow them whole. The ground was dry and cracked. Small patches of soy plants established themselves in pockets of fertile soil.

Nothing grew in the craters made from bombs, the various chemicals and heavy metals poisoning the land for many generations. The same poison that had mutated Len’s people and their children.

The odd tingling sensation that first started back in Len’s hideout remained, buzzing persistently like a mosquito with the scent of blood. Gerry sighed. It was a small price to pay for the increased cognitive performance. It was like someone had taken him from a grubby alley and got him cleaned up. Washed away layers of grime so that he felt fresh and rejuvenated.

With a slight return to his usual performance, he pondered on the nature of the hologram defence system Len had set up, and of the transcendents Enna was keen on building. It seemed that here, outside the Dome, humanity was not only struggling with the lack of resources—and the threat of a great and powerful enemy in the Family—but also the very core of what it means to be human. Did these holograms and transcendents have awareness of themselves? Did they know they were just constructs, or had their makers imbued them with a sense of self, a sense of life?

Petal shifted against him, yawned, and went back to snoring.

What was she exactly? She clearly had self-awareness and appeared human in every way…

Gerry admonished himself for glaring at her. She was something entirely other, yet so close to him. He felt she was the only one that could possibly understand what he was, what he could do. Given how few humans there were out here, he was thankful that Gabe and Petal had found him.

If Seca had his way, the Family, and by extension the Dome, would fall, and the world would be plunged back into a crippling war. Perhaps even the last war, and that would end the hope of those that managed to survive. A world of robots and transcendents living without humans chilled his bones.

The sight of a rising column of black smoke brought Gerry out of his musings.

“We got company. Best get ya weapon ready, man. Just in case,” Gabe said.

Gerry was beginning to like the feel of the gun in his hands, the cold steel reassuring in its honesty. Pull the trigger and it goes bang. It was solid, simple, and final.

“Crap! How long was I out?” Petal asked as she lifted her goggles and rubbed her eyes with a balled fist.

“Coupl’a hours,” Gabe said. “Look smart, girl, we’re approaching Len’s contact.”

As they continued to weave in and out of the craters, a number of buildings appeared on the horizon: skyscrapers and many others in all kinds of sizes and shapes stood in the fog like grey fungi. Looked like it was once a wealthy zone, though one of the towers had its head blown off. Its innards lay hanging out of the architectural wound like a person’s guts. One of the others looked similar to the buildings back at Len’s. A hotel. Though like the others, it too cut a sad image with its windows boarded up with scrap metal and fragments of wood.

“Must have been a hard war,” Gerry said. “The destruction is immense.”

“Why d’ya think it was called the Cataclysm, man? Sure weren’t because it was a small affair. We’re talking about a war so destructive almost the entire planet was wiped out. Notice the lack of animals yet, man? Humans—and only a handful, really—is what’s left.”

“Was it nuclear?” Gerry asked, frustrated at everyone skirting the issue.

“Yeah man. It was nukes, lots of other stuff. Perhaps it was the Family that fried us all from their space station. Maybe it was bugs or germs and people panicked. Lots of people guessing, but no one really knows for sure. Once the bombs dropped, it all went to shit. Apart from the Family, that is. They know everything that went on.”

Gerry turned to see Gabe gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckle bones shone through his thinning skin. There was an intensity to his eyes too. Staring straight ahead, he didn’t blink for what seemed like minutes. Just steered at the broken buildings ahead, occasionally twitching his mouth into a sneer as he mumbled about nukes, EMPs, and other cataclysmic occurrences.

“Are you okay, Gabe?”

He ignored Gerry, continuing to grumble as he pressed the throttle on the truck and sped towards their destination.

Petal tapped Gerry on the knee and then sent him a message on their VPN.

It said: “
Chill, Gez. Gabe gets funny about it all. Don’t push him. It’s a sore subject.”

Gerry returned:
“Okay.”

But still, it played on his mind. Gabe was a strange one for sure, and now Gerry was questioning his loyalties, and not for the first time in the last couple of days. He just hoped whatever was going through his mind would stay away long enough to find Seca and put an end to his plans.

They arrived at a pair of heavily armed, and hastily built, checkpoints. Nothing more than hunks of twisted metal and a stool, on which sat two humanoids—for Gerry wasn’t certain who was and wasn’t human these days. They cradled dull-black metal weapons, which looked like cannons with their massive barrels and simple construction.

Petal leaned out the window and smiled at one of the grime-encrusted guards. He lifted a pair of sunglasses, revealing pupil-less eyes. They gleamed bright white in the sun as they swivelled in their sockets. The brute lifted the cannon, resting its barrel on the edge of the makeshift checkpoint.

“State your purpose and ID,” it grunted.

Petal pulled from her leather jacket the paper Len had given to them. She held it up to the guard and snatched it away as he tried to take it from her.

“You don’t need to take it to read it. Your pal Len’s assured us you’d allow us through.” She stuck out her chin, full of defiance.

The guard’s eyes turned to a sickly yellow, like days-old custard. From within that gooey mess a black thing, like a marble, came to the surface and widened until the eyes were black orbs. The guard moved his lips as he read the ID document and note from Len.

“Go a hundred metres down this road. When you see the flags for ‘The Blighty’, park up behind the building and give this to the doorman.” The guard handed Petal a DigiCard with two holes notched into its surface near the top.

He removed the barrel from the checkpoint and waved them through.

The Blighty turned out to be a British-themed pub, or so Gerry was informed. He’d never seen such a thing, but warmed to it instantly. It had a homely feel with its soft cushion booths and dark wood tables. The bar ran the length of the room and featured a number of beer taps with various crests and icons signifying a range of ales. Pint glasses hung above the bar, and a barman with slicked-back hair wore a pristine white apron with ‘The Blighty’ emblazoned upon its surface in red thread.

The beer was not beer, a sign said, but a synthetic approximation. He was glad to have kept the water flask Enna had provided them. Despite the temptation, a synthetic version didn’t appeal.

Much like The Spider’s Byte, as soon as they breached the threshold, its patrons stopped everything to regard them in a tense silence. A particular woman caught Gerry’s eye. She was leaning over the bar, sitting atop a wooden stool. She leant over to grab another refill from the optics behind the bar.

Gerry couldn’t take his eyes off her as she slugged back a shot, slamming the glass on the bar and exhaling a loud whoop. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, savouring the drink. When she opened her eyes, she caught Gerry in a fierce gaze.

“You. Come here.” She pointed to Gerry. Her red nail polish gleamed in the orange light of the bar’s low-level lamps. She hitched one leg over the other, stretching her leather miniskirt. She tapped the toe of a red stiletto boot against the wooden rung of the stool impatiently. Petal nudged Gerry in the ribs with an elbow.

“Go, Gez. That’s our contact.”

Gerry walked across the wooden floor towards her. Each step echoed with a thunderous clang, or at least it seemed that way with everyone glaring at him with a mixture of frowns and smirks.

When he got near, she grabbed the lapels of his leather duster and pulled him close. Her green eyes, like jewels, were just a few centimetres away. Her pupils expanded as she continued to analyse him.

“You’re human,” she said before letting him go. “I thought Len would find something… better.” She sighed, pushing a lock of auburn hair away from her forehead.

“Are you an Upsider, like Len and his people?” Gerry asked, ignoring her obvious disappointment.

She turned her head away, focusing on the bottle and shot glasses on the bar. She poured another drink and slammed it back. “Something like that,” she said, wiping her ruby-red lips with the back of her hand. “I’m Molly, and you, my little hacker, have work to do.”

“How’s this going to work?” Gerry asked.

“Simple. You come with me, do as your told, and see if you can hack Seca’s security to deliver the payload before your brain explodes.”

“Oh, is that all? There’s me thinking it was going to be tricky.”

“Yeah, you keep that confidence. You’ll need it. Let’s get to it, then.” Molly stood, grabbed his hand, and led him to a door at the side of the bar. The various patrons had started to talk in hushed tones as he passed them. He noticed most of them had distorted faces like Len’s. Some had stunted limbs, misshapen arms and some that resembled flippers. A glimmer of hope shone in their eyes, adding to the responsibility that he felt growing heavily on his shoulders.

Before he let Molly take him through the door, he shot a look back at Gabe and Petal. Gabe grinned at him, urging him on. Petal’s eyebrows knitted close, and her nostrils flared. Was she pissed off about something?

“Come,” Molly ordered. She pulled his hand, dragging him through a beaded curtain and into a dark and dingy back room that stank of mould. Shrouds of thick red light illuminated an area at the back of the room. A leather sofa sat against one wall; a chair and a full-length mirror were opposite. Probably a two-way, he thought.

Molly pushed him roughly into the sofa and sat on the chair.

“Well?” Gerry asked, leaning forward. “What now?”

“Slip it in and drop your payload, Mr Techxorcist man,” she said with a wicked smile. From inside her jacket, she took a beat-up HackSlate. An earlier model of the one Petal used. Its holographic display was partially broken, and the frame was dented and scratched.

“What happened to this?”

“It’s the secure node,” Molly said. “It got dropped a few times over the years as others tried to break Seca’s security.”

“What happened to them?”

“Better you don’t know.” She leant forward. Her face relaxed and became serious. “You have to remain focused. Don’t let it get to you. If you get confused and let the fear get into your mind, you won’t be able to crack the security.”

“So this security that Seca has is an intelligent one? An AI?”

“Yeah… but it’s messed up. It’s not passive. It’ll attack you as soon as you log in. Don’t let it overwhelm you. You have to find a weakness, and when you do, drop Len’s payload. The virus can only work from the inside. You understand?”

He gripped the HackSlate, took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the growing anxiety that was building within. He tried to calm his mind. Think back to all the jobs he’d completed at Cemprom when a rogue hacker had tried to get in. He took the DigiCard with Len’s virus on it and installed it into the slot in the side of the slate. The software loaded within seconds, waiting for Gerry to download it into the right place.

A tingle of anxiety crawled up the back of his neck, making him shiver. Molly leant forward, resting her elbows on her knees. He caught himself distracted by her bare thighs beneath her miniskirt that had stretched upward.

“Eyes on the prize,” Molly said with a smirk.

Gerry wasn’t sure which prize she was referring to, but the bloom of embarrassment warmed his cheeks, and he looked away, trying to refocus. “What if the AI doesn’t come to me?” Gerry asked. “How else can I deliver the payload if it doesn’t make itself known?”

“Download it to the server node responsible for the security of the vaccine unit. But trust me. I doubt you’ll have a free run of it. Although the slate will get you so far, all data on Seca’s network is closely monitored.”

Molly leaned back, crossed her legs, and lit a cigarette. The smoke filled the room, making the place hazy. It had a sweet aroma to it. Gerry’s nostrils twitched as he breathed in the smoke. “What’s that?” All cigarettes had been banned from the Dome. In fact, all non-medicinal drugs were banned. Which was no real problem as there wasn’t anyone with the resources to manufacture recreational drugs.

“Just a little relaxant,” Molly said, holding the cigarette between her forefinger and index finger so that it pointed away from her. She cut a cool figure sitting there shrouded in smoke. “I find it helps with these kind of things. Helps focus the mind.”

A tickling cough played at the back of Gerry’s throat, but he could feel himself become numb. His heart rate slowed, and his mind stopped whirling with anxiety.