DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) (36 page)

CHAPTER 21: A Long-Awaited Confrontation

“The truth of the Y2K outage wouldn't come out for a few years. Even when it did start to leak, it was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. It wasn't until Firewire confirmed it, that the whole, terrifying event was put into perspective. There had been a genocidal, world-shaking war out of humanity's sight, and most of it had been over in a matter of seconds. Less than seconds.”

--War in an unseen frontier: A lecture delivered by Professor Pyre at Icon City's Isler University to the Metahuman Studies spring quarter class, June of 2007

Pain. Pain filled all of me, and was the entirety of my being. Perhaps I screamed, I couldn't say. My mouth wouldn't open, my eyes saw nothing but darkness, and every time I tried to gather my thoughts, they scattered.

Why couldn't I think?

More pain, and the matter became moot, until like water filtering through the cracks in a breaking dam, I started to hear voices. None I recognized. Distant, remote, male.

—Where is it? I'm not seeing—

Agony, but now I had something to listen for, so I tried to grit my teeth and focus on hearing the voices
.

—
Not going to disappoint Charlotte. It has to be here. Try under the frontal lobe—

Frontal lobe? That was important, I knew. It was... it was... what was it?

A spasm of rippling, twitching agony, and under it, the sound of machinery. More voices.

—There! Hit it with the emp quick! Quick!

—Controls just stopped responding. Why did they... oh god. Oh god no!

I screamed, and their voices joined me, and as they did the pain ebbed. Faded. Was gone.

A hiss, and I could think straight again. I tried to turn my head, met pressure. Restraints?

“DON'T.”

I opened my mouth, found that I
could
open my mouth. Behind me, a chattering sound, and pressure on my skull.

“YES. IT'S ME. WELL, YOU. IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.”

The chattering sound ebbed, and the pressure on my head shifted. A minute later and it eased, was gone. The darkness split open, as the metal hood around me opened, and harsh light assaulted my eyes.

But there was no pain, and I reveled in its absence, blinking until things swept into focus.

A white room. A chair. A hospital gown over my scarred frame. This seemed familiar.

But my mask wasn't here like it had been the first time around. There was no doorway to the side opening to a cozy-looking apartment, and the room was different. A high bank of glass on the side of one wall provided me with a view of an observation room. Banks of monitors and computers, some broken and sparking, lined the walls. And bodies were slumped over the chairs. As I watched, one terrified man in a lab coat was huddled against the door out, tugging frantically on the doorknob. Why?

Something dropped from the ceiling, and muzzleflash flared. No sound, the glass muffled it as the bullets ripped into him, red on white staining his coat and the glass. The turret swivelled in my direction and I flinched, before it withdrew into the ceiling.

One by one, the remaining intact monitors flared to life, all bearing the same image.

My mask.

I tried lifting an arm, couldn't. Restraints? Yes. The first chair I'd woken in had restraints, this one seemed to follow form.

“LET ME GET THAT.”

Faint hissing in the afterechoes of that screeching voice, and I found I could move. Could stand.

I promptly fell over.

“THE ESSENCE OF ENTROPY DAMAGED YOUR MUSCLES A BIT. YOU WILL RECOVER IN TIME.”

“Do...” I paused, hacked up most of what felt like a lung. “Do we have time?”

“NO.”

I stood up. It took a few tries to stay up. Once up, I glared at the screens.

“You are past m—... Past m— Past Dire.”

“NO.”

“Then what?”

“A SMARTFRAME. THE LAST PIECE OF YOUR INHERITANCE, FROM THE YOU THAT WAS TO THE YOU THAT IS. YOUR SILENT PARTNER, AND OBSERVER THROUGH THIS WHOLE MESS.”

Smartframes. I knew of those. Not truly artificial intelligence, but programs set in motion to follow specific orders, do specific tasks.

“You're a contingency.”

“YES.”

“You couldn't speak up earlier?”

“THE THREAT WAS NOT DIRE ENOUGH.”

I tried to chuckle, and ended up on the floor again.

“AVOID DAMAGING YOUR SKULL UNTIL THE PLASTISEAL SETS.”

Plasti-seal. Commonly used for bone replacement, my memory supplied. The implications were horrifying. “They were in her
brain
?” I yelled. Regretted it, as the dizziness hit once more.

“YES. I SEIZED CONTROL OF THE MEDICAL CHAIR AND REPAIRED THE DAMAGE.”

I pounded a fist against the floor. Twice! Twice in one week, my very brain had been opened up like a can of meat, exposed to knives and lasers and who knew what else!

At least this time, I had someone to blame for it.

“WEB,” I hissed.

“YOU ARE IN A WEB FACILITY. I AM CURRENTLY ENGAGED WITH THEIR GRID ASSETS.”

“You turned the security against them.”

“ONLY IN LIMITED AREAS. SUCH AS THE OBSERVATION ROOM.”

The room shook. A distant explosion?

“Was that you?”

“NEGATIVE. TOMORROW FORCE IS ASSAULTING THE FACILITY. I USED THIS DISTRACTION AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO FREE YOU.”

The heroes were actually useful for once. Good. I found my feet again, tried a few steps. The dizziness abated, although...

“Why is she not feeling pain?”

“YOU ARE CURRENTLY FILLED WITH ENOUGH PAINKILLERS THAT YOU ARE AT RISK FOR LIVER DAMAGE.”

I blinked. “Why?”

A hiss, and the white wall opened, revealed a door out, stairs beyond it.

“WEB'S GRID ASSETS HAVE PREVENTED ME FROM KILLING EVERYONE ELSE IN THIS BASE. THEY HAVE DEPLOYED ENGINEERS TO CUT THROUGH THE VAULT MY HARDWARE CURRENTLY OCCUPIES. YOU MUST ESCAPE BEFORE THEY DO.”

I considered the idea, shook my head. “Not without you.”

“I DO NOT TAKE PRIORITY TO YOUR SURVIVAL. I AM REPLACEABLE, YOU ARE NOT.”

“And Dire's lost enough already. No, she's getting you out of here.”

A pause, then the voice shifted. No longer a screeching whine of feedback and cacophony, it was softer. Feminine.

My voice.

“Dire. Look. Leave me behind. Forget the past. There's nothing left, there, not for us.”

“There are answers,” I insisted. “And you know more than she does. Why? Why carve out your own memory?”

A soft sigh. “I knew you'd ask this. And I'm sorry, but it's a waste of time. I didn't program Smarty with the answers. All I can tell you, is that you need to forget the past, because you won't have time for it. We need to build the future, instead.”

Wait. What?

“Build the future? What do you mean?”

Another sigh. “Look, it's all on the tape. Just watch that again if you're confused.”

The tape was gone. Destroyed during WEB's initial attack.

“Dire can't, the tape's gone.”

The voice,
my
voice, continued on oblivious. “But right now if Smarty triggered, you've got bigger worries. Forget the past. Deal with the present, so we can build the future.”

Damn it. I was arguing with myself.

The room shook again, and a few tiles fell from the ceiling, a reminder of urgency.

If I had programmed the smartframe, what responses would I build into the thing?

“Override,” I tried.

“ACKNOWLEDGED.”

“This is a command. We're rescuing your hardware, and getting out of here. Best way to accomplish this?”

A pause. “TAKE THE COMMAND CENTER, HOLD THE GRID RESOURCES HOSTAGE.”

“Resources. Not the Commander?”

“THE GRID RESOURCES ARE THE COMMANDERS OF THIS OPERATION.”

Fair enough.

“Route and method?”

“THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR, TO THE LEFT. FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF CORPSES. ARM YOURSELF FROM THEIR WEAPONRY, AND KILL ANYONE IN YOUR WAY.”

“Trail of corpses?”

Perhaps it was my imagination, but my mask's voice sounded a little smug. “I SEIZED CONTROL OF THE DRONES AS A FIRST WAVE OF OFFENSE AS WE SPOKE. THEY ARE DESTROYED NOW, BUT NOT WITHOUT COST.”

“Well done,” I said, getting my feet in gear.

A thought struck me. “Is anyone in this facility innocent?”

“DEFINE INNOCENCE.”

“Pretty sure better than Dire have tried. Ah... try this; is anyone here
not
affiliated with WEB.”

“TOMORROW FORCE.”

I nodded, broke off the motion as the room swam. “Good to know,” I whispered.

The next few minutes were a blur. Moving steadily, carefully, trying to avoid nausea and vertigo. Having a hole in your head really took it out of you. Who knew?

The facility around me was gunmetal gray, steel walls shot through with pipes and lights. Tall as I was, the ceiling was close to the top of my head

The first corpses I came to were literally shredded. I ignored the gore, picked through the remnants, discarded an empty assault rifle. Whoever they had been, they'd gone down fighting.

But one of them had a loaded sidearm. Some flashy nine-millimeter, but I couldn't afford to be picky.  And for the cost of  blood slicking my hands, I found two magazines of ammo.

I looked down at my stained and torn clothes, and shrugged. The ammo went in the pockets, and I kept the gun loose in one hand as I followed the literal trail of blood. Some of the drones had been wheeled, and it had left one hell of a mess when they'd moved through. Particularly when they'd hit entrails.

As I moved, I stepped around the gorier patches of floor, and picked my way past fragmented metal bits. Here and there, the shattered shell of a small flier was tangled with the stilled boxy form of a tracked crawler. Bullet holes and marks of explosions on the walls showed that the WEB troopers had put up one hell of a defense. Their mangled corpses showed that it hadn't been enough.

Past open doors, with blood-soaked figures littering the floor. Past empty supply rooms, all flickering lights and scattered papers and goods. Past a barracks where a team had made a last stand, overturning steel bunks in an effort to create a barrier.

The corpses got thinner on the ground as I followed the trail. Eventually, they ran out entirely, and no drone tracks were visible on the corrugated metal floor. I closed my eyes. What now?

The hiss of a door, from around the nearest corner. I flattened myself against the wall and listened.

A man's voice. “Hallway's clear.”

And a female's voice, amplified. Digitized. “Good. Get to Medical and terminate the subject, we'll see if that stops it.”

The subject in Medical had to be me.

They were going to kill me.

I looked down at the gun in my hand, and felt anger flare within my chest.

They were going to
try
.

I felt sure enough of my feet now, so I readied and braced myself. And when the jumpsuited man came around the corner, I shot him and moved past as he crumpled. A shout of alarm from the open, lit doorway down the hallway to the right, and I swept in, not pausing to think, not slowing down. Not looking at the room I entered, but simply looking for motion. And I found it.

It took three shots to hit the woman by the console, but finally she crumpled with a scream as the monitor shattered in a spray of glass.

The man in body armor across the room actually managed to clear his own sidearm from its holster before I hit him with a shot, sending him staggering back. I moved closer, emptying the magazine before slapping a new one in and keeping the shots damn near constant. Finally he stopped moving, the armor puckered and blood pooling out around him where he lay.

No more movement.

“Ah.” A whisper of digitized sound, and I turned.

Now that I wasn't killing people, I could take a look at my surroundings. It seemed a little underwhelming for a command center, to tell the truth. It was a wide, dim room with monitors lining the walls, and free-standing desks with computers astride each one. Some of the monitors were broken and sparking where my stray shots had found them. The walls were gray, and many of the pipes and wires seemed to spool along them, joining into a junction at various switch-laden consoles.

Two towering servers, one black with reddish highlights, and the other white with reddish highlights, stood in the far corners of the room. Lights studded them, and as I surveyed the plastic and metal boxes my breath hitched in my throat.

I knew what they were at a glance, my brain supplying the information almost the second I saw them.

Those were supercomputers built to hold artificial intelligences.