Hybrid: Project Vigil (3 page)

“They called for evac, they will arrive in thirty minutes. I suggest your team should prepare.“

Caroline took her phone. She selected Sanders in contact list, her hands were shaking when she tapped call button.

“Sanders. You know what happened?“

“Yes I know. We have prepared our equipment but we have no idea about damage done by flames and blast. Come see me near medical wing.“

She unwillingly
released the phone and let it fall.

“Who is responsible?”

She was just about to leave, but she decided to make general feel bad.

“You know what? I don't want to know it! But I hope you know who did it. Otherwise you can be damn sure if John survives, he is going to kill you all. So you'll better find out who is behind it.”

Then she closed door and walked away.

Sanders was already waiting for her. Doctor David Sanders was tall, muscular surgeon in his early thirties. He just talked to cyber engineer and implant manufacturer. He looked worried and others looked interested. Caroline waited for engineer and manufacturer to leave before she talked to Sanders.

“I hope you know more than I do.“

“Yes, we have received some information about damage done to John. His skin was burned over 80% of his body, his eyes are practically destroyed. Blast torn off his right arm and both legs bellow knee. We'll be lucky if he survives. And if he does, we've never encountered this kind of damage.”

Caroline was trying to stay professional, however that was harder every second. However she had an idea how to solve Sanders's problem.

“Do you remember Spectre?“

“Yeah, strange stuff. You don't want to? Sanders shivered.

“Yes. That's precisely what I want to do. Do we have schematics for it? Caroline put her hand on his shoulder

“They are stored in our database. But, it would transform him into...something else.
Implants of that size it could kill him. Caroline! Are you listening to me?“

“No, David! There will be no discussion to this matter! I'm chief scientist of this project! That means I make the call."

And I said that John gets Spectre implants.” Caroline shouted.

After few seconds she continued in normal tone.

“If someone is responsible for what happened to him it's us. Now we need to focus on getting him in one piece. “

Sanders nodded and started walking away.

“You're right. I'll send our order to manufacturing labs. By the way, Gillian...Gillian...she is going to need help. I think you should take care of her when they arrive.” Then he made his way to his office.

Last five minutes before helicopters brought in survivors were the hardest moments of Caroline's life. When they arrived Sanders refused to let Caroline see John. Then she saw Gillian, curled into a ball in darkest corner of hangar. Her bulletproof vest was laid nearby, she obviously threw it away.

Caroline approached her slowly and tried to help Gillian stand up. Before she could do so Gillian raised her hand to stop her. Gillian waited for everyone else except Caroline to leave hangar. Then she let Caroline to hold her hand and lead her through empty hallways of base.

Gillian looked more like corpse than a person. Mud and sand covered her face, she had scratches all over her body. John threw her far enough from explosion but it was a long fall.

Caroline led Gillian to her apartment. Apartments were most remote underground part of base, Gillian was first subject who saw this part of base. It could be sealed off from rest of facility in case of fire or uprising. Caroline wanted Gillian to stay in with her tonight. She washed Gillian's face with wet towel and waited for Gillian to fall asleep. Then she left her alone and went to check on progress in medical wing...

John was in Sub-reality again, he had no idea for how long. You can keep up time conscious but not for long, time in Sub-reality can be slower or faster and nobody knows why. John was bored of walking around endless world of Sub-reality, he played his memories again most of them were inaccessible, he even tried to reprogram some of his implant functions but he couldn't. That meant someone was hooked into his cybercore functions and was doing something. John could tell one thing, whoever was doing it or whatever was the person doing it was big, all core activity was of the charts. It looked like the person was rewritin
g all core functions. It meant that he's still alive and that he has a chance of recovery. Suddenly process window popped up right in front of him:

>New core firmware installed
>Rebooting...

Everything went dark for a moment. Then new Sub-reality started to appear around John. Something he never saw before. Lines of blue pulsing light on the floor. Giant, blue, glowing sphere in background. First time John saw objects that weren't contained in his memories. Multiple process windows rose from the floor.

>New core detected...running diagnostics
>Core clock rate 100 petahertz
>A.I. Compatible...
>Advanced Combat&Control installed
>HiSense chip connected

>Spectre
series implants installed

>Memory: Recovered and loaded
>External hardware detected...initializing
>!Error! Code 5x427
>Manual activation required
>Lockdown authorization: Sanders, David
>Subject: Ready
>Stasis mode: Releasing

John woke up in real world. At first he couldn't see or hear anything, soon he was staring at the ceiling.

“Ok, John you woke up. You can't move because your body has been severely damaged. We've repaired the damage but external implants aren't active. I'll activate them one by one. Eyes first, they had to be replaced. What you see now it's just basic sight. Activating now.”

It was Doctor Sanders talking. Suddenly John could see far better, new HUD loaded and his hearing also improved

“Now slowly lift your right hand.”

John did as asked. He nearly screamed from shock. There was mechanical arm instead of original one. He flexed mechanical fingers and formed fist. Then observed artificial muscle
fibbers and the place when arm was connected to his chest. John was sure this arm is much stronger than than normal one.

“It has a blade built in, try that out.”

As soon as John thought of the blade it ejected from upper side of forearm. One inch wide and one foot long titanium alloy blade.

“Cool. I guess you'll have to deactivate it for security reasons.” John
said looking turning his eyes at Sanders.

“Not necessary, it isn't sharp. Now if you feel well enough we should test legs.”

John was surprised like never before.

“Legs?!”

Sanders sighed, it was time to tell John the truth.

“We had to replace your arm and both legs because they were torn of by the blast. You did a great job by hitting that missile with bullet, it dispersed the blast so you wasn't hit by full force. We also upgraded your under-skin armor, cyber core and internal SSD memory drives.”

John accepted that as unchangeable truth. From now on he was more machine than human. So extensive augmentation must have taken weeks to finish.

“Doctor? How long I've been out?”

Sanders gave a short look at his wrist watch.

“Two months, three weeks, five days, ten hours, twenty five minutes and some seconds. Longest time in stasis mode in our lab. Briggs wants me to show you your new equipment before you can rest. Let me help you stand up.“

Standing on new legs John felt like on a ship in middle of storm. He had to hold on everything in reach to walk over to table with equipment. He was familiar with most of weaponry. There was also a set of some kind of heavy armor and circular object, five millimeters thick and two inches wide with black spot in it's middle.

“So...“ Sanders began his explaining. “This is Spectre Mk.4 Tactical Armor for special operators, like you are now. It's equipped with artificial muscle fibers same as you arm is made of to compensate it's weight and grant you more
strength and it also provides protection from bullets. "You may find anti-missile flare system useful.“

That last sentence sounded very ironic.

John picked up that circular object he noticed before.

“And what's this?”

Sanders brought some books from nearby shelf.

“You are holding experimental A.I. Drive, the one your core is adapted for.“

“And...how does it work?“ John asked.

Doctor grinned.

“It doesn't. Drive contains only basic software and development tools, you'll have to create her. These books should help you.”

“Her? How do you know it's a woman?” John had plenty of
questions by now.

“Our studies have proven that humans react better to female voice. To program her you have to hold the drive in your hand or insert it to USB slot in your bionic arm.“

It looked like fun to John, but he wasn't sure about what Gillian might think about it.

Soon after John tried to put on every single piece of armor and tested it by walking around the room doctor let him sleep. Doctor also promised to let Gillian know that John is awake.

Next day the first person to walk in John's room was Caroline. She brought more books about quantum computer and artificial intelligence and she wanted to talk about link John and Gillian created between their systems.

“What you've done is dangerous and I think I made myself clear when I said that two years ago.”

She doesn't even look angry just upset.

“We knew all the risks. Someone has to try it so you can study it and maybe figure out how it works.“

After three hours long argument John came out as winner. Caroline brought even more books for payback. John was reading a lot those days, he wanted to finish A.I. as soon as possible.
Programming was difficult but with all those books and his cyber core he proceeded quickly. When Caroline calmed down she even offered to help him. John always thought that she studied medicine because everybody called her Doctor Blackburn.

But she wasn't, she was
robotics engineer and brilliant programmer. She rewrote his core functions. She was the only member of scientific staff who wasn't doctor, but everybody called her so. It was meant to show that she is equal with rest of the team. Over time she became chief scientist after Conrad Welers who created system link function.

It took few days to convince guards to let Gillian see John. By then John was able to walk on his new legs. Gillian jumped into his open arms and whispered.

“Never ever do that again.”

“Which part?
Throwing you away or shooting down a missile?” John said jokingly.

She laughed and
released her tight hug.

“Both. How's your arm?” She asked while exploring black muscle
fibers with her hand.

“Fits well, but always when I try to pick up a mug I tip it over and I can't feel anything.“

John was really clumsy, turning over pages of books was nearly impossible.

They talked for two hours. Gillian told him how they escaped from soldiers and about rumors saying that something big is happening on the higher
positions after the attack.

After another month John was allowed to return to his cell. It looked same as before there were just new clothes, bookshelf and toolbox to maintain bionic parts. Caroline accompanied him all the way and now was organizing books. When she was done she said.

“We worked long enough. Activate your A.I.“

John held the drive in his hand stroking the black spot with his thumb. Then he looked at Caroline: “It's already activated.”

Hologram of nice looking blonde rose from the drive:

“Hello John. Good morning Doctor Blackburn.“

Caroline was surprised to see it working, John created first fully self-aware A.I. She couldn't see it but she could hear. John breathed deeply.

“Claire, you know what to do.“

Claire looked concerned.

“Are you sure? Your actions might cause more deaths among your friends.“

John inserted drive into slot in his arm. Now he was responsible for one more living creature. Him and Claire, they were supposed to take care of each other. He knew that if he dies it will be end of her life as well.

“This could be my only chance, our only chance. Do it for me, for Gillian, for you, for everyone.“

“Yes you're right. Disabling security protocols.”

Door buzzed and opened. Caroline just stood there with open mouth.

“What do you want to do?“ She asked John.

“Making things right, take your team to safety, I'll seal the apartment section after you are in. Please, don't try to stop me...”