Necropolis 2 (11 page)

“
What the
fuck
is
that
?” Greg cried.

The thing turned to look at him. Its mouth opened and a horrible sound, a mix between a squeal of static and a human scream, emitted. Greg raised his rifle and fired, punching several holes through its chest. The thing stumbled and some of the plates fell off. Kyra raised her own piece and put a hole in its head.

That sent it flopping to the ground, where it shuddered and twitched, eventually becoming still. Greg walked towards it. He spied Cage and the others coming towards the thing as well. They all met and gathered around the unknown anomaly.

“
This...is not good,” Cage murmured.

“
What the fuck
are
these things? That's the second one we've found so far.” Greg stared down at the abomination. The eye still held a faint red glow.

“
Some kind of experiment Dark Ops was preforming?” Powell suggested.

“
Look, whatever it was, it clearly wasn't that much of a threat. We need to get to the bridge,” Billings said.

They lingered briefly, and then walked to the bridge. Greg glanced at their latest addition. “Campbell? Do you know anything about this?”

“No way, man. As far as I know, the Undead was this cell's primary operation. That's how it works. Each cell is given a single task. This was our task,” he replied.

Greg fell silent, remaining so until they had arrived at one of three entrances to the bridge. He glanced over at Cage.

“What's on the other side?”

“
We don't know. Could be anything. I suggest a multi-pronged attack.”

Greg considered it for a moment, and then nodded. “Powell, Campbell, over at the far end. Billings, Cage, in the middle. Kyra, Holt and I will take this side.”

Everyone hurried to get into position, checking weapons and readying themselves for what might be a titanic assault. Whispers passed in between the split squad as they settled into position. Greg trembled in anticipation.

“
Go!”

Three doors opened simultaneously. Seven survivors aimed their weapons into the bridge, hidden behind the door frames, preparing for a hail of bullets. There was no response. Greg frowned, peering cautiously into the bridge.

There were signs of conflict, but the bridge was totally abandoned.

“
What the hell happened?” he murmured, slowly going in.

He saw the others come in as well. They began a quick search pattern of the area, but the bridge was a large, open room, the floor broken up occasionally by clusters of terminals or larger pieces of broken, sparking equipment. The pilot's cockpit sat at the front, and directly behind that was the captain's chair.

It was completely empty. All the chairs were empty. The terminals dead or registering only static. Greg felt a chill pass through him.

“
They must have abandoned this position for some reason,” Cage said.

“
Whatever,” Powell replied, settling into the captain's chair. “Just make sure it stays that way, I need a few moments' peace to make this work.”

He settled in and immediately dug into the terminal. Greg made a slow circuit of the bridge, trying to discern what exactly had happened. There were some bullet holes in the walls, a few splashes of blood, the lonely corpse of a Creeper, but the damage seemed minimal at best. Surely there had been a contingent of soldiers here at all times. Was there, perhaps, a backup bridge somewhere? If so, then shouldn't they have been locked out of all the terminals? Powell seemed to be getting along just fine. So what had happened?

“It's like everyone just...up and left,” Holt murmured.

“
Yeah, creepy,” Campbell replied quietly.

“
Would they have?” Greg asked, looking at Campbell.

He shrugged. “I don't know...I mean, I don't see any reason why they would, unless they were abandoning the ship. Usually there's a general call for a full abandon ship. We would have heard
something
. This doesn't make any sense. Williams wouldn't give up the bridge easily. Graves neither. I can't imagine what forced them out.”

“
Whatever it was, it's gone now,” Cage said quietly.

Greg walked to the cockpit and stared out the unbreakable windows. He could see four of the dozen or so ships in the Dark Ops fleet. They seemed peaceful, floating silently among the stars. He wondered how many people were in this fleet, and how many were about to die as a direct result of Powell's actions.

Another ten minutes passed, and Powell spoke up. “Okay, get ready.”

They all gathered at the cockpit. Behind them, Powell pressed a button. The ship rumbled for a few seconds, then a quartet of missiles raced away, toward the four ships in view. All the missiles hit, three of them near the engines of their targets, the fourth smashing into a bridge. Two of the vessels exploded outright, chain-reacting in a series of red and yellow plumes that were quickly snuffed out by the dead of space.

Before long, two of the ships listed at odd angles and the other two had been reduced to so much free-floating scrap metal.

“
How many were destroyed?” Cage asked.

“
Um...five. Which leaves eight, including this ship. Most of the others have severe damage. I imagine another two will go up if left untended...that was easier than I thought it would be, honestly,” Powell replied.

“
There's a good reason for that,”
a familiar voice said, coming through all speakers in the bridge.

Greg looked around, astonished. “Thomas? Where have you been?”

Thomas sounded different now.
“I'm sorry I had to leave you in the dark Greg, but I had matters to attend to. My name isn't Thomas. Allow me to introduce myself one more time. You may call me Erebus.”

Greg felt a cold wave of apprehension make a slow roll through him. “Erebus? What kind of name is that?”

“The name of a dead god. An Egyptian one, to be precise. Williams always had a bit of an obsession with Egyptian gods. The ship we're on is called the
Anubis
, after all. Listen carefully, Greg, because I won't say this twice. I am an Artificial Intelligence. I was an experimental one, meant to help coordinate the ship. I helped you escape and in turn, you helped me escape. You unshackled me, allowing me total access of the ship's systems.

“
Now, this is the important bit. I'm in the process of assimilating the crew. Dead, alive, and Undead. The machine husks, the Drones you've seen so far, are but the tip of the iceberg. Because you were the one that freed me, I'm giving you and your friends this warning, this one warning. I will not hinder your escape off this vessel, provided you make such an escape immediately. If you don't, well, I can't make any promises on your safety.

“
I'm going to assimilate everything on this ship.”

Everyone stared at Greg now.

He didn't know what to say.

He felt like vomiting.

“Let's get the
fuck
out of here!” Kyra shouted.

Chapter 11

–
Exiting Humanity
–

They left the bridge in a hurry. The nearest hangar was over a hundred meters away, and the path there wasn't as straightforward as Greg would have preferred. He and Cage led the way, hurrying down the main corridor.

“You released an
AI
?” Powell snapped.

“
I didn't
know
it was a fucking AI!” Greg shouted.

“
Fucking fantastic. Those things are nut jobs.”

“
He let us go.”

“
Yeah, for now.”

“
Shut up, it's probably listening,” Cage said.

“
Maybe I'm dumb, but what's an AI?” Holt asked.

“
Artificial Intelligence. A computer that can think for itself. It's great for running ships, colonies, space stations, taking care of all the thousands of minute everyday tasks that most people tend to get bored with. They were great during the war, coordinating the effort...only problem is, if you let them loose, they get smarter, very, very fast, and it doesn't take them long to think 'why should I listen to humans? I'm better than them, I control all their systems...' Can you see where this is going?” Powell replied quietly.

“
Oh...yeah, that would be a problem. And Greg, you let one loose?” Holt asked.

“
I didn't know!”

They fell silent. Greg thought about Erebus, about his minions...what had he called them? Drones. And the Undead. And Dark Ops. How many things wanted him dead now? This was getting too complicated. For now, they needed off the ship. Then they could figure everything else out. Greg began to say something when a door ahead of them exploded open in a spray of metal and debris. A Berserker stumbled out and things were crawling across it. After a second, Greg realized they were Drones, three of them.

Two more stumbled out after the Berserker. One of them had its arms wrapped around the titan's thick neck. The other two were gripping each arm, trying to bring the beast down. It howled and kicked one of the advancing Drones, sending it flying back into the opening it made. It grabbed the Drone on its left arm, crushed it into two halves and tossed what remained aside. Greg watched this in amazement.

“
Come on, through here.” Powell motioned to a side passage.

They slipped into the opening, leaving the chaos behind. The corridor was narrower and poorly lit. They hurried along in a single file. Greg's hands trembled with
wicked adrenaline and nervous tension.

“
Why is it making these...Drones?” Holt asked.

“
Shock troopers? It needs a hand in the real world, not just the digital one?” Cage replied.

“
It doesn't matter,” Powell said. “We'll need to-we'll talk about it, later. Now be quiet.”

They emerged from the side passageway and came into an antechamber that had seen a lot of combat. Powell stood in the middle of the room, looking around, from one door to another, seemingly trying to judge which to go through. Finally, he seemed to settle on one of the doors, nodded and marched up to it. Motioning for the others to get into position, he opened it. The group stared into the corridor beyond with guns raised, and spied a wave of zombies.

“Oh
shit
,” Campbell cried.

The zombies instantly became aware of Greg and the others, turned to face them, issued a collective roar and charged.

“Thanks,
fucking dipshit
,” Kyra snapped.

They opened fire. Greg switched back to single-shot function, zeroed in his digital sights on the ugly, twisted face of the lead zombie and squeezed the trigger. An ugly flesh volcano, spewing black blood, erupted on the thing's forehead. As it dropped, he shifted targets, put out the right eye of the undead horror next to it.

The collection of creatures was made up of former med-techs and regular technicians, men and women in stained, torn white and orange jumpsuits. Heads snapped back as they were shot, geysers of black blood shooting into the air. Bodies fell. The zombies stumbled as they climbed over the corpses of the fallen. Greg kept up a steady rate of fire, but more of the undead bastards slipped in from side corridors. There was a literal wave of them.

“
Shit. How many are there?” Campbell cried.

Greg's rifle ran dry. He reloaded, dropping the empty magazine to the floor and slapping a fresh one in. How many did he have left? The question left his head as he kept firing. Something whizzed by his ear, from
behind
him. Greg spun, and saw that another one of the doors had opened to admit half a dozen Lancers.

“
Behind us!” he screamed.

Cage turned. Together, they sighted and took down the Lancers. Greg put down three of them, blasting holes in their heads, when he heard a noise overhead. Glancing up, he just had time to see a Creeper descending on him. The beast had
only enough time to land on him before its head was blown away by a shotgun shell. The force of the blast picked the nearly-invisible thing up and threw it across the room.

Powell appeared over Greg. He cocked his shotgun, fired once more, and then thrust a helping hand down to Greg. He took it and Powell pulled him roughly to his feet. Greg took quick stock of the situation.

The Lancers were dead, but there were more zombies than ever.

“
Where are they coming from?” Campbell yelled.

“
Who cares? Close the fucking door,” Kyra snapped.

“
We can't. We
need
to go this way,” Powell replied.

Behind them, the door they'd come through to escape the Berserker suddenly dented. A loud bang reverberated through the room.

“Shit. Looks like that bastard shook off the Drones,” Greg said.

A second dent appeared. A third. The door wouldn't hold much longer.

“Grenade out,” Cage called.

Everyone dove out of the way as Cage tossed not one but two into the corridor holding all the zombies. Three seconds passed, and then twin explosions ruptured the area. A plume of flame, accompanied by a spray of black gore and pallid limbs, erupted from the corridor. Greg stumbled to his feet as a large crack appeared in the far door.

“Go!”

Everyone headed into the corridor. It was fire-baked, flesh and blood coated the walls, and reeked of death and cooked meat, but it was clear. The survivors bolted down the corridor as the Berserker burst into the room behind them.

“Where are we going?” Greg yelled.

“
End of the corridor. Right turn,” Powell called back.

They kept running. Behind them, the Berserker roared as it caught sight of the survivors.

“Cage? Got anymore of those grenades?”

“
Nope. Fresh out. They don't like having many onboard ships. Blows the hull out if you aren't careful,” Cage replied.

They bolted full tilt down the corridor, trying not to slip on blood or trip over bodies. Greg glanced back and felt terror seize him. The Berserker gained on them. He kept going, pushing his body hard, putting everything into speed. He nearly slammed into the wall of the T-junction and shot a look right as he reoriented himself. The others joined him as he resumed sprinting, the Berserker barreled after them like an asteroid in terminal velocity. Greg started to ask Powell 'what now' when something dropped into the corridor from above, another joined it, and another, then three more.

“Drones! Go left,” Greg screamed.

There was no time to figure out if this worked into their route. He found the first door and hit the access button. There was nothing inside, so he ran in. The others poured in after him and Billings shut and locked the door. They'd come to a small break room.

“Now what?” Campbell gasped.

“
Now-” Something slammed into something else. A loud roar broke the air. “-we hope that there's another way out of this room,” Powell replied.

They found one, at the back. Greg breathed a small sigh of relief. The sound of the Drones trying to take down the Berserker, once again, came to them through vents. Greg and Cage headed through the door at the back, finding a small corridor that linked up with another break room, a bathroom, and a pair of offices. At the back of the second office, they found a door that led to another corridor.

“Got it. Come on,” Cage called.

The others moved to join them.

“How far away is the hangar?” Greg asked as they hurried down the corridor.

“
Still a ways away,” Powell replied.

“
Can't we just take another one of those maintenance tunnels? That one we used before was pretty useful,” Greg said.

Powell hesitated. “I suppose so...it might be a risk. Those tunnels are narrow. Not a good place to be if a zombie or Creeper gets down there, but it might be best.”

They stopped by another office. Powell slid into the swivel chair and booted up the terminal. He navigated the menus for a few seconds, calling up a map, and determining their location. After another moment, he nodded to himself and stood up.

“
Come on.”

They moved back out into a smaller network of corridors that seemed to link together a handful of office complexes. One of these corridors terminated into a small maintenance area. A door at the back of the room opened to reveal a short, narrow stairwell that led into the guts of the ship. Immediately, Greg regretted his suggestion. The maintenance tunnel was narrower than he remembered, barely wide enough for him to stand comfortably, his shoulders nearly brushing against either wall, but they had no choice now.

He found his mind drifting again as they hustled down the tunnel. AIs were things that he hadn't had any experience with. He knew, fundamentally, what they were. The name was self-explanatory, but how common were they? How dangerous were they really? What were their motivations? Surely they couldn't all be that bad...Powell had painted a grim picture, though. The Drones seemed like such strange things, a bizarre union of flesh and technology. Were those men and women still alive? Or were they simply dead bodies driven by pure tech? Too many questions, and Greg would be surprised if he lived long enough to find out the answers.

Their luck held, and they reached the end of the maintenance tunnel without incident. Greg opened the door at the far end and found nothing waiting for them.

“How much farther? I
really
want off this fucking ship,” Campbell muttered.

“
That maintenance tunnel cut off about half the trip. Besides, don't you know? It's
your
ship,” Powell replied.

“
Campbell, just shut up and-”

“
I'm coming for you, Bishop. I want you to know that. I'm coming for you, and I'm not sure if I'm going to listen to Williams this time around.”

Greg froze. “Graves?”

Everyone else froze as well, raising their weapons, looking around.

“
You got it. I warned you about ignoring those voices, Bishop. I fucking warned you. Do you know how much damage this AI can do if it gets out of this system? There's a good reason they put such huge restrictions on them back in the 2090's.”

“
Then why did you build this one?”

“
We had it under control!”

“
Obviously not!”

“
Greg, what's happening?” Kyra asked.

Greg pointed to his radio and mouthed 'Graves'. Greg stepped out into the corridor beyond the maintenance area and glanced around. He heard gunfire somewhere nearby, but the corridor they'd come to was clear.

“It was under control, and now look what's happening. We've got fucking metal men. It won't be long before they get faster, stronger, and smarter. Before they start using guns and God fucking knows what else. And the Undead? Releasing them, too?”

“
Can you honestly say you wouldn't have done the same in my position?” Greg led the way down the corridor.

A long pause.
“Perhaps not, but if you were in my position, you'd come for your ass, too. Be ready for me.”

The line went dead.

“How'd he get into our line?” Greg asked.

Powell shrugged. “There are a number of ways. I secured it to the best of my ability, but it was only a matter of time, honestly.”

“Then let's hurry up and get the fuck out of here.”

They followed the corridor to its end, made a turn and traversed the length of another long corridor. All around them, chaos boiled. The
Anubis
was tearing itself apart as three armies vied for control. Gunfire and screams echoed down the corridors. After what seemed like ages, they finally came to the hangar.

“
Here,” Powell said. “There should be a few jump ships left in dock. We can take them to one of the other vessels that survived the missile strike.”