The Children of New Earth (28 page)

“Killed by a Demon shortly after the war started.”

“Oh…I’m sorry…she’s technically still alive though, right?” Isaac responded, as expected.

"It…it worked!" I would’ve jumped for joy if I wasn’t completely out of breath.

I was in the same chamber again. We had just escaped from our restraints and were gathered on the central platform. Rachel was still destroying chairs with her new powers.

"What worked?" Isaac asked.

"I traveled back in time!"

"Seriously?" Lynn asked, just as intrigued as the others.

“From when?!” Aaron asked.

“Like ten minutes from now.”

“Something really terrible must’ve happened for you to have to do that,” Cora said, probably already knowing what it was.

I recanted the tale of the elevator and the void space, much to the horror of the others. I had some help from Cora, who looked into my head and shared the burden.

“How do you know the AI core is on the 163rd floor?” Raphael asked.

“Mark scanned for it. Speaking of which…” I walked over to Mark and gave him a good smack before resetting his power.

“ - get you out of this! Trust me!” he zoomed around the chamber frantically before realizing where he was. “Oh, you’re alive. Did I miss something?”

“I can go back in time!”

“That’s…wow…I mean…are you…really?” Mark stammered, which was somewhat odd given his robotic nature.

“I am…really!” I said, completely ecstatic.

“Can you go back to before the Director captured us? Or maybe before our respective Sanctuaries were attacked? Oh wait! How about before the war started so you can warn the Director’s creators that he eventually turns homicidal?”

“Technically, he’s the opposite of homicidal,” Isaac said as-a-matter-of-factly. “He’s trying to keep everyone alive and in the simulation.”

“And besides,” I said after taking a pause to stare judgingly at Isaac. “I was winded after a 10 minute jump. I really doubt I can go back decades.”

“So, you can go back just enough to give us a second chance. Or third chance. Or fourth. However many it takes to get to the top,” Lynn said.

I could sense the others felt more comfortable with this arrangement. I guess they looked past the fact that at least one of them would probably have to die each time. I myself wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of being given this much responsibility, but with the Director’s near god-like abilities, it seemed to be the only way.

“Alright then, let’s get started,” I said leading the way out. “Rule 1: No elevators.”

We navigated the maze of hallways for what seemed like hours. The same elevator presented itself to us, but we ignored it, much to the Director’s chagrin. But eventually, we found a stairwell in some corner of the halls. It was dimly lit in pale yellow light with concrete walls and worn out steps. Five floors later, we reached the a sign that read “Ground Floor” in white lettering over a black background. This normally wouldn’t seem odd, but the other signs, such as “Floor B2” and “Floor B3” were blue with gray lettering. Not one second after my suspicion turned to worry, the sign dematerialized into a million little particles and within the same second, they reorganized into a massive turret, aimed right at us.

Before we could respond, it opened fire, lighting up the stairwell in bursts of muzzle flash. I scrambled back down the staircase for some cover, but not before I felt a sharp pain on my right shoulder. Clutching my wound, I watched as the others fell one by one. I shut my eyes to avoid seeing the massacre, and for a moment was lost in a haze of fear and confusion. Then, composing myself, I pictured a flame. The gunshots slowly faded away and the familiar hum of the holding chamber resonated in my head once again.

“…by a Demon shortly after the war started.”

“Oh…I’m sorry…she’s still alive though, right?”

“Here we go again…” I sighed.

I kicked Mark on and revealed my time travel abilities once again.

“Something terrible must’ve -”

“It did. Twice.”

“Twice?”

“This is the third time I’ve been here.”

“That’s astounding,” Cora said, closing her eyes and concentrating. “I can feel the mental burden.”

“I’m grateful,” I walked to the exit with Mark and took a look down the halls. “Let’s go. Cora, have your shield ready.”

“I know.”

I retraced our old footsteps to the stairwell. As we climbed, my heartbeat accelerated with each floor. B3. B2. B1. And finally, the ground floor.

“Get ready,” I said as we reached the end of the last staircase. I positioned her in front of the group and we peeked around the corner of the landing.

“Now, the floor sign is going to morph into a turret. Almost instantly. Just hold out your shield and be ready.”

“Again, I know,” she said, tapping her bracelet.

“I’m mentally preparing the others,” I turned to them. “Close your ears.”

The second Cora stepped forward, the turret materialized and opened fire once again. We instinctively covered our ears and ducked, some behind the staircase, some behind Cora’s shield. She steadfastly held against the storm of bullets, at one point giving me look of unfazed exasperation. After a straight minute of constant gunfire, the turret finally broke down into a plethora of tiny particles, reverting once again into a sign. Cora stored the energy and retracted her shield.

“What happened last time?” Isaac asked nervously.

“Most of you died,” I said, shuddering at the memory of something that never happened.

Exiting on the ground floor, we found ourselves standing in the familiar entrance hall.

Ah, you made it out. Well done.

“Hey!” Aaron abruptly shouted. “Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?!”

We heard a metal clang as Mark hit the floor.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded.

“I…I just remembered reading somewhere that paradoxes can make AI crash. I thought…I don’t know…“

“Dumbass,” Cora mumbled under her breath.

To crash from a paradox, I’d actually have to register it as an input. And I was made with a logic firewall, allowing me to pre-process such questions if I’m not explicitly prepared to compute. But I applaud your ingenuity. You really know -

“Do you ever not talk?” Rachel interrupted.

What d -

“See, you’re doing it again.”

I -

“Shut up or so help me I will bring down this entire building, I swear on my life.”

Go ahead and try.

It’s strange that we’d never considered simply using our powers to just demolish the Sanctuary itself. We could cause as much destruction as we could on the lower levels of the building, weakening the foundation. The building would fall, and the Director’s virtual AI core along with it. But I suppose we didn’t really know what would happen to the world around us if that happened. Another problem was that Rachel was the only one with any real destructive power. If Aelia were here, she might be of some use, but the rest of us were better off fighting Demons rather than buildings.

“Let’s just keep moving, try and ignore him,” I said, kicking Mark back on.

“Did some - did someone just use a paradox?” he said with an irritated tone.

“Sorry,” Aaron said.

“It’s fine, just…just don’t do it again. Or ask me to ponder the meaning of life or whatever,” he replied, his hover wavering slightly as he made that last request.

At the other side of the entrance hall was a double doorway leading to the main stairwell. Adjacent was another elevator, which we elected to stay as far away from as possible.

“More stairs…” Isaac sighed.

Micah and Aaron led the group, each pushing open one of the doors. We cautiously followed suit, taking extra care to keep me out of harm’s way. I could reverse anyone’s death except my own, since I’d have no powers in the real world. It was practical, but I still felt uneasy about letting other people die for me. We all filed into the large area in front of the steps, and jumped when the doors shut a little too loudly.

Micah put her foot on the first step. The second she made contact, an infinitesimal clicking noise reverberated into a thunderous bang, echoing furiously around us. She muttered a curse under her breath. Not a moment later, hundreds of tiny holes appeared on almost every surface, each of them unleashing a flood of darts from every direction. Rachel outstretched her hands and stopped them mid-air, several feet from our position. Within seconds, we were surrounded, enclosed within a sphere of projectiles, each adding to the weight building up around us.

“I can’t…hold this forever…” she said, her voice straining.

The onslaught did not stop. Cora had her shield ready, but it wouldn’t defend us from this attack on every front. All the rest of us could do was move closer to Rachel, closer to the center of this ever-darkening prison. The incessant tapping got louder as more and more projectiles joined the fray.

“Damn, if only someone could go back in time and warn us about this!” she shouted, indirectly addressing me.

“Oh sorry, you’re right,” I closed my eyes and focused.

“Hurry up!”

Her last syllable echoed in my mind as I fell back through time. I heard the familiar conversation as a dull echo, blood still pounding in my ears. I kept my eyes shut while attempting to reorient myself. It was getting easier to jump back in time but harder to deal with the side effects. The first thing I heard when my senses returned to normal was the sound of Rachel ripping a chair from the ground and throwing it over the edge of the platform.

Cora helped me explain to the others what was going on, including the next couple traps. The problem was that in certain areas such as the ground floor and beyond, the Director could presumably see and hear us. If he detected that we might know what lay ahead, he might change it to something other than what I had anticipated. Therefore, we’d have to rehearse everything in the holding chamber before making our way up. That way, we had plausible deniability and the Director would assume we were just being extra cautious.

Rushing upstairs past the turret, we once again emerged on the ground floor.

Ah, you made it. Well done.

“Hey!” Aaron shouted. “Does a set - “

“Aaron, no,” I stopped him. “That won’t work.”

“I…oh.”

I realized I shouldn't have said anything, and hoped the Director didn’t get suspicious. If we did this again, I’d remind Aaron in the holding chamber downstairs next time. Once again, we walked across the entrance hall and arrived at the stairwell. Micah slightly opened one of the double doors, and we all peeked in.

There are almost 3,000 steps in this building. Are you going to climb all of them?

Ignoring him, Rachel sent in her Orb and set it down on the first step with a light tap. After a split-second of silence, the familiar click extrapolated into a bang, eventually echoing into silence. Then, as expected, a million darts ripped through the air in every direction. Micah quickly shut the door and we stood patiently as the trap ran its course. Following several minutes of exchanging awkward glances, the rumbling of darts as they struck the walls finally ended.

“I know we’re trying to stop you from achieving your most fundamentally programmed goals, but isn’t this a little overkill?” Lynn asked.

You have no idea what overkill is.

Silently accepting this threat, we entered the stairwell. The walls and floor were now concrete pincushions for a million little darts. Kicking the ones at our feet aside, we began our ascent, moving slowly and with extreme caution. The flights of steps zig-zagged back and forth, and faint hum filled the air. The atmosphere was concentrated with fresh oxygen and rank with the fear that something terrible was about to happen. We eventually got past ten floors without an incident.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the sign for the 11th. Black with white letters.

“Wait!”

Cora saw it too and readied her shield. But we waited several moments and nothing happened.

Half the battle is in the mind.

Lynn muttered a curse.

We continued our climb to the 24th level, where the staircase abruptly ended at a wall. Seeing that there was no way up, Aaron looked through the door in front of us, scanning the floor. Isaac sat down on the ground to rest, as did some of the others. Neogens were generally in peak physical condition. But even so, we had our limits.

“There’s a secondary stairwell on the other side of the floor, friends. It looks like it's used for maintenance, but it leads further up.”

“Let’s rest a moment, then we’ll go on.”

None of this is real. So why do you feel tired?

We pondered his question for some time. It was strange to me that the people making this simulation would include human sensations like fatigue and pain. Sure they were neural indicators that the body was under stress, telling us to relax. But shouldn’t a digital body be free from wear and tear? Even though time was technically on our side, I put these newfound philosophical questions on hold for now given the urgency of our mission. Composing ourselves, we entered the 24th floor.

Oh good, I was beginning to think you were just going to sit there all day.

Aaron pointed across the room towards a set of double doors. “Those lead to another section of the floor, the stairwell is at the end.”

There were tables with guns and ammo, desks with stacks of paper, and boxes strewn about. Charts and equations were written all over the walls, and the ceiling lights occasionally flickered, flashing in a pale yellow. The air was perfect room temperature and had no odor, making the atmosphere feel all the more virtual. After all, the only difference between the real world and this one was the amount of data.

I came across an unusually clean table with papers neatly stacked along the edges. Three pens were set side by side next to a brown leather journal. Given the urgency of the situation, I simply told myself I’d come back for it once this was all over. I moved along, and saw Cora studying the equations on the walls. Jared was awkwardly trying to keep his wings from knocking over stuff on the desks. The rest were just exploring the area, keeping quiet. However, this silence was broken when Isaac also found the diary.