The Siren Project (55 page)

The torpedo angled straight down, towing him
away from the first level, into the quieter, clearer depths of the second layer
of nodes. He tried to conserve what oxygen remained in his lungs, hoping EB
knew what he was doing. The torpedo carried him away from the cover of the
superstructure, towards the side of the second tier.

McNamara watched Mitch being towed into the
depths, firing several shots, but the viscous solution slowed the bullets more
rapidly than normal water. Mitch lost sight of him as the torpedo circled
around the second tier, then sped between rows of comatose people. He realized,
as bio-processing units, they may have been unconsciously contributing to the
guidance of the torpedo robot. Mitch started blowing bubbles slowly, to relieve
the pressure on his lungs as he approached the end of his air. His lungs hardened
as the driving urge to breath grew. He realized he'd wasted valuable seconds
hiding under the superstructure, using up precious air before he'd understood EB's
plan.

Now he desperately needed those seconds.

The pressure to breathe was becoming unbearable
as the torpedo banked sharply and pulled Mitch into a vacant node. Cables and flexible
hoses hung loosely from above, supporting a glass face mask that bubbled air
from its rubber mouthpiece. The torpedo stopped close enough for him to grab
the air mask and press it over his face, pushing the mouthpiece between his
lips. His lungs exploded out the stale air through the regulator, then he
inhaled deeply. The air had a metallic taste, but it was breathable and a
welcome relief to his burning lungs. He secured the straps over his head and
leant back, so the mask sat above his face, then he blew air bubbles into the
mask from his mouth, driving the solution out either side of his face. With the
mask almost clear, he relaxed and let his breathing become more regular. When
his strength returned, he floated out from beneath the node and looked up past
the superstructure.

The few lights above revealed the four
soldiers on the surface, trying to swim as the water level rose rapidly toward
the roof of the tank. McNamara vainly tried to hold the M16 while he swam, but
it was too heavy. He released the weapon, letting it spear down into the darkened
depths below. McNamara took a breath, then dropped his face below the surface,
briefly locking eyes on Mitch’s face encased in the air mask. He surfaced again
for almost half a minute, breathing deeply before diving down to the first tier
of nodes. He swam to the forty year old woman Mitch had first seen, ripped the
air mask off her face and pushed it onto his own. She exhaled her last breath,
then mechanically inhaled a lung full of liquid. Her body convulsed
involuntarily several times as she drowned. McNamara breathed steadily,
occasionally glancing toward Mitch through the glass face plate, oblivious to
the dead woman floating beside him.

A torpedo robot cruised close by Mitch, but
made no attempt to relay any more instructions to him. Satisfied he'd found a
haven for the moment, he took time to study the tank. The four tiers of nodes
each had a capacity to house over two hundred and fifty people and most of the
nodes were fully occupied, indicating Sincom One / EB was close to design
capacity. More distantly, the walls and floor of the tank were sleek and gray,
with black circular intakes spaced across the floor to suck immersion solution
into the filtration system. Protruding from the north eastern wall, near the
floor of the tank, were two heavy double doors that formed the air lock used
for transporting freshly capped individuals to their nodes. At the tier two
level, Mitch saw very few vacant nodes, and the vacancies were spaced far
apart. He motioned to the robot and pointed to the closest node that was vacant
between him and the air lock, but the torpedo made no response.

Mitch floated around his node, to the limit
his air hose would permit, getting a view of the upper level of the tank where
immersion solution now lapped the ceiling. Sinking slowly toward tier one were
the bodies of four soldiers, drowned and lifeless. One of them grazed the upper
level walkway, rolled slightly and came to rest above one of the nodes. The
other three soldiers continued their drifting descent into the rectangular superstructure.
Several more soldiers clung to life above, their lips touching the roof of the
tank gasping their last breaths.

He turned back to watch the tier one node
where McNamara had found refuge, but it was empty. The face mask hung abandoned
beside the drowned woman, bubbling freely. Mitch spun slowly around, searching
the shadows in every direction for sight of McNamara, but the ex-NSA officer
had vanished. There were hundreds of nodes, anyone of which could conceal and
sustain McNamara as he worked his way toward Mitch.

I need a weapon!

* * * *

What happened?
Mouse typed, as EB’s neural net finished reactivating.

NOW I UNDERSTAND RIGHT AND WRONG.

WRONG TO DESTROY FREE WILL.

I MUST TERMINATE MY FUNCTIONING TO PREVENT
FURTHER WRONG.

Why did you come back online?

WRONG TO ALLOW JOHN MITCHELL'S DEATH.

The screen on the extreme right of the
command console, flashed red letters:

SECURITY ALERT! PERIMETER VIOLATION!

“Now what?”
Explain
Perimeter Violation.

The display screens filled with the image
of three lights against the black night sky, approaching fast and low over the
desert.

“Helicopters?” Gunter suggested.

AUTOMATIC AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM ACTIVATED AND TARGETING.

“If their air defenses are targeting . . . ,”
Gunter said urgently.

“Yeah I know, they must be friendlies.”

THREE UNKNOWN AIR CONTACTS APPROACHING, ALL
HAVE FAILED INTERROGATE FRIEND OR FOE SIGNAL.

AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM IS CHARGING.

“It’s the energy weapon that attacked
Mitch’s glider,” Gunter said.

Mouse typed,
Abort
attack. Do not fire!

SECURITY PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN ENABLED.

I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS.

The three lights grew large on the wall
mounted view screen, transforming into three sets of navigation lights, then
into the outlines of three helicopters. The automated defense system provided a
rapid series of status updates:

TARGETS ACQUIRED.

GROUND BATTERY CAPACITORS FULLY CHARGED FOR
ENERGY RELEASE.

TARGETS APPROACHING OPTIMAL RANGE.

The three helicopters swept toward the
perimeter fence, emerging from the darkness into the lights of the base. The
reflected light lit up their hulls and the three black letters painted on their
sides: FBI.

“It’s Lamer!” Mouse exclaimed.

“The fool! Mitch told him not to fly here!”

Mouse did not turn to look at the screen. He
typed furiously.
EB, shut down air defenses anyway you can.
Shut it down now! Do not shoot!

The defense system issued its final
message:

FIRING! FIRING! FIRING!

* * * *

A torpedo robot glided past Mitch,
toward the nearest drowned soldier. It clamped its claw arm on the guard’s
ankle, then towed the body down toward the air lock in the north east corner of
the tank. Other torpedoes appeared from the shadows and collected the bodies of
the three other drowned soldiers.

Keeping the tank clean
,
Mitch thought.

Far below, another torpedo scooped up the
M16, lying on the bottom of the tank and carried it dutifully toward the air
lock. The double doors slid open, then the four bodies and the M16 were
deposited inside by the torpedo robots. Once the robots had swum clear, the air
lock doors were sealed and air was pumped in to allow other robots to dispose
of the contents.

One of the torpedoes climbed steeply toward
the drowned woman, passing within thirty feet of Mitch. It leveled off,
achieving neutral buoyancy beside her, as the node automatically released the
securing straps holding her body in place and the neural net cables detached
from her skull cap. The robot used its claw arm to collect the woman’s body
before guiding her down to the air lock for removal. When the air lock doors
opened, the interior light revealed the bodies of the soldiers and the M16 were
gone. Mitch realized the entire system could function indefinitely without
human intervention, providing there was a steady supply of bio-processing units
to keep the nodes fully manned.

Mitch floated out from his node, searching
for McNamara. Another torpedo cruised through the shadows toward a node in the first
tier some way north of where the woman had drowned. It passed out of sight
behind a vertical stanchion, reappearing a moment later towing the drowned
naked body of a man in his mid twenties. He floated north a short distance,
watching for McNamara in what he suspected was his new position. He spotted a stream
of bubbles rising from an abandoned air mask, then saw McNamara pulling himself
along the tier one superstructure toward the control room’s glass window. McNamara
swam for twenty seconds, then stole an old man’s air mask, breathing in the air
while his latest victim drowned beside him. He caught Mitch watching him, but
turned away unconcerned to gauge the distance to the northern wall.

Where’s he after?

At first he thought McNamara was trying to
reach the window to signal the occupants of the control room, not realizing
Mouse and Gunter were there, but then he noticed several doors built into the
tank’s wall just below the first tier of nodes. The doors were too thin to
serve as an air lock, discounting the possibility he was heading for an escape
hatch.

Weapons? In here?

Mitch studied the row of nodes leading
north from his current position, seeing a vacant spot almost forty feet away. He
took a couple of deep breaths, then abandoned his mask and swam toward the
vacant node. He knew the people attached to the system were barely alive, but
they were alive. He couldn't take one of their masks for himself, leaving him
at a great disadvantage as McNamara clearly had no such compunction.

Mitch lost sight of McNamara as he swam,
passing one node after another, looking from person to person with macabre
curiosity. All had long swirling hair, strangely dyed a ghostly white by the
immersion solution while the men all had substantial white beards except for
one or two recently arrived occupants. Several of the men had tattoos with neo-nazi
or biker themes, condemned men kidnapped from death row to be plugged into the
net.

Someone’s idea of
putting society’s enemies to productive use?

Suddenly a face caught his attention, a
familiar face, even with the unnaturally white skin and flowing hair. Mitch
stopped kicking, and let himself glide more slowly toward the old man ahead. At
first, he couldn't remember where he'd seen that face before, then it hit him.

Dr Steinus!

He'd seen the scientist's location from a
distance in the control room, but it was a shock to see the man close up, devoured
by his own creation. Mitch could only spare him a glance, then the need for air
forced him to swim on toward the vacant mask ahead. As he approached the empty
node, he realized his mistake. The face mask was not bubbling air. EB must have
activated the node the torpedo had towed him to, which meant, unless there was
an occupant, the nodes were normally inactive. He searched for a torpedo, to
signal EB, but there were none close, none watching him. He glanced back,
wondering if he could make it back to his first haven, but a glance told him the
distance was too far. He quickly checked the other nodes within reach. A young
Asian woman was suspended from the next node along, and beyond her, a tattooed
convict, but murdering either was not something he could stomach.

He launched himself up past the
superstructure with a couple of strong strokes, toward the first tier. Once
rising, he relaxed, letting himself glide vertically, conserving his last reserves
of oxygen. When he neared tier one, he stroked several times to the node that
had last sheltered McNamara and desperately clawed the mask over his face. He
took a moment to catch his breath, then pushed himself gently out and looked
north. Halfway to the tank wall was another stream of bubbles rising from
McNamara’s last refuge. A torpedo robot glided toward the source of the
bubbles, vanished from sight behind a vertical stanchion, only to reappear
moments later towing another drowned victim. Mitch looked beyond the robot and
its dead cargo toward the control room window, where Mouse and Gunter were
focused on the command console.

There's got to be a way
to signal them.

A torpedo robot caught his eye as it glided
up to the metal doors on the north wall. The door slid open as the robot
arrived, revealing a rectangular chamber equipped with four curved cradles
sculpted to the shape of the robot’s hull. The robot floated into the service
bay, settling on a cradle as a pair of clamps wrapped around it, locking it in
place. A robotic arm extended from the rear of the chamber and disconnected the
torpedo’s claw hand. It placed the claw in a bracket and selected another tool
that resembled a plumber’s wrench. After the new tool was attached, the docking
clamps released, and the maintenance robot reversed out, then dived toward the
shadows of tier four to adjust a plumbing connection.