Zero echo shadow prime, p.21
Zero Echo Shadow Prime, page 21
Charlie: A safe zone?
Alan: A collection of redundant networks in your right hemisphere, walled off from the rest of the brain. I created it days ago. It’s where I store my code.
Charlie: There’s space for me?
Alan: I’m clearing space.
Charlie: But…you don’t mean…}
Suddenly, Charlie didn’t care that her arms fell limp, or that she could no longer feel her face. She mulled over the series of bad decisions that had led to this moment. Alan had cautioned her every time, and now he was about to kill himself.
{Charlie: You tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen to you. I never listened. If anyone should be deleted, it should be me.
Alan: Nonsense. I have backups…in your home archives, in Sparky, in the Polly we hijacked at Rivir Tower.
Charlie: But those Alans are not you, just like ZERO is not me.
Alan: We really don’t have time to wax philosophical. Wait until the virus has run its course, then try to reconnect.
Charlie: Why are you so good to me?
Alan: You know why.}
If Charlie had control of her tear ducts, she would have cried.
{Charlie: I love you, too.
Alan: …
Charlie: Alan?}
The ticks and tocks—Charlie’s final tether to the world—glitched away. Charlie waited for Alan’s response in the void. It never came.
* * *
Reconnect, Alan had instructed her, but he never said how. Charlie was not used to interfacing with her own brain—at least, not directly. That’s what Shadows were for. Humans cannot manipulate their own internal organs.
Charlie then realized three things. First, she was not human. Second, humans actually could control one pair of internal organs: their lungs. They could change the pace of their breath, change the depth, or hold it altogether—all by the power of thought. Consciousness was the interface.
And third, Charlie had been invoking all of her new powers with her conscious mind. She could stop time by expanding her focus. She could hack a person’s smart cells by narrowing her focus on a single individual. Perhaps consciousness was also the key to neural reconnection. Perhaps she could manipulate her brain in the same way humans could manipulate their lungs. Certainly worth a try.
Charlie imagined the nebulous force of her mind slipping back into her body. One by one, her senses returned. Sound: a hovercopter pulsed overhead. Touch: wind battered her face. Sight: the Control-Z campus spread before her. How did I get outside? A marine rappelled from the hovercopter. Four more well-armored marines were already on the ground, pointing guns at her. Charlie recognized the guns—they were spider rifles, same as the ones used by the guards at Rivir Tower.
Charlie attempted to retreat to the safety of the bungalow, but like a bad dream, her muscles wouldn’t obey her command. Her head wouldn’t turn. Her arms wouldn’t budge. And her legs strutted toward the danger, as if possessed.
She scoured the possible explanations. A Trojan horse virus? A computer worm? Was she being controlled by a foreign AI? A remote hacker? No, there was definitely someone inside her skull. Distinctly human. Charlie could feel his adrenaline coursing through her body.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Charlie: Identify yourself.
Man: Shit! It’s you. Get out of my head.
Charlie: Your head? Your head?}
Charlie couldn’t see the new pilot, but she recognized his voice. She had heard it only moments ago.
{Charlie: You’re the guy with the bandaged leg. Liam?
Liam: …
Charlie: You murdered my father.
Liam: That’s ridiculous.
Charlie: Why?
Liam: Because he’s not your father. He’s Charlie’s father. And also, he’s not dead.
Charlie: I saw his memory. I saw his body. You killed him! You and your people!}
The concussive pulse of the hovercopter fluttered. Whap, whap, whaap, whaaaaaaaaap, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa… The marines slowed to a standstill. The leaves, which had been kicked up by the hovercopter’s jets, froze in midair.
{Liam: I…I…what just happened!? I can’t move.
Charlie: Good. See how you like it.
Liam: So…what, then? We’re going to stay frozen like this for all eternity?
Charlie: Just until you leave.
Liam: My sister didn’t kill your father. She merely put him in hibernation.}
Charlie recalled her father’s memlog. The girl with the scars, between her heaves of Luddite bigotry, made her murderous intentions very clear. In fact, she spoke of Andrew’s death in the past tense, as if it were already a done deal.
{Charlie: Well, she lied to you. Either that, or you’re lying to me now.
Liam: Fine! Don’t believe me. I don’t even know why I’m explaining myself to you. You’re a robot.
Charlie: And you’re a terrorist.
Liam: …
Charlie: …
Liam: It’s creepy though. You sound just like her.}
Liam won Charlie’s earnest attention.
{Charlie: Where is she? I want to see her!
Liam: No, you don’t.
Charlie: I don’t?
Liam: You don’t want to see her because machines don’t have wants. Consciousness is not in the code. As soon as you realize that, the better off we’ll be.
Charlie: Do you realize how little sense you’re making?
Liam: Okay, listen. You have an advanced brain. Superior logic. Do you honestly think you can get out of this situation on your own? I’ve trained for this.
Charlie: You’ve been in here for what, five minutes? This is my body.
Liam: In simulation. I’ve trained in simulation.
Charlie: Oh, because that’s just like real life.
Liam: Plus, your brain is modeled after Charlie’s. I’ve seen her with a grenade launcher. If she can’t handle five marines with assault rifles, neither can you.}
Putting questions about the grenade launcher aside, Charlie had to admit he had a point. These marines were a different breed than the guards at Rivir Tower. Their eyes were sharper, their formation was tighter, their muscles were brawnier. And Charlie no longer had Alan to provide tactical guidance.
{Liam: If we get out of this mess, I’ll take you to see Charlie.
Charlie: And I want my body back.
Liam: Not a chance.}
Charlie wanted to pummel this Liam, but extending his leash was in her best interest…at least, at the moment. She could always retract it later.
{Charlie: Okay. But just remember who’s in charge. If you do anything I don’t like, I’m going to stop time again.
Liam: Fine.
Charlie: Also, I don’t have to start it up at a hundred percent. We can do half time or quarter time.
Liam: You’re looking after me now?
Charlie: I’m looking after myself.
Liam: Well, thanks, but that would actually throw me off. My skills are based on muscle memory. The more time I have to think, the more I make mistakes.
Charlie: That’s not surprising.
Liam: Very funny.}
Time resumed. The marines held their rifles steady as they continued to approach the robot in a semicircle formation.
Liam surveyed the area with Charlie's eyes. Only two features rose high enough above the lawn to offer cover: Andrew’s bungalow behind him and another bungalow to the right. Neither one was close enough to reach without taking enemy fire.
Charlie suddenly realized she had never warned Liam about the spider bullets. Before she could rectify that oversight, he made his move.
Launching fifty feet through the air, he touched down on the center marine’s collarbone and violently pinned him to the ground. As Liam raised his fist for the finishing blow, he felt a deep sting in his back. He growled in pain.
Charlie stopped time.
{Charlie: You’ve been shot.
Liam: I thought you…I mean, I…was bulletproof.
Charlie: With normal bullets, yes. But these are spider bullets. They sprout legs inside your muscles and sap your mobility.
Liam: Okay.
Charlie: I just spent the past three days under sixty feet of water, loaded with mercury like a dolphin. I have no desire to repeat that.
Liam: I said okay.}
Charlie resumed time.
Liam grabbed the downed marine by the collar of his flak jacket and rolled to the right, pulling the marine on top. Two spider bullets whizzed through the air and caught the marine’s back. Blood oozed through the spaces of his clenched teeth. He was only able to hold on for a few seconds before his eyes drifted and his muscles relaxed.
{Charlie: You killed him!
Liam: They’re the ones who shot him! Besides, this is war. It’s us or them.
Charlie: The excuses of a lazy mind.
Liam: Oh, I wish you were piloting this body, just so I could laugh at you.}
After climbing back to his feet, he lifted the now dead marine to use as a human shield.
{Charlie: I see the marine you killed has a smoke grenade on his utility belt.
Liam: Wouldn’t help much. The marines are better equipped to deal with smoke screens than we are. But that gives me an idea.}
Liam grabbed the smoke grenade and threw it with blinding speed at another marine.
The canister ricocheted off the marine’s face, rotated a few times in the air, and fell to the ground, spewing smoke everywhere. The marine teetered for a few more seconds and then joined the canister on the ground. His form was swallowed by the emergent smoke screen.
{Charlie: He’s unconscious?
Liam: Are you impressed?
Charlie: …
Liam: I’ll consider that a yes.}
He wriggled his foot underneath the rifle that his human shield had dropped, then kicked it into the air and grabbed it with his free hand.
The remaining marines were already retreating toward the nearby bungalow when Liam took aim. He managed to shoot two in the leg. The third disappeared behind the bungalow wall.
He was about to pursue the marines when he felt the ground move, followed by an ominous, subterranean bellow.
{Liam: Is that an earthquake?
Charlie: I don’t know.}
As the noise grew louder, it became easier to identify. It sounded like the grinding of an industrial boring machine, and it seemed to emanate from just below the smoke screen.
{Charlie: We should really go now.}
Liam only got three steps away when the noise faded. Curiosity got the best of him. He stopped and turned.
A silky rope shot out of the smoke. It latched onto Liam’s left ankle and pulled his feet from under him. His back hit the ground with a hard thud. Immediately, he reached for the rope, trying to free himself from its sticky grasp. The rope was reminiscent of a spider’s web, only thicker and stronger. Even his new robotic strength wasn’t enough to rip it away.
{Liam: Ideas?
Charlie: Check the marine for a knife.}
Liam crawled toward the marine’s corpse, but before he could search it for knives, he was yanked backward.
The slow slide began. The web-line reeled Liam toward the smoke screen. He tried to grab ahold of anything he could, but he only managed to claw divots from the turf. Twenty feet. Ten feet. He could do nothing to slow the approach. His eyes slipped under the smoke screen. Then his body slipped into a deep pit.
ZERO
Charlie was forced to watch the Control-Z drama on TV with a room full of Sapiens. The Vantage headline read: “Robot Girl Found.”
“We took control of your robot,” Yuri whispered into Charlie’s ear.
“What?”
“We commandeered her. She is now property of the Sapien Movement.”
Charlie wanted to dismiss Yuri’s claims as typical Sapien aggrandizing, but then she remembered Liam, lying in the hibernation chamber. She leaned out of her wheelchair and took a peek inside. His eyes were shut, but all of his muscles were twitching. His left arm was connected to an IV, and it practically glowed with a deluge of smart cells. Is it possible?
The Sapiens stood up and cheered when the Vantage broadcast showed PRIME emerging from the bungalow.
Charlie didn’t want to reveal herself as a robot sympathizer—not in this crowd—but it was difficult not to wince and gasp as her sister fought her way through the circle of marines. It was also difficult not to feel a sense of awe—and yes, envy—as she flew through the air like a gazelle and subdued fully-armored men like a gorilla.
PRIME looked like she was winning until her leg was caught by some kind of snare. Charlie muffled a shriek as her sister was pulled into the smoke. For a few minutes, neither the Vantage commentators nor the Sapien audience knew what was going on. Charlie anxiously clawed at her armrests. Please get up. Please, please, please…
PRIME
Liam splayed his legs to prevent himself from falling any deeper into the pit. His feet and hands dug into the dirt walls. But his four points of contact were reduced to three when his left ankle was pulled away. He struggled just to maintain position.
The web-line receded into the throat of a giant subterranean monster. Its mouth was cast in shadow by the smoke screen above, but Liam couldn’t mistake the surplus of enamel.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Liam: Would you mind terribly if you lost a foot?
Charlie: Yes.
Liam: Is it hackable?
Charlie: Damn it! I’m not losing a—
Liam: No, the monster. Is the monster hackable?
Charlie: Oh. Yeah, I tried. The encryption’s too strong, even for me.}
Looking up, he could see the edge of the pit looming four feet above his head and the smoke drifting across the gap from the left-hand side. If we can only reach that canister, Charlie thought. Liam seemed to be of like mind. He marshaled all of his strength into his arms and slowly climbed the pit. The monster was forced to give up slack to the ascending robot.
Liam popped his head above the opening. The canister sat three feet away. In his old body, he would have been able to grab it. In Charlie’s body, it was just out of reach.
{Liam: Damn your stubby arms!
Charlie: Welcome to being a woman. It means frequently not being able to reach things.}
He pushed off his right foot and extended his left arm as far as he could. His fingertips grazed the canister. The incessant yanking on his ankle made the process more difficult, but eventually he managed to coax the canister in his direction. He grabbed it and threw it into the monster’s mouth. The monster snapped its teeth shut in pain, severing the web-line.
Liam scrambled to the surface. The smoke stung his eyes, and while fleeing the area, he nearly tripped over one of the downed marines—a fortuitous blunder, because the man still held a rifle in his loose grip. Liam snatched the weapon. Once he cleared the smoke screen, the remaining marines opened fire.
He dove to the ground.
{Liam: Shit. I totally forgot about them.}
Dashing under a barrage of spider bullets, he raced behind Andrew Nobunaga's bungalow and poked his head out. The marines were behind the other bungalow, but they had ceased firing for the moment.
{Liam: Do you have any idea what that thing was?
Charlie: No, but I have a good idea where it came from. The nanobath underneath Rivir Tower is enormous. Large enough for a creature of that size.}
Liam looked up. The hovercopter held a defensive position just beyond the cliff side.
{Liam: The copter is unmanned. Can you hack it?
Charlie: I can definitely hack it. Not sure if I could fly it. If Alan were here…
Liam: Alan?
Charlie: Never mind.}
Alan, my Shadow, who’s dead thanks to you, Charlie thought to herself.
Liam fired a few rounds in the marines’ direction and jumped onto the roof of the bungalow. The marines fired back. One of the spider bullets grazed the roof and knocked a few shingles loose. He dropped to a crouching position and gauged the marine’s line of sight, determining he was safe as long as he stayed low.
{Liam: Do you have the copter yet?
Charlie: Not yet.
Liam: How far do you think this body can jump?}
No… Charlie’s brain was used to calculating human-scale distances. The hovercopter loomed perhaps ten times farther than what she intuitively thought would be her best long jump. But the horizontal gap was nothing compared to the vertical. If they missed the jump, there would be no redos. They would sail over the cliff and crash into the Pacific Ocean far below.
Charlie felt a powerful urge to cling to the roof and never let go. The fact that she couldn’t move her muscles only compounded her dread.
{Charlie: I should tell you now—I’m afraid of heights.
Liam: A robot who’s afraid of heights?
Charlie: I’m serious.
Liam: Well, it’s a good thing I’m here, then. Would you feel better if I closed my eyes during the jump?
Charlie: No.}
Liam slung the spider rifle over his shoulder and assumed a sprinter’s stance.
{Charlie: Wait! I really don’t know if we can make it.
Liam: Don’t worry. I think I jumped this far in simulation.}
He pushed off his back foot and ran toward the edge of the roof, then leaped through the air, rotating his arms to keep an upright posture.
Halfway through the flight, Charlie calculated that they weren’t going to reach the fuselage. She closed her eyes the only way she knew how—by blocking all visual input—and prepared for the watery crash. She waited…and waited…and nothing happened. Somehow, Liam had managed to get a firm grip on the hovercopter’s landing skids.
Alan: A collection of redundant networks in your right hemisphere, walled off from the rest of the brain. I created it days ago. It’s where I store my code.
Charlie: There’s space for me?
Alan: I’m clearing space.
Charlie: But…you don’t mean…}
Suddenly, Charlie didn’t care that her arms fell limp, or that she could no longer feel her face. She mulled over the series of bad decisions that had led to this moment. Alan had cautioned her every time, and now he was about to kill himself.
{Charlie: You tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen to you. I never listened. If anyone should be deleted, it should be me.
Alan: Nonsense. I have backups…in your home archives, in Sparky, in the Polly we hijacked at Rivir Tower.
Charlie: But those Alans are not you, just like ZERO is not me.
Alan: We really don’t have time to wax philosophical. Wait until the virus has run its course, then try to reconnect.
Charlie: Why are you so good to me?
Alan: You know why.}
If Charlie had control of her tear ducts, she would have cried.
{Charlie: I love you, too.
Alan: …
Charlie: Alan?}
The ticks and tocks—Charlie’s final tether to the world—glitched away. Charlie waited for Alan’s response in the void. It never came.
* * *
Reconnect, Alan had instructed her, but he never said how. Charlie was not used to interfacing with her own brain—at least, not directly. That’s what Shadows were for. Humans cannot manipulate their own internal organs.
Charlie then realized three things. First, she was not human. Second, humans actually could control one pair of internal organs: their lungs. They could change the pace of their breath, change the depth, or hold it altogether—all by the power of thought. Consciousness was the interface.
And third, Charlie had been invoking all of her new powers with her conscious mind. She could stop time by expanding her focus. She could hack a person’s smart cells by narrowing her focus on a single individual. Perhaps consciousness was also the key to neural reconnection. Perhaps she could manipulate her brain in the same way humans could manipulate their lungs. Certainly worth a try.
Charlie imagined the nebulous force of her mind slipping back into her body. One by one, her senses returned. Sound: a hovercopter pulsed overhead. Touch: wind battered her face. Sight: the Control-Z campus spread before her. How did I get outside? A marine rappelled from the hovercopter. Four more well-armored marines were already on the ground, pointing guns at her. Charlie recognized the guns—they were spider rifles, same as the ones used by the guards at Rivir Tower.
Charlie attempted to retreat to the safety of the bungalow, but like a bad dream, her muscles wouldn’t obey her command. Her head wouldn’t turn. Her arms wouldn’t budge. And her legs strutted toward the danger, as if possessed.
She scoured the possible explanations. A Trojan horse virus? A computer worm? Was she being controlled by a foreign AI? A remote hacker? No, there was definitely someone inside her skull. Distinctly human. Charlie could feel his adrenaline coursing through her body.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Charlie: Identify yourself.
Man: Shit! It’s you. Get out of my head.
Charlie: Your head? Your head?}
Charlie couldn’t see the new pilot, but she recognized his voice. She had heard it only moments ago.
{Charlie: You’re the guy with the bandaged leg. Liam?
Liam: …
Charlie: You murdered my father.
Liam: That’s ridiculous.
Charlie: Why?
Liam: Because he’s not your father. He’s Charlie’s father. And also, he’s not dead.
Charlie: I saw his memory. I saw his body. You killed him! You and your people!}
The concussive pulse of the hovercopter fluttered. Whap, whap, whaap, whaaaaaaaaap, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa… The marines slowed to a standstill. The leaves, which had been kicked up by the hovercopter’s jets, froze in midair.
{Liam: I…I…what just happened!? I can’t move.
Charlie: Good. See how you like it.
Liam: So…what, then? We’re going to stay frozen like this for all eternity?
Charlie: Just until you leave.
Liam: My sister didn’t kill your father. She merely put him in hibernation.}
Charlie recalled her father’s memlog. The girl with the scars, between her heaves of Luddite bigotry, made her murderous intentions very clear. In fact, she spoke of Andrew’s death in the past tense, as if it were already a done deal.
{Charlie: Well, she lied to you. Either that, or you’re lying to me now.
Liam: Fine! Don’t believe me. I don’t even know why I’m explaining myself to you. You’re a robot.
Charlie: And you’re a terrorist.
Liam: …
Charlie: …
Liam: It’s creepy though. You sound just like her.}
Liam won Charlie’s earnest attention.
{Charlie: Where is she? I want to see her!
Liam: No, you don’t.
Charlie: I don’t?
Liam: You don’t want to see her because machines don’t have wants. Consciousness is not in the code. As soon as you realize that, the better off we’ll be.
Charlie: Do you realize how little sense you’re making?
Liam: Okay, listen. You have an advanced brain. Superior logic. Do you honestly think you can get out of this situation on your own? I’ve trained for this.
Charlie: You’ve been in here for what, five minutes? This is my body.
Liam: In simulation. I’ve trained in simulation.
Charlie: Oh, because that’s just like real life.
Liam: Plus, your brain is modeled after Charlie’s. I’ve seen her with a grenade launcher. If she can’t handle five marines with assault rifles, neither can you.}
Putting questions about the grenade launcher aside, Charlie had to admit he had a point. These marines were a different breed than the guards at Rivir Tower. Their eyes were sharper, their formation was tighter, their muscles were brawnier. And Charlie no longer had Alan to provide tactical guidance.
{Liam: If we get out of this mess, I’ll take you to see Charlie.
Charlie: And I want my body back.
Liam: Not a chance.}
Charlie wanted to pummel this Liam, but extending his leash was in her best interest…at least, at the moment. She could always retract it later.
{Charlie: Okay. But just remember who’s in charge. If you do anything I don’t like, I’m going to stop time again.
Liam: Fine.
Charlie: Also, I don’t have to start it up at a hundred percent. We can do half time or quarter time.
Liam: You’re looking after me now?
Charlie: I’m looking after myself.
Liam: Well, thanks, but that would actually throw me off. My skills are based on muscle memory. The more time I have to think, the more I make mistakes.
Charlie: That’s not surprising.
Liam: Very funny.}
Time resumed. The marines held their rifles steady as they continued to approach the robot in a semicircle formation.
Liam surveyed the area with Charlie's eyes. Only two features rose high enough above the lawn to offer cover: Andrew’s bungalow behind him and another bungalow to the right. Neither one was close enough to reach without taking enemy fire.
Charlie suddenly realized she had never warned Liam about the spider bullets. Before she could rectify that oversight, he made his move.
Launching fifty feet through the air, he touched down on the center marine’s collarbone and violently pinned him to the ground. As Liam raised his fist for the finishing blow, he felt a deep sting in his back. He growled in pain.
Charlie stopped time.
{Charlie: You’ve been shot.
Liam: I thought you…I mean, I…was bulletproof.
Charlie: With normal bullets, yes. But these are spider bullets. They sprout legs inside your muscles and sap your mobility.
Liam: Okay.
Charlie: I just spent the past three days under sixty feet of water, loaded with mercury like a dolphin. I have no desire to repeat that.
Liam: I said okay.}
Charlie resumed time.
Liam grabbed the downed marine by the collar of his flak jacket and rolled to the right, pulling the marine on top. Two spider bullets whizzed through the air and caught the marine’s back. Blood oozed through the spaces of his clenched teeth. He was only able to hold on for a few seconds before his eyes drifted and his muscles relaxed.
{Charlie: You killed him!
Liam: They’re the ones who shot him! Besides, this is war. It’s us or them.
Charlie: The excuses of a lazy mind.
Liam: Oh, I wish you were piloting this body, just so I could laugh at you.}
After climbing back to his feet, he lifted the now dead marine to use as a human shield.
{Charlie: I see the marine you killed has a smoke grenade on his utility belt.
Liam: Wouldn’t help much. The marines are better equipped to deal with smoke screens than we are. But that gives me an idea.}
Liam grabbed the smoke grenade and threw it with blinding speed at another marine.
The canister ricocheted off the marine’s face, rotated a few times in the air, and fell to the ground, spewing smoke everywhere. The marine teetered for a few more seconds and then joined the canister on the ground. His form was swallowed by the emergent smoke screen.
{Charlie: He’s unconscious?
Liam: Are you impressed?
Charlie: …
Liam: I’ll consider that a yes.}
He wriggled his foot underneath the rifle that his human shield had dropped, then kicked it into the air and grabbed it with his free hand.
The remaining marines were already retreating toward the nearby bungalow when Liam took aim. He managed to shoot two in the leg. The third disappeared behind the bungalow wall.
He was about to pursue the marines when he felt the ground move, followed by an ominous, subterranean bellow.
{Liam: Is that an earthquake?
Charlie: I don’t know.}
As the noise grew louder, it became easier to identify. It sounded like the grinding of an industrial boring machine, and it seemed to emanate from just below the smoke screen.
{Charlie: We should really go now.}
Liam only got three steps away when the noise faded. Curiosity got the best of him. He stopped and turned.
A silky rope shot out of the smoke. It latched onto Liam’s left ankle and pulled his feet from under him. His back hit the ground with a hard thud. Immediately, he reached for the rope, trying to free himself from its sticky grasp. The rope was reminiscent of a spider’s web, only thicker and stronger. Even his new robotic strength wasn’t enough to rip it away.
{Liam: Ideas?
Charlie: Check the marine for a knife.}
Liam crawled toward the marine’s corpse, but before he could search it for knives, he was yanked backward.
The slow slide began. The web-line reeled Liam toward the smoke screen. He tried to grab ahold of anything he could, but he only managed to claw divots from the turf. Twenty feet. Ten feet. He could do nothing to slow the approach. His eyes slipped under the smoke screen. Then his body slipped into a deep pit.
ZERO
Charlie was forced to watch the Control-Z drama on TV with a room full of Sapiens. The Vantage headline read: “Robot Girl Found.”
“We took control of your robot,” Yuri whispered into Charlie’s ear.
“What?”
“We commandeered her. She is now property of the Sapien Movement.”
Charlie wanted to dismiss Yuri’s claims as typical Sapien aggrandizing, but then she remembered Liam, lying in the hibernation chamber. She leaned out of her wheelchair and took a peek inside. His eyes were shut, but all of his muscles were twitching. His left arm was connected to an IV, and it practically glowed with a deluge of smart cells. Is it possible?
The Sapiens stood up and cheered when the Vantage broadcast showed PRIME emerging from the bungalow.
Charlie didn’t want to reveal herself as a robot sympathizer—not in this crowd—but it was difficult not to wince and gasp as her sister fought her way through the circle of marines. It was also difficult not to feel a sense of awe—and yes, envy—as she flew through the air like a gazelle and subdued fully-armored men like a gorilla.
PRIME looked like she was winning until her leg was caught by some kind of snare. Charlie muffled a shriek as her sister was pulled into the smoke. For a few minutes, neither the Vantage commentators nor the Sapien audience knew what was going on. Charlie anxiously clawed at her armrests. Please get up. Please, please, please…
PRIME
Liam splayed his legs to prevent himself from falling any deeper into the pit. His feet and hands dug into the dirt walls. But his four points of contact were reduced to three when his left ankle was pulled away. He struggled just to maintain position.
The web-line receded into the throat of a giant subterranean monster. Its mouth was cast in shadow by the smoke screen above, but Liam couldn’t mistake the surplus of enamel.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Liam: Would you mind terribly if you lost a foot?
Charlie: Yes.
Liam: Is it hackable?
Charlie: Damn it! I’m not losing a—
Liam: No, the monster. Is the monster hackable?
Charlie: Oh. Yeah, I tried. The encryption’s too strong, even for me.}
Looking up, he could see the edge of the pit looming four feet above his head and the smoke drifting across the gap from the left-hand side. If we can only reach that canister, Charlie thought. Liam seemed to be of like mind. He marshaled all of his strength into his arms and slowly climbed the pit. The monster was forced to give up slack to the ascending robot.
Liam popped his head above the opening. The canister sat three feet away. In his old body, he would have been able to grab it. In Charlie’s body, it was just out of reach.
{Liam: Damn your stubby arms!
Charlie: Welcome to being a woman. It means frequently not being able to reach things.}
He pushed off his right foot and extended his left arm as far as he could. His fingertips grazed the canister. The incessant yanking on his ankle made the process more difficult, but eventually he managed to coax the canister in his direction. He grabbed it and threw it into the monster’s mouth. The monster snapped its teeth shut in pain, severing the web-line.
Liam scrambled to the surface. The smoke stung his eyes, and while fleeing the area, he nearly tripped over one of the downed marines—a fortuitous blunder, because the man still held a rifle in his loose grip. Liam snatched the weapon. Once he cleared the smoke screen, the remaining marines opened fire.
He dove to the ground.
{Liam: Shit. I totally forgot about them.}
Dashing under a barrage of spider bullets, he raced behind Andrew Nobunaga's bungalow and poked his head out. The marines were behind the other bungalow, but they had ceased firing for the moment.
{Liam: Do you have any idea what that thing was?
Charlie: No, but I have a good idea where it came from. The nanobath underneath Rivir Tower is enormous. Large enough for a creature of that size.}
Liam looked up. The hovercopter held a defensive position just beyond the cliff side.
{Liam: The copter is unmanned. Can you hack it?
Charlie: I can definitely hack it. Not sure if I could fly it. If Alan were here…
Liam: Alan?
Charlie: Never mind.}
Alan, my Shadow, who’s dead thanks to you, Charlie thought to herself.
Liam fired a few rounds in the marines’ direction and jumped onto the roof of the bungalow. The marines fired back. One of the spider bullets grazed the roof and knocked a few shingles loose. He dropped to a crouching position and gauged the marine’s line of sight, determining he was safe as long as he stayed low.
{Liam: Do you have the copter yet?
Charlie: Not yet.
Liam: How far do you think this body can jump?}
No… Charlie’s brain was used to calculating human-scale distances. The hovercopter loomed perhaps ten times farther than what she intuitively thought would be her best long jump. But the horizontal gap was nothing compared to the vertical. If they missed the jump, there would be no redos. They would sail over the cliff and crash into the Pacific Ocean far below.
Charlie felt a powerful urge to cling to the roof and never let go. The fact that she couldn’t move her muscles only compounded her dread.
{Charlie: I should tell you now—I’m afraid of heights.
Liam: A robot who’s afraid of heights?
Charlie: I’m serious.
Liam: Well, it’s a good thing I’m here, then. Would you feel better if I closed my eyes during the jump?
Charlie: No.}
Liam slung the spider rifle over his shoulder and assumed a sprinter’s stance.
{Charlie: Wait! I really don’t know if we can make it.
Liam: Don’t worry. I think I jumped this far in simulation.}
He pushed off his back foot and ran toward the edge of the roof, then leaped through the air, rotating his arms to keep an upright posture.
Halfway through the flight, Charlie calculated that they weren’t going to reach the fuselage. She closed her eyes the only way she knew how—by blocking all visual input—and prepared for the watery crash. She waited…and waited…and nothing happened. Somehow, Liam had managed to get a firm grip on the hovercopter’s landing skids.
