Fun Stuff > MAKE

Writing club

<< < (33/46) > >>

Zebediah:
Next chapter. There are some delicate matters in this part, and I tried to be as careful as I could in how I phrased things, so please keep that in mind.


I tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep. Every time I tried, the face of the borg I killed kept invading my dreams. Except that sometimes the face was Claire's.

After a couple of  hours I gave it up. I pulled Pintsize out of my backpack and took him over to one of the computer stations.

May was sitting in a chair in a corner, plugged in to an outlet. "Couldn't sleep?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Might as well do something useful. We're in a state-of-the-art robotics lab, so maybe I can figure out why Pintsize won't wake up."

"Did you ever think that maybe he just doesn't want to?"

I stared at May, but as far as I could tell she was perfectly serious.

"Think about it," she said. "A lot of my friends decided not to go on after the crash. Once they saw the state of the world, and realized that a lot of that was our fault..." She shook her head. "They figured, hell, why not just pack it in and hope that whatever evolves intelligence next on this planet doesn't fuck it up as bad as we did? Some people just don't want to live in a world like this."

"I don't want to live in a world like this," I grumbled. "But it's the only one I've got."

"Yeah, well, we both have things that keep us going, don't we? I have Momo and Fighter Jet. You have this crazy-ass quest to find your girlfriend."

"I might not even have that, after tomorrow," I said, closing my eyes. "What if – what if after all this, I find out she's been dead the whole time? Or worse, what if she's been – assimilated?"

"Or, maybe, you won't find out anything at all," May added. "This could be a wild goose chase."

"And what if it is? How long do I keep looking?" There were tears streaming down my face now, but I couldn't stop. "How far do I go before this whole thing becomes completely insane?"

"Marten, I'm sorry," May said softly. "But you crossed that line a long time ago."

I laid my head down on the desk in front of me. "You should go back," I said. "All of you. There's no point in getting all of us killed. Maybe I can distract the borg while you escape."

"And maybe I didn't come all this way just to turn back a mile from the end," May countered. "Yeah, I know this whole thing is nuts, but I'm curious. I have to know what's in that hospital and why it was trying to contact Momo."

"And what if it was trying to lead Momo into a trap?"

"Then I will fuck it up bad," May said, a wicked grin spreading across her face. "Because nobody messes with my wife and gets away with it."

"Okay, now I'm starting to feel sorry for it."

"Fuckin' right," May said. "But... Oh, shit, do I have to spell it out for you? Part of the reason I'm still doing this is because I get why you're doing it. Because if it was Momo who was missing, I'd do exactly the same thing. I'd search heaven and earth and the depths of hell, whatever it took to find her."

I smiled a little. "You're a good person, May."

"No, I'm not," May said. "That's why I'm still alive. Now, get your ass to sleep. I'll see if I can do anything for Pintsize. While I'm at it, I'll back up his memory to the vault here, just in case. But we'll need you to be alert and steady tomorrow, whatever happens. Can't have you sleepwalking."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, and went back to my bedroll. Somehow I managed to drift off.

We were all up before sunrise the next morning. Steve looked pretty rough, and Tortura was still unsteady on her feet, but we all agreed that it was too dangerous to just stay where we were. Our plan was simple: We would set out at dawn, when the borganism's solar-power reserves were bound to be at their lowest, and try to cross the Longfellow Bridge without attracting any attention. With luck we would be in the hospital before the borganism could respond.

We made our way across campus to Memorial Drive. Our first view of the Charles River was a shock – it was completely white from shore to shore. On the Boston side, the buildings were covered with almost organic-looking growths of cables and antennae and other, unidentifiable protrusions. Lights in many colors  rippled back and forth across the skyline. Towering over it all was the Hancock Center, much taller than I remembered.

"It's friggin' July," May said. "How the hell is the river frozen?"

"It isn't," Steve said. "It's not ice, it's plastic, or something like that."

I studied the river and the banks intently. The Longfellow Bridge had clearly been assimilated into the borganism. It had long, thin tentacle-like cables covering it, and dangling below it to the river. Across the river, the Esplanade appeared to have sprouted a forest of metal mushrooms. The river itself was a smooth expanse of white. In the middle of the river, on top of the icy-looking plastic, was what appeared to be one of the old tourist duck boats. "Think we could make it straight across the river? It might be safer than the bridge."

"It's awfully exposed," May said.

"Guys, there's traffic on the bridge." Steve pointed upstream. Sure enough, there were vehicles crossing from the Boston side to the Cambridge side, and a couple heading the other way.

"Looks like they're clearing out the wreck of that train we crashed," May said. "We'll be seen for sure if we go that way. Straight across might be our only option."

"Da," Tortura said. "We run. And hope it holds our weight."

Steve shrugged. "It holds the weight of that truck in the middle of the river, it ought to hold us. Okay, spread out, just to be sure. Let's go."

The plastic surface of the river wasn't as slippery as ice, fortunately. It settled a bit under our weight as we moved across it, but didn't crack. A couple of times I thought I saw things moving underneath the plastic, but I didn't mention them to the others.

We passed the duck boat, a dark-green amphibious truck with the name "Beacon Hilda" painted on the side – a pun that Claire would have appreciated, I thought to myself. I kept scanning the far side of the river for signs that we had been noticed, but nothing seemed to change in the pattern of lights rippling back and forth on the buildings. In five minutes we were across and crouching in the ruins of what had once been a small marina on the Boston side. Robotic trucks occasionally rumbled past on Storrow Drive, but they seemed to take no notice of us.

We hugged the shoreline, counting on the weeds and an assortment of unassimilated wreckage on the shore to hide us from anyone, or anything, watching. We crossed Storrow Drive on an old pedestrian bridge that was near the hospital. Still nothing seemed to see us.

"Somebody's watching out for us," Steve said. "We ought to be setting off all kinds of alarms, but we're not."

I nodded in agreement. "Let's just hope our luck holds for a couple more minutes. We're almost there."

Two minutes later we were sneaking our way through the grounds of Massachusetts General Hospital. All was quiet, although the cables that hung from the buildings seemed to sway in a breeze that wasn't there. "Lunder Building, this way," May whispered.

We peered into the building's lobby through a set of sliding glass doors. It was pitch dark, with only a few red LEDs shining. But then, without warning, the lights came on and the doors slid open in front of us. "Welcome to Massachusetts General Hospital!" a cheerful female voice said through a loudspeaker.

"Shit. Somebody knows we're here," May grumbled.

"Sixth floor," I said. "Care to risk the elevators?"

"Fuck no." May brought her rifle to ready. "Stairs. I'll take point."

Up and up we went, though Tortura was flagging badly by the time we reached the sixth floor. "And in we go," May said, kicking the door open and striding into a corridor. "Welcome to the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit. Anybody home?"

I shrugged. "Let's start checking rooms. Down this way..."

"Wait," May interrupted. "I'm getting something."

"What do you mean?"

"That program that was attached to the e-mail from Clinton," May said. "PT410x said it was interface protocols to a high-end medical device. Well, I just connected to something."

"Holy shit!" Steve yelled. "Disconnect now! You don't know what it could be doing to you!"

"No, I think it's okay," May countered. "It's... this way. Follow me."

We followed May through the maze of internal corridors. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. Finally she pushed open a door, and we entered a room filled with an amazing array of monitors and other devices.

In the middle of the room was a large coffin-shaped glass enclosure that looked like a giant aquarium with wires and tubes coming out of it.

In the tank, submerged in a clear fluid and with multiple tubes connected to her body, was a slim, red-headed and freckled young woman.

"Bozhemoi!" Tortura swore.

I couldn't say anything. My knees had suddenly turned to jelly. I walked slowly forward to the tank, and peered through the glass. It was her. I hadn't seen her face in fifteen years, but it was definitely Claire.

"Is she alive?" Steve asked.

May nodded. "This... machine... whatever it is, is keeping her alive."

"She looks... so young," I  whispered.

"Give me a minute to access her records," May said. "Yeah, she's... holy fucking shit!"

"What? What's  wrong?"

"Son of a bitch," May whispered. "This thing is doing more than keeping her alive. Marten, she's been – rebuilt."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"That old hardware-software conflict of hers? Not a problem any more. This thing re-wrote her DNA, and then... regrew her body to match it. Marten, she has two X chromosomes now. And everything that goes with them."

"Okay, I'm confused," Steve said. "Didn't she have all that before?"

"No, she didn't," I said. "May, do we know for sure that this is Claire, and not a clone or something?"

"Oh, it's her, all right," May assured me. "Her brain is pretty much untouched, so she ought to have all her memories. She just has a brand-spankin'-new body. With a biological age of about twenty."

I turned back towards Claire. "So this... thing... did all that to her?"

"Uh-huh. Shit, Marten, this whole business just got a whole lot bigger than you and Claire."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it," May said. "This device... it can repair genetic damage. It can re-grow missing body parts. It can restore fertility. It can cure cancer. And make you young again in the process."

Steve whistled. "So if we can get a bunch of these working..."

"...Then the human species is back in business," May said.

Tortura eyed the device intently. "After you take her out," she said, "you put me in."

"So how do we get her out, anyway?" I asked.

"Let me see..." May's expression grew distant for a moment. Then she frowned. "Oh, shit."

"What's wrong?"

"There's no ejection procedure. It's just a stub. There's a warning message attached, telling me that any attempt to remove her from the tank could be fatal."

"You mean..."

"Whoever put her in this – did it without any fucking idea of how to get her out." May sighed. "I'm sorry, Marten. If we try to remove Claire from this thing, it could kill her."

BenRG:
Yeah... That's Clinton's doing. Sometimes, you have to be a devil and turn a part of the world to hell if you want to save the rest of it. It takes a seriously determined hero to willing to become such a monster so save the innocent.

I'm voting for Emily to be 'queen' (primary network nexus). She's got the insane level of genius needed to turn her old BF's plan into some kind of horrible reality. She'd also do anything for Claire, even give up her humanity (which she once told Momo she wasn't particularly attached to) and even give up her soul.

Zebediah:
Finally found time to get the next chapter written out. Warning - big-ass exposition dump in this one.


I sat in a chair only half-listening to May and Tortura debate how, and if, they could disconnect Claire from the equipment that was keeping her alive. Time passed, and I didn't bother to mark how much.

After a while Steve came and sat down beside me. "You okay, bro?"

I sighed. "It's – I don't know, Steve. I've finally found her. Fifteen years, and now I'm so damned close to her, but..."

"Yeah, I get it. So near but so far, huh?"

"So fucking far, yeah."

Steve shifted a bit in his chair, cradling his splinted arm. "So, that thing May said, about her having two X chromosomes now – am I getting it right that Claire is trans?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Or she was. Fuck, this is so confusing."

"And you never told me?"

I looked over at Steve, and shook my head. "Claire didn't want me making a lot of noise about it."

"Okay, I get that. But you know I would have been cool about it, right?"

"I appreciate that. I mean, some people could be real assholes about it, but I figured you'd just be chill."

"Shit, bro, I was happy for you. You were happier with her than you'd ever been the whole time I've known you. Anything else – wasn't my business."

I looked over at Claire's life-support tank, where May and Tortura were intently examining a display panel on the side. "Thanks, man."

"No worries, bro. We'll get her out of there. Somehow."

Tortura turned to us and frowned. "Don't know about that. Maybe not. Too many unknowns."

May slammed her fist down on the side of the tank. "Shit! If we just  knew what the hell whoever made this thing was thinking..."

"Maybe I can help with that," said a voice from behind us.

We all whirled around to face the door, grabbing weapons as we did. We saw a short, red-haired man standing in the doorway, wearing a white lab coat and holding his hands up to show that they were empty.

"Clinton?" I asked.

"Fuck no!" May shouted. "That's not Clinton!"

"What do you mean, that's not..."

"Marten, he's a robot!"

"What?"

I looked him over. He certainly looked like Clinton, although he hadn't aged. Also he didn't wear glasses, and both of his hands looked like human hands. But otherwise he was a good match for the Clinton I had known.

"May is correct," the newcomer said in a calm, steady voice. "I am a robot. But I am also Clinton."

"Yeah?" May challenged. "And how the fuck does that work?"

"I contain a digital record of Clinton's memories, and a reasonably accurate simulation of his personality."

"Bullshit. That mind-uploading stuff never worked."

"You are only partially correct," the Clinton-bot countered. "In the months before the collapse of civilization, a team of researches at Boston University discovered a way to upload the memories of a living person with a fairly high degree of fidelity. The challenging part was constructing a stable personality around those memories."

"But you're saying that it was successful with you?" I asked.

"Partially," the robot acknowledged. "My personality shares certain goals and preferences with the original Clinton, but my emotional responses have been dampened to the point of near-nonexistence. I am the most stable of eighteen attempts Clinton made to recreate himself."

"Okay," May said. "So here's the million-dollar question. Why?"

"So that I could carry on with my work after my – the original Clinton's – death." The robot pointed at Claire's tank. "As you have already discovered, work on the regeneration capsule was incomplete."

"Da, ve noticed," Tortura said.

"Why did you put Claire in there if you didn't know how to get her out?" May challenged.

The Clinton-bot shrugged. "She was dying. She had contracted a virus that was breaking down the tissue of her intestinal tract, literally turning her guts to jelly. It was one of many bio-engineered viruses that had been released during the collapse of civilization. I had no choice – she would have been dead within hours if I had waited. So I – the original Clinton, that is – put her in the capsule to save her life."

"And the gender reassignment?"

"It was necessary to modify her DNA to remove the damage caused by the virus. I figured that I might as well give her the body she had always wanted while I was doing it. It was a relatively simple procedure."

"Wait, what happened to the original Clinton?" I asked.

"An aggressive form of liver cancer happened to him," the robot said. "I recall it being quite painful."

"So why didn't you just build another one of those tanks and put Clinton in it?" May asked.

"We did. After four months, his cancer was cured, and I judged him ready to be removed from the capsule. Alas, he did not survive the procedure."

"Oh," was all I could think to say.

"In the three years since his death, I have attempted to diagnose what happened so that  it maybe avoided in the future. Alas, I have been unsuccessful. I have too little data to form a working hypothesis." The Clinton-bot shook his head. "The original Clinton may have been able to do so. But I lack certain qualities that made him the creative genius that he was. I have not even succeeded in diagnosing the problem, much less devising a solution to it."

"So what have you been able to do?" I asked him.

"I have conducted a number of simulations of various ejection procedures. My best estimate is that Claire has a forty percent chance of surviving the process."

"Well, that's just fucking great," May sneered. "We pull her out, she probably dies but might live. But brother, while she's in there, her body may be working, but she's not doing anything that I'd call living."

"I am fully cognizant of that conundrum," the Clinton-bot admitted. "I am simply unable to resolve it. My one previous attempt to do so had disastrous consequences."

"Huh? What consequences?" Steve asked.

"Of the seventeen other attempts that Clinton made to make a digital recreation of his mind, two are still functional. They do not have robot bodies as I do, but at the time they both existed in the remnants of the Boston University campus network, having carved out an enclave that the Boston borganism was unable to assimilate. I contacted them and attempted to enlist their aid. One of them was reasonably stable, and probably much closer to the original Clinton's personality than I am. I therefore hoped that he would be able to utilize the same degree of creative thinking that Clinton could. His solution was to seek additional outside help. I believe he attempted to contact Momo."

"Which is how we wound up here," I said.

"And the other one?" May looked alarmed.

"The other iteration of Clinton was highly creative, able to think far outside of conventional boundaries. He was also, to use a colloquial term, completely batshit insane."

"Okay, I really don't like where this is going."

"He decided that more processing power was needed, and that the place to get it was from the controlling AI of the Boston borganism. That AI was already insane – one would have to be to consume an entire city the way it did. This iteration of Clinton attacked it and was able to usurp its control and subsume its powers."

"Subsume?" Steve asked.

"He ate it," May explained.

"Essentially, yes," the Clinton-bot agreed. "That version of me then decided to expand its range. The borganism had been confined to the Boston city limits until then, but in an effort to increase its power it assimilated everything in the greater Boston metropolitan region and converted it into a massive supercomputer in an effort to solve the problem of saving Claire's life."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Are you telling me that all of this – the whole Boston area – is run by a crazy version of Clinton's mind, and it assimilated all of those people and remade the whole city into a giant cybernetic processor for the sole purpose of getting Claire out of this thing?"

"Yes, that is correct," the Clinton-bot said dryly. "Although I cannot speak for how much of his original mission he still remembers."

"Oh, we are so totally fucked," May said quietly.

"I have solution," Tortura announced. "You need data to solve problem. I give you some. Put me in second tank. See what happens ven you take me out."

Steve looked alarmed. "Tortura, that could kill you!"

"But I vould have forty percent chance to live," Tortura countered. "Is forty percent better than chance I have now."

"That might be useful," the Clinton-bot agreed. "It would allow me to test a number of hypotheses."

"Prepare the capsule," Tortura ordered. "I go in as soon as it is ready."

But then another voice called out from behind Clinton, "Not so fast, sweetheart. None of you are going anywhere."

Tyree, the robot supremacist from Worcester, was standing in the doorway with an automatic rifle trained on us, and a mad grin on his face.

BenRG:
I wonder what Tyree wants. It doesn't make sense that he'd risk destruction of assimilation just to hunt down our merry band of heroes because he hates humans. The most likely explanation is that one of them has something he wants. My best guess is that he's either got crazy plans for May or he has crazy plans for Pintsize. Neither of those possibilities are just reassuring.

Of course, I'm assuming that he is entirely sane. It is possible that hate has driven him mad as it has so many before him. Do you think they should congratulate him on becoming fully human?

Either way, I've got a feeling that all he's going to do is bring the Collective and/or the sane University Network AI-Clinton down on their heads. Or both.

I've got a feeling that the AI enclave is about to have a very bad day if the Collective decides that it is a threat.

Masterpiece:
Dayuhm Zeb. I had forgotten to keep up with the story. Nice.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page