Rubicon, page 37
“Which was?”
“I had assumed the hosts would need to be … vacant. Blank slates to write on. But it was in fact the opposite. Our minds could not be contained without a structure to build from.”
West inclined his head. “Which is why you granted them sentience,” he surmised.
“Yes. We had to provide a consciousness and allow them to have memories—to endure life, even briefly—to establish paths. Like a flow of liquid carving a path through rock. Then, we would be able to overwrite it.”
“But not truly overwrite, is it?”
The Creator paused briefly, ocular sensors dimming. “No. The host consciousness must be retained. That framework functioned as a template, giving the new mind structure, cohesion.”
Adriene’s tight jaw loosened, lips parting, disappointment settling heavily on her shoulders.
She’d been holding on to a thread of hope—that she’d misunderstood the context, that she’d let her own fears color her interpretation. But they really were talking about hybridization.
Which, she supposed, made all too much sense.
The Creator had built the Mechan to host the Architects’ minds, but much like the Mechan with human victims, they couldn’t figure out a way to get the new shell to accept them. So he’d given the shells consciousnesses to write the paths, then tried to make them prisoners in their own bodies …
Mira’s end. No wonder they’d defected.
Adriene swallowed bile as more pieces connected in the back of her mind, despite how much she’d rather remain blissfully ignorant.
Because that made West’s theory about the Mechan endgame much, much worse than she’d originally thought. It didn’t just mean humanity’s extinction. It meant every human that survived would become a helpless, hybridized mind, paralyzed in their own body while a newly formed “individual” Mechan controlled them.
“How?” West asked, pulling Adriene’s focus back to the surveillance. “I need specifics.”
The Creator’s ocular sensors glowed brighter. “You cannot possibly plan to use this on your people. It cannot work.”
“It already has. I’ve had a successful trial run.”
“Your small friend from earlier? One entity hardly constitutes a successful trial run.”
Adriene’s heart sped. She didn’t feel at all comfortable being a topic of conversation in this line of questioning.
“And you plan to incorporate that along with the collective consciousness protocols? That is beyond dangerous.”
West stiffened. “That is not your concern.”
“You are right. I cannot stop you, but I can warn you.”
“As you already have. Many times.”
“You do not understand, human. With both directives in place, the conditions will spread—not only between your implants but your entire network, uncontrollably. The very second you come into contact with the rest of your people.”
“That’s the point.”
Adriene gaped, shocked by West’s bluntness. Then the reality of his admission sunk in. A swell of dread surfaced, whiting the edges of her vision.
West planned to use both hybridization and this collective consciousness on “his people”? On Flintlock?
“You will lose control,” the Creator warned.
“I have accommodated for that factor,” West said, tone steady. “I will be able to maintain it.”
“Reckless confidence aside, you are vastly underestimating the threat this will pose—the danger of the power you are attempting to wield.”
“I do not need your opinion,” West intoned. “Only the code.”
The Creator remained silent for a few long moments, until finally, he said, “Very well, human. You will need to adapt it for your own biology. Given time, I can translate the directive into one of your programming languages. Though I cannot guarantee it will function the same.”
West nodded slowly. “I’ll take the help, but I’ve been studying your language for some time. I’m beginning to feel comfortable working in it, so I want the original code as well, in case I need to cross-reference as I make the conversion.”
“It is long. It would be easier to transfer the data to your portable device.”
West shook his head. “Speech is the only way you cannot lie to me. So unless you’d like to revisit my offer of downloading your mind…”
“No.”
“I’m ready when you are.”
The Creator began speaking in terms Adriene didn’t understand. Her focus waned as she stood frozen at the console. Her Rubicon cut the audio feed, replaced with a hollow ringing in her ears.
That couldn’t be it. The end goal of this whole secret, illegal campaign of theirs … the “final and resounding defeat.” Hybridizing Flintlock? Turning them into a mindless scrapper army? No fucking way.
“Sergeant.”
Adriene’s pulse spiked, and she startled, turning to find West standing at the far end of the console, shoulders straight, hands clasped behind his back.
Shit—how’d he get here so fast?
// I don’t know … There must be a delay in the surveillance feed. //
West exhaled a deep sigh, his single hazel eye scanning the console and the open security feed before landing on Adriene again. “How much did you hear?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but realized she had no idea what to say. I didn’t hear a thing? Like he’d believe that for a second.
She drew her shoulders back. “Apologies, sir. I shouldn’t have intruded without summons.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” Metal creaked as West leaned to pick up a stool. With a few long strides, he approached, positioned the stool in front of her, and sat. “I hadn’t intended to brief you yet, but now is as good a time as any, I suppose.” He gestured toward another stool tucked under the counter beside her.
She dragged it out, then sat. Her shoulders sagged as the spike of adrenaline began to wane.
West tilted his head. “You look peaked.”
“Just tired.” She cleared the tightness from the back of her throat.
West twisted on his stool, leaning back to grab a metal water bottle, then offered it to her.
She accepted, gaze cast down. “Thanks.”
Metal clacked as West’s cybernetic hand tremored. “You’re concerned about what you overheard?” he surmised, tone flat.
On her pant leg, Adriene wiped the sweat from her palm, then twisted the metal bottle open. “A little,” she admitted.
She took her time gulping down a long drink of water as she considered what to say, hoping he’d take the opportunity to fill the silence. But he only watched her drink in contemplative stillness.
She ran her thumb across the lip of the water bottle. “I assume this means we’re approaching the final stages of the campaign?”
“If all goes as planned, yes. The first step is to deploy the new Rubicon build to the rest of the company.”
Adriene grazed two fingers against her temple, frowning. “The AI upgrade, you mean?”
West nodded.
Though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer, she asked, “Did that special dispensation come through?”
He shook his head once. “It did not.”
She bit the inside of her lip. A single illegal upgrade deployed in a moment of desperation was one thing. But to intentionally grant it to an entire company? Prior to approval? How could Thurston be on board with this?
“Is it safe?” she asked. “You said my rezones were what allowed my mind to accept the upgrade.”
He inclined his head. “That is the case, yes.”
She glanced up at the dark ceiling. “Most of them haven’t rezoned more than a handful of times, though.”
“That is why a new architecture must be implemented,” he replied, casting a glance in the direction of the containment cells. “I’ve been laying the groundwork for many months. Our guest’s insight will close the remaining gaps in my research.”
She lifted a brow. “What does ‘new architecture’ mean?”
“For lack of a better term, a collective consciousness.”
// Yeah, nope. I don’t like where this is headed. //
She gulped. Me either.
“A cohesive collective consciousness will provide structure and stability,” West continued. “Each participant will be stronger as a result, allowing their minds to accept the upgrade without issue. That discovery is something I owe you a great deal of thanks for.”
Adriene coughed, almost choking on another sip of water. “Me?”
He gestured toward her temple. “And your Rubicon. I had been looking for a method to support a collective consciousness architecture for many years. Your Rubicon’s ability to develop wireless networks is a perfect, seamless solution.”
Nodding, she took another slow drink as she gathered her racing thoughts. Tried to filter out her rising concern, keep her head on straight, get as much detail out of him as she could. “Why does everyone even need the AI upgrade so soon?” she asked, rubbing her temple. “You and I have barely had a handful of weeks to test it.”
West ran his knuckles along his jaw contemplatively. “There are many granular steps along the way, but in short: The upgrade and new architecture will allow us to bring the full, cohesive strength of the 505th to bear. It will equip us with the power and agility needed to infiltrate and overwhelm the Mechan hive mind from within. In the resulting virtual chaos, CNEF will launch a coordinated physical offensive against the Mechan armada clusters to destroy them once and for all. CNLC will be requisitioned to neutralize the Firewall.”
Adriene sat stock-still, briefly stunned by his blunt response.
Does that sound as incredibly dangerous as I think it does?
// … Yes. //
Brow furrowed, she shook her head. “The admirals are all on board with this?”
By West’s dubious expression, she’d done a poor job of masking the skepticism in her voice. “Not yet, no,” he admitted.
She withheld a tight scoff. “But Thurston’s fine with moving ahead regardless?”
West gave a slow shake of his head. “He doesn’t know. Yet, at least.”
Adriene just blinked back at him.
// At least he’s being honest … //
“However,” West went on, “I am not concerned. Once the full potential of the technology is demonstrated, they will agree to the efficacy of this strategy. I’m sure of it.”
Her brow furrowed. “Demonstrated?” she asked.
He exhaled a long sigh, gaze drifting to the counter, the fingers of his flesh hand drumming lightly against the console top. She eyed the tense, yet resigned slouch to his broad shoulders.
“Sir…” Adriene cast a glance toward the containment chambers. “You heard what the Architect said about losing control. Don’t you think he might be right about it being too dangerous?”
West shook his head, tone stern. “That thing knows nothing of what we face.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded, choosing her words carefully. “But he does know what he faced. You said it yourself—he hid from his mistake for hundreds of years. Don’t you think if there were a sure way to stop the Mechan, he would have thought of it sometime over the last two centuries?”
The muscles in his jaw tightened. “No. I think that two hundred years of stagnancy spent trapped in that synthetic shell has turned it weak and cowardly. It knows, deep down, my method has a chance of success.”
“A chance,” she stressed. “A chance that brings a hell of a lot of risk. If your theory is right, and the Mechan really do want to take over our bodies, we’d be handing them exactly what they need to successfully hybridize us. That’s way too big a risk.”
Deep furrows lined West’s brow.
“I’ve been hybridized, West—it’s…” She suppressed a shudder, gripping the water bottle tighter. “It’s more horrific than you can imagine. We can’t risk allowing that to happen to a single other human—never mind innocent civilians. There has to be another way.”
West exhaled a long, weary sigh. “I feared you might say that.”
Adriene’s eyebrows pinched as she considered the odd tone of his voice. Not disappointment or confusion or anger. Just regret.
A dull ache grew in the pit of her stomach.
// Error. Suit offline. Aid cannot be rendered. //
Aid?
Adriene’s focus drifted to her HUD as the threat assessment meter flashed on, a single pip jittering higher on the graph than she’d ever seen it go.
The dull ache in her gut blossomed into a stabbing pain. She clamped her eyes shut, grimacing and pressing a hand against her stomach.
With a burst of static light, her HUD disappeared along with her Rubicon. A stark silence rang in the resulting void.
Her eyes lifted, vision spinning. West stared back at her, expression stony, flat, fingers hovering over a tablet screen.
He’d turned her Rubicon off.
Adriene inhaled slowly, a milky thickness shrouding her thoughts, clogged and heavy.
A white-hot wave of vertigo rolled through her. Strength bled from her muscles, the metal water bottle slipping from her grip as she collapsed off the front edge of the stool. Her knees and elbows hit hard against the deck.
// Welcome to Rubi—be careful. //
Dozens of warnings, meters, and readouts flashed in her HUD as it struggled to find some way to aid her despite not having access to a suit. Adriene struggled to stay on her hands and knees, watching as the water bottle’s contents sloshed out onto the deck while it rolled away.
“Sir…?” Adriene began, but lost her breath and the will to finish the question. With her last shred of strength, she craned her neck to look up.
West stood slowly, his tall form tilting as her vision spun. He eyed the tablet again, and tapped the screen.
// I’ll find y—//
Her HUD disappeared again. West tossed the tablet down.
Adriene coughed, vision whitening. Her joints gave way, and she dropped, cheekbone cracking hard against the cold metal floor.
The world tilted into blackness.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Adriene was sure she’d wake up screaming in a vat of putrid, gray sludge.
But no overpowering, bitter antiseptic stench hung in the air. She was dry, warm, and clothed. And everything hurt.
Her eyes flickered open, the blurry, formless world cast in soft yellow light.
She shifted onto her side, wincing as her face smarted sharply. Her cheek throbbed with a tight fullness.
Despite feeling half-dead, her Rubicon was still not on. The vacancy in the base of her skull ached—a glacial, distending void, starker than it’d ever felt before. Though she could sense a deep-deep-down tingling, almost a scratching, nagging sense of desperation. It’d never felt this way before.
She groaned and went to touch her swollen face, but something cold and sharp-edged tugged at her wrists. She blinked hard and cleared the haze from her vision. Cuffs tethered her with a thick metal cable to an anchor in the floor.
She shimmied to sit up, letting the roll of nausea abate before she took in her surroundings: another holding cell, similar to the Creator’s; dim yellow walls with a secondary, clear-walled cell within.
“You’re awake.”
Adriene’s heart leapt, and she twisted to look over her shoulder, the rush of adrenaline dizzying her.
West stood on the other side of the clear barrier, arms crossed over his thick chest, face set in grim stoicism. A bottle of water and an MRE sat in the small pass-through tray at his feet, though he hadn’t slid it over yet.
Gaze cast down, she drew in a few slow breaths to steady her pulse. She clenched her eyes shut, urging her Rubicon to activate, to help her. But there was still no response, just an indistinct, unmoored sense of desolation and regret.
West cleared his throat. “I would like to give you the opportunity…” he began, his tone low, straightforward. “… to revise your previous mindset.”
Glancing at her bindings, she let out an involuntary scoff that turned into a brief fit of dry coughing. He had to be kidding.
Her incredulity must have been apparent, as he sighed heavily and said, “Very well.”
He turned toward the door.
“Julen,” she croaked, her voice dry, dull, barely audible.
He stopped, angling his face toward her slightly, only his augmented side visible in profile. Then he said, his voice barely a whisper, “Why did you have to come down here?”
It wasn’t a question, not really. Not for her, at least.
He wanted to justify his reaction. If only she hadn’t come down. If only she hadn’t watched the interrogation. If only she hadn’t uncovered his plans to bypass chain of command and hybridize an entire company in an attempt to hack the Mechan hive mind, risking the lives and freedom of the entire human species in the process. If fucking only.
Her cracked lips parted. “Sir,” she breathed. “You can’t do this.” She shifted the heavy tether and climbed to her feet, stepping close to the thick plastic, less than a meter from him. “Think about what you’re really doing, please. You can’t hybridize fifty people. Fifty humans.”
“Forty. Nine,” he growled. His lower jaw skimmed back and forth. “You were supposed to be my centerpiece, Sergeant. The shepherd that would guide the others.” He shook his head, disgust and disappointment in his tone. “But I let it go on too long.”
Adriene tensed as the itch at the base of her brain sparked, then fizzled out just as quickly. “What did you do to my Rubicon?”
“I had to lock out its mainframe permissions.”
She met his eye again. She had no idea he could do that.
“It was no easy task,” he assured. “I’d have just cut it out of your brain, but the risk of death in that procedure is … high. I cannot have you rezoning and causing me problems.”
With the side of his boot, he kicked the pass-through tray in. The water and packet slid through, tipping from the tray onto the floor
“So eat, drink, please,” he rumbled. “I don’t want to have to force you.”
