Mind Warp, page 3
‘And they’ve jammed all communication with the Mid Deck and Inner Core,’ adds Tonya Jenkins. ‘We’re on our own.’
‘The good news though is that they’re not indestructible,’ Dirk says, and grins as he holds up his laser.
One of the haven-dwellers nods. ‘We’ve been doing our bit here as well,’ he says. ‘Some of us broke into the emergency armoury. Kitted ourselves up with weapons and ammo in case the robots attack.’
‘It’s going to take more than a couple of lasers to defend ourselves against the zoids,’ says Alice bleakly.
‘Zoids?’ someone says.
‘It’s Sam’s name for them,’ Dirk explains. ‘On account of the noise their weapons make when they’re powering up.’
Hot swarf, I think. So that’s why they’re called zoids. I’ve often wondered.
Whatever, it’s like the zoids have heard him, cos at that exact moment there’s a low buzzing noise from all along the perimeter fence. Then a series of explosions. I spin round to see long sections of the wire fizz and spark, then collapse.
With the force-field down, the killer zoids tramp into the compound. There’s a small army of them.
All at once, the arc-lights go out. There are bumps and muffled crashes from inside the havens. Someone calls out. Someone else screams.
The zoids start firing and the air is suddenly bright with lines of laser light and the white and yellow flashes of flame. Visiglass windows smash and holes appear in walls. Great chunks of red-hot metal break off and come crashing down to the ground below, or splash into the pools, where they hiss and send up clouds of billowing steam.
The haven-dwellers fight back with laser weapons and grenbolt pulsers. Orange tracer fire zings past my ears. Laser bolts blind me.
I’m in the middle of a full-scale battle.
Adults form a circle around the children and retreat, shooting back at the zoids as they go.
As I look down from the platform, one zoid steps on a marked paving stone, and there’s a deafening explosion as the mine beneath it goes off and hurls it up into the air. Zoid-juice showers down and I breathe in the stench of melted circuitry.
But the zoids keep coming. And – sluice it! – there are masses of them. Far too many to hold back . . .
Then something changes.
Zoids are beginning to fall. One after the other. They’re being zilched. From behind. I see one zoid get hit square in its back panel by a grenbolt and slam to the ground. Another keels over as its head unit explodes. Then another. And another. A band of armed men and women are coming in across the power-plains, their weapons blazing, knocking out as many of the attacking zoids as possible before they can return fire.
‘Go on,’ I urge the counter-attackers excitedly.
With the zoids distracted, the people of the havens stream down the walkways, uncover air ducts and drainage pipes and disappear underground. The armed band of men and women hold off the zoids for as long as they can, then follow the last of the fleeing survivors. I hear the clang of the metal covers as they slam shut.
And I realize that what I’ve witnessed now is the beginning of humans taking refuge in secret hideouts.
The first of the Inposts. The clank and hum of the departing zoids interrupts my thoughts. The havens – the dead havens – are deserted.
I head back through the cabins, taking one walkway, then another, picking my way over abandoned bits and pieces that are strewn across the floors. A toy critter with blue fur and a long neck; smashed pictographs and half-packed backcans; a bev-mug, its handle broken off and a jagged crack passing through the red painted heart on its side . . .
Click . . . Whirr . . .
I stop in my tracks, spin round. Not all the zoids have left. There’s one behind me, eyes flashing and laser raised. I recognize the holo-symbol with the flattened figure of eight pulsing in the air above its head.
My heart quickens. The virus scanner has detected me for a second time. I’ve got to get out of here. And fast.
‘Belle,’ I murmur. ‘Belle, where are you?’
I retreat slowly, one step after the other. I’m waiting for the rings of energy, for the blinding circles in circles. The whiteout.
But that’s not what happens.
As I watch, the zoid raises an arm. Tendrils of light sprout from its fingers and spread through the air, creating a glowing web around me. The zoid pulls back its arm and the scene I’ve been reliving is torn away like a curtain, leaving me hovering in blackness.
I reach out. My fingers touch a face, a human face.
Lips, nose, forehead . . . And hair. Short hair.
I snatch my hand away.
‘Who are you?’ I whisper.
‘Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?’
The words – my words – echo around me in a mesmerizing ripple. And it isn’t just my words that I can hear. It’s my voice too.
I swallow anxiously.
‘Where am I?’ I ask.
‘Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?’
My words again. My voice. Multiplied a thousand times as a loud chorus that fills the air.
Slowly my eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness. Shapes emerge. Figures. I’m standing in the middle of a great crowd that sways from side to side and shuffles back and forth.
I attempt to make my way through the mass of people, but they close in tightly around me and press me back. They bear down on me, suffocating me. They push. They jostle. They keep me standing where I am.
I cannot get away.
I realize there’s no point in trying, and give up. I stare back at them – and find myself face to face with . . . with myself.
There are thousands of me. Image after image. It’s like looking in a shattered mirror.
A cold panic rises inside me. And as it does so, the pressure of the bodies crowding in on me increases.
‘Get away!’ I shout, and again a thousand voices shout back at me.
‘Get away! Get away! Get away!’
But they do not move. There is no escape. I’m trapped. Trapped by myself; by the countless reflections of myself who will not let me go. And there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it. When I push, the crowd pushes back. When I cry out, my voice comes back at me, echoing my own rising terror.
Suddenly I’m flailing wildly, desperate to escape. But only for a moment. It’s hopeless. The more I fight against them, the more they press in. I know that if I struggle, then I will be crushed.
This is not the way, I tell myself.
I stop resisting. The pressure around me eases at once. Fighting back the blind panic, I still my thoughts and clear my head. And slowly, slowly, I allow myself to let go.
This is the opposite of what Belle’s been telling me to do. I realize that. Hold on; that’s what she’s kept on telling me. To your name, to your age, to who you are. To the mission . . .
But now in my mind I evaporate, becoming as insubstantial as a cloud of mist. And after that, instead of trying to force my body through the crowd, I begin to seep between them, slipping past countless reproductions of myself. I move softly, silently, almost unseen . . .
Far in the distance, a pulsing light appears. It grows brighter and I move towards it, not allowing myself to think of what is happening, what I’m doing. The light grows brighter, brighter . . .
And I’m suddenly released from myself.
I’m back in the memory banks.
Whatever just happened, it’s over. But while it was going on, I reckon it was just about the weirdest, most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. Like a nightmare. But worse, because I couldn’t wake up from it.
It was like I’d turned against myself. Belle told me all about the dangers of mind-warps and thought-cages and fractal mazes. But after what I’ve just been through, it seems like the greatest danger I’m ever going to have to face . . . is me.
Looking round, I find that I’m standing in a low-ceilinged room with tinted visiglass windows, all of them cracked or broken. It’s a huge computer hub. Head-high walls split the hall up into dozens of separate pods, each one complete with terminals, decks and holo-screens. I guess that once, not so long ago, the place was buzzing with activity as tech-operatives worked together to keep the Outer Hull running smoothly.
Not now.
The machines are still humming, but there’s no one at the info-decks, no one monitoring the flickering screens. It’s like every single person’s just upped and left.
The thing is though, the hall is not empty. Instead of people, there are zoids here. Lots of them. I look round hurriedly to check whether any of them has the infinity symbol hovering over its head.
All clear.
The zoids are carrying out tasks I can’t guess at. They’re communicating with one another, their eyes flashing red, first one, then another in silent response.
It’s weird and spooky seeing this scene of zoids evolving into machines that are independent of humans. I’m guessing that this must be the moment when, having turned from helpers to killers, they began to form themselves into an army.
My stomach’s churning. My head’s in a whirl.
I pass through a second doorway.
‘Hot swarf!’ I exclaim.
I’m standing in a place that’s been designed by and for zoids, not for humans at all. There are no desk-pods. No workstations. No overhead lights. Apart from the red, green and blue dials glowing at a thousand display panels, and the twinkling white pulses of energy moving endlessly along a tangle of cables that criss-cross the air from floor to ceiling, the place is in darkness. And then I see them.
Humans. Twenty of them, maybe more. Men and women.
Some are sitting, heads bowed and slumped forward, or hugging their knees and rocking slowly back and forth. Others are lying motionless on the floor. Their eyes are all open, but they’re glazed and unseeing. Strands of glistening drool hang from the corners of their open mouths. They’re bone thin, with matt grey skin.
They look . . . empty.
A man is strapped into a chair. Curved bands of urilium at his wrists, ankles and neck are holding him in place. He looks terrified.
Sections of motherboard, lengths of cable and struts of hardware surround the chair. And, as I watch, a dome-shaped helmet, with wires and cables coming out of it, descends and covers the man’s head. There’s a buzzing sound, and zigzags of dazzling static zing across from the metal helmet to the man’s head. Beneath it, his body twitches and convulses.
When the helmet rises again, the man slumps forward. His terror has gone, but no other emotion has taken its place. He looks just like Gaffer Jed, Lina’s grandfather, did after his thoughts and memories were uploaded into the death zoid back in the Outer Hull. Empty. Drained.
But what’s happened to this man’s thoughts and memories?
‘Hold on.’
The voice is distant.
‘York, hold on.’
York.
‘Hold on to what you know,’ she’s telling me.
My name is York . . . I’m a scavenger . . .
And as I say the words, circles of white light appear in front of me. They grow brighter and brighter. I step forward into them . . .
And I’m back in the shaft again.
My body shakes violently as I grip the mind-ladder. The darkness around us is pulsing and the air is thick with billowing cloud. Belle’s standing just below me. When she speaks, her voice is accompanied by flashes of light and a strange echoing hiss.
I concentrate on her words.
‘Are you all right?’ she’s asking me.
‘I am now,’ I say. ‘It . . . it was like I travelled back in time, Belle,’ I tell her. ‘To five hundred years after the Launch Times, just after the robot rebellion. I was in the Outer Hull . . .’
Belle’s nodding.
‘But then a virus scanner caught me. It was disguised as a zoid. I found myself in this weird place, surrounded by a massive crowd of . . . of myself. Thousands of me. I panicked. But then I sort of, I don’t know . . . kind of let my thoughts go . . .’
‘You did well, York,’ she says, and I’m pleased to hear the approval in her voice. ‘You were trapped inside a thought-cage.’
‘That was a thought-cage?’ I say numbly.
She nods. ‘I was afraid I’d lost you, York. And I don’t know what I’d have done if I had.’ She turns away, but not before I’ve seen the look of pain in her face. ‘Luckily,’ she goes on, ‘I picked up your thought-signature at a synaptic junction back there and managed to open the portal. But we might not be so lucky next time. The virus scanners are getting close, so we’re going to have to move faster.’
‘What exactly are we looking for, Belle?’ I ask her. ‘I’ve witnessed the destruction of living quarters, the fightback by the crew, zoids uploading humans’ minds—’
‘That is the trail we need to follow,’ Belle interrupts. ‘We must find the moment when the first robot rebelled against its primary protocol and harmed a human. I have detected a neural pathway at Launch Year 500 which looks promising.’
Just then, the shaft suddenly brightens. Concentric rings of dazzling light rise up from the shadowy depths below. I grip the rungs of the mind-ladder.
Belle’s voice sounds in my ear. ‘Let go, York. And take care . . .’
Once more I look around me, trying to get my bearings. I’m standing in some kind of storage depot. In front of me are rows of low sheds, twenty or so in all, each one with a sign on its door. PH Mark I – Head Units. PH Mark II – Head Units. PH Mark IV – Limb Units. And so on. Robot parts. Behind me is a vast hangar. On one of its double doors is a sign that looks more promising.
PH Mark I – Assembled Units.
I’m about to go inside when I hear voices behind me, and I turn to see two people coming towards me. Two men. Like the ones I saw earlier, their names are on patches stitched to their tunics. Pat Hinton. Jackson Chung. They’re sharing some kind of a joke, roaring with laughter.
‘Next thing I know, it collapses,’ says Pat.
‘So what did you say?’ Jackson chuckles.
Pat grins. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he tells him, then adds. ‘But it wasn’t polite.’
And the pair of them roar with laughter all over again.
I smile to myself. Back in the Inpost where I grew up there wasn’t much laughter. We were under constant attack. Life was grim and people were serious. Not like these two, who are relaxed, happy and seemingly without a care in the world. I envy them.
Jackson is carrying a large tool bag. Pat is holding a heavy metal wrench in one hand and has what looks like a holo-pad tucked under his other arm.
‘Come on then,’ says Jackson, slapping his friend on the back. ‘Let’s get this thing done.’
They enter the hangar. I follow them.
Belle is back on the mind-ladder, keeping the portal open with her thoughts. Pulse control, as she calls it. I’ve just got to trust her to pull me out if things go wrong.
Inside, the place is cavernous and dark. We head down the central aisle past crates, barrels and stacks of sheet metal. As the two men walk forward, lights come on overhead, illuminating the gloom below. They come to a halt. Pat runs a finger down the holo-pad he’s holding, then looks up and points.
‘They should be over there,’ he says, and the pair of them stride over to the far corner.
Behind a screen is a line of robots. They look familiar. They’re friendly-looking machines. Squat, round and with stubby legs and arms, they have two eyes and a mouth that’s fixed in a welcoming smile. I find myself smiling back.
Ralph!
Robotic-Assist Level Personal Help. One of these units once saved my life. Back in the Clan-Safe it was, when that madman Dale was trying to have me killed. It died – if ‘died’ is the right word for a robot – in the process. But I kept hold of the simple data memory-chip embedded in the interface unit that carried its consciousness. I remember slipping it into the pocket of my flakcoat.
‘Any idea why this lot were decommissioned?’ Pat is asking his friend.
‘Better upgrades made them obsolete, I suppose,’ Jackson says, setting his tool bag down on the floor. ‘But Casey reckons they can be stripped for parts.’
Pat walks up to one of the robots and peers into its dark visiglass eyes. It’s got a long scratch down the left side of its head, and a small dent.
‘Reckon it’ll still work?’ asks Jackson.
Pat inspects the notes on his holo-pad again. ‘It says here that a Mark 1 Personal Help unit is activated by pressing a button at the back of its neck.’
‘I reckon this Mark probably needs recharging,’ says Jackson.
Pat nods. ‘Probably,’ he says. ‘But I’ll give it a go.’
With the wrench still gripped in one hand, he reaches round the back of the robot. There is a click, followed by a hum, and the robot’s eyes glow red.
‘Wow,’ Jackson breathes, impressed. ‘After all this time . . .’
‘Greetwell,’ the robot says. Its voice is soft and warm, but there’s something sinister in his tone that makes my flesh crawl. It scans the name patches. ‘Greetwell, Pat Hinton and Jackson Chung. How may I serve you?’
The two men look at one another and laugh. ‘Give us a little dance,’ says Pat.
The robot tries its best, swaying from side to side, its stubby arms waving about. The men think this is hilarious.
‘How about a cartwheel?’ says Jackson.
The robot pauses. ‘A cartwheel?’ it repeats. ‘I am afraid I do not understand the meaning of this term.’
Which makes them laugh all the louder.
‘Well, if you can’t do cartwheels,’ says Pat, ‘I’m afraid you’re no use to us. Stripping for parts it is,’ he adds, and reaches behind the robot’s neck again to switch it off.
