Prometheus Mode, page 3
“Watch his mouth!” Brother Nicholas says, pushing Reggie away.
Jake’s freed hand is a claw. He raises it and rakes at the bite. Reggie tries to wrestle it away, but Jake’s fingers hook onto the collar of his own shirt. When it tears, I see a sickly yellow and green bruise spreading down his chest. Deep purple veins radiate through it like parasitic worms. Fresh blood trickles from the reopened puncture. Beside me, Ashley sobs and hides her face.
Kelly stands at the foot of the table. His face is deep red and twisted in fury. “Where the hell is Brother Matthew with those leaves?”
“I’m here,” a voice sounds from the far doorway. Then the man appears, his arms full of twigs. “Didn’t bother with the elevator. Too slow. Had some trouble on the stairs, though. I think a Deceiver might have tried to follow me down.”
“You let one in?”
“I think it was already inside, possibly one we thought we had silenced.”
“You said you checked them!” Kelly cries.
“Why do you think we call them Deceivers?” Brother Matthew says matter-of-factly. “It’s not like I can just check for a pulse.”
Kelly looks over at me in exasperation. “Can you deal with it, Jess?” He points his chin at a stack of weapons on an adjacent table.
“I’ll go,” Micah offers. He hesitates, as if expecting someone to stop him.
“We’ll go together,” I say. Kelly nods. No one wants Micah going off on his own right now.
In truth, I’d rather Micah stayed here. But I worry about Reggie or Ashley losing control and attacking him. They can be impulsive at times, especially when they’re angry.
We head for the stairwell and stop just outside the door to listen. I can’t be sure, but it does sound like something’s moving around up there, like a body’s being dragged down the steps. I pull out Izzy. Micah has his own knife. He nods and opens the door.
The stairwell is littered with bodies. Blood splatter and gore cover the walls, dark brown and thick, like someone flung cans of chunky stew at them. There’s a lot of coagulated blood.
“Damn Players,” Micah grunts, as he mounts the stairs.
Deceivers, I think. Not Players.
It’s an oddly appropriate term. Or maybe it’s just that Players isn’t appropriate at all. There’s nothing playful about CUs, not in the least.
“More broken necks,” he says, eying the corpses. “That’s quite a signature. Maybe those guys are military.”
“What, you think maybe they’re lying about being survivors?”
The irony.
I study his face, but he gives me nothing.
“It would explain how they knew we were here. If Arc’s tracking us—”
“Not since Stephen and Tanya died.”
“You don’t know that, Jess. Arc could be watching us right now.”
“Yeah, they could. They probably know exactly what we’re doing right this very second.”
He pauses just the slightest, then resumes climbing. I wish I could see his face, but he keeps it turned away from me.
“Well, this whole island’s wired for video,” he says. “That’s how they get clips to show on Survivalist. So why not this building, too? Of all the places they’d want to keep an eye on things.”
He makes a show of looking around, as if he could spot their cameras. I’m not so sure Arc would have them here. If they do, they’d be almost impossible to spot.
“In fact,” he goes on, “they could be the ones telling Operators where to take their Players.”
“Why would they do that?” I ask. “Especially if they’re just going to have a couple Marines take them out?”
“Who knows why Arc does what they do anymore?”
“Yeah, who knows?”
I push past him. I want to get in front so I can see his face. But all our talking has driven whatever it is above us into a frenzy. It’s moving more quickly now, more urgently. It’s time for us to focus.
We reach the CU two landings up. Its neck is clearly broken, but its spinal cord was either not completely severed, or the break was too low to kill it. At any rate, it has no use of its legs, just its arms.
We watch it half-drag, half-fall down another three steps. It faces us with those blind eyes and opens its mouth. Nothing comes out.
“Well, I guess Brother Matthew was right,” he says. “They really are deceivers if it faked them out before.”
“Can’t trust them at all,” I mutter.
“You want the honors?” he asks.
I wait for it to drag itself onto the landing. Do I have the stomach to do what needs to be done and finish it off?
Just pretend it’s Arc.
I step forward, lift my foot, and place it square on the Player’s back. I set the tip of the knife in the hollow at the base of its skull. I can feel Micah watching me. He’s probably getting off on this. I tighten my grip around the handle and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.
It’s Arc, I think.
It’s Micah.
“Well?” he says. “Or do you want me to do it?’
“I got this,” I growl. I raise my other hand and bring it smartly down on the butt of the knife. There’s the crack as the blade cleanly enters the Player’s neck between two vertebrae.
The Player relaxes. The trapped air in its chest exits with a sigh.
Free at last, I think. Free to rest. Free from its deceiving ways.
“Congratulations,” Micah says. “You probably just cost some guy in Boston a million bucks. Or Seattle.”
“I hope it was five times that much.”
Micah bends down and gently pulls my hand away. He gives Izzy a vicious twist, then yanks the knife free. “That’ll teach you to volunteer, you lying piece of shit.”
“You don’t know if she volunteered. Maybe she had no choice being here. Like us.”
“Well, she’s dead for good now.” He leans down. “You hear that, you piece of shit? You’re dead.”
“It can’t hear you.”
“No, but its Operator probably can. I don’t know how long the connection remains active, but just in case...” He turns back to it. “You tell Arc and your rich prick buddies they’re messing with the wrong people. We beat your stupid failsafe. We’re getting out of here today!”
I pull him away, shocked that he would announce such a thing. “Why would you tell them?”
Because he’s working for them.
“Give me the knife,” I say.
He looks at me. Then he looks at the knives in his hands. Now he’s got two, and I’ve got none.
“Micah?”
Before I can brace myself, he thrusts it down again, deep into the CUs neck.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelp.
“I just want to check something.”
“Check what?”
He levers the tip upward, up beneath the notch at the base of the skull and starts to dig. I can hear tendons snapping.
A high-pitched whine begins to fill the stairwell. It rises to a peak, then stops. An electrical-sounding pop follows. I grab Micah and shove him to the floor just as the Player’s head vaporizes. We both manage to shield our faces before we’re showered in gore and bone fragments.
“What the fuck was that?” I scream.
“I always wondered if those safety mechanisms were real,” Micah sputters. He spits to the side, slides his tongue over his teeth, and spits again.
I glare at him. “Of all the stupidest things to do! Why the hell would you need to verify that? Everyone knows it’s true! It’s to keep people from reverse engineering them, you idiot!”
He rubs a few flecks of hair and bone off his cheek. “Well, now we know for sure.”
“Asshole!”
He picks himself up and begins descending the stairs. “You coming?”
I stare at his back, wondering if there was something about this Player and its implant he didn’t want me seeing.
Chapter 4
Jake’s still unconscious when we return downstairs. He seems to be in less pain now. I don’t know if it’s because of the leaves or he’s simply exhausted himself. His inhales come in short, rapid gasps. The air leaves him in long, rattling exhales.
“You’ve stripped him down?” I ask.
“To keep his body temperature low as much as possible,” Brother Nicholas says.
The boys sprinkle water over his body. It’s already pretty cool down here with the air conditioning for the huge bank of computers. Just looking at him lying there in nothing but his underwear gives me goose bumps, and not the good kind.
Beneath the unforgiving glare of the old-fashioned fluorescent bulbs, his skin glistens with a pale green-gray hue. A new bandage covers his wound. It’s thick. I wonder if the leaves Brother Matthew collected are underneath. I can’t imagine Jake taking anything by mouth.
Kelly and Reggie are busy lashing a thick strap about his waist, presumably to keep him from thrashing around too much and falling off the table. His hands and feet are already bound to each of the table’s four corners. The image is familiar, and a sudden terrifying thought comes to mind that this is just a continuation of Arc’s sadistic script. Second verse, same as the first. We’ve now come full circle from being lashed to our beds in LaGuardia.
Heat rolls off his body. I can feel it from a foot away. Forty-eight hours now seems like far too optimistic a prognosis. I’ll be surprised if he makes it to nightfall.
The two men are standing off to one side, discussing something. Reggie joins them and is soon gesturing and making angry sounds. Brothers Nicholas and Matthew actually look a little frightened of him, like they think he might just haul off and knock their heads off. Kelly motions for me to meet him alone in a different corner of the room. As we go, he gives Micah a hard look. Micah hesitates a moment, then heads for Ashley, who’s sitting on the floor with her back against the wall.
This’ll be interesting, I think, before following Kelly.
“What the hell happened up there?” he demands.
“Micah happened. That idiot decided it might be fun to dig out the Player’s implant.”
“Why the hell for?”
“I’d like to know that, too. I can’t figure out if he’s genuinely that stupid or he was trying to destroy evidence.”
“Of what?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, Micah may be a lot of things, but he’s not dumb.”
“Yeah, that’s what’s got me worried. What’s the latest on Jake?”
“He’s stable for now. But you and I both know where this is going, right?”
I don’t want to think about. I refuse to accept that there’s nothing we can do for him. I have to believe that there’s a way to get rid of the disease, because if there isn’t, then Kelly’s screwed, too. Maybe Stephen lied about that, like he did so many other things. Or maybe he didn’t. Either way, I can’t take the chance. We need to get them both to Arc Headquarters within the next twenty-four hours.
“Do you have a plan for retrieving Ashley’s Link?”
He shakes his head. “We’ve tried a few things. Ashley wrapped some bandaging tape she found in a desk upstairs onto the end of a broom handle, but it wasn’t sticky enough.”
“It’s visible? You can see it?”
“Oh yeah.” He takes me over to look. I have to put my eye right down to the one-inch gap between the floor and the elevator car and squint. I can just make it out about three feet down.
“We need something stickier. Or something that can grab it.”
By the time I’m back on my feet, Reggie’s left the men and is sitting with Ash, trying to console her. Micah’s moved off. It infuriates me knowing what he’s hiding.
The two men are still standing where they were before, still whispering to each other. I can tell by the expressions on their faces that they’re arguing.
“So, what do you think about them?” I ask Kelly. “Are they some kind of religious cult? How’d they know you were here? And how can you trust them?”
Kelly shrugs. “They showed up while we were fighting off the Players — just appeared out of nowhere, lucky for us — and started taking them out. They’re extremely efficient. They just walk right up to them and—” He shivers.
“Cold blooded killers. Micah thought they might be Military.”
“No. I don’t think they enjoyed putting them down. In fact, they seem almost... I don’t. Compassionate?” He frowns. “Respectful might be a better word. It’s quiet, clean, and efficient, but they’re not ruthless.”
“It’s not very efficient if they leave some of them still alive,” I point out.
“Yeah, which is another reason why I don’t think they’re Marines.”
“Maybe they’re with Arc.”
“Arc? No way. I get the feeling they really don’t like Arc.”
“Anti-implant then? Off-the-gridders?”
“Both, but unintentionally. I think they’re really from the outbreak.”
“The men who took you and Jake to LaGuardia lied about who they were,” I remind him.
“Yeah, and I didn’t believe them for a second.”
“You could be wrong now.”
“True. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw Reggie, but I think we should take them at their word for now. Let’s see how this plays out.”
“Are you willing to let this thing with Micah play out, too?”
His face darkens.
“They haven’t threatened us or forced us do anything. Yet. All they’ve done is offer to help with Jake.”
“With herbal remedies, Kelly.”
“They seem to be working. Jake’s quieted down.”
I really don’t like that word, quiet. It’s the same one Jake himself used when talking about killing the infected.
“He might just be exhausted,” I say.
I take another glance about the room. Everyone’s still in the same positions. Ashley’s stopped crying. That’s the only difference. Micah’s talking to her, but she seems like she’s in a daze. I don’t know if she’s aware he’s there.
“You want to tell me what Ashley saw in the script that proves Micah’s with Arc? That’s a pretty damning accusation, especially coming from you, who just a few days ago admitted to working for them, too.”
He nods and swallows. “I know. I was such an idiot. But now I’m wondering if they used me, not to spy on Micah, but to keep track of how close we were to learning his true identity.”
“His true identity?”
“He’s clearly not who he’s said he is.”
Micah sees us looking at him. He stands up and starts to wander over.
Kelly pulls me into the open elevator car. “You remember that day in Manhattan, down at the Midtown tunnel? Remember how I said Reggie pushed me over the railing?”
I nod.
“Well, that never sat right with me. Reggie’s a big galoot. He can be reckless, but he’s not mean-spirited. Not like that.”
“Pissing into your Red Bull would be mean-spirited,” I point out. “Pushing you into the water might be dangerous and stupid, but it isn’t necessarily mean-spirited.”
“I know. Reggie’s not stupid. It’s not his style, either. Not like hacking into my Zpocalypto account and changing all of my avatars to females. Ugly females.”
An involuntary snort of laughter bubbles out of me. “Sorry. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, ever since that day, I’ve had this bad feeling, like I was missing something. And then Jake joined the group, and I—”
You suspected him.”
“Yeah. That’s why I was so hard on him. And it’s the reason I didn’t want you going back for him, either. I wanted to keep you clean of all of this bullshit I’d gotten us all into.”
“Jake doesn’t know the first thing about coding. Or gaming. He doesn’t work for Arc.”
“Or so he says. But I think you’re right. He’s book smart, but not street smart. I don’t think anyone could fake that kind of dumb.”
“No,” I agree. “With Jake, what you see is what you get.”
“Same with Reggie. But not Micah.” He lets out a deep breath. “I never would’ve guessed it was him. That one really hurts.”
“Funny how that happens. He’s the one with the most secrets of all of us, and the one we least suspected.”
“He played a good game— poor kid and his parents, refuges from the SSC. Gets the sympathy vote.”
“And he’s always been vocal about his cynicism of Arc,” I add.
“To throw us off his scent.”
“Did Ashley actually show you proof he coded the failsafe for Stephen?”
“Parts of the script matched his tracker. Exactly.”
“But Arc had his scripts,” I remind him. “If they didn’t already have them, you gave them to Arc. It wouldn’t have been very difficult for anyone to copy them.”
“But to use the same syntax in two vastly different programs?”
“It’s not that hard to do. Anyone who’s studied his style could write a script that looks like he authored it.”
“She was already suspicious when we left the airport. So when she sent him her fix last night, it was a test. She didn’t tell anyone until she was sure, but she already knew it wouldn’t work.”
“She told you that?” I say, surprised.
“Yes. She was testing him. She said he should easily have figured out it wasn’t doable. But he never said a word about it.”
“Well, to be fair, he did tell me it wouldn’t work. He just couldn’t explain how he knew. He still hasn’t recovered all his memory.”
“I don’t think he ever lost it.”
I don’t have an answer for him.
“Okay, but that’s not what convinced me. What finally did was the light saber hack he wrote for Zpocalypto. Remember that? I never sent that to Arc. It was such a minor thing that I felt like it would be ridiculous for me to send it on. Well, it turns out the sequence of commands he used for that little bit of wizardry is exactly the same in part of the failsafe— not just the scripting, of course, but the goddamn architecture of the executable files.”
