Doomsday Hunter 2, page 27
part #2 of Doomsday Hunter Series
“No!” he called out, nearly in tears. “That wasn’t supposed to happen until five o’clock tonight. There was going to be a big ceremony and everything. I’m just a scientist, please don’t kill me!”
Internally, I let out a sigh of relief. We weren’t too late. However, I wasn’t going to show this guy any sympathy.
“If you want to live, leave,” I commanded.
“But first,” Tracey interjected, “tell us what this chair is for. Why is there a mindmelder here?”
The man got to his feet, but he was shaking like they were made of rubber.
“It’s--It’s the failsafe,” he blubbered. “The military wanted to create a mind link, so only a select few members could control it.”
So, there was a failsafe.
“What happens if we just start shooting it up?” I questioned. “Will that destroy the AI for good?”
“N-No.” The scrawny scientist shook his head. “If the system is destroyed externally, it’s been programmed to automatically backup to another secure server.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Natalie groaned. “So, how the hell do we erase it for good?”
The man fell down into a ball once more as he started to beg for his life.
“You have to do it from the inside!” he cried. “That’s all I know. Please just--”
“Get out of here,” I conceded. “Go now, before we change our minds.”
The scientist jumped up to his feet and then dashed down the line of drones until he came to the same door we had entered through. It slammed shut behind him, and then the three of us were all alone.
At least, we were alone for now. There would be Deltacorp soldiers here at any moment.
“From the inside…” Tracey trailed off as she looked over at the chair. “So, that means--”
“If we want to erase Dr. Merrick’s AI for good, we need to hook ourselves up to the machine,” I finished. “I’ve already got the guy in my head, so I’ll do it.”
“Wait, Hunter.” Tracey shook her head and stepped in front of me. “This isn’t like the last time. If we hook you up and send your consciousness inside of that machine, you’ll be in Jackson Merrick’s world. He’ll have the upper hand, and anything could happen. Worst of all, if things go south, you could end up brain dead.”
I just placed my hand softly against Tracey’s cheek.
“We don’t have another choice,” I reaffirmed. “Natalie? I want you to set up a perimeter for when those soldiers get here. I’ve seen you fight off hordes of Rubberfaces, so I’m guessing you can probably handle a handful of humans, right?”
“If I can’t, we’ll find out very quickly.” The Scavenger winked.
“And Tracey?” I turned back to the brunette.
“Yeah?” she asked, and her hazel eyes were full of tears.
“Hook me up,” I commanded. “I’m going to pay Dr. Merrick a little one-on-one visit.”
Chapter 15
“Hunter, these things are called ‘mindmelders’ for a reason,” Tracey warned me as I sauntered over to the chair in front of the large, wall-wide server. “They work by literally melding your mind with the code in the computer… If those guards break in and accidentally damage the server, you could be trapped in there forever. Or worse.”
“It’s the risk we have to take,” I sighed, and then I positioned myself above the chair and leaned back.
The faux leather fabric was cold against my skin and refused to budge even an inch under my weight. I rested my feet down onto the platform at the chair’s bottom and then leaned back as far as it would let me.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Natalie was quickly fortifying our position with anything she could possibly find. Wheeled carts, random pieces of office furniture and tables, and even a few chunks of a disassembled drone were heaped together into a makeshift barricade. Sure, it wouldn’t really hold up once all the highly-trained guards with their advanced weaponry came through, but it would at least keep them at bay for long enough.
At least, we all hoped it would.
Tracey approached me, and fear was plastered all over her face.
“Please be careful, Hunter,” she pleaded. “And try to get out of there as soon as possible.”
“Speaking of which,” I pondered aloud, “do you know how the hell I get out of there once the job is done?”
“There are only two ways,” the programmer explained. “The first is by completely destroying the system from within. That would be the ideal form of exit, though I fully admit it’s also going to be the hardest. Your other choice would be to have the person on the outside unplug you at an agreed, specified time.”
“Why don’t we plan for both, then?” I asked. “I’ll try to destroy Dr. Merrick’s program from the inside, but if things really start to go south out here, just unplug me. But we’re only going to get one shot at this, so don’t pull me out unless you think we’re all about to be overrun or killed.”
“I can do that.” Tracey nodded as she bit her bottom lip nervously.
“Then it’s time to hook me up,” I announced. “Does this work the same as the last one?”
“Not exactly,” the former Deltacorp employee warned as she walked over and picked up the cable attached to the server. “Mindmelders have to be connected directly to the Occipital Lobe, so it won’t be going in through the side of your temple.”
“Uhhh,” I chuckled nervously. “How big of a needle is it? That’s what I’m most concerned about.”
“Size doesn’t matter,” Tracey joked. “But in all seriousness, it will just feel like you’re getting stung by a bee. A brief moment of sharp pain, and then it will all be over.”
“Okay.” I shuddered, though I was now starting to have second thoughts.
How many needles could I have shoved into my brain before it became a problem? I didn’t really want to find out, but I didn’t have much choice.
Tracey walked around the chair and then strapped me in using the belts that were attached to the sides.
“Just in case your body starts to jerk or spasm,” she explained. “You absolutely do not want this needle moving around in your brain.”
“Now, see?” I said, halfway joking. “When you say things like that, it makes the needle sound huge.”
“Are you ready?” Tracey asked with a slight tremble in her voice.
“Hook me up,” I announced.
“Good luck, Hunter!” Natalie called out as she threw another tacky office chair onto the heap.
“You, too,” I called back to the Scavenger. “Kick their asses for me, Natalie.”
The blonde woman shot me a wink before she returned to fortifying.
Suddenly, Tracey’s palm was resting on my forehead from behind.
“Alright,” she warned, “don’t move a muscle…”
The next thing I knew, there was a sharp searing pain at the back of my neck. It definitely hurt worse than a bee sting. It felt like a freaking four-inch needle had just been plunged into my spinal cord.
I tensed up and clenched my fists to quell the sensation, but it went away in a flash. Then I heard the sound of Tracey’s shoes against the concrete as she walked toward the server.
“A bee sting, huh?” I grumbled.
“You don’t seem to be a fan of needles, so I played it down a bit,” Tracey chuckled. “Still, it doesn’t hurt now, does it?”
“If the needle was that gigantic, I’m surprised I can feel anything,” I joked sarcastically.
Even though I was locked in and could do nothing but look up at the vaulted industrial ceiling, I still heard Tracey’s fingers typing away at a nearby keyboard.
“The command is written out and ready to go,” Tracey hesitated. “All I have to do is press the ‘enter’ key, and it’ll send you in.”
“Do it.”
Tracey let out a sad sigh, but she then pressed her finger to the key.
A jolt of electricity shot through my very core, and then the world darkened as my body went limp.
The darkness began to fade into light after only a brief moment, though the world around me had grown eerily silent. When my vision returned, I saw I was now standing atop a black, shiny surface with neon green lights running all along the edges.
Whatever I was standing on stretched out for as far as the eye could see in all directions and led to a landscape that was nothing but darkness with a few flashing baby blue lights.
Was I inside of the server, or did I just accidentally walk onto the set of The Lawnmower Man?
I took a few steps forward, threw out my hands in a challenge, and then called out into the darkness.
“Merrick!” I shouted. “I’m here to have a little chat with you.”
“And why in the bloody hell would I want to talk with you, Hunter Bragg?” the nasally, condescending voice of Dr. Merrick echoed across the landscape. “You may be a clever thief, but you’re still just a simple man. A Pest Control Technician, I believe I read?”
“At least you didn’t call me an exterminator like everybody else,” I shot back as I looked around for any sign of the man.
“Ye have little faith, Hunter,” Merrick mused. “As much as I hate the concept of titles, I know lesser men like yourself wrap themselves up in them, a swaddled baby in a blanket of mental comfort.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work.” I warned. “I may have been a Pest Control Technician in this dimension, but I’m a well-trained Wayfarer in mine.”
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear,” the voice chuckled. “Tell me more about your dimension, Hunter Bragg. I want to know which one I should attempt to conquer once I have discovered and mastered interdimensional travel.”
“Show yourself and I’ll consider it.” I shrugged.
“You humans are all alike,” Dr. Merrick sighed, “wanting to play the big tough man facing down their opponent. I grow bored with those sorts of theatrics.”
“If my memory serves me right,” I argued, “you had a reeeaaaallly strong taste for theatrics when you were still in your human body. I mean, people don’t just get dishonorably discharged from the military for nothing, right? I still want to hear that story.”
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Merrick’s voice chuckled. “That is how you found out about me, right? You scoured the internet of my dimension until you figured out when I enacted my plan. My only question is… How did you have the capability to do it? According to my calculations, this would have required a machine with ten times the computing power of anything around during the period where you were a young man. And even then, it would have taken approximately six years to do all that research and come to that conclusion.”
“You’re not the only AI in the universe,” I retorted.
“Another hyper-intelligent AI?” The doctor’s voice turned from cocky to curious. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
Suddenly, through the darkness out stepped a short figure clad in a baby blue Deltacorp lab coat draped over the top of a set of urban combat military fatigues.
This guy may have been a genius scientist, but apparently he wasn’t smart enough to realize how his outfit clashed.
Even though he was short, Merrick was built like he could participate in the Mr. Universe bodybuilding competition. His forearms were as thick as my head, and he sauntered with the gait of a man who was constantly trying to retain his balance. Even though he dressed like a military man and carried himself like a hardass, though, I could see right through his facade.
He was a nerd cosplaying as a general, at best.
“Thanks for finally showing your face,” I grumbled as the man approached. “You’re a lot shorter than I thought you’d be.”
“Your put-down tactics won’t work on me, Mr. Bragg,” Merrick noted as he placed his hands behind his back. “I was in the military for years. No matter what you say to me, I can assure you my drill instructor has said worse. Now, tell me about this AI of yours…”
I needed to keep him distracted long enough to make my move. Once he got close, I was going to overpower him, knock him out, and then try to figure out where the shutdowns were. And to do that, I just needed to keep him monologuing.
“He’s way more advanced than you, that’s for sure,” I snorted. “I mean, come on… How else was he able to crack interdimensional travel before you could?”
“That’s doubtful.” Merrick shook his head. “If he was so advanced, he wouldn’t have asked you to bring a copy of my AI back with him, would he?”
“You know what they say,” I retorted nonchalantly. “Things can always be better.”
Come on… Just a few more steps.
“So, who was the scientist that ended up with the breakthrough?” Dr. Merrick questioned. “Was it Thompson? Geniavoli? Pakowski?”
“Nash,” I confirmed.
“Nash…” Dr. Merrick trailed off as he tried to think of the man I was referring to.
“David Nash,” I clarified, “he’s got a daughter who’s about as smart as he is.”
The lightbulb seemed to go off in Merrick’s artificial head, but it just seemed to confuse him more. “
“Nash?” he gasped. “The crackpot in Minnesota? Well, I’ll be damned… I never would have thought he’d get a full grasp on quarks, let alone make a breakthrough in interdimensional travel. So, Mr. Bragg… How does he do it?”
“Why the hell would I tell you?” I scoffed.
Merrick was now only a few feet away from me now, so I prepared to attack. He may have been a beefcake, but with my enhanced speed and strength it wouldn’t be too difficult to overpower him like any other human.
“Because, Mr. Bragg.” He grinned devilishly. “You’re not coming out of this alive. And when I kill you, there’s a chance your brain might get fried. And if that happens, it’s going to take me a lot of extra work to extract the information I need. You may as well just be upfront about it.”
Fat chance.
Now that the man was close enough, I sprung my attack. From a standstill, I crouched down, launched myself toward the man, and outstretched my arms to tackle him to the ground.
However, Merrick simply sidestepped my attack.
I caught air before I slammed into the ground and rolled to a stop a few feet away.
What the hell? I knew I was way faster than this guy…
I was going to have to change my approach.
In one quick motion, I sprang up to my feet, charged at Merrick, and hauled back my fist. Then I lashed out at the doctor, who threw up his arm feebly for protection.
My arm struck Merrick’s and stopped instantly.
“Hunter, Hunter, Hunter…” Dr. Merrick clicked his tongue. “You should know better. You’re in my world now. A world that bends to my every thought and will.”
Before I could make another move, what felt like a bunch of disembodied hands shot out of nothingness and wrapped around my arms and legs. I struggled to break free, but it was useless as they lifted me up into the air.
“What the hell?” I growled. “How are you doing this?”
“What did you expect?” the doctor sighed. “You’ve entered my ‘mind,’ Wayfarer. If you think I’m going to let anybody be stronger, faster, or smarter than me in my own coding, you’re sorely mistaken. Now… tell me about Dr. Nash’s machine.”
“Piss off,” I spat.
Dr. Merrick simply rolled his eyes before he snapped his fingers, and the arms around my body all yanked in opposite directions to splay me out like I was being drawn and quartered. My joints screamed for dear life as they tried to hold together, but I wasn’t going to let him know I was in pain.
Then Merrick strolled over, hauled back with his hand, and slugged me in the gut.
His fist struck my taut stomach with a harsh, fleshy thump, and I gasped as all the air in my lungs shot out through my mouth. I couldn’t even double over in agony before he delivered two more punches to the sides of my gut, like an agile boxer jabbing at his opponent. Finally, he stepped back and brushed off his sleeves.
“Let’s try this again,” he began. “What is the secret of Dr. Nash’s machine?”
“I can see why you were dishonorably discharged,” I gasped through my pain.
“I did what needed to be done to keep the world safe,” Merrick spat. “And after I’m done with my mission here, I’ll move on and save the rest of the dimensions from their impending dooms.”
“What don’t you understand?” I scoffed. “You are the impending doom in this dimension. Do you really think starting a war and then enslaving the entire human race is ‘saving it?’”
Merrick let out a slight chuckle before he doubled over in laughter.
“War is peace,” the doctor began, “freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Or is your tiny human brain too stupid to recognize that quote?”
“I took Freshman English, dumbass,” I shot back. “Is that what you think you’re doing? Because I hate to break it to you, but Big Brother was the bad guy in that story.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.” Dr. Merrick shrugged. “Now, stop trying to be a hero. Because in the face of pain--”
The doctor suddenly spun around and slammed his fist into my gut once more.
My insides were on fire, but I didn’t dare give up any information.
“There are no heroes,” I finished the quote for him through gritted teeth. “Come on, Merrick… You’ll have to do better than that.”
“Very well,” the doctor noted, and then he took a step back. “If physical pain isn’t going to do the trick, then perhaps I just need to change my methods.”
The doctor snapped his fingers again, and then two figures appeared at his side. Two women, a tall brunette and the other a fit blonde. They were both bound and gagged, and their eyes were wide with horror.
My blood ran cold when I realized what he was doing.
Tracey and Natalie.
No, no, Hunter… This wasn’t real. They were just digital manifestations of your mates, made by Dr. Merrick to mess with your head.
Still, the fear in their eyes looked real as they tried to escape their bonds.
