Proxy, page 32
Elijah glanced back over his shoulder. “How close are they?”
“Close,” said the proxy, stepping towards the river’s edge. “Hurry.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Elijah. “The two of you can move a lot faster than I can. I’ll head along the riverside and make as much noise as I can to lead them away. That way you can make a break for the car.”
“They’ll kill you,” said Stacy, her expression full of horror.
Elijah shook his head and touched his chest. “Why would they? This isn’t my skin–I’m in prison, where they can’t get near me. If they catch me, either they’ll take him over, in which case he still shouldn’t come to any harm, or I’ll tell them as much.” He pointed at her. “You aren’t in anyone’s skin but your own. If anyone’s in danger here, it’s you, not me.”
“It’s a good plan,” Zero agreed, looking at Stacy. “I’m afraid I have to insist that we go now.”
She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all, even though she entirely understood the logic of their argument. She wanted to say, how can you possibly know they won’t just shoot your proxy?
And while it might not harm Elijah himself, it would result in one more needless death.
But by the time she had worked out all the arguments against Elijah’s suggestion, he was already gone, hobbling into the dark and hooting and hollering as he went.
Within seconds, he was lost entirely from sight. Stacy hardly noticed when the proxy took her by the arm and led her into the river.
She drew breath to scream when she sank up to her chest in the freezing water, but the proxy beside her clamped one hand over her mouth.
“We’re almost across, Stacy. Just keep walking,” he said.
It felt as if spears of ice were being driven through her heart, lungs and belly. A soft whimper escaped her throat as she splashed towards the opposite shore, the pebbles and soil underfoot threatening to give way from under her feet and send her tumbling beneath the icy waters.
But then, at last, she was on solid ground again, feeling more cold than she would ever have believed possible.
The proxy still hadn’t let go of her, although he had taken his hand from her mouth. If she’d screamed or made too much noise, she knew, their pursuers would have been able to find them much more easily.
Zero seemed to know where he was going, and she let him lead her back into the deep woods on the opposite shore.
Then she heard the crash of boots snapping twigs underfoot and hands pushing aside brush and branches, so much closer now that she was afraid to turn and look back the way they had come. Elijah’s plan clearly hadn’t worked.
Zero came to an abrupt halt and Stacy, who had been gripping onto the proxy’s arm for support, nearly slipped and fell. She squeezed her eyes shut as painfully bright light illuminated the trees all around them.
She peered through fanned fingers to see a line of silhouettes blocking her and Zero’s way. Past them, at the edge of the woods, she saw a parked van.
Her eyes soon adjusted well enough that she could recognize a number of the figures before them as some of Zero’s proxies—or former proxies, she assumed, all of them now under David Markov’s control. Many of them were carrying rifles with torches duct-taped to the undersides of their barrels, all of which were aimed at her and Zero.
Then the proxy beside her shoved her to the ground with sufficient force that she gasped from the pain.
“Long time, no see, Miss Cotter,” said one of the other proxies, stepping towards her. This one was young and skinny, about Stacy’s age. She thought she’d seen him around the house. His mouth was twisted up in apparent amusement.
She stared back at the proxy that had guided her so far through the trees and almost to safety, but it had the same cruel smile on its face.
“...David?” she said at last.
The younger proxy took a length of rope out of a pocket and stepped towards her. “I see you’ve worked it out. Very good. I suppose I have Isaac to thank for that. Put your hands behind your back, Stacy.”
“No,” said Stacy, summoning what little defiance she could still find within herself.
She struggled weakly in an attempt to get back on her feet, but before she could, the larger proxy lifted one booted foot and used it to shove her flat again.
The younger proxy pressed a knee into the small of her back and expertly knotted her wrists together behind her back with the rope. More of Markov’s proxies came forward now, lifting Stacy by her shoulders and dragging her over to the van. As they approached, the rear doors were opened by an elderly man with patchy grey hair.
“For what it’s worth,” David Markov continued, still speaking through the younger proxy, “you’d have been better staying in Paris. I can’t guarantee I would have left you alone forever, but this way…” The proxy shook his head. “It’s necessary, but please understand that I don’t take any enjoyment from it.”
She tried to think of something to say back, anything she could to hurt him, but she felt as if her lips had been glued together. Her strength finally fled her, and when they pushed her into the back of the van she put up no further resistance.
The bear-like proxy who’d guided her through the woods took a pistol and a data bracelet from one of the others, then climbed in the rear of the van next to Stacy. He sat on a narrow bench across from her as the doors were slammed shut.
“What are you going to do with me?” Stacy finally managed to ask, forcing the words through lips that had turned gummy and dry.
“Your father’s broken into my home,” said the proxy. “I’ll give him this—he’s got more balls than Finch ever had.” He raised the pistol slightly so it was almost, but not quite, pointing at Stacy. “Whatever he’s doing in there, I want you to tell him to stop. Because if he doesn’t—” he placed the barrel of the pistol against one of her knees. “—I can find a thousand ways to make you suffer.”
The van began to move under its own volition, rolling and bumping as it guided itself across uneven soil before picking up speed.
“Why?” she asked him, “Why hurt so many people?”
“How much has Isaac told you about me?” Markov asked instead of replying.
“That you want to live forever,” she replied. “That you want to control people using proxy.”
“Your father’s a visionary,” Markov replied. “But the most dangerous kind of visionary is the kind that only ever sees the best in people.” He gestured at himself with his free hand. “I see them for what they really are. Miserable and greedy and self-obsessed. Has he told you yet that he deliberately gave proxy away?”
Stacy nodded.
“The idiot,” the proxy muttered. “He thought by doing so he’d trigger some kind of interpersonal revolution, and instead he gave the world something closer to hell. I’m genuinely sorry people got hurt because of what I’ve done, but between the two of us, Isaac’s the greater sinner. He’s wreaked untold misery upon millions of innocents.”
She stared at the proxy, appalled. “Are you actually going to try to convince me you’re better than him?”
“I can put the world back on the path of righteousness,” Markov replied. There was an almost religious fervour to his voice. “We live in an age that glorifies the morally corrupt and the godless, while political power remains in the hands of spineless incompetents whose one skill in life is looking good in front of a camera. I can put an end to all of that. Once I have control of the right people, the most powerful people, I can lead us all back out of the darkness.”
Stacy laughed. She couldn’t help it. What did it mean, she wondered, that this old man felt driven to justify his actions to her even when he had won? Did he somehow want her approval?
“You locked your own son inside your failing body, murdered my mother, and tried to kill me,” she sneered, “and you’re telling me about morals?”
The proxy’s expression darkened. “Your mother was pushing her nose in where it didn’t belong.” He held out the data bracelet he had taken from another proxy. “I’m going to untie you, and then I want you to tell Isaac you’re here with me. Make him understand that if he leaves my home at once and never talks about the things he’s seen, I’ll leave you both in peace for the rest of your days.”
“No,” said Stacy, her voice filled with bleak certainty. “You won’t. Whatever I do, you’re going to kill us.”
The proxy’s expression twisted up in almost childlike fury. “I’m offering you a chance to live!” he shouted at her. “Are you really so stupid that you don’t understand that? I—!”
The proxy stopped mid-sentence, his eyes growing wide. He stared past Stacy, his knuckles white where they grasped the pistol.
“No,” he muttered between clenched teeth, and tried to stand upright. His head bumped hard against the roof of the van and he sat back down. “Stop. Stop.”
Then he seemed to remember Stacy was there, and raised the pistol until it was pointing straight at her, his fingers tightening around the trigger.
Stacy acted instinctively, throwing herself forward so that her upper body slammed the proxy against the wall of the van.
The gun in his hand went off.
A scream stalled in Stacy’s throat. Had she been shot?
The proxy violently pushed her away, and she went sprawling on the floor of the van, unable to right herself with the rope around her wrists. Her ears sang from the gunshot at such close range.
No, she realized, she hadn’t been shot. There was a bullet hole in the side of the van. It must have missed her by millimetres.
The proxy cursed and half-stood, using one hand to brace himself against the roof of the van. He used the other to aim at Stacy, and she kicked furiously at him with her legs. He staggered back towards the empty driver’s seat and caught himself against it.
Stacy heard another loud bang. At first she thought the proxy—Markov—had fired off another shot, but then the van span around in a half-circle, throwing her against the side of a bench.
The last thing she remembered seeing was a tall oak rushing towards the van.
I’m alive.
That one thought passed through Stacy’s mind when she finally came to. Looking around, she saw that she was still inside the van. It had come to rest on its side, and she lay crumpled against one of its walls.
There was no sign of the proxy with which David Markov had tried to murder her. The rear doors of the van were still closed, but the windscreen was shattered. The van had come to rest against the oak tree that had been the last thing she saw before losing consciousness. The wind blew leaves inside.
She tried to get up, then discovered her hands were still tied. She used her heels and butt to shuffle close enough to the van’s rear doors that she could try and kick at them, then swore under her breath when they didn’t even move.
“Miss Cotter!”
The voice wasn’t at all familiar, but the way it had said her name—some subtle inflection of the words—gave her hope.
Zero.
The rear doors were pulled open, and a grizzled-looking man in black tactical gear leaned in to look at her.
“It’s me, Zero,” the proxy said, looking her up and down with a worried expression. “How badly are you hurt? I heard a shot.”
“Markov—” She couldn’t get the rest of the words out. “He was in the van,” she managed to say at last.
“You’re safe now,” Zero told her. “David Markov is dead.”
Dead? She stared at the proxy, not quite able to believe it.
“...how?” she managed to ask in a half-croak.
Instead of replying, the proxy came inside the van and helped her back out and into the dawn of a new day. She rubbed her aching wrists when it cut the rope with a huge knife it took from its belt.
Looking around, she saw another mercenary proxy tending to the one Markov had used to try and murder her. He lay unmoving on the roadside near the van.
“What happened?” she asked the proxy helping her.
“I had to shoot out one of the tyres,” Zero explained. “It was risky, but I saw no other choice.”
Stacy nodded numbly. “That man,” she said, indicating the proxy lying on the road. “Is he dead?”
“He’s alive,” Zero told her, “and back under my control. But he’s going to require urgent hospital treatment. He’ll get the best medical help Telop can provide and all the financial assistance myself and Isaac can give him.”
It could just as easily have been her lying there in the middle of the road, she knew; but if the AI hadn’t shot out a tyre, would she even still be alive?
A car approached and pulled over. Two more proxies Stacy recognized from the safe house got out of it…accompanied by Elijah, still leaning on his improvised crutch.
He looked at her with a tired grin. “I don’t know if the damn machine mentioned it,” he said to her, “but there’ve been some developments.”
RAY
It occurred to Ray at one point that everything he had seen and done over the last several days would remain burned into his memory forever. And primary among those memories would be assisting in brain surgery while a battle raged around him.
Occasional shots sounded from far away as Zero, working through his tattooed proxy, prepped Isaac for what was clearly going to be a major operation.
The proxy gave Isaac an injection and asked him to count backwards from a hundred. He got to ninety-six before his eyelids fluttered shut.
“I appreciate this will be distressing for you,” the tattooed proxy murmured to Ray while drawing lines on Isaac’s freshly shaved skull with a marker pen. “But I may need your help from time to time. Can I rely on your aid?”
Ray’s tongue felt thick and sluggish in his mouth. “I guess.”
The proxy checked Isaac’s pulse. “He’s under. We can start.”
The proxy pushed some kind of wheeled machine over next to the bed Isaac now occupied. Under Zero’s direction, Ray had already dragged Markov’s corpse out of the way. The guard he’d earlier knocked out had regained consciousness, but Ray had made sure he was tied up good and tight enough not to be going anywhere soon.
“It’s fortunate,” said Zero, making some kind of adjustment to the machine, “that David Markov has the very latest portable imaging and surgical equipment. However, some of these machines are untested prototypes, so I can’t rule out difficulties.”
“Can you really do this?” Ray asked, unable to hide his concern. “I mean, obviously Markov did, but you said it took him years. You’re talking about doing the same thing to Isaac in, in…what? Minutes?” He shook his head. “It’s not possible.”
“It might seem impossible if you didn’t understand the underlying principles involved,” Zero replied calmly. “I could try to explain, but I’m not sure I could do so adequately even if you were a physicist, a surgeon and a mathematician all rolled into one.”
Something about this rankled Ray, as if the machine thought of him as inferior. “Try me,” he said. “I’m curious.”
“Well,” said Zero, his gaze fixed on a nearby screen, “first of all, you’d need a working knowledge of the principles underlying Hilbert space, and the subsequent interaction along a non-Euclidean vector of—”
“Okay,” said Ray, sounding nettled. “I get the idea. I won’t ask again.”
The proxy smiled at him with apparent sympathy. “As I said, it’s difficult to explain. Now give me a hand over here.”
Working together, they dragged more wheeled machines over next to the bed. Zero fitted an oxygen mask over Isaac’s face, fixing it in place with strips of surgical tape, then attached sensors to his creator’s wrists, their wires trailing over the sides of the bed and across the floor. Finally, he fitted a kind of clamp to the sides of Isaac’s head to help stabilize it.
“If you would help keep his head steady, Mr Thomas,” asked Zero, selecting a scalpel from a tray as he spoke, “I’d greatly appreciate it.”
Just the sight of the scalpel chilled Ray’s blood. “Do you really need my help with this?”
“I can do this on my own,” said Zero, “but working at speed increases the risk of error. I would greatly appreciate your assistance.”
Nodding tightly, Ray placed his hands where the proxy instructed, then held his breath as the proxy started with a deep incision behind one of Isaac’s ears. Before long, Zero had peeled back a large flap of flesh, exposing the bone of Isaac’s skull.
“I’m performing what’s called a non-reversible double craniotomy,” said the proxy, selecting a battery-powered drill from the same tray the scalpel had come from. “That means we have to do the same operation, twice, on either side of the skull.” Zero caught his eye. “I’d appreciate it if you would help keep him very still indeed while I perform the next step.”
The proxy drilled a number of evenly spaced holes in the side of Isaac’s exposed skull. White dust puffed around the proxy’s hands as Zero worked.
Ray followed the AI’s directions and did his best to stabilize Isaac’s head, clamped in place as it was, feeling the rough vibrations of the drill work their way up through his fingers.
Placing the drill back down, the proxy next selected a small electric saw and went back to work, cutting a series of lines that connected the drilled holes into a rough square. Finally, the proxy worked at removing the cut section of skull free, carefully separating it from the tissues beneath.
The sight was grisly beyond words. Ray looked up and away, focusing his attention on the screens around them even as he felt his stomach lurch.
It occurred to him he hadn’t heard any gunfire for some minutes now.
The proxy repeated the same operation on the other side of Isaac’s head until the matter of his brain was almost entirely exposed. “Shouldn’t we be wearing surgical masks?” Ray asked, the words thick and clammy in his mouth. “We didn’t even wash our hands.”
“That’s necessary only if the patient’s biological body is expected to survive the procedure,” said Zero. The proxy paused for a moment and looked at him. “Curious.”
