Fortitude, page 14
It’s not much longer is it? she thought. A question for the AI in her mind.
He shook his head, then looked back to the humans below, desperately trying to devise plans to stop the constant onslaught from the other AI. “The military’s forces are down to a little over five percent of what they were just hours ago. The—”
The whole room shook, making Alexis lose her grip on the wall behind and she fell forward, almost colliding with the guard rail but Mike caught her. The anxiety around the room increased. The lower side door burst open with Hendricks and her guards together with Cary moving into the room.
At least one of the consoles had gone dark, but most of the other screens were now showing thousands of people, mostly in fatigues, streaming through woods and along the frost covered road to the main entrance.
“Can we get them all in before the AI gets here?” said the president, watching the largest of the digital displays.
Rowney shook his head, a grimace seemingly fixed to his face.
“What hit us?” said Cary, standing near a console.
“Some kind of particle weapon, but we can’t determine its—”
The room shook again, interrupting the officer, this time bringing with it a sprinkling of dust from the ceiling fifteen feet above. Some of the screens blinked off then returned to full brightness.
Rowney touched the shoulder of the officer at the console in front of him. “Close the main doors.”
Hendricks walked towards him, concern across her face. “How many are still outside?”
“I don’t know ma’am, but we can’t wait any longer.”
She nodded then turned away, leaning with both hands on a nearby desk.
Alexis watched the display on the front wall which showed the cavernous tunnel which led to the main entrance and the torrent of soldiers running along it. Another screen nearby showed the huge doors slowly closing as people ran through the ever decreasing… She leaned forward, using the guard rail for support. She was sure the door had stopped moving. She wanted to cry out, let those below her know, but instead she looked at Travis, his eyes full of knowing. The AI was always going to get inside, take control.
An officer shouted what Alexis had already spotted, and the volume of fear filled the room as people scratched their heads, nonplussed as to why the doors weren’t continuing to shut. Instead, neon streams filled the entrance tunnel. Some soldiers fell to the ground as the laser beams tore through them, others ran for cover, while more fired their own weapons towards what was just outside the entrance.
“Take that thing out!” shouted Rooney, to whoever could enact his order.
Explosions ignited around the machine which sat a few yards from the main doors, three-quarter closed, but while the defenders focused on it, other things, small, skittering things slid past it and attached themselves to the edge of the metal gates. From the glitching footage it was hard to see exactly what they were doing, but Alexis knew. Maybe it was because Travis knew, but the football sized devices were starting to infiltrate the bases systems, looking for a way to shut down the EMP field which stopped any nanites from going any further.
Orders now criss-crossed the room, between officers of all ranks and between President and other officials. Panic had taken root. Alexis though felt a sense of peace, so much so that she didn’t even realize Denise was beside her.
The scientist touched her arm. “It’s time to leave.”
Alexis looked at her, confused. “Leave? I thought the whole plan…” She noticed Travis looking at her. He nodded. She looked back to Denise. “Okay…”
Denise looked at Mike, who nodded in reply and all three quickly left the room, running into a corridor with people running along it, some disappearing into rooms, others, their faces smudged with flecks of red and black, carrying weapons. Denise led them through other confined hallways, the sound of battle and voices growing quieter until she swiped her access card, gaining access to another space. They moved inside. The four soldiers that had guarded Alexis were already there, their fatigues now bulkier, camouflaged, with packs on their backs.
Denise nodded to similar clothes on a desk, beside weapons. “Put them on quickly,” she said to Alexis and Mike, “and both of you grab one of those rifles.”
They began to do so. “I thought there was only one way out of this place?” said Alexis.
“Officially yes.” said Denise. “But there’s a service tunnel through that door,” she glanced at the second exit. “It was purposely kept off the original building plans.”
With Mike’s help, Alexis placed her arm in the green and white camo jacket, and with some effort took the weight of the modified rifle.
One of the soldiers pulled the other door open and moved beyond. A rush of cooler air filled the room. Another soldier gestured towards the opening. “We need to go now, ma’am.”
Alexis and Mike moved forward, then both quickly stopped and looked back. “You’re not coming with us?” said Mike to Denise, voicing what Alexis was thinking.
She smiled, shaking her head. “I’ll be making my stand here. Good luck.” She looked at Travis, her nanites giving her the ability to see him. “You better be right about this.” With that, before Alexis could say anymore, she turned and left.
“Please ma’am, we need to leave now,” said the soldier, tension obvious in his voice.
Mike and Alexis walked to the door and looked out to the nondescript hallway, with a set of stairs which climbed to another level then moved outside.
*****
Brad and Constance kept close to the wall, using what shadows the towering office building to their left could provide as cover. To their right was one of the cables and every few seconds a pulse of light would surge along its length with a loud thrum sound, brightening the street and everything else as it passed by, before plunging the concrete back into darkness. But ahead was something much worse. The cable’s destination. A wall so rich in its lack of illumination that it appeared to be a void in the fabric of reality itself, only revealing any detail or shape when the multitude of light disappeared within it.
They arrived at the corner of the building and crouched. He looked up, but at this distance there was no sign of clouds or stars, the sky being dominated by the sloped walls of the pyramid which he estimated to be at least a few thousand feet in height.
Constance tugged at his sleeve and pointed across the intersection to where the AI’s artificial mountain cut into the ground. At first he didn’t see what she was looking at but as another wave of light flowed across the cable, just as it entered the wall he saw it. There was some kind of opening. He almost sighed. He was hoping they could set the explosives on the outside and not have to venture into what was not built by human hands. He wondered how Cody and Baxter would react when Kevin would show them the same on the other side of the structure. They would go where they needed to and he was going to do the same.
He nodded to her, then looked left along the street. Other cables, a hundred yards apart, some tearing right through the centers of buildings all fed into the base of the AI’s construction. But there was no sign of anything moving, that’s what mattered.
He gestured towards the hole in the wall, then nodded and stood, Constance doing the same and without pause they ran across the intersection. He was acutely aware of the pounding his boots made on the ground but they quickly made it to the non-reflecting material which made up the wall. He glanced behind them at the office block then to the other roads and their twisted former streetlights but nothing stirred in the intermittent gloom. They moved closer to the cable which stood easily a few feet above him and waited. They didn’t have to pause for long because a whoosh of light surged past them and they saw the gap, big enough for them to walk within.
He pushed his gloved hand into the darkness, then reluctantly made contact with the wall. He was sure it felt cold even through the fabric but it was also solid and smooth and with a further step he moved into the space between the cable and wall, Constance following. He had no idea where he was going but there was no way he was going to let her go first. Another wave of light swept past and for a few seconds he was given a glimpse of what lay ahead, which was a tunnel with no end in sight. He turned to the girl. “We have to go all the way to the end?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she replied, equally as quietly.
He turned back to the way ahead. “Okay.”
They increased their speed, moving at something between a fast walk and a jog. With each pulse of light he tried to ascertain if the end was nearing and after what seemed like minutes but was far less he saw a glow, which quickly took on more detail.
As they neared the end they began to see what lay beyond and despite what he had witnessed over the previous days his mouth fell open on stopping at a precipice. A chasm, large enough to hold an entire city was filled with thousands of cables, like what they stood right next to, each one a sea of streaming lights, filling the space with a wondrous spectacle of illumination. It was as if the stars of the heavens had been snatched from the sky by the AI and forced into the interior of this gargantuan building. Brad almost didn’t see the silvery things, moving hundreds of feet below or the one that had walked right up on them, its feet sticking to the black walls, allowing it to almost walk horizontally.
Brad froze as did the girl by his side. The thing stood easily seven feet high and was humanoid in design, but had no features or clothes. A spindly being, seemingly made from a chrome like substance stood a few feet away, looking directly at them. Brad’s modified rifle was still over his shoulder. His fingers began to move across his body when he felt Constance’s hand touch his and without looking at her, he stopped.
The robot thing turned its head and continued on its way as if it had calculated they were of no threat, or perhaps it just didn’t know what they were. Either way both humans couldn’t help but let out a breath they had been holding. After the thing had moved tens of yards into the shadows, Brad turned to her. “Where are we placing these explosives?” he said, trying to hide the anxiety in his voice.
She turned and pointed to far below them. To where there was constant movement from things similar to the one they just met.
“Down there? Why down there? Why not here?” She shook her head and he let out a sigh while frowning then crouched, trying to get a better look at where he was expected to go. The wall below the ledge was sloped and wasn’t too steep. He didn’t envisage having any issue getting down the few hundred feet, but would the other things down there ignore him as well?
Constance leaned in closer to him. “I made the machine man not see you. The others will not see you as well, but I don’t know how long I can keep doing it.”
Her face was covered in sweat despite the near freezing temperature and he placed his hand on her shoulder. “You’re doing great. We’re almost finished. Just have to set the charges, slide down this slope. Walk past the machine people and drop the pack from my back, and get out of here as quickly as possible. Easy.” He forced a smile, but she just nodded, her eyes wide.
He lowered his rifle, took the pack off, placing it gently on the tunnel floor and opened the flap. At the top of the fifty pounds of specially crafted plastic explosive sat a multitude of wires with a small black box. Its liquid display had already been set to ten minutes and next to it was a small silver switch beneath a clear plastic covering. He looked back at the expanse of AI construction, and then down to where they were going. Was ten minutes going to be enough?
He opened the cover and flicked the silver switch. The counter started counting down immediately. He quickly flicked the flap back over the pack, hoisted it over his shoulder, picked up his rifle and with his one free hand held Constance’s.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mike could hardly feel Alexis’ weight on his back as he carried her, walking awkwardly but as quickly as he could with the soldiers along the rock-strewn path through the snow-covered forest. Despite the sweat across his body the ice cold temperature ate into his joints and appendages, but none of that mattered, they just needed to put distance between them and what was happening back at the town and facility. He didn’t understand why, but Alexis kept whispering reassuring things into his ear as they trekked. The only thing he could think of as to why she said them was to help him cope with how ill she was. To give him hope. But hope was starting to drain from his limbs as his strength was.
Thirty minutes previously, once they had emerged from a tiny room lower down the mountain he had presumed a vehicle would be waiting but instead he was informed by the most senior soldier with them, a Colonel Hughes that using a vehicle was not an option until they were at least ten miles from the base as the AI would pick up its heat signature too easily. So instead here they were, hiking up the trail as fast as they could, only one small flashlight illuminating their route through the pine trees, listening to their lungs working hard and the dwindling sound of battle further down the mountain.
“We’re almost there, I’m sure of it,” said Mike between breaths. He waited for a response from the woman on his back but none came. “Alexis?”
“Umm… yeah… I’m still… here… don’t worry… everything will work out…”
As her words fell from her lips he realized there was no more sound from down the slopes behind them. He turned, making the soldier behind almost walk into him. He wanted to see for himself the state of things, but instead there was only darkness hundreds of feet below. Which made no sense. There had been a battle in the valley. Explosions, fires which were still burning when they escaped into the night, but as he stood there trying to see any detail amongst the absolute darkness nothing stirred or moved, or hinted at life.
“We gotta keep moving,” said a female soldier, a sergeant who had been barraging him for most of the way to move faster. She and others offered to take Alexis from him, but after traveling all this way he wasn’t going to let her go now.
He turned and kept on walking.
*****
‘Silver mannequins.’
A phrase that kept replaying in Brad’s mind as he inched his way down the slope with Constance by his side. They were almost at the lowest level now, where the things lurked. The pulses of light from the cables were almost constant, removing most shadows from the artificial cavern they were in and the humanoid machines could be seen in all their mechanistic glory. Some almost had faces, but the features were ill-formed, lacking in clear definition as if they were early attempts at looking human. And their proportions were wrong. ‘Lanky’ was the word that came to Brad, a term his grandmother used to call him when he was a child. That definitely described the things that were slowly moving without any obvious objective.
Slowly with Constance, he stepped down onto the flat level floor and stood. For a moment he took his eyes from the machine men and ventured to look up but instantly regretted it for the sight was dizzying. Countless cables, each one at least ten feet thick stretched skyward, forming a trunk which soared even higher being lost to his vision, thousands of—
Constance ran forward, moving from his lunging grasp, but rather than walk into the robots the machines merely moved to the side, clearing a path which he ran forward into. “Wait!”
Thankfully she had stopped only twenty feet away, directly beneath the artificial tree of life. “Here!” she said. “Drop it—”
A flash of light was followed by the ground shaking, and a boom of an explosion hit their ears. Both knew what it meant. The other team’s explosive had just ignited, meaning…
The machines, a sea of them were slowly turning towards him and the girl. He ran forward and dropped the pack at Constance’s feet whose fists were shaking by her side, a trickle of blood running from her nose. The ground continued to shake, and he was sure the surrounding dark walls were more so, as even blacker veins had opened up in them.
Constance’s head flicked between the machine people close by. “I… I can’t keep them… from seeing…”
Brad flipped the flap open on the pack.
‘0: 58s’
He unslung his rifle, pointing it at the closest chrome monstrosity. “We have to go!” he said pulling her with him, both breaking into a run.
“They see us!” she screamed as they reached the beginning of the slope.
He pushed Constance ahead, just picking up the sound of the clatter of metal on the solid floor and pivoted just in time to fire the rifle at the silver spike about to slide between his shoulder blades. The thing dissolved, falling into pieces at his feet but others were bounding towards him. He turned, scrambling up the slope, pushing his aching limbs, trying to get his boots to propel him upwards faster. A crack was in the slope, which he leaped over best he could just as it widened. He landed on the other side and kept on running. He looked up, Constance wasn’t that far ahead of him, but she was closer to the top. Another clang of metal made him swing around again, but this time he was too late and a needle like spike pierced the armor in his shoulder, and both he and the human shaped machine began to slide towards the precipice which was now one of many. He fought to raise his rifle, but the thing caught the barrel, stopping it from being aimed. As they continued to slide, the hole in the ground beckoned. Brad kicked and pulled with all his might to free the weapon and to stop his descent, when suddenly just a few yards from the drop into the void the machine man dug its spikes into the ground, causing it and Brad to stop sliding. Brad immediately scrambled backwards, kicking away with his boots, while trying to ignore the burning from his shoulder.
