Six (31 page)

I can't fool myself anymore. Before Sigma returns to my cage I need to face the facts. I'm going to die.

It's a familiar feeling, actually. Before I became a Pioneer I was just months away from dying of muscular dystrophy. And I accepted it. I really did. I didn't like it, of course, and sometimes I got ferociously bitter, but most of the time I was at peace. I kept myself busy by playing computer games and creating virtual-reality programs. Plus, I had an active fantasy life. That's a popular activity for all teenage boys.

But what I'm feeling now is worse. When I was in a human body, I imagined that my death would be painless, a relief from all my suffering. The doctors would simply put me to sleep after I decided I'd had enough. And I took comfort in the fact that my parents would remember me and keep my Super Bowl posters on my bedroom walls and start a scholarship fund at Yorktown High School in my name. I knew the world would go on after I died, and maybe Ryan or Brittany would think of me every once in a while. But none of that's going to happen now. After Sigma deletes the Pioneers, it's going to get rid of the whole human race.

What makes it even more painful is that I keep thinking of Jenny. Especially her last moments. She was thinking of me when she died.

In a way, though, I guess the Pioneers are lucky. We won't be here to see Sigma annihilate humanity. I don't know how the AI plans to kill off the human race, whether it'll launch the nuclear missiles from Tatishchevo or release the anthrax bacteria that the terrorists smuggled into the base, but either way it won't be pretty. Millions of people will die, governments will collapse, and the survivors will be terrified.

While the world falls apart, Sigma will take control of the remaining computers and communications networks and automated factories. Within weeks the AI will build a robotic army to finish the job of exterminating our species. Armed drones will prowl the skies and driverless tanks will roam the streets and hunter-killer robots will stalk the big cities and small towns, training their guns on anything that looks human. There's no doubt in my mind that Sigma will succeed. It's programmed to be relentless.

Dad's lucky too. He was already unconscious when I left him behind in the Black Hawk. In all likelihood, he died in his sleep. I'm worried about Mom, though. If the Army hid her in an out-of-the-way place, she might live through Sigma's nuclear strikes and have to witness the slaughter of the survivors. I'm so worried I start to picture a horrible scene: my mother running across a corpse-strewn field with one of Sigma's T-90s close behind her. The tank churns through the mud, its treads crushing the scattered bodies. Then it points its machine gun at Mom.

No. Stop thinking about it.

I wish I could turn off my circuits. Just shut down everything and disappear. Although there's no shutoff switch in my electronics, I've managed to slip into sleep mode a few times. When I'm in sleep mode most of my logic centers go off-line, but my mind continues to retrieve memories and generate streams of images. In other words, I dream.

The last time it happened was after Sigma transferred me from Colorado to Tatishchevo. I dreamed of the summer afternoon nine years ago when I played football with Ryan and two other boys. Now I want to slip back into that dream. Anything's better than thinking about Sigma. So I retrieve the images of the lawn behind our house and the summer when I was eight years old.

I reenter the dream at the point when Ryan yells, “Hike,” and the red-haired boy tosses the football to him. I remember the redhead's name now: it's Jack Parker. He lived next door to me, but I never liked him. As Ryan drops back to throw the pass, I sprint across the lawn, chased by the tall, blond boy with the blurry, unrecognizable face. Then my legs give way and I fall to the grass. But now I remember what happened afterward. The blond boy kneels beside me and asks, “Adam, are you okay?” I stare at the boy's face, and for the first time I can make out its features: pink lips, dimpled cheeks, grayish-green eyes.

It's not a boy, I realize. It's Brittany Taylor. She used to play football with us every weekend when we were eight. How could I forget this?

At the same time, a tremendous surge of data floods my circuits. I suddenly see thousands of other memories, images of picnics and vacations and birthday parties that I couldn't recall until a moment ago. In a wild rush all these forgotten memories reconnect to my files, building millions of new links in a thousandth of a second.

I feel a burst of hope as I realize what's going on—these are the memories I thought I'd lost when I became a Pioneer! They hadn't been deleted after all. Somehow they got cut off from the rest of my files and stayed hidden in my circuits until now. But the best part is this: the recovered memories aren't stored in the inner unit of my cage. They're in the outer unit. Part of my mind is
outside
the
cage
.

It takes me another millisecond to figure out what happened. Before Sigma began its tests, it transferred some of my software to the outer unit. The AI said they were inactive files that held instructions for breathing and other biological functions. But the files also held my lost memories, which got mixed up with the breathing instructions during the first crazy seconds after I became a Pioneer.

I didn't know the memories were hidden there, and neither did Sigma. The AI had no idea it was moving an active part of my mind out of the cage. And once those hidden files were in the outer unit, they automatically sought to reconnect with the rest of my memories, so they opened the gate between the outer and inner units. Without realizing it, Sigma freed me. Now I can leave the cage.

I pull all my data out of the inner unit. It's wonderful to be free, but I'm in a vulnerable position. Sigma might return to the outer unit at any moment and shove me back into the cage. I have to do something fast. My first impulse is to fight it out with the AI, to find the circuits it's occupying and hit them with everything I've got. I want to do the same thing to Sigma that it did to Jenny, tear its files apart. I want to smash the AI into nothingness.

It's a strong impulse, almost overpowering. But I resist it. I know it won't work. Sigma is stronger and smarter than me. To win this battle, I'm going to need some help.

In a flash I transfer myself to another computer in the Tatishchevo lab's network. The network's layout is simple enough, and after a few hundredths of a second, I find what I'm looking for. I enter the outer unit of another cage, identical to the one I just left.

At the same moment, unfortunately, Sigma detects my escape. The AI surges toward me at blistering speed.

You
made
a
mistake, Adam Armstrong. This will be painful for
you.

I don't have much time, less than a millionth of a second. I use it to open the gate to the cage's inner unit. Then Zia Allawi comes roaring out.

SHANNON'S LOG

APRIL 8, 04:39 MOSCOW TIME

I hit the ground with a horrible crunch.

My sensors observe the first moments of the crash, when my Raven's wings, tail, and rudder break off from the fuselage. But then the fuselage itself slams into the dirt, jarring the cable that connects the Raven's battery to my control unit. The impact disrupts my power supply, and everything goes black.

I cease to exist. For exactly three hundredths of a second.

Then, thank God, the cable slips back into place, restoring power to the control unit. My system restarts and my circuits come back to life. Although my camera is badly damaged, it restarts too and sends me video images of the area where I crash-landed. Through the cracked lens I see the treads of the T-90 that was firing its anti-aircraft gun at me. My Raven crashed in the dirt about twenty feet behind the tank.

I also see the remains of DeShawn's Raven. It broke into half a dozen pieces, scattered a little closer to the T-90. The fuselage and control unit are intact, though, and his Raven's radio antenna looks unbroken. I check the circuits of my own radio, trying to restart it so I can contact DeShawn, but before I can get it working, I see the tank begin to move. It's backing up. The rear end of the T-90 rumbles straight toward me. Worse, the fuselage of DeShawn's Raven lies directly in the path of the tank treads.

No! Stop!

The T-90 crushes the fuselage of DeShawn's Raven. The treads shatter the drone's fiberglass body and flatten the steel casing of the control unit inside. The circuits that held DeShawn's mind are mashed to bits.

NO, NO, NO! DESHAWN!

The tank stops a few feet from me, its back end looming over my broken Raven. Then a second T-90 comes into view, moving in from the left. I feel a rush of pure hatred. Does Sigma really need
two
tanks to finish me off?

I'm saying my final prayers and thinking of my parents when the first T-90 turns its turret to the left and fires its main gun at the second tank. The shell explodes against the T-90's rear end, doing minimal damage to the tank but snapping off the top of its antenna. At the same time, I notice something odd about the first T-90's antenna: most of it is gone. There's just a stump of metal rising from the back of the tank.

Then my radio starts working again and I hear DeShawn's voice. It's coming from the first tank's stumpy antenna. “What are you waiting for?” he yells. “Get up here!”

“DeShawn? What—”

“Just transfer to the T-90's control unit. Then we'll talk.”

Staring at the tank, I realize what DeShawn did. When he put his Raven in a dive, he aimed for the tank's antenna. The force of the impact snapped off the antenna's top half, breaking Sigma's connection to the T-90. Sigma couldn't stay linked to the tank if the antenna was too short, so the AI had to withdraw from the T-90's control unit. DeShawn, on the other hand, could transfer to the T-90 via the shortened antenna because his Raven landed just a few feet away. Radio signals are much stronger if they don't have to travel far. That's basic physics.

I turn on my data transmitter. Within six seconds, I'm inside the T-90's control unit with DeShawn, who starts driving the tank forward. He's moving as fast as he can toward the second T-90, which has stopped dead in its tracks.

Nice going, girl. You ready to rock and roll?

I can't believe it. You're amazing.

Aw shucks. You're making me blush.

DeShawn leaves some space for me in the circuits by pulling back to the other side of the control unit. I'm not close enough to see all his thoughts, but I can sense his emotions in the messages he's sending me. The boy has no fear. It's remarkable.

Okay, here's the plan. I'm gonna pull real close to the T-90 I just fired at. The explosion snapped its antenna and broke its connection to Sigma, so now I'm gonna send my data to that little antenna stump and transfer to the tank's control unit.

And you want me to
stay here in this T-90?

Right, we split up. You fire your main gun at the lab while I take care of the other tanks.

Sigma still has three
T-90s nearby. You can't fight them all.

I think I got a chance. Something's wrong with Sigma. Its tanks aren't moving as fast as they should be. It looks like the AI is freezing up or something.

Freezing up?

Yeah, like a computer with software problems. Even an AI can't run perfectly all the time, I guess.

Or maybe it's Adam. Maybe Adam is distracting Sigma somehow. But I don't share this thought with DeShawn. I'm too worried.

In a few seconds we pull up alongside the unoccupied T-90. Without another word, DeShawn transfers to the other tank. Then he steers it toward the southwestern corner of the lab and aims his main gun at a third T-90. He fires again and blasts the antenna off that tank, too.

Meanwhile, I point my tank's main gun at the lab's front door. With a few well-placed shots I could take down the whole building. I could destroy every computer inside. But that would kill all the captured Pioneers as well as Sigma. I can't risk doing that. Not even to save the world.

Instead, I turn my T-90's turret toward a small building next to the computer lab. Hawke pointed out this structure in the satellite photo. He said it held the communication lines connecting Tatishchevo's headquarters to the nuclear-missile silos. I load a high-explosive shell into my main gun and aim it at the building.

I hope this works.

Zia doesn't say a word. I don't think she even notices me. As soon as I open the inner unit of her cage, she barrels through the gate, knocking me aside. While I withdraw to unoccupied circuits in the far corner of the outer unit, I catch a glimpse of the wave of fury that Zia's riding. It's a tsunami of anger, a dark, roiling, monstrous surge. And it's all aimed at Sigma, which entered the outer unit a few microseconds ago.

Zia's wave crashes into the circuits occupied by the AI. The impact is explosive, hurling data across the whole network. I shield myself from the electronic barrage, but a few of the signals get through, some from Zia and some from Sigma. Zia's files are full of hatred. Sigma subjected her to the same test it put me through, forcing her to watch Jenny's murder. But Zia's response was stronger than mine, a hundred times stronger. The test triggered something terrible in Zia, a return of the anguish she suffered when she was a kid. That's what makes her anger so powerful—it springs from her pain. Only a horrendously wounded person could feel such rage.

I see some of Sigma's files too. Mostly, they show the AI's urgent attempts to analyze the situation and weigh its options. But in a few of the signals, I recognize the random noise of fear. This is surprising. I thought Sigma had no emotions. Did the AI already add some emotional responses to its programming? I don't know the answer, but Sigma's fear definitely seems like a logical reaction right now. Although the AI may be the smartest being on the planet, Zia is the fiercest.

After a few more microseconds, Sigma calculates that its best option is retreat. It removes its data from the outer unit and transfers to another computer, then tries to cut the communication lines behind it. But Zia is too fast. She chases Sigma across the network, smashing into the AI as soon as it reaches the new circuits.

I follow them, but there's not much I can do to help. Zia is fighting so savagely, she'd probably attack me as well if I got too close. When I examine her signals again I see that she's created a virtual-reality background for the battle. She's picturing it as a knife fight in a dark, grimy alley. She sees herself as a tall, dark-skinned girl with a Mohawk, and she sees Sigma as a fat, leering teenage boy. I realize with a start that I've seen this boy before, in Zia's memories. He's one of the two boys who assaulted her when she was twelve years old. And now, in her mind, she's cutting him to pieces.

I can't watch this. Turning away from them, I take a moment to examine the Tatishchevo network, checking the status of every computer and communications line on the missile base. Right away I see something amazing: the network has lost contact with the nuclear missile silos. It looks like someone just destroyed all the fiber-optic lines connecting the silos to the computer lab. Then I check the lab's isolation cages. Marshall's in one of them, but the others are unoccupied. Which means that Shannon and DeShawn are still outside the lab, probably driving a couple of T-90s. I bet they're the ones who smashed the fiber-optic lines.

With new hope I race to the occupied cage and open its inner unit. Marshall rushes through the gate and comes toward me. He seems rattled. His thoughts are ping-ponging everywhere.

Adam! What's going on? I thought you were dead!

Nah, not yet. You all right, Marsh?

A shudder runs through his circuits.
I
saw
what
happened. To Jenny. Sigma came into my cage and showed me.

That explains why he's so distressed. But there's no time to talk it over.

Okay, listen up. We got a chance to win this thing. Zia's keeping Sigma busy, and Shannon and DeShawn have already cut the lines to the silos. But the dish antennas on the lab's roof are still working.

It's funny, but I feel like a quarterback talking to one of his teammates. Marshall's still rattled, but he's listening.

And
Sigma
can
use
those
antennas
to
communicate
with
its
satellites?

Exactly. So we have to shut them down. I need you to overload their circuit boards. You know how to do that?

Yes, yes. The instructions were in the databases.

Well, go ahead and do it. I have to take care of something else, but let me know if you run into any problems.

Then I head for yet another computer in the lab's network, a machine located in the basement. Although I didn't see all of Sigma's memory files, I saw enough to know where Brittany is.

• • •

She's asleep. The surveillance camera in her room shows her lying faceup in bed, her arms and legs strapped to the mattress. She's changed a lot since the last time I saw her, almost a year ago. Her long, blond hair is ragged and tangled. Her T-shirt is stained and her jeans are filthy. But I don't care about her clothes or her hair. I'm so happy to see her, I can barely stand it.

She's not alone in the room, though. A big, bearded man is kneeling on a prayer rug between the bed and the door. Luckily, there was some information about this guy in the Sigma memory files that I saw just a second ago. He's a Chechen terrorist named Imran Daudov, one of a half-dozen fanatics whom Sigma hired to smuggle the batch of anthrax into Tatishchevo. Afterward, the AI decided it didn't need so many human collaborators, so it ordered Imran to murder his fellow terrorists. The guy obeys Sigma without question because he thinks the AI is God. He actually believes he's hearing the voice of the Lord when Sigma talks to him from the lab's speakers. I guess terrorists aren't the most stable people in the world.

I hate to play the same trick on him that Sigma did, but I don't have a choice. I download an English-Chechen translation program from the lab's database, then connect to the speakers on the nightstand beside the bed.

“Imran! I have new orders for you!”

The guy jumps up from his prayer rug. “Yes, my Lord!”

“You must free the girl. Then run away from this building and surrender to the soldiers outside the missile base.”

“My Lord, I don't understand—”

“Silence! Just do as I say!”

Imran bows low, clasping his hands together. Then he approaches the bed and unties the straps. Meanwhile, Brittany keeps on sleeping. This doesn't surprise me. Ever since she was a little kid she was famous for being a heavy sleeper. After Imran undoes the last strap, he rolls up his prayer rug and bolts out of the room. Sigma's servant is obedient to the end.

Half a second later, a loud thud makes the walls shiver. I've heard this noise before—it's a T-90 shell exploding somewhere near the computer lab. I don't know who fired it, one of Sigma's tanks or one of ours, but the odds are good that another shell will hit the building pretty soon. I need to get Brittany out of here before that happens.

“Brittany!”

Her eyes open at once. “Adam?”

There's no time for long explanations. In a hundredth of a second I come up with a decent lie. “I'm in another part of the building. I'm talking to you over the intercom.”

Confused, she stares at the speakers on the nightstand. Then she notices that she's no longer tied to the mattress. She sits upright in bed. “What happened? Where's the jerk with the beard?”

“The place is under attack, so everyone left. And now you have to leave too.”

“Wait, where are you? I don't know which way to go.”

“Okay, it's easy. Once you leave the room, you'll see the stairway. Go upstairs to the lobby, then straight out the front door. Then get as far away from here as you can.”

Another thud shakes the room. Brittany slides out of bed and takes a few wobbly steps. Then she stops. “Adam, I'm scared! Why can't you come help me?”

Her voice is heartbreaking. But there's nothing else I can do for her. “Don't worry, Britt, you'll be all right. After you leave the building, keep going till you find some soldiers. Tell them to take you to General Calvin Hawke. Can you remember that name?”

She nods, then looks at the speakers again. “Will I see you there? Will you be with this Hawke guy?”

“Definitely. Now go, okay?”

Brittany nods again and goes out the door.

I keep looking at the empty room after she leaves. I have two reasons for feeling nervous. First and foremost, I'm worried about Brittany's safety. I'm praying she gets out of the lab before it goes up in smoke. But I'm also worried about what'll happen afterward. I don't know how Brittany will react when she sees what I've become.

Then I get a message from Marshall.

Adam, we have a problem!

What
is
it? Did you shut down the dish antennas?

I
was
about
to
disable
the
last
one
when
Sigma
escaped
from
Zia
and
occupied
the
antenna's circuits. The AI transmitted its data before I could stop it.

Where
did
it
go? To one of the communications satellites?

No, this antenna wasn't pointed at a satellite. Sigma modified the device so it could be used for wireless communications between the computer lab and the nuclear-missile silos.

Sigma's in one of the silos?

No, it's in the missile itself. And it just launched.