The Genesis Code 1: Lambda (35 page)

No . . . that means we lost . . .

“Zack,” Lambda inquired softly as she sat down in a chair next to Zack’s bed.

Zack turned his head to face her. Lambda still refused to make eye contact as she stared at her knees, as if she was being scolded. She wanted to ask Zack a question. It had been on her mind ever since her encounter with Corson. The meaning behind his dark words. She didn’t understand the depth of what he was trying to say. Zack was the only one she could ask. He was the only one she trusted, the only one she cared about.

“Am I . . . weak?” she said with hesitation. She seemed to shrink before Zack as she heard her question repeat over and over in her head. She was worried what he might say. What if he agreed that she was weak? What would she do then? She didn’t understand, but she was afraid of the possible truth, the fact that Zack may not feel safe around her or even not trust her.

And why would he?

The voice in Lambda’s head echoed maliciously.

No . . . why “wouldn’t” he trust me?!
Lambda screamed at the dark voice within her mind. It was the same voice that tore at her insides when she first heard of Rachiel. It was back, and more ruthless.

A dreaded laugh echoed in her head.
You brought him nothing but misfortune. How can he ever trust you?

Lambda held her hands to her head. She couldn’t stop shivering. Her own mind was turning against her as she fought to arrive at the truth. Her logic was becoming a plague, eroding her hopes and dreams into dust.

You’re wrong. He chose to come with me. He must-

All humans are attracted to what is dangerous and unknown. He has merely been hypnotized by your alluring presence,
purred the dark voice. It even sounded like her.

Lambda shook her head violently.
You’re wrong! He cares about me!

The dreaded laugh sounded again, echoing stronger than before.

That is a delusion that you created. What you feel is fake. You are a program. You are nothing to him.

Something happened inside Lambda at that moment. She didn’t know what it was, but the pain in her chest was greater than ever before. She didn’t understand this pain. Was it the fear of losing something precious? Did she hold Zack that high? Did she see Zack as something more than just a person of interest? She couldn’t begin to grasp the severity behind her own questions as she covered her face.

That’s when she felt it—a warm sensation from her ocular sockets, moist, but warm. It flowed like a small stream down her cheeks, dripping off of her face. The simulated water pouring out of her eyes vanished once leaving her chin. Her body was producing and emulating the human effect of tears. This development was impossible. Not even Lambda understood how she was doing it.

Zack had begun to reach out to Lambda as he grew more and more concerned by her silence and body language, but when he saw the tears running down her face, he froze.

What . . . what is this?

Zack stared in disbelief. He couldn’t even begin to put into words what he saw. He had already forgotten what she had asked him to begin with. He couldn’t believe the incredible evolution he was beholding.

She . . . she’s evolving!

Zack’s moment of discovery was cut short as the door to his room swooshed open. Zack turned quick to see who stood just outside the door. Who he saw standing there was no surprise.

“Corson,” he said while glaring furiously.

Corson entered the room silently. Laura, Nerine
, and Peter followed behind him, filing in like some sort of elite escort.

At that point, Zack was beginning to wonder why he wasn’t cuffed or restrained, but seeing as he was left with Lambda alone in the room with no real security force, it made it alarmingly clear to Zack that Corson felt that he was already in complete control.

“Have you enjoyed this little run of yours?” Corson uttered rigidly.

Zack’s glare didn’t cease. He glanced to Lambda and noted that she was no longer shedding tears. Now her face was full of contempt. It would appear that anger was a more powerful emotion for her.

“I believe Corson asked you a question-”

Corson held his hand up, silencing Laura. “I was speaking rhetorically,” Corson said flatly.

Nerine and Peter had to hold back laughs as Laura’s face turned a deep shade of red.

“I have a question for you, then,” shot Zack. “Now what? You won, right? What is your angle from here?”

Corson’s eyes widened. Zack didn’t know if it was out of anger or pleasure at first, but he soon found out.

“Angle? The angle never changed. You just got in the way!” He was heated. “I warned you, boy, from the start. Now, it is only by my grace I allow you to live.” He was absolutely livid.

Lambda sprung to standing. “Touch him and I will kill you.” Her eyes flashed a dark crimson.

Nerine and Peter’s eyes shuttered with surprise as they felt the murderous intent coming from Lambda. They didn’t want to say it, but allowing the AI to roam freely without restraint was a bad idea. However, Corson seemed to think that he had this thing on a leash. It was rather hard to swallow after staring into the vermilion eyes of a merciless killing machine.

Corson shrugged off Lambda’s threat. “You both will obey me, or I’m afraid you may force me to take drastic measures.”

Zack didn’t like where this was going. “I hope . . . for your sake, that you aren’t referring to what I think you are,” he said through gritted teeth.

Corson stared at him with dark eyes. His monstrous form towered over him. Zack forgot just how terrifying he could be.

“Play by my rules . . . and your sister gets to see another sunset.”

Zack lost control. He had barely thought out anything before his feet hit the cold tile and dashed at Corson with all his might in a blind fury. He pulled back his right fist and threw it at Corson with all his might. He wanted nothing more than to see that stupid mask shatter over his fist.

Corson only shrugged. “Useless.” With effortless ease, Zack’s fist was stopped cold by Corson’s open palm. He then clenched down on Zack’s fist and applied intense pressure to his hand. In seconds, Zack was on the floor reeling in pain.

“To think my whole operation was nearly ruined because of a weak brat like you,” Corson shot with a enraged stare.

Lambda had enough. “Release him now!” she bellowed.

Corson relinquished his grip out of pity. He then grabbed Zack by the collar of his shirt and threw him at Lambda with all the grace of a discarded free weight.

“I’m a busy man and I trust you now understand where you stand. Thanks to your interference, everything has been behind schedule.” He leered with growing resentment.

Zack found Corson’s words irritating. He spoke like he was some god, knowing all and seeing all. Zack wasn’t stupid, and he hated being talked to like he was.

With the aid of Lambda, he rose to his feet. His intense stare rivaled that of Corson himself.

“So . . . what is so important that you need to threaten the life of my sister to get Lambda and I to obey you?”

All of them looked to Corson. His eyes thinned with intrigue as he mulled over Zack’s question. He then leaned closer to Zack, his eyes blazing.

“Rather than tell you . . . I will let you see it with your own eyes,” he said slyly.

Zack scowled. He didn’t like the tone in Corson’s voice.

“What do you mean?” Zack asked, unsure of himself.

Corson stifled a laugh. “Tell me, have you ever heard of . . . the Limit Zones?”

*
      
*
      
*

[January 7th - Washington D.C. - Cyber Research Plant - Day]

Richard raced with boiled aggression as the flashing red lights of the research plant continued to paint the halls a blood red. He was starting to wonder how he ever allowed this plan to be put underway in the first place.

Mere seconds later, he burst into the main control room where Charles and several other people were craned over hovering keyboards as they frantically ran their fingers across the illuminated keys with intense speed. He didn’t waste time as he ran up alongside Charles.

“Sorry I’m late! I was held up by-”

Charles slammed his fist on the terminal before him.

“Don’t take me for a fool, Richard!” Charles bellowed. “If I didn’t need your talents right now, I’d be feeding you to wild boars!”

Richard didn’t waste time trying to lie. He knew Charles was aware that he aided in this ruse. What he found more than a little worrisome was the level of intensity the entire room was set to.

I thought Karen was only going to-

“If you’re done standing there like a slack-jawed idiot, you can help with the main problem at hand. We will discuss this little act of treason in great detail after we stop the Epsilon unit from rebooting.”

Richard’s eyes widened.

It rebooted?! But Karen said she was going to destroy it!

“What phase is it in?! Has it begun to move!?” Richard yelled, now completely lost.

“Not yet, but it’s active. There is no telling when it finishes its reconfiguring and begins to make its move. Not only that . . . its original protocol has been completely changed!”

Richard’s expression turned vile.
That witch! How could she do this!?
No words could describe his anger. He and Margret were played. Karen never had any intention of destroying the AI units. Her goal was Epsilon from the beginning. The bigger issue was what she aimed to do with the Epsilon unit once it was released. Unfortunately, Richard didn’t have the luxury of time to think about that hypothesis. Right now, his focus was stopping Epsilon’s reboot.

“What was changed? I’m sure I can-”

“The Epsilon unit has closed itself off from our servers. We can’t access its mainframe directly. All we have is its data stream and specs feed. From here we need to hack directly into its system, and considering it is one of the most powerful computers ever created, it will take nothing short of a super genius with god-like powers to reprogram its AI code in real time.”

Charles clenched his fist. “Not only that, it now has been programmed to seek and destroy the Lambda unit.”

Richard stared at the streaming code before him over the large monitor. It was graphing the entire mainframe structure of Epsilon’s core CPU and thought patterns. With his keen sight, he quickly saw that Charles was correct. However, he began to worry as he saw several segments of Epsilon’s code split and dart. This wasn’t normal. Epsilon was already trying to overwrite its programming.

“We have to stop it now!” Richard said as he pointed to the distorting code stream. “Epsilon hasn’t been encoded with enough firewalls to keep its own intelligence from overriding the code we set in it!”

Charles grinded his teeth. “You think I don’t already know that!?” he shouted. He slammed his fist on the terminal before him again. He turned to Richard with a hard expression.

“We never were able to install a fail-safe in its code because it would attack and rewrite any such program the moment it was inserted, and that was when it was in Stasis Lock.”

Richard’s expression was grim. “Then how can we stop it?”

Charles looked down on Richard with exhausted eyes. “I was hoping you had an answer to that question.”

Richard rubbed his forehead as he tried to think. The constant blaring sirens around him didn’t help with his thought process.

“If only we could somehow fool it into thinking that its objective has been accomplished, then-”

Richard stopped.
Wait . . . there may be a way.

He dove to his right and shoved one of the Tech Agents from their terminal as he blazed over the keyboard and quickly brought up Lambda’s code stream. Just like Epsilon, hacking her system would be near-impossible.

“It’s a long shot, but I think I can perhaps erase the existence of the Lambda unit from Epsilon’s sight.”

Charles’ eyes grew with surprise. “But how can you do that? It’s impossible to hack their core systems from here.”

“It is impossible,” Richard said gravely. “But each AI unit gives off a frequency that all programs identify with. If I can somehow manage to block Lambda’s frequency, Epsilon may be unable to find its target. Depending on its parameters in its new programming, it might just be tricked into thinking that its target doesn’t exist anymore and hopefully shut down.”

Charles wasn’t convinced. “Is that our only option?”

Richard rushed on. “I can’t think of another idea at this time. I’m open to suggestions,” he added as he raced along his keyboard, lighting it up with each keystroke.

Charles groaned as he rubbed his large fingers along his eyes.

“Can’t we prevent the Epsilon unit from moving? It is still on our server. Perhaps-”

“That won’t work,” interrupted Richard. “Epsilon has just been rebooted and is simply going through minor calibrations since its last startup. We were unable to restrict Lambda’s movements when it was released; so trying to stop Epsilon will just be a waste of time.”

“So what you are saying is that this down time is our only window to set up a plan?”

Richard nodded. “I can’t guarantee my plan will work, but I’m confident enough in how Epsilon is designed that it should be possible. However, I am not one for getting my hopes up,” he said meekly.

Charles stared up at the monitor. He couldn’t help but sense the irony in Dead Eye asking about Epsilon just moments before. What worried him more was what he might do when he found out that it might be released.

His thoughts were quickly broken as Richard’s furious typing suddenly stopped. At first, he thought it was because he had achieved success, but a mere glance at his face told him otherwise.

“I don’t like that stunned silence, Doctor,” he said rigidly.

Richard swallowed hard. “I-I think it worked, but . . .”

The entire area instantly went dark. Near panic erupted as every personnel frantically tried to reverse the situation. This only made Charles’ fear rise.

“Richard! What is going on!”

Richard’s words were hard. “I’m pretty sure I was able to block Lambda’s signal, but at the same time . . . I think I made it notice us.”