War of the Worlds 2030 (22 page)

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Upload monitoring/ Ashley Hinkly /Index 10:17/ 6/3/2036

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Ashley tried not to vomit as the disgusting thing wormed its way through her flesh then attached itself to her stomach.

“So much tidier than the process of mastication, and it is completely impervious to poisons. You may thank me now my pet.” said Tannal.

“Thank you, master,” Ashley said, her voice flat. She glanced down at the symbiont that would now do her eating for her. It pulsed as a collaborator ladled gruel from a pot into its grey, bowl-shaped top.

“Bon appetite,” said Tannal.

Ashley closed her eyes and sought refuge the only way she could.

“The processing rate is just too high. The human brain can't deal with the information fast enough,” said Richard. He sat on his couch while Ashley sat in one of the easy chairs, alternating between a book and her laptop.

“I think we can beat it. If we stimulate the pineal gland to increase production of key hormones.”

“Love, the endocrine glands have their production limits too. The machine has to adapt to serve the organism, not the other way around.”

“That's so limiting,” Ashley's brow wrinkled as she tried to draw something from the back of her mind.

“Remember, it's about life. It's about helping humans to be all we are, not become something we aren't.”

“You're right. It's so easy to forget that if you change something too much is ceases to be what it was in the first place.” Ashley smiled and made an adaptation to the diagram on her computer screen.

“Richard,” Ashley's voice changed. In the memory becoming immediate.

“I'm here,” spoke Richard's image in the memory. They both knew that before they had made love then drifted into a contented sleep.

“I've downloaded the information on the next batch of engineered soldiers into your files.”

“Good. Have you thought about our discussion?”

“Beloved, the band width. I don't know if I could free that much up.”

“Ash, it's our only chance.”

“Have you succeeded with the children?”

“It's coming. All the gene samples are viable. I have completed a recording device.”

“The side-effects you feared?”

“I think the
Darmuks
will see any problems as a side effect of you linking the human systems to the bio-mind. I'll bet they can deal with any problems as they come up. They've been at this a lot longer than we have.”

Ashley nodded. “Have the machine ready. I'll start the download whenever I can.”

A sound like distant thunder echoed over the compound. A minute passed and
Darmuk
troops poured out the gate. Another thunder clap rolled and more troops left. Zane stood immediately in front of the embassy's side door. Six collaborators stood naked in the hallway as a
Darmuk
inspected their body cavities with sadistic glee.

“Back. No more humans today!” snapped a battle-ape that attempted to push Zane out the door.

“Now!” said Richard.

Zane shifted his hand in his pocket and a retort sounded. The battle-ape reeled back. Zane and Richard rushed into the embassy. Zane pulled his pistol from his pocket and fired at the
Darmuks
inspecting the people, killing both.

“Hurry,” snapped Zane.

Richard mentally sorted through the strands of engineered neural tissue running along the corridor's wall. Finding the one he sought he drove the hypodermic needle home and injected the mix of potassium and enzymes.

Outside the shield around the compound spasmed and formed a dome over the embassy, blocking any movement in or out of the grounds.

“What the?” gasped one of the collaborators who moved towards Zane. Zane fired, killing the man.

“Any more stupid questions?” Zane tore off his coverall. Richard unrolled the carpet and passed Zane his rifle, while picking up his own sword.
Darmuks
crowded into the hallway. Zane tossed a grenade into the front rank. It exploded, sending bits of the beasts in all directions. The door behind Richard began to open. He thrust his sword into a green, scaly creature he couldn't identify. The electric charge coursed through the beast, which fell back, convulsed then lay still. Richard slammed the door closed.

“Rode the six hundred,” called Richard.

“Right,” growled Zane. He fired into the
Darmuks
in front of them and they began the sixty meter battle that would take them to the bio-mind's central chamber.

* * * *

“Very good, my pet. Is it sweet?” Tannal forced Ashley to fellatio him.

“Yes, master,” said Ashley, pulling her mouth away. The sun slanted in through the windows, marking it as late afternoon.

“Taste my hole,” ordered Tannal.

Ashley scowled then a ripple ran through the bio-mind.

“Something has activated the perimeter shield! Guards investigate,” snapped Tannal. The two minotaur-like guards by the door moved into the hall.

Ashley wiped her mouth on her arm then closed her eyes. The symbiont released the last of its directives and became her servant.

Tannal felt the bio-mind acknowledge a new master controller.

“How? You can have no power over the core program. I saw to that when I programmed your symbiont,” roared Tannal, both mentally and physically. He glared at Ashley.

“By a power you know nothing of. You don't understand human love, so you couldn't access the parts of the mind that are ruled by it.” Ashley opened her mind letting him glimpse the emotion she and Richard had shared. The only thing she had managed to keep hidden throughout her imprisonment. “It's a power you know nothing about.”

“Die slave.” Tannal focused his thoughts and a wave of energy slammed into Ashley's brain. She let the force flow through her, dividing it into parts and feeding it to the people of her cyber coven. They took the power, turned it and sent it hurling back at Tannal. The
Darmuk
roared in pain and frustration as his own system rebelled. He felt the consciousness of several ram units shift, aligning themselves with Ashley.

Ashley let fly the binding programs. Slamming the horror and pain Tannal had used to bind his ram-units into the Darmuk's mind. Seeking to overwhelm his consciousness.

Tannal hissed as his mind sought to retreat from the horror. He took a mental step towards oblivion then forced a counter program to activate. The binding programs deleted.

“Traitors, after all I have done for you!” he hissed. Vast amounts of data slammed into the minds of Ashley and her cyber coven. Ashley felt herself sinking under the volume of information.

* * * *

Richard swung his blade decapitating a battle-ape. A beast that looked like a giant badger clawed at him. The coverall ripped away but his body-armor turned the blow. A pistol discharged into his chest-plate, point blank. He jerked back into a battle-gorilla's arms. He felt as if he'd been punched in the gut by a pro boxer. He brought the pistol in his left hand up by his head and fired blindly behind him. The retort deafened his left ear, but the arms holding him released.

Zane let out a volley of automatic fire, massacring battle-apes. The insect-like
Darmuks
crowded in to take their place. His bullets flattened harmlessly against their re-enforced exoskeletons. Against any kind of organized assault Zane knew they'd be dead already. The creatures had obviously never planned on an intruder getting this far and whoever was directing the assault had no knowledge of tactics. The
Darmuk
attack was more a barroom gang up than a military operation.

Richard threw a grenade amidst the insect-like
Darmuks
massing down the hall. It burst, filling the corridor with smoke.

Zane fired on full auto, forcing the remaining battle-apes back then pulled the mask from his belt and slammed it over his face. The insect-like
Darmuks
were either dead or falling back, but other forms seemed unaffected by the gas. Zane dropped his empty clip and slammed another home.

“Rush.” Richard positioned his own mask.

They sprinted forward, firing at the shadows that moved in the mist. After roughly three meters a group of five
Darmuks
, that looked like giant armadillos, stood shoulder to shoulder blocking their way.

Zane fired at the beasts, but nothing happened. Richard brought his electric sword down against one of them, but it glanced off. One of the beasts lashed out leaving a deep gouge across Richard's breastplate.

“Back, toss the cookies,” snapped Zane.

Richard and Zane both stepped back into the thinning mist and tossed grenades onto the floor beneath the
Darmuks
. The creatures looked at the bombs with disdain and sat on them. Protecting the weaker beasts behind them. The grenades went off. The wall of armored beasts hissed with mirth. There was a creaking sound. The floor gave way and they fell into the embassy's basement. Richard tossed another gas grenade to the far side of the hole. When it exploded he and Zane leapt gaining two meters of ground.

* * * *

Ashley focused against the data and turned the input towards Tannal. The information quivered between them until one of the ram units released a screech and died, its brain turned to mush. The data stream vanished with the person's life.

“Witch,” snarled Tannal.

“Proudly!” countered Ashley. A shaft of pornographic web-sites shot from her mind to Tannal's. She felt his biological drives wrestle with his consciousness, as his body wanted to accept the data. He lost control of more of the bio-mind as he diverted attention to controlling himself.

Ashley felt other ram units opened themselves to her, letting their capacity join with hers. Behind Tannal Betty stirred.

Tannal deflected the pornographic feeds into a ram unit. He mentally clawed at Ashley's mind, invisible tendrils of will. Ashley countered. The wills met, flashing across the bio-mind units like sheet lightning.

Ashley's cyber coven opened completely to her. Ten human wills, ten human minds, ten human souls, joined against one Darmuk, backed by all the power and knowledge of a far distant world. The forces balanced. They crackled through the interface. Other bio-ram units died. The gibbeted ones threw off their programs and in their death throws added their wills to Ashley's.

Betty moved jerkily, like a martinet. None of the mental combatants noticed her.

Ashley felt her coven weaken. The data they had hoarded, the careful networking, was proving insufficient. She pushed harder, but it wasn't enough. Tannal was winning.

Betty paused as if mustering something within. She leapt at Tannal, slamming her foot into the Darmuk's groin. She then grabbed his secondary symbiont and pulled with all her might ripping it from his head.

Tannal screamed diverting all his attention to Betty, slamming her mind with so much data the cells exhausted in less than a second. In that moment of distraction Ashley pushed her will into Tannal. His mind exploded in pain. She reached deeper, burning out the modula oblongata. His body stopped. The other minds of her coven rushed forward, tearing their tormenter's consciousness apart. Tannal convulsed.

Ashley mentally watched over her conveners, making sure no trace of energy stirred in the fallen monster before them. When the last faint glimmer of life left the
Darmuk
she opened her physical eyes. Standing she moved to Betty's side.

“Ash,” whispered Betty.

“Betty,” replied Ashley.

“Thank you. Tannal lost control of the mental binding as he fought you. I had to help,” explained Betty.

“I'll tell your father how special his daughter is.” Ashley watched as the light faded from Betty's eyes.

Closing her own eyes she once more dipped into the bio-mind. All the ram units that still had a will of their own waited. She sent a command. There was a screech of agony as the feeding symbionts detached themselves, slithering free of their hosts, literally gluing the incisions shut as they departed.

A minute later she sent the second command. She felt the bio-mind shrink as the symbionts disconnected and acknowledged the control of their individual hosts.

“Go, get to the sewers,” she ordered using her own voice.

An explosion rocked the embassy.

“What about you?” Ji-Yeon climbed from the cyber couch and moved to Ashley's side.

“Richard will need me. Go!” Ashley pulled a flashlight from a compartment on the side of Tannal's cyber couch and passed it to the Asian. “He was afraid of the dark,” Ashley explained.

The conveners looked at each other.

“Ashley. You may—” began Natalie.

“Am I the head of this cyber coven or not? For the love of Isis, get out of here! Your mates and children are waiting at the docks. Use the sewers. The things down there will be up here fighting Zane and Richard. Steal some clothes once you get outside.”

Another explosion rocked the floor.

The conveners moved sluggishly to the sewer access. Natalie opened the steel gate and with a single backwards glance led the way into the tunnel.

“Ashley, I'll never forget you,” called Ji-Yeon, as she vanished down the passage, the flashlight making a dim receding glow.

“I'll never forget any of you,” whispered Ashley.

* * * *

“Last clip!” Zane slammed the clip home in his rifle.

“Bloody hell!” Richard threw the last of his gas grenades into the
Darmuks
massed before him. Shots rang out from a sniper who stood on the stairs that opened off the side of the hallway farther down.

They pushed forward, their armor rent and battered. Richard's sword buzzed as the capacitors slowly recharged after each strike. He knew the batteries were almost exhausted.

Zane let his rifle speak.
Darmuks
fell, but others rushed in to take their place. “Time for Armageddon,” he snapped.

“Do it!” Richard decapitated another Darmuk. Blood oozed into the material of his armor where a clawed hand had made a hole in his sleeve.

Zane jerked up his eye-patch revealing a clear lens. A shaft of blazing, laser light leapt out of the socket. The laser tore into the beasts in front of him. They howled as it sliced them in two, or fast boiled them in their shells. Bits of
Darmuk
littered the hall. Twenty seconds later Zane crumpled to the floor. Richard grabbed him supporting his left side, which had gone completely limp, and hauled him down the corridor. They stopped at the door to the bio-mind's core chamber. The laser had cut a path of carnage down the hall.

“Primary power is out.” Zane reached with his right arm and pressed his thumb onto the laser's lens, it clicked in. He straightened, taking his weight off Richard. “Reserves up. I've got maybe fifteen minutes. I'll hold them here.”

“Zane?”

“What's a few minutes? Go to her, Richard! Tell her I love her to.”

“I really wish Betty had married you. I couldn't have asked for a better son.” Richard pushed his last two clips into Zane's hand and threw his remaining grenade into a clump of
Darmuks
that were creeping out of a side passage. He left his sword against the wall and entered the bio-mind's core chamber to the sound of the exploding grenade.