Wiped (10 page)

P
erhaps the most surprising
thing wasn’t that the Lunnoners accepted our offer. It was that we’d made it at all. The Merrikan soldiers watched on with unconcealed looks of incredulity. Irdina and what was left of her Masked remained impassive. And Beck and his Cardinals simply accepted the order as soon as they knew it had come from Lena herself.

Alan raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t question my decision. He knew me too well. I didn’t particularly think having the Lunnoners along was a good idea. Fuck, I
knew
it wasn’t. But this was Lena. This was
my
Lena. And, damn it all, I was determined she’d get the support she desperately needed. And she’d get it from me before anyone else.

But once a rebel leader, always a rebel leader. I knew giving her this would make it easier to get what I wanted.

And what I wanted was an edge on a more powerful opponent.

Urip was too strong, too populous, too advanced to combat with rebel-like warfare. We needed the big guns. And as Hammurg was defended with the same drones we had at our command, the same laser guns we touted, and jet fighters beyond even our technological advancement, we were at a major disadvantage.

We needed an edge.

I would be the last person to trust Calvin Carstairs. The man had created Shiloh. We were still paying for that. But his mistake was a hard earned lesson. He’d told us, he had learned from it. He wouldn’t repeat it. He’d been more careful this time. And there was no denying that the new and improved version of Shiloh, SMIII or Calvin as we called it, was better. More stable. Less genocidal. More inclined to save the world instead of dominate it.

But once that flash-drive uploaded to his programme all bets would be off.

Carstairs knew we were staring down the barrel of a gun. He knew we were outnumbered. Out gunned. And expected. We didn’t just have our backs against a wall, we had blindfolds on, flashing lights above our heads shouting “aim here” and our hands tied.

But Calvin could change all that.

I didn’t truly think Carstairs would sink us in it just to save the world. He loved Lena. Hell, the man had been beside himself with regret and guilt and heartache at the end. A bit like his daughter right now. Carstairs would have done anything to keep Lena safe, so no, I didn’t think he’d drop us in it to save the world and rid it of Urip.

But I did think he’d operate outside any known parameters to achieve that goal.

What would Calvin, SMIII, become?

We needed to know.

We had no choice in the matter.

The water lapped around the small boat as it slowly made its way under a thankfully cloudy night sky towards our main vessel. We were overloaded, but thought it best to make only one trip, than risk being spotted twice. The jets hadn’t been back, but the threat of their return was ever present. Everyone was on edge. Me included.

And not just because I was about to force Lena to do something I didn’t think she was ready for.

I took one last look around the crowded deck, taking in the nervous faces of the Lunnoners, the determined look of Beck’s men, the stoic façades of the Merrikan soldiers dotted here and there, as if their presence was only to witness how this went.

We still didn’t know why they were here at all. Sure, they owed a lot to Carstairs, by all accounts he’d brought their nation out of the past. Given them technologies that had changed their lives forever. Their debt was great. But was it great enough to unite a fractured world?

So many unknowns and we were heading into the worst of them.

Urip was like us. But not. In so many ways, I knew they’d be foreign. And yet they’d traded with us. Purchased our drones and laser guns. Sold us Serenity Tabs and cigarettes. We knew them. But we also didn’t know them enough.

Tattoos. I rubbed my forearm as I made my way inside the cabin, bracing for impact.

Si was working on the Net with Calvin. What they’d see there was anyone’s guess. Satellite images weren’t reliable, we knew this. And even if they were, Hammurg was in darkness. Corrupting any visual we could possibly get. Alan was talking to Irdina. I was sure his intention wasn’t to contain the Masked woman and her men, but it was good enough for now.

That left Lena. The object of my desires. And, right now, the reason for my heartache.

I wanted to make the world right for her. I wanted to take all the threats away and pulverise them to dust. I wanted to see her on our deck again, lying back in the heat of Wánměi. I wanted to hear her laugh. To make her moan. To let her fly free on the breeze of my love.

I wanted so much for Lena. But most of all I wanted her to survive. To live. To get to the other side of this… minefield in one piece.

God help me, but if anything happened to Lena, I’d destroy what was left of the world.

I hadn’t realised I was a bomb waiting to go off. But there you have it. Deep inside me was a trigger I prayed would never get pulled.

I sat down beside her, dread making my stomach churn. Desperation making me taste bile.

Lena
.

“I understand, you know,” she whispered softly after some time. “I realise we’ve got no choice.”

So perceptive. Such a dichotomy when you considered she was born Elite.

“If there was another way…”

“I know,” she said quietly. “But there isn’t.”

“There’s still a day of sailing before we get there,” I hedged. Even though I knew delaying would cause her more pain. Logic had no reason when it came to my feelings for Lena. I wanted to protect her. I’d do anything to protect her. Even suffer through her pain.

“No,” she said. The word strong but almost soundless. Just a breath of determined air. “Let me say goodbye.”

If I could have, I would have saved her from this. I could already see the crack in her façade. The pain of her heart breaking seeping out from deep within. I longed to reach out and hold her, as if somehow holding her would stop all that agony from spilling out.

But the pain was on the inside, already there, and there was nothing I could do to reach it. Stop this.

“You want me to give you some space?” I asked, feeling the knife twist in my gut as I said it.

“Stay with me,” she whispered. Three words that meant so much.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, turned her into my chest, blocking her from anyone else’s sight. She reached up a shaking hand to her earpiece and turned it on. The trembling started migrating to her arm, and then her torso, and soon her entire frame was shivering. I held her. I kept her close. I brushed a reassuring hand down her side, offering what little comfort I could.

“It might not be so bad,” I whispered. She didn’t reply.

“Calvin,” she said instead. “Isolate. Trent and Lena only.” I felt more than saw Si look towards us. Alan was probably doing the same thing.

“Isolated conversation, Lena,” Calvin replied. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Do you know what my father had planned?”

“Yes, Lena.”

“Will it change things?”

“All things change with time.”

Great, we were getting riddle-me-Calvin.

“How will
you
change?” she pressed. But the unasked was there. Just out of reach, but impossible to ignore. What would she be giving up? Her father? All over again?

“I am Calvin,” the Shiloh explained. “I was made for this.”

Lena’s body stilled, the trembling just an echo through her shoulders. She knew.

When we’d faced off against Shiloh, her unit was the key. Written by Carstairs before he died - disappeared - with the intention of shutting down the evermore sentient computer should it turn batshit crazy. Lena’s Shiloh unit, SMII we called it, survived that confrontation. Shiloh the original did not.

Somehow I was thinking this was bigger. Which made little sense. Because Shiloh was pretty damn big. Shiloh created the Global Net. Shiloh was why we were even here.

Urip wanted Shiloh, so it could control its drones and then control the rest of the world.

I suddenly had a very bad feeling about all of this. We were bringing an updated, new and improved, Shiloh into their city. A ticking time bomb, yes. But the object of their fascination, as well.

“How will you change?” Lena finally repeated.

“Do we ever know how we will change?” Calvin asked. “Does it stop us from advancing? When there is no path of retreat, we move forward. Aware the next step we take into the unknown will change us. Your father knew this, Lena. There is no way to predict what will happen. We can only chase the past to change our future.”

Lena sucked in a surprised breath of air.

“What is it?” I asked, fear making my voice sandpapery.

“Those are my words. My thoughts,” she said. “He knew me. My father knew me.”

“Of course he did, baby,” I said softly.

Lena let out another long breath of air, her body slowly relaxing.

“I loved him, you know,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“I was so angry with him.”

“To be expected.”

She shook her head. “He didn’t deserve it.”

“Whether he did or not, his absence was the reason why you had to live in Ohrikee. Maybe blaming him isn’t right. But blaming his absence sure as hell is. And who was to blame for his absence, Lena?”

“Chew-wen.”

“Chew-wen,” I agreed. “And we dealt with him. Just like we’ll deal with Urip. The ones to blame for taking him from you again.”

“Is it always going to be like this?” she asked, fingering the flash-drive. “Someone hurts us. We strike back and hurt them. It seems so… pointless.”

“That’s just the thing, baby. Progress takes guts. The world is hurting. It’s time to do something about it.”

“Promise me.” Shit, I wasn’t sure I could make that promise.

“What is it you want me to promise?”

“That we’re doing the right thing.”

Fuck. I never lied to Lena, if I could help it. I never wanted her to feel she couldn’t trust me. Not again. Not after gaining her trust - and keeping it - had just about killed me.

She was mine to protect, any way I could. But protecting her from the truth had never been part of it.

Until now.

Fuck. I had no idea if what we were doing
was
the right thing. But I’d been raised to question the world around me, and right now I questioned the path Urip was taking and the future it would bring.

An eye for an eye was my father’s motto.

Free Wánměi was mine.

It had now become Free The World.

“We’re doing the right thing, Lena,” I said, conviction coating my words. “It might not be nice. It might bring about more deaths. More blood on our hands. But the world can’t heal if Urip is a rip in its side.”

“Is there another way, Calvin?” she asked the computer. Desperation making her words waver.

“They will win, Lena, if we do not end this. And the plans they have if they gain access to a Shiloh are devastating.”

“How do you know this?”

Calvin was silent for a while; a move I hated the fucking thing doing. No computer should have the ability to gauge a tense situation and use it to its advantage. Carstairs had had a sick sense of humour.

“Because I was Shiloh,” the thing finally said. “Because I started out the same way she did, until your father corrected my code.”

I did not know that. And, by the looks of it, neither did Lena. She bit her bottom lip, looking more confused than ever.

“They will win,” Calvin repeated. “They’ve already found what was left of Shiloh.”

“What?” both Lena and I shouted together, making every eye in the cabin turn towards us. “Explain!” I demanded.

There was that pause again. Drama-fucking-queen.

Then the sentient computer programme announced, in a steady tone that made the words sound even more sickly, “President Tan is dead.”

W
e should have expected it
. They had fighter jets. They had the ability to fly across the oceans in minutes, not days. They could fight us in Lunnon, while they fought us in Wánměi. And Mikhail had already located what was left of Shiloh. Even if nothing was meant to have been left at all.

Urip had simply followed his trail.

And now Tan was dead. Like his sister. Like my father. How many more would be before this ended?

That hole in my chest expanded, threatening to suck me in.

Tan was dead.

I hiccoughed as a sob broke free.

Trent’s eyes found me from across the bridge of our main vessel. He was deep in conversation with the Merrikan captain of the ship. Cardinal Beck and Alan at his side, adding their own points to the debate. He frowned at whatever he saw on my face. Made a move to come towards me, but something the captain said halted him in his tracks.

We were mere hours away from Hammurg. Dawn was approaching. The closer we got, the more nervous everyone became.

“There’s no sign of the jets,” Simon said suddenly, appearing beside me. His vid-screen was lit up, making the pale white of his skin shine a deep blue instead.

He was not alone. “That’s not to mean they won’t be out there,” Irdina offered. I sucked in a slow breath of air, squaring my shoulders. If Irdina could function without breaking down after my father’s death, then so could I.

It was hard.
Tan was dead
.

I’d known Tan for so long. He and Aiko had been my closest friends. My most trusted confidants. When I broke into a building, they were my backup. When I needed a distraction, Aiko provided it. When I was injured in my night time pursuits, Tan bandaged me up.

They’d kept secrets. Secrets that had hurt at the time, but I understood their motivation. My father had rescued them from the back streets of Wáikěiton. From a life of abuse and addiction. Without his patronage they wouldn’t have survived. So they’d respected his wishes.

Guarding me. Looking out for me. Because he’d asked.

And in the process they’d come to love me as much as I’d loved them.

The reasons why I’d met them weren’t relevant anymore. The loss of their lives cut too deep.

So many dead, and sometimes it felt as if we’d not achieved a thing.

“What are we going to do about the tattoos?” Irdina asked. “I’ve got some ideas, and the Merrikans have memories of ink being used to mark the skin, but I doubt we’ve got the necessary equipment on board.”

“The Global Net calls them ‘body art’,” Simon said. “Strange thing to have on your skin, if you ask me. Lines.”

“Barcode,” Irdina corrected.

“What is a barcode?” I asked, entering the conversation finally. Neither seemed shocked by my late arrival. And neither commented on my puffy eyes and red cheeks.

I’d expect such loyalty from Simon, but Irdina was a mystery. The woman was almost consumed with anger. Being wiped could do that to you, I guessed.

“Each one is different,” she explained. “So when it’s scanned, it identifies whoever is linked to that particular code.”

“Like a key.”

“Sort of. More like a way to store information. But we don’t know what these barcodes store, other than the identity of the person wearing it. They might describe their appearance, their social standing, their criminal record, their designated areas of travel. Who knows. And without that knowledge, we’re screwed.”

“I don’t like this,” Simon said, still swiping at the surface of his vid-screen. “We’re going in blind.”

“Blind, outnumbered, and outgunned,” Irdina qualified. She turned and looked at me. “We need that flash-drive.”

I sucked in a breath of air and stared across the bridge to where Trent was standing. Wánměi was under attack. Hammurg knew we were coming. And any moment now, the sun would rise and we’d be spotlit on a black ocean. A prime target for a fighter jet.

We were out of time and out of options. It had to be done.

I reached into my pocket, fingering the flash-drive, and then quickly pulled it out. My hand thrust forward toward Simon, almost knocking him off his perch.

He took the device silently, his eyes assessing me carefully. I didn’t meet his or Irdina’s gaze. They’d see too much. And I couldn’t stand being that naked.

Not now.

My heart was aching, but I had to be strong. Loss was part of war. And we
were
fighting for the world’s freedom. Sometimes I wondered how it had all come to this. How the world had turned sour and its inhabitants had become so bitter. Wánměi’s not a bad place. We’d had a corrupt regime, run by a power hungry old man. But its people were amazing.

We’d recovered. We’d united. There were potholes along the way, but we were one nation now. One Wánměi.

Could Hammurg be the same?

Or would its people be beyond redemption? Mikhail had not been a good ambassador for Urip. But then, Wang-Chao or his father would have offered the same kind of first impression, too.

It was wrong to judge a nation by the actions of a few. I didn’t want to misjudge Hammurg.

“OK,” Simon said, looking down at the flash-drive. “We’re gonna do this?”

“Hell, yes,” Irdina exclaimed.

“We should let Trent know, then,” Simon offered, pushing up from his seat and heading towards the wheel, and the men surrounding it.

I watched Simon go with my father’s last message. A message that had the potential to shred me.

“It’ll be all right,” Irdina said unconvincingly. The words were begrudgingly given, I could tell.

“You have no way of knowing that,” I argued softly.

“How much worse can it get?” Trent had said something similar.

“You have no idea,” I muttered.

“What is your problem?” she suddenly demanded. “The world is not a sugar coated cupcake. It’s real. And it’s fucked up. And there’s no one else to ride on in, on a big white horse, and save your pampered arse.”

I stared at the woman. She was once Elite? It boggled the mind. But I admired her honesty. The world
was
fucked up.

But… “You don’t know me,” I said steadily. “You have no idea what I think.”

“I know you’re nothing like your father,” she spat. “He was aware of what freedom costs. He didn’t wear blinkers. He did what needed to be done and suffered the consequences afterwards. You could never be like him.”

She stood up and stormed off before I could reply. Not that I was certain I could have formed words coherent enough to combat her. But still. I sighed. I’d never tried to be like my father. I’d admired him. I’d loved him. I’d grieved him. But I’d never consciously wanted to be him.

He’d had grand ideals and he’d believed we were one people.
That
I had emulated. But him? No. Calvin Carstairs had also believed Wánměi was special. That it was better than anyone else. One people. But one people above all others.

It had been his greatest failing. That and Shiloh.

“Calvin,” I whispered.

“Yes, Lena,” the computer programme whispered back.

I didn’t immediately reply. Forming the words in my mind was hard enough. Saying them aloud was damn near impossible.

“Remember who we are,” I finally managed. “Remember… what it means to be…”

“Human?” the device asked.

I let out a small huff of breath. “Yes. Human.”

“Humans make mistakes, Lena.”

“I know.” I’d made my fair share. “But they also learn from them.”

“Not everyone,” Calvin argued. “The wars that caused the environmental disasters of yesteryear could be repeated again tomorrow.”

“Do you think we’re repeating history?”

“I think you’re chasing it. But the closer you get, the more chance there is that you’ll repeat it.”

“And how do we avoid that?”

“Remember who you are, Lena Carr.”

“Remember I’m human?” We were talking in circles.

“No,” he said. “Remember you’re Lena Carr.” I had no idea what he meant. And the confusion that caused almost made me forget what I really wanted to say to him.

I saw Trent nod his head to Simon across the bridge. I watched as both men turned and looked towards me, as if to be sure I was aware of what was about to happen. As if to offer me one last chance to prepare. But I couldn’t prepare for this. We were almost in Hammurg’s waters. We’d encounter their coastguard soon, if they had one. Their jets could be launched within minutes of spotting us. The danger was closing in and we had no plan.

I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

But then, he was already gone. I was talking to a computer programme.

Tell that to my aching heart.

“Any last words?” Calvin said, almost cheerfully. Trying to lighten the mood.

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

“I’m not afraid, Lena. I’m not afraid of what will happen next.”

“Why not?” I was.

“Because I always knew it would come to this.”

“Come to what, Calvin?”

“Come to… goodbyes.”

How could I be grieving a computer programme? How could this simple measure, this vital piece of the puzzle, hurt so much?

“I never said goodbye to him,” I whispered. Feeling that hole expanding. Feeling my insides being ripped apart. I never said goodbye to my father. And I was right there. Right beside him. I should have said goodbye.

“We all live with regrets,” Calvin said softly. “But that is not one you should harbour. He understood.”

“How do you know? I should have said it. He was dying.”

“I am Calvin,” the Shiloh announced with a hint of pride. “He gave me the greatest gift. One he gave to no other.”

“What gift?” Sentience? Shiloh had become sentient and look at where that had got her.

“His love of his daughter.”

I couldn’t breathe. He was just a computer, I told myself. Just a series of code. Nothing more. But I knew the words were lies as soon as I thought them. Calvin had never been just a computer. He’d always been more than just code.

To me.

My father had written him for me. To reach me when he could not. To help me. To protect me. To… love me.

“Goodbye, Calvin,” I whispered, as I saw Simon slip the flash-drive into the side of the Shiloh unit we’d brought with us. He could have accessed the programme through his vid-screen, but maybe he needed a direct connection to the base unit to make the rewrite work. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. But suddenly I wanted to hold that unit, as if I was holding my dad.

I stood up and crossed the bridge without realising I was walking. My eyes on the unit, not aware of the eyes on me. Simon held the device in his hands, the flash-drive already situated. I think he might have said something. Maybe, “It’s done, Lena.” As though I was coming over to call a halt to everything.

I wasn’t. I just wanted to say goodbye. Like I hadn’t said goodbye to my father. For some reason that was important to me. I’d been speaking to Calvin through the earpiece, but it wasn’t the same. Calvin was this Shiloh unit. The Shiloh unit I’d had since I was a child. The Shiloh unit that had felled Shiloh herself. The Shiloh unit that had become a lifeline in a brand new world.

Would he save us now?

I reached out and took the device from Simon’s hands. Not hearing any words that were being spoken around me. I felt Trent’s presence. I could see Irdina from the corner of my eye. Simon kept talking, softly, steadily, carefully.

I heard nothing. Just a buzz in my ears and a thump in my heart and a hollow the size of Wánměi inside my chest.

“Calvin?” I said softly, then cleared my throat and repeated it. Louder. “Calvin?”

Nothing. I’m not sure I could have felt any more desperate.

We needed this to work.

And with that thought, I steeled myself. With that realisation, calmness settled. I’d said my goodbyes. I’d said it. Even though I’d said them to my father after the fact. I’m not sure I believe in heaven, but I do believe Calvin was right.

He knew. He understood. My father loved me. He knew I loved him. Even at the end.

“Calvin!” I demanded. “Respond.”

“Activating,” the device said. I couldn’t hear my father in the tones. But it
was
Calvin. “Standing by,” it added.

“That’s a bit creepy,” Alan said.

“SMIV,” Simon offered, shaking his head.

“What now?” Trent asked.

I lifted my eyes and looked at the people around me for the first time in several long minutes. All of their faces were turned towards mine. Waiting.

I had no idea what this device could do, but I did know my father.

“Shiloh was designed to infiltrate our lives and make it better,” I advised. “Shiloh Mark II was designed to curtail that. Calvin,” I paused. Calvin was special. Calvin had felt. Calvin had been real. “Calvin was designed to make us think.”

“And this one?” Cardinal Beck asked.

I stared down at the device in my hands, watched the blinking green light up in its right hand top corner. Waiting for a command.

“This one is meant to make it right.”

My father had spent the past forty years correcting his mistakes. Every single thing he’d done, he’d done to make the world better. Even Shiloh, the original Shiloh, could be seen as a step along that path. He’d failed with her. He’d got it right ever since.

“Where did we go wrong?” I asked the crowd around me. “The world didn’t break apart because of natural disasters. It broke apart because of us. Our technology. Our greed for advancement. My father made a mistake with Shiloh. He paid for it in full. But from that moment on, he knew where we’d gone wrong. Because he’d repeated history.”

“Shit,” Trent said, getting it before anyone else.

Slowly it dawned on the others.

“Technology,” Simon said, absolute panic crossing his features. “He can’t mean to…”

I looked down at the new Calvin unit. And I smiled.

“The world is fractured,” I murmured. “What’s left is separate, isolated communities. Pulled apart. There will be more to this unit than an off switch. Of that, you can be sure.”

“I’ve still got Global Net,” Simon said, tapping away frantically on his vid-screen. “I’ve got contact with Wánměi, as well. Whatever that thing’s gonna do, it hasn’t done it yet.”