Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (104 page)

From somewhere outside herself, she heard a number of voices. There was an edge of panic to them, the words coming faster and faster, until a third voice, clear and directly inside her mind, spoke.

–
Destroy the servers. All of them. It’s the only way now.

– Gerry?
 

– Just do it! Elliot needs me; his code base is corrupted and degrading. I’ll lure him into the data-centre completely, but it has to be disconnected and the server destroyed.
 

– I... what if...
her mind wouldn’t work clearly under Elliot’s assault, but Gerry seemed to sense her fear.

–
You can do it. But remember, whatever happens, I love you.

Another white flash exploded in her digital reality, and her connection tore apart as Gerry forced her out of the system. She saw his data stream sink away as though someone had pulled a plug on a lake. When only the dry basin was left, she felt hands on her shoulders and back. Her real vision came to her, replacing the artificial interface.

“Oh God, what’s happened to her?” a voice said.
 

Sweat soaked her body. Her head felt like a bell as a red-hot clapper inside struck repeatedly against her skull. She could smell burning. Smoke stung her eyes. Panicked voices called out around her.

“Give her some room!”
 

“God, I think she’s dying. James, do something!”
 

“What? I don’t know what to do. What happened?”

“The server! Disconnect the server!”

Someone pulled the lead from Omega, and silence descended like a blanket.

She swallowed hard and choked out the words, “The servers... we have to destroy them,” she said, even though she knew what that meant for Gerry.

***

Petal got to her feet, resisting the urge to faint. She pointed to the slate in James’ hand. “Look in there, the logs for Omega. I recorded Elliot’s network location. He’s in here; Gerry disconnected him from the satellites. We have to shut this down. Now!”

She ran to the glass cabinet holding the central server. The door was locked and the glass thick. Hundreds of cables flowed out to connect the eighteen racks holding hundreds of servers each.
 

“Disconnect everything apart from Omega,” Petal shouted at the others.
 

James looked up at her and seemed to stand still for an eternity as he ran the situation through his brain. A few seconds ticked by; then he sparked to life, dropping the slate and running to the rear of the room where the cables connected the racks. One by one he began pulling them out. Petal started on the other side.
 

Xian, Enna, and Elaine ran to the other end of the room where they came in and started disconnecting computers, too. Jess sat by Omega, her eyes flicking from one person to another. As Petal continued to rip cables from sockets, she heard Jess whisper something. She remained focussed on her task, listening to what Gerry had told her. If he was right, Elliot would have to chase down the remaining parts of Gerry’s fragmented mind, and with the servers offline, he’d have no option but to head for Omega.
 

Jess fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing her arms, opening her mouth as if to speak and then closing it again.
 

Eventually, it got to Petal. She stopped for a brief moment and regarded the girl. “What’s wrong, Jess?”

Jess’ face tightened as tears started to drop down her reddened cheeks. “Hajime! He’s... he’s...”

“He’s what?”

“Dying! His system can’t take it all.”

Petal felt for the girl, for her grief at losing Hajime, whose voice she’d listened to for months, but it was the only way. Petal felt the same for Gerry. But she didn’t have time to explain sacrifice or the greater good to the girl.

“Can you hear Elliot or Gerry?” Petal asked.
 

Jess closed her eyes for a second. “Yes... they’re there, fighting... make them stop!”

“I can’t do that, Jess. I’m sorry.”

The girl sobbed and seemed to become the physical manifestation of Hajime’s uploaded consciousness as it expressed a form of pain. Jess had evolved from just someone with an implant who could hear and interact with computer minds to a kind of digital empath.
 

Petal couldn’t stand it any longer. She turned her back and returned to disconnecting the servers. Jess screamed out at each computer taken offline, each one removing a potential route for Elliot—and Gerry’s—escape, each one narrowing the funnel, putting pressure on Omega to contain the warring minds.
 

At the current rate, they’d be done within a few minutes. There were just a few hundred servers left. She pulled yet another cable, readying to move to the next one, when the lights went out.
 

It shocked her into stillness. She called out to the others. “Who did that? What happened?”
 

“Wasn’t me,” James said.
 

“Us neither,” Enna added.

“Wait,” Elaine said. “I hear something. Someone’s... oh shit, no!”

A scream followed, probably from Enna. Xian’s rifle fired twice, lighting up the server room. From Petal’s position between the racks she saw a shadow dart across the room from Enna’s position by the entrance. “Speak up,” Petal said. “What’s happening?”

Jess’s sobbing was the only thing she heard.
 

A hand grabbed her by the shoulder. She spun, grabbing the wrist and throwing the body over her back. A heavy grunt sounded after the body hit the deck. Petal extended the spike from her forearm and was about to bring it down—

“Petal, it’s me, James!”
 

“Fuck’s sake, James, what the hell are you doing?”
 

She could barely recognise him in the dark, but she reached a hand down and lifted him.
 

Another scream came from the end of the room.
 

Petal stood still, tried to listen, but the banging in her head and the near-constant ringing in her ears made it impossible for to make anything out.
 

“Stay there, watch Jess,” she whispered close to James’ ear.

“Don’t,” James said. “Stay here...” His voice was barely audible.
 

Petal ignored him and stalked down between the server racks, the hundreds of fans blowing a stream of hot air. She heard metal tapping against the frame of the racks. It was coming from Enna’s position about ten metres down between the servers. She stalked forward, being careful to step quietly. She extended both her forearm spikes and slowly approached that incessant tapping noise.
 

As she got closer, the sound seemed to move to her left, and then it was behind her. Whoever was here was playing with her, leading her around. She was about to turn when she saw the shadow of three dark shapes on the floor, huddled together. She bent low and felt around. She found a pool of liquid. Warm liquid. Oh no, please no. Her explorations confirmed they were bodies. She found the OLED flashlight on Elaine’s body. She switched it on and looked away from the scene.
 

Xian and Enna had great welts on their head. At close inspection, she thought she saw Enna’s and Xian’s chests rising and falling. She kneeled over Xian and shook his shoulder.
 

The tapping grew louder now, taunting her. It was coming from the other end of the room. Petal thought of Jess then. She turned her back and dashed between the racks until she came to the end of the room and to the open area where Jess was sitting by Omega. She looked even smaller beneath the frantic beam of the flashlight.

The shadows shifted, and Petal swung the beam in an arc to her right. The tapping stopped.
 

“Who the fuck are you?” Petal said, sweeping the beam to the left. She saw James slink behind the rack. Petal indicated to him to keep pulling the cables.
 

A familiar-sounding laugh came from Petal’s right. She moved to Jess, who was shaking. She looked so pale now. The girl pointed to the right side of the data-centre. “Who is it?” Petal whispered. Jess shrugged and shook her head. “Can you hide for me?”
 

The girl shuffled away to hide next to the glass cabinet where it met the rear wall.
 

The tapping continued, working back down towards the entrance again. Petal dashed to the right and shined the light down between the wall and the corridor of servers. A dark shape darted out of sight. Then came the laugh again. Petal knew it was female. Perhaps Fuentes?
 

James was frantically pulling cables on the left side of the room. She could hear the cables clang against the metal frame of the server racks. Jess sobbed in the corner as Hajime took more and more of the two entwined digital minds into his memory and storage.
 

The laughing stopped.
 

Petal heard a rush of footsteps. She turned back and sprinted past the glass server cabinet until she was on the left side of the room. She lifted the flashlight to see a bald-headed woman, blood staining her ribs, rush towards James with chromed blades raised, ready to strike.

“James!” Petal screamed as he was in the process of pulling the last of the cables. The woman chopped down with both blades, cutting deeply into his chest. He didn’t even scream, the shock too complete. He turned to look at her, recognition written all over his face, before he fell face-first to the floor, leaving the last cable connected.
 

The woman looked up and stared right at Petal. She began to walk slowly towards her, a sick expression of glee on her blood-soaked face. Petal knew her then. She recognised her own face.
 

A light sensation buzzed in Petal’s mind as she backed off, keeping herself between the clone and Jess. The fragment of Gerry’s mind inside her seemed to be trying to communicate something, but it wasn’t fully formed, the fragment just an impression of Gerry’s will.
 

The clone increased its speed until it was sprinting at Petal, its blades high. The sudden change of pace and the weird buzzing in her head meant Petal was caught off guard and tripped backwards. Petal looked behind her as she fell, thinking she’d hit Jess, but she’d shuffled off somewhere else.
 

When Petal hit the ground, she dropped the flashlight, but saw, just in time, the clone leap at her, bringing those deadly blades down. Petal raised and crossed her spikes, blocking the attack. The clone wailed like an animal and thrashed down at her, blade striking against spike. Each hit forcing Petal’s arms closer to her body, beating her down.
 

Petal couldn’t hold her off. The clone had her pinned against the glass cabinet and the wall. She kicked out, catching the clone’s knee. The clone stumbled for a moment, giving Petal time to strike back, but the clone was too fast and avoided her thrust. A blade came flashing back in riposte, catching Petal’s arm, cutting into her flesh.
 

She fell back with the force, and the clone was on her again, raising both blades up, ready to finish her off for good. Petal raised her good arm, tensing her muscles in anticipation.
 

Simultaneously a white flash erupted within her mind as Jess screamed out. The lights came back on in the room. The clone, stunned by the sound, looked behind her. Petal followed her gaze. Jess had done it! She’d pulled the last cable, but she was on her back, not moving.
 

Before the clone could turn her attentions back, Petal drove her spikes up into its ribs and guts, drawing a terrible, high-pitched cry.

The clone tried to back off, but Petal pressed the advantage, all the while Gerry’s mind blinded her from within. A white noise of pain and anguish blasted out as his various fragments fought for space within Omega now that it was completely severed from the wider network.

The clone fell to the floor under Petal’s assault. James’ creation bled out just a few metres from his own body. Petal extracted her spikes and finished the job with a final strike to the head. She collapsed next to the dead clone, exhausted physically and mentally.
 

With the lights now on, she surveyed the carnage. James, the clone, Elaine: all dead. She dragged herself to her feet and checked on Jess. Thankfully she was still breathing. She was doing that weird flittering behind her eyelids thing.

“Jess, can you hear me? Are you all right?” She shook the girl by the shoulders.
 

Jess’s eyes snapped open. Her pupils were pinpricks. They just stared at each other for a moment, as if Jess could read into Petal’s soul.
 

“What happened?” Petal asked. “Did you do it? I mean... are they in there, inside Omega?”

“He’s dead,” Jess whispered. “They killed him.”

“Who?”

“Hajime—he sacrificed himself to them, to Elliot and Gerry.”

“And they’re safe and secure in his place?”

“Yes.” She sat up and turned away from Petal.
 

Petal felt like she was being held to blame. Maybe she was, but dammit, Hajime wasn’t the only one to sacrifice himself. Gerry had, too. Leaving the girl behind, Petal walked to the other end of the room. Xian and Enna were moving, rubbing the backs of their heads. Petal told them what happened and helped them to their feet.