Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (45 page)

“Yeah, it’s a data stream. I’m assuming that’s because of the implant, right?”

“It’s so much more.” Now his smile stretched real wide. He looked like a proud father whose daughter had learned to walk or ride a bike for the first time. “It’s your operating system. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Um, yeah, sure. Not to put a damper on things, but what exactly does it, and my implant chip, actually do?” She studied the graphs, managed to realise that some of the bars in the image indicated the input and output traffic of data, and another bar represented some kind of computational process. Beyond that she didn’t really know.

“You don’t understand,” he said now, sitting on the bed. He rubbed his forehead. “How best to explain? Your neural network within your brain isn’t entirely organic. That’s where your chip comes in. It connects a multicore quantum computational chip to that network, allows your brain to subordinate tasks. It also helps in things like your reaction speed, your strength.

“The chip improves the flow of data to and from your nervous system and your brain functions. Think of it as a second brain, but with lots of added abilities, like how you can connect remotely to computer networks, or how you can retain and manipulate artificial intelligences and viral code. It’s why you’re a rock-solid code safe. This chip is a more advanced version of the one that you had previously. I’m afraid that one was permanently damaged when it was removed.”

She thought back to the night when those cruel bitches cut it out of her without a care in the world. As if it were some cancerous tumour that needed to be sliced out and discarded.

“So, what exactly am I?”

“That’s a little complicated. You’re not quite—”

“If you’re gonna tell me I ain’t human, I kinda know that already by now.”

Robertson’s eyes widened a little at that, and then his shoulders relaxed, as if it were one revelation he didn’t have to take responsibility for. He still gripped the slate, held it close to him. He bounced it up and down slightly.

“The info on this slate from your friends,” he said. “It’s not entirely accurate. Enna, I’m assuming some kind of bioengineer, had read you all wrong. She thought your DNA was breaking down and assumed you were dying with some kind of condition, which to be fair is how it looks to someone who doesn’t know what you are.”

She couldn’t but help to feel a twinge of worry at that. She thought about all the times Gabe had taken her to Enna to get a shot of NanoStem or some other medical procedure. Had she operated on her properly? Had Enna really known what she was doing?

She asked again, “What am I?”

“Probably best if I show you.” Robertson stood from the bed. “Are you up for a stroll?”

Petal swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Her head swam, she reached out. Robertson caught her hands. She quickly let go, “I’m fine. You might want to disconnect this first.” She held up her arm with the tube and wire still attached.

“Of course.” He entered something on the holoscreen, rendering it blank, and with careful and agile fingers disconnected her from the machine.

A tiny electrical charge tickled at the wound on her wrist when he removed the wire and tube. “Did you find my old chip?” she said suddenly realising the robes she had stolen from a Red Widow fanatic were no longer on her, replaced instead with a dark-grey form-fitting one piece body suit. She wore slipper-light shoes, split at the toes and with a thin rubber sole.

“It’s okay,” Robertson said, making his way to the door. “All your belongings are safe. But you won’t need that chip any more. Your new one is greatly upgraded.”

“Sounds great. But I can’t feel anything yet. Or access my systems.”

“You will do shortly. It takes a while for the neural pathways in your brain to sync with the chip and vice-versa. You should be good to use your upgrades within a few hours.”

He held the door open with a sincere smile that reached his eyes.

“Who don’t like upgrades, huh?” Petal replied, walking out into a sea of grey corridors.

Jimmy Robertson led Petal through what seemed like miles and miles of tunnels. If she weren’t counting exits and turns, committing the layout to memory she’d easily have gotten lost in this underground labyrinth. It was vast in its scope. Way more than Seca’s compound.

“So where we going, Doc?”

“Doctor Robertson,” he replied with a sigh hanging on his voice. “You’re going home, right back to where you began. Back to where I…” He stopped, his words laced with heavy regret choking in his throat.

This is it, Petal thought. Finally, after all those years of wondering who she was, or where she came from, she would know once and for all. But aside from that, this doctor intrigued her. He exuded kindness, but she could tell he held a fierce intellect in that old head of his that displayed so clearly years of frustration, grief, and perhaps failure.

He didn’t seem to fit this place at all. She remembered the way he looked at the General when he took Sasha from the submarine bay. There was hatred. No, not hatred, she thought. Envy. Yes, he was envious of the General.

Perhaps his stature within this group wasn’t what he wanted or deserved?

A familiar voice caught her attention, as they turned left at a junction in the tunnels.

Up ahead, a large room branched off to the right. Looking through a small windows at head-height, next to a thick steel door, Petal saw the General in front of ten soldiers dressed in camouflaged fatigues, lined up in a grid formation. He barked orders, his face puffed and reddened. They carried out a gun kata with their rifles.

Sasha stood at the back of the group. Petal waved at her look-a-like, but Sasha didn’t notice: Sasha’s attention focused only on the weapon in her hand as she carried out the required movements. She looked so much more skilled in there than she appeared in the sub.

Compared to the other men, she moved faster, more fluid.

General Vickers yelled at one of the men who stumbled no more than an inch within the middle of the kata. Vickers grabbed the guy by the lapels of his combat shirt, shouted in his face, showed him the movement with the grace of a cobra, and ordered him to start again. Vickers pointed to Sasha as he did so, using her as an example of how to do it right.

“Intense dude, this general of yours, huh?” Petal said looking into the window. “Do you two get on well?”

Robertson sniffed with a hint of derision. His easy-going expression tightened enough to create the beginnings of a sneer. “Vickers is a capable military leader,” the doctor said between clenched teeth.

“Like that is it? Two men of status, vying for power and control?”

“He thinks it’s something like that,” Robertson said, now standing in front of the other window watching the group of men perform their manoeuvres while the General looked on.

Vickers looked up, caught Petal’s eye, and gave her a wink and a cheesy-as-hell smile.

Petal politely nodded back, then looked away.

“He’s a bit of a douche,” she said as she watched him prance around at the front the room yelling instructions until his face became red.

“Like I said, he’s a capable military leader, and unfortunately, in these times we need men like him. But don’t mind him. Come on, let me show you your genesis.”

As they walked away, Petal couldn’t but help feel something far deeper existed between the Doc and Vickers than he let on.

After a further ten minutes of traversing the dull grey tunnels of the Wake Island underground city, they came to an old steel door covered in dents and patches of rust.

Robertson took an old-fashioned key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

“No electronic bolts here, huh?”

“You can’t hack a mechanical lock remotely,” he said giving her a sly wink.

He opened the door for her and stood back. She hesitated, but moved inside once she saw two person-sized pods hanging from a series of rails bolted to the ceiling of the room. Inside, the place looked like the rest of the compound: grey and white. It had a tiled floor, a single computer station to the right wall.

The door slammed behind. Her heart skipped a beat as she jumped. She turned thinking she’d been locked in, but Robertson was in the room, hunched over the door, locking it from the inside.

Her attention returned to the pods. Although they were tubular than pod-like. They reminded her of the transcendent pods that Enna had in her lab, only they weren’t transcendents in these tubes. They were her.

“Welcome home, Number Three,” Robertson said, his arms wide and his face beaming with pride.

Chapter 20

Sasha left the shower room and headed for Vickers’s office, all the while wondering why he’d requested to speak with her after their kata training.

It couldn’t be about her performance. She’d carried out the kata with precision and perfection. It was all part of her new programming. Jimmy had seen to that. She performed better than anyone in the facility. She had noticed Vickers staring at her, ever since she arrived back with Petal. Perhaps he had the hots for her? He was a single man in the facility. He must have certain desires. Her stomach clenched at the thought.

At nearly sixty, and all though he kept himself in good shape, his lanky, wiry form and bloated face kind of repulsed her. What if he tried something on?

How could she explain that she had to defend herself against him? Would anyone believe her? Vickers was like ‘the man’ around the place, apart from Jimmy of course.

Just get in, listen to what he’s got to say and keep your distance, she thought.

His door hung part way open. She stood at the entrance and knocked.

“Come in,” Vickers barked. His voice never seemed to do subtle. It was like he was constantly stuck on eleven.

He sat behind the desk, elbows resting on the surface, hands pressed together to form a pyramid. His face gave nothing away. He remained neutral, impassive.

“Close the door and take a seat.”

This time he did lower his voice slightly, and he said please, which wasn’t a common occurrence. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last he was ever that polite towards her. He must be up to something. She took a seat and waited. A few seconds ticked by. He looked at her with those penetrating blue eyes of his. “What did you want, General?” she asked, unable to stand the tension.

“We’ve got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Sasha immediately thought it was something she’d done and squirmed in her chair. She knew it wasn’t about Petal. He’d already reprimanded her for that. It was considered settled.

He stood from his desk, paced around the room. Heavy footsteps clacked against the tiled floor. Each step making the tension stretch that little bit farther.

“I managed to get a copy of the data from Petal’s slate,” he said. “We’ve got a problem and Robertson is too cautious to deal with it. It’s time we stepped up, put our skills to use.”

She looked up to see him staring at her again.

“What do you mean, exactly?” she said.

“Action. I’ve been training you and the squad for years now, and for what? Maintenance of the equipment on the surface? It’s a waste of our time and resources. I’m sick of hiding underground always at the mercy of The Family and their damned drones and satellites. And now those Red Widow bitches have somehow swelled their numbers and are eating up hamlets and villages, claiming land, making a home for themselves. They’re planning an attack on City Earth, and we won’t be far behind in their plans. We can’t allow that to happen. I won’t allow a bunch of crazy religious nuts to take over the land and destroy us.”

Sasha stood, feeling the excitement build within her. Finally, she would put her skills to use, finally have a purpose instead of being Jimmy’s run around. “What do you have in mind, General?”

“I’m glad you asked. But I need to know if I can trust you. It’s highly unlikely Robertson would agree to any of this, so we’re going to have to find a way around that.”

She fidgeted at the thought of betraying the man who was essentially her father, but also her friend. Despite how he kept her wrapped in cotton-wool and refused to allow her to extend her abilities beyond the training rooms in the compound, he was still a man for whom she had a great deal of respect. But like Vickers, she didn’t want to sit there and wait for those damned Widows to destroy them all. Attack was often the best form of defence, and with their attentions on The Family and the Dome, it would be a good time.

“Tell me what you have in mind.”

Vickers stepped forward, held out his hand. “I need to know I can trust you,” he said.

She shook his hand. “You have my loyalty.”

With that he took his seat at the desk again. His voice was lower now as he explained his plans.

“My men have isolated the exact orbit and location of The Family’s observation satellite. But we need something from you before we can take it out.”

Sasha knew exactly what he wanted. The Laser-Electromagnetic Pulse—LEMP warhead that Robertson developed over a year ago. The prototype sat in the labs ready to be used. Robertson maintained they needed more time to confirm his research, more time to test it before it was ready. But he said that about everything: the android army, the sub, even Sasha herself. Petal had proved that the sub’s tech was good. Jimmy didn’t have the balls to use it.

“I assume you’re talking about the LEMP?” she said, to make sure she was on the same page.

Vickers nodded. “Can you get it online, use it?”

“Yeah, I know the codes. I helped Jimmy with the propulsion controls.”

“It’s currently offline, incomplete. Do you think it will actually work?” Vickers asked.

“I believe it will.” There was no way that Jimmy would let them have access without putting up a fight. Maybe not literally, but she doubted they could just walk up and launch it without his help. “We should get Jimmy onside.”

Vickers sighed. “The old man’s scared of his damned shadow. You really think he would be up for this? Let one of his precious inventions out into the wild? He’s too cautious. Look at you.” Vickers jabbed a pointed finger at her. “You’re a freaking killing machine and he has you fetching him coffee.”