Cyberdrome (5 page)

Rebecca intently
examined each of the young faces in the room, one at a time. Maybe she was looking
for someone to yell at, or perhaps she was simply lost in thought. Before she
turned far enough around to see Maya, she said, “All right, tell Benness to
begin preparation for emergency disconnection, but tell her to hold for my
signal. I’ll give these Sentinels exactly five minutes to do their job. If they
fail, we’ll get our people out the hard way.”

Maya backed up
to the rear wall and began chewing on her fingernails. Like everyone else in
the room, she knew the hazards of emergency disconnection. Glancing up at the
tower, she whispered, “Please don’t fail.”

o     o     o

Inside
Cyberdrome’s Core, a circular pattern on the floor lifted slightly and rotated
twelve degrees clockwise. The disk then folded in half, the back rising up to
expose the glowing memory circuitry behind it. The half-disk stopped at an
angle of exactly sixty degrees to the horizontal and locked into position.

An iris appeared
in the center of the raised section, exposing a glowing reddish surface that undulated
like a mixture of oil and water. Then a silver, wedge-shaped vehicle pushed
itself through the surface and entered normal cyberspace.

Sentinel Javid
Rho slowed his Tracer to a stop, hovering above the ground on a bed of magnetic
energy. After scanning local memory for signs of activity, he sent the ‘all
clear’ signal, and moved his ship away from the Circuit Gate opening. A moment
later, thirty-one Tracers began passing through the Gate in single file, each
taking position behind his ship in a perfect delta formation.

As the Circuit
Gate disk reversed its program and resealed itself back into the ground, Javid
began a long-range scan of the sector. He detected nothing unusual, but then
initiated a visual scan and noticed deformations to the ground near him. He
looked toward the horizon and saw the trail extending off into the distance.
The intruder would not be difficult to track after all.

Javid was the
leader of the Sentinel unit, as evidenced by his blue skin and bald head. All
of the other members of his unit were still Green, although several were soon
due for Yellow promotions. He could still remember his first day as a Green, so
full of ambition routines he thought he would overflow a buffer. Now that he
was older, he had replaced those motivational routines with a database full of
experiences—experiences he would now be testing.

Somewhere in the
group behind him, he knew that his soon-to-be mate, Elsala, sat quietly in her
Tracer, waiting for his instructions. She was still a Green, but her code was a
perfect match to his. Their offspring would flourish as Sentinels, and
Cyberdrome would benefit greatly.

A movement in
the distance caught his eye and he focused on the horizon. The haze of rendered
cyberspace made it difficult to locate the source. He launched a pursuit-class
reconnaissance probe and moments later, it located the intruder and transmitted
an image.

It was a massive
routine, consisting of a curved-metallic body held up by eight jointed legs.
There was some sort of brain case attached to the back of the intruder’s head,
and it was enormous—easily large enough to hold a full exabyte of code. It was
either the smartest program he had ever observed, or more likely, a container
vessel of some sort.

As the probe
circled at a distance, it transmitted the intruder’s location and trajectory,
but was unable to determine its offensive and defensive capabilities. Javid
ordered the probe in for a closer inspection. Moments later, the probe abruptly
stopped transmitting. Apparently, the intruder was well armed.

Following
standard procedure, Javid transmitted the probe’s information to his unit, and
then ordered the Sentinels to divide themselves into sixteen groups of two. An
automated matching program paired up the individuals, based on their combined
strengths and weaknesses. When the others had left to assume their positions,
Javid was surprised to see who had been selected as his partner.

“Elsala, tell me
that you did not cheat.”

Elsala smiled at
him through the short-range visual connection. Her teeth were iridescent
against her emerald skin and her rust-colored hair was always a wild tangle.
“Javid Rho, you of all Sentinels should know that a Green like me has no
control over system-level processes. I say that this is one more sign that we
were meant for each other.”

He smiled back.
Their union would certainly be interesting, and Cyberdrome would indeed benefit
greatly.

A display on his
dashboard told him that the other Sentinels were almost in place. He and Elsala
assumed their positions, and he sent the final instructions to close the
circle.

As his Tracer
moved forward, Javid glanced down at his hands. He still had faint memories of
his life before becoming a Sentinel—having tan-colored skin and living a life
of blissful ignorance in one of the Earth simulations. It was not his blue skin
that bothered him, of course—it was the responsibility that the color
represented. Thirty-one lives were now under his leadership. Was he truly ready
to lead them into battle?

A sudden blast
of yellow light on his right side startled him. He glanced over and saw the
glowing remains of a deleted Tracer not far away. Sentinels began to report in;
thirteen deleted, six more damaged, electro-magnetic pulsars were having no
affect on the intruder. Javid issued new instructions. “Break formation. Random
attack pattern Alpha-Seven. Accept.”

A beam passed to
the right of his ship as chaos flared across his command screen. Four more
deleted, another three damaged. He turned in time to see two Tracers disintegrate
in the distance. “Elsala, random patterns, get moving.”

An energy beam
grazed his Tracer’s outer shield and half of his dashboard went dark.

He looked down
and saw that his weapons and long-range communications were out. He was now
weaponless and cut off from the rest of his unit.

He launched
another recon probe toward the Intruder. At least that system still worked. A moment
later, the probe transmitted an image of the battle from high above the ground.
His nit was putting up a valiant fight, attacking the massive routine from all
sides, but they were losing. Multiple yellow pulsar beams were erupting
simultaneously from the Intruder’s lower section, deleting several Tracers at
once.

“What is this
thing?” he said aloud. How was it able to expend so much energy? How could he
stop it? Then he remembered that all weapons appeared to be located on the
intruder’s lower section, therefore they must logically protect a vulnerable
location. The intruder’s underside would be its weakest point.

He rapidly
sorted through his experience database and found a possible counter measure.
Probability of success was exactly fifty percent, but ternary logic, programmed
in during his blue upgrade, allowed him to avoid an infinite loop and make the
decision. Looking out his ship’s view ports, he saw only one other Sentinel in
the area.

“Elsala, can you
hear me?”

“I hear you,
Javid. Why are you on short-range?”

“Most of my
systems are damaged, but I have a plan to delete this intruder.” He paused
before continuing, wishing he could see Elsala in his ship-to-ship, but that
was out as well. “You must drop an Electro-Static Discharge near the intruder
while there is still time. I will distract it while you place the weapon.” He
paused again. Why was the next instruction so difficult to give? “You must be
within three grid units of the intruder for the ESD to work, Elsala. Do you
accept?”

“I understand,
Javid. I will not let you down,” she responded, full of naïve confidence.

Another beam
barely missed Elsala’s ship. He watched her turn and head toward the distant
intruder. He entered the command to reconfigure his Tracer into Recon Mode,
which automatically transferred all of his remaining power to his main
thrusters. It was a mode normally used only for long range scouting missions,
but since shields were not stopping the intruder’s weapons, perhaps speed would
give him the edge he needed to dodge them.

He passed
Elsala’s Tracer and headed at an oblique angle toward the intruder in an attempt
to draw its fire. It worked. Beams of energy flashed by him on all sides. He
constantly adjusted his speed and direction to keep the intruder from getting a
lock on his ship.

As he continued
to dodge the weapons fire, it suddenly occurred to him why the intruder seemed
so powerful; it was simple energy allocation. Just as he was able to transfer
all of his power to his thrusters, the intruder must have transferred all of
its power to its weapon systems.

This is not
logical
,
he thought. Such a waste of resources would eventually cripple the intruder.
Why was it not reserving any power to complete its mission? Unless this was the
intruder’s mission, just getting inside. If it was simply a container, and had
already deposited its cargo, the intruder itself would be expendable.

“Elsala,” he
yelled. He knew that his long-range communications were out, but he had to try.
He angled his ship on a direct course to the intruder. He could not see her,
but he knew that Elsala would be getting close now. Very close.

The horizon in
front of him erupted in a white-hot explosion. His eyes went dark for a moment
to protect them from the visual blast. When they recovered, he boosted his
ship’s scanner to maximum. It showed nothing in the blast center but destroyed
memory, and a shock wave spreading in all directions. Elsala could not have survived.

His eyesight
became foggy. When he reached up to clear his eyes, he felt a strange wetness.
Was he damaged? He looked at his hand and found it covered with a clear liquid.
Tears? Impossible.

Although born in
one of the simulations, his subsequent reformatting had removed all emotional
routines from his programming. He also gained knowledge of his true digital
nature. He was a Sentinel, he reminded himself. His only thoughts should be to
protect and improve the system.

He looked up and
saw the shock wave coming toward him. Instead of losing momentum, as it should,
the wave appeared to be increasing speed as it expanded outward. In addition,
the energy wall appeared to be gaining strength as it moved—most likely
bleeding energy directly from the Core itself. He did a quick calculation and
realized that if it continued in this manner, it would overpower all of
Cyberdrome’s defenses, including the remainder of the Sentinel forces. There
was no way to warn them and absolutely no way to save them.

As the wall
swiftly approached him, he knew that he had one last duty to perform. He
powered down his main drive and let his Tracer drop to the ground. He
transferred all of his ship’s remaining power into the data pulse-beacon, and
transmitted his visual logs and all scanner readings to Cyberdrome’s Supervisor
Program.

When the
transmission finished, he calculated that there was only enough time for one final
pulse. As the wall of destruction rushed toward him, he sent out a single,
three-word message, to anyone who might hear. “We have failed.”

o     o     o

The Control Room
seemed large and empty as Maya stood with the others, waiting to hear from Ceejer.
The silence was unnerving.

“Maya, I didn’t
see you come in,” Rebecca said, her voice breaking the trance. A collective
sigh rose from the people in the room as they resumed their work. “Do you know
where Dr. Grey is?” she asked. “He’s not responding to any of my pages.”

“He’s...” Maya
started to say but then remembered
what Angela had told her—that Mathew
wasn’t currently interfaced. If that was the case, then who spoke to her inside
her simulation?

“He’s where?”
Rebecca asked.

Without
answering, Maya walked over to one of the main access terminals beneath the
tower and sat down.

“Maya? What are
you doing?”

“There’s only
one way he could’ve done it,” she said, as she logged into the security feed
for the construction level. After toggling through several darkened rooms, she
found one with the lights on. There, in the back, the bio-display over one interface
chamber glowed brightly.

“Maya!” Rebecca
yelled.

Maya looked up.
“Sorry.” She pointed to her display. “He’s in there—
inside one of
the new interface chambers.”

Rebecca stared
at the screen blankly. “I thought those weren’t hooked up yet.”

“I guess he
completed the wiring for that room all by himself.”

Rebecca shook
her head then looked around the room. “Can anything else go wrong today?”

“Just received a message from the
Sentinels, ma’am,” the head cryptologist, Freddie, yelled from across the room.
He was a skinny guy, younger than Maya, but almost a foot taller.

Rebecca spun around. “It has been less
than a minute since the Sentinels were launched,” she said. “Please tell me
this is a good thing.”