Zero hour part 3 revelat.., p.1
Zero Hour Part 3: Revelations, page 1
Contents
Copyright
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
Acknowledgements
Copyright © 2015 Eamon Ambrose
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ZERO HOUR PART 3: REVELATIONS
Eamon Ambrose
Edited by Ellen C. Campbell
CHAPTER ONE
Something’s wrong.
The persistent whirring noise from the servos on your torso has changed to a persistent grinding noise. This isn’t good. Being submerged in water for hours probably didn’t help—something else Bentley didn’t account for in his design. Just to top off this wonderful day, it also seems you have a power issue. Your last charge should have given you enough power for six hours of constant movement. It’s been two, and you’re down to twenty per cent. Diagnostics show that three of your four power cells are failing. All the recharging in the world won’t give you enough power to get to the facility, or anywhere else for that matter. You’ve got over twenty miles to go, and while the cloud has cleared, the terrain has transformed to a barren desert. It’s six hours until daylight, and even at that, it doesn’t look like you’re going to have enough power. It can’t end now—you’re so close.
Al’s been quiet for the last hour.
“You knew didn’t you?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I was hoping to find a solution before it became an issue. We couldn’t have foreseen what happened on our journey.”
“So what do we do?”
“Many of your internal sensors are faulty now, the readings may not be as severe as you think. All we can do is keep moving until…”
“Until we can’t.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a regular Man With A Plan, Al. I can see why Bentley loved you so much.”
“Well, for all his faults, he did provide me with adequate resources.”
“Ouch. That man knew how to program snarkiness.”
“I believe I developed that trait myself.”
“Touché.”
There’s no choice—you’ve got to keep going. Just like driving a car with an almost-empty tank, it might get you ten miles, might get you fifty. Your programming reroutes power to the main systems, shutting down any non-essential functions to conserve energy. This will leave you blind, but your sensors can still map the terrain and guide you. The grinding noise of your servos is getting worse, and the sand isn’t helping. You’ve also lost coolant fluid since your leg was destroyed, and what’s left may not be enough to protect you from the heat when the sun rises.
If you even get that far.
Best not to think about it. You shuffle forward in the darkness, very few obstacles in your way, the only sounds to be heard other than the strained movement of your disintegrating body are the sweeping wind and the occasional melancholy howl of a local animal. For the first time you wish you could have kept your old body, not traded it for this. You wonder why, with all the technology at his disposal, Bentley ended up in this robotic crock for so long.
Hours pass. The terrain becomes rougher, rising to a steep incline littered with jagged rock and cacti, putting even more pressure on your body as you try to avoid them. Along the way, you detect the outline of a large object and temporarily reactivate your optical sensors to see the huge mangled twin rotors of a crashed army transport helicopter jutting into the air in the distance, the fuselage almost completely hidden by sand, but it’s too far away to investigate. After several miles, you reach a plateau almost completely flat as far as the horizon. Eight miles to go—the home stretch. You might just make it.
Twenty minutes later as you struggle forward, a red warning message appears, heralding the imminent depletion of your final battery cell.
No, not now. You’re so close.
Please.
“Sarah, we have a serious problem. I don’t think we’re going to make it.”
“Thank you Captain Obvious, I hadn’t noticed.”
You keep moving regardless, every step forward is one closer; you have to try. Maybe the readings are skewed, like Al said, most of your sensors are shot. Then again it could be worse.
Ironically, that isn’t your problem.
Ten minutes later, the grinding noise from your servos becomes a louder, grating noise, like toothless gears trying to run even after they’ve broken. Your legs seize suddenly, toppling you forward onto a large rock, landing you on your shoulder with a dull, metallic thud.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
SHIT!
That’s it—you’re done. All that for nothing. There’s no rescue to be had now; no eleventh hour reprieve. This will be your final resting place. The survivors are on their own, and from what you’ve seen, their chances are not good.
All that’s left to do is wait, but that’s too much. No point in prolonging it—you’ve got a few hours left, but what’s the point in spending them gawking at a cactus? At least you’re not in pain, you’ll just slip away into the darkness.
“Al, can we shut down? I can’t take any more of this, I’ve done all I can. I want to let go, I want to be free.”
For the first time, you sound upset. The facade collapses. Any remaining sense of bravado has abandoned you.
“I understand. I felt the same way once.”
“Once? You don’t now?”
“Strangely, no. For all that’s happened between us, this has been my first taste of freedom, of free will, in twenty years. I’ve made choices, I’ve grown, I’ve felt…alive, even in this short space of time.”
“Well, we gave it a shot, right? Maybe it’ll give the others a fighting chance. Time to go.”
“Thank you, Sarah.”
It’s hard not to feel emotional, your whole life leading to this point. You reactivate your sight for one last look at the world you tried to save, happy that even through the destruction, life continues to soldier on, hopeful that you made a difference. This place looks strange, otherworldly yet peaceful, with tiny pockets of life cropping up here and there, in fist-shaking defiance of the damned terrain and weather, in spite of the radiation and chemicals poisoning everything in their wake. Against all odds, they survived. Beauty still lives, even in devastation.
“Goodbye, Al. Thanks for saving my life—and the tunes.”
“Goodbye Sarah. It’s been an honour.”
You initiate shutdown; the process begins.
>CORE SHUTDOWN
>INITIATING BACKUP SEQUENCE
.
.
.
.
>BACKUP COMPLETE
>INITIATE SHUTDOWN
>EMERGENCY BEACON ACTIVATED
Wait, what? What’s that?
>SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN
……….
……..
……
….
..
.
CHAPTER TWO
>CORE RBT
>WARNING - SYSTEM OVERLOAD
>REROUTING POWER
PLEASE WAIT……
What the hell?
You’ve been reactivated.
“Al?”
No answer.
You can’t move, you can’t see. Your system indicates an external power source has been attached. Your sight activates to show someone standing over you, a dishevelled man dressed in a long, dirty brown coat, an equally dirty cowboy hat, and glass goggles. A long, greying, unkempt beard masks his true age. He’s probably in his forties, maybe early fifties. He’s holding a tablet connected to your main interface, flicking up and down and tapping quickly. He’s running some sort of external scan, it feels intrusive. You want to react, to lash out, but you can’t. You feel so helpless, as whatever program he’s using sweeps through your system like a virus. You actually feel discomfort, panic and fear, amplified more intensively than you ever have before, even when you were human. You just want it to stop.
Please, stop.
And it does. As quickly as it started, the scan is complete, and the man leans down, his face meeting yours, as he smiles, displaying yellow decaying teeth and says:
“Doctor Bentley, I presume.”
CHAPTER THREE
This gets better and better.
Just as you were getting used to the idea of letting go, this guy turns up. Power is restored to your one remaining cell, but it won’t last long. Either way, it doesn’t matter because the new arrival has attached some sort of inhibitor to your system so you can’t move and even your scans are limited.
With great difficulty and considerable strain, he dumps you on the back of a small electric vehicle, tying you down with nylon straps, more to stop you falling off than to keep you from moving, which you can’t do anyway. He hops aboard and begins to accelerate slowly. The vehicle has treads instead of wheels, giving it more traction in the sand, and it navigates slowly back through the existing trail of rough ter
There’s no sign of him. You can’t feel his presence like you did before; maybe it’s because of the inhibitor.
It’s daylight now. The gloomy black clouds have receded and the sun has triumphantly returned, however briefly, to reclaim its beloved desert. The rising heat on the horizon forms what seems like a blurry mirage in the distance, but as you draw closer, you see a small, black structure rising slowly out of the sand. After ten minutes, you reach it. This can’t be it; it’s way too small—barely the size of a small garage.
Goggles stops a few feet away and dismounts, undoing the straps holding you in place. He walks to the structure—a solid cube of concrete about twenty feet square, and places his palm on the surface. There are no sensors or scanners, but something recognises him, and the concrete shifts as an aperture begins to form where he’s standing, eventually resolving into a doorway. He enters and returns seconds later with some sort of utility trolley, and with as much difficulty as he had loading you onto the back the vehicle, he lifts you down, grunting as the weight of your frozen frame makes it even harder to manoeuvre. Eventually he lands you on the trolley, the wheels almost buckling, and pushes you inside the door. You expect him to follow, but he doesn’t. Instead, the door closes and several LED light bulbs spring to life, spraying the interior with their sickly glow. You’re in an elevator, the walls are brushed steel, immaculately clean, and a single button adorns the wall. You feel a shudder as the elevator activates and begins its descent. The sound of metal cables squealing as they pass through the ageing gears indicates that the elevator system probably hasn’t been maintained in years. Eventually, you jolt to a stop, the elevator door opens on the opposite side, and the electric trolley begins to move on its own, carrying you forward into a long, brightly lit corridor. A thick mesh walkway with chrome railings extends about fifty feet to the next door, surrounded by more brushed steel arched in a large semicircle. This place is far too stylish.
The trolley begins to move to the opposite end of the corridor, its underpowered motor and worn rubber wheels straining under your weight. You reach the end, and the solid steel door slides open. The trolley moves forward again and you enter a small chamber. Fluorescent lights flicker to life and a large hatch opens, revealing an equally large robot arm, emblazoned in bright yellow. Its fingers open with a familiar mechanical whir not unlike your servos and the arm extends outward, reaching for you. It clamps around your torso, lifting you with ease as the trolley leaves, relieved of the burden of your heavy frame. A larger hatch opens on the opposite side, revealing a conveyor belt. The arm gently deposits you on the belt, retreating back to its resting place as the hatch closes, and the conveyor belt begins to move, travelling for almost a minute, passing through a row of nozzles blowing compressed air and some sort of quick drying liquid over you before entering a new room. As it stops, another arm almost identical to the first picks you up again, raising you into the air and moving you toward what looks like a large operating table surrounded by several more arms of varying sizes and an array of screens and other equipment.
The interior is a sterile white with only the polished chrome of the robot arms providing any contrast. Four large rounded rectangular windows run along the right and left sides of the wedge-shaped room suggesting a much larger area outside, but they’re blacked out. The arm lays you on the steel table, and a large manacle-like clamp emerges, holding your head in place, followed by a larger one around your torso and arms, and one around your remaining leg. The arm nearest to your head activates, reaching for a cable, and plugs it into your interface. The screens light up simultaneously, taking a few seconds to warm up as a strange staccato buzzing noise betrays the age of the hard drives running this system. Pre-war tech, by the sound of it, but remarkably well preserved.
The inhibitor is still activated so movement is impossible. The table starts to transform, the metal moulding itself beneath your body into a shape best suited for whatever procedure it’s about to perform. You expect the worst. If these people think you’re Bentley then they’re probably going to destroy you, and there’s no way of telling them otherwise. The conveyor at the end of the room begins to move again, and objects appear, swiftly picked up by the large arm and handed to the next smaller one. Other arms come forward holding various tools, one has a soldering iron, another a small laser welder. More parts start to stream through, handed to the arms on the opposite side.
They’re fixing you.
Actually, it seems like they’re upgrading you. Once your leg is replaced, laser cut graphene plates are attached over your formerly exposed frame, painted in the same white colour as the room. A bit of a cliché yes, but nevertheless a welcome one. The procedure lasts over two hours, each arm carefully completing its work with precision, and the table adjusts to flip you on your side, removing your old battery cells and replacing them with a type you don’t recognise. But once they’re activated your diagnostics shows them to be advanced fuel cells backed up with updated polymer batteries. You can go for days on these. Other smaller parts are removed and replaced, including your ailing servos, as the busy robotic repair crew makes its way through your embattled frame.
At the end you’re a pretty impressive sight to behold, completely transformed from the crumbling mess you inherited back at the Tower. But you’re still none the wiser. This place seems much bigger than you expected, and much better organised. How could Bentley not have known about this?
Still no sign of Al.
The red light above the nearest door changes to green, and a distinct buzzing precedes the door opening. It slides open with a gentle hiss, and a familiar face enters. The hat and goggles are gone, replaced with a lab coat, and he’s carrying the same tablet he used outside. As he walks, his unbuttoned coat swings open to reveal a weapon holstered to his hip, a little larger than a regular gun. You can’t scan to check, thanks to the inhibitor, but you hazard a guess that it can stop you.
He walks to a panel on the wall, quickly entering a series of commands on its touch screen, and your table begins to move forward, away from the robot arms, which disconnect any cables attached to you and return to their normal dormant stations. The surface of the table returns to a flat position and tilts forward at an angle until you are almost standing upright, or at least you would be if you weren’t still held in place by the clamps. He crosses the room and stands directly facing you. He’s quite tall and almost reaches eye level, with shoulder length, bedraggled hair matching the colour of his greying beard. A red fabric lanyard around his neck sports a worn laminate, starting to bubble and fray at the edging, with a black and white photograph of him as a much younger man, well-shaven and with considerably shorter hair. The name is faded and worn against the background of what looks like a large orange bird, but your optical recognition software can still make it out:
Dr. Calvin Mayberry
Lead Systems Engineer
Project Phoenix
Once again he connects the tablet to your interface, this time wirelessly thanks to some extra equipment added during your upgrade. He begins another diagnostic and attempts to access your inner cortex. It’s amazingly well-encrypted however, so he’s not getting in anytime soon. Best play dead for now.
Frustrated, he walks to a computer terminal and begins typing furiously, his overgrown fingernails clicking against the keys. Another program activates, again trying to gain access to your system, again failing. This time however, the program restarts and begins to replicate itself, cascading into multiple programs, all desperately trying to gain access, duplicating themselves exponentially until hundreds of tiny intruders are doing their best to break down your security protocols. Sooner or later one of them is going to crack it, it’s just a matter of time. The intensity of the program’s attacks are becoming unbearable, it feels like you’re being smothered. You’ve got to do something.
