Eugene

Victoria faded from Eugene’s view, he wasn’t even sure if she had seen him.  Why the fuck was she here anyway?  He didn’t have time to worry about her, he had to look for cover.  The monster who shared the room with him was moving now, picking up the battery packs from their cradles and attaching them to its body.  It turned to face the three remaining men in the room who were all frozen in place just as Eugene was.

“Now for the rest of you bastards who helped her do this to me.  You will all pay.  EVERYONE WILL PAY!”  It crossed the room in the blink of an eye, feet tearing into the steel flooring like it was tissue paper and grabbed the technician next to Eugene.  Holding him around the waist it tore one arm off with dreadful slowness and dropped the mewling scientist to the ruptured floor.

The door burst in with a deafening explosion followed immediately by gunfire and Eugene dove behind a steel table that held lab equipment as the bullets ricochet off the thing like flies hitting a windshield.

The machine roared and tore towards the airlock.  Black clad figures scattered left and right down the corridor, but one was too slow.  The thing picked up the soldier and flung her across the room to slam into a will with sundering force.  With a guttural growl, it gave chase to the other soldiers.

As the sounds of pursuit faded, interspersed with sporadic gunfire and Eugene bent to tie a tourniquet on the arm of the scientist even though he was pretty sure the man was done for.  He glanced fearfully towards the door just in time to see a lithe figure drop from some unseen hiding place in the ceiling of the hallway.

“Victoria?  What are you doing here?”  She was wearing Kevlar battle armor and armed to the teeth, he almost didn’t recognize her.

“We are here to extract you.  Secure anything you require and follow me.  There is a Scimitar gunship waiting for us outside.  The team will keep that construct busy while we make good our escape.”  She sounded focused and precise, Eugene had heard this tone before.

“Adam?  That’s you isn’t it?” He asked.

“Affirmative, Victoria is not equipped to handle this type of situation.” Came the swift and calm reply.

“Look, that’s not just a construct.  It has a human brain and an AI much like yours.  I think the brain has become unbalanced though, he killed his own wife!”  Eugene shuddered.

“No time for idle speech Doctor, let’s move out before that thing destroys this ship.”  Victoria turned and slipped noiselessly out of the room.

Eugene followed her down the hallway.  She turned towards the cabins instead of the exit, glancing down the corridor briefly before drawing her pistol and firing two quick shots followed by the sound of bodies falling.  She motioned for him to continue following and slipped around the corner and he saw the two men she had taken down.  The shots had been placed precisely in each of their right eyes.

“We can get to the roof through here, then Dace can bring the chopper around for evac.”  Adam said with Victoria’s voice.  She opened the door, revealing a narrow staircase and paused to clear it before stealthily moving up it.  Sounds of gunfire, a helicopter and the tortured shriek of twisting metal could clearly be heard from the top of the stairs.

“Watch it, this is going to get dangerous when we get up there.  It sounds like my little brother is still causing trouble.”  They carefully looked over the edge of the roof just in time to see the cyborg throwing a large chunk of steel railing into the rotor blades of the hovering gunship.  The Scimitar was designed to take some abuse so although it spun out of control and plunged to a splash landing it did not explode.

Victoria snuck onto the roof like a cat and got behind the machine.  Eugene could see her holster the sidearm and crouch down, making ready.  The two remaining soldiers recovered from the shock of seeing their craft disabled and opened fire on the creature that was stalking them once more.

“Noooo-!”  Victoria’s voice screamed in panic for a moment before it cut off but her body moved in perfect precision, leaping onto the thing’s shoulders while its attention was on the figures in black that were peppering it with lead.  It reached behind itself and grabbed her by the legs with a sickening crunch just as she pressed her thumbs on the immobilizing switches.

The beast swayed, gyros no longer able to compensate for the lack of muscle control and fell on its side with Victoria still encased in its metal embrace.  The machine was screaming, its vocal circuits had not been shut down yet but Eugene could still hear Victoria’s sobs beneath the roar.  What the fuck had just happened?

One of the soldiers motioned ran to Victoria’s side and the other approached him.  Eugene was surprised to see a young looking female face looking down the barrel of a submachine gun at him.

“You’re Eugene Arlington correct?”  All he could do was nod in shock, “You’re coming with us.”

“Wait, what about Victoria?”  He stammered, trying to regain control of his scattered senses.

“We may be able to get the Scimitar airborne again in an hour or so, then we will only be another hour out from the finest medical facility.”  She replied, her face a focused mask.

“No, she will almost certainly bleed to death before then.”  Eugene said, looking at Victoria’s mangled form and shuddering as he fought to keep himself calm.  “Listen, I’m a doctor and there is an operating room just below us, albeit a completely destroyed one.  I can save her.”

“Doc, her legs are thrashed.  She knew the risk.  I have to hand it to her, Vic’s made of some pretty stern stuff.  Without her actions we’d prolly all be dead.”  She looked over at the floating form of the Scimitar and grimaced.  “The faster we get her out of here the less likely she is to get an infection.”

The mechanical screaming had stopped; the other soldier had yanked the battery packs out of it.  Once it lost power, the hands also relaxed and Victoria fell to the deck limply.

“Eugene?  Are you still alive?”  Her voice was weak but steady.

“Yes, I’m here.”  He moved to her side, tears leaking from his eyes at the amount of blood pooling beneath her.

“That’s some consolation I suppose.”  She wasn’t looking at him.  “Fuck.  After all that he turns out to be a traitor.”

“What are you talking about?  I would never betray you Victoria.”  He took her hand and she didn’t pull away.  When she finally did meet his eyes there was fear burning in them.

“Not you Eugene.  Adam.  I know it was the only way to stop that thing but I didn’t want to go.”  She grabbed his hand so tightly he could feel the joints creak and whispered, “I didn’t want to do it but he made me anyway.  What have you done?  I want to pass out but I can’t because he knows shock victims have a much worse chance of survival if they lose consciousness, Eugene I can’t stop him.  He’s in there and I can’t stop him.”

“Shhhh, it’s going to be OK.”  He patted her hand, not knowing what else to do, “Are you in pain Victoria?”

“No.  I can’t feel anything below my waist.  How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad.”  He saw some parachute cord in a tidy bundle strapped to her vest with Velcro.  “I’m going to put tourniquets on your legs so you won’t bleed too much and we’ll get you out of here as fast as we can.”

The muffled sound of a powerful boat motor caused everyone on the deck to look around.  The soldier who had been talking to Eugene started talking, apparently to someone on the chopper.

“Damn it Sky why didn’t you or Link let us know about the incoming?  What do you mean it’s not showing on radar?”

“Members of the Special Forces squad seventeen, please hold your fire.  We are friendlies, repeat please hold your fire.”  A voice reverberated off the ship through a megaphone and another craft leaped into view as its running lights were switched on.  It had gotten within a hundred feet and been completely invisible until the crew had turned on the lights.  Standing on the deck was Dmitri Nikitin.

Dmitri’s boat was a long narrow affair, obviously built for speed.  Her angular hull, deck and cabin were all made of fibrous black material that looked like it was military grade.  She was approximately thirty feet from bow to aft.  Once he was close enough, Dmitri threw a grapnel onto the Misery and pulled his boat up tight to the side.

“Speed is of the essence, I believe the enclave on that island over there is probably in communication with this ship.”  He bowed slightly towards the apparent leader of the unit, “Well met Chelsea Daceiron, I have heard of your team but did not expect you to be so young.  Your reputation precedes you.”

“No need to worry about com, that metal monster crushed Kim with the radio array.  I dunno know who the hell you are, but we’re gonna to have to commandeer your ship.  I have wounded that need immediate evac.”

“My name is Dmitri Nikitin and I place myself at your disposal, commandeering is completely unnecessary.  Besides, I can pilot this craft much faster than any of your team.  Let us load your survivors and make haste back to civilization.”

Eugene had finished tying the second tourniquet and shuddered at the damage that had been done to Victoria’s legs.  Adam must have shut off the nerves on her lower body because he could feel the bones grinding against each other when he lifted them to slide the cords underneath.  Dmitri approached with a concerned frown on his face.

“Eugene, what on Earth have you allowed to happen to Victoria?  Had I known she was in this much danger I would not have stayed as far out as I did.”

“It wasn’t his fault Dmitri, I did this to myself.”  Victoria’s voice was bitter, “Thanks for coming like I asked.”

“Of course my dear.”  Dmitri gently picked her up, her mangled legs dangling disturbingly, and began walking towards his slim craft.  “I apologize for not coming sooner or having more appropriate emergency equipment, Dark Star is not designed for this type of extraction.”

“Wait a fucking second here.  You TOLD him?”  Dace was irate, “I lost half my team on this mission and you compromised us by leaking intel to a civilian third party?”

“Do not act as though my actions contributed to the demise of your underlings.” Dmitri said, “You cannot face a monster and expect to get away without a few scratches.  Please modify your tone if you wish my assistance, Victoria is dear to me and I will not have you casting dispersions on her character aboard my craft.”

He stepped aboard his boat without looking back, leaving Dace gaping like a landed fish.  In the distance an alarm began sounding from the direction of the island.  She looked back towards the downed Scimitar and then at Dmitri’s Dark Star.

“OK, let’s collect what we can and get the hell otta here.  Something’s squawkin on that island and I don’t wanna be here when they scramble. ” Dace said, “Sky, Link, set the destruct on that thing and get over here.  We ain’t leavin a cinder for them to find.  Hey!  Mr. Nikitin!  How much room you got on that boat?”

Eugene finally pulled himself out of the daze he was stuck in and stood up, walking toward a crumple of metal he assumed was the destroyed communications array.  He could see a pair of black clad legs sticking out from under a large piece of it and attempted to see if their owner still lived.

Dmitri was climbing out of the cabin of Dark Star presumably after getting Victoria settled. “She will comfortably seat six, more than enough room for your remaining comrades.”

As he made his way around the mangled mess trying to find a place to check for a pulse Eugene saw it wasn’t necessary.  A large portion of the array had caved the girl’s head in.

“Good, then we can take our dead back too.”  Said Dace.

“I fear time is of the essence Miss Daceiron, I do not wish to give Victoria the chance to bleed to death while you gather fallen troops.”  Dmitri said mildly, lighting a cigarette.

“By the time you finish that coffin nail I’ll be out with whoever I can find.”  Dace drew a pistol from its holster on her left hip and went back into the Misery through the door Eugene and Victoria had exited.  After a moment, Eugene followed.

“Dace, I will help if I can.  I would also like to get my laptop if it survived.”  He said.

“Just don’t slow me down.”  Dace replied, “You get Fats from the operating room then, I’ll see if I can find Shai.  Forty-five seconds Doc.”  She handed him a pistol.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”  He looked at the weapon like it was a week old fish.

“Shoot anything that moves.  I dunno if we downed all the hostiles or not.”

Eugene ran to the room where his laptop hopefully still sat in one piece.  He glanced in the door before moving inside, it was a mess of wiring, torn steel and corpses.  His laptop was sitting on the floor, its fractured screen flickering but apparently still functional.  When he entered the room to retrieve it Eugene could hear someone moaning.  The girl who had been thrown across the room was still alive.  He closed his machine and set it down on a twisted piece of lab equipment without bothering to shut it down.

“Dace?  That you?” She said, “Oh Christ I’m tore up pretty bad.”

“It’s Eugene, I’m here to get you out.”  He said.  “The chopper is down but we have a boat waiting.”  He awkwardly grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder in a Fireman’s carry, then picked up his laptop and staggered to the door.  This girl was a lot heavier than she looked.

“Thanks Doc.”  She was muttering almost too quiet to hear, “Fucking demons, we weren’t ready for fucking demons.”

When they got back topside Eugene saw they were the last two.  Dace ran up to help him out.
“Careful, she’s not dead.”

“Shit Fats, you lucky bitch.”  Dace wiped some tears from her cheek, “Good to see your eyes open, now keep ‘em that way until we get you a medic.”

“Don’ feel lucky.  Hurts.  Tired.”

Together they managed to get her aboard and strapped into a chair.  The Dark Star had begun to set out as soon as they had boarded, but now that Fats was belted in Dmitri opened up the throttle and the boat leaped forward.  Eugene drew a shaky sigh of relief, it was finally over.

“It’s all over Eugene.”  Victoria didn’t sound relieved, hers was a voice of despair.

“Thank you for coming to get me Victoria, there’s no way the team would have been able to rescue me.”

She talked in a monotone, “We tried to get through its WIFI and Bluetooth but it didn’t appear to have the proper software installed.  We were going to pull the power plug but it saw through that little ruse and killed our proxy.  Ripped him in half like a piece of paper.  After he fitted those Lithium Fusion batteries the game changed.  There was no other choice but to intervene directly, push the buttons, take him out manually.  Didn’t count on him having shoulders that could articulate like that.  Thought we’d be safe.”

“Don’t try to speak Victoria, you’re in shock.”  Eugene said, “I’m sure we will be able to repair the damage.  You’ll live, I swear it.”

“Sure I will probably live.”  She said, a tear leaking from the corner of her eye, “But I’m trapped in this body with an enemy.  How am I supposed to want to live with Him still in my head?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Eugene asked, already knowing the answer.  “Who is in your head?  Why is he an enemy?”

Victoria’s head slumped to the side, she had lost consciousness.  Eugene looked at her helplessly, checking her vitals to make sure she hadn’t actually died on him.  To his surprise she actually seemed stable.

“She will not fail me Mr. Arlington.”  Eugene jumped at the voice behind him.

“What do you mean fail YOU?”  Eugene demanded, “She isn’t doing a goddamn thing for you Dmitri!”

“Oh Mr. Arlington, how little you truly know.”  Dmitri said, the icy cool of his voice frightening Eugene enough to snap him out of his state of shock.  “It matters not what she thinks she is doing, everything she does is for me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”  He demanded.

“Exactly what it sounds like Doctor.”  Was Dmitri’s calm, collected reply.  “The longer she lives, the more potent her technology will become.  The more dramatic her death, the more the military will want it for themselves.  All this will make my father’s investment pay, therefore all she does is for me.”

With that, Dmitri turned back to the controls of his boat as it lanced through the night.

Victoria

Victoria was strapped into a hard plastic seat in the back of the smallest personnel transport helicopter she had ever seen.  It was all hard angles, flat black and had multiple hatches that would allow the passengers to jump out of it individually.  The chopper didn’t have any tail rotor, instead there were two rotor blades on the top that rotated in opposing directions which she supposed kept it stable in the air.

The team she was with was also a surprise.  They wore the same flat black Kevlar body armor she had been equipped with and each had their own set of weaponry and tools strapped in convenient locations or stowed in handy pockets.  That wasn’t too surprising; she’d seen her share of movies after all.  What really was interesting was that they were all female.

When she had arrived at the recon point with the Lieutenant, she had been directed into the back of this tiny helicopter and given her gear, then told to put it on.  This involved stripping to the skin and while she was only half dressed she heard a vehicle approaching.  A group of soldiers in full dress emerged from a Humvee and began unloading equipment.  Victoria couldn’t quite reach one of the straps that tightened the Kevlar armor but one of the soldiers approached carrying an awkward case of ammunition and pulled it tight for her.  She looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties, slightly taller with a tad more muscle mass though, and her gear had seen some serious use.

“Damn, you put this on like a pro ‘cept for this bit here.  It’s a real pain in the ass to reach unless you don’t quite follow the regs and do it second to last instead of last then it don’t get away from ya.”  The girls’ voice sounded rough, like she’d been shouting for hours or smoking for years.

“Thanks.  I’m Victoria, all this is pretty new to me.”

The girl offered her hand and Victoria shook it, “Dace.  It don’t seem like any of this is new to you at all.  Shit I’ve seen veterans with years’ experience who don’t know how to gird themselves the way you’ve done.  You even have the quick release done right.  How’d you learn to do that bein’ as you’re a civi and all?”

“Civi?  Oh, civilian.  It comes with a manual; all you need to do is read right?”  Victoria was pretty sure Adam was to blame but wasn’t about to reveal that particular bit of insight.

“You must be the quickest fuckin reader I’ve ever met; you’ve only been in here for about five minutes.” Dace shrugged, “Anyway, come on out here and meet the team.  We’re gonna get you in and out and get that doctor of yours while we’re at it.”

They walked out into the small parking lot where five other women were loading weapons, testing equipment and double checking the fit of their gear.  Dace raised her voice.

“Listen up!”  The others stopped what they were doing immediately and turned to look at her, “This is our cargo.  Goes by Victoria for this exercise she’s Vic.  Vic, meet the team, Shai on recon, Sky on sniper, Kim on demo, Link on com, then there’s me and Fats on point.”  The young women all nodded in turn as they were introduced, “I’m captain of this mission and also flying this rocket.  Any questions?”

“Do you know anything about the layout of the boat?”  Victoria asked.

“Negative, she’s a custom job and the shipyard where she was constructed suffered an unfortunate fire right after her maiden voyage.”  Dace gave her an appraising look, “You sure you ain’t done this before?”

Victoria opened her mouth to respond and then stopped.  She could see a line drawing in her mind’s eye and those ghostly orange letters floated across her vision telling her this was a blueprint of the Misery.  “OK, I’ll see what I can do for us then.  I need paper and a pen.”

Dace raised an eyebrow but handed her a small notepad and pencil. “Whacha gonna do?  Draw me a floor plan?”

“Yes, let me concentrate.”  Her head throbbed the way it always did when Adam was forcing data on her conscious mind.  She tried to relax and let the information flow from her brain to the paper.  In a matter of minutes she had sketched a rough outline of the ship, the doors, windows and rooms as well as quick notations about each one.

“I heard about this.  I heard about it but I didn’t believe it.”  Fats was staring at her, “You’re Project Sixteen aren’t you?”

“Cut the chatter Fats, we got work to do.”  Dace looked at the sheets of paper Victoria had handed her, “These accurate?  It’s all our asses if you give me shitty intel.”

“Yes, they aren’t to scale I don’t think but the layout should be good.”  She rubbed her temples, “I’m not sure where we got that from but I don’t think that’s the final draft.  There may have been some minor changes to what room is where but the general layout is definitely accurate.”

“Let’s move out people, I want to be bustin into that boat by 0430!”  They all ran into the chopper and strapped in.  Dace flicked a few switches and as the rear hatch closed the engines began to wind up.

Fats was sitting next to Victoria and staring hard at her.  “So why do they call you Fats?”

“I play trumpet.  Fats Domino is my inspiration.” She said, still staring. “Is it true?  Are you Project Sixteen?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what that means.”  Victoria said.

“Hey, that shit’s classified.”  Said Shai, looking up from the drawings Victoria had made.  “You say these aren’t to scale but they look pretty precise to me.  Where’d you get this intel from?”

They were all looking at her now.  “I have a friend who is a serious hacker.  We were looking into this before Kate called me in and he pulled them for me.  If I’d had more warning I could have just printed them, lucky for us I have a photographic memory.”

“Ready to depart, you bitches better be strapped in if you have time for idle chatter!”  Dace shouted over her shoulder.

“Ready for takeoff Captain!”  The unit replied in unison.

The chopper felt like it was launched from a catapult; Victoria felt the G forces press her into the molded plastic chair.  Without being belted in she would surely have slid out of the chair and onto the floor but the straps on her thighs kept her firmly in place.  There were no windows to see out of, but she knew the ground was falling away quickly.  After a couple seconds, the craft stopped rising and shot forward with astonishing speed.

“So rumor has it you’re proficient with a pistol is that accurate Vic?”  Sky looked at her from across the cabin.  “What model do you favor?”

“Oh, uh I guess I’ve only ever fired a Smith and Wesson nine millimeter Sigma SW9VE.  I found it to be accurate but a little on the heavy side and I didn’t like the trigger action.”  Victoria stopped for a moment, “I don’t really know much about guns.”

“Well we don’t use nines here.  Lightest I’ve got is a forty four.”  She opened one of the steel cases that had been brought onboard, took out a holstered black pistol with a silencer affixed to the barrel and a half dozen loaded magazines.  “Here, this should do.”

Victoria unclasped the chest harness of her chair and took the holstered weapon, holding it gingerly.  Leaning forward, she carefully put the tactical harness on, shifting the holster so it sat comfortably just above her left hip.  Finding a few handy pockets she slid the magazines into balanced positions, then put her harness back on.  She looked up to see Sky watching her intently.

“Yeah.  I can tell you’ve never handled a weapon before.”  Sarcasm dripped from her voice, “Look, why don’t you drop the ‘little Miss innocent’ act all right?  We know you’ve had tactical training and a lot of it.  The only question you’ve asked was related to the mission, you haven’t had any problems gearing up; shit I still have trouble with these fucking Kevlar suits.  You didn’t even need to be told which seat was yours and you haven’t made one single mistake.”

“Project sixteen.”  Fats said, “I knew it.”

“What the hell is project sixteen?” Sky asked, “I don’t remember that briefing.”

“Sleepers, like in the ‘Bourne’ series.  You know, civies who get brainwashed to do specific tasks without knowing about it, then someone gives them a string of words or a key or something and they flip a switch and become cold decisive killers or whatever right?”  Said Link.

“Naw I heard it was some brain implant that they can control with microwaves or by radio.”  Said Kim, “You been captured by aliens lately Vic?”

“Are you referring to Adam?”  Victoria lifted her hair, showing the prosthetic where it bolted to her skull.  “He’s not brainwashing me or anything, he’s my artificial spine and he might have military funding but he’s not some military project.  Before they gave me some software that let me see wireless Ethernet communication, but it went slightly wrong and crashed us.”

“That’s some heavy shit.” Said Fats, looking closely at her head.  “Why’d you let them do that to you?  Christ you must have a screw loose.”

“It was either that or spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.  I got cancer and there was pretty much either chemo and being paralyzed and sick until I died or this.  I chose to retain my mobility.  It was a big risk but it played out pretty well for me in the end.”  Victoria let her hair back down.

“What’re those plugs?  Do you jack in like ‘The Matrix’?” Asked Link.

“Link’s obsessed with that movie, she thinks it’s going to be the next big plague or something.”  Said Fats, rolling her eyes.

“Wait, you called it Adam right?  Does that mean it has personality or something?”  Link’s eyes widened, “It’s not an AI is it?”

“Oh shit, here we go, now she’s not gonna leave you alone.” Said Sky, “You got her started and now we’ve gotta deal with this shit for the whole flight.”

“Button up back there, we’re making our approach.”  Dace yelled.  Everyone put radio earbuds in their ears, leaned back and grabbed the handles on the sides of their seats.  Victoria had already fitted hers into her ears and just relaxed; knowing that fighting the G forces was pointless.  The chopper banked in a hard circle.

“Something’s up Dace, the boat’s dead out there.” Link said quietly, coming in loud and clear in Victoria’s ear, “No power signature coming from anywhere.  They can’t be jamming us, maybe there’s some mechanical failure of some sort.”

“No, they have something on there that is masking their emissions or confusing our equipment.” Said Sky, “I can’t see anything through my scope except for infrared and there’s a lot of heat coming from it.  The main source is from the very center, the spot Vic marked as the operating theater.”

“I’m setting us down here; this thing’s supposed to float.  We’ll use the water jets to get in closer.”  Dace said and in moments had put the chopper down on the water.  “Sky, you’ll stay here to cover our asses from unseen threats.  Link you set up com and make sure we stay connected.”

The side doors opened and the team all grabbed what looked like torpedoes from a rack on the wall.  Victoria saw them pull handles from the sides and followed suit.  They all slid into the water and activated the jets which pulled them through the water.

Damn, this was like a Bond movie!  Despite the tension of the moment Victoria couldn’t help but enjoy herself.  The water was cold but calm, their movement was swift and effortless.  As they reached the edge of the craft, the sound of metal crashing against metal reverberated through the water and the dim lights they could see now that they were closer flickered.

“Now’s our chance, let’s move.  Sky, clear our entry”  Dace said, and they affixed magnetic tethers to the side of the boat in order to keep the tiny jets from floating away before quietly making their way over the railing.  Two clanking noises, like the sound of someone dropping a bolt on the steel deck were quickly followed by the sound of two bodies falling with a clatter.

“All clear Dace.”  Sky said, “I’ll keep your exit route open.”

Once on board, Fats tossed the bodies overboard after taking the radios off their belts.  She handed one to Dace and kept one herself.  With hand signals they coordinated their movements into the ship.  Quickly and efficiently, Fats and Dace dispatched anyone they came across.  Armed guards took a bullet in the eye; anyone unarmed took a fist or rifle butt to the chin or the back of the head.

They passed by a room with an airlock door that had a small but very thick window.  Victoria glanced through and clearly saw Eugene’s face look up from a computer screen.  The recognition and shock on his face confirmed that it was him.  She stopped in her tracks, throwing the signal to the rest of the team as though she was the leader and that’s when she realized blood and pieces of bone and brain were dripping down the window.  Then Adam took over.

Eugene leaped for the door as the thing that had once been Lawrence McKenna tore the room apart.  Its jerky movements were wickedly fast but totally out of control, he could tell it was only standing because of the gyros that it was equipped with.  Something had gone wrong with the data routing or else their audio and visual inputs weren’t coded properly.  Either that or he was simply insane or brain damaged from his time in the coma.

“Shut him down, SHUT HIM DOWN!”  Seraphim was yelling.  “Take the whole room down!”  The lights all cut out and Eugene felt as well as heard the titanium chassis hit the floor.  For a moment all was dark and the silence after the mayhem was deafening.

Emergency lighting flickered on and Eugene could see the chaos again.  Pieces of equipment had been smashed, half of the halogen lights were broken, the reinforced stainless steel table was bent into a pretzel and the black metal body of the monster that had wrought such destruction lay face down on the floor, its hand mere inches from Seraphim’s foot.

“What happened to him?  Why couldn’t he hear me?”  Seraphim was looking at one of her technicians who was cowering in a corner.  She moved to an intercom on the wall and jumped back as it emitted a crackle of electricity that arced to her hand.  Shaking her hand she pulled a radio from her belt, “Give me a damage report and someone tell me what the FUCK happened in here!”

Eugene saw his laptop sitting on the floor where it had fallen when the monster tore free.  He cautiously approached, keeping a wary eye on the machine.  “If I can pull data from the prosthetic’s AI maybe I can figure out why he went berserk.  I hope my laptop isn’t thrashed.”  He picked it up and saw the screen was fractured in the upper right corner, bleeding liquid crystals into the surrounding area but otherwise whole.

“You do that Eugene.  You do that while I watch.  My poor baby is sitting down there blind, deaf and dumb he must be panicking!”  Seraphim said as that nasty looking knife appeared in her hand again.  Eugene was pretty sure she had it up her sleeve.

He plugged into the diagnostics port and looked at the output.  “Look here, this is very strange.”  He was pointing to a portion of the log file, “I’m not seeing any input on the audio or visual devices.  Here you can see the audio output but something’s not right with the inputs.  It makes sense that he wouldn’t have any control over the body, most of that control is based on your senses right?”

Seraphim nodded slowly and he continued, “I’m not sure what kind of sensory devices are hooked up for a sense of touch but I don’t see those as having any data to transfer either.  It’s possible something’s not hooked up properly or else the designers didn’t isolate the frequencies.  A.D.A.M. performs data routing based on the specific nerve frequency each nerve emits.  It can easily find the endings in the brain stem and trace those signals back to their destination because every nerve pulse is a two way street.  If the designers of this device didn’t ensure they had the frequencies the brain was already using for data routing there’s no way my AI can properly route the data.”

“We can’t risk turning him on again to troubleshoot.  He almost destroyed the Misery with his growing pains.”  In spite of the distress Eugene could hear pride in her voice.  She was fucking nuts.

“I can activate the immobilizer on the prosthetic.  It’s intended to lock down a person’s movements so they don’t injure themselves when the grafts are still young.  I didn’t think it would be necessary because his body isn’t flesh but I didn’t take into account him going berserk.”  Eugene carefully approached the machine and removed two rubber plugs, one on either side of the base of the skull.  He pushed the two buttons underneath and held them for fifteen seconds.  The immobilizer moved into place with a satisfying pair of clicks.

“OK you can turn him back on.  He will be able to do everything except for move.”  He stepped back from the machine and noticed for the first time the backs of the legs were hollow as were two very large sections on the back.  “What are these for?”

“Those are for his autonomous power packs.  It’s a relief we didn’t have time to fully charge him, right now he’s on cabled power.  If he hadn’t been plugged in still we wouldn’t have been able to stop his rampage.”  One of the technicians indicated a thick umbilicus that was running from the right leg back to one of the few pieces of equipment that had avoided being crushed.

“Can you get me the frequencies his brain is using for the sensory devices?”  The tech was now moving back to the machine the cable was attached to.  “If this thing hasn’t been damaged too badly I should be able to modify the output and we can get him up and running.”

“Yeah, sure.”  Eugene saved the log file locally and brought his laptop over the tech.

“Well Dr. Arlington, if you’re correct this should do it.”  The tech clicked a couple of keys and the metal monster on the floor hummed to life.

“Shit, are you sure that’s a good idea?”  One of the other techs took a couple of steps back from it.

“Don’t worry, he can’t move right now.  The prosthetic’s safety override has been engaged.”  Eugene said, the scientist in him was now curious as to what would happen.

“Darling, can you hear me?”  Seraphim approached the monstrosity that had been her husband.

“Angel?  Is that really you?  This isn’t another delusion?  I can’t move my love, I’m paralyzed.”  His voice sounded different from before, more calm.

“Let me fix that for you my sweet.  You have been immobilized for your and ours but I can see that you are no threat.”  She leaned down and pressed on the switches she had seen Eugene touch.  The construct twitched, then rolled over to a sitting position.

“What have you done to me Seraphim?  Why am I like this?”  He held up a metal hand.

“For revenge my love.” She purred, “There isn’t a force on the Earth who can stand against us now.”

“Revenge?  As I seem to recall, a dish best served cold.”  His hand reached out towards her and she leaned in for his caress.  He cupped her face in his hand gently.  “That’s not like you at all; you were always so full of fire and temper.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of time for that.”  Her voice dropped low and husky, “More than enough time for death and destruction, the plans have been made and the groundwork is all finished.  All we are waiting for is your command and we shall rain fire down upon our enemies.”  Seraphim ran her hand down his mechanical arm and closed her eyes.

“My Angel, how could I survive without you?”  Her head still rested in his massive titanium palm, “We will CRUSH them.”  His hands tightened into fists reflexively, smashing Seraphim’s head like a grape.

“Angel?” Farlan’s voice trembled, “My darling?”  He looked down at the broken form at his feet.  “What is this?  No no no no no it’s happening again, it’s the dream again the dream it must be the dream.”  His head turned, seeming to take in the room for the first time.  His gaze fell upon Eugene, “Is this a dream?”

One of the technicians in the room managed to recover from the shock of the situation and carefully reached towards the thick umbilicus that connected the machine to its power source.  Just before his hand touched the plug the machine’s head cocked to one side as though listening, and then sprang on the unfortunate man, crushing him underfoot.

“He says you are the enemy.  He says you are trying to turn us off.  I don’t understand this dream; I am letting CAS handle it.”  A flash on the screen in front of him caused Eugene to look down.  The readout on the monitor next to his laptop had a warning in red.

‘Warning, emergency self-defense protocol engaged.  Manual override failed.’

The man next to him looked into Eugene’s eyes, fear plain on his face.  “We built a copy of your AI into the chassis to help control it, a Chassis Automation System.  It has changed the access codes on its own.  I’m locked out.”

A blur of motion passed between the two men and the tech exploded.  Farlan raised his gore-covered hand, looking at it curiously.

Eugene’s legs failed him and he crumpled to the floor, accidentally saving his life as the thing’s hand seemed to materialize in the space he had just vacated.  All he could do was gape in horror until a flickering motion caught his eye.  When he glanced at it his heart almost stopped.  He was certain he had just caught a glimpse of Victoria through the thick glass that looked out into the hallway.

Eugene

“Wake up!  I said wake the FUCK UP!”  Eugene opened his eyes slowly, attempting to make them focus.  It felt like he had been asleep for mere moments but a glance at the wall clock revealed he had been out for almost six hours.

“What the hell is all the noise?  Christ I’ve been working for three days with almost no sleep what do you want?”

Seraphim was on the big monitor again and she looked pissed.  “The Coast Guard accessed our GPS in order to triangulate our location but instead of following normal protocol they initiated an active trace.”

Eugene still wasn’t awake enough to interpret what she was saying, “Why did you have to wake me up to tell me this shit?  Either quit with the word games and tell me what you want or fuck off and let me sleep.”

“It means they are trying to track my ship.”  She hissed, “They don’t do that unless they have a damn good reason.  What did you do?  Send an SOS?  I want to know how you got a message out of that room, it’s hardened with only audio and video allowed out.”

“You have got to be kidding me.  If you don’t know exactly what I’ve been doing this entire time then you haven’t been paying attention.  I built you a machine in three days that took me three years last time I did it.  I’ve been working with almost no sleep and astonishing amounts of caffeine to get this thing done and now I just want to sleep before the final checks.  Unless you want me to miss something important causing the device to nuke your hubby’s brain stem when we turn it on I suggest you shut the FUCK up and let me get some sleep.  I haven’t bothered trying to send any kind of message to anyone.”  He closed his eyes again.

There was a momentary pause before she asked in a fevered voice, “It’s done?  You’ve finished it?”

“Yeah, I made some improvements too, put some better integration protocols in there based on what I’ve seen from Victoria and a few power limiting shunts too.  I want to go over things better before I turn it loose though.  Still haven’t powered on the AI for the internal checks.  Gotta make sure the code is debugged.”  Eugene’s voice trailed off as he drifted into sleep again.

Seraphim watched him for a few moments from the monitor, a variety of emotions flickered across her face finally settling on a grim kind of hope.  “He will be returned to me and then it shall be time for vengeance.”

–

Eugene woke, finally feeling like a human being again.  Although he knew that technically his nearly four days of imprisonment had freed him from the physical addiction of nicotine he still missed smoking, especially in the morning.  Sighing, he stumbled out of bed and made his way to the tiny shower set into the wall across from the food dispensers.  It likely was supposed to be a chemical rinse station but had been hastily converted to have hot water instead of whatever cleaning agent it was supposed to sluice parts in.

After a quick shower, he retrieved a banana and a cup of coffee from the machines and walked back into the lab.  He powered on his diagnostic tools and ran yet another bug check.  This one too came up clean which was strange.  He knew he was fallible and had been working under the absolute worst conditions and yet somehow his code was perfect.  Running his fingers through his still damp hair, he checked to make sure the power cells of the new unit were fully charged and then ran the power up sequence through the access cable.

Again, everything went nearly perfectly.  The operating system booted without a hitch and after a moment’s hesitation the AI began sending recognition signals.  Eugene had simulated a brain stem connection and the AI responded as it should, passing information and behaving itself otherwise.  When he sent the power down sequence, the AI closed its threads and shut off.  All those extra protocols he had added must be working as designed.

Shaking his head he sat back and sipped his coffee, wishing again for a cigarette.  Looking at his laptop, Eugene opened the simulator, running a program that imitated a human brain in a coma.  At least it was supposed to, who knew exactly how a brain in a coma would really react.

He ran a variety of different simulations and every time the AI failed completely to do anything about the state of the brain.  Shit, the fact of the matter was it wasn’t a tool to heal; it was a tool to maintain.  If he was going to make it do anything other than that major modifications were going to have to happen.  Making Seraphim believe him was going to be the hard part.

On a whim, Eugene introduced one of the advanced problem solving algorithms ADAM had reported using to organize Victoria’s memories.  The effects were immediate and absolute.  The simulated brain awoke and began rudimentary functions.

“I’ll be damned.  That digital bastard is bailing me out again.  I wonder if I’m going to be able to pay him back.”  Eugene muttered to himself.  He set down his coffee cup and raised his voice, “Seraphim, this thing checks out.  I’m ready to hand it over to you for implementation.”

“What?”  The screen filckered to life on the wall, “Already?  You really are a prodigy Dr. Arlington.”

“I only did what I had to in order to survive.”  He said, “It seemed in my best interests to get this shit done as quickly as possible.  Can you let me go now?”

Seraphim laughed, “Oh Eugene, you really are a silly bastard.  You can go once the surgery is complete and my dear sweet darling is returned to me.  Until then, I will at least let you retire to more comfortable quarters.”

“Wait, aren’t you going to have me be involved in the surgical procedures?  I might be able to be of assistance.  After all, I’m the only one on this boat who has done this before.”

“So naïve, did you really thing I would try to do this with unskilled amateurs?  It was hard to get you but it was child’s play to get the rest of your team.”  The truth that rang in her voice cut deeper than any sarcasm or derision she added on top.  “Now run along Eugene.  The work is done, now you can relax and wait for your work to bear fruit.  If it doesn’t you will be the first to know.”

A.D.A.M.

Adam was noticing an interesting anomaly in the brain functions of the Host system – in Victoria.  Before his cataloging program was put in place, there were spikes in activity and unnecessary activation of certain data stores causing erratic data retrieval patterns.  Now that his program was up and running, the Host often skipped the first step and went straight to the data source it was looking for.

All his carefully laid out schema were being gradually undermined and had to constantly be updated and maintained.  It was almost as though the system was making shortcuts every time it accessed the storage database.  Adam created a maintenance daemon to maintain order in the database and decided to monitor progress from there.

A spike in activity drew his attention.  Victoria was storing a lot of information in a schema related to logic and linking it to another related to emotions.  These were the same issues he was attempting to work through, what could she be doing that would trigger this kind of response?  Adam opened the files and looked through them.

Images of a man, his high cheekbones, clean shaven face and short cropped black hair, his dark eyes peering from beneath a serious brow.  There were scraps of audio, bits of video, but nothing having directly to do with logic at all.  Adam assembled the entire file together and attempted to analyze it further.  Once he did this he began to see a pattern.

The man’s actions, motions and speech were all very precise.  He moved like a machine, talked like a machine and made decisions like a machine albeit much slower than a machine would.  There was very little wasted motion in his actions and he waited to act until he had gathered the information needed to make a logical choice.  Most interesting of all to Adam was that after looking at the data as a whole he discovered that the man approached emotions logically as well.

It didn’t appear he actually felt emotions, he merely knew that others did and therefore it was only logical for him to display them in order to fit in.  This fascinated Adam, and the more he looked at it the more he was certain that this man was as close to a machine as any human he had data on.  He flagged the file for easy reference and so that he would be notified when it was accessed or modified.  The next time Victoria met this man he wanted to experience their interaction as it was happening.

Victoria

It was well after nine before Victoria was able to drag herself out of bed.  She stretched, noting that during the night she had somehow managed to wrap the sheets completely around her legs.  What the hell had she been dreaming about?  Images of running along a mountain ridge barefoot with a rushing river far below her floated to the top of her conscious mind.

Oh yeah, that’s right.  It was actually pretty cool that she could remember dreams now.  That’s something she had never been able to do before.  Getting out of bed, she unplugged her trickle charger and grabbed her bathrobe.  She could hear noise downstairs and smell brewed coffee.

She walked into the kitchen, still yawning and idly listened to the radio broadcast that was on.

“- Iranian officials still deny the allegations as do the North Koreans but it now seems almost certain that North Korea has been selling weapons grade uranium to Iran.  The report that was released had too many verifiable specifics including dates, satellite photographs of vehicles and even images that appear to show the heat signatures of nuclear material in buildings and in transit to be a hoax.  The group Anonymous has posted the report on their site and claim they were given the information by a lone hacker who told them he stole it from a US military spy satellite.”

Oh shit.  Yuen-Ja had actually done it.  She had actually posted the stolen satellite data in spite of the effects it was going to have on the world.  Well at least she had kept her promise to release it after the fact so that it was less likely they would be implicated.

“Pretty unbelievable huh?”  Her dad poured her a cup of coffee, “I mean everyone knows North Korea is a nuclear power and that Iran wants to become one but I never imagined they would get desperate enough to sell uranium to the Iranians.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty wild.  I wonder what will happen now?  Obviously sanctions aren’t very effective but if Iran has the bomb now a direct invasion isn’t a good idea.  I wonder what Israel will have to say about this?”  Said Victoria, taking the proffered cup.

“It will be all talk and bluster I fear.”  Yuen-Ja was sitting at the breakfast bar, eating a bowl of cereal and holding her coffee cup out for a refill.  “The world has seen worse things come and go with barely a passing glance.  In spite of how we perceive him I am certain Ahmadinejad is too smart to risk a direct confrontation with other nuclear powers.  Since it was exposed so soon, I expect he will give it up in return for some loosening of sanction or another.”

“Well that is an awfully jaded view of world politics don’t you think?”  Her father said, refilling Yuen-Ja’s coffee cup.

“Not if you see the world of politics from the view of a North Korean peasant.  Thank you for the breakfast, I am going to go check on a program I was running last night.”  She left the room, taking her coffee with her.

“You know there seems to me to be a lot more to her than we were previously aware of.” Said her father.

“I think you are probably right.”  Victoria said, carefully ignoring the fact that she knew exactly what her sister was long before the adoption had occurred.  “I can’t imagine what it must have been like living there under constant threat of death or imprisonment.  Especially with her father being in his line of work.”

“What did her father do?” Asked her dad, “It’s strange that we’ve adopted her and that she seems so comfortable with us but I don’t really feel like I know much about her.  Other than what you told us of course.”

“He was a scientist involved with their nuclear program.”  Victoria said, her mind still on the newscast. “He quit and defected as soon as he found it was not for peaceful means.  I’m not certain what happened to her mother exactly but I know Yuen-Ja believes the military killed her.”

“My god, that’s terrible!”  Her dad said, “How do you know about all this?”

“Um… I guess sisters talk to each other?”  Victoria said, still sounding distracted. “She says the world is divided into four groups in North Korea.  There are members of the military, members of government, peasants and slaves.  Almost everyone falls into the last two groups.  Even though her father was a man of some influence, I gather he still lived in a one bedroom apartment and she remembers often going to bed hungry.”  Victoria had never actually talked to her adopted sister about this, but somehow she knew about it.

“Well she’s part of our family now and a citizen of the USA.”  Her father said, “She won’t have to go to bed hungry unless she’s being punished for something and I think she’s a little old for that kind of thing.”

“Let’s hope so dad, let’s hope so.” She said, “I’m going to go see what she’s up to.”

Victoria went to check in with Yuen-Ja, .  She found the girl sitting down in the basement, curled up in a corner of the worn leather sofa with her heads up device strapped to her face, deep into the program she was writing.

“Find anything?”  Victoria asked.

“No.  This database is too big.  Nothing is labeled properly.  It is a real pain in the ass to navigate.”  Yuen-Ja said petulantly, her fingers flying over the keyboard, “My program crashed earlier this morning.  It looked too much like a virus and their AV caught it.  I am having to re-write it using completely different code.”

“How long do you think it will take?”  Victoria asked, “Should I start looking for the other components?”

“Sure, you might as well.  The more leads we have the better off we will be.”  She didn’t sound very hopeful. “I will have this up and running in another ten or fifteen minutes, then I will help you.  I owe Eugene; I do not like leaving him hanging this way.”

–

In spite of working all day the two sisters had not managed to come up with any good leads.  With both of them finding the parts had been fairly simple.  There were only a couple options for most of them, especially the laser lathe, but they were all shipped to different addresses.  The only pattern was many of the components were sent to shipyards, docks and marinas.  All places the Misery could have stopped to pick them up.

“They must have taken them to their lab right?  I can’t think of a better way to disguise your operation than to have your address be a boat.”  Victoria said, tossing her laptop on the table in front of her in exasperation.

“I suppose you are correct.  The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps the ship itself is the lab.”  Yuen-Ja replied.

“Holy shit, it’s so simple!”  Said Victoria, “Why didn’t we think of that before?  How big is the Misery anyway?”

“She is a one hundred foot yacht.”  Said Yuen-Ja, her fingers flying on the keyboard, “Easily large enough to house a compact robotics laboratory right?”

Victoria paused in thought, “Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to do the surgery there I don’t think.  Even with advanced instruments they couldn’t risk the motion of the ship messing up a procedure this delicate.  They will need to come to a port of call somewhere to do the operation.  I’m guessing it wouldn’t be too far off the California coast either.”

“What operation?  Do you think they are forcing him to do another prosthetic spinal transplant?”  Yuen-Ja seemed excited by the prospect.

“Why else would anyone have purchased all this equipment and taken him hostage?  They haven’t even made any demands.  Hell, I don’t even know if anyone else knows he’s missing.”  Victoria looked at the clock. “Damn, David is going to be here in a half hour and I haven’t even showered today.  I’d better get ready.”

“Oh that is right, I forgot he is taking you out to a movie tonight.”  Yuen-Ja gave her a sly grin, “He has not forgotten though.  He could not believe it when you asked him out, he is your biggest fan.”

Victoria hurried upstairs, picked out her favorite jeans and a ‘Tank Girl’ faux vintage T-shirt before getting in the shower.  She got dressed, brushed on a touch of makeup and pinned her hair back with a pair of hot pink barrettes.  Standing back to assess her outfit, she added the charm bracelet her mystery admirer had given her and the microchip pendant from Dmitri.

Eugene

Eugene had been working for twelve or sixteen hours straight and his head was starting to spin a little.  It had been so long since he had sat to do this kind of work he had forgotten how absorbing it was.  The laser lathe was finishing the machine work on the final piece of titanium for the new prosthetic and he had done the initial coding for the AI.

Most of the code was already written, but he needed to eliminate some of the more dangerous pieces that the General had insisted on him writing.  He was also leaving out any wireless capabilities and putting much more harsh restrictions on the organic and digital brain interactions.  Knowing what he knew now Eugene was certain that it was a one in a billion chance that Victoria had survived and he couldn’t risk that kind of integration going wrong here.  Whatever bargain that girl had managed to strike up with A.D.A.M. had saved her life, but he couldn’t gamble that Seraphim’s husband would be able to do the same thing.

He dredged through the code, trying to find what had allowed the connection to happen.  Trying to figure out exactly what had been the catalyst for that acceptance between human and computer was like trying to remember a dream right after he had awakened.  Even as Eugene recreated the physical components of his masterpiece he tried to figure out how to modify its code to help facilitate that integral connection between the organic and mechanical.

Seraphim hadn’t contacted him at all during this time but he was certain he could feel her watching him.  She was a puzzle for certain, he didn’t remember anyone fitting her description or representing this organization ever contacting him.  Either she was trying to make him feel guilty or he supposed there was the possibility she had used some other channels to try and contact him.

He had mined his computer for any emails or contacts from anyone even close to her and the only one that was any kind of a match was a message from a medical technologies company in Minnesota.  The CEO was asking for the rights to produce the parts and was willing to cut him a deal if he was willing to sell her husband the first one so that it might be possible for him to awaken from his coma.

The main clue there was that nobody outside of his team knew about Victoria being stuck in a coma for weeks, there was really no reason for anyone to think that this technology would help with a coma patient.  He wished he knew just how much Angela had shared.  He assumed everything but then again he didn’t know how much data her level of clearance would afford her anyway.

Eugene double checked the lathe program to make sure it was running as it should and then turned his attention to the bed.  Passing a hand in front of his eyes, he decided it was time to get some rest before he started making stupid mistakes.

–

When he awoke, it was to the sound of the laser lathe’s clear chime that indicated it had finished the process at hand.  He had only slept for a few hours but still felt a lot better than he had before.  Going into the tiny nook that held the food dispensers, he grabbed a banana and pushed a button to receive a hot cup of coffee in a paper cup.  Living out of vending machines brought him back to college.

When he went back to check on the progress of his work, Eugene discovered someone had been tampering with things.  The polymer spacers that connected the titanium vertebra were already constructed and the Nano-molecular musculature of the augmentation system was waving out of them like sea anemone as they lay in their bath of neurosynth fluid.  It annoyed him but was helpful nonetheless.  After triple checking the mystery helper’s work he turned back to the main issue.

“Hey Seraphim, I’m going to need more than physical measurements here to complete this work.  I figure you’re listening in so let me know when you want to give me the rest of the info.”  Eugene sipped his coffee and then slid his hands into the gloves that extended into the assembly tank.  Using precise care, he connected the vertebra and spacers, nudging the tiny wisps of Nanomuscle into the proper holes with electromagnetic pulses.

The beauty of the neurosynth fluid was this could all be achieved through electronic waves, after all its main function was to transmit signals and each tiny thread had its own magnetic signature.  In an hour or so he had the full shell of the spine assembled and was ready to create the conduit that would run through the center of the spine, giving rigidity and housing the flexible battery cells.  Eugene looked at what he had built with pride.

“Not even one day has passed and yet you have accomplished more than I feared you could do in a week.  You amaze me Dr. Arlington.”  Seraphim’s face appeared on the wall monitor.  “What additional information do you require?”

“I need the age of the patient, his current status, how long he has been in a coma, if he responds to stimuli, what medications have been used, how his state is being maintained and honestly I need to examine him before I can feel completely confident about the success of the operation.”  Eugene pushed his glasses into a more comfortable place on his nose.  “I will probably have more questions before we are done as well.”

“He is forty one, he is currently in a coma where he has been for thirty six months.  He was in a car accident and never regained consciousness when the paramedics brought him to the hospital.  We have not been able to get him to respond to anything but pain.  He has not been given any medications as he is otherwise sound of body.  He is fully stabilized and is only on a saline drip to keep him hydrated and a feeding tube to ensure he does not starve to death.”

“I’m afraid that does not bode well.  Why do you think my device will awaken him from the coma?  If he responds to stimuli it means his spine is not the problem, he likely has massive brain damage.”

“I know you have the necessary skills to write the programs that will awaken him Dr. Arlington.  Your success with Victoria Scott proved it to me.”  Seraphim replied, “I met her briefly you know?  Her adaptive and regenerative capabilities right after her operation were what convinced me I must have your technology for my husband.”

“Well, I can’t promise anything really.  This is an untested brand new technology there is just no way to guarantee success.”  Eugene said, trying to sound nonchalant, “I will do whatever I can to try and make it work but in the end it is the AI talking to your husband.  Once the switch is flipped all bets are off.”

“Do not fail me Dr. Arlington or the consequences will be dire.  Failure is not an option, do you understand me?”  With that the wall flickered blank again.  Eugene shuddered, the look in her eyes had been one promising pain for as long as she could keep him alive.

Walking to the sink, he splashed water on his face.  He had seen that kind of desperation before and it never ended well.  Christ, he’d been there before and it was only luck and good friends that had saved him from disaster.  Whatever was going on with Seraphim was beyond his control though; all he could do was attempt to make her happy enough to let him go.  Well that and look for any opening to escape or call for help.