Crux

86 AGAINST THE TIDE

Saturday November 3rd

Sam rose to her feet, free and full of rage. Three of Shiva’s soldiers were running towards her, in pursuit of Feng, oblivious to her presence in her chameleonware suit.

Then a mind blared out at her at staggering volumes, buffeting her with the urge to submit, to surrender, to crumble into stasis.

She threw back her head and roared out loud, fighting it.

The soldier passing by heard her, recoiled in surprise, turning, trying to bring his gun up at this ghostly target.

Her fingers made a spear and she jabbed forward, her gloves turning her hand into a weapon as hard as carbon. Her fingers punched through the man’s throat. He made a gurgling sound and his body went limp, dead on his feet, but by then she was turning, spinning.

The other two raised their assault rifles, turning. A gun went off but she was around it, finishing her spin, and her rigid knife hand slammed into the side of a man’s neck, severing his spine.

The last man was firing now, in full auto, his gun swinging towards her, but Sam was faster, coming around him, kicking off the wall with one foot, then lashing out with her other in a vicious roundhouse to his head.

The soldier saw it coming, saw the blur running on the wall like a floor, saw it all too late. Her booted foot collided with his face, snapped his neck instantly, sent his body flying out, tumbling over the railing, and down to join Kevin’s.

Sam landed on her feet, caught herself against the railing, her head out over it, looking down into the dark as the man’s still warm body tumbled in infrared towards the rocks and surf.

And then she dropped to her knees and wept.

Kade groaned under the weight of Shiva’s attack. He felt his eyes close. All he wanted was to lie still, to go limp, to let this pain and struggle end.

Fuck. That.

He forced his eyes open. Sarai was on her side, hands to her head. The other children were crumpled all around him. He saw one of Shiva’s scientists on her knees across the courtyard.

It couldn’t end this way. He wouldn’t get another chance like this.

Kade tried to push up onto his feet. Sharp stabbing pain came from his midsection, sent him sprawling once again. His head was so cloudy. It would be so easy to give in, to just rest for once… His eyes closed. Sleep. Give up. Rest. Just rest.

No… No…

Kade reached inside himself, clumsily now, in a haze. He could see a command prompt in his mind, far away, at the end of a long tunnel. He mentally flailed at it. Incomprehensible errors came back. Shhhh. Sleep. Just sleep. He bent his mind against the command prompt again. Errors. Again.

And then there was something before him. A screen. A control panel, neurotransmitter levels. It was wavering, dark and hazy. He just wanted to rest. Instead he grabbed a control. Adrenaline. He turned it up, fumbled at the mental button. God, just to sleep.

Something jolted through him and the world swam almost into focus. Adrenaline. Yes. He reached in again, gave himself a second dose, then a third. Kade felt his heart respond, start beating faster, faster, manically fast. Serotonin next. Then endorphins. He pushed them through his system, no idea how close he was to safe limits, knowing only that he had to conquer Shiva’s signal and the pain of his own body if he had any hope of winning.

His mind responded. He opened his eyes and he could see clearly again. Shiva’s transmission was still an incredible weight pressing on him, but he could think.

Kade pushed himself up, but the pain from his burnt and broken body was still incredible. It sent him back down.

Fuck!

Crawl! he ordered himself. Crawl!

He put his doubly ruined right hand forward, put his weight down on the bandages around it. Pain flared out from it, even through the endorphins, but he forced himself to move on. His knee next, covered in fresh burns from the explosion in his apartment. It flared in agony as he moved but he couldn’t stop. Left leg. Burning pain. Left hand, rending pain in his right as it took his weight.

Pain is an illusion, he whispered.

Pain is an illusion.

Again. Again. Again. Move across the courtyard, move towards the building, towards the stairs. And then up.

There was only one way he could win. Only one. He had to get close. Close enough that his own signal could cut through the interference Shiva was sending through his repeaters. He had to get his own brain within feet of Shiva’s, within inches, if he could. And then he could end this.

Sam knelt, her body racked by sobs, her goggles fogging up from her tears. Kevin. Oh my God, Kevin.

Shiva’s mind yelled at her, pushed her down, tried to send her deeper into despair and surrender.

Evil. Pure evil. That’s what this was. A perversion. A tool for slavery, for possession, for abuse. For rape and for murder.

“Get out of my mind!” Sam screamed. She knew what she had to do. She had to have this thing out of her mind.

She went into her head, found the command she had to execute.

[Nexus purge]

The system answered her:

[This command will erase Nexus OS and purge all Nexus nodes from your brain. All stored data and applications will be lost. Are you sure you want to continue? Y/N]

[Yes]

Sam executed the command, felt her mind begin to change at once, felt this abomination start to leave her.

And then she turned, and started looking for a gun.

Kade crawled down a long hall, dark and deserted. Shiva’s mind blared out from him from every direction. Sleep. Give up. Stop struggling.

Signal strength wasn’t everything. The signal was still digital. Its effect on Kade depended on how precisely it mapped to his own neurons. Yet Shiva’s amplifiers gave him a huge advantage, allowing him to saturate the signal for every single Nexus node, and to maintain that signal indefinitely, tirelessly, in a way no normal human – even with Nexus 5 – could.

Kade pushed through. He had no choice. Every movement of this long crawl was agony, pain jolting through his burns, his midsection, his cloned hand. His chest ached now. His heart was pounding so hard from the adrenaline, giving him strength, but shooting pain through him as well, feeling like it was about to burst.

He ignored it all. Distanced himself from the pain, as the Buddhists did, stared at it dispassionately until it was just data, just sensation.

The stairs. He forced himself to reach up, to get his good hand on the heavy antique wood banister, to jam his bandaged right hand into the gap between banister and wall, to support himself with them, to get his feet under him to push even as he pulled with his good hand.

Kade made it up one step, made it up a second, a third. The sharp pains inside him were bad, getting worse. The whole house screamed at him to give up, the signal blaring from every direction. His universe contracted to just this stairwell, the walls pressing in close, the ceiling dropping in his vision. Just the next step. Just the next step.

He did it. Again, and again, and again, against the agony, against the urge to surrender, against the increasing psychosis of the adrenaline and blood loss and burns and every corner of the house yelling at him with Shiva’s thoughts. He was trapped in a hellish funhouse, distorted, warped, closing in around him, filled with pure pain, but still he pushed on step by step.

Near the top of the first flight of stairs he pulled his bandaged hand out, to move it forward, past a brace. Then he lost his balance, teetered on the edge of falling backwards, his arms flailing wildly, started to fall back…

And then something grabbed his good hand, a faintly seen blur pulling him to the landing, crushing him in a painful embrace. And a mind. A mind he hadn’t been sure he’d ever feel again.

Feng!

Shiva could feel Lane moving, still moving, incredibly, heading into the building, up the stairs. The boy was coming towards him!

He lifted his bracelet again. “Lane is in the building. Climbing the west stairs. Stop him!”

Chaos answered him, fragmented voices, stepping over each other, the sound of combat. And then other soldiers responded, acknowledged his command, bolted towards Lane’s location.

Breece watched, his anticipation rising, as the Reverend Josiah Shepherd finished his remarks and led the assembled crowd in prayer.

Eyes closed everywhere throughout the church. Shepherd clasped his hands together and bowed his head.

“Dear Lord,” he intoned, “we pray that you free us from bondage, and deliver us from evil…”

Oh, I’m going to free you alright, Breece thought.

Just moments now. Just moments until he did.