Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (133 page)

Gerry came up from his roll, raised the pistol and fired, catching the viroborg in the leg, sending it crashing to the ground. Gerry’s vision narrowed and time seemed to slow as he focused on taking out the immediate threat.
 

Petal vaulted the command desk and emptied her pistol on the way down. She threw it away when she hit the ground. The viroborg took a shot to its side, but that didn’t slow it down. It reached to its thigh and unsheathed a short sword.

Crouching, Petal brought her spikes in front of her before charging the ’borg. Steel clashed and sparked as she and her opponent dueled.
 

Something grabbed Gerry’s ankle, making him spin round to face the far right side of the room. At first, Gerry didn’t register what it was, but then saw the charred, mutilated body of Jachz in the darkness, his arm outstretched, hand weakly surrounding Gerry’s ankle.
 

His single eye locked gazes with Gerry for a moment before rolling up, showing only white. Jachz uttered, “Stop… her…”

A figure strode out of the shadows, grabbing his attention.

The figure pointed a Libertas-issue pistol at Jachz’s head, firing once. Sparks exploded and Jachz’s body jerked once as smoke rose from the aperture. Before Gerry could act, a shot struck him in the arm, making him drop the pistol and stagger back to the rear wall next to the door.
 

The swirling red light cast long shadows, but as the figure moved toward Gerry, pistol aimed at his chest, he saw her face, and it all made sense.

He glanced over to Petal. She and the ’borg were fighting hard, the latter showing surprising speed despite its wounds, yet Petal kept swinging like a frenzied banshee. The number on the screen read fifty-one seconds…
 

The pistol pressed into Gerry’s chest.
 

“Nice of you to drop in, Gerry. But as you can see, you’re too late.”
 

The words stung, the voice of betrayal and deceit.
 

“Enna? Why? Why you?”

“Why not?” She smiled at him… the smile of the mad.
 

How she had managed to cover her true character for all this time, Gerry couldn’t fathom. His mind whirled with all the ramifications and situations. He was brought back to his conversations with his real father.
 

This Enna must be a clone—but when did the swap happen? Who was the real Enna and who was the clone?

“Where’s Jess?” Gerry asked. “What have you done with her?”
 

Enna grabbed his chin and twisted his head to the left.
 

Beyond Petal and the ’borg locked in combat, he saw Jess’s tiny, frail form lying on the floor in front of the mainframe beneath the screen. Her head was pressed against the filthy carpet, blood dripping from her nose and ear. He turned away, looking back at Enna.

“She was… reluctant to help, but eventually provided what I needed,” Enna said, the barrel of the pistol still pressed against his chest and her breath falling on his face.
 

He tried to turn his head, but Enna kept her grip on his chin. Over her shoulder he saw the countdown.
 

Forty-two.

“So what now?” Gerry said through gritted teeth. “You’re gonna launch the nukes and be the queen of nothing? After everything we’ve fought for. Why now?”

“I don’t expect you to understand. You’re just a pawn, Gerry. A proof of concept. Though I am grateful for all your help in getting rid of those mad clones for me and leaving the dome and the world for me to populate as I see fit. I can start again.”

“You’re just as mad as they are,” he said, shifting beneath the gun, moving to his left so that the gun pointed more centrally.
 

Petal screamed. Enna twisted his face to watch.
 

Twenty-three.

The viroborg drove its knife into Petal’s gut. Her eyes went wide and her arms flopped by her side. She took a breath and coughed out blood as she fell back.
 

Gerry screamed for her, but she couldn’t hear.
 

Nineteen.

She fell backwards, hitting the floor. Her head lay beyond the edge of the desk. She turned to look at him, fear and pleading in her eyes.
 

The viroborg stalked over her, taunting her with his blade.

Seventeen.
 

“Say your goodbyes, Gerry. This is the end of the line, once and for all.”

Sixteen
.

“Fuck you and all of your kind, bitch.”

Gerry shuffled to his left and leaned forward sharply, pushing the slide of the pistol back, preventing the firing pin from striking. The delay gave him a chance to shift so that by the time Enna pulled the trigger, the round fired through his shoulder at an angle.

The impact rocked him against the wall. He roared with pain and closed his eyes, but then used the momentum to launch forward.
 

Fifteen
.

Using the surprise as an opportunity, he slammed his head forward into Enna’s face and grabbed the pistol, all the while letting the pain out in a scream that drowned out the sirens. Enna tried to grab his throat, but the blood in her eyes made her miss with her wild attack.

Fourteen
.

The viroborg looked over and then turned back to Petal, raising his knife ready to finish her. Gerry kicked Enna back and used the distance to raise the pistol. He fired once, point-blank. The back of her head exploded and she slumped to the ground.
 

Thirteen
.
 

Gerry fell forward, dizziness and blurred vision from the pain unbalancing him. He raised the pistol again and fired toward the viroborg. The ’borg ducked, but staggered over Petal’s prone body.
 

Twelve
.
 

The ’borg regained its balance.
 

Gerry hit the deck hard, banging his head against the floor, making his vision swim. The pistol fell out of his hand and scattered away from him. He dragged himself forward, trying to push himself up, but the pain in his back kept him pinned.
 

Eleven
.
 

Both lying on the ground, he and Petal locked eyes. A lifetime of pain and love flowed between them. At least if they were to die, they would have this connection. He wanted her to be the last thing he saw before he expired.

At least they would be together in death.
 

Ten
.
 

The ’borg brought the knife down towards Petal’s neck, the swirling red light making it look like slow-motion animation. Gerry held his breath and returned his attentions to Petal. She didn’t look scared or in pain, just… relief? Resignation?
 

The ’borg jerked backward once, the knife missing Petal’s throat.
 

Nine
.
 

A crash of gunfire belched out in a staccato beat of explosive death. Petal’s eyes reflected Gerry’s confusion. The ’borg continued to spasm. Chunks of flesh and sprays of oils shot out from its back, smearing against the screen until it eventually collapsed in a smouldering pile.
 

Eight
.
 

Sounding as though she were shouting at him from underwater, Holly appeared in the room. She dropped the empty rifle to the ground and helped Petal up. She leaned her over the desk and came to lift Gerry to his feet.
 

Seven.

He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as the pain in his chest and back conspired to cripple him. But Holly was screaming at him to keep going. She dragged him to the desk.
 

Six
.

“You’ve got to stop it, Gerry!” Holly said with her underwater voice. “Do something, anything. Oh god, we’re all gonna die, come on!”
 

She turned away from them. “Jess, you’re alive! Help, please.”

Gerry couldn’t see her. He just reached over as best he could to touch Petal slumped over the desk. She turned her head and whispered, “The codes…” Her eyes dropped to her chest.

Five.

Gerry pulled the folded paper from her jacket and laid it flat against the desk, all the while gripping on with his other arm to stop himself from slipping to the ground.
 

Four
.

Using the mechanical keyboard, he entered the code numbers with a trembling hand, every single movement making the pain in his shoulder flare, but he worked through it, ignoring the darkness that closed his vision like a tunnel as he fought against his body and mind trying to slip him into subconsciousness.
 

Three
.
 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jess drag herself to the mainframe beneath the screen and reach her hand to it.
 

Two
.

Gerry punched in the last of the number sequence. Petal slid off the desk and hit the ground, unmoving. He moved his trembling hand to the enter key but couldn’t control his hand anymore.
 

One.

Holly appeared by Gerry’s side and gripped his hand to steady him. She pressed his finger against the enter key.

Zero
.

The red lights stopped swirling. Gerry fell back to the floor.
 

Over the top of the desk he could see the screen. A red circle around a line of text appeared and flashed. He didn’t understand what happened… he entered the code…

The words
Launch Initiation Complete, launching missiles
burned into his vision.
 

Launching missiles.
 

He’d failed.
 

He didn’t understand why the codes didn’t work. Had Nolan lied to him?

No… of course… the viroborg’s virus! It had deleted the system files. It must have deleted the manual abort procedures…
 

“Holly, help me,” Jess said. “Gerry, we can still stop this. The defence system… but you need to turn off the suppression. I can’t speak with the server to reverse the virus.”

Gerry’s brain was slowing, and it took him a moment to comprehend what she was saying, but then it clicked, and he tried to reach out with his AIA to connect with the microwave transceivers, but his internal systems weren’t responding.
 

“I… can’t,” Gerry said. “My… systems… not working.”

“Holly, quick, connect Gerry to me with the cable, I’ll be his system. Now!”

Holly dashed from the mainframe, pulling the cable from Jachz’s neck port. Jess connected her end, and Holly jacked Gerry in with the other end.
 

A buzz indicated he was now one with Jess.
 

He no longer felt his body. The pain now just some physical aspect he had no access to. Jess’s mind was vast and incalculably powerful. He felt overwhelmed as though he would drown in the depths of her data and processing, but like a dove, an avatar in her form floated into his vision and spoke to him not with words, but binary commands.
 

His mind slipped into the digital aspect, and his essence became code once more.
 

With Jess’s guidance, he navigated out into the wider world, beyond the dome, through the trees, until he found the pylon that acted as the facility’s microwave transceiver.
 

He saw his software patch from earlier and removed it, breaking the suppression. The router filled with data from all around. Fifty-three nodes, all of them belonging to those large towers with the domed tops, came online, connected together by the miles and miles of charged fencing.
 

“You’ve done it,” Jess said in binary form.
 

Gerry couldn’t respond, he was just working on instinct at this point, led by Jess.
 

She severed the connection, and the pain hit him all at once.
 

Holly was kneeling by his side. She pulled a syringe out of his chest—a shot of ’Stem from the medpack, and that weird itching, twitchy feeling took over, spreading warmth around his wounds as the millions of nanocells got to work.

Gerry tried to speak, but his injuries and the ’Stem injection sapped his energy. Still, he managed to squeeze out a single word, “Petal?”
 

“On it, man. Just hold on,” Holly said, vanishing out of his field of vision and revealing Jess sitting in front of the mainframe, her head down and arms outstretched.
 

He looked up to the screen and before he passed out saw the words:
 

Missile 1 – Interception.
 

Missile 2 – Interception.
 

Missile 3 – Interception.
 

And so it went, counting up to fifteen—the full complement of the silo’s warheads.
 

Gerry slipped into unconsciousness knowing that Jess had done it.
 

But Petal…?

Chapter 26

Gerry pushed the guard outside of his hospital room aside and headed down the corridor. The smell of disinfectant and cleaning products filled the place. All the white surfaces, white uniforms, white screens made him think for a brief moment that it was all a dream, that Jess hadn’t brought the defensive system online and that Holly hadn’t jabbed him with ’Stems in time.
 

But the surprised expressions of the doctors and orderlies told him he was most definitely in Libertas’ General Hospital.
 

For the previous ten minutes, he’d argued with his doctor about his condition requiring full rest. He didn’t care what they said, he had to see for himself to be sure, not trusting what anyone told him about Petal.
 

He was happy to believe the news about Jachz, however. Although his physical body was dead, his AI code was suspended in his memory chips—which were now locked away in Cemprom’s vault, never to be accessed again.
 

Although he died with the best intentions, Gerry was glad the interim government had decreed that after Enna’s betrayal and the viroborg’s effects, that there would be a complete ban on AI and cyborg integration with humans.