Forever Until Tomorrow (War Eternal Book 5) (29 page)

"You know who I am. She mentioned me to you?"

"She told me she's been hearing a voice telling her to find you. I saw the streams, and we figured out that you're the John Doe from St. Louis. I didn't expect you to wind up here."

"Does she know what this is about? Does she know about Watson?"

"I don't know Watson. I know the AIT. They tried to kill her again earlier tonight. A police officer died. She asked me to hack into the D.C.P.D's servers and wipe the surveillance footage."

"Did you delete it already?"

Michael looked at the floor. "Five minutes ago."

"Where is she now?"

"Somewhere in D.C., I told you."

"She's in a lot of danger, and not from me. I'm trying to protect her. I need to talk to her."

"Who are you? What is this about?" He looked at Daisy. "You said you have something that needs to be decrypted?"

"Let me see your neck," Mitchell said.
 

"What?"

"Your neck. Let me see it."

Michael's face was turning red. He looked uncomfortable. "Can we just slow down for one second? Is Kathy okay?"

"She won't be if we don't help her," Mitchell said. "Turn around."

"Just hold on a second," Michael replied. He looked to Mitchell like he was having a panic attack.

Mitchell moved toward him, grabbing his arm and swinging around his back.
 

"What are you doing?"
 

He checked Michael's neck. It was clean.
 

"Colonel, he's hyperventilating," Daisy said. "Give him some space."

Mitchell let go of him and backed up. Michael stumbled to the wall and propped himself against it, breathing heavily.
 

This was Katherine's best friend?
 

"Michael, it's okay," Daisy said.
 

"I'm sorry, Michael," Mitchell said, keeping his distance. "Take it easy. Try to slow it down. Slow. Steady. Easy. Relax."

Michael looked at him and nodded. He closed his eyes, taking a huge breath in through his nose, holding it, and then letting it out through his mouth.
 

"It's a long story," Mitchell said. "But I need to find out what's on this data card. I heard you have the equipment and the know-how to read it. If we can get the contents, we can help Major Asher."

Michael nodded again and reached out for the card.

Mitchell handed it to him. Michael took one more long breath and then pushed himself upright again. "Okay. I'm okay. I just get a little overwhelmed, and the last couple of days hasn't helped my anxiety at all." He breathed out again. "My stuff is all downstairs in the basement. Not that many people have a reader for cards like this anymore. You're lucky you found me."

"I guess I am," Mitchell said.
 

He wasn't convinced that luck had anything to do with it.

Mitchell stood next to Michael while he plugged in the data card and connected it to his AR equipment. It was similar to the stuff Evelyn had used, except larger and more powerful.
 

"I've been working on a machine learning algorithm and AI that enhances human interaction," Michael said. "Improving our brains, instead of taking over for them. Personally, I think AI is a cop out, a lazy man's dream. But what happens when the intelligence takes control of everything? If a machine is doing everything for us, how do we keep our minds from atrophying?"

"I agree completely," Mitchell said. "I think AI will cause more problems than it solves."

"Don't get me wrong, basic AI has its place. I mean, Hyper Troopers would be boring if the Arachoids just stood there while you shot them, but control of critical systems? Just look at what happened with the maglevs. It's so sad."

He tapped a few buttons on a pad in front of him and then put on a pair of opaque glasses.
 

"Interesting," he said less than a minute later. "Where did you get this?"

"I had it on me when I was committed to St. Mary's."

Michael took the glasses off and looked at Mitchell. "That isn't possible."

Mitchell had heard something similar from Evelyn. He was surprised at how much faster Michael had come to the same conclusion. "I'm not joking. Whatever is happening with Major Asher, and with me, the answers are in there somewhere."

"Okay. It's just. Well. The code in here? I recognize it. It's a derivative from the language I've been working on. The interface language. I used it for the calibration stuff I delivered to Nova Taurus last week, even though they sent it back for some changes. There's no way you could have gotten it twenty years ago when I just finished creating it."

"It's a long story that I'll share with you later," Mitchell said, glancing back at Daisy. She was standing near the steps up, a link between them and the two Marines, who had taken up positions defending the perimeter just in case. "If you wrote it, then it should be easy for you to get to the data."

Michael put the glasses back on. "I don't know if I can get it that fast. I said it's a derivative. It's changed a little bit." He was silent for a handful of seconds. "Oh. I've got it. I mean the encryption. I recognize this. How did you get this?"

"You cracked it already?" Mitchell said.

"I'm really confused," Michael replied. "And kind of freaked out. For one, the volume on this thing is about one hundred times greater than anything I've ever heard of, and it's filled with some kind of runtime or something. It's way more complex than I can break down right now. There's also a second partition on it. Let me see." He paused again. His breathing was getting heavier, his face flushing for a second time.
 

"Michael, are you okay?" Mitchell said. Michael looked like he was about to have another panic attack. "Michael?"

"What's an eternal engine?" he asked.

"I told you, it's a long story. What about it?"

"I don't know. It's a binary-encoded message. All it says is, 'return to the source.'"

"That's it?" Mitchell asked. He had been hoping for answers, not more riddles.

"Yeah. That's - oh. Uh-oh."

"What?"

Michael tore off the glasses, pushing himself forward, falling out of his chair in his effort to grab the data card and pull it from the reader. "Damn it, damn it, damn it," he said, getting his hand on the reader. He tried to pull the card out and failed. Tried and failed again. Finally, he smashed the entire thing on the ground.

"What the frig are you doing?" Mitchell said.

"What am I doing?" Michael's face was beet red, and he was almost in tears. "What are you doing? You said you wanted to help. Shit. Damn it. Where did you get the card?"

"I told you, it was on me when I was admitted to St. Mary's. I picked it up on my way out."

"Gah. No. That can't be."

"I'm telling you it is. What is your problem?"

"It's infected. The card is infected. I opened the message, and it sent a heartbeat out over the net. Then it started deleting everything."

"What?" Mitchell said. He closed his eyes tight. He couldn't remember what had happened before he arrived at St. Mary's. He thought he and Origin had caused it.

Had it been Watson all along?

Why? Why would Watson capture him and let him go? Why would he pretend he didn't know where he was when he had put him there in the first place? Why would he be so desperate to kill him?
 

Was this even the first recursion since he had arrived here?

A sense of his own panic began creeping up on him. He forced it back down. Return to the source. That's what the message said. Had Watson been able to decipher it? If he had, he wouldn't have needed Mitchell.

Had the Tetron ever needed him at all?
 

If Watson had captured him, the intelligence had twenty years to break the encryption that Michael had undone in a matter of minutes. How could it be possible that the Tetron was incapable of achieving that? Or, if Watson knew he needed Michael to do it, why not pick him up and make him do it? He had done far worse to the Knife.

Unless the virus hadn't come from Watson. What if Origin had planted it, to ensure that once Mitchell knew the message, it would be lost forever? That made more sense.

Return to the source.

That's what he was supposed to do. It was the simple answer he was looking for, regardless of who had left it for him.

"We need to go," Mitchell said, looking back at Daisy. "No matter who caused the heartbeat, we aren't safe here. If Watson's listening, he's going to notice."

"Colonel," Max shouted from somewhere above them. "We've got company."

Mitchell grabbed Michael by the arm, pulling him up. "Come on."

Michael stumbled to his feet, cold sweat beaded on his forehead. "What's going on?"

A pop sounded above them, followed by the clink of a spent casing. Daisy was already running up the stairs, and Mitchell pulled Michael behind her.

"We're in trouble," Mitchell replied. "Stay close to me." He had a handgun tucked into the back of his suit pants, and he pulled it out.

"Oh, man," Michael said. "This is the third time in a week. I'm starting to wish I had never met Kathy."

A second pop sounded. Then a third.

"Sitrep," Mitchell shouted.
 

"Drones," Max replied. Mitchell still didn't know where the Corporal was sitting. Somewhere on the top floor.
 

"Military?"

"Hard to tell from this far. Police issue, I think."

Echoing pops in the distance. The windows along the south wall began to shatter.

"Get down," Mitchell said, pulling Michael to the floor.

"Okay, maybe at least a few of them are military," Max said.

Gunfire sounded from the east side where Lyle was stationed.
 

"Colonel, I hear sirens," Lyle said.

"Daisy, get the car," Mitchell said. She was crouched behind a sofa and dashed toward the door at his order.

"Wait here," Mitchell said, leaving Michael on the floor in a doorway. More bullets were still raining in, the volume decreasing as Max and Lyle hit the drones with their heavy rifles.
 

Mitchell crossed the floor to the doorway, covering Daisy as she crossed the street. The sirens were getting louder. It was going to be too damn close.

Return to the source. The words passed through his mind in the middle of the chaos. The source? Origin had to mean XENO-1 - the part of the wreckage that remained buried in the Antarctic ice. There had simply been too much of her to move it all.
 

But what was waiting for him there?

Daisy reached the car, getting it moving, turning it toward him and driving it up onto the lawn. Mitchell spotted an approaching drone, turning his gun on it and firing shot after shot, emptying the magazine to hit it. He managed to do something, because it started shooting wide, the bullets spraying the houses around them.
 

"Haul ass," Mitchell shouted. "We're moving out."

He ducked back into the home, retreating to where Michael was still crouched on the floor, tears in his eyes.
 

"I'm sorry for this," Mitchell said. "The good news is, you're going to help me save the world."

Michael looked at him with big, red eyes. Then he brought himself to his feet. "I'll try."

They moved across the floor a second time, pausing once as a hail of bullets poured in from a drone that got too close. An echoing boom sounded from upstairs, and the shooting stopped.

"Sorry, I didn't see that bastard," Max said a moment later, hiking down the steps.

Lyle joined them in the front of the house. They all jumped into the car, with Max firing back at the remaining drones. The flickering light of the oncoming law enforcement vehicles bounced across the houses around them.

Daisy accelerated, the repulsors below the van thumping with power, the electric engine whining. The police vehicles we coming in from both sides, trying to barricade them in.
 

They went up onto the lawns, racing across the grass. The officers tried to compensate, rearranging their vehicles to block. Some stopped and climbed out, taking aim and shooting at them. Bullets clanged off the metal, one cracked a window. Max and Lyle returned fire with their pistols, their aim worthless in the moving, bouncing vehicle.