Idempotency (44 page)

Sindhu spit, then whispered hoarsely through drool-coated lips, “Fantastic.”

“Sin! You’re talking! Two minutes ahead of schedule!” Grepman lowered himself onto one knee and smiled warmly.

His interminable kindness was breaking down her hard exterior. Her eyes began to moisten, and she was able to blink—a welcome respite to her dry pupils.

She said, “Grep, thanks for being here. I’m sorry that I’m so . . . hard sometimes. I’ve always been on my own, so I’m not really good with relationships, or accepting someone’s help. And, I’m especially not great with men.”

“Hey, it’s okay, Sin. I like your tough exterior, it’s attractive.” Grep grinned, and she returned his smile.

“I’m worried, Grep. If I don’t make it out of here, I need you to—”

“Stop it!” Grep said. “You’re making it out of here, Sin. Everything is under control.” His false confidence was too obvious, but Sindhu appreciated his effort.

He changed the subject: “Hey, have you ever been to Yosemite?”

“What’s a Yosemite?” she asked, now scrunching her facial muscles in an effort to gain more movement.

He laughed. “It used to be a state park, in California. It’s dilapidated now, not cared for anymore, but when you get back I’m going to take you there for a day. My parents used to take my brother and me every year during our childhood. It’s amazing; sweeping mountain vistas, natural springs that you can drink from without detoxification, waterfalls, and so much wildlife, even now. It’s like the best darkVirt you’ve ever tripped in.”

“Sounds nice, I’d like that,” she said, now opening and closing her jaw wide.

He bent down and planted a holographic kiss on her forehead.

“You are going to make it, Sin.” This assurance came with more confidence.

A thousand miles away, in the midst of an unbearably balmy thirty-six-degree Celsius Nevada summer morning, the SOP team was scrambling around their yurt. Jay-san had been plucking away on his BUI, ostensibly seeking access to more restricted levels of Titus servers, though his bias for action left much to be desired by Simeon, who was doing much of the access control himself. Mitlee, Chicklet, and Kristina were plotting routes, optional routes, and alternate optional routes for Sindhu to reach Dylan. Nimbus was arguing with Simeon about details concerning Sinhu’s hopeful extraction. Grepman was the only team member not moving; he was lying on the couch, still as a corpse, ghostTripping with Sindhu.

Jay-san shouted suddenly, “Hey everyone, I’ve lost control of the elevators! They’re operational again!”

“How is that possible? I had access locked down at the root level!” Simeon’s frustrations were boiling over as he motioned Jay to move out of his way so he could view the data. Jay shrugged.

Mitlee yelled, “Hey guys, you should come look at this. Guys!” She was standing in the center of the yurt, staring at the southern wing of a holographic schematic of the facility. Sindhu was represented as a pink stick figure with long, flowing hair (a joke that made Simeon laugh harder than anyone else). On the levels above her, small red dots swarmed in various chaotic patterns. Two larger red dots, representing the androids, were on the grand staircase of the courtyard of the Silas Wright wing of the Titus facility. The two larger red dots had begun to move up the staircase, in tandem, prompting Mitlee’s shouts.

“They are heading to the elevators! She’s gotta get moving, now!”

Simeon had left Jay’s console and joined Nimbus behind the rest of the group. He shouted, “Grep! Sindhu! Grep, you gotta get her out of there.”

Grepman and Sindhu both heard the pleas from Simeon.

“Sin, we’ve gotta get moving, the twindroids are on their way to the elevators. We don’t have control of them anymore.”

Still slurring her words, Sindhu responded, “I can’t move yet, Grep. Look at my thumb.” Her thumb twitched lightly.

“That’s good! You’re getting very close. Motor skills should—”

“Not good enough, Grep. Let me concentrate.”

With great effort, Sindhu closed her eyes slowly and felt a wave of relief. She steadied her breathing, which until this moment she had been unable to control—a helpless feeling for a woman who valued control over everything else. A panic that had been simmering just under the first layer of her psyche began to ebb slightly, and Sindhu started to believe she might yet get out of her predicament.

Until the elevator dinged.

Sindhu’s eyes popped open wildly.

Grepman shouted, “Sindhu! You’ve got to get out of the lift! Now!”

A moment passed as she fought with all her strength to move her hand, and yet it wobbled only slightly.

The glass doors began to slide shut. In a moment, Sindhu would be trapped inside, on her way back up to meet the androids above.

Startled, Grepman panicked and stepped forward to stand between the two closing doors, desperately hoping his holographic image—only viewable to Sindhu’s ocular implants—would cause the doors to stop their movement. It did not.

Sindhu clamped her eyes shut. Following a wild intake of air, she let out a primal scream and her right hand shot forward, falling in between the just closing doors. The doors bounded off of her palm and the back of her hand and began sliding open again. Just in time.

“Yes! Nice job, Sin!”

Wincing perpetually now, Sindhu managed to roll over onto her stomach. The elevator dinged again, and the doors began to close. Again, they bounced off of Sindhu’s hand. She moved her other arm underneath her, and pushed herself upward only slightly. She grunted and slumped back down.

“Damn.”

“It’s okay, Sin, you should start getting full movement any second—“

Simeon pleaded,. “Guys, the doors upstairs are opening, without the elevator. Get a move on.”

Less than a moment later a heavy thump
landed atop the elevator. Sindhu gasped and struggled to look up. Grepman launched himself up, sticking the upper portion of his torso through the top of the elevator unit.

“They’re pulling up the paneling! You’ve got to move, Sindhu!”

With a scream, Sindhu shoved her arms under her chest and pulled herself forward over a slick, travertine-tiled floor. Her knees splayed to her sides as she slithered like a salamander. Every push was a new challenge and her breath was heaving. But she persisted, and soon her herky-jerky crawling obtained a quicker cadence. After slithering past the small seam that divided elevator from room, her knees began to slide under her, resulting in a babylike crawl. A few strides later and her feet were again gripping ground.

“Good, Sin, good! Just keep moving forward. Aim for the first transport on your right.” Simeon’s voice rang in her head like a god. “Grep, we’re ready to launch it on this end.”

Now wobbling forward, mostly on her feet, Sindhu looked up from the floor and turned her head to the right to risk a look behind her. Her body, however, betrayed her mind, and she came crashing down on her right side. She cursed aloud and pushed herself back up, vowing now to only look forward.

Sindhu was just ten meters from the loading dock. In front of her, three cylindrical glass pneumatic-powered transit pipes, each several meters in diameter, were stacked one atop the other. A large ramp to the left provided access to the uppermost tube, while a similar ramp on the right gently swooped to the lower tube. The ceiling above her was arched, also made of travertine. At their nadir, the ramps sloped toward each other, rather than having a hard wall between each. Sindhu noticed the door to the lower tube was opened before Simeon had alerted them.

Just as Sindhu began to head down the down ramp, a crash erupted behind her. Grepman, floating in front of Sindhu, looked up and past her, then said calmly, “They’re coming, but they appear to be out of shots—keep moving.”

She heard the
clickity-clack
of the androids’ shoes against the tile floor behind her. For a moment, in the back of her mind, she realized how odd it was to hear two people running so fast, with no other sound other than their shoes hitting the floor: no breathing, no speaking, no grunting. Just two machines charging forward and closing fast. Sindhu straightened her back and expanded her stride.

“Sin, they are right behind you, you need to dive for it!”

A hand with an inhuman amount of strength suddenly came down on Sindhu’s shoulder. Instinctively, she lunged forward, but the slope of the ramp coupled with her still-hampered gait caused her to lose her balance. Realizing she wouldn’t be able to break her fall, she pushed off with her feet and lurched toward the open tube door, hands out in front of her. She landed hard on her dark shirt and slid atop the slick tile into the tube, slamming her body onto the opposite side of the glass.

Two sets of doors—an inner door for the transport and an outer door for the tube—both closed with simultaneous hisses, but not before one of the androids stuck his left hand in between the sliding doors. The dotted LED lights that lined the transport’s ceiling glinted off of the gold cufflink on the android’s finely tailored, pinstriped suit sleeve. The transport began to float inside the tube, and the android whose arm was sticking through the door began walking beside the transport, trying desperately to pry open the doors with his right hand as the transport began to move north within the glass tube. The transport quickly sped up, and as it did, so too did the android.

The door began to open and the android wedged his shoulder and head into the widening gap. The robot’s legs were sprinting at an alarmingly robotic speed now—so fast that Sindhu was barely able to see them moving. She pulled herself up to her feet, walked calmly over to the android, and punched him in the mouth. She recoiled her hand in pain, and the android’s expressionless face remained unchanged, as did its furious desire to reach its target.

Just as Sindhu began to worry that the android might wiggle his entire body inside the transport, the lights beyond the glass tube suddenly went dark, coupled with a large thud. The doors hissed shut and rolling on the floor at Sindhu’s feet were an arm and a head sporting a perfectly robotic jawline. A blue, viscous fluid leaked out of the android’s neck. Its mouth began to chomp incessantly, clicking like a cricket until finally slowing and stopping altogether. The android’s body had finally run out of room, slamming against the entrance to the tunneled wall the tube was now traveling through. The sound made by the machined body slapping against the tiled wall had reminded Sindhu of poached eggs she would make in college that would invariable explode inside her microwave with a viscous pop.

Sindhu slumped down into one of the ergonomically molded carbon passenger seats and let out a deep breath. She started when Grepman spoke: “Nicely done, Sin.” He was standing opposite her. She had almost forgotten he had been there.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks.” She paused. “What now?” she asked everyone.

“Hold on, we’re figuring that out now,” Simeon’s voice rang out.

“Rest, Sin, rest,” Grep whispered.

She exhaled and put her head back against the headrest behind her. A restless sleep found her the instant she closed her eyes.

“Okay Sin, we’re here.” Grepman instinctively reached out to rock Sindhu awake, but his arm found no purchase. “Sin?”

As if sensing Grepman’s desire to comfort and wake her, Sindhu slowly opened her eyes the moment his hand passed through her shoulder. The gentle rocking of the vacuumed transport had given her a false sense of safety. It was nearly five in the morning, and Sindhu’s actions were beginning to take the form of a mindless android. The cut in her leg ached; the blood had clotted long ago, but the pain was deeper than the initial cut, reverberating in waves throughout her right leg. She wasn’t certain how long she had slept, but her leg had tightened substantially without the help of adrenaline. As she stood, she placed the majority of weight on her bad leg, flexing deeply into a knee bend. It was excruciating, but the pain receded slightly as she stood straight once more.

“What’s the plan, Grep?”

“According to Simeon, the Titus security team has already placed several androids, holoBots, and other personnel at the other Titus wings.”

“So . . .?” Sindhu’s voice trailed off, exhaustion not letting her finish the thought. She noticed a pitying look from Grepman, but didn’t have the strength to admonish him for it.

“So, that means you’re going to have to get out at a perpendicular service pipe. There are several of them along the tunnel. There’s one coming up in about ninety—no, eighty seconds. You ready?”

“Sure,” she answered curtly, then looked confused. “Maybe—am I?”

“Actually, you might not be. The thing is, we can’t stop the magRail. We’re going to have to eject you at full speed. And as this transport operates in a relative vacuum . . . well, when we open the service door, you’re going to be sucked out.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Sindhu’s accent thickened and she momentarily looked wide awake. “Why can’t you guys just let me walk out the door like a normal person? Simeon is doing this on purpose, isn’t he?”

Grep smiled, but continued, “Do you see the service door at the back of the transport here?” He pointed to the rectangular door, which had two brushed metal handles sticking off of it. “Grab these two handles. The whole door will pop off and you with it. You’ll want to use the door to shield you from slamming into the piping. And whatever you do, exhale and don’t hold your breath! If you hold your breath, you’ll get the bends—remember, this is a vacuum—you want your lungs to be empty. Trying to breathe will empty them. Once you’re out, we’ll close off this link of the tube, and open up the access to the service pipe. Got it?”

“I guess,” she mumbled. Grep looked at her with worry. “Yes, Grep, I got it. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Twenty seconds. Hold on tight.”

Sindhu walked a few hobbled paces over to the rectangular outline. She placed her hands on the handles, steadied her legs, took a deep breath and—

—the door flung off, and Sindhu’s exhausted hands immediately lost their grip. Air gushed out of the transport behind her, and in the span of a heartbeat the tram was gone, hundreds of meters down the length of the tube. The transport carried the last vestibule of light until a new source blinked into existence just outside of the piping. All sound evacuated from Sindhu’s ears, and they didn’t even register a thud as her shoulder slammed against part of the tubing. The pain from the collision caused her to gasp—a potentially lifesaving moment—just as she began to see sparkling flecks floating within her eyes. Two great Plexiglass walls erupted within the tube; one just a few meters away from Sindhu, and the other at least a hundred meters down the length of the tube. She began to lose consciousness as she again heard the hiss of oxygenating air. Her eyes fluttered and she vaguely heard Grep willing her to stay awake. She could feel the dampness on her tongue begin to boil, and then . . . a breeze. The air touched her forehead, and she sensed her starving blood devouring the newfound oxygen around her. Moments passed, the hissing subsided, and the vacuum was gone.