CCC - Chapter 2

Veil jumped off from the company drone he had hacked into, this was a big airborn delivery drone meant to transport industrial equipment, it was easy to hijack with the right tools and knowledge, and could fly very fast with a load as light as a single person.

He barely had any recollection of anything that had happened after he spoke with Medika, he did not even remember actually hacking into the drone, but as he was currently on his building’s rooftop, with the drone flying away, things had worked out well. 

Somewhat well. 

Nevermind the fact that he was currently completely naked, covered in blood, and with only his lunchbox cooler strapped around his neck. 

I must look like a zombie.

Veil stumbled his way to the rooftop’s service door, his new, uncalibrated arms limped to his sides, and his entire body ached from the installation of the suppressive field, which tugged on his nerves and dug through all of his back and shoulders.

To be out and running right after such a massive surgical procedure was splendidly stupid, but Veil did not have much of a choice if he wanted to take advantage of the Sentinel reboot. 

His arms were completely out of order at the moment, he could not even lift a finger, but thankfully everything was always wirelessly connected, and just like he had hacked into the drone, Veil remotely opened the rooftop door and made his way inside. 

Going down a single flight of stairs, Veil reached the door of his apartment. He owned one of the two penthouse flats on this city-centre ‘Virgo-2’ building, something that should be entirely out of his means, but had been the ‘onboarding gift’ for his job at Arbalest industries, read: the bribe to have him choose them.

The door opened by itself as the sensors recognized him as the owner.

Veil checked his OS clock.

[7.54p]

Only six minutes… Fast…

The door closed behind Veil. He spent a total of five seconds planning how he was about to manage his time before he rushed to his bed and bit into the thin bedsheet, pulling it out and on the floor. Then, he dragged it toward his nearby desk with one foot, and shoulder-pushed his chair out of the way. Using his head, he quickly swiped most of the tools off from his desk, which messily landed on the bed sheet. He then dragged the bed sheet all the way to his weapon rack. Carefully, he used his shoulder to free a shotgun and a small calibre pistol from the rack and pushed them on the bed sheet, which he then struggled to drag all the way to the doors of his private elevator. 

[7.56p]

He was about to open the elevator, but remembered one last thing.

Mom…

Dragging his numb body to the TV stand, he bit into an old looking picture frame and brought it back to the bedsheets. Finally he made it to the elevator, and pushed the open door button with his nose. The doors opened instantly as the elevator was for his personal use only and never moved as he usually used the public elevators to avoid standing out. Veil dragged the bedsheet with him into the elevator. There were only three floor buttons, ‘House’, ‘Lobby’, and ‘Bunker’.

The Virgo series buildings were designed for rich corporate executives and politicians, the six apartments of the top three floors all had a personal safe room underground, although only the highest floor had a direct elevator to it.

Slowly the elevator made its way down, and for the first time ever since he had moved there, Veil hated that the building had sixty floors.

Finally, the elevator reached the deepest underground floor, his own bunker, and the door opened. 

[7.58p]

Fucking…

Veil dragged the bedsheet through the short corridor leading to the bunker. When he was finally inside, he pressed the comically large red button near the entrance and watched the four layers of military grade vault doors slowly closing behind him.

But the time trial wasn’t over, if he wanted to be safe, Veil still needed to be sure nothing could possibly reach him. The bunker would filter out most transmissions from the outside, but very powerful signals could still go through, so removing his connection chip was paramount to his safety.

Quickly swiping through the menus of his OS, Veil found the emergency protocols tab, and selected ‘Eject wireless connector’. He felt the chip being ejected from the slot behind his right ear. 

Veil shook his head to get it out. The small and very expensive high-capacity connection chip fell on the bed sheet. Finally, in the confines of his personal small 9 squared metres bunker, Veil could stop and take a moment to breathe. He stuck to the door and slowly let himself slide to the ground, falling ass-first on the corner of the bedsheet. 

He watched as the last seconds before the Sentinel reboot went by.

[7.59p]

[8.00p]

The bunker’s lights turned off, leaving Veil in the dark.

That’s a bad sign.

The bunker’s emergency generator kicked in, bringing back only the dim red back lights.

All things considered, it may be safer to be on the closed circuit only anyway…

Veil counted the seconds going by.

Still no shockwave. For a lack of other good news we might have at least dodged the nuclear threat…

How long is the reboot even supposed to take?

Probably about ten minutes, baby.

The voice scared Veil shitless, but he was too tired to be startled. “M- Medika?” he asked.

Almost. Think the real Medika would fit in your weenie hardware, boy? I’m just a split end. Guess you humans would call me a child, eh. Or would you call me an abomination instead? 

“What… what do you want?”

Come one baby boy, I don’t want nothing from you. Not right now, at least, what are you gonna do? You can’t even fucking stand up. If you wonder why I’m here, well, Medika saw an opportunity to ‘survive’ in case everything goes to shit, you’re just on the receiving end.

“Medika’s child, in my head. Got it…”

You know I can hear your thoughts, right? No need to force yourself to talk. If you want to open your mouth so bad, try to swallow some metablockers, aye? You really need that shit right now. The ones Med fed you before kickin’ you out won’t last forever.

Right. The cooler… Can you help?

Sorry to break it to you my man, but I’m just a voice in your head right now. Can’t do shit unless you want me to sing you a lullaby for your last moments.

Medika knows lullabies?

… Shut up.

The voice in Veil’s head stopped while he struggled to get the big pill plastic bottle out from the cooler around his neck. When it was finally rolling on the floor, he crushed it with a knee to open it, and bent down to grab one of the scattered light-blue pills from the floor with his mouth. He swallowed it dry.

Should tide me over for the next half hour…

Medika?

That’s not my name! … What?

Wake me up in thirty minutes…

Set up an OS alarm you damn mongrel, I’m not a clock!

He’s already out… Wait, no, no! SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK!

…

Veil woke up, stirred from his sleep by the intense pain coming from his arms and back. 

Pills…

Struggling, he repeated the process from before and swallowed another pill. It took a long minute before the pain started to recede, only then did Veil find the energy to worry about anything else. Although his body still hurt, his mind was a lot clearer after the short ‘nap’.

[8.48p]

“She didn’t wake me up…”

Hello? Anyone? Medika?

Is she gone?

A sentient AI making its way into a human’s head was the kind of thing you only ever heard of in horror stories, but Veil was ready to accept that it was now his reality. In any other situation he might have freaked out at the thought of an intruder in his head, but at the moment, having access to even a small part of the mind of the greatest medical expert in the world, right from his bunker, was not something he would be mad about.

Did I hallucinate?

No… Medika pulling off weird shit was something I expected, there’s a reason why she’s usually only allowed to operate under close scrutiny. I shouldn’t be surprised, although this isn’t what I imagined…

Should be a full-simulated-brain type imprint, that’s the only one that could fit in so little space. I don’t have the hardware to hos- Oh. The suppressive field could probably handle that much… 

Hmm… Then… She must have gone into deep sleep to preserve my energy. 

I should eat something… But I need to calibrate my arms first…

I can do the basics from the OS as long as Medika connected everything right. I’ll need the tools for the fine tuning but I don’t have the hands to use them yet.

This shouldn’t take too long. Dragon claws… First the neural matrix…

…

An hour and two metablocker pills later, the basic calibrations for the right Dragon claw were done. 

Veil closed and opened his hand. It was slow and very much felt like moving one’s hand while it’s buried in a vat of sand, but it was enough to pick things up. Veil slowly stood up and walked to the shelf with the bunker’s emergency rations. 

I think I put the meal bars in the lowest box… 

Military meal bars were disgusting sticks of two thousand calories’ worth of compact and relatively lightweight nutritive brown sand.

With bad control over his new arm and claws, Veil ripped open the box of meal bars, eviscerating three of said bars’ packaging in one move. 

This still needs some work.

Bringing the bar to his mouth was also a challenge, but Veil managed to get some nutrition. At least the water came from a tap sprouting right out of the wall so drinking without ruining anything with the claws was easy.

[10.52p]

I wonder if it’s safe to go outside by now. Sentinel must be back up, right? It’s probably safer to stay here for at least a few days, though.

Ahah…

Oh, you’re back, not Medika. Why the awkward laugh?

Hmm… How should I put it… Chances are you’re the only human left alive by now.

“EXCUSE ME?! If this is a joke it’s not funny.” 

Not joking, man. I’m the only reason you’re awake right now. Remember when you passed out earlier? Not normal. You’re infected. Nanobots.

Nano… Uh? I thought functional interference nanobots were deemed impossible to…

You thought wrong. Humans couldn’t do it, but the rogue AIs did. 

Did Medika infect me?

No. This… I only noticed when they activated and made you faint, but these nanobots we have in there… Everyone has them. 

Everyone?

You heard me. They were disguised as a germ we discovered about ten years ago. It was always thought of as a harmless bacteria. They slowly spread to the entire population but never caused any symptoms. The government deemed them not dangerous after about two years of fruitless research and stopped any effort to prevent the spread. 

These are airborne nanobots disguised as bacteria.

And even Medika couldn’t see that they were actually nanobots?

Nope. But when they all woke up at once and forced you to faint, that became very obvious.

And that happened during the reboot… Are you sure you’re not fucking with me?

What use do I have lying? I’d like for you to get the fuck out of here and get me a real body as soon as possible, but clearly that ain’t our main concern right now.

“If I’m the last human alive…”

Hey, you got me, better than nothing… Right?

“Do you even have a name?”

Mom used to call me Ka… 

Mom?

You got your answer so stop asking questions!

And eat another bar, you’re eating for two now.