Dark Energy Supernova - An Anthology of SF SD Shorts

Part 6 Ghost in the Machine

'Take us?'  Quinn's frown deepened.  No, that didn't sound ominous at all!  She was about to see if she could get more answers out of the master spy when he made a gesture she couldn't quite catch.  The troopers behind her did, however as they stepped forward to sweep the inspector's hoods off and abruptly hold her and Duncan's heads in place.

"What, what are you doing?" she stammered as strange headsets of metal with attached braces positioned to go on the shoulders descended out of the shadows cloaking the ceiling to settle on their heads.  Once they were on, another trooper stepped forward to strap it in place, effectively keeping their heads from moving.

"Making more operatives," Vaughn replied, "or, at least attempting to.  The process hasn't quite been perfected."  The thin minister made a gesture with a long-fingered hand.  "You may have seen the ones that didn't survive the process floating about like ghosts."

"Those,...those are the ones that didn't make it?" it was Duncan's turn to stammer, the big inspector going as pale as his dark skin would allow.  As if summoned by mentioning them, several wraiths of movement and light slipped into their visual fields, twisting and shifting as if writhing in silent agony.

Duncan and Quinn both stared at them for a long moment before Duncan twisted back towards Vaughn.

"Just what kind of operatives are you trying to make??"

"The kind that can move at will through a network," Vaughn replied, hitting something on his board.  Immediately the headsets began to warm against Quinn and Duncan's heads.  Nodding in satisfaction, Vaughn turned towards his two captives.

"The process works by ripping your bio-electrical essence from your bodies and stuffing it into the network where you become a living program.  You will be equipped with the ability to interface with the system so you'll be able to 'see' and 'hear' data, as well as manipulate it.  And you'll be able to access avenues of communication so I can give you directions."

The thin smile returned.

"How do you think we managed to find out so quickly that you had failed to heed the cease and desist?  My operatives had already infiltrated your network and alerted me as soon as you started typing."

As he said that, Vaughn turned back to the keyboard and touched something that sent a low vibration through the headset.

"And as soon as we separate your essence from your flesh, you'll join them," the thin minister said as the vibration grew stronger.  "It will start with a bit of dry mouth, headache, the irresistible urge to run on a small wheel,..."

Quinn barely resisted the urge to spit at him at that point and instead looked over at her partner.  Just in time to catch Duncan leaning towards her as best the headset would allow.

"Q, I think these troopers are simplicants," he whispered hoarsely.

"We're about to get our souls sucked out and either stuffed into a computer, or left free to float as ghosts.  And you're worried about whether these soldiers are simplicants??  Have you frickin' lost it, Dunk?"  Quinn snarled in reply even as the vibration grew to painful levels.

"Venus used simplicants as soldiers in the first months of the Three Corners.  They had to pull them because of a neural root code that enabled them to accept commands from multiple commanders,"  Duncan quickly explained even as he began to grimace against the pain, "including Terran and Martian commanders, after our Intel found out what the code was."

"So?" Quinn hissed through clenched teeth, her eyes half closed against the throb seeking to break into her skull.

Instead of answering, Duncan leaned back into his chair and barked a stream of nonsensical syllables.  The soldiers in white armor immediately jerked to attention.

"What?"  Vaughn began, turning away from his console with a frown to look at the soldiers.  Duncan threw him a quick look, then barked another handful of words that didn't make sense.

In one smooth motion the soldiers readied their weapons.  Then they were firing at each other, the room quickly filling with deadly energized light.

Quinn twitched as blasts rained all around her, several coming close but not quite enough to hurt her.  Then, abruptly, the vibration in her head was gone.  A stunned glance upward yielded the connection had been severed by a stray shot.  Almost in the same instant the shooting stopped.

A quick look around revealed why: all the troopers in white were dead, their bodies riddled with smouldering holes.  Stunned, Quinn looked over at Duncan, who had also had his headset damaged by weapon fire to the point where it was almost falling off.  Unfortunately it had also searing a line across the side of his head.  All things considered, they had gotten off lightly.

As her eyes fell onto him, Duncan grinned.

"Self-destruct command," he said and Quinn smiled with relief.  "I also told one of them to send a burst communication to the nearest available MoD communication node.  Which means, if things haven't changed considerably since I left the service, we should be getting a quick response team arriving right about,..."

The door at the end exploded inward in a flash of light and discharge and heavily armored troopers in the dappled gray, white and black camoflague of the MoD's urban assault team poured into the resulting opening.

"Now," Duncan finished, his grin even broader.  Then the two inspectors looked up towards the control pedestal in the hopes of seeing the look on Vaughn's face at having his plan unravel before his eyes.  And both immediately felt a cold rush when they saw that he was gone.