Autonoma- Gate 13 Page 11

  Michael stared back at me.

  “Even if we could restart this place, what’s the point? We’ve got the navigational beacons. We can get out. We do not need to start pushing buttons in here. Who knows what all this stuff does,” I spat, pointing with a dramatic exaggeration to each of the various buttons, “Just stop it.”

  My little brother retracted his arm.

  “Henri,” I called out, turning to look for the old tin can, “come on. We’re leaving.”

  “Sequence initiated,” the disembodied voice chimed from the console.

  I spun to face the apparent source of the declaration. “What the--"

  “Facility coming online.”

  “No!” I screamed, Henri emerging from another panel, releasing a cable as he cleared the door.

  “No, Henri. Stop!”

  Hovering up to the nearest set of buttons, the small hatch on his casing flew off the hinge, clattering against the console, falling to the floor. The broken arm extended, flailing like a broken drill, as the old tin can attempted to dock with another terminal.

  “Stop it!” I demanded, pulling Michael in closer.

  The twisted metal of Henri’s arm lashed against the buttons beneath the console, and a red light illuminated near Michael. A second and third lit up further down the room, and the dial on the walled panel to my left cracked.

  Henri retracted his broken arm and descended the console, another panel opening for the hovering idiot, disappearing inside.

  “We have to stop him before he gets us both killed,” I declared, releasing Michael and approaching the desk, the bells in this room activating. It was not like the alarms in the Senior Engineer’s office though, this alarm was intermittent.

  An electric buzzer within the console joined the alarm, followed in quick succession by several more. A brilliant arc of electricity bridged across a series of buttons as sparks erupted from another, smoke bellowing from the open console panel.

  Bending over, I peered into the hole, trying to waft the smoke away with my hand. “Henri, get out of there.” My view of the old tin can was obstructed by a jungle of cables, some arcing against others, some swinging in the wake of the old hoverbot, as more pops and crackles echoed about the room. “Henri!” I bellowed like a furious parent scolding a child. “Get out of there at once.”

  “He’s just following the objective,” Michael protested.

  “The objective?” I replied, with lashings of sarcastic tone. “Is the objective to get us killed, or worse, taken away by the Havoc bots?”

  My little brother furrowed his brow.

  “Hold this,” I demanded, thrusting the backpack toward Michael, as with hesitation, my little brother stepped forward to accept it.

  “Take it,” I repeated with increasing impatience. “I’ve got to stop Henri from doing something incredibly stu--”

  A deep-seated rumble rippled along the floor; I could feel it through my toes. My words escaped me, as dial after dial cracked, popped and shattered.

  “Shut it down!” I yelled.

  “I don’t know how,” Michael replied, panicked, his eyes darting across the buttons as the bulbs behind burned out, his fingers clutching tighter to the bag.

  “That flying piece of--"

  The sound of plaster cracking tore across the room as a large section of the blank wall fell to the floor, smashing against the tiles, sending a flurry of dust into the air. In its wake, a fracture spread up the brick wall.

  “Fix it,” Michael demanded.

  “Fix it?” I replied, aghast. “I couldn’t operate a working, functional nuclear power plant, let alone fix one that was torn apart by an explosion, disabled, then sealed off. What is wrong with you?”

  “I just--”

  “Doesn’t matter. Come on, we need to get out--”

  Spotting something moving in the fracture spreading up the wall, a white light flashing inside the bricks, or something, I moved closer. “No,” I muttered, drawing nearer. “It’s something on the other side of the wall. Something white and grey and moving. It looks like,” I paused, trying to work it out, “it looks like shapes; circles. White circles tumbling like a waterfall.”

  I stepped back as the air in my lungs was sucked out by sheer dread.

  “Run!” I wheezed.

  “But, Henri--”

  “Run, Michael. Run!”

  I turned on my heels and sprinted across the room, collecting my little brother by the strap of the backpack as I passed. I grabbed hold of the handle and flung open the door.

  “Go,” I demanded, pushing my little brother through the doorway first.

  “Henri!” he cried.

  “There’s no time,” I interject. “We have to leave him--”

  The familiar smell of burning oil and grease filled my nostrils as the flying tin can trundled through the opening above my little brother’s head.

  I looked back at the fracture, the red eyes of the Havoc bots sneering back through the opening breach.

  “Go, go, go,” I repeated, pushing my little brother forward, watching the growing number of red eyes staring back at me. “Go!” I exclaimed, slamming the door shut behind us.

  Chapter 12

  DeliverA.N.C.E.

  “Go,” I demanded, pushing Michael as I was forced to brace against the wall.

  “Watch out,” Michael yelped, jumping aside, as a large plate of plaster fell from beside me, smashing to dust against the floor.

  As I turned from the control room’s door, the white arrow on my visor pointed upward, I assumed it meant forward. Even if it didn’t lead to Gate 13, at least it was taking us away from here.

  My little brother stumbled forward as we struggled against the trembles of the floor. I could hear intermittent alarm bells activating in the rooms off the corridor as a wooden door nearby slammed into its threshold, splitting and splintering, unable to take the strain.

  “Run!” I screeched, pushing Michael by his backpack.

  “Where are we going?” he shouted back.

  “Just follow the arrows.”

  “What arrows?”

  “Wait, stop,” I demanded, as the direction on my visor changed, pointing to a plain looking door.

  “What? Why?” my little brother shrieked.

  I placed my hand on the wood, feeling for any heat on the other side - it was stone cold. Whether it led us out of here or into another mess, though, was another thing. Should we trust a computer? After all, we wouldn’t be in this mess if I’d trusted my instincts at the start and gone home.

  “What are you doing?” Michael demanded, as Henri glared at me over his shoulder.

  Behind them, thick black smoke choked the corridor, and I could feel the sweat building on my brow.

  “We need to carry on,” my little brother insisted, turning to resume his scamper along the corridor.

  I grabbed the strap of his backpack. “We need to get out--”

  The smoky corridor ignited as a flame burst from a fracture in the wall. The temperature rocketed, and I swore my eyebrows were melting.

  “Go,” I instructed, forcing the plain door open, allowing Michael to race through, followed by the old hoverbot.

  “What was that?” my little brother asked, as I leaned against the closed door, catching my breath.

  “Fire,” I replied.

  “No, I mean--”

  “Looks like the reception,” I remarked, stepping forward and pushing Michael away from the black smoke ebbing out beneath the door, toward the large wooden desk with A.N.C.E. painted on the wooden panels behind it.

  “Where do we go?” he asked, panic warbling his words, as my attention turned to the double doors at the side of the room.

  “If this is the reception,” I declared, approaching the yellow tape crisscrossed across the boarded-up glass, “these doors should lead out of here.”

  The brittle tape didn’t put up any fight, flittering to the floor as I pushed at the doors, but they didn’t budge an inch. I g
rasped the handle and tried pulling. “There’s something on the other side holding these shut,” I mumbled, bracing my foot against one door and pulling at the other.

  “Alex,” my little brother pleaded.

  I didn’t have to turn to know what had him alarmed, I could feel the smoke biting my throat.

  “Come on,” I declared, with a defeated tone, following the white arrows. “This way.”

  “Are we going to die?” my little brother asked, halting my steps.

  “We are not going to die,” I replied. “I will get us out of here. You know I will.”

  “You won’t leave me behind?”

  “Of course I won’t,” I responded. “Besides, if I left you behind, who would look after Henri?”

  My attempt at humor fell flat, as my little brother and the old hoverbot glared at me.

  “Come on,” I declared, “we’ll go home, and we can both have fish fingers for dinner.”

  “What about Henri?”

  “Henri doesn’t eat--”

  Michael snapped to me as tears cascaded down his face.

  “OK. Henri can have fish fingers too.”

  “Promise?” my little brother asked, snorting back the tears.

  “Promise.”

  “OK,” Michael replied.

  “Gate 13 is this way,” I declared, pointing forward. “I guess,” I mumbled.

  Ahead, the corridor sat under a couple of inches of water as more gushed through a ruptured wall.

  “At least it’ll keep the fire from following us,” I declared with a joyful smile. Neither Michael nor Henri seemed amused. “Well, here goes,” I announced, taking the first step.

  The icy water soaked into my shoes, and a cold shudder rippled through my body from my feet up to my shoulders. “Oh,” I gasped, “that’s a bit fresh.” A bit fresh? What was I? A hundred years old? That was the kind of thing Dad would have come out with. “This way,” I declared, waving my little brother forward. “Be careful, it’s cold.”

  A short whoop escaped him as he stepped ankle deep into the water. Henri followed at Michael’s eye-level, stumbling and falling with a hefty splash to the floor.

  “Henri!” my little brother cried.

  “I guess he can’t draw power over water,” I suggested, approaching the old tin can.

  Grunting, I strained to collect up the hoverbot from the water as Michael watched on. “At least he is not so hot to handle when he is wet,” I remarked, using my knee to reposition the bot and get a better grip. “He’ll be fine. I’ll be an expert in fixing the old thing by the time we get out of here.”

  My little brother glared at me, his lip quivering.

  “Which will be very soon,” I stitched onto the end of my sentence with haste, taking the backpack and placing Henri inside.

  The arrows led us into deeper water. Encumbered by the weight of the old hoverbot, finding it more difficult to wade along the cold corridors as the water engulfed my knees, I could see the lights further along the corridor were out. I knew we couldn’t go back, and even with the looming darkness ahead, I couldn’t say for certain we couldn’t go forward. I had no choice.

  “Come on,” I called to Michael, “we have to keep going.”

  My little brother peered around me.

  “I can’t,” he protested.

  “We have to,” I insisted.

  “I’m cold, and I’m scared.”

  “Want to know a secret?”

  Michael nodded with hesitation.

  “I’m cold and scared too.”

  “But, but you’re never scared.”

  Never scared? I’ve spent most of my life afraid. “Wanna play a game?” I asked, repositioning the backpack on my other shoulder, trying to get a better view of my terrified little brother.

  “OK,” he replied, the sound of his sniffles fading into the echoes of the running water.

  “I’ll make a guess of how many steps it takes before the arrow on my visor changes, you tell me if I’m right.”

  “Do I have to count them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I say them?”

  “Aloud? I insist,” I replied with a smile.

  My little brother paused; his finger pressed against his lip. I couldn’t think of anything better to play in an unlit corridor, knee deep in running cold water, carrying a useless hunk of junk, as we tried escape a decommissioned nuclear power plant that’s crumbling around us as soon as the stupid idiot of a robot started powering it up; oh, and let’s not forget the Havoc bots. Could they float over the water?

  “Yes,” Michael chirped merrily.

  “What?” I replied, my mind contemplating the mechanisms of the place. “Oh, right. The game. Yes, let’s do this!”

  “Twenty-six,” I declared.

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Nah, it’s fine,” I dismissed, stepping forward. “Come on, start counting.”

  “OK,” he replied, following suit, grabbing the hem of my jacket. “One, two, three…”

  The light faded too soon for my liking, but Michael’s chanting was comforting. I took a deep breath, knowing I had no choice but to place my faith into the navigational computer program.

  “…twelve, thirteen,”

  “Stop,” I declared. “The arrow just changed.”

  “Does that mean I win?”

  “This round? Yeah, why not?”

  “Yay!”

  “Twenty-one. This way,” I declared, turning, keen he didn’t lose his grip on my jacket.

  “One, two, three…”

  “…eleven, twelve…” he chanted as we turned into a lit corridor.

  ‘RESIST’, typed across my visor. The arrow flickered, fading, and I froze.

  “Did I win again?”

  No, please, not now. Don’t do this to me.

  ‘RESIST’.

  “Alex?”

  The overhead lights flickered, one bulb popping and bursting, showering us with red-hot filament. Michael screamed. Like a pulsing heartbeat, the lights illuminated the walls for a moment and extinguished, repeating the sequence. Each time, however, was enough to make out the writing on the wall ahead.

  Before the A.N.C.E. acronym, someone had scrawled the word ‘RESIST’, in red paint. A high-pitched squeal blasted from my earpiece, erupting into my skull, crippling all thought. The backpack dropped from my shoulder and into the water as I fell to my knees, clutching in vain to the side of my head.

  The words I had seen in the park return to my vision, and I could see my bloodied hand crossing the t of ‘accident’, feeling my body move backward, revealing more of the room, the message plastered across every surface.

  A heavy thud against the metal door drew my attention as a hatch was slid open and a pair of lit eyes stared back. I fell backward against the floor, shuffling like a terrified animal back to the wall. Hearing the locks on the door release, a bright light flooded the room as the sound of footsteps approached.

  “Get the subject up,” a woman demanded.

  Feeling a set of hands under each arm drag me to my feet, I was hauled toward the door, the light blinding me.

  The squeal faded, replaced by Michael’s desperate panting. I tried to rise to my feet but was unable to stand from the cold grip of the water. My vision returned to the corridor.

  Attention turned to the defaced wall ahead, as ‘RESIST’, faded from my visor. It was too much of a coincidence to assume the virus didn’t know about the graffiti. Did it have one of the bots draw it? Did it lead us here? Was it capable of predicting the future? Or was it orchestrating our fate?

  A pulsating headache spread across my temples, and I raised my arm to massage my head - it was dripping with red paint.

  Terrified, I thrusted my hand under the water, using the other to rinse the paint away.

  “What happened to you?” Michael asked, his words masked by his panting.

  I didn’t have the answer. I didn’t know, and the thought of trying to recall what happened, to t
rigger another episode, frightened me. I refused to think about it. I refused to acknowledge it.

  The arrow returned to my visor as the lights overhead maintained a steady glow.

  “What’s going on?” my little brother demanded.

  My hand, drawn by the flowing current, came to rest on the backpack.

  “Alex?”

  “Nothing,” I snapped back.

  “But--”

  “I said nothing,” I barked, using the wall to pull myself to my feet, collecting the backpack from the water and wading forward as the arrow indicated.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” I bellowed, my patience snapping like a brittle twig, as I turned and glared at him.

  “OK,” he whispered, looking to the floor, resuming his grip on my jacket.

  I hesitated, the guilt burning in my chest, though I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him.

  In silence, we progressed forward.

  The arrows led us to a wall covered with large white tiles. The arrow remained resolute, pointing toward a set of double doors taking up most of the wall. With little hope, I pushed at both. As expected, neither budged.

  “Well that’s just great,” I roared.

  Releasing my jacket, Michael stepped back.

  Clearing away some of the muck and grime from the glass, I peered through, pressing my nose to the window. There appeared to be another reception desk on the other side, similar to the one we found earlier, but it looked more clinical.

  “Alex,” Michael shouted from afar.

  I turned to see him crouching down in another corridor off the room, facing the wall.

  “What is it?”

  “I think it’s a way through,” he replied, enthused, pointing to a rupture in the wall. “I think I can fit through.”

  “Wait,” I demanded, turning on my heels.

  Impatience took hold of my little brother and he climbed into the hole.

  “No, stop!” I screeched, breaking into a sprint through the ankle-deep water. “Michael, no. Stop!”

  Seeing my little brother’s feet disappear into the rupture, I skidded to a halt. “Come back now!” I insisted.