Inhuman(91)

“They’ve been quiet for a few minutes. They must have their hands full with something at the moment.”

“Great,” Patrick replied, impatient. “Well, we can’t just sit here while a traitor learns how all our defenses work. We’ve got to act now.”

Rich nodded. “I agree. Okay. I’ve got an idea.”

“You do?” Alejandra replied, her tone dubious.

Rich looked the empath in her eyes, eyes that clearly saw he was bluffing, and he immediately folded. “No. No I don’t. I was just hoping I’d come up with something at the spur of the moment, you know?”

“Seriously?” Patrick responded.

“Sorry. I’m not usually the one who has to come up with the plan. Look, how about this? We go in there, and I just walk up behind him and blast him with a charge to the back of the head. That should render him unconscious, as long as he doesn’t see me coming.”

Patrick considered this for a moment. “It’s simple as hell, but sometimes simple works.” He looked to Alejandra.

She nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Just remember,” Rich cautioned, “we can’t let him damage that hard drive. At all costs. The hard drive contains the brains of the guys who can get us out of this mess. If we lose that hard drive, this solar system’s as good as finished.”

“Got it,” Patrick replied.

“Got it,” Alejandra echoed.

Rich took a deep breath. “Okay, guys. Let’s do this.”





17



The white light and golden sparkle of the figure before them suddenly faded. When the blinding distortion of the light was absent, it revealed that Thel’s image was gone, but Kali’s image remained. Astonished, the trio of James, the A.I. and the candidate looked on as Kali examined her body, and her regrown hand, holding her hands up before her eyes.

“So cool,” she finally said.

“Thel?” James asked in near disbelief.

Kali smiled before her form melted away, replaced by Thel’s. “Yep.”

“Thank God,” James exclaimed. He tried to run toward her to embrace her, but the A.I. and the candidate continued holding him back.

“James,” the A.I. spoke in a half-pleading, half-scolding tone, “this has never been tried before. If you touch her, your patterns might merge, and you could end up killing each other! Stay back until we know what we’re dealing with.”

James’s eyes locked on Thel’s before he relented and did, indeed, hold back. He desperately wanted to hold Thel in his arms, but he knew the A.I. was right. Thel’s bizarre leap of faith and her previously never attempted method of joining with an avatar were unknowns, and as they always did, James and the A.I. chose to be cautious.

“Okay. Okay, you’re right,” James said as he disentangled himself from the two artificial intelligences that held him back. They relented as well and James stood, just meters from Thel. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

“I’m awesome,” Thel replied. “I’m checking the systems. Guys, the Kali avatar is fully operational. I can do anything inside the sim, just as the Kali program was designed to do. I can heal wounds, I can manipulate matter…” She trailed off as she seemed to see something while she read through her list of capabilities. She turned to the curved glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the perimeter of Cloud 9 and stepped toward the edge. “I can even stop the purge.” She held out her hands, and suddenly, every NPC that was still functioning stopped their rampaging.

James and the two A.I.s ran to the window themselves to see the results. NPCs that had been ripped to shreds and deactivated suddenly came back together, their patterns resetting until they were fully functioning. They simply stood up and walked calmly away, returning to their business. The fires extinguished themselves all over the city, and the smoke blew away, dispersing in the rain, vanishing into the ubiquitous clouds.

“There,” Thel said as she watched, amazed by her own accomplishments. She turned to her companions. “We’re safe. And I’m digging these godlike powers.” There was a twinkle in her eye as she smiled. “I think I understand you guys a little better now. It’s not easy to give up being superhuman.”

“Incredible,” the candidate observed.

“Indeed,” the A.I. echoed, smiling before he turned to Thel. “It appears that whoever our mystery occupant of the Kali avatar was, is also our guardian angel. That entity has provided us with the means to protect ourselves.”

“Unless it’s another trick,” James cautioned. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been manipulated.”