Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (123 page)

“Remotely?” Petal asked.
 

“I’m already on it,” Gerry said. His eyelids fluttered.
 

Through her internal systems, Petal saw him connect to the Libertas servers. Streams of familiar code flew out into the grid.
 

“I’ve got a log entry,” Gerry said. “The timestamp is just seconds after the video capture. It crashed the servers while on the move. We can assume that it either has an AIA with sys-admin credentials or is adept at cracking high-end security.”

“Probably both,” Jachz said.
 

“So what do you know about this viroborg?” Petal asked.
 

Enna answered for Jachz, re-entering the lab. “They were maverick technology. Wholly destructive and a last option. During the war, there were a number of high-profile enemies, and one of the simulations of the outcome had the Family as the weaker of three potential survivors. The ’borgs were designed to take them down from inside. Think of them as disposable code bombs.”

“Code bombs?” Holly asked. “They’re designed to do what, exactly? Install viruses, that kind of thing?”

“Exactly that,” Enna said.
 

“So where’s this one going,” Petal asked. “Seeing as it was you lot who built these damned things, what’s south-east of here that would require a ’borgs abilities?”

Enna pressed her lips together, subconsciously holding onto the truth, and turned away from the group. There she was, apart again, one of the Family, not one of them. And as usual, she held the power, the knowledge.
 

Petal sighed inwardly. She was being too harsh. She did bring Gerry back, and that alone should be enough for Petal to give her the benefit of the doubt. For the first time in months Petal felt good again, whole, and had hope that she and Gerry would now finally have a chance to be together.
 

“I’m sorry,” Petal said, stepping toward Enna, bridging the gap between the group and her, being the physical olive branch. “I’m just on edge. I don’t mean to take it out on you. We just need to know what you know so we can get Jess back.”

“I know,” Enna said now, turning, smiling at Petal. She reached out, then pulled her hand back and balled it into a fist. “But this won’t be simple.”

Gerry stepped forward, behind Petal. She felt his presence close, his warmth, his strength. He gripped her shoulder, sapping away her anxiety. There was a time when it was Petal’s job to assure Gerry, teach him the way of the world and look out for him, but now it was reversed. Even though he’d only been in his new cloned body for a short while, she could sense the strength of it and the control he exerted over it.
 

Of all the versions of Gerry she had known, she felt this one was the best, the strongest, wisest. How much had he learned during his imprisonment with Elliot Robertson? Or his time inside Petal’s mind?
 

“Nothing’s simple when the damned Family are involved,” Gerry said. The words unequivocally separating himself from that group. Gerry was his own man, and despite being the son of the Family, and Enna his aunt, he made it clear where his loyalties lie. “Now, just tell us, Enna, what’s the ’borg heading for?”

They all waited, Holly, Petal, Jachz, and Gerry, as one, an alliance of oddballs. Waiting for Enna, one of them, to tell them the bad news, to send them off on yet another dangerous caper of the Family’s making. The silence stretched taut. Petal tapped her foot and thought about slapping the truth from Enna’s mouth.
 

She finally spoke.
 

Turning to face them, Enna brushed her hair behind her ears. “There’s a facility in the Korean Empire’s Northern Territory. It’s likely heading there.”

“Wait,” Petal said. “The what now? Another facility. What exactly is this facility, and why are we only learning about it now?”

“Don’t put all the responsibility on me,” Enna said. “Just because I was left behind, it doesn’t make me the official spokesperson of everything Family related. What do you expect from me? You want me to go through the entire goddamned history of the world, telling you what happened in every part of it? You want me to draw you a fucking map?”
 

“Hey,” Holly said, stepping between them. “Enough’s enough. Let’s all just calm the hell down for a moment, shall we? Bickering like feral kids isn’t going to do us any favours. Now, I don’t really know Jess all that well, but I’m not so stupid to think that leaving this ’borg to its own devices is a good idea. We need to work together on this, formulate a plan and get to it.”

“She’s right,” Jachz said from the back of the room.
 

Petal turned to face him.
 

He held his hands up. “I’m afraid this is my fault.” He held a slate in his hand. “When I left the Mars base in a hurry, I admit that I put my trust in Kabuki and followed her directions to get into the craft and head for Earth. I didn’t fully inspect it beforehand. In hindsight, I wish had the wisdom or foresight to predict something like this would happen. My calculations are—different now. It’s taking me considerable time to come to learn what I can and can’t do with this new consciousness.”

“Great,” Petal said. “An emobot. That’s all we need.”

“First things first,” Gerry said, shaking his head. “Let’s start with the facility, and then move onto whatever the hell this Kabuki thing is. There’s too much to cover here now. Enna, just tell us the important things regarding this facility and send us the rest of the information later while we’re en route.”

“The base in the Korean Empire’s Northern Territory was essentially the prototype for City Earth,” Enna said, resting against the operating table, looking tired and weary. If Petal had the heart, she’d maybe have some sympathy. But she listened and waited for her to continue.
 

“It was also one of the Family’s main production zones where many of its servers are located. From within that place they developed a lot of tech, much of it either now destroyed or still within the warehouses, mothballed and useless.”

“It doesn’t make any sense why the viroborg would take Jess there,” Jachz said. “I’m not privy to the full details as you are, but if it’s old and mothballed, as you say, what motivation would the Family or Kabuki have for sending the ’borg there?”

Enna dropped her head and sucked in a heavy breath. She visibly shook.
 

“It was also the site of much of their weapons.”

Petal’s stomach gripped with pre-bad-news tension. “What kind of weapons?” she asked, already knowing the answer from Enna’s body language, but wanting to hear it from her mouth regardless.
 

Enna looked up at the others, her eyes offering a kind of an apology. “Nukes and EMPs—amongst other things.”

***

Petal approached the sleek Libertas shuttle. Franklin led a squad of five security agents. They loaded up the shuttle with boxes of water and dehydrated food packs, rifles, pistols, grenades and spare ammo.
 

Petal could still smell the smoke from Jachz’s earlier crash. Scorch marks burned parallel lines across the landing pad and out into the park, where a deep gouge exposed the earth. Jachz stood inside the shuttle’s loading bay, helping to fill it with supplies. Holly stood to the side, talking with Enna.
 

Using this as an opportunity to speak with Gerry alone, Petal held his arm and pulled him back so they were standing just inside the alleyway between the presidential building and a business tower.
 

“So,” Petal said, unsure of how to start things now she had Gerry alone. “How’s things?”

“You know, just peachy. Been awake for an hour or so and preparing to hunt down a rampant cyborg. The usual.”
 

She was glad he hadn’t lost any of his sense of humour. It felt so strange to see him standing there in a completely accurate facsimile of his real body. It was almost as if the whole dying and being rebuilt on the Family’s space station didn’t happen.
 

“Seriously, Gez, are you doing okay? Up here?” She tapped her head.
 

“Yeah, as good as before; in fact, probably better.”

“Oh?”

“When I was trapped in those servers with Elliot, I saw lots of… crazy stuff. Without getting all deep and philosophical about things, I realised how we’re all interconnected. Not in some metaphysical god-like way, but in a particle sense. Out there”—Gerry pointed to the sky—“is a great huge network. Binary is at the source of everything, Petal. It’s the building blocks of the universe. When we’re binary, we can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. All at once. It’s… frightening, but infinite.”

“Is that why Elliot went mad?”
 

“I think so. It’s inevitable. If it wasn’t for you saving me inside your mind, I’d have ended up the same way. We’re not meant to pass the singularity like that. Our minds are capable. Our consciousness needs a body to exist. At the cellular level there’s micro-networks that our soul, if you want to call it that, spreads out into. It’s why all the experiments of uploading our minds to processors fail. There’s nowhere for the soul to go. The mind can’t handle it. It gets lost, fragmented.”

Petal stood there dumbfounded for a moment, letting the words sink in. The scope of Gerry’s experience overwhelmed her. She couldn’t quite take it all in. The ramifications, the insights, were too much to get her head around.
 

“Then the Family’s quest for immortal posthumanism is doomed to fail?”
 

“Yes,” Gerry said. “But there’s still a way—a way for us.”

“The cloning?” Petal asked, seeing it clearly now. If the uploading of one’s mind to a processor-based state brought on certain insanity due to the lack of a biological body, then the obvious route was to regenerate the mind into a new, cloned body. Like Gerry’s.
 

“Shit me,” Petal said, smiling and punching Gerry in the arm. “You’re like the genesis model, Gez. The first freaking one. Enna’s done it, hasn’t she? The thing her and the Family have been trying to do all this time, but they were looking in the wrong direction.”

Gerry nodded, smiling. “The future is biology, not silicon. Posthuman doesn’t exist, will never exist. We’re human for a reason. The mind and body cannot be separated. Just like you and I won’t, not again.”

Gerry wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight. They kissed, soft and tender at first, like the flutterings of butterfly wings, and then deeper, more passionate. Petal melted into Gerry, her one true love, and for that moment they became one again.
 

—
I love you
, Gerry sent across their VPN.

—
I love you too.
 

And despite the preparations for another conflict going on just a few hundred meters away, Petal was complete, happy, secure. There was a balance here she’d never thought she’d experience. Gabe was reunited with his family, and now Petal was reunited with hers. Reborn, Gerry was everything she wanted and more. Her life had meaning now.
 

They broke away and stared into each other’s eyes.
 

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Petal said. “I don’t think I could have gone on for much longer without you.”

Gerry ran a finger down her cheek and along her chin. “You underestimate yourself,” he said, his voice low and husky. “I’ve seen your soul, and it’s stronger than anything else I’ve seen. Stronger than Elliot’s, stronger than Hajime’s and Sakura’s, stronger even than my own.”

Petal blushed and ran a hand down Gerry’s back. “Together, then, we should be unstoppable.” She glanced out of the alley to the shuttle. Franklin’s squad had finished loading the supplies. Holly broke away from Enna carrying a slate and stepped inside to join Jachz.

“Totally,” Gerry said. “What say you and me go save the world again?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Gerry kissed her once more before he let her go and strode across to the shuttle. Petal followed behind, full of confidence, love, hope and a desire to smash the viroborg into a thousand tiny pieces. And when she was done with that, she’d come back and get some more answers from Enna. Petal couldn’t help but feel she was holding more back.
 

That would wait, though.

For now, they had to find Jess and the ’borg.

Chapter 16

Three hours later, they were approaching the border between China and the Korean Empire. Gerry was still processing the information Enna had provided on a slate. He had downloaded it to his AIA and was still thinking about the content when Holly, sitting in the copilot’s seat next to Jachz, made a short squealing noise.
 

“Holy crap, look at all that,” she said, pointing at the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree OLED observation screen.
 

Gerry leaned forward and instructed the system to zoom in by two hundred percent.
 

Thousands of feet below them, through the wisps of cloud, were acres of lush greenery. The visual was almost unreal in the abrupt change from desert wasteland on the China side to the thriving jungle of Korea. Along the border between these two drastic climates, Gerry noticed a tall fence. It seemed that everything south of the fence had thrived and missed the worst effects of the radiation.
 

Buried within the jungle were tall metal triangular structures. Around their bases were flat-roofed buildings. Great thick cables snaked between them. Perhaps some kind of generator system, he thought.
 

Or a weapon of some kind.
 

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Holly said. “Even when I went to the far West, it was all the same, just scrubland and devastation.”

“I don’t think it’s any surprise that this was the Family’s main area of operations,” Petal said, poison dripping with every word. “Looks like they protected their own fairly well.”

“You know anything about this, Jachz?” Gerry asked, suspicious of his silence.
 

“I do not,” Jachz replied. “I was just an IT maintenance presence. I didn’t have access to everything relating to the Family’s operations, I’m afraid.”