Cyber Dawn (A Ben Raine Novel) (28 page)

She shook her head and smiled. “You’re becoming a pretty handy guy to have around.”

We stepped through the door and into the dark hallway. Five minutes later, we were standing next to the long table full of computers on the main floor of the library. I dumped the journals onto the table and handed her the drive.

“Wow, this thing is cool,” Sarah said, inspecting the book with the false interior.

“Any idea how to boot it up?” I asked.

She ran her fingers along each edge. “Of course. Standard interface. I have an adapter cable up at the desk.”

“I’m on it,” I said as I turned and bolted up the stairs.

I returned a few minutes later to find Sarah, with one good arm, busy tearing pages out of the journals. “Here,” I said, handing her the cable. “Let me do that. You check the drive out.”

I picked up Carter’s journals and started to search for something to scan. That was when I remembered the email. I pulled the paper out of my pocket and dropped it in the scanner. While it whirred, I tore a handful of pages from a journal.

“I’ve got the drive open,” Sarah said. A moment later, she added, “Wow, it’s full of files.”

“What sort of files,” I asked.

“Come check this out, Ben.”

I put another page on the glass and pressed the SCAN button. I walked to Sarah and looked at her laptop screen. Open was a PDF document. The title read:

I read the overview paragraph, then glanced at Sarah. “This is CyberLife’s government bid for a contract to build . . . me.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

I looked back at the document. It was dated six years ago.

“Explains why your system has a military feel to it,” she said. “Augmented vision, threat detection, that sort of thing. According to the document, it was designed to operate in small Special Operations teams. SEALS, Delta, that sort of thing.”

“Can you copy this to your computer? Let’s load it with the other stuff we found.”

“Sure,” Sarah replied. “Give me a sec.”

I turned back to the scanner, pulled the journal sheet out, and added another.

Suddenly, I started to feel weak. I dropped to one knee and used my free hand to steady myself against the table.

“Ben?” Sarah asked.

“Run . . .” I managed to say before my mouth froze shut.

My knees buckled and I fell to the floor. A new message displayed on my HUD.

Warning—System Infiltration Detected.

“Ben!”

Sarah rushed to my side and knelt on the floor. I wanted to tell her to run again. To get out of the school. But my lips wouldn’t move.

A loud crash came from the front of the library.

Sarah screamed.

I collapsed fully to the floor, facing the door. I couldn’t lift my head or move my eyes. But I could see a pair of armored commandos file into the room, guns drawn.

“Don’t move,” snapped a commanding male voice.

I felt a commotion nearby and then Sarah yelped. Again, I tried to speak. I wanted to yell at whomever it was to leave Sarah alone. Tell them to take me and do whatever they wanted.

It was no use.

The feeling of doom set in. After all we’d been through. Caught, just before the finish.

“You sure are a feisty one,” a man said.

“Go to hell,” Sarah snapped.

The man laughed, then said in a serious voice, “Stevens, if she moves again, put a bullet in her head.”

A hand reached out and grabbed me. It slowly turned my head until I was looking up. I stared into the man’s eyes.

Dr. Merrick, shaking his head, said, “Benjamin, I expected so much more out of you.”

46

My body was numb.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fill my lungs with air.

Stars sparkled all around me.

My HUD flickered on and off, but I was able to make out a series of warning messages, all displayed in bright red text.

The list went on.

So far, my system, with all its capabilities, had been unable to stop the intrusion. All I could do was stare at Dr. Merrick’s shiny black boots.

“Eight, don’t kill him yet,” Merrick said. “But be ready to shut him down again if he doesn’t cooperate.”

As if a switch was flipped, my heart started pumping again and I could draw air into my lungs. My vision sharpened and my head stopped spinning. After several moments, I had enough strength to pull up one elbow and face my old friend and CEO of CyberLife Industries.

“Dr. Merrick,” I said.

“That’s right, Benjamin.”

Next to Merrick stood a young girl dressed in a black combat uniform. I thought she was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. She was pretty with deep blue eyes and shoulder-length, blonde hair streaked with pink and purple highlights. A silver ring pierced her eyebrow right next to an unusual cybernetic implant that curved from her temple to her forehead.

I glanced around the room and found Sarah on the floor several feet behind me. Her eyes were red. Tears streaked each cheek. Looming over her was a man I met several times before—Rick Stevens, the head of CyberLife security. One of his large hands was clamped on Sarah’s shoulder. The other held a large, silver handgun. I winced, recalling Merrick’s earlier words to shoot Sarah if she resisted.

“You’ve been busy this week, Benjamin,” Merrick said. “Very, very busy.”

Merrick flipped through one of Carter’s journals and then picked up and inspected Sarah’s laptop and the hard drive. “I’d ask you where you got these, but I already know. I have to admit, you gave my security team a good test last night. One they failed miserably.”

Merrick looked at Stevens and narrowed his eyes.

“It wasn’t that hard,” I said with a shrug.

Merrick raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he said, sneering at the girl standing next to him. “If Eight hadn’t hacked that sentry robot when we arrived in the helicopter, you wouldn’t have gotten away.”

I turned and looked at the girl.

So that’s why the robots went crazy,
I thought.
Who is this girl?

“She paid for her insubordination,” Merrick said. He reached out and gently touched her face. She turned away and I noticed a large bruise and cut high on her left cheek. “I guess I understand. You Alphas have to stick together. Some sort of cyborg camaraderie.”

The shock on my face must have been obvious, because Merrick added, “Oh come on, Ben, you didn’t know?”

I slowly shook my head.

“You don’t think I spent 100 billion on a program just to create you?”

I looked around the room and noticed another six armed CyberLife security guards file in. Sarah still knelt on the floor. She was watching the exchange with sad eyes.

I swallowed hard and, without answering Merrick’s question, said, “What do you want?”

“Benjamin, surely you know by now what I want?”

I glanced at the journals on the table. Merrick followed my eyes, then laughed.

“Old research journals? You think that’s why I’m here?”

I nodded.

“No, Benjamin,” Merrick said, shaking his head. “The Alpha program served its purpose years ago. I shut it down for a reason. You could have asked me for these journals and I would have given them to you.”

“What about me? You didn’t shut Alpha down, because I’m still here. And her . . .” I nodded at the girl Merrick called
Eight
.

He laughed. “A hundred billion dollars is a lot of money, Ben. I wasn’t just going to throw it away. I kept you around for long term testing. See how your system held up over time. And I must admit, the data you provided was helpful for the Beta program. Not to mention the production units we just started shipping.”

I was too stunned to reply.
All this time I’ve been nothing more than an obsolete model?

“Do you really think I would have let you go otherwise? I mean, would you trust a teenage boy with top-secret technology?”

I remained silent.

“Speaking of that, your little football stunt was interesting. If that hit you’d taken last week had damaged your implant, you’d be dead. As it was, it held up pretty well. Another good test.”

“You knew?”

He laughed again. “Of course I knew. Katherine has been sending us reports all semester. I knew the second you tried out for the team.”

My mouth fell open. I turned to look at Sarah.

“Bitch,” she mouthed.

“Katherine,” I said, turning back to Merrick. “Worked for you?”

“In a way. Her mother is on our board. I needed someone to keep an eye on you and report back. Who better than a pretty cheerleader from your school?” Merrick glanced at Sarah and smiled. “Although, it looks like you’re doing pretty well on your own.”

My eyes fell to the floor. I wasn’t sure how much more I wanted to know. Everything I knew to be true for the previous seven years had unraveled in a matter of hours. And it was only getting worse.

“Sir?” Stevens said from behind Sarah.

“I know, I know,” Merrick said. “We need to get moving.”

He turned back to me, his smile gone. “No, Ben, I don’t care about the journals. I want what Megan stole.”

“What is it?” I asked.

Merrick’s face hardened. “All of the research notes, plans and source code for our
Infiltrator
program.”

“Infiltrator?”

Merrick nodded. “State of the art cybernetic programming. Turns any soldier into a super hacker. The DoD already paid us one billion for it. Kinda need it back.”

I swallowed hard.

“Eight,” Merrick said. “Get it out of him.”

“Why did you kill Megan?” I blurted out.

“It was never our intention to kill Megan,” Merrick said. “Blame that on a . . . well, an overzealous guard.” He raised an eyebrow at Stevens. “We only meant to bring her in and find out where she hid the stolen data. Have to admit though, pretty clever hiding it in you. It took us a couple days to figure that out.”

Merrick glanced at Alpha Eight. For the first time, she spoke, “His system is resisting, but I’ll be through soon.”

Merrick flipped his head at Stevens.

I turned as the man lifted his gun to Sarah’s head.

“No!” I cried out. “Please. Dr. Merrick. Don’t.”

“No, Ben,” Sarah said, quietly.

Stevens backhanded her across the head. She fell to her side on the floor.

“Leave her alone!” I yelled.

“Then give me what I want, Ben,” Merrick growled.

I slowly nodded. I wasn’t exactly sure how to tell my system to stop resisting the girl, but I did my best to
think
it, hoping it would do what I wanted.

“Sir,” said Stevens, who had bent over to pick Sarah up off the floor. “She’s wounded.”

Merrick bent down, unzipped Sarah’s jacket, and frowned at her bloodied t-shirt.

“I said leave her alone,” I snapped.

“Shut up,” replied Stevens.

Merrick inspected the bandages, then turned and looked at me. “She’s been shot,” he said.

“No kidding,” I growled. “Your men shot her.”

Merrick looked around at the commandos spread around the room. Several shook their heads. His eyes landed on Stevens. “Wasn’t us,” the head of security said.

“When did this happen?”

“Two hours ago,” I replied. “Just after your men attacked the FBI convoy.”

Merrick frowned again. His calm and confident demeanor vanished. He glanced at Stevens, who was speaking rapidly into a throat mic.

“Sir,” Stevens said. “Rogers and Cooper aren’t answering.”

“Men, defensive positions!” Merrick called out. He then whirled around to face Alpha Eight.

“Get that data out of him. Now!”

“But if you didn’t shoot her, then who did . . .” I said.

Before I could finish my question, a pain rushed through my body and I collapsed on the floor. Merrick kneeled next to me. “Ben, you no doubt know by now that Eight has control of your system. Just like earlier, she can shut your heart off, stop your lungs from working, you name it. She’s gone through a few upgrades since the Alpha program. There is nothing you can do.”

With an effort, I looked up at Alpha Eight. She stared back at me with a blank expression on her face.

“She’s going to transfer the files now,” Merrick continued. “Don’t do anything to stop her, or I swear, the next bullet your cute little friend takes will be in the head. Got it?”

I slowly nodded and Merrick let go.

A new message appeared on my HUD. It read:

I’m sorry.

I stared at the girl. Her face remained as passive as before.

My name is Alex.

Suddenly, the pain started to fade. I looked over at Merrick, who was busy talking to Stevens.

Pretend you’re still in pain.

I remained on the floor and did as she asked.

“Eight,” Merrick said. “Is he resisting?”

Alpha Eight, or Alex apparently, turned to Merrick and shook her head.

“Good,” he replied. “I’m sorry it came to this, Benjamin. There was a time I thought of you as a son. I know you didn’t have anything to do with Megan’s plans. At least not at first.” He paused and looked back at Sarah. “But there’s nothing I can do. You and your friend here know too much.”

I watched in horror as Merrick grabbed the pistol out of Steven’s hand and aimed it at Sarah’s head. “Eight, when you’re done, shut him off.”

At that moment, something snapped. Acting on instinct alone, I threw myself at Merrick. Assuming I was incapacitated by Eight’s attack, neither of the two older men was prepared. I struck Merrick in the side, knocking the gun out of his hand. It slid across the floor, out of his reach. He grunted as he smashed into a bookcase.

“Eight, I said shut him down!” he yelled again.

Just then, a loud bang and flash filled the room.

47