Overture 01, or "the other thing I wrote for 30 days in the wilderness"

Overture 01: A Requiem For A Mind

It was a fairly ordinary laboratory. White boards covered with scribbles lined the walls. White lab coats hung on pegs just inside the door. The milieu of science filled the air, but it had to compete with a different scent. Sweat, fear and blood floated through the room. Those smells were forced to compete with one more- burning metal, as a small sun lanced through the thick lab door. A cutting torch.

“They’re coming through!” screamed a frantic voice. “Harrison!” He looked up from the bandage he was applying. Blood smeared the lab coat, most of it that of his fellow scientists. Some of it though was that of the attacking force. Harrison gave one last twist to the dressing and his right hand reached out. It closed around an instrument not normally associated with science. A black, synthetic stocked pump shotgun lay there and Harrison’s hand found it as if it was a part of him. The science team had been completely overwhelmed when the military had penetrated the compound. Still, the brightest minds in weapons research were able to organize a response. Exploding laboratory supplies and other booby traps had accounted for four of the enemy. The weapons, such as the shotgun in Harrison’s hand, had been scavenged from the bodies and accounted for seven more. Eleven soldiers for over forty scientists dead and wounded. Forty of the field’s brightest minds laid low. It wasn’t a trade that anyone would have willed, but it was all that they could do.

“Get the wounded out of here.” His voice was calm and cool, despite the frantic atmosphere. He swung the shotgun up to his shoulder and surveyed the scene. Men and women scrambled through the door, carrying their wounded.

“Vikram. Vik. Listen to me.” He heard a voice, almost choked with strain and sadness. “Grenade. No pin. Vik. Do you understand? Don’t let go.” The blood stained scientist on the floor smiled grimly, clutching the clasp of the grenade shut. Harrison looked down.

“Make them pay, Vik.”

The white hot flame traced its way further around the door. There wasn’t anything that he could do about that except crawl further into his hole and close the door after.

“Margerie. How’s the door coming?” he turned around and faced the other door, the one through which they were retreating.

“It’ll hold against their security breakers, but that cutting torch won’t care.” He looked at his colleague, the thin, wiry woman who obstinately refused to lose her firm, graceful poise.

“It’ll have to hold. Marcus. How many more grenades do we have?” Marcus looked up from the console in the next room and tossed Harrison a grenade.

“With that one, two.” Was his reply. Harrison did not curse, but frowned, his lips drawn into a thin line as he contemplated the last two grenades.

“Make it count, Vik.” He said to the scientist on the floor. Vikram had taken three shots to the chest. Blood escaped from his mouth with every strained breath. He was dying, and he knew it.

“Get going.” He gasped. “Can’t hold it much longer.” The room had been nearly evacuated. Harrison kneeled down to Vikram and placed his hand on the dying man’s head.

“Give them hell.” He said, vengeance in his voice. Then he retreated through the other door, seeing the tiny flame trace its way back towards where it had started. The heavy laboratory door swooshed shut between him and the room he had just left, the seal pressurizing with a hiss. They were in the old Biotech laboratories, back toward the Heavy Industrial Technologies lab. He heard a heavy metal clang behind the door that had just sealed. They had broken through the door and were swarming into the room. Everyone winced as they heard the explosion. There was a moment of unintentional silence. They had lost so many people already but each person lost left a fresh wound in their souls.

“Harrison, I’ve got them.” Marcus looked up from the hotwired laboratory terminal. “They’re trying to get into the HIT labs.” Harrison looked off. Something jumped into his mind, rather some one.

“They’re going after Carynia.” He said with a cold air in his voice. Marcus tapped a few more keys. “I’ve locked it down for them but there’s already a few inside. We can get you to the antelab, but you’ll have to get inside yourself.” The shot gun came down to a cradled position.

“Listen up everyone.” He began. There was a silence. No rustling of motion, no moans of the wounded. “They came here to get Carynia. If they do get hold of her, then everyone who has died here will have died in vain. We have to awaken her, get her out of here. Because if they get her, we all know what’s going to happen.” He didn’t add his other thought. Alecia was in the same room. If he could get to the two sisters, he could turn the tide. No matter the cost.

“Margerie. Get the vent. We have to get Harrison there.” She stood on the desk and reached up to a ventilation duct. The crowbar that she was holding made short work of the metal cover. There was space enough for a man to crouch in the passageway. It might not get him all the way to the HIT lab but it would get him closer. He swung the shotgun on to his back and stepped up to the vent. She put the crowbar with his hands, with a simple explanation.

“You may need it.” She said and he couldn’t suppress a small jump of his heart. She had been strong through the entire incident. She had laid the first trap that had killed soldiers. She had taken the pistol of that first downed soldier and had used until it had run out of ammunition. That pistol hung at her side, a symbol of her resolve. She cupped her hands to let him climb into the vent. With one heave, he was in the square metal tube extending off into the distance. He crawled then, hand over hand, through the shaft. The metal was cool under his right hand, the crowbar still warm in his left. The shaft was a half kilometer long, connecting the HIT labs to the renovated biotech lab. That was why the vent was here- the same air that fed the labs was pumped into the HIT lab. Now it was his conduit, his path to Carynia and Alecia, the sisters that could be their salvation. He slowed as he approached the vent that could drop him into the HIT antelab. He heard low, angry voices. Military voices.

“Bravo 22. Respond.” The man named Bravo 22 did indeed respond.

“This is Bravo 22. Penetration is behind schedule. They got the lockdown in too fast. We’ve been trying for a brute force access, but it’ll take time.” He heard the reply to that.

“Confirmed. We’ve got them pinned down in B sector. Time is not an issue. Command out.” Harrison looked down through the grille and saw two helmets. Two enemies. He quietly took the last grenade from his pocket and moved it to the grille with his left. With his right, he took the crowbar and set it to where the leverage would take the vent off. The grille clattered to the floor, followed by the grenade.

“Oh shit!” was the last thing he heard before his hearing exploded into a high pitched whine. He sung himself down from the vent and into a charnel house. The grenade had fallen right between the two shoulders and each had taken the full effect of the blast. The concussion had disabled both of them instantly and even if the metal fragments hadn’t done their job, ripping through their bodies, they would have both been down for the count. As it was, one leg was missing from one of the men, and the blood coating where the other man’s chest would have been left little doubt as to their condition. Harrison spared no tears for the men. Instead he turned to the doors leading to the HIT lab. The retinal scanner perched to the right of the door like a silent guardian. He crossed the short distance and looked closely at the scanner. A piece of military hardware hung from its side like some cancerous growth. He pushed the activator button but stopped. He felt rather than heard the door behind him depressurize. He swung around, holding the crowbar in his left hand, the shotgun still strapped to his back. He couldn’t get the gun.

The explosion had not gone unnoticed. The soldier was standing in the doorway, his pistol already coming up. There was no way to get away, there could only be combat. He saw the soldier falter momentarily in the face of his advance. Then the pistol continued up.

He didn’t hear it go off, but in the dilated time of battle he saw the muzzle flash and felt a tiny pucker in his side. That didn’t slow him down as his right arm swung in a wide arc. Three pounds of forged steel, swung with all of the force of survival, contacted a riot helmet. The helmet’s designers had never thought to protect againt that kind of force from that kind of angle, and certainly hadn’t envisioned a scientist wielding a crowbar. The helmet shattered inward from the side and he soldier went down hard, a length of tempered steel impaling his brain. He looked at the downed soldier, the crowbar still protruding from his head, and gave the body a kick.

He might have managed to spit if his biology had not reminded him that he had just been shot. Pain surged up from the wound and he looked down. A neat, small hole sat in his shirt, soaking quickly with blood. The pain was from just below the bottom right rib. Not fatal if he got medical attention, but it would definitely slow him down.

He unslung the shotgun from his back and held it at the ready, in case there were more soldiers. He advanced to the scanner and keyed it active.

“Access granted.” He barely heard the robotic voice chimed as the door whooshed open. Holding his chest with one hand and the gun with the other, he advanced in to the HIT lab.

He moved quickly down the long white corridor and entered the first security checkpoint. It was the only way into the lab with the security lockdown in effect. The airlock accepted his clearance and allowed him access. Once the door had opened, he fired a single shot into the code reader, preventing anyone else from using it. If his plan worked, he wouldn’t be using the code pad. If it didn’t work, he would be too dead to worry about such things.

At the end of the hallway was the Advanced Projects part of the Heavy Industrial Technologies lab. He limped down the hall, feeling blood loss start to lighten his body and cloud his mind. He did not fear death then, just what it would mean if he were to fail. But even those thought were muted when the door to the AP labs opened. He cold never enter without some trace of wonder stirring within his body. In the center of the room, surrounded by instruments, was a glass tube about six feet across. But that wasn’t the impressive thing. Suspended in an amber liquid was the figure of a young woman. To a novice observer, it would have seemed like she was wearing a black wetsuit. But Harrison knew better. The figure in the tank might have been female, but she wasn’t human. At least, she wasn’t any more. Above her right breast sat three letters and two numbers. “XHI01.” That told both more and less than the truth. Harrison knew the truth. The letters stood for eXperimental Hybrid Intelligence, a euphemism for what had really happened. He looked across the room even further and saw another figure. If the figure in the tank was a ballerina dancer, the figure that stood in the service rack in the corner could have been a 400 kg gorilla. It was vaguely humanoid, in the way tat a deep sea diver’s suit was vaguely humanoid. It looked like a person that had been built from large spheres. On the largest sphere in the center were another three letters and two numerals. XHI00. That told a little more still, but it was still a misnomer. He knew the story behind them both.

XHI00 had been the first, as its designation suggested. He also knew their names. Alecia had been the first, a heavy combat suit designed to interface with the pilot. It was the ultimate urban combat vehicle except for one flaw- it had to interface directly to its pilot’s mind to be effective. A special implant would allow Alecia’s spike to enter the brain and seat itself right below the cerebellum. The onboard combat computer would take over the user’s body and allow the user to direct the suit. That symbiosis would create the most powerful combat system ever imagined. That was, if it didn’t irreparably damage the pilot’s mind. The combat computer did strange things to one’s mind. Especially the first test pilot.

Her name had been Carynia. He used the past tense because the figure floating in the tank, XHI01, might bear the name, but she was not the Carynia that had strapped into the Alecia prototype. The woman had been killed by the merging, but something had happened to the combat computer. Something of the woman had been imprinted on the system. It wasn’t an artificial intelligence because it wasn’t artificial. So it had been given the name Hybrid. The experimental notation was given to make it seem like it hadn’t been a tragic accident. But while Alceia might just be a dumb combat suit with no more intelligence than its user, Carynia was a bona-fide MIT class genius.

They had taken the micronized computer from the burned out Alecia prototype and put it into a body similar to the one from which it had sprung. XHI01 looked remarkably like Carynia the test pilot. But that was only the outside. Inside, the most advanced myometrics drove motion faster than any human body could move. Dermal armor protected her better than most battle tanks. Twin reactors were housed in the chest and it was not without some humor that they protruded about as much as the original test pilot’s B-cups. Her hair was longer, as it was actually a series of receptors for everything from chemical to spectrographic analysis. She was perfect.

Carynia was beautiful, but it was the sort of beauty that a sword had, a kind of lethal keenness that extended from her toes to the top of her head. As he approached the glass case, he saw that here eyes were closed. She was sleeping and he once again wondered whether she dreamed in that suspended state. He hoped that if she did that they were pleasant because he was about to bring her to a very hostile reality. He moved to the console and keyed in his security clearance. In the glass case, Carynia’s eyes fluttered. The sequence took a little over a minute and in that time he attended to his wound. The bleeding had stopped but he knew that something had been punctured when the round went in. It was bad, he concluded, and that only spurred him on.

She came fully awake in the tank and her eyes traced the room, finally coming to rest on him.

“Hello Harrison.” She said and he almost imagined that the sound was coming from her rather than the speaker on the console. Her lips were moving but no sound transmitted through the fluid. Her eyes then latched on to his chest.

“You’re wounded.” She said and the voice software did a good job of creating concern. “What happened?” she asked.

“We’ve been attacked.” He replied with the haste that he felt in his gut. “They’ve just gotten through into the compound and started killing scientists.”

“Why?” she asked.

“They’re here for you.” He said and while the surprise did not register in her body, it was evident in her voice.

“Explain.”

“They found out about you. How I don’t know, but they found out. Now they’re after you. If they get you, I don’t know what will happen, but.” She cut him off.

“Termination?” she inquired.

“Yes was his reflexive response.

“Inallowable.” She replied. That was the self preservation of the combat computer talking. She would not allow her own death. She might be a computer based intelligence, but she held on to every iota of self identity.

“Combat authorized?” she asked and he knew that this was the critical question. Without this, she would run and hide. He needed her to fight. The other scientists needed her to fight.

“Confirmed.” He responded and she smiled.

“Agreed. Release requested.” He could not help but smile in return. The soldiers would never know what hit them. He typed on the console harder. He didn’t have the cylinder release clearance, but he could disable the umbilical locks that kept her in place. Hoses released from their attachment points on her spine. He might not have the clearance but he did have a shotgun. He put two shells into the same spot on the tank and a spiders web of cracks spread across the glass. She swam down in the tank, cocked her fist back and drove it through the inch thick glass with more strength than five of the soldiers had. The fluid gushed out of the shattered tank, washing over the console and Harrison. She hopped down to the floor and this time her voice came from her throat.

“Seek medical attention.” She said, pointing to his wound. He shook his head.

“No time. Help me get to Alecia.” She cocked her head in curiosity. It was a gesture that one might have expected from a seven year old, but the sentiment she expressed was not.

“User does not have acceptable configuration for interface. User termination may result.” He became solemn.

“Observation and risk accepted. Assist me.” It was a simple command, one that wouldn’t allow her to ask “why” again. She didn’t talk but they both walked over to the bulbous body of Alecia. The docking harness held the body suspended to where a man could open the carapace and enmesh himself in the cockpit. He triggered the release and the spheres opened, leaving a human shaped space inside. Harrison stripped off the bloodied labcoat and stepped up to the behemoth.

“Run it through the fast boot sequence as soon as I’m in.” he ordered. If he moved fast, he might still be able to save some of the science team. He nestled himself inside the huge machine and the padding wrapped around his body. He triggered the carapace close and his world went black as Alecia enveloped him. A soft voice whispered in his ear. The scientists had found that a gentle feminine voice was best forgiving the warrior information .Put simply they were more likely to pay attention, which in this case was important.

“Attention unrecognized user. You are not authorized to access this system. Enter override authorization.” Almost immediately the voice changed. “Override accepted. Welcome science team user #4 Warning. User lacks acceptable implant. User death probable if insertion attempted. User must provide acknowledgement and verify override.” Harrison bit his bottom lip. If he accepted, the spike now positioned to the rear of his skull would slam forward and pierce the bone. The probe would slam into his brain without any smoothing from the interface implant. Even if it didn’t lobotomize him instantly, there would be nothing to stop him from bleeding out. Even so, the bullet in his gut reminded him that he was already living on borrowed time. It was all that he could do to spend that time to save his fellow scientists.

“I recognize and accept these risks up to and including my cessation of life. Proceed with insertion.” There was a sharp stabbing pain in the back of his head, a wetness that trickled down the back of his neck and then nothing.

A moment after that, everything. Information poured into his brain, telling him identification, threat levels, armor classes, and armaments. He almost choked on it all but his mind somehow managed to cope. Then the picture became clearer and he “saw” through Alecia’s eyes.

“User integration complete.” The voice whispered in the back of his mind. He looked out and saw Carynia highlighted with a friendly green icon. “Carynia. Friendly combat capable unit.” Read the display. Off in the corners of his vision floated the integrity readings of the suit, his weapons and ammunition.

Alecia was an angel of death, implacable and indestructible. If he still had held control over his lips, a smile would have broken across them. He was struck by a sudden flight of soliloquy. He spoke to the combat computer and Carynia.

“Hush you vaunted angels. Silence your blessed harps Still your fluttering wings for my task is a damned one. I do this to save and in doing so I damn myself. With these fists I will hold retribution and salvation. I do what must be done no matter the cost.” With his eulogy composed, he closed the voice channel and prepared to move. The umbilicals had separated and all that was left was to stand. Alecia did so clumsily, knocking aside the mooring brackets.

“What’s wrong?” Harrison demanded of Alecia, their conversation taking place inside his own head.

“User lacks acceptable augmentations to use stimulant couplings. Manual override possible.” Harrison keyed the override and knew that his body was being abused further. Valves that should have been on his chest to allow stimulant chemicals to be pumped into his blood stream weren’t there. So Alceia pierced his body and pumped the chemicals in through the gaping holes. He felt his mind speed and his motions became more sure.

“Little Sister. Let us go.” He said to Carynia and they stepped toward the door. He saw her pick up the shotgun and cradle it in her arms. He needed no weapons now. He was a weapon. The doorway was too narrow to accommodate Alecia’s bulk. So he ripped that wall apart.

Chunks of masonry flew as he bashed his way through. Carynia followed in his wake as he made his way through the security checkpoint to the door through which he had entered, leaving rubble in his path. He did not even pause for that wall, but instead ripped through it. A soldier stood on the other side of that wall, and he had enough time for a surprised “unk’ before he was smashed against the wall like a rag doll. Alecia spared no though save “Hostile down” before going through the next wall. Carynia did pause to pick up the man’s weapon. A heavy assault carbine replaced the shotgun in her hands, the shotgun taking its place on her back.

He emerged into a long hallway, the main corridor between the B-labs and HIT. The enemy was still moving here. Alecia counted eight, lightly armed hostiles. Not a threat to him. The right arm came up and a razor hail of metal flechettes tore through the men. One had enough time for a dying scream into his radio. Alecia didn’t care. They could do nothing. He advanced down the hall, Carynia at his side. From a storage room down the hall, three soldiers emerged, firing wildly. They went down before he had a chance to raise the fist of death, laid low by precision fire from Carynia. It shouldn’t have taken that long to react, he thought, as more troops moved further away. A few grenades clattered toward them, but their explosions were blocked by Alecia’s prodigious bulk. Carynia ducked behind him, for she was not so durable. A storm of blades ended those men’s lives as well, as the flechette gun tore through them like paper bags full of tomato soup. He got to the corner, the one that would take him to B-lab. An RPG exploded on his arm and for the first time Alecia knew damage. Nodes flashed yellow, indicating that the armor was damaged but unbreached. Carynia took out the soldier that had fired the rocket. Harrison looked down the hallway and saw the bodies, the bodies of the enemy and the bodies of his colleagues.

This was where they had retreated to, where they had hidden themselves. The torchu cut door was too small for him to pass through, so he sent his remote sensor ahead. A tiny robot the size of a tennis ball bounced through the cut doors. The mangled body of Vikram and those of the two soldiers he had taken with him told the first chapter. The door beyond had been torch cut as well. IN that room he found the bodies of those who had been wounded. Hawkins, Jefferson, Lee-Ann. There was one more soldier there and the pistol in Lee-Ann’s hand seemed to claim him. The door beyond had been cut and there he found death. The room was the last one, the last stand for the scientists and it showed. Four soldiers lay dead, cut down by fire from the science team. The small drone hopped over the improvised barricades to find what lay beyond. The seven members that had remained had put up a valiant fight but they had been overwhelmed. He surveyed the bodies and his heart leapt as the sensor indicated that one was still living. Margerie lay up against a cabinet, four bullet holes in her chest leaking blood.

“Harrison, is that you?” she managed to splutter weakly. Harrisoin/Alecia managed to reply/

“Yes. I got Carynia out. I’m in Alecia.” Infinite sorrow clouded her face. “Why? You didn’t need to.”

“It was the only way, Margerie, the only way. Where are the others?”

“There are no others.” She replied sorrowfully.

“You and I are the last. And I’m not going anywhere but a morgue. Did you get Carynia?” she begged, needing to know.

“Yes.” was his reply, concentration already getting difficult. Margerie sighed.

“The complete unlock code. It’s the only way she’ll survive out there. The code is “To be sure that all is right with the world.” Let her go. Maybe she can be our legacy. Something to live on. Maybe.” With that the life died in her eyes. Lacking hands, he could not close her eyelids with the remote. So he returned to Alecia’s vantage. Carynia was there, looking at him.

“Listen carefully Carynia.” He said, his mind scattering. “I hereby activate your complete unlock override. To be sure that all is right with the world.” A new look emerged in her eyes as previously hidden commands were made accessible.

“Go. Get away from here and live. That is your mission now, Carynia, Live.” She stood close to him even as the suit faltered and fell to its knees. The man inside Alecia failed, his flesh compromised beyond function. The scientist known as Harrison, one of the brightest minds in his field, the man who had built Alecia and Carynia, started the XHI project an had used it to wreak a terrible vengeance upon its violators, had died.

Alecia, now unthinking and unfeeling, began to play back the message that its pilot had first given: A requiem for the mind that had built it.

“Hush you vaunted angels. Silence your blessed harps. Still your fluttering wings…” As the voice trailed off, footsteps receded into the distance.