"I already told you, Doctor. If it's not done by midnight, I'll pa.s.s the job to the next most capable member of your team." He turned away and continued his plodding pace as he added over his shoulder, "And you'll be executed for disobeying a direct order from the President."

17.

"What's wrong?" Craig asked Daniella as she stood on the opposite end of the room, trying to control the shaking of her body.

"Nothing," she replied in barely more than a whisper.

"100 percent untruthful," the A.I. observed.

Craig's eyes narrowed. "Your time just ran out, didn't it? They ordered you to get the A.I. out of my head by any means necessary, didn't they?"

Daniella didn't reply. She lowered her eyes, unable to maintain eye contact any longer as she considered her dilemma. She didn't want to die; that much she was sure of. She was equally sure that she couldn't willingly harm Craig; she didn't need to have taken an oath to affirm that. So what could she do?

"Still think you're playing for the right team?" Craig asked, his top lip pulled back into a sneer.

Daniella's eyes snapped up to meet Craig's, and she began to cross the room toward him as she spoke. "You need to remain quiet," she said aloud before reaching him and whispering into his ear. "The room is monitored. I'll get you out of here somehow. Don't worry."

Craig's eyebrows raised into an expression of surprise as she stepped back and then began scrolling through a nearby touchscreen, trying to appear busy as she considered her next move.

"It appears that our new elements are beginning to arrive," the A.I. noted. "However, she'll be hard pressed to get us out of here without weapons."

Unexpectedly, the super soldier who had been guarding the door on the outside entered the room, his rifle drawn.

"Oh no," Daniella whispered, her expression dripping with guilt.

The super soldier's eyes seemed to be evaluating the doctor, but after a few moments, he turned to Craig.

"My," the A.I. suddenly reacted, his tone surprised. "Aldous Gibson."

"Aldous?" Craig repeated, gobsmacked at the A.I.'s a.s.sertion.

Aldous held his cybernetic prosthetic finger to his lips, indicating his desire for Craig to remain quiet.

"Aldous?" Daniella repeated. "Gibson?"

Aldous sighed before turning to Daniella. "It's very unfortunate for you that you overheard that," he noted as his hand began to spin, drill-like.

Daniella backpedaled quickly, stumbling into a workstation filled with equipment and reaching back to procure a scalpel, which she then held in front of her in defense.

"No!" Craig shouted, halting Aldous in his tracks. "We can trust her!"

Aldous regarded the scalpel with his ocular implants, and a faint smile crossed his lips. "Doctor, I will be transporting your prisoner now. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No, no. Of course not. Do what you have to."

The drill stopped spinning. "Thank you," Aldous replied as he stepped to Craig and began punching in the code to release the cuffs that secured Craig to the bed.

They snapped open, and Craig immediately grasped each wrist in turn, ma.s.saging them. "What the h.e.l.l did you do to yourself?" Craig reacted to Aldous's new, gruesome appearance. In every respect, he pa.s.sed perfectly for a Purist super soldier.

"I'll explain en route," Aldous replied.

"En route to where?" Craig asked.

"They call it en route for a reason, Craig," Aldous responded. He turned to Daniella briefly, then asked Craig, "Are you sure about her?"

"I'm sure. They'll kill her when they find out she helped us."

"Then, Doctor," Gibson said, addressing Daniella directly, "would you like to join us?"

Daniella's face remained terrified, but she nodded emphatically.

"Good," Aldous replied. "Then let's get out of here, shall we? We have a lot of important work ahead of us."

18.

Colonel Paine stood looking out at the manmade pond in Center Park and thought of his father. The air was a little sweeter at the park than it was in the rest of Endurance Bio-Dome, though it still couldn't pa.s.s as fresh. He tried to remember what a sunny day on a healthy lake looked like-what it felt like. For a moment, he was sure he could feel the sun on his face and hear the mosquitoes buzzing through the air nearby.

"Heh."

He turned to the cement bench behind him and decided it was finally time to sit. The bench had the look of a tombstone, but he badly needed to get off his feet, as the exhaustion and twisting abdominal cramps had taken too heavy of a toll. He sat on the bench and thought, This is as good a place to die as any, I suppose.

After a few peaceful moments of concentrating on his breath and trying to let everything earthly go, something strange crossed his vision. Far away, on the opposite side of the large pond, his ocular cameras picked up a sight they shouldn't have seen. The facial recognition picked up Lieutenant O'Brien trudging slowly toward his quarters, apparently unaware that he was supposed to be on duty.

Paine sat upright, tapping his ocular implant to open communication with O'Brien. "Lieutenant! Why aren't you at your post?"

"Sir? I was relieved five minutes ago, sir."

"By whom?"

"I don't know-some new guy."

"There is no new guy. I wrote the schedule myself!"

"It checked out, sir," O'Brien replied, suddenly realizing the seriousness of the situation. "He was in the system."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" Paine shouted as he jumped to his feet and began to sprint as fast as he could in his diminished condition in the direction of the medical facility.

"Sir? Should I-" O'Brien began, offering his aid.

"No! I'll handle this myself!"

19.

"You're less than 500 meters away," Lindholm said through his connection to Aldous's mind's eye.

"Thank you, Lindholm," Aldous replied. "I see it ahead."

"Lindholm? Who's that?" Craig asked.

"A friend."

"And where are we headed?"

"Toward a rather impressive mainframe that I just have to see for myself," Aldous replied.

"It wouldn't happen to be a worldwide surveillance mainframe, would it?" Craig asked.

Aldous stopped for a moment, turning to Craig with a surprised expression. "It's real then? They told you about it?"

"Yes."

Aldous smiled widely before immediately turning and continuing his march toward the airplane hangar-sized black rectangular building ahead of them.

"How do you know about it?" Craig asked as he marched half a step behind, with Daniella half a step behind him.

"I had to do a lot of hacking to get my super soldier alter-ego into the Purist computer system. While I was there, I found all sorts of fascinating tidbits."

"You hacked your way in? How?"

Aldous turned back to Craig. "I'm not just a pretty face."

Craig nearly recoiled as Aldous displayed his newly deformed features, the stretch marks and veins around his ocular implants still blood red with freshness. "Yeah. And how about all the-stuff?" Craig asked as he pointed toward Aldous's new limbs and eyes. "How'd you pull that off?"

"Much the same," Aldous replied. "I hacked the Purist system, found the schematics for the prosthetics and implants, and then commandeered the closest 3D printer I could find."

"You printed them?"

"Yes," Aldous replied. "They're inferior to the real thing in the strength and durability departments, but I figured with any luck, they'd be adequate for the task at hand."

"Which is?"

"To rescue you, extricate the A.I., and upload it into the Purist's surveillance mainframe."

Craig's eyes were wild with disbelief. "Why would you want to do that? That's exactly what the Purists want!"

"Not exactly," Aldous replied, stopping to face Craig. "Don't you see? The system controls everything. Everything! It's exactly why we built the A.I. in the first place. The Purists think they'll have control, but they won't. We, on the other hand, will. Once we've uploaded the A.I., this war will be over. The A.I. will have control over everything-their weapons, their soldiers, their police-everything. The Purist government will be finished."

"Dear G.o.d," Craig whispered. "Okay, so what are we waiting here for? Let's go."

Aldous smiled, then turned and continued marching toward the gigantic mainframe building.

A lone soldier-a mere mortal-stood guarding the entrance to the building. He immediately saluted at the sight of a super soldier approaching. "Sir!"

"Open it," Aldous replied as he saluted.

"Yes, sir!" the soldier replied as he turned and physically pulled the large door open.

"No electronic locks," Craig noted. "Interesting."

Aldous, Craig, and Daniella entered the gigantic, dark room, and the soldier closed the door behind them. As soon as the door shut and they were enclosed in darkness, Aldous ignited a small green ball of energy and hovered it above his palm, illuminating their path.

"Where to now?" Craig asked.

"I don't know," Aldous replied as he scanned as far into the distance as he could. "I don't see any equipment or work stations."

"Anywhere will do," the A.I. informed them. "It is a structural mainframe, so the entire building is part of the computer. My nan.o.bots can enter this system anywhere along the lines."

"Excellent," Aldous replied. "Proceed."

"Uh...how?" Craig asked.

"You don't have to do anything," Aldous answered. "The A.I. is handling it as we speak."

"I will momentarily be expelling myself from your physical body, Craig," the A.I. related.

"Expelling? That doesn't sound pleasant."

"Yes," the A.I. answered, his tone as neutral as ever. "This may be somewhat uncomfortable as the process progresses. The nan.o.bots will be leaving through your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth."

"Wonderful," Craig sighed.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," Craig replied with resignation. "For the greater good, please proceed with oozing out of my head."

Aldous smiled, faintly amused, but the smile was brief. It was instantly replaced with an expression of surprise and dismay as he saw something over Craig's shoulder that caused Craig to snap his neck around with alarm.

Colonel Paine was hurtling toward them at full speed, his neutralizer already drawn and blasting at Aldous. The last thing Craig saw was Paine's shoulder as it plowed into him, knocking him down to the ground and instantly unconscious.