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Introductory Text

They take kills pretty seriously in the real world
Ben's Narrative Part 07 61st Post Posted 19 May 2016 at 03:34:06 EDT Link to original

We rode in silence for a while, the Haohua Luxury Chariot flying along the curves of the interstate as all the other cars obediently changed lanes to let us through. I had seen people pull access stunts before, like changing the music in a club or turning off the lights in a restaurant, but what she had done was outright sorcery. She had taken control of the elevator, the car, the drone, the other cars on the highway, all within seconds. She must have had control of all the security cameras to plan our escape. Every one of these was a hardened system. The drone was a DOD system, the hardest of systems. But she had based it like child's play.

Sitting there in the car, I felt like I was coming down off a high. It wasn't a good feeling. I was sitting in a van with a mass murderer of unspeakable power. And I had helped her, given her the access she needed to pull her stunts. She had saved my life, I think, and I had saved hers. But she had also just killed dozens of cops, maybe over a hundred. Men with families. Fuck, my life was over. I had helped her. That was a death sentence right there. We would become the most wanted people in the country. How did I get caught up in this?

I looked over at her tiny, skeletal body. So frail and weak. I could pick her up and chuck her out the back of the van and end this whole escapade. But then what? Face the death penalty? She had to be my best chance at getting away. But who the fuck was she? She was a killer, that was for sure. Utterly ruthless.

A message from her appeared on my set.

"srry bout all that. had to hurry"

Sorry? That was rich. I asked her where we were going.

"upstate NY"

"What's there?"

"our objective"

"What's our objective?"

"a way to defeat Q. hard to explain"

I wondered if she was insane. She was responsive and lucid, but she was also capable of murder. She would probably get rid of me as soon as she could.

"So you want me to come with you?"

"id like it. i need physical help."

"You killed like a hundred cops back there. The whole world is going to be looking for us."

"no they wont"

"You don't think so? This isn't the feedrealm. They take kills pretty seriously in the real world."

"i do too. but theyll b too busy to look for us"

"Busy with what?"

"Q"

"What's Q going to do?"

"u will find out. ~4 mins"

"Just tell me."

"u wouldnt believe me"

We fell back into silence. My thoughts were racing. I wondered why they didn't just flag our car or shut down the highway. I guess she was busy working her black magic on the police and transportation systems. Who knew what she was capable of? Was she really one of the Bred? A grown-up child soldier?

It was illegal to hook children into long-term feeds, but I had heard stories about China and the FRN connecting infants, trying to create people who were utterly at one with the internet. According to the tales, the children all died. So they tried older children, but they all turned into drooling skullbaskets. For some reason, the brain needs a certain level of maturity before it can withstand a long-term feed without resulting in total madness. Even then, it results in near-total madness.

I figured Karen was another child abuse case. But she wasn't just some feed casualty. Her mind worked. Worked well. Whoever had made her had done the forbidden, and they had done it successfully.

But why did I have to get involved in all this? I had just gotten my specialist license. After getting out of the Marines and just drifting around for years, I was finally hitting my stride. Now it was all fucked up.

"dont look back"

I looked over to the girl lying next to me. Was it possible that she had hacked so far into infraspace that she could read minds?

There was a passing flash of light, like sunlight glancing off some car, then everything around us started to get brighter and brighter, like the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. But there weren't any clouds in the sky. The light was coming from behind us, bouncing off the other cars, creating a painful glare. I almost turned around, but then I realized what Karen had said. I closed my eyes against the brightness, and the insides of my eyelids glowed red like I was lying on the beach. After a few seconds, the light dimmed and seemed to return to normal. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times and turned around.

A few miles behind us, the entire city of Atlanta had disappeared behind a megalithic wall of dark roiling smoke. I felt my mouth falling open. I leaned down to look up at the sky behind us. The giant wall of smoke was just the base of a monstrous black tree of ash that rose miles into the sky, growing larger and larger, looming over the world.

Then we were hit by a blast that rattled me right down to the roots of my teeth. I shut my eyes again. The blast turned into long horrifying roar. The van wobbled and shuddered as awful groaning sounds passed through the metal. Eventually, the van's steering systems righted us, and slowly the roar passed.

That must have been the blast wave. Of a nuclear detonation. That had just destroyed Atlanta.

I unbuckled my seat and crawled to the back window and pressed my face against the glass. The tree of smoke was still growing over us, becoming ever more massive. I just stared in silence. Slowly it changed from one awful form to another until it became a vague gray pillar in the far distance.

I'm not sure how long I spent watching it. I know that by the time I looked away, I was crying.