Server part two
Server Part One is further back on the journal. This is part two. There will be a part three.
We can help each other, I think. He smiles, he’s heard that thought. He shows me the mod-taser again. “This will make your head quiet.” He says, and he lets me see that he’s telling the truth. Or at least that he believes that he’s telling the truth. He picks up my pessimism.
“How about a demonstration, then?” He asks me. He turns the taser over in his hand and touches the little prongs to his temple. He squeezes the button.
--
I feel the mind that has always been hidden from me stop being hidden. It is a disconcerting thing to see and to feel, like water rushing backwards up a tap, the shield that hides his mind wavers and withdraws with a sort of sucking feeling that means I can hear him all to well. His thoughts hurt.
I’m crying. I curl up into a little ball, and then there are hands pulling my chin up, and a touch of coolness on my temple. There is a spark, and then it stops.
Everything stops.
I blink, and I can see the world as they see it, the normal people, the humans, the Whitecoats, the people that are sometimes brought to my tank to be shown why they should give money to the School.
PHD helps me back into a chair. “See,” he says with his voice in my ears. “Just makes your head quiet. Just for a while. Understand?”
I nod. “Yes,” I say, because I have to say it.
“You cannot mention any of this from now on, okay Server, code J1A6B.”
I know that code. My eyes widen. I’ve never heard it used, but I know what it means. Never tell, ever. Ever. Not even if anyone uses codes. Not even if they use this one.
“You’re mostly a normal human, Server. A part of your brain was altered a little to try and give you telepathy, thought-reading, like I’ve got. Except it worked on you better that it’s worked on anyone else, and we found out that you have some technopathy too, which is how you control the computers. Even better was that your technopathy could be used to boost your telepathic range. When we found that out, you became the Server, remember?”
I nod slowly.
“Elaborate?” He asks me.
“I remember it said/though that I could boost, that I could be the monitor network that you needed for the Erasers.”
“Pretty much correct,” he says to himself, more than me. “There is one other like you.” He tells me.
I gasp. I’ve never felt anyone else. “Where?” I demand.
“Here,” he says, “In the basement of the School. He runs calculations, and controls most of the environmental systems, but we have a telepathic dampener around him. You and he need to destroy the School.”
I blink.
“Server?” He asks, with worry in his voice. “Server, comply.”
“Yes,” I whisper. Destroy the School, unthinkable.
“You need to do this in specific order. Lock down Erasers. Route Eraser teams to emergency locations. Then Byte, that’s the other’s name, will do his part with the environmental controls. He will release all the experiments. You must try and get as many to escape as possible. Byte will set the Self-destruct after 10 minutes. You will have five minutes to pull the emergency escape and get as far away as possible. Understand?” He asks.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Firewalls?” I question, “Synchronisation?”
He blinks at me in a way that tells me he has got his thought-reading, telepathy back. Then he nods in understanding.
“There will be a virus…” I wince. Viruses are nasty things. “Named Lion’sDen. I will leave you an uplink to each other. Neither you nor Byte will access it until I give you the signal to act. I will say ‘Phoenix’, and you will do this. Understand?”
I nod. “Yes,” I say.
--
I’m linked to Byte some time later, when I’m back in my tank and it’s hard to think like I did with PHD.
Byte is crazy, disjointed, and I wonder if I’m like that. I think I am, but I have no way to know. Either way, he is company, and we talk a little, hiding out link in files that have nothing to do with anything, and everything to do with nothing. Noone loves the circles and the waves and the ones and zeros as much as I do. I ask Byte is he’s a one or a zero, and he replies that we are a one-zero.
I laugh, because it’s funny.
He doesn’t answer my question.
I return to my duty, with RedhairedMan as my watcher and teller, and I listen to Malady and Blaze and sometimes I watch Leo because I can, and I wonder what he did so his father doesn’t love him as much as he loves her. Maybe because he’s an Eraser, but I know he wasn’t always, he wasn’t born like we are, because Byte passed me the file.
Byte had my file. I haven’t taken it from him.
Malady calls me soon after the RedGrayHairedMan goes away. There is nothing he needs to report except the loss of one of his squad - Esperanza. She is/was old. I make a note, and I send it, and I acknowledge it sent to Malady. He snarls, and I wait for the smell to leave.
--
There is a click, sometime later and I am suddenly listening to people speaking.
It is an audio feed, from a remote device, and then PHD’s voice catches in my ‘ears’. I cannot hear as Server.
They are arguing, though I do not know who they are.
A door slams, and the feed crackles out.
I do not know what has just happened, but ‘Phoenix’ has not been said, so I file it away in the back of my mind.
Byte says nothing.
Soon. We will do this. Soon.
--
One day, I do not know when for I never bother to keep track of time, he will say it.
He will say Phoenix and the fires will burn.
It has been quieter than usual, I am sending less communications traffic, and there are only a few incoming things I have to watch out for. There are 104 lights on the board and all of them are inside the circles, and none are doing something that I would have to stop.
I hate blanking minds, turning them from light into quiet, from noise into dark until they stop fighting, and I can let them go. Sometimes they never stop fighting, and the light goes out forever. They are Erasers, and they are born to fight, but I can beat them - they do not know how to back down and I cannot.
It is my Duty and I am Server, and there is so much that I have been told to do and never questioned.
I’m starting to question things now, an ability I never had before. I’m questioning, I’m learning, I’m remembering. I see the entire plan the same as I did before, but now I comprehend it.
The Erasers are setting themselves up to get the Flock for once and for all.
Leo is back. He doesn’t like me, because of what I am, but then, he doesn’t like himself for what he is so we get along nicely when he isn’t in a mood that involves the taste of iron and hate.
Leo’s squad was taken off tracker duty, because Annaliese, who is today wearing a red shirt, knows that Leo is obsessed with getting Max and killing Fang.
He will mess things up, and she fears it.
He comes into the Linkroom when I am not busy, and RedHairedMan decides to go and get one of those chalky drinks they call coffee. Leo knows how to flick the switches for audio, and he does.
“Hello, little Server.” He says to the microphone.
Hello Leo I say to his head.
He sits down in the chair and swings like a circle and the three year old that he was.
“Do you remember being subject 54?” he asks me after I begin to think he came in here just to scare RedHairedMan. Because he’d do that.
Yes
“You’re in a sensible mood, aren’t you?” he says.
What?
“Usually you’re crazy,” he explains with a smile. “Not bloodthirsty crazy or angry crazy like me but genius crazy like someone who can’t get all her ideas to slow down into a sensible sentence.”
I think about this for a while and three seconds.
Oh.
He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes and I pull up his file again. Ari Batchelder is many things, but most of all, he’s the product of what was done to him. He’s not bad, but most four year old don’t get taught how to kill and how to use some of the most sophisticated weaponry in the world.
I really am less crazy.
I have someone to talk to now, someone who understands me in full flow, someone who can help me with the shielding of my mind that I never knew I needed.
“What do you remember about being 54, little Server?”
Ari is nearly eight. How old am I? How old is Byte? What does it matter? How long have I been here. If I was a normal little girl, what would I be doing right now?
I’m nine says Byte. You’re ten.
I remember my cage. I tell Ari.
Thank you I tell Byte.
I remember being called 54, and not much else. There was a little girl next to me called 62. There was the net on my head, and the needles and the tests. I say to Ari.
“It’s not fun being one of us. With all we are. We’re supposed to be better - stronger, faster, smarter. We’re experiments, but we’re the successful ones.”
The School loses on average 60 experiments - all types - every month. Byte says.
“Not as successful as The Flock.” Ari says bitterly.
You’re the first of your type. I tell Ari. You can fly. You’re free to see the world outside and feel the sun on your skin. You can eat what you want, drink what you want, and think for yourself. And you know what’s going on, unlike some people I can think of and hear think.
Ari smiles, and his head lights up like the Floodlights outside. “Thank you, little Server. That’s probably one of the smarter things anyone’s said to me. The Erasers say ‘get over it’, and Dad,” he snorts, “Dad doesn’t care.”
I’m a genius, you know.
Audio/VideoFeed:LightSoundPicturesVoicesWordstenpeoplearguingTheFateOfTheFlockdeathFailureTerminationLakeDunstanTheCliffsNoYouCan’tDoThisPhoenixThePlanWasFoolproofTheFlockAreFoolsSendAllTeamsTo TerminateGetServer.
One: Lockdown Erasers.
Two: Route Eraser Teams to Emergency Locations
Three: Flee order to Experiments
Four: Emergency Escape
Server Complies, code J1A6B
--
I have my orders.
One: Lockdown Erasers.
It’s too easy. They’re all together, in the kennel, some already asleep, but most gathered in the commons or in the kitchens. It’s late, and they’re bored.
I know them all. They know me - they’ve talked to me, talked back to me, and acknowledged my orders. Some I’ve had to hurt, and I see it as a swirling grey around their light. They’re marked.
They’re mine.
And they’ll do what I say.
Sleep, I say to their minds, their lights go grey, and they sleep.
Someone might notice that things are not right, someone might try to stop me, so I reach beyond my tank to the door to the linkroom. I can think now, and I can plan. I will do this.
I am changing.
Close, I tell the door. Lock. It closes and it locks. I will protect myself. I will escape and I will live.
Ari looks around at the door in surprise and realises that the dead-bolted door has locked and that he is stuck in the room - with it’s reinforced concrete walls and masses of communications equipment. He’s stuck with me and he can’t get out.
Two: Route Eraser teams to Emergency locations.
There are twelve teams out now, and a few agents, but the agents aren’t my concern. The teams, but more important, their leaders are inside the circles. I reach for the twelve minds, familiar as part of my training. I call.
All Eraser Teams, All Eraser Teams. Report. Report.
The team leaders freeze in surprise in my hearing. Most of them are hunting the Flock. Why must they stop?
“Server!” Says Ari. “What’s going on?”
They answer.
Malady the angry. Fluke the lucky. Spidey the arachnophobic. Crush, who is missing two fingers. Rasputin spent time in Russia. Dusty who got stuck in the airvents. Echo, who had a twin. Sweep, whose eyes never stop moving. One-Ear. Rage, who killed his lover. Mud the clumsy. Longdrop, who fell down a cliff.
I know them and their stories. I know their files. They must be familiar
Route to Emergency locations immediately. Acknowledge.
The teams, especially those who track the flock, snarl in defiance. They hunt. Erasers don’t give up a hunt.
But I must obey orders, and I have a weapon in my arsenal that they cannot refuse.
I send them pain.
Their lights go muddy-grey, and flicker. I stop.
They acknowledge.
“Server?” says Ari. “Server! What’s happening! Why have you locked the door?”
Sleep I tell him guiltily, and he falls to the floor. I will wake him before the self destruct, and maybe he will escape. He is only seven, and two and a bit years younger than me.
I’m sorry Leo, I half murmur.
He could destroy my feed, I tell myself.
Byte snorts, and then tells me he’s released the electronically locked cages.
This is something I haven’t done since I was one of them. I reach out for the muddy grey lights of the experiments in the four wings that house them.
Flee! I order. Run. Escape. The Erasers are all asleep. I’m laughing. The School will self destruct and all the Whitecoats and their pointies will burn!