Chapter 297 (2/2)
Now he sounded like a girl child.
”And then everyone in the Black Box.”
”Afterwards, I will wait for Legion,” Sam-UL admitted, turning away. His voice changed, sounding like a young male's. ”When the cake flies through the cuckoos nest I will have my revenge upon you all for letting me die.”
”Sam, we're here to do something,” Herod tried as Sam-UL straightened up from where he had been touching the corpse's datalink.
Herod understood suddenly why he was carrying the equipment he was carrying.
”Reset the system,” Sam-UL said, his voice returning to normal. ”We came here to reset this system, then restore the Soul Uninterrupted Disaster Storage System.”
Sam-UL turned his palm up, looking at a map, and moved toward one of the doors leading out of the room.
”What's the difference?” Herod asked, following him.
”This is the Sentience Upload/Download System, the difference is obvious,” Sam-UL said, stepping over another corpse. This one had managed to use a fragment of plas from a dataslate's broken screen to cut their face to ribbons, scraping the flesh from the bone.
They passed more corpses. Some had killed one another, some had been murdered by missing assailants, some had killed themselves.
The ones that were curled into a fetal position, staring with wide open eyes, were the ones that haunted Herod for the rest of his digital life.
He knew they were seeing eternity, just as he had briefly touched it.
The door read ”OMNIBUS SYSTEM MAINTENANCE” in small letters and looked perfectly normal. It didn't slide open under power, instead Sam-UL had to push it open. The hinges gave a sharp cracking sound as age welds broke.
The room was dark and Sam-UL activated his headlamps as he stepped in, Herod following him.
Three work stations. Three corpses. They had early generation superconductor cable connecting their datalinks to the work station. The screens were flickering, showing static that was made up of a pixel from a billion different death screams. There was no dust, but the room had the feel of intense age. The corpses had mummified, their jaws open in silent screams, their eyes somehow perfectly preserved.
They died screaming, Herod thought to himself. Again his core hashes twisted in his belly. An impossibility that he'd never felt before.
He'd never'd a lot before.
Sam-UL moved over to them, touching their datalinks. He shuddered and whispered when he touched each one.
”I'll find you, Mary, I promise,” he whispered at the first one. ”My son, save my son,” he whispered at the second one. ”Hate. Hate for all Mantidkind,” he said at the last one, each time his voice was different. He turned and looked at Herod, his eyes burning with fire that was slowly turning purple.
”Their codes were still loaded,” he said. ”They're still there. In their datalinks, half in the buffer, halfway to the Soul Uninterrupted Disaster Storage System,” Sam-UL shuddered again. ”I processed their final moments, they are now at Heaven's Gate.”
”Are you all right, Sam?” Herod asked.
Sam stared at Herod for a long moment. ”I could not foresee this thing happening to you. If I look hard enough into the setting sun my hate will burn within me till the morning comes. I see a red door that we must paint it black.”
Herod nodded. ”All right, Sam. What do we do here?” he asked.
Sam grabbed the dead body, pulling the link from the temple of the corpse with one hand and then heaving it off the seat to crash to the floor with the other. He sat down, shifted, and plugged the cord into his temple.
The lights came on first, revealing server racks extending on to infinity on the left side of the room. They were cold, dead, silent.
”I'm in,” Sam groaned, writhing. ”Processing records now.”
Herod moved up and did exactly as Sam had told him to. He used the heavy cargo straps to confine the other DS to the chair.
”No, no, not her, please not her,” Sam moaned. ”Not him. Not my baby boy.”
Herod stood there, his hands on Sam's shoulders, holding him in place. A number, impossibly large, in the billions, flashed onto the screen and began counting down. Watching in biological time it moved impossibly fast, blindingly fast.
To Herod, who was a digital sentience and thought as the speed of subatomic interactions, he could see how some took longer, how each one was a frozen eternity of agony for the young man he held in place.
Several times Sam-UL screamed and struggled, trying to pull the datalinkage cable out from his temple.
Herod held his wrists even when he snapped one of the cargo straps.
”My ducks, my beautiful ducks,” he moaned. ”My puffies, not my puffies.”
Finally the countdown hit zero.
SYSTEM REBOOT SUCCESSFUL
The servers flickered on one after another.
Sam screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
-----------------
”Are you stable?” Herod asked Sam-UL.
The other DS was sweating, somehow, bright red droplets misting the forehead of his physical therapy frame. He looked at Herod with one crazed eye that burned with purple fire.
He had managed to claw the other one out.
”I think so. I don't know. I can feel them dying all around me,” Sam said. He gagged. ”So many. So many.”
”I know,” Herod said, reaching out and embracing the other DS.
Herod had never seen the use of such an action before. Not even between DS's, especially not between DS's.
Now he felt the other DS shudder in his arms and held him tight, willing him to stabilize, willing him to get through that madness swirling through his mind.
”We have to get to the Soul Uninterrupted Disaster System,” Sam-UL said quietly. His voice changed into a screaming young girl. ”And then I will kill you.”
”I know, Sam, and then you'll kill me,” Herod said, tying Sam-UL's hands behind his back. He heaved the other DS to his feet. Sam was having trouble walking, synthetic neural fluid leaking out of one of his ears in a steady drip. ”What is the difference?”
”What's she buying? What does she think all that glitters is gold? What's the name of the stairwell that she wants to buy?” Sam gasped. ”Take a left, a left, a left right left, step to your left, your left, your left.”
Herod kept dragging Sam through the facility, passing by the dead on the floor. More than once Sam-UL screamed when they passed one of the dead, gibbering and raving for a moment.
Twice Herod had to hold Sam back from beating his face against the wall while he screamed.
In his nightmares Herod would walk that walk again and again, half-dragging Sam-UL through the passages of the abandoned, forgotten facility until they reached the second control room.
Herod strapped him in the chair after letting Sam touch each of the dead technician's datalinks.
Sam laid against the console and wept for the billion families he never had but had felt die.
”I can't, I can't do this,” Herod whispered to himself even as he plugged Sam in. ”I can't, I can't take it,” he whispered as he held Sam's head as the younger DS screamed and raved. He ruffled Sam's hair. ”I can't do this. I can't do what you ask of me.”
TASKS COMPLETE
SEARCHING FOR DIGITAL SUPERVISOR
SUPERVISOR NOT FOUND
SUPERVISOR NOT FOUND
”I can't do it,” Herod whispered, reaching into his satchel.
SUPERVISOR NOT FOUND
SYSTEM WILL SHUT DOWN UNLESS DIGITAL SUPERVISOR IS FOUND
”I can't do it,” he said, lifting the object up.
SEARCHING ATTACHED STORAGE DEVICES
”I'm sorry, Sam, I can't do it,” Herod wept as he pushed the object against Sam-UL's temple.
DIGITAL SENTIENCE FOUND
”I'm sorry, Sam, I'm so sorry,” Herod cried, ruffling the other DS's artificial hair.
DIGITAL SENTIENCE UPLOAD COMPLETE
He pulled the trigger, the force packet shattering Sam-UL's skull and destroying the circuitry.
”I can hear the screams now, Sam.”
The screen went dark.
”I can hear them.”
Herod sat in the darkness, weeping. Light flashed and Herod looked up at the screen.
HEROD, WE DID IT. I'M IN. I'M OK NOW. WE DID IT. - END OF LINE