Chapter 437 (1/2)
Herod exited the mat-trans, shaking, sucking on a code-widget to clear his mouth of the taste of scorched and burnt code. He stopped next to the consoles of ancient computers that were slowly going into hibernation mode, took the widget out of his mouth, and tossed it in a trash can.
”I hate that thing,” he grunted.
Beside him Wally made a beep of agreement.
”Sam, can you hear me?” Herod asked as he moved out of the room.
”Yes,” Sam said.
”How's it going up there?” Herod asked. He paused at a corner, leaning against the wall and digging another code widget out.
”Massive failures. It's picking up speed. I'm shunting it to non-executable storage right now,” Sam said.
”I had an idea,” Herod said, pushing himself off the wall. The code-widget tasted like snozzberries and was clearing the bitter and sour taste out of his mouth.
”What?” Sam asked.
Herod had noticed the younger DS sounded stronger when he was taking action.
You're a Screaming One, floated up in his mind, along with the memory.
”Have you ever heard of degaussing? Like on wet-navy ships or computer hardware?” Herod asked.
”Yes. You use it to clear old cathode ray tube screens or wipe magnetic storage media,” Sam said.
Herod staggered out the door, moving toward the auto-walk platform. He knew he was staggering, lurching along, but couldn't stop it. He wove in between flickering white phantoms that kept struggling with one another or screaming or committing suicide.
”Herod?” Sam asked as Herod waited for a moment before dashing between two fighting Treana'ad.
”Just a minute,” Herod grunted, managing to come to a stop before he ran into a Terran shooting pistol all around him. He waited a second and the Terran put the pistol to his own head, pulling the trigger. A mist of white energy puffed out from the opposite side of the man's head from the pistol and the shade vanished.
Herod ran through the gap, stopping on the auto-walk.
”OK, I'm here,” Herod said.
”Why did you ask?” Sam paused a moment. ”That was a big one.”
”I need you to task robots to the phasic arrays,” Herod said.
”They're useless. That's half the problem,” Sam said. ”The phasic arrays are full of conflicting signals, we get anything near the controls and the Screaming Shades start spreading through the system again.”
”The other half of the problem is that we can't fire up the cloning vats and get Born Whole clones working because of all the Screaming Shades,” Herod said. He looked around at the blasted fields. ”But I think I know how to fix all of it.”
”All of what?”
”The whole phasic system,” Herod said. ”I think I've got an idea,” he looked up at the sky where one of the fusion reactors was masquerading as a sun. ”We can't take the phasic system offline, but the phasic system is full of phasic impressions, memories, and Mantid attack pulses.”
”Which is part of the problem. Even if we do replace one of the phasic arrays, the Screaming Shades swarm it and it gets contaminated again,” Sam said.
”That's why we're going to reset the whole damn phasic system,” Herod said, watching an orchard go by. There were robots tending the trees now, replanting some, taking down others, tending to the saplings's needs. The whole area had been destroyed previously.
”We tried turning it off and on again, the shades just swarmed it and as soon as we powered it up, it had the same recursion and resonance issues,” Sam protested. ”One moment, honored Matron, and I'll assist you.”
”Look, I'm going to pass a file to you. Have the robots build that while I get up to the phasic control system. Once I'm there, we'll keep working,” Herod said. ”If I'm right, we can fix our largest problem.”
”Our biggest problem is that we have hundreds of billions of people dying,” Sam said. ”If we can't fix the system, they'll stay dead.”
”Humans have always died, Sam,” Herod snapped. He winced slightly, realizing he sounded like Dee. ”That's part of what they are. This was an attack, people die in an attack.”
”But there's so many... so many,” Sam started to sob.
”Hold it together!” Herod snapped, feeling hypocritical. ”We don't have time for this!”
There was silence for a moment.
”Thank you,” Sam said. ”I'm putting the robots to work now. Are you sure this is going to work?”
”No,” Herod said. ”But then, our parents could never be sure what they were about to do was going to work, but they did it anyway. I know it's against our nature to take risks like this, but what choice do we have?”
There was silence for a long moment.
”None,” Sam replied.
-------------------
”How bad?” Herod asked, checking his coding for the fifteenth time.
What he was doing wasn't that difficult. The scientific principle was firm.
It just applied to magnetics, not phasic energy.
”Seventy percent of Terran Descent Humanity is succumbing,” Sam said. ”I asked The Detainee, she said she didn't do any reset yet. She just laughed at me and told me that I'd know if she betrayed me.”
Herod chuckled. ”You're thinking of her secretly taking over. Think more like Judas, or Gangi Timi, or Major General Hallimuntin, or the Hamburgler and Grimace.”
Sam gave a sigh. ”You don't think she'd pull a Jack's War on me, do you?”
”It would fit her sense of theatrics,” Herod chuckled. ”Remember, Jack's War and the War of the Box all started when they tried to kill him in a coup.”
”I'll keep that in mind and not provoke her then,” Sam said dryly.
Herod watched another set of icons move to ready. The problem with something like Dee, is you don't know what will provoke her, what will set her off. She's so alien compared to modern humans. It's almost like she's a different species, and they considered her dangerous back in her time, when everyone was howling barbarians that...
Herod stared at the board.
”Sam, can you put me through to the Black Box?” Herod asked.
”Sure. I can probably get you voice,” Sam said.
”Hey, Sam, I was meaning to ask something,” Herod tapped two the icons and watched as the newly constructed mechanisms went through unpowered self-tests.
”Go ahead.”
”How can you reach the Black Box? Aren't they hyper-secure?” He asked.
”Legion left a way to communicate data with the SUDS network. I just piggyback that signal, since I've got the entire Sol-Net backbone down here,” Sam giggled. ”It all passes right though here, everywhere but Black Box Prime.”
”Huh,” Herod said. Two of the mechanisms failed and Herod ran diagnostics.
”Herod, is that you?” Flower Patch asked.
”It's me,” Herod said.
”Where are you?” the nanite body using DS asked.
”You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” Herod said.
”Who's that, Mommy?” a strange sounding voice asked in the background.
”One of Mommy's friends. His name is Herod,” Flower Patch said. ”Did I tell you? Legion cured the Friend Plague,” Flower Patch blurted out.
”He did what?” Herod blinked several times. He stopped building the file he was working on, his fingers dragging across the screen as he reacted to the shocking news.
”Cured the Friend Plague. We've tried it on over two thousand subjects, it's worked even on the near-terminal cases,” Flower Patch said.
”Can I say hello, Mommy?” the voice asked.