Authors: Simone Pond
She went to the bathroom to get cleaned up. If that’s what Morray wanted, she’d do her best to appear agreeable. Hanging on the door was a similar pink dress to the one she had worn to the gala event. The one Marion called the cupcake dress. The one she wore when she danced under the stars with Lucas. That seemed like a million years ago. She figured Morray was trying to make a statement, but she just laughed, starting to see his greatest weakness. Before she put it on, she ripped out the layers of crinoline underneath and tore off the wing bust. The material hung sadly from her body, looking deflated, as though she had kicked it from its former state of glory. That was her statement to Morray.
The door slid open, and Sam walked into the room. She’d never be able to call him Dickson. He shook his head, looking at the shredded dress.
“A rebel without a cause,” he muttered.
She just smiled and curtsied, the way the ladies did in the city.
“You know, you’re wasting your time,” he said.
“I could say the same thing about you. Always the right-hand man, never quite good enough to be on top.”
“That’s cute—you’re trying to provoke me. Not going to work, Grace.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the hallway.
Judging from his grip, Grace thought it was working just fine. “Seems a bit degrading for someone at your level of genius. After all, didn’t you build the mainframe?”
“You wouldn’t know anything about it,” he said, shoving her down the hallway.
She continued sparring as they walked down the corridor. “Actually, I do know about it. Remember: I’m the one who located Morray’s footprints. And that was under five minutes. Imagine what I could do if I had more time in there?” She chuckled and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I’d take your coding and do something useful.”
He stopped and stared at her for a few seconds. “It’s your DNA. That’s how you’re able to merge with the coding. You didn’t do it on your own. The only reason you and your mother are able to interact with it is because I reprogrammed it that way.”
“Your handiwork is only half of me. The rest is pure Outsider blood. Which means your programming abilities aren’t that good, Watchdog.” She winked.
“I created all of it—the mainframe, your mother, you. Everything exists because of me.”
She drew back her imaginary sword and went in for the final blow. “If you really had the chops to be the all-powerful creator, why have you been Morray’s errand boy for the last three hundred years? That must be exhausting, taking his orders century after century. Helping to enshrine his legacy: a whole bunch of tragedy and death. Bravo.”
He lost control of his emotions and slapped her hard across her cheek, knocking her back a bit. She was one step closer to getting to her mother.
“I’ll show you how easy it is to decipher my coding.” He yanked her arm and she pretended to struggle, making him think that wasn’t what she wanted, though it was exactly what she wanted. Her plan was working.
He dragged her into one of the rooms, where there was a white lounger sitting under a spot light. He shoved her into the chair and strapped her down.
“Try to navigate your way out of this program,” he said, slamming her hand onto the connector panel.
He started typing code and mumbling to himself about how sick and tired he was of being disregarded by Morray. He grumbled some other incomprehensible mutterings as he became unhinged. Grace figured over three hundred years of working for a maniacal lunatic like Morray had to eventually take a toll. She almost felt sorry for him.
“There,” he said, with some finality.
“I’ll miss you most of all, Watchdog,” she mimicked a line from an old movie her mother had made her watch a hundred times.
Just as she was slipping under, the door slid open and Ms. Atwood, or Morray, charged into the room.
“What the hell are you doing, Dickson?” Were the last words Grace heard before the darkness enveloped her . . .
*
Inside the mainframe, Grace found herself in a beautifully decorated room fit for a queen. From the windows, she could see the ocean. She knew from the two peninsulas—the northern being Malibu and the southern being Palos Verdes—that she was in Los Angeles. There was no sign of the monorail system going from downtown to the coastal villages. So it appeared as though Dickson had sent her back into an archive file.
She left the room and walked down the hallway, looking for some more clues. At the end of the corridor she came upon an enormous ballroom with vaulted ceilings, hundreds of chandeliers, and heavy red drapes hanging around the perimeter. When she stepped into the shadowy room, music from a string quartet began to play and the drapes began to slowly open. Sunlight pierced into the room, blinding Grace at first. After her eyes adjusted, she walked to the windows and stared off toward the hideous black structure made of solar panels.
“The Los Angeles City Center,” she said.
Having only seen hand-drawn renderings or the occasional faded photograph, she marveled at the enormity of the structure. It was larger than the Seattle City Center, and the hard sunlight coming off the panels made it look more sinister. Sam had done an incredible job with the details. His coding was far more meticulous than any virtual. In virtuals she always knew she was in an imaginary world, but inside this program she felt as though nothing else existed outside of it. Logically she knew her body was in the Seattle City Center, but knowing that didn’t alter this reality.
“Such accurate detail. Isn’t it?” a voice came from behind.
Grace whipped around to find a very attractive man standing a few feet away. He wore an impeccable black suit and very shiny shoes. His overwhelming presence and striking features took her aback. His pale gray eyes glinted in the sunlight, and a sly grin spread across his handsome face. Though she didn’t know this man, her insides automatically tensed up, just like before a sword fight.
“Although, you wouldn’t know. That’s what my city looked like before your mother destroyed everything.”
“Morray,” she whispered.
“In the flesh.” He laughed at his bad joke.
“Where is she?”
“You look just like her,” he said. “Except for the hair,” he added.
“Looks like you got what you wanted. We’re both inside the mainframe.”
“Quick like her, too.” He reached out to touch her arm, but she stepped back. “And just as stubborn,” he added.
“And, like my mother, I also have a knack for the mainframe.”
“You certainly do.”
“I’m going to find her and get us out of this thing. But not before I get rid of you.”
“I have some unfinished business with your mother. And right now, you’re getting in the way. But I believe Dickson will handle the situation. You see, you’re not just inside the mainframe; you’re in a program. You won’t get anywhere near your mother.”
“You don’t know me, Morray. I promise you, I’ll figure a way to take you down. I learned from the best. If that weren’t true, your giant black box would still be standing.” Grace smiled.
Morray pressed his thumb and index finger and spoke, “Security detail, please.”
A couple of men entered the room and approached Morray.
“Please return our guest to her chambers. Keep your best men on the door.”
“You can try to keep me locked in this program, but I’ll find a way out. It’s in my blood.”
“I have no doubt you will certainly attempt it. But when you fail, I hope you’ll make yourself comfortable. You’ll be here for a very, very long time.”
Morray waved off the guards and they dragged Grace down the hallway.
Sitting in the chambers, Grace reflected on the last few months leading up to that point. To do a proper search and rescue, she’d need to sort out the facts. What stood out? What was unusual? She recalled her experience inside the mainframe during tryouts. Hadn’t Dickson mentioned that he reprogrammed the mainframe so that her mother could interact with the coding? He hadn’t counted on it working for Grace as well. But it was her DNA coding that had led her to the red door. What was behind the red door? She remembered seeing the woods. What else had been strange? She flashed back to the old journal she had found hidden in Sam’s desk at the lab. Bookmarked to the pages about Morray’s son, Phoenix. The story was coming together. Sam must have written a program for Ava to go back and interact with Morray’s archive files—probably to save Phoenix from his untimely death.
Grace knew exactly where to begin: Lillian’s camp.
She’d need to get out of the current program and re-upload into the archive files. To do that, she needed access to a portal. There was nothing in the room except for an oversized bed and a lounger. She considered breaking a window and using the sheets to scale down the side of the building. But then what? Besides, she was being monitored; there were cameras in every corner of the room. If there were cameras, that meant there was a computer system. That would be her way out. She just had to get to it.
“Security!” she yelled, banging her hands against the crystal door.
When nothing happened, she went to the bed and pulled off the comforter and ripped off the sheets underneath. She would use the sheets to lasso down one of the monitors. That would get Morray’s attention. She tore the sheets into narrow strips and tied them together, made a loop at the end, and tossed it toward the monitor. It took a few tries, but she was able to get the material wrapped around the small camera. She began to tug and pull, using all of her body weight. The thing wouldn’t budge. She’d have to get up there and rip it down. She placed a pile of pillows on the floor to cushion a potential forty-foot drop, then climbed up the sheet, using the wall as leverage. When she was about an arm’s reach away from the monitor, she grabbed the camera with both hands, trying to loosen it with her weight. Dangling from the ceiling, she swung her legs forward and pressed her feet against the wall, using all of her strength to yank it from the wall. Just as it disconnected, the security guards entered and she dropped to the pile of pillows. She rolled off to the side and covertly tucked the camera into the pocket of her jumpsuit.
“You need to stop what you’re doing,” one of the guards yelled, aiming some sort of silver weapon at her.
“I won’t stop until you take me to Morray,” she said, slowly standing up.
Her back throbbed from the fall. For a program, the pain was incredibly authentic. Good to know. If she felt pain inside the program, Morray would, too.
“He’s busy,” the other guard said.
“If he wants Phoenix alive, he’ll want to see me.”
The guard aiming the weapon touched his thumb and index finger together. “Morray, the girl is insisting to see you. Says it has to do with Phoenix.”
The guard nodded and motioned for Grace to walk ahead toward the door. Both men kept their weapons aimed at her back.
“Keep going straight down the hall,” one of them said.
It seemed to take forever to get to the door at the end. Sweat dripped from her forehead, and her heart pounded in her throat. She was going into the final battle against Morray. She had figured out his greatest weakness—it was his son. The guard used the keypad to open the door, and they entered Morray’s office. He sat behind a crystal desk surrounded by hologram screens. He motioned for the guards to bring Grace to one of the chairs facing him. He handed her a handkerchief for her forehead.
“Did you have fun pretending to be a monkey and breaking my equipment?”
“I don’t like being watched,” she said, her eyes glaring into him.
“Nobody does. That’s why it works so well.” He grinned.
She wanted to jump across the desk and punch his face, but instead she cooled down and focused. The next few seconds had to be precisely timed.
“Can I have something to drink?” she asked.
He motioned for one of the guards to bring over a bottle and a glass from the bar. He set down the tumbler and a bottle of Scotch in front of Grace.
“Help yourself,” Morray mused.
As the security guards chuckled with Morray, Grace calculated her window of opportunity. She would strike each opponent before they had time to react. She took the camera from her pocket and winged it at Morray’s face, planting it into his eye. He winced and crumbled to the floor holding his bleeding face. She grabbed the bottle of whiskey and slammed it over one guard’s head, knocking him out, then lunged forward and stabbed the other one in the throat with the jagged edge. She jumped on top of Morray’s desk and slammed down on top of him, crushing his body. He was out. Sitting in his chair, she pulled up multiple screens, thinking back to when Blythe tracked her mother’s chip. She typed in GPS tracking instructions. Strings of code filled all of the monitors. She noticed the same pattern that kept coming up in the coding—her mother’s birthday. She locked in on the dates. The coding began to change. She placed her hand into the connector panel in the arm of Morray’s chair. Something was happening. The room pixilated, and her body began pulsating. Bolts of fiery pain jabbed into her brain, but she kept her hand plugged into the system—she was exiting the program. Just as the room was fading from existence, Morray grabbed her ankle and they merged into blackness.
25
AVA SAT ON the cot, listening to Catherine’s soft hum drift throughout the cabin. Everything inside the program was too real, and all worlds and time periods were colliding. Ava was starting to forget where she belonged. Dickson’s program had surpassed the ability to manipulate the archive files; he had created an entirely new universe.
The front door opened and Al approached. “Lillian’s on her way,” he said.
Ava stood up and prepared herself for the meeting. She’d only get a few sentences to gain Lillian’s trust.
Two men entered the cabin, holding AK-47s. Behind them, a young woman followed. Ava watched as Lillian, who was a petite thing with a powerful presence, approached. She was pretty, but in a simple and unassuming way. Ava figured she was about thirty years old, but she seemed a little older, a bit worn around the eyes. Lillian stood in front of Ava, not saying a word.