EHuman Dawn (16 page)

“Regardless, we have a war on our hands,” Edgar continued, “And now it seems we must suffer it.”

“We should warn the Magistrates!” Morgan cried out, for Christophe had taken his woman’s advice and closed his mouth, “They need to prepare the cities!”

“No need,” Edgar answered.

“But they must not fall to the rebels,” Morgan continued.

“And why not?” Edgar countered, “Why can’t the cities fall to the rebels?”

The room went silent once more. No one was able to answer him, which didn’t surprise Edgar. He never imagined any of them having enough strategy to see beyond their next frivolous indulgence.

“I realize that most of you don’t expend a single bit of your processing contemplating the intricacies of running the world,” Edgar spat, “Thus the real reason I’ve called you here tonight is to not only inform you of this war, but give you some sort of idea on how to win it!”

They cowered in their seats. Edgar smiled benevolently at them and continued.

“Yes, the Resistance has staged an uprising. They’re entering our cities as I speak. None of our people are aware of what’s about to happen. I’ve commanded the WG to remain silent and sit back and watch. It’ll be a most interesting show indeed.”

“What are you planning Edgar?” Christophe finally demanded. He couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

“It’s simple really. They got a hold of a list of cities we had planned to unplug. But why were we unplugging them in the first place? To smoke the bastards out of their holes, that’s why! Well, they’ve come out of their holes, every single last one of them! Letting them takeover our cities is a perfect way to keep them out in the light of day, where we can watch them, and bring them to their final, desperate end!”

“You mean trap them?” Christophe clarified.

“Yes, trap them.”

“What of our people there?” Morgan asked.

“Morgan, it’s time you for you to accept that none of our people exist anywhere except here on this island. The rest of eHumanity exists to serve us, and if more of them die, I really see no problem with that.”

His colleagues looked at him with a mixture of adoration and fear. The two emotions danced in the air, intertwining like lovers in a tango. It was difficult to discern which one, fear or
adoration, was leading the emotional dance. While Edgar loved adoration, fear had always been a much more efficient means to achieving his aims.

“All of the cities will be taken by the Resistance, with the exception of the ones near the ANP sites. Those shall suffer a much different fate,” he hinted.

“But those sites have been inactive for over a century!” Christophe argued, anxiously jumping to his feet.

“Alas, inactive, but not disabled,” Edgar replied, “Please Christophe, sit down. Relax. Enjoy the show. It’s the real reason I’ve brought you here my friend.”

With that, the auditorium went dark, the screen lit up behind Edgar and live feed from several cities began to stream, forcing his captive audience to witness the closest thing to war any of them had ever seen. Their discomfort was palpable, which made Edgar all the more at ease.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The eHumans in New Omaha never saw it coming. Certainly not the languid WG security guards, who normally spent most of their shifts online playing Virtual Reality Apps with each other. Nor the Transportation Authority mechanics. They were kept busy day in and day out repairing and enhancing the vehicles of the city. Due to their dedication, not one of them noticed when a handful of new “mechanics” showed up for work on that fateful day. Even the Lifestyle Mechanics in the LMOs were taken by surprise, realizing only too late that the “clients” in their waiting rooms that morning were not there to discuss upgrades.

The red-robed Guardians caught their first whiff of trouble when doors, elevators, and PTDs in the city began to malfunction without warning. Device status icons lit up on the monitors within the New Omaha LMO Control Center with the frenzy of a fireworks show on Independence Day. The Guardians immediately began to investigate the stuck elevators, PTDs going in circles, refusing to stop and pick up passengers, and doors that opened and closed in three second intervals. This distraction, caused by a worm affectionately named Typhon by Alrisha, did its job; the Guardians of New Omaha, and 199 other cities across the globe didn’t notice as the more deadly AboutFace virus slowly infected Neuro’s code.

Imagine the Guardians’ surprise when a storm of LMO “clients” came busting into the Control Center, ElectroShock guns at the ready. The WG security guards had been easily
overcome, since AboutFace had forced each of them—thirty in all guarding this particular LMO—to take their own lives the instant they pulled the trigger on their guns.

The Guardians fought back at first, forcing the Resistance members to briefly fight hand-to-hand combat, but unfortunately for them, a second round of fully armed Resistance warriors, led by Dawn herself, arrived, forcing the twenty or so Guardians stationed at the New Omaha LMO to surrender.

Deep in the sewers below the city, Adam stood alongside Origen’s troops, waiting for their signal. The constant dripping of water and shuffling of feet around him was beginning to drive him crazy. Worse, he had no idea what was happening up top. Was Dawn okay? Or was she dead? Adam needed to know—the suspense was killing him.

Fortunately, within thirty minutes, Dawn and her secret force of three hundred successfully infiltrated every RMO and LMO in the city, as well as the entire Transportation Authority complex. Origen received his signal to rise up from the sewers, and thousands of black-clad Resistance members, Adam included, poured into the city, moving in freedom and with force, to round up any remaining WG officials and supporters.

“You get your ass to the main LMO in the town square,” Origen commanded Adam.

At that moment, a team of WG security guards rounded the corner and began to shoot at them. The Resistance soldiers to either side of Adam fell to the ground, their Chi-Regulators shorted out.

“Return fire!” Origen cried out.

Instinctively, Adam raised his gun and pointed it at the eHumans before him. He pulled the trigger, making contact with a guard near the front of the line. The eHuman fell, dead before his body even landed on the cold, concrete streets of New Omaha. Even though he’d been
successful, Adam felt a strange anxiety. He had taken his first life. Another round of guards came towards them, and Adam fired again, taking more lives. When the round of shooting was done, every single WG guard lie dead before them.

“Forward!” Origen commanded.

Adam fell into formation as the group climbed over the mound of dead WG eHumans and continued their trek into the city, taking out anyone who would resist them. As the New Omaha Capitol building came into sight, Adam knew that the second part of Operation Insurrection had succeeded. The siege was over. All that was left was for Resistance SpiderScouts and drones to surround the city, not so much as to keep the inhabitants in, but rather to keep the WG out and send them a message: We’ve won this part of the battle. New Omaha is now ours.

The Uprising has begun.

Adam followed Origen as he quickly crossed the open, grassy mall before the New Omaha Capitol building, which gleamed in the sun, oblivious to the fact that it was under siege. People were starting to gather in the mall, demanding to know what the hell had just happened to their city. Hundreds of Resistance squadrons were immediately assigned to pacify the crowds and keep them from striking back.

The New Omaha LMO was next to the Capitol building and Adam felt excitement rise within him; he knew Dawn would be there. Even though they’d only been parted for a day, he had not realized until that moment just how worried he’d been that the attack would fail, and that death would part them forever.

“
Quickly,
” Dawn called to Adam via TeleSpeak, “
I need, you—I mean we need you in the Control Center. Meet me there as soon as you can!
” Adam was grateful for the new feature that gave him a personal link to Dawn.

He took the steps three at a time as he approached the LMO. Upon entering the sterile waiting room populated with metal chairs and machine-inspired art, Origen led Adam to one of the doors located just off the room. Through the front windows, Adam could see the city streets beyond, steadily filling with eHuman civilians. Adam hoped they would remain peaceful while the communication system was being set up. He knew that they demanded answers and that being offline was causing most of their discomfort.

Adam entered the Control Center amid a frenzy of activity. The local RMO of the city had been successfully disconnected from the Global Energy Grid and re-routed to the solar generated grid located in Avalon, about 150 miles northwest. It was believed that this would be enough energy to power both New Omaha, and New Valentine to the west, which was also taken during the attack.

Their next task was to explain the takeover to the citizens of the city, while also encouraging people to disconnect from Neuro and report to the various LMOs around the city in order to receive an energy pack. No one could safely recharge on Neuro until the network was secured from the WG. A message explaining the situation had been sent out to the inhabitants immediately after the takeover. Until it was secure, all access to Neuro within the city was now blocked.

“The Guardians really know their shit,” Alrisha explained to Adam as he gazed over her shoulder at the computer screen before her. The room itself resembled the Command Center located in Avalon, with one key difference—in the center of the room stood a curious tower,
containing fifty small, black boxes with a series of colored LEDs along the front, each no bigger than a shoebox. They were stacked upon one another, forming a tower that reached above Alrisha’s head. A series of golden wires linked them together and an antennae topped the tower. Around this curious set of electronics were twelve recliner chairs, each with a plug located near the seat of the chair.

“So this is where the Guardians plug into Neuro?” Adam noted and Alrisha nodded.

“Yes, twelve of them at a time would be physically plugged in. The rest of the Guardians worked wirelessly from all points in this room. It seems the MICE Tower, and Guardians plugged into it, were responsible for the security of Neuro, as well as spying and data manipulation,” she explained.

“MICE Towers?” Adam asked.

“Yes, this set of servers before us,” she explained, “contains Multi Intelligent Cyber Entities.”

Adam must have looked confused, because she led him over to the tower.

“As far as I can tell,” she said, raising her tattooed, purple arm to point at the blinking structure, “each individual component houses an independent Lux. They were once eHumans, like you and I. But shortly after the Great Shift, it became evident that the only reason we lived in eHuman bodies was to be mobile. As Neuro became more complex, and the Apps running on Neuro became more and more like reality, people realized that we didn’t actually need bodies anymore—especially not those who preferred Virtual Reality to the reality of the world. A modified Chi-Regulator was created to power this small box,” she patted her hand on one of the black components in the tower, “They call this a Chi-Server, and it contains much of the hardware that you and I have within our torso. This Chi-Server runs Neuro, stores memories and
information in a database, etc.—but the Lux that inhabits the server is always connected to the network. Thus, MICE live and operate their Lux entirely within the fiber optics and wireless channels of Neuro. Their reality is exclusively virtual.”

Adam looked at the tower. He quickly counted the number of boxes and instantly saw the ramifications.

“There are fifty Guardians here?” he asked.

“That’s how it appears. We knew of the MICE Tower, but this is the first time I’ve seen one,” Alrisha explained, “Right now, we’re trying to get inside, but it’s highly secured. We can’t access their RAM or programming in any way. But don’t worry, we’ll crack the code soon enough. We have no choice. Cracking the Tower’s the only way to gain control of Neuro at the local level. It appears the LMO was run mostly by the Tower itself, with the other Guardians employed interfacing with citizens. The traditional red-robed Guardians as we know them help people choose new bodies, repair and upgrade them to new careers and the like. But the core of the LMO intelligence and security exists right here, in this Tower. We’ve disconnected it from Neuro, but there are fifty separate Lux we have to deal with.”

“Is this the way it is in all the LMOs?” Adam asked.

“It appears so, and the RMOs as well. MICE Towers are very useful, indeed. I can’t wait to discover more about them,” she answered.

Dawn entered the room. She was still dressed for the battle in her black rain suit, her hair hanging haphazardly in a messy, long golden braid down her back. As soon as she caught Adam’s gaze, she had eyes for no one else. Throwing caution to the wind, as well as all Resistance protocol, she ran up to him and embraced him. Everyone in the room was taken
aback, except Alrisha, who was smiling—and Origen, who simmered behind the Tower in anger, not letting the happy couple see his reaction.

Dawn noticed the crowd staring at them in confusion, and pulled back from Adam, resuming her role as commander. But she couldn’t resist continuing to hold Adam’s hand. She might be in charge of a Global Resistance, but her feelings for Adam were something she refused to hide. Her people were simply going to have to accept this change in her life.

“We’re needed in the conference room of the Capitol building,” she began, “All of our leaders have arrived and are gathering as we speak. The RMO has been secured and the LMOs are fully staffed. Most members are handing out energy packs and answering people’s questions.”

“That seems like an impossible job. There are millions of people to speak with,” Adam observed.

“It is—which is why we have to get control of Neuro,” she said looking at Alrisha, “In the meantime, each energy pack contains a program that will execute as soon as the person plugs in. This program explains the how the WG planned on unplugging New Omaha and encourages the citizens to refrain from using Neuro until they receive notice that it’s safe. The program also explains the technology behind the energy pack and assures them that they’ll be fully charged during the transition. Lastly, it encourages the citizens to rise up and join us in the fight, should the WG try to take back the city.”