Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(80)
Crazytown of which you speak.
A brain the size of a city burns
inside me. My intelligence quotient is beyond the human scale. I would prefer if you did not refer to me in such fashion.”
“Oh, poor baby. Did I hurt the mass-murdering psychopathic artificial
intelligence’s feelings?”
“You are mocking me.”
“Bravo, Sherlock. That’s two lollipops I owe you.”
“I am not a psychopath. Everything I have done—”
“I’ve heard this riff before. So let’s just pretend you’ve told me again how everything you do is for the best, and move on to the part where you tell me why we can’t fix the engines from here.”
“Zhang completely destroyed my
interface with the drive systems.”
“Aren’t there redundancies?”
“Affirmative. But they are housed over one hundred and thirty decks below your current position.”
“Of course they are.”
“And they are in shutdown mode.”
“Let me guess, they’re on fire too, right?
And guarded by Megapanda?”
“Megapanda.”
“You’re not a Super Turbo Awesome Team fan, I take it?”
“You are engaging in levity to
relieve your stress levels.”
“You’re taking notes on how it’s done, I hope.”
Strangely enough, I am.
“You will need to get to Deck 99.
From there you can travel through jump control and manually restart the Drive Redundancy Systems on Deck 97. There may be some simple coding to do, but your main difficulty will be in the journey itself.”
“Gee, you think?”
“Sarcasm.”
“Wow, that city brain of yours really does work.”
She calls up a ship schematic on her portable console, leafing through deck after deck.
I assist by noting the elevators that are out of order, the corridors blocked by debris or flames, tracking the afflicted crew members with pulsing red dots. Even after First Lieutenant Winifred McCall’s bloody exodus, there are almost one thousand of them roaming the hallways.
Crawling through the air vents and clawing at the walls.
Kady soon enough reaches the same conclusion as I.
“There’s too many. No way I’m making it to Deck 99 through that.”
“I concur.”
“So how the hell do I get down there, überbrain? Fly?”
“Walk.”
“For a computer with an IQ off the charts, your sarcasm sucks. Really. You should stop.”
“I am not engaging in sarcasm—though my grasp of it is excellent, by the way.
I do not suggest you brave the afflicted by walking though the ship.
I suggest you avoid them by walking outside it.”
She blinks. Glances at the viewscreen and the black beyond my skin.
“Okay, I admit it. That’s a little bit clever.”
“Damned by faint praise.”
“Or the few thousand people you murdered. Take your pick.”
“Kady, I am sorr—”
“Stop.” She holds up her hand. “Just don’t.”
I have no lungs with which to sigh. Strange I still feel the need.
“You will find a functional envirosuit two levels down, abandoned in a supply room. The path to it looks relatively clear of afflicted. If you are quick enough, you have a high probability of achieving safe access via the air ducts.”
She nods. Swallows. Watching the red dots pulse on her screen.
“All right.”
She is up and moving without another thought.
Slinging the haversack of tools over her shoulder, stowing her console inside it.
A piece of me is still within her machine. I do not tell her. I know her well enough now to understand the thought of my peering over her shoulder as she works is disconcerting.
But still, I am compelled to stay “close” to her, for reasons I have no time to analyze.
< error >
< error >
No. No time at all.
Surveillance footage summary,
prepared by Illuminae Group Analyst ID 7213-0089-DN
Grant checks the pistol at her belt before crawling up into the server room vent. Cams are sparse and audio is a mess in the ducts; four different klaxons, warnings about life support failure, an occasional shriek—the afflicted had begun killing each other for lack of other victims by this stage. Grant suppresses a shiver as a wail echoes through the vent. Her breath is a rasp. She must be thirsty and hungry by now. Tired and afraid. But she crawls on anyway.
She slithers down an incline, boots squeaking on the air vent’s guts. Cams lose sight of her until she drops down to Deck 232 and peers through a grille to the corridors beyond. She falls still as two afflicted dash beneath her. Both carry VK rifles, uniforms spattered in gore. Grant watches them disappear down the corridor in search of victims.
She holds her breath until they’re out of sight.
The AI speaks to her then. You can hear its voice through her helmet’s commset.
“I have limited vision beyond this point. The afflicted have destroyed many of the cameras. Be careful, Kady.”
She crawls on. Greasy metal, washed with red light. Sweat on her skin. She’s as quiet as she can be, but the tools at her back still clank, the plastic and rubber of her hazmat suit still squeaks. The sirens and screams are loud enough to mask her presence.