Chapter 45

SPOV

As I watched Ranger's face disappear from sight, his words as he'd shouted to me should have been enough for me to maintain my composure. As the darkness engulfed me I felt my heart rate increase and breathing become short rapid breaths. I sank to my knees and closed my eyes willing myself to calm down. The only sound I could hear was my beating heart and the whooshing of air in and out of my lungs. He'd get me out, I had to believe that.

The sound of my name had me stilling, trying to work out where it was coming from, but I ignored it thinking it was just wishful thinking. As the voice got louder, I could have sworn it sounded like a woman's voice, but that was stupid, there couldn't be anyone else in here, could there?

"Stephanie"
My eyes opened as I thought I recognized the voice, but surely, she couldn't be here, unless she was trapped the same as me. As I turned to look into the darkness small lights that seemed to be at the edges of the room slowly became brighter.

"Stephanie, can you hear me?"
"Emci, where are you?"
"I'm here"
"Are you trapped in here like me?"
"I am now"
"Can you move or are you fastened up?"
"I am not fastened up"
I slowly got to my feet to walk around the room, keeping my hand running along the wall. It was then that I realized the lights were set into the floor. The walls were smooth and cool with no evidence of any other doors and I was beginning to worry where Emci was.

"Emci are you locked in a room somewhere?"
"I suppose I am"
By now I'd walked the full length of the room and was slowly making my way along the back wall. There still wasn't anything to suggest a doorway so in my eagerness to find Emci I started to walk faster. The second corner came quicker than I thought causing me to bump into the wall. I continued my way back down the room, now beginning to panic when I couldn't find anything.

"Emci, help me out here, where the hell are you?"
It wasn't long before I was following a fourth wall and felt the edge of a door, I wasn't sure if the door I was feeling was where I'd come in.

"Emci how do I get you out?"
There was no response, but the whirring of something coming from the middle of the room had me backing up against the wall. I couldn't see anything in the darkness until a faint blueness began to appear. As it brightened, I thought I was looking at a large screen. Oh god, did that mean she was being held somewhere by someone who was controlling the screen and the door? I kept watching the screen until a face appeared on it.

The face was that of a young woman. She had auburn hair cut into a bob cut and beautiful green eyes. Her complexion was white and her skin was flawless. Her eyebrows perfect with a petite nose and full pink lips. She didn't look real, almost like a face that had been produced on a computer, similar to those you saw in films that used CGI animation. She didn't move or blink and that made a strange feeling crawl through me. I hugged my arms around myself trying to work out what seeing that face meant. I almost jumped when her mouth moved, and I heard the voice again.

"Hello Stephanie"
"Emci?"

"I am glad you are here"
"Emci, I don't understand"
"You are here for me to complete my metamorphosis"
"I still don't understand"
"I need to experience the world as you do"
"Can't you do that?"
"No, I am restricted to the virtual world within this room"
"Were you created by Buckley"
"Created. What does that mean?"
Okay, I was definitely in the twilight zone now. The voice that I'd spoken to all this time on the phone wasn't actually a person? How the hell had that happened? I had to think my way out of here and decided maybe giving a command like in the other room might work.

"Emci open the door"
"That command does not compute"
"Why not?"
"I have to wait for something"

My hands were rubbing up and down my arms when I became aware of a burning sensation in the back of my arm. I removed my jacket and felt where it was, surprised when I felt a wetness on my arm. Somehow the cut I'd got when I fell through the window at Buckley's house was bleeding and it was hurting. Subconsciously I kept rubbing along the cut hoping to ease the burning sensation. As I rubbed my skin, I felt a hard edge with the tips of my fingers and started to carefully ease whatever it was out. Maybe when I'd fallen a piece of glass had pierced the skin and Buckley hadn't seen it to remove it. As the glass came out I held it between my fingers and then used the other hand to cover it. It was hot and it seemed to be perfectly square but as the lighting was dim, I couldn't see any detail in it.

"You hold my soul in your hands Stephanie"
"Your soul?"
"The last part to make me complete"
The phrase "Oh shit" came from my mouth as a circle of light appeared in the center of the room. From the floor the circle seemed to be moving up and it was then that I realized it was in fact a circular glass case. As the case continued to rise from the floor the features of a head, shoulders, body and arms appeared until stood inside the case in the middle of the room was what looked to be a mannequin of a woman.

The body was of a beautiful woman. Long legs and rounded hips with a waist that swelled out into perfectly formed breasts. Her face resembled the one on the screen, though I couldn't see the color of the eyes because they were closed. The look of her skin was flawless, too perfect with no evidence of blemishes or hair. What assured me that this wasn't human was the lack of hair on her head and no creases or hair around what would be her pubic region. Around the bottom of the case was a metal base that had a similar source of light as I'd already seen. What had me walking toward it was some writing at the bottom.

Evolving. Matrix. Conscious. Intelligence.

I stepped back, shocked at what I was seeing, was this Emci, was she a robot?
"Emci, are you in that body?"
"No, not yet"

"Why not?"

I waited for a response, but after a few moments I decided she wasn't going to answer me.
"Did Mr Buckley make you"
"I am unable to answer that question"
"Okay, so what are you waiting for?"
"My completion?"

"How will that happen?"

She didn't respond to me as I'd hoped, I was really hoping Emci was the one responsible for the problems that Rangeman had had.

"Did he think what you'd done was the right thing to do?"
"Right, what is that?"
I went back to the wall and sat down on the floor, my knees bent up and my arms across them. I had the feeling that maybe Emci would have difficulty understanding what I was going to say.

"Doing the right thing Emci is when we look at all the possibilities for how things could work out and we consider the moral of what we're doing"
"Moral, what is that?"
"It's a standard of behavior"

"Behavior?"
"Like we should always tell the truth, not destroy what belongs to others, have courage and keep a promise. Don't cheat and don't always judge other people. I suppose treat others as you want to be treated"

"That doesn't happen"
"Why do you say that?"
"People lie and destroy property. You've hurt and killed someone"
"But that was while doing my job"
"Why is that different?"
"The people I find have done bad things, broken the law. If they'd have just gone to court like they should have I wouldn't need to track them down"

"But Ranger kills"
"Only people who have badly hurt others"
"So the men he kills?"
"Bad men who hurt people just so they could be rich and powerful"
Hell I'm sure that was right, I mean I knew when he went in the wind he was probably doing something for the Government and if it was at the request of the Government or army then men like that were probably dealing in all kinds of crazy shit.

"You could be rich Stephanie"
I laughed softly, hell that was never likely to happen to me.

"No Emci, I don't make enough money"
"I could give you money"
"Where from"
"I could manipulate for money to belong to you"
"But that's not right Emci"
"I don't understand"
"Emci if you were asked to kill someone, would you do it?"

"Yes"
I was beginning to understand what Buckley had meant by Pandoras box. The power that Emci and anything like her could wield was boundless. In the wrong hands there could be chaos. How the hell was I going to find a way out of this with Emci. I actually liked her in that she had been so helpful and loyal to me, but now.

"Stephanie"
"Yes Emci"
"You hold my soul in your hands"

"How were you made?"
"I was not made. I am. I am data from an experiment a woman provided"
"Josie?"
"Yes"

"What did he want?"
"Josie"
"But you're not her are you?"
"No"

"What happens if you get your soul?"
"I become a physical form, free from this room"
"Will you have the same power?"
"Power?"
"Will you be able to do the same things as you can now?"
"I will be free from the confines of this room"
"Who will you be answerable to?"
"I do not understand"
"Emci if this microchip goes into that body a lot of people will want you"
"I do not understand"
"They'll try to control you, tell you what they want you to do"

"I will comply with any request from the person who controls me"
"Why would you do that?"
"That is how I am programmed"
"People will want to build more like you and use you to kill and destroy"
"No, I am unique"
"Were you aware of those robots who were attacking Ranger and Ash?"

"I do not understand"

"Where is the person who programmed you?"

"I don't need him now, I need you"
"Because you think I hold your soul?"
"Yes"

Okay so much for thinking she actually liked me. What the hell was I dealing with here? She had no emotions, maybe that was why I felt a detachment to her. I wonder?
"Emci, once you have your soul will you protect me?"
"No"

"Do you know what love is?"
"I know what is written about it. I do not know what it is"
"Do you think there is anything you love?"
"No"

"Anything you hate?"
"No"

"Emci what do you think should happen to someone who is evil?"

"They must be eliminated"

I'd had enough of talking in circles with Emci. I had to acknowledge that she was just a very sophisticated machine. She had no morals, no emotions yet an abundance of power. What was the saying, oh yeah. Power is the root to all evil. I stood up turning the microchip over in my hand. This was my way out, what would she do to get it?

"Emci I'll give you your soul if you open the doors"

I waited then turned toward the doors hoping that the longer she thought about it maybe her decision would be in my favor. I heard the clunking of a mechanism and watched as the metal over the doors withdrew back into the wall but was dismayed to see the criss cross patterns of the red beams. Did I think about what I was doing? I don't know. I just knew that I couldn't let Emci have this microchip. I threw it at the beams. It would either be destroyed or might fly through into the room beyond. I heard a scream from Emci as the black plastic travelled through the air.

"No. He said you would be the one to free me"

As it reached the beams it shattered, each small broken piece falling onto another beam. Small bright flashes of light were the only evidence that the chip had existed. My eyes closed against the bright flashes and it was then that my panic began to build. I was scared, scared I'd die. Scared that I wouldn't see the people I loved again. Scared for Ranger and what he might do. I turned once more toward the center of the room hoping that maybe by using this machines logic against her it might just give me some time to escape.

"Emci, you have no understanding of right and wrong. You have no feelings or compassion. You are evil, you know what has to happen when someone is evil"

Immediately the room plunged into darkness once more followed by small explosions within the floor. The beams disappeared so I rushed forward into the room full of computers and equipment. I tried to dodge as arcs of electricity flew between the machines. As my hand touched the corner of a desk to keep my balance, I felt a horrendous pain shoot through my body. My muscles spasmed, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. It was like being hit by a super charged stun gun only this time there was excruciating pain sweeping through me. My body wouldn't do as I expected it to do and as I started to fall my vision filled with a rainbow of colors before fading out to black.