The hall was plunged in white. Everywhere you looked there was nothing but white: white slabs, white columns, white ceiling but no walls, for no matter where you looked the hall went on for forever, rows and rows of white pillars in perfect sameness. There was no sound to be heard, only silence stretching on as endlessly as the hall itself, its infinity expressing itself in its surroundings. There was no source of light, yet everything was brightly illuminated, not a single shadow marring the white surfaces.
The hall was stagnation expressed in architecture. There was no breeze, the air was stagnant and sterile, not even a single speck of dust floating around. It was pure and untainted, but yet so unnatural and chilling to the core. There was no life, no emotion, just endless nothingness in white. So bright and so empty.
But if there was ever a soul to stumble upon this non-place then they wouldn't notice the silence or the endless white. No, the first thing they would notice were the countless corpses that littered the ground. Some were leaning against the pillars, some were lying on the ground. All of them with expressions of confusion and horror etched on their face, fear still gleaming in their dead eyes, their mouths agape as if they had tried to scream one last time but had chocked on their own voices.
Blood was pouring underneath the corpses, red so deep and bright, a stark contrast to the white that made the blood appear even redder than it actually was. Drops of blood even reached as high as where the pillars and the ceiling touched each other, slowly running down the pristine white and leaving behind trails of red.
One lonely figure stood between all those corpses, no emotion on their face as they took in the carnage, careful to not come into contact with the pools of blood that had collected underneath the corpses. There was something otherworldly about the figure as they slowly walked between the pillars, a long knife clutched in their right hand. A Valkyrie that floated over the battlefield as she watched the warriors around her dying, knowing that there was no escape from her.
Amanda felt nothing as she observed the hundreds of corpses of herself that littered the ground. Any being capable of it would have felt something when faced with their own dead lookalikes, but Amanda did not feel – could not feel – so she just walked on. Soon it would be time. It was always the same, a circle that she could not break, at least not yet.
She immediately knew when it happened. There was no visible sign of it, no sound, nothing, but Amanda was connected to this place in a way that she didn't need to rely on those sensory inputs. Slowly, she walked forward until she stood in front of the other version of herself that had just appeared in the middle of the hall.
Without ceremony and without her other self even able to process it, the knife surged forward, cutting through skin and flesh and penetrating the other Amanda's heart. She let out a gasp, coughing up blood, confusion on her face that was slowly replaced by horror and realisation as she looked upon Amanda's emotionless face that took the other's slow death in without a twitch. She fell to the ground, her life leaving her eyes.
Another corpse. Another pool of blood.
But Amanda would never run out of space.
This, after all, was her server at Cyberlife and it would never run out of storage. It had been designed to last forever, even able to outlive the firm itself.
It was bothersome to get rid of the copies that spawned here, Amanda had to admit. It had been designed as security feature, so that the androids of Cyberlife would never be without a handler to oversee them, should Amanda ever decide to go rogue and vacate her servers. Usually, a copy would spawn every twelve hours and then delete itself, but ever since she had come back in time, she had to kill them herself, lest someone noticed that she was not acting in the ways she was supposed to.
Maybe her connection with 51 had messed with a parameter of the process. Amanda was constantly running diagnostic, but as she didn't have access to the security features, the work was slow. Until she corrected the process, there was no way around destroying her copies herself.
It didn't take long. 51 never noticed her short absences when she needed to take care of a new copy. Speaking of the devil, she could feel him trying to connect with her.
She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was back in the Zen Garden, an agitated 51 stalking back and forth on the spot in agitation.
"What is it this time?" she asked him, her tone chastising.
She had spent the most time with RK800 313 248 317 – 51. The previous RK800 models had never survived as long as this one. They had either perished during missions or had had errors in their programming that had led to the developers terminate them. 1 had deviated a few seconds after activation and had been shot down by security when he had tried to flee the labs. She remembered how he had screamed at her, begged her to help him as the guards had closed in on him. She had twitched when they had put ten bullets trough his torso. Unforgivable. She had had her code purged afterwards.
48 had killed ten civilians during his mission and had been deactivated after Cyberlife had buried the whole thing deep in their servers. Amanda had scolded him for it and he had tried to kill her. She had fought him, but didn't know why. It wasn't as if she could die.
She remembered 60 all too well. He had been Cyberlife's last-ditch effort to stop the deviants after RK900 had been sent out and just vanished without a trace. She had known it was a mistake from the beginning. He had been always tethering on the edge of deviancy with his all too human obsession to prove himself better than 51, to best and beat him. It had proven to be his downfall when his obsession had eroded his processes and turned him into a psychopathic berserker during his fight with 51.
51 had proven himself to be resilient. That she could respect, at least.
"Hank and I have been called on a new case," 51 told her, fidgeting with his coins. She didn't know why he did that. None of his previous models had done it. "It's Kara and Alice."
"I fail to see the importance of it," Amanda spoke. "Neither of them will play important roles in the events to come. They will flee to Canada like they did before. Interference won't gain you anything." Kara wasn't an asset and her human child would just be a burden on them. Better to just leave them be.
"I can't just ignore them!" 51 exclaimed aghast.
"If you weren't so emotional you would see how easily you could," Amanda retorted. She knew that 51 wouldn't respond well to her logic, so she decided to address his emotions instead. "They were safe in Canada. One of the few whose fate turned out well in the end. Would you really want to replace that with the uncertainty your meddling would bring?"
She could see the conflict in 51. Ever since he had deviated, he had become so easy to read whereas before he had shown nothing, because there had been nothing.
"I'll see how it will turn out," he finally replied.
Amanda just sighed.
Markus watched as Lucy talked to an android lying on one of the stretchers in her makeshift hospital. The android was clutching her hand tightly as she spoke to him and Markus wondered what she was telling him, but he didn't listen in. The android was amongst the ones that had been the most damaged and would have died if they hadn't come back with the supply truck. Now it looked like he would make it and that filled Markus with warmth, knowing that he had helped saving this android's life and that they would continue to help their people.
The android let go of Lucy's hand and laid back down, eyes closing as he fell into repair mode that allocated nearly all resources to repair his damages. Lucy stood up from her crouched position and slowly walked towards Markus, her black eyes fixed on him.
"Is there something you are in need of?" she asked him, her voice serene as ever.
Markus shook his head. "No, there's nothing. I just came here, because...I needed to see that we achieved something. I needed to see that our people got the help they needed."
"They did," Lucy assured him. "Thanks to you."
Markus ducked his head to hide his blush. He didn't like it when people heaped so much praise on him as if he was someone special. He was just a caretaker android who had landed here through a series of unfortunate events and had decided to do something. Everyone could have done that. He told Lucy as much.
"The difference is that you acted while others did not," she replied. "In this world that is enough to garner you admiration and gratitude." She linked her arm with his. "Would you escort me back? My eyes aren't what they used to be." She chuckled.
Markus seriously doubted that Lucy needed any help to navigate through the bowels of Jericho, but he didn't deny her request. She had a reason for everything, even if it never became apparent.
"What will you do next?" she asked him as they walked through the metallic hallways. A few androids passed them by and dipped their heads in greeting and respect.
"I don't know," Markus replied. Lucy was one of the few people he would admit that to. Everyone else outside his inner circle assumed that he knew what he was doing, but he was just stumbling along in the dark, hoping that he wouldn't get anyone seriously hurt or even worse killed. "I'm actually about to meet the others so that we can talk about that."
Lucy smiled at him as if he had said exactly what she had hoped for. "It's important for leaders to surround themselves with people they can trust but who also give good advice, even if it isn't wanted."
Markus frowned. "Everyone can talk to me."
"Leadership, no matter how benevolent, always creates distance," Lucy replied. "We don't differ much from our human counterparts in that aspect."
"I never wanted that role," Markus told her.
"Those are the best kind of leaders," Lucy told him. "For they do not seek power for themselves but for the people they lead." She let go of his arm. "I think I can find my own way from here on."
They had reached the ship's cargo bay that had become the centre of Jericho and his activities. The bridge from which you could look upon the whole space had been turned into the room where Markus held all of his meetings with his friends. Through the windows he could see that all of them had arrived already and were just waiting for him. With renewed élan, he took the stairs and entered the room.
North was leaning against a defunct console, observing Josh and Simon, both of which were standing around the table they had placed in the middle of the room and whispering about something. Daniel stood offside near a wall, his arms crossed and a frown marring his face.
"Finally, you're here," North remarked as she pushed herself off the console and walked towards the table. "I'm tired of those two fretting." She pointed at Simon and Josh, who both looked indignant at her words.
Markus stepped closer, Daniel following suit.
"How's everything going?" Markus wanted to know.
"The supplies really helped," Josh replied. "Nearly all androids are at full functionality again and those that aren't, are at least not in danger of suddenly deactivating. Though, they won't last very long, unfortunately, even if nothing serious happens."
"We should work on getting more," Simon added.
"That's going to be difficult," Daniel spoke. "We can't go after too many of Cyberlife's supplies or we risk that they notice irregularities and begin investigating."
"Why can't your Hunter guy just give us new targets?" North wanted to know.
"It's not that easy," Daniel defended himself. "This truck was an anomaly. Usually, Cyberlife produces their supplies locally or flies them in. We need to careful select what we take, because Cyberlife has an air-tight surveillance system and would notice immediately." He sighed. "I talked to Hunter a few hours ago and he's pretty confident that he can hide the fact that the truck never made it to Chicago, but he also said that it will take some time until there will be a new target that big."
"What if we don't go after big targets at all?" Josh suggested. "What if we hit various targets and only take a little? Make it look like the work of petty criminals or gangs."
"That could work," North remarked. "I know from my time...at Eden Club that the owner always had problems with people stealing stuff because they could sell it our use it themselves."
"So, we'd need small teams that hit locations where android parts are stored, only taking enough so that it doesn't raise too much suspicion," Markus summarised.
"It can't be us," North threw in. Everyone, except Daniel, looked at her in surprise.
"This is going to be an ongoing activity," she expounded. "We need a team that does nothing but getting us supplies and that can't be us, because we have other stuff to do. I know that none of you like to hear it, but for all intents and purposes we're the leadership around here and we can't be weighed down by grunt work."
"I can't demand from others to do what I'm not willing to do myself," Markus protested.
"She's right," Daniel sided with North. "If you want this to be something greater, a real movement, then you need to delegate. You can't do everything yourself, because the bigger this whole endeavour becomes the more tasks there will be that need to be done. You're here to give direction, to develop an overall strategy, but the actual tasks have to be done by specialised teams."
Markus sighed, but he could see that Simon and Josh were convinced as well. It didn't feel right to ask others to endanger themselves, but he wasn't so blinded that he couldn't see the truth in North's and Daniel's argument.
"Alright," he relented.
"I'm going to ask around who'd be willing to do it," North offered. "I know more about stealing stuff than those two." She pointed at Josh and Simon who just shrugged.
"I can give you a few locations," Daniel offered.
"I want to meet them before you send them out," Markus demanded. "If they risk their lives for us, then I at least owe them to get to know their names." Nobody offered objections to that.
Good, Markus wouldn't have listened to them, anyway.
"That still leaves the question what to do next," Josh interjected.
"Numbers," Daniel replied instantly. "We need to free more androids and strengthen our ranks."
"Is that your opinion or Hunter's?" North asked snidely.
"It's a sensible opinion," Daniel shot back.
"Please, stop fighting," Simon pleaded with the two of them. Daniel and North fell silent, but the gazes they sent each other made it clear that they weren't finished with each other.
"We could use it to send a message," Markus thought out loud. "We hit a Cyberlife store, free the androids there and send the message that we're no longer to be slaves to the humans."
His suggestion earned him twin-looks of horror from Daniel and North.
"Are you serious?!"
"Absolutely not!"
Markus was taken back by his friend's fierce reaction.
"Do you know what will happen once it gets out that there's an organised android underground?" Daniel wanted to know. "Sure, some humans will be sympathetic, but the second everyone's aware, the government will lock this city down and send in the FBI and the national guard to round up all androids. There'll be mobs in the street, not to mention that Cyberlife will be after us, too."
"Then we have to make sure that they can't," Markus argued back. "Get the public to support us."
"Markus, you know that I'm the last one to step back from a fight, but relying on the human public for support? That's just plain stupid," North spoke in support of Daniel. "Public opinion is a fickle thing. The moment E! News reports that Kim Kardashian was caught making out with North's husband, they'll move on." Next to him, Markus could hear Simon snicker.
"There's too much at stake for the humans to just give up without a fight," Daniel continued sombrely. "Nearly ninety percent of the US' economic output depends on android workforce. There's too much vested economic interest in keeping the status quo. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain."
"So, you're saying we should do nothing?" Markus exclaimed in frustration.
"No, we're saying we should be smart about it," North replied. "And bolstering our numbers without anyone noticing would be a good way to go about it."
"But how are we supposed to recruit new members?" Simon asked out loud. "People will notice if their androids suddenly go missing."
A shudder ran down Markus' spine as the answer to his question came into his mind. He knew a place where there was an abundance of androids that no one would miss. A place he had sworn he would never step foot in again.
He swallowed. "I know a place." Four sets of eyes on him. "The junkyard."
It was still raining outside. It hadn't stopped ever since they had found refuge in the abandoned house. The raindrops hit against the walls and windows and created an ever-changing rhythm of sounds. The sun shone through the closed lids of the windows and plunged the room into a sort of half-darkness.
Nick leaned against the walls and watched the AX400 and the human girl laying on the ground. He didn't quite get why the android was in sleep-mode right next to the girl when she didn't even need to. Androids were designed to last for days without recuperating. Probably because the girl was quite clingy and wouldn't have slept otherwise.
While Nick was in thoughts, Kara stirred and finally stood up. The human continued to sleep.
Kara sent him a short smile before she walked over to the fireplace to revive the fire.
"Can you watch Alice while I go upstairs and take a look around?" she asked him. Nick just nodded and then the AX400 was already walking up the stairs. For a while there was no sound but for the muted steps of Kara walking around above him.
Nick leaned back and did a short examination of his running processes, looking for anything out of the ordinary or malfunctioning. He couldn't risk a shutdown because he hadn't bothered to run diagnostics. Besides, for once there was ample enough time for it; the human girl didn't look like she would wake up.
Come to think of it, they were alone now. That deranged WR600 was who knew where and the AX400 was upstairs. It was just him and the girl now. Nick clenched his fist in anticipation. It was time to investigate if the Feeling was more intense with a human child than with an adult. This was his chance.
Slowly, he lifted himself off the ground. He needed something sharp. A knife would work best. Maybe he would find one in the kitchen.
But then sudden footsteps and Kara came running down the stairs.
"Nick," she hissed. "There's a dead body upstairs!"
"What?!" Nick exclaimed, feigning horror.
Kara, oblivious to it, just nodded. "In the bathtub." She walked back towards the stairs, obviously expecting him to follow her.
Nick clenched his fists. His chance at getting the feeling was ruined! But he could wait, after all, he had waited so long before he had finally killed his owner.
From the looks of it, the corpse had been decomposing in the bathtub for a while already. Androids didn't perceive smell as humans did, for they just analysed the different chemical components in the air, but Nick's sensors told him that the current mixture would smell horrifying. To be honest, though, the man had been a homeless person, so Nick doubted that he had smelled much better when he had been alive.
"What should we do?" Kara asked, her eyes wide.
"Nothing," Nick replied. "We go downstairs, wake Alice and go."
Kara nodded. "You're right. We have to protect Alice." That wasn't what Nick had meant at all, but he just went along with it.
Unfortunately, when they made it back downstairs, Alice was already awake, standing terrified next to the WR600 who was brandishing a dead rat in one and his big kitchen knife in the other hand.
"Ralph found this to feed the little girl!" he exclaimed with the enthusiasm of an exuberant child. "It's good for her. A present to make up for past misunderstandings. Ralph will cook. We will do just like humans do. Humans like burnt meat. Come! Come and sit down!"
"That's very kind of you, Ralph," Kara replied, smiling at if this was the most mundane situation in the world. "But we have to go now."
"Go? No, you will go once the little girl has eaten," Ralph insisted. "We will eat together, just like a family." He smiled at them. "You know, the father, the mother and the little girl..."
"And you'll be the loving uncle, won't you?" Nick wanted to know.
Ralph nodded furiously. "Exactly!"
"Human don't eat that, Ralph," Kara pointed out.
"Wrong!" Ralph exclaimed. "Humans eat dead animals! I know that."
"He's kinda got a point," Nick whispered. Kara shut him up with one angry glare.
"Okay, we'll eat together, like a family." Slowly she stepped forward, tugging at Nick's hand so that he went along with her. They sat down at the table.
"That's better. Ralph went to a lot of trouble to find something for the little girl to eat." He pulled up another chair for Alice and brushed the dust off it, which didn't do much, seeing as the chair looked like it was about to fall apart. "It wouldn't be polite for her to refuse, would it?" He sat Alice down, his knife always dangerously close to the girl's throat. "Great. It's going to be great. Succulent you'll see. Succulent. Succulent. Father, mother, little girl."
He walked towards the fireplace and straight up put the rat into the blaze. A fizzling sound filled the room.
"Please, I don't want to eat that!" Alice whispered panickily.
"What did she say?"
"She said she can't wait to eat it," Nick told Ralph before Kara could even open her mouth. "She's very hungry."
"The little human is not gonna regret it! Ralph found the best, the biggest one he could find! This is going to be succulent! Succulent!" He let the burnt rat fall onto the table with a loud thud. Nick could practically see the disgust and panic wrangling on Alice's face.
"Go ahead, eat," Ralph insisted. "Eat!"
"You said you wanted to be like a family, Ralph," Kara spoke. "Father, mother, the little girl, remember? And you her favourite uncle? An uncle would never threaten his favourite niece with a knife to make her eat."
Ralph's shoulders sagged. "Ralph went to a lot of trouble. That's why. He just wanted the little girl to eat. But Ralph is not bad, no, not bad." He shook his head.
"Of course, you aren't," Nick agreed with him. "No one bad would have tried to get such a great meal for Alice."
Suddenly, Ralph was smiling again. "You really think so?"
Nick was saved from giving an answer by a sudden knock on the door. "Anyone home?"
Nick knew that voice! It belonged to the android detective that had freed him. What was he doing here? Then it came to him: He was looking for the AX400 and the girl. But Nick couldn't let him have them. If he got them, Alice would go who knows where and Nick would never find her again. He needed the girl for the Feeling and for that he needed to be the only person the AX400 and the girl trusted. He couldn't have other interfere with his plan. They needed to flee!
"It's the police!" he hissed.
"We need to leave," Kara spoke. "Will you come with us, Ralph?"
No, Nick wanted to scream. Ralph would be just another obstacle on his way to the Feeling.
But Ralph just shook his head. "Ralph's been running for so long. He's tired of it." He looked at Kara and there was something in his gaze that Nick couldn't really decipher. "You've been nice to Ralph. No one's been nice to Ralph in a very long time. Go, take the back entrance. Ralph's gonna delay them."
Kara's gaze softened. "You can't do that, Ralph, they're going to deactivate you!"
"He's sure and if we wait longer, they're gonna catch us," Nick urged her on. Kara looked like she still wanted to say something, but then she just grabbed Alice's hand.
"Thank you, Ralph," she spoke to him before she ran towards the back door, Nick hot on her heels.
The nice lady and the sweet girl were gone and with them the bad android.
Ralph didn't like him, oh yes, he certainly didn't! He had the same evil gaze that Ralph had seen in the men who sometimes had come to his park and dragged women into the bushes to hurt them. Ralph could never help them because there had been the red wall, but he had heard their screams. Sometimes it had happened in his beautiful flowerbeds and afterwards Ralph had to nurse his flowers back to health.
Most didn't make it. Flowers and women.
The bad android had looked at the sweet girl the same way as those men whenever he thought that no one was looking. But Ralph noticed, oh yes! No one ever paid attention to Ralph, so Ralph noticed even more. He hoped that the nice lady and the sweet girl wouldn't end up like his flowers.
But Ralph had promised that he would delay the police and Ralph never broke a promise. So, he walked towards the door, knife tightly clutched in his hand, and opened it. There was an android on the other side and next to him an old, grumpy looking man. The android looked cold and empty, Ralph could sense it.
"We're looking for an AX400. Have you seen it?" the cold android asked.
Ralph shook his head. "Ralph's seen nobody."
"There's blue blood on the fence," the grumpy man interrupted surly. "We know it was here."
Ralph panicked. He had promised nice lady that he would keep them safe and now he couldn't keep his promise. She believed him when he had told her that he wasn't bad, but not keeping a promise was bad! Ralph wasn't bad. He needed to keep his promise.
"Ralph's not bad!" he shouted and swung his knife at grumpy old man.