The hacker knew that they were close - though he wasn't sure where they were, geographically - when the only thing he'd seen outside for the past several minutes was tall trees and thick brush. He remembered the terror of using that thick foliage as cover from Syndicate guards, and though he was surrounded by people, the recollection made him feel alone.
The tightness in his chest, sinking in his stomach, and prickling of his skin weren't unfamiliar. For a long time it had been him and Mila against a society that had thrown them away. He'd believed that he was past all of that, in his life as a software engineer. He'd become complacent, let himself feel safe for far too long… How foolish he had been.
The biomedical facility was a flat expanse that loomed low and wide in the distance, relative to the tall trees that surrounded the road leading toward it. The building blended into its surroundings well, isolated and hidden from the public eye. If he'd never seen it before now, Crypto could easily have assumed that it was an abandoned warehouse- or failed to notice it entirely.
It felt to him like they'd been driving for ages since the distant building came into view, and they weren't making much progress at getting closer to it. From far away, one couldn't see how enormous the facility really was. That, combined with the repeating patterns of the cliffs and woodlands surrounding them, played a trick on the mind. It was difficult to orient oneself relative to their surroundings in such an environment.
"Natalie," Crypto muttered, "I want you to stay outside once we get there."
She set down her notebook - was that hers, or was it Torc's that she was reading? - and looked at him with an indignant expression. "I know how to take care of myself, Crypto! You need to stop trying to protect me."
"Even without the danger, what they do at this facility-" The hacker shook his head. "...no one should have to see."
"Qu'est ce que tu veux dire? I've been here before. It is- oh…"
She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to her lips, stifling a giggle. "You're afraid of the clones, aren't you? They're not zombies, you know. In fact, we came from that facility!"
Crypto buried his face in his hands and sighed. That wasn't something he wanted to be reminded of. The engineer observed his reaction and copied his gesture. Why had she said that? She'd meant to reassure him, but in hindsight, her words had come across more as an insult. Another stupid mistake…
"No matter how many times they watch you die and bring you back, nothing changes. Believe me- I know."
Revenant glanced over his shoulder at the hacker. Crypto didn't find that particularly reassuring, either. There was a way out of this nightmare of government corruption- there had to be.
Cade pulled up along the side of the building, outside a service entrance. He jumped out of the vehicle and slammed the door; Wattson flinched at the sound. While the enforcer began unpacking and readying weapons from his arsenal, Augustin climbed into the driver's seat.
"I'll stay here– make sure we're ready to go in a hurry, once we have what we need."
"Yeah, not a bad idea," Cade muttered distractedly. The others joined him on the gravel next to the warehouse wall. The air was calm, temperate with a slight breeze… the relative peace of their surroundings contrasted heavily with what was done at this place, and why they were here now. The crunch of the gravel under their boots, followed by the clicks and metallic scraping of Cade handing out rifles, amplified a sense of tension. It felt like time was being slowed around them, as if by a stasis field– at any moment, that field could snap. They would be overwhelmed. They would run out of time.
The enforcer zipped a duffel bag closed and slung it over his shoulder. With his augmentation, he handled the extra weight with no apparent effort. He hauled a second bag out of the minibus and held it out to Revenant.
"Look," he said gruffly. "I… appreciate you sticking around, helping out with this– even if simulacrums are one of those things I wish we could un-invent…"
Like weapons of mass destruction– another, ever more creative way to kill each other in wars: a soldier with the instinct of a human and the precision of a machine; one with no need for rest or sustenance. The rest of the thought went unspoken– but the assassin understood.
"You know, skin-suit– I don't disagree."
Revenant raised one clawed hand and took the gear bag. The tension between the two of them was palpable.
"Yeah…" Cade made an awkward gesture of rubbing the back of his neck. "Defense Force should've listened to Milutin. As many body parts as I've had to get replaced, I'm always afraid of getting hacked. The Syndicate's got a whole building full of people dedicated to figuring out how to do it, and I don't know how long I can keep ahead of them."
He looked up at the sky and groaned. "I don't think about it all the time, right? But the fear never really leaves. It's always there, in the background– like your 'virus'... I don't like you, Revenant. I hate your kind for the precedent you set. You turn human society against people like me. But– no one should have to live with this shit, man. Being controlled by another person? Even a sim doesn't deserve that."
"For someone with an expiration date," Revenant growled, "you're wasting a lot of time talking."
The assassin slung the duffel over his shoulder and walked to the door. He glared impatiently at Crypto, who was in the process of bypassing the electronic lock– something, Revenant thought, that should have been done by now.
Beep–beep– Click.
Finally, the door unlocked. The simulacrum pushed it open. He took one step inside– and briefly paused, turning to look at Cade.
"Thank you," he grumbled in a harsh tone, "for erasing the virus." Before the others had a chance to process what he'd said, the assassin had disappeared through the doorway.
"I didn't erase it, Revenant; I only inhibited your awareness of it!" Torc called after him. Crypto caught the door before it could slam shut– Wattson stepped up beside him.
"I bet you talked all the time when you had an 'expiration date,'" Cade muttered, with a quick glance at Torc. He made his way past Crypto and through the doorway before the scientist had a chance to answer.
"We don't have the means to erase it," Torc was mumbling under his breath as he followed. "Nowhere near. What I did is a temporary solution. But maybe I could– hmmm. With enough time, I– ah what is it?"
He quickly paused his eccentric behavior when Wattson tapped him on the shoulder, and regarded her with a friendly smile. One finger pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, after which the scientist clasped his hands behind his back.
"Pardon, Mister– Doctor Torc; I– I hope it isn't overstepping of me to ask– but… we are talking about a human being, are we not? A 'virus,' that the two of you want to erase… Is that really the only solution?" She frowned. "With the advances in syncording technology these days, there must be a way to– to separate them, or…"
The engineer's voice trailed off. Torc looked up at the sky, one hand raised thoughtfully to his chin.
"It's possible, in theory– but it's never been attempted. There would be risks, technical challenges… Most scientists in this field, if we were to talk about a sentient, artificially intelligent program causing issues for a human, would erase it without question. I ask you: why should humankind always have such a privilege over AI? Particularly in Revenant's case; we know that the original human entity is– not a kind person. No; I believe that classing it as a virus is the right thing to do."
He gave a single firm nod. Wattson hesitated, taking the time to think carefully about her words before replying: "I… understand. Artificial neural networks evolved too soon and too quickly… We - humans - weren't ready. Maybe– maybe we still aren't…"
She sighed. Torc waited patiently for her to continue.
"But– I think we need to bridge that gap by treating machines and AI better, not by treating humans worse. Don't you agree?"
"That is easy to say, as a theory, when you are human," the scientist answered in a calm, level voice. "In practice, the situation isn't so simple."
"Natalie, Torc– we need to go."
Crypto held the door open with one hand while gesturing with his other for emphasis.
"Oh– Of course," said the engineer. She giggled softly, which echoed in the concrete corridor. "Thank you, Crypto, for keeping us grounded. Get it? Grounded?"
"Resistance is futile," Torc called after her, "if less than one ohm!"
Wattson turned toward him with a raised eyebrow. He grinned.
"We will stand against injustice until it mega-hertz," she replied, grinning in turn. Behind them, Crypto smiled and shook his head. He stepped further inside the gray hallway– the door closed and locked with a soft click.
When he and Revenant had last infiltrated this building, they'd entered through the hangar at which the drop ships docked. This time, they were just inside a service entrance on an adjacent side of the facility. The clones, with their likeness to - and simultaneous disconnection from - his sense of identity, weren't immediately within line of sight. Crypto was grateful for that; he wasn't eager to see his disconcerting, younger-looking future self for a second time.
Their footsteps echoed in the smooth concrete corridor. Revenant was at the front of the group, leading the way with Cade at his heels. The two of them worked together flawlessly, checking every recessed area for potential threats. None of the hostility that they harbored toward each other showed– not in this moment. Wattson and Torc were behind them, having a hushed but spirited conversation about something technical. Neither the feeling of isolation given off by the industrial expanse nor the hopelessness of their predicament could shatter their excitement toward the world around them. At the back of the line, Crypto kept a watchful eye on the direction they'd come from, in case they were being followed.
He thought about Mila as they walked– about the comfortable life they'd had before they stumbled upon that algorithm. The little things that had frustrated him before - his chair refusing to stay at the right height, his sister bringing home a cat without his permission, the refrigerator running loudly while he was trying to work - were all things that he missed now.
He could save Mila. He might even succeed in overthrowing the Syndicate– but he'd never get that life back. Wattson, with her perpetual enthusiasm and her fascination with technology, reminded the hacker so much of Mila sometimes– of the life he'd been robbed of. It was the life of a man who'd died when the agents attacked their home, Crypto thought bitterly as he glanced over Revenant. He was a mass-produced clone, a copy of a copy, locked in battle with the source of the society which had provided him with that illusion of comfort.
The simulacrum was right, he realized, about the limited capacity of the mind to feel fear. Something at his core had changed. He was no longer afraid– all he felt was cold anger at what the government and their corporate network had taken from him, and what they'd forced him to become.
The concrete service corridor terminated at a heavy steel door, which led to a warmer, less imposing office walkway with brown carpet, bland wallpaper, and wooden end tables. Alan Rinzler's office, where the hacker had found the information about the Harvester, was somewhere to their right– at least, Crypto was pretty sure. Everything in this place was too uniform… It was like a maze; he found it difficult to orient himself relative to his surroundings. Fortunately, Revenant knew which direction they needed to go.
They headed toward an intersection with another hallway, a stairwell sectioned off to their right– the assassin froze in place before entering line of sight from the adjacent path.
"Camera systems have been powered down," he informed the others in a low tone. One hand gestured at the security device mounted to the ceiling above the junction. It was dark and still; his environmental sensors detected no current in the wires attached to it.
"You were right, then," Cade responded, with a quick nod to Torc. "They figured nobody'd be dumb enough to come back here."
"Or they already know where we are– and we're walking into a trap," said Crypto.
Without allowing the others time to answer, Revenant kept moving. The hacker's drone whirred quietly behind him, running a scan to confirm his observation. They both knew that it was a real possibility– the Syndicate had been one step ahead of them since they'd broken out of the arena. If they were headed for a trap, they'd run out of alternatives.
Revenant was indifferent to the idea that this mission would fail, and the allies who'd helped him get this far would vanish from existence. Human life was such a weak, frail thing… He had been the driving force that ended thousands. What did a few more matter to him? The suffering of others marked a rare moment in which he was an equal– not a tool or an appliance to be used and discarded.
Yet– for once, he also had the vague sense that he shouldn't feel indifferent. Maybe, just maybe, this team of skin-suits should matter to him. He owed some of them, after all; they had proven themselves useful, and their goals aligned with his own– for now, until those goals changed. Humans would always wrong him eventually.
He should care about their fates, he thought– but he didn't. It wasn't something that the assassin knew how to do.