January 27, 2138 (Morning)

Another day of functioning on very little sleep. Great. For once it would be nice if there weren't so many things to think about and try to sleep at the same time.

Last night Dad wanted to have a meeting with as many of us as he could. It kind of surprised me that he wanted me and Tommy in on it as well as the other adults. Mom was already aware of what he wanted to talk about and stayed outside to walk the perimeter as Sarah stayed in Tad's room. The rest of us sat in. Dad began to speak.

He said, "Guys, I have a lot of things that I need to talk to all of you about. Some of it should have been said a long time ago I imagine. Others need to be said now." Looking at Tommy and me he went on saying, "The reason you two are here is because you're the oldest and you need to know what I have to say. But it's also because you're the strongest willed of all of the kids. What I mean by that is that the things I'm going to tell you can't go beyond these walls. No matter what, none of our enemies can know of what I have to say to you right now. You can't allow yourselves to be captured with the information I'm going to tell you. Neither can I. What I'm saying is that you have to know that you can set aside your feelings for each other and do what must be done for the good of humanity. You're our kids and we love you. But in the overall scheme of things it isn't significant in comparison to stopping the biodreads and their dominance of this world. Because of this you can't allow yourselves to let how you feel about anyone else here keep you from stopping the information that I need to tell you from getting into the hands of our enemies. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

Tommy spoke up and said, "Yes, but if you're telling me that I might have to kill any one of you to keep the machines from digging in your head I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to kill my own father, or Amber or anyone else here."

Kim looked on in silence as did Karl.

I spoke up and said, "Dad, you can't ask me to hurt one of us. I can't. I'm not going to."

Dad replied, "I thought you would say that, which brings me to my point. If you stay in this room you're going to have to agree to kill yourself before you allow yourself to be captured with my information, and before you force anyone else in our group to have to make that choice for you if you get captured. If you love or care about the person next to you, then you won't leave them to have to make the choice of stopping you from being taken by the machines and the information that you will have. I won't be able to aim a laser at you and fire either Amber, and I know that you won't do it to me either. But if I'm forced into a situation where I'll have to go out fighting, kill myself and the information that I carry, or allow myself to be captured with it I'll take one of the first two choices. You all have to be willing to do the same or you need to get up now and leave."

I don't think any of us wanted to think about the heavy choices he presented to us, but I knew that what he had to say was important and he needed someone else to know for whatever reasons. Before I could speak up again, Kim spoke herself and said, "David, I think all of us would do as you ask. Knowing that we're sacrificing ourselves for any one of the rest of us would be enough. If not Karl's son wouldn't be in the situation he's in right now."

After looking around at all of us and us either stating our agreement to stay and hear him out or us nodding and waiting, Dad spoke again saying, "Fine. First I want to go over what I've been working on for a long time now." Dad pulled out the microcomp and displayed it to us. He sat it down and continued on saying, "This doesn't look like it, but it's a weapon. Actually, you could say that it's bit of a suicide weapon."

I couldn't remain silent at hearing this comment and thinking of what it might be for. So I blurted out a hasty, "What?"

"You heard me," Dad went on. "It's a functional computer that I've fitted with a dormant virus. The virus itself is simply a command that can't complete itself. The only problem with the device is that I need to attach something to it that will emit the virus when the time comes."

"What time?" Kim asked.

"The time it gets digitized," he replied.

All of us looked like we were in various states of confusion. And all of us seemed to come up with the same questions at the same time regarding what he was saying. How was he planning to get the machine digitized so that it could emit the virus in the first place and how would it work?

Dad continued saying, "The thing about digitization is that the device changes what it's digitizing into data. The information that's inside of the microcomp is already data. It won't need to change it in any way to absorb it. I believe that the digitization process won't affect the virus itself and it will remain as it is. As an unaltered virus that's opened and running at the time of digitization."

Kim spoke up again saying, "And you think that when the digitizer gets dumped and emptied it will dump your running viral program along with anything and everyone else it has with it into its storage space? What will that do and how is this supposed to happen? The dreads won't just walk upon a device left on the ground and choose to digitize it."

"Yes to your first question. To the second, hopefully it will either shut down their command and control source or shut down Overmind itself should it get taken that far. That would be the better goal to reach," Dad replied.

Kim asked again, "How do we get the device digitized David?"

"I don't know yet. I don't know how to fool them into digitizing the virus without getting them to digitize someone along with it," he replied.

Everyone sat in silence on that note. We were at a dead end with no solutions for this one, until Kim spoke up again saying, "I'll do it. Get it finished and I'll get them to take it."

I knew what she meant and said, "No, Kim. You can't do this. You've done too much for us to let you throw your life away like this."

Kim interrupted me and said, "It's my duty. It's what I do, Amber. Furthermore, I have less to lose if I die in the process. I have nobody left waiting for me anywhere. Everyone here does. I don't. It's just simple math and besides, it's my job."

Tommy chimed in with me and said, "No. We've lost enough already. We're not losing you too."

I added, "You have us."

"That's why I'll do this. For all of you and everyone else. For Carrie and Mark, and your mother, Tommy," she went on.

"No," Dad interrupted. "Either I'll do it or I'll find another way. It's my responsibility."

"Dad, no. There has to be some other way," I told Dad.

"There's not and that's why I'll take the virus to them," Kim said.

Tommy started to argue with Kim and Dad shouted, "Stop. All of you. Watching you all argue isn't the reason that I brought you here. Besides, we have more pressing matters to worry about. Besides the fiasco that happened two days ago, the thing that drew us all out of the zoo for it to happen to begin with was some kind of a dread hovercraft patrolling the waters along the bank. They're looking for us and must think that we're around here. We have to assume that they found Amber's blood in the church a mile or two from here and that they think that we couldn't travel with her that far. In one way they're right if they think that. Although she's better, Tad is worse. We're in the same situation as we were back then. Unless they figure that enough time has passed that either she didn't make it or that she would have healed enough by now to have fled the area. That they're too late to find anyone around here. Either way, we have to assume the worst and expect them to keep looking for us until they find us here."

Karl started speaking and said, "What are we going to do then? Fortify this place? There's not a lot more that we can do with it. And I'm not leaving my son here to the machines if they come. If he doesn't move from here, I won't either."

Tommy added, "Neither will I. So maybe you should give the virus to us in case…" and was cut off by the sound of a yelling voice. It was Sarah, yelling at the top of her lungs that Tad was awake.

All of us ran out of the lounge and went to him. He looked so fragile and pale as he looked around at us all like he was trying to find the one of us that he wanted to talk to. Then he looked at me and paused for a second. Then he grinned at me and asked, "We did it? We got rid of him?" I tried to get past all of my shock at him being awake again and that he was smiling, which he hadn't really done in all of the years since losing his mother. Stuck in time for that moment and starting to lose my ability to speak because of my emotions, Kim spoke up for me and said, "Yes, Tad. You both did it. Everything is fine now."

Kim left the room afterwards. I assumed that she went out to get Mom and take her place so that she could come to see Tad too. She came in a minute after Kimberly left, in tears like the rest of us. It was hard to talk to him at all. What with everyone wanting to talk to him at the same time and all of the emotional breakdown in the room. I felt the need to let the others talk to him while I stepped outside. I could see Kim walking the perimeter of the zoo like I thought she would be.

As she walked out of view I remembered my agreement. I looked to the sky and said, "God, I keep my word. I'll keep my end as soon as you expect me to. Thank you for hearing me. I'll hear you too, when you call me. Just like I promised you."