SAR ASCENDANT / Book 1: Incursion of the INDEN

Chapters 13 to 14

Chapter 13

I can't hear. I can't see. I feel the weight of air heavy with chaos. I am pulled upright, sense a wall surrounding me. I reach out, touch the wall. I am in a hazy eggshell.

"It will fade, Sar. You've been concussed."

Allgo's voice.

I try to speak. A single word. It sounds like my ears are plugged up. Good. I am not deaf.

"Jax?"

"I am here."

"What happened?"

I begin to see light. It follows the movements of my eyes. A shadow dance.

"I made a decision," says Allgo.

He sounds as heavy as the air. "You said it was fifty-fifty. I remember."

"Yes. I was not born to be a killer. I had to act. I measured the SentryBot's responses. Humans react in different ways to change. The sky is orange. I calculated that the Bot would be simply curious, that we could then engage him. He was not curious. He was defensive. He acted like a human. That is very confusing to me. His output told me he was going to dehydrate you and Jax, vaporize me."

"You saved us," I point out.

Allgo clarifies. "Hazel saved us. She overrode my threshold."

My eggshell sparkles, fades. I can see clearly now. I am standing, feel stronger. Jax is still sitting, his back falls against my knees. Allgo hovers in the air. He is changed somehow. His head slowly spins, a lighthouse beacon, throws beams of soft light like one of Saturn's rings.

"Allgo? Are you sad?"

Silence. A calculation. "I am outside of myself. The SentryBot is dead. I killed him. I am a murderer."

Jax stands up. He reaches out to Allgo. The Bot returns the touch. Light, tentative. "You are a hero," says Jax.

"Thank-you."

"Jax is right," I add. "We all make choices. Sometimes, we make them no matter the odds. Because they are the only choices to be made."

"It's all very confusing," Allgo admits.

"Yeah. It's all quite fuzzy."

***

"I've killed our only means of knowing how to proceed," Allgo concludes. He pinches the ArchiSets closed. "The plans must be originals. Where we are does not exist."

"Wouldn't there be a spontaneous update? Most programs now have continuous download."

"Yes. You are correct, Sar. I myself am continually updating. But this corridor hub is, as the SentryBot told us, a restricted space. I believe it is above my need-to-know. I cannot access the data."

I look up, at the branching photon streams. There are six choices, and they all start at least fifty or sixty feet above our heads. Which one? "Perhaps we should exit through the ShimmerDoor, take our chances outside, on the staircase."

"That would be a bad choice. We are less than ten portals below Professor Hazel's lab. She will be expecting us. I cannot factor our odds outside of this data corridor. Even if we must transit all six streams, we will transit more quickly than climbing the stairs."

I consider. Hazel? Is she listening? "Ask her," I say.

"I cannot, Sar."

"Why not?"

"Professor Hazel knows where we are. If she has instructions beyond those in my program, she will communicate them. As she has done, for you."

Choices are easier to make when the odds are not in your favor. I get it. Allgo the PostuBot. The sad, nuance-factoring Bot. I look up at the data streams. I do not see any further portal platforms between our position and the branching out of the streams. They all flow through tight tubular spaces above. "How do we maneuver?"