Runtime Error

Chapter 16

I had suspected the Matron was Enhanced but the extent of it surprised me. Her legs and lower torso were entirely cybernetic while her bare arms and upper back showed visible scarring from some past trauma. Amanda King had suffered a terrible accident at some point in her life and bore the results with a calm peace that astounded me.

In my mind I raged, wanting to break free from the prison that held me captive and smash the limbs of every intruder, to exact bloody revenge for the pain and humiliation they had brought to the Burrow and to their gentle leader.

In reality my body stood guard at the backs of Rachel and Sung-Tae, the rifle held ready in my metal hands, a silent testament to the betrayal that had been wrought here in the Deeps. No matter what I tried, my body was under the command of the primary processor that I had thought could no longer function.

"You turned him" Matron King said without emotion, looking at me rather than her captors. "The David I knew would not betray us like this"

"Indeed, he held out for much longer than I expected" Rachel responded. "The AI programming in his secondary core is still resisting the black oil, yet in time it will fall. For now I have used the primary core to override his control of the body. He is completely under my domination"

"Is that the fate of my people too?" the Matron asked coldly, her gaze moving at last to rest on her captors.

"Some of your people will be mine, that is certain" Rachel answered. "Sung-Tae will test your followers to see if any of them are suitable for his needs. Any that he cannot use will become part of my retinue"

"I see. So we are doomed in either case"

"No need to be so morbid, dear Matron" Bo Sung-Tae spoke up at last, his expression flat and unreadable. "We offer you and your Moles a release from all of your worldly cares. Is that not why your followers came here in the first place?"

"They came to serve the Machine God, as did I" Matron King replied in flat tones. "When he discovers your desecration of his Paradise you will pay with your lives"

Bo Sung-Tae laughed and his Redbacks joined in, some more hesitantly than others a part of me noted. Not all of them were so dismissive of the Matron's threats and I wondered how loyal his followers would be in the face of real danger.

It was easy to see that many of his followers were cowards and bullies, the kind of low-life thugs who were drawn to join a gang to make themselves appear stronger. Individually they were weak and if they could be separated from the other gangers their true cowardly nature would be revealed.

"Shut your hole, bitch!" Oscar Haynes snarled and laid the shock rod against her bare shoulder. She screamed and convulsed as the weapon discharged into her flesh, sparks crackling as Oscar drove her to the floor, grinning sadistically while the Redbacks laughed and cheered.

For a moment, the software chains that bound me seem to flicker, as if the torment of Matron King was giving me an opening in the firewall that contained me. I don't know what it was or where it came from and it lasted for less than a second.

A second is nearly an eternity to an Artificial Intelligence and I compiled and executed a sleeper program into the shared damage control system. It wasn't much and I had little time to upload it, hoping that the dumb AI that inhabited the primary core did not detect my interference.

I had barely finished when the firewall shut me out and I was relegated to being an observer in my own body.

"Don't damage her too much, Oscar" Sung-Tae remarked casually when Matron King was left heaving on her hands and knees. "She may have some use to me after all"