The red flare sputtered in Hughes's hand, casting long, dancing shadows against the glass tanks.
The hallway stretched on for fifty yards. It was a cathedral of silence.
On either side, stacked floor to ceiling, were the cylinders. Inside each one, suspended in bioluminescent blue gel, floated a human brain.
Spinal cords dangled like jellyfish tentacles, fused into copper ports in the shelving.
Blub. Blub.
Air bubbles rose from the aeration pumps.
"Mother of Mary," O'Malley whispered, crossing himself with a bloody hand. "Are they... are they alive?"
Amelia walked up to the nearest tank. Her face was reflected in the glass, pale and horrified.
She wiped the condensation away.
UNIT 714. DONOR: UNKNOWN. STATUS: DREAMING.
"They aren't alive," Amelia said, her voice hollow. "And they aren't dead. They're processing."
She looked down the row. Hundreds of them.
"The Signal requires massive computational power to override the human amygdala," she explained. "Silicon chips overheat. But wetware... human tissue... it adapts. It learns."
She turned to Jason.
"Ezra is using their subconscious," she said. "He's harvesting their dreams of peace and broadcasting them as a weapon."
Jason stared at the brain in Unit 714. It pulsed rhythmically with light. Thump. Thump.
He felt a cold, hard knot of rage in his stomach. This wasn't efficiency. This was hell.
"He stripped them for parts," Jason said. "Like old cars."
He racked the slide on his pistol.
"We aren't just making a phone call," Jason said. "We're unplugging the whole damn system."
"The control deck is at the end of the hall," Hughes pointed. "But Jason... if we shut it down, the pacified people outside... they might not wake up. The shock could kill them."
"If we leave it on," Jason said, walking past the tanks, "they're already dead."
They reached the heavy blast door at the end of the corridor. It wasn't locked.
It slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
The Control Deck was a circular room. The walls were lined with massive screens, all displaying a map of the Western United States.
Green dots lit up the map. Thousands of them.
"The Network," Hughes breathed. "Every dot is a receiver. He's covering half the continent."
In the center of the room was a single terminal chair. It looked like a dentist's chair, surrounded by cables and monitors.
Suddenly, the screens flickered.
The map vanished.
A face appeared.
It was Ezra Prentice. Or rather, a digital avatar of him. He looked younger than Jason remembered. Cleaner. No wrinkles. No guilt.
His voice boomed from the surround-sound speakers.
"You are trespassing, Jason," Ezra said. He sounded bored. "I expected better manners."
"I'm here to return your property," Jason said, stepping up to the console. "Amelia isn't a guidance chip. And these people aren't batteries."
"They are safe," Ezra said. "They are fed. They are peaceful. Can you say the same for the people in Detroit? I saw the satellite feeds, son. Your wife is ruling over a starving city. Is that your morality?"
"My wife gives them a choice," Jason snapped. "You give them a cage."
"Choices lead to pain," Ezra sighed. "I am ending pain. Why do you fight the inevitable?"
"Because I like the noise," Jason said.
He turned to Amelia.
"Plug in," Jason ordered.
Amelia looked at the dentist's chair. At the thick black cable waiting on the headrest.
"He's in the code," she whispered, backing away. "He's everywhere. If I jack in, he'll swarm me. He'll try to delete my personality."
"He can't delete you," Jason grabbed her shoulders. "You're the pilot. He's just the autopilot. You have the hands. He just has the map."
"I'm scared, Jason," she admitted, trembling.
"Good," Jason said. "Fear keeps you awake. Now sit down and drive."
Amelia swallowed hard. She sat in the chair.
She grabbed the cable.
"Cover me," she said.
She jammed the jack into her skull port.
SNAP.
Her body went rigid. Her eyes rolled back, glowing pure white.
On the massive screens, Ezra's face distorted.
"Unauthorized Access," Ezra's voice glitched. "Firewall Breach. Deploying Countermeasures."
CLANK.
Panels opened in the ceiling.
Four automated turret guns dropped down. They swiveled with robotic precision.
"Contact!" Hemingway yelled, shoving Hughes behind a server rack.
BRRT. BRRT. BRRT.
The turrets opened fire.
Bullets chewed up the floor. Sparks flew as rounds hit the metal console.
"Kill the cameras!" Jason shouted, diving behind a pillar.
He leaned out and fired three shots.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
One bullet sparked off a turret's armored casing. Useless.
"They're shielded!" O'Malley roared, firing his rifle blindly over the top of a desk. "We need armor-piercing!"
"We don't have armor-piercing!" Jason yelled. "We have grit!"
He looked at Amelia.
She was convulsing in the chair. Her hands were gripping the armrests so hard the leather was tearing.
On the screen, the digital battle was raging. Ezra's face was fracturing into red code. Blue lines—Amelia's code—were cutting through him like knives.
"Warning," the computer voice intoned. "System overheat. Initiating coolant purge."
HISS.
Vents opened in the floor.
White gas flooded the room.
"Gas!" Hughes screamed, coughing. "It's Halon! It sucks the oxygen out to kill fires!"
"He's suffocating us!" Hemingway gagged, pulling his flight collar over his nose.
The air grew thin instantly. Jason's lungs burned. His vision started to swim.
The turrets kept firing, blind in the fog, relying on thermal sensors.
Zip. Zip. Zip.
A bullet clipped Jason's shoulder. He didn't feel it. He just felt the need for air.
"Amelia!" Jason choked out. "Finish it!"
In the chair, Amelia was drowning. Not in gas, but in data.
Ezra was screaming in her mind. SUBMIT. INTEGRATE. BECOME ONE.
She couldn't breathe. Her body was dying in the chair.
She focused on the one thing Ezra didn't have.
Rage.
She took all her pain—the crash, the cyborg surgery, the years in the dark—and she turned it into a weapon.
She didn't write code. She screamed.
On the screen, the blue lines exploded into a supernova.
Amelia's hand slammed onto the physical keyboard.
ENTER.
BZZZT.
The screens went black.
Then, bright green text appeared.
SYSTEM REBOOT.
ADMINISTRATOR: EARHART.
ACCESS: GRANTED.
The turrets powered down. The barrels drooped.
The gas vents slammed shut. The fans kicked into reverse, sucking the Halon out of the room.
Jason gasped, sucking in a lungful of stale air. It tasted like sweet nectar.
Amelia slumped forward in the chair. The cable popped out of her neck.
"Did we..." she wheezed, blood dripping from her nose. "Did we win?"
The screens flickered. The map returned.
But the dots weren't green anymore. They were yellow. Standby mode.
"The Signal is down," Hughes checked the console, coughing. "The Tower is just a radio now. A really big radio."
"Align the dish," Jason ordered, stumbling to his feet. He held his bleeding shoulder. "Detroit. The Babel Spire."
Hughes typed furiously. "Dish aligning... Locked. We have a signal path."
Jason picked up the headset. His hand was shaking.
He put it on.
"Detroit Control," Jason rasped. "This is Iron One. Calling for Sarah Rockefeller. Do you copy?"
Static.
Hiss. Pop.
Then, a click.
"Identify," a voice said. Cold. Suspicious.
"It's me, Sarah," Jason said. "It's Jason."
Silence on the line.
Then, the coldness broke.
"Jason?"
It was Sarah. She sounded exhausted. Her voice was thin, like she hadn't slept in weeks.
"You're alive," she whispered. "The signal... it was coming from the West. I thought the Barons killed you."
"I killed the Barons," Jason said. "We took the Tower. I can stop the pacification wave. I can come home."
"No," Sarah said sharply.
The warmth vanished from her voice. The Iron Queen returned.
"You can't come back," she said. "Not yet."
"What?" Jason gripped the console. "Sarah, we have the War Rig. We have the codes. Why?"
"Detroit is compromised," Sarah said fast. "Alta made a deal with the Texas Cartel. They breached the outer wall an hour ago. We're fighting street to street. If you come here, you'll just be walking into a kill box."
"I don't care about the Cartel!" Jason shouted. "I'm coming for you!"
"Listen to me!" Sarah's voice cracked. "The Cartel isn't the problem. It's the North."
Jason froze.
"What about the North?"
"Gates," Sarah said. "The robot army. He didn't attack New York. He turned around."
Jason felt the blood drain from his face.
"Where is he going, Sarah?"
"Chicago," she said. "He's marching on the meat factories. He's going for the Logic Core."
"Hitler holds Chicago," Jason said. "Gates will crush him."
"It's not about Hitler," Sarah said. "Gates sent a broadcast. Open channel. He's not asking for surrender."
"What is he asking for?"
"You," Sarah said. "He says his programming is complete. He needs the 'User' to input the final command. He's calling for 'Administrator Prentice'."
Jason looked at the map on the screen.
A massive red blight was moving south from Detroit toward Chicago.
Gates wasn't a warlord anymore. He was a god looking for his creator.
"If Gates gets the Chicago reactor," Hughes whispered, looking over Jason's shoulder. "He becomes self-sustaining. He won't need orders. He'll just expand until he eats the world."
Jason closed his eyes.
He couldn't go home. He couldn't save his wife.
The war wasn't in Detroit. It was in the slaughterhouse.
"I'm going to Chicago," Jason said into the mic.
"I know," Sarah said softly. "I'll hold Detroit. Just... don't die, Jason. Please."
"I love you," Jason said.
"Win," Sarah replied.
Click.
The line went dead.
Jason took off the headset. He looked at the crew.
O'Malley was bandaging Hemingway's arm. Amelia was wiping blood from her ears. Hughes was staring at the floor.
They were beaten. Bloody. Starving.
"We aren't going East," Jason said.
He pointed at the map. At the glowing red dot of Chicago.
"We're going to the slaughterhouse," Jason said. "We have a date with a robot."