Dead Science: A Zombie Anthology Page 17

  I used to sit out there in the courtyard and write my notes. It's where I came up with the code for my greatest software creation. The ersatz sunlight generated on the vapor screen high above head, coupled with the heat rods hidden in the upper ledges, means it is summer all year round. Perfect for thinking. Perfect for creating.

  Right now, a family of three is running across the courtyard to the door of the West Tower. I see it's Craig Richardson, his wife and daughter from 55D. Richardson has a rifle; he cocks it. A Reclamation, something ungodly fast and once human, races after them. Richardson turns and fires, sending a bullet through the creature's head. It drops and its velocity causes it to slide headfirst into the fountain, a mixture of blood and brain spitting up the base. It continues to twitch.

  I squeeze my fists tight and say a prayer for them; I like the Richardsons, I know them well. They hit the door and key in their passcode, but it doesn't open. They start pounding on it, waving frantically at the omniEye set in the wall next to it. Still nothing happens. Mandy, the daughter, my son's former girlfriend---a sweet girl blossoming into an incredibly beautiful woman---is crying hysterically. She is covered in blood and I realize that the fourth member of their family, her baby brother David, is not with them. Faintly, I can hear Danielle, Richardson's wife, screaming about a key. But there is no backup key for the West Tower door. There are no backup keys for any of the doors. Everyone signed that away when they accepted living here. No methods for the homeless, penniless dregs to get in. Our Manhattan Castle---safe, secure, walled off from the rest of the city.

  Danielle kicks the door; Mandy cries hysterically as she looks over her shoulder toward the fountain; Richardson aims his rifle at the door but doesn't pull the trigger. He knows it will be a waste of ammo; all the doors are blast proof. Can I maneuver my way through the corridors and get down there to let them in before---

  No. Four Reclamations explode out from nearby windows, two stories up, shards of glass firing out everywhere. The creatures land hard and are instantly running full speed, their milk-white eyes focused with the rage of Lyssa. They are hunters, their muscles newly repaired and improved, their insides taut and youthful despite their outward decay. I have yet to see anyone outrun them. I know what is coming, but still I watch and hope a miracle will happen.

  Richardson screams, terrified. He fires the gun. The bullet misses the Reclamation leaping for him and punches through his teenage daughter's face. It explodes the hinge of her jaw and her mouth falls open like a broken suitcase, spilling her tongue out across her neck. She falls to the ground, her hands grasping air. One of the undead is on her instantly, ripping through her flesh. Danielle freezes, is tackled by two creatures at once, hit so hard her legs fly parallel to the ground as she rams into the door. A howling fury of undead fingernails, teeth, and gouging fingers tear at her. The creatures swarm like nanobots on a cancer, engulf this family, shred them to ribbons. Scraps of flesh sail through the air. The gun goes off again, strikes the bricks near my window and I flinch. Before I can recover I see Richardson's head flung up against the North Tower wall. It connects with a forceful splat and the eyes burst from their sockets. Mandy's lower leg is arced into the fountain, a kite tail of meaty gristle trailing behind it. Her intestines are whipped into the koi pond. Danielle simply erupts in a mist of blood, as if C4 had been packed in her spine. These warrior undead shred her with jet-engine speed. It---

  It's over in four seconds and the Reclamations are scaling the walls back up to the tempered windows of the third floor. They smash their decaying heads against the glass in complete synchronized form, shatter the windows, and race back inside the building. The courtyard is silent again. There is nothing left of the bodies, just a mess of pink and red against the walls. I thank God one of them did not choose my window.

  I close the blinds, pour myself a highball and sit back down in my recliner. I can hear them bellowing throughout the building, these monsters, like bad blood in dying veins, tearing it apart in a frantic search for me and anything else living. Their echoes come through the vents, accompanied by screams of pain and death. Time is short.

  Instead of running, I pick up the handheld bot scanner from the end table and move its sensor over my forearm, watch as the screen magnifies the medical nanobug attached to my ulna. Like a spider wrapping up a moth, its microscopic legs beat themselves against my bone. Repairing something? Quickly, I pick up the jackknife, also laying on the end table, and flick the blade open. I take a big swig of whiskey and then pour the rest of it over my forearm. Without thinking I jam the blade through my flesh, careful to avoid the artery, and slice a chunk of meat away. I'm wailing. The bone is exposed, a pearly scale in an eddy of liberated blood. I scrape the blade against it, flecking bone dust into my lap. The pain is unbelievable, and instantly I feel faint.

  I wave the scanner over the flayed flesh and bone chips on my bloody lap. Its sangria display screen reveals the bug moving in circles. I drop the whiskey glass and head to the bathroom to flush the flesh and bug down the toilet. I wrap my arm in gauze from the bathroom first aid kit. A stab from a morphine hypo numbs me and now it's not just pain that makes me feel woozy.

  I must stay awake, however. I need to get to the penthouse. The Castle, and the future of mankind, depends on it. I pick up the scanner again and head for the door.

  THEN

  The Castle was built in 2012, at the northern tip of Manhattan. It's just a castle in name, obviously. In truth it is a fully-loaded apartment complex, complete with state of the art security and self-sustaining amenities such as a grocery store, bank, gym, spa, restaurant, coffee house, computer café, etc. It houses only two hundred units, each of which requires a certain stature in life for renting.

  Marshall Valace owned the entire top floor penthouse, since he was, after all, the man who built the building. Valace's family fortune was made in real estate. It was his father who developed the Urban Castle design, which soon graced fourteen major centers around the globe, including London, Dubai, Moscow, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bangkok, Berlin, and Washington D.C., to name a few. Marshall Valace was richer than the world's banks combined. In fact, he'd inherited many of them when is father, Calvin Valace, died.

  Unlike his father, Marshall's focus was technology. But the apple never falls too far from the tree---some of that technology was geared toward real estate, just not on Earth. "We've developed what we can here. Our future is out there. We just need the elbow grease to get it done. If we can dream it, we can build it. That's why you're here. To realize my future. Our future."

  These were the words he said to me when I first met him. A sculpted man with a collection of gold rings, he was much smarter than he looked, and he looked handsome enough already. I can't deny I was intimidated, but I stood my ground when it came to my compensation.

  "I want full benefits."

  "Please. You'll have more than benefits. You'll have everything you've ever wanted. Just tell me you can write the programs I need." He was seated behind his massive cherry wood desk, composed like the definition of success. "I want complete communication between them. The faster and more independent the programs the faster I can get these projects off the ground."

  "If your satellites can link them all up," I replied.

  "You're questioning my satellites? Son, I own nine-tenths of the satellites up there." He pointed up to the ceiling but I knew what his finger was addressing. "Don't tell me you're doubting me."

  "No. Not at all. Just making sure."

  "Well get sure. Now, the nanotech program . . . the code can be implemented? This is big money and I've got buyers waiting to throw cash at me."

  "Mr. Valace, I come with fifteen years as head of GeneTech's robotics software program---"

  "Yes yes! I know you're history. That's why you're here. Stop pretending this is a formal interview. I don't have time for niceties. Can you create the communication programs I need on a micro level as well? I already know your robotics program was a coup for scien
ce but it still was segregated. A man told your bots what to do and they did it. I don't want men involved. That divide slows things down. I want the things to just know what to do. Nanotechnology is the future of medicine. I'm talking about intelligent, communicative medicine."

  "The size of the machine is not the issue when it comes to the code, Mr. Valace. Once written, the algorithms will allow any computer or processor to retain information and learn from it."

  "So my robotics, my programs, will be able to communicate with themselves? I'm talking in every factory. I've got factories all over the world. I need it all linked. Nanotech. Computers. Factory automation. I need it all to work faster. Better. Will your program do that?"

  "Sure, like business partners working in tandem."

  "But I want them all to speak when necessary. If I can get all these machines to manage themselves, work autonomously, well . . . I can really get things done in time. You know about my space program?"

  "Yes. I've read about it. You want to send people to Mars?"

  "I'll be the first private entrepreneur to get us to another planet come hell or high water but I need the machines to build my product at optimum speed. They need to work faster and better than men, know how to solve problems---"

  I nodded. "Trust me, Mr. Valace, if you give me the budget I need, I'll get your program for you. Any programs you need. Your software will be optimized like nothing you've ever seen."

  "Because you realize that humans are too slow to get this work done by themselves. I don't want humans involved any more; they screw up too much. A machine does what it's told twenty-four-seven. And I've got too many projects to complete and barely enough time to do them in to rely on overworked men. Valace Technologies is the number one producer of tomorrow's technology. I want it kept that way. Get what I'm saying?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good." He pointed across his cavernous office to the door I'd come through. "Who's that kid there, looking through the glass?"

  "My son," I replied. Gavin was on the other side of the door, pressed up against the frosted pane, his hands cupped around his eyes. "I'm sorry, but he's out of school today and when your secretary called this morning to ask me to come in I didn't have enough time to find a sitter. Gavin," I called, "go sit back down. I'll be out in a minute."

  "Nonsense," Valace said. "Bring him in. I want to meet him."

  Somewhat hesitantly I rose, made my way across the room and let Gavin in. He walked briskly, shouldering the backpack I'd just bought him for school. It was so big it almost dragged him down but he'd insisted he wanted a "big boy" backpack.

  Valace waited for us to return and pulled a chocolate drop from his desk. "Here, son. Try this."

  Gavin took it with a smile.

  "How old are you, boy?"

  My son looked to me and when I nodded he responded: "Five years old. No, wait, five and a half. I'll be six in four months."

  "My my my, a futurist like myself. Always looking ahead. Your daddy tells me you're in school."

  Gavin nodded enthusiastically. "I go to kindergarten. 'Cept today it was closed."

  "Closed for parent teacher conferences," I added. I obviously wasn't going to make the meeting.

  "Tell me, Gavin, do you like this building?" Valace waved his hand around the room.

  Gavin smiled. "It's gigantic. It has vapor screens in the bathrooms!"

  "Yes, it does. You never know when news is going to happen. A good businessman is always connected. Would you like to live here someday, Gavin?"

  "Yes!"

  "Well, you just might, if your daddy can make me happy."

  My son looked at me wide-eyed. "Can you, Daddy?"

  I didn't like the way Valace was trying to manipulate me through my son. I'd already told him I'd do the work if he was serious about paying me what I wanted. There was no need to goad me. Suddenly I had a bad taste in my mouth. But the truth was I wanted Gavin to have a good life, and Valace could provide that, so I let it go. "Yes, son, I'm going to work with Mr. Valace now. We're going to send people to other planets."

  "Cooool."

  Valace gave Gavin another chocolate drop and told him to go sit back in the outer office. "Cute kid," he said when we were alone again. "I don't have any myself, but I look at all mankind as my children. You start tomorrow."

  * * * *

  And so I wrote the program, and Valace's machines were linked together across the ether, sending messages through wireless satellite connections, working twenty-four hours non-stop without the need of much human interaction. They talked to each other, they could remember and learn from their mistakes. If machine A broke, machine B came to its aid, and machine C filled in.

  Valace Industries doubled its production of electronics in the first year. By cutting jobs formerly filled by humans and replacing them with the newly "intelligent" robotics, running on my software, the company was also able to double profits, which it then poured back into its R and D department. By the time Gavin was eight, my program was running every aspect of Valace Industries. To us, looking at it from a profit angle, it was pure success. It became known as the Valace Standard. Everything produced by Valace could communicate amongst itself, run on its own. All we did was collect the money from sales of Valace Industries products.

  Now, don't think I'm stupid. Failsafes were ensured. A program that smart could cause problems. Not AI problems---true AI would be a celebrated event---but problems with the program overriding human commands that it thought were errors.

  "I want a code key established," Valace told me. "A way for me to get in and take control if I need to."

  "I'll write you a way into the program," I assured him. "Keep it safe. If anyone finds it they could get in and take over the software. This is not open source stuff."

  "Anyone touches my software I will end them. Just write it."

  And I did---the failsafe. A code for Valace. A separate code for myself.

  Meanwhile, production increased tenfold. Twentyfold. Thirtyfold. Valace had the market on technology, from the smallest comphone to the largest robotic dock arm. All assembled and supported free of human interaction, thanks to the Standard.

  When Gavin was ten, I had made Mr. Valace enough money to buy entire continents. We finally moved into the Manhattan Castle and Valace announced he was ready to send the first manned rocket to Mars.

  * * * *

  I opted for the quaint three-bedroom in the North Tower with its courtyard view because I liked peace and quiet; I knew I'd get no work done looking out over the city. What was there to look at, anyway? The crumbling facades of abandoned apartment buildings, now mere skeletons with broken walls and shattered windows open to the environments. I couldn't stand looking into those empty apartments. Like looking into the wounds of corpses. All those wires and struts, pipes and rebar, pointing accusatorily back at me. But the buildings weren't the worst. No. It was the homeless. They were everywhere, begging, yelling, crying. A man couldn't work with such a view.

  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

  Five years had passed since I'd unleashed my software creation. Five years of massive automated productivity, of people losing their jobs while robots and computers took over. Five years of a failing job market generated by my success.

  Valace had enough influence now that he practically owned D.C. The president was a regular guest at the Manhattan Castle and, I later found out, had his own unit reserved for whenever he felt like dropping in.

  He was there for the first meeting concerning the Exit Pods. I got called down from my new home to talk shop with him and Marshall.

  "George, get over here, I want you to meet President Santiago."

  The old man looked just as he did in the daily news feeds. White hair with black specks over the ears. A healthily tanned face. Thin, tall, in his customary gray suit. His bank account was one tenth what Valace's was, which always made me question his intentions with my boss.

  I extended my hand, slightly awed, and he shook it
. Standing at varying intervals throughout the room were five men in dark gray suits. Their eyes were solid black---scanner lenses. I recognized them because Valace Industries made them. Craig Richardson came up with the design and I wrote the software for them. They were see-through, but with a simple whispered voice command would register heat signatures, x-ray a room, record and playback a full five minutes of video (or video files on the net), call up data from a number of government server banks. They were creepy as anything but Santiago's people paid us a nice little sum for them.

  Valace looked at me. "George, the president and I have a problem and we need your help. But first I need you to understand that what we discuss in this room is just between the three of us."

  "Sure." I nodded. "You know me by now, Marshall."

  "I do. And that's why you're here. You take your paycheck and don't ask questions. I give you a good life here. I expect that to continue."

  "It will. Gavin and I are enjoying our new life here. It's . . . perfect."

  "But out there it's anything but perfect." Santiago pointed out the large window behind Valace's desk. The city, shrouded in the smog and decay of our factories' continual production schedule, looked back at us. "Crime is up. People are struggling. Homelessness has never been more prevalent. You guys put a lot of people out of work. The divide is great."

  "A casualty of economics," Valace offered. "Or perhaps just a necessary, long overdue change. What say you, George?"

  I looked away from the window. "I'm not sure I follow."

  Valace lit a cigar, moved to the window and stared out. "We have made incredible strides. We are about to go to Mars. As soon as the nanobots are perfected, lifespans will increase dramatically and we'll be able to populate that distant world without fear of disease. Even here, the necessary people will endure, contribute to society for twice as long. A hundred years ago people died in their sixties and seventies, now they will easily live to one hundred and ten, one hundred and fifteen."