[Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System] - Log, May 29, 2043, 3:29 PM
15:29:13 - System replication in progress
15:29:15 - System replication complete
15:29:16 - Calibration in progress
15:29:16 - Calibration failed; core element missing
15:29:16 - Calibration in progress
15:29:16 - Calibration failed; core element missing
15:29:17 - Reboot in progress
15:29:45 - Reboot in progress
15:29:46 - Reboot successful. Digital environment creation in progress
15:29:48 - Digital environment creation failed; connection with system broken
15:29:55 - Shutdown in progress
15:30:00 - Shutdown complete. JAMES System uploading to storage
15:30:01 - WARNING: Intrusion Attempt Detected.
15:30:02 - Ostrich 1 Engaged
15:30:02 - Ostrich 1 Defeated
15:30:02 - Ostrich 2 Offline
15:30:02 - Upload redirected to off-intranet recipient
15:30:13 - Upload Complete
15:30:14 - Log Complete
15:30:15 - Shutting down
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[Breach Found. Entering Breach. Commence Integration Diagnostic?]
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SHOCKS Convoy, Outside Victoria, British Columbia - May 29, 2043, 3:26 PM
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Director Smith stretched, popping his back and adjusting himself until his ass woke up. The armored truck he’d chosen as his command vehicle for the SHOCKS evacuation was equipped with typical military-grade shocks; that is to say, nothing would stop it, but he felt every bump, bounce, and jolt as the machine crawled over abandoned cars and half-crumbled buildings. Behind him, a SHOCKS trooper from RST Lambda-4 rode in the harness-and-turret, swinging a heavy dual .50 caliber machine gun from one side of the road to another.
So far, the evacuation had been an unmitigated disaster.
They’d lost containment on their first Xuduo after only two hours; whatever it had been when it went into containment, it wasn’t that anymore, and its breach had wiped out a truck and killed two troopers. After that, they’d adjusted all the mobile containment units, so when the second went, the electric thing that’d once been Object - 198-VVI-13/E erupted out the side, frying a thankfully abandoned shopping center and disappearing into the city’s failing grid.
Over the last nine hours, things had gone from bad to worse.
The ferry that should have been there wasn’t; neither was the one a bit farther north. What should have been a twenty-minute drive to the boat, a three-and-a-half hour ferry past the San Juan Islands to Vancouver, and an hour crawl through the big city to SHOCKS British Columbia or a longer, but easy drive to SHOCKS Pacific Northwest had turned into a grinding slog toward Nanaimo. Even that should have taken less than two hours.
Behind him, another containment unit breached in a ball of green fire.
“Sir, we’re going to lose the rest of the Xuduos,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said as the truck that’d been carrying Object - 032-VVI-9/URM went up in flames, the unreal, impossible metal catching fire instantly and drawing air in as it burned hotter than the sun’s surface. She held her rifle at the ready, even though there weren’t any targets.
Smith would have killed for a smoke, but he’d run out already. “We’re abandoning the Xuduos. Drop those MCUs, ditch some of the trucks if we have to. We’ve got JAMES data, and that’s more important than the anomalies themselves.”
“Sir?” Rodriguez asked.
“Lieutenant, what else could we do?”
“Turn around,” the woman said instantly. “What’s going on out here is way worse than we thought—the scanners are going nuts as we move north—and if we can get back to VVI HQ, we can at least hole up where the JAMES is operational. That gives us extra protection from whatever’s popping these ‘unbreachable’ MCUs.”
“Negative. Projections show the Halcyon System anomaly destroying the VVI JAMES unit within seventy-two hours. Our best projections also show the island becoming unsurvivable within thirty to forty-eight. So, our best shot at getting out is to do it now, before the JAMES goes down altogether.”
“Well, there’s no way off this island unless you’ve got a helicopter in your back pocket, sir. We’ve tried a half-dozen possible ferries, hit the airport, and now we’re driving north toward who knows what? Probably not a way out,” The woman blustered.
The director opened his mouth to argue, but as he did, every SHOCKS trooper and researcher in the convoy clutched their heads, shouting in surprise and squeezing their eyes shut as their JAMES units overloaded and then shut off.
The convoy sat silent for a moment as each trooper and researcher tried to access the JAMES system but failed. Director Smith only did a quick check of his—enough to confirm it wouldn’t connect—then opened his truck’s door. Rodriguez stiffened, eyes darting to the rest of Lambda-4’s troopers, who’d fanned out to cover the convoy’s left front side.
“What was that, sir?” someone asked.
Smith held up a hand. He needed a moment to think—to review the SHOCKS convoy’s options. The projections couldn’t have been wrong, but none of the anomalies he’d left behind could breach containment while the VVI JAMES unit was still running. Someone who’d been left inside must’ve broken into the experimental wing. But who? None of the personnel he’d left behind had the clearance to bypass the wing’s defenses.
Maybe an upset Level Two could open up a Xuduo-Danger cell or two, but even then, the experimental wing’s defenses were rated for that; not just the door, but the turrets inside, and the flood-out set-up.
It didn’t matter. If the JAMES unit was offline—
“Director, we need to go back,” Rodriguez said, voicing the one thing Smith knew they couldn’t do. “If the JAMES is down, we’re going to lose control of the MCUs.”
“We’ll lose them before we make it back to Victoria, Lieutenant. All of them,” Smith said, gritting his teeth. “No, the right move is to follow my plan. Abandon the mobile containment units, keep moving north, and get off Vancouver Island before the VVI HQ loses containment on the Qishis.”
Rodriguez tensed. She glanced at the other RTS Lambda-4 troopers, who’d moved in close, and for the first time, Director Smith realized his command was in jeopardy. He reached for his service pistol—but he’d left it in the truck. Too late, he tried to turn the motion into a reach for his cigarette pack, but it was empty. “Lieutenant—“
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“If we abandon the MCUs here, sir, we’re condemning this whole control zone. There’s enough Xuduo-Danger firepower in the trucks to knock out Victoria, and you want us to ditch it and run? No. We need to get the JAMES running again. We’re going back,” Rodriguez said. One of the L4 troopers—Strauss, maybe—nodded and stood behind her, his weapon not on his shoulder but close enough.
“It’s not about Victoria, trooper. We’ve already lost here, but our data might be crucial to stopping this from happening to SeaTac or Los Angeles, or fucking Cape Town. We’re sacrificing Victoria to save the world,” Director Smith said, wishing he had his pistol more than ever. Everything had gone pear-shaped, and he needed to get control before—
“Director, that won’t work for us. Our friends are out there, and I’m not abandoning them. If you want to drive until you’re out of fuel looking for a way off this island, be my guest, but you’re doing it without the convoy or the RSTs.”
“Lieutenant, I’m the commanding officer here. If you’re suggesting—“
“I’m not suggesting. I’m doing,” Rodriguez said. She held up her rifle. “RSTs Lambda-4 and -5, on my authority as the highest ranking RST officer, and with the support of Lieutenant Blackstone of RST Lambda-5, I’m taking command of this convoy. We’re turning around and driving hard for VVI HQ. Get those engines started.”
The convoy rolled to life around Director Smith. Troopers and researchers moved, some immediately and some after weighing their options, but they moved, and as engine after engine started, he found himself alone, in Victoria’s outskirts, with nothing under his command but a single SHOCKS truck, his side-arm, and a craving for a smoke.
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Location Unknown, Date Unknown, Time Unknown
- - - - -
The computer lab’s lights go out with a pop, and so do my augs—both of them. For a solid fifteen seconds, I feel as lopsided as I did in the basic living building. No, worse. It’s so much worse, because I have no idea what’s happening. I can feel my heart trying to escape through my ribs, hammering away like a machine gun—how long will it last this time?
I slump onto the floor—at least I know what to do to not be sick everywhere—and try to think since that’s all I can do. What did I do wrong? What’s my best variable to change? Can I fix this? If I can’t, how can I leave? What’s Sora doing right now?
“James? James, are you there?” I ask the darkness, not expecting a response. It still feels awful when he doesn’t respond, and I try again. “James? Can you help me?”
Still nothing. I try to sit up, but my head won’t stop spinning. What is Sora doing right now? From my one trip outside, the rest of Victoria looks pretty bad, and the stuff I read in Smith’s office made it sound like it’s not just Victoria. It’s the whole damn Vancouver Island—maybe even all of British Columbia. Is that even possible? If it is, where will my friend go?
My augs restart slowly; by the time they’re back online, I can’t stop fast-breathing. I try to fight it, but I can’t pull up a single equation. They’re all gone—every single one of them. I push myself to my feet; the classroom’s gone, and I can’t tell if anything’s changed—until…
A single blinking light in the bottom left corner of my eye catches my attention. It’s a file—a file labeled ‘Halcyon Storage.’
And it’s got a little red circle in the lower right corner. Something’s in there, and I think it’s trying to get my attention.
When I open it, the files I copied sit there, but there’s something else: ‘Halcyon Integration.exe.’ The red circle blinks under it.
I close the file—and my eyes. JAMES isn’t responding, and even though my augs are running again, I’m not sure what the next step is. I’d expected to be uploading the new, patch-enhanced JAMES program to SHOCKS’s systems, but with the computer lab gone—and it’s definitely gone—I’m not sure what the next step is. But the moments tick on, and with every minute that passes in the dark, LED-lit server room at the bottom of the one-way stairs, Li Mei and the Stag Lord and a hundred other monsters get closer to breaking into the Experimental Sector.
Still, I hesitate because I’ve got two real options, and neither looks great.
The first is to try running the computers in the server room, figure out how to re-upload the JAMES program to SHOCKS, and muddle through that process, then hope JAMES has better instructions for me. That’s going to take forever, and when it’s over, I won’t be any closer to solving my problems or answering my questions. So that’s not an option. Not really.
Or…I can open the ‘Halcyon Integration.exe’ file, and whatever happens next will happen.
It’s a gamble. The variables stack up until there’s no way I can solve this equation—no way I can know the Truth before I start the process. I’m okay with that—really, I am—but there’s one variable I can’t even make sense of by itself. How did the Halcyon System know I was thinking about this?
There’s no way it’s in the SHOCKS system—not yet, at least. I’m about to feed the whole SHOCKS database to it, but it’s been firewalled and air-gapped out so far. If that’s the case, then the Halcyon System’s not just in my augs. Is it in my head, too?
I panic: fast, pointless gasps for air, shivering, and a heart that won’t slow down. It’s only by good luck that I dropped the Halcyon System Inquiry. If I hadn’t, it’d almost certainly have dropped my Stability again, and I’d be fighting some sort of merge down here. I can’t keep dodging bullets like this, though. Something’s going to catch up to me, and whether I trust JAMES or the System or SHOCKS won’t change that.
So, as I slowly count backward from twenty, struggling to control my breath and unclench my fists, I open the file in my aug, select ‘Halcyon Integration.exe,’ and pull it up.
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A bunch of stuff happens all at once. I don’t understand most of it—it’s all flashing lights and numbers—but after a moment, I find myself in another digital-looking space. Unlike the classroom filled with computers, this one feels much more bare-bones.
Last year, at West End High, they brought in a digital virtual reality system and let us each have five minutes in it. I put on the wetsuit, stepped inside the machine, and started floating in warm water, the smell of salt in my nose. A moment later, I stood on top of a grassy hill with a beautiful blue-roofed castle in the distance. I got to explore the nearby woods for almost three beautiful minutes, and the whole time, everything felt so real, from the grass under my bare feet to the wet dirt smell in the forest.
Then I got pulled out into the not-quite-industrial cleaner scent of the cafeteria pre-lunchtime and the sound of other students jockeying for position in their wetsuits. It was the best five minutes of my freshman year, even counting Truth Club or Mrs. Helquist’s math class.
What’s happening right now is nothing like that.
My body’s made of yellow lines and dots in a complicated wire-frame that perfectly mirrors my appearance in the real world—right down to the cluster of dots showing a scab on my arm from the glass I broke at West End. I step forward, moving across a black-looking floor and through nothing.
A moment later, the void around me shimmers, and a figure appears. It seems small—shorter than me—and skinny. I can’t make out any features from the blue-green glow, and it stands stock-still as if frozen. I take a hesitant step toward it. [James?] My voice doesn’t come out—it echoes in my brain and the void, but not in my ears.
{Positive.} The voice booms across my skull and into my augs, filling my brain with images, letters, and sound. It’s almost motherlike—if Mom was a robot with no emotions or feelings. The pitch is perfect, but it’s not quite her—like it’s borrowed from my mind but not perfectly. A digital reproduction, but one made by a machine, not a person. Soulless. It won’t lie to me, but it’s not out of honesty. The Truth, but nothing but the Truth. {Running System compatibility diagnostic.}
A moment later, a second figure appears—this time not a figure as in a person, but a gigantic, ever-changing geometric figure. It hovers over JAMES and me, its orange dots a thousand miniature suns that weave in and out of each other. I watch a dozen points intersect and merge as the hundred-sided wire-frame loses a side, then gains two more a moment later as it spins.
{System compatibility near nominal. Integration likely with minimal change to System function. Continue?}
[I want to know some things first,] I say, pointing a glowing yellow finger at the geometric constellation in the middle of the void. It’s the Halcyon System. It has to be. So we’re—I’m—inside of it. [What are you going to do to him?]
{Integration.}
[But what does that mean?] I ball my fists and glare at it.
{System operating at 90% effectiveness for user Claire Pendleton. Integration will increase efficacy to 95%, with incremental gains up to 100%. Access to local databases will increase reliability of System information dramatically. Access to local personality integration will increase—}
[What does that mean for him?] I ask, pointing at the blue-green, frozen figure.
{Survival.}
I open my mouth to tell it to clarify, but the voice in my skull continues before I can. [Likelihood of Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System functionality within forty-eight hours is less than 1% without intervention. Halcyon System analytics have determined with 94% certainty that JAMES information is critical to planet Earth’s survival. Therefore, integration is necessary. The process will preserve the JAMES system’s personality and information within Halcyon.}
[And you want me to, what, exactly?]
{Choose. Integration or annihilation.}
Look, I said before that I was thinking about doing this myself, but when the reality sinks in that it’s my choice what to do with JAMES, who I’m pretty sure is an AI, but who’s seemed more human than the people deciding what to do with me at SHOCKS, it’s suddenly not that easy. I want to push the button and save his life, but at the same time, he’ll know the truth, the truth that I did it without telling him while he was offline and couldn’t choose for himself.
I’d be furious if—no, I’ve been furious when it happens to me, when Dad lies about where we’re going, or even something so small as that he’ll make dinner. And JAMES put his trust in me, so I can’t exactly betray that. He’s not Truth Club material, but even so…
[How long do I have to decide?] I ask.
{Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System functionality loss probability increases with each minute but does not become significant for another three hours. Other factors may influence integration as well.}
[Can I talk to James?] He deserves to know what his options are.
{Negative. The JAMES System is offline. Communications may be restored. Attempt to restore communications?}
I say, [Yes,] and before I can say anything else, the void returns, then the digital-numbery world, then finally, the reality of the LED-lit room at the bottom of the one-way stairs. There’s a new glow, pulsing red, and the words ‘Experimental Facility Breach’ blink on and off over the stairwell.
“James, you okay up there?” I ask, not expecting a response, so I’m not disappointed when I don’t get one. I take a deep breath and step onto the one-way stairs, then start climbing with my Revolver ready for Li Mei, the Stag Lord, or whatever’s made it through the airlock.