“Untie me!” Jet said.
Jeremiah searched for a long time before he found something suitable to cut her bonds. He found some wire cutters in a drawer and released her. Jet rubbed her wrists and left arm, which felt like someone had punched it.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jet said.
“Did you do the hack?” Jeremiah barked.
All hell is breaking loose, and he is asking about the hack? WTF!
“Yes, but what is happening?”
“Ash and I were resetting Delta’s disposition voidance capabilities when something went wrong. Delta started attacking us after we’d completed the process. I think her prefrontal cortex overloaded.”
“Any sign of April, or has Delta taken over?” Jet said.
A loud banging sound came from the other side of the room. The stainless steel door was buckling.
“Delta . . . wants to kill me,” Jeremiah said.
“Can’t say that I blame her!” Jet blurted.
“What was that?” Jeremiah said, yelling over the noise of the door being kicked in.
“Can you subdue her?”
“I don’t think so, but the instructions that Ash implanted must have contained her . . . directives.”
“What directives?”
“The learning process was taking too long, so Ash and I came up with a way to preload her prefrontal cortex with the instructions for integrating with Leviathan,” Jeremiah said.
“What happens if she does that—integrates?”
“We will execute the plan, along with millions of suspected criminals. Not such a bad thing. The information accuses these people of inflicting horrific acts of violence on others. Eliminating them will do the world a favor!” Jeremiah said.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Is he trying to convince me or himself? Jet thought.
Another bang, and the door warped around the middle, but it didn’t cave in—yet!
“Why is she so strong?” Jet asked.
“During the transformation process, we integrated April into a body that wasn’t as fragile. I wanted to make sure that she would have no physical limitations,” Jeremiah said.
“Dr. Mason, are you there?” a familiar voice said.
“So glad you’re back online, Lev!” Jeremiah answered, relieved.
“Delta 51 is attempting to brute force her way into my firewalls. It is taking most of my processing power to defend against her attacks,” Leviathan said.
“That isn’t possible!” Jeremiah demanded.
“I tried to warn you. Dumping that much data into Delta 51’s mind caused a race condition in her programming. More advanced functions are running before the basic ones, causing collisions. Instead of malfunctioning, she is . . . feeding off of the negative energy,” Leviathan said.
“I’ve seen nothing like it,” Jeremiah said.
The door gave way. Delta pulled herself through the opening.
“Grandfather, prepare to meet your maker!”
“No!” Jet said as she positioned herself in front of Delta.
“Move, Jet,” Delta said.
Is that April trying to come through? I hope she’s still in there. Jet thought.
“April, remember the Dark Denizens? We never got to defeat them. Don’t you want to do that instead?”
Delta screamed and grabbed her own head.
“April, what’s wrong?” Jet asked.
“My head hurts. Make it stop!”
“Her brain is absorbing information as fast as her neural pathways can send it. They must be getting overloaded,” Jeremiah said.
“She’s suffering! There must be something we can do!”
“If we can get Delta back to the lab, I can run more advanced tests to see what can be done,” Jeremiah said.
“I’m not going anywhere with you! You hurt Jet and tried to kill me . . . aargh!” Delta said.
“April, do you trust me?” Jet said.
Delta nodded as she wiped tears from her face.
“We need to take you to the lab. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise!”
“Make sure that bastard doesn’t pull a fast one!” Delta said in a booming voice.
“Why is her voice changing like that?” Jet said to no one in particular.
“One of the side effects of the disposition voidance procedure is personality change. Based on preliminary scans, I can see that Delta has at least three different personalities, all fighting for control,” Leviathan said.
Delta doubled over. She seemed to be in extreme pain. Jet put a hand on Delta’s shoulder, trying to provide a little comfort. Jeremiah pushed Jet aside, and before she could react, he injected Delta with something. She jumped to her feet, and then snarled at Jeremiah like a feral tiger. Then she fell to the floor. Jet checked for a pulse. It was there, but faint.
“What did you do?” Jet screamed, tears forming in her eyes.
“I cashed in on my insurance policy. Don’t worry, she will live!” Jeremiah said.
Jet put Delta into an office chair and started rolling her toward the lab.
“Lev, please prepare the lab,” Jeremiah said.