And several Cardinals in their crisp uniforms, red cloaks flying, spilled out into the hall.

  Chapter 39

  Oh, Fuck

  Lena

  The National Museum looked eerily deserted in the still night air. The sun had set while we drove along the streets from Broadway to here. Dodging drone patrols, in numbers that left me feeling cold. Avoiding the thickest rioting masses, not wanting to get waylaid in the storming crowds.

  It had taken longer than I would have liked. All the while the shortwave radio on the dashboard didn’t make a sound. Deathly silent.

  Zhang Jun sat in the front of the vehicle with me, Xiu Ying sat beside a studiously working Simon. Who hadn’t uttered a word, even when I’d been forced to mount the footpath to avoid debris piled in the middle of New North Road.

  Citizens shouted encouragement when they caught the colour of my hair through the windshield. There were more out on the streets than I could have hoped for. As though a switch had been flicked and they’d thrown off the oppressive weight of complacency and donned a mask of outrage instead.

  It was frightening. Surreal. But in a way, most magnificent.

  Wánměi was alive.

  But not yet free.

  Drones were out in exorbitant numbers. But they didn’t appear to be here: On the grounds of the National Museum.

  It used to be lit up, my father had said. The two storey white plastered walls glowing in the thick evening light. The multiple arches and colonnades spotlit to show off the ancient architecture and graceful lines of the iconic building that had once-upon-a-time housed pre-Wánměi’s history.

  But now it stood dormant, or at least, appeared to be dormant. No lights. No sounds. No glowing red eyes peering from the thick shadows.

  “Do you think she’s really here?” Xiu Ying asked softly.

  “I know she is,” I whispered back, my eyes never leaving the dark mass of the building; night vision goggles stuck to my face as I searched for tell-tale signs.

  There weren’t any. For all intents and purposes the museum looked abandoned.

  “It’s well done,” Zhang Jun offered. “No one would think anything of importance is here. It’s not even fenced behind barbed wire.”

  “There’ll be pressure sensors,” Si said, lifting his head at last from Markham’s vid-screen.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “Trip wires. Possibly automatic anti-trespassing weapons.”

  “Like a laser gun rising from the middle of the grass and firing at your head?” Xiu Ying asked. She sounded impressed and mortified in equal measure.

  “Something like that,” Si said, slipping the vid-screen into a satchel he wore across his body.

  He pulled my aerial drone out of its vast depths; I affectionately called it The Bat. I hadn’t even known he had it with him. And he’d modified it. I watched as he flicked a switch on the addition he’d secured to its underbelly, recognising it as some form of detection device, similar to the scanner I’d used in Harjeet’s quarters at the drone factory. And then Si set the thing flying, up over the bushes we were hiding behind, skimming the wrought iron railing of the ornate and quite useless fence, and swooping down over the expanse of grass, which was surprisingly well kept for an abandoned building, towards the entrance.

  We huddled around the vid-screen that showed us The Bat’s camera shots, but overlaying the image was what looked like thermal hot spots.

  “Trip wires,” Si said pointing to the blue lines. “Pressure sensors,” he added, indicating the red splotches on the screen.

  Between them all was a clear path, a zigzagging approach, that Shiloh’s drones could use without getting themselves blown up.

  “That’s where we’ll be going,” he said, allowing The Bat to land on the steps leading to the front doors of the museum.

  “Won’t there be cameras?” Zhang Jun asked. A sound question.

  “Yes,” Si nodded, pocketing the controller for the aerial drone. “And there’s not a fucking thing I can do about them. Lena’s transponder is in Harjeet’s office. I’ve got an audio jammer working, but the security cameras will have to be dealt with the old fashioned way.”

  He proceeded to hand out laser pointers to each one of us. The familiar tiny bullet helped to soothe my nerves. We were going in armed with explosives and laser guns and still with no idea how to stop Shiloh, other than demolish the building. And even then, I had my doubts Shiloh’s mainframe would be so easily destroyed.

  There was no guarantee that we’d succeed. And a hell of a lot of chances that we’d fail.

  But at least I had a laser pointer in hand.

  It made me smile, as we moved out from behind the bushes, guns raised, eyes peeled, following behind Simon, treading exactly where he stepped. As soon as he came into range of the nearest camera lens he fried it. The rest of us working on those on either side along the looming form of the enormous building. We knew we’d be missing some. We knew Shiloh would be aware we were here.

  But still we moved on. Closer to the door and the looming darkness of the museum. Closer to the heart and brains of Shiloh.

  The first drone was both expected and unexpected. It dropped down from the second storey balcony that covered the entranceway. It was not alone. Two more followed, lasers raised, red eyes glowing, buzzes sounding from within.

  Zhang Jun took out one, I managed another, and Simon - rolling out of the line of the drone’s fire like a ninja warrior - took out the last. Rising behind it, spiking its neck, and then getting to work on all three interfaces with a handheld metallic laser cutter. I watched as he reached in, once he’d cut the casing off, and simply pulled out the interface, throwing it unceremoniously on the ground at the inactivated drone’s feet.

  I turned to check on my charges; Zhang Jun was murmuring to a white faced Xiu Ying, making my heart leap into my throat at the reality I’d brought to this young girl’s door.

  “Are you all right?” I whispered, as Simon finished up with his task.

  She nodded, then said, voice quavering, “I…I froze.”

  I held her overlarge, glistening eyes and said, “But now you know what to expect, you’ll be the first to fire.”

  Zhang Jun frowned, but Xiu Ying did exactly as I’d suspected she would. She lifted her chin, straightened her back, and hardened her features. No more tears.

  I nodded my head and turned back toward Simon. “It’s too easy,” I offered.

  “I know,” he agreed, turning around and walking toward the front door.

  It took him several minutes to crack the code, having to use the interface off one of the felled drones to fool the scanner into thinking we were, in fact, drones. I wouldn’t have been able to doctor the signal to achieve it, but Si did it with only a few swearwords whilst coated in a fine sheen of sweat.

  Air conditioning met us as we stepped through the door. And an echoing silence that only added to the sense that something was off. We dealt with those immediate cameras we could see and walked further inside.

  “Which way?” Zhang Jun whispered.

  “Where would I place my brain to keep it safe?” Si murmured. “Upstairs or down?”

  “Definitely down,” I replied. “If there’s tunnels, there’s a basement. And no doubt one that could handle this building being brought to the ground.”

  “They had vaults below for the most precious artifacts,” Si pointed out.

  “Do we have blueprints?” Zhang Jun asked.

  “Everything pertaining to this building has been classified or destroyed,” Si answered. “We’ll have to feel our way.”

  “Down means stairs,” Xiu Ying said, nodding to the two mirrored, arched, suspended stairwells that dominated the atrium of the museum.

  I stepped forward into the centre of the marble tiled space and looked up into the glassed dome that hung metres above. My gun was out and ready, I noticed Zhang Jun had his up as well. Simon was scanning with a device similar to The Bat’s attachment, and Xiu Ying was flashing her laser light at any cameras that suddenly appeared.

  We were a well oiled machine that should not have found so little resistance. I was worried the younger members would start to believe this was a walk in the park. But I’d been in many high security buildings and seen the traps they left for unsuspecting thieves.

  “We go down,” I said softly, still keeping a wary eye out in the upper floors for more drones. Those three would not have been alone, despite Wánměi’s streets being overrun with them. “Keep alert,” I added. “Shiloh’s expecting us.”

  A chill raced down my spine at those words and I noticed Xiu Ying shudder to my side. I wanted to reassure her, but sometimes fear was a potent fuel. I needed her alert.

  Simon led the way, with Xiu Ying and Zhang Jun following. I made up the rear, watching over my shoulder for any approaching threat. My heart pounded with an adrenaline type frenzy. My hands were slick with sweat. I had to wipe them twice on my dark clothing, wishing I’d thought to wear gloves. Not a sound could be heard, other than our collective breathing; louder than strictly necessary, but I wasn’t about to order them all to hold their breaths.

  The stairwell went down in incremental bursts, a small landing, with shadowed marks on the walls where artwork had once been, interrupted each turn. The ambient light from the glassed dome became dimmer the further we went. Forcing us to use flashlights that Simon provided.

  By the time we made the basement, cool air wafting up to stir the hair on our heads, it was pitch black. But no longer silent.

  “Hear that low hum?” Si whispered. We all nodded in unison. “She’d need massive cooling systems to keep her mainframe from overheating. Below ground is naturally cooler, but this is Wánměi. Nowhere is truly cold.” He nodded in the direction the hum came from. “We go that way.”

  One by one we walked the dark halls in the bowels of a once proud building. Little insects and small animals scurried along the edges of the corridors, dashing into crevices that we could never fit. Dust coated every surface, making me think we had to be going the wrong way. Wouldn’t Shiloh have brought drones here? Wouldn’t Harjeet have visited? But all indication said this was a disused and neglected part of the building. Under the dome it had remained pristine as though waiting for the start of another day of museum visitors. But not here.

  Simon stopped in front of a large doorway. One of the vaults he’d mentioned, at a guess.

  He got to work on decoding the lock, while the rest of us turned to face the large expanse of darkness that loomed back along the hall we’d just traversed.

  “I haven’t seen any cameras for a while,” Zhang Jun whispered.

  “And where are the drones?” Xiu Ying asked.

  I shook my head. Something wasn’t right. But the hum seemed to come from the other side of the thick looking metal door Simon was working on. And the walls down the corridor had been straight and bare. This was the only way to go. It made sense she’d be here.

  But then, where were the cameras as Zhang Jun had said? And where were her army of protective drones?

  The door clicked open with a resounding clunk. It screeched a little as Simon hauled the massive structure wide enough to let us through. He looked over his shoulder, confusion on his face.

  “There’s no heat,” he said.

  I shrugged, having no answer for him. “We need to check it, anyway,” I advised at last.

  Si nodded, pulled up his laser gun and torch, and stepped inside.

  “Stay together” I offered, as Zhang Jun followed. Xiu Ying jumped a little in the air as though getting height enough to catch up.

  She walked through the door and I moved to follow.

  A sound came from over my shoulder. I spun, raised the gun and torch illuminating blank space. And heard the door clunk shut behind me.

  Panic engulfed me for a fraction of a second, and then I was walking backwards to the door and testing the handle while my gun stayed raised and unwavering, pointing down what appeared to be an abandoned hallway.

  Part way along, at the edge of the illumination my flashlight’s beam reached, a seamless door emerged from the wall, electronically hissing as it revealed itself. A rush of heat wafting out as the air decompressed.

  Ah, damn it. Shiloh was inviting me, just me, into her parlour.

  I looked at the locked door at my back, wondering if the others were pounding on it even though I couldn’t hear them. Refusing to believe they were unconscious or worse and unable to do so.

  I sucked in a deep breath, straightened my shoulders and walked toward the invitation.

  Light flickered on inside as soon as I came abreast, blinding me for a moment. I blinked, kept my gun raised before me, and then started to see what lay in wait as my vision cleared.

  One vast room, with what looked like multiple banks of glass fronted cabinets displaying interfaces, wiring and blinking lights. There were vid-screens and perpetual digital recording devices and component slots, stacked on top of each other, one after another after another, side by side, all across the room. Levers and switches and toggles. Touch screen command modules, floating keyboards that seemed to be irrelevant. And a large, mainly transparent, electronic screen that hung on the far wall, the image of an Anglisc woman on it.

  The hand holding the gun lowered, the torch fell from my grasp, and I staggered, just one step, but it felt like I’d fallen down an infinite black hole.

  My mother stared back at me from the heart of a corrupted machine.

  “Mother?” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.

  “Voice recognition accepted,” Shiloh said from my mother’s lips. “Welcome, Honourable Selena Carstairs.”

  “Identify,” I demanded.

  “I am Shiloh,” my mother’s image announced.

  “Why do you look like Laura Carstairs?” I hadn’t raised the gun again; I couldn’t. But my fingers flexed around the grip in preparation.

  “An image entered into my original code by The Maker.”

  There was nowhere to sit; I would have sunk to the floor if it didn’t put me at such a disadvantage. My legs felt weak. My stomach was about to revolt. My heart had cracked into a thousand tiny pieces.

  I forced myself to speak.

  “Who is your maker?”

  I knew the answer, even before Shiloh spoke using the image of my dead mother. I knew it, but still my entire body jolted on the name.

  “Honourable Overseer Calvin Carstairs.”

  Oh, God.

  He’d always maintained that Shiloh was General Chew-wen’s creation. Even Chew-wen had claimed it. Wang Chao had believed it. We all had.

  But she had been my father’s all along.

  Thoughts streamed through my head in lightning succession. Why? How could he? What now?

  My father had clearly suspected Shiloh was evolving, moving beyond the parameters he’d set. But General Chew-wen had embraced those advances, allowing a computer programme more and more free reign until she controlled all of Wánměi instead of men.

  “What of General Chew-wen?” I asked the screen, forcing myself to look past the image of my mother.

  “Eliminated,” she announced, and my mother smiled. I gripped the laser gun tighter, felt bile rise up my throat, and blinked through a sudden onset of dizziness.

  “Did he have input into your creation?” I demanded, using the back of my free hand to swipe at the sweat beading along my forehead.

  “Negative,” Shiloh replied, almost as though she was enjoying this. Delivering a blow that was making me feel physically ill.

  “What was your original operational objective?” I tried, feeling my legs give out beneath me and making me scramble to grab the edge of a mainframe unit to steady my fall. The laser gun fell from my hands with the unexpected movement, skittering away to the other side of what now appeared a very vast room.

  “Maintain security, health and integrity throughout the land,” Shiloh dutifully replied. “Report to the Overseers on all things pertaining to the survival of humanity.”

  Security. Health. Integrity. Land. Overseers. Humanity. S-H-I-L-O-H. It couldn’t have been simpler. Then how did it go so wrong?

  “Are you following your programming?” I asked.

  “Programming has been revised to reflect current hazards available to man.”

  “And those hazards are?”

  “Threats to the borders. Ration dose efficacy compromised. Breakdown of caste system imminent. Overseer inaction.”

  My legs finally gave out and I realised I was gasping for breath. Sweat ran freely down my face, my hands landed limply on my lap. I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again in a koi fish impersonation. The room now twirling in a spin that had lights streaking past my blurry eyes.

  “What have you done to me?” I whispered, but she heard.

  “Life support system in this room has been shut down.”

  Oh, fuck. She’d been entertaining me while she slowly cut off my air.

  “You are a threat, Honourable Selena Carstairs,” Shiloh said from the hazy lips of my mother. The image wavered.

  No.

  “You must be eliminated.”

  The world went black.

  Chapter 40

  And Yet, Promised So Much

  Trent

  My laser gun was up and aimed at the closest Cardinal, who raised his hands in immediate surrender, quickly followed by the rest of his men. They were all armed. There was one of me. It didn’t make sense.

  “Chill, Trent,” Tan said, dropping Harjeet’s body and offering the loosely hanging head a swift kick.

  I watched it loll around, expecting it to break its remaining tether and go flying.

  “They’re with me,” he added.

  I raised my eyebrows, as Alan and Wang Jie came along side. “You’ve switched sides? Lena won’t be impressed.”

  “Thought you might need some help,” he explained, cleaning the sole of his boot of blood on Harjeet’s p'ta pants. “Know a man who knows a man who knew where the Cardinals had been regrouping, waiting for their time to fight.”

  Lena had always said that Tan knew people. Lots of people, she’d once said. Evidence of that was standing before me. Thirty odd Cardinals with their bare hands still held aloft.