“Who?”

  “Alexis…”

  “Alexis? She was cleared!”

  “They missed something. She… well the AI controlling her is what is causing all this…”

  “And you can get it out of her if you leave me?” Travis nodded. “And if you leave me then…” Travis nodded again. The old man sighed and looked at the river and woods that had been his home. He then looked down with a smile to his dog, bent over and patted his head.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “There’s another one over here!” shouted Patricia, now almost lost to the gloom at the back of the CIC.

  Mike went to move towards her voice when he kicked something heavy. It clattered against the leg of a desk. He bent down, picked up the handgun, checked the magazine then placed it in the back of his pants. He caught up with the other two just as they were walking up the steps to the raised area near the central exit.

  “We need to go to Corolla’s office. See if the president is there…” said Cody in a hushed tone.

  “What if he’s…” said Patricia.

  “Then we find who is alive and help them,” said Mike.

  They both nodded then Mike pulled open the door, and looked into the narrow corridor. More bodies lay scattered like dolls, but these were in uniform. They crept along the confined space, stepping over the soldiers, until they reached a second set of stairs which Mike knew went up to the general’s office.

  He walked up slowly letting his rifle’s barrel lead the way, with the other two close behind. He tried to listen to what may lay ahead, wanting as much warning as possible if AI controlled soldiers were about to launch an attack, but instead he stepped off the last step and looked into the hallway which was empty. The door to the office, some ten feet away, was open.

  A faint groaning drifted on the cool air, and without hesitation he ran forward not caring what may be lurking around the corner of the doorway, but instead, as if he hit an invisible barrier, he stopped dead in his tracks at what lay before him. His brain absorbed the scene in parts, smell first, a stench of bodily odors and fluids, then vision, oily streaks of crimson, chunks of misshapen body parts, and finally sound. Laughing. Alexis’s laughter.

  He fell against the door frame and raised his rifle at the same time at the woman he loved. She was kneeling on the top of the table at the end, her head lowered with her flowing hair almost completely covering her face. Behind her, Corolla was in his chair, a large hole where his forehead should have been. On the floor, fallen from a nearby chair was an older man, that Mike recognized as the president. The other chairs were equally filled with dead bodies. The men and women that were the only hope for the country to survive.

  Alexis threw her head back, although still keeping her haunched stance on the blood stained table, revealing a demonic smile. Mike felt a presence to his left and turned just in time to see horror replaced with fury on Cody’s face. The captain raised his rifle at Alexis and pulled the trigger but not before Mike had hit the underside of the rifle sending a volley of bullets into the room’s ceiling. They both struggled with Cody’s weapon as Alexis laughed once more, and Patricia stood in the doorway not knowing who to point her own weapon at.

  “Shoot it!” screamed Cody at the first lieutenant.

  “No!” shouted Mike desperately trying to push the captain to the side, to get to the other threat to Alexis.

  In one continuous movement Alexis pulled a handgun that no one noticed she was holding, raised it and fired a single shot, which connected with Patricia’s temple. She slumped to the floor dead.

  Anger flowed through Cody, giving him a manic strength and he managed to push Mike away, then went to swing his rifle around, but he could feel Alexis’s gun already pointing at him.

  ”Uh uh,” she said. “You move that rifle anymore in my direction and you’ll be on the floor with the lieutenant there.”

  Cody grimaced and slowly turned until he was facing Alexis, but left his rifle pointing at the ground. Alexis looked at Mike. A tear ran down his face, and she swung her legs to the side so they were dangling from the table. “Aww… the special agent.” Her voice was deeper, more coarse. “Don’t be upset! She’s in a better place, where you soon will be too!”

  Despite his grief, Mike could sense something was off about how she talked. The cadence was not hers… but neither was it the same as the man in the truck stop. Not the AI, but something… someone else was operating her limbs and lips.

  She stood and sauntered towards him. He backed up slightly. “Don’t be afraid little rabbit.” She whirled around, her arms spreading out. “Its over! The great Spirit Mind has won! You stupid government types have lost!”

  Dyer! It’s him inside her… thought Mike.

  She turned back to him and walked forward. “Your generals… your president… all gone… now you’re—” She flicked her head at the door, but it wasn’t before Brad appeared in the doorway and fired a strange looking weapon directly at her. There was no pop or boom, but a hollow sounding thud and Mike felt the air around him get warmer.

  She staggered back. “Oh you got one… of the… new…”

  Another thud, this time she collapsed to her knees.

  “Die!” shouted Cody raising his weapon, but Mike jumped in front of him. “Get the fuck out the way!” shouted the captain.

  “You can’t save her…” The words came from behind Mike and he spun around to Alexis on the carpeted floor, her face twitching but still holding a smile from a man he hated.

  “Mike!” shouted Elias.

  Elias’s voice was distant, not important. Mike kneeled near her. Her whole body started to convulse, then her eyes rolled back in her head. He went to reach out to her, to hold her still, to let her die with some dignity, but instead a strong pair of arms pulled him back.

  “I can save her Mike.”

  He turned around to Elias standing above him. “How?” His words trembled. “Travis said—”

  A serene smile came to the older man. “Travis told me some stuff. He can save her, if he leaves me and goes into her…”

  “What kind of bullshit is this?” shouted Cody. “She killed the president and the joint chiefs! She’s one of those things!”

  Elias turned angrily to him. “That wasn’t her! The AI made her do it!”

  “But if Travis leaves you…” continued Mike, trying to understand.

  Elias kneeled next to him and close to Alexis. “It’s okay Mike. I got this.”

  Before instinct kicked in, and Mike tried to stop the former ranger from sacrificing himself, Elias grabbed Alexis’s hand and immediately a pulsing light surged beneath his skin and into hers.

  “What’s happening!” shouted Cody.

  “I… don’t…”

  Elias slumped to the ground and Alexis eyes rolled to their correct position. She blinked, then looked at Elias, then Mike, then the bodies nearby. “What have I done?”

  *****

  Footsteps echoed around the hallway outside the large dining hall. Not that colonel Holland cared. He placed his plastic fork on his plastic plate and picked up the beaker with the orange squash and took a good sip. As last meals go it was pretty good.

  Since he was thrown out of the interrogating room with Mike he knew how things would end. The agent had always been at the heart of the world changing events because of his connection to his son. And soon after he learned that Richter had even been given a VIP tour of the facility and was on good terms with the top brass.

  Not that he cared.

  The double doors slowly opened. He turned in his seat and saw a female middle-aged officer standing and looking directly at him. She stood like a statue, with less emotion. He turned back to the table and placed his Glock on it. “If you’re thinking of turning me into one of your worker ants, don’t bother. My brains will be leaving my skull if you get within ten feet of me.” He took another sip of his drink.

  The officer’s boots tapped across the tiled floor. He placed his hand on the gun and lifted it so the cold barrel pressed into his temple. “For all your supposed intelligence, you never were that smart.”

  “It is true I chose unwisely,” said the woman. Holland’s finger touched the trigger but stopped short of pulling it. “But I have had one working against me since the beginning…”

  “Yeah, you couldn’t take care of one kid. Oh well.” He pulled on the trigger but nothing than a dull click came from it. He flicked his eyes towards the weapon and looked up in horror as the woman’s hand gripped the barrel. She had covered the ten or so feet to him in seconds and in silence, it made no sense. He stood and thrust out his other hand towards her head, but inches from her nose her free hand caught it and with a mere flick of her wrist broke his.

  He cried out in pain and went to pull away, but her fingers still held his broken limb with a vice like grip. He switched his focus to the hand holding the gun and tried to pull it back, but she pulled the weapon from his grasp and threw it to the side. It still gave him a chance, and his clenched fist connected with the side of her face. He felt more than one bone in her jaw fracture but before he could withdraw his hand for another blow, she lunged at him, grabbing him around his throat and despite his foot height advantage, lifted him an inch free of the floor.

  He kicked and flailed at the small semi-human thing that held him aloft, but none of it did any good. As the enveloping darkness in his vision eclipsed the hue from the red lights, he realized his time as colonel Chad Holland was over, and he didn’t care.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mike flung his arms around Alexis, pulling her close, but she felt stiff in his embrace, unweilding.

  “Mike… what did I do?”

  “It wasn’t you…”

  “There was a room…”

  “They’re all dead,” said Denise.

  He didn’t realize the doctor was even alive, let alone in the room with them. He let go of his prize, but still kept his gaze on Alexis, ignoring the doctor’s comments then brushed her hair away from her sweat covered face. “Dyers dead. He’s not part of you anymore.”

  Her eyes remained wide, almost as if she had lost the ability to blink. “But… how?”

  “It doesn’t matter for—”

  She was looking at Elias. “Is…” She scrambled backwards, away from Mike, then grabbed her temple. “Is Travis in my brain?” She scanned the room but couldn’t see any sign of the young man.

  “Mike. We can’t stay here,” said Brad. “We killed three AI’s on the lower levels but there might be more and we’re the only defense between them and the civvies in the living quarters.”

  “Go,” said Mike. “We’ll catch up.”

  “I should examine her…” said Denise.

  Alexis backed up even more, until her back was against the rock wall. “Stay away from me, I might hurt you!”

  Cody folded Patricia’s arms across her chest, and closed her eyes. He stood and took one hateful look at Alexis before turning to Brad. “You got more of those fancy guns?” Brad nodded, and with two other soldiers left the room, until it was just Denise, Mike, Alexis and the dead.

  Mike crept towards Alexis but she flung out her hang. “Stay away from me!”

  “You won’t hurt me…”

  “I… I… don’t know what I’m capable of…” She looked back at Elias, then at the carnage across the room. The look of panic on her face transformed to one of emotion and she pulled her knees to her chest and stuck her head between them, sobbing.

  Mike looked back at Denise. “I thought you was with her?”

  “I got a message from the medical wing, saying Constance wanted to talk to me. On my way there in the elevator the power went and I had to climb out. Then I made my way back here where I ran into Brad and the others.” She looked at the bodies around them. “This is…” She suddenly realized one of the generals was missing. “Have you seen general Bell?”

  Mike got to his feet, glancing at the crying woman near the wall. “No…”

  She looked at Alexis, then headed towards the door. “I need to find him.”

  The room was silent apart from the whimpering from Alexis. Mike walked towards her.

  She raised her head, tears dripping from her face. “No… please stay away… I can’t…”

  He kneeled, then reached and held her hand despite her attempt to move it away. “We need to go.”

  *****

  Brad, Cody and the two soldiers, privates Lowery and Velasquez, arrived on the landing of the living quarters and pushed the door open slowly. They had already been lower to the armory and claimed a few more of the exotic weapons before making their way back up. Each man could feel the overwhelming dread which dripped from the rock chiseled walls and steal supports. The fact that everything had been cast in deep red by the emergency lighting didn’t help. They had not seen anyone else alive since the debriefing room, but that would mean hundreds of people were missing, and none of them were willing to admit that just yet. As they made their way back to the floor where most of the humans were housed, each tried to keep their imagination in check.

  Cody looked at the others. “You all ready?”

  They nodded and he pushed the door open slowly. They listened best they could to what may lay ahead, but only silence and an empty corridor greeted them.

  Cody nodded to the first of a series of doors which lined the corridor. “We should probably check the restrooms first. People might be hiding…”

  Brad moved to the first and nudged it open with the barrel of his EMP weapon. “Anyone in here!” His voice bounced off the tiled walls, with no reply. Lowery tried the next door, while Cory and Velasquez doing the same on the opposite side. They made their way slowly along the corridor until they reached the double doors to the dining hall. Cody went to push open the door.

  “This ain’t right,” said Velasquez. “Where’s everyone gone?”

  “Maybe we should keep get to the surface?” said the other private.

  Cody swallowed his anger. “What if there are children in there, hiding? You want to just abandon them?” He frowned, then pushed open one of the double doors. Brad following him. The two soldiers looked at each other then moved inside.

  The dining hall looked the same as when Brad was seated in it just forty minutes earlier. They spread out, moving between the tables, scouring for any sign of movement, but there wasn’t any.

  “Maybe, everyone’s already gone up top?” said Lowery.

  “Just do your job private,” said Cody.

  They all met up on the only other set of doors. Those that led to the network of corridors and dorm rooms.

  Cody pushed open the door, not waiting for more objections about pushing on. Another empty corridor.

  “Where the fuck is everyone!” whispered Velasquez.

  “You two check the dorm to the right,” said the captain to the two soldiers. They moved to the closed door while Cody and Brad moved to the one opposite. Cody held up a hand, then placed his other on the cold wooden surface. Lowering it he pushed the handle down and pushed the door open… to darkness.

  “I can’t see shit!” came from one of the soldiers across the hallway.

  “Stay close,” said Cody to Brad as they walked forward along a central aisle, using what light they could from the corridor behind. Each man walked with his weapon held high, but the gloom soon became too thick for their eyes to penetrate.

  “Is there anyone in here!” said Cody, his voice echoing slightly in the room which was half the size of the dining hall.

  A noise came from their left, within the void. They both whipped their rifles in that direction. Shapes and forms were visible within the almost complete blackness.

  “I think there’s someone...” Cody edged forward into shadow.

  As if a switch had been thrown a string of blue sparkling lights suddenly came on, one after the other, almost surrounding them.

  “AI’s!” shouted Brad. Almost as an answer a scream came from somewhere outside the room, and Brad and Cody started firing.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mike and Alexis moved into the corridor outside Corolla’s office. He took one last glance at those that had been murdered and the man that sacrificed himself for the woman he loved. Elias deserved better than to be left in a concrete bunker, hundreds of feet below a mountain but if sanity ever returned to the world, he would return and give him and everyone else who died a proper burial. They continued to the staircase. Alexis walked unsteadily but pulled away each time he tried to give her support.

  They moved down the steps, his traditional rifle pointing into the shadows ahead. He got to the bottom first and waited for Alexis to catch up while listening for the slightest of noises, but there weren’t any.

  “We’ll head back through the CIC, then to the main stairwell. Then find the others.”

  She acknowledged with a nod and they both walked through the corridor, arriving back at the rear entrance to the main operations room but Mike already could tell something beyond the door was different, as a faint white glow seeped from below it.

  Alexis backed away. “I.. can’t go in there…”

  He turned to her. “I don’t know if there’s any other route to the stairwell. This might be the only way.”

  “You go.”

  “Stay here. I’ll check it out. But don’t go anywhere, okay?”

  She nodded.

  Mike turned back to the door and eased it open. As if he had stumbled into a movie theater, the large screen at the front was alive with dancing white streaks, bathing the room with a flickering white light. He looked back to Alexis. “It’s just the big screen malfunctioning.”

  “No… it’s him… the AI… it’s him Mike.”

  He held his hand out. “Trust me. It’s okay. We need to—”

  A droning boom rang out with such ferocity that he felt as if a bomb had exploded nearby. When he recovered his senses he was crouched, his hands covering his head. He quickly looked to his right. Alexis was cowering near the wall a few feet away. Just as he swung his head back to the large room, a voice rang out.