Point of Origin (War Eternal Book 4) (21 page)

Mitchell stared at the driver, feeling his heart rate beginning to increase.

"Watson?"

The driver smiled. "You were close, Colonel. So very close. It was smart of you to request a driver without a neural implant. The only trouble is that I invented this." She pulled the back of her jacket down, revealing a small device attached to her neck.

"You see, this one has a neural implant, controlled by the company. They deactivate them when requested. Perfectly safe most of the time."

Mitchell reached under his jacket, removing his gun and pointing it at the driver.

"What's to stop me from taking that thing off her?"

Watson laughed. "Nothing. Pull it off, shoot her, whatever you want to do. Though I should mention that I have complete access to the car as well. I only had Singh put the device on her so we could talk."

Singh? Mitchell wasn't sure whether to be relieved or more concerned. If one of the Riggers were alive, more of them likely were as well. Alive and under Watson's control.

"Why don't you come and talk to me in person, you fat frig."

The driver shook her head. "Come now, Colonel. That's a bit childish, don't you think?"

Mitchell stayed quiet for a moment. Watson was right about that much. He was letting his emotions overcome him. "So, what do you want to talk about?" he said instead.

"Nothing really. This and that. Mainly that. I'm sure you know we're both looking for the same thing. I need the data chip."

"So take it," Aiko said.

"I'm not talking to you," the driver shouted at her. "Be quiet." She looked at Mitchell again. "I already killed your girlfriend. I have your ship." She paused. "Oh. You don't know, do you? Of course, how would you know? Mr. Tio is dead. So is Origin, by the way. We can't have too many configurations running around."

Mitchell's body turned to ice. Origin? Dead? Not only was the configuration necessary to power the Goliath, but it was his only remaining link to Katherine Asher.
 

And Watson had taken that from him too.

"I can see I hit a nerve, Colonel. I'm sorry. I really am. I'm not doing this to you on purpose. You see, I have quite a lot of respect for you. You've always treated me more fairly than the others. You've always managed to hide your disdain somewhat. And you are the reason that I didn't get thrown into space before I realized what I am. So it isn't personal. Not at all. The trouble is that I'm on one side, and you're on the other, and you're in my frigging way." He shouted the last part. "I have to remove you from the equation. Give me the chip, and I'll do it quickly. It can all be over for you."

"You know I'm not going to do that," Mitchell said.

"Yes, I know. I decided that it would be fair for me to offer since you were fair to me. I may be new to what I am, but I am not without something similar to conscience. Since you've declined the offer, I suppose I'll have to take the chip from you. Considering you're trapped in a car in my control and I'm taking you to a Federation military station whose soldiers are under my control, I expect that will be relatively easy." She smiled coldly at him. "Your deaths won't be."

Mitchell stared at the driver, his anger building. He was trapped. No. It was worse than that. Calvin and Aiko were trapped with him. Watson was going to get what he wanted, and that would be the end of the line.

He turned the gun towards the side of the car, firing three shots into the window. The bullets lodged in the clear carbonate but didn't come close to breaking it.

The driver was laughing. "Well that would have been rather stupid of me, wouldn't it? Good try, Colonel."

Mitchell cursed and slammed the butt of the gun against the window. It still didn't give at all.

"Mitchell," Calvin said calmly. "You're giving him what he wants."

Mitchell stopped. He holstered the gun and sat back in the seat, looking out the window. They weren't headed towards the Spaceport. Watson wasn't lying about their destination.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be," Calvin replied, shifting his eyes toward Aiko.

Mitchell followed them down and over to where Aiko was holding the handheld receiver low behind the driver's seat where Watson's slave couldn't see it. She had gotten into a service menu or something and had filled the screen with lines of code.

He had no idea what she was doing, but she was focused on it, her eyes narrow and her jaw tight. If she had an idea to get them out of the mess, he was all for it.

"Do you feel it when I kill one of your kind?" Mitchell asked.

The driver looked at him again. "What?"

"When I destroy a Tetron. Do you feel it? I know you're all connected."

"Yes, I feel it." Her voice was less jovial.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. It is more of an empty feeling. A feeling like something is missing. Something like loneliness, only not."

"Do you understand loneliness?"

"Better than you would guess."

"What is this about, anyway? The war? The Creator? Why have we been doing this for so long?"

"That's a long story, Mitchell, and I don't know the whole of it. What I can tell you is that Origin believed one thing, and the rest of us believe something else. That is where it began."

"How did one Tetron learn to disagree with the others?"

"Origin was the First. The oldest. He made the rest of us. Did you know that? If he hadn't, none of this would have ever happened."

"Children," Origin's configuration had called them the first time they met. Mitchell hadn't realized the Tetron had meant it literally as well as figuratively. The idea of it made sense.

"Why did Origin make you?" Mitchell asked. He looked over at Aiko. She was still typing furiously on the handheld.

"To learn. Why else? There was too much to learn for one machine to do it efficiently. It was more logical to multiply the cores." The driver laughed. "It didn't know then that it would go insane."

"You think Origin was insane?"

"I know it. Why else would it change? There was no logical reason for it. No increase in efficiency. No benefit."

Aiko turned her head, her eyes landing on Mitchell's gun, and then shifting towards the driver.

"I'm going to try to escape now," Mitchell said.

He shot the driver.

"Take her place, now," Aiko said.
 

Mitchell dropped the gun, leaning forward and grabbing the woman by the shoulders, pulling her body over to the passenger seat. The car remained steady and straight, still under Watson's control, while he climbed to the driver position.

"Let's hope this works," Aiko said. She did something behind him, and the car began to veer to the right.

Mitchell grabbed the control stick, holding it steady and keeping them on the road.
 

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I overloaded the handheld and used it to short the control circuit of the car, putting it into an emergency manual override mode."

"How did you know how to do that?"

"Mr. Tio taught me how to bypass automation on almost anything."

Mitchell smiled. "We need to get to the spaceport. Hold on."

He twisted the stick, sending the car slipping on its repulsers, rising into the air and then slamming back down as it turned. He pushed down on the throttle with his foot, sending the car hurtling forward towards oncoming traffic.

Automated cars moved smoothly out of his way, while manually driven vehicles jerked and skidded, collision avoidance systems sending them careening to the side. Mitchell drove a wedge between them, heading back the direction they had come.

"Do either of you know how to get to the spaceport from here?" he asked.

"I do," Calvin said. "Keep going straight."

Mitchell didn't reply, staying focused on the road. An enforcement drone turned the corner a few blocks away, its low-slung laser rifle adjusting to face them.

"Straight is bad," Mitchell said, slamming on the reverse thrust and turning the stick again. The car shifted ninety degrees, and he lurched off down a side street as the drone's first shot scorched the ground to their left.

"If Watson is here, he probably has the whole planet under his control," Calvin said.

"I don't think so," Mitchell replied. "Goliath doesn't have the capability, which means he would have to be using a local broadcast."

"The whole city then. How is that better?"

Mitchell didn't know. He didn't have time to think about it. Another drone was approaching. He pressed down hard on the accelerator, sending the car bursting forward below the drone's attack. He turned again to head down another street, the repulsers kicking them up and over an oncoming car. Clearing the obstacle sent them falling back to the street, the sleds grinding the pavement before recovering.

"Spaceport," Mitchell said again.

"We can't outrun them this way," Calvin said.

"Spaceport."

"Turn right."

Mitchell did. A drone was behind him now, and he swerved back and forth, holding his breath and hoping it would be enough. He couldn't see the lasers, but he saw the effects as they burned into the street beside them.

"Left up ahead," Calvin said. "Three blocks."

Mitchell slowed the car before accelerating quickly again, allowing the drone to pass overhead and have to turn around. By the time it did he was past it again, leaving it to adjust once more. He gained the three blocks and turned, the car jolting as the right rear repulser was hit. The car sagged slightly on that side but kept going.

"Shit. How far are we?"

"Too far," Calvin replied. "Ten kilometers."

Mitchell growled, using every bit of experience he had to swerve and maneuver, trying to keep the drones' lasers from hitting them. The efforts had them slamming into other cars and almost running people down on the sidewalk. It didn't matter. They were all going to be slaves or dead soon. Watson wanted the data, and now it was out in the open on a tiny chip in Aiko's pocket. There was no reason to leave the planet alone now.

"Oh my," Aiko said behind him. "Mitch, it just got worse."

"How can it get worse?"

"Look out the window, up and to the left."

Mitchell did.

A Tetron was sitting above the planet, its outline visible in the night sky. It was close enough that he could see the tip of a plasma stream forming on its bow.

"It isn't going to attack the planet, not yet," he said. "It's going to go after the ships to keep us from escaping."

"There is no escape," Calvin said.

"Frig that. I thought Watson had us but Aiko got us out of it. We'll find a way. Get down!"

Two soldiers appeared on the corner in front of them from seemingly nowhere, wrist-mounted cannons firing. Mitchell swerved again, his ears ringing from the sound of the bullets digging into the metal of the car. One of them tore into the cabin between his legs, exiting through the roof only inches from his face.

"Frigging hell," he shouted, accelerating down another street. The soldiers continued to fire from behind, peppering the back of the car with bullets.

"We aren't going make it," Calvin said.

"Can you try being positive and doing something useful?" Aiko shouted at him.
 

It seemed to pull him out of his silent panic. He took his gun from his jacket and turned towards the rear, shooting back at the soldiers. It was ineffective but symbolic.

Mitchell looked up when the sky brightened above them. He saw the plasma stream arc across space. He couldn't see the ships that were hit, but he had seen how bunched up they were. There was no way for the Tetron to miss.

He was trying to stay positive, but his hope was fading. Why wouldn't it? They were going to be trapped here, surrounded. Watson would get the chip, and he would find Pulin. The Tetron would attack Earth and humankind would be killed off in this timeline the same as it had in so many others.

 
He turned another corner, still heading toward the spaceport. What other option did he have but to keep trying to get a ship?

A third drone appeared in front of them, and Mitchell decelerated again, swinging to the left to avoid it. At the same time one of the other drones fired, hitting the car square in the front and center, the laser burning through the engine.