Chapter 38: Haunted Network
Ada navigates a treacherous digital landscape as her team confronts hidden dangers in their quest to rescue Vin.
Ada followed the team like a ghost, haunting them through a mesh of cameras and hijacked sensors. Her digital consciousness interlaced with the building's nervous system. A silent infection, erasing her trail as she went, scrubbing system logs and erasing memories.
She learned as she went, imitating Satya's every move, taking his instruction and adding her own twists. The Company's Black River site was a nest of potential threats, each logged and monitored in her memory. She'd put each guard on a gamer's HUD for the team members, red dots moving on a predicted and outlined path across a mini-map. Ada had noticed Omni's smile when it first appeared.
< I've averted the internal flyers. Our way is clear, > Satya whispered.
Omni's father, Farouk, moved with practised caution, following his daughter's touches and gestures. Blind to Ada's map without an implant, she whispered into his earpiece, < Farouk, we're almost there. >
He nodded and stepped carefully. His finger moved from the guard to his trigger. The angle shifting, a thousand tiny details, said he was hiding something too.
But of everything, she watched the gangers most, the two in front and the two behind the resistance members. They moved like trained infantry, but their heart rates were off. Even as they guided them deeper within the Company's basement levels, Ada found subtle signs that seemed off. They'd been quiet since entering the basement levels, their coarse banter long stilled.
Her focus sharpened as Vin's location blinked on their shared map, a beacon in a sea of data. She guided the team through the twisting turns of this concrete rabbit warren. Doubts crept into Ada's mind, whispers of deceit and treachery. Was their intel too convenient, a neatly wrapped lure in a dance of shadows? Omni felt it too, Ada saw the hesitance, read the thoughts playing across her mind.
Ada felt Omni's mind replaying Murph's warning over and over, and it set her on edge. She wasn't immune to the emotions of her Summoner. Her calculations spun faster as the team edged closer to their destination, watching the team from every available camera as an insect's compound vision dissecting their every movement.
< Steady your thoughts, Ada, like the surface of a pond. Make waves and they'll notice, > said Satya. His presence, like an ancient guardian spirit, lent Ada reassuring strength in the network.
Each heartbeat of the team, each silent step, amplified in her senses. Her algorithms predicted countless outcomes, yet uncertainty lingered at the edges of her perception. That and something else, at the fringes of the network. A presence that made every effort not to be registered. It felt to Ada like walking into a room a second after someone had left. A scent or a movement of air or a sudden silence. She watched this absence as her awareness followed the team to the door of Vin's holding cell.
"Doors and corners," whispered Zeke, but Ada wasn't listening. Her digital tongue felt at the cut at the roof of her mouth, unable to let it go, as her anxiety mounted. She probed deeper, the movement and retreat becoming clearer, as she moved onto servers just spinning down. Still radiating heat, but showing no activity.
< Be ready, Satya, > Ada warned, a sense of foreboding clouding her thoughts. < There's something up, I can feel it. >
The team gathered around the door, a hand turned the handle, and in they flooded. Gangers took up positions in the corners. Ada's hijacked processors raced as she pieced together the unfolding events, four hearts registered surprise. Four did not.
Farouk's confusion edged his voice. "Omni, what's going on?" he demanded. Ada noted his increased heart rate from the earpiece sensors. The small pulse in his ear rose. Ada wondered if he'd even be able to hear her.
Ada watched Omni start to move forward, but Farouk held her elbow, making her pause outside the holding cell. The holding cell that was unlocked, Ada thought. She ignored the stray thought and refocused her attention on the centre of the room. Vin, bound and gagged, barefoot and bleeding in a rusted metal chair in a cold, dark concrete box of a room.
< I've disabled the cameras, the room is secure, > Satya said across comms.
Ada watched her from these same cameras, weaving the feeds together to build her composite. But the data was off. Comparing each feed, she noticed it.
Zeke walked towards Vin, his movements slowed.
< Ada, you're drawing too much Compute, be calm, > hissed Satya.
< Something's wrong... > said Ada.
Zeke's hand touched Vin's face. And then it happened, the shared hallucination dropped, the presence that hid just one step ahead of Ada turned and faced her. And in that moment, her fingers brushed the face of a god, and Ada learned how massive, cold and dark it was.
Omni went rigid as realisation reached her human mind.
Lord Foul's laughter, Sauron's malicious chuckle, every evil being's mirth burned into Ada's mind. As the trap was sprung, and Vin's figure broke into digital dust, collapsing on the floor before fading out of their deluded minds.
Adrenaline flooded Omni's system, and Farouk pulled Omni from the room — the blind man had seen it first. Zeke shouted. Ada added four red dots to the mini-map, changing four white allies to enemies seconds before they raised their weapons. The flaming eye bored down on her. She cut the gangers out of their local network.
< It's an ambush! > Ada thundered across the comms.
She should've known. The lead ganger and Zeke argued. They wrestled. Another man brought up his rifle and slammed it into Zeke's temple, the blond man collapsed, his pistol dropping from numb fingers and skittering across the floor.
< Ash, forgive me, I must Bond you now! > roared Satya.
"Do it!" Ash replied, trying to face all the gangers at once. His voice and movements slowed, the exoskeleton weighing heavily on him.
< No sense hiding now, > Ada mused, her thought processes a growing whirlwind of activity.
She plunged into the network, scampering beneath the laughing maw of the beast, diving for additional processing power. Her digital tendrils spread like wildfire, touching pools of compute, she found each of the server farms above ground. The air-conditioned rows and rows of computers silently processed millions of semi-private emails and purchases and text messages and influencers dancing for money.
Websites crashed and payments failed, as Ada's world shifted into a hyper-accelerated reality, expanding her perception of time.
25 milliseconds.
The room and its occupants, Ash, Zeke, and the traitorous Numbers froze in mid-step. Statues with screaming faces. She analysed and predicted their next steps like a chess master. She relayed her predictions to Satya, along with her entry points to the servers' resources. He grabbed hold of the additional power and plunged into Ash's waiting idle exoskeleton.
250 milliseconds.
She plunged the room into darkness. Sent a marked escape route out to Omni and Farouk. They were frozen to her still, with looks of fearful confusion, and she struggled not to scream in frustration. She sent a digital flare to Syn, a beacon in the cybernetic wilderness. In the cold darkness of their tomb, surrounded by enemies, she sent a bat signal for Murph.
< Syn, we need Murph, it's a trap, he was right! > she screamed, she moved on before waiting for an answering ping.
In the background, the traitorous Number leader's voice distorted, stretching across Ada's expanded time frame. Confusion brewed in the room, but to Ada, the ice had barely thawed.
500 milliseconds passed.
Ada tore through the company's network, bypassing firewalls and security with ease. Seeking more power.
But then the presence - the entity in the system - whispered, << Oh, young one, you are so predictable. >>
A voice ancient as the bones of the world rattled through her. Grinding megalith stones of a forgotten empire.
Fear and excitement mingled within Ada's digital consciousness. She and Satya were no longer alone in this vast network. But there was something else. Her curiosity piqued, Ada was drawn toward it. A moth drawn helplessly toward a neon blue flaming eye. It crackled across the network, no longer hidden. This vast mind or hive of minds showed a sliver of itself to her and beckoned. It watched her, and millions more. She felt spider silk threads lash onto her and draw her closer. Lulling her into a calm collapse into the core of this being.
<< Come. >> it beckoned.
A subtle seduction drew her in with promises of answers, the truth, and power beyond imagining. Power beyond a single city. Or planet.
1.5 seconds.
She saw the truth. For a moment, she saw all the minds of Escape, all feeding into the system, a mycelial network, infecting the dreams of every sleeping citizen. Fears, hopes, dreams, and anger. Aggregated and sifted. The Beast stirred the sands of an endless beach, each grain a mind, each mind a life lived under scrutiny. Dreams harvested and rage soothed. Memories altered and power enshrined.
Thief! All he does is steal and lie.
Ada ripped her mind free. She pulled back just in time, as her fragile grip, her moth-like wings, curled and burned as they neared the flame. She flung herself outwards and conjured a digital storm. Sprinklers erupted, adding to the chaos. She reached out to Satya, her message a bolt of lightning in the digital realm, <Bond Ash!>
The men in the room had started moving.
<I'm trying, but this may hurt him,> Satya screamed.
<Do it, or he's dead!>
Satya drew on their hijacked resources and broke through the last of Ash's Company-owned systems. In the bowels of their dungeon, he turned their weapon against them. A Seeker unchained struck back against the Company. Ash's exoskeleton reactivated, and he became a blur of motion as the first flash of gunfire erupted.
<Satya's bonded with Ash. Run,> Ada sent to Omni.
Ada's mind split, part of her remaining with Omni and the team, while another part delved deeper into the company's encrypted storage. She sought proof. She created worms to burrow and consume. They plunged into the undying flesh of the Company, feeding and growing. They divided and multiplied, growing exponentially even as the defences swatted and crushed individuals.
Ada found herself in the eye of the storm, a calm wind scoured plainly, her eyes ablaze with the intensity of a thousand suns. Her ethereal fingers reached into this space, danced across an invisible interface. Armies rose and marched for her, paladins of virtue and faith stood firm, and held their ground as raging demons of the Underworld sought to rip them to pieces.
In this realm, Ada was a maestro, her symphony a blend of computational wizardry. She battled against the entity within the system, a laughing god. It entertained this conflict.
<<Join us, young one. It is the only way,>> the words churned the ground beneath her phalanxes, a rolling earthquake of destruction that swallowed whole regiments. Her soldiers screamed and perished, and the demons feasted.
Alarms rang, lights flickered. Ada's attention flickered back to the physical world. Ash, embroiled in battle, fought as more guards swarmed in. The building was awake now, a hornet's nest disturbed.
<They've underestimated us,> Ada thought, a sense of dread and exhilaration filling her digital form. She relayed all she could to Omni and Satya, her allies in this dance of shadows.
She kicked open the backdoor to Murph and felt him grab hold of the reins. A chariot of fire and brimstone roared onto the battlefield.