Awake the Warrior - Part 1: Chapter 3

39 is trapped, her plan has failed. How will she escape being reprogrammed now?

Intended as a Graphic Novel.
A War Ravaged civilization controlled by a Megalomaniac Government seeks to build a Utopian Society. Their weapons: Warriors, cyborgs created to destroy humanity... No. 39 breaks her programming and seeks out civilization trying to find absolution from her past...

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Awake the Warrior
Part 1:  Warrior Let loose

Chapter 3

Trapped

    Damn it!  Think brain, think.  You’re supposed to be an elite Warrior, a super human…  You have training and programs for this!

    She had seen them racing up the corridors as soon as she had exited the lift.  Dozens of armed guards charged down the halls yelling for the people to stay behind locked doors.  That everything was ‘under control’.  She panicked; a human emotion she didn’t know how to deal with.  She should have accessed her programming… too late now.  She had been lucky that one of the doors along the corridor had been open.  Absently she wondered if the culprit would be fired for not following The Organization’s lock up rules.
    Now she cowered, back pressed against the concrete, as troops lined the walls outside the room.  They had seen her dart into the room, probably even been grateful for it… She was trapped in here… Stop it!  She pushed herself off the wall, forced her breathing to normalize and her to heart slow.  Her human brain was useless to her now; it didn’t have the experience to cope with these situations…
    Find All Programs… she accessed her computer for help, something she’d never done before, she’d thought about it, knew she could at any time… but never had.
    …Escape Plan.  A list for programs filtered through her mind.  She discarded them as quickly as she accessed them.  Killing, they all suggested killing the guards for the sake of her freedom.  Her human brain had listed ‘freedom’ as a high priority and her computer didn’t care about humanity, solution; kill the humans to ascertain freedom.  She could kill.  She was a killer… She had already killed today for her own sake… without the programming telling her what to do…  For so long she had let the programming be her excuse, they programmed me to do it, what could I do?  She’d tell One, and he’d shake his head at her.  It was easier to let the programming tell her what to do so she wouldn’t need to think, or feel. It was her way to survive long after One was gone.

    ‘We are the Compound Security!  You are surrounded.  We don’t want to harm you.  Lay down any weapons and come out with your hands raised above your head.’

    ‘Shit,’ she said to herself.  They don’t even know what I am.  I must have a program in my computer somewhere…
    Find Additional Programs/Escape Plan…
    Searching…
    No Additional Programs ‘Escape Plan’ Found.
    Execute Pre-Existing Escape Plan?
    The question lingered in her mind, as well ask; kill all humans?  She wailed and drove her fist into the concrete wall.  The surface cracked and chunks fell out.
    ‘Mam?  Are you ok?’ a guard said.
    No, she wanted to scream back.  I want to kill you!  Instead she looked down at her first.  She had torn the skin back from her knuckles.  They were bleeding profusely; she ignored the blood and the pain.  She had the physical training those things; at least she could rely on that.
    Well, what now, you dumb machine?  Might as well be a machine…
    List All Relevant Programs ‘Escape Plan’
    A list filtered across her vision and she selected one.
   
    ‘We can’t wait,’ the guard said to his buddy, ‘you heard that noise… anything could be happening in there!  We should get her out and safe…’
    ‘Exactly,’ his buddy said, ‘anything could be happening.  We don’t know what’s going on…we should wait for instructions…’

    Thirty-Nine crouched, her breathing calm and regular, her senses attentive and her eyes dead.  The room was much the same as her sleeping quarters, only this one was large enough for a desk, and the door opened from the side of the wall into a tiny entrance to allow for a walled off bathroom.  She considered hiding in there, but her computer had told her that the main room had more space to maneuver, so she had moved the desk against the wall of the bathroom, where she would not be immediately seen, and now she crouched there, ready and waiting to be the killer they had made of her.

    ‘Mam?’ the guard said as he cautiously entered the room.  He couldn’t see anything in the dim light.  He listened hard but couldn’t even hear her breathing.  Still in the entrance, he flicked on the light switch.  The green fluro flickered violently a couple of times, blinding him, before illuminating the small room.  He took another step forward, ‘don’t be afraid, we’re here to help…’  He took another step forward blinking the spots out of his eyes.  ‘Omph!’ he said as he hit the floor, bleeding from the temple where the concrete chunk had struck him.
    Thirty-Nine waited, more would come.

    ‘What’s happening?’ a guard called from the hall.  No one answered him.  ‘Damn it.  You two, come with me.’
    They entered the room slowly and saw the man’s body on the floor almost instantly.
    ‘Paul!’ one guard said and rushed to the fallen man.
    ‘Wait!’
    The concrete whizzed through the air and struck the second man down. 
    ‘I want the whole team behind us, now!’ the guard barked.  Booted feet struck the floor as they hustled to obey.  The guard silently instructed his men and carefully advanced, gun in hand, in the direction the missile had come from.  He eased along, his back against the cold concrete, he was starting to sweat.  He whipped the sweat from his face and glanced across to be sure that he was being shadowed by his team.  He’d always wanted to lead Paul’s team; they were the best bunch of guys he knew.  And Paul was the best of them; but it simply wasn’t the best team without Paul. 
    ‘OK Lady.  Listen up.  There’s a whole lot more of us than you’ve got concrete.  We just want to get our guys and get out, ok?’ he said, hoping his voice was steady and authoritive.

    Thirty-Nine wrestled a moment with her programming.  It was clear the men didn’t want to die, but if they stood between her and freedom, they would.  She watched as the man poked his gun around the corner before him.  She was pressed up against the wall, right near the corner; the gun almost struck her in the face.  She waited for him to get closer.

    He saw the table and the small pile of concrete almost at the same time he saw the hole in the wall it had come from.  ‘Shit,’ he said under his breath when he saw the blood as well.  ‘God damn crazy mother fucker punched a whole in the god damned wall for ammo!’  He swept the gun to his left again, around the corner that hid Thirty-Nine.  She grabbed his gun with one hand.
    ‘What the...’ the guard said and squeezed the trigger reflexively.  The bullet shot into the far wall and some of his men rushed forward.  ‘Hold!’ he yelled, locking eyes with Thirty-Nine.  ‘Get the wounded out of here!’ he said, knowing he would not have a better chance.
    ‘Help me,’ she said very quietly to him.  ‘I don’t want to kill you.’ Her blue eyes where huge as they looked into his brown ones with an innocence he couldn’t understand.  ‘They did this,’ she gestured to the fallen men being carried away and then tapped her head with her free hand, ‘to me, here.’  The guard’s eyes widened.  ‘I have to do what they program me to do,’ she said.
    He looked at the delicate hand she held to forehead.  He saw the blood that flowed from her knuckles to drip unnoticed off her elbow in small red droplets.  ‘That’s a nasty wound, girl.  Should get that looked at.’
    Her eyes didn’t even flicker but the hint of smile ghosted her face, he had called her ‘girl’, if only he knew how old she really was.  Her free hand was locked onto the gun like a vice; she made no move to take it from him.  Maybe he could get her the freedom she so desperately wanted.
    ‘Your hand!’ he gasped as he noticed the peeling skin. ‘I can see the bone…’  His mouth formed the word and said it even as his mind rejected it, it was dull grey and metallic where it should have been white.  He looked into her eyes again and felt his skin crawl.  ‘You’re one of them,’ he said in a whisper.  She nodded, knowing what he meant; A Warrior.
    ‘Help me.’ She hoped.
    ‘You’re one of those murdering bastards that destroyed our planet,’ he hissed.
    She sighed, no hope here, ‘I don’t want to kill you.’
    ‘So you keep saying.  But what are you going to do?’  He was sure now that there was no way he could take back his gun.  ‘Out!’ he shouted to his team, ‘everyone get outta here!’  They obeyed him without question and he was alone in the room with the cyborg.  ‘What do you want?’ he asked levelly gathering up all his courage and letting go of the gun.  She had told him continually that she didn’t want to kill him, so now was her chance to prove it.  She continued to stare at him with huge blank eyes, then they saddened, and she dropped the gun to the floor.
    ‘I don’t want to kill you.’ She said with more force.
    ‘Tell me then, what do you want?’
    ‘I want freedom.’ She said to the floor without conviction.
    ‘To rampage and kill the innocent?’ he was feeling bolder now, it didn’t seem like she was actually going to harm him; she seemed too unfocused to do that.
    She looked up suddenly and grabbing his neck with one hand slammed him roughly into the wall, ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ she said aggressively.
    ‘Ok!  Ok!  I get it!  You don’t want too, but why are you hurting me?’  He was alarmed, she wasn’t making sense.
    ‘Programs,’ she said letting him go and turning away from him.  ‘I had to use my programs.  Now something is wrong.  I can’t…’ she turned to face him again, ‘think.’  She twitched and suddenly sat on the floor.  ‘I don’t want to kill,’ she whispered.  She was loosing her mind, she could feel it slipping, soon she would have to submit too the program or let the madness take her.  ‘Help me!’  She should never have willing activated a program.  It was taking over her free mind and would not stop until it was completed.
    He looked at her for a very long time.  He was in more danger than he had previously thought.  ‘You’re going mad, aren’t you?’ he said.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Oh.’  He didn’t know why, but he sat down on the floor next her.  ‘Can I do anything?’  He felt a sudden need to comfort her; she looked like a lost little kid.
    ‘Make the program stop,’ she said.
    ‘How?’
    ‘Turn me off.’  She was staring at the floor; there was fear in her voice.  ‘Then turn me back on.  And hope.’
    ‘“And hope” for what?’
    ‘That I haven’t short circuited my commands profile.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘If I have, ‘freedom at all costs’ will be in there and I won’t stop killing until I have succeeded.’ She looked up at him then, her eyes solemn.  ‘You have to do it from my hardrive…’ 
    ‘No.  Wait.  I can’t take that chance.’
    ‘Then I will have to kill you.’
    ‘Why!’
    ‘Because my current command is ‘freedom at all costs’.  I didn’t want to kill you.  I tried, it’s not my fault.’  She stood up slowly and the guard leapt to feet wildly.
    ‘Can’t I just let you go?’
    She shook her head, ‘the programming is already taking control of me.  I’m trying so hard to control it, but… I’m not strong enough.  I don’t have the emotions to cope with this…’  She stopped and coked her head to one side.  ‘There is one other way, and the outcome is no worse.’
    ‘I’m listening.’
    ‘You have to reprogram my hardrive not to override my human mind.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You only have adjust the authority matrix,  you only have to change one code… it is the only way.  Otherwise one of two things will happen: I will go mad and kill everyone, or I will become a machine and kill everyone.’
    ‘So, what you’re saying is that you’re going to kill everyone unless I fuck around with your brain.’
    ‘Will you try?’
    ‘What do I have to do?’
   

Next Chapter: 4.

To Be Continued...