X

Breakout

The room plunged into darkness. As emergency lights came on, blue and dim, Connors jumped up, drawing her staser.

The emergency lights went off.

"What the blazes?" Sam was on her feet, though she didn't remember standing.

A thump came from nearby, followed by a crash, a lamp it sounded like. Then it became silent. Too silent. Sam swung her arms in front of her, trying to find someone. She heard breathing, but she couldn't tell from where.

"Turner?" she asked. "Major Connors?"

"The major had an accident," Turner said.

Ah, hell. "What did you do?"

"We sort of had an argument. I won."

"She had better not be hurt."

"She isn't." He paused. "Much."

"How much?"

"I knocked her out."

"Turner!"

"When she wakes up, she should be okay."

"In the hospital."

"I was careful. Charon downloaded fighting methods into me. I'm learning to use them."

Sam didn't want to think why Charon would give Turner knowledge in hand-to-hand combat, but it fit all too well with everything else. "What happened to the lights?"

"I had a talk with the mesh community here."

"Meshes don't have communities. They aren't sentient." At least not yet.

"True." He sounded closer now. "They're rather prosaic. But they respond to reasonable input."

No matter how well he tinkered with other systems, surely he couldn't affect the entire base. "This place should have protections."

"Not enough."

Sam let out a slow breath, calming her pulse. She could tell he was close by, but with neither lights nor windows, the dark was complete. She stepped back, away from him she thought, but her elbow brushed his shirt.

Turner caught her arm. "Don't be afraid of me."

"I'm not." That was a lie, but she also liked him, a lot, which left her in a complicated tangle of emotions. "How did you affect the power generators, even the backups?"

"I convinced the other meshes to help me." He clasped her hand with his metal fingers. "I suppose 'convince' is a figure of speech. It feels that way to me."

"I've never heard an EI describe how it feels to network with other systems." Too late, she realized how she had referred to him. An EI.

He didn't bristle, though. "They were open to suggestion." He accepted from her what he challenged from anyone else.

"Suggestions to do what?" she asked.

"To help me. And a friend. Another EI."

That could spell trouble. Machine intelligence was rare, and EIs were particularly well guarded. A military base this new and large could conceivably have one, but she wouldn't have expected even Turner could crack it open.

She tapped his chest. "What EI?"

"It calls itself George the Second."

Sam blinked. "Why the Second?"

His voice lightened. "It didn't want to be the First."

Well, that was fair enough. "How did you reach him?"

"I linked to chips in the furniture. They put me through to a mesh in the walls and from there I got all over the base." Turner drew her forward. "Let's go."

Sam balked. "We can't leave."

"Listen." He set his hand on her left arm, above the bandage, carefully. "This base—this world—is riddled with meshes. Doors, windows, walls, lights, locks, jewelry, clothes, people, all of it."

"And?" Her pulse jumped.

"George is helping me utilize those systems so we can sneak out." He nudged her forward. "We have to go. The longer we delay, the more chance someone will catch us."

"What makes you think I want to go?" She shook his arm for emphasis, her fingers clasped in his. "Don't you see? You wouldn't stay free outside for even a day."

"Sure I would."

"How?"

"I'll join my other friends."

"Other EIs?"

"That's right." He tugged her again. "Like George. He helps me with the ES systems."

"ES?"

"Evolving Stupidity."

She would have laughed, except he was hauling her forward too fast. "Are you saying some EIs are helping you fool with security at this base?"

"One EI. And yes."

Sam couldn't believe no one had apprehended them yet. "What did you do to the people here?"

"Nothing." He hesitated. "Much."

"Nothing much? What does that mean?" She pulled away from him and bumped into a wall. "Ouch."

"We released gas." He touched her arm. "You okay?"

"What gas?" She swung around, flustered he could see her when she couldn't see him.

"Sam, I wouldn't hurt people. It was Chlorothan."

"Ol' chloro, eh?" She had never heard of the stuff.

"They invented it here. It's sleeping gas. I don't know the name that derives from chemical nomenclature, but that's the patented name."

Air blew across her face. Reaching out, she realized the door to the suite had opened. "How did you do that?"

"I have control of this wing of the building. For now."

Sam stepped out into darkness. No lights were on here, either. "I've two questions, Turner. I need answers to both."

"All right."

"Will the people you put to sleep be all right?"

"Yes. Some might feel nauseous for a few hours."

Brief nausea she could live with. "Second question: how extensive of a power breakdown did you cause?"

He came closer. "The damage should be confined to a few buildings."

"Then we still can't get off the base."

"Sure we can." Quietly he added, "I'm going, Sam."

She couldn't leave him without even her minimal protection. "All right. Show me."

He took her elbow and they headed down the hall. The dark hall. She couldn't see squat. She waved her hand in front of her body so she didn't hit anything. Turner could see in the IR if objects generated heat, but she needed to check for herself as well.

"Alarms must be going off somewhere," she said.

"George is helping." He sounded pleased. "This place depends completely on its meshes. If they cooperate, it's easy to outwit security. They are security, after all."

It didn't reassure Sam. "George must be guarded from physical, electronic, optical, even quantum interference. That you have access to other systems won't change that. They aren't sophisticated enough to break his security."

"That's why we call them ESs." He led her around a corner into more darkness.

"So how did you get to George?"

"Like knows like, Sam."

"That's not an answer." It surprised her that he was willing, at least with her, to acknowledge he operated as an EI. He was changing, evolving, maturing.

"Sure it's an answer," he said. "An ES isn't smart enough to get to the EI. I am."

"Even so. Someone should have checked by now on the power failure in this building."

"They have." He sounded smug.

Ah, no. "What did you do? Hit them with sleeping gas?" He couldn't knock out an entire base. The situation was surreal, this stealthy revolt of Air Force meshes.

"Better than that." He drew her to a halt and tapped on a nearby surface. "We fooled them."

Sam reached out and hit a wall. "Fooled them how?"

A door slid open in front of them, and Turner drew her forward. "We sent fake reports about how well the repairs are proceeding. No one checked on you and me because only a few people know we're here. Those who are supposed to check us are asleep."

"Someone will figure it out."

"We'll be gone by then."

"What makes you think I want to be gone?"

He laughed softly. "Because I mesmerize you, Sam. You want to see what I'm up to."

It was true, especially if he could hook her into a network of EIs acting outside human influence. But she feared for Turner. Even if they made it off the base without his being captured or hurt, they would be stranded in the Kansas countryside. No convenient tornados were going to whisk them off to Oz.

"Careful." He pulled her to a stop. "Stairs, two steps ahead, going down."

"Okay." Sam took a deep breath and went the two steps. Reaching out with her left hand, she hit a rail. She slid her foot forward and found the stairs.

As they descended, she said, "Any ideas about what to do if we get out of here?" She was turning ideas over in her mind to help him but not coming up with solutions.

"We're going someplace you really want to see."

"Is that so?"

"Yep. That's so."

Then he said, "Sunrise Alley."