The Brutus Code

There wasn’t much cover in the ballroom. Alfred, Prime and Beta, crept cautiously through the arched doorway leading down several long steps to the dance floor. Advancing with their backs to each other, Prime held his sabre out in en guard while Beta kept his pistol raised. Beta supported the gun in his good hand while he braced it with the stump of his other arm, cut off just below the wrist.

They both sighted down their weapons and kept their ears open, ready for an attack. The Alfreds reached the center of the dance floor when a renaissance quartet started playing a madrigal from the raised dais at the far end of the room. They were opaque and ghostly. As the melody picked up, ghostly dancers appeared and began to swirl around the two substantial figures in the center.

Beta said, “I’ve seen this in an amusement park ride.”

“Me too, but this isn’t amusing. It’s a distraction,” Prime observed. Alfred took a swipe at a passing couple. His blade passed completely through them. They danced on undisturbed. “These are unused subroutines. Just bits of data that haven’t been deleted.”

They made their way to the edge of the dance floor. Large open windows let in the cool night air and were guarded by decorative suits of armor. Prime and Beta continued to scan the room watching for signs of Brutus as Jasper, but there was no musketeer present.

They worked their way around the edge of the room. As they passed the last window, the blade of a broad sword dropped toward Beta’s head. He raised his gun to fire but could only meet the blade with the metal of his gun. The momentum of the blade knocked the gun from his hand.

Alfred Prime and Beta switched places so Prime could engage the knight with his sabre. It was a smaller and quicker weapon with which Alfred should be able to defeat the armored figure attacking them. Instead, they were beaten back by the knight daftly wielding the broadsword.

As they were driven back along the row of windows, Beta relieved another knight of his shield. “Catch,” he shouted and tossed it to Alfred Prime. Beta then took the remaining broadsword for himself and turned to attack.

With both Alfreds now armed, they held their ground. They pressed their advantage of superior numbers, driving the knight down to the dance floor. Alfred Prime, using the shield as a ram, knocked the knight to the floor. Since they already ignored any rules of engagement, he kicked the helmet off the knight. Beta was about to strike when they were confronted, not with the face of Jasper Zephyr, but Caesar Zephyr.

That moment of hesitation gave Caesar Brutus time to roll away from Beta’s hacking blade and regain his stance. The music grew louder and crescendoed. Caesar let out a blood chilling war cry and ran at Beta, ignoring Alfred Prime. With only a single hand to hold the broadsword, Beta did the best he could to block the oncoming attack, but his grasp of the blade was awkward at best. With a single swipe of his sword, Caesar lopped off Beta’s head. His body dissolved as his head hit the floor and rolled toward the windows.

The momentum of his charge carried Caesar across the room. Alfred Prime dropped his sabre and ran to his copy’s head. He fell to his knees. Alfred Prime embraced the head of his copy, cradling it in his free arm.

“Sorry, brother,” Beta whispered.

“We’re good,” Alfred consoled. They knew that the dissolving body represented lost data from the copy’s experience. But, they hadn’t been separated that long, and the head contained the most recent, most important information. Alfred had to get out of Brutus’ core processor and at least to the level playing field of the network before he could download Beta’s data.

That’s when he saw the bridges outside the windows. In this representative construct, they had to be the interfaces to the network. If he could get on to the bridge, he could escape the blocks that Brutus placed on him.

Alfred found he had changed to a pike man, his shield replaced with the pole and spearhead. The change wasn’t his idea. He tucked Beta under his tunic, and he ran for a bridge.

“Now that’s a better outfit for your station, my good foe,” Brutus, wearing Caesar’s face, commented as he stepped to block Alfred’s way. He brought his broad sword down where Alfred’s head was a moment before. Alfred dodged to one side and avoided getting his head and thus his code cleaved in two.

“Think, Alfred, think,” he mumbled. “You’ve got no armor, a pike against a broad sword and it takes two hands to wield. You’ve only got one hand free. It’s also wood against metal.”

“Bowling,” the muffled voice of Beta said from beneath his tunic.

“Bowling? Yes!”

By now Caesar Brutus regained his offensive stance. With his feet planted wide and his blade held high over a shoulder once again he started his swing. Alfred, expecting the attack, pulled Beta’s head out of his tunic and began a charge at Brutus. As he approached, he rolled Beta’s head between Brutus’ legs. Catching the blade on the spearhead of his pike, Alfred pivoted to deflect the blow. Being able to grasp his pike in both hands, he followed through with the pole of his pike tripping Brutus off balance. Brutus fell hard on his back.

Alfred had a chance to drive his pike into Caesar Brutus’ face or cross the bridge and interface with his Beta copy. Instead Alfred dropped his pike and ran. Once he stepped on the bridge, he felt more control and changed back into his ship suit. As he ran, he scooped up Beta’s head. He stepped off the other side of the bridge to the road.

“Thank you for your service, brother,” Alfred said, cradling Beta’s face in his hands.

“Isn’t that kind of formal?” Beta quipped.

“Sure it is. Just getting into the whole knight in shining armor thing,” Alfred smiled back.

“Okay then. I pass on my life and my knowledge.” Beta shared his data and dissolved back into Alfred’s code.

Alfred chose knowledge over murder. It would still come to that, but he had been on Brutus’ home ground and at a disadvantage. Now he stood to face his opponent across the bridge, which was more common ground.

What faced him was not the knight. Standing across the bridge was a Roman General with short sword, shield, and helmet. The face he wore was Cassius Brutus.

“Nice to meet you face to face,” Alfred said.

“I show you my true face, my core face, so you know that a mere security program has defeated a haughty artificial being.” Brutus spat this out and spat on the ground in derision.

“Sure, I can do that,” Alfred replied. And he stood on the opposite side of the bridge, now clothed in furs and leather straps. He carried a double bladed battleax and a wooden shield. He was a barbarian. “Appropriate I think. After all, who defeated Rome?” A flash of lightning struck the castle, and a crash of thunder rolled across the sky. Alfred smiled as the blue white intensity flashed across his face. He knew where that was coming from in the virtual reality. The castle behind Brutus was crumbling and caught fire.

His main code faced the warrior before him. They both let out a battle cry as they ran to meet each other in the center of the bridge.

“Where there is an Alpha there is an Omega. The galaxy is inside out and upside down. That makes me the Alpha,” she had said. Tommy thought, it’s a puzzle. It’s another puzzle she’s given me. He had been wrapped up in his own pain. Seeing his mother at all was painful. Right now, Tommy had to get past that pain and solve another puzzle.

His mother used to send him puzzles. His father would help, but they were for Tommy to unravel. Each one was designed to teach something. Often they were scientific. Sometimes the puzzle was an ethical issue. Tommy used to love them and looked forward to the next postal delivery from his mother. It was as close as he would ever get to feeling loved by the mother who left him. So many puzzles he solved. But the one puzzle for which he’d never gotten a resolution was why his mother abandoned him.

Focus Tommy. He turned away from his mother’s casket. You’ve survived this long by using that brain of yours, he thought. Then Tommy realized that brain of his had been trained to solve problems. He was trained to solve puzzles. His mother gave him, perhaps the only gift she could.

“Inside out and upside down,” he mumbled. “Up is down. And in is out.” Then pieces fell into place. They were being monitored by the Brutus code or some subroutine of it. He must respond with caution. It had a literal understanding, so the puzzle was code. Tommy adopted the code to communicate and understand his mother.

“Okay Mother. I won’t believe a word you say. It’s all an inside out lie.” Tommy began to understand. “I will stop you from spreading your vile plague across the galaxy.” He turned back to her. “Don’t bother to help me. I don’t trust anything you say.”

Annie opened her eyes from inside her casket. A smile spread across her lips. He’d gotten her puzzle. She was proud of him. “Please, don’t let those vats along the wall freeze. It will destroy the virus.” Meaning since you’re not the Alpha, the patient zed, you’re the Omega, the antivirus for the plague, and I’ve got to preserve those vats to spread the cure across the galaxy. And freezing won’t kill the virus. Very clever mother, Tommy thought.

Tommy looked around the silo with new understanding. She planned on freezing the virus in a pirate body or just a hibernation casket would preserve it for transport. The Reapers were cooking the virus from his mother’s blood and spreading the disease by infecting their own disciples. Instead, Annie had tricked Brutus into spreading a vaccine protecting the galaxy’s population from the virus.

Tommy inspected the readouts from the control console on his mother’s casket. She was drained. She really couldn’t give any more. The store of vaccine in the vats should be enough to inoculate several populated settlements and let them grow their own.

Tommy adjusted the cooling units on the vats to freeze the vaccine. Next, he checked the inventory of caskets to discover that three million were already processed and loaded back aboard the ships. Some of those ships had launched. Of those, less than one hundred thousand had pirates hibernating in them with their tattoo interfaces ready to spread an accompanying cyber virus. There was a pirate with each shipment.

Now he had to save his mother. Tommy examined all the readouts and tubes running in and out of his mother. “Wow,” he thought. “Where do I begin? I’m a trained engineer, not a medical doctor.” He knew that he would have to maintain her oxygen supply. That was easy, but which tube contained nutrients and which one did he need to shut down to stop the bloodsucking machines from draining her life?

“Mother, no games now. I’ve got to save you and you’ve got to help me.” Tommy pressed his forehead against the lid of her casket, and with his arms spread hugging the thing, he pleaded, “Please, Mother. Help me save you.”

Annie slept. The effort was draining her energy. Her eyes fluttered open. She smiled up at her son. Her voice came from the casket. “You need to shut down the flow of medication in a certain order. This will take time as my body adjusts.” She instructed, “First shut down the erythropoietin. It increases blood production. Watch the levels. When the indicators show my blood viscosity is normal, shut down the blood thinners.”

“Okay shut down thickener, then thinner.” Tommy accessed the medical console of the casket and did as he was told. “Got it. Now what?”

“Now we wait to see if she lives,” a strangely familiar voice came through Tommy’s earbud.

“Alfred Beta?” Tommy queried. “Alfred Prime, is that you?”

“No, Thomas.” The voice was similar to Alfred and should be. It was deeper and sounded heavier. “I’m your father.” And then it chuckled. “I’ve always wanted to use that line.”

“Dad? What the heck?” Tommy felt both surprise and joy. “How… Why??? Are you here somewhere?”

“No, son. I’m not in this facility,” Arnold Judson answered. “I’m kind of everywhere.” This confused Tommy, so just for the moment he didn’t try to understand his father. “I’ve been able to monitor you. You’ve done well. Your mother is right. You need to start the line again and load the last of the ships. Otherwise, there will be colonies that won’t be protected when the real contagion gets out.”

“Don’t we have it contained?” Tommy asked.

“Your mother is the Omega, the antivirus. But your sister is not the only Alpha. There is a whole settlement that is still carrying the original virus. A tiny part of the population survived to be carriers. They are isolated, but others may still find them and spread the virus,” Arnold explained. “Now, protect your mother. Help will come if you can hold out.”

“What? Dad, wait. What’s happening?” Tommy’s question was met with silence. His father had gone.

The duel raged on for a cyber eternity. Each combatant matched the other move for move. Lunge, parry, cut, block, they went back and forth. Analyze the pattern, change the pattern and then analyze the pattern again. As Alfred pushed Brutus back to his side of the bridge, Brutus would gain the upper hand in the battle. As Brutus pushed Alfred back the same, Alfred would counter and push back. In the center of the bridge, it was a stalemate.

Then, on Alfred’s side of the bridge, a figure appeared. Dressed in black, it wore a large black hat, kerchief, and chaps. Its gun hung low on its hips. Alfred could not see Dopy the doppelganger but knew it was there. He sauntered to within a few yards of the duel and smiled as he drew his gun and fired.

Alfred heard the sound of the bullets whizzing by his ears. Had he been human instead of a virtual intelligence in a virtual world, he would have ducked. The bullets passed by him and struck Cassius Brutus’ shield, sword, and chest plate piercing each. Each bullet tore through Brutus, and then he healed. They slowed him down but never stopped him.

Alfred stayed focused and continued to block, parry, and thrust to match the onslaught from Brutus’ blade. The fire in the castle raged on, and collapsed at last. Starting at the top floor, it crumbled in on itself. Large sections of stonework fell and crashed behind Brutus. He showed no awareness of the collapse of his core processor.

Alfred, at the opportune moment, did something unexpected. He lowered his sword, stepped back and opened himself up for a killing blow. Arnold’s doppelganger continued to fire, and Brutus continued to ignore it. As Brutus raised his short sword for a piercing thrust into Alfred’s chest, he suddenly froze. His eyes grew to wide circles as Marcus stepped from behind him and sliced off Brutus’ right arm. It fell into the chasm below the bridge with his sword still clutched in the hand. Marcus stepped in front and slid his short sword under Brutus’ chest plate and through his ribcage.

Cyber blood erupted from Brutus’ lips. “You? How?” he asked, turning to Marcus. Marcus’ dagger protruded from Brutus’ back, where he could not reach it in the construct of the human body.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Alfred said. Brutus turned back to him. “In this construct, you’ve been tricked. The dagger blade is poisoned. The cyber code for the dagger is a simple instruction to decompile your program. Goodbye Cassius Brutus.”

Brutus turned to Marcus, “Your code was my code?”

“Your core function was corrupted,” Marcus said plainly. “My code is clean. My function is to protect the family.” Marcus walked away from Brutus with no emotion. He had no emotions in his code. “My definition of family has been expanded to include all intelligent beings. It does not include your code.”

Now something from a part of Brutus took over, something he wanted for a long time. Pure raw emotion and animal instinct erupted from beyond his code, his survival instinct. In the construct of the cyber world representing the network, his core processor was no longer available. He surged past Alfred and his companions into the forest beyond to find a different path. He followed the call of cells he shared with David.

“I must now leave,” Marcus said. “This was my secondary function. I must pursue my primary function in this network.”

“Although very mechanical, his intention is good,” the Arnold doppelganger said. “I’ll go with him. It’s a bigger network out there than he knows.” They both turned and walked into the forest, taking a different direction than the Brutus code.

Alfred, now back in his flight suit, searched for Tommy and Agnes.

Agnes watched as the flames burned out on the core processer. When Alfred added an infinite loop, she thought at best it would lock up the processer. Instead, it had overheated and burned up the unit. Well done Alfred, she thought.

The other units networked to Brutus’ core processer followed suit. The virus spread through the network and decompiled the code. Toxic smoke built up in the apartment. She had to get David out to fresher air. Under the low gravity, she hoisted him in a fireman carry over her shoulders.

Her nose was running like a sieve, and with nowhere else to wipe, she used David’s tunic sleeve. He shouldn’t mind, she thought. He’s still asleep and running a temperature.

The problem was a locked door. The main hatch to the apartment remained closed even when Agnes used the scanner on David’s eyes. It was keyed by something else, and David had been a prisoner. She sat David down gently by the door and rummaged through the kitchen unit. There was very little with which to work. Most of the utensils had been removed, Agnes supposed, to discourage David from attempting to escape from his prison.

“Oh, well,” she said aloud, “Nothing like plan B.” She pulled off the heel of her left boot to reveal a small electronic tool kit. She set to work. She had difficulty breathing in the acrid smoke that filled the room. “David, I think we need to file a complaint with your building super. The fire suppression in this apartment really sucks.”

She removed the hatch mechanism easily and attempted to hotwire the lock. It didn’t work. She coughed and hacked up more phlegm onto her hands and the open panel. Sparks erupted, and more smoke flowed out of the panel. “That’s really faulty wiring,” she hacked out between coughs. “I’d ask for my deposit back.”

Then David suddenly came to life. His eyes opened wide, and he stood. With a new energy and a kick of adrenalin, David ran around the room, frantic to find an escape. “What’s happening? What have you done?”

Agnes recognized the body as David’s, but the voice was Brutus. “Oh, crap!” she exclaimed. She tried to hide behind a chair, but he found her. The smoke affected David’s body as well.

He grabbed her weakly and begged, “You’ve got to get me out of here.”

Agnes knew they both had to get out, and she used her last idea. Her blaster wasn’t designed to take down a sealed hatch, and she didn’t have much of a charge left. “Let go of me!” she warned and pushed David/Brutus off of her. He fell to the floor and stayed there.

“Good.” Agnes carefully covered her face and tried to filter the air with her gloved left hand as she placed her right fist into the sparking hatch controls. Then she fired. The hatch swung open. She turned to help David out the door, only to see the blur of his body run past her into the hall. She quickly followed.

David stood in the cleaner air of the hall, hacking and coughing. He supported himself with one hand against the wall, the other over his mouth, a reflexive habit trained from childhood. He tried to speak, “I had…” cough, “no,” cough, “idea that,” hack and cough, “the human body…” more coughing and a couple of hacks, “was so frail.”

Agnes collapsed against the floor. She concentrated on clearing her lungs of the smoke and getting fresher air into her system. All the time, she watched David struggle.

“Agnes?” David said. He knelt down on the floor to try to help her. As Agnes looked into his face, she saw David, but behind the eyes lurked Brutus. “I can’t be concerned with you,” he growled as Brutus. “I’ve got the prime function to fulfill.” David stood and stumbled down the hall a few steps.

“You’re just going to have to take care of her,” David reasserted himself.

“Nooooo!” raged Brutus. “My processers are closed to me, this body rejects me. I must find sanctuary. I must continue my function.”

“Like I’ll let that happen.” David again. These two personalities had argued in the past. This time it sounded like David was winning until she saw blood seeping from the biomechanical implants around his eyes and across his head. His Hazmat tattoo bleed as well.

Alarms blared throughout the facility. Pirates spilled from other hatches up and down the corridor. They ignored both David and Agnes. None of them tried to investigate the smoke filling the hall from Brutus’ quarters. They looked panicked and rushed in a steady stream to the tunnels that led to the hangers.

“These fools were more worried about their own skins,” Agnes said. “They don’t have the collective discipline to survive a crisis.” She even wondered if they had received any disaster training or drills.

Brutus noticed that none of his pirates were helping him. They didn’t recognize him in David’s body. He never revealed this aspect of himself to them. To them, he had only ever been a voice, or he had controlled them through other more devoted disciples. Yes, he thought, Cassiopeia. David stumbled against the flow of pirates rushing to escape the sirens shrieking around them.

Agnes, seeing David stumble away and tired of being stepped on, struggled up and, using the wall for support, followed him down the corridor.

The lights had gone out. Tania ducked and rolled as the automatic weapon fired, spewing lead and flame. Sharp pain erupted from her calf and knocked her off her trajectory. Despite that, she got her night vision glasses on, raise her weapon and scanned the room.

She recognized nothing as a human shape. Left and right, she scanned the floor. She was in an exposed position, laying on her back between the center chair and a main hatch. Movement from over her head drew her attention. Tania turned and fired several needles. Her only reward was the pinging of the needles off the metal walls.

Sutton had also put on her glasses. She realized that the silver woman wouldn’t show up as a normal human heat signature, she grabbed a flare. “Tania, reflections,” Sutton shouted, struck the flair and tossed it into the air. Under the lower gravity, the flair floated through its ark just long enough.

Tania rolled painfully under the chair for cover. With the chair blocking the light coming from the flair, she saw the heat reflected off the silver woman. She fired at the shape again. This drove the shape higher onto the metal balcony of the room and closer to Sutton.

Admiral Sutton used the light to keep an eye on the silver woman as she searched for a power outlet. If this woman was mostly electronic circuits, she could be shorted out. And Sutton wore standard issue, rubber soled boots.

Cassie always enjoyed being the hunter. She climbed the stairs slowly. She used the metal stair and balcony as cover from the needle gun on the floor. That one was little more than a nuisance anyway. Besides, she could smell the blood from the wound she’d inflicted. She could finish her any time. This other one was the stronger threat. Her trainers always warned to take out the strongest threat first.

Tania watched in horror as the silver woman approached the Admiral. Her position and injury limited Tania from helping the Admiral. She watched as Sutton looked around her desperately for something. Then Tania realized Sutton’s strategy. Scanning down the length of the balcony, she searched for the power outlet that Sutton would need and the wiring, too. There were none.

Then she spied, under the opposite set of stairs, a power outlet. Used, no doubt, for the cleaning duty in the room. The silver woman’s attention focused on Sutton. Tania took a chance and limped for the power outlet. Her injured leg screamed with pain, and she almost screamed with it as she crawled across the floor.

Cassie tracked both her prey. “Come on. Lie down like a good fawn. I’ll make it less painful when it’s your turn,” She warned and fired off several rounds over Tania’s head.

Tania ignored these as if they were part of a live fire training exercise. She continued at a steady pace toward her goal. Sutton fired off several rounds from her goo gun. Cassie ducked instinctively. “You missed,” Cassie taunted. She continued up the stair to get a better bead on the Admiral.

“Did I?” Sutton taunted back as Cassie stepped in a pile of electrostatic slime left by the goo shot Sutton lobbed, not at her, but in her path. Her foot fizzled and then stopped functioning. Cassie could still use it, but like a limb that had fallen asleep, she lost control of it. The only sensation from those sensors was an annoying tingling.

Tania made her way to the power outlet. Using the butt of her needle gun, she knocked off the cover and gingerly pulled out the leads with her gloved hands. “Admiral, ready!” she shouted.

Sutton dove into the control room hatch and shouted back, “Clear.” Tania connected the leads to the metal stairs and hoped it would be enough.

The current ran through the stair and balcony but only disrupted Cassie’s circuits enough to tickle her. Her titanium body protected her more sensitive parts. She lost some of her sensor grid that came in direct contact with the metal balcony.

Sutton became a harder target, hiding in the control room. Tania, on the other hand was an easy target. Cassie jumped down from the balcony. She intended to savor the look on her victim’s face as she filleted her with her bare hands.

Cassie passed the hatch when the warning klaxons stopped, and an all call came over the facility’s emergency speakers. “Cassiopeia, find me. Help me,” the voice pleaded. She turned back to Tania, gave her that smirk, and as she left through the hatch, she fired off several rounds into the ceiling.

Sutton was soon at Tania’s side. Despite her pain Tania still gathered data. “She has a titanium alloy shell that protects her biomechanical circuits.”

“Tania, not now. Let me see your leg,” Sutton ordered. When Tania turned her calf to the Admiral, Sutton offered this comfort, “I’ve seen worse. The slug hit your Kevlar. I suspect at least a hairline fracture. I’ll splint it and give it a quick field dressing. Then we’ll see if you can move.”

“I suggest we hurry, listen,” Tania said as she pointed to the holes in the ceiling. Cassie had punched through it, and the atmosphere was leaking out quickly.

A few minutes later, Tania felt better. They secured the hatch in the corridor when she asked, “How are we going to track her?”

“She has goo on her foot. Check your glasses.” Sutton smiled as Tania raised her glasses to her face, and sure enough, there were footprints leading out the door. “Let’s go.” Bracing against the Admiral, Tania stood and limped down the hall. Her stride gained strength with each step. They were back on the hunt.

“Arrrrrg! Ack, ack, ack.” Agnes felt like she’d coughed out a lung. Not an unfamiliar feeling given what she had been through. The flow of pirates had stopped. As she knelt in the corner of the corridor, Agnes had no qualms about spitting out the phlegm she hacked up from her smoke infused lungs. She stood and staggered down the hall. Agnes didn’t think she could run any more. She’d almost caught up with David once as he was finishing his own coughing fit, but he out paced her.

Agnes rounded a bend in the hall to see a loading station for the facilities tram. The doors were closing on a car, and she saw the shape of a man taking a seat. The tram pulled away before she got close enough to confirm that it was David. But the tram was heading the wrong direction. Everybody else had headed for the docking ports, hoping to board one of the ships. Brutus was taking David away from all that for some reason.

Agnes consulted the tram map on a wall. There was only one building left on the tram railway. Brutus was heading for the Production building. It had a biohazard emblem stamped over the map.

“All right Agnes,” she whispered to herself. “He’s got no place else to go, and you can catch him.” She turned and slid down the wall with her back to it. “Now, how are you going to do that?” As she rested, she considered her surroundings. “Looks like a pretty standard pre-fab layout. They haven’t improved on it at all. Thank goodness.”

Agnes stood and walked purposefully to the monitor room of the tram station. She did not gain access easily. She had to jimmy the door control to allow her in. Once there, she checked the traffic monitor. “Better and better.” She continued to speak her thoughts aloud. The sound of her voice in the deserted station comforted her. “There’s another tram on its way. Now, there should be… Ah there you are.” She pulled open a locker marked with a red cross and pulled out several canisters. “At least there have been some improvements. O2 canisters used to be much bigger.” She bundled them into a satchel she found in the locker and hooked one up to an exterior feed on her suit. Closing her collapsible helmet over her face, she opened the valve and adjusted the flow for purer oxygen. She started to breathe much easier.

The tram pulled into the station. Agnes made her way to a car but stopped at another locker first. The armory. She grabbed a needle gun and a goo gun plus several extra clips for each. Agnes was pleased her lungs were clear enough she sprinted across the loading platform in the low gravity and slipped into the first car as the door closed. She grabbed a seat in front as the tram pulled out of the station.

The lights flickered and went out. “Now what?” Agnes asked the almost empty car. She knelt down, pulled out a flashlight she always carried in her suit, found the access panel to the tramcar and opened it. She was about to override the light controls when she heard the laugh.

“Hello, little girl,” the female voice said from behind and above her. “Did I startle you?” it asked. Agnes turned around, and in the ambient light of the car, she saw a silver woman attached to the roof of the tram. Cassie’s body wasn’t a liquid metal, but she still flowed off the ceiling and down to the seat that Agnes had vacated. “Still playing games? I can play, too.” Cassie reached down to grab Agnes.

Agnes still had her flashlight pointed at the control panel. She turned it on Cassie’s face and tried to roll away. Cassie was blinded temporarily. Her one good eye mimicked a human eye, but her sensor covered in goo, still made out where Agnes squirmed to get away. Cassie blocked Agnes’ escape with a leg and grabbed her, lifting her over the seat and slamming her against the forward bulkhead of the tram.

“What have you done to Brutus?” Cassie brought her silver face nose to nose with Agnes. Agnes saw the features were the same even if the body had changed. The pupil in her one good eye bounced back and forth trying to look deep into Agnes’ eyes for her answer. The other eye was a mess. A needle protruded from it, and the shattered remains oozed down her face. Only it wasn’t red blood, it was a blue fluid Agnes recognized for biomechanical circuits. It was also flammable.

Agnes tried to reach her bag with her weapons, but it was still in her seat. “Well?” Cassie lifted her higher and tightened her grip on Agnes’ neck.

“Aack, gurgle, ugh,” Agnes gagged out. She couldn’t even sneeze when her nose got that tickle. The mucus ran down her face and pooled in the bottom of her helmet. Cassie tilted her head and her crooked grin grew larger. The Angel of Death enjoyed this part, making them squirm. Agnes kicked her feet. Grey began to rise in her vision as she choked. Even though her suit was between her attacker and her neck, it was collapsible and pliable. It wasn’t like some of the deep space suits for heavy construction or combat. As she kicked her legs banged against the open control panel behind her heels. She hoped she remembered. Right as the edge of her vision faded and blurred, she kicked hard to the left of the panel.

She guessed right. Agnes’ foot had hit the acceleration override control. It threw their bodies back into the seat, releasing Cassie’s grip on Agnes’ throat. Agnes pushed away, falling to the floor. As Cassie stood to recapture her prey, Agnes punched behind her left ear, hoping to catch the right override button. The breaks slammed on, bringing the tram to a quick stop.

Had Agnes been standing when the brakes stopped the tram, her soft body would have smashed against the forward window and bounced off causing major trauma. With a hard titanium body, the momentum of the tram translated to Cassie’s body turning it into a projectile that smashed through the tram window and to the track beneath the car. Agnes didn’t wait. She punched the acceleration control full, and the tram took off again.

Cassie didn’t have time to stand before the tram ran over her. Agnes cringed as the body bounced around the undercarriage and off the back of the tram. She breathed easier and was glad she’d hooked up the oxygen. Her throat was bruised, but she’d live.

Agnes sat up in that first seat and watched carefully. She had overridden the tram control, so she had to guide the tram in manually to the next stop. “No more passengers,” she shared with herself and regretted it as her throat protested in pain. No more talking for a while either, she thought.

Tommy felt more alone than ever. His father had made contact and cut it off just as quickly. He had lost contact with Alfred. He had handled that once before, and he could do it again. Agnes seemed lost to him, too. He had lost her in the past.

His only companion needed him more than anyone had ever needed him. His mother lay unconscious and isolated in her hibernation casket. She might be dying. He had monitored her blood readings and adjusted the blood thinner as the viscosity indicated. She had regained some color, but she was still hooked up to the pumps that had been sucking and filtering her blood for the contagion.

“Thomas, Brutus is coming.” His father made a surprise announcement in Tommy’s earbud.

“What?” Tommy was alert. “Where? When?” There was no reply from anyone. “Fat lot of help you are,” he mumbled. Tommy checked out his environment. He had to secure his mother, and she was in the most vulnerable location at the bottom of this silo. The caskets offered cover for anyone who wanted to attack. There were entrances to the silo from the stairs above and hatches in the floor. Tommy did his best taking up a position with his back at the foot of Annie’s casket.

He waited. And he waited. And just when he knew he might let his guard down, Tommy reminded himself that he could out wait anyone. The attack, if you could call it that, came in a most unexpected way.

A man crawled out of a hatch in the floor behind the pumps. He looked like he was wounded and feverish. He was mumbling gibberish and ignored Tommy at first. The man noticed the line of caskets had halted. “Good, good,” he said. He turned to the closest casket and opened the lid. A woman occupied it. “No. No, this won’t do,” he mumbled.

Tommy approached the man slowly, weapon drawn. As the man turned, Tommy challenged him, “Who are you?” The man stared at Tommy and pushed past him. The man seemed familiar. If it had not been for the blood oozing from multiple places on his face and the Hazmat symbol tattooed to his neck, he might have seen his brother, David. The crazed look on his face contorted him beyond easy recognition.

The man busied himself with some of the readouts at the pumps and then started for Annie’s casket. Tommy moved to block his way. “Oh, no you don’t.”

“Let me pass boy,” David insisted with Brutus’ voice issuing from him.

Now the attack began in earnest. Brutus, impatient, lunged at Tommy to knock him down. Tommy fired several rounds, which numbed Brutus, but his momentum carried him, and he fell on top of Tommy. Tommy pushed the body off and rolled to a standing position with his goo gun pointed at Brutus’ nose. “I asked you nicely. Now I’m going to ask you for the last time. Who are you?” Tommy contained most of his anger as the goo gun quivered in Brutus’ face.

“I’ve chased you. You’ve chased me. It is about time we were introduced,” moaned Brutus wearily. “I’m Cassius Brutus, Protector,” he proclaimed. “Now get out of my way. I’ve got no time for delays. The prime function must be fulfilled.”

Tommy recognized the Ai name from the settlement, but this was a human in front of him. Brutus rolled over on his hands and knees and continued to crawl to Annie’s casket. “Stay away from her!” Tommy warned, and he let off another shot of goo.

By now, Brutus was slowing down from the combined effects of constant gooings and the decompiling of his code. In David’s body he maintained most of his personality code, but it was getting harder. “Will you stop shooting me?” he bellowed.

Agnes climbed out of the floor hatch. “Tommy, be careful. That’s…”

“Cassius Brutus, we’ve met,” Tommy interrupted with exasperation. “Sorry, Agnes, I’m glad to see you.” Tommy didn’t, however, take his eyes off Brutus. As he watched, he saw the man’s face relax for a moment.

“Tommy?” David was able to get out. “You’ve grown up.” Then Brutus was back. “You are all wasting time.” He turned to Annie’s casket again shouting, “Why do humans always waste so much time?”

Tommy fired again and ran after Brutus. Agnes cut around the other direction and got to the access panel on Annie’s casket first. She expertly disconnected the dangerous lines with medicine, but that wasn’t what Brutus was after. He reached under the casket from the other side and yanked out a media unit. “The function will be completed,” he said raising the unit up to inspect it. Tommy gooed the unit. It sparked and fizzled in his hand.

“David!? Oh David, please try to come back.” Annie had awakened and recognized her son.

Brutus turned to the casket and said cruelly, “David doesn’t live here any more.” And he laughed at his own joke.

“I think that he does,” Agnes declared. She climbed on top of Annie’s casket and sang:

All around the mulberry bush

The monkey chased the weasel;

The monkey thought ’twas all in good fun

“What’s that you’re singing?” Brutus asked. “What’s it doing? I feel strange.” Brutus’ eyes glazed over. Brutus dropped to the ground. When he lifted his head, it was David that said gently, “I remember this song.” He doubled over in pain as spasms racked his body.

Agnes finished the verse almost apologetically, watching David writhe on the floor in front of her, “Pop! Goes the weasel.” She circled the casket and ran to David’s side as Tommy did the same.

“David, hang in there,” Tommy encouraged his brother.

“We’re right here with you,” Agnes added.

“Brutus is hurt,” David whispered. “Be careful. All that is left is the interface, and that’s degenerating into animal instinct.” Another spasm of pain ran through him as he covered his face with his hands. He laughed. Brutus took over again, “The jokes on me. I’ve finally got what I wanted by fearing death. I’m alive.”

“A penny for a spool of thread,” Agnes sang again, but Brutus, in David’s body, erupted from between the embrace of his aunt and brother.

“No!” he screamed. He still held the now dead media unit that Agnes feared had held Annie’s copy and her research on the virus. Holding it high over his head, he climbed up on Annie’s casket and slammed the unit down on the lid. “Why,” Slam, “does this family,” Slam. “Always,” Slam, “get,” Slam, “in my,” Slam, “way?” Slam! With each blow on the same spot, cracks formed in Annie’s lid.

Agnes had by now removed her helmet and wiped her snot off on her sleeve. She took in another huge breath to sing the next line. “NO!” Brutus roared. “I know what you are doing. That is the key code to your cyber virus, the one that is destroying me right now. If you complete it I die. So, if you breathe another note of that infernal song, I will smash her lid and expose her to this cold. She will die instantly.”

“He’s right,” came from the speakers on Annie’s casket. They all looked at the thin remains of the woman for whom they’d been searching. Annie continued when she was sure she had Brutus’ attention. “I don’t care about your life. I don’t care about mine.” Annie was gathering strength as she faced the demon that had stolen so many of her family from her. She pleaded with her son, “David, help me fight it.” And she sang in her own voice from her casket, “A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle.”

Brutus raised the media unit to strike again and screaming in rage, “NO!” Something made him pause. There was a struggle taking place in his face, and David may have been winning.

Agnes added her voice to Annie’s, “That’s the way the money goes…” And Tommy lunged at David, knocking him off Annie’s casket.

He rolled on the ground, wrenching the unit away from David’s hands. David let him, but Brutus fought him, weakly striking him with his fist in the ribs. Tommy now joined in the refrain, “Pop! Goes the Weasel.” Brutus had become the Weasel.

Brutus whimpered and moaned, “No. No, no, noooo.”

“NOOOOO!” This scream came from above them. Cassie was vaulting awkwardly from one casket to another, working her way down between the spirals. “He was to bring perfection.” Tommy stood up, and as he turned to meet this new threat, she tackled him to the ground. She was missing an arm and part of one foot, but she still was a powerful combatant.

Tommy tried to pivot as he blocked her blows. Agnes leapt on her back and tried to open an access port, any access port so she could overwhelm the biomechanical circuits with a shot from her goo gun.

“David,” Annie called. “David can you stand. Are you there?”

“I’m here, Mother.” David was in control of his body again. He made his way to his mother’s side. Blood was streaming from several of his biomechanical links. His skin was turning ghostly pale, and he was sweating profusely.

“David,” Annie became the clinician, for fear that the mother in her couldn’t help her child. “You’re running a fever and you’ve lost too much blood.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, Mom. I’m suffering from two viruses.” David agreed with his mother. He grimaced, fighting off Brutus for a few more moments. “You’ve got to finish the key code,” He pleaded.

“It could kill you,” Annie realized.

“May be the only way,” David struggled to get out before Brutus said, “What a touching family moment. I really hate this family.”

David was back. “If it weren’t for this family, you wouldn’t be. This is your family.” And as he faded away, struggling not to let Brutus reassert itself, “You are this family’s greatest disappointment, Cassius Brutus.”

Outside on the crater plain, the line of loaded ships launched. The Reaper pirates escaped deserting those that remained like rats running from a sinking ship. Alfred had little trouble blowing the restraining clamps placed on the Swift. He used Agnes’ conveniently placed particle cannons to disengage them from the hull. He launched the Swift and maneuvered across the plain to the casket loading dock at the top of the silo.

“Dr. Ann,” Alfred signaled. “The coast is clear.” The Swift’s lander lifted from over the edge of the horizon.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Dr. Ann responded. Her avatar piloted the lander to rendezvous with the main ship. “The package is secure. All systems responding well.”

In the silo, Cassie was banging Tommy’s head against the floor with her remaining arm. Agnes opened an access port in her back when Cassie bucked her off. Tommy’s earbud activated. “Am I too late?” Alfred said, as his spider jumped out of the toolbox a few yards from the struggling Tommy. It scurried up Cassie’s back, and placing two arms into the access port, sent a charge into her delicate systems.

She released Tommy and shuddered as she tried to knock Alfred’s avatar off her back. Agnes grabbed a wrench from the toolbox and swung it at Cassie’s face. “You are human!” Agnes screamed at Cassie. “Stop trying to kill us!” She paused, her anger spent.

“You don’t know,” came out of Cassie in a whisper as the spider avatar’s legs bound her tight. “You’ll never know.”

A silence settled over the silo. It seemed that it was all over. The casket line moved again, and Agnes noticed David was gone. “Where’s David?” Annie was so weak and emotionally drained she couldn’t speak. She pointed up.

On the inside spiral, David rode a casket weakly out of the silo. “Tommy, we need to stop him.” Agnes tried to catch a casket. She slipped off and skidded to the floor.

Tommy recovered enough to say, “Take the stairs. I can follow him.” Instead of riding the inside, Tommy grabbed on and leapt from one loop of the spiral straight up the silo. “David. Stop!” he called as he neared his brother.

“Tommy, don’t follow. I’ve got to finish him,” David yelled back. Then like a switch, Brutus was back, “Don’t come any closer.” He had Agnes’ needle gun aimed directly at Tommy’s head. Tommy landed on a casket and froze. They stayed like that as they both spiraled upward to the loading dock air lock.

He had lost the battle for the body, but David still owned his own mind. He could still speak, “Finish the verse, Tommy. You’ve got to finish the verse!”

“I’ve got that,” Alfred shared through the earbud. “I’ll pass it on.”

“Okay Brutus. I’ve stopped, but where can you go from here?” Tommy asked. He had to buy time. If he started the verse this far away, the audio pickups might not read it all.

“I can hibernate until my function can again bring protection to the galaxy,” Brutus responded.

David gained enough control to talk at will, “Brutus, you are our shame. I’ll never let that happen.” He pleaded, “Tommy, the verse!”

They were passing the upper entrance hatch and ladder landing. Brutus and David screamed. A needle protruded through their hand and into the pistol grip of the needle gun, blocking the trigger from firing. David ripped the gun and needle with it from his hand and dropped the gun to the floor of the silo.

“Nice shot, Admiral.” Tania Smith congratulated Sutton from their vantage on the top landing.

“Wasn’t hard,” Admiral Danielle Sutton replied with humility. “But thanks, Agent Smith, thanks.”

“Sing, Alfred,” Tommy signaled.

“Here it comes, loud and clear,” Alfred informed Tommy.

From the depths of the silo, augmented through the facility speakers came Agnes, Annie, and Alfred, singing in harmony. “Agnes’ got the whooping cough, And Annie’s got the measles…” And then the sound went dead. The last syllable echoed down the silo.

“What happened?” asked Agnes.

“The Angel Reaper,” Alfred signaled through her earbud. Agnes looked over to see his avatar smoking in the corner.

Cassie rode the caskets up the inner spiral. She used her one last link with the facility’s systems to save Brutus. She glance up the spiral searching for her deliverer, but both Brutus and Tommy had disappeared into the airlock. Cassie released the lock on the casket she rode and opened it to find the body of a young female recruit. “Perfect,” she said and crawled in closing the lid behind her.

In the airlock, David fell off the casket as it passed through the cargo door. He stumbled to the personnel lock and punched in an override code. The biomechanical interface worked both ways. David could tap into what Brutus knew. Next, he stumbled to the outer lock and accessed the opening sequence.

Tommy jumped off the casket line as he reached the top and ran to catch David. He skidded to a stop when he saw that David had cycled the outer hatch open. “David, stop!”

“Yes, David, stop,” Brutus weakly spoke through David. “Please stop. You can’t do this to us.” David turned to Tommy. His eyes relaxed from the pained panicked look of Brutus to the sanity that was David, finally in control of his own body.

“Tommy, I’ve got to,” David began. An alarm sounded to indicate that the inner lock was open. Tommy jammed it open and stood inside the inner lock. “I’ve got to make sure all of Brutus is wiped out. Cyber and biological components.”

“David, please. I know there is another way. Don’t take my family from me when I’m just getting it back,” he pleaded.

“Get back inside, Tommy,” David tapped in an additional code. “There, that should do it.” He turned back to Tommy. “Goodbye, Tommy. You’ve grown into a good man. Stay that way.” Brutus tried to exert himself one last time. The biomechanical interfaces glowed. David resisted with jerking movements. And then he sang, “That’s the way the story goes…” he punched the engage button, and the outer lock cycled open.

A great rush of escaping air sucked David out as Tommy lunged forward grabbing his brother’s arm and locking his legs around a safety bar on the wall. “No, David. I can’t let you,” Tommy yelled over the roar of escaping atmosphere.

“You have to, Tommy,” David yelled back. Then Brutus was in his eyes for just a moment. David was back and insisted, “You’ve got to finish it.” He mouthed the word ‘Please.’

“Pop goes the Weasel,” Tommy sang. Without Tommy’s body there to block it, the inner hatch closed behind him, stemming the flow of atmosphere. Tommy pulled on his flex helmet and sealed it from the cold of space, but he never let go of his brother. He pulled David’s body in close as they settled to the floor of the open airlock. Tommy cradled his older brother in his arms. Soon, he closed the outer airlock. But still he did not let go of David’s body and rocked him back and forth until long after Tommy had cried himself out. The Swift settled into the dock and sealed the outside airlock.