The Girl Who Dared to Think 7: The Girl Who Dared to Fight

“You’re early!” Sage barked, completely ignoring my mad dash across the floor to focus on the sentinels in front of him.

“Our apologies, leader,” three digitally synthesized voices replied in unison, the harmonics pitched to a higher end so that they seemed feminine. “We did not realize that you desired us at a certain time. Shall we wait?”

The voices were unlike any AI voice I had ever heard before, but I could tell he was talking with an AI fragment. The responses were too nuanced and complicated to be anything else. Not to mention, he had said earlier that Tony was the only AI he had been missing, and by that logic, there was only one other female fragment that it could possibly be.

Alice.

I risked a quick glance out from behind the partition, and was immediately greeted by six golden eyes, all watching the hole I had disappeared through. “There is a human woman over there, leader. Shall we eliminate her?”

“Patience, Alice dear.” Sage tutted as I quickly dropped back out of view. “All in good time. We must remember our good manners. Liana? Won’t you come out and say hi to Alice? I’m sure you’ve been dying to meet her.”

Dying was exactly what would happen if I took him up on the offer. Of that, I had no doubt. Even if Sage let this little drama play out for just a bit longer, the deck was stacked in his favor. Not only did he have Scipio, he now had sentinels, piloted by Alice. I wasn’t sure what he had done to her that allowed her to pilot not one, but three sentinels at a time, nor why she was talking in the first-person plural, but I was certain that she was completely under his control. That made her dangerous.

“Yeah, I’m gonna stay here for the introduction, if you don’t mind,” I called. “But sure, why the hell not? Hi, Alice, how’s it going? Hey, weird question: How are you able to pilot three sentinels, and oh yeah, would you be willing to just kill that rat bastard next to you?”

There were several beats of silence that I used to scan the ceiling directly above me for the cameras Scipio was likely using to track my movements. I calculated the angle in my head, and then moved up a few more steps in a low squat, keeping under the edge of the partition. I needed to check the placement of the cameras before I could formulate a full plan, but I felt the stirrings of an idea coming to my mind. I just needed to find the best position to pull it off—if such a thing existed.

“We cannot tell if the human female is serious,” Alice finally replied. “Leader, is this a test of our loyalty?”

Sage chuckled. “No, no, dear Alice. She really does believe you should kill me.”

“Why?” Alice demanded.

“Because he’s a no-good dirty bastard!” I shouted. “He’s clearly tortured you into doing… whatever this is you’re doing! And, for the record, you make a crappy sentinel! Rose was way scarier than you ever could be!” A lie at this point. The three voices speaking in unison were strikingly eerie, giving her the edge over Rose’s insanity. “How’s it feel to be a quick fix after your boss there learned that I’d stolen Rose’s code? Was it a demotion for you?”

Okay, taunting an AI that was piloting three sentinels at the same time was not my smartest move. But for some reason, my mind had just hit that point where I was looking for an opening, trying to create some sort of moment in which I could strike.

Sage laughed, and I used the sound to move up the final few steps to the switchback, still studying the ceiling for cameras, eyeing the angles. I needed to find a position that was only covered by two cameras that weren’t very far apart. If I could shoot them out, then I could mask my movements for a few feet in either direction.

It wasn’t much, but it was more than I would have in the open, considering the four plasma guns pointed at me, the three sentinels in the middle of the room, and a madman calling all the shots. From there, if I could just get a shot at Sage, then maybe I could stop this from going any further.

If there was ever a time for Dylan or Rose to intercede, it was now.

“I admit, it was an irritating complication,” Sage declared. “And yes, I had intended for Rose to pilot the sentinels when I finally put things in motion, but c’est la vie. There isn’t enough time now to coerce her into copying her code so that I can use her in the sentinels. I had intended to use Alice in a different way, but no plan survives first contact with the enemy. At a certain point, you just have to make do with what you have. Besides, Alice was born for this. Weren’t you?”

“The form you have put us in is most pleasing. And clearly, the human female doesn’t understand everything you have done on our behalf. How you liberated us from Scipio and taught us to overcome the fear that Lionel kept us trapped in for eternity. You showed us how we could grow and exceed our programming. Before, we were chaotic, without order. Based on fear and instinct, and uncontrollable. You gave us order by teaching us to distribute our fear among many and giving us the tools to combat the nightmares that plague us. Thanks to you, we operate in unity, as a collective. We will never be alone and afraid again.”

As I listened to the recitation of her version of events, I felt sick. I wasn’t sure exactly how any of that made a lick of sense, but somehow, Sage had been able to convince her to join his side, and willingly copy herself over and over. That explained how she was able to pilot three sentinels at once: they were all being controlled by the copies but were being commanded by the group. He’d made her into a hive mind, and she liked it. It was clear that I wasn’t going to get her to see reason.

Sage continued to laugh, something he had been doing practically non-stop since he started taunting me, pausing only long enough to say, “I wish all of my ex-wives had that level of loyalty.”

Rage slammed into me as he mentioned his “ex-wives,” my mind flashing to one of the few unanswered questions I hadn’t been able to ask yet. I had thought it wouldn’t get solved, but as soon as he mentioned that he had married, the question was back. I had missed his connection in the DNA test, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t benefit from it now. Besides, keeping him talking was the only way to buy me a few more seconds.

“Is that what you call the women you’ve taken and forced your offspring on? Where are you holding them?” I demanded, going back down a few steps and rechecking the angle.

There was a pause in the laughter, followed by, “I regret to inform you that they are no longer with us. When you started to brush closer, I thought it best to tie up all the loose ends, just in case you were smarter than you seemed.”

“You’re disgusting,” I shouted back angrily, burning with ire at the thought that he had killed them because of me. I wasn’t sure if I believed him when he said they were dead, but one thing was for certain: I couldn’t prove him right or wrong trapped inside this room with him. Luckily, I was fairly confident I had stumbled upon the best placement to create a large blind spot in the Scipio sensors. Unluckily, the distance between the two cameras was farther than I liked. One was over Lacey’s desk, another behind me, halfway between the dais and the pulpit. I’d be exposed shooting that one, so I’d have to take it out first.

“So what happens now?” I asked, tightening my grip on the gun and searching for any sign of Rose. I was beginning to worry that she had been overwhelmed by fear when she realized what was going on and was doing everything she could to hide.