“Base AI!” I said frantically, knowing I had but a handful of seconds to act, at most, and only because of a twelve hundred light-year home-field advantage. “Lower the wall of force between me and Tessa.”
“I must warn you that—”
“Do it!” I bellowed at the top of my now-raw lungs.
The green-tinged wall of force disappeared. I reached for Tessa’s hand and pulled her forward. “This is a cell. We have to get out of here now so they can’t wall us in.”
“Jason, what’s—”
I yanked on her arm and pulled her with me. “Trust me,” I pleaded. When we crossed the threshold just ten feet away, returning to the gallery facing the room, I released her arm. “We have to put distance between us and this cell. Luckily, there are no surveillance cameras inside the facility.”
“First we have to get Brad,” said Tessa moving toward him.
I grabbed her and pulled her back. “No!” I insisted. “He’ll slow us down. He’s safe here. I promise we’ll come back for him.”
“There’s no way we’ll be able to—”
“Tessa, I acted strangely because I was controlled by the Swarm. Now I’m free.” I handed her the gun. “I need you to trust me and do everything I say without question. Can you do that?”
She nodded, just as an announcement began to blast over a loudspeaker system that reached every corner of the base.
“Attention, all personnel,” boomed a familiar voice, “this is Commander Kenneth Kussmann, issuing a Priority One-Alpha alert. There are armed and highly dangerous escaped prisoners within our facility, last seen at holding cell Delta. A man named Jason Ramsey and a woman named Tessa Barrett. I’ll send their pictures to every monitor, computer, and cell phone on base.
“Civilians are instructed to remain in whatever room, lab, or office you’re now in, securing and locking the doors and letting no one in or out until further notice. If you’re away from your office or room, make your way there as rapidly as possible and lock yourselves in.
“All personnel with military training, organize hunting parties to find the two prisoners, who are likely moving together, and kill them on sight. No hesitation. I repeat, kill both escaped prisoners on sight!”
“Follow me!” I said to Tessa, not surprised by Kussmann’s—the Swarm’s—announcement, only that it hadn’t come sooner.
I opened my mouth to issue additional orders to the base’s AI before the Swarm could shut me out, but I was already too late.
“Jason Ramsey,” the AI said through my bracelet, “your authorization to give orders has been revoked. Stand down immediately.”
I deactivated the bracelet and flung it as far away as I could, moving in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” whispered Tessa, making sure her voice wouldn’t draw any attention.
“To an unused part of the base,” I replied in equally low tones. “One of the sections they built out to leave room for future expansion. So we can buy ourselves time to plan.”
Saying this, I began picking up speed, and we were soon sprinting through the hallways at a pace no unenhanced human could match.
“Nanites,” I thought at my onboard collective AI, “every last detail of this facility should be located in the Swarm memory you downloaded. Find it, and any other information pertaining to the base, and implant it in my own memory.”
“Already working on it,” replied the nanites quickly, apparently having done a masterful job of anticipating my needs. “Done,” they replied a few seconds later.
“You heard the Swarm tell me of a thought-sequence it can use to penetrate zip-craft AI systems. A backdoor entrance. Isolate the thought-sequence required, and prepare to transmit this password to a zip-craft on my command.”
“Locating such a random thought-sequence is more difficult than locating something better defined, like the plans for this base. The immense volume of hive-mind memories we acquired make this akin to trying to isolate a grain of rice hidden somewhere in all the sands of the Sahara desert.”
“Then you’d better hurry,” I replied harshly as we continued to run. “The Swarm can apparently deliver this thought-password from twelve hundred light years away,” I added. “Once you find it, will you be able to deliver it from a distance?”
“No. They have access to quantum signal-boosting technology. We don’t. Even at maximum output, you’ll have to be inside a ship for such a password to be received.”
I cursed to myself as we turned a corner and ran straight into two soldiers with guns extended, clearly on the prowl for us. Tessa dispatched them both in seconds, but left them alive.
We stopped just long enough to rifle through their combat vests and remove weaponry—including a single stun grenade, several knives, and several guns—before racing onward once again, leaving them in our metaphorical rear-view mirrors like human road kill.
Thirty seconds later I called a stop to get my bearings, and I was lucky I did. We soon heard what sounded like two scared civilians about to turn the corner and enter the wide corridor we were in.
We rushed to a small storage closet ten feet away and I used my enhanced strength to open a locked door and duck inside with Tessa. It was tight, and when we closed the door we were plunged into darkness, but the coming couple now couldn’t see us and sound the alarm.
The night-vision capabilities of our nanites kicked in the moment Tessa closed the door.
“This is as good a place as any to stop and plan,” I whispered. “The unused sections are too far away, anyway.”
“How do you know where you are?” she whispered.
“The nanites have implanted a full schematic of the base into my memory.”
“How do they have it?”
I pushed my mouth against her earlobe and whispered even more softly. “I was possessed by the Swarm. We don’t have time for too many questions, but I need you to know that my nanites have a copy of all Swarm memories.”