Digital Exodus Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Jason’s fist hit the door gently, but the sound was still jarring in the eerie quiet of the back streets. Nobody moved as the knock echoed between the tightly packed temporary housing units, although I noticed everyone save for me had their guns at the ready.

There was silence for a long time, until the door suddenly flew open and a very short, somewhat overweight woman hurtled out and collided with Jason.

“Jason!” She cried, voice shrill with emotion.

“Oh, shit!” Jason exclaimed. “Careful of the gun, ma!”

She eyed the weapon without letting go. “What’ve you got a gun for?”

“We didn't know what was up,” he said. “We saw Vaughan go in there, but is Henry there too?”

Suddenly, his mother looked very guilty, and she bustled back out of the hug. “Oh… you don't need to find Henry, do you? You've found your ma again!”

Jason was suddenly very still, but the hand holding his weapon flexed enough to creak. “What have you done, ma?”

“I ain't done nothing!” She said defensively.

Our friend let out an explosive sigh and examined his mother with a critical eye. “We'll continue this conversation in a sec.” Over comms, he said, “Let's clear the place tactical-style. She's lying about something, and this is the slums. Never trust a shifty old lady with something to hide, even if she raised you. Oh, and don't shoot my stepdad, or Henry if he's in there, please.”

“You heard him,” Roger said authoritatively. “Ed, David, you're in first. I'll head in after. Alia and Gloria cover the rear and make sure nobody spills out a window.”

No sooner had he given the order, than Ed and David popped out from the shadows and rushed the door, stubby little SMGs held up at the ready. Jason's mother began to squawk, but he wrapped a hand around her mouth before she really got going. Like a well oiled machine, my two best buddies did all the crazy professional angles and room sweeping stuff that you see in movies.

“You, Vaughan!” David suddenly barked. “Hands on your head. Knees on the floor.”

“First room clear,” Ed relayed over comms. “Stepdad is scared but okay. We have a second door to clear. Roger, can you hold the first room?”

Roger gave two clicks over comms in acknowledgement.

There was a pause of a few seconds, then the sound of a door opening.

“We have a third. Not Henry,” Ed said at the same time that we heard David say, “You! Hands on head, knees on floor!”

Ed, again, spoke for both of them when he said, “Shit. Second room is clear, but we have two more doors. Can we get Alia in to cover this guy?”

Now it was my turn.

Timidly, I approached and stepped into the crusty old apartment. The first room was a small living space with an old physical TV and some worn out couches. All the couches looked like they'd been used for sleeping rather than sitting. The second room, when I stepped in, was a kitchen, although it was missing any and all whiteware. Ed had his SMG aimed at an older looking man who was kneeling on the rusty metal floor.

The guy had a funny old timey looking hat on, like an ancient black and white movie gangster. The rest of his clothes were your pretty standard jeans, grubby tee, and an old suit jacket. The look in his eyes wasn't one of fear, either, but calculation. He'd had guns pointed at him before.

I tried to look confident when I pointed my pistol at the floor beside him, but I really wasn't feeling it. I had the sense to keep out of his reach at least, but he'd probably still be able to take me out if he tried. Thankfully, he didn't know that.

That was when David very carefully and very quickly opened the third door. It opened into a bathroom that was barely bigger than a closet, with nobody inside. “Third room is a tiny toilet. Clear.”

They moved past me and the unknown dude, then positioned themselves outside the last door. Silently, David counted down on his fingers from three, then opened the door and pushed it inwards. He and Ed scanned the room methodically, making sure the angles they were exposed to were minimal.

“We have another guy— It's Henry. He's tied to a chair,” Ed told us. “Has a black eye and a split lip, but otherwise unharmed. Ah, and the last room is clear.”

“Alright,” Roger said, some tension leaving his voice. “Everyone inside.”

Gloria and Jason, along with his mother, entered the apartment. We put her, Vaughan, and the unknown man in the main room where the others could watch them, then Jason went in to look after Henry. I stood in the empty kitchen, watching them through the door like a creep.

“Hey, you crazy old coot,” Jason said affectionately. “How the hell did you get yourself in this situation?”

“I didn't do shit,” Henry rumbled with frustration. “Your ma and her fuckin’ private investigator are the ones who caused this circus, and let me tell you, it was a fucking circus.”

“Alright, alright— hey, quit wriggling. I'm putting some ointment on your—” Jason was trying to say.

Henry interrupted him. “I don't need no fucking ointment. Let me out of these ropes— hey! Fuck, that stings!”

“There,” Jason said, exasperated. “Alright, let me get the ropes.”

“The fuck is with your friends, by the way?” The older man huffed. “Coming in here like silent death machines. They cops? You better not be talking to cops.”

“They're not cops!” My friend groaned, and together they entered the kitchen. “They're just my gaming buddies. The two who cleared the room are ex-navy, though.”

“Figures,” Henry said, giving me a wry smile as a way of including me in the conversation. “They didn't shoot me—shoulda known they weren't cops.”

“Pretty sure army people can shoot hostages too,” Jason said with a frown.

Henry waved his comment off. “Nah, boy. If the military shoots you, it's almost always on purpose, and unless you're the target, you'd be classified as acceptable collateral. If the cops shoot you, half the time it's because you spooked them and their gun was already pointed at you. Fucking idiots.”

When I didn't say anything, Henry finally spoke directly to me, “So, what's your name, little lady?’

Biting my lip, I tried to maintain eye contact-ish. “Alia. I make things—a mechanic or an engineer—and uh… other tech stuff.”

“Nice,” he nodded. “Love a good grease girl.”

“Come on, into the next room,” Jason said patiently while shooting me an apology. “Let's sort this shit out.”

Back in the front living room, the PI and Jason’s parents were sitting next to each other on one of the couches while David and Ed watched from the entrance. When Jason’s mother saw us bring Henry in, the colour drained even further from her face.

“So, Ma,” Jason said, seating Henry on a different couch. “Why was Henry tied up and beaten in the other room?”

All three of the naughty school children were silent, so Jason turned to the man himself. “Henry?”

“They thought I’d killed or hidden you,” he said, shaking his head at them. “Wouldn't listen when I said I saw you once, then you vanished again… which by the way, you never really explained what happened.”

“Well…” Jason said with a wince.

“Prohibitions against revealing the Exodus are done. You can explain everything except security and combat capabilities,” said Cerri through her comm link to us.

Jason's eyebrows lifted, and he glanced at Roger, then me. “Okay. I guess since our ship is going to be in orbit and we've already announced ourselves…”

“No!” Henry blurted, eyes wide. “This lot were talking about that ship—”

“Most of what's public is very vague,” Jason said, “But essentially, we're with this big Exodus org—nation—whatever. We're all digital now. These bodies are loaners from the Exodus, they had some folks doing business here a couple years ago, but that's not really important. What's important is that these Exodus people are great—”

He went on to explain in broad terms what the Exodus was about, and why we were getting the hell away from Earth. He didn't mention how he got digitised or that things had been very sketchy for a while. He did explain a bit about what life was like as a digital human living in Exodus city, though. The descriptions of our idyllic suburban village were especially wild to the slum dwellers, although the very silent PI didn't seem impressed.

“—I have the coolest boys pad with these guys,” Jason finished gesturing to David and Ed.

All the fleshlings in the room were quiet for a couple of seconds, then the PI leaned forward. “Sounds like you've got a sweet deal. I don't trust it, though. There'll be a catch. There's always a catch.”

“The catch is…” I said slowly, my voice sounding so baby beside Jason’s rough masculine voice and the PI’s grizzled growl. “Well, the catch is a capacity issue, for now. I can't say much more, but we have some solutions lined up.”

“Just gotta escape the solar system before the UN and AR finish playing arsonist with the whole world.” Gloria finished for me.

The PI nodded, then leaned forward and eyed the six of us with interest. “Say… if these… android bodies were recently customised from older ones that got used… was it your people who shot up half the city a couple of years ago?”

Uh oh. What?

“Don't answer, say you don't know,” Cerri said quickly. “I'll try and get more information from our people about what happened back then.”

“Um… we don't know?” I said, although I failed to hide a heavy dose of uncertainty. “We only asked for use of the closest assets to Crescent City.”

“Huh,” he grunted, sitting back.

“What… what do you want with us now, Jason?” His mother asked nervously.

Jason sighed. “I want to get you two and Henry to safety. I want to take you up to our big ship. We can talk about options up there, but I think you might enjoy life as a citizen of Exodus City.”

“This all sounds very sketch, kid,” Henry said dubiously. “What's it even like, being—”

Jason and his folks continued back and forth, but I tuned out when I began to hear something odd. It was like this ultra high-pitched whine that modulated up and down, then on and off repeatedly.

It wasn't normally available as an option, but I opened my sensory feed to see if I could isolate the noise there. Since it was generally a little too granular for everyday use, there was no UI or whatever, but I could see the different channels for my sense of hearing. I had the VR comms, of course, and my private call with Cerri, although it wasn't seeing any traffic currently— wait, it was coming through from my android frame, which was feeding me… lots of things— radar? Why was I detecting activity in the radar operating frequency range?

Wait… most drones and aircars used radar as a matter of course…

“Fuck!” I swore loudly. “Everyone drop to the ground!”

Everyone in the room except Jason's parents immediately did as I said, although Henry did hesitate on the way down. Seeing his parents failing to act, Jason launched up and forward, then lifted the couch with them still on it and tipped it back.

Outside the apartment, a high, serrated whine could be heard. Then, at chest height, the room erupted.

For three eternal seconds, our universe became a blur. Shreds of steel filled the air like confetti, while insulation from the walls became a finely grated mist. The room might have resembled the inside of a blender, but the smell was that of burning metal and plastics.

Even as those three seconds of chaos ticked downward, the digital sapients in the room were moving. Our bodies and our minds could both process and move at speeds far beyond a normal human, and we put both to use with awe-inspiring efficiency.

David and Ed lit our attackers up with their SMGs, while Gloria pulled a magnetic grenade out of a bandolier under her shirt. Roger had moved to cover Henry with his body, as had Jason with his parents.

I connected to our van and started it, only to get several pedestrian proximity warnings. All around the van, preparing to break in, was a whole damned SWAT team. Oh, shit.