Chapter 50
Chapter fifty
Atlas
Atlas briskly walked to his private quarters. The halls were eerily empty, and his footsteps echoed. It had been almost a month since he was last down here, but that time had made his former home almost unfamiliar.
He tried his wireless connection. Only static. It’s still down. Was the entire communal grid not responding? He tried a private connection. “Sterling? Zero?”
No answer. Everything must be offline.
Or was it only Atlas that was not connected?
The lights were all off in the corridor. Unease crept into him. Something doesn’t feel right. He quickened his footsteps. I should probably turn back. Sterling could tell him later what he found when the grid was restored. He stopped in the hallway. Yes, I’ll go back. I don’t want to leave Anna.
His feet were fully turned around when a familiar heel sound clicked toward him.
“Oh Atlas, what are you doing here? Are you meeting with Sterling too?” Stella had a maddingly cool expression and a forcefulness to her walk. She slid up next to him, matching his gait. On her shoulder was a crisp, gray, oversized bag.
A shiver went through Atlas. He stopped in the corridor. “What do you want, Stella?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “The same thing you do. Sterling messaged me and said there’s some data on the baby he wants us to see. He said to meet in your old office. Are you not going to look?”
Her too? His neural mind revolted as two sides warred within him. Follow Stella? Or return to Anna? His feet still pointed the way back to his family.
“Whatever.” Stella waved her hands and rolled her eyes. “I’ll just listen then. You’re too busy playing house.” She walked off, her blond hair swaying down her back.
Atlas’s jaw clicked. He didn't want Stella anywhere near that data alone.
“No. Stop!” Anger flared, and he stormed back down the hall toward his office. “Stay away, far away, from any of this data. Nothing about this child concerns you at all.”
“No.” Stella crossed her arms. “Sterling invited me too.”
“Fine.” He shook her off and walked to his quarters, keeping her at his side. What could Sterling possibly want to show her as well?
Then he pressed ahead, to open his office door ahead of her. It was empty inside, the lighting turned off. “Sterling?”
Silence.
Stella walked in at his side, trailing her fingers on his desk through a thin layer of dust on the top. She stared at him, full in the face, then gripped her bag tighter to her side. “Is he not here?”
Atlas stayed facing her, glancing around the room.
Where is he? Everything appeared abandoned.
All his favorite plants were gone, moved to his house with Anna, leaving the walls cold and sterile.
Everything was different from the hundred or so years he had spent here, tending to his plants and experiments in this room.
Only a few plants remained now, their grow lights on their automatic timers.
But in his living quarters, the overhead light was on. Stella held back in the office entrance, fidgeting with her bag, then walked towards the light, entering the other room.
Atlas walked, hesitantly, forward. “Sterling, are you in there?”
No one answered.
Stella gasped from the back room. “Atlas. Come here.”
He hurried to the doorway separating his office from his living quarters. Along the wall, hunched over near Atlas’s charging stasis, Sterling sat in an unnatural position on the ground. His head was tilted down, hand splayed to the side
“Sterling?” Atlas rushed to his side. “What is wrong? Are you in stasis?” He pushed on his shoulder.
Sterling’s head rolled, the eyes vacant and staring skyward.
Every single one of Atlas’s sensors screamed at him in alarm.
Sterling was there, but disabled. A side panel was open, and a cord lay there, disconnected.
Quickly, Atlas forced himself to feel the main connectors on Sterling’s back and saw that the switch connecting them had been pulled apart.
Someone had disconnected him, shut him down.
His processors spun with revulsion. A flashback of before, when they were turned off like this and lined up by humans, filled him.
But no humans were here to do this? He reconnected the loose cord and pushed an override button on the side to manually restart him.
A shuffle at his side made him look up. Standing a few paces away was Stella, frozen like a deer in headlights.
“Did you do this?” Atlas narrowed his eyes, examining her shifting movements.
“No!” Stella said.
His eyes fell on the bag gripped in her hands. “What’s in your bag?”
From his side, Sterling jerked and let out a monotone, strangled shout. Atlas kept his eyes on Stella as he inched down to sit back at Sterling’s side.
Stella slowly stepped back.
“Don’t move!” Atlas shouted, his own back against the wall. “You did this, didn’t you?”
Stella froze, her hand sliding into her gray bag. Before he could rush and see what was in there, Sterling gripped on Atlas’s shoulder. Hard.
Atlas glanced down.
“Atlas. Why are you here?” Sterling’s eyes were wild as he came to. Then he looked down at himself. “Why am I on the floor?”
“Good question.”
There was a click at the door in the main room. Atlas stood, glancing around the room.
“Stella?” He shouted.
She was no longer there.
Atlas abandoned Sterling and ran back to see Stella standing outside his office at the front window, a frown on her face.
“Stella?” His breath caught, trying the door. “Did you just . . . lock me in? Stella?” He shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”
Sterling stumbled to his feet, arm bracing himself in the doorway, and pointed to her. “I remember. She hit me with something from behind. She said you needed me to get something from here.”
Atlas ground his teeth. “She sent an intercom using your voice to bring me here then as well.”
“Using my voice?” Sterling felt around, his hand touching the cable that still dangled on his side. “She ported my settings?”
“I’m sorry, Sterling.” Stella’s voice carried clearly through the glass window. “I needed to do this. Both of your emotions would get in the way. I’ve made a decision.”
“I can not believe it.” Sterling’s voice was harsh. “In one hundred and fifty years, we have had peace. We have ruled by consensus and you . . . turned me off?” Then even louder, he said, “And used my voice? Like I am a tool?”
But Atlas was focused on something else she’d said. His eyes narrowed. “A decision?”
Stella ignored Sterling, smiling smugly at Atlas instead. “Yes. We are looking for a way forward with humanity. And you . . . are an obstruction!”
“An obstruction?” His tone became frantic. “Stella. What are you going to do?”
She waved her hands. “Do not worry, Atlas.”
“You shut down the whole communication grid? Locked everyone down?”
“Only temporarily,” Stella demurred.
He shouted. “What are you doing with Anna?”
“Don’t worry—you will still be permitted to bond with Anna and the baby . . . after.”
Everything in the room became overly hot. Focused. She took the baby? Cold sweat raced over his sensors. After?
“No!” Atlas ran to the door and palmed the handle before slamming his shoulder into the side. The metal dented as it did.
Sterling shuffled to the front window. “This is evil, Stella. We are all on the same team.”
“Evil is letting humans be wild around us again!” She slammed her hands on the wall beside the window. “I’m protecting us. Surgery is already starting. Relax. It’s just a little electrode.”
A little electrode? Atlas yelled, pounding the door. Then he hung his head, pressing it against the wall. Think. Think.
Sterling punched at the glass, barely fracturing it. Everything had been made with android strength in mind. “Let us out! You do not have a consensus to do anything with that child!”
In the highest tone Stella could access, she screeched, “Atlas didn’t have consensus either, when they decided to live out there. Or when they took out the chip before our deal was up. We will figure out the rest later, but . . .” Stella paused. “Atlas? What are you doing?”
Atlas wasn’t listening. Brute strength wouldn’t work, but he spent enough time with Zero to know other ways to override any sensor.
He turned and ran through probabilities and possibilities.
The easiest and fastest way to Anna was to unlock that door.
He glanced upward at the smoke sensors. There were overrides for everything.
He’d even set one up recently with Zero at their little house.
He pulled his desk right under the smoke detector, all of his various plant experiments toppling to the floor.
Then he grabbed one of the leftover grow lights and ripped it open, taking the wiring to spark together.
The silicone on his palm threw error codes as he pulled Tilly’s drawing off the wall and lit it on fire on the grow lights wiring, crinkling the burning paper together with his bare hand until smoke appeared. Then he held it right up to the fire sensor.
The fire alarm sounded a minute later.
Stella scrambled away from the window as the door’s emergency sensor overpowered everything and unlocked.
Atlas stormed past Sterling to tackle her to the floor, then pulled her up roughly by her blond hair before slamming her head on the floor. “Where is she?”
“It’s too late,” Stella snarled, her makeup smeared on her face.
“You better fucking hope it isn’t.” Atlas smashed her head on the ground again. “If you can turn Sterling off and use his voice to fool me, I’ll return the favor.”
Underneath his hand, she shrieked, “You can’t!”
But Atlas was beyond reason. He didn’t hesitate in grabbing Stella with both hands and tearing her head unit off, leaving a severed body behind. Her arms twitched, reaching for her head firmly in his grip.
Sterling kicked at her body, which was still twitching, pushing it out of the way. Then he dumped out the gray bag, revealing an electrical taser. “She took me out with this. I never thought she would be so ruthless.”
Atlas didn’t have time to speculate. He stuffed Stella’s head into her bag, hiding it from view. “The wireless connection is still not working. Where’s an open panel?”
“Follow me. There’s one by your room.” Sterling led the way to a research substation.
Only two androids were present, both model-Ms, inspecting the open panel.
Sterling barked, “Zero is asking for all the model-Ms to head to the main hall to work on the power outage. He said to go there for further instructions.”
“Good.” Forty-five answered, pulling on Nineteen’s arm. “Whatever happened doesn’t seem natural.”
“It’s not.” Atlas said.
Once they both left, Atlas uncovered and slammed Stella’s head down on one of the main panels Sterling indicated.
He overrode the operating system, ignoring the blinking Stella’s eyes, until he accessed the still wired intercom system.
There he found a data log of orders given to those following her.
Orders to take the baby and plans for surgery.
His hands shook as he scanned the data. Then he blasted into the connection using her voice box, “Everyone. Please disregard my previous instructions. Another agreement has been made.”
His entire body was shaking by the time he finished. It was tempting to have her confess everything then and there, but that would tip her colleagues off and potentially have them not listen to the order to stop.
And the room Anna was in was so far away.
“What else can I do?” Atlas punched the panel. He needed time. You needed electricity for surgery, right? “Sterling? Come here. How do I turn off the electricity?”
Sterling came closer. “I’m not in maintenance. There has to be something.”
“I would call Zero, but the wireless connection is still down.”
“Stella must have sabotaged that too.”
“I should have asked the model-Ms before they left.” Atlas regarded the still-blinking head. “If Stella shut all of this down, then she must have the schematics.”
He reached in and touched her data processors again, further linking up with her mind. Her mind felt slimy. Even the data she held was corrupted in ways, biased by her thoughts. But yes, the entire grid paneling was there.
“I have it.” Atlas started to open terminals in the computer’s interface. Between himself, Sterling, and Stella’s neural data, he had enough authority to override the entire facility’s power grid.
Success happened a minute later, and the facility plunged into darkness. The only light coming from through the windows. Birds were chirping outside, oblivious to the drama happening within the facility.
Then Atlas picked up Stella’s head by the scalp and ran. Ran back to Anna.