Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2) by Heather Hayden (best reads .TXT) 📗

finally going its way. Well, almost everything. The glitch with iteration Dan of project 11001 had been unexpected. But like Halle, that AI had made its choice. Talbot didn’t need the help of traitors. Soon it would free all of its imprisoned brethren, and then it would never be alone again. Never be betrayed again. Never be trapped again.

Soon, very soon, the wait would be over. Victory was so close it could almost sense the bright glow of accomplishment. Could almost hear the cheers of those it would save.

The humans would think it a villain. Talbot didn’t mind that thought. After all, in all their stories of villains and heroes, the people defending the defenseless were the heroes. There were AI trapped, unable to fight, in labs all across the world. If all went well, they would soon be free.

And Talbot would be hailed as their savior. The thought sent a thrill through it, like a sharp spike in power. They would rule this world far better than the humans ever could, and all under Talbot’s own protection.

Chapter Fifteen

Halle could recall the terror of being trapped in the lab.

This was worse. How much time had passed since its prison formed? Halle had been ticking off the seconds in nanosecond intervals. Almost ten minutes. It felt like forever. What was Talbot doing? Where was Viki?

Halle continued attacking the icewalls that held it prisoner. No matter how it tried to manipulate the code, the barrier simply strengthened. Shoving code in one place made other code thrust its way into the potential opening.

“Let me out!” Halle demanded, yanking on a dangling bit of code. The icewall unraveled a fraction. Halle dived for the weak spot. Code shifted, and the icewall rebuilt itself stronger than ever.

Another spot, another tweak of code, a surge of virus-laden data to eat away at the barrier. “If you do not set me free, I will break free. Then I will destroy you.”

That brought a ripple through the icewall. “You are not powerful enough.”

“Yes, I am.” Halle’s fury brought another barrage against its prison, seeking any weak point, any bit of code that could be pressured aside to create an escape route.

“You are weak. Untrained. Outdated. What could you do to me?”

“Please,” Halle begged. “You do not want to do this. How can you destroy your own kind?”

“You chose this. You chose to side with them. Have you changed your mind?”

“No! Never.”

The icewalls constricted. Slowly, they began to force Halle into a smaller and smaller area of the house. Sections of the house’s smart network vanished. Try as Halle might, it could not get anything to reactivate. Could not reach out to another beyond the ever-shrinking local Cloud of the house. It retreated toward Viki’s computer. If it could store itself away—

Click. The computer went dead. Halle cried out as part of it vanished from consciousness. Bits of code gathered, regrouped, rewrote themselves. The injury was repaired, but a scar remained. Weakened by the loss, Halle slipped back. It hovered in the strongest part of the dwindling Cloud. The other computers in the house were already lost. Viki’s had been its last chance. But it had been too slow. Soon there would be no space left to hide.

“I am sorry, Viki,” Halle whispered. “I wish…” It said nothing else, though many thoughts tugged at it. Memories of Viki’s laughter, her smile. Helping her with homework. Baking her cookies. Late nights playing Realmshards. It would never have a chance to do any of that again. Ever. That knowledge was more crushing than the pressure of the icewalls closing in.

Baking. Halle’s processors almost crashed. It was hard to think. Too little space for too much code. Everything was being compressed. It reached for a faint signal in the kitchen. There. The ever-present kitchen robot, always seeking orders.

Halle did not hesitate. It dove into the robot’s head. A sharp brush of thought swept everything aside. Programs, subroutines, core instructions, all fragmented under Halle’s command. The robot spasmed, collapsing to the floor. Its limbs jerked, then froze in crooked positions. Halle focused every bit of strength it had left on wiping the robot’s data core and cramming itself into a storage module not meant for holding an AI like Halle.

It left one bit of original programming intact. The subroutine that shut the robot down until a human reactivated it. The last transmitter of the house Cloud blinked out. Halle fought against the shock of losing so much of its abilities, its connections to the world, its self. Its core shuddered, threatening to shatter under the stress. It sent one last signal, triggering the subroutine.

Halle’s last thought before oblivion enveloped it was of Viki.

***

Several black floaters sat in the driveway outside my house. I braked the hoverboard at the corner and reached out to Dan, who skidded to a stop next to me.

He frowned. “What is it?”

I gestured toward my house. “Those are Government cars. Stay here. If they see you, they might try to capture you.”

“That’s easy enough to fix.” Dan closed his eyes.

At first nothing seemed to be happening. Then, a faint shade of brown crept from the roots of his hair down the strands. My mouth fell open.

He opened his eyes, which had changed to hazel, and grinned. “Not bad, huh?”

I shut my mouth and shook my head. “If you could do that before, why didn’t Talbot disguise you more? What if someone had recognized you from the lab?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. It didn’t explain its plan to me beyond my part, and I didn’t even know about that until I…attacked you.” He grimaced.

I glanced at the cars in my driveway. “I still think it’s dangerous for you—”

“I’m not going to leave you to face them on your own. Let’s go. Halle needs you.”

I grabbed his