The Beyond: Dystopian Survival Fiction (The Breeder Files Book 4) by Eliza Green (most popular novels TXT) 📗

Carissa’s voice grew louder. ‘Quintus, please... I can’t... breathe.’

‘I am not doing anything to the environmental controls. Breathe, 173-C. You are simply having one of your panic attacks.’

Quintus would have seen her panicked moments in the Inventor’s workshop through her downloaded memories. She glanced at the Inventor. He lifted both hands, as if to tell her to do more.

‘Quintus! There’s something... wrong.’ Her voice rose in pitch. ‘The humans, they’ve collapsed around me. My... lungs...’

She sucked in a new breath, but rattled it out.

A silence followed, as though Quintus had gone to check something.

Carissa dropped to the floor for dramatic effect. The Inventor lunged for her.

She waved him away. ‘Quintus! Hurry! The air...’

Agatha whispered into her walkie talkie.

Quintus came back online. ‘The environmental controls are operating as normal. Oxygen levels are normal. What’s happening there, 173-C?’

Carissa waved her hand at Agatha.

‘Go,’ she hissed into the walkie talkie.

A moment passed, then Quintus said, ‘What are you doing, 173-C? Why can’t I get out?’

The Inventor helped her to her feet.

Carissa brushed non-existent dirt from her clothes and spoke to the entity who had acted like her father in her early months. ‘It’s for your own good.’

‘No, 173-C. What are you doing? Tell them to let me out.’ He shouted in her head. ‘Let me out!’

A warm buzz started in her mind. It made her feel lightheaded.

‘Tell them to stop what they’re doing,’ said Quintus. He sounded panicked. ‘Or I’ll kill you.’

The dizziness in her head became worse and she dropped to her knees. ‘I can’t.’

The Inventor went to help her, but Agatha stopped him. Carissa looked up at the pair through her tears.

‘The antiviral attack needs time to work on all entities connected to Quintus,’ Agatha said to the Inventor. ‘That means her.’

Carissa’s eyes grew heavy. ‘Jacob...’

He knelt down and held her hand. ‘It’s okay, miss. I’m here.’

‘Am I dying?’

‘I don’t know, miss.’ He released a hard breath. ‘Is Quintus gone?’

She reached out for their connection. ‘I can’t hear him anymore.’

Agatha spoke into the walkie talkie before turning back to them. ‘The antiviral attack has completed on his original, hard-coded files, but we need to do the same on any start-up routine to prevent his program from enabling again.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘As long as necessary.’

The dizziness in her head swelled and she slumped against the Inventor’s chest. His arms pressed against her back.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

His voice rumbled in her ear. ‘For what?’

‘For trusting Quintus. For not helping you to escape the city sooner.’

He pushed her away and smiled through tears of his own. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He looked up and growled, ‘Do something. Help her.’

Agatha bent down. ‘We can reverse the effects of the memory purge but she won’t be the same.’

Carissa’s heart slowed to a beat every few seconds. ‘Jacob?’

‘Yes, miss?’

‘I love you.’

He smiled down at her. ‘I love you, too.’

Unfamiliar warmth flooded through her. Death wasn’t all that bad. She closed her eyes and allowed the hand of death to carry her to the next plane.

30

Anya

The tension in the compound deflated like a balloon. For the first time since they arrived, Anya didn’t feel like a prisoner. Agatha had come to get them an hour ago. She’d taken Anya and Dom on a tour of the compound, which wasn’t as big as she’d first thought. While they walked, they passed by more rooms that were being used for testing. She’d come to think of this base as a testing facility.

‘What are you going to do with Frahlia?’

‘My medical team has deemed her to be no threat. She was never connected. Neither was Jerome. I see no reason to keep either of them here for the long term.’

That surprised Anya. ‘I thought you’d jump at the chance to study them.’

Agatha just smiled, as if there was more to the story.

‘And Carissa, and the Copy medic?’

‘Once we’re certain Quintus is no longer an issue, we will initiate a hard reset on both of them. It will wipe their knowledge, including whatever deep-program commands Quintus gave them. We have synthetics living in the city, so they can be programmed with new personalities and given new lives that have no connection to the network.’

Another mystery.

‘So they won’t die?’

‘They won’t be who they were before, so in a way they do die, but are reborn anew.’

They walked on farther. Agatha ended the tour at a large, closed door spanning at least twenty feet up and ten across.

‘What’s past there?’

Agatha hesitated. ‘The outside.’

‘The city? Your city?’

Agatha nodded. Anya waited for her to show them, but she said, ‘I’ll show you soon, I promise. But first, we need to talk.’

‘When?’

‘After we’ve reset the Copies.’

The City. The Beyond. The Region. Agatha had only shared snippets of what had happened to create the latter. The Region had been her life. Did she really want to know how she’d ended up there?

But the commander’s veiled hints at her former life intrigued her. ‘I’d like to see the city now, if that’s okay.’

Agatha slid her hands in the front pockets of her trousers. She wore a royal-blue suit, a colour that exactly matched the jumpsuits the workers had to wear in the food factories in Essention. Where Jason used to work.

A lump lodged in her throat.

‘Later. The city is not what you will be expecting.’ Agatha walked away from the door. ‘Come on. I’ll take you back.’

Anya and Dom followed her back into the compound. Anya tried to remember the positives. Her friends were okay; that’s all that mattered.

But she wanted to know the whereabouts of two people in particular.

‘Did two people arrive here, last name Hunt?’

Agatha