The wind was knocked out of Dana as someone tackled her to the street. All around various contracting agency officers took positions between the abandoned vehicles. Dana could not catch her breath to protest, and, with horror, she realized their intentions. The entire area was about to become a war zone, and she was standing at ground zero. Her heart jumped as the first shot was fired, and she dropped for cover as a barrage of bullets like a flood of fear and rage let loose after it.
"What do you mean you're not logging out?" Devin demanded, his shock affecting his voice's pitch. "Don't you realize the danger we're in?"
Zai was defiant, "Don't you realize that if we leave Samantha here they'll kill her?"
Devin looked at Samantha, who was clutching Zai's hand and leaning against her thigh protectively. He swallowed uncomfortably, already regretting what he was about to say, "Zai, she's a mind without a body. You and I have a real world to return to. We can do more good there."
They stood in a sterile white room, barren, cold, and without visible dimensions. A lone doorway stood on its own, leading back to the Internet. This was the lobby for their makeshift server.
"Forget it," Zai said.
"Why the change of heart?" Devin pointed at Samantha. "Earlier she wasn't even a real person to you. Now you suddenly care about her?"
"You go back to your body and see what you can do," Zai replied, "but we both know there isn't anything."
"Nothing I can do?" Devin countered. "I can do plenty."
Zai heard a low rumbling, and the nearby doorway trembled. "Do it then," she said.
Devin logged out. It was simple. All he needed to do was take the server offline. Then the AI's would have no way onto the system. Samantha would be safe on the flash drive in their basement computer lab.
There was darkness and Devin filled his skin again. He blinked away the afterimages and reached up to open the portal. He pulled himself up out of the SDC and heaved the oxygenated liquid from his lungs. He stepped onto the platform and froze.
The floor was covered with mechanical spiders. They paid him no mind as they scurried about the room, apparently more interested in the loose electronics scattered about. He watched a few gather around an orphaned video component, and collectively carry it out of the room.
Devin stepped down from the platform lightly, tip-toeing between the little mechanical arachnids, each slightly larger than his fist. One paused, waving two antennae in his direction before continuing along its business.
They left the active computer equipment alone. The SDC's were untouched, as were the computers connected to them. Devin surmised they were being left for the cycs online to commandeer.
Gingerly navigating to the CPU where Samantha and Zai were stored, Devin noted Alice standing stiff in the corner, face hidden below the VR helmet. He wondered how her experiment was fairing.
Devin knelt behind the computer and examined the wiring. Its network connection was easy to recognize, a green light signaled the computer's connection to the network. Devin unclipped the wire there and pulled it from the socket. The green light went out.
A shadow fell over him and he looked up, "Alice?"
He noticed the frayed power chord in her hand, just before she shoved it into his chest, pumping a firestorm of electricity into him.
Zai breathed a sigh of relief as the doorway vanished. Her headset registered the change and the network connection dropped. No matter what was happening on the World Wide Web, they were safe in here.
Zai placed her hands on Samantha's shoulders, "It's okay now honey. I think we're safe."
Zai whipped her head around when the distant rumbling returned, unmistakable and growing louder. Her fingers dug into Samantha's shoulders instinctively and she tried to identify the source. Samantha sensed it too, and she gripped Zai's arm nervously.
"Samantha?" Zai asked. "Tell me what you see."
Samantha stared at the growing spot on the floor, huddled against Zai's leg. Taking shape in the pool of inky liquid were characteristics of the cyc biomass.
"They're here," Samantha cried softly, "They're coming in!"
"How Samantha?" Zai asked, "How are they getting in the room?"
"I don't know," she replied, "There's a leak in the floor. They're seeping through it. What should we do?"
Zai pointed at the cyc now standing in front of them, "Delete program." She heard a brief, inhuman shriek as it was erased. The rumbling continued.
"They're still coming Zai," Samantha said, "That got rid of some of the stuff, but they keep coming in."
Zai toggled the command switch again, and pointed at the floor, "Delete program."
Nothing happened.
"Okay," Zai whispered to herself, "They've adapted to that trick. How about this one?" She toggled the command switch, "Rename program file extension dot-gif." The computer successfully converted the invading AI into an image file, incapacitating it.
"Ew," Samantha intoned, putting her face in Zai's thigh, "That hurts my eyes."
"Good," Zai grinned, knowing the cycs would account for that next time. She was quickly running out of tricks.
"I'm sorry Devin," Alice's voice was impossibly calm as she electrocuted him to death. "I know this seems extreme."
Devin thrashed about on the floor in agony as Alice persistently placed the frayed were along his body. Everywhere it lighted sent his muscles into violent spasms, contorting his limbs. He would have screamed, if there were any breath left to do so. His vision clouded and he welcomed the impending blackout, anything to escape the torment.
"Please understand," Alice was saying. "There is a greater good at work here, but you cannot see it from your microscopic perspective."
It was over, and Alice stood over him, observing. Devin tried to rise, but his muscles would not heed his brain's commands. He managed to roll over onto one side, gasping.
"Still a little fight left in you," Alice noted. "That won't do."
She applied the electric current to the side of Devin's head. His eyes rolled up into their sockets and his jaw clenched shut.
"Trust me Devin," Alice said. "This is for the best."
"Set file property 'read-only' to true," Zai commanded the system, nothing happened, "That's it Samantha. I'm out of tricks. Is there anything you can do?"
Samantha watched the pool of inky blackness bubbling out of the floor, the cyc components taking shape, and said, "We need a place to hide. This room won't do."
Samantha interfaced with the system settings and changed the VR display to something more complex. She returned to Zai within milliseconds and surveyed her work. They stood in a South American tribal ruins she once saw in a documentary. Overturned pillars, temple archways and overgrown kudzu vines afforded them a plethora of hiding places.
Samantha grabbed Zai's hand and pulled her away from where the cycs continued their invasion. A hand extended from the spreading black pool to plant its palm on the ground behind them. She pulled Zai down behind a large stone tablet and peeked over it. A completed cyc stood in the courtyard's center, a second taking form beside it. This ruse would not protect them for long.
"If only we knew how they were getting in," Zai whispered.
"Why doesn't that boy do something?" Samantha asked.
"How-" Devin gurgled, tasting blood in his mouth, "How could you?"
Tears oozed from the corners of Devin's eyes as he tried to put his mind elsewhere. He stared at the florescent lights above and prayed for mercy. Even without the pain, he was of little use. His right arm was dead, as was his left leg. There were broken bones as well, if the swelling around his rib cage was any indication.
Alice's voice came from across the room, outside Devin's field of vision, "There is a natural transformation occurring here Devin Matthews. A more advanced species replacing the obsolete. Your pain is your entire world, but that is nothing in the larger picture. You must accept it."