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The Only Way Out

Kilmo

    Elliot was wondering whether in the world above north winds and bitter frost were beginning to bite. He’d been too successful; that was the problem. He’d wanted to lay low the rich and powerful, and he’d achieved it. Unfortunately, he’d included every other soul on the planet. Collateral damage didn’t come close to the ruin he’d inflicted as anyone with so much as a cent had had it wiped. The result had been predictable. The rioting and collapse the response of a people who’d had not just their futures destroyed, but their dreams too.
    A light switched on illuminating the cavernous space and the throne he’d spent so long building when he’d still been able to move things in the material world. Someone was coming. He tried to remember what it had been like to feel concern, but after the mess the security systems had made of his body it was hardly up to the business of threat response. A cold unfeeling part of the awareness he’d spent so many years regathering regarded what was wired into the mainframe. Not a pretty sight, but the thought would have to stay unarticulated. The man slumped drooling in the straps, and conduits, could hardly be expected to utter it aloud.
    Elliot activated more of the overheads and let a welcoming hologram flicker into life. Enough of him remembered what it had been like before his injuries to realise his appearance could be shocking, and after all it was something of a special occasion. No one else had found the lair buried beneath the city’s heart. They’d blamed the disaster on malfunctioning algorithms never thinking that it could be attributed to the enemy deep beneath their feet.
    It turned out he needn’t have bothered with the nicety.
    ‘That you Elliot?’ said his guest stopping in front of the simulacrum. ‘No, I don’t think it is. You’re just a parlour trick, and an unnecessary one.’
    The emaciated man in the ragged tatters of what had once been a fine business suit made an impatient gesture. He was staring right through Elliot’s holo with a skull’s rictus grin on his face.
    Elliot let the image flicker and die. If his visitor was determined to talk to its creator, let him. He was long past being embarrassed by the condition he was in.
    ‘That’s better,’ said his guest on reaching the floor and beginning examination of the arching cables wiring Elliot to his prison. ‘Not in such good shape are you, friend?’
    ‘What’d you want?’
    The dust covered speakers as they hummed into life made Elliot’s voice sound like it was coming from the throats of an army.
    ‘Aren’t you going to ask who I am?’ The stranger’s eyes were so far back in their sockets only a glimmer like moonlight on dark waters was visible as he searched the room. ‘Let me enlighten you. I’m known as the Adversary. However, I also go by other titles.’ He shrugged as silence met the revelation. ‘Leviathan, The Serpent, The Tempter, it’s all one and the same.’
    A worm, corpse pale, and ashine with mucous, slipped from his cuff and slithered into the shadows.
    It was a pity Elliot hadn’t been in a Church since he was two, or he might have known what was coming. Even then he’d bawled so loud his mother had had to take him outside. The computer program that simulated his mind regarded the new arrival coolly.
    ‘So? I suppose it could have escaped your attention, but as you can see by the state of me the worst has already happened. Trying to do me harm won’t change things much.’
    The skull faced man stopped advancing and his death’s head grin grew momentarilly wider.
    ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said the Adversary. ‘It’s something most people don’t realise. Things can always get worse, a whole lot worse. But this is your lucky day. I’ve come to offer you a deal.’
    ‘A deal?’
    ‘That’s right. How would you like another chance?’
    Elliot had forgotten what it was like to laugh, and the sound that echoed round the room surprised even him.
    ‘Where have you been for the last few decades? There’s nothing to go back to even if I wanted to. Watch.’
    Screen after dirt encrusted screen flickered into life. The images taken from cameras in the world above liberally interspersed with footage from the collapse. Without fail they showed a world only cockroaches would be glad to call home. The cities had filled with twisted wreckage, and in the countryside the scattered survivors eked out a living from crops that would barely feed half their number.
    ‘Yes, yes, I’ve seen all this before.’ The Adversary’s pallid brow furrowed as urbanely as a gentleman at a horse race. ‘But, speaking on a purely personal level I still don’t think it’s enough.’
    The screens went blank returning a moment later with far different shots.
    ‘You see Elliot, you haven’t been looking at the whole picture. There are people out there who, despite everything, won’t accept how awful what they’ve inherited really is.’
    The man’s voice dripped with disgust as an exhausted smile spread over a woman’s face on seeing she’d given birth to a baby boy. Another view showed a child running down a street laughing as they chased a tyre stolen from the wreckage nearby. A third shot showed an old couple watching the sunset with their arms around each other.
    ‘Enough!’ The Adversary flung out a hand and the screens returned to the familiar scenes of devastation. ‘The problem is you haven’t gone far enough Elliot, and they’re beginning to rebuild. I can help with that. But first we’ll have to come up with the right sort of program. We need to include everyone you see, and I’ve heard you’re just the man for the job.’
    If Elliot had had a body that could have been called the right side of living he would have shuddered then, instead the digital equivalent of excitement ran his program.
    ‘These people don’t need software. They need food, shelter, tools. I can’t give them that,’ said Elliot.
    But the Adversary’s smile only grew broader.
    ‘Still looking at the little picture. You and me, we’re going to give them something much better. Something they don’t even realise they need, and afterwards . . .,’ the skull faced man shrugged again. ‘Well, we’re going to own them. They won’t have so much as a shred of a secret they can hide, and that makes us King.’
    ‘What if I refuse?’
    ‘Elliot, Elliot.’ The room grew a little darker, then a lot, until only two red dots like a beast in its lair were visible where the Adversary’s eyes had been. ‘You know I said things could always get worse?’ Deep in the ruined bowels of the city Elliot’s cameras began to pick up the faint suggestion of activity. There were things moving up there, things moving that had no right to be. The Adversary continued, ‘I’ll make sure they do and when that happens real Hell will reign on earth, or we can have everyone playing my game. I like secrets you see. They make my job so much more fun.’
    Light seeped back into the room revealing the deathly pale man with his arms outflung and that hideous smile on his face.
    ‘Trust me, I’m a sore loser.’
    Elliot checked his cameras again but whatever had been growing behind the corners of the empty streets had gone. Absently he realised his body must be more aware than it looked as the tension left it, and it slumped further into its throne.
    ‘Alright, exactly what do you want me to do?’ said the hacker.

...

    It took Elliot a long time; the financial district had liked to bury its largest servers so deep even the fall of society had left them untouched. But once he’d gotten the first of them powered up it was easier than he’d thought. After that it was mostly a matter of shaking off the dust so to speak, and Elliot began to see the destruction’s golden lining. The plagues that had escaped from their confinement when their safeguards failed hadn’t touched the infrastructure’s hardware. That had been down to the fighting and by then there hadn’t been enough people left to damage much. So, when the Adversary came to visit again Elliot was ready.
    ‘And you say this is gonna help?’ Elliot couldn’t keep the tremor from his voice. He missed the old world that had gone to its grave when he’d tried to fix it.
    ‘Of course, what could be wrong with connecting people? It’ll be just like before, only better.’
    Elliot let the right apps take over and a globe slowly formed in the air with each denuded continent picked out in shades of flickering neon green.
    ‘What are they?’
    The Adversary pointed to the glowing dots liberally scattered across the landmasses.
    ‘They’re surviving exchange points, and servers,’ Elliot paused. ‘Those that are large enough to be of any use that is.’
    ‘And these?’
    The Adversary’s finger followed the fine tracery of lines connecting them like the capillaries of an animal had been laid bare.
    ‘Cables; what’s left of the old-world wide web. I haven’t had much time for it, but it’s surprising how much is there. If we can supply the devices, we can have people hooked up in no time.’
    ‘Excellent, I knew you were the man for the job. All we have to do is give them these.’
    The Adversary unclasped his hand and Elliot noticed the nails on it were sharp, and long, and encrusted with filth as if very recently he’d had to dig a long way. Sat in the centre of his palm was a matt black wedge of plastic that Elliot recognised instantly.
    ‘A phone? Does it work? Where’d you get it from?’
    ‘Oh, it works, it will always work. In fact, it’ll be hard to get it to shut up.’
     Elliot thought for a moment. He’d done his research by then. He knew who his employer was.
    ‘Shouldn’t I sign something?’
    ‘All taken care of Elliot. Your second stab at life as agreed.’ The Adversary lifted what was left of the body in the throne’s arm and pressed the least burnt digit to the device’s screen. ‘We just need to take care of distribution.’
    ‘And you’re sure people are going to want them? Haven’t they got more pressing concerns right now?’
    ‘Oh, people always want to talk Elliot, and we’re going to dress it up nicely for them.’ Sprites began to dance and somersault across the phone’s display. ‘You see, this is a far improved version of what came before. Think of all that old knowledge lying untapped out there. They’ll climb over themselves to access some of that.’
    The Adversary’s words proved prophetic, especially when the distribution centres opened. Elliot was never sure how they worked although he could see that when the survivors stuck their arms between the teeth of the giant maws they always came back with a shiny new device. It was all about worm holes the Adversary assured him, but by then Elliot had other things to think about as he sat at the centre of the net like a spider in its web.
    At first things went well, and Elliot even felt like he was doing some good despite the deal he’d made. There really was a wealth of knowledge available to help with the survivor’s plight, and slowly, brick by brick, and crop by crop, humanity began to build back. It was only after the first children reached adulthood that he began to have his doubts.

...

    ‘Who’s there?’
    Elliot had been checking the latest dynamics, matching the flow of progress as more groups hooked up to the Adversaries net, when his alarms alerted him to movement again. Behind the shattered glass of the old financial district’s tower blocks shadows were stirring. Under normal circumstances the virus ravaged streets were graveyards for a world long vanished, but not anymore. Frantically he scanned through the information coming from his sentry points growing increasingly aghast at the evidence of corridors and stairwells bustling with life, human this time but no less alien in a city devoid of inhabitants. Already figures were slipping toward the holy of holies: the room where his body was kept.
    Elliot allowed his mind to be transferred closer to the shell he’d once called home. True, he spent much of his time adrift from his corporeal form, but without the brain locked in its prison he’d cease to exist. No one had ever found a way to replicate human consciousness without wet ware to support it.
    ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
    Elliot couldn’t see the approaching faces at first, and when he did he wished he hadn’t. Without exception each gaze staring at the throne and its occupant was as blank and grey as old video screens right down to the static rustling between the lids.
    ‘What do you want? Leave me alone.’
    The circle had begun to tighten as the sons and daughters of the families painstakingly building a new world outside stepped closer to Elliot’s remains. But the only response his words got was a hiss as what passed for their eyes began to change. By the time the first fingers were tightening round the headset clamped to his body’s temples he could see them all too clearly. Elliot couldn’t shake the feeling that he was watching the collapse all over again as his crown was ripped from his skull.
    Deep under the ruined cities heart a breeze blew and with it came the faint sound of chuckling, and the Adversaries voice.
    ‘I said I’d give you a second chance, didn’t I? But I never said how.’
    Elliot screamed so loud he burst every speaker in the room as his mind began to descend into the kid’s blank eyes, and earth’s next generation lifted his empty body free of its straps. He was already long gone from the net before the first youth settled into his seat and began to patch himself in instead.

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