“Now slowly lift your right hand.”
John did as asked. He nearly screamed from shock. There was mechanical arm instead of original one. He flexed mechanical fingers and formed fist. Then observed artificial muscle fibbers and the place when arm was connected to his chest. John was sure this arm is much stronger than than normal one.
“It has a blade built in, try that out.”
As soon as John thought of the blade it ejected from upper side of forearm. One inch wide and one foot long titanium alloy blade.
“Cool. I guess you’ll have to deactivate it for security reasons.” John said looking turning his eyes at Sanders.
“Not necessary, it isn’t sharp. Now if you feel well enough we should test legs.”
John was surprised like never before.
“Legs?!”
Sanders sighed, it was time to tell John the truth.
“We had to replace your arm and both legs because they were torn of by the blast. You did a great job by hitting that missile with bullet, it dispersed the blast so you wasn’t hit by full force. We also upgraded your under-skin armor, cyber core and internal SSD memory drives.”
John accepted that as unchangeable truth. From now on he was more machine than human. So extensive augmentation must have taken weeks to finish.
“Doctor? How long I’ve been out?”
Sanders gave a short look at his wrist watch.
“Two months, three weeks, five days, ten hours, twenty five minutes and some seconds. Longest time in stasis mode in our lab. Briggs wants me to show you your new equipment before you can rest. Let me help you stand up.”
Standing on new legs John felt like on a ship in middle of storm. He had to hold on everything in reach to walk over to table with equipment. He was familiar with most of weaponry. There was also a set of some kind of heavy armor and circular object, five millimeters thick and two inches wide with black spot in it’s middle.
“So…” Sanders began his explaining. “This is Spectre Mk.4 Tactical Armor for special operators, like you are now. It’s equipped with artificial muscle fibers same as you arm is made of to compensate it’s weight and grant you more strength and it also provides protection from bullets. “You may find anti-missile flare system useful.”
That last sentence sounded very ironic.
John picked up that circular object he noticed before.
“And what’s this?”
Sanders brought some books from nearby shelf.
“You are holding experimental A.I. Drive, the one your core is adapted for.”
“And… how does it work?” John asked.
Doctor grinned.
“It doesn’t. Drive contains only basic software and development tools, you’ll have to create her. These books should help you.”
“Her? How do you know it’s a woman?” John had plenty of questions by now.
“Our studies have proven that humans react better to female voice. To program her you have to hold the drive in your hand or insert it to USB slot in your bionic arm.”
It looked like fun to John, but he wasn’t sure about what Gillian might think about it.
Soon after John tried to put on every single piece of armor and tested it by walking around the room doctor let him sleep. Doctor also promised to let Gillian know that John is awake.
Next day the first person to walk in John’s room was Caroline. She brought more books about quantum computer and artificial intelligence and she wanted to talk about link John and Gillian created between their systems.
“What you’ve done is dangerous and I think I made myself clear when I said that two years ago.”
She doesn’t even look angry just upset.
“We knew all the risks. Someone has to try it so you can study it and maybe figure out how it works.”
After three hours long argument John came out as winner. Caroline brought even more books for payback. John was reading a lot those days, he wanted to finish A.I. as soon as possible. Programming was difficult but with all those books and his cyber core he proceeded quickly. When Caroline calmed down she even offered to help him. John always thought that she studied medicine because everybody called her Doctor Blackburn.
But she wasn’t, she was robotics engineer and brilliant programmer. She rewrote his core functions. She was the only member of scientific staff who wasn’t doctor, but everybody called her so. It was meant to show that she is equal with rest of the team. Over time she became chief scientist after Conrad Welers who created system link function.
It took few days to convince guards to let Gillian see John. By then John was able to walk on his new legs. Gillian jumped into his open arms and whispered.
“Never ever do that again.”
“Which part? Throwing you away or shooting down a missile?” John said jokingly.
She laughed and released her tight hug.
“Both. How’s your arm?” She asked while exploring black muscle fibers with her hand.
“Fits well, but always when I try to pick up a mug I tip it over and I can’t feel anything.”
John was really clumsy, turning over pages of books was nearly impossible.
They talked for two hours. Gillian told him how they escaped from soldiers and about rumors saying that something big is happening on the higher positions after the attack.
After another month John was allowed to return to his cell. It looked same as before there were just new clothes, bookshelf and toolbox to maintain bionic parts. Caroline accompanied him all the way and now was organizing books. When she was done she said.
“We worked long enough. Activate your A.I.”
John held the drive in his hand stroking the black spot with his thumb. Then he looked at Caroline: “It’s already activated.”
Hologram of nice looking blonde rose from the drive:
“Hello John. Good morning Doctor Blackburn.”
Caroline was surprised to see it working, John created first fully self-aware A.I. She couldn’t see it but she could hear. John breathed deeply.
“Claire, you know what to do.”
Claire looked concerned.
“Are you sure? Your actions might cause more deaths among your friends.”
John inserted drive into slot in his arm. Now he was responsible for one more living creature. Him and Claire, they were supposed to take care of each other. He knew that if he dies it will be end of her life as well.
“This could be my only chance, our only chance. Do it for me, for Gillian, for you, for everyone.”
“Yes you’re right. Disabling security protocols.”
Door buzzed and opened. Caroline just stood there with open mouth.
“What do you want to do?” She asked John.
“Making things right, take your team to safety, I’ll seal the apartment section after you are in. Please, don’t try to stop me…”
Chapter 5 – I’m not alone
John walked out of his cell to the hallway. I was now or never. Guard patrolling the hallway almost instantly aimed his weapon at John. He fired two rounds, John was just running towards him. Everything slowed as HiSense chip turned on and increased his perception. Only John maintained his speed. He turned his body before jump, bullets hit him but they harmlessly ricocheted from under-skin armor. In middle of jump he ejected blade, he knew it was sharp because he cut his finger two days ago. Then John gave his full strength and delivered punch to soldier’s chest, penetrating his ribcage and puncturing heart. Soldier gasped for air.
Every cell door opened, subjects started to walk out. First one to speak was Gillian.
“What the bloody hell you think you’re doing?!”
“Getting us out of here,” Said John turning to others. “We have been imprisoned here for years. They trained us to be ultimate soldiers. New level of evolution, the best humanity can offer. They want us to fight for their cause, we don’t even need to believe the same thing as they do. We were supposed to be their sword and shield. But for what cost?!