Extensis Vitae: The Shattered Land Page 18

  The group stood around, shocked at the young life snuffed out so suddenly. After a few moments, Rin closed Abby’s eyes and rose to her feet. Her face was sorrowful as she walked out of the tiny store without a word.

  Reznik noticed a smear of Abby’s blood on her cheek but didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  Chapter 22

  “I’m glad you made it back in good health, my friends,” Ichiro said, the yellow SB-17 robot bowing politely as it broadcast his voice through its speaker. “Anna, it is wonderful to see you again safe and sound!” The robot stood on the metal grated walkway just outside the elevator in the old missile silo, and the gate rattled as it opened.

  “Yes, yes. Thank you for sending them to rescue me, Ichiro,” Anna said. “Why don’t you help out and carry something?” She gestured to the big pot she called her “nutrient stew” that she blended fresh for Ichiro and normally delivered on a weekly basis.

  “It’s good to be back,” Reznik said as the robot collected the pot without protest. “I’m glad we were successful for the most part. Sorry about your Ares 13—it didn’t make it out of there.” He stepped off the elevator behind Anna and Rin.

  “The loss of the Ares 13 is unfortunate, but I’m sure I will be able to find another chassis to modify for defensive purposes. I may no longer have a need for it if things proceed according to plan, however.” The SB-17 turned on its heel. “Please, follow me.”

  The three of them followed the robot back to the crew galley. The place looked exactly as Reznik remembered it—somewhat cozy as far as underground bunkers go but kind of sad and faded at the same time, almost as if the life behind the place were fading as well. He wondered how Ichiro was holding up.

  They had driven back to Ichiro’s bunker the evening after their return from the exclusion zone, several hours after Abby had been buried in the town’s small cemetery. Anna had been anxious to get to the silo to check on Ichiro. She planned to return to Planter’s Ridge the following morning to tend to the rest of the women as needed.

  “Anna, will you please accompany me—”

  “Ichiro, I know what to do, and you know that.” The older woman bustled past the group and went up to the sliding door, which opened for her.

  “Of course—my apologies. I would just like to say to Mr. Reznik that I haven’t forgotten our arrangement. I need Anna’s assistance for a short time, and then I will be with you shortly. Lady Takahashi, I am honored as usual to have you in my humble home once again. Please make yourself at home, and just ask if you need anything.”

  “I’m fine. I just came along for the ride,” Rin said. She lay down on the couch and put her boots over the end so the upholstery wouldn’t get dirty. The robot and Anna disappeared behind the sliding door.

  Reznik realized he was more anxious about the kill switch than he thought he would be, especially now that he had time to dwell on it. He sat in one of the easy chairs in the lounge area and tried to relax. He wondered what the procedure to disable the kill switch would entail, if Ichiro would be able to do it, and if there would be any complications. Now that he was making a new life for himself, he realized he wanted more of it. It seemed to him that he was starting to fit right into this rough new world.

  “Are you nervous?” Rin watched him curiously.

  Reznik realized he had been unconsciously drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair and stopped. “Not quite as nervous as I was entering a den of bloodthirsty mutants virtually blind. But yeah, I guess you could say I’m a little nervous. I won’t have anybody to watch my back this time,” he said with a smile.

  Rin smiled back, a little sadly Reznik thought. “I haven’t always been good at watching people’s backs, but I’m working on it. Ichiro is the best there is. I’ve known him for a very long time—you won’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to Abby. I didn’t realize you two were close.”

  “We weren’t really. I just saw something in her that reminded me of myself at that age, I suppose: a young, confused woman adrift in the world and carried helplessly away from friends and loved ones on the winds of change.”

  “She seemed like a bright, strong young woman. I’m sure Planter’s Ridge will miss her greatly.”

  “I just wonder if this uncle of hers will feel the same,” Rin replied. Her eyes met Reznik’s. “She told me how to find Red Royce—she seemed to think it was important that we do so.”

  Reznik nodded, at a loss for words. They sat there in comfortable silence for a while. After a time, Rin closed her eyes and looked as if she was asleep. Reznik checked the timer on his HUD. “TIME REMAINING UNTIL UNIT EXPIRATION: 02:04:07:10” it showed. If all went well, he would be on the road to Skin City the following morning to look for the missing Extensis Vitae colonists. He might even decide to pay a visit to these rebels on the way if Rin was game.

  A short time later, the door slid open, and Anna came out. “He’s ready for you, Mr. Reznik.”

  Reznik rose to his feet. He took a deep breath and entered Ichiro’s inner sanctum. Rin called out and wished him luck just before the door slid shut behind him.

  Ichiro was a thin, frail form beneath the sheet in his hospital bed. A number of tubes and sensors ran from his body to a rack of machines. His mouth and nose were covered with an oxygen mask, so it was hard to determine his age; his face was gaunt yet not lined with years. His eyes were closed, and his sunken chest rose and fell as a machine pumped air into his lungs. Reznik noticed there was a cutout in the cushioned headrest, and a thick cord ran from the back of his pale, shaved head directly into a bank of computers across the room. These are life-support machines—they keep him alive, Reznik realized. The only way he can experience life is through his robots, he thought sadly.

  “Thank you for freeing Anna from the clutches of those mutants,” the SB-17 robot said. “Again, I apologize for withholding my assistance until you completed the mission, but I would have been dead within a few more days if that were not the case. As you can see, these machines keep me alive. Without Anna to prepare and refill my tank of nutrients, I would perish.”

  “No worries,” Reznik replied. “I probably would have gone after them anyway when I found out what had happened at Planter’s Ridge. I doubt we would have been as successful without your support, though.”

  The robot nodded. “I will run some diagnostics and begin shortly. Once I determine the make and model of skin, I will determine the best method to deactivate the security code.”

  “Sure. Do you need to plug in any cables or anything like that?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. You will probably see your HUD start acting strangely, but that is normal. Just sit back and relax.” The bot gestured to a chair facing the computer banks.

  Reznik sat down in the chair, and his HUD immediately lit up. “REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED” flashed across it. He looked around, and the robot stood lifelessly against the wall. He is accessing remotely—nice trick. The room was strangely silent: the only sounds were the whooshing and quiet beeping of the life-support machines along with the whirring of fans and occasional chirping from the computer racks.

  “Oh, a R.E.A.C.Tech Heavy Infantry Mark Six,” the robot suddenly spoke up, startling Reznik. The security sub-menu he had seen once before scrolled across his HUD. “I haven’t seen any of those around for years, but it’s a good, solid-performing model, my friend. It should give you years of reliable service if you choose to keep it.” Ichiro spoke of the skin almost as if discussing trading in an old car.

  “That’s good to know,” Reznik replied. “Will it be much trouble deactivating the code?”

  “No, not at all. Just stand by a minute or two.”

  A window popped up over the security submenu and bisected the display. Computer code began scrolling faster than Reznik could follow. After a couple minutes—and what must have been tens of thousands of lines of code—the scrolling stopped, and a line was highlighted.

  “Just a
s I suspected,” Ichiro said. “I examined the code, and the firmware on this model hasn’t been updated, which is good news for us. There was an early bug in the Mark Sixes which allowed unlimited numbers of attempts to enter the security activation code—a foolishly negligent oversight. It was quickly patched, but your skin must have been one of the first batches produced. After the firmware was patched, once the fifth attempt to enter the code failed, the unit would immediately activate the expiration sequence. The good news for us is that due to the R.E.A.C.Tech programmers’ negligence, a simple brute force attack will work best.”

  “That’s good.”

  As soon as he replied, another window opened on his HUD. “SECURITY ACTIVATION SEQUENCE” it said, along with twelve large boxes. Code began to flow down the display once again, and after the correct character was selected, it would populate the box. His HUD stayed a constant red with “INVALID AUTHORIZATION CODE” flashing almost imperceptibly as Ichiro ran every possible sequence.

  After some time, the last character populated the final box, and the HUD turned green. “AUTHORIZATION CODE ACCEPTED. THANK YOU FOR ACTIVATING YOUR R.E.A.C.TECH HEAVY INFANTRY MODEL MARK VI.” The windows closed as Ichiro exited the security program, and Reznik’s HUD turned off, the “REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED” warning the final thing to fade away.

  Reznik breathed a sigh of relief. “That went well, right?”

  “Yes, that model is a relatively easy one to hack.”

  “Thank you, Ichiro. I feel like I have a new lease on life now. I suppose I actually do!” Reznik laughed.

  “My pleasure.”

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “How long have you been down here like this?”

  “Seven years, two months, seventeen days,” Ichiro replied instantly.

  “Why don’t you get a new skin?”

  “I’m afraid that is impossible. I received traumatic brain damage that would prevent a neural transfer from working for me. I am lucky that I am not dead although I surely would have been had Lady Takahashi not saved my life after an assassin shot me in the back of the head. She was kind enough to hide me off the grid in this former missile silo I acquired years back. As far as the world knows, I died from that assassin’s bullet more than seven years ago. So this is the life I must live. It must not seem like much of a life to you, but I am grateful for it every day. I can never repay the debt I owe her.”

  “You must have been a good friend to her, and she to you.”

  “Yes, our families go way back. I am honored to be able to call her a friend.”

  The door slid open, and Anna poked her head in. “Dinner is almost ready if you two are finished here.”

  “I believe we are,” Reznik replied with a smile. His stomach grumbled as if on cue.

  ***

  “Any chance I can talk you out of this idea of going after the slaves in Skin City? There’s always more wasteland damsels in distress to be rescued, slavers and bandits to fight off, rebellions to be raised, and evil multinational corporations to stand up to.” Rin’s turquoise eyes twinkled.

  Reznik chuckled. “Well, thanks to Ichiro, I’ve got all the time in the world now to load up my plate with all that stuff. I just need to start by searching for the Extensis Vitae colonists first since that mission is time sensitive. I know it’s not going to get any easier as more time passes.”

  The elevator rumbled beneath their feet as it slowly ascended. Reznik felt refreshed after a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, and a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage, which Anna had prepared. A strong cup of coffee had topped it off, and Reznik was ready to roll. Despite the difficult challenges that lay ahead of him, he felt like a new man from the weight that had been lifted off his shoulders by Ichiro deactivating the kill switch.

  Anna had left a short time ago, declining his offer to escort her back to Planter’s Ridge. He and Rin had said their goodbyes to Ichiro, who seemed sure they would meet again before too long. Reznik supposed it was possible—a man with Ichiro’s talents would always come in handy.

  “Rin, you’ve gone above and beyond our bargain, so you’re free to be on your way if you like. I release you from your obligation. But if you still want to guide me to Skin City, I could always use some company. I’d welcome your skill as a back-watcher too.”

  Rin looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s kind of you to release me early. Like you, there sure as hell is plenty on my to-do list as well. I think for the meantime, though, our paths just might lie in the same direction,” she said with a smile.

  The door to the missile silo creaked open on its rusty hinges, and daylight poured in. They shouldered their replenished packs and stepped outside. It looked as though it was shaping up to be another scorching, potentially deadly day in the wasteland, and a long road lay before them.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for taking the time to read my book! I hope you enjoyed it—I had a lot of fun writing it. If you enjoyed this story, please take the time to leave a review and spread the word to your friends. I invite you to visit my website for news about future stories and to leave a comment there if you like.

  Want to find out what happens next? Sign up for my newsletter and receive new release email alerts so you will be the first to know when my next book comes out.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank everyone that made this book possible. You guys know who you are—pretty much everyone that helped me out the first go-round. Once again I would like to give a shout-out to my beta readers: Tim, Chris, and Lee for helping me come up with ideas, making great suggestions, and pointing out mistakes. I would also like to say thanks to Mom and Dad for believing in me, and also to my wife, Mona, for being supportive and putting up with me through this long journey.

  About the Author

  Gregory Mattix grew up in the blazing heat of the Arizona desert. He obtained a degree in Business Administration at the University of Arizona, served in the military, and lived overseas for a time. He currently lives in Colorado with his wife and works his day job in the sprawling government machine that aims to keep America safe. He daydreams that one day he can quit the day job and write full time. Extensis Vitae is his first novel.

  “What have we here, Marcus?” Alistair Thorne studied the motionless skin seated rigidly in the laboratory chair. The genetically engineered clone was physically healthy, but the eyes were strangely vacant, for the man who had once used that skin was no longer there.

  “This skin, belonging to a Dion Mendoza, was at work three days ago, Mr. Thorne, and there was a fatal error with his cranial black box,” Marcus replied, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

  The elegant Mr. Thorne had swept into Marcus’s laboratory with his ever-present contingent of bodyguards. He stood almost six and a half feet tall, with a slender, fit build as all the skins had. Thorne had silver hair and a handsome, aristocratic face with chilling gray eyes. Thorne’s piercing gaze unnerved most people, including Marcus. Perhaps it was the fact that the man was two centuries old and for all intents and purposes was virtually immortal thanks to his company’s cutting edge bio-tech.

  Marcus glanced at the four bodyguards trying to be unobtrusive as they loitered around the lab while two more stood outside the door. Thorne’s executive protection detail made Marcus nervous with their stony stares and twitchy trigger fingers.

  Since Liu’s death, Doctor Barbosa had put Marcus in charge of Liu’s unfinished projects in addition to his own. Liu had been working on a special project for Thorne himself, and Marcus had been surprised at the scope of the work after reading through some of the research files. It was quite impressive but a little unsettling as well. He had just been pinged half an hour prior and told that Thorne wanted to check out the latest iteration of the project in person.

  Thorne raised a curious eyebrow, and Marcus continued his explanation. “Mr. Mendoza works in the detention center. By all reports, he was simply
making his rounds when witnesses saw him began to shake as if having a minor seizure. He remained on his feet, but from looking at his eyes, ‘his soul left him,’ according to one witness.”

  The CEO looked closely into the eyes of the skin as if trying to read his soul. Marcus shivered at the thought of being studied that closely by those unsettling eyes.

  “Yes. He clearly isn’t there at all. So what is the explanation?”

  “From what we can tell, there must be a defect in the black box itself. We did a fresh download but there was no change in status. The next step will be to remove the storage unit and replace it. Sir, after reading through the project notes, I thought this might present a good opportunity for you to test out your new enhancement.”

  “Good thinking, my man.” Thorne smiled at Marcus and rubbed his hands together like a banker realizing he had made a much larger than expected profit. “Absolutely! Let’s do it. What do I need to do?”

  “Just have a seat, sir, and I will give you the injection. I understand your nanites are encoded to accept the serum?”

  “Yes, for a short time. Once we determine this project is viable, then they will be encoded to permanently accept them.”

  “Very good, sir,” Marcus replied. He went and withdrew a syringe from the refrigerated storage cabinet. Thorne sat in the empty chair facing the malfunctioning skin and rolled up his sleeve. His protective detail looked on impassively.

  Marcus placed the tip of the needle gently against Thorne’s vein. Thorne’s nanites read the encoded chip on the needle, recognized it as non-harmful, and allowed it to slide into his vein to deposit the serum. Marcus depressed the plunger and withdrew the needle.