Chapter 60: Chapter fifty-nine

Present day

 

Liz had done all she could. Dried blood came halfway to her elbows and her scrubs were stained with sweat. She leaned against the wall, her breathing heavy and her head swimming.

Before her lay the unconscious form of Oblivion, the air wheezing in and out of him like a bellows with a hole in it.

She had worked tirelessly in the operating theatre of the Program facility—cleared of all agents by the simple expedient of Dusk putting bullets in anyone who stuck around—for the past two days, trying to save Oblivion’s life, but now there was nothing left for her to do. She left the room to find somewhere to sleep.

Dusk met her at the door, still in her costume but not wearing the mask.

“Will he live?” she asked, a tension in her voice that Liz wouldn’t have associated with someone who had a death toll higher than some wars.

“I don’t know,” Liz said. “I’ve done what I can, but I’m not that kind of doctor. I think I repaired most of the damage to his internal organs and there was enough bastardized prosthetic tech left over to replace what needed replacing, but he was in bad shape. It looked like he was ripped apart from the inside. I don’t even know how that can happen. Plus, he lost a lot of blood while we got him down here. And it would be a miracle if he didn’t develop some sort of infection. The conditions weren’t exactly ideal and…” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is all we can do is wait and see.”

Dusk nodded. “I understand.”

She turned to go.

“Wait,” Liz said. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Now? I would have thought you’d want some sleep.”

“I do. But I’m exhausted enough now that I don’t feel awkward asking about it and I’m not sure I’ll actually ask if I leave it till later.”

“You want to know about me and Oblivion,” Dusk said. “Our past.”

“How did you know? Some superhero psychology thing?”

“Something like that. Go ahead, ask.”

“You two were… close in the past, right?”

“We were. We trained together when we were children. We went by numbers then, rather than names. It was a strange way to grow up, but we still became teenagers. Still had hormones.  We were… involved.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did it end?”

“I loved him, and I thought he couldn’t feel the same way.”

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“You thought?” Liz asked. “You think you were wrong?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Dusk said. “He didn’t feel things the way I did, but he did feel them. Is that all?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“It’s nothing. There’s something I need to talk to you about too, but it can wait for the moment.”

“We can talk now if you show me to a bedroom while we do it. It’ll take me some time to unwind before I can get some proper sleep anyway.”

Dusk nodded and they set off down the hallway with her leading the way.

“From the information I’ve gathered here,” Dusk said, “it appears this isn’t the only facility of this type that the Program had constructed.”

 “You mean we didn’t stop them? After all of that?”

“No, we did. This one looks to be by far the furthest along, and I am confident I can track down and destroy the others before any of them get to this stage. That isn’t the point.”

“Then what is?”

“The computers we saw here were mostly designed to provide extra processing power to Smythe, but there was some code in there like I’ve never seen before. With some work, I think it could be developed into an ASI with no human component needed. And, if this isn’t the only facility, then we don’t have much reason to think that whoever designed that code was here when we attacked. It’s likely they are still be out there somewhere.”

Liz walked in silence for a few beats while she let that sink into her frazzled mind.

“A true ASI. That could be as bad as Smythe.”

“It could be much worse,” Dusk said. “Smythe being all-powerful isn’t something anybody would want. He was ruthless, power-hungry, and selfish. But he was human. He still wanted human things. The problem with an ASI is we have no idea what it would want. It would be literally beyond our comprehension. It could remake the world, or destroy it, and we would have no way of predicting which.”

“So, you’re saying you have to stop that from happening?”

“I’m saying I don’t think I can. I will try of course. I’m planning on heading out tomorrow, but if this technology is reproduced at every backup facility… it’s too much. The genie is out of the bottle, and I don’t think we can put it back in. We could be on the edge of the singularity, looking out into darkness.”

Dusk fell silent for a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts before speaking again.

“What I am saying, is that I really hope Oblivion wakes up soon because I have a feeling the world is about to become a very interesting place.”

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