Deviation Actions
Literature Text
“What? What happened? Hello?” The enormous robot spoke, confirming that it was Goggles’ own voice speaking, just slightly filtered through a computerized overtone. The thing swiveled side to side a little, not natural for something of its size.
Stammering in concern, the real Goggles answered, “You shouldn’t be alive. There can’t be two of me. Not here, not now.” Sweat rolled down his cheeks, fearing what SHODAN could do with a digital copy of a human, considering how much she valued machines and data. To keep a full human mind in a robot or cyborg was a nightmare in itself. In this sudden shock, he tried to sort out the pros and cons of what he was seeing, and what it could do. Then, an idea hit him, breaking the shock and allowing rationalization to fall into place.
The soldier moved out in front of the huge robot, and spoke to it directly, “Listen, I’m you, okay? I was copied and put into a chip inside you, does that make any sense?”
His clone looked at itself, then at the chair, and replied, “Well...actually yeah, I think so. I mean, I- YOU were in that chair a little while ago,” it tried to piece the past events, “There was this light and my cyber-rig was trying to tell me something about EM waves...now I’m here.”
“Good, good, that’s right. But someone named SHODAN – you probably remember – She did this. She copied me into that robot to exploit...uh, you, like a slave. Don’t let that happen. Did you get that?”
Steadily stomping out of its docking bay, the huge loader responded while looking at its arms, “I heard that, and I know who SHODAN is, all right, but damn! This is so weird! I’m...seeing my own suit and it still looks like I’m human, but it feels like I swallowed a...an anvil! Heh heh.”
“I don’t know much about AIs, but that’s probably just a side effect, just a shot in the dark. Look, you’re a digital copy of me that was downloaded into a heavy-duty robot, so manipulate what you have and use the bulk of your new body to fight SHODAN. Heh, give her a taste of her own medicine, so to speak.”
Trying to get a grasp on what it was seeing, the robot focused on viewing its limbs and body as they truly were, and after some faint static in its visual feed, organic clothed arms and hands gave way to dark blue mechanical arms and clamps. “Well...guess I’m not really human anymore, huh?”
“Don’t think about that, just take care of this freak before she wakes up, okay?”
The loader followed Goggles pointing finger to the unconscious white-suited cyborg lying on the floor, and confirmed, “You got it. She’ll get what’s coming to her by making me into this robot, don’t you worry. But what comes after that?”
“Well...I don’t know, but I’m going to try and make sure that this never happens again,” Goggles sighed while returning to the first terminal. He made sure to load and update a “Tool chip” to actually use this thing. After which, the Omnitool shut down, so the soldier yanked it out from its port.
Next, he looked about for a door, found one, but saw that the only controls for it were a touchpad with a yellow symbol. Pushing it, that opened it up. He made sure to grab his backpack and weapons before leaving. “See you, I promise I’ll make things right.”
Waving a claw slightly, Goggles’ robot self replied, “Bye,” then watched SHODAN Beta-05 crawling ever so slowly towards another wall and sticking one hand into that strange glowing organic blob. Through it, electricity returned to her body within seconds, like the laser blasts never happened. Removing the hand, she carefully followed Goggles out of the room, followed by the loader through a large blast door.
Listening for footsteps, he carefully looked for any signs that said “Exit”. The corridors in whatever this Pathos-II was were a maze, so the less time spent here, the better. He passed a few signs that read “Comm. Center”, “Assembly B”, “Workshop”.
Before long, Goggles rounded a corner to another suit room and some kind of airlock, which to him seemed like the way out. Stuffed into a corner just as he turned on some lights, though, was what looked like a human being leaning against the wall. Unlike Goggles or SHODAN Beta-05, this was a human in a dark skin-tight diving suit with a similar helmet, although laced in several spots with chunks of machinery grafted to the flesh...a certain type of cyborg, no doubt. Looking closely, he saw that through the helmet was some kind of camera array with a loaded slot behind them reading “Cortex Acc.” No way in hell would Goggles want to be put in there. Being one kind of cyborg was enough, not this grimy underwater kind.
Looking at it carefully, he quickly confirmed that it was dead, judging by the flickering flashlight in its chest panel and the lack of any pulse or breathing. A huge gaping gash had been slashed in the poor sap’s torso, probably having lost a lot of blood hours ago. What shocked the soldier more, though, aside from the disgusting sight of its intestines strewn over the metal floor was something smeared on that floor in what he had to guess was that blood, just barely visible in the flickering light. It read: “Simon Jarett, 1988-2104”
“Jesus, guess I wasn’t the only time traveler here!” Goggles cringed.
He heard what sounded like mechanical footsteps whirring and tapping their way towards this room, so he frantically rooted through the suit lockers. He didn’t have the time or option to put on any of those suits, so hoped instead that there were self-contained respirators nearby. As luck would have it, inside each locker was a glass box that read: “If suit is missing, break glass”. Smashing one in an empty locker with a hammer, the soldier grabbed the respirator, strapped over his nose and mouth, secured the air tank to his belt, then stepped into the airlock and swiped the Omnitool like a card to a scanner between both doors.
Briefly, the sealed door and the area around it seemed to flicker for a moment, and then, with a burst, a gray, staticky version of that door faded into view. "Tear," Goggles figured. "Of course."
“C-C-C-Come back here, insect!” SHODAN Beta-05 yelled.
“Not today, you son of a one-eyed prairie dog!” The robot taunted in response, followed by a “squish!” sound.
Goggles had to hope that the respirator would hold together long enough to reach the surface, and that SHODAN didn’t catch him before the cycle was over. Fortunately, the airlock flooded and equalized in pressure to the outside water. Wading through the Tear into a new version of the ocean, the trip was faster than expected, and overhead, a new bridge quickly formed right above him, giving a close surface to mantle onto.
“Wow, that was weird as all hell. I am never explaining any of this in my report,” he muttered while throwing the respirator back into the water.
-----
Booker listened for footsteps from the Luteces, and they indeed came from another room.
“Okay, arm the thing,” DeWitt called. Gordon wound the key counterclockwise to full speed and adjusted the alarm hand to 15 minutes from now, while Booker fastened the two papers together, and placed them on top of one of the boxes, hoping the Luteces would read them, and then leave before the bomb detonated.
Alyx saw something stirring in front of the Lutece device. “What...what was that?”
“I think I know what’s happening,” Anna answered slowly while feeling her blood run cold.
“Anna...are you opening another Tear?” Booker asked in concern.
“No, I’m not doing anything. There’s a Tear already here, just that someone might be controlling it from the other side!”
“Three guesses who it could be!” Gordon gasped.
The Tear flickered for a moment, revealing the glowing world of cyberspace with SHODAN’s head floating in the center. Faintly, Goggles appeared inside and was about to fire his grenade launcher at that head.
“Let’s skedaddle before those twins see us!” Gordon commanded.
“Shouldn’t we turn this thing off or something?” Booker suggested.
“That’s what the bomb’s for, at least I think! Come on!”
The armed fighters hastily left through the door Anna still had open, and in the midst of all this, Gordon’s suit radio picked up a transmission. “Hey, it’s Goggles! I made it back, anyone read me?”
“Yeah, loud and clear, but damn! How did you do that?” Gordon answered in awe.
“No time to explain, did you arm the bomb?”
Looking at the clock with his zoom vision, Gordon reported that only around 12 minutes remained. The soldier clocked a timer in his HUD matching that time.
“I’m hearing a lot of static on your end, is something wrong?”
“Yeah, something’s wrong! SHODAN’s back, and she’s...doing something to the Lutece thingy!”
“I was afraid of that. I can’t say much because...well, hardly anything’s making sense at this point, is it?”
“Yeah, if I could come up with a research paper for all this, it’d be ‘Quantum Tunneling of Logic through any Rational Sense.’.
-----
Meanwhile, the twins saw the explosive device planted before their machine.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Rosalind gasped.
“More precisely, what is the meaning of THAT?” Robert gestured at the open portal. “Why didn’t you deactivate this thing before answering a simple phone call?”
“I thought it would only take a few minutes, and it did. Then I’d flip the switch and be done with it,” Rosalind shrugged.
“Never mind,” Robert stepped behind the Device’s console and flipped a few levers and switches to shut it down. “Rosalind, look at this. Whatever it is, I am sure this wasn’t there before.”
They examined the boxes of explosives and the ticking clock. Rosalind hastily picked up the papers and skimmed over its text as quickly as she could. Feeling a chill over the warnings contained within and what the future entailed, she answered in confusion, “It’s a bomb! A live, ticking time bomb! Why would someone want to destroy my creation? My life’s work? After all we’ve done together?”
“Let me see that,” Robert demanded. His twin handed over the notes and read them as quickly as he could. Rosalind felt scared by the ticking clock reading 10 minutes left.
---
Goggles hurriedly paged Gordon, “Okay, last part of the plan: Locate the doors to our timelines and get through before the bomb goes off!”
“Easier said than done, which way is mine?!” Gordon started to panic.
“We’ll have to pass them one at a time. Come on, I don’t feel well,” Elizabeth commanded while noticing that SHODAN was still trying to fight for her own spot in space-time. “I’ll still try to lead you there.”
“I am going to die here, aren’t I? All my work, wasted,” Rosalind sighed on the verge of crying.
“Don’t say that, that’s not what this note says!” Robert insisted.
“Then what does it say?”
“It says that I must be sent back to where I came from, and that you must abandon Columbia and take your research elsewhere. Otherwise, Mr. Comstock will make things much worse in the future.”
“That can’t be so. I’ve always dreamed of having you here, so similar in everything but a chromosome!”
Rosalind struggled to find a reason Robert should stay. They bickered among each other over the pros and cons, how the universe might be affected.
“Why must you always be such a fatalist? The universe is not set on an inevitable course!” Robert almost yelled.
“Because it has, is, and will be. I have predicted many timelines coming to their inevitable end through my work, as Comstock has said unless we aid him.”
“We are running out of time, can’t you see that clock?”
8 minutes remained.
---
Gordon and Alyx located a door that looked like it belonged on the Borealis, judging by the wheel on it and the Aperture Laboratories logo. Gordon spun it with all of his strength, pushed inward, and it opened to the same room with the malfunctioning “portal gun”.
“See you never, and that’s not an insult!” Gordon called before jumping with Alyx through that door to the Borealis.
---
“Can’t we just disarm this thing?” Rosalind suggested.
“If what this note is to be believed, Mr. Comstock can’t be trusted. I for one, agree with this. I was never comfortable with him explaining ‘prophecies’ by observing other universes like a voyeur.”
“I didn’t watch you like a voyeur, we communicated with each other.”
“But I-I-I am watching youuuuu, and your re-re-re-research shall serve me well,” SHODAN interrupted.
The Luteces stared at the Tear. Through it, the floating head’s eyes glowed, then generated a strange green wave of energy that affected the Tear in ways so bizarre even the Twins couldn’t understand it. The portal’s ring turned a faint green and began to grow unstable like one of Anna’s original restricted Tears. It writhed and deformed like the pulsing mouth of an earthworm.
Realizing what was happening, Robert cut the connection with a swift thrust of some levers and switches.
5 minutes, 30 seconds.
---
Mjolnir 54 located a prominently lit metal door in the side of one of the Citadels, and the simple push of a button opened it. He gave a quick salute, then departed through it.
---
“I’m sorry, I really am. But whoever wrote this is right. Our work really is going to waste here,” Robert insisted.
“What do you mean?”
“I remember what Comstock said on the telephone. He asked me about coming down here to see us for another look at ‘what is to come’. We both know that what he is doing is a fool’s errand. Why tend it any further?”
Rosalind sighed, thinking the implications over, then agreed, “You are right. I am already concerned that his bodily functions are deteriorating rapidly from using this machine. Perhaps it’s not my fault that I believed so many timelines would be doomed. It shouldn’t be my own, so I will do whatever you ask of me to help that happen.”
Rosalind reluctantly turned on her machine again, targeting New York just as Robert had left it.
“There you are brother,”
The tear flickered like an analog TV signal back to SHODAN’s cyberspace zone. “Not so fast,” she warned.
3 minutes left.
---
“I need to go through next, where’s my door?” Booker insisted.
“This way,” Anna directed.
A few twists and turns led directly to the door marked “BOOKER DEWITT: INVESTIGATION INTO MATTERS BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.”
With nobody else around, Booker and his daughter simply slipped through.
---
“Who are you? Why are you interfering with this Tear?” Rosalind demanded.
SHODAN couldn’t answer due to Goggles blowing out that head with EMP grenades. New York flickered back into existence.
“Go, before it changes again!”
“Are you sure? There is no turning back from here, you know?” Robert checked for last minute choices.
“This is bigger than us or Columbia! If the future is to run a brighter course, then we must part!”
“Very well, I won’t forget you!”
Rosalind watched her ‘brother’ jump through the glowing ring into New York, after which it flipped back to cyberspace, this time watching SHODAN make her final pleading to Goggles, who, like before, refused and blasted her in the face. As that virtual environment destabilized around them, the Tear followed suit and slammed shut.
Rosalind powered down the Device, disconnected some essential wires, then set about packing all of her possessions as quickly as possible; save for food which she assumed could be bought elsewhere. Vacating the lab, she sprinted, with several heavy bags in tow, out to Emporia and boarded a gondola to wherever she could get a ticket to the First Lady, out of Columbia once and for all.
The bomb continued ticking down without delay.
----
“Crap, I’m last! Where do I go?!” He looked at his HUD: 30 seconds to detonation. “NO! Nonononono! I can’t get stuck out here! Where the f*ck is my time zone?!”
The soldier ran screaming blindly across whatever path was in front of him, more scared than ever. If he failed now, if the bomb did detonate while he was still in this...intersection of time periods, then he would literally cease to exist. Not just die, but actually be wiped off the proverbial radar of time and space itself.
“fifteen.....fourteen....thirteen.....twelve....” his HUD’s numbers relentlessly dropped.
He jabbed a speed booster into his wrist, but the exit was still nowhere in sight.
“eleven....ten....niner....eight.”
He watched as the Citadels around him began to glow like stars and then disintegrate from existence; The connections between universes steadily decreasing in number.
“seven...six....five....”
Dead ahead and between two other Citadels close together was a large heavy door with the Von Braun’s logo on it. “Yes, yes, almost there!” Goggles panted while the drug steadily wore off.
“four....three....two...one...”
The bomb detonated just as the bells on the clock resounded with a shrill “BRRRING!”. The explosion was so vast that it blasted the entire lab building apart, even making a chunk of the floating city block dangle over the edge, the debris raining downwards into the ocean. But one thing was for sure, no one would ever find the Lutece device, let alone try to reverse-engineer it. The thing was so close to the bomb that the explosion melted its components into a pile of inert junk. Simultaneously, the effect of that explosion combined with Robert Lutece’s return to his universe fixed the scrambled mess between universes, untangling them like the wires on a pair of headphones or the threads on a loom. Multiple universes still existed, but now there were no more holes, Tears, or doors connecting them together. If there was to be more experiments into this field, it would be a long time from now.
