Dan launched a fireball in the general direction of one of the crowds and grabbed Sam by the arm and shook her.
“We need to go now!” He shouted, pulling Sam behind him for a couple of steps before she snapped out of her stupor.
With a quick glance to Jennifer, ensuring that she was following, Dan fled. Some of the candidates followed, but at least a handful stood swaying, eyes glassy in the thrall of their mana addiction. It might not have been the most noble thing to do, but there was no way they could fight three elves at once, let alone hundreds of possessed soldiers. The elves’ laughter floated over the moonlit path as the handful of stationary candidates were butchered by the zombie hoard.
Dan clenched his jaw. He might not have been terribly close with the other candidates. As the lead on the Starshield project, he didn’t have much time to spend with each of them individually, but they were his responsibility. He had made the call to head toward the airstrip. He had been the one to engage the soldiers on the road. They could’ve avoided the road, of course there were ambushes on it. They could’ve tried to sneak around the strange soldiers once they discovered them.
Instead, they’d run into all of those problems head-on. Sure, his body had been pumped full of adrenaline when he made those decisions. It was also true that, without him present, the candidates likely would have frozen up entirely or been killed by the first elf, but even to him that sounded like an excuse. He made a snap judgement, and people he was responsible for died.
Every once in a while, he glanced over his shoulder. Two elves and a mob of corrupted soldiers followed them at a distance. The elves probably could have caught up with them, but whatever they were using to control the dead soldiers didn’t let them move much faster than a power walk.
The elves seemed content to let them go. The soldiers spread out to prevent them from trying to double back, but there wasn’t a real sense of urgency from them. It was clear they were herding them toward the rainforest, which meant it was probably some sort of trap. On the other hand, unless the military showed up in force and soon, the candidates wouldn’t survive in the open. He didn’t know if it was void ships or teleportation, but the elves had brought more war material to Earth than any of the Thoth Foundation’s projections thought possible.
The records from the Viceroy’s Pride and Daeson’s library made no mention of the giant war lizards or the smaller, regenerating beings that led the attack. They spoke of dragons and the glory of the Tellask Empire, but there were no writings about the wyvern or the magical artillery that had weakened their defenses. None of these things was insurmountable with modern technology, but they spoke to an adaptation to modern technology that scared Dan. It was a good reminder that even if the Tellask fought with swords and spears, they weren’t fools. Even with everything displayed, the military could likely reclaim the initiative, but Dan didn’t know how long that would take and how many lives would be lost in the meantime.
Finally, they reached the edge of the Amazon. Behind them, Tellask forces pursued them slowly but doggedly. He strained his sight looking for an ambush when they entered the jungle. Every shadow could have held a reanimated soldier or some sort of exotic war beast.
The ambush never came. The stars overhead were replaced by trees as the group pushed through a layer of underbrush and into the rainforest proper. Dan slowed them to a fast walk. They needed time to catch their breath, and running would be counterproductive in the dark forest. They would easily lose their way or crash into a tree, neither of which sounded productive at the moment.
For a moment, he pondered taking them off the path and into the forest, but ultimately dismissed the idea. Changing their course would make them less predictable, but he was new to the country and it was night. If they went into the trees, it would take days to find his way out, and the entire time, they would be on the run from Tellask patrols.
It was better to risk another encounter than to get hopelessly lost. As sudden and effective as the elven attack was, some remnant of the coalition forces would survive long enough to regroup. There were too many soldiers surrounding the Amazon for their formation to be completely destroyed. It was just a matter of surviving long enough to link up with the counteroffensive when the time came.
They walked another half hour, expecting to see a trap or an ambush behind every tree and under every fern. Finally, they came to a halt by a downed tree and crouched down next to it. Dan glanced from face to face and read almost nothing but fear and shock. Of the eleven people who escaped their initial camp with him, only five remained. Sam, Ellie, Jennifer, Raoul, and a woman whose face was familiar ,but whose name Dan just couldn’t place. His expression became grim. Over half of them had died on the path under his watch.
“I’m sorry, Dan,” Sam whispered, her eyes haunted. “Intellectually, I knew what you had to do to survive on Twilight. Hell, I even saw the video playback of some of those fights, but it just never seemed real. The speed and brutality of it. The smell of blood. The way that I wanted to move. To lift my sword. To do anything, but I just couldn’t…”
She trailed off for a second before looking up at him, unshed tears in her eyes. “Ibis never should have held back.” Her voice was firmer now. “This was all a game to him, but he was never the one at risk, was he? I humored him because he was rich, and without him, no one would fund my research. He wanted to shape the future of magic. Make it match his imagination. If it was harmless, that would be one thing, but it wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Dan.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she put up a hand, shushing him. “I’m sorry that it took this long for me to speak up and do something. Ibis didn’t want to give you all of the tools to the System. He sent me here as a watchdog to make sure you didn’t get cold feet. To ‘protect his investment,’ he said. I never acted because it was pointless. Ibis was paranoid, and having me as your minder was better for you than someone you didn’t know. Then, during that last fight, I realized that you were fighting blind both figuratively and literally.”
“System, authorization Samantha J Weathers Fourteen B Seven Hash L Three.” She spoke, resolve and formality filling her voice. “Authorize user, designation Daniel C Thrush, root access.”
Dan’s vision blurred for a second. He felt a pressure in his head, but it never progressed into pain, instead remaining persistent and unpleasant. Seconds later, it faded and a notification popped up in the corner of his vision.
Root access granted to <USER>. Would you like to see unlocked options?
Dan raised an eyebrow and looked at Sam. She didn’t make eye contact with him, instead staring out into the empty night. He shrugged and mentally thought the word “yes.”
Please choose which menu you would like to investigate-
-Discipline
-Log
-Sensory Records
-Hormonal Control
-Remote Immobilization
-Remote Termination
“Sam,” Dan’s voice was grim. “What do these mean? I have some idea, but I need to hear it from you.”
“Ibis didn’t want any of his Systems going rogue.” Her voice cracked slightly. “He said it was to make sure that you all used the System responsibly, but I always knew it was his paranoia. I’m pretty sure the only reason he invited the army to participate in the Starshield project was to put the System into some of their operatives so he would have better intelligence on the government.”
“I didn’t ask why he did it.” Dan smiled slightly despite the circumstances. “Henry always had been a bit of a wacky old coot. I wanted to know what exactly this means for us right now.”
“The good news is that none of the commands work unless someone is within bluetooth range.” Sam smiled back shakily. “Given that we’re a continent away from anyone else that might have root access, I don’t think we have much to worry about right now. The bad news is that it’s exactly what it sounds like. Discipline lets a root user remotely activate your nerves, inflicting agonizing pain. Log lets a root user remotely download all of your physical actions, as well as some of your recent surface thoughts.”
“I know,” Sam replied to Dan’s unspoken frown and the shifting of the other candidates around them. “Sensory records are almost as bad: a complete log of all of your activity from your perspective. It can be used in real time to see and hear what someone else sharing the System is experiencing. Useful for a scout, and invaluable as part of an unwitting spy. Hormonal control allows a root user to alter your hormonal levels. It’s a crude form of emotional control, most useful to calm or enrage another user. Remote immobilization and termination are the most terrifying. The System is fully integrated into your nervous system. It’s a simple matter for it to put you to sleep or turn off your lungs.”
The survivors sat in silence, processing Sam’s words. Finally, Jennifer spoke up.
“What you’re saying is that all of us have timebombs in our bodies.” Her voice was matter of fact, but there was more than a little fear in her eyes. “That a root user can control our emotions, read our minds, or flat out kill us, and there’s nothing we can do.”
“That wasn’t supposed to be the point.” Sam wrung her hands together. “The sensory input and logs were intended to be part of the learning assist functions of the System. The hormonal control was originally part of a project to eliminate fear entirely in the users. We didn’t want our soldiers playing it safe.”
“If you can turn off our fear,” Dan spoke slowly as he tried to avoid the obvious conclusion of her words, “you can tamper with our survival instincts. That means people with the System can be goaded into making risky decisions. It sounds an awful lot to me like Starshield was designed to make death commandos. Super-powered idiots willing to take on suicidal risks.”
Sam winced, wringing her hands together as she searched for words.
“After Starshield began in earnest,” she began, voice halting as she struggled to explain herself, “something changed with Ibis. He spent less time talking about all of the wonderful technology he was inventing to drag humanity kicking and screaming into the next era, and more ranting about how the government was trying to spy on him. To steal the fruits of his labor and take magic away from him.”
“I tried to divert him,” Sam continued uncomfortably. “Change the subject whenever it came up, but near the end, he had talk shows on for the full length of our planning meetings. I’d be halfway through outlining some advancement you’d made in runescripting, and Ibis would just start screaming at the television.”
“In the month or so before we left, he hit rock bottom.” She looked Dan in the eyes, a suppressed earnestness in her voice. “Ibis became convinced that Bowman was a spy and that the House Oversight Committee was out to get him.”
“I’m not going to say he was talking about treason.” Her face twisted. “But he became obsessed with security, making sure that no one ‘turned on him.’ He made us change the System. He said that, with the upcoming war, we would need a way to enforce discipline on our soldiers. I’m not sure he was just talking about the elves, Dan.”
“How do we fix this, Sam?” Dan questioned her, doing his best to avoid hyperventilating. Really, the panic was a silly thing. He had fought for his life so many times and walked away with nothing more than an adrenaline rush. Ibis hadn’t even hinted that the System would be used against him. Still, it felt like the very fabric of his beliefs from the moment he stepped into the Thoth Foundation years ago was being ripped apart around him. Slipping backdoors this huge into the System was a monumental betrayal of trust.
“He’s not a bad man, Dan, you know that.” Sam’s voice had a plaintive note to it. “He’s eccentric, but his dream isn’t wrong. I think there’s something broken in him right now, but if Starshield works out, we can fix it. Ibis passionately wants humanity to take the next step. He wasn’t ever going to use the failsafes unless the government tried to recruit candidates to work against him.”
“Maybe,” Dan replied, his voice stiff, “but I should have earned his trust by now. If I’m still an outsider after all I went through for the Foundation, it isn’t about the cause anymore. It’s about him maintaining his position of power. I need to know how to disable the failsafes.”
“I hope you know that I trust you, Dan,” Sam fidgeted slightly in the darkness. “I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if I didn’t trust you. As much as I admire Henry’s vision, things have come too far for us to keep playing his games. I can’t help but think that more of us would have survived that fight if you could have looked through our eyes at any time or given us a spike of adrenaline to wake us up.”
Her guilt struck him. To a certain extent, she might be right. Having root access might have saved lives. At the same time, it was the same as his guilt over his poor decisions. Hindsight from a scared human being who had just fucked up. Even if this secret was a betrayal of his trust, Ibis had put her in an awful spot. For all her bravado, Sam didn’t know what to do. If she let Dan know what was happening, she would be fired and someone less sympathetic would have been given his reins.
“I know you trust me, Sam.” Dan’s voice softened as he tried to quiet his own internal doubts. “I know you never would have used the failsafes on me, but we both know Ibis will, even if you don’t want to admit it right now. I need to turn them off.”
