Network Effect

The white crystalline substance was grainy, and it grew out of the human’s ears and mouth. I had to edge forward at an angle and then lower my head down to get a view of the human’s face. The skin had blue-white blotchy patches standing out against the light tan. That might be decay, and it might be the same process that had changed the Targets’ skin color and texture. I saw the eyes were blue. And they were looking at me.

I scrambled away from it, out of the circle of racks and tables. I couldn’t get up because of my knee and I was afraid to turn my back on it to use the wall to climb to my feet.

2.0 said, I know violence isn’t the solution to everything, but in this case …

In this case, yeah.

I pointed my right arm energy weapon at the human’s head, upped the intensity as far as it would go, and fired.

The white material flashed and emitted a faint odor I couldn’t identify. The human still looked at me, expressionless. Their eyes were crusted with dried fluid, unable to blink. Oh, why can’t anything be easy, just this once?

I tried to kill it three times. Until 2.0 said, Those scars and marks on the floor around it could be projectile and energy weapon impacts. Somebody else has tried to kill it, multiple times, from different directions and with different weapons.

Great. Tried to kill it, and tried to blow up the entrance to this chamber, but had been stopped before they could use an explosive big enough. The contamination must have done something to the human host’s organic tissue, a self-protection function.

I was reluctant to go over there and put my fist through its head because (a) I thought I was immune to code contamination but maybe not if I actually got remnant on my organic parts and (b) if energy weapons wouldn’t work, punching probably wouldn’t, either. I needed to be smart about this.

I made myself turn around and use the wall to drag myself up so I could stand. There are tools in the shaft. We need to find something that can smash it, or a bigger explosive. I know, I can barely stand and walk, so this was me being really optimistic right now.

2.0 said, Uh, potential problem. Why hasn’t targetControlSystem called for help? There has to be proximity detection of some kind. Plus, targetContact there can see us.

Oh. That was a good question.

Central said suddenly, query: client population deceased? Y/N.

It was asking about the humans. I told it acknowledge: No. Client population endangered.

It said, query: client population assistance?

I didn’t have the right code and I didn’t want to lie to it. Everything was so much worse even than it looked. I said, acknowledge: unknown.

It didn’t respond.

I said, query: proximity alert in progress? It was aware of its situation, it might be able to tell if targetControlSystem knew we were here.

It said, acknowledge: No alert. No proximity alert. No unknown organism present. In network only.

Uh. It was saying the targetControlSystem wasn’t reacting to me because it read my presence as non-hostile. It thought I was a Target, an infected colonist.

I couldn’t respond. SecUnits aren’t supposed to be able to go into shock like humans but my performance reliability had dropped another 5 percent, which is kind of a lot all at once.

I’m not in network, I told the central system. I’m not infected.

2.0 said, Uh. I think maybe you are. I read diagnostic anomalies. Hold on.

Central System sent me an image, a connection map of the room, like the one 2.0 had made. My hard address was on it, and a connection to targetControlSystem.

Oh, no.

Human to machine. Maybe that was the way it had to work. Human to machine to human.

We’d been doing it wrong. I’d been trying to get ART to avoid contact with potentially infected systems, when it was infected augmented humans we had to worry about.

And I had scanned this room, the infected human. It had been hoping to contaminate me in the shaft, and I had wandered in here and helpfully done it myself.