“You didn’t tell me there would be others coming,” Jerry whispered to Tom, as a silhouette approached the street corner where they stood.
“Didn’t get a chance. Our techie bailed on us last minute. There was a big blackout in Milan and she’s probably stuck there. I had to improvise.”
The silhouette turned into a short, skinny old man in an oversized raincoat. “Are you the people from the Fellowship of Animals?” He took off his hood and extended a veiny, wrinkled hand.
“Yes. I’m Tom. Your contact. This is Jerry.” Tom shook his hand. “And you are?”
“Father Zosima, San Francisco Orthodox Commune. At your service.”
“A Christian?” Jerry turned to Tom in disbelief. “You found us a Christian techie?”
“Well, plenty of souls to save where you’re going.” Father Zosima smiled amiably. He turned back to Tom. “Here’re the access cards for both of you, as promised. You are late-shift maintenance workers for the main chassis. I will go down the sewage drain in the back of the data center. Tap into the intranet there.”
“Right,” Tom said. “Remember, do not make any attempt to contact us after we enter the front gate. Trigger the DDoS exactly thirty minutes after that. Here’s your comm.” She handed Father Zosima an earbud. “Godspeed, Father.”
“Same to you,” Zosima said. The small man slowly faded back into the silhouette.
“I’ve been thinking,” Jerry said, as he and Tom walked down a maintenance corridor in the East wing of Xenon Incorporated’s Pacific Standard Data Center 3.
“That’s new.”
Jerry ignored her snark and continued. “I still feel uncomfortable about the Father. I just don’t get why a Christian would help us. Hard to trust a guy who doesn’t give a shit about animal rights.” He bent his head down to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his safety vest.
“Well, they are not doing it for the hardware,” Tom said. “But they are interested in what’s in them. They want to get rid of all the dead people living in the virtual heavens.”
“But why?”
“Hell if I know. Yahweh’s Heaven probably has a low headcount and they wanna do some good ol’ human sacrifice. Now could you shut up, please? Lots of eyes and ears here.”
“I can see that part. I’m not that stupid. But aren’t they supposed to be against killing of any kind? Killing humans, at least. Especially these commune freaks. I thought they’re supposed to give up their lives before raising a hand against someone.”
“Well, if anything, they probably think all these souls are misled by digital demons, so they are saving them rather than killing them.” Tom raised her badge hanging around her neck, held it under her chin, and smiled at the camera on top of the blast door in front of them. The door opened. “Can’t really kill a guy who’s already dead, can they?”
“But they are not dead. That’s the disgusting thing. They hide themselves in these…”
“Shh!”
An alarm blared in the corridor, and their headphones buzzed. “Hardware overload detected. Main chassis hardware crew to East wing level B3. Hardware overload detected. Main chassis hardware crew to East wing level B3…”
“Looks like the Father did his part. Let’s go.”
The elevator rumbled slightly as it moved down. It took a long time to reach underground level three. As the elevator came to a stop, it shook violently. Jerry winced.
“I’m not gonna shit for a week after this, I’m telling ya. My gut is probably all fucked up by the damn bag.”
Tom made no reply. With shaky hands, she grabbed the handrail behind her on the elevator wall, trying her best not to fall from fear and a sudden attack of nausea. Against all the good judgment she thought she had, Tom closed her eyes.
With a small ding, the door opened. Jerry gasped. Tom took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
“Welcome to heaven,” she whispered.
Slowly, as if trying not to wake up the supercomputer, they walked into the central server hall. In front of them, rows and rows of water tanks stacked on top of one another. In each direction, the wall of tanks extended beyond their sight into the frigid darkness. Within each tank was a brain slightly larger than that of a human, floating in transparent, teal-colored liquid. Exposed optic fibers sprouted from the top of each brain, glowing with a sickly yellow light. For a supercomputer chassis, the structure was eerily quiet.
“Motherfucker,” Jerry managed, after several seconds. “I’ve read about this in the FoA handbook. But to see it for myself…”
Tom turned on the headlight of her helmet. “You take the right. I’ll go this way.” Without blinking, she took off her sweatpants and underwear, and began to slowly pull the zip-lock bags containing the bomb strips from her rectum. She groaned slightly.
“Sorry,” Jerry said, a bit startled by what came out of his mouth.
“Hey! Turn the fuck around and start doing your part,” Tom hissed. “We don’t have all night.”
“Right, sorry.” Jerry turned back and headed down a row of tanks. He started to take off his jeans.
With the crumpled plastic bag tightly gripped in her left hand and a roll of duct tape in the pocket of her vest, Tom moved quickly down a lane between two walls of water tanks. She counted twenty columns of brains, stopped, and fixed a small piece of bomb strip to a tank to her left with the tape.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly to the brain in the tank as she moved on.
She taped another strip after twenty more columns down the lane. “You could’ve swum in the ocean, hunting fish as you go, mating, socializing.”
Another strip taped. “Instead, you were born here, in this darkness. Engineered to carry these worthless human egos.”
And another. “Never got a chance to think dolphin thoughts. Never felt what nature meant for you to feel. I cannot imagine the pain.”
And another. “I’m sorry we treated you so cruelly.”
And another. “It’ll soon be over…”
She walked into the darkness.