36
April 11, 2027
“Please state your purpose,” said the voice Alainn now knew wasn’t truly from Rosebud.
“I’m trying to contact Lor. I haven’t been able to reach him.” Shelly’s voice was almost inaudible, her words wet with sobs.
It was amazing that she had driven here at all. Blue had confronted them with a pretty scary fact about getting into the garage on their way there. Blue could open it manually with the safety switch, but Rose could close it within thirty seconds of the door opening. Meaning, they had to be in the access way to get in.
Unfortunately for Shelly, neither Colby nor Alainn could waltz up to the access way without Rose calling the police—or worse. As they had no idea how long it would take, they all came to the realization that Shelly’s car was the only way to get close enough.
They dropped Blue off a block up and watched as she climbed the exterior of the neighboring building. When she’d made it to the top, Blue crawled along the edge of the building until she’d reached the corner. After a deep crouch, Blue leaped and flew across the access road. Her little fingers caught onto something Alainn couldn’t even see on the smooth black building. She pulled herself up and forward into a small rectangle of space they could only see because Blue was halfway climbing into it. When she was fully in, the space disappeared from view.
They waited only five minutes, Shelly bawling her eyes out in the front seat while Alainn lay in the space between the front and back seats, somewhat covered by a blanket Shelly had in her trunk.
“It’s now or never, Shelly,” Alainn whispered when she hadn’t pulled out of where they’d been parked.
Shelly told them that she wanted to do it, especially now that she truly believed Lorccan was in serious danger. There was a moment where Alainn was sure Shelly would tuck tail and run, but, sobbing all the harder, she pulled back into traffic and drove the short distance to Lorccan’s building.
“I’m so worried about him,” Shelly whispered to the screen outside her window.
“He’s very busy with work, Ms. Dover. I would be happy to take a message for you.” A melodic beep sounded.
“Okay,” Shelly whispered.
“Please speak louder, Ms. Dover.”
Shelly spoke louder, “I’m worried about you, Lorccan. You’re not answering my calls and we’ve missed several of our nightly calls. My anxiety is really high, and I haven’t been able to work or sleep very well.” Amazingly, after Shelly started, she just kept going. She told him about reconsidering her medication, what medications she was thinking about instead and her concerns. In detail, she described the projects she was working on, complicated projects impossible to follow. She said everything in a very quiet voice, but her speech went on unbroken for what seemed like fifteen minutes.
Alainn’s hand slowly reached out of the blanket and toward the door handle. She would have only seconds to jump out of the car after the door opened. And Alainn might have to help Colby out of the trunk since he was pretty much blind. Then they both needed to slide under a closing steel door.
The smooth voice interrupted Shelly’s speech, “Who are you hiding in your car, Shelly Dover?”
“No one. It’s just me—” Shelly cut off abruptly and screamed, “Alainn! It’s opening! Go!”
Alainn tried to jump up but her shirt caught on something under the passenger seat. “I’m stuck!” she cried while yanking uselessly at the material. Her fingers pried at a piece of metal that had somehow caught through the bottom hem of her shirt.
“It’s already closing!” Shelly screamed again.
Colby threw open Alainn’s door. “Come on!”
“I’m stuck!” she cried, frantically yanking at the material. Colby grabbed her arm, trying to pull her out of the car door.
“There’s not enough time!” Shelly screamed. “I’m going to just drive in!”
“No, wait! Colby is—”
She drove and Alainn just managed to break from Colby’s hold in time. The car surged forward.
Screaming, Alainn thrust her arms back into the car. The car door hit the wall, banging open and closed while scraping and sparking.
There was an earsplitting crunching sound, then a shattering. The car jerked upward. Screams echoed above. Alainn’s shirt finally ripped, sending her body slamming into the backseat.
“Shelly?” Alainn cried. She heard nothing. Rolling over, she threw the blanket off her. Little bits of safety glass slid onto her face. She lay on the backrest and looked up to see Shelly directly above her. Dark hair fell straight down from either side of the headrest.
She screamed again, an ear-piercing screech of terror.
Glass rained down from Alainn’s body as she sat up and reached forward. “Shelly? We have to climb out!”
Shelly only screamed again.
Alainn crawled over and peered out of the car door.
Shelly’s beige sedan was off the ground by at least a foot, with the front of the car jutting up. The steel door had missed crushing Alainn by two feet. The door had smashed completely through the trunk of Shelly’s car and some of the back window.
Twisted metal split and warped all along where the steel had completely crushed the car. There was another loud screech, and Alainn ducked her head just in time as the car buckled forward, slamming down.
Shelly screamed, and Alainn cried out as she toppled back into the space between the seats. Her already tender face smacked into the floor of the car. The underside of the seats blurred as Alainn tried to raise her head.
At the same time, Blue cried out from somewhere near and an electronic jingle played from somewhere else. The jingle ceased.
“Shelly? Answer it, please! It could be Colby!”
The jingle began again.
“Hello?” Shelly answered, the word a shaky mess. After a pause, Shelly sobbed, “I thought I might have killed you.”
Alainn crawled out of her wedged position and reached over the center divider. “Shelly, give me the phone!” she breathed.
Shelly threw the phone at Alainn, making her scramble to catch it.
Climbing back onto the seat, she put the phone to her ear. “Colby? Are you safe?”
“I’m fine. Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Alainn whispered, “But you’re outside, aren’t you?”
“I am. There was no way I could make it. But I threw the hardware chip in; I think it made it in past the door. Hopefully it’s not damaged; it’s in a plastic container.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Go. Now. I hear sirens. I’m going to run and hide out. Call me if you need me.” The phone went dead.
“Shelly,” Alainn called, to which she only received sobs. “You did a really brave thing. Now I’m going to need you to do another one. We have to get out of this car, find the chip, and implant it into Rosebud’s main hardware. The police are on their way, so we’ve got to do it now. I have a feeling that Rose will open up for the police, and then we’ll lose our only chance.”
Shelly didn’t react, so Alainn figured she was probably going to have to coax her out from the front seat. Checking her back pocket, she made sure that the small plastic box was still there, and then climbed out of the still-open car door. Thick lines of scrapes dug into its length.
Blue sat on the hood of Shelly’s car. The moment she saw Alainn, she held up her hand and screeched.
As Alainn rounded the car, she called. “Shelly, come on out now, please. I need you to find this chip; I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
When she was halfway to her, Shelly’s door slowly opened and her sickly, pale face appeared over it. She staggered away from the car, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. She pointed at Blue. “Blue has it,” she whispered before leaning forward and vomiting all over herself and the car.
“Damn it!” Alainn yelled, as she ran over to her.
Shelly stood back up. “I’m fine,” she whispered. Her hand smeared vomit across her face. “I can do this.”
She didn’t look like she meant it, but Alainn took her word for it and grabbed her clean hand.
Blue ran ahead, along the line of gleaming identical vehicles. Alainn ran after her, pulling Shelly along behind her. The monkey led them around the garage to a thick metal door on one side.
“How do we get in?” Alainn yelled.
“You don’t, Alainn,” said Rose in Rosebud’s voice. “Shelly, listen to me. Run from Alainn. She’s a psychopath; she wants to kill you and Mr. Garbhan both.”
“Blue, how do we open this door?” Alainn yelled.
“The monkey is helping her. It will help her kill you as well.”
Blue screeched, making Shelly jump. When Alainn looked up, she saw that Blue was pointing to a large black box that read, “Manual Override.”
“Just hang in there for a few more minutes, Shelly. We’re almost through, okay?” Alainn let go of her arm hoping so much that she wouldn’t run. To her relief, Shelly stayed, although she made small whimpering sounds.
Alainn tore down the big box. The plastic clattered to the ground, revealing a red metal wheel. Grabbing it with both hands, she threw all her weight into turning it and almost fell forward as the wheel turned smoothly.
There was a quiet snick and the door shifted slightly open. Grabbing the handle, she pulled open the door.
“Don’t go in there, Shelly—that’s where she’ll kill you. She’s hiding a knife in her pocket,” Rose said again in Rosebud’s voice.
“Please, Shelly, go. I swear to you she’s lying.” Alainn held the door open.
Blue screeched, holding up a computer chip in a small plastic box.
Shelly whimpered again but took the chip and stepped inside.
Alainn followed Shelly into a small room that had the same panel walls as the rest of the house, though one of the panels opened. Also, unlike the rest of the tower, a security light shone above them. A greenish glow filled the room.
“What do we have to do?” Alainn asked Shelly as she looked at what must be Rosebud 03AF’s circuit board. Alainn had seen circuit boards before, but this was in a class all of its own. If she’d found this months ago when she wanted to disconnect Rosebud, Alainn would have had no idea what to do. A web of green, black, and red circuits and chips crisscrossed the entire three-foot-square space.
“She’s built like an Automaton Pulsres but is so much more intricate,” Shelly said, a touch of awe mixing in with her panicked tone.
“My father designed the Pulsres series, too,” Alainn said.
“I’ve seen their circuitry before, when I was at university. But I’ve never been allowed to work on one.”
“What do you have to do?” Alainn asked.
“I don’t know if this is going to work, but the idea behind the chip your brother printed was to fix the basic input-output system if it was corrupted in the reboot. Your brother and I chose this one because it’s likely that Rose hacked into Rosebud’s system by corrupting her firmware. She could then install software to run the whole system remotely.”
“I have no idea what you just said. Just tell me what you need me to do,” Alainn said.
“We need to hot flash her bios and reinstall her chip. That’s what this should do.” She held up the chip. “I could very easily destroy her motherboard. You should probably not help,” she whispered.
“Probably not.” Inhaling deeply for the first time, Alainn pressed a hand over her face as the smell of Shelly’s vomit-covered clothing really hit her. The room was very small, so although it was only the three of them, the mingled smells of sweat, fear, and panic closed in.
Shelly’s hand hovered over a section of circuitry that looked exactly the same as the rest.
Rose’s voice came again, “Shelly, I know you don’t trust me, but do you trust Alainn? Alainn killed her own best friend.”
“No, I didn’t,” Alainn whispered.
“She did, and she’ll kill you, too.”
“I didn’t,” Alainn begged. “Please, Shelly.”
“The police are here, Shelly. Go with them. They’ll protect you from Alainn and her brother. You’re taking Mr. Garbhan’s protection away. She wants both of you dead. She wants his money, and she knows you’ll stop her from getting it.”
Shelly turned to Alainn, her face again paler than snow.
“Shelly, don’t listen to her. She’s the one killing Lorccan. She’s doing it right now. Shelly, come on, stay with me,” Alainn whispered.
“Tell her, Alainn. Tell her about what happened to Cara. Tell her about the car. Tell her about leaving Cara to die.”
A tear dropped down Alainn’s bruised cheek.
“Tell her you chose not to save her, why you let Cara die instead of you.”
“Shelly, please! It’s not . . . she’s not. Please!”
Shelly jumped back, her whole body shaking.
A clanking came from the door they had just entered, and the knob began to turn. Alainn grabbed the knob and used all of her strength to hold it still. She pushed her body against the door, hoping that it was enough to stop it from opening.
“She let her friend die so that she would live.”
“I didn’t do that. I tried to save her!”
“The police are here, Shelly. Go with them. No one will blame you for helping Alainn. She’s a liar, a killer, a thief—”
Shelly reached forward and pulled a circuit off the circuit board, silencing Rose’s voice.
The screens all around blinked to black.
“Is she shut down?”
“No, she doesn’t have a shut down. I just disconnected her monitors.” Shelly turned to face Alainn, her whisper coming out shrill. “I really hope she’s evil and you’re good, because if this is all some big con to get Lorccan’s money—”
The door handle flipped up and the door pushed hard against Alainn’s side. “I swear to you that this isn’t a con! Reboot Rosebud. We only have seconds!”
Blue screeched her agreement at Shelly.
“Okay. I just need to be sure it’s the right one,” she whispered as she turned back to the circuit board. The beautiful, put-together woman who had confronted Alainn in the resort was gone. Shelly’s hair stuck out in all directions around an oval face that was a splotchy mess of bruises. Not to mention one of her legs and a shoe still had visible vomit on it.
The door bucked again, smacking Alainn. “Shelly!”
“Oh, please let this be right.” Shelly used her fingernails to pluck a chip off the board, immediately replacing it with the chip from the plastic box in her hand. “It should work right away, the way she—”
“Shelly! Now!” Alainn shouted.
“Okay!” she finished pulling the chip off and reconnected the original chip. Her finger pressed down on the monitor circuitry, reconnecting it.
And nothing happened.
The door burst open, sending Alainn hurtling into Shelly and Blue. All of them tumbled into a heap.
Shelly screamed and Blue screeched. They were a mass of limbs until Alainn managed to break away and roll farther into the room.
“You are under arrest for trespassing. Put your hands in the air and step out slowly.”
All three of them looked up simultaneously into the identical faces of four police automatons.