Pulse: A Collection of Short and Flash Science Fiction Read online

  One of the people tilted their head back and screamed as the others tried to break down the door to Olive’s apartment. She jumped back but not before pulling down a plastic cover and pressing the red mushroom button underneath.

  When Seth had moved in he had several things installed including an advanced biometric lock on the door, a video intercom system, and the Safe Room Security System which turned the apartment into a safe room at the touch of a large red mushroom button. Within seconds, chrome steel shutters dropped into place in front of the door and windows while electrical grids in the wall energized, making the whole apartment an impenetrable fortress. As the physical security was set, the apartment’s computer system attempted to contact both Seth and the police. All Olivia could do was watch and wait.

  ###

  The armored motorcade drove up into the dark warehouse where several heavily-armed machine gun emplacements guarded the entrance. Across the street, a shimmering wall stretched into the distance on either side.

  “What the hell is that?” Margo said as she turned around in her seat to get a view of the structure through the rear window.

  “Experimental force field with a radius of thirty blocks around the Todihara Ltd. building. Nothing comes out of the zone uninvited without being fried first. We think it’ll last about another eight hours.”

  They drove down a ramp into an underground structure filled with equipment and personnel.

  “This way,” the general said as he waved off the guards and led Seth, his team, and the Director to a door which belonged on a bank vault. “This used to be munitions storage during the last world war. It's been converted into a laboratory.” He typed a code into the lockpad, and the massive door quietly swung open.

  They walked inside and found a lab similar to the one they had in Section Nineteen. At the center of the room was a cube-shaped object fifteen feet long on edge, and ten feet tall. It was covered by curtains and surrounded by tables. The general walked up to one of the tables and pressed a button on a control box sitting on top it. The curtains moved out of the way revealing a large transparent cage with the only entry at the center of its roof.

  They gasped when they saw what was inside. Watching them was a soldier with silver skin and torn, bloodstained clothes. It stared at them with blank, silver eyes like a lion watching its prey. It didn’t move.

  “Meet LCpl. Dickie Smithers who was human up to an hour ago. He met his demise at the hands of one of the infected research personnel who escaped from the building. Luckily we had already deployed the containment field and evacuated most of the people within the perimeter. We activated it as soon as we saw this,” he said as he showed the news video of the escaping creatures.

  Megan and Margo looked closely at the video while Megan noted, “Look at how fast the nanobots take over the tissue.”

  “Yeah, that ain’t good,” Sam said.

  “Why, other than there’s no hope for the victim?” the general asked.

  “High reproduction rate is associated with high mutation rate which means a quickly moving target for finding a way to stop the bots. Not good.”

  “Forget stopping it once it’s in play,” Raj said. “We need to pull a Seth,”

  “Excuse me?” the general said with a perplexed note to his voice.

  “Did you analyze the bots?” Megan asked the general.

  “Yes, they’re exact matches to the ones in Seth.”

  “Good. That means they’ll go into cure mode if they encounter Serum 408. We just need to get the serum into people either before the nanobots enter their bloodstream or shortly after. If we can do that, the bots will do as originally designed and start to fix things instead of changing people into zombie robots."

  "I prefer ZomBots myself,” Sam said.

  "You would," Margo commented as she watched Dickey.

  “We have more pressing problems," the general said. "We have an unknown number of these ZomBots roaming the area contained within the force field. We need to neutralize them before the force field fails in eight hours. I understand you have an EMP bomb in your office at the Todihara Ltd. building.”

  “Yes, sir," Seth replied. "I just need to access the biometric scanner on the back wall.”

  “Then we may have a problem,” the general said as he brought up another vid feed. “We sent in a ratbot to survey the Todihara Ltd. building's sub-levels. While we were at it we were able to sneak past your sentry bots and get a peek in your office. Please note the back wall.”

  They watched as the ratbot scanned the room. Instead of a biometric scanner on the wall, there were only large scars around the socket it had been plugged into. “It was big, whatever it was,” Seth said.

  “What now?” the general asked.

  Before Seth could answer, his secretary, Charlie, ran into the room with a guard close behind.

  “Seth, my God, you’re still alive!”

  “Charlie, I should say the same thing about you. What’s up?”

  She handed him a tablet. “This just came in a few minutes ago. I was looking for the general, but it’s really for you.”

  Seth took the tablet. “What is it, boss?” Margo asked.

  “Olive has activated her apartment’s safe room function. The external feeds show ZomBots trying to get to her. General, do you have a map showing exactly what part of the city is surrounded by the force field?”

  “Of course,” the general said as he pulled one up on the viewer.

  “This explains it,” Seth said pointing to a spot near the inside of the force field. This is the location of Olive’s apartment. I guess she hadn’t moved after all. General, this may solve our problem.”

  “How?”

  “Her apartment uses the exact same biometric scanner as the EMP bomb. We can use hers to activate it. I can set the bomb to take out everything within the force field.”

  “What do you need?”

  He looked up and saw his team staring at him while standing behind the general. He smiled and said, “Weapons for the six of us and a vehicle, preferably an armored personnel carrier.”

  “You’ll have everything you need in ten minutes,” The general said. He called in his aid and started issuing orders.

  “Charlie, thanks for bringing this. Can you get everyone some quick food while we wait?”

  “Sure, Seth,” she replied as she ran out of the room.

  “What about Dickey?” Raj asked as he ran scans on the creature.

  “We’ll deal with it when we get back. Listen, I need to call Olive,” he said. They waved at him before walking out of earshot. He sat down and dialed her number.

  ###

  Olive waited as the TV droned on about what was happening outside, and none of it was pretty. People wearing silver body paint had emerged from the Todihara Ltd. building and attacked the soldiers and news crews. Now, they were silver as well. She looked at the monitor above the door and saw even more silver painted people milling about the hallway outside her door. A few minutes ago she had looked outside and saw the sky shimmering overhead, so she shut the curtains and waited.

  Her phone rang.

  She searched but couldn’t find it. Realizing she's put it in her purse she grabbed it and dug inside until she found. She flipped it open and answered it. "Hello?" she said not sure who would be at the other end.

  “Olive, thank God you’re alright,” Seth said as relief washed over him.

  “Seth! You’re alive! But I saw you on TV. You’re arm...”

  “My arm is fine. I’m fine. I miss you and... Sorry. Listen, I’m going to be coming by in about half an hour to get you. I saw your security feed and it looks like you have a few friends trying to come in and eat your snacks.”

  “And drink my damn beer, the freeloaders!”

  “Don’t you hate when that happens?”

  “Damn skippy, Big Guy. So, how are you going to get me out of here? There seem to be a lot of moochers out there.”

  “Margo has that figured
out, so all you need to do is hang-tight and keep away from your windows for a bit.”

  “OKay. You’re okay, right?” she asked almost in tears. “You looked bad on TV.”

  “Here, talk to my Doctor,” he said as he handed the phone to Megan.

  “Olive, this is Dr. Megan Allen, I work for Seth, and I’m his Doctor.”

  “Are you new?”

  “Yep. Started work about seven weeks ago. It's been quite a ride.”

  “Tell me about it. He’s okay, right?”

  “Olive, Seth is a walking miracle. I promise you I'll let nothing happen to him. You see, he’s very special to me.”

  “Oh? Are you and him...”

  “He’s my father.”

  “Your...father? How? He never mentioned a daughter.”

  “You can blame that on my mother. Neither he nor I knew until he was in the hospital. We're both coming down from a rather big shock.”

  “Wow,” Olivia said. “That’s big.”

  “He loves you, you know. And he’s doing everything he can to protect you. Just hang in there. It won’t be too much longer. Here’s Seth.”

  “Olive, you there?”

  “Yes, you big lug. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. OKay, we’re leaving now. I’ll call you when we get there. Hang tough, you hear me?”

  “Roger that. Bye.”

  She put the phone in her shirt pocket and refilled her purse while thinking about Seth. She kept going back to the video. She was sure he had lost his left arm, yet he sounded fine on the phone. What the hell is going on? She thought as she put her purse on the coffee table away from the windows.

  She pulled out her laptop and found she still had Internet access, so she started searching for information about what Seth actually did for a living.

  As she started looking, she realized she knew very little about her boyfriend, which had never bothered her until now. Maybe seeing him so hurt changed something.

  “Let’s see, Dr. Seth Marsden, Ph.D. in Biocybernetics,” she said to herself as she scrolled through the search engine results. “Head of Biocybernetics at Todihara Ltd. Current research involves nanorobotic repair of damaged tissue." She dug around some of the sources she used for lawsuits and found Todihara had a large number of contracts with the military, particularly in the fields of cybernetics and robotics.

  She went back to some of the papers he had authored. One showed a picture of a mouse heart with silver patches on it. “Nanobot-generated support matrices as precursor to tissue regeneration,” she said reading the caption out loud. She skipped to the end of the paper and read, “It is hoped that this technology will eventually be used to regenerate battlefield injuries in real-time in the field.”

  She stopped reading and closed the laptop, throwing it on the couch as she jumped up to stare at the monitor. She could see the people still out in the hallway milling around, their skin painted silver.

  “It’s not paint,” she whispered as she stepped away from the door. “Oh my God! Seth, you idiot, what did you do?”

  Her phone rang in her pocket. She answered, “Hello?”

  “Olive, go to the far corner to the left of the door and duck.”

  She ran to the corner and hunkered down behind a large chair. “OKay, I’m hunkered down. Now what?”

  The window exploded inward as a large grappling hook passed through it then continued on to embed itself in the wall. The line attached to it went taut. Seconds later three people came in on zip line trolleys. They dropped to the floor.

  “Olive!” Seth yelled as the other two headed to the wall next to the door.

  “Seth!” she screamed as she leapt over the chair and into his arms. She kissed him for what seemed like a lifetime. “Wait, your arm!” she said as she pulled up his left sleeve.

  She saw immediately the silver tinge and missing hair. “Nanobots?” she asked. “You got them to work? What the hell were you thinking experimenting on yourself you big lug? Do you have anything to do with those things outside?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! How do you know all this? You never once took an interest in what I did for a living.” he stammered as he tried to back away from the angry woman. He looked to Sam and Margo for help, but they just shrugged while returning to their work.

  “You love her; you deal with her,” Margo said.

  “I searched the Internet and found your papers. I saw the one with the mouse heart and put two and two together.”

  “OKay, okay. Let me explain while Sam and Margo finish up.”

  “Explain, then,” she replied as she sat down on the couch where he joined her.

  He took a deep breath and began from the beginning. When he finished he looked at her and waited.

  “I will have Mavis Huong’s guts for garters,” Olive growled as she got up and paced. “You, all of you, have grounds for a class action lawsuit. We’re talking labor law violations, OSHA violations, and God only knows what else. When I get through with Todihara, Ltd., they’ll be lucky to have a closet at a self-storage unit to live in.” She looked up and saw the three of them staring at her.

  “OKay, I like her,” Margo said as Raj removed something from the wall and handed it to her. While she put it in her pack, Raj pulled a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin out. A silver hand came through the hole in the wall. Seeing it, Raj shot it with his pistol causing it to withdraw. “Fire in the hole!” he yelled before pushing the grenade through the hole and covering it up with a nearby end table.

  The muffled sound of an explosion came through the wall.

  Margo looked up at the monitor and said, “Raj, you pissed them off, time to go.” She grabbed the line, clipped on and slid out the window accompanied by the hum of the electric pulley.

  “Boss, you and the little lady next?” Raj said as he clipped on and waited with his SARC aimed at the door.

  “Quick, put this on,” Seth said handing her a harness. A second later she was clipped to him. He pressed a button and they were pulled out of the window, Olive barely keeping herself from screaming. A moment later, they were followed by Raj as the door failed, and a swarm of ZomBots flooded the room.

  They landed on the roof of the building across the street and unclipped from the line. “How was that?” Seth asked Olive as they watched several ZomBots fall to the street below.

  “Is this what you normally do at work?” she asked while stripping off her harness and handing it to Margo who put it in a bag along with the other harnesses and pulleys.

  “Lately, yes,” Seth said as he keyed the radio on his vest. “Juan, are we clear?”

  “Yeah, boss, coast is clear. No ZomBots to be seen. We’ll pick you up on the east side of the building.”

  They exited the building just as the tan colored marine personnel carrier—affectionately known as a Havoc—drove up and dropped the rear door. They ran in and sat down as the door sealed and they got underway.

  “Olive, let me introduce everyone. You've met Raj the driver. Next to him is his co-driver, Juan. You met Margo upstairs. Next to him is Sam and this is Megan. You talked to her on the phone. Everyone, this is Olivia Pratt,” Seth said as he checked his watch.

  “Boss, next stop the extraction point?” Raj asked as he put the Havoc in gear.

  “Yes, that gives us four hours to set the EMP bomb and get out,” Seth replied.

  “Extraction point?” Olive asked.

  “Yes. There’s an armed squad waiting outside the force field with a sort of 'force field can opener' which they’ll use to create a doorway for you to escape through. They’ll take you to a safe area away from the city.”

  “What about all of you?”

  “We’re going to Todihara and set off a device which should destroy every ZomBot inside the force field.”

  “But Todihara is filled with hundreds of ZomBots, some armed. Where is this bomb?”

  “In my office in Section Nineteen specifically in the wall behin
d my desk. We’ll use the control pad from your apartment to set it off. Why?”

  “I know a better way in. This can’t leave this truck, but the building next door to Todihara, the Crenshaw, also has a deep basement, twenty levels deep to be exact. They were put in for reasons that aren’t important right now. We can access the Crenshaw from an alley which connects directly to their loading dock. One way in; one way out. The street entrance has fifteen foot tall solid steel doors.”

  “What the hell were they doing in the Crenshaw?” Sam asked.

  “You don’t want to know. What’s important is the Crenshaw’s basement is separated from the Todihara’s by a foot of dirt. Got any shovels?”

  “No, but we can call in a drone delivery right to the Crenshaw’s dock.”

  “Seth, priority call from the general,” Margo said as she handed Seth a headset.

  Seth donned the headset and said, “Go for Seth.” He listened then looked directly at Olive, while a number of emotions flashed across his face. “But sir, she’s a civilian... OKay, but we need some things,” he said before launching into Olive's plan. “Thank you, sir.” He handed the headset back to Margo. “Raj, change of plans. Head to the Crenshaw Building’s back entrance, best speed.”

  “Seth?” Megan asked.

  Seth reached up and slid open a cover on one of the MPC’s skylights so everyone could see the sky and the force field. It had started to flicker. “We have less than an hour before field failure, so we’ve been ordered to proceed directly to Todihara and set the EMP device. Lucky for us this vehicle is EMP hardened.”

  “Why?” Olive asked.

  “Because we won’t have time to get a safe distance away before it detonates. We’ll have to ride it out.”

  “Wait a minute,” Megan said. “You’re still healing. The EMP could destroy your bots. We have no idea what that will do to you.”

  “Can’t be helped,”

  “Can’t be helped? Are you insane?” Olive said as she grabbed his arm. “You need to get off this bus, head back to the extraction point, and get the hell out of here.”