Sean Ellis - Callsign - King

He let go of Fulbright’s stranglehold and with fumbling fingers, found the hilt of his KA-BAR. Desperately, he slid the blade from its sheath and stabbed out blindly. The knife struck something hard and then twisted out his grip, as King felt his consciousness start to go.

“Stop!”

The commanding voice was barely audible through the roaring in King’s ears, but miraculously the darkness began to lift. He drew in a painful breath, welcoming the restored flow of blood to his brain, and struggled to sit up.

Fulbright squatted nearby, his one good eye gazing blankly into space. His injuries continued to bleed, including a new one just below his collarbone, where the hilt of King’s KA-BAR protruded, but he seemed unaware of any of it. Covered in blood, he looked almost exactly like…

King turned to meet Felice’s gaze and understood in an instant what had happened, what she had done. He searched her eyes, but saw no trace of the guilt or despair that had marked her earlier. She had found some untapped reservoir of strength; the strength to do what needed to be done, and to make an ability out of her liability.

She was probably more dangerous than ever before.

“Thank you,” he croaked.

Felice just nodded.

Sara helped him up and held onto him as they moved to the elevator doors. Sara pushed the button calling the car, but nothing happened. The button didn’t light up and there was no sound of machinery in the emptiness beyond.

“Graham,” King said. “He must have shut them off to strand us down here.”

“Or it’s Brainstorm,” Sara replied.

King cast an inquisitive glance her way and listened intently as she quickly recounted what Fulbright had told her about Brainstorm and her own experiences with the disembodied electronic voice. As she related her suspicions about Brainstorm being a sentient computer, King recalled Deep Blue’s metacorporation conspiracy theory, and then he remembered something Graham had told him: subbasement level two was the computer room.

Surely it can’t be that easy, King thought.

He was right.

“King, do you read?” Deep Blue’s voice scratched in his ears. He sounded a little more frantic than usual.

He keyed his mic. “This is King. Send it.”

“I’ve just detected a massive cruise missile launch, targeted at your coordinates.”

“Missiles? Whose?”

“Ours. They were launched from a naval missile frigate. I’m still trying to identify the boat and figure out who ordered the strike, but there are Tomahawks inbound. You’ve got about ten minutes to get out of there.”

“Easier said than done.” He released the mic key and quickly relayed the bad news to the others.

Sara’s eyes widened, and then she abruptly crossed the room and took a seat in front of a computer desk. “Brainstorm, are you there?” When no answer came, she leaned over the keyboard and tapped out a message.

A moment later, an electronic voice filled the room. “What is your request, Dr. Fogg?”

“Are you responsible for the missiles that are heading here?”

“I am.”

“How did you manage that?” King asked, not knowing whether Brainstorm would respond to him. “Did you hack into the Defense Department?”

“It was not necessary to infiltrate that computer network. I merely sent a priority message to the United States military Central Command, authenticated with Fulbright’s credentials, stating that this location is a secret terrorist training camp.”

“Why did you do that?” Sara asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“He’s just covering his tracks,” King supplied.

“You are only partially correct, Mr. Sigler. I am also ensuring that you do not survive to further compromise my activities. There is a 72.5% probability that you will make destroying the Brainstorm network a priority, if you are permitted to live.”

“There’s no ‘probable’ about it.” King said. “I am going to take you apart.”

“That is unlikely. The probability that you will survive the missile strike is only 23.2%.”

“Brainstorm, you can’t do this,” Sara pleaded. “You can’t…you must not allow Felice to be killed.”

“Please explain.”

“You already know that Felice was affected by something in that cave, and you know what she can do now, right?”

“Anecdotal reports have been received and evaluated. There is evidence to suggest that Miss Carter is linked to incidences of evolutionary regression. The destruction of the facility will eliminate that threat.”

“No it won’t. Felice isn’t just a carrier of some virus. Her consciousness is quantum entangled with that of the entire human race. If you kill her, it will cause evolutionary regression on a global scale. You’ll be responsible for the downfall of humanity.”

King searched Sara’s eyes and saw that she was deadly serious.

“You are mistaken,” Brainstorm replied.

King thought it odd that there was no calculation of probabilities; Brainstorm was exhibiting the very human tendency of denial. “She’s not,” he declared. “And you know it. You have to stop this. If Felice dies, humanity dies, and who will you rule over then?”

“That is a chance I will have to take. Good-bye.”

Sara continued pleading with Brainstorm, but there was no answer and King knew that salvation would not come from that quarter. He opened a line to Deep Blue. “How long have we got?”

“Estimated time to target is six minutes, thirty seconds…mark.”

“I don’t suppose you can ask the navy to self-destruct those missiles. You know, maybe say ‘pretty-please.’” He tried to sound lighthearted, but he was beginning to worry. In the past, the only people who would miss his passing were the team, who shared the risk and understood it and his mother, who he now realized may or may not have cared about his welfare after all. But now there was Fiona, whose parents died when she was young and whose grandmother was killed in front of her during the attack on the Siletz reservation. She’d put on a tough-girl routine when he left, but he knew his death would affect her profoundly. He’d considered retiring from the field for her, but she’d actually convinced him to stay active. “If you don’t fight,” she’d said, “the world would be a bad place to live.” So here he was fighting, and, it seemed, about to make Fiona regret that little speech.

“You know I can’t.” Deep Blue sounded distraught. He knew the stakes for King were higher than ever. “Believe me, I’m trying everything. Director Boucher is working the official channels for us and Aleman is trying to hack his way in, disable the missiles, or change their trajectories.”

Dominick Boucher was the director of the CIA, Deep Blue’s friend and confidant, and the one man who knew everything about Chess Team’s new black ops gig. After all, he’s the one who set it up. Lewis Aleman was the team’s genius techie. An injury took him out of the field, but he’s been waging cyber war for the team since. If anyone could take care of the missiles it was them, but stopping several missiles midflight was no easy task, especially when some of the people in danger don’t officially exist.

“I know you’ll do your best. I’m gonna sign off now. If you don’t hear from me in seven minutes…well, you know.”

He severed the connection and then turned to Sara and Felice. “Graham was down here with us. Now he’s gone. There has to be another way out. Find it.”

Sara immediately pointed to a door set against one wall. “I thought that might be a closet, but it’s locked.”

“I have a key.” King loaded a Beehive shell into the SCAR’s FN40GL attachment, and took aim at the doorknob. The gun thundered and the entire lock mechanism disintegrated in a cloud of smoke and metal. The door swung back to reveal a landing with a stairs going both up and down. “Go!”