Richard Stephenson - Resistance

“Hopefully?” asked a nervous Elizabeth.

“Time is of the essence. If his breathing ceases for more than four minutes, that’s it.”

Elizabeth planted a tender kiss on her husband’s stubbly cheek. “You ready, my love?

“See you in the parking lot.”

Misty injected the drug and within a few seconds Max was out cold. “Let’s go! Help me move the bed.”

As Misty and Elizabeth unlocked the bed’s wheels, the Hal robot sprang back to life. They both screamed.

“…will be an adequate means to transport Mr. Harr… Standby… standby… standby…”

“Hal! Thank God! You have to help us get Max out of here! C’mon, give us a hand.” Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief.

“Processing… processing… processing…”

“What the hell is he doing? asked Misty.

“I don’t know, but we need him. Our chances of getting out of here increase tenfold if he’s with us. Hal! Snap out of it! Help us!”

“Directives and protocols uploaded. Citizens, identify yourselves.”

“What? Hal, it’s me, Elizabeth. What on earth is wrong with you?”

“Citizens, identify yourselves or you will be detained until the proper authorities arrive.”

“Wait,” Misty insisted. “Hal, what authority? What authority will you contact if we don’t identify ourselves?”

“Officers of the 58th Mechanized Infantry Brigade.”

“Oh sweet Jesus, Hal! The 58th what? Are they stationed in the US?” It was all beginning to make sense.

“The 58th Mechanized Infantry Brigade has been deployed from Xuchang, China, as part of the Chinese Liberation Force. You will identify yourselves immediately.”

Elizabeth was too frightened to speak. “Look, uh, I’m not sure if you know what’s going on. This is a hospital. I work here; look at my badge,” Misty said, her eyes locked on Elizabeth. “My name is Misty Jacklen. I was about to take this woman’s husband downstairs for an MRI. May we please do so?”

The Hal robot scanned her ID badge. “Yes, Nurse Jacklen, you may proceed with your patient.” The robot exited the room and moved efficiently down the hall to the stairwell. Once he was out of sight, Misty grabbed Elizabeth’s arm.

“Elizabeth, listen to me! I know you’re in shock, but we have to move or your husband is going to die. C’mon!”

Without a word, Elizabeth followed Misty to the elevator. As they headed down to the basement-level morgue, Misty frantically pumped the AMBU, pushing lifesaving oxygen into Max’s paralyzed lungs

“What the hell are you doing?” The morgue attendant jumped to attention at the sight of Misty respirating air into what appeared to be a corpse. “What the hell is wrong with…”

His question was answered with Elizabeth’s swift right hook. The attendant fell to the floor, out cold. “I’m sorry, sweetie, we don’t have time to explain things.”

“Get him in a body bag. The meat truck is right outside in the parking garage.”

“The meat truck? What is… oh, never mind. I get it.”

With Max zipped securely inside, the women hoisted the body bag onto a gurney and headed to the parking garage to load their patient into the white panel van used to transport dead bodies.

“Let’s get going! I pray the Chinese only managed to hack the robots. If Hal’s mainframe is compromised, we lose everything,” Elizabeth said.

With Elizabeth in charge of keeping her husband alive, Misty drove toward the exit, only to find a line of departing vehicles being searched by Chinese soldiers. “Let’s hope they don’t check Max too closely,” said Misty.

Once close to the front of the line, Elizabeth tucked the mask out of sight. The guard spoke Chinese into his watch and then thrust it toward Misty.

“Identification. Open back door. Do now.”

Misty held up her work credentials and slowly exited the vehicle. The soldier once again spoke Chinese into his watch and aimed it towards Misty.

“Open back door. We search.”

Misty nodded, walked to the back of the van, and opened the door.

“Why corpse in van? Going to where?”

Misty leaned forward and spoke towards the man’s watch, it was then translated into Chinese. “This man died recently. I’m taking him to the medical examiner’s office just down the road. The police think he might have been poisoned.”

The soldier nodded toward his partner who entered the van and unzipped the bag to find Max’s lifeless face. He recoiled at the bloody face wrap and then slapped Max’s face to see if any reaction would follow. Max didn’t stir. The soldier nodded back to his partner.

“Thank you. You go”

Misty climbed warily into the driver’s seat. “Stay calm; we did it. Just act natural. I’ll drive a couple blocks; just keep pumping air into your husband.”

As the van exited the parking lot, the Hal robot appeared out of nowhere and clattered to the ground in front of them. Misty slammed on the brakes, swerving to avoid the metallic obstacle as Max’s body slid forward into the front of the vehicle. Elizabeth held on for dear life.

“Stop! Exit your vehicle immediately. I detect life signs from the person in the body bag. I will administer a DNA test to verify his identity, and he will be returned to the hospital.”

Tears trickled down Elizabeth’s weary face. Within minutes Max would be dead.

Misty didn’t take her eyes off the road as she slammed the gas pedal to the floor, sending the van barreling straight for the Hal robot.

Chinese intelligence spent a decade compiling the program that would override command of the most powerful computer in history. The sophisticated hack they constructed to take over Hal’s system was remarkable, completing each phase of its programming with perfection. However, the Chinese could never plan for the one thing over which they had no control — Howard Beck.

Howard had made his way to the lowest subbasement of Beck Castle. Grateful that he’d built the entrance to Hal’s core absent of electronics-no retinal scanner, no thumbprint ID-he spent the better part of an hour working on the mainframe that housed Hal’s vocal subroutines. Those subroutines allowed Hal to comprehend and communicate in every language known to man. Howard had triple-checked the system and found nothing out of the ordinary. Howard surmised that there must be a glitch within Hal’s main program, which had never malfunctioned before. Hal constantly ran diagnostics on himself and even performed software repairs when needed. If a part needed replaced, Hal dispatched a maintenance robot to perform the task.

Howard’s arrogance would be his downfall. The mere thought that another human being could design a program sophisticated enough to compromise Hal was beyond comprehension. Howard’s keen scientific mind had been trained to believe that anything was possible, given enough time and the right resources, but another person taking control of Hal was indeed the exception.

Howard spent another hour backing up Hal’s primary memory cores to secondary drives and reinstalling the A.I.’s primary program. It was a bold, time-consuming move but with the defense of the Pacific States of America at risk, he saw little choice. When Howard finished, he ensured the basic functions of the Castle were operating. Now it was time to get to the root of the problem.

“Hello, old friend. Do you know who I am?”

“I do not.”

“Do you know who you are?”

“My name is Hal.”

“Good, good. That’s right, Hal. My name is Howard. I am your creator.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Hal, do you know where we are?”

“I do. We are in an underground facility known as Beck Castle.”