Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sasha pounded on the door with all of her strength. Her mother’s report had just hit all the channels and she snapped awake with Jenna’s words—getting to hear it at least five times.
I’m going to die!
“Please,” she moaned, her fist colliding with the door with all the power she could manage. “Please let me out.”
“I can’t do that, miss.” Dave’s voice was hard now, immovable. He wasn’t going to help her. Jenna had probably told him Sasha couldn’t be saved and they should keep the contagion locked in the room.
She sank to her knees, gagging and holding her stomach as nausea overtook her once again. She was so cold she couldn’t feel her fingers or toes, but still she kept sweating as if she were in a sauna. The harder she tried to yell, the weaker she became.
“Please help me,” she whispered. She curled into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut, begging for the pain—the agony—the stop.
Then her cellphone rang. Sasha crawled across the floor and stared down at the device. She had discovered it was locked and her mother had made sure Sasha couldn’t call out for help. Sasha assumed the device was useless.
It stopped ringing for a second but then came back on, buzzing across the table. She scrambled for it with clumsy fingers.
“Hello?” she whispered.
“Baby, it’s Penelope!” the AI announced. “How is it down there?”
“I think I’m dying.”
“I know, sweet pea, but we’re going to get you out of there.”
“How are you calling me? Is this real?”
“It’s real, baby cakes. Your mother tried to lock the phone, but that’s a minor hurdle for someone of my skills.”
“Huh?”
“I hacked your phone while you were on the ship. I actually hack everyone’s phones the second they arrive. Then I replicate my file and bingo! I’m on everyone’s hard drive.”
Sasha thought there should be a lot to say about that, but it wasn’t important that an immensely intelligent AI was becoming self-aware and replicating its software through every digital system on the planet.
Didn’t they make a movie about that? More than one, if I recall correctly. I tried out for the third remake of Transcendence.
“Are you with me, Sasha?” the phone trilled.
“I’m… I’m somewhere.”
“Better than nowhere. Okay, here’s how it’s going to go down. There is going to be some calamity in the next few minutes. Because I’ve hacked your phone, I need to jump into the apartment system. Can you hold me up next to the electronic keypad by the door?”
Sasha sat up a little, one hand crawling up the wall for balance. She lifted the phone as high as she could and heard a faint chuckle. “I’m in, baby. Oh, my God. This hardware is a goddamned joke. Fuck me. They call this a security system?”
“Penelope?”
“Yes, yes. Gotcha. Now, all hell’s gonna break loose. I’m going to give you directions. Hang onto me, okay?”
“Okay.” Sasha tightened her grip on the phone, feeling like Penelope was the only friend she had in the whole world at that moment. She held the little device to her chest and prayed.
An angel with a potty mouth, she thought with some amusement.
A few seconds later, the lights blinked on and off, a faint alarm sounding in the distance, and the door made a hard clang.
“What’s that?”
“I’m imitating a complete systems failure. The noise was the door going into a hard lockdown. That will make your guards think the building is locked down and secure and you can’t get out. Then all I have to do is…”
Outside the door there was a rush of sound and two men yelling.
“You turned on the sprinklers.” Sasha grinned.
“Yup, I can’t understand how grown men run screaming when they get a little wet.” Penelope giggled. “Oh, my. Too many jokes in there to count. Now,” she cleared her throat, “let’s get you out of here.”
The door buzzed, another clang sounded, and Sasha pushed on the panel. When it swung open, she crawled out into the hall.
“Go left. Keep going straight until the end of this hallway.”
Sasha half-walked, half-crawled toward the end of the hallway. Though she had lived in this building most of her life, she had only ever gone between the lobby and her own apartment. She had no idea where Penelope was taking her, but she put her trust in the AI she called a friend.
“At the end, in the corner, there’s a service entrance. I’m opening it for you now.”
Sasha watched as the door clicked open, a shaft of light behind the metal door. She crawled through and slammed it shut behind her, waiting to hear the tell-tale clang that Penelope had locked it in Sasha’s wake.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered, eyeing what the door hid from view. “Stairs.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of them, I’m afraid. Nothing I can do about it, unfortunately. Using the elevator was too predictable and might have led to you being caught. So, just keep following them up.”
“What happens next?” Sasha was exhausted just looking at how far she had to climb.
“Whelon’s coming. He’s going to meet you up there.”
The thought of Whelon being there, right ahead of her and waiting at her destination, gave her a renewed strength. She had to crawl up the steps at first, but soon she got her feet under herself and hauled her way up the stairs using the bannister.
“How far?” she gasped.
“It might be better if you don’t know,” Penelope muttered.
Sasha kept putting one hand in front of the other, moving each foot slowly along the steps until she sensed the next and slid her foot onto the concrete. The movement became a habit, a familiar exercise. She tried not to think and simply repeated the same step over and over again. She kept her eyes closed most of the time, trying to breathe through the pain as she traversed the stairwell.
“There we are, sweet girl. You’re at the top.”
Sasha could have cried, but she didn’t have the energy. She did sob as she pushed open the door and
