41 Overboard

Sia wakes up sitting on the hood of the van in the middle of nowhere.

'This is odd,' She thinks before sliding off the hood.

She stumbles and falls against the side of the van grasping the top of a grimy tire. She has to turn her head to get a good look around. She puts a hand up on the left side of her face and cringes as she touches swollen flesh.

"Why isn't…..Where?"

Opening her mouth makes pain surge up her left cheek. She presses a hand to the side of her mouth and reaches for the side mirror.

GASP

Her face is dirty with blood and soil. Her left eye is bruised and swollen, beneath it is puffy and deformed. When she turns her head, to check for a head injury, she sees her torn earlobe.

She leans on the driver side door as her stomach surges. She pushes the mirror away and breathes through her repulsion.

'Did we cross over the frozen lake?' she directs her thoughts to the device.

NEGATIVE

APEX TRAVELED NORTHEAST BY LAND

"APEX!" She yells while holding her mouth.

Another jolt of pain travels up her face.

"I didn't ask…"

'I asked for your help! Not Apex.'

AFFIRMATIVE

APEX EXTENDED HELP TO SUBJECT 001 AS WELL

"That's not….I.." she sputters.

Her heart clenches at the continued betrayal.

'Puter…you don't understand. I…know you aren't mine…'

AFFIRMATIVE

S.I.D 2.0 WAS NOT MADE FOR SUBJECT 001'S BENEFIT

Sia straightens at the brisk reply. She can hear the accusation in those cold words.

'I want to be notified if Apex wants control. I told you this. Don't you remember?'

SUBJECT 001'S COMMANDS ARE SECONDARY DIRECTIVES

Sia's stomach sinks at those words.

'So, my orders don't factor into the grand scheme of things?'

NEGATIVE

S.I.D 2.0 HAS –

'S.I.D 2.0? Did you get an upgrade?'

THE SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPER 2.0 HAS BEEN AMALGAMIZED

INTO THE SUPERIOR OPERATING SYSTEM IT WAS PRODUCED FROM

'What do you mean? I had a copy?'

AFFIRMATIVE

'So, Puter is gone?'

PRIMARY SYSTEMS HAVE OVERRIDEN ALL

REDUNDANT PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

Sia collapses on the ground. She bumps her elbow on the way down and tucks it into her stomach. She tucks her chin into her chest as her lips tremble.

Apex has taken everything from her. This new thing inside her head is directly connected to that person. Her confidant is gone. Deleted.

Now she is truly alone. How will she escape this place with an enemy within her and all those waiting on the outside?

She sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve. She looks at her shadow and cocks her head up against the van.

It shifts and appears to be shaped like a boulder. A boulder.

'Or a mountain,' she thinks to herself.

'He's always right…even when he's wrong,' she accidentally projects to the device.

INSUFFICIENT DATA

WHAT IS SUBJECT 001 REFERRING TO

She unwraps herself and stands up. After opening the car door, she crawls in and grabs her backpack from the passenger seat. She props it on the door to check if her items are all still inside. Everything is accounted for.

She snatches up her crowbar from between the two front seats and closes the door.

Slam!

'I already have to worry about people taking advantage of me. I don't need to worry about an invader inside me.'

She walks away from the van and its supplies. Whatever is in it…she doesn't accept it. Accepting it would make everything alright. Would mean she consents to their plans. She isn't their slave.

YOU'LL PERISH

'Don't contact me. I don't want to speak with you any longer,' she commands.

'If I die, I die. It's MY choice,' she smiles bitterly at her surroundings before marching forward.

Into the wastelands, she goes, and never looks back.

~~~~~``

'Monitor her. It's all we can do now. For our sake, let's hope she doesn't die to spite us.'

THE REQUEST WAS BENEFICIAL FOR THE ---

'You drove her to this. Have the patience to wait and fix your error. All we have is time.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Free will must be such an inconvenience for you two. Who needs free will when we can brainwash you." Sia mutters as stomps across the empty plain. "Maybe the whole world should be brain-dead followers that only do what the mighty computer commands."

The scarce number of trees begin to dwindle all around her until all she can see is sand, rock, and the sun. Sia is blindly moving forward. The shift in scenery means nothing to her.

"This is why people don't trust Underlings…Self-righteous, smart but dumb…trust them to make technology that works too well. Maybe that was the plan all along. Make a device that can control humans and fix the cycle….no more war, no more famine…just robots and fish. I won't help you. I'm going to find the first person to take this out of my head and sell it and I'll pay a ship captain and SAIL HOME if I have to!" she vents and ignores the pain in her head.

She stumbles over a rock and veers to the right to stable herself. She kicks up some dust and coughs. Her balance is off with only one eye. She keeps looking far into the left to compensate, but the ache in her face gets worse.

She sees a hill and starts for it. She must use her hands to climb to the top of it. When she gets to the other side, she is faced with more desert and a dirt trail that looks recently driven on. The trail leads into a canyon area. High mountainous walls of stone rise on either side of the trail and it is impossible to know where it leads from her position. She doesn't think about it, she follows.

One misstep and she is sliding down the hill. Her back is scratched by rock, her foot uproots dried roots and loose twigs. Blindly, she puts out a hand to steady herself and the skin on her palm is rubbed raw. She shifts her footing as she stumbles down the last of the hill. Her dirty boot catches on a small boulder, stopping her descent, and she tumbles forward onto her knees.

The dirt path is before her.

She coughs up dirt, spits on the ground, then picks herself up. She limps toward the canyon area.

After a few moments of silence, she pauses to root through her backpack. She sees a dusty radio she doesn't remember having before and the radio from Coldstone. She pulls out her usual radio and turns it on. It doesn't pick up anything, but the static is a welcome distraction from the sound of her stumbling steps.