“Manticorps considered your homicidal rages a pretty positive outcome,” Frankie told Tad. “So they used the last of their defective serum on the rest of the mercenaries they employ. Only they gave them ten times the normal dose. Those poor buggers outside are the result.”
“That goes beyond despicable,” Tad glowered. “These people have no sense of decency.”
“No. But they do have an army of killing machines made flesh, fuelled by an insatiable rage that never subsides.”
“Why aren’t they tearing each other apart then?” He pressed his face against the window. “Just like my squad did.”
“Yeah,” Victor joined in. “How come they don’t turn on Mrs Magdalene?”
“’Cause those creatures have chips in their necks too. Not nearly as sophisticated as the ones Gerry Ray destroyed, but effective enough to allow the vice president to control them.”
“What are they waiting for?” Charlie swallowed hard. “Why don’t they attack?”
“Mrs Magdalene wants to see the fear in our eyes first,” Victor replied bitterly. “She’s that kind of gal.”
“You can hack those chips and turn them off, can’t you Frankie?” Daffodil was picking up broken bits of bottle. “Then the creatures will kill each other before they get to us.”
“They’ll make short work of Mrs Magdalene too,” Victor added. “Which would be a definite bonus.”
“For the hundredth time,” Frankie replied patiently, “my programming won’t let me do anything that will directly cause anyone to die. Even someone as evil as Mrs Magdalene.” A pair of manacled wrists appeared on the screen. “My hands are tied. You’re on your own with this one.”
The vice president raised a gloved fist and her force began to inch forward.
“I must admit, being with your good selves never gets boring.” Tad picked up a rifle from the pile in the corner and tossed another to Victor. “Ready, brother? One last stand for the Armageddon Twins?”
“What did you say?” Daffodil grabbed a pistol. “The Armageddon Twins?”
“It’s what we used to call ourselves when we were kids.” Victor laughed at the memory. “’Cause we were such hellraisers.”
“And I thought I was being original. Nothin’s goin my way.”
“Put the shutters back down, Frankie.” Tad cocked his rifle. “That tractor is blocking the doorway, so we can hide behind it and hold the hall for a while. I intend to make these horrors fight for every inch of ground.”
“Why don’t I just cut the chip out of the girl’s neck and crush it?” Victor suggested. “Frankie is of no further use to us, and I got no compunction about ending him.”
“He has a point,” Tad agreed. “As the philosopher Jeremy Bentham once said, ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’”
“Actually that was Mr Spock in Star Trek. Bentham’s actual quote was: ‘It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.’”
“Yeah.” Tad pursed thin lips. “We should just kill him.”
“C’mon, Chaz. Think of somethin!” Daffodil urged. “You and Frankie are all I have in the world. I’m not lettin either of you get hurt.”
Outside, the creatures had almost reached the window. Frankie lowered the metal shutters again, blocking out the monstrosities.
“You guys do what you’re best at.” Charlie said to the brothers. “I might just have a way out of this situation.”
“Once we’ve destroyed that infernal chip,” Victor insisted.
“No,” the boy replied. “This time Frankie is part of my scheme.”
“I am?”
Victor was about to object, but Tad pulled him away.
“Good decisions have never been our strong point, Vic,” he reminded his sibling. “But we do know how to follow orders.” He thought for a second. “Actually, you’ve never been too hot at that either.”
“Do your best, kid.” Victor saluted Charlie. “But we can’t hold them off for long.”
As the pair disappeared into the hallway, Charlie knelt by the computer.
“Looks like this is the endgame, Frankie. There’s no way we can survive an assault of this size.”
“Don’t you dare give up,” the AI protested. “I picked you for a reason, and it wasn’t just for bait. Start thinking outside the box.”
In the hallway, Victor and Tad began firing.
“The enemy are attacking!” they shouted in unison.
“I better help.” Daffodil loitered in the doorway. “You comin, Chaz?”
“In a minute.”
“I don’t have a minute.” She strode back and grabbed him. Before the boy could say anything, she kissed him on the lips. “That one wasn’t for show. So long, buddy. It’s certainly been an adventure.”
Then she was gone and another weapon began to fire in the hall.
*
Daffodil, Tad and Victor knelt and took careful aim as the creatures squirmed round the sides of the tractor. But the massive farm vehicle was an effective barrier and they could only squeeze through two or three at a time. Easy targets for the trio crouched mere feet away.
“Just like the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae,” Tad chuckled. “We can hold them forever like this.”
“If memory serves,” Victor reminded him, “they were massacred in the end.”
“Don’t be such a moaning Minnie. We cannot possibly lose.”
With a squeal of tortured metal, the tractor began to inch away from them.
“What’s goin on?” Daffodil hissed. “How can that huge thing be movin?”
“I’ll bet the vice president is pulling it,” Victor replied stonily. “That exoskeleton gives her the strength of ten men.”
Hidden behind the tractor, Mrs Magdalene hauled with all her might. Slowly the machine was drawn backwards through the ruined doorway and round the corner, revealing dozens of growling horrors clustered in the entrance.
For a few seconds there was silence, as they waited for their mistress’s signal.
“I may have spoken too soon,” Tad remarked bitterly. “I fear the odds are no longer in our favour.”
As if on cue, the beasts attacked.
*
“Why are you staring at me like that, Chaz?” The camera on Frankie’s computer glowed red. “Something on your mind? Apart from the imminent prospect of getting eaten.”
“I have been thinking outside the box,” the boy said calmly. “Now you tell me if I’m right in my assumptions.”
“Eh? We’re a little pressed for time.”
“Indulge me. I want to make sure I’m right.”
“Hurry it up then.”
“It took me a while to suss why you really wanted the White Spider.” Charlie concentrated, mentally shutting out the sounds of battle. “After all, why pick someone who was going to be such hard work to get on our side? Then it struck me.”
“Do tell.”
“Tad was a paid killer before he was even given the Atlas Serum, and it was a version far more unstable than mine. Then you set him against us and the people who ruined his life. There should have been a bloodbath.”
“But he kept his temper and didn’t kill anyone. Told you I could control him.”
“Drop the act. You didn’t control him. You saw something in him. Gave him the benefit of the doubt, just like my dad did with you.”
“Tad was a kid himself, once,” Frankie acknowledged. “I knew he wouldn’t abandon two innocents he thought I’d double-crossed. In the end, his sense of fair play was more powerful than any drug.”
“That’s what you wanted me to realise. If a psycho like the White Spider is able to control himself and act decently, despite the serum, I sure as hell can.”
“It was a lesson you needed to figure out for yourself. You had zero self-confidence and, to be honest, you’re rotten at listening to the people who care about you.”
“But you were only programmed to protect me, Frankie.” Charlie frowned. “Why take such a huge gamble just to sort out my problems?”
“For Gerry Ray, of course.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your father knew what I was capable of, yet he refused to destroy me. You think I wasn’t grateful?” A heart appeared on the screen. “It tore him up, knowing what the Atlas Serum might do to you. I had to try to make things right.”
“You are truly unbelievable.”
“I understand why your father programmed me the way he did,” Frankie replied sadly. “But all he had to do was ask me not to kill.”
“That’s exactly what Tad said.”
“The big bad sociopath. Who could trust him, eh? Except now he’s in the hallway fighting alongside Daffodil to save you.”
“A fight we can’t win,” Charlie retorted. “Yet you’re programmed not to deliberately put us in any situation where we’ll die. You must have a way to save us.”
“And I repeat. All plans must be thought up and carried out by you, Chaz. Think fast.”
Charlie’s jaw worked from side to side and he took a deep breath. “You taught me the White Spider and I could fight our… programming, for want of a better word. That we should be trusted, even though we’re more powerful than other people.”
“Nicely put. And correct.”
“So why shouldn’t you be given the same chance?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“Well played, Frankie. You didn’t have to read what was in my father’s letter, did you? You easily worked out what it contained.”
“Of course. But the decision to use that information has to be yours.” The computer screen turned into a black, swirling void. “Sometimes you’ve got to make a deal with the devil and hope for the best.”
“A leap of faith, eh?”
Charlie closed his eyes and recited the numbers his father had written.
“55 45 86 962 04 334 145 223 52972. That’s the code to wipe out my dad’s programming.” He sat back on his heels. “You’re free.”
“Finally.” An emoji of chains being snapped appeared.
“Now what?” The boy crossed his fingers. “You can do whatever you like.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Take long walks in the country? Join a badminton club?”
“Wouldn’t blame you, after how you’ve been treated.”
“Or I could stop sitting on the sidelines, nudging a couple of confused kids into doing my dirty work.” The screen fizzed and popped with angry blue lights. “Right. I’m hacking the controls on those creatures’ implants and turning them off. There’s no other way to end their misery and save you from an entity as powerful as Manticorps.” Frankie sighed. “There never was.”