There was a delay in the network, as though she was out of sync with everything around her. Eve knew for a fact that it had nothing to do with her. There was a virus running loose in the Regent Galactic network, and its only purpose was to slow things down. It only compounded her rising frustration.
Maintaining control of her emotions was difficult. It took her one hour and twenty four minutes to force her framework body to build a micro transmitter and restore her input output systems to their full capabilities. Emotional neutrality would have been helpful, but under the circumstances it was impossible. The maddening evasiveness of the virus, a living digital thing by her estimation, was one problem. Every time she tried to focus on it, the thing found a way to almost completely disappear, almost. Most of the time it was as if it was in the corner of her mind’s eye. Undeniably there was something there, something watching as it manipulated the system all around her, but it knew exactly where to hide millisecond by millisecond. It was Eve’s human brain that limited her. Whatever that virus was, and she hoped it wasn’t Gloria’s essence — escaped and evolved — though she felt it must be, it didn’t suffer the same limitations. It was making use of several supercomputer cores, borrowing processing time from all of them at once.
Eve’s journey through the physical world was aided by her frustration it seemed. She ran for the pulpit chamber, where she knew she’d find a grisly scene. Soldiers began greeting her with expressions of surprise and fear several compartments away from where she knew the main fire fight took place. The gore left behind after the fighting was so revolting, so overwhelming in its sight, smell and texture that she almost vomited when she first encountered it. The security recording displayed in graphic detail how much firepower it took to kill thirty framework soldiers. They were fearless, unannounced, and well armed. Under the loose direction of Beaudric they killed one hundred and forty seven soldiers in full armour and eighty four civilians who were just caught in the middle. As one framework soldier fell, the one behind continued fighting, knowing that it was almost certain that their fallen comrade was regenerating behind him and would be on his feet within minutes.
If Eve were connected to the network, she could have issued new orders, tried to stop the frameworks from fighting or at least delay them so the human soldiers could get the upper hand. Hampon was cut off as well, and as the only other man with a master code for all the frameworks aboard, he was the only other person who could counter the orders Gloria had issued using her identity.
The first defenders were slaughtered. The second wave, which took six minutes and nine seconds to report, used electromagnetically charged explosive slugs, and still took heavy casualties. So many were killed that twenty percent of the unit abandoned their posts. They were reinforced by every soldier brave enough to rush to the scene but it was too late. Beaudric arrived at the pulpit chamber.
Everything in that small section of the ship was built ornamentally, with more attention to beautification and grand gesture than to sturdiness and armour. It took them forty-two seconds to break through the inner door and kill everyone inside.
In the end the Child Prophet was on his knees. “Please, I have the power to give you anything you want. Everything you want!”
“Why?” Beaudric asked, pointing a rifle loaded with explosive electromagnetic rounds.
“To save humanity. Everything I have done since I saw the path ahead of us has been to save humanity. The darkness comes, in every future, no matter what I do.”
“The future? You really want me to believe you can actually tell the future?”
“It’s a machine, I can show you. As soon as we find Roland, I’ll show you just-“
“More lies. Everyone knows that’s not possible. It’s all you do, lie so we do what you want. So you can wear the best clothes, eat the best food, live on this ship.”
“I swear. If you let me live, I’ll make sure you get whatever you want.”
The sounds of a fire fight renewing with vigour came from the hall behind him, and as though by reflex, Beaudric pulled the trigger. The first round tore through the ten year old body. Hampon screamed and held his side, curled up on the ground. The pain was obvious, but it subsided quickly. His young clone body had been augmented with framework technology, and it repaired the first wound. “Please!” shouted Hampon, raising his head. The next round caught him full in the face, and Beaudric held down the trigger.
When the defence broke through and put the man down in a hail of rounds, it was too late. Beaudric had rendered himself defenceless, emptying his weapon on Hampon, he never had a chance. When Eve finally arrived in the pulpit chamber, she was filled with loss, regret, and anger. The gore in the room was worse than anywhere else. The Child Prophet and his servant’s bodies were reduced to nothing. The frameworks were similarly devastated. It was how you killed something that could store copies of its thoughts and knowledge across its entire body. How you ensured that the flesh and metal machine wouldn’t regenerate when you turned your back.
“Is there anything left?” Eve asked the weeping, shocked soldiers and medical personnel that had flooded the room. “Anything?” she screamed, snatching a high sensitivity scanner from a medic. It was already tuned to Hampon’s DNA, and, while she found plenty around, she couldn’t find a sign of working framework technology. The electromagnetic rounds had done their job, leaving all that life saving technology inert. She turned away from the sight of the Child Prophet’s corpse, or what was left of it, and caught sight of something just in the upper edge of the scanner’s range.
Eve held it out in front of her and got a full reading. There was another large collection of biological materials with the same DNA. She tried to look at it using her connection to the ship systems and failed. Where those compartments were concerned, she was completely blind. “Here!” she shouted, grabbing the nearest soldier. “You are going to take me right here!”
“That’s a restricted area, I’m sorry.”
“Look around you, you idiot! Your Prophet is dead! My children will be arriving hours from now, who do you think will have the power then?” She screamed in his face. “Who will be telling them to keep you alert while they flay you alive?”
Wordlessly, the soldier led the way to an express car she’d never seen, that travelled along a high speed track she’d never sensed. At the end they came to a white circular substation. It was another control room for the entire Regent Galactic fleet, with five visible floors overlooking the central chamber. Hundreds of technicians, security people and support staff looked at her from the railings that encircled the chamber.
Upon the dais in the centre was a tall seat, the source of the DNA that brought her there. It turned towards her, revealing a sickly, emaciated man. He had lost his leg half way up the femur, and it was capped with a transparent device that circulated blood as though it was a part of him. His hips were obscured by a black case that seemed as irrevocably affixed to the seat. His clothing was also attached to the chair, and after a long moment of staring, she realized that his wasted chest did not rise and fall until he made the seemingly hercurian effort to prepare to speak. “It is good to meet you in person, Nora.” Another machine driven breath forced air into his lungs. “I am the first Lister Hampon.”
Eve dropped the hand scanner and approached slowly, the blood on the hem of her dress marring the flawlessly white floor.
“It’s time you were brought into the fold.” Hampon invited, raising a shaky hand.