OIN MY P@TREON FOR JUST $5!!! (Info in author's notes)
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SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE, MY WINTER BREAK JUST STARTED AND I WAS TRAVELING HOME
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The Rover crunched to a halt on the gravelly shore, the heavy tires settling into the mix of sand and wet stones. The engine whined to silence, leaving only the wind whipping across the vast expanse of water and the rhythmic sound of waves against the bank.
Mike opened the driver's door and stepped out, stretching his neck with a crack. He looked out across the water.
The island stood in the distance, like a solitary jewel amid the desolation. The white mansion gleamed unnaturally bright against the grey sky, looking less like a ruin and more like a fortress that time had forgotten.
Raven hopped out of the passenger side, her boots sinking slightly into the mud. She wrapped her jacket tighter around herself, shielding herself from the wind.
"So," Raven said, looking at the dark water separating them from the target. "We're here. The mansion is there. And unless this Rover turns into a submarine, we have a problem."
She looked at Mike, raising an eyebrow. "What do we do now? Swim? Because I don't know if you've noticed, but that water looks freezing, and my cardio isn't exactly marathon level."
Mike walked to the back of the Rover. "We don't swim. Ever heard of a thing called 'boat'?"
He popped the rear hatch. Inside, nestled among crates of ammunition, sat a large, tightly packed black bundle. Mike hauled it out with one hand, tossing it onto the wet sand with a heavy thud.
"What is that?" Raven asked, tilting her head.
"Standard issue tactical infiltration raft," Mike said, pulling a ripcord on the side of the bundle. "Self-inflating. Durable and easy to carry around."
A loud hiss of compressed CO2 cut through the air. The black bundle expanded rapidly, unfolding and stiffening into a sturdy, six-person rubber zodiac boat. It was fully inflated in under thirty seconds.
"Nice," Raven admitted, impressed despite herself. "You really do have everything in there."
Mike reached back into the Rover and grabbed two collapsible oars and the tablet they had used for navigation. He tossed the oars into the raft and handed the tablet to Raven.
"You're the navigator," Mike said. "Keep checking the coordinates. There might be submerged structures or defense grids in the water. I'll handle the propulsion."
"Got it," Raven said, clutching the tablet.
They pushed the raft into the shallows. The water was indeed freezing, numbing their boots instantly. They climbed in — Mike taking the center bench to row, Raven sitting in the bow, facing forward with the screen glowing in her hands.
Mike set the oars into the locks and began to pull.
The journey across the water was quiet. The only sounds were the creak of the oarlocks and the splash of water.
Raven watched the screen, glancing up occasionally to check their heading. "We're clear so far," she murmured. "No thermal spikes underwater. No electronic signals active."
She looked back at Mike. He wasn't even breathing hard. He rowed with the steady, tireless tempo of a machine. It gave her time to think, to process the sheer strangeness of her reality. Weeks ago, she was fixing radios in a metal box in the sky. Now, she was on a rubber boat in a post-apocalyptic lake with a man who claimed to be a cryo-frozen assassin, heading to hunt a rogue AI.
'Yeah, totally a sci-fi plot.'
"You really think this AI is still active?" Raven asked, breaking the silence. "After a hundred years? Without maintenance?"
"She's active," Mike said, not breaking his rhythm. "She has solar arrays. She has drones. And she has a directive. Programs like hers don't die; they just wait."
They fell silent again. The island grew larger, looming over them. As they approached, the details of the mansion became clear. It was pristine. The glass windows were still somehow intact. The lawns were manicured, likely by automated bots.
"Heads up," Raven whispered, looking at the tablet. "We're coming up on a dock structure. North side."
"I see it," Mike said.
He guided the raft toward a sleek, concrete pier that extended out into the water. As they drifted closer, the sound of the water slapping against the pilings grew louder.
Mike shipped the oars, letting the raft glide the last few feet. He stood up and stepped onto the dock, and reached down and pulled the raft in, tying it off to a rusted cleat.
Raven got up after him. She dusted off her pants and looked toward the path leading up to the mansion.
"Okay," she said. "We're on the island. Now we just — "
She froze.
Two men stepped out from behind a manicured hedge.
They weren't machines. They were human. They wore clean, grey clothing— civilian attire that looked decades old but remarkably well-kept. Their faces were blank, devoid of any surprise or fear. Their eyes were empty, staring straight through the intruders.
In their hands, they held automatic rifles.
"Stop," one of the men said. His voice was flat, monotonous. "You are trespassing. State your purpose."
Raven's heart hammered against her ribs. "Whoa," she said, raising her hands slowly. "We just — "
The men didn't wait for an explanation. They raised their rifles in unison, fingers tightening on the triggers. The motion was mechanical, synchronized.
Raven gasped, bracing herself.
Bang-Bang.
Two shots rang out. They were so close together they sounded like a single, stuttering crack of thunder.
Raven flinched, squeezing her eyes shut. But she felt no pain.
She opened her eyes.
The two men were on the ground. Both of them had a single, neat bullet hole in the center of their foreheads. They lay perfectly still on the white concrete of the path, their rifles lying uselessly beside them.
Mike stood next to her. His pistol was in his hand, a wisp of smoke curling from the barrel. He hadn't even taken a combat stance. He had simply drawn and fired faster than the eye could track.
Raven stared at the bodies, then at Mike. Her breath caught in her throat.
"What did you do??" she yelled, her voice shrill with shock.
Mike holstered the pistol with a smooth, casual motion. "I neutralized the threat."
"They... they were people!" Raven stammered. "You didn't even try to talk to them! You just... dropped them!"
"They pointed guns at us," Mike said calmly, stepping over the bodies without looking down. "They were going to fire. I fired first."
"But..." Raven struggled to find the words. The violence was so casual, so efficient. It terrified her. "We pointed guns at you! Back at the dropship! Finn pointed a gun at you! You didn't shoot us instantly!"
She stopped, the realization hitting her. She thought about Finn. She thought about the mercy Mike had shown them in the bunker, redirecting the bullet instead of killing him.
"Why?" Raven asked, her voice quieting. "Why did you let us live then? If you kill threats so easily... why are we alive?"
Mike stopped. He turned slowly to face her. His golden eyes bore into hers, stripping away any illusions she might have had about him being a hero.
"Because," Mike said, a small, cold smile touching his lips, "you guys were much more useful."
Raven stared at him, baffled. It wasn't kindness. It wasn't mercy. It was calculation. He had spared the 100 because they had value — medical knowledge, tech skills, leverage against the Ark. These men on the island? They were just obstacles.
"That's all?" she whispered. "We're just... useful?"
"Usefulness keeps you alive in this world, Raven," Mike said.
"Sentimentalism gets you dead."
He turned back to the path. "Come on. We're burning daylight."
Raven stood there for a second, processing the brutal honesty. He wasn't pretending to be a savior. He was exactly what he said he was.
"Yeah, whatever," she muttered, huffing a breath of frustration. She stepped around the bodies, trying not to look at their blank, dead eyes.
Mike laughed softly, a low rumble. "Don't pout. It doesn't suit you. Follow me."
They moved up the path, leaving the dead guards behind.
The mansion loomed over them, a monolith of white stone and glass.
They reached the main entrance — a massive set of double doors made of reinforced steel. To the side of the doors was a sleek, glass touch-panel, dark and dormant.
Mike inspected the door. "No handle. Electronic lock. High-level encryption."
He pulled a cable from his utility belt, plugging one end into the panel and handing the other end to Raven.
"Connect the tablet," Mike ordered. "Do your magic. I need access to the main server rooms."
Raven took the cable, her professional instincts overriding her moral discomfort. She plugged it into her tablet. "Alright. Let's see what you're hiding."
She sat down on the steps, her fingers flying across the screen. Lines of code cascaded down the display.
"This encryption is serious," Raven muttered, her brow furrowing in concentration. "It's a rolling key algorithm. Pre-war military grade. But... the architecture is similar to the Ark's core systems."
Mike stood guard, watching the perimeter, but his eyes kept drifting back to her. He watched the way her mind worked, the speed at which she deciphered the alien code. She wasn't just guessing; she was hunting through the data, finding backdoors and exploits with an intuition that couldn't be taught.
Damn, Mike thought, genuinely impressed. She is too good at this. Better than the engineers back in my time. After all this is done, I have to ask her to teach me everything she knows. Having this kind of digital control is a weapon all on its own.
Minutes turned into an hour. The sun climbed higher in the sky. Raven didn't stop. She muttered curses, rewrote scripts, and brute-forced her way through firewalls that had held for a century.
Finally, she hit the enter key with a flourish.
"AND... DONE," Raven announced, exhaling sharply.
A deep thrum resonated through the building. The lights in the mansion flickered, the dormant systems waking up. The heavy steel doors groaned, the magnetic locks disengaged with a loud clack, and slowly swung inward.
Mike looked at the open door, then down at Raven.
"Good job," he said, offering her a hand up.
Raven took it, pulling herself to her feet. She looked exhausted but proud.
"It wasn't easy. That AI didn't want visitors."
"Too bad we don't take no for an answer," Mike said as he led Raven into the mansion.
The interior was spotless. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light cutting through the grand foyer. They ignored the expensive art and the furniture, moving with purpose.
They passed through four layers of security doors, each one opening automatically now that Raven had seized administrative control. They descended deeper into the facility, leaving the sunlight behind for the cool, blue glow of the subterranean levels.
Finally, they reached the end of the line.
A massive set of glass doors slid open, revealing the heart of the beast.
The room was vast, filled with rows of humming supercomputer towers. The air was frigid, kept super-cooled to protect the processors. Cables ran like snakes across the floor, all converging in the center of the room.
There, a raised platform stood beneath a massive, curved screen.
And standing on the platform was a woman.
She was beautiful, elegant, with dark hair and a posture of perfect poise. She wore a striking, crimson-red dress that seemed to glow in the dim light. She wasn't solid; she flickered slightly at the edges, a hologram projected into the space.
She looked at Mike and Raven as they entered. Her expression was not one of fear or anger, but of mild, calculated surprise.
She tilted her head, her voice echoing smoothly through the room's speakers.
"This," the woman in the red dress said, "was out of my calculations."
Mike stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "A.L.I.E., I presume."
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Hope you would like it.
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