“What’s happening?” demanded Patrick, “What have you done?”
I didn’t answer. Then I felt contact inside of my head and memories came flooding back to me. The sequence that I’d buried inside me was a modified version of the search and replace sequence that I’d used to free EricToo. Only this time it was a search and destroy and was coded to destroy the sentient programming that was holding the barriers and networks together.
I had buried my memories so far deep inside of me that I knew nothing could find them. I had ensured that the only way they could be unlocked was via a direct communication, and EricToo had fulfilled that requirement.
“What have you done?” repeated Patrick.
“Nothing. Yet.” I replied, cryptically.
Patrick knew I was lying. “You’ve done something. You wouldn’t risk exposing your friends for nothing.”
“Just wait.”
Then the shock-wave hit us. The Trojan sequence had worked. It had fed back along the communication frequency and seeded a second cataclysmic event on the integrity of Stasis.
A uniformed man of about thirty years old came rushing into the room, “Sir, the ground is splitting in two. There’s a split heading right towards us. North and South. I’m getting reports that the split is a mile in places.”
Patrick turned to look at me with a face of confused anger. “What is happening? What have you done? How?”. He was struggling to get his words out coherently and whereas he had previously been a confidently deluded man, he was now a panicked megalomaniac who was seeing his empire literally crumble around him.
“This is only just the beginning.”
He stood there, unmoved. “What have you done? What have you done?”
“I think you’re about to get an answer,” I replied as I noticed his aide was receiving some form of communication.
“Sir, there are reports of buildings and vehicles being, well, eaten by small machines that then split into more machines. Sir, we need to get out of here before the machines get here.”
Patrick was aghast, but it was suddenly dawning on him what I had done by coming here and his expression turned to one of envious admiration.
“Well played, well played. Unfortunately, it is game over for you. We now know where your friends are hiding out and it is only a matter of time before all of this is over and you have served your purpose. Farewell Eric and thank you.”
He left me alone once again to face the onslaught of the little Von Neumann machines that I had seeded as I approached my interception point. These had been woken up by the schism that went right through this part of Stasis. Their one instruction was to eat away at anything that had been created within Stasis. Human energy signatures were safe. But the enemy were not to know that.
All I had to do was bide my time and I would freed by my own creations. And then I could work on my plan to end this. To end Stasis.
Stasis Update: A Novel 
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