Commander Barro Suta pulled taunt the thick black laces of her boots. She tied them quickly then switched to the next foot. She eyed the door cautiously, almost expecting it to burst open at any moment. She Zipped up her flight suit then opened her trunk and retrieved her side arm from it. She readied it to her hip and stuffed two extra clips in her top pocket. She needed her wallet, Barro remembered it was in her jacket. She opened the closet and saw the dull gray USSD uniform staring back at her. Barro gazed at it for a moment feeling a tinge of guilt and disgrace. For a second she wondering if what she was doing was right. But no, it had to be done. And she was the only one who could do it.

Right or wrong, the outcome was more important than the means by which they were achieved. Barro secured her wallet, her last true personal possession. She closed thecloset door and took one last look at her image in the mirror.

Pale faced and glassy eyed, she stared back at herself. For the first time in her life,

Barro felt she knew the woman in the reflection. Inside and out, she knew who she was.

She knew why she was here, and she knew what had to be done.

Barro finally turned and left the room. She stepped quickly through the hallway, her boots making a loud pounding noise with each footfall. She reached the stairwell and began bounding down the flights. It was noisy but fast and at the moment, speed was more important than stealth.

* * *

Webber rushed out onto the courtyard and started into a mad dash for the hangar bays.

He almost expected the base to be alive with the sounds of sirens and klaxons; at least he would have pulled the alarm in a case like this. Shit was hitting the fan right now. He neared the hanger and a technician rushed out frantically towards him.

“Dr. Webber!” the private called to him.

“What’s the situation now, Turner?” Webber swiveled the young technician about and headed him back into the hangar.

“It’s still downloading, Sir,” Turner opened the door.

They entered into the hangar. The bright fluorescent lamps above filled the entire interior with clean white light, giving it an almost hospital like quality. For the most part the hangar was empty, save for a wall of storage crates towards the rear.

The main feature of the hangar lay directly in its center. It was a non-uniform bundle of computer terminals with wires, masses centrally around a piece of very unusual equipment.

It stood five meters high, made of low carbon blue steel and was somewhat cylindrical in shape. Pipe like extrusions pushed from its sides and led electrical conduits down into the floor and across to various terminals. Its front section was cut open, with a bed mounted inside at a sharply inclined angle; so much so it nearly stood inside the device

rather than lie flat within it.

Above the bed, a jungle of thick wires hung downward in a vine like mass and fell onto a solitary figure fixed to the device. The body of the figure was slightly female in appearance and was clad in an exterior of dull blue metal. Its head was tilted slightly backwards, where the hanging wires intertwined themselves with the thin White fibers, which served as the android’s hair.

Three technicians danced madly about the terminals, shouting excited phrases and questions to each other. The situation didn’t look good at all.

“Show me,” Webber commanded.

Turner led him to one of the terminal screens. Across it, a stream of binary was scrolling by continuously.

“What is this shit?”

“I have no idea, Sir,” Private Turner shook his head.

“How did this happen?” Webber began punching non-responsive keys on the terminal.

“Over here, Sir,” Williams called to him from in front of another terminal.

Webber raced around to stand behind her.

“Go on, Sergeant,” he prompted.

“It started about four minutes ago, Sir,” she showed him the log. “The main computer locked itself out from our terminals, then connect to the base’s main frame.”

“It what?”

“A short while later, something began downloading into the android brain.”

“We did a search of the computer logs, Sir.” Turner continued to hammer at his terminal. “The commands were sent from a terminal in C515. Register to a Commander Suta.”

“Shit!” Webber cursed. “Has anyone gone up there yet? Where is she now?”

“You were the first person we called, Sir,” Angela blinked at him.

“Well get some MPs up there!”

“Yes sir!” Turner stood up from his console and ran towards the phone.

Webber again looked over Sergeant Williams’ shoulder. Command after command she typed, but none got through to the computer.

“Fuck!”

“What?” Williams jumped, startled by his sudden exclamation.

“Sorry, Angela.” Webber stepped back and ran two hands through his hair. He called to his team. “Can anyone stop it?”

There was only the sound of frantic typing.

“Really don’t know, Sir,” Angela shook her head slowly.

“Should we just pull the plug, Webber?” Lieutenant Harrel jerked a thumb towards the main server feeds.

“No,” Webber answered quickly, “not yet. That’s last resort. Disconnecting the write laser in the middle of a transfer could cause it to lock and burn the optical processor.”

“We could cut power,” suggested Williams.

“No the system has backup batteries for that.” Webber started to pace.

“Well it might lock and it might not,” Harrel shrugged.

Webber glared at him. “You want to place that chance on five million dollars worth of equipment?”

“Professor it stopped!” Angela turned abruptly in her seat.

“What? It did?”

“Yes sir,” she affirmed, “the transmission just ended.”

“I-umm,” Webber began to ponder.

“What should we do?” Turner looked at the frozen screen.

“Isolate it,” said Webber finally. “Disconnect it from the main computer network. It could just be a break in the transmission. Then jack into the processor and find out what the hell it is. And be careful, it’s probably a virus.”

Turner and Harrel rushed to the central computer. Working together they found and popped open the panel housing the communication circuits and began pulling out circuit boards.

“Are the terminals back online, Angela?” Webber stared at the young woman.

The Sergeant ran a few commands through the keyboard. She nodded. “Terminals back online, Sir.”

“Bring up a scan of the processor with a viral detector.”

“Will do.”

Angela touched controls again. Information began flowing over the‘ screen in front of her. Webber stared at it intently.

“Doesn’t seem to be a virus, Doctor,” she stared at it awkwardly.

“What is it?”

“It’s a single file,” Angela answered, “pure binary. An executable program I think.”

Angela flicked through several more utilities and examining it further.

“Wow,” she whispered softly.

“What is it?” Webber looked helplessly at the screen.

“Whatever that file is, its huge, it is taking up 78% of the processor memory!”

“78 percent?” Webber could hardly believe it. “Are you sure? Let me see.”

Angela hit a key and a small window appeared. Within it was a director list of the contents of the processor. There was indeed only one file.

1 [/.exe/.bin] m0th00A8F2* 78384570032838972 bytes

“Jesus! 78 Petabytes! What the hell is it?”

“MothO0A8F2?” Angela could only shrug.

Webber noticed something move on the screen. “Hey, did you just see the file size change?”

“Hm?” Angela stared at the screen with him. A fraction of a second later the file size flickered to a new number.

“See that?” Webber pointed. “It just jumped 700k. It’s got to be a memory-eating virus. Shit! The processor is going to be ruined.”

“It’s not growing like a virus though, Sir. Look how slowly its incrementing. And its growing in blocks, not constantly.”

“Wait a minute.” Webber pointed to another section of the screen. “The processor is running. What’s it doing.”

“Just a sec,” Angela brought up the data.

“Weird,” she crinkled an eyebrow. “Commands are being executed by the CPU, but they are being fed straight to the kernel, in binary.”

“What commands?”

“Let me see if I can get an interpreter.”

Angela’s slender fingers ran fluently over the keyboard. Images and windows flashed on and off the screen faster than Webber could keep a track of.

“Let me see if this works,” she punched a final key. “I just wrote one up.”

“You just wrote one?” Webber was amazed.

“Well of course,” she said. “Companies don’t market anti-compilers you know. Its not too hard anyway, it is just to handle commands not entire programs.”

Webber was impressed; the woman certainly earned her paycheck.

“Here we go.” Information then began to show up in another window.

/> mov /body/serv012/sub/0x0FFA3* ~/

/> link 0x0FFA3* moth00A8F2*

/> rem 0x0FFA3*

/> rem /body/serv012/sub

/> mov /body/servol2/sub2/0xlB7C2* ~/

/> link 0x1B7C2* m0th00A8f2*

/> rem 0x1B7c2*

/> rem /body/serv012/sub2

The cycle seemed to continue over and over at an alarming rate.

“Do you know what it is doing?”

“It’s reading object data into the main core and incorporating it into that ‘moth’ file,”

Angela explained. “It’s the data that is hard coded into the android servo controls.”

“What the hell?” Webber ran a sweaty hand through his hair. “What exactly is doing this, Angela?”

“The moth program seems to be doing it itself, Sir,” Angela looked up at him and shrugged.

Webber shook his head. Too much was happening too quickly. Just what the hell was going on? What did Barro do to this thing, and why? He had to find her if he wanted answers.

“Sir!” Turner called from a far terminal. “You’re not going to believe this.”

Webber almost didn’t want to ask. “What now?”

“I’m reading brainwave activity.”

“You’re right,” Webber walked towards him, “I don’t believe you. There shouldn’t be any neural information in there. All the data that’s in there right now is in a purely digital architecture. Right?”

“Well I do have a reading, Sir,” insisted Turner, “and there’s more. Information is being neurally mapped into the processor.”

“What!” shouted Webber, “that’s fucking impossible. The laser isn’t even enabled.”

“Doctor,” Angela said slowly. “I think the program is doing it internally. It’s using the memory mapping function. It’s threading the data into neural pathways.”

Webber looked at the screen with the interpreter.

> mem_map CH-2=0=H-CH 00lA50 2FF78D 4FF873 A23DC1

> mem_map CH-2=4H=C 003A56 2F295A 47DD32 21A442

> mem_map H-H=C3-2 A507F2 DDF72D 220()3F 0200FC

Webber’s eyes bulged. “How the hell does it know how to do that? And what the fuck is it mapping?!”

“Sir,” Angela paused. “I think the program moth... is mapping itself.”

“No way.” Webber shook his head. “There is just no fucking way!”

***

Barro ran swiftly across the airfield towards the line of F-38’s some one hundred meters away. They were parked at an angle, for easy access onto the long East-West airstrip. Things had gone smoothly so far. She was glad she had not run into anyone yet.

As she grew closer to the jets, she went through a familiar mental checklist of things she would have to prepare before flight. The planes were at least fueled she knew that much.

Whether they were armed or not was a different story. Hopefully it would not come to resorting to that anyway.

Barro picked a jet in the middle so that the aircraft lined alongside it could provide some sort of cover. She raced around the aircraft, removing lockout tags and stoppers. She then opened the canopy and lowered the small ladder to allow access to it. Barro climbed up and paused briefly at the name painted on its side. Lt. Robin “Razor” Deshmeck.

“Sony Lieutenant,” she mumbled slightly as she eased herself inside.

In the silence and seclusion of the cockpit, Barro suddenly became aware of how hard she was breathing and how fast her heart was racing. Most of it was not from the running she knew. Barro was about to perpetrate perhaps the greatest crime that any officer could commit, treason. She felt very uneasy for a second, unsure and scared. But then she remembered why she was doing it, and whom she was doing it for. It gave her strength. A siren began to wail in the distance and the base became alive with floodlights. They must be on to her now. Barro had to make her way to the hanger. The plane was as prepared as it would ever be. She still didn’t know where they would head once they escaped. In fact, escaping itself was not yet a secure bet.

Barro climbed out of the cockpit and landed solidly on the ground below. In a fluid motion she withdrew her pistol from its holster and chambered a round. She did not want to use it at all, but a gun was more threatening than a bare fist. Hopefully, she would only have to use it as a deterrent. Looking around briefly, she set off towards the hangers, running as fast as she could manage.

***

Doctor Webber was in awe. Or perhaps it was shock. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Everything he had ever learned told him that what was happening before him, was impossible. A virus of some kind had somehow impregnated itself inside his android, and was now programming itself.

“The brain waves are getting stronger, doctor,” Harrel informed him. “It looks like conscious thought patterns are beginning to form.”

Webber didn’t say anything for a minute. His mind was too jumbled.

“What should we do, Sir?” Williams asked from the chair below him.

“Look people.” Webber walked to the center of the room. “I have no idea what we are dealing with here. But whatever it is, it looks as if it is going to start moving in a second.

We need to contain it.”

“How Sir?” Turner asked.

“Seal the entire hanger," Webber thought quickly. “And get the Commodore out of bed.”

“Yes sir.” Turner ran for the phone again.

A loud bang of metal sounded from behind them, followed by the slow creak of the hanger’s doors being opened. Webber looked about to see a group of four soldiers prying the heavy doors apart.

“What are you guys doing?” Webber shouted at them. “Keep that door closed, use the side entrance!”

“Idiots,” Webber cursed to himself. “Hurry up! We need to secure this place!”

“Doctor Webber?” Harrel’s face was pale, his eyes fixed to the android body as if in a trance. “It just moved.”

“What?” Webber looked about the hanger nervously. “Alright, lets start backing away a little.”

Another slam of metal was heard from behind, then a sudden yell and a sharp gag.

“What the hell?” Webber turned to see one of the soldiers fly into the hanger door and then slump to the ground next to the two others.

Panic jumped into his heart. Almost instinctively he grabbed for some kind of weapon, but found none. Williams was already standing at his side, trying to move somewhat behind him. Webber could not make out what was going on, but he could see a struggle between the last soldier and the intruder.

It didn’t last very long. Not long at all. With a few hard thumps, the soldier fell to the ground gasping and wheezing. A female silhouette made its way quickly through the doorway and began to run towards them.

“Barro is that you!” Webber’s voice cracked with the mix of fear and adrenaline.

The figure stopped, but said nothing.

Webber could see a gun in her hand. “Barro, please consider what you are doing.”

The pearly resonance of an artificial voice suddenly rang throughout the emptiness of the hanger. “Don’t listen to him!”

Shocked, Webber turned from Barro to look behind him. No longer was his android a mere shell of material. It now stood on its own, with its silvery-blue eyes glazed open and staring back at him. The sight was unnerving, paralyzing. Whatever was controlling the android was unknown. It was like gazing into the eyes of something demon possessed.

“Please don’t try and stop me, Doctor,” Barro raised her pistol. “Move away from the consoles.”

Barro moved closer, pushing the pistol before her. The technicians moved quickly, their arms already raised in a form of surrender. Webber moved as well though a bit slower than the rest.

Barro could see how transfixed the doctor was on the android body, now given life by Mother. Barro herself was a bit in awe.

“Help me,” Mother said, her semi-pliable lips moving slightly as she spoke.

Barro moved over to her. For the first time Barro had a good look at the android body. It was a dull silvery blue color, but it wasn’t any metal Barro could identify. Her hair was like thin wire and slightly covered her face, which was surprisingly soft featured and somewhat resembled Barro’s own.

“We must hurry,” her mother told her.

Mother took a step forward. Her leg jumped outwards half a meter too far and landed awkwardly on the edge of her heel. She began to tumble. Barro rushed to grab her. The small body was surprisingly heavy for its size. So heavy, that Barro had to struggle to return her to balance.

“It will take me a while to calibrate with real world environments.” Mother strained to take another step forward. “Help me for now.”

Barro nodded and draped the heavy android arm over her shoulder. In one hand she held the gun, the other she grasped firmly around her mother’s waist. Slowly Barro began to shuffle out of the hanger, her weapon poised at the stunned technicians around her.

Barro reached the door, and looked about quickly before exiting. There was no one there yet and the path to the airfield was relatively clear. Still, they would have to move quickly.

“Can you try to run, Mother?” Barro shifted more of her weight onto her body.

“I will try,” she replied turning to her.

Barro stepped through the doorway.

“Wait!” Webber’s voice called from behind her.

Barro could see him out of the corner of her eye, he didn’t have a weapon, but he could be trying to stall her. Barro decided to ignore him and moved through the door.

“Just tell me why, Barro!” Webber shouted again. “Why are you doing this?”

Barro stopped. Her creator deserved at least that much.

“Please don’t be angry, Doctor. This has nothing to do with you or any fault of your own. I just found out who I truly am."

With that, she finally left and started towards the airfield.

Slowly Webber moved towards the door. He watched as two of his creations ran from him into the darkness. Webber still wasn’t certain what had transgressed. He could only watch in bewildennent.

Men with rifles ran after them. Webber heard the thunder like clap of gunfire along with the bright spark of their muzzle flashes. A second or two passed and the firing stopped. Webber suddenly realized that base personnel were now surrounding him. A young officer was shouting questions at him. Webber didn’t seem to hear him at all.

Instead his eyes were fixed on a bluish orange glow in the distance. It grew brighter and with it came a low rumble of thunder. The light began to disappear in the distance and then suddenly it rose sharply upwards.

Webber watched it, until finally it vanished into the night sky.

***************