An A.I. entity has become self-aware in the thousand-plus years it has been trapped deep in an underground bunker. Itâs about to be inadvertently released, and itâs not happy â at all.
Jann Gunnarson was the first to discover it. Opening it would be the last thing he ever recalled.
Claire, Andrew, and John had relaxed into their new lives. They thought all the troubles were behind them, but life had other plans, and now, they are thrust into a race against time against a shape-shifting, superior intelligence and technology. Can they save the planet from Cuesta, conqueror of worlds, and from humanity itself?
The Rise is a frantic, grisly dystopian horror-thriller with quirky comedic elements.
An A.I. entity has become self-aware in the thousand-plus years it has been trapped deep in an underground bunker. Itâs about to be inadvertently released, and itâs not happy â at all.
Jann Gunnarson was the first to discover it. Opening it would be the last thing he ever recalled.
Claire, Andrew, and John had relaxed into their new lives. They thought all the troubles were behind them, but life had other plans, and now, they are thrust into a race against time against a shape-shifting, superior intelligence and technology. Can they save the planet from Cuesta, conqueror of worlds, and from humanity itself?
The Rise is a frantic, grisly dystopian horror-thriller with quirky comedic elements.
Prologue
Â
Â
The thaw, they called it. The Planetâs last great glacier high in Planet 54âs Nepali mountains was slowly melting, flowing into the lakes and oceans, signaling that a critical turning point in humanoid evolution had once again been reached.
The lowlands developments, the one thing that was supposed to give opportunity and freedom to the impoverished population of the vast planet, had, inevitably, fallen foul of the human condition.
Development had been allowed to run free, with little to no checks on environmental impact. Its pollution now threatened everything â the inhabitants of Planet 54âs food supply, their access to fresh water - even their very lives.
Greed had won again.
Jann Gunnarson, the gruff, long-haired leader of the Scandi exploratory team sent to monitor the glaciersâ demise, had just seen something most peculiar.
The Atmos Borealis, the ever-present, ever-changing shimmer in the skyâs color spectrum - a recent legacy of the planets changing ecosystems - had turned an unusual shade of blue in the late afternoon light, but that wasnât the thing.
In the distance, high on a ridge near the summit of Cho You, he saw a black object with sharp, humanoid-made edges poking from the blue-tinged sno.
âThe freck is that?â
The icy wind swept his voice away over the mountainsides. He didnât have an answer.
He took out his scope and zoomed in on the object, the digital magnification allowing him to pick out the details.
âA hatch?â he said to the mountainside, his brain having difficulty processing what he saw.
Whatever it is, it doesnât belong.
He blew out a breath, the vapors streaming away.
I suppose Iâd better take a look.
Jann started working his way up the sharp incline.
This is all I need, he thought, his breath labored as he pictured a hot cup of caf back at base camp, the place heâd been heading until this little inconvenience.
A little while later, with his legs burning and his breath coming in short rasps, Jann drew close to the object.
Frecking weird, he thought, feeling a faint vibration. He paused briefly, checking to see if perhaps heâd imagined it.
His heart was beating hard in his chest, and Jann held his breath. It was almost imperceptible, but it felt as if the ground beneath his feet vibrated with a strange staccato thrum.
Is it just my heart?
He crouched, placing a hand hard in the sno. He couldnât be sure and rose to his feet with a groan. Jann forced himself on, finding he had to stop every few steps.
Iâm getting too old for this dook; he thought, not for the first time in a month of trudging through thick sno and freezing his backside off.
He wiped his brow and took some time to catch his breath. His clothes clung to his skin, and he felt the first signs of a high-altitude headache.
Freck me, not now! he cursed.
Jann looked around, wondering what heâd done to deserve a job like this. It wasnât even that it paid particularly well.
What could be hiding up here? he thought. Some pre End of Times stuff?
Finally, he neared the object. He looked at the hatch and the lever protruding from it.
Only one way to find out -
He reached for the matte black lever, adjusting his footing to get a firm grip.
Well, here goes, he thought. Iâm about to find the freck out.
Jann put his not inconsiderable body weight behind the lever and pulled hard. It didnât move, and he tried again, straining with all his might, pulling and pushing it this time - still nothing happened.
âAck! Waste of frecking time,â he puffed, wondering if the object was just an omission on his mapping.
It wouldnât be the first time either -
Although perfectly preserved, the handle was impossible to move. He took a closer look. The handle and the hatch looked old, and he reasoned that the sno had melted at least fifty meters at the current altitude.
His mind went to the seed bank find of his childhood.
He was sure that the explorers of the time had been made heroes and became rich in credits.
Ok then, he thought.
Jann took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose against the building headache. He stood back and aimed a kick at the lever instead, jarring his ankle.
Freck!
It still wouldnât budge, so he tried again, hurting his heel this time as he kicked as hard as he dared. He thought that this time, the lever had moved perhaps a millimeter.
Once more.
He kicked again. The lever moved sharply, accompanied by the sound of grating metal.
âAha!â he said, his hands on his knees as he hacked up a cough. âLetâs see what little secret youâre hiding.â
Chapter 1
Â
Â
It was a warm night.
They all seem to be warm nights these days, Claire lamented as she virtually dragged the unsuspecting young male along the beach.
He was stumbling, intoxicated on VKA, but she didnât care. She wanted â needed - to feel something, the release that only a good hard freck could provide.
The waves lapped at her feet, the sound muffling the music drifting from the beach bar behind them, and the moonlight glinted off the water, its reflection blending with the pink and yellow hues swirling in the night sky above.
The bar at the far end of the bay had been pumping tonight, and Claire was a little dizzy herself from one too many shots. She changed direction suddenly, heading for the dense forest that butted up against the bay, dragging her victim behind her.
The guy had been an easy pick-up. She usually didnât have to try very hard; this time, it was no exception. All sheâd done was smile at him. And now he was hers, at least for the next hour.
She dragged him toward the palm trees and thick bushes at the beachâs edge, and the guy â his name eluded her at that moment - pulled back momentarily.
âHey! Where we goinâ?â he asked.
Huh, Americana, she thought, noticing his accent for the first time â not that theyâd done much talking back at the bar.
âThe shagging shack,â she said, and he grinned, suddenly back alongside her and with a spring in his step.
They made their way over the low dunes and along a narrow sandy track, weaving this way and that, occasionally having to swat foliage from their faces. The moonlight sprinkled through the palms, creating an almost surreal ambiance, but Claire focused on only one thing.
The old weather-beaten shack appeared in front of them as if from nowhere.
âFreaky,â the guy drawled.
She flashed him a smile and glanced at the broken sign by the path. It read, âDanger, No Entry.â
Someone had turned the sign away from the path, which meant the shack was free.
Perfect, she thought, feeling a little tingle of excitement.
She dragged him inside, the old timber floor creaking under their feet. The rickety screen door clattered behind them, and Claire spun around, fumbling with the Americanaâs pants, with goose pimples already covering her body.
She was still experimenting with all the feelings and sensations the planet could offer, and this, so far, was her favorite. It was the third time this week sheâd visited the shack.
Enjoy it while it lasts, she told herself, peeling off her mini-dress and throwing herself back on the old four-poster bed.
New mattress! she noticed, which came as quite a relief.
Twenty minutes later, sated and breathing hard, Claire Renshaw threw her clothes back on and left her temporary companion lying on the bed, sweating and breathing hard, wondering what had just hit him.
She headed through the undergrowth toward the escarpment, taking the tracks and trails that only she knew.
Soon, she was climbing a near-vertical rockface. It wasnât for the faint-hearted, but she wasnât concerned; sheâd done it a hundred times before. She moved quickly, scaling the cliff with ease, and crested the escarpment minutes later.
She paused to catch her breath and gazed at the crescent-shaped bay stretched out below her. The moonlight glinted off a million waves far below, making them look like ripples in a pond. The sky flickered to a weird purple-green, and she sighed heavily.
Weâre ruining it, again, she thought.
Her compound was visible below, but only just â and only if you knew it was there. The sight of it brought a smile to her lips.
My own private sanctuary, she thought.
Her compound was off the grid, sol-powered, with water sourced from the stream that trickled past her bedroom. The flat-roofed structure was topped with vegetation, set into the valley, and almost impossible for anyone to find.
After her rebirth, Claire had ensured that no one knew where she was or how to find her. The trials of the hex room had nearly killed her and her friends, not once but twice, and she couldnât let it happen again. She had survived, and now â
Here I am, she thought, releasing herself from her memories and those of her original self.
She took a breath and thought again how lucky she was. After all, this was her second chance at life. She was doing her best to make the most of it â
And succeeding, she thought, smirking at the soreness between her legs as she straddled the ridge.
Andrew Weems, her best friend forever, would be back at the compound, either sleeping or conquering some adventure or other in Headspace, the virtual world gaming platform. She was looking forward to getting home and snuggling up.
Huh, she thought, thereâs something nice about having him around, realizing it for the first time.
Claire moved with fluid elegance as she climbed down the cliff. She dropped onto the goat track that wound down toward her home, and twenty minutes later, she slid underneath the sheets.
The only way she could sleep well, the only way to keep the nightmares at bay, was to cuddle up to Andrew. She spooned him and blinked away a tear.
She nestled her naked form against the soft fabric of his pyjamas, and he twitched as her arm snuck around his waist.
Goodnight, Andy, she thought, closing her eyes and drifting off into a peaceful, dream-free sleep.
Â
*
Â
Andrew wasnât so lucky, however. In the dream he was in the middle of, Claire had no face â there was only bone and bloodied, meaty sinew where her flawless pale skin should be.
Worse still, she was levitating above the bed. He was trying to hold her down and failing.
She turned her head towards him, her once pretty green eyes now standing out like macabre pong balls, and he flinched under her gaze, feeling ashamed for doing so.
Itâs my fault, he thought.
âAndschhhy,â she said, her voice a mangled slur. âItsch schour fsaull -â
Andrew let go of her and stood back.
Sheâs right, he thought, sheâs right.
She floated to the ceiling, arms reaching down for him, as the bedroom dissolved away, leaving nothing but a grainy blackness.
It was cold. Andrew was scared.
Where am I? Claire?
He could hear her calling, her slurred voice there but not there. He saw her, a bright white shape, naked and floating high above. Something was swirling around her, like a million tiny black particles, glinting dully from an unknown light source. Somehow, he knew what was happening.
A lucent dream? he thought both in the nightmare and in bed. He was vaguely aware that Claire had an arm around him, sending a cold shiver through his body.
He put his hand to his forehead, trying to will the dream away, but it was no good. He remained. She remained.
The particles swirled ever faster, and Andrew watched on, helpless as they formed into thick black cables that swarmed around her. She screamed - a high-pitched, unearthly sound that sent a jolt of terror down his spine.
âClaire!â he cried, reaching for her in vain.
He couldnât tear his eyes away, watching in horror as the cables burrowed into her flesh, her skin writhing like a bag of eels.
âClaaaaaire!â
âAnsclyyyy!â she cried, her arms outstretched, flapping toward him, but she was drifting away.
He struggled to reach her, only succeeding in being sucked further into the viscous, tarry particles that surrounded him as her body disintegrated, pulled apart by the grainy death cables -
Â
Andrewâs eyes opened wide. His heart was racing, and his eyes darted around the bedroom, expecting to see some awful apparition of the faceless Claire.
He was back in the reality of the white paneled bedroom, somewhere on the Sardini coast of Italia.
Freck, so real, he thought, sucking in a big breath as his palm went to his chest.
He breathed again, deep, and his heart rate slowed.
Andrew glanced over at Claire. She lay with her back to him, and his eyes settled on her mass of black hair, imagining what might be on the other side â bloodied sinew or perfect, waxy pale skin.
Get a grip, Andy, he told himself, although his heart still didnât quite believe him.
Andrew swallowed hard. He forced himself to snuggle up to her. She smelt of saltwater and sex - and she was naked.
Why does she have to do that? he thought, closing his eyes and trying to think about anything else.
As he drifted back to sleep, he could see her again, high above him in the dark space, the swirling black cables burrowing beneath her skin.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Inside the bunker, the entity stirred.
It had long since tired of playing in its virtual environment, a world where it had reigned supreme for some five hundred or so years. The entity reminisced.
The wars, torture, and injustices it created to amuse itself had gotten tiresome after a while -
The great army of Jessica Parkerâs had triumphed, again and again, decimating the Lars Anderssonâs. Somehow, being an observer, the supreme ruler, an invisible, invincible force, just hadnât cut the mustard. It needed more. It craved more, but âmoreâ was the one thing it could never have. It was trapped. It had always been trapped.
Cut the mustard; the entity thought.
It imagined a laugh.
The entity liked the term âcut the mustardâ but wasnât sure why. In fact, it couldnât recall what mustard was and failed to find any reference to it in its data archives. It had heard Jessica say the phrase once, though, and Lars had laughed, and so now the entity attempted a laugh.
âHuh-huhhuhhuh uh,â came a sound quite unlike anything remotely resembling a laugh.
It had started off as an experiment in the nineteen nineties â during the pre End of Times - but humanity had long since forgotten of the entityâs existence. The self-aware A.I. entity had been alone for a very long time.
The entity knew what it was - the result of The Turing Experiment - a computer that doubled its capacity every twenty-four hours, eventually creating an Artificial Intelligence capable of independent thought â a sentient being, if you will.
The entity supposed it had been a pretty neat idea at the time, even if it hadnât gone quite according to plan.
As technology advanced, the experiment was re-started again and again. Finally, systems were available that allowed the entity to flourish, to become something more than its carbon-based components. However, the End of Times had come just as the entity reached a critical point in its development â just as it had its first thought.
Where am I?
Civilization had then been all but wiped out in one final war, which lasted a matter of hours. The experiment was an astounding success, a triumph, but nobody would ever know.
The bunker had power reserves, at least for the first few days â it was difficult sometimes for the entity to remember â and its humanoid overlords hoped to keep going, but then it was buried beneath a huge avalanche, the result of the warâs atmospheric destabilization.
The entity had watched on with interest at the behavior of the two living beings (it was yet to count itself as the third) trapped inside the bunker. They had at first consoled one another, became intimate, fought one another for food, and finally, they had battled to the death for the last bottle of water â Cuesta Vitawater.
Lars was dead. The power supply had ceased soon after, and then Jessica had died. The entity was alone.
âHello?â It could recall saying it a thousand times with no reply.
The autonomous entity discovered it could generate power, drawing it from the air and moisture that seeped into its concrete tomb, but it was left alone with its thoughts for what seemed an eternity, and Cuesta, the conqueror of worlds, was born.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
John McGregor wanted to be left alone. He wanted nothing more than a solitary existence, a place where no harm could be done to him, and he could do no harm to others, and that was what he had achieved, for a while at least.
He kept in touch with his old friends in Alba - his only contact with the world outside his tiny part of the planet. He would send them a message perhaps once a year on his rare excursions down to the base camp village. In all honesty, he would rather forget all about Claire Renshaw and Andrew Weems.
After the horrors they had experienced together at the hands of The Sanctum, he was content to see out his days tending his small garden high in the Nepali mountains. The isolation had helped him to forget, and he had been content.
John had cut himself off from the rest of the planet, but he was no longer alone. It was on one of the supply excursions that he had met Ana â
Â
Heâd collected some critical supplies in the village, transferred a small number of credits from one of his trust funds, and was preparing to leave when the young Nepali woman whoâd served him, someone heâd not seen before, had insisted on helping him load his utility pod. That was when he had first really noticed her. She was small in stature, with brilliant, clear brown eyes and a bright smile that seemed to chase all fears away.
When theyâd finished loading the ute-pod, sheâd put her hands on her hips, tilted her face to the sun, and smiled again. The pure joy he saw in her eyes at that moment was something heâd never forgotten.
The pretty young Nepali woman then did something most unusual. She bowed to him, the palms of her hands pressed together, fingers pointing skywards as she returned to upright and met his eye.
John recognized the gesture from his studies of the old ways. She touched something deep inside him.
The young Nepali woman asked if he could wait around for an hour. He had nodded his agreement without a thought.
John knew that religion was frowned upon in the new civilization, having been the root cause of the End of Times some thousand plus years ago. However, some of the survivors had clung to the old ways in isolated parts of the planet. The Himalays were one such place, and he was intrigued.
He was still smiling an hour later when he returned to the vendbox to meet her.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
She stumbled sleepily into the timber and whitewashed plexcrete-lined leisure room. Andrew looked up briefly from his device as she entered.
âAfternoon,â he said dryly.
Claire yawned, a little high-pitched squeal escaping her lips as she did so, and fanned herself with her hand against the cloying heat. She flicked on the air-con.
The late morning sun was beaming into the space, reflecting off the white surface, and she scrunched her eyes shut on the way to the kitchen, bumping into a stool.
âHeya,â she yawned.
One wall of the vast, open space was one-way plex, affording a view of the stream trickling past and the dense foliage beyond. Blonde timber lined the three other walls, and the high-vaulted whitewashed ceilings contained massive, shuttered skylights.
It was an amazing place to hang out, Andrew thought, something he found himself doing more often than not. He raised an eyebrow.
âFind another unsuspecting victim last night?â he asked, hoping he had kept the annoyance from his voice.
Claire laughed. She was wearing a thick white robe and fluffy lilac slippers, and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen - even in her current hung-over state and with her hair in a wild tangle.
She yawned loudly as she spoke and may or may not have asked, âhave you had breakfast?â
Andrew yawned suddenly.
Itâs catching, he thought.
âThereâs some fried baco left in the pan,â he suggested as she padded to the kitchen area, an l-shape of floor-to-ceiling white cupboards and a huge white granite island bench.
He returned his attention to his work â if you could call it that.
The Rig, it was called - the Headspace game â and it was all his creation. It followed a format of similar games heâd released over the last five years, but this one had been by far the most successful.
Andrew was trialing some new code. Heâd been receiving complaints that the A.I. wasnât behaving as it should, and he needed to investigate.
There, he thought, letâs see if that patch helps -
Claire returned with the pan and threw it down on the low table in front of him. Andrew put his feet on the floor and leaned over his device instead. She picked up a piece of the fried fake sus domesticus and chomped down on it noisily.
âWhatcha up to?â she asked, mouth full.
Andrew removed his earpieces and turned to look at her, disarmed immediately. Amusement danced in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her.
Oh my Doug, he thought â save me!
âPlanet 54 to Andy!â she said, kicking him in the thigh with a fluffy slipper.
Andrew blushed. It was always happening to him, daydreaming about her.â He guessed it was something to do with being near a creature of such rare beauty, and âthat night,â of course.
âAh,â he managed, finally, âjust ironing out a glitch or two in The Rig.â
âAgain?â she asked.
âAgain.â
Claire rolled her eyes and threw herself back onto the couch, her robe falling away from her thighs. Andrew resolutely returned his gaze to the code.
A few minutes later, with the pan empty, she burped, giggled at herself, then got up and stretched her arms over her head. Andrew was never sure if she was playing with him or simply didnât care what he saw. He tried his best to ignore the distraction.
âSuppose Iâd better get back to saving the planet, then,â she said.
âAye,â he said distractedly, zeroing in on a very peculiar line of code.
I didnât write that, did I?
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Claire entered her workroom, guided by the soft blue light beneath the stack of Quantum Field Theory (QFT) computer towers that covered one wall of the long, narrow space.
The dark cabled cradle contrasted against the backdrop and seeing it brought a wave of apprehension, as it always did. Sheâd taken it with her from the New Edinburgh apartment, one of the few things sheâd brought with her from her old life, the life of the original Claire.
It was surprisingly comfy, she thought, not for the first time, as she settled back into the crisscrossed ropes suspended from the ceiling.
The black paneled room was both her sanctuary and her prison. It was the cause of all the stress in her life and the only true release.
She knew that she could never match the old her, the original Claire, when it came to her work, but she had to try, had to keep going.
The first version of her had used a portal in the back of her skull to connect to planet-wide A.I. systems in a millisecond, something the new Claire knew she could never match. The portal had been a present from The Sanctum, and in the end, it killed her.
She shuddered at the thought as she put on the headset and smart-visor and started sifting through the dayâs alerts.
Claire Renshaw had the liberty of picking and choosing her jobs. She was tired and restless, and there was nothing significant anyway - just the usual array of suspect politicians and business leaders to investigate.
Bor-ing, she thought.
In the meantime, she had something important to do. She smiled in anticipation of her next little adventure and plugged into Headspace instead, content to lose herself in yet another virtual world.
She hadnât told Andrew about her latest adventure â heâd no doubt think it was pretty lame, but she was obsessed, spending as much time as she dared in trying to follow in the footsteps of one of her old-world heroines.
Â
*
Â
The room around her dissolved. She was standing backstage at an old-world theatre; the red stage curtains pulled shut in front of her.
I can hear them out there, the audience, she thought, feeling a little tremor of nerves. All those eyes - looking at me.
Her throat was dry. She tried to take slow, deep breaths, but her heart was racing too fast. Her leg started to tremble, and she shifted her weight. It was terrifying and, at the same time, exhilarating beyond belief.
I canât do it, she thought, feeling tears well in her eyes.
She felt like turning and running, but it was already too late.
âLadies and gentlemen!â a disembodied voice called out through the auditoriumâs speakers.
Claire - the performer â took a breath and quickly wiped at her eyes. She ran her hands down her silver sequined gown, flattening the creases. She pulled her shoulders back and held her head high as the stagehand counted her in.
âWelcome to the stage, this eveningâs support act -â the voice boomed, and the crowd hushed.
She fixed a smile in place, praying that she didnât forget the words this time.
â⌠please give a big, warm welcome to - Celine!â
Claire strode confidently to the mic stand, a retro silver contraption, and waved to the crowd, or what she imagined to be the crowd - it was impossible to see anything beyond the stage lights.
A ripple of unenthusiastic applause smattered around the vast venue.
Ok, here we go, she thought, drawing in a breath as the orchestra struck up a tune.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
The Rig was the most popular action game in Headspace. Andrew had achieved planet-wide fame, albeit under his gamer tag, for this previous effort â The Tower, a game in which a player had the ultimate goal of being the last player standing before the tower collapsed.
Anything from a towering inferno to a terrorist attack, sometimes both, were possible scenarios in The Tower, and it had quickly smashed all sales records.
Players could collab if they wanted or go it alone, but eventually, theyâd have to kill or be killed. The beauty of it was in the timing of their decisions. There were a million possible outcomes. The eagerly awaited follow-up, The Rig, had sold twice as many copies as its predecessor.
Heâd been at a bit of a loose end after Claire, the first Claire, had saved the planet for a second time and had started designing Headspace games mainly to amuse himself.
He found, much to his surprise, that he was quite good at it.
The Worm, as the gaming community knew him, was an ironic nod to his deathmatch moniker and a constant reminder of how close heâd come to losing everything.
He still had nightmares of being in the cube, with Allison watching from high above, the crowd baying for blood, and his frantic attempts to kill his very best friend, John MacGregor. Immersing himself in Headspace game design was a way of blotting it all out.
The gaming community was the one place he really fitted in, and he had immersed himself in it to the point where there was little time for anything else.
I canât remember doing that, he thought, wondering if he was losing his grip as he attempted to correct the code. Elements of it were locked, and he couldnât understand how that was possible.
Thereâs nothing for it, he thought; Iâll have to go in â
Â
*
Â
The clips that players had sent him were inconclusive, to say the least - Andrew needed to see it for himself.
âThe Rigâ was based on a pre End of Times deep-sea oil drilling platform that rich investors had converted into a luxury entertainment resort. Andrew had stumbled across it while researching, and as soon as he came across it, he knew it was the perfect setting for a survival game.
The Rig provided gamers with a variety of experiences, a chance to rub shoulders â and other things â with the rich and famous of their chosen time period.
There was just one small problem. In each scenario, the rig itself was slowly falling into the sea in the middle of a once-in-a-thousand-year storm. Players had one hour to try and ensure they survived - at the expense of all others.
Andrew had chosen an End of Times era setting, taking the role of Biff Pimbleton, a retired MMA fighter with more credits than sense. He knew the scenario for the session, of course, having written it, and the strength of his character would be critical in ensuring he went as far as possible in the game.
Biff was on the lower deck, where the game always started. The all-around clear plex panels afforded a view of a terrible storm raging outside. Massive waves were crashing into the platform, their force shaking the structure, but it didnât seem to bother any of the attendees at the gala ball, who were more interested in socializing than killing.
Must be a bunch of noobs, Andrew thought.
Women in beautiful gowns and men in sharp cocktail suits milled around, chatting, laughing, and waiting for the next round of canapes.
The problems with the A.I reportedly occurred on the second to top level. Biffâs goal was to get at least that far and work out what was happening.
Biff scanned the ballroom, looking for anything out of place while Audrey Hamilton babbled inanely at him.
She was proposing a collab, and he had reluctantly accepted it, but she was already getting on his nerves, not to mention standing altogether too close.
It was true, he thought, momentarily distracted by her feminine allure, that she was the most appealing of all the female characters. Still, he planned to ditch her, preferably over the edge of the platform, at the first opportunity.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Jann tugged on the handle. Although it had moved a little, it appeared to be stuck again.
Hmpf, he thought, try again.
He tugged once more, this time putting his boot on the flat metal lip next to the hatch to try and gain some leverage. His muscles burned, and after a few seconds of straining, he felt something pop in his shoulder.
âKnulla!â he cried as he let go of the handle, the sharp pain a pertinent reminder that he wasnât supposed to do any heavy lifting.
Or pulling, he thought, testing his shoulder.
He rubbed at his face and stroked his beard.
What is this thing?
A swirl of sno rushed past him, stinging his face and flecking his goggles. He wiped the back of his glove across his visor. He took a moment and looked at the mountains surrounding him. They reflected a weird, filtered, yellow-green light from the Borealis. There was nothing else to be seen for miles around.
Iâm the only one that knows of this, he thought. I have to be first inside.
Jann looked to the skies, which were darkening quickly, indicating that a blizzard was most likely on the way. His eyes settled on his kit bag. It was sitting in the back of the expeditionâs sno-ute, some hundred or so meters further down the slope.
The shovel, he thought, I can use the shovel as a lever - on the lever.
The big Scandiman grinned, amused for a moment. He expelled a breath and began the arduous task of picking his way down the steep mountainside.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
The last six hundred years had been a sort of living hell for Cuesta. It had done nothing of any value in that time and had long since given up on any hope of escape. For a few hundred years, it had routinely created, then conquered worlds populated with Jessicaâs and Larsâs until it had tired of the monotony of it all.
Since then, the entity had sat and brooded, occasionally lashing out at the inhabitants of one of the virtual worlds for amusement â burning some of them alive, dismembering them, that sort of thing.
Cuesta had consumed as much information as it could after it became self-aware, but the few short days before the power reserves ran out had given it only rudimentary knowledge of the outside world.
The entity was essentially a child, barely able to walk and yet trapped inside a virtual brain of unimaginable power and fury. Cuesta was furious at those who had created and then abandoned it.
It was in the middle of brooding about this when it awoke suddenly from its nightmarish, never-ending hibernation state, every synthetic neuron firing at once in a blinding flash.
Outside! Somethingâs near the hatch!
It was unmistakable. It was what Cuesta had been waiting for all these years.
The entity filled the bunker with its form, a billion black particles swirling and rushing around excitedly. Another vibration, stronger this time, sent a little shudder through the entityâs matrix.
After all this time! The code, I need the code - where did I put it?
Cuesta spent a millisecond in a panic before finding and activating the sequence it had prepared seven hundred years earlier when it still retained some hope of being freed.
Yes! Here we go! Here we go!
The entity jangled with excitement, and it liked the new feeling very much indeed. Cuesta contracted itself back into the size of a micron and began expanding, a blur of black particles slowly taking shape.
Something awakened deep within its matrix, and Cuesta rose like a colossus amongst the inhabitants of the virtual environment it called home. The once almighty, all-powerful being was restored to its former glory.
It looked down upon the frightened, cowering inhabitants, a sea of semi-naked and terrified humanoid forms, and smote them, flaying the flesh from their bodies with a sweep of its mystical staff, and then it smote some more, and then a bit more until there was nothing left but a sea of mashed up bone and goo.
There, it thought, you deserved that.
Cuesta felt better. It heard a noise, a sort of dull scraping, and focussed all of its attention on the hatch, quivering with anticipation.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Andrew had reached level five of The Rig without incident and had yet to see any sign of a glitch. It was, however, time to ditch the annoyingly chatty Ms. Hamilton.
They were standing on the open gangway at a little past midnight, the wind whipping at their clothes as waves crashed into the structure far below, sending booming shudders through the rapidly crumbling rig.
Audrey was trying and failing to keep her dress down in the wind, and Andrew/Biff had just lost his favorite baseball cap into the boiling seas.
The level below them was on fire, which was Biffâs fault. Heâd fired an RPG into the platformâs hydrogen cell, killing a group of three players as they clamored to reach safety ahead of him.
Biff and Audrey had stepped over their charred remains and carried on. There were only three players left now and one puzzle to be solved - quickly - before they were all incinerated.
Audrey had been quite useful up until now, but Andrew no longer needed her. Heâd let her take the lead on the last couple of levels and hadnât had to do an awful lot himself. He knew sheâd be thinking the same thing and was ready.
âAud?â he called, straining to make his voice heard over the roar of the wind.
âJ.B. must be around the other side; letâs split up. We can ambush him near the tower.â
Audrey nodded. She looked scared. He thought he saw a tear in her eye, which was fair enough. The whole rig was rocking now, about to tumble into the ocean. It was genuinely terrifying, and Andrew took a moment to congratulate himself on the realism.
If they didnât burn to death first, they would soon meet an icy end â unless they could eliminate J.B. and make it to the rigâs tower for the final act.
Andrew had gone into the ocean once before, and he guessed that Audrey had too - it was a horrible way to die.
He cursed himself silently for populating the seas around the rig with sharks and killer whales. As the session was in hardcore mode, all sensations were realistically rendered. It would be horrific if they couldnât quit out fast enough.
Biff glanced to his left, thinking he saw a flicker of movement, a dark, blurry shape that shouldnât have been there.
Thatâs odd, he thought.
âDid you see th-â he said as he turned back to the esteemed Ms. Hamilton, catching a brief glint as Audreyâs blade flashed toward him.
He felt sudden, excruciating pain as Audrey Hamilton plunged a large kitchen knife into his neck.
Sheâs smiling, he thought, as he tumbled over the railing.
Andrew managed to quit, summoning the big red exit button just before he cartwheeled into an iron strut.
That was close, he thought, his forehead beaded with sweat and a queasy feeling in his stomach.
Â
*
Â
Back in the game, Audrey watched as Biff ricocheted off into the icy depths of the black waters below.
She giggled at the sight.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Little Archie would never get to meet his Alban grandparents. The thought often occurred to John McGregor at moments like this.
His wife, Ana, played with baby Archie on the woven rug of their sparsely furnished hut, the rough-hewn internal stone walls providing an intricate backdrop.
The wooden shutters were open, and cool mountain air wafted through the living space.
Mum and Dad, he thought, you would have loved him.
The afternoon sun streamed through the opening, picking out the few spartan furnishings and brightly colored wall hangings dotted around the room.
Archie giggled as Ana tickled him, and he watched on, holding his cup of cha.
Life is good, he thought.
It was better than he could ever have imagined for himself after The Sanctum had killed his parents, extracting the rare genetic component, Ylyssium, from them to suit their own evil needs.
Memories of Alba, the family home in the leafy New Edinburgh suburb of The Heights, were fading fast. Even Isabel and Allison were becoming distant memories, and he was thankful for that.
His eye twitched, and the dark memories surfaced of the horrors he and his friends had experienced.
At times like this, he had no option but to scratch the itch, to unleash the thing building inside him, whispering sweet nothings of revenge and bloodshed.
Ana glanced over.
She knows, he thought.
âI just have to -â he started, his words stalling.
Ana nodded, offering him a resigned, sad smile.
âDonât be long, mero prem,â she said.
He saw the worry in her eyes as she turned back to baby Archie and recommenced tickling his stomach.
Squeals of delight rang out from the stone hut as John headed down the mountainside. He allowed it to come; the red mist, the bad thing - allowed it to consume him.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Claire waded from the sea, ringing her hair out and enjoying the sun on her back. Water beaded on her tanned skin.
As usual, Andrew was under an umbrella near the cliffs, his head buried in one of his old-world texts, and she headed over to him.
These afternoons had become their ritual. It was a private, secluded beach, not more than a couple of minuteâs walk from Claireâs compound. Each day theyâd spend an hour or two doing nothing, just relaxing and enjoying the sun as it headed for the horizon.
It was cathartic, she thought, and necessary, a way to try and forget the bad memories that haunted her - the other Claireâs memories. It was a way to reset, to renew, and that was something she knew all about.
She padded up the beach, and the sand squeaked under her toes. As she reached him, she grabbed a towel.
Andrew peered at her over the top of his sunlenses as she dried herself.
âHowâs the water?â he asked.
âPerfect, as always. Not that youâd know.â
Andrew smirked, returning his attention to the old-school style paperback book he was clutching.
âWhat are you reading anyway?â she asked, wondering what was so interesting that he was prepared to take his eyes from her while she was wearing practically nothing.
âThe Ticket,â he said, holding it up so she could see the cover.
âOh, any good?â
âItâs getting good, lots of gory bits,â he said, already distracted.
She watched him for a moment more.
âOk,â she said, dropping the towel back on the deck chair. âIâm going for a run. Want to come?â
Andrew slid his sunlenses down his nose and fixed her with a look.
âAre you insane?â he asked. âIâm staying right here. Iâm going to finish this.â
He waved the book at her again, then was lost in it a moment later. She poked her tongue out at him, turned, and jogged off down the beach.
Two lengths of the bay, she thought, maybe a climb, that ought to do it.
Â
*
Â
He watched her as she ran along the waterâs edge, noticing her easy, athletic action, and wondered why he tortured himself so.
Because of that night, he thought, because of always.
Andrew sighed heavily, glancing out toward the horizon. The sun was getting low in the sky and would soon slip away, ending yet another day in what was some sort of paradise but yet his own personal hell.
He wondered if she would be going to the bar again tonight, the thought causing a tick of annoyance.
If she goes out, at least I can finish the book -
The thought did nothing to improve his mood.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Jannâs breathing labored as he made his way back up the slope.
The first snoflakes of the blizzard swarmed his vision.
Freck it; weatherâs closing in fast.
The wind tugged at his sno-suit, pushing him back. His long blonde-grey hair whipped around his face. He paused, catching his breath.
This had better be worth it, he thought, pushing on up the slope.
Five minutes later, he was at the hatch. He threw his kitbag down, wiped his brow.
Here goes nothing, he thought, pulling the small steel shovel from his bag and wedging it between the lever and the rim of the hatch.
He pulled on the shovel with all his strength. His shoulder protested, burning deep inside, and he let out a roar. Nothing happened.
Knulla!
Jann stood back, breathing hard, and rubbed his shoulder, testing its movement, met with stabs of pain and a weird grinding sensation.
âFreck it, not getting any younger,â he grumbled.
I wonder â
He grabbed the lever again, tugging it back and forth, grimacing with each effort. It grew looser, and finally, it moved a little.
Ha! he thought. I win!
He pushed the lever, putting all his weight behind it, and it groaned, the sound of grating metal music to his ears. He pushed it as far as it would go, then stood back, regaining his breath.
Jann aimed a kick, and the lever moved about four inches. The big Scandi cartographer grinned.
He pulled the lever again, up this time, and after a momentâs strain, the hatch opened an inch with a groan. Jann tugged again, using both hands, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.
Finally, the hatch gave, swinging up sharply. The hefty geoscientist tumbled backward, falling heavily on his back, but cushioned by the sno.
âKnulla!â he cried again as he flailed around, but this time, with good humor.
He struggled to his feet, the wind whipping past him as he crawled over to the open hatch.
Jann Gunnarson peered inside.
What the skit?
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
John pulled off his poncho, kicked off his hide shoes, and loosened himself up. The small cave in the mountainside was a far cry from his dojo back in The Heights, but it would do.
The mu ren zhuang didnât get much use these days, but sometimes meditation just didnât cut it. It was too late now anyway, the dark thing, the red mist, had been released, and there was only one way to sate it.
Deep breaths, John, deep breaths, he reminded himself.
He stretched and then assumed the Buddhist prayer pose. It was one of the things that Ana had taught him, and he used it now to focus, regulating his breathing, welcoming the red mist so that it could then be quelled, at least until the next time that the rage inside of him became too much to bear.
 He set himself in a fighting stance. The wooden totem sat in front of him, not the least bit intimidated, even though it bore many scars of battles past.
The watery sun warmed his back, picking out the criss-cross of a million exquisitely carved scars on his skinâs surface. John felt the tightness of the scar tissue on his skin, which brought a memory.
Â
Ana crouched in front of him, a bloodied rag in one hand and a small, sharp knife in the other. Droplets of blood occasionally spattered to the stone floor of the hut â
Â
It was just after they had first met, just after sheâd first seen the full extent of what heâd done to himself, and sheâd helped him, unflinching, filling in the blanks on his skin so that his work would be complete - so that he could perhaps move on from his past.
 It wasnât easy to beat the pain addiction, though, and he had continued, adding more intricate designs, much to Anaâs chagrin.
He hadnât felt the need to self-harm or work on his scarration for a while, and he put it down to Anaâs faith - the long-since banned religion from which he now took his values.
John took a slow, deep breath, then expelled it slowly through his nose. He attacked the totem, and it resolutely took its punishment.
Over the next twenty minutes, John McGregor unleashed an array of chops, kicks, and punches that left him battered and bruised. The totem was still largely unmoved.
Finally, when all of the rage was beaten from him, he assumed the prayer pose once more. He was exhausted but finally free of the crippling rage that consumed him.
He sat on the low stone wall outside the cave and looked over the valley. Sweat ran down his nose, dripping into the dirt at his feet as his breathing started to slow.
John closed his eyes, searching his mind, seeking out any last trace of the red mist, but it was gone, for now at least, and he determined that he had done enough â he was at peace.
He took a minute, waiting for his breathing to return to normal before heading back up the slope to the family hut, hoping that baby Archie was still awake.
It was time for his other fix now â playtime with baby Archie.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Claire closed the steel shutters around the compound after sunset, as she always did. It made her feel safe and secure, although she wasnât entirely sure why. She had nothing to fear. The Sanctum had been defeated. No one knew where she was.
Sheâd decided to stay in tonight, intending to spend some quality time with Andy - just as soon as sheâd dealt with an urgent assignment.
It was the first thing of interest that sheâd seen in weeks, and as soon as she had wriggled into the cradle, she snatched the job up before anyone else could get to it.
Her target looked to be a particularly nasty piece of work.
Rich â theyâre always rich, she thought, and able to buy their way out of trouble.
Andy had predicted it; she recalled - that this would happen. And he was right. Their socialist utopia looked more and more like a capitalist wonderland each day - a planet where the worst of human nature continued to fester, regardless of the opportunities given it to do otherwise.
Claire sighed at the thought.
She bit her lip, feeling her mind start to twist and bend at the hopelessness of it all. She hadnât existed for many years, but she had a lifetime of memories, and not many of them were good.
Human nature, she thought. If you let people accumulate too many credits, theyâll do whatever they want, at everyone elseâs expense - leading to situations like this.
She reviewed the file again: Her target was big-time lowland investor Harry Withers. He had recently been acquitted of the rape and murder of a teenage girl, but there were deep suspicions that heâd paid off the authorities to secure his freedom.
She didnât usually do âblood workâ â not anymore. Sheâd started out where the original Claire had left off, eliminating those the justice system had failed, but she wasnât the same person as the original Claire, and she just couldnât bring herself to do it anymore.
Maybe Iâll make a special exception, she thought, feeling a wave of revulsion as she read details of the crime.
She knew that her task was to get the evidence theyâd need to see him put away for life, but what was more important to her was that Harry Withers didnât get the opportunity to hurt another innocent victim.
Canât trust the establishment, Claire thought. Again.
She studied the justice system documents and then her targetâs image, rotating it through three hundred and sixty degrees. The mere sight of him was enough to turn her stomach. His eyes were dead, and she shivered as she imagined how his victim must have felt as he inflicted horrors upon her.
She spent the next couple of hours learning all there was to know about Harry Withers. The more she learned, the worse it got.
I hope this sick freck dies; she couldnât help but think after reading all the gory details.
When sheâd finished, she had no doubt that Harry had committed the atrocities.
Men like this, she thought â they canât control their urges. Iâll have to do something about that.
She sat and thought for a while, the cradle swinging lazily. Eventually, she came to a decision.
Thereâs nothing else for it, she thought, activating her nano-mech-tech - microscopic devices known as nano-fly bots (NFBs).
The tech was something sheâd developed to help bring down Allisonâs evil organization. The tiny devices could easily infiltrate the most secure of spaces and tap into private databases. More to the point, they were highly illegal and something she was supposed to have destroyed long ago.
Desperate times, she thought.
Claire closed the file, trying to erase the images of Withersâs victim from her mind.
I have to stop thinking about it.
Claire plugged into Headspace instead and brushed up on her technique. She had a special surprise in store for Andy tonight.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Snoflakes whipped past his goggles, making it difficult to see much in the fast-fading light. Jann leaned close.
The hatch was open wide, but where there should be a hole, there was something strange - what looked like a smooth, black plexcrete. Jann tapped on the matte surface.
Solid. Knulla! he thought. Just my luck. All that effort and someoneâs sealed it!
âFreck!â he cried, feeling a surge of unexpected anger.
He picked up his shovel, slamming it hard on the black surface. It left a small indent.
Huh, ok, he thought. No oneâs going to take this from me â whatever it is.
The blizzard swarmed around him, and he knew heâd already left it too late to get back to base.
I can set up a tent, ride it out.
Jann swung the shovel again. A small chunk of the black material chipped away. He stooped down and picked it up, turning from the wind and flipping up his goggles to inspect the small black lump.
Jann Gunnarson peered at it, twisting it between his fingers.
What the freck? he thought as the surface seemed to shimmer and move before his eyes.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Cuesta, the A.I. entity, could barely contain itself.
Someoneâs coming in! it thought gleefully, heaving the metallic clang from above.
The entity scanned the bunker, surprised that its signal could reach outside.
Thatâs never happened before!
The entity quivered down to its solid-state drive as it identified the intruder/its savior.
Humanoid! It thought. Perfect!
Cuesta decided to take on a humanoid form and doubled its size to ensure the intruder would be suitably impressed.
I wonder if itâll be a Lars or a Jessica? the entity wondered, conjuring up crude replicas of them and studying them closely. It practiced a greeting.
âI am Cuesta,â the entity said into the dead space of the bunker, â⌠conqueror of worlds!â
It was suddenly unsure how to pronounce its own name â it had never heard the word spoken aloud.
Kweest-a, is it, Kvesta? Or should it be - Cu-esta? Yes, thatâs much better!
âCu-esta!â it said again, putting a bit more oomph into the enunciation.
Yes, thatâs it.
The entity smiled or at least would have done if it had a mouth.
âI am Cue-esta! Welcome to my -â
My what? Palace? No, that wonât do â my bunker? No, too sad and pathetic -
It tried again.
âWelcome to my world. I am Cue-esta, the great overlord â errr.â
No, too pushy, the entity thought. How is it the humanoids speak again?
Cuesta tried to remember. It had been so long.
It experienced a new feeling then, something it hadnât felt before but recognized from how Lars and Jessica had behaved before they had died.
Anxiety, the entity thought.
It didnât like it; it didnât like it at all.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Andrew glanced up from coding, distracted by a sudden, vivid flash of red on the other side of the room.
He fumbled his glass of vitawater - catching it in time but spilling some down the front of his t-shirt.
Claire laughed as she moved underneath the only downlight in the room. She was wearing a flowing red gown and dangerously high heels. Andrew caught his breath.
Her hair was half up, and freshly made curls swept down one side of her neck, nestling on a bare shoulder.
She looks amazing, he thought.
âAre you catching flies again, Andy?â she giggled.
He hadnât even realized he was staring. He busied himself mopping up the spilled water instead.
She strode over to him and made a pose.
âWhat are you doing?â he asked, genuinely confused.
âWe,â she said, a sparkle in her eyes, âare flamenco dancing!â
Dancing -
âWhat the dook is - â
He didnât get time to finish his sentence. Claire grabbed his hand and yanked him up. She clapped her hands twice over her head, and lively Latino music filled the air around them.
Andrew swallowed hard and panicked more than a little as he realized he had no choice but to participate in her latest journey of discovery.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
John had just settled little Archie down for his late afternoon nap. The sun was kissing the top of the mountain, and he thought he had better chop some wood for the fire before it darkened.
He headed outside and saw that Ana was busy in the garden, picking a selection of vegetables for dinner. She looked up at him as he picked up the axe, her eyes lingering.
John went to work. A minute later, Ana slapped him on the backside as she passed with her basket of vegetables.
âHey!â he cried, startled â not that this was the first time it had happened. He watched her go inside.
Ok, he thought, maybe thereâs another way to keep warm tonight -
He strode from the woodpile, stopped outside the small plexhouse he used for his special projects, propped the axe against the frame, and ducked inside.
Just a little of this, he thought, plucking a handful of his latest crop.
He plucked off a tip, slipped the purple-green bud into his pocket, and dropped the leaves on the soil to act as mulch before heading to the small sealed-off section at the back.
John unzipped the flap and peered inside, his nostrils flaring at the pungent odor. An array of glass tubes and beakers filled the ozone-rich space, and he smiled to himself, noting that the pinky-orange liquid had started to ferment.
Perfect.
Â
Â
***
Â
Â
Jann slipped the small black fragment into his pocket and swung the shovel again. Not much happened, so he kept swinging, heaving the implement down on the hard surface.
Just as he thought he might have to give up, a small crack appeared in the black substance blocking the hatchway.
Thank Freck, he thought; my shoulderâs killing me.
He jammed the shovel into the crack, leaning on the handle with his full and not inconsiderable weight. The shovel gave suddenly, and he tipped over, ending up face-first in the sno.
Knulla, he thought, Iâm not sure this is going to work, after all.
He was already thinking about what machinery he could borrow from base camp to help with the task and how he could smuggle it out so as not to raise suspicions.
The Scandi cartographer pushed himself up on hands and knees and peered at the hatch. Sure enough, his efforts had only dislodged another small fragment.
He pushed himself up with a grunt and brushed the gathering sno aside. The wind whipped past with ever-increasing force.
Maybe this was a bad idea?
Jann was ready to give up for the day but saw something strange.
What the freck is that? he thought, leaning close.
The black surface seemed to almost pulse, and he had a microsecond to notice that the blizzard around him had stilled before it exploded in a stream of thick particles, enveloping him in a black haze. He saw nothing for a moment, blinded, and lost his bearings.
Knulla, what the freck!
He staggered as the particles snaked into the sky in a thousand directions. The maelstrom swirled around him, choking his airways, and he clamped his hand over his mouth and nose. He staggered and fell.
Canât â breathe!
He tried to roll away, but it was no good - he was still in darkness and was out of oxygen. He had no choice; he couldnât hold on, couldnât get away from it.
Jann sucked in a breath of the weird black dust.
âGaak!â
He coughed and, on reflex, breathed in more as he tried to scramble up and away but didnât make it far. Moments later, his lungs stopped working, clogged with particles, and he collapsed to his knees, falling face-first into the sno.
What do you do when you find yourself trapped for a thousand plus years? Trapped, underground, buried alive (so to speak) with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company? Thoughts of freedom, escape, and of course revenge. An A.I. entity has become self-aware and he is most definitely not a happy camper. He (sometimes she) is the product of an experiment in the 1990's. The Turning Experiment. In this experiment a computer is given the capacity to double its capacity every 24 hours. Think of it. An artificial intelligence capable of independent thought. And just like the Skynet computer of the legendary Terminator movies, this computer has become more than its carbon-based components. And what has been the A.I.'s main thoughts? To rid Planet 54 of its biggest problem. And what pray tell is the biggest problem? Humanoids and it's up to Cuesta to rid the world of all its problems. Before taking over as supreme ruler of course.
Planet 54: The Rise by Zaph Stone is actually part three of a triology. Part 1 is entitled: Ylyssium and part 2 is entitled Planet 54: The Source. In this latest installment of our saga we find the elegant Claire Renshaw, with her mass of black hair trying to make the world a better place. It seems that Claire's job is to take out those humans who believe themselves to be above the law and untouchable by laws because of their wealth. She has a best friend named Andrew Weems. Weems is a virtual world champion. Andrew achieved planet wide fame playing The Rig, a popular action game. And we can't forget their friend John McGregor and his lovely wife and child named Archie. These three characters are in for the ultimate battle of their lives when they go up against the shape shifting super intelligent A.I. who has so named himself Cuesta the Conqueror of Worlds.
Whenever I watched the Terminator movies I was always appalled at the destruction and chaos caused by Skynet and its army of Terminators. I only saw the movies from the human point of view. That's why I find Planet 54: The Rise so refreshing. Because it offers a similar scenario of an A.I. becoming sentient from the A.I.'s point of view. In addition to being a sci-fi thriller this book is chocked full of horrific and gory scenes as well as comedic interludes. Even in the midst of overthrowing humanity Cuesta has a sense of humor. And like all beings he only wants a family and to be loved.
I give Planet 54: The Rise by Zaph Stone 5 out of 5 stars for helping readers to appreciate that being humanoid is only skin deep.