Code Breakers: Beta Read Online Free Page B

like a giant blister on the skin of the earth. Semi-translucent, he could only make out blurs and a few colours inside.
    A panel within the Dome slid back into the architecture, giving him access to the landing zone below. He’d often watch them land from his office at Cemprom, the tower across a field from there. Gerry thought back to a few weeks before all the madness had started. He’d never thought he’d find himself in a shuttle returning from the station.
    The Dome’s landing zone was two clicks away. He came in slow and steady. The shuttle’s auto-piloting system managing the speed and angles perfectly. The access area loomed into view, and he finally let his muscles relax. Despite what had gone in, it still felt like returning home, or at least more like home than the station.
    The shuttle reduced its speed, engaged its VTOL, Vertical Take Off and Lift engines, and settled down on a Steelcrete landing pad.
    He sat up, took a deep breath, and waited for the nausea to pass.
     
    ***
     
    Gerry eased out of the cockpit, pushed the door up and over his head. On shaky legs he made his way down the ladder to the landing pad. Rows of similar shuttles were lined up next to his. Behind the landing pad, looming into the air, the control tower stood like a great mushroom with its indomitable grey tube and wide flat dish on top. The morning sun, still rising from the east, shone on the tower, casting long shadows over the low, flat-roofed buildings that made up the offices of the city’s aviation centre.
    A group of two men and a woman, wearing the usual grey and blue City Earth aviation security uniforms, stood like sentinels waiting for him. He recognised the woman as the ex-military spec guard who worked at Cemprom. She was the same one who had started his journey into the underworld. The one who crashed a stun-baton against his head when he dared question the validity of his D-lottery numbers coming up, despite being the algorithm designer and therefore exempt.
    Looks like she got a promotion.
    He approached slowly, waiting for his legs to readjust to solid ground. A refreshing cool breeze blew against his skin, providing sweet relief to the artificial atmosphere of the station and shuttle. Although he had to remind himself that the breeze was the result of the Dome’s filtration and fan system. It wasn’t as real as it seemed. Nothing in the Dome was.
    The security detail stood about fifty meters away, waiting patiently, hands behind their backs. Dark sunglasses hid their eyes. He didn’t recognise the two men. He ran a check on their ID, hooking into City Earth’s resource database. The Family had given him higher security clearance than he had while working for Cemprom.
    - Run ID Scans on the two guards, Mags , he said once he confirmed his connection to the system.
    - Running .
    Although it was a command within his mind to his AIA, it was translated into machine code.
    That’s what made him unique: the ability to spin code directly from his mind and traverse and exist within networks as if he were nothing but binary data. It was also what set him apart from The Family’s AI constructs, and even Enna’s transcendents. They were ultimately bound by processing limitations.
    He was something approaching post human. And ultimately, that’s why The Family wanted him and Petal back at the station: so they could engineer more like him, using the tech that lay dormant within her.
    Gerry had asked Amma and her engineers why they couldn’t replicate what they had done to him: implant the same AIA and neural nano network into young kids.
    Amma replied, “If we could do that, Gerry, we would have. You’re different. Whereas the other children could interface with their AIA, use it like a computer. None were one with it like you. You are your AIA and vice versa. It’s in your DNA, not just an implant. We can’t replicate that reliably yet. You were a one-off. But between you and Petal’s ability to shape and