Rupture Read Online Free Page B

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    Chip Munroe—two hundred and twenty pounds of bio-enhanced but defective muscle, bone, and soft tissue—hefted Joss onto his shoulder and began running.
    Chip saw a strange look in his friend’s eyes, and it ... wasn’t Joss . Not much scared Chip, but even he was frightened. His cranium could take a gunshot to the skull, and he’d survive. He had the fortitude of ten men, but whatever looked out of Joss’s eyes at him had scared him in some primordial place.
    Still, he held onto his friend and ran him to the other end of the building, where the clinic abutted the main campus. By the time Nurse Betty helped him get Joss into a clinic bed, the first mark appeared on Joss’s forehead, as if stamped there, a circle within a circle, and the letters: SWML.
    Poor Chip knew next to nothing about this stuff. And Nurse Betty was clueless, but even Chip knew a Rogue AI brand when he saw one. The two of them looked to each other for help in a brief moment of panic.
    “Not good,” Chip said. “Not good at all. Get his shirt off.”
    Nurse Betty did nothing, so Chip ripped the tee from his torso.
    Brands began appearing on Joss’s flesh, one after the other, as if pushed up from the inside.
    Later, the local doctor who arrived discovered several on Joss’s chest, his right leg, and his left calf. The brands meant nothing to the doctor, who was just a pediatrician. When Joss awoke and he saw what was on his left palm, he stifled a scream. Branded. He told the nurse, “Get the Alumni Association Council,” then rolled over and started crying.
    * * *
    In the back of the auditorium, Simone and Kimberlee sat together, whispering to each other like long-lost friends. Principal Smalls had called an emergency meeting over the ubiquitous P.A. system as word spread after lunch about the accident. Kimberlee had explained that campus was usually quiet after lunch, even during the busy end of summer activities. But today, marching-band practice had been canceled, and the football team would cut its afternoon workout short. The other clubs would also shut down for the day.
    The first ten rows of the theater auditorium were crowded with the jocks. The drama kids sat on the stage because they thought they owned the place but jumped down when the theater director arrived. He and his kids went to the back and waited for the vocal team to arrive. The music director and marching bandleader meticulously directed her kids into the open area in the middle.
    The chatter in the auditorium echoed off the walls. Simone picked up a few conversations:
    “—Joss got branded—”
    “—finally happened—”
    “—I wonder who got him—”
    “—had to happen—”
    “—that’s what he gets for playing with the big boys—”
    “—I heard it was a Rogue ... ”
    Principal Smalls walked in from a side exit, mounted the stage, and stood behind a lectern. He was a short, balding man with a paunch and a threadbare blazer that was way too tight for him. Two buttons at his besieged belt line had popped off, his shirt barely staying tucked. He tapped the mic, feedback barking from the PA.  
    “Everybody settle down.” He looked at a few notes, and said, “Joss Beckwith is in serious, but stable condition. We’ve kept him at the clinic because that’s the best thing for him right now.” The auditorium grew silent in an instant. “What we know is that he’s been branded by an unknown ‘Consortium-grade’—yes, that’s what they called it—a ‘Consortium-grade Super Artificial Intelligence’.”
    An even deeper hush fell over the student body. Principal Smalls appeared to gulp, as if his voice might crack next, and maybe echo a whimper.  
     Simone looked around. Most of these students probably only had the faintest idea what a Consortium-grade SAI was, but if you asked any of them, down to the very last one they would tell you it was a bad thing.
    Simone knew exactly what it actually meant: Rogue AI. The worst kind of bad.
    She