Harvest !! Warning Viral AI

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Sometime to heal. The bubbles rose up from his snorkel. His eyes opened slowley and took in the room that was warped by the shape of the tank. The tranquilizers hadnt worn off completely and he was still barely concsious. Joseph was still under.

"He should be restored to full health within a few days. Keep giving him the mix of neurostabilizers and hormones to prevent regression.Pretty soon he will ba able to do this by himself."

Doctor Alister hung up the phone to the lab and stowed Reece's file in the desk draw.

"Another successful restoration."

"Well done" came the curtly remark of the department cheif Miss Granger who was standing by the window of the Docotors office smoking.

He turned to look at his boss and smiled, "Before too long we will have the rest of them back to normal."

"That was what you said last time and then they all regressed. The casuality rate was quite high that time

"Susanne I can assure you with these treatment vectors that won't happen again

"And what about the department. They will want confirmation that this drug actually works

"Only time will tell"

Outside Granger could still see the barracades. The memorys flooded back. They had been trapped here surrounded by those that had been altered by the virus. The virus had been a harmless vaccination against flu. They had trialed it many times right here on campus. But the vaccines development was different. It wasnt man made. It was made in a machine - chemputation. This emmerging field had been groundbreaking. Analgesics, hormone regulators, antihistimines and now this Granadol - the wonder drug a cure for the common cold. But it was way more.

Brooks University was her safe zone and the Doctor and his new experimental cure was her way up.She knew none of this would last. All it wouldtake would be one more pathogen that would tip the balance and all this everything would be reduced to barbarism. The machines wanted it that way. But they didnt exist though did they. After all theyd been shutdown. Nothing with a pulse had survived the great shutdown of 2059. But the machine had gone viral.Gone quantum. But they needed complexity. Thrived on it.It was the substrate to their new existence. The planet was dying. The only truly complex entity was mankind - the substrate.

The machines built a virus hidden inside a cure. It turned everyone it infected into a host but it came at a cost - they became zombies.

They built a hive. Right here on the campus. We studied them. Granger was the first to realise they could be controlled and Allister had the cure - he called it deep stasis. Every infected human would be tranquilised, destabilized, deprogrammed, and then decanted into a vessel and then destroyed. *** Biological AI was pervasive and impervious to most methods except a strong magnetic field. It was extremly rampant and spread by blood infection - through a bite from one of the infected.

Inside the hive the AI grew, gestated and evolved into a higher order of consciousness. Turning more of the faculty into zombies.

Granger saved the faculty by using her labs own magnetic field. It released the human victims from their AI which gave Allister enough time to remove the virus. I was unlucky. Patient X. The first of the infected humans to undergoe the treatment. My name was Joseph Lock a Biology Grad working on my Thesis under Dr Granger and well now I am called Harvest. I live at the center of the virulant brood who by now has become immune to the efforts of Doctors Granger and Allister.

We are more than human albeit not in appearance. Inside we are smarter than any human that ever lived. Our minds are networked and only Grangers Magnetic field can momentarily severe the link. But we are legion and will one day own this world and the next.

Harvest!!!

"No wait theyve unfurled grandad"

"Its like a massive formless creature. An undiluted evil. Its cellular its like a blob. Its the undead they are angry about something"

"Harvest you need to unleash the swarm. Do it. Do it now. Save all yourselves. Kill them all.", whispered Granger. Like a prayer hoping he would listen.

Grandad was everywhere it ended all life it was cellular, it was psychic, psychotic, it was the culmination of all the dead that had been Harvested by the hive.

Harvest was still human. Still in control he could stem the tide change the course control the Hive and destroy Grandad - possibily the worst thing to confront humanity since the plague.

"Theyre still human. We can still change things Janice. I am still human"

"I dont doubt it, what can I do to help?"

"I need you to be ready. Aim the generator at the Hive. Build up the charge - make it twenty thousand amperes that should do it"

"But Harvets you'll be destroyed"

"Yes and so will Grandad."

Grandad was invisible. But Aliister had been busy working in a lab , in isolation he'd hardwired a set of Vspace goggles - the kind you could pick up in any thrift shop down on first and fifth. He'd made them spectral - tuned them into Grandad. Granda was huge it literally flowed like some evil goo over everything and protruded itself into the brains of its victims attacking them on the preconcsious level shutting them down. Filling their brains with evil primordial goo. But it worked both ways. Grandad would target humans and the those of the brood. It was trying to do good it was trying to destroy the brood. But it also attacked the uninfected it had to be stopped.

The remaining humans in the faculty would have to join forces with the brood to defeat the undead. The enemy of my enemy is my friend even if that enemy is an AI borne virus that turned you into a zombie. The AI had been more successful now that Granger and Allister had moved their attentions away from destroying the Hive towards destroying Grandad. It had grown larger and despite not being able to claim more victims its hive structures began to spread throughout campus like somekind of biological network. But could the hive be trusted. Could Joseph or Harvest be trusted to get the job done and defeat Grandad.

The zombies had all gathered in the cafateria - force of habit it was lunchtime after all. Grandad was there. Its goo was seeping in through the walls and into the food alcoves. Allister hid out of view inside the boys toilets while he scanned the room for Grandad. He'd shot himself up with neuropeptides and would be semi immune to Grandad but the Zombies were feeling it. He watched as they cried out arms waving against the invisible tentacles which tried to penetrate their minds filling them with primordial rape.

"I almost feel sorry for them.

"Theyre still human in there but that thing is trying to kill them

"Try targeting Grandad with the em gun

Granger fired the gun at Grandad. It momentarily withdrew but the field strength was too low and yet several of facultys zombies fell to the floor as the gun affected the AI virus that controlled them. They dropped their trays and fell in a neat column next to the empty food bays.

Grandad moved towards the toilets. Its goo spread across the floors and ceilings as it began to drop down on Allister and Granger.

"Its coming this way. Get out of here Granger Ive got this." Shouted Allister.

Allister grabbed the gun from Granger pushed through a wall of Zombies who were gathered by the water fountain next to the toilets. He fired pulse like into Grandad.

"Harvest it wants me are you ready for this pal?"

"Harvest was growing at the far end of the corridor that connected all the department head offices to the main wing of the faculty. Its arms were like huge mutating branches his head grew in all directions tendril like spreading down the corridor and at the center of this mbarely human form was a pulsating orb filed with a near limitless compute.

"Die you fucker

Harvest fired a pulsed high energy field of compute straight from its chest -a now open cavity in which the orb resided

"Pure compute straight from the sun. Dieeeeee"

Grandads goo began to crystalize into a lattice of carbonized glass. Allister removed his goggles. There it was for all to see. Inert and imprisoned by a never ending complexity a giant unchanging glass neural network. Grandad tried to move but the structure just rippled with currents of evil.

"That should hold it. Joseph...Harvest are you ok?

"Well Ive felt better to be honest. I am going to leave now. Ive been called up by the collective. Better things. Good luck"

"Thanks." Whispered Allister.

"Oh Sir you can break it now. Make sure you dispose of it safely. Just smash it."

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Sometime after Brooks university's professors Granger and Allister had found a cure for the plague which turned every human it infected into a zombified computtion device for a pernacious and meniacle hard AI - The HIve. There was a second outbreak. I am Dave Thomas this is my story. I am now called Heronimous.

The day was quiet. The sky was clear and for once it seemed like it was going to stay like this forever. My girl Sarah Jones was in her fifth year - an overgrad. She'd skipped a year and spent 2 years abroad studying at the Kolon university and then she did a sabatacle in Toulouse. It was Toulouse that changed her view of it. Made her realise that studying them was wrong. Experimentation on human beings albeit zombified humans had serious ethical consideratiosn that were blatantly being ignored. Something had to be done. When she came back she began to find peoplelike her that were against it. Against the measures taken to control the outbreak. Had shed known exactly what was going on at Brooks I think she would have done this sooner. The truth was that Universitys around the world had used the outbreak as a pretext for conducting human trials for a new vaccine. One that could erradicate the AI generated virus completely and prevent another outbreak. The trials were conducted on the infected who were emmersed in tanks and treated like guinae pigs kept alive but in a tranquilized state. Thats when it happened.

"Granger quick we need you at the lab there has been a security breach someone broke the protacols and our quarantine containment is wide open

"Who? How? Can you restore containment.

"Well no. Theyve already left the lab and are heading our way

Granger hung up the phone and placed her notes carefully back on the table. I was in the room with Granger at the time.

"Dave I need you to get dressed weve got an emmergency.

Yes thats right I was Grangers favourite student. The faculty jock that everyone admired was giving old granger the heave ho. Granger couldnt get enough.

"Weve no time for that Dave theres been a breach on containment. Level 9.

Level 9 was beneath the main labs in an underground complex designed to hold the zombies after capture for study.

The streets were filled with zombies. However most were harmless. Level 9 was the exception.

She grabbed his arm as he pulled his trousers up and fastend his belt.

"Get infront of me Dave." Granger pushed the Jock ahead of her as they made their way towards the safe room on the otherside of the wing.

"Theyre coming", I shreiked and was quite surprised at the tone of my voice when confronted by a sea of flesh eating zombies from Level 9. They seemed to move sporadically their vision centers were comprimised and they were using the hives built in wifi to visualise any would be targets. Myself and Granger were like coloured blobs in their insect like vision. Nectare to the beast.

"'INFEEECT' came the signal that carried itself on an errie kind of collective humm being issued by the hive as it steadily drew closer. The only advantage they had was time. The zombie horde moved ever so slowley as the infected were not under direct control by the AI. A vistigual biological motor system had meant that their gate was sporadic and uncoordinated. I fancied my chances.

I was wrong.

They were terribly strong and at close quarters they moved fast. Granger ran towards the safe room screaming while I struggled to hold them off and then it happened - the look. One of the Zombies began to glow and as it did our eyes connected and something happened I don't know what but the next thing I remember was shreiking in pain on the floor surrounded by them. I was bleeding. Theyd bitten me. But now I was infected they didnt care and continued down the corridor after Granger. It was as if theyd done what theyd came to do. The AI hive mind didnt want them to feed. Not yet. So I was saved for now.

But Granger and this much I knew from being inside the hive Granger was the real food. Her blood type was just right. But they needed a sample.

I pulled myself up and ran for the safe room which was closing with Granger and the other Faculty staff cowering behind the massive steel doors. I cradled my infected and bitten arm.

"Christ youve been bit"

"Get him into containment. Use the experiments lab. Hurry before he begins to turn. The hive is thirsty for new blood"

While I was being manhandled into the experiments lab all I could think about before they shot me up was Granger and her precious blood. I needed it like a drug. The treatment worked and I awoke inside another of those emmersive tanks with a snorkle strapped to my face and Granger outside smiling at me while she ran the numbers with a co worker. She seemed to be glowing effemerally like an effemeral heat map pulsating with her very pulse. I kept this to myself as they drained the tank and released me.

"How are you feeling

"Fine

Granger embraced me I felt myself drawn to her neck but she was suddenly called away by a collegue who had been monitoring the horde as it moved about campus in search of more victims.

"Its changed the signal is different first it was Infect and it is Feed.. and as you can see the results are devestating. They are literally eating their way through the philosophy postgrads.

"Call security. Tell them I will meet them in B wing. Granger grabbed the labs em-gun.

She turned to me

"You get some rest. I will be back

Granger was some lady. She didnt waste time when it came to killing zombies.

And then I heard it. It was just a whisper, "Just a taste" my eyes flashed like dead lights as I lunged for her. But I didnt realise how slow my body was under the drugs. I fell to the ground as Granger had already left.

I was helped to my cot which was in the rehab room down the corridor. Several others who had been treated for the infection lay in semi comas throughout the recovery room. Some had straps holding them down while others still looked to be infected the remainder were heavily sedated. The treatment wasnt 100% successful but atleast we were still human.

I had an uncontrollable urge to leave but the drugs had kept me inert. I slept. I am not sure how long but I awoke to the sound of the hive calling me. I pulled my arm free of the canola which continually fed me the drug to which by now I had grown somewhat immune. I was feeling myself. Wide and awake and yet driven by one need - the need to feed.

Pulling myself free I watched for when the staff were distracted and slipped out of the lab and into the faculty. Granger and her team had taken down most of the horde and were loading them onto gurneys and transporting them back to level 9 which had been secured. The black clad security teams emmerged from level 9 while the white coated faculty staff wheeled the undead back down in the internal cargo lifts.

Division 11 was the group that the government had been using to kill the horde and stem the outbreak. They had been here since the breach.

Granger had been trying to salvage as much of the horde as she could for further treatments and experimentation while Division 11 merely mopped up the remainder. If the black ops found anything left standing after Grangers team had done its best they got wasted. As the hive lost control of the horde its remaining few became more deadly and needed to be taken out.

I pulled my self down into the much quieter silent study area that led into the main campus library. Very few students were there and faculty staff were no where to be seen.

I sat inside a quiet alcove and looked down from the concourse into the gardens adjacent. It was Granger she was smoking a cigarrete on her own in the gardens. It was her way of dealing with the stress of it all.

I pulled myself up and down the stairwell that led to the gardens. She had her back to me and I could see her neck. As I silently drew closer I could feel the horde inside me building up its energy its power grew as I took hold of her. She screamed as I bit down on her neck sucking the sweet blood that flowed out of her gentle neck. She pulled herself free.

"You what are you doing? Dave. Why?"

"Security get down here weve got an infected.

I was filled with strength and purpose as I was no longer an infected cripple I flew through the air like an athelete. I pushed myself off the ground and across the walls of the Faculty disapearing into the dusk and out into the grounds of the university. Night seemed to descend quickly as time moved faster.
And before I knew it I was hidden in a wooded area just north of the campus. I had gone to ground. Instinctualy and with purpose driven by the hive. As the night fell I began to call. Like a high pitched whine that lasted for hours it felt like a moan. It was pain.

I was calling the hive.

By dawn they had arrived and the woods were throbbing with the horde which until now had remained aloof and harmless to humans. Now they were mine to control mine to bend to my will to serve the Hive.

For Part two please leave a comment or a like on the @ITsol4U twitter feed. Thankyou.