The Zero Code (Max Mars Book 3) Read online

  MAX MARS

  THE ZERO CODE

  TRIPP ELLIS

  TRIPP ELLIS

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY TRIPP ELLIS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WORLDWIDE.

  THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION. THE NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS, EXCEPT FOR INCIDENTAL REFERENCES TO PUBLIC FIGURES, PRODUCTS, OR SERVICES, ARE FICTITIOUS. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, ACTUAL EVENTS, LOCALES, OR ORGANIZATIONS IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL, AND NOT INTENDED TO REFER TO ANY LIVING PERSON OR TO DISPARAGE ANY COMPANY’S PRODUCTS OR SERVICES.

  NO PART OF THIS TEXT MAY BE REPRODUCED, TRANSMITTED, DOWNLOADED, DECOMPILED, UPLOADED, OR STORED IN OR INTRODUCED INTO ANY INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, WHETHER ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL, NOW KNOWN OR HEREAFTER DEVISED, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER EXCEPT FOR THE USE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS IN A BOOK REVIEW.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Thank You!

  Max Mars

  The Galactic Wars Series

  The Tarvaax War Series

  Author’s Note: Hurricane Harvey

  Connect With Me

  1

  Max was not going to let the scumbag get away. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her lungs sucked in huge breaths of air. Her quads burned as she raced down the sidewalk. She weaved her way through the sea of pedestrians, trying to catch up to the small man who was unusually fast. Max plowed through the horde, drawing the ire of many. She was like a linebacker blitzing the quarterback, planting her shoulders into the offensive line.

  “Hey, watch where you're going, lady!” someone said. It was a common refrain.

  The little bastard she was chasing kept craning his neck back over his shoulders. His eyes were wide with fear. No sane person wanted to be chased by Max. At least, not when she was pissed off. Her angry scowl was an indication that it wasn't going to be a pleasant encounter when she finally caught up to the little runt.

  Max raced through the steel canyon of skyscrapers. Exotic masterpieces of architecture. Clean lines and sharp angles. The shimmering surfaces reflected the colorful lights of the bustling city—turquoise, amber, red, and green flickered across the glass. Hues of purple and blue filled the night sky. Patchy wisps of clouds drifting through the air. Sov Islaa was a sprawling metropolis. Max was racing through the heart of it.

  With over 30 million people packed on top each other, Sov Islaa was a cold and impersonal mega city. It was the height of culture, and the depths of depravity. The type of place where you could find whatever you were looking for. And if you had money, everything was for sale.

  Max was there for one reason, and one reason only.

  Her eyes narrowed as she saw the man turn down an alleyway. She clenched her jaw, tilted her head forward, and ran even faster. Within a few strides, she rounded the corner, racing into the alley.

  The man she was chasing glanced back over his shoulder, eyes round like saucers. His mouth hung open as he heaved in breaths of air. He hadn’t run this far since high school, and the spare tire around his midsection wasn’t helping anything. He wasn't going to be able to keep this pace much longer, and he knew it. A steady diet of cigarettes, junk food, and no exercise was going to send him to an early grave—even with modern medicine. Sweat dripped down his face, and his feet smacked the concrete, echoing off the narrow alley walls.

  Dumpsters and trash filled the passageway. The sour decaying stench of garbage pierced the air. A pungent bouquet of rotten fish, chicken, and eggs swirled in Max's nostrils. It mixed with the delightful aroma of stale urine. The alleyway apparently served as a public restroom for the homeless.

  A slight smirk curled up on Max's lips. Despite the distasteful fragrance, she had something to grin about. Halfway down the alley, obstructing the path, was a hurricane fence. It was topped with concertina wire. The man she was chasing wasn't going to get very far.

  His name was Bartok. He leapt onto the fence, stabbing his fingers into the open links. He pulled himself up as fast as he could, attempting to scale the 12 foot high monstrosity. His eyes regarded the razor wire with trepidation, but somehow it seemed less formidable than Max. He was doing his best to scale the chain-link fence, but his toes were losing grip, not quite small enough to fit through the links to provide adequate footing.

  Max was almost to him. She leapt into the air and grabbed onto Bartok, body slamming him to the concrete. All of the air rushed out of his lungs, and the back of his head smacked against the hard pavement. He saw stars for a moment. He gasped, but the impact made his body forget how to breathe. Panic filled his face as Max hovered over him. Desperate for air, he finally pulled a mouthful of oxygen into his lungs.

  "Where is he?" Max growled as she placed the barrel of her .45 against Bartok's temple.

  The gunmetal gray weapon picked up tones of blue from the night sky. It was a powerful weapon. One of Max's favorites. It was old school, and Max liked that. With the hammer cocked back, and her finger around the trigger, it wouldn't take much force to blast Bartok into oblivion.

  “Who?" the little man stammered.

  Max's face tensed, and her nostrils flared. "You know goddamn good and well who!”

  “Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  “Really?” Max said, her voice thick with sarcasm. "Then why did you run from me?"

  “I wasn't running from you.” Bartok stuttered as he fumbled for words, “I was just trying to get a little exercise.” He tried to smile, hoping Max would buy into his bullshit.

  Max had enough of his nonsense. “Look, you little dirt bag, I know you know where he is. You've got three seconds to tell me where I can find Silas Rage, or you're going to get an introduction to a trivexium tipped hollow-point round.”

  “I don’t know anybody named Silas Rage.“

  "One…”

  “I'm telling you, you’ve got the wrong guy. There must be some kind of misunderstanding.”

  “Two…"

  Bartok's nervous eyes gazed at Max's angry face. "Come on, Lady. You can't just kill me?"

  Normally Max had the face of an angel—dark hair, blue eyes, porcelain skin, plush lips—but now she looked more like the devil, ready to send this creep straight to hell.

  “Three…" Max's finger gripped the trigger, pulling it back slightly—just to the point of firing.

  Bartok let out a desperate cry, “Wait! Wait! I’ll tell you where he is.”

  2

  “I’ll take you to Silas, but you’ve got to promise to let me go,” Bartok pleaded.

  “You're in no position to negotiate."

 
; “I’m in every position to negotiate. What have I got to lose at this point?”

  Max pondered this a moment. She eased up on the trigger a little. "Alright. You take me to Silas, I'll let you go. But let me just give you a little piece of advice… You try to screw me over, I'll kill you. Are we clear?"

  “Crystal.”

  Max pulled the pistol away from Bartok’s temple, then yanked him to his feet.

  Bartok dusted himself off. “Trust me, I'm not going to try and screw you,” then he added with hopeful eyes, "unless, of course, you want me to.”

  Max glared at him with a look that said keep dreaming.

  She pushed him forward and marched him out of the alleyway. They weaved through the crowd, making their way back to Winston.

  He was a sleek XR-709 service bot. He stood 5’10” tall with composite plastic body panels over an alloy skeleton. Designed by the famed sports car designer Zapharini, and manufactured by Robo-Dynamics. Precision crafted gears, servos, and joints allowed Winston to have smooth and fluid movement. A composite smart-polymer allowed him to form expressions on his face plate. He was state-of-the-art, and one of the more expensive models.

  Max squinted her eyes with curiosity at the site of several patrol cars blocking the roadway at odd angles. Red and blue lights flickered across the glass. Several hostile officers had their weapons drawn, advancing toward an alleyway.

  “Drop the weapon!” an officer shouted. His fierce tone echoed off the buildings. He wasn't playing around. They all looked like they were itching to unload their weapons into the target.

  Max's eyes turned from curiosity to concern as she realized who the target was. “Oh, shit,” she muttered to herself. She distinctly remembered her last words to the robot were, “Stay here, and stay out of trouble.”

  Winston hovered over a dead body in the alleyway. Crimson blood oozed from the corpse onto the concrete. Winston had a pistol in his hand, and a look of shock on his face.

  At first glance, it didn't look good for the robot. But it was a seemingly impossible crime. Behavioral inhibitors prevented robots from causing harm to humans. It was hardcoded into their neural processing chips. It was theoretically impossible, yet Winston was looking like the perpetrator.

  Max knew Winston well, and violence wasn't in his personality.

  “I said drop the weapon. Now!" the officer yelled again. His nameplate read J. Chapman. He was a Sergeant in the Sov Islaa police force.

  A crowd was starting to gather, trying to catch a glimpse of the action, but yet still keep their distance.

  Winston looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

  Max grimaced. Silas Rage was going to have to wait. She muttered to Bartok, “Today is your lucky day. Beat it."

  She didn't have to tell the little creep twice. He took off running and didn't look back.

  "Winston, put the gun down!" Max shouted.

  In theory, the robot had to comply with any command given by a human, providing it didn't conflict with its basic programming to preserve human life. Winston's eyes flicked to Max, then back to Sergeant Chapman. He contemplated the command for a moment. He looked terrified. Then he decided to ignore the commands.

  Winston turned and ran down the alleyway, zigging and zagging. The officers opened fire. Plasma bolts streaked down the passageway toward the fleeing robot. The glowing blue beams illuminated the area, setting the faces of the officers aglow with each burst.

  Winston’s erratic movement made him a difficult target. He was incredibly fast, and could anticipate the trajectory of the plasma bolts as they blasted toward him. He exited the alley and dashed into the roadway, streaking in between passing cars. Automated anti-collision systems caused the vehicles to break, disrupting the orderly flow.

  The SIPD officers chased after Winston. Max followed behind them.

  No human was going to be able to keep up with the robot. He wasn't going to get tired, or out of breath. His muscles weren’t going to get sore, and his joints weren't going to fail. Ever. Cockroaches would long be extinct before Winston's composite alloys would wear out.

  Max's mind filled with confusion. What the hell was going on? Winston was usually a timid, neurotic robot who was generally concerned with his own, and everyone else's, safety. He got skittish on interstellar transports. He had never acted out in anger. And he had certainly never shot anyone before. The closest he came was targeting an enemy’s weapon, leaving the attacker unharmed. And, in that case, the risk was justifiable in order to preserve human life.

  Winston turned on 42nd Street and raced north, weaving his way through the crowd. He hoped the flow of pedestrians would slow the officers down. Aerial drones would soon be overhead, tracking him. if he had any hope of escape, he would have to blend in among other robots quickly.

  The ratio of robots to people was pretty high. Every family had one. And if you were well-to-do, multiple robots weren't uncommon. They were like TVs of the modern era—one in every home. They could be seen in the streets, shopping and performing other mundane tasks for their owners. They were employed across a spectrum of jobs, but were limited due to Federation labor regulations—employers had to hire a certain percentage of human workers. For the most part, they peacefully coexisted with their human counterparts, seemingly happy in their subservient roles. Of course, there were the occasional protests, and anti-robot groups. Some using extreme violence to reduce what they saw as a threat to their job security and way of life. But for the most part, the robots had integrated into society. And society had accepted them.

  A robot murdering a human was something that just didn’t happen. This would make news. Sure, there had been robot involved fatalities in the past—situations where the robot had to choose between the lesser of two evils. Swerving a car to avoid killing a family of four versus a family of two. Mathematically, it made sense. Things grew more complicated when robots had to make choices between saving someone older with a criminal record, versus someone younger with their whole life ahead of them. It came down to programming algorithms. Clean and logical, for the most part. All stemming from the designers and developers at Robo-Dynamics. They were the largest manufacturers of artificially intelligent androids.

  Winston darted into the roadway again, creating chaos. He ran in the lane of traffic and grabbed onto the back of a passing truck. He leaped onto the rear bumper, like an old hobo hopping a freight train.

  Cops on foot rounded the corner, chasing after the robot. Patrol cars with lights flashing swerved onto 42nd Street, sirens blaring. They tried to weave through the maze of automated cars, which were programmed to pull aside for emergency vehicles.

  Winston glanced back at the flickering lights chasing him. Red and blue highlights glimmered in his synthetic eyes. Had he lost his mind? Was his neural network fried? Had his processing chip become corrupt?

  3

  Sirens pierced the air as a horde of SIPD patrol cars chased after Winston. He climbed to the top of the truck bed. As the patrol cars drew near, the automated truck driver began to pull aside.

  Winston’s synthetic eyes flicked to the oncoming traffic. He crouched down, then leapt from the top of the truck toward the oncoming flow of traffic. He timed his jump perfectly, landing atop another truck speeding in the opposite direction. He tumbled across the roof, clawing his fingers against the metal. He was sliding toward the opposite edge at a disconcerting pace. Falling off the truck and smacking the pavement below would likely result in trauma, even for a robot. Automatic accident avoidance systems in the oncoming cars wouldn't be able to react fast enough. He’d probably get run over and shattered into a million pieces.

  Winston finally latched on as his legs dangled over the edge. He pulled himself up and sprang to his feet like he was surfing the truck.

  Winston whizzed past the patrol cars streaking in the opposite direction. They scrambled to stop and redirect their pursuit.

  The truck wobbled slightly, but Winston had expert balance. His legs worked like
shock absorbers, keeping his torso steady. His sensors and predictive modeling algorithms allowed him to anticipate the movement of the vehicle and adjust accordingly.

  The truck raced down the avenue, keeping pace with the flow of traffic, oblivious to its new passenger. Winston squatted down, then sprang up, leaping into the air. He clutched onto the underside of a crosswalk as the truck passed below. He dangled above the roadway, hovering above the traffic that darted underneath his feet. He pulled himself up and climbed over the railing onto the crosswalk. He dashed east, then spiraled down a staircase to ground level. He sprinted across the street and disappeared into a building.