by Isaac Hooke
All identifying information had been deleted from the public portion of Rade’s embedded ID before the mission, but apparently, they already had him in their system, no doubt thanks to one of his previous Sino Korean ops.
Rade cracked a grin. “Howdy.”
“I am Jian, your Keeper,” the man said. “The name means Sword in your tongue. You are no longer Rade Galaal in my presence. You are Shoe. Stand up, Shoe.”
Rade shrugged, then stood. He felt stiff from sitting in the same position for two hours.
“We have captured your teammates, Shoe,” the man said. “If you want them to remain unharmed, you will answer my questions.”
Rade couldn’t tell if the man was bluffing, so he said: “What teammates?”
“Cyclone, Bender, and Pyro,” the man said. “We know all about you and your mission. You came to steal the alien technology we discovered. When do you expect pickup? And where?”
Rade didn’t answer.
The Artificial glanced at the robot beside him. “Bring the one named Cyclone.”
The door slid open behind the pair, and the combat robot departed. Rade saw Tahoe’s name abruptly appear on his HUD.
“Tahoe!” Rade sent.
But Tahoe didn’t answer.
A moment later the robot returned. It gripped Tahoe tightly around one arm, and squeezed inside next to the Artificial. Tahoe’s face was beaten all to hell.
“When do you expect pickup? And where?” the Artificial repeated.
“Don’t tell them,” Tahoe transmitted.
Rade simply stared at his friend.
The Artificial calmly retrieved the pair of black gloves from its belt and slid them on. Then it fitted a palm around the top of Tahoe’s head.
“With one squeeze, I can crack his skull like an eggshell,” the Keeper said. “Is this what you want, Shoe? To see your friend and teammate die before you?”
Rade stared at Tahoe for a moment, then returned his attention to the Artificial. He remembered when he had been interrogated by a Sino Korean Keeper the very first time he had been taken prisoner by them, all those years ago. That particular Artificial had been female, and armed with the Snake, a device that could deliver pain at will without causing any actual harm to the victim. Apparently, Keepers used different tactics when they had multiple team members captured. Why bother with the Snake, when you had the threat of killing a team mate at your disposal?
“We were supposed to be picked up half an hour ago,” Rade said. “In the Dragon crater, about ten klicks to the northwest.” That was the answer he and the others had all agreed on before the mission. The actual extract location was fifteen klicks to the southeast.
“When is the extract craft expected to return?” the Artificial pressed.
“Two days’ time,” Rade answered. “After that, we’ll be presumed missing in action, and no further pickup attempts will be made.”
The Keeper nodded. “We shall see if you have spoken the truth shortly. What is your embedded ID password?”
His embedded ID contained not just a cached copy of different popular MilNet sites, but several classified blueprints in addition to his mission logs. Definitely not something one wanted to fall into enemy hands. The last time Rade had been interrogated, he didn’t have the necessary access rights to delete that data—the military wanted his commanding officer to be able to review the audio and video logs of the mission when he returned, after all, and deletion would interfere with that. Of course, that didn’t account for the fact he could always turn off his Implant if he really wanted to hide what he was doing, but that wouldn’t help in this situation, because he needed to hide his past, not his present.
Thankfully, Lieutenant Commander Scotts had specifically enabled deletion capability, and Rade executed the appropriate command.
Still, it would take some time to overwrite all that data.
He had to stall…
“I’m not sure,” Rade said. “I have—”
“Tell me immediately,” the Keeper said. “Or your friend dies. I know you’re attempting to delete the contents of your database at this very moment. But if it is erased before I can withdraw the data I need, I promise you, I will kill him.”
Rade remembered how hard he had fought, mentally, when pressed to give up his password. But that was when he was alone. With the only life at stake his own.
“My password is Alejandro has his own star 200125,” Rade said.
He cancelled the delete command.
The Artificial smiled. “Thank you, Shoe.” He removed his hand from Tahoe’s forehead, and the other robot led him away.
“You shouldn’t have given him your password,” Tahoe sent.
“I had no choice, my brother,” Rade transmitted. “You would have done the same if it had been me standing before you instead, with my hands in the life of the Keeper.”
“Would I?” Tahoe said. “Don’t be so sure.”
In moments Tahoe was out of range.
The Keeper remained silent for several moments, its eyes defocused as if sifting through the data in Rade’s embedded ID.
“You have deleted some of your database,” the Artificial said. “But not enough to matter. This is acceptable. You and your friends will live, for now.”
Rade tried to rush past the Artificial then, but the Keeper shot out a hand and wrapped it around his neck. He lifted Rade off the floor with one arm.
“Uh, uh, uh,” the Keeper said. He squeezed tightly, so that Rade couldn’t breathe. His vision became spangled, quickly darkening.
All of a sudden, he found himself smashing into the far wall of the cell and sliding to the floor. By the time he hit the concrete, the door had sealed.
Rade slumped. He considered issuing the delete command once more, but that would probably only result in another visit from the Keeper, and Tahoe.
All those Korean-Chinese remote interfaces he detected? Those were likely comm nodes in the room; no doubt they were accessing his database even now, transferring every file stored within.
He pulled up the network statistics on his Implant, and sure enough, his outgoing network bandwidth was almost maxed out.
He pushed himself up and sat up straight once more.
Hell with it.
He’d rather save Tahoe’s life than protect a few classified blueprints. He had no doubt the Sino Koreans had gathered most if not all of that data already anyway, thanks to their moles and their cyberattacks on Earth-side United Systems bases. Yes, the most Rade had revealed was their true mission. Which had been based on incorrect intel.
He laughed at the absurdity of it all. These Sino Koreans really thought they were going to get something valuable from his embedded ID? No, the only value they’d really get out of him and the others was in trade. That probably explained why he felt so calm at the moment. He knew the Sino Koreans weren’t going to harm him and his friends. They’d want to exchange him and his team for other captives: Sino Korean soldiers or political prisoners. Whether or not the United Systems government would agree to such an exchange was another question. The Brass was just as likely to disavow the presence of him and his team as negotiate their release. Rade didn’t think a rescue attempt was on the table, given how impenetrable the current facility probably was. The Sino Koreans certainly would not keep a team of MOTHs in a minimum-security prison.
He looked at his hands. Well, all he could do now was wait. Maybe it was time to pull up a few virtual reality programs after all.
3
A few hours later, a small panel opened in the bottom of the door, and a bowl slid inside. Rade stood up, and sat down next to the door. He scooped up the bowl. It contained cold gruel. No spoon.
He ate it using his fingers. It tasted terrible, but he was hungry.
When he was done, he licked the bowl clean, and set it down by the door.
He felt suddenly sleepy. He supposed it was because he hadn’t eaten in a while, and the meal was rather heavy. Then again, it was also
possible his captors had added something extra to the food.
Rade fell asleep. He dreamed of Shaw. Dressed in swimsuits, they laughed together, holding hands on the beach. They walked across the wet sand as waves lapped against their ankles. They passed two topless women who played badminton without a net, but Rade hardly noticed them. He had eyes only for Shaw.
But then she was gone. He walked alone on that beach. He was looking for her. But then he saw a starship taking off in the distance, and he knew she was on it. They were going their separate ways again, all too soon. He waved at that ship, but he knew she couldn’t see him, it was impossible.
“Shaw!” he called. “Shaw!”
Rade awoke to a scream.
It sounded high-pitched. Alien. And it seemed to be coming from behind his door.
He leaped up when a loud thud filled the cell. A metal dent appeared in the door beside him. Rade immediately scrambled to his feet and pulled himself away from the entrance. He positioned himself on the far side of the cell, and wished fervently that there was some furniture to hide behind, or use as a weapon.
The thudding came repeatedly, coinciding with fresh inward-facing dents in the door. Whatever was out there was certainly trying its damnedest to get in here. Some of the dents appeared claw-like in shape. He had a feeling he didn’t want to meet the owner.
A small gap appeared in the metal as those claws repeatedly rammed the same area. It began to enlarge, and Rade spotted what looked like a reptilian talon.
As that hole grew bigger, he realized he was in plain sight, standing as he was on the far side of the cell.
He rushed forward, to the door, and flattened himself against the wall next to it. He held his breath as the gap continued to enlarge; the pounding stopped, and a portion of the door peeled back as talons gripped the edge of the opening. Then, part of some alien head shoved through. At least, he thought it was a head.
Rade remained motionless. That portion of the head he could see was oblong, black and glistening. One eye darted about on the fore of that head—or perhaps the side, he couldn’t really tell, given how little of the head was exposed. It seemed to be searching the cell.
Rade got lucky, because the door was bulging inward so drastically, that he resided just beyond the field of view of the eye. At least, he didn’t believe it could see him from its current angle. There was no room for that head to rotate, either, not with the edges of the hole pressing right up against it.
A loud exhale, like that of a bull, came from the creature. Then the head pulled from view.
Rade heard a clatter outside the cell, sounding similar to talons on concrete or metal, which quickly receded, telling him the creature was moving on. He slumped as the clatter grew softer in volume, and the knots in his stomach slowly dissipated when the sound became inaudible. They were replaced by a sense of dread.
“Rade, are you okay?” came a muffled shout.
“Tahoe?” Rade called. He glanced at his overhead map. Tahoe still wasn’t showing up. But he was nearby, obviously, though their connection was muted by the walls.
Rade went to the jagged puncture the alien had made in the door and peered into the moderately wide room outside. “Where are you?”
He noticed the wreckage of a combat robot on the floor nearby, its body covered in puncture wounds, as if chewed by sharp teeth or crunched by talons.
“In a cell,” Tahoe’s voice came in reply.
Rade glanced dubiously at the gaping hole in front of him, and then tentatively gripped the edges, taking care to place his hands where he was least likely to cut himself.
Then he applied pressure. The muscles in his forearms corded as he slowly but steadily enlarged the gap. He paused after a moment to catch his breath, and to massage the lactic acid from his muscles. Then he got back at it again. It took him three separate sessions until he had enlarged the hole enough to squeeze through. Even then, he was reluctant to do it, not with all those sharp edges, so he took some time to pull the ones on the bottom sections down and to the side.
Finally, he deemed the gap safe enough to traverse, and shoved his upper body through. He leaned his torso on the bottom edge, reaching for the floor. He grimaced as the edge dug in. While it wasn’t sharp, because of his body weight it still felt like someone had dropped a loaded barbell onto his chest.
He pushed forward with his feet, and finally touched the floor with his hands. That allowed him to take some pressure off his torso. He shoved off entirely with his legs, so that his lower body was airborne behind him and pulled himself through. His left calf did snag on one of the sharp edges on the top section of the gap, and he tore the undergarment, but luckily didn’t cut his flesh underneath.
He landed on the floor—concrete, just like his cell. He stood up. He resided in a room that was about three times the size of his previous cell. Hallways led away on either side. There were three metal doors in front of him—the one he had just emerged from with its gaping hole, and two others that remained intact and unblemished. Behind him were another three intact doors. In the middle of the room was a small desk. The punctured wreckage of the combat robot lay beside it.
“Tahoe, where are you?” Rade said. He cringed, worried he would attract the attention of more of those aliens. He gazed down both hallways to be sure none of them were coming.
“Here,” came Tahoe’s voice from directly behind him.
Rade went to the door and knocked. “This one?”
“Uh huh.” Tahoe knocked back.
Rade checked the remote interfaces, but still didn’t have access. He’d need Bender if he wanted to hack these. There were no other obvious overrides to open the door, so he retreated to the desk in the middle of the room. It contained a control panel and screen. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the login password.
He glanced at the maimed robot on the floor beside him. Was that the muzzle of a rifle protruding from underneath its torso?
Rade nudged the body with one foot, sliding the torso aside a short distance. Yes, the body was indeed covering a rifle.
He knelt, and pried the rifle out from underneath the wreckage. A plasma model. It seemed relatively intact.
Rade scooped up the weapon, wondering if the trigger would work for him. He suspected there was a good chance it would, since a lot of military tech was designed to work without lockouts—the last thing a soldier needed in the midst of combat was to worry about his rifle not recognizing him. If his fingers were covered in blood, or the weapon’s lockout mechanism failed to identify him, he was screwed. There was enough that could go wrong with a plasma or laser rifle during battle as it was.
He aimed at his punctured door and fired. To his delight, it released a plasma bolt that smashed into the door above the gap, and the area turned red hot.
He headed toward Tahoe.
“Get away from the door,” he ordered.
Rade fired several times, turning the metal from red to white hot, until he dissolved through it entirely. He kept unleashing bolts, taking care not to fire directly into the ever-enlarging gap, but rather along the edges. He could see Tahoe crouched inside, curled up in the far corner of the room. Like Rade, he was wearing his cooling and ventilation undergarments.
When Rade had formed a hole big enough for Tahoe to exit, Rade ceased firing and stepped back.
“That oughta do,” Rade said.
Tahoe approached the opening, waited for the edges to cool, and then pulled himself through.
“What did that?” Tahoe asked, nodding at the gnarled hole in Rade’s door. “I heard what sounded like an animal out here. It seemed… angry. It was trying to get you?”
“Yeah,” Rade said. “I’m actually not sure what it was. I only saw a bit of it. An alien of some kind, maybe.”
“An alien?” Tahoe said. “Or an SK bioweapon? It was breathing Earth compatible air, after all… could be our intel was correct about the SKs developing human-alien hybrids after all.”
“Either that, or somet
hing escaped from the alien starship the Sino Koreans unearthed here,” Rade said.
“Alien starship?” Tahoe said.
“Yeah,” Rade told him. “I spotted it earlier, when I was separated from you guys. It was underneath the mountain. This huge, flying saucer deal. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Sino Koreans accidentally set something free. Something capable of adapting.”
“And they just happened to do it after capturing us,” Tahoe said.
“Convenient timing, isn’t it?” Rade said.
“Fate always likes to throw us curveballs,” Tahoe said. “Makes life interesting.”
“Certainly does,” Rade agreed.
Rade and Tahoe knocked quietly on the other cells, but received no answer. Rade proceeded to fire at the remaining doors anyway, but the other cells proved empty.
“Guess the SKs didn’t capture Pyro and Bender,” Tahoe said.
“Or they did,” Rade said. “But are simply housing them on a different side of this prison. When was the last time you saw them?”
“When those hunter killers attacked,” Tahoe said. “Scattering us.”
Rade nodded. “That wasn’t a fun attack.” He glanced at his broken door. “I wonder why the creature picked my cell to ravage, when it left yours and the others alone. Do I smell that bad?”
“You were shouting,” Tahoe said. “I could hear you from here. You were calling Shaw’s name.”
“Oh,” Rade said.
“Bad dream?” Tahoe pressed.
“Something like that,” Rade said.
“Which way did the alien go?” Tahoe asked.
Rade considered both hallways on either side of the room. “The south, I think. I didn’t actually peer outside when it was retreating, but the sound seemed to recede that way.”
“Then we go north?” Tahoe said.
“I’d have to agree,” Rade said. “We move away from the creature.” He nodded at the wreckage. “If this combat robot couldn’t stop the alien with this plasma rifle, then the two of us won’t have any better luck, not until we find a better weapon.”
