by Dean M. Cole
Stepping through the now open door, Vaughn passed into the larger booth beyond. It was like entering an airlock, but instead of the vacuum of space, only hard radiation waited beyond the next hatch.
Vaughn bounced on his toes experimentally, seeing if he could sense any give. According to Angela, the floor of the booth incorporated a scale. The department responsible for safety and material control had used it to ensure nothing got left in the facility. They weighed everyone when they entered the tunnel and again when they exited. The department had to account for any weight changes before they could reenergize the collider.
Vaughn eyed the opposite door warily.
Angela had also warned him that passing through the next hatch would place him in the collider tunnel, radiation and all.
He looked over his shoulder. “Come on in. I ain’t dead yet.”
Mark entered the booth. “This sucks.”
Vaughn frowned. “Yeah, it does.” Pausing, he gave his friend a sidelong glance and hitched a thumb, pointing behind them. “You didn’t have to come. You were part of Team One.”
“Yeah, like I was going to let you hog all the glory.”
“Glory?” Still staring at the far door, Vaughn shook his head. “Your lips to God’s ears. We have to succeed for there to be any of that.”
“Well, I sure as hell didn’t want to be the reason you fell short.”
Vaughn looked up at the taller man. “Chewie! Was that a double entendre?”
“If the elevator socks fit, wear ‘em.”
“Damned shaved Sasquatch.”
Mark blew air through his nose. “Team One’ll have BOb. Without weapons, all you have to throw at the problem is bodies. What if it comes down to a point where success is just one person away?” He pointed back toward the other members of Team One. They stood huddled against the far wall, just visible through the now open entry booth door. “You’re right to have them hang back and try to find another way out, but we both know the Necks have likely sealed off all the emergency exits, too.”
Vaughn shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“Yeah, it’s a desperate, last-ditch effort.” Seeing Vaughn’s face, Mark held up a hand. “You’re right to do it. It’s a good decision, but I’ll be more useful with you than with them.”
Nodding slowly, Vaughn looked past Mark and saw BOb standing guard. The robot couldn’t enter the tunnel. It didn’t have much in the way of ferrous metals, but it did have plenty of circuitry and other components that would be affected by the collider’s magnetic field.
Mark pointed at the bot. “Angela positioned BOb and the rest of Team One so they’ll be safe when you open the door. She said something about their distance and angle from the collider’s entrance shielding them from most of the radiation. Heard her also say something about it being out of the magnetic field, at least the part that could cause damage.”
Standing just outside the entrance door, next to Angela and Bill, Teddy leaned over and peered into the booth. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Then he held up an unsteady hand and extended his thumb. “We’re ready, El Capitan.”
Peterson looked in and dipped his head.
Angela gave Vaughn a weak smile. “Let’s do this.”
Vaughn nodded at his team. Then he turned to face the booth’s opposite door and extended a tremoring hand toward its latch. Closing his eyes for a moment, he let out a short sigh. “Fuck it.”
Grabbing the handle, he opened the door.
No alarms rang out.
A Neck didn’t reach through the opening and grab him.
He didn’t feel anything either.
The increased volume of the collider’s electric thrum served as the only perceptible change.
Looking over his shoulder, he waved for Team Two to follow. Let’s do this.”
Before Vaughn could turn back toward the tunnel, he saw BOb look at him from the far side of the outer room and cant his head. Then the robot raised a hand. “Captain Singleton, something is wrong.”
Vaughn felt his skin tingle as adrenaline dumped into his system. Instantly alert, he tried to listen for approaching enemies, but he couldn’t hear anything over the electronic hum of the collider. “What’s wrong? What are you detecting?”
“Nothing … That’s the problem.”
Angela glanced at Vaughn and then back at the bot. “What do you mean, BOb?”
The robot pointed past them, indicating the collider. “I’m detecting no radiation.”
“Nothing? No x-rays?”
“No, Commander, I detect no significant increase within the range of my sensors.”
Angela glanced into the tunnel. Then she held up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”
She darted out of the booth and ran back to the control room. A moment later, she emerged with a screwdriver.
Holding up his hands, Vaughn stepped into her path, blocking her from getting any closer to the collider. “What are you doing?”
“Working a hunch. Get out of my way.”
He held his ground.
Angela narrowed her eyes. “I’m the one who told you about the danger. Now, move it, Captain.”
Raising hands in surrender, Vaughn backed away. “Be my guest. Just don’t get caught between that and the collider’s surface.”
Giving Vaughn a meaningful look, Angela opened her hand, allowing the tool to rest on her open palm. She pushed past him and stepped into the tunnel. As she moved, the screwdriver rocked gently, but otherwise, the tool didn’t so much as twitch.
Angela looked back and smiled. “This thing should’ve flown out of my hands and slammed into the collider. It didn’t even turn toward the ring.”
“Tool might not be ferrous, Command-Oh.”
Angela grabbed the handle and tapped the thing on the booth’s glass panel. “May not be magnetic, but it’s definitely metal.” She gripped the silvery shaft and shook her head. “Still room temperature.”
Vaughn looked from her to the three-foot-wide blue conduit that held the collider’s guts. He entered the tunnel and walked across the narrow path that lined the inner circumference of the ring. He touched the casing tentatively, pulling it back quickly as if he’d been checking a hot iron.
“Didn’t electrocute me.”
Lowering his hand back to the surface, he let it rest there. He looked at Angela. “Just a light vibration, almost a hum.”
Angela nodded and turned to face the rest of the group. “They’ve changed it.”
Teddy looked at her, his face a mass of confusion. “The Necks? What did they change?”
She shook her head. “I … I don’t know, but they’re not transmitting particles through it. The magnetics are offline.”
“Then what’s generating that hum?” Bill Peterson asked.
“I don’t know.” She looked at Vaughn. One corner of her mouth twisted upward. “But I do know one thing: we won’t have to leave anything or anyone behind.”
Chapter 27
Vaughn craned his neck and narrowed his eyes, but he still couldn’t see the ALICE experiment. It sat three-quarters of the way from CMS to ATLAS, and considering how long they’d been walking, he knew it wouldn’t be long now. They were close.
Thus far, they’d encountered no robots. Not so much as a mouse droid had crossed their path. However, from what he’d seen from Mont Salève, Vaughn knew the upper reaches of the ALICE facility were crawling with caterpillar bots.
Fortunately, they could now throw more than bare knuckles at the enemy.
After discovering the changes to the collider tunnel’s environment, Vaughn had instructed the teams to retrieve their battle rattle and weapons.
Over the last thirty minutes, the reunited members of Team One and Team Two had circled a considerable portion of the ring’s circumference.
The tunnel was large enough to permit the passage of a truck, but the three-foot-wide conduit that housed the collider’s tubes, or dipole magnets as Angela had called them, ran along the outer half
of the tunnel. Equipment and miscellaneous smaller conduits and cables cluttered the ceiling and walls, leaving only a narrow corridor along its inner circumference. The pathway featured a white centerline, giving it the appearance of a miniature roadway.
The tunnel’s gently curving circumference afforded them a long sightline fore and aft. Unfortunately, that also meant they could be seen for quite a long distance from either direction.
Careful not to make a sound, Vaughn jogged ahead and caught up with the robot.
BOb continued to advance, but looking over its shoulder, the bot gave the agreed-upon signals for no changes in radiation or magnetism. Then the robot pointed a bladed hand ahead and signaled all-clear, meaning he’d detected no contacts to front.
Vaughn looked past the bot, inspecting the tunnel to the limit of his vision, and then extended a thumb.
Working his way back toward the rear of the long formation, he passed Major Lee at its center. She smiled at him and lovingly caressed her highly modified M4 rifle.
For their long advance along the ring’s circumference, Vaughn had positioned BOb at the front of the formation while keeping the Army Ranger-turned-astronaut candidate at its center. Rachel’s sniper skills would be best utilized there, giving her the ability to engage threats whether they approached from front or rear.
As Vaughn worked his way toward the back of the slowly advancing formation, he recalled the discussion they’d had before departing CMS.
He had gathered the two teams in the tunnel. Raising his arms, he’d pointed in both directions. “We have two choices. We can go east and travel clockwise around the ring, or we can go the other way and head west.”
Angela had spoken up. “We should head west. It’s shorter.”
Mark looked in the indicated direction. “I thought there was another experiment that way.”
She nodded. “Yes. ALICE is in that direction.”
“Who’s Alice, Command-Oh?”
“Not who, Teddy, what. Colonel Hennessy is right. An experiment named ALICE sits between ATLAS and us.”
Bill Peterson’s eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait. Isn’t that where we saw the giant caterpillars coming up?”
Angela shrugged and pointed toward the opposite end. “Yeah, and we also saw them coming out of the experiment that lies in the other direction.” She gestured back to the west. “But this way is shorter, and ALICE is closer to the wormhole, so if we can’t find a working network connection inside ALICE, it’s also a shorter walk from there to ATLAS than it would be going the other way.”
Rachel looked at Vaughn. “Why not split back into two teams and go in opposite directions? That’ll give us some redundancy.”
Wincing, Monique had shaken her head. “I am not sure that helps our situation. It will effectively double our chances of discovery.”
Bingham scoffed. “I think that horse has left the barn, lassie.”
Squaring on the taller man, Rourke stepped between him and the lieutenant. “You don’t know that.”
Sour-faced, the wing commander glared down on the young doctor. “Listen here—”
“He’s right, Chance,” Vaughn said, cutting off the man.
“What?”
“I said, he’s right. We don’t know that we’ve been discovered. The success of our operation depends heavily on the enemy not knowing of our existence. Anything we do to increase our chances of being discovered goes counter to that mission.”
Bingham had frowned, but he’d said no more on the subject.
Vaughn had pointed down the tunnel. “We all go west.”
Now he shook his head. None of that mattered at this point. They’d already covered three-quarters of the distance to ATLAS from CMS.
All remained quiet on the Western Front …
So far.
After checking on Bill and Teddy at the back of the formation, Vaughn returned to his central position just ahead of Rachel.
Peterson’s limp hadn’t returned, so it appeared the knee issue had worked itself out.
Looking over Angela’s shoulder, he saw a widening ahead.
They had reached the outskirts of the ALICE experiment.
Gaining everyone’s attention, he pumped his hand in a slow down gesture.
All of the team members nodded, even the robot.
Stooping, they crept forward stealthily.
Vaughn hugged the wall that lined the inner radius of the gently arcing tunnel as he and Angela inched forward one small step at a time. They carried their rifles at the ready.
With the stock of his M4 pressed into his shoulder, Vaughn swept the muzzle left and right as he scanned the tunnel. Angela did the same a few steps ahead of him.
He saw nothing moving in his field of view.
Glancing back, Vaughn nodded to Rachel. The stealthy woman maintained her central position, hanging just a few steps behind him as they inched their way closer to the ALICE experiment.
He peered around Rachel and received a thumbs-up from Monique three car lengths farther back, just ahead of Rourke and Bingham.
Behind them, Bill and Teddy were bringing up the rear, just ahead of the point where the curvature of the corridor would have placed them out of sight of the main group. Vaughn had spread out the formation to prevent one enemy shot from taking all of them out.
Turning his attention back to front, he saw BOb crouching at the point where the tunnel widened to accommodate the ALICE experiment. Mark was leaning against the wall just behind the robot. The two of them were a good twenty meters ahead of Angela.
After craning its neck to scan the area ahead, the battle operations bot looked back and gave the all-clear signal.
Vaughn released a held breath and relayed the sign to Bill and Teddy at the back of the formation.
Turning back to front, Vaughn reached forward, but before he could tap Angela and signal for her to advance, a door just beyond her in the tunnel wall began to swing open.
The white carapace of a long, mechanical leg slid into view. Then the entire body of the Neck to whom it belonged emerged from the apparent side corridor.
The robot suddenly seized as it stared at Angela, its actions screaming surprise.
Then it did scream, releasing the same wailing siren sound that Vaughn had first heard when he and Angela had chanced upon a Neck in their Corsican nature reserve.
Unlike those bots, this one didn’t settle for pointing while it screamed.
The Neck reached out with all four of its hands and grabbed her arms, yanking them wide and causing Angela to drop her weapon before she could fire it.
Vaughn raised his rifle and tried to aim it at the Neck, but Angela’s writhing body blocked his shot.
He looked around the door and saw Mark and the robot running toward them. “Shoot it, BOb!”
The battlebot raised the EMP cannon.
A sharp report rang out.
Unfazed, the Neck continued swinging Angela like a shield.
The door the robot had exited through sat between BOb and the Neck.
Vaughn shook his head. “The goddamn door blocked the pulse.”
“Let me go!” Angela shouted at the robot.
She kicked its chest plate.
The Neck yanked her violently.
Flailing, Angela screamed out in pain.
Remembering how the alien bots had thrown heavy-assed street lamps, and fearing what that kind of strength could do to a human body, Vaughn lurched toward the scrambling pair. He leaned around Angela and thrust the muzzle of his assault rifle toward the flat disk of the robot’s neckless head and squeezed the trigger.
In the same instant, the Neck released Angela with all but one hand and triple-backhanded Vaughn.
It felt as if a freight train had slammed into his chest.
The shot went wide, punching through the door behind the alien robot.
The blow from the Neck knocked Vaughn from his feet and sent him flying backward.
As if moving in slow motion, he sail
ed over the collider’s wide, blue conduit.
Hanging by one arm, Angela searched her beltline with her free hand.
Vaughn slammed painfully into a piece of equipment and then dropped to the floor.
Just as he landed, a familiar snap and subsequent whine rose above the collider’s thrum.
Fortunately, it hadn’t been his bones breaking.
The sound had come from outside of him.
Scrambling back to his feet, Vaughn saw Angela still dangling from one of the Neck’s now motionless arms. In her free hand, she clutched the audibly whining alien EMP gun.
She kicked at the Neck’s torso again. “Get this damn thing off me!”
BOb yanked the still open door off its hinges. Holding the EMP cannon in one hand and the steel panel in the other, the battlebot looked ready to both pummel the Neck and shoot it. Seeing that they’d already immobilized the alien bot, BOb lowered his weapon and dropped the door. Then he started prying at the Neck’s frozen fingers.
Vaughn clambered over the blue section of pipe and wrapped his arms around Angela. “I gotcha.” He supported her weight while BOb worked open the enemy bot’s digits.
“Are you okay?”
The robot freed Angela from the dead Neck’s grasp.
Breathing heavily, she looked at Vaughn. “Yeah. Set me down.”
He lowered her gently to the ground.
Rubbing her left wrist, she turned and looked at the immobilized robot.
Mark peered around BOb. He looked at the Neck with wide eyes. It was the first time he’d seen one in person, up close.
This Neck looked like all the others. It had the same hips and lower legs as they’d seen before. They had the same basic design as had the two-legged walking tanks in the Star Wars movies.
The similarities ended there.
Where the body of the tank would have been, the Necks had a narrow waist topped by a widening white torso that featured four fully articulated arms. A white, disc-shaped head sat atop it all.
Looking around, Vaughn realized the entire group had collected around him and Angela. All of the members of the team stared at the Neck with open-mouthed amazement. Varying levels of horror twisted their faces, although Rachel’s look also contained an analytic keenness.
