“Aurelia voice recognized. Apply hand to biometric scanner,” the saw-blade droid said. Lights came on in the room, and a sensor illuminated showing Sky where to press her hand. She moved slowly between the two droids and pressed her palm against it.
“Standing down,” the droid said, retracting the saw. “Greetings, Aurelia.”
“Aurelia?” Danny asked.
“Old name,” Sky said, wiping her nose. It was the closest Lanvarian equivalent to her real name, and it reminded her of how young she’d been when she first came here. “Hawk, try not to activate the droids. I can’t disable every one in the whole city.”
“Is Tray going to be okay going into the hospital?” Danny asked.
“Don’t know.” Sky had never been to the hospital in Boone.
“Tray? Saskia?” Danny called, tapping his Feather. “Have you had trouble with any droids?”
“No,” Tray replied, exasperation in his voice. “I’m querying a nurse bot, but I’m not getting anywhere.”
“Tray, don’t activate the bot,” Sky warned. “Walk out of there now, before it comes to life.”
“To late to be before. The few we’ve got working so far have been very helpful,” Tray said. “They brought me medicine vials… but don’t seem to grasp that the vials are empty. Kind of like when Nolwazi informs our non-existent doctor of a medical emergency. Sometimes I think that AI paranoia really cripples us.”
“We try to learn from our past. It only took one uprising to decimate ancient Earth. Tray, the machines here went into an attack mode when they identified us as intruders,” Danny explained.
“You’re not at a hospital. I am,” Tray said. “The machines here have been helpful.”
“We’ll be careful, Captain,” Saskia assured.
“We may be able to use a Virp to control these bots and bypass their internal protocols,” Tray added. “If you find a mechanic bot—”
“Tray, you’d have to teach them how to walk again. Or move, however they move,” Sky pointed out.
“We can use these to fix the hole in the ship, though,” Hawk said, running his fingers over the smooth casing of the missiles. “We need hull plates, not power sources.”
“Vehicle patches are referred first to avalan quarry bots,” the first droid said.
“Quarry? We can’t forge our own metal,” Danny said, pinching his nose in consternation.
“Avalan is more of a clay in raw form. It’s really durable and an easy patch material,” Sky said, looking down at her grav-gun, thinking she might be able to tune up the weapon now that she was here. She could also hone the Bobsled’s navigation circuits. And Oriana’s. “I figured Brandon would recommend that for us. If we’re willing to take a few days and do this right, this will be our last stop before Quin.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye on the fuel,” Danny allowed. “We only have one more takeoff in the fuel tanks, so we have to make it count.”
“If I can get the grav-source on Oriana redirected to propulsion, it won’t even matter,” Sky said. “The avalan can help.”
“How many days?” Danny asked.
“Three. Five. I’m tired of crashing,” Sky said. Danny could hardly disagree.
The droid at the machine shop summoned a greeter bot to take the crew to the avalan quarry. The droids were only permitted along certain pathways and those pathways no longer existed. The greeter bots had intercept programming and were permitted to cross the terrain. The restriction fascinated Danny, and he could imagine the roads of the thriving, segregated city, people in one lane, bots in another. Although, he suspected the separation made it easier for warring factions to destroy droids without human casualty.
Having lived on Terrana during the start of the Revolution, seeing his favorite refuges in the city ransacked and vandalized, he felt for the people in this Dome. They couldn’t escape off world or underground. Perhaps they could run into the jungle, but unlike the refugees of Terrana, they couldn’t take haven in another established city. The people here couldn’t get to Quin or Terrana.
Hawk stayed on the heels of their guide bot, delightedly watching it roll across the dirt road, giving it a nudge whenever it got stuck. The bots spoke Lanvarian but with the Virp translator, Hawk could get the bot to understand him.
“Do you notice something?” Amanda whispered, her hand slipping into Danny’s. “This place is too clean.”
“Yeah,” Danny agreed, surveying the walls of the empty, stone houses. They were old and rundown, but they weren’t scorched by weapon’s fire or broken by violence.
“At home, it was all broken,” Amanda said. “Fortified. Pieces of life abandoned.”
She was right. Not a single reinforced door or barricaded window.
“Maybe the droids cleaned it. And the nomads looted,” he suggested, then shook his head. “It is too clean for looting.”
“This is not what war looks like,” she said, pressing her face against his arm. “Of all the memories to come to me, why that?”
“Sky, how many people lived here?” Danny asked, glancing over he shoulder.
Sky lagged behind, stopping every few steps, hugging herself tightly. “They were bursting at the seams,” she shuddered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Some people left to travel with nomads, but most felt connected to the city.”
“Why are there so many nomads around here, but not around Quin?” Danny mused. He extended his arm, offering her an embrace, but she stepped wide to avoid him.
“It’s easier to live off the forest than out in the grasslands,” Sky said. “More protection from the sun. More ozone recovery. More fresh water sources. More large animals. Temperate climate.”
“This is not temperate. This is desert,” Danny said, motioning to the empty landscape.
“It wasn’t always.” Hurrying past him, she caught up to Hawk, but she didn’t open herself to his comfort either. She mourned this place as though she’d lost a home.
“If there’s no radiation, there must be something toxic here. Something that keeps the plants from growing back,” Danny said, kneeling to examine the dirt. He scanned with his Virp.
“Danny, don’t stop,” Amanda begged, tugging his collar.
Danny drew a knife from his boot and dug into the road. There was a fine layer of dust atop the packed dirt, but no rocks. The greeter bot rushed over, sweeping across the spot and filling the hole.
“Road vandalism carries a fine of 700 Xentus or two days confinement,” the bot said. A flashing red light on the boxy top panel indicated that law enforcement had been notified.
“I just wanted to see what was wrong with the soil. Why nothing is growing,” Danny said, standing up. He could crush this little bot under one foot, but after seeing the defensive pieces on the droids, he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Practicing science without a license: 500 Xentus,” the bot added.
“I’m not practicing science. That can’t be a true offense.” Danny rolled his eyes.
“Ignorance is not an excuse,” the bot said.
“I will pay the fines,” Sky interrupted, pressing her thumb over the flashing red light. The light changed to green.
“Aurelia account docked 1200 Xentus,” the bot said. “Thank you for your citizenship.”
“How long did you live here?” Danny asked.
“I have spending accounts in many cities,” Sky said, massaging her thumb, as though giving the print had physically affected her. “And it’s not all gifts from old, lonely men and ex-lovers.”
“Can you forge me a science license?” Danny quipped, rubbing her shoulder. Sky leaned into his touch, shuddering as sadness surfaced.
“Bébé,” Hawk said, coming between them and embracing her. Her eyes misted, but no tears fell. A few hours were not nearly enough time for her to process the shock of this place.
“We’re here,” Sky whispered, nodding toward a building across the street. The bot waited by the wide, industrial doorway that wasn’t q
uite tall enough to clear Oriana. It would have been nice to bring Oriana directly to the shop where it would be patched, but he wasn’t sure how the droids would react to a foreign ship ‘vandalizing’ the streets with tire treads.
Outside the building, there were no signs of human traffic, but inside, the place was coated with it. Clay-caked footprints covered the floor and the lower few feet of the walls, the boot treads indicating some level of manufacturing technology. Smeared red clay on the wall had dark, glittering copper threads. There were shovels and buckets, but all of the machines were stationary. Taking a shovel, Danny shoved the nose into the ground, then checked to make sure he hadn’t upset any of the machines. He gave another heave, pulling away the hard-coated surface, revealing the softer avalan beneath. There were copper veins running through the dark red clay.
“Are you coming?” Sky asked, poking her head out the door to address the bot.
“This area is not safe for small-wheeled bots,” it replied. “Masks are recommended for humans.”
“Do you have any?” she asked.
“Supply is depleted. More have been ordered,” it said.
Danny made a face.
“Ow!” Hawk exclaimed, jumping up, knocking the shovel from Danny’s hand.
“Hawk! Where are your gloves?” Sky chided, rushing over. Hawk’s hand was coated in the avalan.
“I don’t know. I dropped them somewhere,” he murmured, his face getting red as he sank to his knees.
“It’s sticking to you,” Danny said, kneeling next to him, studying the substance.
“I wanted to touch it,” Hawk said, his fingers twitching.
Danny had had the same urge when he’d seen the glittering avalan, but he wasn’t dumb enough to act on it. “Yeah, me too. It looks moist. Does it feel like mud? What does it feel like?”
“Like splinters,” he sniffled, then coughed as the clay got into his nose. They definitely needed to come back with masks, gloves, and as much protective clothing as they could find.
“Because it is splinters. Lots of tiny, metal splinters. Come here,” Sky said, dragging him to a wash station on the far side of the room. She touched the tap, then jiggled it. “No running water,” she sighed.
Hawk dry heaved, his whole arm starting to shake. Then the walls of the building shook, too.
“Quake!” Danny cried.
8
At first, Tray thought he was hearing a large machine rolling across the ceiling above them, but almost instantly, every bot that he’d activated froze.
“Quake?” Saskia realized, squatting next to him, looking up as if she expected the ceiling to cave in. A moment later, the tremor stopped and the little bots around him resumed their bustle, searching for the supplies he’d requested, but that had been so obviously depleted.
“Danny, we felt a tremor. Are you all right?” Tray asked, tapping his Feather.
“More or less. We have a bit of a medical situation. Hawk took his gloves off and dipped his hand in trouble,” Danny said. “Did you get any of those nurse bots working?”
“So far, just the gophers,” Tray said, turning the bot to see all sides. This one was slightly larger than the others, just under two feet tall, with screens and sensor interfaces. He hoped it held more information about the city than the retrieval bots. “Treatment seems to require human authorization and no authorized humans are present.”
“There’s nothing we can use here, Captain. We’re headed back to the ship,” Saskia said, smoothing her clothes as she stood.
“Meet you there,” Danny agreed.
“I want to stay and work on this,” Tray said. “I might learn something.”
“Learn it on the ship. Tray, you’re already sweating in pain and there’s no medicine here that can treat that,” Saskia said, scooping up one of the smaller bots that he hadn’t activated yet.
“Are you sure we can take them out of here?” Tray asked. “If it were that easy, they’d all have been taken.”
“If that was a foreshock, then a bigger quake could be coming,” Saskia warned. “This Dome is cracked already. We do not want to be in the city when it comes down.”
“The city is not falling. The quake barely shook the dust from the walls,” Tray pointed out.
“Foreshock,” Saskia repeated. “Tray, it’s possible that whatever destroyed this city wasn’t triggered intentionally.”
Tray’s stomach growled, and then he felt queasy. He closed his eyes and reached out his hand, worried that if he tried to stand on his own, he’d fall. Then the bot in front of him activated.
“Medical assessment,” it said, extending a wide, flat probe from its midsection. “DNA profile not recognized. Please identify.”
“Tray Matthews. I’m a traveler. I have no file and no political affiliation,” Tray said. He’d been through enough back and forth with the other bots to have a drill.
“Assessing injuries,” the bot said, its probe arm moving in an arc around Tray, it’s body extending to match his height. That was new. He exchanged a look with Saskia, and stayed completely still. Saskia drew her stunner.
“I’ve been assessed. I was just reactivating you,” Tray said nervously, stepping away as soon as the probe retracted and the bot shrank back to its less formidable size.
“Nurse, do you know how the people of Boone died?” Saskia asked, putting herself between Tray and the bot.
“Natural mortality, health failure, injury, accident—”
“Where are the bodies? Did the droids remove all the bodies?” Saskia interrupted.
“Bodies not eligible for medical science programs are used for food and fertilizer,” the nurse-bot replied.
Tray rubbed his chest, acid rising in his throat. “Your questions are too general, Saskia. Nurse, how many citizens die in earthquakes annually?”
“Boone medical logs have no record of this cause of death,” the nurse reported.
“Injuries resulting from earthquake per year?” Tray checked.
“Boone medical logs have no record of this cause of injury.”
Tray glanced at Saskia, suspecting that the locals had a different word for earthquakes. “How many people died in nuclear plant accidents?” he tried, just to make sure the logs existed.
“Boone medical logs have recorded five deaths related to nuclear plant accidents in the last two hundred years.”
Either this city had an excellent safety record or excellent medical technology. It was definitely worth investigating.
“War drones. How many deaths are caused annually by defensive drones?” Tray asked.
“In the height of the civil war, Boone medical logs recorded up to five hundred deaths per year caused by defensive drones. No recent deaths have been recorded.
“How long ago was the last recorded death in Boone?” Saskia asked.
“The last recorded death occurred 3,721 days ago,” the nurse replied.
Tray did the math on his Virp—it came to a little over ten years.
“And how many people died that day?” Saskia asked.
“Fifty.”
“There were only fifty people left by the end?” Tray whispered, looking at Saskia. He couldn’t imagine keeping up a war with so little to fight for.
“Nurse, what was the remaining population after the last recorded death?” Saskia asked.
“82,116 citizens on file,” the nurse replied.
Tray’s stomach churned. “Where are those citizens now?”
“Not specified.”
Danny and Amanda carried a bucket of avalan between them as they hustled back to the ship. They’d only taken a small amount, but the mineral was heavy and dense. The top layer faded as it dried out in the heat. Danny heard Hawk trailing behind, clinging to Sky, his breathing getting more labored with each step. He was glad to see the bay doors open when they crested the gate and Saskia and Tray waiting inside the bay. Tray had a sandwich plate prepared for them.
“What did you bring?” Danny asked, taken
aback by the two-foot-tall machine sitting in the bay between the glider and the Bobsled. He set the bucket down and took a sandwich.
“Nurse bot,” Tray smiled, his voice muffled by a mouthful of food. “This one is more than a gopher and it followed us right out when we said we had a patient. It seems to be some kind of information portal as well as a portable scanning device. If you phrase your questions simply enough, you can get the medical history of the city. It doesn’t know where everyone went, only that it hasn’t had to treat anyone in almost a decade. What did you bring?”
“Avalan,” Sky said.
“Local mineral that we can use to patch the hull, theoretically,” Danny clarified. “Hawk dipped his hand in it. I don’t recommend it.”
“My hand hurts,” Hawk panted.
“Nurse, new patient,” Tray said, addressing the bot in Lanvarian. “Nomad.”
“Please supply a patient name for the record,” the bot said.
“Hawk,” Tray said. “The bots here speak a form of Lanvarian. I’ve understood most of the words. They’re pretty direct.”
“Douglas Hwan,” Hawk corrected.
A finger-like probe extended from the bot. Danny tensed, but Tray held Hawk still, explaining what was happening so that Hawk would stay calm. The droid’s mid-section opened, unfolding like a scaffold, and a paddle-shaped scanner extended. It grew in size, matching Hawk’s stature, making a whirring sound as it scanned.
“Multiple infections in digestive tract. Possible reaction to poison,” the bot reported, its probe retracting.
“The hand. His hand is covered in avalan,” Danny said. “How do we treat that?”
“No medical intervention is required for this superficial injury,” the bot said. “Soak hand in warm saltwater until avalan particles dissipate. Use magnetic adhesive to clear splinters.”
“I can handle that,” Saskia spoke up, taking Hawk’s arm.
“What did it say?” Hawk asked in Trade.
“Wash your hand. Nothing serious,” she reassured. She didn’t mention the infections, but she’d already tried treating those with what medicine they had in the infirmary.
Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4) Page 7
