by Briana Ervin
“Agh! By Gryn, do you have to be so loud?!” he cringed.
“Sorry!”
Cyrii sighed. “For future reference, try the subtler approach first,” she said. I figuratively scowled at her, not answering, instead orienting myself so I could put in my other bayonet and begin to pull the door apart. It wasn't as hard as it looked at first, and once the door was open wide enough I could put a leg through I did so, using the extra force to keep the door open. The mechanism struggled with me about halfway through, but once past that halfway point it was like the door gave up, opening up the rest of the way by itself.
I found myself staring into a dark, descending hallway, which was cramped for my size. Yay... another basement level up ahead. In curiosity to see if anyone was down there, I sent some trinary down into its depths. It echoed down the hallway, but the next few seconds were quiet.
“I doubt there are mechs here,” I said aloud to Stratien. There was a beep from the other door; he must be having difficulties with his keycode.
“No mechs whatsoever?” he asked.
“There was no reply. We're forced to respond to SOS queries.”
He glanced up at me, thinking, before punching in another keycode. “That doesn't mean someone isn't down there.”
I selfishly wanted to avoid squeezing down that dark hallway. “Even a Xinschi-uual would say something,” I argued, “or a drone would come up and attack. We have documented ankylophobia on them.”
“Maybe it froze up...” he trailed off on the thought, looking intrigued. “Actually, check for that!”
I swiveled to face him, not understanding. “For drones? What about the other mechs? Sirun said not to engage-”
“I'm not looking for them,” he admitted without hesitance. Both Cyrii and I were taken aback at the reveal.
“Then... what are you looking for?” I asked.
He looked straight into my eye with an intense green gaze. “...A drone. A specific type of drone.”
I paused. Cyrii dug around in my database, curious as to what would be so interesting as to capture. “A drone?” I queried.
“It's not important” Stratien dismissed.
“It is important,” I argued. “You're ignoring the purpose of this mission and the mission before this. We're supposed to be looking for Tank models, then standing outside as bait.” Stratien didn't seem to be listening as I continued, “Now you want to try and capture an Enemy drone? What good would that do?”
He looked up at me with challenge in his eye. “If I bring one back, we can study it, and make a universal upgrade against its... techniques.” He poorly disguised his hesitance to explain in detail. “I know it wasn't what we were sent out to do, but this is a chance to do it. I've read some reports that say some drones hide in the aftermath of fights like these, to later be flushed out and pick off late reinforcements. With damages this fresh we'll have to find something!”
I grew concerned. Stratien was ambitious, but our intentions had changed twice in the past ten minutes. We were initially ordered to stay back and wait. Then we took things into our own hands and came in looking for our comrades, suspecting this was a simulation. Now Stratien wanted to find a drone and capture it?
He guessed that I was worried. “You don't have to help,” he stated, “This is a personal goal for myself, to lower my Code level. I've been a Code Orange practically my whole life and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Being watched all the time by Superiority models...” He became bitter. “I'm not a hatchling to be supervised!”
Another Code Orange, I noted. “Wouldn't disobeying orders and endangering comrades with a personal goal only heighten your Code level?” I asked.
“Not if I'm successful,” Stratien said confidently. “Benefiting the Empire does more in the end, and I've been looking for a way out for a while.”
He seemed to know what he was getting himself into, so I didn't question him further, instead looking to Cyrii to see if she sympathized with him. Without the DIAS I had no clue how she was feeling. Her only response was “I wouldn't.”
You think he's going to fail, I deducted.
“No,” she said, hinting at her other thought but choosing to keep it silent.
What is it? I asked her.
“The Empire does what it wants,” she said simply. I wasn't satisfied by the answer – she was clearly keeping something from me – but decided not to push it.
I turned back to the dark, sloped hallway I was faced with. The light emitted by my own eye provided a sort of “night vision” so I wasn't completely blind, but it wasn't exactly advantageous, either. Cyrii cleared her throat and nudged me forward, and I immediately growled at her for not using her break time.
“Hey,” she began to reprimand, but I felt her abruptly shuffle back and go silent. Guilt shot through my system but I made no comment; she was just trying to help even though I told her not to.
I turned my focus back to the task at hand. Considering I had to pry the door open, the chances of a Tank being in the tunnel were slim, and I had no expectations to run into anyone considering it was sealed off... but it was also tempting to help Stratien with his endeavor. This “simulation” made no sense anyway. We were all split up illogically, and we clearly saw Enemies in the distance, but upon approaching the outpost they had all disappeared and were now outright missing from the situation. On top of that, the Tanks that had went in had disappeared as well, and we hadn't seen one soldier to take back! We could be being set up for an ambush, but I doubted it...
It suddenly seemed a lot less ridiculous, both the thought of capturing some newfangled drone and finding a Tank model beyond a sealed corridor, of all things. Plus, if we searched the complex we would find whatever was making that pulsing noise!
Stratien at one point managed to open his chosen door, and was now observing me in concern. “That's an awful lot of hesitance.”
I was shaken from my thoughts, not realizing how long I had been standing there. “How will you find this drone?” I asked.
“You'll know it when you find it. It'll be... unusual,” he worded carefully. I slowly blinked at him. “...It's new and won't be an easy catch.”
“Hm,” I hummed. Seemed simple enough, right? “Let's go find your drone. The Tanks will be fine,” I said, making up my mind.
He blinked. “What about Sirun's orders?”
“He's not here.”
Stratien looked at me in puzzlement. “What a change of heart...”
I didn't wait to see what he did, and went down into the corridor, moving a bit slow so I could see obstacles before I ran into them. My head and arms scraped the sides, but I sort of fit. I heard him go into his own corridor before I reached the midpoint and could no longer hear anything but my own footsteps.
The path ahead of me was empty, aside from some minor debris, and being part of a military outpost it never bent or branched off. At its end was a large, dark, underground room, built mostly out of concrete. I became cautious; being able to see only a couple of q in front of me, I was oblivious to the room's size, and being in hostile territory I wasn't about to run in and take a chance.
I slowed to a stop just past the door, listening intently. It looked like some sort of vehicle bay, as there were shelled hovercraft suspended from the ceiling in a row across my vision. The armored vehicles looked like they hadn't been touched. I looked around slowly, taking everything in with the little light I had to see. Everything looked clear, so I went left to detour around the hovercraft. Once I had, there was plenty of room to stand up straight, which I did so gratefully.
It was definitely a vehicle bay. It was spacious and wide in front of the craft, and one big, long door took up the wall in front of them, evidently the exit. I imagined that there was a sort of ramp leading up outside, but the entire door was clogged with dirt and soil. A quick peek in my database told me that there were heavy, elliptical drones that could burrow and spit out earth everywhere specifically to hinder us; such a Tunneler must have d
one this.
I looked at the soil blockage and scanned it. The particles were loose and much of it pure of oxidization, so this was definitely recent. I turned to explore the room further, only to be stopped by a puddle of blood.
Cyrii stifled a gasp. I scanned the puddle while I felt her grab the DIAS, but hesitate putting it on.
It was Xinschi-uual blood. My gaze followed it to its source, and spotted a half-buried body. I solemnly went around it, looking at the other half of the room.
More blood. More bodies. Some were pulverized by metal, others were curled up as if trying to preserve clean air. This party of soldiers did not make it out.
Cyrii? I asked, wondering if she was okay.
“Um...”
I said it for her: It's a little bit different, seeing it out of battle.
“...Y-Yeah,” she agreed weakly. The effect wasn't the same to me as it was to her, as machines were my closer kin, but I should have expected the wall of misery that slammed into me when she put the DIAS back on. I didn't want to linger by the bodies, so I turned away, but Cyrii took me back over to them.
It's not like we can help them, I began, but she suddenly pulled away from my control panel and started doing something strange: looked up with her paws in the air, looked down, crossed them, and muttered something before tracing two circles in the air and clasping her paws. I had a significantly-large database... but the gestures were foreign to me.
Cyrii ceased, then stared solemnly at my controls. Was she sad...? I've never seen such an expression before...
Are you okay?
“Let's go,” she said, not answering directly. I silently obeyed, her solemnity affecting me, yet I was simultaneously intrigued by whatever the gesturing was. It looked almost ritualistic, but no Xinschi-uual has engaged in rituals for a long time; “nonstandard practices” were even forbidden by the Empire!
Cyrii forcefully swiveled me away from the bodies, and I tried to resume our search, putting the curiosity to the back of my mind for now and switching to probability. The door was sealed shut, and the soldiers were killed presumably at the same time the door was blocked, so logically whatever Enemies were responsible for this were still around. As I walked around and scanned everything though I didn't find any drones or unusual disturbances in the air that could be caused by a cloaking device, and I heard nothing out of the ordinary. So the drones must have left and were now somewhere else.
I decided the room was clear and left, back up the corridor to where I came from. When I arrived at the sub-level I considered closing the door just in case, but on the off-chance that Stratien found the drone and chased it we could lock it down there later.
Well, presuming we could still lock the door. I might have broken it, forcing it open like that.
Before I went through the door Stratien had unlocked, I double-checked on Cyrii. She was silent, still not paying attention.
Cyrii, I prompted, a little concerned.
No response.
CYRII.
“Shh!” she hushed angrily. I fell silent, becoming annoyed and confused. When she didn't respond I defiantly hummed, trying to figure out what she was doing.
“Stop it,” she scolded, taking off the DIAS and making her visage disappear. My hum turned to discontent.
What are you doing? I asked, You're overly occupied.
“I'm trying to hold vigil. Stop talking.”
Puzzlement overrode my other thoughts. Vigil?
“Honoring the dead!”
But-
“SHH!”
I let myself be hushed. Why would the dead need to be honored? They didn't mind. They were dead.
Again, it was a strangely ritualistic thing that I didn't understand, but I left Cyrii to “hold vigil” in the meantime. At least she would recover from the feedback some more like I had asked, with her being detached from everything.
I began going down the corridor, which was identical to the first one, my footsteps echoing down it. Cyrii let out a purr-growl and flicked something on my control panel, and it suddenly became eerily quiet in my head. I couldn't even hear her breathing. I paused to ensure that yes, I had gone deaf in there. Did holding vigil include powering off the controls...?
Just pay attention to her weight, I told myself, her weight is her presence. It's not like she's going anywhere. Even with that thought though, I became hyper-aware and anxious about everything.
I continued down the dark corridor, which led to a room the same size as the first one. This time though it was a large storage room, cluttered up with crates, reinforced barrels, and shelves packed with metal boxes and machine parts. An air duct ran down the ceiling, and there were a few exposed pipes here and there. Along the back wall was a rack of emergency hand-held weaponry, like the Shatterer Cyrii had used. Stratien himself was in the middle aisle between two rows of standing shelf units. Clearly large mechs weren't meant to come down here; it was very cramped, and he was moving rather slowly so that he wouldn't knock anything over. He acknowledged me with a simple glance, but said nothing, intending to be quiet.
I wasn't as cautious. I used one bayonet to split two shelving units and push them apart so I could get to him. They were on wheels, so it wasn't loud... except for the sound of rolling plastic on concrete and the squeaking of one wheel.
He glared at me as the unit squeaked away. I glanced at it, and the unit rolled over until it bumped the far wall.
“It needs to be oiled,” I commented in trinary, which was a little quieter than my voice. He rolled his eye in silent exasperation and continued his slow, deliberate search. Cyrii didn't respond to it; she must have completely cut herself off. I didn't feel great about that...
I decided to start scanning the left half of the room behind him, first checking a stack of crates in the corner. When there was nothing promising there, I moved to the shelves beside it, checking every nook and cranny for small drones. The smallest known drone in my database was no bigger than a Xinschi-uual, and was commonly used in sabotage and subterfuge. If this attack started out subtle at all, the place would be crawling with these things... an unpleasant thought.
As I scanned a particular box for anything unusual, I realized that I didn't have much of a clue what we were looking for. Stratien just said it was a new kind of drone... but did it have a tactic? How prepared should I be? What were its weak points, and would it know mine?
I swiveled to look at the red, brown, and tan machine, who was still searching his side of the room. I risked the noise, warbling as quietly as I could: “What drone is it?”
Stratien paused, but he didn't say anything. “What class?” I quickly clarified.
“It doesn't have one,” he sent back in trinary.
“What is it though?”
He turned to look at me, looking stressed. Retaining the information was hard for him.
“Just a hint,” I pressed, adding to myself, Cyrii won't help me because she's holding vigil. Give me ideas!
“...It's a Scatter Drone,” Stratien finally divulged. “It's a new type. Supposedly it can send any mech into a state of panic, ignoring its pilot.”
That rang a loud bell. I anticipated some kind of response from Cyrii, but she was still silent.
“You're trying to capture this thing on your own?!” I whispered back, almost angry that he didn't warn me first. That was what attacked us at the lab! It took two of my stabs and three point-blank shots from Krysis to actually destroy that thing, and had I not seen it, it would have followed us back!
Stratien was ignorant of the danger. “I can fight it. I'll capture it, and my Code level will be redeemed,” he whispered confidently.
“It's not that easy!” I warned. He looked at me, surprised.
“How would you know? The file on it is barely a day old.”
I hesitated. The General never said the late-night mission was classified, but he also implied we shouldn't go around chatting about it. Before I could make up my mind on what to say though, Stratie
n and I froze at the sound of footsteps. Neither of us moved, listening for more noise, but the sound ceased as quickly as it came.
There was a long pause that felt as if time stopped.
Stratien was completely immobile and looking straight at me. I dared to swivel and look around with a faint whirring, but I could see nothing else in the dark room that could have made the sound... unless something was going through the air duct above our heads. I opened up my camera and started recording, turning very slowly from the door inward, and when I finished I immediately reviewed it. I didn't spot anything unusual...
Stratien pivoted up toward the ceiling, staring at the metal duct. I followed his gaze, thinking the same thing he was.
Cyrii, I prompted, Cyrii, come back. You need to be here.
She didn't respond.
Cyrii?
There was some shuffling in the room. With Stratien in my peripheral, I knew it wasn't him, but it also didn't sound like it came from the ceiling. Deceptive room acoustics in a military outpost would be unusual... but not impossible...
The chances of a drone trying to escape through the ducting were pretty high, so I developed an idea to trap it in the room, but with the duct running uninterrupted through the ceiling I would need Stratien on the other end of the room and ready. There was a risk of a coded message being interpreted by the drone as well, which made timing essential.
Keeping my focus on the ceiling, I hinted my idea to Stratien in trinary: “Symmetrical points in space.” There as a long pause where he turned to look at me in bewilderment, before it dawned on him and he moved to the other side of the room, focusing the ducting as well. The sound of his movement was oddly punctuated; time to act quickly.
Once we were both in position, I reached up as high as I could so the duct was within melee range. Stratien mimicked me. Right away I could tell that our target knew what we were doing; it was no longer trying to be quiet, rushing along the floor toward me. It only verified that it was actually in the duct!
