by Briana Ervin
He examined the door, pulled apart the panels around his eye, and began transmitting something. I grew confused. Was he talking to the door...?
A pellet of thermal energy narrowly missed me and hit the wall, leaving a sizzling orange patch. Cyrii jumped, painfully aware that she wasn't keeping a lookout for me.
“We have company!” Joleus called.
“Fend them off, Garenede is busy and 438 and I have precious cargo!” I ordered him. Trista scoffed.
“'Precious'!”
A pellet hit her across the face, and she growled. “ALL RIGHT YOU!!”
I swiveled with my back to the fight since I was holding Krysis, so I only heard the explosion of gunfire and thermal weaponry, feeling the occasional blow strike me from behind. Judging by all of the dodging and stomping around, as well as the whoops from my comrades, our position was holding! Garenede seemed to be taking his time though, and I was itching to either leave or start shooting back.
“Transmit faster!” 438 said.
“He's going as fast as he can!” Garenede snapped; his pilot, evidently. “We're dealing with High Alpha clearance here!”
I'm surprised he can even hack that! I thought.
“Well, he is a-!” Cyrii began, but there was an explosion on the door as a bullet flew between us, making us all wince.
“Superiority model....” she finished weakly. I decided it was too dangerous for Krysis out here, even with me blocking him from the fight, and lowered him to the ground and opened my entry panels. Cyrii took the hint right away, quickly darting out and hustling him over back into my head. When she pulled him in my sensors became confused for a moment, as if I suddenly had three Cyriis in there. Having two different presences in your head just feels weird.
Once the entry panels were shut and they were both safe inside, I stood back up and swiveled to face the fight, stepping out to shield Garenede from any other spare blows. I sent out a couple of rounds and found with relief that whatever “EMP” that disabled my weapons earlier had worn off!
“How much time left?!” 438 pressed while I opened fire on the incoming mechs. They had tough hulls and shields to not retreat under the barrage! There weren't even falling down!
“It'll open shortly! Just be patient!” Garenede snapped.
“You better not be lying!” I said, projecting my voice over the noise.
“As if I care about THAT right now,” he growled back, “The liar, telling me not to lie...!”
“Says the coward who-! Don't fight now, seriously!” Cyrii cut off my own insult. Another bullet nearly missed us and halted further conversation, but I noticed Garenede hesitate.
“Garenede?! They have something very large and angry!” Alesia shouted over the gunfire.
“Figures,” he muttered.
“Transmit faster!”
“I'm getting there!!”
The door finally opened after what felt like an eternity. We all rushed onto the lift gratefully, which quickly became very small with all eight of us crammed in. Joleus leaped in last, facing the door. I watched tensely as Superiority models and unfamiliar machines ceased their fire, rushing toward us, blades outstretched...
The door closed.
WHAM! We all jumped as some of the assailants crashed into the door, and the lift began its calm descent. More bangs erupted from the other side of the door, and we all felt a wave a relief as we went down past it. We were safe... for now.
“Oh geez. I can't believe we did that!” Joleus gasped, giddy from the adrenaline “Whew, hah hah!”
“Yeah, and now we're screwed,” Trista said pessimistically, squashed up against Stratien. The rest of us weren't much better off, all crammed up against one another, and I felt especially uncomfortable pressed up against Garenede.
“Where is this lift taking us?” Gilus asked, before pausing. “Heck, how is it even lifting us...?”
“It's a pressure lift. The entire shaft changes pressure to compensate for weight and drop speed,” Garenede said, looking equally as uncomfortable. “I tried to tell it to go to the factory...”
“'Tried'?” Trista echoed.
“I don't know if I chose the right place.”
“Down is better, right?” Stratien mused, “Anyplace where we can't be tracked or followed.”
“The security system is independent on the complex's ground and upper levels,” Garenede agreed.
“Isn't the factory a one-way-in, one-way-out kind of place?” Joleus pointed out. “This might be a death trap.”
“The entire freakin' complex is a death trap!” Trista pointed out.
“Mmmph,” he growled. We all fell silent, wishing that the lift could lower at a more hasty speed as our hulls scraped up against the sides of the shaft, our wounds from the thermal rounds slowly cooling down even though the air had a homogeneous warmth from all of us circulating it.
“So...” 438 began, “how about a new coat once we go down there?”
“I'm up for that!” Joleus said enthusiastically. “I feel like I'm painting the walls of this place!”
“Me too!” Gilus agreed.
“Now hold up a second, I have a question for Mr. Babysitter here,” Trista began. I heard a sharp whir beside me as Garenede looked away from her and twisted me up a bit, his gaze turning to stone. I let out an awkward hum.
“Trista, no,” 438 denied right away, fearing something. She ignored him and wriggled, making Stratien move to try and give her more room, but only he squashed 438 in further. It was a failed attempt for her to look at Garenede, but it didn't faze her.
“Why didn't you stop us from going in that outpost?” she asked.
“You think I lied to the tribunal?” he questioned in annoyance.
“Well, you thought it was all stupid, right?” Joleus said, referring to the tactics, “You could've followed us in there.”
“I did.”
“Wait, what?”
“They wouldn't allow me to finish,” he scowled, “but I went to the third floor of the outpost to wait for everyone. When I heard fighting, I switched places to keep an eye on you.”
“But you didn't help. Thanks, Zepholus!” Trista accused.
“It would have looked even worse if I returned damaged!” he pointed out angrily.
“Yeah, but it wasn't like you were going to lie about that,” Stratien said calmly. Alesia shifted uncomfortably, stuck between Garenede and Trista.
“Can we not...?” she tried to say, but she was too quiet to be acknowledged.
“That's awfully presumptuous,” Garenede said, as the lift changed direction; thankfully, not the opposite direction.
“So you just watched us all almost die. Then what?” Gilus redirected the topic.
“I flew in to help when I saw you returning from the badlands.”
Trista snorted derisively. “No you didn't!”
“Please don't fight...” Alesia murmured, wanting it to stop but also not wanting to be involved. Cyrii sighed, spinning the volume of the internal sound system down to the lowest setting. I suppose she didn't want to be involved either. The only problem with that is I couldn't hear what was going on in there, and they couldn't hear what was going on out here.
“Yes, I did,” Garenede said firmly, ignoring Alesia.
“Nuh uh,” Joleus also didn't believe him. 438 readjusted his cameras for a moment, thinking. I just sat in annoyed silence, remembering that I was a shut-down deadweight at that point. All of this information was new to me.
“If that's true then why didn't I see you?” Trista challenged.
“You had a drone on you, I don't expect you to have seen me!”
“I didn't see you either,” Joleus said.
“Me neither,” Gilus said.
“You were there?” Stratien, confused. Garenede sighed dramatically, but was cut off by 438:
“He was there. He disabled that Charger, remember?”
“Charger?” everyone wondered aloud.
“I just coined it.
The black box.”
Fitting, I thought, recalling the box drone. Trista growled to herself.
“Freakin' black box...” she muttered.
“Wait, I thought another drone flew into that box and tore open the panel, and Stratien blasted a hole in it...” Joleus tried to reason.
“I threw that drone,” Garenede said.
“Nuh uh!”
“Oh, come on!”
“Really?”
“I'm sure he's just playing the hero here,” Trista accused.
“Trista, I'm getting sick of your attitude!” Garenede burst out. The lift suddenly stopped with a clunk, silencing any further arguing. There was a long pause before the lift began to move back horizontally. So far its movement pattern matched when I came out of the factory. Everyone relaxed.
“How do you know my name?” Trista said, annoyed that everyone kept using it.
“Deduction skills. Logic. Something you clearly don't have.” He glared.
“Oh ho ho, burn!” Joleus laughed.
“Why you little-!!” Trista lurched suddenly, and the whole lift tilted and smashed everyone into each other. There was a burst of angry arguing that only escalated after 438 tried to step out into Trista's “path”, only to end up almost stepping on Joleus. I simply watched in amusement, not wanting to do anything about it and not having the freedom to anyway. I took a moment to check on Cyrii and Krysis. They were still both present in my head, but were silent, still muted. Probably for the better; Joleus was now swiping at Trista with a hot thermal blade to deter her from struggling any more and making our cramped situation more awkward, which just made everyone object more loudly.
“SHUT UP!!” Garenede roared. There was another moment of silence, broken yet again by Trista:
“Don't tell me what to do, you white goody-two-shoes glistenfilth!”
“Just stuff it Trista!” 438 ordered.
“She's justified! Er, semi-justified!” Gilus backed her up.
“Justified how!?” Joleus said.
“Did I not say 'shut up'?!” Garenede snapped. “We're almost there, you bloody hatchlings!...”
There was a collective glare-off, before Joleus looked up at me; the best he could in his position, anyway.
“Hey, she hasn't said squat,” he commented.
“Your fighting is very informative,” I said calmly.
“'Informative'?!” Trista exploded, her voice hitting a new octave, “I'll show you informative-!”
Thus began round two of the quarreling and struggling. This was one long elevator ride...
----------
We were all exhausted in the end, with the exception of Stratien and I, who felt pretty clear-headed. Gilus was stressed despite not doing much arguing. Garenede and Trista may have begun a new rivalry, with the two of them screaming the loudest... I've learned that one's microphones can hurt after a while; or maybe it's just me.
The lift stopped at a large catwalk in the middle of what appeared to be a massive warehouse, crisscrossed with conveyor belts, product assembly lines, monorail machinery, and more catwalks. The place was huge, rivaling the barracks in height and certainly beating it in width and length. There were tons of huge metal boxes all around us, like suspended rooms, each one connected to others via smaller corridors and sporting stands of intense LED lights on it to illuminate the place. I could see plenty of other lights as well: the box lights marking where conveyors went in and out of rooms and machinery, the glowing dots of individual parts on assembly lines, the multitude of lights on the machinery itself and their control panels, and of course, the grey-blue eyes of every mech working here, permanently affixed to their workstations. The persistent clunks, clicks, and whirs, the change in atmosphere... the whole place reminded me of the glimpse of workers I saw when coming out of here. This was definitely the factory.
None of the mechs noticed us, and no Xinschi-uual were in sight, which was a relief. We gratefully stepped off the lift – with Trista bullying her way off first – glad to no longer be smashed up against one another.
At first there was a tense silence, carried over from the earlier fighting. I checked on Cyrii and Krysis, but I could only see the former, and she looked stressed and solemn. She spoke now and then but I couldn't hear anything, so I assumed she was handling Krysis' grief well enough and looked back at the others, expecting something to happen. Joleus was the first to disregard the silence, trotting up ahead a bit to explore the vast area.
“Wow. Just wow,” he said in awe, “Dang, it's dark in here! Whoa, is that an incinerator?”
“How about I push you into it so you can find out?” Trista threatened, though her movement was sluggish. Garenede sighed, walking up to where Joleus was and looking down with him at a large, bulbous object teeming with heat.
“No, it's an oven,” he corrected, “Looks like a distiller, actually.”
“Distiller? Ovens don't distill,” Joleus said dubiously.
“It removes slag, genius.”
“Where are the workers?” Gilus asked.
“What... these are the workers,” Garenede said in frustration, gesturing at the machinery around him. “Don't any of you remember this?”
Gilus just blinked. I gave the Superiority model a puzzled look. What did he know that we didn't?
“The last thing 199 remembers is waking up with me in her head,” Trista huffed. “I've been in her head, and the barracks. I don't know what you're looking for.” She confidently marched past him down the dim catwalk. Alesia swiveled about, enamored by all of the lights that punctuated the darkness.
“I remember... some of it,” she said, “I mean, me me. Not me.”
She earned some blank stares, excepting 438 and I. We simply exchanged looks, knowing she was referring to herself as the mech.
Cyrii came back to my control panel, pressing the comm button: “Mechs aren't supposed to remember what goes on down here, or what happened to them. It's deemed unsafe knowledge.”
“What? Why?” Gilus turned to face me, baffled. Alesia went over to the distiller and watched it, thinking.
“What do I know?” Cyrii huffed, “I wasn't allowed to ask questions. The General said it was miraculous I was even allowed down here.”
Garenede studied me, taking note of my difference in speech. He had initially rushed over to his mech in that courtroom because 438 moved. Now he was having second thoughts about how many rogue AIs there were, I could tell. I simply held his gaze, not giving anything away.
“So... what are we supposed to be remembering?” Stratien asked, coming up behind me.
Garenede took his eye off me. “This is where mechs are made,” he said, “the first time one is turned on is not when it has its pilot; there's a lot more before that.”
“I remember a room... with other mechs. No plating,” Alesia spoke again, “Then some flashing lights.” She blinked. “I remember learning colors too – wait, you had to learn colors? What are you talking about? That stuff is supposed to be preprogra-” Her speech suddenly cut off, her eye brightening up defensively. Alesia herself was leaning on the comm button again. The Superiority model took a cautious step back.
“Uh...” Joleus stared at Alesia blankly. “What?”
Trista's eye lit up with realization, before dulling with apathy. “Great. Another one.”
“Another one what?” he asked. Now Gilus and Stratien exchanged nervous looks, collectively looking at Sirun, then Alesia and myself. Garenede was getting twitchy with suspicion. I was feeling particularly self-conscious, being the one with the guilty pilot.
“We're fine. It's fine,” I said. It was responded by several discontent growls. “ I said, it's fine,” I asserted.
“Riiiight...” Stratien said, unconvinced and shuffling away from me. It set off a chain reaction of apprehension and backing away, and I tensed up, eye narrowing. I really didn't want to have to fight my way out of this...
“Wait wait wait, I'm confused,” Joleus said. “Alesia just ha
s bad comm awareness, right? And why did the big guy over here in the 49 model move on his own?” He gestured at Sirun.
“Rogue AI,” Trista scoffed.
“Okay, I get that he's a rogue AI, but...?” He looked at Garenede, then at Alesia and I. “What's up with you two?”
“Rogue AI.”
“You said that already!” he snapped. Trista just held his gaze, not intimidated at all, before looking pointedly at me. Garenede's blast shield narrowed to a sliver, the yellow light becoming glaring. Joleus looked back and forth before it dawned on him.
“Ohhhh crap...”
“Everyone eject their pilots,” Garenede ordered. I stiffened up, immediately defiant. 438 looked at me for support. Alesia swiveled to look at him.
“But-?” she began, but he wasn't playing games.
“Eject. Now!”
“If you're so worried how about we just tell you who's broken?” Trista challenged. He glared venomously at her.
“NOW.”
The tension heightened as she didn't comply. The rest of us didn't dare to. Garenede turned, towering over her, staring down at the red machine. She just folded her arms.
“Do I have to repeat myself?” he hissed.
“It's not my fault-” Trista began to argue, but Garenede shifted his arms in a peculiar manner. Long bayonets unsheathed on either arm; they were twice his length! Good grief, I didn't know he had those! The fact that they weren't dragging was miraculous!
I immediately backed away from the massive blades with a nervous beep, the others mimicking me and putting space between the hostility. Garenede shot his glare at all of us, commanding us to stay put. Alesia darted behind me, terrified.
Trista foolishly pretended not to care, her blast shield fluttering only for a second upon realizing that she was in decapitation range. I didn't know if she was brave or idiotic for not cooperating at this point!
The two mechs held glares for a while. It was like unspoken insults were being flung back and forth. I felt like I was going to explode from the tension. I couldn't hear what Cyrii was doing, but I imagined my anxiety wasn't making her feel good either.
A sudden flash! The screech of metal was overridden by Trista's shriek. I had barely processed what happened before Garenede roared out, “EJECT!”
