The Marines took out another dozen attackers, dropping them in their tracks, forcing those behind them to leap over the bodies in order to advance. Still, more kept going down, killed or maimed by the Marines’ nearly silent weapons.
“Fall back!” Sergeant Harrington shouted. “We’re moving out, to the east, away from the city!”
Someone grabbed Infinity’s elbow, and she turned. It was Desmond, blood flowing down the side of his face from a gash on his scalp.
“We have to go,” he said, “or they’re going to leave us behind.”
Infinity could hardly contain her anger. She glanced at the crowd. At least fifty shouting, growling creatures were lined up, now holding their distance just beyond dozens of bodies scattered in a semicircle. This was a goddamn disaster. Kitty, who had started the conflict in the first place, was no doubt observing the entire spectacle from the safety of her buried capsule.
“Let’s move!” Gideon said to Infinity and Desmond. The guardsman was hanging back, waiting for them as the Marines retreated.
Desmond pulled on her arm.
She shook him off. “Alright, I’m coming!”
The creatures began circling to the southeast to cut them off, but the Marines shot several of them, forcing the attackers to move back again to a safer distance. The furious crowd was growing larger by the second, and the Marines wouldn't be able to hold them much longer.
“Oh, great,” Gideon said, staring back toward the bridge-in site. “I think the cavalry just arrived.”
Infinity followed his gaze. Several hundred yards away, two animals the size of horses but with shorter legs were approaching. She squinted, struggling to make out details in the fading light. No, they weren’t animals—they were mechanical, spider-like robots, each with one of the lemur-like creatures riding on its back. The robots were vehicles. The lemurs controlling them were outfitted in black bodysuits instead of the tan suits worn by all the other creatures.
“Wait, this could be a good thing,” Desmond said, pausing to stare at the approaching robots and their riders.
“We just slaughtered thirty of their people,” Infinity said. “How could it possibly be good for us that the cops are showing up?”
Desmond shook his head. “I don’t know! Maybe they’ll get things under control so we can try to explain.”
“Move it, you three,” Harrington shouted. “Now!” The Marines were still running to the east.
Infinity knew it’d be suicide to get separated from the Marines now. “Come on,” she said. She started jogging to catch up, and Desmond and Gideon followed. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that the crowd of lemurs was pursuing them but staying back at a safe distance.
If the robot-riding lemurs really were some kind of police, they would probably stop first to get at least a cursory explanation from the crowd before pursuing the humans. This might be the only opportunity to get away.
Infinity and the others caught up to the Marines, and the group started running at full speed, weaving their way between shacks and piles of rubbish, startling countless lemur creatures who were apparently unaware of the deadly conflict. The ground in the area was hard-packed dirt, and there were no orderly streets. Each shack seemed to be randomly situated with no regard for the positions of the other shacks. It was now almost dark, and lights were glowing within many of the dwellings. With any luck, enough of the locals would have withdrawn to their homes for the night that the humans would be able to avoid another confrontation.
After running about a quarter mile, Infinity glanced back over her shoulder. The angry crowd was no longer in sight. A few lemur creatures were staring from the doorways of their shacks, but it appeared that nobody was pursuing the humans. But then one of the spider vehicles came into view from behind a pile of garbage, followed by the second. The vehicles were moving surprisingly fast, their legs a blur in the twilight. At this rate, it wouldn’t take them long to catch up.
“Faster!” Infinity shouted at the Marines ahead of her.
The entire group poured on the speed. One of the Marines tripped and fell, causing two more to pile on top of him. They scrambled to their feet, muttering curses, and resumed running.
After running another hundred yards or so, the vehicles had nearly overtaken them.
“Stop!” Harrington shouted. “Ready your weapons.”
The spiders slowed to a stop as the Marines turned on them and spread into a wide formation, some of them kneeling and those behind them standing.
“Stay behind me,” Gideon said to Infinity and Desmond, aiming his weapon at one of the mounted creatures.
Infinity was still worried that slaughtering these beings was the wrong approach. But things had already gone south, and survival was the first priority now.
At such close range, the vehicles looked less like actual spiders and more like motorcycles with six long, segmented legs instead of wheels. Various contraptions protruded from each vehicle’s main body, any of which could have been some kind of weapon. The vehicles’ operators were similar to all the other lemurs Infinity had seen, aside from having different bodysuits. These suits were black but included several colored bands encircling the ankles just above the creatures’ bare feet. One of the lemurs emitted a sequence of chattering, whistling sounds, obviously addressing the humans. Gideon’s translator was the only one to respond, perhaps because he was nearest the creatures. “You kill. You have weapons. No weapons.”
“We are new here,” Harrington said, speaking slowly. “We didn’t intend to hurt anyone, and we don’t know your rules about weapons.” Seconds later, Harrington’s wrist device translated this into screeches and barks.
The creature listened and then replied. Gideon’s device translated. “No weapons. You give to us weapons.”
“We can’t do that,” Harrington said. “We need to be able to defend ourselves in case you intend to harm us.”
Harrington’s device translated his words. A split-second later, Infinity heard a loud pop, and then three more. She then heard thuds behind her. She spun around to see four Marines sprawled on the ground, including Sergeant Harrington. Two of them weren’t moving, while the other two were twitching with unmistakable death spasms.
“Jesus Christ,” said Gideon. He quickly wheeled around and shot the nearest mounted lemur, knocking the creature from its vehicle.
The other robot fired two more times before the remaining Marines unleashed a barrage of projectiles and took out its rider.
Infinity rushed to Harrington and kneeled beside him. She knew he was dead before she even checked for a pulse. He had been shot in the face by a projectile at least an inch in diameter. Five other Marines lay motionless around him. Nearly half the squad had been wiped out in a matter of seconds.
Infinity sat back on her heels, trying to process their dwindling options. The remaining Marines were cursing and asking each other what the hell they were supposed to do next. Most of them were probably in their early twenties and were no doubt accustomed to following Harrington’s orders. But now the sergeant was dead, and the current situation required immediate and decisive action.
Infinity rose to her feet. Several dozen lemur creatures were now gathered around the dead robot riders, and the crowd was growing.
“Listen,” she said to the surviving humans. “We have two choices. We can run and try to find a place to hide, or we can surrender and hope for a chance to explain what—”
An amplified vocalization interrupted her. It was coming from one of the riderless vehicles. After speaking for several seconds, it fell silent, and Desmond’s wrist device translated. “No weapons. You give to us weapons or we kill you now.”
In perfect synchrony, both the robots took three steps toward the humans and stopped. The local lemur creatures backed away, giving the vehicles plenty of room.
Infinity now saw no other choice—they would have to surrender. She spoke calmly. “Everyone put your weapons down. Show them that we’re cooperating.”
>
For several long seconds, no one moved.
“To hell with that!” one of the Marines said, and he fired at the robots.
A pop sounded and the Marine collapsed. Almost immediately, a second pop dropped another Marine.
“Run!” Infinity shouted.
The group turned en masse and sprinted east, directly away from the robots. Infinity heard another pop from behind, and a Marine no more than five feet to her right fell on his face.
“Evasives!” someone shouted.
The men started randomly zigzagging, making themselves more difficult targets. Infinity followed their lead and glanced over to make sure Desmond and Gideon were doing the same.
As the group rounded a shack, Infinity looked back over her shoulder. The vehicles didn’t appear to be chasing them. Perhaps the machines weren’t allowed to leave their riders behind, even though the riders were now dead. Had the robots acted on their own, or had they been taken over remotely after losing their riders? Either way, they had apparently decided to start slaughtering the humans.
The group kept running, weaving their way between the shacks of the seemingly endless shantytown. The remaining hints of twilight were giving way to darkness now, and they were seeing fewer of the lemur creatures moving around outside the dwellings. Eventually they slowed to a jog.
Desmond nudged Infinity’s arm and pointed. “What is that, an outdoor theater?”
She stopped and looked. A few hundred yards to their left, a large rectangular screen displayed a video. Hundreds of spectators could be seen in the screen’s glow, sitting on the ground. Abruptly, the crowd erupted with barks and whistles, apparently in response to something they’d just seen on the video.
Infinity turned her gaze to the screen. The image kept cutting away from one shot to another, but in the brief seconds of continuous video, it became apparent that a fight was taking place. Or more accurately, a pursuit was taking place, with moments of conflict followed by escape and then more pursuit. The pursuer was one of the lemur creatures, wearing a black body suit like those the spider riders had worn. The creature being pursued also appeared to be a lemur but without a body suit and with a white tail. All the lemurs Infinity had seen so far had brown tails.
The crowd erupted again as the black-clad lemur overtook its victim, and the two creatures tumbled into a vicious grappling fight.
“These bastards have a penchant for violence,” Gideon said.
Infinity turned to see that Gideon had stopped beside her and Desmond. He was staring at the scene as well. He then tipped his head toward the Marines, who were still jogging ahead. “We’d better keep up. Not a good place to get separated.”
Infinity glanced at the movie-watching crowd one more time and started running again, following Desmond, Gideon, and the Marines.
Eventually, after they had run at least a mile without seeing any of the creatures at all, they entered a wide field speckled with waist-high shrubs. Several hundred yards into the field, they finally stopped running. Infinity turned and looked back toward the shantytown. Faint lights were glowing from within thousands of shacks. Beyond the shacks, the high-rise structures of the city were solidly illuminated in brilliant colors, as if their exterior surfaces were glowing. She turned and looked in the direction they’d been running. Beyond the field of shrubs she could see nothing but the blackness of night.
“Shit!” one of the Marines sputtered while struggling to catch his breath. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“First,” said Infinity, “let’s get down so we’re out of sight.” She sat on the ground, and the others kneeled. The shrubs were sparse, but she was reasonably sure the group was far enough into the field to be concealed from the nearest shacks. She scanned the survivors who had made it to the field—Desmond, Gideon, and four Marines, their faces obscured by the darkness. “Who do we have left?” she asked.
“Corporal Vic Shepherd,” said the Marine to her left. Shepherd was the one who had given Infinity, Desmond, and Gideon their sets of organic clothing.
“Private Terry Epsom,” said the next guy over.
“Deon Lowman, private first class.”
“Bishop Artliff, ma’am. Private.”
Gideon cleared his throat softly. “I’m Gideon. Used to be a National Guardsman—specialist. Now I’m just a fellow human being, trying to save humanity.”
“I’m Desmond Weaver. Bridger.”
“And I’m Infinity. I’m a bridger too, if there’s still such a thing.”
“I emptied my weapon in the fight,” Vic said, “so I tossed it a few miles back. Does anyone still have unfired projectiles?”
“I emptied mine during the first conflict and tossed it aside,” said Deon.
“So did I,” said Bishop.
Terry patted his gun. “I’ve got two left.”
They all turned to Gideon. “I’ve, uh, only fired once. At that son of a bitch robot rider that opened fire on us.” He hesitated for a moment. “I didn’t think it was necessary to kill until then.”
Infinity addressed the whole group. “I have no idea what we’re supposed to do now. We weren’t given any rules for this goddamn test. Still, we have a job to do. We have to stop your world—which is now our world too—from being destroyed. I’m willing to bet getting killed isn’t going to help us achieve that. So far, our encounters with the residents of this city have been disastrous. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that we should continue moving that way.” She pointed into the dark unknown beyond the field.
“I agree,” said Desmond. “For all we know, more robot riders are already searching for us. In fact, I’m surprised they haven’t been searching for us from the air.”
Infinity realized she hadn’t seen any aircraft at all since they arrived. Strange, for a civilization advanced enough to have robot spider vehicles.
“Alright then,” Vic said. “Let’s keep moving until we find a place to hide until morning. Then we can decide on our next move.”
Gideon and the remaining Marines nodded in agreement.
Without further discussion, the seven survivors got to their feet and headed east into the darkness.
8
Mesh
April 10 - 8:27 PM
Desmond slapped his cheek, trying to sharpen his focus. He’d lived through some intense, terrifying days over the last few years, but this one topped them all. In recent months, he had almost managed to forget what it felt like to constantly witness people dying all around him in horrible ways. He had grown to love his life on the arthropod world, and he was certain Infinity had been happy there too. But all of that was gone now—destroyed in less than a day. He just wanted to close his eyes and shut it all out. He was beyond exhausted. He slapped himself again, this time hitting his temple and scalp. He winced at the pain and felt wetness on his hand. He looked at it and realized his head was bleeding.
“Should I be concerned about you hitting yourself?” Infinity asked. She was walking beside him as the group made their way across the shrubby field.
“You didn’t tell me I was bleeding.”
“It looked superficial.”
Knowing that Infinity’s definition of superficial was quite different from his own, he felt the wound with his fingertips. She was right—the wound wasn’t deep. He didn’t even remember getting hit in the head. But he wouldn’t soon forget the sight of a sentient, five-foot-tall lemur charging at him.
“I was wondering how long ago this world may have diverged from ours,” he said.
“That’s your department. Honestly, I don’t give a musk monkey’s ass. I just want to pass this stupid test and get the hell out of here.”
Desmond knew better than to believe Infinity wasn’t at all interested in their surroundings. She cared about everything that might have some bearing on survival, and she knew they had to survive or their new home world would be destroyed. He said, “The more we understand about this world, the better chance we have of passing the test.”
<
br /> She sighed. “Alright then. When do you suppose the two worlds diverged?”
“Depends whether I’m right about what type of creatures these are. I could be wrong, but they look to me to be descended from prosimians—primitive primates, like lemurs or lorises, or maybe tarsiers.”
“I’ve already started calling them lemurs,” she said.
He felt the urge to smile, in spite of his exhaustion. “So have I, actually, although their enormous eyes remind me more of tarsiers. But let’s say they are direct descendants of prosimians. If so, then this world must have diverged from ours before the appearance of simians—monkeys and apes.”
She huffed a brief laugh. “Because if simians had existed and had become sentient, they would have wiped out any other creatures that had the bad manners to develop their own intelligence.”
He glanced at her in the darkness. “Well, yes. But that’s a cynical way to put it.”
She shrugged. “Humans are simians, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’m just being truthful. We wipe out anything that tries to become as powerful as us. Hell, all intelligent species do it. Think about the Outlanders. Think about Kitty, Tigger, and Teddy—their whole species. They wipe out entire civilizations because they don’t like the way they use technology. In case you haven’t noticed, the only survivors from our own version of Earth are you, me, Gideon, and a few others who are now on a world that's about to be destroyed if we fail here. This goddamn trial could cause our extinction.”
Desmond realized Infinity was as exhausted as he was. Exhaustion tended to bring out her fatalistic side. He reached out and squeezed her hand before going on. “Anyway, as I was saying, it seems unlikely that any of the prosimians could have evolved to such a level of intelligence if the apes or monkeys had been around at the same time. Which means there’s a good chance this world diverged from ours forty to sixty million years ago, before the simians appeared.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I can see another possibility. Lemurs came from Madagascar, right? They were isolated there. Maybe on this world the lemurs in Madagascar became intelligent within the last few million years. Then they could have spread out across the planet and wiped out all the humans. Or at least the ancestors of humans.”
The Trial of Extinction Page 8
