Hero Code

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Rache?” Casmir called, though he doubted his voice would carry through the rocks. “Are you alive?”

  He didn’t get an answer. With his inhuman strength, Zee kept pushing boulders away. Some tumbled back down, and Casmir had the impression of trying to unbury oneself from an avalanche, but eventually, Zee shifted, rising slightly. Casmir dug in his satchel and found the flashlight. He pointed the beam upward and could see past Zee’s torso to a distant jagged ceiling. A lot of it had fallen, but there was air up there. They weren’t completely buried.

  After moving a few more rocks, Zee pulled himself out of the hole they were in. He reached down and pulled Casmir after him.

  “How did you get here so fast?” Casmir asked.

  “I ran. Kim Sato told me to come help you.”

  “She’s safe?”

  “She remains undisturbed in her home.”

  “Good. I’m not sure whether to be relieved or alarmed that she can sense from afar that I’m in trouble.”

  Casmir clambered about on hands and knees, pointing around with his beam. There was an exit at the end of the room, opposite the smashed and buried communication equipment, but only a foot at the top remained open. He couldn’t tell how much of the corridor outside had also collapsed.

  Neither Rache’s black armor nor their enemy’s gray armor was in sight. Not that Casmir would have wanted to see a headless man. He knew he should have forgiveness in his heart for all human beings, but it was hard not to feel that the leader had deserved death. He hadn’t even known Casmir, and he’d been trying to kill him. If he was the one who’d ordered the bombings in the city, maybe this was a fitting end for him.

  “Zee, can you dig over there?” Casmir pointed to the area where he’d last seen Rache. “My… ally was about there when the rocks started falling.”

  It was possible Rache had escaped the room, especially with his armor to protect him, but Casmir couldn’t be certain of it.

  “I sense vibrations in the rock.” Zee pointed at a spot near where Casmir had pointed.

  “Is someone down there moving? Or trying to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dig him out, please.”

  Casmir tried to help, but the galaxy suit didn’t enhance strength the way combat armor did, and he mostly ended up in the way.

  “Rache?” he called. “Is that you down there?”

  If he was alive, how injured was he? Would he need medical attention right away? Who here on Odin would grant it? If the Kingdom Guard or the knights showed up—and Casmir had to assume they would, now that the stealth generator was down—they would shoot Rache instead of helping him.

  It occurred to him that the stealth generator might have also been responsible for dampening signals, not just hiding the base.

  Asger, he sent a message. If you receive this, please message me. I may be… Casmir looked around the chamber as Zee continued to dig. Stuck.

  His chip let him know that he had a weak signal. All the rock around him probably blocked wireless transmissions almost as much as the special field had.

  A boulder flew into the air. Startled, Casmir jumped back. Zee hadn’t done that.

  Zee peered into the hole he’d been digging. Another rock flew up, larger than a man’s head. Zee caught it and tossed it aside.

  “Rache?” Casmir asked warily.

  After a pause, during which no more rocks were thrown, an equally wary, “Dabrowski?” came back.

  “Yeah. I think you can call me Casmir now.”

  “I see a crusher’s ugly head.”

  “That’s Zee, and his head is as beautiful as the rest of him.”

  Rache would know that if Zee had protected him from a massive rockfall.

  “You’re a weird kid, Da—Casmir,” Rache said.

  “Kid? Does that mean you’re older?”

  “I don’t know, actually.” Another rock flew up. “It may be the other way around, but you seem younger than me. Than most adult men I know.”

  “That’s because you spend your days with surly mercenaries instead of comic-book-reading robotics professionals.”

  “They don’t all read comics, do they?”

  “Only the ones you’d want to spend time with.”

  More of Rache’s dusty armor came into view. Zee gripped his armpits and dragged him out of the hole, rocks tumbling into the vacated space. His face was bruised and bloody. Casmir was impressed that he’d managed to protect his naked head enough to survive the rockfall.

  “I can’t believe you and your robot are rescuing me.” Rache sounded thoroughly disgusted.

  “Would you rather have died under a crushing pile of rubble?”

  “Let me think about that and get back to you.”

  Casmir smiled slightly. He wasn’t positive Rache had needed rescuing. Had he ever truly been as helpless as he’d seemed? Maybe he’d allowed himself to be captured so he could find the leader. He might even have manipulated the situation to end up in the very room where Casmir’s crawlspace exited. He’d conveniently been standing in a spot that had kept all the guards from looking in Casmir’s direction. Maybe it had all been luck, but he was inclined to give Rache more credit than less.

  CASMIR! came Asger’s reply. We’re tunneling in to look for you. Everyone is positive you’re dead.

  I’m not dead yet. Who’s everyone?

  Me, Qin, Lopez, and your parents.

  My parents are here? Casmir rocked back, so relieved his knees almost buckled. Are they safe?

  They’re waiting at the Dragon with Captain Lopez. Qin rescued them from a shuttle pilot who was bringing them to the base.

  Oh, stellar! Kiss her for me, please.

  Er, will a handshake do?

  Be a mensch, Asger. The girl deserves a kiss. And so do you.

  From her or from you?

  Which one would alarm you less?

  He hesitated. I’m not sure. Her, I think.

  Good.

  There are also a bunch of knights and Kingdom Guards that just arrived. Your robots can’t climb up to the entrance, but they helped secure the area outside.

  Kingdom Guards? Casmir frowned at Rache. He’d been afraid of that.

  Yes. They were already on the way when I messaged my commander. The shield that was protecting this base from being spotted by the satellites dropped.

  I know. I dropped it.

  I thought it might have been you.

  Casmir was bolstered that Asger would give him that credit but also worried about what would happen to Rache when all those knights and Guards stormed in.

  Zee is in here with me, Casmir told Asger, saying nothing of Rache. Don’t let them burst in firing, please. The doorway is mostly blocked, but we’ll start trying to clear it. Are you already inside the fortress?

  Clearing a blocked passageway, yes.

  Excellent. I look forward to being rescued.

  “I lowered the energy field before finding my way to this room, so the knights and Kingdom Guard are all here and on their way in. You need to… I don’t know.” Casmir looked around bleakly, his night vision not showing much but rubble. “Hide. Or maybe you can get out the way I came in.”

  Rache looked toward the high hole. A portion of the wall had collapsed along with the ceiling, but the crawlspace still appeared accessible. It was the only other exit, if one could call it that. Rache looked back to Casmir.

  “They’re not going to listen to me if I tell them not to shoot,” Casmir added, not sure if Rache doubted the need to leave or was simply skeptical that he could get out that way. “Maybe you can take off your armor and push it ahead of you in there. If the ceiling hasn’t collapsed, it wasn’t that tight. Even if some collapsed, you have that rifle.”

  Casmir waved at it. Rache had dragged it out of the hole with him.

  “Maybe you can blow aside the rock with it. Quietly.” Casmir felt guilty that he couldn’t, after the help Rache had given him, offer him a ride back to civilization on the Dragon, but for
all he knew, knights were prowling all around the freighter.

  Rache pushed a hand through his sweaty hair—it was covered in dust and as mussy as Casmir’s usually was, albeit military short instead of flopping into his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Casmir asked, thinking Rache looked a little dazed. His armor was in poor shape, and he hadn’t had Zee to protect him from the boulders crashing down.

  “Yes. That man who tried to kill us was Jager’s last chief superintendent of Royal Intelligence, before Van Dijk was promoted to the position. You may want to do some digging and find out what Jager did to alienate him.”

  Casmir was more curious about the details of what Jager had done to alienate Rache. Had that comment about a killed fiancée been literal?

  Faint scraping sounds—digging—reached his ears, and Casmir knew there wasn’t time for a long chat, even if Rache had been more forthcoming than usual.

  “If I get a chance, I will,” Casmir said.

  Rache removed his battered and soot-covered right gauntlet and stuck out his hand. It took Casmir a moment to recognize he was offering a handshake.

  “Does this mean you don’t want me to hug you?” Casmir clasped the hand.

  “This is as much growth in our relationship as I can handle for one day.”

  “Seems fair. Though it has been a long and eventful day.” A long and eventful night, actually. Casmir’s chip informed him that dawn was approaching.

  “Tell me about it.” Rache lowered his hand. He sounded exhausted.

  Casmir wondered what all he’d had to do to make his way back to this room.

  Rache walked across the uneven rubble toward the crawlspace. “I think you’ll find the answer to the question you keep asking me in the capital. In the Royal Zamek Seed Bank.”

  “Seed bank?” Casmir asked.

  Rache didn’t explain further. He put his gauntlet back on and sprang to the hole in the wall. The armor should have made it harder to maneuver in a tight space rather than easier, but he slid inside with grace that Casmir had never in his life known. He soon disappeared from sight, making not a sound as he slithered through the passage.

  Rocks tumbled away from the main corridor entrance.

  “Casmir?” Asger called. “Are you in there?”

  “Yes.” Casmir faced the newcomers, debating what he would say if anyone asked what had happened to Rache. That he’d gotten away? That would be accurate.

  “We’re coming to rescue you.”

  “Good.” Casmir leaned against the solid Zee and closed his eyes. “I’m ready to be rescued.”

  20

  Kim put peanuts out on the railing behind the cottage she and Casmir shared on campus, wondering if the squirrels had long since given up on her and moved on to another more lucrative part of the neighborhood, or if they would catch the whiff of fresh food and quickly return.

  She sipped her coffee and went back inside to get ready for work. She and Casmir had spent the previous evening cleaning up the mess the crusher had left behind—apparently, robot intruders weren’t superior to human thieves and couldn’t stomp through a person’s home without knocking over furniture and rifling through dresser and desk drawers. The place looked much better in the morning light, almost back to normal. A cleaning robot whirred through the kitchen, wiping up the toast crumbs Casmir had left on the counter.

  “Almost back to normal,” she murmured, though it wasn’t, not really.

  Most of the terrorists had been arrested and the base destroyed, but the missing gate still loomed over Casmir’s head. He seemed certain the king would soon send men to drag him off to find it. And for herself, Kim was still working for the government in their lab near the castle, rather than at her own place of employment. They’d allowed her to return home, now that the terrorists shouldn’t be a threat. But Chief Superintendent Van Dijk had made it clear they would keep an eye on her and that she wasn’t to take any unannounced leave until they were satisfied she’d refined her bacteria all she could.

  Still, it was good to be back in the house. She gave her coffee grinder a loving pat as she strolled through the kitchen. She’d brought Rache’s espresso-preparation gifts back with her and felt a little silly with so many coffee accoutrements lined up on the counter, but as she’d told Casmir, it wasn’t a bad idea to have backups.

  An alert appeared on her contact, telling her of a message arriving, and she gripped the counter, abruptly nervous. Rache.

  What if he wanted to set up that dinner date?

  No, thanks to some video footage the knights had uncovered in the rubble at that base, the entire Kingdom knew he was here now. The last she’d heard, they had been scouring the forest, looking for him, wanting him as badly as they wanted all the terrorists. More badly.

  Greetings and farewell, Scholar Sato, the message read.

  I waited until I was on my way out of orbit before composing this. Despite the hospitable weather in Zamek during my stay, I shall be avoiding Odin for a while. I had a few near misses with a handful of knights as I found covert transportation out of the planet’s cumbersome gravity well.

  I regret that I’m unable to suggest a time and meeting place for that dinner date, though it would not surprise me if you were relieved. Nonetheless, I shall take this moment to thank you for the gift of those little vials. I didn’t recognize what precisely was in them—was it a custom concoction, perhaps?—but I must admit from personal experience that they were effective. Very effective.

  Kim grimaced. Had he been doused himself?

  Casmir deployed them at an opportune moment. A more opportune moment might have been ten seconds before I was captured and I still had my helmet on, but one mustn’t be picky when working with amateurs. I was able to escape with my life, which wasn’t a certainty for a while.

  An image popped up of the sun rising over Zachowac Kingdom Forest, taken from some high point overlooking the treetops. The photograph captured the beauty of the lush greenery contrasted with the pink and blue sky, and it gave Kim a strangely poignant feeling, as if she had lost out on something by not seeing it in person.

  I considered sending a picture of your agent in action, so you could see its effectiveness, but at the last moment decided images of men writhing in their own vomit might not be the most appropriate thing to share with a woman. Should you ever find yourself without a job or a safe place in the Kingdom, I would be most pleased to hire you.

  ~ David

  David? Was that his real name? Huh.

  She thought about replying, but he hadn’t asked for a reply, and even though she appreciated hearing that someone had found her contribution useful, she was, as he’d deduced, relieved—or at least ambivalent—that he was heading off and she wouldn’t likely see him again. It was for the best, and she would let it end here. She wasn’t going to become penpals with the most hated criminal in the Kingdom.

  Casmir paced in the waiting area of the clinic, his hands clasped behind his back. Qin stood in a corner, her arms folded over her chest, pretending not to notice the glances her pointed ears earned her. Casmir was sure her alert eyes didn’t miss anything.

  His mother and father were also in the waiting area. They had only met Bonita briefly, but they had both come along, and they watched his admittedly vigorous pacing without commenting that the breeze he was making was stirring the leaves on the potted plants.

  “It’s a routine procedure, dear,” his mother said. “I’m sure she’s doing fine. She seemed very fit.” She didn’t add for her age, but that seemed to be implied.

  Casmir refrained from pointing out that at fifty-eight, there weren’t that many years between them. She might disagree.

  “Very routine,” his bespectacled father said, his gaze glued to the zero-g soccer game playing on the huge wall display. Now and then, his mild expression shifted to one of zealous approval as he half rose from his chair and clenched his fist.

  Neither of his parents seemed emotionally or physically scarred from
their brief stint as prisoners of terrorists. His father taught teenagers, so maybe it hadn’t been that different from a normal workday.

  “I know,” Casmir said, not able to still his pacing. “And I’m glad. I’m just worried because I was the one who arranged this, or at least suggested it, and convinced Baron Denji Takahashi that he should speak with his colleagues about having it added to the patent purchase agreement.”

  “Oh.” Mother clasped her hands together. “Did we tell you that we’re so proud of you for selling one of your patents?”

  “Yes, three times. I appreciate it. Thank you.” Casmir also appreciated that his parents, who weren’t exactly swimming in wealth, hadn’t batted an eye when they’d found out he’d given what had turned out to be fifty thousand crowns, or a year of his before-tax salary, to someone else. “I’m just concerned because if things go wrong or aren’t as good as Laser hopes, I’ll feel responsible. I want her to be able to walk around her ship without being in pain. There are only ladders. No stairs or ramps or lifts.”

  “Ladders?” Mother’s eyebrows rose. “That doesn’t sound at all like it meets Kingdom Accessibility Accordances and Laws.”

  “No, Viggo—uhm, the Stellar Dragon—isn’t a Kingdom ship. There’s a sauna.” His distracted brain somehow thought that sounded like a logical explanation for the lack of a handicap-accessible ramp.

  “So, after she falls down the ladder and twists her knee, she can go sweat? That doesn’t sound like a fair tradeoff.”

  “There’s a salt room too.”

  “A salt room?” An intermission with Recommended Kingdom Educational and Enrichment Material—or RKEEM—came on, and his father’s focus shifted to him. “I’ve heard such things are popular in System Hesperides culture, and have read that the negatively charged ions in salt supposedly improve health and positively alter brain chemicals. But I’m not aware of any peer-reviewed studies that have been done in the Kingdom. Do you think there’s anything to it? Or is it superstitious mumbo jumbo? And how many crystals of salt and at what size would you need for a sufficient dose?”