by Ran Vant
72.
It's There
“The plan is pretty straightforward,” Damien said. “I've been there before. It was years ago, but I was in the vault. I know exactly where it is. I made a very small withdrawal of Greendust, back when the Core was more powerful than the NHA. From some discrete inquires in NHA systems, I know that the Greendust is still there, in that same hidden vault, at the end of a nearly forgotten tunnel.”
“How secure is it? Is it going to be hard to extract?” Fantima asked.
“When it comes to security, sometimes the best security is hiding something in plain sight and then leaving it there undisturbed,” Damien explained. “That is often the philosophy of the Natural Human Alliance, likely because of necessity. So it is with this vault. I’d be surprised if more than five people in the whole NHA know that the Greendust is there. The main access is an old tunnel. The access tunnel is guarded by a variety of systems. On top of that, there are enough sensors at the start of the tunnel to make going in tricky even if you could get past the security. The last time I was there, though, once you got to the final long tunnel that branches off the main access tunnel, there didn’t appear to be anything. They didn’t want anything that could be caught on a scanner to reveal the location, so the stuff is literally just stacked up all by itself, with nothing else nearby. No cameras, no nothing. However, the tunnel in is a long windy one, and those sensors at the entrance pose a problem, even ignoring the security before that. A reaction team would probably catch up to anyone in the tunnel before they got to the vault, or at least on the way out. But nobody said we have to go in the main way. The vault is in Industrial District 9, under a functioning factory. As far as security goes in the district: Standard surveillance and security bots at the factory, only a couple of guards on the surface, nothing to draw undue attention to it. The guards are probably not NHA and almost certainly don’t even know the vault is underneath them. Most of the vaults are bricked up for a rainy day. The fewer people who know about them the better.”
“Well, I'd say it's raining outside,” Fantima offered.
“My thoughts exactly. But the Natural Human Alliance leadership doesn't see it that way. Colonel Blue is scared to death of the stuff and would never authorize its use.”
“Well, we'll get it anyway,” Zhe said.
“Yes, but we aren't going to kill or hurt anyone,” Damien said. “I'm still NHA. I'm doing this to help them, even though they might not appreciate it.”
“The One has told us as much. Don't worry, you can trust us. We aren't the killing types,” Zhe said.
“So how exactly do you suggest we get at the dust?” Fantima asked.
“As I was explaining, the main route in to the vault is from underneath, from a thin offshoot of the tunnels. It was put there after Red and I found it years ago, at Blue’s insistence. It's heavily guarded along the start of the tunnels and it's a long way in from that direction. There's no way I could get in, let alone get out with the Greendust, without the proper clearances. And that just isn't going to happen given Colonel Blue. So we will sneak in from the top. It's not too deep going in from the top, actually. I guess the idea is that the heavy factory equipment shields the vault from the gen sky scanners; it looks like it is part of the factory. Who knows if that theory is right, but there are a couple of these vaults and they've never been raided as long as I've been around.”
“Is there an access point from the top? Or do we need to do some blasting?” Zhe asked.
“Digging, actually,” Damien said.
“Really? Do we have the time for that?” Fantima asked.
“A blast is going to trigger every alarm system in the district and even the floaters might pick it up. If it was just a raid, sure, blast away, throw away the weapons, and hide in the crowd. But we are going to have some fragile cargo to extract.”
Fantima replied, “Then I guess I should get some shovels.”
73.
Binary Disturbance
“I don't know if he is really understanding any of my points or not,” Maren explained in Doctor Psycho's office. She spun her pendant and necklace around her finger, winding it up, then unspooling it and repeating the whole thing again. “Of course, to be honest, I don't know if my own points make sense or not. Anyway, to the point at hand, I don't know if Lightbringer is just a machine giving the answers its complex organic brain was programmed to answer or if he is actually thinking.”
“Maren, you’re making the error of trying to categorize in binary terms,” Doctor Psycho advised.
“Of what?” She stopped spinning the necklace.
“Ones and zeros. It is or it isn’t. Yes or no.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are trying to decide if the genbot, if Michael, is or isn’t certain things, as if he has to be one or the other, a one or a zero. But there are other possibilities. Maybe he is something in-between, or maybe he is both things at the same time. You think that it either is or it isn’t. What you can’t see is that it might be both ‘is’ and ‘isn’t’ at the same time, and maybe even something more.”
And in his mind, Doctor Psycho knew the issue was deeper. The question for Maren was not only about Michael, but whether Maren herself could handle the tension when something is both ‘is’ and ‘isn’t’ or whether the conflict would tear her apart and maybe even destroy her. Of course, Doctor Psycho knew that the tension could result in something in between, or, he could only hope, blossom into something even more.
Maren, he thought, will the tension erupt into conflict that risks your own destruction or can you live in peace with it? Or will you find the key to something greater?
74.
Forever Promises
A gray lock of hair hung across his forehead. “What on earth are they doing with a genbot?”
“I have no idea,” Eve said. “I'm not even sure they know what they are doing with it. It was an accident.”
“What do you mean, it was an accident?” her lover, the man with the gray lock of hair, asked. Guardians of the West were not just accidentally captured. He had never heard of any such thing even being attempted.
“They planned to kill it and dissect it.” Eve explained the operation to capture a gargoyle and examine its neural structure. “I don't know, maybe they wanted to find out its weaknesses. Somehow it survived and they are keeping it in a cage now.”
“Interesting.”
“If you say so. It's pretty boring watching over it. I'm getting sick of it. I'm getting out of there every chance I get and coming up here.”
“Who's watching it now?”
“Maren, I suppose.”
“Doesn't she get just as bored as you do?”
“I'd guess so. We haven't had the chance to see each other much since they changed up our shift schedule.”
“Why don't you talk her into taking a break, too? You could use a friend to hang around when I have to be out at work.”
“No, I'm leaving work down there. Maren's my friend, but she wouldn't understand this, you, the need to be away from it all.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“She's different. Hard to explain. Anyway, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone about you, remember?”
“Yes, Eve, I remember. So, this gargoyle, the genbot, you've been watching it for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you talk about it before?”
“I'm not supposed to. It's a sensitive operation. Everyone is afraid that the genbot will somehow signal the floater and cause it to rain energy bolts. I'm sick of all the dying and fear and monotony and the claustrophobic tunnels... And now listen to me. I'm talking about all the things I tried to get away from by coming up here, by being with you. I'm sorry. And I don't want to talk about it anymore. Not now. I just want to be with you. I want to be with you forever.”
“That, Eve, is a possibility.”
75.
The Vault
The guards didn't think it
out of the ordinary that the unmanned delivery truck came late in the day, near closing time for the humans that worked at the factory. The factory computer regularly ordered supplies on its own. It worked twenty four hours per day fabricating and assembling heavy building components and custom metal work.
The large truck was electronically registered and ushered onto the factory grounds. The truck rumbled over to the delivery building. It auto-unloaded a number of components and two large crates, all according to what the factory computer had ordered. Then, the truck rumbled back out.
A small probe emerged from the top of one of the crates left behind. A brief flash followed, though there were no humans in that part of the factory to notice.
“The probe registers inventory management equipment. That means we're in the right place. And the best news: the probe shows nothing security-related within the flash radius,” Fantima observed.
“Okay, then,” Damien said. “Let's get to work.”
**
The rover was an old model: rubber coated tracks, a few primitive sensors (only one of which still worked), a comlink, and an auto-shotgun designed to shred a person at short range but leave the walls and building behind the person relatively unscathed. The small rover had randomly patrolled the tunnels, following its simple algorithms to identify people, remotely verify credentials if present, and report back anyone not in the latest update of the database. If it identified clearly hostile activities or received an order from the comlink, the auto-shotgun was available with one drum of ammo. Its random patrol pattern was part of the security plan: no one could predict when and where it would query visitors, whether friend or foe.
But some years ago, the already very old little rover tread down an especially long, twisting, and narrow tunnel. It found a recently-made hole where once the corridor had been bricked-up and proceeded into the darkness. Along the way, the rover dropped off a two-foot-high ledge which, when it tried to go back, could not be climbed over. The ledge was just slightly too tall for the little rover's rubber coated tracks. So the rover turned back around and proceeded deeper into the tunnel. Eventually it came to a room at the end and found that it could not go any farther. The rover retraced its steps once more. After repeating the circuit the little rover ended up once again in the room at the end of the tunnel. So it was there that the rover found a corner, and sat there, scanning all the while.
The little rover sat there for years. After a time, its battery power was too low to do much other than hibernate with its single remaining sensor active. Deep into the tunnels, it had roved too far away from a recharging station or a communication node that it could tap into. The rover was stranded. The patrol algorithms got stuck in a loop, the end result being that the rover thought it best to stay right where it was. It was forgotten in the depths, waiting for a robotic companion to one day come far enough down the tunnel to be noticed.
**
Damien looked over Fantima's shoulder at the display. “Is it synced up?”
“Yes, our digging machine is perfectly matched with the waves and vibrations emitted from the factory equipment. Nobody's going to notice a thing.”
The digging machine spit out another brick of compressed pulverized concrete and dirt. The machine deposited it on a short conveyor belt where shortly thereafter it was neatly stacked with several others. To a theoretical casual viewer observing the digging operation, the machine looked almost like a normal part of a factory generating large bricks.
“It won't take long now that the digger is through the concrete and has the factory rhythms mapped.”
**
The little rover's sensor counted down from five minutes and then sent out another ping. The waves bounced back and the little machine immediately started to hibernate again to preserve power. But then it stopped. Its servos spun up. Something was different. There was a large hole in the ceiling where before there was none. It pinged again and then again. The hole was stable. Nothing was moving. With each ping that showed that nothing had changed, the algorithms told the little rover to be less concerned. Finally, the rover decided it was nothing that warranted further observation and went back to sleep.
**
Damien paused his roped descent a few meters higher than the vault and listened. Everything seemed quiet. The digging machine had sucked up the final part of the bore, the reinforced concrete ceiling, in six pieces. Nothing fell into the vault itself other than their own sensor array. The sensors hadn't picked up anything of concern. The sensors had only shown Damien what he had thought was still there all along: the last known supply of Greendust.
Even though the sensors said nothing was down there, Damien listened anyway. He trusted his own ears. Hearing nothing, he dropped the final meters quickly to the vault floor below, landing like a feather. He listened again. Nothing.
He looked around. Yes, it was as he remembered. Enough of the metallic green wonder powder to accomplish everything they needed, and a little more. He signaled Fantima and she also dropped down to the vault.
Zhe stayed at the surface to manage the equipment. Zhe prepared to send down the first rack.
Damien rounded a corner of stacked crates...
**
Five minutes had passed. The little rover turned on its sensor. Something now hung out of the space in the ceiling. The rover identified it as long, narrow, several strands... something like cables or rope. The little rover's onboard computer ran through the possibilities and came to the conclusion that it was possible that a theft was in progress. Alternatively, it could merely be a maintenance team. The rover's servos spun up again. The rover pinged again...
**
Damien thought he saw something move in the darkness. He leaned low and moved closer...
**
The rover flashed its warning lights and audio to “stop and hold for identification.” The signals were sent to the proper components, but the light emitting diode died long ago and a heavy layer of dust caused the old brittle audio membrane to fail. Its warning components no longer worked and the little rover didn't know it.
Damien saw and heard nothing.
The little rover tried to warn the human shape again with the warning light and maximum audio alarm. The rover needed time to run the human shape through the database. It was an old model. Identification took time.
Still, the shape moved forward. The little rover took the shape's ignoring of clear warnings and forward movement as hostile intent. If the rover did not act soon, it would be too late.
The rover did what it was programmed to do. The auto-shotgun rapidly fired. The human shape did not fall immediately, so the little rover continued to fire.
**
Damien crumbled to the ground. Three of his limbs were gone. He had also taken multiple rounds to the chest. Damien wasn't even carrying a weapon. No one was supposed to be hurt. What had gone wrong?
**
The shotgun's report echoed down the tunnels to a distant sensor which immediately identified it as an older model auto-shotgun emanating from the vault.
A red light began to flash in the vault itself, and Fantima knew the mission had failed. She carefully peaked around the corner and immediately saw the little rover in the intermittent crimson flashes.
The little rover continued to pull the auto-shotgun's trigger, even though it was out of shells. It was the only weapon system it had. Fantima knew the model. She knew all the robot models. And she knew it didn't have anything more it could do.
But she had to act before more arrived. Or, more probably, before something worse came charging down the tunnel.
She looked at the stacks of Greendust canisters.
There was no time to get all of the Greendust before Natural Human Alliance guards came racing down the corridors towards them. She could hold the guards off at the narrow door, but that wasn't the goal. If she was shooting at guards, she couldn't be loading canisters. And she might not survive the stand. Alternatively, she could still take one l
oad of the Greendust back up as she made her escape. But one canister simply wasn't enough to change the outcome. Or, instead of a load of Greendust, she could take Damien.
The NHA knew that Damien had been assigned to work with Niles. It wouldn't look good for the Network. Even if he was dead, it was best to take the body rather than the powder. After stuffing his limbs into her pack, she grabbed Damien's bloody body, dragged it to Zhe's lift, and escaped up the tube.
76.
Regrets
“Who would want the Greendust?” Red pondered aloud. Greendust had several applications, some more dangerous than others.
“Who wouldn't?” Blue said.
“You.”
“I'm glad you remember, Red.” Long ago, Damien had found a hidden reserve of the fortech deep in the tunnels. It almost seemed like another lifetime. They should have destroyed the Greendust then, as she had argued. Now, just as she always knew it would, it had happened. Someone had come for it. It was only luck in the form of a lost outdated rover that saved them.
“What are we going to do with it now?” Red asked.
“Destroy it.” Blue firmly said.
“I hate to see it go...”
“You're not really going to argue with me again, Red, are you?” She couldn't believe Colonel Red would try to save the Greendust a second time, not after they realized their vulnerability. Not after everything that had happened.
