Ghost of the Argus

by E. R. Torre

  “Maybe a little of both,” Cer said.

  “How did you two wind up sharing space together?”

  “You don’t know? I thought you and Becky knew everything about us.”

  “Not everything,” Nox said.

  “It’s a long story,” Cer said. “Perhaps afterwards.”

  “Fine.”

  “Why do you hate Independents so much?”

  “They’re competition. Competition, by definition, is the enemy.”

  “I was taught to appreciate competition,” Cer said. “It forces you to work harder and do better.”

  “There is that,” Nox acknowledged.

  “You were an Independent?”

  “Hell no. I’m a Mechanic.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Of course,” Nox said.

  “You work for money?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Spying, detection? Merc?”

  “If needed.”

  “Strong arm?”

  “Sure.”

  “So how exactly are you different?”

  Nox thought about that for a few seconds. She opened her mouth then closed it once again. Finally, she shook her head.

  “Why exactly did I let you join me?” she said. “All right, Inquisitor, Mechanics and Independents are not all that different. If I catch you telling anyone I said that…”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “What do Inquisitors do?” Nox asked.

  “We live by the Holy Laws and make sure others follow,” Cer said.

  “How?”

  “Policing planets, preaching…” The smile on Inquisitor Cer’s face disappeared. “…preaching the words of the Sacred Texts. For all that was worth.”

  “Never was all that religious,” Nox said. “Then again, other peoples’ beliefs didn’t bother me so long as they didn’t push their shit my way. Was that part of your job?”

  “Yes,” Inquisitor Cer said. “Only now…”

  She paused.

  “The Holy Texts were filled with stories of the Exodus. Of Earth’s destruction and humanity’s saviors. Spradlin was the Unknown Hero, the man of legend. The Texts say that without him we would have all died.”

  “That much is true,” Nox said.

  “He’s considered the First Saint.”

  Nox laughed.

  “You guys think Spradlin’s a Saint?”

  “If what’s left of him is within you, there will be those who consider you a Saint as well,” Cer said. “Only you don’t look or act like much of one.”

  “What do I act like?”

  “Someone with a hell of a temper.”

  “Back in the good old days we called it an attitude.”

  Cer was silent a few seconds.

  “We’ll take both of you with us,” she said. “B’taav wouldn’t abandon you.”

  “You sure your boyfriend will allow it?”

  Cer was taken aback by that characterization.

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Yeah,” Nox said. She stared into Inquisitor Cer’s eyes. “Come on. You haven’t noticed the way he looks at you?”

  “How… how does he look at me?”

  “The same way you look at him,” Nox said. She shook her head. “Five fucking thousand years gone by and people still haven’t figured out love.”

  Nox finished setting up her rifle and motioned for Inquisitor Cer to get behind her. Nox got down on her knee and pulled the rifle up. She set its stock against her shoulder and peered through the telescopic view.

  “You may want to shield your eyes.”

  Nox pulled the trigger and a blast of heavy compressed air burst from the weapon’s barrel. Cer spotted a small metal spike fly across the length of the debris field. In a fraction of a second it hit the ground and embedded itself into muddy soil.

  “Here we go,” Nox said.

  She pressed a button on the side of the rifle and a burst of electricity sprang from the metal spike. It flowed through the objects planted below ground, in turn causing them to spark and smoke.

  The electrified objects blackened before crumbling into dust.

  “That’s that,” Nox said.

  She aimed and fired several more spikes, embedding them roughly every twenty feet along a straight path. When she was done, she pressed the button on the rifle’s side and each of the spikes erupted. The charges disabled the line of buried objects.

  Satisfied her work was done, Nox picked up her rifle.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  The two jogged back to the truck.

  Cer followed closely behind, her eyes on the terrain. She detected motion to her right, from behind their vehicle, and abruptly tackled Nox to the ground.

  Something sharp and metallic flashed before them, whizzing by only inches from their heads. The thing disappeared into the distance. A whirl was heard, then the sound of metal scraping against metal.

  “It’s over there,” Cer said, pointing toward the columns of frozen metal warriors.

  The warriors remained rigid, though at least one of them wasn’t as frozen as the others.

  “Look,” Inquisitor Cer said.

  There were three drones in the air.

  They were circling closer and closer to them.

  Inside the desert truck, B’taav and Becky Waters saw the object fly past their companions.

  Becky Waters also spotted the drones in the air and, along with B’taav, made the same guess regarding their presence.

  “They’ve been detected,” B’taav said. “We have to get them back inside the truck.”

  “I’m on it,” Becky Waters said.

  She rushed out of the vehicle and moved toward her companions. Her prosthetic limbs dug into the withered ground and propelling her forward at incredible speeds.

  B’taav slid into the truck’s back seat and reached for its cargo hold. He shoved aside the material there, looking for a weapon. As he did, he accidentally pressed the screen of an ancient computer tablet stored alongside Nox’s gear.

  The tablet’s screen came on. On it was the image of a wounded woman. Bandages covered her head and her right eye was a swollen mess. She tried to say something but couldn’t. Tears ran down her good eye.

  So shocked was B’taav by the image that he momentarily forgot what he was looking for. The woman on the tablet spoke.

  “Hello Nox,” she said. The tablet’s speakers were damaged and the woman’s voice was garbled. “I hope… I hope you’re doing well…”

  Despite his shock and intense curiosity, B’taav shut the tablet off. The woman’s image, however, shook him to his core.

  “By the Gods,” he muttered.

  Below the tablet was a handgun. He grabbed it and exited.

  B’taav used the vehicle as cover and worked his way to its front. He gazed over its hood and in the direction from where the attack came. He couldn’t see much beyond the immobile rusted metal figures. He looked away, towards Inquisitor Cer and Nox.

  “Come on,” B’taav said.

  Another couple of drones joined the trio already in the sky.

  B’taav kept his finger over the gun’s trigger. First Nox, then Inquisitor Cer made their way to his side. They covered the vehicle’s rear while B’taav covered the front.

  “See anything?” Inquisitor Cer asked B’taav.

  “Nothing,” B’taav said. “Where’s Becky?”

  “I don’t know,” Nox said. Despite her gruff exterior, there was concern in her voice.

  A sudden blast of electrified light appeared in the near distance. Sparks burst from the ground and rained on the transport vehicle. The groan of metal destroyed the silence and was followed by an even stronger screech.

  B’taav, Inquisitor Cer, and Nox were on their feet as one, rushing toward the source of the noise.

  They stepped past the rusted figures, all eerily silent and unmoved by the spectacle happening around them. They trained their weapons while the acrid smell of burnt metal and
cordite floated around them.

  Becky Waters stood before them, holding a bent and scraped metal tube. Lying on the floor in front of her was another metal figure, the third of the robots that pursued B’taav and Inquisitor Cer from their landing site.

  The remains of the figure were twisted and broken. Sparks rose from its midsection and a dark fluid drained from its head.

  Becky Waters dropped the metal tube. As she did, the group of four felt the wind rise up. Unsettled dust stirred momentarily before dying down. The wind returned seconds later with renewed strength.

  Up in the sky and for the first time since their arrival, the Locust Plague’s enormous metal tentacles showed signs of life. Faint lights appeared on their dark forms and with each passing moment more and more of them came on. The tentacles, the group of four realized, were moving. They were slowly rotating against the Earth’s orbit.

  After thousands of years, the planet killing machines were coming to life.

  “Oh, shit,” Nox said.

  56

  They returned to the desert truck and got in.

  Nox turned it on and drove through the cleared debris path while Inquisitor Cer checked Becky for wounds on what remained of the flesh on her arms. She had several scrapes along with a pair of deeper cuts.

  “Does it hurt?” Cer asked.

  “A bit,” Becky replied.

  Inquisitor Cer reached into the cargo hold and found the medi-kit B’taav brought from the Xendos. She removed crème from the kit and applied it to the woman’s wounds before binding them.

  “Whatever that is, it works well,” Becky Waters said. “But you shouldn’t have bothered. There’s so little of me left.”

  “There’s enough.”

  The desert truck left the debris field and approached the western end of what was left of the Big City. The Geiger counter continued to click, displaying progressively higher levels of radiation.

  “If this continues, it will be too dangerous for us to exit,” B’taav said.

  The truck moved on and her passengers were quiet. After a while, Nox stiffened.

  “What is it?” B’taav asked.

  Nox faced Becky Waters.

  “You know where we’re going?” she said. There was a mix of surprise and fear in her voice.

  “Yes,” Becky replied.

  They drove over a large, sandy hill and there, in the valley below, saw it.

  It was a nine story building which, incredibly, was relatively intact. Its surface was square and worn down. Its color was dark brown and her surface sported neither identification nor signs. From its roof extended a series of thin, almost invisible wires. They rose up into the sky until disappearing into the far distance.

  Upon seeing it, Nox’s face turned pale.

  “It can’t be,” she muttered. “I saw it blow up.”

  “Are you sure?” Becky Waters asked.

  “I was… I was a couple of blocks away. It blew up.”

  Nox shook her head. Anger welled within her. She slammed her fist into the steering wheel.

  “Fuck!”

  “Easy,” Becky said.

  “Spradlin gave me false memories of killing people in Arabia,” she said. “And I saw this fucking place blow up!”

  Becky pointed to the side of the building. The ground there was ripped up and charred.

  “Maybe you did,” she said. “Something exploded all right. Oscuro itself.”

  “What is Oscuro?” Inquisitor Cer asked.

  “The place where Spradlin made his soldiers,” Nox said. “It was where he made me.”

  “And obviously much more,” Becky said as the movement of the wires on the roof increased.

  At the wires’ base and on the building’s roof, a light came on. It flashed for a few seconds before shutting off.

  “Right on time,” Becky Waters said. “There’s the source of our light signal.”

  Becky Waters looked out of the window, her metallic eyes following the trail of the thin wires up and up.

  “They go on for miles,” she said. “They must be directly linked to the Locust Plague tentacles. They might even reach up to the mother ship itself.”

  “When did Spradlin arrange this?” Nox said.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Inquisitor Cer said.

  Nox was silent for a few seconds. She shook her head.

  “Bastard only talks when he wants to.”

  “Could it be another trap?” B’taav said.

  “We won’t know until we get inside,” Becky Waters said.

  As they approached the Oscuro building, the wires on the roof continued their vibration, swaying as if pushed by the rising breeze.

  In the air, still more drones buzzed by. There was a crack of lightning. The dust cloud bearing down on the city was momentarily lit up.

  “By the Gods,” Inquisitor Cer said.

  The cloud was enormous, covering many miles of territory.

  B’taav checked his watch.

  “We’re down to forty minutes.”

  “Let’s move,” Becky Waters said.

  Because of layers of ancient debris, Nox was forced to park their vehicle behind a hill and fifty feet from the building. Becky Waters checked the Geiger counter.

  “Not so bad around here,” Becky Waters said. “Which means we shouldn’t stay a second longer than we have to.”

  The passengers grabbed their weapons and exited the truck. Becky Waters took a set of flashlights and affixed them to the others’ jackets.

  “You don’t need one?” B’taav asked.

  Becky pointed to her silver eyes.

  “Got my own flashlight.”

  Above them, the drones kept their distance.

  “They’re avoiding the building,” Inquisitor Cer noted.

  “After years of getting their asses kicked by Spradlin, they have a healthy distrust of all things touched by him,” Becky said.

  The four moved on, walking past layers of broken concrete and mortar. Nox took point, her burly arms cradling a shotgun. She spotted a crumpled sign on the ground and kicked it.

  On it and barely legible was written: 17th Avenue and James.

  “We’re really here,” Nox said.

  They continued moving toward the building. B’taav kept close behind Nox while Inquisitor Cer and Becky Waters brought up the rear.

  Above, the Locust Plague’s tentacles gained speed while more of her lights came on. Strange, electronic buzzes were heard coming from within the Oscuro building. Joining the noises were other, even stranger sounds. They came from farther away and deep within the ruins of the city. They were the sounds of movement. They were the sounds of primitive engines.

  “The party’s starting,” Nox said.

  They broke into a run. B’taav passed Nox to lead the group on. They kept their distance from the gaping hole by the building’s base before reaching her outer wall. The windows, the few that were left, were dark. The lobby doors were large and extra-wide. They were designed to allow the passage of trucks.

  B’taav hesitated and, behind him, the others did as well. For several seconds, he remained frozen in place.

  “What is it?” Cer asked.

  B’taav shook his head.

  “Nothing.”

  “We have to do this,” Becky said.

  B’taav nodded.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They entered the building’s lobby and, apart from a thick layer of dust, found it completely empty.

  It was very dark, though the Desert truck’s lights offered some illumination.

  The group moved to the lobby’s rear. There, they found stairs.

  “Up or down?” Becky asked.

  Nox shone her flashlight down the stairs.

  “There can’t be much left of the basement,” Nox said.

  “The basement was where Spradlin kept his tech,” Becky Waters said. “We need to check out what’s there.”

  “The wires and the light signal are upstairs,” B’
taav countered.

  “One or the other,” Becky said. “We don’t have time to explore both.”

  “Unless we split up,” B’taav said.

  “I know what’s down there,” Nox said. “I’m going up.”

  B’taav faced Cer.

  “You and Becky take the basement,” he said. “I’ll go with Nox.”

  “You sure about that Independent?” Nox said.

  “I’m sure,” B’taav said. “Consider it an opportunity to bond.”

  B’taav removed the Xendos’ remote control panel from his jacket sleeve and handed it to Inquisitor Cer.

  “Take it,” he said. “We’ve got more ground to cover.”

  Inquisitor Cer placed the remote panel over her forearm, snapping it into place.

  “Come back in one piece,” she told B’taav.

  They stared into each other’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” Nox said. “I’ll bring him back. If only for your sake.”

  B’taav motioned to the stairs.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  While B’taav and Nox climbed, Becky Waters and Cer headed down the stairs. Eventually, they reached the basement level and found a large metallic door. It was torn from its hinges and covered in dust. Beyond it was a hallway and several enormous rooms. Overturned metal desks lined the floor.

  “Looks like a war broke out,” Inquisitor Cer said.

  “It did.”

  They moved on, passing long silent monitors and burnt out computers. Inquisitor Cer was surprised by the look of these primitive machines, and even more surprised by how much of it survived.

  B’taav and Nox climbed the stairs and quickly looked over the building’s second floor.

  Like the lobby, the area was empty and deathly quiet. At one point, it might have housed a large office. Now, it was completely deserted.

  “You have any idea what’s upstairs?” B’taav asked.

  “I never had the chance to check the upper floors,” Nox said. “Last time I was here I was under a pretty tight deadline.”

  “The more things change,” B’taav said.

  They returned to the stairs and climbed past the third floor. B’taav bypassed the fourth and fifth floor and rushed toward the sixth. The Independent’s pace increased as they moved along.

  “Don’t you want to search the floors?” Nox asked.