Band Rayal Seven, Okkoto
“Where did you go?” Terry asked the missing corpses. He leaned down to study the floor and shined his flashlight across the surface, letting the shadows of anything remaining give him clues. “Look.”
Terry pointed to a small line—not dust, but a thread from clothing.
“And another.” It was like a trail of breadcrumbs. Only two, but it showed him the way. “There’s an access port here, like a Roomba hole.”
Char started shaking her head. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t even know what I’m thinking, but maybe if you share, I can think it with you.”
“I’m not going in there.”
“Hell! I wasn’t thinking that, but I should have. It’s a great idea!” Terry blurted as he pushed on the door to find that it was double-hinged even though it settled into the wall without a telltale line showing its presence. Terry didn’t wait for Char’s rebuttal, just dropped to his belly and pulled himself in. His bulging coat remnants caught on the frame, and he pushed himself back out.
“What are you doing?” Char asked when Terry took off his coat. He rifled the pockets to remove the things he needed—protein bars, one remaining pouch of water, multi-tool, and the flashlight.
“I expect it’ll be gone when we return.”
“I don’t want to go in there,” Char stated.
“I don’t either, but what I want more than anything is to get the hell out of here. The corridors are a maze to nowhere. If we can get past the main lockouts, we may get to a place where we can climb out. I don’t know where that is, but I think this access can take us anywhere in the complex.”
“They have a complex band-access system, but any knucklehead can crawl through an alternate access? It’ll be booby-trapped.”
“Of course, it will be.”
Char shook her head and removed the same things from her coat as Terry had. She stuffed them into available pockets and dropped to her knees.
“Here’s to getting out of here.” He toasted her and took a drink of water, less inclined to ration it now that they had found a functioning dining facility.
“You know there’s an AI running this place and it’s scanning our thoughts.”
“I know,” Terry admitted. “I can’t change any of that, but if it gets me a burger like I just had? I’m good with it. My thoughts are focused on a singular goal. I want to get the fuck out of here. It’s not a very good AI if it keeps fucking with us instead of opening the door and letting us walk.”
“Maybe it’s not because it’s studying us.”
Terry gave the room the finger, pushed the small, floor-level door open, and gave the finger to what lay beyond.
“It can study that.”
He crawled through, with Char right behind him. The small passage went a short way forward before a lateral conveyor rolled to their right. Straight ahead was another door—the next room. Terry motioned for Char to stay where she was while he pulled himself forward and lifted himself by his toes and fingers to get over the conveyor system and into the cross passage.
He pushed the other door open and found a meeting room set up theater-style with chairs facing a central stage. He didn’t see any reason to enter, so he backed up until he was once again straddling the conveyor. It didn’t move fast, but he didn’t want to get inadvertently sucked away.
“Shall we see where it goes?”
“I have a bad feeling, TH.” Char grabbed his ankle.
“We’ll take it a little ways and hop off when we see another side corridor. Hang on.”
Terry worked his way around the corner, using the small runners on each side of the conveyor to balance himself. “Tracks,” he said. “Bots ride on these, and that’s how they avoid being pulled away.”
He let his body drop the finger width until he hit the independent rollers and started to get pulled. He felt Char bounce around the corner as he accelerated.
They shot past the first side corridor before he could stop them. He let his toes drag along the tracks as he tried to slow down, but the rollers continued to pull him. All of a sudden, the conveyor popped open, revealing a bulk shredder below.
Terry’s hands shot out and kept him from falling through. He pressed against the sidewalls with his toes. Spread-eagled, he held his place. Char raced after him, driving her head into his groin. She grabbed his legs and held on.
He gasped in pain and his eyes rolled back in his head, but he hung on. “That hurt a lot.”
“I told you it was a bad idea.”
“Baseball.”
“What?”
Terry began to inch his way backward until he was no longer hanging over the opening. “Baseball. As in a strike on two balls.”
“I don’t see how you can find that funny.” Char grunted as she fought to find her own purchase with fingers and toes.
“A shot in the ghoulies is always funny,” Terry mumbled, not sounding amused at all. “Better hurry. Something is coming.”
Char pushed herself into a side tunnel and crawled toward the small door, then let her foot dangle to allow Terry to grab it so she could pull them both through. When she felt his hand tighten around her ankle, she pushed the door open, braced herself on the walls, and pulled herself out. She worked her way free and stood. Terry scrambled out and kicked the door shut.
“Some sort of bot. Ugly bastard,” he said before looking up to find five faces staring at him. “Hey, fuckers! We meet again.”
“We’ve never met,” one of the five who had been in the dining area replied. They stood over their pods and hanging trays within a massive hydroponics lab. One of twelve, if they had heard correctly.
“I’m Terry Henry Walton,” Terry said without missing a beat. “And Charumati.”
They put both hands on their chests and inclined their heads slightly in the standard greeting of the Erthos.
The five replied in kind.
“We are looking for the elevator to the surface. Or the stairs. Whichever is working.”
“I don’t believe you can do that,” a female Erthos responded. Terry remembered squeezing her doppelganger's neck until she passed out and keeled over dead.
“We seem to be getting that a lot,” Char replied in a soothing voice. “Can you show us what you have going on here? This is most impressive.”
Terry fell in behind her as she approached the closest worker.
“Sure,” the Erthos replied, starting a simplistic monologue on what everything was and their maintenance schedule. She had no working knowledge beyond the tasks they personally performed. Terry frowned with the realization—the degradation of society into set roles. No hope for self-improvement.
But the spark of excitement she relayed when sharing her knowledge gave Terry confidence that no society was beyond hope.
“How do you provide continued nutrition to the plants?” Terry asked, trying to keep the conversation fresh.
“We get the fertilizer from there, a liquid supplement. The water arrives over there, and is distributed through the troughs to here, where it leaves to be recycled,” she explained.
“But what’s in your fertilizer?” Terry pressed, wanting her to think deeper. Her compatriots drifted back to their work, delicately pruning, trimming, and picking.
“It’s over there. We fill the beakers to the designated line and drop in the right amount for the right plants.”
“Yes, I see,” Terry replied, placating the young woman even though she didn’t answer his question. He knew the reason. She couldn’t answer it because she didn’t know. “Fertilizer” was the term for a plant additive, nothing more. She didn’t know why or how. She only knew that she had to follow the orders.
“Show me how you know which amount goes where,” Char interjected.
The Erthos gardener took them to the side of the room, where a number of glass sinks sat in a row. Next to them was a row of beakers upside down on a stand.
“Tomatoes,” she sai
d. A yellow light flashed under a beaker, and when she picked it up, a line lit up in yellow. A sink flashed yellow, and in the hydroponics bay, a series of tubs flashed yellow. She filled the beaker to the line from the flashing yellow sink and poured the contents into the correct trough, then rinsed the beaker and returned it to its place on the stand.
“That is the complete process.”
So simple, even a caveman could do it, Terry thought.
He thanked her profusely before excusing himself and waved to the others, who paid him no attention, and together, he and Char walked out the door. Once in the corridor, Terry leaned against the wall, resting his head.
“Did we learn anything useful in there?” Terry asked.
“Besides the fact that they have clones, so someone doesn’t stay dead for very long.”
“I wonder if they know they’re clones.” Terry hung his head. “It doesn’t look like they know too much, and probably not anything to do with them being clones. Rudimentary knowledge. A low baseline.”
“At least no one is shooting at us.”
“That’s because the mean woman whose wristband you’re wearing wasn’t with them. I expect we’ll run into her next and she’ll want hers back. Did you see that they were wearing wristbands?”
“I saw. Does that mean the system is going to trigger if it reads what I’m wearing?”
“I’d like to think not because they seem to be haphazard in how they handle intruders.”
“I don’t want to be an intruder,” Char argued.
“You and me both.” Terry looked up and down the corridor, chose a direction, and pointed. “The stairway?”
Char nodded, and they headed out.
“I’d feel better with a laser pistol,” Char said when they heard a security bot up ahead.
Chapter Nine
The War Axe, in orbit around the Efluyez Homeworld, Alganor Sector
“That looks like ass!” Kai declared. Sergeant Capples modeled his dress uniform with integrated ballistic protection. It was bulky and didn’t allow for smooth movement, so he marched like a badly made wooden soldier.
“Better ass than grass,” Christina shot back.
Kai cocked his head, “The fuck?”
“Dead in the grass. Taking a dirt nap. Root side down, belly side up. Sleep with the fishes...”
“Please, stop,” Kai begged, surrendering the field of verbal battle. “It still looks like ass.”
“It does,” Cory agreed.
“See? Aunt Cory knows it. Mom knows it. You know it. Everyone knows it. Even Grandpa knows it, and he’s not even here.”
Christina opened her mouth and screamed silently. “Ideas, people! We have three days to get our shit wired, and we’re no closer than when we got here. Having the Black Eagles fly top cover is one thing. Having four mechs out there will reduce our reaction time, but none of that does anything for the troops in the open. Bulky and marching like shit is better than carrying our dead back to the ship.”
“Then they won’t spring the trap. What do you want, Christina?” Kimber leaned close.
“I want to end the war before it begins by pulling the curtain back to reveal what they want to keep hidden. When the secrets are out in the open, they’ll have to come clean. We press them for a treaty and then watch them closely after taking all their money so they don’t have enough to start a war.”
“Who said Frikanda is the good guy?”
“I expect neither is, but I sure as hell am not going to be anyone’s patsy. We’re going to march down there, and we’re going to pull the trigger before they do.”
“Isn’t that the million-credit question?” Kimber shook her head. “When do we need to pull the trigger?”
Christina blew a breath past her bottom lip and made her bangs puff into the air. “Back to the drawing board, my boy toy!” she shouted loud enough for all to hear.
Kai rolled his eyes and headed toward the manufacturing area within the War Axe.
“That’s my son you’re talking about,” Kimber said, looking for Auburn as she sought moral support. He was nowhere to be seen, but Cory was there.
“My nephew is in good hands,” Cory said. “Werewolves and the spouses who love them. Pray that the claws don’t come out.”
Kimber started to laugh. “The allure of romance with a werewolf.”
“It seems to work for our parents.” Cory draped an arm over her sister’s shoulders. “Can we deny our children the same chance for an enduring love?”
Cory’s eyes glistened as she fought back the tears, yet her smile was genuine.
“We boosted our spouses so they would live as long as us,” Kimber said, feeling her sister’s pain anew. “I’m sorry, Cor. We fight every day so we don’t have to fight, and I have a bad feeling about this one.”
“I’ll be right up front with Chris when we’re marching, holding our heads high and waiting for the hammer to fall so we can get to work and do what we do. That’s end conflict. Isn’t that our tagline? ‘A private conflict-resolution enterprise.’”
“You can’t be out there. Someone has to come save us. Uncle Ted has been doing a side project for me. He has developed medical stasis chambers that are self-deploying. We only have four constructed at present, and they are under Smedley’s control. They will deploy with the company and wait. If someone flatlines, the chamber will scoop them up and secure them. The target is one minute from expiration. After that, we can get them back here and into the Pod-doc for repair and recovery.”
Kimber stopped and chewed her lip as her mind walked through recent battles. “We could use a few Pod-doc chambers right here on the hangar deck. Get people fixed up without having to use the elevator or stairs.”
“My thoughts exactly. We’re going to reconfigure a couple drop cans for that purpose. Four Pod-docs each, controlled from the central core in the med lab. Ted will upgrade that so the system can handle the extra load. It would all be ready by now if it weren't for the attack on Keeg Station. The reconstruction took the supplies and manpower we needed. No matter, it is in the works.”
“We still have to march in the parade, though,” Kimber countered with a dark scowl. “Christina has something in mind, and I need to know what it is. I can’t sacrifice any of our people on the altar of a half-baked plan.”
“I think you’ll be surprised by what she has in mind,” Cory replied before letting her sister go. She walked away without a further word, her head held high and her shoulders back.
Band Rayal Seven, Okkoto
Terry and Char leaned against the wall, trying not to move. Their chests rose slowly with controlled breathing, and their mouths were clamped shut.
The security bot hummed into view and passed them without hesitating. They waited until they could no longer hear it.
“I was ready to give it a good knifing,” Terry quipped.
“I guess the wristbands were good or humans are no threat when they’re not carrying a dead bot in their arms.”
“Or shooting a laser pistol at it.” Terry clasped his hands behind his back as he continued to stroll in the direction he thought he would find the stairway. “It didn’t try to shoot us either time, did it?”
“I don’t think so. Next time, we’ll keep walking. I think it will probably pass us by. With these,” she held up her arm where the wristband dangled, “we’re no longer intruders.”
“That’s a serious flaw in their security.” Terry wasn’t amused. “If there’s an AI running all of this, wouldn’t it adapt?”
“It has how many years of no threats to reinforce its processes? Maybe it sees the destruction of the two bots as accidents or system failures. How long can these things operate?”
“Are those six people the only ones here?”
“Seven, if we count Tonie,” Terry corrected.
“I thought Tonie was a hologram,” Char stated.
“And I’m confused again.” Terry shook his head and held out his hand, Char took it, and they wal
ked side by side. With the lights on, they could see everything they needed to see. At the next intersection, Terry looked left. “Cafeteria is down that way, and the elevator. The next left is the way to the quarters area and power station.”
Char pointed down the corridor to their right. “We haven’t been this way.”
Terry pointed forward. “Straight ahead to the stairs, if I remember Tonie’s directions.”
Char nodded.
“Everything seems to be on one level, so I expect that with twelve hydroponic bays, this place is pretty spread out. That being said, I have no desire to explore it all. I hope to never find out what’s in that direction.”
“Onward and upward?” Char asked.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
“I shall endeavor not to stab you in the back, dear Caesar,” Char replied.
“A good day this is, that I am not stabbed. I shall persevere through hardships not yet contemplated to not just win this day but to dominate it.”
“Uh-huh.” Char was never sure what was going to happen when Terry Henry waxed philosophical.
They took the next left and followed the corridor past four doors that remained closed as they walked by. The corridor turned to the right, and four more doors stood between them and where the corridor dead-ended at a massive pile of rubble.
Terry stared at the rubble while he absent-mindedly waved his wrist past the door on his left. Char unintentionally activated the door on the right. Terry and Char jumped into each other, bouncing off to return to where they started.
“Hey there, metal friend!” Terry called in a pleasant voice. A bot identical to the one that fired on them from the lab stood inside with its laser pistol raised.
Char looked at its twin brother in the room she had opened. She raised her hands. “We’re playing nice. There’s no reason to shoot.”
“This corridor is off-limits. You must leave immediately.”
“Of course, you rusty pile of gutter trash.”
Discovery Page 8
