by William King
“This place is shielded. It’s to stop the other militias from being able to find out where we store stuff and monitor communications. It’s got its own wired private circuits.”
“Picking up anything private, Dave?” I asked.
“Not a thing,” Dave replied. “It’s as if all the local systems are dead.”
When I mentioned this to the doctor, she said, “That’s strange. This is a big meeting. They’d want the security systems on, at the very least.”
“Security systems?” I said. “You might have mentioned those before we came in here.”
“You’re a stormtrooper,” she said. “I thought you were able to detect such things.”
“It’s a bit easier when you know they’re there. Still if your friends have been helpful enough to switch off their own security systems we may as well take advantage of the fact.”
The lights started to flicker. “Now they’re just messing with us,” I said. “I thought all power was off in this city anyway. I thought the militias had blown up the generators.”
“We are on auxiliary power. We have our own generators. Although I think the backups to the backup have just kicked in.”
“I’m liking this less and less,” I said. My armor sensors were detecting a rise in the ambient temperature. The air was getting staler. The velocity of circulation was dropping. It was as if the generators didn’t have quite enough power to maintain life-support in these tunnels.
I wasn’t too bothered. My armor is space-worthy. Doctor Olson might have problems though. It was already starting to get hot. She removed her coat, then folded it and put it neatly in her bag.
“You got a rebreather system?” I asked.
“I got a filtration mask. We use it when pollution’s too high or when there’s a gas attack.”
“I’d put it on if I were you. It looks like the air down here’s going to get nasty.”
“The generators ought to be able to maintain it at minimum life-support tolerances,” she said.
“Well let’s hope it stays stable,” I said.
The lights flickered again. Then it went dark. “Your generators are not very good, are they?”
“They’re maintained to the highest standards of Aryan efficiency,” she said. “We pride ourselves on looking after our equipment.”
Her tone was firm but I could tell she was having her doubts as well.
It was so dark that not even my light amplification systems could show us anything. We were a long way down. I went to thermal imaging. The Doctor became a warm glow behind me. The walls were chilly. There were fading heat sources where the bulbs had died. I could see my footprints behind us. I could see what looked like fading footprints ahead of me. There had been people down here ahead of us. Probably the Council of the Aryan Jihad.
“I can’t see a thing,” Doctor Olson said.
“Take my hand,” I said.
“I can’t see your hand. And I’m not holding hands with you anyway.”
I was tempted to let her blunder around in the dark but I didn’t.
My helmet beam kicked in. It wasn’t very bright but it still made me a target. I’ve always thought it was a bit of a design flaw putting a light source on a helmet. Makes you a good target for a headshot. On the other hand, it also meant that the beam tracked your head’s movement and let you see what you were looking at. There are always trade-offs.
We proceeded along the corridor. I really did not like the idea of just blundering along as a target.
“Dave, scout ahead again,” I said.
“Affirmative, Stormtrooper 13,” Dave said. With a faint whine of turbofans he sped off down the corridor ahead of us. He was using everything. Thermals, image intensifiers, radar, sonar. To anybody using detectors, he was lit up like a Christmas tree.
The video feed in my HUD showed yet another unattractive panorama of long corridors, ramps and stairs. Here and there doorways lined the sides of the place. It was an old fallout shelter for sure. The sort that humans had been huddling in all during the Assimilator invasion and all of the other nice things that happened down the centuries. At least the local Aryans had learned something.
“How much further?” I asked Doctor Olson.
“Maybe another kilometer,” she said.
“This is a big place you’ve got here,” I said.
“We want to be able to shelter our entire population. There’s supplies for everyone down here for years.”
“What about oxygen?”
“We’ve got industrial scale filtration systems in here. And the power to use them.”
“It doesn’t seem to be on now. That’s the highest standards of Aryan efficiency for you.”
“You work for the Federal Government,” she said. “What would you know about efficiency?”
“Fair point,” I said. “But a bit below the belt.”
I almost got a smile for that. At least I think I did. It was very difficult to read anything in those glacial features. I wondered again if she was leading me into a trap. There was only one way to find out.
“You’re not leading me into a trap, are you?” I asked.
“Why would I do that?”
“You could be a double agent.”
“You’ve been watching too much Grid,” she said. “If I wanted to lead you into a trap there would be easier ways of doing it than this.”
“Perhaps you want to explain your master plan to me,” I said.
“Are you insane?”
“I’ve been told that I tested borderline psychotic,” I said. “I killed the man who told me.”
“What?”
“Relax,” I said. “It was a joke.”
“The sort of joke that a psychopath would make.”
“I’m not the member of the Aryan Jihad here,” I said.
“The Jihad are not psychopaths. We simply want to preserve humanity in the face of alien threats.”
“We share a goal then,” I said. “That’s what I want as well.”
I squinted up at the video feed on my HUD. Things were looking a little strange. There was water on the floor. Or maybe blood. Some sort of liquid leakage anyway.
“What’s that, Dave?” I asked.
“It’s some sort of liquid biomass,” Dave said. “It contains traces of alien DNA.”
“Dave has found traces of alien DNA in your secure bunker,” I said to Doctor Olson. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Thoughts of about secret alien super weapons were now running through my head. Perhaps the rumors were not so crazy after all. There had been a Weapon Ship here since two months back. Who knew what those slick bastards had sold these people?
“What are you muttering about?” Doctor Olson asked.
“Alien biomass,” I said. “In the headquarters of the Aryan Jihad. Fearless defenders of white humanity. Stalwart slayers of xeno scum. Doesn’t it seem a little surprising to you?”
“Maybe the bunkers been infiltrated,” Doctor Olson said. There was an odd expression on her face, as if she was struggling with the concept of aliens actually being able to be present. “Maybe the other militias found a way in. That would explain why the generators are down. It would explain why nobody else is here as well.”
“You know, you could be right,” I said. “It would be a real pity if some alien monster was running around in your bunker now, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s not my bunker,” she said. “I’m a doctor. I’m trying to preserve human life.”
“With the emphasis on the human,” I said.
“I did not train in xeno medicine,” she said. “I specialized in human pediatrics.”
“Dave, take a scout further ahead and see what you can see,” I said. “I’m liking this less and less.”
“Affirmative, Stormtrooper 13,” Dave replied.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” Doctor Olson asked.
“I’m on my own, in a fortified bunker belonging to a racist militia wh
o hate my kind, all the power has gone off, it’s dark, and my drone has just found traces of alien DNA. Why would I possibly be afraid?”
“The Aryan militia don’t hate your kind,” she said, “you’re a human being,”
“I’m a Fed,” I said.
“You say that as if you’re proud of it.”
“Steady on,” I said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
“You not proud of it? You not proud of being the mailed fist of an oppressive government?”
“I knew those words would come back to haunt me.”
“You’re not proud of being part of an organization named to inspire terror among citizens?”
“I knew there had to be a reason they didn’t call us cuddly funtroopers. Thanks for explaining it to me.”
“Why do you think you’re called a stormtrooper?”
“Because it sounds badass, and when you’re sending men and women out to face the Assimilator Broods, you want them feeling like badasses.”
“You have a slick answer for everything, don’t you?”
“You’re sounding less and less like a Federal agent,” I said.
“I don’t like what the Aryan Jihad has become,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I have to approve of the Federal Government.”
“So why did you become a spy then?”
“The Jihad murdered my brother.”
“What?” It was my turn to do the interrogation. “They murdered your brother? And yet somehow you’re still in their inner council?”
“They decided that he was a traitor to white humanity. He was seeing a kaffir girl, one of the refugees.”
“That didn’t end well I’ll bet.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“And yet, here you are, a member of the upper circle.”
“It was me that turned Tony in.”
“That wasn’t very sisterly of you,” I said.
“He told me to do it. They already knew about him. He told me that the only way they would spare my life was if I turned him in. It was only a matter of time before they found them anyway.”
“And you did it?”
I looked at her. Were there tears at the corner of the ice maiden’s eyes? It was hard to tell because she rubbed her eyes with her forearm at that point. There was a small sound that might have been sobbing or might have been coughing. It was hard to tell through the rebreather mask. “I was young. I was scared. Tony insisted. You should have seen what they did to him.”
“An Aryan militiaman found with a black girl?” I said. “I’ll pass.”
“So now you know,” she said. “I’m a traitor multiple times over.”
She sounded sad. I felt a bit sorry that I had questioned her on these lines. On the other hand, you can never know too much about the people you’re with.
It was quiet. No generators hummed. No air circulators hissed. There was no faint thrum of life-support anywhere. It was the sort of quiet where you know that something bad is going to happen soon. I’ve been there many times before.
“Dave, you’d better get back here.”
Dave’s video feed went dead.
Chapter Nine
“Dave,” I said, “this is not a good time to be kidding around.”
No reply.
“Dave?”
I tried to keep a panicked note out of my voice, mostly to avoid giving Doctor Olson the satisfaction of knowing I was a little scared. A drone is a stormtrooper’s best ally and you learn to rely on them over the years.
“Dave?”
“What is it?” the Doctor asked.
“Drone malfunction,” I said. “I seem to have lost contact.”
“You lost contact with your drone? I thought those were on impenetrable, sealed communication links.”
“You thought right.”
“I thought the only thing that could make a stormtrooper lose contact with his drone was either the death of the trooper or the destruction of the drone.”
“Watch a lot of stormtrooper shows on Grid do you?”
“You think something’s happened to the drone?”
“I’m not excluding it from the realms of possibility.”
“All of the security systems are off. We didn’t hear any firing.”
It was like listening to the voice of my subconscious. I had been going through exactly the same list. “It could be a malfunction,” I said. “Maintenance can be sloppy.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said. Sadly she was right. I was starting to feel a bit pissed off. Dave can be an annoying little shit but he was my drone.
“What do you want to do?” Doctor Olson asked.
“We need to go on,” I said. “We need to find out what happened to Dave.”
“Your drone has a name?”
“Yours doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “I don’t own any drones.”
“Oh yes, I forgot. The Aryan Jihad doesn’t like any sort of artificial intelligence.”
“Humans should be self-reliant,” Doctor Olson said.
“The Federal Republic—we put the A.I. in Satan.”
“There is no I in Satan.”
“I thought it was team.”
She ignored the joke. “We don’t need the crutches of machines doing our thinking for us.”
“So when are you going to start thinking?” I asked. Tact has never been my strong point.
“I can think for myself,” she said. “You’re the one who accepts post-human ideology.”
“I love to stand here and discuss post-human evolutionary theory with you, Doctor Olson,” I said. “But we have a meeting of your council to break up and I need to find out what happened to my drone.”
We moved forward to where Dave’s last position had been recorded. No sign of Dave. No sign of anything really except more corridor. “He’s gone,” I said.
“I don’t see any signs of violence,” Doctor Olson said.
“You will when I get my hands on whatever took Dave.”
“That’s your solution to everything,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“You know me too well.”
“We need to keep going,” she said. “We’re close now.”
“We’re close now and Dave has gone missing. Why doesn’t that fill me with reassurance?”
“Are you going stand there all day whining or are you going to follow me?”
The corridor ended in a large doorway. It was closed with a palm lock. My gauntlets did nothing when I touched it but then I had not expected them to. Doctor Olson placed her hand against it and then looked into the retina scanner and it swished open.
“Oh my God,” I said. It wasn’t another corridor, as you probably guessed. It was a giant hangar and it was absolutely stock full of goodies. There were pallets of food. There were huge piles of weapons. There were mountains of stuff covered in tarpaulins. There were enough munitions and food down here to supply an army. I’m fairly certain that was the intention.
“You’ve got enough food here to feed the entire city,” I said.
“We’re saving it in case of invasion.”
“There are people starving upstairs,” I said.
“Our people need to endure some hardships. Things may only get worse before they get better.”
“Now, you sound like one of the Jihad’s leaders,” I said.
“We don’t all live in your decadent core worlds,” Doctor Olson said. “Some of us are used to a little hardship.”
I thought of those sick children upstairs. I thought of the old people. “And you are prepared to inflict it as well.”
“You’re in no position to judge us. Particularly not when it comes to inflicting hardship.”
There was no real arguing with that. I was guessing that if any of the Jihad’s leaders were here they would probably have heard the door open.
I leaned against a large war golem. “What the hell are the Jihad doing with one of those? I thought they were against your religion?�
��
“It’s not a an A.I. It can be controlled remotely by a human operator.”
She was partially right about that. It looked like the intelligence modules had been disabled and remote servo-systems added. A thought crossed my mind.
I tapped it on the shoulder-pad near the infojack with my gauntlet and sent a small pulse of data into its systems. There was no immediate response.
“See anybody you know?” I asked.
“They should be here,” she said. Her voice was a whisper. I could understand why. There was something a little daunting about standing in this huge space and feeling like you were the only living thing present.
The quiet was eerie. I told myself it was just my imagination and the fact that I was missing the HUD feed from Dave’s cameras.
“This way,” Doctor Olson said. I followed her through the aisles of supplies. We walked for a long way.
“This place is big,” I said.
“It was meant to hold a fairly large section of the town’s population,” she said. “We wanted to be prepared during the Assimilator wars.”
So far we were the only things showing up on my sensors. I wished Dave was there. I wished that he could be sent ahead to scout things out. It’s true, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I missed the little widget now. However, it did not seem like a good time to share my nostalgia with the Doctor.
“Nobody is here,” she said. Her voice was very quiet. She sounded like she might be afraid. “There should be people here.”
“Maybe they got fed up with waiting for us to step into the trap,” I said. “Maybe they called it a day and went home.”
“This is not a trap,” she said. “If it is, I’m stepping into it with you.”
“You almost convince me,” I said.
“Oh good,” she said. “I’ve lived for this moment.”
She was starting to get into the spirit of the thing.
“Is this it?”
We were standing before a large sealed airlock door. It was exactly the sort of place I would imagine that you would keep stuff you did not want detected in. It was sealed so that no signs of contamination, biological or radioactive, could escape. There was, in fact, a large, old-fashioned biohazard warning sign on it.
“A clue,” I said.
“Are you really as stupid as you pretend to be?”
