Redwood: Servant of the State

by Reed, Jaxon

  The birds shifted effortlessly, dipping, turning. The boulders sailed past them harmlessly.

  Dee Dee helped me scan the sky.

  “Here comes two! One at twelve, one at two o’clock.”

  I shifted course to the left. The boulders sailed down and past us.

  “Here comes another! Twelve o’clock.”

  I shifted course to the right.

  Boulder after boulder dropped on us. The city grew bigger, dominating the horizon now.

  “So far, so good,” I said. “Looks like we’re getting under their effective arc range.”

  As we sped closer, it did look like they’d given up on the catapults. The big blue cube grew close enough to make out some details. I could see the glass wall on the roof, the landing bay and door, now sealed shut.

  “Marc, look out!”

  A last ditch surprise. Five catapults launched their loads at once, right toward us. The birds scattered in all directions before the load shot through their formation. I jerked the controls down and to the right just as a boulder the size of a kitchen table sailed past us.

  A smaller rock about the size of a basketball hit the left front rotor. It exploded in shards of carbon fiber.

  “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

  The computer sounded a klaxon.

  “Warning! Warning! Destabilization!”

  Dee Dee screamed.

  The QC spun rapidly downwards. I fought with the controls. I struggled to get it out of the spin and maintain some kind of forward momentum. The ground grew closer.

  “Hang on Dee Dee we’re coming down hard!”

  I threw the remaining rotors into full reverse right before impact. Then I blacked out.

  -+-

  I woke up to Dee Dee wiping blood off my brow from where my head had slammed into the canopy. She had bruises on her arms, chest and face.

  “Are you alright?”

  I groaned and shook the cobwebs from my head.

  “I’ve had worse. How about you?”

  “I’m fine. We need to go help the others.”

  We carefully crawled out of the wreckage of the QC. I felt sad to see it destroyed. It’s funny how you can become attached to a machine, but this thing had carried me to freedom. The number “17” painted on its side was all crumpled up in the wreckage.

  We retrieved our com sets, pulled our guns out, racked the bolts back, and set out on foot toward the landing bay. The blue cube of Redwood City towered above us. We heard gunfire ahead.

  We worked our way through piles of rocks and rubble to the edge of the landing bay. The spaceships were gone. I figured they put them in orbit to keep them away from gunfire. Smart. The ships could stay parked in orbit indefinitely while we sorted things out down here.

  Everybody hunkered down behind boulders. The load bots were firing, advancing toward the boulders in pairs. Somebody would stand up and shoot at them, then duck back down behind their boulder as the bots returned fire.

  Mrs. Ng sat with her back to a boulder, holding Mr. Ng’s head in her lap. Blood covered his face. We ran to her position, keeping boulders and rock piles between us and the load bots.

  I held my fingers to his neck. No pulse. He’d been shot in the head.

  I jumped up, took quick aim at a load bot, squeezed off a shot.

  Bang! Twing!

  I ducked back down as two bots fired back.

  “They’re bullet proof,” I said, thinking back to all those times I’d noted their slate grey torsos. I never gave much thought about how indestructible they were. A puny nine millimeter round would do nothing to them.

  “Did you try for the head?”

  “No. Center mass.”

  Dee Dee stood up, squeezed off a round at the nearest bot.

  Bang! Pchow!

  Its head exploded, bits of machinery and sensors flying out. It stopped in its tracks, arms hanging loosely, its gun clattering to the ground.

  “Dee Dee, you’re a genius!”

  I activated my com link. “Aim for the heads! Their heads aren’t bullet proof, that’s their weak spot!”

  Soon from spots around the landing pad where our people were pinned down, we heard sounds of electronic brains exploding amid the gunfire. I took out a couple more, carefully peeking over the rock, squeezing off rounds.

  The shooting stopped as the bots withdrew toward the city.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Maybe a tactical retreat?”

  Mrs. Jones’ voice came over the com link. “It’s a new strategy. They’re going to attack our positions in force. Marcus, Dee Dee, brace yourselves! Looks like they’re coming your way first.”

  I peeked over the boulder.

  “A dozen bots are heading over here. More. Maybe fifteen.”

  I ducked back down and reloaded my rifle, slamming home a fresh magazine.

  Mrs. Ng lifted her husband’s head off her lap. She kissed him on the lips, wiped off his blood.

  “Goodbye, Davey.”

  She picked up her gun, stood up, and started shooting at the approaching bots.

  Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!

  They started shooting back. Bullets hit her chest.

  Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

  She fell back behind the boulder. I grabbed her.

  “Stay with me, Mrs. Ng! Stay with me!”

  Blood bubbled from her chest. Aorta, I thought. She’s got a couple minutes at most.

  She looked at me, reached up and grabbed weakly at my shirt, pulling me closer.

  “Drink my blood, Marcus.”

  “What? No, I can’t do that. Hang on, Mrs. Ng. The Physician will be here soon. We’ll get you help.”

  “Drink my blood … then go get those bastards …”

  Her eyes slid back in her head, and she was gone. In death, I saw something I’d never seen before: her smile.

  I pulled her chest up close and drank deep from a wound. I sat her back on the ground, wiped blood and tears off my face, and picked up a gun.

  I stood up and started walking toward the bots. She’d taken down four of them. Ten more headed in our direction. I started shooting, carefully aiming for the heads.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Each shot went home, taking out the head unit of a bot in a minor explosion.

  They started shooting back.

  Bang! Thwip! Bang! Thwip!

  I felt the bullets enter my chest. I stopped and shuddered for a minute. Then I aimed again, squeezed off more rounds.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Dee Dee stood up behind me and finished off the remaining two bots.

  Bang! Bang!

  She ran over to me, covering the bullet holes and the blood with her hands.

  “Stay still. You’re making it worse. Let me get a fast patch on those.”

  She dragged me back behind the boulder. We sat down next to the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Ng.

  “I hardly knew them, Dee Dee.”

  She nodded, fished around in her pack for a first aid kit.

  “Nobody knew the trees of Redwood like Scientist Ng. He gave his life to this place. All that knowledge. Gone.”

  “Don’t go into shock on me, Marc.”

  She activated her comlink. “Physician Patel? Can you get to our position? Marc has been shot.”

  “I’m on my way!”

  I started crying as I looked down at their bodies. Dee Dee found some gauze and staunched the bleeding.

  “They were good to me, Dee Dee. Not many people have been good to me in my life.”

  She held me tight, rocking me back and forth like a mother with a crying baby.

  Physician Patel ran up, bent low to keep his head below the rocks, carrying a med kit. He attached something to my chest, sent in probes, and took out the bullets somehow. Then he put on a couple fast patch skin grafts over the bullet holes. The whole thing took three minutes.

  The com link crackled again. It was the Professor.

  “Jivin, get over here. Milto
n and one of the triplets have been shot.”

  “Knowing your recuperative powers, I’m sure you’ll be fine, Marcus.”

  He ran off to help the others.

  Actually, I was starting to feel pretty good by that point, all things considered. I sat up. The shooting had died down. I gave the Ngs one last look. Dee Dee held my arm, protectively.

  “Let’s go see if the others need help.”

  Professor Cruz and Professor Kalinowski were behind a pile of rocks nearest the landing pad. They’d taken cover there with Mrs. Jones and Jeremy. When we got there, Professor Kalinowski was already dead. One shot to the head, two to the heart.

  Jeremy was fortunate. One shot to the upper arm. It passed straight through, and didn’t touch the bone. A simple flesh wound. The Physician had already fast patched him and put his arm in a sling by the time we got there.

  I looked down at Professor Kalinowski’s body and the tears welled up again. Professor Cruz came over and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, much like he’d done the night before with Kalinowski himself.

  Mrs. Jones cleared her throat. She wore a light sweatband which contrasted neatly with her dark skin.

  “Yes, Leesa?”

  “They’ve pulled back the remaining bots into a defensive perimeter around the bay door, sir. We’re in the clear for now.”

  “Very good. Keep an eye on them. I’ll get everybody together for a casualty count and we’ll figure out how to get up to the Customs Entry.”

  -+-

  Three dead and two shot were the extent of our casualties, including me. I had some pain in my chest, but I was still mobile. Mrs. O’Donnell fussed over Jeremy, in turn berating him for getting shot then expressing concern for how he was feeling, then berating him again.

  Jeremy put up a good front.

  “I’m fine, Ma. It’s nothing.”

  You’d think he got shot every day.

  The rest of us were shaken by the deaths of the Ngs and Professor Kalinowski. Some cried. Others shook their heads in disbelief. The Professor brought us back to the task at hand.

  “We’ll take care of them later. Right now we’ve got to breach that city.”

  Ranger Jenkins suggested sticking to their original plan, having two birds carry up six people to the Customs Entry. The birds could shield the riders from gunfire below, but only for so long. They weren’t bullet proof. He felt confident they could last long enough to drop us off on the fifth level platform, though, especially now that we’d reduced the number of load bots to less than twenty.

  “We fly in fast to the platform, and everybody jumps off. We’ll be fine. These old birds can take a lot of punishment.”

  “Okay. The rest of the group will attack from below, providing a distraction. I’ll take Colt, Marcus, Dee Dee, Jason and Jacob on the birds. Colt will provide us firepower, while the kids can hack the computers and communications network. Let’s go.”

  All ten birds circled far out in the sky above the desert, safe from gunfire. Jenkins called in his bird and his wife’s. Dee Dee and I climbed up behind him on his. The Professor, Jason and Jacob climbed up on Mrs. Jenkin’s bird.

  “Tell it to auto follow mine, Professor. We’ll take the long way around to try and minimize gunfire.”

  “Very good. Bradley?”

  Ranger Jones looked up. He had a darker complexion than the rest of us, and his eyes stood out, grim and determined. African ancestry. Handsome, rugged, good outdoors look.

  “You and Leesa are in charge of the ground assault. We’ll wait until you begin, then make for the Customs Entry. Draw their fire as much as you can for us.”

  Ranger Jones nodded. Our birds spread their wings, flapped down with a whuff! and we were up and heading away from the city. Jenkins took us out across the desert before circling back to approach Customs Entry from the side.

  I turned and looked below. Ranger Jones and his wife waved for the remaining two dozen people to follow them, and they approached the loading bay for our second assault on Redwood City.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mrs. Jones’ voice crackled over the com.

  “We’re attacking, Professor!”

  “Very good. Colt! Take us in!”

  Ranger Jenkins said, “Bird, manual control!”

  A control stick popped up in place of the hologram in front of him. He steered us back toward the city, coming in from the side. The Professor’s bird followed behind us. We were at the fifth level’s height, about 100 meters up.

  Jenkins flew us right by the wall, a blur of blue racing by on our left. Below I could hear gunfire between our group and the bots.

  The bots clustered in front of the loading bay door. Customs Entry had a smaller platform, directly above. As we neared the platform, the bots became aware of our presence, and started directing fire toward us.

  Bullets slammed into the synthetic bird’s skin, burrowing into its breast and belly.

  Thip! Thip! Thip! Thip!

  “Hang on! We’re almost there!”

  We raced toward the small Customs platform. I realized suddenly just how small it was. Getting up to it by PHU was not a big deal, but a giant synthetic bird would never be able to land there.

  “It’s not big enough!”

  “It doesn’t matter! When we get close, jump!”

  Right before we came to the platform, Jenkins pulled back hard on the stick, and jerked it left, slowing us and angling the bird toward the platform.

  “Jump!”

  The three of us jumped, barrel rolling onto the platform.

  “Bird! Resume position!”

  The bird let out a garbled electronic squawk in reply. Bullets continued slamming into its belly.

  Thip! Thip! Thip!

  Its head exploded in a burst of synthetic blood. The bird went down, spiraling, crashing into the bots below it.

  The Professor’s bird came in right behind it, following the first bird’s pattern exactly, slowing and tilting toward the platform.

  “Jump!”

  The Professor and Jason jumped. Already Mrs. Jenkin’s bird was going down as more and more bullets slammed into it.

  Jacob jumped a split second later, his upper half reaching the platform, his legs sticking out.

  Thwip!

  “Arg! I’m shot!”

  He pulled up his legs up over the lip of the platform, holding his calf.

  Mrs. Jenkin’s bird made it out above the spaceport, still taking bullets and losing altitude fast. It drifted away several more yards before crashing near the catapults.

  “I’m shot! I’m shot! I’m shot!”

  I dragged Jacob back into the relative safety of the alcove. The birds eliminated, the load bots returned their full focus and fire to our party below. The gunfight down there continued.

  Dee Dee pulled out her first aid kit.

  “Stay still. Let me get a fast patch on it.”

  “Ow! It hurts! It hurts so bad! I think it went into the bone!”

  “I can’t get it out. You’re going to have to wait until we get the Physician to see you.”

  “I can’t stand it! It hurts!”

  I dug through the first aid kit and found a package that read “PAINKILLERS” in large print. In smaller print below it read, “Synthetic Opiate. Caution: administer only one dose per four hours.”

  “Here, give him one of these. It should help with the pain.”

  “Marcus, you’re familiar with these entry systems. Come take a look at this door.”

  I scrambled over to the doorway. The Professor, Jenkins, and Jason made room for me. It was sealed shut. A single palm scanner stood guard on its right.

  “I might still be in the system.”

  I placed my palm over the reader, breathed a silent prayer that my little hacking job from so many months ago at AES 12 with Schmidt had never been uncovered.

  Ding!

  The door slid open.

  “Everybody inside!”

  Jason and I went back to pi
ck up Jacob.

  “Come on, buddy.”

  “Hm? What? Oh. Sure.”

  I turned to Dee Dee.

  “Wow, that stuff is fast acting.”

  She nodded and helped us pull Jacob to his feet. Together the four of us went through the Redwood City Customs Entry doorway. I was back inside the first time in months.

  Customs was deserted. We rushed through deactivated body scanners and tables for sorting luggage, making our way to the inner door. It was sealed shut, too. A monitor to its right flashed a circle with a line through it. I placed my palm on the nearby reader. Nothing happened.

  “Computer. Open door.”

  “Invasion protocol active. Secondary entrances sealed.”

  “Great. I guess my hand print can only get us so far.”

  “Let me try,” the Professor said. “Computer, emergency open requested.”

  “Invasion protocol active. Secondary entrances require password.”

  At that, a keyboard hologram appeared in the air, just below the monitor.

  “Oh, man. Don’t let Jeremy find out about this low tech.”

  “Shut up, Jason. Grab Jacob’s hacker board and hook it up to the system. I might be able to guess the password.”

  We waited impatiently a few minutes while the hacker board ran through permutations. Gunfire continued below. Still under the effects of the painkiller, Jacob began humming. Badly, and off-key.

  The permutations stopped.

  “What’s it say?”

  “The password is seven characters long.”

  “Redwood,” the Professor suggested. I keyed it in.

  “Nope. ‘R’ is good, though.”

  We stopped to think for a minute, stumped.

  Jason said, “Try the number three for ‘E.’”

  I keyed in “R3DWOOD.”

  “Hm. ‘R-three-D-W’ is good. I’ll bet the O’s are zeros, though. Suite three-hundred is Adams’ office. He probably programmed the password.”

  “Who’s Adams?”

  “The Head Servant. There, that should do it.”

  “Password accepted. Entry granted.”

  The door slid open.

  The Professor activated his com. “Brad, Leesa, we’re in. We’re headed toward the …”

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!