by S. Harrison
She’s halfway across when Commander Zero makes a run for it. Dashing out of the broken room and into the courtyard, he swerves directly toward the R.A.M.s with the three-foot-long green metal tube under his arm. Crunching over the tops of Lobots, he ducks down and sprints between the legs of the nearest R.A.M. as Gazelle reaches the other side of the courtyard and leaps through a smashed-out window of another building.
The wall around the window is immediately pummeled and shredded by gunfire behind her, and I hope with all my heart that she’s OK. Commander Zero runs behind the second R.A.M. and skids to a stop. He kicks half a dozen scuttling robotic spiders away from around his feet to clear a space on the pavement, then he props the green metal tube upright on the ground and crouches beside it. He quickly folds three metal struts down from its side, stabilizing the tube. The third R.A.M. begins to turn its gun arm in his direction. Zero jabs at a red button, flicks a green switch, then turns back the way he came and runs.
R.A.M. number three almost has him in its sights when all of a sudden Gazelle launches herself into the air from the second-story balcony of the building. She sails into the courtyard as all three domed heads on the R.A.M.s swivel toward her, following her arcing trajectory all the way to the ground. Gazelle’s metallic feet brutally crunch a couple of Lobots and crack paving tiles as she lands.
She immediately takes off as the R.A.M.s open fire. Spider parts fly this way and that as the rail guns mulch through the scurrying Lobots just behind Gazelle. Commander Zero dives through the hole in the wall where the other Saviors are waiting and disappears from my view.
Gazelle is two strides away from the opening in the building, and I’m filled with absolute horror when furious gunfire shreds her left leg, from the thigh down, into flying scraps of twirling metal. She screams as she tumbles over and over on the ground, coming to rest in a crumpled heap two excruciatingly close yards from shelter.
Panic erupts inside me, and I wish with every fiber of my being that I could be there to help her, but the only thing that happens is my camera view switches back inside the room with the other Saviors. I can see Gazelle’s face; it’s contorted with terror as she desperately claws at the ground, dragging herself toward the opening. Gazelle is less than three seconds away from being killed, but the other Saviors are at least five seconds away from her, on the other side of the room. I realize none of them are going to be able to make it to her before she’s completely obliterated.
Commander Zero is the nearest, but even though he’s only a dozen feet away, it might as well be twelve miles, because he’s lying prone on the floor, and by the time he makes it to his feet and dashes over to save her, it will be too late. He reaches his metallic arm out toward Gazelle, as if somehow his desperate yearning to save her could be enough for it to become true.
I feel useless and utterly petrified. I can hardly bring myself to watch as the R.A.M.s take aim. Suddenly there’s a percussive blast of sparks, and Commander Zero’s cybernetic hand launches from his wrist and flies across the room, trailing a thin black cable behind it. The hand hits Gazelle hard on the back, grabs a wad of her uniform, and reels her toward the doorway just as the R.A.M.s’ weapons violently burst forth. Through a maelstrom of dust and concrete pebbles, the lower half of Gazelle’s other leg is rendered apart by the rail guns, but . . . she’s made it inside alive.
She may not stay that way for long though, as the R.A.M.s’ weapons pour bullets into the room. The Saviors scramble across the floor as the whole space fills with so much flying debris that the view of the camera is completely blocked, and I can’t see anything. There’s absolutely nothing I can do. My fingernails anxiously scratch into the blue band on the wall of the sphere as I desperately scan the billowing clouds of dust through the video feed.
I turn my head and switch cameras to an outside view of the courtyard. Lobots scurry aimlessly around the feet of the R.A.M.s as the three green behemoths continue pelting the building with gunfire.
I notice something strange. There seems to be a large patch of dark-gray smoke forming in one particular place, fifty feet high in the air above the courtyard. It’s rapidly getting bigger and bigger, and the center of it is situated directly above the green metal tube that Commander Zero positioned near the R.A.M.s.
What the hell is that thing?
In a matter of seconds, the billow of smoke has grown absolutely huge. It thickens at such an incredible rate that it’s almost covering the entire courtyard. The R.A.M.s still fire up and down the walls, although there’s hardly anything left of the building but rubble and huge clouds of dust. It’s a miracle that the roof is still standing at all, and it will be an even bigger miracle if any of the Saviors survive.
The R.A.M.s suddenly stop firing.
“Gazelle?” I shout out, praying that she’s alive and her radio is still working. “Gazelle!” I yell again.
There’s no answer.
The R.A.M.s’ dome heads swivel from side to side. As they scan for movement, it starts to rain. That isn’t smoke hanging over the courtyard. It’s a rain cloud!
The rain becomes a downpour, drenching everything in the courtyard. The pavement, the piles of rubble, the scattered debris, the toppled tree where I lost my hand, the wreckage of the transport that crashed from the sky, the R.A.M.s, the hundreds of scuttling Lobots, the deactivated carcasses of Crimson Combat Drones, and the bodies of the soldiers that fell fighting them all those hours ago. All of it is darkened and glistening with the sheen of the torrential rain. As quickly as it began, the rain stops, as if someone had turned a valve and cut off the water. The R.A.M.s are soaked and shiny, and water drips from their massive limbs as they trudge through the puddles. Their internal heat seems to have fogged the ballistic glass covering their glowing red eyes, and they look almost comically confused as they search the surroundings for targets. For the Saviors’ sakes, I’m glad the R.A.M.s’ eyesight has been impeded, but it’s funny to think that no one thought of putting window wipers on those highly advanced killing machines.
“Commander?” Gazelle’s voice whispers feebly. She coughs and retches, but it’s one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard, because she’s alive. Somewhere in the rubble under that roof, she’s alive.
“Gazelle!” I shout happily.
Suddenly, through Gazelle’s radio, I hear a deep, powerful, absolutely unmistakable echoing rumble. That’s not just a rain cloud floating fifty feet in the air. It’s a rippling, undulating, dark, and angry storm cloud. The rolling rumble above the courtyard is so loud that even two of the R.A.M.s swivel their heads up toward it. I watch from the camera as flickers of electric sparks dance throughout the entire length of the expansive cloud. The flashes fade away, back into the gloomy gray billows, and there’s a strange, peaceful moment of silence.
Then the entire courtyard lights up in a blinding blue-white flash as a thick bolt of lightning twists out of the cloud and strikes the ground with a thundering . . . BABOOM!
It sounds like a bomb has exploded. I hear Gazelle shriek in panic, and as the lightning connects with the wet pavement, hundreds of Lobots in a fifty-foot radius instantly burst like superheated kernels of popcorn. I gasp with joyful satisfaction when I suddenly see what a destructive and carefully designed weapon this really is. The rain wasn’t just a by-product of the storm cloud; it blanketed the battlefield with water to conduct the massive surge of electricity thrown down from above. And it worked brilliantly.
There’s another echoing boom of thunder, and I shudder with fright as more lightning bolts worm out from the cloud and strike a R.A.M. directly on its dome, scorching a steaming black burn mark directly onto the top of its green domed head. The massive thirty-foot-high robot shudders. Its huge arms flop dead at its sides, its red eyes blink out, and it slowly topples, crashing heavily on its back to the ground . . . deactivated.
My heart jumps excitedly. Yes! One down. I look toward the cloud, desperately hoping for another lucky strike just like that last one, bu
t I shouldn’t have worried, because the storm cloud is just getting started.
There’s a deep boiling, rumbling vibration, and I see loose pebbles of masonry skittering from the edges of broken buildings as puddles ripple all over the courtyard. Then more flashes of light dance back and forth throughout the cloud, like blue and white fireworks. Then comes the silence, the ominous calm that seems to make time stretch like a rubber band until eventually . . . it snaps. White light explodes in my eyes, and I wince and gasp out loud as the very heavens seems to open up with blinding and furious anger. To my utter astonishment, the entire courtyard becomes a forest of electric trees as bolt after bolt of thick, arcing lightning begins striking everywhere I look.
The explosive, raging, booming noise is completely overwhelming and absolutely terrifying as strike after strike shakes the earth in rapid succession. Fifty, sixty, eighty, a hundred bolts of searing lightning scar the pavement. The few remaining intact windows in the surrounding buildings erupt from the shock waves of ionized air. My camera view trembles violently, but I can’t take my eyes away from the sheer fury unfolding in the courtyard as Lobots fizz and pop and explode everywhere.
Damaged frontages of buildings collapse from the force of the electric barrage as the lightning relentlessly pounds Sector A. One of the R.A.M.s simply stops in its tracks and stands rooted to one spot as it’s struck time and time again. Suddenly fire bursts from its eyes as boiling orange goop bubbles from all of its joints. The third and final R.A.M. is hit by what must be twenty consecutive lightning bolts, and its entire torso detonates into massive pieces of green shrapnel and glowing orange goo, leaving only its two legs standing on the pavement.
The number of lightning strikes quickly begins to decrease, but my heart is still pounding in my chest as the fading rumble wanes, the lightning strikes cease, and the flickering cloud begins to dissipate.
Through Gazelle’s radio, I can hear panting breaths. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Oh my god.”
“Woohoooo!” a male voice shouts in the background. Commander Zero can’t speak, so it must be Jackdaw.
“Gazelle. Are you OK?” I shout.
She coughs again, and I can hear the concrete scrape of rubble being shifted. “I’m a little beaten up, but I’m OK,” she replies. “It’s just as well I’ve got a few spare legs at home.”
“I saw the whole thing through the camera feed. That was amazing,” I gasp.
“No, that was scary,” says Gazelle. “Now I know why weather-based weapons are illegal. That was only a little baby prototype that Commander Zero found in warehouse eighteen.”
“Gazelle, I need you to listen.”
“Sorry, Commander, I’m listening.”
“My mind has been trapped inside the mainframe.”
“You’re inside the computer?”
“Yes, Bit is in here, too. She’s attached to the computer core and is being forced to do something terrible. Everyone on the planet is going to die if we don’t stop my father’s plans.”
“What do you want us to do?” she asks without hesitation, just like I knew she would.
“The transports that landed in the courtyard. You said that two have already left, but three of them are still here?”
“Yes,” says Gazelle. “They’re at the other end, near Dome One.”
“Do they have weapons? Missiles?”
“Yeah, they do.”
“Then we need someone to pilot a transport and fly it to the rocket silos five miles beyond Dome Three. We need to blow the crap out of those silos. It’s the only way to stop my father.”
“The crews of those three transports are gone, Commander. Spiders got ’em, paralyzed them all. The spiders would’ve still been changing their brains when the lightning struck.”
“I have ten hours of pilot training,” Jackdaw says in the background. “Only light aircraft, and I’ve never actually flown anything, but hey, how hard could it be to pilot a fifteen-ton transport?” he says with nervous sarcasm.
“Then you have to try your best,” I say. “The fate of the world is relying on it.”
“Commander Zero says we’ll leave right away,” says Gazelle.
“Thank you. And please hurry.”
“What about you, Commander?” says Gazelle. “Your mind is in the computer, but where is your body? We can come and get you and—”
“It’s too late for me,” I reply. “Just blow up those silos.”
“But . . .”
“Go, all of you, please! I don’t know how much time we have left.”
“OK, Commander,” says Gazelle. “We’re on it. Oh, before I go, you might like to know that we found some kids from your school. They’re still here, in one of the transports. I can’t remember their names, but the blonde one is really mouthy.”
I smile. “You guys really are Saviors, aren’t you?”
“That’s what they call us. And I don’t care what you say, after we take out those silos, I’m coming to find you, Commander.”
“Gazelle, it’s too late for me, I’m—”
“I’ll see you soon, over and out,” chirps Gazelle, and she’s gone.
“Destroying the missile silos. That’s a very good plan,” says Sable’s voice.
I gasp with fright as I release my hands from the red and blue strips and see Sable floating right beside me, smiling warmly.
“You’re so resourceful!” she says proudly. “But there’s only one tiny flaw in your scheme.” She takes my hand and presses it against the blue strip. “You’re just a little too late.”
My view flashes into a camera positioned somewhere very high, overlooking a wide, flat field. And on that field, ten huge perfectly round holes are open and gaping at the sky.
Suddenly the view begins to shake violently, and the entire field lights up as one-hundred-foot-high plumes of fire erupt from each of the holes. The nose cones of ten huge rockets emerge one after another from the ten silos; their gigantic, long white cylindrical bodies come into view, and in a matter of seconds, all ten huge missiles have launched and are steadily climbing higher and higher into the clear and starry night sky.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” says Sable’s voice. “Once all ten are in their proper orbit positions, the quantum field can be activated. It’s so exciting! I’ve got to get back to Bettina, but I’ll leave you here to watch the rockets go. Work, work, work,” Sable sighs. “A sentient artificially intelligent supercomputer’s work is never done.” And with that she releases my hand, and the feeling of her presence gradually fades and then disappears.
My heart sinks lower than it ever has before. It’s done. This is happening. I tried, but I was too late. I feel like I want to cry, but inside this computer I don’t even have any tear ducts. That ironic fact only makes the overwhelming sorrow hurt even more. Through the camera’s view, I watch the rocket flares become dimmer and dimmer in the sky as they travel higher and higher.
I can’t watch anymore. I’m about to pull my hand away from the camera feed when I see something move at the bottom of my view. It looked like a shadow. In the lower left-hand corner of the camera feed, the location of this particular camera is typed in small white letters. It says “SOUTHERN TOWER,” and underneath those words is what appears to be some kind of white ledge. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but then I gasp as I see a shadow move across it again. A hand-shaped shadow. That ledge is the corner of a balcony, and someone is standing on that balcony.
If I had a heart, it would be pounding in my chest right now. Everyone has heard the urban legends. Richard Blackstone isn’t real; Richard Blackstone is computer generated; Richard Blackstone is real, but he’s a robot; Richard Blackstone is a crazy hermit who lives in an ivory tower. Someone once told me that urban legends always come from a grain of truth, but I think I may have just stumbled upon a giant boulder of it.
With my hand pressed firmly against the blue strip, I slowly turn my head to switch my view to the next nearest camera.
I�
��m looking down into a large, gently lit circular room. The floor is glossy black. There’s a plush, expensive-looking red-and-gold couch with matching armchairs. The wallpaper is red and gold, too, patterned with elaborate nineteenth-century-style graceful leafy designs, just like so many of the rooms at home in Blackstone Manor. There are small antique side tables with old-looking artifacts carefully placed on them. There’s a large, shiny varnished wooden globe of the world on an ornately turned stand, and behind the large wooden desk, toward the back of the room, is a leather-bound chair. But beyond the chair is a pair of French-style doors that open up into a small balcony. And standing on that balcony, with his back turned to the camera, is a man.
All I can tell from looking at his back is that he’s wearing a crisp white suit and his slicked hair is jet black. “I know you can see me,” he says. His voice is baritone and calm. “And hear me, too.”
My mind is absolutely reeling. It’s like seeing a celebrity on the street, which in a way, he is. He may be my father, but he’s never been a part of my life, and I’ve always struggled with thinking of him in that way. To me he’s a stranger, but he’s also the most famous man in the world. It’s so surreal that he’s standing right there, talking to me. It’s him. It really is Richard Blackstone.
“I can only imagine how many questions you must have. A lifetime’s worth, I suppose,” he says, looking out over the silos. “I haven’t been a typical father to you, have I? You’ve probably felt abandoned and unloved for most of your life, and I’m sorry for that. I truly am. But I’m afraid we must all make sacrifices. I certainly have; too many to count and many of those too painful to remember. You can probably tell by now from the particular shine of the floor that your mind can have a body in this room if you so wish. It’s up to you, but I hope you’ll choose to come here and meet me, face-to-face. Just touch the black band on the inside of the sphere, and you will be here.”
