Cyberdrome

by Joseph Rhea

  “Then let us make a new agreement,” Javid said. “We are about to embark on a bold mission to search for other Sentinels, and we will be facing dangers unlike you have ever experienced. A great warrior like you would find many challenges on such a mission.”

  There was a pause before Kaido spoke. “What is the remainder of the deal you are making?”

  “Simply that you remain with us until our mission is completed. Then you may return and rejoin your people.”

  “Agreed,” Kaido said without hesitation.

  “And your people must agree to avoid hunting the CeeAut until you return.”

  This time there was a long pause before Kaido answered, probably because he was talking to them on another channel. “My warriors agree. No hunting until I return.”

  “Then it is a pact,” Javid said. “All ships switch to Warrior mode and follow my lead. The deeper we go into this sector, the more enemy we will find.”

  “We will devour them,” Kaido said.

  Alek wondered if the KaNanee could be trusted, as he lined his Tracer up behind the Sentinels’ ship. The KaNanee then moved their ships to either side of him, making a sort of arrow formation. When all ships reported ready, Alek switched to Warrior mode and followed the Sentinel deep into the sector where it all began.

  TEN

  They traveled in this mode for several hours, during which time no one spoke at all. With their ships all in Warrior mode, they didn’t move very quickly. Then again, as complicated as the terrain had become, they couldn’t move fast anyway. Alek realized that there would be no quick escapes in this sector. Just then, Javid signaled them to halt and all four Tracers slowed to a stop.

  “What’s up?” Alek asked hoarsely, his throat dry from lack of use.

  “I have located possible Tracer signatures ahead.

  “It’s them,” Alek said. “Let’s go.”

  They moved toward the signals with the KaNanee paralleling their course, but remaining a short distance to either side. Alek wanted to get there as fast as he could, but at the same time, he wasn’t looking forward to having to tell Maya about Lorena’s betrayal.

  “Hold on,” Javid said. “I am now detecting more Tracers ahead. At least one hundred signals and they are spread out over a large area.”

  “That’s not my team then,” Alek said. “They only had five ships.”

  “Then it may be members of mine,” Javid said. “Perhaps I am not the only survivor after all.”

  As they crossed over a slight rise in the terrain, they discovered the truth. A vast battlefield lay before them. Large pieces of twisted metal from several types of Predators lay strewn across the ground. Here and there, he could see the remains of Tracers as well.

  “A great battle was fought here,” Javid said. “I found similar remains when I was here before, but nothing as large as this.”

  This is where it happened, Alek thought. He tried to imagine what Javid was thinking at that moment, but realized that he could not. He had never experienced such a massacre.

  “Is this your team?” Alek asked.

  “No,” Javid replied. “My unit was decimated by the intruder itself. These appear to be members of a secondary strike force. Apparently, some of them survived the wave—only to be destroyed here.”

  Alek surveyed the battlefield. “You didn’t see all of this when you were here before?”

  “I was severely damaged, and I have only fragmented memory of that period. How I made it out of this sector is still a mystery to me.”

  Alek decided to let it drop as they all moved silently through the debris field. Once, he saw something move, but realized that is was just a bodiless spider leg, twitching.

  “We should move on,” Alek said. “My team’s obviously not here.”

  “I must check for signs of other Sentinels who might still be functional,” Javid said solemnly.

  “No one could’ve survived this,” Alek said.

  “I did,” Javid said. “It is my duty to check, but you may go on.”

  “We’re a team,” Alek interjected. “We’ll cover it faster if we split up.”

  “Agreed,” Kaido said. “We will travel in groups of two. I will go with Javid Rho. Kay Broon will travel with Alek Grey. Agreed?”

  Javid signaled his agreement and then began driving slowly across the damaged landscape followed closely by Kaido’s ship. Kay Broon moved her ship so close to Alek’s that they almost touched. He looked out his window and saw her staring at him. What the hell was she trying to do? If Javid was right, just being near Kaido’s mate could get him killed.

  He quickly looked away. Maybe it was just part of their culture, he thought. The female lures unsuspecting males in by acting interested, and then the male kills them. It would fit what he knew of the KaNanee, he realized. Either way, it would be better if he avoided the female altogether.

  “What do you know of the shape-changers, Alek Grey?” It was the first time he had heard her voice. It was softer than he expected.

  He looked out his side window at her and shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I refer to the creatures that Javid Rho calls Species-Five.

  “Species-Five?” he asked. Klaxon told him there were four Predators in the Core. Where would a fifth come from?”

  “Surely, you know of them,” she said. “We call them shape-changers because they can become something they are not.”

  “I’m new to this part of HomeSpace,” he said, remembering to keep up the pretext of being a Sentinel. “So, you’re telling me that there’s a creature out here that can change its shape?”

  She nodded at him through her ship’s window. “It can assume the shape of what Javid Rho calls Species-One through Three.”

  “Sounds like a Polymorph,” he replied. What would a polymorphic program be doing out here? The answer came to him immediately. “Have you seen any sign of interbreeding between the different species?” he blurted out, before he realized that the question might be inappropriate.

  “Do not be embarrassed,” she said with a smirk. “We KaNanee are experienced in breeding our food sources. Are you telling me that this species is a mutation?”

  “That would be my guess. Some sort of genetic accident, maybe.”

  “But they are machines.”

  “They are more than that,” he replied. “You should know that by now.”

  Kay Broon smiled at him through her window, revealing her oversized, sharpened teeth, and added. “Knowledge is power. I owe you a debt, Alek Grey.”

  The last thing he needed was Jas Kaido’s mate owing him anything. “You can repay me with knowledge, as well,” he ventured. “Tell me about your world, how you made it up to HomeSpace.”

  There was a long silence, and he was afraid that he had asked too much. Then she spoke. “My mother’s mother told me that our world was once a paradise. Then a plague wiped out all but a few thousand, who fled the cities and hid deep in the mountains. That is when the Glory came.”

  “What do you mean by glory?” he asked.

  “I was told that we were once similar to you—small, weak, eaters of roots and leaves. Then the Glory came and changed us, made us stronger, larger, and afraid of nothing. Even the plague could not affect us. We began to hunt other animals for our food, and then we realized that we also had to protect that which we hunted. It became our two-fold reason for living. Hunt what you protect and protect what you hunt. That is when we became KaNanee.”

  Nothing she said made any sense. Maya had told him that the simulations running in Cyberdrome were of humans living in Earth-type worlds. Kay was describing something out of a horror novel. “So, you’re hunters with a sense of conservation. What brought you to HomeSpace?” he asked.

  “We were transporting prisoners from the Southern continent when a strange hole opened in the world and ripped apart our ship. By the time we surveyed the damage and counted the dead, we discovered that the prisoners had escaped into the hole. We, o
f course, followed them in and ended up in dark tunnels beneath this ground.”

  “You’re talking about the CeeAut, aren’t you?” he said. “You both come from the same world?”

  “The CeeAut infested most of the Southern continent until the Great War. Now we use them as servants.”

  “And you actually eat them?” he asked, remembering his encounter with the CeeAut. It seemed barbaric—even cannibalistic—to think of the KaNanee using them as food.

  She bared her teeth in something resembling a smile. “My mate told you that to cover up the CeeAut’s real value to us.”

  “And what’s that?” he asked, even though he was sure he didn’t want to know.

  She smiled again. “That information will be saved for a later discussion,” she said, “when you have more to offer.”

  “But this group got away from you?”

  “They are nocturnal by nature and therefore could see in the darkness of the tunnels better than my people. They escaped from us and we have been hunting them ever since.”

  When he realized that she had finished speaking, he glanced at his scanner and noticed several Tracers in the center of the battlefield, separate from the others, and arranged in a sort of star pattern. A little too organized compared to the chaos surrounding it, he thought. It might be nothing, but he had to check it out.

  “I’m going to look at something,” he said as he turned his Tracer toward the signal. “Stay here. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  She didn’t respond. When he was about a hundred meters into the debris field, he saw on his scanner that her ship was following him at a distance. Always the protector, he thought.

  Alek rounded a debris pile a short time later and saw four Tracers sitting in a circle with their backs almost touching—an obvious defensive position. A fifth Tracer sat on the ground a few meters away. Next to the lone vehicle, he saw a woman with dark hair crouched on the ground. His heart skipped a beat when she lifted her head and he saw that it was Maya.

  He ordered his ship to stop and then scrambled out when the canopy opened. He slipped on the outer hull and landed on his knees on the ground. When he looked up, Maya was already running toward him. He barely had time to stand up when she leapt into his arms, knocking him back down to the ground.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Alek?” she asked. Her face was dirty and she looked somehow much older, even with the simplified Core rendering.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said.

  “We were attacked by a group of robot things almost a week ago. I got separated.” She climbed off him and sat next to him on the ground, facing the other ships. “Yesterday I came across this battlefield and found their empty ships. I’ve been sitting here ever since then trying to deal with what happened and figure out what to do next.” She looked back at him. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you standing just before I knocked you down? How are you able to walk?”

  “I don’t really know,” he said with a smile. “I guess something got tweaked in my brain when I they scanned me for interface. Whatever it was, I’m glad it happened.”

  “So, how in the world did you find me?” she asked. “And what the hell are you even doing inside Cyberdrome?”

  It took a while to tell her of his conversation with Leconte, and then the subsequent discovery that Lorena was actually Klaxon, the person responsible for the attack on Cyberdrome.

  “I can’t believe that Lorena was involved,” she said when he finished. “I also can’t understand why Rebecca would send you in here.”

  “As I said, I was never told.”

  “And the THI threat? Do you think it’s real?”

  He shook his head. “Something’s keeping my father’s neuroprobes from disengaging. If it’s not a THI threat, then someone reprogrammed them to act this way. If it was Klaxon, I can’t imagine what her motive would be, since she’s trapped—”

  “Alek, I’m not sure how to tell you this,” she interrupted.

  “Tell me what?”

  She took a deep breath before answering. “Right before this mess all started, your father told me a lie—something that got me out of Cyberdrome just before the attack. At first, I thought—or at least hoped—that it was just a coincidence, but now I’m not so sure.”

  He stared at her as his mind tried to put the pieces together. Then he remembered what Lorena had told him when he accused her of killing his father—that his father had killed himself. “Do you think my father had something to do with the takeover of Cyberdrome? You think he trapped himself inside on purpose?”

  “If he did, he paid the ultimate price for his actions,” she admitted. Her eyes began to swell with tears. “I’m just glad you’re in here with me,” she said.

  He pulled her over to him and kissed her. She seemed reluctant at first, but then she pressed hard against his mouth. Her lips were moist and slightly salty. He felt warm tears running down her face and onto his.

  She lifted away from him, “Oh, Alek. It’s horrible,” she sobbed.

  “Let me try that again,” he said as he gave her a squeeze. “I think it’s this weird rendering. My lips feel like rubber.”

  “It’s not that,” she whispered, then pushed off him and began walking back to the circle of ships. He stood, brushed himself off, and followed her.

  As he approached the Tracers, he realized that they had to belong to the rest of the team. “So, where are Cloudhopper and the others?”

  She didn’t respond, but when she reached the nearest Tracer, she leaned up against it and peered into the cockpit window. He did the same but didn’t see what she was looking at.

  “It looks empty,” he said.

  “It’s not,” she said flatly.

  He looked again and finally saw what she was staring at—a pile of black material in the seat. He spun around and looked at the debris field surrounding him. Suddenly, the pattern of the damaged area around him came into focus and he could see how it happened.

  “There must have been a group of Predators still alive in the debris field,” he said. “Maybe they were hiding and using it as a trap. Cloudhopper’s team wandered into the field and the machines surrounded them. They formed a defensive circle, facing outwards. That’s what I would’ve done.”

  She backed up and turned toward him. “I think you’re right. But look at the size of the blast field in front of each ship.”

  He turned and surveyed the damage. “It looks like they each launched some sort of killer weapon, probably all at the same time.” He looked at the circle of Tracers. “Apparently, the blast was a lot stronger than they expected. It must have vaporized them all, right inside their ships. Left nothing behind but their Omnisuits.” Then he remembered that Maya was friends with these people. He turned toward her. “I mean, it vaporized their Avatars, of course.

  She dropped to the ground, holding her stomach. “Oh God, this can’t be happening,” she yelled. “Tell me this is all a horrible dream.”

  He dropped to his knees and held her head against his chest. He stroked her hair and looked over at the ships. Cloudhopper had been here—she must have really cared for him after all. “Roy’s about as tough as anyone could be,” he said. “Right this moment, he’s probably back in the real world, wondering when we are going to complete the mission for him.”

  “I hope you’re right, Alek, but it’s more than that. We can’t complete the mission now.”

  “Apparently, you underestimate me,” he said, feigning indignation. “I may not have Cloudhopper’s military training, but I’ve managed to make some important friends in my short time here. We can make a new mission team. Together we can delete the control nodes and destroy Ceejer.”

  “We can’t complete the mission,” she repeated, “We can’t delete the nodes.”

  “Why not?”

  She stood and pointed to the four ships. “I think you were right. Roy and his team were outnumbered and had no chance of winning.”

  “I can
see that, but what does it have to do with us not being able to complete the mission?” Then he got it. “Holy shit! They used the deletion routines.”

  “It’s the only explanation I can think of,” she said. “The deletion routines were designed to obliterate software—not hardware. The blasts destroyed every living program within a hundred meters.” She paused, looking at the circle of ships. “Including themselves.”

  “Can’t we get more deletion routines?” he asked.

  She stood there, staring at the ships and holding her stomach. She looked like she wanted to throw up. “You don’t get it, Alek. The other deletion routines are inside the Survey Vessel.”

  “And Lorena has the Survey Vessel,” he added, realizing there would be little chance of finding her in an area as vast as the Core.

  “Even if we found her somehow,” she said, completing his thoughts, “it’s a sure bet that she’s deactivated or destroyed them all by now, which means that we can’t finish the mission.”

  He looked down at her. “It also means that we’re trapped in here unless we—”

  “Is this your mate?” Kay Broon interrupted. Alek jumped forward when he heard the KaNanee’s voice right behind his ear, knocking Maya backward.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” he yelled. “You almost gave me a heart attack.” He patted his chest several times, trying to catch his breath. Then he noticed Maya sitting on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the KaNanee female. He reached down to give her a hand up. “I’m sorry. Maya, this is Kay Broon. Kay, Maya Rivero.”

  Maya stood and slid closer to Alek. “What the hell are you?” she whispered.

  “What the hell are you?” Kay asked with a hint of a smile.

  Alek turned toward Maya and pulled her close. “Kay’s a member of a group of people called the KaNanee. They came to the Core from their world.” He emphasized world, hoping Maya would understand, and not refer to them as simulations.

  She nodded and turned to the KaNanee. “I’m very interested in your people, your planet. I would like to know how you—”

  Kay lunged at her, but Maya dropped low and grabbed the KaNanee’s legs, then stood, flipping Kay onto her back.