Cyberdrome

by Joseph Rhea

  “Yes,” said Herschel, “and I believe that’s why we have so many unexplained phenomena in our own so-called reality. They are flaws inherent to DNA-based computing, and nothing more.”

  Maya jumped up and yelled. “Stop it—both of you!” She then clenched her fists and lowered her voice. “We are all interfaced much faster than anyone has gone before. I think that there might be problems with our memories. I don’t think we can trust everything we remember about the real world.”

  “What do you mean problems?” Alek asked.

  She took several deep breaths before answering. “At this level of interface, our Avatars are forced to use more of their onboard memory than normal. It’s possible that those memories are not completely accurate.”

  “You mean that we can’t trust our own memories?”

  “Everything he just said makes sense, doesn’t it?” she whispered. “So, either he’s right and there are things about our world that make no sense, or our memories are simply faulty. Take your pick.”

  Alek sat back down on the cot. “This is all making me tired,” he said, feeling suddenly sleepy.

  “Of course,” Herschel said, nodding his head. “This is a lot to digest so quickly, and we will have plenty of time together. We will talk no more of this matter for now.”

  Maya looked over at the makeshift bathroom and then back at Herschel. “Does your shower have hot water?”

  Herschel smiled at her. “We are in the desert, my dear. All of the water is hot.” When she nodded, he added, “There are also extra clothes in that box. I suspect that your Omnisuits will be running out of power soon, so you will need them.”

  “He’s right,” she said, looking at Alek. “Do you want to take a shower first?”

  “No. Go ahead,” he replied, feeling the events of the past few days catching up with him. “I’ll just lay here and rest my eyes for a few minutes.” He heard the water turn on, but remembered nothing after that.

  o o o

  Javid Rho sat in his Tracer watching the movements of the two KaNanee on his dashboard scanner. They were circling his position in opposite directions and randomly varying both their distance from him and their speed. No enemy would be able to discern a pattern from their chaotic movements and therefore, no enemy would get past them. He smiled when he thought of what he could do with a hundred like them. He could rebuild the Sentinel force and perhaps even retake Cyberdrome.

  He checked his internal chronometer and wondered how Alek and Maya were faring in the simulation below. The thought of returning to one of the many Earths disturbed him. He had been lied to for many years, first as a child and later as a young adult. His death in that world and subsequent resurrection as a Sentinel had finally given him a life worth living.

  His ship’s proximity alert went off just as a Tracer swept past the side of his ship at full Recon speed. It was out of sight before he realized who it had to be. It was the CeeAut, Persis, and she was going after the KaNanee.

  Javid switched to Recon Mode and pushed his thrusters to maximum as he checked his scanner. The CeeAut was headed straight for Kay Broon’s Tracer at the point in her circle where she would be the farthest from her mate. Persis had timed her attack well, he thought. Pick off the weakest creature when it is the most vulnerable. Even Jas Kaido would be impressed. That is, if the CeeAut was going after someone other than his own mate.

  He tried to warn Broon, but the CeeAut was jamming all line-of-sight transmissions in the area. He hesitated only a moment before opening a channel to the male KaNanee’s ship far behind him.

  “Kaido,” he called out. “A lone CeeAut is attacking your mate. I’m on my way now, but she has a head start.”

  Kaido’s smiling face appeared on Javid’s dashboard. “Audacious creatures aren’t they, Rho?” he said. “I regret that I will not be there in time to watch Kay gut it myself.”

  “You do not understand, Kaido. She has a Tracer—a new one like yours—and she appears to know how to use it.”

  His face on the monitor went flat. “How?” he asked, but then changed the topic. “Where are you? How far away?”

  “Too far away to help,” Javid admitted.

  Jas Kaido roared and then abruptly shut off communications.

  Javid boosted his scanner to maximum range and saw that Kay Broon’s Tracer was veering off from her original path. Good. He thought. She must have detected the approaching CeeAut Tracer.

  Just then, a dozen blips appeared at the top edge of his scanner. A second later, even more appeared on both sides. Within moments, more than a hundred hostile targets surrounded them.

  He transmitted a general distress message, which he knew all Tracers in the sector would receive.

  “This is Sentinel Javid Rho calling CeeAut combatant. I am detecting multiple targets approaching our position from all directions. You must break off your attack at once so that we might combine forces.”

  “CeeAut detect nothing,” Persis said. “Sentinel tricks not work.”

  Good, Javid thought. At least I have her talking. “I would not deceive you, Persis. Boost your scanner to maximum and you will see them yourself.”

  Kaido cut in just then. “Leave us to our battle, Sentinel.”

  A screech came from Persis’ channel. Javid wasn’t sure if it was a cry of terror, or a roar of anger. His question was answered just then as he saw her Tracer arc around and head back toward Kaido at full speed.

  “I see them now,” Kay Broon said. Obviously, Persis was no longer blocking communications with her. “Jas, my mate. I am farther out than you are, and I see the objects the Sentinel speaks of coming into my long-range scanner. The Sentinel does not lie.”

  Javid studied their power signatures and made note their positions and movements. It was a Mantis army, he concluded. Organized and unified.

  “Persis, check your long-range scanner now. You will see that we are not deceiving you.”

  The CeeAut’s Tracer came to an immediate halt and Persis’ face appeared on his dashboard. “Persis sees them,” she said with a hiss.

  Javid switched to the general command channel and spoke to all Tracers at once. “This is Sentinel Javid Rho. We are surrounded and outnumbered more than 20 to one, but we can prevail if we work as a team. I need an agreement from each of you that all hostilities toward one another will cease immediately.” He waited, and when no one spoke up, he added, “The enemy is there, not here, and it is a common enemy to us all.”

  “CeeAut will fight,” Persis said as her Tracer pulled up beside Javid’s ship.

  “The CeeAut is of no consequence while this threat remains,” Kaido said as his Tracer came into view. Kay Broon appeared from the other side and signaled her agreement as well.

  “Very well,” Javid said on the open channel. “I will hold each of you to your word.”

  “Where is Alek Grey?” Kay Broon asked.

  “Alek and Maya are both indisposed. In fact we must defend this position in order to protect them both.”

  “What is your plan?” Kaido asked. “I assume that Sentinels have plans for every situation.”

  “In fact we do,” Javid said. He rechecked the location of the advancing army. Being walkers, they were not able to advance very quickly, so they had a few minutes. He looked at the three ships around him and realized that he had a squadron to organize. It was a strange and unorganized group, to be sure, but they were all fighters and they each had skills the others lacked. He would have to organize those individual skills into a cohesive fighting unit and he would have to do it quickly. He took a deep breath and began. “This is what we need to do...”

  THIRTEEN

  When Alek opened his eyes and sat up, the room was noticeably darker. Maya was sitting on one of the cots with her back up against the stone wall. Her hair was damp and her eyes were closed. Herschel was on the cot nearest to the door, snoring loudly.

  He felt thirsty and equally dirty. Maya’s eyes stayed shut as he stood and walked over to t
he shower. He closed the curtain, turned on the faucet, and cupped his hands under the warm stream. The water tasted metallic, but he was so thirsty, he didn’t care.

  When he had his fill, he pulled on the neck of his Omnisuit and felt his clothing begin to separate along the seams. At first, he thought it was helping him remove it—in the way Lorena’s Omnisuit had helped her put it on—but then watched as the entire suit fell off his body and ended up in a pile at his feet. Close call, he thought as he kicked the steadily decaying material away from him.

  There was a misshapen bar of soap on a small ledge protruding from the wall. Under a stream of warm water, he soaped up from head to foot and then rinsed thoroughly. When he turned off the water, Maya was leaning in through the curtain, holding some wadded up clothing for him.

  “Sorry,” she said, turning her head away. “I could only find one pair of halfway clean pants that should fit you and a tunic with a hole in one sleeve.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, grabbing the wad of clothing to cover himself. “Thanks.”

  She pulled her arm out and he heard her bare feet walking back across the room. He dried off and pulled the clothing on. When he pulled the curtain back, Herschel was sitting up. A shower and a bit of sleep had obviously done him some good. Even Maya looked refreshed.

  “Dr. Rivero was just telling me about your father’s fail-safe device on the ship.” Herschel said.

  “Please call me Maya,” she told him.

  Alek looked at Maya and raised an eyebrow. “What fail-safe device?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet,” she said, as she patted the bed beside her.

  Alek sat next to her, facing Herschel. “Tell me what?”

  Maya proceeded to tell him about her encounter with the carbon-eating nanobugs.

  “How long do you think we have before they reach this fort?” Herschel asked.

  “No way to know for sure,” Alek said. “I would guess no more than a couple of days. If they really are fast replicators, their growth will be exponential. In a week they could cover a hundred square kilometers.”

  “So, what do we do about it?” Maya asked.

  “We get the hell off this planet,” Alek said.

  Just then, the door opened and yellow-tooth leaned in. “Night’s coming—time to prepare,” he said in a hushed tone. Something about the man seemed much less hostile than before. He actually looked nervous—perhaps even a bit frightened.

  “Good,” Herschel said, turning first to Alek and then to Maya. “I can show you both what I have been working on. Hopefully, one of you can help me with it.”

  Maya looked like she wanted to say something more, but the presence of the waiting guard made that impossible. Herschel walked out the door while Alek and Maya followed.

  They walked back across the main courtyard. Judging by the reddish-blue sky and the long shadows climbing the East wall, the sun was a few minutes away from setting.

  Guards were everywhere—some lighting oil lanterns along the outer wall while others were busy fortifying the main gate. None of them seemed to be concerned with the two newcomers among them. They were preparing for the night, when Kazak said the monsters would come.

  Night would also be the best time to make an escape, Alek thought as he carefully surveyed and tried to memorize the layout of the courtyard. When the time came, they would have to move quickly.

  They entered a large building on the far side of the courtyard where the guard left them. Once inside, Herschel turned on an overhead light and Alek saw that the building was some sort of warehouse. Huge piles of broken and twisted machinery littered the room—apparently scavenged from the Survey Vessel after the crash.

  Herschel led them along a winding trail through the junk to a small clearing in the center of the room. A large wooden table had been set up with several pieces of electronic equipment piled on top. Herschel moved to the far side of the table and sat down in a fold-up metal chair. When Alek and Maya joined him, Alek saw a couple of computers on the floor near the man’s feet and three flat-panel screens wedged in among the junk on the table.

  “Let me show you what I’ve been working on,” Herschel said as he began making hand gestures over a pair of input pads. One of them was so beat up that Alek was surprised it worked. “There wasn’t much that I could salvage from the ship,” he said, “at least in terms of portable computers. I had to network these two just to do my work.”

  Maya opened her mouth to say something when a bell began clanging in the distance. A moment later, gunshots rang out.

  “They’re here,” Herschel said calmly as he bent over and began fumbling with one of the computers on the floor.

  “Who? The Medari?” Maya asked.

  Herschel finally pulled what looked like a small memory tab from its slot on the computer and looked up. “They do this every night,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  A thunderous boom shook the floor. Something metal fell somewhere in the room.

  “What the hell was that?” Alek yelled.

  Herschel stared up at the ceiling. “They’ve broken through the wall,” he said. “Close to us. That means that they know of my work.” His eyes were wide with terror as he looked at the tab in his fingers. “We have to hide.”

  “Where?” Maya yelled.

  “Back of the building,” Herschel said as he shoved the memory tab in his pocket. A second larger explosion knocked them all to the floor.

  Maya was first up on her feet. She glanced over Alek’s shoulder and whispered. “They’re inside.”

  In one swift motion, Alek grabbed Herschel’s arm and began to run after Maya. He didn’t have a chance to look back, but he could hear running footsteps behind him.

  “To your right,” Herschel called to Maya when they neared the far side of the room. “The door on your right.”

  Maya reached the large iron door a full second ahead of Alek. Luckily, it was open and as Alek shoved Herschel through the opening, he turned and helped Maya close it behind them.

  In that moment, he glimpsed a scene of horror. A dozen creatures, each as large as a horse and more hideous than anything he had seen in his life, lunged toward them. They hit the door full force, slamming it shut and knocking Alek and Maya backward to the floor. Before the creatures had a chance to realize what they had done, Herschel slid the door’s thick iron bolt into place, locking out anything short of a tank.

  “This is my safe room,” Herschel said, his voice trembling. “I had it built months ago, but I had hoped I would never need it.”

  The door shook with the sounds of metal striking the outer surface, but it held fast. Alek ran his hand along the outer hinges, looking for signs of strain.

  “We are safe in here.” Herschel said. “Don’t worry. They can’t reach us.”

  Alek turned to face him. “What the hell are those things?” he blurted out.

  “That was the Medari,” Herschel said. “Horrible creatures, aren’t they?”

  “They looked like a cross between a human and some sort of big hairy horse,” Alek said.

  “Not horse,” Maya said. “Camel.”

  “What?” Alek and Herschel asked in unison.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see this earlier.” She looked directly at Alek. “He did this.”

  “Who did?” Alek asked.

  “Your father. This is your father’s work.”

  “What are you talking about, Maya?”

  “I started to tell you before, about what I found when I was inside the ship. Before the carbon-eating nanobugs appeared, I discovered a copy of your father’s research inside the main computer and read some of it. He was combining the DNA of the people in his worlds with other mammals. It’s called Transgenics.”

  Alek stared at her. “You’re telling me that the creatures out there are part human and part camel? How do you know?”

  “The Latin name for the Arabian camel is Camelus dromadarius. I think ‘Medari’ is just a shorte
ned version of dromadarius. You know your father had a weird sense of humor when it came to naming things.”

  “Why would he do this?” Alek asked.

  “Survival of the fittest,” Maya replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your father was desperate to find a cure for the plague,” she said. “As crazy as the idea sounds to us, if your father really believed that something as drastic as a transgenic hybrid was humanity’s only hope of survival, then he would want to make sure he picked the right species and the right mixture. Only time would tell if these new ‘people’ would have evolved into something that we would be willing to accept as our descendants.”

  Herschel shook his head. “That’s insane. If these Medari are to be our descendants, then I would rather end our species here and now.”

  Maya looked at him oddly. “Sounds like you’re beginning to remember the real world, Herschel. But the Medari are only one of his experiments.” She looked at Alek. “Your KaNanee are obviously more of your fathers work. That goes for the CeeAut as well.”

  “You know, it just dawned on me,” Alek said. “The CeeAut are cat people. Do you get it? CeeAut. C-A-T. The KaNanee are even more obvious. Canine.” He laughed out loud.

  “What’s so funny,” Maya asked.

  “Dogs and cats. No wonder they hate each other so much.”

  Herschel walked over to the door. “Anyone else notice how quiet it is out there?” He put his ear up against the door but then pulled it away quickly. “Damn, the thing’s hot.”

  Just then, a puff of smoke spilled in under the door.

  “Shit, they set the door on fire to drive us out,” Alek said, feeling the metal for himself.

  “I think it’s worse than that,” Maya said, looking down at the smoke that was now billowing under the door. “I think they set the entire building on fire.” She looked at Alek and then Herschel. “We’re trapped in here.”

  o o o

  Javid rechecked his scanner and was surprised to see how effective the CeeAut and KaNanee were working together. They had already destroyed, or severely damaged, over half of the invading machines. “A common foe often turns enemies into allies,” he recited aloud. It was one of his first lessons in command tactics as a new Sentinel.