by Isaac Hooke
Not that the aliens had heard him anyway.
Or had they?
Sure enough, the duct shook underneath him, and the air filled with the sound of metal tearing violently. He peered around the bend of the T intersection and saw that the dweller hadn’t departed after all: the retreating footfalls had been a ruse. Those armored tentacles were thrusting into the rents previously created by its energy launcher, and enlarging them. The alien was tearing open the crawlspace like a tin can.
“Go!” Tane said.
Mom the led the way into the darkness.
Tane heard a loud thud come from ahead.
“Mom, you okay?” Tane asked.
“Wasn’t me!” Mom said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Shafts of light began to penetrate the darkness up ahead as the floor of the crawlspace fell away there. More black, clawed tentacles appeared, ripping into the forward passageway.
Mom shouted in terror.
Those tentacles reached for her, and Dad wrapped his arms around her ankles and hauled her backward.
Tane retreated to the T intersection. He opened fire at the tentacles waiting around the bend. The creature had definitely been forced to deactivate its shield to physically penetrate the crawlspace, because Tane scored a hit and liquid sprayed from the suit area surrounding one of the tentacles. The liquid hissed as it evaporated, and the remaining tentacles quickly withdrew.
Behind Mom, the pursuing tentacles of the remaining alien strained against the opening, tearing the duct wider as the creature reached for its helpless prey inside.
Mom screamed again.
Tane aimed his rifle down the crawlspace, but couldn’t get a clean shot past Dad and Mom.
“This way!” Tane turned right down the T intersection and proceeding away from both aliens. Behind him, Dad dragged Mom along.
“Let go of me!” Mom shouted. “I can move on my own!”
“Then move!” Dad said.
He heard a momentary banging and tumbling that must have been Mom turning herself around, and then relative quiet—discounting the tearing of metal that continued in the background, of course.
“You guys okay back there?” Tane asked.
“We’re fine,” Dad answered. “Keep moving.”
“I intend to,” Tane told him.
The light levels in the cramped duct quickly fell once more, so that in moments Tane couldn’t see anything because of the dark. He blindly shoved his rifle forward in his right hand and the alien weapon in his left. He used his HUD to guide him through the twists and turns.
The sound of ripping metal receded behind him until all he heard was his and his parents’ breathing, and the soft shuffling of their arms and legs. The crawlspace around them occasionally moaned and creaked as the trio made their way forward through the darkness.
Tane continued to keep the weapon light off. He didn’t want to accidentally shine it into a vent and alert any dwellers who might be watching in the corridors or rooms below.
Tane paused when he reached a corner section of the crawlspace and waited for Mom and Dad to catch up. He activated the weapon light at the lowest setting so he could see the faces of his parents.
“Okay, according to the map,” Tane said. “We’re near the northeast of the farm. The upper exterior is just outside to my right. There’s nothing underneath or above us but solid metal. This area is completely inaccessible. We’re safe. Unless the aliens can squeeze into these ducts, which I doubt.”
“Maybe they won’t have to,” Dad said.
“What do you mean?” Tane asked.
“Don’t you hear that?” Dad replied.
Tane listened. He heard a subtle pitter-patter that reminded him of rain. He alternately pointed his rifle down each of the two crawlspaces that led away from the corner in turn, but couldn’t discern anything in the darkness.
The disturbance grew louder, sounding like hail on a tin roof, and seemed to be coming from both directions at once.
Tane upped the intensity of his weapon light.
In the crawlspace to the left, he immediately saw hundreds of small, beetle-like robots crawling toward him and his parents. He pointed the rifle down the opposite duct, revealing a second horde of the tiny robots. They had long gripping pincers at their fronts, and between those pincers was a small pad that appeared to be some kind of sonic injector.
Mom was whimpering.
“It’s going to be okay, Mom,” Tane said. He hoped she didn’t notice the tremble in his voice that betrayed the lie.
He switched the rifle to single fire mode. Each shot was going to have to count.
“Give me the rifle, Son,” Dad said.
“I got this, Dad,” Tane said.
“Put the rifle into single fire mode,” Dad said.
“Already done,” Tane said. “I got this.”
The alien energy launcher at Tane’s feet slid out of view suddenly.
He glanced at his dad, who had taken it.
“I’ll cover the left,” Dad said. “Looks like I have a use for this worthless alien tech you dragged along after all. Though it’s perhaps a slightly different use than the dwellers originally intended.”
Tane widened the beam from the weapon light, so that more of it would reflect from the walls, hopefully allowing his dad to better make out the oncoming beetles in the opposite crawlspace. Dad was chipped, too, of course, so his visual ISO would be pumped up to the max.
Using the laser sight and aiming notch combination, Tane began to pick off the incoming beetle robots. A single shot was enough to melt one of the tiny machines to the bottom of the crawlspace. Sometimes when two were close together he got lucky and took down both at once, oftentimes melding them together. Sixteen seconds passed between his first shot and his tenth, meaning he had to wait another fourteen before the thirty second recharge interval allowed him to fire another plasma bolt again.
Willing the seconds to tick past faster, he watched impatiently as the beetles crawled past their fallen comrades. Finally when the lead beetles were about three meters away, he was able to fire again.
He squeezed the trigger, taking down the nearest beetle. He squeezed again, but the second plasma bolt wasn’t ready to fire yet and nothing happened. He waited a moment and squeezed once more. Still the C2 hadn’t recharged. He tried a fourth time, finally taking down the next beetle.
The tiny robots were almost upon him.
This isn’t going to work.
The machines were too many, and too close. He was going to have to treat the C2 like a club.
He activated the safety, swung the rifle down, and gripped it near the muzzle. Before he could strike he heard loud thuds beside him. He realized his dad was swatting at the robot beetles on the other side, employing the alien energy launcher like a big cudgel.
Tane rammed the stock of his C2 into the nearest beetle, smashing it. Then he swept the rifle to the side, knocking another robot into the wall of the duct. He stuck down at a third.
He and his dad continued bashing away at the robots like that. To an outside listener it might have sounded like a repair drone hammering out the kinks in a damaged speeder engine.
When he had cleared a sufficient path in front of him, Tane swung the muzzle forward once more and gripped the stock to release ten quick shots, terminating the next vanguard of beetles, and then he returned to using the weapon as a club when the following machines grew near.
The onslaught eventually slowed, becoming a trickle, and finally ended entirely. He and Dad couldn’t have been dealing with the robots for more than a minute or two, but it seemed longer. Piles of tiny smashed robot parts littered the crawlspace on either side.
“Well,” Dad said. “Looks like we gots ourselves a few spare servomotors.”
“Just a few,” Tane agreed. “Though I somehow doubt we’ll be able to integrate their tech with our own.”
“Probably not,” Dad said. “We’ll just have to melt ‘em down then. Extra material
for the 3D printers.”
Tane glanced at his overhead map. “The other dwellers can’t reach us and they know it. This crawlspace is too inaccessible.”
“That could be good or bad,” Dad told him. “Like you said, the upper exterior is outside and just to our right. If the dwellers can get units out there, they might be able to fire their energy weapons and bore through.”
“I think it’s time to reposition,” Tane said.
“I think so,” Dad agreed.
Tane glanced at Mom, who sat between the two men with her knees against her chest, her back propped up against the corner. She seemed utterly exhausted.
“You okay, mom?” Tane asked.
She gave him a brave smile, and nodded weakly.
Keeping the weapon light on, Tane led the way. He used his rifle to sweep a path through the damaged robots. There were a few that seemed active—the twitch of a leg here, the convulsion of a pincer there—and he quickly put them out of their misery. Dad brought up the rear, dragging the alien energy launcher along with him.
Soon the trio left behind the smashed robots, and they continued putting distance between themselves and their previous location. Tane turned inward at the first bend, eager to move away from the farm exterior.
He kept the overhead map active, and when he was satisfied that he and his parents were surrounded by impenetrable steel on all sides, he called a halt. He could still hear the klaxon in the background, sounding muted, distant.
“This looks good,” Tane said. “We stay here until they go.”
“And what if they don’t?” Mom asked. “We can’t stay up here forever.”
Dad was the one who answered. “We’ll make forays for food as needed. We’ll outlast these dwellers. Mark my words.”
Tane heard a muffled voice then. It barely carried above the muted klaxon, and seemed to be coming from some sort of bullhorn outside.
“THIS IS THE POLICE,” the voice said. “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”
“Took them long enough,” Dad said. “I sent the call what, half an hour ago now?”
“Should we go out?” Tane asked.
“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Dad said. “Let the police clear the place, first. Then we’ll show ourselves. They’ll find us eventually, I’m sure, what with the fancy X Ray tech they have.”
“Don’t the aliens have similar tech?” Tane said.
“Probably,” Dad said. “How do you think they knew where to send those beetle robots?”
“I guess I thought it was luck,” Tane said. “I mean, they could’ve just sent the things crawling into our ventilation system, with orders to search randomly until they bumped into us.”
“That could be it, too,” Dad said. “Either way, let’s just hope law enforcement scares them off.”
The minutes passed. Tane listened intently, but heard only the persistent klaxon.
“It’s quiet out there,” Tane said. “If the aliens were still out there, you’d think we’d hear plasma rifles going off by now. And shouts. Maybe the creatures already fled? Crawling back into the sand?”
“It does seem like the police spooked them for now,” Dad said. “Either way, we stay here until we hear from them.”
Tane noticed he had a beacon flashing in the lower right of his HUD. He pulled up what appeared to be a new notification screen.
Level up. Sharpshooting skill is now Level 1. 10% bonus to target accuracy. 5% bonus to damage. 3% increased probability of critical hit. Eligibility: laser and plasma rifles.
The timestamp on the notification coincided with when he was shooting up the beetle robots. Apparently his proficiency was already close enough to level one that all he needed to do to go from zero to hero was take out a few bots.
Good deal. He was skeptical of the “3% increased probability of critical hit” part, though. First of all he had to know what areas were critical. He supposed that thanks to his chip, his subconscious mind essentially had that information on call. The chip probably already had a database of critical hit areas, and no doubt the knowledge was constantly updated: when he eliminated the first alien by firing into the translucent dome, for example, that would have refreshed the chip’s internal data.
But secondly, in order to achieve a critical hit, he needed some luck, especially in the heat of combat. Luck was an intangible, unmeasurable quantity, and Tane doubted it was something that could be improved with physical practice. But then again, the notification had said “3% increased probability.” Probability was a mathematical measurement of luck, or at least, of outcome.
If I can aim faster, and hit more accurately, it means I have a greater chance of critically hitting my target, and “being lucky.”
That made more sense to him when he looked at it like that.
Eventually the police located them and had Tane and his parents vacate the crawlspace. Tane made Dad leave the alien energy launcher behind in the duct. Tane still wanted to resell it someday, and he couldn’t well do that if he let law enforcement confiscate it.
The officers were all robots, as Dad predicted. Their polycarbonate bodies reminded him of Julius, though they were colored yellow and blue instead of white and black. The visors that shielded their heads lacked the animated facial expressions Julius had, and instead were completely blank. They carried plasma rifles slung over their shoulders and plasma pistols holstered at their hips. The circular light globes at the centers of their utility belts told Tane that those were shield generators. From what he knew, those energy shields would provide protection against plasma, laser, and melee attacks when active. It would be similar to the shielding Tane had seen on the aliens, in that the energy fields would degrade with successive impacts until given a chance to recharge.
The robots had managed to reboot the hydroponic farm’s power core, shutting down the emergency lights and klaxon. Ralph was still offline, however, along with the local mixnet.
Tane idly checked the public profile of one of police droids.
Name: PD-52 “Briggs”
Race: Robot.
Model: Scepter combat droid VI-15 Rev b.
Level: 5
Class: Police Officer
Badge ID: 726874
Dad made his report while the medical robots tended to him, Mom, and Tane. They’d all suffered minor cuts and bruises.
When Dad was done, Tane gave his own report, leaving out the part about taking the energy launcher, but including how one of the aliens had actually addressed him. If the robot was shocked by that latter bit of news, it gave no outward sign. Without features, it was pretty hard for the detective to display any sort of emotion, really.
When Tane finished, the robot took a step back, seeming hesitant. Then it addressed Dad: “Are you certain you want to proceed with the claim that dwellers attacked your farm?”
“What?” Dad said. “Obviously. You think I’m making this up?”
“Of course not, sir,” the detective robot said. “But you do realize that no dweller bodies were found? Nor any alien DNA?”
“But I killed one of them for sure!” Tane said.
The detective glanced at Tane. “If the dwellers were here, then they were certainly thorough in their retreat.”
“Yes, they were,” Dad said coldly.
“Sometimes,” the detective said. “In the heat of battle we see things that aren’t there. Your attackers may have well been Kayote scavengers, and you might have mistaken them for something else.”
Tane almost wanted to retrieve the hidden energy launcher as proof that aliens had attacked, but he didn’t want to give it up—his family might need the credits from the sale to make repairs to the farm, given how many domes were likely breached in the alien attack.
He was worried his dad was going to mention the weapon, but instead Dad said, softly: “I was in the war. I know what a dweller looks like.”
“You were in a war?” Tane asked, surprised.
But Dad ignored him and continued haranguing the robot: �
�And you’re saying me, my wife, and my son all imagined these aliens? That we were all sharing the same hallucination?”
“All right,” the robot said. “Stand down. I’ll list dwellers as the cause of the disturbance. But it will make it difficult for you to claim compensation from the local government. Considering the… improbable nature of your case.”
“I’d rather that you listed the truth,” Dad said. “Probable or not.”
“Bill,” Mom said quietly. “Maybe it’s better if we don’t mention dwellers. We’ll call undue attention to ourselves.”
“I’m not going to lie about what happened,” Dad said.
“But we’ll need the money to rebuild our domes,” Mom said. “And the damaged doors and ducts.”
Hearing her words, Tane immediately felt justified in holding on to the alien weapon.
“I don’t care,” Dad said. “If dwellers are back, the galaxy needs to know. So we can start preparing for the second war.”
“I didn’t even know there was a first war…” Tane interjected. There was nothing in his chip about this.
Dad ignored him once more.
A human officer stepped into the room, drawing everyone’s attention. He was dressed in a yellow and blue uniform.
“Finally a human,” Dad said.
The officer nodded. Tane checked the man’s public profile.
Name: Trent Okafor
Race: Human
Level: 4
Class: Police Officer
Badge ID: 542146
Trent immediately stepped aside, and a man stepped into the room.
A tall man, perhaps the tallest Tane had ever seen. Heavy power armor covered his body from head to toe, and made him look extremely well-built, though it was possibly an illusion because of the many armored layers. It was carved with the glowing runes of Essence enhancement, and patterned in desert digital; the colors swirled from brown to green to red as Tane watched, and sometimes disappeared entirely, blending into the background behind the man. A similarly colored surcoat covered the chest piece, harboring a sigil of a pistol crossing a sword. The hilt of a scabbarded sword on his belt pulsed with power, as did a pistol stock holstered to the opposite hip.
