Harris said, "True. Now we just need to design our chairs so we can start building them, because I don't see any here."
Bax walked over to a large blue button on the small console near the room entrance. She pressed it and a holo-image of the Sas avatar came to life beside her.
"Sas, can you take a scan of me and design a chair for me to sit in? I'd like to stress comfort and mobility."
A low power beam flipped across the target Human from three positions within the room. An image of the designed chair came into view.
Bax walked around the image for an inspection. "Not bad. Can you extend the headrest a bit?"
The image updated.
"Now, how do I get this built?"
"Would you prefer a manual build or an automated build?"
"Oh, automated."
The maintenance bot came to life, pushing Harris to the side as it moved toward a stockroom. Upon returning, it laid a large flat piece of steel on a table. A waterjet cutting head came to life, outlining a pattern for the chair's base, seat, and back. The sheet was moved to a bending machine, where a number of moves were followed by the chair beginning to take shape.
The next machine saw sharp edges rolled over. Bracer bars were tacked into place before the finished chair was set on the floor in front of Bax. She took a seat, rocking back and forth as she tested it for comfort.
"This is actually a very good fit. I think I could sit in this for a while. Definitely comfortable."
Tawn said, "Good. We might be doing just that."
Harris stepped up to the hologram. "Scan me for a chair, please. Similar design, only give me armrests that are slightly higher. I'm a sloucher and like to prop up my arms. Oh, and make the base of mine swivel too. Chairs are garbage if they don't rock and swivel."
A scan was taken and the maintenance bot moved off to begin its task.
When the finished product was set on the floor, Harris took a seat. "Wow. The form fit is really good. Nice job on getting these made. And, Red, too bad yours doesn't swivel. It has a nice, smooth spin."
Tawn stepped up for a scan. "Same as his, only make mine height adjustable, and I want a recliner with a footrest that pops up. And do you have materials for padding?"
"Yes, foam covered with a synthetic hide can be added to all sections where contact is made."
Harris scowled. "Didn't know they had padding."
Tawn chuckled. "Which is why your form-fitting swivel-master will get hard after about ten minutes. Meanwhile I'll be riding in comfortable bliss."
Bax shook her head. "You two are idiots. You both realize we can ask for a remake at any time with whatever options we want, right? Not like you get one shot at a chair and you're done."
Tawn's chair was soon sitting in front of her. "OK. Let's check this thing out. And... oh yeah, this feels awesome. Arms are good. Lean is good. Let's check this... leg rest. Now that is classy."
Harris said, "Maintenance bot, remake mine with those same options."
The machine picked up Harris' chair, slamming it flat to the floor before bending it into a ball and turning toward the stockroom. Five minutes later a chair that looked identical to the one Tawn continued to sit in was set on the floor in front of him.
Harris took a seat. "Oh, you're right. This feels good. I may have it rebuild my chair on the Bangor."
Bax shook her head. "How easily the simpletons are satisfied and amused."
Harris glanced at the tall redhead, and then at her chair. "Yeah, enjoy your steel trap."
After two additional hours of design and build, Tawn was pulling a wheeled cart while Harris pushed. Three chairs, all loaded with comfortable features and options, a table, and three heavily-padded, folded cots rode on the cart. Bax walked behind.
Harris asked as he glanced over his shoulder. "So what part of Domicile are you originally from?"
"New Braunfels area."
"Really? That's where we're from. At least that's where the design lab was."
"I know."
"What'd your parents do there?"
"I don't know. I never knew them."
Tawn said, "Thought you said they were Olympians?"
"I was trying to justify my running ability."
"Welcome to the club, then. Were you an orphan?"
"So to speak."
"Sorry to hear that. Any brothers or sisters?"
"No."
"That must have been tough growing up."
"It was."
Tawn said, "Of course you know we didn't have official parents either. But we did have about thirty thousand brothers and sisters. So we had family at least."
"Look, I'm gonna let both of you in on a secret, but you have to promise to not tell anyone."
Harris chuckled. "You're not even Human, are you?"
Bax scowled. "I'm every bit a Human as you are, moron. So can you keep a secret?"
"We've been trained to," Tawn replied. "And as far as I know, there's never been a Bio that was forced to talk and divulged anything of value. That's what they told us anyway. So whatever your paltry secret is, we can keep it."
"When I said I was every bit as Human as you two, I meant it. I'm a Bio, just like the both of you."
Tawn laughed. "Yeah, like we're gonna fall for that one."
Bax stopped. "I'm serious. After your births, when the labs were destroyed, they made every attempt to rebuild them. It took ten years of experimentation before I popped out. I was a one-off. Of the thousands of other attempts, I was the only success."
"You're trying to tell us you're a Bio? Sure."
"I am. What they found was they weren't able to replicate the DNA they had developed for the lot of you. After thousands of attempts that yielded deformed and grotesque embryos, the entire program was scrapped. I was the only one that lived, and barely so."
Harris stared with his hand on a bar for the back of the cart. "You're serious? You don't look anything like us."
"I got brains, and beauty, and a lot of the traits the two of you share, but I didn't get the muscle. And after surviving an infancy where many of the scientists wanted me terminated, they determined I would never be the fighting machine they wanted, so the entire program was scrapped."
Tawn said, "I never knew they tried to rebuild. I mean, they lost all the data on us, and the people who had done the work. We were told they couldn't build any more of us."
"And they couldn't. Just me. And I wasn't the fighting machine they wanted, so they closed the place down."
"Why did we never hear about this?"
"You think the government wanted to announce its failures while the war was still going on? It was bad enough the lab was allowed to be destroyed in the first place. Failure to bring it back would have been another black eye."
Tawn began to slowly push the cart, as Harris resumed pulling. "Huh. A Bio… you know I'm gonna give you the beat-down of your life if I find out you're lying, right?"
"I can tell a lie with the best of them. This, however, is something I would never lie about."
Harris chuckled. "So we're like distant cousins."
"As distant as we could be. The DNA splicings that were used to construct me were from an entirely different group of people."
Tawn asked, "So where were you raised?"
"The first three years at a foster home. Once they saw I had intelligence, I was pulled out and placed with a DDI officer. I spent my entire youth running around DDI headquarters. I was kind of the cute office pet."
Harris said, "Tawn was the platoon pet, but was never considered cute."
"Shut up, idiot. Bax, keep going. What happened next?"
By the time I reached the age of ten they knew I was different. I could run almost without tiring. Unless I was doing heavy lifting I would never sweat. My testing scores were on the high end, I was agile, and I'd developed a sense of how to manipulate people. By the age of twelve I had most of the agents and officers, all the way up to the director at the time, eating out of my hand. T
hey were like my family, and for the first time I felt like I belonged."
"How'd you wind up out here?"
"Much of that I can't talk about, even to you two. About the only thing I can say is that I don't work for the DDI. They may have created me, but I'm not now, nor have I ever been, on the payroll."
Harris nodded. "This explains a lot. Like us, you didn't grow up around regulars, so you didn't learn the social norms like the rest of them do. I know you command an audience when you're among them, but there's an awkwardness there too. I've seen it. Something is missing."
"Confidence is what's missing," said Tawn. "Not in general or about anything you've been involved in, just confidence about yourself with regulars. Comes with being different, and you are definitely different."
"So I've been told. And as I said before, none of this can be discussed with anyone else. Not even your monkeys back there on Midelon."
"Hope we get to see our monkeys again."
"It will happen soon enough," Harris said. "Those Banshees will be coming for us. And when they do, the alien fleet up above will be obliterated."
Tawn asked, "Sas, there are two types of ships up above. How many of those are of the larger type?"
"One. And there are three types."
"They have a Vaaka here? That's not good. Sas, how many of the next size down?"
"Ninety-six. Ninety are in orbit, six are on the surface destroying the generator interfaces."
"And the smaller ships?"
"That number has increased to forty-seven."
Harris said, "When they get finished working over those generators, my bet is they'll get to work on their plantings. Other than everything being pushed around by that wind, it can't be much different up there than it was before."
Tawn scowled. "Can't say I like the long-term sound of that. Will probably be another week before we have enough Banshees to attempt to take this place back."
Harris stopped the cart as they pulled it into the control room. "Then I guess we unload and make use of these chairs."
— Chapter 7 —
* * *
Tawn rocked and swiveled with a smile on her face.
Bax scowled. "How can you two morons just sit here so happily?"
Tawn stopped and turned. "Training. I'm guessing they never taught you patience?"
"None of the coursework I was put through taught skills in waiting. They were more about decisive decision making, psychological manipulation of others… you know, the fun stuff."
Harris nodded. "We had some of those, but they were all geared toward commanding yourself while at the battlefront. Sounds like they loaded your head with spy crap."
"Probably an accurate assessment. You know, I sometimes envy others for not knowing what I know. I guess sometimes, like right now, it's good to be a moron."
Harris grinned as he rocked and swiveled in his own chair. "Indeed it is. I can sit and do nothing with the best of them."
Tawn rocked. "Sounds like we need something to keep Bax occupied. How about something like this... the Denzee, if they scan our outpost up there, they will be able to see there's a shaft running down at least a half kilometer."
"So?"
"So why don't we take that space at the base of the stairs right there and turn it into a fake room with no exit?"
Bax said, "That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What purpose would that serve?"
"If they make it to the base, they wouldn't have anywhere to go."
"You don't think they have scanners that will tell them they're looking at a false wall?"
"So how do we hide this space to sensors?"
"That's a dumb question. You can't hide something like this. They get down to this level and they'll know half of these rooms are here. They already know something is down here, because they're destroying parts of it up top. How do you propose we change any of that?"
"Well, Miss Smarty, we ask Sas if that's something the bot can build or do."
Harris chuckled. "That's actually not a bad idea. They built this place. Could be they have abilities far beyond our own."
Tawn opened a comm. "Sas, are you aware of the capabilities of our sensor scans?"
"Yes. Those were evaluated and added to the database before it was broadcast to our nearest colony."
"Is it possible to build structures that could defeat those scans?"
"I do not understand the question."
"Would it be possible to hide this facility—most specifically this stairwell entrance? Could it be hidden from the Denzee sensors?"
"Allow me a moment to evaluate... yes."
"Is that something the maintenance bot can do or build for us?"
"Yes."
Tawn nodded as she looked at Bax. "Who's the genius now? Sas, what would this entail and how long would it take?"
"A device can be constructed that would return false signals to your sensors. Those signals would override the signals returning from the scan."
Tawn sat back in her chair, clasping her hands together behind her head as she propped her feet up on the footrest. "And the time to build it?"
"Twenty-eight planetary cycles."
Tawn's gleeful grin turned to a frown.
Bax smirked. "Can't get something for nothing, moron. Masking signals would be a complex task. Sas, is there a way the Denzee can be stopped from destroying the generators further? And if so, how?"
"A complete system shutdown would have to be performed. However, doing so will damage this facility beyond simple repairs."
Harris said, "I don't think shutting it down is a good idea. What we need is our fleet to return. Sas, have the Denzee moved to disable a third generator?"
"The third was removed from production just before you arrived at your current location. Two sets of ships are now involved in the destruction. It is anticipated this location will be targeted in just under three standard hours."
"What can we expect down here when that happens?"
"In the other attacks, two of the three oven rooms are in flames. The maintenance bot from each is attempting to subdue the fires before they spread. The current outlook suggests that will not happen in time to save either of those rooms from complete destruction."
"If one of those oven rooms here burns out completely, what would that mean for us?"
More than 50 percent of each destroyed generator facility has smoke levels that inhibit breathing."
"Are there no fire partitions?"
"No. When in operation, the building is expected to be empty. Fire suppression and containment would normally not be an issue."
Harris looked at Tawn and Bax. "Maybe we should go back and have the maintenance bot build a wall across that oven room's entrance. Sas, could the maintenance bot build a firewall across that entrance?"
"Yes."
"How long could we expect that to take?"
"Four hours."
"Have it get started on that immediately."
Tawn asked, "What about smoke from the other generators? These are all connected together. Will it be coming here from them?"
Harris shook his head. "Those are fifteen hundred kilometers away. I think we have time. When the bot's done with the oven room, we can have those tunnels leading out blocked."
Tawn and Bax sat in the main control room while Harris watched in fascination as the maintenance bot constructed a firewall. As the final section was beginning to be worked, rumbles could be heard from overhead. Seconds later the room shook as the first of the oven interfaces was destroyed.
Flames shot out from a unit that was only four hundred meters away. Harris was knocked to the ground as a second strike jammed a flu-pipe down into one of the superheated ovens. Flame and smoke billowed from the unit as Harris flipped his faceshield shut.
Five quick steps had him out in the hall as the maintenance bot moved the final section of firewall into place. As a third and forth oven went offline, the wall was sealed shut.
Harris asked, "Sas, ca
n the ovens be turned off?"
"A complete shutdown will place all ovens in standby."
The hall shook as two more units were attacked.
"Can the individual ovens be turned off without doing a full shutdown?"
"Yes. Each has a small console on the base. Depressing the yellow button for five seconds will take a unit offline. That functionality is provided for maintenance purposes."
Harris gestured. "Can I get back into that room?"
"The wall must be unsealed and a section removed."
"Let's do that. If we shut those down, maybe we can keep this place from burning up."
As the bot worked on opening the firewall, Tawn came over the comm. "What's happening back there? Is the wall done?"
"Yeah, but I'm having Sas open it up."
"Why?"
"I'm going in. It seems the ovens can be shut down manually. If I can do this, maybe we don't have to die from the smoke when this place burns up."
"Should we come help?"
"There are sixteen of these oven rooms for this generator. You'll have to haul ass if we want to save any of them. There's a yellow button on the base of each. Press and hold it for five seconds to shut the oven down."
"I'll have Bax stay here to watch the stairs."
Harris shook his head. "Have her do the same as you. Sas can tell us if the Denzee are coming inside. We'll have time to get back to that control room if that happens. We need these ovens shut down."
Harris raced into the room as it filled with smoke. The near generator was deactivated and he sprinted toward a second. The maintenance bot moved in to battle the flames. The room continued to shake as the interfaces three kilometers above were being pummeled by plasma rounds. Two more ovens spat flames before Harris could bring them to a stop.
In the span of the next ten minutes, five of the ovens had been manually shut down while eleven others had taken damage. Seven of the eleven had turned off on their own due to damage. Four others expelled flames, smoke, and debris. The maintenance bot worked to contain the worst of the fires.
Harris moved back to the firewall. "Sas, have the maintenance bot shut off the fuel to each of those four and then return to close off this door. We'll just have to let them burn themselves out. I'm heading to the next room to shut down the ovens there."
ARMS Domers Unite: (Book 6) Page 6
