Warden 2

by Isaac Hooke

  She slid down the same glass tube she had been in before, carried by gravity; the upper surface of the shaft was pockmarked with holes from the drone attacks. Those craft were still out there, and when she emerged, they immediately swooped down upon her position and began firing anew.

  She made an easy target, since her slide was steady and predicable, so she began running instead, randomly swerving to the left and right as she did so.

  A sloping elevator door opened directly in her path. She leaped over it as robots emerged and fired down into them.

  She continued shooting over her shoulder, keeping them pinned. She repeatedly glanced forward, keeping an eye on the shaft in front of her. The drones rammed plasmas into the shaft around her.

  Ahead, the elevator blocked access past the sixth floor. She swung in through the open roof panel anyway, since she wasn’t going to stay put in that shaft.

  To her surprise, it immediately descended.

  DragonHunter.

  The drones concentrated their attacks on the elevator. Holes appeared, and she was forced to constantly dodge. Well, dodge wasn’t really the word: more like randomly move, she didn’t dare remain in the same spot.

  The elevator stopped on the fifth floor and dinged.

  The doors opened.

  She spun around, expecting to be greeted by security robots, but the hallway beyond was empty.

  Thank you, DragonHunter.

  She leaped outside before the drones made charbroiled steak out of her and shot out the handle of the stairwell door located to her right. She kicked in the door and began racing down the stairs.

  So far, there were no enemy units in sight. They would be regrouping, perhaps making their way to the basement— they would’ve realized her intended target by then.

  She encountered no resistance to the basement level. The basement door remained unlocked, courtesy of the previous time she passed this way. The CommNixer was still in place.

  She paused for a moment before passing through.

  What if I’m wrong about the bunker?

  Well, it was too late now. She was committed.

  She emerged and hurried through the twisting halls. She paused before each bend or intersection to carefully peer past, but so far, the place remained empty. Apparently, she’d beaten all the robots down here.

  She reached the bend that led to her destination.

  She ducked, quietly flattening herself upon the ground. Then she leaned past and let off two quick shots, targeting the pair of robots in the power cells. Both collapsed.

  There was also a deadly laser turret hidden in the roof—again, she wasn’t sure why she knew that. So, she adjusted her aim higher and fired.

  The hidden panel opened, and the turret tried to deploy, but it was too late: her energy bolts made short work of it.

  She scrambled to her feet as she heard footsteps rapidly bearing down from behind and raced toward the door. She leaped over the wreckage of the turrets and robots and studied the three-way locking mechanism as she ran.

  She didn’t have time to shoot through the thick steel with her pistol, not when the arrival of more robots was imminent, so instead she retrieved the gamma scalpel. Instinctively, she knew it was the perfect device for picking locks such as these. Or rather, dissolving the latching mechanisms.

  She adjusted the convergence depth, beam width, and intensity of the scalpel and held it to the door in just the right spot to disintegrate the first lock. She activated the scalpel and heard a loud pop. She repeated the process on the remaining two locks, and then shoved her shoulder into the door. It ceded, opening inward.

  She continued pushing for a few moments, as the door was thick and heavy. When there was enough room for her to fit, she squeezed past the thick, padded walls and door and entered the bunker.

  Inside the narrow hallway beyond were several more doors.

  Behind her, she thought the foremost robots had arrived, as the approaching footsteps had suddenly increased in volume.

  She didn’t bother to close the door behind her, but instead made her way forward. Since the thick door wasn’t completely open, she moved to the far side, where she would be out of view of her approaching attackers.

  She headed for the far side of the hall, drawn by the only pair of double doors embedded in the corridor. She quickly transitioned into a sprint.

  She opened fire as she ran, not wanting to risk being locked out, not when she was so close. She drilled a hole the size of her chest into the doors, and when she reached them, she crouched at the edge, peering past with her weapon. She scanned the cube-like interior. The room was empty, save for a desk.

  Either Mayor Grandas hadn’t come to the bunker. Or he was in a different room.

  Behind her, it sounded like the rising footsteps had reached the bunker entrance, because they stopped suddenly. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the tip of a rifle barrel protrude past the edge of the thick door as a robot approached, weapon first.

  She fired at that rifle, scoring a hit. The weapon immediately withdrew.

  She reached through the hole she’d made and unlocked the doors. She ducked inside, zigzagging. Plasma fire ate through the air on either flank, forcing her to leap behind the desk. She toppled it for cover.

  Energy bolts slammed into the desk itself, eating partially through it. The wood wasn’t going to hold up for very long under the assault, especially not when more combat robots continued to arrive all the time, joining in the attack.

  As that deadly fire continued to rain down upon her hiding place, she decided she might as well try the next room. There was no point in staying here until the robots destroyed her.

  The individual rooms within the bunker would likely have thin walls, with the majority of the armor and padding placed at the entrance.

  She checked her map: the bunker was blank save for the areas she had explored, but she could see where the hallway doors were placed, which allowed her to pick the wall most likely to have an adjacent room behind it.

  She opened fire at her chosen wall; it was made of hastily poured concrete, and she drilled through readily enough. She did have to occasionally reposition as pieces of the desk beside her crumbled away; she would pause to return fire, shooting randomly over the top of the desk before continuing her assault upon the wall.

  When she was through, she took a moment to survey the next room through the gap. It contained a lone desk like this one but was otherwise empty. Well, if the mayor had really been somewhere in the bunker, but in a different room, he would have been evacuated by now. Too bad.

  Well, either way, she wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

  She fired randomly from cover a few times to force her enemies back and was about to roll into the adjacent room when something caught her eye below.

  An outline in the concrete floor.

  As if there was a trapdoor.

  Cocking her head slightly, she pressed along the edges of that outline, until she found a surface that depressed. The outline folded upward, forcing her to one side.

  Still using the remnants of the desk for cover, she peered into the opening.

  A ladder led down into darkness.

  With a shrug, she slid the pistol into her belt and pulled herself into the opening, head- first, and climbed down. She hooked the top parts of her feet onto the rungs and gripped the sides of the ladder with her hands, slowly descending.

  Light came from another opening below. She could see a concrete floor, and part of a wall.

  When she reached the edge, she paused to withdraw her pistol, and then peered past to get a better view.

  She saw a security robot standing next to the mayor in the otherwise empty room.

  The robot had the rifle barrels underneath its forearms aimed at the opening.

  Rhea managed to squeeze off a shot before it returned fire.

  She pulled back but heard a loud clang—she looked down in time to watch the robot crumple into view. It didn’t get u
p: she must have gotten a lucky shot in.

  She started to peer around the edge of the opening again, but shots erupted, forcing her back. The mayor obviously had a pistol of his own.

  Above her, the bunker was completely quiet. She knew she didn’t have much time until the other combat robots reached her. The mayor had probably communicated what was happening already.

  She considered her options. She was a cyborg, with a reaction time far faster than a human’s. The advantage was hers, here.

  She knew then what she was going to do.

  She slid her feet forward, unhooking them from the rungs above her, and plunged into the room.

  She kept the pistol aimed in front of her as she dropped.

  The mayor came into view. He had retreated to one corner and held a pistol aloft; Rhea targeted his weapon the instant she saw it, and as she fell, she fired once, striking the pistol in the center.

  Grandas shouted in pain, dropping the weapon as it melted away.

  She twisted, tucking in her legs to hit the ground rolling, and then clambered to her feet beside him, next to the fallen security robot.

  “Have them back down!” Rhea commanded, shoving the pistol into his cheek. “Now!”

  The mayor shrugged, seemingly unafraid. “Fine. But it won’t do you any good. You’re never getting out of here. City Council doesn’t negotiate with terrorists or hostage takers.”

  “Then I guess you’re screwed too, huh?” She pulled him forward roughly, away from the wall, and slid behind him. Now that he could no longer see her, she had a strange thought. On a whim, she secured the pistol to her belt and instead fetched the gamma scalpel.

  She frowned, staring at the medical device, then instinctively set the convergence depth, beam width, and intensity via the dials. She held the tip to his head, pressing it into his skull at a very specific location.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  Her finger hesitated on the trigger.

  What if I’m wrong?

  A robot dropped into the room via the opening beside her.

  Rhea activated the scalpel.

  The mayor stiffened, then collapsed.

  “Hands up!” the robot ordered.

  Rhea dropped the scalpel and raised her hands in surrender. She was surprised the robot hadn’t mowed her down where she stood. No doubt the mayor had told the machines to come inside, but he must have specifically ordered them not to harm her. That would make sense, considering he had no idea what she had been trying to do.

  The machine stepped forward, making room for another to land inside.

  A third dropped behind that one.

  While the others kept Rhea covered with their rifles, the first robot rushed forward. It knelt and scanned the mayor by moving one hand across his head and torso. The machine looked at her. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing,” she lied. “He just fainted.”

  The robot glanced at the scalpel she had dropped, then announced: “Take her away.”

  They disarmed her and forced her to climb from the chamber. She glanced at the mayor one last time before she left, wondering if she had succeeded.

  Well, either way, she supposed she’d have a lot of time to think about it.

  21

  Rhea saw Will, Horatio, Miles and Brinks waiting for her in the confinement area in the basement of city hall.

  Will stood up as she approached the glass door. When it opened, for a moment she thought Will was going to hurl himself past, but then the robots shoved her inside and the door sealed behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” Rhea asked.

  “We were trying to rescue you,” Will explained.

  “Good job,” she said. “Now we’re all going to prison.”

  Will shrugged. “At least you won’t lack for company.”

  Miles shook his head. “They’re not going to put us in the same cells.”

  “Well, we’ll hang out in the yard then,” Will said.

  “You obviously have some outdated notions of what prison life is like,” Miles told him.

  Rhea took a seat between Miles and Brinks. “I’d thank you for coming. Except I specifically said not to.”

  Miles crossed his arms. “You’re our Warden. We weren’t going to abandon you.”

  “I’m surprised Renaldo didn’t try to come with you,” she said.

  “He wanted to, but I insisted he stay behind,” Miles said. “I told him he’d already risked his life enough when he accompanied you the first time, and that someone needed to stay behind to keep the demonstrators under control. He protested weakly, but I could tell he was relieved.”

  Rhea nodded. “Anything that involves fighting or confrontation, well, let’s just say it isn’t his strong suit. Although, he can certainly bite, when you back him into a corner.” She studied the cell. “Where do you humans relieve yourselves?”

  Brinks pointed at the partition in the corner of the big cell. “There’s a toilet behind that.”

  “Why do you ask?” Will taunted. “Have you picked up an attachment we don’t know about?”

  “Curiosity,” Rhea replied.

  “How did you escape after the robots captured you?” Will asked.

  “Well, first they took me to see the mayor,” she said. “Did I tell you he was mind jacked?”

  “What?” Horatio said. “By who?”

  “Veil,” Rhea replied.

  “No way!” Brinks said. “Though I guess that explains a lot.”

  “Yes,” Rhea agreed.

  “Why did he want to see you?” Miles asked.

  “Mostly to brag, I think,” Rhea replied. “Or Veil did, anyway.”

  “I don’t suppose you managed to convince him to restore the water?” Miles pressed.

  “No,” she told the albino.

  “So how did you escape?” Will said again.

  “Well, I have DragonHunter to thank for that,” she said. “You see, Veil sent me to the basement to get chipped. If DragonHunter hadn’t opened my binds, and then delivered a pistol to me, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “DragonHunter opened your binds during the fight?” Will said, seeming confused. “And gave you a pistol?”

  “That’s right,” Rhea said. “He opened the binds remotely, of course. And when I was scrambling up the elevator shaft that runs along the exterior of the pyramid, DragonHunter sent a drone to drill a hole through the glass. It delivered a pistol.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Will countered.

  She stared at him uncertainly. “How do you know?”

  “He was giving me minute by minute updates,” Will said. “He lost all access to the cameras shortly after you were captured. He didn’t open your cuffs. And he didn’t send a drone. Believe me.”

  “But if it wasn’t DragonHunter, then who helped me?” Rhea said.

  “That, I have no idea,” Will replied.

  Rhea couldn’t help the eerie tingling sensation she felt then, which crawled up her spine. Who else had been watching her, then? And was that person watching even now?

  Her gaze drifted to the camera dome embedded in the ceiling just outside the cell.

  A security robot approached the glass door.

  “Get ready to rush it,” Will said under his breath.

  But the machine stepped aside as the door slid open.

  “You’re all free,” the robot announced.

  “Free?” Will said, his brow furrowed. “On who’s orders?”

  “By order of the mayor,” the robot replied. It turned toward Rhea. “He wants to see you.”

  “What did you do to him?” Will asked.

  “I removed his mind hijacking chip,” she replied casually.

  “You’re just a bundle of surprises, aren’t you?” Will said.

  She shrugged, shooting him a wry smile, then stepped out. She still had the eerie sensation that someone was watching her, and her eyes instinctively darted to the camera dome.

  “Well, I�
�m going with you,” Will told her. “I want to hear what Grandas has to say for himself. Besides, someone has to watch your back.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Miles said.

  “We all are,” Brinks agreed.

  “I guess I’ll be joining you as well,” Horatio added.

  “His office is crowded…” Rhea warned.

  Will grinned. “Guess we’ll all be getting up close and personal with each other.”

  Soon, Rhea found herself in a glass elevator once more, traveling up the sloping exterior of the city hall with her companions. She traveled in the westernmost shaft this time, as the eastern was under repair: the lower portion of the latter bore faint signs of the earlier attack, with circular outlines marking where boreholes had once perforated the glass. As she neared the upper levels, she spotted the holes in the shaft that had yet to be filled in, along with the drones that were hard at work repairing them.

  When the elevator dinged, the lot of them stepped into the narrow hallway, and advanced two abreast. Will walked beside Rhea, following the security robot. She glanced at him, and he gave her a reassuring smile.

  So, she had been successful after all. It would have taken a mistake of less than a millimeter on her part, and she would have incinerated part of the mayor’s brain, instead of the chip. That she had known the exact depth and beam width to use, and the precise cranial point to apply the scalpel, told her she had done this before at least a few times in her past life. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Given some of the memories she had, she doubted she was a neurosurgeon.

  Two security robots stood guard in front of the double doors ahead. When the doors opened, the machines stepped aside to let them pass.

  Rhea and her companions strode onto the eagle-embroidered carpet as they squeezed into the mayor’s office. The augmented reality overlays gave the impression of a room much bigger than it was, when in reality the party was hemmed into a small space near the entrance by the invisible walls of the real world.

  The mayor sat behind the desk, debonair as always in his crisp, black suit. Beside him were two more security robots, hovering protectively upon either flank.