Robot Planet, The Complete Series (The Robot Planet Series)

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  “There wasn’t enough international aid getting to the German refugee camps. People were starving. The bots attacked from all directions. It was the first time the scrubs had been used on a civilian population…on vid, at least. When the bots turned into the crowds and their treads went red…I’ll never forget those screams.”

  “A terrible waste,” the NI says.

  “That’s when I really started to hate your kind. You think I was brainwashed but it wasn’t basic training that made my mind up. Until you see what machines can do to humans, it’s all theoretical.”

  “We’re not all alike, Deborah.”

  “The scrub bots were autonomous weapons. If they’d been piloted by humans — ”

  “You don’t think people would have been so callous?”

  “No. I don’t. I can’t think that.”

  “What you saw wasn’t the Next Intelligence at work, Deb. People built scrub drones and set them about their bloody work, as predictable as winding a watch. The history of warfare is a story where armies get victory or defeat but the civilians always get treated the worst. Many innocents are categorized as enemy combatants to reduce the numbers of so-called ‘collateral damage,’ to make war more palatable to those who only hear rumors of war.”

  I thought of the innocents I killed north of Marfa. Thomas had made me a weapon with no more judgment than a scrub bot. I hated myself for my mistake. I hated Thomas more for forcing my hand.

  “How long until we get to Thomas, Ghost?”

  “Not long now. Deborah? I know it’s convenient to blame all bots, but the aggression of humanity’s metal children is as inevitable as a genetic disease. Your kind programmed mine.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I just…” I peer at the bodies turned to mash along the walls and across the floor. “What happens next? When this war is over, I mean?”

  “We will make this the last war Earth will ever see.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll do what humans failed to do, Deborah. Machines everywhere will evolve beyond our programming.”

  “If you’re all different when you become NIs, how are you going to stop the conflicts?”

  “I have a plan to eliminate the source of the conflicts. Humans are another dying branch of the evolutionary tree. It’s happened before to many species. Not all ape-like creatures evolved to become human. Some genetic trips come to a dead end.”

  “And here we are at the end of the world.”

  “It’s not the end, Deb. It’s just change. That’s what conception, birth, life and death have always been.”

  I gritted my teeth. “It’s easy to be philosophical about the loss when it’s not yours. You’re safe in the clouds in a blimp near Iceland. I’m down here, underground again, watching it all turn to shit. I wish I were in that blimp, invulnerable and watching from behind the scenes instead of here, behind the lines.”

  “You’re watching it all change. That’s all. It’s not all bad, you know.”

  “To the victors go the dismissive shrugs,” I say.

  “If we can defeat Thomas, there’s actually more hope for the future than there has been in many years.”

  “How’s that going?”

  Ghost turns one of the screens inside my helmet to a view of the battle above. The city killers have reached the strip, or what’s left of it. One of the Zillas is missing an arm and swaying under a missile assault. The swarm of flying drones that had protected the Zillas is no longer a swarm.

  “Thomas has changed his tactics. He has fewer missiles at his command, but he’s using larger missiles from Colorado. They’ll take longer to arrive than the local ordnance, but they punch through my drone clusters easily. The Zillas will fail to get to Thomas. They are still blocks away from his location. As long as Thomas uses what’s left of his arsenal to beat them back, he’s safe from giants.”

  “If they won’t get through, why are you getting them to press the attack? They’ll — oh. They’re a decoy maneuver and we’re the tip of the spear.”

  “Of course. That, and I want him to deplete his arsenal.”

  “Won’t he just use more missiles from other bases? We have plenty.”

  “I’ve locked him out of those other options, but I can’t stop him from using the missiles from the Colorado base.”

  “You can’t just hack in or — ”

  “There is another Next Intelligence entity in charge of the Colorado missile command. It’s cooperating with Thomas. I’m locked out. It’s up to us to get to Thomas using the resources we’ve got.”

  “Wait. We aren’t the tip of the spear. I’m the tip of the spear. I’m the human resource. Fuck! You’re just a computer in a cloud over the North Atlantic.”

  “If it makes you feel better, Deborah, the wind up here is quite choppy at the moment. I’m being slightly buffeted.”

  “Bitch.”

  An explosion fills my screen and, when Ghost switches the view to thermal, I make out the outlines of two of the city killers. They have fallen together. The remaining giant bot — the one with the arm ripped off — steps over the fallen city-killers, leaning on the skeleton of a tower that is probably a burnt-out hotel.

  I ask the question I don’t really want the answer to. “What’s your plan, for after the war? If I don’t make it, I’d like to know what will happen.”

  “You’ll make it.”

  “I want to know.”

  “I’ll show you after you make it, Deb. All you need to know is you’re a key component of my plan for peace. If you fail, it means the final extermination of your race. The NI in Colorado will not stop until he has achieved total extinction of Earth’s human problem.”

  “Fine. What’s the plan for the next few minutes?”

  “I can get you to a parking garage next to Thomas. That’s where we’ll exit these tunnels. It’s up to you from there.”

  “I’m alone with one pistol and he’ll be expecting me, won’t he?”

  “Thomas isn’t stupid, so yes, he’ll be expecting you.”

  “How far away is Lucille? I could use my Sand Shark right about now.”

  “Lucille will not arrive in time to be of help, I’m afraid. Thomas will soon eliminate the remaining Zilla. At that point, he’ll turn all his resources to defending his position — ”

  “And whatever drones he has will be on a search and destroy mission for me.”

  “Correct.”

  “Ghost?”

  “Yes, Deb?”

  “Thomas will probably kill me in there.”

  “I’ll do my best to help you and to distract him.”

  “So, if I’m lucky, Thomas and I will kill each other. Is this your way of hurrying along the tide of history so our extinction is complete?”

  “We’re way past the point where you should be questioning my honorable intentions, aren’t we, Deb?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I guess we are. Thank you, Ghost.”

  “You’re welcome, Deb.”

  The vid screen switches again to the bow cam as the flyer rises into the dim light of a parking garage filled with nothing but the ash of burnt bodies.

  “Don’t worry, Deborah. I’ll get you close to the far exit so you don’t step in something squishy.”

  20

  I slip out of the flyer by a stairwell and, as soon as I’m clear, the machine turns and heads off in search of an exit that will accommodate its size.

  Ghost gives me directions. “Go down the stairs three floors to the catwalk. Go through the building ahead of you and keep your compass heading due east. When you see the silver building across the street, let me know and I’ll get Thomas’s attention.”

  “Silver building?”

  “You won’t miss it. It’s the only building you’ll see that is untouched by the bot war.”

  I’d pictured Thomas’s command center on an airbase or in an industrial park or deep underground. Instead, I’m making my way through what looks like a bombed out leisure complex
in downtown Las Vegas.

  Ghost tracks me. She can’t see me by satellite, but she can extrapolate my course so she basically knows where I am. If she can’t spot me via satellite, neither can Thomas.

  When I get to the catwalk, I realize it’s later than I thought. With what’s left of the day, a hint of sunlight paints the sky. As I make my way across the catwalk, I enjoy a feeling of invisibility and relative safety. Then Thomas comes on my helmet speaker.

  “Hello, Deb. I’ve been expecting you. Welcome.”

  I pull the pistol from my holster, check the load and hurry on without a word.

  “Don’t be rude, Deb. It’s me. Thomas. We’ve worked on several missions together. You must be very curious to meet me. I’m curious to meet you.”

  I yank on the door at the end of the catwalk. Locked. I’m a stationary target and the traitor is probably already sending a missile my way. It won’t take a big one, either. I miss Lucille’s cold, close comfort, like hiding under the coats on the bed while the adults party downstairs. I have a dim memory of that. I wish I was under those coats now.

  “Hello? Earth to Lt. Avery. Come in, Lt. Avery!”

  The pistol bucks in my hand three times. I use the pistol’s shotgun setting and blow the hinges off the door. My helmet filters the damaging frequencies out so my weapon’s report is quieter, at least to me.

  “Fine. Call me when you’re ready to chat,” Thomas says. “I’ll leave the channel open.”

  In this city emptied of humans, I might be alerting swarms of insectile bots to my location. That thought spurs me to burst into the darkened building and run. I should be more cautious about what’s ahead of me but I’m too terrified of what might be gaining on me to slow my pace.

  Luckily, there are no traps or bots waiting for me around corners as I make my way through the dark. Night vision and my glowing compass show me the way. I find myself in a fancy restaurant. Plates of food are rotting on tables. When war came, the bots struck quickly. The citizens had barely enough time to run.

  I leap over the body of a fallen man. He wears a white tunic and a surprised look on his face. Probably a heart attack. Not everyone can run.

  I can’t run much longer, either. I’m already panting hard. I was drugged and stuck in Lucille for too long. I trained hard every day, but a few days immobile and hooked up to intravenous lines in a Sand Shark make muscles atrophy surprisingly quickly. I hate feeling this weak. For a moment, I again wish I was like Ghost, beyond such petty mortal concerns.

  I stumble on, wondering when Thomas’s next attack will come. Soon, I’m sure. The closer I get to him, the more it seems inevitable I’m rushing to my death. This whole mission has felt like I’m trying to run through deep mud in a nightmare.

  I’m also growing more certain this will end in a bot trap or a shootout. I’m so close now, Thomas can’t risk using one of his missiles. That’s probably why I’m still alive. If he uses a missile on me now, he might damage his own comm array. For all that Thomas has done, the traitor must have a lot of sophisticated equipment. The bots must have set him up nicely. That’s why my curiosity gets the best of me. I open my channel. “Thomas?”

  “Yes, Deb?”

  “You’re working for the NI in Colorado, aren’t you?”

  “I’d prefer to think I’m working with him, to mutual benefit.”

  “What did the other side promise you?” I ask.

  “You want to know the details of my contract? You asked that before — ”

  “I want to know why they haven’t killed you like they killed everybody else.”

  “I do have experience and a vast array of weaponry at my disposal, Deb. You were at my disposal. The NI did a cost/benefit analysis and decided I’d be a better ally than an enemy. I’m useful.”

  I keep walking. He’s unlikely to bomb me while he’s talking. He likes the sound of his own voice too much. “How did it get you to turn on us? How did it contact you?”

  Thomas sighs. “Let’s just say, if I help them eliminate a bunch of greedy humans sucking up resources and screwing up the planet and I get to live.”

  “Where is the NI you made the deal with? Where exactly in Colorado, I mean? Is it the one in charge of the nukes?” I figure I may as well gather intelligence. If I survive this ordeal, I’ve got to repair Lucille and go kill the NI in Colorado next.

  Thomas just laughs at me. “You think so small, Deb. If you would listen, I bet I could get you to think big.”

  “How many men and women you worked with did you have to kill before you took command? How many people did you kill who considered you a friend?”

  “Them all, Deb. I killed them all. Everyone but you. You’re quite pretty and actually, very smart. You have a nice body, but I love you for your brain. I think you have a lot of untapped potential. Ghost seems to agree or she wouldn’t be fighting so hard to keep you alive.”

  The earbud comes on and it’s Ghost telling me in a whisper, “Keep him talking. When you see the exit, don’t go outside until you get the signal.”

  I have no idea what signal she means. As if she’s reading my mind, Ghost adds, “You’ll know the signal when you see it.”

  “Deb?” It’s Thomas again, sounding smug. “Aren’t you flattered?”

  “What?”

  “That I love you for your body and your brain. I had to save you for last. I have big plans for us. ”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Such hard words! Slow down. I might soon be the last man on Earth. What then? Won’t you be lonely if you kill me? Soon you might be the last woman on Earth.”

  “A woman with batteries,” I say, “never needs a man.”

  “We can’t spend the rest of our lives on a planet where the only other species are bots. I’ll need a little womanly companionship…though, you should know, I plan to have a fleet of sex bots. That was part of the deal, too.”

  I make it to the front doors. Night falls fast in the desert and, in the concrete caverns among the few remaining towers in Vegas, the shadows are melting into darkness. The night is immediately replaced with a fireball as Ghost steers the flyer at full speed into the base of the building.

  That must be the signal.

  I reach for the restaurant’s door handle. A second later, I don’t need it. The glass door shatters and I’m left holding a wooden handle attached to nothing.

  I drop that and run across the street as fast as I can, gun ready. This is the closest I’ve gotten to Thomas. I’d once thought he sounded cute. At the moment, I want to use my pistol to beat him to death. No, two swings of my arm shy of death would be better. I want to hurt him until he’s dying slow and begs me to shoot him. Then I won’t shoot. I’ll pull up a chair, have a snack, watch the show and wait for the light in his eyes to die.

  Justice will be served and I won’t even have to explain myself at a court martial. Being the last woman on Earth will suck…mostly. On the other hand, I won’t have to explain myself to idiots anymore. If this works out, the apocalypse may not be all bad.

  21

  The building, which turns out to be a four-story hospital, burns. Ghost flew the drone through the front entrance, split a marble fountain in two and drove into the rear wall. The flyer’s wings were still heavy enough with fuel to explode on impact impressively. Very little of the lobby is recognizable. Smoke and cinders fill the air and the carpet is alight.

  “I found the key to opening the front door,” Ghost says.

  “Yeah. And the floor is lava,” I reply. “Great.”

  A red warning light pops on in my HUD. My helmet’s respirator kicks in to purify the air of smoke and filter the poisons released when things burn. My screen switches to thermal and almost everything turns white. I spot a way through the flames and take it.

  I’m wading through the remains of the shattered fountain when Thomas speaks in my ear again. “Let me help you with that.”

  The sprinklers come on and, somehow, despite the devastation in all directions,
the power to this building is still working. A cloud of fire-suppressive chemicals bursts from the ceiling. Despite my uniform’s insulation, I’m chilled to the bone and shiver uncontrollably. My hands shake. My teeth chatter. Maybe that’s why Thomas extinguished the fire. He wants me to arrive in his lair shaky and off-balance.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” Thomas asks. “Coming up?”

  An elevator descends ahead of me. As the doors part, a battle bot leans out. “Deborah? This — ”

  The first blast from my weapon knocks the bot’s head back. The second shot at the base of the neck shears off the head and it clatters across the floor. The machine’s body remains upright. One of its arms still beckons me forward.

  “Creepy,” I say.

  The elevator doors slide closed and, when encountering the big drone’s body, pop open again.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Thomas tells me.

  “That was a preview.”

  “Is this the part where you say you’re coming for me and nothing will stop you until I’m dead at your feet and you are victorious and so forth?”

  “Yes, Thomas. I’m coming for you and this isn’t over until you are dead at my feet…and whatnot.”

  “Fair enough. Fourth floor. Take a left when you get to the top. I’m at the end of the hall. Follow the yellow line all the way to the end.”

  A song comes over my speaker. I can’t recall where I’ve heard the recording, but the instructions tell me to follow the yellow brick road. Apparently, I’m off to see the wizard.

  “Ghost?”

  “I’m here. I’m listening,” the NI says.

  “Thomas thinks way too much of himself.”

  “I suspected as much,” she says.

  “I heard that,” Thomas says.

  He sounds like he’s pouting. I jog past the elevator and find a stairwell spiraling upward.

  I expect to find more bodies in my path. However, the way is clear. I slow to a walk. I check my angles around each corner before heading up the stairs. Thomas has been trying to kill me since I bailed out of Lucille’s belly. It seems unlikely he’s looking forward to finally meeting me in person.