by Jake Bible
“Locked tight?” Tressa asked as Haskins, Cash, and Ivy reached the bottom of the ramp.
“Locked down tight,” Ivy replied then walked to one of the many cots that lined each wall of the large space. She threw her gear on an empty cot then sat down on a different one. “Now we wait.”
“Won’t have to wait long,” Mike said as he held up his scanner. “Combots are here. They’ve reached the perimeter and are…”
Everyone waited for him to finish, but he didn’t. His brows knitted together as he stared down at the scanner.
“Mike?” Tressa asked.
“I see it,” Olivia said after picking up the second scanner. “They stopped.”
“Stopped?” Cash asked and crossed to Mike who was sitting on a cot about halfway down the room. “What do you mean they stopped?”
“Not exactly a hard word to parse, Mr. Cash,” Barbara said, lying on a cot at the very end of the room. There were two doors close to her, one for the unisex lavatory/showers, and one for the small kitchen and storeroom. She got up and walked to the lavatory door. “Let me know when someone explains the definition to you. I’m going pee so I don’t die with a full bladder.”
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow,” Mike called after her, still not looking up from the scanner. “We have to save water since the pumps will die when the generators eventually conk out.”
“Why are they waiting?” Cash asked, taking the scanner from Mike’s hands.
“Hey, dude,” Mike protested, but not very hard. He lie back on his cot and put his hands behind his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“This movement they’re making,” Olivia said. “Like they’re turning around. What is that about?”
“They just moved a couple yards back from the perimeter,” Cash said. He held the scanner out and down for Mike to see.
“Oh, what, I get to look again? Thanks, dude,” Mike said and sat up. “I’d just gotten comfortable.”
Mike tapped at the scanner controls and nodded.
“Yeah, they reached the perimeter, stopped, then turned around and walked back about twenty yards,” Mike said. “Now they’re still.”
“You guys have more experience with their behavior than I do,” Cash said. “Have they acted this way before?”
“No,” Mike said. “They pretty much go straight for the kill.”
“It’s like they’re guarding something,” Olivia said.
“Maybe they’re waiting for the other ten to arrive,” Ivy suggested.
“Or these guys,” Olivia said and shook the scanner in her hands. “Looks like a couple of packs of dinos coming our way.”
“They smelled the dinner bell,” Haskins said. “Hard to miss. That stink is bringing all the boys to the yard.”
“My grandparents loved that song,” Olivia said.
“Three different packs,” Cash said, seeing the blips appear on the scanner. “Too far away to tell the size of the species.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and some T-rexes will show and stomp the combots to bits,” Zach said from his cot that was on the wall opposite Barbara’s. “They’re strong enough. That was the plan before, right?”
“None of the dinos have any reason to engage the combots,” Ivy said. “They aren’t food. And the combots won’t engage the dinos unless they pose an immediate threat. Which they won’t since the dinos are going to head straight for the piles of corpses.”
“Oh,” Zach replied then turned onto his stomach and buried his head under his pillow. He immediately yanked his head out and gasped. “God, everything smells like death.”
“Can you put it up on that screen?” Tressa asked Mike, pointing at one of the monitors bolted to the concrete walls. They were to be used to relay messages and show safety videos to tourists that were unlucky enough to have to use the bunker. “Will one of the scanners connect?”
“Maybe,” Mike said and got up.
He moved to the closest monitor, studied the ports on the side, then moved back to his cot and pulled a tool kit out from underneath. He sat down and started taking the casing off the scanner.
While Mike worked, Haskins sat down next to Olivia and gave her arm a nudge with his stump.
“Ugh. Why do you do that?” she asked.
“Because it grosses you out,” Haskins said. “If we get out of here, I’ll help you look for your wife.”
“If we get out of here…” Olivia let those words fall away. She nodded and bumped Haskins back. “Thanks. But we probably aren’t getting out of here.”
“Probably not, but you never know,” Haskins said. “We’ve survived this long. And look where it’s got us.”
He waved his stump at the bunker.
“First-class accommodations, man,” Haskins said. “Totally worth fighting for our lives every day for months, don’t you think?”
Olivia smirked and bumped him again.
“What do you think it means?” Olivia asked. Haskins blinked a few times. “The T-shirt?”
“That your wife is wandering around out there topless?” Haskins replied.
Olivia laughed and it echoed throughout the bunker. She got a couple of strange looks from the others, but she shook her head and they turned back to watch Mike try to rewire the scanner.
“Do you think she could be alive?” Olivia asked. “I’d… I’d given up hope, really.”
“She could be,” Haskins said. “She might have been rescued while you were Topside then she was evacuated with everyone else when Raff and Lakshmi abandoned the base.”
“That’s… That’s what I think too,” Olivia said. “There’d be no reason for the T-shirt she was wearing that day to be back here. Even if they found her body and brought it back, why take the T-shirt off?”
“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Haskins said. “It’d be pretty fucking cool if after this we get some good news.” He held up his hand, palm up, and shrugged. “Again, if we live long enough to get that good news.”
“You think Raff and Lakshmi would leave us?” Olivia asked. “I don’t know them, but are they the kind of people where the mission comes first?”
“No,” Cash said as he walked over and interrupted the conversation. “They aren’t the type that leave people behind. Not unless there’s a very good reason.”
“Saving the world is a pretty good reason,” Haskins said. “Not that I’m happy with the reason since it means leaving us behind.”
“I haven’t had time to watch the vid Raff left for you,” Cash said. “I should probably do that, but all this…”
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
“This first then I look at our options,” he continued. “Since we can’t get to them in the timeframe needed then that video is not a priority. After this crap then we’ll—”
Cash stopped talking and turned abruptly. He walked off toward the ramp and began to pace back and forth.
“He’s not all there, is he?” Olivia asked.
“Who? Cash?” Haskins replied. “Oh, he’s all there. Maybe too much all there. For a man trained to use his body as a weapon, he spends a lot of time in his head.” Haskins tapped his temple. “I try to do the opposite and keep this brain as empty as possible.”
He gave Olivia a warm smile and another thump of his stump.
The scanner on Olivia’s cot beeped.
Olivia picked it up then stood. “Mike? You seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Not really since I’m wires deep in this thing,” Mike said as he held up his scanner. “But give me a second.”
“What is it?” Ivy asked from her cot.
“Take a look,” Olivia said and moved to her quickly. “That pack of ten combots stopped. They’re waiting at least a couple hundred yards from the perimeter the other combots created.”
“These things aren’t making sense,” Ivy said. “They haven’t ever acted this way before.”
“Got it!” Mike announced as he finished hooking the scanner’s wires up to the mo
nitor’s ports. “We have picture, dudes.”
The image on the scanner was blown up to fifty times its original size. There was some graininess to it, but otherwise, it was a clear image of a black and green grid with a sweeping line that rotated around every second or so as the scanner tracked the movement of the combots.
“Those are our little machine friends,” Mike said, pointing to the group of ten combots and to the individual combots that were positioned around the base. Then he pointed at a different set of dots. “And here are our dino friends coming to eat of the decomposed flesh of our friends and co-workers.” Mike winced and shook his head. “And that sounded really awful out loud. Sorry, dudes.”
“Why aren’t the combots coming for us? Why are those ten just standing there?” Tressa asked as she moved closer to the monitor. “Tre? Care to join us and help us figure this out?”
“I am,” Cash replied as he held up a finger and continued to pace.
Elvis was laying on the ramp a few feet up and his head swiveled back and forth as he watched Cash pace.
“It’s like the generals are watching the troops,” Haskins said.
“What?” Cash snapped. “What did you just say?”
“I, um, I… Not sure,” Haskins replied, looking around the bunker for some support. “Did I say something offensive? That didn’t sound offensive in my head or when it came out of my mouth.”
“No, sorry, it’s not offensive,” Cash said. He stopped pacing and walked over to the monitor. “You said it looks like the generals are watching the troops. What if that is exactly what they are doing?”
“Tre? Are you feeling alright?” Tressa asked. “You had your inoculations before you came Flipside, right?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Cash said as he waved off his sister’s concern. “I think Haskins is on to something there. What if that second group, the ten, are directing the others? What if they are here to—?”
Cash didn’t get to finish as Mike exclaimed, “Holy shit! Look!”
The packs of dinos had reached the base and instead of being allowed through like normal, the combots close to the packs began to engage. There was no way to tell from the basic graphics on the monitor if the combots were firing their .50 cal machine guns, but several of the dots that represented the dinos stopped where they were and didn’t move any further.
Then the faintest sound leaked in through the double doors at the top of the bunker’s ramp.
“The combots are fighting the dinos?” Haskins asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind. “The combots are fighting the dinos!”
Reality set in and he frowned.
“Not sure why that’s exciting,” he said. “We’ll still have to fight the combots.”
“Maybe,” Cash said as he studied the screen with an intensity that made everyone a little nervous.
Mike and Tressa shared a look and Tressa moved in closer to Cash. She put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a squeeze.
“Tre? What’s going on?” Tressa asked.
“They’re protecting the base,” Cash said, nodding at the action on the screen.
The combot dots engaged the dino dots and the dino dots fell fast. After a couple of seconds, the fallen and still dino dots faded away.
“See? They’re killing them,” Cash said.
“He’s not wrong,” Mike said. “When the dots fade out like that then that means—”
“I know what it means, Mike,” Tressa said. “CEO of this whole mess.”
“Right. Sorry,” Mike said. “Just wasn’t sure if you’ve ever seen combat on a scanner screen before.” Tressa gave him a withering look. “Which, as CEO of this mess, you most certainly have.”
“But the combots are Russian,” Haskins said. “That’s what Raff’s vid said. Why would the Russians want to help us?”
“That I don’t know,” Cash said. He glanced at the sealed double doors. “I have a feeling we’ll find out once the killing stops.”
Everyone was glued to the screen, none daring to glance away for a second in case they missed the answer to the mystery of the combot behavior.
“Those ten haven’t budged,” Ivy said. “They took up an observational position and have stayed right there.”
“Generals directing the troops like Haskins said,” Cash responded. “They came here with a mission beyond wiping us out or those ten would be engaging as well. They’d probably be trying to find and kill us while the others maintain the perimeter. Search and destroy.”
“But they aren’t searching and they aren’t destroying,” Tressa said. “What are the Russians playing at?”
“They need our turn?” Mike asked.
“What do you mean?” Tressa replied.
“I’m not sure, but something Lakshmi had said once was that the Wyoming Bubble had some of the strongest energy readings of any of the bubbles around the globe,” Mike explained. “Most of us have seen the reports on the bubbles in other countries, so she wasn’t wrong considering the residual energy our bubble puts off after each turn. But Lakshmi had insisted it was more than that. Sort of like the Wyoming Bubble might be more than just stronger, but possibly the source of the energy that drives the other bubbles to turn back and forth between Flipside and Topside.”
“The lynchpin,” Barbara said. “The one holding the others together.”
“Except Lakshmi thought collapsing the Russia Bubble would stabilize everything,” Cash said. “That’s what she said in the vid with Raff, right?”
Mike nodded.
“Why would she think that if this bubble is the lynchpin?” Cash asked. Then he walked away and started pacing once more.
“There he goes again,” Haskins said. “Not freaking us out at all, boss.”
“I’m boss,” Ivy said. “With Amanda gone, I’m Head of Security.”
“My bad,” Haskins said. “Not freaking us out at all, Cash!”
“Better,” Ivy said.
“The combots are Russian. Collapsing the Russia Bubble could stabilize everything,” Cash said to himself.
“But also could collapse everything,” Mike said, but there was no indication Cash heard him.
“Tre?” Tressa said.
“Let him think, daughter,” Thompson said then let loose with a string of wet, body-wracking coughs.
“Doc?” Tressa asked in alarm.
“He’s stable,” Dr. Raskov said. “Fever is holding. Not where I’d like it, but it’s not getting worse.”
Cash stopped and faced everyone as he snapped his fingers. “Those ten combots have a different purpose.”
“Okay…?” Mike said. “Care to elaborate on that insight, dude?”
“Is there any way to see how they are different?” Cash asked Mike.
“Um, this scanner is pretty basic,” Mike said. “If our wrist tabs were online, then I could check all kinds of data, but for now, what you see on that screen is what you get.”
“Dammit,” Cash swore.
“Why does it matter, Tre?” Tressa asked.
“If Lakshmi thinks collapsing the Russia Bubble is the key to stabilization, then maybe the Russians think the Wyoming Bubble is the key too,” Cash said. “This is the first wave sent to lockdown and control our bubble. The previous combots were here to wipe out personnel left.”
“But that very first wave was months ago,” Ivy said.
“Right. And how long would it take for the Russians to get here from their base?” Cash asked. “They can’t fly because tech out in Flipside too long begins to break down. No one wants to be in a transport drone when the rotors decide not to work anymore. Especially if that transport drone is over the Pacific Ocean.”
“They’d have to take a ship over,” Mike said. “Which takes a lot of time. But way low tech and safer than a transport drone over open water.”
“You ever seen what’s in that water?” Haskins asked. “I wouldn’t call that safe.”
“What’s in the water?” Zach asked.
&
nbsp; “Teeth with flippers,” Haskins replied. “Big teeth, big flippers.”
“Why not go over land?” Zach asked. “Isn’t this like part of Pangea or something?”
“Jesus, Zach, did you read any of the brief I put together for you?” Barbara snapped.
“The continents have already started splitting and forming into separate landmasses,” Olivia said. “And we have the Western Interior Seaway to our east. We’re really only on a strip of land as big as the West Coast back home, but extended enough to include what will become Wyoming.”
“So we’re on a really big island?” Zach asked and frowned at Barbara’s glare. “What? Okay, I skimmed your brief. I’d still like to know.”
Olivia smiled at Zach like he was a student. “Yes, we’re on a really big island.”
“But combots are shielded so well that they can survive much longer,” Mike said, continuing the conversation with Cash. “They can’t handle a direct EMP or nuclear blast, but they can take on the radiation that messes with tech while Flipside.”
“Radiation? What?” Zach asked.
“Jesus Christ, Zachary!” Barbara shouted.
“The ten are moving,” Haskins announced. “They’re coming onto the base.”
Barbara clamped a hand over her mouth and her eyes went wide.
“You didn’t do that,” Olivia said to her. “No way they could hear that from there.”
“Yeah, but they’re coming this way,” Haskins said.
“The dino packs?” Cash asked and rejoined everyone.
“Down to a few stragglers,” Mike said. “And now down to zip. The combots took out the packs. Now they’re reforming their perimeter while the generals come have a look.”
Cash looked to the double doors. “Positions. Now.”
There was some hesitation then everyone armed scrambled to the ramp as they fetched their weapons.
“Gonna need you to move, E,” Cash said as the group faced the dinosaur.
Elvis lifted his head, studied everyone, then lowered his head and closed his eyes.
“Elvis!” Thompson called.
Elvis perked up then got to his feet and those standing in his way moved. Fast. The dino could barely fit down the aisle between the bunks, but he managed without knocking into a single one. Then he found Thompson and sat down, crushing the cot next to the man.
