by Isaac Hooke
“Yes,” Tung said.
Conscious of the unseen horde bearing down on our position, I took the steps to the front office two at a time. When I reached the door, it didn’t open. From his perch on my back, the kid waved his wrist back and forth over the door sensor. Nothing.
“It’s not working,” Tung said.
“No really, kid?” That was Hijak.
“Why isn’t it working?” Tung continued in a whiny voice. “It worked this morning.”
Though power was out throughout the city, emergency batteries usually kept things like doors operational, otherwise people wouldn’t be able to enter their houses during power failures. So if the battery hadn’t drained yet, there was no reason the door should have stopped working, unless someone had purposely deleted the kid’s ID from the authorization list since this morning.
Or unless the kid was lying.
“Giger!” Tung shouted. “Let me in! Giger!”
Nothing.
“Why isn’t he answering?” Tung complained.
I studied the door. It was one of the irising models—there were no handles to blast away with the breach rounds of our rifles.
I peered into the window beside the door. In the room beyond I saw an empty countertop and, behind it, a shelf filled with mech supplies and parts. On the back wall hung a sign with a picture of a feisty-looking SK wearing large, translucent goggles. His hair was spiked and he gave the camera the thumbs-up gesture while winking. At the bottom of the sign, the following was written in Korean-Chinese: No shoes, no mech, no service.
Hijak and Skullcracker waited at the bottom of the stairs, watching my back. Hijak glanced up at me. “Plastic?”
“Plastic,” I agreed. From my utility belt I unclipped the chain of microexplosives Snakeoil had given me and I tossed it to Hijak. “Make the first bay door go away.”
“You got it.” Hijak hurried to the bay and began placing the plastic.
I started down the stairs.
Before I was halfway to the bottom, I heard a whir from above and behind me.
I swung my weapon about, as did Skullcracker below.
The office door had irised open.
A pudgy SK stood in the entrance, the spitting image of the SK I’d seen on the sign through the office window. The same coveralls, the same spiked hair, the same thick aviator goggles.
The only difference from the character on the sign was that the real-life version wielded a sawed-off.
And the weapon was pointed directly at my head.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tahoe
Watching from the scout’s viewpoint, I stared at the huge, tentacled form of the “Queen.”
“Doesn’t seem to be reacting to our flares at all,” TJ sent in text mode. “Probably blind.”
One of the ovules near the scout shuddered and burst. A slug gushed onto the cave floor in a stream of black, amniotic fluid. Its girth was about the size of an ATLAS 5, and its length twice that.
The baby slug remained motionless for a few moments and then turned toward the deflated egg, whereupon it began devouring the still-living appendages that sheathed the shell.
“Recall your scout, TJ,” Facehopper wrote.
I switched back to my helmet viewpoint as the ASS scout retreated.
“Bomb,” Facehopper continued writing, squad-wide, “with me. We’re arming the first nuclear, mates. Going to set the timer to three hours.”
“What about the Observer Mind?” Fret wrote.
“Secondary orders are clear,” Facehopper answered. “We are to take out the Queen if the opportunity arises.”
“Is three hours enough time to reach the Observer Mind from here?” I wrote.
“Check your map,” Facehopper wrote.
I glanced at the map. The glowing waypoint that represented the Observer Mind was roughly ten klicks away, within the mass of unmapped darkness to our east. Not far at all. Still . . .
“Three hours might be enough time to reach the Observer Mind,” I wrote. “Assuming we can find a relatively direct path and that its calculated position is correct. But even if all goes as planned and we reach the Observer Mind within, say, an hour, how the hell are we supposed to get back to the surface in the two hours before detonation? You know how far we fell. There’s no way we’ll make it out in time. Ain’t no way. Not before the nuke incinerates us.”
Facehopper’s text cursor remained inactive a moment. “You’re an astrophysicist. You understand blast physics. The vaporization range of the nuke won’t extend beyond this cavern. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.” I didn’t, because he wasn’t. “The same will hold true of the region around the Observer Mind. Which means, once we’ve placed both nukes and moved beyond the vaporization range, all we’ll have to deal with are the shockwaves from the blasts. Sure, those waves will be incredibly strong, magnified as they are by the confined space, but even powerful shockwaves have to obey the laws of physics. We’ll find a dead-end side passage, seal it off, and wait for the blasts to pass. Then we’ll reopen the passage and continue on our way.”
“Reopening a collapsed passageway might not be so easy,” I wrote. “Plus, the shockwave could cause multiple cave-ins throughout the warrens.”
“Then we’ll dig our way out!!!” Yes, he actually wrote multiple exclamations. “It looks like you’re vying with Fret for the position of Petty Officer Doom and Gloom. Listen, Cyclone, we will get out of here. Deciding on the nuclear countdown was always going to be a thorny issue. We have to leave enough time to escape, yet not so much time that the warhead is discovered.”
It was tricky, he was right. Even so, these were our lives at stake here. “Let’s take a look at the not-so-optimal scenario, then,” I wrote. “What if it takes longer to escape the vaporization range of one or both nukes? What if the Observer Mind isn’t located where it should be, or we have to retreat through some wide tunnel that’s too big to seal off and doesn’t have any side passages? Three hours doesn’t leave us much margin for error.”
“All right,” Facehopper wrote after a moment. “All right. We’ll set the warhead to detonate in five hours instead of three. That should be more than enough time to reach the Observer Mind, place the second nuke, escape its vaporization range, and prepare a shelter to survive the blast waves. That’s two more hours we’re giving the enemy to find this first nuke, but it’s an acceptable risk, given the circumstances, and your arguments.”
No one disagreed.
Five hours.
Despite Facehopper’s optimism and insistence that we would get out of there no matter what, I wasn’t certain I believed him. Sure, we’d do our best to place the nukes in the most effective locations to harm the enemy, but whether we’d actually live to see another day was an altogether different matter.
We were low on ammo and had no jetpack fuel. The crabs and slugs near the surface were aware of our presence. The Queen would likely be notified about us shortly and then she’d alert her more-subterranean minions. We would eventually find ourselves embroiled in a battle to the death with the horde. When the ammo ran out, we’d have nothing to fight with but the metallic fists of our ATLAS 5s. Or in my case, the gloves of my jumpsuit.
We all knew Facehopper wouldn’t purposely lead us to our deaths. It just wasn’t his way. He’d do his best to get us out of here. And he would have never agreed to the op in the first place if it was a suicide mission. And yet, missions and the battle spaces containing them were pliant, ever-changing beasts. What started out as an entirely survivable mission could easily mutate into a death sentence.
“Bomb?” Facehopper wrote.
Facehopper and Bomb quietly emerged from their mechs to insert their physical keys, two each, into the warhead’s command console, and to input their respective portions of the arming code. Once that was done, Facehopper set the timer to five hours, and
then the two of them reentered their ATLAS units.
We covered the payload in slime from the cave floor, hoping the Queen and her minions would overlook the device. We debated whether or not to deactivate the EM emitter, since it could potentially reveal the location to the enemy. In the end we decided to leave it on, if only to prevent the Phants from possessing the control console.
Once the warhead was in place we retreated southward as quietly as possible, giving the eggs a wide berth. The thick deposits of slime on the ground were both a blessing and a curse: On the one hand, the slime softened our heavy footfalls. On the other, if we moved too fast, the suction could become nearly impossible to counter, so the squad had to advance nerve-rackingly slowly.
I remained in the passenger seat of Antares, Ghost’s mech, the whole time, watching our aft quarter. I wished I still piloted Wolfhound, but damn it, I was going to fight for my brothers and make a difference even if all I had was a jumpsuit.
The Queen and her ovules faded into the darkness behind us; the flares had long since gone out.
But the timer was ticking.
Four hours, thirty minutes.
The layer of slime ended when we reached the southernmost extremity of the ovule ranks, and we increased our pace, swinging eastward, hurrying over the bare rock. According to the map, the Observer Mind resided twelve klicks ahead. Yes, moving south to skirt the eggs had increased our distance from the target. We had to make up for lost time.
It was Ghost’s turn to port the second nuclear device. The only physical evidence of this was the slight hunch in the posture of his ATLAS 5. He easily kept pace with the rest of the squad, despite the fact he carried both me and the device—though obviously my own weight was negligible compared to the payload. TJ’s ASS scout still remained on point and Ghost’s on drag.
After some time, a rock wall loomed forth from the darkness ahead, and we followed it northward, toward our target. The Observer Mind was only four klicks away.
A few moments later TJ reported a large opening in the rock face up ahead, courtesy of his scout. It was guarded by two alien entities, one on either side. I switched to the scout’s POV but I couldn’t make out the aforementioned entities in the dim light.
“What kind of aliens are we talking about?” Facehopper sent, echoing my own unvoiced sentiments.
“Hard to say without sending the scout closer,” TJ replied. “But if I do that, I risk alerting the aliens to its presence.”
Too bad we had lost Bicentennial Man and Lead Food, because these ASS scouts didn’t possess EM emitters—though it wouldn’t matter anyway if the Queen and her abyss minions had been notified of our presence.
“TJ, Ghost,” Facehopper sent. “Recall your scouts.”
The ASS units returned and docked with their respective mechs.
“We’re going to continue forward?” Fret sent, sounding worried.
“Do we have any other choice?” Facehopper returned. “We have a nuclear weapon ticking down on our six.”
We approached.
Leaning forward to peer around Antares, I saw the opening in the rock up ahead. The pair of aliens appeared as indistinct masses in the murk on either side at first, but as we neared, I realized they were similar to other alien classes we’d seen before. Some kind of a crab variant, as far as I could tell, minus the cords. I’d never seen crabs so big—almost the size of small slugs; they towered over our ATLAS mechs, coming in at twenty meters high. They didn’t have eyes, but from the bat-like shrieks and clicks coming from their bodies, I gathered the creatures perceived the world via sonar.
Without warning, the two alien entities converged in the middle of the opening and blocked our way forward.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rade
Release the child, UC,” the man said in heavily accented English, keeping his sawed-off pointed directly at my head.
“Giger!” Tung let go of my neck and struggled against the cord that still bound him to my suit. I slowly knelt, placing my weapon on the stairs, raising my hands to show the man I intended no harm. Then I cautiously undid the ties around my chest, letting the kid slip to the ground.
Tung ran up the stairs and hugged the man’s legs.
Giger kept his sawed-off trained on me. Those aviator goggles had the disconcerting effect of making his eyes seem slightly too large for his face. “Tung, get behind me,” he said in Korean-Chinese.
The boy didn’t move.
“We mean you no harm,” I said.
Giger smirked. “I knew the UC was responsible for this invasion.” He switched to Korean-Chinese and repeated: “Tung. Get behind me.”
Tung finally complied; wearing a confused expression, he peeked past the man’s right thigh to look at me.
“Tell me which of these bastards to shoot first,” Giger told him.
“Him!” Tung pointed at me happily.
“The ugly one,” Giger said. “Good.”
“We’re not the enemy here. You have to understand, Giger, we—”
“Don’t call me that!” he yelled. “You haven’t earned the right.”
I resisted the urge to scoop my rifle from the stairs. I knew that behind me, Skullcracker already had him in his sights. “Lower the weapon, bro. Let’s talk this through.”
“You hurt the boy, UC,” Giger said in English. “I can’t allow such a deed to go unpunished.”
“We didn’t hurt him,” I said. “Ask him. Go ahead. Ask.”
Tung wasn’t wearing his aReal, so the unit wouldn’t have been translating the conversation.
Giger hesitated and then murmured something to the boy.
Tung furrowed his brow. “Hurt?” He shook his head. “Rade saved me! He is my friend!”
Giger gave me a thoughtful look. He seemed about ready to lower the rifle.
“He wants the mechs,” the kid added.
Giger’s resolve seemed to harden and he tightened his grip on the weapon. “Step away from my garage, UC scum.”
“Is there anyone else with you?” I said, trying a different tack. “We can protect you. Come with us.”
Giger’s eyes narrowed. “I said, step away from the garage, UC.”
I glanced at Skullcracker, who had his heavy gun firmly fixed on Giger, as expected. “First of all, the name’s Rade Galaal. And this here is Skullcracker.” My brother cracked a grin, splitting the skull tattooed onto his face. The effect was macabre and intimidating at the same time. “And the one holding the microexplosives is Hijak.” Hijak waved amiably from his position in front of the first bay door, the magnetic disc of a microexplosive glinting in his hand.
“I don’t care what your names are,” Giger said. “Get out of here and never return. Thank you for bringing me the boy. Now go!”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “You’re going to die if you stay here. We’ve woken up the horde. They’re bearing down on us even now.”
“Then lead them away from here!” Giger spat.
I didn’t move. “Not without the mechs. Sorry, bro, ordinarily I wouldn’t put civilian lives at risk like this, but we can’t leave without those ATLAS 5s. Too much is at stake. You have two choices. Choice number one: You give us the mechs and come with us. Choice number two: We take the mechs forcefully, and you still come with us. Or at least the kid does.”
“How about choice number three: I shoot you between your buggy little UC eyes?” Giger said. His choice of words seemed a bit ironic to me, given that his eyes were the ones that were buggy, courtesy of the aviators.
I smiled calmly. “We’ve already laid half our microcharges on your garage bay. And we carry three weapons to your one. Sure, you might take me out, but my man Skullcracker here will strike you down a second after. I guarantee it. He’s spec-ops. Doesn’t miss. And once you’re out of the way, my brothers will blow down the bay doors and
take your mechs.” I glanced at Tung. “And don’t expect any hesitancy from my brothers just because you have a boy with you. My brothers will fire.”
The SK stared at me, unblinking, seeming indecisive. Then he smiled triumphantly. “The mechs are not provisioned to obey UC scum. They are useless to you.”
I nodded. “Skullcracker here is also our resident hacker. He can give us the necessary privileges no matter what ATLAS models you have in the bays.” I hoped so, anyway. Some of the ATLAS 5 AI versions were more secure than others.
Giger seemed at a loss for words.
The distant clang of metallic feet echoed from the pavement and surrounding buildings, permeating the drawn-out silence between us.
I cocked my head. “Do you hear that? That’s your ticking clock, my friend. Robots possessed by the Yaoguai. Hundreds of them. Your hiding place is compromised. If we don’t take your mechs, they certainly will.”
The distant footfalls were quickly rising in volume. The enemy was far nearer than I thought.
“Giger,” I pressed. “Let us in. We’re running out of time. End this game.”
Still he hesitated.
Incoming fire from the street abruptly slammed into the stairs beside me, ending the standoff.
I scooped up my weapon and dove to the bottom of the steps. There I dropped, using the staircase as cover. I glanced up in time to see the outer door of the office spiral closed, and I caught a glimpse of Giger and the kid standing inside before it sealed.
So he’d made his choice, then.
Skullcracker ducked behind the shop’s electronic billboard and returned fire.
“Hijak, finish placing those charges!” I shouted.
“Already on it!” Hijak said.
I surveyed the area through my scope. At the far end of the avenue, seven Centurions had taken cover behind random objects—a smashed vehicle here, the rut in a geronium fold there—making it hard for me to target the centrally located brain cases.
Skullcracker meanwhile continued to lay down suppressive fire, covering Hijak, who was relatively exposed as he secured the final charges to the garage door.
