by Isaac Hooke
I tagged the squad members as friendlies on my HUD and then I went to the Chief. He was positioned behind the payload with Bender, in one of the few areas of cover remaining—most of the surrounding superstructures were mangled or shot up. Apparently the attacking Centurions and ATLAS mechs had been reluctant to fire upon the nuclear device. I didn’t blame them. I did see a few bullet scuffs but the payload had held up well.
The Chief’s condition hadn’t improved. He was still passing in and out of consciousness. Meanwhile Bender had worsened—the internal bleeding from his ruptured spleen had continued unabated, and he was comatose.
Hijak knelt his ATLAS and disembarked; he strapped the unconscious body of Bender to his passenger seat. The two of them always played at hating each other, and sure, maybe there really was some actual animosity between them, but when it came down to it, they were brothers. And whether out of guilt or a need to prove himself, I knew Hijak would always be the first to cover Bender’s back, and vice versa.
Skullcracker took on Chief Bourbonjack as his passenger. The Chief mumbled a few incoherent words while Skullcracker tied him in, something about how we could torture him all we wanted but he wasn’t going to give up the password to his embedded ID.
With our passengers secured, Hijak, Skullcracker, and I took turns guarding the sides of the building, while the other two siphoned jetpack fuel from the fallen ATLAS 5s. We topped up our tanks and distributed the remaining fuel to Manic, Lui, and Snakeoil, who would have to follow in their jumpsuits. We could have carried the three of them in the hands of our mechs but that would have meant giving up either our shield or weapon arms. One of us would still have to port the nuclear payload and go weaponless, however.
Since I carried the civilians, it was agreed that I shouldn’t give up my shield arm. And Skullcracker had the Chief, another passenger too valuable to risk going about without a shield. That left Hijak for portage duty.
There wasn’t much time until the enemy troops we’d drawn off reunited with the main horde below and ended this momentary lull in the battle. As such, I had Snakeoil plot trajectories to different nearby clinics, factoring in the current position of the horde and its inbound members.
He chose a hospital well away from the alien entities, roughly twenty klicks to the northeast. With luck we would lose the horde entirely, leaving the enemy with only a vague idea of where we had gone.
The southern edge of the rooftop started to take a battering as the attack picked up again. We retreated from that side, and the liquid Phants on the rooftop scattered from our path.
Hijak cleared the weapon mounts from his arms and then bent over to grip the mech-designated handholds on the nuclear device. He stood up, hugging the warhead to the chest of his ATLAS. From the slight slouch in its posture, I could tell the device proved heavy even for the mech.
The squad leaped off the north end of the thirteen-story tower, away from the inbound horde and toward the next building. The plan was to stick to the rooftops in the beginning, clearing away opposing robots as necessary.
I led the way, firing past my shield at the Centurions on the destination rooftop. I landed, covering Hijak as he came in behind me. He lowered the payload and we interlocked shields, providing protection for the nuclear device and the remaining squad members as they touched down behind us. When Skullcracker, our dragman, arrived, he linked the shield of his ATLAS 5 to ours and we cleared the rooftop using our mobile machine gun bunker strategy.
And so we proceeded forward, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, three ATLAS mechs, three men in jumpsuits, four passengers. The farther from the thirteen-story tower we traveled, the fewer and fewer enemies we encountered, until eventually no robots opposed us on the rooftops at all and the activity in the streets diminished to nothing.
“Giger, Tung, you guys all right?” I asked my riders for the umpteenth time.
“We’re fine,” Giger said over the passenger comm. He sounded weary.
We took to the streets and didn’t encounter any further resistance on the way to the hospital, though I did spot the occasional Phant here and there.
When we arrived, the target building was caked in that familiar black resin, so we were forced to jet onto the rooftop.
By that time I was almost out of jumpjet fuel.
“Jumpjet status,” I said over the comm after I landed.
“Three jumps left,” Snakeoil sent.
“Two here.” Manic.
And so it continued down the line, with most of us down to two or three jumps each, mechs included.
“Damn it,” I said. “Where’s a booster rocket when you need one? Snakeoil, tell me that elevator has power.”
Snakeoil crossed the multipurpose helo/shuttle pad and tried the rooftop freight elevator. “Nope.”
That meant we couldn’t bring our mechs inside—the ATLAS 5s wouldn’t fit the stairwells. The hospital corridors were probably too small for the mechs anyway.
Despite the building’s lack of power, the medical robots—the Weavers—would still be operational, because like most of the smaller robots, they utilized magnesium-ion battery packs. Hopefully none of the Weavers we found therein were possessed.
I knelt Black Widow and ejected from the cockpit to unbuckle Giger and Tung.
Giger sat very still in the passenger seat. Drenched in sweat, his face was deathly pale.
I glanced down: a large shard of glass protruded from his upper thigh and blood soaked his denim pants.
“I thought you said you were all right?” I scolded him.
Giger grunted some weak response. He lifted his aviator goggles with shaking hands and wiped the sweat from his eyes.
I unbuckled the seatbelt and lifted Tung from his arms without protest from either of them. I could hear some children’s song blaring full-blast from the aReal visor, which Tung still wore.
“Lui, you’re in charge of the kid.” I set Tung down and Lui limped over to retrieve him. “Hijak, my medbag if you would?”
While Hijak exited his ATLAS 5 to return my medbag, I watched Lui take the aReal visor from the kid’s face; Tung’s eyes remained wide open, his face expressionless.
Lui said several soothing words in Korean-Chinese, but the kid didn’t answer. My brother waved a gloved hand in front of Tung’s face. The kid blinked, nothing more.
Lui glanced at me. “Doesn’t look good.” He limped toward the stairwell, leading the child by the hand. At least Tung responded in that regard.
Hijak handed me my medbag and I returned my attention to Giger. I cut away the denim surrounding the wound. I didn’t think the shard had struck his femoral artery, but he was still bleeding pretty badly.
I injected a shot of morphine into his thigh. It would be about three minutes before the effects of the morphine peaked, but he should be feeling instant relief. I wrapped the leg tightly above the wound, wanting to stem the coming tide of blood. When that was done, I plucked the glass shrapnel free. Blood spilled onto his leg.
Giger squeezed his eyelids tightly.
“Why don’t you let the Weavers work on him instead?” Snakeoil said.
“Oh I will. But the Weavers won’t be able to do anything for him if he dies before we reach them.” I felt it was my fault that he’d been injured so severely. I was the one carrying him on my mech, after all.
I injected the wound with the super-absorbent pellets from an XStat syringe, forming a hemostatic seal, and then I topped that with Mister Clot powder and a skin suture. I fixed Giger up with a plasma volume expander IV, securing the bag to his belt and taping the needle to the venous region of his hand.
“Snakeoil, help him walk,” I said.
Snakeoil lifted Giger’s arm over one shoulder. I was a little surprised that everyone was obeying me so readily. I guess most of them were quite shell-shocked by then and were just glad to have someone telling them wh
at to do. I would have preferred the same thing in that moment. Being a mindless grunt, I mean.
Hijak had hauled Bender from his passenger seat and down onto the rooftop, while Skullcracker had exited his ATLAS and done the same with the Chief.
I assumed responsibility for Bender, despite Hijak’s protests.
“I want you to stay here with Manic on overwatch,” I told him. Like me, Hijak and Manic were uninjured, their vitals a bright green. “Get inside those mechs. I’ll send Snakeoil back to act as go-between if we can’t communicate from the ward.” I turned toward my mech. “Black Widow, guard.”
My ATLAS 5’s Gatling guns swiveled into place and it assumed a perimeter patrol along the edge of the building, scanning the streets for hostile units.
The rest of us hurried inside the hospital, taking the stairwell, which required a breach round to open. Within, the emergency lights dimly lit the way. We activated our headlamps to see better. The concrete walls muffled our every footstep.
I carried the unconscious Bender in my arms and nearly tripped several times.
Skullcracker handled Chief Bourbonjack behind me and didn’t fare much better. I was going to order someone else to bring the Chief because of Skullcracker’s leg wound, but when I saw the determined expression on his face, I changed my mind. We all wore strength-enhanced suits, I reminded myself: Skullcracker could easily bear the Chief’s weight despite his own injury.
I picked out the intensive care unit of the hospital via the blueprints the SKs had provided us with, and I exited on the second floor.
The coloration of our jumpsuits changed from the gray of the concrete stairwell to the sterile white of the hospital corridor.
Rooms opened off the main passage, but it was always dark inside them, the windows blocked by the black geronium caking the outside of the building.
The emergency lights flickered on and off, adding to the dreary environment. Our footsteps were no longer muffled and echoed loudly from the tiled floor. I cringed inwardly, knowing the sound probably carried throughout the hospital.
I couldn’t shake the feeling we were walking into the heart of some alien den. That, or some kind of elaborate trap.
We finally reached the intensive care unit and unloaded Bender, the Chief, Giger, and Skullcracker onto individual hospital beds. We checked the Weavers for Phants by closing within one meter of the robots, under the assumption that our EM emitters would either cause the possessed Weavers themselves to flee or drive away any Phants inside them.
Satisfied that they weren’t possessed, we wheeled the Weavers over to our injured, and placed the robots in battlefield mode, which instructed the onboard AIs to patch up our brothers as quickly as possible while still ensuring their safe recovery. In battlefield mode, quick fixes were favored over longer-term ones—i.e., limbs and organs would be repaired rather than replaced.
When that was done, I tested my connection with Hijak and Manic, who, according to the map, resided precisely two levels above me. “Guys, can you read me?”
“Yeah,” Hijak sent. “But getting a lot of static.” His voice cut in and out.
I was surprised to get even that weak signal. It probably helped that the two of them were located directly above. At least I wouldn’t have to send Snakeoil up to act as messenger. “Any sign of the enemy yet?”
“No.”
“Keep me apprised. The instant you spot any enemy units let me know.”
“Will do.”
Since no one was watching the entrance, I took Bender’s helmet with its built-in aReal and placed it by the entrance to the room. I programmed the aReal to sound an alarm if it detected motion in the outer hall.
On the far side of the ward, Tung abruptly surfaced from his catatonic state. He was strapped into a chair and squirmed and shouted as Lui wheeled over a psychological Weaver.
“Get it away,” my aReal translated the kid’s words. “Get it away!”
Lui set the Weaver aside and the kid calmed down.
I approached. “I’ll take it from here, Lui. Get that treated.” I nodded at the bloody hole in his boot.
“The broken wrist hurts more.” Lui glanced at Tung uncertainly. “Thought you sucked with kids?”
“I do, but apparently you suck more. I mean come on, strapping him in?” I knelt and began undoing the buckles that secured Tung to the chair.
Lui shrugged. “Standard operational procedure when dealing with catatonics,” he said as he limped away. “Read the manual.”
“You read it.” I said to his back. “That makes no sense by the way. Restraining catatonics. If you’re going to make up medical rules at least put some thought into them.”
When I released Tung, he promptly hugged my leg assembly.
“It’s all right, kid,” I said, letting my aReal translate the words into Korean-Chinese. “Everything’s fine.” Resting a gloved hand in his hair, I let him hang onto my leg. “The robot isn’t going to hurt you.”
Tung stiffened. “No robot! No robot!”
“Look,” I told Tung. “The robot is only going to perform a quick diagnosis, then give you something to make you feel better. Tung—”
But the boy began crying and wailing loudly.
“Kid. Kid!” When he had calmed down a moment later, I told him, “Would you like to see Giger?”
His face brightened.
I led him toward Giger. I wanted to show him what a Weaver was doing to his friend. Hopefully, the kid would understand that the robots were here to help.
Tung slowed as we grew near. He’d obviously seen the Weaver operating on Giger.
“Tung, look,” I said, hoisting the child up to give him a better view.
The kid cowered against my jumpsuit, clearly afraid of the Weaver, even though its attention was directed entirely on Giger.
“Tung,” I said, “these robots are our friends. They’re helping us. Watch. It’s fixing Giger’s leg.”
One spiderlike limb held Giger’s wound shut. On a tray beneath it were the gory XStat pellets that the Weaver had fished out.
Another appendage extended toward the lesion, its segments telescoping outward, and it paused millimeters from the cut. The characteristic high-pitched whir of a cauterizing laser pierced the air, and I felt Tung stiffen in my arms. The beam was invisible, but tiny plumes of smoke erupted along the edge of Giger’s wound.
“Giger!” Tung said. The kid’s arm shot out aggressively toward the robot.
I was ready, and spun away, hugging the boy close to my jumpsuit.
Giger opened one eye and smiled at the child. He spoke in Korean-Chinese. “Doesn’t even hurt.” Of course it wouldn’t hurt, given the amount of morphine I’d injected into him earlier, not to mention any local anesthetics the Weaver might have applied. “Let them help you, Tung.”
“But the robots are evil!” Tung said.
Giger shook his head tiredly. “Not these, Tung. These are good. They will help you, if you let them. Do you remember when you first came to my shop? I chased you away, but you came back and when I wasn’t looking, you climbed up on one of the ATLAS mechs. Somehow you lost your grip and fell. The ATLAS caught you. Saved you. Because it was a good robot. Like the ones here.”
Tung regarded the Weaver suspiciously. “There are good spirits in these?”
Giger nodded, closing his eyes. “You have my word.”
Tung didn’t seem convinced. Even so, I brought the boy back to the chair and sat him down without resistance.
“The robot only wants to ask a few questions,” I said, letting my aReal translate. “Is that okay?”
Tung nodded with apparent reluctance.
“Do I need to tie you down?” I asked him.
Tung shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I slowly wheeled th
e psychological Weaver over.
Tung’s eyes became saucers, but when the Weaver didn’t immediately attack him, he seemed to relax a little.
The robot began asking questions in Korean-Chinese. Tung glanced at me after each one, as if seeking my approval to answer. I nodded repeatedly.
I felt odd babysitting him like that, so after four questions, when Tung seemed even more comfortable, I told him: “I’m going to check on the others. Are you okay with that?”
Tung nodded reluctantly.
“If you need anything, call for me. Okay?”
Tung gave me an uneasy smile. He obviously wanted me to stay, but I figured he was in good hands with the Weaver. Besides, he wouldn’t ever really be alone with the thing: He was in the direct line of sight of everyone else in the room, and only three paces from Giger’s bed.
I went to a free chair between the beds of Giger and Bender, and sat back, taking off my helmet to rub my forehead. I stared at the aReal I’d placed near the entrance to the room, wondering if I should personally stand watch instead. In the end I decided that a few moments of rest would serve me better.
“Hell of a day,” I said to no one in particular, replacing my helmet.
“Isn’t that a UC expression for: What a nice day it is?” Giger said. The medical robot had finished with him and sat lifelessly at the base of the bed like a spider in slumber.
I snorted. “Sure. But it can also be used sarcastically. As in, what a terrible day this is.”
Giger frowned. “I never understood UC sarcasm.” His accent sounded thicker than ever, probably from the drowsiness the morphine induced.
“Most of the native speakers don’t, either,” I said, only half joking.
“When the citizens of a country don’t understand the nuances of their own language, then something is wrong.”
I chuckled. “Indeed it is.” I regarded him thoughtfully. “Why did you help us back there, in your garage? You seemed fairly adamant that we weren’t going to take your mechs.”
“Better you than the Yaoguai.” Giger gazed at Tung, who was quietly answering the questions put to him by the robot. “In the end, I helped you for the boy. Because you were right: We can’t stay here. To remain on this moon is a death sentence. Look at what happened to Tau Ceti II-c, Hong Caodi. The name means Fragrant Meadow, you know. It is not a Fragrant Meadow any longer.
