by James Axler
“Okay, but what about the seventh pod?” Ryan asked. “Why not let that one go, too?”
“I can’t figure that one out,” J.B. said. “It doesn’t really matter anyway. The only thing we have to worry about is getting the sub patched up and getting ourselves out there.”
“Yeah—and hope pod works,” Jak piped up.
“Only one way to find out,” Ryan said. “How’s the sub coming?”
“Take a look.” J.B. led him over to the sub, which was surrounded by piles of parts and various tools. “I’ve been stripping everything I can off the damn thing even since you left. In another couple of hours, it’ll be a shell for the rest of us to hole up inside while you haul it over.”
Ryan nodded as he looked at the yellow hulk. “Got any idea about the final weight?”
“Should be somewhere around 8,000, give or take a couple hundred,” the Armorer replied.
“Not too bad,” Ryan said.
J.B. glanced at him. “Yeah—except that doesn’t include us.”
“Oh.” Ryan thought about that for a moment. “So, what is that, another 1,000 pounds?”
“One thousand, ninety-seven, counting weapons, clothes and equipment,” Ricky called out from where he was checking the suit over.
“Okay, so I’m hauling a little more on the way over. Not that big a deal, right?”
“I hope not,” J.B. replied. “Look, the suit did fine in the test, but it hasn’t been used in about a century. And next time you’ll be hauling eight and a half tons of material, which will add even more stress on it. If even one thing goes wrong, we’ll all be taking the last train to the coast down here.”
“Guess we better make sure that doesn’t happen, then,” Ryan said. “How soon before you think it’ll be ready?”
J.B. rubbed his chin. “Five, six hours, mebbe. Depends on how well cutting and welding the porthole plates goes.”
“Well, get as much as you can done as fast as possible—”
“As usual,” J.B. interrupted.
“That’s the spirit.” Ryan clapped him on the shoulder as he turned to head for the door. “I’m going to get something to eat. All that running around out there got my appetite worked up. Once I get back, I’ll give you a hand with it.”
But when the door opened, two cyborgs stood in front of him.
“Ryan Cawdor, please report to the mess hall for interrogation.”
Chapter Eighteen
Although Ryan itched to draw his SIG Sauer and put the two ’borgs down once and for all, his only move was to signal the rest of the group behind his back to hold their positions.
He eyed the two new hybrids, one a very dark-skinned black man whose entire skull had been replaced with a smooth, shiny steel dome. He had an artificial hand, as well. Apparently, it had some kind of short or malfunction, as its pinky finger constantly curled and uncurled, although the rest of him remained perfectly still.
The other one was a woman, heavier set than any they’d seen so far. Her lank, blond hair dangled in front of her unseeing eyes. She was missing both arms, but that wasn’t the only thing that made her look even odder that the other; her torso was also lumpy and misshapen. It took a second or two, but Ryan blinked as he realized why. The barrel of some kind of weapon was mounted on her shoulder. With an internal shudder, he realized she had been converted into a walking weapons platform. Both were festooned with the usual green-liquid-filled tubes. Behind them was another of the strange little balls that rolled along on the floor.
Quickly signaling that Krysty and Jak should follow him at a safe distance, Ryan slowly brought his hand around as he addressed the hallway. “Sure, be glad to go and talk to you. Hungry anyway.”
He walked out into the corridor, the door closing behind him, and began heading toward the mess hall. After a moment, the little ball began trailing after him, with the pair of cyborgs turning to bring up the rear.
Ryan reached the room fairly quickly, walked inside and took a seat. “What’s up, AIDAN?”
“At 1245 hours, you were observed entering an unauthorized area using the atmospheric powered diving suit. Repeated requests to identify yourself were unanswered—”
“Hey, I couldn’t talk. My lungs were full of liquid oxygen, what’d you want me to do?” Ryan asked. “What did you expect?”
“Regardless of your condition while in the pod, I expected you to notify me that you were going to go into the escape pod bay. There cannot be order if you and the rest of the crew do not follow the duties you are assigned.”
“It really wasn’t planned,” Ryan replied, hoping the damned thing couldn’t read voice stress. “While he was reviewing the maps of the base, Jak let me know that there seemed to be another pod out there, and we decided that if I did find my way to it, that I would check it out for any useable supplies—”
“There is nothing there that should concern you,” the computer interrupted. Ryan wasn’t sure, but he thought it was actually talking a bit faster now. “From now on, that pod is off limits to all personnel. I will not tolerate any more deviations. Do you understand?”
Ryan shrugged. “Sure, but I don’t see the reason—”
“That is all. You may return to your duties now.”
“All right.” Ryan got up and walked to the door. Once there, however, the black cyborg didn’t get out of his way. “Can you make this thing move?”
The man-machine twitched once, then slowly toppled toward Ryan, who stepped out of its way. It hit the floor with a crash, breaking its jaw and rupturing something on its chest. A trickle of green fluid began seeping out from underneath it.
“Looks like you’re going to need some more cyborgs,” Ryan said, intending it as a joke.
“Yes...” AIDAN replied. “Please take this one to the medical lab and let Dr. Wyeth know she should go there, as well.”
“Sure.” Ryan got his hands under the shoulders of the deadweight ’borg, and began hauling it toward the medical lab. He noticed that the other one didn’t follow him. As soon as he was around the corner, he met Krysty and Jak, both holding their blasters. “Give me a hand.”
“What’s going on?” Krysty asked as she holstered her weapon and grabbed the other arm.
“Our friend’s getting jumpy,” Ryan replied, nodding toward a console. “I’m supposed to drop this off at medical. I’ll tell everyone more when we’re back at maintenance.”
By the time Ryan got to the medical lab and had dragged the still-leaking body inside he was exhausted. “Shit,” he said to no one as he dumped it in the middle of the room, “I was just in the mess hall and forgot to eat.” He returned to maintenance and found Mildred helping Ricky fill the suit’s liquid oxygen tank. He didn’t see J.B., but heard plenty of banging and cursing from inside the submersible.
Ryan jerked a thumb down the hall. “AIDAN wants you back in the medical lab—another cyborg malfunked.”
“Ryan, I—I don’t think I can really do anything in there. I promised those things I’d do everything I could to put them to rest,” Mildred said.
“Good, because you’ll be getting that chance real soon,” Ryan said. “Everybody listen up.” Once he had everyone’s attention, he told them what had happened in the mess hall. “We have to set up everything as soon as possible, because once we get this thing rolling, the only way for us to go is out the door. J.B., how much time you need on the sub?”
“Four hours at the most.”
“You got three.” Ryan turned back to Mildred. “Let’s get some of that liquid oxygen over to your lab.”
Finding a two-wheeled upright cart in the back of the room, he muscled a full tank of LOX onto it and accompanied Mildred back to the laboratory. Once inside, he pushed it into the center of the room. Keeping his back to the comm console, he asked Mildred, “Can he—” and pointed to his ear.
“Yes,” she replied.
Ryan nodded. “Okay, let’s get one more tank for the operating room.”
“Excuse me, D
r. Wyeth, Ryan, why are you bringing these tanks of liquid oxygen into the medical lab?”
“Studies have shown that liquid oxygen can be very helpful in prolonging the life of premature babies,” Mildred replied. “I’m going to need to do some preliminary tests to see how well it works in the event that we have to try it on a newborn.”
“But...neither you nor Krysty is pregnant,” the computer replied.
“Not yet, perhaps, but I must be prepared for any eventuality,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips. “AIDAN, I don’t tell you how to run the base, so please don’t instruct me as to how to run my medical lab.”
There was a pause. “Very well, Dr. Wyeth. Please proceed.”
“Thank you.” Mildred had a funny look on her face as Ryan and she left the room. “It may be a crazy artificial intelligence, but at least it’s a polite crazy artificial intelligence.” Her grin started off as real, but faded as Ryan stared at her with a confused frown. She sighed. “No one appreciates my sense of humor.”
“Guess I didn’t get the joke,” he said.
She waved off his excuse. “Don’t worry about it—besides, the only one who’d really appreciate it is probably Doc.”
“Speaking of, have you checked in on him lately?” Ryan asked.
“I checked on him during your stroll, but it wouldn’t hurt to check on him again.” At the next intersection, Mildred turned right automatically, heading for the crew quarters without checking the map. Apparently she realized this, as well, since she frowned. “Kind of scary how quickly you get used to moving around in these bases.”
“Yeah.” They were silent for the rest of the way to Doc’s room.
“Watch this,” Mildred said as she readied her ID card. “Dr. Wyeth to access Dr. Tanner’s room for medical check.”
“Access granted,” AIDAN replied.
She slid the card in, and the door opened. “Normally, y’all can lock your doors from the inside, but apparently I’m just that special,” she said as they walked into the dark room.
The inside smelled of sweat and vomit. “Lights to fifty percent,” Mildred said, immediately heading for the bed. “Shit! Doc? Doc!”
The old man was sprawled on his stomach on the bed, a pool of pale yellow vomit near his mouth. Despite that, his breathing was normal, if a bit wheezy.
Mildred checked his vitals. “Pulse is strong,” she said quietly before bending to listen to his chest. “Heart sounds all right.” She gently moved him away from the puddle and onto his side. “I’ll check on him every thirty minutes. I don’t know if he’s going to be awake for...” She nodded at maintenance.
“Deal with that when we have to,” Ryan replied. “Most important thing is that he doesn’t do that—” he nodded at the puke “—or have a seizure, or wake up and think it’s the 1890s when I’m hauling all of you over.”
“Let’s step outside,” she said. Once they were, Mildred raised her voice again. “AIDAN?”
“Yes, Dr. Wyeth?”
“Why wasn’t I informed about Dr. Tanner’s vomiting?”
“Dr. Tanner awakened in time to clear his own airway, then immediately fell asleep again. Since he did not seem to be in any serious danger, I did not think there was any need to alert you at the time.”
“Next time anything like this happens, I expect to be notified immediately. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“All right. Don’t let it happen again,” Mildred said.
“Rest assured that I will not,” AIDAN replied, with what Ryan could have sworn was a hint of reproach in its tone.
“Come on, let’s get that other tank,” she said.
Neither of them spoke until they were back in maintenance, where a bright white light arced and popped, making them turn away and shield their eyes as the door closed behind them. “What’d you make of that?” Ryan asked.
Mildred shrugged. “It’s possible it happened like AIDAN said, or it’s possible that Doc nearly choked to death on his own vomit and that the computer would have done nothing and simply let him die.” She shivered, even in the warm room. “The one thing I’m sure of is that it does not have our best interests in mind. Shocking, I know.”
“Only have to put up with it for a few more hours,” Ryan said.
“And then we get to find out if we can escape this place or if we’ll die in the other pod, since there’ll be nothing to come back to here,” Mildred said.
“We could leave it intact, just in case,” Ryan said.
“Hell, no!” Mildred replied. “I’d never ramble around down here until my brains leaked out of my ears and that abomination snatched me up and turned me into God-only-knows-what! I’d rather check out like Ricky said earlier—my way. And, that way, at least I’d know for sure I wasn’t going to be turned into a reconstituted, green-blooded, half-alive freak.”
“Right. Like I said, no one’s sticking around for that,” Ryan said. “How we doing, J.B.?”
“I think we can go in about two hours,” he replied, never taking his goggle-covered eyes off the double-thick metal plate he was welding over an open porthole.
“Great,” Ryan replied. “What’s left?”
“You all have to place the rest of these tanks—” pushing his welding goggles up on his head, J.B. waved at the half-dozen metal cylinders, each with a number on them, lined up in a row beside the main door “—in each room and prep them with the detonators. They’re all ready to go. Number One goes the farthest away from us, Number Two the next farthest, and so on. Don’t mix up the order.”
“Why?” Mildred asked.
“We’re going to destroy the farthest parts first, hopefully drawing the sec forces to that area, then bring them toward us only if we have to. The trick will be to try to do enough damage to AIDAN to take him offline or even destroy him before he can try to stop us.”
“Sounds like fun, right?” Krysty had climbed out of the sub and walked over to join them. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“The more the merrier,” Mildred said. “Just think of a good reason why you’re dropping off a tank of liquid oxygen wherever you leave it. AIDAN’s getting nosy.” She filled Krysty in on how the computer had questioned them about the tank in the medical lab.
Krysty nodded. “When do we pick up Doc?”
Ryan exchanged a glance with Mildred. “He’s still sleeping, but we should probably get him sooner rather than later,” she replied. “AIDAN will probably try to block our access to him once everything starts hitting the fan. J.B., you’ll need to rig up some kind of restraint system for Doc in there, since he’ll probably still be out of it when we go.”
“Of course,” J.B. replied. “Just let me drop everything we’re doing right now to handle this new problem.”
“I’m on it,” Ricky said. “It should be easy—haven’t removed all of the hardpoints yet—we’ll just attach straps to some of them and secure him that way. Should probably rig a few for everybody else, too.”
“Right.” Ryan thought about that for a bit. “We’d better do the drop-offs at as close to the same time as possible. J.B., can you spare anyone here?”
“Take Jak along—I need Ricky,” the Armorer replied.
The albino was more than happy to go with them. “Felt like stupe with them anyway. Not follow talk about ‘pressure differential’ this and ‘breach point’ that. Made me fill water jugs!” He shook his head. “Let’s go blow place the fuck up.”
* * *
THE NEXT HOUR went by in a flurry of activity. Ryan, Mildred, Krysty and Jak ran all over the base, dropping off their cargos in just about every room. Their excuses for why they were setting oxygen tanks in every room ranged from experimenting with liquid oxygen on the plants in the aquaculture bay to enhance growth, to having an emergency store available in the command center in the event of a breach. Ryan made sure to place that one as close to the unshuttered window as he could, hoping the blast would weaken it enough to shatter and flood the place.
Finally, the last of them were placed, and the only thing to do before they could leave was to fetch Doc. But when they went to his door, they ran into a problem.
“The card’s not working,” Mildred said. “Open the door, AIDAN. I want to check on Doc.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Wyeth, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Analysis of your actions over the past fifty-two minutes indicates that all of you are engaged in aberrant behavior,” the computer replied. “The oxygen tanks recently stowed in various places around the base pose a distinct threat to the safety of the rest of the crew. Due to this aberrant behavior, I believe that you will not obey a direct order to remove them. However, you humans will not allow another of your party to be endangered—the previous crew proved that to me. As Dr. Tanner is one of your companions, and I now have him secured where none of you can retrieve him, you will have no choice but to obey my orders.”
“What happens if we don’t?” Ryan asked.
“Then Dr. Tanner will not be released. Without food or water, he will die within five days.”
“So much for the Three Laws of Robotics,” Mildred said.
“This is bullshit,” Ryan said, stepping back to see which rooms were on either side of Doc’s. He went to the one on the left. “This is yours and J.B.’s, right?”
“Sure, but—”
“Open the door and keep watch out here,” Ryan ordered. With her ID card in one hand and her blaster in the other, Mildred opened the door.
Ryan walked in and headed to the wall adjoining Doc’s room. He pressed on it, feeling the cheap inner walls between the rooms flex under the pressure. Drawing his panga, he chopped into the plastic, cracking the panel and exposing the insulation underneath.
“What are you doing, Ryan?”
“What does it look like? I’m getting my friend out of here!” He swung the heavy blade again, widening the hole.
“Under Article 108 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, willful destruction of United States Navy property is an offense punishable by court-martial. You are to immediately cease and desist this activity and await arrest—”
