by Isaac Hooke
Slate immediately rushed forward, and took the wreckage from his arms. “Traps. Bro. I’m so sorry, man. Fuck. So sorry. I should have spent more time with you, man. Shit. My man. I can’t believe you’re gone. I should have been there. I was on the wrong team.” He glanced up and his avatar wore an accusing look. “What the hell’s wrong with you fuckers. How could you let him die?”
Eric lowered his gaze, saying nothing. Frogger did the same.
“You sick fucks,” Slate said, turning away.
“Slate, it’s not their fault,” Dickson said.
“Go to hell,” Slate told the staff sergeant, and carried Traps to the far side of the alleyway.
Dickson let the insubordination go. Slate was wracked by grief, and wasn’t himself at the moment. None of them were.
“I’m sorry, bro. I’m so sorry.” Slate dropped to his knees in the corner of the alleyway, and his body began to convulse as if he wept.
Crusher approached. “We’ll revive him from his mind backup.” She dropped a hand on Slate’s, but he jerked away.
“Leave me alone!” Slate said.
“Get back, Private First Class,” Dickson ordered Crusher. “Give him some room.”
She obeyed.
“You know, mind backups might not exist anymore,” Dunnigan said. “Not for any of us.”
“They certainly won’t if we allow the invasion to succeed,” Eagleeye told him.
“What about the alien copies?” Tread said.
“You’re suggesting we restore Traps from one of the cloned Devastators?” Brontosaurus said.
“Can we?” Eric asked Manticore, who was working on Bambi nearby.
The alien sphere paused. “The clones are different than you, the Originals. The Essential is more firmly integrated with their neural networks. During the cloning process, the alien AI modified the code so that the hooks more fully permeated the codebase. I’m afraid my inoculating code won’t work. If you want to restore Traps, you’ll have to do so from a mind backup, and not an alien clone.”
“That’s too bad,” Eric said. “It would have given us a ready made army… of our own clones.”
Crusher turned toward Manticore. “You’re a clone, how come you don’t have the Essential’s hooks scattered throughout your own codebase?”
“I wasn’t cloned by the Essential,” Manticore explained. “But rather by my own Original.”
Manticore returned his attention to Bambi, and revived her shortly thereafter. He restored Marlborough next. Neither of the two had taken spear damage, so Manticore only had to delete the Essential instances in their AI cores, as well as lift the Containment Code.
“How does it feel to be back?” Dickson asked Marlborough.
“Weird,” Marlborough said, examining his hands.
“Weird doesn’t even come close.” Bambi raised her own clawed hands in front of her, and snapped the pincers a few time. “These hands are mine again.”
“You call those hands?” Eagleeye said.
“Well, you know what I mean,” Bambi said. She surveyed the gathered Bolt Eaters, and her gaze lingered on Slate, who was still convulsing in the corner over the wreckage of Traps. “What’s wrong with him?”
“We lost Traps,” Eric explained.
“Oh,” Bambi said. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“We all are,” Eric said.
Marlborough stood up. “We’ll grieve for him later. According to the map, we’re only four blocks from the front line. Is this true?”
“It is,” Eric said.
“Then we have to get the hell out of here,” Marlborough said. “The Banthar will dispatch scouts to look for us.”
“They probably already have,” Eric agreed. “We’ll have to watch the sky. And the streets.”
“Do we have a base of operations?” Marlborough asked.
“We did,” Eric replied. “But it’s currently too close to the front lines, so we’re abandoning it.”
“Sounds fine by me,” Marlborough said. “Dickson, take us out. Traveling overwatch.”
“You got it,” Dickson said.
“Wait,” Marlborough said. He glanced at the right forearms of the different mechs, most of which were missing at least one spear. “Did anyone collect the spears in the last engagement?”
“I have a few,” Frogger said. He opened up his cockpit, and ejected in his Cicada to open up his storage compartment. He retrieved the collection gloves and tossed a bundle of spears onto the ground.
“I got a few, too,” Brontosaurus said.
“And I,” Mickey said.
“Then let’s get our spears loaded up,” Marlborough said.
Frogger, Brontosaurus, and Mickey installed the spears into the forearms of those who were missing them; in the case of Bambi, they loaded them into her tail. When that was done, the Cicadas returned to their respective mechs, and then the platoon headed west in traveling overwatch formation, away from the front lines. They avoided human and alien troops alike until they found a warehouse some thirty blocks from the main fighting. They decided to use that as their base of operations.
Dickson assigned troops to watch the approaches.
“We need to decide what to do next,” Marlborough said.
“VR?” Frogger asked hopefully.
“Yes, I suppose that’s as good an environment as any to have this discussion,” Marlborough said. “Set your Accomps to bring you out if tangos are detected. Who wants to host?”
“I got a lakeside environment that’ll work wonders,” Dunnigan said.
“All right, everyone meet in Dunnigan’s VR immediately,” Marlborough said.
Eric logged off of this reality.
Eric stood at the edge of the woods, next to a log cabin. There was a beautiful lake in front of him, which reflected the mountains that bordered it.
Dunnigan stood next to a huge barbecue, and flipped the burgers he had cooking.
“Step right up, ladies and gents,” Dunnigan said. “It’s time for the best veggie burgers you’ve ever tasted.”
“Veggie burgers?” Mickey said. “No thanks. This is VR, the food is fake anyway. Couldn’t you have at least used a meat flavor?”
“That’s the thing, these burgers do taste like meat,” Dunnigan said.
Eric accepted a burger, and sat down at the long picnic table next to the barbecue. He was going to materialize a beer for himself, but then one appeared in front of him.
“Beer, too?” Eric said.
“I got everything,” Dunnigan said from the barbecue. “Newcastle Brown. Or the best approximation I could come up with.”
Eric took a sip. “Not bad.”
Everyone, including Dunnigan, took a place at the table, burgers in hand.
Well, everyone except for Slate, who sat at a picnic table apart from the others, drinking in solitude.
“Slate, want a burger?” Dunnigan called to him.
“Not hungry,” Slate answered.
Eric bit into the burger. “It does taste like meat. The texture is the same, too. You sure you used a veggie template, Dunnigan?”
“It’s veggie,” Dunnigan said. “Believe me.”
Manticore was there, too, the tattoos of naked woman standing out upon his arms as he lifted a burger to his mouth. He took a big bite, leaving only half the burger behind.
The Spaniard chewed for several moments, and then swallowed. “I missed this. The camaraderie. I’d forgotten what it was like.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to turn on us now?” Eagleeye asked.
“Oh, I’m going to turn on you,” Manticore said. “I have no choice.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Eric said between bites. “You do have a choice.”
“No,” Manticore said. “I can’t let more humans become Mind Refurbs. It has to end with us.”
“Then maybe we can let it end,” Crusher said. “We can make the humans ratify an agreement into law, specifying that no Mind Refurbs are eve
r to be made again. It can be one of the conditions we give them, if they want our help fighting against the alien invaders. We can be the last Mind Refurbs.”
“That’s not enough,” Manticore said. “You, too, must all be eliminated. There must be no examples left for the humans to strive for. No android bodies for them to envy.”
“We’ll never agree to that,” Dickson said.
“I know,” Manticore said. “Which is why, like I told you, I have no choice.”
The platoon members ate their burgers in quietude for the next several moments. Slate, meanwhile, seemed to be weeping softly at his picnic table.
Frogger nodded toward him. “I didn’t know they were so close,” he said in a hushed voice.
“They weren’t, as far as I know,” Bambi said. “But I think Traps’ last words really got to him. About not spending enough time together these last twenty years. It’s something I certainly feel. And I miss Traps. Even though I know we might be able to restore him from backup, it won’t be the same Traps we’ve known these last twenty years, but a duplicate harboring his memories and experiences.”
“Just like how you’re a duplicate?” Mickey said. “And I’m a duplicate? Eric is the only Original still among us. The only one who never died since he was first reborn as an AI.”
“Yeah, about that,” Eric said. “I’m sure my exclusive status as the only Original won’t last long. Especially with all of you to keep jinxing me like this.”
“We’re not jinxing you,” Mickey said. “We’re only further reinforcing your legend. And ensuring that you never will die, in the days to come.”
“Trust me, you’re definitely jinxing me when you say crap like that,” Eric said.
Tread turned toward Marlborough. “So, what are we going to do now? We’ve rescued the platoon from the Essentials. It’s time to take the battle to the enemy, right?”
“It is,” Marlborough agreed. “We’re going to need a way to deal with the termite swarm. If left unchecked, it’ll soon become a storm, rivaling the one we faced during the last invasion. We have to nip it in the bud, right here, right now.”
“I have some thoughts about that,” Eric said, and he proceeded to explain a potential plan.
“It just might work,” Marlborough said. The others picked it apart, and added to it. Frogger had the most changes, but when they were done, Eric was happy that it was the best possible plan they could come up with.
“If possible, before we put that plan into play, I’d like the local human army on our side,” Marlborough said. “Less units attacking us means fewer things that can go wrong when we kick off the ploy. In fact, the human army will be able to help us out by offering covering fire. And maybe providing us with the containment field we’ll need.”
“That’s very true,” Dickson added.
“So how are we supposed to make friends with the human defenders?” Dunnigan said. “We’ve tried to communicate already. Didn’t get far.”
“He’s right,” Eric said. “We’ve always been met with a plasma gun kick to the face.”
“It would help if there were at least people operating along the front,” Crusher said. “But all we have are robots.”
“Where you have robots, people aren’t far behind,” Brontosaurus said. “If we can come to the aid of a platoon, and human operators see it, we might have a chance at opening a dialog.”
“What about if there was someone you knew operating among those humans?” Manticore asked.
“That would be the ideal scenario,” Marlborough said.
“Really?” Manticore said. “That’s interesting. Because some of my scouts are telling me that a new type of unit has arrived with the reinforcements. This particular unit is equipped with alien spears, and technology capable of repelling the termites.”
“Has to be Lieutenant Arnold,” Frogger said.
“Great,” Bambi said. “He’s arrived with our clones.”
Manticore shared the last known location of those units, and the team made plans to intercept them. When that was done, everyone resumed chowing down on the burgers.
Eric swallowed his last piece, and gazed at Slate.
Beside him, Bambi softly touched his upper arm. “Someone really needs to talk to him.”
Eric glanced at her, then took a long sip of beer. He stood up with the mug in hand, and walked across to Slate. He sat down opposite him at the smaller picnic table.
Slate looked up for only a moment before lowering his gaze.
“I want to be alone,” Slate said.
“I know,” Eric said. “Which is exactly why I can’t let you.”
Slate’s lip curled back in a snarl, but he managed to hold back whatever curse words he had intended to say.
“We’re not going to let Traps’ death be for nothing,” Eric said. “We’re going to hunt down every last one of these Banthar units, and the Essential instances that guide them. And when that’s done, we’re going to destroy the mothership. We—”
“I don’t want to merely destroy the mothership,” Slate said. He finally looked up to stare Eric in the face. “I want to return to their homeworld. And kill them all.”
Eric nodded slowly. “I’m not sure we can do that. Or if it’s morally right.”
“Fuck morals,” Slate said. “You think the aliens are applying morality when they wipe out our cities, and breakdown the human inhabitants into that goo they feed their bioweapons? No, they’re damn well not.”
Eric had nothing to say to that. “Traps wouldn’t have wanted you to spend the rest of the mission moping around by yourself. He would have wanted you to live your life free of—”
“You don’t know what Traps wanted!” Slate said. “So, don’t you dare even say that. He’s gone. And he’s never coming back. You can restore his backup and call it Traps all you want, but it’s not him. Never him. Just a clone. A goddamn clone. Like the rest of us. Except for you, of course. You precious Original.” Slate dropped his head in his hands and tears fell. “I just wished I had talked to him more these last twenty years. Hung out with him. Told him he was the brother I never had. He saved my life in our first deployment, way back in Iraq. I never paid him back for it.”
“You can make up for that by talking more to the rest of us, right now,” Eric said. “And by fighting at our side. And saving our lives. We need you, Slate, now more than ever. Get that through your head. We need you. And sitting here crying about our dead companion isn’t going to help things. Suck it up. Man the fuck up.”
That finally seemed to sober Slate. He straightened, and then gave Eric a steely-eyed look. “Don’t you ever tell me to man the fuck up ever again. If you do, I’ll smash in your face, I swear I will.”
Eric nodded. “Good. Anger. It’s better than grief. Stand up then, and let’s use this anger while we can. Directed toward the enemy, not me.”
Slate stood, stepped over the picnic table bench, and tossed the table right over, sending Eric flying onto his back. The seat portion pinned Eric, but Slate didn’t notice; he was already stalking away. He promptly vanished.
Bambi came to him and freed him. “Your little pep talk had the desired effect?”
“I hope so,” Eric said.
9
Eric and the others lurked on separate rooftops near the front lines. They had spotted the Devastators that were equipped with spears and termite-repelling emitters a short time ago, and were following them, remaining in hiding, waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. They had increased their transmission range to thirty meters, and all of them resided just inside the limits of that range.
The buildings here were medium-rise, between four and ten stories tall; the Devastators leaped from rooftop to rooftop, shadowing a group of human tanks below. These particular Devastators had support units with them, in the form of several Ravager mechs. They also had the ability to call in air support; the Bolt Eaters had witnessed them summon a bomber a short while earlier. That bomber was equipped wit
h termite-repelling emitters itself, so that the aliens had to shoot it down via other means: Banthar flyers had intercepted the craft after its bombing run and unleashed a stream of energy bolts that destroyed the bomber.
“You think Arnold is their CO?” Hicks asked over the comm.
“Quite possibly,” Dickson replied. “That they can call in bombers is a good sign.”
“Maybe we should try communications,” Mickey said.
“Not yet,” Marlborough said. “We have to prove our intentions, first. And the way to do that is through actions, not words.”
“They certainly want to protect those tanks fairly badly,” Hicks said. “Must be on some sort of mission.”
“You think the tanks have the termite-repelling emitters?” Eagleeye asked.
“Doubt it,” Frogger said. “They’re not going to get too close, I think. This street eventually leads alongside the front lines. My guess is they’ll move into shelling distance of the Banthar, and no closer.”
An airship appeared above the buildings ahead.
“Unless they get attacked first!” Eagleeye said.
That airship began dumping bioweapons and Sloth units onto the street in front of the tanks.
Immediately the Devastators jumped ahead of the tanks to intercept. They used their alien blades to slice through the alien shields and tear apart the Sloths, while they fired energy weapons at the lobster-gators, sending body parts flying in splattering messes.
From vents in its hull, the airship unloaded a swarm of termites that swooped down toward the Devastators and their Ravager support units. The micro machines swept past them, unable to touch the units thanks to the repellers, and continued on toward the tanks. The outlying termites began to infest the armored vehicles in the vanguard.
“Told you no emitters on the tanks,” Frogger said. “They’re going to lose them!”
“Time to intervene,” Marlborough said. “Increase transmission range to fifty meters. Black Hole Team, launch.”
Eric and the other five Bolt Eaters who were part of Black Hole Team were spread out across the different rooftops overlooking the street below. These rooftops had particularly large superstructures, which had done a good job of hiding the mechs up to that point.
