Complex Three (The Savage Horde Series Book 3)

by Chris Bostic

  “Can’t you walk?” he asked.

  Faith instantly quieted. She broke eye contact with Connie to stare at the floor.

  “What’s up?” Connie said. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “She doesn’t walk very well,” Jade said from across the room. “Never has, so it’s a bit of a sore subject. Her balance is off. I think it’s the wide hips and floor-to-ceiling legs, or maybe it’s her waist. I always thought she looked like a wasp.”

  Faith visibly bristled, but didn’t say a word as Jade rambled on. Right when it looked like she might burst into tears, Jade said, “None of that changes the most important thing. She’s highly intelligent…and still the prettiest creation I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thank you, baby sister,” Faith mumbled.

  Joe hadn’t known that androids could be vain. He looked at Leisa to gauge her reaction, but she was a blank slate. A very tired, expressionless slate. He could easily understand that. He felt like he could pass out without food, though it felt good to be off his feet for a while.

  “Should I help her down?” Connie asked Jade.

  “I guess that’s fine. Maybe just help her back into the chair.”

  Connie kneeled over to look Faith in the eyes. “Is that okay with you?”

  She nodded slowly, though Joe couldn’t help but notice the way her lips curled. “Thank you, Sarge.”

  “No problem.” He plucked her off table, cradling her in his arms like a newborn. A few steps later, he gently lowered her back into the chair where they’d found her.

  “Now give me a hand, Sarge,” Jade said.

  Joe and Leisa hopped back up to follow Connie to the table in the back corner. Jade had the sheet pulled back to reveal an angular, box-like stainless steel block gleaming in the bright lights.

  Taken aback, Joe stuttered, “Th-that’s…uhm…”

  “Not like the rest of us,” Jade answered for him. “This is Smig, the first prototype.”

  “He’s like an actual robot.” Leisa’s hand shot to her mouth, and she quickly added, “No offense.”

  “It’s okay,” Jade said. “He’s obviously the most like a traditional robot, if you will. Square body, wide base, wheels for motion-”

  “And a square head with little blinky lights and a fake jaw.” Connie whistled as he looked from Jade back to Faith. “You’re creator certainly came a long way in a few prototypes.”

  “Physically, yes,” Jade answered. “But he’s every bit as smart. Remember part of the Smig acronym is Intellectual Giant.”

  “It’s more of a dry intelligence,” Faith offered. “The guy has no personality whatsoever.”

  “Faith, that’s not true,” Jade objected.

  “You try living with him. It’s torture.”

  Connie stepped between the two siblings to break up the fight. Changing the subject, he asked Faith, “What does your name stand for?”

  “I hate it,” she replied.

  “Don’t bother her,” Jade said, but Connie ignored her.

  “Just tell me, kid,” he said, coming over closer to flirt. “I want to know. You’ll tell me, won’t you? I saved your life.”

  Faith wouldn’t look at him as she spat, “Fully Ambulatory Imi-Tation Humanoid.”

  “Oh.”

  “I warned you,” Jade said. “If you thought she was touchy about her walking-”

  “It’s okay,” Connie said, kneeling next to Faith. “I like you just the way you are.”

  Her scowl lessened, but she still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “You’re very pretty too, my dear…but not so much when you wrinkle up your forehead like that.”

  “Sarge!” Jade scolded. “Knock it off and come help me with Smig.”

  “We’ve got this,” Joe told her, “if you want him to keep cheering up your sister.”

  “I’d rather he didn’t,” she replied, but quickly erased a frown of her own. “Anyway, we need to get him fired back up. This should be much easier than a hard reboot seeing how he was intentionally shut down.” She shot another icy look at Faith.

  “So what do we do?” Joe asked.

  “Just help me set him up and get him off the table. He’s fairly heavy.”

  “Literally.” Joe grumbled, and Leisa jumped in on the other side to prop up the metal behemoth. With another grunt and a shot of pain through his back, they managed to set Smig onto the floor. The machine slammed down with a metallic thump.

  “How’d you…get him up there…all by yourself?” Joe asked Faith between ragged breaths.

  “That table lowers. You didn’t have to lift him.”

  “Seriously?” Leisa said. “You just sat there and watched-”

  Joe grabbed her wrist even though he was similarly upset. “It’s fine. We made it.”

  “Barely,” she said, and shook out of his grasp to rub her lower back. “That thing weighs a ton.”

  “That thing is my brother,” Jade corrected, “and I believe he weighs just under three hundred pounds.”

  “And he only comes up to my waist,” Joe noted. “That’s crazy.”

  Leisa eyed Faith. “And you got back to your chair all on your own?”

  “I can walk…especially if I have something to hold onto.” She shot a playful look at Connie. “Or someone. A big, strong someone.”

  “Good grief,” Leisa said. “For, uhm, humanoids, you sure are a bunch of pervs.”

  “Not all of us.” Jade looked up from sitting cross-legged on the floor behind Smig. She removed a little metal panel from the back of his head, and reached inside. Two green eyes popped on a moment later.

  A humming filled the room. The light bulb eyes flickered, then brightened again. The metal jaw dropped and settled back into place slightly crooked, like a smirk.

  With a nearly imperceptible whine, Smig’s head rotated. He spotted Faith first and a tinny voice said, “That was not nice.”

  “You deserved it,” she replied.

  Before another argument broke out, Smig noticed the others. He rolled away from Joe, the closest of the strangers, and bumped into Jade. Whipping around, his eyes flashed. His jaw dropped.

  “You’re home!” he said, the booming metallic voice echoing inside the room.

  “Yeah, I’m back.” Jade wrapped her arms around him, and he squealed with delight.

  “We were so worried about you. Frederick wouldn’t let us connect to the grid to try to find out anything. He kept saying you’d be back, but there was no rational explanation why we should believe it other than your persistent, stubborn attitude.”

  “I am not stubborn,” Jade replied with a giant smile. “You’re the stubborn one, big brother. Always demanding facts and never trusting your gut.”

  “He doesn’t even have a gut,” Faith chuckled from across the room.

  “Who’s Frederick?” Joe asked Leisa as the two siblings ignored Faith.

  “Our creator,” Smig answered for her. “And who exactly have you brought here, Jade? It’s simple enough to deduce that they are not a threat, although the prison clothes and the pile of Regulator weapons in the corner might say otherwise.”

  “It’s a long story that better wait for later. We have a more pressing question. I was hoping you could help us out.”

  “I’ll empty my memory banks for you.”

  “I might need more than that.” Jade looked from Smig to Faith. “First off, I’m assuming you two don’t know that the neighbors’ houses are burning.”

  “I was unaware thanks to your sister,” Smig said.

  “She’s your sister too,” Jade replied. “But let’s not go there right now. We need to know what’s going on. Like why are you two down here in the workshop when the subterranean lab is much more secure?”

  “Frederick wasn’t convinced. He split us up into teams in case the house was raided.” His wheels spun to face him toward Faith. “Lucky me. I got stuck with her.”

  “Now you know why I turned him off,” Faith shot back.

 
; “That might’ve been an intentional pairing.” Jade scratched her head thoughtfully. “He was probably hoping you two could learn to get along.”

  “Obviously not,” Smig replied. “That should’ve been apparent from the outset. You would think that Frederick would have expected as much.”

  “Anyway…so where are the others?” Jade asked.

  “Mira is supposed to be with Barta. They’re locked in the lab. A couple new ones were going to be left upstairs in the house to keep an eye on the place.”

  “New ones?” Jade asked.

  “Yes, princess,” Faith said. “Frederick’s made himself a couple new favorites to replace you.”

  Jade quieted. Joe thought she appeared stunned by the revelation, as if she had thought herself irreplaceable. But not in a vain way like Faith might have thought. She just seemed to have a very deferential way of talking about her creator to the point that she wouldn’t use his proper name.

  Smig continued with the explanation in his tinny monotone. “Frederick chose to take Best with him to work on something new for the government.”

  “The government?” Jade appeared shaken to her core. She could barely mumble, “He wouldn’t do that.”

  Faith shrugged. “He didn’t have a choice, princess.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “He’d never agree to that,” Jade said. “There’s no way. He’s protected us all for so long.”

  “Except for you,” Joe noted. “He let them take you away, right? You told us that.”

  “That was different. It was my fault.” Jade’s voice lowered to a whisper. “It couldn’t be stopped. If I’d just stayed away from the door…”

  “It’s the classic curiosity and the cat quandary,” Smig noted. “Much as I hate colloquialisms, that one seems to be spot on in this instance. Anyone else would’ve stayed down in the lab and avoided visitors, especially the unannounced.”

  “Yeah,” Faith said. “You’re lucky you didn’t give us all away.”

  Connie stood up and stalked to the middle of the room. “Would you all stop bickering?” he said, raising his voice. “I’m a little more worried about those burning houses than rehashing ancient history.”

  “Actually that was only six months and three-”

  “Enough!” Connie cut off Smig with a thunderous bellow. “If there’s no food and water here, is there anything useful? And how do we get to this house of yours? We’re wasting time.”

  “Well said,” Leisa mumbled loud enough for Joe to hear.

  Jade walked over to Connie. “I don’t think there’s anything else we need from here.” She looked at her siblings, who both remained unusually quiet. “Is the tunnel still open?”

  “It’s locked from the other side,” Faith said. “Frederick pretty much trapped us in here. If you hadn’t opened the door, we’d still be in here sleeping.”

  “Right, sleeping,” Smig uttered.

  Jade turned to Connie. “Then we need to walk up to the house. It’s rough ground, so I would recommend leaving them here.”

  “I am fully capable of rolling my way there,” Smig said. “It’s not difficult, even for a being that’s supposedly Semi-Mobile. Ironically, it’s Little Miss Fully Ambulatory who you will have to worry about.”

  “Sarge will carry me,” Faith said. “Won’t you, big boy?”

  “Fine,” Jade huffed. “I don’t care as long as we get moving.”

  Faith giggled as Connie wasted no time throwing her over his shoulder. “Let’s go already,” he growled, and trudged to the door. Yanking it open, he stepped out into total blackness.

  “The sun go down already?” Joe asked Leisa. “Were we really here that long?”

  “It seemed like forever.” She stopped at the table closest to the door to retrieve their weapons. “I’ve got your coilgun, Sarge.”

  “Thanks.” Connie kept a boot on the door to hold it open, and let it slam shut after Smig was the last one out.

  After a quick turn to the left, they hugged the interior wall and worked their way back to the door Jade and Leisa had used to get inside the barn shell.

  Connie suddenly remembered the nest of angry wasps. “I’m not goin’ out that way,” he said, his bulky shadow plugging up the narrow corridor. “I’m going back to my door.”

  “Suck it up, Sarge,” Leisa said. “I don’t like those bees either, but they didn’t bother me.”

  “There was only one of you at a time,” Connie replied. “With this many going out, we’re sure to piss ‘em off.”

  Joe couldn’t argue with that logic, but Smig gave him something unexpected to consider.

  “Hold on and let me have a moment,” Smig said. “I can calm them right down.”

  “How?” Joe asked. “I know people say bees won’t move around if they get cold or if you blow smoke on ‘em…not that I’ve ever tried that.”

  “I have something a little more reliable than that.” A hum emanated from Smig, followed by a red flashing light on his torso that blinked for a few seconds before shutting off. “They are deactivated now,” he said. “You may proceed.”

  “They’re robo-bees?” Connie asked.

  “Correct, and the nest houses an advanced early warning camera system,” Smig answered as they continued on for the door. “Only there was no one to monitor it when Faith shut me down.”

  “Just another one of Frederick’s new inventions,” Faith managed to tell Connie as she hung upside down over his shoulder. “Just think about all the wonderful inventions he can provide for the Republic? He’s brilliant.”

  “He’s dangerous,” Joe murmured, still marveling at how lifelike the bees had appeared. He shouldn’t have been surprised given how Jade and Faith were seemingly flawless humans, though one had unnaturally exaggerated proportions.

  “I don’t think he would willingly assist in giving the government anything too dangerous,” Smig said. “However, humans can be unpredictable when placed in stressful situations. Even our steady-handed Frederick.”

  Joe didn’t take the time to dwell on those thoughts. Instead, he eagerly waited for his turn to exit the barn.

  “It’s all clear,” Jade announced and led the way.

  Joe soon found himself in the dusky glow of early evening. A quick glance across the long pasture was enough to verify that the fires had died down. Nothing else moved, nor could he make out the sound of machines running in the distance.

  “I think they’ve quit for the day,” Jade said in response to his inquisitive look.

  He nodded and turned back to the barn. As Smig finally made his way outside, Joe took a good long gaze at the bee’s nest. If Smig hadn’t mentioned the imitation, there was no way Joe would have known otherwise.

  “Amazing technology,” Joe whispered to Leisa.

  She reached for his hand, and their fingers locked together. Joe felt her shiver even though the heat hadn’t tempered while they’d been inside.

  “More like creepy,” she whispered. “It makes me look twice at everything now.”

  “Huh. I never thought of that. Even after being fooled by Jade, I never really realized how pretty much everything could be fake.”

  “Not just fake. Watching us.”

  Joe nodded. “I expected the cameras on every corner when my folks took me into Pasun. Those were obvious.” He squeezed her hand and led her off behind Jade. “I never expected the cameras to be disguised as something else.”

  “Sometimes I can’t tell either,” Jade volunteered. “Usually I can sense a power source or transmitter, but not always.”

  “You’re not helping,” Joe joked.

  Jade didn’t take it that way, saying, “I’m sorry-”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just…you know?”

  Jade didn’t know, and seemed to struggle with whether she wanted to reply. Before she could, Connie came charging up next to her with Faith still slung over his shoulder.

  “Your sister’s a load,” he said through gritte
d teeth. “Can we pick up the pace a little, darling?”

  “Wait a minute,” Faith said, causing him and Jade to stop walking. “You actually like her, Sarge?”

  “You stopped us for that?” Jade said. “I already told you to stay away from my man.”

  “I was asking Sarge,” Faith replied.

  “Girls, don’t argue,” Connie said. “There’s enough of me to go around.”

  Jade harrumphed loudly and started walking again.

  “I’m just joking, darling,” Connie called after Jade. “You know that. Besides, I can barely handle one of ya. Joe might need to give me a hand.”

  “I’m sure he’d be happy to carry Jade,” Leisa volunteered. “She’s always had a thing for him.”

  Joe groaned audibly. Having thought that Leisa had finally gotten over how Jade had fawned over him at the prison camp, he wasn’t eager to relive all her jealous remarks.

  Fortunately, the conversation dried up like the barren plateau in summertime. Jade led the group up an incline, keeping the woods close by to the right, but showing no interest in getting back inside the tree line. That was fine with Joe, considering Jade’s abilities wouldn’t allow anyone to sneak up on them.

  Better yet, they made exceptional time over the open prairie. Even Smig seemed to have little trouble. His low center of gravity made him fairly stable, considering his small wheels and jerky movements.

  And then they hit a narrow ravine.

  “Head for the footbridge, baby sister,” Smig suggested. “If you veer to your left a mite, and I will be able to cross the ditch.”

  It wasn’t quite that simple, but a little pushing from Joe and Leisa got Smig onto a flimsy wooden structure that was barely wider than the barrel-sized robot.

  Joe watched as Smig inched his way forward, the boards creaking as he crossed.

  “And there we have it,” Smig said upon reaching the other side. “Not a problem. It’s all traversable from here.”

  “Good. I’m about spent,” Connie said.

  Joe leapt across the narrow ditch rather than wait for his sergeant and the others to cross the rickety bridge. He met up with Leisa on the other side, and together they scanned the darkening pasture for Frederick’s house.