by Isaac Hooke
“Hicks and I got another eleven here,” Brontosaurus said.
The Bolt Eaters split up, half going to Brontosaurus, the other half to Eric.
Eric and Slate kept their collection gloves on and loaded the spears into the different mechs as they arrived, including the Ravagers.
When it was done, the two returned to their respective cockpits, folding themselves into compact spheres to squeeze inside.
The intensity of the wind and snow had picked up another notch by then, so much so that Slate said: “Damn! Tread, bitch, did you fire another black hole?”
“Wasn’t me,” Tread said. “I think it’s just a natural snowstorm. As natural as you can get on an alien planet, anyway!”
Eric noticed that T3, and most of the Bolt Eaters, were only firing intermittently by then. That was because it was becoming difficult to target the opposing Sloths in this weather. Though T3 wasn’t apparent on the visual band, and some of the Bolt Eaters were also hidden, he could still see them all thanks to the blue outlines overlaying their positions on his HUD.
“LIDAR might penetrate this,” Mickey commented.
“Might being the key word,” Traps said. “Honestly, I doubt it.”
“Don’t give away your positions by attempting LIDAR!” Marlborough said. “Employ passive sensor mechanisms only!”
On the thermal band, Eric searched for the second transport through the blizzard, and spotted it slowly approaching the first group of Sloths. A momentary gust of wind blew away a large swath of snow behind the craft, momentarily increasing visibility. He saw the thermal signatures of five more transports out there, approaching behind it. But then the snow filled the gap once more, concealing them from view.
“Uh, guys!” Eric said. “Got five more transport incoming!”
“You sure?” Dickson said.
Eric amped his time sense to max, so that everything froze around him. Then he sent the last few seconds of video recorded by his cameras to Dickson.
“Scorpion is right,” Dickson said.
“We can’t stay here,” Marlborough said. “It’s time to retreat, Bolt Eaters! To the northwest! T3, join us, maximum speed!”
Eric returned his time sense to a more manageable rate, and then retreated into the dense snow. The blizzard was so thick by then that he could see maybe a few meters in front of him, but that was it. Essentially white-out conditions. Well, black out was probably a better word, given the current light levels.
Eric was able to see the outlines of his fellow Bolt Eaters perfectly, thanks to their comm signals. The snow might have been interfering with those signals, but the team members were close enough to one another for each of them to act as repeaters.
The outlines of the tanks and combat robots in T3 however, still some distance away, often blinked in and out of existence.
Eagleeye had retrieved his Ravens and stored them away—they couldn’t fly under these conditions.
Eric glanced at his power levels. He’d completely forgotten about battery power, and was worried he’d be close to zero, given the lack of sunlight, but was relieved to discover he was at twenty five percent.
It kind of made sense that he would forget about that, even if he was essentially a machine.
I haven’t had to worry about battery levels in twenty years.
Random fire from the enemy occasionally assailed the team when the snowstorm momentarily eased enough for the Sloths to target them. When the blizzard concealed them fully once more, Marlborough ordered a slight change in direction—to keep the enemy guessing.
Eventually, the enemy fire ceased entirely, and Marlborough gave the word to slow down so that T3 could catch up. The tanks arrived shortly; Eric couldn’t see them in the thick blizzard, but he saw their outlines well enough. The combat robots had leaped onto the tanks so that they could hitch a ride above the ever rising snow on the ground.
“I want the tanks in front!” Marlborough said. “They can pack down the snow, make it easier for us to advance.”
“You got it,” Tread said.
He sent the eight M-54s forward, and the Bolt Eaters followed in their wake, stepping onto the path the tanks carved.
The blizzard continued to rage around them.
After half an hour, Marlborough gave the order to head due west.
“I want to reach the forest before this snowstorm lets up,” Marlborough said. “It’s our only chance of escaping.”
“We’re going home?” Crusher asked hopefully.
“I think we’ve gathered enough intel on the Banthar for now, yes,” Marlborough said. “The rift is our destination.”
On the overhead map, the lack of sensor data painted everything ahead of them black. They had carved a horseshoe shape through that darkness when they had diverged east toward the microwave signal, and then fled northwest, and finally due west, back toward the forest. Though they couldn’t see a thing, and thus had no external references, their internal gyroscopes and accelerometers were able to update their positions with only small margins of error.
The team could move only as fast as their slowest units: in this case, the tanks. At their current speed, it would take fifteen hours to reach the forest, assuming the trees continued north the same distance the Bolt Eaters had been displaced.
He glanced at the sky, but couldn’t discern anything through the darkness of the snowstorm. Still, he knew there were alien craft somewhere out there, hunting for them.
Fifteen hours.
Hopefully it would be enough time to escape their enemies.
19
Eric trudged on through the nighttime blizzard.
The snowstorm continued for the next four hours.
Finally, at the fourth hour, the snow began to let up. Visibility increased to a kilometer in either direction. The landscape had transformed around them. Gone was the grayish, rocky texture, replaced with smooth, yellow drifts.
Marlborough wouldn’t let them slow.
Eric kept an eye on the sky, searching for signs of the transports, but thankfully he never spotted any of them. He also watched his power levels slowly decrease.
The storm continued at that reduced intensity all the way to the forest. When they finally reached the eaves, they discovered the snow had formed big drifts that had collected near the trees on the outskirts, so the team had to dig their way through. There were no Huggers anywhere in sight: Eric guessed they sheltered somewhere inside the forest.
Within, the snow that covered the forest floor was far less thick than on the plains, one meter deep in most places, up to a maximum of two, thanks to the protective canopy overhead that had caught most of it.
“We’ll proceed a short way, then hunker down for the night,” Marlborough said. “We’ll conserve energy until morning. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m almost down to zero.”
Eric was a little under five percent the last time he checked. He looked again: four point seven nine.
Thermal vision and night vision didn’t allow them to see very far underneath the canopy, so Marlborough authorized limited LIDAR use to navigate the tree trunks.
Eagleeye left one of his Ravens to stand guard next to the entrance they’d carved through the snow drift.
When they had moved a kilometer inside, Marlborough called a halt. “We hunker down here. Lie down in a circle. Cameras and weapons facing outward. Tanks and combat robots form a similar circle, with a radius of a hundred meters. Then switch to low power mode.”
Eric lay down in the snow and shut down all save essential systems.
“Can we use VR?” Frogger asked.
“You may,” Marlborough replied. “But keep the power draw to a minimum. This means not too many avatars in the same simulation, so no barbecues or shared parties. And Accomps stand watch.”
“Got it,” Frogger said.
“Hold down the fort,” Eric told Dee.
“You got it,” she said sultrily.
“After all these years, you still flirt with me,” Er
ic said.
Her avatar shrugged. “You know you like it.”
Eric sat on the patio of his favorite pub along Main Street. In between people watching, he sipped a mug full of brown ale. Other patrons sat at the neighboring tables, providing a cheerful ambiance.
Frogger materialized, seated across from him. His mind twin nodded at Eric’s mug. “Nursing your beer?”
“Not nursing it,” Eric said. “Enjoying it.”
“Good for you,” Frogger said.
A waitress in a short black skirt and a white and black blouse roller-skated over.
“What can I get you?” she asked, smacking her lips between gum chews.
“Roller skates,” Frogger told the girl. “Nice touch.”
“Thanks, hun,” she said. “So what can I get you?”
“I’m only here to flirt,” Frogger said.
She rolled her eyes. “Rules is rules. Everyone at the table has to order a menu item. Could be a meal, or a drink.”
“Ah,” Frogger said, giving Eric an amused look. “I think I remember this place from when we were still human.”
“It didn’t actually exist,” Eric said. “Though I did borrow the waitress and her attitude from a certain Italian restaurant we frequented.”
Frogger gave her an appraising look. “She’s pretty hot. I think I’d remember a waitress like this.”
“Obviously her features are different,” Eric said.
“Ah,” Frogger said. “Would Bambi and Crusher approve of you creating sexy girls to compete with them like this?”
“What are you talking about,” the girl said in between gum chews. “Are you going to order, or what?”
Eric ignored her, and shrugged in answer to Frogger’s question. “They know there’s no competition. I don’t sleep with the virtual waitresses I create. And Bambi and Crusher helped me design her, in fact.”
“Nice,” Frogger said. “I’d kill to have such open-minded women.”
“They weren’t always that way, trust me,” Eric said. “I never told you how they used to constantly be at each other’s throats, did I?”
“Yeah you did,” Frogger said.
“Well there you go,” Eric said. “Nothing in life is easy. Especially trying to keep two girls at the same time. Though I suppose it helps that these particular women are Mind Refurbs.”
“You know, I’ve always wondered if you did something to them,” Frogger said. “Changed their programs somehow, so that they’d favor you above the rest of us.”
Eric merely shrugged. Let Frogger think what he would.
“Okay, if you’re not going to order, I’m going to have to get the manager,” the waitress said sternly.
Frogger gave her a cool look, then returned his attention to Eric. “So, you’re flaunting Marlborough’s orders?”
“How so?” Eric said.
“He said not to have too many avatars in the same simulation…” Frogger nodded toward the waitress.
“I figured I have enough power for a few avatars,” Eric said. “But you’re right, now that you’re here…”
Eric shut down the virtual waitresses, bar patrons, and vehicles passing by on the road next to the bar, and the place descended into a creepy silence.
“Hm, I liked it better with the ambiance,” Frogger said.
Eric shrugged. “Next time keep your mouth shut.”
Frogger laughed. “Ah, I missed talking to myself.”
Eric took a sip of his beer, and shook his head. “I get enough of me up here already.” He tapped his temple.
Frogger materialized a beer of his own. It was a golden brown. He took a long gulp. “Mm, hits the spot. That was one of the great benefits about getting access to state-of-the-art android bodies with full taste capabilities: we could start sampling all the foods and drinks out there, and programming the flavors and textures into our VRs.”
“I guess so.” Eric took another sip. “You’re the one who did most of the work in that department.”
“One of my hobbies,” Frogger agreed.
“Made you rich, too,” Eric said. Frogger had sold every new VR taste he developed online.
“Not rich,” Frogger said. “But yes, I lived a comfortable existence.” He paused. “I just hope I make it back to that life.”
They drank in silence for a moment.
“Do you ever miss Molly?” his mind twin abruptly asked.
Molly. The woman who had been Eric’s girlfriend when he was still human. A girl who had died a long time ago, in the twenty first century.
“Yeah, of course,” Eric lied. In truth, he hadn’t thought about her in years, now. But he was a little ashamed to admit it, given how much she had once meant to him, and how much she must have still meant to Frogger.
“Liar,” Frogger said.
Eric lowered his gaze.
Frogger nodded. “It’s all right. You’ve moved on. I respect that.” He paused. “You know, I never told you this, but I never did get over her myself. For the past twenty years, I’ve been living with her in my AI core. Or rather, a version of her. I upgraded the virtual girlfriend AI I purchased for her with a shit ton of memory, and created a special neural network partition in my own AI core, one that was capable of supporting full artificial intelligence.
“Over the years, I trained it to be as close to Molly’s personality as possible. Whenever I noticed a behavior that was at odds with the real Molly’s, I corrected that behavior. Her sexual desire was too high? I toned it down. Laughing at all the wrong jokes? I tweaked her humor subroutine. I filled her neural engrams with pop culture references, the childhood memories she shared with me, and gave her access to my own database so she could access every memory I had of her. I’ve had twenty years to refine her program. She’s as close to the real Molly as she’s ever going to get.”
Eric stared at his mind twin. “You’ve really been suffering without her, haven’t you? I’m so sorry.”
Frogger frowned. “Don’t be. I’ve got what I want, now. She’ll always be at my side, as long as I still live. And she would have been backed up along with my AI core, so even if I die, she’ll be brought right back with me. I bet the lieutenant was wondering why it took so much memory to back up my mind as compared to the rest of you.” He paused. “I can lend you her subroutines if you want. Not all of her engrams will transfer, since you don’t have the same memory upgrades I do, but enough of her will survive for you to recognize. Just don’t ask her if she remembers some obscure TV show or date you both went on.”
“That’s all right,” Eric said slowly. “I’ve got my hands full with Bambi and Crusher already. And I doubt they’d take kindly to a new girl intruding on their turf.”
Frogger shrugged. “Just a thought.”
“Still, I have to admit it’s tempting,” Eric said. “Molly was… special, to us.”
“She was,” Frogger agreed. “One of a kind. Did I ever tell you I tracked down her relatives?”
“No, actually,” Eric said.
“Yeah,” Frogger said. “I even launched some robots to spy on their families. The insect types.”
“You’re such a peeping Tom,” Eric said.
“Yeah, I know we are,” Frogger said.
“So, what did you find?” Eric said. “Let me guess, a woman who was the spitting image of Molly?”
“Nope, none of them look even close to her,” Frogger said. “But hey, I had to know. This was before I created my own Molly from the ground up, of course.”
“Even if you found someone, the chances of her personality being anything close to Molly’s would be remote,” Eric said. “She was a product of her time. The cultural and societal norms that influenced the Millennials of our day are long past.”
“They are,” Frogger agreed. “Which is why I had to make my own Molly.”
Eric stared at his twin. “So. You didn’t come here just to talk about Molly, did you?”
Frogger smiled. “Right again.”
“Wh
at’s on your mind?” Eric pressed.
“I have an idea,” Frogger said.
“An idea…” Eric said dubiously.
Frogger nodded. “I got a good multispectral scan of the Sloths during the last fight.”
“Well that could prove useful,” Eric said. “If we can mimic the emission spectra of the Sloths, perhaps we could escape detection if we run into a patrol.”
“Unfortunately, we’d need access to industrial-grade 3D printers so we could shape and refine our own emissions,” Frogger said.
“What if we modified the repair drones to act as 3D printers?” Eric said.
Frogger shook his head. “We don’t have enough material. We might be able to print up enough to cover one or two mechs, but not all of us.”
Eric rubbed his chin. “Before the mission, the lieutenant did say we could pulverize rocks high in metals for materials.”
“Very true,” Frogger said. “We’d have to dig down to the bedrock. Unfortunately, that’s a little hard right now, given that the ground is frozen.”
“Hard, but not impossible,” Eric said.
“When you look at our current power levels, and the fact that we won’t be recharging until morning, yes, it’s impossible,” Frogger said.
“We’ll tell Sarge about the idea in the morning,” Eric said.
“Let me share the plans,” Frogger said. “I want your feedback.”
Frogger did so, and Eric reviewed them. Together, they made tweaks, until they were both satisfied with the results.
“This will definitely work,” Eric said. “Now, we just have to convince the Sarge to try it.”
20
Eric made a quick visit to Bambi and Crusher, and then shut down his VR for the night. He left Dee on guard duty, and slowed his time sense to make the long night pass faster.
He received an alert a few seconds after setting his time sense to its slowest setting, and he immediately dropped back to normal time, just as he had programmed himself to do.
It was a call from Bambi.
Eric accepted.
“What’s up?” he asked. He wasn’t logged into VR, or his Devastator interface, so everything around him was pitch black. He still saw her avatar on his HUD, in the lower right of his display.
