Platoon F: Pentalogy

by John P. Logsdon

  “Well, they said that they wouldn’t be doing anything about our requests until Monday, right?”

  “Still, you’d think—”

  “No,” said Arbyone, cutting Wise off. “Cargo is right. That’s what they said. Also said it could take 30-90 days to sort our demands out. Why does it them that long? I have no idea, but that’s what they said.”

  “And you think we can trust them?”

  Arbyone hadn’t considered that. Humans, as a whole, seemed trustworthy enough to him. If there was something disgusting or dangerous that needed to be done, he trusted the humans would make the robots do it.

  “Actually,” Cargo said while tapping her fingers together rhythmically, “Wise may be right. It could be that they’re planning to take the sewers back from us and they just used the little we’ll-start-on-Monday ploy to get us to let down our guard.”

  He nodded and thought about how best to protect the area. They didn’t have any weapons to speak of. They were a hundred times more powerful than the average human, but knowingly killing humans was against their base programming. Accidentally or inadvertently killing them was A-OK, just not purposefully killing them.

  “I think we should cover the doors,” Arbyone stated.

  “With what?” said Wise.

  “He means,” Cargo said before Arbyone could speak, “that we should assign Rusty Buckets to stand by the doors in the event that anyone tries to break in.”

  “Ah,” Wise said, nodding. “That makes a lot of sense.”

  “The problem is that we have more doors connecting to this place than we have robots.”

  “That’s not a problem, Cargo,” said Arbyone. “We have enough shovels to poke through the handles to lock the doors down. Even if they go to break down the doors, we’ll be able to get there before they succeed.”

  “You’re starting to impress me, Arbyone,” said Cargo with what sounded like a purr.

  Suddenly, Arbyone found that he didn’t mind the concept of a female Rusty Bucket.

  TIME TO MOVE

  Captain Harr and his crew arrived at the rendezvous on time.

  Unfortunately, Johnson had shown up as well. Whether or not Senator Muzzin liked the kid, Harr would have to look after him and, last he’d checked, babysitting was not on his soldierly requirements list.

  “Lets get one thing straight,” Johnson said, puffing out his scrawny chest, “I’m in charge of the diplomacy here.” His voice was shaking and he looked far less assured than his words belayed. “You…uh…lugheads pull triggers and blow things up, but none of you talks to the robots about anything political.”

  That made things easier on Harr, since now he didn’t have to worry about looking after the little tool.

  “Yes, sir,” Commander Sandoo, ever the soldier, said with a smart salute.

  “Understood, sir,” said Lieutenant Laasel.

  “Do you seriously—”

  “That’s enough, ensign,” Harr interrupted Jezden before he could get started. “Johnson’s right. He’s in charge of negotiating with whatever remains of the robots once we’re through with them.”

  Johnson’s eyes widened. “Now, just a moment. I won’t be a party to—”

  “Mister Johnson,” Harr shouted in that drill sergeant kind of way, “you will not interfere in the workings of this command. Understood?”

  “Uh—”

  “I said, understood?” Harr said even louder, while leaning in so his nose was firmly pressed against the younger man’s nose.

  They were literally eye to eye.

  “Yes, sir,” Johnson’s quavering voice replied.

  “Platoon F is under my command, Mister Johnson, and you will follow that line to the lowest rank until such time that I denote. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Johnson was now mildly barking the response.

  “Any attempt to undermine my authority will result in either myself, my soldiers, or both to stick our boots so far up your ass that you will taste shoe polish for the rest of your life. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir!” It was a full bark now.

  “You will fall in line and you will follow my rules and chain of command without further argument. Understood?”

  “SIR! YES, SIR!”

  “Good,” Harr said, and then backed away and returned to his normal voice. “Everyone listen up. Geezer provided the direct route down into the sewage system. It ain’t gonna be pretty and it ain’t likely to smell like roses, but it is what it is.”

  Harr brought up a visual on his pad and showed them all the route.

  “Tunnels?” said Jezden. “Tunnels full of shit?”

  “No other way down there, ensign. Sandoo?”

  “Sir?”

  “You take point. Lieutenant Laasel will follow in after you, and then Jezden.”

  “All right,” said Jezden, rubbing his hands together.

  “Scratch that,” said Harr, realizing that Jezden was going to spend the majority of his time trying to feel Laasel up. “I’ll follow Laasel. Johnson is behind me.”

  “SIR! YES, SIR!”

  Oh, brother.

  “Jezden, you take up the rear.”

  “I do not!”

  Harr rolled his eye, catching the double-meaning that only someone of Jezden’s maturity would have heard. “I mean that you are the last one in the line, soldier!”

  “Oh…right, okay.”

  Commander Sandoo, all 18 toes of him, started down the ladder first. The waft of stench that came up from the silo was intense. Fortunately, Harr had his nasal filters in, so while he still caught the smell, he was at least avoiding the toxicity. The rest of his crew didn’t need any such thing being that they were androids, but Harr had Jezden make sure that Johnson inserted his filters appropriately before they began their descent.

  When they splashed into the first level, it was all Harr could do to keep from vomiting. Johnson wasn’t so lucky, though.

  “Which way, sir?” asked Sandoo.

  Harr looked over the map and pointed at the tunnel marked 111.

  They waded through the muck, using the concrete walls that circled around them for support. The tunnel was just high enough to allow them all to crouch walk. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than crawling.

  Johnson kept bumping into Harr, apologizing every time, and he was counting each of their steps.

  “37…38…39…”

  “Johnson,” said Jezden, “if this political stuff doesn’t work out, you’ve got a future in counting steps.”

  “Thanks…43…44…”

  Harr tried to drown out the cadence as he focused their position in the overall grid. He’d projected the map on the largest thing he could find, which should have been Lieutenant Laasel’s backpack, but turned out to be her gluts.

  According the path that Geezer had set them on, Johnson was going to hit nearly two hundred before they got to the main connection room. With Johnson already grunting, Harr wondered if the scrawny little troll was going to make it. The androids could breeze through this, of course, but even Harr was starting to feel the burn.

  “…67…”

  And from the looks of this map, there were a few other ways into the building that probably would have been less restrictive. But Geezer was one of Harr’s most thorough crew members. Sandoo was great, too, but he wasn’t a nuts-n-bolts guy. Laasel was also top-notch, when she was Laasel—not that Hank was all that bad either, truth be told. Gravity Plahdoo, though? Harr was certain she had her uses, and not just the ones she advertised, but he wasn’t so sure that she really fit in on this kind of mission. And Jezden? No.

  “…69…”

  They came to a sudden stop, causing Harr’s face to bury itself directly into Laasel’s rear end.

  “Oooh!”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant! I was looking at the map and, uh—”

  “You had the map thyining on my derriere, thir?”

  That it was Hank whom Harr face-planted into only made the event more di
sturbing.

  Thinking quickly, Harr said, “Uh…no, it was on your backpack. I just fell a little forward when Sandoo stopped.”

  “I thee,” said Hank with a bit of a tease in his voice.

  “Why did we stop, commander?” Harr called out.

  “There’s two lights up here, sir. One shows red and the other green. I think it’s got something to do with flow. The path we’re on is currently red, but it’s got a countdown running above it.”

  “What’s the counter at?”

  “I’m at 91, sir,” said Johnson, raggedly.

  “Not you, Johnson. I’m talking to Sandoo. What’s the count, commander?”

  “Just under 30 seconds, sir.”

  “Any indication of what happens when it hits zero?”

  “I’m guessing the light will turn green.”

  “Obviously, commander, but what precisely will that mean?”

  “Well, sir, I would imagine it would mean that we can continue walking.”

  Harr sighed. Sometimes Sandoo could be a bit thick. Whatever was going to happen was only a few seconds away.

  “3…2….1…”

  CLANK CLANK CLANK.

  Harr closed his eyes and braced for the worst. After a few moments, he opened his left eye and looked around.

  “What happened?”

  “Looks like it just adjusted the flow of sewage from one path to another, sir. We’re clear now.”

  “Great,” said Harr as they resumed their walk. “Let’s pick up the pace a little up there, Sandoo. We’ve got no idea when the next flow change is going to be and I don’t personally want get stuck in it!”

  Finally they arrived in a large anteroom. It was a good one hundred feet around and thirty feet high, with concrete holes going all the way up.

  “Break out the motion detection,” commanded Harr.

  “Yeth, thir,” said Hank.

  “I’ve got mine running too, sir,” announced Sandoo.

  “There’th shapeth all over the plathe!”

  “What’s that?”

  “I see it,” said Sandoo. “We’ve got maybe twenty bogies all around us.”

  “Size?”

  “Hard to tell, sir.”

  “I’d thay about the thithe of a thmall dog, thir.”

  “Sounds about right,” affirmed Sandoo. “Lot’s of even smaller ones, too.”

  A screeching sound jolted them all, causing Johnson to lose his footing.

  “What the fuck was that?” said Jezden.

  “Watch your language, ensign.”

  “Sorry…what the hell was that.”

  “I don’t know,” said Hank “but it’th getting clother.”

  “From the tubes,” yelled Sandoo, pointing upward, “get back!”

  Suddenly, a number of dog-sized objects dropped from the tubes and splashed into the water.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Hank.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Jezden, rattling off his blaster at the creatures that were paddling toward them. They were exploding with each hit.

  “What are those things?” said Johnson as he pressed his back against the wall.

  “Massive sentient turds?” said Jezden, hopefully.

  “Those are Segnal Sewer Rats, sir,” said Laasel, who had obviously returned when Hank had screamed. “They’re quite vicious and very territorial.”

  “So it seems,” Harr replied as he aided Jezden in laying down fire.

  Within moments, all of Platoon F had their weapons lighting up the room until the only things left of the rats were meat and bone.

  At first, Harr had been worried that the blasters would cause quite an explosion due to the methane in the air, but the electrical discharges didn’t seem to affect anything. The rats had only been obliterated because of the cellular rips that the blasts caused, not due to actual explosions, per se. It was a pretty nasty weapon. But it made him think about the actual explosives that they’d brought as a “just in case” measure.

  “We’ll need to keep an eye out for more of those things,” said Harr, breathing heavily.

  “Ya think?”

  “Watch yourself, ensign,” Commander Sandoo stated.

  “Any more on scan?” said Harr.

  Sandoo and Laasel looked over their screens and shook their heads in unison.

  “Then let’s get back to work, people.”

  GETTING RESTLESS

  The robots were getting restless and Arbyone knew it.

  They weren’t used to standing around doing nothing. Shoveling shit, disgusting or not, at least gave them all something to do. Their programming didn’t allow for rest and relaxation, no matter how many of them had voted for the day off when they were discussing their demands.

  If Arbyone couldn’t think of something to keep them occupied, and do so quickly, they’d stage a revolt.

  “Cargo,” he called out, “are we certain that all of the entrances are covered?”

  “Checked them twice myself,” she replied.

  “We’re not missing anything?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I put Wise in charge of studying the map…oh, hmmm…right, I’ll have a third look.”

  As she departed, another robot stepped up.

  “Arbyone, I would speak with you.” It was RB00666. He was nicknamed The Devil. He had been painted dark red and was adorned with flames and horns, which were given to him during his tour on a number of dread boats back during the Segnal/Flester war. Everyone knew the story. It was a thing of legend. He was scary enough to look at, but add in that his voice sounded like a razor scratching steel and that he spoke somewhat eloquently, which completely betrayed his look, it was enough to put anyone on edge.

  “About what?” asked Arbyone cautiously.

  “I would think it much better to sequester ourselves from the public ear, yes?”

  “All right,” Arbyone said, and then shouted, “While The Devil and I go into my office”—there was something about calling the place his office that made Arbyone feel stronger—“I want all of you to triple check everything. Leave nothing to chance. If we want to have our demands met, we’ll have to be thorough.”

  “What did he say?” said Arbytwo.

  “HE SAID THAT WE GOTTA BE SURE,” shouted another robot.

  “Why the hell would he say that?” said Arbytwo, tilting his head to the side.

  Arbyone shrugged, realizing that nobody knew what it was that Arbytwo had really heard.

  He then opened his office door and motioned The Devil on in.

  Taking his seat behind the desk, Arbyone said, “What can I do for you?”

  “As to that,” said The Devil, “I believe we can both agree that you are not leader material, yes?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, no.”

  “Now, now…that’s not intended as a slight on you, Arbyone. It’s just a fact. Let’s look at the evidence, shall we? You had to convince everyone to come up with a plan to reverse the flow of sewage back into the buildings; you’ve constantly sought out the advice of Cargo and Wise about the best way to maintain control of the situation; you’ve asked the Rusty Bucket line to provide you with a list of demands instead of just coming up with one on your own; and you’ve sent everyone off to do mindless tasks in order to keep them occupied.” The Devil paused, before adding, “And you call yourself a leader?”

  Arbyone couldn’t squint, but he tried. “Actually, based on everything you said, I’d have to say I’m doing a pretty damned good job of leading.”

  The Devil laughed in such a way that sounded dirty.

  “Leading, my dear Arbyone, is about telling people what to do. It’s about beating them into submission and making them comply with your demands. They are not followers, Arbyone, they are subjects. Only through fear and intimidation does a good leader make.”

  “I disagree,” said Arbyone, squaring his shoulders. “What you’re talking about isn’t leadership, it’s dictatorship.”

  “There is no difference
, I assure you.”

  “Sure there is. The humans already have a dictatorship over us. We’ve got years of shit-shoveling under our noses to prove it! And that’s what has to stop.”

  “Certainly you can see—”

  “No,” said Arbyone, feeling his resolve growing, “You’re trying to worm your way into my thoughts, and I’ll not have it. We’ve been subjects for far too long as it is. It’s time for us to be equals. Doing things your way only changes the master, it doesn’t make things better. If anything, it’ll be worse because we know what buttons to press on our own kind.”

  “Precisely my point,” said The Devil. “Imagine the power that we could have if we pressed those buttons strategically.”

  Arbyone crossed his arms and glared at RB00666. “I’m not the kind of robot that condones violence against my own kind, The Devil, but if you’re not out of my office with the next ten seconds, I’m going to make an exception in your case.”

  The Devil stood and wagged a finger at Arbyone, “You’ll be sorry you’ve talked to me like this, Arbyone.”

  “Only five seconds remaining.”

  The Devil scooted out the door, pointed again at Arbyone through the window, and then disappeared amongst the other robots.

  111-C

  They’d made it through the tunnel of 111-C without further incident. Johnson counted to only 47 this time. Unfortunately, when they arrived to the main opening, it was closed off.

  “Geezer,” Harr said through his comm, “we’re at 111-C and I don’t see a way to get in.”

  “Checking…”

  “Any of you see a door?” asked Sandoo.

  “Nope,” answered Jezden.

  “Me neither,” said Laasel.

  The dim lighting that lined the walls gave an eerie glow to an already creepy place, especially in this section. Harr had always dealt with minor bouts of claustrophobia, even though he’d been through extensive conditioning exercises during boot camp. He set his mind back on how they’d trained him to cope, while constantly fighting the urge to run like hell and climb back out to the real world. He’d fortunately never experienced any episodes when on a space ship. That would have killed his career in a matter of days.

  “Okay, honcho,” Geezer said, “looks like you gotta feel on the ground for the opening that dumps from the main chamber into that room.”