Joshua

by Frank Carey

  Everything was normal. He looked again. According to the scanner, the majority of his atoms were from this planet, Alyson, not Earth. This meant that he was built (grown, hatched, extruded?) using local materials.

  He ran something called a quantum signature scan and found that his atoms did originate in this universe. He backed off the scan and looked at his genetic structure. "No sign of replicant fade. No genetic damage. Good." He slaved the scanner over to the more powerful datapad and ran comparisons between his DNA and the Earth human standard. That's when he found the discrepancy. Actually, there was a foreign object in his DNA strands. "Computer, magnify object in center of screen and enhance. Damn, I could have used this back at Area 51."

  The datapad zoomed in. It was a tiny robot nestled within the double-helix of his DNA. "Computer, identify."

  "Nanoscopic robot of unknown origin. Further analysis requires tie-in with Jenna."

  Joshua took out his comm and called Jenna. "What's up?" she asked.

  He explained what he found. His datapad and scanpad lit up. "Don't move," she said. Finally, the two devices stopped their commotion and settled down to an idle state. "Joshua, how do you feel?"

  "Fine. What did you find?"

  "What do you know about nanorobotics?"

  "Nanorobotics is the study of autonomous robots on a cellular or molecular scale. There were several projects at A51 devoted to their study. Problems can occur with they go rogue and start performing self-programmed tasks."

  "Ever work with them?"

  "No. Not my field."

  "Well, it is now. Your cells are full of the little buggers and they all seem to be asleep."

  "Is that bad?"

  "Nanorobots should have only two states: working and dead, and yours are neither. Just hang in there until we get back."

  "How's Tayla doing?"

  "She's ready to rid her family of one male child, and I agree with her. What Jacob did to you is pure horse shit."

  "He was right to do what he did, so you both need to cut him some slack. His responsibility is keeping his crew safe, not coddling a golem."

  "Listen, young man, you are not a golem. You keep talking like that, and I will put you over my knee, one of the knobby metal ones."

  "Yes, ma'am, sorry."

  "I've got to get back to work. I'm going to program the scanner to keep an eye on you. It'll alert me to any changes in your physiology."

  "Got it. And, Jenna?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Thanks. It means a lot."

  "Now you're making me blush. Jenna out."

  Joshua put the comm down and looked around. It reminded him of San Francisco in the Spring. The trees were budding out, their new growth moving in the breeze. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes so that he could hear the wind.

  ###

  Joshua's nap was abruptly ended by the emergency alarm sounding on his comm unit. Almost falling out of his chair, he grabbed the unit and activated it. "This is Joshua, what's wrong?"

  Static assaulted his ears, static broken by Tayla's voice, "We're under attack... need help..." The transmission ended.

  He looked at the comm and saw she had activated her beacon. "Thank God," he said as he gathered his equipment and stuffed it in his rucksack.

  He ran down a side street while his Comm tracked the signal from the others, thanking God on the way for the training Sensei had given him. Even at age eighty, Sensei could run for hours through any terrain. He even competed in and won grueling triathlons. His favorites were held in deserts. Sensei taught him that to complete such an arduous journey, one must forget they are on the journey. Instead, they must celebrate every single step as if it were the trip itself.

  Down deserted streets, between buildings far older than his species, he ran until he found himself standing in front of a low, squat, fortress-like building, the truck parked next to it. Checking it, he saw that Jenna's mobile was gone from its niche. He ran over to the building and saw the door open. Past it was a staircase leading downward, the way illuminated by a line of robotic spiders with glowing abdomens hanging from the ceiling. He activated his comm. "This is Joshua. Anyone, please respond, over."

  "Joshua? Thank the gods. This is Quint. We're under attack by some abomination. I need Betsy."

  "Where is this Betsy?"

  "Rear storage locker in a case marked 'BFG.'"

  He ran into the truck and found the case. Inside was the biggest personnel gun he had ever seen. Attached to it by a conveyor tube was a plastic ammo pack.

  "Find it?"

  "Oh, yeah. Thinking about invading a planet?"

  "A girl can't be too careful. Follow the light-bots downstairs, then the sounds of gunfire. You can't miss us."

  "On my way." He grabbed the case and a medkit before running out toward the building.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After leaving Joshua behind, the truck and its remaining crew made their way through the city streets as they homed in on the signal. While the cityscape passed by outside, the tension grew inside.

  "I can't believe we left him there. He saved our plarking lives!" Tayla said from the driver's seat. "He's not a plarking threat to anyone!"

  "How do you know that? He doesn't even know that," Bryntana said.” He stayed behind because he doesn't want to hurt any of us. Maybe you should think with your brain instead of whatever it is your kind use..."

  The truck rolled to a stop while Tayla leapt across the room and threw the elf assassin into the wall by her throat.

  "Tayla, darlin, let her go," Quint said as she placed a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder. "Bryntana didn't mean what she said. We're all on edge. Now, put her down, gently."

  Tayla stood there, her hair a halo around her head as her scalp muscles contracted in a threat display. She could smell Bryntana's fear and hear her hearts beating in a rapid staccato. "Sorry," the young Sokuhl whispered as she gently lowered Bryntana to the ground. She turned and saw her brother standing there with a gun leveled at her.

  "That better be set to stun," she said.

  "It is, but we know you're partly resistant to this type of weapon. I would have had to take you both down and that would have really ruined my whole day. Thanks, Quint, for defusing the situation."

  She tipped her non-existent hat at him. "Aye, Captain. Someone needs to keep her head."

  "My little Quinty," Charlie said as he kissed her cheek. "Such the little peacemaker."

  She cuffed him before giving him a kiss.

  "You two want a room?" Bryntana asked.

  "Nah. Maybe later."

  The captain holstered his gun and sat down. "Tayla, Joshua is fine. Now, maybe we can cut the drama and proceed?"

  Tayla gave him and Bryntana one last glare before returning to her seat and resuming their journey in silence.

  A short time later, the truck drove up to a low, squat building unlike any surrounding it.

  "Where the hell's the trench?" Jacob asked.

  "About ten blocks from here," Tayla answered.

  "They why are we stopped here?" Bryntana asked.

  "The BORIS unit's power cell is about a hundred meters below us. I'm also picking up traces of adamantine leading through those doors. Look over at the ground to the left of the doorways."

  He looked, then grabbed a set of binoculars from the overhead rack. He zoomed in. "Drag marks, six of them. Like those left by four tentacles and two legs. Good catch, Sister," he said as he placed a hand on her shoulder. She patted it, the apology given and accepted.

  "How much does that unit weigh?" Bryntana asked.

  "Jenna?"

  "Records indicate four hundred kilos. Joshua and his team didn't make them petite."

  Quint and Charlie racked rounds into their pulse rifles. "We are ready on the firing line, Sir," Quint said.

  "Good. Everyone, grab your gear. It's time we earn our keep. Jenna, go mobile and secure the entrance."

  "Copy that," Jenna replied. They heard her mobile dismount,
then saw her walk over to the entrance. She opened it and looked inside, in her case she scanned the building. Seeing nothing amiss, she gave them a thumbs-up.

  They exited the truck and joined Jenna at the entrance. Jacob looked inside, then pressed a button on his comm unit. A hatch opened on the side of the truck followed by two dozen fist-sized, spider-like robots with translucent-white abdomens. They ran past the team and into the darkness. In a moment, the dark was driven away as the light-bots crawled to the ceiling and activated their illumination units. "Let there be light," Jacob said.

  A stairway led downward into more gloom. Jacob summoned more bots. They streamed past them and down the stairway, activating as they went. Tayla looked at her scanner. "It's down there, still a hundred meters down, reading half-a-click to the northwest. Target is stationary."

  "Anything else down there?" Charlie asked.

  "Readings are inconclusive."

  "Lovely," Quint said as she and Charlie went to a tactical carry of their weapons. The others checked the load status of their weapons and placed them in safety-off.

  "Let's go," Jacob said as he took the lead. Bryntana stopped him. "Uh-uh, big guy. I've got this," she said.

  "Right, you don't need lights," he said, referring to elves' legendary night vision. "Just be damn careful."

  "Of course. I'm always careful."

  ###

  They headed down the stairs into the lower levels. At the bottom of the stairway they found a large pressure seal. Tayla scanned the area beyond and found no sign of danger. The door was sealed with a large key-lock which Quint made short work of using her massive Katalan utility knife. Unlike a lock-pick, the KUK cut through the locking mechanism with only a little effort on Quint's part. The doors opened onto an area of darkness. Already ordered to keep ahead of the group, half the lightbots entered the room, filling it with light, or at least trying to. The room was too big to fill. The light thrown by the bots only covered a small area. "This room stretches out farther than the scanner can reach, say ten miles." Tayla said.

  "I think I've got a light-switch over here," Jenna called out. She pointed to a large switch-like object with a sun symbol above it.

  "Either that or it’s for dispensing sunscreen," Bryntana suggested.

  "Let's assume the former," Jacob said. "Push the button, Jenna."

  Jenna hit the switch, and the room lit up as the overhead lights came on.

  "Wow," Quint said as she looked around. "I've been here before."

  "I don't think so," Bryntana responded.

  "No, Quintie is right, we've been here before. That big military depot on Seque Six. They had everything from alphabet soup to zirconium watch movements."

  Between roof support pillars were crates stacked on platforms, presumably pallets for mechanized movers. Tayla ran a scanner over one of them, then opened it. "A temporal stasis field deactivated just now. Looks like foodstuffs."

  "Some kind of electronics over here," Bryntana said.

  "Guns! Lots of guns," Jacob said as he pulled a nasty looking long gun from a crate.

  "And bullets," Charlie said. He held up an odd-looking bullet. Haven't seen one of these outside a museum."

  Quint took one out and examined it. "Humm a superposed load variation. No one's ever got one of these to work."

  "Sweety, there's thousands of them here," Charlie said. "I think we've stumbled on the mother of all weapons depots."

  "Under a damn city? No one in their right mind would store this much death under a population center filled with civvies," Jacob said. "Jenna, launch a drone and have it scan the ground under the dampening field. I want to see how far this facility extends."

  "Roger dodger, I mean aye, aye, Captain."

  "Jacob, we might have a problem," Tayla said while staring at her scanner. "Three tangos incoming from the north. Energy signatures appeared suddenly." The sound of the door closing behind her followed by the lights going out cut her off. The light-bots came back on, but their coverage was much smaller than the room lights.

  "Time to intercept?"

  "Ten minutes, tops."

  "Jenna, we're over our head. Send out a general distress. Everyone, go scanners up and weapons hot. Quint, try to open that that damn door!"

  "On it, Boss," she said as she ran over and plunged her knife into the seam between door halves.

  "Sir, problems," Jenna reported as she moved a one-ton pallet of crates into place. "We're being jammed. I think Joshua may have heard us."

  "Dammit. Can you raise the truck?"

  "Aye, sir."

  "Unlock it so Joshua can access it. Maybe he can get help."

  "Aye, Captain!" she said as she continued to move pallets to create defensible positions.

  "Boss, that door ain't moving," Quint said

  "Jenna, any idea what we're dealing with?"

  "Three tangos, each about the size of the truck. Unknown power signature. Lots of weapons. No shields."

  "We've caught a break, then," he said, but stopped when they heard a noise from the darkness.

  "We've got company!" Bryntana yelled as a nightmare appeared at the edge of the darkness. "Damn, I hate bugs."

  And what a bug it was. Fifteen feet long not counting the stinger-tipped tail arching over its back, the giant scorpion walked deeper into the pool of light, then stopped as two more joined it. All three stopped as devices along their dorsal surface spun. "We're being scanned," Tayla said as she set her weapon to full power.

  Without warning, the lead scorpion turned its stinger toward Jacob's position, throwing him across the room, meanwhile, the other two took flanking positions, engaging Quint and Charlie, leaving Tayla, Bryntana, and Jenna to deal with the leader.

  "Tayla, go help your brother while Bryntana and I take out the trash," Jenna said as she switched from suit hands to blasters.

  Without argument, Tayla ran over to where Jacob lay and began first aid while the other two faced off with the creature.

  Jenna and Bryntana spread out in an attempt at flanking the beast. "They're robots," Jenna yelled as she moved to its right, but it would have none of that. Impossibly fast, it swung its stinger at Jenna and fired a blast, blowing her mobile to bits. Seeing an opening, Bryntana ran up and tried to fire her weapon into the seam between body segments, but it grabbed her with one of pincers, throwing her to the ground and pinning her while it raised its tail to perform a coup de gras. She struggled, but couldn't break its grip. That's when she heard the sound of a massive weapon going off followed by a piece of scorpion fly past. Before she could fire her weapon, the pressure from the claw released as it lifted off her. That's when she saw Joshua standing there, holding the claw with one hand and the stinger in the other.

  "Kegga mar sh'took!" he yelled as he pushed the giant beast away from the elf. "Ninga morta fal!" The beast stopped, then fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

  Incredulous, Bryntana looked around and first saw the crumpled form of one scorpion lying next to a pile of wreckage, then the rest of the team standing around the unmoving Jacob.

  "Are you injured?" Joshua asked as he reached down to help her up.

  She took his hand while shaking her head. Once on her feet, she called Jenna while the two of them ran over to where Jacob lay. "Jenna, are you OK?"

  "That plarking bug just destroyed my favorite mobile and you're asking if I'm OK? Of course, I'm not OK. I'm pissed off. I'm going to come down there and turn that thing into scrap. I'm..."

  "You're going to calm down, then get back down here. Joshua neutralized the threat."

  "How?"

  "He talked the creatures out of killing us. Get back down here. Bryntana out. How is he?" she asked as she knelt down beside Jacob.

  "I'm fine," the captain said while sitting up. "I've been in worse bar fights."

  "The guards aren't designed to kill, only render unconscious," Joshua explained. His companions were getting used to his strange insights.

  "What about Jenna's mobile?" Tayla
asked as she took the med scanner from the first aid kit and ran it over her brother's body.

  "Would you stop doting? I said I'm fine. So, what about Jenna's mobile?"

  "I don't know, Like I don't know how I learned enough of the Jarrion language to call off the guards, or how I was able to walk through a locked pressure seal. It is as if knowledge is trickling in."

  "You saved my life," Bryn said as she helped Jacob up off the floor. "No one's ever done that before."

  All Joshua could do was look at the floor and blush.

  "I think he saved us all," Quint said. "I emptied Betsy taking out only one of those things," she said while holding up her smoking weapon. "Why all the firepower, I wonder."

  They all looked at Joshua while Tayla walked around and took his arm as if protecting him.

  "Don't look at me. Like I said, I'm getting information in trickles."

  "But how?" Tayla asked.

  "The nanoscopic robots in his DNA," Jenna said while running up in her spare mobile. "The ones in his brain are creating memories from data they're receiving from a nearby source. The other bots are already being absorbed by his system."

  "What nanobots?" Jacob asked.

  Joshua handed him his datapad after bringing up the scan results. "He called me the moment he found them. I figured it was low priority at the time, so I deferred telling you until we got back."

  "You both did fine. Look, I'm sorry about leaving you behind, but I don't like mysteries. I'd like you to stay with us, that is if you feel up to it."

  Tayla squeezed his arm. "No apology required, and yes, I would love to join you. Maybe the answers I seek are with Boris," he replied

  "Then we better get going. Jenna, are we still being jammed?"

  "No. Jamming stopped the moment Joshua spouted that mumbo jumbo. What the hell did you say?"

  "Basically, I told the unit that the emergency was canceled, then I gave it the command to go into standby mode. I think,"

  "You think?" Tayla asked.

  He shrugged. "Yeah. It seemed to work, though."

  "Thank God for that. Jenna, squirt a report back to town. Meanwhile, let's get a move-on. Scanners up. Quint, may I suggest you leave Betsy here? Jenna can send a probe down to retrieve her."