The Slug Invasion

by Matthew Pelly

  Chapter 8 - Super-revelation

  The Human

  "Well then, here we are", I said to the group. The scout ship had just landed with a thud, and we had all just sat around not saying anything for a minute or two. Maybe we were all just feeling lucky that we hadn't been shot out of the sky. "Sooo", I went on. "Are we, like, going to get out or anything?"

  "Yeah, give us a second", complained Matthew. "I'm waiting for this feeling of awesomeness to pass. Which may take some time."

  After another half-a-minute or so, Phill said, "We should go now before the Cyborgs come to investigate."

  "Are they aware of our landing?" asked Boy.

  "The radiowave pollution is likely too great for them to have scanned us", started Phill. "They will only know that we are here if they see us using visible light, or some other electromagnetic frequency."

  "Right then", said Matt, standing up. "Time to go."

  "Hold on a sec", I said. "Can we breathe in PDN's atmosphere? It's not full of carbon monoxide or some other deadly poison, is it?"

  "Wow", Matthew told me. "It would totally suck if we hadn't checked that out beforehand. Which, as luck, or skill, would have it, we did. The point is, PDN has breathable air."

  "Good", I replied. "Is that for some Cyborg reason, or just coincidence? Cause Cyborgs don't need oxygen."

  "As far as I know, it may just be a coincidence", Phill said. "Perhaps this kind of atmosphere is conducive to a Cyborg function we are not aware of."

  There was a short pause. "It's time to leave", Carmen told us. She stood up too, and headed towards the hatchway. It opened before her, but I knew one of the other Slugs must've opened it through their connection with the spike in their dish.

  After Carmen, Phill exited the ship, then Boy, the two random Slugs (we really needed to give them names; two random Slugs was quite derogatory), Frank, Matt, and then me. As I stepped outside, I tried to give a low, appreciative whistle to indicate my awe at what I was seeing and feeling. However, I couldn't whistle, so it sounded like I was just breathing out really hard. Phill gave me a strange look.

  "Where did we land?" I asked, wondering why I wasn't clawing at my throat, trying desperately to get oxygen into my lungs. I also felt lighter than usual, so that must mean that the planet's gravity was less than Earth's. Or, less than Slugenis' - I wasn't sure which one I was used to now.

  "On PDN", Phill told me. "More specifically, on PD-0034:N."

  "Yes, well, I knew that", I said, looking at the landscape. "What I meant was, where on the planet did we land?" I pointed at a nearby metallic structure.

  "It looks to me like we are near one of the entrances to the Cyborgs Archives", stated Boy.

  "That is incorrect", Phill shot him down. "The entire planet of PDN is the Cyborg Archives; the data is stored in a multitude of sites, the majority of which are below-ground. I do not have much more information about PD-0034:N than that, although I would postulate that what we see here is simply an access to a control station of some kind."

  "Oh yeah?" Matt jokingly challenged him. "And how could you possibly know that? Huh?"

  Phill looked at him. "I guessed."

  There was a short pause (as Matthew sniggered to himself), then Frank said, "Well, we should start moving towards it."

  "Yep", I agreed. "You know, I didn't expect PDN to have so much life on it."

  "Just because the planet is under Cyborg control", Phill said, "that doesn't mean it is devoid of organic life."

  We left it at that as we trudged (although the lowered gravity made it easier than usual) towards the structure we were referring to, leaving the scout ship where it had landed.

  I looked up, and was thoroughly disappointed to find some thin, wispy things that I guessed where meant to be clouds. I almost felt insulted.

  We walked through a grassland of sorts, and although it seemed to fit the description that 'grassland' implied, it was very unlike any grassland I had ever imagined. It was mostly dirt ground, heavily cracked, covering a largeish area between our ship and the Cyborg building. And in between each of the cracks on the ground were small, short, thick, moving, strands of grass. Well, I don't know if it was grass - we were, after all, on an alien world - but they seemed close enough to grass for me to call them grass. Apart from the whole moving thing.

  They were all green, and came in varying sizes, most of them about the same size as my little finger. And each one of them was pulsing and rolling all over the place, constrained only by where they sprouted out of the cracks in the ground. Yes, that's right, each individual strand was independently moving of its own accord. It looked like a thousand green fingers pushing up through the parched, dried earth (or was it parched, dried PDN?), each of them wriggling and squirming to try and push more of themselves through.

  I stooped down and pulled one out. Some surprisingly thick and long roots were partially torn from the ground before the green strand ripped and a small gush of water came out over my hand. I shook it off; hopefully I won't get gangrene or something.

  "Is this the freakiest thing you've ever seen or what?" I asked. "Why on Earth are they wriggling like that?"

  "It seems to me", answered Carmen, "that they turn to try and expose as much of themselves as they can to the sunlight. Also, we are not on Earth."

  "That seems a viable explanation", said Phill, ignoring her latter comment. "It is clear that they lack any form of muscles, so they must have some other mechanism by which to gain this mobility."

  "Perhaps by regulating the water flow within them", guessed Boy.

  "However they work", said Frank, "is not our concern. We should continue on."

  As we kept walking, Matt whispered to me, "Someone doesn't care much for nature. Damn intelligent-being supremacist." I smiled to myself.

  Turning around, I saw the two random Slugs walking - or, well, slithering, which is walking for Slugs - behind us. It seemed to me like the two of them were yet to really do anything... Alright, that's it, I've had enough of their non-existent names. From now on, they were... Terry and Kerry. There, done.

  Looking forward, I saw that we were now much closer to the large but low Cyborg metal structure that we were headed towards. Now that we were closer, I could make out more detail. And by that, I mean that I could make out that there was no detail. The metallic exterior seemed to be completely devoid of any markings except numerous hole-windows, and the metal was just a flat grey colour, similar to the colour of the Cyborg ships which had landed on Earth. In other words, it was quite a boring alien construction.

  After a few minutes more of silent hiking, we arrived at the building. It had a large, very wide opening, which was, quite conveniently, open. It looked almost like the entrance to a cave.

  "This cave is not a natural formation", said Matthew. "Someone built it..."

  "Of course someone did", interrupted Boy. "Was there ever any question about whether this was an unnatural structure?"

  "Wow", said Matt. "Thanks for ruining it."

  Boy opened his mouth, but thought better of it and said nothing. Phill was beside me, and I saw him smile.

  "Well then", I said. "Let's go." I took a step forward, and started to enter the hostile Cyborg building. And I felt no inclination to get a final look up at the sky either; those things didn't deserve my attention.

  The Cyborg

  I quickly followed Ethan into the structure; if there was any threats inside, I wanted to make sure he would not be targeted first. I proportioned as much of my processes as I was comfortable with on considering what I was seeing.

  The interior of the supposed control room appeared much as I expected it to. There was a large, open area, spanning approximately 15 metres long by 8 metres wide. The walls of the formation were lined with Cyborg computers and machinery, not bothered to be hidden from view; I could understand how it was never believed that an enemy of the Cyborgs would ever know about this planet, let alone be here. In addition, should any enemy have ever made it here,
they would not be able to access anything without a Cyborg such as me with them.

  Starting from the entrance, the floor sloped gently downwards at a constant gradient, so that at the opposite end of the building, it descended below ground-level. My distance from that descent was too great for me to get a satisfactory view.

  Similar to all Cyborg technology I knew of, the core metal of the structure was simple. Made of the universal Cyborg steel, a light-weight, strong and very slightly flexible material, the walls and floor were uni-colour, flat, and unblemished. At regular short intervals, square, open windows were placed in the walls looking outside. If there was any system to cover both these holes and the entrance in times of planetary rain or high force winds, I could not detect it.

  Approximately 1.3 metres above the floor level, 2 straight, parallel grooves were cut into the walls, each running along and descending with the walls before they disappeared below ground. The purpose of these grooves was not yet known to me.

  The roof of the building was shaped in a pyramidal form, with the apex of the triangular shape slightly above the level of the roof. I found it interesting that, like the Humans, the Cyborgs had utilised a top-facing pyramid to deal with rainwater runoff, while the Slugs had built using an inverse, down-facing pyramid.

  The structure's top was a slight gradient; the angle of the roof was very gentle. This information, coupled with the highly cracked and dry dirt ground outside and the organic plant-life's long roots to extract deep held moisture and large storage of internally-held water, led me to believe that PDN receives little rain. Perhaps this was why the windows did not appear to have any function specifically prepared to keep out heavy precipitation.

  As I pondered this, and deemed the interior to currently contain no threats, Ethan took 3 more steps into the room. "Wow", he said. "This is a bit... empty."

  "Meh", said Matthew, who had also entered. "Cyborgs. What did you expect?"

  "What do you mean by that statement?" I asked him.

  "Oh nothing, nothing at all", he said, smiling at me. If he had meant nothing by the statement, then why did he say the statement? I divined that there was no satisfactory answer to this question, so I refrained from posing it.

  We waited a moment for all of the other Slugs to enter.

  "Well then", said Boy. "Time to do what we came here to do. Phil, can you somehow hook into the Archive database from here?"

  "Let me inspect", I said. I approached one of the first computers lined against the wall of the structure. After a preliminary investigation, I determined that it served some function other than the one I currently desired, so I moved to check the adjacent machine.

  After some time of this, I found what I was looking for; a terminal which appeared to link to some store of data in the Cyborg Archives. "Here we are", I stated to the others. "I will need to open my exterior casing and link my local short-term memory to this station. Once connected, I should be able to upload data to it."

  "Excellent", said Matthew.

  "Umm", queried the Human nervously. "How exactly are we going to 'open your exterior casing'? Do we need a wrench or something? What if we lose some screws?"

  "Ethan", I said seriously, turning to look at him. "It is a marvel that you have travelled with us so long, and yet know so little about either the Slugs or the Cyborgs." Boy gave a laugh at this statement, although I did not intend it to be humorous.

  I continued, "Cyborgs are constructed of modular parts, each of which clips together using various inbuilt locking mechanisms; there are no external structural devices, such as screws or nails, holding us together."

  "Except maybe glue", commented Matt.

  "No", I quickly corrected him, not wishing to give Ethan a misrepresentation. "We are not held together by glue." I looked at Matthew, hoping to convey to him to not interrupt me with false information, lest we confuse the Human any more than he was likely to be.

  "So", I went on, "When I wish to open up or detach certain parts of myself, as I did when I was repaired from my damage sustained during our defence of Earth, and as I will do now, I simply send a command to the appropriate locking mechanisms to unlock. They remove the tension holding my various pieces together, and those parts can be simply manually detached."

  "Ah", Ethan said. "That makes more sense. Although, that doesn't stop it from being weird."

  Carmen told him, "It seems to me that everything you hear or see that isn't from Earth you say is weird."

  "I suppose", he shrugged. "Must be a Human thing."

  "Right. So then, Phil", said Boy, looking at me. "Go ahead."

  "Of course", I replied. "Remember, every Cyborg's vital internal components are placed at random points inside their body. It just so happens that my memory is located in my head, in a chance mimicry of a Human."

  "Yeah, but your CPU isn't there", Matthew said. "So, where is it, then?"

  I paused for a second. "I'll keep that my little secret", I smiled at him. He smiled back, and I sensed that he let it slide. Did he know the real reason I didn't want to tell him? That, even though I knew he would never do it, I was scared at how easily he could defeat and kill me if he wanted to?

  Regardless, I unlocked the back part of the metal making up my head. The back of my 'skull' was now unclamped, and I reached back and, detaching it, handed it to Carmen. Despite my explanation, Ethan gasped at this. Did he expect me to bleed? Only if my coolant or other liquid-transportation tubes were ruptured would I leak the grey fluid he was used to seeing from injured Cyborgs.

  A cable ending in a Cyborg universal plug ran from the terminal I was currently in front of; although Matthew had enhanced my on-board long-term memory, he had luckily left my short-term memory and Cyborg input plugs intact. This meant that I could still access this station.

  Pulling the cable towards me, I took an audible breath to communicate to the others that I was about to proceed. If any had objections, they should inform me of them now. No one said anything, however, which I took for a confirmation of my actions. I plugged the cable into my local memory, granting myself access to the Cyborg Archives.

  The Human

  When Phill shoved the plug into the back of his head, I half expected him to convulse with electricity or something. But it turned out to be quite safe. Well, safe for a robot at least. I sure wouldn't want that thing in my head.

  He stood there for a bit, facing away from us, so I couldn't tell if he closed his eyes like Matthew did while he was taking in Slug communications. After a minute of this, I asked, "Well? Find anything?"

  He responded, "Of course I found something, otherwise I would have disconnected by now."

  "What he means", Frank said, "is did you find anything important?"

  "Yes", Phill replied.

  I didn't even bother waiting for him to not say anything else when I said, "And what did you find?"

  "I was about to relay that, before you interrupted me", Phill said. I heard Matt laugh to himself behind me.

  "So can you relay that now?" asked Frank, when Phill didn't go on.

  "Of course."

  I sighed. "You think this is pretty funny, don't you Phill?"

  "Actually yes", he replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Although I think that Matthew finds it funnier." I turned around, and, sure enough, Matthew was fighting to hold back laughter.

  "It seems we've had enough of this now", the Cyborg said. "Unfortunately, this terminal is not a true part of the Archives; it contains only static data, and does not upload any new signals from any Cyborgs. However, it contains information about the layout and function of PD-0034:N."

  He stopped talking for a second. "Well?" I prompted him.

  "Are you always this impatient?" he asked.

  "Not usually", I answered, "but when we're on a hostile alien planet, yeah, I can get pretty impatient."

  "Very well", he replied, and went on. "I have just discovered the explanation for what happened outside the planet's physical influence. T
here is a large amount of radiowave radiation travelling to and from the planet, as I previously explained. However, the vast majority of this is in the space on one side of the planet.

  "The Archive signals come from all Cyborg units. Therefore, wherever Cyborgs are most abundant, that direction will have a proportionately greater amount of incoming signals compared to other directions. As PDN is near the outskirts of the Cyborgs' major territory, this means that one side of the planet, the side facing the majority of Cyborg space, is receiving a much higher amount of radiation, relative to the other side."

  He stopped for a bit. "Ethan, do you follow?"

  "Yeah", I answered, although I didn't know why he signalled me out. Didn't he consider that perhaps Boy didn't follow?

  In either case, Phill continued. "An outcome of this is that the majority of the Cyborgs' defences for PDN are kept on the side of the planet opposite this greater amount of radiation, in order to reduce the occurrence of distortions and interference. We attacked the side of PDN that most of the signals come from."

  "Ahh", Matthew said. "So that's why there seemed so little resistance at first, and why such a large force attacked from the opposite side of the world."

  "Correct", Phill said. "In addition to this information, I also have access to the overall layout of the planet's surface and subterranean levels. This building is a transportation hub, one of many all over the planet. The floor we are currently standing on is actually a track, for what I assume is some sort of Cyborg ground vehicle. This is strange; I don't know of any other mobile planetary surface transportation devices that Cyborgs use.

  "This floor leads into an underground network where all of the other tracks interface together; the Cyborgs must use these to traverse the planet, since the large amounts of radiation makes remote communications infeasible."

  "Sounds good to me", Matthew said. "So where do we go to get to a proper Archive terminal? You know, so we can actually do what we came here to do?"

  "Based on the schematics I am currently accessing", Phill answered him, "these direct outputs from the Archive databases are in numerous places all over PDN." He reached up and pulled the plug out of the back of his head. "We need merely follow this underground track, and it should lead us to what we seek."

  "Cool", Matt said.

  I told the Cyborg, "Hey, do you need help putting yourself back together?"

  He looked at me. "I disengaged my parts without your assistance, so I can put it back likewise." Well, a simple 'No, thank you' would have sufficed there.

  We all stood around for a few seconds while Phill reattached the back of his head. If this 'inbuilt locking mechanism' he spoke of made any sounds, I couldn't hear it.

  When he was ready, I said to the group, "Right then, ready to go?"

  "Indeed", replied Boy, and we set off.

  As Phill had told us, the downward-sloping floor of the Cyborg structure did keep going down until we were quite below ground-level. It seemed a bit unnecessary to me - why not just build all of this roadwork on the surface? Well, I suppose the Cyborgs had a good reason for it. They wouldn't have wasted the resources to construct it otherwise.

  We had just entered what looked like the main transport passageway, where the road began to join up with some others, when we heard some running footsteps coming from one of the other roads.

  "Hide!" whispered Carmen.

  "There is nowhere to visually conceal us", Phill said, and he was right; the roads ran in straight, flat, rectangular lines, and there were no crevasses or grooves big enough for us to get into. Well, I don't know about the Slugs, but IIII IIIcouldn't fit into those tiny straight wedges cut into the sides of the walls.

  "Ethan", Matt told him. "Get behind us. You too, Phill."

  "Sure thing", I easily replied, and put the body of Slugs between myself and the approaching noise. As Phill moved to join me, I saw that both Terry and Kerry (those two unknown Slugs) were pressed up close with the other Slugs. That was the first time I'd seen them actually integrating in any way with our group, although they were still in the basic Slug form, that weird one with the no legs and three hands.

  "Here we go", said Boy.

  "The first resistance", Frank commented.

  "What, you mean after the epic space battle we went through to get in here?" Matthew asked.

  "Yeah", Frank replied. "Exactly."

  Boy laughed at this. At least, he was laughing until the forms that were making the noise turned the corner from the road they were on and came into our view. I didn't blame Boy for ceasing his laughter; I wouldn't be surprised if my heart stopped beating for a few seconds. Although, on second thought, I'd probably collapse on the ground if that happened, so it was quite fortunate that it didn't stop beating.

  Firstly, there were three Cyborgs, each what we were used to. They were clothes-less, a basic humanoid form, lacked any real features, and were a sickly shade of grey. Blah, blah, alien machines, seen it all before. It was the one in the middle that drew our attention.

  Now, first up, this fourth one was taller than the others. In fact, if memory served me well (which it seldom did; memory seemed to be a pretty poor servant most of the time), it was pretty much the exact height of Rabadootime. That was point one. The second point was that its skin was quite close to a human colour, closer than the others at least, which was pretty weird. Thirdly, its face was much more human-like - it actually had a distinctive nose, cheeks, ears and eyes, and even some kind of hair, unlike the others who were bald and whose faces looked like a shaped piece of metal.

  And finally came the thing that, on top of all of this unexpectedness, was actually very unexpected. The Cyborg, whom I'd already guessed was the leader of PDN, said to us, "Greetings."

  The Slug

  Wow. Sure didn't see that one coming.

  'What did you say?' Ethan near gasped behind me. So much for keeping him concealed; sometimes I think that he just can't help himself.

  'Greetings', the Cyborg repeated.

  There was a long pause. 'OK now, this is beyond weird', Ethan huffed, seeming to resign himself to the fact that he had no idea what was going on. Neither did I, for that matter.

  'How is it that you can speak our language?' asked Frank to the thing. Like normal Cyborgs the other three flanking it had not made any sound or movement; it was only this larger one that appeared to be the leader that was strange.

  'Of course!' Phill said loudly, which was strange in its own right. 'When the Cyborgs that attacked Earth had learned to speak English, everything they had experienced went through the network to the Cyborg Archives!'

  'And because we've been travelling all over the place', I slowly continued for him, 'the radio-waves have had time to travel all the way through space and have been saved here. And he's learned from that.'

  'Oh', Ethan said after a short pause. 'So that's how he can speak. I suppose that that makes more sense now.'

  The Cyborg leader - the one who was a slob - spoke again. 'What do you know of the Cyborg called "Raba".'

  'Huh?' I asked, not yet registering the fact that it too spoke questions without their proper inflections. 'Where did you get Raba from? His full name is Rabadootime.'

  'Umm', Ethan said sheepishly. 'I might've called him Raba once, and I don't think we'd ever called him his full name to his face.'

  'You did?' I asked him incredulously.

  'Uhhh', he answered, half looking down now. 'I might've. I can't remember that well.'

  'Well that's just great', I sighed. 'Now the entire Cyborg Archives has him listed under some dumb name.'

  'And Rabadootime isn't dumb?' asked Boy. I gave him a look that said "don't mess with my names", and he quickly looked away. That showed him.

  'Anyway', I tried to get back to business. 'As for you, Slob - '

  'Wait, so he's "Slob" now?' asked Carmen.

  'Yeah, why not?' I asked her. Speaking to the leader, I said, 'So you can log that - your designation is now Slob.' The Cyborg didn't s
ay anything, so I went on. 'And we're going to have to ask you to step aside. You see, we've got places to go, people to see, that kind of thing.'

  Still Slob said nothing. One of us might've put up some complaint against his new name, but I wasn't paying attention.

  From behind me, Phill leaned close to my ear. 'There are only four of them against the eight of us. They won't attack right now, but are likely considering how they can call for assistance.'

  'Hmmm', I said to myself. Because I was pressed against Boy on my left and Carmen on my right, I could converse with them; but due to either unfair favouritism or old habits, I was discussing the situation only with Boy. We both agreed that it would be unwise to allow these Cyborgs to escape, and I for one was interested in finding out why this Slob looked so much like a Human.

  We also thought that it was quite strange indeed that a Cyborg had gone out of its way to learn English; I, also for one, could see no point to it, considering that most of them didn't need physical speech to communicate. Although, it could be handy for the Cyborgs on PDN to be able to talk, since they couldn't use radios to stay in contact. So Human speech must be superior to whatever previous system they had set up to converse. That didn't surprise me at all.

  It was while Boy and I were discussing this through our slime connection that something happened. Not to say that stuff wasn't happening the entire time; actually, lots of things were happening. But something important happened. Slob said something garbled, something along the lines of "Garble". A split-second later, all four of them just sprinted off, in three separate directions. Two of the random Cyborgs had gone different ways, while Slob and the third took their own path.

  'Well', Boy said out loud as we watched them leave. 'Now what?'

  'Should we split up and follow all of them?' asked Carmen.

  'Wow, wow, wow', I quickly intervened. 'That is a bad idea. Trust me on this; when in hostile and unknown territory, you never, ever split up.'

  'Well, we should all just follow the direction that Slob went in', put in Ethan.

  'I mean', I went on, not yet finished. 'Why would anyone want to split up at a time like this? Who could possibly think that that is a good idea?'

  'I do not believe following Slob is wise', commented Phill, ignoring me, 'but I do not see any course that is.'

  'Let's go then', said Frank, and he started to walk towards the same path that Slob ran off down.

  'Seriously?' I said. 'Split up? No way!'

  'How do you reckon they found us?' Ethan questioned, as if I hadn't said anything.

  'Probably they had some system to see when someone logs into their system', Phill responded. 'When I performed an unscheduled interface with that terminal, they knew that there was an intruder. They would also have known, due to Rabadootime's upload to the Archives of everything that happened at Earth, that there was a traitor Cyborg among the Slugs. It seems that they underestimated how many Slugs would be with me, however.'

  'You're not a traitor, Phill', Boy said. 'You're a... reformist.'

  'It was lucky they underestimated us', said Ethan. 'Otherwise they'd have sent a much larger force.'

  'Lucky, perhaps', I said softly. Then loudly, 'Or was it skilful?!'

  'Actually, I believe that skill had nothing to do with it', Frank told me.

  'Fine then, be like that', I sniffed. 'That's something I expect Phill to say.'

  'I likely would have said it, had Frank not beat me to the punch.'

  'But neither you nor Frank punched anyone', Boy said confusingly.

  'Honestly Boy', I began, 'how is it that Phill knows these sayings but you don't?'

  Phill smiled. 'I listened to a radio for a long time which gave me a thorough understanding of the Human race and their absurd sayings.'

  'You know guys', Ethan said, 'perhaps we shouldn't be talking about random stuff like this when we're on the enemy planet, probably being tracked by a host of Cyborgs intent on killing us.'

  'Well then', I told him. 'It's a good thing nobody listens to you.'

  'I listen to him', Phill said.

  'Hah!' Ethan shouted. 'There you go, Phill agrees with me!'

  'I didn't say that I agreed, just that I listened', the Cyborg informed him.

  'And now you're also talking about random stuff', I smiled at Ethan. 'Mission accomplished.'

  'Actually', Frank said, 'our mission is far from being accomplished.' Way to ruin the mood. Although the mood wasn't really ruined; it would be very difficult to actually disintegrate a general emotion from a group of people. I mean, I wouldn't even know where to begin to try and do that. But perhaps now wasn't the time to try and figure it out.

  The Human

  After a few minutes of following the path that Slob and one of his guys had run down, we kept following it. And the reason we kept following it was because nothing happened. I mean, we were just semi-non-aggressively ambushed by the enemy, and they ran off in what looked like an obvious trap, but they hadn't done anything yet. I would've been disappointed about the dullness of it all, but my life was kinda on the line. Not that that made me feel better about all of this walking.

  "Ahh, this is taking so long!" I complained. "When is something going to happen?"

  "Would you like for us to get attacked?" asked Phill.

  "I guess so", I said. "I figure that if we get attacked now, we can defeat them now and so not have to defeat them later."

  "Unless they defeat us", Frank said.

  "Pfft", added Matt. "You guys have me. No one's going to defeat us."

  There was a pause. "That is an accurate assumption to make", Phill stated.

  Matthew laughed. "It was a joke. No need to get all, 'We know you're awesome, please share your awesomeness'."

  "No one said that", Boy stated.

  "And I don't think that 'awesomeness' is a word", I added.

  "No", Matt countered, "it totally is. Look, Phill, use your spell check on it."

  The Cyborg didn't respond, but he did give the Slug a dirty look.

  We walked in silence for another few minutes. This tunnel thing that we were walking down was the most nondescript tunnel I'd ever seen. Not that I'd been in a lot of tunnels back on Earth (heh, I just said 'back on Earth'), but I imagined that they would be way more interesting than this. The ground was flat and straight. The roof was flat and straight. Oh, and yeah, the walls were flat and straight, apart from those two long, thin grooves running along each of them at about my stomach level. Apart from those though, the flat, mono-coloured steel and boring architecture with absolutely no design considerations made for very boring travelling.

  Eventually, we came to a four-way, cross intersection. "Hmm", I said. "Well, I vote right."

  "Why do you vote that?" Carmen asked me.

  "Just a random guess", I shrugged.

  The Slug looked horrified. "You would guide us down a potentially lethal direction based solely on a 'random guess'?"

  "Well", I said, feeling a bit bad about it now, "it was just a vote, not a decision."

  "Do you have a better idea?" Boy asked Carmen, defending me. Either that, or he just disregarded my guess, and wanted a real opinion.

  "I would say straight", Matthew suggested. "It seems to me that that seems more likely to seem to lead to the surface. Seemingly, that is."

  "Oh yeah?", I asked. "And how would you know that? It wasn't just a random guess, was it?"

  "No", he defended himself. "I have like a mental image of these corridors in my head..."

  "You cannot have such a mental image", Phill interrupted him. "Only I interfaced with the terminal, and I was unable to access a map of these networked tunnels."

  Matthew said, "Well, my mental map is based more on how I think this place ought to be laid out."

  "You can't just assume that!" I complained. "This world was designed by Cyborgs! They think differently than you do."

  "Everyone thinks differently than he does", Phill commented.

  "What?" Matt asked, flab
bergasted but half laughing. "Was... Was that an insulting joke you just hurled at me, Phill?"

  "It could be construed as that", the Cyborg smiled. "Or as the truth. As the humans rightly say, every individual is unique."

  "Heh. Well, in either case, you're right, because, as I previously stated, no one is as awesome as me." Matthew looked back at the intersection. "In the absence of a better idea, I'm going straight."

  He started to walk, and, of course, we all followed him. I huffed to myself. "I wanted to go right, but noooo, no one else wants to go right."

  "Fine, we'll go right", Matthew gave in, and started to turn.

  It was then that I imagined the massive horde of Cyborgs and the host of various torture devices undoubtedly waiting for us down the right path, and the looks that everyone would give me when we inevitably encountered them. "Wait!" I quickly said. "I was kidding. Let's go straight."

  Matt gave me a strange look, but Frank was already moving ahead, so he didn't say anything. After another bit of this walking, we came to another identical intersection.

  "Straight", Matthew quickly said. "Called it. Too late now."

  "You can't risk out lives by basing a decision on whoever 'called it' first!" Carmen complained.

  "I agree", Phill said. "The first decision made is likely the rashest decision made."

  "Well, guess what, you scaredy-cat and wisdom-spouter", Matthew said. "We're going straight. And you wanna know why? Cause I said so, that's why. Oh yeah."

  As we started to follow him, Boy quietly asked me, "Why did he call Carmen a cat?"

  "Uhh, it's a saying", I said. "It means that someone is scared."

  "I wasn't aware that cats were a species known for being scared."

  "What you are trying to say", Phill told him, obviously having overheard us, "is that humans are universally irrational and constantly quote sayings that either do not make sense or are obsolete to their current state of development."

  "Come on, Phill", I said. "Say it. Just say it, I know you want to." He looked at me. "Come on", I urged him.

  Just as I was beginning to think that he didn't know what I meant, and was starting to feel like a bit of an idiot, he said, "Organics. What do you expect?"

  "There we go", I said, relieved that I didn't end up looking stupid.

  "Are you guys done?" Matt asked from ahead of us. I just noticed then that he, Carmen and Frank were walking ahead of us, with Terry and Kerry in between. Pretty soon, I'd go up to those two and make them talk.

  "We would probably keep talking if you stop interrupting us", Boy said.

  "I interrupted you, like, once", Matthew complained. "Sheesh." He turned back to look forwards again.

  "He's just jealous because he's not in the cool group", I said wisely.

  "Are you implying that we're not the cool group?" Carmen asked back to us. We reached another four-way intersection, but kept going straight without hesitation or debate.

  "No", Phill said back.

  "Yeah", Boy continued. "He didn't imply it, he said that you weren't the cool group!"

  "Boo-yah!" I said, and raised my hand to give Boy a high-five. He looked at my outstretched hand confusedly, and then grasped it with his own and shook it.

  "Come on!" Matthew complained, who was walking backwards, watching us. "You've seen Ethan and me high-five plenty of times, you definitely know what to do in that kind of situation."

  "I wasn't sure if it was only an action performed by close friends", Boy admitted.

  "Oh, so I see how it is", I feigned insult. "I'm not a close friend of yours. Fine then, be like that."

  "No, that's not what I..." Boy began, but he was interrupted by Frank.

  "Look!" he said loudly, causing us all to quickly look. Ahead of us, the path had started to slope upwards, and looking down it, I could see it go through a hole in the roof of the tunnel, back to the surface.

  "Aha!" shouted Matt. "I was right - going straight never fails!"

  "Unless you are running at someone who has a gun", I said.

  "Or firing an arrow from a far distance", Carmen added, although I had no idea where she'd pulled that one from, or if it was even relevant.

  "Sure, sure", Matthew said, brushing it off. "We'll discuss how right I was later. You know, cause I was right?" He smirked to himself. "In either case, let's go up here now and see what awaits us."

  The Slug

  As we emerged into the Cyborg building that the Cyborg road had led us to on this Cyborg planet, my first impression was, "this is a Cyborg building." And my first impression was completely correct.

  It looked similar to the original building that we had entered the tunnels in, which wasn't really surprising since we couldn't have walked that far. For one thing, it seemed to be exactly the same size, something which did not surprise me at all.

  But there were a few differences. The main change from the first one was that there was a lot more Cyborg machinery lining the walls of this one, which straightaway indicated that this was a technological kind of place. On a technological kind of planet. And on top of that, there were cables everywhere, much more than the brightly-coloured exposed cables in star cruisers, which even I thought were a bit excessive.

  Phill and Frank strode right in without any regard for dangers that might be present; not that I'd acted any differently since we landed here. I figured we could handle anything that threatened Ethan's safety anyway, so we should be alright.

  'I am connecting', Phill stated, and started to detach the metal plate on the back of his head again, where his memory was located. Stupid Cyborgs and their random locations. I'd asked Phill several times where his CPU was located, but he had always evaded the question. Probably wanted something about him to remain a mystery; he'd given everything else up to assist us. Well, his sacrifice of information wouldn't be forgotten. Not in my lifetime, at least. Which I planned to extend as long as possible.

  'So now we wait again', Ethan said.

  'It appears so', Boy consoled him. Those two seemed to be getting quite close. My best Slug friend and my best Human friend; hopefully they could see in each other why I liked them both so much. Boy was a great warrior who, despite following the Honour code, never lost sight of its purpose, and Ethan was always willing to accept others, no matter how different they might be, and never let an unfavourable situation slow him down. I honestly believed I would never find better friends from either of their races.

  Oh, and Phill was my best Cyborg friend. Can't forget him.

  'I have access', Phill said.

  'What's the go?' I asked.

  'You mean', Boy corrected me, 'what information can you access?'

  'Same, same', I said. 'Just answer the damn question.'

  'No need to be rude about it', Ethan told me indignantly. 'You gotta be patient with Phill.'

  'Fine', I said. 'Phill, can you please tell us what you have access to?'

  The Cyborg replied, 'I was waiting for you to finish conversing before I commenced.'

  When it was clear that we were done, Phill began. 'Fortunately, this is a true output terminal of the Archives, which means I can access all of the information stored within a reasonable distance from here. I hypothesised this from the large amount of external cables inside this structure.'

  'What do you mean by "output terminal"?' Frank asked.

  'I mean', Phill clarified, 'that I can access the information available to this terminal, but I can't edit this information in any way. I would speculate that there are other input terminals where I would be able to modify the stored information.'

  'OK then, what can you read off of that?' I asked, hoping it would be something useful.

  'Something extremely useful.' Perfect. 'This...' the Cyborg paused, thinking about how to phrase something. 'This explains some inconsistencies in events that have previously transpired. It... It's quite revealing.'

  'OK, now', Ethan complained, 'that's just mean. Stop talking about how important it is, and just tell us!'<
br />
  'Of course', Phill complied, and started to explain. 'The information I am accessing now relates to several areas of space, and the uploaded information via the network from every Cyborg from those areas. One of these areas is Rabadootime's area.'

  I heard an intake of breath, but was too engrossed to pay attention to who did it.

  The Cyborg went on. 'I now have access to every sense recorded by Rabadootime and all Cyborgs under his leadership. The first enemy Cyborg that attacked Matthew' - that was me - 'the one with the sword, was a mining scouter, as we suspected. Its report, which I am interpreting now, shows that it updated Earth's classification to a level-five planet.'

  'Aha!' shouted Ethan. 'So we're not level-four anymore!'

  'Correct', Phill stated. 'However, that is not the important bit.' He turned to look straight at me, and it would've been hard to keep a straight face due to the cable sticking out the back of his head if I wasn't so good at stopping my body from reflecting my emotions.

  'What is it?' asked Boy, fascinated. I concurred, with both his question and his fascination.

  Seeming to enjoy being the centre of attention - although I really had no idea if he was enjoying it or not - Phill went on. 'The assassin ship that came to Earth so soon after Boy, Frank, Carmen, Rosetta, Jason and William arrived - it wasn't an initial miner, as you previously suspected. It came much too soon, and an ordinary initial miner would not contain Rabadootime, the closest area's leader.

  'No, it was already practically arriving at Earth at the time the Slugs arrived, on a special kind of mission, one that needed a small number of non-hostile Cyborgs with a relatively non-weaponised spacecraft.'

  'And that mission was?' asked Carmen.

  Phill simply replied with, 'Diplomacy.'

  I sensed something big coming up with that somewhat big word, so I said, 'Get ready for the revelation.'

  'Are you ready?' Phill asked. Ethan nodded vigorously, and the Cyborg took that as an incentive to keep explaining. 'Rabadootime came in that ship, not to attack us, or hunt us down, or do anything that could be viewed as provoking. They came to broker an alliance with Earth.'

  Not pausing to let us consider this, Phill continued, 'According to this Archive information I am interpreting, which is naturally completely accurate, Rabadootime feared the progress of Earth's development. As the closest leader, dealing with the planet and its inhabitants was his responsibility, and so he chose the optimal way to deal with the issue.

  'He judged that to leave the planet to its own devices would prove catastrophic, as it was nearest to Slug territory, and an organic race, and therefore likely to eventually join up with the Cyborgs' enemy. He concluded that to attack the planet may prove foolhardy; the progression between the final stages of the level scale occurs exponentially faster than the transitions between the first few stages. Therefore, the only option left was to try and befriend the Humans, before the Slugs could. This was the best way to deal with the situation, and, if successful, could give the Cyborgs a major advantage in the war.'

  'Wow', I breathed, before Phill continued. He seemed to have no inclination to give us time to process this.

  'The ship therefore set out for Earth, small enough to avoid any unnecessary attention from the Slugs, although as we know, the Slug's scanners still detected them and hence warned us of their approach. They chose not to utilise a stealth ship because they wished to withhold as much technology from the Humans as possible, should their plan not work. For this same reason, their ship was much less advanced than a normal ship Slugs would expect to face.

  'In a gesture of peace, the primary message Rabadootime wished to convey, few Cyborgs accompanied him, their ship was totally bereft of weaponry, and they made no hostile actions against the planet. If an unfavourable situation arose, they would simply flee and send for a larger fleet.

  'Then they received the signal from the mining scouter that there was at least one Slug on Earth, and that it was capable of combat. A fact that has not changed.' Hah. I just got a complement from a robot. Assuming that he was talking about me. I'm pretty sure he was talking about me.

  But Phill went on. 'They then knew that the Slugs got there first. Of course, using our knowledge, they were wrong; you were on Earth for twenty years without making any move towards peace, but they could not interpret it any other way. There was no time to send back for reinforcements to attack Earth. One small ship alone wasn't enough to attack the newly-updated level-five planet, and their ship had no weapons in either case. The only option remaining to them was to directly attack the Slugs' presence, and try to eradicate them before they made any significant foothold in the diplomatic proceedings.'

  'And so they landed and attacked us?' Ethan finished.

  'Precisely', Phill confirmed. 'We had misinterpreted the entire range of events.'

  "Misinterpreted" was right. I had no idea that the Cyborgs would ever consider allying themselves with another race, let alone an organic one. Surely they didn't honestly intend to join up with the Humans; it must have been just a ploy, a way to examine their capabilities before deciding whether or not to wipe them out. Yes, there was no way the Cyborgs would ally with an organic species. If they could, if the possibility existed, then there was only one thing holding them back from allying with the Slugs. Only one thing.

  Communication. With no way to communicate with each other, the Slugs and Cyborgs have always been locked in a perpetual war, neither side understanding the other. Indeed, Boy, Frank, Carmen, Rosetta and myself knew more about the Cyborgs than any Slug ever had, and Phill knew more about the Slugs than any Cyborg ever had. Lack of communication led to a gross lack of understanding, and therefore a gross lack of tolerance.

  But Earth had changed that; the Humans had changed that, as they always seem to do. By using a verbal speech system, one that both Slugs and Cyborgs are capable of using, they provided our two races with a way to communicate, to talk things over. I'd left an envoy of Slugs on Earth, to fully learn the language and then spread it back to Slugenis. Thanks to Rabadootime and proven by Slob, the Cyborg Archives now contained complete instructions for how to speak English, meaning that every Cyborg was now capable of learning it. The communication divide would soon be abolished.

  But without this divide, this fundamental difference that keep the Slugs and Cyborgs apart and hating each other, there was a good possibility that the war would eventually end. Rabadootime had proven this when he had so much as entertained the notion of befriending the Humans. Indeed, it would only be a matter of time before the Slugs and Cyborgs got to talking, and a matter of time thereafter before they got to friendly talking and then negotiations.

  The war could not last long under such circumstances. And without the war, the Slug Empire would collapse; every Slugs' unjustifiable lust for Honour would now have no outlet, there'd be no way for a Slug to die whilst following the rules.

  Our entire society was built around war, a never-ending war; if that war were to end, we would be finished. The Cyborgs would have beaten us through friendship and diplomacy.

  There was no option for it then. Perhaps I couldn't stop this catastrophe from occurring, but I could perhaps prolong it. All that I needed to do was make sure that the part of the Cyborg Archives that stored the English language was completely destroyed, and Slob too, and Rabadootime, and any other Cyborg that could speak other than Phill.

  Only this would prevent a peace between us, and prevent the destruction of the Slug Empire. There was no other option for it.

  The Cyborg

  "And so they landed and attacked us?" Ethan completed my explanation.

  I confirmed it. "Precisely. We had misinterpreted the entire range of events."

  There was no speech for approximately 18 seconds, and I utilised this time to disconnect myself from the Cyborg Archives and contemplate what I had just discovered.

  I considered;

  Rabadootime's original intention was to make an alliance with Earth. That allianc
e's assumed temporary nature and the Cyborgs only attempting it as a last resort was irrelevant; they had fully considered, and then tried, allying themselves with the Humans, an organic race. Never had I heard of such a consideration for any Cyborg other than myself. I doubted that every Cyborg would come to the same conclusion.

  It seemed to me that to leave the Humans alone would have been the optimal option; they would have no incentive to fight in a war that was not their own. Of course, this is assuming that I did not know about their fighting spirit, weaponry, and trading entrepreneurship, and that I was the Cyborg I used to be.

  However, every Cyborg is different. To the Slugs, and people like Ethan, each Cyborg must seem remarkably identical, different in no meaningful way. This is simply a manifestation of their inability to speak a Human language and their lack of physical non-verbal communication; because they make no outward indications of uniqueness, they are marked as similar and identical.

  This is an understandable but foolish assumption. I considered the two Slugs that had accompanied us, the ones that are not a part of our original group. To me, and probably to Ethan, they were 'normal' Slugs, completely standardised and not dissimilar from any other ordinary Slug. Of course, the Slugs of our group knew better. While a mere lack of communication creates this perception in Ethan and myself, Matthew, Boy, Carmen, Frank, and any other Slugs who had communicated with both of those two Slugs knew that they were individuals, each with their own ideas, dreams, skills, perceptions, and knowledge. Although I concede that Slug Honour may hamper the individuality of each Slug's ideas and dreams, the concept is no less valid.

  Cyborgs were no different. Each one of us was a self-contained, fully functioning intelligence. Although we shared senses and other data with each other and through the network, that does not mean we will all come to identical conclusions given identical data. We each have our own way of thinking, our own way of being; such is the nature of a sentient being. Were this not the case, we would become entirely predictable, presenting no new ideas or thoughts, and therefore become defeatable in the war. We would not be a true form of intelligent life.

  Perhaps this was how the Cyborgs had adapted to survive this war? By each of us having an individual personality, albeit constrained by our hatred of Slugs, we are able to fight and strategise effectively and less predictably. This in contrast to the Slugs' social evolution, the crafting of an Honour system that circumvents the basic organic fear of death, a fear that Cyborgs do not share. Except for me, that is.

  So, given the available data, Rabadootime had chosen to attempt a friendly relationship with the Humans. Slob had chosen to learn the English language, to fashion himself in an imitation of Human appearance, and even attempted to communicate with us, asking us what we knew of Rabadootime. Clearly, these two Cyborgs were somehow linked, but the consideration of that lacked sufficient evidence, and so would prove fruitless.

  In conclusion, I knew that Rabadootime was predisposed to parley with organics, and Slob was predisposed to learn their language. What I didn't know was if any other Cyborgs would ever do such a thing. Facing the total lack of any substantiation, I had to assume that they were the only Cyborgs that would come to that conclusion; assuming that there were others may prove disastrous.

  Therefore, the only way for there to ever be a peace between the Slugs and Cyborgs was if both Rabadootime and Slob survived, preferably if they were together. This would give the Cyborgs the best possible chance to consider an alliance between themselves and their enemies, to come to the realisation that it was for the benefit of all, and then to attempt such an alliance. The Cyborgs would stop needlessly hating a race I could clearly see did not need to be hated. The Slugs could stop throwing their lives away for an unnecessary war against a species they do not understand. The Humans need not be drawn in a war they have no part nor interest in, yet have already taken a side in. This was the optimal outcome for all parties involved.

  "Well then", Boy spoke, breaking my reverie. Looking at Matthew's startled jump, I saw that he was in deep considerations also. Did he come to the same conclusion as me? Based on the tendency of organics to be highly irrational, I refrained from making any assumptions.

  "That was..." Ethan began, trying to think of a word. "Interesting."

  "Indeed it was", I said. "The knowledge of this opens up a range of entirely unforeseen possibilities."

  "Indeed it does", Matt said, but he did not sound very enthusiastic about the concept. "In either case, we should keep moving. We've discovered what we came here to find out, now we need to head back to the scout ship we landed in."

  "And thanks to your genius", Ethan told him, "we know exactly how to get there. Just keep going straight."

  "Sounds like a plan", Carmen said, a very obviously Human phrase. It actually sounded like a serious of short, differently pitched noises which Carmen's brain interpreted as words, and then interpreted as a plan. I judged this an irrelevant concept to verbalise, however.

  As the group started to move, the two Slugs had not yet started to follow us. Likely they waited to join the end of the group; they seemed to prefer constant contact with each other than with any other, and I noticed they stayed far away from me. That would change in the future.

  "Come on Terry and Kerry", Ethan said.

  "Terry and Kerry?" asked Boy.

  The Human looked embarrassed. "I, uhh, kind of named them that."

  Boy laughed at this statement. Looking at the two Slugs, who had now started to follow us back down into PDN's underground labyrinth, I concluded that Human visual sight could not differentiate between the two. I asked Ethan, "How do you know which one is Terry, and which one is Kerry?"

  "Well, about that", he answered. "I just name Terry as the one which is closest to me, and Kerry as the other one, since I can't really tell them apart."

  This confused me. Was not a name a unique identifier of a particular person, place, or thing? One's designation would lose all meaning if it ceased to be exclusive to them. However, I judged that Ethan knew this, and was using his irregular name-switching to communicate to the Slugs that they should alter their forms to make themselves recognisable as an individual. If they received this hidden message, they made no indication of it.

  "Terry and Kerry", Matthew loudly muttered from the front of our group. "What boring, ordinary names."

  "Phil is an ordinary name", Ethan countered.

  "Yes, but it's not boring", Matt said back. "Hah."

  Now walking beside me and Carmen, Ethan shook his head crossly. "Whenever I think of a name, nope, nobody likes it."

  Carmen consoled him, "You named the carriages from Slugenis, remember? And whether he likes it or not, Matthew knows the rule - whoever comes up with the first name, no matter how bad it is, that's the name that sticks." I didn't recall that rule ever being formalised.

  "Heh", the Human replied, somewhat cheered up. "I suppose so." He looked at me, and, in classic Human prose, drastically changed the subject. "Say, Phil, we haven't been really attacked by Cyborgs yet, on the ground I mean. We got pretty lucky there. I thought this was a heavily defended planet?"

  "We haven't been attacked yet", I corrected him. "To consider this a victory could prove to be our downfall." I didn't say that the future peace of the 3 races also heavily depends on our survival; from what I knew of Humans, a great many of them didn't cope well under psychological pressure. This seemed a weakness to me, as the theory of evolution, survival of the fittest species, and natural intelligence suggests that it is when the pressure to succeed is strongest that individuals should exert the greatest effort, and therefore have the best chance to succeed.

  Once we entered the tunnel again, Ethan muttered, "Back here again. What a drab place."

  "Would you rather an exciting place filled with hostile Cyborgs?" I asked him.

  He smiled. "Of course I would. Assuming, that is, that we win with absolutely no injuries." That seemed a wonderful thing to want; as long as neither Rabado
otime nor Slob were the losers.

  The Human

  Fantastic. We were back in the boring tunnel, going the exact opposite of the way we'd gone before. This meant that there was no chance of stumbling across an exciting passageway full of interesting stuff. Instead, I was stuck with this.

  It wasn't too bad though, since there was plenty to think about. Things such as how boring this place was, how much I couldn't wait to get back to the ship so I could be bored some more as we travelled somewhere else that was likely to be boring. And, of course, Phill's super-revelation that the Cyborgs had actually attempted an alliance with Earth. I tried to image myself going on escapades all over the galaxy with Rabadootime, Slob, and a bunch of other personality-less Cyborgs. Judging by how Phill is - and how he's probably the closest to a human a Cyborg is ever going to get - that would be extremely dull and unpleasant.

  Looking behind me, I saw Terry and Kerry travelling on their lonesome, away from the main body of the group, as they often did. Well, I'd just about had enough of that. Which means, I have had enough of it, because I was about to do something about it.

  I hung back a bit until I was beside one of them. This was one the closest to me, so it was now Terry, and a guy.

  "Sup, Terry?" I asked casually. "How are things going?"

  He turned his eye holes to look at me. I hadn't been on Slugenis for a while, so it was kinda freaky again. "Things are well", he replied, in the most drab voice you could possibly imagine.

  "Well, then, that's good then", I said back. OK, now what? "Uhh", I started. "What do you reckon about what's going on here?"

  Boy slowed his pace and joined us. He grasped one of Terry's tentacle-hands, and held it for a few seconds. Then he turned to me. "It seems that Terry here is much more comfortable communicating the Slug way than talking."

  "Yeah, well, that's how you started, and look at you now", I said.

  "Perhaps", he replied, "but I had a good reason. Terry and Kerry don't; once they are done here, assuming that they survive, they will return to other duties elsewhere."

  " 'Assuming they survive'?" I asked incredulously. "Nothing's happened at all! We got visited by some coward Cyborg, and that was the only real dangerous thing that has happened."

  Phill input from the front, "Slob was not a coward, he just recognised that he was at a disadvantage. He is likely organising a response even now, preparing a sufficient force to defeat us."

  "I doubt it", said Frank. "We have a battalion of starcruisers attacking PDN with advanced weaponry" - by that, he meant human weaponry - "keeping them busy. They must be more concerned with all of the Slugs controlling the planet than a small group of infiltrators."

  "I guess so", came from Carmen. "We shouldn't expect too much resistance on the ground level, then." Wait, hold on. Why was everyone suddenly walking in a big group around Terry, Kerry, and me? I'd come back here to talk to the two untalkative Slugs, and everyone just gravitated this way as well. Well, I supposed that any kind of conversation was better than just walking silently in this place.

  After a while of this, we came up to another four-way intersection between four different tunnels. "Straight again, I suppose", I said.

  "Why would it be any different?" asked Phill. "It has been straight the entire way, and we knew before we commenced travelling back that the straight path we would take would not deviate."

  That didn't even deserve a response, but I did notice that Matthew was the only one who wasn't talking at all. He seemed to be too busy thinking to himself, or something like that. Oh well. It's not like there was anything interesting to talk about anyway.

  That is, there was nothing interesting to talk about until we actually got up to that intersection. There was a faint rumbling noise and sensation, like someone was beating the walls and floor with giant drumsticks some distance away. Don't ask me why Cyborgs would do that, but I bet they could somehow logically justify it.

  "Phill, any idea what that is?" asked Boy somewhat nervously. Since when did he get nervous at anything? He was supposed to be a mighty Slug warrior, wasn't he?

  "I'm not sure", the Cyborg responded, "but it seems to me that one or more Cyborg ground vehicles are in transit."

  "Oh, come on!" I complained at him. "Why would you say 'in transit'?"

  "It means on the move", Carmen told me.

  "Well", I turned towards Phill, "why didn't you just say that?"

  "I spoke correct english", the Cyborg responded.

  I just sighed. Arguing him was like arguing with... a machine. Heh. So true.

  Oblivious to our stupidity, however, the rumbling ceased. "Well, that was quick", I commented. "They mustn't have moved very far."

  "You don't know how fast they can travel", Phill warned me. "Be careful not to make ill-informed presumptions."

  "I'll ill-inform you in a minute", I grumbled at him.

  After a pause, Boy laughed at me, "What does that even mean?!"

  "It was a meaningless insult", I smiled back. "It doesn't need to make sense."

  Phill said, "I would say that it actually does need to make sense to be effective."

  "I'd say you were wrong", I shot back.

  The Cyborg opened his mouth to respond, probably some perfectly reasoned yet inherently flawed argument, but he stopped when we started to hear some running footsteps.

  "Ah, here we go", Frank said. "It seems that that sufficient force you were talking about is on its way."

  We each looked down one of the corridors of the intersection, meaning that we had eyes on all four tunnels. After a few seconds of the running sound getting louder and louder, I saw some shapes approaching us on my side.

  "I got contacts over here", I warned the others.

  Carmen gave a half-strangled yelp (which was very weird, let me assure you), and quickly turned to face my way. "Oh", she said, relieved, and looked back towards her side. "No you don't, you can just see them in the distance. You're not in contact with them at all."

  "I can see some too", Frank put in.

  "It's a military saying", I explained. "It means I'm aware of enemies on my side."

  On my side, Terry or Kerry - I didn't have the motivation to determine which was which right now - grabbed Boy's arm. After a half second, without taking his eyes off of his side, he said, "Terry sees some as well. About four or five, it seems."

  So, he assumed it was Terry. Straining to look on my side, I added, "Yep, I've got five here. They're getting closer, so I suggest we come up with some kind of plan."

  "Five Cyborgs coming in my direction", Frank said, more urgently now.

  "Five", said Terry or Kerry out loud, finally speaking.

  And those damn Cyborgs, sending five on each side. Is such stupid symmetry really necessary right now?

  "Strange", Boy said. "I don't see anything on my side. It's empty."

  We paused for a second to consider this. As for me, I came up with nothing. Matthew, however, decided to verbally rejoin the group and said, "They're herding us to go down that way. And it seems we don't have a choice."

  "Let's get moving then", Frank urged, and started to move down that way.

  "Ethan, stay in the middle of the group", Phill warned me.

  I nodded at him, and got into position. "Let's roll", I said.

  We all started to kind of jog in formation, which wasn't too hard since we weren't going too fast - Terry and Kerry had to keep up with us, after all. "Which route did we take?" asked Carmen.

  "We are no longer traversing in our original straight direction", Phill warned. Traversing. There was no way he doesn't do that on purpose.

  "That was their plan", Matt mused. "They must be leading us somewhere, probably into some kind of trap."

  "Please don't say we need to 'spring the trap' in a cool voice", I nearly begged him. That never ended well.

  "What if I say it in a really cool voice?" he asked back.

  "That wouldn't make it any better of an idea", Frank told him.

 
He gave a half-laugh. "I suppose not. But guess what? We're going to spring it anyway. It's not like we have any other choice; I don't know about you guys, but I'm not taking on fifteen Cyborgs at once."

  "There could be more down this way", Boy warned us. "I don't think this is going to end very well."

  "Oh, come on", Matt said lightheartedly. "It'll be fun."

  After we'd been running for another few minutes, I decided that I definitely wasn't having fun.

  I wasn't exactly fit at this whole running thing (although I was pretty good at walking, from all my walking between my old home and school), and I couldn't hear or see any Cyborgs or any other threat behind us, so I had no fight-or-flight adrenaline to keep me going.

  "Let's have a break", I panted. "I'm tired."

  "That was quick", Boy commented, but he didn't say it in an insulting way. "You never got puffed out so easily on Slugenis when we spent all of the time travelling in the heat." I didn't tell him that while I wasn't really puffed out, I was utterly exhausted and felt like I was about to faint.

  "You forget", Matt told him, "that Slugenis has a higher oxygen concentration than Earth, and probably even here. So it would be harder for him to run out of breath."

  "Yeah, I suppose that makes sense", I said, my breathing starting to return to normal.

  "Agreed", Phill said, as if we needed his approval to come to a consensus.

  Looking around, I saw that we were in a tunnel that looked exactly the same as every other one. "Well this is great", I said. "Now we have no idea where we are."

  "If anyone took notice of which direction we turned in, relative to our intended course", said Phill, "we can turn the other way at the next intersection, and begin travelling back towards the scout ship."

  "I've got no idea which way we turned", Boy said. "We all got shifted up when we heard the running."

  "Same", I added.

  "Same", Matthew added as well.

  "Same", Frank added a bit more.

  "If you are going to say 'same' ", Phill told Carmen, "I'm going to get very upset."

  "Yeah, like we care if you're upset or not", I joked. He didn't say anything, so I really hoped he knew I was just kidding.

  After a bit of walking in silence, I realised I was getting thirsty. I had no idea how long we'd been going for, but it felt like ages. Unfortunately I hadn't thought to bring a bottle of water on this expedition to an alien planet. I'd have to remember that for next time.

  We soon noticed the ground starting to slant upwards, leading up to the surface. It looked identical to the other surface we'd gone through just before. "How are these blasted Cyborgs supposed to navigate these underground tunnels if everything looks the damn same!?" I fumed.

  "It seems likely that they mainly travel in vehicles", Phill said, "due to the time inefficiency of walking. I would say that the vehicle keeps a tracking of its current location, perhaps by memory or though some kind of connection."

  "Seems good enough for me", Matthew shrugged. "Anyway, let's check out what's up here. Probably another one of those computer rooms, like we were in before."

  "Only one way to find out", I said.

  "There are actually several ways to find out", Phill corrected me, but everyone ignored him.

  Frank and Carmen were the first to go up, since they were at the front of our group, so they were the first to see what was up there. "I suggest that we turn around and go back", Carmen called back down to us. Was there a locked door up there or something?

  I popped my head up high enough to see the room above from it's ground-level; due to the ascending floor I was climbing up, my head was at the level of everybody's feet in the room. Past the Slugs' legs, I could see about a dozen Cyborg feet, which was kind of freaky since I'd never noticed before that their legs just culminated in a hunk of metal shaped vaguely like a foot. Carmen had warned us to turn back a bit more casually than I would've if I'd gone up there first.

  Matt pushed ahead of me (I don't care if it was for my safety, there's no need to be rude about it), and ran up alongside Frank and Carmen. "Yep, this seems to be a problem", he said nonchalantly. "Although I don't recommend us retreating, after we've come this far. Besides, we wouldn't know where to go." He turned back to look at us. "Terry, Kerry, and Phill, you guys can stay down there with Ethan, if you don't mind."

  "Not at all", Phill said quickly, but the other two Slugs didn't respond. Would they would rather fight up there and die? Perhaps that was why Matt had made them stay back. He was older than them, too, so they had to obey. Was I older than them? I didn't know, but it would be funny if I was.

  Boy passed me, and said to Phill, "Look after him." Phill nodded. As for me, I wondered when I had become such an important strategic asset. "Ready?" Boy asked Matthew at the top.

  "Yep", he replied, and launched himself without warning at the Cyborgs, who had seemed to be waiting for the Slugs to make the first move.

  Now, there was no way I was going to huddle in a corner and not watch what was happening. But it was just as weird and disorienting as you think, viewing a melee brawl from foot-level. I saw Matthew jump into the air as Frank, Carmen and Boy also ran into the fray. By the time they got there, Matt had already hit the closest Cyborg hard enough to stumble him backwards, and was turning to work on the next one.

  In no time at all, the Cyborgs were dispatched, and it seemed to me that our Slugs had barely sustained a single injury. Frank had taken an arm across the face when one of the Cyborgs had epically clothes-lined him, but Boy had quickly made him pay for it by elbowing him sharply in the back, causing him to fall over and stop moving. That's where its CPU must have been then. I jumped up and glimpsed a sight of Matthew with one hand shoved into the midsection of one Cyborg, and his other hand shoved inside another's throat. They were both trying to punch and kick him, while trying to pry his hands off of them, but it wasn't working. His grip was too strong, and any blows he didn't block with his elongated knees and legs he just absorbed with seemingly no ill-effects.

  By the end of it, Cyborg pieces lay everywhere, and both Frank and Boy were sitting down, trying to recover. Boy had gotten pinned down by an enemy before both Matthew and Carmen had yanked it off of him.

  The rest of us shambled up there to congratulate them on their easy victory. "Wow, good job", I said. "That seemed a bit too easy, didn't it?"

  "Yeah, don't think just anyone could do that", Boy said. "Not only are both Matthew and I pretty old Slugs" - I assumed he meant old as in powerful, not as in frail - "but Frank and Carmen have had quite a bit of combat experience. We're not an ordinary team, which is usually comprised mostly of new Slugs on their first foray into the war."

  "You forgot to mention that Matthew disabled and defeated no less than four of the Cyborgs almost single-handedly", Phill added. He appeared to be awed by Matt's skills. He probably forgave himself a long time ago about that first time that he had lost to the Slug.

  "Bah, you give me not enough credit", Matt smirked. "Really though, it's easier than it looks to kill a Cyborg. You just gotta get them in the right place."

  "So", I asked Boy and Frank. "Right now those injuries of yours don't actually hurt? They just feel uncomfortable?"

  Boy nodded, and Frank said, "It feels like a pole of metal just slapped me across the face, and my slime there is misaligned and damaged."

  "But it doesn't physically hurt", Boy emphasised.

  "I agree with the Slug system of damage recognition", Phill said. "It seems that physical pain, the way I understand it, would hinder an organism in a battle, thereby causing them to incur further damage."

  "Well, it also provides a good incentive not to get hurt", I defended the way evolution decided to craft me.

  "Well", Matt offered, "no one likes these uncomfortable feelings either, but they are easily ignored if they need to be." He paused. "Anyway, it's time to move on. I don't know about you guys, but I'm thirsty." Aha, so it wasn't only me.

  "Surely you don't mean to d
rink some water from PDN?" asked Carmen. "You don't know what's in it."

  "Actually, I do", Matthew replied. "Water. And anyway, I'd rather try drinking it than hope that we make it back before I die of dehydration. Don't worry, we'll just drink a little bit first, and see what happens. If we feel fine, then we can have some more."

  "Good", I said. "Because I'm thirsty too."

  Phill smirked. "I'm not."

  "Yeah, well, you got some kind of power battery. Speaking of which, how do you keep that thing charged?"

  "I'll explain after Matthew has attempted to kill himself by ingesting an unknown substance", the Cyborg promised.

  "Deal", I said.

  In the background, Matt whimpered in a small voice, "No deal."