Roboteer

by Alex Lamb

  ‘If we get out of this, I’m never going to complain about the Ariel’s cabin again,’ said Rachel, in an effort to break the tension. Will dearly hoped they got the opportunity.

  With a whine from the truck’s motors that reverberated around their heads, the truck set off, back into the streets of New Angeles.

  13: BETRAYAL

  13.1: WILL

  They hadn’t been travelling in the truck long before Hugo started to stir. The drugs they’d given him were kicking in fast.

  ‘Where am I?’ he groaned.

  ‘In a resistance truck,’ Rachel told him simply. ‘Stay quiet and keep calm.’

  But to Will’s dismay, Hugo’s disorientation rapidly turned to panic as he discovered the immovable floor pressed up against his face.

  ‘Let me out of here! Help!’ he gasped.

  ‘Hugo,’ Rachel hissed, ‘shut up or you’ll get us all killed.’

  ‘Why are we here?’ Hugo demanded. ‘What happened?’

  Rachel started to fill him in, but as she talked, the truck slowed to a halt.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said the delirious scientist.

  ‘Shhh!’ said Rachel.

  Will held his breath as he heard voices. Someone spoke in an Angeleno drawl. Rapid dialog in an Earther dialect followed. Boots clumped back and forth just centimetres above their heads. It had to be some kind of vehicle check. The Earthers must be on full alert, Will realised. Then, to his immense relief, the sound of boots receded and the truck started off again.

  At least now he knew the resistance didn’t intend to hand them over to the authorities, though that didn’t exactly lift his spirits. The police would no doubt want live prisoners to interrogate. Will still wasn’t convinced the resistance were as concerned for their welfare. After all, he and Rachel knew the location of one of their safe houses, which left their organisation exposed.

  Half an hour’s tense driving later, the truck stopped again. This time, the lid came off their secret compartment. Will held his hands up to shield his eyes against the sudden glare.

  A large figure stood over him – Will recognised him as one of the heavies from their first resistance meeting, the one Metta had called Stone.

  ‘Get up,’ Stone said. ‘It’s time to go.’ He waved the barrel of a handgun towards the truck’s open doors.

  Will levered himself upright. Together, he and Rachel helped Hugo out. Will was surprised when he emerged from the back of the vehicle into the parking bay of the freight terminus where they’d entered the city. He wondered if his fears about the resistance had been unfounded. Why would they have brought their Galatean charges here if they didn’t intend for them to live? However, Will noticed that the four resistance men were still pointing guns at them.

  A woman ran up from the direction of the guardhouse. She was dressed in an outfit that was revealing even by Angeleno standards.

  ‘It’s done,’ she said. ‘Their comm-links are all off and the men are high as kites.’

  ‘Good,’ said Stone. He turned to regard his captives with an unpleasant half-smile. ‘You’re leaving. You being here is making things too hot for us, but Metta says no hard feelings. We’ve arranged to make your exit a little easier. The guards should be out of action for a while – hopefully long enough to give you a clear run back to your ship.’

  Will began to feel embarrassed by his own mistrust.

  ‘But just in case,’ said Stone, ‘take these.’

  Stone’s men passed Will and his shipmates each a wicked-looking flech-gun.

  ‘They’re empty,’ Rachel observed dryly.

  ‘That’s so you don’t mess with us before we go,’ said Stone. ‘We left ammunition for you over there in the yellow container.’

  He pointed diagonally across the broad depot forecourt to one of the great metal boxes at the far corner. The door stood slightly ajar, like the darkened entrance to a steel cave. Will’s sense of mistrust came back redoubled.

  ‘You can go and get it after we leave, but not before,’ said Stone. Then he gestured to his men, who started to climb back into the truck. ‘Oh, and a message from Metta,’ he said, pausing by the driver’s cabin. ‘Don’t come back unless you bring your Fleet with you.’

  He chuckled to himself as if this was some kind of joke, then climbed inside and pulled the door shut. The truck reversed hard and turned sharply back into the street.

  Will watched their departure with more than a little unease. For a moment, the three of them stood there wordlessly, not sure they could trust their good fortune.

  ‘Come on,’ said Rachel. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

  She and Will hurried across the polycrete apron towards the sanctuary of the containers, dragging a limping Hugo along between them.

  Something about this exit was ironic, Will thought. They’d arrived with one weakened crewman, and that was how they were leaving. He doubted Hugo would find the symmetry particularly amusing.

  A quick glance at the guardroom revealed that the resistance had been true to their word. Every man in there was sprawled in a chair, apparently unconscious. Smiles of mindless bliss curved their drooling mouths.

  They were only halfway across the open area when they heard a screech of tires that echoed off the high ceiling. Will looked back and saw two red and yellow vehicles pulling up at speed.

  ‘Halt!’ commanded a voice from a loudhailer. ‘Protectorate Police!’

  Will’s insides froze solid. Here they were, conveniently holding dangerous weapons on open ground, just as John had been. It was too perfect to be a coincidence. The resistance had led them into a trap after all – one that laid the blame firmly at the authorities’ door, just like the last. Genuine police they might be, but Will didn’t doubt they were in league with Metta, and likely to be generous with their ammunition.

  ‘Hurry!’ said Rachel.

  They ran full tilt towards the closest containers as guns roared into life. Will ducked behind cover as streams of flechs ripped past him, smashing dents in the metal walls. The whole building rang with the clamour of their impact.

  Rachel sneaked a look out and darted back. ‘There’s no way we can get to that ammo from here,’ she breathed.

  Will had already guessed that. The yellow container was two aisles away, with a door that opened in the direction of the gunmen.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Will. ‘We’ve only got their word there’s anything in there, and this looks too much like a set-up to me. We’re armed, which gives them an excuse for shooting to kill. I say let’s ditch the guns and get out of here as fast as we can.’

  Rachel nodded quickly. She and Will threw down their weapons. Hugo looked unwilling to give his up but Rachel pulled it from his hand with a scowl. Then they hurried down the narrow passage towards the airlocks while Hugo breathlessly chided them for their foolishness.

  ‘Do you think they’re going to stop shooting just because we don’t have guns?’ he spat. ‘They won’t. In case you’ve forgotten, I tried surrendering already.’

  The sounds of shouting and warning shots dogged them all the way to the end of the facility. As the bank of boxy doorways that led to the transit cars finally came in sight, Will reached out to the depot computer and instructed it to open one. The computer sent its apologies. The site had been sealed on police orders. Will’s heart lurched. Of course it had. The resistance had never meant for them to leave here alive.

  ‘They’re locked,’ he told the others. ‘I’ll need time to get them open.’

  Rachel nodded grimly. ‘Stay here,’ she said, pointing to an open box at the end of the line. ‘I’ll try to make some kind of diversion.’

  She ran off, leaving Will clutching a pale-faced Hugo. Will helped the man to shelter.

  ‘Keep a lookout,’ said Will. ‘Rouse me if anything happens.’

  He shut his eyes and dived fully into the depot computer. It was a mess. Old-fashioned Angeleno software laid out in hierarchical blocks had been overlaid with linked Ear
ther security modules marked in warning colours. It looked like a cubist tree that had been assaulted by fluorescent ivy.

  Will applied himself to the tangle of modules at the root node where the police control keys would be. He dug into the hackpack John had supplied and pulled out a cracker SAP to find an override code. The SAP went straight to work, ploughing through combinations faster than Will’s mind could follow. But Will could see almost immediately that it was getting nowhere. Either police security had improved a lot in the last few hours, or the resistance had set the place up to be impenetrable. They’d probably used John’s own software to do it, Will realised in disgust.

  He grunted with frustration and jammed himself into the mind of the struggling SAP. Being inside a code-breaker was never comfortable – there was no good mapping between Will’s senses and their input. But Will had endured plenty of that recently at the hands of the Transcended, and he could feel his mind intuitively adapting to compensate for the scramble of perceptions.

  It was as if he were revolving the parts of some fabulously complex four-dimensional lock, looking for a straight line through it in which to fit a key. Though it stretched his brain just to look at it, Will refused to be beaten by the thing. He seized the lock in a pair of virtual hands and stared at it hard, willing it to explain itself to him.

  Miraculously, it did.

  His perspective shifted, and suddenly, patterns of shapes that had been meaningless before made perfect sense to him. Will spun the lock and shoved the key straight through it.

  ‘Will!’ said Hugo, seizing his arm and dragging him back to reality.

  Will opened his eyes just in time to see two police in blood-red armour running around the corner of the container where they were hiding. At the sound of Hugo’s voice, the men spun, bringing their weapons to bear. But in the split-second before their fingers could squeeze the triggers, a figure darted out from the aisle opposite armed with a long steel bar. It was Rachel.

  With a roar to curdle the blood, she took a vicious swipe at the first policeman’s head. It cracked sideways and the spray of flechs from his gun chased harmlessly up the wall. As the second policeman swung his weapon around, Rachel had already begun to kick. Her leg scythed through the air, sending the man’s weapon flying from his grasp. She followed up with the bar, driving it straight into the man’s visor and knocking his head back with an ugly snap.

  She let go of the bar and threw herself into a somersault, seizing one of the fallen guns as she rolled. Rachel sent a stream of high-velocity steel into the chest of another policeman just as he came around the corner. As he toppled, she grabbed the remaining cannon and threw it to Will, who endeavoured to catch it with both hands as it flew towards him.

  ‘You boys all right?’ she said breathlessly, sweeping hair away from her eyes.

  Will nodded, still awed by the speed and power of her attack.

  ‘How’s that security coming on?’ she asked.

  ‘Just cracked it,’ said Will.

  ‘Good,’ said Rachel as the sound of fresh gunfire ripped the air, ‘because we’re pretty much surrounded.’

  She dashed into the container after them as another assault cannon roared. She took up a position just inside the door and motioned them both behind her.

  ‘You’d better do something, Will,’ she said. ‘I can’t hold them off for ever.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Will.

  He jumped into the security system and drove an override code into the root node of the tree. The ivy turned a peaceful green from the system’s root to the tips of its cubist leaves. Will dragged up a manifest of the depot’s robotic resources. Sure enough, there were six very large lifter trucks idling there with not much to do. Will smiled to himself. He knew all about lifter trucks. With a flick of one virtual hand, he put them all to work. Their task was simple – to park themselves exactly over certain moving targets, namely the police.

  Huge electric motors moaned like saurian carnivores waking up as the trucks stirred to life. It took the police a few seconds to work out exactly what was happening. Then there was a deafening screech of metal on metal and the sounds of screaming. Short bursts of gunfire sprayed randomly all around the depot.

  Will watched with satisfaction through the security cameras high above as the ten-ton lifter trucks trundled this way and that, cheerfully knocking down bodies. The police peppered them with flechs, but the machines were invulnerable.

  ‘Hey, Will,’ said Rachel. ‘How about that airlock?’

  ‘Right,’ said Will.

  He chose the doorway that led back to the little transit car they’d arrived in and started cycling the air. A new voice came over a loudhailer from the depot’s entrance.

  ‘This is Coordinator Chopra!’ said a furious voice. ‘What the hell are you people doing using live ammo? Hold your fire! Use stun weapons only! I will personally execute anyone responsible for the death of these spies!’

  So the real police had arrived. Will didn’t know if that was good news or bad, but he had no intention of waiting around to find out. He took advantage of the lull in the fighting to make his move.

  ‘Now!’ he said. He and Rachel ran headlong for the airlock with Hugo between them.

  The lock slid open at their approach and shut behind them. Once inside the transit car, Will braced himself against the wall and shut his eyes again.

  ‘Get us out of here, Will,’ Rachel urged.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Will.

  With the authorities so hot on their tail, their exit was going to be painfully obvious. The Earthers would probably reach the shuttle before they did. They needed camouflage. A furious sweep of his arm across the depot’s metaphor space readied every single train in the place. Eleven outbound tracks exited the building. Will intended to make use of all of them.

  All across the facility, engines whined. Environment doors swung open. As a parting shot, Will opened a portal to the police computer system and fired through the most exotic-looking crash program in John’s arsenal. A few extra minutes might make all the difference.

  ‘Hang on, everybody,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’

  He gave the command to the transit car and it sped across the desert, accelerating as fast as it could go. A dozen alarms went off across the building as trains pulled away from their bays half-loaded and started speeding out onto the surface.

  Rachel whooped at the sight and laughed. Even Hugo cracked a smile. And in less than a minute, Goldwin was a fairy-tale bubble once again, rapidly receding into the distance. Rachel hugged Will tightly and kissed him. This time, he was ready for it and returned the gesture.

  They slouched exhausted in the plastic seats as the little vehicle raced across the rocky expanse. For a while, all was right with the world. They’d escaped the city alive – something Will had seriously doubted was ever going to happen.

  But their mood soon turned from exhilaration back to worry. They weren’t off the planet yet. And if they did make it into space, who knew what they were supposed to do next? They were still out of fuel, and even if they managed to run down some Earther ship, they had no John to make a soft assault. The Earthers now knew they were in the system and would be on full alert.

  Will had to hope that somewhere between the nest archive and the Transcended in his head there was some trick that could save them. Assuming he still had a link to the Transcended, of course, now that his micromachines were gone.

  After a long, uneasy silence, Rachel spoke up. ‘Why do you suppose the resistance wanted us dead at Earther hands?’

  ‘So they wouldn’t be implicated,’ said Will. ‘Or that’s my guess, at least. If they killed us themselves, the Earther forces would be all over them as soon as word got out.’

  ‘But why did they want us dead in the first place?’ Rachel pressed. ‘Why go to all the bother of healing you and then killing us?’

  ‘Maybe something bad happened during John’s negotiations,’ he suggested. ‘Or maybe the Earthers got wind
of their plan, and so they sacrificed us to save themselves.’

  There was no way to know. They just had to be glad they’d got this far.

  Will slowed the transit before they reached the hangar and queried the building through the car’s information link. They couldn’t be too careful, he reasoned. There was always the possibility that the police had worked out their destination and set up an ambush. However, nothing appeared to be out of place. There were no new vehicles present and the life-support systems were idling on minimum. None of the site security had been engaged, either.

  ‘It all looks clear,’ he told the others. ‘I’m taking us in.’

  ‘How long do you think we’ve got before the Earthers work out where we are?’ asked Rachel.

  Will shrugged. ‘I can’t say. With the authorities this edgy, our take-off is bound to draw some attention, no matter how good John’s hacking was. I think we should get out as fast as we can.’

  As soon as they reached the hangar, Rachel took up lead position with her borrowed assault cannon while Will and Hugo brought up the rear. Will checked the cameras and habitat settings in advance as they moved from room to room. Fortunately they were all empty, and they quickly retrieved their environment suits from the lockers. From there, it was a quick walk to the final airlock and their shuttle.

  Will activated the pilot SAP and took them up in what he dearly hoped was a suitable approximation of a normal freighter’s flight path. He kept an eye on air-traffic control as they went, expecting an alert at any minute. None came. The police system didn’t respond to any of his queries. Apparently John’s last crash program had been even more effective than Will dared hope. That was one blessing they could count, at least.

  The flight out to the rendezvous point and the waiting that followed were horribly tense. Will spent the entire time checking and rechecking the scanners for signs of Earther pursuit. There was plenty of frenetic activity in New Angeles orbit and a few sorties into deeper space, but nothing that came near enough to consitute a threat.