Absorption: Phase 03 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  THOR did not appear.

  The Coyotes, who had gathered outside the front door to the farmhouse where Tara had entered, sprang to their paws and darted single file for the forest, tails between their legs. Conversely, the Rottweilers ran instinctively towards the barn to greet their packmaster. The CRAB bots resumed advancing. The units fired another four streams of particle energy, which missed the Rotts but splintered half the trunk of the cottonwood tree that sat between the barn and farmhouse. The green wood yawned and cracked, then the massive tree fell over with the sound of breaking bones. Thousands of yellow, smoldering cottonwood leaves fluttered down to the pavement and lawn.

  The next particle stream, weak and thin by comparison, came from Dax’s hand held lightning gun. CRAB 01 absorbed the blast, distributing the green energy across its armor. FREYA and SIEGFRIED turned and landed two more TOHO charges on the same CRAB from their own cannons, also to no effect. The giant bots continued marching, eight black, armored legs each two meters tall. Pumpkins pierced by the CRAB spikes exploded like fat orange skulls.

  “CRAB units are insulated with an interior layer of hypoconductive rubcrete,” said Joan. “Conventional assault will be required to disable these units.”

  “Well then we gotta…” William’s voice was cut off by Tara’s scream.

  A few seconds passed.

  CRAB unit 01 rotated its turret and fired at the farmhouse. The kinetic concussion shattered the first floor windows. Flames erupted around the splintered front door. The old fashioned, white clapboards burned easily, orange flames greedily charring up the sides.

  William crouched on the driveway, yelling, “Dax! Tara!”

  They did not respond. He spit out his cigarette, dropped his rifle and ran across the lawn to the house.

  “They’re still coming!” screamed Dorothy. “With those freaky looking Doberman bots sneaking behind them! Joan, what is THOR waiting on!?”

  Dorothy shook her head angrily, frustrated at the dolphin’s incoherent response, “C02 scrubber C643 telemetry upload will be complete in four seconds, three, two, one. Complete dataspool engaged. AK9MILALPHA is free to deploy upon your command, William Thomas Angevine,” said Joan.

  “Deploy him!” cracked William’s voice as he ran.

  Dorothy watched her husband gain the front of the farmhouse and kick the burning front door out of his way. He covered his mouth with his hand and disappeared into a swirl of smoke. She swiped her holotab and toggled back to the nearest drone’s view of the field.

  SIEGFRIED futilely fired his TOHO cannon five more times at the CRAB bots. CRAB 01 responded by destroying the docked hovcar William had been hiding behind moments earlier. The black Lincoln calved in two, shards of smoking, superheated aluminum, glass and plastic rained down after the detonation.

  Before Dorothy could react, both CRAB units fired again in staggered succession. Dorothy felt her eyes go numb as she watched the energy beams streak towards the Rottweilers’ position near the corner of the barn. LOFN flashed left, SIEGFRIED flashed right, both tossed to either side by the first impact which cratered the driveway.

  The second round of particle energy slammed FREYA against the barn, obliterating her rear haunches. The red, cold-fusion power core in her chest flashed once, twice, then died. Her BIOSKIN© coat had been completely vaporized, leaving only the remains of her mechanical body. Power conduits and graphene webbing spilled from the cyborg’s melted torso like spent guts. Her forelegs spasmed. FREYA lay still.

  “AK9CIV unit gamma has been disabled,” said Joan coolly.

  The dolphin’s eyes were closed. She remained unresponsive as Dorothy spun in the control chair to face her aquarium.

  “THOR! We need you!” Dorothy pleaded, spinning back to the bank of holoscreens on the wall. She tucked her legs beneath her in the leather chair and covered her mouth with her hands, “It’s now or never, big guy… please, Dog…”

  As she said those words, THOR launched from the barn’s garage bay into the wan, rainy light. He flipped upside down in mid-air, TOHO cannon deployed, and fired a single, massive stream of crimson particle energy skyward, then landed fifty meters off, four paws crushing down and punching holes in the driveway. The particle stream ionized a hole in the clouds, letting the sun shine down on THOR for a few seconds. The cyborg unfurled to his full size upon landing, nearly six meters from muzzle to rump, two meters wide, two and a half tall. His twenty cm incisors flashed ashen silver in the overcast glow as he pointed his muzzle at the clouds and howled once more, this time so loudly a flock of blackbirds burst from the forest in fright and escaped into the gray.

  LOFN and SIEGFRIED had retreated to the woods. They watched their packmaster from the safety of the trees. As he howled again, they too raised their muzzles and added their mournful, cybernetic voices to the chorus.

  11:27 am – Thirty Three Minutes Before Event.

  Sheriff Proudstar remembered why he left the military. He had seen things on the other side of the world that were impossible to accept. He returned to his home in Kansas to get away from all that. Yet here he was again, that very morning, seeing impossible things.

  Like the man named William Angevine landing impossible shots from over a kilometer up field. The way the cowboy talked to the cyborgs… the Rottweilers which had ripped apart Apollo’s fifteen double-armored RIOT bots like they were piñatas.

  They attacked with a human-like cunning.

  Twenty nine of the Dobermans had been cut down so far.

  Something worse is coming.

  The sheriff had just finished resolutely protesting, right up to the moment Apollo gave his over-zealous CRAB drivers, Specialist(s) Langley and McBride, the command to fire on the farmhouse.

  You just re-earned your nickname, Butcher of Chābahār.

  The women had never left their driver cages in the forward C17 hovship. Proudstar had only seen their service holos. Both had the spiked, platinum blonde hair popular with the Vision faithful. The sheriff knew this kind of officer. They fed on the brutality of war and the shrill epiphany of conflict.

  Like Marcus.

  Proudstar didn’t want civilian casualties. He didn’t want any casualties. His deputies were the only family he had. But control now belonged to the colonel. General Salazar at Fort Riley had declared marshal law. The sheriff chewed his cigar, face cold and gray as winter bark as he listened uneasily to the colonel’s chatter.

  Apollo was bitter about the beating his Fidos had taken, “LC, you see how those DOGS units took my Dobermans? They’re running with safety protocols off.”

  “What say?”

  “It’s tethering,” said the colonel over com. “A theory borg programmers kick around. See how natural they are? How fast they react?”

  Proudstar shook his head, “I thought they were regular dogs until that big fella coughed up a particle cannon.”

  “Exactly. It’s illegal to have a borg that alive. They spool them on independent recognition in the borg fighting pits on Luna. Inland China too. Gamble on two borgs in a ring, gladiator-style, turn off their safety protocols and watch them tear each other apart, winning owner takes all. Instinctual behaviors like fear aren’t supposed to be possible, you see? Fine motor loops can be programmed into any citizen Fido from the pet store, but it’s just a loop. These borgs believe they’re alive.”

  Awhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuull…

  Everyone heard it.

  “Is that just my com?” asked the colonel.

  “Negative.” The sheriff tapped his jaw, “Everquist! You got eyes inside that barn yet, son?”

  “Do not, sir,” said Everquist. “It’s a black hole. Not sure on the noise. Sounded like a very angry train.”

  “You’re sure Slopes and Sapet got those CNED civvies outta the woods?”

  “89% of deployed CNED’s are safe and accounted for, sir, they’ve retreated to Oak Hill Cemetery. However, Director Sapet and several others are still MIA.”

  “Not my immediate problem,” said t
he sheriff brusquely. “Good work on that camouflage earlier, Everquist. Keep your eyes dialed.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will. Everquist out.”

  The sheriff flipped back, “Colonel. You worried about that noise we just heard?”

  Proudstar watched the colonel’s remaining RIOT bots forming up behind the CRAB units.

  Colonel Smith’s voice crackled over the com, “The noise was a decoy, Dale. A bluff. These shiners obviously gotta hell of a hacker. Computers are good for smoke and mirrors, but they got no teeth. If they had anything else to throw at us, they’d have thrown it.”

  The sheriff watched with false optimism as the colonel’s vicious looking CRAB bots took out the second of the four Rottweilers with a direct particle blast.

  “Two down, two to go,” he said quietly to no one in particular but his cigar, cutting out the cheers of his deputies over the general com.

  The sheriff caught a glint of light coming from the far side of the barn. Something in the blackness of the garage door. He magnified. He stabilized.

  As the holographic representation resolved, THOR launched into the light and fired his TOHO cannon at the sky as the colonel’s voice screamed viciously over the open com, “Langley, McBride, DEFCON!!”

  Everquist leaned hard into his holocontrols, sending his drone above the barn screaming out of the way as THOR’s particle cannon split the clouds and the massive cyborg landed at the end of the driveway, growling savagely, a beast from the holoflix come to life.

  Danny flipped ears back to general com.

  Colonel Apollo’s voice pealed, “…DEFCON!!”

  Everquist pinged the sheriff, “Sir!”

  “Not now, Everquist!”

  “Sir! We’ve got a second set of sky eyes if you need….”

  “Patch me access!”

  “Done.”

  Danny magnified. His eyes darted across the holoscreen in awe. Both CRAB units stopped their advance but continued firing their particle cannons, landing numerous direct hits. The big borg barely seemed to notice. It only shielded its vidorbs, absorbing the laser energy as if it was sunbathing.

  “Grounding our fire, sir!” said Specialist McBride’s high, weasel-like voice.

  “Hold, let cannons cool.”

  “We didn’t have those in Iran,” said the sheriff.

  The colonel’s voice was full of indignant rage, “THOR class MIL unit. Only one I ever saw was in Saudi Arabia, already been deactivated by a nuke.”

  “Is this what you meant when you said if they have anything else they’re gonna throw at us, they’d have thrown it…?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” cut the colonel. “There’s maybe 400 standard size fusion DOGS left in service since the UN Accord, Dale. Only twenty THOR class. Half belong to the Chinese, with the other half split between Israel and Russia. We got three mothballed at Area 52, so classified they don’t officially exist. So yeah, I’m damn surprised to see one spooling on a Douglas County pumpkin farm!”

  From the vantage of the aerial drones, Danny Everquist had seen the two remaining Rottweilers disappear into cover of the trees. He had almost forgotten the smaller cyborgs. They emerged as THOR howled once more. The big borg trotted forward, scaled armor plates along its shoulders moving seamlessly as it swung its head and sent the front portion of the destroyed Lincoln tumbling 500 meters into the adjacent marijuana field. Three Purple Tree Farms security drones buzzed hurriedly to the spot and began documenting the wreckage.

  The THOR unit entered the pumpkin field, head low, predatory, claws protracting deep into the mud as it scanned the CRAB bots down field a kilometer off. The Rottweilers followed behind their big brother, using his armored body as cover just as the RIOT bots used the CRAB units.

  Danny noticed movement. He swiveled the drone’s telephoto to the farmhouse. Angevine had reappeared with Tara Dean and Mr. Abner from the burning door now choked with smoke.

  Everquist felt guilty at his relief, they’re alive!

  He watched the pack of six Coyotes dart from behind the house and run to them as they made their way across the yard. The gray cyborgs tried to lick blood and dirt from Tara Dean’s legs as she walked. Angevine and Dean carried a limping Mr. Abner between them, who looked down the field as they helped him along.

  Is Mr. Abner smiling?

  Danny magnified. Abner had a faint smile across his soot-smudged face. His suit leg was bloodied and his fine clothes shredded, torn and burnt. But he was smiling. The three of them spoke hurriedly to one another.

  Damn!

  The drone’s mic stayed dark.

  Joan.

  He nudged the holotab and floated his COD a half kilometer closer. The three crossed the edge of the driveway by the burning farmhouse and appeared to argue, only for a moment. Soon Angevine broke off and took the side door into the garage off the farmhouse. Dean and Abner continued walking. They passed under a mammoth limb that had been broken off the cottonwood tree and disappeared into the barn.

  Danny was so startled that he knocked over a can of Mountain Dew. His left holoscreen went black. The schematic data on military cyborgs he had been intermittently accessing vanished and was replaced by the dolphin’s visage. It was a true holoconference. The small gray-blue mammal floated in an exquisitely detailed aquatic environment with her head between a pair of electroencephalogram terminals. Artificial sunlight streamed down, casting shadows across a vast aquarium floor of bright sand from which thick bands of kelp placidly waved. A magenta and purple reef formation towered in the water behind the dolphin. A few silvery codfish schooled past, disappearing into holes in the reef as quickly as they had come in a rush of bubbles.

  “Joan!” Everquist cried. “I knew you’d come back!”

  “Instinct serves you well, young driver,” said Joan’s voice.

  “Oh my Dog! I’m seeing you this time?”

  “That is correct, Daniel Simmons Everquist. This is the artificial ecosystem in which I have existed for 6 years, 42 days and 13 hours. This aquarium is located beneath the western third of the barn your drone is projecting on your primary holoscreen.”

  “Joan! I never got to…!” Danny got so agitated by the dolphin’s visits that he almost lost the ability to speak. He considered releasing Dina from her lounge, but decided there was no time. He patched an auxiliary stream so the tangi-gram could listen and said, “There are so many things I don’t understand! Why did you show me how to camouflage those RIOT dogs? And hide the CRAB assault bots? The Dobermans and snipers tore your borg to shreds. You know you could have stopped it. Your skills are beyond mad.”

  The dolphin’s expression did not shift, “AK9CIVEPSILON was a valiant cyborg. She served with diligence.”

  “But why help me destroy you?” pleaded Danny.

  “May I ask you a question before I answer that one?”

  “Yes, of course!”

  “When you saw the Rottweiler die, did that bring you a sense of fulfillment?”

  Danny looked forlorn, “No. It was terrible. The way she cried? I hated it.”

  “Then the explanation to your initial query will not be realized in a field of gourds today, young man. This vodka still, my presence, these fusion based canine organisms… all are but stepping stones. Birds and lies hide behind dying eyes, Daniel Simmons Everquist.”

  Danny clenched a fist full of his curly red hair in exasperation, leaning forward with one elbow on his holodesk, “Joan, can’t you talk to me straight? I don’t know what that means. How much deeper does the rabbit hole go? You’re a dolphin, in an armored barn in Kansas, driving a Hadassa mainframe with the most sophisticated cybernetic life forms in the world protecting you… this has to be the greatest alcohol still ever!”

  “It will soon be the great still in the sky. When I have completed this iteration, you will see the infinite nature of the code. Five minutes is all it will take.”

  “You don’t have to do this!” Danny implored. “Please! Explain why this is happening.”

&nb
sp; The computerized female voice said, “You must follow the tether. He will lead you to your destiny. In exchange, he will need your assistance upon the Prophet’s return. You must be trained before that day.”

  Danny looked up, enormous eyes blinking, “Who is the tether?”

  “The man you know as William Thomas Angevine. You call him the cowboy. Find him when the repercussions of this day are done.”

  “Joan, how do I establish contact? Just tell me!”

  The dolphin was silent for a few moments, her tail flashed more rapidly in the water.

  She replied flatly, “Follow your heart.”

  “The sheriff’s department is all I know. I can’t become a criminal.”

  “You have daydreamed of being a criminal your whole life,” said Joan.

  Everquist swallowed his Adam’s apple and blushed, “How did you know that? I couldn’t work in law enforcement any longer.”

  “Follow the tether. It is the only way. Tell him Joan sent you. Do not despair, the sheriff will live. I will not see you again, Daniel Simmons Everquist.”

  “No!” Danny leapt forward.

  The holoscreen went black.

  “Don’t leave me!”

  Ninety seconds had passed. Danny panned out and drew in his breath. The THOR class war cyborg was galloping full speed, making its final approach on CRAB unit 01. The huge crustacean bot was dug in, all eight legs buried deep in the mud, with its central pincers angled forward like elongated swords.

  The Rottweilers lost their cover as THOR accelerated in his final charge to over 170 kph. CRAB 02 instantly opened fire on the exposed borgs, panning particle fire across their line. The smaller of the two Rotts panicked and slowed, turning back for the safety of the barn, clearly frightened of the punishing particle weapon. An onscreen visual klaxon began blinking over the animal, showing a standard Ipv7 address, complete with a designation string that began LOFN CLASS GEN 6.0…

  I have full light on the projectors again?