Absorption: Phase 03 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  They passed through the front door into the green lawn. Within seconds the Coyotes appeared, mewling and whining, each dashing in to lick Tara Dean’s hand or give her leg a gentle nip. Dax put most of his weight on his friend’s shoulder. The bullet hole in his leg burned wickedly. His other arm was around Tara as she supported him from the opposite side.

  He activated his combud, calling William as he limped, “William, you hear me, good sir?” he said loudly.

  “I do. You can hear me?”

  “I can, loudly, if not clearly,” said Dax with an exhausted smile. “I’m afraid it would not be possible without the combud.”

  “That’s why Tara can’t hear me?”

  “Yes. Ours was the only open window in the house when the blast hit. The concussion wave was literally deafening. Nothing an ENT nanosurg bot can’t knit back together.”

  William looked across the field as they made the edge of the driveway and followed its curve around, passing beneath the wreckage of the old cottonwood tree, “What’s THOR done? Dorothy said you’re gonna take down a scrubber?”

  “In process,” said Dax loudly. “Good cover for an escape, don’t you think?”

  “In the future, mayhaps a little head’s up?”

  “My apologies. I’m making this up as I go,” said Dax.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Right,” Dax blanched with pain.

  The epoxyderm patch over the bullet hole in his leg was coming loose. New blood flowed over his satin socks and brown Borgioli shoes. Dax stopped them in front of the garage. Tara’s eyes looked around, dazed, deaf, her fingers dangling down, lazying through the Coyotes’ gray fur.

  “William, listen to me,” said Dax emphatically. “You’ve got to get Dorothy out of the aquarium. Get Hugo and Goran and wait for the transport.”

  William frowned, “What transport? What about you guys?”

  Dorothy’s voice cut in, “For the record, I’m already with Goran and Cat. Sorry, Joan hacked me into your stream. Hugo needs a hospital, guys. Joan said there was nothing more I could do from holocontrol.”

  “All the better,” said Dax. “William, the transport will arrive in… how long, Joan?”

  “The Israeli will arrive in less than 247 seconds,” said Joan.

  “That guy freaks me out,” said Dorothy.

  William ignored that and turned to Dax, his brow furrowed, “What about you, I asked? What the hell about you and Tara?”

  “I need you to go into the garage and spool us the MKZ. Float it over by the tractor charging relay and dock it there for us. It’s got a more advanced onboard AI that can firewall us. We’ll be right behind you. We’ll all meet up at Secondcity. It will be fine.”

  “I don’t even know where Secondcity is! Dogdamn!” William folded his arms over his chest, “I’m not doing another damn thing until you tell me what the sky is going on around here!”

  “Honey, just do what he says!” said Dorothy.

  Dax gritted his teeth with exasperation, then relaxed his gaze and took control of William’s mind, speaking evenly, “The Israeli will guide you to the rendezvous. Protect Dorothy. Protect Goran and Hugo. A surgical bot awaits your arrival. It will tend to any wounded. Give me your comdot so Tara can get on coms.” Dax squeezed William’s shoulder, his yellow eyes soft and forlorn, “You are the tether,” he said. “It has to be you. Now get me that damn hovcar.”

  William swayed slightly in his boots. Sometimes, like a drug, he welcomed the courtezan bridge. It was simpler to give in. He gave Dax a gentleman’s pat on the shoulder and slipped the comdot off his jaw.

  William turned to Tara and touched her arm. He pressed the thin silver disc into her palm and smiled. Her gaze washed over him.

  I love you, he thought.

  Tara rolled her eyes and he could hear her voice in his head, Don’t be such a dixie. I’ll see you soon.

  William mouthed the words, “See you soon,” then let the two of them continue on as he went to move the fastest of their Lincolns into position for their escape.

  Dax and Tara limped into the barn through the side door. Goran had wrapped Hugo tightly in a blanket. His swaddled body looked lumpy and disproportionate with the missing arm. Dorothy sat on the side with the intact arm, holding Hugo’s hand. His face was ghostly pale, his breathing shallow. Goran sat opposite, Indian style, Cat perched on his shoulder watching. Goran’s human hand was radiating a light… that Tara realized she could actually see. A light emanating from the dwarf’s down-turned palm flowed over Hugo’s chest.

  She called Dax, Can you see that?

  Yes.

  Can Dorothy?

  No.

  I can hear you… Goran is… a wizard?

  More of a witch doctor.

  Can he push to you?

  No. It’s blackness. Only the dolphins can hear his kind.

  They turned back to Goran. The dwarf’s large steel blue eyes fixed wisely on Dax as they walked nearer. His face was still and stern. Dax nodded, expressing his gratitude. Cat reared up then and bowed her head low, blinking her eyes affably in response.

  Dorothy stood and stepped to Tara.

  Her smile was soft and sincere, “I’m sorry about earlier, those terrible things I said.”

  Tara shook her head, unable to hear. Dax reached over and took the comdot from her hand, placed it in front of her ear.

  “Dog, I hate being wired!” said Tara loudly. She looked at Dorothy and grinned, “I guess I’m deaf, but my ears are ringing like a mother. But Dory, sweetie, it’s okay. You totally called it. I am a bitch. Who’s surprised at that news, right? How’s Hugo?” she asked.

  They turned and looked at his swaddled body.

  “He’s not fine. But he’s alive,” Dorothy said. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Goran has seen to him best he can with those nanomed bots and a field dressing. I don’t know what he’s doing with the hand. Reiki? What Hugo needs is matching plasma and a surgeon.”

  Dax interrupted, nodding one last time to the dwarf before taking Tara’s arm and pulling her across the barn towards the old green door that lead down to the warehouse, “I’m terribly sorry, ladies, we must part ways. Dorothy, William will be in shortly to see you to the airship.”

  Dorothy crossed her arms defensively, “Airship?”

  “There’s no time explain. The Israeli will take you to Secondcity. Tara, we must go. Now.”

  Tara looked at the yellow light emanating from Goran’s left hand.

  Someone’s voice said, He will be okay.

  Then she turned, bracing Dax with her shoulder as he hobbled across the barn’s asphalt floor. Before they went down, she looked back at Dorothy and pushed, We’ll all be together again soon.

  Dorothy wanted to say something more, but Tara was already gone.

  Dax grasped the hand rails as he hopped down the stairs one at a time, grimacing with each step. Tara followed, supporting his arm.

  “I hope there’s a hot tub at Secondcity,” she said over com.

  Dax chuckled and coughed, but didn’t speak.

  They entered the aquarium and made their way around the glass wall. Joan’s tail swept back and forth rapidly, bubbles churning the water.

  As Dax sat down at the holodesk and brought up light controls, Tara noticed a printed image taped to Joan’s glass. The picture faced inward so the dolphin could see it.

  “What’s this, Joan?” asked Tara.

  “Dorothy Marie Angevine left that before she departed. It is an antique style photograph.”

  Tara turned the piece of paper around and a tear fell. It was a printed holoframe of them all at The Green Lady Lounge on New Year’s Eve. Yellow streamers hung from the rafters. Dots of colored confetti fell through the air. Tara remembered the drone snapping the frame from its stream, right at midnight January 1, 2082. Her courtezan mind remembered every detail. They were squeezed into the big, private booth, drinks all around. Hugo was on the far end with a fat joint burning in his lips, Dax
beside him trying to look more dignified than usual in his suit. Then William, who was very drunk, scowling while making the peace sign above Goran’s head. Dorothy and Tara were on the far side, their lips locked in a pouty smooch, each of them winking at the drone’s camera. Goran and Cat were sitting on the tabletop cross-legged in front of William. Goran held a mug of beer nearly as large as he was in his bionic hand. Hugo was laughing in the picture. He had one arm around Daphne’s waist and one arm around his girlfriend, Juliandra. Tara let more tears fall as she remembered Daphne, the way she smelled and the sound of her laughter. Daphne had leaned in front of the drone at the last second, a shot glass full of vodka in her hand and a wispy smile across her face.

  What will become of her?

  It seemed like eons, though Tara had just seen her last night… when the strands of their life began unraveling.

  I must ping Daphne once we get settled…

  “Can I have this, Joan?”

  “The sentiment has been registered. It is a human thing. Take it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Tara folded the photograph and tucked it into the pocket of her sweats. Then she turned and sat down at the control desk with Dax and brought up a second holointerface.

  The view on monitor six resolved. THOR’S metal body filled the screen as he charged down the field, only steps away from impacting CRAB 01. Blasts of green particle energy began firing on the Rottweilers. Tara heard LOFN bark, then squeal and cry out in cyborg terror as panic set in and she tried to bolt back towards the barn.

  11:39 am – Twenty One Minutes Before Event.

  With two, near full-functioning COD’s in the air, Danny could now see everything unfolding on the pumpkin field from his office 25 km away. He spread the real time view across his dual 55 cm holoscreens and routed text based data klaxons to his holotab.

  I want a perfect visual recording.

  The unexpected blast of particle energy from the THOR class cyborg had come within ten meters of his first drone, fusing the infrared lens to the chassis. Everquist could do without infrared data. He had every other kind.

  Soon after the cyborg fired, Joan’s firewall weakened and was mostly gone. Danny had true eyes on everything. He thought it was a fluke.

  Joan must be preparing for some final, processor intensive task.

  What that task was, he did not know. What the towering stream of particle energy targeted, he did not know.

  What he did know was that it was not going to be a good day for his side of the fight.

  Which side, exactly, is mine?

  Everquist realized he was no longer sure.

  Something greater is at work here. I must know the secrets of the dolphin code.

  Sniper rounds plunked off the THOR unit’s head as the SWAT team tried futilely to shoot out the giant borg’s armored vidorbs. One bullet ricocheted, terminating a RIOT bot which was promptly smashed under two passing claws the size of sledgehammers. The other Dobermans charged with freakish fervor, bouncing off the THOR unit like pebbles off stones. He smashed them under foot, rendering them in half in a single bite, and tossed their wailing chassis 100 meters through the air one after the other with a flick of his head.

  A pile of their skittering, trashed bodies lay around him by the time CRAB 02 made contact. THOR dug his claws into the soil and counter charged, armored neck plates condensing with kinetic energy as they absorbed the force of the crustacean shaped robot’s 100 kph assault. THOR spun in a blur, knocking the CRAB to one side. He snarled and smashed three RIOT bots while coming around. Lunging, THOR seized one of the CRAB unit’s spiked legs in his jaws, crushing through the titanalum sheathing until his teeth were deep in the armored polymer. The huge cyborg whipped his superior mass like a counterweight, spinning the robot and bringing it crashing down, driving its spiked legs into the ruined, legless fuselage of CRAB unit 01 with a crushing force. To finish, THOR plunged his jaws into the belly of the second CRAB, collapsing the fusion core housing and scouring the deactivated chassis with deep claw shreds.

  The remaining nineteen RIOT Dobermans ran around THOR in circles, making it harder to destroy them in mass as he moved away from the deactivated CRAB units.

  Down field, the man Everquist had come to know over the last five hours as William Angevine ran across the driveway shouting.

  This is the tether. The one I am supposed to follow.

  Moments earlier, the cowboy had floated another black hovsedan over and docked it beside the barn Exit. He was yelling at the THOR unit, as he had been at all the Rottweilers since the engagement began. His was a thin human voice dissipating futilely over the distance. There was no visible holosync or intrastream between them.

  But the cyborgs can still hear him.

  Danny quickly tried to access the man’s combud relay. There was none installed.

  That will make you harder to find, sir.

  He watched sadly as Angevine fell to his knees at the edge of the muddy field, too far off to see THOR clearly.

  Possible he’s still getting tactical from Joan.

  The cowboy had watched his Rottweiler designated as LOFN get slagged.

  Same with the one by the barn.

  He had watched the SIEGFRIED unit get decapitated.

  And the first got ripped apart by the RIOT bots because of my hack Joan let sneak by the wall.

  A klaxon sounded. Danny had been so consumed that he didn’t notice the COD’s automated proximity klaxon blinking in the corner of his holoscreen. He maneuvered the drone to magnify the airspace to the north over the Kansas River.

  He scanned the incoming klaxon transcript, eyes going buggy, “Uh… sir? Sheriff?”

  “Keep up that fire! Eyes, joints, whatever you can hit! What, Everquist?!”

  “Sir, we’ve got an unidentified airship approaching from the northwest.”

  “Whose airship?”

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s over I-70 headed straight for us.”

  “This bird wonking ID?”

  “Nope. Still have eyes on everything else, but this tech is black.”

  “Colonel, this you?” asked the sheriff.

  “Not one of ours, Dale!”

  “All right, Azarov, Talboy. Keep eyes on this airship once it’s in visual. If it comes in anywhere near this farm, try for a non-lethal hit on the pilot.”

  The general com crackled and hissed, an incoming emergency recognition ping.

  A new voice broke into their chatter, “This is Captain Mary Johnson, Union Air Force, requesting code violet with…” she hesitated, “Colonel… Marcus Apollo.”

  The colonel responded immediately, “This is Apollo, captain. I did not request tac reinforcements, but your timing could not be better! We got a hell of a theater.”

  Silence for a few seconds.

  The voice returned, “We are birds floating mach 2 on your local. Big Eye says you have units 24.2 km west of the Lawrence, Kansas, municipality, confirm.”

  “That’s correct, captain. Back?”

  “Colonel Apollo, you need to evac all personnel ASAP. We have co2 scrubber C643 fast losing sky. Holomod puts the impact zone on your local.”

  Gunfire plunking off metal and the sounds of THOR’S guttural snarls added to the stream distortion.

  “Say again, cappy!” shouted the colonel. “Dropping on my local?”

  The captain’s voice was astringent, “Confirm that. Unit C643 has lost external guidance, holomod projects it will drop on your coordinates. We’ve got numerous civilian contacts crossing holo also. Please notify civvy law enforcement, immediate evac. Repeat, evac all human assets.”

  The colonel’s voice was skeptical, “Captain, we’ve got you coming in eastbound, north by northwest. Sheriff’s driver guy, what’s your name? Neverquail! Where’s that bird you just wonked?”

  “Uhh, it’s right there, colonel. Coming across the river behind the wind generator on the tree line.”

  The small gray airship flew slowly above the trees, levf
ans blowing a flutter of autumn leaves off their limbs as it approached.

  “Captain, we see you arriving on a slow hover. Please re-wonk confirm. Yours is no Air Force bird I’ve ever seen.”

  The captain sounded incredulous, comstream crackling, “Negative, colonel. Your eyes are not on my asset. We are scrambled out of Whiteman AFB, Knob Knoster, Missouri. Currently over Belton municipality, northwest trajectory. Copy, sending confirmed Ipv7.”

  “We see those IPv7’s, confirmed,” said Everquist. “Two McDonnell-D AV9C Harriers outta Whiteman.”

  Captain Johnson barked, “This is a secure stream isolated for your Ipv7, colonel. We are picking up civvy comchat. Please exclude.”

  The sheriff had had enough, his voice was tinged with surl, “This is Douglas County Sheriff Dale Proudstar, pilot. Let me tell you how it goes. We got a cyborg the size of fucking Louisiana out here with a particle howitzer in its throat. I just watched it eat a pair of 1,800 kilo anti-cyborg bots, all right? We got uncoded stealth craft, wonkin’ black, landing less than two clicks north as we speak, and a dolphin in the basement of an armored barn driving a fusion powered super computer!”

  The com was silent.

  “That’s LC Dale Proudstar, captain, retired,” said Colonel Apollo pragmatically.

  They heard Everquist’s voice next, “Sheriff, I know it’s not a good time, but my drone’s telling me we’ve got thirteen dead CNED agents in the woods, and six more unidentified fusion based life forms directly north of that barn. They’re pinging gen 5 Ip’s. Coyotes, I’d guess.”

  Before Proudstar could respond, Captain Mary Johnson’s voice returned sharply, “Colonel Apollo, repeat. All human assets must evacuate immediately. As for cyborg activity, we got no words on that. Copy.”