by Aurelia Skye
He’d half-expected to find a massive wall of synthetics blocking their way, so it was a pleasant surprise to find no resistance as they moved deeper into the cavern. Could it be that the synthetics had thought a dozen would be enough to guard their entryway? Or perhaps they hadn’t realized how MX and Heather had gained entrance to the base to start with.
That didn’t seem likely, and neither did having just twelve guards to keep their base safe. Perhaps they had run a scenario and assumed they would need the majority of their force to face the approaching cyborg army and hadn’t considered guarding their rear as big a priority. They certainly hadn’t seemed to have planned for the idea that three cyborgs might slip past their defenses and enter a cavern full of an unknown number of hostiles. He couldn’t blame them for not having considered the scenario as a realistic one, since it was pretty risky, if not downright crazy.
It didn’t take long to reach the spot from which Heather had fallen, and he scanned the area before dropping down to the floor beneath, finding no presence registering for synthetics. He rolled quickly out of the way and got to his feet as JSN and then DVS dropped down to join him.
The feeling of déjà vu swept over him, and he almost reached out instinctively to shield Heather before remembering she wasn’t there. He was grateful that she wasn’t, though he wished he could be somewhere safe with her instead of in this situation. Wishing was useless, and the only way to be with her again was to be successful in their mission.
The three of them crept to the edge of the ledge, and he cursed when he saw a room full of synthetics again. There was a difference this time, because they were all active.
“What’s the plan?” He whispered the words at a barely audible decibel, certainly below what a human could have heard—and hopefully below what the synthetics twenty feet below could detect.
“Fortunately for us, Leith has been busy,” said DVS in a low whisper. “He’s been studying our weapons and working on improving the pulsers. He sent some prototypes.”
“Prototypes?” asked JSN, sounding doubtful. “As in, they haven’t been tested before?”
DVS shrugged. “They’re about to be.” With those words, he slipped off the pack he’d worn and opened it, reaching inside. He pulled out a thick disk-shaped object a moment later. “This should do the trick.”
Before MX could ask what it was, DVS had pressed a button on the side and tossed it over the ledge. MX didn’t have a chance to question the wisdom of throwing the object down among the synthetics, as all their attention turned to the object that had landed in their midst.
A moment later, there was a bright flash of light, and MX’s systems flickered. He lost consciousness for a moment before he blinked and came back online fully. “What the hell was that?” He’d intended to ask quietly, but his voice was louder than he’d planned, making him wince.
“That was a super version of the pulser,” said DVS with obvious satisfaction. “I didn’t realize the range would affect us. Did everyone come back okay?”
“I guess,” said JSN with a groan. “My head’s killing me.”
So was MX’s, compounding the already existing headache he had from the wound on his forehead, but he pushed through it. “I guess you just have more cybernetic parts in your brain than the rest of us.”
“Ha ha,” said JSN, shaking his head as though casting off the aftereffects of the super-pulser.
MX’s thoughts quickly returned to the synthetics beneath them, and he leaned over slightly to get a better look. Most of them had slumped somewhere between standing and falling down, since there was inadequate room to allow them to all fall to the floor. It looked like someone had knocked over a line of dominoes, and he grinned his satisfaction. A moment later, his sensors confirmed there were no synthetics in the immediate area.
They didn’t even show up as dormant. They were just dead. “Remind me to thank Leith.” For the first time since undertaking the mission, and especially since agreeing to be this part of the strike team, he was slightly optimistic that they might actually make it back and allow him the opportunity to thank the human for his hard work. “How many more of those do you have?”
“Five, plus a couple of other things. Leith didn’t have much prepared, but he sent what he could spare.” DVS donned the backpack again, and they stood up, hopping from the ledge to the level below one after the other.
Calling on his memory of the day’s events, he led the other two cyborgs down the same path he and Heather had taken that morning. The next room that had once held synthetics was completely empty, but the room after that contained synthetics that were in the process of deploying out into the corridor.
DVS removed another disk before they took shelter in the same alcove he’d shared with Heather that day until it pulsed. This time, they were prepared for the brief loss of power, but it was still irritating.
The pulser had done its job by shutting down the synths still in the room. It was a little messier getting through though, since the rocks seemed to shield the ones in the hallway from the brunt of the blast of the super-pulser. They had to shoot more than twenty of them and pulse separately to gain any ground.
“I’m sure they know we’re here now,” said DVS as he dispatched the last of the remaining synthetics in the hallway.
MX didn’t wait for it to fall as he turned in the direction of the CPU room. “We’d better hurry then.”
There was a new urgency about their movements, and they had abandoned caution and stealth for speed. They encountered three more synthetics, but fought through with relative ease, thanks to Leith’s invention and their firepower. When they reached the central processing unit, DVS stumbled to a halt, and JSN stared at it with mouth agape for a moment. MX had seen it that morning, but he allowed them a moment to absorb the sheer size of it. “Do you think Leith’s super pulsers are going to be enough?”
“I hope so. It’s absolutely enormous.” DVS shrugged off the pack and set it on the floor, reaching in to remove the last three pulsers. “Let’s try to space them at midpoints and hope we can take out the whole thing.”
“Should we use all three?” asked JSN a little doubtfully as he looked down at the disk in his hands. “What if we need one for an escape?”
“If this works, and we shut down the CPU, we shouldn’t need an escape. If we destroy their programming, we should destroy them.”
JSN nodded at MX’s words, but he still looked a little doubtful. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. If we can’t shut down the CPU, we aren’t going to be able to beat those things on the surface, and there’s no telling how many more they have stored down here. They’ve probably been building these things for years.”
MX nodded as DVS said, “They’ve probably been planning an offensive against us for decades. As soon as they found our base, they would’ve crushed it with little difficulty. If it hadn’t been for the alliance with the humans, and these pulsers, they would have been successful too.”
“Let’s hold off on celebrating our victory until we actually have it though,” said MX. “I’ll take the end of the room if you want to do the center, JSN. Does that work for you, General?”
DVS nodded, taking a moment to reach into the backpack again. This time, what he handled, he held with very cautious movements. “Set the pulsers to go off in two minutes.” He flipped over the disk he’d held to show them how, while his other hand remained firmly around the small steel box he held. Set these for ten minutes. Don’t drop it,” he cautioned as JSN reached for it. “I don’t how delicate it is, and neither did Leith.”
JSN grasped it, looking uncertain as he held it in practically a death grip. “What is it?”
“It’s a modification of the weapon the humans used to basically destroy all life on the surface seventy years ago. Leith has been recalibrating it, and he thinks it will work against the synthetics. It should dissolve their inorganic bonds.”
“That means it would dissolve ours too,” said MX with a small gulp
. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
DVS shrugged before reaching into the pack to take one more and hold it out to MX. “I’m not sure about anything, but I think it’s our best bet. I don’t want to just incapacitate the CPU. If some of the equipment remains behind, that means it might be brought back online someday. I want to destroy it.”
With a deep breath, MX took the box from the general and nodded. “Understood.” Then he turned and jogged to the end of the room, reaching his designated spot a few seconds after JSN. When DVS was also in position, he put down the pulser disk on top of a nearby flat area on the machine and set it for two minutes. Then, as quickly as possible, he followed the basic instructions DVS had given them to set the box that would hopefully obliterate the synthetics, or at least the CPU.
It was only as he pressed the button and started to run back to join JSN and DVS, who waited for him at the entryway, that he thought to question how the CPU had come into existence. He ran as fast as he could as they pounded down the corridor, dealing with an arriving squad of synthetics as quickly as they could.
He hoped they were far enough away from the combined blast of the three pulsers, because his mental countdown reached zero about the same time the remaining synthetics around them froze and fell to the floor. He shared a cautious look with his friends. “Do you think it worked?”
“I think so,” said DVS.
As they resumed running again, the question he’d had occurred to him, and he voiced it. “How did they build the CPU if it controls all their thoughts? That means some of them have to be independent thinkers, right?”
“Leith thinks it was probably Maurice Frankel who built the original device. He believes that Frankel had tried to learn from his mistake of allowing self-autonomy with cyborgs by controlling the synthetics from one central point. He didn’t anticipate the CPU would gain its own intelligence and decide humans were as expendable as cyborgs, but he also didn’t expect his invention to turn on him and be the thing that killed him.”
JSN paused for just a second before resuming his run. “I’ve never heard that before.”
“It’s in the humans’ history, written in their books they keep in the enclave. It was never recorded in the electronic records, but the story is Frankel was one of the first killed when the synthetics turned on humans along with cyborgs.”
“That makes me want to grin,” said MX as he chuckled.
“It makes me pretty happy too,” said DVS. “Not as happy as our success here though. We need to get out of the cavern before the bonds disintegrate, because I don’t know how much of their structure is inorganic. I don’t how far the blast radius will be either. Leith couldn’t give me an exact estimate, but he figured it would be at least half a kilometer in every direction.”
“That should be most of the space.” MX hoped the synth base wasn’t any larger than half a kilometer around, though judging from the number of synthetics it produced, it very well could be. He tried not to let that bother him, assuring himself that as long as the CPU was destroyed, that was the most important thing.
They could return later and finish destroying the remains of the synthetics, but the things clearly weren’t getting up again. They seemed completely dead. Otherwise, they would’ve moved or tried to fight back as the three of them ran and jumped over the various synthetics scattered throughout the smooth-bored corridors.
Rather than take the way they had come, since it required scaling distances vertically, they followed the flow of synths that had clearly been exiting the base in anticipation of joining the fight on the surface. The schematics Rote had given confirmed they were on the right path, and they cleared the area, running up the incline to the surface and arriving outside of it with more than a minute left to spare. They continued running until a few seconds before it was due to go off, stopping to see if there was anything observable from the surface.
There was a rumble under their feet, and MX was certain it must have been a lot louder at the epicenter of the blast. It was like a massive earthquake, and a chill ran through him. Without asking DVS or waiting for permission, he used his communication system to open a line to the human enclave. “Warren, are you there?”
The reluctant leader, acting in Leith’s stead, sounded tired and grumpy when he answered, but he did respond. “Who is this?”
“It’s MX409, Heather’s partner.” He liked the sound of that, but couldn’t allow himself to get distracted. “There’s a potential for intense seismic activity coming your way. I’d suggest you prepare to evacuate.”
There was a hesitation, and Warren sounded less grumpy and more awake when he responded. “Understood. We’ll get the people together and head toward the surface. How bad do you think it’ll be?”
“I don’t know. It could be bad enough to destroy everything.” His stomach cramped at the idea of losing the enclave’s store of DNA that could revive the planet if they could find a way to heal the damage already done to it.
As though reading his mind, Warren asked, “What about the Ark?”
MX looked at DVS, who had been following the conversation and saw uncertainty in his friend’s eyes too. “I guess salvage what you can, just in case everything’s destroyed. But don’t spend too long on it, because it’s not worth your lives. I believe Gwen has some samples back at the cyborg base.”
JSN broke in, knowing more about it than them since he worked with his mate to bring back the clones. “We managed to bring in a few more specimens. If you don’t have time to get everything, concentrate on the fruits, vegetables, and insects. But don’t risk yourselves.”
After another hesitation, Warren’s voice came over the communication system again. “We’re experiencing some tremors, so I’m getting people out. I don’t think we’ll have time to take anything from the Ark.”
JSN’s sadness was palpable, and MX experienced his own wrench of disappointment as DVS spoke to Warren. “It doesn’t matter. Just get the humans out.”
After Warren signed off, the three of them stood there for a moment. “Do you think we should help them? The enclave isn’t far from here. About ten klicks maybe.”
DVS nodded at the suggestion, but waved behind them. MX turned to see several cyborgs approaching.
FLD was the first to reach them, and he looked confused, but hopeful. “Is it over, General?”
“For the most part, but I need some volunteers to help with the humans. Their enclave might be destroyed, and they will either need assistance getting out, or perhaps a guide to the base. You shouldn’t have to worry about synthetics, but maintain your guard in case we’re wrong about them all operating on a hive mind.”
MX was startled to see the number of cyborgs who stepped forward to volunteer. It was a promising sign that the human/cyborg alliance would last, and they’d have a smooth integration of their people, should it come to that.
He would have volunteered to help them, but they were in capable hands, and he wanted to get back to Heather. Back to his mate, to make sure she knew how he felt about her.
Chapter Nine
They were almost back to base when a communiqué from FLD came through the secured command channel. “General, everyone has been evacuated from the human enclave. We just had a sizable earthquake, and it destroyed two sections of the enclave, but the Ark is unaffected for now.”
A surge of relief shot through MX, and he wasn’t the only one. JSN was grinning even more than he was, and they were clearly both on the edge of celebrating. At least until DVS’s words.
“Were there any losses?”
“Three,” said FLD briskly. “The humans forgot about one of their own in the brig. When they remembered, two volunteers went in to rescue him, but we found the remains of all three halfway down the collapsed corridor.”
“I see. Convey our condolences, and if it’s safe enough, recruit some volunteers to retrieve everything from the Ark.”
JSN broke in. “They won’t need to bring the equipment used for clon
ing, since Gwen and I have set up a more efficient system at the base. Tell them to focus on grabbing the samples, and try to remember the inventory list. We don’t want to accidentally clone crocodiles when we’re going for crocuses.”
FLD signed off, and their base came into sight. It wasn’t obviously a base to the undiscerning eye, but MX knew exactly where it was, and exactly who waited for him inside. It made his step lighter as he followed DVS inside, with JSN bringing up the rear. As soon as they stepped inside, they were surrounded by humans and the remaining cyborgs, who had been assigned the task of protecting the base. There was a collective sigh of relief that went through the crowd, followed by a jumbled torrent of voices.
MX stepped away from it, allowing his gaze to find Heather in the crowd as DVS started recapping the events for the others. When their gazes clashed, she moved away from Carrie, who had been headed toward her mate, and trailed behind Gwen, who was clearly intent on reaching her mate also.
It felt good and sounded right in his head to acknowledge he was Heather’s mate. Until meeting her, it wasn’t something he thought he would ever want—not that he’d given it much thought—but now he realized it was everything to him. She meant everything, and he hoped he’d have a chance one day to thank Freydon Rote for bringing them together.
As Heather stopped beside him, Gwen skirted around the both of them to join JSN, but MX didn’t watch her walk away. His eyes were on his mate, and he realized she was anxious from her dilated pupils and rapid heartbeat. “What’s wrong? You seem apprehensive.”
She licked her lips and shook her head before letting out a strangled chuckle. “I guess I’m a little nervous. I hoped you’d come back, but I was so focused on your safety and your return that I didn’t consider what would happen next.”
He arched a brow. “What will happen next?”
