by Isaac Hooke
One of the robots beckoned with its rifle, swinging it toward the throne room.
“We go that way?” Rade asked.
The robot beckoned again.
“I think that means yes,” Shaw said.
Rade and Shaw turned around and walked in the other direction, toward the throne room. It was one of the longest walks Rade had ever done in his life, with those rifles trained upon him the whole time. He kept expecting them to fire.
He passed underneath the vent he’d torn away in the ceiling. The searcher robots had gathered all around the opening, where they lingered, watching him pass by. None of them leaped down.
The pair reached a set of double doors. As they approached, the doors clicked open, and swung inward. A vaulted chamber awaited beyond.
He glanced at Shaw, and then gripped her hand tightly. Then they stepped through together.
25
In front of Rade and Shaw, two sets of evenly spaced marble slabs partitioned the room. They reached waist high, forming an aisle that crossed the room down the middle from left to right. To the left, the slabs ended in a pair of double doors that Rade thought constituted the main entrance to the room. To the right, the slabs terminated in steps leading to a dais. On the dais was a small, black shed—though it was open in front, he couldn’t see beyond the edges at his current angle. Far overhead, the arched roof was covered in paintings and statues that reminded him of Renaissance architecture.
He walked forward with Shaw, until he passed between the outer slabs, and was in the aisle that ran down the center of the room. Then the pair proceeded toward the dais with its shed at the front.
The entrance to that shed was draped in a color-shifting veil that rippled back and forth as if by some breeze, though Rade felt no wind in the room whatsoever. As it slid back and forth like that, shifting between the hues of the rainbow, it offered glimpses of the throne inside, and the figure that sat upon it. He saw only the lower body of a seated individual, wearing black boots and black pants.
They were walking on a red rug lined with gold tassels; the occasional geometric shape was depicted in yellow along its length. Nine-pointed stars seemed to be common, along with thirteen-sided polygons. Nine and thirteen were considered lucky numbers in Sino Korea.
As they continued toward the dais, his gaze shifted to the slabs that lined either side. Because of the way they were shaped, with small shelfs and troughs, he was reminded of molars: it felt like he was walking into the jaws of some creature’s maw.
Which indeed he was.
He reached the dais, and hesitated at the base of the steps. Shaw looked at him. He returned her glance, nodded, squeezed her hand tighter, and continued.
When he reached the top step, the veil ceased fluttering and simply hung in place. Rade reached out, intending to swing the mantle aside, but then the shed began folding away into the floor on either side, and the color-shifting veil was ripped from view along with it.
In moments the shed had vanished into the floor, and two thrones remained before Rade and Shaw.
In the first sat a man wearing the black boots and pants. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt, with similarly colored gloves. No, not a shirt, but a hoodie of some kind—the hood was raised to hide his face in shadow.
In the second throne sat Cynthia.
Rade gaped at her.
“Kneel,” the man said. His voice rasped with age, seeming almost a hiss.
Shaw glanced at Rade, apparently wanting some hint as to whether she should obey or not.
“I’m not kneeling,” Rade said. He gazed hard at Cynthia.
She returned his stare haughtily from the elevated dais. She was dressed like a queen in a blue gown with gold trim along the bodice, and silver filigree flaring from the sleeves. She wore slippers of crystal, and a diadem that glittered with emeralds and diamonds.
“Kneel,” the man repeated.
When neither Rade or Shaw obeyed, the same floor panels that had swallowed the shed shifted once more, and weapon turrets unfolded from either side of the throne. Those turrets moved autonomously, and rapidly locked onto the pair.
Shaw released his hand and knelt immediately. Rade glanced at her, sighed, and dropped to his knees shortly thereafter.
The man reached up and lowered the hood to reveal a long, white mustache and goatee. His features were Chinese, but so very ancient, his skin stretched like overly-taut parchment ready to snap over the bones beneath it.
Rade recognized the Paramount Leader instantly, because of all the Artificials he had seen cast in the man’s image. President Guoping Qiu had decreed years ago that most Sino-Korean Artificials were to be built in his image. However, those particular Artificials had been a lot younger than the man who sat before him. Strangely, despite his obviously aged appearance, he sat completely straight, and his body seemed strong, with toned muscles filling out the sleeves and chest of the hoodie. Rejuvenetics, no doubt.
“The Paramount Leader,” Shaw said quietly, aloud.
“Not anymore,” Cynthia said.
“I am the Reborn,” the Paramount Leader added in accented English.
“The Anarchist?” Rade said.
Cynthia nodded. “I grew him again from the spores I smuggled off the ship before I escaped. He was the ninth child I always wanted. And when he was old enough, I deposited his consciousness into this Artificial, using a modification of the technique I developed on Newridium when I installed the Anarchist into a Hoplite’s AI core. I did it in the event that his physical body should be destroyed from a clandestine attack, as the one effected by your team a short while ago.” She shook her head. “You really thought you could destroy him so easily? That we would not be prepared? When you kidnapped Tan Xin Zao, we knew we had to issue a preemptive strike against your country.”
“You were preparing to invade us regardless,” Rade said. “Those Nemesis ships would have taken a long time to travel here via the Slipstreams. They obviously set out weeks ago.”
The Paramount Leader smiled. “All right, you got us.”
Shaw was staring at the seated man. “I didn’t know the Paramount Leader was an Artificial.”
“It’s an open secret,” Cynthia said.
Rade shook his head and gazed at her. “The Anarchist has returned, and now rules the Sino Koreans, thanks to you.”
Cynthia merely smirked.
“But the alien is cut off from the other mind nodes distributed throughout this region of the galaxy,” Rade said. “Now that I’ve destroyed his physical form.”
The Paramount Leader shrugged. “We have more spores.”
Cynthia sat back and crossed her legs. “You know, I never thought I’d see you again. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, when I did. I used to have a bit of a crush on you.”
“You know this chick?” Shaw said.
“We’ve talked, yes,” Rade said quickly. “Though I wouldn’t say I really know her.”
“I offered him the chance to sire my ninth child,” Cynthia said. “He refused.”
“Don’t blame him,” Shaw quipped.
“What are you going to do with us?” Rade said.
“I don’t know,” Cynthia said. “I wanted to see you, but I don’t really feel anything now that I have. I suppose we’ll have to lock you in the palace dungeon until the Reborn decides.”
“I’d prefer to execute them immediately, with these.” The Paramount Leader nodded at the weapons turrets on either side of the throne.
Cynthia frowned. “No. Not yet. I may want to toy with them. If it pleases you…”
The Paramount Leader nodded. “Then I will send them to the palace dungeon for the time being.”
Panels opened in the wall behind the Paramount Leader and armed combat robots rushed inside. They surrounded Rade and Shaw, and led them away.
The robots escorted Rade and Shaw to an elevator that took them up a few floors to the “palace dungeon”—the prison and interrogation area near where the two had originally la
nded.
As the armed robots led the pair through metal halls lined with steel doors, Rade’s comm node picked up a friendly on the floor just below.
Nicolas.
Rade increased his comm node range so he could communicate. “Nicolas! I’m here.” He had set the range to the maximum fifty meters, but given the thickness of the floor, that range would be reduced to anywhere from five to fifteen meters.
“Rade?” the AI replied, voice distorting slightly. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you, brother,” Rade said. “I wasn’t going to abandon you.”
“You’re transmitting freely,” the AI said. “Be careful, the AI has cameras and comm nodes positioned throughout this base. You’ll be discovered.”
“Too late for that, I’m afraid,” Rade said.
“You shouldn’t have returned for me,” Nicolas said. His voice was distorting badly now. “I left you so you could escape. But now, my capture was for nothing.”
“We’ll get out of this yet,” Rade said. “What are the defenses like down there?”
Rade glanced at his overhead map. According to the positional information transmitted by the Jupiter, Nicolas resided on the floor directly below, in a cell within the machine section of the prison, where all AIs and other forms of machine intelligence were kept.
“There are a few defense turrets stowed inside the floors and ceilings in the hall,” Nicolas said. “And some—” But then he cut out.
Rade had passed beyond comm range. The mech’s location remained frozen on the overhead map, where Nicolas’ last known position was recorded.
Rade considered contesting the combat robots in order to get in some final words with Nicolas, but decided it wasn’t worth it. He had the Jupiter’s position now, and that was all that mattered.
Well, assuming he could actually escape this place.
The robots shoved Shaw into one of the cells and shut the steel doors. They steered Rade toward the adjacent cell, but before putting him inside, they methodically stripped his jumpsuit and exoskeleton, leaving him only in his cooling and ventilation undergarments.
Thus stripped, they shoved him into the cell and locked the windowless door behind him. His nose wrinkled as the smell of sewage filled his nostrils. The ceiling brushed his head, and width-wise, the walls were so cramped that he could touch both when he extended his arms. It was long enough to fit a bunk and a small sink. Beside the sink, the toilet was a small porcelain hole in the floor, with two grips on either side for his feet while he squatted. That hole explained the smell…
The comm node in Rade’s Implant still operated at its maximum range, allowing him to penetrate the thick wall to the adjacent cell, and remain connected to Shaw. He supposed the robots and main AI knew this, but didn’t care, otherwise they would have moved them further apart.
“Rade, are you there?” Shaw asked over his Implant comm line.
Her voice distorted, so he positioned himself as close to the wall as possible. “I’m right here,” he transmitted over the encrypted channel.
“Well, at least they left us that.” Shaw’s voice had improved so that there was only a slight distortion present. Glancing at his map, he saw that she had moved right up against her own wall on the other side. “What do we do now?”
Rade glanced at the door. It had no handles, and its edges formed a seamless join with the surrounding wall. He searched for remote interfaces via his HUD, but couldn’t find any.
He glanced at the ceiling, looking for the hidden camera he knew was present, but couldn’t see it. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been a prisoner more than a few times during your career…” she said. “What’s your advice?”
“Stay calm,” he said. “That’s all you can do when things get out of your control. And take some time to think, most of all. There’s always a way out of prisons.”
“Yeah,” she said. “So okay, we jump the guards when they bring us food, or what?”
“Probably won’t be that easy,” he said. “Considering that usually prison doors have slots in the bottom to dispense the food.”
“I don’t see any,” she said. “Hell, I can’t even see the door itself anymore.”
“Yeah, neither do I,” he said. “But I’m sure it’s there. So, that rules out jumping the guards. But if we have any visitors, on the other hand…”
“Cynthia,” Shaw said.
“You got it,” he told her.
“You’re not going to have to sleep with her or something to get us out, are you?” Shaw asked.
“Ah, no,” he replied. “But if she decides, in her infinite wisdom, that she wants to visit me, then she’ll become my hostage shortly thereafter. She’s our ticket out of here.”
“Assuming the new Paramount Leader—this Reborn alien—values her life as much as you think he does,” Shaw transmitted.
“He does,” Rade said. “He wouldn’t have put her on the throne beside him if he didn’t.”
“All right then,” Shaw said. “So we wait.”
“We wait,” Rade agreed.
26
Rade lay on the bunk, staring at the ceiling. On the left, the featureless wall abutted against the mattress. On the right, a small gap resided between the bunk and the wall, forming an aisle he could use to sidestep to the toilet and sink. He’d gotten somewhat used to the smell of sewage, and almost didn’t notice it anymore.
He had lain there for an hour so far, according to his clock. After their earlier talk, he and Shaw had agreed to rest, and that put a damper on any conversations. But Rade found himself too wired to nap.
“You still awake?” Shaw transmitted into the silence. Her voice distorted slightly, because of his position.
“Yeah, can’t sleep,” he told her.
He waited for her to say more, but when she didn’t, he sighed and gazed at the ceiling once more.
“One would think we’d have a ton to talk about and catch up on,” she said. “And yet, it seems painful, somehow.”
Puzzled, he said: “How?”
“Knowing that we’re only going to be parted again in the end,” she said. “If we survive.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he told her.
Her avatar smiled bleakly. “You always say that. And you know it does.”
“Maybe you should marry Romero after all,” he said. “And divorce him when one of us retires.”
She laughed. “Typical short-sighted MOTH solution, on your part. You MOTHs are all about the here and now, never bothering to think about the long-term consequences of your actions. You’re forgetting that emotions are involved here. If I married him, I couldn’t just divorce him ten years down the road when you finally showed up. I’d become attached to him.”
“But you already admitted that you don’t love him,” Rade pressed.
“Yes, I don’t,” she agreed. “But I could grow to love him. Is that what you want? Then I’ll go ahead and marry him. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be happy someday.”
Rade didn’t answer immediately. He weighed his response very carefully, knowing that what he said here in this moment could very well change his future with her.
“Don’t marry him,” he said. “I don’t know why I suggested it. I was only joking.”
Her avatar chuckled. “Ah Rade. Why you do joke like that? This is a serious thing.”
Rade swallowed hard. “I know. But… well, what I’m about to tell you isn’t easy for me.”
She waited, then said: “Okay, tell me.”
“I will,” he said. He hesitated, knowing that there was a chance his transmissions were being intercepted, even if he and Shaw were transmitting at the weakest possible intensity to penetrate the wall. Did he really want to trust that the SKs didn’t have the decryption keys? Did he really want to reveal his weaknesses to them?
Then again, it wouldn’t take them much work to figure out that Shaw meant everything to him. All they’d have to do was point a pisto
l at her head and he’d fall to his knees and tell them everything they wanted to know. He’d beg them to let him be their spy, whatever they wanted.
Some special operator I am.
“When?” Shaw pressed.
He sighed. Yes, there was no point in holding back. He might as well tell her now, while he still could.
“I’m just trying to come up with the words. I’m taking my time for once, because I want to get it right. Okay. So. I’ll admit something to you. The thought of losing you forever terrifies me. When I first found out you were marrying this dude, I thought I was going to die. I’d already lost you once, and now I had to give you up again? I always thought I’d get with you when I was done in the military. I thought you’d wait for me, as I would wait for you.
“But I was naive to believe that, to even hope for it. Of course I was. I couldn’t expect you to stay single, or unmarried for ten years for me. That’s an unreasonable expectation. Still, I clung to that hope, which I guess was why the news of your engagement hit me so hard. My sorrow gave way to anger, and I wanted revenge. I wanted to sleep with everything that moved. Well, everything with female genitalia. And I probably would have, if I didn’t have a city to defend, and a mission to complete.”
Shaw was silent for a time. “I don’t know what to say. I can’t guarantee I’ll wait for you. That’s definitely unreasonable. But if… ten years from now, when one or both of us has quit the military, maybe we can finally settle down. Maybe we can… be together. If you still haven’t found someone.”
“I hope so,” he said.
“You fell in love with a mech, after all,” she quipped.
He smiled painfully at the memory. Not at the fact that he loved a machine, but that he lost that love.
“Sorry,” she said. “That’s a sore point for you. I shouldn’t be joking about it. I guess there’s still some jealousy inside of me, even though she’s gone now.”
Rade nodded. “I admit I still get pissed when I think about this Romero dude.”
He rolled to one side on the bunk, and pressed his hand across the aisle against the wall beside it. Shaw’s bunk would be just on the other side.
