This was the moment; I was looking directly at the thing's most vulnerable spot. I aimed just behind the point where his eyes rose from his chassis and fired.
I was stunned! My bullet struck its claw and by the time it had passed through, the bullet had barely the power to dent the thing's chassis.
I quickly rolled to my right to a location from which I had hoped to jump to my feet and sprint up the stairs. The machine deduced my ploy and began to fire through the stairwell wall. If I were to run up those stairs, I'd run right into a rain of lead.
The drone was starting up the steps. No matter what I did, it was going to have me. I popped a few more rounds at it, but the thing was quick to redirect its fire.
The door behind the drone was violently kicked open and the muzzle flash of a full auto weapon added to that of the drone's. Then, just that quickly, all was silent.
I peeked over the edge and there, behind the shattered remains of the drone stood Susan, feet spread apart, her weapon still smoking in her hand, her hair in her face.
She shook her hair back and slapped another magazine into her weapon. As she did, she looked up at me and said, "Took ya too long."
I rose from the floor of the landing and dusted off my jeans. "I had this," I responded, with confidence.
Susan looked up at me again. "Sure you did," she said, smiling. Then she, again, directed her attention to the wreckage of the bot.
"This was unfortunate," she said.
"Why's that?"
"The operator of this thing witnessed this entire action. You can bet right now he's directing more of these guys down here. All the more reason to quickly put these things out of action."
Just as quickly as possible, Susan and I got everyone down the stairs and into the warm room beyond. The little bots moved slowly down the stairs which were, fortunately, wide enough to accommodate four columns.
This floor was a collection of various amusements, gambling, movies, theaters, swimming pools, spas, bars, just about any type of entertainment one might desire.
We entered an unmarked building on our right where we found a room with a locked door. Susan forced the door with one hand. Beyond, was a single elevator, and to its right, a single emergency stairwell.
"Down one more floor and then we'll move laterally into the BSC," Susan said.
Though the elevator worked, it was too small to accommodate too many bots at one time. Most of the bots and all of the SUBs descended the stairwell.
Susan and I were the first to descend. We exited the stairwell and found ourselves in a sort of waiting room. Nothing elaborate, but still nice. There were several chairs and loveseats, some fake plants, and several unremarkable art prints on the walls. There was one standard door leading out of this room. I was about to kick it open when Susan stopped me and simply depressed the door handle. It opened.
We entered a room in total darkness. We both switched to passive vision and Susan discovered a light activation panel. In short order, lamps began to illuminate all around us. We both stood with our weapons at the ready.
I looked about at what had once been a really nice club, with a bar, dance floor, and several small stages scattered about. As Susan and I went about the task of clearing the area, I noticed a few oddities: there were a great many small rooms containing only beds and wash stands. One room contained the addition of several whips, chains, and ropes. Another was decorated like a nineteenth century parlor; another was made to look like the great outdoors, like Yellowstone, back on Earth. One room looked like the inside of a cave, like Carlsbad Caverns, or something. I also saw costumes—Little Bo Peep, Robin Hood, and I don't know what else.
From the other hallway I heard Susan shout, "Left, clear!"
I exited my last room and shouted, "Right, clear!" We regrouped in the club.
"This is the damnedest hotel I've ever seen," I commented.
Susan lowered the muzzle of her weapon and looked at me incredulously. "Hotel?" she said. "Really? Matt, think a moment, a hotel on the Moon, seriously?"
I looked again over my shoulder at the place, then it hit me. "Oh!"
"Yeah," she went on, "remember what the sign said? Amusements."
"No doubt to keep the guys' mental health in check."
"Based on what I've seen, I'd have to say not only the guys. Seems they catered to all persuasions here."
"Well, a smiling Moon base is a happy Moon base," I said, grinning.
Chapter 19
Raid on Ava
With everyone gathered together, Susan explained we'd be moving through a narrow passage that would lead us into the BSC.
Sam Bixby, the SUB from our running gun fight who had informed me we'd "stopped them", came to me, his head swiveling around as he looked about. "Sergeant, I'm told this is a—"
"Cat house," I interjected.
"Imagine that! On the Moon, of all places!"
"It's a very strong drive in the human psyche," I noted.
"Yeah," he said, "I still have it. But, well, we're not supposed to fraternize with the Bio women, and all the SUB women are—were—spoken for."
"Hey, there are three very attractive female SUBs right here," I nodded my head indicating three women standing in a cluster at the far end of the room.
He glanced over at them, but became quite subdued. "I guess it doesn't matter now, does it?"
"What do you mean, Sam?"
"We're not coming back from this; we all know it."
I rounded on him and kept my voice low so the others would not be able to hear. "Listen to me, mister. We are coming back from this mission, and don't you think otherwise." This was the second time I heard this DIP mission crap. I stepped away from Bixby into the center of the room. In a normal speaking voice I said, "Let me have everyone's attention." All the bots rolled near and the SUBs turned around to face me.
"Since we started, I have twice heard it said that we would not be coming back from this little trip. I'm here to tell you that I am not leading you on a suicide mission. That's what the enemy does, not us. We are going to stop the control of the enemy's robots and dust as many of the enemy as we can; then we are getting the hell out of there.
"Now, I can't guarantee you there will be no casualties, I wish I could, but I did not bring you all here to die. We are going to succeed here, then return to the hospital. That's the game plan. Questions?"
"Yes, sir," a bot whose identifier said his name was Charles spoke up. "Why is it the plan we all got over Ismay does not include a provision for escape?"
"That's my fault." Susan stepped up beside me. As she did, we heard all the bots start to murmur, "Ava." Susan looked out among them a moment. "Yes, I was once Ava, but I was then and am now Susan Myers. As you trusted Ava, I ask that you now trust me."
"Ava, what about escape?" A voice from the group called out.
"Frankly, I had not included that as part of the plan because there are so many ways out of the area we now call the Alamo that I have not yet selected one. How and from where we leave will be dependent on the damage we find there and the enemy resistance we encounter. Nevertheless, there’s no reason to believe in anything other than our success. We have the element of surprise, and greater accuracy with each shot fired." She stopped and looked out among the members of our team. There were no further questions.
After a sufficient pause, I said, "We had best keep moving; time is a factor. We need to destroy their command and control before they are finished assembling all those drones, then we have to get back to the hospital and assist our friends in mopping up the enemy."
As we started moving, I glanced back to see how our little speeches had affected our troops. I had to do a double take. Sam had fallen in with the three female SUBs, and they seemed to be laughing and smiling. If nothing else, they all seemed to have hope now.
Just as we were about to continue, one of the female SUBs approached me. "Hello, Matt, do you remember me?" Her identifier popped up, "JILL CYB-Lab - CYB - 16 - Tech, Marsha
l, Cassandra, P."
"Oh, sure, Ms. Marshal—my old school teacher."
"Please, call me Cassie—all my friends do. I just wanted to apologize for that morning in your room. I was a bit of an ass."
"Forget it, Cassie. I did."
She smiled and returned to Sam and the other two females.
"That morning in your room?" Susan asked with that voice.
"Oh, gimmie a break, she was my first-grade school teacher."
In a room beyond the bar, which contained slot machines, roulette wheels, and crap tables, there was an unmarked, nondescript door on a far wall. Susan opened it to reveal a short flight of stairs that descended to a wide, if somewhat low, passage filled with pipes, conduits and communication optical light-fiber cables that led directly to the Barbicane Science Center.
Susan turned around and addressed the rest of the formation, "The next area will present no problem for the bots in our group, but we SUBs are going to be forced to crouch. We will soon be entering a maintenance area between the floors of the BSC, this area is only one point six meters high and we SUBs vary between one point eight and one point nine meters tall. We will be in this area for the next twelve kilometers. Then we'll drop down into level six, locate the fiber optic cable junction box and follow the cables all the way to the mainframe room."
The path was just as she described it. The long trip conducted crouched was not the problem I envisioned because my cybernetic body did not pain me.
We found the power conduit which allowed us to access level six, it was not a large opening and though we SUBs dropped down with no problem, the bots, on the other hand, had to be lowered one at a time.
We were able to stand upright for the next several kilometers; this allowed us to make up some of that lost time. We ran the entire distance until we located the fiber optic junction.
Without Susan, I'd have never located this box. She led us to a large control panel, one of several mounted along the wall, she identified one from among them. Several of the bots went around this panel and unbolted it from the wall. One of them had to be manhandled onto the top of the housing in order to loosen the upper extent. Then all the SUBs, and several of the bots, pulled at the huge piece of equipment until it slid out and away from the wall. Behind it was the fiber optic junction and, from there, ran masses of cables through a tunnel about a meter and a half in diameter, completely lined with these cables, cable bundles, and filaments.
Susan's plan had the SUBs enter first and clear the bottom of the conduit of all cables and filaments in order that the bots could pass. More time was lost here; fortunately, only a kilometer-and-a-half needed to be traversed. At the end of the tunnel, Susan and I entered a small air circulation box that actually sat inside the mainframe room against a wall. We could not stand inside the box and both of us barely managed to squeeze in.
Susan removed a blower motor, fan, and filter. She peeked through a set of louvers out into the dark, quiet, and seemingly abandoned mainframe room.
"Can you see anything?" I asked in a voice so low no human ear could have heard.
"About a hundred meters away, I see a solitary guard. He's armed with an AK. Matt, we need to get past him quietly."
"How do I get out of here?"
Sanyo rolled up. "Allow me," he said. I traded places with him and he rolled to the back side of the box. From inside his chassis, he produced a small but powerful laser, and silently began to cut the back panel out. The metal was thin and presented no obstacle. Once a corner was separated, Sanyo reached out with a claw and grabbed it. When the side panel was freed, Sanyo gently laid it down.
"Thanks," I whispered and started out.
"What are you doing?" Susan grabbed my arm.
"I'm going to take care of that guard."
"He may not be alone, there could be—"
"Hey, Susan, this ain't my first rodeo."
"Be careful," she said, and she kissed me. "Matt, those two words do not begin to truly express my desire that you be careful."
"Okay," I said. "Just for you, honey."
Outside the confines of the small box, I moved to the side of a bank of processors. The processors were small boxes three centimeters by thirteen centimeters by twenty centimeters, but there were dozens and dozens per bank and tens of thousands of banks. And, of course, all were interconnected.
I amplified my audio reception. I could hear the hum of the mighty computer all around me, and one beating heart. Just one.
I was on a mission to kill this man, but the sound of his beating heart gave me pause. I'd killed before, but it was always a very impersonal act—I had only taken out a target. But now, I was listening to a human heart beating, pumping life-giving blood throughout his body, providing oxygen to his brain—the same kind of brain that was all that was left of me.
A soldier who pauses in his mission not only risks his own life, but the lives of all who accompany him.
I moved with all the stealth I could—which, in fact, amazed even me. I was as quiet as the approach of death.
Silently in and through the shadows among the endless racks of computer hardware I crept until I was behind the man. He stood near a wide doorway. Light from the other side fell across his face and cast a long beam across the floor. He cradled the AK in his arms and occasionally shifted his weight from one foot to another. He kept glancing in toward the lighted area, but I heard no sound to indicate there was either another human, or bot, nearby.
The guard slung his weapon over his shoulder and retrieved a small bottle from his pocket. From it, he removed a pill and swallowed it. I recognized the pill at once. It prevented fatigue and made the individual alert. He drug was exceedingly damaging to the kidneys and liver, but these guys did not plan on living long enough to worry about it.
As he was replacing the cap on his bottle prior to returning it to his pocket, I made my move. I approached fast and low behind him. He never saw me coming. I popped up behind him, grabbed his head and broke his neck. He fell backward into my arms.
My sensors relayed all the information about the attack, speed of movement, duration, and the surprisingly little physical effort needed kill this man. However, in my mind it had taken a great deal of effort. I discovered I had developed a new appreciation for life. I looked back toward the ventilation box to see first Sanyo, then Susan, rise up from behind it. I had developed a new definition for life, as well. This was the same old timeless situation man had put himself into more often than there are stars in the universe. Them or us. Someone had to die, and it was by damned going to be them.
I grabbed my victim and pulled his body into the shadows. I stood there looking down at him when Sanyo rolled up. He, too, looked down at the dead man, then up at me. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"First time you've had to use your hands like that?" he asked.
"No. I've been involved in killing all my adult life it seems, but this time, I heard his heart stop beating."
"And that upset you because you no longer have a heart?"
"No, Sanyo, because I do have a heart. I looked up and saw Susan, whom I love with all my heart, and you, for whom I have a place in my heart, and all the SUBs, bots, and Bios in our little community that are the beat of my heart. I thought of Dolph and Walker, for whom I am heartsick and worried. And I feel a pain in my heart for this man."
"Matt, let no one ever say you are not thoroughly human," Sanyo responded.
Susan came up to me and hugged me. She looked into my eyes and seemed to know my thoughts.
I patted her shoulder. "Let's assemble everyone in the shadows over there."
"I'll go scout the route ahead," Sanyo volunteered.
"Hey," I said, "be careful."
Sanyo brought up his weapon. "Sure thing, Matt," and he slowly rolled out toward the door.
Susan had everyone spread out tactically, but still close enough to respond to an attack. There was only one other way in and out of this area—the wide door
way where I had killed the guard.
As we waited for Sanyo, Susan took me aside. "Matt, there are two ways of stopping the enemy's drones. The preferable method would be to find the controller and the device he's using through Ava to communicate with the army of little tanks. The other is to start destroying selected processors and servers inside this room. The end result will indeed stop the drones, but it will render Ava useless and require a major re-installation and reprogramming that could take months. However, if we encounter insurmountable resistance, the destruction of Ava's hardware may be our only option."
I nodded. "Yeah, and if we encounter insurmountable resistance the only way out of here is by the same conduit we took to get in. We'll be sitting ducks all lined up in that tube for a click and a half."
"I know, Matt. Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Sanyo came rolling back and headed to Susan and me at top speed. "Matt! Susan!"
"Shhh!" Susan said.
"No, no, listen," Sanyo was very excited, "there is no one else down here."
"What?" I was astounded. I was sure this area would be heavily guarded.
"I went all the way to the elevator and looked up the elevator shaft. There is light up there and I can hear at least five distinct voices."
"Upstairs? One floor up—the fifth level?"
"Yeah!"
"Get everyone together and let's move quietly to the elevator shaft, SUBs in the lead."
Sanyo hurried off but Susan turned to me. "What are you thinking?"
"Sanyo only heard five voices," I said. "Let's assume twice that number. Three of us leap up to the fifth floor and we can take all ten before they get a round off."
"What if there are twenty or eighty?"
"There would be more noise."
"I don't know, Matt."
"Honey, listen—"
"No, you listen. I'll go along with this as long as you delegate the jumping to three others."
"Susan, that's not fair, I am expected to lead—"
"No, you are the commander; you are expected to give orders. Do you think anyone here will think less of you for not jumping up there, after all you've done?"
The Battle of Broken Moon Page 26
