by Isaac Hooke
Gizmo’s back, Will sent.
She glanced up and saw the drone barely visible as a black dot overhead. Gizmo had reactivated rotor noise cancelling, and had no doubt taken a roundabout route back to avoid leading the enemy to them.
She piped in Gizmo’s video feed, which gave her a view of the surrounding streets. Three bioweapons were still congregated to the south, around the first building her party had entered, while another four resided some distance to the west—perhaps where they had last sighted Gizmo.
The corner piece looks fairly sturdy, Rhea said. We can climb down there.
She crab-walked along that narrow wall that formed the edge of the rooftop. Meanwhile Will and Horatio slid down and stopped at the edge not far from her.
She reached the end of the current rooftop. Unfortunately, it didn’t reach far enough, and overhung at a spot that was still a few meters to the right of the corner frame she sought below. Well, she’d just have to leap.
She pulled herself onto the edge of the roof and jumped.
She landed on the corner, and thankfully it held her weight. She lowered onto the adjacent wall, and began to climb down, using the natural ledges formed by the windowsills for hand and foot holds. Horatio followed just above her, carrying Will on his backpack once more.
Rhea moved diagonally across that wall, away from the bioweapons, and kept an eye on Gizmo’s feed the whole way. When she was two stories from the ground, she decided that was far enough, and leaped the rest of the way down. Her servos whirred slightly in complaint, but otherwise she took no damage.
She raced across to the far side of the street and ducked behind the opposite building. Then she waited for Will and Horatio; when the pair arrived, Will leaped off of Horatio’s back, and the trio proceeded deeper into the city, at a sprint.
Gizmo pulled ahead, though continued to circle back to watch their rear.
A moment later the walls of Aradne appeared on Gizmo’s feed, along with those of the slums built upon its base.
Well, Rust Town is still there, and it looks intact, Will commented. So the advance scout theory wins out. Who knows, maybe the bioweapons aren’t coming after all.
They’re coming, Rhea sent.
They reached the lone sentry that guarded this particular approach to the city.
“There are bioweapons after us!” Rhea said without preamble. She glanced behind her nervously, expecting the Hydras to appear at any moment.
“The settlement defenses have been alerted,” the sentry said calmly. The robot’s golden body gleamed beneath the sun, as did the shaft of the energy pike it held at an angle in front of it.
Rhea searched the skies. “Well? Where are the hunter killers?”
“The settlement defenses have been alerted,” the robot repeated in that same deadpan tone.
“They take some time to scramble,” Will assured her.
The robot tilted its head to glance at each of them in turn. “Now state your business, Outlanders.”
Rhea let Will answer the questions. It was obvious he was just as impatient as her. All three of them kept gazing over their shoulders, and Rhea suspected Will and Horatio were eying Gizmo’s feed just as often as she was.
Finally, the questioning ended, and the party members darted onto the street that led to Rust Town.
25
Rhea dashed forward, pulling ahead of Will and Horatio in her eagerness to warn the city. She wanted to shout from the rooftops that terrible bioweapons were coming. She wanted to log into all the streaming sites and issue a dire warning to all the listeners. Except there was one problem: she didn’t have any followers on any of the streaming sites. And if she shouted from the rooftops, the residents would think her mad. Either way, no one would listen to her.
She had to talk to someone in charge. Someone who could orchestrate a mass evacuation.
Ahead awaited the four-meter tall Texas barriers that enclosed the city. She gazed past the slanted metal roofs that poked out beyond it, her eyes resting on the distant metal walls of Aradne, where gun turrets observed menacingly from the upper walkways. Aradne wasn’t going to protect its slums. How could she make the residents of Rust Town understand?
And yet a nagging voice at the back of her mind reminded her: what if Sebastian was wrong, or lying?
Rhea searched the skies. “I still don’t see any hunter killers. They’re not taking the threat seriously. Or they’ve been told to ignore it.”
“Have you ever considered, maybe there isn’t a threat after all?” Will said.
“I really wish you were right,” she said. “I do. That we came all this way for nothing. But seeing as we already encountered Hydras in the ruins, somehow I suspect that’s not true!”
“Good point,” Will agreed.
They approached the gap between the barriers, which was guarded by two golden sentry robots. The network icon flashed in the upper right of her display: she was able to log into the Net once more. She had the world at her fingertips again, and yet she was too distracted at the moment to care all that much.
“We need to see the mayor of Rust Town,” Rhea said while the sentry robots placed the weapons of her companions in cold storage.
“There is no mayor,” one sentry said.
“Then who do we report a coming attack to?” she asked.
“Crimes are to be reported to the sheriff’s office,” the robot replied. “They may be submitted online, or in person.”
“And how long does it take for online crimes to be processed?” she asked.
“Approximately one business day,” the sentry said.
“Then in person it is,” she said. “I’ll need an address.”
“I have it,” Will said.
But she received a share request from the robot at the same time, and when she accepted, a waypoint appeared on her overhead map, indicating a building composed of several cargo containers. It was labeled “Sheriff’s Office.”
Soon they were making their way across the streets of Rust Town, passing between the cargo containers and lean-tos that served as homes and businesses. The familiar buzzing of drones overhead, the playing children, the augmented reality hawkers competing for her business, all of it made her feel like she’d come home. These hallmarks of civilization offered the illusion of safety, a shelter from the dangers of the Outlands.
Remember, it is an illusion.
She kept her hood pulled low around her face, not wanting to alert the residents to her cyborg nature. She didn’t need to attract trouble, not now, not when she had such a time-sensitive message to deliver.
She tried a Net look-up on “Dagger of Khrusos” but found nothing. Perhaps the knowledge had been suppressed. She tried a search on “The Scorpion” as well but got nothing except a few unrelated video games.
They finally reached the sheriff’s “office,” a series of cargo containers spread out to form a sprawling compound. There was a distinct lack of graffiti on the building, and those surrounding it. That was a good sign, she thought. It had no windows, of course, like all buildings in the city. If one wanted windows to the outside world, one could simply pipe the feed from the external video camera to their augmented reality goggles and overlay the view to any wall they wanted in their home. Speaking of video cameras, the sheriff’s office certainly had a lot of them. She counted at least three on the main cargo container, and another six decorating the containers connected to it.
Rhea glanced at Will and Horatio uncertainly.
“Well, you wanted to come here,” Will said. “This is your show. Lead the way. We’ll back you up as best we can.”
Rhea nodded, unable to help the butterflies she felt in her stomach. It was an illusion of her human mind of course, since she didn’t even have a stomach. Not a real one, anyone.
But just because my stomach is artificial doesn’t make it any less real. Nor make me any less real, overall. The sheriff will take me seriously. I can do this.
Somehow she would convince t
he sheriff of the coming threat. The city’s residents depended on it.
She approached the entrance door, and it slid aside of its own accord.
She glanced at Will, who raised an eyebrow.
“Never seen an automatic door?” Will quipped.
She smiled sardonically and stepped inside. Horatio and Will joined her.
The cargo container was empty save for a series of chairs—currently empty—that lined three walls. There was a small hatch on the far side that led deeper into the compound.
“Welcome to the sheriff’s office,” a disembodied, friendly female voice said. “Protecting Rust Town from crime and gang warfare since twenty-six-fifteen. How can we help you today?”
“An army of bioweapons is coming to the city,” Rhea said. “We need to evacuate immediately!”
“Please have a seat and the sheriff will attend you momentarily,” the voice said, its tone remaining friendly, and seeming entirely unperturbed.
“I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the situation,” Rhea said. “The city is in extreme danger.”
“The sheriff will attend you momentarily,” the voice said cheerily.
Mouth agape, Rhea stared at the hatch in front of her. Then she glanced at Will, who shrugged.
“Not much more we can do except take a seat, and wait,” Will said.
With a sigh, Rhea sat down with the others. The automatic door closed behind them, sealing them inside.
“Not really a good sign, that no one is here,” Rhea said, observing the empty chairs. “Tells me no one trusts the sheriff’s office enough to report crimes anymore.”
“Or that all complaints are done online…” Horatio said. “And handled by robots dispatched to peoples’ houses.”
“Maybe.” Rhea stared at the opposite hatch, willing it to open.
A minute passed.
Two.
“How long are we going to wait?” Rhea said, shifting restlessly. “Don’t they understand? The city could be attacked at any time!”
She said it mostly for the benefit of the listening AI and wasn’t really expecting a response from anyone. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t get one.
Rhea tapped into Gizmo’s feed. The drone had remained outside, circling far overhead. She saw no sign that anything was amiss—security robots weren’t gathering to ambush them or anything. Still, she felt uneasy, and kept the drone’s feed active in the upper right of her vision.
Finally, fifteen minutes of fidgeting later, a message appeared on her HUD.
Astor (89542) would like access to your augmented reality interface, and requests the following permissions:
- Ability to overlay objects
- Gaze tracking
Allow? (Y/N)
Note: Access can be revoked at any time.
She glanced at Will, who shrugged.
“I’m allowing,” Will said.
She, too, accepted the share request, and a moment later a translucent hologram appeared in the middle of the room. It depicted a man in a gray peacoat, with short cropped, receding hair, and sporting a goatee, handlebar mustache, and thick sideburns. As with all things virtual, she wondered whether the man really looked like this, or if the avatar was merely a digital illusion.
“Sheriff Astor,” the man said curtly. “What can I do for you?”
Rhea took a deep breath.
I can do this.
She spoke.
“The city is in danger. An army of bioweapons is sweeping across the Outlands and heading directly toward Rust Town. We have to evacuate the settlement.”
The sheriff merely stared at her, saying nothing.
“I have video archives I can share,” she continued. “As well as map data, to prove—”
The sheriff raised a dismissive hand. “Don’t need to see them. Map data can be faked. Videos doctored. Not even AIs can tell deepfakes apart from the real thing anymore. But don’t you worry, if there’s something out there, Aradne security will deal with it.”
“Oh really?” Rhea said. “There are bioweapons roaming the ruins outside the settlement as we speak, and I haven’t seen Aradne security do a thing.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Bioweapons occasionally frequent the ruins. If they get too close, they’ll be dealt with. The only people in any danger at the moment are bandits, and other Outlanders such as yourselves. And just because you haven’t personally seen Aradne security, doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, and acting at this moment.”
Rhea studied the hologram. “These aren’t ordinary bioweapons. They’re a new breed, of a type never seen before. Immune to energy weapons.”
Once again, the sheriff appeared unperturbed. “Could be a new design our government is testing. Not all bioweapon species are documented. Some are classified, their knowledge scrubbed from the Net, any whistleblowers shadow-banned.”
“All you have to do is dispatch a few drones to confirm what I’m saying is true,” Rhea said. “You’ll see advance scouts in the ruins, and further to the southwest, the main host, hidden inside a cloud of dust stretching from horizon to horizon and extending as far as the eye can see. An army of bioweapons headed directly for Rust Town, with Aradne security doing nothing to stop them.”
“If they’re immune to energy weapons, I’m not sure there’s anything the hunter killers of Aradne can do,” Horatio interjected.
Rhea glanced at the robot. “Which is exactly why we have to evacuate the slums. Flee to a different city.”
“A different city?” the sheriff said. “Across the Outlands? We’d die out there.”
“Take flyers, or other vehicles,” Rhea told him.
The sheriff shook his head. “There aren’t enough for the whole population.”
“Then we storm Aradne,” Rhea said. “And take cover inside its walls.”
The sheriff studied her a moment. “We won’t have to storm Aradne. If the city can’t protect us, for whatever reason, then they’ll let us enter freely. But if it’s true these bioweapons of yours are immune to energy weapons, I’m not sure what hope for us there is in Aradne.”
“The bioweapons won’t strike Aradne…” Rhea told him. “You see, the city is behind the attack.”
The sheriff stared at her with wide eyes, then snorted in disbelief. “Nonsense.”
“It’s true,” Rhea said. “They’re running out of water.”
The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “And where did you hear this?”
“From a mercenary sent to kill me,” she told him.
“Ah,” the sheriff said. “A most reputable source, of course.” His voice oozed sarcasm. “Listen to me. The pipes of Aradne drink directly from the ocean. They’ll never run out.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” she told him. “But apparently, the oceans are running out. The governments have kept the knowledge from us.”
“More ‘news’ from your mercenary source, I’m sure,” the sheriff said. “Look, I’ll talk to my contacts in Aradne. If there’s a threat, they’ll deal with it.”
“Don’t you get it, they want to destroy you,” Rhea said. “They—the people that run Aradne—are done sharing their water with Rust Town. Rather than risking a revolt, they’ve decided it’s best to kill you as fast as possible. They have dispatched the bioweapons!”
The sheriff shook his head. “The Aradne council would never ratify such a genocide.”
“I’m not saying they have,” Rhea told him. “This would’ve been something decided off the record, outside the council, by a select few.”
The sheriff gave her a look that could best be described as dubious. “If they wanted to kill us instantly, there are much more effective ways. Flooding the settlement with gas, for example. Why go through the trouble of creating designer bioweapons?”
“Because they’d go to jail?” Rhea said. “Bioweapons give them the perfect out. If they cover their tracks properly, they can say the attack was random.” She stared at the hologram and implored: “You have to issue a
warning at least, so people can evacuate. Otherwise, they’re all dead.”
The sheriff stared at her for a moment. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You would have me cause a panic, when you have no proof backing up anything you’ve said?”
“I’ve already told you to dispatch drones—” Rhea threw up her arms. “Forget it. This is useless. You’re obviously in cahoots with Aradne. Nothing I say is going to make a difference. What did the mayor offer you, a position on the city council or something? Traitor.”
She pulled up the permissions menu on her HUD and disallowed all of Astor’s previous access to her augmented reality interface. Cut off, the man immediately vanished from her HUD.
She stood up and went to the entrance door. It slid aside, and she stormed out.
Will and Horatio joined her a moment later.
“Well, that went well,” Will quipped.
26
Rhea stared at the lean-tos around her. People lived cloistered within, mostly oblivious to the outside world, save for those times they accessed their external security cameras, or left home for the occasional errand. Some families probably lived out their entire lives without ever setting foot beyond their doorsteps. And now they were all going to die.
Overcome with sadness and guilt, she pressed her hands to either side of her face.
I failed. All of this is going to vanish.
“I thought you gave up a little too quickly,” Horatio said.
“Don’t make her feel worse,” Will scolded the robot. “She did the right thing. It was obvious the sheriff wasn’t going to help. If we want to issue a warning, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”
Rhea dropped her hands and slumped. “No one will listen to us.”
“We can try uploading videos of our encounters to the streaming sites,” Horatio said. “And hope enough people see them before the content is pulled.”
“We can try,” she agreed. “But even if some do view the videos, how many will believe it’s true, and not some fiction published to garner views?”