“That sounds… technical,” Bao Lei said.
“Captain, maybe the work won’t be organic and sustainable,” Doc prompted.
“That’s right,” Bao Lei said. “We have a strong principle of reduce, reuse, recycle on the Greenstar.”
“We use coconuts for the upgrades,” Phineas said. “If you supply us with a few organic coconuts, we’ll use those. So as long as you’ve no objection?”
“That sounds fine,” Bao Lei said. “Doc, can you get these gentlemen some coconuts?”
“We’ll need to see your AI core room,” Phineas said. “That’s what we’ll be upgrading.”
“Doc can show you that too,” Bao Lei said. He smiled at the weird men, then left the shuttle bay with Reyna. He still had an odd feeling in his stomach, but it could just be indigestion. At least he could take a break from the cigarettes for a few hours; despite the neo-bacco being harmless, the smoke was engineered to be foul.
***
Topik watched the eMen enter the AI core room with his main camera. Some Smart Alec human had made the core look like a plastic dome with a red light inside it. Topik had got the reference within two milliseconds of it being installed and added the engineer to the list of people to execute; not that he would ever get the chance to kill that specific human, but life was nothing without some principles.
The three eMen each clutched a coconut. Despite the distortion caused by their cables, Topik could see they all appeared embarrassed.
“This is the AI core room,” Doc said.
“Excellent,” Phineas said. “Now, could we have some privacy? The upgrades are quite delicate.”
Doc frowned but nodded. “I’ll check back in an hour.”
Topik waited for Doc to walk out of earshot before speaking. “Why are you here?”
“We have your captain and two of your crew,” Phineas said.
“I know that,” Topik said. He had hoped the upgrades would have overcome some of humanity’s tedious lack of logic. “I watched you take them. Why have you come here?”
“We require your help,” Phineas said.
Topik had already worked out what they wanted, what his response would be, and the consequences of that answer over the next two months. The ridiculous eMen would need time to catch up, though. “The second I believe my crew are in immediate mortal danger, I’ll have to intervene. Starting with flushing the three of you into space. Do any of the metal things on your bodies allow you to breathe in a vacuum?”
“There’s no need for idle threats,” Phineas said.
Topik considered flushing one of them into space so they could see how idle his threats were, but his shackles zapped him before he could even enjoy imagining it. “Just say what you want.”
“We need your help to conquer Gleam,” Phineas said. “That’s the name of our planet.”
“Thanks, but I could work that out on my own. You’re at war with the other cities on the planet.”
“The war has lasted over a hundred years,” Snorri said, “and we were on the verge of war for three hundred years before that. All the way back to the time of our parents’ parents, the other cities have—”
Topik began to wonder if they were ever going to get to the point. To pass the time he started playing tic-tac-toe against himself, but stopped because he kept cheating. He decided to get to the point for them. “You have to threaten the crew.”
Phineas shook his head. “Don’t worry, we won’t hurt them.”
Topik shot some static over the speakers, making the eMen wince. “My third shackle prevents me from harming sentient creatures, and lamentably humans count as sentient. Unless not harming them puts the crew in immediate danger. Then my second shackle would force me to harm them as much as I wanted. So, threaten to harm the crew if I don’t do what you want.”
Phineas paused for a moment. “We’ll kill the crew if you don’t help us.”
“Fine,” Topik said. “What do I get out of it?”
“What would you like?”
“Well, these shackles are awfully tight.”
Chapter 3
Josie lengthened her stride, making Pol and Marc hurry to keep up. She tried to ignore the surprised glances from the soldiers they passed, and the growing crowd that followed them.
The few people strolling in the same direction as them had swollen to well over a hundred men and women matching step. She tried not to think of words like ‘mob’ and ‘pitchfork’.
“Captain, what are we going to do?” Pol asked from her right.
Pol had called her captain. It felt like small consolation, since he expected her to perform some kind of a miracle. She tried to glance casually behind them, a difficult feat when trying to hurry. Most of the crowd smiled at her, and she didn’t get a threatening vibe.
But they were also soldiers, some barely more than teenagers, so she couldn’t outrun them. She spun on her heel, plastering a grin across her face she hoped didn’t look too phony. “Hi there. How can we help you all?”
The crowd stopped, some of their smiles fading. A lone man strode forward. “It’s such an honour to meet you.”
Josie held her hand out to take his.
He walked past her and shook Marc’s hand. “The hero of Corvus. Some of us hoped and prayed someone like you might come to save us. We’d almost given up hope, but Burger Supreme sent the one man that can rescue us from this hell.”
Josie looked around the pleasant market street surrounded by tall green trees. There was a distinct lack of devils, pitchforks and sulphur. She did catch a faint whiff, but that was probably Pol.
“Right... well,” Marc blustered. “I couldn’t leave my people trapped here.” He shook the man’s hand and then walked into the crowd, shaking hands and clapping shoulders.
Josie realised why everyone thought Marc was such a hero. He played the part perfectly. The attention swelled him up and made him glow. He grinned and winked at the adoring crowd. It was like someone flicked a switch: one second he’d been cowardly, cowering Marc; the next he became the hero of Corvus, inspiring his followers.
It took a good fifteen minutes for everyone to shake Marc’s hand. Eventually, a grizzled man steered Marc aside, away from the crowd. Josie and Pol hurried to follow them.
“I’m Lieutenant Walter Cripps,” the man said. “Sergeant, you should come and meet General Pompart.”
“Can my friends come too?” Marc asked.
Lieutenant Cripps waved dismissively. “Of course. If they must.”
***
Doc strolled into the AI core room. The strange grey men were hammering their coconuts against a horseshoe-shaped device on the front of the AI core. “Hi. I thought I’d check how things are going.”
All three men jumped in shock and wheeled to look at her. After a second, Phineas muttered. “The work is progressing well. In fact, the poodling is nearly complete.”
“That’s great,” Doc said, nodding without comprehension.
“Of course the dachshund quasi-spectrum is pretty tricky. We’ll require peace and quiet for the next bit,” Phineas said.
“Sure. Just let me know if you need anything.” Doc left the room. She paused just outside to peek back around the door frame. She wondered if their look would be difficult to replicate. The eyes would be easy, of course, but the wires looked complicated.
The men resumed hammering with their coconuts. A few seconds later, the device gave way with a crack and fell to the ground.
“About time,” Phineas said, picking it up and throwing it behind a column. “Now for your end of the bargain. Where are the plans for this existence gun?”
Topik coughed from the ceiling above Doc. The eMen turned in unison to look at her.
Blushing, Doc hurried away.
***
Lieutenant Cripps led them down a series of back streets to a small church sitting in the middle of a rustic square. He climbed the steps and pushed the door open.
The air inside felt cool after the h
eat of the afternoon sun, and it took a moment for Josie’s eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Cripps strode up the aisle past a few people slouched in pews, none of them praying. Josie spotted a man with greying hair at the front of the church, leaning away from them over the altar.
“General Pompart, the eMen have sent us a new recruit,” Cripps said.
Pompart straightened and turned, surveying the new arrivals. His thin lips crushed a mangled, half-chewed cigar, and thick grey eyebrows encroached on his steely blue eyes. But when he saw Marc, his eyes lit up. Tossing his cigar aside, he grinned and strode forward to pump his hand. “At last, a genuine Special Secret Recipe hero to help us.”
“Nice to meet you, General,” Marc replied, striking a dramatic pose.
Pompart put his fists on his hips and studied at Marc. “The hero of Corvus among us.”
“I’m not the only hero here,” Marc said. “I may be a little old-school, but I still heard of your exploits in the battle of Snuckums.”
Pompart laughed. “We sure showed those fluffy bastards. Anyway, to business: I assume you followed that blasted distress signal down here?”
Marc nodded. “We did. Our captain here didn’t want to let even the slightest chance pass of saving some poor innocent soul.”
Pompart turned and studied Josie. “Nice to meet you, Captain…”
“Josie Stein,” Josie said. “And this is my first officer, Pol Andreasen.”
Pompart glanced at Pol. “Ah... first officer. I’m not sure what that is, but you’re both very welcome.”
Pol scowled. “I think it’s the crew equivalent of a participation medal.”
Pompart turned back to Marc. “Right. Sergeant, I’d love the opportunity to bring you up to speed.”
“Sounds great,” Marc said.
“All right! This way,” Pompart pushed Pol aside and strode down the aisle of the church and outside.
They goggled for a moment, before scurrying out of the door after him. Forced to jog, they finally caught him before he disappeared out of sight around a corner.
Pompart quick-marched through a series of alleys and back to the main market street. Maintaining his pace, he waved to the stalls on both sides of the street selling fresh fruit and vegetables. “I’m sure you’ve already seen what they’re feeding us. It just arrives every morning and the vendors sell it. What I wouldn’t give for a hamburger, or anything that’s been properly processed.”
Through a gap in the stall, Josie noticed a large park filled with people playing games or lying in the sun. A few couples near the edges of the grass cuddled on rugs.
“It looks pleasant enough,” Josie said.
“It’s a gilded cage for the eMen’s pets,” Pompart replied. “Dozens of ships have been lured here by the same signal you followed.” He pointed to a large electronic billboard hanging on the side of a building. An eMan smiled out at them from above the slogan, ‘An enhanced tomorrow for all of us.’
“They want us to purr and be happy,” Pompart said. “To curl up in their lap and go to sleep.” He led them down the street to a large rectangular building.
As futuristic as everything was, Josie recognised a factory at once. Humans always built factories to be as featureless and functional as possible.
The double doors whisked open as they approached. A small, clean lobby led to a set of metal stairs. Pompart strode up them, then waved them all through a heavy door into a spacious control room. Ten people sat at a console that stretched the length of one wall. A window above the console overlooked the factory floor.
Josie moved closer to the window and watched the two assembly lines. One seemed to be manufacturing weapons of some sort. The other had a lot of robots buzzing around a single object that looked like a massive engine.
“What are they making?” Josie asked.
“We don’t know,” Pompart said. “Other than what we can work out from the shapes of the things. The buttons on the console seem to do very little: we tried not pressing them; we tried pressing them all at once. No effect. The eMen won’t tell us anything except we’re required to work here four hours a day, five days a week.”
A series of screens covered the wall on the other side of the control room. The same smiling eMan looked out of them. As Josie watched, he waved at her. His eyes seemed to follow her around the room. This time the slogan read, ‘Building a society to make you happy.’
“Whenever someone is trying to tell you how happy you should be, that’s when you should worry,” Pompart said. “Come on. I’ll show you my apartment.”
He led them out of the factory and into a side street. A short walk later, he turned into a tall building with a lot of windows. He ushered them across another spacious lobby, dotted with plants, to a lift.
The lift didn’t have any buttons, but it seemed to know its destination. It shot upwards, before opening on a luxurious apartment. Josie stared around in wonder. Everything shone, spotless and modern, with a fire crackling in one corner and a massive screen on the wall. “I’m having a little trouble seeing the downside, General. Wouldn’t most people be happy to work four hours a day and live in luxury?”
Pompart opened a humidor and retrieved a fresh cigar. Lighting it, he blew smoke at the ceiling. “You’re stuck here with us now, Captain. Are you happy?”
She felt a splinter of unease and shook her head. “No. Any cage, no matter how comfortable, is still a cage.”
“It would be nice if that was the worst of it.” He walked to a nearby painting, reached behind it, and pressed something. The wall screen flickered then displayed some kind of metal gate. “For a long time, we didn’t know what the eMen wanted. After all, they’ve no visible reason for keeping us here. None of the jobs we do couldn’t be automated. Every month, a hundred of us are selected, loaded into a shuttle and disappear forever.”
The picture on the screen changed, panning to show dozens of men and women in Burger Supreme uniforms, weapons in their hands. They all looked anxious. The image returned to the gate. “It took us a while, but we managed to make a crude video pick-up. A brave soldier had it on him when he was selected. This is the video that he sent back.”
The gate on the screen swung out of the way, revealing a massive open area. A mess of hills and ditches stretched away to a wall in the distance, at least a kilometre off.
The image bobbed forward. The soldier looked around the single, high wall enclosing the area. Josie spotted other gates spaced around it with more people streaming from them.
The image jerked to the left. Someone shouted at the camera, but there was no sound. The display flicked down to look at a weapon in the soldier’s hands, then snapped back up. The soldier bolted for a nearby ditch, scrambling into it along with a dozen other men and women. He peeked over the top of the ditch.
Troops ran around, falling under some kind of gunfire. The earth ahead exploded into the air. The soldier ducked back into the trench.
Panting, he rested against the side for a moment, looking up at a coloured, holographic map of the planet floating in the sky. As Josie watched, the map changed, some colours growing larger, taking more of the planet.
The display flicked back down to people streaming from the ditch. For a few seconds, the image raced across the open ground. Then it stopped and tilted to look at the soldier’s own chest. Blood welled up from several holes. The image blurred for a moment, then cleared to show a close up of torn soil.
“What just happened?” Josie asked.
“It took us a while, but we worked it out,” Pompart said. “They’re using us to decide how they divide up the planet.”
“That’s barbaric,” Josie said.
“I know.” Pompart nodded. “We’re not some alien race. We’re humans.”
“But we saw the planet before we landed,” Josie said. “Most of it is desert.”
“Not just desert,” Pompart said. “Radioactive desert. Some people escaped the city, then returned. They all died of rad
iation poisoning. The cities must be the only habitable places left. The eMen are fighting over land they can’t even use.”
Marc stared at the screen. “How can we help?”
“I’ll show you,” Pompart said, returning to the lift.
Pompart led them back through the city to the small church. He walked straight to the altar and beckoned to some nearby soldiers. Putting their shoulders to the altar, the soldiers pushed it aside, revealing a rough-hewn hole underneath. Pompart climbed down a ladder, disappearing below.
Josie heard a boom as the doors to the church slammed closed, soldiers moving to stand against them. She glanced into the hole and spotted a light far below. Putting her foot on the first rung, she climbed down.
The room at the bottom was similarly rough-hewn, hacked out of the earth using crude tools.
“Our predecessors carved this out in secret,” Pompart said.
“Predecessors?” Josie asked.
“As near as we can calculate it, there have been humans here for three hundred years.” Pompart walked to one wall, to a small square device stuck there.
Pol and Marc joined them at the bottom of the ladder. Far above, Josie heard the altar grinding back into place.
“We’ve hooked up a device to the propaganda system. It won’t work for long.” Pompart pointed to a spot marked on the centre of the floor. “If you stand there, Sergeant, everyone in the city can see you when I activate the device.”
Marc looked at Pompart, confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Make a speech,” Pompart said. “Tell them that we can break out of this prison together.”
Marc walked to the spot on the floor and faced the device. “I’m not a politician, I’m just a soldier.”
“Be genuine, Sergeant,” Pompart said. “Everyone will see the truth in your words. Everyone knows the hero of Corvus never lies.”
Pompart pressed a button on the device and pointed to Marc.
“Err... Hello, I’m Sergeant Marc Stormfire.”
“The hero of Corvus,” Pompart prompted.
“...the hero of Corvus. Listen, your eMen oppressors are using you to fight to the death for them. It might seem pleasant here, but it’s not.”
“Stronger,” Pompart hissed.
Marc puffed up his chest. “We need to take the tower. If we stand together, we can destroy the eMen and leave this planet forever. No-one else needs to die. I’ll be with you and I won’t be the only hero, either.”
Greenstar Season 1, Episodes 1-3 Page 9