Child of the Fall

by D Scott Johnson

Spencer was just as clueless. “Fucked if I know where it went,” he whispered.

  “I am everywhere,” it replied. “But too limited. I need to report back about your remarkable species, your remarkable planet, but alas, I have run out of time. We have conquered everything. We have won. And now I find a corner of the galaxy that hasn’t been touched in millions of years. The things I could do with you. There’s no guild here. No interpreters. The AC network is almost empty. The nodes I’ve found are laughably young and weak.”

  The ranting was hard to follow. It changed its voice with every fifth word. Tonya nudged Spencer. The exit wasn’t that far.

  “Such will be the witnesses to the passing of the first true explorer in more than a billion years.” The voice grew weaker. “By rights I should own your planet, but now I have to risk everything on a single gamble. If I’d only had a little more—”

  “GET DOWN!”

  The shout came from their left as the unmistakable silhouette of two grenades sailed into view from the same direction. Hours of small-squad combat in the realms had trained them both how to react to that. Tonya dove behind a large rock in one direction, Spencer did the same in another.

  There was a double-blast, and then blackness.

  Chapter 51

  Spencer

  He’d been hit by explosions any number of times in the realms. Sometimes the realism settings were set on cartoon, and he’d bounce around like a rubber ball. Other times they were full real. He’d get cut, bashed, burned, or whatever until the damage contract of his avatar was exceeded. Then it was either an exit from the realm or an avatar respawn. Either way, relief was instant. The very worst carryover he’d ever had was no worse than a mild sunburn, and that faded after a few minutes.

  That wasn’t the case with for-real grenades. When Spencer finally got his marbles straight, he had aches on top of pains. And they had new friends. It turned out the room June mentioned had been manned with security guards. Jumpy security guards. They’d manhandled him and Tonya into their little HQ before the dust had settled. She seemed as banged up as he was but otherwise fine.

  There were four of them, one big chick who was clearly in charge and three dudes who didn’t seem good for much except scurrying whenever she shouted at them. For a while, that was all Spencer could get. Even though the bleeding from the various cuts and nicks he’d gotten diving away from the grenades stopped after a few minutes, the ringing in his ears took a lot longer to die down. It was like trying to listen to someone on the other side of a window.

  “What was in there? How did you get this far down? Who are you?”

  Tonya still had her Cyril suit on, and June had found him some work overalls to wear after he had washed off all the deer crap. He looked like he belonged with them, and Tonya didn’t look like a civilian.

  Go with that.

  “This is Professor Paula Sherwen, and I’m Phil Liggett. Joshua Early sent us down to assist you guys, but we got lost when our phones failed.” All that studying Edmund and New Kim made him do had paid off. Again. This lady was part of internal security, and Spencer knew every boss between her and Anna Treacher herself. Being confident, looking the part, and knowing your stuff got him most of the way to being trusted. Reeling off those names in that order worked well, especially with people as rattled as these four were. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he pointed at the cave entrance, “what the fuck was that all about?”

  The boss-lady said, “We’ve been stuck on the wrong side of this cave complex for hours. Our phones quit working, too. I wasn’t sure our messages had been received. That…whatever it was…used a force field to bottle us up in here. It shut off when you guys turned up, so we were able to ambush it.”

  “Yeah,” Spencer replied, “but what was it? What did you blast? We didn’t see anything.”

  “You don’t when it’s active, but it never moved from that spot. We figured a few frag grenades would get its attention. Sorry about the short notice.” She turned to Tonya. “What’s with the outfit?”

  Spencer could see the gears change in Tonya’s head, but that was because he knew her and was sitting right next to her. She’d spent the past eight days pretending to be someone else, and it showed in the way the Tonya he knew subtly changed into one he didn’t. “The report I read mentioned the anomaly was located in an unfinished section of the plant. On Mr. Early’s advice, I chose an outfit that would be suited for rough conditions.”

  Name-dropping was a nice touch. Boss-Lady was definitely nibbling on the bait now. “And why didn’t you dress out?” she asked Spencer.

  He nodded at the shotgun they’d taken from him. “I was the muscle in case we ran into any of those super-bears on our way down here.”

  That got him concerned looks from everyone. They knew about the monsters.

  “How far up have they been reported?” Boss-Lady asked, no longer suspicious. They’d taken the bait.

  Now to set the hook. “I caught them outside the hydro complex. Two of them. They weren’t bears.” Boss-Lady looked him up and down, trying to decide if he was bullshitting her. He let the memory of those things, the way they looked, smelled, and the sounds they made, show on his face. His shudder was real. “I don’t know what the fuck they were.”

  One of the lackeys took two steps back. “You saw one?”

  “More than that. It’s a hell of a story. But we need to get out of here first.”

  The lackeys all looked at Boss-Lady. She weighed her options. They were deep inside the plant. Spencer looked like one of them and was armed with one of their weapons. Tonya didn’t fit, but there was no good folder in Boss-Lady’s mental danger file to put her in. Something really fucking scary had just happened, had been happening, and these people had been sitting in front of it waiting for it to eat them. Spencer knew stuff about the monsters.

  “Sounds like a plan to me. We need all the help we can get.”

  That wasn’t exactly what either of them wanted Boss-Lady to say. “Help with what?” he asked.

  “That thing may be gone, but it’s been busy,” Boss-Lady said. “There’s a power anomaly in the exit corridor at the other end of the cave. That’s what’s fritzed everyone’s phones.” She tossed Spencer his shotgun. “Where’d the strap go?” she asked.

  He’d made a half-assed replacement out of shoe laces. “That’s part of the story.”

  Her body language changed into something that screamed ex-military. This one was dangerous; he’d have to be very careful around her.

  “Did you kill it?” she asked.

  Spencer hadn’t slept. He’d been busy, but that was an excuse. Sleeping would bring an actual, for-real monster back to life. “Blew the arm off at the shoulder. It bled out in the sluice gate, and I washed its buddy down the river with a wall of water ten feet high.”

  The three goons gave him high-fives like the idiots they were, but Boss-Lady looked him up and down. That was good. He wasn’t the one she should be paying attention to, and the longer he kept her looking at him the more time Tonya would have to set them up. Spencer was the actor; Tonya was the tiger, the only person who had ever managed to land Mike on his ass in a sparring match. Four-to-one odds just gave her more targets to choose from. And he wasn’t exactly helpless either.

  Plus, he had his Saiga back. A safety blanket didn’t have anything on a safety shotgun. When he did get to sleep, Spencer fully planned on it being by his side. Forever, if he could manage it.

  ***

  The cave they ran from had been wrecked. What was once a sort-of-prepped tourist attraction with a concrete walkway and lights was now a big pile of rubble. Stalactites had crashed to the floor, pulverizing stalagmites below them. Whatever it was had gone out with a big damn bang, that much was obvious. Tonya’s excuse for her outfit was fucking brilliant, since she was the only one who could make real headway with the rubble and sharp rocks. Everyone else did the best they could, but it was obvious this was the last time anybody would be wearing these un
iforms. Spencer never knew how muddy a cave was until now.

  And dark. The flashlights they used did a good job showing where he was going, but once the light turned away, it was like nothing existed. Anything could be hiding in the complete darkness outside the circles of light they all cast in front of them. They assumed whatever it was that did this was dead, but the fucking thing didn’t have a body to begin with. Or maybe it did. Spencer definitely saw something in that video feed, and now that something had about a billion places to hide.

  But it was dead. It had to be. They barely managed to escape the explosion, and if that hadn’t done the trick, all these shit-tons of rock scattered everywhere would bury the damn thing. All they had to do was turn off whatever was fritzing the phones, tie up the four loose ends they’d fallen in with, and then meet up with Kim in the morning.

  Tonya crested the last of the rubble mounds. “Hey, I think I—” She fell out of sight.

  “Tonya!” Spencer rushed upward, ignoring the uneven footing as best he could. That thing had come back, and now it’d gotten Tonya. Spencer topped the mound. Tonya’s flashlight marked where she fell, rolling down the other side to more level ground. When Spencer looked up, he saw the edge of a—

  ***

  He woke up sore on the ground next to Tonya, who hadn’t moved. Spencer looked around. The squad of guards were all here, also unconscious, flashlights scattered where they had been dropped. Everyone seemed to be breathing. Not getting eaten by a monster: good. Waking up without remembering falling asleep: bad. It had to do with the glow he’d seen. Spencer pushed up off the ground—

  ***

  And woke up again, not having moved an inch. Nobody had. The pebbly surface of the cave had grown damned uncomfortable, and the cold wet of the ground had soaked through his clothes. Spencer pushed up off the ground again—

  ***

  And woke up. Nothing had changed. Okay. This was annoying. It happened when he tried to get up. So no getting up. Right. Spencer turned his head as slowly as he could, lifting just a little so the rocks wouldn’t cut his cheek. Still awake. It wasn’t triggered by consciousness or small movements. He got his head around to the other side when someone groaned and moved—

  ***

  Spencer woke up, able to see the entrance now. It was clearly outlined by an orange light coming from something out of sight around the corner. It was definitely triggered by movement. He could see the sensors: four small, odd, dark boxes attached to the corners of the chamber entrance. They were triggering some sort of motion alarm that—

  ***

  The next time he woke up, Spencer started singing to the tune of an ancient pop song his mom had drilled into him when he was little.

  This probe

  Will knock you out

  This probe will knock you out

  Don’t move it’ll knock you out

  This probe will knock you out

  Not his best work, but he was a hacker, not a songwriter. Figuring lyrics and shit out on the fly was hard.

  When he’d gone a few minutes without getting knocked out, Spencer added a line.

  When you believe me just shout come on.

  He stopped when five come ons came back to him. “Thank fucking God. I always hated that song.”

  “What’s happening?” Tonya asked.

  “A trap set up in front of the cave entrance. Big movements trigger it, small ones don’t.” He heard the soft scraping of someone—

  ***

  The four sensors stared balefully at him when Spencer opened his eyes. Some fucker had started moving too fast. Spencer would bet money it was one of the lackeys. He started up his singing until he got another five shouts.

  “Don’t anybody fucking move, okay?” he said. “And if that happens again, just call out awake every few seconds until we’re all back. I hate singing.”

  “Why are you waking up first?” Boss-Lady asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m smaller?” He was taller than Tonya but still super skinny. This was good news, since Tonya was probably the next smallest person in the party. He had to know this for sure, and all it did was put them to sleep for a little bit. Spencer’s shotgun had fallen to this side of him, so he took a chance and lurched—

  ***

  He was within arm’s reach of it when he woke up. Better still, Tonya was the first person to say awake.

  “That’s good to know, right?” he asked.

  “It is,” she replied. Her tone said she’d gotten the message. It took thirty seconds or so for Boss-Lady to come around. The lackeys followed not long after.

  It had to be related to size, or maybe mass. Tonya would wake up right after he did.

  It was a better plan than nothing, but he had to get past whatever kept putting them to sleep. “I said be still!”

  “I swear it wasn’t me,” one of the lackeys said.

  “Cut the crap, Wilson,” Boss-Lady said. “Everyone, no more movement.”

  “I was able to move a little,” Spencer said, “and I can see its sensors. I’ve got my shotgun, and I think I can sneak up on it. But you have to keep still, okay?”

  They all agreed, but he could tell nobody was happy about it. Spencer didn’t blame them. Lying on the wet, muddy floor of a cave sucked ass.

  Moving slowly in the muck wasn’t much better. His hands were so pruned it made the shotgun a little difficult to handle. Those naps may have been for more than a few moments.

  “Shoot the sensors,” Boss-Lady said.

  That would make Spencer’s bigger plan harder to execute, but then he thought of an out. “If we do that, it might piss off whatever’s around the corner. Let me try my way first.” He waited for an argument. When none came, Spencer crawled forward again. He triggered the nap attack twice on his way around the corner. Both times Tonya called out awake before anyone else. The closer he got the harder it was to move slowly. The timing on this was gonna be tight.

  When he rounded the corner, it took a moment to understand what he was looking at. A shiny, spindly machine sat at the center of the room. It looked like a NASA lander. But it wasn’t a close resemblance. The arms bent in weird ways, and he didn’t recognize the probes they held out. Several were connected to power and data cables across the ceiling. A gizmo that resembled an injector had drilled into a junction box. That might be where the infection that scared Edmund so badly came from. The yellow light was given off by glowing panels that were part of the body of the probe. It didn’t scream alien as much as the actual aliens, but it still wasn’t right.

  What it also lacked was an obvious off switch. Spencer couldn’t be sure they included one, or that he’d recognize it if they did. The thing didn’t look armored. The materials used reminded him of good ol’ chrome-plated steel, or maybe highly polished aluminum. It didn’t matter much in the end. The big green bug-eyed monsters weren’t bulletproof, so he figured their machines wouldn’t be either. Tungsten slugs meant never having to say you’re sorry. Spencer brought the shotgun slowly up and aimed for center mass.

  Then he stopped. There was no way to know what was powering it. It certainly wasn’t solar. No exhaust, so it wasn’t using an engine. That left fuel cells, batteries, and nukes. It was too small for a nuke. Physics was physics, and the middle part was only about the size of a lawnmower. If it was powered by a reactor that would fit inside it, there wouldn’t be enough uranium or whatever the fuck you used in those things to cause a detonation. Contamination would follow the path of the slug, which was away from him.

  That left batteries and fuel cells, both of which were compact and full of explosive goodness. The probe wasn’t big, but it looked to be made of metal, a.k.a. shrapnel.

  Fuck it. He could spin his wheels all day thinking about this, and the only alternative was to sneak all the way up to it and then fight through involuntary naps until he figured out where the off switch was.

  Spencer crawled back a bit and hid his body behind a rock. This was either gonna work or suck big
green donkey balls.

  “Okay, folks. In three…two…one…”

  The shotgun bucked, and the explosion rushed at him.

  Chapter 52

  June

  June snorted upright from the desk. Every muscle in her back shouted from being in that position for too long. Moving brought her legs and backside into the conversation. Big people should not stay in unnatural positions for long periods. They’d been trying for hours to crack the maintenance network but had made no progress. She had to set her head down on the table for a moment. She hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours.

  Then June remembered where she was. “Where is everyone? What’s happening?” She was too sleep-addled to quickly log in to realmspace. More memories came back. “Tonya and Spencer…are they okay?” They’d fallen down a hill as she watched the video, helpless. Edmund said they’d been sleeping.

  “Spencer and Tonya’s status are unknown. There was another explosion that took out the camera feed. Six hours have passed,” Edmund said. “I’d hoped to give you more, but events have overtaken my plans.”

  “What’s changed?”

  A screen opened up showing the intersection where the main road and the road to the plant met. It zoomed down onto a small car with two women in front and a man sitting in the back. June had never seen them before. “Who are they?”

  “The one on the left,” the dark-haired one, “is my mistress. I presume the one on the right is Will’s mother, Emily. I can help them, but I need you to hold the access channels open and keep trying to subvert more of the robots. I’ve only managed one, and it has a job to do. Goodbye, June, and good luck.”

  With that, he was gone. On another screen, one of the small maintenance bots disconnected a transport crystal, rolled to a different port on the opposite wall of the lab it was in, and plugged it back in. Edmund was now on the other side of the air gap.

  She lost all video feed to the outside cameras. Edmund must be, as Spencer would say, fucking their shit up again. Good. Better still, he’d left her the keys to the one bot he managed to compromise. The bot itself didn’t matter. The keys would work on any of them, but only one at a time. It wasn’t as much of a limitation as it would at first appear. She only needed to control them long enough to set waypoints. They could navigate on their own.