Activate The Ravagers Ep1v2

by Alex Albrinck

  Right now, he’d prefer being shot at to facing his wife.

  He located the fuel hoses and snapped them to the external tanks, flipping the switches on. The spare tanks were full; he’d topped them off with fresh fuel the day before. As the primary tanks filled, he opened the spare tank holding bays and loaded the tanks aboard. Fifteen minutes later, the craft was ready for takeoff. They’d open the ceiling and soar into the sky overhead, above the true clouds, before setting course and heading for their as-yet-unnamed destination.

  Roddy washed his hands free of the fuel, took a deep breath, and walked up the plank into the craft’s interior.

  “Deirdre?”

  He didn’t get a response.

  He called again, walked around the craft, and quickly realized that Deirdre wasn’t there.

  Where the hell had she gone?

  He had to find her. Silver had made her presence on this craft his responsibility.

  He jogged back down the steps to the reception area and frowned.

  Audrey hadn’t returned.

  He’d never really liked the woman—her constant flirtations alone were sufficient to spark that feeling—but he felt a sense of unease about her situation. Audrey didn’t leave her post like that. He looked at the door and frowned. Were the thirty minutes Oswald had given them provided not for their benefit, but for his?

  He winced, took a step, and noticed the altered texture on the carpet. He stepped back and bent down, examining the spot. A stain marred the spot, one still damp. He dabbed a finger into the spot and held it up to his nose. There was no mistaking the combination of scent and texture.

  Blood.

  Fresh blood.

  He felt a chill run down his spine as his eyes fell upon the unmanned reception desk and he remembered the thumping noise Oswald Silver had heard. Roddy sprinted to the desk and peered over the side, his heart in his throat.

  Audrey lay prone on the ground, her eyes wide and lifeless, blood streaming from a gaping hole in her chest where her heart had once been.

  His remorse turned to fury.

  He glanced in the direction of Oswald Silver’s office, and made his decision.

  Deirdre had cheated on him. She’d fought her father in relation to going on an apparently essential business trip. And now she’d shot and killed her father’s receptionist and lover dead in cold blood.

  To hell with Oswald Silver’s demands.

  He was leaving Deirdre behind on this trip, not caring if that decision might leave him fired or dead, because at the moment he had no idea if he could see her cheating, murdering face without killing her.

  He stared at Audrey’s body, an idea forming. Audrey would help him pull off the ruse until it was too late for Oswald to change his plans.

  twenty-four

  Sheila Clarke

  …the myth of the ancients developing powered flight has spawned other myths… some stories claim flying weapons carried bombs from distant lands to impact targets with startling accuracy…

  The History of the Western Alliance, page 3,008

  The explosion knocked her from the General’s grasp and threw her off his back. Sheila managed to land on her feet with a cat-like dexterity she’d never before demonstrated. She had little time to marvel over her feat. The General had lost his balance and fell, and in what she considered a shameful instinct, she sprang aside, rather than trying to catch him.

  He slammed into the metal stairs and rolled once before bracing himself with his feet and seizing one of the steps and looking up.

  Sheila felt that move trumped her perfect landing and stared at the General. The collision with the stairs ought to have stunned him, even cracked a vertebra, and yet he seemed unfazed. The wild look in his eyes told her he’d not forgotten his dire warnings of some unknown calamity about to unleash because of that mold—he’d called it Ravagers—and the explosion just ended.

  Jamison sprang at her.

  She backed against the railing and snaked her arms through. “If you pick me up now, you’ll break both of my arms. Are you willing to do that?”

  He stared at her, and then looked down the steps. “If necessary to save your life? Yes. Broken bones heal.”

  She gripped her shirt, hoping he didn’t mean it. She needed answers, even at the expense of a broken arm. “Tell me, Mr. Jamison. What does that mold do? Why are you willing to execute a self-destruct sequence against our friends?”

  He glanced down the steps once more, fear in his eyes, and she could see the calculation in his head. He was trying to figure out how long he’d humor her stubbornness. “It’s not mold, Sheila. It’s a machine. They’re machines. They’re all incredibly small, but they’re still robots with computer minds and the ability to do a specific task.”

  Robots? He had to be kidding. “No robot would look like mold. And what could it possibly do?”

  His exasperation grew. She knew it was important for him that she understand, but his face and previous actions made clear he wasn’t above winning the argument by brute force if necessary. “Think of cancer cells. Incredibly small. They do one thing well in that they find healthy cells and destroy them. Imagine a machine that was like a cancer cell, that was programmed to find a specific kind of cell and destroy it.”

  “So…” She paused, her mind racing. “The mold is a cancer cell?”

  “The mold is the equivalent of pulling the cancer cells of every person who ever died of the disease out of their bodies and throwing them in that tank. But those machines—they aren’t living cells, Sheila, they’re machines called Ravagers—they don’t do something like cancer cells. They do something far, far worse.”

  She thought back. “They… destroy buildings?”

  “That’s a symptom. The equivalent of the healthy human cell for the Ravagers is the physical bonds of cells. With some coded exceptions. They seek them out and destroy them.”

  She tried to make sense of it. She couldn’t remember her science classes, but remembered that individual cells at the element level would bond to each other to make large batches of those elements. Elements could bond with other elements to make new materials like air or water.

  Which meant if those machines destroyed the bonds…

  They’d destroy all matter. Buildings, roads, people, plants, wildlife…

  “That’s… impossible.” She whispered. “Isn’t it?”

  “I wish it were,” he replied. “The coding as I last knew it exempted air and water and possibly one other substance.”

  “Diasteel?” It made sense, then, why he’d wanted to get the material in the Diasteel tank immediately.

  He nodded.

  “But you can outrun it, right?” She’d moved back to problem solving mode, seeking the weakness. “That mold down there. It can only move so fast. You could get in a ground car and drive far away.”

  His face fell. “That was the weakness.” He shook his head, his eyes glancing down the stairs once more. “But they’d figured out how to address that problem. That was the message meant for me in leaving behind that little stash of Ravagers yesterday. There’s no scarcity issue now.”

  “But then—”

  His eyes flicked down the stairs once more and she saw the transformation take place. She looked down the stairs herself, down toward the door guarding the room they’d left just minutes before.

  The wall below seemed to pulse, as if melting, and the thick concrete drooped toward the floor, taking on the appearance of the mold in the tank. The Diasteel door remained unblemished, but fell to the ground with no support structure.

  The mold had—no, the machines—the Ravagers had… but… that couldn’t be possible. Could it?

  As she watched, Jamison pounced, unwrapped her arms, and threw her over his shoulder.

  She didn’t protest this time as he sprinted toward the door, too preoccupied with the idea that this horrible weapon appeared to be breeding before her eyes.

  Jamison sprinted up the steps three at a time wi
thout slowing down. He reached the door, and she could hear him undoing locks as she watched the Ravagers ooze slowly toward the stairwell. She realized now the futility of her earlier statement. Yes, you could outrun the machines for a time. But if it destroyed everything in its path and multiplied, you’d run out of places to hide.

  They burst into the sunlight and he set her down before shutting the door behind them. “Like that will stop anything,” he muttered.

  He turned to face her. “Let’s go. We need to get far away from here before the self-destruct occurs.” He sprinted away, and she had little choice but to follow, blinking in the bright sunlight, feeling her boots crunch the gravel on the path they’d found.

  She remembered it now, the self-destruction of the Bunker he’d ordered. “He thinks it will neutralize the Ravagers inside. Stop them from spreading.” She felt a tear trickle down her cheek. It was an awful burden he’d shouldered, knowledge of this terrible weapon, and a more terrible burden to know he might one day need to destroy his workspace with his employees still inside. But she could see what he meant. They’d built the Bunker for secrecy; entry and exit were through a mechanism capable of only moving one person at a time in or out. They might—might—have saved one life if they’d sounded the alarm. The rest would die in a mass panic, perhaps crushed and trampled by frantic personnel desperate to escape the horror rising from below. In many ways, she thought, the self-destruct, if instant, would be a mercy killing.

  She frowned. Something wasn’t right, though. Her pace slowed just a bit.

  “Micah! Stop for a second!”

  He stopped and turned around, concern on his face. She realized he thought she was winded and needed a break. “Are you okay?”

  “There’s a swarm of killer miniature robots after me, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  He offered a faint smile.

  “I have a question. The self-destruct mechanism is a bomb, correct?”

  He nodded.

  “And the idea is that the bomb and the self-destruct would destroy the Ravagers inside the Bunker and prevent them from spreading?”

  He nodded again. “Correct.” He glanced up. “The bombs should be there shortly.”

  Why had he looked up for a bomb? Odd. “But… if that’s the case… why didn’t the first bomb destroy them?”

  He hesitated. It wasn’t much. But suddenly she knew.

  He’d known about the machines all along but told no one. He’d brought them to the Bunker because he’d known Diasteel would restrain them, save for a bomb specifically designed to destroy the indestructible material. He’d taken time to offer leisurely explanations of how someone had broken into his office and stolen his badge before “realizing” that person had gone to plant just such a bomb below. And yet somehow he’d known that a bomb that could decimate a tank supposedly able to restrain this awful weapon wouldn’t destroy material inside, but activate it from sleep to activity.

  Bombs didn’t destroy the material.

  Bombs only destroyed the walls constraining the Ravagers.

  “You’ve been in on it the whole time,” she whispered, feeling her face flush. “Everything you’ve done has brought us to this moment, just like you knew it would.”

  He turned away. “We need to get to my car, Sheila.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” she shouted. “You really are a murderer, aren’t you? You knew this day was coming, and yet instead of emptying the Bunker you let everyone start a new shift instead, and—”

  “They were going to die anyway!” he screamed. “Don’t you get it? This is bigger than me. All of them are going to die. Better they go now, and quickly, than to suffer what’s ahead.”

  His eyes moved to the sky as a sound like a train roared overhead. She looked up as well, saw the two cylindrical shapes pass by, then plunge straight down toward the Jamison & Associates building.

  When she brought her gaze back to him, the barrel of the gun pointed at her chest.

  She couldn’t even feel shock anymore. “Why me?” she whispered. “Of all the people you know, of all the people who work for you… why did you choose to put so much effort into saving me?” And he had. If she’d been meant to die, he could have done nothing. She’d die anyway. But he’d summoned her here to ensure she was under his direct control and protection.

  “You’re part of the Plan, Sheila,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you. And you wouldn’t go to so much trouble to save me just to shoot me now.”

  She turned and ran back toward the Bunker.

  The gunshot rang out seconds later.

  twenty-five

  Deirdre Silver-Light

  …though marriage was not a legal construct, the recitation of vows relating to fidelity and intended permanence of a relationship were a societal norm pre-dating efforts in procreation… though rare, public renunciation of such vows did occur in extreme cases…

  The History of the Western Alliance, page 160

  Deirdre wrapped her sore arms around herself as she rode the private elevator car down to the garage. She was a mess, physically and emotionally, and was happy she’d not run into another living soul for a while.

  She’d meant only to take the gun from Audrey and have the woman unlock the elevator system. At worst, she’d hoped any gunshot would stun Audrey and provide her with the advantage she needed to get the gun and force the receptionist to unlock the cars.

  Her worst-case scenario had been that the gun would go off and her father and Roddy would come to investigate. It would cause a lot of awkward questions.

  Her worst-case scenario hadn’t been the worst case, though. She’d overpowered Audrey with her burst of adrenaline, but hadn’t been able to extract the gun from the woman’s fingers, all the while pushing the gun away from herself in a defensive manner. And then Audrey had stumbled at just the wrong moment. The noise had deafened her even with the modest silencer. The pain in her ears was nothing to the pain she felt when she saw the massive hole open in Audrey’s chest and the blood pouring out.

  She’d gotten the body behind the desk, where she’d found the button to activate the elevator car. Towels behind Audrey’s desk let her mop up some of the blood. She didn’t need to get much up, just enough to make it less than obvious that a woman had died from a gunshot wound. It would buy her enough time to get out of the Diasteel compound.

  She’d gotten some of the blood and gore off her clothing, but realized quickly that it wasn’t the most critical thing she needed to do in her limited time. She needed to get out of here. She’d dropped the towel near Audrey and sprinted to the elevator car and set a course for the parking garage, using a combination of buttons only she and her father knew. Even Roddy thought this car ran only between this floor and the thirty-eighth.

  She pushed the complex of emotions deep inside her. She’d have time to grieve over everything later. If she lived, of course.

  She hopped into her ground car and left the compound, driving at a high rate of speed along the spur road back to the main cityplex, then through the maze of streets to her apartment. She looked over her shoulder, expecting at any minute to see a parade of cars following her, sent after her by Oswald or Roddy or both to collect her for questioning in Audrey’s murder.

  She shivered as she parked the car and ran into the building.

  There were two people in line waiting for the elevator. They took a look at her clothing and their eyes widened.

  “Art class,” Deirdre offered. “I lost my battle with the paint.” She smiled.

  They turned and walked away.

  She rode the elevator up and sprinted down the hall to her apartment, hoping Stephen would still be here. She entered and called out for him, racing room to room. She need him here, where she could set him up in the suit he’d unknowingly built for himself, the suit she’d known he’d need to survive the coming apocalypse due to start in hours, perhaps minutes. Only in that
suit would he be safe from the Ravagers. She’d stored her own suit here weeks ago to provide an excuse to leave Diasteel. She’d send him here, then return to the apartment, get them both suited up, and then return to Diasteel with him and demand Oswald permit Stephen’s departure.

  What Oswald didn’t know was that she’d destroyed his Diasteel suit. That suit just happened to be the same size as the suit Stephen would arrive wearing. Oswald wouldn’t have time to strip the suit from Stephen before they’d need to depart.

  She’d win.

  There were two problems now, though. Roddy had figured out the truth about her and Stephen, and as the pilot, he might be able to leave without her. Roddy still thought this was a business trip, and he’d be leaving her behind to avoid the impending and uncomfortable discussions. He’d be willing to risk loss of employment.

  Her only hope was that Oswald would confirm her presence on board before they left. This trip wasn’t a business trip. It was an evacuation.

  The second problem was that she’d not yet found Stephen.

  She felt a wave of panic. If he’d left and gone home, they were both doomed.

  Her eye fell upon the empty wall. She moved to it, placed her hands on the precise spots, and pushed.

  The wall slid back, revealing a closet with two suits.

  Stephen leaped out from behind the one he’d brought with him, still dressed in the delivery uniform. “Surprise!”

  While she’d normally find such antics amusing, she had no time for play now. “Put the suit on, Stephen.” She moved to her own and began to undo the fasteners that would eventually seal the suit around her. “Seriously, you need to put it on.”

  “You’re kidding. Why?”

  “Just trust me, okay?” She took off her jacket and undid the buttons on her bloodied blouse.

  Stephen’s eyes widened. “What the hell happened?”

  “Long story. No time to explain. Get in the suit.” She finished stripping down to her underwear and hauled the suit to her bed.

  He eyed her nearly nude body with deep hunger. “How about I put the suit on later?”