by Joseph Rhea
The ground in the next sector was even more cluttered than the previous one. Off to one side, mountain-sized blocks of floor material rose hundreds of meters out of the ground. In other places, smaller blocks of various shapes were scattered about, some resting on others, forming arches and low bridges. It required much more attention to navigate a path through them all, but fortunately, his Tracer was able to do most of the work by itself.
They traveled on for another half hour until they came to the base of a low ridge where Javid ordered everyone to stop. The KaNanee transport walked up beside Alek’s ship and bumped it with one of its huge legs. He checked his dashboard—there was no damage. The KaNanee were probably just not very good at maneuvering the lumbering machine in close proximity. Then again, maybe Jas Kaido was challenging him again. He decided not to react to it. If Javid could adapt to these people, then so could he. He slid his Tracer slightly away from the nearest leg.
“The base is on the other side of this ridge,” Javid said, broadcasting to both Alek and the KaNanee. “I scouted it on my previous visit. Species-1 has patrols on all sides of the base, but none inside.”
A holographic schematic appeared on his dashboard. It showed a layout of the base, as well as an outline of what Javid called Species-1. They stood on two long legs and looked like a mechanical dinosaur. This was the last of Klaxon’s four Predator programs.
“Do you have a name for these creatures as well?” Javid asked, interrupting his thoughts. Alek’s communications display told him that the Sentinel was speaking to him on a secure channel. Apparently, he didn’t want the KaNanee to overhear them.
“Raptors,” Alek said with a sigh, “and judging by the size of those legs, I’m guessing that they are going to be fast—faster than any of the other machine creatures out here.”
“Tell us your plan, Sentinel,” Jas Kaido’s harsh voice interrupted.
Javid switched back to an open channel. “The Species inhabiting this sector are called Raptors,” he said, as though the term was his own. “The KaNanee will climb the ridge and attack first to draw their fire. Alek and I will then enter the base through a side passage. Once we have gained access, you may break contact with the Raptors and await our return. When our mission is completed, we will meet you at this location.”
“And?” Kaido asked.
There was a long pause, and then Javid answered, “You will receive four Tracers in payment.”
“I will accept ten of your fighter ships,” Kaido said.
“You will receive four Tracers,” Javid repeated calmly, “because that is all we can tow out of the Base.”
There was another lengthy pause, and then Kaido replied flatly, “Agreed.”
The KaNanee vehicle then lurched into action and climbed up and over the ridge.
“What was that all about?” Alek asked.
“We will discuss this later, Alek. Get ready to go.”
Alek looked down at his scanner. If he understood the blinking red and green dots on the display, the KaNanee were steadily luring most of the Raptors away from the base.
“Now,” Javid said.
Alek followed Javid up the ridge and down the other side. The base looked like a digital version of a medieval fortress. It appeared to be eight-sided and there were turrets located high on each corner. Alek could see silhouettes of what looked like people standing guard along the top of the walls. As the Tracers closed in on the base, he realized that the people were actually the size of two-story buildings. They were Raptors.
Two of them jumped from the wall and Alek watched them fall a hundred meters to the ground. Instead of being smashed by the fall, they landed flat on their two large feet. The huge legs bent sharply at the back-facing knee joint, apparently absorbing the impact. Then they began running toward Alek and Javid, moving even faster than he had imagined.
Alek looked ahead. Javid was leading them toward what looked like a glowing red river that surrounded the base.
“What’s that?” Alek asked.
“No questions,” Javid said. “Activate your Warrior Mode and follow my moves exactly.”
Javid performed a quick ninety-degree turn and let his Tracer slide sideways toward the moat. Alek did the same, and then looked out his side window just in time to see a Raptor closing in.
Just then, his Tracer slid onto the red material and sank below the surface. The view outside of his windows glowed bright red, like lava. He could still see Javid’s Tracer right in front of him, so whatever the substance was, it wasn’t as dense as lava.
“Negative energy flow,” Javid said. “We cannot stay in here very long. Follow me.”
As Javid’s ship moved off, Alek looked down at his shield display. It showed less than fifty percent power remaining and falling quickly. The negative energy was draining his shields. He quickly transferred all of his remaining weapons energy to the shields, which boosted them by twenty percent. Not much, but it would help.
He followed Javid’s ship. They turned several corners and Alek kept one eye on the shield display. When it reached ten percent, he saw Javid’s ship lift up and disappear. Alek boosted the magnetic lift on his ship and rose up out of the energy river. He landed next to Javid on a solid surface.
They were in a wide, dark hallway of some sort, presumably inside the base. Alek checked his shields and saw that they were empty. Since he had transferred his weapons energy into the shields, they were gone as well. If the Raptors found them now, he would have no way to defend himself.
“My shields and weapons are completely drained,” Alek said.
“As are mine,” Javid replied.
“This is a Sentinel base, right?” Alek asked. “You said there were no Raptors inside, so we should be safe here.”
“We have entered through an illegal backdoor,” Javid replied. “Sentinel bases have numerous safeguards to prevent unauthorized entry. We must assume that these safeguards will still be operational.”
“Are you telling me that the base itself will be attacking us? Don’t you have some sort of access code or something to shut off the defenses?”
“Access codes can be downloaded from a captured Sentinel. Therefore, we have none. The ground level of this facility is actually a complicated series of interlocking mazes, designed to make it impossible to enter without knowing the exact route to the central hub. Navigational memory is more difficult to extract than simple access codes.”
“But you know the route. You’re a Sentinel.”
“I know the correct route from the main entrance to the hub. As I have stated, we have entered through a backdoor. We will have to be on our guard.”
“And we will do this without weapons or shields.”
“Now you are sounding like a Sentinel,” Javid said, missing the point completely.
They began moving slowly. The hallway was just wide enough for both Tracers to travel side by side. Within a minute, they encountered their first defensive routine. It was a small silver pod, floating in the middle of the hallway up ahead of them.
“Attraction bomb,” Javid said. “It pulls all programs toward it and traps them there.” He paused. “This is curious—I have scanned it and it appears deactivated, or perhaps malfunctioning. We should, however, remain cautious.”
They moved slowly up to the pod, staying as far to the sides as possible. As soon as they neared it, they sped up and passed it quickly. It showed no sign of activity. A short time later, they encountered another defensive routine. Javid explained that it was a cell with a large memory block over it that dropped when you passed under it, smashing you to bits. Javid called it a decision gate, but Alek saw it as a simple trash compactor. Luckily for them, it wasn’t functioning either.
After an hour of finding more traps that were either damaged or already sprung, Alek began to relax. Obviously, something had rendered all of the base’s defenses harmless long ago. Most likely, it was the shock wave from his Panspermia bomb—the same wave that had apparently deleted all
the Sentinels.
The hallways eventually grew narrower, forcing them to continue in single file with Javid leading the way. At one point Alek rounded a corner and found Javid’s ship sitting at the entrance of a room the size of a soccer field. He moved up beside Javid and saw what looked like large metallic eggs filling the space. On the far side of the room, a tall double-sided pyramid that seemed to be balanced on four glowing legs moved slowly over the eggs. Below it, beams of energy struck the tops of the eggs it passed over, making them glow.
Javid turned and headed down a side hallway. Alek followed him and in a few minutes, they entered a much smaller room. Javid headed straight for a raised platform on the far side. “This regenerator is still operational,” Javid said as he brought his ship onto the platform and then powered down his ship. As soon as his Tracer touched down, the pad began to glow.
Alek pulled his Tracer up behind Javid’s ship. He had a flashback of being a kid and having to wait in line to get hydrogen for his parents’ automobile. “What were those things in the other room?” Alek asked. “They looked like eggs.”
“They were Raptor seed programs,” Javid said.
“What was that thing hovering above them?”
“A Replicator. Sentinels use them to create new Tracers and other devices. It appears that the Raptors are now using this one to copy themselves.”
Before he could ask what that meant, Javid powered up his Tracer. The red shield generators on the side of his ship glowed brightly.
“Fully charged,” Javid said as he moved his ship off the pad. “Your turn.”
Alek moved on top of the pad and powered down his ship. He watched his Tracer recharging itself with an odd sense of satisfaction. He had always bonded in a strange way to his automobiles. A girlfriend had once commented that he loved his first car, an old battery-powered four-wheeler, more than he loved her. Perhaps she was right—he had kept the car for several years, but he couldn’t even remember the girl’s name.
When his display showed that all systems were at maximum capacity, Alek powered up his Tracer and moved off the pad. He looked around and realized he was alone in the room. His scanner showed no other ships in range.
“I’m finished, Javid. Where are you?”
There was no answer. Since it appeared that he could boost just about every system in the Tracer by transferring power to it from other systems, he mentally played around with the system controls until he figured out how to boost the range of his scanner. There was Javid’s ship—about five hundred meters back the direction they had come. His Tracer seemed to be moving toward him at high speed. A few seconds later, Javid’s Tracer flew into the room, followed by four other Tracers.
Javid’s face reappeared on his communications panel. “Prepare to leave, Alek.”
“Who are they?” he asked, referring to the other ships.
“I replicated four new Tracers as payment to the KaNanee,” Javid replied flatly. “I am activating your Tracer’s remote pilot. These ships will now follow you wherever you go. Take them and leave immediately.”
Alek saw a new “remote pilot” display appear on his dashboard as the four Tracers moved into position behind his ship. He was about to ask why Javid wasn’t going to tow them, when an alarm went off in the room and bars of light along the walls began flashing red. He looked down and saw a massive shock wave on his scanner, approaching their position. “What the hell did you do?” he asked.
Javid’s face looked calm. “After I made the copies, I placed an ESD beneath the Replicator. Its deletion set off a cascade deletion of the Raptor eggs.”
The shock wave was enormous and steadily approaching. It seemed to be deleting everything in its path, including the base itself. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“It is the duty of every Sentinel to protect the system. The use of our Replicator by these programs is a clear violation of security. I could not allow it to continue operation.”
“What the hell do we do now?” Alek yelled. “You cut off our only escape route. How do you plan to get us out of here?”
“Tracer hangar number seven is at the end of the next corridor,” Javid said. “If you use Recon mode you should be able to outrun the blast and escape through the hangar doors.”
“All right, I’ll follow you.” The shock wave was almost on them now.
“My ship was damaged during the attack on the Replicator,” Javid replied. “My reconfiguration routine is offline and there is no time to repair it. I cannot outrun the blast, Alek. You are on your own now.”
He should’ve realized that Javid would do this. He was a Sentinel—a program. His own life meant nothing to him. The shock wave was almost on them, and Alek realized that they were both out of time.
NINE
In a flash of insight, Alek gunned his ship toward the corridor as he ordered his remote pilot control to release one of the drones and lock onto Javid’s ship. He switched to Recon Mode just as the shock wave smashed into the room.
He flew back in his seat as his Tracer screamed down the corridor. He could imagine the blast wave right behind him, but he was too busy trying to steer his Tracer down the twisting corridor to look back.
Finally, he shot out of one of the hangar doors, past the stunned Raptor guards, and rocketed across the ground. When he finally dropped back to Explorer Mode and slowed his ship to a stop, he was relieved to see Javid’s ship floating next to three of the copied Tracers.
“That was…unexpected,” Javid said.
“I decided that you were worth more than an extra drone,” Alek admitted. “I think the KaNanee will understand.”
After what seemed like several minutes, Javid finally spoke. “That was a decision well made, Alek. You are proving yourself to be an excellent Gray Sentinel.”
“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I understand that Sentinels are color-coded to identify their rank or job. Your skin is blue because you’re some sort of squadron leader. So, what does a Gray Sentinel do?”
Javid regarded him in the monitor for a few moments before answering. “Gray Sentinels are not part of the system when it is working properly. They are brought in to make decisions when no one else can. They are brought in to find solutions to problems that others have given up on.”
That answer surprised Alek. He was a good problem solver, maybe better than most, but he was certainly no Gray Sentinel. He was just an average guy dealing the best he could with the crap that life seemed to be throwing at him.
He glanced down at his scanner and saw a hundred red dots approaching them from the direction of the damaged Base. “We have company,” he said aloud. “You don’t think they’re a little pissed at you for destroying their eggs, do you?”
“We need to concentrate on our tactics now,” Javid replied. “I will deal with them while you take the Tracers back to the KaNanee.”
The red dots were getting closer. “If I’m reading this scanner correctly, the place we were supposed to meet the KaNanee is on the other side of the base,” Alek said. “Besides, you can’t take on all of those Raptors by yourself.”
“Sentinels were designed to complete missions. I have been operating without a mission plan for a long time now. I have nothing left to do but delete as many of the enemy as I can. I must protect the system at all costs. That is my duty.”
“Damn it, Javid, you’re adaptive. You have gone far beyond your programming to survive this long without help. Don’t give up on me now.”
“I have no mission.”
Alek had another insight. “I do.”
Javid narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”
Alek looked at the scanner. He didn’t really have time for explanations, but he needed the Sentinel’s help to find Maya and the others. “I know how to protect the system,” he blurted out. “I mean the entire system, all of Cyberdrome. That’s my mission and I can’t do it without you.”
Javid’s face stared at him through the display. “The two of us c
annot complete such a mission,” he finally said. “We would need help.”
He decided to continue his lie. It had worked to get him this far. “You were correct in believing that I am one of the next generation of Sentinels. What you don’t know is that there are five more of my kind out there somewhere. If we can locate them, we can help them restore Cyberdrome to its original state.”
The Sentinels eyes lit up. “That is truly a worthwhile mission, Alek. Tell me more.”
“First, we need to find a way out of this mess you put us in. If your Tracer can’t reconfigure itself for Recon mode, then there’s no way we can get past those Raptors. If we can’t meet with the KaNanee, then we need to get the hell out of this sector.” He boosted his scanners to full and saw a border up ahead. “What’s in the next sector?” he asked.
“We cannot go there,” Javid said flatly. “All Circuit gates into that sector are offline. I suspect they were damaged by the shock wave produced by the deletion of the Intruder.”
“Is that where the attack occurred?” Alek asked, feeling a little strange being so close to where it all started.
“That is correct,” Javid said.
Alek knew there was no way they would be able to reach another border before the Raptors caught them. “You told me that the border wasn’t a physical barrier. Maybe we can cross into it to hide from the raptors until your ship repairs itself.”
“That is unwise.”
Alek looked back down at his scanner. The Raptors were getting closer. They were quickly running out of time.
“We don’t seem to have a lot of choices here,” Alek said. “I think we should try it.”