“Is it true? Hey, Riley!”
Riley snapped his head and glanced over, giving a firm but apologetic look, like part of him wasn’t sure how to respond and another part of him didn’t have time for the distraction, then he quickly resumed his face press.
Younger retreated from the lever, clearly fatigued, his tank-top soaked and his dark-chocolate skin glistening in the artificial light. He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “It’s true, Lieutenant.” He tossed his chin toward the wet-port. “There’s a woman in there.”
Before Mitchell could ask anything else, a deep, hollow knock reverberated from the hatch. Riley stepped back and nodded to Younger, who nodded back, raising himself up to pull another lever. Metal groaned, and somewhere nearby water flooded out. A few pings and pops echoed as various pieces of steel finished settling into each other.
“Okay,” Riley said, gesturing vaguely as he moved to grab the first latch. “Help me open it.”
“Whoa! Are you out of your mind? Nobody’s opening anything until I know what the Hell is going on.”
“There’s no time.”
“Are you sure she’s alive? How do you know she’s not infected?”
“She’s not infected, and she won’t be alive for long if you won’t help me get this open.”
“Damn it, Riley, I’m in command. We have to be sure.”
“Ben, if she were infected on the surface, she’d have already turned, and if she’d already turned, she wouldn’t be in there looking like she’s about to die. Now, will you help me?”
Times like this, Mitchell hated Riley. He was the only civilian of the four, following Mitchell’s lead when it suited him, playing the I-don’t-work-for-you card when it didn’t. But he was the only bot-tech they had, and one guy they couldn’t do without. Younger was a good mechanic, but he couldn’t program bots or find ways to rig electronic stuff up the way Riley could.
He cursed under his breath and stepped quickly toward the nearest latch. He had to strike it with his palm a few times to get it to move. He threw it about the same time Riley got his. The hatch had an exposed cam, with extending rods and a wheel handle. Mitchell cranked the wheel, pulling the bolt rods in from their extended position and unlocking the hatch. There was a hiss of air and the hatch door creaked open.
The R-Bot stood a few feet inside, holding the woman with one arm under her knees, another beneath her upper back. She was dripping, her hair hanging heavy toward the floor, head tilted back and chin jutting.
“Bring her in,” Riley said. “Hurry!”
The massive bot took a heavy step, looked like it wouldn’t be able to fit through the hatchway, or would at least bash the woman’s head against the side, but then leaned and angled itself at the last moment, emerging into the bay and straightening up.
“Put her down,” Riley said. “Gently.” To Younger he said, “Let Tyler know we’re coming, to have a bed ready.”
The man nodded and hit the doorway running, barely avoiding the sci-bot as he side-stepped past it.
“Botkins!” Cypher said, stepping uncertainly into the room. “This is highly irregular! Highly irregular, I say!”
Mitchell ignored the bot, ran his eyes over the woman. Maybe in her twenties, her soaked hair the color of cherries. She was wearing a dark green jumpsuit, vaguely military, but with no insignia.
He watched Riley probe her neck with rough fingers, looking for a pulse. He lowered his ear to her chest as the R-Bot took two clanking steps back.
“Anything?”
Riley was ripping paper packaging off of a hypodermic needle. “I can’t tell. I think her heart may have stopped. Her lungs may be crushed.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Give her a shot of adrenaline, then try to resuscitate her.”
“Shouldn’t we get the water out of her lungs?”
“I don’t think she drowned.”
“What? Why?”
Riley pointed to the R-Bot. Mitchell hadn’t noticed it before, but now he did. A facemask, hanging by a rubber tube with expandable ribbing. It dangled from the R-Bot’s shoulder, where it was connected to a small tank. The tank looked like it had been welded to the bot’s frame.
Mitchell started to say something, but before he got it out he heard Cypher decry the irregularity of it all and saw Riley kneel next to the woman, readying the syringe in one hand while hurriedly popping buttons on her jumpsuit with the other. He grabbed a soggy handful of her exposed undershirt and began to yank it up, when her eyes shot open and she gasped a loud breath. Her body stiffened and barely a second later she bolted upright, clutching the top of her jumpsuit closed and spidering backward until she collided with the wall, heels of her boots scrabbling against the floor.
“Botkins!”
“Shut up, Cypher.”
“Easy, miss. There’s no need to panic.” Riley looked up at Mitchell, then back to the woman. “No one is going to hurt you. You’ve suffered a severe physical trauma. Your lungs may have been compromised, and you may be experiencing decompression issues in your joints. If you’ll just let me examine you...” Riley moved closer and the woman kicked her feet harder, tightening up and jamming herself even more firmly against the wall. Her eyes were intense and her mouth set. At first Mitchell thought it was fear, but there was something else in that look, something primal. A cornered animal, ready to lash out.
He clamped a hand down on Riley’s shoulder, cutting off his next words. Riley looked up at him, then gave way as Mitchell took over the space. The Lieutenant crouched onto his haunches, sitting on one heel and resting his forearm across the other knee.
“You’re in a sub-oceanic military facility,” he said. “My name is Ben, Ben Mitchell. I’m a naval officer. This fella next to me with the needle is Kevin Riley, he’s a doctor. Of sorts.”
“She must be in shock.”
Mitchell didn’t respond. The woman held his eyes firmly, body still tense, hand still squeezing her jumpsuit shut.
“She may not even speak English,” Riley added.
“She knows exactly what we’re saying. Besides, we’re a few thousand feet off the California coast. What’s she going to speak?”
“She may be suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation to the brain,” Riley said. “The pressure could have made it impossible for her to force enough air into her lungs. She may not be able to understand any of this.”
“I don’t think so,” Mitchell said, shaking his head. He shifted his weight, flicked his chin toward her. “I told you my name. I can’t see the harm in you telling me yours.”
The woman continued to stare for several seconds, body still coiled as if poised to strike.
“I told you,” Riley said. “I should probably sedate her.” He glanced over at the sci-bot. “Cypher, get over to the infirmary and tell—”
“Eden,” the woman said.
Riley turned to look at her. Mitchell smiled and gave him a pat on the back. He nudged himself forward, tilting toward her.
“Hello, Eden. Before we go any further, please tell me – are you injured? Any pain?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
The woman nodded slowly, eyes still wary.
“Do you think you can you walk?”
Another slow nod. Mitchell pushed himself up from his crouch and scratched the side of his face. “In that case, why don’t we get you some dry clothes.” He reached down and tugged on the shoulder of Riley’s lab coat, bringing the man to his feet.
“And then,” he continued, “maybe you can tell us how in the Hell you managed to hitch a ride on our robot. And why.”
* * *
“What, exactly, are you telling me, Riley? That the R-Bot did this to itself?”
The tech frowned, adjusting his glasses. “I’m just saying it’s possible.”
“Since when?”
“The processing modules of a Warbot are pretty advanced. They’re capable of adapting.”
>
“But you swore to me you removed the artificial intelligence programming, turned it into a reconnaissance drone that hunted food supplies and took pictures. Jesus, that’s the only reason I let you keep the damn thing. A tank on legs like that could kill us all without flaking off any rust. Or have you forgotten what happened last time we were topside?”
“I haven’t forgotten. I thought I’d disabled everything but its baseline programming functions. I mean, that’s what I intended to do.” Riley shrugged, let out a confused breath. “But maybe its computer architecture is even more advanced than I realized. Maybe the capacity wasn’t centralized.”
“Let’s pretend I understand what any of that means. You’re saying the thing found this girl, decided she was something we’d be interested in, so it jury-rigged an aqualung and brought her back here on its own?”
“I’m just saying it’s possible.”
Mitchell looked over at the R-Bot. Its hulking frame stood motionless, its head still, facing straight ahead. Staring at nothing. Seeing God knows what.
“So it could be listening to us right now, ready to turn us into hamburger at the first word it doesn’t like.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Look, if it did do this on its own, it did a pretty good job, didn’t it? It may have been anticipating what we wanted. Or, understanding our biology, what it thought we needed.”
“That would be downright sweet, if it wasn’t about the creepiest damn thing I ever heard.” Realizing what he was saying, he added, “Second creepiest.”
“Look, I’m not stupid. I know this is highly suspicious, and worrying. I just don’t have any other explanation. She’s obviously reluctant to speak, but she survived an incredible submersion to get here. If there were others intending to harm us, where are they? Why send her? I can’t imagine her being able to modify the bot that way by herself. I’m just offering one possible explanation.”
“Yeah, well, I think she’s had her fill of rations by now.” Mitchell gave another long, hard look at the R-Bot. “I guess it’s time we sat down with her and had a heart-to-heart.” He took a step forward, directing his voice to the bot. “Unless, of course, there’s something you want to tell me.”
The bot didn’t move a piston.
* * *
They watched Eden down her third glass of water and place the glass next to the empty ration packets. She sighed and her eyes settled on Tyler for several long seconds before dropping to stare at the table.
“Thank you,” she said, without looking up.
Tyler, shirtless and lean, smiled his southern smile, almost chuckling, and Younger glanced at him, then at Mitchell. Riley took off his glasses and cleaned them on his lab coat. No one seemed to know what to do next.
Mitchell slid onto the bench and seated himself directly across the table from her. He waved his hand over what was left of the rations. “Your appetite seems healthy.”
“Can I have some more water?”
Tyler started to move, but Mitchell held up a hand. “No, I’m sorry. No more water.”
“But I require more.”
“Yes, and I’m sure you still will require more after the next glass, and the next, and then you’ll have to use the head, and—”
“The what?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re avoiding. You’ve been here for hours now, and haven’t told us anything. You were hungry, then tired, then feeling sick, then hungry again. You can have more water after you answer a few questions. Okay?”
“But I think I’m dehydrated. I need more water.”
Mitchell held her eyes for a long moment, then wagged his chin and picked up her glass. He held it out to the side without taking his eyes off of her. Tyler took it from him and filled it at the filtration tank. Eden watched him carefully the entire time, even after he handed it off. Mitchell set it on the table between them and watched her drink. She emptied it in a few long chugs.
Tyler bent forward toward Mitchell, lowered his voice. “Why don’t you let me try, Lieutenant? I grew up with nothing but women. I have a way with the ladies.”
Mitchell backed him off with a look, lips tightened. Tyler retreated a few steps, simpering.
“That’s a lot of fluid you’ve put in your system,” Riley said. “Had you gone a long time without potable water?”
The woman said nothing.
“Did you maybe travel a long ways to reach the coast?”
“I don’t feel well,” she said. “I think I need to lie down.”
The slap of Mitchell’s palm on the table was loud enough that everyone in the room flinched. Everyone except Eden.
“Look, lady, in case you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t a hotel. Every minute that passes without us knowing who you are or why you’re here, the more we’re forced to conclude you have something to hide. And given the situation topside, someone with something to hide has got to be considered a threat.”
A shadow passed over her face. Subtle, inscrutable. But Mitchell knew he didn’t like it. “What?” he said.
The woman shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re saying I’m a threat for not answering questions, but in the same breath you’re threatening me. It is a very male thing to do.”
Mitchell dipped his chin, contorted his mouth into a frown. “Male thing, huh? Do you know what enemy forces used to do prior to an invasion? Before there were airplanes? Before there were listening devices and diplomats and spy networks?” He paused, making sure she was following him. “Going back to the earliest times, they used to send someone behind the lines – women, usually – to do a strength assessment. Force size, armament, morale, fortifications. Weaknesses. It’s pretty much the oldest trick in the book.”
Eden said nothing. Mitchell watched her for several long moments, one bleeding into the next, before leaning back a bit and raising his voice a notch. “Riley, how hard would it be to rig the R-Bot to go back to the surface?”
Riley didn’t answer immediately, forcing Mitchell to turn his head to get a response.
“I’d have to run a diagnostic, check his power source.”
“How long?”
“Few hours.” Riley’s brows pressed close, a pair of caterpillars in greeting. “Why?”
“I suppose in that time you could check the air tank? Make sure it has enough to get her back to shore?”
Uncomfortable sounds awkwardly filled the room, sounds of shifting weight and chuffing breaths. Mitchell could feel Tyler and Younger rocking on their heels, twitching and twisting, exchanging wide-eyed expressions.
“You’re not serious,” Riley said.
Mitchell narrowed his gaze, focused it on Eden like a high-pressure hose. “As a heart attack.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Yes, you will,” Mitchell said, eyes never leaving the woman’s. “Because you know I’ll do something even worse if you don’t.”
No one spoke for over a minute. Mitchell pushed himself up as if to leave. Eden’s voice stopped him, breaking the silence.
“I haven’t told you where I’m from, who I am, for two reasons. You’re right. I have been assessing you. But not for some invasion. It’s not what you think. I’m supposed to determine whether you’re suitable.”
“Suitable.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“To bring back.”
“Bring back where?”
“A dozen of us are in a secure facility in the mountains. Two days east of here, just south.”
“How did you find us?”
“Your bot had a recording module. It included a message looking for survivors. The recording gave the base call sign. We looked it up at the facility. It also gave the latitude and longitude of where you were signaling from.”
Mitchell shot a look back at Riley. “You were supposed to have pulled that months ago.”
“I did!”
“The primary recording was erased,” Eden said.
“But the message and other information was still accessible. We have a man with expertise in such things at the facility, someone you would call a scientist. He retrieved it.”
Riley started to say something, but Mitchell cut him off. “Okay, that’s one.”
“What?”
“You said there were two reasons. That’s one. What’s the other?”
“You would likely not believe me if I told you.”
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