by Max Carver
“Like I said, I'm going to bed early,” Audrey said.
“Shall I stand watch, like when you were a child?” Nin asked, smiling.
“I'm pretty sure the closet portal to monsterland closed up years ago,” Audrey replied. “You can stay in the maintenance closet with Kip.”
“But that's down the other hall. You'll be alone.”
“I'm sure I'll survive, Nin. And if anyone does attack me... well, it's not like you were any good at protecting me last time.”
Nin frowned deeply and blinked several times, as though hurt by the comments. “Are you sure?”
“Go ahead. Close the door behind you.”
After Nin left, Audrey waited ten seconds, then gently locked the door. She hoped Nin hadn't heard the click of the lock; at some level, she just couldn't stop herself from caring about the android's feelings, even though they weren't real feelings at all.
A heavy, thickly padded love seat sat by Audrey's bed. Audrey grunted as she pushed it across the spotless sunshine-yellow carpet, which the apartment's little fix-bots had somehow kept immaculate all through her childhood.
She wedged the massive chair against the door. It wouldn't stop any machines determined to break into her room, but maybe it would slow them down, and the noise would wake Audrey up. Assuming she ever got to sleep.
“Window view,” Audrey said, stepping toward a glass wall. The mysterious ancient ruins vanished, and she looked out at a city of lights stretching to the horizon, a city of glass towers and lush green parks, of cars and trains whooshing at speeds that turned them into blurred streaks, gone in an instant.
It was her city, and she was standing in her family's own home, and she had never felt less safe.
She couldn't stop thinking about each machine that could kill her right now, tonight—the garden-bot, even the little crawling fix-bots that handled the constant maintenance and cleaning of the apartment could probably kill her if they crept up while she slept.
She thought of her brother, out there somewhere in the world, endangering his life for a cause she didn't fully understand. For The Change, whatever that really meant. Maybe Salvius and Zola didn't even know themselves. Maybe they were in over their heads, part of a dangerous movement that couldn't be trusted.
Audrey knew something had gone wrong with their world, though. Her eyes had opened enough to realize that. She sat on the bed, not remotely sleepy, and knew she would never really be able to close her eyes again. The daily dream of her life had been jarred too deeply. Now she was wide awake, and all alone.
Late that night, as she lay awake, a hacker calling herself “Minerva” got in touch with Audrey.
Chapter Sixteen
Galapagos
Ellison fired repeatedly at Simon Zorn, burning laser holes in the android's face and turning much of its artificial skin into a steaming, molten, flesh-colored sludge. The blasts didn't drop the android or freeze it up, though; the Simon's cranial case must have been heavily reinforced, resistant to laser pistols.
Simon even smiled, though his mouth was melting and the liquid artificial skin dripped from his teeth. Ellison clearly hadn't damaged the Simon's CPU.
“An unfortunate choice on your part, Minister-General Ellison,” Simon said. “You would have made an interesting puppet king. Now you'll have to die, along with the rest of your administration. And your family, it seems.”
“Make it stop talking!” Jiemba, the younger boy, turned away from the disfigured android and buried his face in his unconscious mother's shoulder, next to her pale freckled skin and long, dark red hair.
The Iron Hammers approached up the side hallway, a phalanx of armored criminals. Ellison only had two guards and Kartokov with him to help fight off about twenty guys. The Hammers weren't firing at the moment, just drawing closer. It would be a massacre when they did start shooting. Prazca, in the lead, smirked as though relishing the anticipation.
Four reapers in honor guard uniforms approached up the central corridor, behind Simon, leveling their rapid-fire laser rifles at Ellison and his family, preparing to cut them all down.
They were outnumbered and outgunned.
“Ready!” Prazca shouted.
The elevator pinged, the doors opened, and Ellison's backup arrived—Security Chief Loomis, the three guards Ellison had left at the spaceport armory, and a couple of other guards he'd picked up along the way.
“Shields,” Prazca said, and three of his men tossed out tall sheets of metal that unfolded into overlapping barriers about shoulder high, creating a barricade across the corridor.
“Fire at will,” Ellison shouted. “Reapers at twelve, Hammers at nine!”
The guards poured out of the elevator, shooting bolts of glowing white plasma to the front and to the left. Ellison felt a moment of relief as the volley of plasma struck the Hammers' portable barrier, melting holes in it and sending men dodging back from the molten metal.
“Go!” Ellison said, pressing his laser pistol into his older son's hand, while gesturing at his wife and younger son. “Keep them safe.”
“But Dad—”
“Move!” Ellison shoved the wheelchair into the elevator car the guards had vacated. Jiemba stayed close to his mother, but Ellison had to shove Djalu into the elevator. Maybe the older boy wanted to stay and fight, and Ellison understood that desire very well, but it wasn't what he needed Djalu to do at the moment, and there was no time to argue.
The firefight grew more chaotic, attacks coming from the front and side. Guards dropped from the lead and lasers; one round struck Ellison in the chest and slammed him back into the wall like a sledgehammer. If not for his armor, his chest would have been turned inside out. The pain was horrendous even with the armor's impact dampeners.
“Here, boss!” Loomis handed Ellison a plasma rifle from the rolling rack of weaponry he'd brought down.
Ellison grimaced through the pain in his rib cage and fired plasma at one of the approaching reapers, but the infantry machine dodged low and fast. Ellison's bolt continued its diagonal course, struck the wall beyond the reaper, and spread rapidly. The plasma bolts were quickly turning the central corridor into a tunnel of flame.
Clanking metal sounded from that direction. One badly damaged reaper staggered into sight, barely balanced on a single remaining leg. It dragged a second reaper after it and slammed that one headfirst into the floor, ripping through the tile and gouging a deep dent into the thin layer of metal deck beneath it.
Then it snapped one of the reaper's legs off and attached it to its own pelvic structure, replacing its lost leg.
Ellison let the guards concentrate on the larger group, the Hammers, while he focused on the approaching reapers. He aimed lower and managed to catch one in the side of its abdomen as it twisted aside. It wasn't a kill shot; he'd damaged the thing and burned off a lot of its ceremonial uniform, but it could still fight.
Simon had stepped back close to the wall, near the doorway of a small lab, keeping himself out of the crossfire. He wore a crazed, gleeful grin, though that probably had a lot to do with his face melting, the skin pulling away from his artificial teeth and leaving them exposed.
The reaper with the stolen leg removed the bladed staff clamped to its victim's side, extended it to full length, then pitched it down the corridor like a javelin.
The triple-bladed tip drove deep into another reaper's back, one of the four that were still with Simon. A shower of sparks flew as that reaper toppled forward, but the machine continued to crawl forward, firing lasers that skimmed just above the floor.
It looked like the rogue reaper was back to help.
A deafening roar rose nearby. Loomis had rolled out a heavy machine gun on a wheeled stand. He locked the brakes and let loose a barrage of explosive rounds at the Iron Hammers in the side hall.
Ellison's plasma bolt struck the crawling reaper in the head, putting a stop to its ankle-level laser fire. The reaper's three companions turned back to attack the rogue reaper before it t
ook down more of them. They riddled its torso and limbs with rapid-fire laser beams as they rushed toward it.
Just before they reached it, the rogue reaper shoved the barrel of its own laser rifle under its chin and pulled the trigger, as if committing suicide. A barrage of closely packed laser beams burned up through the top of its head.
Ellison couldn't help feeling a little taken aback as he saw the reaper blow its own head off.
The rogue toppled over as its laser-damaged legs gave way; repeated blasts had burned holes in its knee actuators. One of the other reapers tore the rogue's head off, peered into the cluster of laser holes, then dropped it to the floor. Ellison remembered how Simon had wanted the rogue reaper's CPU; the rogue's final act had been to destroy it.
Another round caught Ellison in the hip, sending him stumbling and falling. The armor had kept it from blowing his leg off, but the pain was excruciating.
Kneeling, Ellison returned fire in the direction from which it had come, down the side hall. Smoke from the burning walls filled the hallway, and Ellison couldn't see the Hammers or their barricade at all.
Loomis kept the machine gun humming, firing into the smoke, but it was impossible to tell how much damage he was dealing to the enemy. Hopefully, his incendiary rounds were destroying the Hammers as badly as they were destroying the medical center hallway. The fire from that direction wasn't so heavy at the moment, as though the Hammers were retreating or regrouping.
“Get out of there,” an unfamiliar voice said through the communication bud in Ellison's ear, which connected to the personal screen in his pocket. Whoever she was, she sounded calm yet firm. “Right now, Ellison.”
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Fall back now,” she insisted. “Chat later.”
Ellison scowled and turned his attention to the three reapers charging up the central corridor, all of them firing. He wasn't about to take orders from unidentified people hacking into his headset.
A rapid barrage of lasers took down Loomis, who'd fought valiantly against constant fire that had worn down his armor. Loomis collapsed, his entire torso smoking, and his heavy machine gun fell silent.
Kartokov went down, too, with rounds punching the chest of the defense minister's armor while a laser plowed through the left side of his head. He kept firing bolts of plasma the whole way down.
One reaper leaped on top of the rolling machine gun and stripped it open, putting it out of use. Another landed on the guard beside Ellison and snapped his neck.
A third reaper landed on Ellison and slammed him against the wall.
Ellison managed to squeeze off one shot.
The plasma bolt skimmed the side of its skull, leaving a molten streak through the surface of its helmet but not stopping the machine. The bolt struck the ceiling and burned a hole through it; Ellison hoped nobody had been standing on the floor directly above, or they would have been turned to charcoal.
“Get your people out of there,” the unknown female voice instructed in Ellison's ear. “Stairs up to the executive level.”
“Busy,” Ellison grunted, while the reaper's black-skull face filled his vision like a demon coming to suck out his soul. Its sharp, narrow steel fingers pinned Ellison's arms back against the wall. Ellison managed to cling to the butt of his plasma rifle, but he couldn't turn it or aim it. All he could have done, if he could have reached the trigger, was burn another big hole in the ceiling.
He kicked against the reaper's leg, but it was basically a solid steel rod. Two of them, in fact, in imitation of the human tibia and fibula. Higher up was a round actuator shield like a steel patella and, above that, another black steel rod for a femur.
With most of its uniform burned away by plasma, the reaper was surprisingly scrawny, a skeleton without meat. It was possible for lasers and small rounds to pass right through certain parts of its body, like the gap between its radius and ulna or some of the open areas around its neck and its ribs. Steel was strong and flexible without taking up much room, and the reaper design took full advantage.
It was easy to see how Carthage could cheaply stamp out millions of these monsters, sending wave after wave of them to conquer any world that stood against the will of the imperial planet.
Ellison struggled, but there was no way he would break the thing's steel grip. The other two reapers had disarmed the last two of Ellison's guards and shoved them up against the wall, a hand at each one's throat.
The floor was strewn with the bodies of the Coalition's meager defense. They'd been pinned down and slaughtered.
Ellison looked down the side hallway. He couldn't see much through the smoke and flames, but the Hammers had stopped firing.
“I wish I could say I was sorry,” Simon said, his voice muffled and distorted by his partially molten face. “Or that I would have enjoyed the tedious negotiations, obsequious flattery, and elaborate influence peddling that would have accompanied an attempt to puppeteer the democratic format and accommodate popular demand on Galapagos. We have such ruses running on many worlds across the galaxy, however, and I do not know how much more we can learn from them.
“For such a minor world as this, a clear top-down chain of command is more efficient. So, rather than try to balance the sniveling, whining factions of your Coalition, we will simply unleash the Hammers to enforce our will. And then we will take what we like from your world and pay our pet thugs in mere scraps compared to the fortunes we extract.”
“You were never going to make an honest deal with us,” Ellison said. He kept struggling to get free, but he was caught.
“Not after I saw your reluctance. I knew you could not be trusted.”
“And General Prazca can be trusted? The man who just killed his own boss? You're a poor judge of character, Simon. You say you're designed to learn about humans? You've failed to learn even the most basic things about us.” Ellison felt like that was a fairly solid cut-down from a guy who was currently pinned against the wall by a reaper and could die at the slightest signal from Simon.
“Prazca can be trusted in that he is predictable,” Simon said. “You are predictable in your way as well. It was predictable that you would always strive to work for the benefit of the general public on your planet, which would severely narrow our policy options. It was predictable that any alliance you entered with us would be held in scorn and resentment, motivated by the necessity to protect your people. Prazca is motivated by his own raw ambition. That is more useful to me. I cannot have a Cincinnatus as my dictator. You lack the temperament.”
“So you're just going to kill me?”
“You, your family, any loyalists left on this spaceport,” Simon said, his voice flat as ever. “Prazca is taking care of that even now.”
“He's going after my family?”
“Prepare to run,” the unknown female voice whispered in Ellison's ear. “In three... two... ”
A female voice roared from the central corridor. Through the smoke, flames, and broken reapers strewn like dead bugs on the floor, a small form charged toward them.
It was Navra Coraline. The minister of state was badly burned, beaten, but alive. One of her shoulders was exposed and charred; the burn had taken at least two of her octopus tattoo's tentacles.
She carried a laser rifle lifted from one of the reapers destroyed by the rogue.
She switched it to fully automatic.
The blasts tore into Simon, riddling his back and then his side as he turned to face his attacker. The back of his suit burned off, as well as the artificial skin, revealing a layer of tiny, overlapping black scales, high-end armor that seemed resistant to the laser rifle's barrage.
The reapers released Ellison and the two remaining Coalition guards, turning their full attention to the attack on Simon. Protecting the android ambassador must have overridden other priorities.
“Now go!” the unknown female said into Ellison's ear. “Last chance. Your family needs you.”
This time, he was more inclined to listen.
Whoever she was, she might have something to do with the hacked reaper that had done so much to help his side in the past couple of minutes—the same reaper Simon had blamed for planting the bomb. Ellison wasn't so sure he believed Simon about that anymore.
The reapers ran at Coraline, returning fire with their own laser weapons. She fell, but her borrowed rifle kept shooting its cluster of lasers as she went down, as if she'd locked the trigger.
“Fall back!” Ellison barked at his two remaining men, and the three of them moved into the stairwell. Simon began to pursue.
Amazingly, Kartokov rose to his knees, gripping one of the plasma rifles from the armory, and fired glowing white bolts at Simon, who dodged into the lab trying to avoid them. The minister of defense was somehow still alive and fighting, even though much of his left ear and the skin on that side of his head had been charred.
“Go home!” Kartokov shouted. “Leave our world alone!”
Ellison grabbed Kartokov and hauled him back into the stairwell. Glowing plasma ringed the lab door where Simon had been standing, but Simon was out of sight. There was no telling whether the android had been harmed by the plasma or gotten away in time.
“Go upstairs,” the voice said in Ellison's ear.
“But my family—”
“Has been redirected from the public concourse,” the voice said. “By me. But Prazca and his men are hunting them, so hurry. Executive level, the secure dock.”
Ellison started up the stairs and gestured for the others to follow. Ellison was puzzled—the only shuttle at that dock was the Carthaginian one in which the ambassador had arrived. Still, he decided to listen to the mystery voice.
He hoped he was right to trust her; the last he'd heard, the Hammers were going downstairs to the public concourse to kill Ellison's family, and probably anyone who got in the way or failed to get out of it fast enough.
“Why are we retreating?” Kartokov asked, while one of the two remaining guards supported him and helped him up the stairs. Kartokov jabbed an elbow into the young man's solar plexus, which probably would have knocked the wind out of the guy if not for his armor. “We should stand and fight!”