“So that means we don’t know how many shots you’ll have with it, if any, which is why we need Dok to find something else at the Federal Building if he can. We’ll keep the Agnes hidden, in the hope that staying still and partially sheltered in the pit will keep Amelix from honing in on us.”
The tube started to move Dok inside. About half his vision was blocked, now. Suddenly Lawrence made a long, shaky gasping sound over the speakers.
“What is it, Lawrence?” Dok asked. He remembered the screens and looked down, then found Lawrence’s face on the screens that came up from that, finally focusing on the picture of daylight. At first it was just four figures in orange suits, but as Lawrence went from one to another and the cameras caught their faces it was clear: There were two girls and a boy, all of high school age, and another girl who was younger than that. Each face was tear-streaked and puffy.
“The children? Why?” Lawrence shouted. “Why would you do this?”
There was a long pause. The tube lurched and squeezed, pulling Dok farther inside. Now more than three quarters of the pressurized ball were inside, and the tube was starting to close around the other end.
“Why did you send out the children, you sick piece of shit?” Lawrence shouted.
“Are you talking to me?” NJt994 asked flatly. “You can’t be talking to me, because even you aren’t stupid enough to speak that way to a man who can detonate a charge in the back of that suit and take off your head.”
“What went through your twisted mind to make you think of this?” Lawrence said. His exhalations were part hiss and part growl.
NJt994 made an irritated little grunt. “I suppose it is your mission and you should at least understand why you got the crew you did. It might somehow prove relevant for tactical reasons. It’s no mystery, anyway. Those four are not reconditioned. They’re useless to the organization the way they are, and there’s never going to be a way to recondition them. Also—and this information is classified—our scientists have confirmed that your conjecture is plausible: The rats may have an easier time capturing and controlling Accepted. Those kids are less likely to be used against us, as is your friend, Dok.”
“You fucking waste!” Lawrence said. “We’re the ones who …”
Dok’s hearing faded, perhaps from shock or horror or fury. His vision darkened until all he could see was NJt994, and then just the man’s throat.
Suddenly everything became clear. Dok no longer needed or cared to think. He drew the gun from the holster under his arm and fired at that bobbing throat. The three-shot burst hit its target but Dok pulled the trigger again and again.
The tube crushed down around him.
Inside the Williams Gypsum mine
Sett steered the bulky yellow continuous mining machine backward in a wide arc across the floor of the cavern that had been used to store equipment. When he’d been a kid, the continuous miner had been his favorite of the family fleet, with its row of spinning jagged disks. Each disk was as tall as he was, even today, and the teeth were as long as his arm, though at the moment he had them turned off. Below the disks was a shovel that funneled the mined material under the machine and up a metal conveyor belt that had dumped the gypsum into trucks. The continuous miner moved slowly and would take a while to reach the Federal building, but slow movement was less likely to attract attention from Amelix, anyway.
The machine was about the length of a standard dump truck, with the disks and shovel at the front and long, flat, chest-high panels covering caterpillar treads on each side. Sett drove from an unpadded seat set into a niche at the back-left corner, where the controls were. He pulled the machine forward and slightly left, toward the opening of the cavern. The space had been dug out enough that a three-story building would fit inside it, and the intensely bright headlights made a blinding white patch from floor to ceiling across the gypsum walls as it turned. Sett killed the lights before he pointed the machine toward the entrance. The afternoon sun was still strong. Hopefully they wouldn’t need the lights at all for this mission.
Sett opened the throttle until the continuous miner reached its maximum speed, which was slightly faster than a jog. He emerged from the mine and out into the valley where the Agnes waited with the rest of his new team.
Dok wasn’t there. Through his EI he reached for Li’l Ed.
“Did you get the machine?” Li’l Ed asked.
“Where’s Dok?”
“There was an incident. Dok shot NJt994.”
“Was he killed?”
“Yes. So as a result I am now acting commander of the Agnes.”
“What? No, Dok. Was Dok killed for shooting your boss?”
“Oh. No. I stopped the biomachinery and extracted him. He was repackaged and he’ll be out soon.”
“Wait. What? You’re in charge of the Agnes now?”
“Yes. I told you a hundred times: I was second in command.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Aboard the continuous mining machine, approaching the Federal Building
Dok sat on the right side of the continuous miner’s conveyor belt as one of the teens, sixteen-year-old Robi, drove. The spinners and other digging parts were turned off. The machine wasn’t made for carrying passengers, so Dok and the other kid, fourteen-year-old Gen-li, had to sit on one of the flat tool boxes beside the conveyor belt, clinging tightly to any handhold they could find. Gen-li sat right beside Dok, with one hand under her arm where an old Unnamed gun was holstered. She took her primary mission seriously, and Dok had no doubt she’d kill him and Lawrence if she decided either was a threat to the Agnes.
She wouldn’t need a gun. Out here she could kill me instantly with a sewing needle.
Thoughts of killing had a sharper edge, now that Dok himself had done it. His lifetime of fighting to save lives had suddenly turned murderous, just a short time ago.
Maybe I should die instantly, just like my victim.
Dok wanted to feel bad, deserved to feel bad, but the guilt and shame he tried to pull up wouldn’t materialize. He had killed a man, yes. But doing so had removed all those lives and that incredibly powerful machine from that corporate maniac’s dangerous control.
On Dok’s lap was a white duffel bag full of chemical bombs. At the Federal Building, he would heave them through every open door and place them outside every vent they passed on the way to the cache of weapons the first team had discovered. Then he was to quickly scan the inventory with his cameras until the Whites saw something that might work against the beetles, then grab it, and run out again. They could figure out how effective it would be once he was back outside.
Considering the circumstances and his age, Robi was doing a pretty good job of driving, following the directions the Whites were providing electronically. The other teen girl, Lora, and her ten year-old sister, Petra, were back with Lawrence guarding the Agnes. Petra, who had been too young for an EI back at the time the world broke, was the only other member of the team without one. They had given her one of the suits like Dok’s, with screens built into the head. The bulky headpiece made her small body seem even tinier.
They were nearing the end of the trek across the desert. The sprawling Federal Building now took up most of the horizon.
“Location data indicate that all surviving members of Team 1 are still together in the underground room,” Li’l Ed said. “You should have visual on the Federal Building any moment now.”
“Whoa! Stop! Stop!” Dok shouted. The machine lurched to a halt. “Lawrence, are you seeing this?”
“Get out of there, Dok!” Lawrence said. “Just turn it around!”
The Federal Building itself was about ten stories tall, stretching off in three directions. Two Amelix structures, each roughly as tall as the Federal Building, crouched outside it.
“Keep your head in that position, Dok,” Li’l Ed cut in. “I’m zooming your camera on that connection between the two of them.”
Robi locked one tread in place and kept the other going at full throttle so that the machine pivoted. He let off the brake and they jerked forward, following the tracks they’d left in the desert grit.
“What is that?” Lawrence asked. Dok tried to find the proper screen to follow along, grateful that he was still too far away to clearly see the feature with his naked eye.
“A bridge of some kind?” 547 speculated.
“What’s going on?” Dok asked. “Where’s my screen for my own view?” He scanned the various images projected in the lower left corner of his visual field, but by the time he found his own camera, the mining machine had moved behind a hill and the Amelix structures were out of sight.
“Dok,” Lawrence said. “There is a translucent, flexible tube running between the two beetles. We could see something moving through it from one structure to another—it might have been people, but hard to say for sure.”
“Team 1 is in motion,” 547 said. “422, find a heading and get the Team 1 cameras back on.”
For a while Dok heard nothing but the throbbing growl of the biocat.
“Team 1 cameras are back on, sir,” 422 said. “Feed is now available. Team 1 has exited the building and appears to be approaching the structures.”
“Dok,” Lawrence said. “Have you found Team 1’s camera views? The structures have disconnected from each other, and one of the structures is starting to walk. It’s slowly stalking away from the Federal building.”
“Toward us?” Dok asked.
“Not clear,” 547 said. “But not directly at you. Team 1 is running, now…right toward the stationary structure. The tube is still hanging down from that one, almost touching the ground. Team 1 appears to be heading for it.”
“Are they trying to enter the structure?” Lawrence asked. “How would they do that?”
“They are entering the tube now, packing shoulder to shoulder,” 547 said. “Looks like they’re seeking hand and foot holds among the ridges and other structural components.”
“Climbing?” Lawrence asked.
“I don’t think so,” 547 said. “They’re just hanging on, bracing themselves.”
“Sett, sir?” Robi cut in. “Can you see the controls through my camera? Is there any way to get more speed, sir?”
“Sorry, kid,” Lawrence said. “That’s the full open throttle position. It can’t go any faster.”
“The tube is lifting. Team 1 is about three meters above the ground,” 547 said. “Both Amelix structures are moving now. This one’s path is apparently a mirror image of the first. They are both arcing in your direction; it’s a pincer maneuver. They are on course to intersect with the mining machine in a few minutes.”
Camera lab aboard Agnes
“Okay, Team 2A,” 547 said. “Be alert. Those things are nimble. We’re going to try and guide you away from them. Make a forty-five degree turn to the right and head for the dry riverbed there. Then just follow it on down. Hopefully the banks will keep you hidden.
“Won’t that take us farther away from you?” Dok asked. “Shouldn’t we be heading back to where Lawrence has the gun?”
“Sorry, Dok. Our first priority has to be keeping those things away from the Agnes, protecting the seven hundred sixty lives still aboard. I think I can help you navigate away from them and hide, though. You should be far enough ahead of the one on that side that you can pass it unseen in the riverbed.”
“Great.”
The various cameras showed the machine’s progress as it crept along, following the winding course of what had apparently once been a substantial river.
“Distance to the Amelix craft with Team 1 is holding steady between four hundred twenty and four hundred fifty meters,” 422 said.
“Wait!” 547 said. “Dok, hold completely still. I saw something move.”
547 changed the main projection from the rear camera to one of Dok’s right side cameras. He scanned over hills, looking for what he assumed would be an edge of the Amelix beetle poking up from behind, but there was nothing there.
“Cock your head to the side for me,” 547 said. “No, other side. Yes, like that.” One camera captured an angle where the movement might have been. 547 manipulated it to zoom in. There, poking out from a little hole in the bank, was a single rat, watching them. Several three-shot bursts fired, impacting all around the animal before a hit broke the rat’s head open.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Gen-li said. “I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t think. I saw the rat there and…I…It made me sick, and I got angrier and angrier, and I had to kill it. I couldn’t think of anything, sir. I only knew that it had to die.”
“Continue on down the riverbed, Team 2A,” 547 said.
The cameras bobbed as the machine lurched and resumed its course down the river.
“Light, sir,” 422 said. “I have full daylight again on Team 1’s cameras. All of the remaining five are outside, sir. Data shows they’re moving quickly, probably running.”
“Switch it now. Give me visual from any forward-facing camera.”
They could see nothing in the camera’s view except empty desert ground, with sand and billows of dust blowing over the barren terrain.
“Are they headed for 2A?”
“Yes, sir.”
“2A, Team 1 is approaching you at a run. They look set to intercept you at the next bend ahead. You don’t have time to turn that thing around, but this would be a good time to put it in reverse.”
Outside the Williams Gypsum mine
“We have to go help my friend,” Sett said. “We’ll get a truck from inside the mine. C’mon.”
“Team 2B has been directed to stay here and guard the Agnes,” the older girl, Lora, said. She drew her gun out of its pouch on the front of her orange suit. “We’re going to stay here and guard the Agnes.”
Great.
Sett made sure the communication link was set for person-to-person rather than broadcast through the White workstation aboard the ship. “Look, Lora. We both know you don’t actually work for Amelix. I’m going to help my friend, and I would like you to come with me. This is an emergency. Don’t screw it all up out of some sense of loyalty to a company that just literally shat you out.”
“I should be loyal to you instead?” Lora asked.
“You always wanted to work for a company someday, right? We all did. It’s all we ever learned to want.” Lawrence pointed up at the hulking Agnes. “That company didn’t want you. You are unemployed. You are Departed.” He paused, letting the word sink in.
He gestured toward the mine. “But this gypsum mine is my company. As sole heir, I’m now offering you and your sister positions within my organization. “Do you accept my offer?”
The dry riverbed
“Oh!” Gen Li said. Her voice sounded panicked.
Dok ducked down behind the mining machine, running hunched over as the first shots fired. All of the mining machine’s devices were now spinning and shuddering as it rumbled backward.
Next to him, Gen-li’s HAZMAT suit crumpled, empty, its former owner obviously succumbing to the Slatewiper long before a bullet in the shoulder would have done her in. The suit, and the gun she’d been holding, disappeared beneath the retreating machine.
Shots rang constantly, though most of them seemed wildly off target.
The mining machine traced its earlier path, leading with its rattling conveyor belt, its massive wheels of teeth whirring threateningly at the other end. The edge of the toolbox Dok had been sitting on was taller than his shoulder, providing some minimal cover as he ran in front of it. The seat from which Robi was driving was sunk low enough as to be partially protected, so there was a good chance he was still alive.
“Robi?” Dok asked over the com-link. “Are you still there?”
“Yes,” the boy said, barely audible over the machinery. Dok had no idea how to turn up the volume in his speakers. “I can’t climb out. Too many shots going just over my head.”
“Can you s
ee them?”
“There’s at least one, maybe two on this side, but they keep disappearing behind the dunes.”
“Listen,” Dok said. “We’re coming up on a bend in the riverbed. Can you see behind you to turn?”
“Yes. There’s a camera.”
“You’re going to need to slow down a lot to navigate that turn. Don’t risk plowing into the riverbank and getting stuck. When you slow, Team 1 will catch up. Just stay where you are, okay? Concentrate on making the turn. It’s okay to slow down for it.” Dok unzipped the white duffel bag and removed some of the chemical bombs, lining them up on top of the machine for easy access. The machine’s movement over the smooth dry sediment was slow enough that they didn’t even wobble. “At about twenty meters, I can start throwing the bombs and take out the rats, and hopefully free Team 1. Just stay down as much as you can.”
“Okay.”
Lawrence’s voice came over the link. “Dok? Can you hear me? I’m coming to help you. Just hold on.”
“Yes, I can hear you. That is most welcome news. Thanks, Lawrence.”
Dok set the bomb and grabbed the duffel bag, moving off to the side for a better angle. He lobbed the bomb as far as he could, but because it was quite heavy and he was still spindly and weak, it landed just beyond the machine’s treads as they rolled backward away from it.
The machine’s pace had seemed so slow when he’d been riding, but now he struggled to stay ahead of it. He was short of breath and felt a stitch in his gut. He tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry. The dizziness and exhaustion he was experiencing would have made carrying the heavy bag feel impossible even at half the speed. He reached up to one of the bombs he’d set on the machine, arming and setting it. It went off, spraying deadly toxins through little openings that aimed in every direction, with enough force that it blew a clean spot in the gypsum dust on the conveyor belt housing. There was a pretty strong wind coming from behind him that would move the stuff twenty meters pretty fast.
The Book of Wanda, Volume Two of the Seventeen Trilogy Page 40