by Isaac Hooke
Brontosaurus quickly fired the necessary dispersion bolt, and the tear in reality faded.
“This is going to be a long march,” Slate said
“I’m going to have to ask you to move back by five hundred meters,” Marlborough said.
“You got it, boss,” Brontosaurus said.
“Don’t fall behind too far,” Marlborough said, alluding to the fact that Slaughter would have to dig in when the heavy gunner created each wormhole. “We can’t afford to wait for you.”
Once more Brontosaurus moved back. The following wormhole he created didn’t affect the rest of the team at first—the Bolt Eaters felt the wind pick up, and that was it. But Brontosaurus created three more at the same time, and the Bolt Eaters had to dig in once again.
Brontosaurus quickly dispersed the wormholes when he realized he’d held up the team.
“Can you stop that shit!” Slate said.
“But I have to test all the parameters!” Brontosaurus said.
“I’m going to have to ask you to move back yet again,” Marlborough said. “If you plan on testing four wormholes, I want you at least two kilometers behind us.”
“Okay, okay,” Brontosaurus said.
The heavy gunner moved back once more, and the team experienced no further delays.
About an hour later Brontosaurus eventually concluded his experiments.
“There doesn’t seem to be a way to control the range,” he reported. “The wormhole always appears a hundred meters in front of the launcher. I can boost the intensity by creating multiple wormholes. And Scorp can do that as well by firing his energy cannon into the spacetime tear. But otherwise, yeah, that’s all I’ve learned.”
“So nothing new, really,” Slate said.
“I suppose not,” Brontosaurus agreed.
“Where do you think the wormhole leads?” Eagleeye said.
“Only one place,” Brontosaurus said. “Hell. Care to confirm for me?”
“No thanks.”
Brontosaurus had fallen behind by three kilometers by then, but since he was riding a mech he was able to catch up relatively easily. He returned control of Slaughter to Eric. Tread hadn’t yet asked Eric to cede the mechs back to him… the armor operator was probably feeling a little down because he’d lost so many of the units, as well as the tanks, which were his preference. Maybe he just didn’t want the responsibility anymore.
Eric asked him about it on a private line, saying: “I don’t think Marlborough intended for me to keep control of the armor units permanently…”
“Maybe,” Tread said. “But he still hasn’t given any orders countermanding that. Besides, I told myself I’d manage the armor units while it was still fun. It’s just not fun anymore.”
“War isn’t supposed to be fun,” Eric said.
“I know,” Tread said. “But it was, for me. At least while Morpheus and Hank were still around. They used to control the mechs, for the most part, and I handled the tanks. That’s why they call me Tread. But now Morpheus and Hank are gone, as are the tanks, and most of the mechs. You take control of them, Scorp. I just… I can’t.”
“Hank isn’t lost, not yet,” Eric said. “You saved his AI core.”
“True, but there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to repair the damage,” Tread said.
“We will,” Eric said. “And you know it.”
“Who knows? You could be right. But what about Morpheus? She’s gone forever. All the backups destroyed.”
Eric didn’t have anything to say to that.
“These feelings,” Tread said. “I wish I’d never accepted them.”
“I hear you,” Eric said.
Eric continued the march in silence. He kept an eye on the mountains to the north, and the plains to the south.
A short while later Slate decided to spark up a conversation over the general comm.
“Hey Manure, one thing I’ve been wondering,” Slate said.
No on answered.
“Manure!” Slate said.
Manticore sighed over the comm. “It’s Manticore,” the heavy gunner said. A short distance in front of Eric, he continued to scan the plains.
“Manure, Manicure, whatever,” Slate said. “Anyway, why’d you decide to get your head cut off and thrown into a vat of ice?”
Manticore laughed. “That’s your question?”
“Uh, yeah,” Slate said.
“Why did I decide to get my head cut off…” Manticore said. “I was dumb. I believed all those science fiction stories I read about waking up in a technological utopia. Thought I’d find myself in a young, healthy body, maybe one cloned from my own cells. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d wake up inside a machine. Well, I mean, I knew it was a possibility. But I just didn’t think it would turn out this way. I thought if my consciousness ended up in a machine, I’d be an android that at least looked something like a human. You know, with synthetic skin, and memory metals for muscles, that sort of thing. Not a war machine that was all hard angles with buzzing servomotors and an LED mask for a face. But I suppose things could have been worse. At least I have a body. I feel sorry for the dudes who wake up inside navy vessels or bomber jets.”
“Just wait until they start putting Mind Refurbs into the AI cores of starships,” Eagleeye said. “That’ll be a game changer.”
“Yeah, that’d suck,” Manticore said.
“I actually was thinking I’d volunteer for something like that,” Eagleeye said. “I wouldn’t really mind it. I mean, come on, we’d be the perfect explorers. We don’t age. And we can speed up time, to make the passage between stars bearable. We’d get to explore distant nebulae, and strange planets.”
“And get blown up by angry alien races, like our current visiting friends,” Crusher said.
“If we didn’t go nuts from the isolation,” Hicks said.
“We wouldn’t be isolated,” Eagleeye said. “We’d have a rule that we had to bring along at least two or three other Mind Refurbs on the same ship. They could take different shifts and whatnot.”
“Yeah well blokes, we have to get our arses into space first,” Dunnigan said. “We’ve barely even explored our own solar system.”
“I have a feeling we’ll be achieving some breakthroughs in interstellar travel very soon,” Dickson said. “Assuming we can survive this invasion. I’m willing to bet Brontosaurus is riding the key.”
“The wormhole generator?” Slate said.
“The very same,” Dickson said. “If there’s one shortcut to interstellar travel, it’s wormholes.”
“It’s going to take us a wee bit of time to reverse engineer it,” Dunnigan said. “Just a wee bit.”
“Yeah, could be a while,” Dickson admitted.
“So how about you, Dickson, why’d you chop off your head?” Slate said.
“No reason,” Dickson said. “I was getting old. I thought if there was a chance I could be brought back at some later date, I might as well take it. It was covered by my military pension, so I figured, why not.”
“You mean the military funded your beheading?” Slate said.
“That’s right,” Dickson said. “That was back in the day when the military actually thought it could revive us. Of course, the contract stated that by agreeing to freeze our brains, we’d become army property indefinitely, and waive our rights. See, I wasn’t like most of you… you all had your heads frozen by different private companies. Me, the army did it.”
“I think I remember that program,” Mickey said. “It didn’t last very long, if I remember correctly.”
“The opt-in was only available for a few years,” Dickson said. “I died during that timeframe. And even though the program officially ended, we were army property, and they kept us on ice indefinitely.”
“You’d think they would have dipped exclusively into that well of frozen heads for their Mind Refurb program,” Frogger said. “Instead of purchasing the assets of all those outside cryo companies.”
“A
pparently there was some problem with the military cryogenic chambers thawing out a century into cold storage,” Dickson said. “The monitor system failed, and they only found out when they opened up the chambers a hundred years later. They must have been wondering what that terrible smell was.”
“Typical army,” Brontosaurus said.
“What, you’re accusing the army of being incompetent at the best of times?” Dickson said.
“No way, I’d never do that,” Brontosaurus said. “Because we all know the army is only as competent as the technology running it. I’d be insulting the very AIs our mind cores are based on.”
“I’m sure those AI cores deserve whatever insults you throw their way,” Slate said.
“What about you Slate?” Dickson said. “Why’d you do it?”
“Chop off my head?” Slate said. “Oh no, my deal was the whole body. I was going all out or nothing. Human corpsicle, baby. You think I was going to give up my beautiful snake and the body it was connected to?”
“You could have told them to cut off your snake and freeze it alongside your head,” Bambi said. “That way you could have given yourself a blow job for all eternity.”
“Har dee har har,” Slate said. “Though I wouldn’t have minded if they’d cut off your cat and froze me with that…”
“So you never answered the question,” Dickson said.
“Oh, well, y’all have to know I became a famous rapper after my stint in the army,” Slate said. “We rappers, once we hit a certain fame and dollar amount, we become a little eccentric. We start putting gold rims on our teeth, and weighing our necks down with gold chains. Shit, I had a gold piercing in my dick, among other places. But as I was saying, we get a bit eccentric. In addition to a mansion, five exotic cars, and three Custom Mades—”
“Custom Mades?” Hicks said. “You ordered fembots?”
“Of course,” Slate said. “I had them designed after three super models I lusted after. They joined my harem, and—”
“You’re so full of shit,” Eagleeye said. “You were a famous rapper… my ass!”
“I was bro, believe it and weep,” Slate said.
“How come I never heard this before?” Eagleeye pressed. “You’re such a bullshitter… if you were a rapper, then I was a Saudi Prince!”
“That’s right, keep crying, bitch,” Slate said.
“Okay, well, previously you told us you had a different woman every week,” Eagleeye said. “So if you’re not lying, why would you need three fembots? Especially if you had a harem, as you say?”
“Yeah, the different women a week thing was in my youth,” Slate said. “After I became rich, I essentially had a different woman a day. I put some of my favs into the harem, but it was getting kind of expensive, not financially mind you, but emotionally, so I replaced them with robots. And things were smooth sailing from then on. Man, women can be a backstabbing bunch, especially when they’re going after the same man. Having fembots fixed all that. I got all the looks, minus the drama. So long story short, I purchased a spot in a cryo factory, and gave them instructions to freeze my body alongside my favorite Custom Made.”
Eagleeye burst out laughing. “You froze yourself with a fembot?”
“Why not,” Slate said. “I loved her.”
“You… you loved a fembot?” Eagleeye was roaring with laughter. “Man, and I thought I had problems.”
“Ah, shut up bitch, you don’t even know what love is,” Slate said.
“You can’t love a machine, bro,” Eagleeye said.
“Really?” Slate said. “Then by your logic, no one can ever love you.”
“But we’re not…” Eagleeye didn’t finish.
“That’s right, moron,” Slate said.
“I think it’s possible to love a machine,” Crusher said.
“As do I,” Bambi said. “Especially if that machine contains a human being.”
“There you go,” Slate said. “I rest my case. Love between man and machine is entirely possible.”
“A Mind Refurb is not a machine,” Eagleeye said.
“I’m not going to argue about it,” Slate said. “Let’s get back on topic here. Bambi. Why’d you do it?”
“My husband did it,” she said. “He made it sound good. So I agreed. We were to be frozen together.”
“So romantic,” Crusher said. “Not really. It’s almost as bad as Slate and his fembot.”
“I thought it was a romantic gesture…” Bambi said.
“That’s because you’re French,” Crusher said. “You think a bum giving you a flower picked from a city park is romantic.”
“You know nothing about the French,” Bambi said. “We created modern culture. If it wasn’t for the New Renaissance, we’d still be wearing the same clothes and eating the same food and living in the same buildings as a hundred years ago.”
“Tell that to the people of this country,” Eric said. “They’ve been locked in the nineteenth century for quite a long time.”
“Getting off topic…” Slate said. “Crusher, you? Brain freeze.”
“Brain freeze,” Frogger said. “That used to mean something different in my day.”
“Quit interrupting!” Slate said. “Crusher?”
“I won my cryofreeze spot in a competition,” Crusher said. “Back in the 2100s it was a fad to get yourself frozen after death. But expensive. Families would save for cryofreeze like they would for houses. Some people even got mortgages to pay for cryofreeze units.”
“Tell me about this competition you won…” Slate said.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Crusher said.
“I would I would,” Slate said.
Crusher sighed over the comm. “It was a doll making competition…”
“Doll making!” Eagleeye said, unable to hold back a guffaw. “The great Ball Crusher used to make dolls!”
“So?” Crusher said. “They were digital dolls, of course. I actually ran a small company that would sell them online, so that people could bring them into virtual reality with them. So when the cryocompany sponsored the competition, it was relatively easy for me to win. I just entered all of my unsold inventory. I must have had the most entries out of anyone.”
“Well, I learn something new about y’all each time we talk,” Slate said. “Though one of these days, mark my words, we’ll run out of things to talk about.”
“I don’t think that will ever happen,” Mickey said.
“So how about you, Sarge?” Slate said. “Why’d you do it?” When Marlborough didn’t answer, Slate repeated: “Sarge?”
“That’s enough,” Marlborough said. “Let’s have some quiet on the comm. I can’t hear myself think. You can chat when we stop to rest. For now, I want you alert and watching out for potential ambushes.”
“We’ve been alert,” Slate said. “I’ve kept my eye on the plains the whole time. But I’ll give you quiet, Sarge.”
“Thank you,” Marlborough said.
They marched on in silence. In truth, Eric hadn’t minded the talk, and he suspected Marlborough hadn’t either. It was essentially a bonding session, and like Slate said, they were all alert and concentrating on the mission despite the idle chatter, thanks to their multi-cyclic minds. But while Marlborough might have enjoyed the conversation, that enjoyment only lasted for as long as he remained out of the spotlight. As soon as Slate attempted to bring him in, it was time to end the conversation: Marlborough was a private man.
The sun set and day became night. The Bolt Eaters continued on into the dark, switching to night vision. The landscape became green and black around Eric. They could have used LIDAR, but Marlborough didn’t want to broadcast their location overly much. The robots were designed with a reduced thermal footprint in mind—the generated heat was transferred downward and vented via the foot region, which in theory meant that if they could walk in hollows or rocky areas that obscured their feet, they could keep a relatively low profile. But because they were traveling at their top
speed, the heat dispersion systems struggled to transfer the heat, and the knees and thighs were just as bright on the thermal band as the feet. The greatest heat leakage came from the mechs, of course, which was why Marlborough had ordered Eric and the two mechs to travel well ahead of the main group.
The Bolt Eaters had no plans to stop, and intended to continue on throughout the night, and the next day after. While Eric disliked abandoning the humans as much as Bambi, he couldn’t deny that not having to rest was a big plus.
Most of their power cells were at least half full, since the Cicadas had used their Bullet Time sparingly since abandoning the tanks. Eric’s Ravager power cell was sitting at seventy five percent, and the other mechs had similar levels, so they could share power with the smaller robots if anyone ever dropped below twenty.
Those were the thoughts on his mind when, around midnight, the team spotted a red glow up ahead on the thermal band. It came from a spot nestled within the mountains.
14
Eric zoomed in on the area. At the end of a small valley, he saw a horizontal area of bright green, with different greenish blurs moving to and fro in front of it.
“Drop, Bolt Eaters,” Marlborough ordered.
Everyone took cover, using whatever was available. Eric ducked behind a shallow depression next to a boulder, then he zoomed in on the site again.
“What is that?” Manticore said.
“According to the latest map data, an old iron mine,” Marlborough said. “It was shut down a good fifty years ago, but apparently the aliens, or someone, has decided to take up residence.”
“It would be a great place to put some 3D printers to work,” Frogger said. “If you were looking to build a few military units.”
“It’s gotta be Bokerov,” Eagleeye said.
“Ah, if it’s that bitch Bokerov, promise me we’re going to stick it to him, Sarge,” Slate said.
“The question is, why didn’t those termites find this place and suck it dry?” Tread said.