“Ober bids you say this again.” The female Watcher was imposing. She wore a thick welded chain that hung down her chest; her solid black eyes were watery, like an angry seal staring at him. Her long arms were uncovered, the octopus-like suction cups along them twitching as she sat there. He imagined them wrapping around his scrawny neck and snapping the life out of him.
“Very well,” he said in their language. “I will act as an emissary to Earth. If my people are still alive on the other side, we will bow to you, and I will ensure you have full access to our resources, or whatever it is you wanted from us in the first place.” They hadn’t offered him any details at all. If this was going to work, he needed a partnership. “What is it you want from us anyway? It would help my cause if I understood your motivation.” He paused, wondering if she would reply.
A noise emanated from her throat. He didn’t understand what it was, but then realized she was laughing. His stomach clenched at the horrible noise.
“The Faithful do not answer to any. Ober told us to take over, so we take over.” The Queen stopped talking, her laughter but a distant memory.
Benson wasn’t sure if he should continue. A few minutes ago, he’d been so sure his plan was going to work, but now he understood differently. There was going to be no negotiation, and he wasn’t going to be an emissary. He tried to recount all he’d spilled to them. About the virus coming, about the weaknesses of their Earth Fleet. What had he done?
“Ober bids you proceed,” she said, and Benson’s lips sealed. He’d already told them his story. What could it hurt to say it again? Maybe he could lie and trick them. They didn’t seem exceedingly intelligent. Strong and powerful, yes, but not overly smart. Plus, they let this Ober decide everything for them. Benson still wasn’t sure if it was an all-powerful deity or a living leader.
“The virus will wipe you all out. But I failed to mention they were nowhere close to being done with it when Dr. Sando was killed by the captive.” Benson lied through his teeth, hoping they’d buy it. He wondered just where Fairbanks and the others were now, and if they were ever coming.
30
Flint
The Shift drive worked as expected, the Watchers’ home planet appearing much larger through their compact viewscreen. Behind him, Wren stood strapped to the wall, as did a Marine named Cash. Flint had planned on Bull coming with them, but plans had changed. He couldn’t even bring himself to miss the big man quite yet. Not until after today.
“It looks quiet,” Wren said softly. A few ships orbited the planet; one of them was huge, according to Flint’s HUD, but it wasn’t powered up, and he didn’t spot any danger yet. “Maybe Benson didn’t rat us out after all.”
Flint doubted that. He was fully expecting a trap at any second but crossed his fingers one wasn’t coming. He considered himself an optimistic pessimist. “I wouldn’t count on it. That man’s only a couple of evolutionary steps away from a snake.”
“Over there.” Cash pointed past Flint’s ear at a series of icons appearing on the console. Enemy ships; only they wouldn’t know Flint was an enemy, since he was in one of their fighter vessels. Maybe he could just sneak off with them. He adjusted his trajectory, falling in line with the formation. No one reached out to him or seemed to notice he’d appeared from nothing. They were heading toward the large vessel waiting in orbit, and as they each approached, apparently to dock, Flint took a risk. His drive was charged again, and he Shifted a thousand kilometers away before arcing around toward his destination on the planet below.
“Nice move,” the Marine said, his voice high-pitched for such a robust man.
“Thanks. I could get used to these ships,” Flint said.
“How about we get out of here, and you can fly your little ship around as much as you like?” Wren laughed, but Flint could hear the nervousness in her voice. He wished she’d stayed back on the Eureka, but she was a strong-willed woman. It was her virus, so she’d said it was her job to see it through.
“Fine, but you have to promise me to stay on the bridge with Barkley, safe and sound.” Flint lowered them through the atmosphere, the ship jostling around as they did so. The second gravity hit, he had to adjust the thrusters, easing up as the ship lowered in altitude toward the planet’s surface.
“It’s…it’s terrible,” Wren said from behind him, and Flint took a second to soak in the landscape as they broke free from the cloud cover.
The land was just that: dark and dank, muted greens, gray rocks jutting out from the ground like angry mountains. Even the water looked stagnant, poisoned.
“What kind of people would live here?” Flint asked rhetorically.
“Is it that different than the conditions on Mars, or any of the other colonies? This is safer than most of the worlds humans call home.” Wren, the never-ending realist. She was right, he supposed, but still… it was a depressing sight, to say the least.
Flint’s heart rate picked up speed as he spotted the city in the distance. Tall, crudely-constructed buildings stuck into the sky like bent fingers from a skeletal hand. The metropolis looked like the bones of a gigantic decayed animal, and every instinct told Flint to turn away and never look back.
Wren leaned forward, her breath hot against the side of Flint’s face. “Where are we?”
“We’re in the belly of the beast, and we have to be quick.” Flint scanned for signs of pursuit but didn’t see any. He checked the HUD and watched as the icons disappeared one by one, until the massive transport ship in orbit was gone, Shifted away. “They just left.”
“Not all of them,” Wren said, and Flint knew what she meant. There were hundreds, no, thousands of Watchers below. He zoomed in toward the ground, seeing some of them toiling in the soil. Farmers. Apparently, not everyone had received the memo about the humans’ arrival.
“Good. Let’s get this over with.” Flint stayed high above the buildings. They were built much like the ugly outpost: only for function and not esthetics. It was all roughly put together, no smooth lines, no design other than four almost-square walls.
“The center of the city, Flint.” Wren pointed to the right, and Flint finally lowered. He was about to press the button, releasing the canister bomb, when he heard Wren’s strapping disconnect.
“It’s my onus. Let me.” She touched his hand, and Flint let it briefly sit on his before sliding his palm off the controls.
“Be my guest.” Flint watched as she waited for the right moment. They were close. Below them, Watchers of every shape and size mingled about, walking to and fro, unaware of what was about to befall them.
Wren pressed the release, but nothing happened. A red error flashed on the screen, advising them of an issue with the release hatch.
Ace
Ace hated the planet the moment he saw it. It was cold and damp, reminding him of the torturous streets of Old Chicago. The gray mountains gave way to white ones as they headed to the snow-covered region. A tenth of the world’s population lived here, under the protection of a city built between two Everest-sized peaks. He spotted it as he lifted over one peak: a Petri dish for disaster.
“Charles, we’re about to unleash hell on the Watchers. How are you doing?” he asked the android.
“I am fine, sir.” Charles hadn’t been the same since Ace had tweaked his hardware, and he missed the old version of his friend. He hoped he could find him again when this was all over.
Tabi, a thin but wiry female Marine, stood behind Ace, ready for whatever might happen. Ace didn’t want to go to the mats on this one, but there was no sense in being unprepared. She was inside her EVA, which made her look even more imposing. “Target in twenty seconds,” she said, and Ace lowered toward the center of the snow city. A few of the aliens walked outside, some on outdoor bridges connecting the towers together.
He watched them with his zoom feature activated, taking up a third of the viewscreen. They were lethal creatures, imposing and fear-inspiring, and Ace didn’t hesitate to set his hand on the bomb control
s. These people were hurting his friends from the Earth Fleet back home. It had been years back there, and Ace wondered if Serina was alive. Where was Buck now? Had the bullies he’d fought with on the Moon base been killed in action?
He pressed the release and received confirmation the canister went off, exploding thirty meters from the surface. The virus was airborne, and according to Wren, all it would take was one Watcher getting infected. It would spread like wildfire from there. He dropped the second canister, releasing the deadly contents over the city, and started to raise his altitude. They were done. Ace wished he could wipe the beads of sweat dripping under his mask as he flew away from the city.
Charles began to act funny the instant they were over the second peak and heading inland.
“Beacon. We must track the beacon,” Charles said. He kept repeating this over and over, not explaining it further.
“What do you mean, Charles? What are you telling us?” Ace asked.
Charles stretched over the seat and typed some coordinates into Ace’s console. An image of a city appeared. “Wait, that’s the city Wren and Flint are at. Why there?” he asked, but Charles wouldn’t comment.
“This is Flint Lancaster. Our bombs have failed. We’re going to have to manually release them.” Flint’s voice echoed through the small cockpit.
“This is Ace, Flint. We’ve completed our mission. Charles is demanding we go to your location. Something about a beacon he needs to find there. We’ll come and give you cover,” Ace said.
Wren’s voice came back through. “Negative, Ace. You’ve done your job. Don’t complicate this. Get off the planet and to safety.”
Ace knew he couldn’t do that, not while his friends were still in danger. He wouldn’t be able to save Serina or Buck now, but he could do something about his new friends. His family.
Another voice came through “This is Collins. We’re leaving. The mission is completed. I repeat, we are returning to the Eureka.”
Ace let out a sigh of relief. That was two targets done. “Rudolph?” he asked. There was no reply. “Has anyone heard from Rudolph?”
“Negative.” Flint and Collins confirmed they hadn’t made contact with her either.
“Damn it. She must have been taken down,” Ace said, trying to not let the reality of it sink in. Wren was confident they could take out a large chunk of the Watchers with a single successful virus drop, but it would just take longer. If they could score three out of four, it would still be a win. He looked at his estimated arrival time to Flint’s location, and it told him ten minutes if he pushed the thrusters. He urged the throttle forward.
Wren
“There.” Wren pointed to the top of a building. It wasn’t the tallest one around, but it had a flat roof, and it was wide enough for Flint to land the fighter.
“Good call,” Flint said, lowering toward the target Wren specified.
She was already holding a canister in her gloved hand. Her breaths of recycled air were shallow and quick, and she tried to slow them. This was going to work.
The ship touched ground, and Wren ran to the hatch. She stepped down on the roof first, quickly pushed behind Cash as he walked to the front of the pack. His huge gun was up in the air, looking for potential threats; when they saw none, he lowered it, motioning for her to step forward.
The top of the building was bumpy, like melted plastic, and Wren had to watch each step to avoid tripping on the uneven surface. She made her way to the short ledge and peered below. From this vantage point, she could see thousands of Watchers walking the streets with purpose. Were they working jobs? Perhaps in the very building upon which she stood, hundreds of them toiled away at their commerce or insurance jobs. The thought was so alien, yet realistic as she took in the views of the city.
The sky was gray, and water began raining on them from above. There was an air of desperation and depression over the whole city, and Wren held the canister up, feeling the weight of the others in the pack around her back.
She was about to drop it, when she noticed something on the building opposite them. There was a bridge leading between the two towers, exposed to the elements. A Watcher walked across it, unaware there were humans only twenty meters away, staring at its movements. It reached the far building as it crossed the entire bridge and opened a hinged door. It ducked low to enter.
It all came clear. “This isn’t their world.”
“What do you mean?” Flint asked. Cash was beside him, aiming his gun at the disappearing Watcher.
“Did you see the size of that doorway? It’s made for someone around six feet tall. Why would a race of eight-foot-tall beings create such small doorways?” Wren asked.
“Damn it. You’re right.” Flint stood directly beside her. “What does this mean?”
It meant a lot of things, but it didn’t change what they had to do. “It means this isn’t their world. At least, not their real one.” Wren didn’t like the sound of her own words. Had the Watchers conquered the planet, just like they might conquer Earth? She pictured every human wiped out, bodies stacked in decaying gravesites, while the Watchers meandered the streets of New Dallas, her old home.
“Conquered.” Flint repeated her choice of word quietly. “Give me one of those. We need to do this and leave. Now!”
They each dropped a canister, Cash taking one and running to the other side of the building to toss it with the skill of an athlete throwing a winning pass. When all five canisters were depleted, they sprinted back to the ship.
Wren hoped to never see another Watcher in her life.
31
Charles
The android felt the compulsion to find his target. It was a newly-activated beacon, one for which the programming only came alive when he was three thousand kilometers from the mark.
“Charles, we’re almost there. Do you mind if we activate your hardware again? I think we need you to be here for whatever’s happening,” the boy said.
The android didn’t care for his implications. He was saying the android wasn’t enough to complete his task. He disagreed, but if it would make the task simpler, he couldn’t argue with the boy’s logic.
He was wearing an EVA, and he unsealed it as he had before. “You may proceed.”
The boy spoke from the pilot’s seat. “Tabi, you’re going to have to do this. I can’t leave this seat.”
The bald woman with them nodded, and the android worried her hands would be too clumsy to accommodate his delicate panels. “I did not agree to this,” the android said.
“Charles, she’s as capable as I am. Tabi, see his panel…” The boy went on to explain how to turn on the deactivated indicator lights. The android noticed the woman’s gloved hands clumsily fumbling through his back, and something changed inside him when she clicked an indicator light into place.
His eyes glowed brighter as all the painful memories flashed back. Gone was his compulsion to stop the virus, because it was already dispersed. It was replaced with the need to find whatever was sending the beacon. He was once again Charles – or CD6; he wasn’t sure. Maybe Ace had been right. It didn’t matter how old he was or who had fooled him. He did feel different than the other androids, and that counted for something.
He suddenly missed Wren, recalling her concern for him on the bridge before they’d set out on their own fighter ships. He pictured her eyes crinkling at the edges as she asked if he was okay.
“Charles, pal, speak to me,” Ace said from the pilot’s seat.
“Hello, Ace. I am back. Thank you for suggesting this.” Charles was grateful, but he couldn’t help but be affected by the memories from before Wren’s arrival at the prison, the memories that weren’t real. They were partially manufactured, and partly those of some other androids, merged together in a sick Frankenstein’s monster fashion.
“We’ll find a way to remove what doesn’t belong later, if you like.” Ace sounded so sure of himself, but Charles knew that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t want it to. He couldn’t imagi
ne wiping any of his memories away, becoming a shell of whom he’d evolved into. “What’s this beacon you’re sending us after?”
Charles truly didn’t know, but it could only be one man. “Benson.” He said the man’s name with an evenness that surprised himself. “It can only be Benson.”
“We’re done. Where are you going, Ace?” Flint’s voice came through the speakers.
“It’s Benson. Charles is with us again, and he has a beacon flagging him to Benson’s position. We could leave him,” Ace said, and Charles felt a flutter through his wiring. His programming told him otherwise. He’d tell Tabi to reverse the indicator lights, should he act hostile against his friends just because Benson programmed it into him.
“No. We need him to get some answers; otherwise, we’ll leave here with nothing but questions,” Wren’s voice said. “Send the coordinates.”
Ace did so, and headed toward the location. They were on the outskirts of the city, in a valley between some rolling rocky hills. Everything was gray and bland as he lowered. There were no structures or towers here, just rock. “Where is he?” Ace asked.
Charles had the inclination this might be a trap. Perhaps Benson had led them here for a final trick. Maybe he’d been working for the Watchers the whole time.
“Lower here,” Charles said, moments before he felt the fighter touch down on the surface.
Tabi was ready, holding her gun to her chest. She passed one to Charles, and he hefted the weight in his hands, gripping it tightly. He’d never shot someone before. Ace accepted a stunner from Tabi’s outstretched reach, and the boy looked even more uncomfortable with it than Charles felt.
Once outside, heavy wind buffeted the trio, sending fat drops of rain to splash on them. Charles’s mask dripped as they scanned the area for any signs of Benson. He checked the beacon, and it told him the target was beneath the surface. “Underground,” Charles said, and they began looking for a hole, entrance, or door.
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