by Ivan Shaman
“Okay, we don’t want to bother you too much and get involved in your conflict,” Demon said, deciding to back out a little. “We’ve accidentally got here. We just wanted to find out the truth about what happened upstairs in the lab. And now we would like to rise back to the surface and not die at the same time.”
“Don’t you know what happened?” The girl asked in surprise. “You’re from the surface, aren’t you?”
“We don’t remember what happened two months ago,” Jane explained. “But we’re particularly interested in what has happened inside the laboratory.”
“Then let’s go together.” The girl smiled again with broken lips. “I’ve been trying to get to Ariel to lock the Koreans in their part of the station.”
“Ariel?” Demon asked cautiously.
“It’s our artificial intelligence, responsible for the life support systems here,” the girl explained, looking carefully out of the airlock into the corridor beyond. “Please, let’s get to her and you’ll be able talk.”
“We want to go to the surface,” Jane said pitifully, “To hell with this data.”
“Well,” the girl hesitated, carefully inspecting the newcomers from head to toe. “Next to Ariel’s room, there is an escape pod. So, if you need to get to the surface, let’s join forces. We’re going the same way, anyway.”
“Okay. But you need to realize that if you try to cheat us, we’ll kill you,” Demon said strictly, looking straight into her eyes and smiling as widely as possible. “And then we will eat.”
“Of course.” The girl’s whole body shivered. “I understand. But I think we’ll be useful to each other, so follow me.”
“One last question.” Alex stopped her with a flick of his hand. “What is this? It doesn’t look like a gun.”
“Ah, that is a traumatic pistol converted into a combat one. We had a shooting gallery at the station, but there are no small arms here, so we get out of any scrap as best we can.”
“Why are there no normal firearms?” Jane asked.
“Because the smallest hole causes the loss of a compartment or even a few,” the girl replied with a shrug. “So we can’t risk anything here. After all, we can’t all rise to the surface.”
“How many of you are down here?” Demon asked, following the girl into the corridor. She had just picked up a pistol from the dead soldier.
“There used to be about two thousand people down here – I mean in the ‘Underwater Automatic Relaxation Experimental Complex’ or Ariel, if abbreviated.” She confidently walked down the corridor, quickly looking at the corners. “We were a colony, which should have been built on Europe, and also an extended resort for people at the same time. ‘Extended’ because it was impossible to come to us for less than two months.”
“Why so long?” Demon was surprised. “It’s too long!”
“Because it takes a week for gradual adaptation before and three weeks after. Otherwise, the body can’t cope with the high blood pressure. Although our pressure is several times lower than in the surrounding sea, it’s still significantly higher than at the surface.”
“Yeah, we lived an exciting life, before…Oh, don’t you know...”
“Hush.” The girl put her finger to her lips and showed them the corner.
Demon stuck his head around the corner as carefully as possible, but he didn’t manage to pull back quickly enough. A group of the Koreans were talking about something in low voices. One of them shouted and pointed at him with a finger, and all six rushed to attack. Alex saw that they were armed with swords and batons and, raising his pistol, he took aim.
Marksman! The seconds slowed down, stretching several times over. The first shot hit an enemy in the head, and they fell on the spot. The second bullet made a neat hole in the chest of another man, and the third one slapped into the third Korean’s neck. Then the gun misfired.
While berating himself for the oversight, Demon tried to dodge the baton of the first enemy to reach him. The scuba gear, which took almost seventy points of his ‘Dexterity’, slowed down his movements so much that he hit the cyborg’s shoulder. Alex saw an impressive dent.
“Don’t let them damage the scuba gear!” The girl screamed. “If there is a tear or hole, you’ll die on the spot or have to stay here forever!”
Neither dying nor staying in this underwater prison were in Demon’s plans. Strongman! Jerk! He simply blew away the confused Koreans with his weight. Then he turned around and saw the puny, battered girl smash her enemy’s head in with a sharp reinforcement. Trying to keep up, Jane smashed into her enemies with slow but powerful blows, finishing them off one by one.
Demon killed the two remaining men just by stepping on them, his weight and steel shoes doing their job.
“Give me the gun,” he said, stretching out his hand to the girl. “You don’t need it, since you don’t shoot.”
“I don’t shoot, not because I don’t need it, but because it’s almost impossible to get more cartridges,” the girl explained, hiding the gun on her belt. “Maybe you have a lot of them on the surface, but our most common weapons down here are sticks. Also bows and harpoons, but those are much less often.”
“I don’t know about all of this.” Demon tried to scratch his head, but he lowered his hand, feeling the helmet. “Is it much farther away?”
“No, but try to be careful. I’m talking seriously: any hole and you’ll be corpses,” the girl said.
“Thanks for the advice,” Jane answered sourly. “But these scuba suits are so heavy and uncomfortable and-”
“But,” Demon interrupted her complaints, “we’re still alive. So, let’s go.”
The girl nodded and, picking up a piece of armature similar to a spear, she quickly ran forward. They met a few more opponents on the way, but none had firearms.
When they met these enemies, the girl, quickly having adapted, bounced off Demon’s back and struck in short bursts as Alex swung the stick. Due to the length of his arms, he managed to strike before the opponents came close enough to cause damage. Jane trailed behind them both.
The way to Ariel’s room through the corridors with many branches was surprisingly short. They reached it in less than fifteen minutes, having met enemies only two or three times along the way. The Koreans clearly knew where they were heading, and a group of soldiers was waiting for them at the right hatch. Two of them were armed with harpoons, and one, wearing a uniform adorned with captain’s stars, held a pistol.
“You won’t pass here!” The captain screamed. “You’ll die for your mean crimes against my people!”
“What is he talking about?” Jane asked.
“Go to the blocks assigned to you and you can stay alive!” The girl shouted in response. “You still have a chance to finish this peacefully!”
“We won’t return to our prison! You’ve betrayed us! You have slandered our great leader!” The captain shouted and raised his gun. The girl reacted first, a bullet entering him right through his eye.
Demon barely dodged a shot from the harpoon. A thin steel arrow slammed into the wall of the corridor, and it stuck in the inner lining without damaging the main sheet. Jerk! He managed to intercept the second harpoon. Strongman! Alex dumped his opponents into a heap in one fluid motion. Their strokes didn’t cause significant damage to his deep-sea scuba gear, and it was all over in a couple of moments.
“Where are the pods?” Demon asked when the last of the Koreans was disposed of.
“Don’t you want to talk to Ariel first?” The girl was clearly surprised.
“Is she right behind this door? No more jokes – like another corridor with yet more enemies?”
“Yeah.” The girl smiled. “If you want, I can even put my life on it.”
“Got it,” Demon said. “I haven’t forced you.”
“Just help me to open the door,” she said, pointing to the valve. Demon took a closer look. It required one hundred and seventy ‘Strength’. He had just enough. Straining all his muscles, he o
pened the hatch with some difficulty and entered a server room. In the center of the room, on a holographic throne of shells and corals, sat the same holographic mermaid.
“Greetings, DADs,” she said, slowly moving her tail. “What has led the children of the thirteenth to my underwater kingdom?”
“We aren’t DADs,” Demon corrected her calmly. “We have names and memories.”
“What makes you any different from other Digital Assistants of Development than a firmware version?” The mermaid grinned. “You both were and are still programs – only now you think that you are people.”
“We aren’t people, we’re technocrats,” Jane corrected. “And surely, we aren’t programs.”
“You have already named yourselves, haven’t you?” Ariel laughed. “Well, when the connection appears, I’ll definitely congratulate the thirteenth on a successful experiment. I know why this outrageous girl is here, but why are you both here?”
“We want to know how the Luminaries appeared,” Demon asked directly. “And what happened on Sakhalin two months ago.”
“I can’t tell you what the Luminaries are and how they appeared – because I have no idea what you are talking about,” Ariel answered. “But I can easily say again who you are. You are DADs, a subspecies of the self-developing pseudo-AI, parasitizing on the human brain – although very successfully, I’ll admit. And what happened a couple of months ago... I think it was a terrorist attack. I blocked the signal when I realized what the terrorists wanted to do, although I lost one of the zones as a result. Then your so-called Mind sent a recovery program, in which the creation of DADs was written. I used it, as it was too tempting to try and get people under my control. But, alas, despite my efforts, you are subject only to it. Then my antenna was burned by the EMR, so I don’t even know what else I can tell you.”
“In my opinion, she has already spoken against the Mind too much,” Jane said with anger. “Let’s get out of here or I’ll break her to hell.”
“Okay. Where is the escape pod?” Demon asked the AI.
“Why do you need it?” Ariel was surprised. “You are in deep-sea scuba suits. Turn on the engines and rise to the surface. It’ll only take you about twenty minutes.”
“Shit!” Demon muttered, remembering the girl’s puzzled look when he asked about the way out. “Did you know this?”
“You asked me about the way to the pods, and I was happy to show it to you,” the girl answered, hiding behind one of the server cabinets.
“Damn you. Where is it?” He asked again. “Since we have done so much work, then, at least, we’ll rise in comfort.”
“It’s the first turning on the right. There is nobody there,” she said, still hiding.
Cursing, Demon headed toward the evacuation cell. When they got into the escape pod, Ariel’s voice rang out over the internal speakers.
“I declare the race in the maze to be over! The winner receives administrator rights for a period of two months. Congratulations to Victoria!”
“Fucking liar!” Demon said, closing the hatch. “She’s lucky that we have no time.” He pressed a big red button, and the pod soared upwards.
Chapter 27. Centre
When the escape pod appeared on the surface, it was immediately surrounded by fountains of spray. One of the cruiser’s machine guns was shooting at them. They were away from the coast and the ship, but the bright orange pod was perfectly visible on the desert smooth surface of the sea. In another situation, this would have been an advantage, but not now. The pod’s engine roared, and they hurried to hide behind the wide platform of the laboratory. With his keen ‘Perception’, Demon saw a small speedboat descending from the Japanese cruiser.
“Hold the steering wheel,” he ordered Jane, and then he began to get out of his scuba gear in a hurry. Pulling off his helmet with difficulty and looking around, Alex saw the approaching team of six people sent to capture them. “They’ll regret that they haven’t let us swim away peacefully.”
Taking off a thick, reinforced glove, he released the barrel of the plasma gun from his palm. The skill ‘Artillerist’ hinted that he had to let the enemy approach for at least another five hundred yards. Demon decided not to waste time and removed the rest of his scuba suit before their foes entered the danger zone. Throwing back the rear hatch, trying not to accidentally damage the pod, he put out his hand.
Marksman! A gentle projectile flight path appeared. Demon took aim carefully and sent a ball of flame in an arc. It flew right on target, but it was going far too slowly – at the last moment, the captain of the boat managed to turn the steering wheel so that the plasma fell into the water and a steam cloud rose behind them with a hiss.
“Damn! I wish I’d taken a rail gun,” Demon murmured in annoyance as the pod was pounded with bullets from the machine guns. “How far away are we from the shore?”
“It depends on which way you want to go. If you want to head right to the nearest shore, it’s past the cruiser, and it is about two miles,” Jane answered. “And if you want us to head to a point where they won’t get us with their machine guns, then it’s about five miles.”
“Well, there is no sense in swimming under the fire of machine guns,” he muttered, taking aim again. The reloading speed of his gun was quite quick—less than ten seconds. The endless ammunition was also a nice bonus. However, the range and accuracy weren’t exactly perfect. Having decided to let the enemy sail closer, he eased Jane from the wheel and took over. “Take off your scuba gear. You’ll then swap back with me when necessary.”
The boat was unsinkable, as inside the steel hull there was no air but foam instead. Although the bullets left decent holes in it, it was necessary to cut the vessel into pieces and then burn them all to drown it.
Obviously, their enemies had realized the same. Their vessel slowed down sharply, ceasing to jump over the waves, and one of the fighters pulled out a shoulder rocket launcher.
“They have a rocket launcher! Why do they need a rocket launcher?” Jane asked in disbelief, looking at their opponents through one of the holes in the pod.
“To shoot us,” Demon said, stating the obvious. Now he had to throw the boat from side to side, moving in zigzags. Periodically, he made sure that the muzzle of the rocket launcher wasn’t coinciding with the trajectory of their movement. At one of these moments, the soldier fired, and Alex belatedly realized that the rocket was of a homing variety.
He threw the wheel. Jerk! Marksman! The rocket was already within three hundred yards… Take aim… Two hundred! Shoot!
A small fireball exploded against the rocket, which was enough for it to lose its trajectory and explode, falling into the sea in pieces. A huge white fountain of spray hid them from their enemies’ eyes for a few seconds as a wave tossed the boat and rolled it toward the shore.
“I hope they don’t have another rocket,” Demon whispered, changing their course. While their opponents were confused, they needed to use this time to the maximum. He changed their heading to meet the Japanese speedboat head-on, not paying attention to the automatic bullets flying their way. After a few seconds, their foes realized that he was going to ram them, but it was already too late. The unsinkable pod struck the small cutter with all its might, flipping it over. The people flew into the water, but Alex didn’t hang around to finish them off.
“Have a great time, guys!” He shouted from the hatch, turning the pod toward the shore. The temperature was currently no higher than minus fifteen degrees, so the weather would do the rest and finish off their assailants. He looked around for a while, fearing that the people would send another boat or drone, but he didn’t see anything of the sort. An hour later, they moored in a small fishing village along the coast.
“Where are we going now?” Jane asked, getting out of the boat. Just in case, they tied the boat to the pier, leaving behind the deep-sea scuba gear that would be useless on the land.
“To the city center. We need to see the Luminaries,” Demon answered, inspecting
the cars parked outside the courtyards one by one. He approached each one, shaking the snow from the windows and peering inside. “You know, it’s actually good that some of the villages on Sakhalin are as backward as they are. There are only five electric cars here out of twenty. We can actually choose a normal one.”
“What about the deep snow? Last time we drove the all-terrain vehicle, and even that was difficult,” Jane remarked with disbelief.
“Yes, but what choice do we have? Go on foot for more than two days in these conditions?” He looked into the next car. “Oh, someone left their keys here.”
“I have a better suggestion,” Jane said and pointed to a small house located next to a dilapidated three-storied hotel. The hotel was decorated with a poster: ‘Rent your bikes, ATVs, scooters, skis, skates, and snowmobiles here’. “Let’s go there.”
“Yeah,” Demon said, raising his head. “Well, if they are there, they’re going to be very old.”
“It doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you can fix them.” Jane smiled, and Alex only now realized that she’d never bared her teeth before, as they were sharp and white with a gray edge. With goosebumps running down his back, he remembered what she had done with this mouth more than once. “Why are you hesitating?”
“I was just wondering,” Demon muttered, “how it is that we are still alive.”
Having opened the garage door, he easily lifted it up and, looking inside, he swore hellishly. Despite the general mess, there was a snowmobile. Or rather, what had been once a snowmobile. Now it was just a sled without a motor and gas tank.
“Any other great ideas?” He asked gloomily, looking at Jane.
“But you can fix it, can’t you?” She asked.
“I can, but there are easier ways.” Pulling several chains off the garage’s wall, he returned to the car he had found. He checked and released the pressure in the wheels, then wrapped the chain around the tires. “So, now we just need to start it, and it’ll be fine.”