He and some of the others in the cabs switched to night-vision, donning their headgear out of their packs or dangling from their necks. From his side view mirrors, Raker could tell some of the drivers hadn’t bothered. There was still sufficient glowing night-life to illuminate a trail for them. Maybe those drivers’ eyes just adjusted faster.
The trucks kept rolling forward.
***
“Shit!” Sound Man said from behind the wheel as the truck hit another pothole it couldn’t crawl out of. He tapped the window behind him.
Both Sound Man and Skyhawk looked on as a big bald-headed guy with a thick moustache came out, cursed at the sight of the hole, lifted the truck up and out with one heave, as Satellite gave an assist with the gas pedal. Baldy then headed back to the bed of the truck. As he passed the cabin he shouted at the driver, “Learn to drive, will ya?”
A little further up the way, Sound Man managed to sink the truck again. “Always the same blasted tire.” He sighed, took a second to summon the courage, then pounded the window to the back of the truck. Suddenly he was happy for the drape separating him from the sight of the soldiers riding in back.
Baldy came out, took a look at the situation, shook his head, and said, “Screw this.” He walked back to the cabin, stepped up on the riser board, and reached inside.
For a second Sound Man didn’t breathe.
Baldy slammed the red button on the dashboard and the truck morphed into a hovercraft. The tires lifted and rotated out of the way, the vehicle was no longer stuck, so much as levitating on a cushion of air over the ground. The whoosh of air had a take-charge sound to it every bit as convincing as Baldy. “You can stick this baby now, I’ll be seriously impressed,” Baldy said, pulling out of the cabin, stepping down from the riser board, and heading back to the bed of the truck.
“Who is that guy?” Skyhawk said.
“Patent.”
“Patent? Does that nickname mean something, as in ‘patently out of his mind’?”
Sound Man chuckled. “I’d tell you, but I’d hate to spoil the surprise.”
“Well, whoever he is, please tell me we have more than one of them.”
The driver snorted. “Trust me, they broke the mold with that guy. And that’s as it should be.” Sound Man gave him a strange look. “Just how long have you been with this unit?”
“I don’t know. How long have we been in this rainforest?”
Sound Man pinched his eyebrows together as he regarded Skyhawk.
“Seriously, dude. I don’t even take off the VR headgear to go to the bathroom anymore. Reality just isn’t my thing.”
Sound Man noticed the VR headgear dangling from his neck. He advanced the hovercraft. “Yeah, this thing handles the terrain way better.”
“We could really use some tunes in here.” Skyhawk played with the radio. Nothing. He punched it to get it to work. Still nothing. Short of static. “Piece of shit relic. The army can’t build anything right.”
“The Truck’s AI was partial to classical. No one liked classical. It rebelled, and took a vow of silence.”
Skyhawk shook his head slowly. Then he gestured at the radio. “You ever stop to think we have too many engineers and not enough soldiers?”
“In today’s army? Not possible.” He returned his eyes to the road. “Relax,” Sound Man said. “I got ya. What kind of music do you like?”
“Some Rolling Stones would be nice.”
The first thing Skyhawk noticed was the sound cancellation technology kicking in. The resulting silence was spooky. Next, the Rolling Stones (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction tune dialed up. “Shit! I was in the first row for one of their holo-concerts—long after they died, of course—and it didn’t sound this good.” He leaned out the passenger-side window. “It’s like surround sound for the entire forest.” He stuck his head back in and gazed at the driver. Realized the music was coming from his peculiar outfit. He was wearing his sound system. “I’m not even going to ask how you get the soundwaves to ignore certain surfaces, pass through others, and reverb off just the right ones, and propagate through the forest better than those native drums.” The driver’s duds were so nextgen it was easy to mistake for just bizarre looking camo. “Ah, Sound Man! I get it now. You could have said something sooner.”
Sound Man smiled. “I always enjoy seeing the newbies squirm at the thought of going through a war without me.”
Skyhawk flicked his fingers. “Of course. The nano hives follow you everywhere. Like bees to a beekeeper. They’re scattered all across the forest now, procuring acoustic speakers and the other stereo components invisible to the naked eye. And the suit… the suit is the repository of the actual music? Like a flexible hard disc? Wirelessly connected to your mind so you can just think about what you want to play?”
Sound Man just smiled vaguely.
“Fine, be that way,” Skyhawk said, bopping his head to the music.
***
“Hose! Get your three-inch-diameter-thick hose!” Hoser, covered in black rubber hoses ranging from six to eighteen inches in length, continued to make his way up the line with his smaller jeep, chosen to get around the bigger ATVs with ease, although it was a bit like playing under the feet of giants.
He finally came upon one of the trucks, parked, with its hood up. The driver, leaning over the exposed engine compartment, was pulling out a melted rubber hose. “I swear the only thing tougher than an Amazon jungle on hose,” the driver jabbered, “is the damn desert. Where I seem to remember it being cooler.”
“Relax, I got ya,” Hoser said, pulling his jeep up and jumping out. “Looks like you can only handle a two-inch diameter bore,” he said checking the hoses hanging from him until he found the right one.
“Seriously, dude. You need yourself a gay army to join with one-liners like that. You know, instead of Desert Storm, Pink Storm? Myself, I’m hoping to hook up with a Lesbian unit. Entice the ones just looking for an excuse to stop hating men.”
His sidekick, still seated inside the cab shouted, “Good luck with that!”
Hoser ignored both of them, fitting the new hose to the ATV. The driver nodded, pleased. “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?” Hoser said, extending his hand to the ATV driver.
“Get A Clue.”
“No need to be rude. Just trying to be friendly.” Hoser slipped away back to his jeep and went up the line shouting his usual, “Hose! Get your three-inch-thick-diameter hose.”
One of the troop transport drivers, Sound Man, dialed down his music, honked his horn and shouted at him. “You’ll get better play in the heat of battle, buddy. When we could all stand to de-stress a little.”
“Tell me about it. Most of these hoses seem to be working just fine on their own for right now.”
Hoser sped off.
Skyhawk laughed. “I don’t think he understood you. He does realize how he’s coming off, right?”
Sound Man just shook his head slowly and smiled. “That’s Hoser, in case you were wondering. Personally I think Get-A-Clue fits him better, but I think that nickname was taken already.”
They observed the kangaroos heading back to their mobile warren in back of the truck. “Looks like we drove the bird men back for now,” Skyhawk said. “Those animals must really have freaked them out. That’s gotta be a good sign, right?”
***
Suddenly there was yelling coming from everywhere as powerful flood lights flicked on.
The men in the cabins of the troop transport rigs ripped off their night-vision glasses with no short amount of grousing and looked up at the trees being uprooted one after the other.
The ground rumbled and shook.
They watched dumbfounded as what looked like a robot the size of the Sears Tower dug itself out from the earth beneath them. It was piloted by two of the bird men who they could see from behind the eyes of the "robot" for the few seconds that the head was at ground level.
The robot finished crawling out of the hole that had stopped
the ALPHA UNIT convoy cold.
It proceeded to slice trucks in half using the rotating saws of its hands.
As the saw blades jammed, the robot shapeshifted the hands and used the fingers in its hands to pick up vehicles and toss them. The shapeshifting managed with some Origami-like folding and unfolding of component parts. Like a Rubik’s snake that had more than one solved position.
Patent’s heavy artillery fired on Erectus, the giant glorified ambulatory fork-life, using missiles, mortars, and .50-Caliber shells.
The robot appeared impervious to the bombardment, squishing some of the vehicles doing the firing under its feet. Essentially burying them and their passengers alive under its own weight.
The troops pulled back, scattering into the woods and abandoning the vehicles too damaged by the robot to be fixed.
Some of the ATVs skittered into the forest like arboreal insects, able to make a small enough wake not to be detected by the robot. Still others had the capacity to burrow into the ground like moles until the danger passed.
The soldiers on the ground, robbed of their transport trucks, camouflaged the vehicles that had minor damage before slinking away into the woods.
The ones buried alive earlier, crawled out of the hatches on their armored transports like large nocturnal white snakes coming out to feed, before they too slithered into the cover of the trees. They’d come back and dig their vehicles out later after the danger had passed.
“Did you notice the loose-packed earth above that Goliath-Bot?” Raker said, one of the ones running away from his damaged vehicle.
“Yeah,” Satellite replied, running in step beside him. “Why you think we’ve been having trouble with all the sinkholes around here?”
“Why would something with that kind of presence have to hide itself?”
“You want me to answer that, or you want me to leave you hanging? I don’t think this is one of those ‘the truth shall set you free’ moments.”
“I want the truth, God damn it!” he shouted, stopping to catch his breath and regain his sense of humility by looking back at the Goliath-Bot, lit up from the inside like one of the buildings in Times Square.
“One possible explanation is that it was dropped out of the sky by something even bigger, and became submerged under its own weight. This close to the river, the ground is pretty soft. Kind of why we’re heading higher into the mountains. The rainy season like this, the water table is rising too rapidly.”
Raker gave him a nasty look. “Yeah, you’re right. The truth is overrated.”
They continued slinking further into the woods and into the cover of darkness.
***
Truman, standing next to Jacko, the old witch doctor, and his number two man, his son, Panno, and Panno’s sister, Mudra, between the feet of the giant robot, lit up a cigar. “So, Jacko, how's that Harvard degree in mind-machine interfaces I paid for treating you?”
“Not bad.”
“Don't you love a little cultural exchange?”
Talking over the latest explosions—coming either from the robot’s eyes, firing lasers, or its arms, firing rocket-propelled grenades out of popup compartments at Leon’s fleeing men—Jacko said, “What if your boy Natty gets hurt?”
“I wouldn't underestimate Leon. That could be a big mistake.”
***
From the edge of the clearing made by the giant robot, Leon studied the Goliath-Bot and Truman, and the three tribal leaders, at its feet. Truman looked like a pasty-faced tourist vacationing during carnival standing next to the brightly body-tattooed three-natives with more colors on display across their largely nude figures than most peacocks. And fluorescing in the dark to boot.
Leon continued watching in amazement as Jacko, Panno, and Mudra climbed the stairs inside the robot's feet.
***
Still standing between the giant robot’s feet, Truman surveyed Jacko and Panno and Mudra climbing the stairs in Erector’s leg. He looked up at the thing's crotch high in the sky above him. You couldn't put an elevator in this thing, Natty?
Later, inside the head of the robot, Truman and Jacko eyed with curiosity the "Rubik's cube" that Panno and Mudra, operating the robot's hands, were trying to solve. It was the silver case holding Laney's body on ice that refused to open. The fact that even with all the robot’s strength the container couldn’t be lifted off the ground triggered curiosity enough. Gravity-altering storage cases were hardly the norm. But the fact that Mudra and Panno were able to hack the case enough to break the gravity-seal, suggested it could also be opened. It was sheer speculation at this point as to its contents, but Truman had a nose for such things. Why risk more than one super-genius at a time, when you could bank one and collect interest on it? A nextgen multispectrum scan of the sterling silver case had failed to shed light on his theory one way or the other.
The operators manipulating the hydraulics in the robot's hands managed to find the releases in the carry-case, which worked like a Chinese box. Apparently the combination lock on the container was just a ruse.
Mudra and Panno smiled as the case popped open to reveal Laney on ice.
“I imagine he could keep her nice and safe in there - from most things,” Truman said.
Several of Truman’s people ran out along the robot's arms to the case, retrieving Laney's body to bring her inside. They had to use ice tongs to manipulate the block of ice in which she was encased.
Her capture well in hand, Truman said, “What's hotel service like up here? I'm parched.”
“All the coconuts and pineapples you want, my friend,” Jacko replied. “We'll pick them for you right from the tree tops.”
Truman grimaced at the news that they were not at least up to four-star hotel standards.
***
Leon set down the binoculars at the sight of Laney being liberated from her frozen womb. “Someone’s got some real explaining to do.”
“Laney” slid into the concealed position beside him. Her smile said it all.
“You’re the sister,” he said, “Cassandra, the assassin.”
Her cover no longer needed, Cassandra had the nano prune the roots of her hair, which she brushed off with her hand. She finished morphing into herself by assuming her camouflage coloring. Stripping off her clothes, down to the nano-undies.
Watching her transformation wide-eyed, Leon said, “I don’t understand how you can play Laney so well. You can’t fake that kind of scientific knowhow.”
“She’s been feeding me what I need to know the entire time. For what it’s worth, I was more her than I was me the last few days. Our psychic connection has always been strong, but it’s been off the charts since I got here.”
Leon thought about it. “That might have to do with the chip I put over her third eye.”
“How does it work?”
“According to her husband, and the instructions I got with the mindchip, it allows her to share everything that’s going on with the rest of us. I took that to mean it was a communications chip of some kind. But according to the specs on it, it dials up the energy body that powers the chakras. Allows the person wearing it to astral travel from their body, or simply telegraph their thoughts. I’m not much on Eastern energy medicine. I didn’t give the idea much credence.”
“But you put it on her anyway.”
“Yeah. This is Natty we’re talking about. On the off chance he was right, figured she might be less angry at me later.”
Cassandra nodded. “That chip would explain a lot. In all likelihood it’s a microfactory for spitting out nanites that then migrate to the body’s chakras, nadirs, and energy conduits to facilitate the flow of chi energy, to see that it’s maximized at all times. Possibly even train the cells to maintain alignment with the energy body better. Perhaps taking acupressure and acupuncture to the next level. If those things have self-evolving algorithms so they keep getting better at their jobs…” She made a whistling sound. “That’s how Zen masters, saints and sages can be in multiple plac
es at once, levitate, heal from a distance. It’s a Pandora’s box of miracles that arise from simply blending, mind, body, and spirit better.
“That fountain of youth that adventurers seek in myth? Got news for you, it’s just a metaphor for the real fountain of youth inside us, the chi energy, that spouts up and out of each of our chakras, much like fountains.”
“You seem well versed on the subject.”
“Some of this is Laney talking. Like me, she’s proficient in energy medicine and its potential for healing, even in the hands of less adept practitioners. As for myself, I was always interested in anything that can lend advantage in combat.”
He studied her, intrigued, as she returned her eyes to the goings-on with the giant robot. “Must have been tempting to drop out of character before now. Why wait so long?”
“I have to admit, your war games got real interesting with Natty’s latest upgrade. But I was less interested in engaging in nano wars and more interested on getting my hands on his latest tweak.”
“You used your psychic connection with your sister to figure out how to undo the self-dissolving nature of the nano, keeping them forever more in your body. After injecting yourself without Natty knowing.”
She smiled at him.
He groaned. “You’ll have to keep that in check for now. The nano wars are over. At least for this round of testing. Now we’re playing a new game.”
“No worries. I caught your sermon on the mount, remember? I agree with you. Becoming overly dependent on any one tech can be decidedly limiting in the long run. I’m pleased to see we’re rather alike.”
He sighed. “We’re not. It was wrong of you to take advantage of your sister’s plight like that. Something I see you don’t feel the least bit sorry for. And I see now that it was wrong of me to do what I did to her as well.” His tone, by contrast, carried with it several tons of regret.
Mind of a Child: Sentient Serpents (OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT Book 1) Page 23