Alatea walked the silent, uncommenting, and unusually subdued Agu further into the forest. Away from the lights illuminating the mining operations, running twenty-four seven, he needed his flashlight. He flicked it on to guide them to the dead Indian bodies. Scores of them. The natives had been trafficking in the fish; it was anybody’s guess for how long. Meaning the mining operation may well have wiped out all of the nearby villagers, whose bodies lay back at their camps instead of here. None of the Ubuku, curiously enough, were among the dead natives.
“I thought you said we were burning off the mercury rather than letting it flow back into the river.”
Agu shrugged. “Accidents happen. Nothing’s a hundred percent. Besides, there’s no proof we’re to blame. Could have been caused by some other mining operator upstream. There are any number of them. Big and small. The smaller ones are even less likely to manage things properly.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Just dig a big damn hole, and bury everything in it. I’ll get some of the big tractors and dump trucks in here to help you. You know what, better yet, I think there are a couple abandoned open-pit mines around here. Save yourself the trouble of digging a hole and just drop them in.”
“They’ll still be visible from space by satellite surveillance.”
Again Agu shrugged. “Let them prove it was us.”
Alatea’s face was a mask of anger as Agu turned his back on him. Doubtful he would have cared. Alatea wasn’t a fan of the mining operation on a good day, but he had to make a living. And they paid well. On days like today, he had to wrestle with his demons more than most.
He lit a cigarette and craned his head up to exhale and soothe his eyes and his spirit on the stars of the night sky. Hearing the noise, he shifted his attention to the moving tower of light headed their way.
There had been talk for days now of bizarre war games going on, farther into the depths of the jungle. He hadn’t paid much mind, though he didn’t discredit the reports. There were so many corporate interests down here, all looking to make money, all buying whatever government politicians they needed to get away with murder.
***
“What happens if the ball goes out of bounds?” DeWitt’s ALPHA UNIT copilot asked.
“We go fetch it and bring it back in bounds. That’s a potential point lying unclaimed.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Coordinating their controls conjointly far more readily than they could the day before with the new skull caps that allowed for hands-free regulation, they kept the Goliath-Bot running at a full trot in chase of the ball. The skull caps gave them wireless access to the dashboard controls, while effectively bypassing any need for the hand and foot pedals. But more to the point, the skull caps made them act as if of one mind whenever they engaged the parts of their brains most associated with team sports. Whatever neural networks governed those fast-thinking, fast-acting coordination of their own thoughts and movements with numerous players on the field while executing a plan of attack.
But they were a little too focused on the stray “ball” currently and not concentrating enough on their footing. A slight downward slope and a proliferation of rotting, slimy leaves, aggravated by another outburst of rain and they lost their footing.
Sliding into the mining operation running along the river.
By the time they collected themselves and pulled themselves back to vertical, they’d wiped out the entire camp. Their heavy machinery, the industrial-sized vacuum pumps, the sluices, countless dredge barges hugging the shore, their collection of gold deposits, along with the still-unseparated collected mineral ore. To say nothing of the dead bodies of the miners themselves. Apparently a Goliath-Bot flailing its arms and legs in an attempt to find vertical was not a pretty sight. The barges had been reduced to so much splinters and flotsam simply in an effort to get their heads above water.
“Did we just wipe out an entire mining operation?” DeWitt said.
“We better get bonus points for this. I’m not doing forest reclamation without earning some measure of gratitude.”
DeWitt got on the COM. “Um, what’s the rules pertaining to trampling mining operations, mass murder of drug traffickers, poachers, and the like during the course of the game, unintentional or not?”
There was just static on the air for the longest time.
Finally, Crumley weighed in. “Big mining operation, ten points. Minor mining operation, and any smaller units on the ground like drug traffickers, five points.”
Another moment of silence to ponder the determination.
Then voices weighing in on the party line. “Seems fair.”
“Hold on,” DeWitt said to his copilot. “I need to snap a picture for the graphic novel for my ten year old. I think I’ll title this chapter, Superhero Justice.” DeWitt took his picture, then gave the copilot the thumbs-up and they were heading back towards the field, kicking the ball, eager to get it back into play.
***
The merc, one of many assigned to protect the cocaine drug shipment meandering its way down from Columbia through the Brazilian rainforest to Manaus, increasingly the major hub and distribution outlet for reaching markets in Europe, felt the sting at his neck. Thinking he was swatting a fly, he found his hands pulling out a feathered dart. He turned toward the forest in the direction of the sneak attack. Saw the Yanomamo native that had fired it concealed within the bush. Lowered his weapon, but it was already too late.
He had been paralyzed.
He couldn’t even fall off the damn donkey to alert the others. As to calling out, his lungs had stopped working. While his eyes remained wide open, unable to blink. It took his friend calling out to him to pick up the pace and his not responding for anyone to notice something was wrong.
Paola kicked her donkey so she could catch up with Santiago. It usually took a lot more goading than that, but the damn beast must have been feeling generous. Perhaps fighting the heat and the flies was enough, and it wasn’t looking to entertain a war on another front. Santiago was alive, but barely, when she reached him. She knew the signs well. “God damn it!” She kicked him off the donkey to open her field of fire and sprayed the bushes with her Uzi. That got the attention of the others.
Their ring leader rode up to her. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Yanomami, firing poisoned darts from the trees. I told you we were too damn close to the river. The brush down here is too thick. Too many places for them to hide.”
“Impossible. We burnt out all the villages, massacred every native for miles in any direction of this trail. Any who survived, trust me, they got the message.”
“It’s the rainy season, asshole. The maps can’t be trusted. The rivers meander off course, especially these smaller tributaries. Most of which aren’t even charted. I told you we weren’t on the right trail.” Her spittle, sent unwittingly, hit him like shrapnel, probably stinging worse than the gusting, needle-like rain and the damn flies.
“All right, calm down. I’ll get some of the guys to sweep the area. Meantime, you find us a way out of here and back to the route we’re supposed to be on.”
“What about Santiago?”
“We’re close enough to the river for the black Caymans to take care of him.”
“So long as his cut goes to me, I’m cool with that.”
“Done.”
Brayan fell back in line to issue his instructions to the others. Paola remained where she was, looking down on Santiago. She lit up a cigarette, exhaled. “Sorry about this, Santiago. But you know how it is? I have the antidote for the poison dart in my pocket. One for curare, another for the poison dart frog.” She took a whiff, took a closer look at his signs. “Yeah, you need the one for curare. I’d give it to you. But there aren’t too many opportunities that come along for a pay raise with these greedy bastards.”
The light went out in Santiago’s eyes.
She glanced back at the trail of torches kept burning by the black creosote fr
om the Copal tree; the sap was the only damn thing that could keep the fires alive to illuminate the trail with at night through the antediluvian levels of rainfall. If they’d been smart, they’d have broken camp and tucked themselves away in mosquito netting for the night. But they were running late, and their overlords expected them to keep the tight timetables to keep up with demand. Rainy season or no. So instead she observed the cloud of flies and insects following them like their own personal rain cloud. You’d think the damn rain would keep the insects at bay. But they probably appreciated the camouflage for all their blood-sucking of the pelting raindrops. These might even be the ones evolutionarily adapted to do so. She wasn’t complaining. The more mistakes her fellow mercs made under the pressure to meet the deadlines, the more she benefitted.
She could survive out here a lot better than they could. She knew the area like the back of her hand. She’d actually fled Manaus to get away from all the gang fighting in the streets over control of the cocaine. “I believe that’s called irony,” Paola thought, chuckling.
She reflected on the plight of the Yanomami dart-man. Most of their tribes were up near the Venezuelan border. The fact that isolated patches of them and sole individuals could be found this far south was not a good sign. It meant the bird men were taking over more territory. And what tribes they didn’t absorb, they killed. One thing for certain, she sure as hell wasn’t going chasing in the woods in bird men territory to find any damn Yanomami. She’d take her chances with a poison dart.
The mercs were taking their torches with them as they proceeded into the forest on horseback. As if they were likely to find any Yanomami that way. A few more would get killed for their trouble. Once again, their loss was her gain. “Life could be good sometimes,” she thought, “even for the poorest of the poor, Paola. Just remember your roots, and you’ll get through this.”
A hellacious noise erupted in the distance. Something big and on the move. And a light from high above, certainly not from one of their lanterns. She thought it might be a chopper, but choppers didn’t make that kind of noise. They were enacting war games in the area some miles from them. Miles, she reminded herself, not yards. Still, depending on what bozos were conducting the war games, accidents did happen.
She put her hands up to her eyes to protect from the blinding light which had reached her. Shit, it was some kind of flame thrower the size of a city sewage pipe, aimed their direction. Wielded by a hundred foot robot. “Caralho!”
In a flash everything was gone. Their posse, every last merc, the donkeys, the cocaine. Even the soldiers venturing after the Yanomami weren’t spared.
The last thing she heard as the fire came to claim her was a broadcast from the robot’s loudspeakers. “Five points!”
***
Dimas led the illegal logging team to the mahogany tree they’d marked earlier in the day. Cutting it down by day was going to draw attention. If not by local authorities, which were spread too thin to be much use out in these parts, then by the rubber tree milkers that fiercely protected the area and farmed it by day. They practiced sustainable tree farming with the government’s permission, and the illegal logging interests were threatening their livelihood, stripping the rainforest of its biodiversity, tree by tree. Dimas’ team had had to make an example of several of them already, beheading one, leaving about a dozen of the other rubber tree farmers’ bodies scattered about in case the one missing his head got overlooked.
Still the rubber tree farmers persevered and came after them. Especially at night, when they knew they did their dirty work. He wished they’d take a hint. He bore them no ill-will. But like them, he had to make a living. Ironically, only the poorest of the poor did the illegal tree cutting by night. The people who profited by it the most were seldom on site, just the mercs they sent to protect the wood from the righteous; the rubber tree farmers were among the righteous, but there were other “true believers” when it came to rainforest preservation.
Dimas was actually glad for the cover of noise in the distance by the war games going on come time to fire up their chainsaws. It meant less rubber tree farmers with guns would find them, and less the mercs would have to kill. Some of those poor bastards were in their late 80’s. They’d spent their entire lives milking rubber trees. He couldn’t imagine being out here doing this kind of grueling work much past his ripe old age of thirty-five. In ninety-three degree heat and eighty-eight percent humidity, no less. God bless them. He was learning fast from the American and Chinese businessmen. Make your money fast and get out.
But that comforting noise was getting closer, to the point where it wasn’t so comforting anymore. The mercs were standing up and taking interest. The rifles resting on their shoulders had been moved to the ready. Maybe the professional soldiers could read something from the noise he couldn’t. Whatever that commotion was, it was their problem, at any rate.
He returned his attention to working on his part of the tree. Now that it had been felled—falling in the quiet grace of the war game noises going on in the distance—it was time to prune the smaller branches.
“Let’s see if we can head off whatever that is,” said the merc leader, Carlito. Eufemia, his second in command, took her division in the same general direction, but forking off from Carlito’s contingent. Each group had about a dozen men and women.
Dimas heard as much as saw the explosion about five minutes later, when he was taking a break and looking their direction, wondering what the hell was taking the mercs. Rocket propelled grenades had been shot from on high. Taking out both groups of mercs. He knew because Efuemia’s head and shoulders and one arm had been blown straight into his arms. Fulfilling one fantasy, though he hadn’t imagined things between them going quite this way. Carlito, with the other group, came running, burning alive towards them, screaming, “Help me!”
Carlito was put out of his misery quickly enough. The giant robot that had fired the grenade stomped its foot on him. The toe on the foot was taller than Dimas, at 6’ 2”. He craned his head up to take in the glowing-from-within monster. “Is that five points or ten?” it said.
As if talking to itself, another voice answered. “Five.”
The alternate persona replied, “So I guess firing on these guys isn’t going to get us anything?”
“Nah, leave them alone. They’re just the poor bastards caught up in the clutches of the illegal logging operation.”
“But shouldn’t they know better?”
“Logic kind of caves to the pathos of your starving kids asking for milk.”
“I say we toss for it. I win, I fry them, you win, we leave them alone. Heads or tails?”
“Heads.”
Dimas was the only person who spoke English, so he was the only one who knew to run without waiting for the schizophrenic robot to finish this conversation.
“Sorry, but it’s tails.”
Dimas thought he could outrun the blast radius of the explosion. But he was wrong. The others hadn’t moved, still frozen stiff in awe at the sight of the robot. They hadn’t taken the clue either from his panicked expression and hurried pace. But then again, expressions were kind of hard to read in the dead of night. Even one illuminated by fires. And it wasn’t all that uncommon for someone to dash off into the woods to take a crap, trying to outpace a bad case of the runs. You got dehydrated out here. You nibbled on some fruit you didn’t know what it was, the runs was the least of your problems. He kept thinking how funny it was that, if they were paying attention to him at all, they probably thought he just had a bad case of diarrhea, as the heatwave caught him. It felt burning-iron hot, and then it felt cold. And then he felt nothing.
“I still think you can’t force consciousness on people, man. People are just doing the best they can to survive,” one of the Goliath-Bot voices said.
“They don’t get to lack consciousness because they’re poor. The rich lack consciousness because they’re rich, and never had to want for anything. That shifts the burden to the rest of u
s. Poverty definitely doesn’t earn them a pass in my books.”
The robot, piloted by adolescent members of ALPHA UNIT 2, returned to the ball game.
***
Leon didn’t remember it being this hard to run up a robot the size of the Colossus of Rhodes before. Then again, these robots were nimbler, faster, thanks in no small part to Natty’s latest upgrades. The mind-caps for the human-steered ones, the AI for the self-piloting ones. The Goliath-Bots faster, jerkier movements in the middle of combat launched him off their thighs or knees or feet better than trampolines. He needed the jacked up reflexes from the psychedelic fruit just so the force of being launched off of one of the robot’s limbs didn’t splatter him like a bug against one of the other robots, or impale him on the branch of some tree.
If he ended up higher up on one robot after being vaulted into the air, even if it wasn’t the robot he was trying to scale, he didn’t fight fate. He just took advantage of the higher elevation to decommission whatever robot he was on. Sometimes that meant popping the faceplates on the ones being piloted by the Ubuku so he could lob a grenade inside. The entranced bird men too lost in their fighting to notice. On this particular escapade, though, he was hoping a punch from one of the self-piloting robots didn’t entirely knock these natives out of their roosts. When it didn’t, he climbed inside so he could get his hand on one of the skull plates they were using to pilot their rigs now. Courtesy of the upgrades Truman had threatened them with the night before. It was Leon’s guess that Panno and Mudra were behind the retrofit. Nothing like American college-educated natives in electronics engineering and God knows what else, taking the love back to their homeland.
Leon yanked the skullcap off of the one driver it now took to pilot a robot, courtesy of the faceplate. Was appalled to find the triple threat had designed their skull caps differently, with spikes that extended into the brain, generating electric shocks. Luckily, he’d thought to bring along one designed by Natty. When it didn’t exactly fit, he hammered it into shape against his shaved head—with his fists. Meanwhile, the pilot, his connection broken with his robot, was no longer oblivious to what was going on in his cabin. He moved against Leon with an enviable dexterity and ferociousness. Leon, the bigger man, found he was slower. Just simple biophysics. But he was strangely numb to the blows this guy was dishing out and to being thrown with superhuman strength against the rough surfaces of the inside of the cockpit. The signs that the strength being used against him was superhuman came from the damage his body was doing to the hardware inside the cockpit, which, by definition, should have been harder than human flesh and bone.
Mind of a Child: Sentient Serpents (OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT Book 1) Page 32