by James Somers
Alfred’s voice soon replied. “Yes, sir?”
“Are you tracking me?”
“Yes, sir. Do you require assistance?”
“We do. The meeting was raided by the military. We’re on the run.” He looked at the manhole, seeing Chloe at the top of the ladder. Her eyes burned into him as she listened to his conversation.
“You lied to me! You’re not a street person at all! Are you working with the military?” She shot out of the manhole and lunged to strike Jason. He caught her arm in mid-swing.
“I’m not working with the military. They tried to blow me up too, you know?”
“Who are you? What do you want? I knew that blade wasn’t anything a street person would have.”
Jason came up with a lie quickly. “I came searching for your father on my own.”
“Why? What do you want with him?”
“I’m an ex-agent, and your father helped train me…when he was an agent.” Jason let the words sink in. Chloe didn’t have quite the shock on her face that he had expected. “Has your father ever told you who he is?”
“Was…he told me what he was…a long time ago. And how do I know you’re telling me the truth about him training you?”
Jason thought for a moment. “Does your father ever favor his right leg?”
Now, Chloe looked shocked. “During my final examination, your father was the instructor. I injured his right knee. It was really the only advantage I could get on him.”
Chloe’s suspicion seemed to wane. “Jason, that was a long time ago. My dad isn’t the same man—he’s no use to you now.”
“I’m not an agent anymore, either—for all I know those people were after me, not you.”
Chloe didn’t look quite convinced. “So who were you talking with?”
“Oh, that’s just Alfred—”
Alfred’s voice spoke up. “Just Alfred?”
Jason ignored Alfred’s hurt pride. “What is this place, Chloe?” Jason surveyed the large factory building next to them.
“It’s an old robot manufacturing facility. It was bombed during one of the middle-east conflicts. Since then, this whole area of the city has been nothing more than a place for derelicts. My father set this place up as a retreat, just in case we ever needed another location.”
Jason communicated as much to his friend. “Alfred, we’re heading into an abandoned robot plant.”
“How interesting.” Alfred seemed quite amused. “I shall join you there shortly.”
The others called from the tunnel. “Can we come up there, yet?”
Chloe knelt down at the opening to speak to them. “Hold on just a—”
Jason’s trained eye caught the flicker of movement. At the head of the alleyway, two men appeared, running at them from one hundred yards away. They carried machine guns. Jason only had enough time to grab Chloe and hurl them both against the side of the building before shots were fired.
Jason spotted the chain lock that held the door to the factory. With lightning speed, he placed Stella’s razor sharp point into one of the links and struck the pommel with his palm. The blade severed the link with ease. Jason pulled the chain away. He opened the door, pulling Chloe inside with him as more shots blasted their position.
Jason couldn’t make out who they were, but the uniform they wore told Jason what they were. Babylon had found him.
ROBOT FACTORY
Hardly any light poured into the robot factory from its tall rows of windows, situated atop the high walls in a massive room. The building might have been a hangar for airplanes or a place to house ballistic missiles. Instead, man’s likeness had been remade in metal and composite plastics.
Jason and Chloe moved quickly in the darkness. Chloe took the lead once they got inside. She moved in the dusky light like someone who had been to this place many times. It bothered Jason not knowing where they were going. More than that, he had heard the door open and the agents come in behind them.
Jason and Chloe remained well ahead of them hidden by the darkness, but the agents would be equipped with thermal imaging, and guns.
Jason whispered, following close behind Chloe. “Where are we going?”
“We’ve got to get to the factory control room.”
They ran quietly through the darkness. Jason saw the silhouettes of machinery, assembly lines long since silent and the skeletal forms of robots that never made it out of the production facility.
Near the far corner of the huge production floor, Jason and Chloe came to a large booth that hung on supports above the entire room. Chloe pointed to the booth. “That’s the production control room.”
Jason didn’t understand why they should be concerned about the control room for a facility that obviously had not been in operation in more than a decade. Chloe led him up the gantry to the control room door. To Jason’s surprise, when Chloe tapped at the old control pad, it lit up and unlocked the door. “There’s power?”
“You’ll be surprised what my father has done with this place.”
They entered the control room. Chloe worked at an old panel. “Get into that storage locker behind you, Jason. My father has some weapons in there.”
Jason opened up the dusty old locker and found a ninja sword very similar to the kind he had used while in the academy. “Why didn’t he put any guns in here?”
“Oh, you won’t want any guns in here.” Chloe tapped keys on one of the control boards. Her statement baffled Jason. There were agents closing in on them with machine guns. He absolutely wanted some guns.
Nevertheless, he removed the sword and its scabbard, and strapped the weapon onto his back, as it was meant to be worn. It reminded him of the academy and his final test with Solomon Gauge.
As Chloe typed, some of the lights on the production floor came on.
“What’s happening?” Jason asked. Strobe lights came on, flashing all over the production floor.
Chloe turned to him. “My father has this place rigged for just such an emergency. We’ll be able to leave soon.”
Jason gave her an inquisitive look. “What was made in this factory?”
“H3 model robots.”
“I thought there were major problems with the H3 series. They were recalled fifteen years ago.”
“That’s why this factory was abandoned. The recalls happened because of faulty integration of the primary laws of robotics. Some deaths occurred. Without knowing which robots had properly integrated the information and which ones had not, it became necessary to recall them all. The reason you don’t want a gun in here is because my father reprogrammed the robots in this factory to kill anyone who has a firearm.”
“What are you talking about, what robots? All I saw were parts.”
“The robots will ignore the sword, but anyone with a firearm is an automatic target.”
Wraith and five other agents met Hatter and Rogue just inside the factory. They all carried machine guns with armor-piercing rounds. Wraith questioned Hatter. “Where are they?”
“We’ve got a man and a woman trapped. They came from the manhole in the alley. We checked the manhole and didn’t find anyone else inside.”
Wraith pointed out over the production floor. “All right, fan out and take them alive if possible. We need to find out if they know where Solomon Gauge is hiding. If they try to make it difficult, kill them.”
Eight Babylon agents spread out to equidistant positions and began to move forward across the production floor of the abandoned robot factory. Only the faint glow of dusk struck the large rows of windows on either side wall.
They stalked through the assembly line area. When some of the lighting came on, they reacted with machine guns sweeping nervously in every direction, expecting an attack.
Wraith hissed into his com-link. “Do you have anything?”
Each man reported no sign of the man or the woman. Another set of lights came on. Strobe lights flashed bright white light across the entire factory floor.
Hatter sensed
a trap in all of this. The men continued, cautiously exploring the factory for their prey. Hatter moved along one of the assembly lines, his weapon at the ready, all of his senses tensed to capacity.
The strobing lights made it incredibly difficult to perceive movement. Every other second fully illuminated, then darkness. Hatter spotted something thirty yards ahead of him near one of the conveyor belts. It moved. He put a bead on it. It looked like a man, but on thermal imaging it didn’t show up. The form lumbered closer with less grace than a man. A robot?
A hand grabbed for his shoulder from behind. Hatter spun to find a robot right on top of him. His weapon caught right between his torso and the robot. It grabbed his throat in a choke impossible to break.
Hatter felt his trachea crushing under the force exerted by the automaton. He squeezed the trigger, blasting the robot’s torso with a barrage of armor piercing shells.
The robot still would not release him, but only squeezed harder. With only seconds to live, Hatter brought the barrel of his weapon to the robots face and fired again. The blasts blew away the robot’s head completely. The headless metal man relinquished its grip, crumpling to the floor.
Hatter gasped for precious oxygen, nearly collapsing next to his attacker. He heard a few of the other agents calling to him through his com-link, but he couldn’t speak yet. Hatter turned back around to where he had originally seen movement.
Another robot closed fast. Hatter targeted the head and fired his machine gun. The silenced weapon sounded like a muffled hand drum, spitting armor piercing shells into the robot’s face. It fell before him.
This isn’t right, he thought. Robots are forbidden to harm humans. Someone had managed to circumvent that programming—difficult—but not impossible. Then he remembered how Jason’s robot, Alfred, had been able to bypass the first law, but only on his command.
Hatter heard more gunfire. The others must be under attack! Another machine gun went off nearby on the other side of a wall of old computers used for line monitoring and control. One of his fellow agents screamed. Hatter ran to his aid.
When Hatter rounded the corner, he almost stumbled over one of the other agents assigned to their team for this mission. O’Reilly. The man lay dead on the floor, but no robot was near him. Hatter pushed him over to examine the wound. A blade strike had nearly taken the man’s head off.
On intuition, Hatter spun around with his weapon. The strobe illuminated a flash of metal. Hatter fired, but the man dodged to the side, anticipating the move and struck Hatter’s gun with the sword. At the same time, the man pounded the side of Hatter’s face with an elbow that sent him reeling back into one of the tall computer modules. Hatter lay stunned by the ferocity of the move, peering up at his attacker, half expecting to see Solomon Gauge standing over him ready to deliver the deathblow. But it wasn’t Gauge. Hatter couldn’t believe who he saw. “Jason?”
Jason, dressed very much like a street person, knelt down beside him. “It’s me, Hatter. Don’t try to pick up any other guns while you’re in this factory. The robots only attack people with firearms. I saved your life before, and I’m doing it again. Please don’t try to come after me, old friend. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
More shots fired from several other locations. Two more men screamed, abruptly silenced in the wave of chaos washing through the factory in the strobe light. Jason stood to go. “Is Wraith still leading the team?”
Hatter only nodded—still stunned by Jason’s appearance and the blow his former team leader had dealt him to the head. “Goodbye, Hatter. Take care of yourself.” Jason disappeared into the darkness in two flashes of white strobe light.
Hatter became aware of two more old robots coming down the alley between two walls of computer modules. He looked for his weapon, but the composite plastics had been smashed by the sword strike. O’Reilly’s weapon lay ten feet from him on the floor.
Hatter thought about reaching for the dead man’s machine gun as the two robots approached. Before he could move they came upon him then passed on by as though he weren’t even there. That’s right. They’re programmed to only attack people with guns.
Hatter relaxed with his back against the computer module where he had landed. More men screamed, firing their weapons, only to be silenced like O’Reilly had been. He thought about notifying Wraith. Instead, Hatter remained where he lay. This would be over soon. Maybe I’ll take a medical leave for awhile.
Wraith screamed furiously as he took down another murderous robot with his machine gun. Head shots were the trick, but so far there was no lack of replacements for those which fell. “Hatter, Rogue, O’Reilly, Mathison, Taylor, respond! Anybody?” Wraith advanced and fired on another robot.
“Rogue here, sir.”
Wraith spotted his targets. On the far wall of the factory, he saw a woman and a man climbing up a metal ladder that came off a gantry and terminated at the ceiling. They’re going for the roof. Wraith blasted two more robots, dodging past them as others closed in behind him.
He ran as fast as he could to the far end of the factory. Wraith jumped up on one of the long conveyors, trying to avoid as many robots as possible. Whoever these people were, they had taken out almost his entire team with this trap. Wraith intended to make them pay. He blasted the robots as he passed them while running down the conveyor. “Rogue, I’ve got the man and woman! I’m heading for the roof!”
Jason and Chloe reached the top of the ladder. A hatch barred their way to the roof beyond. Jason broke the rusty bolt free and unlocked the hatch. He pushed the heavy door up and back, allowing it to slam onto the roof with a loud bang. Jason pulled himself up onto the roof and then turned to pull Chloe up.
“All right, Chloe, where to now?”
“Back this way,” Chloe sprinted across the roof. “There’s a walkway to a factory helipad. We can take the old chopper that my dad repaired.”
Jason started after her across the gravel rooftop. When they reached the gantry walkway, Jason saw that it extended out to a tower and a landing pad.
Chloe looked back at him as she stepped up to the walkway. “Don’t worry, my dad taught me how to fly,” she assured him.
He didn’t bother to tell her that he was a trained pilot himself.
Just then, Jason heard a firing bolt lock into place behind them. He turned and found his worst nightmare standing behind there.
“Don’t move, or you’re both dead!” Wraith had managed to escape the robots and climb the ladder after them. Wraith stalked away from the ladder with his weapon trained on them.
As he closed the distance between them, Wraith suddenly paused. He lowered the gun a little, joyous surprise written all over his face. Jason knew he had been recognized.
Wraith smiled. “Well, well, well, what do we have here? If it isn’t Nightstalker.”
Jason smiled back at Wraith, puzzling him. “Are you sure?”
Someone spoke behind Wraith. “I’m Nightstalker.”
Wraith whirled to find Jason Night standing there in full combat uniform, just as if he had come on this mission with his team. “Hold it!” Wraith raised his gun, confused.
But the new Jason Night did not hold. Instead, he ran right for Wraith. The agent panicked and fired, but the new Jason leaped from the ground and somersaulted high over Wraith.
He landed back on the gravel roof between Wraith and Chloe with the homeless Jason. Wraith tracked with him and fired his silenced machine gun. The bullets ricocheted away as fast as they struck him.
Alfred’s voice called back to Jason. “You and the girl go ahead, sir.” The H7 counterpart’s disguise had worked, allowing him to get between Agent Wraith and his master.
Wraith stood stunned, realizing the ruse. His first mistake had been not killing Nightstalker on sight. He tried to change his aim and get a bead on Jason and the girl, beyond the robot, but Alfred interceded with exacting movements each time.
Jason called back to his robot. “Alfred, deal with Agent Wraith—first law, ov
erride!”
The robot stalked toward Wraith. Wraith fired his weapon again, right into the H7, but the armor was too tough. Wraith retreated as Alfred advanced on him.
On the tower, the helicopter lifted off. The robot paused as it received further instructions from his master. Then the copter swept down and around the building. Wraith had lost Nightstalker for the second time. Soon, he would lose his life.
With movements almost too fast to detect with the human eye, Alfred closed the gap between him and Wraith. He disarmed Wraith with one exacting strike, catching hold of his face. Wraith realized one more move would snap his neck. The muscles in his upper body tensed in anticipation of the pain and blackness of death that would follow.
Something pinged on the metal skin of the robot. A flash enveloped Alfred and Wraith. The perceptor disguise of Jason Night disappeared, leaving the normal appearance of an H7 behind. The robot crumpled to the ground, leaving Wraith standing there, his heart racing like a frightened mouse.
He turned, dumbfounded, and saw Rogue standing at the top of the ladder with some sort of heavy gun in his hand. Wraith slumped to the ground, panting away the adrenaline and anxiety. Rogue came running up to him. “Are you all right, sir?”
Wraith could only nod. Rogue brought the odd looking gun into view for Wraith to see. “Microburst EMP generator. I found it in one of the security lockers and used it to get past some of the other robots. They must have anticipated problems—what a great gadget, huh?”
Wraith nodded as he put his face in his hands. Right now, it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen.
“So that’s Nightstalker’s H7 counterpart?” Rogue immediately began to look the robot over. “No permanent damage, I’d say. Maybe a few fried circuit pathways. I can probably reprogram him and make some use of him.”
Wraith had an idea—a very sinister idea. “Rogue, how soon can you get him back on his feet?”
“If I got started now, probably in about six hours.”