by Jake Elwood
She plunged past the level of the buoy. A moment later, fabric slid against her throat, tightening until it was snug enough to be uncomfortable. The suit had detected hydrogen sulfide. She caught a quick whiff of rotten eggs, then felt a hint of a breeze against her chin as the helmet filled with canned air.
With nothing to give a sense of scale her altitude was maddeningly difficult to judge. She knew better than to trust the altimeter on the sleeve of her suit. Between the hill and the change in air density as she passed through the toxic layer the altimeter was just about useless. The base looked reassuringly distant, until a splotch of green by the base of the nearest wall caught her attention. It was Devil's Weed, and she could make out the individual splayed leaves.
She gave an involuntary squawk of dismay, her hand clenching reflexively on the dead man's handle before she could make herself straighten her fingers and drop the thing. The harness yanked against her, hard enough to bruise, and the wind died away.
Cassie twisted in the air and pointed herself directly at the wall of Hearne's base. As her downward momentum bled away she lost forward momentum as well. It was the rush of air past her body that had allowed her to steer as she fell. Now she lost most of her ability to maneuver. She dropped like a brick where a moment before she'd been flying, and all she could do was watch helplessly as the ground rose toward her.
When she could make out the individual spines on a leaf of Devil's Weed she abandoned her attempt at horizontal motion and curled her body, getting her feet under her. She missed the top of the hill, coming down hard against the steep side. The slope had to be at least fifty degrees, and she braced herself, knowing she was going to tumble helplessly backward until the ground levelled out somewhere far, far below.
Her feet plowed into the side of the hill, pain shot through her knees, and she fell backward. The air bottles strapped to the back of her suit hit next, followed a moment later by the back of her helmet. She tumbled one more time, and her fingers hit sand, then the sharp edge of a green leaf. Her toes slammed into soil.
And she stopped.
For a long moment she clung there, hardly daring to breathe. The slope she clung to was almost vertical. By rights she should be falling.
It was the antigrav, she realized. She could feel the straps of the suit pressing against her in half a dozen places as it held her up, reducing her weight by fifty percent or so. Then, as she hung there, the antigrav gradually cycled down until only the strength of her arms and legs kept her in place.
With her downward momentum gone, it was enough. She took a deep breath and started scrambling upward.
She hadn't put on the gloves that came with the tactical suit, and she regretted it now. The side of the hill was liberally coated in Devil's Weed, each leaf a convenient handle if it hadn't been for those damned serrated edges. She picked her way up, avoiding the plants with her hands, jamming her boots against the base of each plant for a foothold as she passed it.
The radio was silent in her ears, so she kept quiet as well. There was no way to tell what frequencies Hearne and his people might be monitoring. She desperately wanted to know if Jerry was all right, but asking him would be a foolish risk.
Steadily, doggedly, she climbed, trying to keep her breathing quiet enough not to activate the microphone in her helmet.
In a minute or so the ground started to level out. She scrambled on all fours until she was able to rise to a crouch, then jogged up and forward until she could see the walls of the base. She went slower then, eyes scanning, drawing the pistol on her hip.
There was no sign of Jerry and no movement. The base loomed above her, much bigger than she'd realized. She'd seen it from all sides as she fell, so she was able to picture the whole structure now that she had a sense of scale.
Three modules loomed above her, one on top of another. Each module was about twice her height from floor to ceiling, making the entire structure eleven or twelve meters high. Each module was square, with walls about fifteen meters on a side. That meant 675 meters of floor space to search, with Hearne, an unknown number of henchmen, and some killer robots hiding inside.
And Lark.
She ran up the slope to the base of the wall. The builders hadn't made much effort to level the ground. Unless she was mistaken, the floors inside would have a bit of a tilt to them, and she could see a gap of almost a meter under the floor of the lowest module. Farther to her right the gap was less, and she ran that way, looking for a door. It occurred to her, though, that there might not be a single door at ground level. After all, who would go outside when the air was poisonous? Most likely there was a landing pad on the roof with a force field to keep the hydrogen sulfide back, and that was it.
The walls were gray, and shaped from large panels with rivets marking the edges. She was considering burning some rivets off with her pistol when she noticed a door-shaped outline. Other outlines looked like placeholders for windows. The prefabricated module could be reconfigured. No doubt you could put two modules side by side and the doors would line up perfectly. If it was an outside wall, you could pop out the window panel instead.
She stopped in front of the door outline, weighing her options. If she cut her way in, the bottom floor would fill with hydrogen sulfide. If the place was sensibly designed, the gas wouldn't rise any higher. It was heavier than air, and the airtight structure of the modules would trap the breathable air above like an upside-down glass pushed beneath the surface of a kitchen sink.
If Lark was on the ground floor, well, Cassie would just have to get to her quickly. It wasn't as if she had options that weren't dangerous.
She drew her pistol, checked that it was set to laser, and started cutting through the wall.
Chapter 24
The pistol was powerful, much more powerful than the gun she usually carried, and it took well under a minute to cut herself a hole about a meter on a side. She crawled through, careful not to touch the glowing edges with bare skin, and stood up inside Hearne's base.
The first thing she saw was Jerry, peeking around the base of an enormous combat robot, watching her. When he was sure she recognized him he stepped out and gave her a wave.
If she'd known how to turn off her helmet radio she would have pressed her helmet against his to let vibration carry the sound so they could talk. She considered taking her helmet off, but the odds of the hydrogen sulfide staying below head level seemed poor. She contented herself with taking stock of the room.
The entire ground level module had no dividing walls. It was a huge open rectangle, a shadowy space lit by a few strips along the ceiling and floor, and it was full of robots.
Cassie holstered her pistol, unslung her zap rifle, and looked it over. Judging by the dirt jammed into the front sights she'd landed on the gun as she touched down. The weapon was ruggedly built, though, and she thought it was probably all right. She checked that the safety was off and resumed her examination of the room.
Eight war machines filled the center of the module, hulking things that barely cleared the ceiling four meters above Cassie's head. Each machine ran on treads, but they had stubby legs that could extend down if they needed to clamber over something or climb a flight of stairs. Missile launchers decorated the sides of each machine, the tubes empty. That was comforting, but there were also rail guns with barrels as thick as her wrists and lasers powerful enough to make her pistol look like a flashlight.
Smaller robots lined all four walls. There were dozens, everything from humanoid shapes with smiling plastic faces designed for dealing with the public to armored tripods bristling with weapons.
She took a closer look. Most of the robots had empty weapon mounts. Some had panels open showing missing components. Junk, as Kira had said. All of them had a thick coat of dust. Someone had apparently made a half-hearted effort to strip some of the robots for parts to get the others working, but the project hand been abandoned long since. Hearne's mad dream of a robot march on Kingstown was never going to come true.
Still, some of the more formidable machines seemed to be intact.
Jerry waved to get her attention. He pointed at himself, then at a bulky combat bot. She could see his PAD connected to the robot's chest. He pointed at her, then gestured upward.
He was going to disable the robot army. He wanted her to continue the search for Hearne and Lark.
She wanted to refuse. She wanted Jerry with her. But she imagined a robot army charging up the stairs behind her and reluctantly nodded.
In the center of the room she found a bounce tube with a broad, reinforced staircase beside it. She took the stairs, re-slinging the zap rifle and drawing her pistol. Up she crept, until she could peek over the top stair into the second module.
She saw corridors, open doorways, and long rooms with high ceilings. The prefabricated module was nicer than she'd expected, with pale carpet and pastel walls and elegant light fixtures along the corridors. There was no one in sight, and no sound but the quiet hum of air circulation machinery.
Cassie climbed the last few stairs, feeling the helmet loosen at her neck. She was in good air again. She moved through the module, nerves tight, her finger on the trigger of her pistol. She found a dorm with a couple of dozen bunks, a cafeteria with one long table and no chairs, and a wide industrial kitchen with cold ovens and empty cupboards. There were meeting rooms and shower rooms and blank-walled rooms of no particular purpose. All of them were empty.
When she was sure the second module was clear she returned to the staircase, took a deep breath, and crept upward. As she passed the first landing in the staircase she heard singing, badly off-key. It was a woman's voice, a bit nasal, singing a pop tune.
Cassie lifted her head above the top step. The third module was more industrial than the middle level, with bare polymer floors and plain walls showing scuff marks. To her left she could see what looked like a workshop with tools hanging on the walls. To her right, a corridor.
The singing came from the right.
She crept up the last few steps and into the corridor, moving her feet with exquisite caution. The hard floor would transmit every sound. Step by careful step she approached an open doorway on her right. The air smelled stale, with hints of dust and grease and steel. It seemed warm in the module, but Cassie knew that was the result of her padded tactical suit and stress.
Pressing her back against the wall beside the doorway, she focussed on her breathing, thinking about each inhalation, every movement of her diaphragm. It was a stress-control technique she'd learned long ago, a way to reduce the worst side effects of adrenalin. She didn't realize she'd been developing tunnel vision until her peripheral vision returned and she found she could see the wall beside her head.
She could see a tiny slice of the room through the open doorway, too. Something moved in that space, and the singing abruptly stopped.
Cassie stepped into the doorway, her gaze sweeping the room. She saw a plump woman sitting at a table, surrounded by data screens and touch pads, swivelling around in her chair. Med patches covered the side of the woman's face and hid one eye. The other eye went wide, and the woman reached for a laser pistol on the table beside her.
Cassie's pistol swung toward her, and a shape moved in the corner of the room. Cassie just had time to register the outline of a humanoid figure and the unmistakable shape of a multi-barrel rail gun. Then she flung herself back and down, the barrels started to spin, and steel pellets shredded the doorway and the walls on both sides.
The plump woman fired, the laser in a two-handed grip, the beam burning into the floor in front of Cassie and then sweeping up. The beam crossed Cassie's stomach, she smelled burning plastic, and she fired back, hitting the center of the woman's body.
The woman fell back and dove to one side, cursing at the top of her lungs. The rail gun was still firing. Cassie couldn’t see the figure in the corner – a combat robot, she realized – but the lower part of the wall started to shred as the bot tracked downward with the rail gun.
She squirmed sideways, rose to her knees, and grunted as bullets slammed into her back. She leaped up and ran, made it to the staircase, and hurled herself down the stairs in a forward dive. She came down chest-first on the steps, her head twisted back to protect her face, then slid forward until she hit the landing. Her helmet banged into the floor and she continued to slide until her head hit the wall at the back of the landing.
The pistol was still in her hand. She squirmed around, rose to one knee, and pointed the pistol up the stairs. Then, remembering Jerry, she said, "It's on."
"Roger," he said crisply in her ear. A moment later he said, "Uh-oh. The bots are moving."
Well, she had troubles of her own. He would just have to handle an army of combat robots by himself. Cassie edged around until she was out of sight of the top of the stairs, then holstered her pistol and unslung the zap rifle.
The weapon was ruined. At least five rail gun rounds had smashed into the breech and the main power cell. She tossed the gun aside and reached behind her, checking for other damage.
Two of the air tanks on her back were breached. The third one seemed intact. One round had found a gap between the tanks and hit her armor. She could feel a bit of blood on her back, but she was still functional. The wound couldn't be deep.
The laser cut across her stomach had made a mess of the suit, but a layer of thermal mesh had protected Cassie from injury. She took a deep breath and moved her arms and legs one at a time. She was badly rattled, but basically still combat-ready.
Somewhere above her the plump woman was still screaming curses. Cassie hefted her pistol. "Time to shut you up," she said, and started back up the stairs.
The combat robot loomed at the top of the staircase. It was built roughly like a burly man with body armor, taller than Cassie, with thick legs and a bulky body and a small, mobile head. The rail gun sprouted from its right shoulder, and the thick multi-barrel swivelled toward her. She fired, scorched a line across the steel chest, and directed the laser straight down the barrel of the rail gun.
The robot opened fire, a single shot slammed into Cassie's armored chest, and the multi-barrel spun uselessly, smoke pouring from every barrel. She traced upward with the laser, playing the beam across the robot's flat metal face. The robot was designed to be sturdy and powerful, but not especially agile or quick. It flinched away, turning its face and lifting a thick steel arm, but not before Cassie had fried every optical sensor on the front of the robot's head.
There would be other sensors, she knew. One just above the rail gun, probably, for aiming. Probably sensors on the arms, and at least one on the back. She scorched the area around the base of the rail gun, then dodged back as the robot lifted one metal hand and pointed a thick finger at her.
A laser beam sizzled across the wall as she ducked back around the corner of the staircase. A horizontal line appeared in the wall above her head. She waited until the robot stopped firing, then pressed an eye to the burn mark.
The laser had cut right through the dividing wall in the middle of the stairwell. She saw the machine at the top of the stairs, extended finger pointing at the edge of the wall.
She lifted her pistol, lining the barrel up with the narrow cut through the wall. A careful touch of the trigger activated the targeting laser, putting a red dot on the robot's chest. She tracked the dot to the right, then up, until it was a finger's breadth from a pale spot on the metal wrist that marked an optical sensor. She inhaled, let the air out slowly, then squeezed the trigger and burned through the sensor.
The wall seemed to disintegrate around her as she flung herself flat. Chunks of polymer sheeting fell onto the steps, and she wriggled farther down the staircase as the robot slashed and sliced, hunting for her with the laser.
At last the barrage stopped. Very little remained of the dividing wall between the two sections of staircase, and deep burns scored the steps where Cassie had crouched a few moments before. Metal creaked somewhere above her as the heavy robot took a step f
orward.
A crashing sound filled her ears, and she watched, astonished, as the robot came tumbling down the stairs. It skidded sideways, toppling through the remains of the dividing wall, missing the landing completely as it landed, stiff and rigid, on the steps in front of her. She scrambled back, pistol ready, wondering what would happen next.
The robot lay face-up, sparks shooting from the ruined sensor on its right wrist. It had stepped blindly onto the stairs, she realized. It lay still for a moment, then flailed its legs and arms. Slowly, clumsily, it turned over.
She saw two sensors on the back of the robot, one on the skull and one between the shoulder blades. She burned out both mechanical eyes, then pressed the barrel of her pistol against the metal finger that contained the laser. When the finger was nothing but slag she stepped over the machine and started up the stairs.
A laser scored the wall ahead of her, and she ducked. She scrambled back down to the middle module.
"Die!" screamed a woman's voice above her. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!"
Cassie unclipped a stun grenade from her belt, thumbed it on, took a step forward, and lobbed the grenade at the top of the stairs. She heard a sharp intake of breath from the woman above, then a couple of running footsteps. The grenade went off, light flashing from the stairwell walls, and Cassie headed up the stairs at a run.
There was no unconscious figure in the corridor. That was disappointing. Cassie crouched on the fourth step down, just her eyes above floor level, and waited for the woman to do something stupid.
"Battlebots coming your way," said Jerry. "You might want to keep away from the stairs."
"Great," she muttered. "Thanks." She trotted up the stairs and into the corridor, taking another stun grenade from her belt. She lobbed the grenade through the bullet-shredded doorway where she'd first spotted the plump woman, waited for the white burst, and ran inside.