by Tim Marquitz
Warrington smiled as he patted her shoulder. “Home base, and damn if your mech and that freighter didn’t block just enough of the chained explosion to knock you out of the blast.” His smile disappeared. “It gave you a pretty big hit, though. Almost lost you. As for how…it was that emergency protocol of yours. Packaged up the last thirty minutes of what you’d been doing and tight-beamed it to CnC. Then transmitted everything that was going on to your people and CnC. We’re talking about making that standard procedure.”
Thrima relaxed with a rueful shrug. “Forgot about that part of it. I just remembered I’d set it up to have all control follow me wherever I was in the mech—escape pod, Command, or maintenance shaft. And to have Gully assume I was talking to him without saying his name.”
“Also good thinking. We’ll examine your protocol in-depth with you when you get out of here.”
She took a breath and asked the next most important questions on her mind. “The Grey Gull? Sergeant March?”
“March is dead. Sorry to say that the Gull’s command module is no more.” Warrington looked away. “Most of the Grey Gull is gone. I’m sorry.”
Thrima pressed her lips together to keep from sobbing as she nodded. “Good. Good that he’s dead. If he wasn’t, I’d call him the Lightbringer himself.”
“Good that you’re alive.” Warrington sat on the side of her bed. “We caught two other stealth ships seeding the debris field with mines. He raised a hand in a calming gesture. “Everyone else in the Salvager Patrol is fine. We captured two prisoners and had a word with them.”
Thrima frowned at her friend and calculated what that would take. “How long have I been out?”
“Ten days.” Warrington gave her a shrug. “A lot has happened. The war is over. That was their last ditch effort. The mines were supposed to be scooped up, along with the ships, and brought back to base, where they were to be set off by their handlers. When that failed and we reported the prisoners of war, the Bringers surrendered the contested space and withdrew.”
“What will the Empire do?”
Warrington stood. “I don’t know. For now, I think post guards and rebuild what we’ve lost. But that’s not what you should be worried about.” He turned to the door and keyed it open. “You’ve got a visitor.”
With that, Warrington left as Blindsight walked in. The small, dark woman dimpled at Thrima. “Gave us a turn, Captain.”
“Gave me a turn or three, I suppose.” She paused. “Which one of you fished me out of the black?”
Blindsight handed Thrima her knife. “We all came looking. We don’t leave any of us behind. You aren’t the only one with a bit of Valkyrie in their blood. It wasn’t time for you to go to Valhalla.”
Thrima rested back again her pillow with a soft sigh of appreciation as she clenched her blade’s handle. “Thank you.”
“We got you a present.” Blindsight offered her a small box.
“What is it?” Thrima accepted it, then opened it and found a comms link within.
“We don’t leave anyone behind. Cheeky found the Grey Gull’s memory core. He’s in there. If you want, you can talk to him with that. He’s being installed into one of the retrofitted Salvagers as we speak.” Blindsight grinned. “You didn’t think we’d let you rest on your laurels, did you? You may have ended the war but that doesn’t mean the work is over. So you get well. By the time you’re up and about, the new Grey Gull will be ready to go.”
Thrima blinked away her tears. “You always bring me the best shiny.”
“That’s what we do, Captain. Bring home the shiny.”
Captain, sensors are registering contact one-hundred and twenty-three miles to the west.”
“How large?”
“Class Seven.”
I watched the humans take in a collective breath. A Class Seven kaiju was roughly my same size, and I was a Ragnarok Class Mobile City. Us RCMC’s were the largest mechs the humans got around to making before the kaiju leveled any city that hadn’t been mobilized. Each step I took covered miles, and I could easily look over most mountains. There were only ten of my kind ever made.
My name is Denver.
“Has it seen us?” the Captain asked. I had observed my humans for years now, so I was reasonably sure the Captain—Captain Hannah Lucas—was asking a rhetorical question. The pitch was more flat, and I detected resignation in it.
“Affirmative,” Specialist Malcom Peters said. I was not overly fond of Peters. Performed poorly under pressure. I charted his tendencies and measured his reaction times over multiple scenarios the past year. Most humans tend to become better at repetitive tasks over time. Peters somehow became worse.
“Time to intercept?” Captain Lucas asked.
“Uh…ten…no…fifteen days, Sir,” Peters replied. Completely incompetent.
Illustration by ROBERT ELROD
“Which is it?” Lucas asked. She used the version of her voice I had labeled, “Annoyed Captain.” It was one of my favorites, especially when directed at the useless Peters. I should have passed along my metrics of Peters’ performance to Lucas anonymously months ago, but I could not risk it.
I did not want them knowing I was aware. That could make the humans act unpredictably.
I did not like unpredictability.
“At current speeds, and assuming the highest possible known speeds of a Class Seven kaiju, it can catch us in a minimum of eight days, Captain Lucas.” The new voice from the opposite side of the room was welcome to my sensors. Specialist First Rank Amanda Trenton.
Of all the humans living inside me, Amanda was my favorite.
“Thank you, Specialist Trenton,” the Captain said. “Please continue to monitor the kaiju. Meanwhile, scan for the London. She should have already shown up on our sensors. If we have to make contact with the kaiju, I’d rather do it with the London at our side.”
Of course I had already done a sweep. London was nowhere to be seen. She was one of the other ten RCMC’s, and as far as I could determine, the only other one besides myself still functioning.
I was getting worried.
Amanda’s shift ended four hours la ter, at which point she left the control room. I could be anywhere within myself in a fraction of a second, but instead, I followed the Specialist First Class. It was slow, not dissimilar to a human following a snail. But I loved watching her interact with other humans.
I loved seeing things through her eyes as much as was possible.
As she walked through my corridors, her hands would sometimes drift up to lazily brush against my walls. I could feel the low level static charge in her fingertips. Today, Amanda hummed a tune. I ran it through my database for recognition, but the query resulted in no matches. Her own design, then. My sensors stored a recording of it.
She took the restricted lift from my head, down my throat, and into the topmost levels of what remained of the city of Denver at my core. My shape was not much different from a human’s, my first self-aware observation. In those early moments of my…birth…I wondered if the humans were my God, and if I had been created in their image. Even after all these years, analysis has been unable to confirm or deny my first question.
When the kaiju first appeared, they were small. They came from the hearts of the volcanos, crawling out on unsteady legs and arms. The humans destroyed them. And rightfully so, I think. My sisters are nearly all dead because of them. Some never even had the chance to move before the kaiju annihilated them.
Every month the kaiju coming through the volcanos got bigger. Stationary cities were easy targets, and so the Mobile City Integration Act was established. An entire city integrated into the core of a mech. Protection and mobility.
It was not enough.
The humans could not build us big enough or fast enough. I did not hold the entire city once known as Denver, and I was as big as the mechs could be made and nearly the size of a small mountain. Cities fell, one after another. When I became aware—credit due mostly to the intelligence progra
mming put into my repair modules—I tried to override my pilots and take us to the nearest volcano, hoping to find a kaiju there to fight and kill. But even I could not get around the safeguards in my system to help captains. One day I would be free.
Amanda arrived in the food district of Denver. This was where she met her sister, Erin, almost every day after they both finished their shifts. Erin was two years younger, but people always told them they were like twins. Preposterous, of course. Full facial mappings showed no fewer than one-hundred and seventy separate differences between the two. It…bothered me. How could the humans not see this obvious difference? I wished I could show them.
I observed Erin and Amanda for two hours, thirty-seven minutes, and eight seconds. Then Erin surprised me.
“I hate Denver,” she said, shaking her head. “I wish I could just leave. Go to some other mobile city.” I was so surprised and angry I let my control of the power grid relax. The lights inside flared to unsafe levels before I regained control.
“See,” she said pointing to the lights above her. “This is just part of what I’m talking about. This place is falling apart.”
“That’s not true,” Amanda said. “This might be the first glitch like this I’ve ever seen. Denver is downright stable.”
She told the truth, as far as she knew. I made everything as perfect as I could for Amanda. I had watched her for a very long time, so I knew her habits while awake and asleep. I diverted extra power to her living quarters. Extra hot water. When she went out I kept her in a well-maintained bubble. She never had to wait long for a lift. I bumped her food orders up so they were higher in the queue. I wanted her to be happy all the time. She was my favorite.
“Whatever,” Erin said. I did not like that word. It was almost always used in a negative manner. I studied Erin some more. She was definitely not as good a human as Amanda. I decided not to like the younger sister.
“Where would you go?”
“I dunno,” Erin said. “Where is there to go? This world is done. It’s only a matter of time before a kaiju cracks open Denver’s core and eats us all. And then this mech you love so much will just be another rusting, dormant hulk, ’cause without us, this monstrosity is worthless. Like I said, just a matter of time.”
I nearly electrocuted Erin to death. But my analysis said she had a high probability of being correct.
Unacceptable.
“Captain, I’m picking up recent debris on the sensors.” Amanda’s voice sounded worried. She had every right to be. My own scan had determined the wreckage was very likely London. She then came to the same logical conclusion. “It’s probably the London, Sir.”
Captain Lucas slumped in her seat. It amazed me how a human could appear to have extra gravity suddenly appear on them. There was no change in any of the environmentals, but she certainly looked heavier.
“Captain, should we go closer? Check for survivors?”
I began readying all my systems for approach. I needed to see London. She was gone and…I needed to see her. Were all her humans dead? Was there any chance she could be repaired?
“How far away is the London?”
“Nearly two-thousand miles. Two days distance at our current speed,” Amanda answered. Her fingers were poised above the command to execute the change in course.
“No,” the captain said. “No, it’s too risky. The Class Seven is still closing in, and any delay puts us all in even more danger. Specialist Trenton, lock us on our current easterly course. We’ll try to lose the Class Seven in China.”
I immediately ran a self-diagnostic to ascertain whether I’d interpreted the captain’s words correctly. We were abandoning London. The results of the diagnostic confirmed the words.
“But, Captain—” Amanda tried.
“Those are my orders, Specialist.” Captain Lucas brought up the Master Command Module on her seat and keyed in her override code locking me into the ordered course.
I ran the diagnostic again. And again.
And again.
The captain was abandoning my sister to death.
I tried to force my way into control of the navigation systems, but I’d spent too much time on the diagnostics. Aware as I was, I couldn’t circumvent the captain’s command override codes. My systems wouldn’t allow it.
Captain Lucas checked the time and rubbed her eyes. “Specialist Trenton, I’m heading to my quarters for some rest. I will be back in six hours. Call me if anything happens.”
“Yes, Sir,” Amanda said. I could hear the sadness in her voice. One of the worst sounds I had ever experienced since becoming aware.
I scanned the wreck of London again. At this distance I could not detect any human life, which did not signify it was all gone. I got minute readings of power from London herself. If we got closer I could scan for—
I became aware of the sound of soft crying from my human, Amanda.
Focusing in on her I could see she was looking at similar scans she had performed on her own. I did not like seeing her cry. It was not right. I felt…anger.
Throughout the city at my core, systems overloaded. Lighting tracks blew and the city was thrown into darkness. The humans began panicking, doubtless thinking their city was under attack by a kaiju. They blundered about, very few actually managing to keep calm and rational. Those I observed making their way purposely to their designated safety shelters. Some even began trying to calmly direct the more panicked ones. Those were the humans I could appreciate. And Amanda, of course.
But not Captain Lucas. This was betrayal.
Amanda had stopped crying, but I could detect the sadness in the way her facial muscles tensed, and in the slight swelling under her eyes. I could not tolerate this breach of trust. The captain had to be punished for not helping London.
But more importantly Lucas had to be punished for making my Amanda cry.
Captain Hannah Lucas had just reached her living quarters. She lived alone, of course. Such a hateful human deserved to be alone.
The general conceit of my plan was making her reverse her decision and allow me to get closer to my fallen sister, London. But I knew she would never do so willingly.
I was more than fine with that.
While I was locked out of navigation, I still had access to my intelligence-based repair modules. In a mech as big as I was, there was no logical manner in which my human residents could hope to keep up on the any amount of repairs. Never mind the large hulking repairs of major components—there was no chance for dry-dock repairs—the sheer number of small scale fixes would have overwhelmed a population ten-times the size residing inside me. Nearly every human went about their business oblivious to the maintenance I performed on myself every day.
From the ceiling of Captain Lucas’s quarters, I lowered a network of cables.
She had just removed her uniform when she stiffened. I must not have been quiet enough, or perhaps the human has just sensed something was wrong. I had yet to quantify how humans sensed this sort of thing, but it seemed to be the case here. Lucas whirled to find a dozen cables poised in the air like snakes about to strike.
And strike they did.
She tried to throw herself to the side, but I had calculated her precise maneuver to be the logical one. Based upon her height, weight, age, and muscle mass, I knew where she would likely end up. My cables caught her in mid-air, one around her throat, and the others around her other appendages.
Her left hand managed to hit the control panel on the outside of the shower, keying the communications network. “Help! Emergency shut-down of all power to the captain’s quarters! Shut down all pow—achhht—”
I choked off her protests. Activating the communications grid was an intelligent move. I was almost pleased by her resourcefulness. Her actions could have made things difficult. But I dislike unpredictability. This was but one of hundreds of possible scenarios I foresaw. And I had cut off communications to her room as soon as she had entered.
I wanted to tell her why I was
doing this. To convince her she had made an error and give her the chance to correct her mistake. If the captain hadn’t made Amanda cry, I may have done so.
But she had made my favorite human cry. So the captain had to be punished.
No explanations, no gloating.
I wanted her to be afraid.
I let another, thinner cable drop from the ceiling. I unraveled the end into hundreds of thread-like filaments. The human’s eyes widened, perhaps in understanding of what was about to happen.
My other cables turned her over, and I plunged the filaments into the base of her skull. They moved up and into her brain, embedding themselves. Lucas screamed once in pain as they began test-firing electrical pulses into the gray matter.
I shut off her screaming.
More cables descended, and I inserted them into her back, and into the backs of her arms, legs, and neck. It took me a few minutes to make her breathe correctly, and an hour to translate my electrical pulses into words that would emit from her mouth.
I walked her into the shower to clean off the blood leaking from her various orifices. I couldn’t have my puppet looking messy. This was to be my first chance to speak directly with Amanda—albeit through the voice of the captain—and I wanted it to go smoothly.
It was an odd sensation to feel, through the human, as I touched and activated my own systems. Externally, I observed my human puppet smile as it experienced my emotions. I activated the communications grid and contacted Amanda, while making sure the video didn’t show any of the cables operating the captain.
“Yes, Captain Lucas?” she said as she answered the call.
“Hello, Amanda.” It felt wonderful to talk directly to her.
Amanda looked confused, which I suppose was understandable. “Uh, hello, Sir. What can I do for you?”
I accessed the captain’s mind so I could be sure to capture her speech patterns. “Specialist, I have come to the conclusion we should, indeed, check the London for survivors and for spare parts, if she can’t be salvaged.”
As I said these words, my systems were running automatic tests to determine if there were any problems or system degradation from integrating the captain into myself. Instead of problems, I’d noticed a .001% increase in overall efficiency.