by J. S. Morin
Charlie7 really didn’t. Eve did. Some martyr within him said that if Eve’s happiness was paramount, then even a misshapen human life was worth the trouble. Eve deserved better than him. She needed a friend and confidante, not a brutish, overprotective lout. But Plato was all Earth had on offer.
Eve brightened. “Oh! I know what message to send!”
So did Charlie7. There was really never a question.
When Charlie7 allowed her access to the skyroamer’s console, Eve eagerly keyed in the message: “There’s no place like home.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The autopilot in Betty-Lou didn’t know where it was taking Plato. For the moment, “somewhere over the coast” was all either he or the navigational computer needed to know. A randomly generated evasive algorithm kept him one step ahead of the pursuing skyroamer.
Freed from piloting, Plato turned his attention to repairing the EMP rifle Charlie7 had damaged. Pulling out the power supply had been a punk move. That robotic relic could have just confiscated the weapon and left it intact. Now, Plato was stuck with nothing but his emergency tool kit. Trying to straighten damaged terminals wasn’t easy when the autopilot shook him around with evasive maneuvers every few seconds.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, the battery snapped into place. The power supply whined to a rising pitch that exited human audible perception. Lights that served little purpose but to make the rifle look like a proper weapon winked to life.
“There ya go, baby. Time to turn this chase into an ambush.”
Plato wasn’t going to run this time. That idiot robot and his stinging darts might have caught him with his bits flapping in the breeze out in Sherwood Forest, but the EMP rifle was no bow and arrow. Now he just had to decide on a place to use it.
The skyroamer’s onboard computer popped up listings of nearby facilities upon request.
Wide-open spaces were Plato’s enemy, given his opponent’s reflexes. That Version 68.9 chassis was quick enough that it might dodge his shots if he saw Plato coming. This being a chase, the element of surprise was rarer than plutonium. He needed someplace with distractions, noise, things that could divert the robotic manhunter’s attention long enough for Plato to line up a clean shot.
The Atlantic Oceanographic Research Center was close by. It was manned by Holly30 and Gina81. That meant backgrounds in computer coding and electrical engineering, respectively.
Plato preferred breaking into facilities run by soft scientists.
The geneticists he dealt with viewed computers largely as gene sequencers and not the foundation of a security network. Just having a Holly on staff made entering the AORC a dangerous gamble.
If he headed for shore, he could reach the Appalachian Regional Avian and Arboreal Cloning Substation in five minutes. There would be lots of biological work going on there, and it was mostly automated. Marvin19 and Jocelyn50 weren’t around at present, according to their latest status updates on the Social.
Some nagging instinct warned Plato that anyplace that worked in cloning was liable to have dark secrets lurking. If he stumbled across a human-cloning operation in their basement, could he keep focused on his mission to throw off pursuit?
“Aha!” Plato stabbed a meaty finger against the screen of his terminal. The West Virginia Orbital Ore Refinery was just what he was looking for. It would be loud, automated, and hot as Hades. Human skin temperature readings would be background noise with the blast furnaces and smelters running.
Disengaging the autopilot, Plato gained some altitude and made sure his pursuer got a good look as he changed heading and put the Virginia coastline on the horizon.
The trailing skyroamer didn’t break its pursuit. It merely matched course and fell into position on Betty-Lou’s tail.
Chapter Forty-Six
James187 watched the skyroamer settle onto a course. The human brute had finally stopped making random maneuvers and headed overland. The robotic hunter matched course and settled in to find out where they were now both heading.
Maybe this time the chase wouldn’t be a twenty-two-hour waste of James187’s time. There would certainly be no Toby22 to save him, and any involvement Paul208 might have had wasn’t going to look favorably on the monument builder if today’s events came to light.
It was tempting to let the tracker continue its work, let the human think he’d escaped with Eve and wait for him to land. The chance that they’d get help once on the ground prevented James187 from giving in to the temptation. He wished he could get a look inside the cockpit to visually confirm the girl’s presence, but an active reflective layer showed him nothing but clouds and sky when he tried to look.
James187 wasn’t entirely comfortable with the ingenuity of this fledgling human. The standard model skyroamers used worldwide weren’t equipped with countermeasures against conventional scanning methods. He ought to have been able to tap into the broadcast frequency, get a reading on the fuel supply, or at least tell what was inside with thermal imaging. Instead, all infrared showed was a pair of blips from the engines.
Unless they were on a flyby, the humans were heading for the West Virginia Orbital Ore Refinery.
It was a cunning choice in a crude way. James187 would be forced to rely on visual contact to track them through the facility. It was too loud to trust acoustic sensors and too hot for infrared. The chaos would level the playing field.
But there were still advantages James187 could lean on, ones that perhaps the humans didn’t even consider. He looked up the caretaker of the facility and discovered that it was Jason266.
It was a quick matter to get a hold of him on a private channel. “Jason, James187 here. I’ve heard a rumor of a pair of bears wandering into your facility in West Virginia. One suspected mutant with the X-95-Omega gene. The other may or may not be a healthy specimen.”
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
James187 twitched a smile. “I’m transmitting a mammalian corral-and-capture protocol. Upload it to your facility’s automatons. They’ll continue their assigned tasks unless they see one of the bears, then they’ll box them in for me to come sort out. Should pose minimal disruption to your operations.”
VERY WELL. TRANSMIT.
James187 whipped up a quick protocol for containing any mammal over twenty kilograms in mass or one meter in height. It was a comfortable threshold that wouldn’t have the automatons chasing after mice and rats but would certainly trigger for a pair of humans. If any bears were lurking in the West Virginia Orbital Ore Refinery, they’d get rounded up, too, he supposed.
Chapter Forty-Seven
One of the mining transorbitals was entering the atmosphere as Plato approached the refinery. A shadow fell over the countryside as the ore collector still in orbit caused a solar eclipse. The smaller transorbital vessel was still the size of a city, but the mother ship dwarfed it.
The possibilities for distractions jumped ten-fold with the chaos that would surround the arrival of a fresh delivery of ore. All Plato needed to do was ignore the spectacle long enough to find a place to land.
Betty-Lou was a ghost. Aside from direct visual contact, no system the robots used routinely would pick her up. There wouldn’t be air traffic alarms, automated greetings, or any other hassle on the way in.
Twisting around, Plato spotted the robotic hunter keeping a safe distance behind him.
No more time for fooling around or trickery. It was time to just get on the ground and get lost in the maze of refinery equipment.
Mountains and hills rolled past beneath Betty-Lou as the industrial complex continued to grow. Perspective was a funny thing, even for someone who understood it on a scientific level. Plato didn’t feel like he was getting any closer as he approached; the facility was merely inflating to full size until there was a spot to land.
At long last, the building stopped growing. It covered kilometers on a side and swallowed Belly-Lou like an antacid tablet, except that Plato wouldn’t be a cure for the fires within. If anything, he was going to t
oss one more bit of metal into the smelters when this was over.
There was a small official landing zone, meant for use by staff and visitors—though who would come on a social call was beyond Plato’s imagination. That was the last place Plato actually wanted to set down.
Plato’s best chance of taking on his mysterious pursuer was to isolate, confuse, and catch him unaware. Any help the robot got from meddling refinery staff just pushed Plato’s finish line further back. Settling for an accessible area adjacent to a maintenance stairwell looked to be as good a place as any.
The canopy popped open as soon as Betty-Lou touched down. Plato was tempted to leave the engines hot but decided that might be too big a giveaway. His backup plan was to lose his pursuer and double back to escape. Instead, he just unloaded his gear as quickly as possible and sprinted toward the facility.
Just as Plato reached the maintenance door, he caught sight of the second skyroamer angling for a landing next to Betty-Lou. “Keep your filthy mitts off her,” Plato muttered, just before he slammed the door shut behind him with a resounding thud.
The metal stairs clanged under his shoes. His rifle clattered off the railings as it bounced along on its shoulder strap.
Plato’s heart pounded in anticipation of the coming conflict. This was his big moment. He’d put down mad robotic scientists before, barging into labs and offices alike with the fury of a righteous angel delivering judgment.
Those robots hadn’t known what was coming. They had been astonished before Plato manually removed the surprise from their crystalline brains. Twelve had been wiped brain-dead by the EMP rifle in Plato’s hands, and if he was lucky, he might even catch this robot’s name before he got added to the list as lucky number thirteen. A weapon that killed thirteen robots really ought to have a name. Or maybe he should wait until he had killed twenty-seven since every robot was so obsessed with the original scientists who comprised their misbegotten species.
No point in overthinking things. Plato was willing to try the obvious, just on the off chance it would work.
Hunkering behind a set of pipes dripping with condensation, Plato dropped the sack with his supply of robot-hunting toys. If this trap worked, he wouldn’t need them. Sighting down the barrel of the rifle, Plato watched the stairs he’d come by. There’d been multiple entrances near where Betty-Lou had landed. If the robot after Eve chose this same stairway, he was a sitting duck.
“Come on, buddy,” Plato whispered. “Show me what a thousand years of having no predators has done to your instincts.”
Every sense was heightened. Plato could make out the footsteps of automatons bustling about the refinery, the acidic smell of the chemical baths. He felt the heat from furnaces in the lower levels rising through the grated floor. What he wasn’t hearing were the anticipated footsteps coming down those stairs.
“Patience,” Plato told himself. His ancestors had stalked sabretooth tigers with nothing but spears. They had prevailed by guile and teamwork and no small share of patience. A dangerous beast demanded care and caution. Stealth was a currency easy to squander, but it could buy a life.
Those heightened senses gave Plato his first early warning that something was wrong. Patience was one thing, but waiting in the jaws of a trap was a horse of a different color. The rhythmic footsteps of the automatons going about their work had shifted to a discordant beat.
Something had broken their routine. That could only mean that the drones were reacting to Plato’s pursuer—or to Plato.
Plato gathered up his sack and checked that the thermite pistol was safely tucked in the back of his pants. Keeping his head down, he tiptoed deeper into the facility.
Every time he came to a corner, Plato stuck his handheld computer around and recorded a few seconds of video before proceeding. He wished he’d bought a simple mirror instead.
Sweat beaded all along Plato’s brow and broke out all over his body. His canteen was tucked safely in Betty-Lou; he hadn’t thought to bring water to combat the sweltering heat. Didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be down here long.
Around one corner, his video check spotted a pair of automatons hauling a broken piece of machinery—some sort of lever arm or strut. They noticed the handheld computer and set down their load. Then the automatons zeroed in on Plato’s location and marched straight for him.
“Ah, crap!” Plato snapped, careful even in his surprise to keep his voice down. Just because one pair of dumb robots spotted him didn’t mean the whole refinery needed to know where he was.
Plato backtracked and took a side passageway, then grabbed a set of handrails and slid down a flight of stairs. Panting, he looked first one direction, then another. The stairs ended at a T-intersection, and automatons were approaching in pairs from all sides including the way he’d come.
All routes of escape were cut off.
Chapter Forty-Eight
James187 leaned against the hull of his skyroamer and waited. It was a pleasant, sunny day, marred only by the shadow of the looming transorbital mining ship. No matter. It was still safer than going inside and dealing with the human directly.
The freshly programmed mammal capture protocol reported back with simple observations. Messages of “mammal meets criteria,” “acquiring mammal,” and “mammal no longer in visual range” splashed across James187’s internal computer. There was a fine line between receiving helpful updates and giving Jason266 clues as to what he was really after.
Evelyn38 seemed to think that most robots would be sympathetic to their cause, but privacy was such a closely guarded treasure that few robots made controversial opinions public. For all James187 knew, Jason266 could have been a repopulationist, a mechanist, or an apolitical drone who just worked to fill the eternity of boredom that Earth inflicted on robotkind.
The chase was like reading an old newspaper accounting of an event that had taken place last week. Somewhere inside the facility, the human was leading Jason266’s robots on a merry chase.
Meandering over to the nearest maintenance entrance, James187 loaded the specially prepared sedative darts he’d brought along for this occasion. They were the same type he’d used in his first encounter with the brute. But this time, the dose would knock out a polar bear.
James187 had a stimulant syringe along as well, in case Eve caught a dart by mistake. She might survive the sedative dose long enough to receive the counteragent; she might not. But until her bodyguard was out of the way, it was just a risk James187 would have to take.
Packed in pockets of James187’s hunting vest were the lighter-dosed darts meant for Eve14. The hunter of humans hoped that Eve would surrender when presented with the risks of fleeing on her own. After all, this wasn’t a playground; it was an automated ore refinery. There were safeguards but nothing that passed for human workplace safety.
UNIT 2888923 LOST.
It was a system message, not from one of the automatons directly. James187 frowned and cast a glare at the maintenance door.
UNIT 2888927 LOST.
What the hell was going on down there?
UNIT 2888928 LOST.
UNIT 2888915 LOST.
James187 checked the action on his tranquilizer gun and headed down into the refinery to find out.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The automatons slammed to the grated floor with satisfying crashes as Plato fired again and again. As the bulky human maneuvered the narrow catwalks of the refinery, he encountered an ever-growing horde of the humanoid machines.
Since these automatons were just tools, Plato held no compunction against snuffing out their onboard computers. Nothing was alive about them.
Plato dodged yet another advancing pair of automatons as they lumbered toward him, grasping hands outstretched. It was as if someone was filming a zombie movie for the age of robots.
Despite not being armed, the automatons posed a threat by sheer mass and the incredible strength in their actuators. Robots like Charlie7 were made for puttering around in laboratories and confe
rence rooms. They were the pipe-smoking old aristocrats of the modern age, minus the tobacco addition. These automatons were the muscle.
Something was coordinating the efforts of these refinery drones, and Plato had one guess as to who it was. He’d underestimated the robot after him.
Hacking into hostile systems wasn’t easy. Plato didn’t expect it from a robot who chased him through forests firing tranq darts. He had to keep reminding himself that the Twenty-Seven were all scientists, despite any subsequent occupations.
Luckily for Plato, none of the automatons moved quickly. Each drone plodded at an unchanging pace, same as if they’d been performing duties around the refinery. Plato had just gotten onto the list of those duties, and he wanted off.
“How many of you dopes am I gonna have to wipe today?” Plato griped as he fired off two shots.
Two more humanoid drones went limp. One toppled to the steel mesh floor with bone-rattling force; the other slouched in place until Plato shouldered it over the guardrail. The machine plummeted without complaint, shattering on the concrete floor of the refinery. Even a quick glance down made Plato dizzy.
Having blasted a hole in the closing net of encircling drones, Plato set off at a jog with no destination in mind. He slung his EMP rifle over a shoulder along the way.