by Isaac Hooke
“Have the remaining HS3s fan out,” Rade said. “I want a complete sweep of the area.”
Rade continued to survey the nearby buildings through his scope, checking the windows, the doors, and the rooftops. He did so for several minutes, occasionally glancing at the data returned by the HS3s, and when he was satisfied that no one was lying in ambush, he gave the order to form up in front of the pedway shed.
The six Hoplites and three robots emerged from the alleyway and formed a cigar shape around the pedway entrance. It was basically a small enclosed room, with the floor giving way half a meter inside to the stairs of an inactive escalator that led down.
“This has to be where the Amytis team went,” Tahoe said.
“Fret, are you detecting any signs of them?” Rade said. “A comm ping, maybe?”
“Negative,” Fret replied. “If they’re inside, they must be in fairly deep.”
Rade leaped down and led Harlequin and the two remaining robots to the Hoplites. He assumed a position in the middle of the formation, in front of the smashed doors of the entrance. He dropped to one knee, scanning the inside of the downward passage through his rifle scope.
Through his targeting reticle, he followed the stairs leading down into the darkness. He activated the light on his scope, and illuminated some sort of broken breach seal near the bottom.
“Do you see that?” Rade said. He had several guest entries on his Implant feed, so he knew others were observing his camera output, likely via minimized sections on their own HUDs so as not to block their main views.
“It looks like some sort of auto-sealing door,” Bender said. “The kind that would activate in the event of a dome breach.”
“Except the citizens activated it manually,” TJ said. “Because there isn’t any dome breach.”
“Obviously they wanted to keep something out,” Tahoe said.
“Notice the direction of the twisted metal,” Fret said. “Inward. Whatever it was they wanted to keep out, it penetrated. And it was damn big. “
“Harlequin,” Rade said. “Are you able to make anything of the dispersion pattern of that metal, or these doors? Can you tell what did this?”
“It could be anything from a bulldozer to an alien,” Bender interjected.
Harlequin stepped forward and examined the shattered doors. The Artificial activated the headlamp of its jumpsuit and walked inside.
“Harlequin...” Rade said.
“Just a few meters,” the Artificial replied, slowly walking down the steps.
Harlequin paused after taking three steps and knelt. “Switch to my camera’s viewpoint.”
Rade did so. He saw that Harlequin was running his glove across a large gash in the concrete wall.
“This tear wasn’t caused by any laser or plasma weapon,” Harlequin said. “I believe it was caused by a giant claw.”
“Guess that rules out the bulldozer option,” TJ said.
“If it is some kind of alien or bioweapon,” Lui said. “Why didn’t we encounter similar damage anywhere else in the city? Why this one pedway entrance?”
“Maybe we just haven’t explored enough,” Tahoe said. “Our other HS3s are continuing to scout the city, maybe they’ll find something.”
“Do we have anything in our known creature database with a claw that could cause damage like this, Harlequin?” Rade asked.
“Several creatures we have engaged at some point in the past could have done this,” Harlequin said. “However, I believe this is something we have never encountered before.”
“What makes you say that?” Rade said.
“A hunch,” Harlequin said.
“Ooh hoo,” Bender said. “Our AI is developing the ability to have hunches. We’ll make a human out of you yet.”
“I never want to be human,” Harlequin said, climbing up the stairs so that he was located just inside the pedway entrance. “Too emotionally exhausting.”
As Harlequin stood there in the entrance, drops of black liquid splashed onto the shoulder assembly of the Artificial’s jumpsuit, trickling down from the ceiling. Whatever sourced those drops was hidden from view by the concrete overhang of the smashed doors.
Wisps of smoke arose from the affected shoulder assembly, as if that liquid were some kind of acid.
“Uh, Harlequin...” TJ said.
The Hoplites stepped back, pointing their weapons at the upper part of the entrance.
Rade retreated as well, jetting into the passenger seat on the back of Tahoe’s mech.
“Harlequin, get out of there!” Rade said.
A tail of some kind dropped into view from the ceiling.
Lasers opened fire across the platoon, severing the tail. It struck Harlequin’s helmet before dropping to the floor.
Harlequin stepped to the side. “Uh, you just shot the rubber feed tube of an air purifier. There’s nothing up there.”
“We saw acid dripping on you!” Bender said. “Alien saliva!”
“No,” Harlequin said. “It’s merely an industrial substance used to scrub the atmosphere. Common in ventilation shafts and air purifiers.”
“Oh,” Bender said.
Harlequin emerged from the entrance and examined the shoulder area of his jumpsuit. The corrosive substance had ceased sending up smoke.
“Do you need to patch it?” Rade asked.
“No,” Harlequin said. “The suit isn’t breached. I haven’t been exposed to any potential contagions, if that’s you’re worry.”
“Good,” Rade said. “All right. Well then. Guess it’s time to go inside. Shaw, did you get that? We’re going in.”
“Be careful,” Shaw replied. Her voice was quite clear, now that the team was away from the lead-lined alleyway.
“I want two HS3s in first,” Rade said. “Followed by Units C and D.”
The scouts and robots went inside. The latter units kept their rifles raised as they descended.
When the robots vanished from view, Rade switched to the viewpoint of the Centurion on point. The stairs leveled out, and the robots proceeded down a concrete-walled underground passageway. There were no active overhead HLEDs, and the robots relied on the illumination from their weapon lights.
“I want your local beam LIDAR turned on full,” Rade said. “Keep an eye out for any illusory walls.”
“Roger that,” Unit C returned.
Holographic emitters strategically placed in confined spaces could quite easily create the illusion of a wall where there was none. Local beam LIDAR easily defeated it, however, which was one reason such emitters weren’t all that useful on the field of battle.
“I’m getting severe signal degradation,” TJ said. “We’re going to have to send in more HS3s to act as repeaters, and we’ll probably have to dispatch the remaining robots, too.”
“Do it,” Rade said.
The robots and HS3s vanished inside. On the overhead map, Rade watched as the new dots initially joined the forerunners. As the robots journeyed deeper, individual members halted in turn, stringing out to bolster the signal to the surface.
The lead Centurion paused, kneeling to examine a rent in the floor.
“More claw marks,” Tahoe said.
“I see them,” Rade said.
The robots had to continue stringing out their numbers to maintain contact with the surface, so that eventually there was only one Centurion and one HS3 on point. Rade and the others would have to go inside, soon. He wasn’t looking forward to that. He’d spent more than enough time inside subterranean spaces in his life.
But then the Centurion on point reached a dead end.
“The concrete has collapsed, here,” the unit transmitted. “I can’t proceed further.”
“Well that’s not going to work.” Rade glanced at his Hoplites, who had all turned to regard him with those featureless faces. “Lead Unit, does it look like you can dig through?”
“Negative,” the unit replied. “I’ve initiated a few echo scans, and the collapse is quite ext
ensive. I’m not sure the mechs will be able to dig it up. But on the positive end of the spectrum, I’ve found our domestic robot escapee.”
“Capture it,” Rade said. “And bring the rest of the Centurions back to the surface with you.”
“And the HS3s?”
“Them, too,” Rade replied.
The robots returned shortly. The Praetor in charge of the group was carrying the robot trash bucket. Its wheels spun at the empty air, and its two grasping arms flailed about.
“TJ, what do you make of it?” Rade said. “Can you hack in, extract its video logs?”
A few moments later TJ answered. “It appears to be a sanitation robot of some kind. New model with the latest updates. Going to take me a while to crack it.”
“All right,” Rade said. “Praetor, secure the domestic robot to TJ’s passenger seat.”
TJ knelt, allowing the Praetor to easily reach the passenger seat on the back of his Hoplite. The Praetor secured the robot to the seat with the built-in buckles, locking them.
“Shaw, did you get all that?” Rade said.
“I did,” she replied. “You found a whole lot of nothing down there.”
“Yeah.” He glanced at his men. “Well, I have no idea where the away team went.”
“Guess we should pack her in and head back to the ship?” Fret said hopefully.
“No.” Rade said. “We still have the command and control building to check out, as Bender suggested earlier. And there are other entrances to the pedway system we can try.”
“You think she’s down there?” Lui asked.
“I’m not sure.” Rade stood up in Tahoe’s passenger seat to survey the area, trying to look for somewhere obvious where Ms. Bounty had taken her away team. But the sand-colored buildings around him offered no clues.
She could be anywhere.
“One of the HS3 scouts just picked up a weak signal,” Bender said.
“What kind of signal?” Rade asked.
“It’s Persian. Emanating from the skyscraper.”
“What skyscraper?” Rade said.
“That one,” Bender replied.
An indicator appeared on the right side of Rade’s vision. He turned toward the right and saw the structure that Bender had highlighted. It was indeed a skyscraper, poking well above the surrounding buildings. The structure was somewhat out of place, in that it wasn’t located in the downtown core, but rather two blocks away.
“Persian, you say?” Rade said. “Do we have a translation?”
Fret was the one who answered. “It’s a distress signal of some kind. Have a listen.”
A new voice came over the comm. It sounded like it belonged to an older man. The words were unintelligible at first, but then the translator in Rade’s Implant kicked in, altering the syllables reaching his auditory nerve so that it seemed the speaker uttered English words:
“This is Mayor Farhad Abed of the Persian colony Darreh Shahr. We require assistance. Any nearby ships, please render whatever aid you can. We— This is Mayor Farhad Abed of the...”
“After that it just repeats,” Fret said.
“Darreh Shahr,” Manic said. “Well, at least now we know what they’re calling this city after they bought it from the SKs. Not that that helps us in any way.”
“I’m just going to keep calling it Lang,” TJ said. “Easier that way.”
“Fret, can you use the HS3s as repeaters?” Rade said. “And attempt to respond to them?”
“I can,” Fret said. “But as the signal seems to be of the automated variety, I don’t think they’ll answer.”
“Do it anyway.”
“Done,” Fret said. “Could be a few minutes before we receive a response.”
Before Rade could make any further decisions, he was interrupted.
“Hey,” TJ said. “I just got into some kind of maintenance subroutine in the sanitation robot. I think if I— whoops.”
“What did you do?” Rade said.
“I triggered a repair call,” TJ said.
“What’s a repair call?” Fret said.
“Ordinarily while a sanitation robot is going about its clean-up duties,” TJ said. “If it encounters any damage to city property, it will notify the repair swarm. Apparently, that function was disabled in this unit, for whatever reason.”
“Well where’s the swarm?” Fret said.
His question was answered a few seconds later in the form of a growing buzzing coming from the east.
“Get back!” Rade said as that buzz rapidly increased in volume.
The party cleared the damaged entrance.
“Drop!” Rade said.
The party dropped on the street, aiming their weapons over the adjacent rooftops.
A large swarm of drones swooped down over the buildings en masse. They were quadcopter variants, about the size of jumpsuit helmets. They possessed tiny telescoping arms underneath. Those limbs were capped with various tools, including pincers, blowtorches and soldering irons.
The drones ignored the party and swooped down onto the pedway entrance. Several dozen swarmed inside, while the rest remained near the opening. A score of them scooped up fragments of glass and metal from the surrounding street, processing them into raw materials. Others concentrated on the broken doors themselves, breaking them down. Nearby, several more were starting to 3D-print a new set of doors, forming the glass and metal frames in realtime, stacking and welding the materials with their telescoping limbs.
“Well, at least now we know why we didn’t see any other signs of damage in the city,” Manic said.
“What now?” Tahoe said.
“We proceed to the skyscraper,” Rade said.
thirteen
The weak signal was sourced from the thirty-fifth floor of the skyscraper: three floors down from the top, according to the building floor plans. Fret hadn’t received a response by the time the group had reached the building, so Rade had the HS3s travel to said floor from the outside. However, there were no windows in the upper sections of the building, and since he hadn’t had the money to upgrade his drones with X-Ray payloads, he had no way for the drones to determine who, or what, awaited inside.
The drones completed their sweep of the skyscraper, circling in front of the other windows lower down, but spotted no signs of life. The first few floors held a concourse and food court, the next several contained offices, while the final few seemed to belong to a hotel.
“The lead content is typical with what we’ve seen elsewhere in the city,” Lui said, coming back from an examination of the lower surface. “That would explain why the signal we’re receiving is so faint. We’re lucky it got through at all.”
Rade stared at the bore-riddled bodies of the combat robots that Lui had to cross in order to reach the skyscraper: there were at least fifty of the machines spread out along the base of the building, their shells exhibiting obvious signs of laser damage. Their positioning implied that they had fallen while defending the building.
“All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” Rade said. “Centurions and HS3s, you’re going to hack into the main entrance—or break it down. Once inside, take the stairs to the thirty-fifth floor. I want you to make sure the stairwell is clear all the way from the bottom floor to the top. Search any floors that you can access along the way. Meanwhile, Hoplites, use your jumpjets to scale the outside of the building. We’ll regroup on the roof. Bender, carry Harlequin.”
“Why do I always have to be the one to babysit the AI?” Bender whined, but he had already lowered his Hoplite to its knees so that Harlequin could vault into the passenger seat.
The Centurions reached the front door. “The locking mechanism appears hackable,” the Praetor unit said. In moments the door was open and the robots were hurrying inside.
Rade remained in Tahoe’s passenger seat as his friend activated the jumpjets of the mech. He was jerked about as the Hoplite alternated between latching onto the corner of the skyscraper and jetting up a few storie
s. After about sixty seconds of that dizzying ascent, Rade and the others finally attained the roof.
The superstructures were fairly standard as far as skyscrapers went, and included goose neck exhaust vents, air conditioning cooling fans, louver ventilator domes, solar panels on sun trackers, and a stairwell shed. The shed door was locked. Rade ordered TJ to attempt a hack, and the man announced that it was unlocked a moment later.
The Praetor reported in.
“So far most of the floor exit doors have proved locked on the stairwell side,” the unit sent. “And not hackable, despite consulting with TJ.”
Rade glanced at TJ’s mech for confirmation.
“It’s true,” TJ said. “While the doors to the main entrance and the rooftop shed were easy enough, the others employ a manual locking mechanism. Not hackable.”
“Too bad,” Rade said.
“We can use the laser cutters to break through if you need us to clear the sealed floors,” the Praetor said.
“No, that’s all right,” Rade replied. “Continue to clear any floors you can readily access, and continue upward. Let me know when you reach the thirty-fifth floor. Or contact me if you encounter hostiles before then.”
“Of course, boss,” the Praetor replied.
Rade climbed down from Tahoe’s passenger seat and assumed a position on the southern edge of the building, aiming down at the street far below.
“Spread ‘em out, Tahoe,” Rade sent. “Let’s cover all four approaches.”
Tahoe distributed the Hoplites across the four approaches to the rooftop. The building was L-shaped, so Tahoe ended up placing one mech at each of the six sides. Harlequin joined Rade at the southern approach.
“What’s the plan?” Harlequin asked over the comm. Even though the Artificial resided directly beside Rade, Harlequin had to use the communication device because it was impossible to hear someone talking inside a jumpsuit unless they utilized their external speakers.
“We wait for the Centurions to reach the thirty-fifth floor,” Rade told the Artificial. “Then we have them investigate. Meanwhile, if the shit hits the fan at any point, at least we have the high ground.”