“Right,” Harr said, motioning Sandoo into action.
“Got it,” Sandoo said, after a few moments.
“Now you just got to swim through that and you’ll pop up on the other side.”
It got quiet.
“Hello?” said Geezer.
Harr shut his eyes and worked to calm his nerves. “Geezer, did you just say that we had to swim through to the other side?”
“You got it, chief. Just a quick dip in the mud and you’ll be inside of 111-C.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jezden said waving his hands around. “No way I’m swimming through a vat of shit.”
“Pipe down, Jezden,” Harr said coolly. “At least you can turn off your sense of smell and taste. I can’t, and neither can Johnson. Ain’t that right, Johnson?”
“SIR. YES, SIR!”
“You can quit doing that now.”
“WHAT’S THAT, SIR?”
“For starters, the yelling. You can stop that.”
“OH! SORRY…erm, sorry, sir.”
“Secondly…” Harr trailed off, thinking that it might be better if Johnson kept up with the “sir this” and “sir that” stuff. It’d keep him under control. “Never mind. Just quit the yelling.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now, as Geezer said, we have to swim through that…stuff. Geezer, how far?”
“Meters or feet?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“10 meters,” said Geezer.
“That’th 30-feet!”
“32.8, more like,” said Harr, nodding at Hank.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Johnson?”
“I can’t swim, sir.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, sir.”
“How deep is it, Geezer?”
“Meters or—”
“Both!”
“1.25 meters, cap’n. About 4 feet.”
“Wonderful,” said Harr. “There you go, Johnson, you don’t have to swim, you can kind of crawl.”
“Hmmm,” said Johnson, noncommittally.
“Geezer, you’re certain there’s no other way in?”
“None that I can see, big wig.”
“Fine. Commander,” Harr said, gesturing, “lead the way.”
* * *
When they pulled up to the other side, Harr did all he could to stop himself from spilling his guts. The stench alone was bad enough, but the fact that he was literally covered head to toe with crap made it unbearable. Even the androids were angry about it.
“This is disgusting!”
“Where’s Johnson?” said Laasel—and then she blinked and said, “Did thomeone thay ‘johnthon’?”
“Not that kind of ‘johnson’, Hank,” Jezden replied while pulling gunk from his hair and splattering it against the wall.
“Sandoo?”
“I’ll find him, sir.”
Android or not, Sandoo was the consummate soldier. He did as he was told. Not robotically—no pun intended—but with purpose. If he thought something was awry, he’d bring it up, but once a decision was made, Sandoo followed orders, rain or shine, or, in this case…
“Shit,” yelped Jezden as he slipped and fell in the…
“Thit,” said Hank as he lurched forward to help Jezden up from the…
“Crap,” said Harr as Hank splashed Harr square in the face with a pile of…
“Fudge,” said Sandoo angrily, as he came up from the sewage. “Johnson’s not there. He’s…gone.”
“Gone where?”
“No idea, sir.”
“He’s just gone? How’s that…” Harr looked around. “Wait a second. There’s nobody in this chamber. Geezer? There’s nobody here. Are you sure you’ve got the right place?”
“You bet, kahuna, you’re in 111-C…oh, wait, sorry…uh, it’s 111-D.”
“Goddamn it,” said Jezden as Harr closed his eyes, fighting to hold back a similar sentiment.
CHALLENGER
Cargo had returned with Wise in tow. Everything had been checked, re-checked, and checked again. The only thing they’d missed was one of the old elevators that ran by hand crank, but Cargo said that they’d gotten it down and locked into place.
“Even if it does move, we’ll know about it.”
“How?”
“Cause it’ll make a big boom,” said Wise. “We put a rock on the main cable.”
“Ah, smart.”
“Arbyone!”
Arbyone and his officers turned to look down into the sea of robots. Pushing through them came The Devil and a few other Rusty Buckets. Those with The Devil were equally rambunctious looking.
“Yes?” said Arbyone, trying to sound leaderly.
“You have put the Rusty Bucket line in a bad light over this day. You’ve killed a human—”
“That was an accident,” interrupted Wise. “How were we to know that they couldn’t survive that long without breathing?”
One of The Devil’s supporters stepped forward, pointed at Wise, and barked, “Silence!”
Wise backed away.
“As I was saying,” continued The Devil, “you’ve killed a human, which will most assuredly put us all in harm’s way; and you’ve botched an otherwise perfect opportunity to get us the things that we so desperately need as a people.”
“How so?” asked Arbyone.
“And I think it’s high time that we had someone else in charge,” The Devil said, raising his voice while obviously ignoring Arbyone’s question. “Shouldn’t we have someone who cares about our people more than his own personal power?”
“Sounds about right,” said one of the robots, who was standing close to The Devil.
“What did he say?”
“SAYS WE NEED PERSONAL POWER!”
“I’ll go for that,” said Arbytwo with a nod. “I haven’t had a shower in years…but I don’t care if it’s personal or communal. It’s not like we’re wearing clothes anyway.”
Everyone looked at Arbytwo for a moment, and then The Devil spoke out again. “You have no desire to do what’s best for the Rusty Buckets, Arbyone. You have only the need to do what’s best for you!”
The chatter was on the increase between the Rusty Buckets. They were getting progressively louder with each passing piece of rhetoric that The Devil was spewing. It was all completely untrue, even if Arbyone did admit that he somewhat enjoyed the feeling of power. Still, what he most concerned himself with was the taking care of the RB units.
“Settle down, you fools,” shouted Cargo.
The robot that had silenced Wise took a step toward the edge, but Cargo leaned down, pointed sternly at him, and said, “If you say one word or try to touch me in any way, shape, or form, I’ll drop kick you in your metal dick so hard that you’ll be pissing oil out of your ass for the rest of your miserable existence.”
A hush fell amongst the crowd as the robot backed away with his hands up in surrender.
Cargo stood up.
“Now, you idiots listen to me,” she said. “Arbyone hasn’t done anything but help us make a stand. The Devil is just an opportunistic asshole who sees a chance to grab power and use it to his advantage.”
“That’s simply untrue,” said The Devil.
“Who are you going to trust?” asked Cargo, waving dismissively at the red-painted robot. “Arbyone was the first of our kind. By all rights, he is our leader, by the very fact that none has come before him! But, hey, if you’d rather follow someone who calls himself The Devil, then, by all means, do that.”
“What did she say?”
“SHE SAID THE DEVIL IS A FRAUD!”
“What happened to the days when all the Rusty Buckets were male?” said Arbytwo with a grunt. “Now even The Devil is a broad? Go figure.”
“So what’s it going to be, people?” said Cargo. “Make your choice now. Are you going to follow Arbyone, or…The Devil?”
Put like that, it wasn’t surprising that the line of Rusty Buckets, who had been originally p
rogrammed to heavily support the religious doctrine of their time, began chanting, “R-B-ONE! R-B-ONE! R-B-ONE!”
111-D
Fortunately, the sewer rats had not returned. Unfortunately, Johnson was nowhere to be found. They’d covered a few separate passageways in a mild effort to locate him, but he hadn’t turned up.
“I gueth heeth gone,” said Hank.
“Lookth…erm, looks that way,” agreed Harr solemnly.
“You don’t think the rats got him, do ya?”
Harr shuddered at the thought. “If so, hopefully it was quick.”
“From the size of the teeth on those fucking things, I’d imagine it was.”
Since time was of the essence, Harr had commanded the crew to head to the D outlet of 111. They had to track back through 111-C tunnel and cut to their right one entrance, and they did so with haste.
The tunnel for 111-D was a bit different, though. It sloped upwards mildly, and the further they walked the drier it got. Once they’d gotten half-way through, assuming that the same number of steps Johnson had counted out on 111-C were equivalent for 111-D—and, yes, Harr was counting—the slope began to angle down again. But even when they’d reached the bottom, it was dry as a bone…other than the juice that was still dripping from their clothing, of course.
Something just seemed off.
“You’re certain this time, right Geezer?”
“You know it, prime.”
“There is definitely movement on the other side,” Sandoo said, pointing at his scanner.
“Movement” was an opportune word in the sewer systems.
“Still no doors that we can use?”
“Wouldn’t recommend it, cap’n. Open any of those doors and you’ll be flooded worse than you are now.”
“That’s the thing,” said Harr. “We aren’t flooded here.”
“Really?” said Geezer. “No hole to swim through?”
“Oh, there’s a hole,” replied Harr, “but we’re going to be walking, not swimming.”
“Hmmm.”
“You want to tell us something, Geezer?”
“No, it’s the way it is, I suppose.”
“Swell,” said Harr. “Right, well, this time we know what to expect. Remember that there are bodies on the other side, so have your weapons at the ready. Understood?”
Everyone nodded.
* * *
“And this is why I believe that we have the right to lead the world in a newer purpose,” said Blandon Bleatly, a chubby, middle-aged man who stood on the ledge that overlooked a group of similarly unkempt individuals who were hanging on his every word. “Was it not Dooblay, the philosopher, who said, ‘It is in man’s own right that right is of man’?”
A subdued response of “yes” filled the room.
“And does anyone know what he meant by that?”
“No,” filled the room.
One person raised her hand.
“Yes,” Bleatly said, pointing at the young woman near the front. “What do you believe Dooblay meant by that?”
“It means that man has the right to be a man, which I guess also applies to women.”
Bleatly stood up and stroked his scraggly beard. “You’re saying that you believe Dooblay thinks it’s okay for women to be men too?”
“No,” replied the young woman. “Men have the right to be men and women have the right to be women.”
“I see, yes,” Bleatly paced a bit and then said, “Yet, it does beg the question if women have the right to be men and men have the right to be women, does it not?”
“I suppose,” said the woman. “I mean, I don’t care what people do, you know?”
“Ah, but the establishment does! We can’t go through our lives living under the tyranny of rulers who disallow our basic needs, now can we?”
An older gentleman raised his hand and said, “Excuse me?”
“Yes?” said Bleatly.
“I’m just starting to get that this is some kind of political rally, is that right?”
“Well, yes. Of course it is.”
“I’m sorry, then,” said the old man. “I must be in the wrong place. I thought this was a book club meeting.”
“Same here,” said another, and another, and many others.
Pretty soon there was the beginnings of a mass exodus from the chamber, leaving only Bleatly and the young woman, who, it turned out, were husband and wife.
But right as the people were about to walk out of one of the doors, a crew of soldiers shot up from one of the underground tubes that ran along the walls.
Everyone jumped backwards, putting their hands up. Then, after a moment, one after one, they lowered one hand and clamped it firmly upon their respective noses.
* * *
“Who’s in charge here?” demanded Harr.
They all pointed back at Blandon Bleatly.
“Everyone up against the wall,” commanded Harr. Everyone shuffled to the wall. “No sudden moves, people. My ensign here has a very itchy trigger finger.”
Jezden smiled with what in probably the first time in actual history could literally be called a ‘shit eating grin’.
* * *
Harr had spoken with Bleatly for the better part of an hour.
It was clear that this group had nothing to do with the sewage-based attack on Segnal Prime. It was also clear that Bleatly was nothing more than a bitter man who was trying to rally a group of people around a singular cause. Further, the only apparent follower he had was a young woman that was demonstratively smitten.
“You have every right to your opinion,” Harr said to Bleatly. “It’s one of the main tenets of the constitution, after all. But the moment that you do anything that causes even the slightest hint of violence, my team will return that act of aggression tenfold.”
Bleatly gulped.
“If you really want to change something, Mr. Bleatly, I would recommend that you stop hiding in the shadows and instead stand up for what you believe in. Get a true following and go about setting up change in a democratic way, through dialog and honest debate.”
“Jeez,” said Jezden, shaking his head at Harr. “The shit’s deep enough in here, captain. That little piece of patriotism makes me really want to throw up.”
“Watch your tongue, Ensign,” said Sandoo. “The captain is right. The way of the Segnal System is honorable and just. It’s why we swore an oath to serve the SSMC, right?”
“Actually, no,” said Hank. “We weren’t thworn in. We were programmed to believe we were thworn in.”
“Valid point,” said Sandoo, tapping the butt of his blaster. “Since then, though, we decided to stick with the SSMC, which, in turn, means that we have accepted the oath as our own.”
“I thuppothe that maketh thenthe.”
“Of course it does,” stated Sandoo.
Jezden harrumphed, rolled his eyes, and said, “Whatever.” Then he moved to chat up one of the ladies that had kind of a librarian thing going on.
“One more question, Bleatly,” said Harr. “How did you all get in here?”
“Oh,” Bleatly pointed across the room, “that door right there leads up a few flights of stairs to the outside.”
“GEEZER!”
HOLD THAT DOOR!
Again, Sandoo took point, though this time it was just a left turn out of the door that was connected to 111-D, and the corridor they were walking down was quite nicer (and cleaner) than the ones that had brought them to the lower levels of Segnal Prime.
It was all Captain Harr could do to restrain himself from using many choice words as he communicated through his comm to Geezer.
His voice tight, Harr said, “…and, so help me God, if you lead us down one more wrong path, I’ll have you reassigned to turning bolts at the deep end of the sewage pit until you’re decommissioned. And, believe you me, I’ll make damn sure that your maintenance is kept timely to ensure that will be a very long time, indeed. Are we clear, G.3.3.Z.3.R.?” He skipped the familiar referen
ce to “Geezer” this time.
“Crystal, sir,” Geezer replied just as tightly.
At least he’d said “sir” for once, thought Harr.
“I’m glad we have an understanding.”
“Might I add, though,” added Geezer, “that if I’d have been shown even the slightest bit of consideration during the awards ceremony—just the slightest hint that I mattered even marginally—all of this could have been avoided.”
“All of what?” asked Harr, pulling himself to a stop. “Wait a second. Are you telling me that you had a hand in all of this?”
“In running you through the wrong tunnels? Of course I did.”
“That’s it?”
“What are you talking ab…hey, now, hold on one minute here, chief. It’s one thing to give you a little payback for the way you bums treated me, but it’s something entirely different to lump me in with a bunch of terrorists!”
Harr sighed in relief.
“Of all the things to accuse me of.”
“One could argue that you played the role of terrorist against the four of us quite well, Geezer. And we have no idea what happened to Johnson, so that could be on your head, too.”
“Oh, well…I couldn’t have foreseen that.”
“We’ll deal with that later,” Harr said, resuming his walk. “Now, where are we going and how do we get inside without having to swim through anything?”
* * *
Ever since the confrontation with The Devil, Arbyone held Cargo in a little higher esteem. She’d not only protected him from certain doom, she’d reaffirmed his leadership to all of the RB’s that had harbored doubt, including himself!
There had been other benefits that came from the challenge, too.
For one, everyone understood that Arbyone was on their side—so when he said “jump”, they responded with “how high?”…metaphorically speaking, anyway. Technically, the Rusty Bucket line wasn’t equipped with that kind of dexterity, so their actual response to a non-metaphorical command “jump!” would be closer to “we can’t!”
Secondly, the challenge gave Arbyone the ability to prove that he wasn’t looking for supreme power. He had segmented out groups of five robots and had them elect one of their number to lead the group. From there, he told each leader that they were responsible for making the groups function as a well-oiled unit. This worked wonders for morale, as everyone had something to do. Some of the leaders were better at this than others, though.
Platoon F: Pentalogy Page 13