Cybernarc

by Robert Cain

  At almost the same instant, two more men burst into the entryway from the door to the right, ten feet from Drake and the robot. Drake snapped the H&K shotgun around and pulled the trigger, not bothering to aim but letting the deadly shotgun loads make precise aiming unnecessary. The CAW fired with a thunderous blam- blam-blam of raw sound and fury, and the face and chest and right arm of one of the gunmen disintegrated in a spray of blood and stringy shreds of meat. The second man caught enough of the blast to spin wildly, clutching an M-16, not quite falling as he regained his feet and raised his weapon.

  Rod turned at that moment and fired another burst with unerring accuracy, three 9mm rounds lopping off the top of the narcoterrorist’s skull in a one-two-three explosion of blood, bone, and tissue.

  "Thank you,” the robot said.

  "Thank you . . .”

  "Stay here. I will check upstairs. I will need you to cover my retreat.”

  "Don’t be long, big fella,” Drake said. He found a spot in the corner of the hall, where his back was against the wall and he had a clear view of stairs, lower- level doorways, and the gaping hole where the jeep had come through. "I’ll keep ’em off your back. Stay in touch!”

  "Affirmative.”

  The robot took the steps three at a time, the stairs creaking ominously under his weight.

  Delgado found what he was looking for.

  Roberto Salazar had recently purchased a shipment of explosives and munitions from Cuba. Theoretically intended for Colombia’s M19 guerrillas, the arms had wound up at the Salazar fortress, which maintained close relations with the communist rebels. Rather than storing them all in one spot and risking an explosion when some campesino struck a match to light his basuco, he had secreted the weapons in several caches throughout the building. One such cache was here, on the second floor of the east wing, in a room that in less troubled times had been reserved for servants; the room now contained several wooden crates marked Partes Maquina.

  Machine parts.

  Delgado prised open one of the crates with a crowbar. Four of Salazar’s troops were already in the room, nervously watching the closed door leading to the hallway outside.

  "Ayudame, ” he said. A burst of gunfire, muffled by intervening walls, sounded from the direction of the main building. "Help me!”

  One of the soldiers helped him with the crate. Inside, packed in plastic wrappings and straw, was a brand- new RPG-7. A meter long, gleaming with oil, the weapon had two handholds, set well forward on the launcher’s body, which was designed to rest over the firer’s shoulder. Another crate held three rocket grenades, large spindles mounted on thin, trailing booms.

  The RPG had been used by guerrilla insurgencies all over the world for years, a cheap weapon exported by the Soviet Union by the tens of thousands. The rocket-propelled HEAT grenade had a range of half a kilometer and could penetrate 320 millimeters of armor, enough to stop a tank.

  It packed more than enough wallop to stop this walking monstrosity they called Cybernarc!

  There was another burst of firing, closer this time. "It comes!” one of the soldiers said, trembling. "Mother of God, it comes!”

  "Silencio, huevon!” Delgado had recovered his nerve now that he had a weapon with which he could fight back.

  He looked around the room. It was too enclosed to fire the grenade launcher in here. The backblast might kill him, would at least start a fire.

  One window looked out onto a wooden deck that extended from the east wing close to the pool. Steps led down to the patio. If the robot was following, he would come through that door ... emerge through the window and onto the open deck . . .

  . . . and Luis Delgado would be waiting outside, the RPG on his shoulder and ready to fire.

  He gave his orders, and one of the soldiers used a chair to smash open the window.

  From the sounds of battle in the house, it wouldn’t be long now.

  Rod could not help but notice the similarities to Kiddie Land. A man with an AK-47 leaped from a bedroom door into the hall in front of him, weapon blazing. The robot fired, cutting the attacker down. A second man broke from cover and Rod shot him, too. The 9mm rounds slammed him against a doorway, which he left streaked with blood as he slid to the carpet.

  Rod hit the door at a run, smashing the thin plywood with a crash as he stepped across the bodies. Inside, his sensors detected movement. He raised the Uzi, tracking . . .

  . . . and held his fire. Two women were huddling together behind the big, double bed. "Venga aca!” he ordered. "Come here!”

  He took a step toward them. One of the women stood slowly, screaming, her back to the corner of the room as she hugged the bed sheets protectively in front of her.

  Rod could see his own reflection in the mirrors that decorated every wall of the richly furnished room and the ceiling as well, his human face strange against the black bulk of his armor. Blood smeared his armor like paint, and it dripped from his hands. He’d killed several men at close quarters in the last few seconds.

  He took another step, and the woman with the bed sheet fainted. The second panicked and bolted for the open door behind him.

  With a quick economy of motion, Rod whirled, reached out, and snagged the girl by her streaming black hair. She yelped as he pulled her up short, then yanked her back to face him.

  She screamed then, squeezing her eyes shut and babbling pleas and promises in Spanish so quickly Rod was hard pressed to follow them. She was wearing no clothing, and Rod knew he might injure her if he lifted her by the hair. Instead, he shifted his grip to under her arms, raising her until her face was even with his. She screamed again and kicked, her flailing bare feet striking his armored thighs.

  "Delgado!” he boomed. "Donde esta Delgado?”

  The girl opened her eyes, blinking back tears. "A-alla!” she stammered, nodding toward a still-closed door. "There! That way! Please don’t hurt me!”

  Gently, Rod lowered her to the bed. The image he had seen in Drake’s memories—of bloodied, naked bodies tied to a bed—was part of him now, linked to overpowering feelings of loss, loathing, horror, and raw fear.

  He would kill the soldiers without hesitation. He would not harm a defenseless civilian, not if he could avoid it.

  "Thank you,” he told the astonished woman, still speaking Spanish. "I advise you and your friend to leave this building as quickly as possible. It is not safe here.”

  He turned and hit the door with his shoulder, smashing it open.

  Cautiously, Drake edged his way toward the open front door. In one hand, he held the rearview mirror from the jeep. The enemy might have a sniper scope trained on the entrance, and he didn’t want to give anyone a clear shot at his head.

  Using the mirror, he surveyed the front grounds. Was the Salazar army actually fleeing? He could make out movement by the main gate, but the rest of the compound looked clear.

  It was clear that the locals weren’t exactly pleased with the idea of tackling Rod. There’d been one brief, abortive rush at the front of the house. Drake had opened up with the combat shotgun, and the mob had broken and fled, leaving several dead and wounded behind.

  They’d stopped trying to get at him through the inside of the house, too. Several bodies lay in various doorways, and the neat, civilized paneling of the entryway had been reduced to pellet-riddled, bullet-pocked, blast-blackened sections of splintered wood.

  Turning the mirror, he angled it for a view toward the east. He could make out the hedges that bordered the swimming pool. Someone could be sneaking up that way for another rush through the house, possibly. . . .

  Movement!

  He steadied the mirror, trying for a better view. Someone was bounding down the steps from the second-story deck near the pool, then sprinting across the yard in the direction of the garage. Four soldiers accompanied him, close on his heels. He was carrying something, like a length of pipe. . . .

  Drake felt his blood run cold. An RPG!

  Hit Rod with that tank killer and Co
mbat Mod or no Combat Mod, there wouldn’t be enough of the robot left to tinker together a wristwatch!

  "Rod!” he called over the radio. "Rod! This is Drake! Come in!”

  He heard only static for reply. The headset communicators did not have much range, and intervening walls could easily be blocking the signal. If he couldn’t get through to the robot fast . . .

  "Rod! Damn it, you walking refrigerator! Come in!”

  The robot had wanted him to stay here and watch his back, but the main threat had just shifted across the compound. The range was too great for a shotgun.

  He would have to take them down, though ... or find a way to warn Rod before he stepped into that RPG gunner’s sights.

  Taking a deep breath, Drake stepped through the splintered front door and began running toward the garage.

  He’d covered three-quarters’ of the distance to the garage when someone opened fire at him from the house. He heard the crack of the bullet as it passed above his head but kept running. So far, the Salazar defenders had shown an appalling lack of marksmanship.

  The five men who were his objective—one of them with an RPG—were out of sight now, blocked from his view by the long, low building that served as the estate’s garage.

  He rounded the south side of the building, expecting to come up on the men from behind as they clustered by the northeast corner of the building, watching the house.

  If he could catch all of them looking the other way, several rapid-fire shotgun bursts might bring them all down before they could launch the rocket grenade.

  The similarity to the tactical situation in his own house the week before was so strong he stumbled, coming to a halt with his back against the south wall of the garage, gulping each lungful of air. If they weren’t looking away, if even one was covering the group’s rear, Drake was a dead man, and Rod would be junk a second later. "Rod!” he hissed into his microphone. "Rod, come in!”

  No answer.

  Gripping the CAW tightly, he braced himself against the wall, took a deep breath, then swung around the corner.

  He saw them at the far end, twenty meters away.

  No one was looking at him.

  But there were only three men there, and the RPG gunner was not in sight.

  Another door blocked his way. A kick sent it spinning into a small room. Rod stepped inside, scanning. The room was empty, one window smashed open. There were crates neatly stacked in the corner.

  Curious, Rod thought. Why would they store machine parts in a bedroom?

  If Delgado had been here, he’d gone through that window. Rod looked out and saw the second-floor deck.

  Stooping, he pushed past the shards of broken glass and stepped across the windowsill and into the open.

  Drake fired, letting the auto shotgun’s heavy recoil walk the weapon’s blast into the targets. One man with an AK-47 spun and tried to aim, but twelve-gauge pellets chopped him down in a bloody mess before he could pull the trigger. Another shrieked, clutching his stomach. The third went down. . . .

  The SEAL ran forward as he fired, until he could see past the corner of the garage to where the RPG gunner was kneeling on the grass, a few yards from the others. He swung the CAW’s muzzle to take down the target . . .

  . . . just as a narcoterrorist with a Thompson SMG stepped between the RPG gunner and Drake.

  The Thompson gunner took most of the blast and went down just as Drake realized that he’d fired the last of his ten-round magazine.

  The thundering blasts of some deep-voiced weapon sounded just behind him, but Delgado, crouching a short distance from the corner of the garage, kept his attention focused on the second-story window over the deck. Squinting through the RPG launcher’s sight, he saw his nemesis emerge onto the deck and took aim squarely at the robot’s chest.

  There was another loud blast from behind, and something ripped into his arm, stinging ferociously as one of the Salazar soldiers shrieked and fell.

  Ignoring the pain, he squeezed the trigger.

  An explosive charge kicked the rocket grenade from the tube. An instant later, the rocket motor fired, and the projectile rose in its characteristic swooping climb, arrowing straight toward the robot they called Cybernarc. . . .

  Rod! They’ve got an RPG!

  Rod heard Drake’s radioed warning just as he saw the flash at the corner of the garage. With telescopically enhanced vision, he could see the grenade rocketing toward him, stabilizing fins on the tailboom unfolding in flight.

  Computer overlays on his vision gave the projectile’s range as sixty meters, set its speed at three hundred meters per second, and gave an estimated time until impact—allowing for acceleration—of three-tenths of one second.

  He launched himself into a flat, hands-out dive, as though struggling to become airborne. . . .

  The backblast from the weapon seared him and obscured his view, but Drake saw the last part of the missile’s flight as it rose toward the deck on a knife-edged contrail of white smoke. There was a bright flash from the corner of the hacienda’s west wing and a thundering crash. Bits of wood and debris spun through the air.

  "Rod!” he shouted over the radio as he closed the distance between himself and the RPG gunner. He’d not been able to see whether the missile hit its target or not. "Rod! Are you all right?”

  There was no answer.

  Running past dead and wounded Salazar gunmen. Drake jumped the RPG gunner from behind.

  Only when the man twisted around beneath him did the SEAL realize that the gunner was Delgado.

  He’d leaped from the deck an instant before the grenade skimmed low above his back and struck the side of the house. The explosion had propelled Rod headfirst through the air and onto the patio flagstones one story below.

  The shock had jolted him. Electronic warnings sounded as he tried to rise. His right leg was damaged, several hydraulic pistons twisted and jammed by the blast or by the fall.

  Quickly, he cycled through his emergency diagnostics. His power was becoming critical—less than twenty-five percent—but he was otherwise functional.

  Alive.

  His telescopic vision zoomed in on the hand-to-hand struggle by the garage. Drake was there, wrestling with Delgado.

  Rod had to get there. His Uzi lay nearby, the barrel bent by the fall. Unarmed, the robot began limping across the grass toward the garage.

  Delgado managed to pull the Skorpion out of his waistband. Drake grabbed his wrist with one hand, his throat with the other, and the two were locked motionless in a death grip, straining at the weapon.

  "Please don’t kill me!” Delgado screamed. Drake’s grip tightened and his shout was strangled. "I can . . . help you!” he managed to say. "I have information!”

  The grip on his throat tightened. The DAS traitor looked up into Drake’s face, and in that moment he knew terror as few men have ever known it. He saw his own death in the SEAL’s eyes.

  A shadow blotted out the sun. Something battered the Skorpion from his fingers, and Delgado felt a shrieking agony shoot up his wrist. A monstrous hand reached down and effortlessly pried him from the SEAL’s grasp, lifting him by his shirt collar, slamming him against the garage wall.

  Delgado blinked, fighting to breathe. The robot was hideous. Half of the skin on the face had been torn away, exposing the silver gleam of steel beneath. And the eyes were . . . strange, their interiors reflecting sunlight with a greenish glow, like a cat’s.

  The robot brought its face, half human, half nightmare of steel and green-glowing, unblinking eyes, close to his.

  "Nothing personal,” the robot said.

  Delgado lost consciousness.

  THEIR ESCAPE FROM La Fortaleza Salazar was almost anticlimactic. The soldiers, the workers and hired help, the family members themselves appeared all to have fled. From the time Rod had driven the jeep through the main gate to the moment he hot-wired a Land Rover in the garage and drove it out of the compound, barely twelve minutes had passed. The robot, using infrar
ed vision, could see dozens of people moving through the jungle and up the Sierra Nevadas in every direction, all of them on foot. The only people left inside the compound were a few still hiding in odd corners, the wounded, and the dead.

  Delgado, his continued unconsciousness assured by the injection of thiobarbitol, lay in the back of the Land Rover, bound hand and foot by plastic flexcuffs. Drake sat in the passenger seat, riding shotgun with his CAW. They drove through the shattered main gate of the compound and turned east on the coast road, with not a single challenge from what was left of the Salazar army.

  The robot was still trying to assess what had happened inside the electronic workings of his own thoughts . . . his mind.

  He could remember limping across the smoke- blurred lawn, consumed by a burning—there was no other word for it—passion to place his hands around Delgado’s throat and tear the DAS traitor’s head from his shoulders.

  A machine should not feel such things, he reasoned. A machine should not feel at all.

  Was he, then, a machine? Or something more?

  The secret, he suspected, lay in the PARET transfer the week before, when he had had a glimpse of the dark and bloody well within Chris Drake’s mind. No sentient being, human or machine, could look into such horror and remain untouched . . . unchanged.