by V J Kavanagh
‘Papa romeos are attacking everyone!’
The order tumbled from Dee’s dry mouth. ‘NETALL, alpha one. Fall back to the loading bay!’ He shouted into the corridor, ‘Evac, now!’ His eyes locked with a kneeling Defender, who responded with a headshake. Dee’s gaze fell to the bare torso riddled with the bloody consequences of his misjudgement, of everything and everybody.
He led the remaining Defenders back through the darkened warehouse, its once cool air humming with hot metallic gas and its mountainous racks twinkling with a galaxy of red stars.
After three turns of his MPS selector Steve’s face appeared.
‘You okay Dee?’
‘Broken ring.’
‘I’m on my way.’
18:05 SAT 04:11:2119
MP 14, Neuhame, Austria, Sector 2
Steve jumped from the whining jet-hover into the lank wet grass. The golden haze of MP 14’s security lights bloomed over the silhouetted treetops.
Francois joined him. ‘Remember, our mission is not authorised, we must not interfere.’
‘Agreed. Can you reach Dee?’
‘No, nothing still.’
Steve glanced over his shoulder at Alex. ‘Go ahead, clear a path through the trees.’
Alex and Morton disappeared into the darkness. Francois unclipped his Cogent. ‘You know that artificials are not permitted in combat.’
‘I know. Humans are cheaper.’ Steve’s MPS vibrated. ‘Go ahead, Alex.’
‘Path cleared, Morton has neutralised one of the Resistance.’
Steve led Francois through the trees and joined Alex and Morton at the perimeter wall. He grabbed Morton’s shoulder plate and spun him around. ‘I hope you understood what I said, neutralising doesn’t mean killing.’
Morton jerked his shoulder free. ‘He is only maimed.’
Steve’s arm shot up, his elbow snapping it rigid; the plasma ball had already left his Cogent. Above their heads, luminescence exploded like a firework.
Leaving a trail of sparks in its wake, the glowing Halo careened out of control into the trees.
Steve lowered his Cogent. ‘I think we should go.’
* * * *
The loading bay roller door rattled down behind Steve and the lights flickered on. Prostrate Defenders lined the far wall, some covered with body bags, others with field dressings. Dee’s mission had gone very wrong indeed.
He stepped towards a begrimed sergeant, ‘What’s the LOCNET code?’
‘4-9-0-7-5, sir.’
Steve rotated his MPS selector. ‘Alpha one, alpha. Sitrep, over.’
‘Stevie is that you! You’re too late man, better get outta here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In the assembly hall, I’m gonna go back in the vault from here.’
‘Forget it. Your Cogent won’t work on these Prefects. Sit tight, we’re coming in through the shipping office.’ Steve unclipped his Cogent and rolled the serrated wheel all the way forward.
He found Dee slumped in the console chair. Three Defenders crouched along the assembly hall’s west wall, covering the door to the vault. To his right, under a frosty glare, the leviathan production line weaved its robotic tune.
Dee swivelled wearily to face him. ‘Stevie, you took your time.’
‘You’re so high I doubt you know what day it is.’ He took hold of Dee’s right arm and tapped the attached MCD. The first item on the diagnosis flashed red.
‘You need a medevac.’
‘I’m fine, just need another shot.’ Dee flicked his head back towards the vault door. ‘I’ve still got people in there.’
‘You’ve stage two hypovolemic shock, three cracked ribs and you’ve managed to OD on Cyclohexanonate. Your fight’s over, buddy.’ Steve’s focus moved to the silver door, ‘Besides, I haven’t heard a—.’ He jerked up; the transformer vault door flew open releasing a rush of throbbing air. A pair of black coveralls stumbled through the doorway, half dragging, half carrying a Defender. Steve’s hand shot up. ‘Don’t shoot!’
His shoulders clamped at the explosive report. He spun around. Alex’s left hand gripped the smoking barrel of the XH-34 pointing at roof trusses. Morton still had his finger on the trigger.
A snarling Morton attempted to dislodge Alex’s grip. ‘The decree states all terrorists must be shot on sight.’
Steve stepped forward and breathed on Morton’s polymer face. ‘That terrorist just saved a Defender.’ He swung his head to Alex. ‘Can you go and check on them?’
Steve turned to Francois. ‘I think we need to find out what’s going on, and quick.’ He knew Francois had no choice but to keep up the pretence.
Francois tapped his MCD. CONSEC’s steel rings disintegrated into a haggard Admiral Choo.
‘Commander Thibeauchet, why are you at MP 14?’
‘Admiral, Captain Brandleson is injured, there is a problem with the Prefects, they have attacked Defenders.’
‘Yes, we know. The Resistance have sabotaged them. You will leave MP 14, immediately.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Francois turned his back on Steve. ‘We must go!’
Steve turned in the opposite direction. ‘How is he?’
Alex knelt by the Defender, an open medpac lay on the concrete floor, ‘Mild concussion, otherwise fine.’
To Steve’s right, a Defender covered the black coveralls standing by the gantry steps. Steve closed in, ‘You can take the balaclava off now.’
Its removal revealed a lump of a jaw, bushy eyebrows over small grey eyes and tousled chestnut hair.
‘Gerhard?’
Gerhard’s chin rose, his eyes defiant. ‘Hello, Steve. I am sorry that we meet like this, but I must fight now. SIS have killed Jannae.’ He glanced left. ‘Who is that person?’
Steve looked over his shoulder. ‘Who? Nooo!’
The 6.45mm armour-piercing projectile hammered the air, terminating in a wet thump. Steve twisted his head back in time to see Gerhard slump to the floor. A slick black stain spread across the deflated chest.
In one movement, Steve spun around and levelled his Cogent. ‘Stand aside, Francois.’
Francois had taken position in front of Morton. ‘Morton obeyed the decree, that man was Resistance.’
The vault door creaked, a black suitcase of a body scrapped through and turned. Steve whirled towards it; searing pain ripped through his shoulder. ‘Alex!’
The plasma ball left the barrel of Steve’s Cogent, but it would strike too late. The Prefect had selected its light-gas coil gun. A hypervelocity metal pellet struck Alex’s left shoulder plate at 2900 m/s.
Steve skewed his head as two blinding flashes exploded in the corner. He glanced back and relaxed his trigger finger. The Prefect’s smoking carcass tilted and crashed down to the concrete. As it toppled, a hatch atop its seared black shell opened and a gleaming white cube clattered across the floor.
He rammed the Cogent into its holster and shouted at a Defender. ‘Find something to jam the door, tell the others to do the same with the warehouse.’
The Defender hesitated. ‘What about those still trapped?’
Steve strode towards Alex, ‘They’re gone.’ He directed a glare at Morton who was shielding Francois. ‘You and I are going to have a reckoning.’
Morton’s head bobbed. ‘Yes, we are.’
Alex lay on his back, surrounded by misshapen black fragments of suit armour. Beneath where his left shoulder plate should have been, acidulous vapours rose from a fist-size hole, its blackened edges melding the suit to skin. The hypervelocity pellet had pierced Alex’s skeletal armour, exposing a tangle of carbon strands and the glinting rods and joints of his exoskeleton.
Steve knelt, his eyes drilling into the cavity. Something caught his attention, something that didn’t belong. ‘What’s the damage?’
Alex’s head slanted towards the hole. ‘I’m okay, but I need you to clip the primary axillary hose.’ Steve’s nose twitched, cream
y fluid seeped into the steaming cavity.
‘Steve, we must leave.’
Steve reluctantly switched his attention to an anxious looking Francois, ‘Get Dee on board, we’ll be along in a minute.’
Tugging hard he managed to separate the suit from the fused skin in a series of disconcerting rips. Despite Alex’s bizarre conviction to the contrary he was, thankfully, not human. Steve retrieved a pair of scissors and cut through the olive T-shirt.
Alex’s voice rose. ‘What is it?’
Steve pulled back, his eyes transfixed. Embedded in Alex’s chest was a shallow metal disc, one-half filled with a complex pressing of a silver dolphin. The other half was empty. ‘Where did you get that?’
Alex peered down his nose. ‘I don’t know; it’s always been there. The other dolphin’s missing.’
Steve reached out and touched the dolphin. To his surprise, nothing happened. ‘No it’s not. Penny has it around her neck.’ He looked up, straight into Morton’s dark eyes. The oily smirk left no doubt that he’d heard. That’s why SIS need me. Trepidation crawled into Steve’s chest. Alex’s dolphin was a copy, but the original could only have come from Steve’s parents. And that’s why Alex looks like Matt. They created him. In one fearful rush, all of Dee’s anxieties shivered through his body.
He lowered his head, ‘We need to hurry.’
Steve made an incision just below the collarbone, exposed the amber tube with a retractor, and clamped off the hydrolastic fluid. After attaching an arterial clip, he used the forceps to remove the transducer and unshackle Alex from SIS.
‘How’s that?’
Alex rolled his shoulder, ‘Might have to play underarm for a while.’ Steve shook his head and smiled. You always did.
* * * *
Francois hovered a hundred metres below the cloud base. On the far shore, Steve watched intermittent flashes break through the forest’s black canopy. Someone was still fighting.
Movement registered in his periphery, ‘Look!’
Francois banked the jet-hover in the direction of Steve’s finger.
Guided by a wedge of cold light, the black Prefects swarmed out of the breach in the transformer vault and disappeared into the night.
22:11 SAT 04:11:2119
Intra Zone, Seine-et-Marne, France, Sector 2
Supporting the vintage espresso cup with his index finger and thumb, Francois took a sharp slurp of the fine Arabica coffee. Above the salle de bleu’s mantelpiece, the gilt-edged screen cycled through a series of live network feeds. Fires raged everywhere, the Resistance were attacking zones in all Sectors.
There were casualties, but they were not his. Francois had yet to commit his soldiers.
He directed his smile right, ‘The Resistance do well.’
Morton did not return the smile; his impenetrable dark eyes glinted under the chandelier’s éclat. ‘We cannot claim victory until I have terminated Arrowsbury.’
Francois lowered his cup. ‘I thank you for your fidélité, but I suggest you do not try. We need to find his girlfriend, she has the key.’
The side of Morton’s mouth curled. ‘We know someone who can help?’
‘Do we?’
Morton gripped the polished mahogany tabletop and eased back, ‘A SCITECH officer contaminated with bionanos arrived on Provenance at the same time as Steve. She was taken to MEDLAB 06-21-15, before vanishing from the logs. Ensign Annissiara was on duty.’ A thin smile creased Morton’s stubbled jaw. ‘She is talking to us.’
Francois steepled his fingers, he did not like the word ‘us’ in that context, neither did he like brutalité. Artificials were disconnected from humanity. They had no concept of pain, physical or emotional. That made them perfect torturers.
Francois had decided. When he took command, they would return to absolute servitude.
‘You do not forget your allegiance?’
Morton’s facial actuators expressed indignation, ‘Of course not.’
‘Good, locate Mademoiselle Merblayn.’
Francois’s MCD vibrated. He tapped the screen. ‘Report.’
A man whispered. ‘The black Prefects attack us still; the APRs do not stop them.’
Francois’s mind flashed back to the cosmic ring that enveloped the Prefect in MP 14. Unfortunately, Thibeauchet Technologie did not manufacture Cogents, and he had never seen one like Steve’s before. ‘Can our artificials not stop them?’
‘They are all gone, sir. Also, we cannot contact Marshal Kellermann.’
Francois slid a sideways glance at Morton. ‘Marshal Kellermann is dead. You must stop fighting and retreat. When I take command of Provenance, I can control the Prefects. Then I will call you, bonne chance.’
‘To you also, sir.’
Francois did not intend to call on those Prussians ever again. They had betrayed France once before, he would not give them the opportunity to do so again. He turned to the rigid Morton. ‘Have you found her?’
His eyes narrowed on the insolence of Morton’s raised finger, a moment later the machine spoke.
‘She’s on a flight to Provenance, ETA twenty-three fifteen.’
Francois délibérations dropped to the MCD, 22:16. He tapped the screen.
‘Hello, Francois.’
Kacee’s beauty still warmed his desire. ‘Ma Cherie, why did you leave? I came to help you.’
‘What do you want?’ Her tone remained flat, her brown eyes cold.
‘The woman of the Resistance is still alive, and that is good. She has knowledge of an attack on Provenance. You must find her and guard her until we arrive.’ Francois was unsure of the significance of the dolphin, but he did not intend to let SIS find it first.
‘The decree’s been declared, I already have orders.’
Francois rolled a finger at Morton. ‘These orders are from SIS Command.’
‘Fine.’
‘Thank you, Kacee, I will see you soon.’ She would obey an order from SIS, everyone did.
Francois turned back to Morton. ‘Find someone on Provenance to accompany her. When the target is found, take the dolphin and secure them both. They are not to be harmed.’ He continued, aware of an artificial’s capacity for parallel thought processes, ‘Situation?’
Morton picked at his immaculate fingernails, ‘CONSEC Command have ordered Advocates to fall back to the red zones. Apparently, they do not want to kill unarmed civilians. As a precaution, every ship is being evacuated to Provenance. News of the black Prefects is spreading fast. The Council are concerned.’
Francois nodded. ‘As they should be.’ As all humanity should be.
A light on Francois’s MCD flashed red, the blank screen spoke, ‘We received your message, can you confirm this?’
‘Yes. I have found the key.’
‘They must be brought to Provenance immediately.’
Francois inhaled deeply. His entire campaign depended on this moment. ‘I will bring the trigger and the key with my protection force.’
‘That is understood.’
Francois exhaled as the MCD blinked off. He could now finish his victory speech.
He slanted his gaze to Morton. ‘Is our protection force ready?’
‘Yes. One thousand four hundred Defenders and sixty artificials. All Resistance and all have CONSEC clearance.’
‘Excellent.’ Francois stood up. ‘You must be careful with Steve, his reflexes are extraordinaire. It was he who killed Captain Lacusta.’
‘How do you know that?’
Francois smiled. ‘Because he brought the brain of Captain Lacusta to my house.’
01:26 SUN 05:11:2119
Praetorian DV-14, LEO
Steve stared up at the dimmed circle of blue light shining through DV-14’s stale cabin. Its contemplative silence rattled by a sedated Dee’s snoring in the seat to his right. They were scheduled to dock in fifteen minutes.
He tilted his head and whispered, ‘Anything?’
; Alex sat on his left, in what would have been a window seat. ‘No, shall I contact her again?’
‘Better not.’ Kacee had agreed to Steve’s request to move Penny to Alex’s quarters. She’d seemed pleased to hear from him, and frightened.
Alex read Steve’s mind again. ‘Are you sure you can trust her?’
‘I’ve little choice. Morton will have uploaded the information about Penny, and the fact you can’t reach Dobriana means they’re closing in.’
‘Dobriana won’t say anything.’
Steve compressed his lips. ‘I’m afraid she will. When we’ve secured Penny we’ll go and find her.’
‘You won’t have time; you’re leading the main assault with Francois.’
‘I need to find Penny before SIS do. She holds the key, literally.’
Alex’s brow creased. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Last Friday, when you drugged me, you were searching for the other dolphin. You didn’t find it, so you modified my MPS to track me — and keep me alive. You’re SIS.’
Alex recoiled, pressing against the fuselage, ‘I can’t be. I can’t!’
Steve stared impassively into desperate green eyes. Between the index finger and thumb of his right hand, he held a slender charred cylinder. ‘Do you know what this is?’
Alex shook his head.
‘It’s a bidirectional transducer. Prefects don’t wound, it avoided hitting your chest so I’d find the dolphin. Unfortunately for SIS I also found this. That’s how they’ve been controlling you.’
‘It’s not possible, I would have noticed the scar.’
‘Have you checked under your armpits lately?’
Alex shook his head again.
Steve marvelled at the subtle changes in Alex’s features. ‘Whoever built you put in more than just time and effort, and I think I know who — and why. When were you last offline?’
Alex glanced down, ‘21-04-2118.’
‘That’s when SIS programmed you, probably to spy on SCITECH initially. Luckily they didn’t find your core CPU, which I think prevents you from harming me, and that includes divulging Penny’s whereabouts.’ Steve tapped the MCD attached to his protector suit’s sleeve. ‘Do you recognise these people?’