by Matt Betts
“A computer would be more helpful,” he said.
Cass held up her hands. “As soon as they’re up and running completely, you have full access. But I don’t know how long that’ll be.”
Ozzie nodded and moved off silently, stepping carefully around the debris and Rina followed him.
The rest of their heavily armed party followed Cass as she continued along the curved hall. To the left she could see sealed doors with yellow and red signs prominently warning of the dangers presented by the power supply that evidently was housed in the center of the robot. To the left, they quickly came upon the elevator for the crew to quickly move from floor to floor and section to section. Buttons to the right of the door were dark, but Takis pushed them anyway. When nothing happened, he pushed them again repeatedly.
“Seriously?” Cass asked him as she started moving further down the curving hall. It would lead them back to the area where they entered, then to the medical bay. It was quiet and clean. Nothing out of the ordinary and, other than doors that led to the core of the vehicle, there was nothing that stood out to any of them. A hum filled the air as more lights came on and the whole ship began to come to life. Indicators for the core lit up, screens that were invisible on the walls suddenly made their presence known with identical rebooting messages.
The medical bay also came to life, with lights, vital sign monitors, and screens of their own, all showing the Cudgel symbol and the same boot message as everything else.
They’d all stepped gingerly around the shell of the slag when they entered the medical bay, but this time when Cass returned from the quick tour of the level, she went directly to it. She knelt and looked as close as she dared without touching it. It appeared just to be a dried shell. She was looking at it so intently that she startled when Ozzie touched her shoulder. He held out a long-handled medical instrument that she didn’t recognize and she took it. As she turned back toward the shell, she noticed everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch her. All of them had a weapon in hand, or their hand on a weapon.
With the instrument, Cass pushed the slag shell away from her a little, then pulled back. When nothing happened, she decided to push it again. Nothing. “Feels pretty light.”
She took a second to find a nook along the edge of the shell that the tool could fit under and wedged it in. She looked at the others, who nodded or otherwise expressed their approval for her to flip the thing over. She got on her knees, ready to back up when she turned it, just in case something came her way.
“Come on, already.” Takis rocked back and forth, putting his weight on one foot and then another. “Jeezus.”
Cass flipped the shell and moved back, but nothing came for her. Instead she and the others found an empty shell, and a sizable hole in the deck below where the shell had been. Inspecting closer, Cass found the edges around the hole looked familiar. “This looks similar to the way the pegs that kept the Cudgel secured to the rock were eroded.”
“Is it from some kind of acid?” Ozzie knelt down to look at it too. He reached out and touched a jagged edge. “Feels rough, I suppose it could be acid or a saw of some kind.”
Against her better judgement, Cass reached out and touched it as well. “It’s fine, like it was sanded away.”
“Or worn down by rows of teeth chewing on the floor for years?” Everyone turned to look at Rina, who’d taken her headphones off and placed her tablet on the counter. She had a pistol in her belt, but didn’t look like she planned on using it anymore. “What? Just a thought.”
“Scary-ass thought,” Takis said.
They leaned over and found the hole led to a duct lined with several cables of varying colors. There was a narrow empty space next to the cables.
“My fat ass isn’t going to fit in there,” Takis said from a safe distance. “I’m not going in. Not even trying.”
Ozzie and Cass looked at each other, just above the hole. “Not a chance,” Ozzie said.
“I think we can all skip that for now, don’t you?” Cass asked. Even if she wanted to, she knew there was no way she could get in and maneuver.
“So are we just going to ignore this?” Rina was looking down the hole.
Jakob shrugged. “The thing’s dead, right? It’s been a decade.”
“Sure, but where are the other crew members?” Rina looked around at everyone for an answer.
“Good goddam question,” Takis said. “Hey. Maybe this was a bad idea. Right? We should just go…”
There was a hum from down the hall and everyone turned to see the lights flicker on around the elevator. “Hey. The lift looks like it’s got power. Should we explore the rest of the place while we wait for the computers to get going?” Jakob was already on his way.
“Just because it has a light doesn’t mean it’s working,” Cass said. She’d been happy to keep going a floor at a time, and not split the team up. If Rina and Ozzie kept working on the computers from here, they would have to do just that. “Hey…” she started to yell over to the medical bay.
“Just go. It could take a minute to get this thing going, or it could take an hour. I’d rather we were here when it happens. We can tell that much faster if this monstrosity will even move,” Rina said. She stuck one shell of her headphones over an ear and turned her back on Cass.
An insistent clicking told Cass that Takis had found the elevator button again. “Grow up. We’re not here to play around.”
There was a low tone, and then the door opened. Instead of a big boxy elevator car like they were used to, there were only cables with small straps for hand rests and flat platforms for the feet. Cass stepped onto the foot placements and interlaced her right hand in the strap. From there, she could click a switch to indicate up or down. “Start at the bottom?” She didn’t wait, and with a click, she was on her way down the dimly lit shaft toward the blue light at the bottom.
“What the fuck is this?” Takis asked.
Jakob put his hand in place and got on the mini platform. “It’s a personnel elevator. They used them on some of the construction sites I worked as a kid. They let one person go up, and another go down, without much fuss. They’re usually temporary while a building is being built. More efficient than making your crew wait for a big ass elevator if they don’t need to.” Jakob showed Takis how to wrap his hand into the strap and how to work the unit’s solitary control for up and down.
“What happens if I fall?” He looked down at Cass and the long fall beyond her.
“Don’t fall,” Cass said as she waited for the other two. “There’s also a way you can use one of the other straps to secure yourself to the cable by attaching yourself with your belt.”
Patting himself frantically, Takis panicked. “I don’t have a belt.”
“You’ll be fine.” As Jakob began to descend, Cass did the same, only occasionally looking back up at Takis as he put his hands in the strap and hugged the cable.
43
True to his word, Tsui fell asleep almost immediately after he helped rearrange one of the rooms. Holli pulled out her laptop, opened the top, then folded it out so that she had three screens to look at.
“That’s a great workstation. We get crappy equipment that’s ten years too old most of the time. The government must really treat you right,” Linden said. He looked over her shoulder to watch it boot up, but it was online and ready before he even got there.
“Well, they give us good equipment, and it’s usually only five years behind the current technology, but, this one is actually mine.” Holli shrugged. “I don’t have a car and I live in the smallest apartment I could find, just so I could afford this thing. It was worth it, I think. Except my bosses occasionally need me to use it for work, considering it’s better than theirs.”
“You like working for Gary Matthews?”
Holli clacked away at the keys while she considered it. “Yeah. I mean, he’s a boss. Nothing notable about him. He’s kind of dull. Vanilla. You know? Not one of those leaders you can have a
fun conversation with. It’s work. No mysteries. What you see is what you get.”
“I’ve had those.”
“Really? When?” Holli asked.
“Let’s leave that a mystery for now,” Linden said. “How’s the hook-up coming?”
A rustling behind them stopped her from answering. “Do you two need the bed?” Tsui asked.
“What?” Linden felt his face grow warm at the accusation. He’d just been talking to Holli with no intentions beyond passing time. The insinuation that he’d been romancing her somehow made him uncomfortable. “Funny. Did you have a good nap?”
“Little uncomfortable with these on.” Tsui held up his wrists, chained together by handcuffs. Ornn had borrowed them from an MP, remembering that Tsui’s cuffs were broken on the Montenegro.
“You’re still a prisoner,” Linden said. “Can’t have you walking off on us, can we?”
“I fucking helped you get away from the sinking naval thing. I…” He pointed over at the computers. “…Moved stuff.” He clanked the mugs on the kitchenette, and poured some water. “Anything to eat? It’s been a while.”
It occurred to Linden that none of them had eaten since the visit to the command center much earlier in the day, and it was nearly nightfall. “I don’t have anything. I can check downstairs with the owners. I doubt anything is open around here, everyone took off to stay away from the Lusca.”
Holli produced some packets of crackers from her laptop bag. “Snatched these from the mess over in the HQ. Not much, but enough for each of us to have some.”
“Water and crackers?” Tsui scooped up his allotment and tore the plastic open. “I was better fed in prison.”
A beep brought Holli’s attention back to her computer. “Looks like we’re into the network back at the office, and connected to the satellite.”
The idea was to get into the archives and find any way for them to get into the Cudgel’s control mechanisms so Linden and Holli could help control the machine from their location.
“You know these files better than I do, why don’t you sit down and start looking through all of this and I’ll set up the other laptop in the meantime. I think we’ll need it eventually.”
“You have a second laptop?” Linden asked.
“Yeah, it’s not as nice. Just one screen and more of a phone/tablet combo, but I have the programs to hook it up to a television monitor.” Holli turned to look at Tsui. “Any chance you can move a TV from another room and put it on this table?”
Tsui held up his arms to show off his cuffs again.
He’d helped before, so Linden shrugged. “Fine.” He threw the key to Holli and turned back to the files he was combing. “If you escape, or try to escape…”
“Pain, death, punching, whatever.” Tsui’s voice faded into the other room.
“This computer will take a sec to get ready, I’ll help him,” Holli said.
She pulled a headset from her bag and put it on her ear. “Hello?” She got back to work for a moment. “There.”
She handed the headset to Linden. “You should be able to talk to the crew on the Cudgel, if they’re listening.”
He had to think a second to remember her code name. It had been a crazy few days for him and everyone else. “Blind Date Citadel calling Chaperone Delta-One. Come in Chaperone Delta-One.” He’d already given up the secret shit when things got hairy, but he figured saying her call sign might cut through all of Cass’s radio chatter and everything else she might be monitoring right now.
“Ummm. This is Rina. Cass can’t come to the phone right now.”
44
They landed at the base of the elevator like they were floating on air. The touchdown was light and easy. Cass looked around in the dim lighting, with such a small space, nothing could possibly be hiding in a corner to maim or dismember them. Hopefully. She unhooked herself, moved to the door, and waited for her two companions to disengage themselves. Jakob had no problems, and Takis looked embarrassed to have made a big deal about descending into the lift. “Easy enough, right?” She looked to the other two.
“No problems,” Jakob said.
Takis nodded and stood by the door. The elevator shaft may have been clear and easy to see, but it was hard to say what was behind any given door.
She took a deep breath, then Cass hit the button. It opened to a short hallway, barely long enough to hold the three of them, and ended in another doorway.
“Jesus. I’m going to have a coronary by the time we get through opening all these doors,” Takis said. It was getting warm in this part of the Cudgel, basically near its crotch, slightly above where the actuators and tendons for the leg’s movements were housed. Ahead, beyond the next door, a light clanking sounded in some random pattern. It was the sound of metal meeting metal.
“There can’t be any of the crew still alive in there, right?” Jakob asked.
Cass thought about it for a moment. “Nah. That can’t be possible. They would have run out of food or oxygen. We already know the Cudgel was shut down when we got here.”
Ever the optimist, Takis guessed next. “Those things? Do you think they could have lived? Fuck. They might have, right?”
“No idea.” Cass listened at the door. The pattern could easily be from one of the slags walking around slowly in the next room, the thin legs tapping on the metal deck. “But we need to find out.” She reached for the button and ducked down in the narrow corridor. Both of the others aimed their weapons over her head. She held up three fingers and counted down with them… three… two…one… She hit the button with her other hand and then skittered backward from the suddenly open door. Inside was a relatively round chamber, with a white floor and a panel of lights directly opposite Cass and her party.
She stood and walked toward the door, slowly peeking around the right corner, then the left. She saw nothing but the rungs of metallic ladders on both sides and doors or hatches at regular intervals.
“Great. More fucking doors,” Takis moaned.
In another second, the tapping sound rang again. Louder in this room, and it originated above them. Cass raised her weapon and pointed it upward toward a mass of equipment that jutted down at them. She took them to be more of the mechanics that moved the Cudgel in one way or another. Everything was static, so it took time for her to notice movement between a long needle-like protrusion, and a boxy grey metal device. “There.” She pointed for the others, who’d been scanning as she had.
They all flicked their lights over to see what was causing it and were shocked to see legs – boots and a flight suit, at least - swaying in the metal jungle of machinery.
“The hell?” said Jakob.
Cass climbed one of the nearby metal ladders, and put her flashlight in her pocket. “Keep the light over there,” she said. The rungs were icy to the touch and it kept her moving quickly upward. Somewhere around forty feet over her crewmates below, the ladder cut into the various equipment in the ceiling and she was in a tight maintenance shaft as she ascended. She found a hatch that led back toward the flight suit, opened it and shined her light down what turned out to be a narrow beam that connected all of the devices she’d seen below. The top of the corridor was overwhelmed by fiber optics and other cables that Cass had no expertise in. She made her way out, careful to watch her step, and careful to notice that the machine was still clean and dust-free, possibly a side effect of the Cudgel being sealed up after things went bad.
She got to the end and slid an access panel open, and came face-to-face with a man in a flight suit. What was left of the man. His skin had turned mostly to flakey dust, most of which had fallen off, though some dropped even as he swayed back and forth lightly from the cable around his neck. What little Cass could see was badly decomposed, dry and flimsy. Cass let out an involuntary yelp and stepped back.
“You okay up there?” Jakob shouted. “Need me to come up?”
Cass heard the shotgun being racked and the whine of a Taser powering up. “Cass? What the h
ell?” Her yelp sounded like it had done nothing for Takis’s nerves.
“I’m fine,” Cass said. “It’s a crew member. He’s got a cable around his neck and he’s hanging from the rafters.”
“Dead?” Takis asked.
“He has a cable around his neck and he’s hanging from the rafters.” She didn’t mean for her reply to come off so terse, but she also had never seen a man dead like this. She moved close to see if she could find a way to untangle the cable and lower the body to the deck, but the cable had been tied so it would deliberately keep him from falling. “Should I try to get him down?”
Through holes between the equipment, Cass could see the men look at each other. “I don’t know. I suppose if someone found my body somewhere, I’d want them to cut it down,” Jakob said.
“What the hell are you talking about? Where would someone find you in that situation where you’d want them to do that?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Look,” Takis said. “If we’re seriously going to be trying to fly this thing and fight that monster, I don’t want to know a dead guy is rattling around somewhere in the ship. That’s all I’m going to think about. Dead man.”
On one hand, Cass liked that the men were joking to cope with the situation. It made things feel slightly less dire than they actually were. On the other hand, she constantly wanted to slap them for those same poor attempts at humor. As she untied the cable, laughter was the furthest thing from her mind. She thought about what the rest of the crew had done to hijack the Cudgel and wondered if there was a point where she should have stopped it. There was. There were many, but she didn’t take them. Maybe she still would have to take one in the future. Somewhere deep down she really hadn’t wanted to end this. The hunt for the legend that was the Cudgel was over and it felt hollow.
She shouted down to her crewmates. “Hey, a little help? I’m going to lower him down to you guys and would rather not drop him on your heads.” The men looked up and raised their arms as Cass slowly let the cable slip through her hands bit by bit. She could feel Jakob and Takis take up the slack. She looked down after one of them yelled they had him. It was obvious that Jakob was shouldering the bulk of the weight, as Takis looked as though he might vomit and run any second.