by Jaxon Reed
I was on Level 5, and Phang was on Level 25. So, 20 levels out of 50 between us, or a little less than one half. Forty percent. I set the timer for a minute, and hoped that would be good enough. Not too much, but enough to allow the doors to close, the elevator to ascend, and the doors to open again.
Jason would make sure none of the other elevators worked when Phang or his bots palmed the pad.
The speakers crackled again.
We heard a Thoop!, then the sound of someone dying in agony.
“My patience has worn thin, Professor. If you don’t appear in Park 7 in five minutes, I will kill someone else.”
Several seconds of silence slid by before the Professor spoke again. This time he seemed subdued. Defeated.
“I would hate for any more people to die on my behalf. But I told you, I cannot move. If you must kill everybody down there, so be it. Whenever you get around to sending somebody up to get me, I’ll be here. They’ll be able to see me from the elevator.”
A long pause. I imagined Phang was thinking about it.
Then the Professor spoke again.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood, but I’m still alive whenever you want to come get me.”
I crouched down with the bot on the floor of the elevator, waiting. I looked out across the lobby and locked eyes with Jenkins. He stared back, intensely.
Several moments later, Phang finally reactivated his com. His voice sounded bored, yet mildly irritated.
“Fine, Professor. Have it your way. I’m sending up a party to get you. I want you to know, if this is a trap, the blood of these people will be on your hands.”
“Thank you, Commander. I’ll be waiting. I’d appreciate any medical services you could provide me when I get there.”
We could hear the sneer in Phang’s voice as he responded.
“Certainly, Professor. I’d be delighted to tend to your medical needs.”
Ding!
The elevator had been summoned! I quickly slapped all the timer buttons activating them, then rolled out the door right before it shut.
I walked over to the other side of the lobby to join Jenkins.
“Now we wait.”
He nodded, understanding now what I had been up to.
“Let’s just hope he didn’t decide to send Connie up to meet with the Professor.”
Jenkins frowned.
“Connie’s with that nut job?”
I nodded.
FABOOM!
The floor shook, and smoke floated out of the doors to the elevator shaft.
“Wish I had a com unit to see how successful that was.”
The speakers crackled again.
“Cruz! You fool! You have doomed all of these people to death!”
Jenkins and I looked at each other.
“Sounds like your little stunt was successful.”
“Yeah. He’s going to take it out on everyone, though.”
The speakers crackled again, this time with the Professor’s voice. We found out later Jason had switched off the speakers in and near Park 7 at that point. But the Professor’s announcement could be heard throughout the rest of the city.
“People of Redwood, this is Professor Cruz. We have taken out all but one of Commander Phang’s bots. At this moment he is executing prisoners in Park Seven. We are committing to an all out assault on him and his remaining bot. We believe that with our numbers, we can take them.
“I urge you to join us in this fight. We believe the elevator system is ruined. To get to Level Twenty-five, you’ll have to use the maintenance shafts. We are headed that way as I speak.
“May God bless us.”
Jenkins and I looked at each other again.
“Come on, I came down here through a maintenance shaft. I know where one is.”
He followed me as we jogged back down the hall.
A Technician came out of a side door, wearing his standard blue worksuit. He carried something that looked like a gun. He stood tall, about six, five. Bald. Large ears and nose. He looked to be in his mid-forties. He stopped when he saw us, and we slowed to a halt.
“I’m Abner Jefferies. I work here.”
He gave us a bashful smile.
Ranger Jenkins said, “Whatcha got there, Jefferies?”
“This is an industrial-strength drill with extra-high RPMs and a synthetic diamond bit. The power pack is fully charged. We use this to cut through just about anything if we need to make repairs on something. I thought maybe it would come in handy with that last surviving bot Professor Cruz mentioned.”
Jenkins nodded, thoughtfully.
“Let’s try it out on one of those pieces of armor.”
Jefferies hurried after us as we neared the gap where the first downed bot had self-destructed. A few bits and pieces of its black armor were scattered about.
Ranger Jenkins bent down and grabbed a large piece and placed it in the center of the hallway.
“Try it on that. See if it goes through.”
Jefferies flicked a switch and the drill started up. He bent down on one knee and started drilling into the armor.
Whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Kachunk!
The bit punched through. Jefferies reversed direction and brought it back out.
All three of us smiled like kids at Christmas.
“Let’s go. Take that with us.”
The rope was still in place. I bent down and grabbed it, then swung hand over hand to the other side.
Jenkins went next. Jefferies looked dubious, but strapped the big drill behind his back and awkwardly followed us over. We gave him a hand up when he reached our side, then continued making our way to the maintenance shaft.
As soon as we got there, I looked up the ladder. Far above, I thought I heard voices and sounds of movement. People from other levels were making their way to the middle.
I started climbing. The older men followed after me.
About the time I reached Level 25, several other people were converging there, too. Brad and Leesa Jones, Dee Dee, Jacob, Jason, Charlie, Andrea, Melody Cruz, the Sergeant and the Major, along with several cadets and forty or fifty city residents.
Mrs. Cruz said, “We made Curt stay behind. He’s too valuable.”
I nodded in understanding. I found out later they had given the Professor little choice in the matter, making him remain in the suites on Level 43 after convincing him that if we lost and he was caught, Phang could torture him for information. He wasn’t happy about it, but he stayed.
The speakers crackled to life again and we could hear screaming in the background.
“I just wanted you to hear the last one to go, Professor!”
Thoop!
Fresh screams, closer to the mic, flooded the corridors. They continued a full minute before Phang cut the connection.
“Commander Phang,” Leesa Jones said, “is gonna die.”
Everybody nodded. Several balled their hands into fists.
“We need to come up with a plan before we go charging willy-nilly in there,” Mrs. Cruz said.
Everybody nodded again. Then they looked at each other, waiting to see who would come up with an idea first.
Jenkins came up the ladder, and promptly sat down to rest after climbing twenty levels up. Technician Jefferies came next, winded. He struggled the last few rungs, and crawled out onto the floor.
I bent down and gave him a hand up into a sitting a position, then relieved him of the drill.
“We tested this thing out on some leftover armor down on Level Five. It can drill through. Takes some work, but it can do it.”
“With that self-destruct mechanism, it doesn’t do us much good,” Jacob said.
I recalled how close he had come to the blast radius earlier, the one that tore the giant hole in Level Five. He was on his way to help out the others inspecting the downed bot just before it exploded.
Jefferies wheezed and coughed, then spoke up.
“Safety suit . . . We keep them stored in the ma
intenance closets. Designed to be worn in high risk situations. Lots of padding. You can survive a big fall in one. Might be able to survive an explosion.”
“That sounds good,” I said. “Wish I had it earlier. I’ll put one of those safety suits on and take this drill to the balcony overlooking the park, on Level Twenty-six. If you guys could draw that synthetic toward me, I’ll jump on him and drill into his head. If it’s like any other bot, the main processor should be up there. Maybe I can scramble it with the drill bit.”
Everybody looked at each other. Nobody mentioned what we all were wondering: could I survive one of those giant blasts, even in a protective suit?
Mrs. Jones shrugged.
“That’s as good a plan as any. Let’s go.”
Everybody started to move out into the hallway except for Jefferies, Dee Dee and me. He left to go fetch a safety suit. Dee Dee gave me a quick kiss and a hug.
“Be careful.”
“I will be.”
Jefferies returned a moment later with a one-piece suit that looked like it was made out of some kind of thick, stretchy material. I stepped into it and found it to be “one size fits all.” The dark gray suit quickly adjusted to my body. It fit over everything, head to toe. I had gloves, and I even had an artificial sapphire full-face visor. I certainly felt safer wearing it, considering the alternative of regular clothing while facing a bomb blast.
I shook the Technician’s hand, then made my way up the ladder one more level, the big industrial drill now strapped to my back over the safety suit.
Chapter Ten
I ran fast as I could in the bulky safety suit down the main hallway of Level 26. I knew the hall would end in a balcony facing the Park 7 atrium, at the far end past the elevators.
I smelled smoke drifting from the elevator shaft as I ran past it.
Finally, I neared the balcony and slowed down so I could hopefully try and approach it without being seen or heard. I crept forward the last few feet and cautiously peered out into the park, 20 meters below.
The grounds were littered with bodies. Phang shot every one of his prisoners in the stomach, and watched them bleed out on the grass. It looked like half a dozen tried to make a break for it. He or his bot shot them down in the back. It appeared they were running for the corridor right below me, based on their location. Their bodies were closest to my position.
The smell of blood and burned flesh reached up to the balcony.
I carefully looked around to try and locate Phang. I found him standing about 30 yards from the entrance, next to Connie and the bot.
Even at that distance, I could tell he wasn’t happy. He had the look of a man used to getting his way, then finding himself inexplicably frustrated at a key moment.
Connie had her arms crossed and faced the other direction. I felt certain she wasn’t in the best of spirits, either, after having to watch so many people die around her.
Adams was the only one I couldn’t account for. I didn’t see him anywhere, and none of the bodies looked like his. I found out later he died in the elevator blast. Phang had sent him, along with six of the bots, to go fetch the Professor.
I never saw the video but Jason, who watched it all on the spy network, told me about the look of shock and incredulity on his face when the elevator door opened just as the timers on the detonators went off.
“It was like, ‘Ding!’ Then the timers went, ‘Beep!’ And Adams had this, “Oh . . . no . . .” look on his face. Then . . . ‘Kablooie!’ No more Adams. No more bots. No more elevator, either.”
I’ve been responsible for a number of deaths in my short life so far, but his is not one I feel bad about.
At the moment, looking out over the park with its blood-stained grass and bodies littered about, I decided not to worry about Adams for now. I stayed focused on Phang and his one remaining bot.
I wondered how the Rangers and everybody else planned on luring it over my way. I didn’t have long to wait and find out.
Gunshots rang out in the hallway directly below. I figured they would aim wide to avoid Connie. It didn’t matter if they hit the other two or not because Phang and his bot weren’t going to be affected by bullets, anyway.
The bot returned fire, and the group retreated back toward the heavily damaged elevator lobby, still shooting. The bot advanced on the park entrance, heading my way.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop!
I took a deep breath, shifted the weight of the big industrial drill in my hands, then took a running leap over the balcony rail.
I landed on top of the bot, knocking it down onto its back.
I pinned down the side of its head with the drill bit, and pressed down with all my upper body strength. I kept a knee on its neck, and the rest of my body on top of its gun arm.
Whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Something I learned in a lecture during one of my classes with Professor Kim came back to me. A rancher from New Texas talked to us about raising cows on the outer planets. Bos taurus is one of the primary sources of protein all along the string.
The rancher tipped back his cowboy hat and spent an hour discussing the ins and outs of raising cattle for consumption on New Texas.
“How do you control a one thousand pound animal? It’s easy, if you get control of its head. I can keep a calf down with my knee on its neck in the corral, inoculate it, clip its ear, do whatever I need to. With fully grown cows, we run them into a metal chute in the corral with a special gate that closes around their neck. They can’t go anywhere, they can’t do anything.”
He wrapped up the lecture with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Control the head, control the heifer.”
I figured the same principle would work with a GP synthetic. Sure enough, it struggled underneath me to regain its footing, but it couldn’t. Its sense of balance was all off so long as I kept its head pinned down.
It rained blows on me with its free hand. I didn’t even feel them in the safety suit. It struggled to aim its gun arm at me, but couldn’t gain any leverage with my body weight on top of it.
Whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Kachunkachunkachunk!
The bit slid through! I quickly made little circling motions with the drill to scramble as much of the bot’s brains as I could.
It went limp. A wisp of smoke trickled out of the hole I had drilled.
I braced myself, waiting for the explosion. It never happened. I guess whatever circuits I chewed up took out the self-destruct mechanism, too.
Thoop!
The bolt caught me in the shoulder, burning through the safety suit and all the way through my flesh. The impact knocked me off the bot and onto my back.
I rolled behind a bush as Phang kept firing.
Thoop! Thoop!
I risked poking my head up and watched Phang head my way, gun arm stretched out in front. His normally arrogant demeanor had been wiped away, replaced by a look of pure anger. He moved in to finish me off.
I thought fast for something to say.
I shouted, “You really want to kill one of the only hematophagous hosts in this place?”
He stopped. The look of anger on his face decreased in intensity a bit.
He looked down at his forearm, holding it out horizontally, elbow facing my direction, and took a bio reading. I watched his expression soften a bit more.
He lowered his gun arm. I knew he could snap it back up and start firing again. But I had thrown my dice and now I needed to play through the turn.
I stood up, showing my top half above the bush. I pulled the visor up so my voice wouldn’t be muffled. I also wanted to free up my face so I could drink.
I slowly walked out from behind the bush and over to the Servant who had made it closest to the park’s entrance before getting shot down.
Keeping my eyes on Phang, I bent down and sucked out some of the poor guy’s blood, still oozing from a wound.
Several feet away, Connie turned around in disgust. I couldn’t blame her. I knew it looked disgusting, and
I would have tried to at least do it in private under other circumstances. But I desperately needed blood.
After several swallows I stood up straight again and wiped my mouth. The hole in my shoulder began filling up with tissue. I could feel muscles and bones reforming.
I nodded at the downed synthetic.
“You know, these toys of yours are cheap. How many have we taken out? Sixteen? Seventeen? I thought you Old Earth people had better technology than this.”
Phang’s face flushed, and his ears grew bright red. Evidently, I had touched a nerve.
“Those bots cost over a million credits each. More than you’ll ever see in a lifetime.”
I chuckled. He obviously knew nothing about me. I was worth several million thanks to the inheritance Professor Kalinowski had left.
Phang’s eyes grew big with a hint of surprise, then they narrowed again in anger.
The thought occurred to me that I was probably richer than he was. Even if he was corrupt and had been taking bribes and stealing for years, I probably had more zeros tacked onto my net worth.
That thought made me chuckle again.
“You think it’s funny to destroy State property?”
My humor evaporated. I spat on the ground, and nodded at all the bodies scattered around, at the people he had either killed directly or had the bot shoot for him.
It was his turn to smile. He tilted his head at me, as if trying to classify an exotic biological variation. Which, I suppose, is one way to put it. That’s what I am.
“What are these people to you? I would think they would matter little to nothing. A source of food, perhaps. Look at you! That blast would have mortally wounded any other man, and yet with a few sips of these lesser beings’ blood you’re good as new.”
I didn’t say anything. I just watched him. He took a few steps toward me. I moved in response, making my way a little closer to the downed bot.
“You have no idea the power at your fingertips, do you? Think of it. Eternal life. Control over whoever and whatever you like. You think these backwards outer planets are worth your time? The inner planets have billions and billions of people. They would all serve someone like you. You could rule over them for millennia!”