by Todd McAulty
There was a shout from the front rank. The soldiers tightened up, moving to the center of the tunnel. One of those in the lead was shouting. Those in the back started to jog forward.
Something in the darkness on my right shifted. The Pebble.
It rose up, like a leviathan out of the depthless dark. The soldiers stopped advancing. Those that had lights shone them toward the pit.
It pivoted slowly toward the first soldier in formation. It brought its weapons to bear.
“Jesucristo,” said one on the left.
It’s going to kill all of them.
Van de Velde started shouting, from somewhere in the back rank.
And then some idiot with a rifle opened fire.
Sparks flew around the Pebble’s head. It pivoted again, slightly and effortlessly, focusing on the soldier that had fired.
“Run!” I shouted.
The Pebble’s autocannon fired. The noise was deafening in the tight space of the tunnel. The sound was a physical thing, a wave that pulsed out from the cannon and punched you in the gut.
The soldier disappeared in an explosion of blood.
There was instant chaos. Soldiers were shouting, running. Some opened fire, bringing small arms to bear on the massive thing. Others dropped to the ground. I heard Van de Velde shouting, screaming to be heard above the din.
And then the Pebble fired again. The earth on the left side of the tunnel erupted as the ground was saturated with 50-caliber shells. Someone screamed in pain.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Three soldiers dropped back, falling to one knee and bringing up rifles. They opened fire all together, shooting in coordinated bursts.
The Pebble pivoted again. The first soldier in the row was cut in half in a haze of bullets.
Van de Velde reached the other two kneeling soldiers. She grabbed them mercilessly by their hair, yanked them to their feet.
“¡Corran, tontos!” she said.
The soldiers ran. I saw one drop his rifle in his haste to get away.
The Pebble was firing repeatedly now. Brief bursts, poorly aimed, but still shockingly deadly. It hit a running soldier, and I saw blood fountain from his leg, saw him go down in a tumble in the brick-strewn dirt.
Most of the soldiers holding flashlights were running now too. There was very little light, except the strobing muzzle flashes from the Pebble’s autocannon.
Van de Velde took three quick steps to the left. She was shouting at the others to run. She drew her sidearm and took careful aim at the Pebble’s head.
“Here!” she cried, in English. “Over here, you bastard!” She opened fire.
I pulled on my mask, hastily adjusting it so I could see. To my relief, it cut out some of the deafening noise of the autocannon.
I looked back at the battle. The Pebble had pivoted toward Van de Velde.
“No!” I shouted.
I ran toward them. The targeting sensor on the Pebble’s shoulder twitched, seeking her out in the darkness. Her pistol kept firing, making it easier to pick her out as a target.
I skidded to a stop, directly in the line of fire between Van de Velde and the Pebble.
I raised my hands, expecting at any moment to be gunned down by the robot or shot in the back of the head by Van de Velde. My heart was hammering.
“Stop!” I said.
The Pebble didn’t fire. I heard its optics whir as it tried to focus on me in the darkness.
“Do not fire,” I said. “I am a friend of the colony. My designation is Foxtrot-Eight-Echo . . .” Shit. Shit shit, what was the rest of it? Foxtrot-Eight-Echo-Shit-Shit-SHIT.
The Pebble shifted in the darkness. Its firing arm didn’t move.
I moved my head slightly to the left. Not enough to see Van de Velde, but I knew she was there. “Lower your weapon,” I said.
“Like hell—” she began.
“Lower your goddamn weapon.”
I didn’t dare turn around to see if she complied. I kept my hands firmly in the air and my eyes forward, fixed on the robot.
A voice boomed from the robot, loud and commanding. “REMOVE YOUR MASK.”
I jumped a little. Christ, I didn’t know it could talk.
“REMOVE YOUR MASK FOR POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION,” it said.
Good. Talking was good. As long as I could keep it talking, it wasn’t firing. Removing my mask was suicide—the instant Van de Velde saw my face, I was a dead man—but I could work around that.
“I understand,” I said. “But first—”
I never got to finish my sentence. There was a clatter to the left. The robot pivoted, bringing its autocannon to bear on a fresh target.
On the left, two Venezuelan soldiers were helping the man who’d been shot in the leg to his feet. They froze when the combat robot spun their way, looking at it in horror.
I heard the targeting sensor spin into focus.
I tore off my mask and jumped forward, interposing myself once more between the robot and its target.
“No!” I said. “Don’t fire.”
The robot shifted its gaze to me. It scanned my face for a few seconds. I heard the soldiers behind me moving again, scrambling over bricks and dirt as they retreated with the injured soldier.
Good lads. Get him out of here. Run.
The robot didn’t shoot me. Instead it shifted slightly to the right, trying to get a clear shot at the soldiers.
I moved with it. I raised my arms—not in surrender this time, but trying to block its aim. “Don’t fire,” I said. “They’re not a threat to you.”
“CITIZEN, DISPERSE,” it boomed at me.
“Let them go,” I said. “They can’t hurt you.”
“CITIZEN, DISPERSE,” it said.
“I cannot.”
We faced each other down, a six-ton war machine and me. I moved when it moved. It spun its little focuser at me, then back at the soldiers and back at me. It stared at me in silence for a long moment.
Then it turned around, gracelessly lumbered out of the hole, and trudged north down the tunnel, into blackness.
“Jesus.” My arms sagged at my sides. I watched it go.
I glanced over at Van de Velde.
She was still holding her pistol, but it was at her side, aimed at the floor. A handful of dropped flashlights, aimed helter-skelter around the tunnel, were the only source of light. But it was enough to make out her face.
And judging from the look of shocked anger and recognition there, there was enough light for her to see me as well.
We were the only ones left this deep in the tunnel. I watched her, exhausted and drained. I had nothing to say.
She took three slow steps toward me. She raised the pistol, aimed it right between my eyes.
The gun didn’t waver. It was less than two feet from my head. I waited, watching her. There was a smear of blood across the right side of her head, matting down her short hair.
“I should kill you right now,” she said.
“Go ahead,” I said quietly. “I’m a dead man now anyway.”
We stood that way for maybe twelve seconds. Perhaps it doesn’t sound that long, but believe me when I tell you: Twelve seconds is a long time to have a gun to your head, even when you’re a dead man.
She has nice eyes, I thought. And she’s probably going to kill me.
I stood before her in an American combat suit, the very emblem of the regime she’d fought against. Men—her men—lay dead at her feet because of me. But I didn’t shirk her gaze. I stared into her eyes, unflinching, waiting for the bullet that would kill me.
To my surprise, she lowered the pistol. But she returned my gaze for long seconds. I expected anger and betrayal in her eyes, but that’s not what I saw. Instead, I saw surprising uncertainty.
“Get to your injured soldier,” I said at last. “Tell those two to stop moving him, get a tourniquet on his leg. Before he bleeds to death.”
She turned without responding, making her way south, following her squad.
She offered no explanation for why she hadn’t shot me—or even arrested me. And I decided there was no point in waiting around for one. After she vanished into the darkness, I took a minute to collect one of the fallen flashlights, since mine was starting to look a little weak.
Then I headed north. I had a long, dark walk ahead of me.
XXII
Wednesday, March 17th, 2083
Posted 8:29 am by Barry Simcoe
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Dr. Joy Lark was waiting for me in the tunnels under the hotel. She looked very relieved to see me.
“What happened?” I asked as we made our way into the basement of the hotel. I’d had plenty of time to imagine horrible scenarios, based on the brief fragment Sergei had recorded, as I trudged home underground. I was anxious to learn the truth.
Joy was shaking her head. “It’s bad,” she said. “There was a Venezuelan military patrol near the college. They stopped to investigate the car.”
“Shit.” I’d considered that scenario. None of the ways I’d imagined it playing out ended well. “You got away?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“Most of the team. All but . . . one. We were very lucky.”
“Yeah, I’ll say.” That result was much better than most of my imagined scenarios. “Is Sergei okay?”
Joy looked stricken. She shook her head.
“Tell me what happened,” I said, as evenly as I could.
“We escaped the soldiers inside the college, and Sergei led us back outside. But there were still two soldiers watching the car. Sergei lured them away while the rest of us escaped in the car.”
“Damn it. Did you see what happened to him?”
“No. The last time we saw him, he was running down the street, being chased by soldiers.”
“Were they shooting at him? Did you hear gunshots?”
“No. But we drove away quickly. I’m worried he may have been shot.”
We were in the basement. I stripped out of the suit. Joy had brought me a change of clothes, and she carefully folded up the suit and packed it in a canvas army bag while I got dressed.
“You want this?” she said, holding the bag out to me.
In all likelihood, I’d be in custody in a matter of hours—if not minutes. It’s possible there were soldiers already waiting for me in the lobby. And then Hayduk would have the suit.
“No,” I said. “Get rid of it. Destroy it, if you can.”
She nodded, lifting the bag to her shoulder.
“Sergei’s one of the most resourceful men I’ve ever met,” I said. “If anyone could escape, he could.”
She nodded, but didn’t respond. We made our way to the elevators.
“Was anyone else hurt?” I asked.
Joy shook her head.
“Did you get the centrifuges?”
“Not all of them—but enough, I think. The team is setting them up now. While we were gone, they did a test run on the reactor. Everything is in order. The engineering team thinks we can sterilize the reactor tonight and inject the first seed batch.”
“That’s great news.”
“Yes, but . . . without Sergei . . .”
I knew what she meant. Even with all the equipment finally in place, the whole operation had much less chance of success without its primary architect.
I’d been debating what to do when I got back to the hotel during the long walk. Run or stay?
Van de Velde had likely driven to the hotel during my long walk back. She could have been here for nearly two hours by now. Plenty of time to issue an arrest warrant. If Hayduk had been informed of the whereabouts of the suit, the situation could be substantially worse. The entire hotel could be crawling with Venezuelan Military Intelligence.
If I was honest with myself, my only real chance was to run. Head back into the tunnels, find an unobserved exit, and hope I could make the Canadian border before Hayduk or Perez had my travel documents revoked.
But it seemed like such a slender chance at this point. Drones would spot me the instant I hit the street. Even if by some miracle I reached the border, it was virtually certain the Venezuelans had enough evidence now to have me convicted in absentia. Theft, sabotage, criminal trespass on a secure military installation. And I’d almost certainly be blamed for the deaths of the soldiers killed by the Pebble. Canadians had been extradited to Venezuela for much less.
No, it seemed more honest to just stay put. Face my fate right here, whatever it might be.
And now, with Sergei’s whereabouts unknown, it gave me one more reason to stay. Perhaps I could help find him. If, indeed, I had any time as a free man left to me at all.
“What about the drones?” I asked.
“Drones?”
“Yes. If Sergei ran off last night, outside of the protection of the jammer, before too long he would have been spotted by a Venezuelan surveillance drone. They’d track his movements. All we have to do is have someone on the medical team talk to one of the technicians in the command center. I’m sure they could—”
Joy was shaking her head again. Her hair was short and cut at her neck, and it bounced every time she moved. “Sergei has the device,” she said.
“What?”
“We searched for the device when we reached the hotel. It must have been in Sergei’s pack when he ran off.”
“That means the car could have been tracked.”
“Yes.”
“If the car is traced back to the robbery, everyone in it could be arrested.”
“Yes.”
I realized at last that Joy was very frightened and struggling to hold it together. Like me, she was expecting to get arrested at any moment. And she didn’t even have the comforting illusion of a nearby friendly border she could imagine escaping to.
We passed through the door leading out of the sub-basement and into the hotel. We left this room dark, per Zircon Border’s recommendation, to avoid any visual record of our comings and goings through the tunnel.
“Zircon Border, you awake?” I asked the darkness.
“Good morning, Barry,” came Zircon Border’s friendly voice. “Glad you made it back safely.”
“Me too. Has Sergeant Van de Velde arrived at the hotel yet?”
“Strange you should ask. Sergeant Van de Velde arrived forty-two minutes ago. She returned from an operation with two wounded soldiers and reports of two deaths in her unit. You know anything about that?”
“I do. I’ll explain later, if that’s okay. Are her injured soldiers all right?”
“Unclear. They were taken to the infirmary. At least one looked to be in bad shape. I’m very concerned. I hate to see any of my residents get hurt.”
“What’s going on upstairs? In the lobby?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are there soldiers waiting for me to arrive? Getting ready to arrest me?”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Very possibly. I witnessed the attack on Van de Velde’s men, and I think she may blame me.”
“That’s terrible! I’m not aware of any outstanding instructions to detain you, and there are fewer soldiers than usual in the lobby. But there’s been a great deal of activity upstairs. Soldiers on the third floor are preparing for some kind of operation.”
“How many?”
“All of them. At least three hundred.”
That wasn’t good. I thanked Zircon Border and reached for Joy in the darkness. I led her out of the sub-basement to the elevators.
“Do you trust that machine?” Joy asked me, when we were out of earshot.
“Zircon Border? Of course.”
“He works for the Venezuelan military.”
“He’s a peacekeeping volunteer in the AGRT, same as you. He just got pressed in
to security duty because he knows how to handle heavy combat torsos. Black Winter told me once that Zircon Border was a terrible choice for military detail. I didn’t know what he meant then, but I do now. He’s more loyal to his friends than to his duty.”
When the elevator doors opened I stepped inside, but Joy stood in the hallway, her arms crossed. She stared fearfully at the elevator floor, but didn’t move closer.
I didn’t blame her for being frightened. I held out my hand. “You can’t hide in the basement forever, Joy.”
She nodded, but made no move to take my hand or step in the elevator. “I’ve been too frightened to even work on the reactor,” she admitted.
“Give me the suit. You shouldn’t be caught with it. I’ll take it.”
She surrendered it gladly. But she still didn’t step inside.
“If the drones didn’t pick up the car right away, then perhaps you are safe,” I said.
“Sergei would know what to do,” she said miserably.
“Then let’s go find him,” I said.
She didn’t respond immediately. Her eyes probed mine, checking my sincerity, maybe. My resolve, in the face of all this. I don’t know what she found there, but she nodded. And stepped into the elevator.
I punched the lobby button. We rode up silently. The elevator doors opened a few seconds later.
Here we go, I thought.
We stepped out into the eastern wing of the lobby. We walked to the front desk.
The clock overhead said it was 4:48 a.m. There were a handful of night owls chatting in the chairs by the windows. No one I recognized. Two Venezuelan guards, rifles hanging off their shoulders, were standing by the front entrance. Neither spared us more than a glance.
I turned around slowly. No shouts or gunshots. No one was running forward to place us under arrest.
“Seems pretty normal,” I said.
“Yes,” Joy said. She still sounded nervous. “We should check in on the team.”
“Good idea. When was the last time you saw them?”
“Soldiers came into the reactor room an hour ago, and . . .”
“You left,” I said.
“Yes.” I didn’t think she could sound any more miserable, but she did. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.