Quantum Predation (Argonauts Book 4)

by Isaac Hooke

  The robots retreated into the pedway, and Rade quickly led the whole team away.

  “Do you think the aliens saw the Centurions?” Tahoe said.

  “We’ll know shortly,” Rade said.

  Nothing teleported in front of them, so Rade assumed the creatures had not.

  “According to this map,” Rade said as he ran. “If we take a right at the intersection behind us, the pedway leads to a financial services building.”

  “Hmm,” TJ said. “I’m guessing a financial building will have full-blown auto-seals, complete with air locks.”

  “And probably blast shields to prevent against terrorist attacks,” Lui said. “Might be tricky getting past the airlocks.”

  “TJ, we’re going to need you to be at your hacking best,” Rade said.

  The group approached the intersection that led to the financial building.

  Rade had the Centurions clear both sides, then the rest of the team hurried into the rightmost passage.

  Before he took the turn, Rade spotted motion coming from the direction of the hospital: moving shadows danced along the wall, cast by the overhead lights around the bend.

  The aliens were approaching from that side as well.

  “Double time, people,” Rade said.

  The group proceeded deeper into the concrete corridor, climbing steps to a vaulted entrance. An airlock had sealed over it.

  “TJ...” Rade said.

  “Almost got it,” TJ said.

  “Defensive formation,” Rade said, and the group formed up in a half circle around TJ, Batindo, and the other two Kenyans.

  Rade saw the dim shadows of the aliens growing on both walls of the corridor behind them as the spiders approached from both sides of the intersection.

  “If they spot us, and realize we’re entering this building...” Tahoe said.

  “Got it,” TJ said. The airlock opened silently. It was expansive enough to fit the entire squad.

  “Go go go!” Rade said.

  The Argonauts rushed inside.

  “Seal it!” Rade ordered.

  The hatch began to shut. Before it sealed completely, Rade caught a glimpse of an alien forelimb coming into view at the end of the corridor. But before he saw any more the door shut.

  White mist vented inside. The atmosphere was pressurizing.

  The inner hatch opened a moment later, revealing a carpeted basement foyer. It was a rather small area, with two elevators beside an escalator.

  “Let’s take the escalator,” Rade said. He didn’t want to risk the power going out while they were in the elevator. “Units A, B, clear it.”

  As soon as the lead robot set foot on the escalator, the belt-driven staircase activated and began carrying the Centurion upward.

  Rade waited for the robot to reach the top. He switched to its viewpoint.

  He saw what looked like a bank, with ATM kiosks near what must have once been the front door—an airlock hatch had sealed over it. Those kiosks didn’t dispense actual physical currency, of course, and existed mostly to provide safety deposit box services to clientele. Robot tellers were situated behind glass walls nearby, ready to offer assistance to any customers.

  “AIs,” Bender said, sounding disgusted.

  Beside the bank was a concourse leading to the rest of the building. Metal blast shields had lowered over the windows, so that no external light reached the area: HLEDs provided the illumination.

  “Seems clear, at first glance,” Unit A said.

  “Check behind the teller areas,” Rade said. “Don’t break the glass, just peer past them... ask the tellers if they’ve seen anything.”

  Unit A leaped onto the counter in front of one of the tellers, and aimed his rifle down.

  The teller lifted its metal arms as if surrendering. “There is no gold in the vault.”

  “We’re not here for gold,” Unit A said. “You must have accessed the external cameras by now. You know an alien invasion is in progress.”

  “Yes,” the faceless teller replied.

  “Have any of the aliens come inside?” Unit A asked.

  “There was a breach on the fourth floor,” the teller answered. “The security forces were dispatched. So far, they haven’t found anything.”

  “And with our appearance, you’ve recalled those security forces, haven’t you?” Unit A said.

  “Yes,” the teller said.

  Units A and B continued along the counter, aiming their guns down into the area beyond where the tellers resided behind the glass. They swept their scopes over the back offices, but spotted no one else. Any human employees would have been evacuated a day ago, during the hospital siege, since according to the map the building was located just across the street from the hospital.

  “Seems clear,” Unit A said. “Though I’m sure you heard, the tellers have recalled the security forces. We can expect resistance at some point.”

  “Up.” Rade told his men, and took the escalator. “If we encounter aliens, we have to take them down fast, before they can alert the horde. We have to assume they have squad-based communications similar to our own, especially considering the heat they’re packing.”

  When he reached the bank, Rade turned toward the concourse that led deeper into the building.

  “Units C and D, clear the concourse,” Rade said.

  The requested units moved forward. Rade spotted elevators on the far side of the area, next to a cafe whose security door was closed and locked. There was an open staircase that led to the second floor; beyond the railing of the upper walkway, he saw a couple of other shops and offices whose security doors were sealed.

  The robots returned a moment later. “Clear.”

  “That looks like a stairwell door,” Shaw said. “Up there, past the second floor walkway.” A highlight appeared on Rade’s vision, indicating the area. “Assuming you want to take the stairs...”

  “I do,” Rade said. “Centurions, clear the second floor walkway.”

  When the robots did so, the Argonauts climbed the open staircase and joined them.

  A series of huge flower pots lined the glass railing. Round sections protruded outward from the main walkway over the concourse, imparting a balcony effect. Thick, decorative pillars climbed from floor to ceiling in those sections.

  “Damn, it’s eerie in here with those blast shields sealing the windows,” Manic said. “And those security grilles over all the offices and shops. I feel like a mall rat sneaking around the mall after closing hours or something.”

  “Reminds you of your delinquent youth, does it?” Bender said.

  As the team approached the stairwell Shaw had indicated, the door abruptly burst open. Two enforcer robots emerged, one moving high, the other low. Their rifles were raised.

  “Down!” Rade said.

  thirteen

  The team ducked behind whatever cover they could find, including the series of huge flower pots that lined the walkway, and the pillars.

  Bore holes appeared in the flower pot Rade had chosen to hide behind as plasma beams from the enforcers tore past.

  “Mine!” Bender said.

  Rade aimed over the edge of the flower pot; he noticed Fret nearby, hiding inside an alcove where a security door covered a restaurant.

  Fret fired twice and the two enforcers dropped.

  “Bitch!” Bender said. “I said they were mine!”

  Bender emerged at a run from behind a nearby pillar and leaped onto Fret; Bender began gyrating his midsection rapidly, dry humping Fret from behind.

  Fret shook him away. “Off damn it!”

  “Don’t take my shot next time!” Bender said.

  “Calm down!” Rade kept his scope aimed at the stairwell in case more robots emerged. “You know it doesn’t work that way, Bender. You can’t call dibs on a target. If someone has a shot they have to take it, or risk allowing the tango to escape.”

  Bender sighed. “Yeah I know. Sorry boss. Just wanted to give him a hard time. Make him my bitch,
you know?”

  “You’ll get your chance,” Rade said.

  “What, to make him my bitch?” Bender asked hopefully.

  “No,” Rade said. “To take down some bugs.”

  “Tell you what, I’m going to make him my bitch and squash some bugs, too,” Bender said. “Damn, those aliens make me hyper. I need to kill or hump something. Surus, want to hang out in an empty office for a bit?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Seems our criminal status is still set by the governor,” Lui said.

  “Great,” Fret said. “We have all the city’s security personnel after us, and aliens.”

  “I think these enforcers just thought we were bank robbers,” TJ said.

  Tahoe approached the fallen robots, keeping his rifle pointed at the stairwell door. He kicked one of the lifeless bodies. “These definitely look like the security personnel our teller friend summoned. They’re not city.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Fret said. “I have no doubt that any future Kitale robots we encounter will have orders to kill us on sight. They hold us in the same high regard as the aliens.”

  “I’ll have to agree with that assessment,” Rade said.

  “At least the bitches recognize how deadly we are,” Bender said.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Fret said. “A whole city trying to kill us, aliens and all.”

  Bender grinned, baring that golden grille. “You know me too well.”

  “Units A and B, clear the stairwell,” Rade said.

  The Units rushed past Fret and Tahoe and kicked open the door. They dashed inside: Unit A went high, B low. Several seconds later Unit A returned: “Clear up to the third floor!”

  “Inside!” Rade said. “Units A and B, secure the stairwell to the fourth floor.”

  Rade and the others entered.

  “TJ, see if you can lock the door behind us,” Rade sent.

  TJ paused beside the door. “Got it. Locked.”

  “How quick will you be able to unlock it again?” Rade asked. “In case we have to make a hasty retreat?”

  “I already escalated my privileges,” TJ said. “Won’t need to run the rootkit again. The same is true for all the stairwell doors. They’re running the same subsystem.”

  “Clear to the fourth floor,” Unit A sent.

  “Good,” Rade said. “Continue to the fifth floor, Units. Meanwhile, Argonauts, to the third floor.”

  The Argonauts halted at the third floor. Batindo tripped along the way, and Rade helped him up, worried that the man had taken a hit at some point but had remained quiet. Rade checked his vitals: they were green.

  “You all right?” Rade asked the client.

  “Fine,” Batindo said. “Just a little winded. It’s been a long road from the wild savannas where I was born to this fallen colony.”

  “It’s been a long road for all of us,” Rade said. He glanced at TJ. “Lock the third floor door.”

  “Done,” TJ said.

  They proceeded to the fourth floor, and Rade also had TJ lock the door there.

  “The teller said there was a breach on this floor...” Shaw sent.

  “Yes,” Rade said. “Which is exactly why I want to lock this door especially. If there’s a breach, we’re staying far away from the fourth floor, and any potential aliens that might be inside. We continue climbing until we find a clear floor, and then hole up until nightfall.”

  At the door to the seventh floor, Rade decided the group had traveled far enough. He sent the robots in to sweep the level.

  Switching to Unit A’s viewpoint, Rade saw the robots enter a small hallway. Elevators resided next to the stairwell. An unlocked door led to a washroom. Empty.

  The robots reached a locked door at the end of the hall.

  “Clear,” Unit A sent.

  “Inside!” Rade ordered.

  The Argonauts gathered in the hallway, and TJ locked the stairwell.

  The group assumed defensive positions in front of the locked door while TJ got to work. In moments he had it open.

  Unit A peered inside. “It’s an airlock.” The robot opened the door all the way, revealing an alcove with an inner hatch a meter inside.

  “Told you,” TJ said. “This is a financial services building. They’re going to go all-out with the safety features... airlocks every floor.”

  “Units A, B, go,” Rade said.

  The two units entered. Rade switched to Unit A’s viewpoint, as usual. The outer hatch resealed, the airlock pressurized, and the inner hatch opened. The robots stepped inside.

  “Looks like the aliens were here,” Unit A said.

  Cubicle walls were torn down and desks upturned.

  “This is how I imagine Bender’s house must look,” Unit B said.

  “What!” Bender said. “Goddamn AIs.”

  “Focus, Unit B,” Rade said. “The aliens could still be present.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Unit B said. “I thought the joke would calm your nerves.”

  “Noted,” Rade said. He realized he would have cut one of his own Argonauts more slack than the robots. Still, he thought of how much it had cost to buy those robots, which made him expect absolute professionalism from them.

  “If the aliens did this, how did they get in?” Manic said. “All the blast shields are lowered, blocking the windows.”

  Unit A ran its gaze along the metal blast shields that covered the floor-to-ceiling windows. The robot focused on one particular shield that had been torn inward. It looked like it had been partially shot, and the spiders had forced their way inside the rest of the way.

  “Apparently blast shields can’t hold them out,” Fret said.

  “Not surprising, considering the weaponry they’re equipped with,” Shaw said. “And that these are merely standard-grade blast shields. Though what I’m wondering is: why would they need to bore through if they could simply teleport inside?”

  “Could be what Harlequin mentioned: not all of the aliens have the quantum devices,” Tahoe said. “That, or their destinations need to be in sight for them to teleport.”

  “Why would the destinations need to be visible?” Shaw asked.

  “Just conjecture,” Tahoe said. “But it could be they need to calculate the destination coordinates... I’m guessing the devices work similar to the Acceptor teleporters the Phants use, which means there can’t be anything obscuring the target coordinates or the devices won’t work. And if they can’t actually see those target coordinates, they’d have a hard time finding a spot in empty space, you know what I mean?”

  “Assuming they can actually ‘see’ in the traditional sense of the word,” Lui said.

  “All right, looks like we’re not going to hide out on this floor after all,” Rade said. “I do want to take a look out that breached window, however, so you’re going to have to sweep the office area, Centurions. But before you do, Unit A, please have a look at the rear of the inner hatch. Can you see signs of an attempt to force the exit?”

  Unit A turned around. “I’ll have to seal the hatch before I can tell you that.”

  “Do it,” Rade said.

  The robot closed the inner hatch. The video feed momentarily pixelated, but then returned. The hatch was closed. It appeared to be in perfect condition, without a single dent on it.

  “I believe the aliens didn’t realize there was an exit here,” Unit A said. “Either that, or something distracted them and caused them to flee in a hurry.”

  “Probably when they discovered us in the hospital earlier...” Manic said.

  “Okay,” Rade said. “Reopen the inner hatch, in case you need to get out of there in a hurry. And then proceed to clear the office area. Give the breach a wide berth until you finish. And then if it seems safe, approach the breach and get a look at the city outside.”

  “Roger that,” Unit A said.

  The two split up and explored the different offices and cubicles. They discovered no one, not man, robot, or alien. Then they slo
wly approached the breach on the far side of the room. Bright light from the glow bars embedded in the geodesic dome poured in from outside, evoking a deceptively cheery atmosphere.

  Unit A signaled Unit B to stay back, and approached by itself. The robot kept its rifle held at the ready and aimed through the breach.

  The city slowly came into view. Beyond the punctured dome, the massive alien ship dominated, a black diamond of doom that ate up most of the sky, towering to the heavens. It had finally come to a halt, having assumed a position next to the current geodesic dome, where the legislature resided.

  Below, the streets teemed with aliens. Gone were the brightly-dressed Kenyans and buzzing drones, replaced by black spiders roaming in interminable silence. He occasional saw a flash of blue as aliens teleported through the horde, usually to avoid traffic snafus formed by the press of bodies.

  Rade saw fallen combat robots and Perdix drones in their midst, along with dismembered human bodies. There was never any blood visible upon the human corpses—it had all evaporated away. The spiders trampled the robot wreckages underfoot, but avoided the fallen humans if at all possible: it was obvious they considered the bodies disgusting.

  He spotted one alien dead among the fallen, lying on its back, legs folded over its thorax in a death pose. Two spiders dragged the crimped body away, heading toward the massive mothership.

  Rade picked out a couple of spiders clambering across the exterior of a nearby building, which told Rade there were probably still more of them exploring the surface of the current office tower as well.

  While most of the buildings only had a few aliens clinging to their glass and steel walls, one particular apartment complex a few streets down literally swarmed with the aliens. Some of them occasionally broke through the windows to draw out humans and split them in half. Many were extremely young, no more than five to ten years old. Mercifully, most of those the spiders grabbed were dead already, as the victims lacked jumpsuits.

  Rade dreaded what would happen if the aliens realized more fresh meat was lying in wait inside the financial building.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Bender,” Manic commented.

  In response, Bender’s heavy breathing merely echoed over the comm.

  “I thought you’d be excited,” Manic continued. “I’m disappointed in you, Bender. You’ve changed.”