7
The levels between 250 and 275 weren’t guarded at all, at least as far as the elevator shaft was concerned. If we went out into the residential areas, I had no doubt we would soon run into Marcenn’s android proxies. Here in the shaft, there didn’t seem to be anything at all. I was even starting to get cocky, thinking we would be able to climb all the way up to Level 300 without any real opposition—and then it happened.
I heard the harsh buzz of an alert, and my system brought up a warning message: riot mines detected. I couldn’t see where they were, but somewhere just above us there were riot control mines, powerful enough to knock a man unconscious. The man who was knocked unconscious on this staircase was liable to take a tumble and just keep on falling, resulting in his eventual death far, far below.
I peered upward into the gloom. “Do you see what I see?”
“A whole bunch of stairs?” asked Gabriel.
“No, not just that.”
“A whole bunch of stairs with riot control grenades attached to them?”
“Yes, that would be it. I can’t tell exactly where they are. Somewhere up above us, not far away.”
“Try to figure out how many mines there are,” he ordered.
I did a count, but the number got so high so quickly that I just gave up. “I’d say a lot.”
“That’s a serious problem. If there were only a few of those mines we could maneuver around them, rappelling if we had to. Or else we could defuse them one by one, although it would cost us time we can’t afford to lose. With that many mines, the trigger radius of any one mine overlaps with those of two or three others.”
My stomach sank. “So, if we try to defuse one…”
“We could set off another if we made the tiniest wrong move. We’d probably be blown off the staircase before we even got the first one done.”
“Isn’t there any way to shut them all off remotely?”
I knew I had heard of such a method before, or maybe even seen it demonstrated. “There’s a way to do it, sending a signal to kill them all at once. But we can’t do that from here, not without a bunch of gear we don’t have with us.”
“Would our armor be enough to protect us?” I asked.
“From one mine? Probably. Even two or three. This armor is strong enough to protect us from the blast, even with something a fair bit more powerful. But with all those mines right next to each other? The most likely result of one going off would be a chain reaction, triggering several of the other mines. The stairs would collapse, just like blowing a bridge to keep enemy troops from passing.”
“And then down we go.”
“Exactly. He played this hand very well. Any organized attempt to regain control of the upper levels would run right into those mines and be stopped dead in its tracks. There’s nothing we can do here.”
I brought up my schematics and studied them closely for a few seconds. “Maybe not quite nothing. There’s a maintenance stairwell at the southeast corner of the Tower. It’ll be narrow and steep, but it will give us access. If we leave here and make our way across Level 275, we can get to that stairwell and keep going up.”
“How do we know he hasn’t mined that one too?” Gabe pointed out.
“We don’t know that at all, but what’s the loss? Anyway, it’s less likely. These mines are designed to prevent a frontal assault, so he’s probably not expecting anyone to come up through a tiny service stairwell. On top of that, the stairwell is so narrow he can’t overlap his mines there. If we do find one, we can disarm it.”
“I guess you’re right. It’ s worth a try. That level is going to be crawling with androids though.”
“Not a problem. I can kill androids all day long; it’s killing people I prefer to avoid.”
“Okay, let’s do it. Remember that we’ll probably be coming out into an open space.”
What he meant was take cover, which was also just a way of saying be careful, buddy. It didn’t need to be said, which makes me think he was already feeling nervous. With 25 levels still to go, the last thing we needed was to be hunted by androids. The last thing we needed was to be here at all, but if there’s one thing I’d learned over the years it’s that things can always find a way to get worse.
When we forced the doors, I immediately spotted a data access point and ran over to crouch behind it. Gabe found cover nearby, and we scanned the area for any trouble.
Things were different here, that much was clear. I didn’t see any heat signatures anywhere nearby, and there was no hint of movement on the nearby streets. According to my scanners, there were still a few live people somewhere on the level, but for all I knew they were all in the Nightwatch. The area immediately around us was completely deserted, at least as far as human beings were concerned.
Still, something was moving. It’s an eerie feeling, to see little glowing dots that indicate movement and know that they aren’t human beings but android sentry patrols. They would spot our heat signatures, zero in on us, and hunt us down.
“Should we be going dark?” I asked.
“Go dark now,” said Gabriel. “And head straight for the rooftops, we’ll try to go as the crow flies.”
I picked a building nearby, and Gabriel took the coilgun from off his shoulder to cover me as I crossed the plaza in front of the elevator doors. With my sensors off, I was spared the sight of all those glowing dots converging on my position. Though that was a relief, I could imagine the reality of it with some clarity. I moved quickly and made for the shelter of the nearest building, then turned and crouched, covering Gabe with my weapon so he could cross.
He made it just in time, joining me in the doorway just as three androids came into the plaza from different directions and began to methodically conduct a grid search. With their swiveling heads and lifeless eyes, they scanned the area for their human prey. They didn’t move particularly fast, but it wouldn’t take them long to analyze our likely route and get the other androids after us too.
Gabriel gave me the signal to get moving and I pushed on the door, relieved to find that it had been left unlocked. We went inside and found the room completely empty. It was some kind of lobby, with a marble floor and a central fountain. The water wasn’t flowing, but my night vision picked up the coins the visitors to this lobby had thrown in their wishing well.
We ran past to the marble staircase and made the second story just as an android sentry pushed on the door and entered. Gabriel turned and fired, and a hole appeared in the android’s head. It staggered back and fell down, and we ran up the stairs as fast as we could.
The building was home to several different types of businesses, including two banks, a shoe store, and a doctor’s office. On the fourth floor, there was a large conference room with a sign draped over it. Today Only: Mary Fujiwara. That’s where we found them—the first of the dead from Level 275. A tangled heap of lifeless bodies was sprawled out with arms and legs intertwined. From what I could see, the people in this building had been forced up to the fourth-floor conference room, lined up against a wall, and then machine-gunned from behind. The work of August Marcenn’s android death squads.
We couldn’t stop. We had to get to the roof, so we spared the dead only the briefest glance and then kept on moving. Just past the conference room, there was a long corridor with a door at the end of it. As we reached the corridor, I heard the metallic feet of our pursuers behind us. I started to turn, but Gabe grabbed my arm and shook his head. The important thing was to keep moving, not to destroy every android we could.
When we came out onto the roof we were slightly ahead, but from that point onward our advantage increased. We ran from one end of the roof to the other and then jumped across the gap, crossing to the nearest building before our pursuers even reached the rooftops. Gabriel turned and waited from cover until the door opened, then took both of the androids behind us with two quick shots from the coilgun.
The first one took two lurching steps and then tumbled off the roof, crashing down on
to the street below. The second one started shooting wildly and then spun in a circle, its synthetic brain destroyed by a bullet. It fell to its knees, then stopped moving at all. Gabriel watched it closely to make sure it was dead then slung the coilgun over his shoulder. We began our run, moving rapidly and in near silence from one rooftop to another. Although the android proxies knew our initial position, they had no way to track us with our scramblers running. All they could possibly do was to calculate our likely position from our last known location and then converge on that area. We made sure we were no longer in that area as quickly as we could and did everything possible to avoid being seen.
For a time, it worked. Android proxies are smart, but they’re not as smart as a human being with tactical training. They’re effective in movement, but they’re not as adroit as a trained Arbiter. We crouched in hiding when there was movement below us, then crossed as soon as the streets were clear. When we reached a barrier such as a wide street, we descended long enough to move through the skyways. Then we slipped back up onto the rooftops and kept moving.
I really thought we were going to make it, although whether that was ever anything more than hubris I really don’t know. Maybe hubris isn’t the right word exactly. Maybe it’s more like trust—the trust you feel in your own abilities and in the abilities of your partner. Whatever the reason, I actually thought we could evade the androids, slip past any Nightwatch patrol squads, and make it all the way to the maintenance stairway.
When the proxies spotted us, the first indication that something was wrong was the rattle of heavy machine gun fire. We hit the deck when we heard it, and the bullets went flying off above our heads. It’s pretty hard not to duck when someone is shooting at you, especially when they’re using a machine gun. Unfortunately for us, the real goal was probably not to hit us. They just wanted us down, pinned in place on the top of a roof.
It’s a bit like chess, where you use one of your own pieces to keep an opponent’s piece from moving—a knight that threatens the opponent’s bishop, until you get the chance to move your queen into place.
The proxy that spotted us opened fire, even though it knew it didn’t have a clear shot. It used the attack to keep us from moving, then sent out the call for reinforcements. I figured out what was going on almost as soon as the shots had started, but by that time I was already down. Unable to move without being hit, there was nothing I could do about the approaching danger. There was nothing Gabe could do either. We were out of grenades; we had no way to force a path.
I stuck my head out now and then, trying to get the android with the machine gun with a well-timed shot. Whenever it paused for a moment I popped back up, took my chance, then ducked back under cover. None of these pauses ever lasted long enough for me to properly aim, and I was always forced to duck back down. And then the rattle would start up again. My armor would stop a bullet from such a powerful gun, but it wouldn’t stop a stream of bullets.
“This is no good,” said Gabriel over my dataspike. “We have to get out of here. They probably already have proxies in the building.”
“I’m really hoping you have a brilliant plan, because I’m starting to think we’re really fucked here. When they get to the rooftop, we’ll be overrun.”
“We need to get inside. If we can do that, we’ll at least have a fighting chance. Listen, Tycho, I’m going to cover you. I may take a few hits, but I’ll just count on my armor.”
“This is a heavy machine gun, Gabriel, it’s not a sidearm. If you try to do this, you’ll take a hit. And we don’t have Ophelia Emmett to patch you up this time.”
“Look, I’ll be careful, okay? This is what we need to do, and there’s no point in arguing it.”
I didn’t want to hear him. “There’s got to be a better plan than this one. Just take another minute, give it a little thought.”
“Barrett, this is an order. I’ll provide covering fire while you head into the building. Understood?”
I swallowed my resistance. “Understood. I’ll head straight for the stairwell as soon as you start shooting.”
Gabriel Anderson stood up, dropping the coilgun on the roof and raising his service weapon. He opened fire, and the clatter of the machine gun bullets came to a sudden stop. I ran for the doorway, and it started to open in front of me.
It was another proxy, taking advantage of the fact that we’d been pinned down. Its monocular face poked through the door, so I leveled my weapon at it and pulled the trigger. Its head was shredded by my fire, but that’s when the android on the street below us finally showed its hand. Behind my back, I heard the roar of the rockets as they streaked toward Gabriel.
What was that I said about human tactical experts? The proxies had tricked us, using the heavy machine gun fire to make us think that our only option was for one of us to draw fire. The proxy on the street below us was not a standard model, but a specialized heavy-weapons unit. Those units are armored, too powerful for our weapons to penetrate. I spun around when I heard the rockets, but I was already too late. When the barrage hit Gabriel, he was already turning to flee.
He was too late, too.
A trio of explosions shook his suit, and he stumbled from the multiple impacts. I ran back to help him, but it was like one of those dreams where you just can’t move fast enough. He flailed his arms as he lost his balance, then fell off the edge of the roof and disappeared.
I ran for the edge as well, not even thinking about the danger. Gabriel wasn’t just my mentor; he was also my friend. I don’t even know what I thought I could do, but I just wanted to stop him, to catch him… though he had already fallen.
When I reached the edge, I should have expected to get a face full of machine gun fire or a barrage of rockets. But that didn’t happen. The android below us was too distracted. Gabriel had fallen directly in front of it, and it was watching him with what looked like a malign curiosity. I know they don’t really think, not like a human, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at it.
From the way it cocked its head, staring down at Gabe’s motionless body, you would have thought it was gloating. Gabe wasn’t moving, and I can only hope he was already dead. But I’d never know. As I looked on in horror, the heavy-weapons android pulled off Gabriel’s helmet to expose his head, then punched his face.
The metal fist went through his jaw, and Gabriel’s whole head became a mess of bone and blood. I should have turned away, but I somehow couldn’t. The android pulled back, then punched again. I started shooting, and probably yelling something. It didn’t do any good. The android’s armor protected it completely, just like our armor had protected us in our firefight with the Nightwatch.
Gabe was dead, but I just kept trying to rescue him. I held the trigger down, venting my rage and horror. The heavy weapons android finally noticed, and its head swiveled to look up at the rooftop. Once again, it gave the impression of a curious animal. Just at that moment, I heard the footsteps of proxies. Two more heavy weapons androids exactly like the first were approaching the building, and all three of them were completely impervious to any weapon I could muster.
My head suddenly cleared, and I understood that I was about to die if I didn’t get out of the way. I threw myself flat as they opened fire, and the rockets exploded above my head. My friend was gone, and if I wanted to live, I had no choice. I had to escape.
Like a beaten dog, I crawled away on my belly. The door into the building was so close I could almost have jumped for it, but the crawl seemed to take a thousand years. When I got there at last, I pulled myself in and curled up on the floor, shaking so hard I almost vomited. Gabriel was dead. That was a fact, but it didn’t feel like it. He’d been killed right in front of me, but my brain somehow refused to accept it. I couldn’t move for a minute, because part of me was waiting for Gabe to come back in the door so we could make our escape plan.
And in a way, he did. Lying there on the floor, trying to get my head together, it was like I saw him. I knew what he’d do if he saw me the
re. I knew what he’d say. And it was almost real, like he was right there standing over me. “You need to get moving, Barrett. You need to move right now.”
I don’t know if I could have moved on my own, but when I heard his voice, something moved my body for me. I got my feet underneath me and I got back up, just in time to hear the approaching footsteps. Not heavy-weapons androids like the ones outside, but the standard Nightwatch android proxies. They were closing in, knowing that I couldn’t retreat to the rooftop. If I intended to survive, I needed to do something. I didn’t intend to be caught napping, I intended to take every advantage I could possibly find. Fighting from ambush is always better, so I looked around for a good ambush spot.
As the sound of android footsteps came closer, I ran down the stairs to the hall and tried the first door I came to. That one was locked, as was the one after it. The third door was not, and I ducked in through it just in time. The heavy footsteps passed, heading by on their way to the roof. When I was sure they’d gone by, I threw the door open and held the trigger down.
Android proxies were dangerous, but they weren’t designed to be impregnable. Their main purpose is security in areas where you can’t have people patrolling at all times. In a normal living Tower, they would probably have been used to patrol the life support systems and industrial machinery on the lower levels or rented out as after-hours security for corporate clients. They weren’t normally used as a mercenary army.
To prevent any inconvenient displays of nationalism, Nightwatch officers are armed with weapons and armor far inferior to those used by the Arbiters. The same is true of the android proxies, making them much more deadly to minor criminals and troublemakers than they would ever be to an armored Arbiter.
Take this one, for example. When I threw the door open, it heard the noise and turned to deal with me. With its plastic and metal body, it looked like an evil mannequin. Frightening, right? But my shots ripped through it, and its sudden movement stopped just as suddenly. All its lights went out. The thing was dead, no longer a threat to me. That android could have killed me, but only by hitting a vulnerable spot. Under normal circumstances, I could absorb a hail of gunfire from these things and still win the battle, because the armor and weapons I use are so much better than theirs. Even without Gabe, I could handle a single android. I could handle several, as long as none of them got a lucky shot or overwhelmed me hand to hand. But those androids outside—they were another matter.
Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 8