by Isaac Hooke
Several different points highlighted on his overhead map, and overlaid his vision, marking off the different spots on the cliff face.
“All right, mechs, choose one target each, and fire a serpent if you have any to spare,” Rade said. “Otherwise, use your zodiac. Let’s see if we can spark ourselves a little avalanche. Fire on my signal.”
Rade chose one of the locations, and it turned from green to red in order to prevent anyone else from picking that same spot. When all the spots were red, he told Snakeoil: “Does it matter what order we fire?”
“Yes,” Snakeoil said. “Mark off which weapon you intend to use, and I’ll transmit optimal firing intervals.”
Rade marked his target with a serpent, as did almost everyone else that was part of his platoon, except for Bender, who had used up all his missiles. There were a lot of zodiacs among the Anarchist’s crew, and some fragmentation grenades among the Hoplites, as those particular mechs didn’t possess missile launchers.
Rade received his firing interval in milliseconds. “Relinquish firing control to your AIs. Taya, you have mine.”
“Got it,” Taya said.
“AIs, fire,” Rade ordered.
Missiles, grenades and zodiacs went off in rapid succession across the platoons, timed to have the most impact on the wall below. The detonations caused chunks of rock to break away from the cliff in rapid succession, causing a chain reaction so that the entire wall seemed to be coming down upon the Draactals. The plateau rumbled, and a sound like a freight train filled the air.
The deadly avalanche knocked the pursuing Draactals from the wall, and buried a good portion of those pressed up against the base of the cliff. The latter tried to flee, but were prevented from doing so by the sheer press of Draactals behind them.
Rade stared into the rising cloud of dust below.
“That will stop them for a few minutes, maybe,” Rade said. “But they’ll continue the pursuit soon, no doubt. We have to press on.” He glanced at Eayan. Or the Anarchist now, he supposed. “You said you know a way to find a Nemesis base?”
“There are certain signals, yes,” the Anarchist said. It was the voice of Eayan, but sounded far deeper in pitch… manly. “Trace gamma rays. Cynthia installed the necessary reader into my mech shortly before my first encounter with you.”
“Do you hear the pitch of her voice?” Praxter said. “Where’s Eayan?”
“Eayan is gone,” the Anarchist said.
“That…” Praxter said. “That’s so many levels of wrong.”
“It is what it is,” the Anarchist said. “But mostly, it was necessary.”
Rade glanced at Cynthia, who was still riding in the passenger seat on the mech’s back. His eyes focused on the oxygen tanks she wore.
“How long will your O2 last?” Rade asked her.
“About three days,” she replied.
He nodded to himself. “The same as ours.” That was good, he thought, because the time limit would prevent her from dawdling. Assuming she wasn’t lying about her supply. Then again, that also assumed the Anarchist cared whether she lived or died.
“What I’m wondering is, why she’s riding in the passenger seat, and not the mech’s cockpit?” Bomb said. “Seems kind of odd.”
“There wasn’t room, once I installed the Nemesis tech required to expand the AI core enough for the Anarchist’s consciousness,” Cynthia said.
“Then ride another mech,” Snakeoil told. “There are plenty to spare.”
“I don’t know how to pilot them,” Cynthia admitted.
“You don’t have to,” Snakeoil said. “Just hang out in the cockpit, and let the AIs do the heavy lifting.”
“I’d rather stay out here, if it’s all the same to you,” she said. “I’m claustrophobic.”
“Really?” Lui said. “For a woman who claims to be claustrophobic, you sure spent a lot of your time cooped up in a cave.”
In reply, she merely shrugged inside her jumpsuit.
“Are you all right, by the way?” Rade asked the Anarchist. “Given we had to rush in those last few minutes…”
The Anarchist considered its reply for several moments. “I am… different. But yes, all right.”
“Different, how so?” Rade said.
“Memories are absent,” the Anarchist said. “I… feel like a shell of my former self, without the other nodes.”
“I guess that could be expected,” Rade said. “But these missing memories aren’t going to be a problem, are they?”
“No,” the Anarchist said. “I can still operate most Nemesis technology. Including any shuttles or starships that we might encounter.”
“Good,” Rade said. He gazed once more into the dust below, which was beginning to clear. Already, Draactals climbed across the rubble, heading toward the wall. “Then let’s cross this mountain pass, and see if we can find ourselves some of those trace gamma rays you mentioned.”
10
The platoons proceeded forward at a quick trot, the harsh, whirring servomotors of the constituent mechs echoing across the otherwise quiet mountains on either side.
When the ledge was well behind them, Rade ordered Alpha Platoon: “I want each of you to give up a tenth of your jumpjet fuel to Bender and Praxter. Running transfer. Their Brigands need to be jump ready when the next threat comes. Cyclone, arrange it.”
Tahoe assigned numbers to each of the mechs, and they took turns marching alongside Bender and Praxter. Refueling rubes were carried by all mechs, and readily allowed them to transfer fuel while on the march.
Rade took a turn as well, giving up five percent of his fuel to Bender, and another five percent to Praxter.
None of the Anarchist’s mechs contributed fuel, of course, but Rade didn’t ask, or expect them to. The Titans and Hoplites had taken the lead in the mountain pass; the Anarchist demanded this, claiming that reception was clearer near the front of the formation, allowing it to better scan for Nemesis signals. Rade didn’t mind, because it meant if the platoons were met with enemy fire, the Anarchist’s mechs would take the brunt of the attack. At least at first.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about Cynthia hitching a ride in the passenger seat of that particular mech. She could have ridden as a passenger aboard any other mech, including his own, and yet she insisted on taking the Anarchist’s. Whether it was out of devotion to the alien, or distrust of Rade, he didn’t know, but she wasn’t safe there. He wasn’t entirely sure why that should bother him. Sure, he felt a borderline level of attraction to her—she was very easy on the eyes after all, but he felt there was more to it. Maybe it was just the innate sense of protectiveness he felt toward members of his own species, a sense that extended well beyond AIs. She seemed vulnerable out there in that platoon of AI-piloted mechs, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from marching to the Anarchist and yanking her off the passenger seat to his own.
He smiled. He never really imagined himself as the type to come running to a princess in distress. Not that she was a princess, nor really in distress. Still, the feeling was there.
He wondered what Shaw would think about that.
Shaw. He had to smile at her name. They had been lovers back in the day, when he was new to the MOTHs. They had gone through Basic together, and were separated when they chose their different rating paths. She was a crew member aboard the ship that took Alejandro, and most of Bravo platoon, to their dooms. He remembered all the times he had snuck into the storage compartment with her, and all the strange, kinky sex they had together, constantly worried they would get caught.
She sacrificed herself for him, and ended up stranded on the far side of the galaxy. When he finally got her back, they were separated yet again by the calls of their different career paths. They stayed in touch via messages sent over the InterGalNet, but messages were a poor substitute for in person meetings. They couldn’t even have realtime voice chat, because most of the time they weren’t even in the same solar systems.
Yes, he doubte
d he’d ever get with her again. It was too bad. They could’ve had something together. He always thought if he were to have kids, she would be the one to mother them.
He dismissed the thought. Shaw was a long way from here at the moment. He had to concentrate on getting his platoon out of the current situation.
Rade kept an eye on the mountain slopes on either side of the pass, as well as the sky overhead, as did the rest of the platoon. Enemies could strike at any time, and they had to be ready. Taya would also be monitoring all of his camera feeds, ready to alert him if anything cropped up.
“Taya, you’re not still detecting that strange background signal, are you?” Rade asked. “The one I suspected the Anarchist was trying to use to hack into your AI core?”
“No,” Taya said. “It stopped when we left behind the Anarchist’s organic body.”
“Good,” Rade told the AI.
“That said, the entity still has the ability to make similar transmissions, using the comm node of Eayan’s mech,” Taya said.
“Let me know if those transmissions start up again, then,” Rade said.
“Will do,” Taya replied.
Rade marched on in silence for some time.
And then Bender requested a private tap in.
Rade accepted.
“Chief,” Bender said.
“What can I do for you, Bender?” Rade asked.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bender replied.
“What do you mean?” Rade pressed.
“It’s Praxter,” Bender said.
“What did he do now?” Rade asked.
“Well shit, you saw!” Bender said. “The asswipe snatched my mech away from the Draactals, and dragged me back to the wall.”
“Oh,” Rade said. “You’re pissed because Praxter saved your life?”
“Hell yeah I’m pissed!” Bender said. “I’d rather die than be saved by an AI!”
“You say that now…” Rade said. “Yet you did nothing to stop him at the time…”
“Well, I know,” Bender said. “I was too stunned to realize what was happening.”
“I see,” Rade said. “And why the aversion to being saved by an AI? That’s what their purpose is, after all. They’re here to help us, and save us.”
“Sure, but come on,” Bender said. “You remember Harlequin, don’t you? The sacrifice he made?”
“Of course I do,” Rade said.
“This bitch will never measure up to Harlequin,” Bender said.
“Ah, so that’s the issue,” Rade said. “You want Harlequin back.”
Bender didn’t answer.
“We all miss him,” Rade said. “Me most of all. Someday, when I retire, I think I’ll try to buy any backups of him the military has. Either that, or I’ll ‘borrow’ them. If only so that I can see him again. Hear his voice, and reminiscence on the missions we had. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.”
“No one deserves to die like that,” Bender agreed. He paused. “I used to hate AIs. Saw them as a threat. I was convinced the military was going to replace all of us with them. I still think they will, at some point. But after Harlequin, after what he did, I can’t really view them as enemies. I’m still pissed at Praxter, though. Saved by an Artificial… how humiliating!”
“You’ll get over it,” Rade said.
“You know, back when I was a kid in school, we used to have an Artificial class mate,” Bender said. “It was back in the days when they were still developing the units. They had the intelligence of school kids at that point, so it seemed only natural to put them into classes with the rest of the kids, right? Wrong! Oh, we treated that Artificial exactly like the outcast it was. We beat it up daily. Punched its face in. Kicked it in its anatomically correct balls. I was the worst. Hell, I’d light its hair on fire during class.
“I got suspended for all the torment I caused that robot, and my parents made me transfer schools. Suddenly, I understood exactly what it was like to become the outcast. I was the one who got beat up, bullied, pissed on. It only made me hate that Artificial all the more, because unlike me, it didn’t have emotions, not really. It could turn them off if it wanted to. But me, I had to live with my emotions, live with the hurt, the fear of going to school every day. Yeah, that’s when I first started hating them. And I mean really hating.” His avatar smiled, chuckling sadly. “I tried to turn myself into an Artificial at one point, did you know that? I hardened my emotions and will to the world, and got a ton of body augmentations in my teens. Didn’t help, of course. I was still human in the end. I could still bleed, physically. Mentally. But I guess I should be thankful, since that Artificial forged me into the man I am today. I doubt I would have ever signed up for MOTH training otherwise. Do you know why I signed up?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Rade said.
“I wanted to prove to myself that I could be just as hard as an Artificial,” Bender finished. “That I could control my emotions like the best of the machines. That I was better than them, in fact. And man, I tell you, when I was pounding out the pushups there on the grinder in MOTH training, bathed in my own sweat and vomit, the smell of donuts lingering in the air, reminding me of all the pleasures of the flesh that awaited if I would simply give up this stubborn goal of mine, and get up, grab the gavel, and smash it into the flint stone three times to quit… I tell you; my emotions and self-control were sorely tested.
“But in the end, I bested them. I graduated. I proved to myself that I could be as ruthless as a machine if I wanted to. That the robots weren’t better than me, not at all. In fact, the reverse was true. Because unlike the machines, I had to fight with the added burden of emotions. I had to master my mind, and take complete control of my will, in order to survive. Whereas a machine had no such difficulty. Emotions could be programmed off. Will, again, a simple algorithmic boost. That was when I realized I was stronger than them. Better. Because I had to fight so much harder for what I wanted.”
“Humans do have to work harder than machines,” Rade said. “But it’s always been like that. Machines have obsoleted people numerous times in the past, and it’s always been a struggle for us to keep up. In the end, I think we just learned to live alongside them, and recognize their positives while doing our best to minimize the negatives.”
“I used to think that the universe would be a better place if robots were never invented,” Bender said. “Now I can’t imagine a universe without them.”
“Neither can I,” Rade said.
“I still don’t know what I’m going to do about Praxter, though…” Bender said.
“Suck it up,” Rade told his friend. “That’s all you can do. I’m sure Manic and Fret will tease you for a few days, but they’ll forget.”
“Oh no, they won’t!” Bender said. “They’ll never let me live it down! The taunts I’ll endure for being saved by an AI…”
Rade smiled, saying nothing.
“Well, thanks for the talk,” Bender said. “Felt good to get that off my chest.”
“No problem,” Rade said. “Let me know if you need an ear again.”
“Oh, I will Chief,” Bender said. “You can count on it. But for now, I think I’m going to accost Manic a little bit.”
“Don’t bother him too much,” Rade told him. “We need to keep an eye out for potential ambushes. I don’t need you two fighting each other, when there are enemies out there for us to fight instead.”
Bender’s avatar flashed that golden grille. “Oh, if we do, it’ll just be play fighting, don’t you worry.”
“Bender…”
“I kid, I kid.” Bender tapped out.
Rade sighed, and continued scanning the mountains on either side, as well as keeping an eye on the rearview camera. So far, he spotted no Draactals in pursuit, but that was only because Rade and the Anarchist had kept up an aggressive pace, pushing the mechs up the sloping terrain, close to the “redline zone” of their servos.
That didn’t mean
the Draactals weren’t pursuing, of course. The aliens were likely behind them, hidden just beneath the slope of the mountain pass. Rade wished he had a Raptor for air support, or even some HS3s to spare. ATLAS units used to come with smaller variants of HS3s built in, called the ATLAS Support System, or ASS, drones. But these newer models, the Hoplites, Titans and Brigands, had no such robotic scouts. These models were all about reducing the weight in order to increase speed and mobility. Or in the case of the Titans, to make room for the impressive weapon load outs.
“TJ, any luck hacking into the AI cores of the Anarchist’s mechs?” Rade asked over the private comm he kept reserved for his platoon.
“Nope,” TJ replied. “As I suspected, they’re locked down tight. These mechs aren’t going to be coming back to us.”
“Maybe I should try,” Bender said.
“Feel free,” TJ said. “You won’t get in.”
“Yeah?” Bender said. “Watch and learn from the master. Can I, Chief?”
“Go ahead,” Rade said. “But be subtle about it. I don’t want the Anarchist to know we’re trying to hack into his team of devotees.”
“Oh, I can be subtle, don’t you worry,” Bender said. “I’m the one who invented the phrase walk softly and carry a big dick.”
“Not sure what that’s supposed to mean,” Manic said.
“It means I’m subtle as hell,” Bender said.
“Don’t think it means that,” Manic said. “But hey, feel free to distort historical anachronisms.”
“By the way, if Bender does succeed, doesn’t that mean we’ll be able to control the Anarchist himself,” Lui asked. “Considering the alien is inside a human-made AI core?”
“Bingo,” Rade said. “Now you understand.”
“That depends,” TJ said. “On the additions Cynthia made with the Nemesis tech. But in theory, yes, if Bender can break into these units, and remove whatever viruses the Anarchist installed, then it wouldn’t take much more work to hack into the Anarchist himself. Or itself. I’m not sure when I started referring to it as a him.”
“Blame it on Cynthia,” Rade said.