Ravagers [05.00] Eradicate

by Alex Albrinck

  A good question for a future discussion. But for now, they needed instruction. “That whole process of putting the little robots in, especially when you can’t see them? That was… bizarre. And I’ve figured out the comms part, but I have no idea how to use the rest of them.”

  “The damage I took on physically during my last visit has caused me some issues with that part as well,” Sheila replied. “I remember the process, though; we can learn again together.”

  “How do you even start?” Mary asked.

  “You basically need to think of something that would require that connection. We activate the comms nanos by thinking something like ‘send the message Hi John to John’, right?”

  “Right.”

  “The other machines inside control a swarm outside. That swarm is very dispersed, and follows you around while taking up as much volume as possible to reduce the chances of clumping up and becoming visible and tangible.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “So to use them, you must understand what they can do, and use thoughts to direct them. They have audio and video sensors. They can form shapes. They can change color, even being invisible.”

  “So if I was to see around a corner, I can think that I’d like to see around the corner, and they’d… send images to my brain?”

  “Exactly,” Sheila replied. “Try it now. Ask them to send an image.”

  John blinked, then rubbed his head. “It’s… overloading my brain.”

  Mary closed her eyes, muttering. “Make it stop. Make it stop.” She held her hands to her temples, massaging them.

  Sheila thought for a moment. “That was too general; all of them are transmitting at the same time from wherever they might be and in whatever direction they might be facing. Give them something more specific. John, tell them to send an image of our current altitude from the ship’s instruments. Mary, yours can transmit an update of the countdown timer for our arrival at the space station.”

  A moment later, both were nodding. “That’s… amazing.” John said. His mind looked to be processing the implications of this new tool, and he was experiencing a different type of mental overwhelm.

  “You said that they can also form shapes and change colors?” Mary asked.

  “Yes, and that’s something we need to work on now.” Sheila paused. “The dispersed cloud only works because the swarms can remain invisible and float, defying gravity. I don’t claim to know how they do that, but they do, and the implications are impressive. I was able to move around the space station undetected because I had that swarm surround every inch of my body, turn invisible, and float around above everyone’s heads.”

  “Wait… you can fly with these things?” John asked.

  “It’s awkward at first, but yes. I struggled, but with a lot of necessary practice, I became good at it. It’s important to note that you are invisible, but you still have mass. You can generate a breeze floating by people. You can run into them and knock them over. If you perspire, your sweat will fall on them.”

  “Understood,” John said.

  “Let me try it,” Mary said.

  She focused for a moment, and then… she vanished.

  “Hey, it worked!” John exclaimed. “Mary, where are—?”

  He fell down. Mary reappeared. “Sorry!” She reached down to help John up and glanced at Sheila. “I see what you mean about practice.”

  “Let’s separate the invisibility part for now from the flying practice part. John, you should practice invisibility for a bit. Then we’ll take turns practicing flying to avoid collisions as best we can.”

  “I can see how you were able to cause so much chaos up there, then,” John said conversationally.

  Sheila nodded. “Micah has some sort of code virus for them that’s going to eliminate the invisibility feature after the final battle. He had to activate it again temporarily for now, saying it’s a necessary evil in time of war.”

  “Understandable,” John murmured as he vanished. His disembodied voice kept talking. “The chances for mischief even in times without war would be far too tempting for most to avoid.” He blinked back to visibility.

  With little else to do, they spent time practicing, fine tuning, testing. Sheila’s damaged mind continually remembered small tips allowing for greater control, and by the time the computer provided its next update, they had all become quite proficient, remarking that they now wondered how they’d ever managed without the invisible swarms at their command.

  The also forced the habit of communicating only through the devices; they couldn’t risk talking aloud at any point aboard the space station, not until they had some level of certainty that they couldn’t be heard. They used their silent-to-ears conversation to commence some level of initial planning, and arrived at their plan of action once they’d entered the space station.

  Mary would return first to the brig. She suspected that the Elites would focus on rebuilding the walls and returning any surviving escapees they rounded up. She wanted to check in on her old friends and get them prepared for another larger, bigger battle. When the timing was right, she’d free them as Sheila had done before.

  John’s skillset with computers and networks would send him in search of a little-used space with a computer terminal, allowing him to covertly monitor the station’s security and communication systems. His initial task: dismantling any systems that would impede the entry of the next wave of arrivals, allowing them the easiest possible access to the eventual rendezvous point. He also hoped to gain entry to the communication systems, especially the private network used by the Thirty, and to use that to feed false information out to thwart any counter-attacks the pro-Phoenix forces might plan. “Maybe I can set up an all-hands meeting of the Thirty who are aboard and we can annihilate the lot of them all at once,” he murmured.

  Sheila would return to Delilah Silver’s quarters. She realized that one of the machines in the hidden command center would control the East’s growing swarm of Ravagers. If she could seize control of that machine, she could halt any ongoing devastation and, as Micah had done in the West, position the machines in a manner that would be beneficial to the anti-Phoenix efforts.

  The ship announced that it had located an entry point for them. It was a small, private spaceport set away from the primary public venue, one they theorized may have been used in the early days of the station’s operation to ferry in tools and supplies. Analysis suggested that while it was certainly operational, it hadn’t been used in an inordinate amount of time. After discussion, they decided that the ship should remain near the private dock after they’d disembarked, ready to whisk them away from trouble. All three—or at least, all who remained alive—would have to give consent to leave the area entirely. But any of them could use it as a temporary fallback position.

  Two hours later, the sphere docked at the private point.

  It was time to get to work.

  Chapter 18

  The Space Station

  Inside her invisible cocoon, Mary tried to keep her focus on her first flight outside the safety of the sphere, avoiding collisions with walls while failing to avoid colliding with old memories.

  Her time here, under less than honest circumstances, had been for the most part positive. She’d learned of the alternative explanation for the eradication of the bulk of humanity believed by the majority working here, a cleverly crafted message that plucked at the heartstrings of good people trying to do the right thing. The work itself was, of course, fascinating. And her children had gotten a chance to do normal things, attending lessons and learning about the history of humanity… or, at the very least, the highly edited version taught. She was grateful that they’d never met their father, and could say with complete honesty that they didn’t know him or what had become of him, eliminating any possible chance of awkward questions. They could talk about their grandparents freely, of course; Desdemona and Jeffrey’s recommendation of their former New Venice employee had helped her earn this job. She still
hadn’t forgiven them for enabling Roddy’s marriage of ignorance to Deirdre, but she had to admit that they’d still helped her out on that front.

  She’d done what she could to maximize the good her work could do in preventing the spread and improving the treatment of vicious diseases, trying to falter a bit on the detection side as she knew such markers would be used to mark people for future extermination. It had been difficult to hide; eventually, she’d made a mistake, and she and her children had been imprisoned as a result.

  Few knew her “mistake” had been anything but. She’d needed to get away from the masses—along with her children—when they’d started manifesting the abilities Roddy and his parents had rediscovered on the surface. She could explain a lot. She couldn’t explain what her children could do, not in a way that would keep the Elites from seizing them and using them to some nefarious end, couldn’t risk the extensive monitoring systems employed by the Elites finding them manifesting abilities they shouldn’t have. With a smaller audience of people imprisoned for crimes against Phoenix, there’d be no one to tell Phoenix what they’d seen, and less reason for Phoenix to believe the stories of the local criminal class.

  It had been rough. John’s arrival soon after helped; despite Roddy’s concerns, there had never been a hint of chemistry, and he seemed to enjoy acting as a favorite uncle to the twins. Mary had made certain that when Micah smuggled in word that he’d be getting them out, John would be rescued as well. He’d gotten them out without any of them ever seeing each other, which had led to the awkward encounter in the LakePlex after the Ravager activation.

  She’d made a promise to herself when she’d gotten out. She’d find a way to get back here and free the friends she’d made in that brig, to gain for them a freedom she’d gotten when Micah had acted on her behalf, no doubt at the nagging and urging of the Lights. Today, she’d make good on that promise.

  She floated by the Armory, checked with John to see if he’d managed to shut down the tracking systems there—he hadn’t—and continued on to the Brig without stopping for supplies.

  It looked different than she remembered, though she’d spent most of her time in the area on the inside of this facility. The walls, destroyed a few days earlier by Sheila, had been rebuilt. But there were obvious differences. There were no guards; they probably struggled to get people to cover those shifts after the last two had been killed in a manner that left no body behind. There were no visible locks on the doors. A visual scan suggested that there were no alarms or electronic security protecting the residents from the dangerous criminals housed inside.

  Once her visual checks confirmed there were no people walking by, she used an invisible hand to touch, and then turn, the handle. Nothing happened. She opened the door in silence, slid inside, and shut the door noiselessly.

  She heard a clicking sound and realized belatedly that there was no handle or operating control for the door on the inside. She’d locked herself in.

  She’d deal with that problem later. For now, she turned to survey her old prison home.

  Many of her old friends were here, but she felt a lump in her throat at the deeply reduced numbers. The bodies of the dead lay on tables around the perimeter of the room, uncovered. A dozen women and men lay injured amidst them, crying out in anguish at the physical pain, their cries unheeded and unheard. It was psychological warfare, a warning to the living of what would happen if they tried something so foolish again.

  The pale, frightened faces of those still alive suggested the tactic was working.

  There were three men in the room who were clearly not prisoners. One looked like a man she’d seen recently, one of the Thirty. She thought his name was Julian. Yes, that was right. And the face… yes, it was definitely him. He stood in the room with two heavily armed guards flanking him, grenades clipped to their uniforms, eyes scanning the room for threats, faces that made clear they were eager to add more victims to the remaining tables.

  Julian moved in a predatory fashion, circling a young woman bound to a chair in the center of the room. All eyes were focused on the interaction. Even the guards hadn’t noticed the opening and closing of the entry door. Julian’s face tightened in concentration, and the woman’s face contorted until she screamed in agony. Inside her invisible, protective cocoon, Mary’s eyes narrowed in anger.

  “Are you ready to talk now? Who let you out? Who supplied you with weapons? How did they do it?”

  “I don’t know!” The words came out in a rush, a scream of pure agony and despair. Mary’s heart ached, and her resolve firmed. “The wall blew up. We turned to see what had happened. We turned around again and the weapons were there. We didn’t see anyone!” She started sobbing. “I swear it!”

  Julian sighed and clucked his tongue. He looked away from the physically bound prisoner to the mentally bound people around her. “I’m disappointed in all of you. This woman is suffering because one of you knows what happened and is saying nothing. You are killing her, slowly, and for what? None of you will escape again. Your best chance to live out the rest of your miserable lives in some level of comfort depends on your cooperation with me, here, right now. Who will speak up and give me the answers I demand?”

  No one spoke.

  “No?” Julian’s cruel, dark eyes glinted. “Perhaps you need more motivation.”

  He turned back toward the woman.

  Mary had seen enough.

  She floated above Julian’s head, clasped her hands in front of her, and slammed them down, willing the nanos to extend in front of her hands like a growing, laser-sharpened spear.

  Julian heard her. He looked up… just in time for the invisible point to pierce his face between his eyes, eyes that remained open as he died instantly on the spot.

  Mary waited until Julian went limp before retracting the invisible spear, letting the body crumble lifelessly to the floor. In the deathly silent room, it sounded like a cannon had gone off.

  It took a moment before the shocked silence vanished, replaced by screams of terror and revulsions at the gruesome, fatal wound that opened without any visible weapon. They were all afraid, terrified of who might be next.

  The guards shouted at everyone to stay back as they charged toward Julian’s body.

  Mary floated to the ground and sent her nano swarm away, revealing herself as half of each swarm surrounded the body of each guard. She tightened those skeletons, and each man stopped moving. Their looks of confusion morphed into terror as they realized some outside force was controlling them… probably the woman who’d just appeared suddenly inside the room.

  And they probably now had the answer to the question Julian had asked, an answer the dead man would never hear.

  Mary turned to the survivors, all of whom stared at her, terrified. She understood. It was as if they were seeing the ghost of an old friend, and couldn’t decide if it was a harmful illusion or a helpful reality.

  She smiled. “I’m back.” She jerked her thumb at the guards. “Our visitors need to be rendered permanently harmless. It will be messy. I suggest all of you move as far away as you can while I finish up. Then we’ll talk.”

  They moved.

  Mary turned back to the guards. They’d been doing their job, true. But at this point, they knew too much. And the looks on their faces suggested killing Mary wasn’t a job, now. It was a personal vendetta. She couldn’t let them go.

  She made sure the exoskeletons wrapped tightly around the men, then let the cocoons expand slightly.

  She ordered small slivers of the nanos to fly toward the pins of the grenades pinned to each man’s body before returning to seal the cocoon. She watched their faces as they saw, on each other’s bodies, the disappearing grenade pins. She saw the hateful looks they sent her way.

  She turned away before the grenades exploded, waiting a minute before releasing the cocoons, hearing a sickening gloopy sound of liquefied remains plop down on the ground as she did.

  She wondered if she could sanitize her nano
s before she used them again.

  Guards in the brig eliminated. Julian eliminated as well. John, let me know when my favorite store is running a sale.

  Understood, Mary.

  Initial mission accomplished, Mary turned back and scanned the frightened faces before her.

  Then she smiled. “Hi, friends. It’s really me. And we have a lot to talk about. Who’s up for another round of fighting bad guys?”

  The frightened looks dissolved as her friends realized it was truly her, not an illusion, and that she’d come back to help them escape.

  * * *

  Though Sheila had traveled this path before, she’d never done so with an electronic brain and artificial body. She knew, logically, that the setting should “feel” familiar, but she didn’t know how to experience a feeling. Micah’s experience was far more understandable to her in this form, and she suspected these memories, in a human body capable of feeling, would develop something called “rapport” with her robotic friend.

  At a logical level, she knew she shouldn’t be able to float above the “ground” inside a structure with artificial gravity pulling everything “down” with the same force as the planet’s surface. But it didn’t “feel” strange any more than walking did. She remembered, in human form, that she’d fallen to the ground in Delilah Silver’s quarters, that the fall had triggered pain, that she should fear falling again, that it should probably trigger some level of hesitancy in her movement.