by A J McKeep
Garrison recovered his balance and elevated up into the doorway. Inside, the claw was pitch dark. Turning on lights on the exo, he swept around the inside. It was a round, cavernous, empty space. Six huge bulges must have housed the mechanisms for the arms. Otherwise it seemed to just be empty space.
He checked the views from the drones. They showed the cloaked claw moving nearer to Coke and Hershey. At the back of the echoing deck, a wall of dark paneled servers twinkled and winked. Next to them were tall piles of heavy-duty power cells.
He asked the exo, “Can you tap into its control systems or it’s navigation?”
A new set of views lit in his visor. They showed Coke, Hershey and each of the drones, all marked with flashing target sights. “Can we get control?”
“Here’s the control panel.” On his visor display, a line drew around a panel on the server stack. Garrison rushed over. A whole panel of controls were labelled. All in Chinese.
“Can you translate?”
The exo flashed English translations over the controls. There were a lot, and they were still pretty tough to figure out.
On one of the screens, Coke was backed onto the ground. His face was a storm of panic and rage. He fired a pulse pistol straight upward. Blasts of light shot through holes in the deck. The targeting marks flashed red and white.
Garrison asked the exo, “Can you make it stop?”
With a shudder, the claw stopped and hovered. All the target marks went back to white and stopped flashing. He shouted, as loud as he could to Coke. “Stop firing. I’ve got this.”
On the drone cameras he watched tank bots roll across the airfield toward them.
“Show me the weapons systems.”
The highlights showed controls for ‘Spitflame,’ ‘Rapid Gun,’ ‘Rocket Throw.’ As Garrison looked, the exo updated them to ‘Flame throwers,’ ‘Tracer fire,’ ‘Grenade launchers.’ Labels on the other controls were updating, too.
He directed four grenade launchers at the tanks, targeting carefully. As soon as they detected the claw was in hostile hands, the whole defenses of the airfield would attack him.
“Are there any heavier weapons?”
“That’s all I’ve been able to find.”
“Okay.” He blasted the four nearest tank bots, then the four farthest away. Switching back to the first four, three appeared incapacitated, so he turned all his fire on the other. Then again at the rearmost. More tanks rolled out of the airfield hangars. They began to fire.
On the drone monitors, he watched Hershey circle wide one way and Coke the other, both carrying rocket launchers.
“Can I get control of the claw?” he asked into his mic.
The exo lit up sections of the control panel. It looked like it would take him some time to figure out. “Can you make us ascend?”
The claw lifted into the air. “Okay, that’s good. Now advance on the bots coming out if the hangars at the rear. I’ll fire on them from above.”
The tank bots all swung their weapons at the claw. He was about to tell the exo to evade, but it was ahead of him. The claw tilted and swerved. He got sights on three out of four bots and fired volleys of grenades. The fourth bot tracked left and fired. It made a hit and the claw shuddered.
Garrison fired all four launchers at the bot and it exploded four times.
It was then he noticed, it had come from out of the hangar with the heavy lift chopped. The chopper leaned and sagged to one side and smoke billowed from its fuselage. Coke and Hershey shot off rockets in rapid succession at all the airfield’s remaining defenses. As soon as their first rockets launched, the gun turrets around the perimeter swung to train on them. Garrison directed tracer fire at the turrets as fast as he could.
Coke rolled in the air as the ground beside him exploded. Garrison located the turret that targeted him and took it out. Hershey fired on it at the same time. Quickly, Garrison turned fire on the remaining turrets on the far side of the airfield.
Smoke engulfed the airfield now and Garfield needed radar to search for remaining bots that were still active. There was only one, near the edge of the field. He targeted it and was about to fire when flames kicked off the front of it. He saw that Coke was running straight at it, blasting it with his launcher.
Ambition
CHOKING, ACRID SMOKE SEEPED into the empty space in the bottom of the claw. Garrison coughed as he guided the craft down to land on the far side of the pod-bike. Coke and Hershey jogged toward him as he climbed down the steps to the ground. Coke’s face was red.
“You dumb fuck, you blew up the chopper.”
Hershey shrugged and blinked.
“Where’s your ambition, Coke?” Garrison demanded. “What do we need a chopper for?”
“Oh, let me think. How about to transport us and our vehicles over three hundred and sixty miles of wasteland to where your true love rusts in waiting?”
He flinched at the last part, but he gestured back at the claw, hunkered low behind him. “But we have this transport of delight.”
Coke’s eyes widened. “You want me to get inside that?”
Garrison strode near to him. Calmly, he told Coke, “Make another crack like that last one and I’ll tie you to one of the legs.” Coke’s chin lifted, but his eyes tightened at the edges. “And then we’ll make it crawl the whole way.” As an afterthought as he went for the pod-bike, “Would you like to see it crawl? From close-up?”
Questions
THE CLAW’S ECHOING CARGO deck rocked and swayed. Its engines were almost silent. The hull made sighing creaks and the wind rushed against the structure and the camo sheet. Every sound inside reverberated around the hard metal dome. Hershey stood at the claw’s controls, side by side with the exo like they were crew buddies. Coke sat sulking, slumped by the wall in the space next to one of the leg motor housings.
Garrison took the headset and visor from the exo and climbed into the couch in the pod. He wanted to use the datacrown to search for Faith. It was only when he connected to the subnet and reached for the crown that he realized there were two crowns swinging on the hook. The crown that came with the pod and the one that The Gabriel had left. The Gabriel’s crown was bound to be faster and better. He chose the one from the pod. The Gabriel was bound to have some connection or channel installed on the other one.
He spoke to the exo, “The Gabriel uses a datacrown to make a total upload, right? He transfers his whole self. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“Can I do that?”
“In theory, yes. But the probability is that you wouldn’t survive it.”
“Do you know why?”
“I only know only the number of attempts that have been made and the failure rate.”
“Do you know how it’s done?”
“In theory, yes.”
Garrison shelved the idea. All the datacrowns he’d used before were harsh military sets, used to remote control stompers and strike planes. This was smoother and a more immersive experience. It also didn’t seem to offer data tagging so when he looked at something, pointed or moved towards it, no data appeared. That was unfamiliar, too.
He used the picture on his phone to make his way back to the portal that bore the sign, Hope’s. The sign looked as unfinished as the name sounded, like something was missing or had been left out. By the sign, at the edge, characters, avatars had been moving in and out until he approached. Then everything seemed to freeze.
A big, muscular man with neon tattoos and the golden head of an eagle stood in front of him. “Why are you here?”
Startled, Garrison said, “I thought this was a place where you didn’t ask questions.”
“No,” a smaller character in a top hat and a monkey suit with only a single eyeball for a head said, “This is a place where you don’t ask questions.”
The eagle’s head said, “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it. To ask questions.”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“If they’re here,�
� the eyeball told him, “It means they don’t want to be found.”
The man with the eagle’s head folded his considerable neon-inked arms. “Wait until they contact you.”
“Through the usual channels,” said the eyeball.
Garrison blinked and shook his head, “What are they?”
The tattooed man moved closer, forcing him back. “I knew you would ask questions.”
He tensed, feeling like he’d fallen for a schoolyard trick.
The eyeball’s voice jeered. “Don’t come back here.”
“Especially,” the eagle’s head said, “Especially don’t bring him with you.”
Garrison looked around. He saw no-one else. “Who?”
The eyeball in the monkey suit jeered, “There he goes again.” He moved nearer, crowding Garrison and staring up at him, “We don’t want you here. Or your evil companion.”
The eagle’s head nodded with a slow menace. “Now. Go.”
After a hesitation, Garrison turned, dejected. Maybe he should have adopted an avatar of some kind. Maybe he could do that and return. He left, wandering into the dark chaos.
He was about to disconnect. A voice at his shoulder said, “It’s sweet that you came, soldier.” It was her. He knew it was immediately.
“But please, don’t come again.” Her voice was a river of sadness, but still the sound of it made his heart soar. “Stop looking for me, soldier. You’ll get yourself killed.” If it hadn’t been for that, if her first worry hadn’t been for him, he might have even listened to her. Until then he didn’t really know what it was that made him so determined to find her, he only knew that he was.
Her voice lowered. “You’ll get us both killed.”
“You aren’t there willingly, I know you’re not.” She didn’t speak. Even through her avatar, he felt the look in her eye. He was sure he was right. “You’re not, are you?”
Meat locker
THE ‘MEAT LOCKER’ WAS in an isolated area that had probably been light industrial a decade ago. Now it was mostly flattened lots compounds with ruins. Fresh fencing was all that distinguished the lot with a group of three long, rusting sheds.
As the claw kicked up dust to land behind trees just a quarter of a mile away, Garrison peered at the compound on the screen. “You’ve no idea which of those huts it is?”
Hershey fixed him with one eye. “China is a big place. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. If it turns out to be one of these three little sheds on the edge of nowhere, miles west of nowhere else, I think we’ll have come with pretty fucking high grade intel. Don’t you?”
Coke, Hershey and Garrison left the exo and the vehicles behind with the claw and set out on foot.
“Okay,” Hershey asked Garrison, “How shall we figure out which of these huts it is?”
Garrison spoke into his headset and told the exo, “Send the smallest two surveillance drones from the pod.”
“They’re all the same size.”
“Okay. Send two. Any two.”
Garrison steered a drone through the ventilator at the top of the first shed. He had the video output to his tablet. As he maneuvered the drone inside, the video display went black. Even with enhancement, he was only able to pick out a few indicator lights. The drone had a torchlight so he turned it on.
He ran the drone around the shed, trying to get a picture from the tiny point of light. Inside were rows of human figures in bodysuits, sat in chairs. Their faces were all covered by visors and they wore wired active sensor gloves. It took some time to see whether any of the figures were moving at all.
He set the drone to hover near to a single figure. Watching closely in the low light, he eventually saw that the fingers and hands moved. Flying in nearer and sweeping upward he was able to see that the figure’s head turned and tilted from time to time.
“Pilots,” Hershey announced.
“Now the skillful part.” Coke said. “Lets see if you can get the drone out again in one piece.”
The ventilation slats along the ridge of the roof were narrow and angled downward. Easier to fly into than out of. Garrison held the tablet out to Coke, “You want to try?”
Coke smiled, “No. You’re good. I’ll watch.”
“It will be quicker to use the other one. Leave this drone in there until we’re ready to leave.” He saw the look on Hershey’s face. Snipers hated anything that looked sloppy or wasteful.
Assemblers
THE NEXT SHED WAS also full of people. These were standing and seemed to be miming operating different kinds of machinery. “Looks like manufacture,” Hershey said. “It would make a good game show if you had to try and guess what they were doing.”
“I think they’re assembling automobiles.” Coke said.
“They’d have to be pretty high end to have actual human components in the manufacture. Nah,” Hershey laughed, “They’re surgeons. I’ll bet you.”
“One thing for sure,” Coke grinned, “They aint Garrison’s play puppets.”
“No,” Hershey agreed, “Not unless they’re catering to some very highly specialized tastes.” He and Coke chuckled.
“Only three sheds, then,” Garrison was anxious about how long they’d been there. “It has to be the other one. We may as well effect an entrance.”
They expected the doors to be locked, alarmed, and probably guarded. But they found they were able to slide back the door to the last shed and they walked right in.
Emergency kill
INSIDE, THE RUSTY SHED was dark. Tiny red, green, blue and white lights were all the illumination. But there were many. Two walls were lined with server cabinets. In the air, indicators mapped shapes that appeared to be bodies, most of them moving. Strained and echoing squeaks of cables and a thick rustling were overlaid with smothered, vowel-less vocal noises. An erratic, collective human humming sound that hung over the drone of electric fans.
By the door, Hershey found a light switch. As the strip lights flickered on, the three men fell silent.
Suspended in harnesses, just above eye-level, the warehouse was full of girls, hung on wires in full-body sim-stim suits. Tubes and wires ran over the suits from head to foot. Their heads were fully enclosed in hoods with attached visor screens. Muffled noises, gasps and groans, leaked out through the hoods.
One or two stood upright in mid-air. One leaned as if she propped up a bar. A few sat. Some lay. Most of them were contorted. Their bodies jerked, bent, writhed, swayed and rocked. Their harnesses hung by metal cables from high individual frames. A set of clothes hung by each frame.
One girl’s head thrashed from side to side, clearly reeling from blows. Little squeals eeked through the tight mask. The suit would give her some protection but to give realism from the customer’s point of view, the shocks and jerks would be real enough. Another girl spread in a shaking star-jump, face down. Her arms and legs were tugged as her head, her thighs and her ass shook, hard.
Coke said, “How are you going to know which one’s yours?”
“I’m not.” Garrison said, “We’re going to let them all go.”
Coke said, “How do you know they’re not here voluntarily?”
“It‘s okay if they are. We aren’t going to make them leave. Just give them the opportunity.”
Hershey was looking at the metal frame that suspended the girl nearest to him. “Cool. How do we get them down?”
Garrison went over to the severs. “Exo? Can you translate these controls for me?”
His view of the control panels in his visor was overlaid with translations. “And can you see a master ‘stop’ switch?”
At the bottom of one panel, a line highlighted around a small group of buttons. “That is an emergency ‘kill’ switch. Caution. Using it may be harmful to the workers.”
Hershey said, “You got to think about a working day. Look, there’s nobody here guarding or supervising. So, we know something. They all arrive, together. They suit up, then they get harnessed and they’re winched up. One
at a time. Has to be. The controls are on each frame.”
By Coke’s head, a girl’s hips rolled and thrust in a fluid motion. Coke was doing all he could not to watch. “That’s why it would still be helpful if you could identify your little hummingbird from all of the rest.”
Hershey looked up and down both legs of the frame nearest to him. “I’ve been looking on the wrong side. The control panel is on the left side on the back of the frame. There are two buttons, one red and one green. Then a panel with a bunch of other controls, but I think they’re going to be fine tuning.”
The girl in the frame nearest to Garrison was suspended in a sitting position, with her hands out like she was reading a tablet or watching a movie. He looked at the controls. “Exo, can you translate?”
Under the green button, his visor display overlaid a label saying, ‘work sequence begin.” Under the red button, it read, ‘work sequence end.’ He pressed the red button. The girl’s head and elbows went up. She looked around as the harness lowered her to the floor. She peeled off the hood and visor, looking around the room. Her mouth and her eyes widened.
She said something in Chinese. “Exo,” Garrison asked for a translation.
“Sorry,” it said, “I wasn’t observing. I don’t have a record.”
Garrison looked in the girl’s frightened eyes and clasped her shoulders. He put a finger to his lips then lifted his hand, palm toward her to ask her to wait. She began to peel off her suit. Garrison turned as quickly as he could to the next frame to press the red button, then the next. Hershey and Coke were working their way around the frames. Nervous giggles and questioning gasps echoed around the shed as girls came down from their suspension and emerged from their suits.
All of the girls looked and sounded puzzled and the burble of chatter rose. Garrison thought he would wait until they were all freed before he got the exo to help him to address them.