by J. S. Morin
One of the robots was gone. The other lay outstretched, hand clasped around one of the handrail supports. He was missing a head and lower torso. Borrowing the flashlight a moment, Eve peered down and read the nameplate at the base of the neck.
Eddie130.
“You know him?” Eve asked.
Gemini nodded gravely. “Not even hiding behind a false ID. Someone miscalculated badly. I’m still not sure who—aside from this poor sod, obviously.”
“There’s probably a backup copy of him somewhere,” Eve said with a huff of frustration. “He might not remember this, but he might not be dead, either.”
Gemini said nothing but took back the flashlight and resumed the lead.
They had to circle around. Eve’s barrage of dark energy had rendered the path ahead structurally unfit for human travel. Circling around cost them time, but more importantly, the firefight had given Charlie25’s minions forewarning that they were coming.
There were only so many paths from that spot to Charlie13’s office.
The two women entered the hallways of the administrative mixing wing of Kanto. Though modern, it had a retro science fiction aesthetic meant to help ground a newly activated robot in the culturally familiar before dumping them into the ultra-modern world beyond. It was the art deco of robotic pulp fiction brought to life as the welcome mat of robotkind.
Eve kept her helmet off for the time being. Protective though it might be, deafness and oppressive heat were side effects she could do without while between engagements.
Gemini flicked off the flashlight and tugged Eve around a corner.
Eve saw them, too. Two flashlight beams wobbled from an intersection up ahead. She crouched and took aim with her rifle. Anyone who didn’t announce himself had to be one of Charlie25’s lackeys and didn’t get a warning shot.
By the jittering flashlight beams, Eve guessed there were two of them coming.
Quietly as she could, Eve slipped on the helmet. The faint, shuffling footsteps ahead went silent.
The flashlights came around the corner. Eve watched for the glows of eyes that would accompany them. There were none.
Still training her rifle on the area behind those lights, Eve slipped her finger off the trigger and rested it on the guard. Those were humans.
The flashlights caught Eve in their beam. By feel, Eve was aware of Gemini pushing away from her, ducking back behind cover.
A dull thump, then another, told Eve she was being shot. The sound was carrying from the inside of her armor suit, that tiny noise indicating all the energy that passed from outside to inside.
Eve was yanked back around the corner.
Gemini plucked the helmet from her head. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Shoot them!” To emphasize her point, Gemini reached a hand around the corner and fired blindly.
It was Eve’s turn to pull Gemini out of harm’s way. “What are you doing? Those are people.”
“Robots are people,” Gemini pointed out archly. “You had no compunction killing those last two.”
Eve swallowed. She shook her head in denial. “I can’t do it. Maybe it shouldn’t be any different, but there’s something inside me that won’t fire on humans.”
“They are not humans. They are Charlie25’s ridiculous crystal-brained hybrids.” With that pronouncement, she jammed the helmet back down onto Eve’s head, hauled her to her feet, and shoved her into the open hallway.
Eve let out a yip of surprise at unexpectedly finding herself exposed and in the line of fire. A pattering of coils gun rounds greeted her as the flashlight beams trained on her like searchlights.
Then the flashlights fell. First one, then the other a second later.
Gemini strode confidently past, flicking on her own light and standing over the bodies to deliver single shots to the skull of each.
Eve pulled off her helmet and ran over. “What was that for?”
“Crystal matrices,” Gemini explained. “Even if I’d been wrong, it would have ended any lingering suffering.” She looked down with the flashlight beam and stepped out of the way of a spreading pool of blood. “Messier than robots; I’ll grant you that. But ultimately a moral equivalent. Come on. Have you got a sister to save or not?”
Eve held the cloth helmet in front of her nose and mouth. She had seen a dead human before. But Zeus had been Charlie25, and his crystal matrix had been repatriated to a robotic body. The closest she’d come to witnessing an actual death was Evelyn11’s lab documentaries, and she’d only ever watched those in brief snippets.
Of course, Gemini wouldn’t be squeamish. She had been the monster in those videos.
Eve tried to bear that in mind as she followed along toward her sister’s captors.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The trip to Mars was mainly acceleration and deceleration. The latter was harder on Charlie7’s chassis since he had to brace himself the entire way lest his neck snap. A lesser chassis than his modified Version 70.2 wouldn’t have survived the trip.
That element of surprise was key.
Dale2 couldn’t know he was coming. Plato hadn’t perfected the art of stealth flying, but Charlie7 had stolen tech from Betty-Lou and reverse engineered it during Plato’s stints in official custody. If Dale2 saw him coming at all, it would be too late.
There was only so much a robot could do to fortify and arm a hidden Martian headquarters while keeping it concealed. Charlie7 was counting on Dale2 having chosen inconspicuousness over hard security for his protection.
The spaceroamer was handling the stresses well. Nothing appeared to be moving, but it shot through space at a ludicrous rate. If there were records kept for that sort of thing, he imagined that this would be a record transit time to Mars.
A human body would never survive a trip at this rate, at least not without new yet-to-be-uncovered technology that could reduce inertial forces. But a robot… well, Dale2 was going to get a taste of the fate he had lobbied against. The irony was that it was Jason2’s plan that Charlie7 had implemented as an interim state. Charlie2’s utopian vision of a reborn human race wouldn’t have gotten here for weeks at best.
The red planet grew in Charlie7’s vision the whole way. At first, the red blip against the astral backdrop was just a pinprick of reflected solar light. But as the spaceroamer decelerated toward cruising speeds, it inflated like a balloon in the forward viewing window.
At two kilometers per second, Charlie7 took control of maneuvers and guided the spaceroamer’s descent to the red planet.
Martian geographical norms had been established in the days of the first unmanned probes and buggies that explored it during the Human Era. Humans from Charlie Truman’s grandfather’s era had assigned the planet a grid and given the parcels of Martian terrain fanciful names plucked from ancient Greek to go along with dry alpha-numeric designations. Then, more pragmatically, they used latitude and longitude.
Dale2’s purported hideaway was the site of an abandoned geological research station built by one of the first manned expeditions. It was a demonstration of hubris to hide at the best-known location on the whole planet.
Charlie7 snickered. “Well, guess Dale doesn’t have a monopoly there.” After all, how different was that than rededicating the Arc de Triomphe in his own honor?
Mars was dotted with ore refineries, depleted mines, and the occasional habitat of a reclusive robot. In a way, it was the Montana of the solar system, minus the cattle ranches.
No one hailed Charlie7 as he approached. If anyone noticed him on homemade scanners juiced to sniff out the wiliest of intruders, they said nothing. He was there for someone else, and that was no business of theirs.
Still, Mars was an eerie place. Charlie7 had never liked it. Every time he set foot on Martian soil—and admittedly it had been centuries—he sensed that there had been creatures alive there before man or robotkind had ever visited. Despite a population in double digits, it felt deserted and haunted.
The spaceroamer handled like a dr
eam. The thin Martian atmosphere barely slowed it. Engines powerful enough to make an afternoon jaunt of an interplanetary trek had no trouble giving him all the acceleration he needed within Mars’s gravity well.
MC-07 approached fast. Charlie7 kept below a height of fifty meters just to keep his horizon short. Stealth was stealth, but a determined hermit might go to any length developing tech to sniff out intruders. After all, it wasn’t as if Charlie7 was the only one to have survived the invasion.
It was as if he were invading the Grand Canyon or Victoria Falls. This was a landmark and a natural wonder. At the very least, the research outpost was a cultural heritage site. Just went to show what history was worth when it wasn’t from Earth. Charlie7 piloted over the lip of the crater and the navigational computer counted down as his location and the ancient human habitat’s converged.
This was it.
He hadn’t looked Dale2 in the eye in over a thousand years. They’d both, no doubt, seen chassis switches in the interim, but Charlie7 couldn’t help but picture his counterpart in the Project Transhuman chassis he’d first inhabited—the Version 1.0.
They were children back then. Just over a century’s living between them before upload. What had they become in the meantime. Charlie7 enjoyed knowing that he was the original Charles Truman at his core, but even as the original, he had grown and changed.
How different would he find Dale Chalmers? It seemed impossible that the lazy, glad-handing beggar could have remained relevant into the modern era without rededicating himself.
Would he have traps?
Was there a waiting army in that research station?
Variance to destination numbers approached zeros, and Charlie7 slowed for a landing. The cockpit released a hiss of pressurized gas as the canopy opened. Earth lost one gasp of air to her closest celestial neighbor. Charlie7 unpacked his own puffy, biometallic armor and slipped it on over his suit. He hefted a DE-rifle and headed for the museum piece that was Mars Station Alpha.
The original station had been human-built in Shanghai. Four scientists had lived there for a week before lifting off, rejoining their interplanetary transport, and flying back to Earth as heroes. They left behind an observation and relay station, some weather-monitoring equipment, and a shabby little habitat tucked against the crater wall.
All the original equipment was long gone. Robots from the Cultural Heritage Committee had commissioned replicas and put everything back the way it had once looked, except that all the gear was built from modern materials and designed to last.
As he stood there admiring the gumption of ancient humans, Charlie7 decided on one last ploy before entering. “Dale? You out there, old pal? I’d like to talk to you about clearing the air.”
The signal was a narrow focused beam aimed at Earth. He waited for the relay to rebroadcast it to Mars.
After a delay, he had a response. “Charlie… didn’t expect you to come up for air under your own name again. Figured I might be chasing my own people around for centuries, always wondering if you got in and replaced one of them.”
Charlie7 tore the habitat door off its hinges without half trying. Let Dale2 think he was on Earth, having a chat in some hidden bunker. Any time he bought was just that much more for him to breach the secret lair’s security.
Just before he stepped through the open doorway, Charlie7 sent another message. “You know me. I like to be at the center of the chaos. Figured you’d scour the Earth to find me, so I’m going to save you the trouble and present myself for public judgment. Let the masses decide who was right: the guy who wanted to play Mr. Potato Head with Cthulhu pieces or the one who put Humpty Dumpty back together again just like he promised.”
Charlie7 ducked inside the Martian survival habitat. It was bare bones in that China National Space Administration sort of way. Top government firms making the best equipment they could for the least amount of payload weight.
For all his years on Earth and jaunts to the mining asteroids, Charlie7 had never visited the site before. On a more leisurely trip, he would have enjoyed poking around a little, but today business forced him to press onward.
The back of the habitat opened onto a native rock wall. Inset into that wall, an ominous steel door waited, black as the obelisk from 2001 and likely stylized to evoke just that comparison.
Next to the door, a console stared accusingly.
“I guess you know by now that I’m not on Earth,” he said to it, voice weird in the unbreathable Martian air. “But, just between us, you’re not going to be on Mars very long.”
Guessing where the camera would be behind the screen and heedless of any attempt at inputting an access code, Charlie7 aimed the DE-rifle and punched a hole into the crater wall.
A few follow-up blasts left the door weakened enough that a kick sent the black steel flying and left a hole for Charlie7 to enter through.
“It’s a bad day when troubles come knocking. It’s a worse day when they kick in the door.”
Chapter Sixty
Plato sat in the darkness without knowing what it meant. Not usually one for metaphors, he couldn’t overlook how it summed up his outlook perfectly.
He sat in a corridor so close to Charlie13’s office he couldn’t believe they hadn’t found him yet. He couldn’t lean back against the wall without a deadly weapon poking him in the back. Yet for all that, he couldn’t rush forward and finish this mission.
Abbigail. It all came down to Abby.
The only saving grace was the lack of a follow-up video informing Plato that he’d been too late. The last communication he’d received from Charlie25 had been the only one. If he just waited, maybe Charlie25 would realize that Abby was just an innocent, precious little girl, no threat to anyone.
Maybe he’d let her go.
If Plato did nothing, though, there was a near certainty that Abby’s fate would be decided by Charlie25. Could he live with that? More importantly, could Abby?
Plato was playing chess without all the pieces, and he couldn’t even see the board.
Every cell in his body told him to rush in, throw himself heart and soul against his enemies, and take back his daughter by force. Fortunately, a few rebel cells in his brain kept reminding him that the only win was getting Abby back safe and sound.
He needed a workaround.
He needed a surprise.
He needed a plan.
Plato had none of the above. The rescue plan for Rachel had already been sketchy. But she was useful. Those robots needed Rachel alive. Poor little Abby was just a bargaining chip to them and dammit if she wasn’t just perfect for that job.
Weeping, Plato did the only thing he could think of. Slowly, one shoulder-carry strap, one belt clip at a time, he began the process of disarming himself.
He was going to turn himself in and beg them to let his Abby go.
Chapter Sixty-One
Charlie7 had to admire the industry of it all. Out here, on Mars, only working with what he could scrape together bits and pieces at a time, Dale2 had built himself an impressive underground labyrinth of workshops and laboratories. He recognized several pieces of equipment as being manufactured on Earth, or at least being of Earthly design.
“You are a piece of work, Charlie,” Dale Chalmers’s voice boomed from a wall speaker near one of the door control panels. “I knew that message of yours was a ruse, but I imagined you were after Kanto.”
“You should know me better than that,” Charlie7 replied, addressing the ceiling. “You’ve had a thousand years to watch me, study me, and prepare for whatever the hell you think this play of yours is. I haven’t thought about you in centuries.”
“Who gave me up? That escaped psychopath?” Dale2 asked.
Charlie7 chuckled as he snaked among rows of workbenches that looked like a hobbyist inventor’s playground. There were soldering stations and micro-processor encoders, hand tools and microscopes. A tinkerer could build drones or skyroamer parts, nanoparticle filtration systems or vintage auto
mobiles. If there was a small-scale manufacturing process, this workshop was equipped to handle it.
None of it gave a clue as to what Dale2 really did here.
“You’re one to talk,” Charlie7 replied, wondering why he raised his voice. Clearly, Dale2 had the means to level the audio on his end. “You’ve got minions saving over human minds like blank floppy disks.”
“God, Charlie,” Dale2 replied with a chuckle. “That’s a dated reference even for me.”
“Can’t deny the charge though.”
Dale2’s voice grew stern. “Listen here. Those clones at Kanto right now never woke up. They were grown in vats you’re probably going to see very soon. No minds, just bodies grown to a genetic blueprint and supplied with a crystal matrix to operate them. There was no suffering, no ethical tap dancing.”
“I’m sure that’s a comfort to the humans at the sanctuary or the ones who grew up tortured by Evelyn11, Charlie24, and any others we never found out about.”
Charlie7 arrived at the far door, wondering if he was overlooking a concealed bolt hole or walking into a trap. Dale2 knew where he was. This whole conversation was a chess game. If Dale2 wanted him to come through that door so badly, would he open it or force Charlie7 to blast his way through?
Opening it could be a signal of a trap. By not opening it, Dale2 could have been counting on Charlie7’s paranoia to avoid an easy path. But by leaving it closed, Dale2 would get to study Charlie7’s weapon, maybe run it low on ammunition or better understand its means of operation.
Charlie7 smirked. That seemed like Dale Chalmers. The bad news for Dale2 was that Charlie7’s DE-rifle wasn’t exactly storing energy as it was converting an ambient force in the universe into destructive power. As for reasoning out how it worked, if Dale2 could solve that by mere observation, Charlie7 would love to hear the explanation.