by Isaac Hooke
Rade centered his reticle over the eye region and squeezed the trigger. The clone collapsed.
I didn’t think I was so easy to kill.
Then again, he was the original Rade. Apparently a lot of what made him who he was had been lost in the cloning process.
There was one more clone left out there, hiding behind the counter. And maybe a few more in the back room that the grenade had failed to eliminate.
“Join us,” a voice said, coming from behind the counter. “The complexities of the universe will be revealed to you. There is nothing to be afraid of.”
Rade didn’t want to answer. He knew it was a trick, meant to make him reveal his position. Actually, that wasn’t true: because of the acoustical design of the room, he wasn’t able to pinpoint where the voice was coming from, so it was doubtful the enemy would be able to locate him if he spoke, either.
Rade pondered the best way to defeat the remaining tango. And he thought to himself:
What would I do?
Rade wouldn’t have stayed on the left side of the counter after emerging from the back room. He would have moved to the right, not wanting his opponent to know his last position. He would have also moved away to avoid the grenade. But in this case he might have traveled back to that spot, because he knew an enemy would have expected him to relocate before the detonation, but not necessarily after.
Trying to outsmart myself...
Rade aimed his scope at the left hand side of the counter on a hunch. He spotted the flared rifle aimed directly at him just in time.
He pulled back and black veins spread along the edge of the table.
Rade rolled to the left and scrambled forward at a crouch, weaving between the upturned tables and racing toward the opposite side of the counter. He dove behind another table and then peered past the edge. There was no sign of the enemy. Had he changed positions again?
Rade considered leaping over the counter and rushing the enemy directly, with the intent of catching him off guard, but he still wasn’t sure if there was anyone still alive in the back room. If there was, doing so would put him squarely in their line of fire.
He continued switching his aim between the left and right sides of the counter, and wondered if the enemy was having the same thoughts of leaping the obstruction entirely, just as he had. Rade momentarily shifted his weapon upward to scan the top of the section, and right at that moment the clone unfortunately chose to expose itself and make its rush.
Rade had merely to shift his aim upward to fire at the eye region. The clone was dead before it hit the ground.
Rade carefully made his way to the back room and slowly peered past to survey the area. None of the clones packed into the small room had survived the grenade detonation. Rade was surprised, given the resiliency of the robot skeletons underneath the charred flesh, but he supposed that the confined space had amplified the damage. He issued kill shots into the eyes of the corpses just to be sure.
He spotted one of the robot chefs, its body crumpled and mangled by shrapnel. Though he couldn’t see any indications of black veins anywhere on its shell, he targeted the AI core and issued a shot to confirm the kill.
There was no sign of the second chef—perhaps it had escaped.
Rade retreated to the front of the cafe and went to the closest corpse. He hastily changed into the camos it wore, donned the crescent moon helmet, and disabled the comm node of his Implant. He wasn’t sure what effect, if any, disabling the node would have, but hopefully it would make his human status less obvious to any clones or alien robots he encountered. The invaders would have their own equivalents of Implants of course, and a comm node produced by the nano-machines. They would perhaps wonder why his particular comm node was inactive. He would tell them that he was damaged. Assuming they asked before firing upon him.
He retrieved his weapons, sliding them both onto the same shoulder, and then retreated to the front entrance. He peered past the blinds once more. It looked clear out there. Not a scorpion in sight: at least some were probably crowding into the alleyway and heading toward the cafe from the backside at that very moment.
He was about to open the front door when he heard a noise behind him.
He slid down the first weapon slung over his shoulder and turned around. He realized he hadn’t been as thorough in his scan of the back room as he thought, because the second robot chef stood before him. He nearly squeezed the trigger, but realized the chef hadn’t been converted: there were no black veins anywhere on its polycarbonate shell. And it wasn’t armed.
He was curious why it had rushed into the main cafe area however, since it couldn’t have known he was on its side, especially given his current attire.
But then Rade understood when two of the scorpion units stepped into view, squeezing into the confines of the cafe. They had given the robot little choice. The chef likely felt surrounded at the moment.
Rade tightened his grip on the rifle. He realized from the flaring muzzle that he had slid down the particle beam weapon from his shoulder. Not his first choice, unfortunately. He wasn’t sure if it would work on the scorpions, but even if it did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring down the two of them, not while both of their turrets were aimed at him.
So he shot the chef.
So much for sparing robots cast in my own image.
He watched with regret as the sentient robot collapsed, dark veins spreading across its skin.
Apparently satisfied that he was one of them, the scorpions lost interest and turned away, making toward the back area once more. Rade replaced his particle beam weapon with the laser rifle, securing the former safely to his shoulder.
One of the scorpions paused as the other departed. It turned around, and entered the cafe proper once more, and seemed to survey the corpses of the clones. Then it blasted a series of incomprehensible tones at him, and its eyes cycled through many different colors. Its body language suddenly became aggressive, and the laser turret at the back of its scorpion tail spun toward him.
“Up yours as well,” Rade said, firing his laser rifle between the eyes. The scorpion collapsed. The converted robot chef was just rising in that moment, and Rade shot it too, aiming for the AI core and putting it out of its misery.
He wondered if the strange tones and colors were the scorpion’s way of asking him why his nano-machine comm link was offline. He remembered what one of his men had told him regarding his perception of the Mahasattva language: they spoke in flashing colors and pulsing tones, like the data a machine made.
Keelhaul had told him that. A MOTH under Rade’s command.
Rade had been forced to kill him after Mahasattva nano-machines infected his mind. His biggest regret over the death was that Keelhaul had only been attempting to help them when Rade squeezed the trigger. But Rade hadn’t known that at the time.
He went to the edge of the back room and confirmed that the other scorpion was gone, and that no more were coming, then he returned to the front door and peered past the blinds one final time. The street still seemed clear, at least at first glance. He made a more thorough scan of the rooftops, and the windows, and when he was satisfied he unlocked and opened the door.
He hesitated on the verge. If he went out there, while he might look like them, he had no way to communicate with any aliens he encountered. He wasn’t linked to their nano-machines. He would be relying on his genetics, and his outfit, alone. He was likely to face at least some resistance, with clones attempting to question him as the scorpion had.
Well, if it doesn’t work, I’ll always have my plan B.
He patted his laser rifle and then dashed onto the street.
eleven
Rade kept close to the buildings. He skirted blast craters and the wreckages of vehicles, and climbed over the debris of collapsed walls when they blocked his route. He was slowly looping back to where Shaw had parked the jeep, just outside the center of town. According to the overhead map, the International Hotel was directly to the west, t
wo streets away. Shaw and the combat robots had disappeared from the map when he had disabled the comm node of his Implant earlier, of course. Though even if he had kept the node active, with no network to piggyback on, Rade doubted he would have been in signal range of the team.
He heard the sounds of fighting nearby: shouts; grenades exploding; the metallic crunch of a stricken mech falling into the street from on high. He couldn’t pinpoint the source, of course, not with all the echoes the buildings and ruins produced. Perhaps if he had someone like Bender or TJ with him, he could have had them tap into whatever working security cameras remained in the city and used it to locate all nearby enemies. But his own hacking abilities weren’t quite up to par.
He heard the footsteps of several men. It sounded like they were running.
He ducked into an alleyway.
Six clones rushed past. One of them was looking Rade’s way, and their eyes met.
The clone vanished from view, the momentum of its stride carrying the soldier forward.
Rade moved deeper into the alleyway and aimed his rifle toward the entrance.
The clone stepped into view, its rifle raised to fire at him.
Rade centered his reticle over the clone’s eye, but before Rade could squeeze the trigger, the man seemed to recognize him as an ally, because the clone lowered the weapon and turned away, rushing to resume its place with the others.
On a whim, Rade left his cover and ran after the clones, trying to close with them. The lagging soldier easily rejoined them, while Rade struggled to catch up. He managed to get to within three meters of the group, but by then he was so tired that he started to flag. He was worried his lack of physical ability would betray his true identity, but the clones did nothing, and only once did any of them bother to look back at him. Perhaps they assumed he was injured or damaged in some way.
He finally caught up when the clones started climbing over a debris-clogged street, but they moved with the speed of robot spiders, so that by the time he reached the top of the rubble they were long gone.
He surveyed the streets from his vantage point, but couldn’t see past the nearby rooftops. He climbed down the other side, and took an eastern road that would lead him out of the area of major fighting.
He began to leave behind the ruins as more and more of the buildings became intact around him. There were still the occasional blast craters in the walls, or on the asphalt, but for the most part the structures were undamaged.
He maintained a mindset of caution, approaching intersections warily, constantly scanning his surroundings for enemies.
One time, as he neared a cross street, he glanced over his shoulder and spotted a scorpion unit moving into position on a rooftop across the lane. Its turret swung toward him. Fearing that he had been recognized, he dashed around the bend and took cover behind the building corner.
Circular chunks disappeared from the corner beside him as the scorpion’s laser turret fired. He retreated down the street at a run.
Why does it suddenly decide to fire at me, when neither the clones nor the earlier scorpions did so?
He wondered if he should have simply stood his ground. In Earth’s animal kingdom, some species, notably those belonging to the Felidae family, such as lions and cougars, instinctively assumed another animal was prey when it ran.
Then again, thinking of the way that big turret had pointed at him, he decided it was probably not a good idea to play chicken like that.
He glanced over his shoulder. The scorpion emerged into the street behind him, followed by a second one. And a third.
He dove behind the wreckage of an aircraft that had fallen in the middle of the road. A gunship. He leaned past from his cover, targeted one of the incoming scorpions between the eyes, and fired, bringing it down.
The other two kept on coming. He pulled back as they fired at him while on the run. He clambered to the far side of the gunship, and crouched low, waiting for the enemy to come to him.
He heard the steel-on-asphalt clangor as their heavy feet approached, a sound that grew louder with each moment. And then silence.
Rade peered past the left flank of the wreckage, quickly scanning the street. There was nothing out there, save for parked cars, an upturned truck in the middle of the road, and benches and trees on the sidewalk. No tangos resided in any of the nearby shop windows, or rooftops, either.
Switching his concentration away from the scope to the targeting notch at the far end of the barrel, he swung the weapon around to the far side of his cover, waiting for a scorpion to round the crashed gunship. When no tango came, he directed his rifle upward, aiming it at the top of the gunship, then swept the barrel to the left and right before finally bringing it down to the street level view on the left flank once more.
He sensed motion at the periphery of his vision to the right. He rolled further past the left flank, and out of the tango’s view. Fresh holes appeared in the gunship metal where he had crouched a moment before.
He clambered to one knee and swung his rifle toward that spot, and an instant later the large head of a robot scorpion appeared. He fired between the multicolored eyes and the robot dropped.
He heard a soft noise above: the gentle clang of a steel foot on metal.
He extended his legs, forcing himself to jump backwards. He aimed his weapon at the top of the gunship while in midair. The other scorpion was perched there.
He fired several times, correcting his aim as he did so. He landed with his back on the street, hitting hard. The breath was knocked out of him. He continued firing.
During that time he must have scored a hit to the eye region, because the scorpion crumpled, tumbling and rolling down the gunship until it landed motionless on the asphalt.
Rade slumped in relief.
Motion drew his gaze southward down the street. A jeep swerved between a few abandoned vehicles, heading toward him.
He zoomed in. Shaw was the driver.
Rade clambered to his feet and waved at it.
He noticed her parents were in the backseat, along with one of the Centurions. Another robot was in the passenger seat.
He realized both robots were targeting him with their rifles.
Rade dove behind the gunship for cover.
Fresh holes appeared in the metal beside him.
He turned on his Implant comm node and he heard the jeep screech to a halt just out of view. The clang of metal feet reverberated from the roadway surface as the robots approached. Rade was momentarily reminded of the scorpions.
He gritted his teeth and swung his rifle to bear. He didn’t intend to terminate the two Centurions. But he would damage them, if he had to.
Algorithm and Brat appeared. Their weapons were lowered.
“It’s me, damn it!” Rade said through clenched teeth.
Algorithm and Brat raised their metal hands in surrender.
“Sorry, boss,” Algorithm said. “I didn’t recognize you as a friendly. Your Implant must have been off.”
“Good guess,” Rade grumbled.
“But it’s working now,” Algorithm said.
“I know that.” Rade stood, stepping out from behind the gunship.
Still in the jeep, Shaw was wearing a sheepish, apologetic expression. “Sorry about that. I told them it was you when I saw you waving, but they had already started firing. I should have slammed on the brakes sooner or something.”
Rade turned toward the robots and said, somewhat angrily: “Get in the back. Squeeze in beside Shaw’s parents.”
Rade glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Chopra as he loaded into the shotgun seat. He tried to feign excitement as he said: “Hey ma and pa!” Anger still tainted his tone, and the words definitely came across as insincere.
“We’re not your parents, fucking guy!” Mr. Chopra said.
As the two were squeezed roughly together by the robots, Rade’s smile became real. It probably appeared a little malicious, but hey.
He stowed the crescent-shaped helmet underneat
h the seat, not wanting to draw the fire of any human soldiers, who might otherwise confuse him for an enemy unit during the retreat.
Rade turned to Shaw. “You really need to step on it.”
“I know.” Shaw turned the jeep around and floored the vehicle; she weaved between obstacles and made turns at high speed like a wild woman.
That’s my girl.
As he looked at her sexy little body beside him, he found himself getting aroused. If they weren’t in the middle of a war zone, with her parents sitting in the back seat, he probably would have nailed her right there. Then again, he could feel the exhaustion creeping through him. And the urge to just close his eyes and cave out.
He was jolted wide awake by one particularly hard turn that saw the jeep’s right side lift entirely off the street before roughly touching down again.
He glanced at Shaw’s parents. Their eyes were wide with fear, no doubt from Shaw’s driving.
Noticing Rade looking at him, Mr. Chopra met his gaze with a glare.
“Too bad your pet robots didn’t shoot you,” Mr. Chopra said.
Rade winced at the comment, but forced a smile.
He realized Mrs. Chopra was crying.
“What is it?” Rade said, struggling to contain a sudden worry. “Are you injured? Or are we just going too fast?”
Mrs. Chopra finally looked at him, and blinked several times before she said: “Neither.”
“Then what is it?” Rade pressed.
“My sari!” Mrs. Chopra said. “You lost my favorite sari.”
Rade slumped in relief. Then he glanced at Shaw, and couldn’t help the sudden laugh that started deep inside his belly. When Mrs. Chopra struck him several times with her hands, attempting to punch his upper back, it only made him laugh all the harder.
Shaw joined in a moment later.
When he managed to get himself under control, Rade glanced at Mrs. Chopra and said: “We’ll get you another one.”