by Isaac Hooke
Rade felt a sudden anger. “You could have told me earlier that you had no intention of leaving with me! I would have never come to the city.”
“It never occurred to me,” Tahoe said. “I assumed you wanted to fight. I’m sorry. I should have warned you. I should have thought it through. I’ve put your children in danger.”
“No,” Rade said, sighing. “The fault is mine. If I really wanted to play it safe, I could have left the twins at some estate outside of town. I was just so eager to see you guys. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I appreciate the gesture,” Tahoe said. “And I apologize again.”
Rade looked deeply into Tahoe’s eyes. “You really want to fight, don’t you?”
“It’s our duty,” Tahoe said. “We all have to defend the Earth. Our homeworld. You really came here only to get us out?”
“I came to help with the rescue and recovery operations,” Rade said. “And to get you out. But I never came to fight.”
“I thought you were ‘royally’ pissed off that the enemy sent your clones to conquer the planet?” Tahoe pressed.
“I’m certainly pissed, but I’m done fighting for Earth,” Rade said. “What has Earth ever done for me, except cause me grief? There’s nothing I can do here, anyway. I’m getting the twins, Shaw, and her parents, and I’m bringing the Centurions with me. If you or any of the men want to stay, that’s your choice. I won’t make you come with me. You can stay and fight if you want. I just won’t be a part of it. I have a family to protect now.”
“You could leave your family with Tepin, and come back to fight with us,” Tahoe said.
“Your kids are almost fully grown, Tahoe,” Rade said. “You’ve fulfilled your role as father. Mine is only just beginning. I can’t put my life needlessly at risk. I’m going to stay with them.”
Tahoe nodded slowly. “So Shaw has really succeeded in changing you, in that regard.”
“Leave her out of it,” Rade said.
“It’s what she wanted, by having kids,” Tahoe said.
“Tahoe...” Rade warned.
Tahoe raised a defensive hand. “All right. But tell me something: what if Earth falls?”
“If it does, it won’t be my fault,” Rade said.
“I’m not saying it will or it won’t be your fault,” Tahoe said. “I’m just asking, what will you do if it falls?”
“If it comes to it, I’ll leave the planet with my family,” Rade said. “We’ll try to reach the Argonaut. If it’s destroyed, or we otherwise can’t, we’ll buy passage on another ship if possible.”
“It might be too late by then,” Tahoe said. “If most of the cities fall, you might not even be able to get off the surface.”
“I’ll deal with whatever the universe throws at me as it comes,” Rade said.
“You’re really going to abandon us then...” Tahoe said.
“There’s only so much a few men can do,” Rade said. “Our fate is in the hands of the world governments. And their militaries. We’re just two men. And we’re not in the military anymore.”
“Two men can make a difference,” Tahoe said.
“Not this time,” Rade told him.
“Maybe Surus has some ideas,” Tahoe said.
“If she does, I haven’t heard from her,” Rade said. “Look, with your permission, I’ll do my best to get your family out if things go sour.”
“Thank you,” Tahoe said. “Of course you have my permission.”
“You really should come with me,” Rade said.
“I can’t,” Tahoe said.
Rade nodded. “All right. I’ll say my goodbyes to the men, and then it’s time to leave.”
Rade knew those goodbyes would be the hardest he had ever made. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to hold it together, especially knowing he might not see any of them ever again.
Even so, Rade intended on following through on everything he had said. He really did.
Unfortunately, shortly after those words had left his mouth, an air raid siren sounded somewhere in the distance.
fourteen
Rade exchanged a worried glance with Tahoe.
“Looks like that attack is coming earlier than we thought,” Rade said. He and Tahoe broke into a run. The wind picked up, and waves assailed the shoreline. The water splashed high into the air, but didn’t reach the tents, which were placed well above the high-water mark. Rade noticed that the sky had become a greenish black.
Shaw raced from the open tent, along with the men. Her parents had the twins secured to the packs on their backs; Cora and Dora and the remaining Centurions surrounded them as escorts, their guns lowered and scanning the surroundings.
“We have to get to the jeep!” Rade told Shaw when he arrived. “We’re leaving!” He glanced at the men. “If you want to stay, that’s your choice.”
“Uh, the ocean...” Lui said.
Rade followed his gaze to the broiling sea and saw several waterspouts winding across the swelling waves.
“The city is worse,” Manic said.
Rade glanced to the east. Above the ruined buildings, he saw several F2 and F3 twisters weaving toward Saint Tropez.
“Damn it!” Rade said. “We take shelter, now! Tahoe, is there a basement or something nearby?”
“There’s an underground parkade beneath a half-collapsed hotel,” Tahoe said. “A short jog away.”
“Lead the way!” Rade shouted above the rising wind.
Military personnel hurried past them toward the city, likely in search of similar shelters. Or maybe they were planning to take up defensive positions for some expected attack. Though he doubted anyone would dare remain out in the open when those tornadoes hit, unless they couldn’t find shelter—at that point, the best plan of action would be to lie in a ditch or other depression, and cover one’s head and neck. Many of the deaths that occurred during tornadoes were attributed to blunt force impacts caused by objects hurled as missiles.
“We should follow the lieutenant and his men!” Fret said.
“Looks like they’re headed toward the school.” Tahoe glanced at Rade and said, by way of explanation: “That’s the second combat outpost near the center of town I told you about earlier. We fought there during the second wave. While it’s fortified, we’re safer at the parkade during the storm... the school has no basement.”
“And what about when the storm ends?” Fret said. “And the invaders come?”
Rade had to make a split second decision. He glanced behind him at the waterspouts, and decided there wasn’t time to risk journeying to the center of town, not while those tornadoes were out there.
“Keep going,” Rade instructed Tahoe. “To the parkade!”
Tahoe led the party through the debris trail alongside a hotel, and crossed the street to a partially collapsed building.
“This is it!” Tahoe said.
Tahoe led the Argonauts to the back area and attempted to kick open a door that evidently led to the underground parkade. There were no windows, or other points of entry the team could use to get inside. At least not from outside the hotel.
After three attempts, Tahoe stepped aside and glanced helplessly at the others.
“This door was open earlier!” Tahoe said. “The wind must have shut it!”
“Allow me,” Harlequin said.
“I want the door intact,” Rade warned the Artificial.
“Understood.” With one blow, Harlequin crumpled the lock.
Rade frowned. “I said intact,” he shouted above the gusting wind.
Harlequin shrugged. “The door is intact. The lock is not.”
The Artificial swung the door open. Stairs led down into darkness.
Tahoe made to rush inside, but Rade held him back with a blocking arm.
“Wait!” Rade said above the gale. “Centurions Ernie, Formaldehyde, Grumpy, and Humpty, inside! Clear the parkade!”
He didn’t want to risk that any tangos who had escaped the initial fighting
might be hiding out down there, especially considering that the door had closed—and locked—since the last time Tahoe had discovered it. Of course, the wind could have been the culprit, and the door was likely auto-locking, but still...
The four robots entered.
Rade waited impatiently as the frigid wind tore at his hair and loose clothing. He glanced at the waterspouts, which had reached the beach by then and officially become tornadoes.
“Come on,” he said over the comm.
Rade glanced at the twins. Shaw’s parents had given them both the aReal goggles again, and had no doubt activated the noise cancelers to blot out the external environment entirely, leaving them immersed in their calming virtual world. Still, the toddlers must have felt the wind, because they were squirming about in the backpacks. Sil seemed to be crying, but if so, her wails were lost to the raging gale.
Rade gazed down the stairs and into dark parkade. Unlike Marseille, power was completely out throughout the city of Saint Tropez, and the only light reaching the windowless basement came from outside; and that wasn’t much, considering the darkened skies. The hotel would have had a generator to provide a backup source for the solar cells, but that generator would have used up its own power supply by then. Not that it really mattered how well-lit the basement was: the robots could use LIDAR to navigate down there.
“Entrance is clear!” Ernie reported. “The parkade has several vehicles, and many pillars between them that could function as hides. We’re fanning out to confirm no tangos are lurking inside those vehicles, or behind the pillars.”
“Roger that,” Rade said. “Tahoe, Bender, cover them.”
The two men dashed down the stairs.
Rade worriedly glanced at the tornadoes behind him, then switched to Tahoe’s viewpoint via his Implant, shrinking the video feed to take up a quarter of his vision. While Tahoe, like all humans, had no innate ability to see in the dark without a jumpsuit, the Centurions transmitted their LIDAR data to his Implant in realtime, which depicted the underground parkade as a white, three-dimensional wireframe. Friendlies, such as the Centurions, appeared as a bright blue outline, courtesy of the tiny comm nodes in them.
“Clear!” came the announcement over the comm a moment later.
Rade dismissed Tahoe’s feed and waited by the entrance to beckon the others inside. When everyone had gone ahead of him, he entered and shut the door behind him. But since the lock was damaged, the door wouldn’t close.
“Harlequin,” he sent over the comm. “See if you can find anything to barricade this door with.”
It was a myth that opening the doors or windows in a building would “equalize the pressure” and prevent a tornado from causing damage. Rade’s purpose in sealing the door had nothing to do with the storm itself, but rather he wanted to keep out any tangos that might use the twisters as a cover to attack. He wasn’t sure the enemy had enough control over the tornadoes to actually steer the deadly whirlwinds around their own troops, but he wasn’t about to assume anything about the invaders at the moment. They might attack regardless if they had any influence over the tornadoes’ paths, their troops weaving between the deadly objects with blatant disregard for their own safety.
Harlequin came up the stairs, carrying a large tool closet he had found somewhere in the parkade. He braced it against the door, blocking the entrance.
“Good job,” Rade said.
He hurried down the stairs and into the parkade with Harlequin. The human members of the team had activated their weapon lights, while the Centurions turned on their small headlamps—mostly for Shaw’s parents, who didn’t have access to the Implant data. The cones of light illuminated the dark regions within the white wireframes of the LIDAR.
Like the others, Rade activated his weapon light and surveyed the parkade with the thin light cone from the rifle. The concrete parkade proved quite extensive, capable of fitting perhaps a hundred vehicles when full. He swept his scope over the pillars marking each stall; there were only fifteen or so parked vehicles there—it seemed most of the guests had evacuated before the main attack had come.
Across from the outer doorway Rade and the others had used to enter, there was an alcove containing a stairwell and elevator combination that probably led to the hotel lobby. On the eastern and western sides of the parkade were ramps climbing to closed garage doors situated at street level. Those garage doors creaked loudly as the wind assailed them, and the gusts occasionally howled against the small openings along the edges. Both noises echoed eerily across the concrete basement.
“Move toward the center of the parkade,” Rade ordered. “Fret, monitor the surface chatter. Keep us apprised of the situation above.”
“Will do,” Fret said as the group made their way into the parkade. “But one thing... is this such a good idea? Going underground like this, I mean. If that tornado hits the hotel, won’t we be trapped in here?”
“If it hits the hotel, the building will be sucked upward,” Lui said. “You’ll want to grab on to one of those pillars.”
“But the remaining portions could collapse, trapping us,” Fret insisted.
“Skinny bitch, anything is possible,” Bender said.
Shaw glared at him. “Please, watch your language in front of the kids.”
Bender shrugged. “Don’t matter. Your twins are shielded by noise cancelers anyway at the moment. Blissfully ignorant.”
Rade looked at the twins, who still wore their aReal goggles. They had calmed down, and sucked contentedly on lollipops in the real world while immersed in their virtual environments.
“Even so, you have to get used to watching your language in front of them if you want to stay on this team,” Shaw said. “So you might as well start now.”
“But I don’t feel like right now?” Bender said.
Shaw frowned. “A-hole.” She looked away.
“Hey!” Bender said. “Watch your language.” He shook his head. “Women these days. Double standards all around.” He glanced at Fret. “So as I was saying, skinny bitch, you gotta stop worrying about possibilities, and deal with the situations as they come.”
“You’ve been calling me that for two years,” Fret said quietly.
“What, skinny little bitch?” Bender said. “So? Don’t tell me you’re going to side with Shaw on this.” He forced his tone up an octave in an attempt to mimic Fret: “Oh Bender, please stop swearing, for the sake of the little children!”
“Have you seen the bad review a former client left on our InterGalNet site?” Fret said. “And I quote: ‘One member of the team overuses the word bitch. He calls birds little bitches, trees leafy bitches, and food tasty bitches. He is a sexist, a homophobe, and a racist.’”
Bender shrugged. “So?”
“Run away boys and girls, the bad man is here!” TJ mocked.
“We all know that Bender is none of those things,” Lui said. “We also know that the moment Bender gives in to what some disgruntled client has posted on our InterGalNet site and starts self-censoring himself, is the moment when everything we’ve been fighting for all these years is truly lost.”
“I’m not saying he should stop saying the word bitch or stop telling his unfunny jokes,” Fret said. “All I’m asking for is a little slack. I don’t really like being called a little bitch.”
“Dude,” Lui said. “He knows that. Why do you think he still calls you that after two years. If you didn’t react to his words, he’d stop. Have you ever noticed that you and Manic are the only ones he calls bitches? There’s a reason for that.”
Bender flashed that golden grille of his in a broad grin. “The reason is quite simple, Lui my pockmarked friend. It’s literally because they’re both bitches.”
Fret threw up his arms.
fifteen
Rade and the Argonauts hunkered down in the middle of the parkade near an exotic sports car parked between two pillars.
“Nice car,” TJ said.
To show just how unimpressed he was with the
car, Fret crossed his arms and leaned against it. “Makes a good seat.”
“And an even better toilet!” Bender said from the far side.
“Ah man!” Lui said, holding his nose.
Mr. and Mrs. Chopra let down the two toddlers and talked to them softly, even though both twins still wore aReal goggles. Shaw stayed close to them, along with Cora and Dora. No doubt the nursemaid robots had given Mr. and Mrs. Chopra pass-throughs so that their voices could penetrate the noise cancelers.
Rade heard what sounded like rain then, the droplets striking the garage door entrance at the top of the westernmost ramp, joining the creaking and howling produced by the wind.
“By the way, I borrowed some glow sticks from a stash I saw back there,” Lui said. He produced a small cylindrical packet.
“How many do you have?” Rade asked.
“Four,” Lui said.
“Let’s position those at the entrances,” Rade said. “Algorithm and Brat, get to it.”
Lui tossed four cylindrical packets to the designated robots.
Algorithm and Brat placed the glow sticks in front of the closed garage doors at the tops of the ramps on either side of the parkade, and at the outer doorway Rade and the others had used to enter, and within the alcove containing the stairwell and elevator combination. After depositing each packet, the robots broke the internal membrane, causing a green glow to emanate from within. In a minute, all four entrances were lit up.
“Argonauts, target those entrances,” Rade said. “I don’t want to be taken by surprise if any invaders decide to break in here during the storm.”
“But what if some poor inhabitant of the city only wants to get inside?” Mrs. Chopra said. “Seeking a shelter from the storm?”
Bender sniggered, pulling up his pants as he came around the far side of the exotic. He glanced at TJ: “I thought she said seeking a shitter from the storm!”
“That’s because you just took a dump!” TJ said.
Mr. Chopra glared at the two of them. As did Shaw.
“Language!” Shaw said.
“Jeez,” Bender said. “The language police are in full force this morning. Can’t even say dump.”