by Isaac Hooke
“Wooyah!” Manic said.
“Don’t get too excited,” Rade said. “I plan to halt the mechs at the edge of the city if it appears Aubagne is lost. And we’ll proceed forward in jumpsuits.”
“Damn,” Manic said.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Bender said. “Enjoyable as that might be for your pussy. Stimulating, and all.”
“Dude, how many times have you seen me naked?” Manic said. “I don’t have a pussy.”
“How do I know you haven’t changed genders since the last time?” Bender said. “The operation takes what, five minutes?”
“How would you know?” Manic said.
“He got himself a trainer pussy a few years back,” Fret said. “He wanted to see what it would be like to live as a woman.”
“You shouldn’t confuse your personal memories with that of other people,” Bender said.
“As I said, thirty minutes,” Rade interjected. “I expect to see you all outside and loaded into the mechs. Centurions ride the passenger seats.”
Rade went to the Quonset with the other Argonauts and clambered to Hugo’s passenger seat to retrieve the jumpsuit, the cooling and ventilation undergarment, and the jetpack. He carried the heavy items down and changed into the undergarment, fitting the holes over the hardpoints that protruded from his joints. He shrugged on the jumpsuit assemblies, keeping the faceplate open to conserve oxygen. Finally he attached the jetpack, loaded into Hugo, and walked the mech outside.
The group was ready fifteen minutes early, and so Rade gave the order to begin the journey to Aubagne.
The mechs followed the country route. Wherever possible, they hugged the shoulder of the road, and remained underneath the plane trees that often overhung the asphalt.
Sometimes they traveled off road and took shortcuts across farms and estates, especially when the route proved impassable due to tornado damage or abandoned vehicles. Twice they hid underneath groves of trees when alien craft were spotted in the distance.
Lui detected the equivalent of multifrequency LIDAR emerging from those craft, but the LIDAR blurring tech in the ATLAS mechs apparently successfully blended the units into their surroundings, because the craft never changed course to fly over the team, instead heading north at high speed, perhaps intending to reinforce alien troops in Lyon or Paris. Rade was just glad those flyers weren’t heading east, otherwise he would have been worried about Shaw, Tepin and the kids.
There was very little traffic on the road at all anymore. Most people would want to be with their families to wait out what they saw as their last few days on Earth, and once they arrived home with their loved ones, there would be no reason to venture out anymore. Indeed, when the mech party swerved off road, Rade occasionally spotted families watching from the windows of chateaus and country houses.
As they neared the outskirts of Aubagne, the farms became less and less frequent, replaced by the plaster-walled and tile-roofed buildings of villages that hadn’t yet fallen to the enemy. He saw very few people in those villages: those who remained had locked themselves away in their apartments and villas, with only the occasional somber face peering from a window.
Smoke rose ominously from the Aubagne city center. But thankfully no drones patrolled the sky, at least none that Rade could see. That made his task easier.
“TJ, I don’t suppose you can hack into the city’s camera grid,” Rade asked. “And give us a heads up on enemy locations?”
“Unfortunately, the camera grid appears to be offline at the moment,” TJ said. “Or the remote interface is offline, at least.”
“Too bad,” Rade said.
He had the Argonauts hide their mechs behind a screen of buildings, and arranged them in defensive positions to cover all approaches. Though there were no drones, as a precaution the team took care to utilize nearby trees and building eaves to shield them from the sky, in case the mothership was watching: though given the intensity and scale of assaults taking place in bigger cities worldwide, it seemed unlikely the mothership would be paying much attention to a handful of human-controlled mechs in a third-tier town like Aubagne.
Rade sent Algorithm and Brat forward to act as scouts.
“I want your internal comm nodes turned off,” Rade told the two robots. Even though Tahoe believed the enemy couldn’t track comm nodes, Rade wasn’t going to take any chances.
The designated Centurions leaped onto the nearby rooftop and dropped, vanishing from view. They also disappeared from the overhead map since their comm nodes were no longer active.
The minutes ticked past as the Argonauts waited for the robots to return.
“Hey Manic, what was that chick’s name you picked up on the beach last week?” Bender asked over the comm.
“I don’t actually know,” Manic said. “That seems like an age ago, given everything that has happened since then. Cindy. Mindy. Or something. Why?”
Bender started snickering over the comm. Soon he was laughing uncontrollably.
“What, what?” Manic said.
Bender managed to get his laughter under control. “When you brought her back to the villa,” Bender said. “You remember what you did?”
“No,” Manic said.
“You went straight to the can to take a dump,” Bender said.
“So?” Manic said.
“You shouldn’t leave your girls alone when I’m home,” Bender said. “Not even for a few minutes.”
“Ah, no, you didn’t...” Manic said.
“Yes, I did,” Bender said. “Raw dog, baby.” He erupted in an even louder laugh.
“You’re an evil bastard,” TJ said, though he chuckled along, too.
“TJ, my man,” Bender said. “It gets better. When I was done, I left her on the couch and went to the kitchen to fix myself some chicken. So then I peer into the living room a bit later and I see her sitting on Manic’s face!” Bender was snickering loudly. “And get this. Get this!” He was struggling to talk between laughs. “Afterwards... he tells me... Manic says... ‘she tasted salty!’” Bender chortled so hard, he bent over and grabbed onto his knees, an action mimicked by his mech.
“I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth,” Fret said.
Manic turned away from his defensive position, taking a step toward Bender.
“Get back there, Manic,” Rade said. “Guard your approach.”
Manic hesitated, then turned away, saying nothing.
Bender continued guffawing, his mech bent over.
“Bender,” Rade said. “Bender!”
Bender finally got his laughter under control and stood up. “Sorry boss. Watching my approach...” Bender aimed his cobra past the building to cover his assigned vector.
Ten minutes later Algorithm and Brat returned and reactivated their comm nodes.
“The city has definitely fallen,” Algorithm said over the main channel. “There are no friendly units in sight. The streets are patrolled by soldiers and converted walker units. Some of those soldiers aren’t clones... they don’t have armor, and look like ordinary citizens, except for the black veins marring their features, and the dead eyes. Those soldiers are moving from building to building, kicking in doors and vanishing inside. They’re obviously sweeping each house. Sometimes they emerge with more soldiers than they went inside with. I saw a group of four clones enter a building, and come out again joined by a man and a woman, and two children. All of them with black veins and dead eyes.”
Rade shook his head. That could be my family.
“However, the city power grid appears to be active,” Algorithm continued. “Traffic lights are still functional.”
That was good. It meant they could print the parts in the city, rather than having to relocate the printer and raw materials to somewhere that still had power.
“All right. Let’s do this.” Rade glanced at the ATLAS units beside him. “Tahoe, Harlequin, you’re with me. We’re going on a little stealth mission to these printers. Leave your mechs behind: le
t’s not make easy targets for the enemy.”
“What are the rest of us supposed to do?” Lui asked.
“I’ll need a couple of mechs to create a diversion...” Rade said.
“Ooh ooh pick me pick me!” Bender said.
“TJ, you’ll remain in command here,” Rade said. “Don’t let the enemy discover you.” He addressed his ATLAS. “You’re in control, Hugo. Obey TJ.”
“Understood, boss,” the mech’s AI said.
Rade opened his cockpit and clambered down the ATLAS.
Tahoe and Harlequin joined him on the street in their jumpsuits. Like Rade, they had their faceplates open.
“What was that about a diversion?” Tahoe asked.
“Bender, Lui, I want the two of you to loop your mechs around to the north,” Rade said. “Take your Centurions with you—they should stay in the passenger seats and provide covering fire as necessary. It’ll be your job to prepare a distraction, and draw the enemies away from the city core.”
“Yes!” Bender said. “I knew you weren’t going to let me sit out this one on the sidelines.”
“Be careful not to let those particle beams hit your ATLAS units,” Rade said. “We don’t have the emitter tech, yet. The diversion should be low key. You fire your lasers at a walker or some other unit, let nearby tangos spot you, then flee. Draw them away. Lui, you’re in charge.”
“Understood,” Lui said. “Bender, let’s go.”
The two proceeded on a roundabout route toward the north side of the city.
“Hey Lui,” Bender said over the comm. “Take a gander at this tree. Looks like your pussy.”
“Bender, Lui, I want your comm nodes off,” Rade sent. “At least until you’ve been spotted.”
“Roger that,” Lui replied. The blue dots representing their units vanished from the overhead map as they complied.
Rade pulled up the overhead map and addressed Tahoe and Harlequin. “We’ll head for the aerospace warehouse first. It’s our best chance at finding usable printers. If the building is destroyed, we’ll cut east and make for the robot shop instead. Comm nodes off. We rely on voice communications only for the time being. TJ, your team is to keep comm nodes active. Watch for any distress calls from either my team, or Lui’s.”
“Will do,” TJ said.
Rade deactivated the comm node portion of his Implant and the blue dots of all his companions disappeared on the overhead map. The outline of the buildings remained on the map, however, as that data was cached in his Implant.
Rade fired his jetpack and landed on the roof of the closest building, breaking a few tiles underfoot as he did so. He dropped to survey the rooftops in view, searching for tangos. Tahoe and Harlequin joined him.
When he was satisfied that no enemies awaited on any of those roofs, he rose to a crouch.
Time to go.
twenty-six
Rade proceeded at a crouch to the edge of the roof and dropped once more to scan the street with his companions. He ran his rifle scope over windows, doorways, gambrels and other potential hides. When finished, he jetted across to the next building and repeated the search.
In that manner the three of them made their way toward the city core. Sometimes the buildings were so close together, essentially abutting one another, that the use of jetpacks was unnecessary, and the trio merely had to step or leap from one rooftop to another. At other times, the gaps were so wide-ranging that the team had to drop to the street and scramble across to the next set of buildings before continuing. It was probably a good thing the camera grid was offline, since the three passed near more than a few of the dome-shaped monitoring devices: Rade had no doubt the aliens could have accessed the feeds if the system were online, given their knowledge of human tech.
Rade spotted patrols of the clones in their distinctive crescent moon helmets. Some of the clones were engaged in sweeping the different buildings: they kicked in doors and rushed inside. He also saw scorpion units among them, as well as converted walkers and Centurions.
Rade always gave the patrols and sweepers a wide berth, either that or he and his companions hid on a given roof until the enemy were long past.
Quite a few of the buildings were riddled with laser bores, and as they neared the center of town, collapsed structures began to fill the streets.
“That looks like the result of a lot of missile attacks,” Tahoe said quietly as the trio stared down at a particularly damaged building.
“Many of these collapses were probably caused by the human defenders,” Harlequin said. “As the enemy seems equipped solely with lasers.”
“Could also be defenders that were turned by the particle beams,” Tahoe said.
“There is that,” Harlequin said.
“Don’t forget the tornadoes,” Rade said. “Losing control of one’s weather grid is never a good thing in a war.”
“When are Bender and Lui going to start that diversion?” Tahoe said. “They’ve had more than enough time to reach the northern side.”
“Maybe they already have,” Harlequin said. “And we just haven’t noticed.”
A patrol of clones appeared at the end of the street, and the trio quickly flattened themselves on the roof tiles.
While waiting for the patrol to pass, Harlequin seemed to become contemplative.
“This is the species that killed my previous incarnation,” the Artificial said quietly.
“You want vengeance?” Tahoe asked.
“No,” Harlequin said. “Though I am worried.”
“Worried?” Tahoe said. “Why?”
“That I will meet the same fate as my predecessor at the hands of these Mahasattva,” Harlequin said.
“You won’t,” Rade said, momentarily looking away from the street. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
Harlequin smiled sadly. “While your words are comforting, I know that even you are not infallible, boss. If I must die here, then I must die. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not completely immortal. My lifespan may be finite within this universe.”
“Welcome to the club,” Tahoe said.
The patrol passed and the party continued toward their target.
Fires burned in the downtown core where industrial buildings had collapsed. One persistent fire belonged to what appeared to be a fuel depot.
They made their way forward until the aerospace warehouse came into view. The building seemed intact, however it was crawling with scorpion units.
“What now?” Tahoe said as they hunkered down three rooftops away from the building.
“We wait until Bender and Lui give us our diversion,” Rade said.
Rade could see the buildings of Marseille in the distance. He zoomed in near the horizon and spotted alien pods floating low over the structures. Steel tentacles extended outward from the aft sections of the craft, as if the aliens searched for radio waves or other signals. He hoped the vessels remained in Marseille when the diversion came.
He lay there uncomfortably, waiting, feeling his muscles growing stiff, when all of a sudden the tangos began racing away to the north.
“Finally,” Tahoe said.
“I knew Bender and Lui wouldn’t let us down,” Harlequin said.
Rade smiled broadly. “Have they ever?”
He glanced at the craft on the horizon. None of them had moved from their positions in Marseille. Good. The enemy didn’t consider the two mechs a threat. Yet.
When the last of the scorpions vanished from view, Rade and the others leaped down; the strength-enhancing exoskeletons of the suits cushioned their fall.
They raced across the street to the entrance of the aerospace warehouse. The glass doors were shattered.
Rade entered the lobby with Tahoe. Rade went high, Tahoe low. No tangos.
“Stay here and watch our six,” Rade ordered Tahoe. “If you spot anyone, you are not to engage. Come to the back room and inform me directly.”
“Understood.” Tahoe ducked behind the front counter an
d then peered past, aiming at the entrance into the street beyond.
Rade and Harlequin proceeded through the office area and entered the main warehouse. The large, square-shaped frames of 3D printers lined the walls; different sized spools containing raw material for the printers were connected to the ceiling. There were also several printing drones lying inactive off to one side. That the invaders hadn’t converted them told Rade the enemy considered those drones useless.
“When Bastille said industrial, he meant it.” Harlequin stepped forward, gazing at the big machinery. “These machines are perhaps overkill for our needs.”
“Not necessarily,” Rade said. “In fact, this is perfect. We can print twelve of each emitter at the same time.”
Though they only needed eight of each, one per mech, Rade wanted to create a few extra, just in case. Though industrial grade 3D printers were supposed to follow blueprints exactly, sometimes duds were created. The smallest of errors could cause an electrical short, especially given the scale of some of the circuit board components.
“Do the printers have power?” Rade asked. “Are you able to interface?”
“I am,” Harlequin replied.
“Scan the different barcodes attached to the spools,” Rade said. “Confirm that we have all the necessary materials.”
Harlequin ran his gaze from spool to spool. Small digital barcodes were attached to each one, indicating the material type. Harlequin finished his survey and glanced at Rade: “All the materials are available in ample quantities.”
“Upload the designs and begin printing,” Rade said. “Program one of the machines to print twelve of each emitter type at the same time.”
A nearby 3D printer hummed to life. The crossbeam inside the square frame set to work, rapidly moving back and forth, transferring the different materials to the substrate at the base of the printer. Each material had a different binding temperature, and would be heated the appropriate amount by a built-in laser as it emerged from the printing nozzle. Some of the spools slowly turned as threads of material were fed into the large loom positioned above the printer, the individual lines forming a weave as they reached the printing head.