by Isaac Hooke
Twenty-four objects began to take shape as the minutes passed. Twelve of them were squarish, and about the size of a human hand. The other twelve were long rectangular bars, roughly as long as a human arm. The former were the anti-particle beam emitters, the latter the spoofers.
Leaving the printer to do its work, Rade went to the front offices to check in with Tahoe.
“No sign of any enemies,” Tahoe said.
Rade nodded, then returned to the warehouse area.
After another ten minutes, Rade glanced at Harlequin and said: “How long?”
“The devices are almost complete,” Harlequin said. “Two minutes.”
Tahoe appeared a moment later; he rushed into the warehouse area from the front offices and blurted out: “I got several scorpion units headed our way.”
Rade took up a position with Tahoe near the entrance to the offices, and aimed his scope down the hallway. No tangos appeared.
“Well if they’ve come,” Rade said. “They’ve decided not to enter the building.”
“They don’t know we’re here,” Tahoe agreed.
Rade edged his way forward into the hallway, and the entrance slowly came into view. Beyond the smashed glass doors he saw scorpion units casually wandering around in the street outside.
He remained there, watching from the shadows.
Harlequin came up behind him.
“Printing is complete,” Harlequin announced.
Rade glanced at the Artificial. He carried a bulging sack over one shoulder.
“Did you get them all?” Rade asked, nodding toward the sack.
“Twenty four emitters, in the bag,” Harlequin said.
“And who says Artificial’s don’t have a sense of humor,” Rade said.
The trio returned to the printing area. Rade led them to the rear of the warehouse, where a door led to a side street. He opened the door a crack and peered outside. There were several more scorpion units out there.
“Damn it.” He silently shut the door, then glanced at Harlequin. “Can you modify the emitters to work with our jumpsuits?”
“No,” Harlequin said. “The devices are designed for mechs. The power and wiring requirements are completely different. I would have to go back to the design phase and come up with something new. It would take several hours.”
Rade turned toward the door. “I’m going to cause a diversion.”
“No,” Harlequin said. “It shouldn’t be you. As you are our leader, I can’t allow this.”
“We’re not in the military anymore,” Rade said. “We don’t have to follow military protocol.”
“Perhaps,” Harlequin said. “But that protocol is in place for good reason. The team cannot lose its leader.”
“Let me do it,” Tahoe said.
“Both of you have families,” Harlequin said. “Children. I do not. I will provide the diversion.”
Rade hesitated. Finally: “Be careful. Lead them away to the west, lose them, and then loop around to the eastern side to our mechs. When you’re clear of the building, activate your Implant and keep TJ apprised of the situation.”
“I will.” Harlequin handed the sack to Rade and approached the door. The Artificial opened it slightly, waited several moments, and then dashed out into the street.
Rade closed the door behind Harlequin, leaving it open a crack so he could observe.
In a few seconds, the scorpions spotted Harlequin.
The Artificial jetted up onto a nearby rooftop and vanished, heading west. The alien mob pursued, their laser turrets firing repeatedly.
Rade waited until the scorpions from the front area joined in the pursuit, and then he and Tahoe fled outside. They leaped onto nearby rooftops and headed in the opposite direction, leaping between the buildings and the rubble.
The pair occasionally ducked for cover when patrols and scorpions raced past, headed westward to aid in the hunt. Rade kept an eye on the distant ships that floated on the horizon, but they never left Marseille. Bigger fish to fry there, no doubt.
In twenty minutes he and Tahoe neared the outskirts of the city and were able to increase their pace, thanks to the scarcity of patrols. Rade activated his Implant to alert TJ and the others of his presence. The overhead map updated with their positions: the team was just ahead, past three buildings. Bender and Lui had rejoined them from their little diversionary trip to the north.
According to the map, Harlequin was also making his way to their location from the west. Apparently he had successfully eluded his pursuers—a bunch of red dots were frozen on the display several streets behind him, indicating the last time Harlequin had spotted them.
And then Harlequin’s blue dot winked out.
“The Internet went down?” Rade asked over the comm. Harlequin would be piggybacking his connection on the Internet, since the range of his built-in comm node was limited to around fifty meters.
“No, Harlequin has been shutting down his comm node intermittently,” TJ said. “Just in case the enemy is using it to track him. Though as usual, so far the evidence seems to indicate otherwise.”
Rade reached the ATLAS units and leaped down onto Hugo’s passenger seat. He passed the sack to Algorithm, who resided there; the combat robot secured the precious cargo.
Rade swiveled down to the cockpit area, but when the hatch cracked open he paused.
“TJ, how long would it take you to install the emitters?” Rade asked.
“About twenty minutes for each type,” TJ answered. “So forty minutes per mech. I can use the tools I have in my mech storage compartment. Would you like me to start?”
“That’s too long. Do it later.” Rade entered his mech and the hatch sealed. As the inner actuators enveloped him, the view from the ATLAS cameras filled his vision.
“He’s back,” Manic said a moment later.
Rade glanced at the overhead map. Harlequin’s blue dot had returned. He was nearly at the party. “That was fast.”
A moment later Harlequin appeared, leaping down from a nearby roof. He grabbed onto a gutter, which partially broke away, and used it to swing toward his mech. The cockpit dropped open and Harlequin vanished inside.
“Talk about a snazzy entrance,” Lui commented.
“Welcome back, monkey man,” Bender said.
“Call me Tarzan for short,” Harlequin said.
“Deactivate comm nodes,” Rade said. “Just in case. Tahoe, lead the way to the east. Half speed. It’s time to make a graceful exit.”
Tahoe led the mechs from the city. As before, they kept to the shoulder of the road, using the tree line for cover.
“By the way, Tar-who?” Manic said.
“Tarzan,” Harlequin clarified.
“Yeah, who the hell is that?” Manic said.
“Check your Implant,” Tahoe said.
“Rade made us deactivate our comm nodes, so I’m disconnected from the Internet,” Manic said.
“Should be in your local database...” Tahoe said.
“A fictitious character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs,” Harlequin explained. “Tarzan was orphaned in his infancy and raised by apes. Similar to myself.”
“You calling us apes?” Bender said, a dangerous edge to his voice.
“Humanity is essentially an upright ape,” Harlequin said. “They are your closest living ancestors. You evolved from them. In most taxonomic systems, your own scientists classify humanity as a type of primate. Homo sapiens.”
“Who you calling a homo?” Bender said.
“I—” Harlequin began.
“Bitch thinks he’s Tarzan,” Bender interrupted. “Unbelievable. Let’s hear your Tarzan call.”
“Tarzan call?” Harlequin said.
“Yodel, damn it!” Bender said.
“I can’t,” Harlequin said. “I’ll need to download a yodel program.”
“Then you ain’t Tarzan,” Bender said. “Because it’s all about the call. Here, let me teach you.” He proceeded to give the worst rendition of a y
odel that Rade had ever heard.
“If you ever do that again,” Manic said. “I’m going to quit this team.”
Bender proceeded to do it again.
“Bender, please...” Rade sent.
“Sorry boss,” Bender said. “Hey Manic. How come you’re still here?”
“I never said when I’d quit,” Manic told him. “Could be today. Could be ten years from now. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Too bad,” Bender said.
When they were ten kilometers from the city, Rade gave the order to reactivate comm nodes, and the party continued on its way. While there was no ground-based pursuit, the occasional airship passed overhead, forcing the team to take cover.
“Do you guys really think the LIDAR blurring in these mechs is actually working?” Fret said after one such flyover.
“It’s working,” Tahoe said.
“What if the enemy merely wants us to think it’s working,” Fret said.
“To what purpose?” Lui asked.
“Maybe they hope we’ll lead them to a secret human base,” Fret said.
“Well, then they’re in for a surprise, aren’t they?” Lui said. “When they discover that we’re holing up at an empty farm.”
“The blurring is working,” Rade said. “They’re not going to find us.”
The rest of the return journey passed without incident; by nightfall the team members reached the estate that served as their base of operations. They deposited the mechs in the Quonset and disembarked. TJ and Bender worked on hooking up the emitter devices to the ATLAS units, and Rade instructed four of the Centurions to assist them. Surus had given Rade test parameters to run against the devices to ensure a given emitter functioned and wasn’t a dud; Rade transmitted those parameters to TJ and Bender and let them work.
Rade gave other Centurions the task of watching the four corners of the estate, and then retired to the country house. He put Lui and Manic on watch upstairs and downstairs, and then ate a meal of canned beans in the kitchen with the remaining Argonauts.
He told the team to get some rest and then found an empty room for himself. Before racking out, he decided to contact Surus. The Internet was still online, so he made the call without issue.
“How did it go?” her hologram asked him. She had repaired her face, Rade noted, so that she no longer had a metal understructure visible on the right side. She had secured her hair in a ponytail, and replaced her uniform with a tight-fitting duplicate that was free of rips. In essence, she looked her usual perfect self.
“We got the emitters printed,” Rade said. “TJ and Bender are installing them now.”
“Good,” Surus said. “I have identified myself to military bases across the planet, and transmitted the plans for the particle beam protection devices to them.” That would explain why she had cleaned up: to present her best face possible during the communications. Then again, she might have simply made those cosmetic changes to her holographic representation alone. “The tide should begin to turn in favor of humanity very soon. But that still leaves the mothership in orbit.”
“Wait,” Rade told her. “You say you transmitted the plans for the anti-particle beam device? But what about the signal spoofing emitter? That would prove mighty useful against the enemy.”
“It would,” Surus said. “Except I want to reserve that emitter for the Argonauts alone at the moment. I have a special mission in mind for you and your team.”
twenty-seven
Rade explained the operation to the team the next morning.
“Ooo that’s devious,” Bender said when Rade finished. “More devious than anything I’ve heard in a long time. I love it. I can’t wait to see the faces of those bug bitches when we throw the switch. But one question, how exactly is Surus going to be joining us? I thought her fine ass was in China?”
“She is,” Rade said. “But she’s gotten her hands on a Sino-Korean mech and booster rocket combination. An ATLAS 5 D I believe.”
“Nice,” Fret said. “Too bad those models are smaller than the 5 CFs.”
“It will suit her purposes well enough,” Rade said. “We launch in an hour. I expect to find you all suited up, aboard your mechs, and attached to your booster rockets ten minutes before oh nine hundred.”
Bender remained behind as the others filed outside.
“What’s on your mind?” Rade asked him.
“You really think we can do this?” Bender said. “We lost a lot of lives the last time we faced these bitches.”
Rade sighed. “We can do it. But I can’t guarantee that we won’t lose anyone.”
Bender nodded, then looked away, his eyes defocusing as he seemed to gaze off into the distance. “I’m damn proud, you know, to call you boss. The way you lead us, your strength of character, your... your heart. You’re the paragon of a MOTH. When the instructors told us they were training us to be more than men, they meant you.”
“Bender—” Rade began.
Bender help up a hand. “Let me finish. Can I finish? Okay. I wanted to thank you for having children. I know I laughed at you the first time you told me, but they’ve grown on me. And straight up: I feel like they’re my own. Just as you’re my brother, the twins are my children. I know that sounds messed up, but it’s true. So I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure you get through this alive. I won’t have no children of mine growing up without their real father. Because I’m just a surrogate.”
“You’re more than a surrogate,” Rade said. “You yourself are the penultimate example of what it means to be more than a man. I only hope my children grown up to be as brave and fearless as you.”
“Thank you,” Bender said, tearing up. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”
“And drop this notion of self-sacrifice right now,” Rade said. “Because I won’t let you die out there either, my brother. If you throw yourself into the line of fire to protect me, I’ll be right there at your side, shielding you. There’s a reason why we’ve stuck together as a team all these years. We work well together. We form an uninterrupted chain. And if one link in that chain fails and one of us goes down, we all go down.” He clasped Bender by the arm. “Now let’s go kill some bugs.”
“You got it, boss,” Bender said, his eyes glistening with unbridled joy.
After Bender left, Rade made one final call to bid Shaw farewell, perhaps for good. Despite his exchange with Bender, he had no idea if any of them would return from the mission alive. He hoped everyone would, and he would fight very hard to see that they all did, but he had no control of what the universe threw his way.
He had already informed Shaw of the mission the night before, so she knew this was a farewell call. The red eyes of her hologram gave away the fact that she had been crying.
“Well, this is it,” Rade said.
Shaw smiled bravely, though her eyes welled with fresh tears.
“Come on,” Rade said. “Don’t grieve. I haven’t died yet.”
“I’m not grieving,” she said. “I just wish... you didn’t have to go.”
“My DNA requires my presence,” Rade said.
“I thought Surus possessed one of your clones before,” Surus said. “Let her do it again. Then she can go without you.”
“You’re forgetting that when she possesses a clone, she incinerates the organic layer,” Rade said. “So that won’t work. I have to go.”
“Fine, but what if Surus is wrong?” Shaw said. “And when you get there, your DNA is worthless?”
“Then we’ll find a way to complete the mission regardless,” Rade said. “Look, even if I knew ahead of time that my DNA wouldn’t help, I still wouldn’t let the men go without me. I wouldn’t send them to their doom without me to guide them. I have to do this. For Alex. For my brothers. For humanity.”
“Forget humanity,” Shaw said. “Let’s run away, the two of us. And never come back. You wanted to flee before...”
“Yes,” Rade said, “but that was before we
had a plan to win this.” An edge of steel hardened his tone. “And before they hurt Alex.”
“What’s the point of vengeance if you end up dead?” Shaw said. “Alex is alive. He has a new arm. You don’t need revenge.”
“As I mentioned, we have a plan now,” Rade said. “We have to try. If we let Earth fall, no human colony will be safe, not in any system. We can run. Perhaps live in peace for a few generations. But eventually the Mahasattva will come for us if we don’t stop them here.”
She slumped, the fight visibly flowing out of her. She had apparently come to accept that Rade was going to do this no matter what she said.
“I love you,” she told him finally. “Secure the future of humanity, then. But more importantly, secure the future of your children. Fight for them.”
Rade extended one hand toward her hologram as if to touch her cheek, and opened his mouth, but before he could answer she terminated the feed.
Rade sat back.
I always fight for my kids, my love. They’re all I’ve ever fought for. Besides you, and my brothers.
His fingers tightened into a fist.
Yes. I will fight for them.
RADE GATHERED WITH the other ATLAS units outside the Quonset. They had placed the booster rockets in a long, well-spaced line before the building, on an area of bare land that wouldn’t be affected by the fiery outburst of fuel produced by the launch. The Argonauts attached their mechs to the talon-like hooks provided by each device; those talons closed around the thigh and shoulder areas, securing the mechs to the boosters.
The Centurions observed from near the country house. The combat robots would be staying behind.
“Activate emitters,” Rade said. He did so, and then checked the diagnostics display on his HUD. The spoofing tech attached to Hugo was online and functioning, as was the anti-particle beam emitter. Rade ran through the team members and had them confirm one by one that their emitters were working. Even though they all badly wanted to come along, none of them would have lied if their spoofing devices were offline, as the failure of even one unit could put the entire mission at risk.
Apparently there was no need to turn off their comm nodes to use the spoofers. According to Surus, the nodes worked in conjunction with the tech, effectively masking their signals to enemy eyes. That was good, because it meant Rade didn’t have to rely on other means to communicate with his team.