The mech had four spindly arms, each equipped with a magnetic clamp. It was colored a gunmetal gray, and as far as Keira could tell, its mechanical face was mainly for aesthetic appearances, likely for the human operators. The eyes glowed a dull yellow and did little to light up the darkness of the shaft below.
Despite the mech’s limited intelligence, Keira thought it a marvel of engineering. The design was elegant, perfectly suited to its task of providing routine maintenance and repair. And yet, the manufacturing tag on the controller, which they had found after an exhaustive search of the control room, told her the mech was over three hundred years old. It was ancient, pre-empire technology, and the UPG was completely incapable of producing anything like it. That was a sobering thought.
When they left for the safe house, she fully intended on bringing the mechs with them. Keira wanted to study the machines, to take them apart and discover what made them tick. They might also be useful in future repair work.
She glanced down at the controller by her side. It had several display screens, one of which was a view of what the mech saw, or really, what Keira chose to focus its camera on. The other screens were for diagnostic monitoring of the mech’s systems and what she ordered it to analyze.
It had taken her an hour to restore power to the mech’s alcove. When she had tried to activate both mechs, only one powered up and showed any semblance of life. Several additional hours had then been required to fully charge the working machine to the point where it could begin to function as intended. The other mech had remained unresponsive and, for all intents and purposes, was dead. Keira suspected the machine’s battery packs had gone bad, but she would not know for sure until she could get her hands on it. That was a project for a later time.
“Damn thing looks like a monkey,” Chris said, peering over her shoulder.
He, like Keira and Lee, had climbed out of his suit several hours before when the air had finally become safe to breathe. He wore a sidearm and had insisted that she and Lee do so as well.
“An ugly, ungainly monkey with four arms,” Chris added after a moment’s reflection.
Keira glanced down the shaft again, studying the mech as it made its way lower, one limb magnetically locking against the wall before the next detached and then reattached. In the darkness of the shaft, it was barely visible.
“I don’t even know what a monkey is,” Keira said, “but I think the mech is cute.”
“When you were a child,” Chris said, “you were a little monkey and you were cute too, nothing like that machine. You’d climb anything.” He gave a low chuckle at the memory. “Trouble should have been your middle name. You drove your father to distraction, to the point he assigned you a babysitter while he was working.”
“I had a babysitter?” She wiped sweat from her brow. It was hot and seemed to be getting hotter by the minute.
“Yep. MK was a damn good babysitter, too,” Chris said. “He doted on you and you him.”
“MK?” Keira asked. The name was unfamiliar to her. “I don’t recall ever having a babysitter.”
“I think you were at least two, maybe three years old,” Chris said. “It was a long transit from the Core and your father had a lot on his hands. He couldn’t spend as much time with you as he wanted.” Chris gave another fond chuckle. “You had only one speed, and that was fast. You ran everywhere. Sometimes you even put your arms out behind you like you were flying.”
“What kind of name is MK?” Keira asked. She had no memories of the ship. “Was he one of the crew?”
“He was in the Corps,” Chris said, “and it was a nickname. I guess you can say, in a manner of speaking, you were raised by the Corps.” He let out a heavy breath as his gaze became distant, his expression one of regret. “MK was a good friend and I’ve missed him these long years since the crash.”
Keira gave a nod. Chris had lost a lot of friends in the crash. It was rare for him to bring them up. MK must have meant a great deal to him.
The controller next to her beeped, signaling that the mech had reached the access panel. She picked the controller up with one hand, studying the screens and readouts closely.
“Keira,” Lee called from across the room. He was working at one of the stations set into the wall, the one specifically devoted to climate and environmental controls. “Is the mech there yet?”
“He just reached the junction,” Keira told him. The mech’s view showed her the access panel. Following her previous instructions, it had already gone to work. “He’s opening the panel now.”
“He?” Chris seemed amused. “Is he your pet now? Have you named him yet?”
Keira looked back up at Chris. He was wearing fatigues and, like her, sweating profusely. Once they had successfully activated the air filtration system, it had cleaned the air easily enough, but the temperature had been cold to the point of being frigid. Unfortunately, powering on the heaters had created their next problem. It was the issue they were working to solve. She glanced back at the controller, watching the mech work for a moment, before glancing back up at Chris. She blinked her eyes rapidly.
“Can we keep him? Please? I always wanted a pet I can call my own. Pretty please?”
Chris gave an amused grunt. “Next time you both decide to screw with a heating system”—he wiped sweat from his face with a small towel—“make sure you can turn it off first. It’s got to be at least thirty-five degrees in here, brutal.”
Keira glanced down at her tablet. It showed the temperature was over thirty-five degrees Celsius. She pointed across the room to Lee. He was focused on the main display as his hands moved rapidly over the keys, typing in commands. “You’ll have to speak to Lee about that or put a note in the suggestion box. I’d recommend the latter. You can direct your complaints there.”
“I already did,” Chris said, “and there is no suggestion box.”
“It wouldn’t matter if there was.”
Keira turned back to the controller. The mech had decoupled the magnetic locks on the panel cover. It moved the plate aside and out of view. She found herself looking at a junction and the power conduit connector. It was essentially a large joint linking two thick cables that channeled power from the tower’s reactor supply to the heating elements, amongst several other control systems.
“Lee said to speak to you,” Chris said.
“Is that why you’re bothering me, then?” Keira asked. “I hate to break this to you, but I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“I’m thinking of putting my armor back on,” Chris said. “At least I’d be cooler.”
“We’re working on it,” Keira replied, focused on what the mech was doing. “We know it’s hot.”
“Damn hot,” Chris said, “and getting hotter.”
“Can’t handle a little heat?” Keira asked. “And here I thought marines were tough.”
Chris ginned in reply as Keira returned her attention to the controller again. She keyed in a series of commands. The mech inserted a diagnostic probe into the conduit, touching each cable and testing the power flow. Data began to move across one of the screens. Keira scowled as it registered. She rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand.
“What’s wrong?” Chris asked.
“This is the fifth junction I’ve checked,” Keira said. “It’s the last one before it reaches the control unit. There’s sufficient power to the system.” Keira keyed in another series of commands on the controller, commanding the monkey to make sure power was not bleeding off from the junction. She studied the information as it continued to flow across the screen.
“Yeah, so?” Chris asked. “What’s your point?”
“This specific junction provides power to not only the heating elements, but also to the water purification control unit and a handful of other minor systems related to the functioning of this level. We figured if we could isolate and cut power to the heating elements, we could turn the heat off. At least until things got cold again, then we’d restore the power and tu
rn them back on, sort of regulate the heat manually.”
“You can still do that, right?” Chris asked.
Keira gave a nod.
“I don’t see the problem, then.”
“When I looked over the water purification system this morning, the diagnostic revealed the system isn’t receiving power, at least that portion of the system, the switch or the relay that tells heating elements to turn on and off. It’s the same thing for climate control. But that doesn’t make any sense now, because as far as I can tell, from what my friend the monkey is telling me, both systems are getting plenty of power.”
“Is it possible the information you’re receiving from the mech is wrong?” Chris asked.
“I doubt it.” She tapped the controller with an idle finger. “Though the mech’s been inactive for who knows how long, it checked out operationally when I looked it over. I’m pretty confident the data I’m getting is accurate. It is a mystery to be sure in that the problem has to be between the power junctions and the workstation itself. Honestly, it could be anything from an open wire to a circuit card in the workstation that shorted out. We’re not really sure at this point.”
“Will it take long to isolate the problem?”
“I don’t know,” Keira said. “It’s really a secondary concern. Turning off the heat is our primary focus right now.”
“Good,” Chris said, using the towel to wipe sweat away. “I’ve never really been fond of the heat.”
Instead of responding, Keira keyed in a series of commands on the controller. She watched closely as the mech deployed a cutter. It efficiently sliced through one of the thick cables so precisely a surgeon would have been envious. At the same time, it left the power line that ran to the purification system intact and untouched. It only took moments for the mech to complete the procedure, then it began working to seal each end of the cut wire, capping them safely, so that the ends could not accidentally come in contact with something and discharge power unchecked. Keira had no idea what damage that might do. It was better to be safe than sorry.
“That’s done it,” Lee called over to her. “The heating elements are no longer receiving power. They’re beginning to cool. Good work.”
She looked over at Chris. “Happy now?”
“Yes, I am.” He glanced down the shaft once more. “Have fun playing with your mechanical pet monkey.”
Keira turned her attention back to the controller as Chris left her, walking back to where they had set up their camp. It consisted of their sleeping bags, personal gear, and food supplies. They had put up two of the tents, for privacy purposes. One was for bathing and the other was a bathroom with a fusion-powered portable toilet that incinerated waste.
A small round mech they had named Bob was slowly moving about the control room, sucking up the toxins and radioactive dust. The medications they took for the most part handled that, but Keira did not want to take a chance. They brought Bob to every job.
Keira turned back to the monkey. “Now, my little friend, let’s trace the power line back to the purification system and make sure there are no breaks or places where power is being diverted and lost.” She input more commands, and in response, the mech began moving again.
Wiping sweat from her eyes, she focused on the task at hand, guiding the machine in its work, rechecking each junction and power conduit again. Then she triple-checked to make sure she had missed nothing. At each junction, she had to study not only the power levels, but also its flow between systems. The process was tedious and required her full attention. She personally eyeballed each junction and conduit connector for visual verification that nothing was outwardly wrong.
After an hour straight, she finished examining the last junction. Frustrated that she had found nothing wrong with the hard connections, Keira ordered the mech back to its alcove for charging, then set the controller down next to her tablet and stood.
Her eyes ached from the strain of staring for so long at the small screens. The temperature had fallen. It was still warm, but at least they weren’t being roasted alive. Her legs were stiff, and her knees ached. She looked around and took a moment to stretch out her back, which was sore. Lee had moved over to the purification workstation.
Chris was near the door. Captain Pikreet had just entered. The two men were deep in conversation. Keira wondered what the captain wanted, then decided she didn’t care. He was a disgrace and she wanted nothing to do with him. The sooner they left for the safe house, the better. Keira just hoped she and Lee would be able to finish the repair and restore the water to those who lived in the tower before they went.
She moved over to Lee, who was intently focused on the displays before him at the workstation.
“How’s it going?” Keira asked, with a glance at the screens he was studying. He had pulled up a lot of information.
“I’m frustrated,” Lee said. “The system has power, but …” He trailed off as he typed on the key panel, punching the digital keys harder than was required. All they needed was a gentle touch. “No matter how I reroute things or attempt to bypass nonresponsive systems, I simply can’t access the intermixer control feature, let alone the flow valves, pumps—heck, I can’t even get any of the impellers anywhere in the tower to respond, even the ones that are working. The same goes for sewage and sanitation.” Lee took a step back from the workstation. His cheeks were red from the heat. “We’ve got all of the command codes, even the admin-level ones.” He waved his tablet at her, which he held in a hand. “The system recognizes the codes, but it’s just not accepting my commands … maddening.” He looked over at her. “For lack of a better word, we’re locked out. I have no idea where the breakdown is occurring. I’ve even examined the workstation and it should be operating normally. You checked the power supply, right? Any problems there?”
“There’s nothing wrong, at least that I can find.”
“I’m of half a mind to disassemble the whole thing,” Lee said, glancing at the workstation. “Though, I don’t think that will do any good. This may be a systems-related issue, not hardware.”
Keira rubbed her jaw as she considered the problem. “Can we restart the entire system? Do you think a reboot would help?”
“I’m already ahead of you,” Lee said. “No luck there either. I can’t even get it to do that. I’ve run several diagnostics. It’s like there’s nothing wrong, other than the damn thing is not responding to my commands.”
“It’s just like the climate control and the heating elements,” Keira said. “The system accepts the codes but then, when it comes to actually executing commands, does nothing … so strange.”
“Agreed,” Lee said and stepped back up to the workstation. He brought up a schematic of the intermixer control. “It’s probably that the system is just old and, like everything else around here, on its last legs.”
“Whatever the problem is, we have the base software package,” Keira said, turning back to him. “What if we reinstalled the entire system? Start from scratch and rebuild everything.”
“It might be our only option.” Lee blew out a breath. “I don’t feel comfortable doing a reinstall ourselves. Command’s not going to like it either.”
“No, they’re not,” Keira agreed.
“They aren’t gonna fly a systems specialist down planetside,” Lee added. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, they won’t do that,” Keira said. “It’s risky and systems specialists are too valuable. There are too few of them.”
“At the minimum, we’d need one to walk us through the process remotely. That way it gets done right and we don’t make things worse or break something we can’t fix.”
“It’s not like we’ve done that before. Remember Varcana Arcology?”
“You had to bring that up,” Lee said, “didn’t you? Something else I’ll never live down.”
Biting her lip, Keira glanced toward the access shaft. He was right, of course. They would need assistance to complete the reinstall properly. She won
dered why the heating problem had been linked to the water issue. It was a puzzle to be sure. Both control systems shared the same power source. At the same time, they were separate entities. They were also controlled by different workstations.
What was going on here?
Could it be a sign of something else, a problem that was much more serious? Could the issue lie with Hakagi’s computer core? She glanced down at her hand and thought on what had happened the day before, shortly after they had arrived. Keira had never experienced anything like the shock, or whatever it had been. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the strange sensation, along with the residual tingling in her hand afterwards. It had felt so real. But had it been? It was almost as if there was an alien presence of some kind hovering just out of sight, lurking in the machine itself. Or was it around her? The more she thought about it, the more, in an odd way, it made sense, and yet at the same time, it didn’t.
Had she actually sensed something? She had heard of people who had extra sensory perception … ESP. In her tablet, she even had novels where the main characters were sensitive to such things. But those had all been stories, fanciful storytelling, right? Had she imagined it all?
At the same time, Keira was afraid to speak on it. Chris and Lee might think she was going crazy. Things like that just did not happen, not in the real world.
Still, the feeling would not go away. The sense of the tower itself, the oppressive feeling, the heavy weight bearing down on her was there when she closed her eyes and something else—just out of view … a presence of some kind? It was almost tangible.
“What are you thinking?” Lee asked.
Keira had become lost in her thoughts. She gave a small start. “I’m worried it may be something to do with Hakagi’s computer core.”
Lee had been studying the schematic. He ceased what he was doing and looked over at her, his expression grave.
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