To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga)
Page 21
Blake was not going to have that happen to him. He had his sword, even if it was only a plastic practice sword, and his armor. He would fight and die right here, rather than be turned into a vegetable. He set his feet and tensed up, watching White.
The sergeant looked at him, blew his cheeks out, and walked over to him heavily.
He did not seem threatening, but Blake was waiting now for the sergeant's sudden, treacherous blow.
White stopped, his head down, his hands on the weapons belt around his waist. "Look, Mason, I have my orders. But the Lieutenant didn't say how long you were to have special treatment, did he?" He looked up at Blake and there was a faint smile on his face. "Trust me."
Blake felt the anger go out of him, at least anger toward Sergeant White. He followed White to the cell and the sergeant closed the door behind them. At White's order, Blake dropped his armor and weapons and put his wrists in the metallic bonds.
White pressed a button and raised the metal handcuffs on their cord until Blake stood straight, hands over his head. His mouth felt bitter and there was a fluttering, in his stomach that felt like a twanged nerve. He watched the burly sergeant set a dial to the minimum setting, then a timer the same way.
He looked at Blake, his finger poised over a red button. "You know," he said, "if they could read minds, I'd be in here myself." Then he pressed the button.
The electricity hit Blake like a lightning bolt. He didn't even scream, for his entire body was paralyzed. His flesh seemed to be made of wood – burning wood – and his brain exploding. It lasted only a fraction of a second and then it was over, but Blake was left trembling, unable to control the involuntary nervous twitches of his limbs.
White lowered the wristlocks and Blake fell awkwardly to his knees, banging them on the floor. He gasped in pain, for it seemed as if his dry, wooden body had been bent and broken, shattering splinters into his brain. The vision of the man and woman he had seen hanging in the cell, their bodies jerking and writhing, came back to him. How did they live through it?
Blake tried to rise, but his trembling legs refused to cooperate.
Sergeant White reached down and pulled him up and kept him up until Blake felt steady. "All right?" he asked. Blake nodded. "So, go lie down a while. We're having some more tapes to look at after the meal."
Blake walked shakily to his cell. He waved off Neva and Bennett, who wanted to help, then lay down wearily on his bunk.
How did they live through it? That explains their being semi-vegetables. Blake felt the trembles still in his arms and legs, but they lessened now. Some church, some religion! he thought, that can do this to an individual, even a condemned criminal. I wonder how they square that with their Christianity? Do they think of the Circus as retribution for what the Romans did over two millennia ago? These people may have their church, but they certainly aren't religious.
After the evening meal, the novice gladiators gathered again in the main room and the wallscreen lit up.
"This is the Mark III Berserker," Sergeant White said, pointing at the swiftly moving, beetle-like robot.
The monster on the screen came to a stop, sand spurting under its treads. The turret of the black metal tank whirled around several times, firing flaming darts in every direction. The expenditure of ammunition seemed foolish, as there were no opponents in the Arena.
"The Alexander Company likes flash," White continued. "If you remember, the El Cid fighter had flame-throwers even though they were forbidden in combat. They used to blast around the ring in a fancy show before the fight, just to make a big splash. This Berserker is much the same, with the same blind spots in programming. Zamparelli, in the Caesar last year, knocked out two of them in one fight, all by himself. Notice how deep the treadmarks are? These babies are heavy with all that extra shit on them, so even though they have the standard Fifty power plant, they are a touch slower' even if they do put up a lot of flim-splash."
The lecture droned on, and Blake was only paying a tiny bit of attention to it.
Bennett slipped out of his seat and moved to sit by Blake. "Enjoying yourself?" he asked.
"I can't wait for the cartoon," Blake replied.
"We are going to take you out," he whispered. "The People for a New Day." He grinned, his teeth white, in the light from the wallscreen. "For me they'd never take the risk, but for you..."
"Bennett! Why does the Berserker favor a right turn to rear?" Sergeant White's voice cut into their awareness.
Without hesitation Bennett answered loudly, "Because the wear mode is to the right, because of the placement of the firedart feeder line from ammo stores, sir!"
"But reactions are randomized for efficient fighting modes."
"Yes, sir, but the wear factor is greater to the right after eight hours of operation, due to the monitor heat from the feeder chute, sir. An advantage of 8 percent is estimated, sir."
"Correct, Bennett. So you can see you have a plus 8 percent chance of the Berserker turning to the right on a one-eighty to rear."
The sergeant's voice droned on, but Bennett continued to whisper into Blake's ear.
"It'll happen soon, hopefully before your first combat assignment. Keep yourself alert. You'll know when it is happening." Bennett moved away, then leaned back to add, "Unless you like it here..."
The People for a New Day. Underground revolutionaries against a worldwide religious cartel. Blake chewed on the inside of his right cheek. Anything would be better than this, he thought. Or would it?
Chapter 22
Several days passed, but Blake had received no folded notes, no whispered code words, and no encouragement. He only spoke of it once to Bennett. "Are they taking us all out, or just me?"
Bennett shrugged. "I don't know. One is easier to hide, but then again, they would gain a few trained soldiers if they took all of us."
Blake waited impatiently. Where is Rio?
A few days later, they were sent out on parade, in full armor and weapons. Blake could not help but notice the guard bunkers all along the wall, small recessed forts with heavy lasers and monitoring television cameras.
It was Blake's first visit to the floor of the Arena where he could look around as he cared to, rather than seeing it while restricted to the movements of the sensory recorder. The real thing offered much more than the recorder had given him A thousand small details had been lost in the transfers of brain to tape and tape to new brain, almost an avalanche of information. Music, waving pennants, bright colors, roars, cries, screams, a steady undulating hum, the echoing roars of beasts still caged, the creak of armor, the crunch of sand, the clink of metal, the low-voiced commands of the officers, the erotic moans of the women aroused by the sight, the trumpets, the booming broadcast blessings by the archbishop, and the blessing by a visiting French prelate.
They marched around, their pseudo-Roman costumes gleaming, their legs moving in perfect unison. Circling the Arena, they went out again.
Blake pulled off his helmet and wiped his sweating forehead as they paused a short way down the large ten-meter-wide corridor to watch the first act move by.
The Tamerlane robots were brightly painted but obsolete, and were up against a band of New American Protestants who had defeated a mammoth Darius Tiger the week before. The muscular Protestants walked along next to the Tamerlanes without so much as a glance at them. They carried their only weapons – long spears – in their right hands, moving easily and loosely. Their eyes scanned the mixture of prisoners, robots, and guards that lined the corridor. They had the eyes of trapped animals that had learned patience.
Blake was not to see the outcome. Sergeant White sent them back to their cells, down a long ramp and into a bank of elevators.
When he stepped out, a short, dark man in the uniform of an accountant stood waiting for the elevator to empty. As Blake passed, their eyes met and the man nodded. Blake walked on down the passage to their cell complex, wondering if the nod had been a signal or not.
My life depends on th
is, and I'm not even sure of the signals!
They watched the rest of the day's games on the wallscreen, Sergeant White pointing out mistakes and good work by both sides. Afterward, he put a sheet of reprofax on the board and went off to his room.
"Blake," Rob said, "you better read this."
Mason, Blake, 8420-2925-M-14, 10/19: Main arena, #17, it said.
"You're the seventeenth act tomorrow," Rob explained.
"What am I up against?" Blake asked.
"I don't know. None of us – or at least we aren't posted."
"Then ... tomorrow is it."
Blake felt very hollow and not one bit brave. Suddenly all his expertise at swordplay and robot-kill simulation seemed as nothing. All his hours and days of physical training, of hard work and bruises, all his efforts, seemed futile. How can I, a displaced person in the time stream, a novice gladiator, hope to overcome killer robots designed by several generations of trained technicians?
Blake went to his cell and tried to get some sleep.
Where is Rio? Where the hell is Voss? Is this "underground" really going to try and take me out?
Blake turned his face to the wall and attempted to put it all away from him, back into the fantasyland from which it had come.
Chapter 23
The wait seemed endless. First, marching with his companions in the parade, seeing the thousands awaiting his death, smelling the heat and sweat, sensing the bloodletting mood of the crowd. Then, the long stand in the corridors, shuffling forward and waiting.
Ahead of him were small, slim young men and women, possibly from Southeast Asia, sitting astride mechanical mounts, grotesque spindly-legged robots something like ostriches. One-half of the humans rode green birds and the other half sat on red ones. They carried short spears and didn't look at one another. Behind him squatted the act that would follow him into the Arena, or at least one-half of it: an outsized gorilla with a steel hemisphere where the top of his skull used to be.
Electronically controlled? Blake wondered. At first he had thought the monstrous gorilla was to be his antagonist, but the ringmaster's list showed it to be Number 18. Blake knew that often opposing members of a combat entered from different corridors to the ring, so he still had no idea whom – or what – he was to fight.
The line started moving forward again. In a few minutes, medics came out bearing the gutted bodies of two women and a man, all wearing costumes patterned after World War I uniforms. Behind them rolled a red machine, its scalloped wings folded back against the body of the ship, and large Maltese crosses painted on the wings and tail. In the cockpit sat an animatronic mannikin formed to look like a mustached, begoggled German officer, complete with leather-like flying helmet, black leather coat, and a flowing white scarf. There was a bullet hole where the pilot's right eye should have been; but the animatronic Red Baron still flashed his teeth and looked pertly over the side. The propeller was bent, and turned spastically, with a wrenching squeak.
Suddenly the ringmaster was at his side. "Get ready, Number Seventeen, you'll go on soon."
A number. Not Blake Mason, but Number Seventeen.
Blake turned, expecting to receive the order to go on, but it did not come. He looked inquisitively at the ringmaster, who was gazing into a small screen at the side of the gate and pressing his earphones to his ears. He glanced at Blake and held up his hand. Not yet.
The big gate closed and Blake looked out through a port. Men and robots were setting up something in the center. There was a flash of something white between the figures, then the men were moving away and the utility robot was lumbering off. They left behind them a three-meter post firmly implanted in the center of the ring. It was garlanded with flowers, and tied to it was a woman dressed in flowing white. Blake could not see her face because of the fall of dark hair, but his senses began sending him messages. He pressed to the view-port, staring at her.
A roar came from the crowd and a movement from one of the other gates. Blake looked to see a monstrous anthropoid robot move ponderously out onto the sand. It stopped at the edge of the Arena shadow, and Blake saw it was a three-meter-high Attila. The crowd shouted its approval.
As the noise brought the head of the bound girl up, Blake cried out: "Rio!"
He pressed against the gate, but it was unyielding. He ripped his sword from its scabbard and pounded on the viewport with the hilt. The gorilla behind him snarled and pressed back against the retiarius, who jabbed at it with his trident. The crashcars raced their engines and a lion roared somewhere.
The ringmaster grabbed at Blake's arm. "Bless you!" he snarled. "Not yet! You'll get out there!"
"Let me out now!" Blake shouted.
He fought the ringmaster and shoved him away. He leaped across to the control desk and reached for the door control, but the ringmaster knocked him back with a stinging blow from his nervelash.
"Bless you, not yet!"
Blake jumped to a viewport in the gate and looked out. The Attila was circling the helpless Rio, and the crowd laughed as it swung one of its four arms near her face. Blake pounded again at the port and the ringmaster struck at him again with his nervelash, causing Blake to double up with pain. But he fought the agony and lunged back to the port.
"Let me out!" he cried once more.
The huge Attila was reaching out. Blake uttered a raw cry of rage. Almost delicately, the robot's claw slipped under the shoulder opening of the dress, then with a wide vicious sweep of his arm he ripped the dress. The crowd gasped with shock, and nervous laughter followed. Blake could see them leaning forward, eyes staring at the bare shoulder of the captive girl, lasciviously taking in every detail while they commented on her obvious guilt.
The ringmaster grunted, watching the screens over his control desk. "Bless me, they are programming those tin cans to be positively obscene." He shook his head. "We don't have to put on a dirty show to draw the crowds."
Rio's initial shock had worn off and she stood straight and bravely, looking at the Arena wall rather than at the circling robot.
The mob started shouting encouragement to the robot executioner, and more than a few wanted him to tear more of her dress.
"All right, Seventeen!" the ringmaster said.
Blake looked hard at him, then at the guards behind the gunports, with their lasers and stunners aimed at him. The ringmaster pressed the button and the gates started to rumble open. Blake was ready. He threw himself at the narrow opening and forced himself through as the gate widened.
Sword in hand he raced out into the sunlight and across the sand. He had only a metal sword to use against the awesome height and skill and weight of the Attila, but he had to try. The crowd screamed approval.
Rio looked at him.
He could see her mouth move, but he could not hear her words, which were drowned by the crowd's strident cries. Blake raced toward her, hoping to cut away her bindings in order to give them both mobility. He had no real hope of winning, but at least they could die together, on their feet and fighting.
The Attila moved to cut him off, blocking his way. Blake changed direction, trying to outflank it. The armored robot waved its four threatening fighting arms and blocked him again.
Blake now stopped, breathing heavily, and forced calm upon himself. Anger gives strength, he told himself, but it can more easily betray you. Sergeant White's words were coming back to him: "The Attila is fast, but has limited use of its upper arms. General Robotics' robbies are usually weak in the upper-right rear quadrant."
Blake started walking toward the huge cybernetic killer in a slow and deliberate way. The crowd fell silent, with only an occasional yell.
He stopped just out of waldo range and looked up at the automaton half again as tall as he was and ten times heavier. If it had been human, Blake would have used some kind of psychological trick. He stared at the grim Attila, knowing it was going to kill him. Then he looked at Rio, and a mood of fatalism overcame him. Its effect was a surprising one, even to Blake.
Blake felt suddenly foolish and moved to the side to be able to see Rio. But the robot did not move, except for its stereo lenses. This non-reaction puzzled Blake, and he frantically tried to remember what he'd been taught about robot reaction programming. "They have only a limited number of self-initiated programs," Sergeant White had said. "Mostly they react to you, to your attacks or retreats. If you were to do nothing at all, they would initiate standard kill programming, and get it over with. But remember, 75 percent of the time their reactions are just that – reactions."
Blake began walking up and down before the robot, keeping an eye on its feet. They would provide the clues to a coming attack.
He started to berate the robot. "Your waldoes are ugly, your skin is made of recycled oil drums." Blake was neither attacking, retreating, nor standing still, frozen into immobility by fear. "Your eyes are from an old Napoleon, and everyone knows what miserable fighters they were! You have third-rate drip in your gears, you smell like something is burning inside you. Checked your interior alarms lately? Nothing? Aha! But I can smell you burning! You'll go in a minute, and they'll scrap you; they won't even recycle your parts. They won't put your program in another body. No, sir; they'll just dump it in the torch and reclaim the elements. Oblivion, Attila baby, nothingness, complete unawareness."
Blake still walked back and forth, but on each turn he went a step or two nearer.
The crowd was restless, annoyed by this unconventional fight. The mikes were probably picking up his words for the television audience, but the shouting throng in the stands couldn't hear, and they were restless.