Approaching Omega

by Eric Brown

  As he watched, the roboids backed off and a cyborg turned the frame so that Jenny was on her back. For a brief second, Latimer found it hard to believe what he was seeing.

  Jenny was still conscious. Her eyes were open, and staring upwards, wide with terror at the knowledge of what was happening to her.

  The roboids approached again, with quick, whirring implements, and swiftly removed the top of her skull. They inserted implants with deft assurance, one roboid arm following the other in with millimetre-accurate precision, while all the while Jenny stared in silence, her anaesthetised face straining to give some expression to the terror she was experiencing.

  At one point, Latimer was sure that she had seen them, looking down on her. Something like a light of hope showed briefly in her dark eyes, and then was just as quickly extinguished with the realisation of the hopelessness of her situation.

  Latimer rolled away from the opening, and Emecheta had obviously had his fill, too. He slid the cover shut and hung his great, helmeted head.

  Latimer felt something turn within him, and he thought he was about to vomit. Until now, the thought of Caroline at the mercy of the AIs had been almost an abstract concept - part of him had even clung to the hope that she might somehow have survived their attentions. Now, after what he’d seen them do to Jenny Li, he realised he was kidding himself.

  He knew that something very similar had happened to Caroline - something similar, or even worse.

  They came together, touched helmets.

  It was a while before someone spoke.

  Renfrew: “What now?”

  “We don’t stand a chance,” Latimer said. “If we try to save her ... Did you see those guards? We’d be sitting ducks.”

  Emecheta said: “So let’s get going.”

  Latimer nodded. He could not banish the image of Jenny Li’s staring eyes.

  Emecheta examined the softscreen. “There’s a service dropshaft ten metres along here. It goes down three levels, all the way to level ten. Then we’ve got to get out and find another chute. Okay?”

  “Let’s get going,” Latimer said.

  They followed Emecheta on all fours towards the hatch of the dropshaft, leaving behind them whatever remained of Jenny Li.

  Emecheta hauled open the hatch and was about to slide in feet first when Renfrew gestured for them to come together. They touched helmets. “Wait,” she said. She was sobbing.

  “What?” Emecheta said.

  “Jenny ...” she wept.

  Latimer said, softly: “There’s nothing we can do, Serena.”

  She shook her head. Through her faceplate, Latimer saw that her features were contorted in grief. “We’ve ... We can’t just leave her like that-”

  “Renfrew,” Emecheta snapped. “Pull yourself together, girl. Jenny - the Jenny we knew - is dead. We’ve got to look after ourselves, now.”

  Renfrew sobbed. “That’s ... that’s what I mean, you bastard! Don’t you understand? Jenny ... whatever she is now ... she knows what we’re doing. She knows we’re planning to hit Central-”

  Latimer said: “Chances are that they’ve guessed our intentions anyway.”

  “But they don’t know how we’re getting there - using the service shafts.”

  Emecheta said: “Jesus Christ Almighty.”

  Renfrew choked on a sob, then managed: “We’ve got to ... to ...” She broke down. “Don’t you see, we’d be putting her out of her misery, too.”

  Oh, Christ, Latimer thought. He shook his head. “I don’t think I could,” he began, then went on: “Anyway, if we did kill Jenny, we’d be giving our position away.”

  Emecheta thought about it. “Not necessarily. If one of us used a projectile pistol. They’re silent. The AIs wouldn’t necessarily know where the shot came from.”

  Emecheta looked from Renfrew to Latimer. “Any volunteers?”

  Silence. After a second, Latimer shook his head and whispered: “I couldn’t ...” He thought of Caroline, and what she might have become. She would still have life, after a fashion. He said: “Who are we to say that she should die?”

  Emecheta snorted. “It’s us or them, buddy. Don’t forget that. She’s got to die.” He turned his helmet minimally so that he was staring into Renfrew’s faceplate. “Serena, could you pull the trigger?”

  A quiet sob, and a slow side to side shake of her helmet.

  As they watched, Emecheta slipped his pistol from its holster on his thigh, checked the weapon. They touched helmets again. “Okay, get into the chute. This won’t take long.” Emecheta turned and made his way back to the sliding panel.

  Renfrew climbed through the hatch and descended. Latimer followed her in. He gripped the rung of the ladder, closed his eyes and waited while the Nigerian administered the coup de grace.

  A minute later he saw movement above him. Emecheta entered the chute, pulling the hatch shut after him. He dropped fast, squeezing past Latimer and then Renfrew, to take his rightful place, leading them down into the bowels of the ship.

  As he brushed past him, Emecheta avoided Latimer’s questioning gaze.

  * * * *

  Ten

  After ten minutes, the process of descending became a mechanical routine. Latimer realised that he was breathing hard, and wondered how much air his suit had in reserve. He was too beat to call up the control screen in his helmet. He realised that he was all too happy for Emecheta to lead them: after what he’d seen in the op room, he knew there was little he could give in the way of impetus or foresight. Even before that, he admitted, he had given in to the superior leadership of the Nigerian.

  Minutes later, he felt a tap on his boot, and looked down. Renfrew was pointing, and Latimer saw that Emecheta had gone through into a corridor. Renfrew followed, and Latimer climbed the last few metres and dropped into a wide, grey passage.

  Emecheta gestured them into a huddle, and all three touched helmets. Latimer saw that Renfrew was still crying, her cheeks running with tears.

  “Okay,” Emecheta was saying, “we have another ten levels to go before we get to the core. And we’ve got to hurry. My guess is that Jenny told the AIs about us, before ...”

  “What do you suggest?” Renfrew said.

  Emecheta peeled the softscreen from his arm and pressed it to the wall. He indicated their present position. “The quickest route is this one, by dropshaft. But that’d make it easy for them. There’s another emergency access tube over here. We could take that all the way down, with luck arrive at the core undetected.”

  He was the perfect leader, Latimer thought. Calm in a crisis, rational. It was as if the mercy killing of his colleague - his ex-lover - had happened months ago, was a thing of the past.

  Renfrew nodded her bulky helmet. “Let’s do it.”

  Emecheta hesitated.

  “What is it?” Latimer asked.

  The Nigerian was reading something from the screen set into the arm of his suit. “The air supply’s still working down here.”

  “What about it?”

  Behind his faceplate, Emecheta frowned. “I don’t get it. If you were the AIs, and knew we were here, wouldn’t you depressurise the levels?”

  Renfrew nodded. “Stands to reason.”

  “So they know we’re in EVA suits,” Emecheta said, “but they also know that our air supply can’t last for ever.”

  “So they haven’t worked it out yet,” Latimer began.

  “Get real, Ted,” Emecheta snapped. “How long does it take those bastards to calculate anything?”

  “So why have they left the air in?” Renfrew asked.

  Emecheta hunched his massive shoulders. “Maybe they’re playing games? Sucking us into thinking it’s safe to crack our suits. Then they’d depressurise. Okay, let’s move out. This way.”

  They hurried down the corridor, Emecheta leading the way, his rifle at the ready. Latimer walked backwards, covering the rear. This section of the ship consisted of the storerooms that contained all the necessary supplies a colony wo
uld need to build a new life on some virgin world.

  He wondered if the hope of defeating the AIs, continuing the mission with the thousand sleepers in hangar Two - if they were still alive - was a futile dream. Perhaps... but something, some determined core deep within him, would not let fate, or the AIs, triumph. They would survive, and vanquish their enemy, and continue. Of this he was sure.

  He had confidence in Emecheta and Renfrew. They would pull him through.

  * * * *

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. Renfrew had turned to halt him. Ahead, Emecheta was crouching by a junction in the corridor, peering around the corner, laser poised.

  Latimer heard his heart thudding, loud, in the confines of his EVA suit.

  Emecheta stood and hurried back to them. They touched helmets. “Now I know why they haven’t depressurised,” he said. “Okay, we can crack our suits.”

  “You sure it’s safe?” Renfrew asked.

  “Sure I’m sure,” Emecheta said, tapping the controls at the neck of his helmet. His faceplate whirred open and he breathed deeply.

  Latimer cracked his helmet, tasting the fresh air and ... there was something else. An odour, at once sweet and rank.

  “Em?” he asked. “What the hell ...?”

  “Take a quick look around the corner, Ted. You’ll see why they need air.”

  Heart slamming, fearing what he might find, but secretly knowing the answer, Latimer advanced cautiously towards the corner, paused and peered around.

  The corridor opened out into a big chamber, featureless and grey.

  Latimer ducked back and plastered himself against the wall, breathing hard. He had caught only a fleeting glimpse of the cyborged colonists in the distance. They had been cerebrally augmented, their crania implanted with leads and jacks that snaked down their backs and linked to what appeared to be powerpacks.

  They were armed, and stood about in groups, casually, like soldiers awaiting a command.

  He pulled back, breathing hard.

  “Okay,” Emecheta said. “What now?”

  “Where’s the emergency tube?” Latimer said.

  Emecheta pointed. “Thataway - across the chamber.”

  “Great!” Renfrew hissed. Her teeth chattered in fright. “So ... what do we do?”

  “Well, we can’t cross the corridor without those bastards seeing us,” Emecheta said.

  “There’s got to be another tube nearby, right?” Latimer said.

  Emecheta consulted the softscreen. “Here, to the left, about half a klick away.” He indicated a corridor situated a short way behind them.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Latimer said.

  They hurried back the way they had come and turned down the corridor, almost running now in their haste to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the cyborgs.

  It seemed to Latimer that every muscle in his body was straining in protest, his every joint in pain. After so long in cold sleep, he thought, what do I expect? His lungs burned, and every breath was an effort.

  He heard a sound behind him - the distinctive snap of a laser’s safety-catch - and turned.

  A colonist crouched, raised a laser to his shoulder, taking aim. Still running, Latimer loosed off a volley of laser fire, filling the corridor with actinic glare. When his eyes adjusted, he saw the colonist in pieces on the deck. He ran on, gagging.

  Beside him, Emecheta turned and laid down a continuous hail of laser fire. Latimer looked over his shoulder and saw more cyborged colonists appear. It’s only a matter of time, he thought.

  Lances of laser fire tore past him, superheating the air and ricocheting off the corridor ceiling, zigzagging crazily down the perspective of the receding passage. He ducked, screaming, and sprinted.

  Then Emecheta was beside him again, pushing Latimer and Renfrew to their left, along another corridor.

  Ahead, he made out the service hatch. He entered the code while Emecheta and Renfrew crouched at the turn in the corridor, halting the charge of the cyborgs.

  When he had the hatch open, he called: “Okay! Move it!”

  He climbed into the hatch and descended, aware of Renfrew and Emecheta crowding into the tube above him and closing the hatch.

  Emecheta and Renfrew had paused in their descent. He halted also, listening.

  He heard footsteps in the corridor, running past the hatch, and almost wept with relief.

  Slowly, taking the utmost care not to make a sound, he began climbing down again.

  * * * *

  Eleven

  They might have been descending for an hour when Emecheta hissed down at him: “Okay, we’re almost there. Let’s stop and think this through.”

  Latimer halted, aware of his trembling limbs. He was exhausted, and realised that he’d been climbing on autopilot for who knew how long, his mind numbed with the import of past events, too afraid to look too far into the future.

  He was grateful for the respite. He looked up at Renfrew and Emecheta.

  “The hatch about three metres below you,” Emecheta was saying, “gives on to a corridor ten metres from the entrance to the core. The cyborgs might not be in the corridor when we emerge, but you never know. We gotta be careful. You bet your bottom dollar that the bastards have Central well guarded.”

  “I don’t see how we’re going to do it,” Latimer found himself saying.

  “Fuck that!” Emecheta spat. “We go in there with all guns blazing. The element of surprise. Remember, all we gotta do is hit Central. Take my word for it, those cyborgs and the rest of the roboid horde, they ain’t autonomous. They’re slaved. We hit Central, and the rest of the bastards go belly up.”

  Latimer nodded. “Okay, okay.”

  “Let’s take a rest,” Renfrew said. “I’ve about had it. I need a break.”

  “Fine,” Emecheta said. “Take it easy. Deep breaths. Tell me when you’re both ready to go, okay?”

  Latimer let a silence develop, then said: “Anyone ever tell you, Em, you’re a born leader?”

  “That, coming from the boss!” Emecheta laughed.

  “I knew what I was doing when things weren’t mad crazy, Em.”

  Emecheta was smiling. “I never told you, did I?”

  Latimer looked up. “What?”

  “For two years back in my twenties, I fought for the Nigerian Liberation Front. Kept that off my CV when I applied for the colony mission.”

  Latimer said: “Thought you were pretty handy with that laser.”

  Renfrew, above him, laughed.

  “What’s with you?” Emecheta asked.

  “I never thought I’d be in this position,” she said. “I thought it would be all plain sailing once I’d been accepted. The colony programme. A new world. A new start. Exploration. Adventure ... but nothing like this.”

  A silence developed.

  Renfrew went on: “What happened?”

  Emecheta grunted. “What you mean, what happened?”

  “I mean,” she said, “why did the AIs turn on us, use us? I mean, whose fault is it?”

  “It’s no-one’s fault, Serena,” Emecheta said. “It just happened. Call it bad luck.”

  “The Omega Corporation programmed Central,” Renfrew went on. “They had branches developing artificial intelligence, even cerebrally-assisted human-machine interfaces. They should have known that something like this might have happened, given the right circumstances.”

  Latimer said: “They weren’t to know that! No-one could have predicted a thing like this. Like Em said, it’s just bad luck. Period.”

  Renfrew made to reply, thought better of it, and let the silence stretch.

  Emecheta ended it. “Okay, you two rested enough? Shall we continue?”

  “Fine by me,” Latimer said.

  Renfrew nodded.

  “Okay,” Emecheta called down to Latimer. “Open the hatch slowly, take a look. If it’s all clear, give us the thumbs up.”

  Latimer descended the last few metres. He entered the code in the c
ontrol unit and opened the hatch with care.

  He looked through, expecting to see the corridor crawling with cyborgs.

  Instead it was still, silent.

  He signalled to Renfrew and Emecheta and stepped through the hatch.