“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THIS CORRIDOR WILL NOT CAUSE YOU ANY INCONVENIENCE."
“Good enough,” Hammer said, knowing that guys like this would rather go legit than break their word. In public, that is. He had learned that the hard way.
With the bravery of youth, the Deckers walked into the corridor and disappeared off the screens of the Ramariez, causing a major commotion on the bridge. As the wall closed, the bartender made a noise in front of Einda and jerked a fibrous thumb towards a corner.
“A customer wants to see you,” he said gruffly.
“I quit,” she said haughtily, and the zaftig amoebae continued to sip her milkshake, contentedly waiting for her fiancé to return and wondering what to name the children.
* * * *
Stepping out of the hallway, the Bloody Deckers entered a room that was more bomb shelter than office.
The floor was polished concrete, the ceiling burnished steel and every inch of the walls was covered with video monitors showing an external view of the asteroid, a panoramic shot of the city inside, the landing area, the Twin Chorons, creatures playing cards, fornicating, getting drunk, dancing, repairing a hovercar, a fist fight, and the construction of a new building. Only a handful were dark. In fact, the center screen was just fading to black as they walked into the room. Standing smack dab in the middle of the floor was the menacing figure of a black metal warobot; its lower chassis and upper arms edged with platinum.
Wary of the alien mountain with its multitude of weapons, the gang advanced into the room, looking for this Silverside guy Trell had told them about. But there was nobody present, except for the machine.
“You,” Drill accused, pointing a finger at the robot.
With the sound of distant thunder, the wardroid rotated its bulbous armored head, its camera eyes somehow losing their mindless machine quality.
“Yes,” Leader Silverside replied in a synthesized voice. “I just wanted to see how long the deduction would take you.” The status lights on its trim flickered from blue to orange. “Five seconds. Much better than average."
Not amused, Hammer snorted in disgust. More frigging games, he thought sourly. Doesn't anybody just talk straight anymore?
“Hey, no offense,” Drill said as tactfully as he could. “But I thought you robot guys were, like, just stupid machines."
Chisel was confused. There wasn't somebody inside the tank?
In response, Silverside gave a short barking laugh like a can opener gone bad. “Others of my kind are mere devices, yes. But not me. I have free will.” It flipped a gleaming silvered claw in the air. “You might call me an accident of fate."
As the gang digested that bit of news, the metal behemoth docked itself into a control panel desk that rose hydraulically from the concrete floor. “What is the business you wish to conduct?"
Straightening his collar, Hammer stepped forward. “We need a couple of parts for our ship,” he stated bluntly, getting right to the point.
The droid gave a metallic snort. “Then go to Mikon. This is no silver and gold operation. I only deal in high priced items."
“Like proton cannons?” Hammer asked, adjusting the shoulder strap of his Uzi. Damn things got heavy after awhile.
“Difficult, but possible,” the droid admitted, replacing the safety interlock on its weapon system as it reinterpreted the action as one of comfort. “Everybody has the right to defend themselves."
“And some more Omega Gas,” Chisel chimed in, and the ganglord shot him an appreciative wink.
Silverside changed his orange lights to deep red. “You are aware that possession of the gas is punishable by Galopticon 7?"
Without a chair to sit in, Drill crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow. “That a problem?"
“Not a bit,” the machine denied. “Just telling you why the price will be exorbitant. I run a strictly cash establishment."
“Hey, motherfucker, we ain't broke,” Chisel declared belligerently.
The slang expression quite confused the machine until its logic circuits combined a code analyzer with its translator. Ah, how primitive.
“Better not be,” the battledroid warned. “Waste my time and I'll sell you to the Sazinians as experimental animals."
The Deckers didn't know exactly what that meant, but it sure sounded like a serious threat. Better play it smooth.
“Fair enough,” Hammer smiled, running a hand over his hated crewcut. When they got back to New York, he had some serious killing to catch up on. Starting with the prison barber.
“Oh yeah,” he added, suddenly remembering why they were here. “We also want a Hypernavigational cube.” The street tough stumbled over the polysyllabic word.
Silverside diminished the focus of its video cameras. “You don't want much, do you?"
“Who cares? We got the thul,” Drill stated, tossing a pouch on to the controls covering the desk. It landed with a thump, luckily hitting a bare spot.
Using military scanners, the AI robot weighed the bag while reviewing its contents. Exactly two pounds of pure thulium. Quite obviously, these beings did not know the true value of the precious metal.
“This is acceptable,” the mechanical said as it plugged into the desk and ordered the requested supplies from storage. Then the droid flipped a panel on the desktop, reached inside and withdrew a fresh from the factory, seals still intact, brand new Hypernavigational cube.
“Here you are,” the warobot said, using a jointed arm with a two-prong clip to fork over the device. “The rest of your purchases will be delivered to the landing area for easy loading onto your shuttle."
“Natch, I mean, thanks,” Hammer said as he nonchalantly tossed the future of humanity from hand to hand.
The cube was perfectly transparent, about the size of an apple and made of something much heavier than glass or crystal. Three of its sides were covered with tiny black squiggles and the fourth was embossed with the raised design of a triangle in a circle in a square. Out of the corner of his eyes, the street tough noted a smaller version of the logo etched in the metal on the prow of the robot. He casually wondered what it meant. But due to a minor omission in their briefing, the gang member was blissfully unaware of the fact that the staggered series of geometric figures was the exclusive symbol placed on property of the Great Golden Ones. Counterfeiting the seal, or owning such an item, carried the death penalty.
With a grunt, the ganglord tucked the HN cube into a pocket. So much fuss over a stinking paperweight and the stupid thing didn't even snow inside when you turned it upside down.
Their business concluded, Leader Silverside decided to press for some more information. “I suppose the original was damaged in the firefight?” it inquired in a friendly manner.
Staying loose, Hammer chuckled. “Hey, accidents will happen."
“Think you're pretty tough, eh, mammal?” the warobot asked, clinically fascinated by the natural aggression of organic life.
Rocking back on his boot heels, Drill stuck his thumbs in his belt and laughed. “Shit, dude, we're the Bloody Deckers! We use Chorons as landfill."
An interesting visual, the droid was starting to like these creatures. Perhaps he could use them as agents for a tricky deal that was coming up. They would probably die, but then, what were paid underlings for?
“Yeah, nobody messes with the Deckers,” Hammer bragged trying to impress the machine and annoy the listeners on board the Ramariez. “Why, we even got a couple of those Great Golden guys captive in the brig."
Rrrr? Captive? Silverside mulled that word over, with all that it implied and inferred. Why should anybody brag they had taken a Gee prisoner? Killed, yes. But captive?
Then a cold surge of power flowed through the warobot's circuits, and its safety interlock violently disengaged. Unless the absurd claim was real. But that meant their earlier statement was probably also true. They had killed Leader Idow. The sweet, gentle being who had stolen the droid from the accursed Gees, and with his own blue hands given the
machine consciousness, free will and a name.
Blessed Idow had assisted Silverside in taking over the asteroid, and creating a criminal empire so the droid would always have a home. Idow had asked for nothing in return, but Silverside had insisted on the right to keep the Sazin supplied with whatever he and his ship needed; food, fuel, weapons and the occasional crewmember. Gracious as a god, Leader Idow had accepted the gifts, and in all the many decades they had been associated, never even once did the noble being insult the machine by offering it any kind of payment for the items.
But now, the beloved liberator was dead. Dead!
The battledroid felt its belly solenoids tighten. Revenge must be taken on these walking bloodsacks, and the All That Glitters blown to pieces! The very notion of the vile thieves living in the starship stolen from its savior made the warobot shake with ill restrained fury.
“Hey dude, you okay?” Hammer asked in concern. The machine seemed to be having a seizure or something.
Instantly, twin force blades lanced out from the armored prow of Silverside to slice and dice the ganglord into bloody chunks of flesh. As the body of the youth dropped to the floor in a staggered series of thumps, Drill and Chisel recoiled from the scene in horror. Then a lifetime of streetfights overcame shock, and with an angry shout, the last remaining Deckers sprang into action.
TWENTY-FIVE
Activating his forcefield, Drill dove forward and made a snatch for the HN cube. But Leader Silverside rolled forward over the oozing remains of Hammer, its armored tread grinding the crystal cube in his bloody pocket into dust.
Tumbling frantically out of the way, the gang member barely managed to evade the warobot's killing path, when a stream of bullets, and then a knife, ricocheted harmlessly off the droid's metal body. Without bothering to pause, Silverside released a flight of anti-personnel flechettes and Chisel's scream of pain informed the machine of a direct hit.
“Help! Ramariez, help!” Drill yelled scrambling to his feet, but his cry for help was efficiently block by the jamming field of the robot's private office. Nimbly, the youth dodged under a plasma bolt that vaporized half a dozen video monitors on the wall. Then Drill wisely turned tail and darted through the sole doorway, adrenaline and raw fear fueling him to run at Olympic speeds.
Relentlessly, machine followed man into the corridor.
* * * *
“Alert!” Ensign Lilliuokalani cried rising from her seat.
Captain Keller spun away from his conference with Trell at the Engineering console. “Excellent, ensign! You broke through the jamming field?"
“No, sir,” the woman denied. “Drill is back in view."
The bridge crew turned from their work and looked. There, on the main screen, was the frantic teenager charging out of the opening in the tavern wall and yelling to be rescued.
“Sir, should we teleport him on board?” Trell asked getting ready to do so.
“Scanners locked on target,” Ensign Hamlisch announced crisply, his adroit fingers feeding the coordinates to the console of his fellow officer.
Keller squinted. “Does he have the HN cube with him?"
“No, sir, he does not,” Chief Buckley reported checking the read-outs on his board.
“Then leave him alone, and send in the Marines,” Keller directed grimly. “We must have that cube, and, by God, this time we're going to get one!"
* * * *
As assistance had not arrived and knowing he couldn't outrun a machine forever, Drill decided to make a stand. Leaping over the counter of the bar, he knocked the sponge out of his way and slapped his hand down on the glowing sensor pad.
“Molotov cocktail!” he shouted, unaware that the Drink Master needed no such vocal encouragement for speed. “And keep'em coming!"
As the alien device began its dance of reconstruction, Drill prepared his weapons for the final conflict: machine gun, laser pistol, knife, damn, if only he had a grenade.
Crouching behind her stool, like the majority of the patrons, Einda suddenly understood what was happening. Flattening herself as only a Datian can, she shimmied along the molding at floor level and down into the passageway to try and find her fiancé, Chisel.
“There you are!” the AI machine thundered in delight, his words booming in the rapidly emptying tavern. “Time to die, assassin!"
Shouting obscenities, Drill fired the machine pistol and laser together until the Molotov arrived, and then he added its fiery bid to the battle. But nothing proved effective against the armored bulk of the death machine.
As Silverside rolled unaffected through the flame, the droid began to reminisce about the many battles it had fought to forge its criminal empire and establish itself as the Leader of Buckle. Each was fun, but always ended much too soon. Someday it hoped to meet a worthy opponent and enjoy a really good workout. Maybe even one that lasted more than sixty seconds.
Smashing the counter to splinters with a single swipe of its heavy duty manipulators, Silverside gathered the struggling teenager and pinned him against the wall with three telescoping servo-arms, accidentally breaking the human's leg in the process; not that the robot cared in the least. Then a buzzsaw extended from its prow, and slowly advanced towards the wiggling man, the singing wheel of steel hovering from the end of a ferruled metal support.
“Sadly, I am unaware of how my creator died,” the machine said in its toneless voice. “But I am sure that your death will be more painful."
The first swipe of the buzzsaw sliced off his bulletproof vest, the second laid open Drill's jumpsuit putting a shallow slash across the chest. Drops of blood welled from the cut and dribbled into his clothing. Contemptuously, Drill spat on the camera lenses of the machine and braced himself for death. The man had always known he would die in a bar fight, only he had honestly expected it to be in Manhattan. Or at the very least, in Brooklyn.
But at that instant, the tavern was washed with light and a squad of UN Space Marines in powerarmor teleported in.
Lt. Sakadea absorbed the torture scene in a glance, and ticked off his options with lightning speed. Bullets would be useless against the armored bulk of the war droid, and their lasers couldn't penetrate the forcefield that his helmet sensors told him surrounded the machine. That left only grenades or missiles; either of which would kill Drill along with the robot. No, wait a minute, that was wrong.
“Dead volley,” Sakadea ordered over his suit radio, and the Marines launched a flurry of their special, anti-robot Church Key missiles. But without arming the weapons first.
From both of the fluted muzzles at the tip of their nameless UN rifle, twenty rustling firebirds streaked across the bar to viciously slam into the angular body of the warobot, going up to their hot fins in the thick armor. The savage pummeling made the droid rattle and vibrate under each battering impact, but the damage incurred was superficial, and only Sgt. Lieberman's did the required job.
Her first missile smashed directly onto the base of the descending buzzsaw, knocking it away from Drill's exposed throat and tearing the limb free from the warobot's chassis to crash into the nearby Drink Master. Which promptly burst into flame, as the obedient device was still dutifully manufacturing the gasoline and soap concoction requested earlier.
The second missile zoomed straight in to embed itself right between the eye cameras of the enemy droid.
Utterly horrified, Silverside sent off a unique signal pulse to seize control of these robots and bind them to its will forever. But instead of instantly complying like good slaves, the metal warriors menacingly advanced closer and ordered the droid to surrender or die.
Bristling with missiles, the desperate machine sent off the signal again, and again, but the results remained the same. Impossible! No conceivable robot or computer could possibly resist the override command, especially as it had been augmented and boosted by the technical genius of Leader Idow so that even Gee military computers were helpless before the signal pulse. Unless, Silverside finally realized, there were living creature
s inside those metal shells. Hostile alien creatures immune to its control, with both the ability and the desire to do the machine serious harm.
The unsettling thought of personal combat in which the droid did not have a totally superior advantage filled its central data processing unit, and for the first time, the warobot downloaded the bitter emotion of fear.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Leader Silverside released its captive like a thermally active ground tuber and quickly retreated, backrolling straight into the corridor that lead to its office, the double doors slamming shut right in face of pursuing Marines.
“Never mind the robot, secure the bar,” Lt. Sakadea directed, then the lieutenant countermanded the order when he observed that the establishment was deserted except for his troops and a very bloody Decker. “Lieberman, check Drill."
Kneeling on the littered floor, Tanya roughly shook the teenage convict to wake him from his stupor. “Where's the cube?” she demanded over the external speaker of her powerarmor.
“My leg,” Drill groaned, the street tough holding the injured limb with both hands.
Bone showed through the bloody fabric, so the sergeant activated the medical kit inside her metal wrist, and gave the wounded man a Navy SEAL dose of Hot Shot right in the neck: 10ccs of morphine, cocaine, caffeine and methamphetamine. If that devil's brew didn't put a person immediately on their feet, the military called an embalmer.
“Destroyed,” Drill gasped, as a tingling wave of relief washed over him. “But there's a whole lot more of them in the office.” He pointed with an unsteady hand.
“What about the rest of your gang?” she asked.
He coughed. “Dead. Died kicking ass. Almost got the bastard myself. Was gonna drown him in my blood.” Drill managed a faint smile. “Your turn, lady,” he whispered and passed out.
“Good work, soldier,” Sgt. Lieberman said softly, giving the highest compliment she could. Gently as possible, the woman laid his head on the floor and stood. With proper training, the lad would make a fine Marine.
“Lutzman, stay with him,” Sakadea ordered gruffly. “Geiger, check the door that damn robot went through."
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