by Jack Lance
It took a while and Bailey’s fingers kept sticking to the frost on the service ladder, but Bailey climbed extremely fast and eventually he made it high up to where the shaft ran through the dome shell. A few more moments and he reached the drafty top, and began wrestling with a grated hatch that looked as if it hadn't been touched in maybe centuries.
He could hear nothing but the moan of the wind from inside the shaft, but once the hatch was open and he had pulled himself up and onto the roof he heard the chopping of helicopter blades.
As he stood up and span around he saw above him two heletanks searching the topside of the dome and the nearby hut with pairs of searchlights. Suddenly one lamp found him then the rest locked onto him the same, turning a deep lime green.
There was a churning sound as the machine guns revved up, and Bailey having realized this began sprinting through the bracing dusk air toward the side of the tarred hut. He shot at the closest window and dived up at the cracking glass, while behind him the machine guns opened fire. The ground behind him was sprayed with bullets, as Bailey bust inside and shouldered down into the small space within. He fell like a ragdoll in a shower of glass finally landing on his back on the metal floor inside the control room. Quickly he checked himself with his aching hands for bullet wounds.
Bailey looked up through a skylight in the ceiling at the heletanks as they flew over to see what had happened. Seeing that Bailey was back within the borders of the colony they emitted a few sad notes and flew off.
Bailey stood up in the room and brushed himself off, and watched as the heletanks flew away over the roof of the dome, and finally disappeared into the evening mists. The sun was setting in the distance, and would soon be behind the mountains.
Now Bailey turned his attention to the one person he had noticed here in the room, a man sat in the corner facing his instruments. He had his hands in the air and looked to be shaking with fear.
“Look at me.” Bailey said.
“Please don’t kill me. I’m just the Spring shift worker.” he stammered.
“Look at me.” Bailey repeated, and the man slowly turned around in his chair.
He was a slightly fat man, with deep set puggy eyes, and a damp complexion. He actually looked to be a little remedial.
“What do you do here?” Bailey asked. "You're in charge of the robot control tower?"
“I’m the Caretaker.” the man smiled, and Bailey looked at him with doubt.
While all of this was going on things had remained calm at the door to Red Sector.
With the DNA scanner prized open slightly Rhia and Thom stood checking over the wiring, while ignoring the occasional strange laughter from Kane Minik.
Dora Beldin suddenly appeared on her own at the edge of the concrete platform, and made struggling noises as she tried to step up onto it from the base of the cavern.
“Oh!” Thom shouted, seeing she needed help, and ran over to her.
He pulled her up, and then saw behind her a series of hovering cases that were set to follow a wifi lead she was holding.
“Oh no, no.” he said. “This is out of the question.”
They walked over to the door and Rhia surveyed the long line of hovering cases following them over their shadow on the concrete.
“It’s just women’s essentials and the like.” she said gesturing to Rhia. “You know how it is?”
“I’m afraid not.” Rhia said blandly. “Just the bare essentials. You should have been told all of this.”
“Well yes, but I thought I should give it a try at least.” Dora said, still trying to get her own way somehow. “Oh yes, Bailey asked me to bring these.”
Dora reached into the first case and brought out two small devices. One was an EMP grenade while the other was a similar sized pyramid with a tiny button at its apex.
“What are they?” Thom said, as Rhia walked past him and took them out of Dora’s hands.
“A bomb and a shield against the blast.” Rhia mumbled, not really answering Thom.
“That’s right.” Dora said taking them back. “Let me handle them.”
“Maybe we should…” Thom began, but stopped as Rhia patted him down.
Dora put them into the pocket of her long coat, and then turned to her luggage, and began running her hands affectionately over them. Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to take any of it, she threw the wifi lead away and the luggage moved after it toward the edge of the concrete flat.
“Good times.” she said.
She joined Thom and Rhia at the door, glancing briefly at the strange man in the wheelchair that chuckled and laughed as if to himself.
Back at the control room, Bailey had finished a brief conversation with the Caretaker.
“That’s remarkable…” Bailey shook his head, laughing slightly. “One of you has been up here all the time, for centuries? Micromanaging those metal bastards. And none of you have any education whatsoever? Hah! The king of the fucking curb!”
His attention was then turned to the teleport pad at the opposite side of the small room. There was a whirring and a smell in the air like static build up, and then after a blurring of the space there Randall appeared, holding two large guns ahead of him. They coincidentally were aimed at both Bailey and the Caretaker.
“It seems safe.” Bailey said, as the cold wind blew over them from the broken window.
Randall thought a moment then lowered the guns. He looked them both, then stepped down from the teleporter, and immediately behind him a computerized voice said “Platform clear.”
There was another whirring and the blurring over the pad, and three more people appeared.
Faye, Farnon and Nicolae stepped down, bumping against Randall.
The Caretaker sighed and said “I’ve never seen that working before. I’ve been doing shifts here for twenty years.”
“Who is he?” Randall asked, apparently bottling his prejudices.
“I’m the Caretaker. I take care of the colony robots.” he said with a broad, innocent smile.
“It doesn’t matter.” Bailey said quietly. “Look.”
Bailey pointed at the window, and then at the binoculars on one of the Caretaker’s control panels. Farnon took them first and looked out across the roof of the dome, and beyond to the mountains at the craters rim. There he saw a heletank flashing its lights wildly, and another join it, ramming it, and then fleeing as the other gave chase.
“Two sharks.” he said, handing the binoculars to Faye.
They each looked, and then Bailey said “And there’s more. The alarm has been tripped. So much is clear. Now look up.”
They each looked up at the dark sky leaning forward over the panels to see with the binoculars.
Faye looked first, finding it difficult to focus on the expanse of the sky, since she had not seen it in a while. Then she found ship after ship in orbit. There were many of them littering space around the weather station.
“Oh heck.” she said handing the binoculars to Randall.
They all froze as they heard rumbling, and looked at Bailey who smiled a knowing smile.
“We knew this was going to happen. Right, Randall?” he said.
Randall looked at him, rough but afraid.
“Right.” he said.
Bailey sat down on the floor beside the Caretakers feet and leaned back against the panels. He started to chuckle like a mad man, worrying the others including the Caretaker.
A large ship flew by overhead, ploughing through the grey cloud and then twisting and lowering toward the crater basin. There were others moving through the cloud in opposite directions, and landing at different points around the dome.
Farnon looked through the binoculars down over the dome roof at the crater basin beyond, and saw the side of the dropship open, slamming down to form a huge ramp. Tens then hundreds of troops leaped out like wild animals and began running left and right to form brigades.
“Mercenaries.” Farnon said disdainfully. “They must have known there
was an escape in the pipe. It’s the only…”
“The Mercs…” Bailey began. “Where from?”
Farnon looked again, zooming closer to the spaced, snarling faces of the men. They were in full snow-camouflage garb and clutching an array of bulky weaponry, while receiving drug cocktail shots from their CO.
“Earth colonies.” he said with a note of fear,
Shit.
“Shit!” Bailey said banging his head back against the panel.
“Maybe it wont matter.” Randall said.
“They look like European brigades. They are the worst. African or Asian would be bad enough.”
“We have a plan, right?” Randall said glaring at Bailey.
“This is true.” Bailey said standing up. “This was always going to happen. It’s the main reason we had to get in here.”
Bailey walked over to one of the control panels and began entering strings of commands.
“Err excuse me.” The Caretaker said, as Bailey ignored him. “Excuse me?”
“What is it?” Farnon said.
“These robots work from a delicate balance of systems engineering. You shouldn’t just reprogram them without a clear plan.”
“We have a plan. Right?” Farnon said, and was ignored also.
“Not that kind of plan, I mean a…” the Caretaker stammered.
“Ok. That should do it.” Bailey said. “What? Oh yes, just relax. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
He patted the Caretaker on the shoulder and walked to the teleport pad.
“Everyone, please?” he said gesturing to the pad. “It’s time.”
“Err excuse me?” the Caretaker said waving to catch their attention.
“I’ve shut down the antenna, and reprogrammed the outer droids to attack the mercs.” he said to them as they huddled around. “All you need to do is get to the rendezvous. Farnon, your job is slightly harder. You need to get my drones in the air fast to distract those heletanks. Is this all clear? Farnon?”
“Easy as donuts.” he said.
“Excuse me!” the Caretaker yelled, and catching their attention they all turned to him.
“I’m taking over here.” Bailey said stepping forward.
“I am responsible for the health and wellbeing of everyone in this colony. Your actions are destabilizing the safety of all of this, and jeopardizing the solidarity of the colony borders. You must not do this. It’s… Against the law.” The Caretaker ranted.
Bailey smiled, and cocked his pistol.
“You are right again, Caretaker.“ Bailey said, glaring at him suddenly. “But I ain’t the good guy.”
He shot the Caretaker through the face. All sides of the control room were sprayed with thick blood, and the others on the teleport pad cringed up in fear.
Bailey looked over his shoulder at them sadly, and said “Get outa here. Go.”
“Yeah, come on.” Randall said, putting a hand on Faye’s shoulder.
The four of them stepped onto the pad and Nicolae pressed the control at the back. They stood looking at Bailey as the pad powered up, and then pulled them through a backspace rip back down to ground level.
Bailey stared at the empty teleporter for a second then turned to the flickering control panels, and the bleeding, headless corpse slumped in the chair between them.
He kicked the chair aside, and it rolled across the room to the corner, then leaned over the panels and squinted at each touch screen. They mapped out the various robot divisions, with each screen zooming in and out to gain a maximum coverage of all of them. Each of the divisions were standing motionless in the positions they had been when Bailey had shut down the grid. Now Bailey worked through each of the screens, programming each division to march in the direction of the nearest dropship, and to treat the brigades of troops as they would escaping convicts. This would create a ground war, distracting the troops while also reducing their count.
The air drones that Port Farnon was about to launch, would also help them in these tasks.
From above on the crystal highways it would have seemed strange for a few moments as a long line of men and women ran from the ice surrounding the central robot tower and packed into the cars that surrounded the abandoned nature post. They drove to the opening onto the crystal highways from the grass of the moors.
Port Farnon stood on the dirty concrete and watched them leave as they drove up onto the highways and turned off toward the southern factories, and the district leading to the Red Sector.
With the clock ticking, Farnon got into an offroad jeep that he had brought with him and drove quickly along a dirt track across the moors in the direction of the temperate zone. Once at the border to the belt of overgrown fields he drove between high hedgerows down another long dirt lane that had been originally intended for use by robotic combine harvesters and the like. It took him right down to the shore, and then along the short beaches to the pier.
He left the jeep in the sand and ran the rest of the way along the pier to the dome wall door, that opened as he approached with the radio key.
Alone, he ran up a spiralling corridor to the area leading into the biosphere ventilation shafts. Here he found the remnants of the first escape that had been torn down by Border Sec, leaving only the broad feet of the cranes.
For this escape they had reconstructed one of them, and hoisted a plane up onto it. It hung there as the others had done, only this time with two chains hung from the back. At intervals along each chain a large V-winged drone was attached, ready to be deployed once enough speed had been gathered.
The other two disused cranes’ feet stood just above head height before him.
Farnon walked past them to the third and climbed up the long, thin ladder to the top, and then climbed into the cockpit. He opened up the new consoles that had been melted seamlessly into the cockpit, and pressed a few commands, causing the oval shape in the dome wall ahead of him to begin sliding upward.
The crane moved the plane forward so the nose was hanging out through the gaping hole.
“Three. Two. One.” Farnon said, and then felt the jerk as the crane kicked the plane out of the hole.
He steadied himself against the growing inertia, and then began heaving back on the archaic pilot stick. It was harder than the first time, since he now had a collection of heavy metal objects in tow, but he managed to level it out and then angle the plane toward the sprawling line of brigades in the basin below.
“Releasing drones.” he muttered, not that anyone could hear him.
He reached for the button on a box that had been soldered to the cockpit dash in a makeshift fashion, and was about to press it when it flickered in rainbow colour. Farnon heard the screech of strange notes, and instinctively pulled down on the stick.
The heletank flew over the cockpit, missing it by inches. The other was closing in fast also, so he knew to be quick.
He pressed the button, and one by one the drones unclipped from the chains, and began blasting off in different directions.
Scouting the angles and trajectories of the two huge killing machines, Farnon pulled on the stick and flipped the plane over a few times, levelling it out in the direction for the outer doors of the Red Sector unit. Immediately he heard the chain gun fire of both heletanks, and instinctively flipped the plane over a few times more to avoid it.
“Shit fuck.” he said as he levelled out, and then looked around, realizing he wasn’t going to make it to the rendezvous like this. “Alright.”
He flipped the plane again, banking it around and then jetted it down toward the center of the basin, in the direction of the citadels. One of the heletanks wailed and gave chase, while the other blasted off the other way, firing its cannons at a group of drones that were heading for the nearest dropship.
While this played out in the distant skies, the others involved in the escape had reached the outer wall of the city. They made their way to the river bed before the soot cavern, that wasn’t as dry as it had been in ot
her seasons.
The winter snow piled up against the side of the dome had melted and was now being channelled through the dome for processing by the biosphere, and power plants. The river here was knee high and freezing, and very uncomfortable to cross.
They each made it to the steps and then up to the platform atop the scaffold. As they stood congregating, they each took one last look at the factories, and the endlessly cycling fairground at the far side, and then turned and entered the outermost cavern.
They made their way through it to the outer door of Red Sector, and were greeted by Rhia, Thom and Dora.
“Who’s this?” Faye said, gesturing at the crippled man in the wheelchair.
“Our ticket inside.” Rhia smiled, and walked over to the keypad carrying a wire that had been connected to the chair. “Observe.”
The man in the chair suddenly started to laugh, then choked and coughed. Thom glanced at him, then back to Rhia who connected the wire to the biometric pad within the keypad.
“The biometric scanner detects the DNA signature of whoever enters the code. So you need both the code and the DNA. Mr Minik refuses to enter it for us but luckily we can bypass it. We string a conductive wire from the keypad to a needle in his leg. The electromagnetic signature of his body is conducted along the wire and as I have already hacked the keycode… hey presto!” Rhia animated. The keypad bleeped dumbly and a small light that had been previously red turned to green.
The old door slowly started to slide upward in its groove.
There were a few cheers from the others, and again choked laughter from Kane Minik.
“Come along, Mr Minik. We haven’t finished with you just yet.” Rhia said.
She and Thom got behind the wheel chair, after gathering up the long wire. They tipped it back and rolled it up into the tunnel, then along to the next door which opened at the flick of a switch. Each of them entered the basement floor of Red Sector, with Rhia and Thom pushing the wheelchair ahead of the rest. The others followed nervously behind, stepping carefully over the gaps in the floorboards over the dark chasm. They carried Minik in the chair up the steps and then ignoring the rageful looking clientele, pushed him up into the burnt garden.