Guardian's Rise

by Matthew Renard

‘Oh.’ I tried to put what I was seeing into words. ‘Well, there are several workmen moving things around, but they’re not... doing anything?’ I tracked one worker as I talked. ‘One guy just put something down, and now he’s gone to... he’s picked up something someone else put down a minute ago!’

  ‘I do not understand. Is that not what workmen are supposed to do?’

  ‘I... yeah, but there’s no actual work being done. They’re just making it look like they’re working, without actually doing anything.’

  ‘Again: is that not what workmen are supposed to do?’

  ‘You’re such a cynical AI.’

  ‘Acknowledged.’ She agreed. I watched the ersatz workers go through their motions for a while longer, when I began to notice something else. Something that began to chill me.

  ‘Sami, that shape the men are tracking into the ground with their footsteps...’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Does it look at all familiar to you?’

  ‘Negative. Would you like me to run a pattern recognition on it?’

  ‘Please.’ I held my breath for several seconds, whilst Sami worked. Please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong...

  ‘Pattern recognition algorithm completed. No direct match with any terrestrial shapes.’

  I let out a breath in relief.

  ‘67% correlation to the outline of what is commonly known as a Danti Chitin.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘What’s the margin of error? Three percent again?’

  ‘Negative. Once factoring in the crude way of tracing the pattern on the ground, plus the oversized nature of the pattern, the margin for error becomes much higher.’

  ‘So it’s probably not an accident they’re marking out the shape of an alien ship in the dirt at their feet.’

  There was a momentary pause. ‘Everybody needs a hobby?’

  ‘Is that...’ I thought back. ‘Didn’t you get that from me?’

  ‘Acknowledged.’ Sami paused again. ‘Recommended action: descend and incapacitate the workers, then search the grounds to uncover details of their actions.’

  ‘Incapacitate?’

  ‘Verb. To prevent from functioning in a regular or normal way.’

  ‘Thank you, Sami.’ I scowled.

  ‘From Mid-17th Century English.’

  ‘Yes, thank you Sami.’ I thought about what she suggested. ‘Or I could come back after dark, when they’ve gone home.’

  ‘That will require less incapacitating.’ Was it me, or did she sound... disappointed?

  ‘Which would make things easier for us to sneak in and discover what’s going on.’

  ‘Compliance.’ Sami grumbled in my ear, and we began to fly back. Since the fight with the Danti monster, she was showing signs of becoming disturbingly ready to attack. An idea occurred just as we began to ascend.

  ‘Sami?’

  ‘Working.’

  ‘How many other Lemniscate construction sites are there, like this one?’

  ‘Unknown. Processing data...’ I hummed to myself quietly. ‘Please stop humming, it is distracting.’

  ‘How can you get distracted?’

  ‘I automatically interpret noises you make as requests. By creating audible noises, you slow down my run-time, thereby preventing me from completing my task in a timely manner.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘Plus you cannot carry a tune.’ Hey! ‘Data processed. Public records show fifteen other major Lemniscate sites scattered along the Eastern Seaboard. Their states of construction are not known.’

  ‘So how do we find out?’

  ‘We must investigate each site manually.’

  I sighed. ‘You’d think that we would have a satellite to do this sort of spying for us.’

  ‘Information logged. Shall we begin?’

  Well... I do like to fly, I suppose...

  ‘Okay, Sami. Plot a course for each of the sites.’

  Several hours later, we were returning along a more direct route, from New York back to Florida. Sami was mercifully silent, allowing me to think about what I had seen. From Boston to Virginia and lower, down past Charleston, fifteen Lemniscate sites were being run in identical ways to the one in Capehill. Identical.

  Men walked back and forth, moving things but never working, and in each site, directly in the middle, their precise footsteps were tracing the shape of a Danti Chitin.

  There was no way this could be an accident or a co-incidence.

  ‘This can’t be an accident.’ Sammy exploded when I told him. I nodded; I was a lot calmer than him. Then again, I’d had hours to digest the information.

  ‘Everyone always wondered where the Danti ships vanished to. Now we know: Lemniscate has them.’

  ‘But why? And why walk over the spot with their feet? Why advertise to anyone who knows what to look for?’ Sammy paced the floor slowly, and I had to wonder that, myself. I had an idea, but it didn’t seem quite right.

  ‘We can’t figure out what Lemniscate does, right?’

  ‘Right. I said that much to Emily on Boxing Day.’

  I nodded. ‘What if what they do is... everything?’

  ‘Huh?’

  I was beginning to warm up. ‘Look, the United Technology Conglomeration works together to share ideas and pieces of technology, to... what’s the expression?’

  My belt glowed, and a blue orb appeared in the air. ‘“To further the cause of mankind for all of time.”’ The globe spoke with Sami’s voice.

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Sammy, meet Sami.’ I gestured towards the orb with a wave.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Greetings.’

  ‘But what if the UTC is a front? What if every company... SabrexTech, Borleath, AwaTen, all of them... all get their designs and ideas from Lemniscate International?’

  ‘But how?’

  I thought about it for a second. ‘Danti-Tech.’

  Sammy snorted. ‘What a cop-out answer.’

  ‘No, no. Don’t you see? Lemniscate are reverse engineering those ships! They’re literally making Danti-Tech part of our everyday lives.’ I pointed to the mark on Sammy’s wrist where his WalkWidget had left indentations, before he had removed it forever. ‘That could have been part of a Danti milometer for all you know.’

  ‘And your belt?’

  ‘I was designed by The Borleath Corporation.’ Sami informed us, although I detected a note of confusion in her voice.

  ‘Think about it: ten years ago, would we have been able to harvest methane from the air to power my legs? Or my hand? Would we have had an AI capable of holding a full-blown conversation and probably pass the Turing Test?’ I looked at the belt, picking out what I assumed was one of the nano-cameras. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’ Sami assured me.

  Sammy, however, was shaking his head. ‘We both know that technology improves out of necessity, right? And what bigger necessity was there than the Danti war? Everything came out of the war, yes, and we agree that Penderghast is a super villain, yes. But that doesn’t mean Lemniscate is harvesting literal Danti technology to give to us. Why would they do that?’

  ‘Maybe our technology wasn’t good enough?’

  ‘Good enough for what?’

  ‘I don’t...’ I paused. There was... something. Some idea tickling the back of my brain, taunting me from just out of reach. I needed something to jolt the idea into focus, so I could make some sense of everything.

  ‘What’s the time?’

  Sammy glanced at his wrist. ‘It’s... dammit. No watch anymore.’

  ‘The time is 8:09 and 45 seconds.’ Sami corrected him.

  ‘You’re really annoying, you know that?’

  ‘Information logged.’

  ‘Children, please.’ I quietened them, before looking at Sammy. ‘You think that people are still working in the Lemniscate building?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Why?’

  I smiled. ‘Feel like breaking in?’r />
  ‘Why don’t I get my own Power Belt?’ Sammy complained as we landed on the roof of Lemniscate.

  ‘Because Sami is the only one, and I need her. It.’ I amended quickly, catching the look on my friend’s face.

  ‘For what? You’ve still got your Flame Foil, fireball hand, and can fly. What do I have?’

  ‘Your boundless charm and infinite charisma.’ I chided Sammy quietly. ‘Now shush, I need to scan the building.’

  ‘Yet another superpower you have which would be useful...’ Sammy grumbled more as I worked, peering intently downwards into the building.

  ‘Would you shut up?’ I concentrated on one area but couldn’t see through it. ‘There’s something... a hidden section.’

  ‘Why’s it hidden?’

  ‘I can’t see through it. It must have lead lining.’

  ‘You mean, to prevent you from seeing through it?’ He grabbed my shoulder; not that I could feel it through the force field, but I saw it all the same. ‘This might be a trap!’

  ‘If it were a trap, there’d be armed guards everywhere.’ I shook my head. ‘There are plenty of normal uses for lead.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I shrugged. ‘Radiation shielding?’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Sammy ran his fingers through his hair. ‘All my hair’s going to fall out, isn’t it?’ I rolled my eyes as he continued. ‘I’m too pretty for this mission.’

  I sighed. ‘Stay here, then. I’m going to go down into the building.’ I pointed at a door near to us. ‘That looks like the only way up or down - keep out of sight and I’ll come get you when it’s safe.’

  ‘So it’s not safe!’ Sammy interjected triumphantly.

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s in that shielded area, and I need to find out. It may be the clue that lets us figure out what’s behind all of this.’

  ‘We know what’s behind all of this.’ Sammy reminded me. ‘Doctor Penderghast is a Super villain.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s working for Nemesis?’ I shrugged. ‘Either way, we need to know how everything fits in together.’

  ‘Jay!’ Sammy called after me as I headed towards the door.

  I turned back. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Be careful.’

  I nodded, and opened the door, descending into Lemniscate.

  The building felt more like a hospital than a technology giant. The smell of antiseptic was faint, but definitely present. The walls were white, except for around the panelled walls, which cast regular dark rectangles on the otherwise pristine and stark walls. The narrow corridor had grey (again with the grey?) tiles - the absence of colour meant with my red and black costume, I stood out obscenely.

  ‘Sami, keep your threat detection up.’ I muttered. ‘I don’t like this at all - someone with a gun could come along any second.’

  ‘The force field I am projecting is bulletproof.’ Sami reminded me.

  ‘Does that force field cover you, too?’

  Pause.

  ‘Threat detection software running at maximum.’

  I switched my vision back onto X-Ray mode - it would make detecting potential threats, as well as finding the shielded room, far easier. Behind some doors as I went, I noticed a few people still working in their offices - making phone calls, typing on computers, cleaning the carpets. None of them were alerted to me presence, and so I kept making my way quietly down the hall.

  At the end of the corridor, the hallway opened up into a row of elevators. Two of them were in use, their white lights flicking up and down. The central one, however, was still. Reaching out, I tentatively pressed the call button, and the lights on the central elevator rose slowly. I looked around, making sure I still hadn’t been detected.

  The door dinged softly, and the doors hissed open. Stepping inside, I looked over the buttons. All of them were uniformly numbered. There was no clear indication of where I might find the shielded room. No “press this button to discover the secret plot” labels in sight. I reached out to press a button...

  ‘Threats detected.’ Sami interrupted me.

  I looked around anxiously. ‘Where?’

  ‘Unknown.’

  ‘What do you mean “unknown”?’ I hissed.

  ‘There is an unusual signal coming from below us approximately five floors, to the west.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Unusual signals are unpredictable. Unpredictable is a threat.’

  ‘Okay, so identify the signal.’

  There was a longer than normal pause. ‘I cannot comply, the signal is being mostly blocked.’

  ‘By the lead?’

  ‘Probability is high.’

  I nodded to myself and pressed the button for floor 86 - five floors below ours. The doors hissed shut again, and I felt us begin to move downwards. Keeping an eye on the X-Ray dead zone, I took in a breath when the elevator came to a stop almost directly in front of it. The doors opened, and I stepped out.

  There seemed to be no discernible difference between these walls and the ones up above me, below the roof access. Same patterned and lit walls, same shade tiles. The smell of antiseptic was stronger here - much stronger, and there was an odd sound which hadn’t been present before, although it was muffled by the white wall in front of me.

  ‘Sami, do you hear that?’

  ‘Affirmative.’ Sami was hushed, too, although there wasn’t any need for it. ‘This is the sound of the signal I had been receiving upstairs.’

  ‘It’s... quiet.’ I put my hand on the wall, and felt it thrum underneath my hand, pulsing with a regular rhythm of power which vibrated through the force field.

  ‘The sound is likely being muffled by the lead in the wall beyond.’ Sami informed me. I traced the outline of the wall, pressing against the featureless doorframe and equally blank door ‘Query - what are you searching for?’

  ‘I need to put the candle back.’

  ‘Explanation required.’

  I struggled to come up with one. ‘Okay, so...there’s an old trope in mystery and horror movies-’

  ‘You told Mr Edwards that this is not a horror movie.’

  ‘True...’ I allowed. ‘Anyway, in some of these movies, there’s a hidden door-’

  ‘Correction. This door is not hidden.’

  I sighed. ‘Yes, but the principle is the same. We need to get through this door, and in these movies, the heroes need to get through the hidden door. There’s usually a catch, or a secret level activated by a fake book in a bookcase, or a candlestick. In one movie, the characters take a candle out of a candlestick and put it back in to activate it.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘I’m looking for the catch to open the door, but it’s hidden. The door and the wall are lined with lead so I can’t scan it for any obvious catches.’

  ‘You could attempt to press the button labelled “Open”.’

  ‘Don’t be a smart alec computer. There isn’t a button.’

  ‘Is your vision set to normal mode?’

  Oh.

  I changed it to normal, and the door stood out more - a dark grey/blue colour. What stood out even more was a small label above a tiny button that I had somehow missed in my X-Ray vision mode. In regular vision, however, I could see it highlighted and backlit in red. I tapped it, grumbling about my show-off, know-it-all belt.

  The doors gently eased open, and darkness loomed out at me. Switching my view to night vision, I stepped inside the darkness.

  The green tinged room was vast. That was my first impression. Not big. Not large. Vast. It looked as if most of the entire floor had been converted into maybe two or three rooms, although it hadn’t seemed that way from my initial X-Ray scan. It felt like I had walked into a blast furnace, and the smell had changed, too - it was no longer antiseptic and clean, the area had a strong chemical smell all the same. A pungent, foul, acrid...

  ‘Ammonia?’ I muttered to myself.

  ‘Analysing.’ Sami responded anyway. ‘Correct. Large traces of ammonia in the air.’r />
  ‘Ugh, it stinks.’ I looked around the featureless walls as I felt sweat start to bead on my forehead, searching for any signs of life. ‘What do they keep down here?’

  ‘Unknown. Ammonia traces in the air in this concentration suggest a hypothetical ammonia-based life form. However, no such life forms are known to exist on this planet.’

  On this planet. ‘What about the Danti?’

  ‘Unknown. There were reports that they may be ammonia based in nature, but that has remained speculation on most levels.’

  ‘Most levels?’

  ‘I cannot comment on information withheld from me, as I do not know it.’

  ‘Fine. And what about that sound?’ It was more insistent now, and almost more urgent - a wheezing clicking noise coming from all around; a syncopated, irregular series of taps and tocks pattering towards... something.

  ‘Unknown. I am attempting to decode it, if it is a signal of some kind. However, it sounds too irregular for an automated signal.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I saw a glimmer of light up ahead and slowed. ‘Sami, do you see that?’

  ‘Acknowledged.’

  The glimmer suggested a cut out area roughly like a doorway, although the dimensions were... off. Smaller than normal, and roughly cut, as if it had been made shoddily, not like the rest of the building.

  ‘Okay, we’ll take a sneak peek through and see what we can... wait. Sami, what do you mean “too irregular for an automated signal”?’

  ‘Merely that it is not coming from an automated source.’

  ‘But it could be coming from a manual source?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Like a living being?’

  Movement.

  I dove to one side, out of the way of the silhouette that appeared in the doorway, pressing myself up against the nearest wall as it came out.

  I say it on purpose. From the long, spindly legs, shortened pot-bellied body, elongated arms and dove-crested head, within which sat one, visor like eye furrowed downwards into a perpetual frown, it padded along near silently, naked feet slapping against the cold tiles underfoot as it went past, not noticing me. No doubt it would have been surprised to see me, as I was to see it. I recognised it instantly.

  Or, rather, I recognised it’s species.

  ‘Sami.’ I whispered, licking my suddenly dry lips. ‘Make sure external audio is definitely off.’