by Isaac Hooke
"No, the videos are the truth," Hoodwink said. "Or a form of it, anyway. Nuclear bombs can't breach Satori shielding. And humanity did destroy most of its own cities. Whether the presidents actually knew they weren't harming the Satori, or they launched the bombs in some desperate scorched earth attempt to prevent the aliens from taking those cities, I don't know. But I tell you, when a nuke is planted in the proper spot in the Satori underwater colony, inside their shield and past their defenses, trust me, it will work."
"How are you going to get past the shield?" the scientist asked.
"I have a way," Hoodwink said.
"Fine, but why do you need a human-built nuke anyway?" Brent said. "Surely the Satori have something more powerful you could use?"
"If there were any bombs left, they would be aboard the mothership, not the underwater colony. And I don't need to tell you how difficult it would be to retrieve one of them. First we have to fly up to the mothership, then actually steal one, and then come back down, potentially pursued the whole time by a squadron of these Birds-of-Prey I've heard so much about. That's crazy talk, it is. Especially when there are bombs down here for the taking. Bombs that the Satori, in their hubris, allowed to remain in existence."
Brent smiled slightly. "It's possible the Satori didn't even know about them."
"What do you mean?"
The small scientist glanced at Skull. "I don't know if he told you, but the blast doors were a bitch to get through. That's because none of the Satori, nor their pets, had ever opened them to even check if we had any nukes left."
"Like I said," Hoodwink replied. "Their hubris." Hoodwink walked over to the Mk210 and rested a hand on the metal. It was cool to the touch. "When can I take her?"
"We're basically finished testing." Brent glanced at the other small scientist, who was unconscious and tethered to the machine. "As soon as Twist-Nuts there is done, we can load it into one of the pickups and you can take it wherever you want."
"Looks heavy." Hoodwink thought of the technical outside with its monster truck wheels. "Will the pickup be able to handle its weight?"
Brent shrugged. "Handled it well enough on the way here. The weight actually helps smooth out the bumps."
"Lucky you," Blake commented.
"All right," Skull said. "Let's leave the scientists to finish up their testing. Because I don't know about you but I'm starving."
Skull led them back outside and the other two soldiers rejoined the party. Depravity remained inside, Hoodwink noted. While Hoodwink was in the camp, apparently no one was to be left unguarded.
The group made its way to one of the smaller tents. The scent of fresh beef stew taunted the nostrils.
Hoodwink's eyes were drawn once more to the surrounding foliage. That's when he saw it. A tiny object, little more than a bee. At first he thought it was a bee. But no insect moved like that.
Hoodwink halted. "We've got company."
Skull glanced at him. "Wha—"
Up ahead the tent flap parted and two combat robots emerged, plasma rifles aimed directly at the party.
"Drop your weapons," one of the robots said in its deep voice.
There was a blast behind them. Near the vehicles, smoke emerged from the Equestrian; the robot tank had obviously been disabled, though there was no sign of who had done it.
The commandos raised their hands and then slowly slid the rifles down from their shoulders. They dropped the weapons in turn: none of them dared test the reflexes of the machines.
More commanding voices were heard across the camp: two more combat robots corralled the two scientists and their decoys from the large tent and marched them, along with the remaining commandos—who were also disarmed—toward Hoodwink and the others.
One of the robots shoved the scientist Gab, who apparently wasn't moving fast enough for the machine's liking.
"I'm moving I'm moving, jeez," the dwarf said. "I got small legs. Cut me some slack you metal fucker."
When the groups joined, the pair of escort robots took up guard positions on either side of the prisoners.
A man Hoodwink didn't recognize stepped from the tent to stand beside the first two robots. He wore aReal glasses.
"I'm glad your lackeys obeyed," the man said. "It would've been a pity to kill you so soon, Hoodwink."
The bee-sized drone flew to the man's side and hovered there.
Four bigger quadcopters emerged from the trees, these ones equipped with prop guards to protect their propellers from the branches. A nasty looking blaster dangled between the landing gears. The drones took up a position on either side of the man and his combat robots.
"Who are you?" Hoodwink said.
"Why, Hoodwink," the man said. "Don't you recognize me? It's me. Your dear old friend. Jeremy."
26
Hoodwink regarded the man uncertainly. "Jeremy? Or Javiol?"
"I don't really know," Jeremy said.
"You were scheduled for execution," Hoodwink said. "By my reckoning, your Satori body should be drifting at the bottom of some ocean trench, a meal for xenosharks."
Jeremy smirked. "For some strange reason I found myself with rather intimate technical knowledge of all things Satori. It seems I placed a rather innocuous-seeming backdoor in that computer program known as the Shell. You obviously made a mistake, dear Hoodwink, when you transferred my human consciousness into that fish body." He spoke the word fish with obvious contempt.
Hoodwink shook his head. "You still haven't figured it out yet, have you Jeremy? That's your actual body. You're Satori, not human. Just like me."
"Then why don't I feel that way?"
Hoodwink laughed nervously. "I don't know. It's our lot in life, it is. We've embedded our consciousnesses in human brains for far too long."
"You goddamn aliens with your goddamn identity crises," Skull muttered.
Jeremy ignored the comment and instead said, in mock sorrow: "I'm surprised you're not happier to see me, Hoodwink. I've crossed oceans of reality to join you."
"What do you want, Jeremy?" Hoodwink told him.
"To see you suffer, of course," Jeremy said matter-of-factly. "As you meant me to suffer. First of all, I'm going to kill your woman. Before your very eyes. And all your friends here, one at a time. And then I'm going to kill you and return your mind to the fish body where it belongs. You will live out your life rotting in a prison deep under the ocean, rueing the day you betrayed me. Wondering if you could have done anything differently. Anything to save her." His eyes drifted toward Sarella. There was a malicious glint in them.
Jeremy glanced at the combat robots beside him. "Bring her to me."
The two robots marched forward imperiously and snatched Sarella by either arm.
"Hoodwink!" she pleaded as the robots led her away.
Hoodwink started after her.
"Stay there," Jeremy ordered him. All four of the drones tilted their blasters menacingly toward Hoodwink, who froze.
When Sarella arrived, Jeremy produced a long knife from the chest harness he wore. It was almost a machete. He held it in front of his face.
"This is a skinning knife," Jeremy said. "Back when there were still deer and cattle around, such knives were used to separate the epidermis from the underlying tissue. Once that was done, the same knife was employed to remove any gristle that had failed to separate from the flesh. One thing about it, it's very sharp." He smiled widely and lifted the knife to Sarella's head.
He grabbed a thick section of her locks and hacked it off with a flick of the hand. He gathered a thicker portion of hair and similarly removed it, this time with a sawing motion.
Sarella was trembling the whole time. She looked at Hoodwink with eyes that pleaded: "Hoodwink. Help me."
When he had cropped her hair down to roughly half its former size, he paused to examine his handiwork. "What do you think, Hoodwink? She's much prettier this way, isn't she? Looks more like a young boy. Much more suiting to my tastes. But she's not smiling. Mmm. I think I'll hav
e to cut a grin into her." He glanced at the combat robots. "Hold her still."
The robots braced themselves against her on either side. Jeremy positioned himself in front of her and grabbed her chin with one hand, then flared his elbow so that he could bring the tip of the long blade toward her lips. She squirmed in his grasp as the deadly point approached.
Jeremy sighed in what seemed ecstasy. "Oh, I missed this part of being human." He glanced at Hoodwink. "You know, that feeling of having power over someone else? Absolute power?"
"I wouldn't know it," Hoodwink said.
"You're missing out, my old foe," Jeremy said, relaxing his grip somewhat. "Look at her. When they gaze at you so helplessly like that, eyes begging, knowing they're completely at your mercy, why, that right there is what it means to be human."
"That's not even human," Hoodwink said. "What you're doing is cold. Heartless. Lacking any semblance of humanity. You're not human, Jeremy. You're all Satori. A human being would never do this."
"I think you're wrong," Jeremy said, squeezing the fingers of the hand that held her so that her lips puckered grotesquely. He brought the knife tip close once more. "I think what I'm doing is completely within the realm of humanity. A Satori would never do this. They would simply kill the woman outright. There would be no torture. They would take no joy in it. Only a human being could. Species 87A."
"No," Hoodwink said. He wanted to keep stalling while he tried to come up with a plan. "Only a Satori like yourself could do this. Think about it. Your Satori mind exists naturally in a state with few emotions. So when you inject your consciousness into a mind teeming with them, of course you're going to become hypersensitive to those emotions. You experience higher highs and lower lows than a normal human being. And you've become addicted to them."
"That might actually be believable," Jeremy agreed. "I am certainly different than an ordinary man. Better." He focused on his task, stretching out the skin alongside her mouth with one hand. "Now shut up for a moment and let me work. Unless you want her enhanced smile to be a jagged mess."
"Please, Jeremy," Hoodwink said. "I'm the one you want."
"You certainly are," Jeremy said, bringing the blade closer to her face. "And I'm getting you precisely the way I want you. Don't worry, you'll get your turn soon enough."
Jeremy adjusted his grip on the haft and touched the point to the edge of Sarella's cheek. She whimpered, shifting: he cut a gash along her cheek instead.
Jeremy released her, frustrated. "Damn it. This knife is too cumbersome. Does anyone have anything smaller?"
He glanced at the soldiers in full kit. "You there. Show me your combat knife."
Pencils retrieved the knife from the sheath in his utility belt and held it up. The back edge was corrugated at ugly angles, while the bottom curved in a slight crescent toward the deadly tip.
"Yes, that one is much better," Jeremy said. "It will do just fine. Toss it over."
Pencils glanced at Skull, who nodded reluctantly. Pencils threw the knife over. The blade landed with a thud in front of Jeremy.
It was then that Hoodwink noticed Depravity, who had stayed behind at the first tent, wasn't among the group. Had the combat robots killed him? Or...
Jeremy shoved his original blade back into the sheath in his harness and then glanced at Sarella.
"You're so sexy when you're afraid," Jeremy said.
Sarella, her face a mask of fear, stiffened at the comment. Her features hardened into a scowl and she spat at him.
Jeremy stuck out his tongue and let the spittle drool onto it. He licked his upper lip, gathering even more of it. "Mmm. I can literally taste the fear. Salty. Slimy. Please, do you have some more?"
Sarella stared at him with hatred in her eyes.
Jeremy sighed. "Very well. Keep your saliva to yourself then. I'm looking forward to tasting your blood, next."
Jeremy knelt to pick up the knife Pencils had tossed him.
In that precise moment, Sarella raised her heel and kicked him sideways in the face, knocking his aReal glasses to the ground.
Jeremy staggered in place, momentarily senseless.
Everything happened extremely fast in the next few moments.
A plasma blast erupted from the far side of the camp, slamming into one of the combat robots beside Hoodwink.
Since Jeremy didn't have his aReal, the four drones, lacking any instructions to the contrary, darted toward the source of the attack.
The two robots meanwhile released Sarella and flicked the rifles down from their shoulders.
The remaining ground robot near the party spun toward the source of the attack as well.
Another shot came, and this time one of the robots beside Sarella went down.
The machine directly beside the party opened fire at the source of the attack, which seemed to be a crate outside the first tent. The four drones closed with that crate and also fired.
Three of the commandos leaped onto the closest robot. The machine easily beat them off, and fired at close range, tearing a hole through the torso of the soldier who called himself Carbine.
Alien meanwhile had retrieved his rifle from the ground, and he unleashed a shot, blowing off the robot's head.
Sarella scooped up the weapon from the fallen robot near her and she fired at the remaining machine beside her, which had turned its attention to the primary group of prisoners. She reduced it to scrap metal.
The drones turned away from the crate, apparently done with whoever had attacked them there.
Pencils shot down one of the drones immediately.
The other drones assumed an evasive attack pattern: scurrying about like crazy while returning fire.
The defenders ducked to the ground and took cover behind whatever they could. Hoodwink found himself behind a discarded tire.
"Smart bullet mode!" Pencils shouted from behind a crate. He flicked a switch on his rifle, and the others did the same. The group of men fired directly upward.
Instead of plasma, barely visible projectiles launched from the weapons. The projectiles swerved about the field of battle, making rapid laps, picking up speed as they honed in on the noise and heat of their flying targets.
The three drones attempted to flee. The first two were struck down by the smart bullets. The third ascended rapidly toward the canopy but the prop guards prevented it from cutting through the fabric. Another bullet smashed into it and the debris crashed to the ground.
The group gathered to assess the casualties. They had lost three men: one of the decoy scientists, and two soldiers.
Sarella emerged from the tent where she had taken cover. A red drape of blood covered her cheek below the knife gash.
"He's gone," she said, referring to Jeremy, of whom there was no sign.
"Gathering reinforcements no doubt," Skull said. "Collect your things, people. This place is hot. I want us out in under two minutes. Let's go let's go let's go!"
Jeremy's aReal lay abandoned on the ground where Sarella had kicked it. As the men dispersed, Hoodwink walked over to the thing and ground it underfoot. He scanned the trees bordering the camp, searching for Jeremy or the bee-sized micro-drone, but saw neither.
He hurried toward the main tent to help oversee the transfer of the Mk210.
As he passed the smoldering crates that lay outside the tent, he saw Pencils there, cradling Depravity in his arms. The drones had shot him up fairly badly.
Hoodwink knelt beside them. Though Depravity obviously hated him, compassion made Hoodwink say: "Thank you for saving all of our lives."
He was expecting the man to curse at him and tell him off, but instead Depravity reached out, groping for Hoodwink's arm.
Hoodwink gave him his hand and the man gripped it with surprising strength.
"Worth it," the man said. "Make it worth it."
Hoodwink felt his chin quivering slightly. "I won't let you down," Hoodwink promised. "Or humanity. I swear it."
A semblance of peace appeared in his eyes and De
pravity closed them forevermore. Hoodwink allowed the limp hand to slide from his grasp. When the arm struck the Earth, Hoodwink felt a sudden shame for letting the hand fall like that, and he rested it on Depravity's plasma-riddled body instead.
"He was a good man," Pencils said.
"The best," Hoodwink agreed. He forced himself to rise before he choked up.
Human emotions. When he was in Satori form, he yearned for them constantly, and yet now that he had them, sometimes he wished he did not. They could be... overwhelming.
Inside the tent, Brent had summoned one of the lifter robots to carry the Mk210. Hoodwink made way for the ponderous thing and followed it to one of the pickups with the monster truck wheels. The robot dropped the heavy bomb in beside the anti-aircraft gun, and the entire truck tilted toward the weight.
"Looks a bit precarious," Hoodwink said.
"It'll be fine," Skull told him, loading into the driver's seat.
Blake took his usual shotgun position. Sarella loaded into the bed with Hoodwink; Alien, Pencils and two other commandoes joined them. They tossed recoilless rifles, rocket launchers, and extra rifles into the bed with them.
The remaining commandos piled into the second monster truck. The lifter robot joined them, folding up to a quarter of its size and positioning itself inconspicuously in one corner of the bed. The commandos used it as a chair.
The scientists meanwhile loaded into an SUV with the surviving decoy and a soldier. They shoved the metallic canisters that contained the entire technical history of humankind inside with them. The plastic explosives were still attached, Hoodwink noted.
"We're good!" Pencils said. "Let's go!"
Skull started the truck and accelerated into the trees. The SUV with the scientists took up the middle position behind them, while the remaining pickup assumed the rear.
"What about the other SUVs?" Hoodwink shouted toward the driver.
"Fuck 'em!" Skull said.
He leaned toward Sarella. "Why were there so many of them back there?"
"Vehicles?" she asked. "Most of the rebels arrived separately, I would assume. For safety reasons."