by Isaac Hooke
Blaster in hand, Hoodwink slowly peered into the hallway outside. The way seemed clear, so he stepped outside. He was wearing a pair of wireless aReal glasses, which he had purloined from the cargo bay. The "ship map" feature was working, which kept his location centered while the blueprints of the Hercules generation ship updated around him to correspond with his latest position. He had already set Tanner's location in the Control Room as his destination, and it flashed on the map ahead.
Translucent pods lined the corridor. Human bodies floated within them, blanketed in a green goo, sleepers living in the world of the Inside. One pod was an opaque black, a sign that the occupant had died.
These pods were a common enough sight on a colony ship, he supposed. Traveling to other stars took centuries, and the hibernating crew certainly couldn't be expected to undertake the entire journey while awake. Too bad this crew had spent the past two hundred years stuck in one place, though, crashed on Ganymede. If the Satori in orbit had their way, the colonists would never leave that moon. And what this so-called Amoch was doing certainly didn't help matters.
Up ahead he saw a bone-thin man, his skin a bright red, wrinkled like a raisin. It reminded him a little of the skin of a newborn. The man crawled on the deck, newly emerged, still connected by a fleshy umbilical to the pod beside him. Green slime oozed from a slit in the membrane near the bottom of the pod and seeped through the floor grill to the deck below.
"Mom," the man was saying between coughs. "Mom!"
Hoodwink knelt beside the man. "Don't be afraid. I'm going to hoist you over my shoulder and carry you. But first I have to cut your umbilical."
The man fainted.
Hoodwink realized that the man was extremely old. Likely, if Hoodwink lifted him, his bones would break. In fact, he'd probably already broken all his ribs from the effort of coughing up all that green muck in his lungs.
Hoodwink was about to drag him when he realized the man was no longer breathing. He checked his pulse. Nothing. The man had died, the rebirth too much for his atrophied, ancient body to take.
Hoodwink heard the mechanical whir of servomotors and moving treads coming from the forward direction. He glanced up. One of the ship's maintenance machines approached. The head seemed like a sword hilt, with three camera lenses for eyes located underneath a red proximity sensor. A corrugated, flexible black bag connected the steel torso to rolling treads. The telescoping arms ended in powerful steel pincers.
"I blame you for this," Hoodwink said to the approaching robot. He unleashed his blaster, tearing a new arsehole into its chest. Sparks flew and the machine ground to a halt. Through the hole, Hoodwink could see the seared ends of different colored wires and circuit boards.
Hoodwink continued his advance. Most of the time he chose to hide between the pods, or to escape to another deck via a vertical trunk when one or more robots presented themselves. If he destroyed too many it would adversely affect the ship's self-maintenance capabilities. Given the current Satori bombardment, that would not be a good thing.
The deck shook occasionally around him, reminding him of that very attack. The Satori had upgraded their weapons since the last encounter: it was doubtful the crashed human ship would be able to hold out for even a tenth as long as it had during their last encounter. Hoodwink estimated they had a day, maybe two, before the Satori destroyed all of the offensive and defensive capabilities of the Hercules ship, leaving it ripe for final destruction. Once that was done, the mothership would return to Earth, and likely attempt to reconquer the planet. For that reason alone it was vital that the humans on Ganymede did not fall.
He reached the hallway adjacent to the Control Room. He peered around the edge and spotted five robots guarding it from the outside. He decided there was nothing for it but to exterminate them all. The ship would simply have to suffer the loss of five maintenance robots.
Hoodwink fired five shots, disabling the robots. He squeezed between them to the door and once more his code granted him entry.
Inside he found Tanner and Stanson the only ones active in a roomful of dreaming terminal operators.
"Is that him?" Stanson said.
"That's Hoodwink, yes," Tanner said.
"His face has changed."
"My face may have changed," Hoodwink said, holstering the blaster. "But I'm still the same man I was. For the most part."
Stanson came forward. "It's good to see you, Hood."
"You've forgiven me, then?" Hoodwink told the man. "Even if I'm one of the Enemy?"
"How could I not?" Stanson said. "You saved us all."
"I suppose I did, at that," Hoodwink agreed. "Mind, I had help." He glanced at Tanner.
"I didn't blow up the mothership," Tanner said.
"Any chance of that happening the same way again?" Stanson said hopefully.
"Not this time," Hoodwink said. "See, there's a small problem. I'm not actually aboard the mothership."
"Then where are you?" Stanson asked.
"I'm inside a small flyer parked a short ways outside your own ship." He glanced at the Children sleeping in front of the terminals. "Update me on the situation."
Tanner and Stanson did just that.
"So you tried to access all of the terminals in zero mode?" Hoodwink asked.
"Yes," Tanner said. "They've all been disabled. Including the two wireless access ports we have."
"So what you're saying is that we need to get to another set of terminals before we can even begin to hope to bypass the locks this Amoch, or Kade, has put on the system."
"That's right."
Hoodwink pursed his lips. "All right, Tanner, we'll make our way to the berthing area to gather up what Children we can from the other watches, and we'll try different terminal access points as we go."
"What about me?" Stanson asked.
"You stay here," Hoodwink told him. "With read-only access, you should still have the ability to review the code check-ins made in the past few months. Make a note of all the modifications Kade, Brown and Pots have made. Keep an eye out for any code that might override the wake-up subroutine. It'll be attached to an inventory-capable item, something that could be embedded in an avatar's belongings. I don't want my daughter trapped in there an eternity, I don't."
"I'll get on it," Stanson said.
Hoodwink approached the door. "Tanner, with me."
36
Amoch sat in his tent in the makeshift camp in the desert outside the Forever Gate of Rhagnorak. From behind a mask of artificial darkness shrouding his face, he stared at a world map arrayed before him. The cities he had destroyed were colored red. So far, there were only five of them.
He was genuinely worried. The alien attack had been unexpected, and made him doubt his plans. He almost wanted to restore control to the Children, but he knew there was nothing they could do any better than him. It was the machines that actually fought back to protect them from the Satori. He would just have to trust that the ship's defenses would hold out.
The tent flap lifted and one of the guardsmen stuck his head inside. "Sir, the Dragon Lady has returned."
"Send her inside," Amoch said, glad for the distraction.
The woman who had once called herself Gemma entered the tent. She was dressed in body-fitting silver armor covered in swirls and curlicues. The hilt of a samurai sword protruded above her right shoulder, where it was sheathed on her back. She still wore the silver mask that was forged into the shape of a Chinese dragon over her face. That was a good sign of her loyalty. Then again, perhaps she'd simply grown to like the powers it granted her, which included the ability to see the location of any human beings behind walls, among other things.
"It is done," the Dragon Lady said. "I have touched the disk to the forehead of the gol Nine, as you asked. After the object vanished within her, I escaped before she could question me."
Amoch nodded his head in respect. "I am pleased." That disk trapped Ari on the Inside: one less problem he had to worry about.
"Wha
t do you want me to do now?" the woman asked.
"Report to my general Hadrian and await further instructions."
She turned to go, but paused. "You promised when the time came, I would be given Nine to kill."
"And you will. When the time comes."
She nodded slowly, and then left. An interesting tool, that one. Bent on vengeance. The most useful tools were, he supposed.
Sammuel reported in shortly thereafter.
"Any sign of my dear wife?" Amoch asked the man.
"No, master," Sammuel said. "It appears she obeyed your order, this time."
Sammuel was to inform him if any of the eyes and ears spotted Wraylor on the Inside. She was under strict orders from Amoch to remain in the real world. Wraylor had warned Ari of the attack on Crane, and while Amoch had managed to use the warning to his advantage, he was not very happy with his wife, not in the least. She was banned from the Inside until further notice. He wasn't sure if he would even allow her to fight at his side in the final battle. She was too much of a wild card.
I should have never freed her from the dream world.
He heard shouting outside. Then the clang of steel on steel, along with a few lightning blasts. The fabric of the tent caved inward on one side as a human body struck it and got lost in the folds.
Amoch waited patiently, not perturbed in the least. Unlike the outside world, nothing that occurred in the Inside bothered him.
He focused on the entrance and tightened his fingers on the bone staff he held. He let the vitra from within it fill him.
He wondered absently if Ari had finally found him. Am I ready, mentally, to face her?
He heard more steel clashes, these just outside the entrance. One of the guardsmen came flying inside, body spewing blood from a mortal wound in the torso.
Brute followed the man inside. A snarl twisted the four-armed creature's face.
Not Ari after all then. A pity.
Amoch froze the red-skinned beast.
"Why did you have to do that?" Amoch regarded the lifeless, torn body of the guardsman at his feet. "He was one of my best."
Brute didn't answer.
"Ah." Amoch waved a hand, releasing the invisible lock on Brute's lips.
"They would not let me pass!" Brute said.
Amoch shrugged. "I should have warned them, I suppose. The problem is, I wasn't expecting you. What are you doing here? You were to seek out those who call themselves Keepers and eliminate them one by one. You were to return to aid me in the razing of certain cities only when summoned. And I did not summon you. Don't tell me I have to erase your program and start again."
"Do not erase, Amoch-krub," Brute said. "Someone found Brute."
"Someone found you?" Amoch thrummed his fingers impatiently on his staff. Was he going to have to reprogram the thing after all? "Explain."
Brute's eyes slid to the right, as if the creature was trying to look behind. But since it could not turn its head, that was impossible, of course.
The tent flap at the entrance parted and a man came inside. Strangely, he was dressed in a suit and tie. The individual dropped to his knees and knelt when he saw him.
"It's true!" the man said, his gaze on the floor. "You live!"
Amoch didn't recognize him. And the man most certainly couldn't see Amoch's face, which yet lay shrouded in artificial darkness beneath the hood.
"Who are you?" Amoch said.
The man still didn't look up. "Great One, I am here to serve you. Forgive my past transgressions. I realize now I was not yet worthy of your reward. Tell me what I must do to serve you. Tell me what I must do to be worthy."
Great One? The man could only mean One, the former primary AI that had been infected with the alien virus. Amoch had modeled his avatar after that AI.
"Who are you?" Amoch repeated.
"I am Jeremy Flanners, rightful mayor of Severest. Your humble, everlasting servant."
Jeremy Flanners, the Satori surrogate who had created the virus that had wreaked havoc throughout the computer system? The very same Jeremy who had gone insane, and apparently worshiped his own creation?
Amoch nodded slowly. If it was indeed him, Amoch could certainly find a use for the man. Still, he would have to watch him very closely, and keep Jeremy on a tight leash.
He smiled behind that mask of darkness. Leashes were his specialty. "Rise, Jeremy."
37
Tanner and Hoodwink made their way through the robot-patrolled corridors. They paused at the various hatches to check if there were any terminals in the compartments beyond that allowed for "zero mode" connections. Finally they found a small storage closet near hydroponics that still had a few wireless access ports with the mode enabled.
"This will work," Hoodwink said. He plugged the port into his belly and his eyes moved back and forth rapidly as he accessed the umbilical user interface.
A moment later Hoodwink announced: "I've managed to restore much of my access. I can wake the Keepers. And I believe I can contact the other members of the watch."
"Jacob is the commander of the second watch," Tanner said.
"I'll try him," Hoodwink said. A moment later: "Jacob, this is Hoodwink and Tanner. Yes, I'm back. Can you make your way to the main Control Room? You can't?" He glanced at Tanner. "They're trapped. We'll be right there, Jacob."
He disconnected the metal cylinder from his belly and stuffed it into a small satchel along with the other two. "Several robots have sealed off his berthing area."
The pair hurried through the corridors until they reached the berthing area. Peering past a bend in the passage, they spotted five maintenance robots camped out in front.
"Okay, you hide here." Hoodwink pointed behind one of the nearby pods. "I'll draw them away."
"Wait," Tanner said. "If I have to wait here, isn't it better if I'm the one with the blaster? I'll be defenseless if they discover me. Plus what do I do if some of the robots stay behind?"
Hoodwink hesitated, then slid the blaster from his holster and handed it to Tanner. Then he dashed out into the corridor and shouted at the robots. Hoodwink waited a few seconds, and then turned around and hotfooted it out of there in the opposite direction.
Tanner held his breath as the robots rolled by in turn. One machine. A second. A third.
He waited, but no more robots appeared. Only three of them had pursued: the other two robots had stayed behind.
Tanner stepped from cover and fired the blaster at the remaining pair.
He hurried to the door and tried his access code. The hatch clicked open. At least he hadn't lost the ability to open doors yet.
"Tanner!" Jacob said, coming forward. He was one of the oldest people on the Outside, the perfect example of why Tanner preferred not to refer to the operators as "Children." He was wearing his service utilities, and had a full body exoskeleton on top of that. Without it, he wouldn't have been able to walk.
His face was a wrinkly mess, with ears like shrunken scraps of old leather, and eyes so deep-set it was as if he viewed the world from two funnels. He was one of those so-called New Users who had coordinated the final assault against One a year ago. He had died in that attack and awakened inside his pod. His real world body proved to be nearly as old as his virtual one, and he barely survived the rebirth.
"We'll need you and four of your men to come with us to the Control Room," Tanner told him. "We've lost operators."
"What's going on?" Jacob said.
"Kade has betrayed us. He's locked us out of most of the system. We're clawing our way back."
Jacob shook his head. "Our best programmer. How could he do this to us?"
"No one knows," Tanner said. "Worst of it is, there's another alien attack."
"When it rains..." Jacob said.
"Here." Tanner handed Jacob one of the wireless access ports. "Leave this with the men who stay behind. They can use it to keep in contact with us, or go Inside as necessary."
Tanner led Jacob and the four men outside. Hoodwin
k had already doubled-back and apparently had been about to open the door.
"There you are," Hoodwink said.
"Hoodwink," Jacob returned. "I'll be damned."
"Nice to see you too."
"Last time I saw you," Jacob continued. "You threw yourself beyond the system boundaries in the desert. Which is the equivalent of throwing yourself into a blender, or so I hear."
"Yes," Hoodwink said. "We can all talk about it over drinks sometime soon, but at the moment we have to fly. Those machines are right behind me."
Tanner followed his gaze down the corridor and saw the three machines rounding the bend. "Let's go!" Tanner said.
The group exited the berthing compartment.
"My blaster, if you please?" Hoodwink said.
Tanner handed it over and the group hurried back to the Control Room.
"Glad to see you made it in one piece," Stanson told them.
"Your access should be close to what it was before," Hoodwink told him. "I've reset the access flags for most members of the active watches. I tried to change the privileges of Kade and his fellows, but of course that didn't work. See if you can change the access codes on the hatches."
Stanson tried. "I think that worked."
"Ship-wide?" Hoodwink said. "Or just the hatch to this compartment?"
"Ship-wide," Stanson said.
Hoodwink went to the door and tried his code. It didn't work. "That's a good start. At least now we know Kade and his little group will be stuck in whatever compartment they currently reside in."
"Until he finds a way to hack his way out of it," Jacob added.
"The biggest benefit for us, I think," Tanner said. "Is that we don't have to worry about the robots unexpectedly barging in on our current location."
"Good point," Jacob said.
"I want to discuss some strategies," Hoodwink said. "First of all, how can we eliminate this Amoch character who's causing Ari such grief on the Inside?"
"Can't," Jacob said. "From what I've heard, he's invincible. He's like One reincarnate. Fire, lightning, steel, nothing can harm him. And he can freeze the avatars of anyone around him, so no one can even get close enough to him to even try to harm him."