Margo looked at ZiP with a tired and perplexed look on her face. “A wizard?”
“Nevermind, switching gears, hey Quirty! Can you use your arms to pick this thing up?” He lightly kicked the power core as the set of arms reached down and picked it up. ZiP hopped up on them as they rose to the top of the walker’s flat head. “I’ll find a spot to bind it on, just give me a second.”
Margo turned her attention to Catcher. “When are we off?”
“Are you positive that you are capable of piloting Quirty?
Looking up at her new home, she nodded and said, “If I’ve been asleep for three days, I think I’ve gotten enough rest.” She shrugged her padded shell off and immediately regretted her decision as the jolt of pain from her ribs grabbed her while the chilly morning air darted past her thin undershirt and latched on to her skin. With teeth chattering, she asked, “Wwwwhere is mmmmy tuniiicccic?”
Chapter 19- On Belay
A thick fog had rolled into the valley as Margo piloted Quirty toward the start of the cliff face. “Huh, no mines, I figured there’d be mines.”
“Did you ever check?”
ZiP pivoted in his chair at the fire control station and pointed at the dent in his chest. “I never wanted to be in range of that gun again, so I haven’t tried to come this close.”
Catcher’s case was sitting at the navigation control area. “Never, in all this time?”
“I can replace a lot body parts, but my whole self not so much. I’m a one-of-a-kind!”
Catcher muttered, “Yep, that’s it.”
Margo let the ball control go and watched in wonder as it hovered in place. She shook her head in awe and turned toward ZiP asking, “Can Quirty climb?”
Quirty chimed into the conversation. “I do have a tethered micro carbon marrow and harpoon launcher available.”
Margo looked at Catcher’s lens as it adjusted for focus with a cheeky grin on her face. “Harpoon, huh?
“Yes.”
“And that’ll work for us?”
“The launcher has been successful in previous republic missions in scaling vertical spaces bigger than this cliff face.”
“ZiP, can you spool that up, please?” Margo walked over to Catcher, plugged in her ear piece, and returned to her chair. As the seat rotated her back toward the panoramic pilot outcropping, ZiP was sitting at the control panel. After a few seconds she asked, “ZiP, are you okay?”
Right before she finished her sentence his fingers began to run over the keyboard and a series of whirling sounds could be heard outside of Quirty. “He’ll never know what hit ‘em! Harpoon is ready.”
Margo took hold of the control sphere and rotated it to point the front of Quirty up toward the top of the cliff. An uncaring granite face stared back at the tiny metal creature. The cracks, the life that had found a way to live in the narrows of its structure, faded away into the white fog that made the sky a question rather than a truth. “Quirty, will the fog be problematic?”
The harpoon shot from the launcher that had popped up on the back of the walker and pierced the unknown. Seconds past until the teather grew taut and some small rocks fell from the cliff like dandruff from a shoulder. “It does not appear to be a problem.”
She smiled as she saw the harpoon was signaling ready in her HUD. “Okay, let’s get climbing.” As the walker neared the cliff face it stopped short of touching the cold stone surface as the tension in the line echoed and vibrated down into the chassis. “Quirty, how do I climb?”
“Activating climbing subroutine.”
Quirty’s two hands pulled into view, the palms widened as did the gaps between the rectangular fingers which also grew in width. A projection of the walker showed up in her HUD showing the different systems that were adjusting to the new geographical challenge. After a minute the systems read green and the control sphere in Margo’s hand separated down the middle hemisphere. Palming the two halfs she noticed that her finger and hand movements were copied by the large robotic arms outside. “What about the feet?”
“The feet will cut into the side of the rock and mirror the movement of the hands. Think of it as climbing a ladder where you make the rungs.”
Shrugging with her eyebrows and shoulders she reached out with the right controller and watched as the right arm outside grabbed into the rock. With an ever increasing smile, she plunged the left hand into the stone and pulled up. The cabin began to pitch into a resting position at 90 degrees. As they climbed higher and higher the grassy floor of the valley vanished, making Margo feel like they were in a different world where gravity didn’t work quite properly. The servos and lockout joints hummed and clanged quietly as the group made its way toward where the harpoon had landed. Slowly, a shadowy stick began to reveal itself. “What do we do…” The arms glowed red and halted movement as the harpoon detached itself from the cliff, reentered the launcher, and fired off again. Once the slack from the tether was gone the systems glowed green again. “Oh, neat!”
Switching off his external mic, Catcher used the earpiece that Margo was wearing. “Margo, have you noticed that ZiP is rather quiet? I know you can’t be bothered with it, since you’re concentrating, but the Girsh is still in the cargo compartment of Pip. I’ll let you concentrate.”
Keeping her eyes forward, she allowed her expression to tell Catcher what she couldn’t say out loud; she looked cautious, annoyed, and determined.
Slowly the fog above them began to lift, allowing the rock they were climbing to start turning toward an orange hue. The rock veins began to have more definition and held more detail as their visibility increased with each hand hold taken until finally they were above the fog. The light of the setting sun blazed across the tops of the clouds and made the rock glow. As they neared the harpoon again ZiP broke his silence. “Margo, hold here.” She stopped climbing and looked at the lip of the cliff face that stood 12 meters above them. “If you fire your harpoon, it’ll take away our element of surprise.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“My grappling hook will pull me to the top faster than Quirty can. I’ll use that and get the jump on him.”
Catcher asked, “Okay, however you want to handle this, but how are you going to do that one handed?”
“Please, I’ll only need one hand to do this job.” Taking out his revolver, he opened the chamber to check it was loaded, and holstered it back into place. He then pulled out the grappling hook and locked that to the other side of his belt. “I’ll use the roof access.”
“You ready?”
The robot nodded and made his way toward the middle of the room where a circular hatch stood. Turning the lock a ladder descended down and putting one foot on it he responded, “I’ve been ready for a very long time.” With that he saluted and climbed up the ladder.
Margo held her position until she saw ZiP on the roof of Quirty. He took out the grappling hook, fired it over the cliff’s edge, and activated the pulley that picked him up like a shot that seemingly vanished him out of sight. She went to follow him only to stop as Catcher said, “Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“If there is any firing…”
“We’re in a walking tank Catcher, not Pipsqueak! We’re going to be fine.”
“Still, get the Girsh as soon as we’re on flat ground.”
“Why?”
“Margo, we do not know what this will do to him. He might very well be fine, but better to be safe than sorry.”
Retracting the harpoon, she instructed Quirty to fire it over the edge, and once the line was taut Margo piloted the walking tank up and over. Clearing the top of the cliff, she pulled the walker up and adjusted her view to see that there was a short brutalist concrete building with two small stack of stones and a large rifle sticking out over the edge facing away from them. “Quirty, stop climbing mode.”
“Disengaging. Returning to standard movement set.”
Taking her patched pack in hand, she took out the hat her mothe
r made for her, put it on, and tossed the weathered bag on her back. “We should have trusted him when we took that cube from Outpost 521. We didn’t. I think we owe him that trust now.”
“The problem is he doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t. He thought HQ was around even though he knew a lot of time had passed since the person on the other end of the line could even still be alive. Margo, it doesn’t hurt to be prudent here rather than emotional.”
She stood from the controls and made her way to the ladder in the back of the compartment. Climbing the rungs as the hatch above opened in a manner that suggested it anticipated her approach, the wind outside tossed her hair about, making her tie down the ear flaps on the sides of her green cap to keep it tamed. She turned toward the husk of her former gyro, placed a hand on the scorched metal body, and with a deep sigh opened the cargo compartment. Taking the two halves of the rifle out of the metal box she clicked the barrel into the body of the gun. It was then she looked at her fingers poking out from under her now fingerless gloves. “I am proud of my scars. They remind me that I am the keeper of my destiny, that my actions make my fate, and that I am strong enough to survive the storms of my mistakes.” With a steady voice, she said, “I don’t think ZiP is a threat.”
Catcher’s voice quietly came out of a speaker that the wreckage was using as a post to hold itself onto its new home. “Margo, but it doesn’t hurt to prepare ourselves for the worst.”
“I am not going to let worry make my decisions for me. I’m proud of my scars.”
“I know Margo, you said so earlier.”
“I earned these and they are a reminder.”
“Yes, they are. Just make sure you have Quirty get her armaments ready. We’ll wait and see what happens.”
Looking down at the structure she said, “Up here, I’m not going anywhere. Not learning or growing, just maintaining.”
Catcher knew that tone. “This isn’t time to wax philosophical.”
“I’m heading down.”
“Margo!” She pressed a black button at the bottom of the speaker that cut off Catcher’s objection. She then shouldered the rifle and as she approached the edge of Quirty’s flat top a compartment opened and a handle popped up. Margo grabbed it and as she pulled it up toward her a cable followed along. Her brown leather boots began to edge over the metallic side and soon found themselves on the wind swept ground.
Whirling servos and tightening joints sounded off from Quirty as the walker adjusted its settings, she could see in the distance the large rusted rifle sitting in a perched area, its barrel pointed toward the valley below. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Keeping the rifle shouldered as she made her way toward the bunker the giant rifle began to show more details. Closer inspection showed it wasn’t just rusted, but it was eaten away in certain spots. Margo briefly wondered how many years the ancient rifle had been subjected small particles whipping into it, hurled by the high winds on the mountain.
She turned her attention to the doorway, toward more pressing matters, and took the rifle off her shoulder. She leaned it against the frame of the door, reached for the pitted handle, and walked inside.
Chapter 20- Face to Face
A howl greeted Margo as she stood in the doorway the hexagonal bunker. The three windows that faced toward the valley were wide open, which allowed the wind to soar through and bounce around the ancient gray walls. What shocked her wasn’t the sound or the ancient tech that was bolted to the far covered walls, but the fact that two ZiP’s were sitting at a bench in the middle of the room.
With a load of trepidation coursing through every fiber of her being, Margo took a step into the room. Her eyes studied the two robots sitting on the bench.
The two ZiPs were nearly identical, but the tell between them was the one on the left was tinted orange and blue and appeared to be more like stone than the ZiP she knew on the right. The creepy stone look-alike sat completely motionless, but on the other side ZiP started to move.The robot’s cowboy hat turned toward Margo as his glowing red eye landed on her, it seemed to freeze her feet to the floor. “Hello, Margo.”
For a brief second she regretted not taking the rifle. An audible gulp preceded her response, “ZiP.”
“Hello Margo.”
Her hands tightened into fists as her fight or flight subconscious began to kick over. Margo could feel her heart rate begin to soar as she began thinking that her speech about growing felt like mostly garbage at this moment in time. She responded, “Hi… ZiP?”
“No rifle?”
A look of recognition swept across her face. “You do have good hearing.”
“Yep, plugs don't stop these ears. I’ve known the whole time.” The servos in his legs whined as he stood, his heavy revolver still clasped in his right hand.
Another gust of wind swept through the building and gave life to Margo’s hat tassels and the long brim of ZiP’s hat. It ruffled leaves that had made their ascent from the valley floor and finished their journey to this place.
Margo’s gazed darted about the room for anything she might use in case her gamble didn’t pay off.
The soldier’s revolver remained pointed toward the ground. His servos began to quietly whine once more as he raised the revolver up and holstered it. ZiP then raised his right arm and held up his three fingered hand in a swearing motion. “I P.D.113 have completed my mission. This valley no longer contains any threats toward the Republic.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep…” ZiP’s head gave a small bob as he glanced around the room. “...that’s it.”
“And you don’t have an urge to kill me or anything?”
“I could turn on my scary voice, make my head spin around, and say something like ‘MUST DESTROY HUM-MONS’, but I don’t think it would get the response I want.”
A smile creased Margo’s face as her hands released their tension. Her grip was so tight that some of her scars tore a bit, leaving some blood on the surface of her skin. “I knew you wouldn’t.” She reached outside and brought the rifle into view. As she placed the strap on her shoulder she returned her gaze to ZiP only to find the revolver was out of its holster, and it was pointed at her. Fear dug into her spine as her left hand tightened its grip on the shoulder strap. “ZiP…”
“That’s a Type 3 Germash rifle. Standard issue to all Rys conscripts.” He pulled the hammer back on the revolver. “Where did you get it?”
She wanted to run, every fiber said to do so, but she overode it. Her muscles were tingling with stress as she tried to keep her emotions in check as she answered, “The girsh rifle is something that’s… always been in my family.” She blinked as a tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s always been there.”
The robot’s red eye rotated slightly in its socket as millions of lines of code drilled through his artificial brain. Mulling over the facts, the evidence, and what was happening right now. “The republic lost the war. Didn’t it? You standing here means that. The fact I could decode your language was due to it having Rys as its base. I didn’t see that. Why didn’t I see that?”
“Because you didn’t want to.” Her comment got his attention, making the eye focus on her, and with the curve of his bent brim it took on a sinister look. Margo brought her hands up in front of her showing she wasn’t going to do anything. “You said you were lonely down here for so long. And you're not the same bot you started off as when you were activated.”
The robot cut her off shouting, “I am a soldier of the republic! I have been built to stop the Rys and bring victory for the republic!” Staring into the red eye, Margo saw a reflection of face and it trying to keep calm as ZiP continued saying, “You were a spy the whole time and that means there is still one enemy left in this valley.”
Her face began to crack as the storm inside her edged its way onto her face. She took a shaky breath as her words punched through the maelstrom whirling inside and said, “I know you, ZiP, this isn’t you.”
His giant
red lens looked to the right for a moment as a passing thought crossed his mind. He lowered the gun to his side and said, “Yeah..”
“I am a soldier!”
“Who is alone.”
“I'm loyal to the republic army.”
“They are gone!”
“The republic and its values will live so long as I walk this planet!”
“I will live a life that I choose!”
ZiP raised the revolver again at Margo. “Glory to the republic!” The hand and arm holding the firearm began to shake as the motors inside it whined, turning the gun, and placing it against the side of his head. Calmly he said, “I am my own and no one else's.”
Chapter 21- Old habits die hard
A ringing sound muted Margo’s thoughts as she found herself still drawing breath. Taking slow, deep breaths she calmed the pounding that was overriding every fiber in her being. Once her body had discovered it wasn’t harmed she looked for ZiP and found him on the floor.
His hat was laying next to him. “ZiP!”
Her heartbeat climbed again as she ran over to him and found a sizable dent on the right side of his head. Margo picked up the deformed bullet that laid on the floor next to him as tears began to form in her eyes. “I always thought pain receptors were a dumb idea. Thank the maker I don’t have them.” ZiP turned his head and met Margo’s concerned eyes. “You okay?”
“I don’t think I have much adrenaline left after the last two minutes, but yes, I’m okay.” She held the bullet over to his eye. “Question is, how are you? Do you still want to kill me?”
The robot reached out with his only hand toward his hat and summoned it into its fingers. Sitting smoothly upright he placed the long brim on his head and said, “Naw, I’ve done enough killing.”
Wiping away the tear trails, Margo asked, “Why didn’t you?”
He turned his torso toward his kneeling company and responded, “My primary directives almost made me do it. When I sighted your rifle, it immediately took over my functions, and it felt really good. It felt good to do what I was made to do. I would have killed you.”
Margo Flint and the Last Soldier Page 12