New Tales from Hilbert Space

by Gabriel Just

chanting, “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!”

  Rakni pulled his disintegrator and fired it quickly. A big beam expanded towards the robot. Again the damage was minimal, the personal force field of the robot protected it.

  “They have shields? That is cowardly. What kind of vermin do they fight normally?”

  “I think we should retreat,” Pokk suggested, while dodging some beams the robot fired from its eyes.

  “Not yet! I still have a secret weapon. Cover me,” Rakni ordered.

  “How the heck am I supposed to cover you? Do you even understand the concept of covering fire? It does not apply in this situation. You can’t just shout ‘Cover me!’ and hope that you can’t be hurt.”

  Although Pokk’s assessment of the situation was correct and reasonable, his brother did not listen to him, since he was already charging towards the Auto-Ex robot, with the missile in his right hand. The belief that his brother would cover him gave him enough courage to dodge all the robot’s attacks and jump on its back. Then he repeatedly hit it on the head with the missile.

  “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!” it shouted, while turning its head 180 degrees. It charged its eye beams, but before the robot could fire them it was tackled by Pokk and fell to the ground.

  “Come on, Rakni, we have to retreat,” the younger brother yelled, while dragging Rakni away.

  “Stop it! I can take this stupid robot. Let me go.” Rakni struggled, but his brother was stronger and carried him to safety. They hid in a small laboratory.

  “What was that about?” Rakni shouted. “I nearly got it!”

  “You were nearly killed. The robot was about to fire its eye beams.”

  “Nonsense, I would have just reflected them.”

  “With what?”

  “Details, Pokk, details. I would have thought of something. Now it escaped and it’s your fault. Where have you brought me anyway.”

  “I don’t know. It looked safe. I think it’s a lab of some kind.”

  The two took a quick look around.

  “Brilliant!” Rakni said after a short while. “This must be a weapons lab. Look at all this equipment. Grab what you can, Pokk. They even have an inverse flamethrower. It’s far more advanced than Old Roasty. And look, that’s an interferometric two barrel energy rifle. With this stuff the Auto-Ex robot is no match for us. Let’s do some good old fashioned exterminating.”

  It didn’t take the Extermination Brothers long before they found the Auto-Ex robot. Over the years they had perfected their tracking skills and it also helped that the robot was looking for them as well.

  “There it is!” Rakni shouted and took aim. “It’s moving too fast. Quick, use the inverse flame thrower.”

  Pokk had to apologize to Old Roasty first. “I am sorry Old Roasty. You are still my favorite weapon in the world. It’s just, sometimes, the newer weapons do a better job. Well, I say a better job. It is just a different job. It doesn’t change anything between us. You are still my number one.”

  “Quick!” his brother urged him.

  “Yeah, right, the killer robot,” Pokk remembered and fired his newest weapon. It shot a burst of absolute zero matter directly towards the enemy robot. The air in its path liquified first before becoming solid for a few moments and also the robot was affected despite its personal force field. At first it stopped completely, then it moved very slowly. However, the air already began to thaw. “Now Rakni, kill it!”

  Rakni readied his interferometric energy rifle. He never fired such a weapon before, but he vaguely knew how it worked. It fired two beams, one from each barrel, of harmless energy that could penetrate every force field because of its low intensity. However, if those beams interfered constructively, they became potent enough to inflict serious damage. The trick was to aim in such a way, that the interference only happened inside the shield of the enemy. It was one additional dimension Rakni had to consider now. Never before he had to aim in three dimensions. He took a deep breath, fired and hoped for the best. The beams successfully penetrated the force field of the robot and crossed directly inside its head. Constructive interference occurred, however, it was also quite deconstructive, since it blew the robot’s head right off.

  “One down, a couple more to go,” Pokk said proudly.

  “Not so fast, little brother. I think it only plays dead.”

  “We just blew its head off.”

  “I admit, its performance is very convincing, but I still don’t trust it.”

  Rakni approached the destroyed enemy and kicked it in the torso. No reaction.

  “Well, I guess it’s dead after all. But you can never be too- whoa!”

  The robot had grabbed Rakni’s foot and stood up in one swift motion. Within seconds its head grew back. All Auto-Ex robots were equipped with nano printers that made such repairs possible, even during combat situations. Rakni tried to free himself but was quite helpless, dangling upside down.

  Pokk reacted quickly and threw his new weapon to the ground. Old Roasty was far better at getting someone’s attention. He aimed upwards and tried to fire, but Old Roasty refused to fight. “I am sorry. I never should have used another weapon. It was a mistake. I know that now. Can you please forgive me.”

  Pokk demonstrated his sincerity by stomping on the inverted flame thrower on the ground. Old Roasty apparently forgave him and fired a big burst of flames, hot enough to get the Auto-Ex robot’s attention. It threw Rakni on the ground and ran towards Pokk, who was relieved that his plan worked, but would have been even more relieved if he knew what to do next. In his panic he fired his flamethrower at the robot, engulfing it in a big ball of flames, but that did not stop its approach. However, it made it impossible for Rakni to accurately aim his interferometric rifle. He threw it to the ground angrily and had no idea how he could save his brother. Pokk was still firing Old Roasty although he could not see a thing. After a while he realized that it was useless and stopped, so that he could at least see his enemy. But as the flames died down he could not see an enemy anymore. All there was, was a large circular hole in the corridor right in front of him, and his brother, smiling at him and waving around his disintegrator. “This pest of a robot might be shielded, but the floor is not. And nobody is immune to good old artificial gravity pulling you down to a lower corridor.”

  Pokk smiled back as he replied, “We should run nevertheless. It will be back soon, and I am sure it’s not the only Auto-Ex robot on this station.”

  “Retreat?” Rakni asked. “Never. We can take them down. However, I say we advance in a different direction. Maybe back to our ship.”

  Pokk agreed and while he retreated to the ship as fast as he could, Rakni advanced to the ship as fast as he could. They jumped in and took off immediately. Their ship was hit by a few projectiles fired from the Auto-Ex robots, but it didn’t take any real damage. The new holes in the hull even neatly matched the existing ones.

  “What should we do now?” Pokk asked his brother as soon as they were at a safe distance.

  “I don’t know. Maybe accept another mission. One that does not involve killer robots with a very limited vocabulary. I mean, all they say is ‘Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!’. It gets quite dull after a while.”

  “Well, in their defense, I think they were programmed a long time ago. People back then believed that this is how robots should sound like. I think they just stuck with it.”

  “I still think those are stupid robots, cowardly hiding behind their force fields, regenerating instantly. It’s no fun at all fighting against them.”

  “You are right,” Pokk agreed. “I will just look for a different mission. That will cheer you up. Something without robots.” Pokk scrolled through the job offers and mumbled. “Haywire killer robots. No. Auto-Ex gone berzerk. No. Extermination drones exterminating people. No. Ah, there is one. ‘We are looking for an extermination crew, that removes Bamborian rats from our waste reclamation pipes.’ That sounds like fun, doesn't it?”

>   “I suppose,” Rakni replied.

  “Oh wait. It goes on, ‘Warning: There are also crazy Auto-Ex robots on our station.’ Maybe we just have to keep looking.”

  “Oh, what’s the point,” Rakni sighed.

  Suddenly the intercom beeped. Rakni answered it. “Extermination Brothers, Rakni speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Finally! I found you,” the voice on the other end said. “And you are the real, famous Extermination Brothers?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “You have to help us! I heared you are the leading expert on Roborabies, is that true?”

  “Well, I suppose so,” Rakni answered.

  “We have a terrible outbreak here at the Auto-Ex headquarters. The station is lost. We had to evacuate. You have to help us.”

  “We are not interested,” Rakni said as soon as he heard the word ‘Auto-Ex’.

  “There are many lives at stake. I know, it might not be much for a leading expert like you, but if you could end this epidemic we can give you a five star review worth 100 000 review points.”

  “My brother already said that we are not interested. There is simply nothing we can do to-”

  “We’re in!” Rakni yelled and turned off the intercom.

  “Are you serious?” Pokk screamed. “We were not able to fight one of those robots, and we had advanced weaponry. What should we do against a whole station full of them?”

  “Details, Pokk, details. You heard the lady, 100 000 review points. That’s worth a