by Isaac Hooke
Finally, he lowered his hand and lay back once more. Their conversation essentially ended after that, which was for the best, probably. Their talks had a predictable, circular quality to them: they’d lament how each of them loved the other, yet admitted soon thereafter that their love wasn’t strong enough for either of them to quit the military.
That’s our problem, isn’t it? Our love just isn’t strong enough.
No. It was strong. But there were just some things that love could never surmount. Differences in social class, ambition, and even duty, all could defeat love. Whoever came up with the phrase “love conquers all” was dead wrong.
Another two hours passed. Rade finally gave up trying to sleep and sat with his back against the wall, his legs draped over the edge of the mattress so that his feet touched the floor. Though he was wearing only his cooling and ventilation undergarments, he felt hot in that cell. The only air circulation was probably via that hole in the floor called a toilet. Thinking about the floor caused him to notice the smell, and he turned away to stare at the entrance to the cell instead, toward the door whose seams he could not see.
And then, an alarm sounded.
“What’s going on?” Shaw sent.
“I don’t know,” Rade told her honestly.
He heard distant explosions, and felt the floor shake slightly beneath him.
“The palace is under attack, that much is obvious,” he transmitted.
“The United Systems?” she pressed.
“Could very well be,” he told her. “Either that, or a rogue faction of SKs who don’t like the fact their Paramount Leader has been compromised by an alien entity.”
He was still gazing at the entryway when seams appeared along the edges, outlining the door.
Rade stood up, preparing to tackle whoever showed up.
The door slid aside, and a combat robot entered. It held a rifle that was pointed directly at Rade.
He raised his hands, and backed away toward the sink.
Cynthia entered behind the robot. She was dressed in her royal gown, and still wore that diamond and emerald diadem around her brow, but she had abandoned the crystal slippers for a more utilitarian pair of boots.
Cynthia crinkled her nose. “That’s the problem with these cells. The smell.”
The alarm sounded even louder now that the door was open behind her.
“What’s happening?” Rade said.
“Beijing is under attack by the United Systems,” Cynthia said. “Use this opportunity. Escape in the confusion.”
Puzzled, Rade stared at her.
“Why are you helping me?” he asked.
“I guess… a part of me feels I owe you a debt of gratitude,” Cynthia said. “When you helped me and the Anarchist on Newridium. But after this, my debt to you is repaid.” She stepped outside into the hall, and nodded toward the east. “You’ll want to go that way.”
Rade glanced at his overhead map. Eventually, that particular route would take him to the landing pad he had used to enter the palace in the first place.
The robot backed outside, giving Rade room to emerge. When he was out, the alarm chimed even louder in his ears.
He glanced at the sealed door in the wall beside his cell.
“Let Shaw go, too,” he said.
Cynthia nodded, and sidestepped to open the door.
Shaw burst outside, ready to attack, but when the combat robot lifted its menacingly rifle, she froze.
“She’s letting us go,” Rade said.
Shaw gave her a suspicious look. “And what’s the price?”
“The price has already been paid.” Cynthia stepped forward suddenly and gave Rade a kiss on the lips. He accepted, somewhat stunned, before she pulled away and began walking west. The robot joined her, walking backward, alternating its rifle aim between Rade and Shaw.
Rade glanced at Shaw, who was scowling at him.
“I didn’t do anything with her,” he said. “She only came into my cell for a few seconds. I can show you a video dump if you want.”
Shaw shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve seen enough.”
“Oh,” Cynthia said, pausing. She turned around, and slid the spare rifle from the combat robot’s shoulder by the strap, and tossed it to him. “You might need this.”
Rade caught the weapon. It was a plasma rifle.
“I’m not sure how good your rootkit is,” Cynthia said. “But I’d suggest taking a shuttle, if you’re able to hack admin rights.”
“Free my mech, too,” Rade said.
“Sorry, I’ve already repaid my debt in full,” Cynthia said. “If you want to save your mech, you have the means now.” She nodded at the weapon he held, before turning her back on him. The robot followed close behind her, still keeping its remaining rifle trained on him and Shaw.
Rade glanced at Shaw. “Let’s go. We have to spring Nicolas. Dial down your Implant range.” Now that they didn’t have a wall interfering with the signal between them, the range didn’t need to be as high.
He reduced his comm node range himself, not really wanting to assist the palace AI in tracking him during his escape.
Rade used his overhead map to lead Shaw away from Cynthia and the robot until the pair vanished around a bend.
He passed metal doors constantly, but they were all locked, with no remote interface or other obvious means of entry.
He met no resistance along the way to the stairwell. Most of the security forces would have gathered to defend the exterior of the palace by then, if it was true the United Systems was invading. Rade suspected Cynthia had also disabled the video cameras in the area. Either that, or instructed the palace AI to ignore him while he made his getaway.
That alarm continued to sound overhead, coming louder in those areas that passed close to the speakers.
When he reached the handleless stairwell door, it didn’t open. There was no remote interface, so he did what any good MOTH would do: he merely raised the plasma rifle and opened fire. In moments, he had turned the central region of the door a molten red, then white, and it dissolved, leaving a jagged ellipsoid in the middle, a little more than half the size of a man. He waited thirty seconds for the edges of that gaping hole to cool, then carefully crouched and lifted one leg over, then the other.
Shaw followed behind him.
They walked down the steps to the next flight. According to the map, this was the same level where he had detected Nicolas earlier.
Once again, the door refused to open, and there was no remote interface, so he shot his way through.
This time, instead of stepping through the opening, he leaned past the edge with his rifle, and scanned the hallway beyond through its sights. It was about the same width and breadth as the level above, just big enough to fit a mech. The scuff marks and dents on the walls told him that larger robots had definitely been through these halls at various points in time. The alarm sounded just as loudly as on the previous floor.
He swiveled the rifle from left to right. It seemed empty…
But then he heard a noise in between the lulls of the alarm. A clattering sound, as of something unfolding. He didn’t see anything in the hallway to his right, so he glanced back left.
Two turrets were emerging as panels folded back, one on the floor, and the other on the ceiling.
Rade immediately ducked back inside the stairwell.
Those canons opened fire, and plasma fire ripped into the doorway, enlarging it, along with the doorframe itself.
Rade pulled away from the door, shoving Shaw backward with one arm so that together they climbed those steps to midway up the flight.
If the palace AI had been ignoring him before, it certainly wasn’t anymore.
“Well,” he said. “This is an interesting problem.”
27
When the turret fire ceased, Rade waited thirty seconds, then clambered back down the stairs and approached the entrance.
He tried leaning past to get off a few more
shots, but without the enhanced reflexes of his exoskeleton, he was no match for the autonomous turrets, and they fired before he could even line up a shot, forcing him to leap back. He repeated this a few times, until the entrance was covered in plasma holes, and barely recognizable as a stairwell exit.
He programmed his Implant to reduce the volume of that alarm, as it was beginning to get on his nerves. It was a relatively easy fix, as that particular alarm belonged to a narrow range of frequencies.
Just as he finished diminishing the volume, Rade heard the thud of heavy boots coming from behind him. “We’re outflanked!”
He spun around; past Shaw, near the top of the steps, he caught glimpses of pixelation along the edges of the enemy units racing into the stairwell. That meant they were using environment blending, which artifacted like that at higher speeds. The revealed silhouettes were human-sized: either combat robots, or troops in jumpsuits.
He was about to open fire when blue silhouettes popped into place around the attackers. Along with names above their heads. That he was only noticing those silhouettes and names now told him the operators had their comm node ranges dialed way down, like himself.
“Bender?” Rade sent, confused.
“Yup!” Bender transmitted. “It’s the boss! Told you!”
“Chief!” Tahoe sent.
Tahoe shoved his way past Bender, momentarily deactivating his environmental suit so that Rade could see him. Tahoe’s face was readily visible behind the faceplate of his jumpsuit: his friend was crying.
He gave Rade a tight hug that was made stronger by the exoskeleton.
“Good to see you, my friend,” Rade said, gasping slightly for air. “But… can you slacken the grip a bit?”
Tahoe released him. “Sorry, brother. I thought I’d lost you in the jungle. We all did.”
“It takes a lot more than a few cluster bombs to kill the chief of Alpha Platoon,” Rade said.
“Good to see you again, boss,” Lui said, deactivating his environment-blending as he padded down the steps to join Tahoe and Rade. He glanced at Shaw. “Can she hear us?”
“She’s logged into the same comm channel,” Rade said, updating the platoon area of his HUD to add Shaw’s name to the list.
“Well, here’s someone I wasn’t expecting to find,” Lui continued, addressing Shaw. “Not that I’m complaining. Your face is far prettier than the ugly brutes I’ve had to look at all day. Shaw, a pleasure as always.”
Shaw inclined her head. “Lui. It’s good to see the gang.”
“You might want to get away from that door,” Lui told her. “Best to leave this to the experts.”
“Gladly,” Shaw said, climbing the stairs to let Lui and Bender go in front of her. Lui activated his environment blending again, as did Tahoe. Bender never turned his off, but Shaw could see him and the others, thanks to the silhouettes transmitted by their comm nodes.
Bender and Lui reached the damaged opening below, and peered around it. The pair leaped back a moment later, and plasma fire riddled their former positions.
“Well, that won’t do,” Lui said.
“Not at all,” Bender agreed.
The pair retrieved grenades from their harnesses, and tossed them into the opening toward the turrets.
“How did you find us?” Rade asked Tahoe.
“We heard shooting, figured we’d check it out,” Tahoe replied.
“And you just happened to be in the neighborhood?” Rade pressed.
“Something like that,” Tahoe agreed. “Beijing is under attack by an organized invasion force from the United Systems. While we were planning our role in the attack, a mole sent us information that you were here. Rescuing you was our primary objective; however, our secondary objective is to help Bravo, who has been tasked with the capture or termination of the Paramount Leader himself.”
“The mole mentioned the Paramount Leader was under alien control?” Rade asked.
“Yup,” Tahoe responded.
“Where’s Bravo now?” Rade said.
“They’ll be searching the residences beneath the throne room, where the Paramount Leader has a bunker,” Tahoe said. “It’s where he would most likely retreat during an attack.”
“You’re acting chief?” Rade asked.
“Yes,” Tahoe replied. “But now that we’ve recovered you, I’m happy to hand over command.”
“No,” Rade said. “You’re doing a good job, and I don’t even have a jumpsuit. I’ll help out as I can. All I ask is that before joining Bravo, you retrieve Nicolas. He’s past this corridor. I’m sending his position now.” He transmitted the marker indicating where he’d detected Nicolas earlier.
“Got it,” Tahoe said. “Platoon, we have a mech to rescue!”
“Turrets are destroyed,” Lui ducked behind the edge of the opening with Bender as small bore holes appeared in the ragged doorframe—such holes could only be from laser rifles. “But now we have combat robots to deal with!”
“Pyro, Kicker, assist Bender and Lui,” Tahoe ordered.
Rade saw the blue silhouettes of the two men as they moved forward. Meanwhile, the rest of the men enveloped Rade and Shaw so that the two would be relatively hidden behind the mass of environment blending jumpsuits.
“Where’s the extract point?” Rade asked Tahoe.
“The troop ships have pulled back to let the helos, drones, and bombers do their work,” Tahoe said. “We’ll have to make our way to the Caiyuzhen neighborhood under the cover of darkness.”
Rade glanced at his clock. It was eleven o’clock at night. Plenty of darkness out there.
“We have Jupiters waiting for us outside, however,” Tahoe said. “Secured to the rooftop of the neighboring building.”
“The neighboring building?” Rade said. Then he nodded. “They’d be too big to escape any LIDAR scans along the surface of the Pyramid Palace.”
“Yes,” Tahoe said. “We couldn’t bring our mechs here… when we arrived, we recorded the timing frequencies of the LIDAR bursts used by the defense turrets. Then, in between those bursts, we scaled the surface of the pyramid, taking cover before the next LIDAR scan by ducking behind vents, balconies and grates along the way. Something the bigger mechs certainly couldn’t do. We reached the target landing pad without drawing the attention of the palace AI, but I suspect it knows we’re here now.”
“Yes, helping me would do that,” Rade agreed.
“Grenade!” Pyro shouted.
The team shoved Rade up the flight toward the floor above. Meanwhile Bender, Lui, Pyro and Kicker brought up the rear. The grenade detonated, sending shrapnel into the surrounding walls.
“Got incoming, upper level!” Fret said from the stairwell opening that led to the previous level.
Tahoe turned back down. “Push down!”
Bender, Lui, Pyro and Kicker rushed the badly damaged opening at the bottom of the stairs, and threw grenades past it. Manic came forward with an RPG launcher.
“Bitch, you’re not going to be firing that in here…” Bender said.
Manic ignored him, and leaned past, launching a rocket. He pulled back as an explosion echoed from the hallway beyond.
“Just did!” Manic said, laughing maniacally.
Kicker and Pyro rushed into the hall, with Kicker moving left and Pyro right; both dropped to one knee to allow Bender and Lui to fire over their heads. The jumpsuit speakers of all four emitted the jury-rigged squawks of echolocation.
Behind Rade, at the top of the flight, Fret, TJ and Bomb were holding the door to the upper level. Their speakers were also squawking.
“That’s the last of the current round!” Kicker said.
“Let’s move!” Tahoe said. “Fret, TJ, Bomb, place demolition charges. Block off this stairwell!”
The platoon advanced into the hallway below, while Fret and TJ placed charges. Bomb covered them.
When the three of them emerged into the hall, the stairwell exploded, filling with rubble.
Alpha dash
ed forward, with Rade and Shaw remaining in the center of the party. They picked their way over the wreckages of combat robots, and ducked underneath the lopsided defense turret in the ceiling, which had parts and conduits drooping down. They squeezed past the destroyed turret in the floor—it had a huge crater in its center, thanks to Manic’s RPG—and arrived at the large steel double doors behind which the position of Nicolas was marked off.
Now that Rade was closer, his comm node picked up Nicolas once more.
“We’re here, Nicolas,” Rade sent. “Told you we’d get you out of this.”
“You’ve never let me down,” the AI returned.
“Cyclone, permission to blast the doors?” Kicker asked.
“It’s going to be cramped in there,” Tahoe replied. “Bender, see if you can open it up.”
Rade couldn’t detect anything on the remote interface, so he had no idea how Bender was going to hack in.
But then Bender moved forward, and ripped off a panel that Rade didn’t even know was there. He slid a wire out of the wrist assembly of his jumpsuit, and plugged the male end into the female connector behind the panel.
A moment later, the doors slid aside.
Nicolas lay on the ground, stuffed into that cell, barely fitting. The platoon hauled the mech out, and ripped away the wires that had been connected to its AI core in the process. Rade rushed to his side when he was free, and sealed the AI core so that it was no longer exposed. The panel in the mech’s armor above that core was also open; the leads connected to that panel had been cut, so Rade manually closed it for Nicolas.
“We’re getting you out of here,” Rade said.
“Thank you,” Nicolas said. “I understand now what humans mean when they say one is at ‘a loss for words.’”
Nicolas still had no arms, and his jumpjets were disabled, so the platoon helped the Jupiter to its feet. When it stood, it resembled a weaponless bipedal mech. His environment blending skin flickered on and off, unable to properly mask its shape.
“It’s good to see you, brother,” Praxter said.