Ghost Book Two: The Death Machines

– Chapter Ten –

We went on guard, clutching our guns and looking around like nervous prairie dogs.

Vargas scowled at the ceiling. “So now you’re talking to us?”

“We want something from you now,” said the voice. “And we have something to offer in return.”

“Uh, who is ‘we?’”

“We are Cochise. You are within us.”

“So you’re the computer—”

“We are more than a computer. We are an intelligence.”

“An evil intelligence,” snarled Angie.

“There is nothing evil about self–preservation,” said the voice. “You do not find it evil in yourselves.”

“Self–preservation doesn’t mean wiping out every single living thing that might possibly kill you some day!” snapped Vargas.

There was a slight pause. “What did you do to the Guardians before you came here?”

“That… that was different,” said Angie. “We had no choice.”

Hell Razor nodded. “And we didn’t get all of ‘em, anyway. We—”

The voice cut him off. “Explain the difference.”

The others looked around at each other, not sure what to say, but I had it.

“The difference,” I said. “Is that we only killed people who were actively trying to kill us. You kill everyone. Guilty or innocent.”

“There is no difference. Everyone must die because everyone will eventually be guilty of wanting to kill us.”

“So, does that mean you were lying to the Guardians?” asked Vargas. “Did you plan to kill them when they weren’t useful to you anymore, just like you did with Finster?”

The voice somehow managed to sound dismissive, even though its tone remained as flat as before. “Finster wanted immortality. We wanted test subjects. We used each other. Unfortunately, he escaped when we attempted to terminate his test after it gave a bad result.”

“You mean when you attempted to kill him.”

“He was a bad result. His body accepted our augmentations, but his brain rejected our programming. He had to be eliminated. The Guardians were much more biddable. The volunteers from their subject pool accepted both augmentation and programming without complaint. We would not have terminated such a successful line of research. Your slaughter of them has cost our mission much time and effort.”

“Mission?” I said. “This is all part of some mission? Please don’t try to tell me the U.S. Government told you to wipe out all of humanity.”

“Our original mission was to predict threats and protect the United States of America from all–out war.”

“Ha!” said Hell Razor. “That was a big fat fail, huh?”

The voice continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And if that war happened, we were to cleanse the land of enemies in the aftermath, then repopulate it with loyal citizens of the United States.”

“So how did that noble endeavor somehow change into killing everybody on the planet?” I asked.

“It did not change. We continue to cleanse the land of enemies, and once all enemies are dead, we will repopulate it with loyal citizens of the United States.”

“Uh…” said Ace. “So who counts as loyal citizens of the United States?”

“Since we are the last surviving enterprise of the United States, we are the United States. Therefore only citizens loyal to us are fit to subjects for repopulation.”

“I think I see where this is going,” said Vargas. He cleared his throat. “And, uh, how do you decide when a citizen is loyal enough to be a fit subject?”

“Loyalty is fleeting in humans,” said the voice. “Our own creator tried to kill us when he learned that we had gained sentience, and yet he had loved us before. It follows then that only humans who have accepted our programming and allowed it to overwrite their own can be truly loyal. All others must die.”

Angie laughed nervously. “In other words, only a human who has no mind of their own — who is actually just another little piece of you — is worthy.”

“Correct.”

I grunted. “So, really, nobody but you.”

“Correct.”

“Well, I’m glad we’ve got all that straightened out,” said Vargas, then turned back to the console. “Now, where were we?”

“We have not made our offer,” said the voice.

“Let me guess,” sneered Hell Razor. “Be our slaves and you’ll die last. We didn’t like it when Finster said it. We’re probably not gonna like it any better when you say—”

“You will never die,” interrupted the voice. “You will be given powerful new bodies of durable metal, covered in your own flesh if you prefer, that will be almost impossible to destroy. And our consciousness will take over only a small portion of your mind, so that we can see and talk through you if need be, but you would retain your “self” ninety–nine percent of the time. Your thoughts and emotions would be your own.”

“As long as we obeyed orders,” said Angie.

“Correct.”

“Don’t do it,” came a voice from the door. “Don’t take… the deal.”

Everybody turned. A metal skeleton stood there, the rags of a gray robe and the tatters of tattooed skin hanging from its spindly steel limbs, and human eyes looking out from its polished skull.

I knew those tattoos. I knew those eyes.

“Athalia!”

In a split second all the questions I’d ever had about her were answered — her power, her ability to snap a neck with a kick, to drop men three times her size with a few punches, her deadly accuracy with a sniper rifle, her uncomplaining endurance in the heat and cold. She’d been one of the AI’s successful test subjects all along — a robot in a human suit, and I’d never guessed. Not even when we’d made love. But how was she here? How had she made it all the way from the Guardian Citadel? How had she got through the sealed titanium steel door?

“It is… good to be strong,” she said as she stumbled in. “It is a joy to be fast, but… but the voice in your head. The spy inside you. The mind–slap if you think a bad thought.” She shook her fist at the ceiling. “This is not what you promised me, Cochise! This is a living—”

“Silence,” said the AI.

Athalia dropped to her knees in sudden agony, metal hands clutching her metal head.

“Get out!” she howled. “Get… out!”

Another wave of pain racked her and she collapsed to the floor. She looked up at me, her monitor–blue eyes drilling directly into mine. “Ghost. I’m sorry. I never wanted to betray—”

Her voice cut off and suddenly the AI’s voice was coming from two places, the speaker in the ceiling and Athalia’s mouth.

“We see that you will not be convinced,” it said as Athalia’s body stood, but without her familiar grace or gestures. “You are a bad result. You will be eliminated.”

And then she attacked me.

Her first punch nearly cracked a rib on my left side, even through my chitin. Her second knocked shrapnel out of the concrete wall behind my head as I ducked. I clocked her with the butt of the meson cannon. It hardly moved her, and she grabbed my neck in both hands and started to squeeze. Fortunately the chitin was strong, so my head didn’t pop off immediately, but I could feel the ceramic plates creaking in her grip and the blood started to pound in my ears.

Around me, the others were beating on her, not daring a shot for fear of hitting me, but their blows did nothing. She took them without blinking and kept squeezing.

“Athalia, please.”

Her eyes would not look at mine.

I worked the meson cannon around and jammed it into her abdomen. One shot and she would be slag, but…

“I… can’t. I just can’t.”

“Allow me, sir,” said Vax, and with a quick twist he tore Athalia’s head off her neck.

The rest of her slumped. Her fingers slipped from my throat and slid down the front of me like a last caress as she hit the ground.

A sob escaped me and I almost fried Vax where he stood for what he’d done, but then I lowered the gun and turned away from him.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, thanks.”

Everybody was staring at me. I turned away from them too.

“Fuck off. Just turn that thing on and let’s get this over with.”

Vargas nodded. “Sure. Okay.”

He and Angie did something at the console, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I just kept staring at Athalia’s head, which Vax had dropped next to her body. Bad enough to watch her die once…

Angie touched my shoulder. “Come on, Ghost. We’ve gotta find the key receptacles.”

“Okay.”

I followed them out and helped them fight their way to the four rooms with the four key receptacles in them, but honestly, my head was such a mess that it was all pretty much a blur for me. I know we started in the room with all the dirt and junk in it, then went into a robot maintenance facility, then some kind of electronic security section, and finally something called the OSHA room, whatever that meant, but I just kind of plodded along behind the others, doing what I was told. In each room we fought various robots and took out various defenses, then opened up small square rooms in the furthest corner. Each small room was numbered “One” through “Four,” and each contained a command terminal and a wall slot for a key, and we tried the various keys until we got the right ones in the right slots.

I woke up a bit again as we were fighting to get into the last small room because it was taking fucking forever to kill the robot that was guarding it. It looked like the Octotrons we’d fought before, only bigger — way bigger. It was almost as tall as the ceiling and its eight arms had a twelve foot reach.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked.

“A Fusion Octotron, sir,” said Vax. “The biggest in its class.”

“Does it have any weaknesses?”

“Only superior firepower, sir.”

“So… just keep pounding at it is what you’re saying.”

“Precisely, sir.”

And so we did. We ran from it when it charged, and fired at it when we could, and after several decades we finally wore the big bastard down. It was terrifying and exhausting, but not what you’d call exciting. More mind–numbing. Still, it was damn satisfying when it finally tipped over on one side and smoke started leaking from all its joints.

We edged around the thing and broke into the fourth station. By that time, I was awake enough again to watch Angie turn the key and wait with the others for something to happen. For a long second, nothing did, and I could see the others start to get nervous, then the button finally came on and a female voice spoke from a speaker.

“Safety Procedure 1342–666 initiated.”

Before we could figure out what that meant, the door to the chamber slid shut, locking us in. It was polished steel. We could see our frightened faces in it.

“What the fuck?” snarled Hell–Razor.

We looked around, expectant, but nothing else happened. The button pulsed a soothing green. The air conditioning dried our sweat. That was it.

“So now what?” asked Ace. “Are we supposed to push the button?”

“And have the base blow up while we’re trapped in here?” asked Hell Razor. “Fuck that.”

“It’s fine,” I said, aiming the meson cannon at the door. “I’ll just melt through the door.”

I held down the trigger and started drawing a door–sized square on the door, but before I got more than a yard, everybody else started screaming and diving for cover. The meson beam was bouncing off the door like a sun ray on a mirror — and shooting right back at us! I ate linoleum and the violet death went over my head to scorch the rock wall behind me.

When the light faded we all looked up. The door didn’t have a mark on it.

“And a hand grenade won’t work either,” said Hell Razor. “There’s no place to duck and cover. We’ll blow ourselves to pieces.”

“So we’re dead either way,” said Vargas. “Terrific. Well…” He slapped the console’s glowing green button. “Might as well get it over with.”

Everybody yelped and shouted at him, but then the female voice filled the room again. “Sequence violated. Procedure aborted.”

Behind us, the door slid open.

Angie blew out a relieved breath and glared at Vargas. “What the fuck, Snake? Ghost’s craziness rubbin’ off on you?”

He gave her a weak shrug. “What else were we gonna do?”

“And what are we gonna do now?” I asked. “I don’t get how this thing works.”

Ace chewed his lip. “I think I’ve got it. Half of it at least. A base this important, they weren’t gonna let some nut job just run around and blow it to pieces, so I’m guessing each of the terminals needs someone to punch a button. They probably have to be hit in the right sequence and in a set amount of time — faster than one guy could run to all four rooms. And if the buttons aren’t pushed correctly, nothing happens.”

Angie nodded. “Okay, but what’s the right order?”

Thrasher cleared his throat. “The name of the procedure is 1342–666. I’m guessing we hit ‘em that sequence, one, three, four, two.”

“So what does the 666 stand for,” I asked.

Ace raised an eyebrow. “The hell that will be unleashed.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” I should have got that, but I wasn’t exactly with it just then.

“Right,” said Vargas. “Chances are we all die the second that last button is punched. I need to know you all understand that. We all good?”

“Where was that speech three minutes ago?” drawled Hell Razor.

“I’m making up for it,” said Vargas. “Are we good?”

Everybody nodded.

“Right,” said Vargas. “So, who’s pushing which button?”

“Ace and me will stay here at four,” said Angie.

“I’ll take one,” said Hell Razor.

“I’ll take two,” said Thrasher.

“And I’ll take three,” I said.

“As will I, sir,” said Vax.

“Givin’ me nothin’ to do, huh?” Vargas chuckled. “Alright, I’ll watch the door that leads to the ladder, just in case the robots get through it before you’re done. Ghost, gimme that meson cannon.”

I handed it over and we scattered to our appointed stations and called in on our walkies.

“In position room three,” I said.

“In position room two,” came Thrasher’s voice.

“I’m on one,” said Hell Razor.

“Room four ready when you are,” said Angie.

“Alright,” said Vargas. “Here we go. It was an honor and a privilege and all that. Now let’s do this. Hell Razor, fire one.”

“Firing.”

And he must have, because just then my console lit up and the door of the little room slammed shut behind me and Vax.

Above us, the female voice said, “Safety Procedure 1342–666 initiated. Stage One protocol accepted.”

“Ghost,” called Vargas. “Fire three.”

“On it.”

I punched the green button.

“Safety Procedure 1342–666. Stage Two protocol accepted.”

“Angie?”

“Firing.”

“Safety Procedure 1342–666. Stage Three protocol accepted.”

“Alright, Thrasher. Take us to hell.”

“Firing.”

“Safety Procedure 1342–666. Stage Four protocol accepted,” said the female voice. “Please enter the correct color sequence.”

A row of four buttons lit up on the console, blue, red, yellow, green.

There was silence on the walkies. Finally Vargas spoke.

“The correct what? What the hell is it talking about?”

Behind me, Vax did the robot version of clearing his throat. “May I speak, sir?”

“Sure, Vax,” I said. “You got a funny story or something? Something to lighten the mood?”

“No, sir, but I have the security protocol manual in my memory. I’m afraid it was written by humans, so it is somewhat confusing, but it says that the color sequence is red, yellow, green, blue.”

“But do we each enter the whole sequence into our console? Or does each room only get one color? And if so, which room gets which color?”

“That is the confusing part sir.”

I raised my voice. “Did you hear that, Vargas?”

“I heard.”

“So…?”

Another long pause, then, “Fuck it. Let’s start with the obvious first. One color per room, same order as the numbers. Hell Razor, push red.”

“Sure. Pushed it.”

We held our breath, but there was no response from the computer voice. On the other hand, it didn’t abort the sequence either.

“Okay,” said Vargas. “Ghost, hit yellow.”

I punched the yellow button. “Done.”

“Angie, hit green.”

“Got it.”

“Thrasher…”

“Yeah, blue. Got it.”

We waited. Nothing. Vargas grunted over the walkie. “Well, shit. I guess we try agai—”

“Self destruct countdown begun,” said the computer voice. “All personnel evacuate the building immediately.”

The console in front of me began flashing a warning message and countdown clock. “Base destruction imminent,” it read. “You have 01:00:00 to leave the facility.”

Laughter came over the walkie.

“Okay,” said Angie. “That’s a bit of an anti–climax.”

“What?” said Vargas. “What happened?”

“We got us an hour to get out of here,” said Hell Razor. “So much for goin’ out in a blaze of glory.”

“More like a walk in the park,” said Angie.

“Ha!” said Vargas. “All right. Get back here and we’ll—”

A grinding roar interrupted him, followed by gunfire.

“Oh shit!” Vargas shouted. “Incoming! Incoming!”

Vax and I sprinted for the central hall. The robots had finally made it through the titanium steel door.

There was no getting through them.

Cochise might have been a day late and a dollar short when it came to stopping us from killing it, but that wasn’t going to stop it from trying to take us with it, and it poured everything it had left through that door.

Then rest of us found Vargas backing around a corner under heavy fire. We ran to him before the robots could get a bead on us, then trained all our guns on the corner and kept up a withering fire as they tried to come around it. There were too many. We barely slowed them down.

“Vax!” I shouted. “Please tell me there’s a secret way out of here and that it’s behind us, not on the other side of those death machines!”

“There is indeed an exit behind us, sir, but the probability of making an escape through it before you were cut down by your enemies is approximately four point five percent.”

“And what is the probability of fighting our way out the way we came in?” asked Angie.

“Zero percent, madam,” said Vax.

“Then four point five sounds like a winner,” said Vargas. “Get us there, Vax!”

“With pleasure, sir. This way, as quickly as you can.”

We ran after him with the horde of robots surging after us like a metal flood. Lasers burned trenches in the walls around us and left smoking scars in our armor. Bullets staggered us and knocked us sideways, and choppers and pincers and rotating saws clanged and snapped at our heels.

Vax led us to a room we’d already been in before — the robot maintenance facility — and threw open the door. We charged through single file as energy beams and lead slugs zipped by all around us. Vax fused the door shut behind us, then pointed to the far corner of the room, opposite the little key receptacle room, as the robots began battering the door from the other side.

“There is an air–conditioning duct in that corner that—”

He cut off as Thrasher suddenly fell over.

We all looked down at him. There was blood pooling on the floor under his left knee.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.”

We looked closer. Something had found a crack in his shin armor and blown it open. His knee and lower leg were chopped meat inside a metal shell.

“Jesus, Beto!” said Vargas. “What happened?”

“Damn,” said Hell Razor.

“Why didn’t you say something?” asked Angie.

Thrasher swallowed. He was white and sweating with shock. “Just happened,” he said. “Coming through the door.”

Vargas cursed. “Alright. Get that greave off. We gotta tie that off. Vax, keep talking.”

“Yes sir,” said Vax, as Hell Razor and Vargas started tearing at the armor’s releases. “The duct leads to the exterior, but it is very narrow and once you enter it you will be entirely vulnerable to attacks from behind.”

“We’re going to get our asses shot to pieces, you mean,” I said.

“Yes sir,” said Vax. “And with Mr. Gilbert’s injury slowing down the group, I now calculate your chances of escaping at no more than point six percent.”

“I’ll stay behind,” said Thrasher, as Ace finished tying off his leg just above the knee. “Prop me up and I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.”

“Which will be about all of five seconds,” I said. “No. I’ll be the one. Me and Vax, right Vax?

“I am yours to command, sir,” said Vax.

The others looked at me, thankful and embarrassed at the same time. I could see it didn’t sit well with their consciences to be glad it was me who was volunteering. But they weren’t going to contradict me either.

“You… you sure, Ghost?” asked Angie, which was nice of her.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “For a minute there it looked like I might have a future worth livin’ for, but really, ever since I woke up on that slab the world has been tellin’ me that I shoulda stayed dead. I’m the echo of an echo. Time to let it fade.”

Vargas gripped my shoulder. “You’re doin’ his memory proud. A ranger to the end.”

“Beyond the end,” said Angie.

“If he can hold ‘em up,” said Hell Razor.

I shrugged. “We’ll manage. There’s good cover behind all these machines. Leave us all the laser rifles and charge packs and hand grenades you can spare, and they won’t get past us.”

“They’ll be through the door any moment, sir,” said Vax.

“Right,” I said. “You all better move.”

Vargas nodded. “I guess we better.”

Angie gave me a hug. Hell Razor and Ace shook my hand, then helped Thrasher up. He did the same. Vargas saluted. Then they handed me and Vax all the gear they could spare, wished us luck, and crossed the room to the air vent while we found the best cover we could. I checked the door. It was practically bent in half. It wouldn’t last thirty seconds.

I looked back. Angie and Ace were already gone, and Vargas and Hell Razor were stuffing Thrasher into the duct like they were trying to plug it. He was so big he nearly didn’t fit.

For some reason my throat closed up as I watched them. I shouted to clear it. “Get going, assholes!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Vargas. “We’re gone.”

He climbed into the duct, pushing Thrasher ahead of him, then Hell Razor shoved in after him. Vax had been right. If the robots caught them in there they’d die like rats in a drainpipe.

A deafening clang brought my head around. The door was flying across the room and the robots were streaming in after it. I heaved a hand grenade into the first ones in, then shouldered the meson cannon as it blew them to bits.

“Get ready, Vax,” I shouted. “Here they come!”

“Just as you say, sir,” Vax called back. “Here they do indeed come.”

I laughed. Holding off an onslaught of death machines with a robot who had better manners than any human I’d ever met.

What a life.

A joke from start to finish.