Ghost Book Two: The Death Machines

– Chapter Nine –

“On our nine!” I shouted.

“No!” cried Angie. “On our twelve!”

“Both!” said Ace.

“Then go three!” barked Vargas. “Shit!”

We veered right and ran down the wide corridor. Way too soon it ended in a shiny titanium wall, so polished we could see ourselves in it — and the bulky silhouettes of the robot army growing ever larger behind us. And this time most of them were armed with laser weapons. They started to burn black crisscrosses in the shiny wall and scar our unscarrable armor, too. There wasn’t anything to hide behind either.

“Any ideas?” I asked, as we fired back at them.

Thrasher dug into the wall with his armored fingers and pulled. A three by six panel popped out. “There’s a door.”

Vargas laughed like a mad man, then started shoving us all through into some sort of service corridor. “In! In!”

After the bright hallway, it was pitch dark in there and we all stumbled around blindly.

“Which way?” I asked.

There was a clunk and a curse.

“Well, not that way,” said Ace. “Ow.”

“Turn around!” shouted Angie.

I turned away from everybody else’s voices and stepped forward — and put my foot down on empty air. Suddenly I was sliding on my armored posterior down a slick ramp of some kind. A red light zoomed up at me, a pair of double doors below it. I bent my legs and put my arms up to shield my face, but the doors banged open easily as I hit and I flew out onto the tile floor of a dimly lit room, then skidded to a stop.

I sat up. “Well, that was—”

Angie flew out of the door, bounced, and knocked me back down again.

Half a second later, Ace, Vargas, and Hell Razor zipped out in a tangled knot and I took Vargas’s boot heel to the side of the head as they rolled to a stop.

“Is… that everybody?” I asked groggily.

“Oh shit!” squawked Angie. “Thrasher!”

We all scattered, but not quite fast enough. Thrasher came out of the chute like a safe with legs and knocked us all flat again.

“Nice of them to put that there,” groaned Vargas as he sat up. “You know, for the kids.”

“We should block it, though,” said Ace. “Some of those robots were small enough to follow us.”

“Good plan,” said Vargas. “Thrasher—”

“On it.”

The big man picked up a big old metal desk, dumped everything off it, then carried it to the doors of the chute. Hell Razor helped him jam it in tight and then they set another desk behind it.

“There,” said Hell Razor. “Now it’s constipated.”

“All right. Good,” said Vargas. “Where are we?”

We looked around. The room looked like some kind of security station. There were monitors and desks and weapon lockers and ancient posters on the wall that said things like, “Loose Lips Sink Funding,” and “Only You Can Prevent Leaks,” and “Obey The NDA!” It didn’t look like anyone human had been in there for a hundred years. The monitors were off, the lockers were open and empty, and the posters were peeling.

“Maybe with the monitors off, the AI can’t see us,” said Angie.

“It could see us upstairs,” said Hell Razor. “Why would it be any different down here?”

“Which is why we should keep moving,” said Vargas. “Come—”

The desk pooted out of the poop chute with a clang and a screech, and a swarm of little blade–wielding spider–bots poured out after it.

“Shit! More combat hackers! Move! Move!”

We ran out of the room and around a corner, then skidded to a stop inches from a moat full of boiling green–and–yellow slop that blocked our way and had our armors’ built–in Geiger counters chirping like nervous crickets. There was a telescoping bridge across the moat, but it was retracted.

“Fuck!”

“What a fucking fun–house this place is,” snarled Hell Razor. “Who builds a base with shit like this lying around? Slides? Toxic moats? It’s stupid!”

Vargas snorted. “You were expecting common sense from the people who blew up the world?”

I looked around for a control panel, but Thrasher saw it first.

He pointed toward the wall behind us. “There!”

Ace ran to it, then cursed. “It needs a key. Hang on.”

He whipped out his lockpick kit and tore his power gloves off. “Keep ‘em off me.”

We lined up at the corner just as the spiders started coming around it, their lasers dancing with each twitch of their shiny little heads. We mowed them down as fast as we could, but there were more and more filling the hall, and they were dropping dead closer and closer to us. One got through the barrage and chewed on my leg armor. I kicked it back into the others and kept firing.

“Got it!” said Ace. “Bridge extending!”

He fell in with us and we backed toward it, firing as we went. It was extending, just like he said, but it wasn’t extending very fast. The spider bots were starting to intrude on our personal space, and bigger bots were coming in behind them, with xenon laser cannons. It was getting awful crowded at that edge.

“Keep firing!” shouted Vargas, which was possibly the most unnecessary command ever.

Angie looked back. “Three feet to go.”

One of the robots at the back started firing actual bullets at us, and high caliber at that. Our armor soaked up the damage no problem, but the impacts were knocking us back on our heels. My foot slipped on the lip of the moat. I flailed and caught myself on the railing of the bridge.

“Extended!” Shouted Ace, and the others filed in one at a time and raced across. I pulled myself to my feet and followed.

“Razor,” said Vargas. “Burn that bridge.”

He was digging in his pack as he ran. “Already on it.”

By the time I stumbled off the far end the first of the spider–bots were halfway across. Hell Razor spun, grenade in hand, then waited until some of the heavies started funneling on.

“Come on! Come on!” I said.

“Not yet.” He was giggling like a psychotic school boy. “Now!”

Just as the spiderbots started spilling off our end of the bridge he pulled the pin and lofted the grenade toward the center. It was a perfect shot. It dinked off the face plate of a silicon sniper and dropped in front of its treads.

We all ducked around the corner as the sniper kept rolling, then…

Ka–WHOOM!

The walls all around our hiding place were splashed with radioactive goo and peppered with a rain of robot parts. We looked back around the corner again and saw that the bridge was gone except for two twisted metal stumps on either side, and the robots were flailing and sizzling in the goop. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like even that was going to slow them down long. The spiderbots that were still on the far side started locking themselves together and stepping out onto the heads of their dying comrades — building a new bridge with themselves.

“Fucking hell,” said Angie. “Look at ‘em go.”

“Looks like we got about five minutes,” said Vargas. “Let’s get moving.”

We hurried around the corner, then slowed. The room we’d entered seemed to be some sort of robot fabrication facility. There was a single door on the far wall, and an inert robot on a slab in the middle of the room. We blew past it and ran for the door. It led to a twisting hallway filled with security cameras. Hell–Razor gave each one the finger as we ran past them, looking for a way out.

There was none. The hallway was a dead end. “Goddamn it!” said Angie. “Are you telling me we’ve gotta fight through all those robots?”

“And figure out a way across that moat now that we’ve blown the bridge,” said Vargas.

“Hey,” said Razor. “It was your idea.”

“I know, I know.” Vargas turned back the way we came. “Come on.”

Back in the computer fabrication room I peeked out at the moat again. The damn spiderbots were halfway done with their bridge.

I backed away, then turned to find the others staring at the robot on the slab. It was more humanoid than the ones we’d been fighting, and there were a bunch of articulated tool arms hovering above it like they had just finished assembling it.

“Max!” said Angie. “It’s Max.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but the others did.

Vargas checked it out, nodding. “Same model, but in a hell of a lot better condition.”

We all gathered around it, looking down at it nervously. Only Thrasher stayed away. He crossed to a nearby computer station instead.

“Lemme frag it,” said Hell Razor, taking out another hand grenade. “We don’t need it wakin’ up and joinin’ the others.”

“Yeah,” said Vargas. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Wait a minute,” said Angie. “Max was a pretty good fighter. Maybe we could get this guy to fight for us too. We could sure use the back–up.”

“Don’t be crazy, Angie,” said Vargas. “Every robot in here is Cochise’s slave. He’ll just wake up and kill us.”

“Not necessarily,” said Thrasher. He was clicking through menu pages on the computer. “Programming’s not installed yet. It’s a blank.”

Vargas laughed. “And I suppose there’s a setting for “Not–An–AI–Death–Machine?”

“For custom install, please select Admin,” Thrasher read. “And if we uncouple this station from the local network, Cochise will be locked out.”

“Lemme see that,” said Vargas.

We all gathered around the computer as Vargas and Thrasher scrolled through the options screen.

“Shit,” said Vargas. “Some nice specs.”

Thrasher grunted his agreement.

Angie whistled. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” She elbowed Thrasher out of the way and started checking boxes.

Hell Razor still didn’t like it. “And all those nice specs are gonna cut us to pieces if yer wrong about this.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t I keep the cannon on it when you wake it up? That way, if it pulls any shit I can waste it before it can do much damage.”

“And I’ll give it a remote charge for a bow tie,” said Hell Razor. “Instant decapitation just in case.”

We all looked up as we heard robot feet clattering onto the deck back in the moat room. The tricky bastards had finished their bridge.

“Fine,” said Vargas. “Do it. Quick.”

Thrasher ripped the network cable out of the back of the computer, then stabbed the execute button and a blue bar began to fill on the screen. I did as I’d promised and kept the meson cannon trained on the unfinished robot while Hell Razor wired a remote charge to its neck and everybody else went back to the door to peek out into the moat room. They ducked back a second later as pink fingers of laser fire scorched the walls around them.

“Shit!” said Angie. “So many. They’re gonna give us the bum’s rush.”

“Everybody find cover and get an angle on the door,” called Vargas.

They all backed up, ducking behind other build–slabs and computer stations and training their weapons on the door.

I looked over at Thrasher. “How we coming?”

“Sixty percent,” he said. “Sixty one.”

Just then the tool–arms above the robot jerked awake and started lowering to its body. I jumped and nearly fired the cannon, but then realized the arms were adding the last parts and making their final adjustments. They started dancing over the bot’s metal body, sparks arcing and ratchets whirring.

“Here they come!” shouted Angie, and as I looked up my eyes were seared by the blinding volley of laser fire going both ways.

The spiderbots were pouring through the door at every angle — floor, ceiling and walls. Hell Razor bounced another grenade off the door jam and it disappeared into the moat room, then shook the whole place as it erupted. A hail of metal parts battered the spiderbots from behind, knocking some off the ceiling, and Angie and the others cleared dozens more with sweeping streams of light. But then bigger silhouettes filled the door.

“Ninety percent!” shouted Thrasher.

The tool arms were closing up the robot on the slab and tightening things down. The only thing left was the ribbon cable that stuck out of the back of its head.

“Ninety five percent!”

The bigger robots were pushing through the door now, and these were armed with xenon laser cannons, which were burning the metal tables and computer stations the others were hiding behind like they were made out of paper. I made to swing the meson cannon their way, but Vargas saw me out of the corner of his eye and snarled at me.

“No! Keep it on that one! We don’t need to be attacked from behind too.”

I grunted and ducked down behind the table, but kept the cannon trained on the robot.

“Ninety seven percent!”

Angie shouted and fell back from her cover, her shoulder armor cracked and bubbling. She scrambled for another desk. Ace melted the head of the robot that had hurt her. It spasmed and spun, shooting at random and crisping spiderbots.

“Programming complete!” shouted Thrasher.

I whipped my attention back to the robot on the table just in time to see it reach up and remove the ribbon cable from the back of its head, then sit up and look at me.

“Hi, my name is Vax, human–cyborg relations. How may I be of assistance?”

“Hi Vax,” I said. “You can be off assistance by killing those fucking robots!”

Vax’s head swiveled around and took in the scene behind him. “It would be my pleasure.” He stood. “Excuse me a moment.”

“Uh, sure.”

He didn’t look like much, not compared to all the other robots, with their spikes and chainsaws and laser eyes — just a tidy little armored humanoid without any visible weapons, but then he walked into that seething mass of murder and started shooting them point blank in the joints and sensor arrays with a laser beam that shot out of his palm.

It was a massacre. Not only did Vax seem to know exactly where to shoot for maximum damage, the other robots — at least at first — didn’t shoot back. It was like their programming didn’t recognize him as an enemy or something. They just let him step right up to them and start blasting, and they fell apart all around him, limbs severed, power cells exploding, heads smoking and blind. Only after he had murdered more than a dozen or so did they start to react to what he was doing, and by that time it was too late.

Vargas and the others had regrouped and were backing Vax up like they had been working this way for years, gunning down his leftovers and picking off the robots too far away for him to reach.

Less than a minute later, it was all over and he turned back to me and bowed.

“I hope that was satisfactory, sir.”

I blinked. “Uh… yeah. Great. But why are you asking me?”

“Forgive me, sir. I will explain. I am programmed to imprint upon the first person who gives me orders, and that was you, sir. I am now yours to command.”

Angie laughed. “Ghost’s got a buddy.”

I shrugged. “Okay, then. Uh, do you know the layout of this place?”

“Yes, sir,” said Vax. “It is part of my basic knowledge pack. I can path to any point in this facility and to many localities in Arizona as well, if you so desire.”

That bit about Arizona gave me a little chill down my spine. All the robots built here knew their way to any point in Arizona? Of course they did. It was just an unnerving thing to hear.

“Yeah, we don’t need to go anywhere in Arizona right now, but can you show us the way to the consoles that fit our self–destruct keys?”

“If you mean the Quasar, Blackstar, Nova, and Pulsar Keys? I would be happy to. This way, please.”

I gave the others a questioning look as Vax turned toward the moat room.

Hell Razor didn’t look convinced, and I noticed he still had his remote control trigger in his hand, ready to blow off Vax’s head at a moment’s notice.

Vargas just shrugged. “So far so good. But keep an eye on him.”

“And the cannon,” I said, training it on Vax’s back as he led us into the moat room.

It was a nervous game of hop–scotch jumping from half–submerged robot to half–submerged robot across the moat, but we made it, then headed straight back the way we’d come. Turned out the ladder we needed to go down was right next to where the slip–n–slide had dumped us out. We’d just been running a little too hard for our lives to notice.

But with Vax in the lead we raced through the facility, down ladders, through twisting corridors, and across strange rooms, cutting down any robots that got in our way. And there were plenty. Six–legged spiderbots dropped on us from dark ceilings, laser beams shooting from their eyes. Hulking slicers and dicers and shooters on treads blasted us with guns and swung chainsaw hands at us, but Vax carved through them like a hot knife and we cleaned up whatever he had trouble with.

Unfortunately, pretty soon the robots weren’t just in front of us. As we got closer to our goal, more and more started flooding in behind us, and we were fighting as hard on our rear as we were on our front.

Finally Vax lead us to a room with sign on the door labeled “Combat Simulator.” He turned to open it as we fired at the robots behind us.

“Just through here, sirs and madam.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” growled Hell Razor.

“Please tell me that means the guns are fake,” I said.

“Oh no, sir,” said Vax. “They’re quite real. This room is used to test the armor and the agility of the robots.”

Angie groaned. “You’re out to kill us, aren’t you, Vax.”

“Not at all, madam. But there is no other way.”

He opened the door and we backed in, still firing behind us, then swung around to see what kind of shit Vax had dropped us into.

More robots on treads, all turning their guns toward us and growling forward. Fortunately the room was made up like some kind of old–timey battlefield out of a black and white photo, with grass instead of a floor and rustic stone walls everywhere for cover. There was even a pitchfork and a butter churn. We dove behind the walls and started blasting.

“Vax!” I shouted. “Can you lock that door behind us? Permanently?”

“Of course, sir. Fusing the circuit will take but a moment, though I’m afraid the door will not hold for long.”

“Anything to buy us some time.”

It bought us about five minutes. By the time we had melted the robots in the simulator to slag, the door behind us was buckling from the constant barrage laid down by the ones out in the hall.

“Where to, Vax?”

“The far side of the room, sir.”

We zigged through the maze of low walls and found the door behind a simulated haystack. Vax opened it and we went through into a tiny room with a ladder in the center just as the simulation room door exploded off its hinges and the robots flooded in.

“Down the ladder if you please, sirs and madam,” said Vax.

We slid down the ladder as fast as we could go and found ourselves in another small room, this one with a titanium steel door.

Vax came down the ladder last and stepped to the door, then opened it. “It will be much more difficult for your enemies to breach this door, sir. You should have plenty of time to use the keys.”

“Fantastic,” I said, and we ran in.

More robots.

“Goddamn it, Vax!”

He turned from perma–sealing the door. “Forgive me, sir. I should have said. There are still the local security units to deal with.”

Despite my bitching, it went pretty smoothly at first. We were in a central lobby area with four corridors branching from it, and with Vax’s help we cleaned up the patrol robots without much trouble. Until, that is, the AI sicced the Octotrons on us.

Just as Vax was bowing us toward a door inside an earth and garbage–floored room that smelled like a barnyard, and saying, “This is the main power panel, sirs and madam. You will need to turn it on in order to power the key receptors before applying the keys,” two of the big bastards trundled into the room and started for us, their treads crushing rocks and junk as they came.

They were massive eight–armed spheres with armor that barely even blackened when we put a laser rifle on them, and only smoked a little when I cooked them with the meson cannon. They didn’t have any guns, but because they could roll through our salvo like it was a light spring rain, they didn’t need any. They just ground forward, spinning their eight ginsu knife–arms at us like overgrown weed whackers. Another twenty feet and we were all gonna be decapitated dandelions.

“Vax!” I shouted. “Any ideas, Vax?”

“Might I suggest, sir, that you aim for the treads.”

I grunted as we all lowered our fire. Should have thought of that ourselves. We melted the left tread off the one coming at us from the west and it turned into the wall less than ten feet from us, then struggled to reverse. We did the same to the one coming from the east, and it started spinning in circles. A few more shots and we got the other treads too. They slowed to an inch–worm crawl, rooster tails of dirt kicking up from their useless little guide wheels as they tried to gain traction, heir blades flailing at us with futile fury.

“Very good, sir. Now perhaps an incendiary device of some kind to finish them off?”

“Just as soon as we get through this door.”

“Of course, sir.”

We shot our way through the door into the room with the power panel in it, then took cover inside as Hell Razor hefted a couple of grenades at the stranded octotrons. The blasts shook the room, then we peeked out again to see both of them opened like hellish rose buds, their metal shells blossoming with fire and their mechanical guts glowing and flowing into slag.

“Now,” said Vargas, turning to the controls. “Let’s power this thing up and find those receptors.”

A voice boomed from the ceiling, the same one we’d heard in the corridor upstairs. “Do not do this, rangers.”