Cyberdrome (39 page)

“Don’t move,” he
whispered. “Don’t make any sounds, either.”

She sat
motionless on the floor. “It doesn’t have a face,” she said. “Do you think it
can see us?”

“Most of the
machine creatures I have encountered so far seem to use vibrations to sense
their surroundings,” he replied. “Water transmits sound better than air, so it
may be able to sense us through the glass.”

The Soldier
shuffled its arms and legs awkwardly and moved closer to the window. It then
pressed one foot-claw against the glass.

He turned and
faced Maya. “Not a sound,” he breathed.

When she nodded
her understanding, he slowly turned his head back toward the window. The
Soldier still had its foot pressed up against the glass. As the seconds turned
into minutes, he began to wonder if the Soldier’s foot was sensitive enough to
pick up their shallow breathing, or even the rhythmic beating of their hearts.

Several long
minutes later, the Soldier let go of the glass and swam upwards. When it was
out of sight, they both let out a sigh of relief.

“Back to the
program,” he whispered. “All I need is a little more time.”

Just then, one
of the large windows cracked near the top and a small jet of water began
pouring in.

“Time’s up,” she
said.

He threw up his
hands. “Holy shit,” he cursed. “Can’t I get a single break?”

“How far along
are you?” she asked.

“Not far
enough,” he said looking at the stream of water. “I can’t finish it in time.”

“Then we go
back,” she said. “We go back and figure another way out of this mess.”

“We can’t go
back,” he said.

“It’s better
than drowning here, isn’t it?”

“No, what I mean
is that we are at least six stories above the street, and the street is where
the Watchport opening is.” Another crack appeared in one of the windows, and
another jet of water began pouring in. “How the hell are we going to get down
to the opening?”

She turned and
faced him. “While you were playing with balls in college, I was captain of the
swim team, remember?”

“I remember,” he
said. “But it’s six stories down,” he said, looking at the ceiling, “and these
are tall floors. It will take us forever to swim that deep. Plus, I don’t think
I can hold my breath that long.”

“We grab
something heavy,” she said. “It will pull us down to street level quickly.
Oyster divers have used that trick for centuries. They used big rocks to pull
them to the bottom. It will work for us too.”

“I don’t know,”
he said, standing to face the windows. “I’m not that great of a swimmer, and I
really hate being under water.”

She patted his
arm. “Aquaphobia?”

“I don’t have a
fear of water,” he said. “I just really don’t like being under it.”

“I’ll help you,”
she said.

The water inside
the room was already up to their knees now and rising quickly. “It means giving
up,” he said, almost to himself.

She walked over
and put her head against his chest, and then hugged him tightly. “I know,” she
said. “I know.”

o     o     o

Sentinel Javid
Rho leaned on his dented, makeshift club as he pulled himself up to a standing
position. Around him, a dozen Soldiers lay in battered and useless pieces. He
had done such an efficient job of disposing of each new warrior that stepped
into the arena, the surrounding ring of Soldiers had stopped removing the
damaged pieces several battles ago.

Javid took
several deep but steady breaths as he tried to regain some of his failing
strength. Even though he had discovered a weakness in the Soldiers’ design, the
machines were adaptive and were now avoiding the swings of his club to protect
their fragile joints. The upside of this new behavior was that they were forced
to keep themselves intact, which meant that they had little real advantage in
either striking range or hitting power.

Of course, the
fact that they were made of metal and he of flesh and bone, still gave them the
advantage. Even though he was essentially “winning,” the nonstop fighting had
taken its toll on his body. His right shoulder had been dislocated and shoved
painfully back in place twice, he had a punctured lung and numerous cracked
ribs, one of his kidneys was on the verge of failing, and his left knee and
ankle were throbbing and becoming stiff. He was well aware that he could not
take this constant onslaught much longer.

He continued
breathing deeply, quietly absorbing raw energy from the ground through the
soles of his feet, as he waited for the group of Soldiers to elect the next
warrior. He noted that the interval between contests had grown slightly since
his initial battle. Perhaps the Soldiers were becoming a bit less sure of
themselves as the pile of body parts grew. Then again, they might just be
toying with him, allowing him a bit more time to regain his strength, so that
the next match would be more entertaining.

In any event, he
took the opportunity to kneel down on one knee and place both hands on the
ground. A surge of energy poured through his palms and into his body. If he did
not believe that he was about to die in this place, he might’ve let out a sigh
of relief.

Then he
remembered Alek, and tried to bolster his confidence.
I will not fail you
,
he said to himself as he scanned the ring of Soldiers, looking for the next
challenger.

On the far side
of the circle, his former supervisor, Ceejer, sat on an improvised throne made
from interlocking Soldiers.
So, they are more than just adaptable fighters
,
Javid thought wryly,
they can also become furniture
.

Crouched down as
he was, he could see through the legs of the surrounding Soldiers to the other
captives. While the clasping mechanisms of the Soldiers segmented bodies might
prove weak in combat, they worked perfectly well in holding the wrists of even
the mightiest of captives. The KaNanee were putting up valiant struggles of
their own, but without the club Jas Kaido had given him, they were simply
strong flesh against much stronger metal.

In sharp
contrast, the CeeAut female was putting up no fight at all. She was sitting on
the ground, curled up like a frightened child. Javid, however, had known their
species too long to believe she was as terrified as she looked. Persis was most
likely attempting to lull her captors into dropping their collective guards.
What she would do after that was anyone’s guess.

Then he saw the
Tan called Roy Cloudhopper, also sitting peacefully on the ground, but staring
directly at Javid. The man nodded slightly when he realized that Javid had seen
him. It was a soldier’s nod—a silent greeting among fellow warriors—and it
helped strengthen his resolve.
If I fail here
, Javid thought as he
nodded back,
that one would take my place
.

Just then, the
crowd made its decision and a Soldier stepped into the ring. Javid took one
last jolt of energy through his hands and then stood and faced his new
opponent. Instead of advancing on Javid like the others before, this one backed
up a step. Thinking that the Soldier might have changed its mind, Javid took a
bold step toward it. The Soldier backed itself right into another Soldier, and
before Javid realized what was happening, the two machines interlinked and
became one.

The new,
four-armed, and four-legged Soldier crouched down and then leapt upwards, sailing
right over Javid’s head, landing solidly on the other side of the ring.

As Javid turned
and faced the Soldier, he assumed a standard fighting posture, even though he
had no clue how to fight this new configuration. With four arms, he realized
that he could take out three of them and still die from a blow by the fourth.
The four legs would give it exceptional balance, even if one of the legs were
severely damaged. In addition, since the legs and arms were identical, the
Soldier could remove and replace them as needed. As he sized his new opponent
up, he recognized that he would have a better chance against two individual
Soldiers than this combined version.

Unlike his
previous opponents, this Soldier did not charge at him immediately. Javid hoped
that it was busy working out the logistics of the new configuration. After all,
the “brain” of the Soldier had to be a collective consciousness, since each
section seemed to be a self-contained entity, and could act interchangeably as
torso, arm, or leg. Working out the various requirements and responsibilities
of each section in the new configuration could not be easy, and might buy him a
few precious moments to work out a plan of his own.

Abruptly, a
decision was made and the Soldier reached back with its two forward arms and
grasped hold of the two rear arms, detaching them from the main body. It now
faced Javid with two 4-meter long arms, each held straight out to the sides.
Javid took one long breath as he faced what he knew to be his final adversary.

Just then, a
blur shot past the Soldier and one of its arms fell off at the shoulder.
Undamaged but taken by surprise, the four-sectional arm snaked itself across
the ground back toward the main body of the Soldier. It then climbed up the
side and reattached itself to the shoulder joint. Obviously confused, the
Soldier took a step backward and resumed its original configuration of four
arms.

The blur passed
near the Soldier again, and this time the Soldier tried to swipe at it with one
of its arms, but missed. A second later, its two front knee joints separated
and the Soldier tumbled forward onto its outstretched arms. It righted itself
and reattached the limbs. Then, just as quickly, another blur passed by and
severed its two back legs. The Soldier fell backward, hitting the ground with a
loud crash.

“What treachery
is this?” Ceejer bellowed, rising from the throne of Soldiers. “Stop her.”

Her?
Javid thought.
Could
it be?

Soldiers around
the ring began swinging their arms in a fruitless attempt to hit the blurring
figure, but it was too fast and nearly impossible to see. At one point, the
blur stopped for a split second directly in front of Javid, and his speculation
was confirmed.

“Elsala,” he
whispered to the translucent green woman standing before him, but before the
words had left his lips, she was gone again.

 “Stop that
abomination,” Ceejer yelled.

The Soldiers
parted and Mathew Grey stepped into the ring. He looked small and unimportant
compared to the machines that surrounded him, but Javid knew his power came
from another source. He was a Maker in the truest sense of the word. The
ability to create objects merely by visualizing them in his head was a skill
Javid could not comprehend, and yet he fully understood its power.

“I won’t help
you,” Mathew said.

“You will help
or you will never see your son again,” Ceejer said. “If my Guards destroy this
Watchport, he will be trapped inside the simulation until he dies.”

“You can’t
destroy the Watchport,” Mathew said. “My work...”

Ceejer’s small
mouth turned upwards in something resembling a smile. “Then do as I instructed.”

“I don’t
understand what that is,” Mathew said, looking towards Elsala. “I don’t know
what you want me to do.”

“She is simply a
program marked for deletion,” Ceejer said.

“Oh, that’s
easy,” Mathew said. He then closed his eyes and held out his right hand towards
Elsala. As she continued knocking over Soldiers on the other side of the ring,
Javid allowed himself to believe—for a moment—that perhaps Alek’s father had no
power over her. Then, without warning, she was suddenly visible.

“Elsala,” Javid
tried to call out, but his cracked ribs and damaged lungs prevented his voice from
traveling past his lips. She was still running, apparently unaware that the
Soldiers could now see her. Before he could warn her, one of the Soldiers swung
an arm at her, striking her square in the face. Her body spun backward in mid
air and she fell hard onto the ground, where she did not move.

“Elsala,” he
yelled as he tried to run toward her. The Soldier in front of him took the advantage
and smashed one long arm into his back, crushing his spine and sending him
sailing through the air. He landed face down on the ground less than a meter
from his beloved.

As what was left
of his internal organs began to shut down, he felt the darkness closing over
him. He used the last of his failing energy to reach out a hand and grasp
Elsala’s rust-colored hair. “Oh, my beloved,” he whispered, “I have failed you
again
.”