Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague (21 page)

From where Erynn was, she
couldn’t yet see the woman talking, but when Lucy turned and saw her, she went quiet and turned her head down.

“Now, do we have a problem?”
the woman asked. She walked up the steps of the jailhouse into Erynn’s sight. She was dressed in an expensive looking black and red dress and had her blonde hair styled above her head. Behind her, another man in fine-looking clothes followed her.

“No,
Operative,” Lucy said. “This’ll be just fine.”

“Did she have anything on her?” the operative asked.

“Gun and a bag of machine parts,” she said and then nodded to her men to hand them over to the operative.

“I see,” the woman said plainly. “Cultwick thanks you for your efforts. We’ll take over from here.”

“Kirk, Gaston, let’s go.” Lucy and her two men then left the sheriff’s office with the bags of money.

“So, this is Erynn Clover?” asked the woman rhetorically. “Looks like that device worked correctly after all. Edwin, let’s escort our guest back to the mansion. We’ve got oh-so many questions to ask.”

Chapter 22. Germ the Sneak

Pendulum Falls was a large, mechanically savvy town in the northern reaches of the western frontier. It was situated at the bottom of a waterfall that was utilized as a power source for most of the city’s electronics. The section of town they found themselves in was a series of factories and warehouses.

The moon illuminated the waste and runoff dripping from the round, metal pipe protruding from the side of the
skyship factory. The sewage emptied off into a shallow pool of swampy liquid waste in a small valley behind the building.

Germ, Rowland, and Hirim stood at the top of the pool inspecting the tube. Their flimsy and
hastily concocted plan involved the rat worming his way through the sewage tunnels to ultimately get inside and open the doors for Rowland, Hirim and a group of rebels they had brought along with them. Germ wasn’t entirely pleased with this plan.

“Why am I the one that always has to get dirty?” Germ asked.

“It is not that we seek to get you dirty, old friend,” Rowland assured him. “It is that you are the only one that can fit through that exceedingly disgusting looking pipe that is almost certainly full of disease.”

“You sure know how to comfort people, doctor,” Hirim stated. “Look, Germ. All you have to do is sneak inside the factory and then let us in. This time of
night, no one should even be in there. I hate to ask this of you, but Dr. Rowland is right – no one else could fit in there.”

“I understand that, sir,” Germ said. “I just think I’m allowed to complain a little first is all.”

Germ squeezed himself into the tube and began scurrying forth into the sewage. He guided himself by the aid of his whiskers and nose. Hirim had told them about a room that he would be able to get into, and Germ was focusing his senses on finding that room.

He followed the smell of grease mixed with
a cleaning agent, hoping to locate the room Hirim had mentioned. After worming his way through the dark, dank tunnels for some time, he found himself approaching a metal grate. Somewhere up above, he could hear two men discussing something.

A loud, obnoxious voice said, “We’ve warned you what happens if you disobey us, Mr. Stilts.”

“I know, it’s almost finished,” the other man responded.

“You’ve been saying that for weeks,” the first man continued. “When will repairs to the Dreadnought Prime be finished?”

“Soon, very soon,” he assured the other man.

“Mr. Burrow
s is going to lose his patience.” The obnoxious man responded. “You won’t like what happens then.”

“
We’ll get it done,” the one called Stilts said. “But it would be easier if I didn’t have to worry about my men going missing.”

There was a brief pause before the other man continued,
“If you’re insinuating that in addition to taking your families, we have taken your workers, then you are incorrect, Mr. Stilts. If they are going missing, it is not of my accord. Regardless, I’ll be back tomorrow. You’d better have good news for me or the ones we do have may start to disappear too.”

It sounded to Germ like the loud man had walked off, leaving
the Stilts man behind him. Soon, however, the rat could hear him walk away as well. His footsteps were strange and seemed to include the sound of scraping metal, as he walked.

Germ waited a few more minutes before sliding the grate off the floor and squeezing himself up above it. He placed the grate back where he
had moved it from, looking around the room he found himself occupying.

It appeared to be some sort of machine
washroom. He had climbed up from a large shower drain and found himself surrounded by numerous machine parts in varying states of cleanliness. The room exited out to a large factory room, where in the distance Germ could see a man with a limp shuffling away.

Looking down at his appearance, the rat decided he should quickly use the washroom to clean the filth from him. He approached a faucet with a long hose hanging from the wall. Twisting the metal knob, water began rushing outward from the hose.

He slowed the water flow to a crawl before aiming it at his face and cleaning the gunk from his fur and whiskers. Next, he cleaned his arms and hands, followed by cleaning a huge streak of waste from his chest down to his trousers. After he felt himself marginally clean, Germ turned off the water and shook the excess liquid from his monocle.

Knowing he needed to locate the entrance, Germ raised his
snout and took in several large whiffs. He located the smell of Rowland and Hirim and followed the scent through the factory. He was soon able to find the large double doors that led outside.

Germ raised a metal bar that had been slotted down
across them both, barricading the doors shut. He then pulled back both doors, letting Rowland, Hirim, and a handful of rebels into the building.

“You smell awful,” the professor said walking inside.

“Be grateful you don’t smell as vividly as I do, sir,” Germ began. “I’d happily trade my nose for human senses when you put me into these disgusting situations.”

“Did you have any trouble getting in?” Hirim asked.

Germ shook his head saying, “No, sir. Everything was quite easy. Just like you expected it would be.”

“
Have you seen anyone inside?” Hirim asked.

“I heard two men discussing something, but
I think one of them left,” Germ explained. “The other man is still inside somewhere.”

“We didn’t see anyone come out,” Hirim said. “They must still be here”

“Maybe we can sneak past them,” the professor suggested.

“We’ll have to try,” Hirim said. “We need to find the empire’s skyship that’s docked here. There’s several hangars further in; it should be in one of them. Let’s split up to cover more ground.”

Germ and Rowland nodded and the group separated, going down different corridors. Germ caught the scent of a smell of something that reminded him of Cultwick City somehow. He couldn’t quite place it, but followed it on the off chance that it would bring him to the ship they were seeking.

Instead, the rat turned a corner and found himself face to face with a Cultwick Corps
man. The man looked as surprised at what he found at the end of the hall as Germ was.

The corpsman
removed a pistol from his belt and yelled out, “Stop! Heretic!”

Germ
immediately turned, dropping to all fours and quickly scurrying down the hall away from the aggressor. He turned a corner sliding across the slick, metallic floor and banged into the wall. From behind, the corpsman fired off a couple shots that whizzed past Germ, but only collided with the wall.

The rat
adjusted his feet and continued to run. He soon turned another corner, with the corpsman in pursuit, but this time found that he was facing the professor.

Germ
stood upright and pointed backward. “Cultwick Corps, sir,” he frantically whispered.

Rowland nodded knowingly and stretched out the fingers of his gauntlet, holding his hand upright at where Germ had come from. Germ, meanwhile, stepped behind the professor, reducing his stature and half-closing his eyes.

The corpsman turned the corner with haste, causing Rowland to release a bolt of electricity from the metal contraption. The man was tossed backward into a wall. He wasn’t killed from the blast, but was injured quite severely and knocked out.

Behind Rowland and Germ was an intersection of hallways and two more men joined the confrontation. One was Hirim, but the other was the individual Germ assumed to be the man from the conversation he overheard earlier.
Several of the rebels also shortly joined the increasingly large group at the intersection.

The man he knew
only as Stilts walked with a metal-scraping limp, because his leg was mostly encased inside some sort of crutch. He had shaggy, light brown hair and a small mustache. His clothes were cheap, covered in oil and grease stains, and he carried with him a large chrome wrench.

“Hirim?” he asked looking across the hallway.

“Samuel?” he countered.

After a brief pause, Germ inquired, “You two know each other?”

Hirim broke his stare with the other man, and said, “Yeah. Dr. Rowland, Germ, this is Samuel Stilts. We used to work together back in the chromite mines. This son of a bitch saved my life on more than one occasion. Samuel, what are you doing here?”

“I work here. What are you doing here?” Samuel asked before looking at Rowland
, Germ and all the other rebels with a confused stare. “And what are they... doing here?”

“Uh, we were going to steal the empire’s Dreadnought Prime,” Hirim explained. “Don’t suppose you could help us with that?”

“Heh, you haven’t changed much, I see,” Samuel said. “Normally I’d be happy to help you screw over those empire bastards, but they’ve got my wife and all my men’s families. Holding them hostage to get my crew to repair the thing.”

“They took Eva?” Hirim asked.

Samuel looked to the floor before answering, “Yeah, they’ve had her for a couple weeks now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but we need that ship, Samuel,” Hirim told him.

“I can’t let you take it,” Samuel declared. “They’d kill them... probably me and my men too. Why does it have to be that ship?”

“We need
to get to Cultwick City with it,” Hirim explained. “No other ship would be capable of flying over the city without corps intervention.”

“Why would you want to go there at all?” Samuel asked.

Hirim took a step forward and said, “We’ve got the cure, Samuel. Or at least we will soon.”

A confused expression swept over his face, before he replied,
“What cure are you talking about?”

“The sweeper bot,” Hirim explained

“There is no cure,” Samuel stated. “Everyone knows that, Hirim.”

“There is. They’ve been hiding it for years. Doc over there verified it,” he said pointing at Rowland. “Selling people a watered-down treatment instead of fixing people like they should be.
We need the ship to spread the cure out over the whole of the empire. If you’re still repairing the thing, does that mean it won’t fly?”

Samuel shook his head
. “There’s a few last things to do, but it’s pretty much flight-ready. Nevertheless, I can’t let you take the ship. Not with my wife and all my men’s families in danger,” Samuel stated.

“Excuse me, sirs, but perhaps we should help recover her and the
others that were taken,” Germ suggested.

“I’ve thought about it,” Samuel explained, “but they’re keeping them all on a soybean farm outside of town. The whole thing is guarded by a group of the Cultwick Corps. Would be suicide to go in there.”

“We’ve got a strong group here that could assist you, but surely your men would also be willing to help free their families,” Hirim suggested.

Samuel nodded saying, “Yeah, but we don’t have the weapons or even the means to get the weapons.”

“If that’s the only problem, then we can help with that,” Hirim explained. “You hear about that bank robbery down in Ash Cloud?”

“Yeah,” Samuel said before taking a momentary pause. “You’re not saying that was you guys?”

“Any weapons you need, I think we can afford them,” Hirim assured him. “If we help you though, we’re going to need that ship.”

“Hell, that won’t be a problem. You get Eva and the others back,
and I’ll join your damn rebellion,” Samuel said.

“You know the man responsible for taking them?” Hirim asked.

“Some bastard named Ian Burrows,” Samuel answered. “If we’re going though, maybe we can use that jackass for a bit more information.” He pointed over to the unconscious corpsman sprawled out on the factory floor.

“We’ll ask him a few questions when he wakes up, but you go get your men ready,” Hirim said. “Tell them we’re going to get their families back.”