Cyberdrome (28 page)

Alek stared at
her. “You’re telling me that the creatures out there are part human and part
camel? How do you know?”

“The Latin name
for the Arabian camel is
Camelus dromadarius
. I think ‘Medari’ is just a
shortened version of dromadarius. You know your father had a weird sense of
humor when it came to naming things.”

“Why would he do
this?” Alek asked.

“Survival of the
fittest,” Maya replied.

“What do you
mean?”

“Your father was
desperate to find a cure for the plague,” she said. “As crazy as the idea
sounds to us, if your father really believed that something as drastic as a
transgenic hybrid was humanity’s only hope of survival, then he would want to
make sure he picked the right species and the right mixture. Only time would
tell if these new ‘people’ would have evolved into something that we would be
willing to accept as our descendants.”

Herschel shook
his head. “That’s insane. If these Medari are to be our descendants, then I
would rather end our species here and now.”

Maya looked at
him oddly. “Sounds like you’re beginning to remember the real world, Herschel.
But the Medari are only one of his experiments.” She looked at Alek. “Your
KaNanee are obviously more of your fathers work. That goes for the CeeAut as
well.”

“You know, it
just dawned on me,” Alek said. “The CeeAut are cat people. Do you get it?
CeeAut. C-A-T. The KaNanee are even more obvious. Canine.” He laughed out loud.

“What’s so
funny,” Maya asked.

“Dogs and cats.
No wonder they hate each other so much.”

Herschel walked
over to the door. “Anyone else notice how quiet it is out there?” He put his
ear up against the door but then pulled it away quickly. “Damn, the thing’s
hot.”

Just then, a
puff of smoke spilled in under the door.

“Shit, they set
the door on fire to drive us out,” Alek said, feeling the metal for himself.

“I think it’s
worse than that,” Maya said, looking down at the smoke that was now billowing under
the door. “I think they set the entire building on fire.” She looked at Alek
and then Herschel. “We’re trapped in here.”

o     o     o

Javid rechecked
his scanner and was surprised to see how effective the CeeAut and KaNanee were
working together. They had already destroyed, or severely damaged, over half of
the invading machines. “A common foe often turns enemies into allies,” he
recited aloud. It was one of his first lessons in command tactics as a new Sentinel.

He glanced back
in the direction of the tunnel opening and wondered when Alek and Maya would be
returning. Although his newly made team was fighting admirably, the situation
could change in a moment. Two more fighters would be welcomed.

A movement near
the tunnel opening caught his attention. He checked his scanner but it showed
nothing in the area. Could one of the machine creatures have evolved the
ability to mask their energy signatures? If so, he would have to destroy it
before it passed its coding onto later generations.

The thought of
later generations brought back an image of Elsala, his former mate. He had
managed to block all memories of her since the explosion that had taken her
from him.

These invaders
were responsible, he reminded himself as he turned away from the battle and
headed toward the tunnel mouth at full speed. When he reached the area, he
blasted open the small opening and dropped his Tracer into the hole. A few
minutes later, saw a translucent object pass into the Watchport beam ahead and
disappear.

Thoughts of a
new form of invisible creature attacking Alek inside the simulation filled his
head. He slowed to a stop in front of the beam and wondered if he was making
the correct decision. He was a Sentinel, after all. He was reformatted specifically
to exist inside HomeSpace, and he expected to live and die there without ever
seeing Earth again.

However, this
was a special situation, he reminded himself. The fate of Cyberdrome might just
rest on the fate of Alek Grey. He had to act so that he could protect and serve
the system. With that thought clear in his mind, he moved his Tracer into the
beam opening and disappeared.

When the blue
light faded, he was plunged into darkness and his Tracer began to buckle and
twist. He realized after a moment that he was in free fall. The Watchport beam
had released him somewhere high above the planet surface. He was in serious
trouble.

He saw lights in
the distance, and used them to estimate his altitude. Less than thirty seconds
to impact. He closed his eyes and let his mind take charge of the Tracer’s main
drive system. Timing would be critical, he knew, and he would get only one
chance to get it right.

Twelve point
five seconds to impact, he calculated. Not just yet. Need to get the ship’s bow
facing in just the right direction. At six point three seconds to impact, the
tumbling ship briefly faced straight up. He allowed it to roll twenty more
degrees then hit full thrusters and braced for impact.

He saw the math
in his head. In those last few seconds, his ship decreased its velocity by
half, decreasing its built-up kinetic energy also by half. The sideways thrust
transferred a quarter of the remaining energy horizontally.

He still hit the
sand hard, shaving off the top of a dune, and cracking open his Tracer’s cabin.
The impact ejected him from his seat and he rolled as he hit the desert floor.
When he sat up and brushed the sand off, the darkness surprised him. Then he
remembered the rotational cycles of Earth, and realized that he had simply
entered into the night side of the planet.

The air was warm
and humid and strange smells filled his nose. He breathed in deeply and then
coughed. Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, he remembered, with oxygen being the
lesser element. HomeSpace had something like air, but it was pure and carried
no smells at all.

He took a step
forward. The gravity was similar to that of HomeSpace, but it too felt wrong.
He could feel subtle abnormalities in the gravitational field, most likely
caused by the spinning, molten-hot core of the planet. He wondered how Tans
could stand living there.

I lived here
once
,
he said to himself. Not this planet, of course, but one very similar to it.

A warm gust of
wind blew microscopic stones into his face and eyes. Sand, he reminded himself.
He increased the size of his irises and saw a star-lit desert stretching in all
directions. He looked at the sand all around him but saw no trace of Alek or
Maya’s footprints. The blowing sand had covered them.

He changed his
vision to detect infrared wavelengths and saw a heat source far in the
distance. He focused on the location and saw movement within the heat. A
village perhaps. Alek would have gone there, he decided. Then he remembered the
translucent being, and realized that the heat source might have attracted it as
well.

He began to run
at full speed, but then calculated the distance to the village and adjusted his
pace accordingly. He needed to be in top form when he reached the location.
There was no way to predict the events unfolding there, so he had to prepare
himself for anything.

The heat source
in the distance grew brighter. Flames, he realized. Something large was burning.
“Where Alek goes, chaos seems to follow,” he said with a sigh as he doubled his
pace.

A short time
later, he came upon a large fortified wall that was damaged in several places.
Javid slowed to a walk less than a hundred meters from a large break in the
outer wall.

He walked
silently up to the opening and observed six individuals fighting just inside.
Two of them were attackers, as evident by the fact that they were attempting to
enter the fortified village. The other four were defenders, as evident by the
fact that they were trying to keep the attackers out.

He decided to
help the defenders, since by the logic of Game Theory—defenders were always at
a disadvantage. A defender must guard against all possibilities of attack, and
in doing so, defends none of them very well. Conversely, an attacker has to
choose only one line of assault, and therefore, can do it extremely well.

He stepped up
behind the attackers and wrapped his arms around both of their necks. They were
large individuals and struggled against his tight grip, but within moments,
they both passed out from lack of oxygen to their lungs.

As he released
his grip and let them fall to the ground, he saw the faces of the four defenders.
They looked terrified.

“They are merely
unconscious,” he told them. “I suggest that you bind their legs and arms
quickly.”

The four stood
there, unmoving—their mouths stretched open as if in a silent scream.

“Evidently you
have never seen a Sentinel before,” he said. The four turned and fled the area,
tripping over each other as they ran.

“You should not
leave this opening undefended,” he called after them, which only succeeded in
making them run even faster.

Tans are such
frail creatures, he thought as he surveyed the area. Since most of the fighting
seemed to be occurring near the walls, he headed toward the center of the
village where it was quieter.

Near the center,
he found a large air vehicle. It had short bird-like wings with jet engines
mounted horizontally on either side. Vents fore and aft could be opened to
deflect the super-heated air downwards, allowing for vertical takeoff, and
landing. He recorded the position, then rounded a corner and saw a large
building on fire and surrounded by a dozen attackers. He looked around the
village but could see no other buildings under attack in this manner. What was
so special about this particular building? He decided to stay and find out
.

FOURTEEN

A
lek turned and
grabbed hold of Herschel’s shoulders. “Is there any other way out of this
room?”

Herschel seemed
to shrink in Alek’s hands. “This is a safe room—one way in and one way out. I’m
sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t
get us anywhere,” Alek yelled as he pushed Herschel backward and turned around
to face Maya. “Any ideas?”

Maya looked
first at Herschel and then at Alek. “This is not his fault,” she said, “Don’t
blame him for this.”

“Then whose
fault is it?” he yelled. “It wasn’t my idea to enter this simulation.”

Her eyes
narrowed. “Oh, so now it’s my fault?”

He shook his
head and took a deep breath, but then coughed from the building smoke. “I’m
sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just don’t want to burn to death in here.” He
looked at the door and then back at Maya. “Damn, I just thought of something.”

“What?” Maya
asked.

“Do you remember
my childhood fear? What I was afraid of dying from?”

Maya nodded.
“You said were afraid of dying by one of the classical Greek elements: earth,
air, fire, or water.”

“Well, I just
realized that if you replace air with metal, which is a Chinese version of the
elements, I have already faced death by earth and metal. Earth being whatever
Leconte did to me back in the real world and metal being the machine bugs I
fought when I first entered Cyberdrome.”