Cyberdrome (30 page)

“My goodness,”
Herschel said. Alek and Maya looked over at him as he pulled out what looked
like a handgun out of one of his jacket pockets. “This is my design,” he said
as he looked up at them.

“Where did you get
that?” Maya asked.

He looked back
down at the weapon in his hand. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But it looks
exactly like the blaster I was modeling on the computer.” He reached back
inside his pocket. “The memory tab I took from the computer is missing.”

“What was on the
tab?” Alek asked.

 Herschel held
up the gun. “The schematics for this weapon. A year’s worth of work to find a
way to defeat the Medari.”

Alek looked at
the scar on Maya’s face. “It has to be the Watchport beam,” he said. “It healed
Maya’s scar when we went in, but then gave it back to her when she passed back
through.”

“So, you think
it somehow read what was on Herschel’s memory tab and used it to create that
weapon?” Maya asked.

Alek shrugged.
“Everything here is a program of one kind or another,” he said. “Even us. Maybe
the Watchport was designed to be some sort of software compiler to allow the
Watchers to bring items in and out of the simulations.”

Maya touched her
face and looked over at the glowing blue beam nearby. “If you’re right, it is
apparently a one-way compilation,” she said. “Which means that if we stepped
back through that beam, we would probably go back to our severely burned
bodies.”

“I vote we don’t
go back,” Herschel said. As if on cue, all three silently took a step away from
the beam.

Someone cleared
his throat. Alek turned his head and saw Cloudhopper standing there. He was
shirtless and wearing some sort of animal skin pants.

“Roy. You’re
alive,” Maya said. “I thought maybe it was a pain-induced hallucination.”

Cloudhopper
looked first at Maya, then at Alek. “Are you two an item again?” he asked.

Maya pulled away
from Alek and said, “Don’t be like that, Roy. What happened to you?”

“And where is
the rest of your team?” Alek added, irritated at the man’s statement, as well
as Maya’s reaction. “Did you leave them behind somewhere?”

“They’re dead,”
he said flatly. “Any more questions?”

“Roy,” Maya
protested.

“I’m sorry,”
Alek said, and he meant it. “We saw what was left of your Tracers and we
thought you were all dead.”

Cloudhopper
ignored him as he walked over and abruptly snatched the gun in Herschel’s
hands. He pointed it first at the wall, then turned and aimed it directly at
Alek’s forehead.

“Roy!” Maya
yelled.

Cloudhopper
smiled and then turned the weapon around and handed it to Alek. As Alek took
it, he saw that it looked somewhat like a modern handgun, except that it had a
large, flat cylinder mounted below the barrel, just in front of the trigger.
“What’s this?” Alek asked, pointing to the cylinder.

“Charge
capacitor,” Herschel said. “Basically it builds up a charge of electricity
which is then transferred to a small projectile in the chamber.”

“Non-lethal,”
Cloudhopper said flatly. “Wouldn’t have done much good against the Medari.”

Herschel
straightened his back and then snatched the gun from Alek’s hand. “I was instructed
to make a weapon using spare parts salvaged from the Survey Vessel,” he said
defiantly. “But that didn’t mean that I planned to use them against the enemy.”

“You were going
to use it to escape,” Maya said, patting him on the shoulder. “That was very
brave of you, Dr. Lyman.”

“Could the
capacitor be modified to build up a bigger charge?” Alek asked.

“It already is,”
Herschel said. He pressed a small lever near the trigger with his thumb. The
gun began emitting a low humming sound. “Charge intensity is determined by the
delay between activation and release,” he said.

The pitch of the
hum began to increase steadily. A moment later, Herschel aimed at a wall and
pulled the trigger. Everyone flinched when they realized what he was doing, but
nothing happened. The humming sound began to decrease and then faded away.

Herschel lowered
the weapon and faced Alek. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to grab the
memory tab containing the design for the projectiles.”

“So it’s
worthless unless one of us goes back for the bullets,” Cloudhopper said.

They all looked
at the beam and once again, each took another step back.

Maya pushed past
them and grabbed Cloudhopper by the arm. “What the hell happened to you?”

Cloudhopper took
a step away from her, gently breaking her grip on his arms. He looked at her as
if he didn’t understand the question, but then his eyes seemed to glaze over.

“We were
cornered by the machine creatures,” he began, “and outnumbered thirty to one.
We worked out that they were tracking us using the silicon in our Omnisuits. We
happened to find one of these tunnels, which gave me an idea. We backed our
ships up to a defensive position near the tunnel mouth and set our ships to do
a timed launch of the deletion routines. Then we crawled out of our suits,
dropped down the tunnel, and ran for our lives.” He stopped then and stared off
in the distance.

Maya stepped
closer and put her hands back on his broad shoulders. “How did you get inside
the simulation?”

“I grabbed a
portable homing beacon from my ship. We planned to signal Lorena and request a
pickup, but the explosion shot a fire ball down the tunnel, which blasted us
right into that beam.” He stopped again.

“You entered the
simulation in the sky,” Alek added. “We went through it too.”

“But you had
your Omnisuits,” Cloudhopper said. “We didn’t. I saw my team fall to their
deaths.”

“How did you
survive the fall?” she asked. She was now holding Cloudhopper tightly with both
hands. She hadn’t yet told him of Lorena’s betrayal. Maybe that would come
later.

“I guess you
could say the gods were with me,” he said. “I saw a series of hot air balloons—what
ended up being a Medari airship—below me and off to one side. I guess my
paratrooper training kicked in and I aimed my body toward the ship and just managed
to reach it. I went right through two of the upper balloons, which broke my
fall, as well as a few ribs. I damaged the air ship pretty badly and forced
them to make an emergency landing nearby.” He shrugged. “As you could probably
guess, the Medari weren’t too happy with me at first.”

“We saw the
Medari,” Maya said, “They were monsters.”

“Some people
would say that about me,” he said dryly. “Anyway, luckily for me they are a religious
people. I noticed a number of symbols decorating their airships, which looked
similar to ones my ancestors worshiped. I convinced them that I came from one
of their sky gods. I don’t know if they ever truly believed me, but they
allowed me to remain alive, just in case.”

“Considering
that you fell right out of the sky,” Maya said, “it probably wasn’t hard for
them to believe you.”

“Yes,” he said
almost remorsefully. Something in his blank expression told Alek there was more
to the story than he was willing to tell. “Anyway, I agreed to help them attack
that village you were in, with the hopes that I could find some way back up to
the opening.”

“I suppose I
should thank you for helping us back there,” Alek said, reaching out his hand.

“Just doing my
job,” Cloudhopper replied, ignoring the offer. Alek awkwardly dropped his hand.
“Besides, it was a Blue Sentinel who got us all out of that place.”

Javid took that
moment to step from behind the aircraft and approach the group. “I, also, was
just doing my job,” he said.

“What were you
doing inside?” Alek asked.

“I followed a
strange translucent being down the tunnel and into the Watchport beam,” he began.
“Then I happened to see all of you leaving the burning building. When the Tan
you call Cloudhopper rescued you using the all terrain vehicle, I saw an opportunity
to take one of the air vehicles designed to carry it.”

“You flew a
Dragon?” Maya asked as she looked up at the aircraft parked in the tunnel
nearby. “That’s a vehicle very few pilots can handle, especially with the
weight of a Rover inside. Not to mention the fact that you managed to fly it
into the Watchport opening and land it inside such a tight space.”

Alek looked up
at the aircraft and saw for the first time that there was less than a meter
separating the wings from the tunnel walls. It really was a tight fit.

“As I have told
Alek,” Javid began, “Sentinels are taken from the simulations. Although I do
not have a direct memory of that period, apparently I piloted an aircraft
similar to this one in my previous life.”

Something
clicked in Alek’s mind. “Wait a minute. Which simulation did you come from?”

“The same as
you, Alek. All Sentinels come from Earth-Zero.”

Alek looked at
Maya, and then at Herschel. “What is that?”

Maya glanced at
Javid before answering. “Earth-Zero is Cyberdrome’s first simulation. It’s
where all of our researchers come from.”

“You mean the
people who usually occupy your Survey vessels?”

“Right. It’s a
close copy of the real Earth, updated constantly with data from the real world
and never allowed to evolve on its own like the others. It helps make sure our
ALife researchers behave as closely to humans as possible.”

“This is all
adding up in a way I don’t really like,” he said.

“What do you
mean?”

He was about to
tell her of Javid’s belief that he was a Sentinel, but then thought better of
it. That would be one more nail in the coffin of his reality. One more than he
could handle at that moment. Instead, he reached out his hand toward Javid, who
looked at it and cocked his head to the side.

“It’s a
gesture,” Herschel said. “Used for greeting or sometimes, saying thanks.”

Javid reached
out a blue hand and placed it in Alek’s tan version.

“Thank you,”
Alek said. “Cloudhopper’s right. You did save us. We couldn’t have made it out
of there without you.”

Javid released
his hand and shrugged. “Sentinels always work in teams. We are best in numbers
and we take care of our own. Thanking me is not necessary.”

“Well, I thank
you anyway,” Alek said with a smile.

“We all thank
you,” Maya added, reaching out her hand to touch Javid’s arm.

“That goes
double for me, my blue friend,” Herschel said, patting Javid on the shoulder.

Javid stepped
backward, looking a little uncomfortable with all the attention. “We must return
to the surface,” he said. “This area is under attack and the CeeAut and KaNanee
cannot hold this position much longer.”

“I, for one, am
happy to be anywhere other than that world,” Herschel said.

“So, you
remember where you’re from now?” Alek asked.

“This helped jog
my memory,” Herschel said as he held up his hand. Alek saw that his amputated
fingers were fully restored.

Just then, a
blast rocked the ground. Alek and Maya saw the section of tunnel leading back
up to their Tracers collapse.

“Is there
another way to our ships?” Maya asked.

“How would I
know?” Alek yelled. “These are Mole tunnels. There are no floor plans.”

“Well, what do
we do now?”

Just then, three
Tracers shot down one of the side tunnels and stopped next to the Watchport
beam.

“Why have you
called us in here,” Kaido screamed as he and the others climbed out of their
ships. “We will not cower in the tunnels like CeeAuts.”

“You are
outnumbered fifty to one,” Javid stated calmly.

“More like
eighty to one now, but I accept those odds,” Kaido said. “Besides, now that the
others have returned, you have three more Tracers to add to the fight.”

“My ship was
destroyed,” Javid said.

“And our Tracers
are back up on the surface where we left them,” Alek said, stepping up beside
Javid, “and we can’t reach them from here.”

The KaNanee let out
a roar that echoed down the tunnels. Alek glanced over at Herschel who looked
like he was regretting having stepped through the beam.

Another
explosion collapsed another one of the tunnels nearby.

“We need a safe
place to regroup,” Javid said to Persis as she joined them. Alek noticed how
she had placed herself as far as possible from the KaNanee.

“Deeper tunnels
are safer,” she said.

“Take us,” Javid
ordered.

As Persis walked
back and climbed back into her Tracer, Cloudhopper climbed into the Rover and
drove it out of the back of the Dragon. He then motioned for Alek and the
others to climb into the rear section. When they were all inside, the Rover
began following Persis’ Tracer down one of the tunnels. When Alek noticed that
the two KaNanee were still just standing there, he yelled for Cloudhopper to
stop.