Machinations (27 page)

“We know,” I say. “Zelda fixed it. Have you just been sitting in the dark this whole time?”

“Not exactly. The floodlights still work, running off the war room's own batteries, but as you can see, they're about to give out.”

The lights flicker as if to confirm the story.

“Are you alone? Where is everyone? The evac teams?”

Lefevre interrupts, moving Samuel and his delicate ministrations aside. “Let me.” He grabs my arm and shoulder. “This is going to hurt some,” he warns, but doesn't give me a chance to object.

He sets my shoulder with an audible
Pop!
The pain is dizzying for the first few seconds, and I fear I might pass out, but then it passes and I feel significantly better. I murmur my thanks, meaning it, even while massaging the sore joint.

Glasses picks up the thread of the conversation. “I wasn't alone, not initially. There were others.” Before I can ask, he elaborates on their fate. “Those who didn't leave with the last evac team were killed when the machines breached the base. They were cornered like rats, in the same halls that were our home.” He shakes his head, adjusts his lenses. “I elected to stay behind to help coordinate the evacuation from here. I thought it would help.”

“I'm sure it did,” Samuel offers kindly.

“Maybe. Myself and a few others were waiting for one of the evac teams to return from their last trip when the machines finally invaded. Most of my colleagues decided they'd take their chances and make for the military corridor, where our defenses are stronger. But you've been out there. I'm sure you can guess how that turned out.”

Badly
, I think, remembering the corpses.
They didn't get very far.

“Anyway, I barred the door as best I could and cut the wiring, knowing they'd be able to hack it and get through. The center here is provisioned with food and water, thankfully…Hey,” he says, perking up at a thought. “You mentioned fixing the generator. I had a friend who was heading to check on it shortly before you all arrived just now. I don't suppose you came across anyone thereabouts?”

A look passes around our group, telling Glasses all he needs to know.

“Ah,” he says, then, “Damn. I'd hoped—well, I'd hoped.”

“He almost made it,” Kennedy pipes up, quietly at first, then with more strength. “Your friend. We found a b—we found someone near one of the generator room's entrances.”

This bit of information appears to soften the blow. Glasses nods, the ghost of a smile haunting his lips. “Figures. He said he'd do it or die trying. Jason always said that. Didn't matter what it was. ‘I'll do it or I'll die trying.' ”

“He lived up to his word,” Lefevre said. “More than many can claim.”

All this talk about death is making me uncomfortable, especially given our own recent loss, so I turn the topic to the subject of the still (I pray) living. “What about the evac teams? We lost contact with our teams at the same time we lost contact with you and Churchill. Do you know what happened to them? Did they all get out?”

Glasses shakes his head, his broken spectacles bouncing on his nose. “I don't know. Last one was away a few minutes before the machines moved in.”

“Commander Forsyth?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah. He was with them.”

For the briefest of moments, I allow myself to drink from the poisonous well of hope, and it's sweet. They could be alive. Camus could be alive.

“Sorry, Commander. I wish I had more to tell you.”

I grab his shoulder. “Don't apologize. You've given us more than enough.”

“Better than a little black box,” Rankin adds halfheartedly, the first words he's spoken since Ortega's death. They were close, almost brothers by my estimate, and I can't help but be a little worried about him. His eyes are bloodshot, teary, and his voice is raspy with emotion. But he's a soldier. I see it now more than ever before. He's a soldier and he will not cry or mourn until the mission's over.

“Is it too much to hope you have an exit strategy planned?” Glasses asks, just as there's a violent pop outside the door. The machines still trying to devise a way in, I guess. We sure as hell don't want to be here when that happens.

“Working on it,” I say, taking a gander at the room. It's significantly larger than our war room, with many more important-looking bells and whistles. But like ours, it appears to have only one working entrance and exit. “I don't suppose you have any secret passageway out of here, huh?”

Glasses shakes his head. “Would that we did. Somehow that never figured into the designs of a geological survey lab.”

“What about the air shafts?” Kennedy proposes. “Can we crawl out through them?”

“You've been watching too many old spy movies, kiddo,” Zelda says.

“Actually,” Glasses says. He's suddenly excited, rushing over to the table to bring up a holographic schematic of the base. The image is distorted by dwindling power, static occasionally shaping it in odd ways, but it suffices. “He might have the right idea.”

“You're kidding,” I say.

“The walls of the base are crammed with ventilation to heat and cool as necessary. I don't know whether they're large enough to fit a person—that was never really a concern until now—but I think they just might be.” He looks up from the display at one of the walls, at the top of which is a slatted vent. “It doesn't look like we have many alternatives.”

I hold my hand up to the vent, feeling for air flow. “It's blowing warm. Will it be safe?”

“It could get hot in there, or cold if the machines mess with the thermostat, but we shouldn't count our chickens. Let's see if we fit first.” He heads over to the vent. “Anyone got a screwdriver?”

Outside, a weight thumps the metal door.

“I might have something,” Rankin says, searching through his equipment.

“Too slow.” Zelda looks at her brother. “Give me a hand.” Together the pair grab hold of the vent and pull. It only takes one try. The bolts must've been weakened by age, rusted by fluctuating temperature and poor maintenance. Makes me wonder how strong our own weary infrastructure is after five and some years. Cave-in notwithstanding.

Behind the slats, the shaft is cylindrical, about two and a half feet in width and the same in height.
Not big enough,
I think, despairing.
It's not big enough.
Half of us would never fit, and for the other half it would be a tight squeeze.

“Where does it lead?” Kennedy asks.

Glasses consults the schematics. “According to these, you could follow it all the way to the military corridor, provided you didn't get lost. But it's a moot point.”

Kennedy is quiet for a long moment, as though marshaling his courage. “Maybe not,” he says. “I can fit.”

We all look at him.

“If I take off most of my equipment, I'd fit. And if I reach this military corridor, maybe I can create a distraction or something to draw the machines away.”

Zelda smirks. “Look at that. Kid's got guts.”

“Guts I'd hate to see strewn around a ventilation shaft,” I counter, feeling more than a little protective of our youngest member. “It's too risky.”

“You're one to talk,” Kennedy shoots back. “You're always taking risks. That's what you're known for!”

Yeah,
and look where it's gotten me.
I'm about to say as much when I glimpse the fire in his eyes, a burning passion to make a difference. “Okay, let's say you climb into the vent and through some miracle find your way to the military corridor. What then? What kind of distraction are you planning on creating?”

“I don't know. But I'll think of something.”

More noise, louder, comes from just outside the reinforced door. Whatever the machines are up to, it sounds like they're making progress.

“I can do this,” Kennedy insists, completely straight-faced. “I'm going to do this. And with all due respect, Commander Long, you can't stop me.”

“God,” I say, turning to Samuel, half-choked by a laugh. “Is this what I'm like?”

“Only most of the time,” Samuel replies.

I relent, not exactly left with much of a choice in the matter. “All right.”

Kennedy wastes no time dumping his pack and stripping the heavier layers of his combat suit off. It's not like it did any good for Ortega, anyway. Agility will be his greatest defense while crawling through the shafts. I chew on my lip (unable to pick at my nails because of my gloves) as Glasses instructs my young, stubborn soldier on navigating the ventilation system to reach the military corridor safely. Rankin chimes in with advice about what he can use once he's there to create a significant distraction. Even Zelda offers a few dirty tricks, ideal for pulling a fast one on the machines.

There's not much left for me to say when they're finished, a few minutes later. “I'd tell you not to try any heroics, but…this is pretty much the definition of the word.” I give Kennedy a quick hug for luck, and for courage—his and mine both. “Don't get yourself killed. That's all I ask. Okay?”

“Understood, ma'am,” he says with a flicker of a smile. That's when I notice he's shaking like a leaf, although wearing a brave face. He's afraid, as well he should be, but fear isn't anything he should be ashamed of, not under present circumstances. We're all afraid. They wouldn't call it courage otherwise.

I let him go, slowly at first, then give him a small push. “Get on with it, then.”

“Thanks, Rhona,” he says, although I don't know what he's thanking me for. I'm as good as sending him to his death, and it makes me sick.

Rankin gives him a boost up into the vent. “Semper fi,” Lefevre adds, and it seems to cement Kennedy's resolve, although the phrase means nothing to me. Encountering things I've lost, such as a bit of common trivia I once knew, is always like hitting a pothole in the road. It surprises me every time. But right now, it doesn't carry the sting it normally would. Too much else is at stake.

Even light as he is, the metal bends and pops beneath Kennedy's weight as he crawls inside. For a little while, I track his progress by his breathing and the tinny sounds of him scurrying through the shaft. Then he takes a turn and I can't hear him any longer.

As the minutes tick on, we all grow more restive. Glasses takes off his namesake, futilely trying to rub the scratches out of the lenses. “Even if we escape,” he says. “Where will we go?”

“We have a chopper standing by for evac,” I answer.

“I figured. I meant, will we be returning to McKinley?”

He looks so tired and haggard I feel bad telling him the truth. “No. This remains a reconnaissance mission. We have to go to Juneau.” He's silent in response, the silence filled with unspoken worries. “You know something that you're not saying. What is it? Speak up.”

“I can't prove it,” he begins, “but I have this feeling…about Juneau. I think we've been set up.”

“How?”

“Think about it. Why wouldn't the machines have attacked as soon as McKinley arrived with the additional evac teams? Sure, they harassed them as they were coming and going, and they confronted our heavy infantry, but for the most part they let us be. They let us evacuate. Why would they do that?”

“I'm guessing that question is rhetorical.”

“Copper Center wasn't the trap, it was just the bait.
Juneau
is the trap.”

I mull it over for a minute. “There's no way they would've known we would evacuate to Juneau,” I point out. “
We
didn't even know we were going to evacuate to Juneau until a couple days ago.”

He frowns, and I can tell he's already thought this through. “They didn't need to know the where, as long as they could follow us there.”

“And once there, we'd be left in the open, vulnerable.”

Glasses nods. “That's the same conclusion I came to. That, and I believe they're trying to draw McKinley into the fight. They know the resistance has deep roots in Alaska, but since they haven't managed to find us yet, they're trying an alternative strategy.” I'm trying to process this new information, but it's just tying my stomach into unpleasant knots. For all our cleverness and human ingenuity, the machines continue to outsmart us. “This way, they kill two birds with one stone.”

“It's certainly efficient,” Lefevre puts in. “Especially since they've never been good at guerrilla warfare.”

“If you're right—” I start to say, already knowing in my gut he is.

“Then we've just thrown hundreds of men, women, and children to the wolves,” Glasses finishes for me. “Yes. That's what I'm afraid of.”

The machines hammer away at the door. I chew on my lip.

“We have to do something for them.”

Zelda snorts. “From our marvelous position here?”

“Save the attitude,” I snap, my patience at an end. “I just—I need to think. Let me think.”

I turn and stalk to an unoccupied corner of the room where I can be alone, hoping something will come to me in isolation while the others collaborate. Nothing does, not at first, which only serves to increase my frustration.

Samuel joins me after a moment, waiting on standby for when I need him, a reassuring and nonjudgmental presence. Eventually, I decide to use him for a sounding board, as I'm guessing he knew I would. “The machines have numbers and intellect and the weapons to make both dangerous. And what do we have?”

Samuel considers this carefully. “You,” he finally answers.

“I'm being serious.”

“So am I. There's a reason they're so determined to kill you, Rhona. They're
afraid
of you.”

“They don't understand fear,” I remind him. “They're just metal and wires.”