The Eternity Brigade (26 page)

Symington took his beampistol and shot Amassa cleanly through the head. The bubble began collapsing immediately upon its owner’s death. The soldiers moved to avoid the worst of the mess, but they were still covered by the noxious goo as they waded away from the puddle that had been Amassa’s home.

They found themselves facing a mountain that was much larger than they’d realized just by looking at the pictures of it. It was part of a chain that extended left and right as far as they could see, and it must easily have been 3,500 meters high. The front was of craggy rock, into which a two-story-tall door had been cut. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Symington said.

“What do you think we ought to do?” Hawker asked.

“Let’s just walk in and see what happens. Why start a fight if we don’t have to?”

With Symington supporting Green from the other side, the two men walked through the entrance. Inside, they found a large semicircular hall, with at least twenty doors before them going to other places. In the center of the hall was just a giant shining silver globe, so large they had to crane their necks to see its top.

“Come forward,” said the globe in reverberating tones. “State your names and your business here.”

“I’m Joe Smith,” Symington said affably. “These are my friends John Doe and Richard Roe. We’d like to see your files, if you don’t mind.”

“Access to the files is prohibited without specific authorization.”

“We have the authorization.” Only the way Symington rubbed his right thumb and forefinger together showed Hawker how nervous he was.

The globe scanned him. “No identity recognized.”

  “I have triple alpha clearance.”

  “No such clearance exists.”

“Of course it does. Are your scanners functioning properly?”

There was barely a hesitation. “All components operating normally. Furthermore, video correlation identifies you as deserted army personnel Symington, Frank, Hawker, Jerold, and Green—”

“Shit!” Symington exclaimed. He pulled out his beampistol and fired point-blank at the globe, which exploded into a million pieces. “Didn’t want to talk to no fucking ball, anyway.”

Hawker had his own gun drawn, too, and was looking around for any guards. But the hall remained ominously quiet. “Where do we go now?” he asked.

“Through there.” Symington pointed at the wall of doors.

“Which one?”

“What the fuck difference does it make? We’ve got to go somewhere, don’t we?” Symington was not a man to consider the subtleties of a situation.

Unslinging his rifle, he fired at one of the doors across from him. The door was almost as tough as Amassa’s bubble, but not quite; after a few seconds of concentrated fire, it melted into a puddle of slag on the floor. Grabbing Green and, incidentally, Hawker, Symington ran forward and pulled his companions through.

They found themselves in a brightly lit corridor—and still there was no one else in sight. Both men knew one prime rule of survival in these circumstances: keep moving. They ran down the hallway, half dragging Green between them, looking for an avenue of further possibility. There were closed doors on either side, but nothing that seemed right. Doors here couldn’t be important—they were still too close to the entrance.

A hundred meters down the corridor they came to a cross hallway—and looking toward the left, they saw what appeared to be a row of elevator banks. They ran toward them, weapons raised, ready to strike down any opponents—but still there was only silence.

They reached the elevators and paused for breath. “I don’t like this,” Symington said. “It’s too damn quiet.”

“And why are there all these halls and elevators if the complex is entirely automated?” Hawker wondered.

“Somebody had to build it,” the other man shrugged.

The elevator doors opened unexpectedly, and out came a burst of lethal fire. If the soldiers had been standing directly in front of the door when it opened, they’d have been fried to perfection. As it was, they barely had time to fall backward out of the line of fire as the beams cut a swath through the air.

Symington grabbed at his belt and pulled loose a grenade. With an expert flip of his wrist he tossed it through the elevator doors, then rolled over and covered Green’s body with his own. The explosion shook the floor, and the fire stopped coming.

Symington got to his feet, then helped Hawker lift Green up once more. The men peered inside the still elevator, but all they could see was a twisted mass of wreckage. It had only been machines in there, not people.

“I guess we take the stairs,” Symington said.

“If there are any.”

“Where’s your faith, Hawk? Of course there’s stairs. Even today, you always have to have emergency routes in case the machines don’t work. Come on.”

They started off once more down the hallways, and Symington’s luck continued. At the end of the corridor was a door marked “Emergency Only”—and sure enough, there were the stairs. Inside the stairwell, a sign on the wall identified this level as “Ground Floor, Administration.”

“I guess we go up,” Symington said. “Those records have got to be somewhere. We’ll just take the whole mountain apart piece by piece until we find ‘em.”

They started climbing. The first five floors were all administration, and Hawker was beginning to worry they’d taken the wrong path. But the sixth floor bore a sign that said simply “AA.” “Does that mean anything to you?” Symington asked.

Hanker checked the code number on the small disc they’d taken fromGreen’s neck. “This one starts with ‘AE.’“

“Good. Maybe that means we’ve only got five floors to go.”

It turned out to be far more than that, however. The next two levels were also designated “AA,” and there were four levels of “AB.” Hawker’s strength was about to give out. He was in fine physical condition, and by himself would have had no problem with all these stairs. But dragging Green’s body up with him and having to maintain constant vigilance against attack were taking their tolls. He was having a harder and harder time keeping pace with the indefatigable Symington.

At the fourth “AB” level they met some resistance. The door to the main section opened and four robots stepped through just as the soldiers were approaching. Each of the machines was armed with a beampistol—but they were no match for the experience-honed reflexes of Hawker and Symington.

“Maybe they’ll think twice before trying that again,” Symington said.

Hawker leaned against the wall, his vision going blurry. He’d reacted instinctively to the threat, but was paying for it now. Symington noticed his dizziness and came over to check him out. “What’s the matter? Get hit?”

“No, just... just a little tired. Maybe you’d better go on without me.”

“Bullshit. We’re in this together. Here, I’ll carry Dave. You just worry about carrying yourself.” He hoisted their semiconscious friend over his shoulders and set off once more, as strong as ever. Hawker gulped, shook his head to clear it and followed after him, awe in his heart. This was a man who feared he was a coward?

There were two “AC” levels and two “AD” levels before they finally reached “AE.” Hawker’s whole body was one huge ache, protesting this torturous treatment. His legs were made of lead. They stopped for breath on this landing. “How do we know if his file’s on this ‘AE’ landing or one further up?” Hawker panted.

Symington took another grenade from his belt and, opening the door just a crack, tossed the grenade out and closed the door again. The blast, echoing through the enclosed space of the stairwell, rattled their teeth. “That ought to take care of any welcoming committee,” he said.

There were indeed the shattered bodies of a few robots lying about the entrance as they emerged from the stairway, proving an ambush had indeed been planned. This gave the men some hope that they were on the right level.

They found themselves in a forest of pillars, tall white floor-to-ceiling columns with narrow pathways in between. Embedded in each pillar were dozens of plastic triangles, lit with various colors whose significance Hawker could not have guessed. Inscribed just below each triangle was a number. These, then, were the files on which people’s patterns were continuously recorded.

They checked the pillars randomly at first, until they established the order. Serial numbers went in descending order the farther they were from the stairway; Green’s should be perhaps three to four dozen rows away.

Symington took the lead, as usual, carrying Green’s body slung casually over his shoulder. They ran down the aisles, checking the numbers occasionally to make sure they hadn’t overshot their goal. They were almost there, and they could feel the flow of time itself speeding up to push them along their way.

As Symington ran across one aisle, a beampistol ray cut him down. He stumbled, dropping Green’s body, and fired his own gun even as he fell. Hawker pulled up short, looking at the motionless bodies of his friends on the ground. There was no further fire from whoever shot Symington.

He approached that aisle carefully and turned into it with his pistol firing—but Symington had already done the job for him. The two robots that had lain in ambush there were now smoldering piles of metal. Hawker checked the numbers on the pillars and realized this was the aisle that probably contained Green’s file.

A quick check confirmed Symington was dead, but Green was very much alive and returning slowly to his full awareness. Hawker bent and wearily lifted his friend to his feet, then staggered down the aisle until he found the pillar with the proper number.

He set Green down with his back to the pillar while he searched out the proper triangular plastic insert. It was there, about shoulder height, glowing a bright pink. Hawker tried to pry it from its socket, but either it was embedded too firmly or Hawker had been too drained by his ordeal to remove it. Taking his beampistol, Hawker fired point blank at the triangle and was rewarded by an increasing glow as the plastic heated up, then finally melted into a useless puddle of slag.

Hawker dropped his beampistol to the floor and, a moment later, fell to his knees beside Green. He was exhausted beyond all normal understanding of the term, but at the same time  filled with a sense of elation he hadn’t felt in ages.

His friend’s lips were moving and, by leaning close, Hawker could hear him repeating over and over again, “Memory is the key. Memory is the key....”

“Dave.” Hawker shook his friend’s shoulder. “Dave, we did it.”

Green looked blank for a moment, then stared with more comprehension into Hawker’s face. “What?”

“We destroyed your record. I melted it.”

Green closed his eyes and breathed a long sigh. “Thank God. It’s over at last.” He opened his eyes again and looked straight into Hawker’s face. “But there’s still one more thing you have to do for me, Hawk, and it may be harder than anything you’ve done yet.”

Hawker blinked. “What?”

“Kill me.”

The words didn’t register at first, as though Green were speaking a foreign language. As the meaning penetrated, Hawker shook his head with disbelief. “I... I can’t do that. I did all this for you. I wanted to help you. That would make it all seem so pointless—”

“You don’t understand. That would be the best thing you could do for me. It was all necessary to get to this point. Don’t you see, Hawk? My original pattern was destroyed, and now my backup’s destroyed. If I die now, there’ll be no way they can ever resurrect me again. I’ll be free, Hawk, I’ll be off the merry-go-round forever.”

The corners of Hawker’s eyes were burning. “But... but you’re my friend.”

“I know. That’s why I asked you. It’s not something I could trust to a stranger. Please, Hawk, I’m begging you.” He looked at Hawker with his twisted, off-center face pleading for a special kind of mercy only the two of them could understand.

Hawker looked away. He couldn’t meet Green’s eyes. “I... I can’t let you go for good, Dave. I don’t have anyone but you and Lucky. He’ll get dubbed again, but you....”

Green looked tired. “I understand,” he said. “But how long do you think you can drag me around before they catch us? If you don’t kill me now, they’ll take me back to the lab and probably just kill you. You won’t remember any of this; on your next go-round you won’t see me and just think I’ve joined Norquist’s Rangers.”

The burning in the corners of Hawker’s eyes spilled over into wetness on his cheeks.

“I once saw a guy die from a slash across the femoral artery,” Green continued. “It was a quick, easy death. Please, Hawk. Don’t think. Just do it.
NOW!
”

His voice was sharp, cutting through the confusion that filled Hawker’s mind. With his right hand, he whipped out his knife and slashed a line across Green’s thigh. Blood spurted out, covering them both in a shower of red.

Green slumped forward, his head falling against Hawker’s chest. “Thanks, Hawk,” he coughed. “It’ll only take a minute or so to bleed out. Hold on to me, please. It won’t be long. And smile. You’ve set me free.”

He looked up into Hawker’s face abruptly, as though there were something he’d forgotten to say. He grabbed the front of Hawker’s uniform with a death grip. “Remember,” he gasped, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Remember....” And that was all.

Hawker held onto the body for a full minute, crying for the first time in centuries. It didn’t matter at all that he was coated head to toe in his friend’s blood. “Don’t worry, Dave,” he promised in a whisper barely louder than Green’s had been. “I won’t forget you. I’ll probably live till the end of the universe, and I’ll remember you every day of that life.”