Unstable Prototypes (61 page)

If one has never been on the receiving end of
a clothesline, and few outside of the realm of professional
wrestling have, then it is easy to overlook how punishing the
maneuver can be, even under normal conditions. When the receiving
end is moving about three times faster than a human being ought to
thanks to boots that will continue moving forward regardless of
whether the feet inside of them are able to or not, the results are
best left without description. Suffice to say that it starts with a
savage impact, moves on to a lot of screaming and crackling, and
ends with an unconscious target with legs that have more in common
with noodles than limbs.

"Oh, golly," Silo said, working her arm, "I
just about threw my shoulder out on that one."

"Lucky you. This fellow looks to have thrown
out everything else," Garotte said, dragging him behind cover as
the shooting started again. "Pity he doesn't have one of those
hefty guns."

"I'll say. I'm itching to give one of those a
try," she said.

"Ah, but he
does
have one of those
shields. This might be our break," Garotte suggested, tugging the
device and its controls from the highly unconscious soldier.

"And end up full of holes like that other
guy? No thanks," Silo shuddered.

"It only happened because he fired the
weapon."

"Well, if we're going to be clearing those
guys out of the way, we're going to have to do an awful lot of
firing."

"Fine then. I shield, you fire," Garotte
decided, hooking on the device and activating it.

The protective field, which so far had only
been associated with people who ended up a motionless heap,
shimmered into being. With a deep breath, Garotte stepped out from
cover and into the hail of bullets and energy bolts. A flutter of
gold and a slight shimmer sent every last one of them rebounding
back at the weapon that fired it. Garotte released the breath and
turned to Silo.

"Coming, dear?" he said shakily.

Silo stepped out behind him, then dove
desperately back behind cover when, after two quick strides, the
shield generator lurched upward and nearly dislodged from his belt.
With a few panicked motions, he secured it again, fortunately
without any of the hail of ordinance getting through.

"What the heck was that!?" Silo objected.

"It would appear that, if I move too quickly,
the shield repels the
ground,
" he observed. "In retrospect,
this is probably why our fleet-footed friend didn't have it
active."

"Okay then," she said, stepping out again.
"Make like a turtle."

The pair trudged slowly forward, the shield
doing its job and staying put.

"So far so good," Garotte said, flinching at
a reflected round. He looked through the shield at the deadly light
show that could kill him with even a single hiccup of his
experimental protection, "Though I must admit, I feel a trifle
exposed."

#

In the storage bay, Lex was looking nervously
at the door as it rattled and buckled under the attempts by the
soldiers to tear it open, blow it up, or otherwise eliminate
it.

"Karter, we really have to find a way to get
out of here," he said, reluctantly pulling the rifle from his back
and aiming at the door.

"Busy," Karter dismissed, fiddling with
controls at a panel on the left side of the massive spherical
cage.

"Busy what? Bleeding to death?" Lex said.

"It isn't that bad," Karter countered,
putting his hand to his wound. When he withdrew his hand and found
it to be completely saturated with blood, as was most of the lower
half of his jumpsuit, he paused for a moment. "Okay, that's a lot
of blood. I'm gonna be a few pints low." He considered this for a
moment, then shrugged. "I'll deal with it later. About how wide is
that corridor, you figure? Four meters?"

"What? One and a half,
maybe.
Listen,
is this really relevant? Shouldn't we be-"

"We'll say two. Diameter set. Target set.
Antimatter cartridge loaded."

"Antimatter? What are you-"

"Engage."

There was a shuddering clap, and a blinding
flash of light. Lex shielded his eyes as a second burst of light
surged through the room, followed immediately by another clap of
thunder and a rush of air from behind him. His eyes were still
covered when he realized the rattling of the door was gone. Slowly
he lowered his arm. Apparently the rattling was gone because the
door was gone. A fair amount of the wall was gone, too, along with
the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. And there was a
circular hole in the ceiling and floor, revealing the decks above
and below. The edges of the missing sections were sharp and
precise, with a concave curve to them. As he looked about, trying
to take it all in, his eyes locked on to the end of his rifle,
which was also missing. Gradually his brain twisted and turned the
missing pieces, and worked out that a perfect sphere had been
removed. The soldiers who had been hammering on the door would have
been inside said sphere.

"W-where did they go?" Lex asked.

"Beats me," Karter said with a shrug. "I'm
still figuring out the controls. Someplace else, anyway, which is
where I wanted them to go. The hole is bigger than I expected."

"This is a transporter?"

"This is
the
transporter," Karter
corrected. "Oh, there's the problem. It says radius, not diameter.
Whoopsie."

"Can it get us all on the ship? Or transport
those missiles out of the weapons bay?" Lex asked.

"Nah. It needs one of these active carrier
wave transmitters on the target," he said, grabbing one from a rack
by the console and throwing it to Lex, "Kind of like that one I
tossed out the door before."

"... Well then how did you transport them out
of here?" he asked.

"There's six carrier transmitters flitting
around outside the station. I targeted one of those. There's only
five, now."

"I think there are six enemy ships
outside."

"Well, there's only five now."

"That'll make the exit a little easier, I
guess. Speaking of which, I've got a spare space suit bundled up
here, I need you to put it on so we can get out of here," Lex said,
releasing the rifle and stuffing Karter's gadget into one his
suit's many pockets before tugging the bundle from his back.

"Later, busy," Karter dismissed again.

Lex gritted his teeth and threw down the
suit. "Fine. I'll go get Ma. She's the only one who I've ever seen
talk any sense into you."

"Ma's a computer, Lex."

"Not right now she's not. Are you going to be
okay here while I get her?"

"Let's see. Peace and quiet, a bunch of
painkillers, and an experimental piece of apparatus? Yeah, I oughta
be good for a while. Leave the grenades, though. You know, for self
defense."

Lex nodded and tossed away his rifle, left
the four remaining grenades, and dug the slidepad from his pocket.
According to the point on the map Ma had sent, she would be one
level down and a few intersections down the corridor. He leaped
down through the convenient hole left by Karter's trial and error
and rushed down the fortunately deserted hallway below. He found
the indicated door and tried the handle, mysteriously discovering
it to be unlocked. Inside, he found the rows of servers all
whirring and clicking in a way that sounded wrong even to Lex's
untrained ear. On the ground in front of the nearest of them was
Ma. The little creature was shuddering and jerking, eyes
half-closed and legs splayed out. Her wire had been pulled from the
front of the machine, and was laying loose on the floor beside the
liberated data radio. The screen was at a red and black command
prompt, and simply displayed the words "connection lost."

"Oh my God, Ma, are you alright!?" he
exclaimed, crouching down and shakily inserting the wire into the
radio again and tucking it into her harness.

The funk's head turned vaguely toward him, as
though it was being controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer. At
first there was only digital jitter on the radio's transmission,
but it cleared enough for a voice to cut through.

"Lex..." came her reply. It was as through an
audio technician had run it through every digital distortion effect
he had in his toolbox. The syllable was barely coherent.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

"High... encryption... extreme...
computational... effort... Over... extended... capacity..."

"The encryption was too much? Are you going
to be okay?"

"No... no... massive... data... corruption...
Program... integrity... failure..."

"What do I do?"

"Take... care... of... Squee..."

With this final statement, Ma jerked a final
time and went limp, her breathing taking on the steady rhythm of
sleep, and the transmission dropping to meaningless distortion,
then silence.

"Ma..." Lex said, scooping up the little
beast.

Lex hung his head. Something in his mind
tried to remind him there was no reason to be sad. This creature
wasn't dead. Ma, to the extent she could even be considered to be
alive, still ran in her entirety on Big Sigma at this moment.
Logically, he shouldn't feel an ounce of heaviness in his heart
over the loss of the temporary subset of herself she'd sent to
fetch him. Logic, though, comes as small comfort when cradling the
motionless body of a creature that once spoke with the voice of a
friend.

His expression hardened and he climbed to his
feet.

"Open Com Silo, Garotte," he stated, managing
to keep a tremor from his voice. "Guys. We just lost Ma. What is
our status?"

#

In the embattled hallway, Garotte gave a
reply. "One moment."

They were practically on top of what remained
of the soldiers defending the weapons bay door. The constant stream
of reflected attacks had reduced their numbers considerably, and
the well aimed and well timed cover fire offered by Silo whenever
they attempted to use something that might punch through the shield
had reduced them even more. Silo clicked a fresh clip into her
pistol, leaned out, and fired off a few precise shots, taking care
of the final soldiers.

"Well then, that's that," Garotte said,
dusting off his hands. "We're at the door. Applying shaped charges
now."

"Sorry, hon, out of shaped charges. Used them
all up getting here," Silo corrected. "And I'm afraid anything less
controlled that would result in us having a very bad day, this
being the weapons bay and all. I'm shocked we're still in one piece
as it is, with all the shooting going on."

"Ah. Well then, I'll just work at unlocking
this then, shall I?"

"On my way," Lex said, "Close Com."

A high pitched whine came from the door that
had protected their flank so faithfully, followed by a second, then
an ear splitting clank as the heavy door fell away and Commander
Purcell marched through. She slipped something into her belt and
held her pistol with the rescuers steadily in her sights. Behind
her was a meager assemblage of soldiers, including her second in
command. Garotte quickly stood between the commander and Silo.

"As I'm the one with the shield, it looks
like you'll be the one working on the door," he muttered.

"Not my strong suit," she said, holstering
her weapon and going to work on the control panel for the door.

"I've always admired your ability to adapt,"
he replied.

"Stop what you're doing or I will fire," said
commander Purcell.

"I do wish you would, my dear," Garotte
taunted, "I've got one of your precious shields."

Purcell continued to march forward, weapon
raised.

"Ask your boys. Not much fun to fire on an
active shield," he continued.

"I'm aware of the details of the shield,"
Purcell said, drawing closer. Long, slow strides were moving her
with deceptive speed. "It was my decision to pursue their
deployment."

"Oh, good, then that fellow who punched
himself full of his own bullets has you to thank. Good show," he
remarked.

"It is the danger of using the most advanced
technology available."

"I can't help but notice that you aren't
using a shield yourself. No, that particular honor goes to the men
and women under your command. How many of them have you gotten
killed?"

"More soldiers by far have been killed by the
reluctance of the modern military to
become
truly
modern."

"Oh really? Cite your sources. Maybe we
should take a poll of the crew. How many have you got left, a dozen
or so? We'll put the rest down for 'Bad Technology Killed Me.'"

"You're trying to stall me. Stupid decision.
You're the one on a time limit," Purcell tapped her free hand to
her communicator. "Tactical, status!"

"The download is finished. The CME Activators
are fully commissioned and ready to deploy," came the reply.

Silo doubled her efforts on the door
lock.

"Load them into the launch tubes and tell me
when you are ready to fire."

"Yes, Commander."

Purcell smiled and continued her march. There
were barely a dozen strides between them now, and she took them one
by one, slowly and deliberately until mere feet separated her from
Garotte. "You're too late. In seconds those missiles will be on
their way. And I assure you, it is for the best. You haven't seen
what I've seen. If you knew what lurked on the horizon, you would
gladly trade the millions of lives that will be lost in the weeks
ahead for the billions that will be saved in the years that
follow."

"Millions that
will
be lost..." said
her second in command whispered.

"I am awaiting status, tactical," Purcell
stated, when the all-ready had failed to come through.

"There... there is a problem with the
computer. It isn't responding. Disc access and processor
utilization are maxed out. Doors are locked down all over the
station. I can't move troops. The only thing we've got is
communication."