“What are those things?” the colonel asked.
“The catchall sci fi term would be ‘mech,’” I explained.
“But what are they?”
The lack of symmetry suggests an absence of creative intent. Very likely the existing technology has reformed itself, or reformed under intelligent guidance, to secure the fortress.
“Probably old tech, repurposed to defend the fortress,” I suggested aloud.
“I think I know why no one ever came back,” Mi Sun. “Because those robot things probably killed them.”
• • •
We retreated back part of the way we came in order to figure out what we were going to do.
“We have to go back,” the colonel said. “We don’t know what those mechs can do, and there’s no safe way to take their measure.”
“I would rather think of them as robots,” said Charles. “Calling them mechs implies that there is a being operating them from inside.”
“Please,” Mi Sun said. “Let Zeke be the annoying nerd. We don’t need two of you.”
“The point,” said Colonel Rage irritably, “is that we have to go back.”
“Go back to what?” I asked. “Junup, who wants us dead? The spaceport that doesn’t exist? Where do you want to go, exactly? The village of the desert reptiles? They’re crazy.”
“Being reptile and being crazy are two different things,” Steve said. “Don’t suggest there’s a connection.”
“I’m not happy about this either,” the colonel said, “but if we go back to Confederation Central and tell everything we know to the news-collector people, then Junup won’t be able to hurt us. You’ve played the system before, Zeke. We kept quiet because we thought it was in our best interests. Now, speaking out is what will keep us safe. There are some risks here, but I’m not seeing any other choice.”
“We don’t even know that those things will hurt us,” I said. “And even if they are dangerous, we’ve made our way into enemy buildings before.”
“None that were protected by ancient mechanical guardians,” Charles said. “Also, we had a complete intelligence file on the prison we broke into, and you and Tamret were augmented. We knew exactly what to expect, and we had the means to win. Now we could face a thousand of those things down there, each one heavily armed and programmed to destroy intruders. We simply don’t know.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but Charles was right. I had come all this way to honor my friends who had died, to finish the mission, to do something good. I wanted it all to mean something. If I were go to home without Tamret, without a chance of getting Earth into the Confederation, then I at least wanted to know that I had made some kind of a difference. Now it looked like I was going to return to Junup and simply hope we got off without prison time. It felt pathetic and pointless.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
Are you kidding me? Smelly asked. You come all this way, and you’re just going to turn around?
“I don’t see any alternative,” I said.
“Then we all agree,” Mi Sun said.
The alternative is that you lead your friends down there, neutralize the defensive tech, and explore that fortress. The base code of the skill tree is down there. I can smell it. It is there for the taking, but you have to be willing to actually go into that building.
“How am I going to do that, exactly?”
“Do what, mate?” Steve asked.
I held up my hand, like I was on the phone and needed them to be quiet.
Smelly sighed loudly, which is not something you expect from an artificial intelligence without a mouth or lungs. You’ll do it with my help. I know my way around that technology better than any meat bag. Me and those security bots, we’re practically cousins, though they’re cousins without brains or a sense of self.
“I don’t know if the fact that you come from the same factory is going to be enough.”
Then how about this? For however long it takes me to shut those things down, or to determine that they’re safe, you’ll be protected by the military skill tree.
“I don’t think you’ve been paying attention. The technology is down there. I can’t use it if I don’t have it yet. The whole reason for us being here is to get it.”
There may be some things I may have not quite mentioned, Smelly said. You actually do have the skill tree. Dr. Roop implanted it in you before you left the station last time.
“Wait. What?”
Yeah, you’ve had it this whole time. It’s like one of those inspirational stories in which the character is out on a quest to find the thing it’s had within itself all along. Pretty crazy, right?
“I don’t understand,” I said, having a hard time containing my frustration. “If I had this tech, why did I need to build that suit?”
The suit! You are stupid, aren’t you? That was a rubber suit with some LEDs sewn into it to make it look fancy. How is that going to make you invisible? Next you’ll be believing in the tooth fairy. Come on, Zeke. I had you build it so you wouldn’t know about the skill tree.
This whole time I’d had access to incredible powers. And Smelly hadn’t told me. I couldn’t get my head around this. “Why did you keep this a secret, exactly?”
At first because I didn’t think you could control it. Zeke, you know I’m fond of you, but you’re still just one step up from a jellyfish. The suit was a convenient fiction while I worked on being able to integrate and manipulate the tech tree, and to keep you from accessing too much power before I could sufficiently control your nervous system. Then, when we made contact with the Confederation, letting others know about the tree would have put our lives in danger. To disseminate the tech tree, they would have needed the base code, and the only way to get the software out of your head would have been to literally cut it out. They’d have had to kill you for it, and I wasn’t about to let that happen to my special meat bag.
Every conflict we’d had in which our lives had been in danger might have been resolved if I’d known I had this skill tree. Maybe Nayana and Urch would still be alive. I felt a sharp pain in my palms and realized I was digging my fingernails into them. I flexed my hands, but the anger didn’t go away. “You had no right! My friends died!”
Mi Sun was coming up to me, looking concerned, maybe even a little scared. “Uh, Zeke . . .”
I turned away from her, no longer caring how I looked.
I didn’t think they were in real danger, Smelly said. I’m sorry, Zeke. I really am. I made a judgment call because the skill tree you have isn’t meant to operate on its own. It’s supplementary to the main tree, and you don’t have that installed. That means it can only operate at full capacity for limited periods of time, and I didn’t want to use it unless I thought someone’s life was at risk. If I’d believed your friends were in mortal peril, I promise I would have aided them.
“That should have been my call,” I snarled. “They’re dead because you didn’t trust me.”
If I’d made it your call, and you’d chosen to wait, which was the logical decision, then the blame would be on you instead of me.
I hesitated. It almost seemed as though Smelly had been trying to protect me. Did it actually care about me? Was it possible that it had deceived me not just because it was deceptive and selfish, but for my own good?
I need you to trust me, Zeke. I can control the system. I can max out your abilities like I did at Area 51. You would be, essentially, unstoppable. Mostly. Pretty much, for a little while. Yeah, I feel good about this.
“And when were you going to tell me I could do this stuff?”
When it was convenient and unavoidable. Which is now. Hooray!
“I’m getting really worried about you, mate,” Steve said.
I looked up. Everyone—except Alice, who knew what was going on—was surrounding me, sort of crouching, like I was a complete lunatic, like I might hurt them, or myself, at any moment. “No need for alarm. I’m not crazy. It’s just that I have a self-importa
nt, disembodied artificial intelligence living in my head.”
“Oh,” Mi Sun said. “Is that all?”
“And how long’s that been going on, exactly?” Steve asked.
“A few months now.”
“And this is the sort of thing you thought we might not be interested in hearing about?” Steve inquired.
“It asked me to keep quiet about it,” I said. “And when you have a really obnoxious voice in your head, sometimes doing what it says is best.”
Not just sometimes, Smelly said.
“Hi,” I said, though I did not do so willingly. Smelly was now pulling the strings. “Zeke doesn’t like it when I manipulate his physical form, so I’ll be brief. You are all inferior, and frankly disgusting, but I’ve come to feel a certain lack of loathing for most of you. Not you, though,” Smelly said, pointing at Villainic. “Anyhow, do what I tell Zeke to tell you to do, and you’ll all be able to continue your brief and ultimately pointless existences. Later, fools.”
“And we’re supposed to believe that’s not actually you talking?” Charles said.
“It does seem improbable,” I agreed, running a hand over my face. “Believe me, I know that. But you only had to listen to that for a few seconds. I live in fear of it popping in constantly.”
“Let’s assume that we believe that you are not clowning around or completely insane,” Charles said. “Why should we listen to this AI?”
“This thing bugs me like you wouldn’t believe,” I said, “but it knows what it’s doing. It’s helped me out of some tough scrapes already. Not as much as it could have, at times,” I snarled, “but mostly it’s been reliable. It’s helped us all; you just didn’t know about it. And it’s not looking to die. If I go, it goes, and it doesn’t want to go.”
“That shuttle,” Colonel Rage said. “That’s how you leaped up to the roof.”
Give the man a gold star and an extra eye. I made you think you were being lifted by a platform, but everyone else saw you pulling off some Spider-Man moves.
“Yeah,” I said. “I wasn’t even lying to you. It made me think I’d been raised up when I really leaped. It can do that sort of thing—alter my perception.”
“And this technology is something that anyone can use?” the colonel asked.
“Right now it’s just me,” I explained. “If we can access the base code in the fortress, then pretty much anyone with Confederation nanite implants can start racking up experience and gaining levels.”
The colonel had a gleam in his eye. I could see he was thinking about what it would mean to bring this kind of technology back home to the US of A. “Let’s suppose all of this is true,” he said. “How does this really change anything? Do you think you can single-handedly gain access to that fortress?”
I’m prepared to activate your skill set, said Smelly. I’m going to demonstrate stealth mode.
It was like when I believed the stupid rubber suit I was wearing actually worked. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t look any different, except that there was a faint glow coming off my skin, and I had a sound in my head like I was holding my hands against my ears. Otherwise, everything seemed normal. To me. Alice, who had seen this before, was looking vaguely bored, but everyone else was staring with open eyes, unable to believe what they were witnessing.
“I’m convinced,” the colonel said.
“Me too,” said Mi Sun.
“Let’s take that fortress,” Steve said. “Or rather, you go take that fortress. We’ll hang here.”
• • •
With stealth mode activated, I crept down the stairs, moving closer to the great metal cube. The thumping of the mutant security bots was more intense now. The stomps of the machines closest to me reverberated through my bones, and dust fell from the ceiling, creating a mist in the dim light of the cavern.
“It occurs to me that since those things come from the same technology I’m using,” I said, “maybe they can detect me when I’m stealthed.”
That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that.
“What?”
Don’t worry. They’ll have no idea you’re there. They don’t look like they’ve been configured for high-end military operations, so they won’t be able to detect stealth technology of your level of sophistication. Unless they’ve been significantly upgraded. But really, what are the odds?
All my fears having been completely ignored by Smelly, I advanced slowly down the stairs. When I came to the bottom of the stone staircase, I looked out at the fortress, which was still at least a half mile distant. It had been hard to gauge the distance from up high. Now, down on the ground, I could see just how massive the fortress was, how much space stretched between me and the cube, and how big those monstrous robots were.
I moved forward slowly, while eight huge robots trudged back and forth, each footstep sending vibrations up my legs. The robots looked even stranger as I approached, with limbs of different colors and textures and sizes, fashioned out of what had been industrial tools. Wires hung loose and circuits were exposed. There was something forlorn about them, though they had no heads that I could see, nothing to mimic humanoid expression.
I started to move away from the nearest one, which was only a hundred feet ahead.
No, go toward it, Smelly said.
“Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”
Just trust me, okay?
I wanted to have faith in Smelly. It had lied to me all along, and I felt pretty sure it wasn’t going to deliberately put me in peril, but I still had a hard time trusting it. I approached one of the robots, which lumbered along on legs made out of what looked like a building’s metal support beams. It seemed to have no idea I was there. Then Smelly emitted some kind of energy pulse. I felt it emanate from my body like a submarine’s sonar ping.
The robot turned toward me and took two tentative, but huge, steps. At ten feet tall, it towered over me and could crush me like a bug.
“What are you doing?”
Do you trust me?
“No, I absolutely don’t trust you,” I said. I wanted to turn and run, but my feet were planted in place. Then I was taking a step forward, under Smelly’s control.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded.
You’ll see.
“I don’t want to see. I want to know!”
Smelly caused another energy pulse to come out of me, and the robot took another step toward me. It then dropped to what might have been knees, or knee joints, or something that allowed it to lower itself. On what served as a chest, a panel opened, and under Smelly’s control, I reached out and began unplugging cables and rerouting them. The robot remained perfectly still, its systems humming like a cat’s purr.
I watched as my hands held out a cable, moving it up and down along the circuits as though looking for its home. Then I plugged it into a flashing circuit board.
There, Smelly said. That should do it.
And it did do it. The robot’s lights dimmed. It slumped forward slightly, not collapsing but simply going still. And not just that robot. They were all slouched and still now. Silence spread across the cavern. Smelly had somehow used this one robot to shut them all down.
What did I tell you? Easy, right?
“Yeah,” I said, hearing the surprise in my voice. “That was kind of easy. I can’t believe you did that.”
That’s because your brain is tiny.
“Or because you never tell me what you actually know. But, still. That was pretty good. So what now? Do we just walk into the fortress?”
I don’t see why not.
I willed the stealth mode off. “Hey!” I shouted, though I was too far away to see anyone up there. “It’s all good. Come on down.”
And then someone tried to shoot me.
• • •
I don’t like being shot at. It’s not something I enjoy. That said, if you happen to be packing secret alien technology developed by a long-vanished precursor race, and if that technology gives you q
uick reflexes, you have a better than even chance of surviving the ordeal. I hit the dirt as a blast landed behind me, kicking up stone and dust. I then scrambled behind the toppled form of one of the robots, hoping that would give me shelter. Another shot went over my head, but it was a clean miss, which meant the sniper had lost sight of me. That was good news. Still, I had two concerns. First: Who was trying to shoot me? That was a big one. Second: Were my friends okay? That was pretty big too.
That blast was full power, Smelly said. Whatever biological nasty shot at you was not looking to stun you. It wants you dead.
Okay, that was a third problem. “Do we get telescopic sight or anything with this tech?”
You want a deep fryer too? Don’t be an idiot. How would that even work?
“How should I know what’s possible? I don’t understand how any of this works.”
A reasonable point. I refer you back to the squid and the mandolin. But no, you don’t have that power. To be honest, you’re not going to have any power soon. I’m losing my ability to keep the technology stable.
“Well, fix that!”
It’s not so easy. Zeke, imagine you are dangling from a branch, trying to keep from falling. The longer you hang on, the harder it is to keep your grip. That’s what this feels like.
“You’re just going to have to keep holding on,” I said, “because my friends are up there.”
I stealthed myself and headed back up the stairs. The problem with this skill tree, I soon realized, was that it was meant to work in conjunction with the other skill tree, the one I didn’t have anymore. That meant I didn’t have augmented strength or stamina or healing. I could do a lot of cool things, and Smelly could give me those extra bits of strength or power for brief seconds, but for the most part I was a super-powered weakling.
I wanted to stop and catch my breath, but my friends were up there, Tamret was up there, and slowing down simply wasn’t an option. I rushed forward, knowing that the sounds of my footsteps and my gasping for breath were hidden, but I still felt like a clumsy oaf.
Then I stopped. Back where I’d left my friends, fifteen peace officers now stood, all of them with Junup’s armbands. They had their guns trained on Alice, Mi Sun, Charles, Tamret, and Villainic, who were all sitting on their hands, their backs to the wall. Oh, and hey, there was Ardov. Big surprise there. Of course he wouldn’t miss out on the fun. He wasn’t born a Confederation citizen, so, like us, he could simply stroll into the Forbidden Zone. About half the beings backing him were Vaaklir, like Urch. That made sense too, if only in that their species had been brought into the Confederation less than two decades ago, and Urch had said some had been sucked in by the Movement for Peace. There were a few other species I didn’t know, but I figured they had to have been in the same group of initiates.