Even though I’ve trained myself to convert pain into sound, I can feel the agonizing, undiluted sensations stabbing searing holes in my mental veil, just like my broken ribs are stabbing into my left lung. The damaged Drone is walking toward me. I try to get up, but my body won’t let me as the sharp edges of my cracked bones skewer through the muscles I need to move. I grit my teeth, pull the Jack-knife from my waistband, and flick it to the second setting. It snaps open into a one-meter blade, but I quickly realize that I can’t stand, and I can’t swing it hard enough to do any real damage to the robot. I don’t even have the leverage for a feeble stab at the damn thing. A combat sword is useless to me.
The Drone is six meters away.
I look over at the shotgun resting against the bench. It’s so close, but it’s not close enough.
The Drone is four meters away.
I have only one chance left, and it’s a slim one. I flick the Jack-knife to the first setting, and it snaps back into a dagger.
The Drone is three meters away.
I turn my head and glare at the shotgun.
The Drone is two meters away.
Breathing through the pain, I curl my arm tightly.
The Drone is one meter away.
The robot’s huge shadow falls across my body, and I whip my hand out to the side as hard as I can, praying for a miracle as the knife spins away from my fingertips.
THOCK!
My prayers are answered as the blade wedges tightly into the wooden stock of the gun. I splay my fingers as wide as I can. Pulled by the knife, the shotgun clacks on the ground and begins sliding across the paving toward my outstretched hand. The Drone bends down and clutches the wrist of my broken arm. I hear my bones cracking and grating as its grip tightens, and genuine pain burns through the barriers in my mind like white-hot splinters. I screech in agony through my clenched jaw and try to pull away from the robot, but its grasp is like a hydraulic vise. With one last, desperate effort, I jerk my body, and my left shoulder pops completely out of its socket as I reach for the Jack-knife. My fingertips find the knife handle, and I wrench it to me, fumbling for a handhold on the gun as the Drone holds me high in the air like a carcass of meat. The dripping stump of its right arm begins swiping at the air as if the Drone is trying to grab me with a limb that isn’t there.
Screaming at the top of my one functioning lung, I swing the Hellion up under the Drone’s chin; my finger finds the trigger, and the shotgun kicks like a horse against my arm as all three barrels roar with a deafening BOOM! An intense burst of light and heat erupts beside my face as the android’s head is completely obliterated in a shower of golden sparks and fire. My ears ring with damage as the Drone and I collapse to the ground. I roll onto the pavement, coughing up blood as warning tones throb and bellow in my head.
I focus my mind on repairs, and I can’t help but groan as the sharp tips of broken rib bones extract themselves from the holes torn in my lung and move back into their proper places. I mentally seal up the internal wounds. With my rib cage repaired and my lungs patched, I sit up and join the breaks and fractures in my left arm and wrist as the warning tones gradually fade into the back of my head.
I pop my shoulder back into its socket, push off the ground, step over the headless Drone, and take off toward the row of buildings. I’m running under the high leaves of another tree when there’s a sudden cracking of branches overhead. I look up and see a dark silhouette just in time to dive out of the way as Private Sekula comes crashing through the leaves and slams into the ground right where I was standing. His arm is bent completely the wrong way, his eyes are wide, and his jaw is opening and closing as blood pours in torrents down the sides of his face like a storm drain overflowing from a heavy rain. He stops moving, and blood gurgles in his throat as his eyelids lower, hooding his distant, dead stare.
I leap over Private Sekula’s body and dash out into the open, but more movement from overhead catches the corner of my eye, and I come skidding to a sudden halt. A large shadow skims across the ground, and a two-meter-tall Combat Drone drops out of the sky, cracking the paving stones with a shuddering thud. It slowly straightens and turns its head toward me. It’s standing four meters away and doesn’t have a weapon, but that changes in an instant as silver bayonets flick out like oversize switchblades from each of its camo-colored forearms.
I quickly raise the Hellion, clicking it to cycle-fire mode with my thumb as I aim and pull the trigger. The triple barrels rage one after the other, spewing sparking fire at the Drone, which shields its face with its arms as it launches itself sideways. The Hellion’s spray of explosive pellets erupts along the Drone’s limbs, and one of its arms comes away at the elbow as it dives into an evasive roll. There’s another heavy thud right behind me.
The second Drone!
I spin around, and the other Drone lunges, reaching toward me with its huge, four-fingered hands. I leap backward and swing the shotgun around, yanking at the trigger, shooting blindly in a blazing half circle of percussive fire. I manage to score a hit on its torso, tearing a bowling ball–size hole from its side as it continues to tromp forward. The top half of the robot flops grotesquely as I hit the ground, roll backward onto one knee, and unload my last five shells at its staggering body. Flashing pockets of light erupt all over the android as the explosive pellets rip its skin and mask apart, exposing two red-globe eyes set in a smashed open frame of jagged ballistic glass.
I throw the empty Hellion aside, whip my second pistol from its holster, flick it to fully automatic, and pull the trigger hard. The gun blazes into action, thrumming loudly in my hand as bullets rain into the robot’s face. The Drone’s head vibrates with every impact as the rapid stream of shots bombards its vulnerable components. Circuits fizz and burn, and its robotic eyes explode, spattering orange fluid from the open cavity of its shattered mask as its silver body finally drops heavily onto the paving stones, deactivated.
I hardly have time to breathe when I hear footsteps tromping behind me. I quickly turn as the last active android pounces toward me, bayonets first. I kick my leg in a fast sweep and spin up from the ground, splaying my fingers wide as I launch myself toward the Drone. The Jack-knife leaps from my waistband into my palm and snaps into a sword as my body twists through the air. The Drone’s right arm swipes, and a bayonet misses the top of my head by a hair’s breadth as my blade becomes a blur of force and momentum, slicing the android’s body completely in half at the waist as I emerge, spinning through the gap between its severed torso and legs, showered in a liquid curtain of artificial orange blood.
With my arms spread like wings, I land in a lunging crouch and see, lying on the ground by my shoe, a cracked, palm-size segment of the face mask that I blasted from that Drone. It’s smeared and scratched, but . . . beneath the blemishes, among the scrapes and damage are my own eyes, mirrored in its glossy black surface, staring back at me like a stranger’s. That’s when something stirs inside of me. I slowly lower my arms and reach down for the fragment. I gently pick it up and stare at it, transfixed at the empty, soulless reflection of my own eyes. I look deeper, and a wave of emotion ripples through me. The angry expression of my reflection softens; it suddenly feels like a cloud is moving away from the sun, like I’m waking up from a daydream.
I feel like me again. What did Captain Delgado make me do? I turn and survey the carnage. The courtyard looks like a war zone. There are blast marks and blood, bullet holes, and Drone parts everywhere I look. That bastard is a control freak, and we are nothing but cannon fodder to him. I wipe a smudge from the mask fragment, and when I hold it up to my face again, I see eyes that I recognize. Captain Delgado won’t be doing that to me ever again. I tuck the souvenir into my breast pocket and snap the Jack-knife shut.
All of a sudden, a weird electric-crackling sound bursts out of nowhere. I frown, confused as the static noise abruptly clears, breaking into whooping and laughing and raucous cheering blasting into my left ear. I wince at it, momentarily surprised before remembering the little plastic wedge.
“Infinity? Can you hear me?” Otto’s voice whispers over the sounds of celebration in the background.
“Yes . . . I can hear you,” I reply.
“Who are you talking to?” says Brody’s voice. “Is that Infinity?”
“Where is she?” I hear Ryan ask. “Bit, let me see the screens.”
“Stop crowding me!” hisses Otto. There’s a fumbling, then a shuffling sound, before Otto’s annoyed voice pipes into my ear again.
“Sorry, I’m back. Just had to crawl under a table for a little privacy,” she says. There’s a beat of silence, and then a quiet gasp. “Infinity . . . you destroyed all the Drones? How?”
“You weren’t watching?” I ask.
“No. The moment you jumped out the window, they crammed us all into a tiny conference room. They even tried to confiscate my slate, but I gave them Dean’s instead. I regained access to the security cameras the first chance I had, but I didn’t see what happened; none of us did.”
At Otto’s mention of the cameras, I suddenly remember that Captain Delgado is undoubtedly watching me right this second. The fact that I’m just standing here, talking to Otto instead of escaping, hopefully means that he thinks I’m still under his control. If that’s the case, I need to keep it that way. With no clear plan of what to do next, I decide to maintain the charade and do what would be expected of me. The Captain ordered me to return to the command post, so, hoping that a bright idea of how to get out of this mess pops into my head soon, I begin walking back the way I came.
“Did you hear the soldiers celebrating?” asks Otto.
“What? Oh yeah, I did,” I reply.
“It seems you made quite an impression,” she whispers. “I’m kinda sorry I missed the show.”
“It’s not like I had any choice,” I growl. “Captain Delgado made me do it.”
“I
knew
he did something to you. One second, you were fighting him to the floor, the next, you were calling him ‘sir’ and jumping out a window. What did he say to you?” asks Otto.
“That may be difficult to explain,” I murmur.
“Oh. Well . . . it looked like a posthypnotic suggestion to me,” Otto whispers.
“OK, maybe not so hard to explain then. Captain Delgado was my commanding officer. He must have implanted some kind of behavioral modification in my subconscious.”
“What
is
it with these guys and mind control? That is not good, Infinity,” Otto says, stating the glaringly obvious. “If he did it once, you can bet that he’ll try to do it again.”
I look in the direction of the command post. Anger instantly begins boiling up inside me, and my fingernails dig into my palms.
“The next time he tries . . . I’ll cut his tongue from his head.”
I take a breath and try to temper my seething hatred into a more manageable, smoldering contempt. “What’s the situation up there, Otto? Tell me what’s happening.”
“They’re making final preparations to leave. I heard Captain Delgado say that the men he sent to the hangar are returning soon with two transports to fly us out.”
“I’m not leaving,” I reply. “After everything I’ve been through today, I’m gonna see this through to the end. The Drones have been taken care of, so there’s nothing else standing in my way.”
“
We
are gonna see this through to the end,” says Otto. “I didn’t come all this way just to give up now, either.”
I smile and nod. “OK, then. I’m coming to get you.”
“Alright,” she replies. “The door to the conference room is at the far end of the office, behind the weapon crates, but there’s a whole roomful of . . .”
Otto’s voice suddenly goes quiet, and the wedge hisses in my ear.
“Hello? Otto? Come in. Can you read me?”
There’s no answer.
“Otto?” I say louder, glaring in the direction of the command post, but there’s nothing but a static crackling sound. “Hello? Otto?”
Sensing trouble, I quicken my pace across the courtyard, but I’ve only gone about a meter when Otto speaks again.
“Sorry, I’m still here, Infinity . . . I’ve just picked up a strange signal.”
“What do you mean, ‘strange’?” I ask.
“My slate has detected some kind of low-frequency vibration. It’s registering like a weak earth tremor, but it’s repeating in sequence. Maybe if I try this . . .”
I can hear Otto tapping on the slate, and, a few seconds later, her excited voice chirps from the earpiece. “Infinity! The vibration is encoded! I’m deciphering it now . . .”
I hear a finger tap, and a man’s voice hisses into my ear.
“Attention. As conventional methods of communications have been jammed, I’m hoping you’re the capable girl I suspect you are and have discovered this seismic transmission. If you’re receiving this, please, you must follow my instructions. The main computer is malfunctioning. It has already managed to dispatch a heavily armed mechanoid to your location at the Security Station, and it’s only a matter of time before it gains control of more. There’s a hatch that leads to my laboratory beside the koi pond in Sector B, near the Japanese pagoda. It’s the only place you’ll be safe. Get out of the Security Station now! Get to the hatch! I hope you receive this message in time. Attention. As conventional methods of communications have been jammed, I’m hoping you’re the capable girl I suspect you are . . .”
Otto shuts the message off. “It’s a cycling vibration, repeating the message over and over in a loop, and it sounds like whoever sent it has been watching us somehow. Do you recognize the voice?”
“No,” I reply as I step over smeared trails of blood and walk through the open door that leads to the command post.
“The attached time code indicates the message was sent nearly forty-five minutes ago,” says Otto. “Just before the Security Station exploded. There was so much interference from the data hives and command modules back then that my slate didn’t pick it up, but localized radio transmissions are working now, so why hasn’t he tried to reestablish contact? Who do you think it is? One of the security staff? Maybe we should tell Captain Delgado? They might need help.”