Logos Run (42 page)

It was the first and only time that Norr had ever called Rebo “hon,” and there was something about the way it felt that caused Rebo to step out onto the platform and take her hand. The recording was followed by a flash of light and a long fall into nothingness.

FIFTEEN

Rebo absorbed the shock with his knees, nearly fell, but
managed to keep his balance. Norr arrived on the platform a fraction of a second later, went facedown, but broke the fall with her hands. “Uh-oh,” the sensitive said as she came to her feet. “Look at that!”

Rebo looked and didn’t like what he saw. The body that lay sprawled in front of the blood-splashed platform had a machete clutched in its right hand. The corpse looked as though something, or a number of somethings, had been gnawing on it. “The guardians killed him,” Sogol remarked. “Be careful, there are more of them.”

“Words to live by,” the runner said grimly, as he eyed the dismembered mechanimals that lay scattered about.

“This guy’s dressed like a fisherman,” Norr remarked, as she bent over the body.

“How much would you like to bet that Tepho sent him through first?” Rebo inquired cynically. “Just to see what would happen.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the sensitive agreed. “Look! There are some dead mechanimals over by the hatch . . . except they have bullet holes in them.”

“Which suggests that Tepho and his crowd shot them,” the runner concluded.

“I’m picking up some jumbled radio traffic,” Sogol announced. “The technos are one level up. They’re battling a group of enforcers.”

“
Enforcers?
” Rebo asked. “How are they different from guardians?”

“They’re larger, more heavily armed, and they can fly,” the AI responded simply.

“I should have known,” the runner commented darkly.

“Can you turn them off?” Norr inquired hopefully.

“Yes,” Sogol responded. “But only if I control Socket . . . so let’s go.”

As Rebo and Norr stepped over the bodies heaped around the hatch, it was clear that the robots had been cut down as they attempted to enter the compartment. Reinforcements perhaps? Summoned after the fisherman had been killed? Yes, the runner thought that was likely. But, unfortunately for the robots, it looked as though they had arrived
after
the main party materialized on the platform.

Now, as Rebo entered the corridor, he found himself in an environment that was reminiscent of the great starships. Med kits, fire extinguishers, and emergency pressure suits could be found at regular intervals along the metal bulkhead, along with directional signs that pointed toward destinations like MAINTENANCE, PERSONNEL, and MEDICAL. But unlike all of the starships that Rebo had been aboard, Socket had yet to be looted, and there was no graffiti to be seen. “Take the next left,” Sogol ordered. “That hallway leads to the lift.”

Rebo approached the intersection with care, paused to peek around the corner, and was glad that he had. Judging from the bullet-scarred bulkheads, and the burn marks that crisscrossed the decks, Tepho and his party had been attacked as they transited the hall. But based on heaps of dead mechanimals that littered the floor, it was clear that the technos had been able to successfully defend themselves. Except for a hapless metal man, that is, who lay with his arms outflung, sensors staring sightlessly at the overhead. It appeared that the mechanimals had been able to open the robot’s belly, because the android’s electronic entrails lay splayed across his waist, where many of the fiber-optic cables had been severed.

Norr “felt” a life force behind her, whirled, and fired. The shotgun went
boom
,
clack
,
boom
,
clack
, as a dozen of the chittering guardians rushed her. Green animatronic fluid splattered the bulkheads as the first wave of mechanimals came apart. But farther down the hall, beyond the scope of the present battle,
more
lithe bodies were spilling out of ducts, chittering madly as their claws fought for purchase on the metal deck, each robot communicating with all the rest by radio.

Having spotted the oncoming wave, Rebo readied one of the energy grenades that the phibs had given him, thumbed the fuse, and tossed the weapon down the corridor. The bomb bounced once, went off with a silent flash, and blew at least fifteen mechanimals to smithereens.

In the meantime Norr pulled the trigger again, heard nothing more than a metallic
click
, and grabbed for the power pistol. There was no recoil as the bolts of blue energy struck the remaining robots and reduced most to little more than badly burned carcasses. But even though the rear portion of its body was missing, the front half of a guardian continued to drag itself toward the sensitive, its jaws snapping at empty air. Another energy bolt put the beast down for good, but the experience left Norr shaken, and the sensitive’s hands trembled slightly as she reloaded her weapons. “Good job,” Rebo said reassuringly, as he administered the coup de grace to a twitching robot. “Come on . . . Let’s get down that next stretch of hallway before the little bastards can regroup.”

Norr followed the runner as he turned the corner, glanced at a hatch marked EMERGENCY ACCESS LADDER, and made his way past the same metal man he’d seen before. Meanwhile, having been attacked from behind once, the sensitive didn’t want the same thing to happen again, and was walking backward when she passed the robot. That’s why the variant didn’t realize the android was still alive until steely fingers wrapped themselves around her ankle. There was a single
boom-clack
combination as Norr blew the robot’s head off.

Rebo whirled, ready to fight, but concluded that Norr was getting jumpy, and turned back again. The runner arrived at the end of the corridor, followed the MAIN LIFT sign to the right, and spotted the door ahead. A few seconds later he was standing in front of the polished metal door pushing on the UP button. Once the indicator light appeared, Rebo started to back away, and motioned for Norr to do likewise.

And it was a good thing, too, because when the lift chimed and doors parted, a Porto Industries 8813-B Enforcer opened fire on them. The sphere-shaped machine floated two feet off the deck and was armed with an energy cannon. A cluster of three energy bolts passed between the humans as they opened fire. Even though Rebo scored three hits with the energy rifle, and Norr blasted the robot with her shotgun, the machine remained unaffected. That was when the robot swiveled toward Rebo, and Norr stepped into the gap between them. There was a loud clatter as the shotgun hit the floor. Rebo shouted,
“No!”
and the sensitive went for her sword.

But, rather than blowing Norr in half, the enforcer moved as if to bypass the female. That was when the runner remembered what Sogol had said earlier—and realized that the construct
couldn’t
attack the sensitive so long as the AI was wrapped around her arm. Come to think of it, the guardians they had encountered earlier had probably been after
him
.

There was a metallic flash as the sliver of steel fell, followed by a loud
ka-ching
, as the supersharp blade sliced down through the robot’s armor casing to lodge itself somewhere inside. The sensitive tried to free her weapon, discovered it was locked in place, and was forced to place a foot on the enforcer’s casing in order to pry the sword free.

Then, just as Norr was about to take another cut at the robot, sparks spurted out of the gash in its casing. The machine shuddered, hit the deck with a thud, and rolled for two feet before coming to a stop next to a bulkhead. The sensitive returned the sword to its sheath, bent to retrieve her shotgun, and broke the weapon open. “Damn,” the runner said fervently, as he watched his companion pluck empties from the weapon’s rotary cylinder. “That was close! You scared the hell out of me.”

“I was never in any danger,” the variant replied smugly.

“Yeah? Well, you soon will be,” Rebo replied darkly. “Tepho and his people would be more than happy to shoot you.”

“They are entering nexus!” Sogol hissed urgently. “Hurry!”

The humans entered the lift, the runner touched the button that said, LEVEL THREE, and felt the car jerk into motion. “Why
three
?” Norr wanted to know. “Nexus is on two.”

“Which means they’ll be waiting for us on two,” the runner predicted. “By going up to three and going down the emergency access ladder to level two, we might be able to surprise them.”

The elevator stopped, the doors parted, and the runner eyed the corridor. It was blessedly empty, for which Rebo gave thanks as he jogged down the hall to the point where the vertical emergency access ladder sign had been stenciled onto the bulkhead. He opened the hatch, heard a gentle
hiss
as pressures were equalized, and entered what amounted to a vertical tunnel. “I’ll go first,” the runner announced, as he positioned himself on the ladder. “And remember, we don’t have friends down there, so shoot anything that moves.”

Then Rebo was gone, his boots sliding along the outside surface of the rails, the energy rifle hanging across his chest. The runner braked when he saw the numeral 2 appear, transferred his weight to a small platform, and was already turning toward the hatch when Norr began her descent.

Cognizant of the fact that the hall was probably occupied, Rebo opened the hatch, tossed a grenade through the gap, and pulled the door closed again. There was a muffled scream, followed by the dull rattle of automatic fire and a series of unintelligible shouts.

That was Rebo’s cue to toss a
second
energy bomb into the corridor. He pulled the door closed, counted to four, and pushed his way out into the hall. The badly pulped remains of at least three bodies were scattered about, and two humans plus a metal man were crouched not thirty feet up the corridor. Judging from the way some of the norms held their weapons, they weren’t too familiar with them. A couple of Tepho’s attendants perhaps? There was no way to know. But when they fired, the runner fired back, and it was
his
bullets that struck home. The robot went down first, quickly followed by both humans, one of whom took a burst of bolts from behind.

That surprised the runner until he saw something shimmery was standing farther down the hall, weapon in hands, firing
through
his own men. And that was the
last
thing Rebo saw as Shaz shouted an order, the lights went out, and the combat variant made his way forward.

Norr had cleared the hatch by then, and even though the corridor was nearly pitch-black, the sensitive “saw” the man-shaped blob of color coming her way. The shotgun roared, the aura staggered, and the variant felt a moment of elation. But that was when the target recovered, changed course as if to avoid a potential follow-up shot, and continued to advance. Some sort of armor perhaps? Yes, the sensitive thought so, and suspected that the oncoming combatant could see her as well.

Everything appeared green through the night-vision goggles, but both of his opponents were clear to see as Shaz pulled the trigger. That was when the variant felt something cold slither up his right leg and make straight for his genitals. Shaz couldn’t resist the urge to stop and attempt to grab whatever the thing was.

And it was then, as Shaz paused to deal with Sogol, that Norr removed her opponent’s head. The combat variant felt something tug at his neck, “saw” his head bounce off the floor, and knew the rest of his body was in the process of falling. And that was when the man once known as Hoggles appeared in front of him. His form was different now, but powerful nonetheless, and there was nothing friendly about his smile. “Welcome to the spirit world, friend. . . . It turns out that there are worse things than dying . . . as
you
are about to find out.”

In the meantime, the lights came back on as the surviving members of Tepho’s force emerged to celebrate what they assumed to be the combat variant’s victory. Except that it wasn’t. All five of them were armed, but none was ready, and that was a mistake. One fell to Norr’s sword and the rest of them were still fumbling with their weapons when Rebo cut them down. Sogol made her way back to Norr, the humans reloaded, and the entrance to nexus was clear.

The only way Tepho could obtain sex was to purchase it
from the whores of Seros. But pleasurable though such encounters had been, they didn’t even begin to compare with what the technologist felt as he sat in the thronelike chair and gazed at the 360-degree holo projection that encircled him.

The panorama had been conceived to look as it should when viewed from Zeen. All of the suns that had once been part of the Imperium were represented, complete with their planetary attendants, each orbiting exactly as it should. And some of those worlds, the ones fortunate enough to boast a star gate, were further identified by what looked like green jewels. One for each portal that remained operational. Sadly, in light of what had once been, such lights were few and far between. Although Tepho was pleased to see that the vast majority of remaining portals were under the Techno Society’s control, which was to say
his
control, given that the organization belonged to him.

Still, the extent to which the once far-flung network of star gates had deteriorated meant that the opportunity before him was that much greater. As Tepho stared at the panorama he could envision himself as humanity’s savior, the emperor who returned mankind to its rightful place in the galaxy and thereby earned himself a revered place in history. The sudden pressure of a gun barrel against the back of Tepho’s head brought the glorious dream to an abrupt end. “Stand up,” Rebo grated. “And remove the vest.”