By David C. Daoust
Deep within the old abandoned bowels of Halfhul, two men could be found hurrying within corridors what were otherwise completely barren of people. The urgency in their step was that of those who had just barely escaped a deadly situation. The thrill was there, still in their eyes, pumping from their heart, through their vanes. The adrenaline kept them moving, kept them alert.
One, the aging, solid-light engineer by the name of Gordon Hitch, the other, the mysterious Colin Vice. The two escaping men trailed close behind as the shadowy hounds led the way down the long corridor. The golden-haired Hitch seemed to count the crossways as they left Colin’s jailor, the red construct, entombed within a solid substance that the older scientist had managed to trap it within.
“Any idea what that metal monstrosity was exactly?” Colin asked in whispered voice, finally able to give voice to the very question that had been running through his mind since he first laid eyes upon that factory floor, full of such constructs.
“A bot,” Gordon answered in an equally low voice, “An ‘Assault-bot’,” Gordon clarified before noting, “The Red Faction, it seems, is upping their game.”
“That was a bot?” Colin, taken aback, said a bit too loudly.
Gordon answered with an affirmative nod, though signaled to keep their voices down. “I’ll explain once we’ve made it to safety.”
Colin could not help but wonder about such implications. While never having seen such a bot-form used, he had already guessed that it was connected to the Red Faction. As would most anyone; that tell-tale red was like a calling card, collecting all those with matching ideals throughout the fledgling solar system.
A bot though! Colin was familiar with the mining bots that had once been built and rebuilt within this very facility. That was long before his father’s Organization had moved in to use this old space station as a base for their smuggling operation.
He was familiar with the Aspirants, prominent within the Arkroy Provinces, though never actually met one.
Other than that, the most sophisticated bot he had ever come across, was that tiny little stunt-bot he’d met on Twin Crown, Margo. While he’d helped to install her within a fairly formidable form, it was still hard to imagine an army of like bots… Honestly, with the thought of Margo, it was almost laughable… despite all, the implications were endless.
“Here,” Gordon whispered as he gestured to the upcoming crossway. He let out a quick half-whistle, to call the hounds back, just loud enough to get their attention. The two shadowy constructs had already run past, blindly running ahead without much of a care, other than that they were leading the way. The two hounds silently raced back just as Gordon led Colin around the next corner.
They headed directly for a lift.
A lift Colin hoped would speed them back up into the higher floors…
Gordon tapped the button repeatedly. Impatiently, barely able to stand still, waiting for the large industrial elevator to slowly lower itself down to their floor. No sooner had the telltale sound of the arriving lift begun to vibrate the walls around them, than a sudden screeching of metal on metal reverberated throughout the corridor.
“I was afraid of that,” Gordon said with a grimace, impatiently shifting from foot to foot as he waited for the lift to arrive, fully– so the damn doors would open. “The Overseer’s hard to predict– I was hoping he would struggle with the stucco for a while. Of course, he would decide to just change bodies…”
“Change bodies?” Colin asked.
“Oy, these aren’t you grandfather’s bots,” Gordon said with a sidelong glance, “They’re not even plugged into’em proper. They’re being broadcast out from a server… lets them skip around, from form to form, all over the Onion…”
Colin was not sure what to do with that information or even what it meant, fully, but once he saw the sparks flying in the distance, he knew that noise was something metal, coming at them fast and hard, scraping across the metal plating on the floor.
Colin envisioned the assault-bot’s snakelike lower half, snapping back and forth as it pushed itself forward and no sooner had that lift door opened, than that vision became a reality. It was only a glimpse of the red construct charging at them, but it was enough to re-invoke the adrenaline rush that had got them that far.
Man and solid-light dog, alike, they all piled in… helplessly waited for the doors to seal. Both men let out a long sigh of relief as it did so. Both flinched when they felt something collide with the outside doors, just as they began their ascent back up into the higher floors of the Crucible…
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