Rubicon, page 14
// Initialization complete. //
Her vision focused, and a hint of that same peaceful clarity crept into the back of her mind, instantly soothing her doubts.
She wanted to zero out … but she also didn’t. Not because she was afraid to die or even afraid to wake up again. There was something new, like a seed that’d just been planted, but its roots were solid as ever, like it’d been there all along. A greater clarity of purpose: the objective.
It was why they’d come—not to escape with their lives intact. What use was that?
With newfound fortitude, she picked up her gun and rose to face the Mechan Trooper as it rounded the corner.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Time stretched as Adriene raised her pistol and fired two rounds, one into each of the Trooper’s ocular sensors.
The bot faltered, almost seemingly taken aback by her brazen approach, and Adriene felt much the same. It went against a decade of training to engage a Mechan in close quarters. But there she stood, plowing forward instead of retreating to find new cover.
She didn’t doubt herself, not anymore. The suit made her powerful, Rubicon even more so. She only had to trust them.
As the Trooper stumbled back, she unleashed a stream of fire into its abdomen, concentrating on the area of its chassis that housed the capacitor rig. Her HUD unfolded a multicolored display over the scrapper’s torso, meting out an approximation of the shell’s integrity as the bombardment weakened it.
After a couple of dozen quick rounds, her pistol’s heat sinks redlined right as the bot’s plate integrity rating hit 20 percent, then bottomed out. She couldn’t weaken it further. Not that way.
So she holstered her sidearm and willed the suit to amplify her strength. She drew back her elbow and charged, closing the remaining meters between them, then turned into the strike with all the strength she—or rather her suit—could muster.
Her fist struck hard. A jolt of pain shot up her arm, one that was too easy to ignore. Her hand plunged through the bot’s chassis and lodged in its abdomen well past the wrist. The Trooper crumpled under the blow, falling backward and pulling Adriene with it.
They landed, her knees straddling the bot’s torso. She ignored the battery-level warning in her HUD and yanked her fist free, pulling a section of paneling away with it.
The Mechan twitched. With both hands, she reached into its gaping chest cavity, shoving aside bound tendrils of wires and sparking components until she found a large cylinder: the scrapper’s power supply. She wrenched it free. The bot exhaled a dull whistle of decompressing hydraulics as it went limp.
Breath ragged, Adriene tossed the cylinder away. Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks.
A nervous laugh bubbled its way up her throat—she’d never gone head-to-head with a scrapper before and walked away. This was ludicrous.
Raw instinct tensed her muscles, and she spun, thrusting out a palm. It slammed directly into the chest of the other Trooper as it rounded the fallen stone barricade. A burst of electricity shrouded her glove as it made contact, throwing off a cascade of blue-white sparks. The bot went limp, and it collapsed to the stone floor.
Adriene’s mouth hung open and she froze, staring down at the twitching scrapper at her feet, heart thudding loudly in her ears.
// The effect is temporary. I suggest you move. //
Her breath hitched as she took in the placid male voice—the same steady timbre it’d always been, yet somehow different. More sincere. Adamant.
// Two contacts incoming. //
She darted into cover behind another large piece of fallen stone. She focused on the small map in her HUD. Two additional Troopers descended. ETA ten seconds.
// Stealth mode 2A engaged. //
The bots landed less than twenty meters away. They stood in close formation while they scanned the room, then split off and headed in opposite directions.
Adriene stilled her breath, waiting for them to put as much distance between each other as possible. The one moving toward the west turned and began arcing along the outside wall, straight for her. She snuck alongside her cover toward it, then paused at the corner. She looked down at the pistol in her hand.
She’d had an advantage with the first Mechan, when she could fire unhindered shots practically point-blank. She wouldn’t be able to accomplish that from this distance.
She holstered the gun, then opened the thin storage compartment running along her calf. She transferred an incendiary grenade to her utility belt, then took a chaff in hand and scanned the map.
// Auto-targeting aid available. //
She made a mental note of the intended trajectory, and a green bull’s-eye appeared at the location.
On instinct, she announced, “Chaff incoming,” and her limbs froze. A wave of hot anxiety rolled through her as she became acutely aware of how alone she was.
There was no backup coming. Countless Mechan and four stories of collapsing ancient ruins stood between her and another rezone. Those odds were beyond impossible.
A pang of adrenaline fired through her, quickening her pulse.
No. She swallowed down the hesitation and doubt, vanquishing it to the weak place it came from. She couldn’t give up. Not yet.
Drawing in a sharp breath, she tossed the grenade. It flew with stunning accuracy, exploding two meters off the ground into an avalanche of metal shards.
Adriene took off. She charged the Mechan head-on through the raining chunks of debris, which appeared to drift slowly downward with her heightened perception of time. The dozen-meter dash took just long enough for a flash of panic to bloom in her chest as she realized what she was doing: charging, essentially unarmed, toward a fucking Mechan, with no coherent plan other than to punch it as hard as she possibly could.
Which was exactly what she did. She willed her suit to power the strike as she closed in on the Trooper. Her fist crumpled into its chest, sending another bright lance of pain up her arm. The impact left a deep crater, sending the bot careening backward and to the ground.
Adriene’s momentum sent her tumbling along with it, her metal suit scraping loudly across the stone as she skidded. Bits of chaff continued to float to the ground as she clawed the incendiary grenade from her belt and, with as much strength as she could muster, jammed it into the prone bot’s shoulder joint.
She sprang to her feet, darting for a large slab of stone a few meters away. The explosion cracked through the air just before she reached it.
The force threw her off her feet, and she landed hard on her shoulder, skidding to a stop in front of the slab. Her suit had muted the sound almost entirely, and she found it strange to be left without the telltale ear ringing and pounding headache of narrowly escaping a detonation.
With a pained groan, she pushed to all fours, throwing a look back at the scrapper—now a heap of warped metal. Tiny flames licked up from burning circuitry.
Her legs wobbled beneath her, but she managed to get to her knees while she caught her breath, body aching.
// Capacitor levels critical. Recharge required. //
“Shit.”
She’d forgotten how much her suit’s power had been drained while fighting the local fauna. All her superpowered Mechan-punching hadn’t helped.
She sucked in a few deep breaths, muscles burning. The lower her battery level, the more she’d have to rely on her own strength. She couldn’t sustain this.
Sharp bursts of pain fired through her shoulder—her suit absorbing a series of impacts. She ducked her head, a trail of fire pinging the dust on her heels as she scrambled into cover behind the stone slab.
The last Trooper had apparently spotted her. That explosion probably hadn’t been very subtle.
She checked overwatch—minor relief soothing her raw nerves when she saw it was the only contact still on this level. No reinforcements had been sent—yet.
She had no idea how she was going to deal with even one more. She hardly had enough power to keep her HUD on.
As she racked her brain for a solution, a heavy fatigue began to saddle her muscles. Her breaths came short and fast, and she could sense the suit wicking away the sweat on her palms.
She lifted her gloved hands, turning them over slowly. The hardsuit lecture came back to her, one of the few features she’d actually had the chance to learn about: “conductive actuator gloves.”
// Yes, that can be done. If you’re able to make contact, that is. //
“If?” she scoffed. “No faith.”
She looked out across the few meters between her and the last Trooper. It continued to lay down relentless, blind fire in her general direction.
She just needed time to close the gap. A few seconds of cover.
“I know battery’s low, but certainly there’s some kind of reserve power, right?”
Her Rubicon didn’t respond.
“A backup battery, surely?”
// Yes … //
If Adriene didn’t know better, she’d have thought her monotone Rubicon almost sounded begrudging.
// However, I do not recommend that course of action. If you fail, your suit will be depleted beyond reasonable levels, and you will most certainly not survive the remainder of the journey to the surface. //
“Probably not gonna survive it anyway,” she said. “Might as well try.”
// Very well. //
“Here we go.”
She rolled from cover and summoned a shield construct. A shell of purple light expanded from the front of her chestplate. Contrary to the enormous one she’d accidentally mustered in the forest, this one stretched only wide enough to protect her from the Trooper’s shots as she charged.
She closed the ten-meter gap in an instant that seemed to drag on forever, and again she felt consumed by a stark sense of clarity. She could feel each beat of her heart as it pressed blood into her arteries and lungs. She could taste every molecule of filtered air as she sucked the oxygen in, feeding her muscles like fuel. Each impact of her boots on the hard stone resonated through the suit, sending tremors up her legs and into her spine. The scrapper’s comparatively sluggish barrage of fire pinged off her semitransparent shield, each impact creating tiny cracking webs of light.
Adriene’s shield crashed into the Trooper first, discharging a wash of purple light and redlining her power indicator before disappearing entirely.
They both fell, Adriene landing on top of the bot as her power consumption stabilized. Less than 1 percent remained.
The Mechan jerked beneath her, trying to regain function after colliding with the electric shield. It lurched up with its one functioning arm and grabbed her by the neck.
Raw panic blinded her senses. She tore at its cold metal fingers, her heart thudding, vision blurring as she gasped for breath. The basalt cave flashed before her eyes—the Mechan lifting her, analyzing her, ready to hybridize her, make her its slave.
The bot’s grip tightened. She stretched down with both hands, fingertips grazing its smooth metal chestplate, barely out of reach. She groaned and reached—she only needed a few more centimeters.
Willing the suit to activate the conductive gloves, she let out a growl and strained the remaining distance, pressing both palms flat onto the Mechan’s chassis. A cascading jolt ran over her skin, and the bot spasmed.
Its hand fell away from her neck. She gasped for breath, half collapsing onto its chest.
A faint buzz prickled up her arms, and a recharging icon appeared, centered in her HUD. The bot twitched and the buzz became a steady vibration, then quickly grew into an uncomfortable throb that sent sharp waves of electricity across her skin. Her muscles twitched with the growing intensity. Every individual hair on her body felt like a static charge about to detonate.
Through gritted teeth, she forced out, “Is … this … safe?” then remembered she didn’t have to speak out loud. It feels like I’m about to be electrocuted.
// It is safe. Hold, please. //
The scrapper thrashed under her grip as her suit slowly drained its power. She watched its glowing amber eyes flicker and fade.
A bitter sense of regret burrowed into the back of her mind. It lacked any discernible reaction to its own demise. She imagined seeing it suffer would be a sort of catharsis, if only it had a face to look pained with. Or even the ability to feel pain.
The charge fell away at once, vanishing in an instant. She collapsed onto the ground beside the depleted bot.
Staring up at the crumbling ceiling, Adriene heaved in a few deep breaths. Her HUD flashed a battery level indicator: 64%.
She coughed. “And you doubted me.”
// I cannot “doubt.” //
With a grunt, she lifted herself to her feet. She shook out her arms and legs in turn, trying to rid them of the residual, unpleasant tingling sensation—like a million sharp pinpricks in a foot that’d fallen asleep, but all over her body. She frantically scanned her HUD map—no additional contacts. Her heart continued to race, blood pumping with adrenaline.
She recalled the last time she’d felt like this—right after her last rezone. Sure, it’d been raw panic and paranoia and animal instinct … but she’d felt more alive in those few minutes of confusion than she had in years. It was exhilarating.
// Plotting reroute to package location … //
“What?” she rasped. “The objective? Hell no—I don’t have time.”
Unbidden, a map appeared in her vision. Her eyes scanned the route.
It was close. Temptingly close …
With a static clack, a comm line opened. “Valero!” Gallagher panted, worry lacing her tone. “Are you okay? My overwatch just lost all the contacts near your location.”
Adriene unmuted her line. “Yeah,” she managed, though her voice caught—dry and haggard. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Holy shit, Ninety-Six,” Kato put in. “Did you somehow take out four scrappers in like sixty seconds?”
Her brows knit and she shook her head—it’d taken far longer than that. Ten minutes, maybe.
// Ninety-two seconds. //
Adriene wet her lips, then looked down at her boots. You sure about that?
// Yes. //
“Listen,” Kato said, tone deadly serious, “I took my time cutting through the forest, but I’m out of ideas. We’re going to have to board the dropship soon.”
Adriene’s mind reeled. There had to be some way to convince Brigham to wait. Just a little longer. But how could she bargain with someone she barely knew?
Chewing her bottom lip, she pressed a thumb into the palm of her hand while she hunted for a solution. She looked at the yellow objective marker, then down at her gloves, then at the newly recharged battery indicator.
An idea trickled into the back of her mind. She didn’t like it—playing on people’s weaknesses. Manipulating their desires to get them to do what she wanted. But she had to try.
She started jogging across the massive atrium as she reopened squad comms. “Lieutenant Brigham, sir?”
“Valero?” His gruff voice carried an edge of anticipation. “What’s going on? Ship’s landing as we speak.”
“I have eyes on the objective.”
The line rang silent for a few long moments, then he mumbled, “Son of a bitch…”
“If I can get the package, can you evade long enough to pick me up?”
“Fuck…” he grunted, then his tone hardened. “No. We can’t risk extracting you. Too many bots have already infiltrated, with more on the way.”
Another map appeared in her HUD, a route that led from the objective package location, down and away from the facility, then back to the surface almost a kilometer south.
“I don’t need extraction,” she said. “I can make it to the surface. You just have to stay off their radar long enough to swing around and pick me up. Fifteen minutes at the most.”
“Valero,” Brigham warned, “there’s no fucking way we can lie low for that long this close to two dozen scrappers. It can’t happen.”
She switched to a private line. “Sir,” she said, then took a deep breath, slowing her pace somewhat as she steadied her nerves. “At the meeting the other day … I get how you feel about how the other squads treat us. Like we’re nothing but their servants. Like they’re single-handedly responsible for the success of a mission.”
“Your point?” he prompted, voice clipped.
“You want to prove Forward Recon’s as capable as the other teams? Now’s your chance. We’ll walk out of this having done their entire job for them. In less than six hours.” She paused to let the thought sink in. “But you gotta hold off long enough to pick me up.”
“And if you fail and I get my whole squad rezoned instead? How will that look?”
“Then you blame the new girl,” she offered. “It’s not like I don’t have a reputation for rezones.”
After a few long moments, Brigham’s deep voice came back resigned, but clear. “Fine.”
A cool wave of relief washed over her, and she released a hard breath. “Thank you, sir.”
“You have fifteen minutes,” he growled. “That’s it. Minute sixteen, those nukes are as good as detonated.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Get me that package,” he said, tone firm.
“I will, sir.” She accelerated to a steady run, continuing to follow the red line across the wide atrium toward the objective package. “Pushing out the rendezvous point.” She sent Gallagher the approximate coordinates for her extraction. She had no idea what her Rubicon had used to plot this strange path out of the facility, or why it seemed to go down instead of up, but she had little to lose at this point.
As she followed the route into a long hallway, her limbs buzzed with newfound energy—the effects of a stim cocktail according to her HUD’s biostatus readout. A dozen meters in, the red line abruptly ended in a pulsating red arrow, pointing down.
// Forced descent required. //
Normally, she’d hesitate—briefly consider whether punching a hole in the floor was the best course of action—but she was way beyond that. She only had fourteen minutes.
// Thirteen minutes and fifty-four seconds. //
