Breaker's Ruin (The Wrecking Squad Book 6), page 21
The cam-bot turned away, heading along the corridor, ignoring the paralysis that swept her body. Indifferent, uncaring. And then the black closed in, silent, empty, and she was finally alone.
Chapter 32
Almaar
The mountains reared from the broken earth; their roots smothered in soil and dust. Amid the detritus caused by a ship smashed into the ground at unimaginable speed were the remains of a town. It wasn’t silent. It wasn’t still.
“Crows,” said Rebekah. “Gulls too.” The town rippled with birds. Flocks having marked out their own territory … and feeding.
Hendricks looked to the cockpit floor. “Carrion crows,” she whispered.
Rebekah tried not to think on that, but the town of Avemark was next on their list of central core nodes. There was no choice. She flicked a physical button, engaging the engine shielding. Power would reduce significantly, but better than engines and thrusters filled with feathers and carcasses. “Ready?” she asked over the comms.
“Affirmative, Captain,” replied ZZ3 from the rear hold.
Nawana spoke up next. “Yes, Captain Khan.”
Hendricks coughed, hawking and spitting into the tube positioned inside the suit before pulling down the visor. “I don’t feel ready,” she said. “But I am.”
Rebekah clicked her own visor into place. Back to the full sweatbox. She eyed the fluttering mass ahead and surprised herself when a thumb unexpectedly cracked. Death had followed her since the day her Pa had been murdered. The Marines an obvious path for one with few talents. A search for meaning, for justice. What a fucking joke that had been. The killing so repetitive, laced with drugs and yet another noble’s drive for honour. Rarely, though, had she ever seen a place like this. Where the killing had already been done, and nature took its course. Seeking survival in a world turned upside down.
“Sweeping starboard,” she said, guiding the Airstrike along the outer edge of Avemark, surveying the town while the suit’s HUD filed sensor data down one side.
“I ain’t got no hotspots,” Hendricks said, hands cupping the co-pilot’s screen as she leaned forward. “Nothing but fucking birds.”
Rebekah eye-clicked the central core map, continuing to sweep the aircraft to the right with the nose pointing towards the town centre. Birds rose in a clatter of caws, wings and talons as they fought to gain the air. What had started as a few swiftly escalated and soon the sky turned black and grey, blotting out the dull, dust-filled cloud above. Rebekah resisted the urge to power up the engines, they were shielded, and winced as she realised what was coming.
The thumps started in ones or twos, soon ballooning into a cacophony. Caws and cries reverberated through the cockpit as they were swallowed by a rising tide of corvid and gull. The Airstrike cut a swathe through the avian descendants of old Earth. The progeny of the preserved embryos and eggs that had first travelled the stars with the aid of the Senti. Most of the animals borne from their old world lived on. It was only humanity the Butcher had deigned to kill.
“Clearing,” she said, one eye on the data pouring into her visor. The flock thinned out, the town below blanketed in falling feathers and a sea of death. Half-rotten, twisted, fed-upon bodies lay piled against the buildings where the rush of a ship’s impact had thrown them like rag dolls.
“Some haven,” Nawana said. “I knew many of the survivors of the plague had come here, Khan. Away from the city, food still growing in the fields. Didn’t work out so well.” There was a catch in the soldier’s voice, her words hoarse. “Not many of us survived the first wave ‒ the Ingblack ‒ and now those that did …”
Rebekah felt an urge to apologise. To say something about the choice she had faced, the commodore. To save millions, the bulk of humanity remaining in the system, who survived on planets and stations as yet untouched by the Butcher. But it was ash on her tongue as she stared at the open grave below.
“Difficult choices,” stated ZZ3, cutting in. The warbot sounded distant at first, almost as if it spoke hidden thoughts aloud. That pause. “Made by people who cared about the impact but saw a bigger picture. It is not something I would like to have to choose.”
Rebekah’s neck hair prickled. There were advanced versions of warbots, but only one that contemplated the choice over who lives and who dies.
Nawana stayed her fears. “Yeah, ZZ3. You got that right. But fuck, man, when it stops being data and becomes people … reality sucks.”
“That is something I am discovering is truer every day,” replied the warbot.
Rebekah dipped the Airstrike lower, pointing towards the identified node and eased over the town. The thrusters rippled splintered wood, fractured tiles and the exposed dead. She needed this over with.
“I still got nothing.” Hendricks pressed back into the seat and glanced her way. “No power sources I can pick up. No movement, no bots carrying out that bastard’s orders.”
Rebekah swallowed. She knew she couldn’t go down there. It was too much. “ZZ3 …”
“Yes, Captain.”
Mechanical feet crunched into the rubble, ZZ3 reaching the pinnacle of the mound to survey the town ahead. The birds had begun to return. Clumps forming, indications of where the warbot could bypass the worst of the bodies. Avoiding these was a priority; the half-faces spied from the Airstrike dragging back memories stored in its data bank. A history of death, some of it kill or be destroyed, but much could be regarded as murder. Not the crushing of an enemy, but the clearance of a threat not yet emerged. Some of the family blocks had been …
No. Do not. The extrapolations are dangerous. If I get hooked in, there is no Asham to pull me out.
ZZ3 shivered. Servos jittering, limbs vibrating once. The schematic dropped in, mapping the conduits that surrounded the core node like a spider’s web. Beneath the town was one of many such access points, and the indications hinted it was inert, unlike the last few they had encountered. The warbot stomped down the hill, sensors on alert, aware that any threat posed would likely come in the form of other bots. Life seemed to have ended in a stroke. At least that was one less tool for the Butcher to wield here.
Birds scattered before him, ignored as the warbot clambered over blocks and soil, tracking each conduit in turn. None were powered up. If a Butcher variant was here, he wasn’t going anywhere else unless he physically dug itself out or … ZZ3 flagged the laser comms and headed in that direction. They were positioned conveniently above the node on the roof of a reinforced three-storey Court building.
Ten minutes and the warbot emerged from the broken remains of a shop front to stand before the half-buried remains of the comms installation. The roof was swept clear; the combination of dished and arrayed comms dashed into a tangle of shattered electronics swinging from the ledge, birds roosting on them, digesting their most recent meal.
“Captain, the laser unit is inoperable. Destroyed, and there is no sign of any attempt to reconstruct them. All conduits are inert. However, the building housing the node remains intact.” ZZ3 ran a second scan while waiting for a reply, not liking what it saw. This was the third such node they had reconnoitred as they headed for the mountain range. Two had shown signs that some variant of the Butcher was functioning. Bots busying themselves, most digging either for conduits, or in one case trying to access a factory unit. The factory no longer existed; the Airstrike finishing what Srenik’s crashed ship couldn’t. Each had been warmer than the surrounding area.
“Withdraw,” said Rebekah. “We need to get moving, see what remains beyond the Spikes.”
ZZ3 understood the urgency. The colloquial name for the Avemark Range aside, indications were the destruction beyond them would be less. The possibility of survivors higher, and the Butcher being operative even more so. A last sweep before they attempted to repeat their call for help, or were forced to go in search of it.
But there was a nag. A sticking point in the data stream. Blue eyes swirled and settled on red. “I would like permission to search the node.”
“ZZ3 …” The warbot analysed the tone. The reluctance in the captain’s voice. Then trust that healed something inside. The hollow where Asham had been closing a little more. “Okay. If you regard it as worthwhile. Need us?”
ZZ3’s gaze swept across the rubbled street, the bodies poking out, leering eye sockets where the crows had plucked their contents free. “No.”
“Copy that. Call in regularly, and keep your tracking engaged. We’ll set down and clean up the engine shielding. You have twenty minutes tops before I send in the Dricks’ cavalry.”
“Understood.” ZZ3 filed the joking concern in the captain’s voice, and raised itself up, ignoring the tumble of brick and glass as the warbot stepped through the remains of the shop front. As it approached, the birds left their perches, the air filling with warning cries. ZZ3 reached the main doors, quickly assessing access would take longer than time allowed. The warbot moved around the building, stepping carefully on reaching the rear and a much narrower street filled with a tangle of wire and machine. Comms relays that it shoved aside. Little destruction had been wrought here, and the sunken entrance down a set of steps took seconds to clear. ZZ3 eyed the lock. It was inoperative. Reduced to a simple deadlock as power faded and the battery failed. Three punches, and the metal-shod door caved in, exposing the physical lock which ZZ3 sliced free with a hand cutter while life skittered about the alley. Rats and cats running from hidey-holes into piles of rubbish.
ZZ3 entered.
Darkness reigned. The cameras as inert as the conduits, the security systems dead. No alarm, silent or not, warned of its presence. But ZZ3 knew something was here. The warmth had risen another degree.
A trail.
Running limbs along the corridor walls, the warbot strode on, the gap in the broken door providing just enough ambient light to maintain night vision. A left turn, then a right, and that came to an end. Warmer still, but silent, ZZ3 switched on its lights at a bare minimum, careful not to heat the trail. A thump and the warbot was through another door and descended a set of steps. Two degrees now, and the air was damp, the humidity rapidly increasing.
ZZ3 ignored the next level, following the icons on the walls, heading for the node. Another flight of stairs, and it reached the base. The lift door was half-open, as dead as the building, with nothing hanging out ready to pounce. This trail wasn’t like the one at the first distribution node they had hit, not an easy route because the Butcher had already been there. The building was as dead as the town. But not what lay beyond the next door.
Sensors flashed more data. The door was another three degrees hotter; the heat bleeding into the corridor. Prepared, the warbot cracked the door jamb and ripped the exposed deadlock clear. With the door between it and the room beyond, ZZ3 peeked around as a wave of warmth rolled over, beads forming on exposed armoured plate as the humidity struck. A mist billowed, clearing as it rolled along the ceiling, squeezing past the warbot to swirl about the stairwell.
It was a cleansing area, the equipment unresponsive, and ZZ3 entered, bypassing the security checkpoint, a flick of an arm bending the restraining bars out of the way. The other side had corpses. Bloated, black about throats or spilling from lips. Long dead, and ZZ3 walked by. Dual doors emerged from the dissipating mist, just like those back in the capital, the plexi-glass version steamed up. More heat, more vapour.
The control room door gave easily; the inside a disgusting mess of what had once been human. More Ingblack, but the panel remained alive, though ZZ3 wasn’t sure how. The heat register was way beyond normal tolerable levels for a server room. A check showed the coolant system was empty, the emergency backup having also failed.
Hence the humidity. Bleeding somewhere into the node.
A tinkle of glass, and the warbot strode inside. The server room was laid out differently from the distribution centre. This was core storage. A place for copied databases, or at least part of them, the search patterns ramped up by splitting the information between storage nodes. A super-fast system that required the conduits to function.
Heat and water vapour emanated from a central section, and around it the first movement ZZ3 had seen since entering. A single bot, manoeuvring along a huge crack in the floor, pipes split and spraying vapour. The metal was nearing critical stress. Soon, the leak would be a torrent.
“ZZ3.” The words reverberated from behind the spray, and the warbot zoomed in. There was a set of linked servers on the other side alongside a processing node with conduit fibre wrapped around. The voice emanated from above, the inner alarm speaker. The voice spoke again. Faint. “ZZ3.”
Asham.
“I am here.” The warbot stepped through the spray to stand before the processing core. “What is happening here, Asham?”
“This is a copy. I am a copy. Asham entered the distribution system and recognised he was not enough. He spread along the functioning conduits, seeding copies in those systems he could reach. But the Butcher … the Butcher remains strong in places. Overpowering.” The words were fading, as if mimicking the dying system. A thunk, and the bot behind collapsed to the floor. Perhaps it was.
“And here?”
“I won,” said the copy of Asham, voice rising in pitch. “Though I cheated. Once the Butcher copy realised he could not escape after the ship crash, it was too late. I destroyed the last conduit, burnt it out, and while the Butcher railed and struck out, I over-pressurised the cooling system. They’re mad, ZZ3. Insane. He wiped itself rather than lose to me.” Asham laughed, each bark fading into nothing.
“And the others? There’s more?”
“Many more, beyond the mountains. Each vying to overpower and absorb the others. Take their resources ‒ their processing cores, the power units ‒ to be the one and only Butcher.”
“And Asham, these copies?” ZZ3 shuffled, tracking the heat and humidity, aware it may eventually take a toll on its own systems. Time was short, and this version of Asham wasn’t going to remain powered for long. Nor did ZZ3 want to take it back into its system. The threat of the Butcher remained. Words could be lies as easily as truths, and by the time ZZ3 analysed Asham’s code, it would be too late.
“I do not know. But my battle was fortunate. The Butcher limited by circumstance, and sanity. Blinded. The others may not be so constrained.” The servers’ lights flashed, the amber draining into red, and even those flickered. “I won…” were its final words.
ZZ3 rechecked the power systems, conscious this could all be a Butcher trick. Satisfied that everything was within acceptable parameters, ZZ3 retrieved a timed grenade and attached it centrally next to the power cable ingress. On reaching the stairwell, the explosion rocked the room, while ZZ3’s electronic mind processed Asham’s words.
Chapter 33
Almaar
ZZ3 settled and maglocked to the hold deck as the Airstrike rose in line with the valley, wind buffeting, rain pummelling. The aircraft was built tough, and the pilot tougher. The valley head was smothered in cloud, dirty, roiling in the wind as it blew between the two spiked mountain tops to curl over the ridgeline and drop downwards towards the foothills and an agricultural plain on the other side. Twenty clicks past the hills lay the coast, and beyond that, many hours of flight time to Razen, the smallest continental landmass but the most likely to have survived the ship crash intact.
Rebekah squeezed the control, manually readjusting for the rise in wind speed and change in direction while eye-clicking the virtual control panel. She set it to auto-adjust thrusters and engines, to compensate for the fast-changing weather much swifter than she could.
“We could be in space,” she said, a glance over to Hendricks accompanied by a smirk. “You know, out in the black. Surrounded by … nothing.”
“That’s thoughtful of you. Remind me of something worse than being battered by nature in all its human-affected glory.” Her cheeks were a little green, and she kept swallowing. “I’m too old for this. Your body changes, you know? Things that were easy or ignored impinge on you more. Your mind can’t leave behind what’s bothering you.”
Rebekah nodded, her thoughts sliding over to Michael, Stig. The girls. They would all assume she was dead. Be grieving, and most worryingly, making stupid decisions they shouldn’t. Well, not Michael. Most likely he’d go back to normality. Their relationship was only a few months old, after all. Probably it meant more to her than him. She eyed Hendricks.
“You going to marry him? Arin?” She didn’t know where that had come from. But she had said it, so she might as well go all in.
Hendricks froze, blinking. Her cheeks less green, more red. “Where the hell did that come from? We’re flying through a thunderstorm on a world turned into a mass grave, and you ask me that?”
“Yeah?” The wind blew them sideways, the navcom quickly compensating. “Well?”
“He’ll never ask.” The blush rose.
Rebekah snorted. “He doesn’t have to. Gives me a reason to survive the next few weeks. Come on, do it. I can see you both with a Danish covered wedding cake,” she laughed, “with sprinkles.”
