Zero mech chronicles boo.., p.19
Zero (Mech. Chronicles Book 1), page 19
It winked at him and he almost jumped. The eyelid was transparent. Then its other lid closed. Each lid opened back up a split second apart. He gave it a wide berth when it did that, and its mouth curled into a cruel smile. It was amused by his cowardice. It stood up and turned his way, winking and blinking rapidly.
Frad turned around and yelled at the Dosian, “Knock that shit off. He’s new here. You bastards scare the shit out of everyone with that eye blinking crap.”
The Dosian smirked and said in a rough, crackly, Beetar-inflected voice, “I was just saying hello.”
“That’s not how you say hi. Stop being a dick.”
The Dosian laughed in a high-pitched, whiny voice, and turned from them to retake his or her seat.
Frad said, “Don’t mind them. They’re actually pretty funny when you get used to them.”
He liked Frad already. Maybe he’d misjudged the Beetars. Frad seemed like a gutter-mouthed Beetar with a happy-go-lucky nature that was infectious. He reminded him of a fisherman he’d met once when he was a kid. That fisherman looked like he ate bullets for breakfast and punched people for fun, but when he spoke there was genuine joy in his voice. He was a man who enjoyed his own existence with an almost detached bemusement, like he just couldn’t believe he’d gotten lucky enough to live his life the way he did.
Frad had that same quality about him. He was an everyman sort, except that he wasn’t a man, he was a Beetar.
Zero caught up to him and asked, “What the hell is that slime running down their faces and why don’t they clean it up? It’s disgusting.”
“They have overactive mucous membranes. And why should they clean it up just because it bothers you? The problem is yours. You’re the one that needs to adjust, not them. Variety is the spice of life. Embrace it.”
Zero’s attempt at making small talk had backfired. Frad was right, of course. He was the newcomer. It was he who had to change his outlook.
He had to duck down to get through the entryway of the building Frad led him into.
Frad said, “I’ll get that widened. Let me know if this place needs to be modified and I’ll get it done. I’d hate for your fat ass to get stuck in a doorway just as gunmen come for me.”
He nodded, aware of how much he stood out in this place.
The foyer of the building was open and elaborately decorated with alien plants and grasses dotting the concrete landscape. Some of the plants swayed and moved on their own. Statues loomed over them as they walked. He had no idea what the hell they depicted though. The planet was truly alien to him in every sense. A plant nipped at his arm as he passed it.
Frad slapped it hard. “Watch out for the plants on Dosia. They’re assholes.”
He smiled, even though he felt nothing akin to humor. He wondered if his dread shone through his smile.
Frad said, “Lucky for you, I’m stationed on the ground floor of the building.” He was alluding to the fact that the stairs going up were too narrow for him, and the elevators were far too small for him to fit inside.
They walked into a large room devoid of the plant life he’d seen along the way.
“This is my office and domicile. I’m almost always in here, so get acquainted with the layout. When I have to attend a meeting or a function, you’ll be the first to know. Have a seat at my desk and we’ll chat.”
He sat down and broke the chair.
Frad laughed and said, “On second thought, just stand. I’ll have a steel chair built to your specifications by tomorrow.”
Zero apologized and moved the wreckage aside with his foot.
Frad said, “You don’t talk much, do you?”
“I do. I’m just nervous.”
“Good. I want you to be on edge around here. I’ve already had two attempts on my life in the past week. Ever since that debacle at Cogmore, the Dosians have rallied together in an attempt to shuck off Beetar influence. It’s a shame. We’re only here to help, but suddenly they’re looking at us like we’re the enemy.”
“I was on Cogmore. I saw the way Beetars treated the Cogmores with my own eyes.”
He should not have said that.
Frad’s smile wavered. “My people are not always so kind when we are resisted. The Cogmores certainly presented a challenge. But that has nothing to do with why I’m here. Dosia is being invited into a union with my people. We’re not trying to subdue them or manipulate them to our own ends. Quite the contrary, we’re trying to help them advance to our level.”
He resisted the urge to ask if the Dosians were as eager about the union as the Beetars were.
Frad continued, “The empire is huge. One end of it doesn’t behave exactly like the other. For the Dosians to equate Beetar/Cogmore relations the same as Beetar/Dosian relations is absurd. It’s completely different. You see that, don’t you?”
He was starting to. “I can understand the difference.”
“What you have to understand is that if I’m killed down here, my people will treat it like an act of war. Everything I’ve worked toward will be toppled with my death. I can’t allow that.”
Zero pulled his guns out to show Frad exactly what was protecting him. “I wouldn’t worry about attacks. I’ve got your back.” He thought about turning his thrusters on too, but he knew that would probably burn the office to the ground.
He expected Frad to clap or smile or something, but instead he stood up fearfully and said, “How are you able to pull your weapons in my presence?”
“I don’t understand the question.” He put the guns away and the hatches in his thighs cinched shut.
“Your programming shouldn’t allow you to deploy your weapons around my people except in extreme cases where we need protection from an attacker.”
He had to think fast. “I’ve been through a lot, sir. Maybe my programming is wonky from all the battles I’ve survived.” He knew that was a lie, but he had to calm Frad down before he got worried enough to have him checked out.
Frad sat again and said, “They sent me a robot with buggy programming, huh? That sounds like something high command would do. Oh well, you’ll have to do. Just don’t pull your guns out around me, okay?”
“Yes sir.”
“Stop calling me ‘sir.’ Call me Frad.”
He nodded. He felt like a fool. “Where will I be stationed?”
Frad looked over his shoulder. “You’ll be staying here, in this room, with me. There are three chargers on the far wall back there.”
“Oh.”
“I know it’s unusual, but I need you by my side at all times in case an attack occurs.”
“I understand. I’ll try to keep to myself.”
“Nonsense. Do whatever you want, as long as you stand between me and the bullets.”
A smile crept across his face. He was liking Frad more and more.
He stood up and said, “I need to urinate.”
Zero nodded and waited for him to leave.
He started to walk from the office. “You have to come with me.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’ll get used to this.”
He followed him back out into the foyer and then through a door. He went inside and told him to take his post outside the doorway until he was done. He wasn’t sure what to do, so he blocked it from anyone who might have wanted to go in.
Passing Dosians ogled him fearfully and took a wide berth around him. One foolish Dosian tried to squeeze past him, until it felt a hand on its chest gently shoving it backwards. It hissed an indecipherable language at Zero, but eventually left.
After a few minutes, Frad returned. “Good job, Zero. I was using Dosian security before you got here, but those assholes would just wander off whenever they got bored. We’re going to get along just fine.”
He thought so too.
XXVI
✨
Diplomat Security
HE STOOD GUARD outside the office door for an hour and then, when it was clear no threats were imminent, wandered inside and took up a post at the back of the room. He saw a pantry tucked away in the corner and a makeshift bed along the wall towards the back. Frad carried himself well, but he was living like a college freshman. There was a little steel door set into the floor that he assumed was a panic room in case he was ever overrun by enemies.
Frad sat at his desk and conducted teleconference calls all day, sometimes speaking to Dosians in their language and sometimes in Beetar. When he spoke in Beetar, Zero could understand what he said.
He was explaining to various groups of Dosians how mutually beneficial an alliance with the Beetars could be, both financially and intellectually. He also spent some time explaining that threats on his life were no longer an issue. He tilted his camera Zero’s way to show them he was there to protect him. He explained that since he was here, talks could resume and must resume quickly. He heard him mention high command on more than one occasion, and each time his voice strained, like he hated to bring it up.
Zero started to daydream a couple of times, but he caught himself before his mind wandered too far. He had to be ready for anything. He had to stay alert. Frad’s life depended on it.
Frad stood from his chair and approached, saying, “I think you should recharge.”
“But . . . what if you come under attack?”
“It’s getting dark outside, and Dosians, being cold blooded, don’t operate well at night. Plus, I want you at your best, and if your battery is depleted you’re not going to perform optimally.”
Zero nodded and went to the back wall where the charging ports were mounted. He backed into one of them and heard it hiss as it connected with his body. He felt nothing, but he knew Frad probably expected him to shut down as he charged, so he let his head droop and he closed his eyes, mimicking the offline pose.
Frad sighed and whispered, “Why did they have to send me a dumbass?”
It took every ounce of Zero’s willpower to keep still as Frad criticized him.
He knocked on his hip, which was probably as high as Frad could reach on his mammoth body. Then he felt him pull on his gun hatch. He assumed he was checking to see if he’d rigged his hatches so they’d open at any time, regardless of whose company he was in.
Frad seemed satisfied when the hatches stayed in place. Then he heard him shuffle off, rustle around for a few minutes, and then he was silent. He must have gone to bed.
The hatch issue almost became a problem. He’d been modified by Henshaw and by the Cogmores, so it stood to reason that those alterations could play havoc with the rest of his systems. He was glad Frad hadn’t overreacted and insisted on shutting him down.
As he stood there, hooked to the wall, immobile, he fell asleep. He didn’t know he could still do that, but it felt great to give his confused mind a rest.
He awoke to Frad unplugging him from the wall. He had a handheld tablet that he was hooking up to the port Zero had been hooked to.
Frad explained, “I can extrapolate data from the power source. None of you know this, but data is relayed back to the ports as you charge so we can monitor your progress. We only ever do this in extreme cases, though.”
“So why are you doing it to my port?”
He paused and looked up at him. “I need to find out if your database has been intentionally corrupted. I need to find out if you’ve been sent to kill me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“It’s not a stretch of the imagination to think high command might have sent you to kill me and then pin my death on the Dosians to instigate war.”
“No way. I thought Beetars wanted to coexist with the Dosians?”
“You don’t know my people. They want this alliance whether the Dosians want it or not. We’re going the diplomatic route now, but if that fails we’ll get what we want through force.”
Frad stared at the screen, tapped a few buttons, and then threw the tablet at his feet in disgust. “Nothing works around here. Your port didn’t record any info.”
Thank God for that. The last thing he wanted was for Frad’s paranoia to have any basis in reality. He was glad his battery didn’t actually connect to the charger, or else Frad would know everything he’d done, and probably trust him even less than if he found out he was an assassin. He was worse than a hit man: he was so incompetent that he got those around him killed.
Frad said, “I guess we’re just going to have to trust one another, then.”
“No one screwed with my programming before I came here. I’m here to save your life, not end it.”
“I hope that’s right. I’d hate to die for the Beetar cause.”
“It doesn’t sound to me like you’re behind your people or their agenda.”
Frad shrugged, his weird shoulders making a slurping sound as they moved. “My people don’t know what they want. But they always want more. Their greed is their bane, but also their one saving grace. Greed has led them to the forefront of discovery. It has opened up whole new worlds and made the galaxy a smaller, more organized place. But greed is selfish and headstrong. Greed for its own sake is chaos. My people step on either side of that line all the time. I’m just waiting and watching to see which side they eventually fall on.”
He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about specifically, but he had the gist of it figured out. “What will you do if the Beetars end up disappointing you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll cut ties with them. Maybe I’ll work to right the wrongs they cause. But more likely I’ll take the coward’s way out and just go on living my life and adjusting my morals to suit my needs.”
Frad rolled his shiny black eyes and said in a hushed whisper, “You’re not recording this, are you?”
“I wouldn’t know how, even if I could.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter. In a few days, either Dosia will be ours or I’ll be dead. Either way, no one will care that on old fart like me had second thoughts.”
Zero was suddenly losing interest in all of the Beetar intrigue. He wanted easy answers, but he knew that was because he was young and idealistic. The universe was far more nuanced and complicated than he could appreciate. He had no horse in this race. He just had to do his duty. And if it was all going to be over in only a few days, like Frad said, then he wanted to get on with it to get back to Stacey as soon as possible. If that meant he had to kill a bunch of Dosians and save Frad’s life to get there, then so be it.
He said, “I need ammo.”
“Of course. I have just the thing. How much do you need?”
“As much as you can get.”
Frad smiled wickedly. “I like the way you think. Come with me. You’re gonna like this.”
He walked through the foyer and down a flight of stairs. Zero’s feet were too big for the steps so he asked if Frad would mind if he used his rocket boosters. Frad told him to go ahead, and Zero floated down the length of the stairs into a basement with a huge reinforced door blocking their path. The stairs were afire behind him, but they were made of some type of stone, so the little tongues of flame went out on their own.
Frad ran his hand from the top of the door to the bottom and it hissed open. “This is for Beetars only. Even the Dosian high priest isn’t allowed through here.”
He thought Frad expected him to be honored, so he lied. “I’m honored.”
He ducked down, nearly folding himself in half to follow Frad through the door. Inside was a vault. It was no bigger than Frad’s office, but it had crates upon crates of ammo and firearms along one wall, with the other wall lined with food.
Frad waved at the wall of canned and bottled food. “Dosian food would probably kill me in a week, so I get care packages once a month. Some of it is pretty good. I haven’t had to go through the stockpiles of weapons yet, so I’m just as excited as you are to see what’s in here.”
Zero wasn’t excited about weapons. He was excited to know that a few days from now he would get to leave, but to leave he had to survive, and to survive, he might just need some more ammo.
At that very moment the entire building shuddered. Dust fell from the ceiling, and one of the bottles of food fell to the floor and cracked, spilling a black sludge everywhere that smelled like day-old farts to his mechanical olfactory senses.
The building rumbled again, but this time it was accompanied by weird alien screaming.
Frad said, “They’re here for me, Zero!”
“I got this,” he said, as he tore box after box open, looking for ammo for his guns.
Frad pointed at a crate and said, “The ammo in there should be compatible, but it’s illegal for me to supply you with it. Your kind is not allowed to possess it. But under these circumstances, load up.”
He popped the crate open and started filling his forearms with as much of it as would fit. He closed the doors on his arms and said, “Stay here.”
Frad was already holding a mean-looking rifle, so he knew he was ready for the worst, and with Zero protecting him he’d probably get it.
He took a deep breath, pulled his guns, and rushed from the vault.
XXVII
✨
Fight
FRAD’S OFFICE had been reduced to a smoldering cavity. It was quickly filling with armed Dosians wearing protective gear that was plated in armor, but also somewhat mechanized. One of the Dosians picked up a huge chunk of outer wall and thrust it aside like it was nothing. Zero could do the same, but Dosians were slight and brittle-looking. There was no way any of them had that kind of strength without technological help.
