The seraph engine old ch.., p.6
The Seraph Engine (Old Chrome Book 1), page 6
He tried to guess how far they had gone. Were they halfway up the corridor? With no point of reference, any true estimate was impossible.
From in front of them came the softest hum. A servomotor or several, the tiny actuators which moved the individual components on a robot. Just in front of them somewhere.
Miles tried to stop the marshal, but the man exhaled sharply when they collided.
A tiny red light came to life before them. The faint LED might as well have been a signal beacon. One of the bots had been waiting in ambush, and now it would bring the others their way.
He pulled the marshal down to the ground with him, raising the burner and thumbing it on, targeting just below the light. The spider rose. Its feet tap-danced on stone as it pivoted about. Miles fired.
Sent two more shots into the thing. The bot reeled and fell, but it was
impossible to see what it was doing as its metal limbs began to crash repeatedly against the walls and floor of the ladder room.
A stray laser burst flashed from the bot and struck the ceiling above them.
Miles fired again twice. His aiming app kept distracting him, demanding more information, as it had no target. Too dark. The slow declining whine from the bot sounded promising. The red light vanished. But if the killer drone was dying, it was taking its sweet time. And it had gone dark while waiting for them once before.
He heard faint metal footsteps. They couldn’t wait in the middle of the tunnel any longer.
He helped the marshal back up. “Get your light on.”
It took a moment to adjust as the marshal shone the beam around on the ground. It was almost painfully bright, but at the same time it felt reassuring just seeing the white light. The bot was indeed down and not moving, twin blade arms splayed before it.
“You got it,” Barma said. “We need to leave.”
Miles pointed back down the straight corridor. “This way.”
“That’s not the way out.”
“No, it isn’t. But more are coming. Now walk faster.”
Keeping the light shielded as best as possible, they hurried around the corner where they had first taken cover. Then they began to run.
Chapter Ten
nother ladder took them even lower. Miles strained his ears. If the bots were staying together in a group, they were either A
moving slower than before or hadn’t figured out which of the two remaining tunnels they had gone down. But he didn’t want to wait to see if their luck would hold. They needed a place where they could barricade themselves, or at worst, a better chokepoint.
Five shots left in the burner. It had taken five to knock out the single spider bot. Had this one been armored?
They were walking now, careful as to not trip or touch anything which might make a sound. But the light couldn’t be helped.
They paused twice to search piles of old equipment in the hope of finding anything useful. Extra batteries would have been nice, or more lights. Miles stumbled a few times, keeping the marshal and the flashlight beam ahead of him. His feet struck multiple chunks of debris, and he almost twisted an ankle in a crack. Not only was his black suit scuffed and torn, but his polished boots now looked like work footwear in the service of a road crew drudge.
They came to a metal ramp which descended to a wide opening where a wall appeared to have collapsed, revealing a gaping space beyond. The interior framework left off, and the rocky ceiling had no braces. A natural cave of some kind, Miles guessed. The ramp was slick and rusted. Descending unburdened would be tricky enough.
Anyone trying to shove a load of ore up the ramp would risk life and limb. They both kept a hand on the wall as they eased their way down to the chamber floor.
Moisture clung to the air. Miles inhaled. The dusty smell choking the mine was barely noticeable here. Was that a breeze? Miles felt it on his nose and paused to affirm he wasn’t imagining it.
A single tunnel led into the gray rock at the far end of the cave. A piece of machinery stood on one side of the passage. An old generator. But the marshal wasn’t waiting for Miles to inspect it.
He directed the light down the new passageway. “This just keeps going and going.”
Miles showed him the burner’s battery charge. The marshal set his jaw before leading the way.
Water seeped from the walls and ceiling. Broad patches of red formed along each of the miniscule fissures, and where the water flowed to the ground, a soapy white film formed. Past another smaller chamber, the surfaces appeared unnaturally smoother.
Miles ran a hand along the quartz. “Someone’s worked this.”
“Lots of mines out here, some really old from before.”
How it all hadn’t come crashing down over the centuries was beyond Miles’ understanding. Little else had survived man’s departure. If this was it, the mine stood as a sad, wanting testament to their troubled past. But the generator wasn’t that old. And the topside shaft had been built by someone since the return.
“And what brought you to Seraph, marshal?”
“I thought we were supposed to stay quiet.” After following the smooth tunnel for several minutes, he said, “Family of greenhouse farmers. Some of the first who saw living outside of Meridian was not only feasible but advantageous.”
“You didn’t get the green thumb?”
“I can plant and grow as well as anybody. But with advantage and profit comes those who would prey on the desert settlers. Seraph needs law keepers. And what puts your sorry backside on the express train from River City?”
“Just wanted to see the country after my retirement.”
The marshal made an expansive gesture to the surrounding mine. “Drink it in. So what happened to that last robot? Your deadeye not working down here?”
“Too dark for a target. And whatever’s in the mine after us isn’t a dummy drone popping off burner blasts indiscriminately. These might be armored.”
“Creepers got what they wanted from the train. Doesn’t make sense to be hunting us down.”
“Taking care of any witnesses, maybe.”
The marshal grunted. “Maybe. Or some old legacy unit who didn’t get the notice the fight’s over and has it in for returnees.”
A deep hum resonated through the air, followed by a metallic shudder and squeal. It sounded large, and the clamor echoed for a moment. The direction of the sound was difficult to tell. But turning back wasn’t an option.
The marshal kept the light at their feet, and they stuck to a wall as they descended a slope. Dribbles of water formed a steady trickle which flowed down the center of the floor. More mechanical noises broke the silence ahead of them. Miles stepped into the lead and edged ahead, his burner aimed.
Glowing lights flashed against a wall. Something large began moving. Scraping. The hum grew louder as the machine came to life.
It was as large as a transport truck, with articulated limbs.
Why had it started? His proximity or was it being controlled remotely?
Starlike yellow and orange bulbs winked on and began flashing.
Hazard lights. This was no combat drone but a digging machine. It adjusted its position, planting feet down on the stone floor. Its limbs moved to a surface of the rock, and a deep-throated buzz began. A cloud of white dust erupted from where the bot touched the mine’s wall. It began working the surface with a wide apparatus which appeared to be planing or smoothing the mineral face. The fog bank of rock dust clotted the air.
The earsplitting noise made talking difficult. Miles signaled they continue forward, and they edged past the mining bot. Both kept a wary eye on the machine lest it turn on them, but the bot continued in its task, oblivious to their presence.
“That thing on an automated timer?” Barma asked.
Miles shielded his nose and mouth and kept moving.
They came to a split in the shaft. Miles chose a direction. With the bot behind them, they could manage to hear each other, although once again the darkness reasserted itself.
“Why do you think it didn’t attack us?” the marshal asked.
“I’m no bot expert, but maybe it has nothing to do with the spiders. Because if it does, then they know where we are.”
“Which means we should have blasted it.”
“It wasn’t attacking. I’m saving my half-battery for when we need it.”
The marshal grumbled something, sounding unconvinced.
The breeze reasserted itself, a welcome gasp of clean air after choking on the dust cloud. A branching corridor led to a large elevator, a heavy-duty lift which might accommodate a large machine like they had seen. Miles made a quick examination. The lift had a control panel which was powered down. He hit one of the buttons. Nothing. There was both a key switch and a card scanner, and they had neither. A search through a set of equipment lockers found nothing.
The marshal left Miles in darkness as he examined the elevator.
He rattled the cage a few times before opening a sliding grate.
Directed the light upward.
“Safety ladder.”
He waited for Miles to go first. Miles put the burner away and climbed. The solid hatchway at the top of the ladder led them to the sealed elevator compartment. Once the marshal arrived with the light, Miles discovered a hinged gate leading out. Before opening it, he put a finger to his lips and then pointed to the flashlight. The marshal turned it off.
The squeak from the gate couldn’t be helped as Miles inched it open. The faintest light came down from a graded track leading to the starlit sky. A dull haze hung over the celestial bodies, a legacy from the Caretaker War, a sea of fragments and space trash in low earth orbit which had eliminated every satellite in a volatile chain reaction of collisions and separated Earth’s population from Luna and the last of the habitats within the solar system.
They emerged into a broad lot surrounded by rock. More machines stood around them. Weather-beaten and sandblasted, the plastic and steel hunkered among rifts of windswept debris.
The marshal plonked down on a steel tool trunk.
Miles surveyed the path leading out to the desert. “We can’t stop here. We’re exposed.”
“And I’m tired. We need to rest. We need water.”
“We need not to get burned down by those things.”
Miles had led and been led numerous times and had seen his share of fatigue. It required varying degrees of finesse and tough love. Sometimes a barked order or threat would work, other times consideration and kindness. His last commander had used fear and physical abuse to extract the last gram of effort from his flagging troops. But the most memorable had been a turncoat caretaker who had sided with the returnees.
Carol Flag.
The thick-necked redhead never raised her voice above the soft tone you’d use with someone with which you shared a pillow. She’d be there to grip your hand when you were bleeding or help you up by the elbow when stopping wasn’t an option. She once got one old fighter in his company who had finally crumbled mentally after seeing her squad wiped by a drone strike to keep plugging away. Carol had whispered consoling promises to her for five minutes, all while under fire.
Miles was no Carol Flag. They couldn’t count on the spiders not to come after them just because they had stepped outside of the mine.
He left the marshal sitting where he was, hoping the third option of motivating an exhausted trooper would pay off. No one wanted to be left behind. It worked. Like a child whose tantrum had been ignored, the marshal caught up with Miles, his feet shuffling.
They emerged past a cut in a rock formation where the road led into a desert illuminated in blue moonlight. Stunted trees and hillocks of raised earth lined the way ahead. Around them lay a field of shin-high rocks, with plenty of sticker bushes and leg-busting fissures hiding beneath them. A hundred spiders might be concealed out there. A quick scan revealed no lights or recognizable shapes, but in the poor light, Miles didn’t trust his eye tech.
The cacophony of noise echoing from the mining machine they had left behind them carried from the ground. Then the sound wound down, fading into a shrill whine and then silence.
Had something or someone switched it off?
Time to move.
They would follow the road, hoping it would lead to either of the substations or circle back to the tracks. Instead, it led them eastward, leaving the mine and the hill behind them.
Chapter Eleven
ven Miles was ready to drop to the dirt and rest, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that stopping meant dying. Something was E
out there. His instincts screamed it. Distance from their pursuers was their only chance of making it out of the barren wilds alive.
He focused on the next step and tried not to think about how parched his throat had become. It felt as if he had eaten dust as it lined his mouth. He couldn’t spit. Somewhere along the line he had lost his coat. The card to his son was in there. He paused to look behind him but saw only the marshal, who almost bumped into him as he followed along in a stupor.
Have to go back, he wanted to say. But even in his mental fog, he knew the coat and the card were gone. He would write another. He hadn’t put any of his thoughts down and realized there might not be anything worth saying.
I’m sorry I screwed up your life. I wish I had been there for you, had loved you more, had known you.
Trite excuses, platitudes, apologies—Dillan would see through them all and laugh in his face. Best to make his appointment, meet with the surgeon, and have a delivery service get Dillan the credit chip. From Dad. Short, simple, and no attempt at extracting any kind of conciliatory expression from a son who hated his father.
Had to survive first. Get the marshal and a train full of people to safety. Figure out why a bunch of robots were lingering to commit murder after a perfectly good robbery which should never have been this successful.
He ignored the part of himself that relished the fact that he was so engrossed in the events of the past few hours that he hadn’t once thought of his departed wife Seo Yeun, her eyes, her face, her smell, the way she snored and took forever to brush her teeth and wash up before bed.
This was how he lost himself during his shifts. There was always someone to save, one more detail which needed to be logged and
processed to keep a case from unraveling, another lead to follow, someone not his son or wife who required a push in the right direction to escape a bad situation. Yet how many of the ones he had ‘saved’ would leave the safety and care of a hospital or return to an abusive mate once Miles had gone home? Too many. Meanwhile, his own family disintegrated one shift at a time.
He and the marshal walked side by side. Had the ground begun to slope? The slight grade made walking easier, and the soft dirt gave way to gravel.
Lights glowed ahead of them.
The train, he thought dully. But that was impossible. They were heading the wrong direction.
A row of two-floor structures lay sandwiched between a pair of flat hills. Lights shone from several windows. Miles took a moment to stare at the sight to confirm it was real and wouldn’t evaporate in the night air or transform into some new mechanical horror before his eyes.
Was that music?
The clinking of a piano was suddenly unmissable, an off-tune jaunty rag like something out of a serial set in another era.
“Where are we?” Miles asked.
The marshal took a moment to work up the moisture to speak.
“There’re dozens of small settlements. I don’t know this one.”
They came to a sign at the side of the road. The lettering appeared excessively neat and patterned, with swoops and calligraphy flourishes.
The Place Where We Sang the Night Hymnal
Painted flowers and vines decorated the corners of the sign. A stack of rocks held the signpost in place. But nothing explained the words. Miles dismissed the riddle of it as unimportant. If someone wanted to designate a spot in the desert as sacred, it was their business.
They needed water and rest. They had murder bots chasing them. And if the hamlet had power, they had a means of communicating and calling for help.
A few vehicles stood parked between the buildings. Some had tarps over them. But otherwise, besides several stacks of storage crates, the settlement had no litter. The windows and structures were intact, and the drab faces of each building were crack-free and shined as if freshly printed with whatever sun-protected laminate went into the material.
Miles stepped heavily onto the wooden walkway leading to a lit storefront from where the music played. Through the window, he saw that the interior of the establishment held three round tables set with cloth and a vase with artfully arranged flowers. A bar stood to one side, and a lean figure played at an upright piano. There were no other patrons.
Miles touched the door. It resisted, then a vacuum seal broke and the door opened with a soft whoosh. The piano player stopped. He rose from his bench and stood taller than most men Miles had ever seen. The man’s build reminded Miles of the chief engineer who had gone missing: excessively lean and of slight build. Silver clasps on the man’s suspenders held a polish, and a turquoise stone on his string tie sparkled.
He gave Miles and the marshal a toothy smile. “Welcome to The Gypsum. Welcome! Welcome! Take a seat!”
“Water and a phone,” Miles rasped.
Behind him, the marshal eased himself into a chair.
The piano player rounded the bar and grabbed a clear bottle, which appeared to hold water. “Of course, of course. I’m Mr. Zoon.
This is my place. You boys look like you were out in it.”
He poured two stemmed glasses. Miles took the first off the bar and swished his mouth. Tasted more sand than water, but confirmed it wasn’t anything alcoholic. When Mr. Zoon turned his back for a moment, Miles spat onto the floor before taking a drink, then another, then finishing the glass and reaching for the bottle. The water felt soapy in his mouth. Too soft and needed minerals, perhaps made from a vapor collector or reverse osmosis. But Miles could be choosy another time.
