2.38 seconds. That was the window, the time after she woke up yet before the bot could fire again. She stood up and took a step towards the bot. She needed to be as close as possible. Another step, and the bot rose to the corner of the ceiling, she could feel it charging. She jumped and tried to swat it with her one good hand. She knew she wouldn’t touch it, but that wasn’t the point. The dumb little bot did as it was supposed to do and hit her with a small pulse charge. She fell to the ground.
The bot started recharging immediately. 3.42 seconds later Silana’s eyes popped open and she jumped up again and slapped the bot against the concrete wall while it was still recharging, before it could hit her again with an energy blast. The shell was made of a thin layer of light and tough alacyte, but not strong enough to withstand Silana’s blow. The Starwell bot fell to the floor and Silana picked it up and threw it on the ground as hard as she could. It cracked in half like an egg and spilled its guts, wires and smoke and small shiny bits.
She started ripping out components, everything connected via thin fibers. Under the retractable surgical arm she found what she was looking for: the laser. It was painfully small. She’d never have thought of it if it hadn’t taken her arm off. She only hoped it was big enough.
Through the tiny window on the door all she could see was the hall that led down to the storage area the old man used as his private junk yard. She couldn’t see if anyone was in the lab. So she focused on a shiny, round bowl on the shelf, which gave her a stretched and distorted mirror image of the lab. She stared at the still picture, waiting for movement, a hint that the creator was working. But nothing. So she aimed the laser at the hairline crack near the lower hinge and slowly cut into the wall. She grabbed part of the bot’s arm and used it to pry away bits of concrete.
After twenty minutes there was a pile of fine sand and pebbles at her feet and a hole in the wall leading to a thick, brown metal hinge. The door was alacyte and she knew she couldn’t make a dent in it, but the part of the hinge that was sunk into the concrete was iron. She aimed the tiny laser at the old piece of metal it went from brown to orange, then cherry red. Soon red molten iron dripped on top of the pile of sand, smoke rising toward the intake vents on the ceiling. Suddenly, the top of the door moved slightly, dust falling down onto the ground as the lower hinge gave way and the door shifted a few millimeters flush against the jamb.
Silana stopped and stared at the reflection of the lab in the bowl. Still no Vellosian, just blue tanks and a hover bot minding the water, both elongated and surreal. She put the laser down for a moment to cool and checked her power level: 28%. She wondered if the little laser had enough juice to take out the upper hinge. She pushed against the lower part of the door with her good hand and more dust fell down but the door didn’t budge. Yet.
Certain Things We’d Love to Know
Duval
8 days left
Merthon sat up in the dark and rubbed his temples, his face wet with sweat. His tiny cot one level above the lab was damp. His beautiful synthetic girls that he had originally designed to be domestic help for the core planets, the ones warped by the BG, had tormented him all night in his dreams. Red, pulsating daggers throbbed and jabbed inside his head. There was a loud blast that had awoken him and he didn’t know if it was the synth girls running riot in his mind or something else. Something real.
Morning would not come for hours but the problem still burned inside him. Jamis left him a door, an escape, a way to crush a large part of the Bakanhe Grana force. But time was running out and answers to a question such as this required a lab. Creating another lab in the midst of a war, on the run, a refugee from yet another destroyed planet, would be difficult.
He slipped on his tunic and the clumsy boots he wore that almost fit his thin, Vellosian feet, and wound his way up the spiral stairs that led to the kitchen. He made tea in the dark, then took the lift topside. Sometimes he liked to see the stars in the quiet, before all hell broke loose. Evacuation had finally taken the fore. Fighting the BG, taking down towers, had been a distraction from reality. But the facts of their situation had settled in and taken root in their hearts. It was time to say goodbye.
The two moons lit up the puffy white clouds and he could almost make out blue sky. Three transports waited on the deck to move people, food, and weapons. A girl sat near the edge of the ravine with her arms around her knees. She had brown hair down to her shoulders and had on the smooth leather boots pilots wore long ago.
“Katy?” he said.
“Vellosians don’t sleep?” she said, looking up at the stars, almost hidden in the moonlight.
“Nor do pilots I suppose.” They looked at the stars
