Sweat started to bead up and out of her pores after a half hour of hard hiking towards the military bunker where Tarov was kept. Though it was still early spring and the weather was cool, her strain threatened to overheat her. It wasn’t until the first two miles were under her belt that she started to realize how exhausted she really was. Her gait became sloppy and her breathing labored. She felt how empty her stomach was, how it seemed to hang in her gut like a deflated birthday balloon. Every bit of her skin itched with grime and oil. How desperately she wished for a shower. A bubbling hot bath to vanish into, never to resurface. She still had a job to do, though.
She pressed on.
“Is that it?” Simon asked.
Beth looked around, scanning the tree line and the slope of the mountainsides. Squinting, she noticed a squat concrete structure nestled in the “V” of two steep cliff faces. It was almost impossible to see among the thick forest surrounding it. Beth thought it was similar to looking for a bit of tarp in the vastness of an ocean. Especially since, after closer inspection, it seemed to be covered in a tent of camouflaged netting.
How did he spot it before I did? Beth wondered. She knew Simon could hear her every thought, but he didn’t care to comment.
Beth found a bit of rock to kneel behind as she retrieved the binoculars from her small side pack. When she pulled the lens up to her face, she was surprised to see only a pair of bodyshells standing like statues beside what she presumed was the bunker’s entrance.
What’s with the light security? she asked. You’d think the one place Tarov was physically vulnerable would be crawling with I.I.s and meat puppets.
“Most of his soldiers are probably out fighting the war,” Simon reasoned. “Out there rounding people up. Looking for us. Besides, they don’t know that Tarov is an artificial intelligence. I doubt they’d be called on to protect his storage device. Those bodyshells are probably all controlled by him personally. He can’t trust the Liberators with his secret.”
Then getting inside will be easier than we expected, Beth thought. It almost seems too easy.
“Just remember, if any one of those bodyshells spot us, every instance of Tarov out there will know we’re here,” Simon reminded her. “There’s no telling how many bodyshells he’s controlling right now. We don’t want an army converging on us, even if it looks like a piece of cake.”
There we go, Beth thought. That’s the worry I’m used to.
How close do you have to be? Beth asked. She was crouching in an uncomfortable position that forced her full weight onto her tiptoes, but she knew it was too easy to make a sound on accident if she adjusted. Her legs were still sore from the hike up to the bunker’s clearing.
“I don’t know, but closer than this,” Simon replied.
The place was bigger and farther than Beth thought. It took them a solid two hours to descend the cliff into the “V” where the bunker was concealed. From that distance, she thought it was no larger than a World War II-era pill box shelter, but it was actually like a small warehouse.
Why do they need so much space for a place to store Tarov? Beth wondered. Is he stored on tape?
“Maybe he isn’t the only thing they’re keeping here,” Simon suggested.
Beth didn’t want to move any closer to the bodyshells than she already was, but she knew she must in order for Simon to do his jump trick. The idea was to subtly shut down their optic feed in such a way that it looked like it was still functioning. Essentially, they had to “loop the tapes” like Beth had seen in old-timey heist films. Simon was confident that he could do it without alerting Tarov to his presence, but Beth sensed what she could only describe as a tinge of doubt in the I.I.’s words. Still, it was the best shot they had. Worst case scenario, she still had her handgun, and Simon was proving himself to be a talented aim assist program.
Once she got the nerve, Beth pushed forward. Simon told her to move whenever she was ready, so she just had to trust that he’d be able to run his glitch before the bodyshells registered her appearance. Beth didn’t believe in taking leaps of faith, but after everything she and Simon had been through, she had no other choice.
Closing her eyes, she ran the last few steps up the slope to the bunker, holding her breath. When nothing happened, she peeked and saw the two bodyshells looking straight at her. Or at least, they were looking through her, into the woods. Nothing about their body language indicated that they could see her, even though she was only a few feet in front of them.
“You’re clear for another forty seconds,” Simon told her. “And I got the door open. You’re welcome.”
She couldn’t help but be impressed. Without wasting any more time, she entered the bunker.
There was a thin strip of L.E.D. lighting that ran along the edges where the walls met the floor and ceiling. The glow it provided was dim, but still bright enough to see that Beth was alone. The place was the size of a basketball court and entirely devoid of life, either organic or synthetic. However, it was not empty.
The walls were lined with racks that displayed all kinds of military tech Beth had heard rumors of, as well as other stuff she never even dreamed. Looking at the small but informative displays that accompanied each exhibit, Beth was able to identify a number of projects the U.S. military had been working on. There
