The pod had cracked open to give birth to a large dragonfly with a mushroom-like body, not dissimilar to the dragonfly Yul had witnessed in the Orb. Frenzied, knife-edged wings now sheared off the puffball’s flesh like saws. The dragonfly smashed its eyeless face against the glass, but the shock-proof glass held, containing the creature’s repeated assaults.
“This is more important than any puny, insignificant attack on my complex,” Hresh affirmed. “Look at it!” he marvelled. “Incredible!” He stared at the indicator needle on a nearby device pointing off the scale. “This shows intelligence beyond any recorded species: immediate extermination of enemies while evolving into a hybrid to escape its cage. The discovery of the century. Do you realize—” He shook his head. “No, it’s impossible. I know what to do. I’ll put it through a battery of tests. Employ everything we’ve got. No more nuts and bolts and circuits and prosthetics, but a new breed of AI!” He danced a small jig.
Yul’s mouth worked. The man was insane. If he thought Mathias was off, this lab rat was degrees beyond.
Hresh gave curt orders to his tech team. A man plodded over to a crane and picked up the Biogron receptacle to insert it into the bowels of the armadillo avatar. Hresh directed him with a flushed face. “Now—a heart for a heart!”
Chapter 8
Hresh ordered the steel portal to the ‘obstacle course’ raised. He motioned the utility crane forward. The operator clamped forks on the shiny hide to drag the dino-armadillo hulk into the spacious chamber where Yul and Cloye had undergone their tests. The place seemed more massive than Yul remembered it, as if Hresh had changed its size and configuration. As the crane whirred closer, Yul pictured the dragonfly knocking against the Biogron’s glass container in its chest, fluttering about in confusion. Various members of Hresh’s science team drifted over to watch in silent curiosity. Meanwhile, the militiamen stood by, blasters on the ready, awaiting any further development. Several flashed eyes on the ceiling as more booms echoed.
The crane deposited the mechanical creature inside, backed up, and the doors slammed shut. Hresh and the others gathered around a terminal observing the beast inside, as it hunched on all fours in the dimly-lit room.
The blond security guard frowned. “The mechno’s unresponsive.”
“Give it time, Nonas,” Hresh purred. His lips curled upward as if he had complete confidence in his creation.
Yul recalled the improbability of the thing surviving in the glass case and he scowled. “How do you expect the alien pod to control whatever outer shell you’ve given it?”
Hresh steepled his fingers under his chin. He responded without looking at him. “The Biogron is the ultimate feedback loop. The hardware reports whatever impulse signal is sent from inside, to the outside, namely the outer shell. Vice versa, it forwards all stimuli from what’s on the outside to whatever’s inside. So, our dragonfly can move the avatar’s body as well as perceive what is happening outside its metallic body.”
Yul stared at the screen. “What about this obstacle course? Is it real, or some VR trick?”
Hresh sighed. “It’s a combination VR and ‘real’ robot test bench. To hammer test our new models for real-world application. Your questions are tiresome. Save them for later.”
Hresh’s communicator buzzed. “Gustav, talk to me.”
“Sir, not looking good. We’ve got enemies incoming in the air and they’re not going away. Two down, but two are hot. We smoked one, but they blasted a hole in the hangar’s dome. They mean to dock.”
Hresh’s left cheek twitched. “Stay on it, Gustav. Enforce emergency backups. Do your job.” He hung up.
Hresh frowned and worked his lip. He checked figures on a monitor, searching the inert hulk vainly for any signs of life.
Yul tilted his head in amazement. The man was either a nitwit or completely oblivious to the danger. Did he have some other line of defence? His ground forces, including Gustav and crew, were taking a beating.
“So you kill a few of them?” grunted Yul. “What then? You ignoring the army they’ll bring to avenge their losses?”
Hresh appeared not to hear and he flapped his hand at his assistant. “Arm the radon penetrators. And observe.”
A dozen crimson dots appeared from eyelets above and trained ruby energy lines down on the hulking monstrosity. Pulses of light streamed down from the eyelets to strike the plated back.
The titanium hide flashed red hot. It appeared to quiver.
“Just little love taps,” explained Hresh with a smile. “Up the juice, Ahmid.”
The technician paused, pushed a red, stiff lever. The laser-like fire increased in pulse and intensity. Heat waves and coils of smoke rose from the shiny back that seemed to jerk and twist now with spasmodic intensity.
Yul’s skin tingled. He knew what fury the creature was capable of when provoked.
The metal creaked and sizzled at the heat. More laser fire stabbed down from above.
The dino-armadillo thing, powered by the Biogron pod, leaped like a spider out of the line of fire. It formed a shield around its now luminous body. Barbs like arrows shot out from small orifices in its shell to pierce the laser weapons one by one, incapacitating them.
Hresh watched in stunned silence.
Yul looked over to see Cloye still squirming from the pain of her excision.
“Test #2...Fill the chamber, Ahmid. Bring in the aquamons!”
Massive sprays of fluid began to jet down from the ceiling, splashing the thing’s back. Hot metal sizzled. Before long the armadillo shape was covered mid-thigh in water which quickly swirled over its spiked hide. The camera switched to underwater filter viewing, the visual showing a sepia tint. Hresh’s mechnobots, four of them, shaped like giant pike, dropped down with a splash from a secret opening in the ceiling, swimming toward the armadillo. The mechnos’ beaked snouts glinted in the tinted light and
