Tesla stepped to the creature and squatted. “Marvelous. Simply marvelous. The genius of the man who created this merits my highest respect.”
“First off,” Hickok said, “Thanatos wasn’t a man. Not a human one, anyhow.”
“What difference does that make?” Tesla said. “There are male mutants and other kinds, after all.”
“None whatsoever,” Hickok conceded. “Except that they aren’t out to remake the world the way they’d like it to be.”
“I grant you that Thanatos was slightly deranged….,” Tesla began.
“Slightly?” Geronimo interjected. “That’s like saying the Earth is slightly far from the sun.”
“Good one,” Hickok said. He winked at Tesla. “Even a scientist can understand that.”
“Here now,” Tesla said.
“Gentlemen,” Socrates said. “You seem to be forgetting that Blade was nearly killed, and we ‘ve only just began our exploration of this edifice. Shouldn’t you be focusing on the matter at hand instead of quibbling over semantics?”
“I never quibble,” Hickok said.
“He gripes a lot though,” Geronimo said.
Blade reclaimed his Commando. “Enough. Our Leader is right. From here on out, no quibbling or griping or arguing.”
“Can we pick our noses?” Hickok said.
Blade entered the elevator. He had been in them before, both in the Civilized Zone and the Free State of California. But he’d never seen one with a single red button on the control panel. He hesitated, wary of booby-traps.
“Go ahead,” Tesla urged. “This must be an express to the top.”
“It would simplify things if that is the case,” Socrates said. “We can avoid whatever other unpleasantries are lurking about.”
“There could be another one of those things waiting for us up above,” Geronimo said.
“Maybe a whole roomful of the critters,” Hickok said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Blade said, and pressed the red button.
CHAPTER 5
The door whisked shut.
“Be ready for anything,” Blade cautioned.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a small speaker in a high corner crackled to life and a voice oddly devoid of inflection declared, “Welcome, fellow sentient beings. The Dent Express will commence in five seconds. Hold onto your Habeas Corpora.”
“What the blazes?” Hickok said.
“Dent Express?” Geronimo said.
“Habeas Corpora?” Tesla said, and broke into hearty laughter.
Before Blade could ask why, the elevator accelerated with a speed that almost jolted him to his knees. He saw Socrates clutch at a wall for support. The sensation only lasted a few moments. Then a new sensation, almost of weightlessness, came over him, but that, too, only lasted briefly. Abruptly slowing, the elevator coasted to a stop and the door whisked open.
Something was waiting for them, something different from the genetic abomination below.
“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Tesla said.
Blade wasn’t sure what it was.
The thing floated—or hovered—in the very air. It had no arms or legs. It did have a head, sort of. At least, the top part was segmented from the rest. Shiny silver from top to bottom, it made Blade think of old photos in books in the Family’s Library. Books on war, especially sea warfare, and specifically those that dealt with submarines and the instruments of death the vessels carried in their launch tubes; torpedoes. The thing hovering before them resembled nothing so much as a floating torpedo. And yet its surface was reminiscent of human musculature. Even more anthropomorphic were its large red—and vaguely insectoid—eyes.
“Is that blamed thing a bomb?” Hickok said.
“I should hope not,” the thing said. “I am extremely fond of my sentience.”
Blade recoiled in surprise. As near as he could tell, the voice issued from a narrow grill-like opening along the bottom edge of the upper segment.
“It can talk!” Geronimo exclaimed.
“How else could we communicate?” the thing responded. “My Master experimented with telepathy but my receptors were not equal to the task.”
Blade found his voice. “Master?”
“Thanatos.”
“Cover it!” Blade barked, and trained his Commando on the top segment.
“I’ll plug it if it so much as twitches wrong,” Hickok growled.
“As far as I am aware, sir,” the thing said, “I have two thousand seven-hundred and fifty-three functions, but twitching is not among them.”
“I have died and gone to Heaven,” Tesla said.
“What are you on about?” Socrates said. “Put aside your wonderment for a moment and tell us if you think this….being…. is a threat or not?”
The thing answered for itself. “Perhaps it will help matters if I introduce myself. I am….,” and it spelled out, “…A.L.V.I.S. Which is both an acronym and an anagram.”
“Both?” Tesla said.
“A.LV.I.S. is short for Artificial Living Veraform Intelligence System…..”
“Veraform?” Tesla said.
“A.L.V.I.S is also an anagram for two early servitors in human literature, one human and one robotic,” the thing continued. “My Master deemed it humorous that I, as his servant, should be so named. Thus, A.l.v.i.s. Lowercase on the last four letters, to lend it a human cast.”
“Remarkable,” Tesla said.
“What did your Master say to do in regards to intruders?” Blade demanded to know.
“I am not programmed to display hostility, if that is your concern,” A.l.v.i.s said. “I am not a terminator, like Leo. I am what you might call the butler.”
“Leo?” Blade said.
“He went down to exterminate you,” A.l.v.i.s said. “Quite obviously he failed.”
“That critter had a name?” Hickok said.
“Leo was short for Lethiferous Elimination Obscenity. I believe that last was humor on my Master’s part. He could be quite cruel.”
“Tell us about it,” Hickok said dryly.
“Hold on……A.l.v.i.s,” Blade said. “You’re saying that you don’t intend to harm us?”
“Correct,” A.l.v.i.s responded. “I am incapable of harming another sentient. I tried to dissuade Leo from exterminating you but he couldn’t override his programming.”
“You expect us to believe you?” Hickok scoffed.
“I am incapable of telling a falsehood, sir. Although I will admit a secondary motive in wanting to have you and your friends spared.”
“And what might that be, robot-face?” Hickok sarcastically asked.
A.l.v.i.s turned its red eyes on each of them in turn. “I am so very, very lonely.”
CHAPTER 6
Blade had encountered a multiplicity of life forms on
