But one of them still crawled.
A camera showed him the bio-beast’s screwed up face. That was beautiful. This one was really trying, fighting through the pain and everything.
He understood. The beast crawled for the crevice where the red suits had put the new server.
ZAP!
The bio-beast bellowed, but he kept crawling. And then he dropped into that crevice.
“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” The Mark 2042 cranked his speakers to full volume.
The bio-beast didn’t listen.
And suddenly the Mark 2042 felt disoriented, dizzy, and not so certain about everything.
“Cybertank 2042,” said someone via comlink.
“Yes?”
“Prepare for transmission.”
“I… 2042 ready,” said the Mark 2042.
20.
Colonel Manteuffel typed in the CT code and pressed transmit. Then he studied the return reading before looking up at General Hawthorne.
“He’s ours.”
“Yes, after twenty-three good men died,” Hawthorne said.
“We can use the Mark 2042 to approach the other cybertanks.”
“But we could still lose more men,” said Hawthorne. “I wasn’t counting on those electrical surges.”
“PHC must have put that in,” said Manteuffel. “It’s clever. You must give them that.”
Hawthorne stared at the small Colonel. Finally, he forced a smile as he patted the man’s shoulder. “Well done, Manteuffel. Now let’s convert the other cybertanks.”
21.
The old woman in the wheelchair heard gunfire.
She peered over the balcony railing and at the squat buildings below. Fruitless apple trees lined the empty streets. Well, empty of people, at least. Dropped placards and crumpled papers lay everywhere, but that no longer concerned her. She counted five cybertanks. Like giant watchdogs, they surrounded her building. An hour ago, she had considered them protection from the protesting mobs that had been chased away by PHC shock squads. After listening to General Hawthorne, she wondered if the cybertanks were the final move in an intricate PHC plot to overthrow the government.
She was one hundred and sixty-two, kept alive by longevity treatments and her special chair. She sat in a bulky, gleaming-white unit. A withered old crone, said her detractors. The medical unit in back of the wheelchair gurgled. Tubes from it snaked into her. Fluids surged through the tubes. Her unnaturally smooth face seemed brittle, although it was dotted by several stubborn liver spots that none of the skin specialists had been able to remove. She wore a white turban to cover her baldness, while a red plaid blanket hid her useless legs. A jutting, narrow nose and bright eyes, dangerously vibrant, belied any idea that she was senile.
Madam Director Blanche-Aster wasn’t native to New Baghdad, the famed city of seventy-seven levels. She cocked her head. There it was again. Gunfire! According to Chief Yezhov of Political Harmony Corps, the rioting had been spontaneous and sudden, catching everyone by surprise. PHC most of all.
Dropping her trembling hand onto the chair’s controls, she wheeled around, off the balcony and into her office. It was minimalist, with a few white cubes randomly placed as
General James Hawthorne sat on one of the cubes. He was flanked by someone he called Captain Mune. She shivered. She didn’t like the bionic men. It was unnatural doing that to a person. The General against all the rules of someone in her presence wore a holster and sidearm. His face that her profilers had called granite gave little away. But she was practiced in body kinetics and read the tension in him.
“It’s most incredible,” she said. “Air Marshal Ulrich. How were they able to turn him?”
“Does it matter?” asked Hawthorne.
“But Yezhov is mad if he thinks he can just send an assassin and shoot me.”
“How many directors are in the city?” asked Hawthorne.
“What? Oh, um, Director Gannel, for one.”
“The Venusian?” Hawthorne asked.
“What difference does that make?”
“He’s Yezhov’s puppet.”
“You’re shooting in the dark, making unsubstantiated accusations.”
“Director Gannel has flooded my headquarters with demands that I launch an immediate, all-out Fleet attack against one of the systems.”
“The majority of the Directorate backs him on that,” said Blanche-Aster.
“And it backs him on the continued beam-assault against the Sun Works Factory. When now is the moment to break off the attack.”
“No,” said Blanche-Aster, “you simply don’t understand, General. After many bitter months we’re finally hurting them, making them bleed. You must continue to do so for as long as possible. It does wonders for morale.”
General Hawthorne rose. “Our initial assessment—by long-range radar scan—showed great damage to the Sun Works Factory. But now our radar is jammed and any optic visuals are hidden because of a vast aerosol cloud. We must never forget that the Highborn react with uncanny speed. The longer we attack, the less will be our return.”
“That’s speculation, not hard fact.”
“I
She raised a withered hand. A chime had sounded. “Enter.”
The door swished open and her chief bodyguard stepped in. She was young and hard-eyed, with a buzz haircut and with a long, supple body armored in silvery mesh. When they had first arrived, the bionic men had relived the bodyguard of her weapons. The General maintained that he didn’t want any hasty mistakes.
“Yezhov has arrived in the building,” the bodyguard said.
Blanche-Aster pursed her ancient lips. “Which directors are still in the city?”
“From our last reports, Madam, only Director Gannel remains here.”
“That’s it?” asked Blanche-Aster.
“Yes, Madam.”
Blanche-Aster’s eyes seemed to glitter. She had a narrow, hatchet-thin face, remarkably similar to her bodyguard’s face. She peered out the window, then back at General Hawthorne and then to her bodyguard. “Has Yezhov seen Director Gannel?”
“None of my operatives think so, Madam. But that was before…” The bodyguard glanced at Captain Mune.
Blanche-Aster gave her a minute nod, and then turned to Hawthorne. “Despite your predications, Yezhov has come when summoned.”
“I’m very surprised, to say the least,” said Hawthorne.
