Mike McQuay - Suspicion

The sky rumbled loudly as she drove; the wind whipped her long hair around her face. She was cold, but put it out of her mind as she concentrated on her objective. Why did he have to do it to her? Why did he have to go over to the other side? The city had become Derec’s obsession. He apparently couldn’t understand that she had to have freedom, that she couldn’t live within its structure forever.

The pyramid loomed large before her. It lit up brightly as a bolt of lightning ran down its face. She skidded to a stop before it and jumped out of the tram, hearing a noise behind her.

There, two blocks distant, the robot that called itself Wohler was hurrying to intercept her. She turned and ran up to the entry. The city material melted away at her approach to allow her inside.

Once inside, she had no idea of where she was going. The only thing she remembered for sure was that she needed to keep going up. She ran the maze-like halls, taking every opportunity to climb stairs or take an elevator that would put her higher. About halfway up the structure, she heard an announcement over unseen loudspeakers that called attention to her flight and gave instructions for her apprehension.

At that, she doubled her pace, going full out. Her only hope of escaping was to reach the safety of the off-limits zone before she was spotted.

She hurried unseen down the now-shortened hallways, reaching the last elevator up. A tech robot with welder arms spotted her as she hurried inside. Heart pounding, she stabbed at the up arrow and the machine sped her quickly to the upper floor.

The doors slid open and she burst through, running immediately. There were voices behind, calling her by name. She turned a corner, ran up a short ramp, and burst into the off-limits hallway just as the robots behind were closing on her.

She ran to the door leading up to the office, her hand going to the power stud.

“Katherine.”

She recognized Wohler’s voice and turned to face him. He stood, a hallway full of robots behind him, at the edge of the off-limits zone, the same place the witnesses had stopped earlier in the day.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Come away from there. This place is off-limits.”

She smiled. “Not to me,” she said. “I’m human, remember? I’m free, and I’m going to be freer.”

“Please do not go outside,” Wohler said. “The rains are beginning. It could be dangerous for you.”

“You’re not going to keep me here,” she said, opening the door that faced the spiral staircase.

“We would love to have you stay with us,” the robot said, “but we would never keep you here against your will.”

“Then why don’t you have the means on-planet for me to leave or call for help?”

“You act as if we brought you here under false pretenses,” Wohler said. “We did nothing. You came here uninvited. Welcome… but uninvited. Our civilization has not developed to the point where planetary interaction is possible. You can see that for yourself.”

“We’re wasting time,” Katherine said, and started through the door.

“Please reconsider,” the robot called. “Don’t put yourself in jeopardy.”

She stared hard at him. “I’ve been in jeopardy every second I’ve been in this crazy place.”

With that, she moved through the door, closing it behind her. She took the stairs quickly and entered the office. The angry clouds rolled up close to the viewers, making it seem as if she were standing in the midst of the gathering storm.

Searching the office, she found the ladder easily enough, climbing it to reach the windy platform above. The wind was so strong that she feared getting to her feet, and crawled to the edge where she and Derec had made their first treacherous descent into the city of robots.

For the first time since being freed from the sealed room, her fears began to overcome her anger at the situation as she turned her body to edge herself off the dizzying height to begin her climb downward. The wind pulled viciously at her like cold, prying hands; her ears and nose went numb, and her fingers tingled with the cold.

Though the pyramid was made from the same material as the rest of the city, it wasn’t the same in any other respect. It was rigid and unbending, its face set with patterns of holes that she and Derec had used as hand and footholds previously, and in which they had hidden the Key on their first descent.

Her mind whirled as she climbed, slowly, so slowly. How far down had it been? She had been moving fast, and Derec, carrying the Key, had been unable to keep up. They had stopped for a conference and decided to hide the Key and continue without it. How far down? A fourth of the climb, barely a fourth, in the leftmost hole of the pattern that ran down the center of the structure.

She continued downward, her fingers hurting now, her eyes looking upward, trying to gauge her distance just right. She began testing the holes in the repeated pattern, to no avail. She still hadn’t reached the place. Something wet and cold hit her hard on the back. Her hands almost pulled out of their holds reflexively. It was a raindrop, and it wet the entire back of her one-piece.

She was running out of time.

The pattern of holes repeated again as she inched downward, and when she looked up, squinting against the frigid wind, she knew she had reached the place.

Hugging the pyramid face with the last of her strength, she slowly reached out, sticking her hand into the leftmost hole of the pattern.

The Key was gone.

“No!” she screamed loudly into the teeth of the monster, and, as if in response, the rain tore from the heavens in blinding, bludgeoning sheets to silence her protests.

Derec stood at the exit door to the Extruder Station and listened to the rain pounding against the door, and watched the small puddle that had somehow made its way under the sealed entry. Katherine was out there somewhere, and Wohler. Nothing had been heard from either of them since before the start of the rain. Avernus had made contact with the Compass Tower, and though both had been seen there, neither was there now.

With the rain controlling the day, everything had come to a standstill, making searching impossible, making contact with the central core impossible, making everything except the almighty building project slow to nothing. It was maddening.

He pounded the door, his fist sinking in, cushioning. He wanted to open those doors and run into the city and find her for himself-but he knew what that meant. Most likely, nothing would be known until the rain abated the next morning.

He turned from the door and walked down the stairs to the holding area and the six robot supervisors who awaited him there. His mind was awash in anxiety.

“Supervisor Rydberg has proposed a plan, Friend Derec,” Euler said. “Perhaps you will comment on it.”

Derec looked at Rydberg, trying to bring his mind back to the present. Why did the woman affect him this way? “Let’s hear your plan,” he said.

“We can go ahead and devise our evacuation schedule for the robots working underground,” Rydberg said. “It seems that when morning comes, you will be able to contact the core and halt the replication. It will be too late to dig through to the cavern in time, but at least we will have the opportunity to spare our mine workers before the floods.”

“Why do you have to give up like this?” Derec said, exasperated. “You’ve heard the reasons for the defenses. Can’t you just stop them now and use the digging equipment to begin excavating the cavern?”

Waldeyer, the squat, wheeled supervisor, said, “The central core is our master program. We cannot abandon it. Only the central core can judge the veracity of your statements and make the final decision.”