Unknown - The_Growing_589064

“You can, and you will, Lieutenant Jackson.” Taking a breath, she consciously reins in her temper and softens her voice. “Darius, you can’t come with me.”

“Why? Would you just mind telling me that, please, Ma’am? You’ve kept me in the dark for hours now, and I think I at least deserve something! Please?”

She looks at him for a long moment, then nods. “Did you hear the story of what happened at Minot?”

“Bits and pieces. I know you were there to try and get the android code.”

“I was. And if your General Hart hadn’t decided, against all good sense, to bomb the place to smithereens, we might not be in the trouble we’re in right now.” She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly, forcefully pushing away the memories of that time. “I have another chance, Darius. Not the same chance, but a good one. And as much as I value your protection, if you come with me, that chance will never be realized. Can you understand?”

“Not really, Ma’am. But…I accept your reasoning. I just—need to help, in some way.”

“Believe me,” she replies, relieved beyond measure, “you will be. That earpiece will allow you to hear everything that’s going on. I’ll be able to communicate with you through it, and if I sense any trouble, you’ll be the first to know.”

“How?”

“I’ll say….” She thinks about it for a moment, then smiles. “Nun lila hopa.”

“Nun lila hopa,” he repeats dutifully. “What does it mean?”

Kirsten blushes faintly. “That doesn’t matter. For our purposes, it means ‘Lieutenant Jackson, your presence is required, NOW!’”

He laughs a little, though his insides are twisted up tighter than a roll of barbed wire and every instinct he possesses is screaming for him to grab her, throw her in the truck, and hightail it back to the base, damn the consequences. Still…. “Okay, Ma’am. I got it.” He looks up at the sky. “How long to you think it’ll take?”

“A few hours, no more. I’ll let you know when I’m headed back, okay?”

“It’s not okay, but I’ll follow your orders, Ms. President.”

Kirsten smiles. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll see you soon.”

A moment later, she’s gone.

*

“Ho. Ly. Shit.”

Koda stares across the field, in wordless agreement with her brother. Behind them, Larke lets out a long, low whistle. “Dayyyum,” he says. “You didn’t put any funny medicine woman stuff in the water, did you Ma’am?”

“Nope,” she answers, not quite believing it herself. “It’s really there.”

“It” looks like nothing so much as an extraterrestrial grasshopper, from Jupiter maybe, with heavy, drooping wings and squinting compact eyes, squatting in the middle of the prairie that stretches away to the horizon. The curves of the intake turbines of the twinned jet engines, though, just visible above the tall grass, name it for what it is.

“A B-52,” Tacoma adds. “A. Fucking. B-52.”

Slashed across the field from northwest to southeast, the scar of its landing shows bare earth gouged up to either side; a fine dust covers its metal skin from the nose back. The crash, or forced landing, depending on how one views it, is recent; the binoculars show no sign of green sprung up on the low berms ploughed up by the bomber’s skid over the pasture. Koda lowers her optics and says quietly, “Get the Geiger counter, Larke.”

“You think there’s nukes on board, Ma’am?” he asks as he turns back to the line of vehicles parked on the shoulder.

Dakota shrugs. “All we know right now is that if there are, they didn’t go off. What we need to know is whether they’ve been breached.” Larke goes white to the gills, and she adds, “If they’re there at all.”

When he has gone, Tacoma says quietly, “All right, we know someone’s still up at Minot. Someone who’s trying to fly nuclear bombers.”

“Not very successfully, it seems,” Koda answers.

“Not this time. Maybe next.”

Koda nods. “Maybe next, thiblo. Or maybe the time after that. If they have another crew.”

Tacoma looks from the downed plane to his sister and back. He says musingly, “Not likely, is it? I don’t think Ellsworth could muster a full crew for one of those monsters; Manny and Andrews sure as hell aren’t qualified on the heavy stuff, and I doubt the Colonel herself is. And the droids have to have hit Minot even harder than they did us. We got a rogue on our hands, tanski.”

“Take him out?”

“If we can. Or make an alliance. You see a third possibility?”

It’s a no-brainer. “We can’t leave an unknown at our backs. Not this close. Not now.”

Larke arrives with the Geiger counter, and Koda takes it from him. The readout remains at normal levels as she walks it toward the wreckage of the plane. There is no need to check for injured. Once she is within ten meters of the derelict, she sees the white lime left by carrion birds along the edge of the wing; a little closer, and the smell reaches her. Confirmation, if she needs it, that the pilot or pilots did not survive.

Interesting that no one came to bury them. But droids would hardly bother, if droid experiment it was.

On the other hand, a band of marauders—ambitious marauders at that—was unlikely to have sentimental feelings for one another.

Koda snaps the cover over the readout and heads back toward the line of APC’s waiting by the road. “No radiation here. The trouble’s up ahead.” She grins. “Let’s not keep it waiting.”

CHAPTER FORTY

PUSHING ALL NON-ESSENTIAL thoughts from her mind, Kirsten strolls onto the grounds of the plant as if she has every right to be there. Which, she considers, given her recent promotion to the head of what’s left of the free world, she does.

Her computer enhanced senses assure her that the building is unguarded, which makes sense, since its unprepossessing façade hardly screams out “We’re making killer androids here!” Taking in a deep, cleansing breath, she grasps the door handle with her free hand and pulls. The door opens easily, silently, on well-oiled hinges, letting out a blast of chilled air. Huh. Air conditioning. Almost forgot what that felt like.

The air smells musty and canned, and she finds herself wrinkling her nose, and blinking at the sudden over-brightness of the fluorescent lighting that bathes the sterile, empty reception area.

Huh. Guess I’m getting used to this Robinson Crusoe stuff after all. After a moment, she straightens her shoulders and drops the emotionless mask back over her features. Ok, kiddo, showtime. Let’s get it right this time, hmm?

Striding through the empty room as if she hasn’t a care in the world, she pulls open the heavy glass door to the factory proper and steps through. Her senses are immediately assailed with the heavy scent of oil and machinery, but she takes it in stride, and approaches the neatly dressed android facing her. His scan hums along her ear canals, tickling against the tiny hairs there. When it finally comes to a stop, she looks at him directly. “I have been programmed to download a patch into your system. 7-E23-1267AA-349.”

“I was unaware of such an order, Biodroid 42A-77.”

Kirsten lifts her laptop and places it on the desk in front of the man. “All the instructions are here, should you wish to verify.”

The scan is more direct this time, deeper and harder, and she fights the urge to clamp her hands over her ears as the drilling pain shoots along her nerve endings in agonizing pulses of pure energy.

The pain stops as abruptly as it begins, and Kirsten is hard-pressed not to gasp for air. She knows her heart is pounding quickly, but hopes the android will take it as a normal response for her model. If not, she’s dead. She has no illusions about that.