Chapter 12 – Sentinel
Chapter
12Sentinel
//
SPATIAL
CHECK
>
DATE:
09.03.7088
>
TIME: 03:09:34
UST
(UNIVERSAL
STANDARD TIME)
// LOCATION TRIANGULATION //
> SYSTEM: INTERSTELLAR SPACE
(Hyperspace)
>> BODY:
>>> SETTLEMENT:
>>>> LOCAL: CRSS RECKLESS
-
The feed
flickered.
The cargo
bay was a wash of
monochromatic red, the
emergency strobe carving deep shadows into
carnage not amiss on
a battlefield. The camera’s autofocus hunted for a second, trying
to lock onto a jumbled mess of crates and metal scrap.
Movement
ghosted
the edge of the frame.
A pair of
black, armoured legs shifted, then
withdrew.
For a
moment, the feed was
clear of any disturbance. The
wreckage
remained at rest.
Then,
an imposing
shape eclipsed the
view.
The black
armoured sentinel stepped
fully into the frame, his
powerful presence overwhelming
the wide-angled
lens. His heavy steps
transmitted through the camera by imperceptible tremors in the image.
His motions
were deliberate. Calm.
Precise.
Pure military efficiency.
He paused,
boots
stopping centimetres
from an amputated, metal arm.
He carefully looked
at the
debris, then the various robot
parts, cataloguing them
with a slow mechanical pan of his head.
His visor
turned to
the reinforced door, crowned with a solid red light.
Finally,
his head slowly turned
to look straight
at the lens. His
head tilted slightly to
the side, as if
considering the device.
He stalked
forward. He disappeared from view for a brief moment,
too close for the
sensor to focus, before the view jerked violently downward.
A black
helmet with a reflected visor filled the screen.
The twin
ring lights cycled once: Red. White. Then dark.
Nothing
could be heard.
No voice.
No footsteps.
For a
second, the feed showed a close-up of a black, armoured gauntlet
filling the lens.
Then,
darkness.
//
SIGNAL LOST //
The
red light on the cargo bay door flickered, then died.
The thick
bulkhead door groaned as the manual release was forced open. Metal
fingers squeezed through the crack, straining against the automated
hydraulics.
Forty-Five
stepped through.
He checked
all sides, including the ceiling before striding up the stairs
towards the living areas. Behind him, the severed limbs and chassis
of the infected units were no longer scattered. They were piled in
the centre of the room, stripped of their power cores and
transmitters.
Neutralised.
The rest of
the debris pushed up against the far wall.
The door
hissed, the hydraulics re-engaging to seal the room behind him.
His
footsteps echoed loudly in the stairwell. The dim lights casting wide
shadows behind him. He
crested the threshold
of the upper deck.
His confident steps faltered, then stopped.
The water
purifier was bathed in red light, a strange sludge dripping through
the grates, splattering the crawlspace below. He crouched near the
unit, reaching a hand out to the liquid. He
brought
it back to his sensor suite, his visor lights flashed amber
before going dark again.
He stood,
using his clean hand to interact with the display. He only paused for
a second, analysing the screen and
cataloguing all of the contaminants before
continuing towards the living areas. His steps growing louder the
closer he got down the hallway.
His hands
were curled into loose fists.
The door
hissed open to allow him unimpeded access.
The galley
was dark.
The
residential deck was lit as if it were night time.
Without a
word or movement, his chest light turned on, illuminating the space.
It was clean and tidy. Unused.
Forty-Five
paused. The echo of his own footsteps died away, leaving a silence
that was too deep for an operational vessel.
Scritch.
Scratch.
His head
turned to the side. The whisper of a noise, barely audible.
When he
moved again, the echo was gone. His boots made no sound, the servos
in his legs adjusting to dampen the impact. He moved with the silent
grace of a predator entering a new jungle.
He entered
the atrium, or Melissa’s designated ‘living room’. With the
couch, the bolted-down coffee table and the short stairs up to the
cockpit. The star-lines streaking across the viewport indicating they
were in hyperspace.
He stopped
in the middle of the room.
Scratch.
Rustle.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
It
was louder, barely. He looked up. The ceiling was clear, but he held
his stare as if he could pierce through the ceramic-metal
alloy
panels. Right
through to the overhead maintenance crawlspace. A fine mist of dust
drifted down from the seam in the ceiling panels, dancing in the beam
of his chest light.
The sound
moved, travelling towards the rear of the ship, away from the living
quarters.
Away from
him.
Forty-Five
took an aggressive step towards it, ready to launch into a run.
A
biological, wet cough caught his attention instantly. He
froze in place.
It came
from a room on the starboard side.
He
cast one last long look to the ceiling, the
scratching moving further away.
The cough
sounded again, weaker this time.
Forty-Five
turned his back on the ceiling noise. He moved
towards the captain’s
quarters.
He pressed
a hand on the door.
It refused
to open. The automatic sensor disengaged, or perhaps the door was
locked.
There was
no obvious control panel.
“Melissa.”
He spoke,
the sound shattering
the silence that hung over the ship,
his voice modulated in a low, digital monotone.
No
response.
He ran his
hands along the inside seams, trying to find an ingress.
He couldn’t
find one.
He stepped
backwards, turning around and walking away from the door. A
drift of dust settled onto the floor in his wake.
Inside the
bedroom, it was dark. Stifling. Suffocating.
Raspy
breathing originated from the bed, a
wet rattling sound in the dead air.
The silence
stretched.
Then, the
lock clicked, a slow, grinding disengagement. The
door slid open just
wide enough to admit a figure
before aggressively
sliding shut again.
A shape
navigated the messy
floor. What had been clean and tidy from launch was now a labyrinth
of tools, a discarded
space suit, and tangled
sheets. Nimble
feet avoided an errant toolbox, and a forgotten tablet.
A large,
gloved
hand reached out. It
gripped the blankets,
revealing a shivering
form.
A soft,
white light illuminated the bed’s occupant.
Her face
was pale, and sweaty. Her white pillow decorated with blooms of
crimson.
The figure
paused, letting out a hiss, a low, organic
sound of frustration.
I woke up
to a bright, sharp
light shining through my eyelids and a comforting cold weight on my
forehead. I weakly moaned, holding out a hand to block out the
overhead
lights.
A soft
static sounded
to my left, almost like
a hush, and the room
went dark once again.
“Query.
Return of photosensitivity.”
Forty-Five’s low rumble sounded close-by.
I cracked
an eye, my entire body both burning and freezing. A
massive shape was level
with my head, either kneeling or crouching low beside my bed.
My brain
stuttered. The cargo bay. The locks. He was supposed to be
downstairs. A jolt of panic tried to kickstart my heart. But it
collided with a sick spike of adrenaline. He
shouldn't be here, he should be secured; but my body was too heavy.
The adrenaline died before it could reach my limbs. I didn't have the
energy to be terrified. I surrendered to the gravity of the mattress.
“Everything
hurts,” I mumbled, my voice hoarse and my throat dry like
sandpaper, pulling off the wet compress off my forehead.
“Status.
Client experiencing internal bleeding along graft insertions of
temporary lung,” he brought a cup with a straw to my lips. I took a
small sip of water, feeling it burn down my oesophagus. “’Everything
hurts’ classified as understatement.”
I huffed
out a small laugh, smiling despite the pain. I spoke with a rasp,
“Normal Tuesday, honestly. Having so many good days in a row
catches up to me.”
My speaking
triggered a coughing fit.
“Silence
recommended,” he chided me softly, bringing my inhaler to my lips.
I pushed it back, not needing it for a throat issue.
“Not
lung,” I whispered, trying not to trigger another coughing fit. I
gestured towards my throat instead.
“Query.
Care plan,” he asked,
tilting his head.
I flushed,
looking away. The question I wanted to ask was burning in my mind,
overriding the medical talk. I used his inflection and speech style
in my hoarse whisper to mask the tremor of fear. “Query. Cargo
Bay... locked doors. How?”
“Suggestion.
Answer for an answer.” He shifted
so he gained height
over the bed, straightening his spine to loom over me.
I
stubbornly turned on my side, stifling a hiss of pain as the grafts
pulled, facing the wall away from him. I
didn’t
need to know how he
got loose. Not if he was going to kill me anyway.
A heavy
weight settled on the bed, and a metal hand gripped my shoulder to
push me onto my back.
One knee on
the bed, the mattress bottoming out against the frame with a groan,
an arm supporting his weight pillared next to my head, and his free
hand pushing me down. His visor directly
over my face.
“Recommendation,”
his voice was low and rumbled in his torso. “Protocols may be
enacted that include extreme measures if cooperation in care is found
lacking.”
I just
stared back at him tiredly, and
to save my voice, used sign-language to communicate, hoping
he’d understand.
“Your protocols
might find themselves in a logic
loop. Since you
will find that my fucks are variable null.”
“Primary
objective is your protection and survival. Your ‘fucks variable’
is irrelevant.”
"Note
to log: The murder-bot has universal
translation AND
a
Complex.” I
tilted my head to the side, a small smile on my lips. “Just
what I needed. Did you download that with the emon
atch,
or is it a factory setting?"
His
grip loosened, pulling back slightly as if… I caught
him off-guard.
“Query.
Demon patch,”
he finally asked.
“Don’t
pretend. I heard
you,” I strained my head towards his, my voice barely a whisper to
get all the words out without triggering a coughing fit. I
switched
back to sign-language just as quickly. “You
assimilated my program into your code. I saved you, but I still can’t
help but wonder what my predatory hunter code did to you.”
I waited
for the twitch. The stutter of a logic loop fighting a foreign
contaminant. I gave him code designed to hunt and kill without mercy,
a digital rabid dog. He should be tearing the walls down or
overheating. Instead, he was just… standing there. Stable.
His body
stilled, a silence stretched between us. The
ring lights behind his visor pulsed a
deep red, then snapped
to white before he
looked away.
“Log
found…” he rumbled, not looking back. “Optimisation deferred,
resource… sequestered.”
I frowned
at him. .
That’s what governments do with assets they’ve ‘acquired’. He
was...operating on a level I’d never seen before. Human-like.
I closed my
eyes.
“I
accepted my death a long time ago, just break my neck already.”
I continued, no longer
caring. “I’m
tired and I’m over jumping at shadows on my own ship.”
The
weight disappeared off the bed. I looked up and saw that Forty-Five
wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was staring at the closed door.
“Query.
Shadows.” Somehow,
the voice sounded even more threatening.
I felt
heavy. I closed my eyes for a moment while I drew up the strength to
answer him verbally.
“Big, brooding, has a saviour complex.”
Seeing his
head roll toward
me was worth it. But then,
my smile dropped slightly, my
hands moving sluggishly.
“some
debris got in the crawlspace, keeps sliding and scratching around”
The silence
stretched for so long I was almost asleep again.
But I
was jerked awake when
hard arms jostled me. Forty-Five was above me again, scooping me up.
“What are
you doing?” I mumbled, no fight or strength in my words.
“Client
is uncooperative in care. Alternate measures being implemented.”
His arm lifted till our faces were centimetres apart. “Change
in attitude will see a change in protocols.”
“Fuck
you.” I braced myself against him, feeling weak, not
being able to use my hands to talk.
“Plan includes VAD and DNR.”
“Client’s
health conditions are curable.”
“One
isn’t,” I gasped in pain, a stabbing in my chest eclipsing the
pain from the temporary organs. “It’s an accepted terminal
condition for someone like me.”
He was
moving towards someplace, but I had my eyes shut tight. “Infirmary
scan indicates
no such condition. Health
professionals are unlikely to sign off on that theoretical
premise.”
“Stop
pretending you know better than I do. Docs don’t know either. Put
me down.”
“Independent
secondary analysis
will be conducted. Client survival is paramount.”
“I’m
not getting into
this with you, put me down. That’s an order.”
“Order
acknowledged,”
he put me down gently, and I felt a firm, padded
surface under me.
It felt
suspiciously like…
“If I see
we are in the infirmary, I will scream.” I clutched my abdomen,
curling in on myself. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes.
But it
didn’t matter, I felt something cover the upper half of my face. It
was soft and warm.
“Did…
you just blindfold me?”
“Client
set out parameters. If client can not see, client will not scream.”
“Goddamn
fucking logic-driven
nanny bot. Why, I ought
to-”
I couldn’t
finish, a gas mask covered the lower half of my face. I heard the
tell-tale beeps of a vitals monitor. I reached out at the first thing
I could clamp my hands down on, a
metal wrist. The sound
jarring buried nightmares loose.
“Don’t
leave me alone.” I whispered weakly, desperately.
“Client
ordered to stop talking. Effective immediately. Discussion
can be had once stabilised.”
“I’m…
going…to…dismantle…you,” I slurred out. He wasn’t giving me
oxygen. He was putting me under.
Son of a
bitch.
His
quiet
voice sounded close to my ear. “Client needs to live to follow
through on threat.”
I
floated out into the darkness, my
hand not letting
go of
his arm.