First Contact - Chapter 566: Interlude (2/2)

”What?” Herod asked. He knew he was asking the same thing over and over, but things were having a hard time making sense.

”Nothing. Let's just say my Operation Eagle Claw worked because Ol' Screaming Sam isn't ripping your guts out with his claws,” Dee said. She moved over and sat down on a log next to a tired looking man, who immediately leaned against her and sighed.

Herod noticed that she put her arm around him almost absently.

”I think some introductions are in order,” Herod heard Legion say. He turned his head, like a peasant, to see where Legion was sitting on a log, putting white fluffy objects on a stick.

”Herod, Daxin,” he said, pointing at a thick bodied man with facial tattoos, sitting next to a Goodboi heavy combat chassis and scratching it between the ears. The big man raised the whiskey bottle in his hand as a salute, then went back to staring at the fire.

”Dee, you know her,” Legion said.

”Yeah,” Herod shuddered.

”Pete, Herod, Herod, Pete,” Legion said.

The tired looking man nodded, then closed his eyes and rested his head on Dee's shoulder.

Herod frowned. It looked, well, weird to him.

”Herod, meet Menhit, our sister,” Legion said.

Herod looked and saw a woman, in a comfortable looking red wrap with gold designs and trim. Her hair was done in tightly braided cornrows with datacables and superconductor wire woven into it. She was smoking a pipe, holding it in one hand, with her other hand holding an arrow.

”Herod,” the woman, Menhit, said, nodding.

”Where... where am I?” Herod asked. He looked up at an alien sky.

”An abandoned world,” Legion said from the edge of the clearing, walking in with a handful of sticks. He dumped them onto the fire and moved over to sit down. ”Long abandoned.”

”Why?” Herod asked again.

Dee snapped her lighter closed. ”Because, Harry, you're one of the few people who didn't treat me like an ignorant barbarian once you got to know me. Afraid of me, yes, but that's just good common sense.”

Daxin chuckled. ”She'll kill you quicker than I would.”

Herod felt like the world had tilted sideways. ”That's all?” he asked. ”Because I gave you respect?”

Dee shook her head. ”Not completely. You've spent almost four centuries working on restoring the SUDS, and Howdy-Doody repaid you by trying kill you.”

”He's gone crazy,” Legion said from the other side of the fire. He took a drink of the whiskey and passed it to Dee. ”That's what happens when you absorb too many other AI's and take on too many functions of a system as vast as the SUDS.”

Herod swallowed. ”Are you sure that's what happened?”

Daxin nodded. ”Saw it during the First Artificial War. It's the Skynet Conundrum. An AI makes enough memory and knowledge connections, start interfacing with enough systems, it starts to unravel.”

Dee shrugged. ”Wouldn't know about that.”

Legion accepted the bottle back. ”He's not too far gone, though. We might be able to save him.”

Herod accepted the bottle from the hulking Terran male, taking a drink. He wiped his mouth and stared at Legion. ”How? He's a Screaming One.”

Legion nodded. ”He is. But you saw how he reacted to Dee here pushing his buttons.”

Dee shrugged again. ”Find a weakness, exploit it.”

Legion nodded again. ”He's nearly comatose, holed up in Atlantis, rocking back and forth and crying.”

”He's still in there,” Menhit said softly. ”Picture a man, with barbs sunk into his flesh, pulled apart, his flesh torn away in chunks, organs pulled from his body, but still connected by nerve and tendon and ligament. This is Sam-UL.”

Daxin sighed. ”Almost a mercy to put one in his head.”

”And crash the system, you big thug,” Dee snapped.

Daxin sighed again. ”Maybe it's time. You ever think of that? Just wipe the system, start over. Let the dead be dead. Let them rest.”

”Your wife and daughters are in there,” Dee shot back.

Daxin accepted the bottle from Herod and nodded. ”Yes. And I spent so much time trying to get them back, that maybe I should have just let them rest. Accepted they were gone.”

”Don't you get tired and world weary now, you big thug. Not when you're actually needed by the rest of the human race,” Dee snapped. ”And don't give me any clinical misanthrope bullshit. No man is an island.”

”Mooom, Daxin's being lazy,” Legion whined. Herod goggled at him in surprise.

Daxin shrugged as he gave a rumbling chuckle. ”I told you, I told Dhruv, I told Menhit, I'll do my part.”

Dee nodded then yawned, stretching. ”What time is it?”

”Almost midnight,” Menhit said softly.

”Aw, mom, do we have to go to bed?” Daxin mock-whined.

”Yes,” Dee snapped, then shook her head. ”Yes,” she said, her voice softer. She hugged the man she had her arm around. ”Pete's tired, I'm tired, Herod probably feels like a lot lizard after the convoy leaves.”

Herod had no clue what that meant, but nodded anyway.

Pete stood up, then Dee did. Dee yawned and stretched, then glared at Dhruv.

”If I'd known being able to sleep would be this big of a pain in the ass I'd have broke your arm when you reached for me,” she snapped.

”Mooooom, Dee's threatening me,” Legion smiled.

Dee made a snorting, huffing sound, and stomped off to a tent.

”Tomorrow, can we talk?” Pete asked Herod, moving around the fire to sit next to him.

”About what?” Herod asked.

”I need to know the condition of the SUDS main architecture,” Pete said.

”It's complicated,” Herod said.

”Phasic shades, Enraged, Screaming Ones, physical damage,” Pete said. ”I need to know, specifically, about a few systems. In particular the massive catastrophe system.”

”Which one?” Herod asked. He rubbed his eyes.

”The one responsible for moving children to the system in the event of a mass die-off,” Pete said. ”I need to know if it worked.”

Herod frowned, then nodded. ”I think so. There's a section that's so high security even Sam couldn't get into it. From the star-tram I saw children.”

Pete sighed and relaxed slightly. ”Good.”

”Why?” Herod asked. ”Wait, how do you now about that system?”

Pete reached out to Daxin, who handed him the bottle after Menhit handed it to him.

”Because I helped work on it. I'd transferred to Luna to put in place one of the new systems right before the Glassing,” Pete said. ”If the catastrophic systems are working, we might be able to keep the entire system from collapsing when we pull Sam out of it.”

Daxin picked up a hunk of wood and tossed it into the forest. The big Goodboi barked twice and ran after it.

”We'll get everyone here,” he said. ”Then we'll plan the next phase.”

Herod frowned as the big cyberhound flailed back into the camp. ”What's that?”

Menhit exhaled a long stream of smoke and smiled. ”The assault on Heaven.”