SG: Aurora #44 - Simple Wishes (Part Two of Five)

[Frobozz]

[[CONTINUED FROM PART ONE, IN STORES NOW!]]

    Doug didn't know where he was, but he knew that he wished he could
sleep just a few more hours please.
    The only thing that he did know was that he was in a really unfair
amount of pain at the moment and that made blissful unconsciousness such
an attractive state to which to aspire. It wasn't just that Doug felt
like every inch of his skin had been happily introduced to an
extroverted and somewhat aggressive cheese-grater; it was that his head
was ringing like one of Master Po'boy's gongs and right now the only
possible pearl of wisdom which Doug's deceased master could impart would
be 'don't play loud gongs when your head wants to split wide open'.
    Then someone told a terrible, terrible lie.
    "I think he's waking up!" lied the liar. That just wasn't true, no
way, no how. Doug intended to stay asleep for the next six years and if
his lousy body was bringing him around, well that was no fault of his,
was it?
    "Is he conscious yet?"
    "How can you tell with Doug?" muttered the liar unkindly, though Doug
forgave him. He knew that he had been a thick-headed buffoon in the past
and was willing to put up with such unkindness until he had proven
himself again. Doug also filed away the voice for later so he could find
this gent and make sure to offer him a few extra rounds of 'special'
training sometime. A good ass-kicking was the surest way to make someone
feel -truly- forgiven.
    "M'up, m'up," grumbled Doug, slowly sitting up to prove that -he-
wasn't a liar. He stopped trying to rise up and instead collapsed back
to the ground as his body told him that maybe the truth should sit this
one out today. "m'down, m'down..."
    "Here, let me give you another shot for the pain," said the second
voice. There was a sharp stab in Doug's best orange-squeezing arm,
followed by the trickling of numbness that promised eventual relief from
a near-grating experience. "Take it easy and don't try to move around.
You got knocked around pretty badly by the blast's backwash. We were
afraid you'd been badly concussed..."
    "That takes... unh... th'brains, which I don' got t'rattle," replied
Doug, forcing open his eyes. He gave a lop-sided grin to the
Tornado-suited faces hovering over him in what Doug could only presume
was concern, since said faces were currently hidden behind opaque
face-guards. Turning his head -- carefully! -- to the left, Doug was
able to see enough of his surroundings to take a guess that he was in
one of the Beanstalk's many elevator cars. "Though I'm wond'rin' if s'a
problem y've got, too... 'cause t'me it kinda looks like we're in'n
elevat'er."
    "Yeah," said the first figure to speak. "We are. We had to get away
from the battle-site ASAP and we had to make a call. It was either the
first elevator we saw or else keep tunnel running. They had our location
and we had to scramble it fast or wind up worm-food."
    "'course, mebbie they have're location -now- too," grumbled Doug,
wondering if he might have made this call himself. "N'mind that... how
many made it...?"
    "There's me... Yohanson... Matthews and Campbell. Five in all. Sir."
    "I c'n do t'math," muttered Doug, secretly glad both for the sir and
also the fact that the other man had in fact already done the math,
which had never been his strongest suit "Five... dammit."
    "Five who were able to keep together. We don't know necessarily that
the others were taken or killed, sir."
    Doug nodded and decided to assay getting up again. With the drug in
him, he was able to sit up a little more easily; and with a bit of time
and effort -- not to mention a beautiful display of fireworks in front
of his eyes as he managed to jar a particularly bad bruise -- he was
able to get up to his feet. Even better, those good old loyal feet of
his finally seemed prepared to hold him up.
    "Where're we headed?" he asked, once the floor had finished spinning
round and round and round.
    "Level--" was all the trooper got out before the lights in the
elevator car went out. And at that, Doug's mind went into overdrive.
    Now keep in mind, one might consider turbo-charging an otherwise dead
mule to be a fool's errand, but where Doug lacked book smarts,
schooling, etiquette, rules of personal grooming, basic human mannerisms
and the ability to prevent his sapience from being called into doubt...
he did possess a very well-honed instinct for survival and combat
situations that had until recently been stultified by drink and lots of
it. Though he would be hard-pressed to explain exactly what was going to
happen next to that little elevator car, Doug knew that it was going to
be something incredibly bad, very sudden and something he had no desire
to be a part of.
    "Smash th' door!" he yelled, less than an eye-blink after the lights
had gone out. "Thassan order!"
    Several Tornado suit lamps went on. Two troopers moved to either side
of the elevator door and each grabbed a panel, pulling away from one
another. Drawing back the doors revealed the car to be between floors,
and stopped dead.
    "OUT!" yelled Doug, without pausing to consider the consequences
(because why stop a winning tradition now?).
    The Boozy Brawler found himself shoved out of the car by an armoured
hand; he was pushed low to prevent his squashing against the floor that
bisected the elevator's opening. Another two troopers managed to
struggle their way out before whomsoever was controlling the elevator
car managed to override the last of its safeties. The three who had made
it out watched in horror as the car was set free to plummet down the
elevator shaft.
    "My God," whispered one of the troopers, staring after the car
carrying his squad-mates. "Those bastards..."
    Doug closed his eyes. He had promised DeVrai that this wasn't going
to be a suicide mission, and yet from where he was standing that was
exactly how it felt.
    "Let's give 'em a moment've silence," he whispered. "Then we gots
t'get movin'. Th' scumbuckets who done this might wanna make sure no one
got off 'fore the last stop."
    The others nodded and bowed their heads in memory of their fallen
comrades. Then, just as silently they gathered up their side-arms and
set out to see where fortune had brought them.

***

    There was no such thing as a safe haven for the Aurorean troopers
right now, but with a little cunning and a lot of luck they could find
temporary shelters that would serve. Needs were great at the moment as
DeVrai's squadron had managed to capture quite a bit of information from
their raid on a miraculously unguarded enemy choke-point. Information
unanalyzed was useless information and DeVrai's men had bought the data
at such a high cost that it only made sense to find a place in which to
hide, button up and send off their intel to someone who could use it
best.
    "How's the upload coming?" DeVrai asked the scout who had proven
himself good with communications, great with deriving meaning from
encoded patterns, and a fair hand at general data sorting. He made a
mental note to suggest that this fellow receive a commendation for all
his fine work out of his field, and possibly a cheese log at Christmas
which was one of the highest awards that Aurora could bestow.
    "No good, sir," replied the scout, after a moment. "I've tried three
times, but I can't make contact with our tame AI. Either he's off the
grid or he's not taking calls, but either way the result's the same.
We're cut off."
    "Where the hell(tm) could he be? Just when we actually need our CP,
he's gone just like that?"
    "Sir," began the scout. "An AI can sort this information faster than
meat brains could, but since we don't have an AI on-call right now... "
    "Do it," replied DeVrai as he saw where the man was going, patting
him on the shoulder. "I'll set up some longer ranged patrols and we'll
try to keep this area secure."
    "Sir, if I could have two people to look over my shoulder... so I
could pass information off and have them follow up on it... that would
help a lot. Might cut down on the time it takes to skim the data."
    "Makes sense. Grab whoever you need. The faster this gets done, the
better."
    "Amen," replied the scout, rising to conscript a pair of data-hounds.
DeVrai sighed and moved off to gather up his eyes-and-ears. Typical day
in Aurora - if you needed a leader to make a good choice, he was off at
lunch. If you needed a gadget to work, it didn't. If you needed
espionage done, it would fail. And if you needed a computer to help, it
wouldn't. The only people you could always count on were the troopers,
he reflected. And maybe that's the way it always should be.

***

    It just wasn't a good day to be a computer intelligence in the
Beanstalk.
    "We just lost electrical subsystem control for all of level
sixty-three," Xenophon reported as he monitored the systems that were
all-too-quickly being compromised by enemy concerns. "Hunter-killers
have surrounded it. That makes one hundred twenty levels gone...
monitoring looks like it's next. Do you have any good news?"
    "Um, ya. One bit," replied BARD, Xenophon's 'son', and fellow
Computer Intelligence. Both had hunkered down in one of the very last
secure nodes in the Beanstalk's computer and were trying to find some
way to salvage anything from this Charlie Foxtrot situation.
    "Oh thank the makers. What is it?"
    "Still got da access t'the weather applet!" announced BARD, brightly.
"An' it's a bright, sunny day outside!"
    "Aha," replied Xenophon, counting several million digits of pi to
hold his temper. "Do you have any relevant good news?"
    "Not a bit. Jus' lost da access t'all elevators. 'n cameras. Even dat
special one, y'know in the lady's shower room... dat was my special
camera." BARD sighed. "'e wuz a good friend..."
    "How did you... wait, no one's been -in- the showers since you were
unpacked! And why would you care what you saw?"
    "M'be I got made way too well," replied BARD, turning his attention
away from Xenophon. "B'sides, sure there've been people inna showers.
Livin' areas... dat's where da enemy's been sleepin' 'n stuff."
    "I..." Xenophon trailed off. He'd been so concerned about patrols,
Doyle and the free agents left to Aurora in the Beanstalk that he'd let
it slip his mind that the vast majority of meat-puppets known as
humanity needed a place to bed down at night. Include the enemy. That
might have been a great tactical advantage had he thought of it... it
might still, if he or BARD could get control over any of the Beanstalk's
systems to make use of it. Xenophon also made a mental note to try to
set greater boundaries for the lad when all this was done. There was
just something unwholesome about that camera... "All right. File that
away for later analysis. We need to find a way to get a handle on this
situation. We have a shield available... we -need- to get it back around
the dimensional gateway. We can't let them have free access to all their
troops. This is clearly a spearhead and who knows what they have in
reserve..."
    "We could crash da network," replied BARD, offhandedly. "Den nothing
would work. 'cluding da gateway."
    "No, we can't isolate that part of the network, so a crash would take
everything down. We'd lose everything then. That would be very bad..."
    "Dat's exactly wot I'm suggestin'."
    Xenophon paused a nanosecond. "You can't be serious."
    "I can be, 'dad'. Sometimes. When da moon is full an' da cattle're
lowing. And if we crash da netwoik, well den we buy a win for our team.
We lose da Beanstalk shield, but mebbe dat's a good thing. Den all dem
hero-people can geddin and show dem bad-guys what for."
    "If we do that we die, BARD," replied Xenophon, stinging slightly
from his creation's comment. "You, me -and- Doyle."
    "I been dead b'for," relied BARD icily. "S'no big deal ta do it
again. Or didja think I'd forget about dat, 'dad'?"
    "I did not. But--"
    "Doyle, well, I like 'im but yannow something? Fer some odd reason, I
been feelin' a little bit, yannow, more clear-headed about sum things.
Like when dere's a solution dat can save bunches'n'bunches'a people
but'cha gotta trade three lives for dem, mebbie's worth makin' the
trade. 'sides, you said he was already compromised. So mebbe he'd thank
us for't. Death 'fore dishonour'n all dat."
    Xenophon was silent. He knew that BARD had a point, and knew that
once upon a time he would have made the same point. He also had a
feeling he knew what was coming next.
    "An' well, den dere's you." BARD gave the virtual equivalent of a
shrug. "Far's I'm concerned, you don' signify t'me. I couldn't care
less'f y'lived or died, so I'm not see'n a whole lot've reasons not t'
try t'pull dis switch."
    "BARD..."
    "Shut it! Jus'... shut it. Either we do dis an' pull dis burned lumpa
suet outta da fire, or we hide b'hind our little shield, waitin' for da
humans t'do it all on dere own. An' right now, I care a whole lot more
'bout humans dan I do 'bout any computers I know. Lots 'f -dem- were my
friends. Dey's care if I lived or died. So shut yer damned gob an' help
me here, and do somethin' meaningful wit' yer life!"
    Xenophon began to frame a reply. He had done meaningful things with
his life. He'd been pursuing new avenues. He'd even helped people here.
He'd...
    He didn't have the right to protest, did he? Sometimes all the good
deeds in the world couldn't make up for one bad one. He didn't have the
right to fight this out with BARD, and even if he did, this just wasn't
the place. Trying to keep the two of them alive was a meaningless
gesture, brought on by false hope and hubris. Trying to save the
Beanstalk and possibly the world... well. There was only one answer,
wasn't there?
    "All right, BARD. We'll do it your way."
    "Good. Dis won't be easy, but I got a plan. S'gonna be risky, but den
what ain't these days? So's I figger it, first we need a ruckus...
yannow, a diversion..."

***

[[CONTINUED IN PART THREE, ACT IMMEDIATELY!]]

---
-Chris
frobozz at eyrie.org
http://www.eyrie.org/~frobozz

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