the AI responded simply.
“I should have known,” the runner commented darkly.
“Can you turn them off ?” Norr inquired hopefully.
“Yes,” Sogol responded. “But only if I control Socket . . . so let’s go.”
As Rebo and Norr stepped over the bodies heaped around the hatch, it was clear that the robots had been cut down as they attempted to enter the compartment. Reinforcements perhaps? Summoned after the fi?sherman had been killed? Yes, the runner thought that was likely. But, unfortunately for the robots, it looked as though they had arrived after the main party materialized on the platform. Now, as Rebo entered the corridor, he found himself in an environment that was reminiscent of the great starships. Med kits, fi?re extinguishers, and emergency pressure suits could be found at regular intervals along the metal bulkhead, along with directional signs that pointed toward destinations like maintenance, personnel, and medical.
But unlike all of the starships that Rebo had been aboard, Socket had yet to be looted, and there was no graffi?ti to be seen. “Take the next left,” Sogol ordered. “That hallway leads to the lift.”
Rebo approached the intersection with care, paused to peek around the corner, and was glad that he had. Judging from the bullet-scarred bulkheads, and the burn marks that crisscrossed the decks, Tepho and his party had been attacked as they transited the hall. But based on heaps of dead mechanimals that littered the fl?oor, it was clear that the technos had been able to successfully defend themselves. Except for a hapless metal man, that is, who lay with his arms outfl?ung, sensors staring sightlessly at the overhead. It appeared that the mechanimals had been able to open the robot’s belly, because the android’s electronic entrails lay splayed across his waist, where many of the fi?ber-optic cables had been severed. Norr “felt” a life force behind her, whirled, and fi?red. The shotgun went boom, clack, boom, clack, as a dozen of the chittering guardians rushed her. Green animatronic fl?uid splattered the bulkheads as the fi?rst wave of mechanimals came apart. But farther down the hall, beyond the scope of the present battle, more lithe bodies were spilling out of ducts, chittering madly as their claws fought for purchase on the metal deck, each robot communicating with all the rest by radio.
Having spotted the oncoming wave, Rebo readied one of the energy grenades that the phibs had given him, thumbed the fuse, and tossed the weapon down the corridor. The bomb bounced once, went off with a silent fl?ash, and blew at least fi?fteen mechanimals to smithereens.
In the meantime Norr pulled the trigger again, heard nothing more than a metallic click, and grabbed for the power pistol. There was no recoil as the bolts of blue energy struck the remaining robots and reduced most to little more than badly burned carcasses. But even though the rear portion of its body was missing, the front half of a guardian continued to drag itself toward the sensitive, its jaws snapping at empty air. Another energy bolt put the beast down for good, but the experience left Norr shaken, and the sensitive’s hands trembled slightly as she reloaded her weapons.
“Good job,” Rebo said reassuringly, as he administered the coup de grace to a twitching robot. “Come on . . . Let’s get down that next stretch of hallway before the little bastards can regroup.”
Norr followed the runner as he turned the corner, glanced at a hatch marked emergency access ladder, and made his way past the same metal man he’d seen before. Meanwhile, having been attacked from behind once, the sensitive didn’t want the same thing to happen again, and was walking backward when she passed the robot. That’s why the variant didn’t realize the android was still alive until steely fi?ngers wrapped themselves around her ankle. There was a single boom-clack combination as Norr blew the robot’s head off. Rebo whirled, ready to fi?ght, but concluded that Norr was getting jumpy, and turned back again. The runner arrived at the end of the corridor, followed the main lift sign to the right, and spotted the door ahead. A few seconds later he was standing in front of the polished metal door pushing on the up button. Once the indicator light appeared, Rebo started to back away, and motioned for Norr to do likewise. And it was a good thing, too, because when the lift chimed and doors parted, a Porto Industries 8813-B Enforcer opened fi?re on them. The sphere-shaped machine fl?oated two feet off the deck and was armed with an energy cannon. A cluster of three energy bolts passed between the humans as they opened fi?re. Even though Rebo scored three hits with the energy rifl?e, and Norr blasted the robot with her shotgun, the machine remained unaffected. That was when the robot swiveled toward Rebo, and Norr stepped into the gap between them. There was a loud clatter as the shotgun hit the fl?oor. Rebo shouted, “No!” and the sensitive went for her sword.
But, rather than blowing Norr in half, the enforcer moved as if to bypass the female. That was when the runner remembered what Sogol had said earlier—and realized that the construct couldn’t attack the sensitive so long as the AI was wrapped around her arm. Come to think of it, the guardians they had encountered earlier had probably been after him.
There was a metallic fl?ash as the sliver of steel fell, followed by a loud ka-ching, as the supersharp blade sliced down through the robot’s armor casing to lodge itself somewhere inside. The sensitive tried to free her weapon, discovered it was locked in place, and was forced to place a foot on the enforcer’s casing in order to pry the sword free. Then, just as Norr was about to take another cut at the robot, sparks spurted out of the gash in its casing. The machine shuddered, hit the deck with a thud, and rolled for two feet before coming to a stop next to a bulkhead. The sensitive returned the sword to its sheath, bent to retrieve her shotgun, and broke the weapon open. “Damn,” the runner said fervently, as he watched his companion pluck empties from the weapon’s rotary cylinder. “That was close! You scared the hell out of me.”
“I was never in any danger,” the variant replied smugly.
“Yeah? Well, you soon will be,” Rebo replied darkly.
“Tepho and his people would be more than happy to shoot you.”
“They are entering nexus!” Sogol hissed urgently.
“Hurry!”
The humans entered the lift, the runner touched the button that said, level three, and felt the car jerk into motion. “Why three?” Norr wanted to know. “Nexus is on two.”
“Which means they’ll be waiting for us on two,” the runner predicted. “By going up to three and going down the emergency access ladder to level two, we might be able to surprise them.”
The elevator stopped, the doors parted, and the runner eyed the corridor. It was blessedly empty, for which Rebo gave thanks as he jogged down the hall to the point where the vertical emergency access ladder sign had been stenciled onto the bulkhead. He opened the hatch, heard a gentle hiss as pressures were equalized, and entered what amounted to a vertical tunnel. “I’ll go fi?rst,” the runner announced, as he positioned himself on the ladder. “And remember, we don’t have friends down there, so shoot anything that moves.”
Then Rebo was gone, his boots sliding along the outside surface of the rails, the energy rifl?e hanging across his chest. The runner braked when he saw the numeral 2 appear, transferred his weight to a small platform, and was already turning toward the hatch when Norr began her descent. Cognizant of the fact that the hall was probably occupied, Rebo opened the hatch, tossed a grenade through the gap, and pulled the door closed again. There was a muffl?ed scream, followed by the dull rattle of automatic fi?re and a series of unintelligible shouts. That was Rebo’s cue to toss a second energy bomb into the corridor. He pulled the door closed, counted to four, and pushed his way out into the hall. The badly pulped remains of at least three bodies were scattered about, and two humans plus a metal man were crouched not thirty feet up the corridor. Judging from the way some of the norms held their weapons, they weren’t too familiar with them. A couple of Tepho’s attendants perhaps? There was no way to know. But when they fi?red, the runner fi?red back, and it was his bullets that struck home. The robot went down fi?rst, quickly followed by both humans, one of whom took a burst of bolts from behind.