Focus.
My field of vision is split into three separate images—the first, and largest, my primary sensor feed, the shadowed mass of the Golgbank distribution center rising past a chain-link fence in front of me. It’s one of five such buildings facing the street, each a minimally designed box built to keep the outside off of whatever lies within. In the upper corners of my vision are Wind and Slend’s feeds, shifting with their movements, a triumvirate I imagine would be incredibly disorienting to anyone not used to running hapdrones in the Game. Or the military, I realize belatedly.
Naturally, everything feels like an extension of my body, in a very literal sense, but I’m used to that. I can feel myself sinking into the little scout, my formerly watery skin hardening and smoothing, its electronics my eyes, my muscles its nerves. Slowly, I realize there’s something off about this compared to the Game. Sensations are coming in a little too hot, wavelengths a frequency band too bright. I’m settling into my new skin too easily, like I’ve always lived there.
Is this what Sawyer meant by intense?
My thoughts… shift.
Slend’s feed shows her vantage point atop one of the neighboring buildings with significantly less security, automated vehicles racing along the crowded and dimly lit road, their bumpers inches from each other, weaving through the industrial park. Communication and collision beams flicker out from their sensor clusters, ghostly fingers tangling in an invisible band. I have her up there because she’s the clumsiest in this form, perhaps a result of how strongly she’s worked on her shell in the real. For this op, she won’t need to move much.
Hopefully.
A red targeting bracket floats, then settles on an approaching heavy lifter, stacked container pallets rising from its dented bed. I can hear it query the local satnav for position updates, a petulant whine.
“Three.”
Slend’s voice is just as quiet as mine.
“Two. One. Firing.”
Her body gives a gentle burp, no louder than a cough. Through her eyes, I see the front right tire of the truck shred apart, causing it to careen to the side and into an electrical pole, deuce round instantly crushed by the weight of the lifter, just another piece of scrap. Metal and wood collide, the wood giving way in a splintering crack, bulky transformers exploding in fountaining sparks. Containers slide and tumble across the expressway, bringing movement to a screeching halt. Lights along the entire block go dark.
Perfect.
“Sixty seconds until reboot. Moving.”
Just another encounter.
Wind and I smoothly unfold from beneath our carrier, a nondescript delivery vehicle parked across a side street from our target. Servo-assisted limbs propel us easily over the barbed wire fence at the back of the building. Blinded surveillance domes fail to witness our brief flight, their electric lifeblood momentarily cut. Both of us hit the side of the wall almost halfway up, driving our piton-like digits into the concrete in grinding crunches, adding a few more divots to the already acid rain–pitted surface. Quickly, we scrabble up to the roof, mechanical spiders defying gravity.
“Ugh. Comp assist is so boring.”
Wind, on the other hand, could probably ghost anything.
“Focus, Wind. Forty-five.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The tip of one of her hands peels back, revealing a small multitool. “Opening vent cover.” A small whine sounds, barely louder than a mosquito. “Moving.”
Wind climbs through the now-open roof vent, her vision switching to the greenish tinge of active nightvision, and quietly lowers herself into the ducts. I follow right behind.
“Twenty-five.”
After a quick scamper, Wind pulls up another vent grate, revealing the factory floor below. Assemblers lie quiescent, their normally frantically twitching limbs drooping like unwatered ferns, ghostly luminescence limning all.
“All you, Ash.”
“Moving. Ten.”
I drop fifteen meters to the hard concrete below, landing on all six legs, servos absorbing the impact almost noiselessly. Instantly I’m running for the nearest assembler, trying not to notice the pieces of splayed-open hoods lying on the conveyor belt.
They look like the one on Brand… after I broke her…
No. Focus. Finish the encounter.
I jump up between one of the assemblers and the wall, setting a disposable eye against the peeling paint with my right middle foot. It adheres, then disappears, camo panels activating. It’ll melt itself down when we’re done, more scrap for the dusty corners. A fourth feed appears in my vision, distorted fish-eye perspective covering the entire factory floor, including all three doors leading in. I drop down and crouch behind the assembler.
“Three. Two. One.”
I turn off my nightvision, and block all nonstandard visual frequencies so I can concentrate. Lights blaze forth overhead, the smartgrid finally patching around the momentary blockage we created, and assemblers spring back into motion, spindly limbs running through diagnostic routines with jerking clicks. Satisfied that all is well, they smoothly swing back over the conveyor belt, and it rumbles into motion, insect arms dipping down to do their unthinking work. I continue to wait, watching through my third eye’s twisted panorama.
Half a minute later, one of the doors slides open, and a squat shape rolls through. It looks like someone put a saltshaker on wheels. A small red light blinks in the dome covering its top, and it slowly makes its way toward the assembly line.
“Careful, Ash. Don’t get exterminated.”
“Focus, Wind.”
The commlink goes silent after her giggle. I resist the urge to shake my sensors and keep watching. Another door opens, then a third, each one admitting a surveillance drone. They spread out among the darting limbs of the assemblers, rolling from one to the next, mobile sentries with deadly sight. I take a deep breath, surprised it doesn’t flex my metal thorax.
“Time to go frogging. On the move.”
Still watching through the fish-eye, I make my third-perspective body move from its hiding space in a scuttling run, sliding between two of the sentries while their backs are turned. I end up behind another assembler, this one closer to the rear door of the factory floor. The drones pirouette, wheels squealing on the smooth concrete floor, and sweep another area. Once more I move, dancing through their blind spots with silent metal feet, combining different angles of vision effortlessly. Another assembler shields me from view, nearly completed haphoods sliding past its whirring bulk. I ready myself for the last push.
Sentry tires squeal through a turn, and I’m racing to the door, front left manipulator closing on the scratched nickel handle, watching myself standing on two legs, three more legs braced for balance, a sixth extended while the drones stare out at the factory floor separated from my back by no more than five centimeters. If either were to spin even the slightest, to break their protocols with a burst of initiative…
A quick twist, both of hand and body, and I’m in the hallway, door quietly shutting behind. I let my vision fade from the assembler floor, and sprint to the highlighted door, third on the left. Twist again, and steal inside.
“I’m in. Wind, you’re on sensors. Slend, anything outside?”