Binary Pair Read online

  Kasta pressed a button on the black box, and the thing hummed to life.

  “Listen to the case fan,” the hacker snickered. “They haven’t figured out nano or photonic processors. Probably still using silicone and bits of copper.”

  “I have no idea what any of that means,” I said.

  “Oh.” Z looked at me, and her blue eyes twinkled in the light from our suits. “Ahhh. If you really want to know, I can tell you about it. It’s all about diffusing heat with--”

  The screen flickered to life behind her, and the hacker turned her attention to the spray of static. Then the screen turned a light blue color, and a block of white text appeared beside a yellow icon that looked like a box with an exclamation point etched on the side.

  “The writing is Russian. It says ‘video documentation,’” Kasta nodded.

  “Hmmm,” Z said as she looked around at the playing device that was connected to the screen. “I don’t see an interface. What if I…” She reached up and pressed the screen where the icon was, and the image shifted to show three video files. I could tell they were video files because each icon was playing a few second clip.

  “The bottom one is the oldest file,” Kasta said, and Z pressed her finger to it.

  The screen switched over to show a man in this room. He was sitting on the bed, but the walls and ceiling weren’t painted. He wore a pair of jeans but no shirt. His torso was lean, muscular, and covered with twisting tattoos that actually looked like the style popular with the Yakuza.

  He started talking and gesturing with his hands. I didn’t know what he was saying, but his face looked incredibly sad, and he held his hands together as if he was praying half a dozen times while he talked. At the end, he lifted up a small canvas with a painting of what looked like a sleek bee or wasp, and then he gestured to his room before shaking his head again.

  “Kasta, do you understand his words?” Eve asked when the video ended.

  “It is Russian, but the dialect has shifted a great deal. Can you play it again?”

  “Yeah,” Z hit a circled arrow at the bottom left corner of the screen, and the recording replayed.

  “I understand a bit more, but can we watch the other two videos? A larger sample size will help me.”

  “Uhh, yeah. I think I can press this,” Z hit an up arrow on the screen, and it went back to show the three files. “Middle one?”

  “Yes, please,” Kasta said, and then Z pressed the button.

  The same man was in the video. He had been skinny in the earlier film, but he looked to be a good seven kilograms lighter. His hair was longer than the first video, but his face was cleanly shaven. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his torso was covered with streaks of paint.

  The walls of the room were now covered with pictures of the naked women pointing.

  He began talking, and his anguish was plain. This conversation was shorter than the earlier video, and he ended the session by pleading with the camera.

  “Okay, what the fuck did he say? This is really creeping me out.” Z crossed her arms over her chest and shivered.

  “Can you play the next video?” Kasta asked. “I understood most of that one but would like to see the third before. I’ll attempt to translate.”

  Z played the last video. The man was painfully thin now. His eyes were wild, and he spent the first half minute of the video crying into his hands. In each of the previous two videos, his bed had been neatly made, but it looked like a mess in this one. He finally started to speak, and it was obvious that he was desperate for help. He held up his paint brushes, and then gestured to his walls, and then he shook his head. Pointed upward, shrugged, and then nodded at the camera. He made a final praying motion with his hands and then stood up to shut off his camera.

  “Would you like me to translate word for word from the first video? Or should I give you the synopsis?” Kasta asked me. “I have them committed to memory.”

  “I don’t know if I want to watch those videos again, looked like the guy was losing his damn mind,” Z said.

  “Yeah, just tell us what he said,” I answered the android woman.

  “His name is Faddy. The city where we stand is called New Penza. There are, or were, a little over half a million people in this city, and twenty major cities on the planet of Uraniel.”

  Kasta paused for a second, and the rest of us nodded. Then she continued.

  “He thinks it was five, maybe six years ago, he is unsure of the exact date, but construction workers found ruins of a civilization that was here long before humans arrived on the arks. He said this planet was never terraformed, and the news excited everyone on the planet.”

  “See! It’s alien-monsters! These yahoos must have woken them up and then got eaten. Faddy hid out in here until he got crazy,” Z said. She was crouching down by the player and disconnected my rifle power packs from the spaghetti bowl of wires before she passed them to me.

  “You are actually somewhat correct,” Kasta said, and Z’s eyes opened wide. “Faddy wasn’t part of the excavation team. He is a painter and not a scientist, but he watched the news broadcasts. His people seemed to have found some sort of burial site, and there were mummified corpses of what looked to be human-like beings, but there was something else buried there. It was an insect that awoke and took to the skies.”

  “Was that the painting he showed?” I asked.

  “Yes. It was very aggressive, but its bite wasn’t deadly to humans. However, the creature went after the edible vegetation. Within a few years, the creatures had bred to massive quantities and eaten almost all of the crops on the planet. The people were beginning to starve, but the pest was immune to any pesticides Faddy’s people tried to develop. Excavations on the ancient site halted so the entire populace of Uraniel could try and kill the wasps.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t happen since there is no one here,” Z said.

  “They actually did kill the wasps, but not with pesticides or drugs. Faddy said they had limited space travel, but the population hadn’t really aspired to leave Uraniel. Every five or so years they might get a visit from traders, which was always a celebrated event. When things were at their worst, and the population was half a year away from starving, star travelers came to the planet and offered to fix the problem with the wasps.”

  “Uh oh,” Z said.

  “Yeah,” Paula sighed and shook her head. “The people of Uraniel didn’t have much of a choice, but the terms were akin to slavery. They would have to allow the travelers to strip mine the planet. They also request a weekly gift of women and children for slavery. Faddy was just a citizen, he didn’t know the terms of the agreement, but the world had little choice.”

  “Fucking dickbags! Was that these Lith Dae assholes we took out?” Z asked.

  “He didn’t say,” Kasta answered. “Their solution was a drone technology that would search and destroy the wasps. Every city set up an automated factory to build the drones. The machines were effective, and the wasps were eliminated a few months later. Faddy’s people rejoiced, but then the saviors landed their ships and began to take tribute. That went on for four years or so. The citizens of Uraniel begged to be released from the terms of the agreement. Their saviors declined, and there was an insurgent movement.”

  “We didn’t fly over any strip mine sites,” I commented.

  “It is impossible to tell how old these videos are, but I am almost at the end of Faddy’s story if you will let me continue.” Kasta winked at me.

  “Sorry, go ahead.”

  “He doesn’t know what happened for sure, but he thinks some of the insurgents hacked the control code for the drones. But there was a mistake made, and the drones began to attack the landed starships and any living thing on the planet. They became a horrible threat, even more deadly than the wasps they were originally tasked with killing. Thousands of people began to die every night when the machines came out. What was left of Faddy’s people retreated into bunkers, but Faddy loved the sun and hi
s planet, and he chose to stay behind and ensure that the distress signals were being sent. Soon the power plants of the city stopped working, but he had gathered batteries to store in the basement of this building.”

  She pointed at the screen and shrugged. “He didn’t want to make a lot of videos because it would use the power he gathered. During the last video, he said he was almost out, and wouldn’t be able to send any more distress signals. He didn’t know if there were any other survivors left on the surface with his mission, but his people had been stuck in the bunker for over a year. He’s had no contact with them.”

  “The city doesn’t look as if it was abandoned in chaos,” Paula said. “Everything seems to be organized. Maybe some people left the bunker and left the planet? We don’t know how old the video is.”

  “Could be.” Kasta shrugged. “But I feel as though these people are very fastidious. During the videos, Faddy apologized for having paint on his chest, but he didn’t want to waste water showering. Then during the final video, he apologized for not making his bed three times.”

  “Ahh, makes sense,” Paula nodded.

  “They got the drones to attack the starships?” Eve asked.

  “He said they did, but he didn’t give any details,” Kasta replied with a shrug.

  “Most starships have radiation protection elements to the metal of the hull, they could have been set to target that.” Paula nodded thoughtfully.

  “What about the night?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Kasta looked at me.

  “You said that people started dying at night from the drones.”

  “Oh, these wasps were only active at dusk and the early night hours, so they set the drones up to charge during the day and then become active when the wasps were.” As the words left Kasta’s mouth, her eyes opened wide with surprise.

  “It was getting close to sunset when we got in here,” Paula said what everyone else was thinking.

  “We need to get back to Persephone before the drones attack her. Right now. Move!” I shouted, and the five of us ran toward the stairwell to get out of the apartment building.

  Chapter 4

  “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!” Z hissed as soon as we made out the front door.

  It was easy to see why the hacker was so upset. The sun was nearly setting, and it was most definitely dusk.

  “How many--” I started to ask Eve, but she interrupted me.

  “Six kilometers!” Eve answered, and the other women groaned.

  “Let’s take one of these cars!” Paula pointed across the street where a group of four of the small three-wheel cars was neatly parked.

  “It might take too long,” Z said.

  “Longer than running back to the ship?” Paula asked.

  “Try the car,” I said, but even as I said the word my stomach dropped. If the three women couldn’t figure out how to get the vehicle to start, we were just going to waste time. I didn’t know if these drones were even active anymore, but I’d rather find out from a safe orbit than down here on the surface.

  We ran toward the closest car. The vehicle had a single glass that covered the bottom metal base and wheels of it like the top half of an egg. Z tried to open the hatch of the first car, but it didn’t budge when she yanked on the obvious handle.

  “These might even be able to start. They might not have a battery. I can’t even open the damn--”

  “Try the other cars!” I shouted as I pushed Z away from the first one with my left hand. As soon as the hacker was behind me. I brought the butt of my rifle down on the clear glass of the hatch. I expected it to shatter easily, but my blow just bounced off as if I’d hit a brick wall, and the sound of my strike echoed through the empty city like a cannon shot.

  “Locked!” Paula yelled from her car.

  “Locked!” Kasta confirmed from the car she was next to, then the two women ran to the next egg shaped vehicles.

  “This is also locked,” Eve said, and I was once again surprised by how calm her voice was.

  “Fuck it,” I said as I turned my rifle around and flipped off the safety. The weapon hummed in my hands, and then it spat a trio of bullets out that tore a wide hole in the clear top material of the car. The hood didn’t shatter with the bullets, but my next three trigger pulls punched enough holes in it for me to get my hands around the lower lip.

  I grunted, pulled, and the latches snapped free. Then I bent the hood back and tore it free of the hinges. Now the vehicle was a convertible, and the three blonde women leaned into the front seat and started to yell at each other about the control systems.

  “It has a computer system--” Z said.

  “Battery start hooked up to internal combust--” one of the twins started.

  “Ignition is connected to the--” the other twin said.

  “It’s got power!” Z yelled, and I saw the screen on the dashboard flicker to life.

  Then I heard a humming noise, and it wasn’t coming from the car.

  “Adam,” Eve gasped, and I looked up with her into the sky.

  There were silvery objects lifting off the roofs of the surrounding buildings. They looked like birds; they even flapped their wings to gain altitude and swung their tails to alter their flight path. That was where the resemblance ended though. My eyes were sharper than a normal human’s, and they had needle like front faces instead of bird-like beaks.

  The sight was just shy of terrifying.

  “Hurry,” I hissed to the three women. They were absorbed in their work and hadn’t looked up to see what was going on.

  “I think this wire will bypass the computer system so there won’t be a login required,” one of the twins said as she pushed her scissors into the dash area. “It won’t come free! Adam!”

  “Yeah?” I took a step to the car while I kept my eyes and rifle pointed at the sky.

  “Can you rip this away?” I’d lost track of which twin was speaking, but she was pointing at the thick plastic cover at one part of the driver cockpit.

  “I’ll try,” I said. Then I leaned over her lap, hooked my fingers around one of the seams and tugged. There was a snapping sound, then I yanked again, and there was a tearing sound, then I made another violent pull. The plastic cover broke free of the dash, and a nest of neatly arranged wires was exposed. It looked really damn complicated, and I felt my stomach drop.

  “Adam,” Eve hissed, and I looked back to the sky. The bird-drones were still scattered, but they hadn’t stopped coming and the dying light of the sun reflected off their eyes with a reddish tone. It looked like there were thousands of vampire bats swirling through the air.

  “You three need to hurry,” I said again.

  “We are trying! This shit is complicat--” Z started to say, but she’d looked up at me, and her blue eyes drifted to the storm of silver bird-drones in the air.

  “Oh fucking shit,” she gasped, and the twins stopped their work on the car to look upward.

  “That isn’t helping! Get back to the car!” I ordered, and the three women bent to their task.

  I turned to the swarming drones and saw a group of ten or so diving to the street. They were a good two hundred meters away, but they swooped along the buildings, across the top of the street, and looked to be flying toward us.

  “How much longer?” I tried to keep my voice calm even though my heart was screaming against my ribs. Even the beast in my stomach knew that this whole situation was completely fucked, and it was begging me to take over so it could run.

  “Uhhh,” Z said, but then there was a beeping sound from the controls, and the women gasped as the engine struggled to turn over. It grunted like a tired old man, but then it gave up, and the car was silent again.

  The noise seemed to cause more of the bird-like drones to notice us, and another group of winged drones spiraled to the ground.

  “Damn,” one of the twins said.

  “Try again!” yelled Z, and I saw one of the twins fiddle with the car wires again.

 
The vehicle coughed, sputtered, quivered, and then the engine died again.

  “Make it work!” I shouted as I brought the sight of my rifle up to the nearest swarm of drones. It was obvious that they were flying toward us, and even though they were just robots, the red glow of their eyes and aggressive looking needles on the front of the faces made them look like hungry little monsters.

  They were within a hundred meters now, and I forced my trembling arms to hold still for half a moment so that I could aim the dot of the sight on the bird at the front of the group.

  I pulled the trigger, and a bullet tore through the thing, smashed the one behind it, and sent the two of them tumbling into others behind them. A few shots later and I’d taken care of the entire first group, but there were more another two hundred meters behind them, and I could see four other plumes of drones descending from the sky. It was hard to tell their exact position since they were above us and the sun was setting, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to defend against all of them. There were thousands in the sky.

  And they had all heard my gunshots.

  “Yes!” the three women screamed as the engine turned over and caught. The car coughed to life and then purred like a tired cat. Z jumped into the driver's seat, the twins scurried in the back two seats and helped Eve jump over the side of the car so she could sit on one of the twin’s laps.

  I jumped in after Eve, and I stood between the three seats so that my groin pressed into the back of Z’s headrest.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I ordered, but I didn’t really need to, Z yanked on one of the control sticks of the car, slammed her foot down and then the vehicle began to reverse away from the nearest group of drones.

  I fired my rifle at the spiraling group of metal birds, and the dozen or so fell out of the sky and bounced lifelessly off the street. But there were two other groups behind them, and then four more in the distance behind those.

  The sky was falling, and it was like a tidal wave of silver wings and glowing red eyes.

  “Fucking shit!” Z screamed as she yanked the steering wheel around. Her movement caused my shots to go wide and miss the next group of birds, and I had to grab onto her seat with my left hand to keep from being thrown clear. The car spun around on its three wheels, but instead of doing a full turn around, it only made it part of the way, and Z toggled the control stick for a few precious seconds so we could drive forward instead of in reverse.