“I guess not,” Carina agreed. “Is there anything else?”

  “The last item on the list is a box of capsules containing molecular machines,” Carter replied. “Lyra said it’s something to do with adaptability and replication, but it’s all science mumbo-jumbo to me.”

  Carina blew out a sigh. “Like you said, I hope all this fits into our backpacks. It sounds like a lot.”

  Carter nodded. Spoken out loud, it didn’t seem like two small bags would be enough. A truck sounded like a better option.

  “Cai said these backpacks would cut it, and I’ve never known him to be wrong about anything,” Carter said, trusting his dependable Master Operator.

  “The sixty-four-thousand credit question is whether Lyra can crack this puzzle, even with all this stuff,” Carina said. She sounded suddenly gloomy and deflated. While the nano-reversion devices were critical to undoing the chaos Apophis and his vassal, Cyrus Duvall, had unleashed upon the Union, Carina had a deeply personal reason for needing a cure.

  “They’ll figure it out,” Carter said confidently. “And your aunt is strong, the strongest person I’ve ever known, besides her annoying niece. She’ll hold on long enough for Lyra to create a cure. Before you know it, Klara Krantz will be back at full strength, intimidating everyone and making me feel like a scolded schoolboy.”

  Carina managed to laugh. “I do enjoy it when she does that.”

  “You’re the only one who does,” Carter grunted. He took the Master Commander’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Don’t worry, Carina, this is going to work.”

  Carina nodded and smiled at him. Then she took a deep breath and let it out, expelling her worries and doubts like a bird shaking water from its feathers.

  “There won’t be a cure if we stay here, sitting on our asses,” Carina said, turning back to the task at hand. She rapped her knuckles against the command bot’s spherical shell. “JACAB, do your thing so we can do ours.”

  The little robot warbled an answer, and Carina frowned at him.

  “What do you mean it’s already in hand?” Carina asked. “Surely, you can’t hack the security systems from here?”

  JACAB bleeped and warbled his reply. The robot sounded suspiciously smug.

  “Your counterpart is on the case?” Carina said, her frown deepening to a scowl. “What counterpart?”

  A shrill whistle from close to the A*STAR North Tower was so high-pitched that only dogs and Master Officers could have heard it. Carter peered through the trees and bushes and spotted another spherical command bot, already poised and ready to execute their plan.

  “What the hell, JACAB! KACEY was supposed to stay with Amaya in the shuttle to provide backup,” Carter said.

  JACAB blew a raucous raspberry at Carter and then looked away, his metal hands pressed to his body. Carter muttered a curse and shook his head, but Carina laughed.

  “You two are like peas in a pod,” Carina said.

  JACAB warbled something like ‘Look who’s talking…’ though Carter couldn’t be sure. Then his comp-slate chimed an update. He checked the screen and grunted.

  “KACEY is in,” Carter said. “The cameras won’t see us now.”

  JACAB warbled, ‘I told you so…’ but Carter pretended not to hear him and drew his cutlass, separating it from the nano-fiber scabbard built into his advanced uniform.

  “Let’s move,” Carter said. “It’s time for some robot abuse…”

  TWO

  ROBOT ABUSE

  Carter hustled out of the tree line, leaving the ancient Colonial Houses behind, and stalked toward KACEY, who was already close to the North Tower of the A*STAR complex. Carina followed in his shadow, both moving silently, eyes flicking left to right, searching for potential threats. With the city on lockdown, the only people permitted to be on the streets were security bots and drones and the few Union soldiers lucky enough to still have green ‘all clear’ patches on their uniforms. Singapore had been particularly badly hit by the Aternien nano-machines, and the military was operating with a skeleton staff.

  Carter worked his way onto Fusionopolis Way, the road leading directly to the Nanexis North Tower of the A*STAR complex. Drones buzzed high overhead, and Carter signaled for Carina to stop before tucking himself deeper into cover. KACEY’s digital trickery only worked to blind the cameras and sensors connected to A*STAR’s security system. The drones flying outside were on a different circuit and too far out of range for KACEY or JACAB to jam them. It would only take a single drone to spot them, and the mission was compromised.

  “It’s okay, we’re clear,” Carter whispered. There was no need to speak so quietly, but the ungodly hour of three in the morning seemed to merit hushed tones as if Carter were afraid of waking a sleeping baby. “Move up behind that parked truck, then hold position.”

  Carter pointed out the delivery truck by the side of the road, halfway down Fusionopolis Way. It was one of thousands of abandoned vehicles in the city. Carina nodded, and together they moved out, timing their run to precision so as to avoid the eagle-eyed gaze of more flying security drones.

  Carter peered ahead toward the North Tower, then checked his comp-slate. Until this point, there had been no shortage of natural cover, from trees and hedgerows to signboards and even the roadblock barricades set up to cordon off the A*STAR complex. Now, there was only a straight road between them and their target, with buildings on either side and little in between.

  “It gets trickier from here,” Carter observed, rubbing his beard. “We need to get past that roadblock, then work our way to the rear of the North Tower.”

  “Can’t JACAB blast the guard robots with an EMP pulse?” Carina suggested. From her position, she didn’t have a direct line of sight to the roadblock. “Not anything powerful enough to fry their circuits. Just something to scramble their electronic brains and sensors for a few seconds while we rush past.”

  “That’s what I had in mind, too, but the problem is that these guards are human,” Carter replied.

  Carina frowned, then climbed behind Carter and peered over his shoulder. She cursed. It was little more than a hushed gasp, but since she’d spoken the word directly into Carter’s augmented ear, it sounded like a foghorn being blasted in his face.

  “I have an idea,” Carina said, sliding down behind the truck and facing JACAB. “The security drones buzzing around the city don’t look all that different to JACAB and KACEY, and I doubt these soldiers have ever seen a command bot up close. We could have JACAB pretend to be a malfunctioning drone. That might distract the guards long enough for us to slip past unnoticed.”

  Carter thought for a moment while still massaging his beard. The creature comforts of the Dune City, along with the benefits of keen Aternien blades, had allowed him to neatly trim his bristles and properly shave the rest of his face for the first time in weeks. Carina teased him for being vain and proclaimed he was only ‘tarting himself up’ to look good for the Queen of Old Aternus. In truth, he’d done it for himself. He prided himself on orderliness, both in military life and personal life. The sharp tailoring of his new Aternien battle uniform and his immaculate appearance helped to organize his thoughts. He was living proof of the idiom, ‘tidy desk, tidy mind.’

  “I agree it could work, so long as you don’t ham it up and go overboard,” Carter said, fixing his command bot with a knowing look.

  JACAB warbled a shocked reply, ‘Who, me?’

  “Nothing outrageous, okay?” Carter continued, knowing his bot’s flair for theatrics. “Just fly around at street level and look like you’re glitching. That should be enough to draw the guards away and allow us to move past.”

  JACAB warbled and nodded his agreement, but because of their unique neural bond, Carter could sense the machine’s thoughts like he could feel Carina’s emotions. Whatever JACAB had in mind, it wasn’t going to be subtle.

  With his new mission fizzing through his circuits, JACAB shot into the air and looped the loop before plunging toward the roadblock like a kite with a broken strut. Carter sighed and shook his head, but the bot’s ostentatious flight path had the desired effect of gathering the guards’ attention.

  Soon, JACAB was bouncing off the side of the building opposite the North Tower, bleeping like a faulty coffee machine, his thin metal arms outstretched and flailing like a whirling dervish. It was like JACAB had listened to Carter’s order not to ‘ham it up’ and done the exact opposite to spite him. Even so, to Carter’s immense annoyance, the act was working.

  “Once the war is over, maybe JACAB could be part of a Broadway or West End theatre production?” Carina said. Unlike himself, the Master Commander was amused by the command bot’s antics. “Let’s move while the guards are distracted.”

  Carina led Carter across the street and past the now abandoned roadblock while the two guards tried to corner JACAB and capture him like a wayward zoo animal that had escaped its cage. Once they were clear, Carina signaled JACAB using her comp-slate. The bot began performing the second part of his act, pretending to reset his systems, then returning to regular operation under the guise of a surveillance drone. The two soldiers were left scratching their heads, trying to make sense of it all while remaining oblivious to the deception they had fallen for.

  “Nice work, buddy!” Carina said as JACAB returned. The bot and Master Commander high-fived, but all Carter received was a loud raspberry in his face.

  KACEY then appeared, and the two command bots chatted excitedly. Carter couldn’t follow it all, but it sounded like Carina’s command bot had been impressed with JACAB’s performance. Carter grunted a laugh under his breath and suddenly realized the truth. JACAB hadn’t been overplaying his role to annoy him – the bot had been trying to impress KACEY, and succeeding.

  Suddenly, Carter sensed a presence. Then he heard voices, followed by soft footsteps, made by humans rather than stomping security bots. He spun around just as an emergency exit door was thrown open. Two guards ambled outside, chatting casually with one another while pulling cigarette packets out of their uniform breast pockets.

  Taking advantage of her augmented reflexes, Carina pounced on one soldier while Carter grabbed the other, covering the man’s mouth to prevent him from screaming. Carefully, the Master Officers added pressure to the soldiers’ carotid arteries to cut the flow of blood to their brains, and within seconds, both men were out cold. Conscious of being spotted by surveillance drones, they quickly dragged the bodies inside the door and laid them down on the floor.

  More voices cut through the deafening silence of the inactive city, and two more guards approached from inside the corridor. Like the others, they appeared to be heading for a smoke break. The soldiers saw Carter and Carina, then the bodies on the ground, and the shock caused them to freeze. There was a sharp hiss, like someone opening a bottle of soda, followed by another, and both soldiers spasmed, hands slapping at their necks as if they’d been stung. Moments later, the men collapsed, tranq darts protruding from their flesh.

  “Nice shot, buddy,” Carter said, rapping his knuckles against JACAB’s spherical shell. “You too, KACEY,” he added, nodding to Carina’s command bot, who’d fired the second shot.

  “This was a stroke of luck,” Carina said, hurrying to the far end of the corridor and dragging the unconscious soldiers beside the first two. “Now we can enter the A*STAR building on the ground level and work our way up.”

  Carter accessed his comp-slate and displayed a sensor feed of the building, relayed from JACAB and KACEY. He shook his head.

  “It’s a nice idea, but the building is crawling with guards and security bots,” Carter said, showing the holographic map to Carina. “We have twelve floors to cover, and I can’t see us making it even half that distance without tripping an alarm or running into a dozen or more security bots.”

  Carina cursed under her breath, then nodded. “I guess we do this the hard way, after all.”

  Carter could hear the disappointment in her voice, and he shared her pain. He didn’t relish their next task, either.

  “We’ll need to move fast,” Carter said, checking to ensure no more soldiers were milling around outside. “Once these guards are discovered, surveillance drones will swarm this place.”

  Carina closed the door to the inner corridor door, snapped off the handle, and used her particle pistol to melt the seam, sealing it permanently. Meanwhile, Carter removed the comp-slates from the four unconscious soldiers, crushing each one in his hand like a soda can, then used straps from their gear to bind their hands and ankles. Tearing strips of fabric from their jackets, he fashioned improvised gags and tied them around the soldiers’ mouths.

  “I’d say we have maybe thirty minutes before they’re found. If we’re lucky,” Carina said, hurrying back to Carter. “We’ll be cutting it fine.”

  “Then I hope you’re a good climber,” Carter said.

  JACAB and KACEY scouted ahead then signaled the all-clear. Carter moved cautiously outside, then waited while Carina used her pistol to melt the lock on the emergency exit door to trap the unconscious guards inside the corridor.

  Keeping to the moon-cast shadows, they worked their way to the rear face of the North Tower. Like the rest of the A*STAR complex, the North Tower was clad in dark glass that seemed to be constructed from a single unbroken panel, making the building look like a giant crystal sunk into the ground. Carter checked their position on his comp slate, then looked up and nodded.

  “This is the place,” Carter said.

  He slid his backpack off his broad shoulders and removed a pair of vacuum suction climbing units. Slipping his bag back on, Carter slid the suction cups over his hands and activated the devices. Carina was a step ahead of him and had already moved to the base of the tower, climbing devices primed and ready. She pressed her hand to the glass. The suction cup clamped to the sheer surface, and Carina began to climb.

  Carter knew this was the riskiest part of their plan. Even in the dead of night and wearing dark battle uniforms, it wasn’t difficult to spot two people climbing the exterior face of the famous building. Speed was of the essence, so Carter pulled himself up, hand-over-hand, using his unnatural strength to overcome gravity and scale the building in less time than it would have taken him to run up the internal stairwell.

  Muscles burning from the effort, Carter reached the target floor and pressed his body to the glass beside Carina, a meter gap separating them.

  “JACAB, you’re up…” Carter whispered.

  The command bot flew between Carter and Carina, then used an ultrasonic cutting tool to slice a window into the glass.

  “Are you sure the alarms have been disabled?” Carter asked as the bot worked, and JACAB whistled a comforting confirmation.

  KACEY moved beside JACAB and used suction devices attached to her metal arms to grab the cut glass before pushing through onto the twelfth floor. JACAB moved in next, scanner jammers operating at maximum power. Then Carina swung her body through the hole with the grace of a swallow entering a bird box. Carter was less agile, and the makeshift window was barely large enough to accommodate his broad shoulders, but he made it through with a lot of effort and no small amount of wriggling.

  “Next time, cut a bigger hole,” Carter grumbled, removing the suction devices from his hands and discarding them onto the floor.

  JACAB warbled a laugh, suggesting that the bot had intentionally cut the opening smaller than he could have. KACEY whirled around and plugged the hole with the glass panel she was still holding. JACAB applied a bead of UV-curing adhesive, while KACEY focused an intense ultraviolet beam at the glue to fix the panel securely.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Carina said, discarding her climbing devices. “I thought getting inside would be harder.”

  Carter’s senses sharpened, and his hand went to his sword. Carina had felt it too, and for a moment, neither Master Officer moved a muscle. Then, out of the pitch blackness inside the floor, two pairs of robot eyes appeared, glowing like hot coals.

  “You had to say it, didn’t you?” Carter said, drawing his cutlass.

  Carina barely had time to scowl at him before the robots stomped forward, metal hands closed into mallet-sized fists. The flash and fizz of Carina’s cavalry sword drove back the darkness. She swung at the closest machine and severed its left arm before ducking beneath a whirling haymaker and cutting the robot’s head from its bulky neck.

  Carter didn’t ignite his sword and instead met the second robot head-on, intending to measure the fighting capabilities of these next-generation combat machines. After HARPER began working for the Longsword program, Union engineers and scientists studied Nathan Clynes’ former labor bot to discover his secrets. As a relic from before the Union’s ban on advanced robotics, HARPER was a treasure trove of lost tech, and the Union had plundered his design to build an army of new machines. None were yet as sophisticated, intelligent, or powerful as HARPER, but with each iteration, they were getting stronger and better.

  Carter let the machine come at him, dodging its first punch and blocking the second with his forearm. The blow was powerful, but the security bot lacked HARPER’s colossal might, and Carter deflected the attack easily. Another swinging haymaker rushed above his head. Carter adjusted his stance and punched the machine full-force in the chest with the hilt of his cutlass, crushing its metal chest plate and causing sparks to erupt from the machine. It staggered back, losing its footing, and tried to swing at Carter again, but the attack was wildly off-target. Instead of striking Carter, the machine pulverized a tall cabinet by the wall.

  Carter advanced, punching again with the hilt of his sword before clobbering the combat robot with a left hook from his bare fist. Augmented bone struck metal with the clang of a dinner gong, and Carter felt a brief rush of pain before his sensory blockers numbed the discomfort. The robot’s head caved in from the force of the blow, and more sparks burst into the darkness. The machine’s legs buckled, and it flailed its massive arms at Carter in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to take him down before finally collapsing to the floor in a smoldering heap.