Subterra

“Mankind’s survival will depend on our ability to hide in the shadows of the deep and wait for evil to pass.” - Joseph Locke PART 1 1 From his hiding place in a rocky alcove, high above the square, Ace watched the busy market. Hundreds of people, citizens and vendors, were down there, buying goods, trading goods, laughing, arguing, and going about their business completely unaware that Ace was watching them. Ace was used to hiding in the shadows. He was a bunker orphan, an outcast. He never felt welcome in the Chute and the other facilities of Subterra were also off- limits to him and the other outcasts. But he needed to come here sometimes, there were things he needed that he couldn't find scavenging in the barrens or the lower levels. So here he was, on market day. Ace wore a ragged, dirty jumpsuit; a backpack was slung over his shoulder. His eyes were hidden by his Optix goggles, the most expensive item he owned. Without his goggles, Ace had a hard time seeing anything. He guessed most people would have called him blind, though he could see without his goggles, things were fuzzy and dim. The goggles were necessary and without them, he might as well be dead. He adjusted his goggles and locked in on the spare parts vendor. He was an older man, about fifty, dressed in simple robes, and he was haggling with a younger man over the price of a broken ventilator mask.

The stall had shelves that were packed with various parts and most of them looked like junk and most of them were junk, but there was one item that Ace keyed on, a powerpack resting on the top shelf. That was what he was there for. Ace saw that the market was brightly lit. He looked up but there was no sky overhead. A crosshatch of steel beams ran the length of a large rocky ceiling. There were three Xen-lights that ran the length of the large chamber. They produced a soft but very radiant light that illuminated the entire square. In theory, they were almost as powerful as the sun, producing almost 80,000 lux. But that was just theory and rumors. Nobody had seen the sun for over a hundred years. Ace turned his attention back to the market stalls. He had no money and nothing to barter with, at least, nothing he wanted to part with. So he was going to steal it. The vendor was still arguing, waving his arms around wildly as he harangued the man who looked at the mask with a disapproving snarl on his lips. Ace switched a setting on his Optix again and scanned the market, sweeping the area for signs of security. They were there, of course. Two sentries with a MAS-7 bot were standing next to a stall with a vendor selling some dehydrated fruit. He looked up and saw cameras embedded high up in the rock ceiling.

There was no way for him to know if they were operational or not, but that didn't really matter. Nobody knew his face here. He wasn't chipped. There was no way for them to track him. He was going to have to deal with the MAS-7 though. It could recognize his heat signature and lock onto him, even in the dark, and if it got a hold of him, it was all over and he would be finished. But he didn't really have any choice. He was finally getting out of this place. He was going to see the sun for the first time in his life. He had made his plans and theorized and put all of his supplies together. He was going to leave this place and never come back. Now it was time to do something about it, to take action. And it all started with that powerpack. He slid over the edge of the rock shelf and lowered himself down until he was just holding onto the edge with his fingertips, then he dropped a few feet to the next outcropping. He traversed the rock face carefully, pausing to make sure nobody was looking in his direction, then made his way down to the market. He dropped the last few feet and landed on the mesh grate floor with a soft thud. He was behind one of the market tents, out of view from the vendors and other market patrons.

He dusted himself off, pulled his cloak tightly around him and flipped up his hood to hide his face. Then, he stepped out into the market. One way or another, this would all be over in a few minutes. 2 Ace was running for his life. That damn MAS-7 had active infrared and was still after him. The Sentries had given up a while back, it was just too dark in the service corridor. But that MAS-7, it saw him just fine and it would keep chasing him. It wouldn't get tired and it would catch him. Stealing the powerpack had been easy. The merchant was busy dealing with another customer and Ace slipped it into his pack. Nobody had seen him. But he hadn't planned on the bot being outfitted with amplified sensors. It must have scanned him and saw that he wasn't chipped. Normal range was ten meters or so and Ace would have been fine but the amplifier modification gave the MAS-7 more like a thirty- meter range. When he heard the MAS-7's alarm go off, he had bolted. Now he was back in familiar territory, in the dank corridor leading to level 7, but he was getting tired. He had been running flat out for over ten minutes and his breathing was labored. He could feel his muscles straining, rebelling, screaming at him to slow down. But he couldn't. That bot would corner him and clamp down on any available body part and shut down.

He would be caught in a snare and the sentries would track him down eventually. There would be no punishment or even prison for him, not for the unchipped, not for the bunker orphans. He would be taken to Hell's Gate and they would simply incinerate him. So he kept running. His optix was warm on his forehead. It was working at full capacity to image the corridor that was now completely dark. There was no light at all. Ace could hear the plasteen pads thumping on the ground behind him. The MAS-7 was closing. Ace chanced a quick look behind him and saw the pulsing orange glow of the bot's "eyes". It was very close now. It would overtake him in a few more meters. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small device that fit easily in the palm of his hand. He gripped it tightly. He had to be in complete darkness. Finally, his optix chimed a single warning tone and shut down. He was completely blind now. He was running on feel alone, his familiarity with this stretch of corridor the only thing keeping him from running into a support beam or hatch strut. The bot was right behind him now. Any second now it would power up the hind servos, leap into the air and take him down from behind. Ace tried to breathe evenly and focus his mind. He only had one shot at this... all or nothing—

He heard the tiny hiss as the servos locked and then a sharp sound, like the uncoiling of a spring under massive tension. It was in the air, he knew from that sound, it had launched itself at him— In one fluid motion, Ace turned and dove backwards. He hit the deck and raised up the palm-sized device, squeezing the activator button as the bot bore down on him. Ace closed his eyes tightly-- And the tunnel exploded with light. It was a sustained pulse of xenon gas that flared at over 90,000 lux for a full second. With the infrared irises of the MAS-7 opened to compensate for the darkness, the light fried the internal circuits, effectively blinding the bot. It sailed over Ace, mere inches above him. In that one second of light, he saw the open maw and the filed titanium teeth that the bot designers had insisted on adding, even creating a set of canine incisors that were nearly three inches long. If it had bitten him, and clamped down, it would have ripped off a limb, or at the very least, torn open an artery that would see him bleed out. But the bot was over him and flying past, now the tail was just whizzing by and he thought for one brief moment that he had actually pulled it off, but the rear pads of the bot landed on his left hand and a wave of pain shot up his arm.

He got to his feet quickly and reached into his bag, pulling out a small pouch. He bottled up the pain, willing himself not to scream, because even though the bot was blind, it could still hear him. And it would echolocate until it found him and attack. He could hear the bot righting itself as he took a silent step backward. It was Deke that had told him about the trick with the amp-light. Deke used to work in military engineering and he had repaired bots all the way up through the MAS-6 hybrid before the nerves in his hands stopped working. He was no longer able to do the sensitive detail work on bot micro-plates. So they sent him to the mines. And that's where Ace met Deke. And Deke told him a few tricks about how to avoid getting killed by a mechanical automated sentry bot. Ace only hoped this trick worked too, or he'd be dead. Ace poured the contents of the pouch out into his hand. There were hundreds of tiny cadmium ball bearings. He heard the bot take a step towards him and he tossed the ball bearings on the ground in front of him. He heard them scatter and cascade across the uneven floor. The bot heard them too and took a charging step forward. Ace could hear it scurry toward him but then he heard a metal on metal scrape as the bot's pads hit the ball bearings.

It skidded a few inches then stopped. The bot reached out tentatively with one leg, lightly testing the floor. It tried to move again and the leg slipped backwards on the ball bearings. The bot wouldn't fall over of course, it had three independent gyros that would keep it upright. Instead, the bot simply stopped and sat on its hindquarters much like a pet would sit for a treat. It was still for a moment, then Ace could hear the servos powering down. Deke's trick had worked just like he said it would. If bots are deprived of their sight and find themselves on bad terrain where footing is an issue, they simply shut down and wait for a human sentry to find them. A red light began to flicker on the bot's spine. Ace thought about taking it apart, maybe steal a couple of parts for his trouble, but Deke had told him that bot would set it's battery relays to full charge and electrocute anybody that touched it before it's master sentry input the disarm codes. Ace took a second to look at it more closely. The thing was huge. Even sitting, the head was almost as tall as Ace. A mechanical monster. Once he was back, and sure he wasn't going to be tracked, he would make sure to visit Deke. The only other item he had stolen was a packet of goat cheese. Ace hated it, but for Deke, it was a delicacy.

It wouldn't be enough to properly thank him for his help, but it would be a start.10