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Marlowe, Walker, Alvin and Lynch gathered on the ledge of the docking bay with a growing sense of unease. Walker looked up at the weighty vault door suspended above them. It was fashioned from steel that looked to be eight, maybe ten inches thick. Beyond this threshold they could see only a wide, sterile white corridor ahead of them, stretching for roughly five hundred yards before turning sharply to the right. The facility’s power was evidently still on, and the passageway was illuminated by a series of overhead strip lights that sank into the distance like white lines on an inverted road. There were no other signs of life. The long corridor had no connecting doors or passages up to the turn at the far end, and there was no equipment or furniture of any kind cluttering the angular, white concrete space. There was no sign of the people that worked at the lab either, living or dead. In his medicated state, Walker found this both a relief and a source of puzzlement, especially after hearing stories of the Machine’s supposed rampage within the facility. He’d been steeling himself for a lot of corpses.
The four men glanced nervously at each other, their hostilities temporarily suspended, then Lynch stepped forwards into the clean white light of the facility. The others followed cautiously. Walker found he was subconsciously amplifying the symptoms of his leg injury to slow his movements and drift to the rear of the group. Even though he was high on painkillers, he was already beginning to regret his decision to tag along on this expedition. As they moved deeper into the facility and away from the open loading bay, he felt the temperature inside climb rapidly, until he was forced to stop and remove his coat. The others were similarly affected by the sudden, stifling heat too, and they all paused to take off their outer layers, revealing sweat-stained shirts and T-shirts beneath. They dropped their coats and jackets in a rough, conspicuous pile halfway along the barren corridor. Alvin and Walker slipped back into their empty rucksacks; their red faces already moist with sweat from the tropical heat.
“Feels like someone’s cooking,” said Lynch, his blade out and ready in his hand as he pressed on.
“Maybe the ventilation’s screwed,” said Marlowe.
“Yeah right,” grunted Lynch.
At the end of the corridor, they were forced to turn right, into a second passageway identical in its dimensions and sterile, empty white appearance to the first. There were in fact only two differences between this corridor and the previous passage: this one ended in a large set of closed double doors instead of another turn or junction, and here there were signs of life.
Or rather death.
At irregular intervals along the white corridor the stark, sterile appearance of the facility had been interrupted by Pollock-like explosions of red. Even Lynch stopped in his tracks when he saw the wild, arterial splashes of dried blood that adorned the walls, floor and ceiling. The men exchanged worried looks. Apparently any staff trying to escape the Machine had only made it this far before being cut down in a spectacular fashion. There was no sign of the bodies that had produced so much blood.
Again, it was Lynch who drew a deep breath and forged ahead first, the others filing in behind him almost mechanically, still staring in awe at the chaotic streaks of red around them. As they passed between the charnel eruptions, Walker began to wonder what price the Machine would make them pay if it caught them intruding in its lair. Somehow he suspected that a broken shin bone wouldn’t even begin to cover it.
“Looks like they didn’t get very far,” said Alvin gravely.
“No surprise,” said Lynch.
Marlowe frowned thoughtfully but kept quiet. His eyes remained focused on the doors at the end of the corridor, as they trailed through the patches of dried gore spread around them. He finally stopped and turned to regard the complete scene of carnage once he was safely through it and at the end of the passage.
“So where’s the bodies?” he said quietly.
The others stared at him, but no one had an answer. Marlowe let it go and turned his attention back to the doors in front of him. He slowly reached for one of the steel bars there and closed his grip around it. Marlowe left it there until he’d taken a very deep breath, then he quickly snatched the door open, expecting the worst.
Another stark white room was revealed, but this was a lot wider than the previous two passages. It was lined with the statuesque figures of inert and partially assembled robots on both sides. The lab was at least eighty or ninety yards long, maybe longer, but Marlowe couldn’t tell. Only the first few ceiling lights in the room were still working. The last visible fluorescent light overhead was at least sixty yards away, and that was flickering, causing that part of the room to strobe in and out of darkness. The rest of the fluorescents beyond this failing light had completely died, plunging that end of the lab into complete and utter blackness.
Marlowe silently pushed the door all the way open and began to creep forwards followed by the others. As a soldier, he tried to keep his eyes trained on the blackness at the other end of the room, aware that it would be the area most likely to conceal an ambush. Unfortunately his vision was constantly pulled left and right to the inert parades of lifeless metal figures frozen in half-finished poses. Most of the automatons assembled consisted of second generation Wardogs, lined up like naked mannequins in an unfinished store display. Most were whole, but some were still awaiting components, missing limbs or even heads. Others were disassembled and sprawled across reinforced gurneys, pushed away to one side against the walls of the lab like hopeless or forgotten patients.
As they moved cautiously between the two rows of eerie, unfinished robotic figures, Alvin rested a weathered hand on Walker’s arm. He nodded at the section of lab up ahead beneath the flickering broken light. Walker stared forwards, but couldn’t make out what it was that had sparked Alvin’s interest. It was only when they drew nearer, and Walker’s brain began to synchronize with the strobing snippets of light, that he realised what the old soldier had been showing him. Almost directly beneath the failing fluorescent was the huge, static figure of another first-generation battle robot like Tyson. The inert war machine had been concealed by the flickering light’s shadows merging with its own dull, matte black hide, but now that they were up close, it seemed inconceivable that something so enormous could have been hidden from them. It was the same outdated model as Tyson and resembled Alvin’s workhorse in every way, except for its finish. Its standard, default coat of black was far more sinister than Tyson’s custom psychedelic paintjob of swirling colour and graffiti. This made the version in front of Walker look much more like the large and dangerous piece of military hardware it was, rather than the lumbering, anthromorphised beast he had already encountered.
Walker paused next to the golem, admiring it, until his eyes picked out the inanimate Wardog positioned next to it. This Wardog seemed to be frozen halfway through a charge, like a sculpture of an attacking Spartan. Both its feet were still in contact with the floor, but one arm swung back and the other stretched out in front, as though pumping to generate the momentum required for a burst of speed. But it wasn’t the Wardog’s curious pose that caught Walker’s attention, it was what it was wearing. None of the other static Wardogs in the lab had any apparel or equipment, either on them, or in their possession, but this one was kitted out with a padded black and grey vest that looked like some sort of body armour. In addition, the figure wore thick, matching gloves and a large set of opaque, black ski goggles.
“Hey,” said Walker. “Look at this.”
Marlowe and Lynch whirled on Walker, ready to react. Both men frowned at him for speaking out loud, worried that the C19 might yet be waiting up ahead in the shadows. Alvin on the other hand, appreciated the point of interest immediately and wandered closer to examine the Wardog’s accessories. After a few seconds, the other two men joined them, their curiosity getting the better of their anxieties.
“I didn’t think these things had eyes,” said Walker, pulling the goggles away from the Wardog’s featureless chrome face and examining them.
“They use tiny cameras,” whispered Marlowe. “Lots of them, like a compound eye.”
“But why is it wearing these?”
Walker held up the visionless goggles.
“The Wardog’s just modelling it,” said Marlowe quietly. “The kit’s supposed to be worn by a soldier, a real soldier. It was something they were working on before they scrapped the Titan class. You wear this gear and control the Titan remotely in battle, through the camera display relayed to the goggles, and the VR relays in the gloves. They put the initiative on hold when the Wardogs superseded the Titan range.”
“Is this all of it?” asked Walker.
“Yeah,” said Marlowe. “Just that and the receiver.”
Marlowe pointed up to the back of the Titan’s head above them. Marlowe saw Walker’s excited and mischievous expression and rolled his eyes. He then relented and started scaling the metal giant. Marlowe climbed up on to the Titan’s shoulders and released a small, round grey receiver disc from the base of its skull. He popped the receiver into his jacket and climbed back down to find Walker already stuffing the Wardog’s remote gloves, vest and goggles into his backpack.
“Here,” said Marlowe, handing over the receiver.
Walker turned it over in his hands. He thought it resembled half of a metallic tennis ball.
“You’ll have to lock into the docking station at back of the Titan’s head to control it, there’s a port there it connects into. Then, when you activate the vest, the big guy should mimic your movements, though don’t quote me.”
“Could come in handy,” said Walker.
“Sure,” said Marlowe. “Knock yourself out.”
Marlowe’s gaze had drifted back to the end of the lab and the pitch blackness awaiting them there. Lynch was staring into the void too, and despite his medication, Walker could sense that very real, tangible fear prevailing in the air again, thickening around them like cement, rooting them to the spot. This time it was Alvin who was the first to summon up the courage to continue forwards. He moved carefully over to the back wall and began sliding his hands over the smooth surface there, searching in the strobing half-light, as it flickered positive, then negative. The other men held their positions as Alvin roamed the wall, running his palms over it, until he eventually found what he was looking for. Alvin’s fingers brushed against a small chrome plate and felt a series of small light switches embedded there. One was in a down position, contrary to the rest.
“Get ready...” said Alvin.
He flicked on the last switch.
Three more strip lights beyond the strobed area fluttered, then flared into life, illuminating the final twenty yards of the lab and another set of double doors in the far wall there. At that moment all four men flinched. Walker actually yelped in surprise and stumbled backwards, before finding his feet again. One last figure occupying the lab workshop was now revealed in the cold, harsh glare of the fluorescent strips.
It was the C19.
The men took a breath and recovered from their fright. Marlowe reluctantly approached the static, third generation combat automaton, as the others looked on warily. This powered down model appeared to be the basic default design of the C19, naked and unspoilt by a taste for wearing human skin, unlike the disturbed Machine holding them hostage.
“Shit,” said Walker. “I really thought it was...it.”
“We all did,” said Marlowe, cautiously moving closer to the motionless figure.
The C19 was frozen in an aggressive, war-like stance, with its feet wide apart, its knees bent and its arms out ready to grapple with some phantom foe. Walker felt a little of his courage return and he moved in closer too, followed by Alvin and Lynch. All four men took the unlikely opportunity to examine their aggressor up close. This version of the Machine looked pretty much as Walker had expected, given what he’d already seen of their captor. The C19 was a fierce looking crimson colour all over, its smooth, but muscular body sculpted to be streamlined and diamond hard. The figure’s red alloy combat chassis reminded Walker of those anatomical muscle models and illustrations used for medical training; the ones that showed a man stripped back to the working parts beneath, all tight, bright red, sinewy muscle; almost demonic. In some ways it was similar to the Wardogs, but the blatant intention with this Machine’s design had not been to just copy or mimic man, but to create something that would frighten him on a primal level. Walker supposed it made sense, after all, on the battlefield man would be the enemy. To that dark purpose the designers had even furnished the C19 with a life-like skull and features, a jutting jaw line and a grim mouth, and two soulless black hollow eye sockets with which it might stare down its adversaries.
“Scary looking bastards aren’t they,” whispered Walker, almost out of respect as much as a need to remain quiet.
“I guess that’s what they want the other side thinking when they see it charging towards them on the battlefield,” said Marlowe, leaning in closer to inspect the Machine’s aggressive mask.
“It’s just another weapon,” said Lynch. The veteran then dredged up phlegm from his lungs and spat into the C19’s face, almost catching Marlowe. “Let’s go get those fucking guns.”
With that, Lynch turned and made for the next set of doors. Marlowe reluctantly followed him, along with Alvin. Only Walker remained behind. He stared into the C19’s dead eyes and wondered what madness now lurked in the diseased brain of its twin.