Junkers Season Two, Page 5

  “Okay?” Savant leaned forward in his chair. "So tell us where the network hub is located.”

  "There isn't one,” Dr. Calvin said.

  Savant looked puzzled. "What do you mean there isn't one?"

  "Each machine was designed to be completely autonomous."

  "And they all went nuts together?” Savant continued. “That doesn't happen."

  “They didn’t go nuts,” the Doctor spat.

  "What's wrong with them?" Hailey asked.

  "Nothing. As far as we can tell they have always done exactly as programmed."

  Hailey continued. "But you said the programming was fine.”

  This touched a nerve in the doctor and he grew angry. “It was perfect. I oversaw it all.”

  The team stared at the older man until he couldn’t hold their glares any longer. Dr. Calvin hung his head. “We neglected to tell them they were robots. We felt it would be better for guest engagement.”

  “They don't know what they are?" Savant asked.

  "They know what they are supposed to be. You could have a conversation with Lincoln and he would know every single thing about himself. Which reminds me, if you meet him, don't mention Ford's Theatre.”

  Jake raised his hand. “The machine actually thinks it’s Lincoln?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Calvin. “And you will too. Many of the presidential units are indistinguishable from the genuine article.”

  “Many?”

  “We were under a bit of a time crunch. In order to get the park opened in time we focused our efforts on the presidents that we knew people would interact with. Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Kennedy. The more forgettable leaders were given a single phrase or two at most so they could blend into the crowd and sing in the ensemble production. But each one of them still believes themselves to be the genuine individual.”

  “And at no point you thought this was a bad idea?” Mason asked. “Because it seems pretty obvious. I mean, sure, we all have the benefit of hindsight and the massacre to look back on.”

  Dr. Calvin grew cold and his voice took on a distinct clip. “It was a brilliant idea. The guests would enter the park, dreaming of meeting their favorite DamAnimation characters. And they would. The TraceRacers truly believed they were defending our future from the corrupt Dark Riders and their masters from the Ordinance. Princess Penelope believed she had vanquished a dragon to save her people and lead them to freedom from her wicked Step-Father. The Dinosty Warriors do protect the prehistoric environment from the evil oil empire of Blaxxton and his scientists. And, of course, the Bearberry Bears are every child’s best friend. Every hero and heroine in the park was who they were designed to be.”

  “And so were the villains.”

  The doctor hung his head again and nodded.

  “So you made real bad guys and real good guys. And the good guys couldn’t stop the massacre from happening?”

  “Don’t blame me.” The doctor yelled. “Blame the FCC. In the cartoons, the heroes couldn't stop anyone. They could shoot them in the shoulder maybe or destroy a plane, but then there was a parachute. There was always a damn parachute. Even for a dinosaur. Why? Why, I ask you! Not because it made sense but because of some stupid regulation!”

  Lucas put his hands on the doctor’s bony shoulders and turned him toward the door. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Calvin. I think you can show yourself out now.”

  The doctor took a deep breath and it appeared to calm him. He gave one more weak wave and shuffled out of the shop through the squeaky door.

  Glitch raised his hand.

  Lucas sighed and called on the cyborg. “What is it, Glitch?

  "If all the heroes that were designed to stop them couldn't stop them, how are we going to do it?"

  6

  It was quiet on the aircraft. The rotors made a racket and everything shook and squeaked. Things rattled and jiggled and something on Glitch was beeping. But the silence of the team drowned out all the noise like some implausible metaphor.

  Jake looked from one team member to the next. There was no excitement on their faces. Even the false bravado was missing. At the very least, he had expected Mason to start swearing more after take-off. But even the dependable curmudgeon had grown silent.

  The camera drones moved up and down the aircraft aisle searching for a conversation to focus on, but could find none.

  Those damn things had become such a part of their lives since they began filming the show that Jake hardly noticed them anymore. They were always there, hovering over his shoulder or sweeping in for a close up on his face. It had taken a while to learn to ignore them. And he had gotten pretty good at it. But in the cramped confines of the transport, they were hard to block out.

  Lucas had made it clear that the drones would be on autonomous operation the entire time on the island, so it would be up to the team to help them along by keeping the action and the conversation going so they’d have something to shoot. Otherwise they would hover aimlessly around the team, shooting whatever happened to be in front of the lens.

  Glitch stopped whatever part of him had been beeping with a slap to his chest. It wasn’t a minute later when it was beeping again. A flash of red light accompanied it.

  “What’s the problem, big guy?” Jake asked.

  “Nothing,” Glitch said as he silenced the alarm once more.

  “So what’s with the beeping? Is your snooze alarm not working?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. It just, uh, it monitors things like dopamine and adrenaline and lets me know if things are…”

  “You have an alarm that tells you when you’re scared?” Mason asked.

  Glitch blushed and turned away from the middle-aged man. “Kind of.”

  “Can you not tell when you’re scared using human parts?” Mason continued.

  “Of course I can!”

  “Seems like a pretty big waste of money to have a feelings alarm if you really do still have feelings.”

  “Shut up, Mason.”

  “All those new augmentations and still no wit upgrade?”

  Glitch began to say “Shut up, Mason” once more but stopped speaking altogether.

  There was that false bravado. The team could always count on Mason. If he was frightened, he hid it by lashing out. If he was uncertain, he hid it by lashing out. If he was happy, or in danger of showing any emotion whatsoever, he hid it by lashing out. Most people simply assumed he was an asshole. Mostly because he was, but his attitude came from a desire to always appear calm and in control. They could always count on him to take their minds off their worries by creating all new ones.

  Savant, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically quiet. The man saw it as his job to provide color commentary on everything that happened to, around, or near him. To clarify the obvious and reassure everyone that no matter what horrible things they may be secretly thinking, there was someone nearby thinking things that were much worse. Every day, Jake did his best not to tell the computer scientist to shut up. But he never stopped anyone else from doing it.

  Farther back in the aircraft, Hailey sat next to Kat. She had insisted. In part to keep Savant away from the girl, but also to comfort her friend as they made their way to the island. Looking at the two of them now, it was easy to see that the young woman didn’t need any comforting.

  Beaming wouldn’t be quite the way to describe the look she wore. There was obviously apprehension on her face but it wasn’t fear. It was a nervous excitement, like a teenage girl waiting for her prom date to arrive.

  Whenever they went on an assignment, Jake worried about his team, his friends. But Kat had always been the one he worried about the least. She was smarter than most of them put together, no matter how many degrees Savant trotted out. She had no shortage of courage and he could always count on her to have his back in a job gone wrong. But, now, seeing that expression, watching her heels bounce up and down, he worried. He would never pry, especially after such a horrible incident, but he certainly wondered how on earth she
could be excited to go back.

  The only thing bouncing more than Kat was The Beast. Old shocks squeaked as the machine snapped against the cargo straps that held it in place. It seemed more excited to get on with the job than anyone. It was as if it somehow knew it belonged on the ground and it wasn’t having any of this sitting still crap. Even loaded to capacity with the new gear, there was a spring in its step.

  Glitch’s fear alarm went off again and he scrambled to silence it.

  “It’s seems pretty sensitive,” Jake offered.

  “To tell you the truth, I got it so long ago I forgot I even had it.”

  “I’ve never heard it go off before.”

  “I’m not sure it has.”

  “Are you saying you’ve never been scared before?”

  Glitch squirmed in his seat.

  “Everything will be fine, Glitch. You know we’ve got the best people. The Beast is loaded for bear with all new gear. There’s nothing down there that we can’t handle.” Jake wasn’t sure he believed any of what he was spewing. But it sounded good. And he secretly wished there was someone there that would lie to him in the same fashion.

  “It’s not so much what’s on the ground that I’m worried about.”

  Jake looked to the back of the aircraft and back to the cyborg. “The jump?”

  Glitch’s alarm sounded. He silenced it and winced.

  Jake tried to put on a comforting smile. It was probably horrible, but the low lighting in the cargo bay might have helped cover that. “Just let the suit do the work. It’ll be over quick. Then we’ll be on the ground and only have a park full of murderous cartoon characters to worry about.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” The alarm went off once more. Glitch offered an awkward smile and silenced it.

  The aircraft engines whined as the machine slowed. The VTOL fans spun up to compensate for the decrease in lift and increased the noise inside the aircraft.

  The camera drone that had been hovering nearby spun away and moved toward the aircraft’s cockpit as the mission chief emerged. The man’s name was McMaster, and when he spoke it sounded like broken whiskey bottles grinding together. His face looked like it had broken the whiskey bottles.

  The camera settled in front of him but McMaster made no indication that he saw the drone. Peering through steely gray eyes, he looked through the camera at his human cargo and growled, “Get off my plane.”

  He swung a fist against the hull and mashed a red button. This changed the atmosphere of the aircraft in half a hundred ways. The lighting turned red and cast the interior in a dreadful hue. Alarms buzzed. Mechanics shunked to life beneath the skin of the aircraft and the cargo deck cracked open. The pressure in the cargo bay dropped and took the timid breath from each of the jumpers as the air grew violent and cold.

  Glitch started beeping frantically as he and the others stood and walked with small steps to the rear of the aircraft.

  The cameras went first. Half of the drones shot out into the late afternoon sky and hovered just beyond the deck as the team marched to the edge and stopped.

  Glitch peered over the abyss and turned around. The alarm was beeping faster and louder now. The accompanying light was going nuts. He put up his hands and was about to say, “Wait.”

  “Tip it!” shouted McMaster as he wrapped his hand around a cargo net attached to the wall.

  Whether the pilot possessed amazing reflexes or was terrified of McMaster wasn’t clear, but he responded immediately by tipping the nose of the aircraft forty-five degrees into the air. Jake and his team screamed as they spilled out the cargo door and fell toward the island below.

  The cameras dove after them.

  Jake stopped screaming and started swearing, as was the natural progression of things. He cursed and tumbled through the air, never sure of which way was up but deathly certain of which way was down. In between swears he could hear Glitch shouting somewhere below him and his earpiece crackled to life as everyone switched on their communicators.

  Basically what followed was a lot of screaming.

  Savant’s was the only one that was actually trying to say something. But it didn’t make anyone feel better. “Everyone just relax, would you? You’re ruining the fun.”

  Somehow Jake spun onto his back. His arms and legs now flailed upward instead of down, but he saw past the frantic limbs and spotted Savant gliding effortlessly above the rest of the group. “How the hell are you doing that?”

  At one point, soon after finding fame on Scrappers, Savant had attempted to patent his sigh. In the filing papers, he had stated that it carried more subtext than breath and was therefore unique to him and his personal brand. The papers also stated—in tiny print at the bottom—that the sigh was proven to cause physical discomfort in lab rats. What was unknown until now was that the sigh was even more annoying at great altitudes. “Turn on your suits, you idiots.”

  Jake reached across his chest and found the switch for his Acro4ria drop suit. Once activated, he felt his suit warm as it powered up. Tiny fins at his ankles and wrists adjusted their angles. Memory fabric took shape around him and he rolled slowly until he was falling belly first. Which didn’t seem any safer.

  The air rushed around him and through the suit as the guidance system worked to direct him on his path.

  The ambient screams stopped as the rest of the team activated their suits as well. Soon, they were falling together in formation as the Acro4rias’ computers put them all on the proper course.

  With his uncontrollable tumble converted to a stabilized flight path, Jake soon found himself smiling as the group sped toward the Gulf of Mexico. The setting sun had turned the water beneath them into a palette of oranges, umbers and reds, and the reality of his predicament disappeared. It was actually enjoyable. He turned his head and the suit compensated to keep him level. The sun was fading over the horizon, losing its fierce daytime blaze as it grew red and harmless.

  Jake found the colors soothing and thought it might help his friend take his mind off the plummet. “See, Glitch? This isn’t so bad. It’s actually pretty beautiful, don’t you think?”

  Glitch didn’t think so. At that particular moment, Glitch wasn’t thinking anything at all.

  “Glitch?” When there was no response, Jake searched the sky for the cyborg and found no sign of him. “Can anyone see Glitch?”

  A chorus of noes came back through the communicators.

  The sun fell further below the horizon and a shadow crept in to overtake the landscape. And there, in the new dark, Jake spotted the red flashing light that indicated Glitch had most likely wet himself. Jake screamed, “Glitch!”

  The rest of the team yelled after Glitch, shouting his name on the comm. But there was still no response.

  The light was far below them and getting farther away.

  “He probably passed out,” Savant said. “Free fall can do that to big dumb babies.”

  Jake tried to dive but the suit corrected his position back to neutral every time he moved. “How do I turn this thing off?“

  “Why? So you can flail all the way to the water?” Savant asked.

  Jake struggled against the programming once more with the same result. Every move to save his friend was met with a twitch or servo adjustment to keep him away. “I have to get Glitch!”

  “It’s easy to turn off. Watch.” A moment later Savant nearly kicked Jake in the head as he shot by in a dive. While many considered Savant an extreme asshole, he had always fancied himself more an extreme sportsman. Rock climbing, paraskiing and skydiving were merely a few of the activities he never shut up about. The team had thought most of it was just talk, but now the weekend warrior demonstrated his ability in a series of aerial acrobatics that benefited no one.

  Kat screamed over the radio, “Save him!”

  “Why? I don’t even like him.” Savant did several flips in the air and ended with a flourish. “Tada!”

  “Savant, get Glitch!” Hailey yelled.

  “Wha
t will you give me?”

  “Are you serious?!” she screamed.

  “Sure. Look, I took a lot of jumps to get this good. Being this awesome didn’t come cheap.”

  “You’re unbelievable!” Hailey said.

  “Your words.” Savant rolled over and put his hands behind his head. He crossed one leg over the other and pretended to snore.

  Mason was trying to swim through the air, moving his arms and legs in a breaststroke. It wasn’t working at all. “Get him, you asshole!”

  “Oh, would you all just relax?” Savant glanced at his wrist. “I’ll save him in three, two…”

  Far below, the red vanished from view as Glitch’s canopy deployed automatically and spread out above him.

  Jake could feel Savant’s shitty smile in the fading light. He was about to rip into the man when an alarm sounded in his ear and his own chute deployed. He felt the tug at his shoulder as his plummet ended and his descent began. The air still rushed around him, but with less ferocity, and he could hear his team breathe a sigh of relief as each chute opened.

  Savant laughed. “It’s called auto-deploy. You babies.”

  Suspended beneath the canopy and drifting slowly toward the earth below, the sensation Jake felt turned from mortal terror to a frightened euphoria. The last rays of light touched their island destination and, as the sunlight receded, the park lights illuminated their drop zone.

  Glitch grumbled as he woke. The cyborg screamed once he realized he still wasn’t on the ground. But even his fear turned to astonishment as the park appeared below.

  The motors on Jake’s shoulders whirred as they tightened and loosened the steering line to direct him to his destination. The computer was in control of everything now.

  All he had to do was fall.

  7

  With the suit in control, Jake was merely a passenger beneath the canopy. The ride would last three to four minutes and there was nothing he could do now but take in the view.