The message repeated twice before we caught it all. “What happens if we don’t?” I asked quietly, hoping Slate was on the same page as me. Our eyes locked, and his finger twitched, ready for a trigger. I spun, pushing Suma behind me, and fired my rifle in quick succession, hearing Slate do the same thing. The unsuspecting drones didn’t even move as we blew four of them out of the air, scrap metal falling to the ground in a clank. That left one, which flew away spewing out commands Suma’s translator didn’t pick up.
“Run!” I said, keeping Suma in front of me. The drone was following us, and we were only half a block from the lift to bring us back to the platform where we’d started this city walk. Small blasts hit the ground between us as we zigged and zagged down the road, Slate firing back over his shoulder as we ran.
Just as we neared the lift, Slate turned, stood firmly, and took aim just as a red beam fired at him. He let off a volley of shots, being rewarded with a small explosion. He jumped to the side to avoid the red beam, which ended up hitting the ground at my feet. “Yeah!” he cheered.
“Let’s get out of here.” I moved to the lift and we all got on, Suma hitting the pedal again. The sooner we got back, the sooner we’d get the hell out of this abandoned nightmare. The lightning seemed to be flashing more often now, and after having been below, walking the city streets, I could see why a race would want to leave this place. It was unnerving.
The lift carried us upward, my knees holding firm against the sudden change in trajectory.
“What’s that noise?” Suma asked, moving to the side of the lift.
I hadn’t heard anything, but when I concentrated, there was a constant hum again, this one getting louder by the second.
Suma pointed, and Slate and my gazes followed along to see a cloud moving to intercept us.
“What the hell is it?” Slate asked, his voice panicked, but it only took us a few more seconds to answer that. It was a horde of drones.
EIGHT
“We have to get inside!” I yelled as the lift stopped short of the platform we needed to get to. “Suma?”
“It’s stuck.” She pressed the pedals, but nothing happened. “Maybe they jammed it.”
We were only five feet from the ledge, and Slate jumped, pulling himself up with a grunt. I saw the cloud of drones coming in fast, and at this distance, I could make out individual units, rather than a clump of them. We were running out of time.
Slate’s hand reached down, and Suma grabbed it. He pulled her up with ease as I jumped, grabbing the ledge myself. I worked at pulling myself up, the months of training having done wonders for my upper body strength. The first laser fire hit as I rolled to my side on the platform, Slate and Suma already running for the doorway. I chased after them, smoking holes appearing on the walkway around me as the hundred or so drones fired away at us.
The door was there, and Slate got it open, ushering Suma in first. When he turned to let me in, I felt the shot hit. It burned into my leg, nearly causing me to fall, but Slate grabbed hold of my collar and threw me inside like a bouncer tossing a drunk onto the street. He slammed the door shut behind us, pulse fire hitting the outside of the building like rain on a tin roof on a hot summer day.
“Will it hold?” I asked no one in particular. My leg was bleeding, but it looked more like a graze than serious damage.
Suma was moving down the hall to a touchscreen on the wall, which was lit up in glowing green light.
“If I can…” Her mask was off her face, and her snout was straight forward, the ends of it mechanically moving back and forth. The gesture seemed a mixture of concentration and nerves. Her thick hands fluttered across the screen deftly, and in a minute, the firing ceased.
Slate was activating the window screen on the access, which had been black before we had the power on. It now showed us what was on the other side. The hundred or so drones had stopped attacking and were slowly moving back the way they’d come.
“Great work, Suma. How did you do that?” I asked.
“I knew they would be linked to the network somewhere. I just had to break through their clearance settings. It was basic. We’ve had this technology for centuries.” She made it seem so easy, and I stumbled toward her, throwing my arms around the small alien girl.
She didn’t seem to understand the gesture at first, but soon I felt her four arms wrap around me, and Slate was there, picking both of us up.
“Quite the team. You did well, little buddy.” He patted the girl on the shoulder, and she beamed, her big black eyes wide. “You too, boss.” As if I needed the motivation. My calf was burning up, but I knew we could get back soon if the device would work. Slate slipped some water out of my bag, and we all drank, relishing the refreshment. I realized just how tired I was; the exhaustion of the day started to take its toll.
I found a bandage inside the pack, and after rolling up my pant leg and painfully washing the wound with a liberal amount of water, I placed the cloth over my calf. It stung but already felt better. They evidently had improved the bandage, because if I didn’t know better, it was healing me on contact.
“Time to go home, Suma.” I got up, and we started to walk back the way we’d come. The place was lit now that the power was on, making it much easier to see our surroundings. I could see the signs of centuries of vacancy, even in the sealed corridors. Our footprints were still on the floor, evidence we’d been the first people to tread on the floors in a long time. When I closed my eyes, I could feel the echo of a race that had once lived vibrantly in a technologically advanced society. I prayed they still lived and thrived on a new world, much like we would on New Spero.
The trip was fast, and soon we were walking past the room I thought of as the boiler room, the stones glowing blue, energy thrumming out into the halls and rooms of the high-rise. We kept moving, arriving at the Shandra, the room we’d started our adventure in.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, approaching the door. My heart pounded in my chest, my face getting flushed as I worried the room would be dark, dead. We’d be stuck forever on this horrible empty world.
The door slid to the side with a hiss, and Suma let out a tweet her translator didn’t relay. The room was dim, but as we entered it, the hieroglyphs came to life along the walls. So many places to see, so many worlds out there. I couldn’t let my brain think about it, because it made everything I knew seem so small and insignificant. If there were hundreds of known worlds with rooms just like this, that meant the universe was so much larger than even the corner we’d seen, travelling faster than light and traversing wormholes.
Suma led us to the center of the room, where the table stood.
“Which world do you need to go to?” she asked.
Slate and I looked at each other. The sickening feeling that had finally started to subside was back.
“Proxima. We call it New Spero.” My own voice sounded distant to my ears.
She looked at the icon options. “Which one?”
“We don’t know. Until a couple of hours ago, we had no idea what a Shandra was, or that we could use them to travel between worlds,” I said, trying to keep calm, but failing.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where your home is.” The squeaks came out softly, and I could tell that Suma was upset she couldn’t help us.
“Your father is a Gatekeeper?” Slate asked, showing more common sense than me.
“Yes. My world’s finest, and we come from an ancient lineage of gatekeepers.”