PARALLAX

Parallax gasps, panting, trying to get her breath back. The air is warm and acrid. Her vision is embroiled in thick, black smoke, enveloping her like an insidious cloud.

She won't die if she stays here. But it wouldn't be healthy. Already her sensors are beeping and pulsing, her OS overflowing with warning messages.

The HERALD is down. Destroyed. Its various parts strewn across the plain as scattered, fuming detritus.

It's not like it already took Parallax hours just to take the big boy down. And now she has to wander through the billowing, gaseous stink the creature's flaming remains have left behind. Hardly seems fair.

She decides to summon her ship.

She hears it descending, even amid the crackle of flames, and the snap and click of metal mechanisms slowly disassembling.

A moment passes. Then, a fluctuation in heat distribution, a hundred or so feet ahead. The black smoke shifts, as if gaining sentience, attempting to communicate.

For one small, interminable moment, Parallax's breath catches, despite herself. She braces, in anticipation of some new SERAPHIM weapon. Some new trick. A trap triggered, designed to dispatch her when she's at her weakest; weary and battle-worn.

But of course, that's just the adrenaline talking. Post-battle reflexes, refusing to gear down. She's not about to die here, suddenly, in this valley of fire and smoke. She's too strong for that. She's fought too hard for it.

It's just her ship, navigating through the smoke. She knows that, logically. Her sensors and positioning data confirm it.

See? She can hear the hiss of the bay door opening, just ahead.

Seriously.

She jumps. Her feet touch down just inside the door, bringing her face-to-face with the grey, inner doors. The bay door shuts behind her.

The comforting buzz of the chamber being decontaminated, as toxic smoke and poisonous nanoparticles are sucked and flushed from the room.

Then the inner doors open. And she's home.

The main hangar isn't particularly spacious, and she likes it that way. There are only a few steps of walking space between each of the facilities, from her sleeping pod, to the armory, and the pilot seat itself. There's a holotable in the center of the hangar, with a small couch, where she would normally sit to decompress and mindlessly consume media after a successful operation. But there's no time for that, now. Or energy.

She wants to collapse on that couch. She wants to curl up into a ball and pass out, dead to the world.

Incoming transmission. Artifice.

Fuck. I'm not even off the ground, yet.

But if she shrugs Artifice off, it's not going to end well.

Might as well get this over with.

She uses her OS to punch in the coordinates for Sector Nine, sending them to the ship's computer. She manages to get to the couch, practically collapsing into it.

Okay. Here we go.

Straightening up in her seat, she diverts the transmission to the holotable.

The upper half of Artifice's body pops into existence on top of the table. Her darkly-lensed goggles are in place. Her ear-length hair is messy and wild about her face.

"Ah," Artifice says. "Sitting down already, are we?"

"Artifice," Parallax says coolly, in greeting. She refuses to bristle at the rebuke. Not visibly, anyway.

"I called you to discuss strategy, but it seems like you're more interested in settling down for a nap."

"Because everyone knows you have to be standing in order to implement strategic force planning. That's just common knowledge."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"It's about vigilance, Parallax," Artifice says, not missing a beat. "Operational readiness. We can't afford to sit on our laurels, least of all now."

Parallax breathes deep through her nose, trying to ignore the tension building in her jaw. "Much as I appreciate the zeal, it's one under-powered Biodroid. I'm pretty sure, between the two of us, we've got it covered. Or do you really underestimate me, that much?"

Artifice stares at her, openly disappointed.

"Okay," Parallax says, sighing. "I'll bite. What?"

"The very fact that he's 'one under-powered Biodroid' is what has me most worried. I think we both can agree Daimon is unstable. But even accounting for that, he was more than capable of what he was charged to do. He should have destroyed that entire bunker, and everyone in it. He should have brought the Blast Model to us in a bag. But he didn't. Have you stopped to wonder why that might be?"

Actually, she has a point. Daimon might fuck around, but he always gets the job done, even if in a roundabout or less-than-optimal way.

This wasn't just mission failure. This was a defeat. This was...an anomaly.

"There's something we're missing," Parallax says.

"Whatever it is, Daimon missed it, too," Artifice says. "There's more than one element at play, here. That's how Daimon loses. A cage is just a cage. And bait is just bait. But you put them together, and the trap is set. Don't you see? The Blast Model was the lure. But a third party slammed the cage shut."

Parallax sits up straighter. The pieces are starting to click together.

Is this what happened to Razor? Is he captive too, or dead?

But that was always a possibility, wasn’t it? And there’s no reason to jump to any conclusions, just yet.

"The humans,” she says. “In the bunker. He must have earned their trust."

"It's more than that. It's an alliance. Whoever we're up against, they are cunning, and they are determined. They know we're on the way, and they're already developing some kind of countermeasure. Look at this."

Artifice brings up a building blueprint, appearing next to her hologram on the table. A subterranean facility. The one south of the human bunker.

"The unauthorized war plant," Artifice says. "It was housing more than just the Biodroids."

More blueprints appear. Holograms of various ships, droids, and drones. Vehicles. Equipment. Weaponry.

"If they have even an inking of what's waiting there for the taking," Artifice goes on, "That's where they're headed. They might even be there already. If it were me, I would try to migrate the entire population, but I'm not sure they have the resources for that. Not to mention, I doubt they've ever done anything like that before. It’s a big ask, in a community unaccustomed to travel. But the resources at the complex would make it much easier to defend either position. Viable, at least."

And here Parallax thought it would be a simple matter of finding Silas, and bringing him in. But it can't ever be that easy, can it?

"So we are going to need the Armada," she concludes. "To bypass the defenses."

"More than that," Artifice says. " We need droids on the ground, as well as drones in the air. And we need the Corsairs."

Something squirms in the pit of Parallax's stomach.

The Corsairs are an arm of the Protectorate initiative. Biodroids, like the Elites--like Parallax, technically. All Biodroids are technically leftovers from the arms race of the last great global war.

Biodroid's have much in common with human beings. They are iterative and evolutionary, using mankind as a mold. An intelligent mind is required to make good use of tools, and weaponry. Automation and fuzzy logic can only take you so far. That's why a Biodroid is a person, and not just a machine, as Parallax sees it.

But the invention of the Corsairs took Biodroid development in a different direction. Backwards, in a way.

They are intelligent, like the Elites. They are powerful, like the Elites--though, to a lesser degree. But they are all but devoid of personality. Their will has been filed away, like so much unnecessary filigree. They are left only with their skills, their cat-like ingenuity, a willingness to obey, and a penchant for killing and destruction.

They're perfect for this operation. Highly trained. Adept at killing other Biodroids--it's what they were made for, after all. And best of all, their only motive is to please. They won't ask any questions. Even if they knew about the Key, they wouldn't care. They would simply do as they were told.

But that's just one of the reasons why Parallax prefers not to fight alongside them, if she has the option. Being around them, it makes her feel...

Well, probably the way humans feel around me.

"You're describing a full-scale assault," Parallax says.

Silence. As if, to Artifice, the statement doesn't merit a response.

"You know what I think?" Parallax says. "Not that it matters."

"You're right," Artifice says. "It doesn't."

Walked right into that one.

"You're projecting. Not everyone thinks five steps ahead, like you do. Even when their lives are on the line."

"The moment I assume that, and fall into that way of thinking, is the moment I'm out-played," Artifice says, sternly. "And that's not going to happen."

As Parallax studies Artifice's deadpan expression, a subtle chill travels up the back of her spine, like an icy spider.

In her mind, she can see it. In the final moments of the assault--or perhaps in the midst of it--one of the Corsairs will turn on her, suddenly. Violently. Probably at the moment she least suspects it. With no mercy visible in those blank, uncaring eyes.

Artifice will coordinate an elaborate assault. Not just in order to apprehend the Blast Model, but so she can control what happens after.

The Key will only be useful to one of the Elites. That's just the unfortunate way of it. For now, they must collaborate and cooperate with one another, for the sake of the Initiative. But soon, all of that will change.

Parallax has always known something like this was possible, if not inevitable. But at this point, it's no longer an abstract concept. She's looking it right in the face.

"Well," Artifice says, summoning more diagrams, and a 3D model map of Sector Nine. "Shall we get down to brass tacks?"