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HARI-9
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She had left Bonchance staring at the wall of dirt. HARI-9 had no worries that he would not come up with a solution because as she left, she saw he was thinking very hard. Exiting R-34 through the residence door. She changed into more practical clothes than the skirts she had been wearing and made her way to Edgerton.
She heard a variety of voices calling out “Good afternoon, milady!” or some variation as she walked down the road from the palisade, and she responded with a smile, a wave, and a greeting to all of them. Her matrix was easily capable of memorizing the faces and names of everyone she met, along with every conversation she had and everything she saw; a very handy ability for an infiltrator. Arriving in the village, she continued the greetings and polite conversations as she walked.
It was a relief that the humans she was counting on most, the Galways, Simon, Clea, and most importantly, Bonchance, had been so accepting of her true nature. It made her feel more human when, intellectually, she knew she wasn’t. She was merely a digital ghost in a machine.
Approaching the militia building, she saw the guard out front snap to attention and salute, “Good afternoon, milady!”
“At ease, Master Victor. Are you happy you emigrated here?”
“What? Oh yes, milady, my wife and daughter have the bakery up and a going concern now that the ovens are finished. But without a steady supply of local grain, I need to do something to make some money until they get the mill finished.”
“Well, I know the stones are ready, and the waterwheel is almost finished. They should have it done in a week, possibly?”
“Really? How did you get the millstones here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I have some friends who helped,” HARI-9 replied; she didn’t add they were called a Gut with the flatbed and the Ape with a diamond-edged saw blade. “Good, hard-working friends,”
“Best kind of friends to have, milady.”
“All friends are good to have; now I have to get to work, too.”
“Teaching today?”
“I am. When your duty is over, you’re welcome to join.”
“I’d like that.”
She walked inside and responded to the greetings and salutes as she headed to the Captain’s office.
“Mater Calvin,” she said as she walked in. “Are they ready?”
“Always.”
“Then let’s go.”
They stopped by the armory, where she received a revolver, a lever rifle, a bolt action, and a self-loader, along with an ammunition harness with several pouches on it, “Thank you, Sergeant.”
The armorer nodded in return, “You’re quite welcome, milady.”
Cal and HARI-9 exited out the back and walked the hundred meters to the high berm that surrounded the ranges. Another use of a Gut, this time with a front loader bucket attached. The pair passed through the small tunnel and checked in with the NCO in charge of range safety.
“Any problem children, Cal?” she asked quietly.
The Captain sighed, “Jenner at the end. He’s a good shot and very loud about it, but not as good as he thinks he is, and has been giving some…not particularly good advice on being a soldier.”
“Really,” HARI-9’s lips twitched in a smile. “Who is a lot better shot…but doesn’t look it?”
“That new girl you sent down…Katrina Eklund. She’s amazing with both shooting and fieldcraft.”
HARI-9 looked and saw her at the end of the row, as far from Jenner as possible.
“Is she checked out on the manual of arms for levers and self-loading?”
“She is, why?”
“I feel like giving a lesson.”
Stepping in front of the firing line, she set the three rifles she had slung onto the small wooden rack.
“Attention!” the Range NCO yelled, and all the militia snapped to.
“At ease,” HARI-9 said. “Take a knee.”
She waited until they had all settled in, “You all know who I am…or you should. I’m your perfect sovereign, right?”
There was some laughter.
“Yeah, I don’t agree with that either. What I was, before I became in charge of this, was a soldier just like you. I was a soldier for a long time, too, and I might have learned a few things. So today, I’m going to be your trainer in advanced marksmanship. First, let’s see what you got…Hmm,” she pointed at Jenner, “You, Master Jenner…and you, Mistress Katrina. Come on up.”
The two rose and walked to the table, “For now, I’m not the Duchess. I’m far, far worse; I’m Master Sergeant Edgerton. Jenner, which is your best weapon, lever, bolt, or self?”
“I’m good with all of them.”
“That’s ‘Good with all of them, Master Sergeant’, or ‘Good with all of them, Sergeant’, Jenner!” she suddenly roared. “Fine,” her voice took on a more vicious tone, “let’s just see about that…We’re going to have a little competition then, on speed and accuracy. Choose a rifle for yourself,” she pointed at the rack, "one for Katrina, and the last one for me. Captain, run out targets at the three hundred for us, if you please.”
As the Captain sent one of the militia out with the cloth targets to fix to the posts, Jenner looked at the three weapons and asked, “Speed, as in shots on target first, and accuracy for placements of those shots?”
“Exactly,” at least he wasn’t an idiot.
He selected the self-loader for himself, gave the lever gun to HARI-9, and the bolt action to Katrina. It made sense; the bolt gun was probably the most accurate, and the lever action could probably empty its magazine the fastest, but the self-loader was the best all-arounder.
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The runner was back now after setting up the targets, and after HARI-9 handed Jenner and Katrina a magazine containing five rounds, she slid five loose rounds into the tubular magazine of the lever action.
“Assume whatever position you wish, prone, sit, kneel, stand…any of those. Captain, give us a three count when we’re all in position.”
“Of course, Master Sergeant.”
Both Jenner and Katrina went prone while HARI-9 remained standing.
“Firing line! Ready?” On receiving confirmations, Cal began to count down, “Three…two…one…Fire!”
HARI-9 held the rifle in her left hand and, drawing the revolver from its holster with her right, fired its five shots as fast as she could pull the trigger.
Jenner rapped off his five shots almost as quickly, and Katrina was working the bolt action like a machine.
“Time!” Cal called out, “Close your actions, ground your weapons, and take one step back from the line.”
When the three shooters stepped away, he sent the runner to collect the target and bring them back.
“Alright, results. All five shots in the bull, Mistress Katrina. Two shots in the bull, two in the ten ring, and one breaking the five and ten ring, Master Jenner. And three shot in the bull and two in the ten, Master Sergeant Edgerton…with a revolver at 300 meters. The fastest time was the Master Sergeant, followed by Jenner, followed by Katrina. How do you want to judge this?”
HARI-9 looked at the gathered militia, “I think it’s a tie. So, Jenner, still think you don’t have anything to learn?”
He looked embarrassed.
“Katrina,’ she turned to the young woman, “You’re going to work on sniper training…no argument. That was some exceptional shooting, Captain; make sure she gets vetted properly. I think she would be amazing with an AMR.”
She looked at the militia, “Now that we’ve loosened up, I think it’s time we talked about form.”
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CLEA
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Getting a job at the tavern was easy enough; I simply told Master Sean, the owner, that I was bored and needed to do something useful. I also told him and his family that they should just call me Clea and treat me like the rest of the staff. They were more than willing to do that, so three times a week, I would go down and pour beer with my hair in a braid and tucked away in a wool cap.
Fall was ending, and the snow would be arriving soon; Chance was working on some project or another involving tunnels. All I really knew was that he would come to bed exhausted after taking a long shower to get all the grime off. Besides the bartending, which was for gathering and, more importantly, spreading rumors…I was studying the technology the Old World had used for spying and the various maps and images that Mara provided me.
Seated in the conference room and using the screen on the wall, I was trying to narrow down what the attacks that Malcolm had been directed to perform had accomplished. It was clear that some of them had been used to attack areas near the fringes of the various realms depicted on the map that Mara had found, but it was unclear what the actual purpose of any fear caused would have been?
Chance walked in as I was sitting there; he was mostly covered with mud. He leaned over to kiss me, “Would you like to see something amazing?”
Following him down to the warehouse, I saw a barricade made of timbers and, on the other side, a large set of loops of coiled hose and what appeared to be a muddy pond with two massive machines sitting in it.
“Are those the tunnelers?” I gasped.
“They are. I’ve called Mara so she can see them, too.”
“I’m here,” Mara’s voice came from the entrance. “Bonchance! It worked!”
“A little bit of a mess…but yes. It did,” he looked at me. “We had two things: power and a lot of water, so I used high-pressure water to turn the dirt into a slurry and pumped it out with that hose through one of the emergency exits. Another day to finish the rinsing off and get the last of the water out, and then I can get to work on the machines themselves. Mara,” he turned to face her, “I also got most of the dirt away from the actual collapse area as I could. It looks like we can bore east for the exhaust vents and have the main bore west.”
“How are you going to get rid of all that rock,” I asked.
“The tunnelers use a highly focused torch that is so hot it turns rock to gas. We can pump out a gas easily, but that’s why we need the exhaust ducts first,” Chance explained.
“And why they’re automated and started and stopped remotely,” Mara added. “It is simply too hot and dangerous to be near them when they’re working.”
“Incredible. So you could carve out an underground city with these?”
“Easily,” Chance replied, “and I would not be surprised if somebody already had.”
Mara looked at me, “Anything?”
“Yes and no,” I replied, then turning to Chanc, “I’ll see you later…after you’ve cleaned up.”
Walking back to the elevator with Mara, we returned to the conference room.
“What do you have?”
“The target you picked up a while ago, Tin? He’s part of a looter gang that usually operates south and east of Rice. They usually go after small towns and farms and try to stay away from anything really dangerous. Since our militia is very obvious, they haven’t tried anything yet, but Artie Sorenson is working at the mill and is still keeping an eye on us. Tin meets him every month or so. I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about Ceedo. The OP has picked up several flying transmitters to our southwest, which you already knew about.”
“The ones using Heavies as scouts…Okay.”
“The machines in the OP have enough information that they managed to triangulate and discern an estimated average entrance and exit path.”
“We have a bearing?’
“A rough one, but yes.”
“The range of a heavy maxed out with extra power packs is about 1,500 of your miles, so wherever they’ve been launching from, it’s at most 750 miles away from where we’ve picked them up,” Mara said. “We need to get somebody out there and looking.”
“I know. I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“This is the kind of thing I do best. Get me as close as you can with a Gut or a Howler. And give me something that will let me pick up their signals.”
“In the middle of winter?”
“I grew up in the mountains…and I may be a lot tougher than most people expect.”
She gave me a strange look, “What do you mean?”
“I’m a geneer,” I admitted, “my father was, so I am too.”
“I’ve heard that term…like a soc?”
“No! I’m not a soc, but…The socs were made during the Final War.”
“Sure, Special Operations Augments. I worked with them a lot.”
“Well, you know, there were mods before the war, right?”
“Like the environmental adaptions?”
I nodded, “Exactly like that. Hot Climate, Cold Climate, Aquatic. Most were little stuff, but there were heavy conversions, too, like me. My family is Arctic Specialty.”
“How do you know all these terms?”
“Because the places where my family worked during the war were nowhere near any kind of civilization or cities. They survived with all their stuff, more or less, and we kept our knowledge of the Old World. Eventually, our stuff broke, and we reverted to the same level of technology, but we didn’t forget our past or where we came from.”
“Arctic..” she was scrolling through her tablet. “Extreme cold tolerance, enhanced endurance, enhanced strength, resistance to glare. How strong are you?”
“Not up to your, Chance’s arm, or a soc’s level, but two to three times more than I look. I can function in extreme weather with not much difficulty.”
“You’re going to need a partner. Eklund would be perfect.”
“Who?”
“Katrina Eklund. She’s a crack-shot who grew up west of here as a farmer but is an amazing hunter, too. Knows cold weather and living off the land…” she looked thoughtful, “Okay, we truck you, Katrina, and a pair of horses and plenty of supplies as far as we can in a Gut and send you on your way. You ride out from the start point for a month and then return to the drop-off point for extraction…uh, to be met. If you get in trouble, run and call us. I think I might be able to get a Howler out that far if we really have to.”
“That sounds like it should work. When do I leave?”
She tapped something out, and the picture changed to a map of the clouds.
“Storms are already in the mountains. You go now; you’ll miss the snow in the plains. Start packing, leave in two days?”
“I’d better tell Chance.”
“You’d better. I’ll ask Katrina.”