Motion sensors detect us and lights flicker on in sequence, revealing a vast laboratory space. My breath catches at the sight before us. Spread across multiple steel tables lies a completely disassembled Xenomech, its components separated like puzzle pieces.
“Holy shit,” Flint whispers. “I’ve never seen one taken apart.”
Neither have I. The sight is both macabre and intriguing. On the table nearest us, I see a thick xenosteel arm that’s nearly four feet long. The casing has been removed, and I don’t recognize half the shit I see inside.
“Wow!” I say, moving to take a closer look at the arm. “They say the Xenomech were humanoid once, flesh and blood, and over time, moved to fully mechanized bodies. Wonder if that will happen to us.”
“No thanks,” Flint says sourly. “For one, how do they fuck?”
“Perhaps they’ve evolved beyond that need,” Seraph suggests.
In the next area is a huge, locked vice, holding a pair of Xenomech legs. The legs are badly damaged along the top, as if the Xeno had exploded and all that remained were its legs.
“Over here,” calls Zara. “You gotta see this.”
We join Zara in the center of the lab, where a big horseshoe-shaped Xenomech brain floats in a cylindrical glass tank. Dozens of electrodes pierce its gray matter, trailing wires to monitoring equipment. The preservation fluid has a sickly yellow tint.
“They were dissecting them,” Seraph says quietly. “Trying to learn their weaknesses.”
“Turnabout’s fair play,” Flint says. “They were experimenting on us. Rule one is to know your enemy.”
A glow of a green screen catches my eye from a side alcove. “Hey, look—another Crappel Q.” I head over to investigate.
The computer seems intact, though a layer of dust covers the keyboard. I quickly determine the apps are password protected. “Mensa, can you help me check this out?”
“Of course.” Mensa approaches, eyes flickering with interest.
I connect the cable between Mensa and the storage drive, trying not to think about the dissected Xeno brain floating behind us.
“See anything interesting?” I ask.
Mensa’s chest screen scrolls with text. “Fascinating. It appears Spectra Dynamics was researching omega wave propagation. The Xenomech use omega waves to interface with their machines, such as their spaceships and production facilities. The waves appear to be generated naturally by their organic brains.”
I step out and sweep my omega wave detector over the room, and it doesn’t take long to find the source. “Yup, this Xeno brain is producing the omega waves. How could it still be alive after all this time?”
Mensa waves me back to the computer. “Jade, I’ve discovered something else about their research. Spectra scientists believed some Xeno machines could artificially generate and transmit omega waves, allowing direct machine-to-machine communication. This could have been used to give their equipment a degree of autonomy.”
Flint spits right onto the glass cylinder holding the brain. “What kind of dumbass aliens give a machine autonomy?”
Mensa makes a throat-clearing noise that is startlingly human and gives Flint a pointed look.
“This is useful information, Mensa,” says Seraph. “Can you make copies of all their data?”
Mensa shakes his head. “Sadly, I don’t have the capacity remaining.”
I take off my pack and dig out my electronics kit.
“No problem,” I say. “Crappels have portable data cubes, but they don’t hold that much. So, I’ll just pull the computer’s memory core. Should take less than ten minutes.”
It actually takes me eight minutes.
“Got it,” I announce, holding up the core. It’s the size of a paperback book. Seraph carefully tucks it into her pack while I put my kit away and shoulder my pack.
“Time to move on,” Flint says, eyeing the preserved brain with disgust.
We head through the far doorway, our footsteps echoing. The next room stops me dead in my tracks. It’s enormous, like an aircraft hangar, with a high ceiling lost in shadows. But what dominates the space is the skeletal framework of…something. Something big.
“What the hell is that?” Zara whispers.
Metal scaffolding rises three stories high, surrounding an incomplete device that reminds me of a massive radio tower laid on its side. Thick power cables snake across the floor. A placard on the base reads “OWG.”
“Omega Wave Generator,” I breathe, the letters clicking into place. “Spectra wasn’t just studying the waves—they were making a machine to generate them. And that’s why they needed that power station.”
Impressed, I walk around the perimeter of the unfinished framework. “This would have been revolutionary. Imagine networks communicating without wires.”
“We already have that,” Flint grumbles. “It’s called radio.”
I shake my head. “This is different, in two important ways. First, omega waves have tremendous penetration. The detector was sensing this brain through concrete and xenosteel barriers. And two, any omega waves humans generate could be used to control Xeno tech. Their most sensitive and classified tech. Spaceships, for example.”
Flint whistles. “Okay, gotcha.”
“How close did Spectra get before they ran out of time?” Seraph asks.
I shrug. “Hard to say, looking at what’s here. But if I had to guess, I’d say they might have had something in a couple of years.”
Mensa points out another Crappel in the far corner. “Jade, perhaps that computer could shed some light.”
I hurry over to the computer. Like the other one, it’s password protected. So, once again, I jack Mensa into it.
Mensa speaks after processing the files. “This computer contains many technical specifications for the OWG machine, which the whimsical Spectra scientists were calling Our Wrathful God. It seems that work on the project was suspended more than four months before Firefall, due to a funding shortage. The project manager was so distraught that sadly, she committed suicide.”
“Grab the memory core, and let’s keep moving,” Flint demands without sentiment.
This core only takes me seven minutes to pull, and I hand it over to Seraph to add to her collection.
Zara calls us over to the dimly lit far corner of the massive room, and I’m surprised by what we see there.
An open blast gate, marking the presence of a shelter.
And for some reason it gives me the creeps.
Seraph steps up to the intercom and presses the talk button. “Spectra Dynamics, this is Bodhi Tree. We are here to assist any survivors.”
Not surprisingly, no one responds. I step inside to the gate’s control panel and check the use log. “It was never sealed,” I announce. “Maybe their budget ran out before they could stock the shelter.”
Seraph peers down the shelter’s entry tunnel, hand on her rifle sling. “I’m not getting a good feeling about this place.”
Flint pulls his Mini-14 off his shoulder. “Doubt there are any survivors, but there could be primo loot in there. So, we clear it room by room.”
I close my eyes, trying to sense whatever’s making Seraph uneasy. But without my resonator, I’m feeling nothing.
Flint leads the way inside.
Shockingly, the shelter looks like a five-star hotel. Rich mahogany panels line the walls, and thick carpet muffles our footsteps. For some reason, the entry tunnel lighting is out, but beyond the secondary gate, the rest of the shelter is well lit. The only sign of age is a thick layer of dust.
A row of framed portraits catches my eye—the Spectra Dynamics board of directors. Old white guys in expensive suits. Creepy bastards, with hard eyes that seem to follow me as I pass.
Flint points ahead to a sign that reads “Conference Room”, and we move in to clear it.
What we find inside is disturbing.
