Chapter 2
Jaka 4
After the explosions stopped, the girls climbed out from their cover. Gaige looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. It appeared that the defeated robots had self-destructed, destroying almost all of the evidence.
Surveying the damage, she sighed and muttered “Great, now how’re we supposed to figure this out?”
“Well, a little help might be appreciated.” Came the sharp comment from the ground.
Gaige glanced down to find Artemis still laying there, one hand up causing Gaige to remember what had happened. Quickly grabbing her arm, she drug the smaller girl up and helped her limp out to see what had happened while giving an embarrassed “Sorry. And thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, if you hadn’t come along I probably woulda been caught in that explosion. Not to mention…aw come on.”
“What?”
“They blew up my trophy.” She said, gesturing to the chunks that once had been the Diomos.
“That’s it? That’s what you’re mad about?”
“Not really, it’s just, I mean, it’s a waste is all.”
Gaige rolled her eyes, but let it drop as she looked around the area. Small fires were smoldering out in the damp underbrush, bits and shards of metal that had once been robots dotted the area. Hearing a ‘tsk’ from next to her, Gaige followed the other girl’s line of sight till she spotted what had upset her this time. The corpses of the people that had attacked her had gotten caught in the explosions, destroying most of them, a fact that caused Gaige to groan out loud at the sight.
“So now what?” Artemis asked.
“Now? Now we start going through this mess and seeing if we can find anything that could explain this fiasco.”
“I guess I should let you get started on that.”
“Me? You’re way better at this type of thing.” She started only to catch the flat look from the other girl. Glancing down at the limp limbs of the girl she was still supporting, Gaige flushed slightly and said “Sorry, kinda forgot about that. I guess you’ll have to go back to town and get patched up, but how should we do this.”
“Once Deathtrap gets back down here, from whatever he’s doing, I guess he’ll have to lug me all the way back.”
“Yeah, can’t make you hop that far, not happy about it though.”
Artemis shrugged and continued “What about you?”
“Hmm, much as I’d love to go back with you, I don’t know if we’d find this place again, not to mention that something might come along while we’re gone and, well, dispose of the bodies.”
“Point. So what about A.I.ngel?”
Gaige leaned back and thought for a second “I donno, part of me wants to send her back with you, I mean, you could use an extra pair of hands while fixing your cybernetics.”
“True, but I don’t like the idea of you being alone out here either.”
Gaige smiled at that. She hadn’t said it, but part of her didn’t want the girl to go with Artemis because she didn’t like the idea of them being alone. Still, she had to use logic here, so she countered with “Yeah, but her staying doesn’t really add much to a fight.”
“No, but it would be another set of eyes to help you search, plus if there’s another wave of these…attacks, she might be able to at least call for help.”
“And what good would that do? You’d be miles away and by the time you got here, it’d be too late. And that’s even if you’re in any shape to fight.”
Artemis sighed “Point. But I guess it comes down to, can Deathtrap carry both of us and maintain speed? Or would it be better for him to fly me back as fast as he can, before returning himself?”
“Then how’re you getting back out here?”
“Don’t think I’d have to. I mean, by the time I get everything fixed up, you’ll be done.”
“And what about the Wibblers? Don’t you still hav’ta hunt them?”
“Right.” It was the truth, they’d planned on teaching A.I.ngel to hunt, at least enough that she could defend herself, before hitting the Wibblers nest.
“See, I’m not the only one that forgets things.” Gaige said, turning to the canopy above and continuing “Still, where did that he go?”
As if in response she heard a familiar “Urrurrrg”
“Yes it’s all clear, you missed the entire party.” Gaige yelled back at him, angrier than she’d meant to. She knew it wasn’t his fault, he’d done the right thing and gotten the other girl out of there, which turned out to be even more important after the EMP domes had popped up. Gaige couldn’t imagine what they’d do to A.I.ngel, if anything at all. But it was a risk she didn’t want to take. Still, Deathtrap’s firepower would’ve been a big help in the fight.
A Number of Hours Later
It had taken hours for Artemis to get carried back to town, fix her limbs and get back. Gaige and A.I.ngel had stayed and combed through the area, picking up any piece they could. Gaige had her start at the far side, so that Gaige could go through the pockets of the dead without the other girl needing to see that and they were just finishing up when Artemis and Deathtrap returned.
“So, what’d you find?” Was the first thing she said as soon as her feet hit the ground.
“Seriously? No how are you? No are you alright? Just right into what we found?”
“Fine, how are you, are you alright, what’d you find?”
Gaige shot her a flat look, but cracked after a few seconds “We’re fine, which is more than I can say for this mess. Wait, that didn’t sound right. What I meant was, we didn’t really find anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing useful at least.”
Artemis looked at the collection of stuff. Most of it was bits from the robots, shards of armor, circuits and servos. None of which told them anything.
“What about their, um, whatdoya call ums? Their brains.”
“Hard drives or CPU’s?”
“Sure, you know more about this stuff than I do.”
“All of them were fried during the EMP blasts.”
“Dang. So, nothing?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a serial number?”
“Got a few of those, but I doubt they’ll do us any good.”
“And what about the, uh, people?”
“Couple of I.D.s, a few electronics, but nothing to indicate who they really were or why they were here.”
“Well, that part was obvious.”
Gaige looked over at her, so she continued “I mean, they were here to kill us, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Us?”
“Well, they certainly weren’t discriminating about who they targeted, so I think an us would be aplici…appropriate.”
“Yeah, fair point.”
They stood in silence for a minute. As they did, Gaige kicked herself, she should’ve asked how the other girl was doing, how the repairs had gone, but it seemed a bit late to bring it up. Still, better late than never she thought, but just as she was opening her mouth, Artemis spoke up.
“You did check the guy in the Diomos, right?”
“What guy?”
“The one the Diomos ate.”
“Wait, it ate one? Why didn’t you mention that?”
“Didn’t I?”
“Pretty sure you didn’t.”
“Huh, musta slipped my mind, what with everything else that was going on. Suppose we should check him too.”
She walked over to the Diomos carcass and Gaige noticed a slight limp as she did and spoke up “How’d the repairs go? Your cybernetics I mean.”
“Bout as well as last time this happened. They work, but until I get back to the ship, they’re not gonna be great.”
“So why didn’t you go? Back to the ship I mean?”
“What, I couldn’t leave you two out here by yourselves, could I? Nah, this is good enough. Besides, I’m gonna have’ta take them apart to replace the plates, wouldn’t I? Figured that as long as I was going that far, I could do it then.”
“Makes sense, and thanks, by the way, for coming back as soon as you could.”
“Don’t mention it.” She replied with a smile, before turning to the corpse and said “Welp, let’s see who you had for dinner.”
Gaige looked away, it wasn’t that she was squeamish or anything like that, she just didn’t want to see a partially digested person if she didn’t have to, not to mention that the way Artemis had described the Diomos’s eating habits, she didn’t think she wanted to see it if she could avoid it. She tried to tune out the sounds of hacking and bones being broken to get them out of the way, while desperately trying to think of anything else to talk about.
“So, what da’ya think this was about?” Artemis called out.
“What do you mean?”
“These guys? What’d they want with us? I mean, I don’t think this was a random thing, like they were out here waiting to attack anyone that showed up. Which does happen, by the way, had a few hunts get attacked by irate groups for a slew of different reasons. But that’s not important right now, what is, is these people. So, what were they doing here?”
“Other than attacking us?” Gaige snarked to buy herself time to think “Well, like you said, they were probably here for us.”
“No kidding. That’s what I just said.” Came the snippy reply.
“I know, that’s why I’m agreeing with you.”
“Great, so we’ve covered that, so what’d they want with us?”
“Well, I’m hoping that you’ll find something that’ll help us figure that out.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m elbow deep in this Diomos, but in case that doesn’t get us anything besides a need for a shower, what d’ya think this was all about?”
Gaige sat back, biting her tongue while she thought about it.
“I mean, there’s the obvious answer.” Artemis continued, while dragging something out of the Diomos.
“And that would be?”
“Seriously?” Artemis yelled at her, looking up from her work “With these bots and all that?”
“Holloway.”
“Of course Holloway.” Artemis snapped “I mean, his bots, he’s got a reason, it all makes sense, there’s just one problem.”
“Other than he’s dead?”
“Yeah, that would be it.”
Gaige paused and looked back at the scrap pile.
Artemis continued “I mean, it could be anyone else that’s after either of us. Those bots are cheap right now, not that I’ve looked into it, I mean, I’m assuming they are.”
“They are. Company’s dead, not to mention in legal trouble. And besides, who wants a product that’s known to spy on you?”
“Right. So, my point was, you can get them cheap, so just about anybody could’ve got them and sent them after us.”
“True, but these also had those EMP’s built in, not to mention they were off the production line, not finished products like most people could buy.”
“OK, point.”
“Plus, there’s the fact that they were rigged to explode. Not terribly hard, but whoever did it, set them up so that the bomb wouldn’t be taken out by the EMP. And that took planning.”
“So, who do we know with that kind of skill that wants us dead?”
“Again, Holloway.”
“And again, he’s dead, so anybody else?”
“Um.” A soft voice asked “You keep saying this Holloway person is dead, but how sure are you of that?”
The girls looked over to where A.I.ngel was standing, watching them.
“How long have you been standing there?” Gaige asked.
“Um, a little while. You two seemed to be in a good debate, so I did not want to interrupt.”
“Uh, alright.” Gaige said, feeling awkward “But to answer your question, he’s dead. I’m sure of it.”
“Hold on.” Artemis said “We only have the ECHO reports that say that, so who’s to say he didn’t pay someone off to fake his own death?”
Gaige paused “That does make a certain kind of sense. I mean, with the kind of trouble he was in, that would get him out, and since no one would be looking for him, he could do whatever he wanted.”
“Plus, a dead man can’t exactly go to prison for murder.”
“Not to mention that he doesn’t care about collateral.”
“But why now? I mean, if it is him, and this is still a theoretical, but if it is, then what’s he been up to and why hasn’t he attacked us before?”
Artemis paused and thought about it before answering “Well, this is the first time we’ve been alone, more or less. I mean think about it, where did we go after defeating him?”
“To the Project Odysseus base.”
“No, well, yes, but first we went to Eden 5, right? Then we went to the Project Odysseus base.”
“Right, but we didn’t hear about his death until after we were on our way there.”
“True, but let’s say he was already out by then, for argument’s sake, he would’ve needed some time to get reorganized and then he’d need to find us again.”
“Which would be, when? About when we got to Eden 5 the second time?”
“Could well’ve been.”
“Yeah, and an attack on us there would’ve hit my family.”
“But wouldn’t that’ve revealed that he was still alive?”
“True, but he would’ve won.”
“But he would’ve gotten caught.”
“But do you think he’d have cared?”
“Hmm, maybe not.”
“Right, but there might’ve been other circumstances, like he couldn’t get his equipment in place or something, so let’s just keep thinking about this as if it’s right.”
Artemis gave a slow nod, as if she wasn’t entirely convinced, but kept going “Let’s see, after that we went to Wilina. He could’ve attacked us there.”
“We weren’t there all that long. I mean, getting these bots in position would take a bit of time, especially if he was a little ways behind us.”
“Well, you know more about them than me, so I’ll take your word for it.”
“Right, after that, it was Eden 6. Again, not enough time, plus he wouldn’t want to piss off the Jakobs corporation. Then we went to the Garden of Minos.” Gaige said, tilting her head in thought “But he would’ve lost us there, I mean, we did kinda vanish.”
“Plus, Orion was already following us, that might’ve given him pause.”
“Could be, or maybe he couldn’t follow us in, missed the way in or something. But anyway, back to the point, this was the first time we’ve been alone in a while, at least that he could get to.”
“That’s what I was saying.”
“Makes sense, and I suppose it would also make sense that he wouldn’t be here in person, cause if this attack failed, he could strike again, but if he was here, he knows that this time, I’d kill him.”
“Yep.”
Gaige nodded to herself “That all makes at least some sense, but we need proof. Speaking of which, how’s it going over there?”
“Woulda been a lot faster with another set of hands, but he’s out.” She said with a great heave as something wet and heavy hit the ground.
“Yeah, sorry about that, it’s just…”
“Nah, it’s fine. Only one of us should need to get, er, gooed up and that’s me.”
“This isn’t another one of your self-deprecating things, is it?”
“Huh? No, I mean, there is the fact that I’m, well, you know, disgusting, but that wasn’t what I was meaning, I was referring to the fact that I’m gonna have to clean my cybernetics anyway, or at least take them all apart, so I might as well do this.”
“Makes sense, except the you being disgusting part, which we’re gonna have to talk about later. But putting that discussion on hold for now, what’d you find?”
“Well, it seems to be a rather torn apart man.” Came the snide reply “Other than that, give me a second to search it, would ya?”
“Yeah, yeah, but hurry up, would ya?”
“You wanna come over here and do this? Cause I’d be more than happy to switch with you. Otherwise, shut up for a minute, would you?”
“Shut u…Why you…” She caught herself even before the large robotic hand landed on her shoulder. Turning to Deathtrap she said “Yeah, sorry, was getting a bit testy there, thanks.”
Artemis ignored her and kept digging through the corpse’s clothes and after a minute, and another check of the Diomos’s stomach to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything, she sat back and called the other girl over.
Gaige gingerly made her way over, trying not to look at the entrails of the Diomos that were spread across the ground, nor at the corpse that was absolutely torn to shreds, and instead focused on the small pile of stuff that the other girl had found.
There wasn’t much there and what was there was covered in blood and stomach acid, but it was still in better shape than the bits that she’d managed to recover from the corpses she’d examined. She quickly identified the dead man’s ID, but it didn’t help her any more than any of the others she’d looked at. Next to it were a few scribbled notes, but they were almost completely obfuscated by the coating of blood on them. As she was staring at them, trying not to touch them, Artemis carefully opened her canteen and poured a bit of water on them, trying to wash away the blood, but it didn’t help. Still, Gaige was sure that something about them was familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
The last things were the most interesting. Unfortunately, his ECHO had taken a tooth through it, so they wouldn’t be retrieving anything from it, but the other electronics that he had were mostly intact, and were the main reason that Artemis had called her over, since this was clearly Gaige’s forte and not hers. Gaige carefully examined them before picking them up and turning them around, muttering to herself as she worked.
A good minute later, she sat back and nodded. Noticing the others sitting around, waiting for her, she cleared her throat and started pointing stuff out.
“Well, that’s his watch. Nothing special there.”
“Yeah, we got that.”
“I was just starting with the most obvious, no need to get sarcastic with me.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic, I was being ex-asser-batted.”
“Exacerbated.” Gaige clarified before continuing “As I was saying, you already knew it was a watch and not a terribly expensive one, so moving on. These couple are for personal grooming and this last one seems to be a communications device, though it’s damaged past the point of use.”
“Why have that?”
“You mean, why not use your ECHO if you’re carrying it? Good question. The answer is, this is a specially encoded one, meaning unlike your ECHO, if someone else, say, us, picks it up, we can’t just open it up.”
“You can get that stuff on your ECHO too.”
“Yeah, but this is better. Plus, they’re disposable. You can just ditch this after you’re done and it can’t be traced back to you, unlike your ECHO.”
“Ah. So, all that was for nothing.”
“Not entirely. I mean, sure, we didn’t find anything useful, but what’s most interesting, and most telling, is what isn’t here.” Catching the confusion on the other girls’ face, Gaige continued “Think about it, there’s nothing here for controlling the bots and since they weren’t giving orders, how’d they know when to project the EMP domes, or when to explode for maximum damage?”
“Maybe they were programmed that way?”
“Maybe, but unlikely. I mean, like I said earlier, these are straight off the production line.”
“But you also said they’d been modded to include both the EMP, as well as the explosives, so couldn’t they have reprogrammed them while they were doing that?”
“Could be, didn’t think of that. But still, something about that feels off.”
“Urgurr”
“That’s it! If they were programmed, then they should’ve all exploded a set time after they fell. Good catch babe.”
“But wouldn’t the EMP’s have fried any receivers? So, couldn’t it have been something that after that circuit got fried, it set off a timer?”
“Could be, but I didn’t find anything like that in the wreckage.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t that have been right next to the bomb?”
“Still should’ve found something, but now that you mention it, I did find this.” She got up and went over to the pile of robot parts and drug out a small piece of metal that didn’t mean anything to Artemis.
“If I’m right, then this is part of the shielding that would’ve protected the receiver from the EMP.”
“But wouldn’t that have also blocked the signal?”
“Not necessarily, I mean, they’re using a different method then us so if they’d figured out a way around that, it would’ve worked. And now that I’m thinking, I figured out what this is as well.” She grabbed another part and turned it over “It’s a transmitter, which means that someone was watching us.”
The other girls shivered slightly at the thought. After a second, Artemis spoke up “So what’s our next step?”
“Well, we need to find Holloway.”
“So, we’re going off the assumption that he’s behind this?”
“Who else could it be?”
“Some of the employees? I mean, we could look up these people’s names, find out more about them.”
“You’re right, and we’ll do that as soon as we get back to the ship. But to counter your other idea, this required planning, foresight, and that’s not something that I could see from an average employee. I mean, I get that they’d be pissed about losing their job and all, but to go to this extreme? I don’t feel it.”
“Alright, I was just trying to keep an open mind about it, that’s all.”
“No, you’re right to do so, it’s just that, somehow this felt, idonno, personal? Like they really wanted us dead and I don’t get that from just losing a job.”
“So, back to my question, what’s next?”
“Well, like I said, we need to find Holloway, so how do we do that?”
“Why’re you asking me? It’s not like I knew him.”
“No but you’re the best tracker we’ve got.”
“I’m an ex-hunter, not a detective.”
“True, but you did tell me that it wasn’t just creature’s that you were good at hunting?”
“Alright, fine.”
“So, what would you recommend as the first step in tracking him down?”
Artemis groaned, but leaned back and thought about it for a moment before continuing “Well, the first step would be to make sure he’s not dead.”
“You aren’t suggesting that we dig him up, are you?”
“What? No. Ew. No, I was suggesting that we go to where he died, see if we can find out more of what happened there, cause that’s where his trail would go from. Only question, where was that? That he died, I mean. Supposedly.”
“Wasn’t it on Feno Phena?”
“That’s where he got arrested, sure. But was he still there when he died? Or had he been transferred?”
“Ah, good point, something else we’ll have to look up when we get back to the ship. Anything else that we should? Look up, I mean?”
“Um, maybe where these bots came from?”
“Ah, good idea. I mean, there’s a good chance that whatever modifications were done to them were done elsewhere, but if we track down where they came from, we could at least find out who bought them and maybe find a lead there.”
“That’s better thought out than what I was thinking.” Artemis shrugged “So, are we done here? Can we get going?”
“Yep.”
“So, how’re we doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Well, I still need to catch my Wibblers, so why don’t you three head back and I’ll catch up tomorrow.”
“Heck no.” Gaige spun on her “You’re in no shape to do this alone.”
“Sure I am.”
“Well, I’m not letting you, and that’s final.”
Artemis groaned, but asked “So what? You want Deathtrap to stay with me and you two to go back alone?”
“No way, we’re all staying with you, and that’s final. You need the help, and besides, we did promise A.I.ngel that we’d teach her to hunt.”
They wound up spending the night just outside of the Wibbler territory and dined on chunks of the Diomos that Artemis had cut off earlier, as well as some freshly picked fruit from the Shock Vines in the area, which Gaige had picked since she her cybernetics were still immune to electricity, though she did slip up and reached in too far, causing her to briefly touch the vine itself, which lived up to its name, by giving her enough of a jolt to knock her on her back.
The next morning was uneventful, as Artemis hunted down a nest of Wibblers and took out the whole thing, for which Gaige was grateful, she found them to be a bit unnerving for some reason and didn’t want to get close to them, even after they were dead. When asked about it, all she would say was ‘They remind me of something that stung me on a class trip, when I was a child.’ and the others decided not to press more than that, for which she was grateful.
The only other things of note were that the nest did contain a rare black winged Wibbler, and that on the way back to town, A.I.ngel finally managed to get her first trophy when they came across a lone Diomos, which she took down in one shot. Deathtrap had carried it back with them so that she could get a proper trophy out of it, which Artemis promised to help her with later.
While she worked on making new plates for her cybernetics, Gaige got to work researching what they’d discussed in the jungle. To her surprise, Holloway had supposedly never made it off of Feno Phena before dying. She’d thought that since she hadn’t heard about it for a number of days, that it must have happened at another facility, but it turned out that it was simply delayed so that the appropriate people could be informed first.
She had just finished finding out where the bots had been manufactured, which took a lot of back channel digging, when Artemis walked in with a box of parts.
Brandibarry had insisted that Gaige use his office while she was there, as well as had offered her thanks repeatedly. Apparently, Wainwright had informed him of her drinking problem to some degree, since there was only a selection of root beers and local sodas set out instead of the usual twelve year aged, single malt, for which she was secretly grateful. The man himself was out on the floor, making sure that everything was running smoothly as well as keeping the workers from harassing her with their thanks, even though a number of them had already stopped by, having slipped their boss.
Gaige had sent Deathtrap to keep an eye on A.I.ngel, since she had wanted to watch Artemis work, as well as see an actual foundry in operation, and she came in right after the other girl with a look of awe on her face, though Gaige couldn’t tell if it was from seeing a place like this in operation, or from watching the other girl work, though she did have a guess.
Still, with their business finished, they bid Brandibarry and the workers adieu and over many protests and invitations to supper, they left for the Hunter’s Moon.
