Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Page 21

  The sound of fabric ripping drew Danissa’s eyes. “Well, I’ll be starved, look at this.” Dagger’s arms flexed and he jerked the fabric away in small yanks. “We got a control panel.”

  Millicent’s head jerked their way. Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “I’ll explain later. Keep working that door. I’ve seen one of these before, but never worked on one. I might not be able to figure it out.”

  “I doubt there is much you can’t figure out, pretty lady.” Dagger squeezed her shoulder. “Good luck. Holler if you need anything. Except brain power. I can’t compete.”

  “This is a six-fingered hand,” Gunner said. “An extra thumb, one thumb opposite the other. Think that has any bearing on the designers?”

  “I’d bet so,” Trent said in a tight voice. “Hopefully the size doesn’t, though.”

  “Yeah. They’d be big fuckers,” Roe growled. “These things are precise—they keep aiming for my neck. How do they know?”

  Danissa tried to block out the voices and focus on the small screen in front of her. Three red lights blinked. Two groups of strange characters, arranged top to bottom, were layered beneath that in glowing white. Under that, a circuit board.

  “This is definitely a panel. And I’ll bet those are words. But what do they say?” Danissa bit her lip.

  “I find it absolutely amazing that you two share the same thinking tick,” Trent’s voice drifted into her thoughts. “I’d always thought that was a learned behavior, but here you both are, biting your lips and thinking. Extraordinary.”

  “Shut up, Trent,” Millicent barked. “You’re distracting.”

  “I’m glad you said something.” Danissa wiped her forehead.

  “Soon I’ll get a complex about speaking at all,” Trent mumbled.

  “If you haven’t already, I doubt you’ll start now,” Roe said.

  A loud crack ripped Danissa’s mind away from the circuit board. Gunner ducked out of the way of a swinging knife and jumped up. His large hands wrapped around one of the higher poles. He jerked his legs to shift his weight. Another crack had the pole angling downward. The sound of multiple saws came from the other side as Roe and the two remaining troopers cut off the mechanical arms.

  “This part isn’t so bad,” Dagger said.

  A long low beep issued from the control panel. Danissa whipped her head around as the whirr started again, pulling the poles back in.

  “Time for defense,” Gunner said ominously. “Get that door open, cupcake!”

  “The damn thing isn’t responding,” Millicent yelled, jamming Gunner’s instrument a little farther in the crack.

  Danissa grabbed a pair of computer leads from her utility belt, basically two small prongs at the end of wires. She connected the clamps to a portable screen. The screen stayed black. She adjusted the clamps at the other end of the panel, hooking them to anything she could, trying to bring up some sort of code. Nothing would show up.

  “Damn it,” she said under her breath, bending forward to take a closer look.

  Another sound permeated the space, one Danissa hadn’t heard before. She glanced up as an echoing click sounded under the floor. The walls jolted. The floor started to rise as the ceiling lowered.

  “What the—” someone muttered.

  “Hurry, ladies,” Gunner yelled. Something else pushed out from the walls—a whole lot of somethings. There were two rows of them, one on top of the other. They stopped extending after about five inches of each was exposed. They were in the very middle of the walls, between the floor and ceiling. The room was forcing the occupants toward the devices’ line of fire.

  “They’re guns!” Dagger yelled, only getting one fist around the barrel. He covered one hand with the other and yanked. “And they are heavy-duty. It’s not budging.”

  The end of one barrel was pointed at Danissa’s head.

  Her heart sped up. With shaking hands, she used the butt of her knife and smashed the control panel with the glowing characters. The screen pixelated. She did it again, opening up cracks. Wasting no time, she jammed one of the clamps attached to her device into the crack. The screen flared to life.

  “I have no idea how that worked,” she muttered, jamming the other end in there. Her portable screen flickered, but the image was good enough. Right away, she saw the code in its depths.

  “This device has locked on to the door code, but the lock won’t click over,” Millicent said in a harried voice. Out of her peripheral vision, Danissa could see Millicent throw a frantic look over her shoulder. Then her vision shifted to the barrels of the two guns that were waiting patiently for the room to put them on the right plane.

  “Help me,” Danissa said breathily. She couldn’t seem to get enough air. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “Hurry.”

  “What have you got?” Millicent was beside her a moment later, looking at the screen. She pointed at a piece of code. “I’ve seen that before. Here.” She took the screen and started flicking buttons and making commands.

  Danissa ducked under Millicent’s arms and searched through the other woman’s utility belt. All her devices were organized as Danissa would expect, the portable screen next to something she didn’t recognize.

  “Do you have any computer leads?” Danissa asked in a slurry of words.

  “Not like you do. Mine won’t work on this. They’ll connect to Toton’s robots or anything that has a specific type of port. I wasn’t able to work with this type of console on Paradise.”

  Danissa looked over Millicent’s shoulder, bending with the other woman as the room buckled in on itself. Millicent executed her program. Another string of code flashed across the screen.

  “What’s this?” Millicent asked.

  “Give it to me!” Danissa snatched back the portable screen without thinking. Yelling erupted behind her, but she didn’t hear the words. The ceiling pushed her to bend lower. The floor rose, forcing her to her knees. She stooped, all her focus on that screen. On that string of code she’d seen before.

  Her fingers flew over the screen. The room forced her to her stomach. The barrels pointed along her body and at her head. If those guns went off, none of them would survive.

  “We are in a bit of a pickle,” she heard Dagger say.

  She slapped “Enter.” The console beeped, a long, lonely sound in the suddenly quiet room. She heard the sound of a heavy lock disengaging. The floor dropped out from under her.

  “Whoa!” Millicent said, followed by a grunt when she hit the ground.

  Danissa rolled over and up onto her feet. She snatched Gunner’s instrument and her own device before taking to the door again. The correct opening code was already loaded, thanks to Millicent, and the door popped open easily this time.

  “It will reload,” Danissa said. “At least, their defensive programs have in the past. We need to get out of here. I don’t want to race their computers again. If they can learn, we’ll be screwed.”

  “Don’t need to tell me twice. But what about them?” Roe pointed down at the prone bodies.

  “Grab them.” Gunner bent and picked up two clones. Dagger did the same. “Ladies, carry the smaller children. If you can’t, drag them. Hopefully they’ll shake it off once they’re outside of this room.”

  Without delay, they moved the unconscious to the door, and then Danissa set Mira down and ran for the other side of a corridor, which featured the same cream-colored fabric lining the walls.

  “Dagger!” She reached the other side as the door she’d just come from clicked shut. Heavy locks engaged.

  “Think these go through the cycle faster?” Dagger asked. He raked his knife down the fabric, ripped it back, and exposed the exact same console.

  Danissa sighed in relief.

  A hiss made Danissa look up. Smoke spewed out of the upper walls and then drifted down. She smashed the screen, plugged in, and called Millicent over. “Tag-team effort, Foster. Time is not on our side.”

  “Has it ever been?” Milli
cent’s fingers worked faster than before. She slapped “Enter” and handed over the portable screen.

  Danissa’s eyes started to water.

  “Lower down, ladies,” Dagger said, bending with them. But the leads were only so long. Danissa couldn’t go far.

  “Do we have any gas masks?” Gunner called.

  Danissa’s eyes stung. Tears dripped down her cheeks. Fire raked her throat. Her eyes drooped.

  “Here.” Dagger held a mask to her face. “Finish that.”

  She meant to say, “I’m fine, you take it,” or something to that effect, because he was once again sacrificing himself for her, but the words didn’t reach her lips. Her mind was whirling, and she pushed her fingers as fast as they would go without making errors.

  The mask dropped away. The hissing stopped and the doors clicked.

  Confused, the smoke accosting her, Danissa glanced down at Dagger’s lifeless body.

  “Oh Holy Heavens, no!” She snatched the mask off the ground as someone grabbed her arm. Clean air swirled in through the newly opened door. Someone dragged her. “No! Dagger!”

  Chapter 20

  Millicent tore off her mask in the next room and squinted. Her wrist screen flickered to life. “Mommy? Mommy!”

  “I’m here,” Millicent whispered, looking around at the space they’d stepped into. “I’m okay. Give me a moment, baby.”

  “Help him!” Danissa yelled as Ryker dragged her out of the smart corridor.

  “Quiet!” Millicent hissed, analyzing the walls and then the floors. Everything was white tile glossed to a high shine. Bright lights reflected off the surface, producing an almost unbearable glare. In the middle of the floor were two chrome pipes ending in black flaps. As she watched, one of the flaps popped open for a moment before shutting again.

  “An exhaust system,” she said to Ryker before realizing he wasn’t beside her.

  “Thank Holy, he’s alive,” Danissa said, relief dripping off her words. She was crouched over Dagger, peering down into his face.

  “That smoke put him to sleep, but he’ll be fine.” Ryker went back into the room to get more people.

  Terik roused, followed by Zanda. Trent was next.

  “Ow.” Trent palmed his head. “I feel like I have a hangover.”

  “Everyone stay quiet,” Millicent said aggressively. Toton would know something had gone on in the smart room and corridor. Even if they didn’t know for sure that their “visitors” had escaped, they’d check it out. Or at least send eight hundred robots. Time was short.

  But then, time was always short. She should be used to it by now.

  “I’m okay, pretty lady. All part of the job.” Dagger coughed.

  Millicent gritted her teeth at Dagger’s echoing voice, but spared herself from glaring back. She ran her hands over the smooth tile at her feet, then along the wall. The ceiling was a completely continuous surface, not marred by vents or lights of any kind. The cool air seemed to come from little cracks in the corners where the floor connected with the walls. Light originated from round spotlight-type fixtures along two of the walls.

  She looked down at the exhaust valves. One of the flaps moved, letting hot air out. The other didn’t have a flap at all—Millicent had been mistaken. Instead, it was a sort of vent, almost like a filter. The metal rim was cold to the touch.

  “The room below this must house some heavy computer systems,” Danissa whispered as she walked up. Her feet made tiny squeaking noises on the clean tile. “Any systems that need this much ventilation are probably large. This is a good sign. Your theory about this being the hub might be correct.”

  “Hopefully. But why the light in this room?” Millicent asked, wondering when the next atrocity would present itself. “Why all the white? Most importantly, how do we get out of here?” She looked back toward the smart corridor. That was the only doorway, and she really didn’t want to go back through it.

  “They have secret doors,” Danissa whispered, walking toward one of the walls of lights. She screwed up her face and shielded her eyes behind her arm, moving forward as if walking through gale-force winds. “Puda—” Her voice hitched. She blew out a breath, something that clearly cost her a lot of effort. “Puda found one by accident once. We all thought we were trapped. I was with security. So they were covering us, and Puda—”

  She shook her head and stopped talking. “I don’t know if they are all the same, but the one we found was directly opposite the door. The lights in that place were out, though.”

  Millicent jogged to the adjacent wall and then turned back to motion for Ryker to go to the other lit wall. Shielded from the intense glare by her raised arm, she watched the path of Danissa’s fingers. When the other woman shook her head and moved down the way, Millicent followed that same movement, searching for the secret door.

  “Got it,” Ryker murmured. Even still, his deep base vibrated through the room.

  A ratchet sound preceded an enormous door swinging inward.

  “This is the second indication that we are dealing with a very large species of humanoid,” Roe growled.

  “If it is humanoid,” Trent muttered.

  “Is everyone ready to move?” Millicent asked, seeing the host of red moving down through the building. They were close, with only a handful of floors to go. They’d likely have access to all floors.

  Strangely, the blue hadn’t moved location from the upper-middle floors.

  Mira sniffled and hugged on to Terik’s legs. He picked her up in jerky movements. One of the clones stepped up beside him, much more graceful, and reached for the baby. “You look in pain. Let me help.”

  “I’m fine,” Terik muttered, but he relinquished the toddler, who went solemnly.

  “You’re not in pain, huh?” Roe asked, prodding the female clone closest to him.

  “I have a headache and my body feels like bugs are running along my bones, but I’ve been through worse,” she said. “I can handle it.”

  “What was worse?” Roe motioned her forward.

  “The pool, the cleansing detergent to rejuvenate our skin, the bone treatment—”

  “Shhh!” Millicent said as she peeked through the door. Another large room decked in white tile greeted her. Dim lighting, so dark she couldn’t see to the other side of the room, masked the interior. “Terik, step forward,” she whispered.

  He stepped up beside her as she swung the door nearly closed. Only a small amount of light trickled through the crack now.

  “What do you—”

  Loud noise cut her off. It blared through unseen speakers.

  “What do you see?” she yelled over the din.

  “Door. Straight ahead. Has a handle.” He plugged his ears, wincing.

  “Check for hidden doors in the darker room,” Millicent told Danissa. To Ryker, she yelled, “Check out the door across the way. It might be a trap.”

  Millicent didn’t find anything on her side. Danissa shook her head as she met Millicent back in the middle, where light spilled out of the previous room.

  “Let’s go,” Millicent whispered to the rest of them, starting off toward Ryker.

  The door of the darker room swung inward again, just as large.

  “Stairs,” Terik murmured. “The walls are normal. Not tile like in this place. It’s a normal stairwell.”

  “Nothing in this building is as it seems.” Millicent braced her hand on Ryker’s arm.

  With Terik and Dagger leading the way, they grabbed the smaller children and walked down the stairs in the pitch black. Millicent didn’t trust using a light. If something at the bottom didn’t show on her scanner, she didn’t want to alert it of their approach. Granted, the slide of hands on the walls, paired with the scuff of shoes, wasn’t exactly in keeping with a low profile . . .

  Ryker paused in front of the door at the bottom of the stairs. “Any idea what we’re getting into?” he whispered.

  “Stop talking! Your voice still carries even when you whisper.” She checked he
r screen. Her stomach flipped and her skin started to crawl. “In there, nothing. Back the way we came, every robot they got in this building.”

  “Did you say—”

  “Shhh!” someone said.

  “Every robot in the building?” Trent whispered.

  “We can cut them out.” Danissa sounded determined, though her voice slightly quavered. Millicent felt her sister’s hand on her back, lightly urging. “If we can get into their root computer, we can cut off the signal to the robots. To everything. We can bring it all down.”

  “I really, really hope we’re in the right place.” Millicent took a deep breath and urged Ryker on with a hand to his arm.

  He yanked the door open and surged forward, EMP gun drawn. The other troopers followed. Two light orbs rolled out ahead of them. They flared to life, illuminating the space.

  Millicent stayed close behind and passed through the huge door. “Holy . . .” She lost her breath for a second. Danissa’s loud exhale said she had, too.

  The largest computer Millicent had ever seen sprawled across the floor. Lights flickered and blinked in various machines, and the whole setup was so loud the hum vibrated up Millicent’s spine. “This is absolutely the right computer.”

  “It’s all here,” Danissa said, walking as though in a daze to the nearest screen. They coated high tabletops, all lying flat. “Their whole system has to be rooted right here.”

  “Yes . . . ?” Millicent looked at her sister in confusion.

  Danissa’s eyes cleared. “I rooted several points in our system. I was trying to connect them all when the last of my security was taken out. That port was taken out, too, but the others should’ve been live. If I could’ve . . .”

  “Sounds genius. We don’t have time to discuss it.” Ryker leaned into Millicent with serious eyes. “You need to do whatever you need to do, and we need to keep those spiders—or whatever—out of here. So hurry. I don’t feel like meeting any more of their mechanical creations.”

  “They must celebrate life,” Trent said as Millicent hurried along the various screens, looking to see if there were any differences in function. “They are making robots out of life, to resemble life. Maybe not ours, per se, but they are trying to duplicate the natural world. That has to say something.”