James Axler – Stoneface

Tapping Bob’s badge on his lapel, Ryan asked, “Does the computer respond to your voice or to the locater lozenge?”

Doug was reluctant to answer. It required Mildred poking his kidneys with her blaster for him to say, “The lozenge.”

“Locate the Commander,” Ryan said.

One of the dots in the central core suddenly flared brighter and began to throb.

“Locate the circulating and pumping station,” Mildred stated.

Nothing happened. Responding to Ryan’s glare, Doug said, “It’s only programmed to locate the installation’s personnel. It was assumed that everyone in here was supposed to be in here and would therefore know their way around.”

Studying the map again, Ryan traced a network of glowing grid lines with a forefinger. “We’re here, almost on the top level. The Commander is below uslooks to be” he counted quickly. “four levels. Where’s the nearest elevator?”

Doug inclined his head to the left.’ “That way, about a hundred yards. Follow the curve of the wall.”

Ryan pulled him away from the map. “Show us.”

As they walked beside the wall, Ryan asked, “How many people are in this place?”

“Would you believe me if I told you?” Doug replied.

“Probably not. But answer me anyway.”

“Sixty-eight active, one hundred and twelve inactive.”

“Inactive? Do you mean dead?”

Doug shook his head disdainfully. “I say what I mean. If I’d meant to say ‘dead,’ I would have said ‘dead.’ I said ‘inactive.’ Are you unable to comprehend English, as well as simple survival-oriented common-sense measures?”

Angrily Ryan rapped the back of his head with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. “Are you unable to comprehend that I will make you permanently inactive if you piss me off?”

Doug didn’t even flinch, but he said sullenly, “I comprehend.”

“What about sec men?”

“Sec what?”

“Security forces,” Mildred said. “Sentries, guards.”

“At one time we had a special division for that sole purpose, but all of us act in that capacity when necessary.”

The wall curved lazily to the right and opened up in a low-ceilinged, colonnaded antechamber. They saw a metal pair of double doors topped by an arch bearing a long set of colored lights. Hovering before the doors, bobbing gently up and down on thin air, was a beetle.

Mildred and Ryan froze, both of them grabbing Doug and pressing their blasters into his back. They stared at the device. Its red photoreceptor eye stared back.

“What’s it doing?” Mildred whispered into Doug’s car.

“Scanning us, or rather, the locater lozenges on the badges,” the man replied in a normal conversational tone. “It transmits an invisible recognition beam. Your companion and myself are noted and logged as known installation personnel. However, since you are not wearing a badge”

An unnerving whoop-whoop of a Klaxon caused Mildred and Ryan to jump and curse at the same time. The beetle drifted forward. “Make it back off,” Ryan snarled, shoving the SIG-Sauer against Doug’s neck.

Smiling, Doug said, “I can’t. The automatic intruder-alert system has already been triggered.” He crooked a finger over his lips and giggled. “She’s been targeted for deactivation.”

A needle-thin beam of white light shot out from a nozzle on the underside of the beetle, which touched the barrel of the gun in Mildred’s hand. Sparks flashed and showered, and there was a loud electrical crackle. Crying out, she stumbled backward, dropping her ZKR. The mechanism swooped closer, needle beams stabbing with crackles of sound.

Mildred screamed and fell thrashing to the floor, covering her face with her arms. She tucked her legs up and shrieked, “Do something! It’s electrocuting me!”

“Fireblast!” Ryan crashed the SIG-Sauer over Doug’s skull, and even as he hurled the unconscious man away, he centered the blaster’s sights on the beetle and fired five rounds in such rapid succession, the shots sounded like a single report.

The device fragmented under the 9 mm assault, metal and circuitry flying in shards. Its power pack flared in an orange halo of flame. Spinning crazily on an invisible axis, the beetle listed to the left, then clattered to the floor, the red light of its photoreceptor eye fading. The Klaxon still whooped.

Bending, Ryan pulled Mildred’s arms away from her face. A red welt showed against the dusky complexion of her right cheek. She shook her right hand in irritation and pain.