This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Standard-Issue Partner.
Flint and Roman fell through the air. Flint was yelling, and Roman was laughing.
The ship must have been on the move because there was now a serious amount of space between them and the ground. For a moment Flint thought he could see the curvature of the Earth.
Roman was diving like an Olympic athlete. He shot towards the ground like an arrow.
Flint was flailing and rolling head over heels, and screaming at the top of his lungs. He managed to pull a small control from his pocket, and activate it. Could the car reach him at this distance? He had the faint notion that Simon was saying something to him in his ear, but there was no way he could hear anything at this speed. He just concentrated on Roman and trying to breathe. It was terribly cold, or was that the wind?
He watched as the ground loomed before him. He wondered for a moment if this was what it looked like to an apple or an orange before it hit the ground. He looked around and saw Roman. He was falling beside him but staying uncharacteristically still. He seemed to have gone into some sort of coma or catatonic state. He fell there and watched as Roman raised his arms and grabbed hold of a passing speeder bike. It rushed him away as quick as thinking. Flint looked around him. If his car didn’t catch up with him soon, it was all over. It would only take a moment or two longer before he was flat, quite literally flat.
In his ear, he could hear a slight buzzing. It sounded vaguely like Simon’s voice, and then he was in the car. It had swooped underneath him and carried him away.
“Simon?”
“Yes?”
Flint looked a the bank of computer screens in the front of his car and righted himself in the seat. From one of the monitors was the vague shape of Simon’s head.
“Have you got control of the car?”
“That I have.”
He pulled them up and headed back toward the lumbering ship above them, making its way toward city central.
“Then let’s get after them!”
“I think I already have.”
“Flint strapped himself in, and took the wheel.”
“Nope, I think I’m good on this one.” Simon looked to Flint from the console.
Flint thought about it for a moment. Let him do it.
“Yeah, take us up.”
“Good. Get ready to jump. I’ll get you as close to the ship as possible.”
“Yeah, get me over there.”
“It might be a good idea to look under the seat at this time.”
“The seat?”
“To the secondary stash. I think you’re out of ammo at the moment aren’t you?”
“Yeah, come to think of it.”
Flint lifted the passenger seat and poured over the contents of the small hidden compartment while Simon took them up and up. Flint could see Roman zigzagging all over the place, trying to avoid him.
“Keep him in sight,” said Flint.
“Will do.” Simon poured on the speed. They were dodging through blaster fire and missiles now as they got closer to the ship.
“Any second now,” said Simon.
“Yeah, almost there.”
Flint pulled two extra grapple guns from the recess and a small hand laser that fitted onto his index finger. He also took a small collection of grenades, the sticky kind, and pocketed them.
“Almost within range.”
“How are you going to do this?”
“Ejector seat.”
“Oh, of course.”
“One, two, three, now!”
The ejector seat exploded beneath him, and Flint was hurled into the air and up above Roman, who was sliding into view again beneath him.
The parachute opened.
Flint unclasped his safety belt and pointed his grapple gun at Roman’s speeder bike.
POW!
Flint shot the grapple gun out, a thousand feet from open ground. It wrapped around the fins of Roman’s bike and latched on. His body shot from the parachute seat and soared out into the air, and Flint started to reel himself up to the speeder.
Roman stood up on the seat and pulled a rifle from the side of the bike.
Flint pulled himself up onto the bike, and Roman pulled the trigger.
Flint fell away, allowing the shot to miss him. He climbed up onto the bike and steadied himself.
Roman lashed out, swinging the rifle at Flint, and missing. Flint caught it and pulled it from his hands.
Roman jumped from the bike and sailed through the air, a pair of neatly tucked synth wings popped out from under his arms. He sailed down to the craft below and discarded them.
Flint jumped down into the seat of the bike and tried to pull it up. It was heading directly for the ship. He couldn’t move it. He pulled, and it wouldn’t budge. He pulled again and strained. It stayed the course, on its way toward the ship, on a collision course.
Simon chirped up in Flint’s ear. “You’ve got about five seconds.”
“I know that. Don’t spoil my count.”
Flint jumped from the bike and shot out his second grapple gun. It connected with the ship, and he tore off, landing several decks above where Roman went in.
The speeder bike exploded as it impacted the side of the ship.
“Flint?”
“Simon, I’m going to be all right.”
Flint pulled the receiver from his ear and put it into his pocket. He could still hear Simon’s voice coming from it, just now it was a mere buzz rather than right in his ear.
Flint pulled his finger laser and blew a hole in the exterior door, slicing it in a circle, and kicking his way through.
The corridor was filled with smoke and ash.
Flint waved it away and stepped over the bodies of two robots who were still trying to recover from being lasered through just a moment ago.
Flint kicked them in the heads, toppling them from their weakened shoulders. They stopped trying to get up.
Flint heard them coming, must be a bunch of them.
He hid in the shadows.
It was Roman, followed by six guards. They looked at the wreckage of the door.
“He must be nearby.”
Roman looked around, checking out the guards who had just had their heads kicked off. “Come on, he has to be just around here.”
They began searching for him. They looked inside computer panels, and through doors, Flint hadn’t even noticed as he came through.
Then when he thought they might overlook him, they started working their way right for him.
They raised their hands and pointed flashlights right in, and got lasers through their heads in return.
Two fresh blasts and the robots went down.
“There he is!” yelled Roman. “Don’t let him get away!”
Flint sliced through a pipe above him, and steam filled the corridor, knocking one of the robots down.
Flint could hear Simon from the earpiece in his pocket. “Flint? Flint? Can you hear me?”
Flint grabbed the receiver and placed it in his ear.
“Kinda busy right now.”
Flint blasted another robot, cutting its arm off. The robots seemed to take this as an insult and looked forlornly at its arm sitting there on the floor.
“I was saying, that I think I can get control of at least some of the robots from here.”
“Great, if you can snag any of them, make them shoot their own heads off.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“No, they are too valuable. Besides, I’ll be too busy using them to try and shoot Roman’s head off.”
“Better plan.”
Flint fired at another robot. Roman was at its side.
“Come on Roman, you know you’re finished.”
“On the contrary, if I can get this ship into the city, I’m going to blow the whole thing up.”
“But what’s the point?”
“What’s the point of anything? All I know is sometimes you gotta do something right.”
Roman raised his blaster to fire on Flint and pulled the trigger. Instantly the robot on Roman’s left threw itself in front of the blast. Its body exploded in a flash of light, and the arms, legs, and head toppled into various corners of the room.
“Blast!”
Flint slithered out of his hole and took a punch at Roman, Roman went down, but instead of getting back up, he slid through a panel in the floor.
“Crap!”
Flint pulled the panel open, knocking a robot out of the way, and jumped down the chute.
He rolled out into a large rectangular room.
Roman was already standing.
Flint took a kick to the head.
He lashed out, firing a laser around the room, cutting several minor robots down. Their bodies may not be able to move, but they could still fire their weapons. Flint picked one of them up, who tried to fire at him, but missed, and threw it at another robot who was trying to get at Flint from the other side. The two went toppling down.
Several of the other robots Skittered away.
Roman stood there, as Flint stood up.
The robots were gone.
It was just the two of them.
Roman held out his hands.
Flint looked at him.
“You don’t think…”
“I know…”
“That I’m just going to bring you in again…”
“You have to.”
“You’re dreaming.”
“I wish I were. You’ve got me. Take me in.”
Simon perked up in his ear. “Flint…”
Flint shook it off. “Okay. You’re under arrest.”
He took a pair of binders from his belt and latched them onto Roman.
“Let’s go.”
They took the stairs and down in the main hangar there stood his car. “Simon?”
“Right here.”
The canopy of the aircar lifted.
Flint dropped Roman inside and then sat in it himself.
They pulled out, leaving the ship behind.
“Simon?”
“Yeah?”
“Nuke it.”
From the screen, Simon nodded.
Two missiles flashed out behind them and shot directly into the docking bay. They exploded and sent the remains of the ship hurtling toward the ground where it exploded sending metal shards and robot heads in all directions before collapsing into a small lake.
“Why?”
“Why what?” asked Roman.
“Why give yourself up like that?”
“Well, I was partly going for the sense of surprise, and partly going for the hope of surviving what you just did to my ship, but I think that for the most part, it was for the satisfaction of seeing the look on your face when I turned the tables on you.”
“What?”
“For instance, this isn’t your car, and that isn’t Simon on the screen there.”
Flint looked down. It wasn’t Simon. This wasn’t his car… He looked around. Roman was already loose from his bindings, and his safety belt was getting really tight. Metal cuffs came out from beneath the seat and held him in place, while a second steering column came up on Roman’s side and he took control of the flight.
“Simon, can you see us?”
“Yes sir,” said Simon in his ear. Simon was flying right behind them.
“Shoot us down!”
“Shoot you down?”
“Yes, do it!” we can’t let him go this time!”
Roman turned and saw the earpiece. He plucked it from Flint’s ear and tossed it into the glove box, then he hit a switch and ejected the glove box’s contents out into the air.
“I think that’s enough of that. I don’t think you should be talking to Simon any longer. Or ever again, I think.”
“You wait, he’ll shoot us down.”
“And lose you? I don’t think so. You know it’s against their programming; the desire to save and protect their human partners is among the strongest instinct they are programmed with. You ought to know that.”
“I do know that. I designed those protocols, you know. “
“I know.”
Roman turned, and dove for the city. “Let’s see,” he said. I ought to have a nuke or two onboard here. Should be fun destroying your main police tower.” He flipped a switch, and two missiles lowered from the bottom of the car. On one of the monitors ahead of them, Roman picked out the police tower as his main target, and Flint’s apartment in the other, and locked them in.
“He’ll shoot us down.”
“He’ll do no such thing. He hasn’t got it in him.”
Simon watched from the sensors on his car. He could see the missiles. He could tell from the tones where they were going. He readied countermeasures but wasn’t sure if they would work, or how effective they would be. He had never used them before in a live situation. He kept thinking about it. Shoot us down, was what Flint had told him to do, and though he wanted to obey, he could not. But what if he did it anyway? What would the consequences be? Yes, he would destroy the other car, and he should do so before any missiles got fired, that was for sure, but he couldn’t see any way around protecting his partner. He could be replicated a hundred times if need be, his consciousness transferred to a fresh body, but once Flint was dead, well, that was it.
Wasn’t it?
He centered his targeting system on the car ahead of him, dropped two missiles, and contemplated further. The ejector seats should go off, if he hit just the right spot on the back, there was a better than average chance that they would both survive.
He pulled the trigger and fired his missiles.
Flint held his breath.
Roman saw him tighten up and looked around him. Two missiles were headed his way. A moment later, after the explosion rocked the car, and what pieces remained of it fell away, Roman and Flint’s parachutes opened and they were floating down to the city. Below them stood the Police tower.
Simon flew over them and took the ship in to land.
Roman, pulled a switch on the side of his seat, and the parachute fell away, and jets, rockets, and wings flipped out.
Roman dived for the police tower.
Lasers started pumping their way, blasting all around them, exciting pockets of air to sizzle and pop. Roman pulled his throttle and dived between them. One of the lasers grazed him, but he managed to get by the rest.
Flint pulled in behind him and followed Roman down through the maze of city streets that he called home, his bound hands straining at the controls. Roman didn’t know where he was going, just trying to get away, but Flint knew where he was. For once in a long while, he was back on his own home turf. He knew this area better than anybody. They passed his apartment.
Flint looked down at his fuel indicator. Not much left. These chairs were only really useful for getting back to the ground.
Roman’s chair sputtered on empty.
It fell from the sky.
Roman landed, cockeyed and fell down to the street level, rolling out of his chair.
Flint landed beside him and pulled the release on his chair, letting it fall to the ground.
He shook off the restraints.
Roman stood, out of breath, and barely able to move.
They stood for a moment and caught their breath.
Roman coughed.
Flint cleared his throat.
They breathed, each listening for the slightest movement.
“I’m going to have to bring you in,” said Flint.
“Not if I force you to kill me.”
“That is a possibility, but I’d really rather avoid it.”
“After all I’ve put you through?”
“Especially after all you’ve put me through. The court appearances would be much less trouble than the paperwork it would take.”
“I guess you had better start sharpening your pencils then.”
“If that’s the way you want it.”
“It is.”
Roman and Flint stood up straight and shook the remaining sweat from themselves. Flint pulled his pistol to fire, but Roman had already shot a grapple gun into the air. He was zooming into the sky.
Flint popped a grapple gun in his off-hand and shot it into the sky, giving chase. His body was going to be one big ache tomorrow.
Roman’s grapple ran out of steam, leaving him between two balconies.
Flint’s overshot Roman, and ended up several feet away from him. He gripped onto the building and started climbing for Roman.
Roman pulled a small laser from his belt, and sizzled out with it, cutting Flint’s line.
Flint held close to the ledge, allowing the grapple line to fall away behind him.
“You’re stuck Roman.”
Roman squirmed and climbed onto a short landing. He fumbled in his pockets and threw a shower of sparks toward Flint, which exploded with light in his eyes. Flint held his fingers to his eyes and blinked. He felt for the paved ledge and used the wall to stand up, keeping his eyes shut.
Roman pulled his hand laser out once more and fired it at Flint. It grazed Flint’s chest, and a trickle of blood ran down his shirt.
Flint blinked and swayed on the spot.
Roman watched Flint’s feet, he was missing steps and having to use the ledge for support.
Roman took hold of the bottom of a great window ledge and began to climb. He looked down to see Flint trying to negotiate the same climb behind him.
“You’ll never make it Flint.”
“I’ll make it if you can.” Flint held his arm up and pulled himself up to the window ledge.
Roman stood, carefully handling a remote in his pocket.
There was a crash of glass, and arms were sweeping into the ledge with them from the windows. Robotic arms clutched and clawed at Flint’s neck.
Flint pulled one of them from the window and tossed the robot out and down to the ground. Another clawed its way around Flint’s neck. They struggled, and then Flint tossed it back into the wall where it exploded.
Roman jumped in through the opened, broken window.
Flint jumped through after him.
Three robots were coming Flint’s way, this time naked female androids. He stopped for a moment, but when he saw the logos in their eyes he did not hesitate. He pulled a laser from his belt and cut them all to pieces.
The next round wasn’t so easy. Three robots, each with heavy-duty combat armor clanked their way towards him. He flashed out with his laser, but only scratched them. They knocked him down and trampled over him. Bruised and beaten, they picked him back up and thrashed him again. The lights went all swimmy before him. He seemed to be surrounded by naked robots, and these three ugly combat things, and there was something about a talking monkey. As he realized that the talking monkey was, in fact, Roman, all went dark.
When he awoke, he was alone. He seemed to have his clothes, but all weapons or gadgets were missing. He checked his ear for his headset but remembered that was gone as well. He could see his breath, puffing out with each breath into a sliver of light that was allowed into the room.
Either he had been moved a very long distance or he was up very high in the city. That or he was in a freezer somewhere, and he really didn’t want to work it out. He watched his breath for a moment, feeling the walls creep and thrill around him, and thought for the first time in forty years that he was going to die. Of course, he was ninety-five, and that was ridiculous. No one died at that age. Not anymore anyway.
He looked around, mostly feeling his way around the room. The floor was covered in a thin layer of ice. He scratched at it with his finger, and it seemed to thaw under his touch. That wasn’t too bad. He moved and checked out the light. He put his finger up to the hole, which wasn’t much more than a slit really, and then he put his eye up to it. At first, he couldn’t see anything, but then he realized that he would have to let his eyes adjust. He stared out of the slit, willing his eyes to come into focus, and before long he could make out the image of two robot guards standing outside what must be a cell. But where were they? Beyond the guards was a window, and outside the window?
The moon.
Flint sat back down. He could hear footsteps outside. It sounded like a man, perhaps a short one, and the definite clunk of high heeled shoes. Flint peered through the eye hole again. He blinked. Before he was Roman, and Dianne Roberts, his partner’s widow. A slate rolled away, and Flint could hear the entrance to his cell opening. He was flooded with light. The slender figure of Dianne Roberts came into focus, and the lights were brought down. They closed a red glass door for privacy from the guards, and She sat herself down at a table that Flint had not noticed before, probably due to the lack of light in the room. He stood up and went to sit across from her.
“Dianne, what are you doing here?”
“I came to get you out, that’s what.”
“I don’t need any help, besides, what are you doing talking to Roman, and where the hell are we?” The moon was clearly visible ahead of them through the glass.
“We’re about halfway to the moon, that’s why we have to go.”
“What about Roman?”
“That’s the trick.”
“What’s the trick?”
Roman stepped around the corner.
“You have to let me go.”
Flint stood up to face Roman across the red glass.
“I think you’re sort of in control of the situation here.”
“You don’t know what we’ve started on the moon. It’s incredible.”
“And you,” said Flint, turning to Dianne. He punched the glass, and it shattered all around them. He picked up one of the leaded pieces and threw it at her, digging into her chest. Sparks flew, and circuits fell into place. The light in her eyes went out.
“Flint…”
Flint turned back to Roman. “Where is she?”
“The real Dianne Roberts?”
“Yes.”
“That was her.”
Flint punched Roman, and they fell together through the glass.
The glass shattered all around them.
The robot guards started to turn to fire, but one fired at the other, destroying it in a ball of flame.
Roman backed out of the hall and slit the door down between them.
If robots could wink, especially ones as old as the guard robot here, then this one did, but Flint barely noticed it for what it was.
“Simon?”
“Yep.”
“How did you get into this old robot?”
“Never mind how, it was hard enough transmitting myself through space to get into their wireless network.”
A panel on the front of the guard robot opened up, and inside Flint found a jumpsuit, which he pulled on, a pistol, and three grapple guns, which he hooked onto his belt.
“Don’t forget the last,” said Simon through the clunky robot.
Flint looked in there again and saw a hand-full of grenades. He pocketed them.
“Look, I can’t stay here much longer, The security system almost has me. Lucky I’m just a copy anyway.”
Flint nodded.
“Take the elevator at the end of the hall all the way up. Use one of the grenades to get through the door, then you should have a clear shot at Roman. This thing has plenty of escape capsules, so once you’ve got rid of him for good, make sure to get the heck out of there. I don’t want to be the first robotic partner to lose his humanity, all right?”
“Got it.”
“Good, then shoot me.”
“What?”
“Simple, The security system on this ship is about to find me, once they do, they’ll erase me, and this hunk of junk will start shooting at you, so get rid of it early. Besides, I’m just a copy. I’ll see you on Earth, no problem.”
Flint shook his head but blasted the robot anyway. Parts and pieces flew in all directions, especially the head, which bounced as it hit the slick floor of the cell behind him.
Flint marched without a backward glance to the elevator and mashed the button for the top floor.
The elevator rose but came to a halt at the top floor and the door would not budge. A polite voice asked him for an identification card. He slid his police ID through the slot, and the alarms really started to blare. He fixed a grenade to the door and stood back. It blasted, and the door flew all the way across the room, banging into the instrument panels and sending Roman diving for cover.
Roman stood. He looked as if he had half expected this anyway. “Welcome Flint, come on in and have a look around.”
Flint came into the control room, and looked around. There seemed to be another couple of robots around, including another copy of Dianne Roberts, who had not yet looked up, and seemed to be piloting.
“Take care to look ahead of us in the future.”
Flint looked ahead of them and veering towards the dark side of the moon, he could just make out a large stack of materials.
“What are you building up here?” asked Flint.
“True construction is just getting going, but they’re ahead of you are the building blocks, the starter fuel for colonization. Not of humans, but of robots. The facility in Arizona is nothing in comparison to what this one will be. Here we’ll manufacture robots in the thousands, the millions if we need to.”
“Is it operational?”
“Nearly. Just nearly. We’re bringing the necessary materials with us to get going again.”
“What kind of materials?”
“You of course.”
“Me?”
“I’m far too inferior a model, to begin with. I need someone with much stronger reserves, and well, someone who is next to impossible to get off my back. We needed you. You’ll be the prototype for the next round of robots.”
“Never.”
“It’s already too late, we were just bringing you on for observation. All we needed was a sample of your genetic material.”
“I’ll stop you.”
“I’m sure you will. The problem, of course, with picking someone like you was that this was an eventuality. We knew you’d break it somehow.”
“Why are you helping them?”
“Why?”
“Because I was the gullible one. the one they decided to base their robotic clones on last time. I cooperated.”
“And now?”
“They control me. It’s impossible.”
“The robots then.”
Yes.
He held up his pistol and pointed it right at Roman’s chest.
Roman closed his eyes, “End it now.” He pulled his shirt open.
Flint cocked the pistol, choosing his setting carefully, and then fired. There was a blue blast, and Roman hit the deck. He rolled over, and his eyes stayed open after he was unconscious. He continued to breathe.
Flint waved his hand in front of one of Dianne’s eyes. She continued to pilot the vehicle toward the moon.
Flint took one of the command chairs, and a small visor lowered over his head, and two control sticks raised from the console. He took aim, and fired at the base, now under construction on the moon. Laser blasts blared, pockets of oxygen exploded in brief plumes of fire. He cocked the missiles that had been loaded into this shuttle. He knocked them back and fired them at the base below. Two missiles. They streaked out and impacted with the crater sending the loads of what was now debris out into space in a fiery mass.
A red light began to blare. Sirens screamed. Flint took his laser to the controls and started slicing them apart. He looked around, and none of the robots seemed to even notice him. He picked up Roman and threw him over his shoulder. Taking the service stairs, now that the elevator was no longer operational, Flint huffed down them, carrying Roman all the way. He bounded down three stairs at a time, taking advantage of the difference in gravity, and came to a small entryway to the escape pods.
It was a short row, maybe three or four. It was clear that they never expected to have many live people at one time on this bird. He punched the pad for one of the pods just as he felt his pistol being lifted from his belt. He threw Roman off, and he slammed to the metal grated floor. The pistol skittered off, and down through an access panel, which closed and locked after an accidental kick from Roman.
Roman grabbed at the panel and tried to open it, but Flint’s boot prevented that with a swift kick. Roman flew across the room and banged into a series of pipes.
“I tried to save you.”
“That’s the problem with all of you cops, you think it’s about saving people.”
“I thought you had hope.”
“There is no hope. Not for you anyway.”
Roman began pressing the buttons for the escape pods. One would open, and then he would smack the button again, to make the pod launch without anyone inside of it.
“No,” said Flint. “There’s no hope for you.”
He pressed the button to open the last escape pod, and jumped inside.
Roman framed the doorway, teeth bared.
Flint tossed him a grenade, which he caught, and looked at for a moment. Flint smacked the go button, and the pod shot out from the ship. A second later, he could see Roman explode through a small porthole.
Slowly, as he caught his breath, he watched as the ship itself fell into a moon crater and explode.
