eugenesis-text

open. ‘They used it as a viral research centre for a few thousand years, back when electronic warfare was de
rigueur. Remember all those scare-stories about a Software War’
They went inside. The Institute’s basement had been converted into a primitive hangar/storage
bay with all the warmth of a multi-storey car park. It was empty save for a couple of souped-up long-range
mobile repair bays – MARBs – that had tipped over and rusted themselves to the floor.
Chromedome led the group upstairs and onto the ground floor. The corridor walls were studded with
portholes overlooking the brittle Kortean landscape. Prowl tested the glass for thickness and used the
contours of the horizon to pinpoint their location: far, far away from anyone.
The lights went on, revealing bullet holes on every surface. Everything was pink and wrinkled, worn
away by slow decay. The Autobots spread out.
‘Are you okay, Red Alert’ asked Perceptor. ‘You seem distracted.’
‘Am I the only one who feels exposed up here’
‘We have a greater chance of making contact with Siren if we’re above ground. Chromedome thinks
he can rig the comms-system to send a coded message.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Prowl, conscious that he’d said very little for the last few hours. ‘We’re in the
backwaters of Kortea, squatting in an abandoned edu-centre, and the Quintessons have an entire planet to
scour. We’re okay. We finally have some time.’
‘Hey Prowl, where do you want this’ Rev-Tone nodded towards Kup. ‘He’s starting to dent my
shoulder plates. Shall I get someone to bring him back on line’
‘No. Let him come around naturally. He’s had enough shocks for one day.’
‘Perhaps it’s only the one Quintesson,’ said Ratchet, fanning smoke from his eyes.
‘A fast one, yes’ Death’s Head punched the vacuum lift doors. ‘Almost had him, though. Think he’s
heading downwards.’
‘The engine rooms.’
Ratchet led Death’s Head into the second vacuum lift. They slid towards the Ark’s lowest level.
Ratchet folded his arms and stared at the polished floor. ‘I suppose we’re lucky. If the Quintesson knew
what he was doing the Ark would be scattered across hyperspace by now.’ The lift stopped. ‘Careful,
Death’s Head. Let’s take this slowly.’
The doors opened and Death’s Head opened fire. Ratchet pulled him to the floor as the return salvo
perforated the back wall. Q-2709 disappeared into the darkness while his pursuers disentangled themselves.
The engine rooms were held together by interstellar drive-blocks. Turbines haemorrhaged oil while
the Ark’s rear thrusters, half a mile east, flooded the floor with noise.
Death’s Head picked out Ratchet’s voice from among the cacophony – something about splitting up
and taking half the floor each. Before he could reply, the doctor had run away. He headed in the opposite
direction and found a wider corridor, one side of which was lined with anti-grav locks used to bring
equipment on board whilst the Ark was docked alongside other spacecraft. Coolant gas spilled from
ruptured casing and smeared the floor with a thick blue carpet. He switched to stealth mode, engaging a
series of tried and trusted countermeasures. Thermal scramblers corrupted his bio-readout and optic filters
switched to infrared (well worth the twenty thousand Shanix he’d paid a blacklisted programmer on
Elpasos). He stopped short of subsonic audio, realising that upgrading his receptors in this environment
would deafen him. He did have one last trick, though: motion scan. He bounced r-waves off his
surroundings, created a perfect wire-map in his CPU, and hunted for random movement.
Success! The Quintesson was hunched against a nearby wall, pressed between red-hot turbines,
edging closer.
Q-2709 looked at his forearm and tried to bind a wound with thumb and forefinger. Oil stretched
like saliva into the smoke around his knees.
He was violent and unhinged (three years in cold storage after the CyberWar had not reinforced his
fragile neuranet), but he had the capacity to fear, and with two armed mechanoids tracking him through
enemy territory he had reason to be afraid. He stepped into a clearing. Someone was here, he could sense it.
He looked down at the shifting smoke and realised, too late, that the enemy was underneath him.
Hundreds of spikes embedded themselves in his body and face, tearing through circuit pads and mechways.