Micro

Drake kept the gun pointed at Eric’s head. He held up the bot controller, pressed a button. “There,” he said.

“What did you do?” Eric said, looking up.

Drake looked around and smiled. “I activated the bots.” He took a step backward, waiting.

“You’ll be attacked by them, too-” Eric said.

“I don’t think so.” Drake lunged forward and hit Eric in the face with the butt of his gun. Eric groaned and fell to his knees.

“What is it about you Jansen brothers? You seem to require beatings on a regular basis,” Drake said. He kicked Eric in the ribs. Eric gasped and went down on all fours and began to crawl.

“Where are you going, Eric? Looking for something?”

“Go to hell.”

Drake kicked him in the side of the head, viciously. Eric slumped down and curled up, and seemed to lose consciousness, while Drake’s pistol light danced over him.

Eric tried to struggle to his feet, but couldn’t.

“Well, Eric, there’s something you don’t realize. The bots ignore my body scent. They’ll go after anybody except me.” He chuckled. “They respect me.”

Eric put his hand up to his face, then took it away. His hand was spotted with blood. A small razor cut had opened on his forehead.

“Too bad, Eric. Looks like one of them found you.”

Eric crawled toward Drake, who darted backward and smiled. Eric began swatting at his hair, at his ears, shaking himself.

“Trying to get the bots off, Eric? Can you feel them crawling on your face? In your hair? Soon they’ll be in your bloodstream. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. You just watch yourself bleed.”

As Drake worked on Eric, Rick flew toward the door to the generator room. That’s where he and Karen had to go. He circled in close to the door, and he made a slow pass near it. He saw a small vent at the top of the door. It might be big enough for a micro-plane to pass through; he couldn’t tell. He backed away and flew up close to Karen, until their wings nearly touched. He switched off his radio, and shouted at her: “He can’t hear us when we shout. Fly toward the door to the generator room. Looks like there’s a way through.”

He got some altitude above the vent in the door, and ran up to full power, and dove at the slot. His wings clipped the slot as he went through, and he ended up inside the generator room, spiraling out of control. Karen followed him a moment later. Rick recovered, got his plane under control. He flew straight toward the center of the generator chamber, the pattern of hexagons below him. He picked out the central hexagon and banked, looking down. He could see a small white circle in it, far below: it marked the location of the control panel. He could see Karen King flying off his right wing. “I’m going to land by the circle,” he shouted to her, hoping his voice carried over the rushing wind as his plane flew.

Just then Drake’s voice came on their radio headsets. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “I saw you fly into the generator room. However, you may wish to know that the bots in there can see you. Smell you, too.”

They saw Drake’s face staring in the window, now, his eyes moving, tracking them as they flew. Drake held up the bot controller where they could see it, and he pushed a series of buttons. “I changed the sensitivity. Now they can find you,” he said, and looked up at the ceiling of the generator room.

Karen followed Drake’s gaze. She saw them: glittery specks, scattered across the ceiling. The specks were moving. Dropping and falling like tiny raindrops. As they fell, they fanned out, flying under their own power. She saw one of them turn toward Rick, and it began tracking him, flying after him. As Rick went into a dive toward the floor, the bot dove as well. It was powered by a turboprop fan in a housing, and it had a snaky neck, with knives on the end of the neck. As it flashed past her, following Rick, she saw the eyes: the bot had a pair of compound eyes like an insect’s, but it was a machine vision system. A pair of eyes meant it had binocular vision, depth perception, she realized.

“Rick,” she shouted. “Behind you!”

He didn’t hear her. He was heading for the floor and the white circle. The bot closed in on him; she had to get that bot off his tail. Not sure what to do, she dove her plane, chasing the bot and Rick. Out of the corner of her eye she saw more objects flying, and she looked over her shoulder and saw dozens of bots, maybe more, flying behind her. They seemed to be converging on her and Rick. The bots shimmered as they flew, and some of them hovered, darting, seeking. “Rick, behind you!” she shouted.

He turned his head and saw the bot following him. He immediately pulled up and banked, getting out of the dive, twisting upward, trying to shake the bot off his tail. The bot flew at least as well as Rick did. It was closing in on him.