Chapter Seven

 

 

Hima enjoyed talking about the new arrivals with her clan. Several of them were also in the medical field, so the chance to talk shop was never wasted.

Lonna and her partner, Jinia, came up to say hello. “Well, sister, are you going through with it?”

Hima looked at her elder with a smile. “Of course. It is an honour to maintain Len. I was ready to do it the last time.”

Lonna shook her head.

Jinia smiled shyly. She did everything with that shy look. “I would be terrified to drive out. It is bad enough that the other clans use zip lines, but to be there at his feet would be frightening.”

Hima blinked, “Don’t you do your... oh. Right.”

Jinia blushed. “I am not born to the Dbor clan. I was born Padu, and so, I am not allowed to work on any of the bots anymore.”

“I am sorry, Jinia, I forgot.”

“It is all right, little sister. I forgive you. When do you leave?”

The roar of the crowd indicated that the burn had begun.

Hima smiled. “As soon as the waves of heat fade, I will be on my way.”

The blast could be felt where they were standing. Len’s kneeling position meant that the boosters on his calves and the soles of his feet could send out flames hundreds of feet long.

The moment that the monorail activated, Hima took the pole to the valley floor and climbed onto the cycle from there. It was an honour to refuel Len. He had always been friendly and welcoming to Hima when she was working on his systems. He had been the one to let her know that she was suited for a medical career.

The silty soil of the valley flew away as she cruised along the well-travelled path. The refuelling depot for Len was as different as the mode of transport. The automated systems didn’t work quite right. Human hands had to guide the connection. It seemed that Len was sinking into the soil with his centuries in his single position. Each Burning Day sent him deeper down.

She parked her cycle at the base of the fuelling station and went to the access pad. She started the pump’s release from the station, and she walked over to Len. A quick scan of her hand let her open the access port for fuelling, and she caught the incoming pump nozzle, locking it in place.

With the bulk of her job done, she looked up at the sky. There were shooting stars in the heavens. It was a glorious night.

The moment that the fuelling was done, she uncoupled the nozzle and sealed Len. She had taken two steps toward the fuel station before she heard the alarm.

She never heard the chunk of debris that crushed her cycle and lit the fuel station in fire, but the explosion would haunt her.

 

Hima coughed and sat up—or tried to. She was being pinned by wood and steel. Her face was wet, and she tasted blood. She tried to move her limbs, but she was disappointed. It was her left arm that was missing from the equation. More blood came out on a rattling cough.

The alarm was still sounding. It must have been only a few minutes.

Hima turned her head. The blast had thrown her against Len. She had gotten lucky. She grimaced and whimpered as she used her right arm and leg to lever the wood off her. The fire at the fuel depot was dwindling and her cycle was nowhere to be found.

She got to her feet and cradled her left arm against her. She still couldn’t look.

Hima used Len to brace herself as she dragged her feet toward the entry port. Getting into Len was tricky under normal circumstances. His access was sideways. This was going to be deeply unpleasant.

She knelt slowly and pressed her palm to the screen. She croaked, “Pilot access requested. Len-Dbor-Wekkon.”

“State identity.”

She chuckled as the blood began to well out of her right palm. “Hima Dbor. Status, critical.”

The secondary screen didn’t send tendrils to take her blood. Her abraded skin had done the job for it.

“Access granted. You are welcome to the bridge.”

The door slid open, and Hima crawled inside, wheezing blood and feeling every cracked and broken bone. When the lift started moving, she let out a choked scream and passed out.

 

Hima woke in the tiny space and the floor was sticky with her blood.

“Hima, please. I need you to make it to the pilot’s cradle. I can help you. I can keep you alive, but I need you to get here. Can you do that for me?”

Len sounded so concerned. Hima looked around. The room was grey with fuzzy edges. She coughed blood again.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am very serious. You are a midwife, right? Would you let your patients give up when they were almost to their goal?”

She grimaced. “Don’t use that kind of logic on me.”

“Fine. Shut up and get to the chair.”

“It would have to be suspended in the middle of the fucking room.”

“Language.”

Hima sighed and started crawling. It took forever. She could hear the other bot pilots calling, but until she got into the cradle, she couldn’t do anything, so she was going to get into the damned cradle.

Hauling her body up and into the seat took the last of her energy. As she lay with the world going bright and then dark, she muttered, “Satisfied? I am in the bloody chair.”

 

* * * *

 

Len began the protocol immediately. He had never had a pilot so badly wounded, but there was a first time for everything.

Shattered arm, punctured lung, fractures along every major bone, internal bleeding and lacerated skin. He used his connection to inject her with the micro repair bots that he normally kept for his own neural maintenance.

With his pilot unconscious and the nanites working on her, he did something else he had never done before. He tried to rise.

His brothers came to his sides and helped him get to his feet. He was running the motion commands through Hima’s brain, but he was on his own. It was a very frightening place for him to be.

Len did find the history of births in Bot City to be fascinating, and Hima’s mind had a bright record of all of the newest arrivals. It made for an interesting introduction to the current generation.

 

* * * *

 

Hima slowly regained consciousness. There was surprisingly little pain considering how badly she was injured.

She tried to move her head, but it felt stiff. There was something attached to the back of her neck. “What the hell?”

She attempted to reach up and touch her neck, but her right arm was strapped in place, and her left was in a weird silvery cast.

“What is wrong with my body?”

“You are injured. One of the projectiles fractured, and a fragment struck the fuel station and your vehicle. It was an explosive combination.”

She blinked. “Len?”

“Yes. You dragged yourself into the lift and then the pilot’s cradle with the last of your strength. We are standing now and were simply waiting for you to regain consciousness.”

“Why?”

“Because to run, I need a pilot, and that is you. I can only do so many workarounds using your neural pathways.”

“Why aren’t I dead?”

“Ah, well, I used the nanites I use for repair while in battle to stitch you back together. The first step was to plug the holes and, from there, getting the bones aligned took some time.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Twenty minutes. I work quickly when I have to.”

Hima chuckled weakly. “Yeah, I am guessing that. What about my left arm?”

“Your left arm was crushed. The bones are being repaired, but I will have to link the life support to you for additional repair. You need more nutrients to rebuild the bone.”

“What about the rest of me?”

Len helpfully filled in, “There were a multitude of abrasions, some deep. A punctured lung, over two dozen cracked bones, and internal bleeding from four major organs.”

Hima exhaled. “With that kind of damage, hook me up to whatever it takes to keep me going. You have my full consent and authorization to do whatever it takes.”

“Excellent. That is what I was waiting for.”

A medical apparatus descended from the ceiling, and an IV steered itself expertly into the band around her wrist, giving her a slight twinge but no other side effect. The fluid went from clear to a silvery pink as it dripped into her veins.

She sighed and moved the cradle into an upright position. “Well, if you can keep track of my vitals, we can join the others.”

“They are waiting for you to join the conversation. Iff has cleared the skies.”

“Excellent. So, we are truly under attack?”

“Oh, yes. There are over a dozen ships in the sky. They appear to be related to the original attackers from centuries ago. Oddly, the ships haven’t really changed shape.”

She chuckled and cleared her throat. “This is Hima piloting Len. I am up and ready for what happens next.”

The other pilots greeted her and seemed relieved that she was mobile, or that Len was.

The world looked so different through the eyes of a bot that she spent time looking over the now-empty stands that had so recently held the party that was supposed to celebrate a new start. The monorail was empty. The train must have been unpacked and it would have returned to the city.

There was no residual heat signature left in the stands or in the ground under them. The engineers of Bot City were safe, deep under the soil in an unauthorized bunker that only the society of ladies knew about. It was the kind of thing that was only achievable if you didn’t ask permission first. It was one of Hima’s favourite parts about being a member of the society. As long as you were competent, you could do whatever would be best for you and those around you. It was that ideal that had driven the maintenance of the bots and the creation of technologies that had never been seen before. Too bad no one could see them now.