Machinations (Olly versus the Mechanoids Book 2)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Machinations

  Olly versus the Mechanoids Book 2

  By Frank Carey

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2017 by Frank Carey

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  League Tale #55

  CHAPTER ONE

  Commissioner Priscilla Adon, the head of the United States Division of Earth Security, looked out her window as her shuttle began its landing sequence. Below was a sprawling complex of buildings known simply as Margaux's. Once a roadhouse bar and grill, Margaux's was now the premier destination for foodies and arcade enthusiasts from around the League. It was as if a mini-Vegas had dropped smack-dab in the middle of the desert.

  The shuttle landed in a nearby airfield where it was met by the largest, most heavily-armed APC Pris had ever seen. She stared as the roof mounted cannon swung toward the shuttle. When she got inside, she found an opulent lounge complete with minibar. Sitting in one of the luxurious seats was a robot, or should we say a mechanoid. Standing up, the mech walked over and shook her hand. "Commissioner Adon, my name is Margaux. Welcome to Margaux’s."

  "I thought I was going to be disintegrated by the roof cannon," Pris said as she sat opposite Margaux who handed her a drink.

  "Fake, as are all the weapons. Olly had red lights installed at the ends of all the barrels for effect. You would not believe how many producers want to put the little lady in their film. I could retire on just the rental fees."

  "Aren't there other props running around here," she said as some alien contraption lopped by carrying screaming teenagers.

  "Yeah, Olly has found his niche."

  "And you cook?"

  "Damn Skippy."

  "Can you taste food?"

  "Hypersensitive olfactory sensors in my fingertips. I detect changes in chemical makeup in the parts per billion range, so not only can I smell food, I can give you precise measurements of its chemical makeup. There's a perfume shop in the arcade that sells some of my scents." She leaned forward. "I hear Gabe had a cat phobia when he met you."

  Pris leaned over and smiled. "He did, but I convinced him to lose it, especially if he wanted to date me." The Katalan commissioner sat back and sipped her drink. "Is he still doing PR for the Stryker Team game?"

  "Yes, but he should be finished soon. Queen Lansing is here as well. The woman is popular. The hotel sold out the day it was announced she'd be here for the game’s premier."

  "Is Team 1 attending?"

  "They'll be here later. They had something military to attend to."

  "Olly's wife, Nana, is with them, isn't she?"

  "Yep. Corporal Nana Tor is with her team while her husband and I deal with the premier. Such is the life of the husband of a member of the Elf Marine Expeditionary Force."

  The APC arrived at a large, garishly lit, building surrounded by hundreds of people from around the League. "Costumes?"

  "Nana's idea. We hold cosplay competitions 24x7. We change themes every eight hours. Right now, the theme is fantasy, so you'll see orcs, wizards, dragons--the judge is a basili--and a whole plethora of fantastic creatures."

  "It reminds me of lunch hour at the New Your headquarters," she said as Margaux led them into the building. Once inside, Pris' eyes were bombarded by strobing lights as hundreds of people played arcade games from across time and space. She saw video games from mid-twentieth century Earth to the latest Goranthi battle simulators. "Is that a real Hogan's alley?" she asked as Margaux led her out onto a balcony overlooking the game floor.

  "Yep, a real, honest to the Creator, Hogan's Alley from the late twentieth century. That one is a smaller version of the FBI one. This one was used by the Area 51 security staff. It ended up in a storage depot near here. We've modified it for indoor use. Ah, I think your husband just took to the course. He is so in for a surprise."

  "What did you..." She stopped when Detective Chief Inspector Gabriel Adon walked out into the alley with gun drawn to the cheers of hundreds of onlookers.

  "My husband has a fan base?"

  "Yep. You do know that someone leaked his saving of the grange universe, don't you?"

  "No. That's supposed to be top secret."

  "Not any more. I guess you didn't notice the gaggle of young females staring at you off to your left."

  "Oh shit," she said in horror as the gaggle ran over and begged for her autograph and a dozen selfies.

  "They know about Zoe coming back in time to kill Gabe? That's ultra-top-secret!"

  "Calm yourself, Commissioner. They only know you saved your injured husband's life when an assassin tried to kill him while he lay unconscious in a hospital room. The truth is safe. I hear someone is putting together a graphic novel detailing your heroic deed."

  "Lovely," Pris said as she watched her husband shoot baddies while not shooting bystanders. One building held a surprise. The door exploded outward as an eight-legged horror from a Saturday afternoon b-movie emerged from the building and made a bee-line toward Gabe. Priscilla had her piece out and was about to leap over the wall when Margaux stopped her.

  "It's a hologram," she said. Holstering her weapon, Pris watched as Gabe went full stryker and calmly shot the creature with a blaster set to "Flashbulb." The creature collapsed like a house of cards while the crowd screamed in delight. Gabe returned to human form and bowed to the crowd before finishing the course.

  "You planned that?"

  "Advertising, my dear commissioner. Advertising.” She tapped a button on her wrist. "Olly, Commissioner Adon has arrived. Get your butt to the lounge double-time. Margaux out. This way, Commissioner."

  Margaux led Pris into a room marked private which turned out to be a lounge complete with waiter and bartender. Once they were seated, Margaux asked, "Can I get you anything? A drink or maybe a snack?"

  "An iced tea would be wonderful; Earl Grey if possible."

  The waiter nodded and headed off, returning moments later with a large tea. Behind him stood Olly. "Hey, Commissioner. Your husband is a hit, by the way," he said as he sat down at the table. "So, what's up? Did they find all my old parking tickets?"

  "No parking tickets, but we're still looking. No, the problem is Iona, or what was left of her."

  "I thought they put her back in Hanger 200 after my run-in with Lana," Olly said, referring to an incident a year ago when he took on a giant mechanoid in the asteroid belt.

  "We did," Margaux noted. "I landed her there myself. So, what's the problem? Somebody can't get into a closet?"

  "No, she's gone missing."

  "Excuse me?" Margaux asked.

  "How does a 600-foot long spaceship go missing, especially when she was too damaged to fly?" Olly inquired with a look of disbelief.

  "That's what I'm trying to find out," Pris said before sipping her tea, "and you two are going to help me."

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Let me get this straight. Someone has misplaced a 10,000-ton derelict spacecraft and you want us to help you find it?" Margaux said in disbelief.

  "First, she was fully operational. Elven Industries released a few bucketfuls of nanorobots which made most of the repairs. The engines were a little more troublesome. Luckily, there were two of them stored in the Cube's Tomb storerooms. She was about to head out for her first test flight when the crew found an empty hanger. Since it was on Earth, EarthSec took charge of the investigation."

  "Was she rearmed?" Olly asked.

  "No. There was no ordinance aboard her nor was any stored inside the hanger."

  "Doesn't Earth have some kind of near-space monitoring system?" Olly asked. They just looked at him. "Sorry, I was born in the twenty-first century, so I'm not completely up on our security systems."

  "As a matter of fact, EarthSec runs a scanner network that keeps track of everything coming into and going out from the volume of space within the Moon's orbit. Nothing untoward was detected leaving the planet."

  "How about something normal, but big?" Olly asked. "Something like one of those Martok freighters? I hear they're big enough to move cities."

  "Or fairly large ships. Good catch, I'll have my people look into it. Has anyone mentioned Iona to either of you two?"

  "Nope," Olly said. "No one talks to me about my past. Everyone thinks I'm from Iowa."

  "Why Iowa?"

  "My truck has an Iowa license plate on the front bumper. I bought it that way and never bothered to take it off."

  "No for me as well. Everyone knows I'm an ancient alien astronaut escapee from one of the Area
51 labs, and that I'm here as part of witness protection," Margaux replied.

  "Whyyyy?"

  "Because that's what I've been telling them since I opened the restaurant back in 2025, or was it 2050? I never can remember."

  Pris raised her eyebrows at that one. "One last question. Do you know of anyone, other than the two of you, who can drive Iona?"

  "Nope," Olly replied.

  "I've got nothing," Margaux added.

  "Margaux, I think they're on to us," Olly said.

  "I think you're right," she replied. They held out their arms. "Slap the cuffs on us, Commissioner. We took Iona and parked her out back. Olly needed some place to store all those redemption tickets he got on the InterWeb at half-price."

  "It was my idea, ma'am. Spare Margaux. She fell under my evil influence."

  Pris sighed and hung her head. "Sometimes..." She looked up and handed them each a business card. "Call me if you hear or think of anything. Now, where's my husband?"

  ###

  It was well past closing time when the last player was shooed out of the building and the doors locked. Olly stood in the middle of the main foyer and marveled at the way his life had changed. A year ago, at least to him, it was 2025 and he was a getaway driver for hire. Today, over 200 years later, he was married to the greatest woman in the universe and co-owner of a successful entertainment arcade outside the fence of the infamous Area 51. Yep, things were going real good.

  "Hey, you. What's with the infinity stare?" his wife asked as she walked over and side-hugged him with a kiss thrown in.

  Olly looked at her and saw beauty. She was his height with pointed ears, green eyes with slit-irises, wings, blade-tipped tail and a figure that rivaled those of the ancient statues of goddesses. The fact that she was a genetically engineered life form who could change from organic woman to armored battle bot in the blink of an eye mattered not to him for he was truly, madly, totally in love with her.

  "I was just thinking about how things have changed over the last year. So, how does it feel to have movie star status?"

  She shook her head. "It feels odd, scary, and cool, all at the same time, and I owe it all to you."

  "Me? Both of us own this idea, and a fine idea it is. A lot of these people could end up working for one of the Tralaskan gangs or worse. We've given them an option. You, Marcus, Mersa; you're the real heroes in all this. You and Marcus went from angry GELFs to seasoned Marines just as Mersa went from black-hat hacker to a leader of an elite Marine team. Sure, a number of your fans want to have your children, but the majority see hope for them in what you three did with your lives. You have no idea how proud I am to be a part of this."

  She kissed him, then put her head on his shoulder. "So, what did Commissioner Adon want?"

  "Somebody stole Iona's frame, and she wondered if Margaux and I knew anything about it. Actually, I think she thinks we had something to do with it."

  Nana's head snapped vertical. "Where is she. I want to have words with her. You had nothing to with stealing any ship, especially something that size."

  "Easy there, my fire-breathing beauty. It was just a formality. Oh, she did mention something. A Dr. Zoe Muntz seems to have disappeared from her lab at the Cube. Pris thought you might be interested. Is she someone you know?"

  "Sort of. Zoe created me and Marcus as part of her stryker efforts. She's the one who abandoned us at the research facility the Space Marine Corps found us in. She's kinda why Marcus and I were angry."

  He stroked her hair. "She can't hurt you anymore. I won't let her, you have my word."

  Margaux joined them. "Trent and the Necrue got a little drunk on some wine and decided to hack the Hanger 200 video security system. You may want to see this."

  The two followed the mechanoid to a machine at the center of the arcade. It had been partially dismantled so that Trent and the Necrue--Murphy, Parker, and Nova--had access to the quantum computer inside. Olly said nothing about the vandalism when he saw the entire team watching the machine's screen. He, Margaux, and Nana walked around so they could see what everyone was so enthralled with.

  On the screen, a robot escorted a human into the ship before it lifted off.

  "Zoe," Nana and Marcus growled menacingly.

  "Iona," Margaux added.

  Olly looked over at his mechanoid friend. "How the hell can you tell that robot is Iona?"

  "See that pattern across her back?"

  "Yeah?"

  "All her mobiles have it. She's vain that way."

  "Oh." He looked over at his wife and her fellow GELF, Marcus, glared at the screen. "I'm not even going to ask. Has anyone contacted EarthSec?"

  The computer chimed in. "Sir, there is a Commissioner Adon and a DCI Adon at the front door."

  "Let them in and have one of the server drones bring them to my location."

  "Yes, sir," the computer replied.

  "Olly, what about the hack?" Trent asked.

  Olly reached down and typed in a series of commands which didn't seem to do anything. He finished just as Priscilla and Gabe walked up. "Hey, I had an idea, so I accessed hanger security using some of my old access codes."

  Priscilla first gave him the hairy eyeball, then Trent, then the three Necrue. "It's a good thing those old codes still work. What did you find?"

  He showed them the sequence where the robot and Zoe entered the ship and lifted off out of the hanger.

  "I identified the robot as Iona," Margaux said. "I'm positive it's her."

  Priscilla looked over at Nana and Marcus and saw the looks on their faces. "That’s Zoe, right," she added. "Gabe?"

  "Oh yeah, that's our little psychopath genius. I wonder how the hell they met?"

  "We'll ask her when we find her and that ship." She looked at Olly. "Nice work, Olly. Thanks, but we'll take it from here. Good luck with putting your machine back together."

  "Thanks. It shouldn't take too long. Let me see you two to the door."

  When he returned, Team 1 was packing up. "We've got to go," Colonel King said. "Nana, the Queen has persuaded me to issue you a one-week pass. Something about a missed honeymoon. The rest of you with me. Good night," he said as he shepherded the team toward the door. In moments, Nana, Olly, and Margaux were alone with only the sound of the cleaning drones to keep them company.

  CHAPTER THREE

  One month later...

  A noise woke Olly from a deep sleep. He looked over at Nana and saw she was deep asleep, so asleep her tail had finally stopped moving about. Sometimes sleeping with his wife was like sharing his bed with a restless viper. He wondered if elves ever got their tails tangled with their elf mates' appendages.

  He heard the noise again. It had come from the arcade below his apartment. He reached over and tapped a button. "Margaux, we've got a visitor in the arcade. Margaux?" No answer. Maybe she was on a date. Careful not to wake his sleeping wife--EMEF Team 1 was in town for urban assault training and Sergeant Mersa had worked them to the bone--Olly extracted himself from her embrace. Dressing quickly, he grabbed a blaster and comm from the table before heading out the door.

  "Computer, recognize Wilson, Oliver, code omega-bravo-six. Report status of intruders."

  "There are no intruders on the premises."

  "Activate sweeper protocol alpha. Silent alarm."

  "Working... Alert! Three intruders on main floor near the Stryker Team console."

  "Notify law enforcement and have them enter via north delivery entrance. Notify Margaux on Secure Channel Six."

  Olly took the service stairs to the arcade level and exited on the side opposite that occupied by the intruders. A drone trundled up to him and stopped. He typed in a code instructing all drones to monitor the intruders and report back to his comm unit.

  He made his way to the intruders' location using the games as cover. As he got closer, he could hear them arguing amongst themselves.

  "Connie, I'm telling you it's in the secondary processor stack in the number two cabinet, not the number one."

  "Oh, plark you, dimwit, my scanners say it's in number three." Though the second voice was female, it had some odd overtones to it, almost as if it were a distorted digital recording.

  "Could the two of you shut the plark up already," a third voice pleaded. "The boss was clear: In and out with no trace."