As it turned out the airport did, I had the two military personnel who had actually responded when I started asking for things; the bodyguards didn't listen to me at all, the pricks; Megan and Hwang, or Wang as the other soldiers called her, had stepped up to help though, and they'd even collected a third, some guy named Ricky or Rekki... felt like it changed every time I heard it, but I am pretty sure it was just the translator's fault.

  They had grabbed all the pictures hanging on the walls in the corridor of the starport near us and I was sorting them into two piles.

  “So you gonna tell us why I had to go get a stepladder to get all these down, and will henceforth suffer a deluge of short jokes for the next month?” Hwang asked snarkily.

  “Eh you should be used to those.” I said flippantly.

  What.

  She was, like, 4'10 on her tippy toes.

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle and looked up to see her gaze burning a hole through me while Carolina and Megan snickered and chuckled in the background. If she could have literally burned a hole in me... I like to think she liked me enough to at least put the hole somewhere less than lethal.

  “Aaaaanyways, I have a theory!” I said, going over and grabbing two of the nicely framed pictures. Or tried to. I grabbed one and kindof flailed at the other as it both turned out to be far heavier than I expected and my suit attempted to compensate, firing damaged and broken motors that had my arm swinging away from the picture frame I had been grasping by more than a foot. More snickering followed, I am pretty sure it was that Rekki guy.

  I was getting a headache.

  “So, everything the virus has done so far, that I've seen, has been corrupt protocols that were already there, messing with safety settings and limiters. With the robots it puts them in emergency mode, tells them all humans they see are in danger, and lets them go whole hog on heimlich and CPR and all that.”

  They all nodded, those who I hadn't told directly had been informed. Ricky raised his hand. “What's a heimlich.” He asked, a shit eating grin on his face.

  I sighed, exasperated. Well a little. I was actually feeling pretty good all things considered after the doctor had given me some medication, AND I was getting to test my theory. A little humor was fine, even if it was at my expense.

  “Ask Hwang to demonstrate it on you Rekki, now as I was saying.” Huh, I swore I meant to say Ricky. My translator, which was also essentially subtitling everything including my own words, popped up Ricky before glitching and switching it to Rekki.

  “I figure it's doing the same thing to the airships, and as those are all computer controlled, the computer I assume must have some way of avoiding pasting people.” I stated, warming up to my thesis. Carolina had stopped hauling pictures over, and Hwang was bracing a portrait photo of an androgynous person in what looked like the end result of a three piece suit after two hundred years of evolution in the wild.

  Megan nodded along with my statement. “They all have automatic cutouts and braking built into the system if a human is detected in their line of flight, as well as evasive protocols to turn them away from any person in said line of flight as long as it doesn't send them into the ground.” Megan answered.

  “How do they detect people?”I asked

  “Um...” Megan looked a little lost, but Hwang looked thoughtfully between the picture piles I had been sorting.

  “Faces... and body shapes.” Hwang said, her voice pensive. I could tell she was picking up what I was putting down.

  “Exactly! I figure it has messed with the 'Brake towards humans' part and replaced it with 'accelerate towards humans.'”

  “And the pictures are to...” Megan added.

  “A test! My theory only really holds up if they don't move towards just ANY motion, so I figure we open a window, and start tossing out pictures with faces, and pictures without. If they dive towards the faces, but not the ones without, we have a potential solution.” I laid out my theory before them.

  “Whats that?” Ricky asked.

  “Hold up pictures of fruit or buildings or... anything not a person really, keep them over our heads, and hope the airships don't spot any parts of us they can identify as people.” I finished.

  They looked at me like I was insane, but then nodded.

  “So we need a room with windows then?” Megan asked.

  “Yeah... preferably ones that won't reveal our faces to the sky when we throw these out.”

  Megan nodded.

  “I think I know one that will do.”

  ***********************************************************************************

  We had wandered far down the terminal, towards a bit that had a half collapsed roof.

  Partway through our journey Ricky waved us aside, and we all crowded over into a kiosk.

  “Rekki? What are you...” Megan began but Ricky... again with the name, covered her mouth and put a finger to his lips in the universal sign for keep quiet, and went back to observing the main thuroughfare we had recently been moving down. I was too intrigued by what was happening to do more than wince at the feedback my translator gave me.

  Down it came the Deaconess, with her companion, who now had his arm in a sling but seemed otherwise none the worse for wear.

  They never spoke, but the way their eyes darted back and forth to eachother it looked like they were, with the deaconess even letting out a little laugh out of nowhere at one point.

  I didn't know what was going on, but I could feel the intensity radiating off Ricky, and I subconsciously held me breath.

  It wasn't until they rounded a corner that Rekki relaxed and moved out of cover.

  “Sorry about that.” Ricky said.

  “The fuck was that about, you made it seem like we were in a horror movie.” Hwang began, sounding mad but keeping her voice just above a whisper.

  “Don't ever let one of the Deacon's find you.” Ricky said hollowly, then began moving again.

  “Woah woah... The fuck do you mean.” Hwang tried again.

  Rekki just mechanically moved. Hwang opened her mouth to push more, but I grabbed her shoulder and looked at her, and then back to Rekki.

  I could recognize someone disassociating and that was all Ricky right now. He had been friendly, but now it was like all emotion had drained from him, and he was acting mechanically, by rote. He had legitimately been terrified of the Deaconess and probably couldn't articulate why right now.

  Over the course of the walk to our original destination Rekki seemed to calm down, but I could see a nervous twitch from him every time something made a sound.

  We finally reached the damaged area, and thankfully we couldn't be seen from outside, as the glass that had been the roof had cracked all throughout, resulting in a glaze that couldn't be seen through. The object that had half collapsed the roof was still halfway embedded in it, one of those hover cars I had seen outside. There had been a driver in the seat at some point, but they were now... well half of them was in the car, half of them was pulped on the ground in front of me.

  “That... is something I was hoping I wouldn't see today.” I said.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Be lucky you didn't see it happen.” Hwang said, as I mentally reminded myself of her actual name.

  “Okay, how did you get in? Everything was locked down?” I asked, looking around.

  “One of the bodyguards hotwired the door here, see?” Megan said, pointing to a panel similar to the one I had hacked to get in, but this one had a bunch of wires pulled out, some with tape and numbers written on them. There was a bit of white masking tape with instructions written above it.

  “Tap wired 1 and 2 together twice to open, Do not tap 3 and 2 together, or the door will open and stay open. Tap 3 and 1 together once to close, twice to engage lock. We cannot disengage lock once it is locked, If you do engage the lock, you get to talk Korain into resetting the system again.” I read the instructions out loud.

  “Seems simple enough.” Megan said.

  “So Ivanova's bodyguards were waiting to open the doors when you came in?” I asked.

  “Yeah, snapped em right shut behind us too.” Rekki answered.

  I looked out past the doors and saw... lots of bodies.

  There weren't many discernable human bodies, but what looked like dozens of robots.

  And several craters.

  The few human bodies I could see appeared to have been thrown clear of the various projectiles that had been used to shell the troops positions, though I spotted someones arm that in a military looking sleeve.

  “All right, I want each of you to grab a picture, one with a face on it, one without, I'm going to open the doors, you fling the pictures out in relatively different directions, then I close the doors and we evaluate from there, clear?” I said.

  Megan nodded, Hwang said “Clear.”

  Carolina stood back with me, and Rekki readied his rifle, pointing at the door and readying himself.

  I positioned myself next to the doors at the control panel, and grabbed the wires labeled one and two.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Each of them had grabbed a picture frame about 2 feet by 3 feet.

  “Go!” I said as I tapped wire 1 and 2 together.

  Then I rechecked the instructions, and tapped them together twice in embarrassment.

  The doors slowly slid open, and while they did I dropped wire #2 and grabbed 3, ready to close.

  As soon as the doors were big enough for a person to fit through Hwang and Megan threw their pictures, then backed up quickly from the door, readying their rifles.

  I could immediately see why. As soon as the doors opened the robots that had been milling outside rushed the doors. I quickly tapped the wires together, and the doors lurched to a halt and began closing, agonizingly slowly.

  Shots began to ring out from Ricky, then Hwang and Megan's weapons, a strange mix of the loud BANG I would expect, plus a vague electric hum, combined together they made for an unexpectedly loud retort.

  In fact, it was so loud my vision began whiting out with each barking shot.

  That wasn't normal.

  I staggered back from the fusillade as both of them switched to fully automatic fire and tore through the growing swarm of bots.

  Mercifully the doors closed before any of the bots managed to get inside.

  Megan called out “Reloading” and began reloading her weapon, and only once she was done did Hwang call the same and do so.

  Strangely Rekki hadn't reloaded the entire engagement... maybe he was just picking his shots more accurately.

  I was rather impressed by their professionalism, I thought as my heartrate tried to slow the fuck down.

  Two more soldiers were running towards us.

  “Hey, what the hell is going on?” the bigger one asked.

  “It's fine! It's fine!” Hwang called out.

  “We're testing a theory!” Megan shouted.

  The other two soldiers had caught up, one was enormous, nearly seven feet, the other hovered just at six feet, both male, one blonde, one a ginger from the red in his beard.

  “What theory? We didn't hear about any theory, Mitch you hear about any theory?” The ginger rattled off.

  “No I ain't heard no theory George, what's this theory Rekki.” I swore my translator glitched, it wanted it to sound like Ricky, but the characters kept swapping and my ear heard a squelch of noise with what was essentially a subtitle popping up in my HUD. Huh... It felt like as time went on Ricky's name was causing MORE issues for my translator rather than less.

  “Ow.” I said.

  “Ow?” Megan asked. Hwang was busy looking livid at the two of them as they apparently ignored her and spoke to Ricky.

  “Sorry, little implant trouble, my software doesen't like his name. Or all your pronounciations are messing with it.” I said aloud, and motioned to Rekki.

  George looked perplexed. “You mean Ricky?” This time it sounded more like Ricky in the end, but the squelching continued.

  “Yeah, please stop, it sounds like seven names are all being screamed at once in my earholes before my translator gives up and prints something for me to read.” I said.

  “Huh, that's real weird, I thought COG had the best...” Rekki was cut off by a massive explosion outside as something big impacted over one of the pictures we had thrown outside.

  I pumped my arm in victory.

  “Yes, whose picture was that!?!?” I exclaimed.

  Megan raised her hand.

  “Okay, million dollar question, what was it of?”

  “It was an interview photo of Tengin Kirohara, one of the best Foot-Socc-Basket...” My translator gave up halfway through translation of that term and printed 'SportsBall' across my hud.

  I flinched. “Found something else my translator doesen't like.”

  Thankfully Sportsball didn't give me a headache, unlike Ricky's name.

  Everyone looked at me. “No sports talk, that game messes with it. Anyway, yes! It worked! We should be able to have a bunch of people hold up pictures of anything that isn't people above the people working, and we'll be fine! The computers won't be able to lock on with whatever glitch the virus has inflicted!” I crowed in vctory.

  “You want us to hold a bunch of pictures over our heads, while we unroll a massive cable to your ship, while fighting off a swarm of robots?” Rekki-Ricky said.

  Huh... when I thought of him as both names my head didn't hurt. Still didn't want to risk the translator with that though.

  I paused.

  “Yeah.” It sounded a lot better in my head.

  “Would a tarp work?” Megan interjected.

  I thought, then pointed at her. “That's better, we'll do that. Go team!” I exclaimed.

  Rekki-Ricky, Mitch, George, Megan, and Hwang all started snickering.

  “So the theory was that these cars aim at faces?”

  “Anything they recognize as people, basically inverting any 'safe' driving software they have.” I said, spreading my theory around.

  “Fuck... See this is why I always drive manual.” Rekki-Ricky said.

  “That's also why you ain't allowed to drive anymore Rekki” Once more the squelch happened and once more I winced. I was starting to realise the headaches and the squelches weren't necessarily intertwined.

  Mitch looked apologetically over at me.

  “Alright, you guys go tell your... who is in charge of all of you right now I guess?” I started, and then asked.

  Hwang piped up “The Lieutenant.”

  “Alright, go tell your lieutenant about this, I'll grab Carolina and we'll all meet back here with your platoon and the big ass cable.” I said.

  Mitch and George looked a little wary.

  “Shouldn't we tell the president?” Mitch said.

  Rekki-Ricky piped up. “You mean the vice-president?” He said. He looked a little wary of talking to her which... I mean fair.

  I interjected. “So... I don't know how your military here works, but the way it worked back home is the only person you needed to worry bout talking to was your direct chain of command. Talk to your LT and he'll do what's needed.” I said. I didn't particularly want them talking to Ivanova either.

  Especially with all the time she was spending with the Deaconess. With Rekki-Ricky's panic attack over her I as beginning to suspect there was a lot more to her that I should be worried about.

  The soldiers all nodded to eachother and wandered off.

  I let out the breathe I had been holding and whispered to myself. “And hopefully he'll forget to tell her too.”