The Legion of Nothing

Marcus shook his head, “That does not look good. I hope whatever did it is gone. Hey, Accelerando, any idea what killed them?”

Shooting him a look, Jaclyn said, “I’m training to be a doctor, not a forensic pathologist. I have no idea. Without an internship in alien autopsies, I can’t even guess whether it was the Abominators’ defenses or another creature.”

She leaned forward to inspect the bodies anyway and her eyes glazed over as she took what had to be a massive download from her implant.

Then she shook her head, “I asked the wrong question. I used the sensors to measure how deep the blade penetrated and asked the implant for possibilities. There were a lot—creatures from other worlds, robots, weapons… Too many. A galaxy full of options. Then I asked for Artificer-related options. There are a lot of genetically engineered creatures, but only one might survive on the Moon this long.”

Then, for lack of a better word, she sent us a link. It wasn’t to the web—it was to our Xiniti implants’ internal libraries.

All of our faces went slack as we absorbed the new information. On more than one world, the Xiniti documented boxes the Artificers left. Empty until opened, the boxes formed a composite being with both biological and mechanical components. Roughly the size and shape of a small monkey, the creature would leap out when the door opened, killing any thinking creatures and destroying property until something destroyed it.

In an atmosphere, they lived indefinitely, but without food and water, they’d make it for maybe three hours.

“Huh,” I said.

Rachel glanced at me, “What did you get? I don’t have an implant.”

“Sorry,” Jaclyn said, “do the Ghosts have a name for killer cybernetic monkeys that materialize in Artificer boxes?”

Rachel checked in all directions, “Those little bastards? I hate those guys. I went to a planet once where they ate everything living and then each other.”

Marcus looked up from the bodies, “What did you do then?”

She shrugged, “The Ghosts chucked the boxes into the nearest star. I don’t know if it destroyed them, but not a lot of people will be able to go looking for them, much less get one out.”

I looked around the group, “We keep on going, right?”

Marcus grinned under his faceplate, “Don’t open any boxes and we’ll be fine.”

Jaclyn shot a glance at Cassie, “Cap?”

Cassie rolled her eyes, “I’ll be shooting any box that looks funny at me.”

Glancing over at me, Jaclyn said, “I worry that someone else will open the box.”

Standing amid the curved walls, random openings, and uneven space of the hallway, I said, “Me too, but I don’t know who that would be. Everyone seems to be dead so far. That might turn out to be good news.”

Everyone laughed, but I pegged it more as a relief of tension than an appreciation of humor. I hadn’t been trying for a joke.

We kept on walking, following the glow of the overhead lights and watching for killer monkeys to jump out of the walls. With the clutter of pipes, splatters of superconducting material spreading out across sections of the walls, and extended ridges that contained unknown infrastructure for the building, it took time.

More than thirty minutes later, we’d walked into a big room that struck me as both cluttered and empty at the same time. Much like the hallway and hangar, equipment covered the walls, extending on to the floor and even the ceiling and spreading out to connect a spider’s web of cables to one machine or another.

At the same time, some spots on both the floor and the walls were empty. Something had been there, hanging cables and chunks of missing floor testified that someone wanted more than one machine enough to take part of the floor with it.

Examining more closely made me aware of another pattern. The machines on the floor were arranged in clusters around a central point or more than one. I recognized a few machines between one cluster and the next, my implant naming them. Even given my familiarity with the Alliance’s more current alien technology, I didn’t know their purpose on sight.

With my implant’s help though, I began to understand what I saw. The devices’ purposes were divided between a few different priorities. First of all? Interfacing Abominator technology with Artificer technology, allowing the Abominators to use the technology as if it were their own. Second, devices for analyzing that technology so they could use it. Thirdly, protective devices that prevented the Artificer’s devices from fulfilling their true purpose—infecting and destroying any species that found them and reverse-engineered them.

In many cases, the central point of the cluster, the Artificer device, was missing.

It had to be somewhere, ideally long ago taken away by the Abominators after its secrets had been discovered.

More likely, the Artificer devices were somewhere else, maybe on Earth.