“Let me down!” she thrashed.
“There are dangerous levels of methane and benzene. The risk of poisoning is one hundred percent if you stay more than two minutes within the area.” The voice was monotone and regulated. An android held her.
“What?” she coughed and rasped. Her vision blurred. Her ears rang and she wasn’t sure if she heard it correctly.
The android repeated itself and continued running. They soon caught up to the others who were fleeing the scene. It didn’t release her.
Rylie twisted back to look for Netto but he was nowhere. The robot’s hold on her strengthened as the hard, hollow sound of a shock wave pulsed beneath them. She sucked in and braced. Those around her fell on deaf ears as the air puffed out a roar and a metal hand clamped over her eyes as a bright light blinded her to everything.
She cowered behind the shield of the android as a gust of wind pushed them forward. There was nothing but screams before the explosion.
Rylie lost her senses as a heavy wave of heat enveloped her. When the world returned, so did the cries of the wounded.
She choked back a sob.Netto.
***
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOUguys put into that water?!” Zeph screamed at the lead scientist. The man looked a strange cross between utterly terrified and unbelievably excited to be in the presence of a Cyborg.
“Well, um, you see, when we first got here growing crops was, well, hard...” the man hedged.
“Now!” Netto interjected, flashing his teeth and pulsing the blue of his eyes. The scientist looked ready to wet himself.
“Oh, yes, um, can you please have your goon stand back? He’s making me very uncomfortable,” he pleaded, avoiding eye contact with him.
Zeph laughed. “I don’t tell him what to do. Perhaps you should tell your story before you lose a limb. I’ve heard modern medicine is good enough that you might not lose it forever. We’d make sure you did,” Zeph replied, “And Netto might be inclined to eat it.”
The scientist blanched, the whites of his eyes striated with fear.
“Enough! What did you do?” Netto growled.
“When we first a-arrived,” his voice shook, “we were not prepared for the difficulties that came with growing crops on a non-terraformed world. Nothing responded to the soil and while the local flora was uncooperative with regard to industrialization, our Earthian transplant species were utterly impossible. We are outside of any Earthian regulatory involvement, so the local planetary council, who has jurisdiction in these matters, you see, approved research for accelerated fertilizers. See, what we did is take the standard nitrate and phosphate boosters that worked well in the past and added complexes to the mix that would signal cell uptake. Effectively, we kicked the plant growth into high gear in order to overcome the issues we were having,” the scientist sputtered, spraying saliva with each sentence.
“We didn’t have time to survey. Everyone was panicked that we would run out of food because the first four generations of crops failed. So we went ahead and did what we figured would work. And it did! It worked beyond our wildest dreams. The only problem then was when we finally figured out that the bio-uptake regulator we were using for plants also seemed to work on the local sea-life, we were too far in. There was no way we could discontinue production without crippling the food production of the colony.
“You see, we built too good of a growth catalyst. It doesn’t really degrade and it seems to work forever. So as we went through more and more planting cycles, and the concentration in the oceans kept rising from the runoff. As the concentration went up, so did the wildlife response. We assumed that the oceanic relay network that the EPED installed would live up to its hundred year guarantee. The system is defective—”
“No,” Netto said under his breath, feeling calm despite the circumstances. “I was here when it was installed.”
“It could not have been foreseen! It’s not our fault the EPED’s tech faulted. We had no way of knowing that this would happen. This is totally unprecedented with Earthian species and we continued on with the promise the seawall,” the scientist argued, throwing off the blame.
Netto didn’t have to look to know Zeph wanted to pull the man’s spine out through his throat but shut him up. But they couldn’t, as long as the man continued to talk, Zeph and Netto continued to record.
“It doesn’t matter anyway! Everything is gone...” the scientist had a cold, distant glare in his eyes. “The plant is gone.” They hardened suddenly as he looked at Zeph, “There’s no evidence. Nothing. We’re innocent.”
“Hmm,” Netto hummed and didn’t bother correcting the scientist. Netto grabbed the back of the man’s shirt and dragged him toward several nearby emergency vehicles. He handed the man to the local authorities without a word except to give instructions to deliver him to the Montihan homestead and to Zeph’s ship.
The scientist had earned a place in Zeph’s lab, inside one of the empty enclosures usually reserved for animals. It was as good as any brig but with no privacy and no upkeep.
Netto didn’t stay; he needed to find Rylie. Even his charred skin couldn’t stop him from seeking her out on the outskirts.
Many died.Many.
But more had been saved. And he had made sure she was safe, sending one of Fert Tech’s androids after her, recoded to his specifications. It didn’t settle the wires that thrummed through his chest. Those wouldn’t stop until she was within his sight and within the shield of his arms.
It was all he could do to not run in the direction of the android’s signature.She’s fine. She’s being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning but nothing else. It was all there in the android’s systems.
When his eyes landed on her, she was lying on a slat in a medical vehicle, with a plastic clamp over her mouth. She was breathing but there was a hitch with every inhale. In the evening gloom and with exhaustion painting her features, she was still the most beautiful thing in the universe. He climbed into the transport and sat at her side.
