The group watched as the boxes started across the open space. One of the boxes moved forward, then seemed to be redirected to join the first box.
The Marines were still somersaulting, though, it now looked a little drunken and wobbly. They had to be dizzy as hell.
“Yup, green flag is still up.” Hailey pointed. “Ares and Judge’s sideways, forward, and angled jerky movements are definitely not human-like.”
“Disorganization seems to be key,” Neesa said. “What if you weren’t putting your weight on Dakota, he was slithering like a snake, and you were crawling on top, your bodies could look like a hill? Does Tank need to be disguised? He’s non-human.”
“Sounds like you have a picture in your mind. Should we try it and see?” Dakota asked.
Neesa gestured at the ground. “Okay, Dakota, you lie down like you’re going to crawl under the wires on an obstacle course. Okay, Rylee, now you.”
“Me what?” Rylee stood next to Dakota.
“Yeah, just straddle Dakota, but get up on your hands and knees.”
Rylee did her best to comply. “Like this? How would we move in unison?”
“We could tie your knees together. When he moves, you move,” Neesa said.
“Okay, Neesa. I just met the man, and you want us to engage in bondage in front of an audience? Dakota, just so you know, I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I’m just lying here waiting for instructions.” His voice was gruff with stifled laughter.
“Try it,” Neesa insisted.
It worked briefly. “I’d need knee pads, and I don’t know what Dakota would need to slither all that way. This is a lot more complicated than somersaulting.” Rylee stayed where she was, kneeling across Dakota, shifting this way and that to see if she could come up with a better configuration.
“Yeah, but we won’t be puking for the next few hours,” Jasper said. “Looks like the Marines have landed. The boxes are still moving around like a video game.”
“Green flags still up,” Hailey said proudly.
“Here, the best I could do was to put my knees in his armpit. I don’t think we look like a hill. I’m going to scratch this one off the possibilities list.” Rylee pushed herself onto her feet. “We have to come up with something that we can sustain over that long a distance.”
“I like what you said about Tank being non-human,” Dakota said. “Tank is the profile we want to emphasize, just a dog in the field. And I like the idea of being a natural element.”
“We need to keep it simple,” Rylee turned to Neesa.
“Nope,” she said. “I gave you my best shot. I don’t do field work.”
“What if we just got some of those dead branches and made a screen?” Dakota offered. “Put Tank out in front of us, and I direct him to move like a dog to distract the computer from focusing on us—"
“This would be a lot easier if we had some idea about how the AI recognized a human approach,” Rylee said.
“If you fail, you fail,” Jasper said. “You’re not part of Iniquus, so you won’t hurt their reputation.”
Hailey bladed her hand over her brows to shield her eyes from the sun. “And the boxes have migrated away from the finish line.”
“They definitely don’t look like they’re heading in a straight human pattern,” Neesa said. “So you think that just the random movements Tank makes can help you disappear?”
“I say we try that,” Rylee told Dakota. “Sit down flat like this.” She sat down, stretching her legs in front of her. “Then we rock thigh to thigh to move our legs slowly forward. The time and the lateral movement are both very non-human.”
They constructed the screens to be low to the ground.
“How do we look, Neesa?” Rylee called from behind her fan of branches.
“Like a tree blowing in the wind. Only, there isn’t any wind today.”
“Hailey?”
