First Defusion
Can Larin deactivate the discarded mine that injured her as a child? (Now includes PDF version!)
When I was a little girl, an explosion took my best friend, along with several parts of my body, including my eyes. Since it occurred on one of the old battlefields, the State paid for the cybernetics to replace them. I spent my time in darkness grieving for Andra. When I opened my new eyes, the first things I saw were a sunny day, my mother's eyes, and the twin moons over her shoulder.
As an adult, I upgraded my eyes so I could work in search and rescue. Even after the century since our ancestors arrived, most of planet Vemmler remained unexplored outside of the main cities. There were still many towns like where I came from, out in the frontiers, surrounded by wilderness that had never prepared for humans, and would take a long time to adapt, and could turn hostile at a moment's notice. The frontiers were also the site of most of the battles in the Separatist War. Andra and I had been exploring one of those battlefields for old bullets, rusted rifles, and mechanoid parts, when the mine went off behind her.
I still remember my elation when I heard the voice of the man who found me, and treated as many of my injuries as he could on his own while assuring me I wasn't going to die. "It's okay, Larin," he'd said. "It's all going to be okay." I knew then I wanted to be like him.
I've lived in the mountainside town of Argole for five years now. Most of the meager population knows not to do anything too risky, so search and rescue isn't necessarily the busiest line of work around here. Not that I have nothing to do. Hikers still get lost, large animals still roam into residential zones, and old ordnance from the war still needs to get swept up.
I got the call at 9 AM on a Tuesday morning that some children had gotten trapped in a cave, and a third had run back to town to call for help. During the war, before the town existed, a group of Separatists had fortified the geode caves within the mountain to use as a base of operations for attacks against State troops. They were supposed to be off-limits now, but sometimes we still caught kids playing inside them, and had to shoo them out. These kids had been doing the same thing, pretending to fight in their grandparents' war, as the boy, Sandy Brackett, told me when I arrived at the cave.
"I'm really sorry," Sandy said, his nose running. "All we wanted to do was take a look at the crystals before we went home, and maybe take a few smaller ones home. We were trying to be careful, honest."
"It's all right," I said. The geode caves inside the mountains dwarfed any of the formations found on Earth, so it was hard to deny the attraction, especially to children. "Could you tell what caused the cave-in?"
Sandy shook his head. "It wasn't a cave-in."
My superior officer, Captain Lou Regalta, said, "They sprang an old Separatist trap, and the doors came down. Just when you think we got them all."
"As many caves as there are," I said, "it'll probably take a hundred years to find everything."
"This is why Dad drank himself to death." The Captain's father had been one of the Separatists. Rank-and-file members were given amnesty, though I suppose for some people that can only take root so deep in the soul. Captain Lou tapped at the device in his hand. "We sent some drones in for a preliminary search, and found the kids. We know they're unharmed, at least for now. There's just one big problem."
The map loaded into my left eye. The kids had gone about half a kilometer deep, and a steel wall had blocked them in. This kind of trap would simply have let the wall fall under its own weight, so there wouldn't be an opening mechanism. Fortunately we had a heavy-duty jack especially for situations like this. That wasn't the big problem.
One of the drones had found a small crack in the rock big enough to get into the geode chamber and grab some footage of the children. One boy, one girl, both about eight or nine. The crystals helped a little to spread out the glow from the mine and the drone's spotlight, bright enough to see what the boy was standing next to.
"You see it," Captain Lou said. "I can tell by the look on your face."
A mine was floating in the air right behind the boy. A proximity hover-mine. If you got too close, it would jump off the ground, then if you got out of range--which you were likely to do if a big metal ball sprang up at you out of nowhere--it would detonate.
Exactly the same kind of mine that had taken my eyes, and my best friend. Andra, I thought, wherever you are, I hope you're watching over me.
The miracle was that the mine hadn't exploded yet. The boy had remained standing next to it the whole time. The girl was far enough out of activation range to not detonate it, but still close enough for the mine to do some major damage. "At least those safety programs at the schools are working," I said. "Otherwise they'd be ash by now."
"You can help them, right, ma'am?" Sandy said.
"I'm sure I can." Though some naive part of me had hoped that I could go my whole career without dealing with one of these mines. I'd trained on how to defuse them, even given presentations to kids like him promising I could, but I'd never done a live one. This would be my grand debut. "Captain, I'll need--"
"Already waiting for you at the mine entrance," Captain Lou said. "One disassembled heavy-duty jack, and one signal drone. Once you're in, and you get to the mine's control panel, Harley from the bomb squad can talk you through it. You ready?"
"You're never ready for this," I said. "So I might as well get started."
I went to the mouth of the cavern. A heavy sack was waiting on the ground. I heaved it over my shoulder as a small spherical drone bobbed up and hovered in front of me. I would need this thing to get around the mine's anti-tampering software. Without it, even loosening one screw would take me to an early reunion with Andra.
I switched the color range in my eyes so I could see in the dark without a flashlight. Crystals poked out of the walls and ceilings along with the stalactites. Scientists were only just beginning to study this planet's geology, but so far the evidence suggested much more frequent upheavals in the crust much more recently than on Earth, resulting in massive formations like this. It was the current consensus on why Vemmler never evolved any sapient creatures--too chaotic. In addition to the attractive scenery, it also left these caves with broad enough tunnels that just about anybody could walk through with little trouble. The Separatists had mostly smoothed them out for their underground forts.
The cave curved and wound a little, but it was more or less a straight shot from the entrance. It took less than ten minutes to reach the steel wall. I dropped the sack to the ground and let my shoulders ache for a moment. I spotted the crack in the wall. Too high up and too small for any human to crawl through. "Hello?"
"Hello?" a little girl's voice said. "Is somebody there?"
"I'm here," I said. "My name's Larin Nichols. I'm going to get you out. I'll lift the door open, and I'll take care of the mine. You just need to hold on for a little while longer. What are your names?"
"My name's Andra Brackett, and I'm here with Tommy Glisic. Did Sandy send you?"
Andra. Either she was watching over me, or someone was playing a weird joke. "Is Sandy your brother?"
"Uh huh. You sure you can get rid of the mine?"
"Positive," I lied. "But first I need to get this door open. You're doing great so far. Just hold on."
I dumped the equipment out of the bag and started putting it together. I liked to keep the assembly instructions in my eye's memory for easy access, and fortunately the parts were simple enough to not require too much complex manipulation. It was better to do this on-site, since you never knew when a passage might be too narrow for the fully-assembled model. "Almost done," I told Andra.
"Good," she said. "You're not mad at us, are you?"
"Of course not. You're children. Playing and exploring is what you do. It's not your fault someone set these traps all over a planet my great-great-great-grandparents had never heard of. And at least you're not hurt too badly. Things can always get a lot worse. And I'm done."
Put together, the jack resembled a small forklift without a driver's seat. I set it with its blades pointed toward the steel wall and flipped the switch on the back. It rolled forward, pressing the tips of the blades into the bottom of the wall until they managed to wedge themselves in. Then it began to lift the blades, and the wall with it. The drawback was that it could only lift three feet.
But that was enough. I rolled underneath, let the drone follow me in, and hopped to my feet. The mine was giving off only a small amount of light, so while Little Andra was looking toward me, she would have been unable to see me very well. Tommy was standing rigid in front of the mine, covered with sweat, his teeth clenching. I switched my eyes back to normal range and turned on a shoulder-mounted flashlight. "Here I am."
"Oh wow, you're--" Andra's face turned sad. "My gosh... Those scars."
"Yeah, they're what one of these mines will do to you if you're lucky." I took a spare light out of my hip sack and handed it to her. "Take this, go back to the entrance."
"No, I can't. I don't wanna leave Tommy."
"Trust me, it's safer this way. Your brother's waiting for you."
"She's right," Tommy said, his voice pinched up. "If you leave, then at least you and Sandy will be okay."
Andra moaned with worry, then turned on the light and crawled under the door to safety.
"Good girl." I switched my vision to ultraviolet, then turned to Tommy. "And good boy. Standing still like that--you paid attention in the safety lessons."
"Mrs. Russel has an eyepatch 'cause of the war. When she talks about it, we listen."
"She would know what she's talking about, wouldn't she?" The drone and I started circling the mine. The crystals surrounding us were as big as people, and sparkled with colors that I could never describe to people without cybernetic eyes. Sometimes I hated not being able to share sights like this, although they were still undeniably beautiful in regular light. Otherwise kids like Tommy and Andra wouldn't have wandered in here in the first place.
"I guess you know what you're talking about, too," Tommy said. "With a face as messed up as... Oh no! I'm sorry, Ms. Nichols. I shouldn't've said that."
"Don't worry. I'm not ashamed of these scars." Not anymore. "Not like I get to ignore them. If anything, they remind me I'm still alive in spite of everything. I had a run-in with one of these mines myself, when I was about your age, and it did a lot more than mess up my face. Right now you're already doing better on that front than we did. Your legs must be tired."
Tommy nodded, then spoke in a murmur. "I also wet myself."
"I won't tell anybody."
Frankly, just looking at this thing was enough to rattle me. The mine's sensor radius was only a few feet, so if Tommy buckled or fainted, that'd be enough to blow us away. Sweat trickled down my face, even though cool air filled the room. Operations like this took time, but it would only take an instant to make it detonate. "And call me Larin," I told Tommy.
A signal buzzed in my ear. "This is Harley. Do you read, Nichols?"
"Loud and clear," I said, staring at the panel that glowed with a faint ultraviolet. "Tommy, this is Harley. Say hi to Harley please."
"Hi, Harley."
"Harley, say hi to Tommy."
"Good afternoon, Tommy."
"Tommy, Harley says hello. Great, we're introduced." I generally found it best to keep the rescuees involved in any conversation--it helped warm them up to me, and helped distract them from the situation. "Harley, can you tell what model I'm looking at?"
"It's definitely part of the T-series, so that narrows it down to three models. But you're going to have to open the panel before I know for sure.
"The T-series. Has the signal drone broken in yet?"
"Almost. It seems to be having a little trouble cracking the firewall."
"Firewall? Since when do these mines have a firewall?" The only reason they even had shutoff systems was in case a Separatist set them off by accident. They already had enough hurdles in place for the State to deal with. Too many would risk the life of one of their own. Unless...
"I wouldn't worry too much. The Separatists still built workarounds and provided them after the war. The drone just needs a little longer... and it's in. You can open the panel now."
I stepped into the sensor radius. Now my course was set. If I stepped out, I set off the bomb. My only hope was to disarm it. "All right, Tommy, here goes nothing." I took out a flathead screwdriver and pried open the panel. The buttons glowed in various shades of ultraviolet. So did the label in the corner. "Harley, you got this?"
"I got it," Harley said, "but something isn't right. I've never seen that model number before."
"What? Didn't you say there were only three of them?"
"I thought there were! Separatist mines are thoroughly catalogued, and the T series is the most common version. There's no way we could have missed one. I'm going to have to do some research. I'm sorry, but do you mind waiting a minute?"
"Ugh, fine. But make it quick!"
I heard a click, and the signal went dead. Each model had its own disarming sequence. The B series had a set of fuses. The V's required a verbal password. The T's used a 6-digit numerical code, but none of the codes ever matched between the three T models. And you only got three tries, so I couldn't exactly experiment. If Harley didn't know this model, then he wouldn't have the codes. We faced the haunting possibility that no one would.
"Is something wrong?" Tommy said.
"Just a setback. Means we need to wait a little longer. Here, come over to my side."
"I can't. I'm not supposed to move."
"I know what your teachers said. We helped write the presentations. But I'm here, and I'm asking you to come over. Just hold on to the mine and circle around."
I heard his footsteps as he turned himself toward the mine, forcing himself to look death straight in the eye. Then the mine wobbled a little, from his hands grabbing onto it. Slowly, he sidestepped toward me, as if pressed against a wall.
"Very good, Tommy. Feel free to lean on me for support. It's not much, but it'll give your legs a little rest.
He tilted over onto my side, and I could feel him shaking. If Tommy had a tremor, I was going through an earthquake, for my sake as much as his. None of this was going the way it should have. He was counting on me, and right now I had nothing. Usually talking helped take the edge off, but the only thing I had to talk about was what was right in front of me.
Still, it was better than nothing. "Here, Tommy, take a look at this."
And I started explaining the various buttons and mechanisms within the panel. He would only see a set of black squares, but he got the message. He even seemed interested. And I told him about the procedure of disarming mines--how it was supposed to go, anyway. Remarkably, both of us began to feel less shaky. This was no longer just a floating ball of death. It was a machine, just like the consoles and handhelds he had at home. That meant there was a way to operate it... even control it.
"But why do you need to talk to somebody remotely?" Tommy said. "Why not bring all the codes with you?"
"Because there are a lot of codes, and my eyes only have so much memory. And every once in a while you do run into a situation like this where you don't know the model. Besides, sometimes anxiety gets in the way of looking them up. Better to have somebody outside who can look them up for you, like Harley's doing now."
"Are you scared?"
"Terrified. I have a confession to make, Tommy. I've never done this before. Disarmed a real bomb, I mean. We're supposed to have dedicated bomb squads, but there are so many explosives on this world that every rescue worker has to be trained on this. And I hate it. All they do is kill and mutilate innocent people. They tear families apart. They force us to relive a war we never should have fought in the first place. My body is thirty percent artificial because of these things. I wish I could destroy them all and throw everyone responsible to some other planet. Dammit, Harley, where the hell are you?"
Tommy started trembling again.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have unloaded on you. But we haven't lost yet. As long as we're alive, there's hope. I'll make sure you get out of here safe. I owe it to Andra."
"I'm not even really friends with Andra," Tommy said. "We just play sometimes."
I gave him a pat on the shoulder. "At any rate."
A buzz tickled my ear. "I'm back," Harley said.
"Halleluia! Tommy, our bomb expert's back. Got any good news?"
"Sort of. That's a model that was only manufactured toward the end of the war, when it was clear the Separatists were losing. A few factions set out to take as many State troops with them as possible. That's why they're harder to disarm. They're built on the assumption that only State troops will find them."
"I was afraid of that," I said. "Do you have the passcodes?"
"That's the good news. The Sep leaders thought they'd all detonated, but they still contributed the codes in the peace talks. Bad news is, I have four."
"Four passcodes?"
"Right. And three chances."
I took a deep breath from the bottom of my belly. "All right. Just beam them over, and I'll give them a try."
The passcodes appeared in corner of my eye. "Thanks, Harley. I'm ready to begin. If you pray, start praying now."
Tommy's arms wrapped around me. "I don't wanna die."
"Neither do I," I told him. "But we have to try anyway. Here goes nothing."
All I could do was simply go through the list, and hope it was one of the first three. I started typing in the first 6-digit code, saying each number out loud for Tommy. My fingers smeared the buttons with sweat and oil. Each press made a small click that spiked my pulse. This mine was built by people with nothing left to lose. Literally anything could set it off, just to give the State Army of fifty years ago a hefty Screw You, and I'd have no way to know it.
By the fourth key I was able to relax a little. If the keypad alone didn't trigger it by now, it wasn't going to. Finally I managed to get all six put in. All that was left was to press the ultragreen "Enter" key.
"All right, Tommy, if this doesn't work, I still get two tries." He didn't have to know my fears about this particular device. It was full of enough fear on its own. "On three... One. Two. Three."
I pressed the button.
A blue light blinked on.
The mine sank peacefully to the ground. It worked. On my first try, too! "Holy..." I dropped to my knees, sighing out a string of expletives as I unclenched as many muscles as I possibly could. My hip ached where it connected to my mechanical thigh. I'd done it. I'd saved both of us. Were you watching, Andra? Are you resting a little easier now?
"Ohh, my legs..." Tommy lowered himself onto his back beside me. "You just said a lot of bad words."
"Sorry," I said. "Do me a favor and don't repeat them, okay? Or at least, don't tell anyone you got them from me."
"I won't. Just remember your promise, okay?"
"Deal." I shook his hand. Our palms were both slick with sweat. "Let's just rest here a minute. We have all the time in the world now."
Just then Harley's voice buzzed in my ear: "Nichols, you have to get out of there right now."
"What's wrong? The bomb's defused."
"The mine is defused. But I just got word back from the archives I got the codes from. This specific model is set up with a second device that activates as soon as the first one is disarmed. And it's a time bomb."
"How much time do I have?"
"About... one minute."
I didn't waste any time. I sprang to my feet, pulling Tommy off the ground with me. Together we darted for the gap in the iron wall and crawled underneath. Little Andra was standing beside the doorway. "What are you doing here?" I said, but I knew the answer. She didn't want to leave her friend when his life was in danger. "Both of you, run for the entrance as fast as you can. Don't look back until you get outside. GO!"
Andra still had the flashlight I'd given her, so she took the lead, with Tommy not far behind.
"Thirty seconds," Harley said. "What about you?"
I turned toward the forklift. It might help me blunt the explosion, at least a little. I pulled the control switch so it would roll backwards. Very slowly. I backed away, watching it. The prongs scraped along the bottom of the iron wall, until it could no longer support the weight. The wall slammed to the ground, and flung the lift off its treads.
"Ten seconds."
I spun around and ran, the walls of the cave clear as day thanks to my expanded vision.
The bomb went off just as I turned the corner. The ground convulsed under me, and I just barely kept my footing. Behind me, the iron wall bulged out. The geode crystals in that room had almost certainly been pulverized. If Andra and I had been hit by a mine like that as kids, there'd be nothing left of me now.
I resumed my speed. The explosion looked and felt strong enough to trigger a cave-in, and I was not about to die in a pile of rubble. Meanwhile Harley was screaming in my ear. "Dear God, Larin, please respond! Tell me you're all right!"
I told Harley, "I'm fine. On my way out now."
"For the love of all that's holy, don't scare me like that. I've lost people on missions before, you know."
"Just taking an extra precaution. I'll make it up to you. Maybe buy you dinner or something. All the drinks you want, too."
I emerged from the mouth of the cave. Sunlight and myriads of colors and ultracolors dazzled my eyes. I switched back to normal vision, even dimming it a little further to adjust to the brightness. The kids, Tommy, Andra, and Sandy, were all back together and embracing, with tears of joy and relief smeared on their faces. Ambulances and news vans filled the field. A crowd of reporters rushed toward me, throwing such a cacophony of questions at me that I couldn't hear anything they said.
However, who would come pushing through the crowd but little Andra, whose hands were folded together. I knelt down in front of her. "Hello, Andra. It's good to see you right now."
"Thank you for getting us out, Ms. Nichols," Andra said. "I wanted to give you something."
She stretched out her hands and opened her palms. Inside them was a crystal. I switched my eyes, and saw its true ultracolor. My favorite.
"It's lovely," I said. "And you want me to have this?"
Andra nodded. "I was gonna make a necklace out of it, but all it did was get us in trouble, so I think you should take it."
"Oh, well, you don't have to feel too bad." I pressed her hands shut. "Tell you what, why don't you go ahead and make that necklace, bring it by the Rescue Office, and I'll wear it every day and think of you and Tommy."
"Really? Every day?" She gazed down at the crystal she'd risked her life for, as a faint grin showed on her face. "Okay, I'll start as soon as I get home!"
She buried herself back in the crowd, and I got back up, and told the reporters to refer any questions to Captain Lou, and started moving forward. They cleared a path. Captain Lou told me after all that, I could take the rest of the week off.
Before I left, I happened to notice Andra showing her parents the crystal she'd retrieved from the cave, the one she was going to make into jewelry. A necklace was such a small thing compared to the gift of new life she had just been given, but I knew when she was done, I'd treasure it as long as I lived. Together with my scars, its ultracolored shine would be a reminder that I did this job not just for myself and what I'd survived, but for the sake of children like her. Children like Andra.