Autonoma- Gate 13 Read online

  “The arrows,” Michael moaned, like an impatient toddler, ducking under Henri and bounding off toward the next green light, “we have to follow the arrows.”

  “Autonoma will prevail,” Henri declared, but it wasn’t like the decaying voice I’ve heard before, this sounded like the words of a man filled with pride and warmth, this familiar voice sounded very much alive.

  “Stop,” I cried out, watching Michael race down the slope toward the darkness of the unlit shuttle bay. His scream filled my earpiece as he switched direction on his heels, the swarm of red-eyed Havoc bots filling the corridor ahead of him. It was a trap.

  “Alex,” the pre-recorded man’s voice called out.

  “Yes?” I responded, with little understanding as to who it was I was speaking to.

  “You must get out of here,” the man pleaded, with desperation in his tone. “Get out of here.”

  “How?” I demanded, hearing Michael’s rapid footsteps draw near. “How am I meant to get out of here?”

  “Follow the robot,” the man explained, “follow this Henri unit.”

  The old hoverbot broke away, charging with determined pace back into Autonoma, Michael sprinting after him without hesitation.

  Left with little other choice, I followed, racing back toward the simulation rooms, back into the heart of the machine’s world.

  Henri came to halt past the holding room, the corridor quiet, with no trace of the events that unfolded here moments earlier.

  “I am not going back in there,” Michael screamed, pointing to the door.

  “Neither am I, Henri.”

  The old hoverbot ignored us and instead turned to face the wall opposite. Without hesitation, the bot picked up speed and charged for the wall.

  “Wait,” Michael pleaded, as Henri disappeared, leaving no hole or trace.

  Michael looked at me, his eyebrows and face etched with confusion.

  Behind him, I could see the corridor filling with more Havoc bots, as a glance behind at the approaching shadow confirmed we’d no other choice.

  I approached the wall and offered up my open palm, my arm breaching the wall with no effort required.

  “It’s not real,” I declared.

  Michael didn’t need telling twice, breaking into a sprint. With his hands out ahead of him, my little brother came to a stop inches from the second wall beyond it.

  Henri watched on by a doorway in the small enclave. It was dark, dirty and unkempt; stained with a rusty brown hue. No wonder the park wanted to keep this bit hidden.

  Aware the Havoc bots were as likely to know about it as Henri was, I knew time wasn’t on our side. I approached Henri’s position.

  The door looked like it was ripped from an old ship, with a rusty hand wheel and decaying bolts and rivets. There was a faded sticker across the metal, which even with a squint, I couldn’t read. Traces of yellow tape hung from the edges of the door while the rest lay scattered as brittle pieces on the floor.

  I grasped onto the hand wheel, the rust digging into my skin.

  “Come on,” Michael pleaded, as with a high-pitched protest, the wheel turned.

  The wheel hit the internal stop, and I reposition my hands. The rust had taken hold, and I was not convinced I wasn’t trying to pull the doorframe, maybe even the whole wall with it too.

  I lifted my right leg and braced it against the wall. A few curses slipped my lips, and I felt the door budge. With the door getting heavier with each tug, I opened it a few inches. As the groans of the door ceased, I shook out the pain in my muscles. I peered around it, into the gap.

  The pitch-black entirety of the other side gave nothing away of what lay beyond this heavy, old, metal door. It didn’t give off the vibe of a safe sanctuary, or a route out of the place.

  A Havoc bot smashed into the wall above us.

  “Go!” I demanded, grabbing Michael by his jacket, pushing him toward the door.

  Michael slipped through the narrow gap with ease, as more pieces of misguided Havoc bots rained down inside the forgotten gap between the walls.

  Henri clattered into the doorframe; perhaps unaware he was far too wide to fit through the gap.

  There was no time to explain or even understand if the old hoverbot could tilt sideward, instead, and having learned from my mistake in the holding room, I swung the dino backpack off my shoulders, unzipped it and grabbed the yellow tin can. I snatched Henri out of the air, and turned him onto his side, ducking and squeezing through the doorway.

  As well as feeling the heat melting the plastic of the backpack, I could smell it too.

  Scraping its plastic casing against the rusty metal, disturbing the bright-white light projecting forward from its body, a Havoc bot clattered into the opening.

  Releasing Henri from the bag, I grabbed the white orb, throwing the bag onto the floor and stomped it into the dirt.

  With equal quantity of curses, I pulled on the even rustier hand wheel on the inside of the door and it closed with a muted clap echoing against walls far beyond my expectations of the size of the room. Darkness and silence once again consumed us.

  “Where are we?” Michael asked.

  “I don’t know. Henri where are we, and more to the point, are we safe?” I inquired, hoping the little procedure to get through the door hadn’t dislodged his old circuits.

  The customary pause.

  “The machinery housed in this building once powered the facility,” the old hoverbot chimed, its prim and proper persona once again restored. “We are quite safe now.”

  “OK,” I responded. “So, how do we get the lights on?”

  “I’m afraid this building was disabled a long time ago. Starting the machinery again is beyond anything expressed within my current database,” the flying tin can remarked, making more sense than he had done the whole trip.

  “But you said this place once powered the park, right? Can’t we reverse the flow, get some power running back?”

  “In theory, yes.”

  “Great. How?”

  “The building was officially decommissioned by terminating the link between the two facilities. If you can restore the link, you may be able to return power here.”

  “OK. Sounds like a plan. Where’s the link?” I responded, eager and enthused.

  “Approximately sixty feet east.”

  “Well OK, seems easy enough,” I declared, crouching down to Michael’s level, reaching forward in the darkness, and resting my hands on his shoulders.

  “Stay with Henri,” I demanded.

  “I don’t want to. I’m scared,” he replied.

  “Stay with Henri, I will be right back, and we’ll be able to see what we’re doing.”

  “But I --”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “You won’t leave me?” he sniffled.

  “I promise. You’re doing really well. We’ll be home soon, don’t you worry.”

  “OK.”

  I stood to my feet and edged my way forward. Wait, how would I know which way was east?

  “Henri,” I called out, “give me your compass.”

  “Negative Guest, that would not be possible,” the old bot replied. “To prevent my removal from this site, our creator deemed it necessary to route my main power supply through the device in question. To remove it would render me quite useless after a short period of time.”

  “What a loss that would be,” I muttered, rolling my eyes and shuffling forward. “Could you at least tell me which way to--"

  The ground beneath my feet crumbled and fell, my toes teetering over the edge, as I heard rocks cascade down a deep void, bouncing off concrete walls, fading into silence.

  “Henri,” I called out, “when you say this place was decommissioned. Why was it decommissioned?”

  “There was an incident,” the bot chimed.

  “Like someone falling down a very deep hole in the dark kind of incident?”

  Stepping back, a brain wave struck me.

  “The bag,�
�� I declared, turning toward Michael.

  “Here,” he replied, collecting it from the floor.

  Fumbling in the darkness, the bag was thrusted into my grasp, and I pulled the trampled Havoc bot out.

  “It had a light. I saw it,” I proclaimed, trying to feel for a button or something to activate it. “How do I turn it on?”

  “Activation is automated,” Henri chimed.

  “OK,” I replied, a little unsure how that helped, “how do I turn the light on?”

  “Like this,” the old hoverbot declared.

  The bright-white light on the orb blinded me as it pierced the darkness, straight into my eyes.

  “Great,” I replied with a hint of sarcasm.

  Though the range of the little orb’s light was far, the hole was far deeper and bottomless, wide too, I’d have guessed it was about forty feet across.

  “Is this the right way?” I asked, hoping for a no.

  “That is correct, Guest.”

  I rolled my eyes. I thought he might have learned my name by now.

  “Thank you, Bot,” I replied accompanied with a heavy sigh.

  I shone the light across to the other side, and sure enough, there was the remains of a corridor and a door hanging on its bottom hinge.

  “Is it through that door?”

  “Yes, Guest.”

  “Thanks, Bot.”

  “Can I get around, through that corridor?” I asked, pointing to the door on the far side of a small, crumbled office.

  “Due to the damage sustained to the building, I would advise you do not proceed forward.”

  Into the hole? You don’t say.

  “The corridor to your left will provide access.”

  Was he mocking me? Or was he being serious?

  Using the light from the broken Havoc bot, I stepped back toward Henri, making my way across the fractured flagstones and concrete slabs of the floor.

  The passage was narrow, dusty and I’d say hadn’t been walked for decades. The offices either side, with their once polished wooden panels at the bottom, were shrouded by the stained and dirtied windows above.

  Reaching the end of the corridor, I edged my way along the wall, keen to avoid the hole between us, and at the doorway, I stepped inside.

  The room had checkered tiles, old medicine cabinets, and reams upon reams of paperwork laid out across the various surfaces. Old machines, encased in glass bells, stood idle under many layers of dirt, as a frayed unending stream of punched card hung from the slot in the large wooden case.

  Though a little stiff, the doors at the other end opened without much complaining. Inside the next room, brittle yellow tape was strewn across the floor, along with more faded and illegible warnings and stickers. I stepped over the metal plates and signs as I made my way toward the large grey box on the far side.

  “Disconnected by order of,” I read aloud the sticker across the door, though I couldn’t make out the rest of it. Dislodged, the paper fluttered to the ground, its waning ability to stick to anything lost long ago to the ravages of time.

  Surprised, I found the case was unlocked and swung open the door, unsure of what I would find.

  A thick copper cable led to a simple switch, cast in iron, painted silver and with the words hand painted onto the flats of the casting. Beneath it was a simple black box with a silver pull handle and above, on a black plaque, were white letters that read ‘Autonoma Facilities’.

  “Off. On,” I muttered to myself. “Well, here goes.”

  Pulling the switch up to the ‘ON’, position, I held my breath, bracing for the bang or explosion or who knew what.

  Nothing.

  I mulled over my options, limited though they were.

  The bot must have been wrong, there must have been more to this than a simple switch. Above me, a red light warmed up, the filament inside starting to glow. To my left, I saw a single green button fade in and out as though it hadn’t been powered up for years, maybe decades.

  Out of curiosity, I pressed the green button, and a loud click echoed about the room.

  I winced as a bulb on the far side of the room popped with a less than discreet snap.

  More lights illuminated, their filaments woken from a long slumber. I heard machines click and tick as more dials and buttons were shaken from the darkness by the orange glow of the metal lamps.

  A wide smile took hold of my face as a sense of achievement filled my core. I couldn’t wait to show Michael this, I knew he’d love it!

  I turned back toward the door, and the smile was wiped from my face in an instant. I couldn’t mouth the words as I read them, let alone speak them.

  There, above the door, hand painted in all their glory, were words I could feel stabbing at my being, ‘Welcome to the Autonoma Nuclear Center for Energy’.

  Chapter 9

  Welcome to the A.N.C.E.

  “Henri!” I screeched, working my way back to my little brother and the floating idiot. “When you said this place was closed down after an accident, what kind of accident was it?”

  The flying tin can didn’t turn to face me, instead it stared at the wall as though it was unaware the lights were on.

  “Stop that,” I demanded, snatching Michael’s hand away from the dirt on the floor, “don’t touch anything.”

  “Why?” he objected, pulling his hand free, extending his index finger to resume his scratching.

  “Just,” I replied, afraid to scare him with what I fear might be the truth, “it’s not very clean.”

  “The dirt isn’t clean?” he responded, his words drenched in sarcasm.

  I flashed him a look of defeat. “Just don’t. Please.”

  He glanced up at me, retracting his hand and standing to his feet.

  “The sooner we get out of here the better,” I muttered, collecting the backpack.

  “Henri,” I barked, waiting for the painted-on eyes to turned toward the sound of my voice.

  “Yes, Guest?”

  “How do we get out of here?”

  “Get out?”

  “Yes,” I responded, the frustration burning in my chest. “You bought us in here to find a way out of the park. So, how do we get out?”

  “My database was wiped of information not pertinent to the wellbeing of guests in the park…”

  “You cannot be serious,” I cursed under my breath.

  “…however, as maintenance of the facilities remained a key part of my duties…”

  “Give me strength,” I muttered, as Michael huffed, blowing his cheeks out like a toad.

  “…Gate 13.”

  “Is?” I responded, lowering my head as though I was looking over some imaginary glasses.

  “What is?” he replied.

  “Gate 13, is that the way out?”

  “The last deliveries to the facility occurred at Gate 13.”

  “So, that’s a way out?”

  “Collection may be possible.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I declared with a smile spreading to Michael’s face. “We’ll go to this Gate 13, signal for help, and go home.”

  “Database error,” the disembodied voice seeming to plague the old hoverbot chimed.

  “Apologies, Guest,” Henri remarked, “I cannot access the data.”

  I rolled my eyes, as I saw Michael’s well with tears, the smile washed clean away.

  “The Senior Engineer’s Office,” the old hoverbot continued, “charts, diagrams, and plans.”

  “Plans for the facility?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s a start. How do we get to the Senior Engineer’s Office?”

  ‘David Jolski, Senior Engineer’, was etched into the metal plate positioned in the silver holder on the door.

  “Is Henri OK?” Michael asked, his eyes toward the silent hoverbot ahead.

  “He might need a charge, maybe a bit of an oil top-up,” I replied with confidence, though I had no idea how I became an expert in old hoverbots.

&nbs
p; “Good,” he replied, his mood boosted, and his chest puffed forward, as I paused to admire his ability to accept what was going on as one big long adventure.

  Inside the office, lit by the light ebbing in from the corridor, sat a desk, a big, white, plastic box, some filing cabinets, and piles upon piles of paperwork. The door slammed shut, and we both almost jumped out of our skins.

  “It’s OK,” I told my little brother, “It’s just Henri, probably.”

  I turned to the wall and patted my way around. “Nope, nope. Oh come on, it’s got to be around here somewhere.”

  “What?”

  “The light switch.”

  “You mean this?” Michael responded with sincerity, my little brother’s finger poised on the switch, as the hum of the single light filled the room.

  “Yeah, that,” I replied with a hint of sarcasm.

  I scanned the office. The drawings could have been anywhere in all this paperwork. It was going to take us hours to paw through it all. We needed a functional Henri.

  “I’ll make a start on getting the old tin can recharged--”

  “Henri,” my little brother insisted, “he’s not an old tin can, his name is Henri.”

  “Fine, I’ll make a start on getting Henri going again,” my emphasis on the old hoverbot’s name not lost on Michael as he rolled his eyes, “you start looking for the drawings.”

  “What are drawings?”

  “They’re like pictures that aren’t colored in yet.”

  “Oh,” he replied, his disinterest growing.

  “Or like a treasure map,” I responded, this time with some enthusiasm in my words.

  “Oh,” he replied, with raised eyebrows and some interest.

  “Yeah, a treasure map that hasn’t been colored in yet. A map of this place.”

  “OK,” he chirped, picking up a piece of paper from the floor. “Nope,” he muttered, throwing it on the desk.

  Happy Michael was occupied, I returned my attention to the hoverbot an inch or so from the floor.

  “Hey!” Michael called out as I cleared some space, turning on the small desk lamp. “Now I’ve got to start again,” he complained, collecting the papers up from the floor and into his arms, dumping them on top of another pile.