The Barsoom Project

Razul screamed defiance and threw his machine forward behind its massive fist. Chala’s behemoth was off balance. Its arms came around too slowly… everything seemed slow, the robots were so large.. but Razul’s fist plowed into the other robot just below the throat. The world rang like a million broken bells. Now duck, while the other’s arms came around Where Chala’s robot’s foot had penetrated the turf, white light flared from underneath. Turf exploded upward. Razul blinked, dazzled, and fought the controls to avoid falling over backward. He could guess what had happened. Chala had stepped into the Chunnel, the vacuum subway that ran between Britain and France. A train must have impacted at meteor speed. Thousands dead in fractions of a second.

And his enemy’s leg was off at the knee! Razul threw three missile-velocity punches. His enemy fell back and landed hard, and Razul had won.

He was crying like a baby as he struggled out of the cabin. War reduced to its basics. Smash things. Hope your enemy is smashed too. No honor in this, only fatigue and death and blood ruining the pretty parks. War reduced to its basics, oh, you sons of dogs.

He saw Andrew Chala climbing out of what was, after all, only the midsection of a giant red and black robot. Chala was sobbing helplessly.

We must keep war off Mars, Razul told himself. We will. I’ll have to talk to Chala… later.

Chapter Five

CATCH IT AND YOU KEEP IT

“Move it!”

Max Sands ran as fast as he could, thundering along on thick, muscular legs.

What was…? Who was…? A moment ago he and the rest of the group had been ambling toward the embarking area. Then an alarm whistle split the calm of the corridor, and they broke into a stumbling, confused gallop. His heart hammered in adrenal overload. What had gone wrong? He’d heard rumors that mad Arabs were after Moon Maid. Had they…?

Max and exercise were ancient antagonists. He went into a kind of fugue state, where his body seemed to perform without his conscious intervention, a sort of automatic overdrive he had learned while apprenticing in his curious profession.

Just behind him, Eviane was puffing like a choo-choo, bouncing and jiggling, but keeping up. More: her face was grin-split with happy anticipation. Her elongated friend Moon Maid Dula moved as if walking on stilts, a continuous toppling run, unsteady but still making tracks.

The tunnel boomed and shuddered. Far off, he heard the rattle of gunshots.

The tunnel dead-ended at a curved metal door sealed with a thick rubber flange. Rows of fluorescent lights flickered around the edges. A cluster of Gamers were there ahead of him.

The guy who called himself “Hippogryph” was pushing against the wall, stretching his calves. Sweat streamed down his cheeks. His chest heaved. Hippogryph’s breathing was a conscious thing: inhale through the nose only, slowly exhale… The guy acted like an outsider’s image of a typical Gamer: big sappy permanent grin, constant quotes from Asimov and Chang, sly “in” references to Luke Skywalker and Frodo. Max read him as a Dream Park security watchdog for Charlene Dula.

Brother Orson stumbled, trying to keep up. A very large, conspicuously pretty blonde named Trianna Stith-Wood helped him right himself. There was strength in that woman’s arms. She had a baby face, little pearly teeth, a smile you could use for a heliograph. He had heard she was a chef. Likely she was her own best customer.

Two more ran up. Francis Hebert was a short, dark-skinned, crop-haired career soldier, pudgy only by military standards. He ran easily; the bagel in his fist explained his late start. The second man was Frankish Oliver, a Gamer and a pure warrior, even though at this point everyone was still in street clothes.

A blast of cold air hit Max in the face, as if the air-conditioning units had suddenly gone berserk.

The door burst open, banging against the tunnel wall. A woman stood there, looking gaunt and frightened in a neatly pressed red uniform. The cords in her throat bunched as she screamed, “Hurry!” It was the voice that had shrieked panic from the intercom. “The Guard can’t hold the cannibals back much longer!”

Cannibals? Max looked behind him. Two uniformed National Guardsmen, one black and slender, the other white and burly, were the ones firing the shots. The burly man fell, his hand clapped to a spreading red glow on his leg. His face distorted with pain as he tried to crawl toward the silver door.

Trianna, Orson, and Frankish Oliver squeezed through. Charlene Dula started back. Max grabbed Charlene’s arm urgently. “Wrong way!”

“But that man! He’s hurt!”

Max pulled her toward the door. Hippogryph had her other arm and was following Max’s lead… and staring hard at Max. Certainly he was Security; and Max had touched Charlene.

Charlene looked back over her shoulder; the concern on her face suddenly changed to horror.