The Dangers of Saving a Life

Chapter 15: Max

Hock note: Dr. Chocka is frustrated. Although he has sent campus security and numerous myg robots to arrest Milo and the infant, the robots keep failing. Worse yet, Professor Aidan is generating dark energy on the campus of Atraville College right under the nose of Axion. For someone who serves an entity stressing winning and success, that's embarrassing. That's an existential threat. 

What would you expect him to do next? 

The Axion ship plowed directly through the soccer team practicing above the central campus of Atraville College. The players dived to get out of the way, some barely escaping. And the ship paid no heed to spectators. They, likewise, scurried frantically out from beneath the ship before it hit them.

Captain Maxine Cazar of Axion's Guard didn't care. Tough protons. She was so impatient to get there that she muscled the door of the battleship open before it touched down. Then she jumped the remaining distance to the ground. Armed with a thick protective Higgs suit and a heavily mechanized exoskeleton, she hit down hard, her boots digging craters in the trimmed green moss.

The clouds were thick and heavy that day, preparing for a scheduled day of rain. The soccer players floated above, angry, pointing, and shouting. Their spectators booed her. Let them make their rude gestures. She concerned herself with more important matters. She needed to put down a rebellion. She needed to execute some lawbreakers. 

She surveyed a row of college buildings beyond the mossy ground cover. Goggles within her bulbous helmet listed each building: "Zweig Hall," "Newton Hall," and "Einstein Hall," with a red square around her target, "Newton Hall." An arrow pointed to the third floor with the description, "Office of Professor Aidan Scelestus."

Ten myg robots assembled behind her like upright insects, each with six arms and two legs. They followed behind in strict formation as she marched to meet the professor. The fans watching the soccer scrimmage inadvertently forgot a girl sleeping out on the lawn. Max didn't bother to break stride when she stepped over the screaming girl on the way to her target, and neither did the robots.

Axionic patterns flashed through Max's field of vision. Her goggles quickly interpreted them with printed words. They instructed her of all the entrances to that hall, every window, the individual in each room on every floor, and their relative positions. She could read many of the symbols without an interpreter. She didn't achieve her position as captain without being able to read some axionic patterns.