61 - Unsettling

“Literate Redcap,” Darcy said carefully as he stood up and backed away from the horse.  “The horse body is repaired, cleaned and the software has been stripped and re-loaded.”

In the garage, the light panels turned everything into stark glare and shadow, the horse hanging from the service hooks looking dead and slaughtered.  It was so hard to keep the sand out of everything, and the rains, though they’d eased, were still strong enough to carry grit in the droplets.

Darcy desperately wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, but he didn’t dare.  There wasn’t any kind of warning, no hum, nothing.  The horse’s head snapped up, eyes lighting. “I am here.”  It raised its hooves, one at a time, then two together and in sync, then three and finally all four.  The sling let it down onto its feet and the snap of the hooks coming free was loud, even under the steady drone of the wind and rain outside.  The head bobbed up and down, side to side. The ears tilted forward, then back, the tail lashed in all directions, the synthetic hair pinging and crackling against the metal flanks.

All compartments along the body snapped open and shut, the small guns springing out of the shoulders.  “It is a pity that the power sources for heavier guns are too large for this platform.”

Darcy stood, head down, watching under his eyelashes, not daring to say anything.  The guns clicked open as the unit checked to see them fully loaded, then folded away. “Stand back, Illiterate.  Is that my target?”

He scurried back behind the blast wall, folding down his goggles as he did so.  “Yes, Literate Redcap.” The target, a human shape, was in the fire containment box all the way down the garage. The horse’s head came up and the jaw snapped open, the flame thrower blasting out blue-white plasma that incinerated the target and scorched the inside of the container before the suppression foam damped the conflagration.

The head turned to where Darcy stood behind the blast shield, absolutely still.  The inside of the mouth still flickered blue as the last of the by-splash burned, before the metal teeth clashed shut.  “Good enough for such primitive facilities.”  Darcy nearly started.  Redcap acknowledging less than perfect conditions?  It was a wonder.

Redcap walked down to examine the target, inspected the other locked down vehicles, in their protective casings, clip-clopped over to the door and set its nose against the sensor pad for a long moment.  Then trotted back to its slings and submitted to itself being re-hooked and re-slung.  The crane lifted it up and it folded its legs under itself, set its head wrapped around and locked in place under the torso.  “There is no word yet from Prime.  This work is adequately complete. Until the weather turns to allow fragiles out without protection, I see no need to insist that outside work continue.  We shall practice economy and you shall repair to barracks, and tend to fragile needs.  You have… as my master said ‘You have a holiday.’”

Darcy snapped up his goggles and bowed deeply.  “The Literate Redcap is most gracious. Thank you.”

The vaguely horse-shaped block slid into its shelf without responding and Darcy hurried for the door, even though he longed to run.  The lights shut down behind him and he could feel the thin tunnel between the garage and the barracks flex under the pounding rain. Dripping spots showed where holes had been scoured through already.

Thank goodness Redcap understands these rains.  It is actually showing more understanding of conditions than the Immoderate Versace.  But then it doesn’t delude itself, it just accepts facts. It is so… unsettling.  That’s the word my ma would have used for something that scared the spine out of you. Unsettling.