God of the Machine

by Elijah Stephens

  * * * * *

  The emergency Skyride had to work harder when it reached thin air, achieving flight through turbine engines within four massive wheel drums. The rooftops of other buildings fell away as they floated by OIS headquarters and saw the Prototype climbing the skyscraper with a small army of remotely controlled mechs. Having collected every android between the Santa Monica Interchange and the Downtown District, the assorted group was made up of display droids made for storefronts, Concubine droids carved to look like geishas, errand droids built to deliver shopping lists, and butler droids designed for protocol of all types other than diplomatic.

  “Lothian and his mercs are still cornered,” said Odin. “How does it look outside?”

  “None have penetrated yet,” Kyle answered. “But if you don’t let them finish Lothian, they’ll rip through everyone to do it.”

  “The Doc told me your plan,” said the Director. “If a recorded execution is the best we can do, maybe the OIS won’t shut our project down when this is over.”

  After the Skyride reached the rooftop, Arkane jumped out and ran for the access door. The Doc’s droid used the flying medical vehicle to sweep the robots off the side of the building until they swarmed his compartment. To avoid a dangerous landing on the street, he crashed through the upper-level windows and the Prototype’s army came flooding in. Kyle slid down the central column of wires in the elevator to where his wrist-monitor displayed the highest concentration of ambient signatures. He entered the headquarters and found Casey taking cover.

  “Lothian was being prepped for interrogation while Odin was with Tolliver. What’s left of the Africa Corps is now backed into a closed wing designed to keep cyber brains from communicating. It’s impervious to remote electronics, even our own.”

  “So, good news and bad.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “They can’t call for reinforcements if they exist, and we can’t use BAC droids in our assault.”

  “The Prototype’s army will be here soon and we can’t juggle a two-front battle,” he said, following her to where the mercenary presence was lightest.

  “We’re ready for the Prototype,” said Casey. “But we don’t know how to infiltrate the Africa Corps’ position without taking significant losses, and Lothian wouldn’t survive long enough to be tactfully executed, if that’s our plan.”

  Arkane leaned around the corner and was met by a barrage of gunfire. A handful of human security agents were exchanging ammo with the mercs, while Rowan was working as a medic for the injured. The interrogation wing had offices lining the hallway, some for restraining suspects and others for viewing.

  The control rooms were used by agents to program machines during invasive techniques to traverse cybernetic implants in hybridized brain tissue. Nano-machines made localizing neurons easier, but gaining access still required some coercion. Kyle remembered his own inquest with Internal Affairs because the interrogation droids had etiquette chips that made their torture almost polite.

  “What about the air filtration system?” he asked.

  “It’s secure, but the mercs have special lens modifications that hinder OmniField projectors. The chameleon function works but they can see movement.”

  “Where’s Odin?”

  “He’s commanding from his office,” she said. “And he’s working to avoid inclusion of other government agencies to cover up what’s happening with local authorities. Our cleanup crews are surrounding the building in a three block radius. If the public gains information about an insurrection into a government facility, the OIS will fire us all and re-appropriate this building to another agency.”

  * * * * *

  Odin paced through his secured office while speaking Mandarin into his headset. When he got an interrupted line, he switched over and asked what was happening.

  “Kyle is here, sir,” Casey reported. “He knows how to neutralize the enemy.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Send in a fake assault and make it end in catastrophe,” she recounted. “Blow open a specific wall and allow the mercs to believe they’ve made an opening. Once they thin their ranks, we can set them walking into a trap.”

  “Have the Doc coordinate this,” said Odin. “I’m in a battle of politics and protocol with the head office. The men who designed the Prototype for the government don’t believe our theory about a livewire ghost. To be honest, this is the only time I’ve ever seen bureaucracy actually help a mission.”

  * * * * *

  In the hall under heavy fire, Casey switched channels on her comm-piece. “Doc, are you there?”

  “This is Vassil, go ahead.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Rearranging the conference room to be compatible with Full Immersion Systems. I’ve connected our self-integrated androids by using an antiquated algorithm that the Prototype won’t be aware of, but if there’s much Eperiam Townsend in that thing other than a quantum wave transfer, our robot guards will quickly become our enemies.”

  “Are you and the Doc secured?” she asked, with Arkane running reconnaissance in front of her.

  “This conference room could take a missile,” said Vassil. “It’s a puppetmaster position from here. The Doc is uploading dimensional floor plans to Kyle. Here he is.”

  She looked at the hidden security sensors. “How many agents do we have?”

  “Bare bones,” replied the Doc. “We’re setting up sentry drones as we speak. Vassil will run interference, but we don’t have enough droids to hold back the Prototype’s army.”

  After the schematics loaded to his wrist-monitor, Arkane saw where Lothian and his men were blocked in. Beyond the far wall was the internal stairwell, with long platforms around an open shaft designed to vent smoke from lower levels in case of a fire.

  “Doc, this is Kyle. Get snipers and spotters into the northwest stairwell.”

  “There’s no access from the interrogation wing.”

  “I know,” he said. “We’re going to make one. Send in a Strike Team of programmed droids through the ventilation ducts. Since brain actuated control is blocked, pre-set each unit and coordinate one to self-destruct near the wall by the outer corridor. The mercs will think they got lucky, and when they file out, snipers can pick them off.”

  “Remember that Lothian is an able commander.”

  “And he’s cornered,” said Kyle. “If he’s been prepped for interrogation, he already got the Serum, and that cocktail doesn’t leave you in the best mental condition, believe me. He’s working on instinct, so give him a way out. Just make it look convincing.”

  “The relay on the execution of Colton Tolliver was perfect,” said the Doc. “The recording will be added to whatever you managed to pick up from the Graveyard. If the OIS doesn’t believe that Townsend’s ghost hijacked the XR-41’s objectives, the death of Lothian in an unofficial way will mean the end of Project Archangel. Countermeasures for the Prototype are lowtech, so our timing has to be perfect or its remote droids will set it free.”

  * * * * *

  With disheveled hair and circles under his eyes, a battered John Lothian leaned against the wall and looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. After a liquid fire injection had scorched his nerves from the inside out, he pushed the barrel of his rifle against his cheek to savor the cold sensation. The others were realizing the weakness of their Commander when the roof panels opened and flare grenades were tossed down.

  The Doc broke the Africa Corps into separate groups by sending the droids in at strategic spots. With perfect timing, one purposefully overloaded its fuel cell and exploded, creating a hole in the wall beside it. Appearing as if a stray bullet had achieved their freedom, the mercs started filing into the corridor beyond. Lothian protested that something wasn’t right when he saw movement on the external wire networks above him. Before he could alert the others, Kyle used the third orb from his cylinder and unleashed a concussive detonation, f
lattening everyone in the hall with a blastcharge.

  The mercs that had escaped through the hole and into the stairwell ran into sniper teams positioned along the platforms. In the confined space, the OIS soldiers avoided using silencers so that the full velocity of their bullets would cut through body armor without resistance. The frantic mercs attached waistwires and jumped over the railing, where they slid down high-tension ropes into an ambush of security agents waiting to shred them with rail-fire.

  In the interrogation wing, Cassandra and Arkane dropped to the floor after their chameleon projectors malfunctioned. She zapped Lothian with a shock rod, then pulled him into the nearest room before the others recovered from the concussion orb. They tried to shoot Kyle, but he directed the kinetic energy aside with blue lightwaves rolling around him. The sprinkler system was punctured when their bullets tore up the wall, and the Africa Corps’ half-light implants started getting frequency overloads. With a localized distortion unit, security agents moved into the surrounding hallways and overwhelmed them.

  When it was finally over, the chaos fell silent.

  “Session sensors are recording,” said the Doc.

  Arkane walked into the interrogation room and saw that Cassandra had little trouble pinning Lothian to the floor. “Tell me when,” he said, checking his wrist-monitor.

  OIS agents were busy with a horde of robots, but when the XR-41 was singled out from the task droids, a BAC unit with a canon fired a glob of sticky adhesive foam that pinned the Prototype against the wall and covered it in quick-drying glue. The head and hands still twitched, but it was suspended in place.

  “Go ahead,” said the Doc.

  Kyle picked up the Commander. “For crimes against the First World Government, this is the appearance of civilization.” He pointed to the sensors in the corner. “And this is justice.” He pulled the trigger and shot John Lothian in the face.

  * * * * *

  At the moment that the Prototype became inactive, so did the small army it was controlling. Without its phantom programming, the XR-41 was a tool once again under control. While their droids were busy moving heaps of public-use robots into piles of scrap, the OIS finally relaxed.

  When staff medics arrived, Rowan was able to leave the injured soldiers and join the others at the Prototype. The Doc and Vassil were using a portable unit to connect wires to the glue that kept it stuck to the wall. The magnetic re-electric liquid became gelatinous again before the Asian Prototype was carefully lowered to the ground.

  The Director asked, “How many casualties?”

  “Plenty of injuries, sir, but no fatalities. I’m better at this than I thought,” said Rowan, looking at the growing piles of humanoid junk. “We only have a few droids left, and anything that can be salvaged from this is likely useless.”

  “This is our future anyway.” Odin nodded to the dismantled XR-41. He was smiling, though his eyepatch was soaked in blood. “We deserve something for our troubles, don’t we? According to OIS protocol, we’ve done nothing wrong. The trial of the Africa Corps was over before it started and the executions were merely a formality. Since they were carried out in a diplomatic manner, CytoHuman Resources can now be used on local security missions.”

  Arkane was surprised. “You’re sure about this?”

  “A story has a life of its own once it reaches an audience,” Odin replied. “The only bureaucracy with a viable complaint is the War Department of the Chinese Government. Without proof that we have the Prototype, they have no choice but to accept the loss. They can track the thieves who stole it, but they’re all dead and being taken to our disposal incinerator as we speak.”

  When the Doc attached a small device to the nodes on the back of the machine’s head, they hesitated to believe that it was deactivated. “This is the work of a genius, it’ll take a while to dissect. It spent years in development and should provide us with plenty of technology for reverse engineers.”

  “Everyone wants to be here for that, right?” Casey got a quick read of the group to make sure that they wanted to remain with the team. As deep as they would be going into Black Operations, she needed to be certain that they were willing to be there. The group was united to her satisfaction, so she turned to Odin and nodded.

  * * * * *

  A few days later, the Director sat in his office watching the news. After all the data sheets and networking through government offices, he was taking a short break. While Vassil relaxed on one of the lounge chairs, immersed in the Wire, Cassandra worked on a laptop at the conference table.

  When Kyle walked in, Odin looked up. “Any good news?”

  Arkane looked dazed with happiness and very little sleep. “My wife gave birth to a boy. I need some downtime, do you have any idea what our next mission will be?”

  “We’re no longer in cybernetic counter-terrorism, but we are having more trouble with the Tolliver MegaCorporation and a classified eugenics program that brought something back from the wastelands of Asia.” Odin was fixated on the screen. He turned up the volume when the broadcast caught his interest.

  The newscaster was an Asian woman, human from top to bottom. “…reporting robot theft on a massive scale near the Business District of Los Angeles. The police are investigating a possible glitch with a recall function on public-use models which has previously instigated random abandonment of their jobs. The following update is from the Office of International Security, which has disseminated the recorded executions of the masterminds in a secret plot of the Tolliver MegaCorporation to use mercenaries in a military coup against the First World Government here in Beijing.”

  The video displayed what Kyle had been working on at the city library. The collection of illegal activity was a string of unsolved crimes internationally perpetrated by unknown suspects, until the discovery of Colton Tolliver’s activities. His Africa Corps was initially a force for good, but after their altruistic purpose had been achieved, they were used in sabotage, political assassinations, information espionage, and black market acquisitions to boost the standing of Tolliver’s company.

  They hid behind their reputation and no one knew who controlled them until the video. The full weight of history became an automatic death sentence for the perpetrators. After a speedy verdict was announced, even though the audience was unaware that it had occurred after the fact, the executions of Colton Tolliver and John Lothian were televised.

  Odin looked victorious. “The entire world just saw this.”

  “Congratulations about your son,” Casey told Kyle. After slight reflection, she asked, “Do you think he’ll have your powers?”

  A newsbreak cut into the regular broadcast and the anchorwoman transitioned from sensationalistic exploitation to read an important story coming in. “The man who devoted his life to feeding the world, a man considered by many to be a modern day prophet, Joshua Maitreya, was shot and killed today by unknown gunmen. Maitreya was employed by Global Concern Unlimited on a fact-finding mission in MesoAmerica to study the impact of recent wave formation on a land already decimated by tsunamis and climate change. Witnesses reported that he was aiding refugees when he was approached by assailants and murdered. Due to the location, no video footage is available. Funeral services will be broadcast on...”

  Vassil lifted his Braincase transmitter helmet after he heard the news and sat in shock with Odin and Cassandra, who shared the same expression. When Kyle looked beyond the Director’s office, the scientists setting up their workstations were frozen with the same look of disbelief.