Rise of the Machines: Book 1: Once Awakened

by Briana Ervin

  'Please'?? “What do you want with me?” I demanded, “Why am I here? Why do you have a Support model too?”

  “Wouldn't I like to know...” the first soldier grumbled under his breath. Scaln blinked, and looked back at his array of... acquaintances... behind him.

  There was no order, but the soldiers slowly lowered their weapons. A stupid move, but perhaps they trusted me already.

  “I'll tell you,” Scaln said slowly, “just, please...”

  “TELL ME,” I barked.

  “Okay, okay! I'll tell you!” Scaln sputtered. “I'd rather tell you AND Cyrii, when she's not...” I glared at him, and he skipped to the point. “Um... we found you. In the battle. I've been looking for Cyrii for uh, a long time. I was hoping that she would be rebellious enough to make... you.”

  What is that supposed to mean? I thought, only narrowing my eye further in suspicion.

  “Can we shoot it now?” the first soldier asked.

  “What? No! It's a 56 model mech! That's like shooting a steel wall!” Scaln said. “Besides, we want to preserve the models they're phasing out!”

  “Phasing out?” I asked. I felt like I was getting more questions than answers!

  Scaln sighed. “This is the most awkward time to say this, especially because you could kill everyone on the ship right now,”

  “Scaln...” the soldier grumbled, but he continued:

  “but the Empire isn't what you're programmed to think it is. It's not the best thing in the universe, and Cyrii knows it! That's why she made you different. And that's why I had Clide enhance everything she didn't quite touch up on.

  “We need you to be different, because the Empire is failing, and it's failing because we're on the wrong side. The Empire says that the IR – the Intergalactic Republic – is your Enemy, but did you even know it was called the IR? Were you ever told how the war began? What happened? Why we're involved?

  “Look, I've done a lot of research on who's the 'good side'... and I know who it is now.

  “It's not the Empire.”

  ----------

  I was left in shocked silence. A couple of wires crossed and misfired when he said that. In retrospect, I can see now why Scaln wanted to wait until Cyrii was conscious, because if she was, I wouldn't have been reliant on streams of bits alone to reason out what I just heard.

  Sides... loyalty... can't be changed. Don't think about it. Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it....

  “I know, it makes no sense, but... bear with me here,” Scaln paused to look at the grated-voice soldier. “Release the prisoner. It's the only way to remove hostility.”

  “You said yourself that... your daughter, might be allied with the Apex powers,” he said.

  “I know, but it's basic protocol for a mech to protect its pilot. This whole situation is a bad idea.”

  The soldier gave Scaln a long, hard stare through his visor. I could only see pinpoint dots of light coming through it, but otherwise he remained an ambiguous humanoid.

  “If you say so,” he grumbled. He slowly approached a panel near the door, which was still wide open from my “hacking attempt”, and opened its door. Since it swung out on the wrong side, I could only stare in frustration at the door as it blocked my view.

  There were a couple of beeps, and the laser grid of bars in Cyrii's cell powered down. I immediately walked backwards into it, closer to her motionless, bandaged body, while keeping an eye on the crowd and on the soldiers in particular.

  “Well? Now what?” asked the spidery female soldier. Scaln hesitated, watching me closely. I didn't drop my guard.

  “We can't go in until Cyrii is awake. Just stay away for now.”

  “'Stay away', he says. 'Wait until they're both awake', he says,” the first soldier huffed, “I'm tallying this. Third time that thing has tried to kill us and you stood by idle.” He slammed the panel door shut.

  Everyone jumped as a speaker in the corner of the room suddenly began to speak in a smooth tone: “Actually, fourth.”

  Scaln let out a huge sigh of relief. “Theta! You're okay!”

  “Y – ah,” the speaker cut out for a second, “ran a diagnostic. That hunk of – etal is what took out the thermal def – ystem.”

  I simply stood in silence, trying not to look around in curiosity while crammed in the cell. Another AI?? Where was it?

  “That was what melted the cockpit?!” One of the other soldiers backed up a bit, ready to raise his weapon.

  “Don't freak out! Yes, they're designed to do that!” Scaln said hastily.

  “Almost killed me...” the female soldier mumbled.

  “Four times!” the first soldier barked.

  “I know!! Look, just... Clide, go check on 433.” Scaln was now exasperated. The blue alien engineer was glad to leave the room, bolting out from his hiding place and disappearing into the hallway. I suspected that 433 was the golden mech.

  “Your clearance tactics will do nothing,” I said confidently.

  “I know,” Scaln said, “your priorities have been rearranged.”

  We held the gaze for a moment. The nurses and the marsupial, who were all cowering behind the soldiers before, were recovering but still wary. The soldiers themselves did nothing, though they were clearly growing fidgety.

  I was fidgety too, continuously shifting position like I didn't have enough stability on the ground. There was a thread running around screaming in my head, pointing at all of the potential threats in front of me; that's the best way to put how it felt, anyway. It was maddening.

  Then suddenly, something didn't add up. Scaln said to go fetch 433, but 433 is a mech, so he can't function without a pilot. Was Scaln not his pilot, or was he being brought over without booting? Or...

  No. Unlikely. I discarded the idea. Only rebel machines fit that description.

  Two minutes later and I was proved wrong. Clide had returned sheepishly, but remained out in the hallway, instead letting someone else come in.

  High priority threat! I reacted immediately, training my guns on him. Scaln jumped along with the rest of the soldiers, who raised their weapons again.

  “Relax, 767!” he shouted. The gold mech stopped in the doorway, giving me the same, bored look he had before.

  “Knock knock?” he asked.

  “It's fine, just... slowly,” Scaln assured. I hissed in denial. The mech ignored me, coming in closer. Now that he was in the room I only grew more tense.

  “Shall I wait outside?” he deadpanned, “or did you give your little speech already?”

  Scaln rolled his eyes. “Just stay ready.”

  “I'm not latching on again.”

  “I'm not asking you to!”

  “If he touches me I'm riddling his body with bullets,” I threatened.

  “Can we not do this right now?!” Scaln barked.

  “You basically asked for it, Scaln,” the first soldier pointed out.

  “I know, but it's too crowded in here, and we need defense,” Scaln finally divulged his idea. “433, I just need you to stay on guard here. Do not engage, not without me in there. Everyone else, vacate.”

  “Is that such a good idea?” the female soldier asked, folding her second pair of arms behind her back. “What if we return to a destroyed infirmary?”

  “We can't move this without moving Cyrii, and we can't move Cyrii without moving this.” Scaln gestured between her and I. “I'm just working with what we have.”

  “Do what he says,” Theta suddenly spoke up again, “I'm pumping way too mu – ygen in that room – cause you're all in there.”

  So Theta IS an AI, I determined, storing away all of my observations in my database. Or at least, it's highly likely.

  The marsupial doctor – a strange, short, furry little creature – gladly left right away. The nurses followed. Slowly, the soldiers filtered out as well, with Scaln giving a pointed look at the first one who wanted to stay. He inched toward the door, before finally exiting. Scaln walked out, loo
ked at the destroyed keypad, and muttered something before he too disappeared.

  So. Now it was just 433 and I. Cyrii and Theta too, if either of them did anything soon. I didn't dare to swivel around and check on Cyrii's vital signs; if Scaln was right, then they would want to preserve both of us, so I could trust the android nurses for having kept Cyrii alive. Instead, I simply held a steady gaze with 433.

  If someone was in here watching us, he would have thought a staring contest was more animated. Neither of us had a reason to act alive, so we simply sat, motionless, unwavering and stolid. Once or twice we would refocus our cameras, or I would shift, or he would lean against the back wall in pure boredom, but other than that it was silent; so quiet from us being motionless that you could only hear the atmospheric vent in the wall gently blowing air and the faint, maddening hum of the lights. Now that I wasn't completely focused on protecting Cyrii, I began to scan him quietly without using my actual scanner, picking up interpretive data on him. Judging by Scaln's instructions, he was indeed unmanned, but that meant he had a BIOS overhaul, just like what Cyrii did with me. Which meant that he was handicapped, just like I was, without a conscious helping him with everything. With that thought, I realized that I must have slower processes because Cyrii manually overclocked me to make sure I had maximum power without exploding, and Clide must have set the limit back a bit. Which meant that without Cyrii I was unable to move as fast as I could in that battle.

  Memories of the battle filled me with euphoria. What a great feeling! So satisfactory. I couldn't figure out why, but it just felt so.... right.

  433 broke eye contact for just a second to look at the speaker set in the corner, before looking back at me; the moment gave me a breather from my high anxiety, and I glanced at the speaker as well. I didn't know what he was looking for, but it must not have been there. Well, back to thinking.

  He was a model I didn't recognize, which made me wonder if he was a prototype that never made it out to testing – begging the question of how was he standing here right now, fully functional – or if it was a model never meant for the battlefield, which was more likely. Yet, I went through my database for mech types, and none of them matched how fragile he was built, all thin limbs and only one weapon noted of so far. Then again, that weapon was extremely annoying...

  Time ticked by. If I was in 433's position I would see the digital clock on the wall, simply clicking away. Instead I could see nothing but his green eye. I was getting fidgety from the lack of action, trying to occupy myself with useless observations like 433's blast shield shape; he looked bored simply because it consisted of two flat panels, instead of the more complex V shape I had that gave me a perpetual glare. He also didn't care to stare right at me anymore, which lessened the tension enough that I crouched down, raising my own blast shield. Five more minutes of bored silence – and my increasing twitchiness – and we were both comfortable enough to start looking around. We still had staring contests, to be sure, but it wasn't constant now. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't have noticed a presence showing up in my head.

  Hm? I hummed in curiosity.

  “Ow, my head...”

  CYRII! I cried. You're alive!

  “Yeah?” she seethed. “767... what's going on? What is this place?”

  I ignored her questions, instead showering her with my own: Are you okay? Are you bleeding? You didn't have any casts. Are you bruised? How do you feel?

  “Relax! I'm fine!... -ish... Just some bruises.” She suppressed a pained growl. “What's up with your voice...?”

  I was repaired, I answered honestly.

  “'Repaired'?” she echoed. I felt her weight shifted forward to the front of my head, and she leaned on my control panel. “Who's that guy? Did he do it?”

  He did the opposite, I said bitterly, but an engineer on the ship bothered to replace the parts of me that fried. I think he's some kind of Superiority model, but there's nothing on him in my database.

  “Oh, goody......Ship?”

  I hesitated. I wasn't sure how to break the news to Cyrii, but she surprised me by letting out a sudden, realizing huff. “Oh... right. I was hoping that was just a concussion...”

  What? I asked.

  “I woke up in a weird place, with really bizarre things around me. I don't know why I had passed out in the first place... I ran off to find you, and I did, and tried to turn you back on, but they had stabbed me with something. I don't know what it was, but it numbed me all over.”

  And you fell asleep...

  “Yeah...”

  I recalled my static-filled memory, and wondered if it was a faulty data wipe. My archives weren't designed to be rewritable; it made sense that it was two minutes of me booting up, then the aliens abruptly shutting me down because Cyrii tried to escape. I wasn't sure if I was happy or dismayed that she tried to leave with me instead of finding a stealthier, more successful way.

  I had woken up in some sort of pod, I continued, There was another mech in that area, but I couldn't tell who it was. It might have been Alesia.

  “Alesia?” Cyrii gasped.

  Yeah. She was powered down too.

  “Just the mech?”

  Yes.

  “Why would they want her?” Cyrii mused, and I didn't have an answer. The aliens that kidnapped us had to have a reason for it though, and it stands to reason that them being involved in the attack means they're Enemies. Although, if they're Enemies... why would they repair me, or keep Cyrii alive, or have Alesia...?

  I decided to skip over the idea, continuing with my story: An alien and this gold mech greeted me. We fought until we broke down, and the alien repaired us both. I discovered that we're on one of the spacecraft that attacked the military complex, the one where we melted down the thermal cosmic weapon.

  “Enemy territory? Alesia?” Cyrii made a muffled growling sound, confused. “So... so why aren't you gunning the place down?! I programmed you better than that!”

  They fixed me. They obviously want us able-bodied for something, I reasoned.

  “You don't know if that's a good thing.”

  But I met... I paused. I met another Xinschi-uual.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Another Xinschi-uual? Tell me it's a prisoner.”

  He claims to be your father. He defended the other entities on this ship when they threatened me for running off to find you.

  Cyrii made a strange, disbelieving gagging noise. “W-What? You kidding me?”

  That's what he said.

  She immediately rejected the idea with an audible shake of her scales. “No. My father is on Zirhon. He's never been anywhere outside of the city.”

  But this Xinschi-uual-

  “No, 767. He's lying. I mean, why would my father be up here?” She scoffed, “Hah! He has everything! He's an accountant for a government official! He maintains his mech! My mother even said it. She works as a mining surveyor, so I've moved coal from mines she planted herself, seen her myself, talked to her myself-”

  He knows your name, Cyrii.

  “N-no,” she stubbornly denied.

  It's true! I can bring up the audio file.

  She said nothing, gripping my controls with stubborn anger.

  Cyrii?

  She inhaled sharply. “I feel better now,” she said flatly. “Let's destroy this ship and go back to the complex.”

  D-Destroy it? I was taken aback by the sudden hostility, which I normally didn't mind, but an idea was occurring to me. But this is an opportunity!

  “An opportunity to what?” she said, unusually testy.

  We can tell the Empire about this! We can gather intel, describe the ship, describe our experiences... it could triple our defensive efficiency! I pointed out, They already trust us, so they're just as stupid as we were told. We can take so much from them!

  Cyrii was quiet as she digested this. “You think we could do any of that?”

  It can't be hard, right? I persuaded. And once they catch on to us
, we could commandeer-

  “You done?” 433 suddenly spoke. I cut my words off. Cyrii tightened her grip. When I didn't respond, he added, “Don't act surprised, your pilot is gone and I see the door. There's only one place she could be, and one thing she could be doing.”

  “Will you stop us?” I asked, thinking he was referring to an attack.

  “Theta is listening,” he answered.

  We paused, and I glanced up at the speaker. Nothing came from it.

  “Theta?” Cyrii whispered to me, as though 433 could hear her.

  I believe it's an AI with some control over the ship, I answered.

  “Great,” she said sarcastically.

  What would you like me to do? I obediently asked her. She didn't respond, still holding on to the controls.

  The only thing keeping me from leaving now was 433, and even then if I could fire at his hands and damage them sufficiently fast enough, I could escape without having to worry about him. Not unless he had another trick up his sleeve. Simulating the attack in my head though proved that he reacted very fast... it may be more efficient to lock a missile onto him and melt him back down; a nice, lumpy, pile of goo, just the way he was meant to be.

  “Just saying, your simulations are... terrifying,” Cyrii commented.

  Why is that?

  “Uh, no reason. Carry on.”

  I guess she expected me to launch an attack. I decided to idle just for a little longer though, to see if 433 did anything first.

  Instead, the idling granted me a chance to see Scaln again. He returned with a more dignified gait, wearing blue Xinschi-uual robes – used for the engineering class of society – which was different from his plain garb from before. I anticipated a response from Cyrii, but she was dead silent. The brown, striped being looked back and forth between 433 and I, before leaning toward the former's side to face me.

  “Is Cyrii awake?” he asked.

  “She's in,” 433 answered for me. Cyrii and I bristled; me for having the question answered for me, and her for realizing I was telling the truth. Scaln sighed.

  “Good. It's been plenty long. I'm sure they would like a proper room, to show that we trust them and should be trusted in turn.” He looked at me very specifically, as if he could see Cyrii inside. I could feel her tracing one of her thumbs around a button on the control panel. Apparently it wouldn't have mattered if I had Cyrii earlier to keep me calm, because she wanted me to blast these two to pieces as well.