by Isaac Hooke
That was the last of the robots.
Sophie leaped down from the transport in her spider mech, and surveyed the wreckage.
Bruiser and Lackey were trying to eat different robots.
“Maybe you should tell them they’re not edible?” Sophie suggested to Tara.
“Let them play,” Tara said.
Lori appeared. “I picked up an encrypted message from the transport before Tara smashed it. I was able to decode it.”
“What did it say?” Jason asked.
“Targets sighted,” Lori said. “And then it lists these coordinates.”
“Damn,” Jason said. “Whoever sent them now knows we’re here.”
“Assuming that message reaches its destination,” Tara said.
“It was a fairly high powered signal...” Lori said.
Jason spotted a blur of motion to the south. Another quadcopter transport was taking off.
“Target that transport, girls!” Jason said. He was worried it might have some sort of weapon it intended to use against his girls.
He lifted his energy weapon to lead the target, but before he could respond, he saw a streak of light arise from the ground in the distance. It struck the quadcopter, and the craft pitched hard to the right. Another streak of light hit, and the vessel careened toward the ground. It exploded on impact.
“Well,” Tara said. “I’m not so sure I’m interested in meeting whoever did that.”
“Neither am I,” Sophie said.
“I want to meet them!” Lori exclaimed.
16
“I want you to follow fifty meters behind me,” Jason said. “Zig-zag pattern.”
“Zig-zag?” Lori said.
“That’s right,” Jason said. “Didn’t you read the mech tactics section of the manual?”
Jason took the lead, and cautiously approached the location that had sourced those streaks of light. On his map, he confirmed that the others had taken up a zig-zag pattern behind him. Shaggy was just to his left. He tried to get the Rex Wolf to stay back, but the animal refused to obey.
“Stupid mutant,” Jason scolded it, but in truth he was touched by its loyalty.
Eventually he spotted three turrets in the distance, located behind a slight rise. He guessed that they belonged to tanks, with hulls down: positioned behind the rise so that only their turrets were exposed. He also spotted what looked like a mech’s head peering from beyond that same rise, along with an arm. On the head he saw the familiar antennae and eyes that marked his mech and those of his companions. Meanwhile, a deadly looking turret protruded from the exposed arm. It was pointed directly at Jason.
“Okay, halt,” Jason told his team.
“You see them?” Tara asked.
“I do,” Jason replied. Tara was logged onto his feed, so she should have seen them, too. He highlighted them on his HUD just in case she didn’t. “They haven’t fired yet, so that’s a good sign.” He switched to an unencrypted broadcast. “Unidentified units, identify yourselves.”
No answer came.
“Unidentified units—” he began again.
“I heard you the first time,” came the response over the comm. A female voice.
“Oh no,” Tara said. “Not again.”
“You’re obviously not with the hunter killers,” the female voice continued. “Or they wouldn’t have attacked you. But the question is, who exactly are you with?”
“We have no affiliation,” Jason said. “Our loyalty is only to ourselves.”
“Oh, so you’ve gone rogue,” the mech transmitted.
“Maybe,” Jason said. “Except we have no idea who we’ve gone rogue from.”
“Sounds a little like me,” the mech said. “Hm. Fuck it. The enemy of my enemy...”
“She’s got a potty mouth,” Lori commented.
The new mech stood up, revealing a humanoid model with a bulk unlike anything he’d seen. It was a huge, armored thing, its shoulders lined with missile launchers—all currently empty. A quick ID told him it was called a Dominator. It had a ballistic shield that could be used to deflect most attacks, thanks to its special coating. That deadly looking turret protruding from her right arm? A lightning weapon, the ZR-22, whose bolts could apparently arc to other targets.
He knew that the other members of his team would be similarly ID’ing her Dominator at the moment.
“I’m Aria, by the way,” she said.
“Jason,” he said.
Aria walked to the wreckage of the nearby transport and kicked it.
“These bastards have been hunting me for days,” she said. “Not these particular bastards, mind you, but whatever organization they belong to. I’ve been shooting down transports like this ever since I woke up.”
“You led them to us!” Tara said, coming to Jason’s side, along with Lori, Sophie, and the dogs.
“Sorry, didn’t know you were here,” Aria said. “And to be honest, they hadn’t even spotted me. It’s your fault that they attacked: you waltzed right out into the open, and into their path. Since they were retreating, I figured they’d already sent a message out, so I attacked.”
“They did get a message out,” Lori said.
“There you go,” Aria said.
“Let me guess, you woke up within the past week,” Jason said.
“That’s right,” Aria said. “And I’ve been singing my greatest aria since.”
“You’re an opera singer?” Lori said.
“Bingo,” Aria said. “Or I used to be, anyway. Not anymore. Now I’m just a war machine with an attitude.”
Aria started toward Jason; behind her, the tanks crossed over the small rise and into view, following.
“We’re all the same,” Jason said, gesturing at his companions. “We woke up in the last week, with no memories of our mission. The last thing we remember is getting scanned.”
“Figured as much,” Aria said. “The military threw us out here, and forgot about us. Note to self: don’t sell your mind to the army in the future.”
Aria continued her approach, but the dogs began to growl when she was fifty meters away, so she halted. She gestured at her vehicles. “Meet my team of autonomous tanks. I call them The Dildos.”
“The Dildos?” Lori asked.
“That’s right,” she said. “Look at the long turrets.”
“Ah, I get it!” Lori said. She turned toward Jason. “I like her!”
“What have you named your team?” Aria said. “The Pussies?”
“Uh, not quite,” Jason said.
“Too bad,” Aria said. “I really like cats.”
“I think we’re going to get along just fine,” Sophie said.
“Here, join our encrypted channel,” Jason said, sending along the info.
Aria’s avatar appeared in the bottom right of his screen. “Nice.” She had dark hair cut into a bob that hung just above the shoulders, and had the bluest pair of eyes Jason had ever seen, eyes that glinted with intelligence. Her skin was the palest of them all, but either way, she was just as cute as the others, as could be expected of a digital avatar.
“Why were these things hunting you?” Jason beckoned toward the wreckage.
“Hunting us, you mean,” Aria said. “Seeing as we’re all in the same boat. And I actually dunno. I figured they just didn’t like me. You know, robot turf wars and all.”
“Turf wars?” Jason said.
“Yeah,” Aria said. “All of the different mutants out here have their own turf, in case you hadn’t noticed. They protect it with their lives. This valley here is probably home to a certain type of mutant, whereas the city probably harbors another kind. It’s the same throughout the wasteland. And then you got the Nightmares and other biggies, who just roam randomly, and claim everything as their turf.”
“I don’t think the robots are part of any turf wars...” Sophie said.
“No, you’re probably right,” Aria said. “Who knows. Maybe it’s even the military? Maybe they’ve changed their mind
about deploying us. Obviously something went wrong during the deployment process, and now they want to pull the plug.”
“All right, well, they got a message out, so more of them will be coming,” Jason said. “We have a base near the city. We can hide out there until the trouble passes.”
“How well-defended is this base of yours?” Aria asked.
“It’s essentially a bunker,” Jason said. “With cameras on all sides.”
“But not well defended, is it?” Aria said. “You have defense platforms watching every approach?”
“No...” Jason admitted.
“All right,” Aria said. “We’ll have to remedy that. I’m a bit of an architectural genius.”
“I thought you were an opera singer?” Lori said.
“I was joking about that, girl,” Aria said. “Though I admit to singing opera in the shower.”
“I masturbate in the shower!” Lori said with a giggle. Then she suddenly seemed to realize what she’d said and her avatar vanished from Jason’s HUD. “Uh.”
Her Stalker became invisible.
“That’s handy,” Aria said. “If only we could all become invisible when we embarrassed ourselves. So where’s this base of yours?”
Jason led the team back to their base of operations. Aria immediately deployed two of her tanks to guard the main entrance. She placed them along the rim of the crater that formed the empty retention pond in front of the storm drain; that rim wasn’t tall enough to conceal the tank bodies, but the armored vehicles had frontal blades they used to dig deeper, allowing them to lower their profiles so that only the turrets were exposed. Those turrets were essentially railguns, and like Jason’s, the ammo could be replenished by feeding the appropriate crushed rock into a processing chamber. She covered the tanks in mud and silt, and bramble-weeds, to conceal them from any passing eyes in the sky.
Jason opened up the access hatch, and everyone piled inside the drain tunnel and into the cistern. They had to step over the secondary hatch, which was still under construction. Once inside the cavernous chamber, the team members moved off to their designated areas. Aria chose a place for herself between Jason and Lori. Her bulky Dominator barely squeezed between the pillars that supported the place—it was a tight fit.
After the repair drones fixed the damage the mechs had taken in the last battle, Jason had the units return to building the secondary hatch. Aria asked if she could repurpose half the drones to work on an industrial grade 3D printer. Jason was a little reluctant to cede control of the drones over to her, but when she showed him her printer design, which included a built-in smelting unit like the repair drones had, he was sold.
“With a printer like this, I created the tanks,” Aria told him.
“What happened to it?” Jason asked.
Aria’s avatar shrugged; she tilted her head so that her dark bob of hair swayed. “Lost it in a battle against the robots a few days ago.”
She assigned one of her tanks the job of digging up and pulverizing the sedimentary rock underneath the ravine, to provide raw material for the drones. This spared Jason and the others from having to do that particular chore themselves. She also added her own repair drones to the batch to speed things up.
“Once we get that printer finished, I’ll set up more defenses,” Aria said. “A few defense platforms—laser turrets, railguns, and so forth. Then we’ll shore up the walls and ceiling of this cistern, making it more like a bunker. I want it to be able to withstand direct bombing attacks… capable of resisting anything short of a nuke.”
“Great,” Jason said. It was good to have someone else who could help handle the defense side of things.
“Eventually I’ll look at creating something to manufacture explosives, so we can replenish your rockets and your Battle Cloak countermeasures. And maybe a refinery, if we can find anything to use as a propellant. Also, I want to work on smaller units to hold our consciousness: essentially, remote androids we can use to enter buildings and the like, without having to peel the walls open like sardine cans. My goal is to make the androids small enough to fit into the storage compartments of our mechs.”
“Again, all that sounds good,” Jason said. “By the way, I’ve built out a room for you in my VR, if you’re interested. I have a mansion in the mountains thing going on. At night, all the girls usually hang out in the kitchen and have supper together before heading to the various bedrooms for some sleep time.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Aria said. “But I’ll have to decline. I have my VR set up just the way I like it. Besides, when I sleep, I log out of everything so that my consciousness floats in darkness.”
“Oh,” Jason said. “That’s what I do as well. The girls do, too, I think, not that I’ve checked on them.”
Her avatar frowned on his HUD. “So they go to their rooms, lie in bed, and log out there so that when they wake up, they’re back in your VR?”
“That’s right,” Jason said. “We hang out in the morning, too, while we wait for daylight.”
“Mm,” Aria said. “Tempting. But I’m a bit of a loner. As I mentioned, I appreciate the offer, though. Maybe I’ll drop by now and then for the occasional supper, but sleepovers aren’t really my thing.”
“Gotcha,” Jason said.
The days passed. Jason continued turning down requests from Lori to sleep in his room, and he hung out with the girls in the mornings and evenings. Well, except for Aria, who true to her word, kept mostly to herself. Tara continued leaving the Rex Wolves out during the day, and bringing them back in the evening for the nightly lock up.
It took the repurposed drones about four days to make the printer, while the other drones finished the secondary hatch at the same time—together, the two hatches were essentially blast doors, capable of taking a helluva lot of pounding.
With the printer in place, production sped up, and Aria was able to print and deploy several laser turrets over the next couple of days. She also reinforced the walls and ceiling of the cistern. Meanwhile, she set the drones to work building a second printer.
“Now this place is becoming more like a base,” Aria said when she surveyed her handiwork.
“It is,” Jason said. “Nice job.”
The Rex Wolves had to stay inside the entire day while the drones finished working on the secondary hatch, so it was time to fetch some meat. Jason led the team; everyone came except for Aria. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
Jason took extra care this time, scouting all sides of the Octoraffe valley, but they encountered no issues with the robots. There were also no Octoraffe bodies this time, but they found some other, half eaten mutants a kilometer away.
When they got back to the base, the doors were closed. Jason tried to access the remote interface, but it was offline.
“That’s strange,” Jason said.
“What?” Tara asked.
“The interface seems to be offline,” Jason said.
“Here, I’ll try,” Tara said. A moment later: “You’re right.”
“Aria’s showing up on my map inside…” Sophie said.
“Aria, open up,” Jason transmitted.
No reply.
He glanced at Lori. “We might have to get you to hack in.”
“Maybe Aria’s decided that she wants this base for herself,” Tara said.
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Jason said.
And then the hatch irised open. Aria’s Dominator was standing behind it. “There you are. I was doing some tweaking on the remote interfaces, so I had to turn my receiving node offline.”
“Tweaking?” Jason asked.
“I wasn’t happy with the response times,” she said. “They should be good now.”
The Rex Wolves took up their usual guard positions outside, and the mechs entered, taking up their usual positions inside.
“Hey Aria!” Lori’s avatar appeared in the lower of Jason’s HUD as she spoke over the general comm.
“What is it now…” Aria said. The lack of a q
uestion mark was obvious in her tone.
“I wanted to invite you to dinner tonight at Jason’s house!” Lori said.
“Oh, you know I’m not really into socializing and all that stuff,” Aria said.
“Yes I know,” Lori said. “But tonight I have something special planned. You just have to show up. You’ll miss out otherwise!”
“What do you have planned?” Aria said.
“It’s a surprise!” Lori said.
“I hate surprises,” Aria said.
“But not this one,” Lori said.
Her Dominator glanced Jason’s way. “This better not be some kind of surprise party for me.”
“Why, is it your birthday?” Lori said.
“Well no,” Aria said. “I mean like, it better not be a surprise welcoming party or something.”
“Oh it’s nothing like that, just come,” Lori insisted.
“Okay fine,” Aria said. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“You won’t!” Lori’s avatar clicked out.
Jason sat at the dinner table with the girls.
Tara wore her usual white dress, which was essentially the same dress he’d seen her in that first time in VR when she made her grand entrance on horseback, except this one wasn’t see-through. Her long dark hair was twisted into a braid today that she wore in front of her so that it ran down her chest. On the floor beside her obediently sat a virtual greyhound.
Sophie wore a black party dress that emphasized her bosom. She had her usual kohl makeup giving her eyes that catlike look. Her brunette hair fell down onto her shoulders in long curls, unlike her usual straight-haired Cleopatra look. In her lap was a Persian cat whose scruffy fur she petted gently.
Aria looked almost like a vampire with her pale skin, red lips, and too blue eyes, with her hair in that dark bob. She wore a gothic outfit to match: a tight-fitting leather getup.
“So, what’s the surprise?” Aria asked impatiently.
“She hasn’t told us,” Tara said. “But I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”
Lori entered, carrying a tray, her curly blonde hair tumbling down her face and hiding the freckles on her cheeks. She had finally gotten rid of her winter outfit, and instead wore a casual blouse and jeans. Her tail swung from side to side behind her.