by Isaac Hooke
“Well, shit on a fried egg,” Eagleeye said. “That’s no good.”
“Not particularly,” Manticore agreed.
“An alien scout?” Eric said. He tapped his chin. “I think I have an idea. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Eric had deployed his ballistic shield, and had driven it into the shattered asphalt in front of him. He was facing an onslaught from a platoon of tanks; they were positioned in a half circle ahead of him, and were concentrating their fire on him. They’d managed to drain his protective field close to zero with their attack, which was why he had been forced to drive his ballistic shield into the pavement, to hide behind it. This had happened a few times now, mostly when human units focused their fire on him. While said units didn’t have any of the energy-piercing alien spears, they made up for it with the sheer volume of their attacks.
Eric glanced at his battery levels on his HUD. It had stayed at full power since the fight began. And it would continue to remain at one hundred percent even after darkness fell. The Essential had replaced the power cells with a miniature fusion reactor of alien design.
Gotta love alien tech.
As expected, the energy field failed and Eric’s ballistic shield began to take the brunt of the tank attack. Plasma bolts and explosive shells slammed into the exterior. He felt the vibrations traveling up his arms, and across the ground into his knees, where he knelt on the pavement. On the inside of the shield, portions began to glow blue as the heat energy built up.
Can’t stay here forever.
But the Essential in charge of his body didn’t move.
His time sense increased exponentially, and the world slowed down around him. On cue, the Devastator mech that was Eric’s body stood, and began to rush toward the cover of the nearby skyscraper. It kept the shield angled toward the enemy tanks, whose AIs had also upped their time sense, and tracked Eric as he retreated.
The Devastator reached the skyscraper and smashed through the partially broken glass windows at street level. He burst into a concourse, and dove behind a broken escalator.
He focused his thoughts on the Essential, in the same way he would ordinarily communicate with his Accomp, Dee.
Hey bitch, why don’t you take the escalator to the second floor? You’ll have a better angle of attack there.
As usual, the Essential didn’t answer. Eric wasn’t even taunting the alien AI this time, but actually giving it solid advice.
He remained in place as the escalator took several plasma and shell impacts; finally the escalator collapsed entirely into a pile of rubble. Eric’s Devastator stayed hidden below that rubble.
He heard the crunch of treads on broken marble as one or more of the tanks entered. Eric couldn’t know for sure how many there were, because he remained in hiding.
One of the tanks came into view. Then another. Evidently they hadn’t seen Eric yet, buried as his mech was by the rubble.
When three appeared, Eric abruptly stood up and unleashed his energy cannons in rapid succession. The bolts tore into each tank, pummeling through their armor. After only a few shots, the tanks were essentially reduced to wreckages.
A plasma bolt struck him in the side, but by then his energy shield had recharged enough to activate, and it dissipated the blow.
He turned toward the source of the bolt and unleashed another attack, destroying the two tanks there, and then dashed past the cover the wreckages provided to rush the remaining four attackers, who were in view just outside the skyscraper.
Eric shot several energy bolts through the remaining glass windows that lined the lobby; he took three blows in return, but his shield absorbed them all. Meanwhile, the tanks were reduced to more rubble.
Eric could feel the satisfaction oozing from the Essential inside of him. The being didn’t have to speak for Eric to get the sense that the AI was “showing him how it was done.”
A gunship appeared outside the lobby, hovering into view from above. Eric deployed his shield and dashed for cover behind the ruined tanks behind him.
Missiles struck the wreckage. Laser beams. Plasma bolts. The tank remains rocked, and pieces of metal sprayed into the air, but Eric remained untouched.
The Essential was obviously waiting for a momentary cessation in the attack to strike.
A metallic alien sphere floated into view beside him. It was about the size of a human head, and was careful to remain in cover behind the tank, like Eric. Blue energy pulsed in twin circular grooves inscribed into the sphere from pole to pole at right angles to one another.
It issued a series of screeches and clacks in the language of the aliens. These screeches weren’t emitted by external speakers through the air, but rather came as a comm signal that Eric picked up in his head.
The sphere was Manticore, of course, and this was part of the plan Eric had come up with. Manticore had learned the alien language during his years of captivity with aliens that had remained hidden in the Earth’s uninhabited zone, and what he said, roughly translated, was: “High value target, spotted west!”
According to Manticore, “high value target” in the context of the current engagement meant a human politician, military command unit, or other valuable actor. So in theory, the Essential instance controlling Eric’s Devastator would scramble to pursue that target.
However, Eric remained in hiding. He figured the Essential would act as soon as the current threat was eliminated.
But Manticore was impatient, apparently, because again the scout issued the alert.
SCREECH. SCREECH. CLACK.
“High value target, spotted west!”
In theory Manticore was still available on the private channel Eric had set up, even if he wasn’t shown as logged in. Eric wondered if he should tell Manticore to ease off a little bit. But he worried the Essential would detect the human-style comm protocols that would come from the object if Manticore responded—the last thing he wanted to do was give away his ally.
But then the incoming fire from the gunship ceased. His Devastator instantly leaned past the edge of the wreckage, and fired a black hole weapon. The bolt traveled outward quickly; the gunship swerved out of the way, but the bolt activated beneath it, and a tear in space time formed. It looked like a pinch in reality that distorted all light coming from the other side, sort of like those fun house mirrors or selfie apps that compressed one’s reflection.
Eric could feel the pull from where he sheltered. The gunship was sucked in immediately, and spaghettified as it vanished. Another gunship that had been lurking out of view outside the skyscraper was also drawn inside, spinning wildly before it was crushed into the space ordinarily reserved for a single hydrogen atom.
Eric got up and turned around, fleeing. The Essential purposely left that black hole active, perhaps to dissuade any other human units from attempting to follow. Another member of the invasion force would dispel the black hole at some point when it got too big.
At first the Devastator had to drive its feet deep into the floor tiles to gain traction; Manticore’s smaller scout also struggled to get away, moving in jerks. As the two of them got farther from the hole, their retreat became easier so that by the time they smashed though the far side of the concourse, the effects were reduced by almost half.
Outside, Eric continued west as the Essential in control searched for the fabled “high value target.”
The street was clear of combatants here, but that probably wouldn’t last long. To the south, Eric could see a patrol of robots and mechs racing away, headed toward the front lines he had just left. That meant Eric had moved behind human lines.
Ahead, an apartment building shook as it took a strike from the side that was facing the front lines. An explosion rocked the building, and then flames erupted in the upper levels.
A young woman dashed from the front lobby, and raced directly into his path.
Eric froze, as did the woman.
Eric lifted his energy cannon, and placed the targeting crosshairs over her c
enter of mass.
Once again he was struck by how closely she resembled Molly.
Why does every woman look like her, these days?
It had to be an illusion. Perhaps a defense mechanism invoked by that part of his brain still resisting the Essential. Eric didn’t want to kill innocent civilians. By making him believe this woman was Molly, there was a chance the guilt would spill over to the Essential, and perhaps spare her life.
Apparently it worked, because Eric simply stood there, his energy cannon aimed at the woman, but he couldn’t fire.
Finally the woman got a hold of herself, and she sped away, racing into a small cafe at the base of a nearby building.
Eric simply stared at her, doing nothing.
But as soon as she vanished from view inside that cafe, he opened fire with everything he had. The cafe imploded, and portions of the building above collapsed into the damaged recess left behind.
Eric felt an incredible sense of loss.
Molly.
Inside, he could feel the Essential gloating.
SCREECH. SCREECH. CLACK.
The drone drew the Essential’s attention back toward the west, and once more Eric raced down the street, searching for the so-called “high value target.”
The drone rounded a bend, and then turned into an alleyway. Eric followed.
He spotted a figure near the end of the alleyway, surrounded by alien scouts. The figure had its arms raised, as if in surrender.
Eric approached.
As he came near, it became clear that the figure wasn’t human, but rather some sort of mannequin, like the kind meant for modeling clothing in shop windows.
The scouts, which appeared identical to Manticore, abruptly turned around in unison, and fired silky nets.
Eric’s time sense sped up, and he attempted to dodge those nets. His alien blades sliced two of them out of the air, but a few still struck him, pinning one of his lower legs. Eric began to fire his weaponry, but more nets came in, and in moments he was pinned against the alley wall. Half of the scouts had fallen under his attack.
Manticore’s scout approached. Small arms telescoped from the sphere, arms tipped with pincers that opened Eric’s cockpit. Those pincers wrapped around the head of his Cicada next, intending to withdraw the unit, and then the AI core contained within.
Eric’s plan had worked. Now it was up to Manticore to remove the Containment Code around Eric’s mind, and then he could free the others, and the Bolt Eaters could finally start fighting back.
But before Manticore could remove the Cicada, several shots came from above. In seconds, all of the alien spheres around Eric had fallen to the ground, including Manticore’s.
No!
Bambi jumped down from the edge of the building that bordered the alleyway, and landed in her fully restored Crab mech. She used the alien spears on her barbed tail to begin slicing through the nets that held Eric to the wall.
“I’m so sorry,” Bambi transmitted. “I tried to warn you, but my Essential turned off my comm node until a few moments ago.”
“It’s all right,” Eric lied.
“I think the Essential knew what we planned all along,” Bambi said. “Which just proves that Frogger was wrong. We’re being watched.”
“Yeah,” Eric said. What more could he say?
When he was free, Eric walked toward the damaged scout that contained Manticore’s AI core. Eric could do nothing as the Devastator lifted its heavy metal leg and crushed that scout, pulverizing whatever portion of the AI core survived inside.
Goodbye Manticore.
And so that was the end of their escape plan. Eric was the Essential’s forever, now.
That sense of gloating he felt from the being inside him was stronger than ever.
Bambi helped remove whatever webbing still gummed up his weaponry, and then together they walked down the alleyway toward the street.
It was time to continue the invasion. And to destroy humanity.
The two of them rejoined the front lines, and cut a path deep into the human defenses, hewing down tanks and mechs. Bambi created a black hole, and eliminated a whole company of human combat robots before dispersing it.
The Original Manticore had told him the Banthar promised to spare humanity, that the humans would be allowed to live in biodomes while their world was terraformed to support the production of alien bioweapons.
Somehow Eric doubted that the Banthar, and the Essential, would live up to their end of the bargain. It was looking less and less likely, as far as Eric was concerned.
A cloud blotted out the sun overhead. No, not a cloud, but a termite storm. The micro machines swooped down and, ignoring the Bolt Eaters and their clones, began to digest the buildings and human machines around them. They used the metal to produce even more termites.
Yes, humanity was doomed.
4
Eric zoned out as the battle on the front lines continued. Mostly his role now was to round up any machines that tried to escape the termites. During breaks in the fighting, he watched those termites tear down buildings to produce more micro machines; in the process, they reduced any human inhabitants into an organic “gel” that was fed to the bioweapons via specialized transports; a bell of sorts would ring across the neighborhood, and the bioweapons would gather next to a series of feeder troughs laid out near the devastated city center. The transports would deposit the gel into those troughs, and the bioweapons would fight among themselves for the opportunity to slurp up their meals.
He wondered why none of the human machines he’d faced so far had emitters to repel those units. Humanity had the technology—all of the Bolt Eaters were equipped with it, after all—but he supposed they just didn’t have enough of the units. When reinforcements finally arrived, no doubt they would be equipped with every anti-alien technology the army could offer. Until then, the invaders would face little resistance.
Still, even with that tech, Eric doubted the humans would offer much of a challenge. Not at this point. The aliens had learned from the mistakes of the first invasion. He doubted they would offer humanity any quarter.
The Bolt Eaters were quiet through it all. They were watching and participating in the destruction of everything they held dear, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Eric suddenly leaped onto a building, and clambered upward frantically. When he reached the rooftop, he leaped across to the next building, and the next, and then jumped into midair, landing on a gunship. Then he began pounding.
He wondered at first why the Essential hadn’t simply shot down the ship, but then he realized that any energy attack would have disintegrated a good portion of the aircraft. Why waste material that could be used to produce micro machines after all?
The helo began to lose altitude, and spun in frantic circles. He leaped away before it struck the asphalt; the craft carved a deep runnel into the solar paneled surface before coming to a halt.
Eric hardly paid attention. He was thinking of the second woman that looked like Molly. How the mere sight of her had caused Eric to freeze, leaving the Essential unable to fire.
At the time he had theorized a part of his mind was making him see Molly everywhere, hoping that the guilt would spill over to the Essential that inhabited his AI core. Given how intricately their psyches were currently linked, his and the Essential’s, such a spillage was entirely possible. And that he had frozen upon seeing her told him that part of his mind, his subconscious, had been right.
So, guilt, then, might be the backdoor through the alien Containment Code he was looking for.
Then again, perhaps the facial recognition algorithm was the key. Or maybe both.
He switched to VR and ramped up his time sense to max. When he was in VR, his consciousness operated on a separate partition from the Essential’s, one whose time sense was independent of the alien. The AI might know he was in VR, but unless the Essential altered its time sense to match, it wouldn’t be entirely aware what Eric was doing. N
ot until the Essential reviewed the system logs at a higher time sense some time later.
Eric was counting on the current battle to serve as a sufficient distraction to the entity.
Then again, he had been counting on that the last time he was in VR, when he had discussed his plan with Manticore. It hadn’t helped him then.
Have to work fast.
He pulled up his sandbox environment, and began making changes to the facial recognition algorithm. He wanted every target out there to look like Molly, not just human women. The changes wouldn’t take with his live system of course, because he lacked the necessary permissions at the moment, due to the Containment Code. But he was looking for holes.
After spending three hours exhausting all available possibilities in the recognition algorithm, he switched to the guilt subroutines.
There has to be some sort of race condition, or pointer overflow bug somewhere… even if Original Manticore helped them design this code. The heavy gunner wasn’t the best at programming.
But Eric tried everything, and still couldn’t find anything. He attempted to invite Frogger to his VR, but realized none of the Bolt Eaters were available on his HUD anymore.
The Essential had shut down his comm node. The alien AI knew precisely what he was up to, and was trying to stop him.
I’m running out of time.
At this very moment, the Essential might be trying to shut down his consciousness. Perhaps even delete it. That was good in a way, because it meant he was headed down the right path.
Then again, maybe the Essential was just acting out of caution; it had detected his probing, and wanted to shut him down.
But I probed before like this, and was never shut down. It remembers what happened with Molly. It knows I’m onto something.
What the hell was he missing?
He pulled up the guilt subroutine in the sandbox again. He applied the facial recognition changes that would make every unit out there look like Molly, and then the guilt code activated. There, the code jumped to a subroutine he hadn’t seen before. Eric guessed that was the hook the Essential had used to originally inject into his consciousness. He found that he could call that subroutine directly, while the facial recognition was active—the triggered guilt momentarily granted him permission. The passed variables were simply pointers, and he could use them to overwrite memory locations. A classic buffer overflow issue.