Railgun: Earth under Siege

by Luis Robles

  But no, we were not an easy target, at least not for the ordinary, chaos-driven humans. Grandfather had an assassination threat some years ago after creating the Dragons, so he strategically designed a security system around the entire property. Also, brilliant-minded and wealthy as he is, he had the place so well prepared beforehand, even down to the medicine for my heart and his drugs for his joint issues.

  We were an island for a long time, an island in which its inhabitant still carried hope. Over the next few years, I studied under my grandfather's tutelage. He taught me most of the things he knew. I began to think it was faith; I began to think that the future of this earth will be in our hands.

  “Jaika, if we are to stand a chance, we must push the limits of our minds and push the limits of the things we can do. We must dare beyond the borders of what is known. We must learn everything we can about the enemy and create an absolute counter. I believe we still can. Let’s give it our best, one last shot at hope,” Grandad repeated often.

  Together, we combined everything we had, all the materials that he had hoarded away, and merged our minds together. I read his books hundreds of times, and I fulfilled my dream by the age of eighteen. A real genius like him, he would tell me. Using it all, everything that we could and as best as we could at the time, we created an android—the last real hope of this world.

  No, he was more than an android. He was the most advanced, the strongest and the fastest thing that any human had brought into the world. We had created a mechanical god. He was a weapon. He would be my weapon—the last real hope of this world.

  We called him, Railgun.

  Beginning

  2186 - Present Day, Jaika

  My eyes widened as I saw him fire, and my ears momentarily ached after the powerful shrill sound and the bassy shock-wave that echoed as soon as I activated the trigger. Air blew in every direction as the creatures went down too gracefully to the ground, but I didn't care. The effect was the same as I expected. Seeing one of them finally fall felt invigorating. It felt as if hope was real, a living thing, and that it was here to stay.

  I didn't even know if he could actually fire until he did. There wasn't any way to try it out until his core was ignited to life. My ears adjusted after a minute, and I began to hear things more clearly.

  Amadeus crawled up to my shoulder, and I deactivated the mini replica shield that we had set up for the room. In theory, the shield worked the same way as that of the alien’s ship. It would slow any matter that would brush its projected surface. However, ours had a much weaker threshold than their ship could manage—far much weaker and took up far too many resources to run. How they had theirs going for years was a mystery that I figured they wouldn't let humans find out so easy.

  “Grandpa activated you! You saved us!” I exclaimed.

  Railgun deactivated his own combat functions, and his arms separated from one another. I went up to him and inspected the little scruffs of his metal, polished them a bit with my sleeve, wanting to preserve the newness of him.

  “Where is he?” I asked eagerly, adjusting my duo-screen glasses and trying to catch my breath. I thought that the danger was over, at least for that moment.

  “Dr. Liu is in his laboratory. He passed away at the moment of my awakening,” Railgun replied, seemingly very calm about it all. I didn't understand at that moment how he could be so calm.

  Thinking back on it, of course he was. He was new to this world, after all. The entire point of the Reasoning Accumulative Intelligence Response (or RAIR) system that our two advanced androids had was that they would come into the world as blank slates and would learn as they go. Of course he couldn't have known how those cold, calm words—words spoken in what seemed like a human voice but without a tiny speck of human sympathy—could feel so much like a stab to my gut.

  “W-what?” I managed to ask, tears already budding up. But I didn't need it to be repeated. I knew. I had not felt this for ten years, and there it was again. I looked down at the bodies of these beings that had killed everyone I loved, destroyed everything we loved.

  “Why didn't you stop them, Railgun? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? How could you not protect him?”

  Even Amadeus started opening his mouth, but before he could, I picked him from my shoulder and drew him into a hug, holding his cold body against my chest. “It... It's not Railgun's fault... Amadeus, he... He didn't know...”

  Railgun looked at the scene, confused. I tried not to look at him, but I could see, even through the tears as I held back heavier sobs, his hands clenched and unclenched.

  “... I... I am sorry for your loss,” he said after a moment, finding the stock phrase from language data bank installed in him. I didn't know if he meant it yet. He might not have experienced enough to feel anything just now.

  I took the apology anyway.

  With shaking knees, I walked down the stairs to see my grandfather's body. Just when I thought that life could not get any harder, just when I thought that I knew everything there was to know about pain. Now life confronted me again with what real pain feels like. Life woke me up from a soft dream and brought me back into the real world.

  I approached his unmoving body slowly, remembering everything I could about him. With a tender touch, I managed to close his eyes and instructed the android who had gathered around him to clean up the blood.

  “Good bye, Granddad…”was all I was able to utter underneath my breath.

  I sat close to him, weeping, motionless for a long while, not knowing what to do. It was a question from the androids that were cleaning up the mess that finally jolted me back into reality.

  “Is there anything else that you would like us to do?” asked one of the small androids politely, though still sounding artificial.

  For awhile, I did not bother to answer. Instead, I washed clean my grandfather’s face and hands with leaves and herbs that one of the androids had handed me, trying to cleanse his tired body. I didn’t know any of the Buddhist scripture in Taiwanese so I made my own prayer as best as I could to build an altar for Granddad. I tried to follow the Taiwanese tradition as best as I could, knowing that Granddad would have wanted it. Not for a single moment did I feel silly for praying, even despite the fact that there were aliens at our door step. The fact that there were extra-terrestrials, to me just meant that the universe was much, much bigger than we thought, than we all thought. I just wanted to make sure that I do everything I could for him.

  “Shutdown everything and all of you are free to go. Go out far from here and live your lives until your parts wear down. Dr. Liu won’t be needing your assistance any longer. Amadeus, please ignite a fire that will make sure to consume the place; I want nothing to remain,” I said, hoping I was doing the right thing.

  “Miss Liu, is it ok if we stay by Dr. Liu’s side? We will miss Dr. Liu very much otherwise,” one of the small androids asked.

  I stood there baffled and asked myself, how can this be? They are not supposed to think that way. Their intelligence is artificial.

  I nodded and gestured towards my grandpa. It was in that moment that I understood something else about this world—that nothing, absolutely nothing was as it seemed. We only see the outside of things, but that no matter how hard we would try, we would never know what is truly inside anyone else. The thought brought hope, yet it somehow scared me.

  All the small androids gathered around Grandpa and began to power up.

  “The fire has begun, Jaika,” Amadeus said.

  He couldn’t be more right, I thought, as fire indeed began to burn within me over the loss of everything I’ve known.

  I hated what was going on. It pained me to burn the place, but it was the only way I could keep my grandfather’s integrity and keep us safe as well. The last thing I want was for them to come here and ransack the place. God knows what they could do here.

  “We should get ready to go,” I said as I picked up Amadeus once again.

  From that moment on, Railgun, A
madeus and I were always on guard. We gathered together a few articles of clothing from rummaging through drawers and wardrobes throughout the house. We got a large draping article of clothing for the robot, and Amadeus just hid in a large bomber jacket that belonged to my grandfather.

  The defenses were already shut off by the time that we got to the gate. There wasn't much to do but open the iron gate and walk out.

  Thankfully, before we left, we made time to grab something out of the drawers. No, while I was searching through the drawers, I found a little purifier and pocketed that and whatever paper money I could find. There was some but it was very old. After ten years I had no idea if it would ever have any use. Probably not, but who knew if it would come in handy or not.

  I took the vegetables from the garden. I sealed a few eggs away and left the chicken's gate open. The chickens ran fast sensing the danger of the fire we had ignited.

  We had to leave the house quickly as smoke was beginning to make things hard on me. Without a live fire safety system, the house didn’t stand a chance against the intense flames.

  “Jaika, there is danger. I calculate that the flames could reach the chemicals underground in less than three minutes,” Amadeus said with a concerned voice.

  “Come on!” I said to the two.

  Railgun turned his head left and right as he took slow, lingering steps behind us, but easily keeping pace with his height.

  “We need to find somewhere to sleep and come up with the plan. They showed up much sooner than Grandpa and I thought they would. We need to walk as far as we can tonight and then get somewhere to sleep. They'll probably come here first if there is any logic to their thinking.”

  “Of course, Jaika Liu,” Railgun responded in a neutral tone.

  Amadeus peeked his head out from the top of the jacket, having found comfort there by me. At least I could try and keep his mind off of Granddad. “We must remain inconspicuous. I'll try to remain quiet. The rest of the world doesn't have anything like me; I wouldn't like to think what their greed would drive them to. I'm very desirable you know,” he told me.

  “I think you are right. I appreciate that,” I said with a sigh, supporting him with one hand and using my other to tap at the side of my glasses to bring up a map in front of my vision.

  Thankfully, they didn't look too out of place as just glasses, but I would have to hide the dual screen features I built in. My glasses displayed information right before my eyes in perfect intensity, speed, and size so that I can read things as I walked, pull up information about an object, or even record what I saw.

  Over the past ten years, I had made sure to catalogue all relevant information from the laboratory bookshelf and images of maps and language guides from around the house that would come in handy. I had put that entire catalogue of information onto the gel-computer at the frames. All in all, I was able to gather around sixteen terabytes of information. With one voice command, I could practically pull up anything from them, immediately crosschecking the information with my current view, narrowing the results to one or two hits. I also had a functioning keypad and search bar that was only visible to me in case I needed.

  We had promised to fix things. I couldn't say I didn't expect the day would come when I will have to leave home—but not like this.

  The idea of leaving my grandfather’s house was frightening. I realized I hadn't left this land for more years of my life than I had ever been outside of it. I found myself on the brink of tears as I started to walk away from it and into the unknown. Everything looked so different. It all felt weird and uneasy. The entire city, which I had only seen through the windows before, was growing larger and becoming more real to me. It was becoming, not something I watched from afar, but something I was going to be a part of. It was itchy, and uncomfortable. I missed my grandfather.

  Eventually, we reached the front gate. I paused at the final few steps, nervous to give it one last look. The last time that I had looked at the house from this angle, I was 7 years old, dropped here by my living parents. I took it in one more time and remembered that day. I remembered everything I came from, and everywhere I intended to go.

  “Why have you stopped?” Railgun asked.

  I looked over to him, surprised. I knew he didn't understand yet. I had to be patient with him. He would need some guidance.

  “I'm saying goodbye,” I told him after a moment of gathering words together in my head.

  Amadeus looked up at me from my coat and out at the view as well. I wasn't sure if Amadeus had ever been outside of the estate. He didn't seem scared like I was though. Not quite.

  “Farewell, home... Goodbye, Doctor...” he said, little over a whisper.

  Then, I found the strength to take the steps I needed, somehow.

  Moments later, as I turned on the corner of the first block, a muffled explosion occurred behind, and the ground trembled a bit.

  “The fire was able to reach the chemicals, after all,” Amadeus said to no one in particular.

  The streets of the city were much different than the ones that I saw as a child through my parent’s car. In the ten years since I had been hidden away, things became unclean. Everything was falling apart, and I felt like I was shaking in fear. People seemed to have crafted new technologies in the ten years, mostly out of bicycle parts and scrap metal. It was so different; I wasn't sure if I would know how to operate in a place like this. Buildings were in shambles like they were hit by bombs. For all I knew, they could have been.

  Android parts were popular, with heads and engines emptied and the body-shaped parts used as metal for new machines.

  I recalled all the pleasant conversations with androids in my childhood, even ones that operated my grandfather's home, and felt like something was crawling up my spine.

  It didn't help that these parts were all modeled after humans, in the first place. When a hallowed out metallic leg and foot was used as a lever mechanism for various security systems, it was like walking through some kind of cannibalistic society that recycled bones, like a warning to those who dared pass through, a graveyard.

  I could only imagine what was going through the minds of those who were actually metallic in my company, but they didn't seem to react outwardly.

  I tiptoed through the greasy streets. The air was already foggy and wet as the sun rose hotter and higher.

  I didn't know anyone here. These strange faces inspected me in the street with suspicion, eyebrows furrowing. Most turned away as soon as they caught a glimpse of the big guy walking behind me.

  I turned and took a glance at Railgun for reassurance as we walked. I saw him walking, ever so powerful and straight, but walking just as normal as a human would. He caught me looking at him.

  “Is everything alright, Jaika Liu?” he asked.

  “Call me Jaika,” I said as I turned back to face the street ahead.

  “There are a total of forty-seven civilians within this street that I can pinpoint. None of them are a threat to you. We should however stay away from the middle of the street. I’m viewing some oddly cool heat signatures that may indicate that the street has been tampered with. They could possibly be what it is referred to as landmines,” Railgun said in a soft voice, which sounded more human than the last time he spoke.

  “Thank you,” I said with a long sigh of relief.

  “Railgun, when someone says ‘thank you’, the human customary is to say ‘You are welcome’,” Amadeus said nicely to Railgun.

  “I understand… Jaika, you are welcome,” Railgun articulated, sounding awkward, clearly struggling with the idea.

  “Amadeus, take it easy on him. He is only a few hours old.”

  My grandfather did not live in a very busy street. It was once a very nice part of the town, and his was the nicest home in the neighborhood. These people did not look like what my grandfather had. They were lean, hungry, hardly washed. These people were broken by the ten years of siege, while myself and Granddad had locked ourselves behind defenses in isol
ation. Now, I looked the part, I looked as though I didn’t belong in the streets. The thought worried me. I began thinking that I should have ruined my clothes before stepping out of the house or maybe even rolling in the mud would do.

  I had never before thought about just how lucky I really was. Not truly. I had considered it, but it never was as real as it was in that moment, looking at those faces who saw me and the covered-up Railgun, seemingly judging us as potential threats, with curiosities as alien as those who invaded our world. They murmured with one another, using slang that I didn't quite understand. Some, I did, having heard it on the radio, which had become my only link to the outside world.

  My distant, happy memories of these streets being bright, glossy, full of life... They were all long gone and left me feeling like a stranger in my own hometown. I guess I kind of was.

  I tried not to make eye contact. Amadeus was quiet as well in my jacket, and Railgun walked casually as though he was by no means a 7-foot tall robot in a world without operating computer technology.

  I tried to walk quickly in between the spaces of people on the sidewalk as we went up towards a more main road, where even more people clamored about each other and haggled over prices of various things.

  The chaos was something I didn't expect. The main streets had bison and chickens pushed along through it like a market. Cans of goods were held high in fraying plastic bags and labeled with a dying black marker.

  “I guess there are no landmines on this road…that’s for sure,” I said as we walked.

  “You are correct. There is not a sign of landmines here. However, we should be more careful around. My sensors indicate a rise in stress levels in this area. Cross-checking with their vitals, people seem to be angry,” Railgun said in a low voice.

  “We’ll try to go unnoticed. Just don’t make any eye contact,” I said to Railgun as we quickly walked by.

  I just needed to find somewhere far, far away from my home.

  I could hear some murmured voices from the street before, continuing to follow us. Surely it was nothing to do with us though, I tried to convince myself. There were so many things happening on this street, it surely didn't have to do with us. Nevertheless, I felt Railgun shift behind me.