by ROUNAK PURI
Must be sad being a cyber ram. Sheep aren't made to be alone, even cyber ones. Do the cyber sheep transcend, have an android body and live forever? I mean if they can transcend Master Clarkson they can transcend a sheep. Then I realised perhaps that was the solution, I mean how long does a sheep live 10 years? Perhaps if a cyber ram doesn't back himself up he could have like five years with a ewe he loves. Long enough to be happy even have lambs but short enough to stop them growing apart bitter. After all if you have a ram a smart as a human surely he could make this work. Maybe he couldn't make this work - what if the girl sheep runs away unhappy. What if...6
"Wake up" said Loop rubbing my shoulder.
"Where are we?" I said reaching for my bow.
"An hour from a possible check-point. Collect your gear. Check your bike" said Loop.
I was groggy , "When do I go on watch?"
"Not tonight - you were having a bad dream. Kept talking about sheep. We all get sheep nightmares. You even woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me what a girl sheep was called. I guess you were having some nightmare and needed to process stuff." said Loop.3
We got off the train the way we got on. The train moved slowly on a hill and, the bikes were strong enough to ride off the open deck and land on the ground moving. Loop was paying close attention to the map. He did this when he was navigating to a hidden resupply location we were close to something.
***
Loop checked his map we were close to the way point. He looked around with the binoculars the area was clear. Loop went up to the target. Normally our 'way points' were supplies left by local inhabitants or supply missions. This one was different it was large and boxy. Loop checked and then pulled the camouflage off - underneath was a bus.+
"OK, Load the bikes up, we are about a day away from Liberty City" said Loop checking the hidden electronic map. Everyone cheered. I was so ready to get out of this war zone.
**
Chapter 87/Resistance/Zombee
The videos of the devastation to the cyborg mobile command post were remarkable. One girl did all this carnage. She walks into a heavily guarded town used as a mobile command post. An accident ?- I think not. Like last time she lulls them into a false sense of security by allowing herself to be captured. Clearly capturing her is a big mistake. Dogs in their cages begin to escape, a coincidence? clearly not, but how did she do it. She promptly escapes then improvises a powerful bomb from a number of items from a janitor's cupboard. She kills a division of elite highly decorated cyborg commanders, then escapes leaving no footprints. She lets many of the cyber horses live, then escapes and disappears into the dawn. This was not a random attack, nothing this girl does is random. She has a plan, the dead cyborgs were in disgrace for the excessive killing of humans which could have been captured in Egypt, she knew it, and hunted them deliberately. The unicorns were left as a reminder. You kill us, now I kill you. She rips through them like tissue paper. She kills like she's ten people.
18
This was not indiscriminate slaughter, this is targeted surgery, another statement. She's saying you can't stop me, I can kill who I like. I attack from the shadows, kill and melt into the night. Then she disappears leaving rumors of a girl who fights like forty highly trained werewolf marines, like there are any of those alive. A Cyborg's Division slaughtered by one girl. We follow her track west. Slowly but unstoppably moving towards the capital. It's deliberate, words are starting to be whispered by the slaves of a saviour. This is clearly her plan, it's the only explanation of her slow approach. Assassinate the CPU, rely on slaves to over through the others. The day after the cyber-sheep attack, Zola drastically reduces her search to token levels. Rumour has it she and General Bitmarck have some secret supply of blood and are able to think without limit. What did Zola compute? The best guess she foresaw the end of the CPU, stopping the assassin is useless. She's not the only one who has come to that conclusion. I'm not the only one who is reducing their presence in the capital, already 15% of the other artificial intelligences have come to the same inevitable conclusion, flee.13
What confuses me is her ability to hide. Rockwood is still making such a show of hunting for her - alive. Zola is clearly hunting for her - alive as well. They interfere with the cyber network, hack the spy satellites and drones so the other is blind. Does the cyborg's assassin know this? Is she counting on this? It would be unwise not to assume so. Surely she is a formidable foe. Yet there are so many questions. Are Rockwood and Zola secretly collaborating? If so what do they gain - they hide and protect her, surely they know they are her prime targets. Why not kill the unicorns when she could? Was this a sign, to go easy on slaves and you will get lenient treatment from her? No! I see it, her plan is obvious, the sheep will assume she knows how to negotiate with unicorns. Rockwood uses them all the time. Killing Sheep and leaving the Unicorns alive will make the Sheep Ovid command assume she made a deal with the unicorns, this will start to tear the quadratic alliance apart, clever. The A.I's and robots are smart enough never to weaken themselves by engaging in civil war, the animals they are the weakest. Like any predator she will begin by killing the weakest. Clever girl. Very clever. In our world clever is dangerous. Still this danger could be used to my advantage before all of Washington 2.0 knows of the predator girl.31
We had been sleeping under the stars near the bus. I had fallen asleep watching all the little moving stars which turned out to be vast numbers of robot satellites. There were up there busy doing something evil. Perhaps it was getting close to the end of the journey but I had slept quite deeply. Loop tapped me on my upper arm, it was a sign to wake up quickly and quitely. It was getting near dawn and the troupe 'came to' for 20 minutes covering the optimal time for an attack. They would then go back to sleep until 'morning'. This was special.
I rolled quietly over and saw Loop and the team peering at something down their scopes of their rifles. Something was happening.
"Pop quiz Cycles-with-wolves. Your being attacked by a hunter killer what do you look for" said Loop while I quietly got my rifle out.
"Err- look for bodies of water. Hunter killers can't swim" I said.
"Question two how do you escape from cyber bees"
Cyber-bees Some tiny robotic and some real bees with implants. They flew in a swarm. Their brains were distributed, there was no single 'control' bee in charge. They couldn't be killed with guns and were very efficient against things like tanks. Some of the robot bees would carry tiny amounts of explosive. They would get into a tank and blow it up from the inside. They were not cyborg's in the traditional sense more drones. I tried to remember my training.
"The best thing to do was to split them up. In two swarms they were half as smart. Hiding was the best option, use a gas mask to hide the smell of your breath."1
I focused on what they were looking at.
"Question three what's that" said Loop.
I searched for what everyone was looking at.
"FOOBAR it's a PIG!" I whispered suddenly realising what it was.3
I looked up and looked closely in the scope of my rifle. It was easy to panic at the first sight of a Pig or Horse. Not all pigs were cyborgs, in fact you hardly saw them , the cyborgs generally hung out in the warmth and comfort of their mobile cyber control bases, they tended to wear slacks. Through my rifle's telescope I could tell the usual signs all a cybernetic upgrade. We carefully watch the pig it was walking away from us slowly and unsteadily. Then it walked into a tree. We watched it carefully stuck walking into a tree for 20 minutes. That pig must have been as dumb as a brick. It says a lot when you get your mental capacity multiplied 30 times and you still walk into trees. We watched trying to be certain it wasn't a trap, examining every inch of the surrounding countryside but no robots. This pig wasn't distracted running a bunch of drones it was genuinely dumb.6
Eventually ,Redshirt announced he would go and investigate the stuck pig. He walked casually over and as he arrived just stood up, he waved us over and we cautiousl
y joined him. While others stood guard we stood near the pig pointing our weapons. He was a cyber pig the antenna and wires said it was. But he was walking into a tree like he couldn't see it and frankly didn't care. On his back were saddle bags, there were two large disks like massive thick dinner plates in the saddle bags. Normally the pigs had small drone servants but there wasn't one.
"OK, I give up" I said. "What is it?"
"It's a dead pig" said Loop.
"A walking dead pig, I soooooo don't understand" I said.
"I've seen this before, you take your everyday pig. You cybernetically upgrade it" said Loop looking at the pig.
"so far so good"
"Cyborg pig turns to evil." said Loop
"Bad" I said.
"Pig dies, well the brain dies, cyber-ware malfunction. The electronics short and kill the pig brain."
"Hurray. The world has one less Cybernetic pig in it." I said. If you had seen the kind of carnage a pig's drones can do you wouldn't argue.
"However they didn't really design the cybernetic implants to stop at death, or something. The cybernetic implants still work and start running the body. Pig still walks around"
"So it's dead but still working, sort of a walking dead pig" I said.5
"Ack" said the pig voice box. It had a Italian accent. All pigs as far as I knew had abysmal Italian accents. Unsure I pulled a hand gun and pointed it at the pig.
"Hence the technical term Zombie" said Loo.5
"Seriously ?" I said "Who came up that that?"
"I think the name was the product of a complex organisation process involving several official 'name of things' committees." said Loop.
"It's one of the few successes of Werewolf Alpha command." added Rodi.
Loop pulled out his silenced hand gun. "Don't do this at home" said Loop casually shooting the pig in the head. We all stood around watching the pig with a fresh brain hole but it still kept walking into the tree. Rodi got out his hand gun and shot the pig in the head as well. No effect, then Rodi picked up the pig and pointed it away from the tree. The pig walked off.
"That's weird I" said "Can I have a go?"
"No" said Loop.
"Ohowwwww." I said in disappointment "why?"
"Those grey disks are mines" said Loop.
I looked, the pig had a saddlebag like harness which held two green/grey disks.
"Why does the mine say 'Property of the US Army'" I asked catching up with the pig.
"No idea, my guess is the robots found a whole bunch of mines and said 'you know what would make these mines look good - if they were walking around.'" Loop said.
"Yeh, I could just imagine some high end artificial intelligence thinking that" I admitted.
"It's when the A.Is start looking at mountains and thinking this mountain would look better walking. You got to start to worry" Rodi added..
Rodi went and turned the Zombie pig around. It walked back into tree, I noticed a red ribbon coming from the mine. Loop looked at me.
"That red ribbon is the arming pin. This mine isn't' armed. My thinking is that if you pull the pin out the pig will explode when it hits something. Undead Zombie pig, I wasn't sure how to feel about it exploding. I smelt something and got down to sniff the Zombie pig.
"It smells like Oblivion" I said. "Your getting poetic" Loop added.
"No Oblivion the perfume." I said.2
Rodi looked at me "Oh I thought your meant that film with Tom Cruise"
"In what universe, could 'This dead pig smells like a SciFi film with Tom Cruise' and make any sense ?" I said. 2
"I'm guess the same universe which Zombie pig strap mines to them selves" said Loop. Looking at the pig.
"You mean you didn't think the SciFi film with Tom Cruise didn't smell like a zombie pig" said Redshirt.
"No, it was an abysmal film for some reason. Zombie pigs with ordinance and fragrance needs, this is the mount everest of weird" I said. "Where on earth do they come from?"
"I'm guessing Washington 2.0 it's a couple of days walk from here" explained Loop. "Look let's cut the mines off the harness and take the Zombie pig into the base"
"I'm not traveling with a cybernetic zombie pig in the back of the bus"
"What ? you to good to travel in the back of the bus with a cybernetic zombie pig?" said Loop.1
"You could say that" I said. "he's only got one eye"
Which was true, some of the cybernetic animals had optics upgrades. This one had been roughly removed.
"How about we take the mines off and I let you shoot it some more" said Loop.
We agreed, they took the mines and I shot the pig in the head again with Loop's silenced gun, still no effect.
"Why doesn't stop ?" I said
"The electronics are in a pack in the chest, Short of cutting the pig in two it is hard to stop it.
'Hay if this happened to cyber bees would they be zombees?' I suggested. No response.4
I called the pig 'Zom'.1
We loaded Zom up on to the bus and carried on. We were in the mountains some where. It felt familiar the light looked familiar. We drove for a long time up into the mountains, the stone was cold blue, we were in a box canyon.6
I wondered why someone was doing a pig version of robocop. OK in robocop the body get's blown away and the mind keeps working with computer upgrades. In this case the body works but the mind gets replaced kind of robo-pig.
I looked out of the window. Luke had told me about how the Werewolf marines had come about. Basically they were humans who had been genetically operated on and Wolf genes inserted. The original concept had been to make a human soldier who was leaner, harder and faster than a human. The story was that originally the scientist that had produced the sequence was actually a huge Twilight fan. In her spare time she had fiddled with ways to genetically alter cute boys into werewolves. This was purely a hobby you understand. The story goes that there were due to be a series of cuts made in the funding of the secret government lab she worked for. Top military brass had come round the secret establishment and being largely bored by the sensible bio research into super lethal viruses.5
"Another virus that can kill the world that was so last century" said one of the generals, "we were really looking for something truly adventurous, forward thinking. Something that says don't mess with this country they've got a..."
Of course being scientists in a secret research laboratory they never talked about their work to each other. It turned out that they all had the same kind of idea, plague to end all plagues. There were a number of variations on the theme, but they all came down the same thing. Except the one guy who was growing a massive turnip. I don't think that flew either, ' don't mess with America they have a massive turnip' just didn't work. So at this point everyone is getting pretty desperate, Head of Twilight girls lab comes in from the previous presentation desperate. Apparently his ultimate plague virus had been cloned by another group and presented first. The only real difference was that their virus was nice shade of green. Before the group can say anything the Generals coming wanting a presentation. Twilight girl scientist then steps up and talked about her hobby project, the creation of Real werewolves. She hadn't tested it on anybody because she was still trying to perfect the fact that whoever was infected with these superpowers would be mysteriously drawn to geeky scientistetts. From first mention of werewolves it worked brilliantly for the generals. Let's face it werewolf is just a daemon from hell with better PR*. Initially the other scientists think this is just yet another plague to and all plagues but with a rubbish infection mechanism. No, says Twilight girl scientist it's about making better soldiers. She demonstrates this by turning a couple of guinea pigs into wereguinea pigs. Unfortunately the wereguines become completely besotted ( besotted good word huh?) with her. Said guinea pigs promptly breakthrough quarter inch iron cages to follow her around all the time. It impressed the Generals, but couldn't have worked out well, she's out shopping at Planet Organic and everyone is like be careful don't go n
ear that girl in the glasses near the couscous or the guinea pigs with fangs will rip your throat out and eat your body. 6
Anyway, it all ends well, Twilight girl scientist saves lab from being shut down. The generals go to Congress asking for money for a division of these were-guys. She then gets poached by another secret Government research laboratory looking for ways to stop artificial intelligences from breaking out of their chips. She suggests that the chip has a special sensor to detect fresh human blood, the worst case she points out the machines can never kill us all off because they will always need human blood. Apparently there is a fourth law for robots and artificial intelligences which says that a robot can never build a robot without the four laws and a blood chip. And the rest as they say is history.3
Eventually we passed a group of metal buildings, they were old, slightly rusty. They were labeled 'Choosen Chicken ranch'. The road became straight Loop told me this was the secret landing strip. At the end I realised one of the buildings had a fake side and was some kind of stealth hanger. Loop told the chicken ranch was build on some stealth missile silos.
Beyond the ranch was a dense forest I noticed the outline of an ghost town beyond. We drove closer and came to a metal wall made from old corrugated steel. The wall which was hiding under a number of trees had a number of small watch towers at intervals. Everything was hidden by camouflage.
A small door in the gate opened up and a solider emerged. He came through the bus and looked at everyone ticking them off. He had an scope which checked our eye for being androids. He ticked everyone of his clipboard there then satisfied went back to the front bus.+
"Welcome to Liberty City" he announced saluting Loop.2
* PR = Public relations. 1
Chapter 88/Resistance/Liberty City
We followed the road around and found our selves driving towards a large wall made from old cast off metal. At intervals there were towers both the wall and the towers well camouflaged to hide them from satellites. We stood at the gates and Loop talked to a small hole. Soon the gate unlocked with one clang after another. We walked in to be met by another military officer with five or six guards behind him pointing weapon at us. We were checked the being humans then let into the base.