by ROUNAK PURI
"If I said Not Zola" would that help I said. "Look it's late we all need to get some rest. She's going to attack at dawn.+
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Chapter 93/Resistance/The battle of Liberty City
Video: Sofia Opera and Ballet Flash mob. We dare you to watch this and not think Russian Opera is not run by geniuses. Music Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
A/N This is it! Final chapters!!! 4
Just then from a watch tower, I heard someone shouting. "Contact North. Zombies are marching" In the distance, I could hear the chorus of "Ack, Ack, Ack."
It had only been three hours! Zola was attacking early.
I rushed to the parapet of the outer wall over looking the sea of Zombie Cyborgs approaching.
"Everyone to positions" I shouted on the megaphone. We were still digging traps. The inner barrier was still not complete. Mr. Jones had turned the barrier into a work of kinetic art. Who knows how long it would hold on for?
Rockwood joined me, followed by Loop. The werewolf Marines took the top spot. As the Zombies attacked It was clear there was more of them. They started studying on the mines Rodi had buried, we cheered but the zombie crowd still marched towards us relentlessly.
We used up our ammunition but they kept coming. Wave after wave all droning "Ack, Ack, Ack". It was too much for me. Rockwood and Loop were standing close to each other I looked at them. I could tell the futility of this in their eyes. Three Zombies managed to detonate against the metal wall. The inflatable landing bags held two zombies back without exploding. The soft wall of the bags didn't set the mine off.1
'If only Liberty City had a large stock of bouncy castles then we would be impregnable' I thought.
They broke through and we retreated. Mr. Jones had set up a zip wire for those on the outer wall to slide down behind Mr. Jones's inner wall. I stayed up on the outer wall as long as I could. More holes got blown out and the cyborg animal zombies came in a like water in a sieve. Even with the mine, Rodi had planted, the sheer number of zombies were too much. I couldn't let everyone, including the man that I loved, die.
"I love you. I have to do this for you."I said" Please forgive me."
Both Rockwood and Loop looked at me and simultaneously said "What me? Or do you mean him?" the ended up pointing at each other.1
Before I could explain I threw the rope Joe used to abseil down and threw it over the other side. I jumped down and ended on one of the airbags. I was only armed with a large knife and a megaphone.
"Zola I'm coming call your zombies off!" I shouted down the megaphone.
One Zombie came towards me then suddenly tried to grab my hand in it's mouth. Naturally, Zola had programmed them to capture me. I ran into the crowd of cyber animal zombies they both parted and tried to pull me to Zola. I kept shouting with my megaphone. This seemed to distract them.
Apparently, Rockwood looked at Loop and just said "she's not going anywhere without me" and jumped over the wall. He landed next to me ( OK I hadn't got that far but you try running against the flow of a crowd of cyber-zombies and see how far you get). He began to fight at my side.
Not to be outdone Loop shouted 'to the Alpha' ripped his shirt off and morphed into a werewolf. He and a large pack of snarling werewolf Marines in wolf form then leaping on to the zombies. I would say like a pack of wolves on sheep but that was nearly literally what happened so it would be a pretty lousy metaphor. Joe had shrugged and he and Kayla had run in, leaving only the bemused Mr. Jones and the rest of the let us say 'sane citizens' of liberty city behind.
What had been a defeat was quickly turning into an attack. OK, it had zero chance of success. I pushing forwards wondering ' what the point of your sacrificing yourself when the people you're sacrificing yourself for insisting on coming to?'. We began making our way towards the area Zola might have been behind all this stuff. Rockwood with his powerful dance like moves and Loop and the others just spreading their way biting everything in sight. Joe and Kayla being the one's with the only working machine guns repelled down and ran after everyone else.
"I just want to point out that tactically this is a bad move,bug eyed" said Joe thinking this was some kind of weird attack plan.
I start to hear some weird classical music.
"Which of you is the Wagner fan?" said Rockwood confused as the volume of the music got steadily louder.
adding "WTF what is that!" bug-eyedinto the distance.
"That's it I've gone mad," said Kayla with him.
"Is it whirlwind ? A tornado ? Is that a kcuf-ing ballerina ?" said Joe2
There was a huge gap in the wall of zombies. I jumped up to see a small pink figure moving in the crowd. Occasionally an animal body would go flinging out and soar over everyone like a missile from a catapult. In the middle was a young girl in a ballerina outfit. She got closer.1
"No, It's little Jenny!" I said excitedly.11
"Who?" said Kayla.1
"It's complicated", I said "don't shoot her."
"She can be the white witch for all I care." said Joe. " I'm not messing with anyone with moves like that."
I pulled up the megaphone "Don't shoot the ballerina" I said. I know, it's now number one on the list of sentences I didn't think I would ever utter. 4
I saw at a zombie coming up behind Little Jenny.
"Arabesque!" I shouted into the megaphone. Little Jenny jumped up high and executed a perfect Arabesque and sent the zombie flying backwards.
Rockwood look over to see what the fuss was about. Little Jenny moved like lightning soon she was closer and cleared a 10 meter circle around her self. She stopped and waved.
"I'm sorry I'm late. I would have been here earlier but I couldn't find my ballet shoes!" she shouted with a smile.
"That's OK" I shouted back on the megaphone.
"What do you think of my ballet! I'm doing grade one!" she said both kicking Zombie ass and making it look good.
"It's great!" I said getting closer.
"Thanks I'm really glad you could make it to my performance", said Little Jenny.
The zombies started to close in on her again.
"Eat swan lake. Zombie scum!" I shouted. Then added a loud "Chassé!" to little Jenny.2
"That's not swan lake", said Rockwood "Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner's Ring Cycle - sounds like the Sofia Opera version or possibly the New York Metropolitan"
"Seriously?" I said to Rockwood "you think that dead cybernetic pig cares, let alone can tell the difference?"
"What cybernetic pig?" said Rockwood.
A zombie Cybernetic pig flew through the air and then arced over the heads into the distance. When they landed the chest explosive went off creating a loud hemisphere of moving body parts.
"Was that me? Sorry!" said little Jenny clearly in her element.
Rockwood looked on "OK that one" he said while I pointed.
"Thank you your majesty!" said Rockwood.
Little Jenny stopped for a moment.
"I'm not playing the princess game now! I'm a ballerina!" she shouted. Then got back to her combat ballet.2
"Who is she. Lord?" said Kayla.
"Kayla meet the leader of the unfree world. The overlord of overlords. The head CPU it's/her self."
"What her? Little Miss Hello-kitty there?" said Kayla.1
"Yep," said Rockwood.
"She's really destroying an entire zombie army single handedly." said Kayla.
"Yeah and she's making it look good! Very good demi-pointe!" I said. She was moving in a wonderfully artistic way. This wasn't war this was physical theatre.
"In coming," said Joe ducking down needlessly as another zombie body flew over to the zombies on the other side exploding on contact.
Little Jenny stopped she had cleared a huge space around us. The werewolf marines stopped and you could see them breathing deeply they started snarling at the blank eyed zombies around us.2
"Miss Ballerina even with you here there are more zombie's than anyone can handle," Loop said to little Jenny.
&nbs
p; "No problem I brought some of your friends with me," said little Jenny breathing rapidly, she raised her chin up and held her hand into the air as she was about to take a huge bow. Following her finger my attention was turned to the side of the hill two the east. Suddenly I saw a black disk, then two, then tens then hundreds.
"OMG Roombas!" I said.17
The feral Roombas seemed to attack the zombies like a massive black tidal wave of electric death. The zombies ignored the Roombas and were knocked over like zombie skittles before a wave of black bowling balls.5
Just then a small black disk rushed through the crowd of cyber zombies.
"Pixel!" I said as an the Roomba, came to me.6
I did the roomba dance of greeting and little Jenny joined in.
"One day I want to be cheer leader like you," said little Jenny smiling. "I also brought my friends the unicorns," said little Jenny pointing in the opposite direction.
Our heads turned.
Over the hill we saw a herd of cyber horses come on to the hill. There was a pause and behind them came hundreds of mechanical drones. Villeria was with them.3
"Open vire," said the head unicorn.
The drones started to fire into the other flank of zombies.
"There is an army of Unicorns coming from the west and they want blood." said Rudi rushing back now back in human form.
"You know a year ago that would have sounded quite weird," I said.
"The army of Roomba's are attacking from the rear," said Rockwood.
"Make that six months ago," I said.
"What I'm worried about is the stampeding herd of woolly mammoths coming from the west," said Little Jenny.
"Make that two months ago," I said pointing at Liberty city "Little Jenny - we made a fort over there, can I show you around?"
Pleased I was keeping in her character little Jenny AKA the CPU came with me.
"I love forts, that sounds wonderful," said little Jenny jumping up and down in excitement "last one there is a fat banana."
Little Jenny turned and headed to the wall of zombies now between us and the fortress. She launched her self at them and proceeded to go back to her combat ballet routine.1
"Follow the f**** ballerina" I shouted to everyone. Everyone at this time was too mind kcuf-ed to argue.2
We ran to the gates down the wide channel little Jenny had made. Rockwood did his ninja trick and scrambled up the metal wall. He must have leapt down the other side and undone the massive bar holding the gate shut. Soon the gates shut and we went up to the platform over looking the wall. Little Jenny insisted on showing me how she could climb up the rope Joe used to slide down. By the time we got to the top the unicorn carnage was well underway. The unicorns had brought a group of large two story high robots which picked zombies up like dolls and picked the mines off the zombies like they were eating pistatios. When they pulled the mines off they flicked them into the distance presumably were ever Zola was standing. Far away I could see dust as a huge herd of woolly mammoths casually crush into more zombies in the distance.1
"I like your dog can I pet him?" said little Jenny to me looking at Were-Loop.
"Only If you brush with the fur," I said. I guess I had picked up the speaking in metaphors all the time bug from little Jenny. I meant be nice.
"Loop do what the CPU asks you to," I said.
We rushed back to the fort and up the steps to the rampart over looking the messy battle beyond us.
Rockwood held his hand to his ear. "I'm getting a signal. Looks like Zola's counter measures are failing. Jenny to the south east can you see General Bitmarck sending reinforcements? waves of drones are flying to our position. "
"No!" I said. That didn't sound good.
"Me me me!" said little Jenny "now I'm the evil witch."1
She held her hands out pointing her bend fingers like a strange bear cub in ballet gear. Suddenly from the sky came a large blue white beam, then another finally five or six beams kept forming pillars of plasma for a brief moment like lightning. It was the same stuff that had melted the sentinel in the garden of the museum of human art, the night Rockwood confessed.1
"WTF IS THAT?" I said.
"Orbital point lasers," said Rockwood calmly like he's pointing out a red fire truck to a three year old.
"Orbital point lasers?" I said.
"Giant lasers in space. They can knock out any target on the ground even through clouds. Did you ever see James Bond in Diamonds are for ever?" asked Rockwood.2
"No."
"GoldenEye more your period," said Rockwood.
"I wasn't even born then." I said.
"Die Another Day? What about Akira?" Rockwood tried. I guess he was right Hollywood had tried to tell us. That or you accept the many writers of James Bond couldn't collectively invent any ideas for cool super weapons.
"Seriously? The new mechanical order built orbital lasers?" I said.
"God no, we took them from Trinidad and Tobago," said Rockwood
"Trinidad and Tobago?" I said confused. "The tiny islands in the Caribbean ?"1
"Close enough, in the 1960's they had a brilliant professor who built the first one. Got it launched in secret and handed the controls over to the government. They waited until the cuban missile crisis to show anyone. Never struck you as weird no one used nuclear weapons since then? Why did you think we had such a big celebration over the defeat of Trinidad and Tobago?" said Rockwood.1
"You have me there." I said.
The long lighting flashes continued in the distance.
"Your saying Trinidad and Tobago have been running the world without anyone noticing?" I said.3
"No they are just secret guardians of world peace." Rockwood explained " They didn't want to tell anyone how run their countries, just make sure if any one decided to take the nuclear option that would be the last and only mistake they ever made. Most military policy of the big nuclear nations was how far they could go with out annoying the Trinidadians. Think of it as a stealth super power. Once we hacked into the satellite control systems the New mechanical order knew it ruled the world."
"They even tried to use it to stop some big hurricanes," said little Jenny out of character for a second then got back to her evil witch pose.
"Zola is making her escape," said Rockwood obviously receiving a tweet from some computer some where.
"Mummy is coming to pick me up in her car after ballet. Jenny do you want to come home with us or stay here?" said Little Jenny.2
"She's not going any where without me," said Loop.
"Mummy has a people mover - you can bring your nice dogy," said Jenny.
Soon from over the horizon came a fast military Osprey.
"RAIN B-ZERO-W class craft. It's the CPU's personal guard" said Rockwood. It landed and I saw the seven nested semi circles in different colours which represented the CPU's personal guard. The back ramp opened and we saw a couple of unicorns with their robot guards. Loop spun round reaching for his weapon.3
"They don't bite," said little Jenny.
"It's OK," I said to Loop who had lifted his weapon.
"Ve are zery pleased to be carrying vor Majesty," said a white unicorn to little Jenny in a very cliched Austrian accent. I say white, in this light there was a slight red tinge to their skins - kind of made them match the pink of little Jenny's ballet outfit. They had obviously been in the shower when called and were a little bit fluffy.
"Shadowfax, These are my friends," said little Jenny pointing at everyone "don't eat them."+
"This once your majesty, for vou," said the horse.
We walked on to find Villeria at the controls.
"I herded the woolly mammoths as ordered highness," said Villeria to little Jenny. So Villeria was on this.
Rockwood, Loop, little Jenny, Kayla, Joe and my self all stormed abroad. Time to catch Zola. 1
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Chapter 94/the last battle of the cyborgs
We got onto the Unicorn's RAIN B-ZERO-W Osprey. Quickly took off. One
of these unicorns went to the front and lay down to act as villeria's co-pilot. Through one of the windows I looked down and saw huge Nnumbers of zombie animals. I Halted.3
"Vere is an aircraft on an escape vector ahead." said one of the unicorns.
The horse/unicorn keeps balance on the moving plane was difficult for the cyber horse and it looked like it was dancing on the aircraft.3
'Watch this, I've been practicing' said little Jenny. She made a flicking motion and suddenly burst of light appeared from the sky a white line went through the wing. Zola's Osprey was was damaged. It started to go down to land.
"Follow it" I said.1
Villeria looked at Little Jenny and she nodded.
The pilot horse was sitting strapped in to a seat which supported their weight but kept them off the deck. The other one was grabbed by it's robot guards. We on the other hand just had to hang on to what ever straps were available. Rockwood balanced like a surfer and held my hand.1
"Weeeeeeee" said Little Jenny as the plane dropped down to the ground.1
As Zola's ship got close to the ground she had jumped out at tree top height. The plane out of control had landed on troop of unfortunate cyber zombies and blown up on on contact. The lithium air batteries went up in a violet and pink explosion.2
As we approached the ground the back ramp of our Osprey opened up.
While we were still the height of a house above the ground Rockwood jumped out and landed running after Zola. They started moving incredibly rapidly doing more kung fu fighting moves.1
"Vou might need these" said a unicorn while a chrome robot drone handed me a pair of glasses.
I put them on I'm suddenly could see a huge sphere all digital data surrounding Rockwood and Zola.
"What is happening?" asked Joe.
"I think they are engaging in some cyber hack fight" I said.
"The fighting is there to distract the opponent. It is the cyber hacking which will determine who has von" explained the unicorn.1
Joe,Loop and Kayla were given pairs of cyber glasses like mine.1
"That doesn't look good" said Joe as Zola's possession of the cyber sphere reduced.