Muzzle flash, metal torn into bits. I instinctively ducked for cover. I had to do this the old way. I put as much metal as I could between me and the drone but I knew that if a smartbullet was to come for me, it would be as much protection as a pile of napkins.
I gritted my teeth. One shot at this. Maybe not even that. But even if the drone shoots my right arm away, I would take it down with the other. For Thomas. For my brother. I had to do this, there was no escape.
Well, there was actually. I thought of the ground racing below me. I could fall down. The drone might shoot me, or might not. Who knows? The drone-mine in front would blast the van but not me. I could get away with some broken bones. Better chances of that than counting on a drone missing his shot. Or there might be Amazons behind us, coming in on their bikes. Would they capture me? Kill me? Force me to impregnate them all? Did they still do that or had they upgraded to artificial insemination?
The kid was waving his hand in the air. I thought he wanted to tell me something but then I realized he was just controlling his computer, doing his thing, little dots of overlay data running around his face.
We are gonna die and the son of a poutana is checking his emails.
Muzzle flash. Bullets tearing a line on the side of the van, on a neat straight line towards my face. I held still. The shots were moving alongside us. We were moving at relative speeds. The drone brain would choose a perfectly parallel path. Aim. The drone fired again, its bullets whizzing at random directions. One little smartbullet refused the jamming and changed course, right on my chest armor. No matter, I was holding my breath anyway. Who needs lungs? Fire. Direct hit.
And then I emptied the clip just to be sure.
I heard a clang at the front as Alkinoe forced the second drone-mine to bounce around the van and hit a rock. It came back at us and exploded on the road behind. The shockwave slammed the van doors at me and threw me on my back.
The whole van wobbled and stopped. I guess Thomas was worried about running over our girl. “Are you ok? Are there any more?” he asked her.
“No, that’s it for now. Let’s run,” she said, some scratches on her arm but otherwise in one piece.
“Let me bandage that arm for you,” he told her, trying to hide his worry from us.
“I’ll do it myself, drive. The operators could be after us,” she said and climbed in the back. What was left of it anyway.
“Pfft. The operators could be driving the drones from halfway around the world,” said the kid, giving the medkit to Alkinoe.
The look she gave him made him whip his hand back. “Amazons like to get up close and personal. Remote presence doesn’t cut it when it comes to the thrill of the kill,” she told us demonstrating a thrust with her retracted spear and then snatched the medkit from the boy’s hand.
“Strap yourselves in, I’m punching it,” Thomas said, and we blasted through the night towards Hephaistos Heavy Industries. I looked through the broken glass at the darkness behind us and imagined a gang of angry little ladies riding their bikes towards us.
Chapter 3
The calm is what gets to you. Those quiet minutes between a fight and the next, which you know for certain that it’s coming since you are the vlakas speeding towards it.
I could see the kid was shaking. Had he even been in a firefight before? I know his computing was seriously impressive, but a shaky team-member can get you killed. After he gets himself killed first. Or captured. I hate it when my team-mates get captured. I have to go all the way there and get them, there is sooo much drama and hostage situations and headshots and blood spatter on their face and ungrateful things like, “Oh my god you could have killed me.” We can’t have that.
I needed him to focus his mind, so I said, “Hey Uberkid, let’s go over the plan again with the added info the client gave you.”
He was staring at nothing, obviously in shock and was totally quiet. I could see his overlay was whizzing with text and arrows and info, much more than I could ever handle constantly having on my face. He wasn’t looking at any of that.
I slapped him a bit and said, “Hey, kid. Added info. Tell me the plan.”
He responded, shook his head and gestured in the air to pull data to our overlays. “Yeah, on it. The client needs the SSD drive plugged into…”
“Oh skata, is it okay?” said Thomas fumbling his jacket. “It’s okay. No bullets. Everything is o-kay.”
Everybody sighed with relief about the stupid SSD. Wasn’t I forgetting something? Oh yeah, bullet hit to the chest. I looked at my chestpiece. Nope, it penetrated but got caught before my lung. Might be a slight burn but I was too bored to take the armor off. Then I sighed along with the others.
“The drive needs to be plugged into the industrial grade 3D printer. Those are the manufacturing specs. I will start the process, got all the instructions here, not really that difficult, could have managed it on my own,” the kid said.
“It saves time, it’s called professionalism. Then what?” I asked.
“We just wait for the thing to get printed man, I mathed it and will take about six minutes, and then we need to find three more parts that are locked in a safe. The instructions have a humongous warning on them to not insert the three parts in the printed object.”
“What are we printing?” said Alkinoe, the thought that swam around in all of our minds.
“Now-now, that’s unprofessional. We are getting paid a pile of cash to do this anonymously, without asking questions, with no-one to track us when we are done and nothing to lead back to the client,” said Thomas. Then he added, “And we all owe that privacy to UberToxic’s skills.”
“I don’t get it, can’t you see what it is on the designs?” she asked.
The kid said, “No ma’am, it’s encrypted. We will know when we see it getting printed layer by layer.”
“Ok. But what is so special about that factory in particular? Did the client have to choose the most heavily guarded one?” she asked and bandaged herself.
Thomas said, “There is some chatter at certain, information places, about a hybrid industrial 3D-printer that polishes the product with nanotech. It’s a direct contrast to the crude 3D printed stuff that comes out rough and ugly, this tech can print stuff with etched integrated circuits on it and all kinds of intricate structure like hydraulics, optical fibres, anything really, even fractals for fun, down to the nanoscale. If it exists, it is a well-kept corporate secret and it must be precisely where we are going.”
“So,” I broke the silence, “it can make me anything I want. Can it print me a woman while we are there by any chance?”
All that replied was the whirr of the engine and some eyerolls.
Chapter 4
“How about a dog. Can it make me a dog?” I asked.
“Deimos shut up and get ready man!” said my brother and pulled the bullet infested van next to the factory.
“I am ready. My ammo is checked, my rifle is in hand, I am wearing my armor, I have memorized the path, and I am ready to shoot people. Do you see someone you would want me to shoot Thomas?” I asked standing tall and pretty in the middle of the van.
Where are all the mirrors when you need one?
He turned his head and looked at me. “Yeah, I might be seeing someone. Just cover us while we open the gate,” he said and got out of the van with the kid.
I got into cover and looked around. The kid started doing his thing, probably using the passwords and exploits the client gave us to disable cameras and locks. My brother did the physical part of the lock picking, that thing came natural to him.
“I can lockpick too. I have a spare shotgun on my back,” I declared.
Alkinoe clipped her SMG to her belt and grabbed her smartpistol. She took her place beside me and covered my back. It was amazing how well the angry little lady worked in a team. It wasn’t just the training, it was the pack mentality. Just like wolves, the Amazons were nasty little creatures on their own but when encountered in a group… Heh. Best
to keep your distance.
Only then did I realize how hard it must have been for her to leave her group. She never told us why, it was an issue and we did not go there.
The gate to the factory compound opened. Not too loud, but still louder than I wished. There were huge construction cranes in modular pieces neatly stacked around the place. It was something of a backyard, but it was bigger than a few city blocks. The only way for security to cover this big place was to rely on cameras and drones, so if the client had really done his work, we would be as good as invisible.
That was good. I like invisible. It helps keep a lead-free diet.
We covered the ground, running from cover to cover as my brother and the kid followed behind. Alkinoe and I were working flawlessly as a team, I would love to have her as my sister-in-law. Me and the family, pew pew loot grab bang alcohol.
Too bad that after this we could all retire and never have to do another job in our lives.
I checked the perimeter. No drones, no patrols. We picked up the pace and ran deeper into the compound. The big cranes got replaced by steel parts, maybe from a bridge. Could be a skyscraper, but these were curved. Even skyscrapers are curved nowadays, so who knows?
I finally saw the factory doors. Clear. I covered the right side, Alkinoe covered the left.
The kid went to work. “All codes fine so far,” he said.
The loading door opened. I put my smartrifle first to peek inside. No tangos. I went in and found cover. The others followed behind me. We were all much quieter now, there could be patrols inside. The kid linked up the map on our overlay but I didn’t need it, I had already memorized the route. I could see the others were using it though.
Corridor. Locked door. The kid opened it easily. Some sort of a packaging room. Clear. Door. Not locked. Corridor. Locked door. The kid opened it.
God this is boring.
“Hey Thomas let’s hop on two of those forklifts for the rest of the ride,” I said and got a brotherly backfist on my chest. Ouch, that shouldn’t hurt so much.
Alkinoe said to me, “You can buy as many big-boy toys as you like when we get paid.”
I lowered my head and felt scolded.
The next couple of rooms, were not exactly rooms but sections of an assembly line. Huge cauldrons of molten metal, sitting there at an optimal temperature waiting for the morning shift.
If the god Hephaistos had a playground, it would look just like this. A meld of blacksmithing and high tech, shiny chrome and dirty red rust. And the noise, oh man the noise. Gears turned, liquids flowed, metal scratched as construction grade metasteel alloys got bent into submission. Ladies and gentlemen, we have here a straight beam of the strongest metal ever constructed. What’s that ma’am? You want it round? I will make it round. You, beam, bend over. Why? Cause I said so, because I have a bigger machine that somehow manages to bend the strongest thing in the world. Yes my good sirs, buy now, two beams for the price of one!
Two factory drones whirred down the corridor. I took cover and readied my rifle.
The kid said, “No, leave them. They won’t notice us.”
I held my finger to the trigger just in case. The drones came straight towards us, stopping at some readings and dipping their finger in lava. The molten metal fell on the floor and sizzled. I instinctively aimed for a joint and held my breath. The drones came right next to us, pulled a lever down and went on their way.
We took a freight elevator upstairs. Thomas wanted to take the stairs but the kid assured us the cams were off.
“The 3D printer is around the corner, let’s move people,” Thomas whispered.
This floor was cleaner than below. Not by much, but it resembled less of a smithy and more of an R&D place, with equipment open and wires pouring out from every conceivable surface. The hybrid printer stood about thirty meters tall in the middle of the room. It was what I imagined an airplane would look like without its outer hull. But vertical.
Most of the 3D-printers I have seen were commercial models, or modded ones but still rather small and boxy. They were fit for printing replacement parts, crude armor repair plates and tons of other things. This thing though, this thing seemed like it could print…
Chapter 5
Tanks. Like it could 3D-print tanks. And if what Thomas said was true about this doing delicate work, that might actually be its purpose.
Thomas wasted no time, plugged in the SSD on the controlling computer where the kid showed him and left him space to do his job. I covered the exits and kept looking around but the ugly truth was that we were in the middle of a big room. It was the worst place to choose from and just sit there in enemy territory.
The kid sent the design schematics to the controlling server. I know it is a server, because it is big. A small computer is called a personal computer, a portable one is called a laptop and a big-in-a-closet-kind-of-way computer is called a server, that much I do know.
I glanced at the monitors and said, “How can we still not see what the thing we are printing looks like?”
The kid was busy, so Thomas replied instead, “It’s encrypted, forget it. The only thing that matters is that it’s accepted by the hybrid printer and it seems to have begun processing.” He was hovering over the kid but knew that he had to let him do his thing.
Alkinoe was changing covering sides after me, but she was looking worried, throwing glances at the dudes all the time.
A loading bar popped up on the monitor and we were all enthralled by its awesome percentile power. Twelve percent. Thirty percent.
“Oh the suspense! Do we have forty? Going once, going twice! Forty percent, sold to the tall dark and handsome man standing right next to me,” I said but I was the only one laughing.
Then the loading bar cheated and filled up all at once. What’s the point then man? What’s the point?
Our heads turned and the hybrid printer came to life. Some chemicals started boiling in their tanks and ten printing nozzles moved down to coordinates 0,0,0. They squirted some stuff on the base of the printer, then went at the beginning and squirted some more. A third nozzle squirted something else on top, something steamy. All we could see was some matter (yes matter!) on the floor.
“Oh malakies, is this going to get printed one molecule at a time?” I exhaled.
The kid typed some stuff and went, “Oh-oh.”
“What?” Thomas asked.
“The new estimated printing time is twelve minutes sir,” the kid said.
“You calculated six!” said Thomas with eyes darting around.
“I know sir, I’m sorry but there was really no way to know for realz without the hardware,” the kid apologized and looked really bummed up about it.
My brother held on to his leadership skills and told him, “It’s all right, you couldn’t have known. Ok. Is it printing now on its own?”
“Yes sir, we just wait for it to finish,” said the kid.
Thomas gathered his thoughts and said to all of us, “All right, minor setback. The print could take more than twelve minutes. Let’s gain some time by going for the parts at the safe. Alkinoe stay here and guard. Me and UberToxic will go upstairs to the safe and get the parts. Deimos, you guard but also block some of the entrances just in case. We will meet you down here, wait for the print and carry the whole lot out of here.”
We nodded in approval.
“Let’s move,” my brother said and that was the last time I ever saw him alive.
Chapter 6
She was not amused.
I opened my arms wide and said, “What? It’s a legitimate strategic deployment. My orders are to barricade the doors and secure the area.”
“And this was the only way you could think of to secure the area?” she asked angrily and crossed her arms.
“I am in a factory, with devices that carry stuff around. I need to carry stuff and I am lazy, so, here,” I said and pulled the lever that tossed the load from my forklift in front of her. There, that should provide some cover. I t
urned my wheel, these things turn around from the rear wheels, it’s funny.
As I drove towards the elevator, she yelled at me, “You were hoping for this delay. I know you better than you think mister.”
I yelled back, “Watch those squirts if they align right. Hate to see the client go through all this trouble and get a gorilla-faced tank in the end.”
As I was coming back forklifting more stuff to block the doors I saw her taking cover behind the industrial drill I brought earlier. “It’s ok, think of it as my wedding present,” I told her and barricaded another exit.
She squinted at me. “Huh?”
The print-job was progressing steadily. We had something that looked like soles. Two of-em. Could this be a battle armor? I want a mecha.
Then I drove my forklift as if I was riding a mecha.
The kid sent us messages on our overlays. He said, “Safe nt open, pass=wrng. w8 their. Brb.”
Alkinoe looked at me and I made no comment on the update. Her eyes said it all. It took me a minute to understand the message but I finally got it.
This was serious. I tried to hide my worry but she is a woman, they have like a superpower sensing those things. She gave me no more skata and stayed alert. My preemptive lockdown of the place didn’t seem that silly now. We had a delay and a locked safe. One skata is normal, expected even in jobs like these, but two is a bad thing.
I parked my trusty forklift next to the server and took cover behind it. Two exits were left on this floor, two more on the balcony above, which I had no way to block. Tyche would have to smile upon us on that thing. The barricades were good enough for infantry, anything more and there was no point in us trying anyway. Me and Alkinoe had good cover, we were each checking one exit and I had left a surprise on the elevator.
Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe Page 29