“People! Please get back from the fire. There could yet be further explosions. If anyone saw what caused this, please stick around. Anyone who has no information is please asked to continue on your trip, and get out of the way for emergency vehicles.”
Kris turned to Alisia. “I lied. It’s pretty obvious that whatever could blow, has already blown. Aside from the fire itself, it should be relatively safe.”
Alisia and Regan were soon on the ground. They walked over to the three cars that still remained, to talk to the drivers. Other helicopters were now circling the area, and a report came in that fire crews were seven minutes away. Alisia spoke to the nearest civilian. “So. What happened here?”
“I don’t know. I just saw this explosion and pulled over, an-“
“Didn’t we say that if you had no info, that you should leave?” Alisia yelled so that everyone could hear. The near guy muttered “sorry” and got into his car, as did the others.
When Alisia turned, Regan was looking into the building with her scope. “It was him.” She passed Alisia the scope. Through the flames she could see blood smeared all over the walls inside.
“Sick bastard.”
~~~~~
Chapter 45: Everything You Need
~~~~~
The sun was not yet up, but its light was already filtering out to this strip mall in a suburb of Meston. Erebus raised his fist at the plate glass window of a small electronics store.
“No, no, stupid.” he said to himself. Why damage your hand when you can throw a mailbox through it?
He looked at the little sensor attached to the inside of the window. No, no... then we would still have the alarm going off. He looked through the window and examined the wall. Just a few layers of drywall separated the electronic shop and the hair dresser’s next door.
The hairdresser’s window didn’t have an alarm attached to it, so he threw the mailbox through the hairdresser’s window, and then used it to bash open a respectable hole in the wall. Voila. No alarms. He looked at the wall clock. Five thirty or so. Looking at the store hours, he saw this gave him ample time to shop before any staff showed up. He reached out to grab a laptop and noticed that his hands were still bloody from the gas station clerk. Ick. After cleaning up with some paper towels he found behind the counter, he collected the laptop and a few dozen electronic parts and components. “Oh fuck,” he said to himself just before he left, “Tools! Duh!” He went back and collected some of the essentials. For good measure, he opened the cash register and took an extra laptop, mainly to make it look like a basic robbery. Maybe they wouldn’t connect it to him right away.
Now the trick was to find a nice little hole to hide in; to work in. He looked back at the mess he’d made. He’d have to be a little more subtle for a while if he was going to get any work done. After doing some back-alley running to get some distance from the latest crime scene, he then went shopping for some office space. After a little cruising of commercial and industrial areas he found a four story building with an ‘office for rent’ sign on the top floor.
He was soon standing in the hall of the top floor. No one was around. He placed his hand over the lock of his target door and gave a short, strong push. The inner doorframe snapped out of the way, and the door gently opened. It didn’t make so much noise that it would attract anyone from any of the other office suites, so he went in and closed the door. It wouldn’t stay perfectly shut, so he stuffed his cap against the bottom of the door to keep it in place.
The office wasn’t furnished but it had lights, power, communication outlets, and a kitchenette. First, he used his new laptop and the office communication port to access his own FTP and download his collection of software and specs. He used the specs to customize the RF transmitter he grabbed, and hook it up to the laptop. Then he ran a certain bit of his own homebrew software, and cut his finger. He held a nine volt battery up to the cut, as a signal.
A few commands later, and half the nanites in his bloodstream began racing towards the signal, out the cut. After a while, a slight, grey, metallic crust was forming around the contacts of the battery, eventually growing into a mass a bit smaller than a billiard ball.
“Yay! Now I just need about a zillion more! If each of them builds two friends, and they build two friends....” Erebus ran a few commands on the laptop. All it would take now was some time and some raw materials for the nanite farm.
~~~
“I’m seeing burst transmissions, Captain.” The pilot of the Lancer airlimb squinted at a display while Captain Harringer leaned over to look. “It’s very faint, but it seems to fit the parameters of a nanite server.”
“Can you read it?”
“Fraid not, Sir. They’ve got it encrypted.”
Harringer grumbled. “It’s him.”
~~~~~
Chapter 46: Giddyup
~~~~~
“Major?” Kris’s voice popped on the unit’s comms. “There’s an unidentified airlimb headed for Meston.”
“What do you mean, ‘Unidentified’?”
“It refuses to answer, it carries no transponder signal, and base says the satellites can’t even see any markings on it.”
Alisia groaned. “Well what the fuck is this now?”
“I’ve plotted an approximate course for it, and looked at things in its path, and you’ll never guess what I found.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Captain. I’m not in the mood.” Alisia said tiredly.
Regan piped up. “Damn.”
Kris replied. “There’s a signal that could only be a nanite server. It’s very weak though.”
“Fuck. Erebus is setting up shop. So this unknown airlimb is probably the same guys that trashed his other base.”
“Shall we?”
“Giddyup.”
~~~~~
Chapter 47: Christmas
~~~~~
Erebus heard a little whisper in the corner of his head. It told him Lancer was coming, but Erebus expected this. Presently he stood on the roof of the building he had been working in. The new coat of metal he gently ‘installed’ on the roof using his latest fleet of nanites shimmered almost like water in the morning sun.
Erebus stared into the sky, straining his eyes on the tiny, approaching dot. It grew closer and closer.
Aboard the Lancer airlimb, Captain Harriger looked at the display, showing Jonathan ‘Erebus’ Coll, standing on a rooftop, facing them.
“I’ll be damned if he’s not staring right at us.” Harringer grumbled.
“Sir, there’s no way he can see us at this distance without binoculars or something.”
“Hmm.” Harringer knew better, or at least suspected. Short range nanite transmissions, and then Coll’s there, smiling away without a care in the world. Harringer spoke through his comm to his troops.
“Alright men. When we land, our objective is to capture the target, Coll. It is not necessary that we take him alive, but I would like to avoid injuring him if possible. We must assume he’s carrying some variety of nanites in his body. Splattering him all over could cause infection to us. Keep your distance from him. We’ll surround him and herd him into the airlimb, where we’ll seal him in the chamber. Do we understand?”
Affirmative replies flooded the comm channel.
“We can almost guarantee an ambush by zombies on first landing but we’ve handled that type before. You all know the rules.”
Erebus tried hard not to smile as the dot in the sky got closer, and grew, finally descending over the roof. Lancer’s airlimb hovered about fifteen centimeters over the surface. Harriger poured out with ten other soldiers. They checked all directions as they moved in a wide circle to surround Erebus, keeping a minimum of four meters away from him.
“Coll.” Harriger greeted.
“Hey. Kept me waiting.” Erebus said.
“That mean you’re coming along peacefully?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Picked up some nanite signals. Kinda thought we’
d be seeing some zombies here today.”
“Oh, no, haven’t made any of those lately.” He raised his hands slowly to the sky, in a motion of surrender. A terrible wrenching cry seemed to come from everywhere. The floor shifted below them, forcing the soldiers to adjust their footing.
“Fuck, the floor! Drop him now” Harriger yelled.
Erebus closed his fists as torrents of bullets tore into his body. The metal floor screamed with rage, and buckled into two meter high razor-like spikes of folded metal.
Most of the soldiers were killed instantly.
Some had a moment to wonder what happened before they died.
An unfortunate few were treated to up to half a minute of unimaginable pain. Among these were Harriger, who stared at Erebus in the stunned, horrified realization of what had happened, and what would happen soon.
Erebus stood, buckled over a bit in pain and bleeding profusely. But he did stand; easily over a hundred bullets in his body. He composed himself and smiled peacefully as the last of the moans around him faded into oblivion.
“I won.”
He walked up to Harriger, who was stuck on a few of the spikes, taking the comm from his ear and his handgun. He put the comm into his own ear.
“Helloooooo? Bookie?”
No reply came. While Erebus waited, he commanded the nantie infested metal floor to release and flatten out. The dead soldiers fell to the smooth surface like puppets with their strings cut. Nanites quietly invaded their bodies, installing strings for a new puppeteer.
“Bookie-poo, would you like to speak to Harriger?”
“He’s alive?” Mr. Book asked in a flat tone.
Erebus put the comm back into Harriger’s ear. He closed his eyes, and took control of him. Erebus spoke through Harriger, using Harriger’s voice. Harriger’s eyes moved around while the nanites worked to enslave more of the freshly dead body.
“Hi Mr. Bookie-poo, I’m Harriger!” Erebus forced Harriger’s corpse to say, “I’m such a freakin doofus. Not only did I get killed, but really, I didn’t stand a chance! At least I managed to see Coll. After all, he designed half the augmentations in this airlimb and actually could have taken it over from a mile away, and simply ran my entire squad into the ground. Jeesus fuck, why didn’t we even consider that, Mr. Bookie-poo? We’re so fucking dense!”
Mr. Book signed off. Yelling and commotion was heard just before the signal disappeared. Erebus returned to his own body.
“Oops,” Erebus said, watching his own nanites seal his ‘trivial’ wounds, “Was that in bad taste?”
He looked around at the soldiers, slowly coming to their feet. He looked at the empty Lancer airlimb, and made a mental inventory of the resources that were probably inside it. “Merry fucking Christmas!”
~~~~~
Chapter 48: A Fall
~~~~~
All of AZU-1 had watched the ‘battle’ through a satellite, sending its pictures to their airlimb’s monitors. They didn’t know who these soldiers were, but their deaths were still startling and disturbing. At first, it was hard to tell what happened. From the high angle the spikes didn’t show up so well, except the shadows they caused. Then the blood. Then... then only one person was moving.
“He has got to die. Today, now.” Regan said.
“I think that would be appropriate.” Alisia said in a somber tone. Despite Erebus’ deeds, it was still difficult to decide to kill a human. A person.
Erebus didn’t ‘sense’ the AZU-1 airlimb the way he sensed the Lancer airlimb, brimming with his own little microscopic spies, but he heard them. Heard the engine. He searched the sky and saw it. Soon it was above him. He prepared his witty repartee with which to tease his favorite pursuers.
But no conversation was offered.
The air splintered with the sounds of hate as Parker systematically shredded Erebus, and every one of the newly created zombies. The sound of the zipper gun seemed to go on endlessly. If the blood Erebus had spilled from the soldiers was a horrible sight, then this was just stomach turning. Only after Parker ceased fire did he really see what he had done.
The sounds of the engines seemed deafening against the silence of those on board.
“Well... I guess we should go down and confirm.” Alisia said. They assumed a hovering position, much like the Lancer airlimb, but on the other side, and not above the nanite-trap floor. Regan and Alisia stood on the edge of the airlimb bay floor while Parker looked at the mess through his scope. The girls didn’t dare go near the trapped roof of the building. Alisia used a scope to look at Erebus close up. Enough of his face was still visible. Most of the rest of his head had been torn to shreds.
Regan looked for the last time into the face of the man who had killed her brother, and most of the residents of Autar. She wished she could make him deader.
“Yeah,” Alisia sighed, “He’s dead. Kris, contact local authorities. We’re going to evacuate the building and try to do a controlled burn of the roof.”
With a sudden growing hum, the Lancer airlimb bucked back to life and began to rise.
“Kris! Talk to whoever’s flying that thing!!” Alisia yelled into her comm.
“AZU-1 to unidentified airlimb. Respond.” Kris said.
“Hello AZU-1”, came Erebus’ voice, “This is ‘unidentified airlimb’, here. What’s your sign? Over.”
Kris didn’t recognize the voice at first, but Regan and Alisia both closed their eyes in a frustrated moment of exasperation. Jonathan Coll’s body was certainly dead, but ‘Erebus’ was alive in the systems of the Lancer airlimb.
“Unidentified airlimb,” Kris started, “Please identify yourself and prepare to be escorted to Yute base.”
“Ah, negative AZU-1, chew my knob. I have things to do.” The Lancer airlimb began to rise again.
“Parker!” Alisia yelled, “Take him down!”
Parker opened fire again. Shots dented the exterior and fragments bounced around in the exposed bay, but it wasn’t stopped. It began to get some distance.
“Kris, keep us in optimal firing range. Parker, keep the heat on! Regan, get to the other zipper gun, just in case.”
“Damn” Erebus thought, “I should have jumped my mind into some heavy machinery long ago!” Sure, it was a bit disconcerting to look down at your own mutilated corpse, but hey, it’s a new era. Why cling to old bodies when you have a new shiny ass-kicking one? Granted an airlimb isn’t the fiercest thing in the sky by a long shot, but it has its uses. Especially this one, which Lancer conveniently delivered. It had been outfitted as a mobile nanite lab, which he had filled to the gills with little techy toys, almost all of which were now at his disposal.
Mechanisms had already begun moving about, putting this into that, and pouring those into there, and soon the onboard lab had assembled and loaded fifty large canisters.
Now AZU-1 was shooting at him. How rude. He thought of the zipper gun, and cursed that it needed a person manning it. He should have moved a couple zombies onboard before the slaughter. Bullets pounded against Erebus’ hull, making a resonating sound that irritated him through nearly all the sensors at his disposal.
Oh wait.. what was that noise? That ominous hummmmmmm....... He’d heard that before, and he did not like it. He had to launch the canisters now. Damn, three had been damaged by enemy fire. It looked like forty seven would have to be the lucky number.
Alisia kept the Lancer airlimb in her sights as the Bad Mojo fragmenting rail launcher charged up. Suddenly, a stream of objects poured out of the top of the Lancer airlimb. Alisia paused- was this damage? No.. this was bad. She snapped a decision, and squeezed the mojo’s trigger. The air split and the Lancer airlimb’s bay was wrenched nearly in half, bits flying out on the far side. Like a snake hit by a shotgun. A minor explosion erupted out of it as it began to fall.
“Shit, it’s gonna fall into the city!” Parker gasped.
Alisia had hoped it would explode, and maybe take out the canisters, but they’d been tossed clear already. T
hen her fear and suspicions were confirmed.
“Major,” Kris reported, “Those canisters. They’re transmitting. They’re nanite servers.”
As this sank in, the canisters were falling over a wide, wide area, and they streamed out a wispy smoke of nanites.
“Shoot them down!” Alisia ordered. Parker and Regan opened fire, many of the canisters now visible from Regan’s side.
They fell, and soon were crossing the horizon. “Don’t..... don’t be afraid to fire into the city. Hitting a civilian is better than them being infected.” Alisia collapsed to her knees, hearing her last order resonating in her head. She knew it was the right call, but .... this was worse than killing a fresh zombie, one that looked and bled like a human... this... this was just horrible. She looked over her shoulder and saw Regan, as her grip on the zipper’s controls loosened and she slumped down.
Parker heard Regan’s zipper stop firing, and let go as well.
“I.... think I might have gotten one. They’re fast, and small. I....”
Jonathan “Erebus” Coll descended across the city, a mind with forty seven bodies, and billions of children. And he planned the fall of Meston.
~~~~~
Chapter 49: An Ascent
~~~~~
While strategists and officials fussed and planned, and tried to think of what to do, AZU-1 was ordered to fly back to Yute base and rest. “When we have a plan, you can bet you’ll be spearheading it. When that time comes, I want you ready.” The General’s orders were clear. Alisia’s muscles and eyelids didn’t argue.
Despite this, Alisia found herself staring at the ceiling of her room aboard the airlimb, unable to sleep. She saw in her mind the zipper rounds flying towards the city. They’d stopped firing before much damage or injury could have been done, but it still agonized her. She imagined a handful of zipper rounds flying into someone’s kitchen window and fragmenting, and the bloody screaming of a worst case scenario.
AZU-1: Lifehack Page 22