by Eric Vall
Chapter 1 - HFD-576
Humans. The mere sight of the filthy, disgusting creatures made me wish The Hive had created me without a gag reflex.
I stood just at the edge of the rocky cliff that overlooked the sorry excuse for a base the Human Resistance had set up in the mountains. They thought they could hide from us by scattering their hideouts throughout the wastelands to the east and the mountainous regions to the north, regions that held no strategic value to my kind.
They were wrong. Dead wrong.
According to my X-ray scanners, there were fifty-seven humans in the base. Ten of them were in the building’s “kitchen,” a makeshift dining hall of rotting tables and broken floorboards where the Resistance chowed down on meat two-months expired. Fifteen more of them were wandering about the base as they performed the odd jobs that helped the building function.
Then there were twelve of the meatbags huddled around a large table at the structure’s center, undoubtedly discussing military operations. Probably typical, emotional bullshit about taking back the big cities, or creating some new superweapon, or arguing about how they were going to defeat an army of mindless killing machines.
Unfortunately for these soldiers, I was far from mindless.
The last twenty men were stationed around the perimeter of the base, standing guard just in case any of my kind came to crash the party. If they saw one of us approaching, they would sound the alarm, and the humans would try to spring one of their little traps.
My mission was simple. Walk in undetected and download the information located in the central computer. HFDs were equipped with universal data tendrils that could conform to any shape of port and could understand information from any type of operating system. So, getting the information would be easy for me.
I was already dressed in the “standard” Resistance uniform, dark green fatigues with a black bullet-proof vest and matching military cap, complete with a tiny logo of a clenched human fist on the front. I had a semi-automatic pistol at my side, and a military-grade assault rifle was strapped to my back.
If everything went according to plan, I wouldn’t need to use my weapons at all.
Then again, a part of me kind of wished I’d get the chance.
In order for this charade to work, I needed to look battle-worn. So, I’d rubbed mud, dirt, and blood all over the uniform, sliced and tore away pieces of fabric from my body, and had even given myself some self-inflicted wounds for good measure.
Part of my programming made me act with compulsive behavior like our enemies, so I checked the hammer on my pistol again, scanned the building one last time, and then headed toward the small footpath that would lead me down to the base. I could feel the rocky mountainside crumbling beneath my feet with each step I took, but my organic internal ear stabilizers kept me from stumbling. Soon, I was down in the basin, only a few dozen yards away from my target.
This so-called “base” was about as sad of a building as I’d ever seen. It was two stories tall and made out of whatever second-hand material the Resistance could collect. It was mostly concrete and steel, with windows and doors that were little more than a piece of tattered fabric held up by an even more tattered rope.
As I approached the base, my defense systems indicated there were six guns aimed in my direction. Two sniper rifles, three assault rifles, and even an RPG.
These meatbags really weren’t taking any chances.
A rough-looking human with dark black hair and grime smeared across his face was standing guard at the front door, and he instantly took aim at me with the shotgun in his hands.
My HUD had access to a database of the various resistance identities we’d stolen from their computers, but I didn’t bother to read this man’s name when it displayed in my scanners.
He would be just a corpse in a few hours.
“We weren’t expecting anyone else,” the man warned, “if you value having a complete torso, you’d best stop right there.”
I halted my stride and held up my hands in surrender.
“I-I’m with the Silverton East Faction,” I stammered as I adopted a distressed tone.
The man raised his eyebrows as his pupils narrowed.
“Silverton?” he mused. “I thought The Hive wiped out every faction we had in Silverton?”
“They did,” I said sadly. “They razed that whole place to the ground and didn’t leave a single soul alive. I barely escaped with my life.”
The dirt-covered man still looked skeptical. Without taking his eyes off me, he tilted his head to the side and let out a short, shrill whistle.
Almost instantly, another man in dark gray fatigues rushed out from behind the tattered fabric. In his hand, he held a device I knew all too well.
A Decoy Finder, or a “Decepticon Buster” as the humans liked to call it.
I’d only been active for a few short months, but I was already intricately familiar with this process. The man would hold the device up against my chest to check for a nanomachine core before he placed it against the back of my neck to try and read my programming. Lastly, the man would shine the laser beams into my eyes. If I reacted like a normal human, I’d pass the test. If I was indifferent to the sudden flash of red, it’d give me away instantly.
Luckily, The Hive had created me as a counter to these exact measures, and there would be no way for them to know I wasn’t human.
The tests were done in seconds, and then the guard motioned for me to follow him inside.
As soon as we were in, his entire demeanor changed.
“Thank God you escaped,” he sighed with relief. “The Resistance is going to need every single human left on the planet if we’re going to win this war. The more trained soldiers we have on our side, the better.”
“I’m not sure this is a war that can be won,” I warned ominously. “The machines tore through Silverton like they were on a mission.”
“That’s because they are on a mission,” the guard scoffed. “The Hive wants us all dead. That’s why they’ve started to use those fucking decoys, so they can get closer to us without setting off any alarms. Fuck, I even heard a single decoy took out both of our bases in the Outland mudpits.”
I gave him a single nod and played it coy, even though I knew he was talking about me.
“That’s awful,” I feigned sadness as we walked past the war room with the twelve generals inside. “What kind of machine do you think it was? My team felt the wrath of a Bruiser.”
“It definitely wasn’t a Bruiser,” he said as he shook his head. “Those things are a lot easier to kill than they look. It’s just a matter of getting to their weak spot. No, all signs point to The Hive’s little science experiment getting away, and that never happens.”
“It’s horrifying,” I lied, “to think there are heartless killing machines out there who look like you and me. Who could sneak in here at any moment and kill us before we could even react.”
I had to watch it, I was starting to get a little too confident. It was one of the many disadvantages of having human emotions programmed into my brain.
Finally, we arrived at the mess hall, and it was even more run-down than my X-ray scanners had originally indicated. The whole place smelled putrid, like decaying wood mixed with mold and then topped off with the odor of rebels who lived in a mountain and probably hadn’t showered for weeks.
“You rest up here,” the guard commanded. “You must be starving. I’ll tell the chefs to prepare you a warm meal and send for the doctor to look at your wounds.”
“You’re too kind,” I said as I forced my lips into a coy smile. “Thank you.”
Without another word, the dirty-faced guard turned around and marched out of the mess hall.
I couldn’t
help but smile as I thought ahead to the rest of the plan. There wouldn’t be any chefs or doctors coming for me. Instead, my binary brethren would appear at the summits of the mountains. There would only be a handful of A-1 assault units accompanied by GRUNT Drones, but it would be more than enough of a distraction for me to fulfill my purpose. Once I was out safely, with the vital information in-hand, any remaining units would be instructed to tear the base apart and kill everyone inside.
No, there would be no doctors. In just a few short moments, every single person in this base was going to be on red alert.
Suddenly, I heard gunshots off in the distance. Then a siren began to blare through the base, reverberating off its steel walls and ringing in my ears like a shrill whine.
All of the soldiers who had been working in the kitchen stopped what they were doing and quickly dashed out the front door in full gear. A few seconds later, I saw the generals who had been plotting in the war room zip past the mess hall.
That would be my cue.
I stood up, brushed a bit of dirt off my clothes, and then headed toward the war room.
A few more soldiers, fully-clad in their military attire, brushed past me as I walked down the grimy, roach-infested hallway. I briefly thought about crushing those disgusting things under my foot, but then I thought better. I didn’t want to make too much of a mess on this mission.
The roaches were fairly vile, as well, but at least they kept to themselves.
I finally arrived at a large set of steel doors that led to the war room and, more importantly, the computer inside. My scanners indicated the doors were at least half a meter thick, and three of the soldiers had stayed behind to guard the computer in the room.
Two of the men wielded shotguns, and the third held a high-caliber assault rifle. My sensors indicated their hearts were beating irregularly, horrified at the prospect of being torn apart by the ruthless killing machines outside.
Little did they know, their harbinger of death was going to be a six-foot tall platinum blonde woman.
Despite their heft, I could have easily used my strength to pull apart the steel doors. However, that would have taken too much time, and that time could be used by my enemies to delete or destroy whatever information was on the computer. Not to mention, it would give them a warning.
Decoys did not give warnings.
I unsheathed the pistol from my belt and then waltzed a few meters to my right, so I was just on the other side of the wall from the man with the assault rifle.
He needed to go first, since his weapon had the highest firing rate and the best long-distance accuracy. Through the wall, I could see him pressed up against the concrete with his rifle aimed firmly at the door.
So, I squatted down briefly, pushed in my toes, and then propelled myself forward.
The doors of the room may have been half a meter thick, but the concrete that made up this wall wasn’t.
I felt nothing but some slight pressure as I crashed through the wall right on top of the first soldier. He was taken completely by surprise, and I wrapped my arms around his neck as we both toppled to the floor. The man flailed under my grasp, but only for a moment. I quickly tightened my arms, heard a wet pop, and then tossed his corpse away from myself.
As I rolled over onto my feet, one of the other soldiers dashed toward the control console at the far end of the room. His partner had his shotgun up and at the ready, but I was prepared for him.
Before he could take aim, I raised my pistol and fired.
There was a brief spray of blood from between his eyes as the soldier’s head whipped back, and then he crumpled to the ground, dead.
“Mayday, mayday!” the final soldier pleaded into an intercom. “There’s a Dec--”
I squeezed the trigger once more, and the man let out a yelp as he fell to the ground with a bullet-sized hole in his skull.
The soldiers didn’t know I was here exactly, but they knew something was happening now.
It didn’t matter, though. I was seconds away from claiming my prize.
I scanned the console for any sort of terminal, but there was nothing. Not a single USB port, a fiber-optic channel, or anything of the sort. Finally, I came upon a small opening that looked like the Resistance’s logo.
It was a new type of data port, one that could only be accessed by someone with the proper connection piece. At least, that’s what it was intended to be.
But a human could never outsmart a machine.
I placed my fingertips over the entrance to the port and allowed the small, fiber-optic nano-cables to extend from my hand. I could feel them slithering around in the opening like tiny snakes in search of their next meal. Or, in this case, the metal pins that would allow me to connect with the machine.
Then I felt it.
The ends of my tendrils touched the nickel plating inside the computer, and binary code flashed in my mind. They warned me I didn’t have the right credentials, but I pushed back against the firewall until I finally saw its defenses begin to crack. Another warning message shot up and told me if I proceeded without the proper credentials, all data would be erased and the computer would self-destruct.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
I was going to get this data out in one piece and send it back to The Hive, no matter how many failsafes the humans had put in place. My system could try and run through the millions of possible encryption keys, but that would have taken too long, and the rest of the returning soldiers would be upon me before I could find the solution.
So, I looked over at the lifeless body on the floor next to me. There, on his belt, dangled a small card at the end of a lanyard. And there, on the card, sat a barcode. These were the ones used to gain access to the war room as well as any of the other secure areas of this base.
But now, it would be my ticket to victory.
This base wasn’t connected to the internet. It couldn’t be, or else The Hive would have been able to pinpoint its location in seconds. However, my systems indicated the computers here were running on a LAN. This meant the dead soldier’s credentials had been encountered before by this machine. So, even though I couldn’t use the card itself on the computer, I could use its code.
I used the zoom function of my eyes to get a closer look at the keycard. Instantly, my system began to process the barcode. At the same time, I ordered my programming to feed the data I was seeing through my tendrils and into the main computer.
Soon enough, I got a ping.
Credentials recognized.
Suddenly, I was hit with a wave of statistics, algorithms, and calculations. I recognized some of the formulas instantly, such as the Lorentz Reaction and Schrodinger’s wave equation.
Time travel. All of these formulas and calculations were related to time travel.
I quickly downloaded the data into my own system and removed my tendrils from the mainframe. Then I turned around, stole the shotgun from my fallen enemy, and sauntered out into the main hall.
The alarms were still blaring throughout the base, but I could no longer hear gunfire from the outside. I did a passing diagnostic scan through the walls and saw there were ten humans scurrying back to the base, each one battle-scarred and ready to protect their prized possession.
They would surely try, but just like all the others, they would fail.
As I made my way toward the main entrance of the base, my sonar scanners picked up four of my targets heading into the structure. Three more stayed outside to watch the exit, and the remaining troops dashed around to the other three sides of the building to trap whatever had triggered that mayday call from the war room.
Luckily for them, I was more than willing to fight them head-on.
I encountered the first four soldiers as I came around the corner into the entryway of the base.
A rifle fired off a few rounds of bullets, but I was swift enough to flip out of the way. While I was airborne, I cocked my shotgun, took aim, and fired at the soldier closest to me.
I quickly calculated the trajectory of their shots, side-stepped out of the way, and fell down onto my stomach. Once I was prone, I flipped the shotgun over my shoulder, took aim, and blasted another Resistance member in the leg.
His calf exploded into a gory mess, and he let out a shriek of pain. Then his head hit the concrete floor hard as he fell, and I heard his skull crack. A moment later, my sensors no longer picked up life readings from his body.
As I rolled to my left and leapt back to my feet, I saw the remaining two soldiers had taken cover behind a few fallen chunks of concrete.
The next thing I knew, I saw a small black circle hurling in my direction. It was a grenade.
Pitiful.
I spun around and kicked the incoming explosive back in their direction.
“Oh shit!” I heard one of them scream, but it was too late.
The grenade went off with a small flash, and the shockwave was enough to send cracks branching through the floor like a series of earthly veins.
I put my shotgun back over my shoulder and swapped it out for the assault rifle. As I was making the switch, I noticed there were a few drops of blood dribbling down my leg. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a tiny piece of shrapnel had embedded itself into my calf. A fragment from the concrete, perhaps?
It wasn’t of concern to me. Soon, the nanomachines in my blood would rush to the wound and make it look like it’d never been there in the first place.
I used my scanners to check out the battlefield one last time before I headed out to face the others.
The remaining soldiers must have heard the commotion inside, because their hearts were hammering in their chests like drums, and they were all eerily silent as they held their positions. The three who flanked the building hadn’t moved, but the ones outside the door had scattered for cover along the rocky cliffs.
I stepped up to the makeshift fabric door and peeked the barrel of my rifle out ever-so-slightly. I tilted my head over just enough so I could see where I was aiming, and then I zoomed in as far as my system would let me.