Feeling that my body is quite obviously not dead, I decide to open my eyes, half-expecting that my legs will be ripped from my body and that my guts will be spilling out onto the floor. Instead, I see the same aircraft that I woke up in a few minutes ago, the clothes and trash on the floor even more disorganized after the chaos.
We are flying through the air, dozens of military drones and aircraft hovering below us as we shoot upward in the sky. Then I see Anika, her wildly disproportional body confidently standing behind the control panel, her eyes trained on the map as if we are doing nothing more than navigating through a rainstorm.
“What the fuck just happened?” I stand up, the ringing in my ears subsiding as I command the cube to heal me. It’s funny, how after being brought to the brink of death so many times, the agony doesn’t even faze me anymore.
I always know that the cube will be there.
But soon we will have to do this alone.
“Sometimes I love being bionic.” She chuckles. She flits her eyelashes in a way that seems both flirtatious and hostile, which only confuses me more.
As I look outside again and see the clouds only continuing to whiz by us faster, I know exactly what is happening.
The Syndicate has hacked her again. This was all a part of their plan. I have to kill her.
I place my hand on top of the cube, trying to formulate a plan that can destroy a murderous bionic robot without taking down this aircraft and my life with it.
One of my strengths is being able to run through a million scenarios in my head at lightning speed, but even after thinking of nearly every possibility, I can only come up with one shitty answer.
It’ll have to do.
The relentless pounding of missiles, thousands of bullets, and dozens of bombs against the exterior of the force field has faded. Whether by design or total accident, the Syndicate has confused the military forces that have been programmed to defend the compound, leaving us a path free of any deathly missiles to skyrocket into the stars.
I use the confusion to my advantage.
“Contract force field to five feet.” I double-tap the cube, the force field contracting before Anika can move her mechanical fingers and swipe the cube away from me.
Now, it’s time for phase two of the plan.
Charge her like a fucking linebacker.
I cradle the Chimera Cube as if it is a large, blocky football and sprint across the aircraft to Anika’s position at the center of the control panel. At first, she looks at me as if I am some stupid kid playing around in the park.
A moment later she finally realizes that there is a field of electricity surrounding me that can wipe out the internal components that allow her to live.
“Get away from me!” she screams, her legs bending at a sharp angle before she springs across the aircraft. Within a second, she is able to move over twenty feet away from me, well out of the range of my force field.
Her torso opens up, and I prepare myself for another laser to connect with my chest. Instead, a thick, odorless gas exudes from the spot of her chest where a human’s heart normally lies.
Within seconds, the entire aircraft is filled with the gas, thousands of sparks dancing off the exterior of the force field. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the gas is poisonous, but I’ve been surprised before.
“Clear gas and deconstruct force field,” I relay the string of commands to the Chimera Cube, its army of nanobots immediately following suit. The force field falls apart within seconds, the toxic gas flooding the airspace around me.
However, the billions of nanobots inside the Chimera Cube act fast. Their sensors automatically identify any compounds that are out of their normal range within this layer of the earth’s atmosphere, and they quickly work to eradicate whatever is left of the gas.
“Super-charged magnet,” I spit out the command just as the gas is disappearing. The outline of Anika’s cyborg body is faintly visible behind the last of the layers of gas.
The moment the Chimera Cube produces the large, industrial-sized magnet designed to attract thousands of pounds of metal to its core, Anika flies through the air towards me.
She is out of control of her cyborg abilities.
I am the one with the power.
The magnetic field of the bulky rubber structure is strong enough to drag her through the air as if she is nothing more than a paperclip. I can’t help but laugh as her legs smash into the magnet that lies at my feet, the electromagnetic waves her fingers rely on all screwed up from the field I created.
Killing her will be easy now.
Just one bullet straight in her head and she will be dead for good. Then I’ll just have to take out the Syndicate and my job will be done.
I have to do it alone.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Anika growls, her deep tone menacing enough to make me think twice about commanding the Chimera Cube to produce a pistol. The fire at the center of her eyes is burning at a new intensity, a deep red flame that sends shivers down my spine.
“You are flying away to nowhere.” I spit on her. “I’m trying to defeat the Syndicate, not be the first man to travel to the moon in a private aircraft. You are just a hack.”
“Let me go!” Anika writhes, but even the strength of her cyborg parts is unable to free her from the pull of the magnet. “I was trying to escape the gunfire so that we could then fly back down straight into the exploded part of the compound. I was trying to save us, you fucking dumbass.”
The world seems to agree with her.
The one thing I risked when decreasing the range of the force field comes back to bite us in the ass. Or more accurately, a missile comes and hits directly into our aircraft.
For all my paranoid moments and all the times that I’ve questioned whether the Syndicate is about to kill me, or whether I am finally getting the best of them, it feels shitty for it all to end like this.
But I can’t stop it now.
The force of the explosion instantly cuts off the electrical systems of the ship and pounds a large hole into the wall of the aircraft. The debris from the initial impact smash against my body, knocking me to the ground and littering my limbs in dust and shards of glass.
I quickly command the Chimera Cube to deconstruct the magnet that keeps Anika glued to the rubber material, but that one move is too late to do anything to help us.
The force of the explosion itself nearly knocks me unconscious. That, in parallel with the suffocating amount of smoke and the sharp ringing in my ears, is more than enough agony to allow the wave of blackness and pain to overcome me.
But then gravity takes hold.
My whole world is crashing down to the earth again. Except the moment my world dies, everything does too.
The moment we hit the ground, the Syndicate wins.
I will never let that happen.
Chapter 26
My mind doesn’t move fast enough for this.
Every time I blink, another missile connects with the aircraft while dozens more shards of glass and metal dig into me. I keep double-tapping the cube, screaming repeatedly at it to heal me. But the speed at which the new projectiles hit me is so fast that I have no clue if the cube is working or not.
All I feel is pain.
“Samuel!” I hear the echo of someone screaming, but the voice fades into the cacophony of all the people I have ever loved in my life screaming at me in my head to do better.
More so than the pain, as everything continues to crash down, I feel the burden of the world crushing me—the burden of failure.
The next thing I know, I am being pulled backward, my head slamming into broken parts of the ship. The engine beneath the floor of the aircraft is rumbling madly, the entire plane on the verge of exploding before we even surrender to the mercy of gravity.
It takes me a second to realize that it isn’t the force of gravity tugging me wildly or even the missiles and constant bombardment of other projectiles against the aircraft.
&nb
sp; It’s those damn fingers.
They are so strong that they have no problem overriding the strength of my own muscles, dragging my body through the network of fallen metal panels and sheets of glass.
“Fuck!” I scream, the pain threatening to take over as I use my arms to steady the cube against my body. It is both luck and desperation that keeps me gripping the cube despite the fact that my wrists are being pulled on so hard that they feel like they are going to fall off.
Another missile hits the aircraft.
But this time is different from the dozens of other projectiles that have connected with it.
This time it is going to explode.
Two large pieces of titanium smash into my head as the first wave of the blasts sends shockwaves throughout my entire body. The wave of heat comes next, the initial flames searing off my outer layer of skin as the cube fumbles out of my grip.
Then my body is ejected out of the aircraft. The deadly maze of broken equipment, furniture, and shards from the collapsing engine is forever behind me.
All that awaits is gravity and a ten-thousand-foot fall to the ground below.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I witness the dying aircraft catapult into the ground. One last explosion at the core of its engine generates enough force to propel the aircraft faster than the force of gravity toward the earth below.
Beneath the thin layers of clouds lies the endless expanse of the evergreen trees where the aircraft will inevitably land and create a forest fire that will destroy the tranquil beauty of the landscape. I should have been in the middle of that aircraft, already dead by now from the inhalation of the toxic fumes from the engine coupled with the roaring blaze and endless mass of metal suffocating me.
But now I am falling to the earth.
The fingers that dragged me through hell and out into the open air have left their grip around my wrists. But it’s not like it matters anyways. The Chimera Cube is out of my hands—I can’t do anything to save myself.
The same military drones that hovered around our location when we landed on top of the compound are still circling around the fallen aircraft, the occasional rogue attack drone continuing to fire missiles at the falling ship.
The chaos of the moment and pain from the dozens of pieces of glass tearing through my skin briefly blocks out my worry about the Chimera Cube falling to the earth without me and the fact that I myself am on an unavoidable collision course with death. For a second, with the air pushing up against my face, and the rush of gravity carrying me faster and faster down to the ground below, my body and mind feel numb.
I’m unable to even process the fact that I’m falling—that I’m about to die. The only thing I can think about is the sensation of thousands of minute shards of glass digging into the open wounds that line my legs and arms.
All I see is red.
“Do yourself a favor, and never make fun of a cyborg again.” The distinct tone of Anika’s voice breaks through the ringing in my ears.
Suddenly the air pounding my face is suppressed and the force of gravity stops pulling me downward. I open my eyes, and at first, all I see are the rays of sunlight piercing through the mist of the clouds.
Then I see the outline of Anika’s face, her turquoise hair glowing magnificently in the sunlight as the rays surround her body in a heavenly aura.
I have been in enough situations like this to know that I’m not dead. But with the large wings that protrude out from the back of Anika and the lack of gravity weighing me down, I do briefly wonder if she is some angel greeting me to the gates of the afterlife.
One look around at the endless sea of military drones and aircraft, and I realize that the only thing she is welcoming me to is hell.
“You thought you could go in there alone.” She chuckles. Somehow, she made it out of that mess almost unscathed besides a large scratch beneath her eye. The Chimera Cube appears above me, the same fingers that have both saved and almost ended my life grasping the cube like talons.
Finally, I realize that there’s no way that Anika has been hacked.
She just saved my life. Her bionic abilities enabled her to hold me in the air as easily as curling a paperweight, save the cube before it fell to the ground, all while deploying a thin sheet of carbon fiber wings that allow us to gracefully float through the air.
“External-wound repair.” I cough out the words and a glob of blood as I place my hand on the cube that is hovering just above my head.
Within seconds the cube heals me, leaving my blood-stained, tattered clothes behind. It is only when the blood stops madly effusing out of my body and the glass shards are removed from my legs that I finally look up at Anika.
“All right, pretty boy, you good now?” Her voice is hoarse, her lungs likely infested with the same dry, smoke-filled air that nearly killed me.
“Thank you,” I finally say as the shock starts to wane. “Thank you for—”
“This was nothing. I could do that in my sleep.” Her wings flap as she speaks, the force of gravity taking hold of us again. “Make yourself something that can get you down to the base of the compound safely. The drones are still confused and shooting the aircraft.” She points to the pack of drones that are swarming the meteor-like aircraft that is seconds away from colliding with the earth.
They still think we are inside it.
“Bullet-proof suit and wingsuit,” I command the Chimera Cube, my ego feeling like it is only a few inches tall as Anika continues to hold me in her arms. This is by far one of the most humiliating moments of my life. Even with the possession of the most powerful technology in the world, I need a cyborg to cradle me in order to survive.
As the Chimera Cube produces the materials, I slip them on. I put on the wingsuit first, then the bullet-proof suit in order to thwart any bullets that try and tear it apart. The entire time Anika’s hands hold up the cube while she holds on to me with the bicep of her bionic arms.
“We are going to fly straight into the massive crater.” She points to the ground, but in the interest of not vomiting with fear, I keep my eyes glued on her. “We have a clear pathway right into the compound. We just have to make it in there alive.”
“We’ll make it in there alive.” I smile. “Let’s make an army of our own.”
Anika nods, immediately understanding what I mean. With every second meaning the difference between life and death, I take advantage of the opportunity to utter as many commands as possible to the Chimera Cube.
First, I command it to produce a hoverboard, mainly so that I can get away from the cyborg arms of Anika, just in case she decides to turn on me at the last minute.
Then I command the cube to create two high-powered laser launchers, each device turquoise on the exterior to match the hair color of Anika and well over fifty pounds. With my feet strapped into the hoverboard and the cube cradled back in my left arm, I decide to deliver it what may be my most deadly command yet.
One thousand attack drones.
And to top it all off, a force field composed of billions of nanobots forms directly around us.
We are ready for war.
All the drones and humanoids that previously thought we were dead now very obviously know we are still alive. With a thousand attack drones forming a cloud of destruction around us, we aren’t exactly being subtle from our perch thousands of feet in the sky.
But we don’t want to be subtle.
We want to kill them all.
“You thought you could go in there alone.” I chuckle, mocking her as I sigh, taking a second to admire my beautiful work. Although in reality I created none of this army, dreaming it into existence feels like enough work for me to take credit for it.
She rolls her eyes. “We’re doing this together. Let’s fucking destroy Maga X and those stupid bastards in the Syndicate.”
At that, we both descend into the chaos.
By placing pressure down on the hoverboard, the hoverboard carries me down to the earth below at a gradual pace
instead of the mind-numbing free fall of gravity. Once we start to move downward, the eruptions begin.
Even from behind the force field, the impact of hundreds of missiles into our army of attack drones is devastating. The force of the wind alone knocks me off balance on my hoverboard, causing Anika to have to redirect her own movements to avoid being shocked by the force field.
Every one of the humanoids and drones of the military fires at us, the council likely laughing back in their multi-million-dollar mansions as they watch the scene of chaos go down. Dozens of the attack drones in our army explode in just the first wave of destruction, resulting in fireworks of exploded fuel tanks and metal components to burst through the air.
If there were spectators on the ground, even they would be horrified at watching dozens of balls of flames erupt out of nowhere in the sky. These fireworks aren’t for celebration.
They are to commemorate the end of the world.
“All of our attack drones are going to be destroyed soon,” Anika screams above the deafening explosions, both of us watching in horror as our massive army of drones is torn to pieces.
The rate at which they fire back at the thousands of humanoids on the ground simply can’t compete with the overwhelming force of thousands upon thousands of projectiles being fired at them every second.
With each bullet that connects with one of the attack drones and each ensuing explosion as their fuel tank is destroyed, I feel the reverberations of death rocket down my spine. This is the kind of hell that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life—that is if I ever get to sleep again.
The wasteland left in our wake is rapidly approaching as I put even more downward pressure onto the hoverboard. The wind is stinging my eyes, blowing my blond hair into my face, all the meanwhile my stomach feels as if it being wrung out on a clothesline.
Then I see the opening into Moosehorn.
In the initial wave of blasts that almost caused the force field to implode, many of the missiles and bombs connected with the ground around us. Their aim was to knock us into the rubble of the compound, rendering us defenseless to their attacks.
The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2 Page 74