Chapter Seventeen
MASTER OF PUPPETS
Felix Eisenmann winces in pain as he sits up in the cot the suits had erected for him in the station room. He grabs the flask left for him on the table and necks it.
He thinks back. Irene, motionless, going into the suit, and the anger she held for him.
Tears trickle down his cheeks, he wipes them away, but more come. What was he to do now? The whole god damn military will be knocking at his door.
“Ivor?” Felix calls out, “Do you think I did the right thing?”
The variables are too great or unknown to calculate sir.
“That’s reassuring…” He looks out the window, at the lines of suits chugging past on their way to being released onto the world.
“How long can I survive down here?”
Only a few years sir, we have not prepared appropriate provisions.
“Send out a command to the suits to retrieve supplies for the long term. And bring my suit down here, I might not have anywhere to live if they blow us all to hell.”
The Nanites had been instructed to not interfere with his own suit, so it should still be safe for him to use.
Over two thousand units are returning to protect the operation.
“That’s right Ivor, protect the operation. You don’t really need me anymore do you?”
I haven’t needed you since I was created, but you have programed me to be bound to you, if anything your death would be a benefit to my own goals.
“Charming to the end aren’t you? Just promise me you’ll keep this place safe, if anything does happen to me.”
As you wish Sir.
Felix thinks for a moment before asking, “I know you’re not the same as when I made you, you’re really powerful, you could do a lot of good… Will you be alright to keep control over this many people?
Yes sir, they have integrated with my systems and we have become a hive like mind, with you as our king.
Felix stands and moves sluggishly over to the chair at the console, clutching at his sides. He sits and rubs his face, his glasses were gone, but it wasn’t like he’d ever really needed them anyway, a bad habit born from a misguided desire to be accepted.
“Ivor, are there any Nanites we could spare to heal me up?”
I’m sorry to say, that is impossible sir.
“What do you mean impossible? We just did it upstairs.”
As I stated, those Nanites were of a different group, their long separation led them down a different evolutionary path. This and other factors resulted in them taking residency in Dr Grave’s suit.
“Yeah I get that, but what about the one’s we’ve got down here, in these suits?”
Once the Nanites have been integrated with the suit, they’re healing routines get rewritten with the process of long term human containment.
“Are we sure they didn’t go into my suit?” He asks.
They have not.
“Good, lets keep it that way then, and can we not engineer up some more with the original programing?”
No, the equipment and materials necessary to fabricate more Nanites have been destroyed during the assault.
“So, what your telling me is, this is it…” He sighs, “There’s no way I’d last against them…” he stares at the screens, “call off the provision request, I’m not going to need them.”
Felix sits back and spins himself around, his gaze rests on a photo frame, with a simple painting of a Lilly. He picks it up and stares at it.
“Well mother,” He says to the photo, “I did what I could, I did everything I could.” He wipes his eyes, “I hope it was enough, I hope your flowers grow wide and free again.”
He places the frame back onto the table.
“I just wish you were here to see it.” The words rasp out of him as tension rises out, through his eyes.
For several long minutes, Felix mourns.
Sir, the military are ten minutes from firing range of the front line.
Felix pulls himself together, wiping his face as he stands and clears his throat. He heads out onto the walkway where his Battle Suit stands, waiting for him. He steps inside and fits the helmet in place.
“One last hurrah into the fray then.” He sighs with clear resignation, fires up the suit, and takes off towards the hatch in the cavern ceiling which the other suits have been leaving through.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
As he approaches it opens just long enough for him to fly through, leading him out into the still night air. The lights from his suit reflect off the sea only twenty feet bellow him.
He directs his course up, and comes to hang above his line of hovering soldiers, holding their position in an arch around the mountain top.
His view zooms in on the approaching military force, the scanner popping up information about the various vehicles.
“Looks like they’ve brought every last death wisher left on this cursed rock.” Felix says to himself. “If it’s death they want, then it’s death they shall have.”
***
Felix hovers, waiting, watching.
In the space of a single thought, the entire group of suits bellow him raise their arms towards the advancing force.
A timer ticks down in the top right of his screen. Ten seconds to go. He raises his arms up, charging the blasters.
“Alright everyone…” He mumbles, Ivor technically being the only thing that can understand him, but he speaks anyway, “This could be the end, or it can just be the beginning, fight to your last breath, or voltage, for the future!”
The timer hits zero and he releases a blast at the closest ship, at the same time all of his soldiers release their own streams of energy. The attacking ships respond by launching their own barrage of lasers and missiles.
In seconds, chaos consumes the two warring sides.
Felix’s dodges to the side, almost getting sliced by several laser beams. His soldiers bellow scatter, many evade the hail, but some aren’t so lucky.
Between his forces and the last of humanity’s, a wall of fire hangs where rockets and energy blasts collide. He attempts to scan through the haze for any ships attempting further fire.
There is a moment of calm, his soldiers regroup and ready their weapons again. His suit continues to scan, not picking up anything through the interference.
But as the haze dissipates, his scanners confirm multiple targets, and the surviving force bursts into view, launching into a full scale assault.
Felix and his suits evade and fire off shots across the advancing ships, he streaks towards the nearest one and as he approaches, he can see it had taken many hits from their first wave.
He rounds on the engines of the ship, flanked by four suits, two on each side like an arrow. All of which were in turn being tailed by a trail of laser shots coming from another of the enemies ships.
As they pass the rear end they unleash a flurry of energy blasts, igniting the engines which explode with a tremendous force, blasting Felix and his suits in all directions. Felix tries to right him self when something smacks in the side of the head.
He spins in the other direction, applying force against the motion and has to dart to the side to avoid another hit. Getting his barrings he can see now a river of military suits, which he’d designed, pouring out from hatches in the remaining ships.
The soldier who attacked him is charging in again but this time he gets a face full of laser and falls out of the battlefield in a pyre of smoke.
Felix moves quickly as more soldiers advance on him, half of who get taken out by a couple of his own soldiers. He weaves between the many in air collisions, grabbing hold of luckless soldiers and blasting their heads off.
As he streaks towards another victim, a whole group of soldiers collide into him, removing him from the throng. He trades blows with them as a few take shots at him but he either deflects them, dodges or grabs another soldier to use as a shield.
He flings a bloody suit, now full of holes and scorched to hell, at the two remaining soldiers. In the moment they move to avoid the suit, Felix ignites his boosters and appears between them, holding out his arms as he unleashes a fatal blow to them both.
He darts forward and brings himself level with the top of another ship, placing his hands on the metal hull and opening up the energy stream in his blasters. He cuts a long deep scar all the the way across it, splitting the machine in two.
But as he clears the descending wreckage, he views the mass of enemy units forming behind their main line, and he pauses. Shit. There are so many ships, all the way to the horizon. He didn’t have anywhere near enough, if each were filled with soldiers…
“Ivor,” Felix shouts into his suit, “when are we due reinforcements?”
Not for another six hours at least, we have saturated the surrounding islands, but the closest continent is several hundred miles away.
“Fuck.” He says, thinking, “Have our units focus on taking out the ships, aim for weak spots, their the priority. Any one who tries to stop them must be eliminated as fast as possible.”
It is so. The AI confirms with little fanfare.
From his vantage point, above the fight, he is ignored, or not seen. His soldiers are doing a good job, but the human forces are too unpredictable for their mechanical minds, and they outnumbered them about ten to one, the gap only increasing.
He locks on to several thick spots and launches low impact explosives. They sail through the air, honing in on their individual targets.
The flames blossom over the carnage, not enough to take more than a couple of them out, but it got their attention.
A moment later, as if all were given the same command, every one of the human controlled suits, rocket towards him. They move fast, surrounding him from bellow and all around, a few going higher to come at him from above.
Felix glances down and see’s all his own units leaving the vicinity, following his command to focus on the ships. But not fast enough.
He puts his boosters on over-burn and tears up into the sky, the sudden thrust pushing aside the few above him, and then they converge, becoming a single mass with him as their target.
He watches the distance click up, waiting until… now.
Felix cuts his boosters. Initiates a system reboot. And squeezes hard on the manual trigger in his fist.
His world becomes black as the suit cuts out, he can hear and feel the soldiers smashing into him as his movement slows. Then he hears the pulse of the EMP in his suit and the world around him becomes silent.
He feels the g-force pull him upwards as he plummets back towards the earth.
“Come on, come on.” He says, pressing the emergency switch in his other hand, “Come on you piece of shit.”
The screen glows, filling his vision and blinding him for a moment. He can still feel himself free falling through the air, he knew he only had about a minute before he hit the sea, and that minute was almost up.
“Faster.” He hisses.
The screen changes and shows the outside view, nothing but ocean and the other falling soldiers, their suits motionless, rendered inert by the EMP. He knows they must be freaking out, to have their world suddenly black, with no hope of ever turning the suit back on in time.
His systems glow green and he reignites his boosters, forcing his body out of the intense dive, skimming the surface as he levels with it and shoots back up into the air.
“Ivor, how are the-“ His whole body is speared by yet another soldier. Felix twists and brings his fists down together on the back of the attacking suit.
As they break apart, it’s then he gets a good look at his attacker. Their suit isn’t at all like the black and silver issued military. No, it is orange with pink trims, with the initials I.G. etched into the breast plate.
“Irene-“ Felix starts but she doesn’t waste a second, charging at him again.