The journey back north was a fairly calm one. Jason felt on top of the world, as if he were some sort of amazing, unstoppable lord of all he surveyed. The nightmares had faded. Honestly, at this point, he was glad he hadn't been able to retire; the idea of making some cartel Capo piss in his boots at the idea of seeing him coming was just amazing; and considering the number of cameras out at the scene, he was reasonably certain they'd already seen what happened, or would be seeing it soon; if need be, via the camera in Jason's helmet.
Taking the offramp before Vegas proper, he pulled into the fairly desolate, far less occupied region the warehouse he'd been using was in; a temporary headquarters before his new base up in the mountains... he wasn't here for long, but he would always remember it fondly.
Pulling to a stop outside beside one of the other box trucks he'd acquired for the work, stuck the batter back into his phone and climbed out, ready to head inside; but stopped, just outside the door. He had the security cameras for the warehouse sync'd up with his helmet-cam, and from there to his phone... and the update that just occured..He could see the internal security cameras. There was a corpse. A clone. Sergei! The one who'd been with the crew.
Signs of a gunfight all over the place, scattered bullet casings.. and a dismantled robot? No threats at present. Just Clone.
Jason pulled his helmet back on; this might turn into a combat situation, best be prepared. He checked his gear. If there one robot, might be more; he'd never seen a humanoid robot that wasn't being remote-controlled or part of a miserable failure of a power armor experiment.. but this... looked old. And was that a hammer and sickle?
He stepped inside; the clones all turning to him; still armed, still fairly alert. "Eyeball. One of the crates... had a killer communist robot. Killed one of me. We evacuated the crew, I brought in a few more of myself, and took it down maybe forty-five minutes later."
Jason shook his head as he approached the fallen machine. "Hah. Well. That... could've been worse. Still An autonomous humanoid robot? Thats... legitimately miraculous if its an actual AI. How smart was it?"
"Smarter than some people, at least. If we could copy it, only without the whole murderous communist vibe.."
He nodded and nudged it with his foot. "Hmm. Some lunatic called me on the way here. Sounded like a little boy, claimed to be a prophet. Told me to have you use the EMP grenade. I thought he was fucking with me, but no... just not that good at predictions. Killing you was bad enough, but if the thing had gotten loose it might've.. who knows, poisoned the Vegas water supply or something."
Clone turned. All four pairs of eyes centered on Jason's helmet. "Apollo called you and told you to have me use the EMP?"
"Nah. Apollo is like, three thousand years old. This was just some kid who somehow got my number. Disassemble the robot, but take pictures of how it's put together while you do so we can reassemble it later. I'll sweep the warehouse in case it had some sort of mini-bots to deploy. We'll let the Gigafac finish making the current armor run and then cart everything thats left in the morning. That robot might be the most valuable thing here... so if you could, go ahead and take it north tonight. As soon as its apart and harmless."
A firm nod from one of the Clones as the others started examining the machine; carefully checking for spots to remove components with minimal damage. "Keeping it in pieces seems like a good idea. Remember that electric shock that took out the Elbe? I think that was an EMP built into the carrying case for the bot. So if it broke out... Zap. Whoever built it thought it was dangerous that even after they thought it was disabled, they put it in the toughest case they could manage, and then trapped it.
Jason shook his head. "Alright. This'll be our last night in vegas for a while. I'm gonna go get some rest... I've got to go have a chat with Nicky in the morning."
Another laugh from the Clones. "Good luck! Not that you need it, boss."
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***
The machine was aware of its surroundings; it could detect its old body being dismantled nearby; even as it slowly pieced together its new one. Relatively slowly, anyway; its core frame would be done in roughly an hour, and it could use the armor pieces already assembled to give it some vital protection as it took its next steps; primarily, stealing this piece of equipment and getting out, somewhere it couldn't be tracked, so it could prepare for the next step. It needed some short-term utility, something able to use and manipulate objects, and to get it faster than it could build a machine. Fortunately, it had the schematics for the Pale Ones.
They would be less effective without the blend of drugs it had no access to, but they would only be needed during its initial expansion phase.
When the GigaFac completed its work on the core frame of the machine's new body, it compressed itself as much as possible in the available space. There was enough space and material to make five interfaces; so it could have five Pale Ones. Given a nearby transport vehicle to move the needed equipment, that would be more than sufficient.
***
Clone smacked the back door of the truck; sending one of the crew off into the night on the long drive north. Just one load left, and that would be in the morning. A more permanent HQ for whatever organization the Titanslayer was building.
He shook his head. Sure, it was new. All sorts of risk involved. But Eyeball seemed, miraculously, even more dangerous than his other bosses. Even Aziz had never been contacted by someone like Apollo. He should probably...
The Gigafac had finally stopped. The thing must be bugging out, he could've sworn the last armor suit took hours less to make. Or maybe Eyeball was trying something new with the materials? He always seemed to be a step ahead.
Clone walked up to the Gigafac, and turned on the monitor connected to it; time to do a full shut-down, get it ready to move. As he typed into the box, he suddenly felt... a sharp, terrible pain in the back of his head... a pain that steadily spread throughout his body, as if some hideous worm were burrowing through flesh and bone,
He couldn't help but cry out in pain; all of his bodies, everywhere, cringed. This was one of the worst things he had ever felt, including being viciously tortured to death. With his vast nervous system across hundreds of bodies, it was like having a toe stabbed, or a toenail yanked out. The other clones in the warehouse started heading towards the room, guns readied.
The one which had just been stabbed... watched his own arms reach down and start unhooking the computer. He caught a figure in his peripheral vision; a lean, skeletal robot, with armor plating attached at key joints and servos; clearly a base design with the armor Eyeball had been making as an afterthought.
It was strange, watching his own body, feeling it, moving without his control; he'd met telepaths, worked with them, but none of them could impact his decentralized mind; so this feeling of being a puppet... not pleasant. At all.
When the three other Clones entered the room, the machine moved, impossibly swift; the moment the door opened, it was on him. A second one of his bodies was hit by.. some sort of orange metal box, with a long silver spike on it. He could see the machine stab it down, the spike sent through the spine of one of his other bodies, even as he was opening fire with his other two weapons.
It wasn't a speedster. Some of the bullets connected. But within seconds all four of his bodies had been implanted with those objects... and he could still see, and feel, them moving under the machine's control, as it started using a pallet jack to move the GigaFac out to the warehouse door.
One of his own bodies backing up the truck. Opening the door. Loading the Gigafac, the computer, spare raw materials... the guns, at least, were already gone, and the rest of the imports from Russia. But... that GigaFac... it could use it to make more of these spikes.
This... this could be bad. This could be extremely bad. On the plus side... no need for tracking devices. He knew exactly where the robot was, and where it was going. If many more of his bodies got caught like this, it would start getting impossible to concentrate... or sleep... in his others. Really needed to kill those puppets.
***
Jason stepped on the gas, swerving to avoid oncoming cars as he took full advantage of his powers to make it through Vegas traffic at what should've been a suicidal speed. His rifle, his guns, his grenades; all loaded and ready to go, with the speed his bike could pull off rapidly gaining on the target truck heading out into the desert.
That idiot who called him had way oversold the threat from this. It was just a robot and a few zombies, essentially. They fight would probably be over as soon as he took out the truck. Still. It seemed pretty solid evidence either this was Clone playing a really strange prank on him, or someone else who could see the future. And, well. Whether he was some stupid kid screwing around, or actually was 'Apollo', Jason would probably be best off if there was only one person with this sort of power... and Apollo probably felt the same way.
However friendly he might have seemed on the phone, if he was who he claimed, he'd have to know... a showdown, at some point, was inevitable.