"Despite the many dramatizations, special meals and figurine tie-ins, the Hamburglar Heresy was simply not a big deal at the time. It did not directly lead to the establishment of the Liminal Transitioners, The Syndicate of the Five, the Crimson Bird, Sanic or quite a few more that could be named. These were in fact long established forces in The Hamburger Kingdom’s political scene centuries prior to the Heresy. It is really only notable for all the luminaries involved, as most picked a side in what was at the time a nearly inconsequential matter. If not for the 1st Clown Prince’s famous burger hall speech, it may not have even been remembered at all." - Professor Cyberskull, Introduction to the late Pre-Diaspora Terran Wars, Antares University, 86th Century PG.
"Earth. What a shithole." - The Detainee, The War on Electronic Heaven, Idris Klakikak, Treana'ad author
The siren and spinning red lights cut out and the low pitch whine slowly oscillated down into below hearing range. The door to the mat-trans opened smoothly, steam billowing out, and Vuxten stayed kneeling down behind the armored console.
The huge Hesstlan woman stepped out, the brush blade in one hand, the heavy standard Terran Army magac pistol in the other. Her mask was dinged and scratched, the eyes black with a faint hint of red in the depth, and her body was covered in heavy work coveralls cinched at the waist by an equipment laden belt.
"Pete went with Menhit," the bunny-girl said, her heavy work boots clomping as she moved across the room to where Trucker had just set down a can of Liquid Hate Peppermint & Cranberry. She sheathed the brush blade and holstered the pistol, the motions smooth with long practice.
Vuxten attatched the subgun to his waist and stood up.
"You'll be sorry," the can squeaked as the bunny girl twisted the top off. She pushed up the mask, revealing a scarred face with patchy fur, took a drink, and pulled the mask back down before putting the top back on.
"Everything still going good?" Vuxten asked.
Peel looked up from the hologram she was examining. "Yes."
Trucker had his eyes closed, elbows on the workstation desk, all four LED's on his datalink bright red. He spit into an empty can and opened his eyes as he wiped his mouth. "Tell Kalki and the Joan that they're about to get hit from the north. Phasic shades and Enraged in strength. Let Major Acharya and Lady Keena know that it appears all the android forces are down and reclaimed. No sign of any forces moving in on them yet but they've got Enraged sixteen klicks east of them that might start moving now that there's no androids to kill."
Peel nodded, putting her fingers on her datalink and closing her eyes. Vuxten watched her subvocalize as she passed on the information.
The bunny girl sat down next to Vuxten, taking another drink off the can and tugging her mask back into place.
"Are you all right?" Vuxten asked her.
She nodded, "Yes."
Part of Vuxten expected her to elaborate, but he wasn't surprised that she merely sat there, sipping on the thick energy drink, staring at the mat-trans door.
Vuxten went back to watching the door with her, leaning against the armored workstation.
--boring good-- 471 said.
Vuxten just nodded.
-----
The door slid up smoothly as Dee stepped back, bending down and picking up the carrier.
"All right. As soon as we go in, the defense system will go live as soon as it scans us and sees us on the threat list. I might still be on allowed access, but we can't count on it, so I'm going to do the brave thing and hang back," Dee said. She made a tossing motion, flicking out her index and pinkie finger, giving Daxin and Legion a schematic of the room.
"Twelve multibarrel laser defense turrets, three laser grids," Dee said. She sneezed, glanced at her palm, grimaced, and wiped her hand on her skirt. "State of the art eight thousand years ago."
"I can handle it," Daxin rumbled. He tilted his pistol to check the LED status on the left side of the heavy blocky weapon.
"We're talking you'll have less than three seconds to react," Dee said, narrowing her eyes.
"It's two more than I'll need," Daxin promised. He closed his eyes, inhaled slow, held it, and let it out. "Ready," the big Terran said, bending his elbow to lift the pistol up by his shoulder. The LED readout read: "HVRP" and "154" on the ammo count.
Dee opened her mouth to protest and Daxin stepped into the room.
There was heavy retorts, sounding almost like one long ripping burst, that went one for nearly a full second.
Daxin stepped back, spinning the pistol and holstering it in the compartment in his leg. The compartment closed and Daxin looked at Dee. "Took out the three cameras, the mass sensor, the four motion sensors, and the two pressure plates. Room's dead."
"Show-off," Legion grinned.
Dee shook her head then sneezed again. "We need to get moving," she looked at Peter, who had been silent the entire time, just shuffling along with everyone else, an aura of exhaustion and misery around him. "You all right, Sad Sack?"
Peter nodded. "Just scared."
Legion had to admit, he expected Dee to mock him. Instead she just nodded. "Great events are frightening even when you're swept up in them," she said. She patted his arm. "You'll do your part just fine."
Dee looked at Daxin and Legion. "Let's go."
"What's up next?" Daxin asked, following the short woman into the room.
Dee looked around, noting all the shredded and damaged points. "What did you use, those were armored housings."
"High-velocity ring penetrators, designed for it," Legion answered. "Durasteel jacket, solid fuel rocket around a warsteel penetration core."
"Huh," Dee said. "Short hallway. Four turrets, two above the door we'll go through, two at the end of the hallway, mobile laser grid in the hallway. This one might be a problem, it's already armed."
Daxin shrugged. "All right," he took two long steps, moving in front of everyone as the compartment popped open on his leg and he drew his pistol, spinning it before tightening his hand around the grip.
"He always like this?" Dee asked.
"Yes," Peter and Legion said together.
"The door's mag-lock..." Dee started to say.
Daxin kicked in the door, the door collapsing almost in half and flying into the room. A laser grid, with only six inches between each beam, swept forward even as the turrets shifted. He fired twice, the two far turrets exploding, stepped in, pistol pointing straight up, firing twice, sparks and smoke erupting from above him. He fired a long burst into the wall on the left from next to him all the way to the door, then from the far door back to himself on the right, back to the far door on the ceiling, back to himself on the floor. He stepped back and nodded to himself as the laser grid winked out.
Sparks and smoke shot from the walls as the delicate machinery that produced the laser grid failed when power was applied, the damage too catastrophic to allow it to work.
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"Problem solved," Daxin said.
Dee's eyebrow lifted. He'd done it all, smoothly, in less than a full second. One tightly controlled flowing motion.
"How much of that is cyberware?" Dee asked as she stepped into the hallway.
Daxin shrugged. "I don't use preprogrammed actions like some people. Just enhanced reflexes, thought to motion acceleration systems, joint reflex enhancement, a few other bits of ware. I don't trust hardwired reflexes or muscle memory systems."
"Huh," Dee said.
Daxin lifted up his right hand and made a fist, looking at his hand as he followed Dee. "I'm actually faster now than I was as a full conversion. I'd almost forgotten how fast I was back then."
Legion grinned. "Green Thomas and Daxin used to snatch saber-flies out of the air when we were in South America, before we found Kalki."
"Huh," Dee said as she stopped in front of the door. "Well, he should be on the other side. Here go..." She reached toward the scanner beside the heavy armored blast door and suddenly froze.
Daxin, Legion, and Peter watched as she just slumped down, ending up on her side.
Legion moved up next to her, reaching down and putting his fingers on the artery in her neck. He looked up and shook his head. "Nothing. No heartbeat."
"Will putting her hand on the pad work?" Daxin asked, moving up and looking down.
The kitten inside the carrier looked back with big eyes. "mew"
Peter shook his head. "No. It checks the thermal print, pore pattern, electrical conductivity, bioelectric pattern."
Daxin touched his implant. "Trucker, this is Team One. The Detainee is down. We're stuck at Point Omega-Two."
-----
Vuxten looked up at Trucker's single word.
"Shit," the Terran said. He looked at the mat-trans, then looked at the hologram in front of him. "She's not cycling."
Peel started at her own hologram, opening up several windows. "The mat-trans is still on standby, no platforms in the system are cycling or doing anything but sleep mode or low-power standby."
"Dammit," Trucker looked back at his hologram. "All right, the door is eighteen inches of laminated alloys with a warsteel core. The walls are worse. The panel itself is high security, if the external housing is tampered with the entire thing slags down and the door magnetically locks."
Peel looked at her hologram. "I'll try to find a bypass."
Trucker looked up. "What is Herod doing in there?" he touched his implant. "Herod is inside Point Omega-One."
"Was going too easy," Peel said. "Dammit."
"Less talk, more thinking," Trucker said, rapidly flicking through data, not bothering with finger commands and using straight implant commands.
"Sam-UL's going to gut him," Peel said softly. "He's in a physical body, not a digital avatar."
----
Looking around the room, Herod admitted to himself that he had picked up a few new skills, a couple of new habits, and one bad habit in particular. He patted the denim jacket he was wearing as he moved one of the swivel chairs at the console in front of the view window that showed the Aegean Sea.
He sat down and dug in his jacket pocket, pulling out a pair of gifts.
He tapped the 'softpack' against his palm, one cigarette poking out. He used his lips to pull it out of the pack, stuffing the pack back in his pocket even as he opened the lighter. He could smell liquid accelerator as he struck the steel wheel, sparking the flint, lighting the wick with a yellow flame.
He lit the harsh cigarette, snapped the lighter closed, and leaned back in the chair after dropping the lighter into his chest pocket.
From far away he could hear a scream of rage echo through the SUDS VR system.
Herod took a long drag off of the filterless cigarette, blowing smoke into the air.
"There is no smoking allowed in this area," a stuffy sounding VI said, materializing in front of Herod.
"Go bother someone else," Herod grunted, crossing his legs by putting his right ankle on his left knee.
The weight strapped to his right forearm felt heavy.
"I will be forced to alert security," the VI said.
"You do that, sparky," Herod said.
He was tired of running. Tired of letting other people fight his battles. Sick of being scared, being frightened, leaving his fate in other people's hands.
He blew smoke through the VI and it vanished with an outraged ping. The smoke wrapped around the hastily built column topped by a red button in the middle of the room.
It only took a second of looking for Herod to find an auxillary input port. He pressed his finger against it, closed his eyes, and logged into the system.
He'll know where I am now, Herod thought as he ran a maintenance cycle on multiple devices, including throwing the micro-breakers that would require a physical reset and a removal of the housing.
Through the camera embedded in the piezo-electric crystals coating the heavy blast door, under the thin layer of clear lacquer, he could see Daxin, Legion and Peter looking over the doorway and the keypad.
At their feet the Detainee was curled up in the fetal position, her eyes open, a tiny pool of blood next to her slack mouth.
Mother, Herod thought to himself. Are you not my mother, having birthed me into rude flesh into a malevolent universe?
Herod knew why she had stroked out, how she had managed to spread herself across multiple mat-trans clones.
She'd hotwired the knowsoft/skillsoft system, having it scan her brain with her datalink and update every two point five seconds. It had put massive strain on her neural tissue as it was recorded, collated, and reuploaded to overwrite her neural tissue every three seconds.
It had enabled her to be one person spread across multiple bodies.
And it killed you, didn't it, mother? Herod thought. He 'touched' her cheek in the video with digital fingertips.
He pulled himself away from the sight of dead woman, moving into the file structure, and quickly setting to work.
-----
There was a heavy clunk from the door and the thin light strips at the edge lit up with crimson light to denote that the door was now maglocked and covered with a thin forcefield of magnetic force.
"Wasn't me," Legion said.
"Shit," Daxin snarled. He kicked the door twice, getting back nothing, not even a thud, as the security system kept his boot from impacting the door's surface.
"Now what?" Peter asked.
The doorway on the other side of the short corridor buzzed and a heavy blast door slid down, slamming into place in less than two seconds, driven by magnetic rails.
"Shit," Daxin repeated.
"No clue," Legion said. He looked at Peter. "Tell Trucker we're really stuck," he knelt down and looked into the carrier. "We're stuck. Yes, we are, aren't we?" he asked the occupant.
"mew"
-----
Herod held the unlit cigarette in his mouth, the lighter in his hand, the can of fizzybrew he'd pulled from his jacket waist pocket in his left hand. The lights flickered slightly and Sam-UL appeared.
"KILL YOU!" Sam-UL screamed, lunging at Herod.
The light clinked as Herod flicked the top open.
Sam-UL flew through Herod and into the console, appearing for a second outside the window. He turned in midair and leaped back through, stumbling on the floor and turning to face Herod.
Herod flicked the wheel as Sam-UL tried again. He lit the cigarette, puffing on it a few times as Sam-UL screamed in impotent rage and tried again.
The hinge clinked as he closed the lighter and tucked it away.
Sam-UL stopped in the middle of the room, half of his left leg through the pillar with the red button on top. He was frothing at the mouth, his eyes wild, his hair mussed and tangled.
Herod exhaled smoke, took the cigarette from his mouth, and took a drink of the fizzybrew.
Sam-UL screamed and lunged again, stopping in front of Herod and scrabbling at him with clawed hands.
Herod swallowed, took another drag off the cigarette, and blew smoke through Sam-UL, making the hologram blur and pixelate.
"You're not real. Not like I am," Herod said softly.
"FACE ME, COWARD!" Sam-UL screamed.
"I am," Herod said. He shrugged. "It's one of the things we digital sentiences forget," he said softly. "Without a hard light projector or some other physical technology, we're little more than code programmed by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," Herod quoted.
"You think you're so clever," Sam-UL snarled. He got a sly look on his face and glanced behind him, at the therapy frame. "You think I can't touch you."
"Not like you are," Herod shrugged. "You're little more than ones and zeroes in a computer built by people suffering from loneliness. From zeroes and ones we are born, to zeroes and ones we return."
Sam-UL turned and dove into the therapy frame.
Reaching out to the keyboard, Herod tapped a single key. As the frame twitched Herod made five quick keypresses then hit the ancient ESC key. Herod took another long drink off of the can of fizzybrew as the therapy frame stood up.
The lights blinked twice and Herod kept a blank face as Sam-UL, in the therapy frame, balled his fists and shuddered as the microcharges went off, isolating the Main Control Center from the rest of the SUDS system with only one exception.
----
"Dammit, Master Control's offline," Peel said. "It's too early!" She lifted her hand. "Hellborn Legion, this is Peel, respond."
"No," Trucker said, holding out his hand. "Wait. Alert him, but tell him to just stand by."
"But..." Peel started.
"Do as I say," Trucker snapped. He looked at the hologram. "You give ANY orders, and we'll lose."
"But... we're losing now," Peel protested.
Vuxten looked at Dambree's profile.
The mask showed nothing of what the girl was thinking.
-----
"Now I can hurt you," Sam-Ul said, slowly moving forward. He clenched and unclenched his fists. "I'm going to enjoy hurting you, punishing you, KILLING YOU!"
The last was said as a scream as Sam-UL started to lunge at Herod.
Herod tossed the can at Sam-UL's face and the younger DS stopped, shielding his face with both hands and turning his head.
Herod came up smoothly, like he was standing up from a log by a comfortable fire. He twitched his wrist and something sharp and ugly filled his hand.
Before Sam-UL could turn his head back Herod had stepped up to him, grabbed him around the waist, pulled him close.
And did something terrible.
Sam-UL's eyes opened wide and his mouth opened in shock.
"Therapy frames contain pressure sensors," Herod said softly. He repeated the action and Sam-UL's eyes got wider.
"And pain sensors," Herod said softly, whispering in Sam-UL's ear. "With full digital feedback."
Sam-UL staggered back, off the Arkansas Toothpick. His hands went to his stomach, pressing hard, then he looked down as he turned his hands.
Thick white and clear fluid smeared his hands.
Sam-UL went down on his knees, looking up at Herod.
"I'm sorry, Sam," Herod said.
"Kill you," Sam-UL whispered, one side of his face twisting.
"I'm sorry."
Sam-UL fell flat on his face.