20 - Turrethead, Medusa, and the Pub

“Red alert!” Maya screamed as she entered the pub. “Man your battle stations!”

Richfield looked at her. “Boss?”

“We’ve got a rogue AI making its way here,” Maya cried.

She hustled into the main room. Richfield slowly got up from his desk and followed, the walls and doors retracting to allow his massive bulk through.

Maya brought up windows from the external camera feeds. She connected the volume with the pub’s sound system and got the images displayed against a far wall. Annabelle stood beside Maya, while Tender watched from his bar.

“You all can use weapons right?” Maya asked. That was a topic she hadn’t really delved into yet.

“Legal limitations prevent us from using weapons against SIL, but rogue AIs and mana mutations is fine,” Annabelle responded.

Maya immediately regretted using most of the ammunition to gain [Riflewoman]. She removed half a dozen rifles that remained in her inventory and set them out. There was a smaller pile of ammunition for each weapon, enough to get in a dozen shots at most.

“We’re fucked,” Maya muttered looking at their arsenal.

Richfield handed out the weapons. As she fumbled with her weapon, the AIs smoothly racked and checked their rifles.

A klaxon wail filled the pub, blasting from hidden speakers. Maya snapped toward the screens and scanned them, making out a figure on a south facing camera. She cleaned up the image and shuddered at the sight.

The fifty foot creature she had seen sauntering away from her nearly a week ago was back. It moved in a disturbing gait with its three legs, occasionally going onto all fives as it’s long arms touched the ground.The weapon turret that took the place of its head panned slowly back and forth, looking for prey or enemies.

“Shit,” Maya muttered. She pulled up another window for the pub controls and began shutting down the external lights.She discovered that the neon lights and lasers could make more than just dancing figures, so Maya had the pub exterior covered in neon trees and forest scenes.

There was no ‘shut off all exterior lights’ button, instead there were scores of switches she had to ‘flip’ to turn off various holographic projectors, security lights, and signage all located under different control headings. She felt sweat beading on her forehead as she raced through the buttons, her eye constantly upon the screen where Turrethead thumped about.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding as she flipped the last switch and the pub went dark. Maya pulled up a chair and slumped down into it, still keeping an eye upon the screens. The AIs around her hadn’t said anything, but they held their weapons at the ready.

Turrethead stood and looked around.The rogue AI scanned the area and moved slowly, its attention suddenly focused on something.It didn’t take long before the turret snapped in the direction of the pub.

“Shit,” Maya hissed.

“It appears we have been sighted,” Richfield remarked.

“How strong is this place? Will it break through?” Maya asked.

“This Redenno Deployable Structure is but a mid grade, Tier 1 construction. Good for only Tier 1 worlds. It’s cost effectiveness is its major selling point,” Tender stated from the bar.

Maya watched Turrethead make a beeline for the pub. It dropped to all fives and chewed up ground, its turret aimed directly at them.

“Well,” Maya said standing up. “It has been a pleasure, everyone. I hope you don’t mind if I run the fuck away, do you?”

The AIs looked at her. “No, boss,” they said.

Escape was the only option, she knew. She couldn’t fight the creature with just a couple of hunting rifles. The rogue AI was massive and its long slender body was covered in armor plate, probably something that would stop any of the bullets or energy their weapons had. They were outclassed. The only thing she could do was run.

She looked at the AIs. They were programmed machines, but they had been her only company for the last week. She hadn’t realized how lonely she had become after Nanaseto had shutdown. When she ran, they would be destroyed. Then she’d be alone once more.

Tender had stated that most rogue AIs sought mana cores, as it was something low Tiered rogue AIs could not build themselves. As they increased their mana cores, they increased their production capabilities and danger.

Turrethead was after the mana core. It would destroy the pub, rip the core out and that would mean an end to the AIs that had been helping her for the last week.

You don’t owe them anything, Maya told herself. They’re just machines. Not people. You need to survive. You need to run.

“I have to run,” Maya said. She didn’t move, she didn’t run, instead she stared at the screens as Turrethead lumbered closer and closer.

“You must run, boss,” Annabelle said. “You don’t have much time.”

“This is the only thing keeping me alive,” Maya stated. “If I run, I lose the water and organics. I lose the ability to get Nanaseto back online. Then I lose the ability to make more food…” She looked down at the weapon in her hands. “I’m not running.”

Maya looked to the screens again and saw that the rogue AI was upon them. She braced herself against a table and closed her eyes.

The entire pub shuddered, there was a screech of metal and Maya hung onto the table. The pub shifted, one side rising slightly and then it settled back down, sending a vibration through the building. Maya glanced back at the screens, adjusting camera angles to see Turrethead throwing punches down into the building.

She could hear the klaxon wailing, even with the sound in the pub muted. She felt it vibrate through the metal flooring and into her bones.

Plans tumbled through her head, but it was drowned out by a sudden screech and an alarm blaring.

Hull Breech. Structural integrity compromised!

Maya gaped at the message a second before the roof of the pub seem to melt away and a hot blast of energy poured into the building. A screen showed the head of the rogue AI surrounded in light a moment before the camera was destroyed.

Something slammed into Maya and she felt herself thrown behinda booth. The booth of metal and cheap fabric scorched and Maya screamed as the air around her heated up. Foul smoke flooded her lungs and she coughed raggedly.

The heat dissipated and a moment later it was replaced by screeching metal. Maya blinked and saw that Annabelle had pulled her to safety. The no longer naked AI’s body covered hers and held her head down.

“Ow,” Maya gasped. She looked down to see she still held her rifle.

The AI popped back up and looked toward the gaping hole in the roof. Maya followed her gaze and gasped. The rogue AI dominated the open hole, its turret smoked and was aimed into the hole. She didn’t know why it didn’t fire again, but instead it used its long arms to tear away the metal roofing.

A gun that big meant it couldn’t shoot that often, Maya thought. Hopefully.

“Light that fucker up!” Maya cried, snapping up her rifle.

The Galazaan Type 25 railgun whirred as she brought it up to her shoulder. Of the two dozen rifles and pistols that Richfield had been guarding, it was the best and had the most ammunition. Now, railguns were massive bulky things in Maya’s world, relegated to almost science fiction. Yet the one she held wasn’t much bigger than a normal rifle, it weighed a bit more, made up of complex condensed components and had a small hopper of tungsten pellets that it shot out at incredible speed.

Richfield had stated the railgun was a very good beginner weapon to use. It was durable, easy to maintain, and could carry a large amount of ammunition for a low amount of weight. Although it was limited to ammo type, basically tungsten pellets. It also was not an automatic weapon, only being able to accelerate one pellet per second.

The abilities of advanced computing came in handy, as the rifle connected to Tommo’s computer she carried. A bright red reticle appeared in her vision, settling upon where she pointed the railgun.

“Look for a weak spot and everyone fire at it,” Maya spoke. She used her manager access to speak directly to the AIs. They all began to move.

Turrethead seemed to ignore them as it struggled with tearing off the roof. Its massive head silhouetted in the rainbow sky.

Anger flared in Maya as she scanned the creatures body. Only the upper chest, shoulders, and head were visible. The rest of the monster hidden behind the walls of the pub. Everything she looked at was covered in armor plate.

There had to be a weakness. She thought back on the rogue AI that had rammed her truck. It had been covered in armor, but the connection of its head to its body had been its weak spot. She had shoved her crowbar into the space and torn its head off.

Maya fired the railgun, aiming at the neck of the rogue AI. Although its arms were flailing as it torn away the roof of the pub, the AI was not fast and its torso didn’t move all that much.

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There was a slight kick from the rifle and Maya saw a small explosion hit the rogue AIs neck, above where a clavicle would be on a human. The impact rocked the AI slightly, but didn’t seem to do any real damage. Yet, in the magnification that the screens provided her, Maya saw that the metal was crumpled.

“Hit its neck,” Maya ordered.

The pub’s AIs opened fire.The klaxon wail roared as strikes hit home.Metal tore away and revealed burned electronics beneath. Maya felt a wave of glee as she lined up her shot and used another feature of the railgun.

Power shot, it took a three second charge and punched out a pellet at twice the normal speed. The round struck the rogue AI and it rocked back, the wailing grew louder.

“Lay it on!” Maya cried. If they could damage its neck, maybe even shoot it off, they could disarm it. The turret was the most dangerous part of the creature. Without the weapon, they’d have a chance.

The thought still lingered in Maya’s as the rogue AI suddenly surged forward with incredible speed. Something that big shouldn’t’ move so fast, Maya thought a moment later before a fist came crashing down.

She wasn’t the target. Instead Richfield, standing in the middle of the dance floor, was smashed under a fist that was a third of his size. A resounding crash filled the room, causing Maya to drop to the ground as the floor buckled and debris flew everywhere.

“Richie!” Maya cried, pulling herself to her feet. She saw the big robot bouncer laying upon the deck, its form crushed and bleeding black fluid. She was about to rush toward him, before Annabelle dragged her back into cover.

The big fist smashed down once again and Maya watched as alarms blared in her vision as the computer she carried displayed the damage being done to Richfield. A moment later it flashed the message that Richfield was destroyed, a small icon flashed and went dark.

The loss was sudden, but the fight wasn’t over. Maya pushed aside Annabelle who was protecting her and grabbed her rifle. The rogue AI swung its head into the hole, pointing the turret toward her.

Maya saw her death as she raised her rifle.

A boom filled the room as Tender fired at the exposed neck. The wailing klaxon screamed and Maya watched in horror as another fist smashed into the bartender. The deadly turret changed direction and focused upon Tender. A bright light flashed and Maya felt the heat that had ruined the roof fill the room once again. It wasn’t as powerful as the first shot, but it was enough. There was an explosion of components and the black sludge from Tender’s position.

Maya screamed and fired at the neck of the rogue AI.Tender’s icon going dark.

Annabelle abandoned Maya and charged the rogue AI, moving faster than she had ever seen the AI move. She bounced off the floor and fired midair as she descended upon the back of the AI. Turrethead jerked and Annabelle shoved the weapon into a space at the base of the turret, before throwing herself off the rogue AI.

Maya kept her pace of firing, no longer hiding behind the booth or even thinking of safety. She stood up, the kick of the railgun knocking into her shoulder every second as she fired. Metal armor and exposed electronics rained onto the floor.

As Annabelle rolled away, an explosion followed her. A blossom of blue energy and heat roared from the base of the turret, causing the klaxon to wail even more. The explosion blasted Maya with heat and she flinched away from it.

She immediately understood what it was. A mana explosion. The laser rifle she had given Annabelle had a fairly large mana battery inside of it. Maya had weighed the options of using the mana battery to power stuff or to use it for the weapon. Since she had access to the mana core of the pub, she had chosen to keep it in the weapon.

Richfield had gone over the dangers that the laser rifle presented. Mostly due to faulty alignment crystals and components that could turn the weapon into a small bomb. Only due to the fact that it was cheaper to buy real explosives was such a method considered wasteful. A good laser rifle cost more than a good railgun, after all.

The explosion tossed Annabelle into a table, she tangled up in the limbs of metal and fabric. The rogue AI roared again and instead of trying to strike her with its fists, the entirety of the rogue AI jerked forward. Maya barely grabbed her rifle again and raised it just in time to see Annabelle crushed under the massive turret.

There was no scream of fear or pain from the pub AI, one moment the icon in her vision was green and the next it was blank.Maya yelled and fired at the neck of the beast. The turret swung toward her again and she saw the sparking of energies inside of it.

She should have ran, she thought and kept firing.

Suddenly another roar filled the air and Maya flinched from the noise. She looked toward the hole in the roof to see as a massive tentacle reached down and wrapped around the upper torso of Turrethead. As if weighing nothing, the rogue AI was yanked back and pulled out of the pub.

Maya stared in horror, looking at the rainbow sky as a terrible roar filled everything. It shook the pub and she could hear the noises of some terrible battle going on. The wailing of the klaxon rose and fell, followed by a screeching cry by the tentacle creature.

“Jesus,” Maya gasped. She lurched forward and ran toward the bar. Tender’s remains were splattered against the wall, mixed with the liquor she couldn’t consume. She grabbed the bag she had left on the floor and threw it on her back. With the dimensional container in her possession, Maya ran for the exit.

She tripped and fell into the gray dirt as she had to force open the door. The building was stressed enough that the door jammed. She stumbled forward and ran for the truck.

The sound of battle filled the air and Maya cast a look over her shoulder. She tripped again at the sight.

Turrethead was a massive fifty foot tall creature, thin and wiry, with long arms and three legs. Its opponent was in every way the opposite. It was a ovoid shape with scores of tentacles writhing around it, lifting it up and also battling Turrethead. The creature wasn’t as tall as Turrethead, but it was probably thirty feet in diameter, all of it covered with tentacles that extended out three time its width.

Maya named it Medusa and got back to her feet and began running. There was a massive boom that roared behind her and Maya instinctively dropped to the ground feeling a rush of air overhead. An explosion of dirt followed a moment after, enveloping her in a choking cloud. The dust cleared and Maya turned to see that Turrethead had been wrapped in tentacles and was being smashed into the pub. Its armor falling away and tentacles digging into its body.

A large piece of debris had been hurled in her direction, nearly striking her. Maya stared. If she had hesitated for a moment, it would have turned her into pulp.

The klaxon roared again and Maya flinched as light and heat filled the air. She turned her head as Turrethead fired its weapon point blank into Medusa. She was far enough away to not feel the backwash of heat, but she blinked her eyes at the blinding light.

Turrethead was badly injured. One arm was a melted stub while the other was a shredded mess. The turret that made its namesake was twisted and melted also, sparks raining from its nearly severed neck. The ungainly machine staggered back, its three legs going wide to keep it upright. Maya gaped as she saw the shredded torso of the creature; Medusa might not have had energy weapons, but it had shredded the armor that covered Turrethead. Maya could see the exposed interior of the rogue AI, a cascade of broken machinery spilling from the creature like it was blood.

Medusa wasn’t in any better condition. The pointblank shot had burned away a whole section of tentacles and pushed through its metallic shell. A hole about five feet wide now blemished its form, from it belched smoke and the red glow of burning material. Medusa squirmed and roared, trying to orientate itself.

Run. Maya told herself Get the fuck out of here!

Turrethead didn’t seem to see her or care that she was there, it turned its back on her to finish off Medusa. It was her chance to run. She should run. Right now.

Instead she raised the railgun she still carried.

Richfield had said power shot was not to be used that often. The discharge of all that mana corrupted components and would lead to eventual failure, plus it severely reduced the capacity of the battery. Then he had shown her the less known option of overloading the weapon to fire off a final devastating blow that he called the Final Shot.It would ruin the weapon, of course, but it would also pack a punch that was incredibly powerful.

As the owner of the weapon and a SIL, Maya disengaged the safeties of the weapon in her computer windows. The small computer inside the railgun tried to warn her what she was doing was a bad idea, but she ignored it.

Medusa had ripped off much of Turrethead’s armor and in doing so had exposed its heart. Maya could tell from the sparking colors that came out of a region in the rogue AI’s stomach that its mana core was unprotected. Without a mana core, the machine was dead.

The railgun rumbled in her hands as it began to overcharge. The weapon’s computer sent out warnings that it was going into critical failure and Maya lined up her shot. With its arms out of commissioned and the turret that was its main weapon seemingly destroyed, Turrethead had leaned back on its two legs and used its third leg to try and kick Medusa to death.It would have been a hilarious image, but Maya’s mind was focused.

A second later as the rogue AI leaned back to kick, the mana core came into sight. Maya immediately depressed the trigger and felt the recoil of the shot smash into her shoulder. She grunted and then smiled.

An explosion of color and light erupted from the back of the rogue AI. There was a crackle of energy and the klaxon screamed again as the machine jerked. It staggered for a moment, the colorful energy sparking over the body of the rogue AI and then discharging into the air. Maya felt another wave of energy, but it wasn’t the heat she had felt before, instead it tingled like electricity.

Rogue AI SRND99Z - Level 20 - mid grade, Tier 1

Defeated

2150 EXP

Lootable

Maya let out a laugh and dropped the smoking railgun. The weapon clattered into the gray dirt.

“I’m not too proud to shoot a bastard in the back,” she cried out.

There was a loud screech and the limp body of Turrethead lost its balance and fell atop of the pub. There was a crash and dust billowed, but then silence reigned.

“What a fucking day,” Maya said.

Then the ground began to rumble. Maya stopped and stared, seeing a large ovoid form rise up from the ground. She had forgotten about the other AI.

“Shit,” Maya muttered.

She checked her Inventory. She only had the pistols left. She had given Annabelle the laser rifle and the flechette shotgun was not going to stop something like Medusa. It was a good weapon to use against fleshy organisms or delicate pieces. A lot of destructive power, but no penetrating power.

She was half way to the truck, so Maya turned and began running. That was a mistake, as a roar filled the air and Maya felt the ground tremble. Maybe it was stealing Medusa’s kill or maybe it was destroying Turrethead’s mana core, but the ovoid AI seemed pissed.Even with many of its tentacles destroyed and a giant hole in the AI, it lumbered after her.

It took about a second for Maya to come to the conclusion that she was fucked. The scores of remaining tentacles reached out and dragged the ovoid after her, leaving behind a furrow in the dirt, and moved far faster than she could run.

“Fuuuck!” Maya cried out, searching for some place to escape to. She stood in an empty field of gray dirt, the Pub Trash Hill was behind her and the truck was parked beside a distant trash pile. There was no hiding, there was no running.

Then the dumbest most dangerous idea came to Maya’s head. She undid the straps that held the Hitorio dimensional bag across her chest and pulled the duffle bag that held the dimensional container off her back.

“Fuuuuck,” she said again and shoved the dimensional container into the dimensional bag.As a high grade, Tier 2 bag, it allowed items to be nearly instantaneously moved into its inventory.

Alarms began screaming in Maya’s head. It wasn’t like the first time, there the alarms had scared her. Now it seemed they were seriously enraged at what she was doing. It was intentional after all.

CEASE!

DIMENSIONAL STORAGE DETECTED!

CEASE!

CEASE!

WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!

CEASE!

Maya ignored it all and shoved the contained into the bag. A feeling of utter terror and sickness gripped her. Then she turned toward Medusa, the massive ovoid AI was nearly upon her. Maya leaned back and threw the bag as hard as she could. She didn’t have to aim for the AI, just as long as it got near her.

But her arm was still good, from years of baseball and from the increases in her Physical attributes. The bag flashed across the remaining space, aimed directly into the large hole in the AI.Maya didn’t pause to cheer at her aim, instead the moment it was out of her hand, she turned and began running as hard as she could.

CEASE!

CEASE!

CEASE!

The System continued screaming at her as she chewed up ground.

A moment later she felt weightless.The air evaporated and she gasped for breath. She tried staggering forward, but her feet rose off the ground.

Then the world went white as she tried to scream.