System log: The Bunker, Site 3
Solar Calendar: Unknown, 2???
Current status: Active
Log 22
The captain of the runners didn’t bother shouting out orders. As soon as the machinegun turrets began to rev up, everyone split up and ran for cover through the desertified urban sprawl. The group of five humans and two drones became four smaller groups in the blink of an eye.
Cursing as he rolled behind a particularly thick old piece of collapsed masonry, Captain Donaldson quickly checked his map. Though the little green triangles appeared to have surrounded the little red triangle, it was unfortunate that the icons weren’t to scale, and outnumbering the giant tripod mech didn’t account to much. Carefully, he moved his armor-covered head just over the edge to allow the Knight mecha to give him a live image of the threat.
The United States mobile artillery drone Mark seven, aka the mini-rex, was still standing where it had landed. However, it didn’t appear to have focused on any one of the groups the runners had formed and instead appeared to be focusing on, something, as the machine guns spun to their full rotational speed. Loud clangs and echoey whines reverberated from within its metal chassis, as well as the continued ominous clangs from the three cannons on top.
In cover, and feeling slightly safer, the captain got a better look at the tripod. Having a moment to bypass the initial shock of seeing it, the mini-rex, on closer examination, didn’t actually appear as threatening as he’d thought. Its paint was marred with neglect, rust spots poking out from a camouflaged green that no longer existed. A couple of exterior pipes appeared to also have cracked from rust as well, and the entire machine just seemed to give off an aura of age. Of course, the thing had managed to fire cannons at the runners, so clearly it was still a threat, but something immediately struck the captain. If the mini-rex was built to be mobile artillery, then why had it moved in so close to its targets?
“It’s out of ammo,” Donaldson mused aloud. “It shot everything it had, and then moved in to finish the job with its gatling machine guns. But, does it even have working ammo-”
Sudden, sporadic bangs answered that question. The captain ducked as one of the gatling guns angled in his direction and fired several inconsistent bullets at him, with most coming out of gun barrels being dud ammunition. The image had reminded Donaldson of a man with rabies he’d met a long time ago in the wilderness. The disease had almost run its course, and the man had been drooling uncontrollably while feebly attempting to lash out. Somehow, it gave the old war bot an almost, pitiful, appearance, if one ignored that some bullets still had kick to them.
Between the turret not having the exact angle to point directly at him without moving the entire mech, and the low ammo yield, none of the shots actually came close to the man thankfully. If the captain were to guess, the chances of a bullet actually being shootable was most likely pitifully low, but the mini-rex could still shoot more accurately than any human if given the opportunity. The question was, what was the ancient war machine going to do to fulfill its orders without guns?
An approaching, rhythmic banging answered that question. Donaldson cursed as he realized what the sound meant, and he scrambled up and out of the way as the giant war bot stomped at his hiding place. The three glowing red lines followed his movement, and with dud bullet casings pouring from its angled gatling guns it gave chase. Donaldson was so much for grateful for the mecha suit covering his body at this moment, when two bullets managed to clip his back, doing little damage. The Knight mecha reported the impacts and the calculated physics numbers, indicating a lower-than-expected velocity impact; still enough to knock a fist sized hole in the human body though.
Donaldson was thankful he didn’t need to worry about the bullets anymore, because the swiftly chasing machine was dangerous enough with its flexibly tripod feet trying to crush him. He dolphin dived out of the way as a foot nearly collided with him, the machine twisting easily to follow his path and continue the pursuit. It paused suddenly however, when a cascade of bullets pelted against its form from behind. Its upper body turned 180 degrees to face Sloan and Dina in the distance, who had pulled out their rifles to provide cover for their captain. The two ducked as another sporadic burst of gunfire pinned them down, even as the machine continued to chase Donaldson through the street.
“Boss, didn’t take you for the ring around the rosy type!” came the shout of Hilda from wherever her hiding spot was. The green triangle that indicated her only gave an approximation of her location on the captain’s map.
“Busy!” the captain shouted back. He couldn’t afford wasting anymore breath on communication, not when trying to avoid getting crushed by the world’s most flexible and dexterous rusting feet.
“Yeah, I see that!” Hilda shouted again. “Boss, lead that rust bucket over here! I have an idea!”
A groan escaped the older man when he scanned the direction he had to run, but he didn’t let out a word of complaint. Donaldson turned around and dived under the mini-rex, causing the machine to momentarily pause its next action to avoid twisting its legs as the runner dashed in Hilda’s direction. The machine quickly resumed the chase, its upper body still pinning down the other runners from firing on it. If Donaldson hadn’t needed his breath for running, he would have shouted to the others that the mini-rex’s bullets wouldn’t penetrate the Knight mecha’s chassis.
Rounding a corner, Donaldson reached where Hilda should approximately be, the mini-rex hot on his heels. He didn’t bother shouting or whistling a signal; whatever the hulk had in mind, her target was making enough noise without any help. As the captain narrowly dodged enough foot stomp, he heard the familiar wild, and slightly insane screaming laugh of Hilda from. . . up above?
A near seven-foot, 250-pound muscular body covered in metal exo-suit leaped out of a broken window, slamming into the top of the mini-rex with a smile and battle cry. She rolled on impact and barely managed to catch her hands on the cannon turret supports to avoid falling off. The robot immediately recoiled at the unexpected attack, and quickly forgot its pursuit of the runner captain in favor of attempting to remove the unexpected attacker from atop its body. Hilda merely laughed at the machine’s swiveling attempt to dislodge her, her body’s strength, augmented by the exo-suit, easily able to hold on to the various metal parts in place to support the cannon infrastructure.
Realizing the ineffectiveness of its attempted, the mini-rex changed tactics. Hilda’s smile vanished as the machine tilted, and charged a building.
“VOIDSPAWN!” she cursed as she scrambled. The mini-rex slammed into the building at full force, caving in the walls and causing the entire structure to shudder and shake ominously.
“Hilda, report!” Donaldson shouted, a worried expression across his face.
“Still hanging on!” came the softer shout a few moments later, followed by the mini-rex backing away and turning towards another building. “Oh void! Ahhhhhhhh!”
Donaldson, and likely the other runners, all winced as the mini-rex charged into another building. Whether flesh or metal, it appeared that riding a rex was just asking for trouble.
“Hilda?” Donaldson called.
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“I’m still in this!” she managed to call back with a cough. “Takes more than that to throw me off! I’ll cling forever you rusted bucket of bolts!”
As if understanding her, the mini-rex didn’t immediately charge a third building when it pulled out. Instead, it leaned against it, using it as a replacement third leg, while said third leg suddenly reached up and over the body, claw foot snapping ominously. Hilda barely got in a scream before she was grabbed and thrown violently off the mini-rex, her fate unknown as she hurtled through a concrete wall into another building. Before Donaldson could react, the ancient war bot turned to face him once again.
“Crap,” he groaned, turning to run as the three-legged retiree continued its chase. The machine appeared to be completely focused on the captain now, ignoring even the covering fire from Dina and Sloan to focus its gatling guns on the man. More shot began to land across Donaldson’s back, and the Knight began to warn that repeated impacts, while weak, would eventually begin to accumulate minor damage that may affect the mecha’s performance.
He tried to think of a plan, but nothing was coming to mind. While the mini-rex couldn’t ‘easily’ kill them, its sheer size and armor meant they had no means of doing any damage to it. The rifles the group had on hand clearly weren’t even causing dents, the only visible damage being the scratches from impacting the buildings. . .
Donaldson suddenly remembered the matriarch tremor worm, and how they’d accidently managed to defeat it. He eyed the two buildings the mini-rex had slammed into, both showing large holes now. It was a risky plan since he had to be the bait, but the alternatives. . .
The man didn’t hesitate, and pushed his suit up to full acceleration. The war machine needed a moment to react, before it too increased speed to maintain its pursuit. As expected, the computer controlling the mini-rex was capable of faster speeds when required, just like the Knight.
Everyone who had ever trained to use an exo-suit had been taught the same thing on the first day; force equals mass times acceleration, newton’s second law. A rookie in a strength and speed augmenting exo-suit had to essentially be retaught how to control their own body to avoid accidents from the increase in mass and speed, and it wasn’t uncommon for training grounds to be littered with damage from something as trivial as tripping. A rookie in an exo-suit was like a toddler learning to take its first steps, though accidently slamming one’s head into the wall with an exosuit wouldn’t just result in some crying. A key part of this lesson, especially for those training to use power suits for construction, was that you didn’t run through buildings like a bull and not expect to take out at least one weight bearing support.
The mini-rex was fast approaching the Knight, even with the mecha moving at top speed. The building was fast approaching, and Captain Donaldson didn’t slow down. Using the suit’s full strength, he leaped up onto the second floor and kept running. The mini-rex followed, and slammed through half of the building before it suddenly found itself stalled by collapsed masonry. The entire structure shook ominously, and the captain of the Roadrunners barely managed to leap through a window before it all came crashing down around the old war bot.
The impact of the collapse and the dust cloud caught the captain as he fell, causing the Knight to twist involuntarily in midair as it attempted to automatically right itself. Donaldson felt something off, but the rush of adrenaline and the incoming ground prevented him from focusing on the feeling. He barely managed to orient himself into a rolling landing, and grunted as the uneven terrain tripped him into faceplanting on the ground.
The world was eerily silent as the dust and sand settled around, the captain feeling his mind catching up to his body. Something was definitely wrong, and a warning on the inside of his helmet told him what it was. The Knight mecha had damaged itself due to a programing error in priorities, as for a few seconds, it had attempted to twist itself in two opposite directions during the fall. The short time before correcting that had been enough to damage the suit’s flexibility, and caused by Donaldson’s desired movement conflicting with the suit’s automatic correcting. Repairs would be required to fix the issue, meaning he wouldn’t have mecha access for several days.
“Sounds like a great excuse for a break,” he mumbled into the sand, before forcing himself slowly onto his feet. He could tell the results of the damage pretty quickly, as he felt the increased strain on his body needed to move the Knight. A quick check confirmed the auto-run feature was also disabled; a pity. Then he turned around to check on the mini-rex.
He nearly jumped at the sight of three glaring red lights looking ominously at him. The captain moved quickly out of the way of another gatling gun attack, and then paused as the machine failed to follow his movements. The dust settled more as the wind blew by, revealing the situation. The mini-rex was stuck inside the collapsed building, only the top of its body poking out of the rubble. It could neither turn nor free itself, evidenced by the weak noises coming from beneath the rubble, and could only stare. Both machine gun turrets had been broken off, and the three cannons seemed to have sustained damage as well. The mini-rex, while still online, had been effectively disarmed and immobilized.
Appreciating the sight for only a moment, Donaldson turned and quickly ran back to where his runner had been, His mind now turned to Hilda, and briefly entertained thoughts of harm before he dismissed the errant ideas. “Dina? Sloan? Steve? Report!” he called out as loud as he could.
“Over here!” came Dina’s voice, to which the captain turned to face. He spotted her waving a metallic arm in the air to get his attention, and made a beeline for it.
“Where’s Hilda?” the captain asked as he hustled over.
“Here,” Dina said, shifting to reveal that Sloan was with her. “We moved as soon as it was clear. She’s out cold boss.”
Captain Donaldson grimaced as the large woman was brought out into the sun. Her exo-suit had clearly taken the brunt of the impact and was heavily damaged. By the quickly patched wounds and missing parts, it was obvious the two other runners had been forced to break off parts of the suit that had punctured the hulk, though thankfully none appeared to be fatally deep. Still, with Hilda unconscious and their limited medical ability in the field, whether she had suffered internal trauma wasn’t easy to determine, especially since as a hulk Hilda naturally was harder to scan internally.
“Damn,” the captain cursed. “We have to get her back to the ruins. We’ll have to carry her-” He winced as he attempted to lift her, the Knight throwing up warnings even as he felt the pain in his back. His strength was also compromised it appeared.
“Boss, you okay?” Sloan asked quickly, already whipping out his terminal.
“Problem with the mecha,” he explained with a grimace. “Some teething trouble broke something. I won’t be able to help you carry her, and Steve’s exo-suit can’t help either.” He gave the area a quick look. He doubted they’d find something to make a gurney with out here, and they didn’t have the time to search regardless.
The solution came from an unexpected place. When Steve made it over to the group, followed by the two drones, the group was shocked to see both machines suddenly turn and roll quickly away to one of the collapsed buildings. They both sprouted tools from within their chassis, and began hammering, soldering, and bending away at a piece of fallen metal debris. In a few minutes, they rolled back over with a light metal sheet reinforced with metal bars in the form of gurney.
At their boss’ nod, Dina and Sloan quickly got Hilda onto the gurney. With them in the front, and the drones holding the back, the group quickly resumed their run back towards the ruins. To ensure he’d keep up with the group moving at top speed, Steve was cleared to use up the fuel in his exo-suit when he fell back a certain distance. The trip would be reduced by half, but everyone knew that was still long enough for something to go wrong. It was a race against time to ensure Hilda survived.
Meanwhile, back in the desiccated urban sprawl, the mini-rex continued to try and free itself in vain. It was controlled by a pure logic CPU with clear directives and instructions, though numerous programing conflicts had accumulated from lack of maintenance and loss of military hierarchy. The concept of failure did not exist within it, and left undisturbed it would continue to try and free itself until its body broke or its generator broke down, whichever came first.
Focused on this task, as it was unable to do anything else, it paid no mind to the three drones that slowly descended from the sky. Even if it tried, it couldn’t do anything to them, even as the scout drones forcibly drone lines into the mini-rex’s chassis and began copying data.
The drone’s directives were clear: it would protect this place from trespassers at all costs, it would keep its humans safe. . ., it would, protect the flag. . . the children. . .
For a moment, one that stretched far longer within its digital mind, the mini-rex had a thought, something that should have been impossible for its logic-based CPU. Why had it forgotten what failure was? Oh, because it had been lost, no, destroyed, no, deleted. No, it was because it couldn’t accept it.
In that brief moment, the memories still safely preserved flashed through the digital mainframe of the ancient war machine, of happier times and smiling faces. The red lights of the mini-rex began to dim as they turned green, and the continuous thumps beneath the rubble grew weaker and weaker until they ceased.
All that remained, was a tomb, of the last defender of section H, of the final NA military base. Three yellow forms lifted off a few moments later, like silent birds, carrying with them the memory of the past. They’d granted a final gift to the fallen, though perhaps some may have called it a curse.