Chapter Forty Five

Gerald

With both heads of the precinct, Dean and Frank, taken care of, Gerald sits down at Dean’s desk in the back office and set both of the pendants out in front of himself. He’s only used a command pendant a couple of times during training with the force’s patrol robots, but these ones are over well over a hundred years old.

Being that they were made for combat, the two pendants are fairly easy to navigate. The attack option is right on the front screen, along with, equipment, and service items. He punches the soft key listed for attack, and its menu pops up. He does the same for both pendants. The next options are limited, but make fair enough sense.

Outside, he can hear the turbine engines in the mechs roaring to life. The two machines wake up and reposition themselves into an intimidating combat ready stance. He can feel the thumps in the floor when they reposition themselves. People have started screaming, horns are going off down on the street below, and outright panic is erupting down the halls.

While operating both pendants at the same time, he selects the Hail-Marry option in the attack menus. From what he’s read, it’s definitely going to be the one he wants. The setup is the fastest, and once the command is given, the only thing that can clear the task is completion, or a complete power failure at the mechs. Even if the pendants were captured, they wouldn’t be able to stop the robots once the order’s been sent.

He has a few options of targets to choose from, such as object tracking, simply attacking anything that moves, and mapped infrastructure. Grinning, he joufully chooses infrastructure. Automatically, the current updated map of Welan City pops up. He sits up straight, shocked at having expected SSS to be offered up on a silver platter like this. The stars must surely be in his favor. He scrolls right on over to the big black rectangular hanger and taps on it. The target is immediately highlighted in red with a red attack triangle hovering over it. At the bottom of the screen, it’s asking him to hit the next soft key. He taps on it and another thing pops up.

A little frustrated, he grabs his rifle and shoots a couple of rounds through the wall to make sure no one is making any moves. “Don’t get stupid out there. I’m not fuckin around! I’ll kill em!”

The pendants now have a couple of slider options that he needs to adjust. At the top, it reads aggression in red, and at the bottom, discretion in blue. He glances out the window when some light reflects off one of the armor plates on the B103 machines armor plating. He can’t imagine anything being able to stop it, so he slides the aggression level on that one almost all the way to the top.

It will likely ignore most anything but it’s intended target, and get to it as fast as it can. For the other mech, he drops the slider down almost to the middle, where it’s orange. It’ll be a little more careful, in case someone manages to pull any tricks on the other one. The machines are supposed to be pretty smart on their own.

As soon as he taps the launch soft key, there is a sharp increase in the sound of the engines outside, ramping them up into a screaming shriek of raw power output. The windows all start shaking when the machines immediately leap into action. When he rushes out to the front glass wall of the office, he looks down to the street to see the chaos pouring through the city streets. Cars, people, robots, and debris are scattered everywhere like a tornado went through there. Gunshots are going off in every direction, but the machines don’t pay heed to any of it.

He’s never been more excited in his life. He’s done it. SSS will fall by his hand, and in such an epic way. As he shouts cheers of joy while tears run down his face. Cris isn’t there to celebrate with him, but he can’t help but imagine his bother being out there somewhere looking down on him.

When the sound of a lot more commotion starts coming from the end of the hall, he rushes over to the far corner of the office and hunkers down. Enough armored officers with shields have pushed their way to the heavy oak door and are about to breach it. He grabs ahold of another heavy desk in the corner and tips it over in front of himself. At the first heavy thump against the door, he lobs his second grenade across the room into the pile of furniture he propped against it. As he takes cover, he starts shooting the thick glass out of the window behind himself. Dean and the secretary barely escape into the back office before the grenade goes off next to them.

Halfway across Welan City, Sy is sitting slumped back in his big leather studded chair, staring at the wall. He doesn’t feel like smoking or drinking, not by himself at least. It’s been a rollercoaster having to sit tight and watch while literally everyone else gets their hands dirty. He’s never been so wrung out from doing so little. Now that the party in orbit is over, everyone else has more or less slumped back into a mode of waiting for the next thing to happen too.

He puts his hands up on the armrests of his chair and readies himself to get up. They still have two more shuttles at the ready, and anything could happen. Now is not the time for him, or anyone else, to get complacent. With all of his big players already out in the field, the remaining responsibility starts to sink in. He’s the only pilot left. While some of the other techs could probably assist, he’s likely the only one left who can fly anything at all.

As he gets up, he pats himself down to make sure he still has his pistol and both spare mags with him. When he gets downstairs, the only people in sight are Clarice and Mikel. Clarice is staying diligent at the com station, and Mikel is leaning over the front of the tall curved countertop chit chatting with her. He doesn’t even have to say anything to him. A single glance is all it takes to motivate him to get back to whatever he’s supposed to be doing.

On his way around the living quarter’s grate-steel catwalk, above the technical bays, all he can think is that the place is too quiet. The last thing they need is for something to happen, and catch them all in a lull. He feels like he might be able to trust the two new investigators, but he’s learned his lesson to not be too candid with them before. When he passes by Alexis’s apartment, her door is strangely wide open. When he casually glances in on his way by, he spots Marek in there too, making lunch for her. He stops and looks at his wrist com, seeing that it’s two o-clock.

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When Alexis spots him standing there checking the time, it looks like he’s implying that they’re screwing off. Her armor is off, plopped on the end of her bed next to her rifle. The light grey tank-top she’s wearing hardly leaves anything to the imagination. It kind of takes him off guard for a second. He only awkwardly waves at her as he stumbles forward.

Alexis squints at him, wondering what’s up. “Oh, hey Sy. Um… did you try to get ahold of us?”

Marek turns around as he’s taking a big bite out of his grilled cheese sandwich and looks at him cheerfully. “Hey Sy, what’s up?”

He forgot she was on duty last night and is probably just getting ready. “I don’t know, I just kind of feel like we’re spread a little thin for some reason. Where is everybody? We should have a good hundred people locked and loaded on shift, but it kinda looks like a ghost town around here.”

Marek lowers his sandwich, looking concerned. “A few people are probably taking a little siesta after being on high alert for the last two days straight. “Why, you expecting something?”

His voice is a little condescending. “Spending two days straight watching TV in the bar doesn’t count. “Someone just launched a missile at one of our shuttles, on top of all the other shit.”

Alexis’s mouth is hanging open. “No one even told me! I don’t care if I was asleep.” She looks at Marek as if it’s his fault.

Sy shrugs his shoulders, a little in annoyance. “Seems like any asshole out there feels like they can take cheap shots at us right now, like we’ve only got one leg to stand on or something. That, and Cris just died at the hospital. It was on the fukin news. So… yeah, I’m gonna be up for another night straight.”

Marek is a little worried now. “You want me to bring all three of the runners upstairs? Hell, I’ll bring the centipede up too if you want. It’ll attack anything that moves. Well, except for us. I figured out how to give it an aversion to our trackers, so it doesn’t want to eat any of us.”

“Cool, yeah, do that. It’d make me feel better.” He looks back dubiously. “It does work right?”

Suddenly, all of the emergency lights in the building start strobing red, and then the siren sounds off. Oh shit is written all over the three of their faces. The siren would only be going off if they actively were under siege. Both his battle com and cell phone are also going off. The phone call is from Rick, the investigator, and the other is Clarice.

He answers his phone first and yells into it. “You had better fucking not be outside with your buddies dude, I swear to god!” He has to hold the phone away from his ear when Rick starts yelling back just as loudly in complete freak out mode.

“The mechs are loose! The giant fucking robots are tearing the city down!”

“Giant robots? What is this shit?”

“The giant war mechs, from the precinct! Gerald got ahold of their control pendants and they’re headed you’re way right damn now!”

“Oh… shit.” He tosses the phone at Alexis. You’re in charge here. Run everything through Clarice. Marek, get everything we have that can kill stuff upstairs. Now!” He turns and runs back to the elevator as fast as he can shouting for Mikel.

As Alexis scrambles to get all her gear on, she triple tasks with Clarice on her wrist com, and Rick on the phone, who is still hysterical. She can hear gunfire going off on his end of the line too. “Tell me what’s going on Rick.”

“The B-one hundred robots have been activated and they’re headed you’re way. You’ve got like, twenty minutes to evacuate! We have no way of stopping them. They are way too powerful.”

She and Marek only saw the things up close once, when they went on their outing downtown. A patrol robot is bad enough news. She can’t fathom what those giant things are capable of. The robot Aaron had shown her and Arma out in the woods was insane as it was, and it was only a quarter the size. All she can think to do is the obvious, going for its critical parts or something, if she had any idea what they even were. She hangs the phone to her side, starting to turn a little pale. When her wrist com buzzes again, she holds it up, but without looking at it.

She tells Clarice the only thing she really can. “Clarice, sweetheart, would you get everyone we have upstairs, in the main hanger, and armed with the biggest weapons they can carry please.”

The message goes out to everyone’s coms and over the alarm loudspeakers. The entire place immediately starts churning over with the sounds of shouting and boots trampling across the floors. As soon as she’s buckled up and has her rifle in her arms, she joins the next fifty guards that are amassing on the equipment elevator platform headed upstairs.

When she reaches the ground floor, the big bay doors are already all the way open. Just outside, Marek, Five, and the three runners are all waiting for her. Both of them are already mounted and have some of the bigger guns secured to the sides of their machines. Five has one of the big energy platforms, while Marek has put a flack cannon on his and her runners. Far in the distance, she can hear sirens, horns, gunfire, and the faint booming of what sounds like war. Smoke is already starting to rise over the metropolis.

When Sy makes it to the hanger floor with Mikel in tow, the three runners are already gone, blazing down the street toward the city. He doesn’t have the time to call them back. He can only hope they might at least have a chance of distracting the giant robots in some way. He also feels that he’s already lost all three of them. It’s hopeless, and it upsets him with intense resentment for Gerald.

On his way out to the hanger in Don’s little jeep, he nearly has it on two wheels around every turn. Out of the corner of his eye, Mikel holds onto the bottom of his little seat as hard as he can, trying to not get launched out across the pavement. With both Don and Vaun still in space. He’s the only one left who can pilot the tilt-jet worth a damn, and it’s the only thing they have with anywhere near big enough of guns on it.

He’s in such a hurry, as they skid to a stop at the back of the hanger, the brakes lock up, causing him to ram the jeep into the back of the building, creasing the crap out of the corrugated siding. While Mikel almost ends up on top of the hood, he springs back off the steering wheel and makes it to the door within seconds.

Inside, he frantically hits every switch on the electrical box, opening the bay doors, turning all the lights on, and even the overhead fans. Mikel rushes in behind him across the floor with an armload of guns and ammo, carrying them like firewood.

Sy waves him off. “Dump that shit! It aint gonna help us this time bud.”

When he turns to head for the jet, he stops in the middle of the floor and grabs two fistfuls of his own hair. Don hasn’t mounted the chain guns back in the jet yet. He had been doing the PM, has them all shined up, but never loaded them up. The big multi barreled guns, on their pivoting platforms, are standing there as tall as he is at the base of the rear ramp. The huge belted ammo boxes are right there behind them too. He’s not sure if he and Mikel will be able to load them in time.

“Mikel, I’m gonna load this gun. You’ve gotta do that one.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Just do what I do. Push that damn thing up onto the ramp as hard as you can, till that clasp on the track there grabs ahold of it. It’s heavy as hell, so you’re gonna have to put some beans into it. When it locks into place, go up and hold that yellow lever in there down. That will pull it in the rest of the way. Same thing with the boxes.” He can’t help himself and yells as loud as he can. “SHIT!”

As hard as he can, he slams his shoulder into the gun and starts pushing it to the rear of the ramp with everything he has. Now he remembers why he’s supposed to have been keeping up on his weight training.