As firearms grew ever more complex, it took progressively longer and longer for the layman to become skilled in its use. It wasn't unlike an inscrutable black box, complete with automated targeting and tracking systems, mounts for additional add-ons, and a profile straight out of a science-fiction movie. Kat held the laser rifle primarily as a backup weapon; she was much more comfortable with the katana. Never mind her relative lack of experience with both, one was just more comfortable to wield.
Most everyone else used other weapons. Both Mei and Vola were sent out on their own, picking off the vulnerable. As for the rest of the team?
“They just keep coming,” said Tomato. She had her hands placed on Den’s shoulders, glowing with an ethereal light that suffused the robot with an effect one might liken to a ward against darkness. Not only did the world seem a bit brighter near him, but every bolt of electricity he let loose from his staff surged through the shells of his metal-built brethren to fry their systems and shut them down.
Den kept his back against the concrete wall of a parking complex. In the rainy darkness the glint of a Ripper-class drone flitted between supporting pillars, a sharp shadow dancing in the light of his crackling wizard’s staff. But his sensors spoke otherwise, and they whispered to him where it would strike from; one well-placed arc of energy shut it down for good. He sidestepped the lifeless metal can of a machine that flew past him, a deadly assassin a moment before, now a tumbling, rattling lump of steaming wires.
“Stay behind me so they don’t hit you.” Den let charge accumulate in his weapon again. “This is just their recon force.”
Tomato let her shoulders sag a little while she kept buffing the party mage. “Is this what you guys have been dealing with?”
“More monsters than men, but yeah. This time we kind of provoked them into it, though, since we’re moving to hit one of their factories.”
Indeed, while Dime remained at home, bound to his wheelchair, almost everyone else had been mobilized to take the fight to the enemy. Though hesitant, Tomato had agreed to come with as well, hoping to repay her benefactors. Only Snake had remained behind, wanting to keep an eye on the token force provided by Architectural Constructions to keep the hotel safe.
Kat boxed up those thoughts to toss into the mental recycle bin. Slowing her breathing, she let loose a solid beam of orange from the gun barrel that blew through the fog of stormy night, catching another Ripper by surprise. The heat of the laser slagged the outer shell of its body in a second, ruining a great many internal systems. The weapon beeped, signifying its cooling period as it waited to charge up again after a shot like that. The lone droid, unable to coordinate its movements due to the sudden deprivation of a significant chunk of its own circuitry, stumbled, falling to the ground where Kat swiftly decapitated the damn thing with a pixelated edge.
She let the pixel katana dissipate into thin air. “That all of them?”
Den nodded to her from where she crouched behind a car, hoping to use it as cover.
“Dave is telling me he’s handled all the other guards. They know we’re here so we gotta move fast, let’s get in there and secure the data.”
A four-man squad, consisting of Kat, Den, Tomato, and Dave. It was these four that had been assigned to the task of breaking into one of the major factories to try and pilfer all the operational data collected by Automotive Industries for the last several decades. This was information closely guarded under threat of death, so that none might consider swiping it for themselves, but the human hires of the corporation were not perfect. So when the group closed in, insurmountable problems turned into minor inconveniences.
Dave had reached the front door first, flanked by several of his own animatronics, finely crafted to be brutal in their physical prowess. Strong enough to bend steel, they’d made short work of the electric fences lining the perimeter. Tertiary gun batteries designed to repel the occasional startup found themselves swiftly ripped apart, Rippers meeting the same fate. Their engineer had opted to beef up his personal armor, closer to a juggernaut than a civilian. His lack of battle prowess could be compensated for with the inclusion of a built-in AI expressly for piloting the powered armor when it counted.
“We’re here,” said Den, “Any luck on getting the door open?”
The door unlocked with a ka-chunk, hydraulics hissing as the thick metal gate slid open rather slowly. And thank god for that; the group of four had ample time to steel their nerves and prepare themselves for whatever lay on the other side. With anxious trepidation, their faces hardened, and their bodies tensed, ready to take on anything.
One guy stood all by his lonesome in the doorway, ballcap pulled down over his eyes. His downturned gaze meant that the brim of his hat kept the idea of eye contact off the table.
“Been expecting you,” he said.”
Dave let himself relax a little bit, though no one else could see because of his armor. “You’re the double agent?”
“Yup. Can’t jam comms with central ‘cause of cables, but I compromised the factory’s manager AI. You got a few minutes before they get sorted out.”
Den nodded. “Well, that’s convenient. Let’s get in and get out, smash as much stuff as possible. Where’s the data?”
The nameless double agent was already leaving. “Downstairs basement, local servers are behind the blast door,” he called out. In seconds he’d vanished from view, blending into the maze of machinery that filled the building.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Unlike the conventional factories of old, where neat lines were required for ease of maintenance and efficiency, this clusterfuck of an industrialist’s wet dream threw all that out the window. The pipeworks protruded from every surface, turning the massive chamber into some kind of 3D maze that only the qualified would be allowed to navigate. For the technicians who’d been given maps, this was a minor hindrance. For the group hoping to fulfill their end of the bargain with Architectural Constructions, this was absolutely horrible. Like most people, they preferred their labyrinths without verticality.
“I mean, I could jump in,” Kat suggested, “but I’d have to risk fighting their antivirus.”
“What’s the chance you make it out alive?” said Tomato.
“Fifty-fifty?”
Den sighed. “Dave, cover me. Tomato, do your thing. I’m gonna try to scan the building.”
Mana was an uncertain thing, its properties entirely unclear to the layman. It seemed everyone had it, but it took an incredible amount of work to produce meaningful results. Terribly expensive, time-consuming, and requiring a dedicated teacher, magic as it was named was relegated to the realm of the rich and connected: if it wasn’t for Empowerments.
It was through random chance or fortune that magic was discovered in its current form, a different kind of power expression courtesy of awakenings. The ability to sense mana and manipulate it in your own unique way, however crudely, was one of the more common abilities to spring up among the populace. Naturally, groups of these like-minded individuals began to form around the study and reproduction of ‘spells’, leading to a culture of intelligent scientific pursuit that led to advances in medicine, technology, and above all, the power to bestow this gift upon the average citizen, even if it required an Empowered teacher and years of your life.
For what a wizard lacked in power, they made up for in sheer versatility; this facet was especially pertinent at the moment as Den spoke the words to reinforce his imagined result.
“[Deep Scan]. [Dangersense].”
A machine given life. Empowerments could be indiscriminate at times; humans made up a majority of the gifted, but that didn’t reduce the impact of the exceptions like trees, rocks, and yes, androids. Perhaps some qualitative transformation enacted by this mysterious benefactor transformed the already believable AI of modern technology into a sapient being rivalling humanity. Either way, a mechanical mage like him hardly needed to spend precious seconds channeling mana when his CPUs could manage them for him. It was only natural that a robot far surpassed humans in speed-of-thought, and he made full use of it to quick-cast his spells at a rate to break human records.
“Hold on-- incoming!” He could feel the sensation of a sharp shape deftly skittering through the labyrinthine hive of mechanical madness, having detected the group.
Even without the fearsome AI manager to coordinate the drones, they still had a decent chip of their own to keep them on autopilot. So when Kat moved to swing, it leapt out of the way, launching out of one of the cramped tunnels to latch onto the sealing with hooked metallic feet. Dave opened fire with his own las-pistol, only for it to zip left and right, letting the beam of heat harmlessly ground its energy in the ceiling. Unfortunately, Den had other ideas.
“[Charged Zone]!”
The immediate area around the group tingled with a sudden surge of electricity that stunned the electronic capacity of every machine in the vicinity. The current jumped from pipes to computers, riding the metal all around them. Unlike the animatronics or the Ripper drone that promptly found themselves unable to move, Den retained at least a bare minimum of autonomy, still able to stumble from place to place. Indiscriminate spells had their drawbacks too, it seemed.
Kat stepped forward, slicing through the robot’s torso with a wound-up swing, the resistance of the material giving way to an impossible sharp blade packed with force.
“More are coming, right?” she questioned.
“I’m getting faint signatures, but… yes.”
Dave turned away from the hasty repairs he was applying to his robotic crew to eye the two of them. “I hope this’ll be enough preparation for the bigwigs. I’d hate having to leave Kyki out there any longer than I have to.”
Thankfully, the timely assistance of the double agent left them a mostly-clear path to the underground of the factory, where Dave briefly demonstrated his technical prowess by having two animatronics drive a drill into the blast door with enough strength to tear a man-sized hole through the solid two feet of material.
When they climbed inside, what awaited them wasn’t treasure beyond imagination or terrible experiments locked away from the world. There were just rows and rows of servers, constantly cooled in the chilly room to avoid overheating. Finally, Kat was in her element! While unable to interface directly for fear of reprisal, it was cheap and easy to skim through the surface information of all the files stored on all the servers at a blazing speed.
“I think I’ve had enough robots for today.”
It was Tomato who said that. “You didn’t even the fighting yourself,” muttered Kat.
“It’s scary being defenseless, alright?”
“That's true. What files are we combing for, again? Dave?”
Dave scrambled through the rows and rows of information appearing on the HUD of his high-tech armor, quickly locating the target objective. “Anything relating to their military capabilities. The sponsors want to be able to prepare for all tricks by Automotive Industries”
Kat ground her teeth a little. “These systems are too clean for that. No wonder it was so easy to break in, there’s barely anything here besides a million reports.”
“Maybe you could try checking the logs of the input and output? Then you could see exactly what their main factory is responsible for building, like guns and more robots.”
Den considered Tomato’s sudden flash of inspiration.
“That kind of makes sense,” he said, “Go ahead and try that, Kat.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll-- oh, it really did work!” Kat swiftly began combing through the system logs she’d been ignoring for fear of wasting time.
The results were outstanding. Dozens of work discrepancies, with corrupt managers cutting back spending on everything to fund their salaries… as well as associated production numbers. Now she could tell you how many Ranger-models were built last week, last month, even last year. When it came to intelligence, such detail as this was considered a jackpot. Kat 1, corporation 0. She was bringing home the bacon, baby.
“We’ve really got to extract. I can sense dozens more on their way. The AI Manager must be back online.”
Den’s slightly tinny voice brought her back to the present, and she hastily ejected the handheld drive she was using to copy sensitive files to. This wasn’t the massive haul she deserved, but a victory nonetheless. Stowing it away in a pocket, she flashed the hand sign everyone had agreed on to mean ‘GTFO’.
“They’ll catch us in the maze,” breathed Dave, “We don’t have the time to go through all that again.”
Den smiled for the first time this operation, pearly white imitation teeth flashed to the world in a dazzling show. “Go through? I guess we have no choice. Tomato?”
The woman knew enough by now to understand dumping extra power into her continuous buffing was what she was expected to do. With a leveled staff and a series of chants…
“[Centrifugal Locus], [Density Up], [Rocket Burst], [Accelerate], [Earthen Drill]]!”
The string of words released in mere seconds flung a rapidly spinning cone of metal at such high speed it punched a gaping hole right into the side of the labyrinth, right before the group had to risk being caught off-guard in its tunnels. Bent, warped steel formed the borders of a hole wie enough to fit two people. The heat of the exchange left glowing orange spots on the pipes unfortunate enough to be in the way.
Kat whistled in awe. “Should’ve done this from the start.”
“I would’ve been low on mana then,” said Den, “like I am now. Hurry, out the door!”
Dave raised an arm while running. “I’ve got one more surprise to leave them actually.”
“Sure, just make it quick.”
As the four escaped with their plundered information, ready to be sent to their sponsors, the loyal employees and unquestioning drone fleet under the command of Automotive Industries learned the true terror of Freddy Fazbear for the first, and likely last, time.