Promethean Files 2: The Prometheus Gambit

by Andrew Dobell

  ‘They’re going to airlift it out,’ Gibson said, voicing the realisation that Frankie had also come to.

  ‘Not on my watch,’ Frankie growled, slamming in a new fully loaded magazine into her rifle. She rose from cover firing her gun at the closest operator, but missed him by inches as he suddenly moved. The man ducked for cover behind the mech, drawing a weapon of his own. Frankie let off another burst of gunfire, peppering the leg of the mech. The operator leant out and fired back, making Frankie duck for her own cover, the bullets whizzing past above her head.

  She glanced up again quickly and noticed the mech starting to rise up off the ground.

  ‘Shit, no time. Cover me,’ she ordered through the comms before jumping from cover and sprinting for the mech.

  Gunfire and tracer rounds from the two guys zipped past her as she ran. The operator on the leg of the robot leant out once more to get a better shot and fired with one hand while using the other to hold on. The recoil on his gun made the shots go wide, but they peppered the area around her until the gunfire abruptly stopped.

  Still running, she looked up to see the operator drop from the mech, a clean single gunshot wound to his head.

  ‘Guys, was that you?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Not quite,’ Veronica said over their neural link. ‘We’re on site. Now, go. I got this.’

  Frankie chanced a glance up and saw a new A.C.T. flyer hovering near a rooftop with Veronica knelt on the rear ramp, her sniper rifle to her eye.

  Frankie put as much effort as she could into those last few steps, racing as fast as she could as the mech, with the virus on board, rose up, higher and higher. The second man swung himself out and attempted to aim his gun at her, firing once, the slug going wide and hitting the concrete beside her right foot.

  He shot again, this time the round found its mark and ripped into her upper right arm before another gunshot from above rang out, and the man's head exploded in a shower of skull and brains.

  Frankie registered the pain of the wound as red icons flashed up in her vision warning her of the damage.

  Right that moment, though, she couldn’t pay it much mind and leapt for the mech as it rose up above her. Reaching out with her left hand, she just managed to catch onto the mech’s foot and hold on as it continued its rise. The flyer was moving slowly, much slower than usual, which Frankie guessed was partly due to this thing’s weight, and also to avoid swinging it about and crashing.

  Frankie couldn’t let this thing get back to the Corporations, though. They needed that virus, which meant she had to bring it down, somehow. Firing at the mech was useless, and the chances of her hitting the metal cables from here were slim, but maybe, she thought, she could damage the flyer above?

  Frankie grabbed her gun, noting that her right arm still worked even with the damage by the bullet hit. She still had those annoying flashing red icons in her vision, though.

  Frankie lifted her gun and aimed at the rotor. ‘Shoot the flyer,’ she ordered through the neural link as she squeezed the trigger.

  Gunfire arched in from several locations above and below her as her teammates aimed for the flyer, going for the rotors and the cockpit.

  Sparks erupted and lit up the mech, but their gunfire didn’t seem to do too much to the aircraft. The armour on these vehicles was just too strong for standard rounds. They’d break through eventually, but the flyer would be long gone before they reached that point.

  ‘Arrgh,’ Frankie grunted in frustration and slung her weapon onto her back in frustration. There must be something she could do, she thought, and started to climb up the mech’s leg, pulling herself up and finally getting her feet onto it as she continued her climb.

  Without warning, the mech began to struggle and kick its legs about, drawing them in and then kicking them back out again while swinging them back and forth. Frankie adjusted her grip to avoid getting anything crushed as the joints opened and closed when the rail gun above her swung down and caught her on her left shoulder and knocked her down, causing her to lose her grip on the leg.

  Flailing madly for anything as the leg slipped out of reach, she hit the thing's tail and seized it with both arms as it swung down and away and then back. Frankie adjusted her grip again and managed to lift a leg up and get a toe hold lower down on the tail. As it swung back up towards the rail gun side again, Frankie jumped and caught onto the thing’s left leg again, but it was still struggling to dislodge her. Looking up, she spotted the cables that were attached to the mech and wondered if she could dislodge them or break them. Frankie scrambled up the side of the mech and onto its back, where she could see the clamps and the lines they were attached to.

  She noticed as she moved that the flyer wasn’t gaining any altitude at the moment due to the mech struggling and swinging about beneath it, making the pilot focus on keeping them from hitting a building.

  Frankie soon reached the first cable and tried to simply unhook it from the mech. She was strong, really strong, but there was no detaching it. The weight of the mech was simply too much for her. So, she tried to just pull it and break it when the mech’s tail whipped up and slammed into the body of the mech just beside her, denting the metal there.

  Frankie looked at the dent in horror, if that thing hit her, it would cut her in two.

  She watched the tail swing down again and knew she didn’t have time for anything fancy. The one thing she hadn’t tried was her gun, so she pulled her sidearm and aimed the pistol at the cable and fired three rounds.

  The tail whipped up again and smashed into Frankie’s leg, making a bunch more red icons flash up in her vision reporting critical damage to her.

  The tail swung away, ripping synthetic muscle from her calf as it went. She registered the hit, but it didn’t really hurt in the way it would on her previously organic body.

  Frankie pulled her leg in any way and hissed at the damage the tail had caused. Looking down at the cable, it was evident this was going nowhere as the tail swung over again. Frankie dove down the left side of the mech and caught onto the rail gun, gripping the armour plating that protected it, when she suddenly noticed her right hand had actually taken hold of a thick, Kevlar-coated cable, maybe two inches across.

  She looked and saw that there were three of them, going from the back of the gun, up under the arm and into the body of the mech. They were well hidden and protected, but, up close, she could see them clearly.

  She looked at the panel they attached too on the back of the gun and noticed text stencilled on the panel next to each socket the cables plugged into. They were labelled as “Control,” “Power,” and “Hydraulics.”

  Suddenly realising where she was on its body, the mech started to swing the rail gun back and forth in an attempt to throw her off. Frankie adjusted her hold to keep from being thrown and reached for the cable labelled as “Control,” twisted it and pulled it from the socket.

  The rail gun suddenly stopped moving, going absolutely still.

  ‘Yes,’ Frankie hissed under her breath and looked again at the panel on the back. She’d noticed something on her first look, but now that she wasn’t being thrown about by the remote pilot, she could take a better look at the panel and realised there was an access hatch, about four inches square, with the words, “Control Panel” stencilled on there.

  ‘Bingo,’ she said to herself and reached for it. It was locked, though, and ordinarily, she would need a key. There was no time for that, however, so she just punched it, denting the cover, hoping she didn’t damage the controls beneath too much. The dent caused the sides of the hatch to buckle, opening a gap she rammed her fingers into, giving her leverage on the cover. With a few sharp pulls, getting a better grip each time, the cover finally came away in her hands.

  ‘Frankie? Are you okay up there?’ Gibson called.

  ‘I’m all right, give me a moment,’ she sent back through the link.

  She took another look at the rear panel and the controls she had just uncovered, and after half a
second she smiled. There, on the right side of the panel, was a button with an icon and a single word written next to it.

  It read, “Link.”

  Frankie pressed it and a small LED started to flash next to the button as a message appeared in her vision.

  -New Wireless Port Detected: Connect? Y or N.-

  ‘Hell yeah,’ Frankie whooped and initiated the link. Two seconds later, icons and controls appeared in her vision and she suddenly had control over the gun.

  ‘Bringing this thing back down guys,’ she said over their link as she used the controls to swing the cannon upwards, aim at the rotor directly above her and fired.

  The electromagnets fizzed and arced with electricity as it fired. The high calibre round smashed through the flyer’s rotor as it if wasn’t even there. She shot twice more, electricity flaring as the rail gun discharged, catapulting the bullets forward using electromagnetism at crazily high velocities.

  The flyer’s engine didn’t stand a chance and exploded in fire and smoke, pitching sideways and down. Frankie wanted to be sure of it, though, and fired twice more into the body of the flyer before she jumped from the mech moments before it crunched to the ground and collapsed into the side of a building, bringing down several walls with it. Frankie landed awkwardly, her good right leg taking most of the impact before she dropped and rolled into a sitting position.

  More red icons flashed up in her vision warning her of more damage, including some stress fractures in her right lower leg.

  Looking up, she could see the flyer out of control, swinging around, still attached to the mech. It moved in a wide arc before swooping in and crashing into the mech itself with an almighty explosion.

  ‘Camille, no!’ Gibson shouted. She could see her teammates, Gibson and Cole, were on the ground. Gibson had been helping Cole, but ran forward on seeing the mech containing his wife crash back to earth.

  Kalypso had also made it to ground level and jogged forward behind Gibson, her gun ready. Veronica, meanwhile, had found a spot on the roof of a nearby building.

  Frankie pulled herself up, putting her weight on her right leg and limped forward, taking hold of her rifle once again.

  ‘Is it down?’ Kalypso said over the link from maybe forty meters away.

  ‘No idea. Play it safe,’ Frankie said, not feeling confident that this was over just yet.

  As if on cue, the wreckage moved and shifted with a roar of twisting metal as the mech rose to its feet as best it could manage. The machine was a mess now, though, its two main guns were just useless twisted metal and the Minigun had been taken clean off. It staggered as its damaged hydraulics struggled to keep it upright.

  ‘Take it out, try to avoid the cockpit if you can,’ Frankie sent through the link, and suddenly everyone but Gibson opened up at it, including the nearby flyer that unleashed its mighty Vulcan Cannon.

  The mech staggered and fell to a knee before toppling forward and to the side with a huge boom as it crunched to the ground again.

  ‘Hold your fire.’ Frankie called. She was the closest by a good distance and moved in towards the body of the mech.

  ‘Can you see anything? Is she still alive?’ Gibson asked over the link.

  ‘I can’t see, I need to get closer,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Careful, that thing could see be active,’ Gibson warned.

  ‘I know,’ she said and moved slowly forward. She limped in, moving cautiously with her gun tucked into her shoulder, ready to fire. ‘Camille, are you in there?’ Frankie called out loud. ‘Can you hear me?’

  The mech moved, slamming it’s foot into her chest, kicking her like a football, throwing her backwards. She felt something give inside of her chest followed by the almost gentle rushing of air as she flew, floating almost before crunching to the floor on her back.

  Nearly everything was flashing red in her vision as warning icons appeared everywhere.

  A shadow fell over her, blocking out the street lights and the glow from the neon signs as the remains of the mech towered above her.

  Gunfire flew, picked out by the orange glow of the tracer rounds her teammates' guns fired. The mech didn’t seem to notice, though, as it raised its right leg and brought its foot slamming down on top of Frankie’s body, crushing her from the chest down.

  Frankie’s vision glitched and warped, fizzing and popping from the extreme damage she had suffered. Warning icons were flashing like crazy in her vision, letting her know that her body was all but destroyed.

  She suddenly noticed, though, that her right arm was free and, apart from the single bullet hit earlier, was relatively undamaged and certainly usable.

  Frankie lifted her gun and aimed into a breach in the mech’s front armour, beyond which she could see circuitry and electronics.

  Frankie squeezed the trigger and unloaded the clip. The mech shuddered and looked like it was being electrocuted before it appeared to lose all power and slumped down into a crouch, the rumble of its motors and mechanical parts falling silent.

  Frankie dropped the gun and cancelled the warning icons that were all over her vision. The mech’s foot was still on top of her, holding her in place; not that she could have moved anyway given the damage she had sustained.

  Engines roared to her left. Turning her head she saw the A.C.T. flyer bounce down to the ground, its rear hatch opening up, allowing Xenox and William to climb down from it.

  Gibson ran around the side of the aircraft and over to Frankie. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m alive, but I think I will need a little work,’ she said.

  ‘And Camille?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea, but… It doesn’t look good,’ she said, looking up at the damaged cockpit. Gibson climbed up, found the emergency release lever, and pulled. There was a hiss, followed by a sound like a gunshot as the explosive bolts fired and the cockpit flew off its hinges.

  Camille sat inside the pilot’s seat, bloody and unmoving. Frankie sensors couldn’t pick up any vital signs, which pretty much confirmed the worst. Frankie lay her head back on the concrete and sighed. Another innocent is lost, she thought.

  ‘Is the data pad still in there?’ Xenox said from close by.

  Gibson clambered up and quickly found the pad in a pocket on his dead wife. Gibson tossed it to Xenox before returning his attention to Camille, stroking her face and kissing her forehead.

  Frankie turned away. He deserved some privacy and looked over at Xenox. ‘Is it still functional?’

  Xenox tapped it. ‘It is, and it’s unlocked,’ he said, wiping some blood off of it.

  ‘Can you access the virus?’

  ‘One moment,’ he said as William and Kalypso came and stood next to him.

  ‘There, there it is. Found it. Yeah, it’s intact. I’ll just run a quick diagnostic on it,’ he said, tapping away on the screen.

  ‘If it’s viable, you should release it now, end this before it gets even more out of control. I don’t fancy fighting another mech like this one,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Okay, the virus is clean and ready to go,’ he said.

  ‘Release it,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Do it,’ William agreed. ‘Get this over with.’

  Xenox tapped the screen once, waited a moment, then smiled. ‘It’s gone, we did it.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ Frankie muttered, laying back and relaxing.

  Xenox handed the pad to William, ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘I need to tend to Frankie. Would you mind if I used the flyer to lift the mech off her?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ William said, checking the pad and no doubt making sure the virus had been sent.

  Xenox nodded and turned back to Frankie. ‘This is going to be messy, I suggest you switch off and let me fix you up,’ he said.

  ‘We did it. I can’t believe we actually did it,’ she said, feeling relief and a lifting of some mental tension from her mind.

  ‘We did, thanks to you. Your actions today were spectacular,’ Xenox said.

  ‘The C
orporations won’t be happy.’

  ‘The Corporations can get fucked, as far as I’m concerned,’ Xenox said.

  Frankie smiled at the curse. ‘They’ll want us dead. They’ll come for us, but, then, that’s nothing new.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he smiled at her. ‘Okay, ready for some sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘Powering down now,’ she said and initiated her shutdown sequence. Code ran up her vision as the outside world faded away, leaving only darkness and silence.

  2.23

  Scrolling code and icons appeared in her vision as her systems powered up and came back online.

  The sound of the room around her faded in and she could hear someone speaking.

  ‘Prime Minister Susan Weaver has formally taken responsibility for the liberation of the nanobots, issuing a statement saying that she worked with the Corporations to make this happen, saying that nanobots and freedom from treatable illnesses should be a right, not a privilege. Following her statement, the four big producers of nano-machines - Psytech, Nano Technic, Duplex Neural and Nobori Nano - have all issued their own statements, supporting the British Prime Minister and promising to continue to develop, repair, and update the nanobots using subsidies from the government rather than through insurance premiums. We spoke with Marissa Webb of Psytech earlier today who seemed excited about the future…’

  Frankie opened her eyes and saw Gibson sitting close by, and Xenox stood next to her bed in his lab.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Xenox said.

  ‘Hi,’ Frankie said, blinking as she finished booting up.

  ‘Hi, Frankie, how are you feeling?’ Gibson asked.

  She moved her arms and legs as a message in her vision flashed up.

  -Start up successful. All systems working within normal parameters.-

  ‘Great. As good as new, I think,’ Frankie said, sitting up and using the sheet to keep herself covered upon realising she was naked beneath it. She looked up at the vid screen on the wall, which was tuned to a news channel. ‘Looks like it worked, then,’ Frankie said.