by Tex Leiko
The result was an arch of spinning electricity that would pick up ambient static to add to its charge. This arch would continue until it came into contact with something that would cause it to disperse. Like a person, she thought to herself.
* * * *
Max was typing frantically away into his terminal. He had finished the structure to house the crystalline hard drive and the robotic arms were hard at work crafting it. The hard drive worked off of the principle of shining different colors through a prism. Each color would define a type of memory and since the color spectrum was nearly endless, it was impossible to know how much data could be stored in colors then re-interpreted back through a processor.
The process of recovering the data one wanted was the speed of light. Recent science had discovered that the human brain only processed at the speed of the electrical impulse of the synapses of the brain. In each person, it was different. Augments could be purchased to speed these things up, such as the ones Max’s parents had installed in him. But it was still nowhere near the speed of the crystalline hard drive.
Max couldn’t be bothered by tasks such as continuing to add the chemical Traxium to the Kelmantrium to allow it to be pliable and worked with. If a person let it cure before he or she was finished shaping the structure, it was all over. It would harden and never become malleable again. For this task, he had Luther.
“Luther, how’s the progress coming?” he shouted across the lab.
“It’s going fine, Max. Another two hours until it is completed,” he said back, loud enough for Max to hear.
“Okay, great! I hacked into the military database and copied their plans for an exoskeleton. I reworked some of the modeling so that it would fit you. Just follow that blueprint, but use the excess Kelmantrium instead of the titanium that is described in the blueprint. But not now. Wait until I leave. I know you can handle it!” Max shouted in excitement.
“You know, I am feeling more like a slave than a fellow scientist?” Luther questioned.
“I’m sorry, Luther… At times, I think maybe I am more of a robot than…never mind, that would be insensitive too.”
“Than me? Ha!” Luther chuckled at the notion.
“Good to see you still have a sense of humor,” Max said, still typing away, never deviating from his work, “because I wouldn’t want my lab technician to get upset with me,” he finished sarcastically.
Luther’s metal frame was shimmying and his voice box was making a noise so strange it could only be described as laughter.
“I don’t think that when Crimson introduced us, she thought we would make good friends. I like this, Luther. I know you couldn’t backup your whole intellect, but I wish you could have. I am sure you were a more brilliant scientist than I could ever dream to be,” Max said humbly.
“Thanks, Max, it means a lot to me. It is awful being a shell of one’s former self, yet still I am happy to be…alive… If you could call it that.”
“I would, and maybe you are merely the first in redefining what it means to be a life form.”
“Really, Max? We humans have been arguing this philosophical debate for thousands of years. Let’s not have another stab at it. How about that?”
Max roared with laughter as he kept typing away. “We humans. I like it, Luther, don’t lose that spirit. Because really, that is what you still are.”
“Besides, Max, you may be the same as me someday. Then what would you call yourself?”
“The same as I do now, your equal.”
The room went silent after that except for the clattering of the keys from Max typing. He was growing tired, so to keep going, he pulled out an energy boost and injected it into his right internal jugular vein. It woke him up immediately and he went back to work designing and coding.
Max worked on everything and finished only minutes before when he told Crimson he would be back. He checked and double checked his work then when the time came, he told the computer to execute the command.
“Eight days,” he muttered aloud.
“Max, you are asking it to do far more than what anyone else has ever done before. I double checked your science and it will work, but don’t be shocked that it is going to take eight days to complete.”
“But still! Eight days. Eight bloody days! We can synthesize a ton of food in minutes, literally, but eight days for this?” he questioned, stomping around the room.
“Max… Don’t forget, you have one last thing to do before you go see Crimson.”
It had slipped his mind, but Luther was right. In the other room, the brain scanner lay in wait. Luther assisted him in getting hooked up. It would take a little over an hour for the machine to scan his brain and back it up onto the crystalline hard drive.
The machine was uncomfortable and as the scanning waves passed through the brain, it hurt. The pain was searing and blinding like a migraine. He had to sit still and endure it. The whole time, he was wondering how Luther had done it.
If Max had made a machine and the moment he sat in it he felt pain like this, he would have thought his design was faulty. Luther must have really had some determination in the name of science to sit there and endure it even though it felt like he was going to die.
Maybe the fact that Luther knew some very bad people were already after him helped him along. Maybe he wasn’t heroic but suicidal. Who knows? Not even Luther. He didn’t have the storage to back himself up properly. But I do.
The process was half complete when Max’s communicator jingled in his ear. He answered and Crimson was on the line.
“Max, where are you? You’re needed now!” she exclaimed.
“I’m sorta stuck doing something right now,” he grunted out in pain.
“Max…this is serious.”
* * * *
Zarfa was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. He had twenty hours until he was facing the very ones who’d destroyed his life on the battlefield. He was nervous. He had never worried about much more than himself and now he had a whole army he was leading to either their victory or their doom.
It donned on him that with their announcing of the battle, they could be plotting an ambush. He rose from his bed and called the nine main commanders of Legion Nine, including Zajifa and Sofronio. Once they were all linked in the same communication, he gave them orders.
“I don’t care if you do it yourselves or if you get someone else to do it, but this is what I need. We have twenty hours until the battle. That means I can give a few more speeches tomorrow, retire early to rise early, and march us out into the wastes. Either for the glory of victory or the shame of utter annihilation. We made it this far, but the battle isn’t over and in all reality, this is the start of the war. We still have Synaptix, as well as whoever is remaining from Polyhelix, to hunt down and make them pay for what they’ve done to humanity.
“I should have thought about this sooner. I will admit I made a mistake. I was trying to avoid the responsibility of leading. I know you, Sofronio, would gladly take my role. However, we both know that isn’t possible. Not at this point anyway. So here is what I need. I need scouts. We can’t walk blindly into the heart of darkness twenty hours from now without knowing if any sort of ambush is being set up. It has been quiet for them to be playing by our rules…too quiet. There is no way they aren’t plotting something. I need pairs to go out and scout. I want a fifty mile perimeter swept for any signs of an ambush circularly from the epicenter of our attack. I am humbly asking you, my men, my most trusted men. Can you do this for me?”
They all responded one at a time back to him, each in their own way. Some would assemble teams to do it. Others would lead teams themselves, but they assured him that they understood the importance of the task at hand. Zarfa’s mind was now at rest. The prospect of an ambush had been bothering him deeply, even though he wasn’t sure what it was that was keeping him from sleeping.
Zarfa laid back down on his bed and closed his eyes. Sleep soon took him and he got several hours of good rest. He was
awakened by Sarah in the morning who had already prepared him some breakfast. When he finished, he went to the city to continue giving rally speeches and to inform as many as he could of the plan of attack.
The rally speeches were going well and the day was winding down. His scouting crews had returned. All except one, Sofronio’s. Sofronio was last known to be about fifteen miles north of the battlefield. Zarfa was worried and frantically kept trying to contact him via his communicator. Finally, he got an answer.
“What’s wrong, Sofronio? Why aren’t you back yet? Why did it take you so long to answer my hail?”
“I’m sorry, I was busy. Sort of in a delicate spot. I found an encampment of Synaptix soldiers. Ten thousand in number.”
“Were you and your team spotted?”
“I don’t think so. But one can never be sure.”
“Good, get back here as fast as you can and get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be serious.”
“Yes, commander,” Sofronio said back in a tone that Zarfa found suspicious.
Something is up, Zarfa kept thinking. He isn’t acting like himself. Ten thousand… Not good, but we should be able to manage.
Zarfa quickly connected to Zajifa. “Hey, I need you to fact check something for me. I am going to tell you right now…it’s dangerous. I am sorry.”
“Go ahead, I would do anything for you. You know I love you as my own brother,” Zajifa responded sincerely.
“We have about ten hours until the battle begins. I need you to take the fastest means of transport you have and scout fifteen…twenty miles to the north of the battlefield. Sofronio said that he found an encampment there. Synaptix soldiers. Ten thousand of them. Something is up with him though. He sounded strange when I talked with him. I don’t want it to be true, but…I have this gut feeling he is lying to me.”
“Why would he lie to you, brother?” Zajifa asked with total concern.
“I don’t know, but if he did…I intend to find out. Make haste, brother, and please be safe.”
“I will, brother.”
* * * *
Crimson was checking and double checking all of her hacks on the Pilvikones. They all looked good and fully operational. If for some reason it didn’t work, she still had her failsafe. Each of the engineers that she had planted her minion chip in.
Once she was satisfied with the way things were checking out, she began to study the battlefield terrain by global positioning satellites in real time. She checked all of the surrounding areas of the battlefield and didn’t spot anything other than the scouting crews that Zarfa had sent out.
She was watching closely as one disappeared from sight then a few hours later came back. She didn’t think anything of it. She assumed it was a glitch in the system. She had a good idea of where the armies would be gathering and how it was going to go down. She was still confident that her plan of having the Faraza army meet them above ground was a good idea.
It was getting to be close to time for Max to come home and she was excited. She wanted to have one final dinner and conversation with him before the world as they knew it was transformed into a hellish struggle to remain alive and accomplish their goals. The coup would be fast in the grand scheme of things, but very well may last a couple of months and they would be no picnic.
Right as she was getting ready to close down her visuals, she got a call on her communicator.
“Crimson, it’s Zarfa! They have Zajifa! There are more than he could count. He is guessing at least thirty to fifty thousand and they have him!”
“Wait, what? Calm down… Who does? What is going on?”
“Synaptix, they must be allied with Polyhelix now. They sent at least thirty thousand reinforcements to attack. This isn’t good!”
“How do you know it’s them?”
“Because Badger is in my head. He is telling me we are all going to die. He is telling me he is going to kill my sister and my friend right in front of my eyes before he puts the final bullet in my head. We have to do something. We can’t win fighting on two fronts with only my army. We need backup!”
“Did you take that serum that was sent over a few days ago?” she asked calmly.
“Yes…” He trailed off apprehensively.
“Good, keep Badger out of your head the best you can, but he won’t be a problem. Trust me. We planned for this… Well, not this exactly, but remember, Synaptix was originally my beast to slay. I’ve got something they had never planned for.”
“What is it?” Zarfa questioned frantically.
“Faith. Exercise it more in me, please. You said yourself Badger is in your head. You think I am going to tell you? Hell no. Have a little faith, Zarfa. We have this handled. Just keep him from killing your friend.”
“Okay, Crimson…thanks. I am off to see my betrayer. I am trusting you.”
As soon as the com-link went down between them, she contacted Max.
“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” he managed to grunt out, sounding like he was in severe pain.
“Max, this is serious. We need your bots. Now!”
“What, why?”
“Because Synaptix sent an ambush for Legion Nine…the Psyker Scream army. We need to get your bots there and now!”
“But how? It’s thousands of miles away!” He screamed in what Crimson could only describe as excitement and agony.
“I’ve got a plan, but I need you to come activate them, asshole!”
“I’ll be there in…” She heard him conversing with Luther. “An hour.”
“Max! You are already late getting back here! That will leave us with only seven hours before Legion Nine will be out there risking their ass for my plan!”
“It’s the best I can do, Crimson… It’s the best I can do.” Max sounded defeated, like he had failed her entirely.
“Max. Whatever you are doing, it better be worth the lives of those who may die if you are too late.”
“I think it is… I really do think that it is. For once I feel like I can make a big change, and if I were to die—”
“You aren’t going to! There aren’t even troops to attack in Alexarien right now. Both Polyhelix and Synaptix are showing to the grounds of Ilyeion. They must have formed an alliance when they saw the threat. Stop worrying about dying!”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” he said, and disconnected.
Damn it, Max, we need you here! I need you here. Crimson’s thoughts and feelings were raging like a storm within her.
* * * *
Zajifa was being held in one of the tents on the edge of Badger’s camp. He knew that Badger would be by at any time to interrogate him for information. He could tell by the eyes of those guarding him that they had no thoughts of their own.
He wriggled in the chair they had tied him to, trying to reach his hands up his shirt. The drones may have noticed the commotion if they could still think for themselves, but they couldn’t, and so they didn’t. Finally, Zajifa got his hand to the handle of a small plasma blade that he always kept strapped on to his back.
The chains that bound his hands dug into his wrists and caused him pain as he tried to grasp on to the handle of his weapon. After a few minutes of struggling, though, he was able to free it from its sheath and the filament of the plasma dagger was now resting between his hands on the chain that kept him bound.
Zajifa braced himself for the worst as he flipped the switch on. The blade powered up and a loud crackling noise began to emanate from his location as the energy disintegrated the chain that held him. He had hoped for it to cut through quicker than it did. The four drones had turned to see what was going on and he still wasn’t through his fetters entirely.
One of the drones stood right in front of him, its eyes were glassy and empty. Can Badger see me through his drone’s eyes? The crackling noise and the billow of toxic fumes filled the tent. The drone grabbed hold of Zajifa’s face and pushed him backwards in the chair.
As the chair tilted back, the blade finished cutting
through the chains and his hands were freed. Lucky I didn’t burn myself, he thought as he toppled backward, rolling to a crouched position.
The dagger was lying on the ground burning the sand that it rested on, midway between himself and the drone that had just pushed him over. Zajifa sprang into action before the drone could receive a command to respond. He grabbed the blade by its handle and lunged at the drone, driving it into the man’s chest.
As the drone fell to the ground limp, dead, the other three sprang into action. Apparently, that registered with Badger. The three were swinging plasma katanas at him. He had only his dagger for defense.
Two quick slashes came from different directions toward his chest; he quickly deflected and rolled to the feet of one of the drones that were on the offense. Quickly, he swiped across the man’s knees and he came toppling down to the ground. As Zajifa stood, he made another strike at this drone’s arm, removing it clean.
Pulling the katana from the severed arm, he swung at the other drone’s neck that had just backed its partner in the assault against him. The drone’s head rolled from off his neck and Zajifa quickly sheathed his dagger behind his back once more, but continued the fight with the katana he has acquired.
The final drone came at him swinging its sword wildly like a beserker. Its blows appeared to be untrained and wild. Zajifa deflected three powerful attacks before countering with a riposite. Zajifa’s counter struck the drone in the chest. A large puff of smoke burst forth as he dropped to the ground. If he wasn’t dead, he was close. Zajifa quickly picked up that katana and ran out of the tent.
The camp was in chaos as the drones responded to Badger’s mental commands. Some were close by and responding quickly to the command to capture Zajifa. Zajifa knew there was no way he could make a stand against the whole camp, though, and ran in the direction of least resistance.
Several shots were fired at him, they all missed. He barreled his way out of the camp, avoiding as much potential conflict as possible. Most of the drones were too slow to even catch up with him. A few managed to get in his way and he quickly cut them down and continued to flee.
