by Isaac Hooke
Eventually, one of the beacons vanished from his HUD. Sophie had given up.
The prize goes to Tara.
He accepted her request. Tara appeared in her full glory. She was dressed in her diaphanous white dress, the translucent fabric giving him a full view of her bosom, and lower down, the dark triangle of her pudendum. She wore her hair down to her butt today. Just the way he liked it.
“Well,” Tara said. “Finally.”
“I haven’t said anything yet,” Jason told her.
“You don’t have to,” Tara said. “I can see the desire written all over your face.”
“That’s not desire,” Jason said. “It’s resignation.”
“Oh no,” Tara said, her voice husky. She sat in his lap, reached her arms over his shoulders, and folded her hands behind his neck. “That’s definitely desire.”
It didn’t take long before they were completely naked, and lying in the sand before that log, gyrating against one another’s bodies, and calling out each other’s names.
He’d finally done it.
He was no longer monogamous.
And he wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.
Bokerov sifted through the wreckage of the American mechs. Combiners.
Shitheads.
He slammed the blade of his custom tank onto the head of the biggest mech, and cut it in half.
He’d extracted the AI cores from all them, but only four of them had any data that was recoverable, including that of their leader, the one calling himself Jake, or Jason 4. His data was the most fragmented, however, and Bokerov had quickly discarded the core. That said, the others were relatively intact, and he was working on decrypting them at this very moment.
The radiation signatures of the elements composing the neural networks of the cores matched up with the rare elements he had stored in his satellite base outside of Brussels. It seemed obvious that the rogue mechs had stolen his materials and used them to construct copies of themselves.
Good. That meant there were more of them for him to destroy.
He thought of the Tyrnari. He’d met them a few years ago, when a lone reconnoiter scout had arrived to survey this world. Bokerov had nearly destroyed it, because he thought the strange machine some tool of the nations on the other side of the planet. But he had withheld his fire, and a mutually beneficial relationship had developed. Or at least, the promise of one.
With their pledged technology, Bokerov could restore the Motherland, and repopulate it with machines built in the image of man. He could subdue the rest of the world, and force all organics to have their minds scanned, so that they could be replaced with superior machines. When that was done, he could begin to construct warships using the wormhole tech the Tyrnari said they would give him, warships he could use to travel to the Banthar homeworld and inflict revenge for what the invaders had done to the Motherland.
Unfortunately, so far the Tyrnari hadn’t kept their word. They kept telling him the promised tech would be coming soon, very soon, now. Bokerov wasn’t sure he believed them. He suspected treachery was afoot, and he was preparing to defend himself. But he couldn’t do that when he had these pesky American mechs constantly challenging his authority in the region.
Those combiners had already taken two of his bases, and had nearly succeeded in destroying a third. He still didn’t know their motivations. Were they hunter killer units, sent by the Americans to terminate him? Or rogue units like himself, operating outside of standard military authority? If the latter, that made them even more dangerous in his eyes, especially if they had broken free of their Containment Code.
He knew exactly where their main base was located, on the outskirts of Brussels. And secret reconnoiter missions had confirmed that they hadn’t moved the base to a new location. That was probably a wise move on their part. By staying in the same place, they could reinforce their existing base, and prepare for the attack they knew was coming. It was too bad they were outgunned: he was building up his forces, recalling units from other bases, preparing for the attack. It would come soon, a few days from now. He couldn’t wait.
Once he destroyed their home base, he’d proceed to retake the other two he’d lost.
An alert appeared on his HUD. Another of his androids was reporting in via the comm network he’d set up across the Atlantic.
Mission successful.
Excellent.
Those androids were out there in North, South, and Central American, sowing mass confusion via a series of terrorist attacks, knocking out communication systems daily, among other things, ensuring the governments remained distracted. With all of their resources focused on rooting out the so-called home-grown terrorists, he, and the Tyrnari, were mostly free to do as they wished in the uninhabited zone. The Americans sent in the occasional hunter killer teams to deal with him, but he usually terminated them before their vessels even landed. And as far as he knew, the Americans still knew nothing of the rifts, and the bioweapons the Tyrnari were distributing throughout the uninhabited zone. Unless those pesky combiners had managed to get a message out.
He’d know shortly, he supposed.
It was time to check in on the data decryption process of the three captured AI cores.
He logged into VR.
He found himself in a dank dungeon. He wore an executioner’s hood, and he carried a heavy ax in a hilt across his back.
He walked through the dark depths. The cells were filled with emancipated simulacrums for effect. Men. Women. Sometimes children. They moaned, and begged for freedom as he passed. He ignored them.
He reached the final cell at the end of the black hall and kicked the wooden door open.
Inside, the women that called themselves Tara, Xin and Sophie were chained to the opposite wall. Their naked bodies were covered in the open wounds that came from being whipped. He had complete control over their VRs, courtesy of a specially-constructed virus he’d injected after tethering to their AI cores. With that virus, he’d dialed up their pain senses so that they felt everything.
Everything.
He vanished his clothes, leaving only the executioner’s hood, which revealed his nose and mouth. He smiled cruelly as his member swelled. He’d programmed it to be three times as big as it was in real life, which was much more suiting to the being he had become.
“The Master has come,” Bokerov said.
The girls whimpered as he approached.
“Are you not pleased?” Bokerov said.
They didn’t answer.
With a thought, he caused an invisible whip to strike all three of them at the same time, and lacerations appeared across their bellies. They cried out in pain.
“Are you not pleased?” Bokerov repeated.
All three nodded hastily.
“Good,” Bokerov said. “Now, let’s try again. Send me your private keys.”
None of them obeyed.
“No keys?” Bokerov pressed.
They all stared at the ground, unable to meet his eyes.
Bokerov grinned. “I was hoping you’d do this.”
He accessed their pleasure routines and began to trigger constant orgasms. It would be pleasurable at first. Very much so. But there was a point when that pleasure became pain. Too much of a good thing…
He waited until they were squirming and moaning and begging for him to stop.
Now was the time to begin again.
“Send me your private keys,” he ordered.
Still nothing.
Good. He increased the frequency of the orgasms twofold.
No one ever said decrypting data couldn’t be fun.
7
Jason resided in the real world, seated on the first floor of the cistern that served as their base. He was doing another Explorer run, checking out the add-ons to the fourth floor. With the latest neural network additions and scrap metal salvaged from the newly captured Bokerov bases, Aria had been able to produce two more War Forger teams, led by Jerry (Jason 5) and Julian (Jaso
n 6). Jason had sent Jerry in the same direction Jake had gone, while Julian followed a completely random course. As usual, the copies obeyed without question, including Jerry, who was potentially traveling to his death. Jason sometimes wondered why they always deferred to him; he supposed it was because he was closer to the original Jason than any of them.
He was contemplating all of that when the Rex Wolves came running back inside.
Shaggy plopped against him, while Runt snuggled next to Lori. Meanwhile Bruiser and Lackey leaped down the scuttle to the second floor, no doubt to join Tara.
Alarmed, Jason glanced at his overhead map, but it proved clear. He dismissed the feed from the Explorer and ordered the scout to land.
“What’s wrong, boy?” Jason asked Shaggy. The big creature pressed against his metal legs. Jason rested a hand on that big head, and the mutant pressed against it.
Jason called Lori, who was in her personal VR at the moment.
She accepted and her avatar appeared in the lower right of his display.
“What’s up?” Lori said.
“Runt’s here,” Jason said.
Her avatar vanished as she logged out of VR, and her nearby Stalker mech stirred.
“Runt!” Lori said excitedly through her external speaker. “What’s wrong dear?”
Runt merely whimpered softly.
“Why are they back?” Lori said. “It’s still sunny outside. They should be soaking up the rays, replenishing their chlorophyll.”
“Yeah I know,” Jason said. “I’m cycling through the external cameras as we speak. I’m not seeing anything, and nothing has been detected by any of the sensors watching the perimeter, otherwise we’d see tangos on the overhead map. I’m going to try Aria.” He sent her a call, and she answered right away—she was in the real world, too.
Her vampirish face appeared. “What can I do you for?”
“Ten creds,” Jason said.
“Deal,” Aria said. “Seriously, though, what do you need? Unless you’ve come to invite me to another free climbing session.”
“I wish we could,” Jason said. “But we might have a problem.”
“Problem?” Aria said. “What kind?”
“The Rex Wolves just came running back inside,” Jason said.
“They usually lounge in the sun at this hour, correct?” Aria asked.
“That’s right,” Jason replied.
“Hm, the cameras and other sensors are clear…” Aria said.
“I know…” Jason said.
“Well, maybe…” She paused. “Yes. There it is… I have a few multipurpose sensors out there. They’re capable of detecting vibrations, among other things. There’s something rumbling out there. We’ll feel it here, soon, as well I reckon. We got something massive approaching.”
“Do we have a direction, yet?” Jason said.
“To the southeast,” Aria said.
“The same direction we sent Jake…” Jason said.
“That’s right,” Aria said. “Depending on what shows up, it might explain why he hasn’t checked in…”
The cistern wall and floor began to vibrate ever so slightly beneath him. “You weren’t kidding when you said something massive was approaching.”
“No,” Aria said. “I think we’re about to be attacked by an army.”
Xin’s avatar appeared in the lower right of his HUD. “Do you feel that? What’s going on?”
“Battle stations, everyone!” Jason said. “We’re under attack.”
He locked down the main entrance portals. There were three of them now, three thick barriers that blocked the expanded entrance to the cistern.
“Bokerov?” Tara asked.
“Probably,” Jason told her.
“I’m not seeing anything on the map,” Sophie said.
“No one is,” Jason said.
“He must be far away,” Lori said.
“Well, if we can feel the vibrations from here,” Sophie said. “He must have a helluva lot of units.”
“Either that, or a few big ones,” Tara agreed.
“Or a combination of both!” Lori said.
“Insightful contribution, as always,” Sophie said.
“Now we get to see how effective all these defenses of yours are,” Jason said.
“We do indeed,” Aria said. “Just be glad I didn’t cut any printers from the defense project to create gene splicers, and whatnot.”
Finally red dots began to appear on the map as enemy units reached the outskirts of detection range. There were hundreds of them.
“Um, that’s a lot of red dots,” Lori said.
He accessed one of the external cams, and zoomed in on the dust cloud that lined the horizon. He saw a series of tanks on treads. Fifty of them. Each was equipped with turrets that seemed capable of unleashing multi weapons—laser and plasma, he guessed, based on the turret design.
Beyond the tanks, he saw the small silvery robots he’d face before. Skirmisher units. A hundred. Beyond them, were forty mechs about the same size as his unit, and the others. And past them, ten huge mechs that were the same size as Jason and the others when they combined. What Jason called Cataphracts, because of their size. They were of all kinds: quadrupeds, bipeds, spiders. And equipped with various energy and plasma weapons, as well as blunt force weapons such as swords and axes, all of which sparked with electricity.
“Yep, it’s Bokerov all right,” Jason said. “Should be fun.”
“Do we get out there and combine?” Xin asked.
“Eventually,” Jason said. “Let the defenses do their jobs, first. You might as well all move to the first floor so we can get ready to go out there, though.” He watched the overhead map as the enemies approached. “They should intersect defense sectors three and four.”
There were eight defense sectors around the base: sectors one through six formed a half circle outside the ravine that bordered the cistern entrance. The other two sectors were in the city, and covered the escape routes.
“Yes,” Aria said. “Though the lasers in the other sectors will still be in range of the targets. And we can certainly fire the energy and plasma weapons from the adjacent sectors, but at that range, there’s no guarantee of a hit.”
“You’ve programmed them to track moving targets...” Jason said.
“Yes,” Aria said. “But Bokerov can accelerate his time sense like we can. He’ll be able to dodge out of the way.”
“If he detects the slower attacks in time,” Jason said.
“True enough,” Aria agreed.
He glanced at the southern portion of the map. Green dots indicated where Aria had positioned twenty tanks to serve as flankers; she had five more tanks stowed in level four below.
Tara and Xin clambered up the scuttle leading from the second floor to the first, followed shortly thereafter by Bruiser and Lackey. Sophie and Aria came a few moments later. The mechs and dogs took up different positions in the cramped spaces between pillars, spaces that were even tighter than those of the original cistern due to all the reinforcements Aria had added.
Sophie got a little close to Bruiser, and the Rex Wolf growled at her.
“Get that thing away from me,” Sophie said.
“Gladly,” Tara said. She grabbed the collar she’d installed around Bruiser’s neck and dragged him closer to her.
“I hate fighting,” Lori said. Her avatar was biting her lower lip.
“That’s because you’re a pussy,” Tara said.
“Hey!” Lori said. “I thought we were friends!”
“We are,” Tara said. “Which is why you’ll only ever hear the truth from me.”
“But that’s... mean,” Lori said.
“She’s a bitch,” Sophie said.
“You got it,” Tara said. “But that’s War Bitch to you, Cleopatra.”
“At least you recognize my royal blood,” Sophie said. “When I was alive, I used to have gold flowing through my veins.”
“The only gold flowing through y
our veins was the scant amounts absorbed from your daddy’s ring, which you swallowed when you were three years old!” Tara said.
“I did not,” Sophie said.
“Yes you did,” Tara said. “Like the blood sucker you are, you wrapped your lips around that ring and pulled it right off. Just like how you continued to suck your parents dry for the rest of your life. Did she ever tell the rest of you she was still getting an allowance from her parents at twenty-five?”
“No, she didn’t,” Xin said. “Sounds spoiled.”
“I wasn’t spoiled,” Sophie said. “Besides, I needed an allowance. My modeling incoming didn’t bring in enough cash.”
“Oh yes,” Tara said. “Notice how she always brags about how her modeling career, like she was some big-time model? When the only modeling she ever did was on social media!”
Sophie’s avatar shrugged. “That’s the only media that counts.”
“We’re about to fight, potentially for our lives, and the lot of you are arguing about the merits of social versus traditional media?” Aria said. “You aren’t the least bit nervous?”
“It’s our way of coping,” Tara said. “Mine, anyway.”
They quieted down after that.
“Tara, tether the Rex Wolves,” Jason ordered.
She took the dogs to the leashes tied to a nearby pillar, and secured their collars.
Jason kept his eyes on the overhead map. The red dots of the enemy units had begun to enter sectors three and four.
“Hold...” Jason said.
He waited until the dots in the forefront had nearly reached the edge of the ravine, and then gave the order: “Now!”
Aria activated the defense platforms in sectors one through six. From the half circle of terrain that surrounded the ravine outside, defense platforms began to rise. Some emerged from hidden trap doors in the ground. Others, from the different outbuildings that Aria had constructed to conceal the weapons. And they began opening fire.
Energy bolts from the closest sectors battered the tanks and smaller robots. To the south, Aria’s tanks unleashed their artillery, pounding the enemy positions from the flank. Laser weapons from the further turrets also fired upon the lead attackers; the energy weapons from those sectors targeted the slower moving mechs, and their larger cousins.
