by Isaac Hooke
“We might not have a choice,” Aria said.
23
About ten minutes later Jason received a call from John over Bokerov’s network. He accepted.
“Hey John,” Jason said.
“Is this true?” John said. “Have you really taken over Bokerov’s entire army? Or is this some trick?”
“No, it’s real,” Jason said.
He received another call from Jones and Julian at the same time, and he conferenced them in.
“Hey guys,” Jason said. “Yes it’s real. Bokerov is in my pocket. I’m recalling all of you to this base.”
“How do we know it’s really you?” Julian said.
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “What would you like me to do?”
“What was the name of your first childhood pet?” John said.
“That would be Twinkles,” Jason said. “The cat.”
“Ah! Twinkles!” Julian said. “Don’t remind me. What was a more suiting name for the little bastard?”
“Tinkles,” Jason said. “Because of the way he liked to tinkle outside of his litter, forcing mom and I to clean it.”
“That’s right,” Julian said.
“Our first crush?” John said.
“Tiffani,” Jason said. “I liked her because of the way she smiled at me, you know, giving me the look, while other girls her age were busy playing with dollhouses.”
“Yeah, it’s too bad you were too afraid to say a word to her,” John said.
“Hey, I couldn’t help it if puberty would come a few years after,” Jason said. “But I still liked her, even if I didn’t know what that look meant at the time.”
“Hm, I’m convinced that this is probably the real Jason...” Julian said.
“You guys do know that if Bokerov cracked his AI core he’d have access to all of this information, right?” Jones said.
“Like I said, I don’t know how to prove it to you,” Jason told them. “Would it help if I sent all the bombers in the region to give you an escort on the way back here? Or tanks, or something?”
“Actually, it’d set my mind at ease if you cleared every troop of Bokerov’s from my path,” John said. “Then I’d feel a bit safer about coming to those mountains.”
“All right, done,” Jason said.
“Okay, good,” John said. “If I see any of Bokerov’s units on the horizon, and they don’t immediately turn tail and get the hell out of my way, I’ll know you’re not in command.”
“That’s sounds fine,” Jason said.
“And when I arrive, I want to be able to send in an Explorer drone to check things out,” John said.
“Also fine,” Jason said.
“Oh, okay then,” John said. He sounded a little surprised that Jason had agreed to all his demands. “I’m on my way.”
“I’ll be there, too,” Jones said. “Same requirements.”
“Me, too,” Julian said.
“All right, talk to you all soon,” Jason said. “Call if you need anything. You have full access to Bokerov’s repeater network now.”
He disconnected, and relayed the instructions to Bokerov to clear out of the way of the different War Forger clones. If they were sighted, the bombers and other troops were to stay well clear.
The Rex Wolves were walking about by then, having gotten some of their energy back after the battle. Bruiser and Runt were none the worse for wear, though they could all use a good meal to revitalize themselves. Unfortunately, there was nothing edible for miles around. Jason instructed a patrol of Bokerov units near a herd of mutants fifty kilometers to the northwest to bring back some meat for the dogs.
It took the next half day to repair the mechs. Tara and Sophie were active as soon as Aria swapped out their power cells, and Jason updated them on the situation. When Lori was revived, with the damage to her AI core, the worst she suffered was a loss of memory leading up to the attack. He filled her in on what happened, and told her how Lori 5 saved the day.
“That’s great how my sister could save everyone!” Lori said. “And yet...” Her avatar seemed suddenly sad. “I admit, I wanted to be the one to inject the Containment Code, and conquer Bokerov. I feel somehow less worthy in your eyes.”
“You’re not less worthy,” Jason said.
“But I am, because I failed,” Lori said.
“You couldn’t help it if you were shot from behind,” Jason said. “It’s not your fault at all. Besides, it was essentially you who saved the day: Lori 5 is based off of your backups, after all.”
Her avatar brightened. “That’s very true!”
Jason didn’t bother to repair Aria’s armored units. Instead, he had Bokerov transfer over a full company of tanks to her command. That should keep her satisfied, especially considering the AI cores of those tanks were Bokerov clones.
Jason also instructed Bokerov to transport as many 3D printers to the base as possible, along with whatever nearby repair swarms he could spare, to help fix the damage to the Cataphracts.
Meanwhile Jason had the repair drones concentrate on the remaining clones next. As they awakened, they separated from Aria 5 and the other combined mechs. When Tara 5 awoke, Jason transmitted the informational video he’d recorded earlier after he got sick of re-explaining how they’d won.
When she finished watching it, Tara 5 examined the Cobra Cataphract, which loitered patiently nearby.
“Can we torture Bokerov in our VRs?” she said.
“No,” Jason said.
“Too bad.” She stabbed the Cobra underneath the neck with her sword. The big Cataphract shook violently, and then collapsed.
“Hey!” Jason said. “They fight for us now.”
Tara 5 withdrew her sword. Her avatar shrugged. “It’ll live.”
Jerry woke up, and after watching the video he limped to Jason—he was still under repair—and patted him on the back with a loud clang.
“Well done, Boss,” Jerry said.
“Thank you,” Jason said. “Though don’t call me boss. Jason is fine.”
“But you are the boss...” Jerry said. “And you won that battle.”
“You contributed just as much as I did to the battle,” Jason said.
Jerry’s avatar smiled. “I suppose so. But you’re still the boss. At least as long as I continue to serve under your command.”
Jason nodded. “You’re free to go whenever you wish.”
“I’ll be staying, for now,” Jerry said. “I have a feeling things are just going to start getting interesting.”
When the clones were fully repaired, Jason had the drones concentrate on repairing the three smaller mechs next: the Dragonfly, Grazer, and Locust. According to Aria, their AI cores seemed to be intact. When they were finally online, they would probably prove to be more Bokerov clones, like the bigger Cataphracts.
A few hours later Aria informed him that the three mechs were ready to activate.
“Do it,” Jason said.
They powered on, and stood up menacingly, but afterward remained motionless.
Jason glanced at the overhead map and noticed the dots representing the three mechs were red, rather than green like everything else. That meant they weren’t Bokerov clones. Jason hadn’t noticed before because the mechs had been offline, and thus hadn’t shown up on the map until now.
“Hey Bokerov, what do you have operating these mechs?” Jason transmitted, wondering why he hadn’t asked earlier.
The Octopus Cataphract glanced his way. “Ah, them. Good riddance.”
“You didn’t answer my question?” Jason said. “Are their AI cores autonomous, or what?”
“No, they’re Mind Refurbs, like us,” Bokerov said. “I captured them from one of the army bases. They are yours now, of course. They are good fighters—they will serve you well.”
“If they’re such good fighters, why do you seem so happy to be rid of them?” Jason said.
Bokerov snickered over the comm. “You’ll see.”
Jason shared the
comm frequency with the mechs, and was pleased when they accepted. Three new names appeared along the left side of his HUD, underneath the other members of his War Forgers.
“Introduce yourselves,” Jason commanded. He wanted to hear them speak their names, and to see their faces.
The Dragonfly mech stepped forward. “I am Cheyanne.” An avatar appeared in the lower right of his display. A woman. East Indian, judging from her caramel skin tone. She had a red dot in the center of her forehead, and wore a gold chain that dangled from her nose, connected to a bejeweled hood she wore over her head. She also had small rubies and diamonds spaced at intervals above her eyebrows, to accentuate them.
She stepped back, and the Grazer came forward. The mech bowed, the three orbiting drones following the movement. “I am Maeran.”
Her avatar was darker skinned than Cheyanne, though her features were perhaps more beautiful. Thin nose, high cheekbones, prominent brow line. The stuff that got you followers on the video streaming sites. If he had to guess, he would have said she was Ethiopian. Maybe Moroccan. She wore her hair in big, coiffured curls that fanned outward, thick in body, tumbling below her shoulders. A small golden chain passed down the middle of her hair, at the part line, and forked into two segments that ran along her hairline, framing her forehead. The two segments swerved inward above the ears, like the arms of a pair of glasses, and vanished among the curls. She wore two thick gold earrings, and her white collar was fringed with gold thread.
Maeran rose from her bow, and retreated. The Locust mech stepped forward on its six legs. Jason kept an eye on those energy whips, which remained held in hand, though were currently inactive.
“I am Iris.” She had a bronze tan, and from her features Jason had the impression she was Middle Eastern. She wore a bright pink shawl, dark sunglasses below her thick eyebrows, and an extravagant amount of make-up. Very well done make-up, at that. She was perhaps the most beautiful of the three, though other than the makeup, she had the least accessories.
“Great, all women!” Sophie complained.
24
“All right, well, welcome to the team,” Jason said. “You’re not combining mechs, as far as I can tell. But that’s all right. We can always use more fighters at our side. I’m looking forward to seeing what your unique abilities bring to the team.”
“We look forward to bringing our abilities to the table as well!” Iris said. She seemed to realize that all eyes were looking at her avatar then, because her gaze dropped, and her cheeks reddened slightly underneath the makeup.
“Tara, I want you to introduce them to everyone,” Jason said. “And if possible, try to be welcoming. This means let them come to the daily suppers you guys like to have.”
“You have supper?” Cheyanne said. The gold chain that hung from her nose to her hair shook slightly as she spoke. “Whatever for? There is no need to eat.”
“Because it makes us feel human,” Lori said.
“Lori, Bokerov has probably put his own version of the Containment Code on them,” Jason said. “See to it that this code is removed promptly.”
“Will do!” Lori said.
“I prefer that you leave the Containment Code in place,” Maeran said. “I don’t want my emotions.”
“Well, you’re going to have them,” Jason said. “No one on my team is subject to Containment Code of any kind. It’s how I do things around here. You’ll have complete access to your emotion settings, however, so you can dial them down as you see fit.”
Maeran’s avatar nodded. The thick black curls bobbed around the Ethiopian’s face. “That will do.”
“Hey Sophie, look at the legs on this one,” Aria said, tapping one of Iris’ six legs. “You could be friends.”
“I don’t think so,” Sophie said.
Iris edged away from Aria. “Don’t touch me.”
“Well, at least she’s friendly…” Aria commented.
“Thank you for freeing me from that wretch,” Maeran said. She was gazing at the Cobra Cataphract. As Lori led the three new girls away, Maeran spat that gooey substance from the mouth of her mech, and it landed on the hull of the Cobra. The big Cataphract tilted its head to regard the glistening substance caking a small portion of its metal skin, and then it hissed at Maeran in insult.
“Now, now, calm down Bokerov,” Jason said.
“The women only respond to dominance,” Bokerov said. “You will learn.”
“We’ll see,” Jason said.
The Bokerov units Jason had recalled arrived shortly thereafter, bearing meat for the dogs, and the Rex Wolves devoured the raw steaks happily.
While they ate, Jason studied the map as he had done countless times throughout the day. He still couldn’t believe he was in control of so many units. He idly gazed at the position of the alien bases that Bokerov had marked off. There was something about them that bothered him a little.
“Hey Bokerov, did you ever notice how the alien bases are arranged?” Jason asked. “They almost form a hexagon.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Bokerov replied.
“What’s the significance?” Jason pressed.
“The aliens haven’t told me,” Bokerov said. “But I’ve surmised that it is a rift focal point of sorts. You see, there is an energy field produced by rifts in the hours preceding their formation. I’ve detected a similar energy field emanating from the plains enclosed by those bases for a few days now.”
“So you’re saying they’re planning on creating some kind of immense rift?” Jason said.
“Of course,” Bokerov said. “That was always the end game. They want to transfer their armies here to finish the conquering of Earth.”
“Well that’s troubling…” Jason said. “Any idea when it will open?”
“Based on the energy build-up as compared to other rifts, three days from now,” Bokerov said.
Bokerov’s printers arrived in the next convoy, along with several batches of repair swarms, and together those units repaired the damage to the Bokerov Cataphracts in only a day.
Jason joined the girls in VR for dinner that night. He glanced at Maeran, Cheyanne, and Iris. “How are you three settling in?”
Cheyanne smiled. “It is nice.”
Maeran nodded. “You treat us kindly, for property.”
Jason frowned. “I guess I haven’t made it clear. You’re not my property. You’re free to go whenever you want, if that’s what you choose.”
Iris seemed puzzled. “We can go?”
“Yes, of course,” Jason said.
“But to where?” Iris said. “We have nowhere to go.”
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “You’re welcome to stay with me for as long as you want. Me and the others decided a while ago that it was far safer to stick together. It’s a hostile world out there. We have roaming mutant bioweapons leftover from the first alien invasion. We have new alien invaders. We have potentially the entire US military getting ready to hunt us down. So yeah, if you want to go it on your own, that’s certainly your prerogative.”
None of the new girls said anything.
“Okay, well, I don’t usually join you all for dinner, but today I wanted to discuss something,” Jason said. “Apparently, there’s a new rift forming. This will be the biggest one yet. Massive, in fact. It seems the Tyrnari intend to send an invasion-size force.”
“We have to stop them,” Aria said.
“Do we?” Tara said. “I’m not so sure.”
“What about humanity!” Lori said. “We can’t let them die! My original is still out there. I think of her as a sister!”
“We don't owe humanity a thing,” Tara said. “What have they ever done for us, other than throw us into the bodies of machines and abandon us in the middle of the uninhabited zone? I say we let the aliens have their way. As long as they leave us alone, we’ll leave them alone. Live and let live and all that. Besides, you heard Denver, the humans will just hunt us down anyway. They think we’re property. So why help people like that?
”
Jason nodded slowly. “I tend to agree with Tara on this, at least about the helping humanity part. But this isn’t just about that. This is our territory now. If we do nothing, the Tyrnari will swarm the region. They’ll either reproduce, using their equivalent of 3D printers, or more troops will arrive via rift. Eventually, they’ll outnumber us.”
“So you want to fight them after all?” Aria said.
“Again, I haven’t decided,” Jason said. “Though to be honest, I’m actually considering allying with the aliens at this point.”
“Why?” Xin said.
“Mostly because of the threat posed by the humans,” Jason said. “If we never met Denver, and he never told me how the rest of humanity felt about us, it would have been an easy decision. I would have been willing to attack these aliens to save humanity. They created us, after all, and like Lori said, our originals are still out there. I felt like we owed them their lives, for giving us their minds. It was the human thing to do.” He paused. “But I realize now, despite all my efforts to convince myself otherwise, that I’m not human anymore. None of us are. We’re a new species, essentially. And I have to start making decisions that will benefit my species, not the species that sees itself in competition with us. The species that wants to subdue us.”
“But we’re human…” Xin said. “You told me that emotions made us so.”
“No Xin, we’re not,” Jason said. “Emotions let us connect with our humanity, but don’t make us human.”
“You can’t be seriously considering allying with these aliens,” Aria said. “You can’t. The world we love…”
“Is already dead to us,” Jason said. “We can’t go back, unless we do so in secret. And even then, we’d be living out our lives in fear. Each morning, we’d wonder if today would be that day that we were found out and captured, or destroyed. That’s not the life I envisioned for myself, or for you.”
“Maybe we should send word to Denver?” Aria said. “Let him know the location of the rift. We might need the help of the military after all…”
