Leon and Cassandra looked at each other in regard to their own psychic coordination. He shook his head. “Just give it to them,” he mumbled. “Never kick a guy when he’s down.”
Leon noticed the sun going down over the horizon. Transitional times such as dawn and dusk were paid more attention to by natives, the same way they paid more attention to the equinoxes. These Chimera-like times, part one thing and part another, held special meaning for them.
He suddenly had a bad feeling in his gut.
***
Truman paced the laboratory located mid-chest of the Goliath-Bot. The fact that the gyroscopically stabilized labs could continue their detailed work under the circumstances—considering the active warfare the Goliath-Bots were otherwise engaged in—was a sight to behold. Unfortunately it wasn’t a sight he was much interested in right now.
One of the many Chinese scientists in attendance, without whom it seemed impossible to get anything done anymore, handed him an agar dish.
“What’s this?” Truman said taking a closer look.
“We’re growing it in the vats all around you. Each tank sports a different genetic modification. The source bacteria is one of many the Ubuku have cultivated to make the forest glow in the dark.”
“Sometimes I wonder who’s schooling who around here in forestry management.”
“We’ve tweaked the genome so it can survive everywhere, in everything, continue to multiply while hiding itself from the immune systems of its host, like the HIV virus.”
“Why?”
“It’s Stage one. Stage two is application specific. Such as lighting your enemy up in the dark at will by triggering the luminescence. Or illuminating entire cities without any electricity, should one or another party accidentally or intentionally blow civilization back to the Stone Age. A backup say for an EMP pulse. The wartime applications alone are virtually limitless, to say nothing of the peacetime implications.”
“The world has never been at peace, Chang. So I wouldn’t waste your time with the latter.” The name, Chang, meant “thriving” Truman reminded himself. Chang did seem to be thriving quite well in this environment.
“You better wrap things up here,” Truman said. “Things are about to get rough. The time for making new tech toys is over. It’s time to put some of them to use.”
“I assure you, sir, we can work through anything.”
“Wrap it up, I said.” Truman’s tone brokered no argument.
“Yes, sir.”
Chang was deferential so far as it went, Truman thought. He’d bide his time like the rest of his Chinese PhDs, thicker in numbers at RevoCorp than the Amazon rainforest insect life. He couldn’t fault Chang’s strategy. At the rate the Chinese were going, taking over virtually every scientific enterprise, they’d inherit the world without firing so much as a BB gun. Why forcibly take over a country when you could just occupy every technology-driving job upon which the local economies depended? Welcome to the new world order, The United Countries of China.
Chang had a fair amount of robots working alongside his scientists. They didn’t look particularly human but they were clearly designed to occupy the same niche with their essentially bipedal, upright forms, and human outline. If the future didn’t belong to the Chinese, it belonged to them. Then again, a lot of the most-advanced robotics these days were designed by the Chinese, so very possibly they were just part of the quiet coup. The human-size robots in fact would continue their work as the Chinese scientists retreated to safety on Truman’s orders.
Truman sighed and fetched the walkie-talkie out of his trench coat pocket. Well, for right now at least, they were about to pay homage to a different culture than the Chinese altogether. “Let’s take our forestry stewardship up a notch, shall we?” he said into the two-way radio.
***
Just when DeWitt thought he’d gotten his mind around the Goliath-Bot mystique, they morphed on him. Evidently up until now they had been in scientific research mode, better suited for collecting samples from the treetops. Even the pop up rocket launchers apparently were sanctioned for excavation projects related to research. Lasers fired from their eyes for etching fossils free of stone, and so on.
They were only now morphing into warrior mode.
Donning feather-like headdresses. The “feathers” flying towards them out of the jungle. The droid-like helicoptering blades flew onto them from wherever they’d been stashed, evidently meant to be detachable auto-piloting weapons.
Once secured to the Goliath-Bots the droids seemed less like helicopters and birds or kites or parasails or whatever they’d been modeled after and more like costuming, with their bright colors spanning the rainbow. The giant robots really did look like Native Americans in ceremonial regalia; it was the closest analogue DeWitt had for them.
It occurred to him that the natives, used to being ridden by their gods, were getting a chance now to turn the tables on them. And to feel like they were riding a god. But to do that the robots had to be sufficiently morphed into a god they could comprehend, into something more Indian and tribal looking.
Evidently, Truman was not beyond some psy-ops games of his own when it came to motivating the Ubuku. Even if they were having trouble getting their minds around the hi-tech world of Truman’s toy chest, they would thrive now that they felt empowered by a force they did trust and understand.
The Goliath-Bots continued to load up on tactical gear. DeWitt realized that the droid craft flying toward them out of the jungle were just the props that had crash-landed there. Most of the ceremonial head and wrist and ankle and upper arm and thigh and calf muscle gear were coming down from the still-cloaked airship overhead. A flying platform? Itself a droid? Like an airborne aircraft carrier? Until someone pulled back the invisibility cloak, it was anybody’s guess.
With the “Ceremonial dress” in place, things were about to get a lot busier down here. In addition to dancing around Goliath-Bot fists and kick-boxing with them, they’d be harassed by the flying droids they wore like so many head, arm and leg bands. DeWitt noticed one break off a Goliath-Bot thigh and not fly off so much as snake off into the sky. The propeller-supported sections writhing like a sidewinder snake skating across a desert dune.
The Ubuku were making their Goliath-Bots dance to the drum beat eking out of the forest. And as they danced, their “costuming” “fell off” them. In other words, they were directing the droid craft they wore on their bodies from trance state. The entire show no doubt meant to terrorize other tribes across the Amazon River region watching what was going on from the relative obscurity of their smallness on the ground and high up in the trees. And the droids, looking like so many tropical birds in flight under the auspices of the bird men. “The Harpy Eagles” and the “King Vultures” reincarnated as the parasail-drones and the kite-drones that could sail quite well overhead, firing lasers from their eyes at nemeses on the ground and in the air while nimbly gliding around and outmaneuvering return fire.
Possibly the detachable droids were region-specific and you just had to designate a zone with a push of the button on the dashboard in the cockpit, and the droid AIs took care of the rest.
Sea-Anemone-like “tassels” floated in the air like the arms of the proverbial sea anemone tossed in the currents of the ocean, to land on enemies in the same stinging manner as the sea life which inspired them.
“Sea Horse jewelry” drifted off in similar rivers of air, shooting lasers from their eyes and dropping “eggs” that landed as chemically- and biologically-based explosives. Anyone breathing those vapors was likely destined to bubble up at the surface, as if swimming inside vats of acid.
“Star Fish,” worn like shields on the backs of some of the Goliath-Bots, “swam” off their backs. One wrapped its arms against a good-guy Goliath-Bot in its crushing embrace. Some of the “Star Fish” landed to inch across the ground like mobile tanks, reaching out to feed on panicked natives from other tribes foolish enough to attract the Goliath-Bot’s attention
by fighting back, if only from a panicked, unthinking state, as opposed to flaunting undue bravado.
DeWitt thought, “Here’s the proof we were looking for that they really do revere more than just birds. That they’ve come to worship all glowing and colorful lifeforms from all four realms, water, air, earth, and fire.”
Now that the Ubuku had paid homage to the creatures of the sea, they continued to demonstrate their ever-expanding repertoire.
The ceremonially dressed Goliath-Bots that had yet to release their colorful regalia on their enemies now paid tribute to fire. Being as it was growing dark, the fire theme seemed appropriate.
“The fire flies” taking to the air from the Goliath-Bots covered in them did more than light up the night. They took out Brazilian fighter planes and bombers deployed so as to make sure the Goliath-Bots respected the perimeter where the war games were permitted and where they were not. The only ones to learn respect from the exchange were the Brazilians.
When the fire flies failed to take down the planes one on one, they swarmed them. They attached to the bombers in the numbers needed to hit critical mass, like magnetized mines. When they exploded, the bombers erupted like a volcano in the sky whose base extended into another dimension, and so could not be seen entirely in this one.
Many “fire flies” just played kamikaze pilots, flying in the way of the faster moving fighter planes. The planes took themselves out by simply colliding with too many of them at once.
From the ground, DeWitt could hear Leon cursing in his ear. “As if we don’t have enough trouble without regular military moving across the chessboard like so many disposable pawns.”
“What are you complaining about? We have our hands full even with much of the ALPHA UNIT engaged,” Crumley said. “In case you haven’t noticed, the natives are much more accustomed to making the most of their ‘costuming’ than we are.”
“That’s the whole point!” Leon squawked. “I want to give ALPHA UNIT a chance to develop some new skills, not learn the bad habits of this half-assed military.”
Tube Guy—one of the Goliath-Bots festooned with hollow piping shooting off in feather-like arrangements, like some Mardi Gras float, demonstrated what the hollow tubes were about, sending “sparklers” into the sky. They didn’t do much to illuminate the darkness. They were more concerned with lighting their own way to their marks.
The sparklers, smaller still than the “fire flies” and constantly lit as opposed to blinking on and off, flew into the open mouths and noses of anything moving on the ground. It only took one of them inside you for you to lose your head, or worse. Worse being if they chose to fly up your urethra or your asshole. And having to live the rest of your life with… DeWitt arrested the line of thinking really quick. He had enough horrors to deal with in the moment without worrying about surviving this exchange less than whole.
“Um, I don’t mean to sound insecure,” Ajax said over the party line, “but you did think to recruit everyone on ALPHA UNIT too, right? I don’t care if the only thing those guys knew how to pilot before today was a motorized wheelchair. Something tells me the experience will come in handy sooner rather than later.”
“Everyone’s here, Ajax, and we’re still outnumbered. Let’s make sure we’re not outplayed too by not losing focus.”
“The bird men are doing just what they promised. Expanding their protection beyond the birdlife to include animal, plant, and insect life in all four realms. Not just air. But water, earth and fire.”
“The worship of the four elements is a Native American concept, Ajax. Wrong continent,” Leon chided.
“What, these guys aren’t allowed a travel itinerary? You telling me somewhere along the line adventurers couldn’t have crossed their paths, like those sailors did with their tall tales of the sea, with stories of Native American practices up north? These people absorb the best of other cultures, remember? It’s what they do.”
After a small delay, Leon said, in a voice that sounded to Ajax as suspiciously over-controlled, “I see no sign of the Earth element being represented here.”
“Maybe they’re saving the best for last. Maybe they…” He shut up when he saw some of the self-illuminated Goliath-Bots morph their feet into giant Earth Scoops with fork-like tines at the edges. And they started playing a game of kick ball with boulders. Launching them into the air with a good kick, better than a mortar handled shells. The arsenal exploded with greater impact too.
Leon caught sight of the rock landing next to him, bigger than a house.
“You had to go and jinx it,” DeWitt rebuffed.
Leon stared at the boulder that had missed him by inches, falling close enough that he had to wait for his strained eye muscles to shift their focus before he could take in the full effect of the blood-curdling phenomenon. “Mobile landscaping. What a concept. Maybe they plan to do an even more designer rendition of the Amazon rainforest than we imagined, you know, like New York’s Central Park.”
“Focus!” everyone screamed over the mike at once into Leon’s ear.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said putting his mind back in the game. “Please tell me you guys are doing more than watching the game from the sidelines and giving commentary.”
***
“I’m playing dodgeball with them,” Crumley said. “It’s rather fun once you get into it.” He sent another boulder flying to take out another of the enemy’s Goliath-Bots. Having learned from them that his feet too could be morphed with the right push of a button.
He sprinted to get control of the next ball on the “soccer field” before his opponent beat him to it. He slid as if trying to dodge the catcher’s mitt at home base—wrong game analogy, he knew—in order to kick the boulder before the Ubuku who hadn’t thought to “slide home.”
The boulder, catapulted into the air, lodged in another Goliath-Bot’s chest. Crumley sighed. “Now I have to go pry that thing out with my hands. Anyone up for a game of handball?”
***
“I’m paying homage to the air domain,” Cronos said. “I think air is really my element.”
Leon looked up. “Shit, he’s learned to fly one of those things.”
“Yeah, the attachable droids can be used to airlift you about,” Cronos explained, “on some models, anyway. Watch this.” He took himself higher into the air until he was virtually out of sight, even if he was self-illuminated the entire time.
Then he came flying back down with such speed and ferocity he was able to tackle several of the enemy Goliath-Bots at one time to the ground without slowing appreciably, hitting them hard enough for the concussions to take the pilots out of commission, even if the Goliath-Bots remained serviceable.
“And my favorite stunt of all,” Cronos said, “is this one.” He swooped back into the air on a combination of his wing-like droid—a big one, glommed on to his back—and the rocket thrusters in his morphed feet. The next time he swooped down he mowed a dozen or more Goliath-Bots down with his laser vision. “They haven’t quite learned how to do a backbend and a head tilt yet to get their laser vision up in time,” Cronos explained. “Even if they master that, I still have the advantage of being a damn hard target to hit so long as I keep my swooping motion to something close to a falcon’s.”
***
“I think the fire domain might be more my thing,” Ajax said. “I coopted one of the Goliath-Fire-Bots to give it a try.” He’d picked one that looked like a giant Nano-Man, covered as he was with the “fireflies.”
He sent them off in squadrons to fly bizarre, UFO-like patterns in the night sky that were quite beautiful, hypnotic, and unnerving. The natives, who lived to be entranced, were falling for it. Too busy watching the acrobatics, seeing if they could duplicate it to notice that mesmerizing them was the entire point.
Once the bird men had broken off from their backup to wander off in search of the “UFOs,” they were easy pickings for Ajax. Who then sent the grouping to land on the head of the Goliath-Bot. As it turned out, the “firef
ly” formations were always the minimally-sized groupings he needed to blow off the head of the Goliath-Bot, taking out the most important part, the Ubuku inside the cabin.
Leon, watching the show, nodded. “Nice.”
“Now who’s standing around on the sidelines clapping for the rest of us, huh?” Ajax said.
Leon frowned. “Yeah, suppose I had better do something to carry my own weight around here.”
***
Leon allowed himself a moment to take in how well the self-piloted ATVs were doing. They’d learned to work from under the cover of one or another of their side’s Goliath-Bots. Their AI reflexes alone allowing them to zigzag around racing giant feet on six or more wheels, like a colossus linebacker giving cover to a fleet of Lilliputian quarterbacks.
The “balls” the quarterbacks were throwing were the missiles the ATVs were stocked with. They could carry a lot more rocketry than the Goliath-Bots themselves, who could quickly deplete their arsenals, unless they were one of the Fire God Goliath-Bots, in which case their “ceremonial plumage” might well include no shortage of rocket-launching hollow pipes. Maybe “Mortar Gods” was a better moniker for them.
There was a fool out there in a food delivery truck, his job to supply superfoods to the troops, to keep them going in this unforgiving heat and humidity that could sweat the life out of a person in minutes rather than hours—especially at this level of fighting ferocity. He was standing out by the food serving section of the truck, with the steel canopy up, making blender drinks from local fruits and nuts, and serving up Boa-sandwiches. Everyone knew where to find him because his truck made this sickening, ice-cream-truck-like jingle that managed to cut through all the sounds of warfare going on around him. Leave it to him, the driver had a real knack for servicing not just the guys on the ground, but the ones in the Goliath-Bots.
Mind of a Child_ Sentient Serpents Page 27
