“He did it once before.”
“I’m guessing that’s before he knew what Jacko could do with them. We barely contained the situation. He won’t give that genie a second chance to get out of the bottle.”
Leon’s stony expression was hard to read, but his eyes and his huff conceded agreement.
“Please tell me you have some mastermind strategy for invading this compound, devised in accordance with intense scrutiny of the layout of the place and Truman’s many forces.” Cronos panted as he talked; it was unclear to Leon how much of it was from anxiety, how much from the heat and humidity.
“You didn’t hear Satellite’s prognosis regarding the facility’s layout?”
“I thought maybe you had access to breaking intel since then, of which only you were aware, like ground-penetrating radar and other EMF scans taken with a subsequent droid fly-over that was able to see past whatever barriers are up on the place.”
“We’ve done additional flyovers, all right.” He pointed to the miniature droid zooming overhead, barely bigger than a kite, and shaped about the same. “But just because the invisibility cloak is down, doesn’t mean the compound is suddenly more permeable to the full-spectrum EMF scans.” Leon was currently doing the only study that was likely to get done of the compound, with his eyes, as he talked. “We’re going in blind and my brilliant strategy is to trust my people. The bad guys have us outnumbered in a way that precludes hopefulness, as you yourself have been so kind to point out. That leaves us one chance, really.”
“And that is?” Cronos’s voice conveyed dubiousness.
“If we go in to this battle like a bunch of terrorist cells, each without any idea of what agenda the other one has, there’s no way they can counter that many stratagems at once, even with their numbers advantage.”
“I feel compelled to inform you that the terrorist cell analogy only works if someone at the top knows what they’re all up to.”
“This is more like organized chaos. The atomized forces working entirely on their own are best equipped to seep through the enemy’s ranks like gas. Larger, more coherent units fighting in a more rational manner can’t work against the kind of mind power we’re up against. These aren’t just superior killers, their IQs have been jacked. And I’m referring to the AI as much as to the Intelligence-Augmented Sentient Serpents.”
Cronos sighed. “So this is more like a soccer match, then, when all the players have to have a feel at all times for where the other players are on the field, and to sync up their actions accordingly. Sort of a group mind effect that athletes who play group games are privy to.”
“Good one. I’ll have to remember that one the next time I have an impossible situation to justify to someone.”
“I feel compelled to say that for this soccer game analogy to work, the players on the field usually have to maintain eye contact with one another at all times.”
“Nonsense. I doubt they have that even in a real soccer game. Besides, we’ve got psychically endowed Umbrage and Nomads, not to mention AI with their supercomputing abilities, for taming the chaos and seeing around those blind corners. As to the rest of us less well-endowed laggards, we actually thrive on the chaos of war.”
Cronos nodded. “You missed your calling as a salesman. I came into this war refusing to buy into any of it. Now I’m willing to ignore the purchase price of my life, to say nothing of my sanity.”
Getting back to matters at hand, Leon did another sweep of the rooftop. Decided he was tired of him and the rest of his men being pinned down. Gave the signal for the advance. Based on what, Natty had no idea. Their position didn’t look any better than it did a moment ago. If anything, it looked worse. But knowing Leon, gumption alone would suffice to take the compound.
Natty rose beside him, surrendering his cover at the same time. The self-replicating robots constructing the latest floor of the compound hadn’t gotten far before morphing into war-bots, but they’d left a few steel girders standing, soldered into place, metal desks and lab tables, uncompleted walls that ran for yards without connecting to anything, working in their cockeyed way of laying the framework and finishing work at the same time.
Leon, flanked by Natty and Cronos, had been masking their presence behind a piece of wall that hadn’t gotten too far off the ground, for the exception of the steel girders. Now that they were standing, the cover of the girders themselves seemed that much flimsier.
“I’m going after Truman,” Natty said.
Leon’s eyes beamed bewilderment. “It’s a cinch he’s fleeing the compound.”
“And I’ll be right behind him.”
Leon’s eyebrows tented. “You sure about this?”
“A guy’s gotta grow up some time.”
He missed a beat, but Leon ultimately nodded. “You think you’re enough of a soldier?”
“No, but they’re my toys, and no one plays with my toys better than me.”
Leon seemed to still be doing a reality check of his facial expressions to see if Natty was sufficiently in touch with reality.
“Besides,” Natty said, “even more than he made me what I am, I made him what he is. Time I took responsibility for all of my creations.”
“Today, the boy becomes a man. I’m proud of you, Natty.”
“Does this moment call for a hug?”
“I was thinking more of mass murder.”
“I’ll let you get to it then.”
ACT 4
MIXED ASSET WAR
FIFTY-EIGHT
Leon blazed a trail for OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT by shooting a hole in the roof. At least that’s how it went down in his head. When his bullets just bounced off he looked up at the ridgeline. “A little help!”
One of the one-hundred-foot-tall Nomads took the jump, with a roar that sounded suspiciously like an incoming missile, making the hole for him.
A big one.
In the middle of gawking at the crater, something caught the corner of his eye. Leon turned to see Natty getting caught up in the blast radius of one of the many explosions taking place on the FORESCO rooftop. But he appeared to land on his feet like a good gymnast after dismounting his apparatus. Truman, in the process of fleeing the building, ran straight into him. It was the last thing Leon saw as he jumped through the hole the adult Nomad made for him.
FIFTY-NINE
A FEW MINUTES EARLIER…
Inside one of the operating rooms of the FORESCO compound, Truman gazed up at the shaking roof. The dust from the propagating cracks was falling into the open surgical wound of the Nomad that the doctor then had to clean out. Barely muffled sounds of combat were audible through the ceiling. The vibrations traveling along the floor and up through his body forced him into the role of a human shock absorber. He found the pulsing waves curiously relaxing, like one of those cheap hotel massage beds.
Truman regarded Panno impatiently. “Last I checked, you weren't a doctor.”
Panno grunted, letting go of his fascination with the surgery, despite saying earlier that he wasn't much interested in lizards. Apparently he was interested in torture. He grabbed his weapon against the door and exited the room to take care of business.
At the next shaking and rattling of the chamber from the ongoing blasts on the roof, Truman walked over to the computer scanning the results of the surgery and running the DNA tests. He nodded, pleased. The two floors below him would already be abuzz applying the bioengineering insights to the latest weapons that would be needed to stop any turncoat lizard men, Nomads and Umbrage alike.
Vargo studied his patient, barely alive, and only semi-conscious, then Truman, “What should I do?”
Finished shutting off the monitor, Truman pulled out his Glock 26, appreciative of the fact that its small frame and short barrel made it easy to hide anywhere on his body. He aimed it at the doctor. “Say, ‘Thanks for the career opportunity of a lifetime’.” But Vargo was stunned speechless. Truman fired a bullet into the doctor's forehead, right between the eyes
. “Thanks for all your hard work. It’s highly regrettable your family won't have any proof you ever existed.”
He departed the room.
***
Inside the adjoining operating theater, Truman found Laney hard at work on one of the Umbrage. The patient’s protests to being vivisected had been calmed only slightly by having his arms and legs and head bound to the operating table.
Truman was curious as to why Laney was just giving orders to the other surgeons and not rolling up her sleeves to get involved directly. In addition to her many PhDs she was also an accomplished MD with various surgical specialties. The kind best applied, granted, to the kind of alien vivisection going on here, which just added to his perplexity. But the computer monitor showed what he wanted it to show, namely very successful results to all the prodding and probing, scanning, biopsying, and studying under a microscope and God knows what else. There was a lot of equipment around the lab he couldn’t begin to understand. That meant his teams on the lower floors of the compound, utilizing this latest intel, would also have plenty of new weapons to play with to hold the Umbrage at bay, the ones no longer responsive to the techniques and ploys of the triple threat. Maybe by supervising and not actually operating, Laney could better balance her love of the creatures with her hatred for the vile acts she was being asked to commit. Whatever worked to keep her sanity together this long while keeping her working for him was fine by him.
He raised his gun to her forehead. She looked up from supervising the latest work on the vivisection to stare wild-eyed at him. But she transitioned from being alarmed to giving him an ominous smile in quick succession. That freaked him out most of all.
He fired the 9mm. Even with the small frame size, the Glock 26 retained the same width of a full size Glock. This allowed the shooter to get a better hold and much more control over the firearm. It was reason for him to smile. The bullet went straight through her, landed in the head of one of the doctors behind her, taking the latest biopsy to the lab desk against the wall to be studied. The other doctors panicked, so he had to shoot them before they could leave the room. He really just wanted to empty the pistol into Laney for the sense of betrayal. But he realized by then that would be a highly impotent move on his part.
There was no denying any longer that the real Laney had switched places with her hologram some time back. Right under their upturned noses, without any of them being any the wiser. Somehow she’d advanced the tech on the holographic capabilities of the chip on her forehead, possibly by hacking her way into one of Natty’s many encrypted files to be found right here, in this compound. She might have even gotten one of the nerdy scientists in the compound to assist her without them realizing. Pretty girls could be beguiling that way. It was a moot point now. The bigger concern was how well he could count on the “progress” from the vivisections in holding off turned, and very pissed off lizard men. Let’s hope even if she could bluff her way past him with alleged progress, she couldn’t bluff the countless scientists in his charge.
SIXTY
PRESENT TIME
Leon picked himself up off the floor, looking up at the hole in the roof of the FORESCO compound he’d just fallen through. Pleased to see the hundred foot Nomad crawling his way back up the sheer cliff to give them protection from outside the compound. Inside it, he’d just bring the rest of the building down on their heads.
He and Cronos had landed in an observation station, monitoring the security cameras about the compound. The guards took one look at the two commandos and fled the room. Truman mustn’t have been paying them much.
The sounds of cars colliding head on at fifty miles an hour or so overhead drew Leon’s attention to the monitors. He stepped closer to them and wiped the dust and debris from the collapsed roof off to see what was happening at the ridgeline. The strange sounds turned out to be the fists of two of the giant robosuits impacting the face panels or the breastplates of the other two hundred-foot Goliath-Bots. The Colossus of Rhodes statues come to life, all four of them, were duking it out in two-man conflicts in the one spot where one misstep could send either opponent on a one and a half mile deep drop-off. Brave or foolhardy, that took some skill. “Don’t look now, but the ALPHA UNIT is making a pretty good show of themselves.”
Cronos, observing what he was seeing said, “Got news for you, engineers are about the only ones who can fight these wars now that they’re this technical.”
The thought didn’t exactly enamor Cronos to Leon any. Leon sighed and said, “Remind me to put more joysticks on my weapons guidance systems.” He returned his attention to more pressing matters taking place right in front of him.
The breach in the compound had apparently activated all sorts of dormant security protocols.
Talk about letting sleeping dogs lie.
***
Patent, short for Patent Pending, drove his hole-borer right through the walls of the FORESCO compound. He’d dug a tunnel straight from the mountain ridge just to get here. He popped the top and exited the machine, cigar in mouth and Gatling gun in hand. At six foot four, with a thick frame of solid muscle, and not a hair follicle on his body owing to his alopecia, the guys had taken to calling him “Boo Boo.” Less for the cub in the Yogi Bear cartoon and more for the mistake in genetics. The stick-on, bushy moustache was purely for aesthetics. Don’t dare anyone kid him about that. Showing proper smoker’s etiquette, he took the cigar out of his mouth as he said, “Okay, who wants to die first?”
He looked around perplexed at the lack of enemy along any vector leading straight to him. “Must have scared them all away with my commanding presence. Maybe I should tone it down a bit.”
Patent did another three-sixty.
“Whoa!” Skyhawk said walking into the business end of his weapon. “What’s with the Gatling gun? I didn’t think they made those things anymore.”
“The spinning barrel relaxes me. Reminds me of the Ferris wheel at Coney Island.”
“You’re definitely a couple bong hits ahead of me.” Skyhawk looked up from the chambers in his weapon to size up the man wielding it better. “Hey, I remember you!” Skyhawk said excitedly. “Aren’t you the guy who refuses to ride inside the plane?”
“Need the wind in my face.”
Skyhawk nodded fervently, mouth wide, chuckling silently.
“What’s with all the head-nodding, bobble-head?” Patent said, his eyes panning the vista, his gun moving with him.
“Sorry, I do that a lot around crazy people.”
“What does a person have to do to kill somebody around here?”
“You looking for action? Why didn’t you say so? Follow me.”
Patent moved him from out in front to his flank with the barrel of the Gatling gun as they both headed in the direction Skyhawk set for them. He’d have used his free arm, but that was carrying the box with the belt of bullets. “Where’s your weapon, soldier?” Patent said.
“In my pocket.”
“Great pickup line. Just not sure it’s going to do you much good here.” Patent got a look at what was coming up the hall. The morphing robots, currently in spider formation, covered the walls, ceiling, and floor. The span on each one was about four feet. “F-me,” he said.
“I got this.” Skyhawk pulled his Xbox 360-like controller out of his pocket and turned the spiders on one another. Apparently, among the consul’s many features was the ability to hack the communications channel of any hive mind array in his vicinity. The spider bots started spinning their webs about their mates. Or pouncing on one another, determined to get one of their eight-lancing limbs to shish-kabob their opponent.
Other spider-bots catching on to what was going on, linked up with one another, and morphed from spider formation into robosnakes big enough to swallow their human prey whole.
“Well that sucks,” Skyhawk said, realizing the hive mind had figured out how to neutralize his hack.
Skyhawk returned his controller to his pocket and threw up a virtual keyboard in front of
him with the help of his computerized contacts. Once again, Skyhawk was faster hacking the robo snakes than they were closing the gap. He had the snakes swallowing one another instead.
The snakes that weren’t immediately engaged with eating one another morphed again.
This time to miniature tank formation.
Again, Skyhawk outmaneuvered their targeting mechanisms, getting them to fire at the roof above their heads, until they’d buried themselves alive.
Patent nodded. “Nice, job, Hacker.”
“Actually, I go by Skyhawk because…”
“Stand back, Hacker,” Patent said brushing him back with the barrel of the Gatling gun as he took a few steps back himself. His eyes and his attention were focused on the shaking ceiling above them, the part that hadn’t caved in yet. “Way back,” Patent said continuing to retreat. “Shit!” Both hands busy, he leaned over and shouldered Skyhawk and ran with him dangling over his shoulder away from the shuddering roof.
“Maybe we’ll do the name check thing some other time,” Skyhawk mumbled.
Finally, Patent realized there was no running away from the vibrations and set Skyhawk down. He aimed his Gatling gun at the roof. Together they watched it disappear in the mouths of the hundred-foot tall Nomads, using their heads as earth movers to get to the parts of the compound dug into the mountain.
“Did those things just chew off a mountain top?” Patent said.
“Nah. There was no mountain top. Just a hologram. If we’d kept driving we’d have driven clear off the butte to our deaths below. Game over before it even began.”
Patent surveyed the rim of the crater above their heads lined with six of the Nomads. The lights flickering on their headgear, and their more tortured countenances didn’t leave a whole lot of ambiguity as to what side they were on; they were well under the influence of the triple threat. Several roars followed by boluses of fire aimed Patent’s way, superheating the air above them even if they fell short of the mark, further trumpeted the Nomads’ intent. Patent fired his Gatling gun into each of the Nomads, spacing the bullets out evenly. Then stopped, despite the fact that the animals didn’t look the least bit fazed.
Mind of a Child_ Sentient Serpents Page 50
