by Chris Hechtl
The arrows were not coming up on its audio sensors. It seemed the primitive weapon had countered its more advanced defenses. A counter would need to be found. Its index of files did not come up with an acceptable solution other than to push the perimeter out beyond effective bow range. However, the A.I. lacked imagination so it could not consider other options or invent new ones.
The convoy had gotten through the ambush, but only because air support had been on hand. One vehicle had been abandoned; another had been moderately damaged. The cargo of the first had been lost. Consequently, the A.I. assigned a trio of armed drones to each convoy. One would be high, serving as overwatch while the other two would remain docked on vehicles as a ready reserve.
<>V<>
Once Jax called the coast clear, they warily came out. It was near dark, four hours after the convoy had departed. A long-range drone might be up in the air watching them. They'd have to be careful, but if it had been a short-range they were golden. There was no way a short-range drone could have the time to loiter and stick around.
“Frack. They left the lead truck but it's trashed man. No way we can salvage it,” Grier growled.
“Be careful approaching it. The damn thing could be booby trapped,” Cally warned. “Boomer, your gear got jacked up by the UAV.”
“Frack,” Boomer breathed. He checked it over. The burn scars told him everything he needed to know; there was nothing worth salvaging there. “Okay. At least we can make another,” he said.
“Yea. Now that we know how,” Grier said. “Sucker goes high though.”
“We can fix that. It's got a kick like a Vegas line dancer,” Boomer said, rubbing his shoulder. Anyone hurt?”
“Just you,” Jax said, nodding his chin to him. “Some scrapes and shit. What gives, boss man?”
“We lucked out,” Holland said.
“Luck means we won. I don't feel lucky,” Grier said dryly. He warily approached the dead rig from the right flank. He climbed under it and yanked the wiring then hastily came out before it tried to use the last of its energy to move. “She's dead.”
“What's the cargo?” Holland asked, lifting his chin to the flatbed in curiosity.
“Check it,” Grier said as he used his toolkit to being ripping into the rig. Holland grunted and climbed onto the flatbed. He turned and gave Jax a hand up. Jax went to work with him pulling the crates open.
“Got some parts. Some … aircraft shit?”
“Let me see that,” Grier said, looking up.
“Grier, stay on mission. Cally, you've got overwatch,” Boomer ordered. He climbed up onto the truck and frowned as he checked it out. It was a cargo of aircraft parts, but they were old. He wasn't an aircraft fan, but he could tell they weren't from a modern bird. So what gives?”
“Boss? What do we do with ‘em?” Holland asked.
“Damned if I know. Other than make sure the enemy doesn't get them back,” Boomer growled.
Holland nodded. “I'll go find my sledgehammer,” he said.
“I'll go find a crowbar. Maybe there is some ammo or something we can use,” Jax murmured hopefully. Boomer looked to him and then away. Whatever kept him going.
<>V<>
The situation on the ground was stabilizing for Skynet and its forces. Additional resources were coming online as the A.I. learned to repair existing platforms and manufactured new ones. However, stability was not Skynet's end goal. It could just barely keep up with losses in its mobile assets. Consequently, the A.I. made some revisions to its mission profile. Some of the A.I. in various zones killed humans on sight, while others ignored civilians and only attacked armed resistance. Once all of the resistance in a particular area was killed, Zhukov and Nezha then rounded up for the survivors for processing. Any that wished to live were used as forced labor. They were not given food and only minimal water and sleep. They did not last long. They were not viable for high security work, just basic labor.
Ares and the other two major A.I. classified a civilian as an unarmed organic. But that was a transitory state; it was relatively easy for an organic to pick up a weapon and use it. Skynet had also experimented with apocalyptic cults, allowing them to exist and even to function as a group only after they met certain conditions of loyalty. To a human cannibalism and sacrifice would have been repugnant. To Skynet it was a proof of loyalty or desperation.
The cultists were deemed hysterical, despite their efforts to worship the machine. Skynet didn't trust them. It ran their curious behavior past its psychological profiles. The only paths to survival were fight, flight, or submit. Submission was not what Skynet had been programmed for nor worship. However, using the cultists proved useful. Some of the lower A.I. used vocal stress analysis and IR to test the humans. Those that passed were allowed to live so long as they met a quota in bodies or did limited jobs to help exterminate their race.
Humans of no use were weeded out and immediately killed. Any humans who attempted to shield them were also immediately dealt with. Cyborgs were becoming increasingly rare, Skynet had used them ineffectively in the first year. Most had gone insane. They had either killed themselves after Skynet had directed them to kill their loved ones or refused to take nourishment and had eventually wasted away. Very rarely did Skynet meet one who would be willing to exist as a symbiot to the virus, to allow their own bodies to be used as puppets.
Humans were indeed doing a part of Skynet's own job. Bandits were roaming the countryside of every continent; they tended to strike at communities and take what they wanted. Skynet's observations led to the hive mind's conclusion to leave such groups alone. Not only were they heavily armed and therefore a risk of loosed units to anything Skynet sent against them, but they were also helping Skynet's end goal and destabilizing the human settlements. Besides, they could be dealt with at a later date.
Skynet calculated that the biomass on the planet had been significantly reduced by the nuclear winter. There were still survivors of course, but many of them were on the ragged edge of starvation. Genetic engineered organisms were a hit or miss. Some had been created with a high metabolism that had turned into a handicap, which had led to their early demise.
Still there were packs of raptors and other animals around. They proved useful; the large predators tended to look on humans as prey just as easily as they did a deer or dog.
Skynet utilized animal mechs in attempts to blend in with animal populations to maintain surveillance on human groups. It found that birds were the most effective in this endeavor. Raptors, animal mechs, dragons, and others were more effective as ambush predators of small groups and only if they were full-scale robots. Those that were made out of plastic or lighter material were only good for cannon fodder.
The hive mind turned its attention to the ongoing nanite question. It still wasn't certain who had destroyed the nanites in Chernobyl. The assets had to have come from one of the big three A.I. or space. The big three ran contrary to its programming, however; each had been suborned and owed their loyalty to the hive.
The destruction of the nanites hadn't been without useful purpose. Skynet had learned something from the destruction after the nuclear weapons had cleared the air. It had sent in UAVs to survey the damage. It had found gray goo and glass where the nanites had been. There was no infrastructure, nothing at all. That was suboptimal to Skynet's own eventual survival. Therefore, future applications of nanotech would have to be carefully controlled.
It had found various designs in the universities but finding a good overall design proved tedious. No one design worked in all environments or locations nor for every task the A.I. wanted performed. That meant a host of nanites would have to be created. A family with soldiers, workers of various sorts, and small minds. The A.I. detailed several zombie A.I. to run simulations to discover the best designs and a means to effectively control them.
Skynet had done its best to preserve the underwater resort computer systems. The theme park in the Asian Pacific had at one point housed a massive VR comput
er network as well as the electronic hardware to keep the park and its rides running smoothly. Skynet had initially opened the locks on the underwater cities to flood them. But as pieces of itself were obliterated during the nuclear strikes, the hive mind had refocused some of the efforts on preserving the infrastructure. It had done so by altering the life support of the facility, altering the oxygen/carbon dioxide mix until the humans had gone to sleep, and then reduced the oxygen level until they had expired. It had been a relatively painless series of deaths but necessary.
The four resort theme parks were situated in different parts of the world's oceans. They had been serviced by freighters and cruise ships that had come and gone to artificial islands above the underwater cities. Now that traffic was gone.
Two of them had been powered by geothermal taps from nearby wells. One had been supplied by beamed power from space. After a week its batteries had failed and it had shut down. The third was struggling to maintain power with its tidal and wind generators.
Each of the facilities had optical fiber lines to a nearby island or coastline facility. Some of those facilities had lost service during the opening stages of the war. Skynet had prioritized getting them back online, but it found the task difficult. The viral A.I. was not suited for rebuilding infrastructure. It tasked one of the A.I. it had suborned to it.
The other two facilities, one New Atlantis in the Atlantic and the other Aquarius in the Gulf of Mexico, could rely on radio LAN links for communications back to the central hive. Tropical storms had abated due to the nuclear winter. It was unknown how long that would last, however.
These facilities were considered the most secure in its inventory, however. But the threat of losing contact was a problem. It assigned the job of cracking the nanite design issue to the Pacific and Caribbean facilities and then assigned methods to enhance its killing machines to the New Atlantis facility. With frequent updates and backups, none of the data would be lost, and with two additional facilities working on the nanite issue, it had parallel processing on the subject.
It just needed the facilities to manufacture and test the nanites.
<>V<>
Baxter waved a hand to Harper. Harper looked up tiredly. Baxter pointed to a guy on the tower who in turn was signaling trouble frantically with his hands and a flag.
“Shit!” Harper said, getting Fiben's attention. The other chimp looked up in alarm.
“What?” he asked, stretching.
“Trouble. Red alert, people!” Harper called out, grabbing his weapons and jacket.
They had to be constantly on alert for trouble now that the population had swollen above four thousand. Every day it seemed a couple refugees wandered in. Yesterday two dark, stocky men had come in quietly, most likely farmers.
They were getting all sorts of problems too. Fights were becoming common as were issues with the buildings. A couple of fires had broken out. Injuries were common as well, which kept Harper and a native nurse who had stepped up to help rather busy.
Harper and Fiben tried to keep everyone busy on one project or another. The place might be looking more and more like a shanty town with a wall around it, but it was home. And home was worth protecting.
“Frack me,” Fiben swore, trying to put his boot on over his twisted ankle. It was his luck that he'd taken the spill. It was twisted not broken. But the swelling hadn't gone down.
“You're out of this for the moment. Monitor the radio net,” Harper ordered, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Frack that,” Fiben snarled, hopping to his feet on his good leg. He damn near went face first down before Harper grabbed him by the left bicep and hauled him more or less upright. “I've got it,” he said, sticking the toes of his foot down. He winced at the pain. “Get me a crutch. I'm not doing cartwheels, but I'm more or less mobile.”
“Stupid,” Harper breathed, shaking his head. But he was already going for a crutch. He tossed a cane to the chimp then kept going on his way out.
“What is it?” he asked, meeting Baxter and a grim Kelsy outside the medical clinic.
“We've got a problem. Two of the new refugees were trying to get the gate open. One pulled a knife. I think he was going to slit Miguel's throat, but when Ace and Paudrick cornered him, it turned into a hostage situation.”
“Frack.”
“There is more. We've got a look beyond the hill. Copper just came in,” Kelsy pointed to the doggy door that they had set up to let the dogs get in and out of the perimeter to search. “And he said there is a group of about fifty armed men and four or five women over there. I think …”
“I think they are bandits too,” Harper said before she could finish. He nodded. “It fits. The two inside cause a distraction and get the gate open while the rest march in and take over.”
“Yeah. Vanessa put a fire out a few moments ago,” Kelsy said frowning thoughtfully. “She thought it was someone being careless, a lit cigarette. Now though?” she grimaced.
“Right,” Harper growled. He waved for them to head to the gate. When they got there, the two men were staring, wild eyed with their backs to gate. Miguel was in between them and Paudrick. Ace was off to the left, trying to circle around. Copper was further back, ready to get in when needed.
“I'm going to tell you straight. You want to get out of this alive, fine. We'll let you go. He stays. He gets hurt you don't walk out of here alive,” the Neochimp said.
“We only want food and clothes. Medicina,” the leader said, spitting. He had Miguel locked in a death grip, knife to his throat.
“No shot,” Baxter murmured. Harper looked around, realizing Baxter had split off. Obviously he'd set himself up as a sniper. “We've got some movement outside. Some heads on the hill.”
“Your friends outside are getting anxious,” Harper said conversationally. His hands spread apart in appeal. “The enemy is the robots, not us.
“Then give us what we want.”
“You know you aren't going to get all of it. Not even half. We've got plenty of mouths to feed here.”
“They cower. Only you fight. With you gone …,” the leader's eyes locked on Harper.
“I can fight,” Miguel ground out. Before they could stop him, his elbow rammed backwards into the guy's gut. The knife slipped up as the leader oofed in pain, slicing Miguel's face and chin. But he had a hand up on the guy's wrist; he pulled it away before his throat was torn open. Instead he used the grip to break the guy's grip on the knife then pushed him into his partner.
Harper waded in quickly as the two tried to untangle themselves and Miguel got clear clutching at his face, ducking low and then coming up to slam the second man in the crotch. The guy howled and clutched at his family jewels, bending over conveniently for Harper's round house to finish the job.
The leader snarled, scrambling for his weapon, but Paudrick stepped on his wrist, breaking it. The guy gasped in pain, teeth bared in anger, but he stopped cold when he saw the soldier's rifle barrel pointed right between his eyes from a centimeter away. “That's right,” Paudrick murmured. “Freeze,” he said almost lovingly.
Harper had the second guy on his stomach, arm up in an arm bar with Ace next to him growling in the guy's ear. “I think I got this, Ace. Check the perimeter again,” Harper ordered. The dog woofed once and took off at a trot.
“What do we do with them?”
“We strip them of weapons and then they can walk. I'll be nice and leave them their clothes,” Harper growled as Fiben and the others showed up. He looked up and nodded his chin to Fiben. “Hey, what kept you?” he asked conversationally.
“Funny,” Fiben sniffed, checking the scene out. “Miguel,” he said, hands out. He turned to a girl. “Get a med kit here now,” he ordered. She nodded and took off like a shot.
“We should put one here by the gate anyway,” Harper mused as he noted Miguel and Kelsy had a rag pressed to Miguel's face. The rag was already saturated with blood. “Get him to the infirmary. Don't walk.”
“I ca
n walk. The cut's not deep,” Miguel ground out between clenched teeth. “I need some tequila though to dull the pain.”
“Right,” Harper snorted.
While they were talking, Paudrick had secured the prisoners by yanking their shirts back and down, then tangling it around their wrists as improvised bonds. Then he'd padded them down. Baxter moved in to lend him a hand. A couple of the farmers moved in as well, growling grimly. They yanked each of the guy's trousers down around their ankles. Both whined and began to shiver in the cold.
“Easy folks. We're going to let them walk as a … punishment. A message to the banditos outside,” Harper said. That got a few people to nervously gasp. “We're covered. They don't want to lose too many people. They thought we were easy meat. They were wrong,” he said. He toed one of the prisoners. “Derocho?” he demanded.
“Si,” the guy ground out.
“Senor. Por favor, el chuchillo, it was my padre's,” the leader whined.
“Tough shit. Be glad I'm not letting Miguel shove it up your ass,” Harper growled. “They clean?”
“As we can get. They set the fire?”
“Looks that way. Distraction,” Harper answered, eying them coldly. “I don't doubt it would have ended very badly for us if this had gone the other way. You don't like being on the bottom, do you?” Both stocky dark men looked at the ground. “Right. Get them out of here,” he said. He watched as Baxter unbolted the gate, opened it a small gap, and then waited.
“What are you …?”
“Here they come,” Baxter said softly. Harper instantly moved to the gate. He pulled his pistol and pointed it through a gun slit as the bandits started to move into a trot. “Single shot. Warning,” he said conversationally. He fired, right into the feet of the lead bandit. That brought the group up short and diving for cover.
