The Complete Clockwork Chimera Saga

by Scott Baron

  The Chithiid loyalists maintaining a perimeter also noted something unusual. A discarded backpack, seemingly recently used.

  “Inform the Ra’az we have found trace of the possible cause of this disturbance. It may be humans, judging by what was left behind.”

  “They will be informed at once,” the communications operator replied, quickly opening a channel to the tactical leaders aboard the ship. He transmitted, then listened attentively to his communicator.

  Moments later a reply came through.

  “They have received the report and want you to stay here with your evidence,” he relayed. A moment later a look of mild horror flashed across his face. “They are also sending a Graizenhund.”

  The loyalist blanched at the words but managed to maintain as much of a stoic appearance as he could.

  “Excellent. I eagerly await it.”

  The ship hovered above and lowered a large container to the ground a few minutes later, remotely opening it upon touchdown. From its confines, a six-foot long creature with long and deadly teeth and a tough hide padded out into the open air. The Graizenhund resembled a massive dog, but one dreamt up by a horrified child in their worst nightmares.

  With a low growl, it slowly walked to the rigid Chithiid.

  The alien held out the backpack, the tremor in his hands betraying his fear. The beast sniffed the pack, then cocked its head to one side, perplexed. With no warning, it snatched the pack from the alien’s hands and began tearing it apart, snorting deeply as it did, learning the scent of its prey.

  As abruptly as it had started, it stopped, nostrils flaring in the gentle breeze. Then, in a flash, it was gone.

  The team had covered over a mile in good time, the city AI being preoccupied with the Ra’az ship spewing its Chithiid workers into its environs. Aside from a few cyborgs and one rather perturbed waste-disposal vehicle, they had remained unmolested as they dashed for the loop tube tunnels.

  “Something’s up, Daze. You hear that?”

  Yeah, but I don’t know what it is, and don’t have time to find out.

  “Let’s move! We’re nearly there,” she called to her squad, urging them on to a quick-time pace.

  Following the scent now locked into the olfactory region of its brain, the Graizenhund raced down the streets, easily avoiding the larger vehicles and equipment in its path. No time to waste with those, though it did take a few moments to dismember a pair of cyborgs that ill-advisedly attempted to block its progress.

  Their metal limbs came free easily in its powerful jaws. The head took a bit more effort.

  Effort it enjoyed expending.

  “There it is!” Daisy called out as the beckoning doors to the subterranean loop tube system came into view. “Hustle, everyone!” she urged as the hairs on the back of her neck tingled.

  Daisy turned and scanned the road behind them as they came. Nothing was in sight.

  Anything?

  “Not seeing anything, but I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  Ditto. We need to get underground, and fast.

  Daisy turned and followed her team as they raced the remaining way to the loop system.

  The Graizenhund, satisfied having destroyed a pair of metal men, was fast on its feet, silently closing in on its prey. The scent was no longer faint––it was just ahead. Its steel-cable-tough muscles tensed mid-stride, then it leapt, soaring quietly through the air, directly at its unsuspecting prey.

  The mountain lion had pounced and rolled on the sweat-soaked shirt and backpack it had snatched off its human prey. Little did it know, that scent now made it prey more than predator.

  Evolution is a funny thing, and somewhere in the thousands of years it took to become what it was today, the massive feline had developed a survival sense, warning of impending danger. That sense was now flaring at full-alarm.

  The big cat spun, claws springing from its paws as the huge hound closed in for the kill. The two grappled, bit, and growled at one another as they tumbled to the ground in a whirring ball of teeth and claws.

  “You hear that?” Tamara asked as they stepped through the doors to the loop tube terminus.

  “Yeah,” Daisy replied. “Whatever’s going down, I don’t want to stick around to find out what it is.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Daisy agreed, then shut the door behind her.

  Deep below the city, they fired up the secured comms unit and informed Joshua they had reached Billings successfully and were coming home. Five minutes later, safe in the silent cocoon of the speeding loop tube pod, Daisy finally let herself slip into a much-needed sleep.

  The Graizenhund had put up a valiant fight, the massive Ra’az noted as it strode across the killing field. Its foe had been a large feline, the likes of which he had seen a few times in the past, but never under such circumstances.

  The native beast lay in a broken heap, finally done in by the ferocity of the Graizenhund, which also lay on the ground, exhausted from the battle.

  The Ra’az nudged the animal with its booted foot. The hound whimpered and tried to stand, but fell back to the ground. Its injuries were rather severe. Likely not fatal, but the beast, though a useful tracker, would be out of commission for a long time, if not permanently.

  Another whimper escaped the injured animal’s mouth as it looked up expectantly at its master. It was a good boy. It had done good. Master would be pleased.

  Emotionless, the Ra’az took a step forward and pressed its boot into the animal’s neck, crushing the life out of it, discarding the damaged tool like it had so many others over the years. The enormous alien then turned and strode back into its waiting ship.

  Chapter Nine

  “Get cleaned up, then head to the repair bay and have that leg given the once-over,” Sergeant Franklin said as the dirt-caked and weary team finally strode into the safety of Joshua’s underground lair.

  “Will do, Sarge. Gotta say, though, Daisy did a really good job. It feels fine.”

  “Maybe so, but I want you to get a full eval from our maintenance and repair system.”

  “Copy that,” the damaged cyborg said, then turned and headed for the repair bay.

  Daisy, after grabbing an ice-cold electrolyte packet, caught up with Sergeant Franklin on his way to Joshua’s primary command center.

  “All of that work for one little code key,” she marveled.

  “To be fair, it is one massively encrypted, EM and environmentally hardened code key that grants targeting control of a whole slew of hypersonic missiles.”

  “Potato, potahto,” Daisy said with a light laugh.

  “You’re certainly in excellent spirits,” Sarah noted.

  No one is trying to kill us for a change, I got to use a functional toilet not coated with bits of dead guy, and the AC in this place is divine.

  The dusty cyborg and his human counterpart arrived a minute later at the heavily shielded room that housed Joshua’s most sensitive equipment.

  “You ready for us, Joshua?” Daisy asked the ever-listening air.

  “Yes, Daisy. Just place the card in the reader located on the far right-hand console. It has a protective cover, but you will find it is unlocked.”

  “Will do,” she replied as Franklin dug the card key from its protective case in his hip pack. “Hey, Joshua, I wanted to ask you. What’s going on around here?” she queried, noting the unusually quiet corridors. “Where is everyone else?”

  “While you and your team were making the run to Montana, I thought it would be prudent to get things moving on this end to reconnect global communications as quickly as possible.”

  “So the others are where, exactly?”

  “Like I said, they’ve joined your associates from Los Angeles, who were already linking in uncorrupted AIs. Some have, anyway. Most are working within the service tunnels running from here to the external networking hubs. Those were physically cut during the invasion, but once they’re reconnected wit
h new deadman switches, I should have most of my communication and data transfer capabilities restored.”

  “And the others?”

  “Those few small teams have departed via the loop tube in the non-damaged direction to fan out and help reconnect other cities into our communications network.”

  “So, it’s a skeleton crew here.”

  “More or less. There’s a small squad in my walls. The rest of the men are out helping with repairs. Sergeant Franklin was correct in his acceptance of my assessment that his men could be of more use to me outside than merely sitting around protecting my facilities from the inside.”

  “Respectfully, sir, during that conversation I was speaking in regards to the Montana mission, specifically. And you will recall, it was actually your idea to send me,” Franklin noted.

  “Good thing too. I don’t think we’d have made it without you, George,” Daisy said. “We’re a bit out of the loop, Joshua. How are the other teams coming with their work?”

  “Quite well, actually. I mean, of course they’ve run into a few bumps in the road. You know, rogue AIs and whatnot, but they’ve successfully patched in over a dozen higher-tier AIs since you’ve been gone. With peripheral cities back online, we’ve confirmed the international loop tubes are in fact intact and functional. The first teams headed abroad yesterday.”

  “The undersea tubes are sound, then?”

  “Yes. At least one team should be in Europe by now.”

  Daisy was excited by the possibilities. Global reconnection would greatly help their cause. But she was also wary, and rightly so. She’d seen firsthand the damage rogue AIs could do. Much as she trusted their drive and abilities, she nevertheless was worried about her friends.

  On top of that, Vince was still in Los Angeles, his infected AI in his head wiped, his body fighting it for survival. Her stomach did a little flip as thoughts of her ex flashed through her head.

  “We’ll be back in LA soon, Daze. He’ll be okay.”

  You don’t know that.

  “Not for a fact, no. But I do know he is strong, and after Cal wiped the virus from his onboard AI, he at least has a fighting chance.”

  Daisy could only wonder if she was right.

  Far across the globe, Finnegan and his team had made good time on the trip to Rome, the subterranean loop tubes making the run in just under four hours. When they emerged to the surface of that great metropolis, the first sight that greeted them was that of a ruined city.

  “Holy…” Finn gasped as he surveyed the toppled stone. “This is incredible.”

  The ancient ruins were immense. Marvels of architecture and building prowess from a time long before computer-assisted designs, or even slide rules, for that matter.

  “How on Earth did they move those stones?” Reggie wondered.

  “I would posit the use of slaves,” their Faraday-suited metal companion suggested.

  The cyborg was probably right, they realized, but that didn’t make the stonework any less impressive.

  “All right,” Finn said, scanning the ancient city. “We’re near a major tourist attraction. There should hopefully be an intact AI interface nearby.”

  “Anyone speak Italian?” Reggie joked.

  The team slowly moved out from the loop tube terminal at what had once been the bustling Colosseum stop. Now the ancient stone amphitheater sat in silence the likes of which it hadn’t experienced in its many years of existence.

  “It’s awfully quiet,” Reggie said in a hushed voice. “Where are all the animals?”

  “Probably by the river,” Finn replied. “The Tiber is a ready water source on a hot day. Plus, the city is ancient stone. Not as easy for nature to exploit design flaws and reclaim it for itself.”

  Indeed, the cobbled streets of the old city seemed immune to the fecund regrowth they had seen all across the more modern regions. While gardens and patches of nature man had built into the area were overgrown, hardly any of that growth spilled very far out into the public causeways.

  “It looks as if the old city had much of its tech stripped but was otherwise left intact,” the middle-aged man leading their human escort commented. “Perhaps there were no defenses in this area.”

  “Seems likely,” Finn agreed. “No sense deploying an automated defense system to protect two-thousand-year-old buildings and straining infrastructure.”

  He pulled out his binoculars and scanned down the road.

  “Toward the Pantheon will be our best bet, I think. If I’m not mistaken, a left turn from there should take us to the Vatican. It was already ancient when the attack occurred, but also controlled extraordinary wealth spanning the globe. They even had their own private local train system underground long before the loop tubes came in. Short of trekking to the outskirts of the city center, I think that’ll be the most likely spot to be able to tap in.”

  “So it goes,” Reggie grunted. “But there’s lots of open ground that direction. Hardly any cover.”

  “Yeah, but it’s our best bet, unless we want to try to circumnavigate the whole city,” Finn said. “Okay, everyone, stay sharp and move quietly and quickly.”

  They took off at a quick pace down the sidewalks, hugging the side of the road for what limited cover there was to be had.

  The Altare della Patria loomed ahead, the technology-free building completely intact and untouched by the Chithiid deconstruction teams.

  High above, with shiny patches of glistening metal worn through the aged patina on their wings, the massive bronze statues stood tall in the bright afternoon sun. The piazza in front of the long steps leading up to the building was full of centuries-dead vehicles, their drivers no more than dust in the wind.

  Carefully, they inched forward through the decaying relics. Once they made their way into the narrower streets heading toward the Pantheon and Trevi fountain, they’d be more protected, at least so long as they avoided the sprawling Piazza Navona.

  “Just ahead, we make a quick left, followed by a right. That should put us on course to––”

  The young blonde woman carrying spare ammunition cried out abruptly, then was silent, a pulse blast hole smoldering in her chest.

  The order to take cover did not need to be given. Everyone scattered and ducked low, scanning the skyline.

  As they looked for their attacker, up in the skies far above, a sonic boom rang out.

  “Anyone see where the shot came from?” Reggie called out.

  “Somewhere behind us!” one of the team called back.

  They pivoted and scanned the buildings. Somewhere there was a sniper, and until they dealt with them, their mission was at a standstill. Worse yet, so, too, might their beating hearts become still if they didn’t find the sniper pinning them down.

  A clamor sounded across the piazza.

  “Chithiid!” Finn warned. “Stay low!”

  The tall aliens cautiously striding into the jumble of vehicles were apparently a work party, given that only one of the four was carrying a pulse rifle. Nevertheless, the other three each wore a power whip on their wrist, and that troublesome device could bring a world of hurt on them as easily as a rifle could.

  The team wisely remained low as the aliens approached. They actually possessed more weapons than the Chithiid, but being pinned down, they were at a terrible disadvantage as the four-armed creatures closed in.

  “Fuck it,” Finn growled, jumping to his feet and hurling a pair of ceramic knives.

  The Chithiid nearest him howled in pain as they sank into its abdomen, well-below its sturdy rib cage. A volley of pulse fire peppered the vehicle Finn ducked behind.

  “What were you thinking?” Reggie hissed.

  “They’re preoccupied with me, now. Use the advantage,” he replied, then swung his pulse rifle over the vehicle from cover, blindly letting off a few shots in the general direction of their attackers.

  Another shot blasted down from above.

  “Does anyone know where that’s coming from?” Finn shouted
in frustration.

  The wounded Chithiid tried to wrap Finn’s protective vehicular wreck with its power whip, but it was too weak from blood loss to accurately launch the grabbing beam.

  The other aliens, however, were not.

  A power whip struck the vehicle and tossed it easily across the piazza, leaving the hapless human exposed.

  Finn looked up in horror as the realization hit him. He was a sitting duck.

  A trio of blasts from the opposite side of the piazza rang out, flying high above, targeting the massive statues the team had left behind them. The Chithiid sniper camped out up there didn’t even have time to make a sound as all three shots slammed into his body, killing him stone-dead, long before his corpse fell the hundred feet to the hard stone below.

  Finn and the others spun to find the source of the weapons fire.

  Standing in the mouth of a narrow street, a hooded figure held a high-tech pulse rifle to its shoulder with an unusual, matte-gray cybernetic arm, sending out blast after blast, targeting the remaining aliens.

  The team knew a gift horse when they saw one and didn’t need further prompting, quickly jumping to their feet and advancing on the aliens in a blaze of weapons fire. With only a single pulse rifle at their disposal, the Chithiid, though fierce in battle, soon fell to the onslaught.

  Finn turned to thank their savior, but their deadly guardian angel had already departed without a trace.

  “Who the––What the hell was that?” Reggie asked, still stunned.

  “I…I don’t know. Did you see the arm? Some kind of cyborg, maybe?”

  “If it was one of my kind, it was a model I have not yet seen,” their metal teammate said. “Of course, we are on a different continent, and perhaps there were developments just before the invasion that I did not know of.”

  “Could it be another faction of survivors? Like the ones Cal rescued in Los Angeles?”

  “I really don’t know. What I do know is we need to get to a terminal and tap into the city AI as soon as we can. We don’t know if those Chithiid are expected back. And having a sniper waiting like that? If they didn’t know we were coming, I have to wonder what else is down here with us to warrant it.”