Amateurs.

Mad Tom

2 Weeks Later - Copycat - Warehouse 39

I’m sitting in a dingy warehouse down by the docks. Alone, except for my symbiont. Through a grimy window, I can see Uber-Incel’s old base. I’m here for the same reason he was. To have less lag through the Transatlantic Communications Cable. Also, violence.

Extreme turns to me. “The last package is in place.”

I nod. “Then let’s begin.”

I’m blasted with an avalanche of images as 5,000 Cthutie-Pies wake. Holy shit. Through the chaotoscope I’m vaguely aware they’re bashing out of wooden crates. One of the crates is underwater? Maybe? It’s hard to process.

The wee octo-drones have decent machine vision algorithms. They understand most of what they see, and act autonomously. If they get confused, they’ll send a pic to Extreme for advice. A typical exchange goes something like:

Octo 3245: Is this person the target?

Extreme: Nope, that’s a shadow.

Octo 3245: K, cool.

With 5,000 drones operating, Extreme gets a couple hundred advice requests per second. He is in no way capable of making threat/opportunity assessments that fast. Unfortunately, I am.

Human perception is a relentless firehose of mostly useless information. Our brains are very good at ignoring most of it, while instantly locking on to anything scary or exciting. This actually happens much faster than conscious thought, which has led to our fucked up plan of showing me hundreds of pictures a second, and sorting out the few important ones by measuring my subconscious brainwaves.

This gives Extreme good understanding of what’s happening, and me a new wave psychotic episode.

Images blaze past. I have no idea what’s going on. I’m deeper in the mind melter than ever before. Fuck. Is this working? “What’s happening?”

“All five crates are open. The octo-drones are on the move. Barely. In no particular direction. They’re just flopping around.” Extreme sighs. “Yeah…”

“Give them a minute.” I say. “Let’em find their legs.”

DARPA once tried to make battlesuits. Like Iron Man. It did not work. There was a power issue. They could make mecha-armor, but the battery required was bigger than the suit. Imagine Iron Man tethered to a jeep full of battery acid. It worked - kinda - but wasn’t as combat effective as a jeep without some bulletproof loser tied to it.

Then they had an idea - what if the armor, the motors, and the batteries were all the same substance? Muscles don’t just move our bodies, they also protect our bones and organs, and contain their own power source in the form of glucose. Could we make a suped-up version of muscles?

Enter Neo-Muscle. An amorphous blob of twisted kevlar and copper particles that was a bulletproof, contractible, capacitor. Powerful, light, cheap, and durable - it was perfect. Except it didn’t work.

The electrical paths through the Neo-Muscle were random and insanely complex. Each piece needed a unique algorithm to contract evenly, otherwise it would twist or pull unpredictably. Causing the soldier to stumble, fall, or screw his own head off.

Mapping the inputs required to operate a suit took a hellacious amount of man-hours. Also, while the suits could theoretically operate after extreme damage, in practice even mild damage changed electrical paths enough to completely fuck “planned motion”. It took 500 computer engineers to keep one soldier in the field. Again, not as good as jeeps.

Neo-Muscle was forgotten until Mad Tiger stumbled across it. Attracted by its durability, power, and cheapness, they didn’t give a shit about unpredictability. They made small, soft, animal robots from it. Instead of programming motion controls, they’d give a destination, and let them trial and error their way there.

Initially, there was a lot of ineffective, useless, flailing. But this soon turned to highly effective, purposeful, flailing. It wasn’t pretty, but they got moving. Octopus robots learned to travel the fastest. Their body structure allowed for many styles of movement, which gave the random movement algorithms more paths to success. Also, we have few preconceived notions of how an octopus should move, so their flailing was less creepy. It’s off putting to watch a small horse drag himself by his lips.

Mad Tom later added a belly full of thermite BB’s and a learn-to-shoot algorithm. He assured me they’d figure it out before they run out of ammo.

Extreme looks depressed as they flail uselessly, but soon they’re scuttling, rolling, oozing, and twerking their way towards Zonk Industries.

Extreme cheers up a little, and starts commentating. Good. As the subconscious of this robo-invertebrate hit squad, my perspective is dreamlike at best. I need him to call the plays.

“Urban units are moving towards Zonk America, Zonk Europe, and Zonk Asia. Alpine units are scaling to Zonk Aerie. Doing well I’d say. Little guys climb better than they walk. Aqua units are the star of the day. Look at’em go! They’ll be at Zonk Island in no time.”

I get a flash of teeth.

“Oh no!” gasps Extreme. “A shark ate one! He was just a baby! Where are my bagpipes? I gotta play Amazing Grace.”

I get a flash of blood.

“Holy fuck! He shot his way out!” cheers Extreme. “He’s good. He’s fine. Mwuh-Ha-HA! Fuck you, shark! Where are my bagpipes? I gotta play Shipping Up To Boston.”

“Focus.”

“Right. Aqua Force is at the beach. Mountain Team has reached the Aerie. Urban Units are late. Stealth protocol is slowing them down. Should Aqua and Mountain hold? Or do we start this party?”

Hmm. Zonk is probably at his island fortress or his mountain retreat. Chicken-shit. But we should wait. Hit all locations at once. If he rabbits from an urban site before the Cthutie-Pies are ready I’ll lose him.

“Have Mountain and Aqua do stealth reconnaissance until Urban is ready to go.” I decide.

“Okay.” chirps Extreme. “Let’s look around.”

Electro dreams and Extreme chatter form a picture of the Zonker Bunkers. Sand, sun, bikinis, concrete, steel, and guns. It’s a beach rave paramilitary prepper mash-up, sprinkled with spider battle drones. It’d be pretty awesome if the beach girls and army guys weren’t mind zonked.

Goddamn. I’m gonna save these people. Burn this shit to the ground. Then recreate a consensual version of doomsday island. Fuck all the guys and half the girls. The spiderbots can watch.

“Hello? You still with me?” asks Extreme.

“Yep! What’s up?”

“Urban Units are ready.”

“Alright.” I nod. “Let’s do this.”

With our perimeter set, we rush the drones towards the sites. The time for stealth is past - the urban buildings look like normal office buildings, but have cameras on every possible approach. We’re not sneaking up on them. The mountain and island bunkers have cameras, and drones, and paramilitary soldiers. And beach bunnies. Who knows how they’re armed?

The offices have bullet resistant windows, but they don’t slow the Cthutie-Pies down. They rush through the smashed windows and spread out - scuttling to all areas of the building. Alarms sound, but they encounter no resistance.

Weird.

“That’s weird.” says Extreme.

“I know, right?” I frown. “Where are the spider-drones? The army guys? Can we get a fucking security guard?”

Extreme is confused. “I thought flamethrowers would pop out of the walls. Not even a gun turret.”

“Fuck. We have gun turrets and we’re broke.” I scoff. “What’s even the point of being a billionaire?”

“I guess these are just office buildings. Where he does his legal stuff. They don’t really need defenses." Extreme hypothesizes. "They’re in major cities, it’d probably be a hassle to get the building inspector to sign off on gun turrets.”

“Right. All the defenses are at the doomsday bunkers. That makes sense.” I agree.

We turn our focus to the siege of Zonk Island. Little green octo-bots are scooching across the beach under the baleful lenses of automatic gun drones. Like a Nintendo re-enactment of Normandy.

The guns never fire. The octo-bots waltz past them. They bustle past the spider-drones, past flying death drones, past the army guys. There’s no reaction from any of the defenders. Nothing.

“Well. What. The. Fuck.” Extreme is flabbergasted.

“This is unbelievable.” I agree.

“Is it psychological warfare? Are they fucking with us?” asks Extreme.

I watch a Cthutie-Pie crawl right over one of the beach girls. She doesn’t even twitch.

It dawns on me. “They’re all zonked. Completely incurious.”

Extreme frowns. “Come on! The soldiers would have orders to defend the island.”

“From what? Tiny octopi?” I shrug. “They don’t recognize them as a threat. And have no ability to wonder, or learn, so… they do nothing.”

“The spider-drones are automatic!”

“Same problem. No one put tiny octopi in their threat assessment database. They just don’t see them. Even if they have symbionts driving them, they need a functioning human to identify what’s important. No human, no mind melter trick, no threat cue.”

I shake my head. “Billions of dollars in defenses, all automatic. What a design flaw.”

We watch the drones scuttle into the bunker.

“I’m deeply disappointed by the caliber of our enemies.” says Extreme. “Are they even trying to stay alive?”

Poor Extreme. He was really looking forward to an epic drone battle.

We slow the drones, and have them slip in the bunker when zombies are going in or out. No sense in setting off more alarms. There’s no sign of Zonk at the European or Asian sites - just offices, zombies, and large stashes of drugs. We find the drug factory at the American site. The mountain bunker is only half done, basically a construction site.

We find Zonk in the basement of the island bunker. He’s in a windowless room, writing emails. He’s not aware his whole operation is under attack. Well he’s kind of aware - he is hiding in a basement on an island fortress - but he’s not aware that we have an armed drone in the room with him.

Well shit. I really didn’t think we’d get this far. Just assumed an evil billionaire would crush my petty attack. Probably kill me before it even started.

Why doesn’t he have anyone on the island but zombies? One guy watching the cameras could have stopped us. Why zonk everyone around him? What’s the point of being rich if you’re all alone?

I watch him struggle with his spelling. He’s a mass murderer, but I feel sorry for him.

I blow his brains out.

Well, that sucked. I’d rather have brought him to justice, but all the authorities were working with him. I guess he was more useful than his victims.

We finish searching the island. Find a huge stash of drugs, but nothing else of interest. We burn the drugs, here and at the other sites. Hopefully the zombies will recover if we cut off their supply.

We send a drone to raze the drug factory at Zonk America, but he’s shot before he can light it up.

“Hello?” Extreme perks up. “What’s all this then?”

He cranks the mind melter to maximum. Whoa.

“We’re under attack!” he gasps. “At Zonk America! Hey! They sniped all the drones in the factory. Shot right through the ceiling. How did they see us? We’re blocking Wi-Fi. Ha! There’s spy drones on the windows! And… fuck, they must have big fucking gun drones over the building. Invisible dragons with detachable eyes. So cool.”

“How are we doing?”

“They’ve shot every drone near the factory, and most of the rest. Everytime one moves they pick it off.” Extreme nods. “This is a much more professional response. I approve. Zonk has really upped his game post mortem. He’d still be alive if he’d died earlier.”

“This isn’t Zonk.” I say. “It’s Empty Man. They want the factory now that Zonk’s dead.”

“Yeah, that makes more sense.” agrees Extreme. “I got confused with the zombie thing.”

“Can we get a working drone to the factory?”

“Heck, we already have working drones in the factory.” Extreme cackles. “They’re just playing possum! My babies are bulletproof!”

“Can we destroy the factory?”

“Probably. But if we do, the enemy drones will get away. They’re only hanging around to defend it.”

“Does that matter?”

“I dunno.” Extreme grins. “But I really wanna fuck’em up.”

I pause. What’s the right move here? Am I trying to hide my strength, or show it? Fuck, I don’t know.

“Fuck it. Light’em up.”

“Mwuh-ha-Ha-HA! YES!”

Our perimeter drones blow away their spy drones. Their dragons blaze down on our perimeter drones. They fire back, but are ruthlessly outgunned.

“Yikes.” Extreme winces. “I guess my babies are just bullet resistant.”

The perimeter drones are blown to shit, but not before they get positions for the dragons. The damaged Cthutie-Pies inside the factory shoot up through the ceiling. Hundreds of them, wailing away. The dragon’s sky camo cracks. They’re visible. They're gone. This time in balls of fire.

Extreme smiles. “That went okay.”

Rockets stream over the horizon, slamming into Zonk America. Dropping hundreds of spheres that roll and bounce through the building.

“What are these? New drones?” Extreme asks.

b-b-b-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-BOOM!!!!

“Nope. Grenades.” Extreme frowns. “Huh.”

Most of the Zonk America facility is destroyed. The only part still standing is the drug factory. The spheres that dropped there actually were drones. Cracking open and morphing into mantis-bots that immediately tear our octo-bots to shit.

They’re nasty, sharp, and fast. But not bulletproof. For every Cthutie-Pie they tear apart, one of them gets shot dead. It’s gonna come down to the wire.

“Six. Five. Four… Dang.” says Extreme. “Only two Cthutie-Pies left. Three mantis-bots.”

“That’s not so bad.” I say.

Extreme shakes his head. “One is out of ammo, and the other has no legs. I think we fucked this up. Should have blown the factory when we had the chance.”

The low ammo octo scuttles over to the other. Wraps her arms around him.

“Are they... hugging? Well, why not? They did their best. And when violence didn’t work, why not choose love? Mad Tom said they were adaptable, but dang.” Extreme shakes his head. “They’re lovers. Lovers in a dangerous time.”

The octo’s arms tighten, and she rips her partner in half. Gorges on his thermite BB’s. Shoots the last mantis-bots and blows the factory to shit. The last of Zonk America collapses, entombing her enemies and allies alike.

Extreme exhales. “Today has been an emotional rollercoaster. Are we done?”

“I guess so.” I can’t believe that worked. Unbelievable. Thank god we didn’t have to try Plan B.

“Oh, we got a message from Mega Storm.” says Extreme. “She’s already gone ahead with Plan B.”

I sigh. “Of course she has.”