We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic

David Russell

The forest was a light show of flashes and flame, a cacophony of crashes and explosions as the firefight expanded in both area and ferocity. Some dived for cover anywhere they could, firing weapons wildly in panic. Others lay groaning on the floor, or in several cases motionless and silent, while yet others seemed to be channeling the spirit of an action-holo star or two, releasing crazed screams and shot after shot into anyone they saw, friend or foe. Trees buckled at their bases, blasted away by the erratic firing, to come tumbling down amongst the chaos and knock yet more people to the floor.

Lines of vapour forced from the air by high velocity projectiles crisscrossed the forest. Keri was amazed to see perfect holes appearing in trees, in rocks, and in one unfortunate case in the chest of a Purist caught by friendly fire. For a second or two not even blood filled the space. Ring-shaped pulses of coruscating blue energy smashed into and through anything that stood in their way, sending everything they touched flying.

She really wasn't sure what was going on with the modders. The instant firing started the two immediately behind Kilgore were covered in a shimmering glow. They darted forward in a blur, moving through the trees like snakes, almost too fast to see. Some kind of predictive software working overtime to guide them through the madness, Keri thought; there was no way human-level reactions were involved. The women must have given over practically all control to whatever it was that guided their movements, almost machines themselves.

The Butcher was in the thick of it, at times elegant and at times an unstoppable landslide of mass and power. He moved from long, graceful sweeps to sledgehammer-like assaults in the blink of an eye, and wherever he went attackers were sent either running or flying.

Keri and Andreas watched all this from the relative safety of a depression in the forest floor a short way away, ducking down between a set of thick roots when weapons fire came their way. After the mad scramble to get there they had been generally left alone. It was hard for the attackers to pay any attention to them when they needed to devote all their energy to their beweaponed opponents.

Of course, Pearce had retreated the moment the firing began. Keri could see him some ways away, across the increasingly devastated woodland that was quickly becoming wasteland. He was shouting at his men, with little effect. The melee was out of control, with hand-to-hand combat going on even as projectiles flew all around.

The corporal was shoulder to shoulder with several other ink-men, sprinting into close range of a bunch of Purists in order to render their rail guns useless. Deadly rail gun shots from outside passed close, but could come no closer without risking hitting their own side.

Suddenly the glow-enshrouded modders were soaring backwards through the air in front of Keri, crashing into a group of battling ink-men and Purists. Keri followed the arc of their flight back towards its source. The Butcher stood there, unharassed now. No one wanted to be the next one to try the silver-eyed monster.

“Ah ha.”

Keri felt Kilgore’s hand grip her shoulder before she heard his laugh.

“Thought you could hide, did you? Well, now I'll…”

Whatever Kilgore had been going to say was cut off as her punch landed in his side and made him double up. There was a blur in the corner of her eye, and suddenly Kilgore was spiraling through the air away from her. The Butcher nodded to Keri, beside her now, and she saw her dirty, exhausted features reflected in his silver eyes.

“Let's go,” he said.

Keri and Andreas hurried after the Butcher as the fighting raged on around them.

It took hours that felt like days to get within sight of the Terminal, glowing even in the twilight. The stars above were slowly emerging, a sight impossible to see in the city and now intermittently obscured by the flash of energy weapons nearby. The Butcher successfully guided them back, leading them on a path that avoided most of the pockets of fighting going on all around.

They were being chased, it was true, but every time a pursuer got anywhere close to them they almost inevitably ran into an opposing group, and battle began anew. Still, a couple of times they had been confronted with a triumphant Purist jumping out of the bushes and crying “ah ha!” before realising they were very much alone and standing with a suddenly unresponsive gun directly in front of an angry augmented nightmare. The sight of would-be attackers turning tail and fleeing cheered Keri up no end.

In fact, she felt almost invincible. Having the Butcher with them meant nobody else had a chance. To think she had thought the rail guns were a threat to him! Of course, as he explained, a direct hit from one of the guns would be hugely damaging, but each of the weapons relied on targeting software he could easily disrupt. None of the rail guns could see him, let alone target him, and as an added bonus he had also excluded both Keri and Andreas from the targeting parameters. The pulse guns used by the ink-men were more of a danger, lacking any such software, but their owners were currently outnumbered and on the defensive.

The modders had disappeared shortly after the two ‘ghosts,’ as Keri now thought of them, had been sent flying. The Butcher couldn’t detect them, which was slightly worrying, but the longer they went without seeing them the less of a danger they seemed.

It was in the middle of these thoughts that Keri saw exactly where the modders had got to.

It took her mind a while to process what she was seeing. At first she couldn't understand why the others they had left behind would be standing out here, arranged in an awkward line facing outwards.

A glint caught her eye, directly against Anisa’s throat.

Suddenly, where there had been only air and perhaps a vague fuzziness, four modders appeared. Whatever had been cloaking them - Keri couldn't believe she was having to use that word - deactivated. One each was stood directly behind Anisa, Cassandra, and the Programmer, a shimmering vibe-knife to each captive’s throat.

“I’ll take the sphere,” said Kilgore, stepping out from behind the hostages with a smile.

Keri and her companions came to a halt as one. They stood in a line without speaking, staring at the hand he held out.

“Now,” said Kilgore.

“Don't touch them, Kilgore,” growled Andreas. He wore a look of fury.

“You really shouldn't be telling me what to do,” Kilgore replied, smile growing wider.

The modders behind him shifted, drawing the knives further into their respective hostage’s throats, forcing their heads back. A trickle of blood ran down Anisa’s neck.

“It won't work, Kilgore.”

The modder looked at Keri on surprise. She sounded… resigned.

“Won't work? I assure you that once we have that sphere back at my…”

“The plan,” Keri interrupted. “The whole thing. It won't work. You won't get the sphere, and you won’t get to alter the AI. Kai. It won’t allow it.”

Kilgore moved closer to her, silvered eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“I am not here to play games,” he said.

A disturbance behind him, which he ignored. He turned towards the Butcher.

“You are a glorious bit of engineering, aren't you?” he said, holding out his hand. “The sphere.”

The Butcher met his stare.

“It does not matter to me what happens to those people,” the Butcher said.

“No, I suppose it doesn't, does it? But you seem to have thrown yourself in with these two, and it matters to them.”

The Butcher turned its head towards Keri, and she was surprised to see the silver sheen drain from its eyes.

“I will not give him the sphere,” the Butcher said.

Again, she saw an almost overwhelming sadness in his eyes.

“You won't have to,” she replied.

For a while, nothing happened, then the Butcher nodded. Keri hoped that meant he understood.

Finally, Kilgore could not ignore the commotion going on behind him. He span around with an irritated shout.

“What?” he demanded.

The three other modders were no longer holding their prisoners. Instead, they were moving in strange, jerking motions as if in the throes of a fit. With what little control over their limbs they had they were clawing at their own eyes, as if trying to dig them from their sockets.

“You!” shouted Kilgore, spinning back to face the Butcher. “What are you doing?”

He raised his metallic fist, energy crackling along its surface.

“It is not me,” said the Butcher.

“I designed this specifically to deal with you,” said the modder. “No matter how resilient you believe you are, this will knock you down.”

“Nevertheless, it is not me.”

With a primal scream Kilgore drove his fist into the chest of the Butcher, hand moving in a blur that even the aug could not avoid. The Butcher went staggering back, a dark mark like a burn where it had been hit. Electricity sparked and crackled from the damage, and, trickling slowly between metal plates, blood.

The next moment Kilgore froze, fist raised for another strike but hanging in the air, locked in place. He stared at his Strangelovian arm[1], grunting in a futile effort to reassert control over the frozen limb.

His eyes flicked from the Butcher to Keri.

Keri had not moved from her spot. In fact, she had made no motion at all, but now the display of her corps glowed in front of her. Streams of data poured down it.

“What? Impossible!” cried Kilgore.

On the display the outline of four human figures spun, open schematics of the modders in front of her. Each was marked with symbols for the respective systems they wore, or had buried beneath their skin. The power-fist attached to Kilgore’s hand glowed brightest on the schematics, blinking on and off, while across all the figures red flashing icons indicated system locks, functionalities shut down or fixed into closed loops. No new input would be received by any of the affected augmentations.

The cries of the other modders soon became so pitiful Keri thought briefly about restoring their eye augmentations to functionality at least, but then she saw the sharp blades on the ground in front of Anisa and the others. She returned to looking over the final, untouched section of the display.

A fifth figure span in the corner, a figure with far more of the symbols indicating implants than the others. The body and limbs were almost entirely covered with such markings, each with its own shut-down switch.

The Butcher looked from the display to Keri.

“No,” she said, and she could almost believe she saw the Butcher relax. “No. It is not my decision.”

With a flex of a tendon she sent a single instruction through her corps. The smell of ozone suddenly filled the clearing, and each of the modders fell to the floor, unconscious.

Keri headed into the Terminal, not waiting for the others to follow.

“Uh, could someone explain what just happened?” said Andreas, as they all began running to catch up with her.

[1] That movie has made it through the tumult of the previous years. Some things are simply too great to fade away.