Chapter Forty Two

Gerald

Gerald knows Cris isn’t going to last much longer, hours if anything. That’s what the doctors had been telling him all night though. The one thing they have confirmed though, is that he’s brain dead. The sadness, rage, and guilt is swinging him back and forth between one extreme to another about every other minute. Sometimes he feels like crawling into a dark place to die alone, or going straight to SSS with his every gun and grenade he can pack into a car. If he could kill a couple guards, he could at least die in peace and be over with it all.

While he’s been waiting, he’s been catching up on what their original plan was, to use the giant war-mechs that are standing out front of the precinct. He’s high enough up the chain of command that he at least knows the things are functional and ready. Over the last hour, he’s been able to locate some maintenance files associated with the machine’s serial numbers, but he doesn’t have the authority to access any of them.

What he was not expecting, is how much declassified historical information about the two mechs there is on the internet. Contrary to almost anything ever developed, the two giant machines were not initially designed for military use. It turns out that the largest robots ever used in the war were originally designed for civilian construction. The hundred foot tall humanoid machines were highly maneuverable and incredibly versatile compared to traditionally specialized equipment. They could handle tasks that simple cranes and other heavy tractors could not, and they could do it quickly.

As the original governments on the continent ran out of resources, their militaries had to scrounge to fight with whatever they had left. No one had ever planned on using robots anywhere near that large in battle to begin with. The prospect had always been seen as being outlandishly impractical and expensive. Past cost analysis of using such things in combat had always painted a poor picture. The thought of a small mobile cannon being able to take such an expensive machine down made any outlook of successful use look very implausible. Like usual, the use of mechs had been overthought.

Against the common trend of robots, the largest ones tended to be the most cost effective to manufacture by size. In the same respect as giant machining equipment, the major bulk of the robots were made from large crude castings. Unlike most heavy machinery though, these giant robots were made to be light weight. All of the frame members that made them up were enormous monolithic magnesium castings, with their metal matrix reinforeced with silicon-carbide nano whiskers. Once the metal was cast, the stuff was nearly indestructible.

There was nothing fancy about their drivetrains either. The joints were all pressed-in bushings, and the solenoid actuators had been in the industrial supply chain for decades. They even used the same controller and sensors as the smaller machines already deployed in the field. Only the body of the machine was bigger, not the brain.

Even the largest of the mechs that were built pale in comparison to commercial airliners. Choosing to power them with turbojet gen-sets was no conceptual feat. Despite having more than enough oomph for their intended industrial uses, the military still switched the original turbine units out with more powerful diborane engines, to amp them up for intense combat. Unlike an airliner though, the giant robots only had the fuel capacity to last them forty minutes under load. Despite that, the things never lasted more than thirty in the field anyway, taking on as much weapons fire as they did.

A little over a half hour of run-time doesn’t sound like much to him, but in the scope of things, the two machines would only need a single minute to reduce the SSS campus into nothing but a smoking hole in the ground. The mechs were created to be berserkers, to attack abruptly, and fiercely. They were made for shock and awe.

What he ifnds to be most amusing in his research, is how the mechs were always brightly painted to attract attention, showing their danger with aposematic coloring. Often times they were left with their original construction-yellow paint jobs.

In as old of a tactic as war itself, the enemy would have to either immediately expend all of their firepower at the wildly dangerous armored machines, or surely face an intense battering from them. At the incredible speed and power the things could operate at, all they would have to do is merely touch something to destroy it.

Despite being repeatedly used as cannon fodder, and often never actually surviving long enough to actually engage the enemy, the mechs always served their purpose. Even heavy damage would only set the machines back a day or so in the field. The simple and robust parts could always be patched up or completely replaced.

The two machines out in front of the precinct are the only two remaining of the largest models ever made. They were kept for historical purposes, as monuments of the robot war. The others were in too bad of shape to bother repairing and were scrapped for the fifty tons of reinforced magnesium alone they were each made of. Welan City considered the last two surviving models, that once protected it from destruction, to be heroes in their own right.

The two machines, models B103 and B108 were completely refurbished and even embellished, before honorably being placed to rest in front of the precinct. The B meant that they were serviced as berserkers, and the one hundred model designation means that they are one hundred feet tall. The two robots are the production numbers three and eight. Only eight of their size were ever made.

When he searches for the machine’s numbers in the precinct’s asset files, he strikes gold. A third party vendor, Work Team Coordinating, has been doing the system checks on them every month for years. The only thing useful that he can find is the last time they were paid for their services, which was sometime last year. His heart suddenly starts beating half as fast, but twice as hard. He now knows why the maintenance checks suddenly stopped. Aaron used to Work for WTC, and he was killed about the same time they stopped. He was the maintenance guy. It’s a worrisome coincidence.

He keeps looking up from the screen in his lap, to make sure no one is watching him. One would expect him to be in tears, and have the face of someone losing their life long brother in the service, but instead, he is fixated, and digging into whatever he can find as fast as he can. When he searches the model numbers on the internet, he’s surprised to find so much about them. There are pictures, video, and everything imaginable about them posted everywhere. It seems they have quite the fan following among robot enthusiasts.

The historic video footage of the very same two machines in combat is beyond what he could have ever imagined. It looks like they had seen combat all up and down the Americas. After watching the first general introduction of the machines, he clicks on the thumbnail of another video with the image of a giant fireball on it. Beneath the fireball, he can make out the silhouetted figure of a mech. It couldn’t be real.

The shaky camera footage is from the war, being taken out on the tarmac of some military base by what appears to be a foreign soldier. He doesn’t recognize their accent, but it sounds Russian. The soldier is about halfway down the runway with his group watching enormous bombers taking off. The jet is loaded heavy, and looks like it’s taking a while to get up to speed. He gets the feeling that it’s really damn important the aircraft get in the air. All the way around, are what looks like counter missile strikes and other aircraft exploding in the air, raining down dark trails of black smoke.

When the man with the camera turns left, he can see the rest of the entire armored battalion there protecting the huge planes as they take off. Abruptly, small arms and cannon fire starts erupting everywhere. There is nearby panicked shouting, and the camera operator starts running for his life. Even in the video, he can hear the heavy thumping sound in the ground. He knows what’s coming before he sees it.

His eyes nearly pop out of his head when the loud screech of approaching jet engines nearly blows his headphones out of his ears. As a fast moving shadow flows across the ground over the person recording, they look across the field to the right of them, to see the enormous machine in a dead run, coming out from behind some hangers.

The heavily armor plated B103 mech, painted in tiger orange, with dark blue lightning stripes across it, stomps across the airstrip, taking on an incredible amount of ordnance as if it were nothing but a breeze. Sparks and exploding shrapnel are scattering everywhere off its broad angled armor plates not slowing it down even a bit. He’s never felt such aggression from a machine before. It is truly frightening.

Judging from the surroundings, he estimates the mech has got to be doing at least sixty miles an hour. Right out in front of the man, the B103 machine tackles the first bomber almost head-on as it’s just starting to pull up off the ground. The giant aircraft hammers into the oversized robot with unfathomable force, taking it off its feet and crashing down on top of it in a full forward flip. The avalanche of flying metal, fire, and roiling thick black smoke spreads the rest of the way down the runway.

His skin starts to tingle, and the hair on his arms raises while the surrounding chaos continues to get worse. The gunfire isn’t just from the battalion that was there, but form an invading one as well. Everyone all around is being killed. The footage is cut off when the camera falls to the ground. The last thing in its sight is an obscure dark object, far down the way, slowly picking itself up off the ground. It’s the B103 and it can still somehow stand on its own feet after all that.

Every following video he watches shows just as impressive of feats. There are clips of bridges being taken down, siege barricades being overtaken, and even ships being capsized. The massive faceted armor plates on the machines take on artillery shells, small missiles, and everything in between. He’s absolutely sure there is nothing remotely powerful enough left in Welan City to stop these things. He already knows they work, they’ve been maintained, now he just needs to figure out how to control them.

He’s so amazed with what he’s seen of the mechs online that he has to get up and go outside to look at them. When he leaves Cris’s room for what he knows will be the last time, he thinks of him, and wishes he could be with him on the next leg of their journey. His dispirited face is back on.

After taking the elevator down to the cafeteria, he goes out onto the outside balcony to look towards the precinct. Even from a few blocks away, the imposing primary yellow machines look incredible. He never liked the color before, but now, under the dimming orange sunset, contrasted against the mill-scale finish of the towering precinct, they look as if they were gilded. The two machines are what make Welan city an empire, above all other lands. He can feel it in every fiber of his being that they will be his. The ultimate revenge will be his.

Both of the machines are of the same model, but the B108 machine is only moderately armored in comparison. While the other machine was more of brutish close-quarter combatant, the other was often outfitted with its own versions of enormous rifles, gear, and sometimes a broad shield. Its armor is glossy and curved, like that of modern personnel armor, while the other’s plates are flat, broad, and angular, like a tank’s.

While their armor protects them everywhere in the line of sight, there could easily be a two foot gap between most all of the plates and the robot’s frame. They’re all mounted on standoffs in order to gap them out and away from its body to mitigate internal pressure from explosions. In some critical places, there are even second sets of plates underneath the main ones, and at different angles. He read that if a powerful enough of a round were taken straight on, and managed to penetrate the first layer, it would still often be deflected by the next one underneath.

To him, the most threatening feature of the machines would have to be their hands. They are much like a human’s, but with only four fingers. The tips of them look like long pyramidal pointed tractor buckets with the edges ground sharp to form terrifying serrated blades. They could tear through anything, concrete, metal, all of it.

As he’s looking out at the robots down the street, he spots Rick and Kirk’s cruiser pulling around the front of the hospital. As they head towards the doors, Rick points for Kirk to go around the other side. Their rifles aren’t shouldered, but they are in their hands. They’re there for him, clear as day. When his phone starts to ring, he quickly silences it. It’s not the other investigators though, it’s the nurse’s station. His heart sinks, knowing that Cris’s time has finally come.

Knowing he doesn’t have much time left before the others wise up, he immediately hefts himself over the edge of the outside railing and drops down to the street. This is going to be the end, and his last chance to make things right. Quickly, but as coolly as he can, he makes his move for the cruiser. Still wearing his uniform, no one even notices him stealing it.

When he gets to the precinct, he ditches the car in the back prepping zone and marches inside with the same determined march as he always has. The elevators are busy with other officers, and he can’t wait. He’s surely down to seconds before Rick finds his cruiser missing and alerts everyone. As fast as he ran down the alley in the dark of Cris’s last night, he barrels up the stairs to the sixth floor investigator offices. He is breathing heavy and sweating as he stomps down the hallway to his office. The few people he passes across plaster themselves against the wall to give him space. Whatever he’s dealing with, they know better to get out of the way.

It only dawns on the others what’s going on when he reemerges from his office with his armor on, all of its pouches full of spare magazines, and his rifle shouldered. Some flee to the elevator, some ball up into corners on the floor the second they see him, and others leap over things to hide behind. After he yanks the steel stairwell door open, slamming it against the wall, do people dare move again. He is already up the first flight, raging forward, when the door latches behind him. There are muffled screams and shouts coming from all the offices now.

Quietly, he clicks open the stairwell door to the upper management hallway, nosing the barrel of his rifle out ahead of himself. When he closes it behind himself, he loops the pin of his grenade over the handle and tapes the pineapple to the door. By protocol, he knows they won’t use the elevator either.

Dean Roberts, the second in command of the precinct, is his first target. Either he, or Frank, the commander, will have access to the robot’s control pendants. From what he understands, it’s the only way the things can be commanded. It would only make sense that the pendants would be on site with the machines.

Dean presents a bit of a problem though. He and Cris have butted heads in the past, over the SSS problem. His last words to Dean were “you’re a coward”. He expects Dean to be responsible for the mechs. Being ex-military, he’s the one General Quincy would always call to get SSS out of trouble. If he can’t get Dean to unlock the pendants, it will all be for nothing.

With as much commotion is going on downstairs, the upper floor is surprisingly quiet. Not a single person is on the black Portoro marble hallway floor. As beautiful as the upper floor offices are, with their fancy wooden paneling and almond white textured wallpaper, they really piss him off. It is the epitome upper management decadence. Only in places like this do people like him and Cris get martyred for the public relations of rats. The decision to screw him was made here.

As he approaches the heavy oak door of Dean’s office, he listens to the voices behind it. It sounds like Frank is in there too. He smiles with the thought of blood on their faces while they beg. He warned them before, and now it’s time for them to pay for their wrongs. With a smile, he straightens up his back and gently nocks on the door before casually stepping in. Frank is standing at the tall countertop of the cute secretary’s desk, sipping at his coffee. Dean is to the left of him, leaning in the doorframe to his office.

He’s only been up to the office a couple times before this. He doesn’t remember the mechs being so close. Their big yellow backs are right out front of the uninterrupted wall of glass spanning across the street side of the office. The yellow of their reflection on the floor reaches out towards them, giving the room a golden glow. It reminds him of the Lions Group colors. He hopes Sy sees the irony in it. As he turn to them, the phone in the back office starts ringing, and the receptionist is just now picking up her line too.

Frank’s eyebrows raise as he takes a small sip of tea from his mug. “Oh, hey Gerald. What brings you up here?” He chuckles, but in a smug condescending way. “You look like you’ve been out fighting crime! I… thought you were at the hospital.” He lowers the cup in his hands and looks over at the secretary.

With how crazy he must look at the moment, he decides to play into it. “I was, but my sources just got back to me about those missing robots from Werker.”

Dean stops leaning against the door frame and stands firm, looking at him concernedly. “You’re still going on about those killer robots Gerald? Come on man. Your partner is dying in the hospital. What’s going on here?” Frank looks at him worriedly too.

“You guys don’t understand. Something bad is coming. I know Cris is isn’t going to make it. No one has to fucking tell me that! I wouldn’t be here right now, and Cris would, if you hadn’t screwed us out of doing our jobs in the first place. It’s too late for that now. They’re making their move!”

The secretary turns pale when she looks up at him. Her eyes drop to his rifle for a second. When she tries to hand the phone to Frank, Frank pushes it away. He wants to know what’s going on. “What’s this about Gerald? We’d better not be talking about you’re your damn SSS stuff. We told you to stay away from them.”

“That’s exactly what this is about. You two idiots let them get away with everything! You let them have those killer robots, and now they’re coming for us. They have access to the mechs out front!” He stiffly points at them through the window. “And they’re going to use them.”

Dean tries to brush him off as being nuts. “Bullshit. Those things are unhackable. They’re old-tech.”

“You don’t get it, you idiots. Does the name Aaron, from WTC sound familiar?”

Dean squints back at him. “Sure, he’s the guy that used to do the maintenance checks on em with me. He’s the only guy around that specializes in old war tech controllers. We haven’t seen him in months though. His company reported him as… missing.”

Frank looks at him with concern. “Why would you know any of this anyway?”

He mocks dean, making Frank uncomfortable. “No shit, asshole. Guess who started working for SSS a few months ago? You recognize his face on the TV? He’s one of the robots!”

The room is quiet for a moment while the other two come to the realization. They did recognize Aaron, or what looked would look like a younger version of him. The secretary pushes the phone at Frank again, this time much more urgently. He snatches it from her, annoyed. He says “hold on second” into it without even putting it up to his ear, and sets it down on the top of the counter. The woman’s mouth drops open.

Gerald knows the woman is about to rat him out here real quick. The call was about him. He’s out of time, and yells at Dean. “Go check the logs Dean! See if there’s been any new communications to the machines. I dare you.”

Dean scoffs. “Those things can’t be cracked. Only the pendants can connect to them.” He pokes himself in the chest. “I have the pendants. This is absurd.”

“You idiots don’t even know! Ha, SSS can artificially remake the human brain!” He aggressively taps his finger against his own temple. “You think Aaron couldn’t make completely new copies of your old ass pendants? You should see what he did to his runner! It’s a damn killing machine!”

Frank turns to dean. Gerald has gotten his attention now. “Go get em. It’ll take you two minutes. Get on with it now.”

Suddenly the alarm lights in the building start to flash, and the alarm sounds. The building is now going into lockdown. Frank hangs up the phone and hands it back to the secretary.

All he as to do is leer at the woman for a second and push his rifle a little closer in her direction to get her to keep her mouth shut. He uses the alarm to his own advantage. “Shit, We’re too late!”

Dean rushes into his office, opens what sounds like the heavy door to a small safe, and then scrambles back to the front desk with both pendants. He dumps both of them out on the countertop and immediately logs into both of them. All three of them watch him as he checks the log history on the screens. He looks up at him and Frank. “There’s nothing here. The machines aren’t even booted up!”

Frank looks back to the span of window behind himself. “What’s going on then? What’s the alarm for?” When he turns back around, he catches a glimpse of the secretary’s fearful eyes bulging back at him with insinuation. Her pupils subtly flit over to Gerald.

Before Frank can even finish “oh shi…” Gerald rifle butts him in the side of his head, sending him to the floor. Dean leaps for cover in the nick of time, to miss getting bludgeoned too, and takes the secretary to the floor under the desk with him.

Gerald immediately snatches the pendants off of the desk and clips them to the front of his plate carrier. Down at the end of the hall, he can hear an entry team breaching the steel stairwell door. The grenade goes off, shaking the windows in the room. There’s no screaming though. He knew his fellow officers would have known better and not gotten blown up.

He points his rifle at Dean and blasts a few rounds right in his face, punching holes into the wall between him and the woman, sparing them. He shouts to the team in the hallway as he tears the desk station off the floor and tips it over against the oak door.

“Stay back or I’ll fukin kill em!”