Chapter Six - Fine Little Fighter

Robotics and automation go hand in hand with the growth of artificial intelligence. If a company can replace most of its white-collar workers with a few AI and AI services, then why shouldn’t it do the same with its blue-collar force?

So the entire field of robotics, once lagging behind, suddenly gained the attention and budget it needed to supplant humanity.

--The Electronic Workforce, a report on digital and mechanical automation, 2025

***

Rac was a big girl who could take care of herself. She didn’t need me. She’d lived most of her life without me, and in some pretty awful conditions at that.

So it was stupid of me to worry. But I did anyway. I was tense, Trenchmaker in hand, primed to run and gun at a moment’s notice. Which was probably why I jumped when Coco tapped my shoulder.

“She’ll be fine,” the big woman said. “Raccoon might be new to all of this, but she’s a damned fine little fighter.”

“Good merc,” Garter agreed.

I gave him a look and Garter glanced around, as if searching for the reason I gave him exactly that kind of look in the first place. “Yeah, she’s a good kid,” I said. “Emphasis on kid, though. I don’t know what kind of stuff you guys do most of the time, but if this is an easy job for you, then your normal can’t be all that safe. Rac’s... Rac’s her own woman, even if she isn’t one yet. I’m not gonna tell her what to do, or who to hang out with, but I will break fingers and blow out kneecaps if things go wrong.”

Spider: Scary.

Spider: So, what’s your story?

Spider: You don’t smell corpo.

I snorted. “I’m not corpo,” I said.

“That’s what corpo says,” Coco replied, but she did it with a laugh.

“Focus, boy and girls,” Garter muttered just as Rac slid back out from under the dented gate. “What did you see?”

Rac sat on the ground, looking just a little flushed. She adjusted her full-face mask before she spoke. “It’s a loading room. Not much there. Some crates and stuff. But it looks like there’s a few storage rooms. Big metal doors with electronic locks.”

“Nothing too bad,” Garter said. “Did you see how to open the door, or will we have to crawl through?”

“Yeah, there’s a button,” Rac said. “But there’s also a bot.”

Garter swore under his breath, and I saw his stance shift, getting ready to fight. “What kind?”

Rac shrugged. “I took pics,” she said before glancing at Jerusalem.

The team’s hacker paused for a long moment, head tilting to the side as if in thought, then he nodded and I got a ping from him. An image. An image taken with a shitty, lower rez camera. Rac’s eye augs? I’d never checked, but I imagined they weren’t top quality. Probably something after-aftermarket.

Still, the image was understandable. It was a wide shot, several all-metal double doors, maybe made of stainless or something, then in the shadowy corner, a big shape, like a trash can turned upside down.

“That’s the bot, in the corner?” I asked.

“It’s not an android,” Coco said.

“They wouldn’t have an android on security, not here where it’s not meant to be seen,” Garter said. “Jerusalem?”

Spider: Just checking.

Spider: Got it. Model PBY5788.

Spider: 1.25m tall, .7m wide, cylindrical chassis, four articulated wheels. Lithium-ion cell batteries. Low centre of gravity. Can climb standard stairs. Armed with a 12.5mm compact machine gun. 40 round drum magazine. Tear gas dispensers are built into the chassis and provide an organic-disabling smokescreen that doesn’t interfere with the PBY5788’s thermal vision system. The PBY5788 is also armed with your choice of a self-reloading 75,000 volt Taser, or a sub-compact machine gun that fires standard 9mm NATO rounds!

“Did you copy-paste that from the manufacturer’s website?” I asked.

Jerusalem shrugged.

Fair enough. I wouldn't want to have to write all that down either. “So, is the job a bust?” I asked.

Garter considered it, then shook his head. “No. Jerusalem, you detecting anything else? Turrets, more bots?”

Jerusalem shook his head.

“Alright. In that case, here’s how we’ll do it. Rac, I need you right over here with your big gun. Jerusalem, get out of the way, monitor what you can, and let me know if more security goes off. Coco, I need you to the side. Get ready to move.” Garter glanced my way, then pointed to the ground nearby. “Stand there, aim at the door.”

“What’s the plan, Garter?” Coco asked.

“We know where the bot is, right? I’m gonna stick my head out on the other side. Jerusalem, remember that fancy bit of trig you did on the casino job? Same idea. Raccoon will shoot the bot through the wall, and Coco, you’ll pull me back out. Before the shooting starts.”

I stepped back and watched them get to work. It was all... kind of boring. Garter got onto the ground, then stuck his head into the other side through the same hole Rac had slipped through, then he inched forwards until he could presumably see the bot.

Jerusalem did some fancy math, then showed us a nice painting of a bunch of angles. Garter’s head and eyes gave him an idea of the distance of the bot, then he used that to pinpoint where on the wall Rac would need to shoot to hit it.

He made an X with a bit of gravel on the wall, and Rac shouldered her gun aiming at it.

“Pull me back,” Garter asked, and Coco tugged him out. “Thanks. Raccoon, give me a second to plug my ears, then fire away.”

Everyone tense up, then Rac fired. The recoil had her taking a step back. The wall didn’t stand much of a chance as the shot blew a fist-sized hole in it. Then she adjusted her stance and fired three more times into the hole.

Rac ran to the side, and Jerusalem tossed something through the hole while we waited. He nodded.

Spider: One bot: dead.

Rac grinned, and Garter patted her on the shoulder. “Good work. If that’s the only security... you see anything else, Spider? No, alright, get in, and get the door open for us, Raccoon.”

Rac slipped under the door again, and a moment later the entire thing rumbled upwards, only to stop three quarters of the way up as the bent section met the top and it couldn’t fold away. Still, it was more than enough to just step in through.

“No more security?” I asked.

Not that I can detect. The bot was also offline to begin with.

I sighed, but kept my thoughts to myself. Would Myalis have warned me if it wasn’t the case? Should I have asked... I should definitely have asked. Fuck.

“Jerusalem, keep an eye out for more sec,” Garter said. “Let’s check the rooms, one at a time. Keep an eye out for more bots, and ceiling-mounted guns.”

We checked the rooms. Or rather, the team did. They had a method for it, opening the door, then scanning everything within before moving in. It was slow, but it was careful.

It took a good ten minutes to scan everything, and by the end, the piercing enthusiasts were chomping by the bit outside to get in. They’d found some paper masks to cover themselves up, which really ruined the whole ‘lots of spikes’ vibes.

“Is it clear?” Spikey face asked.

“It’s clear,” Garter replied, stowing his handgun away, which seemed to be the signal for the others to do the same. “Come and get your stuff. Our part’s done. Jerusalem, think you can do anything with that bot?” He gestured to the corner where the bot was.

It had four holes that I could fit a hand through on one side, and the other side was an exploded mess of tangled metal and melted plastics. The interior had caught fire at some point, or maybe that was the plasma rounds doing their thing. In any case, the machine was properly fucked.

Jerusalem glanced at the bot, then shook his head.

Spider: Battery might be worth something. But It’s heavy and I don’t have the tools to extract it.

“Yeah, nevermind,” Garter said. “I don’t wanna waste half an hour down here for a few thousand credits that we’ll have to split. Let’s get going everyone.”

The street kids started moving in and out of the warehouse, carrying crates with them in teams. But we just... left. Back to Coco’s van, which she started up right away, and then we did a three-point turn and started heading out.

“That was it?” I asked.

“Like I said, easy job,” Garter said. “You know, you didn’t carry yourself that badly. Not a pro, but not bad. Might be some hope to get you as a merc. If you’re looking for that kind of work, that is.”

“Ah, no thanks,” I said. “My kind of work is usually... different from all of this. Well, not that different, but different.”

“Mysterious,” Coco said.

I snorted. “I’m usually shooting a lot more things and more stuff is trying to eat me.”

“Ah, you’re a cleaner,” Garter said. “You work for a PMC?”

“Something like that,” I said with a dismissive wave.

This whole thing was weird. And... yeah, these guys weren’t so bad. Clean and efficient and probably better at their job than I was at mine. Maybe Rac wasn’t doing so poorly.

I’d still worry though.

***