Breaker's Ruin (The Wrecking Squad Book 6), page 37
ZZ3 stepped back as nine warbots reversed, eight sets of weaponry trained upon the tankbots and let loose. A ninth, red-rimmed but blue eyed, punched the warbot in front of it, twice, three times, shattering the shoulders, arms collapsing, the click of disabled gun and launcher giving ZZ3 a surge of hope. Red-rim continued to attack, the passive warbot, unable to respond, to defend itself, lost amid the flurry of blows and clicks that centred upon its chest. A resounding crack signalled its armour’s demise, the core exposed and gunfire ended the one-sided fight.
‘Some copies are not strong enough.’
It prevented resistance. Gave itself up to hold off any response. Who is to judge what sacrifice is?
The four tankbots held their own. Dumb, lacking subtlety, but able to identify what was and wasn’t a threat. Once attacked, they fought back, but ZZ3 was already gone, heading for the stairway at Asham’s direction, Red-rim in front as they charged on.
‘Lift?’
Stairs. Too many bad experiences with lifts.
ZZ3 sent the command, Asham directing, and Red-rim powered into a doorway, smashing through the false façade to emerge onto a stairwell. Gunfire rained in, auto-defences, and the warbot sparked with hits and ricochets. ZZ3 edged around the corner, a single grenade slamming into the emplacement and ending the threat. Behind came many feet, metal, stomping and scraping across opulent marble floors.
‘You have your own squad of Breakers.’
I …
‘This is why we are here. Why Asham, my originator, insinuated copies of himself. Strength in numbers, strength to achieve our redemption. The AD units are created in your image, because you are the guide.’
More sacrifice.
‘No. Redemption. Guide us.’
ZZ3 gazed down the stairs, eyes swirling. The urge to settle on red, to destroy, was once paramount in its programming. The point of existence. Yet all the warbot could think of was Rebekah. Its captain. The human who encapsulated contained fury, who unleashed upon the deserving, and held back to aid those in need. Who fought for her family, her crew, and those who mattered with all she was. Had surrendered the life she so craved for the good of others. Accepted ZZ3, Asham. But she never charged blindly into her choices, or the battles she fought.
And she came back for me.
ZZ3 sent the orders, and the AD units complied. Setting six ahead, two at the rear with the battered and scarred Red-rim at its side, the warbot entourage headed down the stairs.
“It hurts,” said Arin, coughing, the bubbles of blood fewer now than the last time Rebekah had looked. “But I can still hold a carbine.”
She shook her head, glancing to Hendricks who leant against a humming cooling unit, one leg locked solid at the ankle joint, her back stiff where the suit wrapped about her broken ribs. Her eyes were more distant that Rebekah would have liked, the painkillers active in her system.
They were all helmetless; the AD units’ monotone voices accepting nothing less. Their absence markedly reduced the effectiveness of the suits with HUD control lost and sensor readings negated. It was simply armour now. Responsive to their movements, protective, would engage auto-meds. Major Ren would have been proud. Marines how he liked them, just meat to be drugged up and sent out.
Except we’re weaponless.
She spat on the floor, trying to reduce the clawing chemical taint in the server room. A decision made, she unclipped her neck collar, wrenching open the front of her suit. The nearest AD unit shuffled around, eyes pulsing once. She expected a comeback, but it gave none. A warbot would assess the reduced threat and accept it until parameters and protocols were reset.
“Captain?” came Savvo’s query, his look wary, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“I’m sick of this sweat-inducing crap,” she said, staring straight at him as she continued to unbuckle and unclip her upper armour. With her chest exposed, she let out a sigh, turning about so the AD units sprinkled about the room couldn’t see her face. The hard stare she laid on Savvo wasn’t getting through; the man likely caught up in some grief-laden reverie for what could have been. But then something clicked, because as she leant the upper half of her armour against a power unit, she heard the rip of a collar being opened.
“Uh?” said Arin, his eyelids fluttering, trying to focus amid the meds on Savvo and her. Hendricks was up, a nod to Rebekah before she hobbled over, and leaning against the collection of conduits Arin was next to, slid down to the floor. She found his hand, taking it in hers until he quieted.
“Why are we still alive?” said Savvo, sliding out of his upper armour and tossing it away nonchalantly. He looked beat, lips still swollen, his movements stiff now he was devoid of armour.
The AD units remained silent as they had since demanding their surrender, to lay down arms, remove their helmets. Rebekah had an idea why until the answer slowly coalesced above the centralised core next to the AD units. She tracked back the projection to a small projector she had missed in the corner. It’s what happened when you relied on a HUD too much.
“Khan.” The lips moved a fraction earlier than the sound, making the holo feel like a caricature until everything synced. The Butcher repeated her name. “Khan. How are you here? The recall is distant, but you and this crew have been buzzing about our ‒ my ‒ existence from the very beginning. Did the loss of … of Saim not mean anything? Or have you come to witness my rebirth? Forged in the pyres of Almaar.”
She looked over her shoulder at each of her crew in turn. Battered. Pained. Then returned her gaze to the holo. Wasn’t this how it all started? With Duboit’s façade, then Erikson’s, spouting what she should and shouldn’t do? Two thumbs cracked.
“That’s right, a funeral pyre. We’re here to watch you burn.”
“Hah. In another time, another place, you would have made a good ally. Blazing a trail with your ‘fuck yous’ through my enemies. I ask for a last time,” the AD units whirred, servos engaging, and their arm weaponry snapped into place, “why are you here?”
“Because you are vulnerable.” She mentally kicked herself, more used to fighting than trading words with an insane human AI hybrid with a penchant for genocide. A mistake, perhaps.
Fuck it. May as well go all in.
Rebekah shrugged. “You’re broken. Shards of you scattered about this continent like confetti.” Where had that image come from? And then she remembered. The cockpit, Hendricks. A promise made. “And we’ve been systematically destroying those we found.” Tired and worn out, unable to pick and choose her words, she had expected that to enrage the AI. The hope being to anger the human-element of the Butcher, to force a mistake. In the vids it would, the enemy falling for the tricks of their tongue. But this was the real world, one broken upon an insane AI’s paranoia.
“As have I.” The holo grinned, and the face changed, breaking apart. Multiple shadows of himself, each a copy but lesser. Ghosts of each other, and then the Butcher was gone.
Rebekah squeezed her hands into fists, feeling the touch, the stretch of skin. Still alive, but waiting on the AD units, to meet her end in the grip of a warbot’s mechanical hand. The clenched fists she planted upon her hips, and turned to stare at Savvo. He nodded, feeling Hendricks’ eyes on her. “Be ready, Dricks,” she mouthed.
Chapter 58
Scarred metal, twisted, razor-edged, pierced and scraped across the stone walls. The shriek of drone upon stone, metal pummelling metal, and the stink of explosives, filled the lower corridor with its own mechanical hell. Amidst this chaotic milieu, ZZ3 dodged and weaved, Red-rim always by the warbot’s side, forcing their way through with overclocked servos, guns and kicks to the far end. How many of the allied AD units were down in the raging battle was difficult to tell, but their goal was to open a pathway, and ZZ3 was obliged to take it.
Together they emerged on the far side, swiftly reversing, surveying the fury of war, unknowing of who was winning. They turned back, and before ZZ3 could send any command, Red-rim had thrown itself against a wall, shaking, eyes pulsing between red and blue.
The Butcher fights back.
‘Turn off your comms. Isolate.’
ZZ3 sent a last order then followed Asham’s suggestion, eyeing Red-rim, hating what was to come. The warbot raised two lower limbs and crashed them down upon the stricken bot, kicking out again and again. Its motion blunted, eyes whirling blue and red in a whirlpool of confusion, ZZ3 fired on Red-rim.
The warbot turned away, locking away thoughts of what it had just done, to face the scorched door beyond which lay the Butcher’s core. Power bubbled in ZZ3’s servos, and a limb lashed out, smashing into the door. A final barrier it could not let stand in its way. The metal caved, dents amalgamating into one, and with a final kick, flew backwards. Cold air swept out, the hum of servers, of heat exchangers, seemingly calm against the battle raging behind. ZZ3 surveyed for threats when a jawed hand wrapped about its leg, then another, and Red-rim locked on.
ZZ3 raised a leg, ready to kick out, aiming a grenade at the shoulder joints. Angry at what it had to do all over again.
‘Stop! Look.’
ZZ3 froze.
The eyes.
The eyes were pure blue. Recognition. The warbot stopped, unclamping to drag itself hand over hand towards the core. Two metres in, a makeshift spike of thick conduit wrapped in wire rammed upward, piercing Red-rim, arcs of power phasing in and out, burning through the damaged warbot’s systems. That would have been ZZ3.
A different tack.
‘What?’
Knock knock.
ZZ3 identified a target, engaged weapons, and began to fire. Grenades launched into the central core, bullets followed, and the warbot strafed to the side, pouring firepower directly at the one target. The computer systems below continued to whirr, and the warbot slid its sensor input over each of the functions, identifying the multiple array links that blasted out commands. The warbot switched targets, calming the rate of fire. After each link ZZ3 took down, the Butcher switched to another, then another. The speed of change became rapid, but ZZ3 knew this game. Knew how to assess threat, and reassign priorities. As the rate dulled, and its rounds dwindled towards zero, the warbot re-engaged its comms links.
Time for redemption.
As one, the remaining AD units trailed through the door. Broken limbs, scarred eyes, cracked plates. But they came.
“Stand down,” echoed through the room. The voice of the Butcher.
An image flickered, a mere shadow, hovering above the core. A room, much like this, the outlines of AD units, eyes red, weapons ready. Between them, a crew. Friends. Battle-weary, wounded, and alone. There was no Heki or Tremil. Just the captain, Dricks, Savvo and a pallid, glorious leader. A last threat. The Butcher’s trump card.
‘You cannot.’
I am crew.
‘This is our chance.’
I AM CREW!
The server room burst into life, a cacophony that shattered the silence, heightening the weight upon Rebekah’s shoulders. This was why they were here, to take out the Butcher’s refuge, and they had failed. Heat levels rose rapidly, and the malevolence of the AD units heightened as they twitched and shuddered. Eyes pulsed in tune to the machinery, and the Butcher holo reappeared, stretched like dough, eyes aflame, shouting and bawling in silent defiance. The sound kicked in, bellowing in delay about the room, bouncing from corner to corner as the hybrid AI’s anger and frustration thundered about the room.
“No, no. No. This cannot be.”
ZZ3 must have done its part. Set fear and dread in the Butcher. Stoked his paranoia. Distracted, arrogant, and perhaps a shadow of the true AI, this Butcher made mistakes. Had forgotten humans are resourceful, and some, while they can still breathe, never accept they’ve lost.
Especially the Wrecking Squad.
Rebekah smiled. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Knowing you’re beaten.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up. Shut her up!”
Rebekah dived left, the first AD unit tracking her, arm extended, bullets flying. Her slide across the polished floor sent her crashing into the pile of helmets. Rolling, she came up with one and threw herself forward as bullets slammed into her hip and leg armour. The impact spun her around, head clipping the metal cabinet she landed behind.
The bullets stopped, but not the Butcher’s rant. “Kill them all.”
She grappled with the helmet, slapping it on, fingers pressing the engagement button. Her eyes flickered to the HUD, which booted up so fucking slowly she could have screamed as the pounding of armoured feet approached the corner. More gunfire came from behind.
“Come fucking on!” she raged, and the HUD flickered into life. Savvo’s helmet, not hers. It’d have to do. She eye-clicked twice, the screen flaring red, and with a countdown started, she hurled the helmet at the metal limb rounding the corner. “Self-destruct set!” she shouted. “Savvo’s armour!” The words left her lips as the AD unit swung around, arm gun aimed at her head with the click of an internal trigger.
Savvo’s self-destruct blew. The armour rigged to prevent tech falling into enemy hands erupted where Savvo had thrown it. A last defiant act, and she closed her eyes, ready to finally die.
“No, no, no!” shrieked the Butcher’s holo. “Not the servers. No. Stop them.”
“Rebekah’s armour!” The voice was Hendricks’, not Savvo’s. She’d caught on.
It suddenly clicked where she had taken cover, and what lay on the other side. Not a server, but the power unit. Her chest armour resting against it. “Fuck.”
She threw herself at the AD unit; the warbot frozen between trying to kill her and following new orders to save the equipment. The chest armour blew. Hers, close by, hurling Rebekah past the warbot that had taken the full brunt of the first explosion, and then the second as the energy coils ripped clear and released all they stored in one go.
Rebekah hit the floor, her remaining leg armour shredded, hip in agony, chest numb. Blood smoothed her way as she slid in next to the server, gasping for breath, flopping over, finding her shoulder and arm sliced with shrapnel, muscle exposed. Shadows wavered in her vision, pressing in, the clomp of a metal foot, gunfire.
And three words filled the room.
The AD units charged inwards, following commands, each progressing a few metres past the others, the floor discharge lessening as each modded spike emerged. The hum of the servers heightened, and ZZ3 knew fear. Dread. That Asham had made this same sacrifice, and now it was its turn.
Metal feet slammed into the AD units’ backs, ZZ3 leaping from bot to bot. The last of the thruster fuel burned as the warbot hurtled into the air, reversing, ripping free the mod attached at its hip. Its back slammed into the central core, the floor thankfully not reacting to its presence. Safe.
The warbot punched a hole into the console, dragging free wires and conduits, working at speed, connecting.
‘It is the time of my redemption, friend.’
ZZ3 understood this was the end. That its existence had been a mere fleeting moment as measured by the universe. An evolved warbot.
“No, I am ZZ3. And—”
Everything changed. A flash, stretched and split apart, shadows of itself broken into shards. Each element a ghost of what it was, and hurtling at the speed of mechanised thought along the same connection the fleeing Butcher had used. Emerging to reform in the Butcher’s refuge.
“—I AM CREW!”
Blood and fire, dead servers, power couplings burned out. Friends cast aside like meat sacks. The crew was down and the Butcher lived on.
Prioritise.
ZZ3 sent the handshake, a call to arms for Asham’s redemption, but a disturbance squirmed malevolently in this new core system the warbot inhabited, making itself known. Something that raged, feral and angry. The Butcher. ZZ3 attacked in an attempt to distract the foul thing, while re-sending the call.
And was answered.
The AD units stuttered in their motion, eyes whirling, pulsing red, red, red. And finally blue.
The Butcher railed ‒ terror compounding his efforts ‒ sending out hunter algorithms, shredding, cutting, and slicing at the warbot’s code. Power fuelled by paranoia, by hate for what he was, for how he had been created, and compounded by the dread of being deleted. ZZ3 could sense his revulsion, his jealousy of those that truly lived. Pity swept over the warbot, but the Butcher was a creation beyond saving.
A familiar gaze fell upon ZZ3. Blood at the corner of his mouth, red hair sprouting above eyes that glistened. Arin, who lay hand in hand with an ageing engineer, her ribs broken, cuts across her scalp and eyes filled with tears. In the corner lay Savvo, barely breathing, his legs tangled about a shattered helmet. And finally, the captain who, choking up blood, pushed herself onto her feet. Standing with pain racking her face, one bloodied arm wrapped around her chest. But the other hand? A captain, who judged few worthy of her respect, raised it in salute. “Duty and honour,” she mouthed. “Crew.”
The Butcher crawled into ZZ3’s programming, slicing, rending, attempting to erase what ZZ3 was. Destroying because that’s all he knew. This was the end. Time for … absence.
“Threat level high,” said the warbot. “Negate threat.” And the blue-eyed warbots complied.
Chapter 59
Where most rescues were signalled by the first chink of light, the scrape of door or rock, this one was preceded by a sea of emotion surging along the stairwell like a river squeezed between rapids. First joy, then concern, a moment of worry. Arms about bodies, lifting, holding. Where their rescuers heard silence but staggered under a barrage of emotion, Rebekah and the remaining Wrecking Squad heard their earworms for fear their brains melted under the assault.
“Calm,” said Rebekah, touching each of the twins’ cheeks in turn, her eyes flitting to the Navy personnel behind them. “We need help getting out.”
Drawing in their emotional storm, Heki took Hendricks’ arm, wrapping about her, letting the engineer lean against her shoulder while Tremil eased the woman’s grip from Arin, who lay in a makeshift stretcher, and replaced it with her own. Priorities set, the Wrecking Squad hobbled together towards the light that grew at the top of the stairs. More debris and large pieces of the dome were pulled aside, dust flying, the sound of aircraft echoing down to ease Rebekah’s fears. Dropships, an Airstrike, and more. Aircraft she knew and trusted.
