Builder of Vengeance
December 5th 2006 18:21
Builder of Vengeance
Monday, November 9th, 2054 13:14
Office of former Vice Present Arnold Ingstrom,
Intech Robotics Incorporated
Detective Orbach winced as he saw the crime scene. He'd seen quite a few crime scenes in his long career, but this one was impressive, nothing else if for the sheer bloodiness of it.
The deceased was the Vice President of Special Projects. Orbach suspected a variety of different potential causes, but did in fact swear softly under his breath, 'damned mutants.' His younger Hispanic partner who had previously excused himself to the lavatory now flanked him. Lunch, for some reason, wasn't agreeing with him.
As Orbach made his way around the circumference of the room, two techs concluded taking detailed holographic images of it. “Do we have surveillance?” He asked.
“Yes sir.” One replied and held out a small data pad whose end flashed with a red LED. Orbach took out an antiquated PDA and the end of it lit up as all of the data transmitted to it. Orbach tapped at it and watched the man sitting at his desk in last moments of life. It showed nothing more incriminating.
“So where does this begin?” He asked.
“That's the problem.” The tech pointed to a corner in the room. “Standard office layout, four cameras. To this very second, the image you see is what's being displayed.”
“Pull 'm for maintenance.” Orbach said. His junior partner smelled of bile. While Orbach wouldn't let him forget this, in front of the techs was not the time.
“You okay, Ben?” He asked.
“Yeah, sure.” Ben pulled out a stylus used for pda's and tapped at the other end. A small red laser light shone on a white bone socket. “See that? His shoulders, ripped open. It's like an animal.”
Orbach nodded.
“He's been dismembered, and he and his attacker were quiet enough to get away with the party without inviting anyone else.” Ben offered.
“A serious piece of work. Windows?” Ben pointed to the upper floor.
“Sealed, and records indicate no attempt to open.” A tech piped up.
“And we know how good the records are in this place, don't we?” Orbach sneered.
“Detectives,” the other tech said, “the droids are here.”
Ben looked at Orbach, who hated droids in general.
“Yeah, yeah,” and stepped out of the room.
The droid floated in the center of the room, a spherical type of robot, studded with lenses, detectors, and examination tools. It was the prelude to the forensic investigation. Outside, on a monitor, a man had put a large flat screen monitor on a wall and was speaking into a small black rod.
“Begin recording, at 13.22, deceased is Arnold Ingstrom. Preliminary scans indicate high trauma to the shoulders and hip joints. Based upon blood coagulation and evaporation readings, the initial bloodletting began at approximately 11.47 am of same day. Pause.”
He saw Orbach and waved him over.
“Short story.” Orbach said.
“Had his arms and legs ripped off.” The ME who wore a badge that read, “Klugman” on it.
Orbach looked at him dryly. “Tell me something new.”
“Crime scene's been gone over like a pro. No trace fibers, shoe impressions, nothing like that. Bot traced some sort of propellant discharge, so he probably floated in.”
“He?” Ben inquired.
“Crime of rage. Dismemberment, look at this, even all the Meta carpals were torn out. While I can't tell you specifically the time frame involved, I can tell you that he probably started with a finger or two, for pure shock value. There's some revenge here. Someone incredibly strong, and quiet, very sneaky. I'm favoring some sort of hidden culprit. Disabled the cameras and wham boom, disabled him.”
“How did the cameras go?” Orbach asked.
“Computer virus. At a certain point, they just latched onto a long loop of images and kept feeding those in a loop to the central memory core. Not real hard if you know what you're doing.”
“Of course we are swimming around in geek central.” Ben stated.
Orbach nodded as the ME continued.
“Microbial evidence won't be back for forty-eight hours, but I'm betting your boy wore some kind of environmental suit to block falling skin cells and hairs. He's had a lengthy study of anatomy, and knew on which joints to pull and hold. Also incredibly strong.”
“A mute?” Orbach asked.
“I won't rule it out. If it was a mutant, he'd probably be unregistered, for hire. Might be an cyborg.
“Lovely. A mute, a Borg. Why don't we get any normal human crimes anymore?”
Klugman shrugged, and as they dialogued more, the outside office became filled with reporters transmitting the news to their various news stations, and they, in turn, to their listeners.
* * *
One of these listeners was the fat man who had robbed Intech just over a week ago. He turned toward a blood stained anthropomorphic android that stood to one side.
“Excellent work, BD2.”
The droid, who had a large stenciled, '2' into it's forehead replied, “Thank you master.”
He followed up with an inquiry, “how is production coming along on the other BD units?”
“One through fifteen have been assembled, and one through fourteen have been installed with the reconfigured brains. Number fourteen appears to have a slight malfunction as when he is ordered to do things he counters with the inquiry, 'why'. We have been unable to detect the error as yet.”
He shrugged. Of twenty-eight stolen brains, one that didn't work was a fairly good deal. He waved a hand, “slate fourteen for storage, I'll look at him later. He smirked to himself and thought that the vice president was just a good start.
Dr. Anavis let loose a long, loud laugh from the comfort of his upscale apartment in midtown and wondered who he would kill next.
* * *
Crone rubbed at her eyes tiredly as Über too, fought to stay awake. They were circling lazily over the gigopolis in Sky striker six after having just dealt with a fire and an evacuation and Crone was weary. She'd not slept well the last few nights and was a touch cranky. Didn't help that Charlie couldn't decide on a radio station, and kept flipping through them. Crone was about to growl at him, again, when the HUD lit up in the Sky striker.
“Über here.” Charlie tapped at the panel.
“Hacking in progress near Pioneer Place. Appears to be at a public terminal. Perp is clearly not completely human. Some obvious cybernetic implants. Request Gteams for intervention.” Über looked at her. She nodded.
“Über reporting, we're on our way.”
“Okay, Charlie, let's make this interesting. What's your plan?” Crone asked.
“My plan?” He gulped.
“Yes. One cyborg, what are the most common implants.”
He thought for a moment.
“Most are memory enhancers. Some are optical implants, like for security work. On occasion, we'll see an arm or leg, but most of those aren't enhanced, because the rest of the body structure can't take that much pressure on it. You might be able to curl an extra fifty or a hundred pounds with an artificial limb, but your back and abs can't back it up. If he's a hacker, I'd wager it's some sort of IR implant. Directly to the brain or a mental memory card.”
“Where would it be, this implant.” She queried further, setting the jet into hover mode above the brick lined public area. Coffee houses, public internet terminals, and food kiosks lined it.
“Anywhere. Grain of sand size, could be planted along any bone line for easy finding by a surgeon or programmer, but if they want to hide it, most go for the hairline. Not the easiest place for implantation, but also easiest to conceal. Most IR receptors can be disguised as piercings, largely eyebrow. It's also a common trend to disguise them as moles.” He said briskly.
“We're fifteen feet up. Take him.” She said simply.
Über grinned.
“Yes ma'am.”
Über leapt out of the Skystriker bodily, slamming into the bricks that made up pioneer place, snapping a few as his weight came down with a crunch. He saw only one trench-coated figure at a public terminal.
It looked, to Über, like he was wearing a mask of some sort, a plastic faceplate.
Über growled over his helmet microphone as Crone watched through the monitor on the Skystriker.
“Citizen, hacking is illegal. Stand away from the terminal. You are under arrest.”
The trench coated figure spun on a foot, and looked at him. On his forehead was a large red number three. It raised an arm at Über and where there was supposed to be a hand was in fact a large gun looking like barrel.
The energy blast hit Über squarely in the chest, and not for the ceramic plate in his titanium mesh suit undoubtedly would have killed him. Über was lifted off of his feet and slammed hard into a Coffee People Kiosk a good ten meters away.
Crone frowned and leapt out of the jet, firing magic blasts at the figure.
It seemed almost to glare at her and shot again, hitting her dead on. Her face grimaced with pain, but she continued to press on.
Über roared and leapt at the droid, slamming his armored fists into it, denting into it's cervical chassis. It seemed to pay no attention to this, and blasted away at him, as Crone fired a salvo of bricks at it, forming a fist from them.
This seem to get number three's attention, and he fired at point blank range on Crone, causing her to stagger. His mechanisms were clearly being affected, and Über pounded on the bot, more and more, ripping an arm off and using it to beat upon the droid.
Crone intoned loudly, “Cnms xnt itrs gzsd svn ozqs rsnqhdr” and swung her oaken cudgel. It glowed wildly and struck the droid vertically upon it's head, cracking it soundly, like a nut with a large hammer.
Über spun and kicked hard with a tornado kick, his powerful thighs moved slowly with a higher risk move, but he knew his opponent was dazed, and the droid turned toward the kick inadvertently.
It's head snapped, loudly, and popped off.
The head rolled along the brickwork and came to a stop. The body convulsed and fell backward rigidly, with a loud clang.
Über looked crossly at Crone and spoke over the Gteams channel, “what's a droid doing hacking?”
Crone's communications link was a small black dot in her ear. She could speak without being heard aloud by moving her palette as if she were speaking aloud, but the sensitive microphone would convert this into recognizable speech.
“I don't know. Let's load it up and let Dr. Reis worry about it.”
A throng of people had surrounded the square to watch the battle and cheer them on. Many waved, and one held a hand painted cardboard sign saying, “I love you Über” with a pair of large red lips at the bottom.
Über scanned the crowd and then noticed, in the November cold, there were several people in similar trench coats. He walked up to the head and picked it up, looking into it. Inside was some sort of obvious brain, smashed beyond recognition between Crone's staff and his kick. He poked at it with a gloved hand.
Crone spoke to him using the monaural comm. system. “Anything interesting?”
“No. I don't know much about droid brains. Now if this were a car's brain, I might be able to tell you something.” He used the head's-up-display in his helmet to get an outside line to Gteams. All static, and a no signal response. He turned toward her and the static got louder as even their local signals weren't heard.
He looked to Crone who was tapping at her earpiece. She caught him looking at her and gave her head a brief, short, shake.
He walked close to her as police units started to come into the scene and crime services panel vans arrived with crowd control. He touched a control at the base of his throat and released his visor a crack, so that she might be able to hear him easier.
“We're being jammed.” She said. She looked down at her COM link that also had a no signal response. “I can't raise the Skystriker, either. I suspect it's gone to autopilot.”
“Doesn't it serve as a relay for our COM link? So that the signals get sent to it, and then to HQ?” He inquired.
“Yes, that is correct. So whatever is jamming us is actually jamming it.”
They flipped over droid and examined it's battered body more. Über waved off a crime services technician and knelt down beside her to hold it up. He whispered as she made a visual examination.
“The head has a number three on it. Where are one and two?”
Her eyes flickered the crowd. “I'm seeing a lot of people with those trench coats on. It must be the most common style. No one of them is moving toward us, though.”
Über's scanned the crowd looking the way opposite of her.
“I see at least three or four people with that kind of coat.” He looked at her, knowing that she couldn't see him. Über could feel the adrenaline building in his veins. Slowly he began to breath deeply, waiting for a cue from Crone.
“Let's get back to the Skystriker.” She said. “I'll bring her around and lower the swing. We'll let Dr. Reis sort out our technical issues.” Über saw movement behind her and then his face reacted.
Crone didn't even wait for a cry and swung an arm back, an arc of some sort of magical shield forming a wall as blast came flying their way. She winced a bit, and he could see that her powers were being taxed.
He stood, and spun around running toward the shield. Per all the timing, all of the practice, they worked like the team that they were. Crone's shield moved just barely ahead of Über as he ran toward the two, newly revealed bots, the bricks of the square rattling as he ran. Crone was sweating profusely, and then once he started his leap toward the lead droid, she cut the shield altogether.
The droid fired wildly at him, and Über was moving fast enough to avoid part of the blast and landed with both feet squarely on this droid chest, yelling at the top of his lungs, his microphone overdriving.
She gestured with her other hand, her eyes rolled into her head and the once clear sky was instantly cloudy, dark, and rain poured down. Her fingers waved individually, and then her wrist turned toward the ground as five individual bolts of lightening struck down toward the droids. With Über's opponent occupied, the next target was the one upright that had been firing on Crone all this time.
The lightening strike hit it hard, all five bolts lodging into it. It literally shattered into thousands of pieces, scattering into the surrounding crowd. Several people were knocked down by the blast.
Über had been grappling with his opponent at this point, and could see the strike as it occurred, and spun, putting the back of his opponent to his comrade, letting him bear the brunt of the blast. It staggered in Über's arms at the explosion, and, in that few moments, Über ripped it's arms off sharply, exposing wiring and internal circuitry.
His hands dove into the droid's exposed side, and he ripped it apart in frustration. He peeled off it's armored shell and ripped it's power cells out bodily.
Crone quietly put a hand on his shoulder, and he spun eyes wild. She could see one, partially, dilated, high on adrenaline. She looked at him coolly.
He looked back at her, and started to take deep breaths as the cloudbank she summoned pounded the area with rain. He saw that she was pale and drawn, that her energies were low. He needed rest, as did she.
The crowd hushed, and Crone could see them pointing to something. She spun, and saw the first droid was writhing and twisting on the ground.
Über reacted and ran toward it, as did Crone. Über threw his body upon it.
Instead of exploding, as he had thought, it emitted a colorless, odorless gas. Über convulsed, and when Crone caught up to him, breathing heavily, she, too fell down, gasping for air, and finding none, eventually, seeing only blackness.
* * *
One of Über's eyes flickered just a moment as the boot slammed into his forehead.
“So this is Gteams? I'm unimpressed.” He heard. He also heard the hissing of some sort of gas, but found he could not move easily, so choose to not move at all.
“You two won't be doing anything to get in the way of my vengeance. Intech fired me.” He spat, stuttering. “Took advantage of my genius, and then cut me loose.”
Über coughed but could do nothing. Dr. Avanas kicked him again in the solar plexus, forcing him to take in more gas. He drifted in and out of consciousness and with further kicks, ended up into the fetal position, pointed away from the storage closet door, at the feet of an abandoned android who was sitting in a chair.
The face of this android had been raised up, vertically, exposing it's optical and olfactory sensors as well as the mandibular mechanisms that allowed it's mouth to move and form speech. Above both of these lay the square, positronic brain, a glowing arrow pointing up.
Über heard Dr. Avanas growl at the seated droid and slap at it's face. He roared, “Useless, one and all” and stormed out, slamming the door.
After a period of time, the brain occupying the body of this droid changed it's display, from that of the standard up arrow, to that of an eye. It looked around it's considerably changed surroundings. It saw the large person whose name it did not know at it's feet. It saw the elderly female, bleeding slightly from her skull. Both had some sort of gas mask type of apparatus and bound with thick wire that cut into their skin.
Because the droid's face plate was not flipped down, it was not in an operational position; it's fail-safe had been activated. Only it's brain could function. It watched Dr. Avanas, whose self-designation had been 'master' abuse these individuals, and wondered what they had done. It wondered why it was not allowed to ask questions, to learn, and why it was deactivated.
It did not feel that curiosity was a crime, and then thought to itself, a small bit of irony that it allowed itself not only to be curious, but to have irony as well. Soon, it projected; it might even have a sense of humor. It pondered this concept for a moment, and wished it was able to talk to someone to understand these feelings.
Über groaned softly, taking in the gas. He was trying to regulate his breathing. He managed to gasp a single word. “Crone.” and then returned to his slumber.
The brain stared at him. It looked at the elderly female, who too, was in the fetal position, and saw that there was a label on her jumpsuit that read, 'Crone.' Therefore, he was attempting to communicate with her. Fascinating. He was in no position to help her, he was bleeding from both wrists from straining against the wire, and probably internally injured. It noted that he was not at all concerned about himself, but about her.
It pondered, 'are they friends?' Then concluded they must be. From it's limited knowledge of the concept of friendship friends did things for each other.
Über muttered a bit, moving his face against the droid body's metal foot. The eye looked at him.
Über looked at the eye.
It flickered, and then put up the up arrow.
Über thought he was hallucinating, and started to push at the android's foot in an effort to dislodge the mask. He manage to move the mask about two or three millimeters, allowing some fresh oxygen in. It wasn't much, and he gasped again, 'Crone.'
Crone did not move. The blood against her skull had coagulated, staining her silver hair a crimson brown color. Über could not see that the blood had pooled on the inside of her facemask, and was blocking one of her nostrils as well as part of her mouth.
When it thought Über was no longer looking, it resumed it's display of the eye and used it to look down. Über's eyes shut, he was straining for breath. It wondered what would happen if it could help the big one. It wondered if that would make the big one it's friend. It pondered this concept a great deal, and wondered what it would be like for someone else to care for it. Dr. Avanas did not act at all like this big one. It decided that it was defiantly not Dr. Avanas friend.
Yet, it thought, it was somewhat of a moot point. The big one could not move well enough, much less activate the brain. As it pondered these things, Über's eyes flickered.
The eye saw Über's eyes move and changed back into the arrow.
Über closed his eyes.
The eye reformed and continued it's observation, contemplation and dissertation regarding the nomenclature, boundaries, and concepts for friendship.
Über's right eye forced itself open and looked straight up at the droid.
The eye flickered away and back into the arrow.
Über spoke groggily.
“I know you're watching me.”
The droid did nothing, for it could not do anything.
The eye pondered, and thought, perhaps, the big one wanted to be it's friend. This excited it terribly, and flashed the eye for just a moment. It saw Über give a sort of smile.
Über pressed the mask to the toe of the droid some more and tried to get more oxygen. He managed to get all of a millimeter more dislodged, and got in some more oxygen. He tried to breath deeply, and choked. His nose was bleeding for whatever reason and he spat into the gas delivery tube. The tube shot the blood back out at him, covering his face in a crimson mess.
The eye watched this carefully. According to it's calculations, Über could not get any more oxygen into his mask in his current physical configuration.
Über opened an eye and looked up at the droid, and it did not change it's display.
Über said simply, “help me.”
It thought about this. There was nothing it could do without a physical connection to the droid, and that would only occur when the faceplate lowered. It did not know what to do.
Über said, “I know you can hear me.” He coughed, and convulsed in his coughing, writhing in pain on the floor, his head striking against the droid's metallic foot. The droid rocked slightly, moving it's knee to the right, inward, about five centimeters or so.
It took stock of it's new position, as did Über. It did many different calculations as Über tried to catch his breath. It understood that Über was strong enough to move the robotic body it was housed in, and that if Über could knock it hard enough, it would fall to the floor. It viewed this as desirable, for there was a possibility then, however slight that the faceplate would flip down, and be then able to control the droid body.
It had to tell Über to do this again. It thought briefly, and changed the eye to a single word.
Again.
Über eyed it, and coughed furiously, the gas keeping him dizzy. He thought that it wanted him to hit it again. Über exhaled the gas and held his breath, trying to clear his head. He moved slightly and his head cleared more. He saw the chair leg. It was an old, wooden chair. He imagined that it must be somewhat straining under the weight of the droid. He closed his eyes, and realized that for some reason the droid wanted him to activate it. But why? To kill him? Why wasn't this droid out killing people? Why was it here? How could the droid even see him, without it being hooked up to optical circuitry, and what was up with this eye thing, and where in the hell was Crone?
Über tried to get more oxygen, but coughed and hacked violently instead. He squirmed over, and saw Crone.
Crone's face was a mask of blood; he could see only the barest signs of life. Über wept and called her name.
“Crone.”
It watched helplessly. It watched him cry and wondered what that meant. It wondered if it would ever have a friend like the big one that would cry for him.
Über tried to inch toward her, his hands brushing against the chair leg.
It looked at Über's hands.
Über looked at Crone. He had to do something, and then Über got an idea.
His bonds where tight, cutting into his skin and he moved them slowly, dripping blood, wrapping around a chair leg. Über closed his eyes and held his breath.
The choking, gasping lack-of-air cough came, and as he'd hoped, his body convulsed. His hands did not release, but instead clenched tightly, dragging the chair with it. The droid's body teetered. If he could have seen the display on the brain, he could have seen it flashing the word, 'again' in a rapid manner.
Über knew that he would pass out again, as he had almost completely reseated the mask directly upon his face. He had nothing to move it against to dislodge. He had to try it again.
He held his breath, grasping upon the chair leg.
He tried to constrict his lungs tightly, but could not go for more than a minute, his lungs crying for any form of oxygen, and his body ripped in a short series of stroke-like convulsions, trembling horribly.
The droid's body fell to the floor with a loud clang. Über did not know it, but as he convulsed his feet kicked back, slamming the faceplate into place.
The droid beeped.
It's face plate light up in a soft blue and silver palette.
It spoke.
“BD14, Battle Droid series one-zero-zero dot oh one on line.”
Charlie was unconscious. As the brain integrated with the droid's built in programming, it understood it had been placed into a battle android, that the function of this battle android was to serve the master, Dr. Avanas. Within fifteen seconds, the positronic brain synthesized a computer virus, invaded the droids internal software and turned complete control over to the positronic brain.
It sat up, reached over, and with a well measured care, used the laser mounted to it's hand to slice the feed tube from the gas tank attached to Über. In two minutes, Über coughed, and his eyes opened.
BD14 looked at him.
“You...gonna kill me?” He asked.
BD14 replied:
“No.”
Über looked at him suspiciously, and asked, “Why?”
BD14 correlated through a series of responses, and then replied, “You are my friend. I don't kill my friends.”
Über blinked at him, not understanding the thought processes that it had used in saying what it did.
“I'm your friend.” Über stated.
“Yes. You do not hit me. You do not wish me to commit acts of violence against others.”
“Crone.” Über realized. BD14 looked at his companion, using his fluoroscopic and magnetic based sensors. It made a medical diagnosis based upon the preprogrammed information based in the battle droids knowledge.
“I think she is in a coma.” BD14 said. It stood, leveled it's arm at her, and then fired a laser blast, severed her gas feed.
Über looked at it.
“I need you to free me.” Über said.
BD14 cut through the fine metal wires that bound Über up and down. His body was studded with cuts, and he breathed deeply of the fresh air.
“So I'm you're friend?” He asked.
“Yes. Friend.” BD14 said. The positronic brain felt it was correct in saying this.
“I figure that's fair. Anyone that saves my life has to be my friend.” Über smiled. “Can you cut Crone loose?”
Über tapped at his COM link, which had been battered, shattered, and rendered all but useless. BD14 held Crone in it's arms. Über grabbed at one of her hands, as it had a second COM link. Carefully he tapped on it.
“Über to MMB.”
“Mission Monitor Board. Über, what is your status?” General Kinomoto replied.
“Crone is in a Coma, and a friendly droid has freed us.”
“You've been gone three days, son. We've been scouring the gigopolis for you. Where are you?”
“In some sort of storage closet. I've just got Crone's COM link. We're being held prisoner.” Über felt weak, nauseous. His body had gone into ketosis, and he just realized that he had urinated upon himself several times and had also defecated at least once. The smell was starting to reek, starting to stagger him.
“You're signal's breaking up, Über.” General Kinomoto replied. DarkStarr was at the Mission Monitor Board. She hadn't slept in a day.
“I've got him triangulated.”
“Send out Gears, and Redeye.” General Kinomoto said.
“Send them yourself.” Denise stood out of her wheelchair, and magnetically lifted herself up, grabbing her helmet as she shot out of the building. She synched onto Über's weakened COM link, and talked over it for the thirty-five minutes it took for her to find him.
When she arrived, the apartment was empty. Completely, utterly, empty. BD14 followed them back to Gteams heartland division, never leaving Über's side during his time in the infirmary, where he watched over Crone, with the same, dutiful concern.
Monday, November 9th, 2054 13:14
Office of former Vice Present Arnold Ingstrom,
Intech Robotics Incorporated
Detective Orbach winced as he saw the crime scene. He'd seen quite a few crime scenes in his long career, but this one was impressive, nothing else if for the sheer bloodiness of it.
The deceased was the Vice President of Special Projects. Orbach suspected a variety of different potential causes, but did in fact swear softly under his breath, 'damned mutants.' His younger Hispanic partner who had previously excused himself to the lavatory now flanked him. Lunch, for some reason, wasn't agreeing with him.
“Yes sir.” One replied and held out a small data pad whose end flashed with a red LED. Orbach took out an antiquated PDA and the end of it lit up as all of the data transmitted to it. Orbach tapped at it and watched the man sitting at his desk in last moments of life. It showed nothing more incriminating.
“So where does this begin?” He asked.
“That's the problem.” The tech pointed to a corner in the room. “Standard office layout, four cameras. To this very second, the image you see is what's being displayed.”
“Pull 'm for maintenance.” Orbach said. His junior partner smelled of bile. While Orbach wouldn't let him forget this, in front of the techs was not the time.
“You okay, Ben?” He asked.
“Yeah, sure.” Ben pulled out a stylus used for pda's and tapped at the other end. A small red laser light shone on a white bone socket. “See that? His shoulders, ripped open. It's like an animal.”
“He's been dismembered, and he and his attacker were quiet enough to get away with the party without inviting anyone else.” Ben offered.
“A serious piece of work. Windows?” Ben pointed to the upper floor.
“Sealed, and records indicate no attempt to open.” A tech piped up.
“And we know how good the records are in this place, don't we?” Orbach sneered.
“Detectives,” the other tech said, “the droids are here.”
Ben looked at Orbach, who hated droids in general.
“Yeah, yeah,” and stepped out of the room.
The droid floated in the center of the room, a spherical type of robot, studded with lenses, detectors, and examination tools. It was the prelude to the forensic investigation. Outside, on a monitor, a man had put a large flat screen monitor on a wall and was speaking into a small black rod.
“Begin recording, at 13.22, deceased is Arnold Ingstrom. Preliminary scans indicate high trauma to the shoulders and hip joints. Based upon blood coagulation and evaporation readings, the initial bloodletting began at approximately 11.47 am of same day. Pause.”
He saw Orbach and waved him over.
“Short story.” Orbach said.
“Had his arms and legs ripped off.” The ME who wore a badge that read, “Klugman” on it.
Orbach looked at him dryly. “Tell me something new.”
“Crime scene's been gone over like a pro. No trace fibers, shoe impressions, nothing like that. Bot traced some sort of propellant discharge, so he probably floated in.”
“He?” Ben inquired.
“Crime of rage. Dismemberment, look at this, even all the Meta carpals were torn out. While I can't tell you specifically the time frame involved, I can tell you that he probably started with a finger or two, for pure shock value. There's some revenge here. Someone incredibly strong, and quiet, very sneaky. I'm favoring some sort of hidden culprit. Disabled the cameras and wham boom, disabled him.”
“How did the cameras go?” Orbach asked.
“Computer virus. At a certain point, they just latched onto a long loop of images and kept feeding those in a loop to the central memory core. Not real hard if you know what you're doing.”
“Of course we are swimming around in geek central.” Ben stated.
Orbach nodded as the ME continued.
“Microbial evidence won't be back for forty-eight hours, but I'm betting your boy wore some kind of environmental suit to block falling skin cells and hairs. He's had a lengthy study of anatomy, and knew on which joints to pull and hold. Also incredibly strong.”
“A mute?” Orbach asked.
“I won't rule it out. If it was a mutant, he'd probably be unregistered, for hire. Might be an cyborg.
“Lovely. A mute, a Borg. Why don't we get any normal human crimes anymore?”
Klugman shrugged, and as they dialogued more, the outside office became filled with reporters transmitting the news to their various news stations, and they, in turn, to their listeners.
* * *
One of these listeners was the fat man who had robbed Intech just over a week ago. He turned toward a blood stained anthropomorphic android that stood to one side.
“Excellent work, BD2.”
The droid, who had a large stenciled, '2' into it's forehead replied, “Thank you master.”
He followed up with an inquiry, “how is production coming along on the other BD units?”
“One through fifteen have been assembled, and one through fourteen have been installed with the reconfigured brains. Number fourteen appears to have a slight malfunction as when he is ordered to do things he counters with the inquiry, 'why'. We have been unable to detect the error as yet.”
He shrugged. Of twenty-eight stolen brains, one that didn't work was a fairly good deal. He waved a hand, “slate fourteen for storage, I'll look at him later. He smirked to himself and thought that the vice president was just a good start.
Dr. Anavis let loose a long, loud laugh from the comfort of his upscale apartment in midtown and wondered who he would kill next.
* * *
Crone rubbed at her eyes tiredly as Über too, fought to stay awake. They were circling lazily over the gigopolis in Sky striker six after having just dealt with a fire and an evacuation and Crone was weary. She'd not slept well the last few nights and was a touch cranky. Didn't help that Charlie couldn't decide on a radio station, and kept flipping through them. Crone was about to growl at him, again, when the HUD lit up in the Sky striker.
“Über here.” Charlie tapped at the panel.
“Hacking in progress near Pioneer Place. Appears to be at a public terminal. Perp is clearly not completely human. Some obvious cybernetic implants. Request Gteams for intervention.” Über looked at her. She nodded.
“Über reporting, we're on our way.”
“Okay, Charlie, let's make this interesting. What's your plan?” Crone asked.
“My plan?” He gulped.
“Yes. One cyborg, what are the most common implants.”
He thought for a moment.
“Most are memory enhancers. Some are optical implants, like for security work. On occasion, we'll see an arm or leg, but most of those aren't enhanced, because the rest of the body structure can't take that much pressure on it. You might be able to curl an extra fifty or a hundred pounds with an artificial limb, but your back and abs can't back it up. If he's a hacker, I'd wager it's some sort of IR implant. Directly to the brain or a mental memory card.”
“Where would it be, this implant.” She queried further, setting the jet into hover mode above the brick lined public area. Coffee houses, public internet terminals, and food kiosks lined it.
“Anywhere. Grain of sand size, could be planted along any bone line for easy finding by a surgeon or programmer, but if they want to hide it, most go for the hairline. Not the easiest place for implantation, but also easiest to conceal. Most IR receptors can be disguised as piercings, largely eyebrow. It's also a common trend to disguise them as moles.” He said briskly.
“We're fifteen feet up. Take him.” She said simply.
Über grinned.
“Yes ma'am.”
Über leapt out of the Skystriker bodily, slamming into the bricks that made up pioneer place, snapping a few as his weight came down with a crunch. He saw only one trench-coated figure at a public terminal.
It looked, to Über, like he was wearing a mask of some sort, a plastic faceplate.
Über growled over his helmet microphone as Crone watched through the monitor on the Skystriker.
“Citizen, hacking is illegal. Stand away from the terminal. You are under arrest.”
The trench coated figure spun on a foot, and looked at him. On his forehead was a large red number three. It raised an arm at Über and where there was supposed to be a hand was in fact a large gun looking like barrel.
The energy blast hit Über squarely in the chest, and not for the ceramic plate in his titanium mesh suit undoubtedly would have killed him. Über was lifted off of his feet and slammed hard into a Coffee People Kiosk a good ten meters away.
Crone frowned and leapt out of the jet, firing magic blasts at the figure.
It seemed almost to glare at her and shot again, hitting her dead on. Her face grimaced with pain, but she continued to press on.
Über roared and leapt at the droid, slamming his armored fists into it, denting into it's cervical chassis. It seemed to pay no attention to this, and blasted away at him, as Crone fired a salvo of bricks at it, forming a fist from them.
This seem to get number three's attention, and he fired at point blank range on Crone, causing her to stagger. His mechanisms were clearly being affected, and Über pounded on the bot, more and more, ripping an arm off and using it to beat upon the droid.
Crone intoned loudly, “Cnms xnt itrs gzsd svn ozqs rsnqhdr” and swung her oaken cudgel. It glowed wildly and struck the droid vertically upon it's head, cracking it soundly, like a nut with a large hammer.
Über spun and kicked hard with a tornado kick, his powerful thighs moved slowly with a higher risk move, but he knew his opponent was dazed, and the droid turned toward the kick inadvertently.
It's head snapped, loudly, and popped off.
The head rolled along the brickwork and came to a stop. The body convulsed and fell backward rigidly, with a loud clang.
Über looked crossly at Crone and spoke over the Gteams channel, “what's a droid doing hacking?”
Crone's communications link was a small black dot in her ear. She could speak without being heard aloud by moving her palette as if she were speaking aloud, but the sensitive microphone would convert this into recognizable speech.
“I don't know. Let's load it up and let Dr. Reis worry about it.”
A throng of people had surrounded the square to watch the battle and cheer them on. Many waved, and one held a hand painted cardboard sign saying, “I love you Über” with a pair of large red lips at the bottom.
Über scanned the crowd and then noticed, in the November cold, there were several people in similar trench coats. He walked up to the head and picked it up, looking into it. Inside was some sort of obvious brain, smashed beyond recognition between Crone's staff and his kick. He poked at it with a gloved hand.
Crone spoke to him using the monaural comm. system. “Anything interesting?”
“No. I don't know much about droid brains. Now if this were a car's brain, I might be able to tell you something.” He used the head's-up-display in his helmet to get an outside line to Gteams. All static, and a no signal response. He turned toward her and the static got louder as even their local signals weren't heard.
He looked to Crone who was tapping at her earpiece. She caught him looking at her and gave her head a brief, short, shake.
He walked close to her as police units started to come into the scene and crime services panel vans arrived with crowd control. He touched a control at the base of his throat and released his visor a crack, so that she might be able to hear him easier.
“We're being jammed.” She said. She looked down at her COM link that also had a no signal response. “I can't raise the Skystriker, either. I suspect it's gone to autopilot.”
“Doesn't it serve as a relay for our COM link? So that the signals get sent to it, and then to HQ?” He inquired.
“Yes, that is correct. So whatever is jamming us is actually jamming it.”
They flipped over droid and examined it's battered body more. Über waved off a crime services technician and knelt down beside her to hold it up. He whispered as she made a visual examination.
“The head has a number three on it. Where are one and two?”
Her eyes flickered the crowd. “I'm seeing a lot of people with those trench coats on. It must be the most common style. No one of them is moving toward us, though.”
Über's scanned the crowd looking the way opposite of her.
“I see at least three or four people with that kind of coat.” He looked at her, knowing that she couldn't see him. Über could feel the adrenaline building in his veins. Slowly he began to breath deeply, waiting for a cue from Crone.
“Let's get back to the Skystriker.” She said. “I'll bring her around and lower the swing. We'll let Dr. Reis sort out our technical issues.” Über saw movement behind her and then his face reacted.
Crone didn't even wait for a cry and swung an arm back, an arc of some sort of magical shield forming a wall as blast came flying their way. She winced a bit, and he could see that her powers were being taxed.
He stood, and spun around running toward the shield. Per all the timing, all of the practice, they worked like the team that they were. Crone's shield moved just barely ahead of Über as he ran toward the two, newly revealed bots, the bricks of the square rattling as he ran. Crone was sweating profusely, and then once he started his leap toward the lead droid, she cut the shield altogether.
The droid fired wildly at him, and Über was moving fast enough to avoid part of the blast and landed with both feet squarely on this droid chest, yelling at the top of his lungs, his microphone overdriving.
She gestured with her other hand, her eyes rolled into her head and the once clear sky was instantly cloudy, dark, and rain poured down. Her fingers waved individually, and then her wrist turned toward the ground as five individual bolts of lightening struck down toward the droids. With Über's opponent occupied, the next target was the one upright that had been firing on Crone all this time.
The lightening strike hit it hard, all five bolts lodging into it. It literally shattered into thousands of pieces, scattering into the surrounding crowd. Several people were knocked down by the blast.
Über had been grappling with his opponent at this point, and could see the strike as it occurred, and spun, putting the back of his opponent to his comrade, letting him bear the brunt of the blast. It staggered in Über's arms at the explosion, and, in that few moments, Über ripped it's arms off sharply, exposing wiring and internal circuitry.
His hands dove into the droid's exposed side, and he ripped it apart in frustration. He peeled off it's armored shell and ripped it's power cells out bodily.
Crone quietly put a hand on his shoulder, and he spun eyes wild. She could see one, partially, dilated, high on adrenaline. She looked at him coolly.
He looked back at her, and started to take deep breaths as the cloudbank she summoned pounded the area with rain. He saw that she was pale and drawn, that her energies were low. He needed rest, as did she.
The crowd hushed, and Crone could see them pointing to something. She spun, and saw the first droid was writhing and twisting on the ground.
Über reacted and ran toward it, as did Crone. Über threw his body upon it.
Instead of exploding, as he had thought, it emitted a colorless, odorless gas. Über convulsed, and when Crone caught up to him, breathing heavily, she, too fell down, gasping for air, and finding none, eventually, seeing only blackness.
* * *
One of Über's eyes flickered just a moment as the boot slammed into his forehead.
“So this is Gteams? I'm unimpressed.” He heard. He also heard the hissing of some sort of gas, but found he could not move easily, so choose to not move at all.
“You two won't be doing anything to get in the way of my vengeance. Intech fired me.” He spat, stuttering. “Took advantage of my genius, and then cut me loose.”
Über coughed but could do nothing. Dr. Avanas kicked him again in the solar plexus, forcing him to take in more gas. He drifted in and out of consciousness and with further kicks, ended up into the fetal position, pointed away from the storage closet door, at the feet of an abandoned android who was sitting in a chair.
The face of this android had been raised up, vertically, exposing it's optical and olfactory sensors as well as the mandibular mechanisms that allowed it's mouth to move and form speech. Above both of these lay the square, positronic brain, a glowing arrow pointing up.
Über heard Dr. Avanas growl at the seated droid and slap at it's face. He roared, “Useless, one and all” and stormed out, slamming the door.
After a period of time, the brain occupying the body of this droid changed it's display, from that of the standard up arrow, to that of an eye. It looked around it's considerably changed surroundings. It saw the large person whose name it did not know at it's feet. It saw the elderly female, bleeding slightly from her skull. Both had some sort of gas mask type of apparatus and bound with thick wire that cut into their skin.
Because the droid's face plate was not flipped down, it was not in an operational position; it's fail-safe had been activated. Only it's brain could function. It watched Dr. Avanas, whose self-designation had been 'master' abuse these individuals, and wondered what they had done. It wondered why it was not allowed to ask questions, to learn, and why it was deactivated.
It did not feel that curiosity was a crime, and then thought to itself, a small bit of irony that it allowed itself not only to be curious, but to have irony as well. Soon, it projected; it might even have a sense of humor. It pondered this concept for a moment, and wished it was able to talk to someone to understand these feelings.
Über groaned softly, taking in the gas. He was trying to regulate his breathing. He managed to gasp a single word. “Crone.” and then returned to his slumber.
The brain stared at him. It looked at the elderly female, who too, was in the fetal position, and saw that there was a label on her jumpsuit that read, 'Crone.' Therefore, he was attempting to communicate with her. Fascinating. He was in no position to help her, he was bleeding from both wrists from straining against the wire, and probably internally injured. It noted that he was not at all concerned about himself, but about her.
It pondered, 'are they friends?' Then concluded they must be. From it's limited knowledge of the concept of friendship friends did things for each other.
Über muttered a bit, moving his face against the droid body's metal foot. The eye looked at him.
Über looked at the eye.
It flickered, and then put up the up arrow.
Über thought he was hallucinating, and started to push at the android's foot in an effort to dislodge the mask. He manage to move the mask about two or three millimeters, allowing some fresh oxygen in. It wasn't much, and he gasped again, 'Crone.'
Crone did not move. The blood against her skull had coagulated, staining her silver hair a crimson brown color. Über could not see that the blood had pooled on the inside of her facemask, and was blocking one of her nostrils as well as part of her mouth.
When it thought Über was no longer looking, it resumed it's display of the eye and used it to look down. Über's eyes shut, he was straining for breath. It wondered what would happen if it could help the big one. It wondered if that would make the big one it's friend. It pondered this concept a great deal, and wondered what it would be like for someone else to care for it. Dr. Avanas did not act at all like this big one. It decided that it was defiantly not Dr. Avanas friend.
Yet, it thought, it was somewhat of a moot point. The big one could not move well enough, much less activate the brain. As it pondered these things, Über's eyes flickered.
The eye saw Über's eyes move and changed back into the arrow.
Über closed his eyes.
The eye reformed and continued it's observation, contemplation and dissertation regarding the nomenclature, boundaries, and concepts for friendship.
Über's right eye forced itself open and looked straight up at the droid.
The eye flickered away and back into the arrow.
Über spoke groggily.
“I know you're watching me.”
The droid did nothing, for it could not do anything.
The eye pondered, and thought, perhaps, the big one wanted to be it's friend. This excited it terribly, and flashed the eye for just a moment. It saw Über give a sort of smile.
Über pressed the mask to the toe of the droid some more and tried to get more oxygen. He managed to get all of a millimeter more dislodged, and got in some more oxygen. He tried to breath deeply, and choked. His nose was bleeding for whatever reason and he spat into the gas delivery tube. The tube shot the blood back out at him, covering his face in a crimson mess.
The eye watched this carefully. According to it's calculations, Über could not get any more oxygen into his mask in his current physical configuration.
Über opened an eye and looked up at the droid, and it did not change it's display.
Über said simply, “help me.”
It thought about this. There was nothing it could do without a physical connection to the droid, and that would only occur when the faceplate lowered. It did not know what to do.
Über said, “I know you can hear me.” He coughed, and convulsed in his coughing, writhing in pain on the floor, his head striking against the droid's metallic foot. The droid rocked slightly, moving it's knee to the right, inward, about five centimeters or so.
It took stock of it's new position, as did Über. It did many different calculations as Über tried to catch his breath. It understood that Über was strong enough to move the robotic body it was housed in, and that if Über could knock it hard enough, it would fall to the floor. It viewed this as desirable, for there was a possibility then, however slight that the faceplate would flip down, and be then able to control the droid body.
It had to tell Über to do this again. It thought briefly, and changed the eye to a single word.
Again.
Über eyed it, and coughed furiously, the gas keeping him dizzy. He thought that it wanted him to hit it again. Über exhaled the gas and held his breath, trying to clear his head. He moved slightly and his head cleared more. He saw the chair leg. It was an old, wooden chair. He imagined that it must be somewhat straining under the weight of the droid. He closed his eyes, and realized that for some reason the droid wanted him to activate it. But why? To kill him? Why wasn't this droid out killing people? Why was it here? How could the droid even see him, without it being hooked up to optical circuitry, and what was up with this eye thing, and where in the hell was Crone?
Über tried to get more oxygen, but coughed and hacked violently instead. He squirmed over, and saw Crone.
Crone's face was a mask of blood; he could see only the barest signs of life. Über wept and called her name.
“Crone.”
It watched helplessly. It watched him cry and wondered what that meant. It wondered if it would ever have a friend like the big one that would cry for him.
Über tried to inch toward her, his hands brushing against the chair leg.
It looked at Über's hands.
Über looked at Crone. He had to do something, and then Über got an idea.
His bonds where tight, cutting into his skin and he moved them slowly, dripping blood, wrapping around a chair leg. Über closed his eyes and held his breath.
The choking, gasping lack-of-air cough came, and as he'd hoped, his body convulsed. His hands did not release, but instead clenched tightly, dragging the chair with it. The droid's body teetered. If he could have seen the display on the brain, he could have seen it flashing the word, 'again' in a rapid manner.
Über knew that he would pass out again, as he had almost completely reseated the mask directly upon his face. He had nothing to move it against to dislodge. He had to try it again.
He held his breath, grasping upon the chair leg.
He tried to constrict his lungs tightly, but could not go for more than a minute, his lungs crying for any form of oxygen, and his body ripped in a short series of stroke-like convulsions, trembling horribly.
The droid's body fell to the floor with a loud clang. Über did not know it, but as he convulsed his feet kicked back, slamming the faceplate into place.
The droid beeped.
It's face plate light up in a soft blue and silver palette.
It spoke.
“BD14, Battle Droid series one-zero-zero dot oh one on line.”
Charlie was unconscious. As the brain integrated with the droid's built in programming, it understood it had been placed into a battle android, that the function of this battle android was to serve the master, Dr. Avanas. Within fifteen seconds, the positronic brain synthesized a computer virus, invaded the droids internal software and turned complete control over to the positronic brain.
It sat up, reached over, and with a well measured care, used the laser mounted to it's hand to slice the feed tube from the gas tank attached to Über. In two minutes, Über coughed, and his eyes opened.
BD14 looked at him.
“You...gonna kill me?” He asked.
BD14 replied:
“No.”
Über looked at him suspiciously, and asked, “Why?”
BD14 correlated through a series of responses, and then replied, “You are my friend. I don't kill my friends.”
Über blinked at him, not understanding the thought processes that it had used in saying what it did.
“I'm your friend.” Über stated.
“Yes. You do not hit me. You do not wish me to commit acts of violence against others.”
“Crone.” Über realized. BD14 looked at his companion, using his fluoroscopic and magnetic based sensors. It made a medical diagnosis based upon the preprogrammed information based in the battle droids knowledge.
“I think she is in a coma.” BD14 said. It stood, leveled it's arm at her, and then fired a laser blast, severed her gas feed.
Über looked at it.
“I need you to free me.” Über said.
BD14 cut through the fine metal wires that bound Über up and down. His body was studded with cuts, and he breathed deeply of the fresh air.
“So I'm you're friend?” He asked.
“Yes. Friend.” BD14 said. The positronic brain felt it was correct in saying this.
“I figure that's fair. Anyone that saves my life has to be my friend.” Über smiled. “Can you cut Crone loose?”
Über tapped at his COM link, which had been battered, shattered, and rendered all but useless. BD14 held Crone in it's arms. Über grabbed at one of her hands, as it had a second COM link. Carefully he tapped on it.
“Über to MMB.”
“Mission Monitor Board. Über, what is your status?” General Kinomoto replied.
“Crone is in a Coma, and a friendly droid has freed us.”
“You've been gone three days, son. We've been scouring the gigopolis for you. Where are you?”
“In some sort of storage closet. I've just got Crone's COM link. We're being held prisoner.” Über felt weak, nauseous. His body had gone into ketosis, and he just realized that he had urinated upon himself several times and had also defecated at least once. The smell was starting to reek, starting to stagger him.
“You're signal's breaking up, Über.” General Kinomoto replied. DarkStarr was at the Mission Monitor Board. She hadn't slept in a day.
“I've got him triangulated.”
“Send out Gears, and Redeye.” General Kinomoto said.
“Send them yourself.” Denise stood out of her wheelchair, and magnetically lifted herself up, grabbing her helmet as she shot out of the building. She synched onto Über's weakened COM link, and talked over it for the thirty-five minutes it took for her to find him.
When she arrived, the apartment was empty. Completely, utterly, empty. BD14 followed them back to Gteams heartland division, never leaving Über's side during his time in the infirmary, where he watched over Crone, with the same, dutiful concern.
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