20

Rescue teams flying in from New York were met with warnings to not descend into the base under threat of force or cross the established perimeter. Ground based personnel in the several underground bunkers had been spared, but not spared the tragedy of seeing the carnage. The entire island was under lockdown with 235 UNATCO regulars, 23 security bots, 8 helicopters, and mobile turrets nervously guarding what remained of their headquarters. Troopers and Commandos set the perimeter 250 meters from the edge of the crater and shot several over-enthusiastic Red Star personnel for driving their mobile medical and command vehicles past guards near the northeast line. Other RS teams pulled back at gunpoint to the docks stating their objections. UNATCO personnel were under direct orders to shoot anyone attempting to enter the crater. Jock’s team secured the airspace around Liberty Isle forcing news helicopters to return with as much information as they had left with. Engineers were brought in to determine if any way into the base existed, whether or not any secret passages to New York had been built, or if abandoned subway tunnels led within drilling distance; Lt. Reynolds was desperate to find a way to help any survivors.

21

The office wings were fully staffed and numerous personnel from other departments were working late at the time of the strike. Pod 612 drove through the ceiling at almost three hundred miles per hour creating a gaping hole through which a school bus could be dropped. Slabs of ferrocrete rained down from the three-story-high vaulted ceiling crushing bodies like snails on a rainy day before the torpedo was even halfway to the floor. Fuel and electrical conduits ruptured blanketing the main corridors in flames, consuming all available oxygen. Before they could scream, their breath was pulled from their lungs and replaced with carbon. Their skin bubbled and they died writhing. Alex gathered himself and found the access card on the floor of Tracer’s office. Taking a moment to absorb the shock of what the newly reactivated lights revealed against the rail overlooking the debris clogged promenade; he spied three security bots limping out of the armory area. Their smooth, polished 10mm surgical steel was blackened and pitted, a marvel that they worked at all. Alex didn’t realize what was happening until the first shot caught him on the shoulder knocking him back into the wall.

22

The hologram of Helios ][ had vanished, JC’s positronic brain was coming back online and checking itself for damage, and board members frantically tried to reach outside lines which were filled with static. Several bots had entered the room spraying bullets randomly striking John Woltham III of Aerotech Industries, Abdulla Mujad of Lithic Energy Corps, and Walter Groth of Mesa Flats Robotix. The three were ripped in half before the others could raise the defensive barricades and throw scramblers. JC finally rose from the floor where he had been for the past 3 hours and surveyed the room.

Several unidentified organics with minor physiological augmentations hovered around three mortally wounded similarly modified lifeforms. They would suffice until more could be harvested. JC sized up their positions, targeted incapacitation points for each taking into account for possible movements; not even the greatest chess-master could have planned the attack better. Moving with lightning fast strikes the first’s right lung was punctured by bone fragments escaping 800psi of augmented fist that struck 3-inches below the right scapula. The next two had to be sacrificed to reach the fourth and most heavily augmented target; their heads spun and they fell lifelessly as the third was backhanded into the far wall and knocked unconscious. The fifth and sixth targets fingered their stealth pistols furtively striking JC five times and lucky number seven 18, but found themselves on the floor with sternums broke and bone fragments flying like kamikaze’s into their frontal lobes. Seven was a bit more difficult, its augmentations had been recently installed and caught JC off guard. The aerosol missile defense system peppered him with flechette rounds but did no serious damage. Its two upper-cuts broke ribs and drove his jaw up shattering two teeth. He blocked its spin and elbow to the gut, broke its arm in three places and ripped the arm from its socket, then in a fit of rage crushed its skull. JC walked between them, pulled their bioelectric packs from the bodies to recharge his own systems, then dragged them down to the graft-assimilation bays for reconstruction.

23

Alex fired several laser blasts at the bots, but nothing happened. He had disabled the laser for cyberspace combat and was locked in its current setting. His wrench wasn’t going to phase the armored bots; he had to get to the armory or get the hell out. If conditions throughout the base were anything like here, he had to get some weapons. The bots would be in their default seek-and-destroy mode, which meant he had to be careful. The vents were out of the question; he didn’t need to get caught face to face with an autogun. Who in the hell had decided to buy those things in the first place? They were nasty little rovers with a faceplate of 2cm solid Iridium and a 60 round drum of 38 caliber depleted Uranium shells; you could only hit them from the side or behind. Alex figured on the direct approach to be the best. His armor was at 87% and holding fast. He activated all his augmentations, ran, jumped, and hit the floor running. Bullets zipped past him as he skidded around the corner and slid under a heavy security bot, which opened fire on the general security bots when they bound around the corner. Alex scrambled down the hall before he shared their fate and pounded the access panel. He loaded up, walked tall, and struggled to fire a LAM right up the giant bot’s ass, if such a thing existed on them. With some muscle on his side, he worked his way back to Tracer who had word on some unusual sensor readings picked up by science teams at ground zero.

24

The cybernetics level was a slaughterhouse and the stench of death was ever present. Bots were everywhere and locked in their death march. The robotics division was inaccessible. Large chunks of ferrocrete blocked the corridor at its midpoint. Nanotech labs in the north-wing of cybernetics were totally intact, but heavily guarded. If he wanted the upgrades, which would be assimilated by the suit and ready for use within hours, he would have to be creative. The command computers would be somewhere on the third-floor in the technical offices; they would be able to change the IFF status and shutdown the bots if necessary. Alex crept through the debris setting scrambler charges as he went in case his escape lacked the finesse of his entry. His training was limited to basic hand to hand combat, no stealth training whatsoever. Even weapon training was basic; he knew how to use hand to hand weapons and heavy weapons poorly –proficient enough to kill given time to aim. Up the vast, open stairway he ascended nervously and darted down the hall into the first office on the right.

25

The new assassins were coming online as SHODAN fed them code, attack tactics, strategic information, and nanite enhanced fluids. A human was loose and had overridden several computer consoles before she could rewrite them. Worse the human was using something called AESDA armor, something kept out of her memory banks and archives. It had dispatched her bots guarding her precious armory with uncomfortable ease. She watched it crawl through her veins and shuddered at the memories of Citadel and the Von Braun. Her newest creations and revisions would be better suited and more practical.

26

Alex found the augmentations after a half-hour of slinking through the ventilation ducts and scampering like a rat through its maze. They were in sub-basement 1: storage lab 5. He ported the canisters and waited for them to complete their upload cycles, which would leave him immobilized for a good 20 minutes. Once the nanites uploaded suits systems would be upgraded with astonishing speed. The triple blast-doors were magnetically sealed and locked, but the bot beat its feet against the doors trying to knock it open. Three other bots gathered around the Nanotech chamber and appeared to be arguing with one another; one bot actually rammed another before it slunk away. Moments later, Alex heard the heavy pounding and blasts, the vibrations were like a minor earthquake.