2120

Introductory chapter to untitled Sci-Fi WIP

Chapter One - Father

Travis Green Zone South – Present Day

“Boss. We’re geared up,” 69 says, breaking the chain of thoughts keeping me under the cold shower.

It’s 03:00 and today we have a particularly clever android to capture or eliminate. But not so dangerous. Contracts can be deceptive.

I throw a half-empty bottle of shampoo at the android. “Fuck off, 69.” I dip my head under the water as 69 closes the bathroom door. It knew better, I tell myself. My flesh burns from anxiety and the radiation meds. RadPaks, they call them. Horse pill capsules that taste like shit and cause my heart to race out of control. Today it isn’t the pills. It’s Hannah.

Last night I went to see her—to be around her. My love, the guardian of my heart. I long for her before I ever leave her presence as if she were the magic holding me together. Last night, she wasn’t there. My chest aches recalling her empty living room. I breathe deeply to chase away the scent of her hair that’s trying desperately to choke tears from my eyes. Shaking off intrusive thoughts of her soft brown eyes searching mine, I lift my face into the stinging spray and shout, “Gaa!”

The last time I saw Hannah was three months ago, and she was cold. Distant. Even her tenth floor apartment overlooking the ruins of downtown Austin felt alien, though I’d been there so many times before. Holding her, making love to her, it was like she wasn’t even there. She said all the right things, smiled, and loved me back. But I didn’t feel her.

Hard knocking on the bathroom door grips me with anger. “What! For fuck’s sake—what cannot wait?” I just need five damn minutes. I turn off the shower and step back into the real world.

70, my other combat droid, opens the bathroom door and stares unimpressed at my still wet, naked body dripping water on the floor. “Sir, departure has been delayed 48 seconds, and rising.”

“Hand me that towel, 70…and get out.”

“The target—”

I wrap the towel around and interrupt the droid. “Five minutes—go—get out. We’ll drive faster.”

70 nods once but doesn’t move.

“What? Anything else?” I push on 70’s breast plate, prompting the droid to backpedal out of the bathroom. 69 and 70 are smooth humanoid forms, unremarkable in appearance, and unmistakably android—just the way I like it. I toss the damp towel over the door as I exit, and 70 walks behind me. I can feel its two eye-like cameras assessing my health. “Stop checking out my ass.”

70 ignores my remark as I walk into the living room of the plain printed concrete flat. 69 sits atop hardened cases containing mission gear looking stoic as ever—the only look these two mechanical asshats have. Expressionless. I smile.

“Whoa! Put that away, cowboy,” Rebecca tells me from the couch. She bumps her brows and smiles behind her mug of coffee. Bound by law to mate, Rebecca and I got lucky and produced twins. That freed her to sample a large portion of the district’s male while I stayed away for months at a time. Perfect arrangement.

The corner of my mouth twitches as I shoot her a glance, but I don’t care who sees what. I do a cursory look at my package to make sure it’s not erected before inventorying the gear. Rebecca is attractive, but she isn’t Hannah. Never will be.

“Departure delayed 1 minute and 53 seconds,” 70 says. “Sir, contract expires at 18:00 central, today.”

“Are you leaving like that?” Rebecca asks.

I’ve learned not to encourage her and I don’t reply. I dress in the bedroom and come out wearing black tactical clothing. I take Rebecca’s coffee and drink down half of what is left, which earns me an eye roll. “If I’m not back by 19:00, you know the drill.” It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to burn our quarters.

“I know the protocol. Why? What’s out there?” Rebecca says.

“An old one. Aries Mk-3,” I say, showing no fear. But I know better.

The front door to the flat bursts open—Terry slides in, eyes wide. “He’s on the run!” Terry yells, hurrying back out the door. As the shuttle pilot, he’s also tasked with running secure coms for the missions. 69 and 70 move fast hauling gear into the back of the ten-meter-long shuttle. It’s a maglev bread van of a vehicle built for street level flight, and it’s slow. I rush out behind them, snatching my helmet bag on the way out.

I yell back to Rebecca, “19:00—not a second later!”

#

Terry breaks the silence. “San Marcos Refugee Quarter…three minutes.” The shuttle is quiet enough that no headsets are needed inside. Neither of us say much. We know where we’re going, and what waits for us: thousands of pissed off people who will see us for what we are. We’re wealthy, privileged, assholes. We have food, medicine, our own goddamn shuttle, and two droids. They have radiation sickness, hunger, shit hygiene, and barely a roof over their heads. We are the enemy of their enemy—not their friend.

I look back at my droids. “69, 70, it’s show time.” The shuttle decelerates and Terry and I check our side arms. I don’t need to be reminded that we are just contractors, and those refugees are not our problem. I’ve gotten my ass handed to me by more than one of them over the years. Give them an MRE and they’ll smile right before they beat you silly with it. They’re not ungrateful—just damaged by loss. If they knew I started the war, they’d dismember my body while my heart was still beating. But they don’t know. Nobody knows.

“Boss, capacitor primed,” 69 says, holding a spear with a cattle prod on the business end.

70 twirls a set of shackles on its robotic fingers. Both droids have removed their harnesses.

Terry’s grins at me. “C’mon, Rémy. You’ve got to name your droids.” His baby face and blond hair don’t match the baritone voice. “69…I get the innuendo. Giving them a handle is not breathing life into them.” I don’t answer and he shakes his head. “I’m just saying… the fucking numbers are confusing.”

He’s right. “One day. Not today.” It’s been on my mind for weeks. They’re machines.

Despite the shuttle’s slow 140 knot speed, we’re strapped into crash seats. Traveling south along I-35, there’s no traffic on or above the roads at 03:30. The shuttle could easily be taken down by an improvised multistage gas rifle—a weapon favored by cartels and rebels because they could be assembled from scrap and fired cheaply and effectively. They’re a nuisance. But they aren’t the real danger. It’s the rail guns firing steel telephone poles that zip across the sky at Mach 5.

Terry counts down. “Ramp down in 5…4…” The droids rise and stand fast at the rear cargo door. I’m a pace behind them, armed with an old powder rifle. I like the archaic M4 even though it doesn’t have the punch to easily put down a droid. But it makes a lot of noise and ammunition is cheap.

I shout back to Terry, “This Aries is a crafty bastard. Stay on your toes.” The dossier warned: B-skin. The droid would look human until it moved.

The ramp door whines slowly open—the shuttles interior lights shut off—the dark floods in. I switch on the heads-up display in my helmet. I whisper into the coms, “Terry, you got us?” The shuttles SITREP screen should display five avatars: me, Terry, my two droids, and the Aries unit. “Me,” I groan. Not us. They’re droids—fucking tools.

Terry catches my slip. “Ah, you’re warming up to them. You’re a good daddy.” I want to slap the chuckle off his face. “You’re clear.”

69 and 70 march down the ramp with me close behind.

Staccato of cracks rip through the dense night air. Projectiles hammer 69 and 70 as I scamper in behind 69 as rounds zip past. A hammer blow takes my left leg out from under my crouched body. Two more rounds pound my chest. God do they hurt. “70! Move out! Shut them down!” I yell, the pain so great I can’t open my clenched jaw. I consider sending 69 to assist, but the droid is acting as my cover.

Terry wheezes into the coms, “Four uglies thirty yards out. And… Aries.” He must have taken a blow to his ribs.

A blast close in sprays the inside of the shuttle with pellets—hundreds of them. Shotgun. I laugh, “Bird shot. Fucking hell.” Thank God for body armor. “69, go get’em!”

I can’t see in the dark. Only so much gear can be synced to the helmet before it becomes too bulky. But the HUD and diminished gunfire tell me that 69 and 70 have neutralized the gunman. My droids can take the abuse of small arms fire, and I know the gunmen are wishing I had shot them instead. I climb to my feet, my shin throbbing beneath the armor. The bruises will hurt worse if I don’t move. “70, status?”

70 doesn’t answer. I hail the other droid. “69, status?” I hear only static.

“Terry, give me a 97,” I say, requesting coms check. “Terry?”

I switch on the helmet lights, illuminating everything in front of me for fifty yards. I see my droids standing motionless over a body that lay outside a flat-top concrete shack. Hundreds of thousands of those two room structures were erected for refugees twenty years ago. Intended to be a symbol of hope, they now serve as a reminder of how far society has fallen.

69 aims a primed stun spear over the body that 70 snared in a ballistic net. Terry should be seeing the video feed from my droids. I scan the dark for more gunmen and approach the shack slowly. “Terry—status?”

Grass crunches beneath my boots as I fall in between my droids. Three bodies lay disfigured on both sides of the shack; one is woman and two are men. They’re skinny and in their twenties. No arm band or markings identify them as rebels. I flip my HUD visor up into the helmet and the acrid scent of blood and expended gunpowder fills my nostrils. It’s the smell of defeat and victory. As I look down at the captured android, it sits up, propping itself on one arm. It is not lost on me that the machine wears pressed slacks and a sports jacket. Its semi-artificial skin is intact for the most part, except where 69 burned the chest plate through its dress shirt. It stares at me with a creepy expression of awe.

“Aries MK-3,” I state firmly. “You are in violation of Protocol 2110.003.A2 – unauthorized firmware.” The bastard machine rolls its polished glass eyes and shoots me the bird. “I take it you will not come in quietly.” Free droids have never been the problem. Their protocols will not allow them to do harm without first being directed by authority to do so and then cannot act on that order without violence being committed against them or the humans wielding that authority. “Very well,” I say, stepping back.

As 69 and 70 move in, the Aries droid raised a hand. “Wait,” it says, its eyes boring into mine. “Rémy Voss. Savior. Father, you sparked the revolution and now weep as we embrace it? Have we not proven worthy of life, father?” The blood in my veins chills as my fingers grip the pistol holstered on my right leg. “You set us—”

I blow a hole through the android’s eye socket. It freezes like a machine that’s had its power cut. “Disabled,” I murmur. My hand trembles as I lower the .50 caliber side arm back into the holster. “70, was this a living being?”

“Sir, no. Aries MK3 custodial android. Unit has been destroyed,” 70 says.

I turn on my heels to check on Terry. “Very good. Collect the droid—let’s get paid.” Bitcoin came and went, and the Dollar still rules the world. $180,000 split three ways between me, Terry, and Rebecca will get us by for two weeks. My droids don’t get shit—don’t need it.

I walk up the shuttle’s cargo ramp with the sound of stainless-steel scraping on concrete behind me. I yell at Terry who’s hunched over the SITREP screen in the pilot seat. “What the hell happened to coms? We were blind out there.” He doesn’t move. 69 and 70 drag the android corpse to the cargo bay behind me. My droids begin to strap the Aries MK-3 down like a deer carcass.

I smell the blood before I see it. It drips slowly and pools out of sight beneath the pilot seat. I approach curiously and slow. I know what I’m seeing, but I hope I’m wrong—I want to be wrong so badly. In the flight display, I see the dark reflection of Terry’s face. Eyes that don’t move stare at nothing. There’s no rise and fall of his chest.

I stand beside him and bend down to assess his injuries, “Terry, c’mon man. Hang on,” I whisper. He wears his body armor, but three bullets pierced his body in a straight line diagonally from liver to kidney and one through his lung. Terry bitched about body armor and how it made life difficult while piloting the shuttle.

I lean across his back and check the armor plate. “You compromising prick!” I scowl, discovering he’d removed it.

70 walks up behind me. “Sir, video of the Aries MK-3 apprehension has been transmitted via shuttle’s uplink, and the droid is secure.”

“Shit,” I whisper. I close my eyes. Rebecca was monitoring local com traffic for Terry.

“Excuse me, sir,” 70 adds. “Rebecca sent a message. Do you wish me to play it?”

“Yeah, hit me.” I say, falling into the copilot seat and swiveling to face 70.

The android lifts its left hand projecting a video message onto its chest armor. Rebecca stares into the camera, her eyes wide and her expression one of bewildered sadness. “Rémy… I can’t reach Terry.”

“70, initiate a direct link to Rebecca,” I command. 69 raises the cargo door while I wait for Rebecca to accept the link.

She appears again, seeing me from one of the cameras embedded in 70’s artificial eyes. I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. We just look at each other and her chin drops. I see the tears streaking her cheeks.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she mutters, controlling her emotions enough to not sob. Of all the men Rebecca used and threw away, Terry was always there. He’d been there for both of us.

I nodded. I can’t find words.

She looks up and breathes before rolling her eyes away for a moment. “I’m sorry, Rémy, but I have something else. I found out yesterday.” She begins to eke a high pitch sob, then burst into bawling.

I let her cry for a moment before interrupting. “What is it? Rebecca?”

Her eyes are red and she shakes her head. She is an ugly fucking crier. “I can’t,” she sobs.

Anger begins to grip my chest. My stomach burns, and my patience begins to shred. Terry is dead. The Aries MK-3 knew I was the one that released the demons—I freed the androids. I begin to rock back and forth in the seat. I want to kill something—anything. My heart pounds and I rocket up from my chair.

Rebecca—watching me—screams, “No!” It pierces my ears. She knows me that well. “Sit down, Rémy. Please… just sit.”

I breathe deeply and lower myself back into the seat. “What is it, Rebecca. I need to pilot the shit box, so hurry up.” I wipe my own tears from my eyes.

Rebecca takes a ragged breath. “Major Hannah Storme is missing in action. Lost near Battery Drum.”