Drake’s com signal comes through, “Are you sure we need to destroy it? It seems so beautiful and destructive. I can’t help but feel sad at the thought of destroying such a happy accident. The Wyrm has even managed to synthesize my Ragnarok formula, it’s so “smart” it makes me so proud.”
The mecha zombie botnet was apparently operating using a hive intelligence to adapt. It was very comparable to the hierarchy of social insects… which meant there had to be a queen.
This turned out to be the first infected Mecha, a black and red Torrent. It was easy to distinguish the infected mecha because they had matching red and black lines creeping along their hulls interrupting their normal paint jobs the same colors as the Queen.
Inside Eagle II’s cockpit I shake my head. I like working with Drake but obviously he and I have some differences in our views on ethics. Then an idea comes to me.
“I kind of know what you mean, but the authorities have quarantined the place. Said if we don’t deal with it they’ll shut down our labs. A protracted war with governments isn’t my idea of a good time, so…” I say, firing Envelopers and Blizzard Rays altered to use my solvent at a small squadron of mutated Cindron and Orester mecha directly in front of me. “On the other hand, they didn’t say you couldn’t keep a sample of the virus for future study.”
“The governments would need to find my labs, but that’s besides the point. Gathering samples of the virus so I can truly get to know it that does appeal to me, and I can test out some more of my new inventions as we go. Win, win.”
There’s a sonic boom from the overhauled cannons and Rail-guns of Drake’s Antithesis as he punches his way through rows of several infected Bishops that are intermittently dotted by a few Rooks. His mecha easily dwarfs my Sever being about 15 tons heavier than it. The mechanical martial artist is by no means slow though, and that is something to remember.
“Remind me if we come out of this alive, that next time I want to build something self-adapting it should be dumb as a rock!”
Drake’s laugh comes over the comms,”Yeah, that’s probably best, don’t need the experiments to outsmart us as they kill us.” Drake fires his rail cannons followed by a volley from his rail guns.
As we fight through infected mutant mecha trying to make our way to the queen, small silver-gray parasitic Wyrms shriek out carrion calls from their dragon shaped heads while scurrying with their centipede like bodies from the holes we’ve blasted.
At the time, before this all had happened self-installing bioptic cables honestly seemed like a good idea. It promised to speed up mecha, equipment and weapon production considerably. Who would have guessed that with exposure to the right (or “wrong”) particular corrupted glitch form of an AI that the two could merge, creating these… things? Infected Fides and Megazomes swarm all over Eagle, forcing me to dismiss the thought and evasively cut a swathe through them with her Duboce lasers.
A note of urgency enters Drake’s voice, “Did they just suddenly develop projectile shields? cause my shots are suddenly doing less damage.”
“Crap!” I switch back to ice and as I do realize there is steam coming from arctic shields too.
“Looks like it. I think we’re going to have to work fast.” A much larger boom rattles the landscape. Oh crud, these are the alpha male drones now. The other mecha were just workers.
“Time to switch tactics!” Drake flips a switch, his Antithesis switches engines from his dark matter converter to its Caged Singularity, his I.C.E Targeting and S.M.A.S.H. 8 locking onto the Alpha. He fires Shrieking Pain, followed by Hail to pay, then his mag chain, galaxy eye, and tesla missiles. “Take that you beastie!”
I half-jokingly suggest to Drake that I bet he’d probably like to make a weaponized version of the Wyrms as I see him battling a particularly aggressive Dreadnought that has deformed and warped itself to have a Nakshi looking face grown over the regular cockpit. That’s very ...not normal.
“Yes I would like a weaponized version, heck one that I could incorporate into a few clones would be nice too, but once this Dreadnaught is out of my way I think we should do something about the alphas and queen.”
“I can be a distraction to the queen. Eagle likes fighting but I think tackling it head on I wouldn’t make it. Ever since those tweaks you gave her AI my mecha behaves a whole lot more like a pet… not that I’m complaining, mind ya!”
“My AI is being a pain and firing at that queen while I’m forced to deal with these mechs in front of me.” Drake laughs
“I think I can help you there, I got Eagle some new toys” I tell Drake, unloading the two, new very shiny underslung Ferrite Storm cannons and a matching pair of toe-mounted Le Royal Booms all integrated by her CAL9000 CPU on the front liners.
I’m hoping that with a combined assault using different weapon types the infected mecha won’t know which attacks to respond against first. Drake’s a clever fella, and through his observation a weakness became apparent. He and I have different enough fighting styles that the infected mecha seem to be getting confused.
Rapidly switching weapons coming from either mech at any time does cut through most of the Alphas with relative ease opening a path to the Queen, now for the distraction and the surprise Drake had made for this moment.
I do my part and through an Enhanced Senses helmet while fiddling with Betrus dials explain to my Mecha what she can do to help. “Okay Eagle, like we practiced, do the battle cry” Eagle II opens her beak and shrieks, firing her one Galaxy Eye off at nothing in particular.
Drake’s mech goes full speed mode to get in close to the Torrent. The “queen” was truly a work of art to Drake a shame to destroy really, but she was not exactly doing what he wanted anyways so might as well get his samples and start new experiments. He throws the switch and his mech punches straight into the mech at full strength. No weapon just a flat out attack that it wouldn’t expect and then Drake flipped another switch and the fists glow with the antivirus as he pounds again into the queen. He falls back unleashing six shooters into the legs of the queen and as they hit they explode as if each projectile also had an explosive charge embedded within.
From the Sever I look out and it appears Drake is going to use a modified Poison Dart as the delivery vector for the cure? But these seem much larger.
The explosions throw a mist into the area around the queen. “Ha, knew that would work airborne nano-bio-chemical acid I devised to react with the antivirus on the molecular level.”
I struggle through a patch of signal interference “Drake, should I unleash my rockets too yet?” They aren’t as elegant as Drake’s but in a crude way ought to still work.
As he asks, Eagle’s AI was already targeting and signalling to fire, eager for the kill.
After launching the antivirus missiles we look around at the wreckage. “Hey Drake, Eagle and I got you a present.” I transmit over a schematic of one of the Wyrms as best as I could analyze it with the enhanced senses and computers in my cockpit and also zip transfer a file with my original self-installing bioptic composition I’d initially tried to work with. I knew he probably was disappointed at not having a live one so this was the next best thing.
“Thank you, I got a present for you too.” The plans for his projectile missiles that he used on the queen appear on the dash. “You never know when you might need a little extra firepower.”
“Wow. That’s much sleeker and deadlier than… you’re gonna laugh but all I’d thrown together was I hollowed out a plutocracy removed most of its core and loaded the rest of the space with antivirus suspension.”
A chuckle comes from Drake, “Simple but elegant I always end up complicating my inventions.” The genuine mirth and comradery of Drake’s comments apparent.
“Pfft, probably just beginner’s luck” I say dismissively about my approach.
“Like my Antithesis’s fist, your missiles probably didn’t register as an attack so they couldn’t shield against it like they kept trying with our other weapons. And never scoff at luck some of my best inventions came from unexpected results” Drake laughs again.
“Well, to be totally honest I basically took an old Earth design from the 20th Century called a SCUD and machined it with what was at hand. I hope they don’t expect us to clean up all this techno-organic antiviral goo on top of everything else.” I throw that out there as Eagle preens.
“I’ll have the clones do it if they do.” Drake collects a few samples his eyes twinkling at the thought of experiments to come.
Submitted by Mycobacter & Drake Novum Scientist ##712744, #706289