Artemis woke with amnesia underneath the shattered remains of a once prosperous human civilization. He remembered nothing, his past or the events that happened that caused the world to become as it was. He was no longer purely human, he woke to find...
At the top of the central tower located at the central area of the Machine Base, Artemis was leaning on his chair with his eyes fixated on the several monitors in-front of him. He didn't really need the monitors for he could just remotely access each individual Androids' sensors but he could only access one, hence he had these monitors.
The walls in the room were glass reinforced by transparent materials capable of withstanding explosions or high-speed projectiles. The floor was covered in metal tiles painted in black, Artemis adored the color, for him it somehow represents his nature, devoid of any humanity other than his objective and will to rebuild the Earth.
"Strikers, status report" Artemie said as he swiped across the monitor to the right until it displayed a vague top-down view of the peninsula. The top-down view was a combination of data from scouting missions and detection instruments used to map out the land in which the Machines set foot on.
A vague map with three colors, dark blue, yellow and dark green was showed in the monitor. The dark blue color represented the vast ocean to the southeast, the dark green color represented the land area which spanned from the northwest to the middle southeast before the oceans and the south.
Ten yellow dots were moving slowly through the map, leaving behind a trail of broken lines in their wake. The yellow dots were the ten strike groups consisting of modified pre-war B-69, though not as advanced and powerful compared to the original prewar design, it still packed devastating power and high speeds. The Fighter Bombers were piloted by a single AI core capable of using the plane to its full capacity and capabilities without risking failure of any on-board equipment or damage to the aircraft itself.
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The ten dots were circling ten particular areas each, the areas were cities under the Senadate Theocracy as referenced by information from Recons and extracted human memories. Why did they extra memories? Because it was the only most efficient method. No questions.
"Hmmm…" Artemis tapped on the northernmost yellow dot and another window appeared on-screen displaying the camera-view of the leading B-69. The camera feed was somewhat crisp but the rain combined by the cold moisture at that attitude in which they were flying almost completely fogged up the lens.
[Striker-1, copy]
The AI noticed its camera being viewed by Artemis. He awaited orders regardless of whether it was against its mission or not.
"Status Report, you didn't get my command?" Artemis asked, he was awaiting the status reports of all strikers but they failed to comply.
[Communications were fuzzy. Initiating Status Report]
The AI simply answered. The storm was somehow messing with communications, the frequency used shouldn't in any way be blocked by the storm itself, maybe there was something else interfering? A magic jammer perhaps? Probably, it happened before when he tried to communicate with one of his Androids, there was a hint of jamming during their communication.
