The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

B2/Chapter 30/Vaderman

I stood on flatroof near a flatulent air conditioning vent overlooked over the rooftops of an outer ring of First-Foot-Print City. I been through here before but just in passing, going somewhere else. Now I sat getting bored, even the grime and decay lost it's abition and let everthing bee. 

After the explosion, I sneaked back home but my dad and brother had said nearly nothing. They had just kept playing this stupid video game which had swept over Mars called Metrothrone. Everyone was playing it. I got annoyed everyone played it when they should have been fighting the robots. Mum said she thought it had taken off because everyone had been so freaked out by the blast. It had shaken the windows of about five domes. Everyone wanted something they could 'do' to take their minds off how awful things were. 

While I was at home Mum had locked Kentro in the old panic room the place she kept all the 'dangerous technology'. I felt a bit like a traitor for letting her treat something who had saved my and Catz's life like that. Kentro said he didn't mind. Eventually, Catz had found a friend of a friend who was away and I had slept in her bed while we got FiveDogs up and running.

I had contacted Vaderman like Han had suggested. Then after a couple of weeks fretting, I got a message back over sneaker-net. It had given a time and place. I trusted Han - after all the first shipment of weapons delivered. My Shadow crew had hidden most of them  and done target practice with the others. The first meet I had just found a letter pinned up and the location of the next one. In return, I had gone a few hours early to the next meeting and left a note up my self. We then kept watch on the pickup point and noticed nothing happen. Returning we had found the letter had gone.

Finally, I had decided to break the 'prancing around' as John called it. After setting up some escape routes I had gone to the rooftop on my own and decided to sit it out. This was a place of my choosing, I should be comfortable but I wasn't. The Martian sun was setting in a glory of purple and indigo. Phobos was now visible in sky like purple amethyst. I was sitting in plain sight I looked around the roof again. It was past the time of the meeting. Someone had built and air conditioning plant but there was little to indicate much had changed since my earlier days.

I looked up we weren't scheduled for rain - They would spray water to clean the building, streets, gutters and water the plants. It generally rained at 2:00 in the morning for 30 minutes every night. I had an hour and thirty minutes before then. I moved around nervously. I knew the crew including John were watching me via telescope. I was guessing Vaderman was doing the same. It was thirty minutes after the meeting time.

"You're a pretty crappy date," said to no one in particular.

Then I heard noise on the stairs leading to the roof.

"Finally," I said. We were going to meet.

The door flung open and behind it was a military robot. I immediately went into my routine of flipping to confuse it's sensors and get enough space to run and jump off the roof. I leaped off and landed on the roof of a near by building. For the Earth people this was a ridiculous jump for a Mars born like me it looked cooler than it was dangerous. I turned round to see what the machine was doing and my snide grin stopped. In the air was about three robots which were following me. They weren't normal, they had been stripped of all the heavy armor and legs lengthened. They were also bipeds with flam guns.

"WTF." I said running.

The machines had clearly planned to use our own moves against us. The robots moved and ran like a parkour crew. I streaked along the roof tops and then zigged/zagged down a circular staircase. The robots  followed my moves easily. I ran down a street and hopped concrete bollards so leaping over people. Even while the crowd panicked under them the robots followed me. My radio earring was down I couldn't get help. I guess the machines had jammed the signal. I wasn't afraid. Somehow being in the life or death oxygen situation suddenly put little things I could live through into some kind of perspective. I ran into a building I'd never been in before and ran up the stairs. It was a packed Eye block full of micro-flats. I could hear the robots telling everyone to get indoors and out of the way. I rushed into a flat and noticed the window through the kitchen. Rushing to the window I jumped through it. I had a good idea what would happen. Most of these places had been made to the same design. I rushed up the fire escape and ran high and all three machines followed me.

The machines kept saying things like "Stop" and "Shadow we just want to talk". They had a huge amount of dialog you would be dumb to believe.

"I so want to stop for you" I would shout, just to confuse them back.

Had jumped between buildings and one of the machines had lost its footing I'm falling to the ground. The other two had just kept going getting closer.

I had just used a slide down the cable when I turned back to see machines doing same thing. I realised, I was back near where I had begun. Police units on the ground had closed off routes forcing me back on myself. I ended up back on the roof where I had started. I knew that fighting them was a bad idea but I began looking for a heavy metal rod. Perhaps without the armour, I still chance. One machine made it to the rooftop. It trapped me with a large drop behind me. With few options left, I rushed at it and grabbed chunk of metal water pipe. The Machine Took the pipe blow easily it reached to grab my arms and got them. This was it, I was captured, it was the end.

Suddenly robot's sensor pod was missing and there was allowed ringing in my ears. Robot fell to the ground. I looked over to see what looked like the remains of the air conditioning unit standing above it. The air conditioning plant moved like a bi-ped. Of all the robots an android configuration was a forbidden design. Whatever this was was seriously off the books.

"okay OPTIMAS prime" I said "what the fuck are you?"

The Machine pointed a thumb at itself " I'm leader  of the Martian resistance." The robot was a junk of rusting junk yard that could walk. 

"I'm surprisingly good with that." I said " What kind of robot are you?". It would take me thirty minutes yet to figure out I had met the adult Martain revolution. 

"I'm a drone," said the Machine "I'm Vaderman."

Just in case deep technical terminology isn't your thing. I robot is machine that has an independent computer for brain. A drone can be just like a robot except it radios everything back to a human controller. Someone is pulling this machines strings.

"Do you know Little Joes? 34 degrees and seventh ring? Go there" said Vaderman/The Airconditioning drone.

As I rushed off the Vaderman/Airconditioning drone jumped off and landed on the parkour done which was on the ground. From the sparks, I think it must have self destructed in the process. The distraction was enough to let me get past the police lines.