The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

B2/Chapter 38/The death of

Video the ideas behind the drone war. That the high tech invaders and the revolutionaries can use robots to do the war stuff for them. 

I was standing in the room surrounded by robots my fingers woven together on my head. I was looking at John who was holding his hand gun at me. Zhickararie was walking around followed by the chief tactical robot. If you can imagine smugness in physical form Zhickararie was it.

"You slack bottomed traitor," I said to John, but more forcefully. 

Zhickararie seemed amused.

"Careful," said John "I still have the gun."

"No, what you have is precisely nothing." I said "Ten minutes a go you didn't have me, but you had friends and a planet. Now you have nothing. No me no.."

John waved his gun around at me "I said shut it stunt girl."

"Shut it or what? You'll sell me out. You'll make sure the planet is run by morons from Earth? " I continued.

John pointed his gun at Dante.

"Shut it or he goes," said John glancing at Dante.

I was close to the line from John to Dante.

"You harm him you go through me," I said.

Dante couldn't move he was surrounded by combat robots holding him.

"I'm going to count to 3 and you're going to shut up" said John now quite freaked. "ONE"

"When are you morons going to learn..." I shouted. Dante talked about Zhickararie being a dirty traitor.

"TWO" said John pointing his hand rail gun firmly at Dante.

The air was now thick with tension. The robots looked to Zhickararie to issue an order. Zhickararie was amused by the roasting of John. There were about fifteen combat robots in the room all waiting for a command. In their eyes John was a friendly. They would let him kill any one of us. 

"ONE" said John.

John fired and I was already moving between him and Dante. Have you ever seen a rail gun hit someone at near point blank range? You get this halo of blood splattering out. Even through a pressure suit the rail gun creates quite an entry wound. Dante's blood splattered. All over the red, orange and brown camouflaged combat robots holding him.

"Dante!!!" I shouted.

I immediately rushed to him. Blood trailed out of Dante's lips. The bullet had penetrated his chest. Not a good sign.

"Oh FUCK!" I said looking at the fatal wound in his chest. The robots did nothing, John was marked as a 'friendly' so they did not take action against him. Give Dante was falling to the ground they did nothing to stop him or help him.  Instead, John looked on in horror at what he had done. Even Zhickararie seemed surprised but not unamused by this.

"Get a medic," I said shouted.

"No need." Dante said weakly "stay with me. I wanted you to know I wanted to spend.. the rest of my life... with you and you know what... looks, [cough].. like I did."

Dante held up his blood stained hand to my cheek.

"FUCK. Don't go Dante, Don't go" I said as I cried.

"Zhickararie" said Dante weakly "Zhickararie. I need to tell you.. "

Dante's blood began to leak all over the floor behind him.

"Zhickararie" I said. "he wants you".

Dante and Zhickararie had shared parents for a couple of years. They knew each other, they closest family they had under a million miles.

Zhickararie came over and got down on a knee. He looked concerned. The guard robots moved back given that Dante was clearly no longer a threat.

"I want you to know.." said Dante quietly.

Zhickararie got closer putting his ear to Dante's lips "what?"

Dante grabbed a stab-pen from my chest and rammed it into Zhickararie's arm. Zhickararie got up and moved back letting out several expletives.

"Gift from Uriel," said Dante his eye's went still and lost focus. His chest life support equitment went crazy telling us his blood pressure was dangerously low. 

"What the fuck wast that?" Zhickararie said.

"It's a tracker implant a gift from earth" I said next to the limp body of Dante.

"GET IT OUT!" said Zhickararie, getting up.

The tactical robot came over "No! Don't try. It's designed to the be fail safe. Trying to get one out could cause it to leak poison into you". it said. "leave it in. It's safe and we will get a medical robot to come along and disable it."

"You'll pay for this!" said Zhickararie to the limp body of Dante. I knelt bleakly by the still body of Dante. I pushed Dante's eyes closed.

Just then alarms started to go off.

"What is that ?" demanded Zhickararie.

"BLAST PROTECTION PROTOCOL INITIATED, "said the base's system control voice.

"Control node four has been hit...." began the tragical robot. "it appears to be a new weapon of some sort. ... Control has been lost with the landing fields. 80% likelihood that a nuclear device has been used against our primary command and control nodes. The base is under attack. Rerouting protocols. Retaliation protocol has been initiated. Priority given to all implants in this area. Reserves have been vectored to this position."

It wasn't exactly a secret that if any military action was taken against the occupying forces that randomly selected individuals would be killed by the implants. Indeed it was the principal way they maintain order.

"That's you!" said John pointing at Zhickararie's arm "get it out."

"We can't" said Zhickararie. "We can't. We've got to stop the protocol. "

"RETALIATION PROTOCOL HAS BEEN INITIATED. " the base's system control voice. This was confirmed by a number of screens around the room. I looked down at Dante's hand with the now empty stab-pen which had injected one of the earth robot's own tracking capsules into Zhickararie. Zhickararie knew as well as we did that he had as good a chance as anyone of being struck down like any other Martian. He was one of us now and that was scaring him.

Zhickararie rushed over to the control desk. He pointed to John.

"You Take that pad enter in. 4309 F 3423." He told John.

John followed orders.

"four, three, zero nine. F three, For, two, three" said John.

"Press pause current protocol on my mark three, two, one, now," said Zhickararie.

"Retaliation protocol has been paused," said the base's system control voice.

"Get a medical robot.. Now moron." said Zhickararie to the tactical control robot. It was clearly working hard at this point. The carefully planned Martain attack was in full swing. Each group of robots was responding independently, but the tactical machine had coordinated. 

"The based is under surface attack," said the tactical machine.  

Zhickararie didn't care about that, he cared about his arm and the pain he was in. He was so distracted that he didn't notice the door being forced open from the outside. 

It wasn't long before the door to the control room became unlocked. Standing in the corridor was a very familiar looking robot. Behind it what a number of others. These were Vaderman's Machines. Behind me one of the computer cabinets came to life and began taking out the combat machines. I crouched down covering Dante's body with mine. Within a few seconds the room was silent and still. The earth robots were out of the picture. 

"I believe Madam required my assistance." said Kentro scanning the room with his/it's railgun.

John grabbed me, pulled me up and use me as a human shield. Zhickararie pointed his gun at everybody else, looking for a way out.

"Everyone hold still," said Zhickararie.

Then I started laughing.