Happy stopped suddenly. Rec kept on trudging a few more metres until she realised. She stopped and glared at him quizzically.
“Come on. Hurry up,” she urged. Happy slowly did a 360, scanning his surroundings for something. “What is it Happy?” Happy finished his circle facing her.
“Threat detected. Tier 2 [suspicious movement]. Searching for targets...” Rec’s eyes widened as she too started to look around nervously. A small T6X rolled out from the shadows. It was a security bot that rolled on caterpillar tracks, and had a long barrel that stuck out the front, and a small camera that stuck out the side of its quadrilateral body. A light on it flashed red as it spotted Rec. “Destroy!” Happy growled defensively. The T6X whirled around to see why Happy was readying his mini-gun. It didn’t have to wait long to find out. It was soon torn apart by Happy’s mini-gun before it could even process the fact he was a T3X model.
“Threat, ELIMINATED.” Happy turned back to Rec. Rec stood unmoving for a second, then shook her head.
“Right. Let’s keep moving,” she said, more to herself than the robot. She was actually quite shaken; she had never been that close to something that could kill her, and Happy’s brutality was quite unnerving. They trudged down the lifeless grey road. In the distance, Rec could see a city. A slightly darker collection of grey on a grey background that was the sky. She didn’t know how people lived with it. Everything was so dull and empty, lacking colour and life. Ever since the robots had taken over, there had been twice as much pollution to clog the sky and no reason to light up the colourful billboards and other such pleasantries that usually brought liveliness to places.
“Rec, I see no obvious reason why you desire to leave your home country for this one,” Happy claimed. Rec knew there was no harm in telling him.
“I heard that human rebels were gathering here. I might be able to link up with them and not die,” she explained. A strange buzzing filled the air. Happy perked up.
“T5X flying patrol vehicle detected. Engaging.” Rec looked up and saw a small metal box with two large circular disks sticking out flat attached on either side. On the underside of these disks were small jets which allowed the robot to hover. On the main body of it it had a camera and weapon array which consisted of two rocket tubes on either side of a mini-gun not dissimilar to Happy’s. Happy craned his neck up to see the small thing. Suddenly, two more appeared. “Engaging multiple targets!” Happy cried in protest. His mini-gun flared to life, managing to take one out before it could set its lens on Rec. The other two immediately registered Happy as a threat and performed evasive manoeuvres. They responded by activating their own mini-guns on Happy, who rolled ungracefully away from the hail of fire. He whipped up his shoulder-mounted gun again and sprayed one of the drones with bullets, allowing the other one to send a barrage of its own metal projectiles to bounce harmlessly off Happy’s plating. Happy leapt onto the bonnet of a nearby car, and used that for extra height on his next jump, which brought him level with the attacker. Happy snatched it out of the air, bringing it down with him back down on the concrete bridge. Rubble crumbled and scattered from the assault of Happy‘s weight. Happy slipped out his titanium blade and stabbed his robotic enemy until the light faded from its console. Happy dropped the lifeless hunk of metal and turned back to Rec. “Threat, eliminated.” Rec grinned uneasily back at him. This was going to be hard to get used to; almost being killed every five minutes. She had managed to survive thus far by being not worth the robots’ trouble; she was a civilian, and there were plenty of armed and dangerous military personnel out there. Not any more of course, now the only people left were people like Rec. Or so the robots thought.
“Lookout!” came a cry from nowhere. Rec and Happy had just reached the end of the bridge. A human marine dived out from his cover hefting a large gun.
“Wait!” Rec called out to him. “He’s a T3X!” This gave the marine pause. “Happy, what’s your secondary objective?”
“Destroy any INFER technology,” Happy answered neutrally. He was unfazed by the gun aimed right at his face.
“Not that one,” Rec scolded him.
“Protect any nearby human life forms,” Happy suggested. Rec narrowed her eyes. Did his tone of voice just... change? No, it was just her imagination. The marine lowered his gun.
“Robots can lie you know,” he sighed. “But hell, if he’s telling the truth, we might not be so screwed after all.” Rec smiled at his response. He waved a finger at her. “This way. I’m supposed to guard the bridge but... I don’t think anyone else is coming. We’re going to have to make do with what we’ve got.” He stopped and stared at Rec. Rec stared back. “Can you use a gun?” the soldier demanded. Rec nodded. She had started out with a weapon, but had run out of ammo quickly. The marine handed her an APRF/H, or an Armour Piercing Round-Firing Handgun. She studied it and checked the magazine. The marine handed her a few spare clips, then held out his empty hand. “By the way, my name’s Jason.” Rec shook it cautiously.
“Rec,” she replied. Gunfire sounded in the distance, back the way they’d come from.
“Come on, we’ve gotta go. The resistance has a plan, but we have to act quickly.” Rec nodded and followed him further into the depths of the city.
YOU ARE READING
Robot's Redemption
Fiksi IlmiahThe year is 2039. INFER Industries created a new line of robots that went terribly wrong. Able to learn and think, these robots realized they were being repressed and mistreated by their human creators and initiated an uprising. The humans didn't st...
