Activation Sequence 103

Troublesome Twins

‘Ithink I’m starting to regret putting down all my money for ALGA-57,’ muttered Doctor Blake under his breath, the stale stench of his mouth causing me to involuntarily gag. ‘If they’re sending out The Twins, I’m sunk.’

Doctor Blake was referring to two massive killer droids, each the size of your average space beetle. They were the strongest generation of robots we own to date. Most of their structure was found deep within the ground on Earth –ancient technology from a long lost era- and we simply repaired them to the best of our abilities. Despite that, we never use them in battles, due to their massive size and difficulty of transport.

The tell-tale whiz of rotors informed me of their arrival. With barrel chests the size of elephants (again, I never saw an elephant before, but we have a taxidermy sculpture in our museum of the long extinct animal), these robots had to be transported into the arena via conveyor belts. Their abdomens and thoraxes are fitted with rocket launchers and laser weapons as well as sonic Blasters. For feet, they each had a pair of caterpillar tracks.

I watched them approach menacingly towards Alga, and I half expected her knees to quake in fear; quite the contrary happened, though, as she bent her knees, shifting her centre of weight, enforcing the vision of cockiness in my mind. A frown creased my brows; androids didn’t take fighting stances, they couldn’t. How come Alga did?

The hiss of hydraulic pistons was quite audible as they both turned their heads simultaneously and fixed Alga under their gaze, making her look like a deer caught in a spotlight.

Three rockets were released from the abdomens of The Twins; six high-powered homing missiles shot towards Alga with the intent of destroying her. It seemed that they were about to collide when Alga sprang over them at the final moment, and shot a pair of laser beams at them. The laser beams triggered the mechanism within causing an explosion that shook the entire chamber, the shock absorbers doing little to lessen the impact.

I can’t believe Alga actually evaded the rockets. Normal automatons barely had enough processing power to dodge the incoming projectiles, much less simulate a successful evasive tactic. Usually, it was just a test of endurance –how many impacts they could withstand before they collapse. I guess it’s her artificial intelligence, though I doubt it’s apt to be called ‘artificial’. She has a human brain after all.

The Twins swivelled their heads in unison, once again fixing Alga with their eerie glare. Twin blades automatically unsheathed from each of their scabbards and attached themselves to the stumps at the end of their arms. These blades generated a force field honed to a monomolecular edge to minimize surface area. Added to the force of their swing, these blades could literally slice through anything. And having a large swing radius as an extra factor then, well, AYE-AYE-AYE!

In unison, they raised their arms and delivered an overhead backhand. A purple aura was left in their wake due to the crackling force field. In one fluid movement, Alga rolled to the left and leapt nimbly into the air. She must have been equipped with some form of resilient agent within the soles of her feet, for she rose over twenty feet into the air before landing onto one of The Twins’ backs. Revealing a similar sword from the inside of her wrist, she proceeded to hack at the robot’s armour. His armour, however, proved to be a fortified castle protecting his main components. Given long enough, she may have been able to cause enough damage to crack it open. Time was not on her side, though.

As she continued her futile attempt, the second Twin sluggishly raised his arm and sent a sonic blast her way. She fell of the droid. As she got to her feet, The Twins stood forebodingly over her, a silent omen of doom. She took a moment to regain her balance before bouncing forward again to continue her onslaught. The androids, however, weren’t to be fooled twice and they swatted Alga out of the air as easily as a fly.

 I knew for a fact that these androids were programmed to recognize and create defensive strategies against different combat techniques. It was an old and rare piece of software though, one that we found impossible to replicate. It is one of the many secrets lost in time.

Alga rose again in as many seconds, and this time she seemed to be warily judging her opponents. And then she did the most unexpected thing; she charged. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so terrifying, such a miniature robot charging two mountains of pure strength. What could she possibly hope to achieve?

A lot, apparently. Several meters before she came into impact with one of The Twins, she straightened her front leg, folded her back one, bent backwards so she was nearly in contact with the floor and slid sleekly between the caterpillar tracks.

She was lost from sight. For a suspended moment, I thought she had come to harm, but a few seconds later, she appeared on the other side. I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

This time, instead of jumping onto the back of the droid like some rodeo star, Alga wriggled her fingers between the armored plates, and began swiftly climbing upwards. Before any of the automatons could react, she had reached her designated altitude and unsheathed her weapon.

Using it like a crowbar, Alga wormed the blade between the plates and tried to pry them loose. Slowly, yet steadily, the gap widened until the plate finally fell away with a clatter of metal against metal. Beneath, wires were exposed.

‘Look, all I am going to do is cut this wire over here so your limbs cannot have access to your power supply,’ I heard Alga whisper soothingly. ‘Do not worry. You will still able to perform your higher intellectual functions.’ And with that, Alga severed said wire with one swift stroke of her sword.

What in the blazes was Alga playing at? The way she had… oh my, I get it now. She was trying to calm down the droid. To her, they’re just the same as she is, they are all just robots. She doesn’t understand that she’s the only one who has a conscience, despite how many times I’ve told her. So she had just blown her cover to pacify a mindless hunk of metal. Poor Alga!

 Maybe the Technicians didn’t hear what Alga had to say. Maybe they didn’t understand the significance of such a statement. Or maybe, just maybe, they simply didn’t care. I knew it was pointless grasping of straws, but that’s all that remained of her cover, straws.

The second droid seemed to finally come into action as Alga pounced off the back of the first. I never understood why it took that course of action, for it had many stronger weapons in its arsenal. The Twin switched its arm to gun setting and unleashed a hailstorm of bullet.

The screech of metal upon metal filled the arena as the bullets struck Alga from all directions.  She did not, however, slow down in her advance as bullet after bullet tore free from their cases and shot at Alga at high velocities. She walked though it like it was a leisurely Sunday stroll. And for the final time that night, she somersaulted like Spring-heeled Jack himself and landed squarely on the androids shoulders, planting a foot on either side of its neck. She removed a concealed hand grenade from a compartment in her lower pelvic region and held it over the framework of exposed wires between its head and neck.

‘Do you surrender?’ she asked, giving the robot a chance which it had not given her. In response, the single eye of the droid began to brighten.