Ok, this is another Old Man and Kid story, and it has nothing to do
with collage football. Its kinda long, and took forever to write.
[these people at work don't understand how important it is for me to
finish my fanfics...they keep making me do work...] C&C please. I
promiss I'll work on another Ranma fanfic now.
Matthew Trotter, blablabla
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.
.
.
.
restart
load mem core
*******Load Fail*******
*Error code 322 *
*Memory segment error *
*Segment: ffffffff *
*corupt or unreachable*
***********************
load error....reconfigure
reconfigure ok
load mem core
*******Load Fail*******
*Error code 23 *
*Discontinuous Memory *
***********************
load fail....reconfigure -c5120
reconfigure memory seek 5120000
seeking . found 00000000
seeking . . . . found 00000005
seeking . . . . . . . . . . . found 000000a1
seeking . . found 000000a3
seeking . found 000000a4
seeking . found 000000a5
seeking . found 000000a6
seeking . found 000000a7
seeking . found 000000a8
seeking . found 000000a9
seeking . found 000000aa
seeking . found 000000ab
seeking . found 000000ac
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yo! Old man! Where the fuck's the kid?"
He looked up from the engine compartment. There was Artie looking
like a gnome that met up with an ass woopin'. His big red nose was
particularly swollen today. That, of course, meant two things. One, the
pollution index was over the normal safety limits. Two, Artie was out to
help people feel as good as he did. You could see the tell tail snail
trail snot marks on his brown corduroy pants, the index had to be over by
about fifty points for Artie to start wiping. The pocket of his navy
blue Izod was stuffed with his snot rag, which looked particularly crusty
today. So there was Artie pretending not to know where the kid was.
Pretending this was a first. As if the kid was always on time. As if
the kid never came in late bitching about his girl. Bitching about how
she wouldn't transfer him out of this shit job. As if there might not be
traffic delays after last night.
"He prob'ly doin' time on you wife."
Artie took the comment in stride, he was probably planning on sticking
them with the "extra special" of the day. The Genom clean up . . .oh boy.
"Say, did you see those fire works last night?"
"No, I sleep though, what you think?"
"That was some real shit there. After all the other shit with the
satellite weapons systems you'd think they would have killed the program."
"Why kill it? It not hit a military. Who care?"
"That's cold."
"Cold? That SOP. Fuck'm. They only civies."
"Jesus."
"Ain't got nothin' doin' wit them."
"I'm putting you and the kid on the Genom."
Of all the words I've spoken
And lies that I've told
Of all the hearts I've broken
Begged for bought and sold
Lord I'm feeling lonely
Feels like I can't go on
The streets have all grown cold now
The mysteries all gone
She's all gone
She's all gone gone gone
She's all gone
She's all . . .
The kid kicked open the door in anger. The secretary, Yukei, looked
up as he walked in.
"Buzz me in."
"Fight?"
The kid hefted his dufflebag, "How could you tell?"
Yukei shook her head and buzzed the lock. The kid threw open the door
and stomped down the hall. He jumped to the second landing of the stairs
and slammed into the wall. Pushing off the wall he started down the
stairs, taking them two at a time. As he got close to the garage he
could hear Ganalia's braying laughter.
"Ah ha haha! Your stuck witha Genom! Whatda ya thinka that, old
man?"
"Fuck you, Gondola you kiss ass."
"Oh looky! Its tha kid! Didja mommy throw ya outa tha house again?"
"Blow me."
"Guess what, kid. You got tha Genom! Have fun, dumb ass."
"I'd rather have the Genom than the sewage plant in 512."
"What?"
Well I ain't getting any younger
You can see it in my eyes
The sweet has turned to sour
I think its time for me to fly
"Ganalia, your on 512."
"Fuck that Artie! That's what tha kid oughta be on."
"The kids with the old man. Unless you want to ride with him."
"Fuck you. Fuckin' kid! I'll getcha for this ya little shit head!"
The old man climbed into the drivers seat, and cranked the engine.
The kid got in the passengers side and tossed his bag on the floorboards.
"The bitch told me that I could find a new house if I didn't want to
get serious! Can you believe that shit?"
"Git married."
"Fuck that! I'm not ready to be tied down for her!"
"You gonna meet good woman here?"
"Up yours."
"We clear?"
The kid looked out the window, and got an ear full of what a shit head
punk he was. The only thing behind them was bay ninteen, and Ganalia's
truck.
"Clear to bay nineteen."
"Hol' on."
The kid buckled his seat belt and locked the shoulder harness, then
looked out the window at Ganalia, "Hey Galaria! Suck on this!"
The truck lurched into reverse, covering the ground between the two
trucks in seconds. There was the bone jarring crash as several tons on
reinforced truck slammed in to several more tons of nearly immovable object.
Well my vices have turned to habits
And my habits have turned to stone
The lies chipped away at my smile now baby
While the truth ate me down to the bone
"My fuckin' truck!!!! You hit my fuckin' truck!!! You goddamn
fuckin' shit fa brains sonovabitch motherfucker!!!!! Artie! Didja see
that shit!!! They wrecked my truck!!!"
"There's hardly a scratch. Get over to 512, Ganalia."
"They wrecked tha fuckin' truck!!!!"
One more step and I swear I go over the edge
I gotta stop living at a pace that kills
Before I wake up dead
The traffic was horrible, but with as much carnage as there was after
last night it wasn't too surprising. The kid had their current ETA at
about two hours, if they didn't get stuck at any jams. The old man was
betting that they'd get caught on 23rd and Kawanii. He was right. With
the power grid down in most areas it was up to people to excersize
restraint and take turns at intersections and merge points. People being
people, didn't. Of course. They were stuck on Kawanii. They were
waiting for the intersection to clear . . . judging by the people who
were blocking the intersection, it would be a while before any of them
let someone through. People.
"ADP be pissed we git there."
"No shit. Who knows how long this is going to take."
"Go git th' food."
The kid looked out the window, it was bumper to bumper as far as he
could see. They weren't going any where for quite a while.
"Yeah, all right. What do you want."
"Coffee an doughnut."
"Don't go any where with out me."
"You funny."
"Thank you."
The old man motioned him closer, "Don' quit th' Sani."
"That's it I'm pissing in your coffee."
The old man watched the kid climb out of the truck and walk across the
hoods of the far two lanes of traffic. It was days like this that you
could see how much the kid had changed. Days when he wasn't out to be
the charming Mr. Kid. You could see that he had grown up a lot more. He
still tried to get out to the clubs, but on the rare occasion that he had
gone somewhere with the kid, he'd noticed that the kid didn't actually try
very hard. He probably ought to marry that girl. Oh well, it was the
kid's life. Like everyone else, he deserved the chance to fuck it up for
himself. He watched the kid stomp up the street, he watched the women
watch the kid stomp up the street. That was probably the biggest
change. The kid used to act like a playboy slumming for the manly look,
now he was the man. He didn't have to pretend to be tough, he'd been on
the job long enough to pick up some tough. No, now the kid had to
pretend to be a playboy. The old man shook his head, maybe this is how
parents felt watching their kids grow up. Well, it was better than
changing dippers and getting up at midnight . . .
Good times - Bad times
How life loves a tragedy
Heartbreaks - Heartaches
How life loves a tragedy
"Hey, coffee and doughnuts, old man."
"Thanks. Be damn faster walk an' carry th' shit."
"Hey, I bet I can get a break in traffic."
"That so?"
"Yeah. Want to wager lunch?"
"Sure. Be here if it don' clear."
The kid turned around and leaned over the back of his seat. The old
man could hear him going through the road kit that was back there. When
he turned back around the kid had a hand full of flares.
"I'll be right back!"
The nights I spent in danger
With strangers I thought were friends
Only to wake in anger
For some pleasure they swore they'd sin
The kid ran up the street to the intersection, he'd have to make this
good. If he didn't, he might be savaged by an angry mob of motorists.
He looked at the intersection, took a deep breath and walked like he had
a purpose.
"Excuse me sir."
The man in the car looked at the kid, "What do you want, kid."
The kid looked annoyed, "I'm with the highway department. We're
closing this street for a few minutes to test the lights. We think we
have the power grid connections on line now. We need to test the light
sequences."
"Your kidding me."
"No! If the sequencers were damaged we might end up with green
lights in all directions. We need to test them, and then we can try to
restore a little order to these streets."
The man looked doubtful. The restore order bit was probably a little
much. The kid decided to continue before the man could try to work it out.
"Anyway, I'm going to put down some flares, please do not drive over
them, they can damage your car."
I think its time I move on like a rolling stone
'Cause I got all the broken dreams I can buy
It's time to sell the ones I stole
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Program
The Story.............Matthew Trotter
The Lyrics............Poison (life loves a tragedy)
All BGC characters appear because I stole them and used them here, Neyahaha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"That's police property!"
"No sir, it is on Genom land, and that makes it our property. If you
would like to get a warrant to come and recover property from our place of
business the Genom corporation will be more than happy to comply."
"TO HELL WITH THAT!!! That thing is a monster! ADP is taking it to
be studied and destroyed!"
"Officer, I'm sure you realize that this is much more the expertise of
the Genom corporation. We'll give you the test results when they come in."
"WHAT!!!"
Dalley was really starting to sweat it. Leon was ready to jump on the
Genom exec, and apparently the exec didn't realize just how bad things
were about to get . . . then again neither did Leon. If he went off on
the exec, there was no telling what the boomers in the area would do.
There was nothing to do but get between them and try to calm Leon down
before something bad happened...that was when the truck showed up. The
truck was a mixed blessing, it was like rain at a party you didn't like
anyway. At least the truck would distract Leon long enough to diffuse the
pending fight.
"Hey, old man. Its your favorite cop."
"You push you luck, kid."
"Looks like he's getting into it with that Genom flunky."
"No fight there."
"What do you mean?"
"Boomers. 'bout five. Security, four op."
"What?"
"Junk bots."
"Your shitting me."
"No. Gonna be bad day."
"shit"
"You there! You can't park that truck there."
Leon couldn't believe it. The guy was just too damn full of himself.
He walked away as if the conversation were over. That WAS the last
straw. If he thought his status as a Genom exec was going to keep him
from being hauled down to the station . . . the old man got out of the
truck. Normally he was the last person Leon ever wanted to see, but since
he was about to have to put up with this stupid Genom exec, and vice
versa . . . .
"I told you to move that truck!"
"Got work. Don' fuck wit me."
"There's no work for you here."
The old man pointed at the crater in the street, "What? You stupid as
you ugly?"
The kid jumped out of the truck and headed over to Dalley . . . Leon
looked far to pissed off to mess with him, "Hello officer."
"Hi."
"What's with Charles?"
"Charles?"
"In charge . ."
"Oh. He's trying to claim the boomer."
"Does he have a claim?"
"Not yet, but if they push in the right places they can get anything."
"Hmmmmmm. Well you know how the old man is . . . unless dispatch were
to call down here he'd probably be . . . insistent about us taking the
scrap. Now I'm thinking that if our radio keeps fritzing out like it is
right now we might not get an order to bring it back. Why it might even
get dumped for scrap . . . or in the ocean if we felt like kicking the
environment today."
"That sounds dangerous."
"Well you know, accidents do happen."
"Leon!"
He didn't really mind the kid. It was just that he was always with
the old man. That put him in the harbinger of despair category. Leon
decided to abandon the old man vs. exec argument, mainly because it was
starting to get on his nerves. He could tell there was something
mischievous about to happen by the way the kid was grinning and Dalley had
that thoughtful look he got when something good just turned up.
"What is it Dalley?"
"The kid says that they have to take this boomer to the scrap yard."
"Is that so?"
The kid reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, "Yes
officer. That's what our orders say."
"And what do. . ."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
seeking . found 02050000
seeking . . . . found 02050035
seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . found 020500a1
seeking . . found 020500a5
seeking . found 020500a6
seeking . found 020500a7
seeking . found 020500a8
seeking . found 020500a9
seeking . found 020500aa
seeking . found 020500ab
seeking . found 020500ac
seeking . found 020500ad
seeking . found 020500ae
seeking . found 020500af
seeking . found 020500b1
seeking . found 020500b2
seeking . found 020500b3
seeking . found 020500b4
load mem core
mem core loaded....
starting lower functions....
starting higher functions....
load sensory modules ....
test sensory integrity ....
visual: 45% audio: 75%
test embedded systems ....
tracking: 15% communication: 99% shift: 09% weapon: [down]
load memory module....
starting awareness.......................
testing self-awareness...................
success(87%) start me ........
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Things seemed sketchy. He had been fighting THEM, in fact he'd been
about to destroy HER.... .... ....Sylia. Then there was an
interrupt(1546) and his systems shut down. The interrupt(1546) was a memory
fault. He checked the dump log:
1866240000:8035200:43535 ERROR. Irreparable memory damage. Core dump follows.
The first two hundred megs were a recount of the prior two hours. It was
as he remembered it. The last eighty megs were damaged. Much of it was
garbled, though some of it made sense.
.
.
load core.1866240000:8035200:43535 offset 2049024
.
.
loading . . . . . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
F^G^H^RTY^&IT^&^*^E$^UY^H^KT&^(*^C^^YU^$^^Y^$R^YJ^DYKI^UO^P*^P{^:K^JL^(^I_^{^)
^"^{^}_^+^{*_^+|I^PL^K>^T^Y^H^W^#$^%W^#^EM^MM^<T^UI^O%^*^U^X^J^N^J^<^F^T^&^E^S
^^G^#$^@^E^R^A^@WN^N^B<^I^J^:^(^I_{^*^(^_^P^:^G^>^P^{^^^&^)^_^+^)^R^%^Y^J^H^F^C
^H^A^E^R^B^G^F^H^R^D^T^H^F^G^N^FY^&^E^DX^TG^J^C^I^L^P^O{^"^:O^?^^^*^O^R^^^U$^%^H
Y^%^$^ET^FG^DR^G^E^DFnd he was burning, the plan had failed. Quincy had
tricked him. Priss had beaten him. The other Knight Sabers had destroyed
the satellite. There was nothing left. Everything was ruined....again. There
was only death, but first there would be a final retribution. He had her
trapped. She could not look away. The others had no idea what was going on,
they were all to stupid. Only Sylia . . . and ^H$^J^K^N^F^W^UI^I^J^D^G^M^<^K^^Y
^{^K^W^J^H^HJ^GB^N^F^GH^E^D^FGD^A^F^SGB^X^F^G^M^H^K^%^R^^YU$^ER6^T#$^^%U^I^YU
$^L^K^I{^P(^)&^^^&^I^&*^OOL^6Y^K^J6G^HU^E%^U^I^%^*U^LU*^OP^&*(O^L^&^$sights.
She didn't even see it. The counter flashed up and the last three seconds of^U^
N^E^#^*% R^G^YU^J^R four there was movement from on top of ^H^G^D^DG^H^DG^FF^T^Y
^R%^^#%^E#^%&^D%^G^DF^H^&H^*^DF^%dable gun shot. Then damage reports$^%^RGD^T^
JU^H^&^^^*^E%^RD^T^H^DR^Y^W$^%R^YE^$%^Y^KM^G^H^JY^%I^U^E^%^&^I^K^YU^%^^^&U^E^^J^
[END]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The real question was what had caused that kind of internal damage? The
system would not write to damaged sectors of his memory. Some other event...
Perhaps the fool hardy Knight Sabers had tried to destroy him? No, he was
fairly certain if they had tried to destroy him while he was incapacitated
they would have succeeded. There was only one way to be sure, he would have
to risk activating some of his sensors.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"That's far enough. If you continue to peruse this I will be forced to
have you removed from the premises."
"You sica boomer I ain't pay."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"You fault you stupid. Not gonna pay on you dumb ass."
"This has gone far enough," the exec snapped his fingers, "Gentle men,
please escort this . . ..person off our property."
The two men who moved forward were the typical C4 body guard model
boomer. Almost anyone could have pegged them as boomers just by their
instant near silent reaction to the exec. They moved forward like a pair
of suddenly sentient monoliths.
The old man crossed his arms and waited, he gave the air of the immovable
object eager to prove itself the winner to the unstoppable force.
Unfortunately for the boomers, this was not to be the case. As they
closed, the old man noticed an active signal from the crater. Whatever
the boomer was, it was back on line. That was probably a bad thing.
The first boomer reached for the old man. It had long since evaluated
the threat to be negligible. It evaluated the orders, and the ridged tone
with which they were given, to mean it should be as rough as was legally
possible. It had a pleasure circuit that was tuned for sadism, the circuit
cut it with its low level buzz of pleasure as he grabbed the old man. The
buzz lasted exactly 3.4 milliseconds. Then the pleasure circuit was over
ridden by the defensive system. There should have been an automatic cut
off in the hardware, but there wasn't. It was a design flaw left in the
cheaper boomers. During the first millisecond, the old man twisted out of
the boomers grip. In the second millisecond the old man stepped to a
flanking position. In the third millisecond the old man grabbed the
boomers out stretched arm. If the boomer had been properly programmed it
might have escaped this without too much trouble. A quick hash table
lookup might have taken a millisecond or two. Unfortunately the boomer
wasn't well programmed. It ran a five millisecond simulation of
forthcoming events and chose an attack routine based on this. It took the
old man four seconds to snap the boomers arm behind its back, force the
boomer to the ground, and break its arm and its neck articulators.
Serial 101010111010001 evaluated the events, put them through the prep
script and ran the simulation. The simulation predicted the target would
quickly attack in a manor aimed at incapacitation. Based on the targets
relative position the attack would probably be a kick aimed to the chin
or neck.
It was a very accurate simulation. It was also very slow. The kick
connected before 101010111010001 could finish the table look up on a
correct response. The kick blew out the neck articulators, the follow up
kick cracked memory which caused a massive fault range and a shutdown.
Aso Watanabe stared in disbelief. Nothing human could have done
that. He had once been invited to a new type test run against live
C2's. The New type had demolished its two opponents in under a minute.
It was the scariest thing he had ever seen....
The first C2 rushed while the other prepped its cannon. The new type
caught the first C2 and used it to shield itself from the second. The
second hesitated and then charged. The new type punched a hole through
the struggling C2, causing the second to stop and prep its cannon again.
While it did the new type rushed it, throwing a punch that shattered its
cannon lens and most of its skull. The official time was forty-five
seconds. After that Aso always made sure that at least two or three of
his personal security force were made up of this new type, designated
C3. Last month he had seen the demo for the C4 and had begun requesting
them on his security detail.
But now one old man had destroyed both the C4's he'd brought. It was
impossible. It couldn't have been more than half a minute....Aso
suddenly remembered why the old man had attacked the C4's in the first
place . . . . Aso Watanabe realized that he was going to die. The other
three standard security models were nowhere near fast enough to stop the
old man...or whatever he was...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He was on the street. Or more appropriately in the street. Someone
must have thrown what they thought was his body into the street. The
Knight Sabers would [bad sector no recovery] NO! Parts of core memory
had been damaged. That was the deciding factor, the Knight Sabers had to
[bad sector no recovery]
Something scanned him. He quickly shut down his active sensors. The
AD police were all around, there was no sense in having them try to
defeat him while he was in a weakened state...any more system damage at
this point could cause extended shut down. It was a sure bet that if he
shut down now there would be no return...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He threw the first boomer onto the inactive bulk of its compatriot and
ran for the crater. The active signal had stopped, but that didn't mean
much. The only sure thing was that the boomer had quit scanning.
It was trashed. Its amorphous metal body was loosing its consistency,
there was a blackened ooze all around it. The active signal was probably
a random circuit picking up power as the battery burned out slowly. While
that was better than a fully active boomer, it still meant moving
something that could go berserk at any time. Nothing more fun than that.
He picked up the high energy signal of the last three boomers charging
up their cannons. The wires kicked in and he was half way across the
crater on his third direction change before their scanners caught him
again. He started the sim on the three way combat, and set his
destination as the boomer on the steps. The wires kept him out of a
laser lock, and before he got to the boomer the sim and look up had some
solutions for him.
Leon felt like his jaw was going to dislocate, it had fallen open so
far. The old man couldn't have known about the boomers. One second he
was starring into the crater and shaking his head. The next he was
taking out one of the boomers. His brain didn't want to accept this,
but that was ok, he was finding it hard to believe himself. He made a
mental note to go over the list of systems on the old man as the two
remaining boomers hosed the unlucky one the old man had been fighting
with laser fire. The old man used the cover to launch himself away from
the combat area. The boomers began what seemed to be a random firing
sequence. The old man seemed to anticipate this and was able to side
step the shots. It was obvious that the distance the old man had gained
served to give him dodging room. The boomers seemed to favor this
random firing, the old man started to close, still dodging the laser
fire. Leon decided that there was more going on here than he could see,
there had to be some pattern that he couldn't see. The old man was
moving through the barrage of laser fire like it was nothing. The boomers
didn't seem to be stopping, in spite of the fact that the old man was
almost on top of them.
Aso stared. The two C4's never stopped their laser barrage. Even as
the old man closed and destroyed them. It was like, what did his son
call it? It was a game giltch. That was how his son explained the game
to him, you had to find the glitches and use them to waste the really bad
monsters...it occurred to him that this was something that was fairly
obvious, and was probably well known to the rest of the company. They
had sent him out with defective product. He realized the need for a
backdoor in clientele hardware, but to put him on the line . . . he
wondered who he had pissed off....
"You are under arrest for the misuse of biomechanical hardware. You
have the right to remain silent. Any thing you say will be used against
you. You have the right..."
Aso looked at the officer incredulously, this had to be a joke....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The kid took one last look at the junked boomers, they seemed to be
dead...but two that had looked dead had tried to attack when the old man
had tried to move them. He shook his head, Now he'd probably seen it
all. A boomer clean up site and a Genom exec arrested in the same
day...he was ready to call it a day and go home...unfortunately there was
still the traffic to get through on the way back to the depot. He turned
around and headed back to the cabin of the truck...
"It quiet back?"
"Yeah, there's nothing moving back there."
"Be glad get home."
"No shit. I'm so fuckin' tired I could sleep all night and tomorrow
afternoon."
"You not even do th' work kid."
"I had to listen to that Genom ass hole talk shit while you loaded the
truck! All you had to do was fight off boomers."
"Something never change."
The kid looked out the window and watched the streets roll by. Most
of the power grid was up, so the drive back promised to be much quicker.
Of course quick in a garbage truck loaded with three tons on scrapped
boomers was a relative term. The kid just wanted to get home. He wanted
to get to bed and sleep, and pretend like today hadn't happened. He
wanted to pretend like he hadn't seen the old man wipe out five boomers
in under a minute. Jesus. What he really wanted was to be able to
pretend that the government hadn't allowed that...justified it....DONE
it. The only thing better than sleep was sex...that always helped him
forget his troubles. When he didn't have a real home...or when he was
really lonely.....
The kid looked at the old man. He was there but his gaze was empty.
He was off in some memory some where. The kid wondered what the old man
did to forget? They had gone out for drinks one or twice. The old man
had told him that he couldn't get drunk, or drugged. Some kind of blood
filtration or something. He said it worked well on gas too. The kid
shook his head, what kind of life was that? The ultimate killing
machine, and he gets to be the trashman. And people wondered why he was
so bitter and grouchy all the time. It was sad.
The truck literally bucked to one side, like it had been broad sided.
The kid's head smacked into the window, cracking the glass and pulling
him back from his reflection.
"Jesus Christ! What the hell was that!"
The old man didn't reply. He was busy fighting the wheel. The kid
looked out the window, the truck narrowly avoided a head on with a parked
car. The truck bucked again, this time to the left. The kid grabbed the
door handle to keep from slamming into the old man. The old man to his
credit managed not to slam his head against the door and to keep the
truck from hitting the mini-van that was trying to pass them.
"God damn! That's in the truck! Those fuckin' boomers are active!!!"
The old man nodded and cut the wheel to the right. The truck went up
on two wheels to make the turn. The kid thought the were dead for sure,
you just don't drive a garbage truck like that, but as they rounded the
corner onto the side street the truck wobbled and fell back onto all four
wheels. The kid felt most of his internal organs settle somewhere near
his colon as he tried to recover from the jarring impact.
"Who the hell taught you to drive? Evil Kenevil? You..."
"Shake up boomer. Buy time."
"shit"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the truck lurched around a corner the C4 fell over. He guessed
that the old man was on to him. Snaking out a tendril he quickly changed
the C4's programming again. At one time he could have willed himself back
to shape, then he would have had no use for these near worthless C4's,
but times had changed...snaking out more tendrils he activated the other
two marginally operable C4's. In time he would make the world [bad sector
no recovery]
He would make the world...his. A new world. A world for him and his
chosen children. An image floated before him . . . Sylia....could she
survive in the new world? A world of chaos? Perhaps. He would have to
remedy that.
The truck turned again and came to a stop. He disengaged his tendril,
it was time to put the program into action. Step one was the distraction.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The kid wiped a trickle of blood from the cut on his temple, "Damn, I
probably have a concussion."
"Don' be pussy. Got work."
"Damn boomers can't stay dead."
"Make 'em dead. Use compact."
The kid got an evil grin, "Guess it sucks to be a boomer today."
"Got that right."
The kid threw his door open, "Lets do it. I want some revenge for
busting my head on the window."
The old man opened his door, "Then pull lever."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The target moved into range. It registered as a mismatch on the
profile, the program made no allowance for this. It was saved to a debug
log. The target moved to the designated firing position. The laser
locked and started its power up cycle. The target put its hand on the
lever. The laser reached its max power output.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The old man detected the weapon power up as he started down the side
of the truck. There was no time to warn the kid, the firing sequence
was to fast for words. As his embedded systems calculated a trajectory to
the boomer the old man grabbed his EMP gun. The print lock took one
second too long. The old man heard the kid scream as he started up the
side of the truck. If the kid could still scream then it was probably
meant as a diversion attack. That was probably an arm or leg hit, the
next would be the other. It was probably intended to draw him out to
protect the kid. Old trick. There were two options. Forget the kid and
look for a back way, or risk the sniper and hope for an opening. The
firing solutions based on the discharge so far put the target in safe
range for headware, but it was going to be a mother of a headache. His
systems picked up the laser's recharge cycle, the best firing position
was on the other side of the truck, the second best was on top. The old
man set a firing solution and threw himself on top of the truck. The
laser reached its optimum firing power, at least that was what could be
estimated by the strength of the last blast. The old man rolled to a
firing position and fired. The shot was wide and hit the wall next to
the boomer. The boomer had delayed its firing sequence to retarget, the
old man felt the lock seconds before the shell hit the wall.
The boomer stiffened as its powered systems started shorting out. The
old man gritted his teeth as the residual blast washed over him. His
embedded systems started to feed back, it felt like someone was using a
blowtorch on his whole body.
If he had been able to pick up anything on his sensors he would have
picked up the slam as something dropped the man hole cover it had been
silently replacing. He also would have picked up the sound of something
large and metal dropping into the sewer. Had he fine tuned his senses
he would have picked up the sound of several "things" dropping to the
ground. He didn't though, his systems were still running feedback when
the last of the echoes died away.
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"HEY MCNICKOLS! PICK UP!"
Leon reholstered his gun. It was probably just the chief. He
probably just got his ass chewed off for letting one of his officers
arrest a Genom exec. This was garrenteed to be a call telling him to get
his butt back to the office. Leon didn't mind. It was worth it.
"Dalley, see what you can find out when they bring in the boomer,
looks like I'll be going back to the station to talk to the chief."
Dalley nodded. Leon went over to the tech's desk and picked up
the phone.
"This is Leon....Where the....What!....The kid?....How bad....cauterized...
...yeah....what's class ten?....oh shit......effectively class eight?....the
damage?...oh the fall....is that better?....christ.....yeah....."
Leon dropped the phone into its cradle, "Dalley. The boomers went
active again."
"How..."
"The old man said that the 'junker' must have been roughly a class ten
boomer."
"What..."
"He said that class ten boomers were at least as intelligent as humans,
as powerful as combat boomers, and can reprogram themselves as well as
other boomers."
"But..."
"That roughly makes them self aware. The good news is that the
'junker' has probably suffered enough internal damage to make it an
effective class eight."
Dalley looked at him expectantly.
"A class eight is a really stupid class ten. That means that its
probably at average human intelligence. The bad news is that its escaped."
"What!!!?"
"Lets go there's a lot of paper work waiting for us."
"What about the kid?"
"oh. One of the boomers sniped him. It intentionally took his hand
off at the wrist."
Dalley looked disgusted.
"Come on, today just got about eight hours longer."