Chapter 9: Tripping the Alarm
Without a second thought, Rebecca dove into the hole in the wall, her movements as fast as a startled lizard. Pilar followed right behind, first shoving his heavy toolkit and the nearly-empty ammo box through the gap. The box scraped against the concrete edge with a short, harsh screech.
Just as Pilar had jammed half his body through the opening and was struggling to pull himself into the darkness of the garage, a savage yell exploded from outside.
"Over there! The hole in the wall! Light 'em up!"
Bullets immediately stitched the air, impacting the wall and ground around them in a sudden, violent rain. Hot lead bit into the brickwork, kicking up a spray of dust and shrapnel. The air was instantly filled with the smell of cordite and pulverized concrete.
"Hurry up, Pilar!" Rebecca, already inside, was frantic. Ignoring the danger of stray rounds, she spun around, grabbed Pilar's arms, and yanked with all her might. The cybernetics in her arms whirred, displaying a strength that belied her small frame.
Using her pull for leverage, Pilar kicked off the wall with his one remaining exposed leg and finally tumbled into the dark garage, hitting the cold, rough floor with a solid thud.
At that exact instant, a burst of gunfire hammered the spot where he had been stuck, leaving a row of smoking bullet holes in the concrete and sending a wave of hot air and metal fragments into the space.
The siblings collapsed on the cold, dusty floor, chests heaving as they gasped for air, their hearts pounding like war drums. In the darkness, the only sounds were their own ragged breathing and, from outside, the increasingly close and chaotic shouts and footsteps of the Slashers.
For the moment, they were safe. But only a single wall separated them from their pursuers.
The place they had hidden in was pitch black, the air a mix of old machine oil, dust, and the faint, sharp tang of ozone and burnt metal, as if some high-energy work had recently been conducted.
They were utterly unaware that they were not the only "living" things inside. Their intrusion was a stone tossed into a still pond, and it had awoken the sanctum's guardian.
Less than three meters directly above their heads, a pale, bone-white, metallic object in the shape of a human skull hovered in perfect silence. It seemed to absorb the darkness, emitting no light of its own.
The faint, ghostly blue scanning beams in its hollow sockets, which had been in a low-power standby mode, changed instantly. The light snapped from blue to a sharp, unwavering, cold red. They were no longer scanners; they were focused targeting lenses.
A near-inaudible whir of servo-motors vibrated in the heavy air. The skull rotated with impossible, anti-gravitic smoothness, its metal jaw clicking open and shut once, precisely sampling the air for the unfamiliar bio-signatures of sweat and adrenaline.
Its high-fidelity, multi-spectral augur array was fully active, its cold logic-core processing the sudden influx of data: Two life-forms, carbon-based, human. Physiological state: extreme stress/fear. Armament: low-tech projectile weapons and simple tools. No high-grade cybernetic signals. No friendly ident-codes. Unauthorized breach of secure perimeter.
The data was cross-referenced. A threat-model was established.
++Unauthorized bio-entities detected.++ The internal processor made its cold, silent, electronic judgment. ++Security Protocol Lambda-7 engaged. Threat Assessment: Potentially Hostile. Engaging surveillance and self-defense countermeasures.++
As the judgment was rendered, a well-camouflaged panel on the skull's side slid open, and a compact, finely-wrought micro-laser emitter extended, glinting in the dark. The calibration ring at its tip glowed with a faint blue corona as it began an efficient target-acquisition sweep.
The stable, lethal aiming reticle moved silently through the blackness, passing over the two intruders who, just moments ago, had believed themselves safe.
The hot sun beat down on the derelict town, the air dry with the smell of death, dust, and radiation. Rebecca and Pilar pressed themselves against the cool wall of the dim garage, listening to the sounds from outside.
The Slasher gangers' crude shouts, the sound of them kicking through debris, and the noise of wanton destruction spread through the street like a wildfire, shattering the long silence.
"Search! Search every damn inch! The two little rats gotta be hiding in this scrap-heap!" a hoarse voice roared, followed by a loud crash as a rickety wooden door was kicked off its hinges. "Hey! This place ain't bad! Strip it for parts, clear it out. This is the Slashers' new turf now!"
More laughter, cheers, and the sound of gleeful destruction followed. The lawless gangers were treating the abandoned town as their personal prize. They smashed the remaining windows with their rifle butts, hacked apart rotting crates with machetes, and overturned everything, all while screaming crude threats at the hiding siblings.
CRASH—SHATTER!
A particularly loud shriek of tortured metal cut through the other sounds. One of the Slashers had found Joric's repaired solar array, which was linked to the town's micro-grid. Perhaps seeing it as an obstacle, or perhaps purely for the sake of destruction, he swung a heavy iron pipe, smashing it into the panels.
The instant the solar panel shattered, simple, passive motion and vibration sensors hidden throughout the town—under eaves, in chassis, and among the rubble—were triggered.
A silent, encrypted alarm pulse shot along pre-laid, hair-thin fiber-optics, racing back to the central workshop and directly into the processor of the hovering, fully-alert servo-skull.
Miles away, Joric—hauling the heavy battery pack and the "material" for his future servitors—saw a bright red warning sigil flash violently in the corner of his vision. A high-priority vibration, sensible only to him, pulsed against his spine.
++WARNING: Security Perimeter Breached. Multiple Targets. Unauthorized Violent Entry and Property Desecration Detected. Power Node A-7 (SE Quadrant Solar Array) Critically Damaged. Output -15%. Threat Assessment: Organized Armed Marauders. Behavioral Analysis: Low-Discipline, High-Destruction.++
Joric's brow furrowed. Annoyance. These troublesome entities were not only trespassing in his newly-consecrated sanctum, they were destroying the power systems he had just expended precious resources to repair.
He did not hesitate.
++[01001001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01000001 01110101 01110100 01101111 01101110 01101111 01101101 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01000100 01100101 01100110 01100101 01101110 01110011 01100101 00100000 01010000 01110010 01101111 01110100 01101111 01100011 1 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100110 01110010 01100001 01110011 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100011 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01111001 00101110]++
He transmitted the concise binary directive to the waiting servo-skull via his encrypted data-tether, and unconsciously quickened his pace back toward the town.