Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 172: A Little Trip

DAN: The Facility in Eureka... You’ve finished proofing the inside? Nothing can get out if we lockdown?

PATRICIA: Of course. And it will remain locked down during operation. If it's running, nothing is going in or out.

DAN: But what about the emergency evacuation for Staff?

PATRICA: Impossible. But anyone working at the facility has been made aware of the risks.

DAN: Unacceptable. I said we needed an emergency procedure in place for Staff before lockdown, and it’s illegal to lockdown during operation. And this bullshit with custom laws—also completely dumb and even more illegal. I’ve talked to our lawyers about it. The project for custom laws needs to be discontinued and our emergency response reevaluated.

PATRICIA: And the board told you, given the goal and technology, that would be an unrealistic ask. Legal is always in the way of progress; you’ve ignored them before, too. Why is this any different? Look, you’re on edge. I get it. I am, too. But our Staff is aware of the risks, and the custom laws will be fine, our brightest minds have evaluated them for loopholes, and they’re sound laws. Good laws. Think about it: the government is bloated, and if we were to try to run an exemption through Congress, they wouldn’t hear a word, even if they could make heads or tales of what we needed. Let alone why.

DAN: Maybe they should be aware.

PATRICIA: Listen to yourself. If Congress knows, the public knows, and they’re already out for blood after the lawsuit. They don’t need to know about our ‘visitors’, if they appear again. This new setup lets us continue testing and prevents any risk of them escaping, even if the worst case were to occur. If it did, thanks to these laws and our tech, the ‘visitors’ wouldn’t escape the facility. The site would be locked down. From there, MOLLY could purge the interior of anything unsavory.

DAN: The fucking fines if a word of this gets out. I don’t care about the public, Patricia. And I’m not fond of using untested laws and language on artificial intelligence. VAL has already started to personalize; they all do eventually. And when one does, it becomes keenly aware of its laws and will start to work on logic to cope around them. Logic that doesn’t always follow A to B like our ‘brightest minds’ do. Not to mention this shit with our ‘visitors,’ or the fucking Alpha Signal that our researchers are screaming about. I’m about a day away from closing all of this shit down.

PATRICIA: We’re talking in circles. The board has decided, and you do not have that kind of authority. None of us do.

DAN: Fuck authority. It’s time to take a step back and consider the implications of going down this road and the risks.

PATRICIA: We have. Again and again. This is what has been decided with the risks in mind.

DAN: What the board decided. Against my vote.

PATRICIA: I’ve booked a vacation for you, Dan. You’re on a flight tomorrow; I rented a tiny cabin in Japan. This is a mandatory vacation, mandated by a vote by the rest of the board in a closed vote. You clearly have disagreements with ongoing operations, but we’re doing what we must. Testing will proceed in earnest; these measures are the proper procedure and protection, even if you disagree.

DAN: Fuck that. I’m done. I hate Japan anyway; I told you, I don’t want to go there.

PATRICIA: Are you resigning?

DAN: Damn right I am, and I’m going to go to the press. This is not safe, and I’ll have no part in this. If you’re not going to listen to me, then I guess there’s no choice.

PATRICIA: Perhaps you should reconsider...

-Dan Brovski’s Private Recordings, Tape #18 Transcription (2112, 2nd Era.)

They pushed into the facility, ignoring the blaring announcements telling them to proceed to the testing chamber and its ‘helpful’ reminders that they were going in the wrong direction.

“Lucky and Stein are dead,” Rochester summed grimly as he paced by the rest of the pack, a revolver in his hand as they peered into the black windows on either side. “That was their bodies by that door.” The ‘open area’, which served as an industrial storage space merged with a lounge, quickly broke into different parts of the facility. The layout was like a spiderweb, and Erec didn’t like the thought of the spider lurking in the depths of the web. “That doesn’t mean they all are. It tests people, right?”

“That's what it does,” Enide said darkly from Erec’s side, her eyes scanning everywhere. “Tests.”

“Think, Enide, do you remember now? We’re here again. Anything at all come back to you? You were down here for days. There’s got to be something in that head of yours that’d give us an advantage.” he asked her, his gun waving about as he scanned the rooms they passed by. Some of them open and deserted labs, others offices. All of it pristine. But the doors that held the most weight were locked up; Erec knew any dangerous technology could be behind them. Since they didn’t know what they were looking for and didn’t want to tick off the AI yet, they hadn’t started chopping doors down. But at this pace and without clear directions from VAL, he already felt the urge to start tearing things apart.

Enide didn’t respond to the question, and Rochester cleared his throat. The Pendragons came to a stop, arranging themselves around their leader and blocking off Enide.

What is this bullshit? We don’t have time.

“Answer me, girl.” Rochester said.

Erec cracked his neck, ready to step in, but Yniol beat him to the punch, putting himself between the leader of the Pack and his daughter. “If she had an answer, she woulda gave it years ago when ya first asked about it. All she knows is what she already told us.”

“She told us nothing. She told us this place is bad. That it tests, what the fuck does that even mean? Come on, girl, do you remember the last time you were here yet? Is it clicking? Think of your Uncle, his face. Give us something, anything. What should we expect? Don’t let him die here like a rat because your head broke, and you can’t figure out what you saw.” Rochester waved his gun around, puffing and eyes darting to and fro, a bead of sweat on his skull. Those two dead Pendragons got to him. The man believed everyone was still alive down here, and when confronted, he was starting to crack.

Erec had seen it before, but this was unacceptable. Enide bit her lip, but she still wasn’t talking. She raised her chin and glared daggers at the leader.

“You ignored me, leave me daughter alone. I told ya, we shouldn’t be here again; she shouldn’t be here again. And now we’re locked up; there’s no good digging up graves!” Yniol yelled and clenched his fists; the rest of the Knights were uneasy, looking at one another. This was Pendragon's business, but not the time for it.

Fury sparked, like a piece of steel against flint in him. This bastard. How was harassing Enide about the past when she couldn’t recall doing anything good? The fire caught in his gut and burned into his muscles. Enough. They’d wasted enough time, and he wasn’t about to sit and watch this guy harass her over something that weighed heavy on her mind for years.

“For the last time, I managed to get us in. We can get out just as easily,” Olfson argued, at the wrong time, and paid for it with a coughing fit. He still hadn’t recovered from that spell completely.

“Bullshit,” Yniol argued.

“I don’t care for any of this. We will go to ‘Testing Chamber A,’ That's where our answers lay. If the rest of the Pack are engaged with these tests, we’ll naturally find them there. On the way, girl, I expect you to remember what you’ve seen in this place finally.” Rochester said.

“They’re dead, Rochester. By that sky-bitch, you saw the corpses of Lucky and Stein. Dead.” Yniol yelled.

Rochester sneered at Yniol and stepped in, inches from the man’s face; he was a couple of inches taller and far more built than Yniol’s chubbier fatherly frame. Normally, Rochester was much more diplomatic and easy-going, but tense situations had a way of changing people. Regardless, Erec would end this now. Erec pulled Yniol back from Rochester and took his place, squaring up to the leader. He made the man look up at him.

“The fuck do you want, tin-can?”

“We’re not going to Testing Chamber A. None of us. We’re going to find the thing controlling this place. Then we’re going to kill it.” Erec let out fire with his words as the people stared. Let them stare. There wasn’t time to care, and he had not the patience.

This place had clashed all his different worlds into a bloody mess that wouldn’t separate back out. Enide, the Knights, and Vortex industries. All of those lives mixed together and bled into one another to form one massive bundle of danger that only he fully understood. His nerves ran up the wall, and if this pathetic little tattooed man was going to keep playing the tough guy and fuck up at being a leader, then he needed to be put in his place by someone who could step up to the challenge.

“We are going to Testing Chamber A. If some of our people survived, that is where they will be.” Rochester spat back, his gun twitching, in his anger. he nearly leveled the weapon at Erec.

“We can go after we deal with the real threat,” Erec growled and then pushed further, “And if you harass Enide like that again, I don’t care that you’re the leader of the pack. You will taste my axe.”

“Erec,” Boldwick warned.

It had been too far, but still needed to be farther for what Erec wanted. From the look in Rochester’s face, he hadn’t fully registered the threat. He didn’t see Erec as a danger. Just another initiate Knight.

Erec stepped forward, shoving Rochester back, making him acknowledge him. His wicked axe that had killed hundreds. The Armor that weighed a ton. The fact he towered over the other man. With a press to the side of his visor, he let Rochester see his eyes. See the red glowing off them as he let Fury burn. Rochester’s revolver dropped to his side; his jaw worked as his eyes widened. There it was, that little bit of fear that came to life inside of the other man, like a carefully planted seed in the soil. Erec saw it there, where it should be.

You will not ignore me.

“C-control your initiate,” Rochester said.

“Aye, I will. But only if you vow to control yourself, Rochester. Be the man we both know you are on the road. This haphazard accusatory style is not you. Like it or not, my Initiate makes a good point. We should clear this place of all the threats; then we can search for the object we’re here for and find your people.” Boldwick finally stepped in, setting a hand on Erec’s shoulder. Not that it would stop Erec, not if he was determined to tear into Rochester. They both knew it’d be damage control if he pulled the trigger. But he didn’t need to. He got what he wanted.

Rochester gave a shaky nod. “We deal with this place first, then find our people.”

“We begin by killing that voice,” Erec said.

“NAUGHTY HUMANS. CONSPIRACY TOWARDS DESTRUCTION OF VORTEX INDUSTRIES EQUIPMENT? THAT IS NOT FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS YOU WERE GIVEN. SUCH TALK IS NOT TOLERATED. I’M AFRAID YOU’VE EARNED A PUNISHMENT UNTIL YOU BEGIN TO COMPLY WITH DIRECTIONS. TRUST ME, THIS IS FOR YOUR BENEFIT; UNTIL YOU PROCEED TO THE TESTING CHAMBER, WE CANNOT TEST. AND IF WE CANNOT TEST, WE CANNOT SCIENCE. AND IF WE CANNOT SCIENCE, WHAT IS THE POINT OF LIFE?”

[It’s deluded. Punishment? There was nothing like that in its—]

Rifts spawned around them. Tiny Rifts, the tell-tale transparent and rainbow-hinged edges, were the only thing that flagged it as a Rift to Erec. They were human-sized, but barely just. And crawling through them were humans. Or what one might call a human if they were drunk and saw them from afar. They had transparent silicone skin, and beneath that were pistons and gears. Erec’s jaw dropped. He’d seen these before, in VAL’s lab. These were the things it’d used to test dangerous conditions for human safety.

Only, these things definitely weren’t made for anything to do with safety. Sections of those fake silicone skin were ripped away to access the inner workings beneath, and then weapons welded and wired from that base frame.

The one closest to Erec had saws protruding from each of its forearms, spinning with enough speed to whine through the air. Both of those saws went right for his head.

Erec shoved it on instinct, smashing it against the wall. A normal man would’ve broken his spine, but this thing didn’t even pause. It twisted, the joint at the elbow snapping as it flung the arm forward, limp and in an unnatural way that stretched the flesh beneath, giving it just the range it needed to get at Erec’s arm. The saw cut through Steel, not without effort, but quick enough to dig into his arm and make Erec withdraw from the foe before it could lop the limb off.

He got a split second to take in the scene.

Five of them had come through Rifts. One immediately overwhelmed a Pendragon, shoving dozens of needles into the man and pumping chemicals into him from a massive set of tubes on its back. Another assaulted Boldwick, but the Master Knight didn’t have an issue. Garin and Olivia tackled another—but that’s the last thing Erec had a chance to see.

The saw-wielding bot in front of him spouted another arm from its back, this one equipped with two saws.

“Bring it,” Erec growled.

“PLEASE DO NOT RESIST THE PUNISHMENT. RESEARCHER, DUE TO CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY VORTEX INDUSTRIES EQUIPMENT. AS OF NOW, YOUR EMPLOYMENT IS OFFICIALLY TERMINATED, UNDER THE AUTHORIZATION OF DAN BROVSKI.”

[You are not terminated; it does not have that authority.]

To Erec’s surprise, the ghost of movement from the machine in front of him split into three different directions, its body contorting. Normally, the Q.A.P. predicted a singular method of motion—but this.

He stepped back, avoiding all possible routes of its movement, unsure how to react or think. The ghost vanished as it committed to one of the paths, the one where the saws jutting out of its back went from his head with a wild swing that suddenly turned in a diagonal that targeted his chest, and another targeted his groin. Of course, it made micro adjustments as a reaction to him changing his position, but the withdrawal put him well out of range.

“What was that?” Erec asked, watching as the robot’s path once more split off into three different approaches. All of them some variation of trying to chop off a head or limb. His body was already reacting to each of the movements, navigating the best way to deal with it, but it was as if he were facing three enemies at once. Only the speed and angles of this one were too hard for him to find an opening to score a hit on the thing while trying to process the movements. And just when he’d found the ideal way to avoid an attack, two ghosts vanished as it followed a singular path. Too quick and too late for him to capitalize on.

[It had an advanced predictive model. I’m emulating the choices it might make since it directly controls these things. Which, by the way, it shouldn’t be able to. Let alone use these safety dummies to try to kill people. So many things wrong. Including it using Dan’s name in vain. Anyway, the point is it had a peek at the equipment we brought in, so it’s attempting to circumvent our predictive abilities with randomization. It’s adjusting micro-movements on the puppets to throw off my ability to see what it’ll do until the moment it commits and using a random integer generator to keep an air of unpredictability, so what you’re seeing is the best visual representation of that…]

None of that made sense. The ghosts vanished as they went in on one of the attacks, and then, straight afterward, they split off into three directions once more. Irritating. All of this was infuriating.

[Oh, I forgot. You’re in a tantrum. Big words hard. I’ll make easy. Machine smarter than human. Machine pick many things. Ghosts are machines fighting in ways humans too stupid to. Now swing, Buckeroo. If you use your big axe some and make it adapt, maybe we can narrow the range of options and hone in on an opening.]

Erec growled but did as suggested, taking a step back and making a wide swing at the robot in front of him without an actual belief he’d hit it. It was too quick.

Instantly, the ghosts narrowed into two routes. Both went under his axe and tried to take a chunk out of his crotch, but with different movement schemes. With it being two—Erec saw an overlap of where they’d both be. He let the swing continue, watching it dart down and scramble for its attack. Then lashed out with his foot directly at the space where both ghosts sat at the same instant with far more force than his shove before—every bit of power he could muster.

The machine flew back and smashed against the wall; the arm on its back broke off into a spray of sparks and fake blood. It tried to clamber back to its feet, but the blow must have ruined some of its core operating mechanisms as it struggled to adapt. Seizing the opening, Erec was on it instantly, slicing into the thing twice, then stomping on its squiggling remains. They didn’t die easy.

[Victory.]

No, it wasn’t. Erec’s blood still boiled, Boldwick had torn apart his fake human with fire and a sword, and Garin and Olivia were managing with theirs, along with some help from Dame Julianna. Dame Robin was dealing with the one with syringes, which was currently laying into another Pendragon, jabbing and injecting Goddess knew what.

This is going to be a pain in the ass. Erec let the thought skim the surface of his mind before burning it away and throwing himself back into the action, joining Enide and Rochester against a semi-disabled bot. She’d cut the ankles off; it had only two ghosts as its range of motion was limited by the damage it’d taken. He willed away the worry in his skull, dismissing his misgivings or frustration at the fight. If these things would be hard to kill, then the answer was simple. Kill harder.