Escape from Metal
Chapter 15: Deja vu

Location: Sector 1.

The alarms started softly, wailing in an unfocused distance. Wail and pausing in a loop. Until they came into focus as the diamond-shaped pod started opening.

“Activation of unit 7574 commenced, designation ‘Solita’.” A distant and echoey robotic voice said.

The diamond-shaped pod’s two front doors quickly shifted forwards enough to unlatch. They slowly slid to their respective sides without making so much as a sound.

Solita lay in the pod upright unconscious and unaware of her being re-awakened. Below her was an empty black abyss, hundreds of pods like hers lined against the wall. All of them waiting to be awakened, to hunt. For now, though their pods were almost void of power save for that keeping them asleep.

She barely had any clothes on except for a rubber-like sleeve that covered her entire body from her shoulders to toes.

A single mechanical arm extended the pod until it reached a platform. The chamber was dead quiet save for the soft humming sound. Barely any sources of light were visible in the chamber. Only pods such as Solita’s that were activated had some presence of light showing her face.

The room was completely devoid of anything else. A clean room, a silent room with the same patterns on the walls and floors across the entirety of the machine empire.

The door opposite the pod opened as soon as the pod hovered in position. Light flooded into every corner of the room it could reach.

One of the primary relay units stepped through the door. Its feet tapped on the floor with a soft clicking sound as it walked towards her. The sound echoed through the chamber, under normal circumstances it would barely be audible but with how quiet it was. With the absence of any other sounds, it sounded like metallic drums were being played as it echoed through the pod chamber.

As soon as the relay unit reached the pod a terminal seemed to almost materialize from the floor with the speed it appeared. The relay unit’s very thin arms each split into 8 even smaller ends. Each end looked very much like ancient writing instruments humans used to use in times past.

Each so-called finger seemed to be devoured by the console as it interfaced with it. The surface of the console almost seemed to have a water type texture to it. The relay unit seemed to be staring into space as it received millions of pentabytes of data, as the relay unit processed the data the terminal started displaying text.

Unit activation… commencing.

Vitals…normal.

Brain function…normal.

Sensory functions…normal.

Unit division… Human hunter.

Successful kills…110.

Targets remaining… Unknown, cause… detection systems in all sectors offline.

Memory extractions completed… 10.

Unit check completed awakening commencing.

Finally, the data transfer process finished as the relay unit disconnected its ‘fingers’ from the terminal and reconnected them all into the two thin arm like appendages it had.

Several tubes jumped off of Solita’s neck with a loud hissing noise as they fell to her sides. The inside of the pod lit up as the same patterns that could be found everywhere became embroidered with dark blue.

Suddenly she fell out of the pod and onto the floor. She hit the floor with a thud which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have been as easily heard but with the emptiness of the room and barely any sounds as there were it sounded like thunder.

As soon as she hit the floor she gasped for air as her eyes shot open. She rolled onto her back as she started coughing.

“Welcome unit, 7574. Disorientation and discomfort are normal when first being awakened. Do not let this momentary lapse in normal bodily functions disrupt your ability to prepare promptly for the mission ahead. Once you exit the pod chamber there will be a room to your right where you may pick your attire. Do not keep us waiting.

Solita barely cognizant of what was happening was trying to understand what was going on. She could barely see properly. She was seeing two then one and a half of the pods she fell out of now a meter or two above her as it retracted into the opposite wall. With the same smooth silence, it exited.

She was starting to remember what she was doing here, sort of. She knew it had to do with protecting the planet and the problem was something to do with other people but even if she could remember. She didn’t think she could remember right now.

Not with the nausea she had, the massive headache and of course seeing double vision. She sluggishly started to get up. She had to hurry whatever she was doing here the robot seemed serious about it and she didn’t want to find out what happened if she kept him waiting.

So she forced herself to get up almost falling down once or twice but she somehow managed to drunkenly walk towards the exit of the pod room.

The relay robot was waiting for her outside. It didn’t say anything, all it did was look at a door opposite her. She guessed that’s where the clothes were.

“Uh, do you guys have like a cleaning maid robot or something I think I might have thrown up in the storage room or whatever it’s called.” She said as she leaned against the closest wall.

“Discomfort is not uncommon after being awakened, proceed to the attire room.”

“Guess you’re not the friendly type of robot.” She mumbled to herself.

Inside the ‘attire’ room she found a small room compared to the one she had just been in. Packed with all sorts of clothes. The clothes were squeezed together tightly on both sides of the room, she guessed the robots didn’t have a real need for clothes. That’s probably why they had some more hanging from the ceiling.

That’s when she remembered why she was here. Everyone had betrayed the machines who had looked after them for so long. She can’t remember how many cycles ago it happened or exactly what happened, but she knew, she knew almost all of them betrayed the machines and now the machines had made her their executioner.

For now, though she would just have to settle on finding clothes befitting of someone who hunted traitors.

After looking for a minute she found something she liked, a white cape with a red interior and some other fairly standard clothing. She would’ve taken a bit more time to look for clothes but with how long it took to take off the rubber suit and looking for the clothes… She was hesitant to find out what happened to anyone who wasted the relay unit’s time.

“Excellent hunter 7574, we’ve transferred your targets and their general areas data to this data wristwatch.”

The relay unit said handing over her a watch that besides the square screen and metal band didn’t really have anything special at least in terms of looks.

“We will also be assigning you a hunter unit, this unit will assist you in your hunt.”

As the relay unit said that a hunter stepped out from the door behind the relay unit. It had no visible signs of battle and seemed to be fresh off of the assembly line.

“One last thing hunter, if you have any queries seeing as this is your first hunt the watch also allows you to communicate with us. You will find all your necessary equipment and weapons as you leave the building.”

With that, the relay unit left, and the tower hunter formed up behind Solita. Its ridge body cast quite a large shadow over her.

“I guess it’s time to catch some traitors.” She said as a small smile crept into the corner of her mouth.

*

The metal creaked and groaned as Solita and the hunter walked across a section of metal which had started to erode. In front of her lay a long corridor of metal, to both her sides were towering walls which seemed to have no end. They were extruded with holes and rusting sections along the corridor.

Where most of the flooring was usually big enough to support the towering warbots that would roam the planet, she was now hesitant to cross it with her and her companion.

She and the hunter pressed on anyway they didn’t have any time to waste but as they advanced further along the corridor the groaning only became louder as it threatened to collapse at any second.

She wasn’t just worried about the floor though, some sections of the wall seemed dangerously close to falling apart and if they fell down the floor would most certainly collapse. Who knew how far they would have fallen then.

Those sections of the wall were riddle with dust as they arched dangerously towards them as they started peeling off. Others started bulging outwards as the weight of the rest of the wall above them started becoming too heavy for them to support.

Without any of the maintenance bots to do any maintenance work to the walls they were sure to fall apart eventually, they might have been made of one of the strongest alloys but they degraded rapidly without constant reapplication of a liquid form of the wall and the application of the liquid.

She remembered what this place used to be the last time she saw it. It used to be such a pristine place. Bustling robots going around all corners of the building developing and maintaining the planet. The others just had to rebel, they had to betray the robots.

She was snapped back to reality when it sounded like the flooring might give way at any second. She quickly raised her fist to signal the hunter to stop. She would have to find another way to get through the corridor.

Just as she was about to find an alternative route a warbot rounded the corner. This was one of the tripod variants specializing in depending on its armaments either anti-infantry or long-range bombardments. This one was armed with two twin gatling guns on its sides.

Their eight to ten-meter stature offered them a distinct advantage in picking off infantry and provide them with reasonably good mobility. Although seemingly lightly armoured, they made up for it with their adaptability. As was the case with most machines controlled by the intelligence. This one had only a single red eye.

“Hunter, contact the tripod unit and tell it to halt.”

“Unit unresponsive commands are not being received.” The hunter said flatly.

“Try the emergency channel, if it doesn’t stop this entire section is going to collapse.” Solita said with urgency in her voice.

The hunter seemed to stare into space for a few seconds without moving.

“Unit still unresponsive to commands.”

“I was hoping this wasn’t one of the rogue bots I was warned about.”

“Hunter, use the most structurally sound section of the wall to climb above the warbot, stay in its blind spot and on my signal jump down and aim for one of its legs joints.”

The hunter nodded in confirmation as it started climbing one of the sections of the wall using its sword-like arms. Cutting through the walls as if they were nothing. Even if they were weakened, she was still slightly impressed, she had only heard of the warbot’s prowess before.

Now she had more freedom to move around on the floor without checking where she was stepping every time. She had to act fast if that warbot saw her and started a standard attack approach, it would collapse the entire corridor.

They might have big guns but they sure weren’t smart Solita thought to herself.

She quickly tapped her wristwatch as the screen lit up and opened the communications frequency with the hunter.

“Hunter move in tandem with me where possible, under no circumstance are you to compromise the integrity of the wall.” The hunter sent a beeping sound in conformation.

Suddenly she heard a loud booming sound as it echoed through the corridor followed by clicking and locking sounds. The hunter had spotted her and had just armed its Gatling machine guns. She hoped it had only seen her and not the hunter.

With all the types of bots on the planet, the tripod class seemed relatively harmless when compared to some of the other killer bots at least the smaller ones. Butfor a normal human with no exo-armour sets and who was almost unarmored save for the light shield belt, she had brought with her. The 90mm bullets were pretty terrifying.

She started sprinting towards the tripod unit in an arching zig-zag pattern as its twin Gatling guns spun up. She only had a few seconds before it unleashed all hell on her and probably destabilized the floor below her. It was still a couple of hundred meters from her.

She guessed that the zigzagging wasn’t going to throw off a finely tuned machine like this tripod. It’s then when the tripod unleashed a hellish storm of bullets flying through the air. These types of machines were built to take down armored units, the storm of bullets that was now heading towards her was going to tear through her like she was nothing.

Solita ran as close as she could to the wall with the tripods bullets barely lagging behind her. They whistled past her in somewhat of a chaotic harmony. If all went according to the plan the tripod would be shooting into the wall section behind her and opening up a hole.

After running for a few seconds with the tripod’s aim getting closer and closer she jumped backwards and over the bullet storm. Her cape majestically flapped in the wind as she seemed to hover above the bullets. She landed on both her feet facing the tripod.

The tripod immediately adjusted its aim to fire on her but just as it was about to change its aim. The hunter unit shot a micro flare from one of its shoulder mounted flare dispensers. The tiny flare flew through the air and right into the tripods eye.

Solita took her chance and did somewhat of a horizontal spin into the gap the gunfire had created, making sure to hold her cape against her as she went through the gap.

Slightly out of breath and disoriented by the lack of light in the space between the wall and the pipes and wiring running along the wall. Spaces like these were usually built for all kinds of maintenance bots to be able to traverse. Solita luckily wasn’t too big and could just manage to squeeze past the pipes and wiring.

“Hunter report on the tripod.”

“Tripod primary vision obstructed temporarily by a micro flare. Tripod most likely switched to secondary scopes. Remaining in the interior of the wall undetected for long unlikely.” The hunter said.

“Try to be a bit more optimistic.” She said squeezing past another pipe and breathing out to decrease the space her chest took up.

“I want it to see me. Just not yet, when it does, I want you to jump from the wall and aim for one of its joints.”

The hunter sent two beeps in confirmation.

The tripod was cautiously and methodically looking for them with its thermal vision, but all the degrading metal was making it hard to make heads or tails of anything. It lifted one of its front legs to start walking but stopped halfway before it had put it down as it saw a small section of the floor collapse.

Meanwhile, Solita was still moving slowly past the pipes occasionally stepping into the water fluid these pipes carried. She wondered what they had been carrying it’s not like the machines need to drink water or anything, but she quickly banished the thought as a couple of drops fell on her head. Preferring not to know what it was and rather focusing on not getting stuck between the pipes, if that happened, she would be as sure as dead.

After a couple more minutes of squeezing through pipes and trying to not get caught unawares by anymore leaking pipes her wristwatch started beeping incessantly, the hunter was trying to contact her.

“Yes, hunter what is it?”

“You have less than a minute before the Tripod warbot finds you. The pipes behind you are much cooler than the rest around you. This will lead to your discovery even with the tripod unit’s limited visual capabilities.”

“Understood prepare to…”

Just as she was about to finish her sentence, she heard a familiar noise. The Tripods Gatling guns were starting to spin up she had about 5 seconds before she looked like the degrading walls and with so little space she couldn’t go anywhere.”

“Disengage from the platform in two seconds.”

No response from the hunter. In a split second, she had decided to go on without the it and took a quick look at the wall segments in front of her and hit the weakest one with her palm. The segment quickly collapsed in front of her.

She hastily slipped between the crumbling segment of the wall, hesitating a second as a large chunk fell mere centimetres from her face but she shrugged it off as she leapt through the wall.

As she looked up from her acrobatics she stared straight into the barrels of the tripod. She could have sworn if it had actual eyes, it was giving her a death stare. The spin-up was taking a bit longer this time due to the previous volley of rounds heating up the barrels beyond its safe heat limit.

The tripod determined to finish what it had started despite the increasing instability of the alleyway proceeded to accelerate the spin-up process. The barrels of the Gatling guns clinked and clattered in protest. As they were being pushed to their limits.

Sensing an opportunity Solita dashed to the side trying to stay out of the tripods firing range and simultaneously close the distance between them.

The tripod opened up with a hellfire of bullets barely out of reach of Solita. This time not only could she see the bullets whistling past her and burrowing into whatever they struck. Now she heard as the Tripod’s symphony made a deafening noise as it fired. Creating an almost blinding light from the rapid-fire.

Solita had to run like she had never run before to stay out of its reach if she let up even for a moment the next moment, she wouldn’t even know that the tripod’s hellfire had caught up with her. It wasn’t helping that the circle she was running around the tripod was making her dizzier by the moment, but she couldn’t run away she had to close the distance.

She could hear the guns starting to protest even more than before with a grinding noise coming from them and the rate of fire was starting to ever so slightly slow down with each passing moment.

“Got you.” She said as she quickly tapped her wrist watches screen.

Almost immediately she could hear the tearing sound of rusted metal somewhere above her. A few moments later a loud clap noise echoed through the alleyway. As metal impacted metal.

The tripods one leg started crumbling as its exposed knee joint had now been shattered. The weight of the tripod pushing it down. Its head started swinging wildly and uncontrollably as it fell. The tripod still trying desperately to hit Solita with its Gatling guns but instead looked like someone who had no idea how to aim.

The wild rapid-fire of the Tripod sputtered across its knee and by some miracle hit the hunter as a loud hollow metallic sound echoed through the alleyway.

The Tripod emptied its remaining shots into the floor next to them. Solita’s focus had however shifted from decommissioning the rogue tripod to saving the hunter. Although she ran as fast as she could she kept thinking in the back of her mind that the hunter couldn’t have survived.

Even if it did how was it going to stay operational to help her find the traitors? She pushed these thoughts aside as she ran faster towards where it had fallen. With the tripod next to it trying to get up to angle its guns but kicking futilely with the two remaining ones like a wounded animal.

Its feet grinded against the metal as it sparked and hitting the occasional bump only for it to pull its leg back creating an incessant screeching noise. Its rotary motors in its neck made a whirring noise as it ticked left and right, left and right, trying to look at Solita but not getting the angle it needed.

As Solita approached the hunter it wasn’t. Moving not a single spark came from it and no jittering indicated some ounce of life it had left. She carefully laid it on its back to examine the damage it had received.

She was surprised when she only saw a glancing hit on the side of its head. She guessed the force of the bullet must have sent him into a full reboot but before she could examine the hunter any further, she heard a loud screech. One much deeper and louder than that of the tripod trying to stand up.

The floor in its already weakened stay had received structural damage and was starting to collapse. She had to move him to where the floor was stronger, and she had to do it fast.

She grabbed onto both the hunters upper arms where the bladed parts had stopped. She was careful not to let her hand slip and accidentally cut off one of her arms on its blades. She hoisted its arms above and over its head until they were facing away from it.

She took a quick breath and yanked the hunter as hard as she could, but it barely moved a meter. As it simply slouched into a slightly different position.

Solita had to think there was no way she was strong enough to move the hunter and she needed it to find some of the more elusive targets.

“I can’t fail, they’ll put me in permanent cryo stasis if I come back without it.” She said to herself and for a moment her face showed a sliver of fear as her eyes became soft as her face.

She could see that some of the flooring had started to collapse into a visceral void. The chaotic clamoringof the tripod wasn’t helping either as the floor under it protested to its movements with the occasional loud groan.

That’s when she got an idea, it was a little crazy and it might actually kill her and the hunter faster than just waiting around for the floor to collapse around them, but she had to do something. She had this feeling of desperate urgency to try and save the hunter, something beyond the punishment for getting frozen for all eternity.

She summoned all her strength to pull the hunter closer to the tripod. It was only a couple of meters, but the jagged flooring and the occasional protruding part of the hunter wasn’t making it easy to move it. She felt like she might have been pulling the Tripod instead of the meagre hunter.

When she finally reached one of the Tripods legs, she stepped back to see how her plan would play out. The Tripod seemed to become even more frantic than it was before, just barely being to see her over its chassis.

The flooring collapse had almost reached the Tripod and by some miracle, the Tripod had not fallen down yet but the walls around them were also starting to peel off.

She quickly ran back to the hunter and positioned it where the Tripod now flung one of its remaining legs back and forth. Despite seeming like a wild wounded animal trying to escape even in its immobile state, its legs still followed a pattern as frantic as it may have seemed.

She stood there waiting for the Tripods leg to follow its pattern and hit the hunter smack dab in the middle of its back hopefully catapulting it to a more stable flooring however many meters forwards it would land.

“Come on, come on.” She said as the collapsing floor neared the Tripod.

Then suddenly she heard a high-pitched metallic ping as the Tripods leg impacted the hunter. Throwing it hopefully beyond danger and not onto more eroding flooring. She had to hope the hunter was safe.

She however still had to get to safety. She was holding the hunter in place for it to be hit but she was not holding it tightly enough to be thrown with it.

Instead, she was flung to one side of the Tripod.

She grunted as she hit the wall. The wall shuddered as she impacted it.

Solita gasped for breath as soon as she hit the floor coughing as she slowly got up. First Kneeling for a few moments to steady herself and her slightly shaky and divergent vision.

The final strain had been placed on the already crumbling alleyway. As the groans of the metal shifted to a screeching sound as the floor started to collapse on the side, they first saw the tripod.

Pieces of the floor flung into the abyss below as it started systematically collapsing. Each section’s disintegration giving the next more than it could bear causing it to fall apart as well.

Even at this distance, Solita could hear the collapsing metal as sections ripped away from each other colliding as it fell. The crumbling of the alleyway wasn’t happening slow either if she didn’t move soon, she would be swallowed along with the tripod, but she couldn’t allow that she had a mission to complete.

Solita stood up straight as fast as she could and started running slightly off balance. She ran in a small arch still cautious of the Tripods flailing legs.

So, she wobbled along trying to reach the hunter. She knew she couldn’t carry it or most probably not move it if the floor was going to collapse that far.

So, she ran as fast as she could her shoes clinking on the metal as she went along. The dizziness wasn’t helping her run straight either or to avoid the occasional jagged piece of floor.

A ploom of dust and rust led the charge to Solita as the collapse accelerated. She knew the floor collapsing wouldn’t be far behind. So, she pushed past the dizziness and started running faster. Her heart was racing, and she wasn’t sure how long she could keep this kind of pace with the hit she had just taken.

Her health didn’t matter she just had to finish the mission, finish the traitors.

Mere moments later the cloud swallowed the Tripod. A few seconds later she could hear the distant sound of scratching of metal as it tried to claw onto its last piece of life as it was pulled into the abyss.

The cloud was now right behind her as it just kept speeding up. Probably from more debris falling. It tumbled towards her as it engulfed everything around it growing larger and larger as it rolled forwards.

Solita ran as hard as she could, but the cloud came rushing as it overtook her, within seconds she had no idea if she was running the right way. She had to keep running forwards, but she thought to herself what if she had gotten turned around somehow and was running towards the expanding abyss.

Just as she had finished that thought the floor under her collapsed as a large section gave way. It felt as if her heart and stomach had switched places as she fell down, but a hand reached out and grab her by the arm as the seemingly floating arm pulled her up and onto a more stable section of the flooring.

“Come on.” A man’s voice said as he urged her forwards.

She moved carefully as the man held onto her arm and pulled her through the dust. She had no idea where they were going. Much less how he knew where he was heading. After a few paces, two silhouettes started walking next to them.

One had some sort of sensor device. A loud beeping came from it. How they heard the beeping over the increasingly distant metal crashing was beyond her.

For now, though she pushed any questions and thoughts aside as she marched forwards through the dust as it gently drifted down. Slow as it may have been it was thick, she couldn’t see much except for the man leading her.

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