A Displaced Samurai

May, Sunday 24th, 2048

There were news about several Emergences, but none of them looked particularly large. One of these was nearby enough to make it interesting for an experimental counter-raid by yours truly. Apparently, a Type 21 had settled on the grounds of Sangster Elementary, only a few hundred meters down the road. They seemed to like open spaces, in this case the playing field.

I split my units into two squads of six Type One each, two of each squad the new radio models. The Spectracopters overhead. The Fours stayed with me as bodyguards. I also had my armor and my rifle with me. But I kept the explosive Four at a distance.

First contact was between a lone Type One (enemy) and my zebra-striped unit. The One stared at my zebra for a bit, then lost interest.

Hardly surprising. Their image recognition relies more on shape than on color or print patterns.

I had the rest of the squad surround that enemy One, among them the one with my coat of arms. Same non-reaction. Then I summoned the one with the red Mickey Mouse ears from the other squad. The enemy test subject immediately attacked that one. I had my squad counterattack. The enemy Mack lasted about three seconds.

Next, I sent one of my captured Type Ones to the Type 21 and asked it to walk around the 21. It did so without issue. Next the Type 1R, also unmolested. It was time for Project Anti-Tank Dog. I had my explosives-laden “Type Four” walk up to the school’s playing field. One 1R stayed to observe, but I sent all other units into cover, including myself. On my augs I saw the relayed image of the fake Four walking up to the Type 21. It stepped below the 21’s red eye and lifted its own eye, in the most innocent-looking way possible.

BOOOM

The explosion shook the school grounds in a way I had never experienced before. As I took my fingers out of my ears, I could hear the faint tinkling of glass falling out of the windows. It was definitely Collateral Damage Day again.

I went around the school and took a glance at the windows. 90% of the glass was gone. The Type 21 had lost most of its eye, and a scar of molten and vaporized metal ran through it. The 1R was dead.

Watch out, there is residual activity.

I saw something glimmering at the edge of the eye, and the glimmer got stronger. Inacceptable. I shot the glimmering point with my rifle, and it went out again.

That did it. 500 points for you. Also, 10 points for your involuntary lab rat before.

It was time to mop up. I sent my units through the school and the neighborhood, making them look into every open door. In one case, an enemy Type One was scratching at a door behind which a terrified family was hiding. Two of my units finished it quickly, then retreated. This left the family more frightened but in less danger, I guessed.

But most remaining enemies were clustered in the school’s auditorium. In numerical strength, they were not far from parity. Eight Ones and two Fours against my eleven Ones and two Fours.

What they did not have was my last EMP grenade. They seemed not to understand what happened when I threw the thing at them.

BANG.

This time, I got lucky and managed to hijack both Fours, as well as three of the Ones. That left three hostile and two dead Ones. At my command, my own units shredded them in a hail of stabbing legs and tentacle-spikes.

I had the whole bunch follow me back to my shelter under the Colwood fire depot, then took the van with a bodyguard of two Fours back to the school. There were seven broken Type Ones to collect. A girl should always clean up after herself. The 21 was, unfortunately, too large to carry off.

Doing the math, I found that I had 1395 points and one token now. I also had fourteen Type Ones and four Type Fours. Which I locked away in the same former dorm where I had hidden my printer parts weeks ago.

May, Monday 25th, 2048

07:15

Elya woke me up.

We have far more emergences all over Victoria now. Most of them on the small side, but one hundred and thirteen of them.

“Put an overview on my augs.”

The map of Victoria was dotted with red sores that symbolized the emergences. I noticed something I had run out of. “Elya, I’m out of EMP grenades. Can we build the full powered version yet?”

Yes, we can.

“Queue four of those up.”

I got dressed in a hurry. Breakfast would have to be canceled. Then I had a closer look at the map again. One of the emergences was centered around one of the new highrises at Allandale road, only a few hundred meters away.

The first thing I did was set the two Spectracopters on the roof. Next, I grabbed EMP grenades and rifle. Third, I let my collected Macks out.

“Elya, new orders for our Macks. If they are accosted by Magical Girls or HANAF troops, they are to roll over and submit.”

Programming amended. That should be funny.

My eighteen Macks and I set off towards the highrise in question. The lobby doors were open and from inside, noises could be heard. At the doors, two Ones appeared to guard the entrance. I told Elya to send one of the copters over for a flyby, but did not wait before I sent two of my Fours ahead to deal with the Type Ones. Each of the mecha squids approached one of the doglike Ones and rammed a spike up its eye.

“Elya, send one of the copters over and let it circle the building, check if you can see something from outside.”

On its way.

In the meantime, I organized my machines for a push at the high rise. Those with full battery charge for storming the stairways, those that were already half empty to guard the lobby or check out the basement.

The copter arrived and found nothing overly suspicious. A few Ones slinking around to the north, but no immediate threats. So I entered the building along with my troops. We were suddenly attacked by a dozen Ones and two Fours. Body parts went flying and hydraulic hoses were ripped off, only the Type Fours on both sides were a lot more resilient. Something I had to rectify on the enemy Macks. I snapped up my rifle and took advantage of one opponent Four being stuck in a picking match with one of mine. They were almost immune to each other’s spikes and the fight was getting nowhere. Until I shot the enemy Mack through the eye.

After that, the fight was quickly going our way, but not without losses. I lost three of my Type Ones and one of the Fours was severely damaged, with two tentacles out of order. The attackers were completely destroyed. Black, viscous oil covered the floor, interspersed with plastic chips ripped from the Ones’ bodies.

I organized a reconnaissance patrol towards the basement, with orders to retreat on enemy contact. Which soon happened. At least two Type Four tried to break into the shelter in the basement, with eight Ones standing guard. When they detected my forces, they attacked immediately. “Elya, the Fours to the front!”

Coming.

My armored metal squids took over the task of controlling the stairs, while I threw one of my new EMP grenades past them and towards the shelter door. The effects were far more drastic than what I was used to. The two enemy Type Fours that had tried to breach the shelter door dropped dead. Half of the enemy Ones on the stairs also collapsed, one switched loyalties and attacked its erstwhile comrades from behind.

Within seconds, the enemy robots downstairs were finished, but the much stronger EMP from my new grenades had also killed one of my Type Fours. I was now down to nine of the six-legged, doglike Type Ones and two of the Type Four mecha squids. On the upside, I had collected three hundred points this morning so far.

Suddenly, I heard voices from the building entrance. I recognized the irritated voice of Ladybug. “What is going on? I have not even blasted them and they already drop dead?”

Pink Orchid: ‘They are not dead, that is a submission gesture. Just like with my Grandpa’s dog!”

I stepped in with a big grin. “Hiya there, I managed to tame these. Would you care to let my troops live?”

Longhorn, the team leader, answered “That’s nice to hear, but I still don’t trust these mechanical pests. Do you have more of them running around?”

“Only what you see here. I was about to send a patrol upstairs, but have not done so yet.”

“Then don’t. No offense intended, but I’d rather not have them underfoot while we are checking the building.”

Eventually, Longhorn pronounced the building safe but still was not enthused about me running around with my own Mack army. When the Battle Bugs left, she admonished me to not let them out of my sight.

In the meantime, I had started to organize the disposal of the scrap. To make a boring story short, by noon I had carried away a total of twenty-nine scrap robots. Some of those were losses from my own troops. Together with the seven from the day before, I had thirty-six bots in my bunker that needed recycling.

I also wondered why the Macks this morning had recognized mine as hostile. Some analysis of the software in the enemy units showed they had a new friend/foe identification system that did not rely on appearance alone anymore. Enemies becoming smarter? Not a good thing.