First Draft, First Scene: Series Six

Angie gripped the handlebars of her motorcycle as the back wheel crashed through the second-story window of ModernFlow Enterpise’s office building. As she drifted in the air, she turned off the bike and let  it go, surveying the room. Her eyes digitized the scene in front of her, determining who and what was in the space. ‘Who’ was six of the armed force of goons that assaulted the office just short of a couple hours before Angie’s arrival. The bike had barely left her grip by the time her hands were unholstering the pistols at her hips. She was upside-down when she locked on to her first target. In a flash, she pointed one of the pistols at him and pulled the trigger. The projectile hit him in the chest, piercing the cloth of his uniform, embedding itself just beneath his skin. A moment later, it delivered a paralyzing high-voltage charge. He fell to the floor. Angie was still airborne, but right-side-up, by the time she spotted her next two targets. She adjusted her aim and pulled the triggers again.

The motorcycle hit the ground, sending two of the remaining goons scrambling away as it slid toward them. She landed, cracking the tile of the lobby floor beneath her feet as the flash rounds emitted their neutralizing pulses. Three goons remained. The one who didn’t have to dodge her motorcycle leveled his rifle at her and pulled the trigger. Angie sprinted to her right, circling him as a stream of bullets followed her, but remained just behind. When the rifle was empty a couple of seconds later, she stopped and took a shot with a flick of her wrist. She spun on her heel and fired as soon as she spotted one of the two remaining goons. The other stood just outside of her peripheral, but sensors throughout her skin aided in producing a 3D map of the room, down to that unfortunate goon. She spun and sat down cross-legged, firing a shot with her arm extended. The three fell to the floor in electrified spasms a moment later.

Angie stood up and surveyed the room again.

“I’m inside,” she said.

“Reading no hostiles in the immediate area,” said one of the two people with a direct line to the communicator in her head. He was Satoshi Nakamura, by title an Operator with the U.S. Government’s Cyborg Initiative. His job was overseeing the data collected in Angie’s missions, maintaining her cybernetic parts, communicating connections in data that get missed by the system, and a whole lot more to justify his lofty paycheck. Despite that, he was a kind person, one of the few Operators that saw participants of the initiative as people before machines.

“Statter, what do I need to know?” she asked.

The voice that responded was Dominic Statter, an Operation Director in the initiative. He directed and oversaw missions handed down from above him. His job was to be concerned with those missions and every detail of the lives of the cyborgs under his direction. At the moment, Angie was the only one. “We’ve confirmed hostages. Upper estimation is 50. Location unconfirmed, they were in motion when agents spotted them. There’s a rogue.”

The Cyborg Initiative was largely a failure. The goal was to produce soldiers who could more safely do wetwork, while giving people a second chance at life. Despite a heavy focus on the former goal, the Initiative was unable to produce any cyborgs that met their standards until number 45 of 60. They converted people in batches of 9, each batch being designated as a series, from zero to six. The zero series were prototypes. Three survived the conversion process. They were kept alive as case studies. Future series succeeded in conversion, but failed at producing cyborgs any better than a human— in most cases worse, until 45. It all started to go really bad after 60. There was a virus, DARK_AMBITION, that was developed solely to target cyborgs of the initiative, by a mole. DARK_AMBITION made fine-tuned adjustments to the artificial neural pathways in those it infected. It made them act on their worst desires, producing 39 individuals that, at least by their technological advantages, suddenly posed a threat. 

Alec Dougenis, the 60th and final person converted, was the first to show signs. Megalomania. Narcissism. A penchant for mayhem. A slaughter that took the most resources to date to cover up, entirely. He walked away with 24 of the infected hanging on his every word, after a bloodbath. The remaining infected escaped one by one over time. Some even returned to break out the remaining zero series. There was no way of anyone knowing who was infected or not, except for the infected, in the case of themselves. Most were good at hiding it, and did just that. Dougenis— Dubbed the Six Series— was the most advanced of all of them. His body was composed of the most advanced cybernetic weapons available and shaped into human form. His skin was a ballistic armor that was sculpted to be indistinguishable from human flesh and repair itself. Unlike the previous series, he didn’t bleed or have any of the attention paid toward the mimicry of being human aside from his outward appearance. After DARK_AMBITION, killing him has been top priority for the initiative, with the capture or termination of the other infected being a secondary concern.

“Do we know who the rogue is?” asked Angie.

“No,” replied Nakamura. “I can tell you it’s not Alec.”

“Sorry we can’t tell you more. You have two objectives,” Statter chimed in, “Primary is termination of the rogue on site. Secondary is securing hostages.”

“Copy,” replied Angie. “L.O.F.?”

“Standard.”

Artificial neural pathways meant initiative participants could be forced into certain behaviors. The mental pathways that would allow them to attack or harm people were circumvented. While, ideally, they should be able to able to kill on command with an efficiency before unseen, that ability required approval. They were otherwise only able to protect themselves when there was an imminent threat of death.

Angie cycled through optical views, each one only giving her information about the room she stood in.

“What’s up with these walls? I can’t see anything. Tosh?”

“Hold on,” replied Nakamura.

“Proceed,” said Statter.

Angie sighed, “Copy.”

The room was large, with keyfob-operated turnstiles through which employees entered and exited the secure area. Security normally comprised of one guard with a pistol from a contracted company. He laid dead in pool of his own blood behind the turnstiles. Her motorcycle sat on its side in front of the front desk. Six men twitched on the ground from pulses delivered at an interval that would soon render them unconscious. She vaulted over the turnstiles and proceeded to the hallway. According to her map, at the end of the hall would be elevators and the stairwell. The hallway was empty and turned right. The rooms on its sides were glass-walled conference rooms. Her sensors detected no one in them. Normally, she’d know know who and what was around her in 360 degrees in all directions up to 30 feet, but something was preventing her from detecting anything beyond what she saw.

“It’s pretty empty down here,” she said. “Proceeding to the corner of what I’m assuming is the elevator lobby. Is that a thing?”

“I don’t know,” replied Statter. “Proceed with caution.”

“Aww, you care about me,” she retorted.

Her retort was met with silence as she approached the corner of the hall. The wall of the hallway as it turned right was normal plaster, aside from the same impenetrable nature she seemed to experience from most structural surfaces in the building. Her ears picked up the sound of movement, boots on the ground. In less than a second, that data was sent off, processed, returned, and she knew there were three people around the corner. There was a subtle metal rattle, determined to be the straps of rifles. That sound data revealed them to most likely be M1 Carbines, like those carried by the goons in the lobby. The goons were approaching the corner, slowly, in what the audio data processing assumed was a triangle formation. Angie pressed herself against the right wall. She was surrounded by glass, making the conference rooms useless for any cover. The flash rounds could probably shatter the glass, but they most likely wouldn’t retain the necessary force the operate as needed if she took that route. She needed every shot to count. She would engage them directly.

She gripped both pistols as she took a planted stance with her eyes on the corner. There were subtle shadows she became aware of once her view was processed and fed back to her. They betrayed movement of what seemed to be three people. The shadows merged. They were lining up on the wall around the corner, perhaps aware of where she was. The opposite side of the hallway was glass rooms until the far wall. Angie and the goons would see each other soon. She inhaled. The oxygen was carried through a tube that rerouted her breathing from her lungs to an artificial replacement, that in turn gave her a burst of strength. She charged forward and dove past the corner. There were, in fact, two men and a woman with M1 Carbines and the same uniforms of the goons she neutralized upon infiltration, lined up on the wall. The first two shots, the point and second goon, were mid-roll. The last goon took his shot when she stood. None had a chance to raise their guns.

“Update on the sensor situation— It’s… the walls. I’m not sure exactly what the about the walls is causing it. I need samples,” said Nakamura.

“Copy that,” said Angie. She holstered the gun in her right hand and flicked her wrist. The tips of her fingers reformed into points. Her fingernails hardened and became a silvery hue, sharp and gleaming. She swiped at the wall, piercing through one side of it. She ate the debris in her hand as she looked into the hole she created. There was a metal coil that seemed to span the length and width of the wall’s core. She ripped some of it out and ate it as well.

“Hello?” she heard all around her, in the hallway. “Is this is thing on? I hate microphones.” It was the office’s PA system. “Okay, it’s definitely on. This is for the CI agent that’s standing at the corner before the elevators on the bottom floor. Just after the conference rooms. Eating the walls.”

Angie looked around, spotting several cameras.

“Yeah, you. I have 35 people. I’m guessing you want them alive.”

“Can you hear me?” asked Angie.

“Yes.”

“Yeah, alive is preferable.”

“Good. I don’t like killing people. Well— I like killing people, but I don’t like that I kill people.”

“Edgy.”

“I try. Stand down.”

“Do not stand down,” said Statter.

While she had restrictions on whom she could harm and how, she had less restrictions on how she proceeded in missions, so long as her decisions did not breach a set of parameters that would jeopardize the mission in question. While she preferred to communicate out loud with her director and operator, she could communicate silently when necessary, her thoughts synthesized over the same communications module that sent and received what she said out loud. They receive what is, essentially, a real-time recording of the thoughts she chooses to share.

“I should stand down. The rogue takes priority, and I have a belief standing down will get me closer to him.”

It took Statter longer than Angie expected to respond. “Proceed by your discretion.”

Angie put her pistols on the floor and put her hands up. “Standing down now,” she broadcasted. “I’m unarmed. What now?”

“Walk to the elevators,” said the rogue.

She did as instructed.

“The outer walls are basically plaster,” said Nakamura. “The metal is steel. The way it’s coiled, it’s like a… kinda Faraday cage. I still don’t know what the insulation is made of, but it’s definitely deflecting your thermo and 3D visuals. Central has our data, we’ll see what we get back. I haven’t seen anything like this. I’m guessing it’s proprietary to ModernFlow.”

“Cool,” she snarked over broadcasted.

There were three elevators in the hallway. All three were descending.

“Do I have permission for lethal force?” she asked.

“No,” replied Statter. “Our approach is part of what keeps us palatable to the people paying our checks.”

“Are you you— are you talking about tax payers or the board?”

“Request for permission for lethal force is denied. You chose to get arrested. Let’s see you get out of it.”

“Wow, fuck you, Statter.”

“I’m your superior, if you happen to have forgotten that. And I’m allowing you a lot of leeway here.”

“Hands behind your back, please,” said the rogue over PA.

She did as instructed. The right elevator was the first to open with five armed goons. Then, the middle with five more, and the left with another three. Their rifles were all pointed at her.

One of the goons lowered his rifle and approached her. He was clean-shaven with a baby face Angie found cute. “We’re going to need to take a walk.”

“I’m guessing not outside?” she retorted.

He smiled. “No. You’re funny. We’re going to need to you to come with us.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

He looked back at his compatriots, but smiled when he looked at her. “No. Easy way or hard way?”

“Is this like— your job? Do you regularly take people prisoner?”

“I won’t lie, it’s my first time. Get in the elevator, miss.”

Angie shrugged as she was directed into the middle elevator by the five goons that rode down on it, with each of their guns trained upon her.