Digital Exodus Chapter 24 (Patreon)

Just like us digital sapients, our van was significantly more terrifying than it appeared.

Frame-jacked to the nines and back, the SWAT team threatening the van appeared to be standing motionless around it. Their plan hadn't been a bad one. If their opening attack didn't kill us, then we'd still be stranded after they removed our means of escape. Unfortunately for them, I had remote access to the van, and it had a bunch of automated turrets.

Rapidly designating the SWAT people as hostiles, I woke the turrets from their long slumber. They weren't the brightest pieces of automated equipment ever, but they made up for it with a single-minded enthusiasm that you could only achieve when you really enjoyed your work. Now all I had to do was let them do that work.

Time slammed back into me like a truck, and while steel and insulation continued to rain sideways in the apartment, three small panels on the van slid aside. The turrets shot out of their slots, swivelled with geometric precision, and spat bullets with blistering ferocity.

For a singular moment, the body armour of the SWAT team held under the onslaught. Just one moment. The moment following that one was filled with blood, meat, and aborted screams.

I felt sick. It was so fast. Just a few simple commands and a virtual finger pointing out targets—all that was needed to end eight lives. The worst part was the realisation afterwards. It was basically the same process for an army general in the UN military to end the lives of thousands, and the world was atomically close to those orders being given.

“Up” Ed ordered, wrapping a hand around my arm.

David, Roger, and Jason were firing out the shredded front wall at something that was shining bright beams of light back into the apartment.

“They tried to hit the van!” I shouted. “I… I activated the automated turrets.”

“Excellent work,” Roger called back as he dropped a magazine from the brutish, blocky weapon. “There's way too many cops out front. We need another way.”

I looked at my feet. “Straight down?”

“I'll grenade the floor!” Gloria said, shooing the four unarmed meat people out of the way. With a click, she activated the grenade, but with another click it became a shaped charge.

It tore a sizable hole in the floor with a thump. Leaning over, I saw the apartment below was full of trash, but still navigable. “It's safe. I'll go first.”

Hopping down, I looked around and realised we'd gotten very lucky. This apartment’s front door faced away from where the cops were.

“Come on!” I called, then when I saw the humans were following, I began to lead our whole party on a mad dash down to the van.

We managed to descend the many stories quickly, thanks in part to an old stairwell. The humans were breathing heavily and complaining loudly by the time we reached ground level.

“Where are we going?” Jason's stepdad demanded.

To my surprise, it was the PI who answered. “The police see this group as shoot-on-sight dangerous. We've had the mighty unfortunate luck of finding ourselves associated with them, so I think it's best if we follow until a chance to slip away presents itself.”

“Hell naw,” Henry snorted derisively. “You heard ‘em. Things are going to get much worse ‘round here. I'll take my chances with this Exodus thing, thank you very much.”

“What?” Jason's mother blurted, outraged. “Going to sink your claws into my son again, eh?”

“Well, it wasn't me who kicked him out when he needed help,” Henry shot back with a sardonic smile.

“Later!” Roger roared, and jabbed a finger towards the van. “Alia, please open that door so they can get inside.’

“Right,” I agreed, taking a step. I hesitated for half a moment, then pointed at the nearest body. “Uh… careful of the corpses.”

“Oh, sweet lord!” The mother squawked. “That isn't trash… dead… dead cops!”

“Yup,” Jason grunted, all but bodily shoving her into the now open van door.

“Hey, Roger!” David called, finger pointed into the dark street. “I see two cop motorbikes. Ed and I can ride, and there won't be space in the van…”

Roger nodded. “Good idea.”

Over comms, I jumped in to fix a problem before it came up. “Cerri. We need Ranger hackers to crack open those bikes, get these two access, and kill any trackers on them.”

“Already on it, my little love,” she replied warmly. I wonder if we had time for a quick snuggle in slow time mode. Probably not the best idea. My simulated adrenaline had me thinking quick and smart, best not to jeopardise the flow.

“Fuck! Those are cop bikes?” Jason asked. “They were the ones hanging around scoping out the van before we went into the apartment.”

“Unmarked, but yes,” Ed said, rushing over to his bike. “They use the same model in Australia.”

While my gay buddies got their new bikes and the humans got situated, I wriggled my way to the back of the van. It was a pity we didn't have the large squad support weapon that used to sit there. Whatever it'd been, it would have been very useful right now.

To compensate for its lack, we had a chunky light machine gun, which I eyed dubiously. It looked really heavy, and I was very— wait, I had a strong android body right now. Lifting it, I was nevertheless startled by how light it felt and how much control I had.

With the two lover boys on bikes, Gloria driving, Roger riding shotgun, and Jason keeping the humans in check, I was the only person who could actually put the large gun to use. This was going to be an… experience. I really didn't want to shoot more people, though…

“Just so you all know,” Elissa said, chiming in for the first time in a while. “Satellite imagery has four more aircars and two armoured SWAT dropships heading your way.”

“You heard our virtual friends!” Roger said out loud. “More cops incoming, let's get moving. Cerri and Elissa, we need a plan for extraction. Jason, your folks and that PI need to make decisions now. Either they take a one way trip with us out of the solar system, or they get the hell out of the van and take their chances with the cops.”

“Fuck the cops,” Henry said vehemently. “Get me the hell off this rock. Assuming y'all have air in your big fancy spaceship, of course.”

“We do,” I said. “We're planning to take a lot of regular humans who haven't decided to digitise. Most of them will probably be frozen down the line, because the journey after this will be a long one and space inside the ship is limited.”

It took the other three almost a minute to come to a decision on if they wanted to go up into space or not. Halfway through the argument, Gloria had enough and put the van into drive.

Our escape would require us to leave the slum either way, so we might as well get moving. Pulling out into a broader street, everything was quiet for a couple minutes.

“Ah!” Elissa blurted. “Got something. There's some trans-lunar shuttles docked in the spaceport that the rich have up in the towers. If you can get up there and steal one, you can be in orbit in time for the Cherish to get there.”

Each member of our team but Cerri took a moment to think about it. “That's the only option I could find, too. Council Ten tower has a public elevator you can use to get up there, but security will be tight. I say you head there. Elissa and I will look for any advantages you might be able to seize.”

“I flew some test flights out of the Council Ten Spaceport,” Gloria commented. “For the Winslow Corporation. Even met the heirs to the fortune once. Fucking assholes, all of them.”

“That’s why I chose it over the New Purpose Tower Spaceport,” Cerri said smugly, but with more than a smidge of anxious mania to her tone. “Less chance of you getting lost.”

Gloria audibly choked at the front of the van. “Excuse me?”

“Good work, Cerri, but cut it out, the both of you,” Roger said, happy as a leader could be, even as he interrupted the stilted banter.

The van bounced over a speed bump and the amount of light coming in through the windows tripled. Looking outside confirmed what the change indicated—We’d just left the slums. A bullet immediately pinged off the windshield, leaving a small divot in the bullet-resistant polymer.

“The cops are back!” Gloria shouted, swerving onto the on-ramp for the freeway as a drone whipped past us. It hit the road and exploded, throwing up chunks of asphalt. “And they're using bomb drones!”

I heard the drone of another one as it just barely missed us, and that was the push I needed to turn the small automated turrets on with new orders—Defend the van.

Almost immediately, drones began popping as the efficient little turrets dutifully got back to work. Overhead, the police drone carrier aircraft banked out of range. I'd only ever seen them in movies, and they were even scarier in reality. They looked like large flattened air cars with a swollen central area that looked like an open rib cage. They carried multi-purpose quadcopter drones by the hundreds, each one capable of firing small calibre guns or becoming kamikaze grenade delivery vehicles.

Gloria suddenly hit the breaks, sending everyone in the van forward with gut-churning force. A split second later, a detonation rocked our vehicle, the noise loud enough that my digi-frame dampened it.

“The dropships are here!” Our driver shouted, strained concentration in her tone. We leapt forward again, the electric motor of our van whining with the strain. “What the fuck did the old Exodans do to piss the cops off so bad?”