Digital Exodus Chapter 31 (Patreon)

The lift came to a halt with a soft sigh and a dull thump. Already, we had our guns trained on the door, while the humans were safely hidden behind a box. Actually, we were all taking cover, but they were especially taking cover.

A chime sounded out in the hallway and the huge doors began to slide open. As soon as there was a foot of space, bullets began to pour into the lift from outside. Whoever had laid in wait for us was unloading their ammunition with extreme prejudice. Conventional snapping booms from their guns were interspersed with the electric saw-blade sound of a railgun as bullets pinged and bounced off our cover, the doors, and the walls behind us. By some pretty major miracle, nobody was hit, and it felt like a damn near thing.

As for those of us with weapons, we remained hunkered down. I had my pistol in my hand, ready to fight.

Outside the lift, someone called a stop to the gunfire, and that was our chance. The door was halfway open now—More than enough room to see and shoot our enemies.

“Go.” Roger ordered, and we all snapped out from behind our cover as a synchronised unit. The ability to completely synchronise like that was a new one, developed perhaps two months ago. All it really did was send a sort of intention-thought from one or multiple people to all others in the group. It allowed us to move based on when someone began to think about moving, rather than when they gave some sort of outward order. Obviously, since Roger had actually spoken over comms, nobody was used to relying solely on this ability, but it helped.

To the cops outside, it must have looked terrifying. Six battle damaged, lifelike androids stood in a single movement, their weapons seeming to find targets in the same exact moment. The actual accuracy of the shots that were fired could have been a topic of debate, but outside, six people fell to the ground. I was extremely grateful in that split second I took aim, that the person I chose to shoot was wearing a helmet. Sky tower security was the type of law enforcement that put the fash in fashion, so the helmet and tactical armour they were wearing was more for intimidation aesthetics than actual functionality. He dropped when my bullet caught him in the forehead, as did the other five targets.

“Fuck!” someone swore, fear plucking their vocal chords in a harsh, grating way. On my left, I saw David twitch and shift slightly, gaining a different angle. His gun barked once again, and there was a scream.

We waited for a couple of long seconds, then when we heard nothing but the groans of the one or two living cops outside, we converged on the now fully open door. The foyer was clear of people, except for us and the enemy casualties.

Even as a cargo unloading room, it was ostentatious. The walls were an inoffensive cream colour, with dull, dark red skirting boards. The ceiling held warm, frosted lights in ornate silvered fittings, while the floor was plush light and dark grey patterned carpet. Several floating anti-gravity trolleys sat hovering happily, waiting to be loaded by workers who’d obviously been evacuated in a hurry. Two different wide corridors led out into the rest of the spaceport, their lengths adorned with similar casual opulence to the room itself.

A sudden, sharp noise jolted me out of my inspection of the room, and I looked over to see Gloria spraying wound sealant into a bullet hole she’d just recently put in the man on the floor. His expressionless black, glossy helmet stared up at her in what I interpreted as shock, but he said nothing. She moved over to the other wounded dude and did the same, all without saying anything to them.

Gloria confused the hell out of me sometimes. One moment she could be vicious as fuck, the next, compassion.

“Okay,” Roger said. “Everyone knows what to do. Let’s get to it.”

All six of us digital sapients nodded, while the three humans… Henry nodded calmly, but the parents looked terrified.

I followed close beside Roger, as it was he who’d be guiding me to the control tower. David and Ed followed us when we left down one hallway, while Jason, Gloria, and the humans went down the other.

Our group broke into a run the moment we began to move. Our boots pounded the carpet, but it was soft enough to mask the sound. Unfortunately, Ed's arm was still grinding, so it wouldn't be too hard to hear us coming.

We came up on a junction that split forward and to our left. We intended to head left, but the moment Roger rounded the corner, he slid to a stop. “Other way, other way, other way!”

My momentum carried me partially into the wall as I tried to redirect while looking down the left pathway. My eyes boggled. Blocking the entire hallway with their combined bulk were two heavy-infantry combat drones, and behind them were countless security personnel.

The bipedal robots were thick, brutal looking things with chunky frontal armour and a shield on an arm that provided further cover to those behind them. In their off-hands were heavy, square weapons that I recognised as directional sound rifles—An old but highly developed technology that used high intensity sound waves to incapacitate ‘troublemakers’. Strangely enough, use of them in war was considered a war crime, but using them for riot control was somehow fine.

The guns fired as we rushed with inhuman speed across the junction, and the paint on the wall beside us began to blister and peel. Warning lights blinked alarmingly throughout my body—Goddess… the rifles were set above their safety limits.

“Go, go, fucking go!” David urged us with wide-eyed alarm.

“This is going to get rough!” Roger warned us as he kicked a door open. “This is the main terminal concourse.”

The massive room we entered was breathtaking. Vaulted glass ceilings allowed real sunlight in, along with a gorgeous view of some stratospheric clouds high above. High end stores of every kind lined the huge space, while a line of old oaks created a forested path down the middle. It was the type of place that I used to hang out in, when I was a teenager who actually had friends and stuff. Everything had aesthetically pleasing curves and gold trim, from the foodcourt tables and chairs, to the tasteful physical advertisement boards. That was actually a good indicator of how rich an area was, all across the globe—How intrusive were the advertisements? Very? That was where the ‘poors’ lived. Tasteful and easily ignorable? Rich people land.

Speaking of rich people, they were everywhere, as if there weren't a bunch of armed androids on the loose. Of course, then the local authorities were kind enough to announce our arrival when the alarm claxons began to sound. Predictably, people immediately looked around with confusion and anxiety. Some saw us, and began to back away.

“Aw, hell,” Jason said, staring up and down the huge space.

Out of several hatches that’d been carefully hidden among the various decorations, shops, and restaurants of the concourse, came countless heavy-infantry combat drones. Their chunky legs thumped loudly as they left their little nooks, while the weapons on the sides of their blocky chassis’ began to come to life.

“All patrons, please be aware that the local airspace will be restricted in five minutes, and the Council-Ten Tower will be entering lockdown,” a masculine, authoritative voice said over the intercom. “We request that all patrons make their way to the marked public-safety bunkers at their earliest convenience. This is not a drill.”

“Across,” Roger ordered, and we began to rush to the other side of the concourse, dodging around sluggish rich people as they meandered their way towards safety.

In my peripheral vision, I was aware of the combat drones beginning to swing their bodies towards us, aligning one by one in a travelling wave. Oh god, the concourse was huge—We weren’t even half way, would they start shooting, gunning down the crowds?

I leapt over a small fence that separated the grey and gold tiles from the garden-forest strip that marked the centre of the concourse. I could hear the thump, thump, thump, of heavy drones as they walked steadily towards us with single minded purpose, but… where were all the human security?

“Oh, fuck,” Rusti commented, their eternally jovial voice gaining a hint of awed terror. Cerri spoke over the same channel, and at the exact same time, “Uh… Whoa…”

“What the fuck is it, now?” Ed demanded as we leapt the burbling stream that flowed down the middle of the tiny park.

“The… the American Republic—” Cerri began to tell us, before the speakers in the concourse began to blare again.

“All patrons, please be aware that the local airspace lockdown has been instituted early. No further flights will be permitted to take off,” the intercom voice said. “Make your way to the nearest bunker within five minutes. The doors will be closing when the timer is finished. This is not a drill.”

Punctuating his words, there was a very, very slight rumbling that echoed through the building continuously. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t place where I’d heard it before.

“U-uh… new plan!” Rusti said urgently, their voice rising with the sort of alarm you hear when something really bad and really unexpected is happening. “Get to the ship, all of you, Now.”

“What about the turrets?” Ed asked, weaving his way through a small, intimate version of a food court.

I was right behind him, but rather than go around a potted shrub, I nimbly hopped over it.

“They’re busy!” Cerri answered, while Rusti just made a sound like a squeaky toy being strangled.

A very faint, dull thump, more felt than heard, reverberated through the concourse, which was quickly emptying of people and filling with slow, implacable drones. Ahead of us, one of them raised their sound cannons and fired. The air around us juddered and writhed as it was tortured beyond coherence.

The humans in the group screamed and covered their ears, but to us androids, it felt like our audio-processing shorted out for a second.

“Pick them up,” Roger ordered over comms, pointing and firing his rifle at the weapon that’d been shot at us. There was no point to shooting the robots themselves, their armour was thick as all hell.

To my surprise, I could still feel the steady rumbling through the floor, it sounded like—

It sounded like the point-defence cannons on the Turshen firing. It was heavy, heavy automatic weapons fire.