Children of a Lesser God - Chapter 283: Automations

Lax was crouched behind a metal wall while his group was spread out around him, ducking behind other walls, rubble and whatever else could be used for cover. Seeing this, Laz knew that they were just sitting ducks and he had no idea even what was shooting at him.

Taking a deep breath, Laz stuck his head up and looked.

The gate was located in what used to be some sort of gathering area. It looked like an open yard while the ground was paved with a weird, black stone. All over the edges of the area, Laz could make out solders having taken cover while shooting recklessly towards a shed like structure sitting off to the side, almost completely unnoticeable. While Laz looked on, a door on the shed opened, revealing a small, knee height, robot looking contraption. It resembled a box with two bent sticks pointing out of the top of it. Before Laz could even take in what was happening, the stick like, metal poles pointed towards an area that had several troops shooting at the shed.

The red light condensed on the ends of the sticks and then shot out, piercing the wall the men where hiding behind and killing off two of there number before they could spread out.

In response, the still living troops threw over several grenades’ that rolled underneath the tiny robot before exploding. The robot shot in the air several dozens of feet before it came crashing down, a mangled mess of parts.

“That’s five,” Laz heard one of the men yell out.

“How the fuck many of those things are there? We got to fucking wait until they stay still long enough to blow them up while several of us die each time,” Laz heard another guy yell from the other side of the circle shaped area.

“HEY, NEW GUYS! YOU BASTARDS OK?”

“WE’RE GETTING ATTACKED BY ROBOTIC GARBAGE CANS. HOW THE FUCK ARE WE OK?” Laz shouted back, letting him know they were there.

“We need to hold this position for as long as it takes to clear all these things. There is about a two minute gap between when it sends one out,” The guy to the left of Laz’s position yelled.

“Why didn’t anyone come back to warn us about this?” Laz asked, wondering what they would do when civilians started coming through.

“Can’t get back in. The gate seems to be one way only. At least that’s what those special bastards said before taking off and leaving us here.” The guy on Laz’s right replied.

“They left?” Looking around, Laz noticed only military personal in the area.

Laz then looked up and around, trying to catch sight of something, anything, to get them out of this. His eyes landed on a screen in the center of the area, floating around thirty feet of the ground. On it were a strange collection of what looked like words, projected in white against the natural blue of the screen. It almost looked like a pop up menu from some video game.

“What the hell? Is that a hologram?” Ruby said, following his sight. But Laz didn’t respond back, instead, he looked at the screen in thought.

For anyone else reading it, it looked like a bunch of strange symbols that probably meant something, but there was no telling what. For Laz though, it felt like he could recognize what it said, but had no idea as to why…

“Welcome to Rapture…” Laz said, mostly to himself.

“HEY, ANY OF YOU OVER THERE,” Laz called out before Ruby could asked him what he meant by welcome to Rapture.

“What Captain?” One of the other teams leaders called back. He just so happened to be a Captain as well, Laz just didn’t know it.

“When you came in, did anyone look closely at this sign up here?” Laz asked, having a thought.

“What? The sign? The glowing screen thing?” That Captain asked back..

“Yeah. That.”

“No. Why the hell would we look at something we can’t read?”

“Alright. Then what happened when you came in?” Laz needed more info to see if he was right. Because unless he could verify it, there was no way he could get anyone through this safely and the best course of action would be to escape.

“When We got in, the Evolved were standing around, talking and pointing at things. We took up positions and started laying out our gear. One of them walked over to us and said something about a time difference. Apparently, they had been in for about an hour when we got in. Considering the five minute time in between groups, we knew that indicated the difference. While we were trying to get any info we could about what threats they had encountered, the one who spoke to us said there was nothing here and they were moving on. So just sit tight and wait for the remaining groups while they go have a look around. After that, they left. And shortly after they left, we got attacked.” The Captain explained things as best as he remembered.

Laz thought to himself for a bit and looked around. He could see where there was remains from the blown up trash cans, several bodies that hadn’t been retrieved and various bits of rubble. Strangely enough, there was also one trash can like lump that was far from the shed, on the other side of the area.

“When they were leaving, did one of them hit one of those trash can like robots over there?” Laz asked, pointing to where he saw the creature.

The captain from the second squad waited while the captain from the first squad thought for a bit.

“Now that you mention it, yes. He was walking and kicked it accidently after not seeing it. As the others made fun of him, he then stomped on it as hard as he could, destroying it,” the captain finally answered back, having remembered.

“SHIT. THEY’RE COMING AGAIN,” Someone yelled out, getting everyone’s attention. The shed, which had been in a dormant state, lit up while the tiny door in the front opened. Just as everyone got back undercover though, a second shed popped up a ways away from the first. This one was dangerously close to where the second squad had found cover. The tiny door on the front if it opened as well, just as the captain was yelling for his men to move out and find other cover.

Seeing this, Laz looked up to the sky again, focusing on the sign.

“Is that… what that means?” Laz mumbled before Ruby got his attention with an elbow to the ribs.

“We need to provide covering fire…” She said, pointing at the men making a run for it before the tiny robot popped out.

“Right. Take aim at the bots and open fire. And make sure to avoid the other squads.” Laz couldn’t say too much to those who had gathered since he didn’t want to alert the other squads, but Laz was worried that one of his people wouldn’t know what they were doing and accidently shoot someone.

Luckily his worries were unfounded. In fact, even though most of them had never fired a gun before, they knew the mechanics of how to. Once you added that into their natural body strength along with their heightened senses and each one of them could have been considered a sharp shooter in another squad.

There was no doubt from the other squads that Laz’s group was a big help.

The same scene as before played out as the little robots zoomed around. Once they stopped to fire, some grenades were lobbed underneath them, causing them to explode and break. If it wasn’t for that, then the hard armor on the exterior of this little automations would have been impossible to penetrate.

What no one noticed but Laz was that his team was completely ignored as the two robots targeted the other squads instead, even the one that was running for cover while.

“They are reactive…” Laz said to himself.

“They are also ignoring us,” Ruby noted as she looked on. It seemed as though she noticed it too.

“It’s the effect of the runes. They are still active, even in this place. And what’s more… the energy here is actually thicker than anywhere I have been on Earth… minus that spirit zone.” Laz responded back softly, keeping the conversation between the two of them.

“Then why the hell did two of our group get in right when we got in?” Ruby asked, wondering.

“They were just really, really unlucky. Did you noticed how the other squads are moving from place to place while firing? My guess would be they avoided the light shot while running by and our guys got hit instead,” Laz said after thinking over what he had seen when they first came in.

“That… yeah. That sounds about right. Poor bastards…”

“Well, at least it taught everyone else to be more careful. And it proves the runes really are useful. But…”

“…If this happens a few more times, they will notice it too,” Ruby said, pointing out the issue.

“I have a solution for that… I think… But I don’t think anyone will believe me.”

“What’s that?” Ruby asked, amazed that he had come up with something so quickly.

“Stop shooting and let the little things run around for a bit, firing off their lights.”

“Isn’t that just asking to be killed?” Ruby questioned back.

“Maybe. But currently, every time we go through a round of this, our threat level increases. See that sign up there? The bottom line, if I’m not wrong… is a threat meter. The faster we kill this things, the faster it fills up.” Laz told her.

“Is that why there are two of them now?”

“Yes. And because we took them out so quickly, it already jumped a level…” Laz noticed the problem. The jump was much bigger than what happened when they only destroyed one. And it wasn’t just a double jump either.

“So is there going to be three of them now?” Ruby asked, looking around at where the other sheds might pop up.

Laz had that question as well. He also wondered why they didn’t try to destroy the shed. But he then noticed blast marks across the first one and realized that they must have tried to and failed.

“THERE’RE COMING BACK FASTER,” one of the Captains called out just as the second squad got behind a bit of collapsed metal wall.

It was still two shed open lighting up and the tiny door on the front opened, letting loose two more automations. Seeing the size of the sheds, Laz got the feeling that the automations were being launched from somewhere underneath and the sheds themselves were just a chute of some sort.

This time though, there was a difference. The top of the sheds slid to the sides and two more trash can like robots launched from the top of them. This time though, the trash cans, instead of being on wheels, had no visible openings on their bases. Instead, they were surrounded by a white light ring that caused them to float in the air.

“Shit.” Laz was now faced with a choice. The assault rifles weren’t able to damage the automations normally and instead were just used as a distraction. Once they stopped moving, a well placed grenade would destroy it from the bottom. But that seemed to only work since the tiny robots had an exposed area thanks to their wheels. Once that was removed, there was no way to know if something else would take it out.

Laz knew the other groups had some rockets, but there was no telling if a direct hit to the plating on the outside of these things would do any real damage. That was assuming they could even hit them considering there small size.

But this was only a problem in terms of hiding themselves. Laz had no doubt that if he made a move, he would be able to crush those things in his hands without an issue. Of course there was the question of how dangerous that laser like light would be, but Laz knew he would have to test it out one way or the other. The two that had died to it before really were the weakest of the group.

For now though, Laz didn’t have a choice as the other two squads would get decimated by the flyers if they kept doing the same thing.

“Everyone, cease fire,” Laz called out to his squad.

“What the hell?” One of the other squad captain’s asked after hearing Laz give out the order.

“Captain, I can’t tell you what to do one way or the other. Until the next group with the higher ranked officers gets here, we have to do things as we all see fit. And what I’m seeing right now is that these things are reactive. They are targeting those who are firing on them first. If we stop firing, they might just ignore us…” Laz gave his hypothesis.

“THEY MIGHT?!?!” The captain yelled back, pissed off at Laz.

“Yes. They might. They didn’t attack when you first came in. They didn’t attack until they were attacked first. If you want to blame anyone, blame that bastard who kicked the first one. But that won’t solve the problem right now. As soon as those flying types finishing booting up, how the hell do you plan on stopping them… shit… it’s active.” Laz noticed that the two flyers that had been hovering in place without moving, suddenly seemed to glow red under the white halo and started flying towards the two squads who were still firing at both them and the small, land based ones.

Before Laz could say another word to convince them, the two flyers projected the red light outwards from their antennae like sticks, killing two solders each and sending the rest panicking.

Seeing how things were going, the two captains shared a look from across the gate area and quickly made a decision.

“CEASE FIRE.”

“STOP FIRING AND GET DOWN.”

They both yelled at the same time, order there men to remain on standby and stay still. Their men, hesitant to obey that order that seemed more dangerous, still complied.

All firing ceased and this became eerily quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were the small buzzing of wheels from the two ground automations and a strange whooshing noise from the two in the air.

Just when it seemed like it was working, a few more shots fired out from all four of them, causing the men to want to take action again as 4 of their comrades were hit and died.

“DON’T MOVE,” both captains ordered at the same time. They both realized that the four men who had been hit were the last ones to stop firing.

With a lot of swearing and grumbling, the men continued to lay there, quiet and sweating while looking on nervously. Laz and the other captains realized that if they were fired on again, the men would disobey orders and open fire with everything they had. This wasn’t earth after all and there was no telling how many of them would make it back.

In contrast to the rest of the solders, Laz’s team was quite relaxed as they looked on. Dwayne even popped out a cell phone that he had somehow smuggled over and took a selfie while Remi, the four Ivy’s, and Jennia looked on in wonder at his lack of understanding of the situation.

Just when it seemed like someone was going to snap, the automations made one final run around the gate area and returned to their sheds that then retreated below ground. One of the ground units deactivated and took up a position right at the spot where the original one had been before it had been kicked away.

By the time it stopped moving, it looked like nothing more than a decoration of the gate area.

As everyone else took a deep breath to try to calm their nerves, Laz looked up at the blue screen still hanging there in the orange tinted sky.

As he predicted, the bottom line of wording disappeared, replaced by a single word which Laz would have sworn meant ‘inactive.’