Inside, the AI spoke to Nila. “Miss Nila Akasa Tagore,…” (only Pool or Etelka would have called her by her full name) “…with your permission I would transfer to your internal drive the approximate location of the fragment of myself, the one who maintains the World Congress of Commerce, and controls the corporations like puppets on strings.”
Nila’s internal received a ping of sorts:
>PACKET WAITING FOR PERMISSION
Receive-packet -authorize code: KCN39072ax1
Somewhere near the equator…in Asia, Nila thought based on the coordinates.
“Is there anything else?”
“That will be all, Miss Tagore.”
Even though the voice was female-sounding, the intonation and the words in particular, sounded like Pool.
The apparition dissolved into myriad points of lights, like ultraviolet fireflies and faded into darkness before the ambient light nodes came back on.
Nila turned to face the silently waiting anthromorph, which in turn led her back to the entrance.
She thought about the brief conversation: how the AI didn’t promise to reward her, or anything like that—just assumed that Nila would take on the mission to destroy its evil twin. What do I do now? Drive to Asia in Luc’s car?
Outside, Nila blinked her eyes against the grey sky.
NILA:….
The distraction–Etelka’s digital signal, by the feel of it–turned her eyes away from the location of Luc’s car…just in time for Nila not to be blinded by the flash.
On the rocky outcrop above, Luc and Etelka saw their goggles darken reflexively. Instinct had Luc pull Etelka back behind the ridge. He caught a glimpse of the shallow arcs of railgun wads, along with the arc-less straight lines of energy wads.
“What…Luc,…what the f…what was ….what is going on…?” Etelka’s words stumbled out of her mouth as the dust and grit found their way in. “What of Nila??!”
.
Luc elbowed himself back up to the ridgeline. The scope of his rifle and his augmented eyes peeled away the cloak…a fucking C_class destroyer loomed, top turret mast poking above the peaks to the east.
His mind turned to the ancient (to his mind) airship–Etelka’s baby–Baba Yaga’s Hut–supposedly hovering in place on the west side of the island. And, of course, to Nila, who was probably being showered with gravel and detritus at this very same moment.
…
Nila: well, I was looking for some action…
Nila rolled out of the door as the first projectiles hit. From the look of the anthromorphs that were behind her, the intellegence engine was hit first. From her position, she couldn’t see the source.
…
ETELKA: POOL…POOL….Attila….!!!!
“Luv…calm down.” Luc ducked his head a little lower. Nila was out and running. “WALKIE 2: Attila, STATUS ROGA. KEEP THE HUT BELOW THE HORIZON. JUMP OUT IF NEED BE. C_ CLASS DESTROYER HERE. ME AND E AND N WILL MEET YOU ON THE WEST BEACH ASAP.”
…
Back in Baba Yaga’s Hut, the indominantable Captain Gordon received the message from Attila’s scattered translation and told Nosrit to dial back a day. The time device whirh ed up quick enough for Capt Gordon to see the flashes as further weapons were unleashed upon the target.
…
Nila rolled and dodged. A several square meter chunk of camou’d aluminium impacted the cliff wall just above her head.
She, in a polished and practiced manuiver, reached back and brought out her bullpup. (She kept her pack zipped, with zippers meeting on the right side, making it fairly (not really) easy to pull it out. She may have lost a magazine in the scramble.
She turned. and turned to see more streaks across the leaden sky, the end points pummeling the structure she had just been in, conversing with a partially mechanical AI (!)
And then there were her friends.
Nila looked aroound. scanned the sky. No sign of BYH. And was that E trying to message her? What the fuck /
Her hand snatched a feel at her right pocket as she jerked back and forth running down the mountain. The rings were there–the ring-saddle that E made…
She slipped the three-ring saddle on, the inner ring holding three larger rings, making it fit her finger.
No target yet.
She continued to run. Breakneck speed. Down. Leaping over boulders, Scraping arms and legs. There was a tear in her left pant leg, and in the skin, now. Her right hand, clutched the grip of the Kopf-Heckler. The weight of it said the magazine was full.
just a view of who’s attacking…
Ion Fyr 