Androids (2)
「Big Brother, be careful!」
「Adult」「Danger」「Careful」
[Zzzzt (You too)]
Just as we'd planned in advance, I sent the little ones ahead first. They'd pulled it off without a hitch before, so this time should be no different.
Now it's my turn to deliver.
With the brood dispatched, the only thing left for me was the charge itself.
So which route do I take?
There were three viable paths: the two stairways at either end of the corridor, or the outer wall running alongside it.
They'll have the corridor covered.
The space where the stairs opened onto the corridor was extremely narrow, and my body was no longer as small as it used to be. The moment I stepped in, I'd be turned into a honeycomb. Even with the Physical Enhancement Type, weathering a concentrated barrage of tungsten rounds wouldn't be easy.
Climbing the outer wall won't be a cakewalk either.
It was a trick I'd already used once — the odds were good they'd be watching for it. And if the police had dosed themselves with stimulants, their sharpened senses would pick up my attack in an instant.
Or maybe I go through the apartment below, like before?
Climb down the window and strike the enemy from the apartment on the second floor — the same method I'd used when quietly abducting Officer 106. It was a decent approach, but if they managed to read my attack, its effectiveness would be cut in half. The route itself was more convoluted than the alternatives, which meant a bigger risk of being spotted by the androids mid-maneuver.
Ideally, I'd want to divert their attention first.
Wasn't there a good way to do that?
Ah.
As I was mulling it over, a thought suddenly came to me.
I completely forgot I had this after I got here.
Time to put that useful trait from the research vessel back to work.
I descended to the third floor, muffling my footsteps as much as I could.
Beyond the concrete floor of the corridor, I could feel the enemy moving.
The faint electromagnetic radiation leaking from their electronics. The distinctive blend of rubber and metal that was artificial skin. Bodies utterly motionless. And woven into that stillness — the smell of sweat, the flex of muscles swollen thicker than usual, the rapid drumbeat of racing hearts.
A duet performed by machine and man.
The police have taken the enhancers.
Their overflowing strength was bleeding out through skin and fabric as radiant heat.
An enhancer injection didn't just raise physical capabilities — it sharpened the senses to something more animal than human. If I'd gone down there without any preparation, the cops would have sensed me instantly and opened fire.
Lucky me.
Even with enhanced senses, their thinking didn't expand along with it.
The enemy expected me to come through the ends of the corridor or over the outer wall. Not one of them would imagine an attack from the ceiling.
Judging by their positions, the androids were covering front and rear respectively, while the five humans in the middle had split themselves the same way, front and back, eyes alert.
Standing directly above the police, I raked my elongated combat claws across my own body, opening wounds everywhere. The carapace split, and black blood welled up from within.
I need a lot of blood.
To melt through the thick floor, I repeated the process — wounding freshly healed flesh, again and again. When I judged the floor had dissolved enough, I carved one wound deep. Blood geysered up from it and splattered across the corridor above.
There we go.
Within minutes, a gaping hole would burn open in the floor and the acid blood would pour through it.
Checking that my acid blood was indeed eating through the floor, I opened the door beside me and slipped inside the apartment.
Cutting swiftly across the unit, I pushed open the window and crawled down toward the floor below.
"Damn it! Acid solution!"
"Everyone, watch out!"
The enemy raised cries of panic at the sight of acid blood raining down from above their heads.
By then I was already inside the apartment on the lower floor. The unit's door to the corridor stood firmly between me and the enemy.
I put my whole body's strength into it and slammed straight into the door.
With a thunderous crash the door was hurled out into the corridor, crushing the cop standing in front of it. Crimson blood sprayed through the splintered frame and slicked the hallway.
"Ughk?!"
"Enemy assault."
They never imagined I'd hit the ceiling and the side at the same time. The android with M01 etched into its head registered me fast and raised its Gauss rifle.
Just as the muzzle swung toward me, I grabbed the head of the cop beside me and hauled him close. The android — programmed to avoid firing on its own kind — faltered for a heartbeat, then opened fire on me anyway.
That's robots for you, huh?
Even with a human held up as a shield, the thing was picking me out and hitting me with perfect precision. A dull ache rose from the spots where the rounds had struck.
By then the other police had shaken off their confusion and reformed their line. Everyone except the one in my grip put distance between us.
"Standard rounds have minimal effect. All units, switch to armor-piercing."
So it was the commander unit. While two cops laid down suppressing fire, the others swiftly swapped ammunition at its command. The Gauss rifles in their hands reconfigured themselves with a mechanical whir, calibrated for armor-piercing rounds.
Crap.
I needed cover, so I dove back into the apartment. Armor-piercing rounds punched through the wall behind me in a hail — one of them tore straight through my tail.
Walls won't stop armor-piercing either.
I had no intention of just taking hits, so I whipped my bleeding tail in a wide arc. Black droplets scattered through the air and splashed across the cop who'd followed me in.
"Shit—!"
"His blood has an acid effect!"
The police staggered back from the acid blood. I climbed out the window and moved to the neighboring unit. Through the wall, I heard them sweeping the bathroom and kitchen.
Tsk. Judging by those armor-piercing rounds, the effects here seem even stronger than in the game.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
As I checked the wound on my tail, the cop clutched in my hand squirmed, desperate to break free.
Thanks to the enhancers, his strength was nothing to scoff at — but with his head locked in my grip, he couldn't put his full power to use. I tightened my hand to make him be quiet.
"……"
The moment my hook-like talons scraped across his helmet with a skin-crawling shriek of metal, the cop went perfectly still.
I'll get more use out of this one.
I activated the parasitic colony on my lower right arm. Stage five — one stage higher than the one I'd used on Sander.
At stage five in the game it couldn't do much of anything, but who knows how it works in reality.
From the colony's orifice, a parasite resembling a black hair-thin eel burst out and latched onto the cop's body.
"Wh-what is that! St-stop it!"
The cop thrashed in a panic, but with his head pinned, his resistance was severely limited. I plucked the parasite from where it was slipping loose and pressed it up against his face.
The instant it began sliding into his nostril, the wall exploded inward with a deafening roar.
"Target located."
An android engraved M02 emerged through the shattered wall. Specialized for close combat, apparently — besides its third arm, both of its arms were fitted with gauntlets mounting pile bunkers.
The moment M02 spotted me, it drove a fist at my head. My combat arm snapped up and caught its wrist — and in the same instant, a metal stake fired into my skull. Metal shrieked against metal as sparks scattered from my carapace.
I countered by extruding my sawtooth tentacles. The long, whip-like limb raked down M02's face. The densely packed sawteeth stripped away the artificial skin covering its features and gouged deep into the metal skeleton beneath.
"Error detected. Requesting support."
"Supporting now."
M01 appeared behind it and hammered me with the Gauss rifle. My still-recovered tentacle was shredded mercilessly by the armor-piercing rounds.
Only the tentacle took damage, but pain flared through the entire arm. I retracted the half that remained and hid my body behind M02.
"Non-functional. Requesting attack."
"M02. Thank you for your service."
M01, utterly indifferent to my maneuver, opened fire with every intention of killing M02 and me together. M02, with far less armor than I had, was reduced to scrap in moments.
This is why I hate androids.
Because their minds never wavered, my usual tactics — deception, ambush — had no effect. I raised the deactivated M02 as a shield and aimed my spine-launcher at M01's third arm.
"You goddamn monster!"
Just as I was about to fire, the police rushed in to support M01. From beyond the wreckage of the broken wall, a rain of armor-piercing rounds came pouring down on me.
I fire this one shot, then I'm out.
My head and chest — the hardest parts of me — held, but nothing else did. My carapace could only endure so much. With rounds punching through my limbs, I barely managed to loose the spine.
The bone spike fired from the tip of my lower left arm tore across the distance at blistering speed and shattered the Gauss rifle cradled in the android's third arm.
"Weapon damaged."
In the instant the android faltered, I hurled the cop sprawled on the floor toward them. Infected with the parasite as he was, he could at least manage the job of tripping up their ankles.
"!"
"Cease fire! All units, cease fire!"
Just as predicted, the moment their comrade came flying at them, the police stopped shooting. I sent a burst of will to the parasite — run wild, kill them all — and bolted out of the apartment.
"Hey, hang in there!"
"Officer 103! Stay with me!"
"Ugh… uuuuh…"
Out in the corridor, I ran for where the little ones would be.
By now they'd have finished everything — and they'd be waiting for me.
"U-UAAAAAGH!"
"Officer 103!"
"My—my heeeead!"
Officer 103 clutched his skull and rolled across the floor. The other cops rushed to pin him down, but calming him was no simple task — the body of a tall grown man, and enhanced on top of that.
"Please, calm down!"
"Pleeeease! Somebody! Get it out of me!"
While the others held him down, William hurriedly operated the terminal strapped to 103's wrist. The treatment agent built into his reinforced suit injected into 103's body — but his condition didn't improve at all.
"What the hell is this…"
"Not poison. Analysis suggests a virus, or an extremely small organism, has infiltrated the brain."
The one answering William's question was M01, now salvaging and wearing the power bunker gauntlet M02 had been using, its third arm destroyed.
"…Any way to treat it?"
"I am not a medical android. I cannot treat him. He must be transported to a hospital immediately."
"Damn it!"
William spat out a filthy curse.
He had no idea who Sander had been dealing with — but this thing was a creature that towered far beyond the Hulk Mutants.
Its arsenal of attack methods was staggering in its variety, as if it had spliced in genes from who knew what. And what frightened him even more was how skillfully the creature wielded every single one of them.
"AAAAAGH!"
"Goddamn it!"
"M01! Do something about him!"
"We must pursue the target. The target has been confirmed as an extremely dangerous combat organism. If it takes shelter in another apartment block, civilian casualties will be severe."
"Fuck! We can't just leave him like this!"
As the police and the android argued over what to do with 103, his condition deteriorated by the second.
"AAGH! A-Ah… I-I'm… I'm sorry…"
"Officer 103?"
103's expression twisted completely, and then he sprang to his feet. In the next breath, he raised his Gauss rifle and shot the cop who'd been holding him down.
"Khak—!"
"Officer 105!"
105 collapsed, a hole punched through his abdomen, blood spilling from his lips.
103 was weeping as he turned the rifle on his comrades — but the corners of his mouth were twisted upward in a grotesque grin.
"H-heheh! Sh-should've done this from the start! Heheheh!"
"103! Snap out of it!"
"Officer 103 in critical condition. Judged to be under the control of a parasite. Subduing him now."
M01 advanced on 103. The deranged cop swung his muzzle around to fire — a beat too late. M01's strike to the back of his neck dropped him unconscious.
"Subjugation complete."
"105! Don't you dare black out!"
"Uuuuuh…"
"Treatment agent! Now!"
"Please!"
William rushed the treatment agent into 105, but even to his own eyes, the man looked beyond saving.
The treatment agent was no panacea. Unless 105 reached a hospital at once, he was going to die.
William rose, leaving the unconscious man behind.
With a gut-shot 105 and an unconscious 103 down, the only ones left standing here were 102, William, and M01.
"…M01. The situation has gone to hell. Call up the androids and police on the first floor. Now."
"Understood."
If the three of them charged the creature as they were, the best they could hope for was mutual destruction — and if it pulled out some new weapon, their annihilation was a certainty. This time even M01 agreed, and connected its communicator.
"This is M01. All units on the first floor, proceed upstairs."
「KRZZZZT—KTCH」
"This is M01. I say again. All units on the first floor, proceed upstairs."
「KTZZZT」
"……"
M01 repeated itself, but nothing came back over the comm except static.
What that static meant was painfully clear.
There was more than one of them!
Only then did William understand. While the creature had been stalling for time, its companions had gone for the androids and police waiting on the first floor.
"It appears the target executed a diversionary operation."
The android's words drove the final nail into the coffin of his hopes. Just as the machine said — they had walked straight into a trap.
A trap laid by unknown beings.