Brain Storm (US Edition) (6 page)

Police and other security forces were now pushing forwards into the statue along with their respective forensic investigation teams. Hostages were being rushed out to them, they would be taken to isolation tents where they could receive medical assistance and where they would wait for questioning.

The glass doors and windows that made up the front entrance to the statue had been shattered and were piled up along the bottom frame glistening like the crest of a wave. Sara stepped over it and onto the top of the steps. The commotion out here was worse than it had been outside. What looked like the world’s supply of police and security personnel were bustling around. Beyond them Sara saw even more security forces on the edge of the park working to keep a growing crowd of journalists and inquisitive civilians from moving any closer. Security mechs patrolled the interior of the cordon.

There were more dead terrorists out here and one of the mechs they had reprogrammed was frozen in mid-step. It must have had
its circuitry scrambled with an electromagnetic pulse. The first of the temporary tents was assembled before her eyes at the bottom of the steps. A large red cross adorned the side of the tent. Sara knew she hadn't taken any injuries in the single scuffle she had had but it was procedure for her to get herself checked over by the medics after any operation. She was just pushing her way in through the entrance flaps when she heard the reports of gunfire coming from the edge of the park.

Chapter
Five

Carla made her way out past the edge of the poor district and got to a point where the unreliable public transport system still maintained what they laughingly called a service. She got a bus most of the way to the memorial park but had to get off and walk when the bus encountered a police detour intended to keep traffic away from the vicinity of the park. She was politely advised not to go any closer but none of the officers tried to prevent her from doing so.

She arrived at the back of a large crowd less than an hour after she had left the hotel to find that nothing had changed. At least she assumed from the speeches being given by the myriad assortment of news reporters that there had been no change. The crowd in front of her was too strong for her to push her way through and all she could see over the top of them was the upper body of the statue with
its arms raised in the air.

Then a number of things happened all at once. There were a few quite shots and then two explosions one after the other. At first Carla thought they had blown up the statue as they had threatened but when she looked it was still there. At the sounds of the explosions the crowd had erupted into a cacophony. Carla thought she heard the sounds of gunfire but then everything was drowned out by the screaming and shouting of those surrounding her. The reporters were frantically shouting in a vain attempt to be heard over the noise and to give their opinion on what was going on.

The journalists and camera people surged forwards to try and get a better view of what was happening as did everyone else crowded around hoping to witness the spectacle. Carla let herself be carried along and forced her lithe frame into the smallest gaps that opened and moving in  this fashion she moved steadily to the front where she could actually see what was going on.

Assorted security personnel were rushing in a zigzag pattern across the open space of the park. There was a cloud of thin white smoke being pulled apart by the shifting winds surrounding them. Carla could make out the entrance into the base of the statue and the figures rushing inside there.

The movement of people into the statue slowed and then people started emerging. Some were just the security forces who had only just entered but there were other people mingled in with them. Carla tried to push herself forwards but was held back by the cordon as she strained her eyes to try and make out if any of the civilians she saw being escorted outside were her friend Karl. It was a futile exercise, from this distance, and in the bad light, she could barely tell if they were male or female let alone recognize any specific individual.

Carla cast about for the nearest police officer hoping to get some information, to find out if Karl had been inside the statue and if so if he was all right, but the only member of the security forces close enough for her to talk to was a lumbering security mech.
What the hell?
Carla thought, the mechs possessed little actual intelligence but it should be able to fetch her a flesh and blood officer to talk to.

"Hey, metal head," Carla called waving her hand over the top of the barricade. "Over here."

The mech plodded along another couple of paces and then, keeping one leg firmly planted in place rotated the rest of its body to face her, the other leg rotated to match when it was in position. A green light flashed from left to right and back again in a pulse along the rectangular slit on top of its blocky body that the machine used for eyes. The entire bar lit up with a ruby glow and the mech stepped forwards so it was almost close enough for her to touch. Up close the security mech didn't look so much lumbering as it did imposing. Twin barrels slung underneath the machine's head/body were level with her eyes.

"Citizen Swift you are under arrest. Prepare to be terminated."

At first the shock of hearing that she had been identified and put under arrest blocked out the fact that the mech had just told her she was to be put to death. Immediately.

In a whir of machinery extra weapons protruded from the top of each leg where it connected with the body. As they tracked around to target her Carla panicked and dropped to the floor. The security mech opened up with all of its guns and hell came to earth. The reports of gunfire thundering all around her filled her head with noise and confusion. Bodies were falling all around her. Bloody shells torn apart in the hail of bullets fell on top of her and covered her in blood. She was crawling through pools of the thick hot fluid as she sought to escape. Get away.

Screams made themselves heard even over the deafening shots and Carla realized that some of them were her own. The crowd stampeded around her and she was kicked and stamped on in their urgency. One woman tripped over Carla's body and shouted a curse at her even though it may have saved her life as bullets ripped through the space where she had only just been.

More guns opened up but Carla couldn't tell if they were shooting at her, the deranged security mech, or randomly wherever they chose. She still wanted to escape, to get somewhere safe where she wasn't being shot at or hunted. But she had known that there was danger if she came here and she had accepted the risk of being taken.

But this should
not
be happening.
Security mechs didn't just decide to execute people whether they were under arrest or not. And they sure as hell didn't fire indiscriminately into a crowd of civilians just to kill one little target.

Carla wanted nothing more
than to get away but she was frozen to the spot. On her hands and knees amidst a manic crowd of people, with corpses and mud and blood all around and all over her. She just curled up on the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. Her clothes were sodden with rain and blood and clung to her body chilling her. More blood and mud was kicked up into her face and Carla closed her eyes against it. The ground smelled wet and faintly metallic.

She no longer heard gunfire, nor did she hear screams. In fact she heard nothing at all. Her senses were shutting down as she retreated from the madness back inside her own mind.

I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't-

"Get up quickly."

A hand grabbed her roughly by the elbow and her peace was shattered by the return of the noise and confusion.

"Get up come on."

Carla blinked mud out of her eyes as she pushed herself up to her feet, half dragged by the black clad woman pulling her arm. The security mech was being kept occupied by numerous security personnel. With them the mech was firing to injure not to kill, taking more time lining up its shots with a greater degree of accuracy. A half a dozen officers were writhing on the floor in pain. As Carla watched the mech took down another with a shot to his upper right thigh.

"Whatever you did you sure got that thing pissed." The woman guiding her said.

Carla wanted to say that she didn't do anything, that she was just standing there when it started trying to kill her, but she found that she couldn't force her dry mouth to form the words. She was shivering in a way that had nothing to do with her being cold and wet. The other woman was all that kept Carla on her feet as she moved her as fast as she could away from the danger area. The other woman kept looking back over her shoulder even when the passed out of a direct line of sight with the out of control machine.

Most of the crowd had vanished into the night. Her rescuer escorted Carla past the few remaining news crews who were reporting on the additional news of the slaughter of civilians by an out of control machine. Carla tripped over the raised edge of an old flagstone path but the other woman caught her before she hit the floor.

"Thank you," Carla said finding her voice again. It seemed such an odd thing to be able to thank this woman for saving her from a fall when she hadn't even thought to thank her for action that had very probably saved her life.

"Don't mention it, I'm just doing my job." The other woman was still looking back and with a start Carla
realized that she was itching to be back there where the action was.

As quickly as possible the woman handed Carla off to a pair of official looking men who weren't dressed in any sort of uniform Carla was immediately familiar with.

"Sara Fox under Marc Ash," the woman said as she gave Carla to the men. "Get her checked over then take her to ECSIS HQ for debriefing. We can't risk any of the other security mechs getting  sight of her in case this malfunction isn't isolated."

Carla felt suddenly afraid as Sara left to return to the situation with the mech. Feeling as though she was a child and had been left alone in her bedroom at night and her parents had just closed the door, cutting out the light.
Not that that matches any of my childhood memories.

The two men nodded and started escorting Carla over to one of the medical units that were standing by. There was already a sizeable crowd gathered around them and medics walked through the crowd assessing patients so that those in most need of treatment got it fastest and those who could wait would.

Her escorts were on either side of her holding an arm each just above the elbow. When they were almost upon the medical teams the men tightened their grips and steered her off to the side. A black van rushed up alongside and came to a sudden stop. The back doors opened and Carla was bundled inside. As the doors were slammed closed plunging her into darkness she felt a prick on the side of her neck and her mind was plunged into a darkness of its own.

***************

Sara left the young woman,
young woman she's only a couple of years younger than I am. Of course you grow up quickly in this line of work.
She left the young woman and hurried back to the malfunctioning security mech. She didn't expect to be a great amount of help as she was still only minimally armed. Her pistol would have as much effect on the mech as is she was using a pea shooter and little paper spit balls. Hopefully someone had had the presence of mind to get an EMP grenade from someone on the intrusion team otherwise it would take some heavy artillery to slow the mech down.

It would have been much easier if the mech's programming could have been accessed and modified by remote control, or if a remote control signal could cause the mech to shut down.
The trouble was that if either of those things was possible, it meant almost anybody with even an eliminatory understanding of the technology would be able to manipulate the mechs at will, making them worse than useless. The only way to reprogram a security mech was to issue the changes when the mech was recharging in its maintenance alcove. They were always well guarded but not impossible to get access to. The CDM's commandeering of a couple of units was testament to that.

The mech had certainly been busy. At a glance Sara saw over twenty dead civilians piled on the ground in bloody little mounds. There were over twice that number wounded who writhed on the ground amidst the dead or struggled to crawl away. There were also a growing number of police officers sporting injuries surrounding the mech. Out of uniform as she was Sara knew that the mech would not
recognize her as a member of an official security force and its targeting systems would not limit it to inflicting only non-fatal wounds to her. And as the mech lumbered towards her in pursuit of its target and Sara stood there in its path with her pea shooter in her hand she suddenly decided this wasn't such a good idea.

Why do I always try and play the hero. I'd done my part I should have left this to the rest of these guys but oh no I had to get involved. Like I'm the only one who could do it right. Idiot.

Sara raised her weapon knowing that by taking that action the mech would identify her as a threat and target her accordingly. She started firing as she threw her body to the side. She kept her shots on target even as she carved through the air and only stopped pulling the trigger as she was about to land in case hitting the ground caused her aim to go off and hit someone else.