STC: Just Add Water 2
"Fancy meeting you here." Johnny Rico greeted as Carl Jenkins slid under the table by instinct.
The psychic couldn't return the greeting as fast as he would like. He was still in shock on what had just happened. Here they were having a really late dinner in the mess hall when two CHAS units came in. Dizzy had even joked about what CHASs ate-- "A midnight snack of micro chips"-- which he and Rico didn't really find all that funny. The girl had waved them off saying they had lost their sense of humour. A second later, the units raised their arms and open fired on the troopers inside the mess hall. He watched as the troopers that had been peacefully eating jump for cover.
"I guess they didn't find your joke funny either." The psychic said. The three flinched when they heard calls for medics from the other troopers in the room.
Dizzy looked around and saw the CHAS units start moving forward. She shook her head in dismay. "We're sitting ducks here." She exclaimed. She watched the CHAS units use their flame throwers under a table. Luckily the troopers underneath had anticipated the movie and rolled away before the flame came. "Make that roasted ducks if we don't think of something." She corrected.
Carl Jenkins rolled his eyes and smiled. "Another pun? You should go to clown college."
Dizzy Flores hit her friend playfully. But she couldn't take her eyes away from the CHAS units that were heading ever so closer to their location. One unit was now ripping the tables from the floor upturning them to make sure the troopers had no other place to hide while the other unit fired away at the troopers trying to escape. Dizzy counted 6 tables left before they reached theirs. "They're coming." She warned.
"Really? I didn't notice." Rico answered sarcastically. He sighed. Here he was thinking he could take it easy until their next drop. Just thinking about dropping in Ceres after their last go at the planetoid was enough to give him the creeps. Now he had to take down screwed up CHAS units too? This, yet again, proved to him that those cyborgs should never have been made. The lights started flickering and after a few seconds, the emergency lights had taken over. "Great. How do you stop a thing that's basically indestructable without fire power?" He asked remembering Gossard's technical updates.
Dizzy stared at the floor for one second then looked at both troopers grinning. "Who needs fire power? Maybe they're just hungry." She said with a mischevous grin. She reached for a handful of what looked like yellow goop on the floor that SICON passed for mashed potatoes. "Can't hit what you can't see."
Carl mirrored the girl's expression and grabbed his own share of lumpy brown goop that was suppose to be gravy. "Smartest clown in the college."
Rico grabbed a green mass that he hoped was strained vegetable. "Always thought this wasn't meant to be eaten." He said meeting his friends' gaze. "On three." He grinned. "Three!"
The three troopers popped out of their tables and threw their mysterious food products to the eyes of the CHAS units. "Food fight!" Dizzy yelled as her mashed potatoes hit squarely on one cyborg's telescopic lens with an audible splat. Rico had hit the other CHAS, which was followed by Carl's gravy. The CHAS units started firing wildly for a few seconds. The troopers took this opportunity to head for the door staying as low to the ground as possible. Then the CHAS stopped firing and turned to their direction. Their scans and other sensors have now taken over and finished mapping the area. They started running to the door aided by their jet packs. Rico punched the code for the door to close just as the last trooper baseball slid out of the mess hall followed by two CHASs ready to shoot. The door slid close just as the machines started firing. The CHASs dented the door when they hit with an audible crash causing a few stifled giggles in the surviving group. Another trooper had jabbed the keypad with a utility knife making sure that the CHASs would have to break the reinforced titanium doors to break through.
Carl shook his head. "Guess they didn't like SICON's food either."
--
Zim punched the door to shut in the weapons and locker room and destroyed the keypad. It would take a while for the CHAS unit that had chased them to wreck the door open. It was a good thing they had a lot of corners to pass to get to the weapons room. Apparently, at the speed the CHAS was traveling with the aid of the packs, it had trouble cornering properly. This gave the troopers time to put a little distance between them only for the CHAS to catch up firing at them right when they turned another corner. Zim turned around in time to see the five troopers collapse on the benches or the floor catching their breath. "Everybody whole?" He asked sternly albeit trying to recover himself. The CHAS was now banging on the door alerting the troopers.
"Did we just trap ourselves in a room full of explosives?" Higgins asked the troopers bringing himself on a sitting position on the floor as the banging continued.
Brutto looked around at the racks of moritas, launchers, shock sticks, bombs and grenades near his bench. "Great. We're dead." He stated.
Zim eyed the two troopers in dismay. "Negativity's not going help soldier."
The younger trooper stared at the sergeant and changed the tone of his statement. "Great! We're dead!" He said again adding a fist pump with the fake smile.
"Oh, that makes it a whole lot better." Doc laid face up on another the bench still catching his breath.
The sergeant walked up to the trooper and bent down so they met eye to eye. "Remember your place soldier.The lieutenant might not mind this insolence but that doesn't mean I'll let it slide. I am still a ranking officer. Am I making myself clear?" He gave the trooper threatening scowl.
"Sir, yes, sir." Brutto answered with little enthusiasm. He looked at the door behind the sergeant. "There's a dent on the door sir." He informed the sergeant.
The banging sound continued as Zim refused to break his gaze on the troublesome trooper. "Forget the power suits, apes. Check your equipment and load up." He ordered moving to the weapons cabinets and racks.
Doc caught the girl on the floor looking at the two stare off curiously with a small smile on her face. He couldn't believe it. There was a robot ready to kill them once it breaks the door and the girl was amused at Zim who was still eying Brutto. "Andy? What's so funny?" He asked finally getting off the bench to follow Gossard who already grabbed his back pack and started loading himself with weapons. Doc stared at the door. The banging had stopped. This development couldn't be any good.
Andy didn't shift her line of sight. "If this were a cartoon, there would be sparks on..." She paused. All of a sudden, she got off the floor, took a morita and shock stick off the rack randomly before heading for her locker . "I wonder if the servers are still working." She said randomly out loud to no one in particular. She grabbed a laptop and notebook from her locker and sat down on the bench nearby.
"Typing your last words, Anderson?" Brutto asked grimly. He was disappointed when the girl didn't answer back like she normally would. Instead she paid attention to what's on her screen. She flipped a few pages on the notebook beside her and started typing. Her grin grew wider the more she typed. But suddenly her face fell. She turned to the troopers shifting her gaze to each one while biting her lower lip.
Doc and Gossard watched the girl's gaze stop on them. "I'm not sure I'm reading this right." She said in the most helpless tone they've ever heard from her. The two older troopers went up and peered over her shoulder. Once they took a glimpse of the screen, the two were shocked. As smart as the girl was, they understood her sudden uncertainty. Bio- mech was never as straightforward as it looked. But what was more surprising is what the report was showing.
"It's water." Doc stated standing back up.
Higgins looked at the trio on the bench wryly. "You mean it caught a cold?" He exclaimed.
The technician shook his head. "A bad one. The A.I now thinks everything that moves is the enemy."
Zim frowned. "That's not a cold, that's a personality disorder." He said still watching the door. A circular red glow was now visible. The CHAS must've been using it's lasers. Zim raised his morita at the melting door.
But Gossard placed his hand on the morita and forced it down. "Sir. We're in a weapon's hold. I don't feel like blowing up HQ today. Last week, maybe. But not today." He said with a sly grin on his face Sgt. Zim knew far too well.
"What do you have in mind corporal?" Zim asked.
Gossard's grin widened. "If we do it right, we'll give it the shock of its life."
--
Dizzy stared at the scene in front of her. They had just turned the corner when they saw a CHAS falling backwards with sparks coming out from every joint of its body. There was a loud crash and more sparks before the CHAS finally stopped twitching. She gave the other two boys a shug and watched Rico tilt his head to the direction of the CHAS signaling that they should approach. Dizzy sighed as they did so slowly, just in case the CHAS had a chance or resurrection.
"Now, that's what I call an electrifying exit." They heard a very familiar medic's voice say.
The three relaxed entering the weapons hold. "I guess the spark between you is gone." Dizzy grinned giving Doc a fake punch on the arm. She looked around the room curiously. The troopers were returning at least three shock sticks each on the racks. The floor had several lizard lines laid out ending at the door. "Whoah. You could've told us to watch our first step." She said looking at Gossard wryly. It was obvious that this had been his idea.
"Why? I would've caught you if you fell." Gossard answered. He grinned as Dizzy giggled. But his grin disappeared when Carl gave him a look of disbelief.
"Really." Carl motioned to the not very amused lieutenant, his best friend.
Sgt. Zim rolled his eyes as trooper banter continued. He peered over Private Anderson's shoulder watching as windows popped up just for her to type something and fall back down. He watched as her hand would occasionally leave the keyboard to flip some pages on a notebook that looked like it had alpha numeric codes written neatly on it's sheets. Sgt. Zim eyed the smiling girl in her own world suspiciously. It didn't take an Intel officer to know that no laptop had remote access to the CHAS program files. He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked behind and met Rico's gaze.
"What's the sitch?" Rico asked lightly.
Zim rolled his eyes for the second time in a span of a few minutes. How many times should he have to talk to this officer to be a bit more serious and strict? He was a lieutenant now, not a lowly private. But he decided against the reprimand-- they'll have time for a one on one later. Right now, there were the CHAS. " A breach in water proofing shorted the cyborgs." Zim explained briefly.
The lieutenant groaned. This was not a good day. "So that's 10 rampaging robots." He replied without much enthusiasm making Zim frown some more.
But the girl in front of them raised up one hand waving four fingers around. "Correction. Four." She said without taking her eyes off her laptop. "Shut down five that were normal. One fried." She continued in phrases.
"That's good news." Higgins breathed a sigh of relief as he joined the two officers to watch Andy's screen. He caught a glimpse of a name in the notebook and smiled. "E. Walk?" He read out loud. The girl automatically closed her notebook with one hand giving the reporter an annoyed look before returning back to typing away. "E. Walk." Higgins repeated again trying to think why it was so familiar even when he's never met anyone by the name. His eyes widened as the name hit him. "E. Walk? As in Earl Walker?" He asked. "You have Walker's access codes?"
[author's note: E. Walk. Get it? E. Walk. Ewok. The fuzzy small woodland teddy bears in star wars... er... nevermind.
Brutto patted Higgin's shoulder. "Better watch your back, now. She's got a great aim." He grinned widely causing the reporter to pale.
"Private Anderson. Explain." Zim ordered.
The girl sighed and stopped typing. She turned to face the officers. She smiled guiltily for a good second. "Funny thing happened one day, I was at the archives and I ended up with the codes of half of SICON's officers." She trailed off as the two officers stared her down. Her smile faded. "Does it really matter? There's two that just came out of the mess hall. There's two that are busy with a bunch of troopers. They've seemed to turned on all their sensors beyond what they can see and shooting people with shock sticks first. I don't know what happened in the mess hall but it's starting to look like we can't play the same trick twice." She reasoned speaking really quickly hopeful that they'd forget all about the codes after the CHASs have been dealt with.
Gossard tapped his head with a finger. "It can learn you know." He said walking over to the group with Doc, Brutto, Carl and Dizzy.
"Maybe we can reeducate." Brutto grinned pointing at the fallen CHAS outside the door.
The laptop beeped. The girl shifted her gaze from the officers to the screen. Her jaw dropped. "No way." She said looking up at the troopers a bit paler than she was just moments before. "We've just been tagged as public enemy number 1. There are two marching over here." She worriedly informed the group.
"Do we get a prize?" Carl asked crossing his arms.
Dizzy smiled. "How about a ticket to hell?" She answered.
Carl smirked. "Depends.Roundtrip or one way?" He replied.
Doc grimaced as he asked the question that he already knew the answer too. "Can you shut the CHAS off?"
The girl, as he expected, shook her head. "The level two's codes aren't working. We need a level one to override. Is she even here is the question." She closed her laptop and stood up, stowing the morita on the floor and the laptop to her backpack. Then she realized that the troopers haven't moved but stared at her instead. She stared back at them, confused. "... aren't we leaving?" She asked hesitantly.
Rico gave up. He could never understand why the girl needed to be asked exact questions before she gave information even in situations like these. He placed both his hands on the girl's shoulders holding her in place. "Andy, who are you talking about?" He asked.
The girl looked around at the expectant troopers. "Who else? Sky Marshal Redwing." She answered simply.