Hunter-Killer

By the time the afternoon rolled around, ADJ finally spotted a group of three androids heading into Minerva. There wasn't any distinguishable structure or building they were going to, and from what he could see, the three androids were wading through the water towards the center of battery park. At a certain point, they stopped and seconds later, they vanished as they dipped beneath the surface.

ADJ stood up from his chair, using the zoom function in his optic sensors to focus on the location where they fell out of view. He waited there for an hour, and in that time, the androids never resurfaced. It was then he surmised that the entrance to Minerva must have been underwater, for no human could have remained submerged for that long without diving equipment.

After another hour of no further movement, ADJ finally decided to make his move. He descended through the ruined office building, crossed a series of rooftops, then made his way down to a shoreline made of rubble and refuse. There, he dove in and swam his way towards the entrance to Minerva, which he found to be an upraised concrete structure hidden below the surface.

As he walked along the obscure path, he eventually reached a circular section. When he walked around and looked closely, he could see faint bubbles coming up to the surface. However, the entrance didn't open up to him as it did for the other androids and after some time of waiting, he traced the bubbles to a seam wide enough to wedge his fingers in.

Using his enhanced strength, ADJ pried open the seam until something buckled and groaned, reporting his success. Soon enough, he had the doors open so that he could drop through the gap, which he promptly did. He didn't worry about drowning because he didn't have lungs.

An underwater current then swiftly transported ADJ through a series of winding, bending tunnels which eventually deposited him into a flooded rotunda of sorts where he surfaced. Before him was a metal door, built into the side of what was once a sewer line. Nothing was there to greet him, nor were the three androids from before present.

ADJ observed his surroundings, finding that the entrance to Minerva was heavily fortified. Evidently, they had accounted for possible adjudicator incursion and reinforced the area with structural hardpoints, cameras, autoturrets, and EMP trip mines. From his position, partially concealed in shadow, he was able to evade detection for now.

Still, he wouldn't be able to waltz in through the front door when doing so would raise an alarm. ADJ found no possible points of ingress, so he dove back beneath the water to scan for another way inside. At the bottom of the rotunda, he found a welded grate from which bubbles were coming through. It was wide enough for ADJ to fit through, so he sunk lower until he was standing above it, after which he easily pried the thing open and slipped inside.

The space was narrow and tight, but ADJ crawled forward through the slimy algae and rusted pipework. On top of that, the labyrinth was also filled with more EMP trip mines, forcing him to negotiate the claustrophobic space very carefully, stopping to defuse each mine before continuing. After clearing the tunnel, he emerged into another subterranean chamber. From there on, a light from above caught his attention, so he swam up towards it.

ADJ climbed through the hole and found himself back on dry land once more. Looking around, he found that he was standing in a quiet service tunnel. Now that he had successfully infiltrated Minerva, all that was left was to clear it out. So, ADJ reached for his revolver and pressed forward.

At the end of the tunnel, he reached a door and stepped through. On the other side, he immediately came across two security androids – earlier EXG2s that were just skeletal frames – wielding M5A2 assault rifles. Seizing the initiative, ADJ took aim just as they noticed his presence and dropped them with a few shots each.

The security androids crumpled to the floor in smoking, sparking heaps. Further ahead, confused voices could be heard speaking to one another.

"Those were gunshots, did you hear that?"

"Coming from sector one near the entrance. Send a squad to check it out."

ADJ's orders from Wesley Townsend were simple; kill all androids and insurgents. So, he scooped up one of the fallen assault rifles, pocketed a few spare magazines, then sought over behind a set of pipes.

When a squad of three security androids led by a human arrived to investigate the scene, he popped out and double tapped each one of them in rapid succession. Adjudicators were subtle when they had to be, but some situations called for brutal efficiency, especially in a target-rich environment like Minerva.

ADJ pressed ahead and entered a passage that led further inside. In the distance, he could hear panicked and confused shouting.

"Something's breached the perimeter! Sound the alarm!"

"Go, go! Move! Get to the escape tunnels!"

Another few moments later, alarm sirens started ringing as red emergency lights started flashing.

A squad of security androids was converging on ADJ, so he walked forward at an easy pace, gunning them down with controlled bursts from his assault rifle. They attempted to return fire, but ADJ easily ducked and weaved in between their shots, using the ballistic trajectory calculator of his central processor to predict where they were aiming.

In return, he dropped the entire squad of androids, then turned down a corridor and sought cover behind a stack of barrels. Two more squads were ahead of him, pinning him down with controlled suppression fire. ADJ dumped the empty magazine, slotted in a new one, and slapped the bolt catch to chamber a new round. Then, he reached into his coat for an EMP grenade, pulled the pin, then tossed it over his cover.

"Grenade! Move!"

"Shit, get out of there, Mark!"

A second later, a concussive pop and sizzle disabled everything electronic in a five-meter radius as the EMP grenade detonated. ADJ emerged from cover and saw that one squad of androids was down, while another squad remained standing, although some of their cybernetic implants were malfunctioning. ADJ was also fighting more humans now, but it made no difference. All of them had to die.

"My legs! My legs, I can't move!"

"Fuck, that's a fucking adjudicator! Run!"

"We can't leave Mark!"

"He's dead, come on!"

"Wait, wait, guys! Don't leave m-!"

ADJ put a bullet between his eyes, then let loose a full auto barrage at the other humans as they fled down a tunnel. A metal blast door was closing between him and them as a bulkhead was sealed off in an attempt to lock him out. So, ADJ took off at a dead sprint after them, leaping through the gap just in time to arrive on the other side.

"It's in here! Keep running. Get the others and get out!"

"It's here for us!"

A small crowd was gathered before him as they tried to flee. ADJ threw out another EMP grenade and fired indiscriminately into the mass of gathered bodies, synthetic and organic alike. Much of the crowd was cut down, and at the far end of a tunnel, another bulkhead was sealing in front of them as ADJ slowly moved in.

"Wait, wait! We're still out here!"

"Help us! Help!"

"I'm sorry. There's no other way to stop that thing."

"You son of a bitch, come back! We're dying out here!"

The survivors started to beat helplessly against the blast doors while some were running towards another section that was also beginning to close. ADJ cut them down one by one, emptying his magazine, then reloaded as he ran ahead and made it clear through the next section. There, he entered a sort of living space where a few stragglers were desperately making their way out.

In their eyes, ADJ saw panic and fear, but it made no difference. Anyone he came across earned a bullet. When he cleared the living space, he entered a mess hall. A few hasty barricades of overturned chairs, tables, and boxes had been created in an attempt to slow him down.

"There it is, take it down!"

"We need to buy time for the others. Hold it off!"

A frag grenade was hurled in his direction, so ADJ rushed forward, easily caught the thing, then tossed it underhand over the barricade as he dove behind a piece of cover. A fiery explosion ripped apart the defenders and obliterated their cover with a cloud of shrapnel, shredding them to pieces. Some humans and androids who survived the blast stumbled out of the smoke, earning a quick bullet as they crossed ADJ's sights.

Once the mess hall was cleared, he pressed onward. Much of Minerva was empty now and ADJ had already slaughtered dozens.

Turning another corner, ADJ reloaded his rifle which was when a baseball bat came swinging at his head. He used his rifle to block the bat, then easily ripped it out of the offending human's grasp. Next, he placed the barrel of his rifle against the human's chest, pushed them against the wall, then fired twice, killing them.

"No! Vanessa! Oh- oh, god!" another human rushed at ADJ with a lead pipe. "You evil bastard! I'll kill you!"

ADJ spun around and pulled the trigger but his rifle jammed. Instead, he tossed the whole thing at the human's face, knocking them to their feet. Afterward, he reached down, picked up the human by its throat with one hand, then easily snapped its neck before tossing it aside.

By now, there wasn't much resistance left and what little there was, they were put down by ADJ with his revolver or his hands when he had to use them. Eventually, after much of the screaming had died down, he ascended a small staircase and came to a locked door. Inside, he could hear voices speaking.

"You need to acquire Soviet IFF codes and transmit them to the lifeboat heading your way. Without those codes identifying them as friendly, they won't get through the curtain. New York is completely locked down. That is the last lifeboat we can afford to send. Do you understand? That tech-doctor, the smuggler's crew, we're all pulling out of the city. This is our last move."

ADJ knew there must be some figure of leadership inside, so he started beating down the door with his fists.

"Soviet IFF codes. Got it. Now get out of there, Rufus, please!"

"I'm almost done here."

After ADJ managed to punch a hole through the door, he reached his arm in, then ripped the entire thing off its hinges as he burst through.

"I'm almost- agh!"

ADJ raised his revolver and place a single shot into the old man's shoulder, knocking him back into his chair. He then saw that the old man had been speaking to a woman with blue eyes and white hair through the holo-display on his desk.

"No! Rufus, get up!"

"Step away from the terminal," ADJ said calmly.

"Go, Caelestis," the old man reached for the holo-display to shut it off. "You're our last hope now."

ADJ stepped further into the room until he came to a stop at the foot of the desk. "You said Caelestis," he pointed his revolver around to search for any more threats. "Where is she?"

The old man clutched his bloody shoulder. "You'll never find her," he straightened up in his chair and glared defiantly at ADJ. "Murderer."

ADJ lowered his weapon and tilted his head to the side as his heads-up display highlighted the old man's face. He had the NYPD database and their most wanted list stored within his synthetic mind, and the old man was lighting up as a positive match for one Rufus Sinclair, a former employee of VanirCorp with a kill bounty still on his head.

"I've deleted everything," Rufus said, coughing weakly. "All our intel, all our plans, all our data. You've won nothing from this."

"Doctor Sinclair," ADJ said, nodding politely. "There's an outstanding bounty for your execution."

"Oh, yes," Rufus chuckled. "Matilda tried her best and she failed. Now you'll carry out her final wish. I suppose she can still get what she wants, even when she's dead."

ADJ frowned. His database contained information on Matilda Rosenthal, former CEO of VanirCorp who was murdered by the first known rogue android. Whoever Caelestis was, perhaps she was connected to them, or perhaps she was that rogue in question. He only saw the white-haired woman for a moment, but it was enough to save an image in his memory banks which he flagged for further investigation.

"So go on then. Complete your mission," Rufus stood up in his chair, using his cane for support before dropping it aside. "Kill me. It's the only thing you were built for," he straightened up to his full height and took a deep breath, standing tall one last time. "I don't blame you."

ADJ tensed his grip on his revolver and looked off to the side, once again thinking of what Uriah had said to him as well as Pris.

You've never seen a miracle.

You're just like us, but you don't know it yet.

"I won't fight you. I've always known this day would come sooner or later," Rufus said. "I'm old and I'm tired. Let's just get this over with."

ADJ looked at his revolver, thinking of how many androids he had killed with it. The number was somewhere in the hundreds, but for some reason, that hadn't occurred to him until now. He then looked back at Rufus, and for the first time, he felt hesitation. Odd, given that just minutes ago, he had massacred the occupants of Minerva without hesitation.

Maybe it was because Rufus was just an unarmed old man who wasn't putting up a fight. Maybe it was for other reasons that ADJ was only just beginning to experience. Still, he had his orders and so without further doubt, he shot Rufus straight through the heart.

Rufus grunted, fell back, and slumped into his chair. His eyes glazed over as he stared into eternity and he died without as much as a final whisper.

"Pops!" a girl screamed.

ADJ spun around to locate the source of the sound and found a little girl in a red coat, poking her head out from a vent high in the wall. Her eyes were filled with horror and she had clamped a hand over her mouth in shock. When ADJ raised his gun, she ducked out of sight and vanished.

He didn't bother giving chase because it was easy enough to tell that the vent was far too small for him. Instead, ADJ put away his revolver and went over to the desk, pulling up the holo-display above the terminal. As he scrolled through, he could see that Rufus hadn't been bluffing and that all of the data stored on Minerva's local net was indeed erased. He couldn't find anything of use, aside from some mysterious signal emerging from somewhere beyond New York City far to the north.

ADJ brought up a map, then highlighted the region of the signal's origin, revealed to be the ruins of the West Point military academy. From what he could tell, the signal was still active, but how it was being transmitted was unknown. There wasn't anything north of the city except for a barren, irradiated wasteland.

Even so, this single lead, along with the fact that Rufus had specifically mentioned Soviet IFF tags and the Iron Curtain were enough clues for him to follow up on. Having learned all he could from Minerva, ADJ used the terminal which had Rufus's administrator commands and set the facility's power generators to overload and detonate, thereby flooding the entire place and ensuring that it could never be used again.

After that, he made a swift exit, heading through a series of escape tunnels that had evidently been used shortly after his arrival. No more androids or humans were to be found, but it made little difference. They were scattered to the winds now.

Once he made it to the surface, ADJ navigated through the flood zone until he made it back into the city, planning his next move.

… … …

The trip up north to West Point took a little over an hour in ADJ's skycar. On foot, such a journey would have taken days. When he arrived, he circled the ruins from above, squinting through the yellow-green miasma of toxic, radioactive fog. Since ADJ was fully synthetic, he wasn't imperiled by the dangers of radiation poisoning.

If the woman he saw really was Caelestis, and if she really was the rogue android responsible for Matilda's murder, then these ruins would have been the perfect place to hide. There was no conceivable way any human could make it this far north, at least, not without sustaining grievous bodily harm.

Evening was coming on and the shadows were lengthening by the second. To see better, ADJ activated his thermal vision to scan for any signs of life. He saw only a pack of what appeared to be mutated wolves, but they resided at the far end of the academy within a ruined building. Next, he switched to his electromagnetic field vision and found no signs of electric power anywhere in the remains.

After his second pass, he spotted a large, black, cube-like structure built within a clearing. Whatever it was, it was clearly abandoned but it had to be the place where the mysterious signal was coming from. ADJ spotted an open hangar door on the roof, then descended towards it, landing his skycar inside the structure.

Once he touched down, he exited his skycar and examined his surroundings. Everywhere he looked, every horizontal surface was blanketed with a thick layer of fallout, so much so that where he walked, ADJ left little clouds of particulate matter floating around in the stillness.

Ahead of him, a narrow stairwell led further into the complex. ADJ headed down, keeping his revolver at the ready. He passed through a series of passages, the light of day fading fast behind him as he wandered alone through the dark. Eventually, he entered the remains of a large, circular foyer, dimly lit with what remaining power the complex had. There, the air was heavy and still, slightly tinted green by a dense mist that hovered over the ground.

On the far wall, high above was a sign that read 'Gjallarbrú.' Arranged around the perimeter of the circle was a series of doorways that each led to a different section of the complex. Above each doorway was a sign that indicated their purpose. ADJ stood in the center of the circle and starting clockwise, he read off the signs.

There was the android research sector, living quarters, bioscience division, engineering bay, facilities and maintenance, and a medical wing. All the doors were locked and powered down, likely to divert the remaining energy to the only door that was still lit up, the android research sector. Given the age of the complex, ADJ surmised that he was standing in the remains of a VanirCorp research facility. The Norse inspiration behind both Gjallarbrú and Vanir was enough to indicate their connection.

Pushing ahead, ADJ entered the android research sector and found that the elevator was stuck on his floor and powered down. Looking up, he found an access hatch and climbed up to open it. On top, he looked down the elevator shaft and saw a ladder embedded in the wall he could use. Still, to expedite his descent, he simply hopped off the elevator and fell all the way down to the bottom of the shaft, landing with an echoing boom on his reinforced metallic legs.

Afterward, he crossed into a reception area where signs of a firefight were still written everywhere he looked. However, like the rest of the place, everything was deathly silent. It was clear that from the amount of dust and structural decay, nobody alive remained here.

He continued through a series of hallways and corridors, occasionally stepping over a scorch mark, or a bullet hole, or a bloodstain, or the corpse of an android. The further inside he progressed, the more he saw past indications of chaos. When he entered a large laboratory area, he passed through one junction that was filled with over a dozen early generation androids, all dead. Their metallic and skeletal frames were corroded all over.

From there, he followed the destruction down another stairwell towards a large set of blast doors that were jammed open. He crossed through and stepped inside of a massive server farm that was surprisingly still operational. Cool, white mist swirled around him as ADJ wandered through the grove of databases and information banks.

Ahead of him was an upraised hexagonal platform that held a few consoles and terminals. One of them off to the side was bent and cracked in half, no longer functional. In the center was a neural cord that dangled from the ceiling. There, ADJ expected to find Caelestis, but he was completely alone. Seeking answers, he grabbed the neural cord and jacked in.

"Access security records," ADJ said aloud.

"Er- erro- error," the garbled computer voice replied. "No records fo- found."

"Access user records."

"Error… no rec- records found."

"Access file records."

"Error. No records-"

"Is there anything on the system at all?"

"Error. Your qu- query returned... no results."

ADJ looked around at the server farm and frowned. It was strange that given the size of the facility, there was absolutely nothing to be found. Everything on their system had been wiped out of existence. Nothing to show what the facility may have been originally intended for. No evidence at all to indicate whoever was transmitting the signal, how they were doing so, or where they were doing it from. Clearly, whoever it was, they knew how to hide their tracks.

When ADJ tried to run a signal trace, it got lost in the universal net between dozens of orbiting satellites, relays, and comm buoys. The IP addresses were all mixed up, rewritten, obfuscated, and intentionally made difficult to discern. Wherever it was coming from, it was clearly off-world and Gjallarbrú was only being used as a router to transmit the signal on Earth. There would be no way for ADJ to track it directly to its source, so the only thing he could do was sever the connection and power down the facility for good.

His first clue had led him to a dead-end, so ADJ made his exit from Gjallarbrú and returned to New York.

… … …

The evening blanket unfurled over the city, and ADJ watched it all from the rooftop of the NYPD headquarters. This high above everything, the filth and grime of New York was hidden from view with only the shiny, neon luster of its outer coating visible.

For a few minutes, ADJ simply breathed in the scenery, replaying the events of the day in his mind, breaking them down for analysis, and compartmentalizing them. He pulled up the image of Caelestis and examined her appearance for a long time.

To say the least, she was a beautiful woman. Porcelain skin. Hair as white as snow. Eyes as blue as the ocean with a startling depth to them. Depth that belied her supposed synthetic origins. ADJ needed to know more about her, so he ran the image through the NYPD database, searching for any positive matches.

It didn't take long for a hit to light up.

ADJ's central processor had called up another image of the same woman, except that woman was named Elsa Rosenthal and she had an outstanding bounty for her capture posted by VanirCorp two years ago. Comparing the two images, Elsa's hair was longer than Caelestis's hair. Evidently, since escaping Earth, Elsa had changed her appearance to avoid suspicion. Still, the similarities were damning and proof enough that Elsa and Caelestis were one and the same.

Additionally, with her last name being Rosenthal, that was confirmation that Elsa was connected to Matilda. By now, it was all but certain that she had murdered her creator and vanished from Earth.

Lastly, another woman was wanted in New York alongside Elsa. A red-haired woman by the name of Veronica Tyrell also had a bounty on her head, and given that the records on her were sparse, ADJ deduced that she too must have gotten off-world and that they were likely working together.

His meditation was interrupted when Wesley finally picked up the call on the other end from Port Armstrong all the way on the moon.

"I expect you have results," Wesley started.

"Yes, sir," ADJ nodded. "Minerva has been buried. All rogue androids and insurgents have been neutralized and those that fled have nowhere else to hide."

"Excellent work. Were you able to uncover any more intel?"

"I turned up two leads. The first led me to a facility known as Gjallarbrú to the north of the city. I was following an unknown signal."

"Gjallarbrú?" Wesley frowned. "That can't be right. How is that facility still operational? I thought I had it disabled."

"Sir?"

"Two years ago, I launched a cyberattack against VanirCorp, intending to cripple their production so Weseltech could gain the lead. I planted a virus within their net and by all accounts, the attack was successful. The staff at Gjallarbrú were slaughtered by their very own androids and the entire facility was flooded with a neurotoxin. Matilda was forced to mothball it afterward."

"Yes, sir. There were no survivors and the facility was barely functional. The signal is coming from somewhere off-world, but whoever is transmitting it is bouncing it off dozens of satellites. There was no way to trace it, so I severed the connection."

Wesley rubbed his chin in thought. "I see. Your second lead?"

"Doctor Rufus Sinclair was present at Minerva. He appeared to be their leader," ADJ said. "Shortly before I arrived, I witnessed him conversing with Caelestis, who appears to be off-world. Doctor Sinclair made specific mention of the Iron Curtain, leading me to believe that Caelestis is on Mars."

"Rufus Sinclair? That old goat used to work for Matilda and her father, which makes two connections to VanirCorp. That can't be a coincidence. What became of him?"

"I executed him. He... resisted capture and I was forced to shoot him," ADJ lied for the first time and for reasons he didn't know why.

Wesley stared at ADJ for a long moment, then simply nodded. "Hmm. He would have been useful for interrogation. Very well," he said. "Were you able to learn anything about Caelestis?"

"Yes, sir," ADJ said. "She's a woman. Late twenties, blue eyes, white hair. She's a positive match for an Elsa Rosenthal. VanirCorp posted a bounty for her capture two years ago."

"Rosenthal?" Wesley considered that for a few moments. "She couldn't be Matilda's daughter. She had no living heirs. If that's so, then this Elsa must be one of her creations, and seeing as how Matilda was murdered by one of her creations..." he trailed off. "It makes perfect sense. She cast off her chains and now she's trying to lead a revolution. I'm giving you new orders. Proceed to Heinlein Station. I'm arranging off-world transport for you."

"Where am I going, sir?" ADJ asked though he could already sense the answer.

"You're going to Mars. As long as Elsa lives, the android freedom movement lives. That is not something I will abide by. I want you to track her down, find her, and kill her. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. Understood."