The Scout Part 4

By Michel Ward aka Wolfbert

After two days travel from Zion, I near the exit point at England. I made the run faster then usual through the caverns and sewers so I could get to Maximus as fast as possible. Lucky for me, I did not run into any sentinel patrols on the way there. As I near the exit point, I slow to a crawl and then stop. I wait for about half an hour and let the passive sensors thoroughly scan the area. This is the most dangerous part. There have been several times where the sentinels have staked out known exit points running on minimal power waiting for one of us to poke our heads out.

After the passive scan comes up clean, I do a low level active scan. If there is a sentinel out there, it will come up to full power and attack about two seconds after my scanners detect it. Two seconds is more then enough time to slam the throttles to full and get out of danger. The active scan comes back negative. I switch back to passive sensors and surface into the city that was once known as Reading.

Most of the buildings show signs of battle damage as well as erosion. As the AI's fought their way to London, average citizens stood side by side with soldiers. They had nothing more than crude weapons such as rifles, pistols and even metal pipes. Some of the lucky ones were able to scrounge weapons off of the dead soldiers. In the end, they could not keep the AI war machines away from the capital city. They say the crown prince of England along with units from The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment and the House Guards, held the line at the gates of Buckingham Palace for three days before they were finally overrun. No one is sure why the AI's didn't just nuke London. There were no advanced AI's in the city. Some believe the AI's wanted the industrial sites there.

I leave the city of Reading and follow the dry riverbed of the Thames to the outskirts of London. I keep my speed low and stay down in the riverbed to mask my presence. I keep my eye on the scanner readouts, looking for anything unusual. Every now and then, I stop and scan the area with my binoculars and turn around to make sure I'm not being followed.

After a few more hours, I come to the location of the weapons depot. The buildings are pretty nondescript. There is nothing to indicate that the site is military in nature. I land the Skiff in the remains of what looks like an office building and cover it with the scatterback camo. I pack up my gear and head out leaving the ramp down, just in case. After searching through several different buildings, I find one that has a massive garage door and elevator. I look down the elevator shaft and I see only darkness. I break out a CemLite, activate it, drop it down the shaft and count how long it takes to hit bottom. At about 100 feet, it hits with a thud. I have enough rope to get down there.

I get into my climbing gear and hook up my rope, then repel down to the bottom. I shine my flashlight around the top of the elevator and find a burned out CemLite near the one I dropped. Dreamweaver was definitely here. The access hatch has been pried open. I drop down into the elevator car and shine my flashlight around. The light falls on several crates and boxes but mostly it disappears off into the darkness. I look around to see if I can find a fuse box or power panel. To the right of the elevator, I find an open panel with switches that are in the "Off" position. I throw the large switches to the "On" position and the overhead lights flicker to life. Some military bases still have working fission reactors. When I turn around, my jaw nearly hits the floor.

"Oh my God, it's the mother load!" I say to myself as my voice echoes. The storage depot is huge. There are rows and rows of equipment and crates. Just from where I am standing, I can see tanks, APC's, field guns and stacks of ammo. I stand there for several minutes stunned, while my brain tries to comprehend what I am looking at. No one has ever found a stash this big before. I wonder how Dreamweaver found it.

I start to walk down the first aisle and do a quick inventory. A lot of the equipment is real high tech gear, which makes me wonder what it is still doing here. I check out a Challenger MK5 tank and drop down through the commander's hatch. Except for the dust, everything looks new. I crawl under the main gun and make my way to the driver's bay when I step on something and hear a crunch under my foot. I shine the flashlight down on whatever it was that I stepped on and see a small circuit card. I pick it up and examine it. The circuit card is the tank's SatCom modem.

During the start of the war with the AI's, the machines were able to take over a large part of the world's weaponry because computers ran everything. They were all connected to each other via modems and network links. Many were surprised when tanks, planes, and other equipment just started up by themselves and started shooting at them. The only stuff we had to use against the AI's was equipment that had somehow been shielded from the AI transmissions or older weapons the National Guard and Reserves had.

It was kind of ironic that the "Weekend Warriors" the regular Army would laugh at were the ones that gave the AI's the most resistance during the war. They fought hard and they fought well. I had come across a videodisc recording on a dead news cameraman that showed five Guard M1A4s battling a Goliath main battle tank and winning. Unfortunately, their efforts were not enough in the end. Being underground and behind a ton of concrete, microwave signals would never have reached the stuff here. Whoever was in charge of this depot must have realized what was going on topside and yanked out all of the modems so the AI's couldn't use the equipment here.

I slide into the driver's seat and hit the start button. The indicator lights come on and the power plant purrs to life. I check the readouts and see the hydrogen fuel cell still has a three quarter charge in it. I put the tank in idle mode and crawl back to the turret to check the main gun and gunner's station. The 120mm rail gun has two different types of ammo, a hypersonic armor piercing round and a high explosive round. I sit at the gunner's station and cycle the ammo selector back and forth to ensure that the autoloader works. I look through the gun site and even rotate the turret. I check all of the tanks offensive and defensive systems, this baby is fully armed and ready to go. I shut down the tank and climb down to check out the other stuff.

After about an hour, I give up trying to catalogue all of the different items in the depot. There is just too much stuff here. I decide to take some images of the place so the people back at Zion will not think I've gone out of my mind. The salvage guys are going to have a real tough time getting all of this stuff out off here. The closest tunnel is 75 miles away and if they try and dig their way here, all of the blasting and drilling will not go unnoticed by the AI's. Coming topside is dangerous as well. A salvage barge is big, slow and not exactly stealthy. It could easily be spotted by a passing SwiftKiller.

I finally make it to the back of the depot and come across four tractor- trailer rigs. I open up the back of the first rig and amazed at what I find. Standing in each rig, are five Mark 29 Battle Suits. I inspect the suits and find them in perfect condition with the exception of missing SatCom modem cards. I would love to have one of these for myself but I would never get it to fit in the Skiff. I close the rig doors and head back to the elevator.

I grab an equipment cart and decide to do a little shopping. I grab a few cases of AT6 anti-tank rockets and some Stinger MK9s. Now I will have something better to use in Squids and SwiftKillers the next time I run into them. I also load up on cases of MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat), the sealed food will last forever and it even heats up when you open them. I can use a break from the gruel.

The real prize I walk away with is a sniper Chameleon Camo Suit or CCS. The CCS is what the modern sniper uses to make himself invisible to everyone. The CCS is a fully enclosed bodysuit and helmet. The fabric is made of a radar absorbent material that has a limited ability to change its color. One minute the suit will have a woodland camouflage pattern, the next it could be desert or urban camouflage with a simple voice command. The other great thing about the CCS is that it has an integrated heat sink built into the back section. When activated, the suit will capture all of your radiated body heat and store it in the heat sink, thereby making you invisible to infrared detection. The heat sink can only run for an hour before it will shut down and slowly release the stored body heat. If you run it for longer then that, you risk overloading the heat sink. If that happens, it will do an emergency vent and release the heat all at once.

After I gather all the equipment and some extra power cells for the suit, I begin the process of hauling it up to the surface and loading it on the Skiff. The job is hard work but the stuff is more then worth it. After I load all the gear and stow it, I prepare my report to Zion and inform them of what I've discovered. I download my report and the images into a drone and launch it. The drone will fly back to the access tunnels and down a short distance so I can transmit the information to Zion without giving my location away.

I stow the scatterback camo net and take off to Dreamweaver's last know location, which is supposed to be ten miles away. After flying five miles, I land and hide the Skiff. I suit up in the CCS and run it through a system check and all of the indicator lights come up green. I load up with just my assault rifle two grenades and one AT6 and hike out to where Dreamweaver's skiff should be. On the way over, I keep to the alleyways. Every now and then, I enter a building that looks stable, climb to the top floor and scan the area looking for signs of anything moving, so far nothing. I finally get to the area where Dreamweaver went down and slowly make my way street by street till I find her Skiff.

The Skiff is off a main road parked in the ruins of an apartment building. I stay across the street and slowly scan the area for any signs of sentinels. When I'm sure the area is clear, I cross the street and check out the Skiff. The scatterback camo is ripped to shreds. The cockpit canopy has been smashed in and it is listing to the right because the landing strut seems to have been torn out. I move to the back of the Skiff and see that the boarding ramp is down, so I carefully enter the ship. When I get inside, I am amazed to see that the entire roof has been peeled back and I am looking at the sky. The inside of the Skiff is trashed. The cockpit controls are all torn out and the computer system is fried. I sift through some personal effects, stuff that Dreamweaver had collected, but nothing indicates what happened here. The only good thing is that there are no signs of a fight or a body. She was not here when this happened.

I leave the remains of the Skiff and check the surrounding area, that's when I find what appears to be the scene of a battle. About a block away, there is a building with fresh damage to it. The entire front of the building is littered with holes. I enter and check out the front rooms. In one of them, I find spent casings and an empty clip from an M79. I look out the window and see damage near the top of a building across the street. This would indicate that the target was either hovering near or on the top of the building. I examine the holes in the wall and find it odd they were not burned by a laser. They look like bullet holes. I have never heard of a sentinel or other AI war machine using anything but a laser. As I walk out into the hallway I can make out the tracks of what must be Dreamweaver's footprints in the dust. Next to her prints, I can see the bigger imprints of Maximus. He must have followed the same trail I did. I follow the trail out the back of the building and into the alley. Here, I find more spent casings and in the middle of the alley I find an M79 on the ground. Next to that, I find a small metal dart with two thin wires trailing out the back. Now I'm really confused, I have never heard of the sentinels using stun weapons before. Normally, they just kill you or drag you off kicking and screaming.

I can make out what appear to be drag marks on the ground. I follow them to the end of the alley. There, they turn towards the heart of the city and suddenly end. Whatever had her must have gone airborne. I quickly make my way back to my Skiff and head off to the city center. I keep low between the buildings and actionably stop to scan the area. I don't want any surprises. About five miles further into town, I come across the wreckage of Maximus' Shrike. I land about three blocks away in an alley.

This time, I am loaded for battle. I load up four AT6's into my backpack, six grenades and ten extra clips for my M79. I do not bother to cover the Skiff with the camo net. If I need to get out of here fast I do not want to waste time with something like that. I leave the ramp down as well and slowly make my way over to the Shrike.

As I get closer to I check out the damage to the ship. The left wing has been sheared off and it looks like the Shrike went in hard about 200 feet back and came to a rolling slide to where it currently rests. The damage to the left wing looks like it could have been SwiftKillers lasers that cut across the wing and sliced it clean off. Without the wing, the Shrike would have gone into a spin and crashed just like it did. Whatever it was, it caught Maximus by surprise and I have never heard of that being done before. I do a quick check of the cockpit and find a small amount of blood. Maximus must have been injured in the crash. I check the ground around the Shrike but I do not find any blood trails. I decide to continue towards the city center on foot.

A couple of blocks later, a thunderstorm rolls in and it begins to rain. "Great!" I mutter to myself, "Somebody really loves me up there."

I make my way block-by-block, stopping at every alleyway and scan all around me with my binoculars. Finally, after walking about 2 miles, I see something in the middle of the road that looks like people about 500 meters ahead. At this time, I decide to activate the heat sink. As soon as I turn it on, the suit becomes cold against my skin. A small readout appears in the bottom of my Heads Up Display that shows the level of stored heat and how much time I have left till it needs to purge. I move slowly down the street stopping every now and then to check the area. The storm lets up a little and I can better make out the people on the road. It is Dreamweaver and Maximus. They are tied to a pole sitting back to back.

"Okay, now this is really weird," I think to myself. HK's and Sentinels do not tie people up and leave them in the middle of nowhere. But if its not the HK's, then who?

I peer back through my binoculars and try to see if they are even alive. They must have been there for at least three days. It's not likely they've lasted this long. Then, I see Maximus' head turn and he appears to say something, then Dreamweaver's head lifts up and she seems to reply. Well, it looks like its Shadow to the rescue.

I close the distance to them to about 50 meters and I stay hidden in the shadows not moving for about half an hour. I continually scan the area looking for anything that is out of place. My instincts tell me that this is a trap but I have to get the two of them out of here. I finally decided to make my move. I stand up and come out of the alley I was hiding in and slowly make my way to them.

My breathing is slow and steady. I keep sweeping the area looking for anything that doesn't belong. I listen for the slightest sound. I am about three quarters of the way to them when Maximus' head comes up and he sees me. At the same instant, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. To my left, reflected from a broken office window I see something come from behind a building. I stop dead in my tracks and jump back just as the ground where I was standing explodes in machine gun fire.

I run back the way I came to the alley as flashes erupt from what must be a Gatling machine guns and the ground is torn up behind me. I make the alley and I am showered with fragments of brick as the machine gun tears up the entrance to the alley and then it goes quiet. I yank one of the AT6's from my pack and pull the safety lock, extend the sighs, and prop it up on my shoulder. I move back the entrance of the alleyway and then peak out and look for my target.

75 meters away and about 5 meters off of the ground I see it. Shaped like a blunted teardrop it is about 2 meters long and a meter at its highest point with the thickest part facing to the rear. There seems to be a panel open underneath and extended from that is a multi-barreled machine gun. I never saw one like this before so it must be something new. I sight it in my crosshairs; the HK swings the machine gun over to me just as I press down on the firing stud.

In a fraction of a second, the AT6 seeker head takes an image of the target and compares it to a catalog of vehicles in its memory to see if it is friend or foe. Not finding a match, it lists the target as foe and transmits this information to the other AT6s via microwave. It then ignites its solid rocket booster and streaks to the target faster then the eye can blink. Upon impact, the armor-piercing warhead explodes in a blinding flash of light.

I toss the spent AT6 launcher and wait for the smoke to clear. To my shock the HK is still there. The multi-barrel machine gun appears to be damaged and hangs uselessly underneath it throwing off sparks until it is retracted back inside the HK. The exterior does not appear to have been damaged.

"Well, that's not good," I think to myself.

A panel opens in the top of the HK and a long, slender weapon appears and then traverses towards me. I duck back into the alley and start running to the other side. I hear a loud bang and a large hole appears on the brick wall next to me. I continue to run down the alley and several more bangs followed by more large holes in the walls.

I've seen this kind of weapon on the Mark 29 Battle Suits, it's called a rail gun and it can punch trough a tank with a small projectile and sheer kinetic force. Well, plan A didn't work so I guess it is on to plan B. Now I have to come up with a plan B and live long enough to make it happen. I run out of the alley way and into the next street. I need to set up an ambush of my own. I cross over two more streets and then into a 4-story building I run up the stairs and to the third floor. I'm suddenly hit with a sense deja vu as I reach for the door. I open the door to see an empty room.

"What did you expect to see you idiot, an Agent with his gun drawn?" I mumble to myself.

I move over to the window and pull out an AT6, arm it and set it to "Remote Fire". I prop the rocket launcher in the window and aim it at the rooftop of a building across the street. I go down the hall and do the same thing in another room and then go to the roof. I hunch down at the roof top wall and arm the last of the AT6s that I have. With the others set to remote fire, the launchers will lock on to the same target and fire when I do. I'm about ready to look over the wall and see if the HK is following, when two slender silver spider like legs come over the wall on either side of me.

I freeze in place and even hold my breath as the HK comes over the wall right above me. The HK crawls over the wall on six legs that appear to have extended out of small panels in its underside. It seems to pause and scan the rooftop before it makes its way to the other side and then down the wall. So much for my trap! I think for a moment and then place the final AT6 on remote fire and remove the trigger unit before propping it up and aiming it at the same point as the others. This will allow me to fire all of the AT6's from a distance of 1 kilometer, but I won't be going that far. I run down the stairs and across the street to the buildings rooftop. I look over the rooftop wall and at the AT6's in the windows and roof across from me; it's a little unsettling to look down the barrels of 3 anti-tank rockets. I check the remote trigger and make sure it is secured to my belt.

I bring up the M79 and look through the scope to find the HK. About 750 meters out, I see it come up onto the roof of another building. I sight in on it and squeeze the trigger. A burst of fire kicks the weapon and I can see the impact of the rounds on the HK, all are ineffective. The rail gun turns on me in a flash and I barely have time to jump clear before the wall I was behind is shattered. I move further to my left and bring my weapon over the wall. The HK is now hovering over the rooftops and quickly making it's way to me. I fire off a couple of more bursts before ducking and moving for new cover. Each time, the HK takes out more of the wall. Finally, it is over the buildings the AT6's are in. The rail gun retracts and the HK raises its front legs as if to spear me with them. I wait till the HK is almost to the roof wall in front of me and then hit the remote firing trigger as I dive for cover.

The seeker heads on all three rockets scan the area and lock on the HK. The rockets computer calculates distance and speed of the target. Then, they link to each other and fire within split seconds of the other so they reach the target at the same time. The force of the explosion slams into me and leaves me stunned; even through the thermal suit I can feel the wash of fire roll over me. For the next several minutes I try to collect my senses.

I stand up and try to clear my head. I look around and see the HK has been blown onto the roof and is lying on its side with smoke coming from a gaping hole in its side. I keep my weapon pointed at it as I move in closer. When I'm close enough I give it a kick and jump back, it doesn't move. I lower my weapon and stand triumphantly over the HK.

"Yeah, who's your daddy you mother…"suddenly one of the legs lashes out, hits me square across the chest with the force of a sledge hammer and sends me sailing through the air. As I crash into the ground, the M79 goes skidding across the roof and over the side. As I lay there, I can feel that some of my ribs are broken. I try to sit up and look at the HK. It clumsily stands up and staggers over to me. The only weapons I have left are grenades and if I use them this close, I will be caught in the blast as well. Out of desperation, I come up with an idea I hope will work. I roll over and begin to crawl for the roof door. The HK is soon standing over me and raises one of its legs high to impale me.

"Emergency Purge!" I scream into my suit mike and the heat sink releases all of the stored body heat in one massive burst. After all the time I've have had it on and with the added exertion, it was almost at its limit. A white-hot jet of plasma shoots out of the back of the suit and cuts through the damaged armor and into the guts of the HK. I swear I can hear it scream as it tries to back up and then falls over. "Purge Complete." Scrolls over the visor and I slowly get up.

"This time stay down," I say to the smoldering wreck.

I head back to Maximus and DreamWeaver, as I approach them I lift up the visor.

Maximus weakly raises his head and smiles at me. "Shadow, I should have known you would be foolish enough to come get us," he says.

"Yeah what can I say, I lost the draw," I tell him as I cut the two of them loose.

"What took you so long?" He jokingly asks.

"I got lost, you gave lousy directions," I tell him with a smile.

"Where is the HK?" DreamWeaver asks.

"On a rooftop about two blocks over," I tell her pointing my thumb over my shoulder.

"We have to take a look at it," she tells me.

"You're kidding, right? Look, the two of you can barely stand and I can hardly breathe with these broken ribs. Let's not mention the fact that with all the commotion going on around here who knows what's on the way."

"Nevertheless, we have to take a look at it," she tells the two of us.

We lean on each other as we make our way back to the roof.

"This thing set up an ambush and used us for bait," DreamWeaver says as she examines the wreckage.

"I've never heard of an HK or AI doing that. So, I've been thinking of how the AI's could have pulled it off." She pauses. "Oh God, I was hoping I was wrong."

She braces her foot on the side of the HK and pulls hard. Part of the machinery comes loose and she walks over to us. She holds up a clear plastic cylinder holding a human brain, fine silver wires run from a connection at the bottom of the cylinder to different parts of the brain.

"This is going to change everything."



To be continued...