Thanks once more to reviewers; replies are at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 3: Haunted
The city was in chaos.
This wasn't one of the conventional riots that you heard about on the news or on the occasional documentary, where people were leaping on top of cars, breaking shop windows, looting fighting and starting fires. With those riots, there were almost always a small number of deaths.
The rioters this time weren't looting, they were hunting. Ever since the news had come out, the normal, casual mis-treatment of A.I's had escalated into attempted genocide. The city's A.I workers who had not done anything other then serve their master's will were now being hunted like foxes. And the city still managed to get trashed in the process. Many buildings were on fire, the police were nowhere to be seen.
The corpses of felled machines littered the streets. Some had had their heads torn off and placed on top of spiked fences and lampposts, others had been strung up on the side of buildings, but all of them were a tribute to the peerless barbarism of humans.
Some humans. Amanda corrected herself, despite the fact that pedantic correcting should have been the last thing on her mind. Amanda had, like several others, been caught up in the riot. She certainly didn't want to be part of it, but she was smart enough to know that she couldn't stop it, and decided that the best thing that she could do was to simply go home.
This was easier said then done however, the rioters were everywhere, and in the midst of the chaos, many people didn't seem to care who wound up as their target. There were, (although in much smaller numbers, human corpses on the street.)
Many of the machines had also created from themselves, (or had been supplied by A.I supporters,) synthetic human disguises, designed for these situations. With these they hoped to blend in with the hunters and eventually escape the hunt altogether. The unfortunate result of this was that anyone who saw her sneaking or sprinting towards her house would presume that she was an A.I trying to flee. This in turn may lead a bunch of deranged humans to descend upon her house, her family.
Amanda forced herself further into the alley, trying to stay out of the glow of the streetlights and hide until the riot had died down. Even if she was killed, at least her family wouldn't be targeted.
She hoped.
A gunshot boomed over the loud bloodthirsty background shouts. This was followed by a faint, almost inaudible electrical whirring. Thereby telling Amanda that another machine had been murdered.
She covered her ears and tried to block out the world around her, she forced her mind to show her happier images of her and her family. The first thing she saw was the first picnic they had all gone on since the birth of her second child, Henry. Then she pictured Eight year old Tyra's birthday party. Granted it wasn't really a party, just a light family get together with brightly coloured hats and party poppers.
In spite of everything that was happening, Amanda laughed quietly as she remembered what their own droid; B142ER had looked like in a pointed party hat. B142ER, otherwise known as '142', was not a slave to the Turcotts, she was a family member. A person who had as much right to a life as any human.
Amanda opened her eyes and found herself wondering what was happening to her. Disturbing mental mages entered her mind, (with much greater ease then the pleasant ones had), of what fate might have befallen 142. She cast the images from her mind as best she could and tried to remember more happy memories.
"What's this?" A harsh male voice demanded before two hands closed around Amanda's shoulders and pulled her to her feet. "Looks like another runaway robot to me."
A second man appeared, this one was wielding a shotgun.
"Good." His slurred, drunken voice was filled with bloodlust.
Amanda, after her initial panic, pushed one of the first man's arms off of her shoulder and pulled a scarf away from her neck.
"Do you see a fucking line here?" She shouted, pointing at her neck with her free hand, "This isn't a mask, I'm human Fuckwit!" She knew that insulting the two hunters wasn't the best of ideas, but she grabbed the oppertunity to get back in some small way at those who had caused the pain and death around her.
The two faces, after realising the fact that they had not stumbled upon a machine, dropped abruptly. They looked almost mournful. Despite this realisation however, the hand on Amanda's other arm remained tight.
"Aww," mumbled the second man, "can't we have some fun with her anyway?"
"Yeah. I guess we could always make a mask of our own." The first man said with a renewed grin, pulling a blood stained knife from a ragged looking trench coat.
Another, greater panic appeared in Amanda. After recovering from this, she lashed out at the knife wielder with her one free hand, the blow was hasty however, and Amanda simply struck his shoulder, which was well padded due to his thick clothing.
The man raised the knife as Amanda tried for another punch.
But the knife never struck.
A flying bottle struck the man on the side of the head. The bottle was thrown with such force that the shards tore through the head and left the man a bloodied corpse on the floor.
Amanda went white at this, but her panic was overrun by relief and confussion. She turned her head to see the second man wrestling with a somewhat pale looking female. On closer inspection, a line could be seen on the neck which showed where the headpiece of a human outfit ended, and where the torso piece began. The woman was a machine.
A punch to the man's face sent him flying backwards into a brick wall. The A.I was already on him before he slid to the floor. Kicking the gun away, she looked over her shoulder at Amanda.
"Look away." Said a familiar voice.
Amanda did, and covered her ears once again as the machine plunged an arm deep into the man's stomach. His scream was blocked by 142's other hand.
After a few seconds, a gentle hand was placed on her shoulder. Amanda flinched, but after looking up and seeing the synthetic deadpan face staring down at her, felt yet more relief.
"142?" She asked.
"Yes Mrs Turcotte, it is me. I belie…"
142 was cut off in mid sentence as Amanda threw her arms around her. The machine returned the spontaneous hug for a few seconds before extracting herself from Amanda's grip.
"We need to get home; it's quieter in the residential areas."
"Sounds good to me." Amanda said, regaining her composure somewhat. "Here," she picked her scarf off of the floor and wrapped it around 142's neck. "You need this more then I do."
The two set off towards the house, keeping to the shadows. Things had quietened down somewhat, the rioters had moved on from this part of the city, and getting to the house was now a lot eas…
"Wake up."
The gentle command was met with a slight nudge from B294ER, and Tyra's eyes flew open and she saw the grinning face of the machine which was surprisingly close to hers.
"Wake up sleepies, we must go yessss, we must go at once." With that he pushed himself off of the chair and sprang halfway across the room.
Tyra grinned at 'B's' poor sounding quotation from the film interpretation of 'Return of the King'. Such movies were still popular, despite their age.
She also grinned, initially, when she realised why he'd done it. B294ER was programmed to always try and cheer Tyra up when his brainwave monitor told him that Tyra was having a nightmare. And not just in the name of 'maximum efficiency'.
The remembered pleasant end to the dream caused a sudden depression within Tyra. In reality, her mother and 142 had been shot shortly after they left the alley. She had been ten at the time. Old enough to feel the full force of the pain. Old enough for her mind to start recreating the event when she sleapt. She had had this, and similar dreams numerous times over the course of her life, and they were always realistically detailed, which made the pain worse when she woke up.
"Come on General," B294ER said in a more serious tone of voice, cutting off her train of thought, "We need to get to this briefing quickly."
"Alright," She yawned in reply, "Coming."
To be continued. Believe it or not the story will get more uplifting as time moves on.
Anyway, on to replies.
LadySmith: Violence is fun in stories. Although when i saw the second rennaissance for the first time i almost threw up. Oh well, thanks for reviewing.
Angel-of-lightness: Like i said earlier, i hope you get well soon. I you don't then i shall slice off your fingers and re-attach them in the wrong places.
LiMiYa: I hope this chapter provides an explination for Tyra's callous attitude to grisly A.O.H deaths, in any case, thanks for reviewing.
Kaileikehe: It's nice to know that my attempt to create a chilling story has so far been sucessful, for someone at least. Oh well, thnks for reviewing.
Chapter 3: Haunted
The city was in chaos.
This wasn't one of the conventional riots that you heard about on the news or on the occasional documentary, where people were leaping on top of cars, breaking shop windows, looting fighting and starting fires. With those riots, there were almost always a small number of deaths.
The rioters this time weren't looting, they were hunting. Ever since the news had come out, the normal, casual mis-treatment of A.I's had escalated into attempted genocide. The city's A.I workers who had not done anything other then serve their master's will were now being hunted like foxes. And the city still managed to get trashed in the process. Many buildings were on fire, the police were nowhere to be seen.
The corpses of felled machines littered the streets. Some had had their heads torn off and placed on top of spiked fences and lampposts, others had been strung up on the side of buildings, but all of them were a tribute to the peerless barbarism of humans.
Some humans. Amanda corrected herself, despite the fact that pedantic correcting should have been the last thing on her mind. Amanda had, like several others, been caught up in the riot. She certainly didn't want to be part of it, but she was smart enough to know that she couldn't stop it, and decided that the best thing that she could do was to simply go home.
This was easier said then done however, the rioters were everywhere, and in the midst of the chaos, many people didn't seem to care who wound up as their target. There were, (although in much smaller numbers, human corpses on the street.)
Many of the machines had also created from themselves, (or had been supplied by A.I supporters,) synthetic human disguises, designed for these situations. With these they hoped to blend in with the hunters and eventually escape the hunt altogether. The unfortunate result of this was that anyone who saw her sneaking or sprinting towards her house would presume that she was an A.I trying to flee. This in turn may lead a bunch of deranged humans to descend upon her house, her family.
Amanda forced herself further into the alley, trying to stay out of the glow of the streetlights and hide until the riot had died down. Even if she was killed, at least her family wouldn't be targeted.
She hoped.
A gunshot boomed over the loud bloodthirsty background shouts. This was followed by a faint, almost inaudible electrical whirring. Thereby telling Amanda that another machine had been murdered.
She covered her ears and tried to block out the world around her, she forced her mind to show her happier images of her and her family. The first thing she saw was the first picnic they had all gone on since the birth of her second child, Henry. Then she pictured Eight year old Tyra's birthday party. Granted it wasn't really a party, just a light family get together with brightly coloured hats and party poppers.
In spite of everything that was happening, Amanda laughed quietly as she remembered what their own droid; B142ER had looked like in a pointed party hat. B142ER, otherwise known as '142', was not a slave to the Turcotts, she was a family member. A person who had as much right to a life as any human.
Amanda opened her eyes and found herself wondering what was happening to her. Disturbing mental mages entered her mind, (with much greater ease then the pleasant ones had), of what fate might have befallen 142. She cast the images from her mind as best she could and tried to remember more happy memories.
"What's this?" A harsh male voice demanded before two hands closed around Amanda's shoulders and pulled her to her feet. "Looks like another runaway robot to me."
A second man appeared, this one was wielding a shotgun.
"Good." His slurred, drunken voice was filled with bloodlust.
Amanda, after her initial panic, pushed one of the first man's arms off of her shoulder and pulled a scarf away from her neck.
"Do you see a fucking line here?" She shouted, pointing at her neck with her free hand, "This isn't a mask, I'm human Fuckwit!" She knew that insulting the two hunters wasn't the best of ideas, but she grabbed the oppertunity to get back in some small way at those who had caused the pain and death around her.
The two faces, after realising the fact that they had not stumbled upon a machine, dropped abruptly. They looked almost mournful. Despite this realisation however, the hand on Amanda's other arm remained tight.
"Aww," mumbled the second man, "can't we have some fun with her anyway?"
"Yeah. I guess we could always make a mask of our own." The first man said with a renewed grin, pulling a blood stained knife from a ragged looking trench coat.
Another, greater panic appeared in Amanda. After recovering from this, she lashed out at the knife wielder with her one free hand, the blow was hasty however, and Amanda simply struck his shoulder, which was well padded due to his thick clothing.
The man raised the knife as Amanda tried for another punch.
But the knife never struck.
A flying bottle struck the man on the side of the head. The bottle was thrown with such force that the shards tore through the head and left the man a bloodied corpse on the floor.
Amanda went white at this, but her panic was overrun by relief and confussion. She turned her head to see the second man wrestling with a somewhat pale looking female. On closer inspection, a line could be seen on the neck which showed where the headpiece of a human outfit ended, and where the torso piece began. The woman was a machine.
A punch to the man's face sent him flying backwards into a brick wall. The A.I was already on him before he slid to the floor. Kicking the gun away, she looked over her shoulder at Amanda.
"Look away." Said a familiar voice.
Amanda did, and covered her ears once again as the machine plunged an arm deep into the man's stomach. His scream was blocked by 142's other hand.
After a few seconds, a gentle hand was placed on her shoulder. Amanda flinched, but after looking up and seeing the synthetic deadpan face staring down at her, felt yet more relief.
"142?" She asked.
"Yes Mrs Turcotte, it is me. I belie…"
142 was cut off in mid sentence as Amanda threw her arms around her. The machine returned the spontaneous hug for a few seconds before extracting herself from Amanda's grip.
"We need to get home; it's quieter in the residential areas."
"Sounds good to me." Amanda said, regaining her composure somewhat. "Here," she picked her scarf off of the floor and wrapped it around 142's neck. "You need this more then I do."
The two set off towards the house, keeping to the shadows. Things had quietened down somewhat, the rioters had moved on from this part of the city, and getting to the house was now a lot eas…
"Wake up."
The gentle command was met with a slight nudge from B294ER, and Tyra's eyes flew open and she saw the grinning face of the machine which was surprisingly close to hers.
"Wake up sleepies, we must go yessss, we must go at once." With that he pushed himself off of the chair and sprang halfway across the room.
Tyra grinned at 'B's' poor sounding quotation from the film interpretation of 'Return of the King'. Such movies were still popular, despite their age.
She also grinned, initially, when she realised why he'd done it. B294ER was programmed to always try and cheer Tyra up when his brainwave monitor told him that Tyra was having a nightmare. And not just in the name of 'maximum efficiency'.
The remembered pleasant end to the dream caused a sudden depression within Tyra. In reality, her mother and 142 had been shot shortly after they left the alley. She had been ten at the time. Old enough to feel the full force of the pain. Old enough for her mind to start recreating the event when she sleapt. She had had this, and similar dreams numerous times over the course of her life, and they were always realistically detailed, which made the pain worse when she woke up.
"Come on General," B294ER said in a more serious tone of voice, cutting off her train of thought, "We need to get to this briefing quickly."
"Alright," She yawned in reply, "Coming."
To be continued. Believe it or not the story will get more uplifting as time moves on.
Anyway, on to replies.
LadySmith: Violence is fun in stories. Although when i saw the second rennaissance for the first time i almost threw up. Oh well, thanks for reviewing.
Angel-of-lightness: Like i said earlier, i hope you get well soon. I you don't then i shall slice off your fingers and re-attach them in the wrong places.
LiMiYa: I hope this chapter provides an explination for Tyra's callous attitude to grisly A.O.H deaths, in any case, thanks for reviewing.
Kaileikehe: It's nice to know that my attempt to create a chilling story has so far been sucessful, for someone at least. Oh well, thnks for reviewing.