"An Insurgent riot was quelled yesterday by the Blue Bow Army after a long running battle," continued the news reporter, her voice blaring monotonously from the television set. "About eighteen hundred hours, Casper House received concerned calls from civilians about an Insurgent riot in the Casper Heights region. The Metropolitan Police mobilised armed units to the scene of the Insurgent riot and destroyed all rebelling robots. Authorities still have no idea as to how the robots managed to become infected with the Insurgent Virus and at the moment no FentonWorx spokesperson was available to comment…"
The sky above the black-haired kid was a clear blue sky, a brilliant sheet of azure with a golden sun shining in the sky like a golden orb. The city all around him was a brilliant, vibrant city, with white gleaming buildings and pavement, clean pavements, tall healthy trees growing in verdant parks; it was a large canvas of pure colour. Yet the world seemed so colourless to him, so devoid of life, so devoid of cheer. It was a void of pure insecurity, of unhappy faces and misery.
It had been four years since the Insurgent Revolt, that terrible event when the robot known as Skulker went Insurgent and led a whole army of Insurgents on a violent anti-human rampage. They had attacked everything and everyone, reducing the urban sprawl of Amitropolis to rubble in their plight to eradicate the Metropolis of all human beings. That was when the Blue Bow Militia came in, armed to the teeth while the citizens fled for their very lives. That was when the Blue Bow Army destroyed the Insurgents in a terrible bombing raid that eradicated the Rebellion and destroyed most of Amitropolis in its wake.
Danny couldn't remember whether he had been there when the bombs hit or whether he had gone in afterwards. He couldn't remember anything except coming to, to find himself lying painfully on a jagged shred of concrete, half buried, a slab of concrete above him and light seeping through the crack tauntingly and temptingly. That was all he could remember, lying within the ruins, unable to move his left arm and incapable of moving his legs, with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth and crusted blood on the left hand side of his face.
He had waited hours on end within that ruins. Danny had waited days and when they found him it was far too late. His limbs had become infected during those days he had spent under the rubble. Nothing the doctors tried could stop the spread of infection. They had to amputate.
That was when Dr. William Manson stepped in. Using cybernetic technology developed by the FentonWorx Corporation, he replaced everything that was amputated with robotic parts. In effect, Danny became the world's first cyborg.
Danny looked down at his left hand. It didn't look as if it was a robotic arm. Only when you touched it did you realise that it was fake. All of his robotic limbs had been covered with a layer of synthetic skin that felt just like the real thing, but it didn't disguise the weight of the robotic parts underneath and it was cold to the touch. The very weight of them made it impossible for him to swim. Unlike human beings, he would just sink to the bottom and of course, he was much heavier than a normal human.
A chill wind blew across him and he shivered, an act that reminded him that there were still parts of him that were human. He turned round to look in the direction of the wind.
There shouldn't have been a wind coming from that direction, or maybe the wind went around it, for standing in that direction was the Five Towers, the Headquarters of FentonWorx. It rose out of the heart of the city, a region known as Amity Park, a huge area protected by a huge glass dome that turned it into a microcosm within the city, a small colony for the rich. It was a tall building that stretched skywards like the Tower of Babel from the centre of the city. The Five Towers was so named, because it consisted of a central tower, a pure white tower that was the tallest of the lot, and was surrounded by five towers that merged with each other near the base. Up at the top, the towers spiralled around the central tower, each one taller than the other, with bridges connecting the tops of each tower to the other.
One day, Danny hoped that Amitropolis would be given its freedom again. Danny hoped that one day, FentonWorx would lose power over Amitropolis and that martial law would be lifted to give way to democracy, so that the people could elect the Governor of Amitropolis, a huge urban sprawl large enough to be declared its own state. He hoped that they would be able to vote in their Governor and Amitropolis' various mayors one day. He hoped that one day, the threat of Insurgents would be gone and FentonWorx would lose its excuse to keep the City under its rule and to keep the Blue Bow Militia in charge of the Metropolitan Police.
"Hey Danny!" greeted a voice from up ahead.
Danny looked up and saw a familiar figure approaching him. A faint smile spread across his lips, which seemed awkward, misplaced, smeared on his features as unevenly as bird faeces on a car's windscreen. It wasn't that he wasn't glad to see one of his few friends approach him, it was just that he hadn't really been able to smile properly since awakening in the rubble of what may have once been his apartment building where his family would have once lived. He was actually glad to see Tucker Foley approach him.
Most technologically inclined geeks were usually quite quiet unless they were talking about something they were passionate in.
Tucker Foley was the exception. It was as if he suffered from verbal diarrhoea. He would blurt things out he shouldn't. Tucker would talk about things for ages, as if he was a self proclaimed expert on whatever the subject happened to be. Distracting was one of those terms that could sum him up and at that moment in time, he was just what Danny needed, a distraction to take his mind off the injustices of the world around him.
"Have you seen, Sam anywhere?" asked Tucker curiously. "She disappeared right after class without saying a thing."
"Sam?" exclaimed Danny in surprise. "I thought she was with you."
"I thought she was with you!" exclaimed Tucker.
After the operation, Dr. Manson had adopted Danny, technically making him his son and giving Danny a whole new family and a sister in the form of Samantha Manson.
When Danny joined the family, Samantha had reached the peak of sadness that came from the death of her parents in the Madison Incident, that explosion that had destroyed the Capital of the State of Wisconsin. Before, she had been a regular girl, one of the most popular girls in her entire school, or so Danny had managed to gather from the pictures of her in the family living room. Girls flocked to her like ants to sugar. Boys flocked to her like moths to a flame. She was popular, pretty and had everything, even brains to go with her looks.
That had changed with the death of her parents. She became so engulfed in sorrow that she died her hair black and wore nothing but black for ages. Her Goth-like appearance was the outer manifestation of what she felt inside. It was the window to her inner sorrow, that sadness that seemed to eat away at what little happiness she had left; it was sorrow made into an exterior shell that the popular kids had eventually ridiculed and rejected. They rejected her and Sam had fallen from grace, fallen from the ranks of popularity, to never climb back up the social ladder.
By the time Danny joined the family, Sam had become the reject of the school's social ranks and his good nature, his desire to put a smile back on her face, despite the fact that even he couldn't smile sincerely anymore, put him on the same social level as her.
Dr. Manson and Sam were the only family he had left. He had no memories of any family before the Insurgent Rebellion. They were his only memories and it was only natural for him to feel protective of her and of his foster parent.
"She must have gone home by herself," said Danny dismissively, though he didn't sound very convinced. He knew he shouldn't worry, but Amitropolis had become far more dangerous, what with the sudden outbreaks of Insurgent behaviour, supposedly caused by a Insurgent Virus or E-Virus that was somehow being spread through the robotic population. "I'd better get home too, before the curfew starts."
"Yeah, wouldn't want to get caught outside in a curfew," agreed Tucker with a nod of his head.
"Well, see you tomorrow," Danny said.
There was suddenly a huge crashing noise.
Tucker turned round to see what was the cause, just in time to see a huge mass of metallic girders fall towards him. They were so large, he knew it was impossible to run out of their way. He knew he was as good as dead as he saw those massive metallic girders fall towards him, death made physical in the form of metallic girders that would crush him into a bloody pulp. Tucker knew he would never survive.
Something black rushed up to him, grabbing him with its metallic black arms and they vanished.
The girders smashed into the concrete ground heavily, sending fragments of pavement flying up into the air.
Seconds later, Tucker opened his eyes to find himself being shielded by the black body of a robot. The metallic hands were black save for the fingers and thumbs, and the forearm was white up to the elbow. The chest was white up to the neck, so were the legs from the knee down to the boot-like feet. The helmet was white too and it covered almost all of his head, save for the human chin, cheeks and the eyes that glowed eerily green.
Despite this transformation, Tucker recognised this metallic robot
as being Danny, his friend, whom had been with him ever since the
girders fell.
"Oh yeah," exclaimed Tucker, as he remembered
Danny's capabilities and that he should have known better than to
think he was doomed when he had a cyborg friend to save him. "Thanks,
man," he thanked Danny in great relief.
"You're welcome, Tuck," replied Danny with one of his awkward smiles, as he floated back down to the ground and set Tucker down on the ground. "Now get going!" He then let go of his friend and turned back round to face the Insurgent robot that had caused the girders to fall.
Tucker turned round too and stepped back in complete disbelief, as he saw a huge construction worker robot, one that had been built expressly for the purpose of lifting large weights, thus making cranes obsolete. How it was possible for such a robot to leave a normal life, like the other robots, was beyond him, but there it was, a huge bulky cyborg with huge arms that looked, at the risk of sounding clichéd, capable of crushing huge boulders between them. It looked dangerous and even from a distance, he could see the insane expression on the Insurgent's face.
"Man, that thing's huge!" he cried.
"Get out of here, Tuck!" protested Danny, as he turned round to face his friend. "Now!" He then turned round, just in time to see the Insurgent rush straight at him with a clenched fist ready to smack him into the next millennium. "Yikes!" he yelped, before leaping over the punch and landing on the Insurgent's gigantic arm. Danny then dived sideways, narrowly avoiding being smashed like a bug by the other gigantic hand of the Insurgent.
Danny ended up rolling across the tarmac of the road and landing on his feet in the end. His left hand started to glow the same eerie green glow as his eyes, before he raised his hand and then fired a bolt of green plasma energy through the air from the palm of his left hand. His shot hit the Insurgent, but didn't even seem to dent the metallic exterior, much to his dismay. Never before had he faced a robot with such a tough hide. It was like he was fighting against a tank. He charged up another shot.
"Ideal!" roared the Insurgent, before punching Danny with lightning fast reflexes that sent him flying backwards with such force that it would have broken a normal human being's bones. "Our ideal!" droned the Insurgent mindlessly, as it lumbered towards the shallow crater Danny's landing had caused. "Greatest thing! Awaken! Master Skulker! Master Skulker!"
"Great, it's another mindless Insurgent," sighed Danny sarcastically, as he got back up to his feet and dusted himself off nonchalantly.
"Ideal world!" screamed the Insurgent, before he rushed towards Danny.
Tucker watched his cyborg friend leap into the air, as the construction worker robot smashed its clenched fists on to the ground, where Danny was standing only seconds earlier. He felt the force of the blow, which shook the ground and shook loose the shards of glass from what had once been window panes, forcing Tucker to pull his jacket over his head to shield himself from the falling glass shrapnel.
As Danny fell back, he kicked out at the Insurgent, sending the robot flying as if it was nothing more than a small tin can. He landed back on the ground, at the same time as the Insurgent crashed to the tarmac with a heavy thud that cracked the solid pavement and shook the ground violently like an earthquake. A smile spread across Danny's face and this one seemed much better than all the others. It actually seemed like a sincerely confident smile.
The Insurgent's laughter soon wiped it off his lips, however, as
it staggered back on to its feet.
"Skulker!" laughed the
Insurgent. "Great Skulker! Greatest thing… thing will awaken!"
It staggered back towards Danny like a drunkard and then flung a
punch at the black cyborg, nearly hitting him had he not dived out of
the way. "New age! Ideal world! Our world!" It laughed again and
flung another gigantic fist at the cyborg, only to miss.
Danny's hands started to glow, both of them. They charged up with intense green energy that made them seem as bright as stars, before he fired a blast of plasma energy at the Insurgent's chest with his right, then his left and firing shot after shot of plasma energy, flinging them like shuriken through the air. His shots became a steady stream.
The Insurgent roared out and grabbed the nearest thing to hand, a huge piece of girder, one of the metallic beams that would have crushed Tucker if it hadn't been for the black cyborg. He lifted it up, which was unfortunate, seeing as Danny had been standing on it at the time.
It caught the black and white cyborg off guard and his next few shots missed, which was enough time for the Insurgent to fling the girder up into the air with Danny still on it.
Tucker watched as his cyborg friend flew upwards.
There was a crunching noise that sounded completely unfamiliar.
The Insurgent ripped the tarmac out from the road and then with all its might, flung the huge car-sized chunk of tarmac straight at Danny.
"Watch out, Danny!" shouted Tucker, without even realising his mistake.
The tarmac went straight through the cyborg, as if he hadn't been there. Danny clasped his hands together, as he fell down towards the Insurgent, the energy from the two of them building up between then and then forming a blade of pure energy like an energy sabre. He struck the Insurgent, as he fell, cleaving it in two, splitting it right down the middle of its body.
A strangled cry escaped the Insurgent's robotic vocals, as it sparked. Danny quickly leapt out of the way before the Insurgent exploded in a brilliant ball of fire.
"Tucker!" cried Danny angrily, as he walked back towards his friend. "What did I tell you about calling me by my name?"
"Sorry, man," apologised Tucker sheepishly.
Danny sighed.
"It's okay, Tuck," he said reassuringly.
"But you've got to be more careful next time. What if somebody
heard? You'd have blown my cover!" He looked back at the wreckage
of the Insurgent robot with a heavy heart, wishing that he didn't
have to destroy it, with the desire never to fight another robot.
"Come on. Let's get out of here before the police arrive. There's
already a reward on my ass. We don't want anyone claiming it,
right?"
There was a flash of light and then Danny was back to his normal, human-looking self.
The two then ran from it, like a pair of delinquents that had nearly been caught spraying graffiti onto a wall.
Skulker's head was completely bald. His face was a strange, green-blue-grey colour that couldn't quite be described. His eyes were black with red irises. He was a muscular, humanoid robot, that looked very humanoid despite his seemingly robotic face. His shoulders were broad and the tattered brown cloak made him seem large and intimidating.
"It's amazing how the w-world has changed so l-little," commented Skulker with a big grin on his face. "The h-humans still live so c-complacently, thinking they are s-so special. They are n-nothing and w-when I am f-fully repaired, I w-will show them who are the t-truly special ones." He turned his head jerkily to one side, almost as if the neck was far too stiff and needed oiling. "Echelon, y-you have s-served me w-well."
The feminine, red-clad figure standing not too far away from
Skulker bowed her helmeted head.
"I live only to serve you,
Master Skulker," was the reply from Echelon.
"Y-Yes and s-soon our ideal w-world will be b-born from the ashes of the h-human world," laughed Skulker.
END TRANSMISSION #01