Itty Bitty Bigger World - Armageddon Sick Of This

[drewkitty]

Itty Bitty Bigger World - Armageddon Sick Of This


The escape capsule blew into harmless plastic fragments when it hit the ground, as it was designed to do. This allowed Amy and myself to crawl clear, covered in chunky quickfoam that was peeling off, leaving us in crumbs of green all over.

Much better than being chunky salsa -- as had just happened to anyone unlucky enough to be in SLAC a minute ago.

We were adjacent to a large swimming pool. A number of people - mostly unclothed, a few prudes clothed - stared at us as a horde of bots rushed to the fore.

"You are trespassing on private property" one roared quietly, within the decibel limits set by its owner - presumably the management. I could see the patterned prongs of a mass stunner among its various tools. The others were a lifeguard bot, medic bot, towel bots, drink bots and a bartender bot ... but all had responded to protect their patrons from two idiots falling from the sky.

Amy had had just about enough of everything today, and started to clear leather. Her first act on crawling out of the wreckage had been to peel the quickfoam away from her holstered smartgun. Her second was about to add vandalism to our problems, probably followed by a mass stun that would get us both killed.

"Captain Tsai, STOP!" I roared to her, then continued to the bot. "This is Captain Amy Tsai, California HIghway Patrol, in hot pursuit of fugitives! Authorization code Sierra-Ten-David-Four!"

The security bot sullenly turned slightly so that its stunners were no longer exactly pointed dead center at her.

I subvocalized, "Map, tactical, nearest garage."

Then I cursed when nothing happened. Apparently the hospital VR implant either could not stand up to recent events, or we had been EMP'd.

Amy cursed as well, at length, and finally said, "My VR is not just down, it's _wrecked_."

The standard trooper VR package for CHP would be considered milspec if such a thing still existed. EMP hardening is included in the package. Presumably a CHP Captain's VR implants would be that much better.

Good thing I'd remembered an emergency code. Even better that I'd referenced Amy not myself.

The sky began to brighten all around us.

I immediately tackled Amy Tsai into the pool and shouted "Get in the pool!" as we fell in.

I hoped she'd had a chance to grab a breath. Whether she did or not, she cooperated in swimming to the bottom of the pool.

I blinked to clear my eyes, held up a hand over them, and saw the bones of my hand through the flesh as I looked up.

Orbital laser strike.

Would they get it shut off before it boiled the pool?

I thought about the timings we'd observed so long ago - yesterday. His aim was getting quicker, that was less than a minute from detection to fire on target. But when the rest of the network realized that the orbital laser system was being misused (AGAIN!), he would lose the faked or proxied votes for the shot and it would turn off. Typically it had been about thirty seconds or so.

So just to be safe, I kept us on the bottom for a count of sixty seconds. The light shut off at about forty.

We surfaced to horror. The pool scene was now on fire. Melted plastic, flaming palm trees, twitching bots ...

A person thrashed at the top of the water, bubbling from their mouth. The lifeguard and medic bot - now both silver, as their paint had been burned off - lurched towards the casualty.

The one possibly surviving casualty.

All the rest of the folks who had witnessed our arrival had been cooked, quite literally. As in smells like pork BBQ, but no sauce.

Amy demonstrated her strong stomach by throwing up copiously.

"Towel bot!" I shouted. "Towels, now!"

The bot was not very bright - but it understood the command, and knocked over a stack of flaming towels to get the unburnt towels at the bottom.

Meanwhile I swam to the casualty and turned her over in the pool. This stopped the bubbling and allowed her to start to breathe.

The lifeguard bot deployed its rescue loops and I said, "Paramedic. Hold." Then I turned to the medic bot and said, "Prep rapid sequence intubation, ANLS for pain management."

The towel bot dumped several towels on me and I lined the rescue loops with them. "More towels, poolside, spread them out, 3 meter by 3 meter surface area, time now." A second and third towel bot, just smart enough to understand that a human had ridiculous towel needs, joined the party.

"Lifeguard bot, lift!" The burn victim began screaming as the loops touched her badly charred skin. This was actually a good sign - she had lungs with which to scream.

The lifeguard bot, following standard procedure, put the victim down on her side. On top of the towels, which padded the concrete and kept the victim from more burns. I swam to the side, soaking more towels and putting them over her arms and legs, leaving her back free.

The medic bot immediately peeled a roll of foamboard up and down her back and a cradle of sticks over her head. Advanced Neurological Life Support. Enough painkiller to offset those burns would kill her. ANLS could turn on and off the nervous system like a light. She stopped screaming and collapsed. She didn't want to be awake right now anyway.

Then and only then did the medic bot shove a tentacle down her throat. Intubation, vitally necessary to secure her airway.

I put more soaked towels over her back. The towel bots were continuing to bring lots of towels, which was good.

"Amy, strip off all your gear. All of it. Dump the guns. Keep only your shoes."

Amy looked at me in horror. Then she complied, when she saw that I was taking off all my clothing as well.

The one survivor was still breathing, which would have to do until plenty of help arrived. By then we needed to be elsewhere.

I climbed out of the pool, onto towels, and directed the towel bots to lay a path from poolside to the nearest building - also presently on fire, at least its roof.

Amy climbed out after me. I gave her a towel and took one myself. I paused just a moment to wrap around my waist, then walked over the towels into the burning building. She followed, holding the towel in her hands instead.

The fire suppression system had activated and was spraying water over everything. Good - although pointless, as only the roof of the building was burning, and the contents would not have time to catch before responding firebots knocked the fire out. I flicked open an Emergency Cabinet as I passed and grabbed the first aid kit and two rescue masks. I passed a mask to Amy and put mine on. She put hers on. Then it was her turn to pause and tuck in the towel.

We were now just that much more anonymous.

This was not the best start to a building hack expedition, but it would have to do. I followed the right hand wall to a stairwell down, and took it.

Four levels down, we reached a Restricted Area. I said quietly, "Open Sesame" and the door obediently opened for me, as it would for anyone who knew to say those words.

Not much security, but just enough to keep out the riff-raff.

Beyond was a maze of corridors. I strode purposefully forward at random, taking random turns but generally trying to keep to a single direction. Away from here.

At one point, we reached a Disaster Cabinet. I opened the first aid kit I'd grabbed earlier, removed the scissors, and used them to jimmy the back of the cabinet so it could be opened without the door sensors triggering.

I then removed several bottles of water and drank one, with relish. Amy took another and did the same.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"You're an entry specialist and a pathologist. I'm sure you've worked a deader in the tunnels."

"Yes."

"We're basically going to do that, except for the dead part."

"Sucks."

"Yes."

"Grab all the water."

Amy demonstrated her practicality by giving up her towel and knotting it to make a crude sack, for the bottles. She then handed it to me to carry.

We walked on along the concrete corridors.

If you have never been behind the scenes in San San, you will have at least seen some vids. For the one person who may be reading this in plaintext, I will describe them.

An arched corridor three meters wide and tall. Gray concrete, occasionally fading to white and occasionally to a dark gray. Sometimes painted, sometimes not. Glow strips, self-powered, with a lifetime between three centuries (the first ones) and forty centuries (more recent ones) here and there at the top of the arch. The occasional intersection. Markings and QR codes on the wall in the older sections. Smartpaint squares in the newer sections. Occasional chalk marks. Even graffiti, here and there.

We were avoiding the newer sections, the ones that would have cameras and datalinks. We would definitely go nowhere near any food dispensers, freight elevators or disaster arks. We were sticking to the older parts, where cameras were never installed or were broken off the walls. Where work crews operated in pairs and left packets of food behind them, which would be gone when they returned.

We were going into trog turf, functionally unarmed.

We both knew better.