The Enemy of My Enemy? Pt. 2/Chapter 09
- Index - Previous chapter - Chapter 09 - Next chapter
It was somewhat disorienting for Kylan to see through Portia’s eyes although he still couldn’t see everything that she did. Her vision could see the entire ultra-violet and infra-red spectrum as well. But from Kye’s view, all colors were bright and sharp. It was as if the images were coming off the screen. The edges of objects were vividly clear and even if a tiny fly moved it was instantly indentified and analyzed in a separate window.
Anything that moved became a target and had a very faint white grid that covered it, as well as very faint white cross hairs that kept track of its position… except for Stan. The image was nearly panoramic and even the peripheral images were in sharp focus.
Kylan witnessed the entire scene outside in the open construction area. He felt his heart sink when he saw the sad state of Phil Jr. What torment Stan must have been feeling! Soon Kye would be feeling his own torment.
As Stan and Portia entered the abandoned building at the construction site, a tiny blink of light in Portia’s periphery began tracking a killer robot. Portia was able to divide her focus to keep track of far more things simultaneously while her thoughts raced at one hundred and eighty-two thousand miles per second. But it was the two figures in the back of the room that held Kylan’s attention.
“Well if it isn’t FrankenStan and his Mighty Mannequin,” Daniella cried out, “I didn’t think you had the balls to show up!” Phillip ran to her side.
“Boy… she must have put on at least sixty pounds and I doubt it was your cameras adding the weight,” Kye observed through his shock of seeing the real Daniella appear in the footage on the monitor. Apparently Portia found his comment amusing. She smiled briefly as she sat next to him while sharing her memory record.
He saw that Stan had been truly caught off guard and let his anger show. “What the blazes have you done to Phil! He needs help; he doesn’t need YOU!”
“Well it’s great to see you, too,” Daniella said with her familiar sarcasm. “First of all, this kid came looking for ME, jerk-off, and he was already like this when he did.”
“She’s my Naa-nah,” Phil smiled happily. “She turned into a real lady and now I have a little brother to play with, too!” Phillip Jr. had mentally retreated to his childhood and sought salvation in a dream of his former life. It was a time when his father’s M-67 servant android took care of him like a wet-nurse and gave him the only regular nurturing he ever knew.
Apparently Phil Jr. had also made the connection with Daniella when he saw her vague resemblance to his childhood crush. “I saw her on TV and snuck away from home so that I could be with her. Sparky helped me,” he said proudly as the strange robot crawled up beside him. Kylan noticed that Portia’s memory record didn’t show it wearing a backpack as it did with his encounter.
“So you used him like you’ve used everyone else,” Stan snorted.
“I do what I have to and I have a son to think about now. It’s not easy for boys in this world now-a-days,” she said with false empathy.
“Yeah, I can see how you’ve milked your little ‘mealticket’,” Stan shot back as he looked her up and down. “What happened, Daniella? Did they close the buffet early?”
The insult made Daniella lose her cool. “At least I can have children! Your mechanical Guard-doll can never share that with you. She’ll never know the love of Motherhood and you’ll never be a father!” She knew that Portia was Frank’s weakness and Kye saw that Portia’s expression looked troubled as she continued to watch the screen.
But Frances Stanley was relentless, “Only someone really selfish or really stupid would bring a child into this world without trying to do anything to make it a better place,” he said defiantly. “That boy is like my own son,” he looked adoringly at Phillip Jr. “So where the hell is your son’s FATHER!”
“That loser was executed on the spot for raping a stinkin’ robot,” Daniella said without remorse. “I’ve kept going and I’ve done something with my life, which is more than I can say for you and that other loser Kylan. That boy never had any ambition or potential. You’re still crawling around like a horny couple of rats in those tunnels.” The truth of Daniella’s character hurt Kylan deeply, but he had fortunately begun to come to terms with it before seeing how much more hateful she had grown.
The only thing keeping Kye grounded was his best friend’s retaliations. It was the only thing that had kept Portia from revealing her advanced nature and revealing her anger. Daniella had left them before Portia had truly begun to evolve. Daniella also didn’t know how much The Lounge had also grown. “You bitch! Kye saved all our lives including YOUR worthless hide. Sure we’ve had our fun, but do you think it’s just one big happy orgy down there!?! We’ve had to struggle for our survival and we HAVE made something of our own. Something that works! And that goes for the Girls too!”
“Oh, brother,” Daniella laughed.
“Stop fighting! Naa-nah… Uncle Franky… PLEASE! You’re making me sad! No more,” Phillip stepped between them. “Naa-nah, you said that you would help me find Uncle Franky and pretty Auntie Portia, when I told you how much I love them.”
“She’s not your Naa-nah, Phillip,” Stan said consolingly.
Daniella was so blinded with disbelief that she forgot that she was only using the young man for her own greed, “Don’t believe him, Pumpkin! How can you love that mean man and his bad robot? How can you love Gigantra!”
“Look who’s talking,” Kye finally heard Portia’s voice join the pre-recorded conversation.
Daniella flew into a rage at the insult. “That’s enough bullshitting!” she howled as she pulled out a gun and pointed it at Phil. “I didn’t come here to chit-chat. I want what’s in that box you’re carrying. That crap that made your Guard-doll such a smart-ass is worth a lot of pull with the wymyn, so hand it over!”
In reality, Stan had only brought a few of the minor personality programs that the thousands of researchers and computers at Gaines Co. had developed. Frances Stanley’s rank had allowed him to use Gaines Co.’s powerful security system to eliminate all traces of the research, even on every employee’s personal home computers. Stan was the only person who had copies of the programs. After The Great Mistake, he was the only person with copies of most of Replico’s data as well. The androids had done a thorough job of crashing the systems during the chaos.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Daniella,” Stan became very cooperative and handed the case to her carefully. “Don’t you realize who his mother is?”
“Yeah. Someone who could pull a lot of strings,” she said arrogantly.
“I was born lucky, FRANCES.” Daniella was very condescending. “I was lucky when I survived that big terrorist blast and lived through the gas leaks. When there was no way out, but the toilet I was using was solid and had its own ventilation and running water. I was lucky when you losers found me and that doting boy got me anything I wanted. Then when the wymyn started running the show they put a spotlight on me. And even when Armando fucked up, I got all the sympathy a celebrity needs because of our kid! You know how people need a public figure that they can relate to.”
She huffed a small chuckle, “…And now THIS kid comes to me out of the blue and thinks I’m his best friend! AND his mom is one of the most influential government wymyn around AND she has major connections with Gaines/Replico!”
“I know who she is,” Stan said, “but you don’t know when to stop.”
“Why should I?” she cackled, “She was so grateful when I brought her son back to her that she offered me to join her for tea. And who should I see in a picture of Phillip with his Daddy? Good ol’ Uncle Franky!
“So we’re talking our girl talk and we’re bonding and I’m getting BORED TO DEATH when she mentions that Replico is going to start manufacturing again instead of recycling. The wymyn want more boybots, only they don’t want them to be as boring as THEY are. They’ve only had time to develop practical software since most of it was lost during the chaos. Then I remembered how much more human-like, your bimbots acted. And THAT ONE even had that suspicious idiot Kylan fooled,” she nodded in Portia’s direction, “That’s when I put two and two together.”
“I didn’t know that you could count that high,” Portia’s disembodied voice once more could not contain her disdain.
“See what I mean?” Daniella smiled spitefully as she looked into the cameras behind Portia’s eyes. “I’m going to enjoy watching you destroyed and watching FrankenStan’s face as you’re cut to pieces! But before your master tries anything stupid he should know that if I don’t get out of here, neither does the boy. The kid’s science projects are under MY control,” she pointed to the killer robot poised motionless beside Phillip.
She turned back to Stan, “He’s a sharp kid. I understand they were the last thing he worked on before he snapped… it was supposed to be for the next Mars Lander exploration or something, but I’m sure you saw what it did to those police droids,” she reminded him. “Your scouts didn’t find them by accident, by the way. Did you know how hard it was to find another android that was anything like the Amazon over there?”
Stan tried to act uninterested, “Why don’t you tell me? You seem to be on a roll.”
“Born lucky, Baby,” she smirked. “In case you got any ideas, I thought you should know that you can’t win. I guess the wymyn had thought that other giant robo-bimbo had made a good cop. No one without authorization can load anything into a droid these days, so I arranged to send you a message another way. I called in a report that I saw a man go into your stomping grounds when I knew that those droids’ patrol car would be in your area. I figured that one of your boys would come across them before the wymyn sent out a search team since no transmissions can make it out of that place… But Sparky would’ve made sure you found them first.”
Daniella must not have known just how significant those particular android models were. Also, it was obvious the wymyn chose them to be police because they were extremely well built. She didn’t know that it was Kylan himself who found them, though, and she was not going to get any information from Stan.
“It’s just a matter of time before your hiding place would be discovered,” she continued, “So I figured that I’d just cash in on this ‘bag of tricks’ first,” she held up the box of data triumphantly.
“Just take it and leave, Daniella. You don’t have to hurt Portia. Please. She’s my heart and soul. She means everything to me… we’re one. You got what you wanted. I’m begging you.” Stan sounded painfully sincere as he admitted defeat and Phillip Jr. began to cry.
“Oh, but we’re having so much fun,” Daniella pouted. “Besides,” she added, “you’re coming with us, Mister. The press is going to have a field day with you and I’ll be able to keep my son after I trade this stuff.”
“Aren’t you worried what Phillip or I might have to say about you?” Stan was giving her a chance to change her mind, but she was too confident of her power.
“Pu-LEEEASE!!! Do you think the wymyn are going to believe you or Retardo? Or are they going to believe ME. I’m one of their own and one of their most respected citizens. And in case your robo-bitch is transmitting, this area has jamming signals AND DON’T FORGET that she’s not going to make it out of here!”
Daniella grabbed the distraught Phillip and held the outlawed pistol to his head, “This kid is my insurance. I know that if something happens to you nothing will stop that Gargantuan from attacking. But if I control the boy, I control you… AND YOU control her. So order her to shut down NOW so it’ll be easier for the kid’s pet to pull her memory crystal out of that soulless bundle of bolts.”
“Please don’t do this, Daniella. You’ve won,” Stan pleaded. “I can just order her to let me go with you and to delete all of this as soon as we leave.”
“NOW!” was her merciless response.
Kylan’s heart bled when Frances Stanley turned around with tears in his eyes as he looked into Portia’s, but Kye felt a surge of hope when he saw Frank wink at her. “Initiate shutdown,” Frank painfully choked on the words.
“Yes, Master,” was Portia’s uncharacteristic response. It was her way of telling Stan that she understood what he wanted her to do. The image on the monitor lowered slightly as Portia must have simulated a standing shutdown position. “Shutdown in progress,” she said but the image did not turn off.
“Come over here, Stan; I want for you to get a good look,” Daniella said as she edged towards a door located behind her. She had Phillip in tow. Stan felt what was coming and joined them out of harm’s way. “Sic’ her, Sparky!” Daniella sneered.
What happened next was hard for Kye to watch in more ways than one. Seeing through Portia’s eyes was making him dizzy, especially when the synthetic creature attacked. Despite its speed, Portia’s systems easily tracked it and even showed a small faint trail to help anticipate its direction.
The image quickly shifted in front of Kye because Portia had side-stepped. Kylan never saw her willowy hand arc out faster than a blur and snatch the monster’s outstretched arm in mid air. She used the creature’s own inertia and a single centrifugal force to powerfully slingshot it far out of the entrance behind her.
A crash was heard in the distance while Portia became fixated on Daniella. Multiple crosshairs instantly zeroed in on all of Daniella’s weak points open to attack, and even indirectly at open spaces to her side, but she had Stan and Phil between her.
Trauma came over Daniella’s face as she pointed the gun and fired twice at Portia. The bullets may as well have been blanks. The image on the monitor only shook slightly with the impact and, judging by the trajectory of a faint trail, one had obviously hit Portia’s head. When Kylan glanced at Portia’s face, there was no trace of any damage on the beautiful artificial woman sitting next to him.
Daniella turned the gun on Stan and shot him in the arm before putting it to his head. “Uncle Franky!” Phil Jr. cried out.
“Back off!” Daniella yelled, “You know I’ll do it. You may not care about the kid, but I know that you’re programmed to protect your master no matter what!” Daniella shoved Phillip through the door, into another open area, and grabbed Stan by the back of his collar. His blood was flowing steadily; he was in pain and becoming weaker. His spirit seemed broken. “Didn’t you think I would be ready for you? If you try to follow us, they both die and everyone will hear about the rest of your friends.”
As soon as she pulled Frank through the doorway behind her, Kye could hear Daniella screaming “Help!” Apparently she had sent an alert and was planning to make herself look like a hero for “rescuing” Phil Jr. from Stan. The thought made Kylan sick.
Kye could only imagine what Portia’s “thoughts” were, but he could see on the monitor that she had hesitated before she decided to go after them. As she emerged from the doorway her trackers instantaneously zoomed in on multiple targets. The digital image split into several screens while the retreating trio remained in a panoramic view in the center.
Wymyn had arrived with gynoids carrying heavy weapons. The other killer robot was among them. It must have been the whistle-blower because there were too many jamming signals to transmit an alert.
Portia could not override any of the other robots. Her sensors configured where the weapons were aimed, though, and she was ready to dodge the fire. But the image jerked and spun to show Sparky holding the doorframe with its hind limbs and her right arm in its forelimbs.
Its extra limbs with talons shot out from its chest and into Portia’s side. She jerked hard as the robot creature cut deep into her arm and then explosions erupted around her. Amid the din her sensitive hearing filtered out Stan’s vocal wavelength and Kye heard him scream her name.
She nearly tore her own arm off pulling the robot free, with a piece of the doorframe still in its rear hands. She then turned just in time to see a wrecking ball about to crash down on her and she swung the creature in front of her as a shield to take the brunt of the impact. Everything in the screen went dark as the wall behind her came crashing down.
- Index - Previous chapter - Chapter 09 - Next chapter