Chrome Symphony - Chapter 4

Atlas continued to fire upon the mecha while Renk used his time-slowing ability to get up to close range as soon as it was close enough to the floor. He was more interested in getting the battle mecha out of the way so that he could chase down General Mulhauser and force more information out of him.

The mecha fired back at Atlas. A couple of rounds hit him in the chest, sending him flying back. Atlas lay there for a few seconds as the others continued to slow it down. Atlas felt his chest. The body armor and jacket that Elise had given him had absorbed the brunt of the impact. Likely I'll get only bruises this time, he thought. Atlas jumped back up and fired his rifle into one of the mecha's cameras.

Shell appeared to be hacking the mecha's control system. She was hiding behind a control panel with a look of intense concentration on her face. Wanting to provide her adequate cover, Atlas moved over next to her. He noticed that the control panel appeared to belong to the large, spherical apparatus in the center of the room.

Some soldiers dressed in military outfits similar to Renk's began to enter the room. They started closing in on the group.

As Shell continued to interfere with the mecha's internal systems, the large weaponized machine began to act erratically. This allowed Renk to attack it further while Atlas and Elise could start holding off some of the military that were rushing toward them.

Atlas switched to non-lethal gel rounds and started firing at the soldiers. Duncan hit the mech with a bolt of electricity and the machine fell to the ground and stopped moving. Jess was rushing and slashing away at some of the soldiers as they were distracted by the return gunfire. She had taken a few hits but the body armor had prevented anything serious.

Pulling a few smoke grenades out of his backpack, Atlas hesitated for a moment. Scenes of the auditorium flashed in his mind. He shook it off and threw the smoke grenades at the approaching soldiers, giving the others a moment to make their way closer to the door where General Mulhauser had escaped.

Shell ran over to join the others now that the mecha was incapacitated and helped push back some of the soldiers with some blindingly quick attacks through the smoke. Must be nice to have built-in infrared vision, thought Atlas. The smoke had started to make it impossible for Jess and Renk, who had cleared a path to the exit.

The control panel next to Atlas began to flash messages. Although he couldn't be sure, the large spherical machine above him appeared to glow and emit some kind of force, pushing on him slightly.

"We have to get out of here right now," yelled Atlas. "I think this... big thing... is about to activate!"

Atlas joined Jess and Renk at the exit. Looking down the exit's hallway, he could see an elevator.

Duncan started to run toward the exit to meet Atlas when he noticed the combat mecha beginning to reactivate.

"Shell!" yelled Duncan. "Can you interfere with that behemoth again?"

Shell tried to access it again. She managed to slow it down as its control systems were overloaded with garbled commands.

Duncan began charging up another ether attack. It drained his energy to do this and he would have trouble getting around for a few minutes after discharging a bolt of static electricity into the machine.

Elise shook her head, emerging from the clouds of smoke. "Of course," she said. "Normal ammunition isn't even going to make a dent in this thing."

Duncan released the blast of electricity into the machine. It convulsed violently and then sprayed a volley of rounds toward Duncan. He managed to dodge the fire and hid behind a wall column.

Duncan ran over into a small storage area, where there were some maintenance items for the facility's combat mecha. He picked up a can of spray paint. "Renk!" he yelled, "Catch!!!" Renk looked over toward Duncan and Duncan threw the can of spray paint to Renk.

Elise saw Duncan toss the can of spray paint. "Renk!" she yelled to him, "Do your teleport, or... whatever, and spray its optical sensors!"

Renk nodded and disappeared. A split second later, Renk re-appeared next to Elise and the mecha crashed into the wall, leaving a huge dent.

Duncan ran back over to the others. The smoke from the grenades had mostly cleared and the soldiers had all been knocked unconscious or otherwise incapacitated non-lethally. The mecha continued to smash into the wall, making a lot of noise.

Elise was staring intently at the large sphere in the middle of the room.

"What is it with that thing," asked Duncan.

"I'm taking pictures," replied Elise.

Shell ran back over to the control panel. "Just what is this all for," she asked.

"I want to know what it seems to be starting up," said Duncan. "Did they just leave it unlocked after Mr. Price gave them the code?"

"Bio-metrics," said a familiar voice. General Mulhauser walked out of the exit's hallway. Elise promptly aimed her gun at his head.

"Don't move a muscle," growled Elise.

Benton Mulhauser flashed her a big, s***-eating grin. "The late Richard Price agreed to unlock this bad boy in exchange for a guarantee of safety for the little snot-nosed princess, here," said Benton. "As long as he's in the facility, it can remain operational. Of course, now that his body is vaporized..."

"Watch it!" screamed Atlas.

Benton continued, "Now that it can't detect his presence, it should be shutting down. Lucky for us, the princess here apparently also works as a valid bio-metric signature. Even I didn't expect that."

Elise moved closer to Benton, pressing the gun right up against his forehead. "I said DON'T MOVE."

"You're just doing all the hard work for me," laughed Benton. "Even if you made it out of here, everyone believes you're dead, Princess Crest!"

"So, what's it to you," replied Jess.

"You were the sole heir of Crest Corporation," said Benton. "The board of directors has already started selecting a new president and I've got my people grooming a wonderful puppet to ensure I gain control of all Crest's resources, including this!"

Benton pointed to the sphere. It was clearly beginning to emit a strange, inexplicable energy.

"What is that thing," asked Duncan. "What's a megalomaniac like yourself going to do with a giant steel ball, go bowling?"

"Do you really think I'd tell a bunch of crim- OOF" The general was cut off from further bluster by Elise socking him in the gut with the butt of her rifle.

"Yes, we do," she retorts coldly. "You should've kept running if you didn't want to answer questions, jackass."

"You damn bit-" Elise hit him again, causing him to stumble backward a few steps.

"You're not leaving this rock without us, so you can talk now or later. And trust me, I can do far worse than hit you." She leveled the rifle to aim at the general once again, to help demonstrate the point. "I doubt it's just some big bomb, or you wouldn't even want to activate it here. Not to mention wouldn't hang around."

"Still doesn't explain what it is" Duncan yelled back.

"Can some of you try to shut the damn thing off, whatever it is? If it has controls to unlock and whatever, it's got to have an off switch." Elise suggested the obvious, still keeping her focus on where she was aiming. It wouldn't say much about what this thing was ,but it would at least stop whatever it was doing.

Atlas, Renk, and Duncan rushed to check some of the consoles around the room.

Jess held her sword at the General's neck while Duncan, Atlas, Renk, and Shell tried to work the control panels.

"Whether an accidental fire in the auditorium really set off those explosives or not," said Jess, "If you're responsible for getting that shipment of explosives here, you have just as much blood on your hands as I."

Jess desperately wanted to slash the General's throat. She realized just how horrible her actions had been, especially if the General wasn't bluffing about her father. Since some of the guards had partially corroborated his story, the last remaining traces of hope began to leave Jess's mind.

Her father was dead.

"DAMN IT!!!" screamed Jess. She ran over to one of the control panels, where Atlas was just randomly hitting buttons on the screen. Jess gently nudged him aside and took at look at the panel. After a few minutes, she pressed her hand to the biometric sensor and the controls unlocked.

"I don't want to believe this, Atlas..." sobbed Jess. The security access log on the screen didn't lie.

18:14:03  UNLOCK SEQUENCE INITIATED
18:14:12  SYSTEM ACTIVATION
21:45:07  PROXIMITY BIO-METRICS LOST
21:49:37  UNKNOWN ERROR - AUTOMATIC DE-AUTHORIZATION FAILURE
22:05:19  SYSTEM ACTIVATION [VIA PRE-AUTHORIZED]
22:14:07  UNLOCK SEQUENCE INITIATED

Jess looked at her watch. It was 22:14. She knew that they had arrived at NEA726 around two hours ago and the concert lasted for about two songs after they had set up on stage, so that meant the concert had ended a little more than an hour ago.

The explosion happened about ten minutes after we left the dressing room, calculated Jess. Under this amount of stress, it was hard for Jess to think clearly. Jess was very proud of her academic achievements and would punch Atlas if he dared do the grim math for her.

It took us an hour to set up, she thought. Dammit, do these times line up? "Atlas," Jess finally asked, "How long was that first song we played?"

Atlas gave her a blank stare. "Why the hell do you want to know THAT of all things?" he asked.

The combat mecha, which had been crashing repeatedly into a wall on the far side of the room, had managed to wear the spray paint off of one of its optical sensors and was flying toward them. Shell, Renk, and Duncan rushed over to try to hold it off.

"Just, do you know? I need to figure something out," replied Jess, nervously.

"Geez, Jess, I guess with the guitar solo and everything, it ran about fifteen minutes. We jammed it out toward the end - why the hell is this even important?!" rambled Atlas.

"Trust me," said Jess.

I knew it, thought Jess. The length of the first song, sadly, placed the huge explosion right at 21:45, which meant that Jess's father had been killed by the explosion and not the auditorium fire. Although it wasn't much to console her, Jess knew that she did not burn her father alive. He must have been outside the auditorium somewhere, she thought. Jess wiped the tears from her eyes.

Jess suddenly realized something else from the security log. There had been some aftershocks after the explosion as the upper levels collapsed. The unknown error that happened four minutes after the explosion was very telling. Jess looked up, toward the top of the giant sphere in the middle of the room. The supports have been weakened! The sphere has been malfunctioning whenever there's a strong vibration!

Jess had a sudden moment of inspiration.

"Renk!" yelled Jess. "Lure that mech into the pit underneath the sphere!"

Renk nodded and ran over to the mech.

"Duncan!" shouted Jess. "Can you get up to the supports for the sphere?"

As Duncan ran over from the mecha back to Jess, Jess tucked her hair behind her ears and opened her left eye. She began to glow with a green aura. She unsheathed her sword and handed it to Duncan.

"Listen, Duncan," said Jess. "I can't hold my synchronization with this sword very long but if you can manage to get up to the top of the sphere, cut its supports with this and drop it on that mecha. Hurry, please."

Duncan grabbed Jess's glowing sword and nodded.

"I don't know why you trust an old geezer like me to be spry enough to climb up to the top of this thing," replied Duncan, "but I'll tell ya what, I'll do my damndest!"

Jess wiped away her tears and gave him a grin. "You'd better. I didn't pay to upgrade your chrome for nothing!"

Duncan chuckled and hurried over to a ladder.

Halfway up the first ladder, Duncan's 'net connection flashed a message. Connectivity to the local wireless system had been established. As he continued to climb, Duncan began accessing the data in the sphere's control systems and saved it to his local storage.

Duncan also sent a quick message to Shell:

Shell!  Quickly:  I've got 'net access!  Please connect to the sphere and 
SOAK IT UP LIKE A SPONGE!

- DuncanDonuts

Not wanting to be too distracted by the download, Duncan made his way up to the highest catwalk and carefully sneaked over to the center, where the support beams held the apparatus that suspended the sphere over the central control pit. Duncan used the built-in digital zoom in his vision to get a closer look at what was happening below.

Renk had managed to lure the weaponized mecha into the pit and had gotten away from it. Jess and Atlas ran away from the control panels. Elise was still holding the General at gunpoint next to the exit. Shell was standing away from the others, looking directly at Duncan overhead, giving him a very dirty look.

Duncan checked his messages.

What are you doing up there, Duncan?!  
I'm busy trying to hijack this stupid killbot so it stays still!  

If you want the sphere data downloaded, you're going to have 
to do it yourself!

Shell, you too funny, thought Duncan. In that moment, Shell's terse response reminded him of the times that Duncan had interrupted his late wife during DDOS attacks and other important "hacktivism" events.

"Alright, Shell," muttered Duncan. He knew he had to grab the data before destroying the sphere. The information might save countless lives and that was something Duncan felt strongly committed to do after becoming aware of the lives snuffed out due to the group's earlier reckless actions.

Shell was struggling to keep the mecha under control as Duncan finished his download of the sphere's data. Jess looked like she was about to collapse, although the sword still glowed an eerie, iridescent green. Finally, Duncan knew he could keep them waiting no longer and swung the sword at the cables. The cables easily severed and Duncan immediately noticed the local network dropping out again.

"Duncan, you have to make the thing fall, dumbass!" screamed Jess.

"Alright, alright, I'm tryin' here!" shouted Duncan. He swung the sword violently a few more times. Jess should have been the one to do this but she had to keep that panel unlocked long enough for us to grab that data, he reasoned.

With a couple more strong physical hacks at the support beam, it finally severed and the sphere started to detach. It dropped a few inches with another violent jerk.

General Mulhauser tried to push away from Elise. "NO!!!" screamed Benton. "You idiots don't know what you're doing!!!" Elise quickly silenced the porcine general with a swift kick to his gut.

Duncan took one final swing at the support beam and the sphere rapidly fell, crushing the combat mecha and taking the entire system offline.

"GETTTTTTTTT DUNC'D ON!!!!!!" screamed Duncan.