Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (43 page)

Amazons.

Screw
it. I opened fire. They fired back. Alkinoe fired, we all
fired.

I threw
a grenade in the mix.

All hell
broke loose.

Bullets
ricocheted around the place, tearing up R&D projects in tiny
little pieces that would make the geeks cry tomorrow morning. My
Amazon emptied an SMG clip on the other Amazons. I switched to
armor-piercing rounds and managed to wing one kariola.

“
Bad choice of cover lady, my forklift is better!” Her blood
spattered on a very expensive instrument next to her and she
screamed a horrific wail that made me back and cover.

“
How many are there?” I asked Alkinoe.

“
At least seven in a standard group,” she replied.

“
Is this standard?” I asked.

“
This is definitely
not
standard,” she replied.

The
Amazons were trying to find cover in the rubble I “accidentally”
had knocked over with my forklift earlier. They knew they were at a
disadvantage and withdrew back. The shooting sort of stopped, but
we weren’t winning.

Their
leader said, “Cease fire!”

They
stopped shooting so I stopped as well. The 3D printer kept on
printing, unaware of the battle being fought for it.

Alkinoe
stood up. “What are you doing, get down!” I said and pulled at her
pants.

The
leader stood up as well and spoke to her. “Alkinoe, we did not come
shooting. The brute you acquaint yourself with opened fire
first.”

“
And what were the drones on the road lady, Christmas toys?” I
spat at her and kept my back in cover.

Alkinoe
asked, “What do you want Deinomache? A chat?”

I peeked
at the Amazon leader. She was big and muscular like a man, with a
machete on her belt and a big scar on her face, keeping her lip
always half-open in a grin. Deinomache. Alkinoe had told us that
Amazons get renamed after proving themselves in battle. This
particular one was called “Mighty Warrior.”

Skata.

“
Where is this man you desire so much? Is his manliness so
pleasurable that you turn your back on your sisters? Surely you
have tasted many more so as not to cling on a particular one,”
Deinomache said as if winning over the crowds was the way to
survive this firefight.

Alkinoe
was openly hurt by this.

Oh.

Oooooohhhhhh.

That’s
why she left them. For my brother. Ha! That womanizer. “He can make
an Amazon go straight again,” a legendary title worthy of tons of
beer in celebration.

“
You have cast me out, as well as I have rejected your ways.
The feelings are mutual. You obviously have orders not to harm the
machine. Move on to your next point of discussion,” said Alkinoe
with bitterness.

“
The feelings indeed are mutual. But Penthesilea wants me to
grant you a choice of redemption,” Deinomache said.

I made
hand signs to Alkinoe, mimicking the creation and stacking of
pancakes. She looked at me and nodded befuddled.

I made
more pancakes. She nodded, “What?”

I
whispered, “Stall her!”

She
nodded “ok” to me.

The
Amazon leader carried on. “You have placed yourself too deep. The
entity being given birth right before our eyes in this mechanical
womb is above and beyond anything you might have imagined. This is
not merely something of value, where people can unhand a few
million euros and obtain it. This is a being infused with ichor.
People will never stop desiring it, you will never transfer it in
time to your employer, and you will certainly never succeed in
avoiding the myriad of bounty hunters that will follow its path
leading to you.”

She paused, for dramatic effect. Alkinoe took it in quietly.
The huge woman continued her speech. “I offer to you redemption
amongst us. No, I have not forgiven you, and no, not all of our
sisters will happily embrace you but all will accept you. You can
come back,
adelfi
,” Deinomache said, finishing on the word “sister.” The rest
of the Amazons were obviously waiting for her reply and to my
surprise I could see the schism in their eyes.

Some of
them actually wanted Alkinoe to come back.

Alkinoe looked at her with tears in her eyes. “All I wanted
was to love a man and you acted like I had spat on Artemis’ face. I
have been an Amazon for as long as I remember and suddenly I meet a
man who is kind and sweet and compassionate, and you tell me that I
should use him for sex and then pass him along to the rest of the
girls. I was good, I followed orders. I
love
being an Amazon, it’s what I
am.” She had fallen into a full blown crying fit.

“
I’m sorry!” she cried and yelled. “I was simply in love. It
shouldn’t be a crime, but for us it is. We try to joke and laugh
about men and how they are pigs and we don’t need them, but you
can’t just throw away a feeling. We have these rules but we can’t
place rules on a heart that has never felt love before. I didn’t
want to throw away my life, I
don’t
want to. They are getting a lot of money from
this job but I don’t care, I just want my family back, my
adelfes.”

That’s
good. Good stalling, good girl. I looked at the print job. The pair
of legs that were being formed had a uniquely cybernetic feeling
about them. They were too thin for a combat armor. Maybe a bipedal
drone. A mist swirled around them and I could barely see a pair of
wings on the feet. Interesting design.

Wait.
When did “you” become “we?” Was Alkinoe pretending or was she
really switching sides?

Alkinoe
walked up to Deinomache. She dropped her pistol on the floor. My
eyes darted and found her SMG empty beside me.

Deinomache was trying to contain her surprise and contempt.
She was always showing her brave cheek to her team. She opened her
huge arms and said, “Welcome back adelfi. We will rejoice after
this birth.”

Alkinoe
was crying and fell to her former sister’s arms like a little
girl.

I felt
utterly alone. At least I had the most expensive 3D printed pair of
feet in the world on my side. I put my back against my cover and
banged my helmet on it.

Skata.

Chapter
7

I heard a
choir of females in surprise and turned around to look. Alkinoe was
on the floor, Deinomache on top of her, a spear protruding out of
her belly splashing blood all over the place. The huge woman
punched Alkinoe, simply punched her, and our girl got thrown across
the floor with some missing teeth. As she tried to get up and flee
towards me Deinomache pulled her machete and sliced her
back.

I had no
clear shot.

Alkinoe
saw that and stopped struggling, she fell squarely on the floor. My
girl was cooperating flawlessly, once again.

That or
she had just dropped dead on the floor.

I had a
clear shot, I hit the huge lady with the machete in hand and the
spear in the gut and the bloodshot maniacal eyes, but she charged
me with a leap in the air. Four, five direct hits.

Come on,
predictable path of an object thrown. Hit her again Deimos! Bang
bang. My combat overlay locked on to her. Oh now you decide to work
properly?

She
twisted her machete pointing down and lunged at my chest with her
full momentum.

She must
have seen it, the bullet hit from earlier on my armor. The hulking
kariola must have switched her attack mid-leap from a slash to a
downward thrust on my armor’s weakened point, all the while being
gutted and shot repeatedly.

My
combat armor cracked like a coconut and the machete went through my
chest and pierced the back.

I felt
dizzy. I stumbled around like a drunk and tried to find someplace
to hold myself but I fell. I had found grab on something squishy! I
managed to look and there was Deinomache on the floor, shot up by
my bullets and me on top of her, grabbing her breast. No, they
don’t cut off their breasts. I am certain of it now. The rest of
the Amazons had circled me and aimed their guns at me. A blonde one
came over my head and kicked me.

“
Surrender now!” she demanded. She looked like a spoiled
queen.

“
Mrgnph Stglurgh!” I replied drowning in my blood.

“
What?” she asked.

“
Emergency Stimpack!” I said and felt the quad injections from
my armor.

Synthetic clam glue made my skin tighten and hug around the
blade, adrenaline sparked up my heart, my reserve liter of my own
oxygenated blood got pumped back into my veins and hemostatic
sponges unfolded inside my wounds.

I gave
the blondie Amazon no time to react, I kicked her feet and grabbed
her unconscious leader, rolling her over me. I was betting on them
not wanting to get her shot anymore and I was gonna lift her like a
shield all the way back to Athens if need be.

The rest
of the Amazons were aiming their guns at me, swearing and yelling
at me to put their leader down.

But they
weren’t shooting, and that was the only thing that mattered. So I
decided to get cocky. I pulled my shotgun and placed it on
Deinomache’s cheek.

“
One step closer and you will be picking up your sister in
pieces!” I told them. “This is now a hostage situation. All of you
get back on the freight elevator and leave this floor!”

Ha.
Silly little girls. I had booby trapped the elevator. Now you would
all comply and get on there, and then go Boom. Problem
solved.

Except
nobody moved. The blonde Amazon had gotten up, then grabbed Alkinoe
by the foot and dragged her closer. Right underneath her
katana.

Damn
those Amazons and their phallic melee weapons.

“
Our leader is important, if she is still alive, but our
mission is worth any sacrifice. Surrender or Alkinoe dies,” the
blondie said and brought the blade to our girl’s neck. She had a
gash on her neck from the fall I gave her that was gonna scar
nicely.

Skata.
This blonde was the next in line, and apparently ruthless enough to
let my dance-partner die in order to take her place. Whatever her
name was, after this she should be renamed to
I-will-kill-you-all-and-eat-your-babies.

Alkinoe
wasn’t moving. If she was alive, my brother would be real pissed
with me about the state he would find his girl in. Ok, halter tops
were out of the question, but men don’t care. The teeth though,
yeah, that would be an issue. It’s still better than having her
beheaded I think. I remembered last time I got my teeth knocked out
in a barfight, my cheeks were swollen and I was very silly looking.
I tried to see if her cheeks were swollen, and they were. Wasn’t
that a sign of her being still alive? I chose to believe it
was.

I
calculated my chances, planned my moves to take all eleven of them
out. Move in cover, headshot, flank left, get shot (?), charge that
brunette with the machete from my chest…

No. Do
not
take that machete out or you will bleed to death.

Ok, here
we go, different plan…

And then
I got a message from the kid saying, “Duck!”

Chapter
8

The kid had
brought his drone pals on the railings above us. He must have
slaved them all to his uncalloused little fingers by their digital
threads and told them to charge the Amazons.

More
than twenty drones, either maintenance supervisors, the lava
fingers from before, or simply strong lifting drones lunged down
from the fifteen meter tall floor above, inhumanely unaware of any
self-preservation or vertigo or damage from the fall.

The
Amazons broke their formation around me and spread out, taking
cover and shooting the incoming drones. Sparks flew, bits were
separated from their pieces and a couple of them were brought
down.

But the
drones were a lot tougher than they looked.

They
managed to close the gap and went melee on the Amazons. Girls
versus metal, with surprisingly even odds. The Amazons took out
their melee weapons and started hacking at the drones. The machines
were not exactly fit for combat, they just had inherent strength
and armor. And they weren’t much of a brawler either, the kid
simply ordered them to slam at the nearest target and let them
loose, no finesse no nothing.

That’s a silly word,
finesse
.

But that
is the only word classy enough to describe the feline grace of the
warrior tribe. Jabs and cuts, circling movements not even a drone
brain could follow. Attacks on stress points, fluid dodges and
parries, a fighting skill from the old days, the ones of sword and
steed and arrows. It’s like in the movies, where you get up close
and everybody holsters their guns and watches the swordfight in a
circle of amazement.

Yeah
right. As if I was gonna let this chance slip away. I pointed my
shotgun at the brunette I had marked earlier and blasted her leg in
shreds. The drone engaging her found the opportunity to slam his
manipulator on her face, and then simply looped the process with
exact precision.