In the darkness overhead soared a black shape at home in the steel and iron landscape. Like the Bald Eagels the soared above his ancestors villages he was the top of the food chain and the peak of evolution. Sheathed in a carbonfiber-epoxy and honeycomb body, the ornithopter cruised silently on it's Sterling engines. His wing men were slaved to his mental commands and stayed in a tight formation. These dog-brain robots were able to act on their own but were under his command. Looking eagle-eye like through FLIRs and Passive Night Vision Sights he watched his handy work below. Rigging was such an art form.
Expansive and well lit the Boeing compound stretched over fifty acres of New York real estate outside of the true 'urban' center. The six towers were mesa's in the urban prarie that they looked over. Triple deep exploding concentenia wire ringed the coupound. Microwave and LADAR sensors monitored all that walked on her grounds. This sacred corporate land was guarded reverantly by the NYPD personel that were payed to guard it, alond with scores of hired cops and nuclear protection agents. Beggay's goal was not it's destruction, but it's desecration; information wise. Security jeeps patroled its perimiters and even a pair of helocopters sat on a pad awaiting gunship or shuttle duty.
Guards wearing full battle dress and body armor poured from it's barracks on the first floor of two of the towers. They ran for the hidden bunkers around the fence line. Going for cover behind inocuous looking stockpiles and then entering cargo containers they could hold off a small army. But Beggay knew they wouldn't have too. The delivery trucks pulled up. Three sixteen wheelers and a duo of tanker trucks arived at the opposite gate right on schedule. As if one his mental command they disgourged a flock of rif-raf. These street mercenaries poured through the far southern gate, making short work of the six or so guards there. They swarmed around the first tower, making their way north towards the entrenched guards. As they crossed the open courtyard tey were mowed down, despite their best efforts at covering fire, by the NYPD's finest. Some entered the the first tower looking for data-chips that weren't there. But by then the diversion was complete; their lives spent.
Beggay swooped down, marveling at his work, with his two glider shadows in tow. Gracefully landing, noislessly on the roof of the sixth tower, each glider opened up and disgorged it's contents. Remaining in his glider he commanded the robots that got out of the others. Twelve small fourwheel roll-abouts with sub-machine gun turrets emerged from one glider, while a human and a tracked tool robot emerged from the other. The roll-abouts were roughly the size of an office trashcan, but had a turret, and a rapid-fire machine gun. The tracked robot was equiped with various tool arms and fixtures that enabled it to perform dozens of jobs.
"You with me Deacon?" Beggay called over the radio.
"Right here. Now lets open this door and get to the lab."
"RIght away. Beep Beep." The tool robot chirped on it's voice box. While finishing the line, Beggay moved it to the door and began forcing their entry. Standing right behind the robot was a black clad man nearly six-foot-two. Bedecked in a startiling array of gear stuffed into every imaginable pocket and pouch. Under one arm was a 5.56mm carbine XM-30; under the other a 12 gage browning auto whipit hung. Distributed over his body were a total of six pistols and holdouts, plus a set of ten knives and darts. In his hands he gently cradled the supressed folding stock, scoped out carbine, humming some Bach.
Then the door opened with a soft hiss, telling him it had been a pressure door. Three of the little robots cruised down the stairs in front. Their thermal scopes panned infront of them looking for targets. Deacon followed them into the dark stair well towards the twentith floor medical lab. After him the large robot kept a good distance, with three more of the little bots taking up the rear. The last six bots spread out throughout the top floor and the roof in overwatch and covering positions.
"You're almost there." The voice said through his communicator implant. The rigger must have downloaded plans of the facility while hacking in, becuase B's assesment matched his own from memorizing the floorplans here. One floor to go then they'd be on the Medical Level.
At the stair way door onto the 20th floor he waited again. Controlling the robot from the glider, Beggay manipulated the arms and tools into position and hardwired a bridge to open the door. Then clamping it with the heavy lifting arms, he lifted the stainless steel door off it's hinges and rolled away. Into the hallway the three little bots sped. Scanning infront of themselves again he noticed nothing through the mental link with them. The floor seemed clear of all laser monitors, IR detectors, and seismic sensors. Deacon followed the last of the three into the halway. It stretched out infront of the all the way to the opposite side of the building, nearly three hundred feet away. On both sides three main halls broke off perpendicular. Everything was steile white and clear glass, or the shiny cleaness of stainless steel. All the lights were out and not even a eerie red glow from a EXIT sign illuminated the floor. Deacon had to go to Active IR, while the robots switched it on to not make him the sole target, but theirs blinked and flashed in a maneuver that would hopefully distract attackers.
After a brisk walk, staying near the wall and using the robots as cover. Beggay had moved the whole group to the door they were looking for: 731. It unlike the others had no thick glass panel to peer into the room or through the door with. It stood as a totally sealed environment, beyond which nothing could enter or spy on. Again Beggay moved up the large worker robot and proceeded to open this door. Again the three little bots entered the room with Deacon close behind. Crack. Crack. Crack. Then the shooting started.
On the far side of the room a beast stood. Three meters tall with a dark green and molted brown ridiculously muscled body whose bulbous head and black ebone eyes stared at the intruders, while tentacles arose from it's shoulders and gyrated menacingly. It's legs were jointed backwards at the knee like a dog or tigers, but it's arms appeared humanlike, but it's visage shared nothing with humanity. The three bots had spread out in a Vee shape in the room when Deacon entered. The room sat seperated from two observing chambers by thick glass walls, this entrance was on the wall perpendicular to the glass walls. The far wall held nothing but electronics.
As expected the thing dropped the electronic probe in it's hand and sprang at Deacon. Beggay trained the guns of all three bots on it and immeadietly they started clacking away with their ultra supressed machine guns. With barely enough time to bring up the carbine, he had not time to aim but just pulled the trigger and let the Smartgun link save ammo. His weapon clunked as the electronic firing mechanism only discharged rounds after the sight was back on the target. Eight of the high velocity duplex rounds shredded into the beasts upper torso as dozens of rounds from the 10mm guns on the robots tore into it's flesh. Unhindered by these nusiances the tentacles extended as it was in mid-flight and then stung out at Deacon. Three of the eight found their mark and struck his shoulder, abdomen and left arm. Staggering back as the beast slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. Standing over him it hopped up and stood on his chest with its clawed feet. He grabbed it's ankles in an atempt to hurl it off but failed, the beast was too heavy and too grounded. Meanwhile the small bots had ceased firing out of inefficiency, but the large bot entered the room and let loose with a devestating volley of weapons fire. Simultaneously discharging a ten shot burst from a dart gun, a blast from a cryogenic spray gun, a high-power laser, and a onehundred round burst from an experimental needler. The darts were a combination of wide band neural toxins and wire trailing electrified head darts. The cryogenic spray was -300K. And the needler fired a cacopheny of exotic alloyed darts from Palladium to Einstienium/Nytol. The laser was just coherent light. Whatever it was, either the cold, the light, the alloys or the 100,000 Amps, the beast above Deacon was turned to sloppy-joe and Deacon was covered with a fine spray of goop. Getting to his feet, painfully but nimbly, he staggered over to a table and leaned his weight on it. Removing a knife and three slap-patches, he cut out each of the three tentacle tips, applied a anti-biotic, a anit-venom, and then the slap patch. After about a minute he was back, fully alert and ready.
"You ready now fleshy?" Came Beggay's voice through his communicator.
"Yeah, I guess I owe you." With that, probably the biggest compliment he'd given in years, he went over the the computer terminal and jacked it. After five minutes of decking he'd gotten the files on this doppleganger they were looking for. Then it was just a matter of following Beggay and his bots back out and hitching a ride on the glider flown by a man and his mind.
