Sirens Blaring, Bullets Flying, Droids Dying

Contains traces of: Swearing and Violence. Ingest at your own discretion.

Sirens blared. Bullets whistled through the air. Detective Arthas Jacques of Mars’ Off World Crime Department whistled Always Look on the Bright Side of Life to soothe himself. PTSD beckoned, but the warm hand of Monty Python’s Brian was pulling him the other way.

“Going to join in at any point?” asked Agent Belle Nguyen as she shot at the enemy and ducked back behind cover.

“At least let him get to the chorus,” said the scratched black droid by Arthas’ side. An eye glowed sapphire as the scene documentation program inside the droid spoke with a Glaswegian accent. Both eyes were purple as it asked, “should I be shooting back, sir?” It spoke in the Newcastle accent of the bodyguard program.

“Let the Bullet Donors use up their ammunition first,” said the detective, distracted from his whistling. “I spent all my money on you and the ship. They cost nothing.”

“Nice to know how much our lives mean to you,” said Cain Ableman, leader of the mercenary group. He took a shot, hitting an enemy droid in the chest. The Earthling’s lip curled, showing gold teeth. A bullet pinged off his helmet, scratching off some white paint.

Ducking back behind the granite reception desk which had been taking hits for them all, Cain pulled off the helmet to look at the scratch and kissed it. “That’s why you wear helmets, boys.” Slinging it back on, he clipped it in place. Rapping it with his knuckles, he flashed his dental implants at Belle.

“Dunno who you’re flirting with, you already broke my heart,” said the agent of the Mars Security Agency. “Stabbing a girl with a sword isn’t an aphrodisiac, Ableman.” Her next shot immobilised the arm of a MacLeod-Miller Robotics security droid.

The rattle of gunfire increased in intensity. Shards of the desk bit through the air.

“Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it,” sang the weathered droid by Arthas’ side. “Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true.” It stood straight, a gun in each hand and fired four shots, dropping behind the desk again immediately. It held up four fingers, looking at Jacques, then drew them across its throat. Both eyes were purple again, signifying that the bodyguard program was in control of the black metal body.

Giving the droid the thumbs up, the detective stood. He fired twice and ducked for cover again. He held up one finger, brushing debris off his shoulder.

“You’re not bad, you two,” said Cain. “Fancy a job?” One of the Bullet Donors fell dead at his side. “We have a few vacancies to fill.” The mercenary tried to dab the blood from his blue tartan trousers, but the stain had already turned burgundy. Pulling a can of Irn Bru from his pocket, he sipped. “To soothe my nerves,” he said, catching Belle’s eyes on him.

The hail of gunfire ceased instantly. Before Arthas could wonder why, blue light scoured the atrium windows high above the shuttered doors.

“This is my home,” said a voice over a tannoy. “Not only are you trespassing on the property of MacLeod-Miller Robotics, but you are also breaking and entering within a personal residence.”

“Don’t forget trashing your droids,” said Cain, smirking audibly. He and his team had immobilised half of the defenders. Even with half gone, there were enough to slaughter the invaders a dozen times over.

“I would think you’d know better, Ableman. Don’t bite the hand that feeds. This hand is fit to wrap itself around your throat.”

A choking sound dragged Arthas’ eyes from the droids above to Belle, clutching at her throat on the floor next to him.

“Agent Nguyen?” He looked for the problem, seeing nothing blocking her windpipe. She gasped for air. Her hands grasped at something unknown, intangible.

“Boss?” A Bullet Donor nearby was shaking Cain. The mercenary was frowning as his face turned pale and took on a blue tinge. Beneath Jacques, the Martian Security Agent looked the same.

“Belle! What’s wrong? What can I do?”

“Nothing, Detective Arthas Jacques. You can do nothing. They are mine to say who lives and dies.” Whatever it was, the Deus ex Sapiens was killing them both.

“POLICE!” Arthas screamed. His voice reverberated against the cold steel of the shutters between them and the outside world.

“They can’t hear you, detective. Even if they did, I pay them enough to stay out of this. The pleasure of dealing with you will be all mine.”

“If you pay them so much, why aren’t they coming in to arrest us?”

“I’d rather have the pleasure of playing with you.”

“Lord Mark Ignatius Banks?”

“In the flesh. Don’t expect my admission to do you any good.”

Belle was unconscious, fast on her way to death, again. Permanent brain damage was only three minutes away.

“Purple, go all out. As fast as we can,” he said to program which always craved the most brutal solution to problems.

“Thanks,” said the droid. The glowing amethyst-coloured eyes were a blur as it leapt over the reception desk with two purloined assault rifles in hand. Emptying the magazines in bursts, Purple immobilised most of the droids on the balconies above them.

Frozen droids before them were a threat that set the hairs on Arthas’ neck on end. He carried Belle in his arms, rushing after his robot towards the stairs. Her head lolled, limp. His shoes clopped on the stone floor of the pretentious lobby. When he reached a count of one hundred and eighty seconds in his head, she convulsed.

The detective jumped at the shock of her movement. As her skin switched from blue to pink, chest rising and falling, the droids activated.

Bullets hit his body armour.

“Did you think I’d kill her like that?” said the taunting voice of Lord Banks. His voice spoke of a moneyed ancestry that could be traced back for centuries. “She is mine. Her and the sellsword.”

How old is this guy? Arthas wondered to himself. Sellsword?

Though she was breathing, Agent Nguyen was unconscious. With her over his shoulder, Arthas scrabbled for his gun, aiming up the stairs at droids turning to fire down at him. His finger hammered the trigger until the robots were scrap, one tumbling down the stairs towards him.

Running up the steps as fast as he could with a woman over his shoulder and his gun aimed up did Jacques aching left knee no favours. His breath came in ragged gasps. He handed Belle to Purple, breathing a sigh of relief as she was lifted from him.

“We could just leave her,” said the droid. “She’s dead weight.”

“But not dead, so I’m not leaving her.”

“Got a little crush?” asked Blue in its Glaswegian accent. “You didn’t mind leaving the Bullet Donors for dead.” Out of all the droid’s personalities, Blue seemed the least concerned about imminent death.

“Nope,” Arthas grunted.

“Agent Nguyen, can you hear me?” The mocking voice echoed on the marble and gilt of the walls. “I’ve turned on your rapid healing. I want to make you an offer.”

Belle stirred in the arms of the Spectrum droid.

“This offer goes for you as well, Mister Ableman. I’ve proven I can kill you now. Deus ex Sapiens can starve you of oxygen at the push of a button. I decide whether you live or die. If you want to live, kill Detective Jacques. You have five minutes.”

Arthas’ head swung to the agent. They locked eyes, her brown pupils were shocked, then resolute. He didn’t hear her apology. He read it on her lips. Reaching into her sleeve between the detective’s heartbeats, she squeezed something.

Purple fell, dropping the MSA operative as its joints went limp. She rolled out of its arms, grabbing one of the rifles it dropped. The Spectrum robot began to twitch and jerk. The eyes flashed through every colour. The lights went out and it froze.

Belle aimed at Arthas. His gun was swinging through the air towards her. They fired. He couldn’t tell who had shot first. Her shot hit his helmet, his bit into her neck, avoiding the jugular by millimetres.

She squeezed her trigger again while a mist of blood sprayed from her wound. She fell, the shot going high over Arthas’ shoulder. He shot again, hitting the centre of her helmet. The metal would take the shot. He hoped it would be enough to knock her out.

The droid spasmed on the ground. Footsteps hammered up the stairs behind him. Droids doing Lord Banks’ bidding ran towards him. He fired on the run, abandoning his best friend on the landing as his boots slapped against the stairs.

Adrenaline pounded in his head. Pain throbbed in his knee. Vomit teased his tongue. His gun was empty. He smashed a glass case, pulling out an axe. Shards cut his palm. The first defender he met took the blade of the fire safety axe to its torso.

Assault rifles were the bread and butter of a soldier’s life. Sergeant Jacques had left the military, but the mindset remained. His droid was down. Belle and Cain were after him. All he could do was hunt Lord Banks. Breath exhaled hot and dry as he pounded the stairs. Danger was closing in, above and below. Saving his shots, he did enough damage to oncoming droids to put them down. Arthas hoped in vain that they would slow his pursuers.

Bullets ricocheted off the walls around him. Some hit his armour. He would have bruises if he lasted long enough.

BANG.

A frag grenade exploded by his side. A hot slice of pain drew a line on his brow beneath the once white helmet. He fell, grabbing for the stairs. Fingers curled around spent bullet casings as he rolled. Carbon fibre guards on his forearms spread the impact as he landed on the edge of a step. The joint bent further than it should. A shock of pain leapt down to his fingers and up to his chest.

Half an idea tried to crawl its way from conception to birth in his mind. It struggled through the chaos of conflicting instincts at war with each other inside Jacques. He stood, trembling. The droid on the floor above him drew another grenade from its bandolier. An adrenaline rush to equal a thousand espressos shook him. Time slowed. The grenade pin fell away. The orb of certain pain and likely death spun through the air.

He jumped, reaching out a hand to slap the grenade with a volleyball player’s strike. It accepted the new route, spinning downwards. Obeying gravity’s seduction, it exploded below. Arthas dethatched the throwing arm of the grenadier droid with two bursts of his rifle. The hollow click of the empty magazine mocked him. He raced up the stairs. The detective was torn between watching the enemy above, the pursuers behind, and the treacherous ground beneath.

Ripping the velcro strapped bandolier from the droid, he handed the confused robot another grenade, pulled the pin and threw it down the stairs. Three grenades remained. He threw them upwards at other droids amassed on the next floor, reloading their guns. Metal bodies scattered like bowling pins. He took their weapons.

Arthas couldn’t accurately fire two guns at once. That wasn’t the idea which had come from tripping on the stairs. Spraying two assault rifles set to full-automatic mode covered the ground beneath him with one hundred and eighty spent bullet casings.

Belle’s face appeared below him, three floors away.

“I hope Banks turned the healing back on,” said the detective. He reloaded and aimed for her legs. Bullets struck his back as he fired. He spun, seeing four droids above him. None of his bullets scratched their armour. Arthas was sure his bullet proof vest wouldn’t take many more hits.

Agent Nguyen fell, knocked down by his shots. She had been racing up the steps at a supernatural pace. Ableman was close behind, shouting up the stairs.

Luck alone put another grenadier in the detective’s path. It was on its back before it had twitched. Grenades hung over him like a boy scout working on his mass murder badge. Arthas planned to burn his bridges. The stairs were solid stone up to the twentieth floor. From there they were steel.

Looking at the number on the wall above him, he groaned. He had three more flights of stairs before it was metal beneath him instead of rock.

“The clock is ticking,” sang the mocking voice of Lord Banks. “Kill or be killed.”

Every step brought complaints from the detective’s aching muscles. This wasn’t his world, said his rebellious mind.

A muffled thud turned his head. Below him, on the fifteenth floor, Belle slipped on metal cylinders. A moment’s smirk curved his lip. The motion stretched the wound on his forehead.

The blissful sound of his boots hitting metal lightened the doom in his heart. Clearing the way ahead with a spray of bullets, he lay the grenade bandolier where the floor was bolted to the wall. Military intelligence, though a contradiction, said that a five second fuse lasted three seconds. He pulled the pins on the five grenades and ran for his life, hoping it would be enough.

BANG.

Arthas was on his side. Shrapnel had cut the strap of his helmet. Bleeding and confused, he was alive. The stairs had collapsed onto the floor below.

Let that be enough, he thought.

Following a pictogram directing him to the lifts, the detective fed another magazine into his rifle. Three beautiful silver and blue doors kept potted plants company on the twenty-first floor. Instead of a number to tell him which of the seventy-five floors the lifts were on, a flame symbol was flashing red on the screen above each lift. Breaking the leg from a metal chair, he used it to open each of the doors, firing at the cables. No one could use those elevators.

Service stairs were tapping to the sound of rerouted droids coming down. He brushed his fingers over bullets caught in the weave of his bulletproof vest.

If only I’d packed my spare. Shaking his head, he tried to run upstairs. A brisk hike was the best he could manage. Sweat dripped down his forehead, taking blood with it into his eyes.

Floors twenty to seventy-three were a relentless slog of fighting to the last bullet then stealing grenades. Bullets could not penetrate the armour of the elite droids on the floors above. Arthas’ neck ached from constantly looking upwards. As he had with the main staircase, he destroyed the steps beneath him from the twenty-fifth floor.

After climbing through mechanised hell, metal shutters were no deterrent at all. With a fire axe, he battered at the links between the shutters, warping the steel until it gave way under the blows.

“I’ve got one minute to kill you, Jacques. Make it easy for both of us,” said Cain.

“Didn’t your time run out half an hour ago?” The detective looked at the mercenary, wondering if Lord Banks was going soft on his threats.

“It did. Funny thing, dying twice in a day. It doesn’t get easier.” Ableman fired his rifle. An automatic stream of rounds clattered against the shutter behind Arthas like rain on a tin roof. What little structural integrity remained after the detective’s beating was lost to the torrent of bullets.

Throwing himself flat, Jacques felt a hot drilling sensation in his thigh. “Two floors left, Cain. Don’t you want to kill him for what he’s doing to you?”

“Of course he does. But he can’t. My finger is still on the button. He knows I’m not afraid to use it. Ableman, be assured that if he kills me, you won’t come back from the dead a third time.” Lord Bank’s voice had the high-pitched reek of fear.

The mercenary looked at the detective, frowning. Cain’s blue eyes drifted to the speaker on the wall above them. “Five seconds head start, Jacques. That’s it.”

“Kill him you idiot!” The voice over the tannoy was a mad roar. “Fine. Agent Nguyen, congratulations. You’re the last contestant.” Malice dripped from every syllable.

Despite himself, Arthas looked back at the man gasping for air on the ground behind him. Survivor’s guilt twisted in his stomach. He limped on meeting more droids with his gun and axe.

The wooden doors of the penthouse gave way to rage. Scouring the residence, the detective found nothing but the private lift in the corner of a bedroom big enough to park Arthas’ spaceship in.

There had been no buttons for basement levels in the other elevators. The mechanism was activated with a palm scanner. Smashing open the panel, he pressed wires together, first setting off another alarm, then authorising the lift to go down.

Blue numbers on the white screen above the gold buttons counted down from seventy-five to B-one.

“More droids,” he said as the doors opened. “Of course.” He dropped to the ground, squeezing his trigger as a wall of projectiles rushed towards him.