LF Friends, Will Travel

Our Clockwork Children: Chapter 14

What was the difference between those who were moving and those who were not?

Another twenty seconds of analysing the data before an answer appeared. Those who were moving were those of importance. Non-Parket, military, leadership, diplomats, the most valuable people on the planet. Their movements all suggested a congregation at six different spots. Six spots that had...

Fuck.

ODIN could see what was approaching those locations. Ships not of Terran Alliance make. Ships that they only vaguely knew about from whispers and rumours originating from their contacts still in the military. The AI didn't know how, or why, or even what was happening, but if those ships were what ODIN thought they were, this was bad.

The Uhae. One of the members of the Estorian Empire, a species they were at war with. There were mentions of the species having some form of psychic ability, but this was far past what should be possible. Possible or not, ODIN had to deal with it. Clearly, this was their doing. Clearly, they were under attack. Clearly, it would be up to ODIN to fix this.

It took crucial seconds for the Terran AI to get back to the beach, the 74 seconds having allowed Ivan to make some distance away from their original location, ODIN's AI core having been carried along with Scellestra as they followed the human down the beach.

"We are under attack. The entire planet is pacified. I think the Uhae are trying to kidnap everyone important on this planet."

ODIN spoke without announcing himself, unable to do anything as the members of the beach continued their march ever onwards.

"Thank god you're back! You've got a plan right, you've always got a plan!"

The panic was evident and shot a dagger of pain into ODIN's being as they realized that they didn't have a plan, instead a vague set of ideas to implement.

"Scellestra, I need you to stop Ivan. Block him, dig a pit, whatever. Just buy me some time. I will be back, I need... I need to deal with this."

ODIN left the pair once more, leaving behind a confused Woolean AI and a terrified Terran Human slowly marching towards an unknown location. Scellestra instantly billowed out from their densely packed form into a less obvious mass, spreading out along the beach until they reformed into a long solid metallic wall, a pulsing blockage wrapping around and containing a good twenty people who were also marching forwards.

Each of them still attempted to walk on, pressing haphazardly against Scellestra's new form as they tried to push through, failing to make any headway against the impenetrable barrier, the power of millions of interlocking nanobots working under one mind.

Buy ODIN some time. I can do that.

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There had never been a real zombie invasion in the history of the Terrans. A few unscrupulous weapons manufacturing companies had tried to develop such a thing, but the most anyone could really manage was heightened aggression and increased pain tolerance. "Completely oblivious to danger", "Psychotic aggression" and "being insanely durable" weren't things that worked together in the real world.

JOSH, however, was facing the near closest thing. There had been an explosion somewhere outside, and then the crew started acting strange, freezing in place for twenty seconds, before attempting to take control of the ship. Not that this had been a major problem for the Terran AI, considering that they could just lock everything down from their administrator position.

There was a small moment of satisfaction seeing "Ramsey" being locked away inside his charging cupboard. The Tritian had gotten better, but frankly, JOSH had better things to do than deal with a genocidal roomba while the entire world was falling apart.