A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: 75

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: 75

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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While everyone was handling setting up things up, I went ahead and started scouting the areas held by the neo-Nazi viking larpers with Parvati providing support.

“Yep, they have off-world support. Those are coilguns, right?”

“Correct.” Parvati came along as a similarly camouflaged gynoid body with a Germanic appearance. High cheekbones, thin neck, blonde hair, and blue eyes. It was escorting me for now, but I was going to leave it behind to infiltrate our newest foe. “You’re familiar with the weapon system?”

“Only that the richer dictators geared their soldiers with them and that they’re pretty lethal against most superhumans.” Since gas-based firearms met its limits, people went other routes for kinetic weapons. Coilguns are rifle-sized contraptions with connections to large power sources that accelerated tough, dartlike projectiles to hypersonic speeds. They sped so fast out of the barrels that they became sheathed in a thin layer of plasma as they travelled through the air. I was wary of them since enough concentrated fire from the guns will eat through my defenses, since that plasma sheathe acted like an energy field that stopped me from teleporting them away. “I basically treat them like energy weapons. I don’t think your gynoids are going to fare well against them.”

“They won’t, but they’re held by humans in mediocre power armor with no signs of genetic modification. Mostly stimulant and steroid abuse.” Yeah, most of the larpers were roided up and massive and covered in armor. I magnified my sights to get a better look, and Parvati paid attention, while keeping an eye out on our surroundings. “Ah, I see. The power armor is focused on giving them more durability. They are weapons platforms for the coilguns that they carry.”

“Seems about par for the course. They get to look cool and get big guns, and kill people that they don’t consider people, so their leadership gets away with everything that they want.” Honestly, it’s kind of crazy how much people can get away with. Just give a guy a nice uniform, some cool guns, and stimulants, then point them at people that you’ve made them not like. You can get far on that. Whether its coilguns or AK knockoffs, space magic, or just hash. Someone is out there filling young men with drugs and giving them guns and a reason to fight… and they’re making money. “You’ll be fine with me taking out the upper leadership of these people, right? Trust me. There’s no negotiating with these people, Parvati.”

Warlords and people who go to these lengths haven’t crossed the line. They’re neck-deep in atrocious shit. All the ones I’ve worked with, who I’ve gotten paid by, would have had me in chains and their personal pet if I didn’t make it clear that I could kill them with ease. They’re people without moral compasses, and their only goal is to get more of everything that they want. There’s no reasoning with such people, and the best thing anyone decent would give them is a near-painless, instant death.

I’ll teleport the leaders to the bottom of the ocean, and their deaths will just be an instant implosion.

“…I will investigate more and take their measure on my own. I do not wish to judge these people so quickly, Designation: Egress. However, I will take your words into account.” Parvati stated, and that was probably the best that I could get from it. I was sure that it’d see my perspective with more time and surveillance on these people. It had me fight lethally against oncoming armies trying to steal from it. These people were worse than those. These guys were fairly behind the Shogun and his people, but I was sure that I’d find out more if I looked deeply. The fact that the heavily armed soldiers with massive guns were patrolling the mostly empty streets of Quebec was kind of telling. “I have the coordinates for a suspected work camp that they’ve established. Are you ready to go and see that?”

A work camp administered by neo-nazis with space-faring sponsors.

“Probably not, but someone needs to see it.”

This is going to be fucked up, isn’t it?

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“These people need to be undone.” Parvati stated simply.

“Yep, it’s as fucked as I thought it’d be.” Canada was rich in natural resources. From memory, they had everything from diamonds to uranium and even titanium. It was the fact that they barely had the population of California that they couldn’t make use of it, along with environmental protections and the fact it’d be cheaper to source outside with global trade in place. When that ended, they started up their mining efforts and received a lot of help from the US before things went downhill. “I’m guessing that the people sponsoring these guys aren’t just here for slaves.”

Additionally, there were only males in this camp.

No bonus points for what the crazy bastards were doing with the women.

“No, they are not. They must have some form of cheap boost system that makes in more worthwhile to mine on Earth than in surrounding asteroids. I’ll need to expand my sensors around Earth.” Parvati highlighted several points of interest in the work camp and provided some helpful statements on how these people were breaking the law. Most of the laborers were barely wearing anything protective in Canadian winter. There were large heat projectors of some design that kept the ice and snow off, but my passive senses detected a lot less heat in the work area and Parvati saw the same in infrared. “This camp is manually mining for uranium ore. These children working here will suffer for the rest of their lives even after their rescue. And, we are rescuing them now.”

Parvati, being the heroic figure that she was, already planned on overturning the situation.

“I’ll have my troops ready in a few minutes, Designation: Egress. Will you be ready to fight?”

“Yep, I’m in.” I’m not a good person. Hell, I’ve worked with warlords that had whole villages pick out diamonds or work chocolate plantations. That was when I was early in the game, making a name for myself, and I regret doing that work. After that, I stuck to working with mercenaries or getting money straight form governments for hailing expensive tech around. Still, that regret remained… and now I had the chance to make up for propping those guys up. “Tell me when.”

Parvati gave a nod of affirmation, while I looked over the whole site.

There were about fifty power-armored soldiers hefting coil guns on the perimeter of the large mine. Large machines were cutting into the crust of the earth and forming the open air mine, while the young adults were toiling at the sheer cliff faces with very advanced mining equipment. They had guns that cut off huge chunks of rock and held them up as massive slabs to be walked towards large, levitating platforms that seemed to have minds of their own as they went off to gather supplies and speed away elsewhere. There were barracks for the laborers in the mine, but most of the military guards were above the laborers outside the open-air mine, looking over them.

The prisoners with jobs are basically under constant watch by their new task masters, and performing laborious work with extremely dangerous equipment in a ridiculously dangerous environment.

So, the question is: what’s keeping them alive?

“Hey, Parvati, look for their food storage. I’m going to pop in and get a sample. These people are working with a lot more strength than they should, especially in this climate.” Parvati paused for a moment, before nodding and highlighting the most likely facility. It was one of the prefab buildings that the people were squished into like sardines. Unlike the others, though, I could see through the windows that there weren’t beds but standing, narrow tables to eat at and there were locks on the doors.

I went ahead and popped in, found the closest approximation to food that I could find, and went to India and gave it to the nearest gynoid that I found under Parvati’s control.

Then, I went back to Parvati in Canada on our lookout.

“Analyze that thing. I have a feeling that they’re drugged to the gills, or at least eating something that’s letting them last this long.” I’ve seen something similar in other warlord-esque ventures. People were able to keep working through drugs. Addiction, food, and constant toil broke them down into little more than robots over time. People ignored wounds, debilitating injuries, and tried to work after collapsing just for another hit… only to receive a bullet at the end. As far as I could see, though, there weren’t any nearby graveyards or medical facilities. So, somehow, these people were working in the Canadian winter dressed in rags in an open-air mine without dropping like flies. Then, there’s their mining equipment. That shit looked lethal, but they weren’t even going to try to rebel with it? Suspicious didn’t cut it. This just reeked of fucked up bullshit. “If we’re going for a rescue, you’re going to need to have production facilities for whatever they’re making. I could steal the stuff in the kitchen, but I doubt that’ll last long.”

“I understand. I will analyze the foodstuff that you’ve provided.” Parvati nodded, before suddenly looking in the distance. “I hear some sort of transport coming. Very large and with big engines. Massive heat signature… and it’s descending from a very high altitude.”

“Let’s relocate for now.” I grunted and Parvati’s gynoid nodded and offered her hand. We moved to one of or other spots with sightlines over the open air mine, then in a few minutes the transport in question arrived. It was like a giant flying metal brick strapped with large engines at each corner. “Looking pretty high tech, but not exactly spaceworthy.”

“It is not. However, it has no cockpit. It is heavily automated and likely a collection drone that services a large facility.” Parvati spoke, and information flowed through the binoculars it provided me for the mission. Highlights of the machine were multiple sensor systems on its chassis, some hidden weapons bays that I didn’t notice, and the cargo capacity. 100 tons for a flying metal brick? That was two Globemasters, and it’s VTOL with a top speed of nine-hundred miles per hour? “A very heavily armed drone. If it carried a full payload of bombs, it can easily conduct its own bombing campaign.”

“Air power of that magnitude will kill most superhumans.” Shin went the shielded flying factory route for a reason. Most superhumans can’t fly and needed a lot of technology to get to that level, which necessitated being backed by a technologically advanced civilization. If you field enough firepower in the air to counter the flyers, then you can deal with the ones stuck on the ground. “Hey, can you simulate their cargo hold being converted to generators and macro-sized coilguns?”

Parvati frowned, and the screen for the binoculars presented the possibility. Several modules fit in the hull neatly in compact bricks of targeting sensors, generators, ammunition holds, and barrels. Just like I thought, the flying brick could easily become a very powerful weapons platform. Sure, it didn’t have any missiles, but if enough of them were in the sky with coilguns that could spit out hypersonic, plasma-robed darts with pinpoint accuracy? They wouldn’t need missiles.

A few dozen of these guys could take me out with saturation bombardment.

A hundred would probably just kill me outright.

Maelstrom would be able to clear the skies no problem, but if the budding trade lanes died… well… so did the chance of a nation coming back.

“New plan, we mount a rescue on this place after you figure out the chemical composition of what they’re feeding the prisoners. Meanwhile, we go ahead and find where that thing is going and see if we can stop them from being made.” This was supposed to just be recon, but I’m sure people back home would appreciate it if their strike missions into these lands wasn’t suddenly interrupted by a giant hunk of metal with big engines raining bombs or bullets on them. “That sound good?”

“…I would like a unit transferred over her to continue observation. These people must be saved.” Parvati requested and it was reasonable enough, so I gave a nod and went over to India. A gynoid was ready in full snow camouflage and I brought it over. It scampered away after nodding at me, and Parvati’s other infiltrator body nodded once more. “Okay, Designation: Egress, let us focus on this machine as our primary point of interest.”

Parvati turned to observe the open-air mine, and I did the same, as the massive machine thundered in and practically stopped on a dime by flaring its engines forward. It descended to the center of the strip mine, where all the chunks of rock and ore were being gathered, and through a bigger version of the tech used by the workers, pulled up its whole carrying capacity in ore. Like a giant insect lifting a massive stone many times in mass, it emptied the center of the open-air mine and then flew off… barely hampered by its load.

Would it even need bombs, if it could carry that much mass and fly with such speed at high altitude?

It could just drop rocks at high speed across cities again and again and people will die.

Hell, chunks of frozen lake would be easy to get, too.

Judging from the sudden silence from Parvati, it must’ve realized the same thing.

I followed it, keeping it in vision while making multiple jumps, and Parvati only started talking after a few moments.

“I will be setting up an air defense system and long-range scanners immediately. Long range and multi-layered. We need to contact the Japanese government and see if we can acquire the plasma weaponry used by Shin in his airships.” The AI was planning, implementing, and acting as we spoke. I was sure that warehouses filled with war forms were coming alive, and it was already going out of its way to speak to its wayward creations. We stumbled onto a highly sophisticated, robust piece of technology that was being used to haul ore mined by slaves. The situation was dire enough to warrant its reaction. “Egress, I may need to ask you to deliver some very powerful devices very soon.”

And, I agreed.

“Yeah, sounds good.”