A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 27

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 27

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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I didn’t puke, but the revulsion and disgust I was feeling was obvious. My throat was dry, my stomach doing clenching and unclenching, and finally my earlier meal felt like it was trying to travel up my throat and gouge my brain right of my skull.

“Parvati, why the fuck are they still going!?” I was in the armory I had the AI prepare. I’d used up most of my munitions. However, the scans and live-feed from the area showed that the forces coming after us were still massed up. They’ve taken over ten percent in casualties, and five percent of their people were dead. A total of fifteen percent losses was something no modern military would ignore. They should be retreating already. “What the hell is going on?”

“My surface-level scans are finding nothing strange. However, I’ve deployed sensor systems with far more sensitive equipment.” Another live feed popped up, while I took a bottle of water and threw over myself. The shocking sensation made me grunt and flinch, but it drove away some of the building nausea. Still, when I blinked, I saw the faces of the people I’d just kill. The only thing that kept me from running was knowing that doing so would have Parvati slaughter the remains. I couldn’t back down now. “It shows some sort of neural dampening system in play.”

“Like the ones used by dictators?”

“Exactly.”

Wide-form neural dampening systems were commissioned by a lot of rising dictatorships. They quelled crowds by making people docile over large stretches of area. It was an anti-riot control mechanism deployed by national guard units. It wasn’t much use against anyone wearing a helmet lined with some absorptive materials, or even against countermeasures like white-noise emitters, so it was useless against anyone that was well prepared.

If they were deployed as area denial, it was wholly different if people had earbuds plugged in that flooded their brain with the stuff and made the susceptible to only following orders as docile beasts.

“Fuck.” I let the words loose, while looking over the masses of troops still heading our way. They already reformed ranks and disregarded their dead. Everyone marching towards us was still alive. They functioned and knew what they were doing, but just had anything unnecessary removed from the equation. They were practically, temporarily lobotomized to perform their duty as soldiers. “Can you do something about it?”

“I have located the sources of the transmission to the officer corps, the commanders, and their superhuman auxiliaries.” The door to the armory opened and through it came a series of armored drones. They were shaped like hexagons and used rotors to fly, but between the motors and the circular sensor in the center were two missiles each. “Send these through to the battlefield. I will do my best to dispatch the enemy.”

I wasn’t an idiot.

My mind was already taxed, and I could barely handle the thought of jumping in and dropping off another bomb, so I didn’t argue with Parvati.

“Alright, get in line. One at a time.” I looked at the newest screen and found the signal sources. “Wait, why don’t you send signal disruptors?”

“I will send them once the signal strength has been sufficiently weakened. As you can see, I only intend to send twenty-four munitions through.”I would’ve been worried about Parvati planning something underhanded, if not for the fact that its moral compass was more straightforward than mine. The fact that it spared me, differentiating me as someone fooled into fighting it, instead of one of its enemies led me to the best decision I thought I could make. “My targets will be the equipment. I won’t let your efforts to force this army to retreat go to waste, Designation: Egress.”

I usually didn’t trust people who presented themselves with only good intentions, but at Parvati’s words I nodded and extended my hand.

The AI proved itself more than enough times for me to trust it on this.

…

Despite the old-fashioned designs of the drones, they were wickedly fast and devastatingly accurate. I could only assume that the AI took the concept and final products produced by humanity and built it according to its own specifications. With only time and quality as its concerns, it created without care for cost since it didn’t have to pay itself for anything that it did.

The result was twelve incredibly potent war machines teleported right to their intended targets, evading all of the point-defense fire that suddenly came after them, and firing off their munitions. They used their bodies to screen for their weapons, putting armored panels in the way of weapons, and sacrificing their whole chassis to deliver their weapons. They used their rotors to evade, their armor and bodies as ablative for their munitions, and dove into their enemies to shoot the perfect shot.

Needless to say, the missiles didn’t disappoint.

Anti-tank weapons were the first to be adapted for use against superhumans. Most superhumans weren’t as invincible as Maelstrom, or lucky enough to get a power like mine, or trained enough to cover up their weakness of being squishy human beings. The average superhuman that was tough could weather small-arms fire, while the upper classes could handle indirect artillery fire.

Weapons designed to smash through the best tank armor fielded by modern nations tended to be overkill for them. The British High Explosive Squash Head was the best example. It fired a munition that flattened against a superhuman, sticking to the poor bastard, and encasing them in high explosives. Most folks hit with that round directly just cease to exist, with their outsides turning their insides into pulp. Then, there were regular SABOT or rounds with tandem warheads. Once the software and sensors were developed well enough, most superhumans could just be smacked down with conventional weapons.

The problem was that the apocalypse weeded out anyone who wasn’t better than average.

“Only one of the superhuman auxiliaries that I’ve targeted have perished. Five remain.” Parvati informed me, and my hands clenched, as I looked through the video feed. The drones sent in were destroyed after their missiles were expended. But that wasn’t the issue. The amount of neural-dampener emitters were still too high. “The signal strength required the destruction of half of the emitters. Please, wait until the next set of drones are constructed.”

“No, it won’t work a second time. They’re grouping up to cover each other.” The remaining superhumans were quick to group up and make themselves a bigger threat. Not only that, but they started gathering the rest of the emitters and changing to the formation of the army. Soon enough, there were overlapping fields of fire over them their strategic asset. Then, a moment later, a shield was above them and I could no longer send anything near them. “We’ve failed.”

I killed those people for nothing.

The entire army is going to march into a wall of bullets, energy weapons, and face off against autonomous WMDs, because I cornered them.

For the first time in a long, long time I felt like I needed to run away—

“Incorrect. They’ve fallen for my trap.” Parvati suddenly spoke up and the screen that showcased the lines of communication between the neural dampeners and the soldiers were outlined. However, there was another source present, and that was the destroyed drones I sent in. They were sending out signals too. “Flooding the area with reflective chaff now.”

The side panels of the hexagonal drones opened. Even the panels that were shot off opened too. Then, a moment later, they exploded and filled the air with glittering chaff that spun and hung in the air like snow amidst the army.

A few soldiers started shaking, yelling, and staring at one another as if coming out of a dream.

“Send this through. Now.”

I didn’t even look, before doing what Parvati instructed me too.

A machine appeared on the battlefield and shot itself in numerous directions over the army. Some things fired at it, but they hit flares that it shot out of its segments.

While the chaff lay in the air, the segments activated.

Then, the terror hit the army in full force.

One dropped his weapons and ran.

Then, another.

Then, another.

And, then two, three, and four.

Groups bled and bled from the army, shedding their armor when their officers locked them down, and they ran into the surrounding forest without heading anyone’s words or concern.

Soon enough, the army of regular people impressed into service was gone.

All that was left were their officers and their superhuman companions.

At the sight, I managed to breathe easier.

Now, these guys, I had no problem with taking on.

I got up… and found one of Parvati’s bodies in front of me.

“You intend to fight against these people?” I’d almost forgotten that the AI could sound so human coming from one of its organic bodies. “Your mental strength has been drained. It will be too much of a risk to go after them.”

“True, but I don’t think you’ve got a plan for keeping them alive.” I raised an eyebrow at the AI, who blinked with its nearly-human gaze. This form was one of the infiltrator types. It wouldn’t have looked out of place going to one of India’s colleges. The face was still almost too symmetrical though there were some faint acne scars on its dark skin. “There’s been enough deaths today. I'll send these guys off somewhere isolated after you pierce their shields and everything’s over. No more blood on my hands.”

“At considerable risk to yourself.” Parvati argued after a moment and placed two hands on my shoulders. I slight push had me falling onto the floor onto my ass. It looked like I was more tired than I thought. “I will see them dispatched nonlethally. Rest. If I fail, then you can do what you wish.”

If I were some altruistic moron, I’d have argued with Parvati.

However, I was tired, more than happy to not work, and ecstatic to shift the burden of guilt to someone else.

So, in reply, I let my back hit the floor.

Time for a nap.

…

“You didn’t even wake up.”

“You would’ve woken me up, if you needed me to help.” I yawned and tried to stretch out the kinks in my back. Parvati accompanied me through the AI’s complex, but didn’t bother with the organic bodies. It must’ve realized that if didn’t work all these times, that I wouldn’t think of it any more or less if it stopped. I was pretty much speaking to a quad rotor with a speaker attached to it. “So, how does the situation look?”

“The remains of the army have scattered, but some have regathered at their bunker. They are fortifying it, but with tips from my infiltrators, they will soon be besieged and captured alive.”

“Must be nice to be so important that you’re not allowed to die.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yeah, the few times that it happened to me was pretty nice, but you know me. I keep my secrets to myself.” If I let people know what I could do, then they’ll hesitate to kill me. However, if people know what I can do, then they’ll have an easier time of finding a way to kill me. Since I planned on limiting interaction with enemies, I went with concealing everything I could about me and not landing myself into situations where I had no choice but to rely on being too important to die. “If it comes to that, then I’ll just get killed because no one knows who I am.”

“Quite the dilemma.” Parvati was being more pithy than usual, but I chalked it up to the two of us are going through a difficult series of events. We had each other’s backs enough times that being nice to one another didn’t matter anymore. Not that I was being nice in the first place. If I ever doubted the AI wasn’t a person, my concerns faded when it started showing that regular behavior of individuals. “However, with this done, I am now aware that I require your help more than I believed. If you were not present, then I would’ve had to destroy that entire army.”

“Yeah, because you didn’t invest in nonlethal weapons or equipment. You could’ve done everything more safely, if you weren’t focused on building up lethality.”

“There are many threats that require me to be lethal to have a chance.”

“And, there’s just as many situations where being able to handle a situation nonlethally gives you the advantage.”

“On that, I cannot disagree. Rest assured, I am expanding my capability to handle issues without killing already.”

“Good.” I ran my hand through my hair and grimaced at how off it felt. When was the last time I showered? That thought was my cue to go home. “Well, I’m going home. I need to relax and rest somewhere that doesn’t give my back any kinks.”

“Return in a week. There is no need to hurry.”

“Got it.”

I gave the AI a wave and left an instant later.

Naturally, I didn’t go directly towards my home. Instead, I went to my best-furnished and functional safehouse. I checked the water tanks, started up a generator with some stored gasoline, and got the little place in the middle of the Pacific up and running. Some MREs were still good in the duct-taped coolers that I’d prepared, and soon enough I was showered, eating, and booting up a DVD player in the middle of nowhere, while hidden by a jungle canopy from prying eyes above.

Everything could’ve gone better, but I managed to get through everything with as good results that I could manage.

Now that I thought about it, thanks to the neural dampening, most of the people I’d killed only started screaming and crying out in pain after they were hurt enough to ignore the signal. Which meant that there were less direct memories of people dying to my deployed weapons than I thought, and maybe I’d killed less people than I thought.

Or, so I told myself, while keeping my food down and taking a few deep breaths to bring up a shitty old movie to relax to.

There weren’t any therapists around to help me through this, so I had to do my best on my own.

Getting away from the memories felt like running away, but I was used to doing that.

If there’s anything I’m actually, really good at, it’s moving past the problems that I had and making sure that I was done with them.