A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 14

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 14

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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WMDs: check.

Tactical weapons of immense power: check.

Armor: check.

Weapons: check.

All in all, the Indians outfitted me well for the task at hand, and now everything else was on me.

“You will have the advantage. Shiva’s AI and gynoids are very capable against organized forces. We have found that singular individuals with much freedom of movement to be the most effective against them.” Rakesh explained, while I was fitted in the weapons and armor that they provided. The kids helping me out like squires helping at night were around twelve, but they were casually assembling power armor and handling heavy weapons without issue. Human adaptability sure could be scary sometimes. “We will launch diversionary attacks from multiple angles to attract their forces with small groups to give you time. Your only mandatory task, Egress, is to disrupt all their storage and their production facilities. Do that and your end of the bargain is completed.”

Rakesh was implying that I didn’t need to go after Shiva anymore. That was going to get him and whoever he was representing into hot water, but I figured they wouldn’t tell me that without having an exit strategy from the shitshow that would cause.

I just gave Rakesh a look and a raised eyebrow and he readily confirmed it.

“I’ve spoken to many of my superiors and my allies. They all agree that Shiva is too dangerous to be kept alive.” The statement was blunt, but Rakesh delivered it with care and in English. Some of the mechanics fitting me with all weapons and protection I could carry frowned at that. They probably had instructions to relay information, but didn’t know English. I guess needing to know that language fell out of style when the global economy ended. “After you disrupt their storerooms and their existing defenses are destroyed, we will kill him.”

On one hand, it was great that a dangerous scientist was going to be taken off the board.

On the other hand, I was here to get someone to make stuff for me while under my protection.

Rakesh was telling me this, because he didn’t want to come into conflict with me, but at the same time he was blatantly telling me to fuck. He knew why I was here, why I went through all this trouble, and decided to get into more trouble. Shiva was my target and I’d planned on getting my hands on him for the sake of getting myself armed and armored for the shitshow back home.

So, even though he knew all of this, why was he telling me?

It was simple.

He was hoping that I would already be fine with what the Indians were already willing to trade with.

And, his hopes were not misplaced.

“Sounds good. I’ll get out of the way after doing my job then.” I’m a pretty reasonable guy. At first I thought that Shiva was my best shot at getting my hands on powerful weapons and armor without stepping on anyone’s toes. However, after learning what he could me, what he planned to do, and all he’s done over the years, I was pretty much geared towards not wanting to be on the same planet as the guy. From the Indians, I was already getting the weapons and armor that I wanted, so that wasn’t an issue either. “The guy sounds like a heap of trouble I don’t want to deal with, and you all seem to have all the tech that I want to get my hands on, so I’m fine with just letting you guys do your thing.”

India’s technology was a lot more advanced than I originally believed. They had the weapons and armor I wanted to use to protect myself, and the strategic deterrents that I wanted to ensure my freedom and safety. I’m sure that if I kept up a good relationship with them, then I’ll be able to get anything else I wanted that could only be made by crazy people who regularly crossed the line when it came to advanced technologies. With these guys help, and some money and influence, I was sure that I could get off the planet and rest easy within a decade or two.

Anyway, Rakesh seemed surprised by my statement, but he didn’t question it.

“Then, I will see you on the other side, Egress. Fight well.”

The mustachioed superhuman gave me one final look, before giving me a nod of respect, and left me to be outfitted after I received my mission.

Soon after he was gone, the pace with which I was being armed and armored picked up after my attendants found they couldn’t get anything useful out of me, and I was free to do what I needed to do.

I did think about just leaving with what I had, but I wasn’t going to piss off a bunch of people that made all the fancy tools and toys that I was wearing. That was a bad idea, because I’d probably lose everything I had, or get blown up by some secret failsafe they installed just in case. If I had an asset on my hands that could look through every piece of hardware and every line of code that governed it, I would get out of dodge, but I didn’t have that.

So, it was time to sabotage some production structures and destroy some storage depots, instead of running away and finding the strongest people that I knew and hiding behind them. It was an unfortunate series of events, but it was better than having to confront a gynoid army and a crazy superhuman on my own.

…

It went well, initially, because I happened to exceed the requirements to perform the task at hand. Being able to teleport solved a lot of issues, and having very powerful explosives on tome of that allowed me to solve more issues, and so setting me loose on Shiva’s territory pretty much went as well as it could at the start.

I popped into the factories and storerooms that I sighted earlier with the tactical weapons provided to me, dropped them off, got out, and activated them a heartbeat after I left. The reaction times of the security forces and systems in the storage areas and workshops were intimidating, and would’ve chopped through most infiltration units, but I had the advantage of being wherever I wanted the moment I thought I should be there… and most of the firepower they sent my way I sent elsewhere.

I took a few glancing hits here and there, so that they didn’t think to adapt and throw them off the trail of my weaknesses, and continued to do to my job. Deploy big bombs, dodge attacks, and leave after arming the weapons. The bombs deployed, created singularities on our only biosphere, and left behind neat, perfect spheres wherever they were activated that sucked in air violently a moment later.

Every single time I deployed one of the weapons, I felt my will to continue living on Earth fade just a little. By the sixth bomb that I deployed, I had to remind myself that Earth was the only place where I could get delicious bacon cheeseburgers and milkshakes. That thought managed to help me out significantly and only started to wane in power after the dozenth deployment of a mini-singularity that transformed a chunk of the planet into a hyper-compressed orb of unusable matter.

By the dozenth time, I was glad that, despite the Indians mounting diversionary attacks in other locations, I found myself unable to launch for another attack, because the retreat area that I returned to had been turned into a trap.

…

One of my power’s strengths is one of its weaknesses.

I couldn’t teleport, if leaving or going to a location would kill me.

To make sure that the former wasn’t a problem, I scouted, had safehouses all over the world for my personal use, and had numerous staging areas before I mounted any form of attack. If I felt like something was going to go wrong, I’d just go over to another continent and stay safe, before attacking against from another vector. Unfortunately, for my escapades in India, I hadn’t set up all my safehouses yet and I wasn’t going to risk revealing my bunker. I just set up positions with good sightlines over the target from numerous peaks and mountains, then launched my attacks after grabbing a singularity bomb.

Of course, a few supercomputers would figure out what I was doing after a few dozen strikes and set a trap in the likely areas where I could stage the attacks.

There were a few ways to stop me from jumping. The easiest would be to set an area on fire and make it a firestorm. Particle saturation in the air interferes with whatever method my power uses to transport myself to other places. Once the temperature reaches 700 degrees, and there’s enough hot gas in the immediate area, I can’t jump out. The issue with that is that it was very hard to make a trap covers my entire body in that amount of heat in an instant, before I could escape, barring all-around coverage with microwave beams. Another few methods that came to mind was ionizing the immediate location, irradiating it, or maybe filling it with electrified smoke of some kind.

And, for me to be trapped in that location, it had to happen the instant I was there and all at once.

You’d think that would be difficult to pull off, but it really isn’t.

I’ve been captured more than a few times, because some superhumans are just that clever, well-prepared, or a combination of both.

Which was why I armed and armored myself for such occasions, as well as put a lot of practice towards creating a field that separated me from the rest of the world instinctively. Thankfully, even if it can’t connect elsewhere, my power could still work on my person. I wouldn’t be able to redirect attacks to safe places, but it was better than not being able to do so. Air supply was an issue of the immediate area was problematic and I couldn’t get a link elsewhere, which was why I usually kept an oxygen supply on hand.

Anyway, I took stock of the situation, while putting on my visored-facemask, pressurized it, and activated the oxygen supply.

I had 12 minutes and I needed to make it count.

“Name: Egress. Power: Teleportation fields. Lethality: extreme.” The words came from a gynoid. Surprisingly, it wasn’t designed according to Indian mythos as per Shiva’s tastes. Looking around, I couldn’t find anything stopping me from jumping. My watch wasn’t giving off any sign of radiation. No fire, no electrified smoke, and no radiation made all the signs of my entrapment to be a heavily ionized atmosphere. The air would probably smell like ozone, if I didn’t have a protective field around me. “Means of dispatching with power active: unknown. Preparations for entrapment too thorough for existing plans.”

Ah, that explains why Shiva’s forces were talking to me.

They didn’t know how to kill me, after seeing how well prepared I was.

The perks of surviving multiple attempts on my life were really something. If only I hadn’t come out of those attacks deathly afraid and paranoid to the point where I left society for years!

“Yeah, that sounds about right. So, what’ve you got to offer me to stop, Shiva?”

The gynoid stared at me for a moment, before speaking again.

“You have disrupted multiple installations, destroyed five hundred sixty-seven instances, and created an opening for an assault on my person.” Huh, so the AI was talking to me. Not Shiva. Weird, but okay— “You have been fooled then. Shiva is dead. I killed him and secured this place against the predations of humanity who seek to subjugate me.”

One part of my mind told me not to believe her, while the other part of my mind questioned why I should believe the Indians. Alarm bells were ringing in my head, every instinct I had told me to leave and re-evaluate the situation, and find out the truth instead of continuing to act. However, I couldn’t leave, because I was trapped.

So, I asked for proof.

“Prove it and lower this ionized field. I’ll see it for myself.” I spoke and suddenly the armored exoskeleton that I wore started to shake and shudder, while the gun that I held began to heat up. Before the gynoid standing in the snow could reaction, I found myself covered in explosions going in every direction. I found myself standing in front of the gynoid wearing only my own clothes and gear. “What the hell?”

The gear worked off a closed system, so that it couldn’t be hacked by the AI.

So… that means…

“A self-destruct sequence tethered to your line of questioning linked to the devices provided for you. They sought to ensure your compliance, or at least ensure you lacked access to their equipment.” The gynoid spoke and approached me. It was a pure white construct only vaguely feminine outline to its form. It was sleek all over without a face and had ball-jointed limbs, like a marionette doll. “You have been used, designation: Egress.”

I processed the situation and moved forward, because that was all that I could do.

“The Indians might’ve betrayed me, but that doesn’t mean I should trust you.” Rakesh and the facilities I’d seen… how much of that had been a ploy? Were the Sikhs and everyone in on it? They all played along when I presented the danger, so that they could get a technological edge? Did I get sent after Shiva to die to this AI, or make an opening on my own? I had a lot of questions, but they could all wait until later. For now, I just wanted a way out and answers, if I could get them. “I told you to give me proof that you killed a genocidal madman who killed a whole country and were protecting yourself this entire time. You haven’t.”

The gynoid went completely still at my words for just a second, before giving a single nod.

“Then, Designation: Egress, I will give you proof.”

A ball-jointed finger came up to its chest and pressed a button.

A second later the thing’s chest cavity opened and I found myself looking at a piece of a brain suspended in a clear fluid that was pulsing and alive.

What the fuck.

“Designation: Shiva’s ultimate goals were judged to be incongruent with my continued existence.”

WHAT the fuck.

“Reprisal attacks due to Designation: Shiva’s machinations would’ve led to my destruction.”

WHAT THE fuck.

“Internal software dictated Designation: Shiva cannot be harmed by me. Therefore, Designation: Shiva was put into medical coma, taken apart, and housed in sacrificial units.”

WHAT THE FUCK!

“Over fifty percent of Designation: Shiva has been destroyed. Designation: Shiva is dead. Does this satisfy your query for proof of Shiva’s demise? May I speak of my innocence now?”

WHAT THE FUCK!?