A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 10

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 10

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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With a narrowed down location, and a few bits and bobs requisitioned from Maelstrom’s super-scientist workers, I managed to find the location of Shiva’s base.

Of course, I’m making it sound easy thanks to my circumstances. I could teleport and Walker had assets that she was willing to lend me to stop the propagation of living WMDs. It was in her interest to help me out, while I could go everywhere I wanted and be the perfect scout.

But back to Shiva’s base.

The madman went to Nepal so that he could use the world’s tallest mountain, Everest, at the base of his wireless-energy transmitter, and quite probably to make use of the environment to cool the supporting infrastructure of his base. I had to admit that, even though it was a pretty megalomaniacal move, there was some pretty sound logic involved in it… even if that logic was due to the megalomaniacal plan of conquering India as a mecha-god-king.

Man, the post-apocalypse is weird.

Shiva’s base was unsurprisingly grandiose as hell. The robots walking around were styled just like the one that the scavenger had hacked and made into a worker. Dozens of the blue-skinned, multi-armed Androids designed after Kali toiled on the mountain on large, metal platforms painted to look like trees with falling vines. The structures they tended to emulate traditional Hindu temples in form, although their function definitely didn’t look anything close to what those temples used to do.

The Kali-variants worked beside other androids fashioned after Indian myth, like large, seven-headed flying horses that pulled flying chariots. They carried large shipments of metals and ores towards the temple-furnaces and factories that studded the world’s tallest like a creeping city of temples and vines. There were giant scorpions, alligators, and even elephants trundling along upon roads that connected one “temple” to another. They were garbed in jewels and silks, but they carried refined materials on their backs, and their peripheral appendages were obviously some form of energy emitter or another.

The factory-temples were manned by androids, but they were smaller and more akin to humans in size-and-shape, although exaggeratedly beautiful and perfect thanks to Shiva’s obvious preferences. In the cold of the Himalayas, the female-shaped robots were of every race and color around the world, but clad in various female clothing styles found in India. I recognized the Sari, but most of the other styles flew over my head, and I focused on the fact that they were building more of the other androids with the materials delivered to them like hundreds of master artisans working in perfect synch across an assembly line. Each one of the machines had one task, building an entire leg or something along those lines, and the leg was passed onto the next workshop where an extremely-skilled artisan with perfect dexterity and skill attached it to the torso it created and passed it along.

The workshops they used had tools I didn’t recognize, probably because they were too dangerous for normal humans to use, and required having a computer instead of a brain to interface with. Each little workshop of one of the worker-machines had a dozen lesser machines that wouldn’t look out of place in a factory before the bombs fells, that just did soldering or spot-welding on exact spots, like extra limbs and assistants to the more capable machines toiling on more complex tasks.

All its manufacturing ability was guarded by patrols of robots high in the atmosphere armed with flaming swords. They rode in golden chariots pulled by the seven-headed horses and were escorted by flying machine elephants, scorpions, and crocodiles by the dozens. The wheels of their chariots left trails of fire in the passing and they kept their gaze on the skies, whilst ornate towers with laser weapons and sensors kept a perimeter across the mountain range.

I wasn’t looking at a simple base by a madman with a fetish for robot girls. I was looking at a massive production chain surrounded by an army capable of threatening the entire world. Every machine came alive right at the end of each production line and joined its fellows in patrolling and doing another job. At the base of the Himalayas, I spotted large, white structures that melded perfectly with the snow from which, sometimes, dozens of machines patterned after the Indian mythos would emerge. There were dozens of those bunkers and each of them could easily hold nearly a hundred of the machines I saw in each one… and maybe some of them were even filled with the type of war-machine that turned Pakistan into an irradiated hellhole.

After I scoped it all out, I decided that it would be very prudent to get more firepower.

Preferably in the suitcase-nuke variety.

…

Rakesh glared at me as he approached me from where I sat in my preferred café. The dosas and tea were as good as always and the owner kept my table clean, so I had no plans to change over to the rival café on the other side of the street. If I was treated well, and the food stayed good, then I had no issue paying a little extra and staying loyal.

“American, you told me that you would not return to India.”

“I told you that I’d leave forever once I get what I wanted and you pointed me towards Shiva. Well, I’m still looking and Shiva’s been holding back his assaults on your country.” I fished out the pictures that I took and offered it to him. I drew a lot of stares from passerby, even with the mustachioed, dark-skinned bodybuilder looming over me. Being an American in India these days attracted attention quickly, so didn’t even have to wait very long for the superhuman to return. “Found out that he has an entire manufacturing center, an entire army, and I need some weapons to fuck it over.”

Rakesh raised an eyebrow and scoffed until he looked at the pictures. His eyes widened at them and he shakily picked up the pictures of the bunkers hidden in the snow where several machines were exiting. Then, he looked at all the different bunkers that I photographed, and his teeth grit.

“I told them all that their reliance on satellites would be their undoing! We’ve been played by simple camouflage!”

Rakesh pulled out a phone from his belt. It wasn’t a smartphone, but a bulky thing that looked like it could be used as a brick. His hands made it look tiny and he dialed into it with some difficulty before giving a few bursts of his native tongue into the receiver, while I continued to eat. He took a seat beside me, and I took note of my name being shared several times, and he transmitted the pictures with a scanner built into the back of the phone. It kept a few key features and got rid of everything else, which was neat.

I ordered him some food and got myself a yogurt-based, mango-drink to keep the heat away, while I waited for him to finish.

He gave a grunt when he finished speaking and put away his phone with a grimace.

“A few of my fellows have hidden nuclear weapons at their disposal and some even have fusion weapons. If you are as powerful as you say, with the ability to transport entire air-superiority platforms, then you would be able to transport these into the heart of his manufactory.” Rakesh let loose a sigh of relief when I nodded. He looked at the plate before him, hesitated, and then began to eat with his grimace lessening a little. He appreciated to food, despite how small it was for a man his size. “I it will take time, but you’ll get your weapons, American. Did he notice your arrival?”

I shrugged, because I didn’t know, and pointed my chin towards my gear in the corner. Since it was the Himalayas, I’d decided on some winter camouflage, which was mostly mottled grays, blues, and whites across a tarp. Beneath that, I’d worn a thermally-insulated cover, as much layers as I could fit beneath it, and a rebreather and goggles beneath a hood and a ski-cap.

“I did my best to look like some stone and ice, and I didn’t use anything that gave off a signal.” The camera and energy-detection gear Walker loaned me were the only electronics that I had. The problem was the fact that I had been a warm body in the middle of a mountain-range covered in robots and snow. “My body-heat could’ve given me away, if they had any fantastic sensors.”

I’m a prepper, but I didn’t have any insulators that could render me invisible to thermal sensors and other things. Those things were expensive or needed me to step on some military’s toes in order to get, thus they were too expensive for me to consider buying. Financially and long-term prospects-wise, they were just too expensive to consider.

“Damn.” Rakesh grunted and shook his head. His brow furrowed as he did his best to think, and he looked through the tiny screen of his phone with narrowed eyes. I wondered how the Indians had satellites while he did, since he’d told me that they destroyed most of their launch sites. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that they probably had enough people who could fly and enough nerds to help them out with various issues like low oxygen and low atmospheric pressure. “Then, Shiva might be preparing for an assault this very instant, especially if he knows that someone has found his secrets.”

I debated on whether offering my services for a split second, before I raised my hand.

“I’ll gladly deliver WMDs into the heart of that machine complex, but I won’t lead those robots on a wild goose chase without pay.” The Indians could deny me access to the WMDs they squirrelled away, but they wouldn’t because I was their best shot at delivering and unleashing their payloads. Since I cared about the world, I was willing to do that for free, but if they wanted me to do more than that they were going to have to cough up something to make it work my time. And, if they decided to get rid of their brain cells, I’ll find a WMD somewhere else. “And, don’t go blaming these machines getting unleashed on me. I’ve been told Shiva wants India and this entire army was made to do that. There robots existed from the start and were coming after you guys without question.”

“Of course, you’d ask for treasure in exchange for salvation, American.” Rakesh growled and I was sure that he’d have spat on the floor, if not for the fact that he was in a small café. The incredibly well-muscled, dark-bronze skinned man grimaced and crossed his arms over his bared chest while he glared at me. “But I know how you mercenaries work. I want your doctrine and plans before any price is set. I refuse to even give you a single Rupee without knowing what you are capable of and what makes you think you can do it here.”

It took me a moment to process those words, because I hadn’t had customer in years, but after going through them I popped over to my office in my bunker, took one of my many portfolios, an reappeared before Rakesh with a thick Manila envelope. The documents within were all translated to Indian because I used to do a lot of jobs in the area, which I had looked over by three different, intdependent translators to make sure that they were all worded properly.

“Here’s my resume and portfolio. If you open it you’ll find all my credentials and photographic evidence. I’ve destabilized regimes, routed entire armies, and performed many insertions and abductions into enemy territory.” Most of those missions took place in Africa, before I made the right contacts and focused on the transportation side of my power. Rakesh gingerly looked through the dossier that I supplied him, while I explained what I could do to a coordinated force composed of robots. “Even if we are facing a super-powered robot army, they still need power and spare parts. Their defenses are strong, and can probably detect me, but they can’t stop me from just appearing, dropping some grenades where they shouldn’t be, and leaving half of a heartbeat later.”

Technically, I didn’t have to do that. Once I knew a place well enough, I could send something that I was in contact with over there, so I didn’t even have to go into the factories, refineries, and power plants Shiva’s mountain manufacturing centers. However, I wasn’t about to tell anyone that, because it would reveal how much utility my power had and lower my payout.

Mostly the latter, if I’ll be totally honest.

Rakesh stared at the portfolio and resume bundle I provided him before shaking his head and standing up.

“I’ll be here in an hour with someone who can actually bargain.” Well, fuck. Rakesh was smart and was going to get a fixer to handle this shit for him. I should’ve been less prepared. People with good instincts, or with some measure of street smarts, knew a swindler when they saw one. “I can’t force you to stay or take the job to protect my people, American, but I would like your word that you’ll deliver our strongest weapons to destroy Shiva’s mad ambitions when the time comes.”

At those words, I decided to give a nod instead of gouge for money or act tough.

“Hey, I might not be willing to risk my neck fighting a robot army for India, but we share the same planet. I prefer living on this planet without any robots setting out to conquer it.” Rakesh frowned at the first portion of my explanation, but gave a nod at the second half. It was in my interest to stop a robot army from conquering an entire subcontinent while it was ruled by a megalomaniac with a god complex. India had a ton of resources too, which would let Shiva expand his army immensely if he conquered it, even if he didn’t make use of the massive population that the country still had after the apocalypse. “So, I’ll deliver the nukes pro-bono, Rakesh. You can count on that.”

Rakesh stared at me for a long time, before nodding at me with the faintest smile playing beneath his mustache.

“Well, then, American we have an accord on that matter.” He gave a wave while leaving the café. Rakesh paused at the boundary and shot me one final look. “I’ll meet you here in an hour with a merchant to speak in my stead and a communicator that you can use to contact me.”

I gave him a nod and a wave at that, before pumping my fist when he was out of sight.

Scored my first real job in the post-apocalypse!