The Brink and Back - Chapter Thirty Six

Waking up to the sound of my radio calling out to me and Duke barking loudly was not what I would call a good way to start the day. Up until that point, I had been sleeping pretty well, a combination of completing a hard day's work and the knowledge that we had helped someone in need. Of course, we had killed a lot of people to do it, so my immediate assumption, as gunfire erupted not too far away, was that the Tyger Claws had come for us.

"Jackson! Come in, Jackson!" Murtaugh's voice said, calling from my radio. "We have incoming! Sending more specters to reinforce and bring you back to the garage!"

I rolled out of bed and quickly started putting on my equipment. Luckily, with how tired I was after our rescue gig,  I hadn't even bothered to go back to the garage to take off my undersuit and armor, instead just kicking in a pile by my bed. As I was pulling up my suit, I snagged the radio and shouted into it.

"I copy Murtaugh, but I have my armor and suit with me," I said into the radio. "Repeat, I am a combatant, not a VIP. Put the specters to better use!"

After that, I got dressed in record time, cursing as the sound of running motors got closer and closer. When I was finally ready, I kicked open the door and let Duke out ahead of me, several bullets skipping off his armor plating as he ran.

"Get 'em, boy!" I shouted, watching the robot charge off to the left. 

With a general location in my mind, I dived out the door, my pistol up and ready. As I moved, I looked around, first spotting a trio of specters ruined by gunfire. I kept scanning as I ran, expecting to see Tyger Claws coming to get their girl back or just to get revenge. What I saw instead were several vehicles, all nomadic versions, painted black with blood red and electric blue highlights.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I shouted, diving into cover as one of the vehicles swung around, unleashing another barrage of bullets. "Wraiths? Now?"

I slid into cover behind a concrete barrier, bullets pinging off the thick material, bullets streaming from their vehicles, showering me in dust and shards of stone. After a few seconds, the gunfire stopped, and I could hear people moving around, quickly climbing from their cars. I peeked my head up, quickly spotting people disembarking from two cars and a truck, armed with a range of weapons. Three of them were focused on Duke, who had been chasing the vehicles as they tried to shoot me. They opened fire almost immediately, catching the attention of everyone else.

Seeing the opening, I stood, targeting the closest Wraith and opening up, quickly taking down two of them before all of their attention shifted back to me. I dropped back behind cover, only to hear someone call out about a grenade. 

I peeked out around my cover just in time to see one of the Wraiths, a woman with a black metal arm, overhand a blinking, cooked grenade in my direction. I could see the slowly blinking light as it soared through the air. Before I could even think about what I could do, a blur intercepted the grenade, slapping it back toward the Wraiths before diving behind cover with me. Jackie ducked low, having a bit of a more challenging time hiding behind the concrete barrier due to his larger size. 

"Thanks for the hand," I said, slapping Jackie's shoulder. "Took you long enough to wake up."

"What can I say? I'm a heavy-" 

The grenade he had swatted away detonated, and a breath later, we both popped up over cover, firing as fast as we could manage, driving the remaining Wraiths near us to the ground. The only ones we didn't kill were the ones Duke took down by himself, jumping over the back end of a truck as we opened fire. His armor was dinged up, and one of his eyes was a broken mess, but he still tore the neck out of one Wraith, before tearing at another one's leg, both of them bleeding out in seconds. 

"Heavy sleeper," He finished with a smirk. "You good?"

"Never better," I responded, whistling once. Duke perked his head up immediately, rushing back to my side, blood on his face. I pulled out my radio and clicked it on again. 

"Murtaugh, Jackie, and I cleared a batch of Wraiths on our side. Are there any more coming in on yours?" I asked, ignoring Jackie as he double-tapped the nomad gang. 

"Several Wraiths are taking cover in the northeast part of the town. They have a mounted technical and have already destroyed ten specters," Murtaugh answered. "I have disabled the primary vehicle, but they are out of our view."

"Okay, moving forward to handle it," I said, nodding to Jackie, who was pulling grenades off of the Wraiths we killed. "Where are Kaytlyn and Riggs?"

"I'm at the BD shack, keeping the fuckers from running," Kaytlyn said with a surprising amount of vehemence. "They caught my leg, so I can't help. Riggs… Riggs carried me to cover. He is down." 

I cursed, looking at Jackie, who froze. Unless Riggs got hit directly in his head by something armor-piercing and big, then it was unlikely his AI core was destroyed, meaning I could probably fix him. But Kaytlyn had no idea he was an AI, so if he shut down from damage, she must have assumed he was dead.

"Copy that, cover us as best you can, and stay safe," I responded. "Murtaugh, how many specters do we have left?" 

"Eight." 

"Alright, keep them up tight to protect everyone," I ordered. "We can handle these guys."

"Sir, May I suggest a distraction?" Murtaugh countered. "I can send a pair of specters out in two minutes, right down the front. It should give you a moment to work unhindered."

"Good call," I responded. "We will go on your signal." 

The AI strategist confirmed my message, and Jackie handed me a pair of grenades, which I then pushed into my utility belt. Together, we immediately started pushing northeast, taking cover behind trailers, dumpsters, vending machines, and anything else along the. 

"Is Riggs…"

"I don't know," I responded, shaking my head. "It depends on where and what hit him." 

After that, we both went silent, focused on making sure none of the Wraiths got away with attacking us. As we moved, occasionally, the sound of gunfire echoed from in front of us, usually followed by the sound of Kaytlyn's sniper rifle immediately firing from around the BD shack area. Finally, Jackie peaked around a corner and immediately pulled back. 

"Found them," He said quietly. "Three houses down this road."

"Good," I said. "We have like thirty seconds left, let's get as close as possible." 

He nodded, taking the lead as we moved across the back of the trailers, now moving even slower than before. We jumped two fences, easily clearing them with our enhancements suits, getting into position with seconds to spare. Only a hundred or so feet away, I could see the trailing remains of several specters, most of them obliterated by a heavy weapon of some sort, leading back down the road and out of view behind trailers. We could also hear the Wraiths, who were all suitably panicked about being pinned down and unable to run. 

Just as a few of them started talking about abandoning their cars and running on foot, I could hear specters running down the road. They were dodging and weaving, running in zig zags while firing at the exposed vehicles wildly. The first one barely lasted long enough to see the technical, which was just a truck with a stationary HMG in the back, before being obliterated. Immediately, Jackie and I rushed around the corner. 

While I brought my pistol up and fired, aiming for the most dangerous person, the Wraith standing behind the HMG, Jackie blurred and sped forward, zipping to a position with a better angle. I got three shots on the technical gunner before Jackie opened up with his pistols, firing at the surprised gangers. 

With a whistle, as I lined up my next target, I sent Duke out, who charged the nearest psycho at a terrifying speed. Intellectually, I knew that he was capable of moving with some impressive acceleration and quickness, but watching him tear furrows out of the asphalt as he moved was something else entirely. As I pulled the trigger, my undersuit handling the recoil as I triple-tapped another Wraith, Duke slammed into his target, knocking him off his feet. 

We finished the group off quickly, the only issue rising when the last one panicked and ran, dropping his gun and slipping away between two trailers. Rather than try and chase him down, I gave Duke a whistling order, the metal canine bolting off to run him down. The eager canine robot returned not long after with blood dripping from his metal teeth.

After going around and double-tapping everyone, Jackie and I hoofed it back to the town center, both eager and scared to see the damage. As we approached, the first thing I could see were the four wraith cars on the road. One was lightly crashed into the concrete barriers of the parking lot, while the other three were parked out by the entrance.

I could also see that Kaitlyn's car was dotted with bullet impact spots, dents, and holes depending on how much armor they had run into. As we walked past that, I finally found Kaytlyn and Riggs.

The former was leaning against her car, her sniper rifle up on the hood, aimed toward the targets we had just eliminated. Her leg was wrapped and taken care of, with Frank learning over her to patch up a cut she had on her cheek. I couldn't help but notice that her eyes were red and agitated, as if she had been crying. 

Laying on the ground next to her was Riggs, unmoving and deactivated. He had several massive dents and bullet holes in his torso, legs, and arms, which could really only have come from the HMG. Most worrying was the head wound, a large hole that punched through the back of his helmet and out the visor. I quickly knelt down beside my friend, doing my best to lift his body up into a position where I could more easily access his head. I peered into the hole, doing my best to see inside. There was definite damage, but I couldn't tell how bad. I cursed and grabbed my radio. 

"Sam, you okay, buddy?" I messaged, immediately getting a response. 

"We are okay, Jackson," He said. "Noah, myself, and all but one of the MRVNs made it to the Molly Maker room and are unharmed."

"Good, glad to hear it. Look, Riggs is down. I need you to bring my toolkit to the Shack as quickly as you can," I explained.

"I will arrive shortly."

I continued to diagnose Riggs as best I could, checking the over two dozen impact and bullet holes. My primary concern, beyond the head damage, was whether or not his power core was stable and undamaged. I had worked hard to make my power nodes as safe as possible, but Elerium was, under the wrong circumstances, a plasma bomb ready to go off at any second. I was really sure they hadn't breached the Elerium node, though, so there are no explosions yet.

About a minute later, Samwise arrived and started handing me tools, allowing me to carefully remove Riggs' outer armor parts, starting with the helmet. Once his outer layer of armor was removed, I could better see the damage. 

The bullet had punched through the back of his helmet and slammed against the Alien Alloy armor plating around his central core, which was his inner "head," which looked identical to Murtaughs. It had not penetrated the interior plating, but it had created a significant dent before punching back out the visor, meaning a lot of energy had still been transferred.

The ALEO units had a lot of protection against kinetic energy transfers like that, but it could only go so far. I would need to crack open his head, remove his central core, and scan it for faults. If there weren't any, or they were minor enough, I could repair the rest of his systems and turn him back on. If too much was damaged… Riggs was already gone. 

"Okay… this could be worse," I said. "If the bullet had penetrated here… it would be bad, but there is a chance that he is okay."

"What? How? The bullet punched through his head! There's not enough room in that casing to protect him from that much damage," Kaytlyn said. "I've seen that before, Jackson. That's too much trauma for the brain to handle." 

"Yeah… Listen, Kaytlyn… I'm about to let you in on a big secret," I explained, using a specially design tool to unlatch a security port, which gave me access to securing screws. "Riggs is not a Borg. He is centralized AI, designed by yours truly."

She looked at me with wide eyes, watching as I unsealed Rigg's head, revealing not a brain as she would have guessed, but the exterior processing chips. A few more seconds later, I was passed them, too, revealing Riggs' central processing core. His entire being.

"No… wait, he wasn't alive?" She asked, sounding a bit hysterical. 

"Riggs is an AI," I repeated. "And judging by the internal damage… he very well still might be. Samwise, Murtaugh, please carry Riggs' frame to the garage and hook it up at the drone station." 

I ordered, reaching down and carefully extracting the central core. Very carefully, I held it in my hands, standing slowly. 

"An AI… Wait, does that mean Murtaugh is an AI, too?" She asked, looking at Murtaugh, who was waiting by the security building.

"He is," I responded, making my way back to the garage.

"Are all the robots AIs?" She asked as I walked away. 

"The specters are not, nor are our pets," I explained. "Some of the early MRVNs are very young, slow-growing AI, while Samwise, Noah, and Frank are more advanced. As are Murtaugh and Riggs."

"How- No, wait, how is the easy part, why?" She asked, following behind me. "Do you have any idea how dangerous AIs can be? And how heavily Netwatch comes down on people who figure out how to make them?"

"The AIs I create are different," I assured her. "They are more in touch with humanity than the crazies behind Black Wall because they have physical bodies that can be destroyed. Riggs… if Riggs is okay, then he is basically as lucky as a human who took a bullet to the head. As for Netwatch, why do you think I've been keeping it a secret?"

"Did you know about this?"

I looked over my shoulder to see that Jackie had helped Kayt to her feet and was helping her follow after me. Not far behind them were Samwise and a pair of MRVNs carrying Riggs' body. 

"I knew it was something like that, but I never asked," Jackie responded. "I never cared. They seemed alive enough, so I treated them like they were alive."

I quickly sat down at my workstation, carefully laying down Riggs' central core. While Jackie was helping Kaytlyn sit down, I was grabbing spare processors and other parts, quickly linking them together to run alongside Riggs's core, allowing him to function without his primary body. As Samwise got his frame hooked up to the drone bay, MRVNs were already starting to pull off parts and remove his outer layer of armor. I activated his core, slowly running a scan at first to make sure that there was nothing damaged. When the first scan came back clean, I ran it twice more, just to be safe. 

"Okay, scans are coming up clean... I think he is okay," I said, everyone letting out a sigh of relief, though I could feel the conflict in Kaytlyns. "The computer has a mike and a camera, so he won't just be in a void… Just need to write a program for him to access it…" 

I quickly whipped up a simple program giving Riggs's central core access to my computer, which, if I left open, would be a massive security risk, but for now, it was fine. Once everything was set, I slowly began giving his core power, waiting for it to finally initialize. It took a moment, not surprising considering the massive amount of data he was processing, but finally, the AI core locked into the program I had created, and he spoke. 

"I take it I've been damaged badly?" He asked, the familiar and welcoming voice coming from my computer. "Is Kaytlyn okay?" 

"I'm okay, you big… you big lug," She responded. "Are… are you going to be okay?"

"I will be fine," He assured her. "My primary core is undamaged." 

"Just give us a few hours to get your parts printed out and installed, and you'll be good as new," I assure him with a smile, sniffing back my own happiness that he was okay. "In the meantime, would you prefer to stay attached to my computer so you can interact with us, or would you prefer to power down?" 

"I would prefer to sleep, sir," He responded. "But first, I… want to apologize to you, Kaytlyn. I am sorry I hid what I am from you. And you as well, Jackie." 

"I… don't like being lied to, even if it's just by omission," Kaytlyn said. "But I can understand why."

"Thank you." 

"No, thank you for saving me, Riggs," Kaytlyn responded, sniffling and rubbing her eyes. "You put your life on the line to save me. Thank you." 

"Umm, Kaytlyn, why don't you sit here and talk to him for a bit," I suggested, standing up from my stool and offering it to Kayt. "You can sleep later, Riggs, unless…"

"I would not mind talking for a while."

I nodded and helped Kaytlyn into my seat before nodding for Jackie to come with me. We stepped just outside, giving them some space. 

"Samwise, I want you to focus on Riggs," I said, the AI nodding in agreement. "Before that, though, get most of the MRVNs working on gathering the destroyed specters. I want all of the easy fixes up and running ASAP. The rest they can scrap. Noah!" 

Noah, who had been waiting inside the garage addition, made his way to us as we stood just outside the second garage door, under the shade of the CHOOH2 station hood. 

"I want you to spin up production on defenses, getting going now, ahead of time. I want turrets ready to install the minute the concrete is stable and the armored cover ready not long after that. Then you're going to switch to specter production. Oh, and get the MRVNs to move the corpses out of town."

"Of course, Sir." 

"Jackie, I want you to call Dakota Smith and explain what just happened," I said, the larger man nodding. "Ask her where the hell our warning was and if a couple of cars and some guns is enough payment to get a few guys down here to help watch over the place until we are at full strength again. Not all of the cars, though. I want a few of the better ones to work on.

"You really want people wandering around?" He asked, scratching his head.

"No, I don't, but until the hard points are finished, I'm not sure we have much of an option," I responded. "If a bunch more Wraiths decide to come and finish us off tonight, I don't know how we would handle them by ourselves. Also, tell Dakota that I have an offer she might like to hear at some point as well."

"You're going to have nomads move in, aren't you?" He asked. "It's not a bad idea, better than the gangs."

"It's a good option, but they won't be the only ones moving in," I responded, waving away his curious look. "Don't worry about it for now, I'll explain later." 

The group separated after that, and I made my way to the temporary security building. I wanted to know what had happened and why we didn't get more of an advanced warning. When I stepped into the cool building, I found Murtaugh sitting at the security computer, pouring over images and sensor readings. 

"Murtaugh, how are you doing?" I asked, giving him a look over. 

"Sir, I am functional, but-"

"Let's start by going over what happened, Murtaugh," I said, cutting him off. "Then we can start handing out blame."

Together, we went over the attack. Apparently, the Wraith had first come from the southeast, splitting off into two groups. One group had gone around, that was the batch that Jackie, Duke, and I stamped out. The other group was much larger and had come in from the front. Murtaugh and I could only assume that they had meant to overwhelm us, but they hadn't expected Riggs to obliterate two of their vehicles before they could even get into the town.

A wave of vehicle-mounted gunfire had stunned Riggs, breaking his weapon and forcing him to take cover behind Kaytlyn's vehicle. Even with his Mag Cannon destroyed, Riggs, Kaytlyn, and the specters had managed to take down three more cars and the Wraiths within them. Unfortunately, this was when Kaytlyn was injured.

Rather than getting pinned down, the technical and a couple other vehicles drove off, most likely to come around and attack again from a better angle. In the process of pushing through, the technical got a full view of Kaytlyn. Before the mounted HMG could turn her into a paste, however, Riggs charged in and took the barrage, carrying her to better cover as the truck drove off.

Kaytlyn wasn't having that, though, and managed to disable the technical and one other car, forcing the group to stop. Murtaugh then tried to finish them off with a rush of specters, but the HMG more or less wiped them out. Then Jackie and I came along and caught them from the side, wiping them out in turn. 

"I don't think this is your fault, Murtaugh," I said, shaking my head. "I think we overestimated how powerful the specter unit is, but more importantly, I think we assumed our better tech would let us come out on top no matter what we got challenged by. With defenses finishing in a few days, I will feel a lot better about it, but… well, I'm hoping to redesign the specter unit, maybe with the help of my next tech tree. Between that, the defenses, plus having a chunk of the town filled with other people, I'm hoping we can be a bit safer."

"We will have to watch the people," Murtaugh Pointed out. "The nomads might owe you, but that won't stop people from being nosey."

"I have an idea for that as well," I assured him, shaking my head. "I need some time to put it together, but with any luck, I'll have someone to watch over them."

Having gone over exactly what happened, we started talking about our options. Riggs would hopefully be back online within an hour or so, and three specters had already been repaired by mixing and matching parts from different broken ones. With some help from Dakota, I was hoping that would be enough to hold off any retaliation attacks until we could get our defensive line set up. 

From what I could tell, the majority of our losses boiled down to basically fighting from a seriously disadvantageous position. The specters did not have nearly enough satisfactory cover, and what cover they did have was soon made pointless as the vehicles drove around them.

Between the HMG and the other car-mounted weapons, they were torn to shreds. Not only that, but our early warning system didn't function nearly as well as I had wanted it to. We did have some warning, at least enough to get the specters up and running, but there was still a lot left to be desired. I made a mental note to expand the range of our invisible drones flying above us.

Once I left the security building, I leaned back against the door for a moment, running my hand through my hair. This had been one hell of a way to wake up, but the adrenaline and excitement were now fading completely. 

This entire morning had been way too close for comfort. We had come out on top, but if Jackie and I hadn't brought our armor to our trailers, both of us would have been in a much more awkward position. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't been able to fight off the attack coming from our side?

This was skin of our teeth territory, and it frankly scared the shit out of me. Before I could even start making my way back to the garage, Jackie flagged me down.

"Dakota is on her way," He said, walking alongside me. "Apparently, they were already mounting up." 

"Lockdown the garage and the addition before they get here, get a specter at each entrance," I said, scratching the top of my head. "Wait, you mean Dakota herself is coming?" 

"Yeah. She sounded intrigued by your offer of a deal," He said with a shrug. "Guess you made an impression." 

True to the message, Dakota and a small crowd of her people showed up only two minutes after Jackie warned me. Her people pulled their cars and trucks around to form barriers and cover while the woman herself headed for the BD shack, where Jackie and I were waiting. Her bodyguards stayed outside, a show of respect I hadn't expected. 

"How many did you lose?" She asked, sitting down at our table.

"We are down about seventy-five percent of our defenses," I explained. "But that should be back up to fifty within the next hour. Thankfully, that was all drones. We did come within an inch or two of losing Riggs, though."

"Not bad, considering," she said, shaking her head. "You got the short end of the stick here, Jackson. Bad luck, to the core." 

"What happened?" 

"A shift in leadership," She explained, shaking her head. "Last night, the previous leader of the local raffen shivs, the Wraiths, got into a fight with one of their lieutenants. I don't know much of the details, but the leader got flatlined, and the lieutenant took over. To… 'celebrate,' they decided to go on a raid. It was between you and the Aldecados camping to the East, and they bet on you being an easier target. Considering I spotted the lieutenant getting dragged around by one of your worker bots, you know how well that bet went for him." 

"And you didn't see this coming?"

"How come we didn't see a random lieutenant getting lucky and somehow zeroing his boss coming?" She asked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "Or how come we didn't see that lieutenant being a fucking nutcase and immediately going on a raid? We keep an eye on them as best we can, but we can't read the future." 

She didn't sound angry about my question, as I could imagine she understood my frustration. 

"I'm loaning you some muscle," She said. "No cost. How long do you need them for?" 

"Two, maybe three days," I responded. "We are literally in the middle of upgrading our defenses, with hardpoints and turrets getting set up here. What's going to happen with the rest of the Wraiths?" 

"We don't know," She responded, shaking her head. "It'll take a few days and a few busted heads, but someone is going to take control again. How they react to you taking so many of them out is a lot less predictable."

"Great, uncertainty. Just what I wanted," I said, rubbing my face. "Well, I do have an idea, something that should help keep nomads and us safe."

"...I'm listening."