Chapter Fifty-Five

Gerald

Deep underground in a small dimly-lit room at the base of an old foundation, men gather and sit in a circle on the floor. They’re all facing away from each other while a light in the middle keeps their faces in shadow. For this call of leadership, ten devoted individuals have committed themselves to address the current calamity.

No one in the room is directly elected or appointed. Each of them is, in one way or another, revered by their peers and expected to represent their interests. They’ve all been pressured by the immediate members of their communities to gather. In times of despair, all of the derelicts throughout the region come together to form a response. This time their people are demanding retribution.

Their first attempt at reconciling the deaths of the four out in the farmland turned out to be a flaming disaster. Only two members had met and sent out a woefully unprepared group of men to their deaths. This time, they cannot fail. The gathering is to begin at sunset. A small bell rings at the top of the shaft leading to the room, signaling that it’s time to convene and that no one else is joining.

The last person to step into the circle is given the responsibility of initiating the meeting. They switch off the light in the middle and submerge the chamber into absolute darkness. In patient low voices, they speak one at a time about what’s to be done. To establish the seriousness of the situation, a couple of the leaders tell of their losses and hardship.

“Both of my boys were minding their own business when they were randomly attacked in a parking lot by these robots.”

“Ten men in my district lost their lives trying to avenge the farmers that were senselessly slaughtered. They weren’t given enough support and now they’re all dead. This time we must all cast out an overwhelming response, and finish this once and for all.”

“How many lives have we lost at the hands of these machines? Must it be TWO hundred before the world cannot ignore our plight? It’s like we live in a parallel dimension where our deaths can’t affect them. The citizens of Welan city just watch us suffer like we’re a television show!”

“We have tried time and time again to stake claim to our right to live in this world, but no one can hear us over the drone of their factories! We must grab this city by the throat and show it that we are tired of being shit on!”

“What can we possibly do to the city of science? We can hardly keep our people together and we’re still murdering, raping, and stealing from one another like animals. The public can’t bear to see us in the daylight, let alone listen to us seriously.”

“It’s their fault we’re poor, uneducated, and diseased like this. They keep us oppressed because there’s barely enough to go around, and they can only stay rich by keeping us down. We have to take back what is ours, to survive!”

Dissent is beginning to brew amongst the group and they’ve barely managed to keep their cool. They have yet to raise their voices, or begun interrupting one another yet, and someone notices that there is still one man who has not spoken yet. They want to hear what he has to say. When the room falls silent, the man’s voice, which is much calmer and deeper than the others, makes the room seem to resonate.

“We will do nothing. Anonymity is the best thing we have going for us, and I suggest we stick to it. If there’s a bunch of you dumbasses runnin’ around, biting the hand that feeds them, the law will have no choice but to address the situation more seriously. Welan City will crackdown on our way of life like you’ve never before. So far, we have not done anything drastic enough to warrant such extreme action. Despite that, you’re all doin’ your damndest to make sure it happens. I alone will take care of this situation, and I will do it correctly. It will be done in two days' time. I know you all want vengeance, but I insist you keep your heads down right now.”

“Tall order, big man! Just how in the hell do you expect us to do nothin’ for two days, and trust you alone to make a difference?”

“In two days, the robot threat will be eliminated discreetly. That is all you need to know. You will follow my instructions and if you do not, many more will die.”

“You, just you alone, are going to do this while we do nothin’? How are we supposed to sit around and listen to mothers cry over the loss of their sons? We're just gonna tell ‘em some weirdo showed up and said he’d take care of it? Your stupid, and we have the responsibility to make a difference together!”

Suddenly and without warning, a very specific crunching sound echoes throughout the room. No one moves an inch. The plop of a dead body on the floor confirms exactly what they fear happened and still, no one says anything. They don’t want to be the first to give up their position in the darkness. They all listen to the quiet footsteps as they cross through the center of the circle. They all jump when the lamp in the middle gets thrown against the wall and broken. The killer walks out of the circle and ascends the stairs out of the shaft. No one makes a peep or even moves until they can no longer hear him.

The first person to speak is sullen and quiet. “We can wait two days.”

The remaining eight find their way to the stairs in the darkness and climb to the surface. The last two pack out the body of the ninth person. When they get him to the surface, they see that his head has been cranked around until it faces backward. All of the leaders keep their faces hidden except for the dead one.

“God, it’s Migo. Poor guy. We’ll take him to his people.”

“Everyone, stay in pairs on your way home tonight, ok? Ya never know.”

Once Gerald is far enough away from the leadership meeting place, Cris pulls around to pick him up in a dark alley. He spots him heading towards a group of homeless people gathered around a barrel fire and turns his strobe lights on to get his attention. All the others in the alley race away as fast as they can. Gerald takes his big dark reddish-brown cloak off and stuffs it into the fire.

“Hey, it took me days to make that damn thing!”

“The smell of that nasty piece of shit was making me nauseous the whole time! I’m not wearing anything like that ever again, no way!”

“It even had authentic lice in there!”

“It had fuckin’ better not have!”

Cris laughs the whole time while Gerald frantically tears the rest of his costume off. He tells him he found the old canvas tarp draped over a homeless dude’s cart. They’ve used the outfit a couple of times before when doing investigative work, but this will be the last. They can’t risk anyone recognizing it again. They decided between themselves that they want to be done handling this kind of situation, for good. If they remain caught up in this robot rivalry, they’ll probably end up dead. They’re already coming up with a plan to dump the whole situation off on someone else’s doorstep.

Surely, word of the mind copying technology will be leaking out at every seam. Heavy hitters will be brought into play and they don’t want to be anywhere near the fan when the shit hits it. The best they can do for themselves is to get a finder’s fee from the first interested party. As far as they understand, none of the technology has been patented, nor can it be.

All they need to do is muscle Werker into a tight spot and then give them an easy way out. When they do, they’ll have a nice big fat sucker on the hook ready to buy the project from them. They already have the perfect asshole in mind that’s certainly stupid enough to buy the powder keg that it is too. They want nothing more than for this nightmare project to blow up in his face too, because that’s exactly what’ll happen.

In the morning, they arrange a meeting with the Werker board members. They tell them that their prototype project has caused millions upon millions of dollars in damages and has cost the city nearly one hundred lives. At first, they deny personally having any involvement in the project and that they were never informed of its progress by the team as they should have. They insist that they would have already shut it down had they known.

Cris ignores their excuses altogether and informs them that their company will be charged if they don’t cease all operations on the matter immediately. Cris points out that not only does he know they were made well aware of every facet of the project, but at least three of them have been directly involved with the very inception of it. They all clam up.

“We’ll be letting you off extremely easily, trust me. All you have to do is completely destroy everything having to do with the Five-Series project.”

Gerald lays his rifle on the top of their nice long polished wood conference table, to get their undivided attention. When dealing with such wealthy people, it takes a bit of theatrics to reach them, otherwise, they typically regress behind a wall of legal staff.

“I don’t believe I need to elaborate on all of the charges you could personally face, nor the fact that we are fully capable of dispensing due justice here and now if we’re inclined to.”

Once everything seems pretty much hopeless for everyone, Cris gives them the easy out.

“So long as Werker discontinues their research into mind transferring, and the Five-Series line altogether, you’ll all be fine. At this time, we don’t feel it would be fair to make your company cover the cost of all the damages that were done. After all, the crimes were committed by individuals that were all acting outside of Werker’s direction.”

“Given the nature of the… individuals we’ve already detained, they’ll have to be handled in a very careful manner. We will expect some cooperation in that respect and that’s all.

Agree to these terms or we will resort to far less desirable measures.”

Gerald puts his boots up on their table and gives them an intimidating high-brow stare, expecting their answer right now. “An offer is on the table, folks.”

Three of the board members look down the far end of the table to Sabrina when she clears her throat and folds her hands on the table. She’ll tell them everything they want to know, and lie through her teeth the whole time. There’s no way she nor Paul were ever going to give this up, not in a million years. They knew damn well they would reach this fork in the road one day. These two clowns clearly can’t see past their noses.

“As I was saying, the project had already been officially discontinued months ago. Despite that effort, some of our employees seemed to have taken some liberties with our honor system. I’ll see to it myself that it’s finished for good this time. And Cris, if you’d be so kind, please tell Dr. Morgan and Dr. Ahl that they’ve been fired.”

Now that they’ve turned Werker’s project into a boat anchor, all they need is to pitch the Five-Series tech to Space Security Services and make some popcorn. On their way out, Gerald commends Cris on a plan well executed. They know they’re attempting to sweep an entire elephant under the rug but it’s the only hail-Mary they have. They have to make some serious cash and get the hell out of town before anyone catches up to them.

In Gerald’s cruiser, they discuss what they need to do next. Somehow, they have to get everything locked down in one day. They can’t afford for Werker to really destroy any of the project documentation or equipment before they’ve made an offer on it. They head straight for the space sciences sector, the crown jewel of the city.

Not only is it the biggest and most advanced space center in the world, but it also has the biggest and worst parasites latched onto it, and that’s precisely where they’re headed. They call up Sy, the owner of Space Security Services.

“Hey, Sy, my buddy…”

“What could possibly have possessed you to call me? I’m kind of tired of wiping the floor with you guys. Is this how you planned on wearing me down or something?”

“Oh come on now, let’s be civil. I heard you’ve been lookin’ into getting some robots of you, for space stuff.”

“I’ve heard the two of you are in deep shit.”

“Well, seems we both have somethin’ the other wants then.” There is a long pause on the other end.

“You’re talking about these killer robots.”

“We just happen to be on our way over, we’ve got some stuff to talk about."