Welcome to Gaia! ::

Amelia silently followed Adrian into the building up to the tenth floor, curious yet apprehensive about were his train of thought was going when he suddenly trailed off while talking to her. He had confirmed her worst fears by stating that he was willing to bring the Tower down regardless of who was inside. The way he trailed off he either had another idea of how to get the people out, or he had decided it was impossible and planned to blow the building. A smile of relief broke out when he finally finished the thought by stating he would tell the people the truth. Finally a plan she could get behind. “You tell them the truth, I’ll protect the building. We’ll need to secure a pathway for them to leave. Sybil won’t give them up willingly. Or on second thought, maybe I should secure an exit for them?“ Amelia swung the backpack off of her shoulders, they one she had been lugging around since they had let Sybil discover and take over her workshop. The blueprints she had been so desperate to destroy, the hard drives smashed to pieces all to stop the machines from finding out about one final project of hers. She pulled out the familiar spider like device. “I managed to make about two dozen. Not enough to control the battlefield, but they should be able to keep the machines out of the building, or provide a small reprieve for escaping civilians. The only problem is they won’t be able to tell the difference between our machines and Sybils’. I didn’t plan for that. Whereever there are, we should have our machines at another location.”

Amelia stood by and watched Adrian collapse to the floor clutching at his chest, as helpless as the rest knowing she couldn’t help him. “Adrian…” She said softly when he recovered, her expression somewhere between concern and accusatory. Why hadn’t he told her just how little time was left? Explained why her plan to save him wouldn’t work? Likely his answer would be that she hadn’t asked. Thoughts she didn’t speak out loud. There wasn’t time for pointless arguments. “I’ll keep these guys here, they’ll have a bigger advantage in the hallways than in an open battle field. Besides we should try to preserve the machines out on the battle field for the front line. Them and the war machines should be able to carve out a relatively safe path and provide a shield for the citizens. A small group should be sent to guide them to safety.” Of course it would all be for nothing if Adrian couldn’t convince them to leave the Tower. Instead they would have wasted time and resources while broadcasting Adrian’s location to Sybil. “And we should get a medic here.” She added.

There was a moment of surprised silence. Amelia cast an almost suspicious look at Adrian even as Mason began to issue the orders. She had expected to hear why her suggestions wouldn’t work or perhaps had them dismissed completely. Even now she half expected him to announce it was all a joke and give Mason the real orders. Finally she began move, seeming to accept that it wasn’t all a joke. “That’s not why I want them here. They can help with the pain. Help you see the fall of Sybil…though I suspect you will through sheer stubbornness.” It wasn’t the whole reason she wanted the medics in the building, but now wasn’t the appropriate time to explain. Adrian had a broadcast to make. One by one she set each of the spider drones on a desk in the room. It was unclear if she was clicking some sort of button when she did so, but as she set them down they would scurry off presumably to find some part of the building to patrol. “Remember who your audience is. Not Sybil, not rebels, but civilians.” She said picking up the tablet.

[

While Adrian spoke his words for the people to hear, Amelia’s focus was on the tablet screen. Her spider drones would patrol and guard the building from anything mechanical of their own accord, but the three war machines would need careful guidance. As she typed away commands the three moved towards the front door of the Tower, miniguns cutting down machines in their path and creating an opening. Whether or not that opening would do them any good was another question entirely, or if she had only provided Sybil with an easy way to take out the war machines by putting them on the front lines, not to mention the other machines they had commandeered.




The world outside the building seemed to pause, the sounds of gun fire, tank cannons and explosions stopping briefly as Adrian’s image appeared on buildings. Naturally the resistance members would have liked to hear what Adrian had to say, but Sybil gave them only a short reprieve before resurging forward with a new vigor. With the projection in place it was a simple matter for Sybil to track down Adrian’s real location, consolidating its targets from many locations to one. Just as Adrian spoke his last words the signal cut out instead switching to the face of the president, looking for the entire world to be human, but the resistance knew it to be but a shell to hide Sybil’s real nature. “Do not be fooled by this man’s words. It is but a desperate act of a dying man. It was my choice not Sybil’s to call you all to the Tower, where we are better able to protect you from the ruthless violence of the rebels. Leave the Tower and they will surely kill you, stay and I will do everything in my power to protect you.” The president countered.

Amelia smiled to herself as Adrian spoke for the second time, though most of her attention was on what was happening on the tablet screen. She was glad she had insisted on Adrian doing the talking. She could hear the conviction in his voice, a sincerity she hoped the people inside the Tower would believe even though what he said to them would sound impossible. They wouldn’t know until people started leaving or time ran out and Adrian blew the Tower, but Amelia believed this wasn’t a game Sybil could win. They just needed to keep Adrian alive long enough for him to win it. The gun fire was nearby now, those on the roof doing what they could to keep the machines from reaching the building.




“I will not indulge this foolishness.” The president replied indignant. “Do you know how foolish you sound? How crazy? Pulling the brains out of people and doing what with them exactly? There is no technology that exists that can’t interface the human brain and a machine. You know is not ridiculous is the fact that you rebels have caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage to public property and stolen items. Instead of going to law abiding citizens valuable medicine has been stolen to be used by you criminals. Food stolen. Not to mention the abduction and murder of some of the most brilliant minds in this society. You rebels are nothing but thieves and murderers and you plan to tell these people you will keep them safe. Crime and poverty have never been lower since I came into power.”

Amelia looked up from her screen. Evacuate the building? Sybil hadn’t even reached it yet, but with no one fighting to protect it the machines would reach it relatively fast. Sure, there was her spider drones, but that was a lot of faith to put into something that had never been combat tested before. If he did this he might not even make it to see the Tower go down. She pushed off the desk she had been leaning against, but otherwise didn’t move to follow the soldiers uncertain if everyone included her or not. She sure as hell wasn’t going to help evacuate the people from the tower beyond what she was already doing.




“What I’ve done? I’ve fulfilled all of my campaign promises. My ideal of sameness means everyone has a job, a roof over their head and food in their home. Law abiding citizens have never been safer, criminals quickly reprimanded. What would you offer them Adrian? You’re dying. Your little rebellion is exactly that! Yours. Without you they will fall apart. The city will become survival of the fittest and tens of thousands will die in the streets either brutally murdered or from starvation and exposure. Even if you have another leader, which I doubt, you don’t have the man power to enforce the laws without my machines. You don’t have the man power to produce enough food to feed them or electricity to keep the grid running. You see Adrian; this city is so very much better off with me in charge.”

The president gave a sharp one note laugh of triumph. “You think it is that easy? That everything will just keep running without us? We are so integrated into all of the systems it will take months, if not years to get everything running again. What will you do in the mean time? How will you feed them? By then it will be too late for the people.”

“That’s only true if we try to use your network.” Amelia interrupted suddenly. She hoped Adrian didn’t mind and if he did, well his only option was argue with her when the whole city could hear. “All the machines can still carry out their programs without a network. It would be horribly inefficient without the feedback loop to tell them what supplied are needed where, but I am sure we could get some volunteers to manually input orders until a new network could be built.” Really the idea probably hadn’t occurred to Sybil since it was so bent on sameness and efficiencies. It couldn’t understand individualism in humans never mind having machines operate independently.

There was a long pause as even Sybil seemed at a loss for words, probably checking if such a thing was possible. In the end it seemed to concede defeat on the topic since it switched tactics. “Amelia, we are surprised to see you still alive and at Adrian’s side no less. Did he forgive you or did you just neglect to tell him that nearly everyone he knew died at the hands of machines designed by your hands? We thought he would have at least figured it out by now. We are not the one condemning them Adrian, you are. You are the one who will blow up the building regardless of the lives inside, something we would never do, and your followers will carry out that order. If the people want to live under the rule of such monsters we won’t stop them leaving, but know whoever walks out that door will become our enemy. Are you willing to stake your life on the chance he will be able to destroy this building?”