Welcome to Gaia! ::

Amelia glanced down at her arm almost as if she had forgotten about it, almost as if it was someone else’s arm. Nothing but fire and numbness radiated from the limb hanging from her shoulder. She tried to move her fingers only to get no response from the red painted digits. It wasn’t important right now anyway. They had to destroy Sybil. She had to finish Adrian’s last orders and so she relieved Will didn’t try to force her to go straight to the medics like the guy who had reluctantly showed her where Will was standing. “You have to tell them before Sybil does.” She insisted. Certainly the machine was working on sending out the broadcast as they spoke. It only waited this long to remove the body of the President.
A voice came over the radio from the evacuation team. According to the scans the building was about 60% evacuated, however Sybil had gone homicidal. The machines were going after civilians and rebel alike. Those remaining in the building either still believed in Sybil, or were too frightened to venture out and brave the battle ground.

“Will….” Amelia began softly, but let the words die as he gave the order to fire on the Tower. Who was she to tell them Adrian was gone, even if she had the means to do so? Most of them didn’t know her and those who did only knew her as the one who fought with Adrian all the time. “Will!” She exclaimed, snatching the radio from him with her good arm, pressing down the button. “Don’t stop fighting; don’t let everything you’ve worked for be in vain! The Director gave everything to get you here today, to free us from the oppressive rule of the machines. He gave me his final words knowing he would not walk away from this battle, knowing we could defeat Sybil and rebuild a better world without him. He knew you could do it, so let’s finish what he and his father started.” She weakly held the radio out to Will. Pain started to flare up in her arm, the earlier adrenaline from her escape wearing off. It had crept up on her slowly during her plea to the rebels to keep fighting until when she felt nauseous from it. A cold sweat broke out on her flesh, but still she wouldn’t move to find the medics. “You have to lead them Will.”

Amelia breathed a sigh of relief as the tanks started firing again. Adrian’s will would be finished, they hadn’t broken and ran to leave Sybil on a killing rampage. They knew the truth, Sybil wouldn’t be able to break them. “It’s not the same thing Will. They are free to choose to fight, or not to fight, but someone still needs to lead those who want to. To organize the battle, the troop movements, communicate between the evacuation team and the tanks so we don’t hit our own people.” She closed her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath and swaying slightly though she did manage to keep to her feet. “You know about those things Will.” She finished finally after a wave of nausea passed.

“It seems to be working.” A voice reported over the radio. “They would rather take their chances with the machines out here than definitely die in the Tower.”

“Then find someone who is!” She answered angrily. She was upset with the entire situation really. Adrian had left them without a succession plan and Amelia figured that had been on purpose considering she had had a very similar argument with him. About life after Sybil. Why couldn’t any of them understand? Sybil was a ruler and an oppressor, but never a leader. There would be anarchy and lawlessness without a leader of some kind. The pain radiating from her broken arm was too distracting however. “Just…find me when it’s time to play his message.” She added bitterly, imagining what Adrian would have said about her injury if he was still around. Either way she turned to leave and go find the medical area just as another message came through the radio.

“The machines have broken through the left flank.”

“Negative. About 20% remain in the building.” There was a slight pause, then a somewhat defeated addition. “Look, we are getting hammered out here. Machines have broken ranks and have gone nuts. We are losing more people than we are saving.” He stopped short of outright saying they should bring down the Tower, that the remaining we a lost cause. They were losing too many people trying to save them. Or course no one wanted to condemn those inside to death without a chance to leave, no one wanted to make that final call.

Sybil had long since stopped worrying about self-preservation, it knew it was doomed. It was mealy trying to take out as many people as possible with it. No concern was given for friendly fire or the preservation of machines. After all once it was dead, it didn’t matter how many machines were left. Not to Sybil. Perhaps, the collective reflected, they should have taken this strategy long ago, for they were pushing the rebels back on all fronts now that they stopped pretending to have the civilians best interest at the heart they didn’t have.

Much as Will predicted the humans ran from the tank fire, with the machines in hot pursuit. The machines weren’t trying to preserve themselves, only kill the fleeing humans. Today wouldn’t be a day of victory, but a day of mourning; Sybil would do everything in its power to see to that. Naturally there were losses on both sides in the initial blasts before people started scrambling to safety, though really there was none to be had.

The Tower gave a loud groan as the steel protested the loss of supports. Silence fell over the battle as all sides stopped what they were doing to look at the structure that at produced the sound. Metal screamed and concrete crumbled as the whole thing slowly started leaning to the left. The radio came to life with panic making it impossible to hear what anyone was saying, though the general idea was clear. Anyone fighting on that side should run now. Hopeful any people in the buildings in the Towers way saw what was happening and ran, but it was unlikely. In any event there wasn’t anything the resistance could do now. Then all at once the supports failed and the whole thing came down, crushing anything in its path, which given the height of the Tower, was quite a bit. Chocking dust filled the air making it impossible see very far. Well they brought down the Tower, if not in the way that had been intended.

“We’ve killed your leader and now you have failed to collapse the basement floors. In fact you have made our location more secure, buried under tonnes of rubble. It looks like I win after all.”

Will’s actions left the collective in an unexpected predicament, one that running the numbers seemed to have no clear answer for. Continue its homicidal rampage or stop the bots from clearing the rubble? Was it possible they might survive this, or should they continue to spread as much destruction and death as possible? To leave the remains of the Tower undefended would certainly lead to their demise some said. To turn their attention to stopping the machines that had been taken over would leave the open to fire others countered. They can’t be saved. They can be saved. The numbers are too close to say definitively. Even if they did survive things couldn’t go back to the way before. Split vote, split our forces. It seemed the closest they could get to an agreement. So a group of machines began picking off those trying to clear the rubble while rest continued on their guerrilla style fighting of breaking ranks and killing whatever human was closest to them.

“I don’t know about using it in the near future, but I’m not bleeding all over the place anymore. What do you need Will?” Came Amelia’s answer over the radio.