Gemini [WIP]

Chapter III

Sitting high inside a tower of mirrored glass, Rowan Chaudhuri’s attention was focused over a thousand kilometers away, watching a ragged group of people march out of a mining elevator. Dusty and barefoot, it was difficult to distinguish men from women, children from adults in xer overhead vantage. The people filed out of the mine face slowly, with the plodding pace of the defeated. Agents of Central, distinct from the masses by their clean white uniforms, stood abreast of the line on either side. Rowan dropped altitude and began a wide circle of the area, scanning the rusting mining equipment scattered around the site in infrared, looking for a rearguard.

“Aerial units, status report.” The voice of air command cut into the main radio circuit. Rowan cleared xer throat and thumbed the mic switch on the armrest of xer chair.

“Orange unit reporting all clear. Nothing on IR. Over.”

The other members of xer unit reported similarly, some watching the outlying forests for action, others hanging low over the group of cultists, monitoring subdermal blood flow and EKG for predictive analysis of anyone thinking to run. All in all, this had been a fairly quiet operation. The groups were getting harder and harder to find as word spread through the broader community about the ways others had been caught. Rowan occasionally caught xerself feeling conflicted, but xe’d seen the evidence of the United State’s previous attempts to quell religious extremists in the Middle East - half measures only lead to terrorist cells infiltrating the local population, camouflaging themselves among the innocent civilians. There wasn’t room for half-heartedness when it came to the eradication of these vile, bigoted ideologies.

Satisfied for the moment that there weren’t any lurkers waiting among the rusting bulldozers and cranes that littered the yard, Rowan stabilized and hovered xer drone, watching the groups be separated into their demographic components by the field agents. Of particular interest to Rowan was the children, siphoned off from the adults and lead directly to the large trailers that had been set down nearby. Xe could see the warm light spilling from them and the first few meters of the colorful walls inside. Xe could just recall xer own rescue from such a group, although the memory was now fuzzy with time. But for xer, it was associated with warmth, safety, and a full belly, and xe felt glad that these children, so long deprived of the same, would now be welcomed into Central and afforded the same opportunities xe’d been given.

This group of renegade cultists had been discovered living a hidden existence in the now defunct silver mine in the mountains of Utah. One of Central’s most deeply-held duties was the protection and liberation of the oppressed from backwards and regressive ideologies. The mistakes of the early 21st century had shown that no half-measures could be taken with religious extremists. That lesson was written in the fused concrete and metal that was all that was left of the former capital of the country, obliterated by nuclear devices at the height of the Schism. Rowan recalled attending the memorial of the lives lost there at one of the museums off Global Square downtown, a meter cube of irradiated, glowing flux at the heart of a globe of shielding glass.

Xe was brought out of xer reverie by the sudden appearance of a white blob at the edge of the yard. Slapping for the mic, xe watched in horror as the now-human shape shouldered a rifle and began shooting, the muzzle flash whiting out xer IR camera as xe sounded the alarm, moments too late.

“Shooter! Shooter! Northwest quad, in the dozer!” By now, the people in the yard were scattering, Central field agents diving for cover, the cultists running in all directions. As xe circled the area, trying to get a fix on the situation, xe watched two large groups form amidst the chaos: one ran towards the holding pens where the adults were being kept, the other towards the trailers full of children. Agents near the trailers were hastily closing the doors, the huge lifter drones on top beginning to spool up their massive propellers in preparation for a hasty exit. Rowan watched as one, then another agent fell to the cultist snipers, noting that several more red diamonds had shown up in xer display, shooters located by shot triangulation.

Central had been outflanked here, clearly. Either the cultists had gotten word of the impending action, or they’d taken to posting hidden sentries around the camp who had waited until the opportune moment to strike. Seeing xer compatriots dropping as the shooters had them surrounded throughout the compound, xe toggled the radio again.

“Command, request auth for weapons hot, situation critical.”

The moments crawled by in slow motion as xe waited for affirmation from command. Another two agents were felled, their white outlines blurring as their blood pooled around them on the ground before xe got a response:

“Affirmative, all air units hot.”

Xe cut engines and fell out of the sky line a stone, readying the weapons onboard xer drone and called for two support units from the local hub. It would take a minute for the ai-driven units to traverse the kilometers from the site, but Rowan’s unit was well-equipped and nimble enough to take on the shooters alone, at least for the moment.

xe kicked the engines back in and whipped over the ground less at less than a meter, dodging crates and brush towards the nearest hostile indicator. Thankful that the recent rains meant xe wasn’t kicking up a cloud of dust, xe circled around a massive excavator to see a man taking shots from within the bucket of the machine. Normally the multiple-centimeter thick steel and elevated position of the bucket would make for an excellent hold-out position, but three-dimensional war fighting changed a lot of centuries-old assumptions about the nature of warfare.

Quietly, in order to keep xer engine noise down, xe circled behind the man’s position and then rose until xe could see him fully. Discarded around his ankles was a crinkled nest of space blankets. xe took a quick series of image captures, important documentation for the after-action report. The cultists were clearly evolving their tactics, so Central would have to, as well. Rowan selected the main weapon of the drone, a pistol caliber gun mounted on a recoil-deadening rail slung below the main chassis and pulled the trigger, target reticle bracketing the back of his head.

The man slumped forward against the bucket and his rifle fell to the ground several meters below. The drone barely rocked with the shot. One down, xe scanned the area, now thick with colored indicators showing friendly aerial and ground units, and a mass of red ticks indicating hostiles. The bulk of the adults had been freed, and most were retreating to the mine entrance, though the bottleneck of the elevator was proving to be a hindrance. There was a significant group surrounding the children’s trailers now, with at least one swamped with people on top of it, causing the already unwieldy drone atop it to struggle as it tried to take off. The container had managed to rise a few feet off the ground, but was now tipping wildly with the uneven weight of the cultists. Several of them had climbed onto the housing of the drone itself and were attacking whatever they could find, scrabbling at maintenance hatch levers and lens pods with their fingers.

As Rowan watched, the crate tipped forward alarmingly and crashed into the ground. The cultists around it cheered, but Rowan could only think about the children inside who were no doubt being thrown against the walls. Before xe was consciously aware of it, xe was moving at full tilt towards the group, firing wildly and cycling the grenade magazine for dispersant rounds. Xe roared into the mob at head height, flashing by dirty faces contorted with fury. Xer flight was suddenly halted, xer point of view bobbing nauseatingly as xer drone had been grabbed by several of the more fearless members of the mob.

Xe was now facing the sky, hearing the motors of xer fans whine and overheat as xe tried to gain some kind of traction against the mob. Thinking quickly, xe rotated the gun turret back and forth firing, but the 90 degrees of movement wasn’t enough to get anyone in its aim. The rusty brown wall of the trailer appeared at the bottom of xer field of vision, and repeatedly filled it as xer drone was smashed against it.

“f***!” xe screamed, out loud in xer room back in the tower. The alarms and crunches of the breaking machine filled xer ears, and, knowing the consequences, xe hit the eject button. Instantly, xer sensorium went black. The callsigns of the two AI-driven drones xe’d called for appeared in front of xer and xe quickly selected the first. Xe found xerself hovering over the site, accompanied by the other drone.

The whole situation had gone to hell in the moments since xe’d taken out the shooter in the excavator. A few blue marks still circled the area, but the green ones indicating ground units had all disappeared beneath a seething sea of red. Xe pressed the radio again.

“Orange reporting. I was downed by the mob. If you’re out there, say something.”

A resounding silence filled xer ears.