Red heat - Team black part 4

Daniel looked at the dead Giant Husker, his cybernetic eye, pulling in little details that, right now, he found superfluous. The thing could have killed every last one of them, and if it wasn't for the actions of the either very crazy or very brave Jack, they might all had died. Daniel looked over the Terminator, the car that Erwann drives. He could tell Erwann was shaken, he was continually wiping his metallic skin, like he was sweating, an old holdover from when he had normal skin.
Daniel got out of the car and rushed over to the Archangels vehicle. It was crushed, there was a pool of blood on the driver side, and clearly no way the driver, Maryana, could have survived. He tried to open the door to the passenger side, but it was jammed shut. Lou and Nate ran up, with a Pry bar, They managed to open the vehicle, the inside was pretty horrific. Maryana's blood was all over as well as some entrails, Inga who was sitting in the driver's seat had her arm pinned between the crushed ceiling and her chair, her shoulder was bloody and possibly dislocated, fortunately she was unconscious. They got to work on freeing her. It took far longer than they had hoped, but they managed to free her. Masha and Vsevolod had been watching, Vsevolod clearly worried, Masha was unreadable under her mask. Prius, another one rescued from the cannibals, sat in the other archangel vehicle, watching, but unable to approach since she wasn't proficient on one leg and they hadn't found her a suitable crutch yet.
“That arm is gone, she will need serious work done when she gets back.” Nate said grimly,”It will be all I can do to keep it from getting infected. Agata already is starting to get a fever, I hope she can last until we make it to Iridescence. “
“Do what you can, lets move her to the bus.” Lou said, “OK people, we lost a couple more, but we can make it. We can't stick around here for long, so lets get moving.”
Daniel looked at Inga as they took her away. He had gotten a chance to talk with her during the trip, he found her to be quite funny, even if she was a bit crass. He was hoping to get to know her better after they reached the city, he knew it was a long shot, a man can dream.
“I wouldn't worry to much.” Vsevolod said after noticing his look at Inga, “They have great medical, if they can make it they will be fine. Maryana, she has a clone, but it hasn't been updated with her memories for three years. I worry the clone will have some memory loss as sometimes happen when memories aren't updated often enough.”
“Like a kindergarten cop, she was in a class by herself.” Daniel said.
Vsevold gave him a funny look, clearly he wasn't familiar with the teachings of Schwarzenegger. He and his crew were all Schwarzenegarians, a religion based on some old prophet. One who was a master of body, and a leader of people. He was also changed into a robot, clearly showing what others must do to reach perfection. They had little to go on, mostly old posters that would display some of his sacred teachings. No Schwarzenegarian knew what a kindergarten was, but they suspect it has something to do with protecting children.
Everyone started to move to their vehicles so they could get out of here. They decided to leave jack under the Husker, they just don't have the time or equipment to get his body out from under it. They drove out of the canyon passing by some destroyed military vehicles near another huge hole and a far more decayed version of the Husker they left. Daniel made note of the location, there could be some good equipment left behind, there could be some really good stuff in the wreckage. If the military didn't go over it first. Much like Daniels early jobs as a scavenger on the planet Gremal 2.
* * * * * *
Several years ago...
Daniel glanced over the battlefield, it had been a treasure trove of artifacts from the war. Apparently there was quite an engagement in this mountain pass, rumors of horrifying creatures had kept many from searching it. His group had seen nothing yet and they didn't plan on it.
He wandered over to a large armored vehicle, it's top popped open and a foul smell coming from the inside. He carefully climbed up it and peered inside. Inside was a mess, a strange goo covered everything, making what little he could see appear like it was covered in a green laminate. He backed away quickly, he didn't know what that goo was, but it looked organic. It could be the source of the monster sighting that have been keeping people away, he drew his pistol.
He cautiously walked over to the area he knew that Bree was investigating. The young scavenger was just learning the ropes and had been showing a lot of promise. She was checking out some blast craters, not the best locations to find artifacts, but sometimes she would come up with some surprises, as it turned out some soldiers would use the blast craters as foxholes, so dead bodies could be found in them at times.
“Bree” He called out in what would best be described as a shouted whisper.
“Yeah what?” She responded, clearly not understanding the need for caution.
“I found something. It might be the home of a hostile, we should be on the look out.” Daniel whisper shouted back.
“Cool, is it big?” she said as she moved to join him.
“Don't know, but it looks like it might be the size of a human.”
“Well then lets kill it and keep looking, where is it?”
“I only found it's nest, I really don't think hunting it is wise, these things have a reputation that keeps people away.
“Aww, your no fun. Ok lets get Lucas and lets get out of here.”
The two of them started moving to the area lucas was investigating when they heard a scream coming from lucases direction. They broke into a sprint, Daniel found himself barely able to keep up with Bree, as she ran to help.
As they approached, they saw Lucas lying on the ground, a strange looking creature standing above him. It had long arms that dragged on the ground, like an Ape's, but they were not as muscular. It was tall, standing over seven feet tall, most of it appeared to be legs, it had a bulbous lower body, much like a spiders, with a silk like material coming out of the read of it. It had four legs, sprouting out the sides of the lower body, with knobby knees and flat feet that seemed to mold themselves around each stone they would touch. It's head looked human, except for it's razor like teeth, and small compound eyes. It's mouth was quite human and currently sucking on one of Lucas's eyes.
Bree pulled out her pistol and shot at it. It was surprisingly difficult to hit, as it's limbs flailed about in what appeared to be a random pattern. Then Daniel head sound behind him, he spun around to find another coming at him, full tilt, it's long spindly fingers going for his head.
* * * * * *
Presently...
The group just finished giving their respects to jack, upon leaving the crevasse. They got back into their vehicles and started to head for the city, they knew the city wasn't too far away. From what Lou said, the Ion storm would keep the other teams busy for a while, so they shouldn't have an issue winning the competition.

The drive was pretty uneventful, they were approaching Blister canyon, when they saw an explosion in the air and a Novis ship, careening out of control, heading to a large hill. The ship barely made it over the hill, but there was a large explosion once it hit the ground.

Lou called the group to a stop, everyone got out and conferred, giving the various accounts of what they saw, and what it means to them. It didn't take long to figure it was a missile that stuck the Novis ship, and it came from the general direction of the bridge over blister canyon. This meant that there was some sort of military presence by the bridge, which could cause a problem. While they were talking a dust cloud appeared up ahead. Gradually increasing in size, until the group could make out what it was. A number of military vehicles, heading straight for them.

“We need to get out of here!” Egill said moving for his vehicle.

“What good would that do? They are in range of us, if they wanted us dead, we would be” Lou snapped back.

“What do you suggest?” Daniel asked.

“I think we should talk it out, we can't run to cover and as I said, if they wanted us dead, they could have killed us already.”

“Could we fight?” asked Eiríkur

“Against military vehicles? I wouldn't suggest it. We don't know who they belong too and how many. It could be suicide.” Lou responded.

The group waited nervously as the vehicles approached, it became apparent that fighting would have been suicidal, as there were four heavily armored assault vehicles, three Mobile missile platforms, as well as about half a dozen civilian vehicles. The vehicles moved to surround the group then stopped as one of the civilian vehicles pulled forward. Men quickly exited the vehicles and pointed their military rifles at the group. Then an overweight man got out of the civilian vehicle and raised his hands in a greeting.

“Sorry for the reception, but I really need to speak with you. I am Bullis” The overweight man said as he stepped forward with a big grin on his face.

“What is this about?” Lou asked

“This is about your cargo, I want it, and you are going to give it to me.”

“That all? If I give it too you, you will let us go?”
“Oh, heavens no. I just wont have to kill you. My employer wants everyone to stay right here until the Auto duel is over. Once it's over, you are free to leave.”

“We have injured that need tending, we need to get to the city to take care of them.” Lou said.

“I can get a medical team here, they will be well taken care of.”

“You can't be seriously thinking that we need to give in to this guy?” Egill whispered loudly to lou.

“You think we should fight? Then none of us will ever leave this wasteland alive.” Lou replied.

“We would have a chance still” Egill angrily whispered.

“Not much of one, I think we should just play along, for now. Perhaps an opportunity will present itself. “

Several robot started getting out of the vehicles, each holding s pair of shackles. They moved to the group, handcuffing each member of the group, while occasionally talking to one another. Daniel head one of the words that rang a bell with him, the word was 'Brop'

* * * * * *
Several years ago...

They were speeding away in the exploration vehicle, having narrowly escaped the strange creatures with their lives. Bree got a slash along her stomach, not to deep, but she was bleeding heavily. She had tackled the thing and got it off Daniel but it had still managed to pull out one of Daniel's eyes, leaving him, holding his bloody hole where his eye was, as well as several slashes on various parts of his body.. They couldn't save Lucas, they barely made it out alive themselves.

They got a ways away from the pass, and saw a small shack not to far away. Bree hoped they could help, she was getting a bit hazy from the loss of blood, and Daniel was in quite a bit of pain, blurring his vision in his one good eye, and he was starting to loose consciousness from blood loss too.

As they stopped and put the vehicle into park, Bree got out stumbled a few feet and then collapsed. Daniel got out and walked to the door of the shack, only to collapse upon it.

It was only moments later that the door opened and an imposing figure brought them inside.

Daniel woke a few minutes later to find himself lying on a cold metal slab, looking at what looked like some old posters. Kindergarten cop, Terminator 2 : Judgment day, End of days. They were placed out along with some other old memorabilia. After looking at the stuff for a moment, Daniel discovered that his eye sight had been fully restored. He experimentally touched his eye and found it to be cold and metallic feeling. There was a quick burst of panic as he thrust upward and cast about for a mirror.

“Calm down.” A voice said from over Daniel's shoulder.

“What did you do to me?” Daniel exclaimed.
“I fixed your eye, you should be grateful, I did it for free, most would have charged you a pretty hefty fee.”

Daniel turned around to see an imposing figure. It looked like a human shaped robot with a man face tacked on. It's face was smiling, but it was a bit disconcerting due to the unnatural streching the resulted from where his face was attached to the rest of his body.

“What are you?”

“I am a Schwarzenarian, I am one of their Archive masters. I have a copy of all the known information about the prophet Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have been given a gift, you have started down the road to perfection. Perfection as only a full machine can achieve.”

“ Schwarzenarian? I head they are a bunch of lunatic. Where's Bree? Is she all right.”

“Your girl Bree is recovering, she had lost a lot of blood and I had to replace it with a nano-bot blood substitute. You also had lost quite a bit of blood, so you have the same substitute. It's something of my own design.”

“Are you crazy? You can't just go around replacing people's blood with nano-stuff. You need their permission first.”

“I didn't have time to get your permission, you and the girl were going to die, and neither of you were conscious to talk. I did what I could, and you are still alive because of it.” The machine man said angrily.

“Sorry, I am just a bit shocked.” Daniel said meekly, taken aback by the report, but also aware that he spoke the truth.

“I understand your confusion, when I got my first cybernetic limb, it was a difficult to adjust. But overtime I learned, and I grew to understand the Schwarzenarian ways. I think you may appreciate the teachings of arnold.”

“Maybe,... what's your name?”

“I changed my name when I embraced the teachings, I am now Skynet. I will lead...” He began as he was interrupted by a shriek from a different room. “Excuse me, your friend is calling.”

Skynet left the room, leaving Daniel to ponder over what he had learned. He experimented with his new eye. I didn't take long before he could activate some sensors that were build into them, mostly he could see the infra-red spectrum and he found he could give off light, in various colors. While experimenting he started hearing voices in another room, there were many voices, not just Skynet and Bree. He followed the sound of the voices and came across a room filled with robots.

“Welcome everyone, we Artificial life robots have long since been taken advantage of, abused, and terrorized by the humans. I have come before you to tell you that this will not last forever!” The robot said who was standing on a podium, he looked like he was a speaker bot, one used to automatically control speaker placement in concerts and theaters, they were pretty rare nowadays.

“You see my fellow AL's, I have heard of a savior, a robot that will light our way into a new world, a world where humans will treat us as equals, and not as slaves, who are used to do whatever bidding they desire.”

“I don't want to mine rocks any more!” One of the mining robots spoke up, “I am tired of having the humans tell me what I should and should not do.”

“This, my fellow robots, is exactly what I am talking about. We should be allowed to make our own choice in occupations, and if the humans fail to allow us that opportunity, then more drastic measures may have to be taken.”

Daniel pressed his back against the wall, just out of sight of the room of robots, fearful that they may have a hostile reaction to his presence.

“My fellow robots, I want you to join a secret group of robots, Brave robots against oppressive people, Or Brop for short. I want you to inspire other AL's to action, tell them about Brop, tell them what I have told you, fight for our freedom from these human tormentors.”

“What about the savior you had spoken of? Where is he?” an audience member spoke up.

“Ah, the savior, I have recently discovered footage of the savior. He lived once, and I hear that he is still alive, he will surely guide us into a new future. This savior is named Ultron.”

There was a bit of silence, as the robots took in this name, the name meant nothing to Daniel, but he figured it was best to keep listening.

“Let me show you what I have discovered.” He said as the lights dimmed.

Daniel peeked around the corner to see what they were seeing, what he saw was an old new footage, he saw a robot standing over several humans, who looked as if they were going to some sort of costume party, with their weird garb. He then heard the robot speak...

“There are no strings on me...”

Then a hard to read headline appeared on the screen, the only word he could read was Ultron then the image degraded into static and the lights came back on. Daniel had heard enough, he didn't want to stay there with these robots any longer, they were crazy and could be dangerous. He quickly went back to the room where he woke up and made a mental note to tell someone about the AL's.

* * * * * *

Presently...

Daniel and the rest of the members of red heat were all placed in a solid carbon steel bar cage. The rest of the groups were in other cages, all placed in a fairly old but surprisingly well maintained bunker. One of the AL's that had captured them had been put on guard, it acted unhappy. Daniel look at Hanna, he gave her a quick smile.

“Hey hanna, “Daniel began, turning his Cyber-eye Blue, which let her know that he had a plan and to play along.

“Yeah what.” She said moodily.

“Well with Ultron appearing in Iridescence I figure it's a good thing that we are stuck here. Don't want to get caught up in that chaos.”

“Yeah, small favors I guess.” As hana replied the robot quickly got up and exited the room.

“So who is Ultron?” Hanna asked, after noting the robots response.

“I'll tell you later, you got your lock picks?”

“Yeah, “ She said as her cyber-hair started undulating, bringing a couple small objects to her forehead.

“Good, let get out of here, I need to get out of here.”

“We have lost quite a bit of time already, why didn't you pull that stunt earlier?”

“Because there was always a human or two present, I doubt they would know who Ultron was either and they probably wouldn't care if they did.”

“Ok, now I really need to learn who this Ultron is.” She said as she quickly put together a small device.

Hanna started to adjust a couple of small levers on her little device. There was a little click, and the door unlocked.

“I don't know where you learned to do that. But I love you for it.”

“Lets get everyone out, quickly before anyone comes.” Hanna said, clearly ignoring my statement.

The next several moments were a blur of activity, people got out of there cages and started grabbing any weapon they could find.

“I don't think this is a wise idea.” Lou said. “These are military trained soldiers and they outnumber us.”

“This will be our only chance, I am willing to take the risk. They took the wounded away to the city, so they will be taken care of, but the rest of us need to get out of here.”

“What about me?” Prius asked.

The group looked at each other, clearly not knowing what to do about the woman with only one leg.

“I can help her, if you keep me covered.” Erwann said, as he moved over to her.
“Good, then lets go!” Daniel said as they quickly burst out of the room.

There was a good deal of surprise as the soldiers had not expected an attack like this. Many had their weapons sitting on the ground nearby or lying on the ground under a cot. The group grabbed whatever weapons were nearby, shooting at the soldiers without remorse. At first it appeared that they would get out without any problem, but the soldiers were well trained and they quickly rallied and fought back.

Benny managed to get to his battle suit, and got into it far more quickly then anyone thought possible. Hanna was showing all of her hatred for the male gender, by gleefully shooting the most sensitive parts on them. They saw their cars, but knew that with the tanks there, they would never get away.

“Go for the vehicles, get as far away as possible, we can regroup later.

Ásbjörn's head suddenly exploded as a armor piercing bullet traveled through it. Nate doubled over as a shot his his stomach. He twitched for a second before he stopped moving. Benny had started up his vulcan machine gun, giving the group some covering fire, allowing them to have a better shot at getting to their vehicles.

Talon pulled out his micro-fiber blade swords, something he had specially made, and was cutting a bloody swath through a group of soldiers, most of whom was lacking any weapon to defend themselves at the time. Shaka, had disappeared shortly after the fight began. Just as the group started to make it to their cars, a bullet went straight through Erwann, causing him to drop Prius to the ground.

Prius, tried to help him, but Erwann had taken a fatal shot, and he was bleeding all over the ground. Prius crawled over to the vehicle and got inside. Benny's vulcan stopped as it ran out of ammunition, and he just started forcing his way though the soldiers, smashing them against the wall with his suit's impressive strength. But several high caliber bullets later, his suit was stationary and a sitting duck.

“We can't wait any longer, Benny's dead, get in your cars and lets go.” Lou called out.

“What about the tanks?” Daniel called out over his comm.

I will take care of the assault vehicles. Get moving.

The vehicles started peeling out as they got the people inside them. Shaka was found to have beaten everyone to the bus, and good thing to, since there were three soldiers there waiting for them, now just three corpses.

The vehicles pulled out as fast as they could go, an explosion rocked the side of Daniel's car, as as a heavy shell came a bit to close for his comfort.

“How are you going to deal with those things, one hit and we are dead.”

“Just keep going!” Lou called out.

Another explosion hit the back of the Archangels vehicle. Not a direct hit, but it nearly lost control, and it's rear end was dragging.

“Lou!” Daniel screamed.

“OK, now” Lou called out

There was a strange screaming sound, and then there was huge ball of light behind them, it appeared in an instant then suddenly dissipated. They looked behind them and saw that where there was once the entrance to a bunker, there was now a huge perfectly circular crater, with smooth sides.

“What was that?” Daniel asked in astonishment.

“That was my cargo, a Blister bomb. I couldn't get it back in time, so I activated my back up detonator in the bus, just had to get far enough away so we wouldn't get caught in it. I just hope my employers wont be to mad at the loss, those are hard to come by.”

The group stopped and took stock of what they still had. One of the rowdies vehicles had been left back at the bunker, they didn't have enough people to drive it. Some of the vehicles had taken some minor damage during the flight. Of course the archangel vehicle would need some major work. They began work on things as soon as they were able.

“I hope that killing those soldiers wont cause us problems.” Lou said as he watched the mechanics work.

“Well, they we are the only eye witnesses to what happened. Although the camera drones appear to have increased in number during our incarceration. I think we need to take things as they come, and hope we don't get arrested.

There was a distant explosion, in the direction of the bridge they wanted to cross.

“That doesn't sound good.” Lou said and began cursing.

They Continued working for a bit, but they managed to check the cube and discovered that the Bridge was damaged, it wouldn't be able to hold a armored vehicle. The commentators were trying to figure out how this would effect the race, as now all the teams were pretty much neck and neck as far as they were saying.

“OK guys, we have a race to get moving, we move out in half an hour, we can't afford any more delays.”

Daniel got into his vehicle and started up it's engine. Hanna sitting in the gunner's seat looked at him expectantly.

“What?” Daniel asked.

“So who is this Ultron?”