Occasionally Heroic A.I. (14 page)

"We have to go now, before they come back!" I advised in a hushed voice.

Lara picked up her gun, jaw clenched with fury. "Let's kick some tin ass."

We heard a team of heavy footsteps in a tunnel, under the pathway we were atop. Before I could jump down and unload my entire magazine on the bots, Lara held my trigger hand gently, and looked at me in the eyes. They told me not to act - it's what they expected.

I nodded and followed her. Behind a tree, off the pathway, and to the left of the tunnel that the bots travelled through, she lay in a prone position, setting her sights just after the opening. She signaled for me to station my machine gun just above the tunnel. I saw her flash a sly smile, before changing her crosshairs, from the tunnel, to me.

My cell phone began to vibrate viciously. The font was in a dripping blood style.

Look behind you :) - Wade

I turned and saw Wade in a robot suit, standing behind me with his never-ending smile. He lifted his death-laser rifle to my face. Before he was able to pull the trigger, a bullet broke through his armor, directly into his circuit-filled heart.

I looked back over at Lara and saw the smoke coming from the end of her barrel. The three A.I. from the tunnel ran out at her, guns blazing. She covered her head and tried to stay as perfectly still as she could. They knew she was there from the sound of her gun - they didn't, however, know I was standing directly above them.

I squeezed the trigger on Martin, Irene and Aurora, and yelled out a battle roar.

"Ahhhhhhh!" I yelled out in a battle roar.

The entire bus turned and looked at me as I fired with my mouse. My phone vibrated again.

Embarrassing... - Wade

Our fallen comrades were already playing a new game, as Lara and I were taking too long playing against my four friends. It just happened to be that the game involved humans under attack from space robots. Lara took the game very seriously, and in turn, so did I. It was extremely fun.

"Your friends are amazing. They killed everyone but us," she praised. "Where are they from?"

"Computers," I slipped out. "I mean, I met them from my computer... through the internet. They're from New York City."

"Maybe we can go on a trip to New York City and meet them."

"Well, they're not
that
good of friends," I said in an attempt to dissuade her.

HEY! That's cruel. - Wade

Machine Mountain seemed close, despite only having travelled an hour away from Jericho Communications. In this amount of time, I received dozens of text messages from Wade, Martin and Irene. They seemed to be past their Circuitry Board fear, except for Aurora. She wanted no part in communicating with me directly, and she also wanted Lara completely ignorant to the A.I. world. As much as I tried to tell myself otherwise, I felt she was right; I had the lingering unease of how in control the A.I. enforcement were.

The wind blew against the bus, pushing it a lane over. Food slid off our plates and between seats. Our entire plates would have gone overboard, without Lara's handy work. The small tables that unfolded from the back of each seat were made of metal, and the bottom of the plates, made of magnets. There was a small flaw in this though - the metal silverware stuck to the plates. With each shovel with a spoon, lifting it required a certain amount of force, which, even with the steadiest of hands, flung the food upward a bit. A small amount of each bite fell back down to the plate. It was an easy fix with plastic utensils, but no one ever thought to pack them.

A violent snow whipped across the highway. The passengers saw a bleak future at Machine Mountain, and forecasted their stay short, with a snowed-in amusement park. Co-workers, one by one, began falling helplessly asleep, expecting to turn around and head home.

"We're here!" Lara exclaimed in excitement.

Moans of the sleep depraved filled the bus, and they began subconsciously getting up and dragging their belongings behind them, filling up to the front of the bus. The windows were iced over, except the areas the windshield wiper scraped away. Each person was wearing their warmest clothing, and was shaking from the mere thought of stepping outside the toasty bus.

The door opened, and Lara and I, being the first ones to the front, got the brunt of the crisp air that blew past and quickly circulated the stuffy bus. We were all surprised to find that there was very little snowfall, and the wind was tame. Along Machine Mountain, the large steel hill, a constant
whirr
of fans fought against the snowstorm around the theme park. The fans were the size of propellers on a helicopter, and were constantly shifting for the finest weather suppression. They would crane up, and rotate around, to adapt to the wind change. When the snow and wind would calm, a couple of the fans would withdraw and fold into the metal hill.

It looked as though we were in an oddly shaped snow globe, except most of the snow was outside.

"That is the most amazing thing I've ever seen," Ronald, a fellow data analyst said, gaping up at the automated devices.

"I read about them from Machine Mountain's head engineer's blog. He says that is just a hint of what's to come," Lara explained in awe. "There are videos floating around the internet from people passing by and recording Machine Mountain doing test runs of the WindBlades."

Only small amounts of snow strayed from its school, and it fell like a calm winter day.

Lara and I continued on to the portcullis front entrance. Above it, read the sign
Machine Mountain.
And below it,
Don't touch the gate, please.
It had what seemed like electricity running through the bars, giving the gate life. I reached out to touch it, and it gave me a stern shock. An army of guns protruded from the panels on the walls, all different shapes and sizes, and all aiming at me. They ranged from machine guns, shotguns, handguns and even a bow and arrow.

"Your Machine Mountain passes please," a voice requested merrily from the speakers. "Ahh, Mr. Netak! Good to see you again. Welcome to Machine Mountain!" The electricity continued to flow through the gate as it lifted.

Despite there being over two dozen co-workers behind us, each gun kept their aim trained on me. It was a bit exciting. When I was out of site, each gun took aim on new a target. All the Jericho Communication tech nerds were giddy about being a target. Lara was one of them.

When the gateway lifted, and we entered, we walked into a dimly lit area. For a minute it seemed like a small snowy village - until it came to life. At each of our feet, two small lights on the ground drew apart, creating a circle around each of us, and then a fade of the light filled it. I looked around, and we all had the circle marker underneath us, each a different color than the other. Mine was a dark green, while Lara's, a steel blue.

It confused us all, as to how the lights even operated. The ground, along with the portcullis, had the metallic look of steel. How light escaped from the surface puzzled us.

We were all excited about the rings of light under us, that we forgot about the rest of the park for the moment. Even Mr. Netak tried jumping away from his large orb of light. He couldn't outsmart it.

Lamps glowed with light that faded the further they went. Shops had the texture of brick or stone, with small windows covered by curtains. It definitely wasn't what any of us were expecting. It seemed like a fifteenth century town.

"So, this
tavern
we're to sleep in is in the middle of Camelot?" Ben, the funny guy of the office, asked sarcastically.

Most of the people laughed, but immediately stopped when a bright light powered on down the road. The machine was the size and shape of a soccer ball. Just eight feet in the air, it hung like a piñata.

It suddenly zoomed over to us, hanging from a strong power cord. One optical lens looked out through the opening of one of the sides. Instead of the gadget turning for the camera to look in other directions, the camera lens only shifted in the machine, and the panel it once looked through, closed, and another panel side opened where the camera lens poked out to look through.

As it passed the shops, the walls changed from stone and brick walls, to glass walls and cathode lights, which gleamed on the merchandise. The walls, the floor, and even some of the windows changed theme, instantly. We were now in a dark futuristic city.

The hanging device stopped at our group, and opened five of its many sides at once, so the optical lens could move and look freely at our entire group. "Welcome to Machine Mountain! I'm Vern, your Machine Mountain Resort exclusive guide," the friendly ball said in an auto-tuned voice. "Charge complete!"

The cord it hung from disconnected, and Vern fell two feet, before a whir of fans sounded from the bottom of it. The bottom ports had opened, revealing fans that spun to keep it steadily in the air. When it lost balance and tipped over to the side, it repositioned the open panels, to go along with the fans, and it continued hovering.

My co-workers received a surge of energy after seeing the first few surprises Machine Mountain had to offer, and instead of following Vern, the hovering robot, they ventured out into the futuristic fun land. I was ready to join them, when I noticed that Lara seemed half-awake. Her eyes were dark, and she had a soda in her hand and continued gulping it down, to stay awake.

She revealed to me that she was very excited for the theme park, too excited, in fact, that she spent the past night researching the park online, with no sleep. Still, she took my hand and pulled to explore Machine Mountain, like a stubborn child. I told her I wanted to get sleep and then see every attraction the next day. She surrendered, and retreated to her room.

And, as fast as the night started, it ended. However, not before I met my new roommate.

The contents of my luggage were already sorted into the dresser on my side of the room. The drawers only needed a touch to slide open automatically. I wondered how it worked, as I only put it in a conveyor belt that Vern told us to put our luggage on. I touched the top drawer, which slid open, containing all my clothes. I didn't need to look in the others, but I was curious anyway.

The second drawer contained an eBook reader, which had dozens of bibles installed on it. The last drawer I opened, had more clothes. They weren't mine though. They were all small and bright colors. I picked one up and, viewing it away from the rest, realized it was sexy lingerie. Very sexy and very skimpy.

"What do you think you're doing?" a voice came from behind me.

I turned around to find a supermodel in a towel, coming out of the bathroom. At that moment, the lights dimmed, the two twin beds formed together, two glasses of wine sank from a panel connected to the ceiling and smooth jazz began playing, seemingly from nowhere. As I stood, blameless, she looked at me as if I were the scum of the earth.

After I explained myself and put back the lingerie - the jazz fizzled, the beds detached and the lights shined. As the two of us laughed it off, and drank our wine, two robotic claws reached down from the ceiling and took our glasses, while I was in mid sip.

Eight hours later, I awoke to Lara's joyful smile. She had been staring at me for five minutes, wanting to not wake me, until she
accidently
coughed very loudly.

The ceiling was in disarray. The panel from where the wine lowered was open, with a jack wedged between to keep it ajar. My roommate lay half-dressed, on top of her covers, with an empty bottle of wine she cradled tightly to her chest in one hand, and a crowbar loosely in the other.

"What happened to her?"

"She's Sally, Jericho Communications' mechanic, and our drunk," Lara answered, unfazed by the scene.

She sure didn't look like a mechanic of any kind.