Drinks and Death

                                        1

“It’s going to be the end of the world as we know it.”

It’s been weeks since we became the most wanted criminals in Japan, and all we’ve done since then is lay low at Fuchu prison and hunt for some scraps of information. It’s been frustrating, but it seems like Terry’s taken it the hardest. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for all the frenzied little speech he just made.

Clear apparently shares my sentiments, because she leans forward and squints at Terry like he’s lost a few screws.

“Say that again, but try making sense this time.”

He sighs, annoyed that we didn’t make sense of his ramblings.

“Alright. You all know what the Alliance is, I presume?”

We nod.

Ah, you’re probably clueless. I’ll fill you in, although it probably doesn’t make for the most interesting read.

There are only seven countries in the world classified as neo-nations. USA, France, India, Australia, Russia, The UK and Japan. These countries are where most of the robot population is concentrated. The rest of the world is uninhabited according to official records, but actually several zones are populated by bots that have fallen off the radar. Criminals, refugees and the sort. They’re known as ghost towns.

Six of these seven neo-nations are in an alliance, and they follow orders from the High Council, a committee made up of representatives from the member nations.

Japan’s the odd one out. It’s maintained minimal contact with the outside world, and has never responded to the Alliance’s offers of membership.

It makes sense though; the government of Japan is too different from the other neonations. Under the leadership of the High Council, the administration of these nations changed drastically. Bots who didn’t meet ridiculous functional requirements were deported, and the creation of new bots stopped entirely. Their modules were now used only to maintain their huge droid armies.

The end result of all their policies was the formation of military nations with a hundreds to one droid:bot ratio. What was the point? Nobody could tell.

Japan more closely resembled a ghost town than a neonation, with its unchecked bot population and practically nonexistent justice system.

“I managed to find out that our mysterious friend is looking to expand the borders of Japan. He’s looking to take over every single ghost town in Asia over the next year or so.”

That didn’t seem like a wise plan. Territorial expansion was strictly against the regulations the High Council had haughtily imposed on the rest of the world, which meant that the moment Japan claimed another inch of land as its own, it would be considered an aggressor.

“That’s begging for a full blown war with the alliance.”

Terry stares at me blankly.

“That will be unavoidable, since the endgame appears to be…. taking over the entire world.”

“And how does he plan on doing that? With what army?”

“Who the fuck is ‘he’ anyway?”

Clear had been uncharacteristically quiet for a while now, but it was on all our minds anyway.

“Could just be Sparks. AI Duplication’s not very hard. I say he already downloaded himself onto a better body and was just using this clone as a safety measure for whenever some idiots like us showed up.”

“I agree. As I’ve told you already, Sparks is a monster. It’s hard for me to believe he’d go out like that.”

Whoever it was, we had a bigger problem at hand.

The one thing about our ‘mysterious friend’ that irked me the most was that he’d spoken as if all our actions were part of a grand plan he’d orchestrated.

“Those who fail to see the strings can only dance to the tune”, he said.

“What difference does it make, really? We kick the right doors down and we’ll run into this guy eventually. We’ll just take him down then.”

“It was that kind of harebrained thinking that got us into this pickle in the first place.”

We’ve clearly hit a brick wall here. Frustrated, Terry walks out of the room and I’m about to follow suit when Clear grabs me by the arm.

“Wanna blow this joint and get a drink?”

As you know, S models had inbuilt filter systems which effectively nulled the effects of any intoxicant that entered our systems. But Clear obviously knew what she was talking about.

“Just the two of us?

“Terry’s always a pain in the ass when he’s this worked up and Bo’d probably explode if he even sniffed what I have in mind. So yes, it’s just us. You game?”

2

Clear leads me into an abandoned building in Machida with grimy, crumbling walls. She pulls open a trash chute hidden behind a few cardboard boxes, and jumps right in. These things are supposed to lead into an incinerator, but it seems like she knows what she’s doing so I follow suit. The chute’s surprisingly clean. And long. After a couple minutes, we drop out in an underground bunker which has been converted into a gaudy little club. A bunch of third grade bots mill about the room, glasses filled with cheap chemicals in their hand. Disappointing.

“What are you waiting for?”

She’s walking toward a dimly lit, almost unoccupied corner of the room. It appears this isn’t our final destination. That’s good to know.

She walks to a huge door labeled personnel only, and knocks on it thrice.

A gruff voice emerges from the other side of the door.

“This area’s out of bounds. Leave before I make you.”

Clear bangs on the door.

“Oy Monk, what’s this nonsense you’re spouting? How about I kick this door down and you say that to my face?”

A lens appears at the peephole.

“Ah, Clear! It’s been so long! This is a welcome surprise; Chap’s been down since you stopped showing up. Come in, come in.”

He opens the door. Clear punches the goliath softly on the chest and leads me down the hallway into a small, rustic lounge. There’s only a few bots here, all top notch.

A bot with eight arms stands at the bar, polishing glasses. When he notices us walk in, he almost leaps over the bar.

“Clear! Where have you been?”

“All around. It’s good to see you, Chap.”

“So, the usual stuff?”

“Nah, I was thinking something more hardcore.”

Knowing winks are exchanged. He turns to the shelves, moves a few bottles aside and pulls out a mini fridge that looks like a safe. He taps a few numbers in and it opens, dropping the room temperature by about 20 degrees.

“Sorry about that, these babies have to be stored at absolute zero or they lose their moxie.”

He pulls out a small bottle filled to the brim with a pale blue liquid and hands it to Clear.

“To celebrate your return, first one’s on the house.”

We find a table in a corner of the room, and pop it open.

“CC450. It’s downright corrosive. There’s no filter that can hold this one down.”

“Well then, cheers.”

True to its reputation, a single shot of the drink has my circuits buzzing.

“I’ve wanted to ask for a while now, do you have any clue why you were made?”

“…?”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to answer. I’m just curious. With you being one of the three best bots in the world or whatever you said.”

“That’s only in theory. None of the Tokveyainich lived up to the expectations.”

“…”

“I worked for MAO for a few decades. Basically ran cleanup after the Vessel of Order, went on a few A-Grade missions here and there. A few years after I reneged I went back to Okinawa lab in search of some files, and I ended up digging the blueprint for the Tokveyainich module.”

I pause and down another shot of the liquid. Talking about this stuff is a pain.

“The module was created to produce two units. The Vessel of Order and the Vessel of Chaos.

“Vessel of Chaos?”

“The human. There’s practically no information on it, but from what I gathered it was designed as MAO’s prime weapon, to lay waste to any opponents of Karl Sparks’ machinations.”

“….”

“There’s no other files, no other units on record. I suppose I was just created to ensure the functionality of the module before the ‘prime weapon’ was developed. And judging by how the human went kapow the moment it set foot on this planet, I failed at even that.”

This was the only defining characteristic of my existence.

In this cut throat world, you don’t get to fail. If you stumble, it’s all over.

But somehow I mess up over and over, and I get to walk away.

Someone else pays the price for my blunders.

I down another shot before I follow that line of thought any further. This drink’s dulling my senses with every drop I ingest, but apparently even that’s not enough to properly sedate me.

Clear looks lost in thought, and we drink in silence for a while until the bottle runs out and she beckons for another.

“As far as I know, I was created sometime around 2115. But I was activated over two decades later, when a bunch of pea brained bots were raiding the lab I was stored in, and pressed the wrong buttons while trying to open the doors. I ran through the entire database after that, but there was practically no data on me. My creator had wiped everything, even my name. It seems like he just didn’t want me to exist. Perhaps I was bad product, the result of a mistake he didn’t want to own up to.”

Ouch. And here I thought my origin story was depressing.

“I managed to find some data on the only other bot my creator had made, and tracked him down here in Tokyo. That man taught me everything I know, but it didn’t end well.”

“……Did he die?”

“No, I just couldn’t be around him anymore. He wasn’t who he seemed to be. Or perhaps it was that he was exactly who he seemed to be, and I couldn’t take that.”

“…..”

“I’m just babbling, sorry. I met Terry and Bo a few years after that, and I stuck around since I have nothing better to do.”

“You’re fighting a supervillain who plans on taking over the world because you’re unoccupied? I don’t buy it.”

“You’re sharp.”

“Not sharp enough to figure out why you’re actually doing this.”

“It’s stupid.”

“….”

“If we end up taking him down, it’s my way of sticking it to my creator, wherever the hell he is now. The bot who he wanted to keep locked away in a lab forever ended up saving the world; I like the sound of that.”

Whether this mentality was naïve or admirable, I couldn’t tell.

What was more important was whether it would survive as long as she did. I certainly hope it does.

There are few things as painful as your self-perception crumbling. For the walls to come down around you, despite you desperately trying to put the bricks back in their places.

It seems that our brooding has soured the mood at the table, and even the drink isn’t helping.

“We should get going.”

3

The next day, Clear and Terry leave on a covert mission to bust into the MAO Lab in Hokkaido. It was supposed to be a team mission, but I’ve not bounced back from our little party last night nearly as well as Clear has and Bo weasels out of it as well, complaining about some loose wiring. We hang about for a little while, but the silence is beyond awkward so I get up and leave.

As I’m walking around, the building suddenly erupts in a cacophony of sirens.

I make my way to the control panel, and there’s an emergency message on the main screen.

“Security Breach. Critical.”

I toggle over to the camera which has a view on the entrance, and it shows me that the main door’s been ripped to pieces.

I toggle through the cameras until I finally have eyes on the ‘breach’.

A deep maroon, seemingly ancient bot with a black engraved leg is nonchalantly striding around the building, probably looking for a staircase.

It’s a bot I remember only too well.

Bot recognized

Name: Zero

Base Model: S-3

Place of Manufacture: New York

Date of Manufacture: 17th January, 2110

Known Affiliations: NIL

Strength Ranking: #1

4

Do you agree that hatred is the most pure, most potent of all the emotions a sentient being is capable of?

When it rears its abominable head, it takes over one’s entire mindspace, blotting out any other emotions or ideas they’re capable of.

So it should be rocket fuel for the Azure Dragon.

In theory, at least.

The moment Zero walks into the surveillance room, I swing my fist at him.

It’s the hardest punch I’ve ever thrown.

The impact rocks his unprepared head backwards, and he stumbles to the ground.

And nothing else happens.

The Ultimate Weapon? What a joke.

He leaps back onto his feet as if he’d only tripped and fallen over. There isn’t even a dent on his face.

“No niceties? Okay then.”

He kicks me in the chest with a few megatonnes worth of force behind it. It appears that unlike mine, his special weapon actually works. I’m flung into the ceiling like a fluttering piece of paper.

Alerted by the commotion, Bo runs into the room. The moment he sees Zero kick me into the air, he lunges at him.

“Bo, no!”

It’s too late.

Without even bothering to dodge Bo’s arm, Zero throws another kick right at Bo’s head.

As I fall to the ground, something else clatters on the floor right beside me.

It’s Bo’s exoskull. The light emanating from within his two tiny eyes is rapidly diminishing.

It skittles around on the floor a little bit before resting its gaze upon me.

“Goodbye.”

The light slowly fades into nothingness.

FuckfuckfuckFUCK.

What is this?

Some sort of a sick joke?

If so, who’s laughing?

Who?

This bot in front of me?

After everything he’s done, I wouldn’t be surprised if he threw his head back and started cackling. Does he find this amusing?

No. He’s simply waiting for me to get up so he can get on with his job. It seems he’s recalled our first meeting, because there’s an odd look on his face.

Is that pity?

This bastard.

He doesn’t see me as anything more than an ant he had to step on. An unfortunate casualty.

I get back on my feet and square off with him, but I already know it’s a futile effort. Rage does little to change the fact that he’s strong, much stronger than I could ever be.

Some part of me is hoping he puts an end to this here and now, but I’m not afforded that luxury.

I never am.

Within a minute of our sorry little rematch, I catch another kick to my chest and this time, his foot passes right through my body.

And the whole world turns dark.