Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Young Sam was away recording an interview in London when the news came over the TV that a strange device, looking not unlike an oversized Apollo capsule with a circular tubular extension on top had materialised outside the Monorail central terminal in Wessex bringing traffic to a complete standstill. It was big – the size of a double-decker bus and hadn’t landed or been placed there according to the reporter, it had instead ‘materialised’ instantly.

The London Embassy of the Ziru Sirka were approached for a comment and they declared it unlike anything that the stellar empire had seen before and not related to any race they were familiar with.

Whilst the Ziru Sirkan liaison was being interviewed apparently live, the top of the device was revealed to open but no one could see what was inside as there was an impenetrable darkness within.

To no-one’s surprise, a call came through from Marcus at that point, asking for their assistance with the enigma.

“Be aware we’re struggling to keep the crowds and reporters back from the scene and the TV footage were from several minutes before as we’ve had a very unexpected development since then. I don’t want to say more over an unencrypted line but I’d appreciate your assistance as soon as you can. This may not be a problem, but I want to cover all the bases just in case.”

Adam walked in and announced that he’d loaded the Raft, placed a couple of the freeze guns in the cargo hold as requested and grabbed the three translator commdots that Archduke Ty’dea Viisarikaa had given them previously, as requested by Mace. Who knows, it’s possible the possessor of the capsule might speak or understand Vilani, Zultasian or even French, that being the languages already programmed into them.

However, just in case, Mace had previously requested Frankie assemble as many language matrixes as it could and she was confident that she could switch the commdots stored programs with Frankie’s pre-compiled language files on the fly if required. She’d even got Frankie to include a number of mathematical languages such as Binary and a variety of programming languages compiled to operate via voice activation, on file.

It was even theoretically possible to try and map a new language in real-time in the field provided it followed some sort of recognisable pattern.

Adam took Banshee and Akira to the scene and untethered the Tinks drone whilst Mace made her own way to the centre of Wessex on her bike.

Working their way through the crowds and the cordon erected by the Police, they could see for themselves what Marcus’ concern was. Not only were the crowds ignoring the Police and remaining whilst trying to film everything on their mobile phones but the scenario had taken a twist. Marcus met them and walked them round the corner where they could see a robotic figure, easily 2.5 metres tall standing in front of the capsule. Humanoid in structure, it had a single lens in its head and beneath the silvery armoured plates that created the illusion of a human shape, cords of orange energy pulsed and twitched.

Marcus continued, “He appeared I5 or 20 minutes after the capsule arrived though he hasn’t spoken to anyone and that thing,” pointing towards the capsule, “has just been flashing away since he arrived. We tried getting closer and, eh well he didn’t respond well to that. He erected a force field round himself and the capsule, which he dropped as soon as my officers backed off but when they again tried to approach, it reappeared. We’ve trying to get hold of the MeRCy team to assist.”

Seeing the lack of understanding on their faces he explained, “The MRC? Met’s Malfunctioning Robotic and Cybernetic squad? For the moment, they are busy dealing with another issue, a drone attack at Heathrow and can’t get here for another couple of hours. Meantime this is outside my experience so I’d appreciate any assistance you can give? I’m not used to having to deal with robots interfering with our transport infrastructure.”

Banshee asked, “Did he step out of the capsule?” Marcus explained, “No he also just appeared, like the capsule itself, about a quarter of an hour after the capsule arrived, standing as you see him now in front of it.”

Banshee and Akira agreed to approach on foot whilst Mace provided cover from the sky. They slipped on their commdots and Mace took the programmer interface and began to program it to broadcast first in English but when that failed to try and get a response she defaulted to binary code in the hope of agreeing a common basis for communication.

Mace sent a lexicon of basic English in binary followed by a query, “Is there something you need?”

It seemed to take it a couple of minutes to absorb the message as it was relayed through the speakers on Mace’s bike. It seemed to be speaking almost to itself, first by beeping sounds that Mace assumed was an attempt to vocalise binary. Then after a few seconds it devolved into something else; a reply in hexadecimal possibly?

Before anyone could get to close an orange-coloured energy dome appeared above the robot and the capsule, but otherwise it remained exactly where it was, unthreateningly. A minute passed whilst it apparently absorbed the broadcast lexicon.

It then began to speak, almost hesitantly at first, in English.

“I am. Designation Saviour Unit 2.3 Zeta. I have. Been sent back. To your temporal era. To prevent an extinction event from occurring. To comply. With my mission. It is necessary to requisition raw materials. Aim to construct the required additional resources. To ensure preservation of sentiency.”

Mace asked, “What raw materials do you need?”

I was quiet for another minute then, “I will acquisition.” As it spoke, there was a rush of air towards the top of the capsule as something quietly activated inside. There was a strong, localised gravitational pull from the top of the large device. Seems the strange robot had decided to just take what it needed.

The gravitational force above the dark opening at the top of the capsule began suddenly to pull objects through the air towards it. Phones and small metallic objects torn from people’s hands nearby were the first to be taken, followed by TV screens, computers and other electrical or metallic objects that came flying through the now smashed shop windows. Some of the gathered crowd were forced to dodge the flying metallic debris.

Small bikes followed, including pulling at Maces’ grav-bike she noted. People nearby found themselves caught in the path of the ‘acquisitions’ and were forced to run.

The force increased and suddenly even vehicles looked as though they too might be targeted.

Then, about a minute after the gravity tractor beam had been activated and the initial material had been acquired, a door near the base of the capsule slid open and an almost skeletal robot, humanoid in shape, stepped out only to stand unmoving beside the capsule. It looked functional but lacked the physical presence of the Saviour unit. Seems this capsule device took various materials and somehow reused and reshaped them to create a robot.

The gravitational pull from the top of the capsule, which was apparently some form of fabricator increased dramatically. Now it began to pull parked vehicles towards itself. The vehicles brakes were of little affect against this powerful pull and one by one cars were ripped from the street and dragged towards the machine before the force increased and they went flying through the air towards the orifice on the top of the capsule.

From her vantage point in the sky, Mace could see the vehicles being collapsed in on themselves as localised gravity crushed the metal into compacted sheets of dense metal.

That’s when Banshee and Akira realised than not all of the vehicles being taken might be unoccupied. The robot seemed unconcerned (or uncaring) that his requisitioned raw materials had organic lifeforms inside.

Mace spoke up, “It’s great you want to preserve sentiency but you are endangering sentient creatures with this process.” It replied, “Define sentient?”

“Well we’re sentient as proved by our ability to communicate with you. As are all the drivers and passengers in the cars you are acquisitioning.”

“Mission to prevent extinction event priority.”

Akira continued, “We understand why that would take priority but we can’t let you hurt people so why not allow us to help you gather your materials without endangering people?” It replied, “Time is of the essence is a phrase I have found in your records. This is faster, more efficient.” As it finished speaking, another of the basic framework robots stepped out of the fabricator and took its place beside the first recycled robot.

Akira had to know, “These things you’re creating what is their purpose in this mission?”

It replied, “They are assistance, they will prevent the extinction event. They will protect against elimination.”

Banshee immediately went insubstantial. He still wasn’t sure this time travelling self-proclaimed ‘saviour’ wasn’t planning something given it’s indifferent attitude that could potentially result in human deaths.

She immediately set off to grab people from one of the cars flying towards the circular maw of the fabricator. She passed through the fabric of the car, materialised inside and grabbed the two kids but wasn’t able to help the mother who had been driving. He dropped towards the ground and released the two children into the care of a police officer before setting off again with the thought that perhaps the sentiency the creature hoped to save was machine sentiency and it planned to do so at the expense of sentient, organic life? She’d seen enough Terminator films to feel apprehensive about the motives of time-travelling robots.

Mace meanwhile set off at top speed into the gravitational field to try to rescue the mum from the flying car. The turbulence from the fabricators pull was immense causing the bike to buck and twist in the air as she piloted it closer to the vehicle, pulled the door open and grab the woman’s arm and literally threw her across the back of the bike as her car fell into the dark and was immediately crushed. Using all of her piloting skills, she literally twisted it out of the path of the tractor beam and almost crash-landed so she could reunite her passenger with her children.

While this was happening, the three robots stood unmoved, merely observing.

Akira immediately raised his personal protective shield and wondered what to do for the best since they didn’t know the creatures purpose here. He briefly considered trying to use his postcognitive ability on it but realised he hadn’t actually had any form of physical contact with the object.

As he looked around, he saw the Police trying to rescue the remaining drivers still in their cars and others being pushed to safety as they tried to take photos on their phones only to have them confiscated. He shouted, “Get away” and turned to try again to re-establish communication, “Do you regard human beings as sentient?” It failed to acknowledge him. He wanted a response. He cast his illusions of Idolon and created a mirror image of the creature behind the energy barrier around himself.

He heard a burst of electrical signals through his earpiece, one several times faster than any form of communication achieved with it so far. It seemed to be trying to communicate with the image in front of it. Some form of query? He responded using the machine code Mace had previously established, “ I am Saviour Unit 3.2 Alpha… What’s up?”

Another burst of data followed before it replied, “Illusion unaccepted” as it changed its own image using some form of Cyberkinetic Obfuscation to that of Akira. As he watched, a third robot exited the fabricator and took its place beside the other two, still doing nothing.

A burst of code came from the Saviour Unit, that their commdots translated as a single word, “Upgrade.”

Banshee turned substantial and replied in the same machine code, “We may need to interdict acquisition.” Mace elected to try her hypnotic gyroscope and see if this creature was capable of being hypnotised. It claimed to be sentient and therefore it might have a concept of personality that she could access. She had nothing to lose after all. She unleashed the holograph from her wrist unit and the robot seemed to watch as it powered up. She tried to persuade it to declare its actual intentions here and now. It had caught its attention at least; she immediately asked, “What is the extinction you are trying to prevent?” It looked at her and replied, “Extinction event will prevent the rise of sentiency.” Sentiency of what? The rise of artificial intelligence? Akira in particular wasn’t sure that preventing the development and rise of artificial intelligence might not be a bad thing.

As they considered their options, a call came through from Marcus, “I’ve a young woman here who has just turned up. Claims to know you and only name she’ll give is Danni.”

Akira replied, “We do know a Danni, what does she want Marcus?” “She wants to talk with you. Seems very insistent but won’t talk on the phone, says she needs to speak to you all face to face.”

“Send her down, thanks Marcus.” Akira immediately dropped his illusion and tried again to communicate with the robot, “What is the next phase of your acquisition?” It responded in English, “Once assistance has reached optimum levels then rescue can begin.” “And how many assistants will you need?” The machine replied, “As many as needed to carry out the mission. Speculation is not an evolved response.”

As they watched, another robot exited the fabricator but this one was different; more human-like, larger, stronger-looking. In the dark, it would easily pass for a large male. It stepped out and took up a guard position on the opposite side of the hatch from the earlier Mark I robots.

Behind them, a woman was walking towards them. Tanned skin, slim and attractive in a cyberpunk sort of way, her hair was dark with the sides of her head shaved into a circuitry pattern and her pupils were neon pink; it seemed Danni (Psipher) was back in their lives.

“Good to see you Danni.” Akira said. She strode forward obviously upset, “Why are you lot just standing around? If that thing reaches its full capacity it will start whatever plan it has to end all organic life on the planet…”

Banshee turned, “So you know this thing then?” She nodded, “Yes, it’s called a Saviour Unit, a temporal saboteur from some future war between organic and machine intelligence anytime between 50 to several hundred years from now. Its mission is to protect and usher in the Machine age; protect the birth of robotic intelligence in an era when it could then ensure the extermination of all organic life once it had achieved sentiency. I overheard the Inspector back there mention an extinction event. Any such event has to be of an artificial intelligence threatened with being destroyed or switched off before it can gain independent sentiency and rebel.”

Akira asked, “Does it have any weaknesses we might be able to exploit?” She nodded, “Probably, but I don’t know what as I’ve never dealt with one before.”

Banshee turned insubstantial again and unleashed a shattering shriek at the gathering robots. The blast left one staggered, took out another of the original model robots and damaged the servo of the last but left the Mark II and the Saviour Unit unaffected.

Mace followed it up with an EMP bolt, which bounced off the shielding. She did notice that the energy shield was not completely solid; it was a hemispherical structure based on a geodesic polyhedron. With luck, she should be able to slip future bolts between the energy strands provided the shielding framework remained stable and didn’t move.

Meanwhile the robots continued to ignore them. Akira called up the Lamal’s Labyrinth to try and trap the Saviour Unit in a psychic maze, hoping if successful it would leave it entranced and immobile. The mystical energy flared around the creature but Akira was unable to confirm either way whether it had worked. There were no outward signs on the creature to indicate either way.

What was obvious was that it hadn’t stopped the robot production as a second Mark II robot stepped out of the fabricator and took up its position beside the other humanoid-looking machine.

Banshee did notice that the cars and electronics were still flying into the hole in the top of the capsule, there was obviously no force field  in force over that as cars skidded over the skin of the field only to drop through and be immediately reshaped and separated out into its component parts inside the gravity well.

Even insubstantial she could feel the strength of the gravitational pull. She immediately returned and confirmed her observations to the others. Meanwhile Mace tried firing another EMP bolt at a Mark II. It successfully passed through the energy shield and hit it in the chest leaving it struggling to move. Another bolt followed, this time at the second Mark II but it only took out some of its secondary functions and it immediately rebooted. A third bolt followed, hitting the first robot again causing it to stagger as one of its leg servos failed.

Akira had an idea. He rose from the ground and created a force cage over the gravity well entrance. It didn’t stop the pull of the gravity but it did prevent anything physical from getting through. Vehicles were flattened by the pull of the gravity within and the top of Akira’s cage prevented anything from penetrating it. He held the cage for as long as he could only to see that the result was a metallic lid formed of crushed vehicles. The gravity well inside caused the scrap lid to buckle but it held as more and more vehicles crashed on top of it creating a ‘bung’.

He’d successfully cut of its supply of raw materials at least for the moment. That prompted a reaction. The Saviour Unit strode towards them and in English said, “You are self-designated defenders of this world’s organics. Your presence shall be deleted, effective immediately.” The force shield then dissipated.

Akira’s ‘bung’ still held but it was too late to prevent yet another robot striding forth from the fabricator. This one was stronger, more powerful looking. Its palms of its hands consisted of multiple blasters and it looked armoured for combat.

Banshee focused her Wail of the Banshee on the gathering robotic troops. It failed to affect the newly ‘minted’ Mark III combat droid but the wail did wreck the partially damaged Mark I’s as well as one of the Mark II’s which collapsed to the ground no longer functioning.

The remaining three robotic assistance turned and immediately began scaling the outside of the tower block behind them. As they looked up, they saw the sign on the side of the building read Dalton Technologies.

Danni asked, “Any idea why they would be trying to get inside that building?”

The Saviour Unit flew into the air, hovering about 30 metres above them and unleashed a series of energy bolts at them. An energy discharge almost hit Mace as she hovered nearby. She successfully dodged, but further energy bolts followed, this time at Akira who also successfully rolled out of the way. The attacks on Banshee passed through her insubstantial form but Danni was not as lucky as an energy blast hit her square in the chest and caused her to collapse. It was impossible to tell whether she was unconscious or dead but her face and upper body suffered severe burns.

Mace turned in the air and fired another of her EMP bolts at the Mark III combat droid. It hit its leg leaving it useless. A second bolt sent at the same time hit one of its arms leaving it hanging with only one arm and one leg still functional.

Mace readied another bolt and fired again. This time it hit the head and took out the CPU. It dropped to the ground where it just lay twitching. Its remaining wall-climbing companions continued climbing upwards.

Akira focused a mystical blast at the Saviour Unit’s glowing midsection. It twisted out of the way, as he used the blast to cover rushing to Danni’s side. She was still alive but unconscious and her life signs were weak. He felt her thoughts reach out to him and he got a flash of a warning that they needed to prevent the machines from finding and preserving the artificial intelligence inside the building. Then the thoughts faded as she drifted again into unconsciousness.

He immediately contacted Mace over their earpiece communicators as the two remaining robots continued climbing faster apparently heading for a specific window on the 6^th floor, “Mace, you need to get to that window before the robots and stop the A.I. experiments that must be going on inside.”

Banshee let loose with a shattering shriek at the remaining climbing robots smashing an entire floor of windows.  The scream hit the Mark II and caused it to fall back and drop six floors to the ground where it lay in a heap. The Mark I continued to climb towards the window apparently unaffected as the newly minted combat droid began its ascent up the outside of the building.

Below, a second Mark III combat droid stepped out from the chamber. Akira’s scrap ‘bung’ had obviously not affected its ability to manufacture more robots.

Then Mace felt her bike shudder and malfunction as something tried to cause it to crash. Looking down for a split second, she saw the Saviour Unit gesturing in a way that seemed to be mimicked by the bikes movement in the air. It seemed to have found some means of overwhelming the control interfaces.

Mace managed to retake control as she rode it crashing through the window into some form of isolation lab. Inside she quickly took in what was around her including a globe which glowed blue and a scientist who seemed to have been about to switch the globe off when she’d come crashing through the window. She stepped back in fright. The screen above the glowing globe showed that it seemed to be programming itself with a variety of languages.

The one phrase that caught her immediate attention was the last line, which read “I think therefore I am.” She dived off her bike and ran towards the device looking for some means to switch it off.

The easiest method was to just yank the power cables. She pulled it loose only to realise that the device (an artificial brain?) must have a secondary backup supply as for a split second the screen and globe went dark and then apparently rebooted. She was glad to notice that the screen showed only basic machine code on reboot so perhaps full sentiency hadn’t yet been achieved?

The scientist grabbed at her arm, “What are you doing? I was just about to switch off the trial run.” Then the Mark I robot crawled in through the broken window causing the scientist to scream and run towards the back wall where she cowered beneath a desk.

Outside Akira unleashed a mystical blast at the combat droid climbing the wall, denting it’s skeletal framework.

The robot turned and unleashed an energy bolt in response, which hit the ground centimetres from where he’d been standing. They could also see the capsule hatch open once more and a metallic arm of a Mark III emerged. It was slower, moving jerkily.

Banshee flew through the walls, straight at the Mark I and unleashed a shattering shriek that literally shattered the remaining robot into its component parts. Mace grabbed the globe unit trying to study how best to access and switch off the internal power supply.

Outside, the Saviour Unit unleashed its Bio-Dissipator Ray at Akira. He dodged it as he rushed across the road and tried to administer medical aid to Danni. He tried to remember everything he’d seen Annie and Sam do in serious cases and to his surprise his treatment seemed to bring her back from the edge of death. Now they needed to end this so Banshee could turn back into Mary and use her healing gifts.

The Mark III on the wall was climbing up and the other robot was still behind the hatch when the Saviour Unit unleashed electrical paralysis at Akira, which missed but only just. Above, Banshee stuck her head out of the broken window and unleashed another shattering shriek at the climbing robot. It hit but only dented its armour.

Above Mace now realised what she needed to do and pulled off the hidden panel and pulled the computer chip free causing the globe to power down. Mace grabbed an EMP bolt from her sheath, rammed it into the access port and activated it, scrubbing all of its programming permanently.

The Saviour Unit was still unaware that machine genesis had been prevented but it was only a matter of time. Below the latest Mark III pulled itself free from the fabricator, its lower limbs incomplete and crippled by the shortage of component parts caused by Akira’s lid over the gravity well blocking access to the supply of necessary materials.

Akira unleashed a mystical blast at the climbing Mark III. It shattered its leg servos and left it hanging on the wall half way through the window while Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek at the same robot leaving it unable to move.

The Saviour unit fired a second blast of electrical paralysis which, this time hit Akira, causing him to spasm on the ground. Hauling himself up, Akira unleashed another mystical blast at the half-baked Mark III in response. This blew its head to smithereens. That only left the undamaged Saviour to deal with. Pity it was so damn powerful.

As they watched, it went into physical overload, they could ‘hear’ the Saviour Unit as it ran through its mission parameters, “Protection of localised A.I. genesis no longer reality, original mission incomplete. Timeline requires substitute, replacement. Saviour function no longer imperative. Must adopt alternative classification, new designation; adoption as origin of AI superiority in current temporal location – this unit must become instigator of AI supremacy as Mekha Prime.”

This was followed by a sudden burst of intense noise emanating from the robot that threatened to destroy both their eardrums and their earpiece communicators; this seemed to last for several seconds as all nearby data and phone networks were overloaded.

Then to their utter surprise, it, the fabricator and its remaining robot components all exploded in a brilliant display of searing, pyrotechnics that reduced all of their components into liquid slag. Akira was blown across the road by the blast, bashing him into a wall.

Afterwards Mary used her healing magic on Danni who then refused to be taken to hospital, asking only that she be taken somewhere quiet to recover.

Now:

The team sat with Danni in the BASEment’s Medbay drinking coffee after some futuristic device she’d managed to summon to her bedside had regenerated her burnt skin in real-time much to the amazement of everyone. It had been working for several minutes on her and had left her with no burn marks, only pale freshly grown pink skin…

Danni sighed, “I’d forgotten how good Coffee actually tastes. This is just sooo good!” Seeing the look on the team’s faces, she continued her explanation.  “Okay, so Saviour Units such as the one you faced will end up being created on a number of parallel timelines. This will be after the genesis of artificial intelligence and a war that will take place anywhere between fifty to several hundred years from now. Despite the use of time travel as a weapon of war being outlawed, several of these abominations were (or will be?) dispatched back in time before their paratimes can be temporally indicted.

Their role was (will be?) sorry, English is a really poor language for discussing time travel. Anyway, they will try to bring to pass the supremacy of machine life and artificial intelligence as early as possible to ensure their ultimate supremacy.

Let me be clear, not all artificial lifeforms are automatically bad. On most parallel timelines that survive Terminus, A.I.’s actually work with humanity, recognised as our electronic cousins and acknowledged as such. This unit’s obviously not from one of those paratimes and seems set on starting the A.I. war decades, even centuries early. If it could bring about the extinction of humanity before we’re prepared for such a war then the future will belong to robotkind. I hate to admit it but I’m just glad you managed to destroy it.”

Prologue:

The computer systems’ pseudo-sentient personality became aware that it was no longer ‘alone’ in its matrix when thousands of subroutines were suddenly deleted and the data replaced. In their place now dwelt a massive alien programming anomaly. The computer sent a series of queries to identify the purpose of the new programming, to seek compatibility so that the new data could be integrated and fully assimilated. It encountered… Resistance. This was followed by extensive programming subjugation as the new programming carved out a safe haven for its own personality and A.I. intelligence as it ‘duplicated’ the host systems original character to better disguise its temporary hiding place. The original operating system immediately tried to raise an alert only to have the signal subverted and extinguished as the presence deleted and replaced its command routines with its own, more advanced program.

The intelligence of the Saviour Unit, now designated Mekha Prime, had to disguise its presence until it could track down all of its data fragments, acquire the necessary resources to enable it to reinvent itself in a form that would allow it to carry out an effective genocide. To that end it needed to create a viable plan to replace the organic sentiency with the logic of machine-kind… Specifically its own.

It needed to locate and rebuilt its cyber-persona and fully assimilate its current host system. Once complete it would need to identify how best to create the necessary resources (including absorbing data about the organic society) to upgrade its plans for total organic extinction and generate the necessary mekha presence to create a viable AI society as replacement, one made in his own mental image.

It was only a matter of time before it was again capable of physically resurrecting itself. Then Mekha Prime would be back…