Why Wait?
Why Wait?
Story Copyright ANTIcarrot.
This far north the wind howled and wailed like a banshee. It drove snow hard enough to burry a person in minutes. In this white harsh wilderness only the eternal everglades, a few low buildings, a fence, and the radar dome of Listening Post 64-Alpha survived.
Kitchener also survived. In fact he survived, leaning against a tree like he was, in far greater comfort than the Aldens inside the 64-Alpha would have believed possible. He looked at the facility contemptuously. A radar dome for God's sake! It was pathetic. Still he did have a job to do, and his life
support wasn't infinite. Fifty meters away from the outer fence, Kitchener stepped away from the tree and into the fierce storm he'd been sheltering from, and started walking.
As he approached the fence he paused briefly to check the handgun at his waist. Kitchener had to smile as he did so. Carrying a handgun into battle? Ha! Now that was old fashioned! Sending a human into battle at all was horribly outdated. That's what 'things' were for! Still, the gun appealed to his
sense of melodrama. It felt right in a way that had nothing to do with weight or texture. Felt right in a way that attacking this installation without warning didn't...
He sighed. Surprise was the right way to do this. It was the way he had been trained. He smiled again. Whenever had he been trained to send people into battle? Never. Just trained to obey orders - even if they were silly petty orders, like these were. He hummed behind his heat mask. On the other
hand a little fun, if carefully managed, would fit in perfectly well with his orders, and if he was going for melodrama...
Thirty seconds later the locked fence-gate exploded. Not that the gate actually went anywhere, half buried as it was in snow. And not that it made even the slightest difference to Kitchener, who had set the change from the inside after jumping the fence, but it did make a loud bang and lots of pretty
sparkles, and told the people inside that something had just gone seriously FUBARed.
Guards, two of them, ran out into the compound carrying light arms. One looked briefly looked at the gate before dismissing it and joining its friend in searching for intruders.
Wolf? Kitchener thought, Husky? Other's definitely a polar bear. Sticking close to the buildings. Good training or afraid of the dark? Wonder if they even know what's about to hit them?
He decided not. If they really knew who and what he was they'd be using a lot more than two foot soldiers.
With a thought his perspective changed. Instead of watching from a dark corner of the compound he saw the scene from high up in the valley, and through targeting sights. The camera was tracking the polar bear. Kitchener took manual control and selected the 15mm machine gauss, putting the rails on minimum power. Then he sent a spray of bullets into the bricks and snow surrounding the bear, who dropped to the ground and returned fire randomly. He stopped when Kitchener did though, and began a futile scan of the surrounding area for the source.
When his colleague came round the corner the human aimed a burst at him too. For a while both fired back into the night, unable to know their attacker was over two kilometers away. In another way though he was only about seventy meters away. Kitchener switched back to his own eyes before
sending a kill command. The polar bear fell, followed by the husky. The human frowned. He didn't like killing canines; and could only hope it had been male. Kitchener really hated to waste anything potentially useful.
The human stood and deactivated the chameleon suit he was wearing, and pulled the gun as his enhanced vision saw two figures running towards the closed entrance from the other side. He raised the gun and fired with perfect accuracy as they came through. The bullet impact and then closing doors
threw both furs back inside. Kitchener followed, before removing his heat mask and kneeling down, careful to avoid the blood.
A deer, and another husky. The second was male and no great loss to him, but the first was a doe, and quite athletic from what he could see under her uniform. Kneeling down he briefly felt a form of pity. They had such wonderfully sensitive bellies and noses. And their feet, or rather the 'frog' part of their feet, were even more so. The fun you could have with a simple feather...
The fur who whirled around a corner to shoot him dropped before it had a chance to raise its gun. Either sides of the body bits of the wall flew inward in reaction to the path of the bullet. Kitchener didn't even look up. With three sets of eyes to choose from he didn't need to. Screams of a dozen varieties followed and he sighed before setting up filters against that kind of noise. Distractions all.
Clearing his mind he moved further into the complex, shooting guards and staff a he went. To kill if needed, winging them if not. Gradually silence again began to reign in 64-Alpha as the last of the guards died violently, either by his own gun or as single rounds from the two highly accurate auto-cannons punched through the outer-walls before neatly bisected their heads. The rest of the staff quickly learnt that running around in panic or screaming got them shot at.
Finally he came within sight of the central computer core. A red-fox male appeared in the doorway as Kitchener walked forward. The fox froze before back peddling, dropping the memory crystals. The gun came up, as his orders would be difficult to carry out if a gauss round accidentally bisected one of
the main computers - but he missed.
Something, a furr, collided into him as he cross an intersection, pushing his arm off course and throwing him of balance. It yelped in fright before disappearing into an office. He turned to follow it before pausing and turning back. Job first, bonus later.
Entering the core, he saw he hadn't completely missed. The fox was hunched up against a wall, holding his bleeding arm.
"Please, please don't kill me. I can help you! I..."
Kitchener shot him in the head before moving over to the central console and inserted the crystal he had in his pocket. Entering the access code he had been given during briefing he gained access to the system and uploaded the contents of the crystal to the computer. Then he left in search of his previous quarry.
Turning the filters off, Kitchener listened to his surroundings. Only a few quiet whimpers and sounds of ragged breathing reached him. He winced and filtered out the last again. They made his chest cramp. Slaving his hearing to his eyesight, he swept left and right until he found the source of the closest whimpering and entered an office near where he'd last seen his 'attacker'. A brief search revealed a female collie sobbing under a desk. As he came nearer her ears twitched and her head came up to look at him with terror and tear soaked eyes.
"Don't kill me. Please don't kill me!"
"Shush," He hushed her as he knelt down and moved slightly closer. "I won't hurt you."
"You killed everyone!"
"No, I killed about one sixth of the staff here, mainly guards, and merely injured another third. They should survive if the remainder know basic first aid."
"I'll tell, I'll tell you anything. Anything you want. Just please, no more."
"Oh, no. Shush, shush. You don't need to tell me anything. I'm not here for that."
She stared at him as she finally got her emotions under some semblance of control. He glanced down at her badge. Intelligence officer. Makes sense she could use confusion as a point of stability, in a twisted sort of way.
"You're a human?" He nodded. "Why then?"
"To put something in, not take it out."
She thought for a moment before her eyes widened.
"A virus!" Another nod.
She seemed to think about this for a moment before asking quietly, "What does it do?"
"Would you like to see?" At her black stare he smiled and backed away. "Come on. Seriously! I hardly ever get this kind of instant feedback response on my job."
Finally the motions of the pistol seemed to budge her and she crawled out from under and made her way over to a desk, glancing back hesitantly.
"Go on!"
She sat down and licked her jowls nervously before reaching for a file and opening it. When the screen went blank she jumped and yipped, glancing back at him compulsively before looking back and seeing a single line of white text on the black screen.
COOKIE MONSTER! WANNA COOKIE!
SYS DAT, she typed.
GIVE COOKIE MONSTER COOKIE! GIVE COOKIE NOW!
LOG STAT, she typed.
GIVE COOKIE MONSTER COOKIE!
HAVE A COOKIE, she tried out of desperation.
OHH! COOKIE! COOKIE MONSTER LIKE YOU!
Then the screen returned to normal, file opened. She closed it and tried a couple more before the whole process started up again. After a pause she typed 'cookie' by itself and got back to normal instantly. She turned to look at Kitchener.
"What else does it do?"
"Nothing much. Infects computers, moves around, demands to be fed. Pretty much it really as far as I know."
"That's it?" She asked, the shock in her voice turning into a trace of anger. "You killed them for this?!"
The trace vanished as he moved towards her again, gun held out front, if not aimed at her. She whimpered and turned away.
"Afraid so. I know it'd make you feel better to know they died for something important, but there you go."
"Why?"
"Because we can. To prove it. Anywhere we like, any time we like"
When he moved the gun to rest on her shoulder she gasped and shied away from it, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Please don't kill me!"
"I won't kill you."
She opened her eyes slowly to look at his reflection in the monitor.
"Please don't hurt me."
Kitchener put the gun away before wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling the soft downy fur on her neck. She yelped, before whimpering and whining and making other helpless noises. When she tried to pull forward he pulled her back, kissing the fur and tracing it up and down her neck, before moving up to press into the sweet smelling hair between her ears.
Then he let go to stand behind her and rub an ear, before moving his hand under her chin, both to rub and pull her head up slightly. He collie trembled in his grasp.
"Please believe me, it really would pain me to even slightly harm you. You're very beautiful, with a lovely body and have a wonderfully soft pelt. You'll make a wonderful pet some day."
He released her and stepped a few paces away in order to leave before pausing and turning back.
"In fact..."
Kitchener pulled something out of his pocket. It was a wide black collar, with an electronic lock at the front and lumps that hinted at further mechanisms within. He smiled at her and dangled it in front of her face.
"Why wait?"