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Bow To The Green

“The great battles of the technological era will pale in comparison to the might of the changed...”
-Unknown Avenger
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Message from an Unknown Archon to Prime Archon of Tocado
June 13th,

“The scouting of the sites has nearly completed. The Humans and their servants of Machines do not yet understand the plans we have taken. Soon the ultimatum will arrive at the doorsteps of all that have fought us, all that we consider to be the enemy. ‘Bow to us, or perish’.”

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Thor Constance moved with the swift precision his profession was known for. His personal shielding system, something only given to the high ranking members of the elite classes, sizzled softly as he crouched and peered over the rubble on the side of what used to be a great city monument. He detested that the Hestia board of directors decided that it was time for the residents of the Ark to leave its sanctuary to retake the contested lands above. But he was bound to his duty, by contract and by pride. He will serve Hestia or die trying.

His partner Carl, another bounty hunter, spotted the group in the distance. They had been tracking this group for several days now, watching them and surveying their movements. They were up to something, he knew that, but what was the question. Thor hoped that tracking these contaminated filth would lead him and his partner to their campsite and outpost. Then they might be able to buy their way into a promotion to get back into the relative safety of the Ark.

The group had been traveling in large figure eight patterns for the better part of a week now, scrounging what they can and collecting the contaminated water that filled the lakes around here. It was getting late and the Mutant party had just sat down by a campfire to eat some game they caught along their route. Some devilish mutation of what used to be an alligator, now something far more deadly.

“Carl, watch them, I’m going back to my buggy to report in our latest findings to Hestia command.” Thor whispered in Carl’s ear.
“Sure man, but watch the noise, they have excellent hearing.” He nodded at the group surrounding the campfire in the distance.

As Thor turned around something hit him hard on his side, breaking three ribs. His shield system, having taken the brunt of the attack, flashed an overload warning and shut down. Thor looked up and saw the attacker appear from the shadows, a mutant.

He tried to cry out in alarm, but the attacking Mutant Avenger’s partner had already silenced Carl, his head drooping to the side, hanging lifelessly. Thor spit in the face of the avenger as he thumbed for the catch on the grenade on his belt. As he found it, he felt the Avenger again smashed in his side with the concrete club he carried; he involuntarily released the grenade, which rolled away from him and down the pile of rubble.

“Die with the knowledge that your friends will soon join you heretic.” The Mutant said in a deep resonating voice.
Thor activated his emergency radio and screamed a warning into the receiver.

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Hestia security center #457 was located in a heavily re-enforced bunker. The bunker was reclaimed from the army instillation located in the area before Hestia entered the Ark and sealed itself off from the rest of the world. The walls were 10 feet thick hardened concrete. As with standard procedure, the concrete was upgraded and interlaced with new shielding technology.

Monitors glowed in the dark confines of the bunker. Small fusion generators provided power for the computer mainframes and security systems that surrounded the bunker. No living, or dead, thing could move through the interlaced systems of ground sensors, cameras, and motion detecting turrets without being noticed, catalogued, and marked as friend or foe.

While the automation capabilities of the Hestia corporation and the advanced artificial intelligence matrixes developed in the Ark’s scientific laboratories could easily control the functions of the security instillation, those measures were deemed to costly to move and setup in the location. So instead un-contracted workers were given the job of holding the “dead man’s switches” and scanning the monitors for irregularities. Any irregularity in the scans was to be noted, logged, and sent back to security headquarters just inside Upside by a secure underground cable.

Pretending to watch the monitors of the instillation, Jordan Matthews casually flipped through the latest catalogue of “The women of the Ark”, the centerfold’s garments deliciously placed over her ample figure.

He was at a remote outpost and there had been no activity near his area for weeks. Hell he was due back in Upside in a week or so anyways, ”they want to complain, ill be glad to go back home” Jordan thought listlessly.

The radio at the side of the room flickered to life and a faint broken up scream could be heard coming through the speakers. He wheeled over to it and tried to reconnect with whoever was on the other end. However, the other person never picked up.

“Probably a late April fools joke by some bored Bounty Hunter patrol” Jordan reassured himself. He relaxed again and started to re-read the magazine, but he kept a closer eye on the monitors in front of him, just incase.

A shadow appeared on the monitor in his peripheral vision and suddenly vanished. Jordan sat up and threw the magazine to the floor. He typed out messages on the keypads, switching cameras around to find the disturbance, more importantly why it had not set off the ground sensors for heat and movement. Then he saw it….The slight disturbance in the air, the distortion of light and its refraction in the small area moving fast around the perimeter. He had been trained for this; the holo-simulators showed him this effect before. It was a stealthed Mutant Avenger scouting out the station.

Using the monitors he followed the stealthed mutant with the turrets and let off a short burst at the mutant. The .50 caliber slugs tore into the night. The phosphorous coated tips of the tracer rounds lit up a path of deadly brass and lead that he walked into the distorted light of the stealthed Avenger.

The air shimmered around the avenger’s vehicle and he came into view, sparks and dents appearing on his armored vehicle each time a bullet hit him.

The Avenger’s vehicle fired back with the rocket pack attached to its turret. Jordan can hear the muffled thumps of the 60mm shape charge rockets impact the outer shielding of the bunker and harmlessly be absorbed. But even the advanced shielding of the bunker could not withstand such an attack and eventually the capacitors were overloaded and the shield’s safeties enacted, shutting it down to prevent the power plant from overloading.

Jordan was rewarded with a beautiful explosion of flying metal and its occupants as one of the explosive rounds tore into the power plant and severed a fuel line. The explosion washed over the bunker, and even through the hardened walls he could feel the ground shake. Ammunition stored in the vehicle went off with resounding pops that echoed into the night. Its dieing occupant made a last gasp of air and a prayer to his contaminated brethren.

Jordan sniffed in disgust at the beasts that rode the plains of this devastated wasteland. He wished that some of the old world nuclear weapons remained, he would make sure that none of these mutated animals survived this time.

As he relished the victory, he started to type out a short report of the action that recently occurred. He tried to connect to the mainframe back at security headquarters in Upside, but nothing would come from it. The equipment must have been malfunctioning, or worse, the line was severed. He was too far from the base for radio contact, and he did not have the security access codes for the communication satellites in orbit. He was entirely cut off from civilization.

The metal door behind him started to glow red at the seams and melt away. He then realized his mistake. In his zeal to attack and kill the lone Avenger he forgot the most important fact he was taught in basic training, Mutants never travel alone. The lone Avenger sacrificed himself so he could bring down a portion of the bunkers shielding system so his brethren could slip in.
He screamed as the Mutant raiding party broke through the door and overtook the occupant inside the bunker.

Archon Merc walked through the bloodstained walls of the bunker and smiled with pride. The plan…his plan was coming together perfectly. The outposts were slowly being taken, by force, or subversion. Soon the rest of Humanity will fall to the will of the change….

To be Continued….

[Note: This is part one of a three part story. This is Auto Assault Fan fiction.]