Self-proclaimed god and Saturdays: Chapter 2 – Hunting Justice and Truth

Chapter 2 – Hunting Justice and Truth

As we sit down, the man who has heard of me takes a drink of water out of his canteen.

“Do you need anything to drink?” he asks.

“No, I’ve already had my fill. There’s a church near here that has a supply of it along with weapons. It’s also the reason I’m here because this map I found has this settlement circled,” I say while showing him the map. “There were enforcers there and I’ve also found handwritten orders to kidnap and assassinate certain people, which is information I assume will be useful to you.”

“It’s what we were looking for actually and what we need your help with. We’ve been wondering why Old America has been suddenly kidnapping people rather than focusing on getting supplies for their new robotic army.”

“Why don’t you focus on overthrowing the three remaining Old America states? I’m sure you can easily do that and foil this kidnapping plot in the process.”

“There are only two remaining Old America states left one of which will soon fall since Roxy, her family, and allies are focusing on it. Haven’t you been keeping up with the news while on your bloody quest for justice, Fr. Death?”

“Fr. Death?”

“That’s the nickname you’ve been given by the people who have witnessed your work.”

“Despite how much I don’t like it, I must admit it’s fitting. So, if there are only two states left and one’s likely to fall soon, then the last one that’s not too far a drive away from here is the last.”

“I know. After about ten years of civil war, Old America will die. I can’t believe I’ve managed to live through all of it.”

“Anyways, back to the point I was making. Can’t you get the help of the rogue states to take down the last state?”

“They’re doing their own thing for the most part. A couple are direct democracies that are fighting among themselves because what else would be the result of mob rule? The remaining are theocracies, monarchies, and democratic republics that act as if Old America doesn’t exist anymore and are now called the American Union of Independent States, or AUIS for short. They are essentially the new America with independent states that act in unison with similar laws and regulations decided by their chosen leaders.”

“They’re not giving you any aid whatsoever?”

“Hardly anything except for the citizens from those states that chose to fight or give us weapons, food, and supplies. Can you blame them? Old America has thrown its enforcers, its armies, and foreign soldiers at the American people and we’ve still overcome them all.”

“You’re right. I do feel the same as them. It’s just that I thought they would’ve given you more since the civil war is nearing its end.”

“And that’s why we need you Fr. Death, I mean Fr. Woo. The last state falling is an inevitability but someone still has to save the people getting kidnapped.”

“Okay. Point me in the right direction and I’ll go there by myself.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes. I don’t want anyone under my care getting hurt.”

“I understand given your past. I also know that you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself and making the right decisions so I’ll trust you on this. I’ll split up my squad; one to investigate why this location was circled and the second squad to take the supplies and intel from the church you were at. As for you, we have friends near the last state that need your help. I haven’t gotten their daily update so I’m concerned about them. They were scouting and spying on the goings on of the last state and said they were unto something big, so they may have been found out.”

“Alright. I’ll see what’s going on and report back to you. How should I contact you?”

“You should have a radio in your suit, right?”

“Oh, that’s right. I’ve never used it.”

“Not even to contact your folks back home?”

“I fear that if I do, it could be traced back to them.”

“I get it. My tune your radio to one hundred seventy-seven point seven and ask for Mr. Red. That’s my codename by the way.”

“Why Mr. Red? Because you’re wearing all red?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll get going then.”

“Don’t you need to rest? You look like you’ve taken a beating after that last fight.”

“I have the repair tools in my hearse.”

“I mean besides your cybernetics. Your body still feels a bit of that beating, doesn’t it?”

“I’m fine. My cybernetics lessens the pain and keeps me going as long as I take care of it.”

“If you say so. Don’t push yourself.”

After Mr. Red gives me the location to go to and I make self-repairs to my cybernetics, I head out. As I get near the gates of the last state, I see that it’s guarded by a few guards and mostly androids that check the paperwork and ID cards of everyone who enters. The place I’m supposed to go to is not too far from this entrance so I park my hearse out of sight and further away and then walk the rest of the way. This settlement outside of the gates is fairly impoverished and has the scars of battle on it with broken streets, buildings, bullet casings on the floor, and dried blood stains here and there. Hardly anyone is outside doing anything save for the open clothing stores, food markets, and other stores that sell miscellaneous items.

Making it to the location that is marked with the colors of the American flag around its doorframe, I enter the building to see that it’s ransacked like the other homes around here. I search through the home and find a not so hidden staircase behind a broken bookcase. Going down the staircase, I find remnants of a gunfight but no bodies. The blood on the floor is fairly fresh so this must’ve happened recently.

When I report this back to Mr. Red, he says, “I figured that would happen. They were on to something and the enforcers must’ve caught on to them.”

“I’ll investigate this further. If the fight happened recently, the enforcers couldn’t have gotten too far,” I say.

“Be careful and don’t get too ahead of yourself. Give me a ring when you find out more.”

“Will do.”

In this basement, I find another way out that leads outside. There’s no sign trace of anything out here, but there are people so I ask them if they know anything. A lot of people say they either don’t know anything or don’t want to talk to me. Eventually, I find a couple of homeless people that say that two trucks of enforcers and their androids killed most of the people in the building I was in and took their bodies and the few injured left passed the gates and into the last state. I thank them and give them enough to buy them something to eat and drink before heading in the direction they told me to go.

Going near the gates, I use my cybernetics eyes to look for an easy way in and some kind of enforcer-held building where I might find out more. Sure enough, I see one some distance away from the gates that look to be a communications center because of the communications antenna on top of it. As far as an easy entrance goes, there are parts of the gates that are sparsely guarded by androids. Once I make my plan, I enact it by going to the least guarded part of the gates, rip a hole in it with my cybernetic arms, go through the hole, and put back the ripped out part of the gate as best I can so that it looks as if it was never damaged.

This side of the fence is like the other except the buildings are slightly less damaged and dirtied and there are more people outside. While keeping to the shadows, I make it the communications center. It’s defended entirely by androids with no human in sight inside and outside of the building. After scouting a bit, I find that a back grated window that gives me an entrance into the basement is the best. I break it open thanks to the superhuman strength that my cybernetics have given me. The inside of the building is also staffed by androids that are doing basic bookkeeping tasks. They all have guns on them so these organizers must also be doubling as security.

Further into the building, I find only three humans. One of which is a janitor, another is an android technician doing a checkup on one of the androids, and the last one seems to be a supervisor given how well dressed she is. This supervisor is probably my best bet in finding Mr. Red’s kidnapped men. I drop my silenced pistol outside of the door to grab the attention of one of them as I wait outside of the door ready to take hostage the one who takes the bait. For some reason, they choose to send the android. That’s fine with me. Once the android comes near, I punch its head off, grab the silenced pistol, and point it at all three of them while entering the small repair room. The supervisor attempts to call the androids to help them, but I stop her by putting a bullet through her hand. She falls to the ground in pain and the other two fall to the ground with their hands up asking what I want.

“A group of enforcers and androids murdered and kidnapped some people on the other side of the gates. Tell me where they went,” I demand.

Kneeling with her bloodied hands up, the supervisor says, “I-I’ve only seen one truck of enforcers and androids head through her recently. If they went anywhere, they probably went to the prison that’s about five blocks away from here. I swear I don’t know anything about what they were doing or why they took the people you’re looking for!”

“Thank you. Forget you saw me or you’ll end up like that android.”

The three of them agree and then I leave them. You know what? I might as well cause some damage while I’m here just in case those people raise the alarm. People from Old America aren’t known to be trustworthy because most of them don’t fear God. Going back through the basement, I find a generator and systems that seem to be powering this building so I tear it apart with my hands until the power goes off. An android catches me in the act as the lights go off and for some reason, it turns off. When I go outside, I find that all the androids outside of the building and those that were patrolling the streets have also turned off. This is strange. I’ve never heard of the androids shutting down because of a communications center shutdown, but then again, I haven’t been listening to much of the news recently.

I’ll have to ask Mr. Red later about it. Anyways, I head to the prison to find the androids here shut down as well, which makes it easy for me to head in. The handful of human guards here are in a panic because of the android shutdown. Using the chaos as a cover, I make my way through the prison, pull open barred doors with my hands, and follow the directions on the walls to make it to the warden’s office. The warden is calling his technicians to fix the android problem and based on his angry and confused responses, I’m assuming his technicians know as much as he does. I walk inside the room, pick up the warden by the throat, hold him outside of the window that overlooks the entire prison, and ask him about the people I’m looking for.

“The basement. They’re in the basement,” he says in a choked voice.

After thanking the warden and throwing him out the window, I make my way downstairs. Despite my display of making an example of the warden, most of the guards don’t bother attacking me. Instead, a majority of them have left the prison and those who try shooting me follow them, especially after seeing what I look like and that their bullets don’t really affect me making this a cakewalk for me. After breaking through the many barred doors that stand in my way, I find a bunch of dead people hooked up to offline machines. They have tubes and wires going in and out of their bodies and faces and they don’t have any limbs. Further inside, I find more people that are starved and beaten sharing a cell with dead bodies that appear to have been shot, cut up, or beaten to death.

After breaking apart their barred doors, I ask them, “Do any of you know Mr. Red?”

“Yes! Oh, thank God he sent you to find us,” one of them says. “We would’ve ended up like those people in the machines if you didn’t.”

“Let’s get you out of here and you can explain to me and Mr. Red what you found.”

The group and I leave the prison and head to one of their safehouses in this town where they treat their wounded, sick, and feed the hungry. We turn on the communications device they have so Mr. Red can chime in. I update him on the situation and what’s happened including the shutdown of the communications center causing the shutdown of the androids and the people connected to machines in the depths of the prison’s basement.

“First of all, I’d like to thank you for finding my friends, Fr. Woo,” Mr. Red says. “Secondly, I told you not to get ahead of yourself and to call me when you found out more.”

“I’ve done what you set me out to do. I’ve found your friends and gotten back to you with more information, haven’t I?”

“Tch, they should call you Fr. Smart Ass. Regardless, I’m glad to see that you’re alive and have managed to save some of my friends.”

“I’m not as glad that we were able to save our informants and agents that got captured. The things that were done to them were inhuman,” one of Mr. Red’s friends says.

“We’ll get justice for them soon enough. What have you found?”

“The machines that the people were attached to at the prison were ones that connect them to a network that controls all of the androids.”

“Really? I thought they were all controlled by some kind of advanced AI,” I say.

“It’s the truth. They were going to condition or rather torture and break our minds and make us part of that network. The network itself is controlled by an AI, but the human minds add a layer of correction and creative decision making that the AI can’t. In addition, every server like the one at the prison is controlled by human operators that ‘take care’ of the humans in the machine and make sure the systems are working properly and that the androids are fulfilling their given orders. If the unwilling controller doesn’t do as they are told, the AI or the human operator causes them immense pain and does some nasty things to their brains to make them compliant.”

“The first versions of the androids did have humans in them to serve a similar purpose and exploded once their systems failed to hide the evidence of the human inside,” Mr. Red says. “I’m surprised they’re trying to do it again. I’m just not sure which way is worse.”

“Doesn’t matter. This atrocity needs to be stopped.”

“Agreed and it’s a good thing we know their Achilles’ heel. Getting rid of the communication stations will automatically shut down the androids in the vicinity.”

“That’s assuming we can shut them down. The communication stations are more heavily defended as you get closer to the capital which we’re sure is where the originator of the AI signal is that communicates to the other stations.”

“Then that’s where we’re headed next. I’ll relay this news to all our allies and formulate a plan to enact it. Oh, and make sure the good priest doesn’t go off on his own again.”

“You expect me to just sit here while people’s wills are being forcefully manipulated?” I ask. “Just knowing this information makes me imagine what they would’ve done to the people I loved and it makes me sick.”

“Calm yourself, father. If you’re going to do anything, then do something about the prisoners that you left in the prison. See if they’ll fight with us. We’ll need all the help we can get in this final push to take back America from the corrupt.”

“I can go in by myself to soften up the enforcers and androids.”

“You’ll do better for us if you don’t martyr yourself. One man throwing himself at an army isn’t going to help much even with your cybernetics.”

“Fine.”

“Good to hear that you agree. Talk to you soon.”