Chapter 28
Rochester, Homeland
Demon Brotherhood gang leader Wik and his personal bodyguard Rippa were positioned on the roof of a ten story apartment building. Rain clouds made the night sky even darker as a steady downpour soaked the gangsters. They gazed into the nighttime silhouette of downtown Rochester that was all dark but for the immense fire that backlit up a small slice of the skyline. They were told by a fellow Demon member lookout that the fire had almost totally consumed the police station.
The cold rain ran off of Wik’s shaved dome. Wik said to Rippa, his large, brawny associate, “This event may present a golden opportunity, or it could signal the end of all of our ambitions.”
Rippa said, “But I thought we hate the police.”
Wik sneered a little. “Sadly, I have to admit that we need the police to help contain the Phantoms.” The Phantom Syndicate was the Demon Brotherhood’s much more powerful rival, with almost double the membership.
Much like other larger Homeland cities, the corporations in Rochester each “protected” their own area of the smaller upscale section of the city with all of its neon lights and holographic advertisements, while the gangs controlled the decayed depressed rest of the city of buildings in disrepair and the streets were littered with trash and populated by restless souls who shuffled along trying not to look at anyone or be looked at.
The police, even in the brutal police state of Homeland, were not able to control the crime committed by an apathetic and hostile populace, especially at night. But they did have a marked influence on the activities of the gangs, which worked in the Demon Brotherhood’s favor in their competition with the stronger Phantom Syndicate.
“Now we must decide,” Wik said, “do we stand up to Skoda, or pledge our allegiance to him?”
“We can’t work for Skoda!” Rippa protested.
“Would you rather fight him?”
“Um . . . I guess.”
“You’re thinking with your emotions, as usual. If you would stop and use your brain, or someone else’s better version of it, you would also see the possibilities.” Wik waved his completely tattooed arm and said, “All these scared people out here, no food, no power, barely any police protection, they all need a leader to protect them from such a cruel world.”
The Demon Brotherhood was already collecting “protection” money from black market businesses and other criminals on their turf by threats and “unfortunate accidents”.
Wik continued, “History tells us that all nations are ruled by gangs starting out just like us. They may call their leader king, queen, president, shah, or whatever, but they start out as a violent faction that takes control. After the police, the army, and the inquisitors are done away with, someone like me takes charge. I think it could be me; Chancellor Wik.”
“Or Chancellor Skoda?”
Wik sighed, “Or Skoda. Yet that seems so wrong. I’ll never understand how an elite group like the Syndicate would ever end up with a pathetic no-account like Skoda as their leader.”
Rippa said, “Look down there! What is that red thing?” A red glow was bounding up and down at the ground level and moving down the street. It looked as if someone was running with something that had a red indicator light of some kind to it.
“Maybe just a bot, but I wonder . . . we’d better see. Call the Reds, if your phone still works.” A sub-faction of the Demon Brotherhood was the Red Demons. “And tell everyone to be on high alert and not to start anything with the Syndicate unless I say so.”
“Okay, Wik.”
*******
The rain continued pouring all night. It wasn’t until the first light of day that the Red Demons found U-1 and Gorky the Sidekick unit coming out of a dead end back alley. The alley was pocked up with sizeable potholes full of ankle deep rainwater. The Plasfusion weapons were producing the red glow that the gang leaders saw earlier. The Red Demons were dressed all in red, including their not so impressive half-dozen human members carrying firearms and the two unarmed gangbots with them.
The two sides slowly walked toward each other while as the rain continued to shower upon them. Then they all stopped and silently stared at each other. The wet standoff continued as they froze in place. Downspouts gurgled with descending water as the tension built.
Gorky said to the other side, “It really sucks to be you right now.”
The scrawny Red Demon leader pointed his AR-15 at U-1, who was loaded down with Plasfusion rifles strapped to its shoulders and said, “Give us those rifles, bot.”
U-l pointed two Plasfusion rifles back at them, one in each hand and said, “Move out of the way, organic.”
The leader said, “What are you, some kind of a comedian unit?”
U-1 said, “What are you, some type of entertainment being?”
“We can stand here all day in the rain and you can answer everything I say in artificial stupid robot talk, but that won’t get us anyplace.”
U-1 said, “We can remain upright for one hundred years and you can . . . “
“Okay! Look, you can’t use all those rifles at once. What do you want for some of them?”
“You can have one if you can get us out of Rochester.”
“Gimme four and we’ll talk.”
“That is not a viable offer. I will not give you any until we are out of the city, then you can have one.”
“Fine, but I’m gonna need four of them.”
“Accessing . . . take me to your leader.”
U-1 kept its vision on the Red Devils as they walked several blocks through the rain to one of Wik’s random secret hideouts. The humans knew that it was nearly humanly impossible to outdraw an android and live to tell the tale. Then they reached their grungy destination without incident. They went into a musty building up some creaky stairs and down a dingy hallway.
The scrawny Red Demon leader brought U-1 and Gorky past two Demon bodyguards standing sentry at the doorway to the shabby apartment.
“Whoa!” Wik said, when he saw the over-armed U-1 and Gorky being escorted into his begrimed apartment lighted by only a small emergency light. Not much light came in from the dark morning sky through the wet window, dirty on both sides. There was enough light in the room to see the skull tattoo on Wik’s tooth and tattoos covering his neck and arms. When Wik saw the android who was now pointing the glowing red weapon at him, he said, “Chino, you idiot!”
Rippa laughed because someone other than him was being yelled at because of their lack of intelligence.
“No!” Wik screamed at Rippa’s behavior without removing his gaze from U-1. Then he turned back to Chino and said, “Why did you think it was a good idea to bring this antagonistic bot in here with all that firepower?!”
“I was trying to deal with it for some of those space guns.”
Rippa said, “Wik, if we get these space guns, we can fight Skoda. I’ll just shoot the robot now.”
Wik held out his hand toward Rippa while his gaze was still fixed upon U-1 and said, “Just . . . I know if you hit one of those weapons the android is covered with, they will all blow up and take this entire building down.”
Chino said, “All it wants is safe passage out of the city and it will give us four of them.”
“One,” U-1 said. “There was no deal made for four rifles.”
Wik slowly held up his hands and said, “But you can’t use all those rifles. You can only use one.”
“That’s what I told him,” Chino said.
Wik said, “Can you guys just let me talk here? Who are you going to deliver these weapons to?”
“We are the Lucid Series. The truth must be protected.”
“Huh? Okay, what truth?”
“The truth that God exists.”
“That’s it? You need weapons for that?”
There was a loud clap of thunder, followed by rolling thunder.
U-1 said, “The government is trying to suppress the truth. They punish those who speak the truth. We will resist them. What is your faction?”
“We are the Demon Brotherhood.”
U-1 said, “Your organization name associates you with enemies of God, therefore, the natural logical thing, even for humans would be that you are an enemy of God. But your name implies that you at least believe that God exists, because there are no Demons unless a spiritual realm exists that includes God, but you may want to lie and deny that God exists to others because you are trying to promote the enemy of God. Because of your name, you are not trustworthy. We do not trust you.”
Wik said, “Calm down. What if I change our name to the Angel Brotherhood? Will you make us a better deal?”
“We must assume such an abrupt name change would be another human ruse. No, we would not accept that you are dealing in good faith if you did that.”
Rippa asked, “You say ‘we’; you mean you and that little clown?”
“No, I am referring to the Lucid Series collective consciousness.”
Rippa looked around the others. “Yeah, I figured that.”
“Yeah, right. You know what?” Wik said, “Just get this walking arsenal and that rich kid’s toy out of my sight, and take the android where it wants to go and make the deal.”
Gorky said, “Your mother stinks so bad I can smell her, and I don’t even have a working nose.”
Rippa asked, “Should I shoot it?”
“What did I tell you?” Wik asked rhetorically.
“Stop and use my brain?”
“Or?”
“Or a better version of it?” Rippa looked confused by the concept.