Chapter 98: 4.14 – Buggy robots

Aurora looked towards the scraping noise and barely avoided a metal lash whipping towards her head.  Demonstrating the seriousness of the attack, the whip-like limb crashed through another tall crate and sent showers of wood flying as it was demolished.  The attacker was a robotic insect which was the size of a small Pomeranian dog with a set of long antennae.  One of these had lashed at Aurora.

 

The antennae twitched while lenses and gears whirred within its frame.  Its eyes had a pinpoint of light that went from yellow to red as the lenses narrowed on Aurora.  The design pointed towards a more modern aesthetic, sleeker and less classical style, though elements of the technology already used were obvious.

 

Aurora grinned broadly for some reason.  Do you like bugs? Even giant robotic ones? There’s a saying that goes like, ‘cute as a bug’.  Even though it was clearly dangerous, she laughed softly and musically.

 

“Oho!” There were more clues waiting for her to discover here, she thought. She was elated that there was more than just a vague clue pointing to two companies that might have a connection.  What she wondered most about was where the robot had been hiding.  Under the truck, perhaps? In a crate? Aurora hadn’t heard much when it came at her, making it an effective assassin.

 

Deciding to cage the thing, she reasoned that it could be examined and maybe that would lead to more clues.  She formed a huge cage and slammed it down onto the bug.  Aurora knelt, still grinning. She examined it even closer up. “You’re a cute little thing…”

 

Aurora mused, “Are you a scout, maybe? But why attack and not just use it as a spy?” Was the attack serious or was this a feeling out of her abilities. As she wondered, it whipped its antennae around the bars and tried to wrap them around her throat.  

 

Hmmm… definitely an assassin.  

 

She rolled back and let her wings prop her up as she moved her hands and her halo became a solid cage while it wrapped itself quickly about the thrashing antennae and forced them back into the perfect cube she’d formed.  It lashed against her cage. Deciding that she should reduce the room it had to work with to build up momentum for its attacks against her halo, she shrank the cage gradually to hold the bug tightly.  Possibly having determined that attacking was futile, the antennae returned to a normal size.

 

Upon closer inspection, Aurora noticed that the antennae were tiny nested coils, but Aurora was surprised when it resumed its struggling. Maybe it had less sense than expected.  Without her attention to replenish the construction, she figured that even with the limited strikes it had to settle for, it had enough strength that it would break out in a few minutes. It had to be watched. 

 

There was a soft groaning as she considered what to do.  She looked over towards the source of the noise and saw the officer who was posted at the door. He was coiled up in metal wire from neck to ankles.  Aurora turned and approached him and with a quick check, she saw he was alright.  She laid her hands on him and noted that he had no visible wounds.  While his breathing was shallow, it was regular and probably the reason for his breathing was because he was rigidly wrapped in coiled wire.

 

She looked over her shoulder and replenished the energy containing the bug. Leaving the guard for a time, she focused on that halo and reconfigured it into a little globe, fitting it firmly to the body of the bug, making it like a bug suspended in amber.  She eyed a console nearby and kicked the bug over like a soccer ball. As she inspected the console she hummed, wondering if she’d find anything else helpful here.

 

Keeping an eye on the critter, she toggled a few of the switches that had been used. The dust was disturbed here, indicating what was played with, but nothing seemed to have any effect she could see, so she decided to stop fiddling with it.  

 

She picked up the bug and spun the ball-like orb on a finger as she slipped her communicator from her bosom to snap a series of pictures of the bug from every side.  When she was done she punted it over to the guard while she thought. She gestured and flattened one side so it came to a stop facing away from her.

 

Why was she attacked? Was there something more than the eye met here in this warehouse?  

 

How did everything connect?  The guard had been standing outside, but for how long?  The thing hadn’t appeared to wrap up an officer.  It was specifically interested in her.  Was there a hidden base here? In that case, might there be a hidden door to find?  

 

On the other hand, maybe the bug-bot was set to watch the facility and came inside when she entered.

 

Before she searched for a secret entrance, she needed to free the officer.  Forming a set of simple and small wire cutters with her halo energy, she kneeled down by the officer and carefully snapped the metal coils in several places to unravel him.  Judging by his state, it was apparent that this man had been tied up here longer than she was here.  In that case, she was a bit wrong.

 

That reinforced her suspicion that something was here.  She gave the officer a quick healing and then stood, letting him rest as she kicked the bug around, looking for a passageway.  

 

Nothing stood out.  Aurora looked at the trucks and nodded, thinking that if the robots that had attacked the city could walk around, why did the villain not just have them walk into town?

 

She examined where the second truck had been parked, kicking idly at the floor.  It didn’t seem any different from the rest of the floor, and it didn’t sound any different when she kicked it.  No other patch of the floor seemed more likely to be a doorway. The dust was undisturbed aside from footprints and the controls of the console as well as a swath of it on one side of the remaining truck.

 

Aurora shrugged. 

 

Perhaps this was the best she would find here for the moment, but she still hedged. Taking the bug to Detective Kirby might be for the best.  

 

Aurora eyed the bug and wondered if it was being controlled remotely. Would it be possible to trace the puppeteer in the same way Utility had tracked down the energy broadcasting devices?  She decided that she would take the officer for treatment to the closest hospital and take the bug along.

 

Placing her field around the officer, she held him by his uniform and attached a tether to the balled up bug, allowing her to carry them out.  She blinked when she saw the officer was still at the door. He nodded disinterestedly at her again and stared at the road again. 

 

Something was very off about him. It was more than the fact that there were two of the same man. This one had no shadow, which suggested that he was a projection or a hologram.  It made her wonder if she could make holograms eventually with her halo.  A quick search of the area turned up the suspected projector device.  There was no light that could be blocked, so it was surely a kind of holographic technology.

 

The projector was the size of a box of matches. She picked it up and frowned at it.  This building was being concealed a bit too neatly for a site that was unimportant.  Did the police even come here? Would it have been very hard to uncover these ploys? The officer had been bound on the floor of this warehouse instead of taking him to another location.  Shelving those thoughts, she resolved to return to investigate this place more thoroughly.

 

Removing her communicator from her pocket, she called Kirby. He picked up quickly and Aurora let him know what she found and explained the events that had transpired.

 

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Kirby responded when she finished, “Please stay until relief arrives.”

 

Aurora nodded, agreeing. “Sure.  I’ll hold the fort.  I have other things to check out, though.”

 

“Thank you,” Kirby answered and the line disconnected.

 

Within a couple of minutes, a patrol car showed up with two officers.  One of them walked over to the incapcitated officer’s car to secure it while the other stood guard.  Once they were set, Aurora took off for the nearest hospital to drop off the injured officer. These two had their hands full as was, so she took on the duty of taking him for treatment.

 

She took off and rocketed to the hospital and landed at the emergency entrance to carry the officer inside.

 

“Here’s a police officer who needs treatment.  He should be alright, but please look after him.”  She deposited his prone form into a wheelchair and waved as the receptionist rushed over.

 

Aurora charged off and made for Kirby’s precinct with the bug robot in hand. She arrived quickly, since she’d rushed.  Kirby met her on the rooftop, greeting her, “Good to see you.” He eyed the contained bug and shivered visibly. “Ugh… looks like a roach or a water bug or something. Don’t let that thing out, yet, right?” Kirby apparently had a weakness where bugs were concerned.

 

“Yeah.  It’s small, but it’s a bigger threat than you’d think.  It had that officer bound up and knocked him out.  It’s possible that the mastermind’s base might be concealed back in that warehouse, or so I suspect, but I couldn’t find any definitive evidence of a hidden passageway.  I can’t decide why they’d sic this thing on me if there was nothing to hide.  Not to mention, why bother tying up the posted officer and make a complex projection of him to make people think there’s nothing going on there?  Aside from the bug, I did find another clue. A shipping label. I snapped some photographs of it.  It implies that Goose Estate Sales and/or Extensive Enterprises may be involved.”

 

“Interesting,” Kirby said, “we didn’t find any labels among the broken crates when we checked things over.  Someone might have missed something, though I wonder if another box was broken into since. They didn’t want anyone to notice the door was unguarded, likely.  But why?”

 

Aurora nodded. These were the exact conclusions she’d come to. “Yeah. We’ll need to investigate the place with more scrutiny.”

 

Kirby’s lips twisted. “I wish we’d gone to the office, but since the door was still sealed, we didn’t want to disturb things. Well, come on downstairs. I have an idea about that… thing.” He pointed gingerly at the bug.

 

“I can tell that you’re not jazzed about having to deal with another troublesome robot, but I thought we could get more clues if I captured it.  We could follow more signals coming from or going to it.” She followed Detective Kirby downstairs and he led her to the holding area.

 

“Hm… if I had to guess, I’d say it’s being controlled like you suspect. It might be transmitting what it sees, too.  While I don’t know how to get information from it, I hope I know we can block it.” He opened one of the cells set up to contain super-powered humans.  “Throw it in here, and once I activate the powered system, it should block all signals.”

 

Aurora grinned and punted the bug-ball into the cell for mischief’s sake.  

 

Once it landed, she dissipated her halo and Kirby started the electrical field.  The moment she undid her halo, the bug went limp momentarily, but then restarted, acting differently.  It walked around the edges of the cell, tapping the walls with its antennae.

 

Kirby nodded, looking at the panel to confirm his theory. “Okay, the system’s jamming its signals and it’s detecting another signal the robot is trying to send. It’s also emitting an ultra high-frequency sonic pulse, though I have no idea what this all that means.” Kirby shrugged. “Let’s go look at this shipping slip you found. An alarm will sound if it manages to get out.”

 

Aurora smiled wryly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t.  It seems kinda too valuable to take chances.”

 

She pulled her communicator from its pocket and called up the photographs she took and showed Kirby as they walked.  Kirby led them to the SIPD’s computer room.  

 

“Look up the Goose Estate Sales company and Lot 193,” he issued a command to an officer inside, who nodded.

 

“Yes sir.”

 

He turned his attention to her communicator again and mused. “I couldn’t get this close to the bug, if it was me. Bugs give me the creeps, and that thing’s like the size of a basset hound… ugh…” That was a clear exaggeration.  Sweat drops.

 

After a moment, the tech looked up from his work to the two newcomers.  “Well, it looks like Lot #193 was actually a lot from a storage facility in Fort Casimir.  Extensive Enterprises bought all of Lot #193 and #194, which was also from Fort Casimir. This has to do with those robots who were calling for Vanguard and the Midnight Avenger, right?”

 

“Yeah, why?” Kirby asked.

 

“Well, you know, Fort Casimir is the hometown of the Midnight Avenger himself. So there were four pieces in Lot #194 and sixteen in #193. Only ten robots, right? Might be a few more of them out there, if you think it’s related.”

 

Kirby looked to Aurora with a frustrated expression, but looked back to the tech. “OK, so where’s #194? In the same warehouse?”

 

“Well, that you’d have to ask Extensive Enterprises about. The nearest local branch other than the storage facility is up north in Seaside.”

 

Kirby sighed. “Well… I guess that’s the next stop. I’m going to call up the PD up there and see if we can get some cooperation from them. I get the feeling I’ll have to meet with my counterpart, Ruffneck? I can’t remember her name. I’d better look it up. If you want to take off for a bit, I’ll let you know when I have an appointment up there… or I guess you could go on your own…” he shrugged.