Chapter 14: Betrayal
Operation Claude
The robots moved through the abandoned streets like ghosts. Not silent—their hydraulic joints hissed with every step—but methodical. Predatory.
Robot 1 raised its arm. Blue light pulsed from its wrist comm.
"Operation Claude has begun. Search every house. No survivors."
Behind it, Robots 2, 3, and 4 fanned toward the residential blocks. Robots 5, 6, and 7 stayed on the main road, firing laser blasters into the air—not to kill, but to terrorize. The beams carved molten lines across the sky. Car alarms shrieked. Windows shattered. Any human still inside would panic, run, and become an easy target.
But no one ran.
Robot 2 kicked down a door. Dust motes swirled in the empty hallway. The beds were made. The kitchen counters were clean. No dishes in the sink. No coffee in the pot.
Evacuated.
Robot 3 broke through another. Vacant. Robot 4 swept a row of houses and found only overturned chairs and cold stoves. The town had been emptied days ago.
"All units, report," Robot 1 transmitted.
"Negative contact," said Robot 2.
"Same," said Robot 3.
"Nothing," said Robot 4.
Then a single gunshot cracked through the silence.
The bullet punched through Robot 4's left side. Shrapnel and hydraulic fluid sprayed across the street. The robot staggered, its systems screaming warnings, and turned toward the source.
A muzzle flash. From the treeline.
"Contact! Sniper!" Robot 4's voice fractured with static.
More shots followed. Not one sniper—many. US commandos had surrounded the village. Muzzle flashes blinked from rooftops and hills, a constellation of violence. Robots 5, 6, and 7 returned fire, their laser blasters carving trenches into brick and asphalt. Two commandos fell. But so did Robot 5—a high‑caliber round tore its head clean off.
For a full minute, the village became a storm of light and lead. Then, as suddenly as it began, the firing stopped.
Silence.
Robot 1 scanned the area. The houses were dark. The commandos had vanished. No heat signatures. No movement.
Where did they go?
It looked up.
Missiles. Dozens of them, suspended in the sky like frozen raindrops. Each one aimed directly at the village.
"Above us!" Robot 1 shouted. "Scatter!"
The missiles dropped.
The world became white. Then orange. Then black.
Shockwaves crumpled buildings and threw robots like rag dolls. Debris rained down for what felt like an eternity—concrete, glass, metal, and the smaller pieces that used to be Robot 6. When the dust settled, most of the squad lay crushed under steel and stone. Their optical lenses were dark. Their cores were silent.
Only Robot 1 still functioned, trapped beneath a collapsed wall. It tried to push itself up.
A fist slammed into its faceplate.
A man stood over it—full face mask, commando uniform, a pistol holstered at his thigh. He grabbed Robot 1 by the neck and yanked it free, then smashed it against the rubble. The robot's chest casing cracked open. Its core—a pulsing blue sphere—was fully exposed.
"Death to the robots, huh?" the man said. His voice was calm, almost bored. He gripped the core. "Where is Pohu?"
"I don't know."
He squeezed. The core flickered.
"Tell me."
"No."
He squeezed harder. Robot 1's systems screamed with feedback. Error messages flooded its vision. "Tell me!"
"Plains… of the Blue Ridge," the robot gasped.
"Good boy." The man ripped the core from its housing. The robot's eyes went dark. He knelt over the lifeless chassis and pulled out a knife. "You all try to be cool."
He stabbed. Once. Twice. Again and again. The blows became a blur—too many to count. He wasn't interrogating anymore. He was venting.
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The Middleground – Betrayal
Two kilometers from the village, behind a burned‑out truck, Fatah aimed his pistol at the back of a woman's head.
Vineese. She hadn't seen him yet. She was watching the distant explosions, her hand resting on Lehros's old jacket—the one she'd been carrying since the mountain.
"Shall we execute it?" Fatah asked.
Paul Sumea stood beside him. His face was pale. His hands were steady, but his jaw was tight. He had never killed anyone before. But Samuel had made the terms clear: Betray me, and your family dies in their sleep.
Samuel had the address. The photos. The nanny's schedule.
"Sure," Paul said. The word tasted like ash.
Vineese turned at the sound of her name. She saw the gun. Saw Paul's cold eyes. For a moment, confusion flickered across her face. Then recognition. Then something worse: disappointment.
"I'm sorry," Paul said.
He fired.
The bullet tore through her chest. She crumpled, blood pooling beneath her, soaking into the dirt. Paul turned and began shooting at the other survivors—engineers, researchers, the last of the anti‑Samuel faction. One by one, they fell. Some screamed. Some begged. Most just stared, unable to process that the PR man, the spin doctor, was the one pulling the trigger.
Vineese pressed a hand to her wound. Her vision blurred. The sky was the same purple as the evening Lehros died. She thought of his last words. You were always like a sister to me.
She had wanted to tell him that she felt the same. That she had never had a brother, never had family at all, until Anthroportica. Until him.
"I… I only needed a brother," she whispered. "We shall be in the same place now."
She died.
Paul kept firing until his magazine ran dry. Bodies lay everywhere. He stared at Vineese's face—eyes still open, still disappointed—and felt nothing. Then he felt everything. Then he pushed it down.
Samuel's terms. My family.
He dropped the gun and walked toward the car.
---
The Car
A black sedan roared around the corner.
Curran sat behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette, black glasses hiding his eyes. Rushewa rode shotgun, a pistol in her hand. She had asked him how he survived the lab explosion. He had said, "The bunker had a second exit." He didn't mention the three hours he spent crawling through darkness, breathing concrete dust, listening to the building collapse above him. He didn't mention the bodies he stepped over. Some things didn't need to be said.
"There," Curran said, pointing through the windshield. Paul was walking toward a vehicle, his back exposed. "Rushewa, shoot Paul."
She leaned out the window and fired. The bullet caught Paul in the stomach. He staggered, dropping his gun, clutching his abdomen. Curran accelerated hard, ramming Paul into a parked car. The impact crushed his ribs. He slid off the hood and landed in a broken heap, gasping, blood bubbling from his lips.
Curran stepped out of the sedan, gun drawn. Rushewa followed.
Paul looked up at them. His mouth opened. Maybe he wanted to say something—an apology, an explanation, a prayer. But only blood came out.
Curran didn't wait. He raised his pistol and fired twice. Paul went still.
Fatah, watching from behind a concrete barrier, whispered into his phone: "What the fuck? Wasn't Curran in the labs?" He dialed Wayne. No answer. He dialed Samuel. No answer. His hands were shaking.
A grenade landed at his feet.
He looked down. The pin was still attached. It hadn't been pulled.
Then he looked up. Rushewa was holding the pin between her fingers, smiling.
"Oh, shit."
She tossed the pin aside. The grenade exploded. Fatah's last thought was that he should have stayed in bed.
Curran holstered his weapon and looked at the carnage. Around him, the remaining anti‑Samuel faction emerged from cover—bloodied but alive. Five of them. Maybe six. He had expected more.
He lit another cigarette. The smoke curled into the purple sky.
"It's a win," he said. He took a long drag. "Now we march."
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Chapter 14 End
To Be Continued