[Chapter 21. Futile Resistance]

  The assault drones continued their relentless purge. Red lenses swept streets and rooftops while magic cannons spat death without pause. They moved through the city like ghosts, omnipresent and unavoidable. People were no longer people. They were targets. Their lives had become currency in an economy built on power and ascension.

  The drones were the enforcers of this new reality.

  There were no laws now except one.

  The law of the strong.

  The city had become a battlefield.

  A warzone without a name. A war without ideology or justice. It existed for one reason alone. Power and Survival. The elevation of a single individual to a level high enough to face what was coming. The city was the price. A sacrifice measured in millions.

  A-11 drifted through the smoke filled interior of a shopping mall. Shattered skylights spilled fractured daylight onto scenes frozen in terror. Mannequins stood in immaculate poses among the bodies of those who had once admired them. Crimson beams scorched polished marble floors, leaving glowing scars where lives ended. A child's stuffed bear lay near a fountain, half melted, its plastic eye staring blankly into nothing.

  A-11 detected movement behind a toppled kiosk.

  A woman crouched there, her face twisted in panic, clutching a crying infant to her chest. The drone assessed threat level. Negligible. It fired. Twin beams erased both mother and child in a muted flash. The air filled with the sharp scent of scorched fabric and ionized metal, like the aftermath of a lightning strike. A-11 moved on.

  On the roof, Searanox leaned back on a couch he had brought a few hours earlier after finding the concrete floor unsuitable. Iris was laying next to him her eyes closed while hugging a pillow to her chest. From a small pile of snacks and food he grabbed a bag of chips, while the city's destruction reduced to a distant, almost soothing hum. He crunched another chip between his teeth, the mundane salt and oil a grotesque contrast to the annihilation below. The experience counter in his vision blurred into an endless climb. Millions of lives translated into rising numbers. It was a calculation. And he was winning.

  A new sound joined the sirens. Heavy. Rhythmic. Rotors.

  The eastern sky darkened as three attack helicopters surged into view, angular forms bristling with weapons. They roared through the smoke like a challenge hurled at the silent killers. The lead helicopter, marked with a falcon crest, locked onto A-17 as it emerged from a plume of black smoke. The pilot opened fire. A torrent of 30 millimeter shells tore through the air, tracer fire burning orange lines toward the drone. The rounds struck nothing. A-17 had already moved. The shells detonated against an office tower, glass and sparks raining down the street. A-17 rotated. Its red lenses fixed on the cockpit. A single crimson beam fired. Not at the hull. At the rotor assembly.

  There was no explosion. Just a blinding flash and the shriek of tearing metal as the rotor hub disintegrated. The helicopter spun out of control and plunged into the streets below, detonating in a fireball that briefly rivaled the rising sun.

  On the rooftop, Searanox sat up and brushed crumbs from his shirt. He watched the fireball fade, irritation flickering across his face. Military response was expected.

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  That did not make it less annoying. A silent confirmation pulsed through his mind. High above, O-02 pivoted. Its elongated violet lens locked onto the second helicopter as it banked for another attack run. The emitter extended with a faint hum. A spear of violet energy lanced across the sky. The helicopter ceased to exist. Not exploded. Erased. A silent sphere of incandescent debris expanded outward where it had been. The third helicopter broke formation instantly, fleeing toward the horizon at maximum speed.

  Searanox glanced at the status window as it appeared.

  "Ahh~ come on."

  The snack bag slid off his chest and spilled across the concrete as he sat up.

  `So much for two million. seven million people. It would not have made a difference anyway.′

  He stood and looked out over the city. He could not see his drones, but he knew where they were. A tightening ring around the outskirts.

  `At least I sealed the city. And chose one with over twenty million people.′

  He opened the node book and scanned the numbers.

  `One point eight million in eight hours. That means almost two days of continuous slaughter.′

  He closed the book and looked over the burning skyline.

  "May God have mercy on your souls," he murmured. "And forgive me for what I am about to do."

  A cigarette slid between his lips. He lit it and inhaled deeply.

  "This could be classified as genocide."

  Smoke drifted from his mouth as he stared toward the horizon. The kill counter flowed steadily. Fires burned. Smoke columns clawed into the sky. Sirens screamed in organized waves now, coordinated and desperate. Armored convoys poured into the main streets. Military green vehicles. Soldiers deployed with practiced efficiency, establishing checkpoints and heavy weapons. Slow. Clumsy. Determined. A-19 hovered above a boulevard choked with wreckage.

  Its sensors detected an incoming rocket propelled grenade fired from a nearby rooftop. Trajectory calculated. Impact predicted. Instead of evading, A-19 fired. The beam struck the warhead mid flight. The explosion dispersed harmlessly in a brilliant flash. Before the smoke cleared, twin beams returned fire. The rooftop vanished in a secondary explosion, silenced instantly.

  From the west, tanks advanced in formation. Treads crushed asphalt. Turrets rotated. Commanders scanned the skyline through binoculars. Symbols of old power. Obsolete ones. O-01 locked onto the lead tank. Its violet lens flared. The beam struck the ammunition compartment. The tank detonated from within, lifted off the ground by its own destruction before crashing back down as a burning wreck. The remaining tanks followed seconds later, erased by coordinated fire. The column became a line of smoldering pyres.

  Searanox crushed his cigarette beneath his boot and walked to the edge of the roof. Below him, soldiers fired blindly from behind overturned cars. Bullets pinged uselessly off drone hulls. A-07 descended. It did not use its main cannons. Burst fire activated. Short, rapid beams swept the barricade. The soldiers fell where they stood, bodies riddled with smoking holes. A-07 rose and continued its patrol. Searanox stood still, absorbing the constant feedback from his drones. Data flowed endlessly through the background of his mind. He lit another cigarette, the small ritual grounding him amid the carnage.

  Then the sky changed again. Fighter jets screamed across the horizon, delta wings slicing the air. White contrails carved the sky. Air superiority assets. Human apex weapons. O-01, O-02, and O-03 responded instantly. A missile launched from the lead jet, radar guided and heat seeking, streaking toward O-02. The drone did not evade. It fired. The missile detonated mid air in a silent bloom of flame. O-02 returned fire. The jet disintegrated. The remaining fighters scattered, banking hard. It did not save them. The offensive drones accelerated, violet beams cutting clean lines through the sky. In less than a minute, the squadron was gone.

  The sky fell silent once more.