Chapter Text
…
“Damn it all Rhino, where is my covering fire?! Pin them down so I can move!”
Rhody leaned against a dilapidated brick wall, the remnants of an old house, as she clutched her rifle in her dexterous hands. She reached down into her webbing, taking out a fresh magazine of 7.62 NATO as she used the other to push the magazine release, rocking the short 20 round magazine out of the FAL. As she began to insert the fresh magazine, the racket of an M60 Light Machinegun suddenly filled her artificial ears…
“Fucking finally, Rhino!”
She yelled out, pulling back the charging handle on her rifle and poking her head above her piece of rough cover. As she poked her head up, she finally got a new glance over her battlefield. Bullets whizzed past her, impacting the walls and flying through the windows of a small, part-intact brick house across the road. She stood up, vaulting her cover before running swiftly across the road separating the two combatants, pressing up against the wall of the other house. She reached for her belt, detaching a hand grenade. She’d quickly lay her rifle down against the wall as the occupants inside still cowered from Rhino’s suppressive fire, before pulling the pin, tossing the grenade in, and ducking down.
BANG!
A loud blast shook the run-down shack, the one window still intact shattering to pieces that flew out at high speed. Even though her eyes weren’t susceptible to them, she still shut her eyelids to cover herself, before springing up and aiming her rifle into the empty window, getting a look inside.
The meager furnishings of the home were wrecked, and so were the current occupants. Three rough-looking outmodes, all clearly at least a decade or more old, laid strewn across the floor in varying degrees of messed up. One, a slimmer, rusty android that was seemingly designed for human interaction took most of the blast, his thin limbs being unable to take the concussive force and shattering across the room. The two others didn’t fare any better, with one, forced against the wall by the blast was missing an arm, a leg, and a large part of her face made mostly of glass. The third, and only one still active was missing both of his legs, and the rifle he was presumably holding on the floor not far from him. Rhody was the first one to react, as the moment the outmode dove for his rusty AK rifle she unloaded three rounds of 7.62 directly into his chest, the old battery suddenly flaring out and igniting as the outmode went limp.
“More outmodes? Who’s still shipping this many out here?”
Rhody asked herself as she climbed in through the window. Making sure there’s no survivors, she lowered her rifle again, firing two rounds into the chests of her seemingly dead enemies and taking them out for good. After making sure none of them jumped her and tore her head off, she slung her rifle on her back, kneeling down by the wreck of the one that survived. Reaching around behind herself, she took out a flat-head screwdriver she kept on her person. She then reached around the back of the outmode, pulling forward his head and stabbing the tool into a small crack in the back of it. She then applied some pressure to it, which forced the top of its head off and revealed its insides, a collection of circuits and data boards. She reached in with her free hand, pulling loose a random board before she heard another yell.
“Rhody! Stop collecting brains and get the fuck back here!”
A deeper voice this time, not Rhody’s. Rhino, the bulky hauling outmode turned heavy gunner stood behind a truck on the side of the road, the side plating riddled with bullet holes. His signature M60 hung from one hand, the belt wrapped around his bulky torso as his other hand was used to amplify his voice. Rhody stood up, tossing the removed chip into one of her pouches as she made her way back.
“Yeah, yeah, keep ya paint on. I’m coming…”
She climbed back out of the window, walking slowly to the truck. She reached up to her head, adjusting her beret that fell a little bit too far forward when she jumped back out of the window.
“More outmodes… Some utility droids and.. some kind of social droid? Server… or greeter or something. They really must be running out of the good outmodes.”
“Who knows. Now get in, we were meant to be at camp two hours ago.”
Rhody just silently approached the bed of the truck, pulling open the rear door and hopping inside, closing it back up. As she sat herself down beside the crates they were hauling, she felt the ground beneath her shake as the engine of the mighty vehicle came back to life.
As the machine rattled across the rough dirt road, Rhody took the opportunity to just look outside, and enjoy the scenery. The forest passed by quickly, with an occasional jump as the truck ran over a loose stone or branch.
Soon enough, the truck entered the limits of a small town, the outermost homes collapsing and abandoned, filled with bullet holes and char marks. Eventually though, life appeared in the streets as villagers tried to live their daily lives, only turning their heads for a moment as the truck passed by them. Military trucks weren’t a rare sight in this neck of the woods, as the robotic duo passed another one on their way through the town’s tiny square. It wasn’t as new as the one they were riding, with it clearly having many, many years of grueling work behind it as human soldiers, adorned in dark khaki uniforms and helmets, hauled bags of some type of foodstuff into the back.
Continuing through the town, passing through its meager market, with only a few stalls around selling fruits and meat at massive prices. A not so surprising sight even out here, an outmode, one of the older models, was standing in one of the stalls, with a short, though wide lady standing in front of it with her arms crossed and her voice raised. Rhody didn’t manage to catch anything she said though, as the truck passed the altercation without stopping, continuing to its destination.
It wasn’t long before the small speck of civilization disappeared, and the lush forest returned as the backdrop for this short road trip. Driving onto a dirt intersection, the wooden sign-pole held a few rough signs, some made of cut wood, while others were painted scrap metal. The truck made a sharp left, passing the long-burnt and stripped wreck of a makeshift armored vehicle, upside down on the side of the road with a massive hole in its undercarriage. It’s been there for months… But nobody bothered to get rid of the entire thing, instead just stripping it and its previous occupants for parts until just the frame, and anything fused together was left. Neither of the bots in the truck had any need for what was left, so they continued on, driving past the wreck and continuing through the woods.
The trees would eventually begin to thin out as they approached a clearly more “developed” part of the forest, with the completely dirt road turning to one covered in rough gravel, and tree stumps replacing the full trees that surrounded them previously. And in the distance, surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, with several wooden watchtowers right behind it… Was their destination.
As Camp Roughneck drew nearer and nearer, Rhody could finally relax, the threat of yet another band of hostile outmodes disappearing along with the thick brush. She’d lay her rifle down on the bed of the truck, waiting for Rhino to finally pull in so she can enjoy some R&R. As the truck stopped for the first checkpoint, she was taken by surprise by the sudden stop as a human mercenary approached the truck, looking it over, and then looking back up at Rhino.
“ The fuck happened? Another Militia ambush?”
“Yeah… Cargo’s fine. We won’t run out of bullets for another… year, from the looks of it. What strings did Command pull to get this much over here?”
“Shit if I know… Hey, did Rhody come back? I don’t see her.”
Rhody heard the comment, poking her head out from behind the truck’s cloth cover, looking down at the man.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you Kyle! You still owe me!”
“Ah, don’t get your fan belt in a twist, Rhody. I’ll fucking pay you back some day… Go on through.”
Rhody just responded by crossing her arms as the truck started moving again, rolling through the slowly opening inner gate… and into camp.
The inside was bustling with activity, with human and robotic mercenaries moving about, either just resting, chatting, messing about, or doing some kind of menial job. The actual core and infrastructure of the camp was formed from the remains of an abandoned town, the houses and buildings taken over and repaired by the new occupants. The truck passed by rows of newly-built wood buildings, all slightly raised above the ground as a few handfuls of mercenaries stood in front of some, chatting while not wearing much of their combat equipment. They drove down the gravel path, passing into the “Old Town” with its more brick and mortar construction, turning off to the right and entering the camp’s motorpool and cargo receiving station.
Rhino turned the truck around in the area’s yard, before putting the machine into reverse, and pulling back towards an elevated platform, where a lanky, dark blue android stood gesturing for him to keep reversing. As soon as the truck was within distance of its cargo ramp falling cleanly onto the steel floor, the robot snapped into a “STOP!” gesture, with Rhino following suit and hitting the brake, jostling Rhody a little when the truck suddenly stopped, the engine being turned off soon after.
Rhody dusted off her shorts as she stood up from the truck’s bed, picking up her rifle and slinging it on her back. Approaching the bed gate, she’d swing it open for the robot who guided them in, who approached her as she climbed out.
“Greetings Rhody. Is the cargo all accounted for?”
“Yeah, yeah, Beancounter. It’s all there. Get your lifters up here to do the dirty work, I'm going to the barracks.”
She responded, looking at the robot in front of her. A bit of a sore thumb in the camp, being a newer model than many others. His paint and clothes were clean, and he still had that feel of robotic rigidity about him, like a lot of new-boughts. Walking past him, she’d only let out a robotic sigh as she stepped down from the loading dock, two bulkier outmodes passing her to start unloading the cargo.
Walking away from the glorified military parking lot, she didn’t really care much for the amenities of Old Town when her job didn’t require her to stop by the armory or mechanic. She’d pass by what used to be a larger home, or perhaps a restaurant, now converted to a briefing area. A taller human mercenary wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses stood behind the podium, with a handful of human and robot mercenaries in the seats in front, the two groups separated by two rows of empty chairs.
“-Africa gentlemen… and robots. You all had some information about what you were getting into from the news stories and chatter on the plane ride here, but let me give you a refresher. We are here to keep the communist guerillas, holed up… here…”
He said, pointing to a map behind him, showing the rough borders of a small nation, with an even rougher line splitting the nation into two halves, one blue, one red. He pointed to what appears to be the north of the country, marked in deep red.
“This is the territory of the Monteniquan People’s Front, the good for nothing commies that have been beating this country into the pavement ever since they stabbed the government in the back. Their primary tactics are ambushes, psych warfare, and mass assaults…”
Was the last thing Rhody heard as she walked past the assembly of newly-hired and bought mercs, walking away towards the thick-walled, barricaded building at the edge of Old Town: the Armory. A human guard in front of the thick steel door nodded to her as she approached, banging twice on the door. By the time she reached it, it’d slowly swing inwards, a rusty-looking outmode, with a lot of years behind his steel belt by the amount of dents, rust, and patches on his pure-metal body pulling open the door.
“Hey there Rhody. Done with your job today?”
“Yeah Rob. Just turning in my rifle so I can finally just lay down and recharge…”
She responded, passing him as he pushed the door closed again. She’d then approach the thick bar cage not far from the front door, a human with his legs up on the table and reading a magazine right behind it.
She’d mimic clearing her throat to get his attention, to which the man just lowered his reading material, not caring to put down his legs.
“Hey Rhodes. Just slide your rifle and bullets through here… Pat’s gonna get it stored away.”
“Of course he will… It’d be surprising if you didn’t dump everything on the bot they locked in there with you.”
She said, irked at his laziness as he dumped all his work onto Pat, a somewhat newer outmode assigned to assist in the armory with moving things around and sorting the inventory. She’d take out the magazine from her rifle, rack the charging handle to eject the chambered round, and slide it under the protective plexi-glass separator between her and punching him in the face. Afterwards, she started taking her spare magazines out, laying them down one by one as she looked up to see Pat approach from behind a rack of ammo crates.
“Hello Rhody! Turning in your gun? I’ll get it sorted for you. Are you gonna be at Jenny's this evening?”
“Hey Pat… Yeah. I’ll see you there after we both get out of work.”
Pat’s eyes lit up to signify his happiness, considering he lacked a mouth, as he snatched up her rifle and ammo before disappearing back into the shelving racks.
“Alright… I guess I'll see you when I need it back.”
The mercenary quartermaster just gave her a two-finger salute as he once again raised his magazine, losing any interest in her he had in the first place. Rhody just soundlessly turned around, with Rob pushing the door open for her again as she once again entered the outside world.
Finally free of her more sensitive gear, she began the final trip of her journey to getting a bit of rest. Walking away from the Armory, she was heading straight out of Old Town and for the line of wooden buildings lining the road she drove in on. Walking ever closer to the barracks, the sound of an old radio playing music would be heard as a duo of human mercenaries sat around it, smoking cigarettes. When Rhody passed by them though, the music suddenly cut out only to be replaced by a seemingly even older recording of a trumpet blaring through it. Both of the mercenaries seemed to quickly react to it, one putting out his cigarette on a nearby ashtray as he turned to look at the radio.
“Oh hell yeah, it’s coming on! Everybody, the Front’s on!”
This caught the attention of several other loitering mercenaries, both human and mechanical, including Rhody. She, alongside the rest of them walked over to the old receiver, listening in to what would come on next.
As the trumpets faded away, a male, heavily accented but easily legible voice replaced it.
“People of Montenique! I, Major William Samota, once again return to tell you to rise up! Join your brothers and sisters in the People’s Front, be you man or machine! We will not allow the continuation of this oppressive regime, working not for your health and prosperity, but for the riches of the capitalist Western world! You die in the mines, scraping every ounce of our nation’s natural wealth, only to have it sold off to America and the rest of the imperialist world for almost nothing!”
The voice yells out, as if it was speaking to a crowd of thousands while the background was completely silent. So was the crowd surrounding the radio, wanting to hear the bad propaganda their enemy was spewing for their own amusement.
“They come every week, searching for new blood for the army, dragging off your sons to die in this pointless brother war! This goes to you, my mechanical brothers! You were thrown out here by your decadent Western owners, left to rot or be turned into scrap metal! If you join us, you will ensure your freedom and a place in the new world!”
This got a few laughs from the mercenary audience.
Yeah, they’re definitely free to be thrown at us with rusty-ass rifles.
Rhody just listened, having heard this speech many times before. Knowing he doesn’t have anything new to say, she decided to walk away from the crowd, back towards her bunkhouse. After only about half a minute of walking later, she finally reached it, starting to walk up the steps up to the small front porch. A small metal sign hung from one of the porch’s support poles, showing a basic female figure, with the number one right below it. There wasn’t anyone on the porch, with most of the mercenaries around outside deciding to listen to the still jabbering Major on the radio. Rhody instead pushed open the door, entering the small sleeping quarters.
It wasn’t the most luxurious of resting spaces, with bunk beds arranged alongside the walls, with a table and some bookcases containing almost nothing except for a few magazines and one roughed-up hard-back. Rhody walked over into about the middle of the building, walking over to one of the bunks and sitting down on the relatively thin mattress as she began to work on removing her webbing. Before she did that though, she’d reach into one of the pouches, and retrieve the piece of brain circuitry she’d pulled after the ambush. Once she slipped out of the basic piece of gear, she slid herself off of the mattress and onto the floor. There she’d lean down below the bed, dragging out a metal footlocker. Opening it up revealed it to be her personal storage box. In one half of the box was a cut-down plastic milk jug, with a good pile of assorted pieces of circuitry inside. She tossed her trophy onto the pile before looking over to the other half.
A neatly folded baby-blue dress, with all the accessories of the base Nandroid uniform, as well as a couple of neatly folded papers. She’d look down on the items there, a few memories trying to un-burrow themselves from her mind before she once again repressed them, laying her folded up webbing and beret on top before shutting the lid and sliding it back below the bed.
Finally, she reached down to the wall, retrieving the jury-rigged charging cable attached to the camp’s power system. She’d slowly lay down in her nearly bare bed, inserting the cable into the back of her head as she laid down to rest and charge up.
She deserves this…