Binary Edge: Stand Alone Revolution

[Laughingman]

Tokyo, 2049. 15th November, 8:36 AM.

The city was getting ready for a day of festivities, on the annual festival day for children aged three, five and seven. Parents were cooking, or, more likely, buying, treats for their children, many of whom were probably waking up now, given a day off school for the occasion. The winter sun shone from an azure sky onto the streets and solar panels, and Kenji had just began his rounds when the shooting started.

He had been walking down one of the streets of a poorer area, home to many recent migrants, when he heard the gunshots, and in the moment it took him to realise and freeze, a cold sweat suddenly on his back, the ARglasses had helpfully calculated and marked the likely location of the source on his map. He began sprinting - although he was no good at the acrobatics his brother liked, he could be quick when needed - and turned the corner, to see the familiar market square, except the unobtrusive pod of Mitsuo Corp. security mechs against a wall had opened, and the robots were firing. At the helpless early-morning shoppers, who were now screaming and fleeing, trampling others in their haste. He reached for his ARglasses with a shaking hand, and pressed the transmit button.
"HQ, there's a situation. I'm sending the feed now. We're going to need people from section 10 fast, probably 9 too, and 11's not going to like this, either." Pulling out his tonfa, he tried to work out what he could do, if anything, to help protect the civilians against the well-armed humanoid robots. Shit.

[Rinn]

It was one of those few rare days that the streets were busy enough that Jack could roam around and nobody would think the wiser. It was winter so his long beige overcoat and black wide brimmed hat and scarf wouldn't look so suspicious. Children ran around the closed streets, enjoying the decorations and music followed by the parents keeping a close eye on their young-ins, enjoying the various food stalls with many different smells. Jack watched jealously as they enjoyed themselves, giving his own memory core for being able to taste or smell any of those various foods.

Then something picked up on his sensors. Familiar noises, gunshots followed by screaming. Who was firing weapons? Who were they shooting at? Jack spun around and started running towards the noise. His programming flashing warning signs back and forth, telling him to hide and retreat. The virus in him needed to know.... HE needed to know what was going on. Spinning the last corner, weaving through scared bystanders as he saw the group of robots with automatic weapons mowing down innocent civilians.

A flashback of Dr. Greywater played deep in the back of his mind. The similarities... the death.... Jack needed to do something, but what exactly? Scanning the area he noticed some metal mobile food vendors nearby. Quickly jumping behind one he pushed the 8'x3' food cart into the group of robots. Hitting three of them, two got smashed enough to stay down but one stumbled, only losing an arm. The robot turned his attention towards Jack and held the machine gun in one hand, attempting to fire in his direction. It was sloppy but still deadly. The others did not even flinch, still keeping their focus on the civillans. Jack tried again with another cart, but this time he slid it in front of him as he pushed it head first into the group. This time only barely hitting one other as he lunged toward the one armed robot still firing at Jack.

Jack ducked and threw his hat on the bots sensors (eyes), grabbing the gun and turning it backwards towards the bots own head. Shooting parts of itself off before finally shutting down. Jack tried to use the gun that he "aquired" but it didn't seem to work. Most likely code-locked incase someone decides to pick it up. Instead he threw it at the lead robots head, hitting him with a nice thud and a chunk of dented metal. It didn't hurt the bot, but instead it caused the remaing one to turn their attention to the more lethal threat at the moment.... HIM. Jack spun around and made for the closest cover he could find. Dodging bullets in the process, his infrared glow from his body disrupting his image to the robots just enough for them to miss. His coat on the other hand, was not so lucky. It was pretty much swiss cheese by now. So now he was behind a thin concrete barrier with seven robots holding machine guns only a couple yards away.... what a great way to start a day.

[theracoon]

Lev was sitting under a shelter, sifting through an obscene amount of data. He knew that almost none of the intel would have any significance at all but it was better safe then sorry. He sighed, as the festival atmosphere permeated his alleyway. He had drifted away from the festival earlier, his instinctual dislike of crowds getting the better of him. Too many faces, too many people he didn't know. They were a luxury he could not let himself afford.

Just then he heard a sound that was music, a sound he always remembered. The sound of guns, of blood and of screaming. The rumors he had heard about high grade weaponry being moved into the area were true. He made a mental note to himself to get more information from that source before caving into his curiosity. Lev sprinted up a stairwell which clung to the side of a tall building. Then, with a series of deft leaps and jumps he reached a perch above the market place.

He could see the robots from his perch. He could see them gunning down civilians, but he was both too far away and not well-equipped enough to deal with them, it would be suicide. He was just about to report the incident to Section 11 when he saw a figure move towards the robots. "He must have a death wish" murmured Ito to himself, as he watched the figure fight the robots.

"Yes, section 11... Yes of course I'm am talking about the robot situation...I know I have an update for you, someone appears to be taking care of them. What do you want me to do?"

[Stock]

Ever boring headlines, the front page was not even slightly interesting, Tokyo district news, national news... Finally international news, even more parts of Europe were flooded, a civil war had started in France. It's good that I left when I did. Just when Dolf started reaching for his cup of coffee the alarm sounded, a call came in. As Dolf folded closed the news panel by sliding both sides to one another the rest of his team came in. His earpiece had just finished the briefing as the last man came in. "Okay men! As you heard we're fighting humanoid robots. I want you to pack anti-armour rounds and some anti-personnel rounds, just in case." As the men stood up to grab their gear one of them yelled: "What about EMP-grenades?" Dolf weighted that option for a second, "No, the pulse could interfere with the prosthetics of civilians and give them less of a chance." The men nodded.

As the band of special police officers made the way to the hangar they loaded themselves on a small quick response gunship. The men put on their helmets. Dolf saw some programming codes flashing before his left eye, while a HUD appeared around his view. "HQ, this is orange," he spoke into his helmet, "we're responding to the emergency call, requesting permission to take a flyer." Directly after that the answer he wanted to hear came back. "'Sir, we're good to go!"

"Brown, can you get the ship to hoover over the street? Alan take the turret, the rest were getting boots on the ground right away!" An almost completely synchronised 'aye' rendered that the men were ready just as the scene came into view. Dolf saw a man in a long coat running away into cover. A few of the humanoid robots were already disabled, great, less work for us. The ship hovered in the centre of the street as ordered. Dolf and his two companions jumped out of the craft, Dolf already heard the board gun turning. The fall was quite high, but the robotic legs of the men could easily withstand it. The machine gun was already aiming for the second robot, leaving the first one full of holes. Dolf was firing, the yellow aiming assistant had targeted a robot that had lost an arm. The anti-armour round did their job well and as soon as Dolf had found cover the robot he had been previously aiming at collapsed. “Brown, how many left?”
“2, sir!”
“Alan, get the left one, we’ll take the one on the right.”
After a short while the gunfire ceased... Dolf wondered what HQ would think of this, a bunch of bots going rouge. That shit never happens on its own.

[Laughingman]

Ken had started towards the robots, inspired by the mysterious guy in the big coat's effectiveness, when he heard the distinctive whine of a rapid response gunship's engines. I'll just get in the way of the professionals, I guess. Instead, he ran over to where the civilians had been fleeing, ducking behind the tarps of the stalls. He hadn't had much in the way of medical knowledge other than the mandatory first aid courses for the police, and what little he'd picked up from helping his brother revise, back when he was still interested in an ordinary job, an ordinary life. Still, it would be better than nothing for any wounded civilians there.
He found a number of wounded who'd managed to drag themselves out of the way, and he did what he could, binding wounds with scarves from a nearby stall. There were several dead, including a child, and he tried to avoid looking at them as best he could. They were mostly immigrants, but a few looked pretty native to him. Soon enough, the paramedics arrived and took over. He hoped no-one else would die, but banished the thought. I did the best I was able to.
He walked over to the team from the gunship - section 9, according to the shoulder badges - and introduced himself to the captain.
"I'm Lieutenant Tsunoda, sir. I was the one who first reported the incident. Are there any clues yet as to why this happened?"
As he did so, however, one of the robots being carried away by the captain's team whirred and its power lines glowed, a last bit of auxiliary power being burned up. The men carrying the stretcher instinctively stepped back, wary of an IED, while others reached for their guns. However, the robot simply played one of the many pre-recorded phrases common to security mechs, in the mechanical, emotionless voice. "Trespassers will be prosecuted. You have been warned. Trespassers will be prosecuted. You have been warned." As it did so, the other robots used up their reserves to repeat the statement, a tinny chorus breaking the near-silence of the square, then dying as the power ran out or they were crushed by the boots of the Section 9 task force.
"What was that? A glitch? Did they think the shoppers were trespassing, or something? No, surely not - they need human authorization for use of lethal force, don't they?" Ken began to think - given the district this happened in, and the recent rhetoric from the Independence League, that phrase could have a much more sinister meaning than a simple glitch. Shit, command is going to hate this.

[Rinn]

Jack noticed that the problem was quickly getting resolved by whatever millitary branch that was that handled the situation quite quickly. He was relieved that he at least drew the bots attention away from the civilians long enough for them to escape. It normally was not like him to jump into a situation like that but it seems the "Humanity" virus was affecting him much more often.

Seeing as a sleugh of news reporters, millitary police and regular police were on site already. He figured that was his clue to leave. Quickly wrapping the long beige coat around him once more and reaching over the concrete barrier to grab his suprisingly unharmed hat. He dashed into a back alley and made his way up an old style fire escape until he reached the roof. He took one last glance down below to see the broken army of robots let out one last war cry before they powered down. "How strange." He said in a metallic sounding voice. Before he escaped into a nearby rooftop doorway.

[Stock]

All enemy bots had ceased activity. Dolf slung his rifle over his shoulder and began walking to the scene. It had become quite a mess... Robot parts were lying all across the scene and diverse fluids were leaking out of the broken machinery. One of the bots had still some 'life' left in him, so Dolf lifted his metalic foot and stomped it out of him. "Hmph, serves him right... Robotic assh-" A civilian walked up to the Dutchman and started introducing himself, he looked sort of the same as the locals. He wasn't though.
"Lieutenant Tsunoda... I'm cap-"
And at that moment the robots broke out in a chorus. Just as Dolf wanted to order his men to shoot the last bit of energy out of those bots the metalic voices stopped. It stopped just as sudden as it started.

"Well, now that that's over. Once again I'm captain Noordzij, No-ru-du-za-i, I'm with the ninth. You know the drill lieutenant, you were the first to witness this, so we are obliged to bring for questioning. However kid, I never liked doing interviews. So, let's do it my way. I tell you what I know, then you tell me what you know. After that, if you had viable information the gunship takes you to the station and someone will take your statement. If not, enjoy your day off."
Dolf took a deep breath, took half a step back with his left foot and threw his arm in a circular motion.
"All this, the broken bots, was planned by someone. Otherwise the bots were directely terminated once they left their capsules without reason. It is most probable that someone hacked the system and activated the bots. Because of the security measures that are in effect for this type of systems it had to be either a very skilled hacker, probably someone with implants, or a larger orginasation that has the means and the backing to do something so obscure. And to be frank lieutenant, I'm really hoping you have more information. 'Cause that was all I got... So get your story straight, I have to contact headquarters."

Dolf turned around, issuing some more commands to his men. They already got the barrier poles out of the gunship and started putting them up around the crimescene. Brown started questioning some eyewitnesses, he shouted that the man who had helped was gone, just great. Dolf took of his helmet, revealing his short blonde hair, and pressed a button on his earpiece.
"HQ, come in. This is orange leader, do you copy?"
"Orange leader, this is HQ. Do you have a status report?"
"Affirmative. When we arrived at the site a series of robots had already been taken care off. After that we made short work of the remaining bots. After the firefight we met up with luitenant Tsunoda, he's the who called it in. When we wanted to bring the person responsible for several bot chrashes in for questioning he already had fled the scene. I'm questioning the lieutenant in a bit, maybe even bring him in for a statement."
"So that concludes your fieldreport, captain?"
"Yes, ma'm. I would like to request a bot tech and a computer geek. We need more information about this incident and I don't have the right personnel for that task."
"Affimative orange leader, the scene will be issued a robotics expert and a cyber technologist, HQ out."
Dolf sighed, an interview... He didn't like the cop part of his section nine job. Okay, Tsunoda, let's see what you know, he thought as he walked back over to the lieutenant. "So tell me what you know."

[theracoon]

Lev made a visual note of the man in the long beige coat he had seen, kicking himself for being distracted by the mercenaries. Lev gazed over the chaos, through the flurry of reporters and camera men, police officers and soldiers he picked out the man he was looking for. An officer who he had seen running towards the action. Robots never go rogue like that, especially ones capable of lethal force. There was something more to this and he wanted to find out. Lev touched his ear-piece, dialing his section 11 officials:

"Requesting full inquiry rights on police officers around the scene of the massacre...OK good, don't worry, I'll get everything I can and bring it right over."

Lev hung up, satisfied with the results. He leaned down to fasten a heavy buckle on his boot before jumping form his perch and slipping and sliding quickly down the side of the old building, reaching street level in a matter of seconds. When he had reached the street he moved like a ghost through the crowds. He silently approached the police \officer he had spotted, who was know talking to a soldier. Lev was about 50% sure he had priority, close enough.

"Excuse me officer, I'm agent Lev Sokolov, I'm with Section 11, I just need to ask you a few questions. I have the inquiry warrant here." Lev said cheerily, producing a screen from his pocket and displaying the file. This man had to know something, either that or he had saw something. This was a messy crime scene and messy crime scenes are full of leads.

[Laughingman]

Ken sighed. He was familiar with how to give a witness statement, but that didn't make them any less tedious to give. "My apologies, captain, but I don't know how much help I can be. I was walking my usual patrol, when I heard the gunshots, which my glasses then located and flagged for me. I made my way there, as fast as possible, and saw a dozen mechs shooting civilians. I was about to do what little I could, but a braver man than me in a large coat ran out, taking down a few of them, and I heard your gunship, so I helped the civilians instead. By the time the firing had stopped, the 'bots were all taken down and the guy who helped out was gone. Then, the mechs started up again and did... that thing when I c-"
However, he was interrupted by another man, coming up to him. He introduced himself as Agent Sokolov, with section 11, and asked for another witness statement. Ken sighed again. It's going to be a long day...

One long day later, full of multiple witness statements from all involved, (yielding few clues - there seemed to be no trigger for the attack, according to the survivors) extensive forensic analysis, (no sign of recent tampering with the 'bots, according to the city lab; a few had been sent off to the Kyoto branch with their experimental techniques, but their results were notoriously slow to come and unwilling to make any ambitious deductions that could blot the success rate of their prized methods), bureaucratic wrangling (sections 10 and 11's heads both wanted the case, and 9 didn't want to touch it, knowing the difficulties of tracing cyber-crime.) and fervent speculation (both on the traditional and social media, a dozen conspiracy theories had sprung up, blaming everyone from all the megacorps working together, a rogue A.I escaped from Amada R&D, through to aliens and the immigrants themselves. The police PR department wasn't commenting) a joint task force was created, with the intention of finding and apprehending whoever was responsible, assembled in a hurry out of anyone with relevant experience, such as the network trace team who had the crucial role in the '39 puppeteer murders case and section 9's response unit, and anyone who had been there at the time, such as a certain policeman and an ex-spy.

The current working hypothesis in the force, although they had been instructed not to form views without enough evidence, was that it was a glitch, or that perhaps someone in Mitsuo corp. wanted it to look that way. To this end, some poor script drones were poring through every line of code involved, and a multisection team got the more glamorous job of sneaking into the Mitsuo corp. databases and seeing what could be found before it could be wiped, and to leave behind their own sensors to see if anyone did come to do some wiping.

[JRL]

John landed, and he landed hard, to anyone without a military grade prosthetic body the pain would be coursing throughout them, reaching their brain by now, the intense pain of both legs breaking would be devastating and they'd most likely collapse in a puddle of their own bodily fluid. John broke neither, and landed as if he'd just jumped out of the window of an adoring parent's house to break curfew. And now he was on top of a very un-detailed rooftop, he walked to the edge and watched from range as a man clad in a grey trenchcoat leaped from the side of the building, he watched as he made his descent into the ocean of a crowd, finally stopping to talk to a police officer.

He had seen it, all of the chaos and carnage cause by what he knew was selfish action upon selfish action, the shopper's trampling one another in a desperate attempt to save their own pathetic lives. He wasn't too surprised to be honest, and though that's what he told himself he couldn't help but feel some interest and pain from this particular event. He suddenly realized he was still watching the man in the Grey coat, his olive drab trench coat was to heavy to flap in the wind and his hood was to tight to move, but he thought for a second he could feel the wind. Suddenly, as quickly as he had began watching the man he stopped, turning left and sprinting without hesitation to the edge like the wind he'd imagined, he leaped from the edge landing on the opposite building with barely a sound, he turned and even though he felt he could be doing something alot more important, more pressing or more meaningful, he continued to watch the man in the Grey coat. Almost invisible from the naked eye, he watched, high upon a rooftop.