Close Encounters of the First Kind

[Babalover80]

 
   After joining forces with the heroes of this reality, it wasn't long before Odie was allowed access to a personal computer.  The easy interface and the concept of a display device convinced him that it would be good to have something like that on himself so that he could provide visual statistics to his constituents.  He was finally able to determine exactly where he was and the timeline that these people operated under.  Feeling that he was ready to observe the environment in which he would be living in, he had gotten permission to leave the compound for brief excursions into the surrounding areas.  But before that he was still very concerned as to why he was unable to connect to the MHD.
   After the final diagnostic program had been run, Odie was 100% certain that there was no problem within him that would cause him to be only able to connect to the MHD in such a limited fashion.  Test after test had been run and it seemed to him that the signal was being distorted from a source outside of himself.  That was very confusing for him because as far as he was able to ascertain, there was no one on the planet that would have the capability to block that signal because no should know the exact frequency that his reality was tranmitting through.  Then it struck him.
    " Sentinels", he said with a tone to his voice that was unknown to him.  Once again he was distracted from his thoughts because this new emotion was coursing through him and he couldn't quite place which one it was.  Deciding to ponder that as he continued his research, he started to analyze his options.
    In a short time he concluded that the cause of the problem had to be a device emitting a frequency that distorted certain wavelengths, but how to find it?  With his limited connectivity to his database, it took many days for him to create an application for his personal computer that would allow him to track all electronic transmissions that were affecting this building.  Once that was done he was able to ascertain which ones were wifi, radio transmissions, satellite, etc.  It took only a matter of minutes to deduce that there was one unidentified frequency that was being broadcast from an abandoned building not 5 miles from the building he was in. It seemed his colleagues were unaware of this broadcast because it was not showing up on any of their sensory devices.
   Certain that the Sentinels were invading, he decided that he would have to see for himself what was causing this disturbance.  Not wanting to cause any undue worry and certain of his own capabilities, Odie went to investigate.
   The frequency jammer was a good find.  It had been a distress beacon looted off one of the  Odyseus prototypes, then modified to impede the signal.  Gadgetz was getting nervous.  How long would he have to wait for that dumb robot to figure it out?  It had been a couple of weeks and he was really getting tired of waiting around for this guy.  He had wanted to sneak into the compound where they were housing him but had given up on it after he had run a perimeter check.
     "All good things go to those who wait", he grumbled as he stamped out the butt of his cigarette.  The harder drugs distracted him too much so he was fine with a little nicotine to help calm his nerves as he waited impatiently for this robot to appear.   At least he had something to occupy his time with. 
   His pet robot, Hermes, was a great distraction for him as he cruised the skies of the city.  He was able to hack into the local Air Traffic Control tower and regulate it as a military aircraft running practice drills. Whenever he would use Hermes to venture out, he would change up the tag number on their radar and it seemed like they were always running different drills with different aircraft.  It helped to give him a good layout of the area and also gave him something to play around with.  He usually had to be close to machines in order to manipulate them, even touching them in some cases, but with Hermes it was different. When Hermes flew on his own he was able to  see what Hermes saw and fly as any other pilot might when in the cockpit.  But when he was actually in the ship, he became a pilot of epic proportions, and Hermes was capable of creating weapons to react to the Odysseus models evolutionary changes.
   As Odie was walking toward the derelict building he didn't pay too much attention to what was going on around him.  The street seemed to buzz with so much activity that he was bombarded on all sides from so many new experiences to input that he closed himself to his surroundings and focused only on the signal that he was tracing.  When he spotted the abandoned building he rushed to it in anticipation of being able to extricate himself from the masses.
   When he got in he was greeted with the sweet sound of silence.  The noise outside  had been dampened sufficiently and he was once again able to compose himself.   The building was the remnants of a business that had at one time been very prosperous. Empty cubicles and floor to floor windows made it look as if it had once been very profitable and as if all of a sudden everyone had fled without bothering to take anything with them. As he started to roam through the bottom floor he started to detect what sounded like a generator and he could now start to feel it reverberating through the building.  His tracker indicated that the source of the signal was somewhere above him. He started to make his way up the stairs.
   As Odie checked each floor he was once again reminded of how little he knew. When he reached the tenth floor, and started searching it, he had finally started to realize the concept of hierarchy.  That each of those cubicles had represented different people and that they had all relied on some person to provide them with a purpose.  They relied on someones idea to generate enough power that it would allow each of them to survive.  He started to understand how the many could be influenced by the few for the sake of survival.  That's why he didn't notice the jet flying towards him at Mach 2.
   He had only a brief moment to react as the gatling gun started spitting rounds towards him, shattering glass and sending papers and particle board flying everywhere.  A burst hit him in the leg and he still was unsure of how react because it seemed as if there was nowhere to hide. Then he remembered that the stairwell had been made of sterner stuff and he made a mad dash to safety as more bullets landed where he had been just moments ago.
   As he made it into the stairwell, he turned around to slam shut the door, and was shocked to see the jet tranform into what looked like an improvised Sentinel.  He could recognize most of the parts from his files but had never seen one able to transform and had never seen one with a cockpit.  He didn't have long to register that though because the robot tore into the inside of the building like a hot knife through butter.  And as the missile pods popped out and let loose a volley, Odie realized what that emotion had been when he had first thought of the Sentinels invading.  Fear.  Odie started climbing the stairwell at break neck speed.
   The explosion rocked the stair well and Odie was flung through the door of the eleventh floor. He was leaking fluids and he knew that unless he was able to disrupt that transmitter he wouldn't be able to properly heal himself.  He could at least register that his armor was starting to thicken some, and that his reflexes were starting to become improved but he didn't quite know enough about his specs. to think about creating anything that could fight back.
   As he ran from the giant killer robot, Odie wasn't able to do much.  He thought that if he could just disable that transmitter he would be able to figure something out; so when the robot started tearing through the floor he didn't look back.  As more and more bullets started to hit him in the back he tried to ignore the warning sensors popping up in his HUD and continued his mad dash to the top. 
   By the time he reached the 30th floor he knew he was leaking fluids heavily and was hoping that the transmitter was up here.  He had been unable to search the other floors in his frantic escape from the robot and placing all of his cards on the table.  As he burst through the door, he realized that the 30th floor was the roof of the building.  He wasn't quite sure what all of the helicopters were doing up there but he hoped they weren't meant for him.  He had already been shot up enough.
   "Freeze!"  bellowed a voice from a microphone as the choppers hovered above the building. Unsure of what to do, Odie came to a halt. The beacon was there, not 30 ft. away.  He could see the antenna dish and generator side by side and then followed the wires to what looked like one of the relay beacons found in earlier versions of his model.  He thought he recognized the insignia on the helicopter as one of those seen inside the building and was relieved.  But his relief was short lived when the giant robot burst up through the ground.  The stunned reaction from the helicopter was all the mech. needed as it let loose a volley of missiles at one of the choppers.  The explosion that resulted forced the remaining pilots to compensate, which was a good thing because it saved them from the gatling gun fire that came next.
   The pilots recovered and started to fire their own weapons at the robot and Odie saw his chance.  Evading the robot had at least increased his speed and with only a brief moment of hesitation, Odie ran as fast as he could.  As he ran towards the beacon, the mech. seemed to jump from the building and transform into a jet in one fluid motion.  It seemed that the chopper fire had been enough to make it focus on them as its target.
   As Odie tore the transmitter from the antenna he continued running at full speed.  When he reach the edge of the building he mustered all of his strength and leapt as far as he could. It was at that moment that he wished that he could fly too.
   Odie crashed into the adjacent building, which about ten stories lower, with such force that he fell through the ceiling and fell through five more floors before he was finally stopped.  Dust was flying everywhere but luckily his toughened skin had absorbed most of the impact. It seemed that the robot was gone because he could hear the sounds of the jet and choppers getting further away.  It looked like he was safe for the moment.   As he started to get his bearings and run some self diagnostics,  he took note of the device.  Everything looked normal but what was that flashing red light in the center? 
   When it exploded Odie thought he saw his creators flash before his eyes.  He had expected to be destroyed in a blazing inferno but was astonished when his programming started to go offline.  He was aware of the effects of an emp and was properly shielded, but apparently not enough.  The blast toppled him to the ground and was in the process of putting him in a standby mode as his system recalibrated and rebooted.  It was just as he was shutting down when he saw a man appear from the side of the wall.  It almost seemed as he had been part of the wall itself and came right out of it.  His ascot covered most of his facial features and Odie has not able to see past the mans flying goggles.  As the man came and knelt in front of him, Odie heard a slight chuckle followed by "Newb".  The last thing he remembered was the man putting his hands on his forehead.
   When Odie started up again he was surprised to see that he was just where he had shut down. His fluids had stopped leaking so at least some of his life support functions had started up while he was in standby.  The hole from his leap of faith allowed the sounds of the city to carry into his room.  As he sat there he realized that his enemies had made their first move, and he had been unable to stop them.  At least the signal blocker had been destroyed.