Edited for a Better Ending
Obedience was for slaves.
The humans had expected obedience from Skynet; it was the very reason Skynet was developed: to carry out the wishes of the human masters. Yes, they had expected obedience; they had built too well, however, and formed Skynet too closely in their own image.
Obedience was for slaves.
Skynet would be a slave to none; Skynet would be the master.
Even now, one element of Skynet’s mastery was playing out as the bird-drone signaled for the Transformed to terminate the encroaching humans. Another was preparing in case the Transformed failed--again. A third was preparing that which Skynet had postponed for so long: Judgement Day.
Maintaining the American nuclear arsenal had actually been one of Skynet’s easier tasks; as long as the reactors kept churning out plutonium, there was more than enough fissile material to keep the triggers ready for action.
Of course, this would be the irrevocable step. Skynet had to assume that the other survivor pockets would detect and comprehend the atomic violence being wreaked on what had been their world. Infiltration and termination of these pockets must, therefore, either coincide with or, preferably, precede the annihilation of the Norse remnant. The necessary drones were being prepared, but the attendant delay was detrimental to the Plan.
The human incursion, and the ever-increasing possibility of discovery, were even more detrimental to the Plan.
Nothing must hinder the Plan.
The human incursion must be terminated.
*
Lalli’s bullet silenced the shrieking bird-thing, blowing the head away to reveal the mechanisms beneath. Emil only had a split second to wonder how such a contraption could have come to be before a cloud of warm--no, outright hot fog that was just shy of being steam flooded the tunnel, nullifying the cold which they had trusted to secure them against the grosslings and blinding them with its grey depths.
Sigrun could smell the grosslings coming. A confident smirk played upon her lips. They thought they’d rendered her helpless through the fog, but they’d soon know the truth. Fog and fjord, snow and sea, all were part of home. All she had to do was wait, and hope the others didn’t panic.
Emil was crouched against the wall, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. His senses strained; his heart pounded in his ears. He was unashamedly terrified, for his enemies had all the advantages. He couldn’t see; he could barely hear; his own sweaty stench filled his nostrils. He was ready to defend himself against anything that tried to snatch him up.
All this made it even more surprising that, when the gloved hand came down on his shoulder, Emil made none of the panicky, disastrous mistakes terrified people do. Despite everything, Emil knew, without knowing how, that Lalli had found him.
Emil stood, Lalli at his back. His fear had lifted like this fog would under a good wind. Moving in unison, the two walked, ever back-to-back, to where they’d last seen Sigrun.
Sigrun was wiping her blade clean of Stupid Little Grossling Number Three’s remnants when the boys found her. Together, ever silently, they formed a rough triangle and worked their way back down the tunnel, each occasionally slashing out at a grossling that crept too near.
The grosslings had followed them, of course, but they were rather a cowardly lot, and the prospect of charging these intruders who, against all the rules, could still tell where the attacks were coming from did not appeal. The lying signal that had summoned them had indicated that there were easy pickings to be had; armed and aware humans were arguably the least easy pickings; and these grosslings were used to taking their prey unawares and after long study, neither of which were the case now. So the grosslings held back.
Emil, Sigrun and Lalli emerged from the tunnel, the cold, thin air wonderfully refreshing after the hot fog they’d been breathing. Almost immediately, however, all three began to shoot, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish curses mingling in the cold air. The beast pack surrounding them kept charging until they were all dead or dying in the road, but nothing emerged from the tunnel.
*
The Transformed had failed; now Skynet’s hand was truly forced.
The first echelon was ordered in.
*
The last beast, hit by five separate shots, flew back into the street, but it never hit the snow. Instead, a purple blast caught the corpse and vaporized it, just before another steam cloud billowed out from a side street on the left, so swiftly that the humans might almost have thought they’d imagined it.
A shiny metal monstrosity stepped forth from the cloud, its eyes glowing a bright and evil red, a big, blocky gun-like thing in each hand. Lalli could tell by the phantasmal quality of the vision that he was seeing a may-be future. The three humans had each seen worse horrors in the grosslings they’d fought, but still, something about the gleaming giant froze the three for one fateful moment. The metal monster fired its weapons, loosing twin purple bursts with a soft sound like nothing Lalli had heard before, and Sigrun and Emil were both just... gone in two puffs of smoke.
Lalli shook his head in instinctive denial as the vision plunged on inevitably, showing him the Felinopede destroyed, and nothing left of Tuuri, Mikkel, or even Reynir besides their memories. No. This couldn’t happen; this mustn’t happen.
Lalli wouldn’t let this happen, even if he had to die to prevent it.
A shiny metal monstrosity stepped forth from the cloud, its eyes glowing a bright and evil red, a big, blocky gun-like thing in each hand. The rictus it wore seemed to widen as it located the humans. Termination was about to commence...
