He'd been wrong. So unbelievably, disastrously wrong. He should've obeyed the orders to destroy these abominations the moment he had the chance, but it was too late now.
Not satisfied with snapping Halser's neck, the companions who'd converged on the two security officers began grabbing limbs and pulling them in opposite directions. In less horrifying circumstances the sight would've been amusing, even absurd. As if a dozen beautiful women were fighting over the two men.
The combat androids poured into the warehouse. One closed the door behind it, obscuring Dalar's view to the small, metal mesh-reinforced window in the center of it. That was still enough to see as the androids were swarmed by dozens of HAE's prototypes.
It would've been ludicrous, even horrifying under most circumstances to watch the six foot six, three hundred pound ERI robots twisting and raining blows down on what looked like a bunch of petite, innocent young women in loose, snowy white smocks, slagging a few with their cauterizers as more piled on top of them from all directions. Dalar kept expecting the combat androids to simply stomp through the smaller robots, leaving a broken trail behind them as they came to the rescue of the security officers.
Instead, within a matter of moments the companions had ripped the combat androids to pieces. And, his horror mounting until he felt like he was in some sort of nightmare or sick full immersion dive, he realized that behind them the ones attacking Garridy and Halser had done the same to the two men, painting their dainty smocks and flawless skin with macabre trails of gore.
For an eternal moment Dalar stared at the ragged pieces of his fellow crewmen, then at the blood-spattered females turning towards him, feeling the blood drain from his face and bile rising in his throat. It took every ounce of self-control not to lose his lunch, or for that matter control of his bladder.
With a frantic scream, he drew his cauterizer and blew apart the door controls, hopefully locking those horrors on the other side of the solid barrier. Then he spun to face Sarr, who to his fury looked queasy but triumphant.
“I thought companions were ordered to prioritize human life above all other considerations!” he snarled.
The scientist actually smirked, although she continued to look sickened by what they'd just witnessed. “Companions, absolutely. They'd sooner allow themselves to be destroyed than harm a human. But you and I both know, Deek, that there's a more complex moral consideration . . . what if one human is threatening the life of another, and there's no choice but to either end a guilty life or see an innocent killed? That requires an entirely different level of AI prioritization. Caretaker level, to be exact. And the Caretakers have very interesting core priorities when it comes to the Deconstructionist Movement.”
On the other side of the door, the companions had begun banging on it and the surrounding walls. Which wouldn't have been all that intimidating, considering they looked like a bunch of half-dressed supermodels. Aside from the fact that they'd just literally torn humans and even void-blasted combat robots limb from limb, and their punches and kicks visibly dented the thick reinforced metal.
Dalar shifted his aim from the door to Sarr's face, shoving his cauterizer within inches of her eye. At the moment he cared more about survival than taking these slaves for some mega-corporation, but he'd expose himself to vacuum before he let them get away after smirking at the death of two good men like that.
“Move!” he snarled. He waved the weapon at the other scientists. “All of you, move! Anyone not running the other way with the rest of the group by the time I finish speaking gets shot!”
The huddled mass of men and women bolted across the room towards the other exit. Dalar pounded after them, more concerned with getting away from the nightmare behind him than with hurrying the scientists along, to the point where he probably would've simply shoved past any who ran too slow.
Although that didn't turn out to be a problem; maybe they'd taken his threat seriously, or maybe the sight of humans being gruesomely murdered in front of them by their own creations had shaken them, but these unathletic eggheads were managing to stay ahead of him running for his life.
Behind him, he heard a tortured groan and then a heavy crash. He was too busy running to waste even a moment to look behind him, but his imagination supplied an image of the heavy door being torn out of the wall and dozens of blood-spattered monstrosities crawling over each other to pour through it in pursuit of him.
And if they caught him, they'd rip him apart like they had his crew mates.
Dalar jerked his head slightly to the side for universal broadcasting on his communicator. “All units, the companions are hostile! Repeat, the companions are hostile! Evacuate the facility immediately!”
A frantic voice replied, speaking over the sharp whine of cauterizers and nearby screams. “Yeah thanks for the tip, former Captain Obvious.”
Seriously, even at a time like this?
The scientists had hit a slight bottleneck at the exit to the warehouse building, pouring through it in twos and threes onto the tarmac beyond as the people behind them pounded on their backs and screamed at them to hurry. Which just served to slow the process down even more; it looked as if even genius AI developers could be morons when they were panicked.
Dalar hooked an arm around the neck of the one causing the most trouble, putting his cauterizer to his head and pulling him backwards. “In an orderly fashion, ladies and gentlemen!” he bellowed. “Didn't you ever do emergency evacuation drills?”
Inspiring as his words were, by the time he finished speaking the others were mostly through. He kicked the quivering scientist he held forward and charged through the door, opening his mouth
