Counting by Zeros

Prologue 2: New Variable

Project Z C
Classified [Unredacted Version]
In order to limit casualties on the battlefield, regular soldiers are less than desirable. However, current unmanned drones limit the power of human adaptability, lessening their effectiveness. In order to satisfy both of these needs, the "artificially manned drone" has been invented. The AMD uses a cloned human body as it's base, augmented with superior materials, robotic enhancements, and a receiver/transmitter installed in the brain, allowing for downloading of mission information, and the streaming of audio, visual, and other sensory data. This will allow the brain, one of the world's most advanced computing instruments, to be utilized in this drone. This drone will be controlled through "Pilot Data", a large packet of data that will be constantly added to through the drones own experience, which will constantly be saved to the main database to ensure a minimal loss of progress. When a drone is destroyed, its Pilot Data will be uploaded to a new drone, allowing it to continue as if the previous drone had never been destroyed.

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Zach sat in the van, listening to Jolie explain his next mission. To make things clear, this is now several days after that last chapter. Zach, or Zero, whichever you prefer, didn't have much to do after that mission. He went back to the office, helped replace the empty pod in the van with a new barrel of him, then went home. Probably had dinner, watched some sportsball, texted his mom, whatever it is that FBI agents do. I sure as heck don't know.

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Jolie was one of the two people who stayed in the van, watching him work through his own eyeballs, downloading maps to his brain and watching through satellites for bad guys. She, along with Mike, who was driving, made sure all Zach's tech worked properly, and hit the respawn button whenever he got wasted.

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Anyways, I said she was talking. "An hour ago, Robbert Hill, unemployed, walked into an Enerco power plant and started wrecking the place. By himself. And the craziest part is, it's working. He walked into the middle of the lobby and shot out the cameras one by one, then after a bit other cameras started going out, in a path through the building. We assume Hill is shooting them out as he goes. We couldn't see what happened to the security staff, but none of the ones who were in his way stopped him."
Zach's brows were well furrowed by now, as he had several questions. "So... he has a weapon, and is able to take out armed guards. People don't tend to do these things without knowledge of the floor plan. Did he work there once?"
"No," Jolie shook her head. "He has no history with this place."
"Why do this then?"
"Well, he doesn't have much of a backstory. He hasn't had any immediate family for several years now. No siblings, his parents died of old age, nothing connecting him to Enerco. Our best guess is that he is some kind of mercenary, but we haven't seen him until today." She frowned, "with this kind of training, though, he has to have been doing this for a while."
Mike's voice came from the front. "Okay people, get ready! We're in view of the building, and I see a whole crowd up there."
Jolie turned, surprised. "A crowd?"
"Civilians, by the looks of it!"
"But... isn't the parking lot nearby?"
"Lets go find out!"

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In front of the building, spread between the bottom of the stairs and the multi-level parking lot, a crowd of people were standing, sitting, or otherwise idling. As the van and several police cars approached, people turned to watch, then moved to approach. As Zach and the officers got out, they were surrounded by people whose emotions ranged from terror to rage. Those who had successfully maintained denial were angry that help had not been there "when needed", as if the police were supposed to be everywhere at once. Zach watched this for a while. Then he noticed the parking lot.
This was a multi level structure, with ramps between each level. Or at least it had been. Now it was, without a doubt, a pile of rubble. The whole darn thing. Zach just stopped and stared, raising a finger to point. All he could get out was this "uuuum" sound. He repeated it a few times, trying to convey what he was seeing. It seemed to sum everything up. Mike finally interrupted him, saying "yeah, so, hope everyone had car insurance. Here's the camera feed, let's see what did this."

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Zach saw a screen appear... somewhere. His eyes still worked, his view wasn't blocked, he just also had something else going at the same time. This screen showed the parking lot as it had been. It wasn't all that impressive, but it definitely wasn't a broken pile. Suddenly, from out of view, masses of black and purple sped right through the whole building, cutting diagonally through every pillar in sight. The pillars started to slide out of place, then more black flashes cut the whole thing into four sections, one last one coming from the side to slice it all in half. The whole thing just fell into itself. Then, like an afterthought, a burst of flame came from the wreckage.
The three of them were silent for a moment. Mike and Jolie had sent this from their computers to Zack through his link, they had all seen the same thing. Jolie spoke first.
"So, from the look of it, they had something that could cut through huge areas of steel and concrete. Whatever it is, it must take insane amounts of power to fire, they can't have many shots. It came from multiple directions, multiple shots at the same time, so there must be more than one person, or at least more than one weapon.
"Hill didn't have anything big enough with him to do this on the camera footage. Being able to fire those all at once means they either were on a countdown, can be fired remotely, or Hill has friends. We need to get all these people relocated, Hill could have more of those pointed right at this area."
Mike grunted. He had trouble typing and talking at the same time, and Zach could hear his keyboard clattering furiously. After a few more attempts at speech, Mike stopped typing and exhaled loudly, like he had been holding his breath the whole time. "Ok, I've got a satellite scan on the area. No heat sources outside the main group, so no friends for Hill. Just crazy tech and enough ninja skill to take out however many guards he's had to deal with. Zero, we're gonna need you. Big time. If this guy has his thumb on a big red button, we need to know. You gotta talk to him, hope for the villain monologue, meanwhile we get the hostages the heck outta dodge. We can send a small group with you, but we need all the people we can get out here."
Mike and Jolie started sending info and orders to the rest of the officers, while Zach waited. He looked to the horizon, seeing the sun about to set on the horizon. The sky was just changing color. Zach didn't get much tech talk, but he was sure of one thing.
He would be the only one dying from now on.

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