CHAPTER SIX

The flowing blur of motion doesn’t help much when you run around in dark, confined spaces like I was right now. The screeching of the metallic monster behind me echoed through the terrifying darkness, I’d thought about using the flare but that would only succeed in doing two things. One, give the Jackhammer an exact location of my whereabouts, and two, give me an exact location of the Jackhammer. Neither of which was particularly useful at this stage.
Not knowing where I got the strength from, maybe it was the sudden fear that I could possible die in the next few moments…
Just maybe…
As for the Jackhammer, it was one of mans finest military creations since the atom bomb. Some idiot in a white coat came up with the idea that, instead of sending in troops to take out guerrilla fighters in their natural habitats (most notably the New Liberation of Afghanistan struggled to free provinces held by Taliban fighters in 2023), that we could send robots in instead…

Panting for breath, I felt my left index finger crack and fall limp as I collided with the corridor wall that took an abrupt right. My first thoughts were that it was probably broken, but I had no way of telling at the moment, as long as the legs were still working then that was ok. The Jackhammer smashed into the wall behind me, it wasn’t anticipating the turn either. The echo of the crashing metal machine almost burst my eardrums.

…So they send in specially designed robots that have six large, spiked forelimbs pulling at tremendous speed, linked to the three feeler legs at the rear by four solid metal plates for chitin armour on the body. The sphere that I had spotted floating in the darkness is what was more commonly referred to as its ‘Cannonball’. The sphere is mounted on a hydraulic arm that exploded forward at astonishing speed and power. Initially it was thought that this would be used to clear the debris from caves and perhaps knock down temporary cavern fortifications. It became clear after the artificial intelligence system was loaded, that the cannonball could and would be used for attack purposes, with devastating effects. The pound per square inch strength was measured at thirty thousand pounds. If it hit me, I would be dead or at the least incapacitated, which would more or less mean I would dead in a moment.
The six arms help it move along at astonishing speed for a computerised robot. The. know little else except to clear the corridors of this underground abyss of darkness.
But it wasn’t the fear of being hit or caught by this killing machine, but the terrible screeching that was generated by it in the enclosed confines of the corridors. It was a noise that made me want to stop in my tracks and cover my ears, it felt as if they would burst if it got any louder. The Jackhammers vision was based on its inbuilt infrared and movement technology, the thought had occurred to me as I almost tripped over what I thought was a dead body. If I was to use my last flare, the chances are that the Jackhammer machine would stride on past it because of my movement. The inbuilt A.I. had a learning capacity which meant it began to predict human decisions and courses of action, it had probably chased dozens of people through this same stretch of corridor, like a spider it just sat, waiting for the slightest hint of movement to trigger the hunt.
One thing that did give me a faint glimmer of hope was that the darkness in the corridor ahead appeared to be lifting. The thought never came into my head that I could very well be evading one fate to run straight into another, the survival instincts coursing through my body only had time to think of the present situation. The Cannonball hit my left shoulder, luckily it just brushed off the top and missed my neck, the metal barbs managed to take their fair share of clothing and flesh as I stumbled onwards. The reach of the Jackhammers main weapon was around ten feet, which meant that it was gaining on me, fast.
Then all of a sudden I felt a welcome relief on the striking pain that I felt in my injured heel, the heavy burden of my sluggish weight seemed to lift from me. The screeching of the Jackhammer began to die of as I heard the lethal forelimbs crashing and scraping against the concrete for better purchase.
As I looked around the lethal mechanical device had stopped its pursuit of me, I felt free, the elation swept over me and I felt as though I could fly, my senses reeling from the delirious events that had unfolded only in a matter of hours.
Something was amiss, the sensation of my foot really had lifted, the metal creature above me merely looked down in a lifeless posture of disappointment of not achieving the kill.
That was it, I realised as I thought to myself, the words that I had carefully chosen to describe the situation that I was in. All of a sudden the elation of being away from the Jackhammer’s assault sank, along with my hopes of surviving this nightmare. The Jackhammer was above me, looking down at me, the fixed expression on its ‘face’ seemed to be mocking me as I looked down…
…as I was falling…