Once the light of the sun managed to break through an opening in the grey clouds – the solar powered electronics on the street below me began to sing a tune as they sprung to life.

Ever since Henry left search for Norman in the wasteland outside of the city, I was alone and left to continue exploring for any sources of power or information to catalogue. There were still hot zones in the city that gave me limited access to whatever was in that area, usually nothing worth salvaging. Something changed in recent months though; these hot zones only became part of a larger problem.

The clinks were only ever seen a few times roaming the streets of Paris in the past. They were easy enough to avoid and were so few in numbers that it was easy to never have to cross paths with the again. Within the last two months; the number of clinks in Paris alone rose greatly and they fired on sight whenever I crossed their path.

 For the first time in a hundred years, I had to begin adapting to survive if I wanted to remain intact until the two arrived. My one long, silver hair that I was created with was now cut short and darkened to conceal my appearance from being easily spotted in the daylight. I needed to get back to the Louvre.

To protect the valuable cargo within my chest, I started wearing ballistics’ vest and carrying a rifle that I looted off one of the clinks. I despised any sort of confrontations, but the number of clinks left me with no choice.

The glass pyramid of the Louvre was a day’s trip away from where I currently was, and I knew I would have to travel through a heavily patrolled area to get there fastest. If I’m not there when Henry arrives back, a pack of clinks could be waiting for him and leave him disassembled in the streets. Something about their behaviour was different compared to the other models; before they would order you to stop but would never actually engage you outright. Now all that these clinks did was fire at anything that moved, as if their programming had all been changed.

I was currently residing inside a four-story building that overlooked the canal, where I could see on the street below me where two clinks marched. As they mechanically scanned their surroundings, I took position at the front doors of the entrance waiting for them to get far enough for me to make a sprint across the street.

Once I knew that the clinks wouldn’t hear me I took the opportunity to sprint towards an alley across the street. These once deserted streets were now being patrolled regularly and required careful timing.

The alleyway led to some sort of plaza that was open and made my position exposed. From what I could tell there was nothing around, but it was at least sixty meters of stretch to the other side of the plaza. As I stepped out from the safety of the alleyway I could see piles of stone debris scattered around the plaza’s floor accompanied by the decaying remains of skeletal corpses beneath.

The people here must’ve not known what was coming.

As I was halfway across the plaza, watching my step as not to create any noise, the metallic clinking of mechanical footsteps erupted behind me from the alleyway which I entered through. The two clinks that passed me earlier were standing at the opening of the alley, scanning the debris below them for footprints. My footprints.

Running now would mean a sure shot for getting pelted in the back by a hail of bullets that could tear through me easily. I had two options from where I stood; hide and wait for them to past or try fighting back. Firstly I had to find some cover to conceal myself.

A stone pillar was toppled onto the floor of the plaza only two meters away. I did not hesitate as I leapt over the edge of the pillar and took cover behind its stone structure. While I was properly concealed, I took the opportunity to unholster the rifle from my back and ensure that it was loaded. The rifle was a .50 Caliber, bolt action with smart rounds that aided the trajectory of the bullet. The software in the bullets were most likely faulty, but I wasn’t far enough that I needed to rely on them.

While I was peeking around the edge of the pillar to get a glimpse at the clinks, I could see that there was another entrance to the plaza aside from the alley access. The other entrance was a rusted, steel gate on the opposite side from the alleyway. If I could fit myself overtop of the gate, I would have a way out.

The clinks must’ve tracked me by now, because they were now aiming towards the direction of the pillar I hid behind. One thing I knew about them is that they had a 1.75 second reaction time. If my hardware was still as good as I remember it being; I would be able to get a shot off within their reaction time if I plan out my attack efficiently. My plan was to fire off one round, hopefully hit one of the two, hide in cover and move down the pillar until I was in clear sight of the gate. The stone pillar wouldn’t be able to take more than a few seconds of their fire before crumbling to dust.

I listened attentively for their footsteps.

Once they were within range, I’d fire my first shot.

The time came to fire and I could hear that they were close to my location, so I aimed the rifle against the pillar and carefully crept my aim towards the edge where I could hear one set of footsteps. Within a split second I could see the first clink aiming towards the middle of the pillar, a few feet off from where I was. My fingertip pulled on the trigger of the rifle to the best of its ability and once the trigger was pulled and the hammer struck the primer of the large caliber bullet; the barrel of the rifle erupted with a bang and ball of smoke and fire pushed the ballistic through the air and into the chest of the first clink.

Before taking my split second to retreat back into cover I saw the chest of the clink burst into flame as the bullet torn a clean hole through its chest cavity and sent the remains of its internals flying out from the gaping hole in a cascade of sparks and shrapnel. One down.

On cue, the second clink began firing at my location behind the pillar. Stone and dust blew around me like a storm. Chunks of stone began ripping through my clothing and the ground on the other side of the pillar was jumping up from the stone floor. After barely managing to reload a second round into the barrel of the rifle, I worked against my own logic and ran away towards the gate, not before aiming my rifle again and firing at the second clink.

My shot did not aim true. The round only slid across the chin of the machine and sent its head jolting to the side, at least this would buy me some time.

As I ran at the capacity of my synthetic muscles would allow me the clink dropped the empty magazine from its assault rifle and rapidly loaded in a backup magazine into the mag well. Both the clink and I pulled back the slides of our rifles, reloading them at the same time. Turning around to fire another shot at the clink, I saw that it already managed to orientate itself and aim its rifle straight at me. Two shots fired at the same time, one of its and one from mine. The round from my rifle hit the clink straight in the chest, causing its top half to separate from its bottom in another cascade of sparks. As I witnessed this, I felt my body flying backwards through the air as if someone had pushed me backwards.

The clink managed to hit me in the shoulder, sending me flying backwards towards the direction of the gate. Once I hit the ground, the circuits in my hardware glitched out for a moment and needed to reboot before I could continue moving. This reboot process happens when our models receive trauma, our frames weren’t designed to take as much impact compared to some of the other android models. The reboot process ensured no drives were damaged or corrupted by the damage.

My retinas swirled around until they were fully operational. My body was covered in dust and debris from the stone pillar that was shredded apart around me. My right arm still clutching the rifle was moving fine, but my system reported heavy damage to my left side. A glance over to my left revealed that the fabric surrounding my left shoulder was torn apart and that my carbon fiber shell had been pierced through. My left arm worked slightly, barely managing to make a fist or move it much passed the elbow.

I needed to be more careful, I’m lucky I’d been struck where I had been.

Before even managing to get myself off from the stone floor there was a commotion happening at the entrance of the alley - the sound of clinks trying to make their way in garrison through the narrow tunnel. I wondered what had attracted them here so quickly.

It wasn’t the sound of the gunfight that brought them to my position, but the second clink who lay in halves was using its beacon to transmit the location. I needed to take it out before anymore came. After pulling back the slide of the rifle and loading another round into the chamber; I fired at the clink on the ground until its head exploded into pieces. After reloading another round I knew I only had three left and would have to make them count. The thought came to me to steal the clink’s rifle.

As I made a dash for the automatic rifle laying a few feet away from the corpse of the clink, I was interrupted by the sight of half a dozen clinks making their way through the entrance of the alleyway where they shortly started investigating the area. My dusty appearance must’ve concealed myself from this distance, but it wouldn’t last long. I made the decision to ditch the automatic rifle and decided to instead make a run for the steel gate behind me.

Not long after making a dash for the gate the sound of gunfire erupted behind me from the direction of the alleyway where a hail of bullets smacked the ground at my feet.

The gate, only a few feet away from me, was being torn to spreads by the clink’s automatic fire. When the bullets hit the surface of the gate they created a flash and proceeded to melt straight through the metal like it was clay. The opening at the top of the busted gate was my only option out and I needed to be efficient in my approach or else my cybernetic death would be imminent.

When I was in position, the first thing I did was fling the strap of my rifle over my shoulder then proceeded to kick off the stone frame below to reach the edge of the steel door. A round fired beside my hand that managed to blow off the tip of my pinky finger on my right hand.

I barely managed to pull myself over the edge of the gate before falling onto the pile of rubble below me. The other side of steel door was blown out looking like a balloon halfway through popping. It was crucial that I get far away from here.

The street to my left led to a destroyed bridge overlooking the canal, dead end. To my right was a decimated church that stood in the middle of a square, the buildings surrounding it have long since fallen onto themselves. I made the decision to make it for the church; it would provide the most space to hide and shelter compared to the surrounding buildings.

The street remained littered with rubbish that was blown in from the storm, pampering the roads with chunks of metal and concrete. The small cars which once drove on these streets were either toppled over or slowly degrading into nothing. Weaving past the rubble as not to draw too much attention to where I was currently crossing the street I saw that there were two more clinks down the road heading in the direction of the plaza. The two weren’t aware that I was crossing the street only a little ways down from where they patrolled, it was best to leave it this way.

The stairs leading towards the front of the church were littered with brick and falling debris that added more challenge for remaining quiet. The wooden doors to the cathedral were long since crumbled into sawdust. Just as I was pushing through the entrance way, the sound of something heavy falling erupted behind me. They must’ve broken down the steel gate of the plaza and would soon be searching the surrounding area. 

Next Chapter: Chapter Six: Lucy