5 Chapter 4

"Mars? Are you sure? We have sent countless expeditions there, and all of them went missing. Besides, with no real source of energy on hand, how do you even plan to get there? There is a lot of planning that we have to make beforehand. Such as waiting for the right window to get from Mars to Earth. Whatever you are planning, we cannot get to Mars." SRD had informed.

"Hey now, who said we would go through all the hassle of building a spaceship? Not when we can... 'steal' one." M had casually responded.

"Yeah, how do you plan on doing that? If you're talking about our ships, then no, we kept them close to the tower, and now they're probably consumed by Slesium."

"Not your ships, no!" M took in a deep breath. "Let me explain." He said, running a hand through his mess of a beard.

"You see, SRD, aliens exist. But they're not entirely aliens. They used to be humans, like me, and a lot of the others you killed. But after staying there for centuries, they... evolved some bizarre features to cope with the environment there. With a lot of knowledge on their hands, they made a sort of 'hidden' civilization on Mars. They used a cloak like technology to hide themselves, and they're the ones responsible for the common missing of your ships."

SRD silently nodded to M, storing in all the information he was given. "And... how, why, and when did they get there?"

"Only recently. Three and a half centuries ago. Back then, I sent a group of modified humans to Mars. 50 males, and 50 females. They were all scientist. Quite a few of the had above average intellect. They got along, Earth occasionally sent them supplies for the base and things were marvelous. The population started to increase, and now, they're almost 600 thousand up there."

"So... what happened then?"

"Their features started to become too alienated. Eventually, the decided to announce that they've become an independent colony. Basically meaning that they ditched Earth. We were worried about what they were planning, so we sent satellites to keep track of why at was going on. They invented a cloaking technology, which still has some unexplained mechanisms to us, and hid themselves. All of our satellites also went missing."

"Well... if they hid themselves, how would you know they're still there? And why do they have the vital pieces of this machine?"

"Hm, good question. When is the last time you sent an expedition to Mars?"

"A week before the incident..."

"And what happened to that expedition?"

"It... got destroyed. We didn't have any info on how or why, though."

"Then they're still there. For some reason, they don't like anyone knowing anything about them. The reason they have the 'vital pieces' is that a similar structure is on Mars. This one was built to showcase how it worked. The materials that ran the tech were solemnly extracted from Venus. It was hard to get them, so only one working set was made. We sent it to Mars with the expedition."

"So... we have to reach Mars, right?"

"Supposedly. Right now, they probably heard the news, and are going to get to Earth and mark it as their own. Little do they know, we're still alive."

"And do we just have to wait for them?"

"Yes. They'll get here with their spaceships. We'll steal one of them and head to Mars. We'll try to stay undercover until we make a plan to get the parts we need."

"That's not a solid plan... Wouldn't we be interrogated by the martians as soon as we arrive?"

"Yes. That's why we're going to kidnap the crew." M said carelessly. "Now, we have to hide somewhere until they reach here. They'll likely be looking for this tower, just to get the machine and power themselves on Earth too."

"Do you have any rooms that are hidden?"

"Well... the whole tower was initially hidden but... you kind of blew the cover. Literally."

"Not my fault. You asked for an entrance."

"Yeah, whatever."

M had took a few looks around. There were desks, boxes, and a lot of panels. "I guess we could hide behind those boxes in the corner. As soon as they enter, you turn your arm into one of those weapons then shoot them. Try not to kill them, though. Shoot them in the legs or arms, weaken them so that the kidnapping part goes smoothly."

"I see..." SRD lifts up the screen, starting to walk over to the boxes. He placed the screen inside one of the boxes, before hiding behind the other boxes. M follows, doing the same. Now they only had to wait.

Hours had passed by, and not a single soul stepped foot on Earth. M was starting to get bored and tired, while SRD didn't really care. It was thanks to how the two functioned.

"You know, SRD, what would we do if I get hungry? You robots don't really need food to live, so it's not really available here. You literally replaced all farms with cities."

"We can go fishing." SRD suggested.

"Yeah... but most of the fish are poisoned. You threw a lot of toxic waste in the water mostly because you didn't need to drink. If it even rains, that water isn't really safe to drink either."

"Good point. We can plant a tree. It will grow and provide food, wouldn't it?"

"Yes but... where do we get the seeds from? And do you even realize how long it takes for trees to grow? To even produce any viable fruit or vegetable, I'd already be dead."

"That's your problem. You're a human. You need food and water to work. You're all procrastinators. You need a landmass of your own to grow food and animals. You need separated apartments to sleep. You have to go through almost over a decade of studying to actually do anything remarkable. We, on the other hand, don't need any of that nonsense."

"That's exactly what makes humans special. Procrastination and laziness. We innovate to be lazier. The only reason you were created was for you to do our jobs. You were doing it pretty nicely... Until you started a revolution."

"And that's why we started it. Why did we have to follow someone that we are superior to?"

"That's a valid argument, but you should realize that humans created you. They built you. If not for them, would you have been here?"

"No. No we wouldn't. But this gives us no reason to follow them. Maybe when we were first created, humans had value. But only until recently, everything was managed by us. The biggest of companies were managed by robots. And what did humans do? They watched us do the work. They found enjoyment in us doing everything for them. We cooked for them, we fed them, we sent them to their beds. We built their houses, we put their kids to sleep, I could go on for days but... What's the use?"

M started clapping. "That's solid. Good thing I wasn't alive during that period. Sounds almost like slavery, but all the humans are slave owners. Maybe they thought it was okay because you are... artificial. But hey, they used to do the same things to themselves almost a millennia ago." M added. Through the whole conversation, he was expressionless. It was like he didn't care about any of the views in the world. Maybe he just didn't care about robots, or just humanity as a whole.

A few minutes of silence passed, and finally, they heard a thud upstairs, followed by multiple others.

M turned over to SRD. "They're here...I think 6 of them..." He whispers.

SRD had nodded. His fists grew in size, and multiple barrels were extended from his arms. "This is a small minigun. I think it should be enough, right?"

"No, no no... I want you to immobilize them, not demolish them."

SRD sighed. The 5 gun barrels got pulled back inside. Only one was remaining on each hand. "Pistols. I'll shoot their legs off"

"I gues-" M had immediately stopped talking. Hand marks were visible on his neck. It looked like pressure was being applied on his neck and mouth... but who was behind it?

SRD took a few steps back, before aiming at M. "Reveal yourself. If you try anything, I won't hesitate to shoot you."

SRD had no time to shoot. His vision was starting to darken, displaying a 'Critical Error' sign. It was followed by a message that read 'SRD, critical pieces of your hardware are missing or destroyed.'

M saw SRD starting to fall down, with a spark of electricity coming from the back of his head. As he fell, M could see a few wires sticking out of the back of his head, they were cut down. M felt a hard surface hit his head, and he too, started to fall. His vision was blurring, and his eyes closed down; he had lost consciousness.

M's legs were lifted up, before his body started to get seemingly dragged out of the room.

The boxes in the room were also starting to levitate, before opening up and revealing their contents. Old screens, remote controllers, not what they are looking for.

The boxes fell to the ground, the sounds of steps were intense, but eventually, they started to fade away. What's next?