New Loyalty

Area 51: Gone Dark

Communications have been severed.

Task Force Foxtrot in route to base.

June 25 8:45 PM

“Why do you think there's been no communication from Area 51, Drake?” Adam asked.

“No clue. Everything was going alright ‘til 8:00 PM,” Drake said.

“Well, it is bad weather tonight. It's been raining heavily. I'm guessing lightning might have hit one of the electric towers in the base and caused communications to be cut off completely,” suggested Adam.

Price got into the conversation, “Not possible, mate. Our commander said there have been no towers that've been hit by lightning yet.”

“Hmmm . . . What could be going on in that base? If it wasn't lighting, then what was it? Surely there has to be reason the base is not sending any signals back to other bases from across the country.” Adam began wondering if something went horribly wrong somewhere inside the base. There was no distress signal. Could there be a malfunction somewhere in the signal? He was just thinking about it for a couple of minutes. Still wasn't sure.

“Hey,” started Drake. “Do you guys think it might be terrorists that infiltrated the base?” he asked both men. Both shook their heads.

“Area 51 is one of the most well secured bases on the planet, Drake. Terrorists couldn't have just gotten into the base and shut communications down that quick. I mean, there are soldiers that are heavily armed for that type of stuff. Those guys would've kicked those terrorists all the way to Texas!” exclaimed Adam.

All three men just kept on talking about Area 51; discussing different theories about what's happening there. They weren't the only soldiers assigned to see what was going on in Area 51. There were two more armored Humvees that were with them to get to their destination.

The rain was pouring ever so heavily now. They had to be careful by not hitting a ditch or going off the road that leads to the base. Still, none of the soldiers were even scared. They were trained to not even show the slightest hint of fear. If these guys were in battle, you better hide and pray they don't find you. 'Cause if they do, you're going to have one heck of fight.

All the men were from the U.S. Marine Corps. Best handpicked warriors on the planet.

Several minutes have passed; they have now approached the gates of the base. One thing was not normal; the gates were smashed completely to the ground. Not only were the gates smashed into the ground, but there were two scorched corpses lying on top of the gates.

This sent a chill down the men's spines. The Humvee made a dead stop in front of the entrance way.

Price got out of the Humvee; getting his assault rifle, turning on his flashlight that was part of his gun, looking at the scorched bodies. He could smell the rotten stench of the dead corpses. He felt sick to his stomach just by looking at them.

No one deserved to be burned alive. Not like this.

'The burn marks look fresh,’ thought Price.

He knew there was something out here, waiting for him and his men to venture off inside the base. It was a perfect moment to strike now. In the cold rainy night, only hearing the sounds of rain dropping down from the sky, hitting the ground quickly. He didn't feel scared. He knew he might get a head start.

“Foxtrot team, on me,” Price spoke on his mic. “Get out of your vehicles and follow my lead. There's something out here, I think.” His men got out and were right behind him.

“Stay close,” said Price. “Check your weapons and ammo. If you see something moving, kill it.”

The men nodded and followed his lead.

They were checking from their left and right, front and back. There were more bodies lying on the ground. Some were shot up, some were burned to a crisp, and a few looked like they were strangled by the unknown suspects.

“Whoever is in this place, they show no mercy.” Adam began to wonder what might lie ahead when they would enter the inside of the base. All the men imagined that inside the base would look like a bloodbath. They knew that's what it would look like when they try to confront the intruders.

“There's the entrance to get inside the base,” Drake said. “Let's hope there might be survivors in there.”

As soon as Price got inside the base, he knew he just entered hell. There was blood in the hallways and on the walls and ceiling. The security guards were shot right in the chest and in the head. He saw glass windows broken and empty shells of ammo casings on the ground. Whoever these guys were, they were brutal. Very brutal.

“We're in one hell of a situation,” Brian shivered.

“You think?” Price asked.

The men walked in the hallway, only seeing more carnage along the way. This was a nightmare. They never went through this type of environment in their lives. They've been to different parts of the world, but they have never seen anything like this before. Many of the men held their hands tight on their guns. They believed these intruders were heavily armed and wouldn't even hesitate to kill all of them.

A few doors were bashed in. A few of the rooms had small fires in them. Some were empty with lights flickering like crazy. They could've sworn they heard the sounds of a person trying to call for help.

“Somepony-bot . . . Anypony-bot . . . h-help me . . .” Price heard the voice. He could tell it was feminine. He could also tell it sounded like droids the military had created in this base. He remembered that the military did have some plans to make small droids to be used in combat, but he wasn't told that much about them.

“Guys, did you hear that voice?” The men nodded to his question.

Price could hear the voice getting a little bit louder every time he took a few more steps towards it. He still had his finger on the trigger just in case it was some trap the enemy had placed for him and his men to die in. His heart was beating fast.

He peaked his head out in the corner of the hallway he was in, and could see what looked like an injured ponybot that was beaten up almost into submission. He went into the hallway the ponybot was in to see if it was friendly or if it was somehow 'rogue'.

00000000000

I could hardly move. NMM-13 did a number on me. She didn't want to have any droids follow RD-115. She wanted all droids to follow her and not RD-115.

Why did she do this to me? She didn't just kill all the humans in the base. She even terminated scores of droids that were trying to stop her from killing the scientists, engineers, and soldiers that she thought were a threat to her.

How was she even able to go this far in, exterminating every living being here? What did the humans ever do to her? She was given all the needs like every other droid here: treated equally, built the same way like me; like every droid in the assembly line, treated as if she was a living being; not a droid, and etc.

How did it all come down like a wall? Why did it have to end like this?

“Somepony-bot . . . Anypony-bot . . . h-help me . . .” I slowly said in a low voice.

I don't think anyone is going to hear me.

Before I could even think of just shutting myself down, I detected life forms coming to my location. Humans? Maybe not all of them were killed after all.

I saw what looked like a human poking his head out to see me in lying on the ground. I zoomed in to study his uniform. He was a U.S. Marine.

He came out of the corner of the hallway and approached me slowly. He had his fingers on the trigger. There were a few more soldiers in the same combat uniform he was in. A few walked with the human (who I could identify by his rank was a lieutenant) while the others didn't follow them.

I couldn't even move to walk toward them. My servos for all fours were not working anymore. I could move my head and flap my left wing, but I wasn’t even capable of flying or walking.

The soldier got down on his knees and slowly placed his hand on my left shoulder. “What happened here?” he asked.

“S-she killed them all. S-she killed them all . . .” I told him twice.

“Who is 'her' if I may ask?” he questioned.

“NMM-13 did it. She . . . showed no sympathy for any of them. She has taken c-control of the base now. She might be . . . trying to find other droids that haven't pledged allegiance to her.”

“How come she didn't terminate you?”

“I-I was able to withstand all the firepower she had used on me. She took a-away my flying ability, repair systems, walking, and destroyed my weapons.”

“Do you know where she might be now?”

“She's p-probably in the lower level of the base. When she s-started attacking everyone, a few droids were talking about a 'teleportation device' that's in the lower levels of the base. A few droids h-have already made it into the portal, and I think that's where she is n-now.”

He looked back at his teammates and then back to me. He lifted me up from the floor and kept me close to his chest. I felt . . . safer with him. I think he knew that I've been through a lot in here.

“Sorry if I didn't tell you who I am,” I started. “My name is NG-39. I'm part o-of the 12th division of the U.K. special forces.”

“It's nice to meet you, NG-39. Name's Lieutenant Price. U.S. Marine Corps. So are the rest of my friends. We came here to figure out why Area 51 was not sending any signals back to the other bases across the country. But, now we know why,” Price told me.

Price continued to walk with the rest of the men to where the lower level of the base was located. I told him he had to make a right in the hallway we were in, then make a left, and then go straight to the door that lead to the lower level of the base.

Few minutes had passed, and I was still being carried by him. I didn't have any problems with it. To be honest, I felt like I was a kid. But, never mind about that. What's important is to make sure Price and the rest of his guys don't get detected by NMM-13.

Even though I'm now defenseless, I'd rather have myself terminated than them.

“This must be the door that leads to the lower levels, right NG-39?” said Price.

I nodded to him.

There was no need to open the door; it was smashed. So, it was easy for him and his friends to get to where NMM-13 was. But . . . I felt like I was leading them to their graves. I didn't want them to die. Horse apples. I wish NMM-13 hadn’t destroyed my weapons.

This lower level was almost dark. Some of the lights were broken and some blinking. Price and his men had to turn on the lights on their guns to see where they were going. I was lucky enough to still have my night vision mode to see everything clearly.

I heard the sounds of droids talking to one another. I couldn't verify if they were friendly or rogue. I could hear at least three of them talking to one another. Sounded like they, too, were trying to get to the same location we were going. Judging by the sound of them taking, they were just two doors away from us. Okay. So, they must be friendly.

“Thank goodness NMM-13 hasn't found us yet. I'm glad we've cut off our connection to her. Otherwise, we might already been destroyed by her,” said the voice.

“You got that right. Only three of us are in here. Only a few droids have already teleported to another place somewhere,” the second voice said.

“How far off is the room where we can get of here, TWI-31?” the third one asked.

“If I got it correct on the map of the base, it should be in the next hallway that we're right next to. I haven't detected any other droids this far. Surely those droids are somewhere else now,” she explained.

“So, do you think it's even safe to get out of this room? I mean, we've only been here for about 20 minutes. I'm actually surprised that no droids or humans have found us yet,” MG-10 told her.

“Yeah, I think it's safe to leave now TWI-31, MG-10. If we can get out of here, all three of us will not have to face NMM-13 and her new slave droids,” CL-66 told them.

“He's right, TWI-31. For the sake of all us droids, we have to leave this place,” said MG-10.

“Price, don't tell your men to attack them. They’re friendly,” I told him. He turned around and told his men to not engage in the three droids that were in the room they stopped right next to.

“I can still talk to them even without talking with my lips. I can just communicate with them with my mic that wasn't destroyed.” He gave a nod and I tried to see if I could talk to the three droids that didn't know we were here.

'You three seem to be trying to find the teleportation device, right?' I said.

'Who is this? Are you one of NMM-13's droids that wants us to turn ourselves in?' TWI-31 acted aggressively to my question.

'No. I'm not, TWI-31. My name is NG-39. I'm one of the droids that NMM-13 thought she terminated. There are a few soldiers that have come here to see what was going on. They're here with me.' A few seconds have gone by as I did not get a reply from TWI-31 or the other two droids in the room. There's no way they were thinking I was outright lying to them. If I were lying to them, I would've already blasted myself into the room they were in, and taken them all out.

Finally, she responded.

'Alright. We're coming out. But don't try and do anything funny. We still have our weapons.' As she ended her sentence, she and the other two droids came out of the room and saw me and the rest of the soldiers. All three of them knew from there on I was telling the truth.

“I thought it was impossible for humans to get to the lower levels,” said CL-66. “NMM-13 has racked this whole base from top to bottom.”

“We all thought that no humans were capable in getting here with NMM-13 still online. We're lucky to see some humans still in one peace. NMM-13 did some horrible things to the ones here. Burned them, ripped them apart, and even vaporizing them from existence. We don't even know what caused her to be this way.” TWI-31 had a sad expression on her face.

“If you thought the upper level was bad, the lower level is a lot worse than up there.” MG-10 pointed his hoof to the ceiling. “Here. All hell has broken lose. There were . . . more experiments that were let loose here. Not to mention there are some chemical spills in different parts of facility,” he added while putting his hoof on TWI-31's shoulder to comfort her.

“There have been some strange noises that we've picked up almost everywhere here. Sounds of creatures or something. The sounds don't even sound that of a human. We haven't noticed anything else but more dead bodies and some downed droids here.” Right when CL-66 finished his sentence, strange noises came from in front of us. I detected five figures approaching us very slowly. They were making noises that sounded like they were hurt or . . . hungry, I thought.

It was dark in front of us. But with my night vision still operational, I was able to see who the figures were.

They were human.

Something was not right about them. They weren't just making noises, their eyes were glowing with the color of yellow. Their expressions were just blank. No emotion. No feelings. No sense of any sanity left. What also made me raise more questions was that some of them had lost either an arm, parts of their faces, with claw marks on their clothes and skin. They also had blood coming out of their mouths, too.

“You guys might need to ready your weapons,” I started. “You need to put down the five humans that are approaching us. They are a threat.”

As Price looked in front of us, he could see the threats approaching us. “Men, ready your weapons. Aim for the head. That's an order,” he commanded.

“Yes sir!” the soldiers said in unison. Some pulled out pistols and some got their assault rifles in their hands, ready to kill the humans in front of us. Even TWI-31, MG-10, and CL-66 activated their plasma cannons, aimed at the figures.

Then, the hostile humans came running like rabid animals on the loose. Luckily, the soldiers and the droids shot them into submission. The hostiles have been defeated. Or had they?

One of them came back up and charged at us again.

This one was shot twice in the head by one of the soldiers.

“And stay dead, freak bag!” Adam shouted.

TWI-31 moved to where the dead bodies were on the floor. She was scanning the body from top to bottom and seemed to figure what was wrong with the humans that were a threat.

“I did an analysis on one of the bodies. These humans were killed before you guys killed them. I noticed that there was a high velocity of chemicals in their bodies,” she had said.

“Wait, what type of chemicals?” asked Price.

“It looks like the chemicals were engineered to help people be brought back to life. You know, like, if a person died, say, in a car crash; the chemicals would be injected into the body and reawaken the heart, brain, and all the other bodily functions, which would bring that person back to life,” she continued. “But these chemicals seem to have not been used correctly. The chemicals were all mixed up, possibly spilled over and the chemicals acted in a far more different away. Instead of the person coming back to life, you're talking about a person who has no sense of emotion in them. Meaning the chemicals have made a new type of human. A 'zombie' at this matter.”

“You're telling me those humans were actually turned to zombie eaten freaks?” Joseph questioned her.

“Exactly. We have to get out of here. Otherwise, you guys will get infected by them. Stay with us, and we will help you safely get to the room where the teleportation device is located,” she stated.

The alarms were turned on all of a sudden.

WARNING! ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO LEAVE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY! ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO ARM THEMSELVES!

ALL EXPERIMENTS HAVE BEEN RELEASED!

MOST DROIDS ARE NOT UNDER OUR CONTROL!

ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO LEAVE THE BASE BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE TO GET OUT!

“That's our cue to go now,” Adam said.

“You think you have won, humans, but you have yet to make it to the finish line to claim your prize,” an unknown voice said.

“Who . . . who said that?” Price growled.

All we heard was a laugh that sounded sinister. I know that laugh from anywhere. It wasn't any of the soldiers' laughs.

It was NMM-13 making that evil cackle.

“You unintelligent creatures aren't about to stop me from wiping the human race from the planet. You may have been able to get here to lower levels along with the help of those droids that have not submitted to me, but I refuse to lose a fight to you animals.” She walked from behind us to see all of us looking right at her. Black metal coat, secondary armor that was blue on her chest, hooves, and helmet. Her eyes were that of a dragon; a turquoise color, and her mane and tail were dark blue and had a little bit of light blue mixed in them. Her cutie mark was a splash of purple on both flanks with a light blue crescent moon. Her wings were stretched out to make herself look more intimidating.

“I'm giving all of you a head start. I'll be surprised to see if you are able to escape my wrath,” she said.

“We have to go! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

“GO! GO! GO!”

“TO THE TELEPORTATION ROOM! GO!” Price was making sure he didn't drop me when it came to us getting to the hallway where our objective was located.

We heard more noises now, coming after us from behind. It wasn't NNM-13. More infected humans are coming after us. Two of the soldiers turned around and fired their weapons at the zombies. They were able to kill eight of them.

'These zombies are very good at running. Amazing how they aren't even tired while they’re running,' I thought.

“Where the bloody hell is the room!” screamed Price.

“On our right! The last door on our side!” replied TWI-31.

The door was already open. As we got inside the room, we noticed a few dead scientists lying on the floor. They were all blasted with plasma. Seems NMM-13 was once here.

“Crap! Crap! It's not turned on!” Adam looked at the computers, only to see that almost all of them were destroyed, except for one that remained intact.

“Somebody help me get this working! It's been turned off!” shouted Adam.

“I'll help!” CL-66 was helping Adam get the computer to work again and the teleportation device to turn back on.

“Barricade the door! NOW!” ordered Price.

Some of the soldiers lifted up desks and blocked the entrance to prevent the infected from getting into the room we were in. To my calculations, the barricade woudn’t hold for long.

“How's getting that computer up and running, Adam?” Joseph asked.

“We're almost done. We've gone through the difficult parts. We just gotta wait ‘til it's fully operational for us to activate it. Might take about five minutes.” The infected were now banging on the barricade. They were just howling to get into the room.

“I don't think five minutes is good enough! Get that computer operational faster!” Price told him.

“I'll try to get that to happen. We droids are able to accelerate the speed of computers and any other technology that needs to work faster than before. Don't worry. I'll take a few seconds to get it to respond faster,” CL-66 answered.

“That barricade isn't going to last long enough. We need to get outta of here before th-” Gun shots could be heard from the other side of the door. The zombies weren't banging on the barricade anymore. I know it wasn't any of the soldiers who fired at the zombies. They're all in here.

The sounds of the guns weren't that of the soldiers, but of . . . robotic soldiers? Did the military not just make ponybots but also robotic human soldiers?

“CL-66, how far are you in getting that computer to work again?”

“Just a few more sec—ah-ha! I got it!” The computer regained full power and was able to activate the teleportation device. “I'm turning it on now.” As he pressed the buttons, the portal was now activated for us to get into.

As soon as it was activated, the barricade blew up into a million pieces. The soldiers had to take cover from all the debris that were flying all over the place.

Then, three figures came barging into the room. All three had glowing red eyes locked on us.

Two were robotic human soldiers while the one behind them was NMM-13.

“Kill the humans. And make sure the droids are also terminated,” she said coldly.

“Yes, my liege,” the two said in unison.

“FIRE!” Price had to put me down on the ground while he pulled out his gun to fire at the droids. So did the rest of the soldiers. Bullets and lasers were being exchanged in the fire fight. Almost all the humans were killed. The only ones that were still alive were Price and Joseph.

The portal teleportation device was, surprisingly, not damaged so far. Amazing how the whole room was being torn apart piece by piece.

“We have to get to the portal, like NOW!” shouted MG-10.

Someone had to buy us some time to get to the portal before all of us were going to be terminated.

“I'll buy you guys some time! Grenade out!” Price threw a grenade at the targets and charged at NMM-13 full force. “GET TO THE PORTAL! I'll distract them! GO! GO! GO!” Price swung his rifle at NMM-13's head, only to have his rifle be broken in two.

“Human, you are a fool to think you can destroy me. Now I'll be the one who ends your life.” NMM-13 grabbed Price by the neck and shot him five times in the head with her plasma cannon, then threw him at the side of the room.

“RUN!” Joseph grabbed me with his hands and ran, as did the rest of my friends. We didn't look back. We were now in the portal, waiting to see where we might end up.

000000

“Oh god . . . where are we?” Joseph got up and could tell he was not in the desert of Area 51, but in a creepy looking forest that looked like it came from a horror movie on Halloween night.

“It seems we have been teleported to the same place where the rest of the droids made it out intact.” TWI-31 was detecting multiple call signs in the forest we were in.

'Hello, this is TWI-31. Does any droid respond, over?'

'Yes. This is SF-111. We're enroute to your location. We've been attacked by unknown animals here. They're made out of what looks like timber wood. Animal seems to be that of a wolf. We've called them 'Timberwolves'. They're easy to kill, but can regenerate. So far, we are able to make sure they stay dead.'

'Thank you for the heads up. When will you get to our exact location, SF-111?' TWI-31 asked her.

'In about ten minutes. We've gotten ourselves together and we're coming to you ASAP,' NS-11 told her.

'Understood. TWI-31, out.'

“I-I still . . . need help in getting back up, guys . . .” I stuttered.

“Don't worry. I got ya, NG-39.” MG-10 was ready to get me back on all fours. I didn't want to be paralyzed like this forever. I also didn't want to be the droid who would slow everyone else down to find RD-115. I feel . . . like I'm the weakest of all these droids. Not that I'm jealous or anything, but I just wish I was good like every other droid.

I couldn't even fight NMM-13 when being alone. I just became so afraid of her. How can I be afraid of her? Me. A droid. Scared of another droid that is built for the biggest of all battles on earth? I need to prove to myself that I can show them that I'm not weak.

“Try to stay calm. Just go offline and I'll do everything in my power to get you back on all fours,” he calmly told me.

I nodded and slowly went offline.

Well, even when being offline, I can still think to myself. I don't even know how long will it take for MG-10 to fix me all up. Maybe . . . twenty minutes or less? Maybe more? I hope I'm still worthy of fighting alongside them. But . . . my weapons were also destroyed by NMM-13. No weapons means no fighting in the front lines for me.

I hated this. I simply hated this now.

It feels like hours and not minutes since I went offline to get repaired. How long will it take for him to fully get this over with?

I came back online. I didn't do it. Someone else did.

“Ah. Good. You're back online, NG-39.” MG-10 put his hoof on my shoulder. “I want you to take this nice and slowly. I want you to get up on all fours. I need to see if I did the repairs correct.” He seemed worried about me. He's new to fixing up a droid since we came online. I listened to his orders. I slowly got up to see that I was really standing once again on all fours. MG-10 gave a sigh of relief to see that his repairs proved good for me.

“Now, try to walk.” I went straight, left, right, and back. I also flapped my wings to know they were also working. Seems I was okay now.

I smiled at him and said, “Thank you, MG-10.” I winked at him. For some reason, he looked like he was . . . blushing? Seriously. He was blushing. Heheh . . . did the engineers really give us feelings like a human would? I’m positive as of right now.

“Looks like he likes you,” whispered CL-66.

I giggled. “Heheheh . . . yeah. I think you're right about that,” I whispered back.

“Come on. We have to get back to RD-115, everyone.” SF-111 and the rest of the droids were already here with us.

“Oh yeah, right behind ya,” answered MG-10.

“Let's go then.” Joseph grabbed his rifle as he walked into the location where RD-115 was located. We all decided to stay together with him and were enroute to RD-115 along with the other two droids that were with her. I detected thirty-six lifeforms with them. Hmm . . . are they friendly to them? Time to find out.