Machines by Jason M. Green (iphone ebook reader TXT) 📕

was already pushing away from the wall with all the strength in his long legs.
“What the hell?” the officer muttered as he looked up to watch Jobe fly through the air. Then he heard something strike the ground behind him, and turned around with his gun ready. However, he didn't move quickly enough, because the gun was ripped from his hand before he completed the turn.
“It is not very nice to shoot at people, " Jobe said before dismantling the weapon and letting its pieces fall to the ground.
The police officer pulled an extendable baton out of a holster on his hip and extended it with a flick of his wrist to its full length of eighteen inches, and then he swung it towards Jobe. His first swing was blocked by Jobe’s forearm, but the next few didn’t even connect, as Jobe effortlessly dodged them. This caused the officer to change his tactics and launch a more brutal attack by aiming for Jobe’s head.
Jobe sensed the coming attack and leaned backwards as the baton cut through the air in front of his face. As he leaned forward again, he hit the officer in the chest with the heels of both hands and knocked him off of his feet, but then he noticed the first officer was back on his feet and had his baton out as well. “This I really do not need," he commented mirthlessly, before spinning around and kicking the officer who just gotten to his feet in the side of the head, putting him down on the ground again and effectively knocking him out this time.
The other officer quickly got to his feet and swung his baton at Jobe, who dove to the ground, rolling out of reach, and grabbing the fallen baton off the ground. When Jobe was back on his feet he was facing the other officer with the baton in his hand.
“You’re not leaving this alley without cuffs on,” the second officer said, as he cautiously moved towards Jobe.
Jobe shrugged and said, “I guess we will find out.” He waited for an attack and wasn't surprised when one was launched against him. After dodging half a dozen swings, he grew tired of dealing with the police officers, so he sidestepped quickly and struck the officer across the back of the legs, just below his knees. The officer was knocked off of his feet and landed on his back, his baton flying from his hand as he hit the ground.
“What are you going to do to me?” he asked in a shaking voice, as Jobe stepped over top of him.
“This," Jobe said before striking the officer in a pressure point and making him fall into unconsciousness. “Sleep well,” he said before sticking both of the unconscious police officers inside a trash bin and closing the lid. He then collapsed his stolen baton and put it into his front pocket. After a quick look around to make sure he wasn’t observed, he quietly walked away from the bin, but paused long enough to scoop up the clip from the pistol he had dismantled and slide it into his pocket. He then pulled on his bandanna again, with the black side outwards this time, and slowly walked to the opening of the alleyway. After making sure no one else was watching him, he stepped out and began to walk down the sidewalk. He stayed close to the wall and tried to avoid any bright lights, as he made his way towards his next destination.

After another hour of successfully dodging the GSD officers and assorted other law enforcement personnel who were patrolling the city in search of him, Jobe reached his destination; an abandoned building that he remembered used to be an arcade before
such places where shut down due to the concentration of potential situations for occurrences of juvenile delinquency, as it said on the sign by the door. He looked around to make sure no one was nearby to see him, and then he ripped the lock off of the door with one quick twist of his wrist and quietly slipped inside the abandoned building. He made sure to close the door securely behind him after he entered, so that casual glances wouldn't reveal anything particularly suspicious.
The inside of the building was dark, but Jobe had no problem seeing, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of light. He slowly made his way over to a virtual reality simulator and picked up the helmet that was used during the simulations. With deft movements he opened up a spring-loaded panel on the side, and found the place where a disc could be inserted to record sessions that people wanted to remember for whatever reason. From a case inside his jacket, he removed a blank disc and placed it into the open space. After closing the panel, he hung the helmet on the hook it was supposed to be hanging from and walked over to the Virtual Reality Generation Unit.
He cleaned off the various plugs and jacks that were once used for multiple players and various attachments, and plugged the ends of two of the cords that still looked useable into the bottom two ports on the back of his neck and into the VRGU. The rest of the cords he knew were unusable, so he took a pair of them out of his jacket and plugged them into the top set of ports at the base of his skull. Then he hooked up the gloves that were used in the simulations and put them beside where he would be standing. Next, he pulled on the helmet and plugged the cords dangling from his head into the helmet and turned on the VRGU. As the system booted up, Jobe pulled on the
gloves and flipped down the visor on the front of the helmet.
At first there was only pure darkness, and then Jobe shuddered uncontrollably as the VRGU began to pull information directly from his brain so that it could project it as a
simulation into the helmet’s visor. He saw a virtual facsimile of his brain in front of him, and so he used the gloves to touch the portion designated as the area where all the
newly downloaded information had been stored. The VRGU then began projecting information taken from that area of his brain, and he saw at least a dozen directories, containing nearly fifty files collectively, waiting to be opened.
He opened the directory labeled Schematics first. Inside were various schematic files for cargo ships, buildings, security systems, and a half dozen other files devoted to the schematics of the veritable city orbiting Earth’s moon, which was known simply as The Rim. After a brief glance at them, he closed those files and searched for some new ones to look at.
He opened a directory called Codes and found all of the codes he was told about
and a few more. Among the codes were access codes for various types of security systems, bank accounts, and surveillance equipment. Deciding to look those over later, he closed that directory and moved onto the next one.
Another of the directories was simply designated Misc, and Jobe opened that one. Among the few files contained in that directory was something called Infiltrator. Jobe studied its structure and found that it was a homemade virus that would attack a system through various infiltration points and disable all security programs that it encountered. The only downside Jobe found was that it could only be used once and couldn’t be replicated because of certain aspects of its design to keep it from being used by more than one person. There was also a limit on how long it would stay active before convincing the system it had infiltrated to delete it.
Before Jobe could access any other files he was warned that the main power had been cut and the backup generator was now running, but wouldn't be able to sustain the virtual reality equipment for an extended period of time. Quickly, Jobe shut down the simulation and disconnected all the cords, putting them inside his jacket, and then unhooked all of the equipment he was using. Once everything was unhooked, he removed the disc from the helmet so it wouldn't be damaged, put it back into the case he got it from, and then rushed towards the front door to see if he was being watched. Off in the distance he heard the sounds of heavy vehicles moving towards his location, and decided to leave through the back of the arcade instead of going out the front, but first he waited to see how the officers were going to deploy so he knew what his options were.
A few minutes later, the sounds of armored GSD officers being deployed along the streets came to Jobe’s ears, and he watched them take up a standard formation to guard the front of the building, like he figured they would. Knowing that they were following standard procedures, he hurried to the back of the building. Seconds later, he heard them entering through the front and noticed that they were all wearing infrared goggles. Certain that he wouldn't make it to the back door before they spotted him, he began looking around for anything that might help him escape the area undetected.
Protruding from the ceiling was the nozzle for an old fire extinguisher system, and the valves running to it appeared to be open. Jobe considered shooting at the nozzle, but he knew that the gunshot would reveal his position, so he pulled the baton out of his pocket and extended it to full length. He brought his arm back, and then threw the baton at the nozzle just as one of the officers stepped underneath it.
The baton spun, as it flew through the air, and then it struck the nozzle, snapping it off where it connected to the ceiling. Without the nozzle to hold it back, a thick, opaque chemical mist sprayed down, and Jobe knew it would cloud the infrared goggles for a little while. He used this opportunity to find the rear exit and kick open the door using enough force to rip apart the heavy metal padlock that was keeping the door closed. Without looking back, he rushed into the night as the GSD officers tried to find their way back out of the building through the blinding mist.
The various sounds of the night surrounded Jobe as he quickly made his way down the dimly lit, litter-strewn streets. He thought about the fact that he needed to find someone to help him on this job, and tried to figure out who he could trust to watch his back and not betray him to the authorities. He could only think of one person that he could even remotely trust, but he doubted that it would do him any good to ask for help from that person after their last encounter years ago, and the rather unhappy outcome of that encounter.
His mind was so occupied on his future plans that he almost missed an arm sticking out of an alleyway off to his left. The only thing that kept him from passing on by was his foot striking an outstretched hand. Jobe paused and glanced down at the hand and arm, which were positioned in such a way as to indicate the person was probably trying to drag themselves away from something. His excellent vision picked up the dark stains of bloody footprints around the body, and he stepped into the alleyway to investigate further. He noticed that there was a dark stain spreading out from beneath the body, which he realized belonged to a young female. Hesitantly, he turned the person over to see the extent of her injuries. He saw that her shirt had been