Alice Murder Drones Novels & Stories

Whatever it took, I’d see this through. “Well, well, well... if it isn’t Mario Bianchi, here to reclaim his slut of a wife,” a voice sneered, slicing through the sounds of gunfire and screams. I froze, my gaze snapping forward, and there he was—the bastard himself. Jake Miller stood there, smug and untouched, but it wasn’t him that made my blood run cold. It was Alice. She was tied to a chair, heavy iron chains biting into her skin. A leash. A fucking leash was around her neck, pulling her head forward like she was nothing more than an animal. Her eyes were swollen, her face tear-streaked and lifeless, and she looked as if every ounce of hope had been drained from her.

I scream, shoving Alex toward Aria. Drones—not our drones, but sleek, black, insect-like machines—swarm through the broken windows. They have lasers. They start firing. "Defensive protocols!" Echo roars, his avatar expanding to shield the crowd. But the black drones tear through his code like paper. "It's a war," Alex yells, grabbing Kai and Emma. "It's an extermination," I realize, watching a drone vaporize a table. The celebration is over. The revolution is over. The invasion has begun.

I just looked at the man who had siphoned my life to build a city of glass, and I raised the key. The drones screeched, their sensors locking onto my Mercury Lines. Kael didn't look back at them; he only looked at me, his fingers inches from my shoulder. "Run," he whispered, but his eyes were pleading for me to stay. I stepped back into the shadow of the server pillar. "You're too late, Kael. You already deleted me." The first drone cleared the doorway, its red laser-grid sweeping the room, stopping directly on the center of Kael's chest before shifting to mine.

Dominic stared down at his blackened hands, his chest heaving as the black veins along his arms trembled, his mind reeling from the horror of what he had almost accomplished. "Look out!" Malakai screamed, his voice breaking into a panicked shriek. Through the shattered front windshield, the three Vanguard combat drones descended from the clouds like birds of prey. Their targeting lasers stopped dancing; they locked dead-center onto the pilot's cabin, three blinding crimson dots burning into the glass. They fired. Three synchronized, high-velocity plasma rockets tore through the midnight sky, heading directly for our noses. Dominic didn't hesitate. He didn't have time to think, to process the

Alejandro roared. His men surrounded the uplink as Paula remotely accessed the drone’s code. "Tracing now… 68%... 81%..." A second drone appeared — but this one bearing Vexler’s insignia. Dino cursed over comms. "They’re overlapping us. It’s a trap!" Suddenly, every screen in the Zurich vault blinked red. A voice, distorted, filled the space. "You came to bury me. But I buried your future long before you ever rose." It was Vexler.

Aaliyah's drones descended into it and died one by one. Not exploded. Died. Their feeds went black with a final image: walls lined with glass cylinders, each filled with dark-gold blood suspended in starlight. Labels appeared on the dead feeds before they vanished. MILLER LINE: CONTAINMENT BRANCH A. MILLER LINE: CONTAINMENT BRANCH B. MILLER LINE: FAILURE, VOLUNTARY SACRIFICE. MILLER LINE: FAILURE, RAGE OVERRIDE. MILLER LINE: SUCCESS, MEMORY REMOVED.

"If you don't authorize the new Covenant, there won't be a world left to save. They’ll delete the hardware and start over with a fresh species." Elara looked at the pen, then at the vial of liquid shadow. Beside her, Mia was clutching the notebook….the "Delete" sequence that the drones were hovering for. Her mother, Sarah, stood with the silver shotgun leveled at the drones, though even she knew buckshot couldn't kill a math equation. "If I sign this," Elara rasped, the violet fire in her veins cooling into a heavy, leaden weight. "I’m not just your partner. I’m the Bank itself. I’m the one who decides who lives and who is... liquidated."

“Time’s up.” Alarms blared as we sprinted back into the corridor as red lights flared. The AI system had pinpointed our location. Drones would be inbound within moments. We raced through the route we’d taken in, but they were already closing uin. One drone appeared ahead, hovering, scanner flaring blue. Alex didn’t hesitate. He dropped to one knee, aimed, and fired. The drone exploded in a burst of sparks. We didn’t stop.

I couldn’t lose those. When sleep finally stole me, it was fitful. The hideout slept in shifts and shadows, metal glinting like teeth in the dark. Overhead the world was oblivious, cars and people and a sky that didn’t know we were making war. In the morning, Abel taped printouts to the wall and underlined names. Damon trained until his fists were bruised, pulling the weight of failure into muscle. Halstrom drew plans with a precise, surgical fury. I strapped my pistol into its holster one more time and looked at it like a promise. This was no longer a hunt for a faceless mastermind. This was for Alice. This was for the burnt-out estates and staged ruins. We weren't going to be fooled again.

She was so delicate that when all he did was to push her behind him in the dark alley, turned into something as hideous as her getting flung far away, how could he even touch her again. He punched the mattress for thinking so much about a mortal, a human he despised so much. He would wait for Zoe. She would come back and understand his needs. But there was no way he was sleeping with this erection. The ache was making him crazy. He got up and made himself another glass of whiskey. The entire day he had tried to find clues about Necklace of Dorza. His general had told him that there was a den of demons in the outskirts of the town outside Renada.