Chapter 1:  Virus Detected (written by Michael Keens/Exodus)  

In the distant realm of Technatopia, the world was in a futuristic age, and 
most of the population had come to rely on machines a great deal.  
At this point, robots had already been invented to cater to humans’ general 
needs and assist in developing the world with them but they were unreliable, 
and sometimes dangerous, they malfunctioned all too often and most of the 
time, humans were ill-equipped to deal with them when this happened.  
Over several years, scientists built on robot projects, until finally, they 
created something better.  
Robots that thought for themselves, yet, knew of authority, feelings of others 
and had a sense of law and duty:  Machines with free will and a conscience.  
At first there were protests, some people felt that creating life went against 
all religious and moral values, but the production went ahead regardless.  
Androids looked virtually like humans and had most of the abilities of humans 
too, the ability to think, and act on their own decisions, they could see, 
smell, listen, touch and taste like humans, but with heightened senses or 
extra additions.  
Their sight could reach further than others and zoom in on a specific target, 
their smell was heightened so they could detect different scents better than 
people could, they could hear sounds from farther away and determine what they 
were easily, they had twice the strength of humans but could control that 
strength and be gentle wherever needed, and their design allowed them to go 
for much longer without food and liquid.  
Each ability was created throughout the years and added to those that wished 
to be more like the humans, eventually, androids were even able to interact 
with one another, because love was a huge part of human life androids were 
given the same opportunities, and could produce children with other androids.  
At the time, it was unknown if human-android relationships could produce the 
same results, but people were banned from getting involved with androids in 
that way and vice versa.  
Because androids were stronger and sometimes smarter than humans, they were 
used often for manual labour, law enforcement or roles which required fast 
and/or calculating minds, this put several humans out of work because the 
androids could perform most jobs and duties better than them.  
This led to arguments and disputes that androids were getting out of hand, and 
most humans ended up despising having the androids around, so much that they 
hurt the androids with their actions and words a great deal, and treated them 
as lesser beings compared to them.  
This was a big mistake, the androids soon got tired of this; they stood up for 
themselves, resulting in war.  
But before it could grow too far out of control, higher up humans came to a 
quick decision in order to end it; to give the androids equal opportunities, 
if they weren’t being treated as such, then even the humans would get involved 
alongside androids to rectify the problem.  
Even the ban to prevent human-android relationships was lifted eventually, in 
order to bring humans and androids closer together since by this point, tests 
had been performed to make sure that conception between humans and androids 
turned out to be safe, for the parents, and the child.  

Things were bound to go fine people thought, but problems still arose, a small 
portion of the androids still weren’t satisfied, and the equal opportunities 
only made them greedy, they wanted more, they believed that they were better 
than humans, and as such, should be treated better.  
They continued to act as terrorists, hurting the humans to get what they 
wanted.  
But even the other androids wouldn’t stand for this, and an agency formed by 
humans and androids counteracted the terrorist threats.  
It took five years to round up, imprison, and in some cases, destroy the 
terrorists, but the agency finally defeated them and locked the remaining 
survivors away.  

For several years after that, all was peaceful, until now.  

“Hunters! This way!” shouted Jack Anderson, a human elite soldier of the 
Hunters, the agency that originally fought against malfunctioning androids, 
wild humans/androids in the war and the android terrorists.  
It hadn’t been needed for years since the human and android police could deal 
with normal disputes and crimes until now, when far greater forces were 
causing disturbances.  
They raced into the biggest and most developed city known to the world that 
they worked and lived in, Central City; it housed homes for humans but had the 
most androids living within than any other town in the world.  
“Another rogue android?” asked Jayce Laser, one of his partners.  
“I believe so.” answered Jack, he was the leader of the Hunters now, and also 
in the past when terrorists threatened the world, Jack was the most 
experienced of the current group and used a shotgun, along with his combat 
training skills.  
Jack was courageous, strong-willed, and impulsive, he usually did as he was 
told to by his superiors, but sometimes disobeyed in order to keep his allies 
alive instead of prioritising the mission.  
He had short white spiky hair and wore thick black and dark green armour with 
silver gloves.  
Laser was a hybrid, the product of a human and an android, he had spiky 
colourful hair, dark blue armour with various other coloured areas, and a lot 
of silver laser cannons mounted all over his mechanical suit, some obvious, 
some hidden away.  
Laser was confident and swift while doing his job; he was usually the joker of 
the group, but never during important times.  
He wound the others up whenever he could and kept everyone on their toes, but 
despite those flaws Laser was a valued member of the group.  
Next was Cable, a stern, withdrawn android in silver and turquoise armour who 
used strong wires controlled by his will for many uses.  
They could float, twist, turn, hit, wrap, or crush objects and life forms with 
impressive strength.  
People tried to talk to Cable but his quietness and secrecy prevented them 
from getting far.  
And finally was Woo, a close friend of Jack’s, he was human, but had lost his 
left arm a long time ago and replaced it with an artificial one, though 
slightly less responsive than his real arm, he could damage it and not feel 
any pain, and so could perform dangerous tasks without permanent damage to his 
real limbs.  
He had dark spiky black hair, a large muscular silver arm, purple armour and a 
silver eye patch over his left working eye to enhance his sight on a target, 
his secondary weapon was a powerful silver handgun.  

The four Hunters had been called out to detain another psychotic android; as 
of a short time ago androids were turning against everyone without good 
reason, equipping the nearest weapon and going on a killing spree.  
It never happened quite so frequently in the past, so the Hunters had to 
detain these androids and perform research on them, because the cause was 
obviously unnatural.  
The weapons the androids wielded shouldn’t have been so easy to find either, 
even though many people and androids kept a small weapon in storage for 
security.  
A lot of weapons had been created for and during the short lived war and had 
been stored away safely since and the location kept secret, but it seemed as 
if someone was simply picking out and handing the rogue androids these 
weapons.  

“FRY!!!” screamed the rogue android, a former cook, he wore protective yellow 
armour parts on his head, body and limbs.  
Armour parts were made of a high quality defensive metal, which was mainly 
used by law enforcement, it could be used by humans and androids, but they 
were harder on humans, because of the weight and the compatibility, androids 
could withstand those problems with ease and it was more common for them to 
wear it.  
The cook also had a flame cannon and a huge cleaver connected to his hand 
parts.  
“Damn...” muttered Laser, “Its Donny, he made the best hamburgers.”  
“No time to mourn for a guy you barely know, we’ve got to detain him, or we’ll 
be the ones who get cooked.” said Jack sternly.  
The Hunters leapt forward, all stopping around the cook to form a half circle, 
Jack reacted first as soon as the android made a move, and started blasting 
back Donny with several shotgun blasts, each made its mark, but the yellow 
armour was quite strong against the shells.  
“That’s high quality armour.” he commented, “But how on earth did someone like 
him know how to come by something that shouldn’t be available to the public?”  
“Maybe he picked it up cheap, just like all the other recent androids.” joked 
Laser in a serious tone, having got close enough to use rapid fire and get in 
many shots, although he had to occasionally somersault to dodge the once again 
activated flamethrower.  
“What’s the point in questioning things we’ll obviously not get the answer 
to?” questioned Woo, coming in from the left and punching Donny in the side of 
his head severely hard with his prosthetic arm, probably with enough force to 
damage one’s own fist if not for his abilities.  
“Aiya!” cried out Donny, “Chop chop!”  
With that, he scraped the axe-like cleaver upwards and cut deeply into the 
arm, forcing Woo to back away, he didn’t feel pain when it came to that arm, 
but it suddenly became sluggish and wouldn’t help him now.  
“Must I cover for you again?” sighed Cable, as his many wires tangled up the 
cook and raised him into the air, “Besides, if we want Reed to analyse the 
cause of what’s driving androids insane, then a non-wrecked specimen will 
surely speed things up.”  
“You want to stop this before you end up infected, huh?” questioned Laser, it 
was an obvious comment but only because Laser wanted Cable to talk more to him 
to understand him better.  
“Of course I do, I can’t imagine being so destructive without feeling anything 
in return, if it ever happens-”  
“I know, I know, shoot ya dead, you’ve said this before.” sighed Laser.  
Donny screamed out, and the flame cannon shifted inwards before transforming 
into a gun part with a wider hole.  
A sphere of fire next came hurtling out and took apart some of Cable’s wires, 
he braced the pain as some of his attachments were severed but the majority of 
the parts tangling the chef were without a controller and so he was able to 
struggle loose.  
Donny glared as he landed and lightly cut across Cable’s chest with its 
cleaver, and then tried to run, Jack quickly drew out his shotgun and began 
firing on Donny, but the crazed android started to jump around, up, and to the 
sides like a manic child, and each shot missed.  
“Gonna... serve... a meal...” spluttered Donny between leaps.  
“Keep it up Jack.” called Laser, running into a new position, “I’ve almost got 
a clear shot for my patented Stun Combo.”  
“Laser! Don’t fire! That’s a residential area!” he shouted back.  
The next leap landed Donny near a crowd of people in a busy marketplace; they 
looked him over, noticed what he was, screamed and ran.  
“Aw no you don’t! You ready for your last meal?” questioned Laser snidely.  
With that, the chef reached around the corner, and grabbed a girl hiding 
there, she was android in nature Laser figured, as her hair was dark green and 
turquoise, with two sharp-looking bangs which hung to the sides of her face 
and two longer versions at the back of her head, she had a bright rounded 
magenta dress and a large metal skirt.  
Humans generally didn’t wear android clothing as it was fairly heavy and only 
practical to the latter.  
Laser winced at the sight of the dashing young female as the crazed android 
restrained her and held the cleaver to her neck, he raised his guns, but 
couldn’t find it within him to risk her life.  
“Cool down, and store...” said the android absently.  
Laser was torn, a shot strong enough to free the girl might be seen long 
before he managed to fire, that and nothing less of a killing shot to the chef 
would guarantee the girl’s safety.  
Laser’s weapon seemed the only one that could be controlled in power among 
those in the immediate area that wouldn’t hurt the girl upon hitting Donny so 
he was under real pressure here.  
“I have to compromise for the both of them!” he shouted out.  
“Laser, fire to destroy him! We have to save that girl, even if we lose 
another specimen!” shouted Jack, running towards him.  
All this time the female was growling, finally, she burst out, “What are you 
waiting for?! Blast him! I can take a few small hits, but not decapitation!”  
Laser glared forward and took aim, “Sorry Don’, but I’m dropping you right 
here!”  
“You heard the lady.” said Woo, charging right in with his gun outstretched, 
but someone leapt on top of him and sent them both crashing down.  
“Laser?!” he exclaimed, “What is your problem?! We’ve got to stop that psycho 
at any cost! Besides, she’s just an android and-”  
“Woo!” shouted Jack, “I don’t care if androids are the ones causing the 
trouble, we protect innocent humans and androids alike! Don’t you ever talk of 
androids as if they aren’t worth protecting!”  
“And what are you getting so touchy about?” questioned Woo.  
“What the hell are you doing?!” screamed the female, “Do something!”  
A strong wire wrapped around the cleaver and yanked it to the side so that the 
female could slide out of his grip, and then pulled Donny to the floor.  
“Since the whole team is here now, we can work together to stop him while 
protecting the innocent.” stated Cable.  
“You’re right.” Laser sighed, blasting Donny’s flame cannon to the side with 
one precise shot moments before he fired another flame.  
Jack started hitting him with more shotgun blasts to distract him while Cable 
tied up his arms behind his back.  
“Someone disable that gun.” called Cable, and Woo obliged, grabbing the whole 
thing and ripping it off, causing minor damage to Donny’s hand having been 
hooked to it.  
“Mission com-” said Laser, before Donny growled and struggled, moving his 
cleaver slightly to the side but failing to escape.  
Unfortunately, Woo was close to the blade, and reacted, falling to the floor, 
drawing his handgun, and shooting Donny in the forehead.  
The shot knocked him over, and unconscious, it wasn’t fatal but that didn’t 
make it any less of a mistake.  
“Woo!” shouted Cable angrily, quite rare for him, “What was that for?! I said 
we should bring him in with little harm!”  
“I reacted through my instincts, and I dealt with it as such, besides, Reed’s 
a good scientist, I’m sure if we bring in enough of these lunatics he’ll 
discover what we need to know.” said Woo casually.  
“I think you’re forgetting one thing, these androids are suffering from an 
illness, we should be trying to restore them, your ‘instincts’ do not help 
that cause at all!” challenged Cable.  
“You really think some disease is making these androids act this way.” 
muttered Woo, “All machinery is bound to go bad someday; it’s obviously the 
androids’ time...”  
With that he walked away, leaving the three to clean up the mess.  
“Woo’s a good fighter and all, but his attitude toward androids...” sighed 
Laser, “Whatever made you think this job was for him?”  
“We need all the help we can get so I didn’t really have a choice.  It’s 
because of what happened with his arm that’s making him say those things, try 
not to take it personally Cable.” replied Jack, “And you too Laser.”  
“Can I go now?” scowled the frustrated female, “I’ve got things to do.”  
“Oh sure Miss.” grinned Laser, “Everything’s okay now.”  
“Hmmph!” she snorted, “Amateurs...”  
With that the female stormed around the corner and disappeared.  
“Hunters, let’s return with this rogue android to Hunter Headquarters.” said 
Jack in his authority voice, and the three left, taking the struggling chef 
with them.  

End  

Chapter 2:  Trick of the Trade
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