Chapter 116: Spider Bot

It took me a few months, but I finally constructed the evolved version of the Locust. Looking up, I studied the colossal experimental spider bot I had built.

The spider bot was a blocky machine that was mounted atop four arachnid-like legs. A single gigantic microwave laser was mounted atop its bulky torso, swiveling about as the advanced AI searched for targets through its rich sensory array. The damned thing was over a hundred and twenty meters tall, each of its foot capable of crushing a tank underfoot.

I had armed the spider bot with Meson torpedoes and heavy electron bolters that had twice the range of its heavy microwave laser. I had also installed basic anti-air defenses, Nanite missile systems that were designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. With the sheer mass and heavy armor, the spider bot was capable of enduring vicious barrages from even battleships.

The spider bot was a quadrupedal colossal tank that loomed over even the tallest skyscrapers, and was capable of dishing out immense damage with the heavy microwave laser. I daresay it was the most powerful and versatile land experimental in the world right now. It was definitely much more powerful and bigger than the Warlord war walker.

"What the hell did you just build, boss?"

William Wang was gaping at the massive spider bot looming within the vast, cavernous space of the garage I had rented from the military. I nodded in satisfaction, my hands on my hips before I proudly gestured toward my latest invention.

"The Monkey Lord."

"How the fuck is that a monkey lord? It looks nothing like a monkey! Don't you mean Spider Lord? Or Scorpion Lord?"

"Well, that works too," I admitted with a shrug. "Sorry, I got too carried away playing too much Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. When they created Forge Alliance Forever, they literally meant forever. The fan-run server is still up and running even after more than a century."

"You're telling me that you invented this…this gigantic robot after playing a game from a century ago?" William was waving his hand and staring at me in disbelief. I nodded.

"Yeah. I'm still waiting for a sequel to the game, but I guess Square Enix lost all interest after the perceived failure of Supreme Commander 2."

"Dude, you are just…" William shook his head, at a complete loss for words.

"Insane?" I offered helpfully, but William simply rolled his eyes. I chuckled and pushed my glasses up my nose. "They say there's a thin line between insanity and genius."

"Oh, I can guarantee that there will be plenty of people who will be hailing you as a genius." William sighed. "But there will be quite a few people accusing you of wasting so much money building something so impractical and…silly looking."

"Silly looking?" I scoffed. "They will reconsider that once they see this thing marching toward them, firing an apocalypse laser of doom."

I then sent signals to the pilot in the spider bot. he nodded and walked the colossal war machine toward the gates, which slowly slid open to reveal the external environment. The spider bot strode out of the gigantic garage and into open space.

Outside, the environment had been sculpted and shaped to resemble a cityscape. Semi-constructed buildings stood outside, their skeletons of reinforced steel, beams and girders gleaming. Force bubbles of energy shield shimmered over them, with construction crews hastily installing the shield generators within the structures.

"You must be very confident of the firepower that this thing possesses," William noted, having spotted the energy shields. I grinned.

"You'll see."

The spider bot continued to march forward. AI piloted tanks swerved forward, bombarding the gargantuan machine with anti-tank shells and high explosive missiles. Explosions dotted the spider bot, leaving scorch marks on its armored frame, but otherwise it continued striding forward unscathed.

One of the massive legs crashed down, crushing an unfortunate tank that was too slow to get away in time. The dual electron bolters spat out bolts of energy, reducing another two tanks into crumpled heaps, their armored frames unable to withstand such power.

A row of tanks rolled to form a wall of steel between the advancing spider bot and the pseudo skyscrapers. Their cannons roared and more bolts and shells struck the hull of the quadrupedal walker, exploding violently. For a moment, it seemed that the spider bot was engulfed in flames, contrails of smoke wreathing it.

Then its laser turret burst out of the grey fumes, almost like some sort of shadowy head or stinger, and a ruby laser beam seared out, lancing into the column of tanks.

They never stood a chance.

The poor tanks exploded, their bloated hulls hurled into the air as the microwave laser ripped into them. Internal explosions ripped them apart as superheated energies penetrated engines and ignited the plasma reactors in their engines. Silver or grey metal turned red-hot from the extreme heat, melting away into liquid steel that left droplets on the ground.

In less than a minute, the battle was over. There was little left of the tank column but burning heaps of molten metal, torn turrets and shrapnel. The spider bot continued advancing, its four legs crushing the twisted husks underfoot and leaving the broken and trampled tanks behind.

The skyscrapers were next. The spider bot mercilessly sliced into them with its heavy microwave laser, even as its two heavy electron bolters pounded the buildings further back via bombardment. These were more fortunate, the energy shields holding up well against the ranged onslaught. Closer, though, the energy shields rippled for a moment while straining against the microwave laser…and then they collapsed almost instantly when the generators were overloaded by the sheer amount of devastating energy that was pouring out of the sweeping turret.

The moment the energy shields went down, the buildings were demolished immediately. Concrete structures buckled and collapsed, while the buildings at the front were cleaved apart instantly, the microwave laser cutting through them as easily as hot knife through butter. Upper halves of the skyscrapers tumbled over.

"The energy shields…they didn't last for long against the energy shields!" William gasped. "What kind of weapon is that?!"

"An energy weapon. A heavy microwave laser, actually. It gathers intense radiation and focuses it into a single beam…"

"That's not what I meant! I don't need you to explain to me the specifics!" William cut me off. He swallowed and stared at me, wide eyed. "But doesn't this mean your energy shields are obsolete?"

"Escalation," I replied with a shrug. "We build shields, the enemy develops stronger arrows that can punch through them. We build walls and they start building cannons. We stay out of range and they invent guns. We start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, the enemy buys armor piercing rounds. We bring shotguns, they buy assault rifles. That's how it is. An arms race, to see who has the more powerful weapons. You didn't think our rivals were going to stay the same forever, did you?"

"No, I'm not that naïve," William admitted. He then waved at the spider bot, which was slowly turning around and heading back to the garage. "But now that you have unleashed this…what happens now?"

"Nothing. We just have the strongest military in the world. The most technologically advanced, I mean."

"You're not naïve either." William took a deep breath. "What if the government starts thinking that they can use your inventions to start a war? Have Hua Xia conquer the world and bring all the other nations under their rule? What if the premier starts dreaming of world domination? You're basically handing him all the tools he needs."

"I won't be as stupid to say that I trust the politicians to do the right thing. But I know this for sure." I glanced up at the spider bot. "Wars are costly. Often they just aren't worth waging, not unless we have something to gain. World domination isn't worth the cost right now. There are no resources we can't secure through trade and capitalism at the moment, which are far more efficient ways of obtaining them than simply robbing them from an unwilling population. Plus the costs and logistics of building a spider bot are astronomical. Do you know how expensive it is to build just one of these things? I don't think our current economy can sustain an entire platoon of spider bots. Also…as powerful as the spider bot is, it'll still get destroyed if the other nations nuke it."

"Nuke?"

"Exactly." I nodded. "Nothing can beat a nuke. The spider bot will still get wrecked by a nuke. The spider bot might be king in conventional warfare, but if the premier or government has any funny ideas of world conquest, they will be painting a huge target on their backs. I don't think Country A or whoever will hesitate to nuke this country to oblivion if we send an army of spider bots marching across the borders and start seizing territory. Country I also has nukes and nuclear technology, don't forget. If we push them to a corner, they will conduct a scorched earth policy at best, or mutually assured destruction at worst, where we end up nuking each other into oblivion. Leaving vast lands of irradiated soil and depriving ourselves of the very resources we want."

"So why build this at all?" William asked with a frown, studying the retreating spider bot. "Isn't it a complete waste of time and money?"

"Because I can," I replied with a mischievous grin. "And because it's my dream to build giant robots. Besides, it's not a complete waste of time and money. If the enemy sends tanks into our territory, we will just blow them up with just one of these things. Also…morale and psychological warfare. With even one of these things on the battlefield, the enemy will be intimidated. More often than not, the presence of just this thing will scare them into not attacking and prevent a fight from ever happening in the first place."

"So we don't actually need many of these…spider bots."

"Exactly." I nodded and watched the gargantuan quadrupedal walker disappear back into the garage, its mechanical limbs clanking and servos whining. The laser turret continued to spin about, as if searching for targets. I smiled at the awe-inspiring sight.

Honestly, most of what I told William was bullshit. But I was a CEO. It was my job to sell my products and persuade the other party to buy them. As long as I sounded convincing, I could sucker the military into purchasing this spider bot.

And my name would go down in history as the inventor of giant robots.