"Oh, no no no..." the CEO said. "They won't be interrupting us."
And the Republic team really did not come. I was enraged.
With all my strength, I pushed him to his office's large window, and punched him a few times, injuring my own hand because of all the metal accessories around his face. The window shattered and broke apart, but neither of us fell down. I held him by his collar once again, and launched him to the wall. He fell down, holding his fingers over the bleeding wound on his cheek. I pulled him back onto his feet, and kicked him until I was tired. Finally, I pinned him down and choked him.
He didn't fight back until he was no longer breathing.
I got back up and looked at him. I was in the middle ground between feeling shame and guilt for what I've done to the man, and feeling like a hero of the people for what I was doing in the greater picture.
I heard someone just outside the door. My heart skipped a beat.
Before I could do anything, the door opened. On the other side, there was a woman in a black suit. She had electronic accessories similar to the one on the man I've just killed. She looked at me, didn't say anything, walked into the office and closed the door.
"Hello again, Mr. President." she said. "If you are done having fun with my poor body over there, let's discuss some more business."
"You are..." I was in shock. "You are HIM!?"
"Why, yes, I am me. Nice to meet you again." she said. "I have to say, although I understand why you've just done that, it wasn't very nice of you."
"I will stop you nonetheless."
"Maybe you are just jealous." she said, sitting on the chair behind her office desk. "Still, despite all the mess you are doing, I want to offer this exact ability to you. Think of it! You will basically be immortal."
"I would never-"
"And not only that, you can have any sort of body you want. Think, think! How nice it would be to throw away your old, aging body and be transferred into a new one!"
"I am leaving, but this won't be the last time we see each other." I said. I turned around to leave the office, but the door was locked.
"No, you are not leaving." she said. "Even though the old hierarchies won't work in our new civilization, you are still dangerously powerful for us to let go. You are still the 'Mr. President' of some. Why would we allow you to amass your fleets to fight ours? Why would we allow you to go back to your miserable struggle when you are just a few words away from ascension? We are not your enemies, Mr. President, we merely want to help you!"
At that moment, I saw something outside the office's window - a Federation Navy shuttle! The Republic team had somehow noticed something weird going on in the office, and came to my aid. It was probably the broken window that gave it away...
"Do you think I don't see what you are looking at?" the CEO asked me. "Even if you run now, you will eventually come back to us... And you will be sorry for everything you've done today. One day, we will come together... We will all remember those moments and laugh together at your funny decisions!"
The shuttle was only half a meter away from the office. I quickly jumped outside and boarded the shuttle.
"Shoot her, quick!"
Despite (supposedly) targeting a civilian, the soldiers obeyed me. They opened fire through the crew hatch and killed her.
"Call reinforcements. We are taking over and sealing this building."
"Yes, sir." the shuttle pilot said.
"I wonder what the rest of the Federation will think about it once they hear what I have to say." I said to myself.
In a few moments, the sky was filled with shuttles. Soldiers dropped down to various points around the building. All the employees were taken outside, and the building was sealed. Just a few moments later, news agencies' aircraft were seen observing the events from afar.
It all lasted no longer than half an hour.
I ordered the pilot to get me down. I was going to enter the building and search it myself for clues about their secret plans.
However, just after I landed, a gunfight started inside the building.
"Androids!" the Republic team commander shouted, running out of the building and jumping behind a wall. "Take cover and fire at will! Keep the civilians away from the street!"
A small division of robotic fighters came out of the main entrance, which most likely meant that they have already killed our soldiers inside. Everyone opened fire at once.
I quickly boarded the shuttle that brought me here, and we lifted off to safety.
"Explain the situation briefly and ask the Federation Army for more reinforcements, on my responsibility." I said. "The enemy's main ground attack could be launched from here."
"Roger that." the pilot acknowledged.
"Hey, look at that!" the shuttle co-pilot said with excitement.
A set of large antennas were being deployed from the roof of the building. After their mechanical deployment, they turned to a random spot in the sky.
"What is happening?" the pilot asked.
"Whatever it is, I don't like it." I said. "Destroy those antennas!"
"We have no weapons to destroy these, sir." the co-pilot said. "Our pistols won't do anything."
Of course... We had left all the well-equipped soldiers down below, in the middle of the gunfight.
I looked outside the window to see the situation. The android division was pushing our soldiers back quite rapidly. Every time the Republic soldiers were trying to get to another cover a few steps behind them, they were being hunted down by the incredibly accurate robots.
Another group of soldiers were staying behind the lines on purpose, trying to get civilians to run away from the area.
"This is going to turn into a massacre!" I said. "Get some remotely controlled guns here!"
"The commander already asked for them, sir." the pilot said. "It takes a while to transport them."
"Does anyone have rocket launchers down there?"
"No, sir."
At that time, the antennas had already finished whatever they were doing, and were now retracting to their previous undeployed position.
Amid all the fighting on the ground, some debris from the space battle was constantly raining on the city.
Nothing at all was looking good here.