Sergio stood from the corner he had just placed a small black box in. He smiled as Cynthia handed him another and they moved down the hall. At the second doorway he placed another box. Cynthia had already moved further down the hall to place one herself. "See I told you this would be fun."
"I feel like the Easter Bunny." It was one of the few traditions left in the breeding colonies, something to give the children hope. The memory was a sign that Cynthia was beginning to relax. They had come across little resistance once inside the house as they believed, but she knew it wouldn't last long.
"Easter bunny?" Sergio smiled it was an old reference. Cynthia hadn't wasted memory space by adding it to his.
"Forget about it." Cynthia laughed but went silent as she heard a slight hissing noise. "The gas!" She threw Sergio one of the gas masks they had brought along. She looked around the gas was invisible to the normal eye but with their photo-ionization sight she could see it was already filling the hall. "We're still three hallways from where it was supposed to be."
"Did Sally lie?" Sergio asked.
"I don't think so. Look at the sloppy plastering on the walls. It still looks fresh too. I think Estevez did a little remodeling after my talk with her."
"Damn, I hope everybody else is okay." Sergio said.
Cynthia picked up her backpack and handed Sergio another box. "Let's get moving before something else goes wrong."
***
The heat was getting unbearable and Betsy couldn't think of a thing that would help them.
"Don't you hate it when this happens?" Betsy looked to Alexis hoping she could think of a way out of this. She looked up above them to the hole in the ceiling they had come through.
"Too bad we left the cable behind. Maybe if you stood on my shoulders?"
She heard the sound of cloth ripping and looked to Alexis she had literally torn off the sleeves of her uniform and tore it into pieces. "We could not reach the opening that way. Remove your sleeves."
Knowing what she was getting at Betsy started removing her sleeves. Their plastocarbon skin and rubber soles have a lower melting point than their polyester clothing. Using the polyester for protection it might give them enough time to get to the door.
Alexis began wrapping the sleeves around a bare foot and Betsy followed suit resting the wrapped foot on top of her empty boot while she tied the second. Alexis finished before her by just a second and was already halfway to the door.
The cloth only partially protected their feet. Even as they ran, the cloth caught on fire but kept their feet from sticking to the floor. Neither stopped for the door but busted straight through it. It too was hot and thus weak and was no match for them. They had made it out safely and were now standing on sore feet.
"This story better make it to the front page or else my feet will never forgive me." Betsy leaned against the wall trying to put out the fire on her foot.
Alexis heard the sound of danger first and while pulling on Betsy's arm, she yelled for her to get down. Before she knew it, they both were firing on the bots that had surrounded them. The four bots fell quickly.
Betsy felt she was getting good at calculating a bot's weakness and predicting their pattern. She figured the data she collects from this mission could go to help the rebels learn how to fight the bots more efficiently. While immersed in her own thoughts, she failed to notice that Alexis was having trouble getting to her feet until he asked her for help.
"You've been shot!" Startling since Alexis seemed more agile and a better shot than her. She gave Alexis a hand and she rose swiftly. There was a long gash down her left leg where a laser had obviously slashed it. "Can you walk?"
"I can not move my knee, but yes I think I can limp." Betsy allowed her to take a few steps, and she turned back to Betsy, the pain evident on her face. "I will slow us down considerably. You go ahead."
"No way, Mrs. President, you will go with me, and you will march faster and harder than you ever did in your real life!" Alexis straightened. She obviously had clicked into her memories. She took a step forward testing the leg, he winced a bit but the next step was easier. She started moving faster and faster and soon Betsy nearly had to run to keep up with her.
***
Melanie watched with awe as the bot fought against its own kind. Larry had expended all energy in his weapons long ago and was had trouble keeping the fly bots low enough for the humans to do damage to them. Every time one took to the sky he had to push them back down. If they would not go down with a gentle nudge, he had to nearly bash their heads in before they fell to the ground.
While fighting one particularly nasty bot, she noticed he hesitated as he looked out to the horizon through the black smoke caused by the fire of the trees, and the dark clouds spurting rain. She did not have to wonder long about what he saw as he sped down to her.
He lowered himself into the battle zone as Melanie was unscrewing a laser off a revbot. She leveled it on him until he identified himself. "We have to move out. There are hundreds of bots on their way."
"What about the teams inside?" Melanie knew her orders were to get the humans out if the situation turned ugly, she just hated failing the original mission.
"I will go warn them. You call the retreat." Larry started to float off towards the house.
She nodded her approval but before he got too far away she called to him.
"You'll need a new weapon." She called a technician forward who quickly swapped out Larry's weapon with the one she had just salvaged. He moved off quickly.
Melanie waved and called to the closest rebels. "We need to move out. Get everyone to the vans!"
The rebels almost seemed unhappy to leave so early, but they picked up the weapons they could and started heading out. A few stragglers kept fighting the few bots that were left until the last possible moment.
"Get in the flitvan!" Melanie ordered as she saw Pedro and his recruits still fighting.
"I'm not leaving without Cynthia!" Audie spurted back.
"Are you insane? There are hundreds of bots heading this way. She can find another way out."
"With all due respect senhora this van is her only way out. We will stay and protect this van until she arrives."
"What about the flits in the garage?" Melanie asked.
"Gone, Keith checked earlier for us. There is no other way."
"Fine, I'll call Wissen and inform him of your decision."
"Great. Now, why don't you get out of here while you still can, unless you want to help cover us." Melanie shook her head and ran off to her van. "That's what I thought."
***
Betsy and Alexis moved slowly down the hall. They knew they had to move faster (but couldn't because of Alexis's injury) if they were to have the passage ready before the others were ready with their portion. According to the time table, they should be about now. Unfortunately, they were behind schedule, and they still had one more trap to get through. Right now they should be on top of it.
Alexis seemed a bit confused. "Shouldn't we be in a pit right now?"
Betsy shrugged it off. "Must have been a dud. We better get moving."
After taking only a couple of steps, Alexis stopped and started to look around, pistol ready. "Something doesn't feel right."
"It's just your imagination." Betsy pushed past her. She took another step and was thrown off her feet. Both were scooped up in a large net woven of thin iron strands.
"Shit! Where'd this come from? I thought the net was on Cynthia's route." Alexis struggled to get upright.
"It was supposed to be. Too bad we don't have a laser rifle to cut through this thing."
"This is why Sergio was carrying the handsaw."
Betsy sat dejectedly at the bottom staring at the walls waiting for some bots to come their way to neutralize them.
Alexis, not willing to give up tried yanking at the top of the net to make it fall, but all she did was make her hands bleed. "You could at least help me here."
"And do what exactly?" Betsy was in no mood to lend a hand.
"Listen, if we don't work together then we won't get out, then when the others are counting on us, we won't be there." Alexis was now trying to reach the mechanism that held the net to the roof.
"That won't help. We have to cut through the net, but of course we don't have anything that would do that." Betsy sounded defeated.
"I've been in worse spots than this, and I know with an attitude like that, you won't get out because you don't want to." Alexis wasn't quite done with her speech but Betsy didn't want to listen. Instead she seemed fixated with something in her uniform.
"Hey, what about the wire cutters?" Her voice brightened as she dug through her pockets to find them. "I hope these are strong enough." She began cutting. It was slow going but the cutters were doing their job.
"Hurry." Alexis looked around. She knew once the trap had been tripped security would be notified. It was only a matter of minutes before someone, or something, showed up.
"You don't think they moved Julion, do you?" Betsy wondered aloud. Obviously if this trap had been moved he may have as well.
"Anything's possible, but let's not wait to find out."
Betsy cut through the last wire that would give them enough room to slip out.
It wasn't far to the room where Julion was being held from that point. Of course, there was one more trap they had to pass through, as it was, there was nothing they could do about it. There was an intricate sensor grid down the hall halfway to their destination. Once the sensor was tripped, the person walking down the hall would be ripped to shreds by the lasers guns mounted in the wall. These guns were encased in a thick, steel, reactive fortification, nothing less than a JS-8cm armor-piercing laser would take them out. Unfortunately, they had no such weapon and there was no other way around.
Then all the power around them went out, and they were left in the dark. "Cynthia must have found the generator room!" Betsy cried.
"About time." Alexis muttered as she moved forward freely. Betsy followed a little cautiously, not wanting to be killed if the power fluctuated and reinstated enough for the lasers to fire.
Before they turned the bend into the final hall, Alexis peeked around the corner. She moved back quickly. "Three bots and one uneasy guard at the door."
"So what do you think?" Betsy asked as quietly as she could.
"Nothing's changed. We'll go along with our original plan." Alexis was ready for the fight.
It had only been a few moments since the lights went out and the guard still hadn't adjusted. He looked around wildly. Every time a bot came close to him he jumped, not realizing what they were. The two girls moved low and quickly, knowing they only had seconds before the bots noticed them.
Alexis reached the guard first. Creeping up behind him she stuck a syringe in his arm. He twisted and swatted at her, but he fell unconscious before he made contact. By now, the bots had spotted them. Betsy and Alexis ran straight into the three, knocking them together. They quietly and quickly disposed of them.
The door had hardly opened when the chief met them there. Never having fought a human before, they were unsure what to do. The chief, himself a little confused at their inaction, stood frozen for a second. It didn't take long, though for him to remember they were the enemy. He raised his weapon, and Alexis reacted according to her programming. With quick reflexes she grabbed the gun from the chief's hand and knocked the butt side into his head.
The chief fell and they got their first view of Julion who was limp in the chair. Without thinking, Betsy ran to him. Alexis tried to stop her but he was too late. As she ran in the room ten bots became active and advanced out from the edges of the room. Alexis grabbed the chief's laser and limped towards Julion. She began firing with both weapons. Betsy had to take cover behind Julion's chair.
The bots gave a good fight, moving quickly using each other and fallen bots for cover but after a couple brutal minutes the two androids had finished off all bots.
Betsy moved around the chair, careful not to touch it and examined Julion. He looked horrible: pale, lips brown and cracked with dried blood -- even his muscles looked as if they had shrunken. She couldn't tell whether he was alive or not and feared taking his pulse might set off the chair.
The chair itself was a monster. It held its own power supply, thus it was still active and she could feel the warmth of the high current running through it. Alexis examined it for the access panel the Estevez android had used. Alexis pried the cover off and was mildly surprised that nothing happened. Obviously the Boss didn't expect them to get even this far. It sickened her to see the molten metal around the wires. She couldn't help feeling sorry for the android they had had to kill to save Julion. At least his death had some meaning. The molten metal held all but a couple of the wires making Alexis's job much easier. She took the wire cutters from Betsy and was about to cut the wires when she saw how badly bent up cutters were. She couldn't use them to make a clean cut of the wires.
"Betsy, I will need you to pull him out of the chair while I pull the wires." Alexis gathered them in her hand and positioned herself as far from the chair as she could.
"Why can't you just cut the wires?" She asked.
Alexis held up the broken cutters.
"Oh, guess it wasn't so smart to use that on the net." She too positioned herself to have leverage and lightly held onto Julion's shirt.
Alexis tightened her grip and nodded to Betsy. She tightened hers. At that moment Alexis pulled as fast and hard as she could on the bunch. The braces on Julion's arms and feet released and Betsy yanked him away. The chair sparked with small blue lightning bolts throwing the three halfway across the room. The chair went up in flames making the dark room seem like midday.
"Oh, man." Betsy heard a low moan come from the body on top of her.
The shock must have awakened Julion as he started to move. "Julion, are you okay?"
"I can't move, but other than that-" He was interrupted by a fit of coughing.
Alexis moved to them and started to pick Julion up in her arms. She strained a little with the pressure on her bad leg.
"What's that smell?" She asked him as he lay in her arms.
He smiled weakly, "What you expected them to give me a shower while I was in that thing?"
"Incoming!" Betsy moved out the door and called to Alexis. She aimed her pistol down the hall where she had seen movement.
Everyone was quiet for a moment as they poised for an attack. They heard the sound of a bird calling.
"It's okay. It's Cynthia." Alexis sighed. She returned the call with one of her own and two more androids entered the room.
Cynthia ignoring everyone else ran over to Alexis who held Julion. It seemed to be an effort for him to lift his head a little to face her. "Sorry, I got captured."
"No, don't be, Julion. This was all my fault. I forced you into this…." Alexis saw the hurt in Cynthia's eyes. She knew Cynthia wanted to talk more but she urged her not to.
"We need to get moving."
"Cynthia." Sergio put a soft hand on her shoulder and handed her another box.
She nodded, then turned back to Julion. "Oh, and for a while, remember we don't know each other."
"Huh?" Julion tried to turn to her but Alexis handed him off to Betsy. Alexis was afraid she might drop him if her leg gave out. Betsy started moving out before he could argue.
After placing the box in the pile of bots, Cynthia went over and picked up the security chief.
"Cynthia we don't have time to drag them out." Sergio objected.
"We don't have time to argue. I'm not going to risk more human life. Now go get the guard. We're getting out of here."
Sergio moved out into the hall with the others and picked up the unconscious guard. He draped him over his shoulder so that he could still have one hand free to place the boxes down as they moved down the hall out the way Alexis and Betsy had come in.
***
Audie fought with one bot all the way to the vans. He had to slam it into the side of the van before it would give up fighting. Unfortunately, it wasn't the last of the bots. The dark mass was nearly upon them and they could now make out the shapes of over a hundred individual bots. Near the front of the pack seemed to be small black dots. As they neared, Jamil made out the shape to be somewhat fish like: round at the front and tapered towards the back with a rotary tail. The distinguishing feature of this new bot were what appeared to be a jaw and large spike like teeth extending up and down from it.
"Merda, what are those?"
"I don't know, but get in the van before we find out."
Jamil and Pedro climbed in the front doors as Audie tried to open the side door. "Shit!" He muttered. Jamil realized smashing the bot into the side had damaged the lock.
Jamil climbed into the back to try to open the door from the inside as Pedro started the motor and the van lifted ever so slightly off the ground. With only one usable arm he found it quite difficult to open the door.
"Hurry up Senhors!" Pedro called. The bots were in range now and already fired on the van creating pot holes in the roof. "Just get in the front Audie."
Audie apparently already thought of that as the door opened before Pedro finished his sentence.
Too late!
Audie screamed in pain. Thinking he'd been shot, Jamil ordered Pedro to take evasive action and tried to pull Audie inside. To his dismay, as he began to, he saw that several of those new bots had attached themselves to Audie and seemed to be chewing on him. "Get them off me!" Audie called.
Jamil shot one. It stopped biting but it didn't release its grip. Two other bots had exposed a large portion of Audie's back and seemed to only have a taste for the metal skeleton. Another munched away at his arm.
Jamil took a quick glance outside and noted the other fish like bots he now thought of as piranhabots moved with the vehicle but didn't attack it. They seemed to only have a taste for the metal inside the androids. It only took him a moment to realize this as one left Audie and headed straight for him.
His reflexes saved him as he shot his laser through the brain of the thing and it dropped like a lead fly. Meanwhile, Pedro looked down at Audie writhing in pain.
"Help me!" Audie gasped.
"What the hell?" Pedro couldn't help gaping at the exposed skeleton. "You're androids?"
"Just drive." Jamil ordered as he shot another bot. Three more had taken to Audie's legs and had chewed them up to the knees. Jamil quickly shot two of those but now the remaining bots redoubled their efforts and began tugging on Audie pulling him outside the van. Audie gripped the seat with his one good hand while Jamil grabbed hold of him. Four piranhabots cannibalized two of the "dead" ones quickly and had Audie halfway out of the seat. "No!" Jamil cried.
A poorly timed turn on Pedro's part had Audie slipping out to the edge of the van. Only Jamil's grip kept him from falling to the ground. The problem was Jamil didn't see any life left in Audie's eyes.
A piranhabot took the initiative and bit into Jamil's hand. He gritted his teeth in pain. Pedro seeing his predicament shot at the bot but too late. Audie fell and a good number of the piranhabots dived after him. Several stayed with the van and began flying straight for Jamil. He grabbed the door quickly and swung it shut. The piranhabots hit the door but did not try to bite through.
Jamil shook his head. It was a senseless death. He could not morn for long as there were still bots out there to fight. He felt the weight upon his hand. The piranhabot never let its grip go. He couldn't use his left hand to pry it off as that too was defective. It was no use. Someone else would have to do it.
They still needed to pick up Cynthia and the others, that was imperative now more than ever. Pedro turned the van around and headed straight for the back door of the house.
It was a good thing that the flitvans moved faster than the normal flybots, otherwise the bots would have destroyed all the rebel vans with everyone inside.
***
Cynthia and the others moved quickly through the cleared halls. The pit did open this time but since it was expected they easily circumvented it with a couple of spikes they pounded into the walls. Carrying the humans across was a little tricky but they managed.
Larry found them just as they had reached the corridor after the pit. "Cynthia, we have a new problem. Hundreds of bots have just arrived."
"Great, let's have a party." Sergio said softly.
"Cynthia, we can't go back the way we came in as planned that room's a furnace." Betsy warned.
"Fine, we'll go out through the kitchen." They turned to that direction and just as they reached the door Sergio gripped Cynthia's shoulder and wrenched her backwards.
A heavy metal door crashed down and would have chopped her in half had he not taken the action. She got a hold of herself and shifted Julion's weight in her arms. "Thanks. That wasn't in the plans."
"Neither was a lot of things. I thought it wise to be cautious." Sergio said.
"Now what?" Betsy asked.
Cynthia looked around. The only other exit that was accessible was on the other side of the house and she didn't really wish to encounter more traps they weren't prepared for.
Cynthia heard the squealing before she understood what it was and already was taking cover. The others understood quickly and took cover. Two and a half seconds later a van careened through the kitchen wall next to them.
"Stop!" Cynthia heard Jamil yell and the van almost hit the wall on the other end of the hall. The front passenger door opened. "Quickly get in before they catch up."
No one hesitated but Cynthia asked. "Who?"
"The piranhabots." Jamil showed her the dead one still attached to his hand and she quickly understood. He took Julion from her arms and laid him in the back of the van. She saw round objects flying quickly through the hole the van had created. The security officers were passed in next. Quickly one after the other the androids climbed over the front seat into the back and Cynthia closed the van door behind her. Just in time as she saw the piranhabots floating around the windows.
"Sergio, take the driver's seat."
"I can drive." Pedro protested.
"I'm sure you can, but he has faster reflexes."
Sergio and Pedro switched places and quickly the van backed out the way it had lurched in. There was a couple of loud thuds and they realized the flybots had caught up with them and were run over by the van. Sergio hit the accelerator and they were speeding away from the house even the piranhabots could not keep up.
Cynthia kept a watch on the bots and their distance from the house. She counted down the meters and was glad to see that when they had cleared her buffer area a large amount of the bots had not. She took her control box out and held it for a second, as if considering the implications of pressing the button. She realized there was nothing to worry about, save the number of bots she was about to destroy. She pressed the button without any further hesitation.
The androids watched as piece by piece the house exploded, the boxes they had set in precise locations to do the most damage did their job. The blast encompassed the entire grounds of the house and took more than half of the reinforcement bots with it.
The androids watched the house go up in flames and the slow moving bots dwindled in size as they got further away. Everyone couldn't help cheering at their success. They had won this battle.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please send me any comments you might have, good or bad. Copyrighted 2008 by Christine Schnell. Go ahead and share it with others just keep my name with it.
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