by Drew Cordell
I shot at Omega, but my bullets stopped short, hitting an invisible barrier that shimmered as the hits rippled through its shield. The metal of the exoskeleton flourished in swirls of bright color with each hit, but the shielding didn’t show any signs of damage.
“Builder, what are we dealing with? Help us!” I yelled, continuing to fire until my rifle clicked dry. I threw it down, letting it hang from its sling while I pulled my heavy shotgun from my back, slamming the pump toward me and returning it to its set position as I toggled it to fire with both barrels.
“Stay back!” Marwin yelled to me, reaching over and putting a hand across my chest before I could charge at Omega. The enemy was still 50 feet away, but the slugs in my shotgun wouldn’t have any trouble covering that distance while retaining power.
I braced myself, setting the stock of the shotgun between my chest and shoulder before lining up Omega in my weapon sight and squeezing the trigger. The shotgun thundered, kicking back hard as the slugs rocketed toward the robot. Both hit the robot’s shield, but it simply flashed red and held strong. The OLED counter on my shotgun dropped to 28.
“I am fighting my own battle here, Jake! I will help you as soon as I can. Get out of there,” the Builder responded.
Violet cut an opening for Agatha who quickly escaped the mass of Spinners that were struggling to fight. After their limbs had failed them, the Spinners had switched strategies and were attempting to run her over and use their weight as a weapon. Fortunately, Violet put her hologram drones back to work and managed to slip out of the dangerous situation with her stealth suit, joining us while Agatha was forced to flee in a different direction.
Once Agatha and Violet were clear from the group of now damaged Spinners we were able to shoot again, hitting them hard and slowing their advance.
Agatha rushed forward, moving closer to Omega and shooting a shotgun blast directly at center mass that was blocked with ease.
Omega lowered itself to the ground quickly, swinging out with the weapon it held. The cords stretched with the robot’s motion, wrapping around Agatha and constricting. Terror flooded my mind as black fire burned on the cords. Agatha wasn’t even able to scream as the void consumed her, reducing her body to a dark mist which spread over the surface of the floor and dissipated into droplets of evaporating liquid.
The decision to run was unanimous; this wasn’t an enemy we could beat. Everyone turned and began a mad sprint toward the exit, but we had a long way to go.
Desperately scanning my wrist map, I ran with Mary, pulling her down a length of containers while the others ran separate ways as Spinners and Omega blocked the ability to take a centralized route. In horror, I watched as the screen on my wrist went black, displaying nothing but a faint glow.
There was nothing on comms either now, not even anything from the others in our group. We ran as fast as we could, breathing hard as the weight of the gear sapped our strength and endurance.
“Wait!” Mary called, slowing and pressing her back along one of the storage containers.
I stopped with her, frantically scanning both directions in the long path we had chosen. There was nothing coming on either side. The only thing I knew with certainty was that this wasn’t the path we had taken on the way in, and there was a big chance we wouldn’t be able to escape this way.
“We can’t stop,” I said.
“Listen. Why can’t we hear gunfire or anything else? It’s dead silent.”
She was right, but there wasn’t time to think about it. “I don’t know. Come on,” I said, shoving another magazine into my rifle and repositioning the weapon across my back so it was more comfortable to run with. With almost a full drum in my shotgun, I didn’t bother changing it out.
As we continued, it was apparent the path we had taken was a dead end, leading to a blockage of containers at the end.
A red light materialized at the end of the lane we had come from, shifting in the distance then growing closer. More lights appeared behind it, surging forward. Spinners were coming straight toward us.
“Come here, now!” I shouted.
This section of the path was only one container high, even though it was at least 10 feet off the ground. Mary understood my idea and I interlocked my fingers, holding them for her so I could boost her up on top of the supply container. Once she was up, I leapt for the ledge, grabbing and pulling myself up with her assistance. We fired at the Spinners as they reached our location. Their long arms lashed out at us with surprisingly range, clawing and cutting across the edge of the container.
“Shoot the limbs!” Mary yelled, managing to disable multiple Spinners with her precise rifle aim.
I took another approach; I simply blasted away with my shotgun, switching to the single fire mode. One of my slugs hit the eye of a Spinner, shattering it and sending a miniature explosion shooting out of the entry hole. The robot slid backward, catching on fire and remaining motionless.
The Spinners, struggling to combat us from this height, turned away, but there was something else coming down the path now. A mass of black sludge crept toward us, lancing out with sticky ichor-like tendrils and latching onto the sides of containers. It wasn’t moving fast, but nothing good would come from letting it catch up to us.
As I was trying to get a better look at the sludge creeping toward us, a Spinner limb slammed into my helmet. The impact flattened me onto my back. I wheezed and tried to suck in air as blackness swam over my vision and dull pain surged through the back of my head. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see at all through the damage. The blow had fractured the visor plate of my helmet, rendering it useless. I twisted it off and threw it to the side, hearing it skate across the metal surface of the supply container and bounce off the hard tile of the floor after it had fallen.
“Are you okay?” Mary yelled as I lifted myself to my feet, lucky to be alive.
“I’m good,” I yelled. I was still struggling for breath.
Gunshots and yelling rang out in the distance, rising up and filling the massive facility and drowning out all else. The Spinners that were trying to attack us turned away, rolling back down the way they had come to the mass of black sludge creeping ever closer. When they reached it, the sludge split up and covered them, mending broken limbs and damage and coating them in the terrible black flames that had killed Agatha.
“Come on!” I yelled, pulling Mary along with me as we ran along the length of the containers, still only 10 feet off the ground. From this height, the vantage point didn’t give us a good view of the rest of the facility which was still swallowed in darkness. The different lanes of the container stacks went as high as eight units tall and blocked out our view. Without the map data, we were directionless while our enemies hunted us.
“Jake, can you hear me?” the Builder called. “I lost your visual feed.”
“Yes, hard to talk right now. That camera feed isn’t coming back; watch Mary’s,” I responded, running with Mary and boosting her up onto the next container on the path, hoping it would give us more options to escape.
The Spinners were closing the distance with us, and I hoped the height would keep us safe. They didn’t have any guns on them—they were created for building, but they were much more dangerous now that they were coated with a weapon that would reduce our armor—and bodies—to mist if they reached us.
“I am trying to restore visuals on your wrist links. I cannot seem to get those Spinners back from Omega; they are no longer running on my network.”
“For all I know, you could be the one behind this,” I growled, shooting my shotgun at the Spinners that were attempting to scale the containers. While they were climbing slow, it was clear they would succeed.
“I understand why you have to think that. I am working to get you out. Please try to trust me. I do not think you can get out without my help. I think I have slowed Omega’s takeover of my AI network, but I do not know if I can hold it indefinitely. I am loading the ODIN II up, and we are leaving as soon as yo
u get back.”
“You really expect us to believe Omega isn’t under your control?” Mary demanded.
“Think what you want. I will not be able to stay here forever. Even now, I have moved my AI to the ODIN II and am running my network with the extra processing power from the ship. I will have to leave before Omega takes over my network. Even if that means you are not back yet.”
“Jasper, is he with you? Put him on,” I panted, blasting a climbing Spinner with my shotgun. The slug went all the way through the chassis and the Spinner lurched downward, sliding down the length of the containers it was climbing, spraying sparks and screeching as its flailing limbs sliced through steel on the way down before it hit the floor with a hard crack. Mary was hard at work too, landing expert shots and blowing off the limbs of spinners, slowing their climbing.
“Jake, buddy, I’m here,” Jasper said.
“I’m here too,” Bob’s distorted voice cut through, the robot was holding the microphone too close to its voice module, making the words rip through my ear with harsh overmodulation. “You wouldn’t believe how much running we’ve had to do. I’m not built to run, you know.”
“Bob, you’re holding the mic too close to your face!” I shouted. “Put Jasper back on; we don’t have time for this.”
Mary scaled the next container, helping me up after. She braced herself and lined up three consecutive shots, blowing out the central red-orbs of the Spinners with her rifle. The robots recoiled violently, trying to help one another to keep from losing progress as they climbed diagonally, staying on a course to intercept us. The black sludge covering them worked its way to the shattered vision systems, seeping into the cracks and fixing the damage with nothing less than scientific magic.
“What do you call a half-built robot?” Bob asked.
“Bob, put Jasper back on. This is important!” I roared.
Bob was actually telling a joke right now. I repeated the maneuver at the edge of the next crate up, lifting Mary then climbing up with her assistance. We were only 30 feet off the ground and more Spinners were scaling the containers on the other side of us now. If they got up to our level, we would have a hard time defending ourselves. I checked my ammo count: 19 shells left in the drum.
“A robot that is only half complete.” Bob finished the joke and was about to start another one when sounds echoed in the background.
“Jake, it’s me again. Bob took the mic then hobbled away; he’s a pesky trickster, that one. Sorry about that joke too; it’s been a while since I heard one that bad. What can I do for you?”
I squeezed off several more shots at Spinners, managing to break a Spinner’s limb and halt the robot’s climbing. “I need you to tell me what the hell is going on. You know some code. Do you think the Builder is telling the truth? Should we trust him to get us out of here?”
“I would say so, yes. This has all the symptoms of a hostile takeover. I can’t see anything that looks staged. Either way, get back here so we don’t have to leave you behind, please. I’ve been watching some of the footage, and I don’t like that Omega thing. I can’t believe this Haven was designed to kill the Champions who found their way to it.”
I was struggling for breath now, trying to keep my words clear while I hoisted Mary up again, repeating the process to bring us about 40 feet above the ground. “Okay. Put the Builder back on.”
The Builder spoke again. “I am watching all the camera feeds. If you can find a path that will take you to the left, you will catch up with Violet. She is separate from the rest of the group right now, and she has quite a few Spinners after her. Her knives won’t do her any good when they are covered in that black goop, and her SMG might not be the best against armor.”
“There!” Mary said, pointing off to our left. The opposite lane, at least 10 feet across, branched off to the left.
“It’s too far,” I yelled. “If we fall, we’re dead.”
“Don’t fall!” she yelled, gaining speed and leaping across. She let her rifle hang from its sling and flailed her arms as she soared through the air, landing in a crouched position, taking a second to rebalance herself before running again.
I grumbled to myself, not as fearless of heights as her. I built up as much speed as I could before jumping across the frightening gap. I resisted the urge to look at the floor beneath me as I jumped, instead focusing on how I was going to recover from the leap. My feet were too far forward and my body was leaning backward. I turned my body to the side while I hit the surface, rolling once. A second later I was back on my feet dashing after Mary. I ignored the Spinners that had been chasing us. At least for now as we adjusted our course, it would take them more time to finish climbing and cross that gap.
As we started in the new direction, still 40 feet off the ground, I could see Violet in the distance, blasting away with her SMG at a mob of Spinners that had managed to climb up to her level. Even with her extended mags, she was struggling to fend them off and they were creeping closer against the vicious stream of bullets.
Violet was at the same height as us relative to the ground, and it was a wonder how she had managed to scale the containers by herself.
“Get closer; I’ll try to hold them back,” Mary said, kneeling and firing off a barrage at the Spinners.
Not expecting the lateral attack, they recoiled while I ran, but I felt myself hesitate, terrified the Spinners that had been chasing us would catch up to Mary. I decided to press on, pushing my body to the limit. I jumped across another gap in containers, cursing as I nearly missed the jump and plummeted to my death. Trying to clear the sudden shot of adrenaline on top of everything that was already going through my system, I pushed on, closing the distance to Violet and assisting her from the side.
As soon as I was able to start shooting with my shotgun, Mary stopped her assault, running to catch up to us when she saw the Spinners that had been chasing us before were nearly up on the same level as us.
As Violet and I blasted away at the Spinners, they fell still while the black goop went to work, repairing the damage and spitting out bullets, slugs, and fragments of shrapnel.
“These things don’t quit!” Violet yelled, turning away to run.
“Where are the others?” I asked Violet as Mary caught up to us.
“We all got separated. They got Jennifer too,” she said without emotion.
“Builder, are you working on a way to get us out?” I called.
“Yes, I will have it soon. Keep climbing and put as much distance as you can between yourself and those Spinners. You do not want them to catch up to you. That sludge, whatever it is, is keeping those Spinners operational through impossible damage. Your weapons are only going to slow them. Just focus on escaping.”
We kept working our way up the containers, moving to the top tier about 80 feet above the ground. With this vantage point, we could see a good portion of the room with our powerful flashlights, but there was no sign of the others.
“To your right, a tenth of a mile. Continue at your current height. You are going to reach a maintenance hallway. It should lead you to additional warehousing right above the first room you came in,” the Builder said.
“Are you sure?” Violet asked.
“Yes. I launched a counterattack on Omega’s network with the additional computational resources from the ODIN II. I managed to pull an entire map of the facility.”
I checked my wrist display again—it was still blacked out. My ammo count was down to six shells—it was almost time to replace the drum.
Violet loaded a new mag into her SMG, dropping the old one and letting it fall over the side of the containers we were running on. “Are we going to trust him?”
“We don’t have a choice. Jasper and Bob are still with him. They think he is telling the truth,” Mary answered.
We banked right, searching the surrounding darkness with our flashlights as we moved toward the hallway even though we couldn’t see it yet.
“Marwin and Grez, do you see the
m yet?” I asked the Builder.
“No, and I am not able to reach them on comms. I think Omega might be after them. Maybe that is why they cannot talk and their video feeds are not coming through anymore. I am not sure if they can hear me or not, but I am trying to give them instructions on how to get out.”
Two minutes later we reached the maintenance hallway. It was protected by a clear glass door lined with metal support beams. A console extended from the wall next to it.
“Jake, your hand,” the Builder said.
I approached the console and placed my hand on it. The light glowed green, and the door slid open to reveal a narrow hallway lined with transparent windows of the same material. I quickly accessed the console on the other side of the door, shutting it behind us.
The Builder’s voice cut through again. “That might not work again. I half expected Omega would lock you out, but it looks like you might be hard-coded into the security terminals in the facility with full access. Now, continue down this hallway for another tenth of a mile. Then you will reach the warehouse above the first floor. We are still keeping an eye out for Christopher, Grez, and Marwin. I will let you know if we find them.”
“What next, just in case we lose comms,” I called as we ran down the hallway overlooking the rest of the compound below.
“Follow the exterior walls of the warehouse until you reach an identical maintenance hallway. It will take you to a position near the entrance of this part of the lab where you will be able to escape. Once you take the elevator back up to the ODIN II, I will shut down access and we will get out of here. Even now, Omega is starting to overpower the ODIN II. Its network is getting stronger by the second. I am trying to pass that map data to you, but Omega has overtaken the electronics in your wrist links. Anything with a CPU and wireless signal capability cannot be trusted anymore. If you choose to believe that and trust me, then listen to my instructions. Ditch the wrist links; they are not going to do you any good and Omega might use them to track your location.”
