Chapter 30: Chapter 30 – Escape (4)

The colossus’ heavy footsteps were the only sound that echoed muffled throughout the wide hall. Her own movements were silent. The steel soles of the suit had given way to velvet paws.

To the left and right, large objects stood against the walls, covered by blue tarps with Kanter’s logo, on which a thin layer of white-gray dust had settled since long time ago. They towered even over Hammer’s robot, next to which Wave already felt like a dwarf. Were they giant sentinels that threw off their camouflage and attacked them as soon as they got close enough? Better not, she had fought enough already. But she was sure there was a secret hiding under those tarps, one that she would not reveal today because there were more important things to do. Still, she knew it would come back to her at some point and bug her.

They were just reaching the center of the hall when Wave noticed a movement out of the corner of her eye. A hasty movement and a flicker accompanied by a barely audible crackle. She held up her hand, signaling Hammer to stop his robot, and turned her head in that direction.

A small, hunched body bent over a larger one that leaned slumped against the wall. Tiny drones buzzed around the two and took turns swooping down and firing at the larger body. This should have put Wave on alert but it didn’t.

She squinted her eyes and watched the scene more closely. The small body was wrapped in gray rags that hung down in tattered strips, swaying slightly back and forth with each movement. It looked familiar to her. Wasn’t this the same robot Fearless had sent to their first meeting? The body over which it had bent ... yes, that was definitely Ngi! The colors were unmistakable. Now she also realized that the drones were not attacking but fixing him. Those were hers, weren’t they? When had she lost them? While running from security, Wave had totally forgotten about them.

“Is that our backup? Your other body and Ngi?” Wave was relieved to see that he was still alive.

“Oh, that’s not my other body, that’s Mother’s robot,” Fearless replied with a hint of awe in her voice.

“Mother’s robot, then?” muttered Wave. Was Mother also a hacker or even a robot herself? Both, perhaps? She walked quietly toward the robots, and when she could almost look over her shoulder, Mother threw her head back.

“Just a moment.” Her voice scraped across the metal wall Ngi was leaning against and Wave gritted her teeth. What effect did that have to have on someone who could hear properly? Scratchy claws, scratchy voice, was that her specialty? Her weapon? That this robot was no ordinary model but hid more than one suspected, was clear to Wave by now, even if it was only the second time she had seen it. How else had Mother escaped from their meeting place when the Secs had confronted her? Besides, she had rescued Ngi from the room with Kanter’s security. She must have done that while they were still fighting there. There was no other way she could have gotten here before them, was there?

One drone set down the soldering iron and Ngi twitched. Had he been human, he would have taken a jerky breath now, looked at her in horror, and asked what had happened.

“Oh, I’m working again,” he tersely said instead.

“Yeah, I patched you back up, friend.” Mother beckoned a drone over, and she shone into his eyes. “Looks good to me. Did you see a light on the other side?”

“A light? No, I was off and then on again. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. That’s one thing I’ve always been interested in. What a robot with emotions sees when it’s on the verge of complete failure.”

Wave was getting impatient. “Can you please postpone the religious exchange about the robot afterlife until we have saved Aki?”

Ngi looked past Mother’s tattered robot. “Wave, you okay?”

“When we get through here, I’ll probably fall apart, but for now I’m still standing.”

“Then we make a good team.” He lifted his arm with the other hand and let it fall back down where it dangled back and forth. Then he looked at Hammer 1.0. “Who’s your big companion?”

“This is Hammer, my best friend.”

“Your best friend is a robot? I wouldn’t have thought so but I’m happy.” Ngi extended his arm and gave her a thumb.

“Haha. No, the one who controls it is my best friend.” Wave saw Ngi’s disappointed face and shrugged. “But you can be my friend too, don’t worry.”

Mother helped Ngi to his feet, he patted the dust off his metal pants, and now there were four of them. With Fearless in her ear, even five. Was that ironic that it was the robots who were now helping her save Aki, when...

“Little Wave,” Mother hissed at her. “Stop thinking so much. We’re going to save your Aki now. Follow me!” She pattered forward and took the lead.

Actually, Wave wanted to follow her right away, but there was this one thing she had wondered when they had entered the hall. The one thing that gnawed at her as they passed the cloaked giants. “Shouldn’t we be more careful? They’ve turned the lights back on. What if there are defenses we don’t know about?”

Mother didn’t slow down. Had she heard the question? “Oh, don’t worry,” Mother shouted back. “We just gave up control of the lights in this area and grabbed the cameras instead. Cyberdefense is doing everything it can to kick us out altogether. With our resources, we can only take over a few of the systems in the lab, but we’ll have a firm grip on those.”

“Why the cameras of all things?” Wave gritted her teeth, jogged a few steps, and caught up to her. Each of those quick steps sent a thousand pain signals up and down her neural pathways. Couldn’t her allies at least be considerate of her?

The other two robots followed them and when Hammer 1.0 started running, the earth shook. Mother slowed her pace and let them catch up. Now they were all walking side by side up the hall. In a movie, this would certainly have made a good scene. Heroes walking towards the final battle – accompanied by epic music. A great display, if half of them weren’t limping.

“Cameras are important if we want to sell our story,” Fearless explained.

“That’s true,” confirmed Mother. “Without a video of you in ‘Seventh Heaven,’ your friend Hammer wouldn’t have even thought of rushing to your aid.”

“Did you send that to him?” asked Wave.

“No, it was online very briefly on all channels until it suddenly disappeared,” Mother said. “Completely without any intervention on our part.”

“I guess someone’s not a fan of mine,” Wave remarked dryly. Was it just Kanter, or were others helping to cover up what was happening to her? What happened to Aki. If it had been erased from all channels, that was huge and it was scary. A lot of things just disappeared. If she disappeared here, would no one be remembering her soon, as well? Like they had forgotten the turbulent time after the Citadel’s gate was opened? Like Aki’s songs? Was there anything else that people should forget?

“You’re really on my side, aren’t you?” asked Wave.

“Of course,” replied Ngi.

“Not you. I mean Fearless and her mother.”

“Sides?” Mother gave a choppy laugh. “There are so many parties in the Citadel that you don’t know about. None of them are really against you. You’re not important enough for that. And none ...” She eyed Hammer 1.0. “Well, very few of them are really on your side.”

Wave gasped. She wanted something to build her up, giving her at least a little bit of reassurance.

“Don’t get me wrong, little Wave. Today we have the same goal. We saved the robot that started it all, and we’re saving your Aki. But you’re dangerous. And that alone could be a reason for us to face each other at some point.”

She was dangerous, she knew herself, now. But she would not give in to the urge to destroy. She would save what kept her grounded, her anchors. She would protect those closest to her, as they stood by her now. Hammer and ... yes she would also call Ember again when they were out of here. Or she’d just stand in front of her door and keep ringing or knocking until Ember let her in.

“You guys are helping Aki because I found Ngi? Or because you’re the oh-so-selfless heroes of the Underground?”

Mother laughed once more in that tone that could drive you mad. “We’re rescuing him, but I’m also interested in the story about his soul.” She had probably overheard Wave grilling Finn. “I’m also interested in what Aki’s role is in this conspiracy. You know, don’t you? Aren’t you going to tell us?”

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No, Wave didn’t want to. She didn’t want to share her suspicions with anyone until she was sure. She was thinking about how to turn Mother away when the end of the hall came into view. A huge armored door blocked the way, allowing her to ignore Mother’s question.

“What’s that?”

“Behind this is Aki,” Mother replied.

They walked the last few meters and it felt like the door grew with each of their steps, until Wave had to crane her head back to see where it ended above her. It had to be twenty feet, maybe more. Metal arms connected the individual pieces that made up the door to the wall and each other. The door itself looked like a giant jigsaw puzzle whose pieces someone seemed to have stapled together.

“Looks sturdy,” Wave said. “Can you open it?”

“I can’t reach it,” Fearless said. “Mother?”

Mother took a deliberate step toward the door, shook aside the scraps of cloth, then placed her right hand on the metal surface. “We’re going to have to give up some of the other systems for this,” she explained after a few moments. “Defend the cameras, the rest doesn’t matter.”

“But the main entr...”

“Doesn’t matter!” The highest notes of Mother’s voice were cut off in Wave’s ears, and only a distorted bubbling sound arrived as if someone was trying to talk to her underwater. “Just do what I tell you!”

“Yes, Mother,” Fearless meekly conceded.

Wave’s subconscious asked what it meant to give up the main entrance, but every other part of her mind didn’t care. Aki was on the other side, and if that was the price ...

Mother’s claws dug into the door and tiny wires grew from the back of her hand, twining – like tendrils – around her fingers and then dipping into the cavities her claws had left.

The door creaked as a jolt passed through. Individual puzzle pieces moved, rearing up against the restraints that had been placed on them. Then they fell back to their original state with a rumble.

“That doesn’t seem right,” Ngi observed. “ Are you sure you don’t want our friend with the big hammer to try it?”

“Don’t worry,” Mother said. “A little obstacle like this won’t stop me.”

One of the metal bands began to turn. Away from the adjacent puzzle piece, inward toward the piece to which it was attached. At the same time, another band moved that was in the way of the first, then a few more that would in turn block it from moving. Then they all spun at once.

“Wow.” Wave watched in amazement as they all moved at just the right moment to avoid colliding. That had to require a coordination skill that made Wave doubt that Mother was human. Yes, she had to be a robot. Then again, Hammer managed to control his robot without standing in the Synth, too.

“Okay, I suggest we all hide behind this hammer-wielding giant right now,” Mother said. “That’s the one that’ll hold up the most if Kanter does put up one last fight.”

The remaining puzzle pieces were freed and, rumbling, they sank a few inches into the frame of the door segments. Then they snapped into place. Steam poured out from between the pieces and Wave took cover behind Hammer 1.0. She stood on her tiptoes and patted him encouragingly on the shoulder. “I have faith in you, Hammer.” Then she leaned against his strong back.

He tightened his grip on his weapon and readied himself. Ngi squeezed in close beside Wave and shrugged apologetically. “I learned from my mistake earlier, I’m just not cut out for war.”

“You sure are one hell of a combat robot.”

“Pacifist combat robot, if you please.”

Wave flared her nostrils and exhaled disapprovingly. While she waited, she massaged the shoulder she had crashed into the shelf with, which had now gone numb – at just the right moment.

A hiss sounded. Wave didn’t see it, but that had to be the door, which now opened completely.

“Look out!” shouted Mother, and it pinged like corn kernels gone wild over a campfire in the outside world. But this had little to do with romance. This was the hail of bullets hitting Hammer!

Hammer charged forward and Wave, now bereft of the support, struggled briefly with her balance. Then she turned and followed him in the cover his body provided.

They entered a huge laboratory room, crammed with tables on which colorful liquids bubbled in test tubes, on others stood blinking and beeping electronics. Wave dove behind a massive shelf and took cover there. Not even a second later, Ngi was back beside her.

Hammer was still being shot at, and Wave peeked around the shelf. The back of the room was taken up by large glass cylinders. Tanks filled with blue liquid in which bodies floated – completely untouched by the battle. The resemblance to the Synths of the Arena was unmistakable but she doubted that the owners of those bodies were having as much fun right now.

She moved her gaze on, and a shiver ran through her. Next to the tanks were the massive refrigerators for the unsalvageable. Oh, how she hoped Aki wasn’t in there, but swimming in one of the cylinders.

A gray drone buzzed into her field of vision and Wave ducked her head. Bullets whistled past the edge of the shelf and buried themselves in the concrete of the wall. She knew the type of drone. It had to belong to the other of the two men who had been chasing her, Decker. He obviously had a supply of them. He had done the dirty work with Finn, so he certainly wasn’t the professor who was so interested in Aki’s soul. She had to take him out quickly before he accidentally hit one of the tanks. Wave turned the NPK83b up to maximum.

She looked to the side, further into the room. Ten feet away was another shelf. Wave sprinted off, glancing around the room before reaching the nearest cover.

“Hey, what about me?” complained Ngi. “Are you leaving me behind? You’re breaking my heart!”

No time to respond to his jokes. No air to laugh even briefly. A balding man with an antenna sticking up behind his ear stood centered in front of the tanks. Yes, that was Decker for sure, standing on a small platform with railings. The perfect place to monitor the lab, and to keep intruders at bay. Or at least try to. Hammer 1.0, who was completely unimpressed by the firepower, charged at the drone with its weapon raised.

As the hammer hit the drone, a sound like the squeezing of a pre-Ice Age beverage can rang out, then it disappeared clattering between the lab tables.

Wave ran from her hiding place and pointed her gun at Decker. He spotted her now, too, snapped his eyes open, and fumbled at his side for his gun in a panic. He hadn’t expected to lose another of his toys, she thought.

“Stop!” someone shouted.

Next to Decker, a gray-haired, old man in a white lab coat stepped out of the shadows, put his hand on Decker’s arm, and shook his head. The latter’s face contorted and he shook off the hand. His gaze wandered back and forth between Wave and Hammer, then he realized that he had lost, and he raised his hands.

There was a rumble and Wave looked back to the entrance where Mother had placed her hand on the wall. Gradually, the elements of the door snapped into place until it was completely sealed again.

“It seems,” the old man’s firm voice echoed through the room, “that we are at your mercy now.”

It was a voice used to give instructions. One that didn’t show its age. The voice of a man who did not look to be at the mercy of anyone, at all.

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