George reached down and held up his left leg, which wasn’t attached, but the ends had resealed so he wasn’t leaking.
“How’d you do that?” said Jolo, jabbing his thumb towards the box of Jaylens.
“I don’t, uh, remember, but I used this,” he said, holding up half of a BG mech’s staff. He twisted the end and the long, energy blade slid out hot and red.
“How’s your power level?” said Jolo.
“Adequate, though I’m willing to fight until I have no power remaining. Currently I only have the use of one leg and one arm. He held up his good arm, the other hanging limply at his side.”
“Can you fire a gun?” said Jolo. George nodded, yes. “Good, let’s go. Stand and lean on me.” George stood up with Jolo’s help, both of them staring down at his disconnected leg still on the floor.
“My diagnostic routine is non-functional and I fear I have lost a considerable amount of processing power,” said George. The synth was heavier than he looked and did a few hops to steady himself, his arm around Jolo and his head right next to Jolo’s. The synth scanned the room and Jolo got a good look at the back of George’s head. There was a black gash a few inches deep. The ugly wound had cauterized, melted bits of plastic and metal and logic chips.”
Jolo stopped for a moment, the synth’s arm around him, and looked into George’s glass eyes. “Who am I?” Jolo said.
George paused, his face still calm. “A friend,” he said finally.
“And who are we going to rescue?”
“The woman you love, brown hair, thin. The others say she is pretty. And other friends.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Love and humor and beauty are difficult for me. But her features: high cheekbones, large eyes, and the shape of her body, all fit within the parameters of what humans consider beautiful.”
Jolo nodded. “Who is the enemy?”
“The black mechs with the worms inside and the synthetic girls with the energy blades.”
By now they were limping and hopping towards the small elevator Marco used to move food and other heavy items between levels.
“What are the odds, one human and a broken synth against a mech and the remaining Jaylens?”
“I have no idea. Though I fear that I should know. Data loss. Computational functions offline.”
“My name’s Jolo Vargas by the way. The girl is Katy. You and I are friends.”
“Nice to meet you again, Jolo Vargas.”
“Can you use this?” Jolo said, handing him Betsy. George analyzed the sawed-off shotgun.
“1972 Smith and Wesson, pump-action, modified, shortened barrel for larger blast pattern, from old Earth.” He looked at Jolo with his calm eyes. “Some databases remain,” he explained. “And yes, I can use this.”
“Do not fire on any humans.”
“Of course. I have forgotten only names, not friend or foe recognition.”
“I need you to go down to the main hangar in exactly five minutes, make some noise and shoot mechs and Jaylens.”
“Current time and date functionality, plus most floating point subroutines are unavailable.”
Jolo paused for a moment. If George couldn’t tell time anymore then he might miss the fight, and having him there would be a big help. If he went down too early then he’d get killed, and that wouldn’t do either. “Okay, how about this. Can you sing a song?”
The synth paused to search his remaining data, and then smiled. “Yes, I found one song.”
“How long is it?”
“2:36.”
“Okay, sing it twice, then go down to the main hangar and kick some ass.” He looked at one-legged George, cramped into the tiny elevator, the bad arm hanging down like a limp noodle, staring up at him, unblinking. “Thanks.” George nodded. “Okay, start singing.”
“Wait,” said George. “What is my name?”
“Your name is George and I want you to come out of this in one piece. A lot of people here care about you and depend on you. I’ll see you in the hangar.”
Jolo turned for the stairs and set his internal countdown alarm to go off in 4 minutes. George started singing. “Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun. Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run…”
Jolo made it topside and the heat nearly knocked him off his feet. He steadied himself and ran towards the dead kid in the yellow jacket. He grabbed the end of the charge hose, the metal adapter hot and sandy, and started pulling it to the edge of the cliff. This wasn’t plan A, but he didn’t know George would be there to help. And assuming George was functional enough, the new plan B might be the best way. He was sure fully-functional George would have said he had about a 3.5% chance of survival, but Jolo would have gone for it anyway. There were more BG, but he and George had superior firepower and the element of surprise. He grabbed the black cable and pulled as much as he could right up to the edge, the thick, black charge line sticky from being in the heat. Marco would have yelled if he’d seen it out baking in the sun. He kept pulling, the internal clock in his head at 2:13.
He knew the distance from the lip of the cliff to the top of the main hangar was about
