As they came into view of the two mechs, Mini bounded onto the wall above one of the windows and shifted to regular mode in midair. He had timed the leap and already had the grappler primed and ready. It fired and launched its dart to catch the mech on the right. When it embedded itself securely, the AI twisted the mech's torso, pulled the captive, and yanked it down the steps.
It stumbled and tried to regain its balance before it tumbled down three more steps and shattered one of the gorgeous stained-glass windows before it spun out of the building and plummeted.
Mini twisted to land on all fours again as the remaining mech opened fire at them. Bullets punched chunks of marble from the structure around them as the Minato bounded up the remaining steps, leapt over their adversary, and kicked off from the wall above it.
The AI twisted again and launched the Minato against the defending mech while it still attempted to pivot to reengage. The smaller support mech managed to squeeze between the assault mech and the heavy wooden door it defended and used its legs to launch the heavier one down the steps and through the same window his comrade had fallen through.
Momentum and the same push had reduced the door behind them to splinters and they launched through to the other side and landed a little awkwardly. Fortunately, they regained their balance quickly.
They stood in a large, circular room surrounded by a huge, single-paned window that gave it a full view of the city below.
Below the window and in a single line, a vast array of different digital and analog controls followed the entire circular wall. The center of the room was the most interesting, as a handful of panels connected to controls that were directed into the antenna in the spire.
About a dozen men and women in white coats were busy there, all surprised to see the small mech suddenly appear in their workspace. None of them were armed and they seemed unsure of what to do.
Jessica13 had a few ideas. "Get the fuck out of here or I'll drag you out. Choose now!"
They still looked a little confused.
"Now, dammit—now!"
The shout snapped them out of their shock and they sprinted toward the door, where they wisely avoided Robert7 as he made his way into the room.
She climbed out of the hatch of the Minato, stiff from being knocked around in the cockpit.
"You're a little terrifying, do you know that?" the pilot pointed out as they moved toward the central panels.
"Mini did most of the work."
"Well, yes, I was referring to your mech's AI, but you have much the same effect too."
She couldn't help a small smirk as they situated themselves in front of the controls.
Most of the time, machines and controls simply spoke to her. There was always something about them that made it easy for her to interact with them, but these controls were different. Nothing about them seemed familiar and even the readings displayed on the screens around her felt completely foreign.
"Shit," she muttered before one particular control caught her eye. It certainly stood out. A switch flanked by two marble angels had that kind of effect. She approached it and after a moment of hesitation, pulled the switch down.
Unfortunately, nothing happened.
"No, not that one," Robert7 said and waved her toward one of the smaller panels. Only a few screens were connected to it and the board held three switches.
He flicked all three at the same time. "There we go."
"Are you sure?"
"Fairly."
Jessica13 sighed, having expected something a little more emphatic. Her gaze drifted to the angel-flanked switch. "I wonder what that one did."
Chapter Eighty-Two
“Mommy, Mommy—the world is ending! The world is ending!”
The mother looked up from her work and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. It was an uncommon claim, but a child’s fanciful thoughts didn’t lend themselves to common occurrences.
A loud, metallic groan from above made her drop the steel pail of water she had carried and her gaze turned to the ceiling. She froze when she registered movement up there.
Massive gears turned in a mechanism that had rusted with age. They resisted every cycle forced by the machine but continued to move anyway. The entire contraption shuddered and shook, but there was nothing to prevent or hinder what was to come.
Large steel cords were suddenly strained, tugged, and pulled as the gears continued to turn. Some of them broke and whipped wildly under the pressure as the wheels moved. Redundancies kicked in and the cavernous chamber was filled with the noise of centuries-old machinery being awoken and set to task.
The gears began to throw sparks as they were driven against the rust that had set in. They spun slowly and worked what had settled on them loose to jettison it all in a shower of dust that poured over everything below.
People screamed, dropped whatever they had in their hands, and hastily took cover in the nearest buildings to avoid the apparent mayhem around them.
Suddenly, a crack appeared in the ceiling. The nuclear lamps that had acted as their sun for so long extinguished and descended to where they had been recalled into a night phase prematurely.
The darkness that filled the cavern was almost palpable as the sound of thousands of voices rose in terror greeted the inevitable. Nothing could halt the inexorable outcome. The world was ending.
While those trapped tried to come to terms with their imminent demise, a light appeared. At first, it was only a single beam with a blueish sheen that cut through the darkness like a knife and illuminated the ground like a spotlight. A few other sources were soon dotted around it, although none were quite so intense as the singular orb that floated over the ceiling of the cavern.
No, not on the ceiling—far, far above it. A disk of blue light was revealed as
