“Can you hack these little bastards?” Ed shouted to his colleagues controlling the taxi.
“We haven't got the resources to do those too, so one of you would have to take the wheel” the reply said.
“Okay, that's probably the best option we have” Haziq replied jumping into the front of the car, “Get them to do it”.
Ed did as Haziq requested and they waited crucial seconds for the changeover. Hacking the Nano-bots was tricky because they worked as a hive mind, each one receiving the same signals each split second and trying to find the master signal was hard with all the signal clutter. But it could be done; it just took trial and error. Less than thirty seconds later the car started to slow down and the Nano-bots backed away from the outside of the car. Haziq quickly took hold of the steering wheel and gained control.
“Okay, can you tell me the way?” He asked Ed.
Ed had the route up on his screen and immediately began the directions. The drones were still in swift pursuit, now ready to take aim after the Nano-bots had been compromised. As if automatically sensing the danger, the Nano-bot controller flung them all into the sky, heading straight for the drones. The next ten seconds was one of madness, drones and Nano-bots engaged each other in aerial combat. Beams of burning light despatched some of the Nano-bots, but there were too many to dissolve, the rest clinging to the drones. The drones started to morph into new shapes to shake them off, but they just clung on harder, taking the same form as the drones. The last attempt was to split each drone apart, try and catch the bots off-guard, but it was another failed attempt. The drones were completely smothered, the bots refusing to let go, and eventually they all crashed to the floor. The explosion was short-lived before the familiar chemical reaction caused the wreckages to boil away on the roads surface, breaking down the metal to leave no trace except for small craters on the surface.
Ed and Haziq were overjoyed, and Haziq pressed his foot on the accelerator as he reached a wide-open road. It was only another mile to the camp; all they had to do was pray that the Elite wouldn't be able to catch them. They knew it was unlikely, they had been spotted, they had already been attacked, an attack that failed. They would be coming again soon. As it was only another mile, they decided to walk the remainder of the way. They turned the taxi back in the same direction they had just come from and carefully pulled over.
“Can you take back control of this and drive it back into the city to cover our tracks, throw them off our scent?” Ed asked the base, to which they agreed.
They climbed out, taking their weapons with them and watched as the taxi slowly pulled away, heading back to the smoky city in the distance.
THE COMPOUND
Mateo's laptop flashed up with a message; ordinarily nothing he would concern himself with, but today was anything but ordinary. He broke off from helping Emma to check it, just to make sure it wasn't something crucial. He scratched his head as if it hurt. Everyone else knew that wasn't a good sign.
“What's the problem?” James shouted over, sitting there doing very little to be able to help at that point.
“Some of the factions are close, they've found the back door in they were anticipating. An attack is imminent” He replied.
“How imminent?” Sheryl said as she approached.
“Hard to tell, could be minutes, could be an hour, but it's going to happen” Mateo said.
“So that's bad yes?” Mike asked, wanting some proper clarification.
“Very” Auton replied entering the room, “If my calculations are correct, we could be witnessing a series of events that could threaten everyone on the planet”.
“Everyone?” Mike quickly replied back, “You mean - “
“Yes, nuclear” Auton said almost matter-of-factly.
It was clear at moments like this that it didn't have proper emotions, which was just as well as they need it to be level-headed and not running out the room in panic. Those words got everyone's attention. They were expecting something big, but not that. No-one sane would cause such a domino effect.
“Is he correct?” Mariam asked Danny, to which Danny shrugged his shoulders.
“Probably. I stopped being the mathematical expert the second Auton walked back in the room” He said jokingly, well half-jokingly. In fact, no, he decided, he wasn't joking at all.
The calm room was starting to grow uneasy, people's apprehension and fear starting to rise into sweats and nervous pacing.
“Do we have time to launch?” Samir asked hurriedly.
“It's looking statistically unlikely. Our only option in my estimation is now Plan C” Auton said.
There was the mention of Plan C again. But once again that's all that was said, no information on what plan C was. Everyone looked at Sheryl, who had a nervous look in her eyes. It was clear that she wasn't prepared properly for Plan C, and it seemed to be only her and Auton who knew what it was. If Sheryl wasn't prepared, then what chance did the rest of them have?
“We need to get the craft back out along the tunnel and prepare it for launch straight away” She said looking around, panic-stricken, “Auton, did you have the back up plans in place?”.
“Almost” It said, “I can work on the rest on the craft. I will just need a few minutes and Mateo's help to get the other system set up”
Everyone else was now confused as well as terrified about what was about to happen.
“So, are you going to tell us or not? What is Plan C?” Brandon shouted, by this time quite agitated.
Sheryl took a deep breath, she knew she had to
