Exo Saves The Day, Chapter 30

[gynoneko]

Here at last! I really hope you guys like this one. We are getting to the end of things, so I hope you are enjoying this. Please give me feedback, comments, etc.

1) How did you like this chapter versus the last one? Which is your favorite in the whole story so far?
2) Are there too many details / not enough? Do they balance well?
3) Are there any questions you have about the story, characters, etc? (any at all, I might not answer if it involves the story, but it might clarify things I need to define more)
4) Out of the entire story, what is your favorite part so far? What is your least favorite part?
5) Is there any part of my writing that distracts you?
6) Who is your favorite character?


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Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.
Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8.
Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12.
Chapter 13. Chapter 14. Chapter 15. Chapter 16.
Chapter 17. Chapter 18. Chapter 19. Chapter 20.
Chapter 21. Chapter 22. Chapter 23. Chapter 24.
Chapter 25. Chapter 26. Chapter 27. Chapter 28.
Chapter 29.

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Exo Saves the Day
Chapter Thirty: Melodrama Kills
By Gynoneko

Andrea cleared a path for us in the sea of metal monsters.  The large machine gun attached to her arm, or rather emerging from her arm, was loud and extremely dangerous, but she wielded it with a precision and expertise of an expert marksman.  The bullets easily tore apart the metal bodies of our assailants as she made her way toward our as we drove down the short drive.

"The facility is under attack, I highly suggest you seek cover" she announced as soon as the door was opened.

"No shit" Jen said as she jumped out of her door and slid across the hood of the car to the other side.  An outdated robot receptionist reached out for her, but was suffering from some kind of malfunction, probably brought on by the virus or whatever it was that caused it to attack us.  The robot barely missed Jen, thanks to her agility, and grabbed only thin air before Andrea gave it a healthy dose of vitamin lead.

Annie and Joan were also quick to get out, but I was a little stiff to say the least.  Joan was sure to grab a gun or two, as well as the device with the antenna.  Meanwhile, I relied on Annie and Jen to help me out of the car while Andrea provided us with cover.  The machine gun was very loud, and big, but I didn't mind the volume considering the results were undeniable.  Andrea ripped apart robot after robot with her gun, her precision was excellent, and she conserved ammo as well as anyone could.

We ran to the door with Andrea following behind, providing us with cover.  I tried hard not to trip on the various mechanical parts that now strewn upon the ground on the way to the lab.  Finally, we made it inside, and Andrea remained at the door to fend off the oncoming hoard.  Inside, the panicked faces of Tom and Cynthia greeted me, as Jack worked on the computer terminal at the desk.

"Thank God, you're alright!" Cynthia exclaimed.  "Where's-?"

"It was a trap, Tera wasn't there..." Jen said as she stood to the side letting me in.  Cynthia got a good look at my bandaged and maimed figure before I could put on a tough guy facade; the panic melted from her face and formed into shock.

"Danny!  Are you-?"

"I'll live.  How are you guys?  What is all this?" I asked.

"Hell if I know" Tom said, looking back at Jack expectantly.

"It's some sort of low-level hack" Jack answered without looking up from his keyboard.  I got a look around the room.  It looked like a bomb exploded!  Something must have gotten in earlier.  Luckily no one had any injuries.  "It's just on a massive scale.  And yet only in this area..." he pondered while he typed away.  He ignored the gun laying next to him; both Cynthia and Tom were carrying weapons as well.

"What do you mean?"

"As far as I can tell, this is really just a simple hack, affecting the basic rules of behavior.  Only low-end industry and retail bots seem to be affected, and it only seems to be in this corner of the city."  The machine gun in Andrea's arm roared to life in the background as she fended off another wave of robot assailants.

"So it's an attack?  Against us?" Jen asked.

"Probably.   Well that's odd..." he said looking at his screen, "it seems to only affects MMR robots..."  He started furiously typing away at the terminal, ignoring everyone else again.

"Daddy, why haven't you guys left?" Joan asked with pleading eyes to the closest thing to a father she had.  Tom kept his eyes glued to the door and windows, making sure nothing and no one was going to make it in.  The walls rattled with the sound of metal fists banging against the side of the structure.

"I can't just leave Diane there.  She shouldn't move in her condition; she still needs repairs and despite our visit to the clinic, a hospital would not be a bad idea either." He spoke as if he knew Diane.  The most interaction I had with her was a brief conversation about the meaninglessness of life, and another encounter involving ice cream and a gun.  "She can't move much as it is, we had to stay!  But what about you?  You said it was a trap?"

"We won't go into it" Joan said glancing at my broken arm still hanging in a makeshift sling.

"But we didn't leave empty handed" Annie replied.  She held up the large 5 foot antenna and small device attached to it which had lured us to the area.

"What-?"

"Hang on!  Where did you get that?" Jack interrupted looking up from the terminal but without slowing his typing.

"It was sending me a false signal of Tera's nano-bots" I explained.

"So... you don't hear them now do you?"

"Not since we took this down."

Jack pondered a moment, pausing his typing and looking closer at the antenna.  "Let me take a look at that" he said peering at the device.  Annie carried it over to him, and he started to investigate the device, messing around with the mechanics of it.

"We were wondering if you could-"

"Use it to find your beau, I think so" Jack said continuing my line of thought for me.  "Give me a tick" he said as he started to dive into the project.

As Jack worked at figuring out the puzzle that lay before him, Annie, Joan and I took up what weapons we could find, and manned the windows.  I was surprised at how little my arm and leg hurt, considering what I had just recently gone through.  My arm was still broken, but Joan had set it, so all I really needed was a cast, but as it was I didn't feel much pain as long as I didn't move it much.  Since the windows were frosted over, we couldn't clearly see out, but to our benefit, a few fist-sized holes had appeared in the glass since we were last there probably caused by the robots invaders, and we could use these to see out and shoot at any incoming threats.

We manned our stations for a short while shooting at the occasional rogue bot while Andrea took the brunt of the attack.  She remained just outside the door, making sure none of the wave of robots got in.  What we were waiting for exactly was beyond me, but I kept glancing over at Jack who was busy fiddling with the antenna and his computer.

Another onslaught of zombified robots assaulted the side of the building, and we could hear the high-pitched beam of Andrea's laser making quick work of them.  The laser probably ate up a lot of energy, so she was not going to be able to use it very much.  It also concerned me that we had a limited supply of ammo for Andrea's machine gun, and the supply of guns Annie original carried with her was starting to dwindle.  How long could we last before we had to abandon ship and get out?

"Tom, we have to get Diane out of here."  Cynthia was pleading to her husband as he donned a vest of his own and prepared to join Andrea in the fight.  "What are you doing?!  You can't go out there alone!"

"What else should I do?  Wait for Andrea of run out of ammo?  Wait for the robots to find a way in?  What else can I do?"

"You can give me a gun."  Diane's voice echoed across the room from the lab.  She was barely standing with her white robe on, gripping at the door frame for balance.  I was amazing she was on her feet at all, and it looked like a stiff breeze could knock her over.

"Diane!  What are you doing?" Tom yelled.

"I'm not as fragile as you make me out to be Tom.  You know that!" she barked.

"Diane, you can't.  You can barely stand!"

"I can still pull a trigger.  Just get me over by the window."

"Is that wise?" I asked.

"Don't worry, I won't shoot any of you...  I still owe Tom from... last time."  Diane faltered, barely able to catch herself.  Cynthia ran over to give her a hand, and helped her to her feet.  She looked at Tom concerned.  Closing his eyes, Tom nodded his approval.  He looked over at Joan and Annie.

"Give her a hand please" he asked them.  Joan ran to her side, while Annie was reluctant to follow, but decided it was best to obey the order.  Together they assisted Diane to a chair, pulling it against a window.  Diane grasped the small pistol in her hand as steadily as she could, and held it up to the window, shooting out into the darkness.  She stayed there, doing what she could to help in the fight as well.

Diane glanced over at me.  "You look like shit" she commented.

"Likewise" I responded.  She snorted and focused back on the window and what lie beyond.  Jack waved me over with a smile on his face.

"Danny-boy, you're in luck!" he said.

"What?  We're kind of busy..."

"Well, that antenna is tuned in to Tera's signal already, and with some finagling, I think I got it working!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." he turned the monitor of the terminal toward me.  On the screen I could see a map exactly like the one we used before to find the false signal except this time there was nothing on it.  Jack flipped a switch and the antenna started to hum with power.  Half the screen showed up with a green glow, showing where it could pick up the signal.  "With a little filtering..." he said clicking on some buttons, and the green blob shrunk.  He continued to fiddle with it until finally there were only 2 dots left.  "... We can pinpoint the only 2 sources of that exact signal in the entire city.  You and Tera."

I looked at the map again.  One of the green dots was indeed right over us, the other was in the suburbs to the north.  It was on a just a single green dot nothing special about it... except it was Tera's dot!  She was still alive, and now I knew where!

"Tera!  We need to go-"

"Hold your horses there lover-boy, we aren't exactly in the best position to go galloping off into the sunset for your lil miss.  First let me take care of this army of-"

"Security breach" Andrea announced.  The wave of robots had subsided for the moment, and Andrea came in briefly for more ammo, when she noticed Diane sitting at a window with a gun in her hand.  "Sir, why have you equipped this individual with a weapon.  I calculate an 80% probability that she will self-terminate, and a 12% probability she will assault our personnel."

"I never played the odds before," Diane responded looking out the window, "why start now?  Shouldn't you be out there fighting, you stupid bag of bolts."

"We need all the help we can get" Tom explained. "Besides, she's an old colleague..."  I had forgotten that Tom was once a part of the same mob Diane was a member of until recently.  They must have known each other from years ago when they worked together.

"Tom" Diane interrupted, "tell your tin can to get her shiny butt out there!"

"Please Andrea" Tom said looking up at the ancient gynoid.  It took her a moment or two before she responded.

"Understood.  Security authorization temporarily upgraded.  Resuming defense of the facility."  She grabbed another box of ammo from the table and proceeded to load the gun in her arm.

"She still has some bugs to work out" Tom said shrugging his shoulders.  Andrea walked back out into the fray, and immediately resumed dispatching rogue robots.

"Wait a second" Jack said out of the blue.  "This antenna works on a similar system to how these robots are being hacked.  If I can just get figure out how to..."  His mind was already distracted with coding as he began to furiously type away again into the terminal plugged into the kitchen.  I was going to wait for him to continue his train of thought, but he seemed to have already derailed it.

"Jack... Jack?"

"Huh?" he muttered looking up briefly at me.

"We're waiting on you.  If you can stop this, we'll stay as long as we can.  But if you can't... we leave. Ok?"

"Yeah yeah, no problem.  Leave it to me!" he said, but the nervousness in his voice was more than apparent.

Things were starting to get tense.  No one spoke a word, except to hand out ammo when we were running low.  We had only a few magazines left, and robots don't go down easily with just bullets.  We all noticed that the more delicate robots were usually smart enough to resist the hacking, and that would often cause them to act sporadically and short out.  They were easy targets.  It was the more simple minded construction droids we had to be careful of.  These humanoid robots hardly looked human at all, but they were strong and agile, and dumb.  It was easy to hack them, and they were eager to please.  Taking one of them out was more of a challenge since they were built to take a licking, but at that rate our guns would be the ones ticking.

The lights unexpectedly flickered, and we all looked around at each other nervously.  Jack instantly redoubled his typing, while Joan ran to the kitchen to break out the flashlights, just in case.

As I peered out of one of the holes in the front window, I could see a sea of glowing eyes and metallic parts shimmering in the night.  Cynthia tapped me on the shoulder, and gave me a look that she wanted to talk to me in private.  I put down my gun and joined her over by the lab doors.  Her voice was hushed and quiet, and she had a serious look in her eye.

"Danny, I need you to promise me that no matter what.  You'll take care of our girls" she said.

"Of course I will" I replied without hesitation.

"Then... please Danny... Take them out of here, Jen too, and get away.  We can hold them off while you get them to safe-"

"What!?  Never!  I won't abandon you here and run with my tail between my legs!"  I tried to hush down my voice again, fearful the others might here.  It took me a moment to realize Joan and Annie were probably able to hear everything we were saying, so why did she want to speak quietly so close to them?  Even with Andrea's machine gun going off and the occasional shot from inside the building, she must have known they were able to hear us.

"That's not what I meant... I-"

"Goddamn it Tom!" Diane cussed loudly as more metal fists started banging at the door, struggling to pry it open.  "Your fucking tin can out there is too slow!  We're like sitting ducks in here.  We need some real fire power out there!"  Diane struggled to stand up.

"Diane, what are you doing?" Tom asked from across the room.  The conversation I was having with Cynthia was on hold as we listened intently to the confrontation.  For some reason, I got the impression Cynthia didn't want Tom to hear the discussion we were having.

"I'm doing something I should have done a long time ago" Diane said, grabbing the last and only shotgun we had and hobbling her way to the door.  I was surprised she was able to move so well despite all her injuries, but somehow she got enough control over her mechanical body again to move quickly to the door with only one hand to support her.  Then again, she was a cyborg, and not a robot or a human.  She could push herself pretty hard, and had the unique advantage of having her brain hard wired into her body.  Any kind of override anyone attempted was apparently easily overcome with a little concentration.  I figured Tom tried to disable her motor functions to keep her in bed, but he clearly didn't know a cyborg's system well enough to make it stick.  "You saved my husband's life once, and mine.  Now I will pay that debt back... with my life if I have to.  COME AND GET ME YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!" she screamed as she disappeared out the door.

"SHIT!" Tom yelled.  He grabbed his own gun, and rushed out after her.

"TOM!" Cynthia yelled herself, but it was too late, he already outside, and gunfire soon drowned out her voice.  She went to run out after him, but I grabbed her with my good arm and held her back.

"Hold on!  You don't even have a gun" I pointed out holding her back.  "Tom can handle himself, he'll be back.  Besides, he has Andrea and Diane with him."

"That's what I'm worried about" she replied, still struggling to go after him.

"Never fear my dears," Jack interrupted as though he had missed everything that just happened.  "I've almost got it!  Give me just... one... second..."  He typed away, slower as he neared the end of his counter-hack programming and lifted one hand in preparation to enter the command to execute.

Almost like it was choreographed, the lights went out, and the quiet buzz of electricity went with it.  Jack sat in front of a dead computer in the dark, hand still hung frozen in the air ready to execute the now non-existant code.  Melodrama ruined the day.  Joan and the others flipped on the flashlights she handed out earlier, and I struggled to get my own out.

"For Chissakes I almost had it!" Jack said with utter disbelief.  "I almost had it!  I could have stopped them!"  He grabbed at the keyboard, and picked it up, smashing it against the monitor.  "I HAD IT!"  Loose keys went flying from the keyboard as we all focused our lights on him.  He stopped to catch his breath.  "I guess this means we leave?"

"Tom is still out there!" Cynthia said, concerned for her husband.

"Oh... um... shit..." Jack muttered.  "Umm... I... I'm in too deep" Jack said glancing down at his phone before Annie shoved a gun in his hand and led him to a window.

Cynthia pushed me back toward the labs, now in utter darkness except for our flashlights.  She looked more concerned and frantic than I thought she was, and spoke in a serious but still hushed tone.

"Danny, you need to leave now.  Take the girls and go!"

I was ready to argue back with her when something unexpected happened.  The window Annie was using to shoot from suddenly shattered into a thousand shards and she screamed, falling backward with the force of the attack.  I turned around to see Annie on the ground, mostly unhurt, but startled, while a see of red and yellow eyes beamed through the now shattered window.  Metallic hands reached through the window at her, while in the distance I could see Tom and Diane back-to-back behind Andrea, taking out as many of the invaders as they could.  There were so many!

Joan ran to the window with a small table to block it, but before she could lift it into place, a well-aimed shard of glass was hurled by one of the robots through the window directly at me.  Only... it wasn't.  It was just off to my side.  Maybe it missed, or maybe I wasn't the intended target.  Cynthia let out a pained scream as the large shard of glass struck her, even though she was behind me!

I turned around to see Cynthia holding her arm with a large shard of glass sticking out of her left shoulder and blood oozing from her wound... and something else I didn't quite see clearly.  For a moment it looked like torn skin and plastic.  Cynthia looked at her shoulder, then up at me, and her eyes grew huge with shock.  She ran into the dark dorm rooms without a word, leaving me to wonder if I saw what I thought I just saw.

It took me a moment to register what happened, but as soon as I did, I ran - or rather limped in after her.  It was dark in the small hallway, but I could hear her heavy breathing in the last room, her bedroom.  I followed her inside, and shined the light toward her.  Cynthia turned her back to me, and tried to hide her arm.

"Don't look!" she said.

"Nonsense, let me look at that."  I placed my hand gently on her back, and she calmed down , allowing me to turn her toward me.  She was crying silently, but I didn't think it was from the pain.  I pointed my light to her upper arm at the shard of glass sticking out of it and the plastic wires that were exposed under her torn skin.  Blood dripped down her arm and shoulder, and stained her white blouse.  She looked up at me, as if she were gauging my reaction and looking for approval or acceptance.

"So... you're a cyborg too then?" I asked remember how I had mentally compared Diane and her before.  She quietly shook her head.  "You're a robot?" I asked more than a little surprised.  She bit her lip and nodded.  That would explain why she couldn't have kids.

I was silent for a moment longer taking in this new development, not sure what to think of it, but then I remembered Tera when I first saw her, with wires and such exposed after her brutal assault.  I nodded, and took a closer look at the wound.

"I'll need to get that out" I said.  "Do you have a first aid kit... and any tools around?"

"In my nightstand" she said shyly.  "... and the bathroom."

I sat her down on the bed and ran to fetch the first aid kit from the bathroom and the tool kit from her nightstand.  It was an android specific repair kit, specialized for her.  I still couldn't get over the fact that Cynthia was an android too!  As I sat next to her, examining the wound with my flashlight, I realized how human she looked and felt.  At least as much as Tera, who could have fooled Jen if it wasn't for her voice.

"So... are you part of the same project as-"

"No" she interrupted.  "No... I was leading the project to build my daughters since day 1.  In fact... I'm kind of my own inspiration for it..."  Cynthia suddenly seemed to shy and self-conscious, as though I had just seen her naked.  Except it was worse than that, it was her darkest secret and she never wanted me to know about it.

"Oh" I replied, using a cloth to clean the blood down her arm while holding the flashlight with my bad arm.  She winced as I got close to the glass shard.  I took a pair of pliers out of the toolbox and carefully grasped the glass with it.

"Ah!" she burst out in pain as the glass shard moved.

"Sorry."  It was a little awkward holding a light and the pliers at the same time, which also kind of hurt a bit, so she held out her other hand to offer to hold the light for me.  Her hand was shaking, but I handed her the light nonetheless, and she took in a deep breath as I continued to work on her shoulder.

"Please don't tell anyone about this" this pleaded through her teeth.

"I promise.  But... what about Tom?" I asked.

"Tom already knows, but I rather him not know that you know."  I nodded, much to her relief.

"So if not MMR, who made you?" I asked, carefully pulling at the glass.

"I don't know.  Ouch!"

"Sorry.  You don't know who made you?" I questioned, trying to be more gentle with her shoulder.

"I was a sleeper."  I looked at her strangely, not sure what she meant.  "Do you know what a sleeper is?" she asked.  I shook my head silently.  "Well... a sleeper is a type of android that looks so incredibly life-like, so human, that they can pass for human in both appearance and behavior."

"You mean like Tera?"

"Exactly" she answered.  "Except, unlike Tera, a sleeper is made to think that they are human.  They are given false memories, a fake identification, a real life with no real origin.  We aren't meant to know what we really are."

"That's horrible" I said shocked.  "Why would anyone want to do that?"

"I don't know... I don't even know who they are.  But here I am, an awakened sleeper.  Funny... I can still remember my father's smile, my mother's laughter, even my pet cat.  None of them ever existed...  Ah!"

"Sorry" I said again as I pulled the shard of glass away from her arm.  I looked closer at her wound and all the mechanics in her arm.  It didn't look serious, but she'd need some sort of repair work.  I grabbed a par of pliers and got to work.

"It's ok.  Just be gentle with that thing."  I almost laughed at the innuendo, but I caught myself.

"How long have you been..." 'a robot' I was about to ask but realized that was a stupid question.

"I'm not sure how long I've been active... They did a really good job of mixing my memories so I can't remember when... But I have an idea.  About 8 years ago, I was in an accident...  but not really... it was another implanted memory.  They used it to explain the death of my parents, and my infertility.  I..." she sighed, it wasn't easy to talk about this, but she knew it never really happened.  "I was in a coma in the hospital for a few weeks.  I don't remember anything else until I woke up at my new apartment.  They say I lost my memories... Post traumatic stress or something like that.  About a month later I started a new job... I think that was when they activated me."

She was quiet for a while after that, silently contemplating her own existence while I worked on her shoulder carefully.

"When did you find out you weren't..." I was a out to say 'real' but changed my mind.  "... a human"

"After Tom and I got married... We were at home, and I accidentally cut myself opening a package.  We were pretty shocked to see plastic and wires.  I... still have a hard time with it.  We decided to build our daughters after that, to mimic my own design.  Oh please don't tell them!"

"I won't, but you should."  I was just finishing up with the internal repairs as best as I could manage.  "Do you really think they would love you any less to learn their mother is more like them than they realized?"

"But I kept it hidden from them for all these years.  I just can't-"

"Yet you chose not to hide from them their own nature."

"That would be cruel, and I didn't want them to go through what I did."  She was on the verge of tears but managed to hold them back.

"So don't keep this a secret from them either.  They deserve to know."

"You're right.  I'll tell them... When the time is right."  She looked down contemplative while I finished up.  I was looking for a skin repair gel or something to close her cut, but couldn't find any in either case.

"Don't worry about that.  Just wrap it up in gauze, I'll have Tom look at it later.  Tom... I hope he's ok!  Come on, let's get back out there."

I finished wrapping up her shoulder, making sure to close the wound and cover it up well so no one would see inside.  She still winced at the pain, but was grateful for the help.  She sighed as though a weight had been lifted off her chest.  Maybe it was the light, but she looked more than a little frazzled.

"You feeling ok?" I asked.

"Yeah.  You look awful" she commented.

"Ummm thanks?"  I still was getting over the beat down I received from 262 earlier that day.  I was essentially running on pain, just glad nothing was seriously broken... well, except for my arm.

We headed back into the main area together, where the tension had built up to a breaking point.  Everyone was manning a different window, with Jen at the door, using up the last of our ammo defending ourselves.  Tom and Diane were till outside with Andrea; I had no way of knowing if they were hurt or not.

"Damn it Danny, where have you been?" Jen spat.

"Cynthia was hurt, but she's fine now."

"Mom?" Annie said worried, looking back at us.

"I'm fine, but we need to get everyone together."

"What about Daddy?" Joan asked.

"Tom and Diane are still out there with Andrea" Jack pointed out.  "What a bloody mess!  We have to get out of here!"  Jack seemed to have lost his usual cool and was looking around frantically.

"Calm down!  We need a plan."  I tried to keep everyone calm and collected but I myself was freaking out a bit and decided to take a step back from the situation.  "Is everyone alright?"

No one said anything, so I assumed there were no serious injuries.  Before I could try to get my thoughts together and form a plan, Tom, Diane, and Andrea burst in.  Tom was helping Diane limp in while Andrea covered them from the rear.  From inside, I could see the forest of red and yellow glowing eyes.  Metal fists started to pound against the walls, and everyone focused their attention back on the situation at hand.

"Diane's been hurt, we need to get her-"

"I'm fine, just sit me down over there" Diane interrupted, pointing to a seat by the window.  She gave Tom a sharp look, and he complied, letting her sit near Annie.

"Andrea is running low on ammunition, we need to do something."  Tom looked tired, but he was alright.  His eyes went wide when he saw Cynthia's shoulder wrapped in bandages.  "Cynthia!  What happened?  Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thanks to Danny" she said looking up at her husband.  She hugged him and whispered something I didn't quite hear.  His eyes meant mine for a moment, but I turned away, I couldn't stare him in the face after what I learned, at least not before I knew if he was going to kill me to keep their secret.  I knew he wouldn't, but I wasn't sure if he would be alright with it.

I looked around; we were all scared and bunkered down, but we had to move.  There was no way we could survive through the night at this rate, we had to get out of there and hope they didn't follow.  Chances were they would, and we'd end up being chased all night instead. Still it beat the alternative.

"Shit, I'm out of bullets" Jen said as her gun started to click away.  We had gone through almost everything we had, and now we were down to what we had left in our guns.

"Damn it!"  Jack cussed, pulling at his hair.  "I've waited too long.  I've gotten too deep!  I'm calling this in."  I looked at him confused as he pulled out his cell phone in the dark.

"What are you doing?  What are you talking about?" I asked.

Jack looked up at me with a serious expression, and then at Joan and Annie.  "You've got to go, now!  The coppers will be here any minute and I don't want them to see you three here.  Take this-"  He handed me a piece of paper with an address on it.  "It's the address of the place Tera is held at.  I pulled it from the map.  Go there; take the girls and go!"

"Police?  Come to think of it why haven't they shown up yet?"

"We are kind of in the middle of nowhere.  But no, the regular police are no help.  These are special guys and trust me when I say you don't want to be here!"  Jack looked frantic, and I was sure he was up to something.

"What are you-"

"Jack?  What did you do?" Jen interrupted turning toward us.  Jack pushed me more or less toward the door right at Jen.  Annie and Joan were close behind, trying to figure out what was going on.  He opened the door and prepared to shove me out.

"Take the car and go!"  With perfect timing, a construction bot had just finished turning the small silver car into a pile or rubble suitable for hitting things with.  Meanwhile the SUV alarm started going off as another smaller robot went through the contents of the hood like a homeless man looking for food in a trash can.  The bike was still relatively unharmed.

"Bugger!"

"What the hell are you doing Jack?" Jen asked sharply staring him in the face.  "Throwing people out into that mess is going to get someone killed!"

Jen kept on scolding him, but he didn't listen.  His mind was clearly occupied by something else, something huge, menacing, with bullet holes in its head and sparks flying from joints.  A construction bot the size of Andrea, maybe bigger, loomed over Jen behind her with red glowing eyes, and suddenly reach out for her head.

"JENNIFER!  Look Out!"  Jack rushed to put himself between the two of them, and the robot instead grabbed his left arm and lifted him off the ground.  He let out a cry of pain as it twisted his harm until I could hear it snap.

"JACK!" Jen yelled out.  She lost her balance in the confrontation and was on the floor, but at least she was alright.  I grabbed my handgun and unloaded the thing into the head of the robot holding up Jack.  I was the next one to run out of bullets, but the robot hardly reacted at all.

Before I knew what to do, a bright beam of white light shone through the robot's head toward the sky.  It moved to complete an arc through the top of the head and then dimmed to nothingness.  The robot froze in place, and dropped Jack before the top of its head fell to the ground.  Andrea stood behind the robot as its body lost balance and fell lifeless and stiff to the ground.

"JACK!" Jen yelled as she went to his side to catch him.  "Jack!  Why did you do that?"

"T'was nothing my dear... just a flesh wound" he joked even though his voice was full of pain.  His arm was slightly twisted, but it looked like a clean break and would heal, if he ever got to a hospital.

Andrea stood in the background before she took one knee.  She was beat up badly.  Scratches, dents, and holes riddled her body as smoke and sparks occasionally sputtered from her.  "Energy levels depleeeted, pleease rrrrechaaaarge uuuunit" she said as she froze in place.  She had used the last of her power on the laser gun saving Jack, but she was now no more than an oversized lawn gnome.  With Andrea out of commission, we really were like sitting ducks.

"Jack!  Hang on" Jen cried.  She held him in her arms as dragged him in carefully.  "You stupid sexist bastard!  Don't go doing anything heroic like that for me, I'm not worth it!"

"I beg to differ" he said as she finally collapsed with him in her arms.  Her face turned crimson as she shed tears.

"Danny, go!" Jack said through clenched teeth turning toward me.

"How can I go now?" I said looking at the dire situation.

"We'll be fine, the police should be here in a few minutes" he said through the pain.  I could hear sirens in the distance.  Damn that was fast!  Whatever Jack did got the police's attention faster than a box of jelly donuts.

"Danny, now is your chance" Tom said looking out the door.  The yard from the doorway was cleared, with only broken robots nearby.  They had cleared a path, and while another wave of intruders was gathering in the distance, we had time to get to the bike.  "We should be fine" he said reloading the last clip he had on him into his gun.  "We've got enough to get us through till the police arrive.  Everyone into the dorms, we'll barricade the door!"

Joan joined my side, ready to follow my orders, while everyone else gathered together and helped carry the wounded into the back rooms.  Annie hesitated.

"I- I- Mom?  Dad?  Danny?  What should I do?"  She was torn between helping me, her registered master, and helping her parents who were in a life-threatening situation.

"He's your owner now, go to him" Cynthia said gathering things together.

"But Mom!  Danny?"  She looked at me for an answer.

"What do you want to do Annie?" I asked her.  The truth was if the bike was the only thing left we could take, only 2 of us could go.

"I want to help Tera, but... I'm worried for my parents!  I want to stay but..."

"Annie, part of being independent means you will have tough choices to make.  I can't make them all for you." I was giving her a chance to grow, but I couldn't let her come with me if Joan was coming too.  "Help your parents.  If we need you, we'll call."

Annie nodded and gave Joan an unexpected hug.  She kissed me on the cheek quickly, and then ran back to help Jen carry Jack into the dorms.  I wished there was more time, and I wasn't sure leaving now was a good idea at all.  There was no guarantee that police would be able to do anything, and we had no idea what we were heading into.  I was still hurt, although seemingly not as bad as Jack or Diane, and my Exo suit was toast.  All I had left was the vest, an empty gun, and Joan.  I had Joan, and I was glad for it.  With everything we'd gone through, she was becoming more of a friend than I thought he could, and I somehow knew that with her by my side, I'd be alright.

Joan and I ran into the night toward the bike and lifted it off the ground.  There was a helmet nearby, and Joan grabbed it on the way over.

"Here, put this on" she commanded, handing me the helmet.

"But you're driving" I pointed out.

"So?  I'm a robot!  There is no law that I need to wear a helmet."  Oh... right.  I knew that.

As she started up the bike, I put on the helmet, which was a little tight, and secured my stuff.  Putting on a helmet with one hand isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world to do.

"Here's the address" I yelled through the helmet handing Joan the paper Jack gave me.  She looked at it for a moment and nodded.

"Got it!"  Thank God for GPS.  She had it built-in, which made me a tad jealous.  "Take these" she said, handing me 2 handguns.  Wherever she got them from, I didn't know, nor did I ask.  I took the guns and put them in my coat pockets one at a time as she mounted the bike and started the engine.

The glow of robotic eyes got ever closer as I climbed onto the back of the bike and held on for dear life with my good arm.  I had to admit, despite it all, I enjoyed holding onto Joan like that, but I wasn't really in the mood for anything other than getting away from there.  Red and Blue lights came into view as we turned the corner of the drive back onto the main road.  We didn't slow down, and I'm sure had there not been a robot apocalypse going on, we would have been pulled over, but as it was the cops drove right past us without slowing down at all.

It wasn't just the cops though.  There was a SWAT team truck, a HAZMAT truck, a firetruck, 2 ambulances, a slew of police cars, and several unmarked cars as well that were obviously made to withstand high caliber weapons.  Whatever Jack was, whatever he did, I was just glad they took it seriously, and help really was on the way for them.  I just hoped it wouldn't also mean trouble.

I focused on Joan's driving and the road ahead.  Mentally I didn't know how to prepare myself for what was about to lie ahead.  I focused my thoughts toward Tera, and how scared she must have felt.  I prayed she was in better shape than I was, but I worried that we were too late.  It was time to face the demon that haunted me, and save the girl I loved.


------
/Chapter 30
Chapter 31 here.

[NukuNookee]

Most excellent, nice twist there, but I had my suspicions about, well, just about anyone. Part of the future where androids are indistinguishable from humans, you never know who's what. Of course, if they're that good, does it really matter?

As to Danny's arm, I wonder just what those nanites have been up to....

[TW]

Wicked

Nothing like a little robot zombie apocalypse to start your day. You do a great job of building tension and Cynthia's reveal is well done. I can't say that the thought HADN'T crossed my mind (you did kind of establish her as a bit...off in the beginning), but you managed to do it in such a way that keeps people wondering what other secrets surround this crew. Hopefully that's more to be revealed in book two...

I get a feeling that we're speeding towards a heady conclusion. Charge on.

[gynoneko]

So glad you guys are enjoying it! Took a lot of effort and I'm glad the reveal worked out well. For a while even I was debating having it or not, but I decided it was a good idea and actually paves the way for the next book. . Let's just say it involves finding out about who built her and why.

2 chapters left! The next will be the exciting conflict! Will Danny be on time to save Tera? Who is this dastardly
Villain?
A famous writer (Jim Butcher) once wrote that every yes or no question in a story should almost always be answered "No". But in the rare exception it isn't, the answer should be "Yes But...".