It was the only way to take the Metal Islands.
SIXTEEN
The door wasn’t going to hold, even with Les’ body braced against it. The machine on the other side rammed it again, and he staggered backward into a lab table. A twinge of pain ran through his back where the armor had smacked against the rounded edge.
He fired his rifle at the robot trying to break its way through the barricaded glass windows.
The door exploded off the hinges, sailing past him and crashing into another lab workstation. He pivoted to fire on the AI that stormed into the room, orange visor and mouth glowing like a portal to hell.
Rounds peppered the metal face; denting and contorting the humanoid features. Les emptied the magazine, hoping one of the bullets would penetrate the metal shell, but the thing kept coming. An electronic chirp came from the open mouth as if it were trying to speak.
But these AIs didn’t have voices like Timothy Pepper. At least, Les hadn’t heard them try to communicate using anything other than their electronic wails.
He slung his rifle and unholstered the venerable .45-caliber M1911 pistol. An orange light blazed out of the machine’s visor, tracking him as he moved. There was no way to get out of the lab without getting hit by a laser bolt.
Crouching down, he raised his pistol and fired a round into the machine’s open mouth. It shook violently, still standing but dropping the weapon. Sparks exploded out of its orange visor and mouth, and it fell to both knees, where it wobbled a moment before slumping over on its side. The orange battery unit dimmed and blinked off.
So they can die…
“I killed one!” Les yelled over the comms. “I fucking killed one!”
The sound of mechanical joints filled the hallway outside the broken door, cutting his celebration short. Les holstered the pistol and picked up the laser rifle by a curved olive rail with iron sights mounted to the center of the black barrel. It was light, about the same weight as a blaster, and not much bigger.
He held it like a rifle and quickly checked for a magazine but saw nothing extending from the bottom or side of the weapon. He wasn’t sure how many bolts remained, but even one was a gift he wouldn’t pass up.
The route back through the labs took him a few minutes to navigate. Even with the sporadic working lights, the rooms looked different from when he came through hours ago.
He wasn’t sure where Layla and Michael were, but with Michael’s injuries, they couldn’t have gotten far. It was amazing the young commander could walk at all after hitting the water so hard and then losing his arm.
Les checked over his shoulder one last time before entering the next lab. The other robots were coming through the open doorway, and the orange glow pulsed into the open space. Shadows rushed in with the light. Several of the machines were on all fours, moving like dogs.
The sight made him gasp, but he managed to aim the laser rifle at the closest robot and pull the trigger. The bolt sizzled through the air and hit it in the back. Animal bones exploded, and sparks flew.
Another orange light fizzled out.
He fired again, holding the trigger down this time to fire a laser that cut off the leg of another robot and sliced the lab station behind it in half.
The next trigger squeeze clicked, and he felt the heat coming off the muzzle of the barrel through his gloved hands. It was either overheated or out of bolts. He turned and ran as the other three machines approached. One hurdled a lab counter and slammed into a desk, sending the furniture crashing into a wall. The electronic howling grew louder. The machines were getting frustrated.
A flurry of lasers sizzled through the air, leaving white-hot incisions wherever they touched. One came dangerously close to his helmet, shooting past his right side.
The noise of their ethereal wails hurt his ears, but there was no blocking it out. He ran into the next hallway, hopping over the mummified corpses that littered the floor. Then he flattened his body and squeezed through the metal barricade.
“I’ve got multiple contacts heading toward the front entrance,” Erin said over the comms. “Better sit tight, Layla, and let me take them down.”
The message echoed in Les’ helmet. They were being flanked. But where had the other robots come from?
“Hold your fire—you’ll just draw them to your position,” Layla said. “I’ll hunker down with Michael. Les, where are you?”
“On my way topside. I got several pursuers.”
“That’s my goal,” Erin said. “I’ll buy you some time.”
Les almost halted when he heard her voice.
She was going to sacrifice herself.
“No,” Michael said. “Hold your fire, Erin. That’s an… order.”
“Sorry, sir, but some orders are meant to be broken. Good luck to you. If there is an afterlife, I’ll save you a spot.”
The line fizzled out.
Les bolted down the hallway, gripping the laser rifle, ready to enter the fray topside. It was up to him now to save his friends, but he would have to be smart and lucky.
Distant gunshots rang out as he made his way down the second hallway to the garage. Electronic wails answered, along with the crack, crack of return laser fire.
Erin had shut her channel off, leaving Les, Layla, and Michael no way to contact her. She couldn’t even hear them if they tried to send a message.
He made it to the garage a few minutes later and entered with the weapon aimed outside. The barrel had cooled, and he could only hope it would fire when he needed it.
Gunfire cracked from the piers, and he hurried to the open door to see a half dozen of the machines walking toward the ITC ship, their orange battery units glowing in the dark like handheld lanterns.
They didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Several of them, armed with laser rifles, fired at the stern, where Erin stood firing down on them. She ducked as a bolt sliced the air where her helmet had been the second before. Les almost screamed at her to run, but he couldn’t compromise his position if his plan was to work. Especially since the machines all had their backs to him.
He was moving out of the garage when a door on one of the armored vehicles creaked open. Layla hopped out and motioned at Les. Lying across the back seat was Michael, his stump wrapped with a bandage.
“Help me with him,” she whispered.
Gunfire continued in the distance as Les lowered his gun and grabbed Michael. He was unconscious, and Layla needed help getting him to the navy ship. It was their only way off this concrete island.
Hold on, Erin. We’re coming.
If anyone could handle herself in a fight, it was tough-as-nails Erin.
The sound of moving metal came from the hallway. Les let go of Michael and aimed his laser rifle out of the open door; peering down the iron sights, and waiting for a shot.
A moment later, one of the robots emerged in the flickering light.
Les fired a bolt into the center of the AI’s forehead. The thin blue line bored an instant tunnel all the way through the artificial brain or circuits or whatever the hell was inside the head and right out the back of the metal skull, to the open elevator shaft fifty yards beyond.
That was when Les saw the orange light rising up the shaft.
“We have to get out of here,” he said, listening to the approach of what sounded like dozens of the machines.
The place was a freaking factory of killer AIs.
Michael suddenly shot up on the seat inside the vehicle, gasping for air. Les turned just as Layla pulled a needle out of his leg.