Chapter 20

On the Inside
went in first. She was totally a soldier all of a sudden, with photon rifle leveled; she was panning and strafing and ducking, and looking like she knew what she was doing all the while. She held up her hand for the gang to halt, and they did. The lobby was empty, and after a cursory inspection, she waved for them to follow. The hall was spotless. As if it had just been cleaned by the cleaning people. Clean and quiet. Nothing made a single noise. And what glorious grandeur. The lobby looked like a mansion. It was very nice and expensive looking. (But of course Id like it - I paid for it!) They marched on. After another set of doors, they began to hear things happening. Typing maybe. And low voices. Even phones ringing. There were more doors in this hallway. Actual offices on the left and the right, one right after another, like some sort of office building. They crept forward, to the first door. Inside they could hear someone talking in a robot voice. 140

Veronica

Four packages of robot grease. Beep. Two units of cup rotors. Five wheel hubs. One engine caliper. Five engine caliper adjustment screws. Five engine caliper adjustment screw washers. Five engine caliper adjustment screw washer gaskets And on and on. The robot was working. Veronica leveled her gun at the shipping secretary, and went forward into the room. And then Snap! She stepped on a pencil on the floor and snapped it right in half. The robot turned to see what had made the noise, may I help and then he saw that it was a human, and not another robot, as he had expected. You are not a robot! he exclaimed. No. Sorry, Veronica said and blasted a hole right through the secretarys frigging head. Greed ooze spilled out of the wound in a really gross way. The gun made a noise, but not enough to cause any trouble. The gang quickly stepped into the office and joined Veronica. Nice shot, said Delilah. Thanks, said Veronica. But we need a strategy, added Derek. We cant just go into each office and take out these robots. Theyll catch us, someone will sound the alarm. Right, agreed Veronica, we need to find the mainframe. We should split up, said Jason, we could cover more ground. No. We stick together. Right, said Delilah.

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Just then they heard two robots coming down the hall. They were talking about robot pastimes and robot stuff they saw the previous night on robot television. Did you see that show last night on robot TV? one robot was asking the other Quick, Derek said, hide behind the desk. They all scrunched down behind the desk. The robots, walked right past the open door and down the hall. That was close, said Jason, we need more blasters. He stood up and looked around. But the shipping secretary robot didnt have a blaster, just pencils, lots and lots of pencils. They hid behind the desk for a while trying to decide what to do next. And then they heard the alarm. But who? But What? How did they know that the building had been breached? And thats when Veronica turned and saw a gardener robot looking in through the window at them. They were busted! As soon as they saw the evil face of the gardener robot they heard some commotion a few offices away. Theyre on to us, cried Delilah. Quick, said Derek, follow me. He got up and ran into the hall. They followed him to an open door and a staircase leading down. One by one they ran down the stairs. The antidote! squealed Delilah. Derek sprinted across the hall and grabbed the box right by its inserted handles and heaved it from the desk. He threw it under his arm. He saw about 20 robots coming down the corridor as he took off down the stairs. After the first set of stairs there was another set of stairs. So by the time they reached the bottom floor the robots were already making their way down the first set. 142

Fortunately for the gang and unfortunately for the robots, there are no stairs on the robot planet and they were unaccustomed to them. And though none of them fell down real bad or anything, it took them a long time to get to the bottom. Look! said Jason, they suck at going down stairs!

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But he had spoken too soon. Just then another group of robots came running though a garage bay, not 50 yards away. Their laser eyes were already shooting lasers at them. Come on! Derek ran to an exit sign and again held the door open for the others. Outside there was a ramp that went up sharply into the open air. They ran as fast as they could. Near the top, a single robot came into view and turned to engage his weapon. Veronica blasted a hole through his abdomen area and the robot fell backward. By the time they were on the actual driveway that connected to the ramp, there were hundreds of robots chasing them. One group coming from their left flank. About fifty coming up the ramp behind them. Other robots were shooting lasers at them from open windows high up in the office building. There was a park to the right and they ran to it. Looking desperately for some shelter. But that was just what the robots had wanted. They had used their computer brains to calculate the gangs next move and had sent the battalion to flank their left and force them into the park. There was no shelter there. There was an army of perhaps 300 robots standing shoulder to shoulder. The humans were trapped. They stopped running and stepped closer together. Veronica leveled her blaster at one, then another, and then a third, but realized it was pointless and dropped the gun to the ground. The rest of the robots were circling around them now. They knew this bunch. These humans were the last effort of mankind. Their arrival had been foretold. 144

500 robots stepped closer, one stride at a time. Shrinking the ring around them. Tighter. And tighter. Constricting like a huge python snake constricting around its prey. Then, they stopped. Something was amiss. They turned, every robot turned and looked away from the gang, past them, through them. Something else had taken their interest. Some new danger had come into view. But what was it? The gang heard footsteps. Giant awesome thunderous footsteps, clamoring through the air, shaking the ground. And then finally they could see what it was.

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