Now that they couldn’t see anymore, the security guards started cursing. They screamed, tried to coordinate their positions and track down Wave, who had leaped death-defyingly into the darkness.

“Can you give me a map?” Wave asked as she continued to run in the direction where the exit was supposed to be. Her voice got almost lost in the noise of the guards, and she hoped that Fearless had heard her. “So I can find my way out?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Fearless replied, now not from Ngi’s speaker anymore but straight out of her lens. Wave winced. “You don’t want to get out, you want to keep going in.”

“What do you mean?”

As happy as Wave was about Fearless supporting her, if she started talking in riddles again, that would instantly change. Besides, she had just hacked into Wave’s lens without permission. They’d have another conversation about that after they escaped.

“You want to find Aki, don’t you?”

It took Wave a moment to understand what that question actually meant.

“Oh ...”

Yes, she could have figured that out by herself, actually. If Ngi was the robot that had started everything, and if the info was true that they were in the same lab ... was she already closer to him than she’d thought?

“So we’re already in the lab where Aki is, Agent F?”

Fearless chuckled. “Yes, it’s time to complete our mission, Agent N.”

“While you’re in my lens, which I’m only partially comfortable with, you could make yourself useful as my operator.”

It was like the secret missions in the arena. One went in and did the job, another studied the maps and navigated the former.

“Sure,” Fearless confirmed.

If she went to Aki and didn’t escape, would mean staying in Kanter’s area way longer. She’d not only have to shake off the security guards but prevent them from following her in the first place. But to do so, she needed a plan and knowledge of her surroundings. Unlike after escaping from the gaming cafe, she now had backup and her head was a lot clearer. As strange as that sounded after her mind had just nearly drifted off and turned everything to ruins.

“I need a 3D map so I can find my way around in the dark,” she said.

Promptly, the edges and outlines of objects around her appeared in dull green lines.

“Thanks.”

“Oh, I can do even more than that. Your lens isn’t designed for night vision, I’m afraid, but if I ask the bio scanners on the doors and other machines, they’ll tell me everyone’s location in the room. And then I’ll show you.”

“Cool.”

A red blur appeared in front of her and Wave instinctively dodged to the side.

“Gotcha!” the blur shouted.

A flash of green zipped past her, briefly lighting the room, and fizzled out somewhere behind her. That had been damn close! Hopefully, the blur’s friends wouldn’t get the bright idea to do the same and shoot wildly just so they could briefly see something in the dark.

Wave crouched down and scurried past him. That way she made a smaller target. If the security guards were stupid enough to shoot around after all, hopefully, they did only hit their colleagues.

“I was a little worried about you.” Fearless had lowered her voice and was speaking so softly that Wave had to really strain to filter it out of the ambient noise. “After you had suddenly disappeared, I logged out. All hell broke loose in the gaming cafe and I stayed in the Synth for the time being. Then I followed the two men who came after you, and they led me right here.”

“You’re in the lab? Did you overcome your fear?”

“What? I’m not crazy, am I? No, I’m sitting in the cafe across the street and I’m in here over the net. The doorman is watching unauthorized ... ‘movies’ and opened a door into the lab network that way.”

“Shut up!” Finn yelled. Was he, like, the head of security? “And stop shooting, dammit!”

While the red blurs finally came to a halt one by one, accompanied by more roars, Wave reached the exit and was through. With a hiss, the door closed and the locking bolts slammed into their moorings.

“Ha, I’ve locked them out!” Fearless piped happily from the lens.

“I’m sure that will only stop them for a moment,” Wave surmised. “Can you turn on the lights in this room? After all, this seems to be some sort of storage area, according to the map. Maybe there’s something useful here to hold them off longer.”

“Are you looking for weapons?” Fearless asked.

“No. If I can, I want to do without. After all, there’s still a remote chance I can redeem myself after this.”

Fearless chuckled. For someone like her, who had already ended up on the other side, it probably seemed pointless that anyone would want to avoid the same fate.

“This may sound funny to you, Fearless, but I’ve always preferred the non-violent way. Like my parents did before they succumbed to their inner monster.”

“Yeah. But remember that I just stopped you from letting your monster out. I didn’t miss the crack in the floor. A crack like that doesn’t just happen here in the city.”

“Thank you,” Wave simply replied. Fearless was right about that, after all. There was no room for discussion. Had it not been for her, Wave would have torn the lab apart, of that she was sure. “But now I’m back to my senses, and I’ll want to keep nobody getting hurt if there’ s any way I can.”

“Tell that to those nice security guys with their guns. Maybe they’ll take you to Aki if you ask them nicely.”

“Funny. Now if you would please turn on the lights ...”

Lights on the ceiling and walls flared up, revealing shelves, barrels, and crates. Thanks to Synths that could create arbitrary things seemingly out of thin air, warehouses had become largely unnecessary in the city. This, however, seemed to be stuff from the outside world. Stuff from the pre-Ice Age. Fitting for a lab where shady things happened and the security corps had a heavy digital file about.

Robotic heads in the shape of silver skulls stared at her from one of the shelves, and green foam flakes spilled out of the cardboard box below. Electronic bits and bobs and unfamiliar artifacts were everywhere, hidden in olive-green colored boxes. A couple of barrels caught her attention.

“Oh, they store oil in here?”

“Looks like it. You have the same idea I do, don’t you?” Fearless said enthusiastically, her tone rising an octave. “You just want to burn the place down, am I right?”

“What?” Wave crawled behind one of the barrels. “You weren’t listening to me, were you? We’re not hurting anyone unnecessarily.”

“Unnecessarily ...” Fearless dragged out the word as if she were hearing it for the first time today. “Well, sure. So tell me your plan.”

Wave wedged herself between the wall and the barrel, put her feet against the barrel, and pushed with all the strength that was left in her thighs. Not much, but enough to dump it into the hallway.

“Are you going to run them over with a barrel? I thought you weren’t going to kill anyone. Whereas ... it certainly won’t kill them, you know?”

Wave rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Climbing spikes!” she commanded and kicked the barrel. The spike on her boot pierced the barrel and immediately black liquid gushed out. She crouched down and pushed the barrel until it picked up enough speed to roll toward the locked door, spreading its contents on the floor as it went.

“When we get out of here, you turn the lights off again. I want to see how they get through here without ...”

“...breaking their bones,” Fearless finished the sentence. “I like the way you think, Wave.”

“You’re a nasty little thing, you know that?”

“Thanks.” Fearless chuckled.

Wave could well imagine how she would turn this adventure into a story, too. Full of typos and nasty marginal notes. Somehow, she could understand Lambert by now, wanting to take her out of the loop. Poor Lambert. Wave cast off the thought of him as well as Fearless’ nastiness, ran toward the other exit, and took cover next to the doors.

“What’s the situation? Is the way clear to Aki’s location?”

“Hmm. So the door is still holding up our pursuers. They’re trying to get around my digital barriers right now. It’s only a matter of time before they realize it’s useless and resort to brute force.”

“Yes, that’s obvious. Not what I wanted to know, though.”

“Let’s see. Everybody who doesn’t want to mess with us is fleeing, but sixteen ... no seventeen people are coming at us from different directions. And ... hmm ...” Fearless fell silent.

“What?” asked Wave, irritated at having to dig in again to get a straight answer.

“There’s something big shown up, and it’s moving toward us, as well.”

“Much bigger than a human?”

“Yes. Wider and bigger. I just don’t have access to the cameras to see exactly what it is. Those and a few critical systems are better secured against my attacks. Well, critical systems for humans, that is. Oxygen supply and stuff like that. Unfortunately, as long as I’m playing your operator, I don’t have time to take care of that.”

“I’m very grateful for your help, Fearless.” And honestly happy she didn’t have access to the oxygen supply.

“The big thing is moving past the other people. They let it pass and hold their ground.”

Wave let her eyes wander around the storage room once more. What could help her against such an opponent? So he was big? Some kind of monster? Involuntarily, the story from Aki’s childhood came to her mind. Monsters that were bred in laboratories and breathed fire. Yes, they were in a laboratory which even the Security Corps avoided. Besides, strange things happened here as well when she thought of Ngi and Aki. Nevertheless, Wave hoped it wasn’t such a monster. But what could it be? Had they ended up training a dinosaur? That would have been cute, at least.

“What are you doing, Wave?”

“I’m looking for something to stop it with, whatever it is.”

“You could spread those robot heads around, maybe it’ll trip,” Fearless suggested with a mocking undertone. “Okay, you’ve got half a minute left.”

No time to set an elaborate trap then. Her gaze bounced back and forth. Indiscriminately, she tipped over one of the boxes and the contents rolled across the floor. Robot parts, Tubes, and cylinders. “Not helpful,” she muttered, knocking over another one. Joint parts, screws, and small coils of wire. This was better. Wave grabbed one of the coils and two of the tubes, which were about fifteen centimeters long.

“Twenty seconds to go,” it sounded warningly in her ear.

Wave untied the end of the wire, threaded it through a tube, and twisted it with the piece sticking out the other side. Then she wrapped the tube around a shelf leg next to the door the attacker would come through and pulled the wire tight. In the background, Fearless was already counting down.

“Seven!”

Walking backward, Wave approached the door and unrolled the wire. It would be a tripping hazard and if the opponent was slow, Wave would wrap him in. More uninhibited Wanderers would probably have done more extreme things with the wire. Depending on whether the creature coming through the door possessed a neck and needed to breathe.

“Three!”

The other end came off the reel and Wave pulled it through the second tube. It was twisted at the exact moment it happened.

A shock that made the whole room tremble hit one of the anchored sliding doors and it broke from the bracket in which it was set. Chunks of concrete rained down on the oily, greasy floor of the storeroom and the lights on the wall and ceiling flickered. One half of the door squeaked pleadingly as it tried to cling to the bolts that still connected it to its partner, then it tumbled helplessly into the room. With a single, deafening bang, it hit the floor, sweeping away dust and concrete crumbs with a wave of displaced air. Now Wave was glad she was half deaf.

Steel fingers dug into the door that had been left behind, pushing it aside with a metallic scrape. Agonizingly slowly, a robotic foot lowered itself into the room. The foot was as large as Wave’s head, perhaps even slightly larger. A scraping sound accompanied this movement. It was not the foot that caused it. The robot was dragging something behind it.

Wave pressed herself against the wall, her heart pounding madly. It was lucky that the robot was so loud that it drowned out the pounding. She prayed to all the gods the inhabitants of the universe could pray to that he wouldn’t notice her.

Her prayers were answered. He entered the room and stared straight ahead, not noticing the wire that stretched diagonally in front of the door. It was a large, hulking monstrosity, with a cylinder for a head into which red glowing eyes were embedded. In one claw it held a thick metal rod with something big attached to it that was still resting on the floor in the other room.

Wave didn’t wait to find out what it was, ducked under the rod behind the robot, and sprinted toward the shelf to which the other end of the wire was attached. She wrapped its end around the shelf leg and pulled as hard as she could. Sure, this wasn’t a winch, too much friction, but better than nothing. It just had to be enough to bring him down.

As the robot took another step forward, it was Wave who was yanked back and lost her balance, though. He was just too strong and so damn heavy! She crashed into the shelf and some of its contents fell clattering to the floor.

The robot paused in its movement and turned its cylinder head in the direction of the noise. Then it spotted Wave.

As she pulled herself up by the shelf, the robot grabbed the metal rod with its other hand and pulled it fully into the room. Wave gritted her teeth at the sound. A metal cube entered the warehouse, throwing sparks as it scratched over the concrete. Was that a giant hammer?

The robot swung it upward, now holding the weapon with both hands. Wave flinched in shock but immediately caught herself. To hesitate now would cost her her life. No, she had to be ready. She waited vigilantly with each hammering heartbeat for the moment she had to dodge the blow and had to avoid being crushed. Then the robot nodded to Wave, turned back toward the hallway, and continued walking.

“What ... what was that,” Wave asked, puzzled.

“Your backup,” it scratched in her ear, and Wave winced. Again, the obnoxious hacker voice.

“Fucking Brontoshit!” she cursed, “Do you have to talk in that voice, Fearless?”

“Sorry,” her normal voice rang out again. “But my mother just sounds like that.”

Her mother? What was that supposed to mean?

“That robot is your mother?” Wave pointed incredulously at the colossus, who was now standing wide-legged in the middle of the room. “Wait, robots have mothers?”

“No, little Wave,” the mother spoke. “This robot is a friend of yours, it seems. Or at least the one who controls it.”

A friend, with a hammer? Could it be ...

“I was able to trace the robot’s control signals, all the way to an office at Akimoto Robotics.” The mother laughed. Even without a hearing aid, the high-pitched sounds hurt Wave’s ear, leaving a persistent beeping sound. “The young man may not be risking his life, but he is undoubtedly risking his job. However, he is skilled. It looks like he’s working when in reality he’s typing commands to control the robot. His fingers must be literally on fire.”

Yes, if a Synth otherwise transmitted every movement of the body to the robot, Wave didn’t even want to imagine how many commands had to be entered to make it move that way.

Wave pulled herself up by the shelf and circled the robot until she was standing in front of it.

“Is that you, Hammer?”

The robot remained silent. How could it talk anyway if it wasn’t controlled from within a Synth? Hammer couldn’t talk to her when he was sitting at work, anyway.

With one hand, he released the grip of his weapon, made a fist, and pointed his thumb at his chest. Wave squinted, and then she saw it, an engraving. ‘Hammer 1.0’. It really was Hammer, and the robot was his first project at Akimoto. Wave vaguely remembered how he had talked about it. Wistfully, because the robot was gathering dust in the depths of an Akimoto warehouse. If he had freed that one, he was really taking a chance.

“I thought you’d have more common sense.” Wave shook her head, but then smiled and put her hand on the robot’s chest. “Thank you. Thanks for coming after all.”

“This guy buys us some time,” Fearless said, her voice urgent. “We should use it and get ahead to Aki.”

In the short term, that sounded logical. Getting to Aki as quickly as possible and rescuing him, then getting out of the lab again. Just letting Hammer’s robot handle the security. But that wouldn’t work. If she was honest, she probably wouldn’t have gotten to Aki at all. Before Hammer had shown up, it would have been a daring sneak attack, but once security realized she wasn’t fleeing, the superhero lookalike had to realize she was going to Aki’s place, where they would be waiting for Wave. She shook her head. “No, we’re staying here.”

“Girl, be reasonable,” Mother – as she would call her now – urged her.

“I’m being perfectly reasonable,” Wave replied calmly. “With Hammer as a distraction and the battlefield prepared, we’ll finish them off.”

“Finish them off?” asked Fearless. “For good?” She sounded excited.

“By the top of the Citadel.” Wave groaned. “You’re going to finish me off.”

Hammer 1.0 gripped the handle of his weapon again with his second hand, and metal scraped over metal. If he had been human, every muscle from his hands to his shoulders would have tensed now.

Wave turned around. The junctions of the two doors glowed red. Now was the time they resorted to brute force.

“Okay, Hammer. Anybody that doesn’t fall on their own, you bring them down. Then we destroy their weapons. They probably don’t want to mess with you if they’re unarmed.”

Wave glanced at the entrance, through which two or three adults could fit side by side. Or one large robot, for that matter.

“Fearless, can you dim the lights? As far as it goes.”

The light dimmed until it flickered.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

If they came out of the darkness, into a barely brighter room, and then saw this colossus in front of them, they would hesitate and not take full advantage of the width of the door. They would hold up their colleagues behind them and leave themselves vulnerable to attack. Of course, it could also be that they were shooting wildly again, or at Hammer 1.0. Even then, they wouldn’t notice Wave, who was creeping along behind the shelves and crouching next to the door.

“Steel caps!” she commanded her suit. “Spikes!” Wave considered for a moment then added a final command, “Brass knuckles!”

No, she definitely didn’t want the security breathing down her neck when she got to Aki’s place. She bit her lower lip. In the end, she had quickly moved on from not wanting to hurt anyone. She would understand if Fearless called her a hypocrite after this. Her eyes rested on Hammer’s weapon, at the red marks on it. It was too late not wanting to hurt anyone, anyway. That was the other reason she’d stay. The people who should have been coming from Hammer’s direction, they hadn’t just let Hammer pass ...

She had to be careful that he didn’t make a mistake now. More mistakes that would haunt him for the rest of his life. She had to make sure he didn’t hurt the security guards so badly that no MedCenter could ever help them.

The door creaked open, Wave took a breath and clenched her fists.