Rip heard a distinct click behind him. He spared a quick backward glance and found Dar Caul gone.

He grimaced in irritation and disgust.

Must be a hidden door somewhere, he thought. Either in the wall or the floor. That coward.

He turned back to face the three charging robots, grateful no one had given these machines guns or other weapons yet. They still seemed formidable, however, even unarmed.

For one thing, they looked practically unstoppable.

The first one crashed through the control booth walls, ripping metal and silver plates like tissue paper. It bent at the middle and reached down to try and grab Rip.

“What is that? A bear hug?”

He crouched and jumped through the arms before they closed in on him, not wishing to experience the full crushing power of an enhanced robot.

He came down near the robot’s shoulders and he reached out, grabbing for purchase. The machine altered its flailing arms and flung its arms back, crossing its chest and trying to crush him.

Rip scrambled up, placing his feet on both shoulders. The metallic arms made a clang against the robot’s torso, missing him a second time.

He looked down between his feet at the robot’s head and an idea blossomed.

“Let’s see if you’re like the old tanks, with thinner armor on top.”

Pulling out one of the Webleys with enhanced ammunition, he shot down into the top of the head at close range.

A dent formed where the bullet bounced off.

“Dang, I guess not.”

The robot reared its arms up and back again. Rip jumped off before it could strike him.

Mid-air he pirouetted, shut one eye to focus, and shot the indentation. He hit the same spot a second time, pressing it in deeper.

He twirled in the air and landed on his feet behind the machine and outside the broken booth walls. Then the second and third bots were on him, their arms outstretched as well.

Using [Vampiric Speed], he dodged them both. Their forward momentum led them through the wall, now in shambles.

All three turned back to face him. Rip could have sworn the one he shot in the head seemed to be glaring at him, even though the eyes and mouths remained immobile on the units.

Recalling the eyes’ vulnerability, he aimed for the face on the unit to the right and shot one out. The bullet bounced around in its head, clinging and clanging. The bot stopped moving, as if assessing the damage. Slowly it turned its head toward Rip, its one good eye glowing brighter than before.

He quickly aimed for the bot in the middle, but it put a hand up to shield its face, and the enhanced bullet ricocheted off, whining back toward the stairs.

Rip drew his other pistol and fired it at the dented bot on the left, but it too shielded its face, deflecting the bullet.

“I can at least kill one.”

He pulled out a stick of dynamite from his wallet and lit it, then raced to the broken-eyed one.

Rip jumped, but this time the one-eyed robot was ready for him. A metal hand slammed into his side, cracking ribs and deflating his lungs.

He hooked an arm around the machine’s neck and slammed the stick of dynamite through the eyehole. The robot punched him in the side again, and he fell off, hitting the floor from ten feet up.

It lifted a foot, servos grinding, and hovered over him prepared to stomp . . . just as the dynamite blew its face off.

The robot stood there motionless for a moment, foot raised, before slowly toppling over. Rip scrambled out of the way, metal crashing down around him.

The other two machines stared at him for a moment. He held both Webleys out, aiming at their faces while thumbing the hammers back. They shielded with their hands and moved on him.

He danced out of the way before they reached him, squeezing off three more shots at each bot.

On his third shot the hand flew off on the one to the right. It stared at the stump of its arm, then slowly lowered it, bringing the other hand up to cover the eyes.

“I don’t have enough ammo for this.”

He jogged up to the maimed robot and jumped again, grabbing for the head. The stumpy arm immediately began swatting him. He climbed up on the unit’s shoulders and took out some rope, tying it around the neck and dangling off the back. It reached over its head, but the handless arm could not reach him, only the intact one.

Rip ignored the pummeling, and grabbed his canister of liquid nitrogen.

“Just cool down a minute, will ya?”

He aimed the nozzle at the machine’s back and let loose a long burst. The gunmetal gray turned lighter . . . lighter . . . until it looked almost white. He stopped and threw the canister back into his wallet and pulled out a Webley again.

Rip kept ignoring the one-handed flailing. Chuckling at his earlier joke, he aimed the gun point blank at the frozen spot on the machine’s back and squeezed the trigger.

With a sharp crack of gunfire the bullet penetrated the robot’s distressed metal and bounced around inside its chest cavity. He heard vacuum tubes bursting before the motherboard shorted out with a loud buzzing sound.

The robot froze, arm halfway over its back for another swipe at the man on its back, smoke billowing out if its head.

Rip let go and dropped from the rope, landing lightly on his feet. He walked around the disabled unit to face the last robot, the one whose head he had dented earlier. It still seemed to be glaring at him, despite the frozen features on its face.

He smiled up at the machine, noting the misshapen head left by his enhanced bullets.

“Is phrenology a thing here? If so, you are in for a world of hurt.”