Before being a scientific research center, Bellatrix had served as a weapons warehouse for the Army, and its structure still gave away its ancient purpose. The facility was mostly underground, leaving on its surface an airstrip, silos, and the hatches that took the personnel to the barracks’ insides; all surrounded by a quadrangular wall of concrete, with four watchtowers at each vertex.

Bellatrix looked like a medieval castle fused with futuristic technology, such as laser cannons mounted on its towers, or the antenna circuit: metal poles distributed around the base in a spiral formation.

On that stormy night, the antenna circuit had stopped working, though, and one of the towers of the building had just become a pile of debris, with fire and smoke rising, so thick that even the rain could not dissipate.

Above the ruins of the tower laid a tank, face up and burning in flames, with its barrel bent and its tracked wheels detached. It seemed as if someone had calculated with mathematical pressure the exact force that needed an explosion to throw such a monstrosity into the air and crash it against the brick column.

The scarlet shield of the Markabian Imperial Army, which had been shown at the top of the tower, was shattered on the floor, covered by the rain. The image of the noble white horse, with its wings made of laurel wreaths, was so shattered it was impossible to recognize it as such.

And the one responsible for the chaos loomed over the mountain of rubble. He set foot on the huge burning tank, and from there, appreciated the incandescent trails of the devastation, the light of fire projected on the runway, and the puddles of water quivering by the storm. Broga had arrived, and so announced that continuous battle horn that was the alarm.

As if he were the devil himself out of hell, the flames danced beside him without damaging him; they just scorched his trousers and part of his purple trench coat.

With that huge red eye, he looked around with the spirit of a conqueror, as if he were about to nail a flag and claim that place in his name; then he descended using the concrete pieces as a staircase and entered the inner courtyard of the barracks.

Suddenly, there were endless clicks and clacks; the noise of weapons getting loaded. And, for the first time, he stopped.

Fifteen Cyclops model androids, all dressed in their work jumpsuits and armed with rifles, had surrounded him. It was a bunch of red visors, gleaming like brake lights, pointed at one of their own. Rain snapped on their bald metal heads and trickled down their flat, empty features.

“Unidentified Cyclops,” one of them called Broga, with that synthetic, crispy voice. “Please report your license code or surrender to be dismantled.”

Nothing.

Broga gave a step forward.

“Unidentified Cyclops, if you continue going further, you will be eliminated,” warned another android.

The Cyclops in a trench coat took another step. The other many Cyclops in jumpsuits pulled the triggers, and the shots flared into the night.

The ammunition fell to the ground without causing a dent in the enemy, though. The bullets either bounced off his solid silicone and metal muscles or they were slowed down by invisible padding that knocked them to the ground as bumblebees struck down by an insecticide.

There was a lightning crackling, there was a flash of energy, and the automatons sparked as if they had undergone a collective short circuit and began to burst one after another. Pieces of metal and traces of silicone that looked like transparent human flesh flew everywhere, along with scraps of fabric, spurts of oil, and clouds of smoke and gas.

More Cyclops arrived, although this time they didn’t even have time to target their enemy with the rifles. It was enough for them to get in contact with that invisible electromagnetic field that Broga seemed to shed around him, to suffer the same fate as the previous group.

Until the flesh-and-blood soldiers finally showed their faces and stood in front of the enemy, armed with rifles, even larger and more imposing than those used by automatons.

Broga stopped again as if waiting for the soldiers to set aside.

“Remember the report,” one of them said to his comrades. “He’s short-circuited and his Directive 001 may be disabled.”

“What’s the matter, you damn machine?!” a soldier tempted him.

“He’s out of battery!” laughed another one, albeit with more anxiety than with ease.

And then they opened fire. The shots flared once again in the night, and this time, they were laser shots.

But Broga slid through the wind with the subtlety of a glider and evaded every disc of light. As agile as an acrobat, he whirled through the air, stepping over the guards and taking them out one by one with flashes of energy. The soldiers collapsed in a sinister domino effect.

Broga returned to the ground, and with the pride of a king, advanced towards the nearest gate of the base. Behind him, the storm washed the blood of the fallen.

A soldier ran up the stairs of one of the barracks’ towers; up there was a huge cannon that still looked intact but had stopped firing. Upon arriving at the top, he found the android operating the cannon with a hole in his chest and no head. He pushed it aside, sat in front of the cannon controls, took aim at his enemy, who was about to enter through gate C, and fired.

The cannon spat out a projectile that went straight to its target, leaving smoke rings on its way and a hiss that grew louder and louder.

Broga detected it coming from the rear; he turned around and spotted it in midair. The missile burst halfway through without being hit by anything; at least, anything visible.

Followed by groaning and screaming, the android faced gate C; he jerked it open and got into a corridor, illuminated by a flashing red light that denounced him as an unwanted guest. Intruder. Intruder. Intruder, repeated a voice.

“Battalion fifty-two and fifty-three, go to Corridor C,” ordered the woman’s voice over the speakers.

New squadrons of men dressed in olive-green broke through the corridors. Turning the corner, they stumbled upon the intruder and stopped cold. Broga continued as if they didn’t exist; soon, they wouldn’t. The soldiers raised their weapons and fired a hundred discs of annihilation that flew toward the enemy. No shot reached him, though; the laser’s light essences were dissolved before touching him.

“No Cyclops can do that!” another soldier remarked, and before he and his comrades could begin another round of gunfire—as if reaffirming his uniqueness—the android emitted a loud beeping sound that caused the rifles to sizzle. Clicks and clacks were heard, but no weapon worked again; those guns which worked with ammo got jammed, and those which emitted lasers had short-circuited.

“I came looking for what is mine,” Broga said, and suddenly, silence fell over in the corridor; only his synthetic voice rumbled between the walls. “Do not stand in my way, and no one else shall die.”

“This is Commander Dubhe,” it sounded through the speaker. “Identify yourself, android. Report your license code and we’ll be able to consider your—”

“I am sorry. There is no time for that,” Broga cut him off.

With their rifles out of commission, the soldiers tried to maintain a line of defense by using their muscles. Five of them pounced on the enemy. Then another and another. Two grabbed him by the arms, two grabbed him by the legs, and while two others held him from behind, a seventh one arrived who tried to grab his head.

“Hurry up, Garcia!” one shouted. The android was a solid mass that was beginning to shake off them; they couldn’t hold it any longer.

“The freaking emergency switch, Garcia! Press it!”

Garcia tried to reach the neck of the android; It would be enough to press the switch to deactivate the controls and… There was no switch in sight. Below the collar of the trench coat, this Cyclops had only metal skin.

“Garcia!” his comrades yelled at him.

“He doesn’t have one!” Garcia yelled.

Broga began to move so abruptly that the soldiers looked more like ticks struggling to latch onto a dog than strong, trained men. Part of his purple trench coat ripped from the struggle; sleeves and neck; the sound of fabric ripping was more chilling than any explosion. Until he ended up getting rid of the soldiers with his bare hands, throwing them against the walls and the ceiling as if they were sandbags. Some impacted the fluorescent lights, causing short circuits and bursts that rained sparks on those already on the ground.

The flashing red lights were blinded once and for all. Corridor C was in gloom; motes of fire fluttered like scorched fireflies.

Before Broga, everyone screamed or died, everything fell apart or burned. Nothing could against him. The desperation, the screech of alarms, and explosions, all contrasted with the deadly serenity of his presence.

In a matter of minutes, the android had reached the inner levels of a barracks believed to be impenetrable.

“Battalion fifty-two has been annihilated,” announced official Liza Grant, verifying in horror the results that appeared on her screen. “Possible loss of fifty-three.”

“Annihilation of battalion fifty-three confirmed,” said another officer. “Also, fifty-four and fifty-five, sir.”

Commander Dubhe approached; his face contracted with fear and surprise. “What is this? I’ve never seen an android like this before!” he muttered, watching the situation on the room’s main screen. There was chaos there; soldiers running from one side to the other, along with the rest of the non-military personnel who sought refuge from the relentless intruder. He turned to Claudia Hosse. “Has the automatic defense system been repaired?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said the officer. “The electrical surge that switched off our radar and the outer antenna circuit continues to interfere with the defense system.”

That sentence summarized two terrible facts. The first was that, without the antennas operating, the barracks would continue to be exposed to other threats besides the present one. Dubhe imagined hordes of Rowdy Ones entering, waving their weapons as enraged villagers with torches, demanding blood. His thought was ridiculous, though, more at a time like this, and he knew it. They had an immediate emergency in hand, and even though it was a single intruder and not a bunch of crazy anarchists, that single individual had already vanquished half of their battalions.

The second fact was that, without the defense system active, more than a third of the defense arsenal was disabled. In these conditions, the computerized cannons, the remote-control projectiles, the electromagnetic nets, and the steel sheets, which can isolate entire sectors from the rest of the facility and buy some time with it, were so useful as much as any corpse scattered in the courtyard or in the corridor where the intruder had walked by.

“What’s wrong with those technicians? Why haven’t they taken care of the situation yet?” the commander asked, annoyed. He’d already given the order for the malfunction to be solved—ten minutes ago!

Officers Hosse and Grant exchanged looks.

“We’ve lost communication with the repair center, sir.” It was Grant who communicated the bad news. “We are not receiving audio nor video from the sector. We believe they’re all dead.”

Dubhe repressed a cry of despair and managed to stand upright; his arms folded behind his back.

“The enemy is in tunnel C!” another officer announced. “He’s at level 1 and moving forward, sir!”

A murmur of surprise burst into the control room, and then there was a moment of silence. The situation was not bad; it was terrible. Broga was six floors above them, a few minutes more and they would have him knocking on the door.

“Well, we’ll make use of our best men,” Commander Dubhe muttered as if he were consulting his decision with himself. He raised his voice and said, “I want the squadron of Grenadiers to take action! Now!”

Officer Liza Grant communicated the mandate through the speaker. Her cup of coffee was half empty, and what was left there was cold.