He was almost there, just a few more meters. It was his last clip. Lazarus reloaded his assault rifle, raised the weapon with one hand, and began to fire. The bullets all hit Yanny's back as she tried desperately to crawl across the floor and away from her opponent. The bullets pierced her human flesh and tore horrible wounds, but did little damage to her skeleton. Lazarus watched her with satisfaction. She was defenseless. With her knee shattered, she could not escape him. The fun was just beginning. Deep down he loved killing, it gave him pleasure, he was in his element. It was the remnants of the human in him that had already taken control. The range of this human species, which could evolve to the highest heights and degenerate to the lowest depths, was incomprehensible to any normal thinking being. Had he been a mere machine, he would have simply carried out his mission. But now, now he wanted to see his opponent suffer. The Northern Cities had sent more than a soldier, more than a cyborg. They had underestimated his nature. He was a killer. But more than that, he felt like a god.
Yanny crawled on, with only one thought driving her forward: she had to buy some time. The little llama stayed on the ledge, watching the scene with its camera eyes. It couldn't help her, of course, only transmit status reports to the other TRAP agents. Lazarus looked left and right, then stomped over to the wall and grabbed a long, arm-thick iron pipe, a good meter long, which he yanked from its anchor with a mighty jerk. Hot steam hissed from the now exposed ends, melting the rubber skin of his hands over his skeleton. He didn't care, he didn't feel it. He had exactly what he needed.
He marched toward his victim with long strides, Yanny had already left a wide trail of blood across the floor. Then he reached out, aimed for her left shoulder and struck. One, two, three, four times. The iron pipe bent and the shoulder snapped. Damage reports raced through her mind. She could not move her arm, would not be able to continue crawling away. Lazarus took a little more time for his fifth blow and took another swing. Yanny reacted and turned onto her back as fast as she could, drawing the second colt from her holster with her right hand and taking aim. Aiming directly at Lazarus' face, she began firing, emptying all the ammunition. The large caliber bullets crashed into his skull, leaving dents and gouges, knocking out some of his teeth, tearing the remaining rubber skin from his head, and now completely exposing his skeletal skull. The last bullet, however, had the greatest impact. It struck directly into the lens of his left eye, which could not withstand the force of the impact and shattered into tiny pieces, rupturing the eyeball. Lazarus staggered back a few steps as lightning and sparks shot from his now empty eye socket. His control panel ran another damage analysis, confirming the destruction of his eye. At least he still had a second one, it would have to do until he could be repaired. He admitted to himself that he had probably underestimated his opponent. It would not happen again.
He looked around again. He needed a way to annihilate her completely, he would not settle for half measures. The scan reminded him that a large device had been activated in the hall. The shredder, of course. This solution seemed ideal. He checked to see if it was possible to get her up to the hopper and then drop her in. The system's conveyor belt was at a standstill, but that shouldn't be a problem. This cyborg was not difficult to carry. He just had to make sure she wouldn't struggle on the way up.
Lazarus came closer again. Yanny wanted to reload and tried to move her left arm to the cartridges on her belt. It didn't work, the arm didn't obey her anymore, all nerve connections were torn and the ball joint inside was broken. It hung uselessly from her torso. With her leg still intact, she tried to push herself away, but it was too late. The Russian cyborg lashed out with the iron pipe and struck her head in a semi-circular motion, tearing her human face apart and destroying her right eye. Her right hand, which had been holding the colt, dropped powerlessly, letting go of the weapon. Her body now jerked uncontrollably in a series of malfunctions. The blow had been powerful, generating hundreds of kilograms of pressure and breaking the end of the thick iron bar. The top of her skull had suffered a narrow crack that affected the entire mechanism. System control:
"Central processing unit overload occurred, chip permanently damaged, emergency shutdown initiated." The counter was activated and counted down ten seconds. Yanny took a moment to understand what was happening, barely able to process what this message meant.
"No," she replied firmly.
"If the shutdown is rejected now, it could result in the permanent destruction of the entire system."
"I know. I know."
Lazarus leaned down and grabbed her by the neck, dragging her motionless body with him effortlessly. He stepped onto the conveyor belt, its drive wheels creaking and buckling under his heavy weight, dragging Yanny behind him like an animal that had just been killed. She was no longer fully aware of it, as if a terrible movie was playing in which she could not intervene. She could not even reconstruct why she could no longer see with her right eye. Yanny turned off the endless loop of warnings in her head. It was over. She had failed. In this state, she could no longer stop Lazarus, let alone escape. It was over. Then she realized what he was going to do. The trap she had set would be her own undoing. This was probably what they called an irony of fate. The constant noise of the rollers grew louder the higher they went. Finally, Lazarus reached the end of the conveyor and looked down. Directly below them opened the yawning maw of the funnel into which all the city's garbage was gradually dumped. So this was where they had arrived. Lazarus grabbed Yanny by the neck and lifted her over the funnel with his outstretched left arm. The rollers, weighing tons, creaked and grated incessantly beneath her. Ralph was right, she thought. She should have told Harry what she felt for him while there was still time. If it were purely logical, it wouldn't make any difference, because what would follow would have the same result: her end. But her emotional side only now realized how big the real difference was. So there were words you had to say while you had the chance. Being human was so multilayered, so complex and beautiful, and she regretted that she had experienced so little of it. How precious time was when it ended. What would she give for one more day? In the last moments she had left, she only wanted to think of her family. She hoped they wouldn't forget her when she was gone. She could only see Lazarus blurry with her remaining eye, barely able to focus the lens. It was nothing to regret, for the sight of him was that of a human machine, born of an unnatural experiment.
Lazarus hesitated a bit. He had won, all he had to do was let go and she would fall into the hopper, the mill would leave nothing of her. Her destruction would be the beginning of the fall of this city. No one could stop him, no one. But that was not enough. He reached out with his right hand, spreading his fingers and aiming his bare palm at her already broken shoulder. The projectile, which was also a grappling hook, shot out of his palm, piercing Yanny's left shoulder and eating into it with its barbs. Lazarus let the steel cable attached to the projectile unwind completely from his own forearm, releasing the anchor. The bare end of the cable fell down into the funnel and caught directly on one of the rollers. Within seconds it was tangled there, and the incessant twisting motion acted like a winch, exerting a relentless pull. The grappling hook ripped off Yanny's left arm, which fell into the funnel and was immediately shredded. Sparks flickered from her shoulder, where only a few torn cables hung. Better, Lazarus thought, much better.
"Hands up! Surrender!" Abigail yelled, her voice cracking. She had simply run into the control center at gunpoint. In addition to several server cabinets, there was a computer complex with screens and keyboards lined up side by side. Countless lights flashed in different colors, analog needles displayed values she couldn't read because of the Cyrillic script. There were three men and two women. Two of the men wore black uniforms that looked exactly like the clothes Lazarus had been wearing in the news footage. Fortunately, none of them were armed; they were probably all scientists and engineers, judging by the insignia on their arms. Reluctantly, one by one, they all knelt on the ground and put their hands behind their heads. These soldiers could not understand what Abigail had just shouted, but her intent was clear. Then Yuri limped into the room after her, gun at the ready.
"I take over and keep guys in check, you can crack controls," he puffed. Then he stood next to her, trying to translate the terms on the screens into English as best he could. The system was relatively simple, and it was an advantage that the controller was already connected to Lazarus. A few inputs and attempts later, however, the programmer ran into an obstacle. The cyborg's emergency shutdown was protected by its own password. Even down here, deep in the ocean, it was necessary to enter this password so that only authorized persons could shut down this merciless war machine. Abigail cursed and hacked at the keypad, all to no avail. Just then, Harry entered the room. He was badly battered and looked like he was going to keel over at any moment. His short sword dangled from his right hand. Abigail gasped when she saw him. He had made it, he had survived! Yuri's face also showed that a heavy weight had been lifted from his heart for that moment. But his expression immediately darkened again.
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"Password! What is the password for the emergency shutdown?" he shouted at the soldiers in Russian, firing a warning shot into the ceiling. One of the two men in black shouted back:
"We're not saying anything, you dirty traitor!" Then he spat contemptuously at Yuri.
"What's going on?" asked Harry, breathing heavily, not understanding the dialog.
"We need a password for the emergency shutdown of Lazarus now! That's the last safety barrier, we..." Abigail was cut off mid-sentence by a vibrating screen on her arm. Sheer horror played across her face as she looked at the display. "Yanny's as good as dead... She's missing an arm... a leg... Her body is no longer responding!" she screamed. Harry's eyes went cold at the same moment and he staggered over to the soldier kneeling closest to him.
"I'll just cut out the password," he hissed, but Yuri held him back, stood in front of him and looked into his eyes, seeing his hatred and pain.
"These are my people, old friend, I'll do it, I have to take care of this..." With these words he turned and stalked towards the soldiers. Harry reluctantly followed the request and stopped. "Last chance to reveal the password, I'm going to count to five," Yuri spoke loudly and firmly in Russian. Then, without hesitation, he raised his pistol and shot one of the men directly in the head, causing him to fall motionless, a pool of blood forming beneath him. The two women began to scream in terror. "One," Yuri counted calmly.
"Keep it up, you traitor, you'll hear nothing from us," roared the man in the black uniform who had spat in Yuri's direction earlier. Yuri swung his gun around to face him, took aim, and pulled the trigger again, shooting him right between the eyes. The man fell backwards, dead.
"Two," he continued counting with a strange calm in his voice. Abigail whimpered quietly and was on the verge of vomiting.
"1 9 0 8 1 7!" one of the two women shouted loudly and then again: "1 9 0 8 1 7!" Yuri nodded and translated the sequence of numbers into English. Abigail immediately typed it into the number pad of the keyboard with trembling fingers.
Lazarus glared at his opponent. She made a pathetic figure, he thought to himself. She had given him a hard time, but she hadn't been more than a minor obstacle. It was time to end this game. The control panel suddenly sent a command to his nerve center:
"Immediate emergency shutdown." His head jerked, the energy from the generators in his chest dropping rapidly.
"Rejected!" his human brain gave the impulse.
"Immediate emergency shutdown, initiated by base, rejection denied."
"Rejected!!!" His body vibrated briefly and staggered on the slope. Only with great effort could Lazarus prevent himself from losing his balance due to the external impulse. He still held the lifeless Yanny in his hand, dangling over the funnel.
"Immediate emergency shutdown."
"Rejected!"
"Immediate emergency shutdown."
"Rejected!" Desperately, his organic part tried to resist the base's command, caught in a loop of command and refusal.
Music. She heard music. A familiar melody reached Yanny's still functioning ears. It was the theme from her favorite series *Heroes of Ulthrard*. Lama's little mouth had opened and the song played from the mini-speaker she had installed there. The mechanically upgraded stuffed animal was still standing on the ledge, now acting as a fanfare. It was a signal that was only triggered when Abigail sent a signal back to her arm via the small screen. The sign that they had succeeded in manipulating Lazarus' control unit. Only now did she realize that her opponent no longer seemed to be functioning properly. Yes, there was something else, one last trump card. The Russian cyborg had missed all along. Yanny forced her remaining eye to focus and aimed at her opponent's mouth, still half open from the shot to the jaw. With her right hand, which had only four fingers left from the previous blows, she reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the two grenades with the oversized explosive power. Lazarus' head was still twitching, swaying, and his artificial vocal cords were making disgusting noises. Then she pulled the small safety ring from the grenade, clenched it tightly in her fist, and struck with all the force and momentum she could muster. She slammed her fist with the explosive device into Lazarus' half-opened mouth as far as it would go. Her fist lodged in it.
"Gotcha... Again..." she whispered.
The first explosion was powerful. Yanny's remains were thrown far away by the shock wave, right over the edge of the funnel, landing with a terrible crash several meters away from the shredder. Lazarus' body, its head shattered into tiny pieces by the detonation, was much heavier than hers. The decapitated cyborg tumbled forward into the shredder. As the rollers then shredded the generators in its chest, a second, even more powerful explosion was triggered. The fighting machine's power generation acted like a bomb. An inferno was unleashed. The windows of the waste recycling plant shattered simultaneously, sending shards of glass, flames, and black smoke into the surrounding buildings. White-hot pieces of the mighty machine flew around the hall, destroying all the other machines inside.
Ralph jumped when he heard the explosion. Now, he wasn't exactly what you'd call the jumpy type. But he knew immediately that something had gone wrong. He could feel it. She wasn't there, hadn't come back. Why wasn't she here? He walked away from the car and looked around. She was nowhere to be seen, hadn't come running as they had agreed. He saw flames and black smoke in the distance.
"No," he whispered to himself. "No!" He turned and ran to the car and jumped in. Then he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a scarf, quickly wrapped it over his mouth and nose, started the car and drove toward the facility. The engine howled as he accelerated in first gear, driving the old car recklessly. He had to at least try. If he didn't, he would blame himself forever. Ralph walked down the street and around the bend and saw that the gate to the hall had already been forced open. Sporadic flames were still visible, although there was little flammable material in the hall. He only had a chance to see anything at all because the thick smoke had now accumulated on the high ceiling of the hall. Ralph stopped the car, got out, ripped open the trunk, grabbed the tow rope and ran into the hall. He ran back and forth between the fires and the glowing metal debris, coughing heavily despite the scarf around his mouth and nose. The heat was unbearable, his eyes watering and his heart racing. He was no longer the youngest, he had never felt that undeniable fact more than at this moment. His lungs burned. Ralph ran deeper into the hall. For a moment he thought it wouldn't be long before the roof collapsed on him. Then he spotted something between two twisted metal plates. He ran towards it and when he recognized Yanny's remains, he screamed. Screamed in horror and despair. A torso with a head, a piece of her right arm, a piece of her left leg, that was all that was left of her. The clothes were burned, the last remnants of human tissue covering the body only in places. The remains were smoking, still hot from the detonation. What should he do...? He hastily wrapped the rope around her neck and knotted it; he had no choice. If he touched her directly, he would burn his palms. Then he pulled on the rope and began to march, dragging her along the ground behind him through the hell of flames. The rope cut deep into his shoulder. One step at a time was all he could concentrate on. Just get out of here, reach the exit, that was all he wanted. Out of here, just out of here! When the opening in front of him became visible, an unbearable pain shot through his neck. He was burning, his leather jacket was on fire, he hadn't noticed. Ralph dropped the rope, tore the jacket from his body in a panic and threw it off, throwing himself to the ground and rolling back and forth to smother the flames on his head and neck. He screamed again, this time in pain, coughing and panting. The scarf fell from his face. No, it couldn't end like this! Get up, you old bastard! He pushed himself to his feet, trying to ignore the terrible pain in his neck. His fists grabbed the rope again. He pulled on it, dragging Yanny's body the last few meters out of the hall. In the distance, the sirens of fire trucks and police cars could be heard approaching the recycling plant. The first onlookers gathered in the area, jeering.
"Shit, I'm going crazy here! Here they come, the assholes!" Ralph shouted angrily to himself. If the police found him here in the destroyed hall with the remains of a cyborg in tow, they would detain him and ask him questions. Many unpleasant questions. In a situation that was already difficult to explain, his extensive criminal record didn't help. Gritting his teeth, he pulled on the rope again, dragging the smoking body toward the open trunk of his car.