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The elevators were now working as intended. The group went straight to the executive wing, floor twenty-two.

This floor consisted only of four boardrooms, separated by dividers so each faced a compass direction. The elevator spat them out facing north.

Monorail tracks ran off into the distance. Beyond, there was a set of three minaret-looking structures that marked the rail’s terminus.

“That’s the park itself,” Miss Diaz said. “It’s older than the city. More obviously for tourists.”

“This isn’t right.” Germaine held a hand to his forehead. “It’s not towers, it’s supposed to be a castle. A fake castle.”

“Germaine, hell’re you talking about?” Soto asked.

The whole group was staring at him. Surely at least Dan would back him up. Dan said he’d been here before, too – where the hell was Dan?

“This isn’t what was here last time.” Germaine felt a trickle of blood leak from his nose. “This—what the hell is this place?”

“It’s a theme park,” Soto said, matter-of-factly.

That wasn’t what Germaine meant, of course. The Futureplex: the massive interior complex, the city of yesterday’s tomorrow, none of it was what he’d seen as a child. They’d had themed value motels and a few separate open-air parks. The walled compound, the enclosed city under the dome and the sixties-chic astroturf-laden neighborhoods, these were all wrong.

Miss Diaz turned to Vic. “Check the board room. We need that deed.”

Vic ran off, leaving their mutual employer to the ire of Germaine and Soto.

“This ain’t a normal salvage job,” Germaine said.

Soto nodded in agreement. “It’s time to renegotiate payment.”

“The spoils of this tower alone would rival your claim on Cape Canaveral,” Miss Diaz said.

“We’ll get smashed to paste by these automatons before we haul the first load back to the train.”

A thunk reverberated through the ceiling, followed by a loud scraping from the stairwell. A five by three metal block covered in concrete came bounding down the stairs like a doom-laden slinkie.

“Secured the safe.” Vic emerged from behind the block. “Wall safes are strongest around the door. Easier to break in sideways.”

A strategically applied sledgehammer to the back of the now-exposed safe loosened things up. Vic reached in and pulled out a thick wad of documents. Miss Diaz and Vic crowded the salvagers out as they examined the documents.

“Little transparency would be nice,” Germaine said.

Miss Diaz brought a hand up, full of papers and legalese, right in Germaine’s face.

“This is everything?” she asked.

Vic checked the safe with a flashlight and found it empty.

“Deeds, deeds.” Miss Diaz handed off some of the documents as she flipped through them. “Bills of sale, registries with a county government that no longer exists. About half of this is useful.”

Germaine was handed a rolled-up piece of paper. Duly, he discovered he was the new owner of the Devereaux World Airfield.

“Your plan involves makin’ us regional governors of bits and pieces of this funhouse?”

Before Germaine could raise a further stink, Soto stopped him. Soto waved his own gift, a monorail patent.

“A five-way split, eh? If property rights still exist once the states all get reorganized into poor man’s soviets and… whatever’s happening out there.” Germaine motioned eastwards, where a plume of smoke was rising near the front gate. “Well, maybe this trip will pay for itself after all.”

“Four.” Miss Diaz said, nonchalant.

“Huh?”

“Four-way split. There are four of us here.”

Let’s see. Miss Diaz, Vic. Soto, Germaine. And…

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Dan.” Germaine looked about, but the safecracker was nowhere to be found.

“Where was he last?” Miss Diaz asked, dismissively.

“We left him in the basement!” Germaine and Soto said in unison.

“Rerouted the circuit breaker to the tower,” Vic said, eyes not leaving the paper. “Haven’t heard from him since.”

“Aright.” Germaine eyed Vic and Miss Diaz. “We’re going to get our man back, then we’re renegotiating this claim. Don’t touch that dial.”

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“Dan, buddy, you there?”

The radio crackled. Whatever signal it was trying to receive, they were too far away to hear anything. Too much concrete, for one. And the metal shell of the elevator likewise wasn’t helping.

Signal strength improved once they left the elevator.

“Come in.” The voice was so distorted it could hardly be recognized as Dan’s.

Germaine and Soto ran along the upper walkways, skirting the monorail gift shop and food court in search of a workable stairwell.

Below, the mechanical sentries patrolled. Sudden cloud cover gave the scene a muted look of premature evening.

“Good call back there,” Soto said mid-run.

“What, with the documents?” Germaine scoffed. “Had to think fast.”

With Germaine and Soto gone after Dan, there would be nothing to stop their employer from just bailing for these fairytale minarets on the horizon.

It was Germaine that took the initiative, snatching the last bundle of documents out of Miss Diaz’s hands.

“Now you have no choice but to wait!” he’d said on his way out the door.

There were no signs of pursuit from their gainful employers. Miss Diaz had looked perturbed but waved Vic off instead of ordering a pursuit.

“These documents.” Germaine flipped through them on the run. “It’s… a last will and testament.”

In his hands sat the last will of one Dewey Dewitt Devereaux. Legalese pervaded the document, a dense web of lawyerly in-group terms that left the pages looking dense. Germaine passed it off to Soto while they performed recon at an overlook.

“I hereby relinquish…” Soto continued at a murmur. “All patents, deeds, and ownership of the Devereaux World Futureplex complex to my firstborn son, or next of kin in accordance with… primogeniture?”

“That a kind of flower?” Germaine scrunched up his nose.

There was a brief pause as the pair pondered this information.

“A-ha!” Germaine pointed out a familiar stairwell near the international boulevard. “Boss lady was hired to retrieve the last will and testament of Dewey Devereaux and deliver it to the crown prince of this funhouse. Clearly, it all makes sense.”

“Security.” Dan continued to talk on the radio, barely intelligible.

From this high vantage point, they could trace out the automaton’s patrol zones. There was no trick to it; most traveled a simple route, typically sticking to the larger boulevards.

If these damn things could think, we’d have never made it back to the tower, Germaine supposed as they took to the streets.

Traversing the security web proved easier now that they’d planned things out from a bird’s eye view and were beginning to get the lay of the land.

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With the day running into late afternoon, the sun was beginning to shine through slits in the parking garage wall. The scene was lighter, but the shadows were also longer and deeper.

“Killbots won’t be terribly stealthy,” Soto said. “Still, tread lightly.”

Soto and Germaine knelt at the stairwell. Echoes carried far. For now, the garage was silent like a tomb.

“Maintenance is one floor down and on the other side of this support pillar.” Germaine gently slapped the concrete base.

If there were any automatons patrolling the garage, there was no whirl of swirling gears and wheezing motors. Not even a mechanical echo could be heard in the distance.

“They could still be in idle mode,” Germaine said.

Soto and Germaine ventured down a level, into the abandoned truck depot. Even sneaking around on their knees, the trip passed by much faster than that first jaunt into the bowels of this place.

When they reached the maintenance door however, they found it shut. A bright red warning light sat above the door. The doorknob wouldn’t even move.

Germaine turned to his radio. “Dan, you getting this?”

The radio crackled with static. There were less than thirty feet between this door and the server room. But a great deal of this was concrete.

“Come in.” Dan’s voice was muted, as if talking at a whisper.

“Dan, the door’s locked!” Germaine said.

“Security system.” More static obfuscated the message. “-server room. Reboot, then run.”

The radio went dead.

“What’s he doing?” Soto asked.

Germaine shrugged.

“Ready?” The radio said.

Before they could respond, every light in the garage turned off. A muffled clunk near the door signaled that it was unlocked.

After switching to flashlights, Germaine cracked the door open enough to wedge his foot inside, then made for his gun.

The server room was straight ahead, down a long hall shrouded in darkness. To the right was a shorter pathway labeled “To Central Heating.”

A scuttling noise to the left caused the Duo to aim their pistols down the long hall. Flashlights pierced the gloom, but the hall was still.

“What’s down there?” Soto asked.

“Maintenance bay.” Germaine shrugged.

“For what?”

“Let’s not think about it. C’mon.” Germaine motioned towards the middle path of this tri-fork intersection, the one now at their right flank.

The hall was dark, but straightforward. When they reached the end, they found the door and walls torn apart by extra-large gashes. The metal door was bent in at its midpoint with a jagged cut running top to bottom. Something had torn the door off its hinges and threw it against the far wall of the server room.

Only the server racks themselves remained untouched. The tiles of the floor were scraped clean in wide, slimy arcs. Like acid had been rubbed against the tiling with a mop.

Dan was nowhere to be found.

“There was something patrolling the room.” Germaine pointed to the still-slushy acid trails. “At least it’s gone now. Those drone-things likely give the computer equipment a wide birth. Otherwise, they’d melt their own servers.”

But there was no sign that they’d found Dan at all. A wide-open vent in the ceiling was evidence of a quick escape.

“Stay out of the server room.” The radio came through with only minimal interference.

“Too late,” Soto said. “Whatever tore this place up, it’s gone now.”

“I’m upstairs. In the food court,” Dan’s voice crackled. “Smaller bots are in the vents. Hunkering down.”

“We’ll come to you,” Germaine said.

“Stay out of.” More static. “Garage.”

But the garage was the only way up.

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