The door to the security room was wrenched free of its hinges by the huge metal hand. It wasn’t a quick process, So Kaleb had enough time to get his Cybar and Quad-gun free of their holsters. He didn’t trust the Sun Gun to be strong enough to deal with the robot. So instead, he switched his Quad-gun to electricity and waited. The seven-foot tall robot ripped the door from its frame and stood in the doorway. Its humanoid face and eyes finding Kaleb quickly and immediately launching itself at him.
Kaleb grunted as he dove to the side, sending blasts of energy and electricity toward his attacker. He rolled to his feet next to the security terminal as the charging robot pivoted its attack and chased him. Kaleb had enough time to notice that his electric blast from his Quad-gun skimmed over the robot’s humanoid casing, as if repelled by its metal body. His Cybar left black scorch marks on the robot, at least doing some damage, though.
“Shit!” Kaleb yelled as he strafed around the robot in the small room.
He swapped his Quad-gun to ice and started trying to freeze the big thing in place. But the robot was close enough to take a swing at him now, its long arm swiping across toward his face. Kaleb ducked and leapt backward, hoping the metal fist would sail over his head. Instead, it caught him in the shoulder and he was sent sprawling toward the wall. Arm aching, Kaleb rose and kept up the stream of freezing ice and blaster fire. But the robot was already rushing him again. Side-Stepping again, Kaleb was successful in dodging the next punch, but only just barely.
His cone of freezing ice was coating the robot’s silver-metal body nicely now, and he was sure the thing was slowing down. In fact, the thing stopped outright as Kaleb kept firing his Cybar into the thing’s torso. A white sheet of ice covered the thing’s outer body and Kaleb breathed a sigh of relief. That is until a hiss rose from the robot’s body. A light-orange sheen spread across the robot and steam started to rise into the air.
“Fucking hell.” Kaleb complained as he kept firing with his Cybar and rushed for the open door.
He was in the hall and running when he heard the robot moving again. Its hard footsteps cracked the tiles of the hallway as it ran after him. Unsure of his own speed compared to the robot, Kaleb turned the corner of the dark hallway and crouched by the wall. Aiming his Cybar with both hands, Kaleb waited for the robot to speed past the corner. While the robot’s thudding steps got closer, Kaleb bit back the pain in his arm and chest. He was sure he was sporting large bruises on his shoulder and chest.
The running robot sped past the corner, not noticing Kaleb at all for the next few large steps. Kaleb opened fire on the robot’s back, sending three blue orbs of blaster fire straight into the things back. He made sure to aim for the same spot for all three shots and grinned as he saw the robot’s body start to smoke. The robot whirled and started after him again, but Kaleb stayed crouched and continued to fire into the thing’s metal breastplate. He sent another few shots into the same point again, making the front of the bot smoke just like its back. Kaleb fired the last of his Cybar’s shots into the robot’s chest before he had to vent it and then leapt to his feet. The robot swung its long arm at him again, but Kaleb ignored it as he punched out with his robot arm. His target was the large, smoky, blackened mark on the thing’s chest. The robot’s metal arm hit the side of Kaleb’s as he felt the knuckles on his metal hand hit home. As soon as they did, Kaleb activated his Spike Launcher and sent a railroad spike straight into the thing’s chest plate.
There was a metallic crunch and Kaleb was batted to the side by the weight of the robot’s punch alone. But he threw himself in the direction of the punch and rolled out of it again, lessening some of the impact. As he came up, he noticed the robot was frozen in place, its arm outstretched and held in mid-air. Keeping his Cybar up, Kaleb approached the robot and inspected the damage. The sounds of gears whirring and something hissing gave Kaleb pause for a few seconds, but he pressed on until he was looking at the robot’s chest from the side. His railroad spike was only 75% embedded into the thing’s chest and, judging from the oil leaking from the wound, was the main reason the thing wasn’t moving anymore.
Kaleb reached up with a metal fist and slammed the spike further into the thing’s chest. Another metal screech filled the air and the whirring sounds stopped completely. More oil spurted from the wound as the spike was fully embedded. Taking a second to look the robot over completely, Kaleb swore internally. The only reason his spike made it through was because of the warping of the metal caused by his Cybar. The chest plate had buckled slightly, pushing it closer to the mechanisms inside. Kaleb wanted to get a better look at the things internals, but he would have to move it out of the hallway first.
He was attempting just that when Farrah’s voice spoke in his ear again, making him jump. “Professor?! Are you still there? Talk to me?”
“Shit! Jeez, Farrah. Remind a guy you’re there before yelling in his ear, yeah? Shit was pretty tense for a minute, but I handled it.”
“Handled what?”
“One of the building’s security robots came at me. It was a bigger bitch than I expected, but it’s toast now.”
There was a burst of static in Kaleb’s ears, and Farrah’s tone became a little stilted as she said. “Say again, Professor? We lost you there for a second. Did you say that the criminals in the building took down a security robot? Man, the city is going to charge them for that one. Not to mention TekNik’s lawyers.”
Kaleb rolled his eyes, but nodded in understanding. Remembering that Farrah couldn’t see him, Kaleb said. “Yeah, they overheated its chest plate and cracked its insides. Apparently, these things have electricity dampeners and anti-freezing measures. It looks like this thing was put through the ringer.”
“Well, don’t touch it. All of its internals are proprietary knowledge belonging to the TekNik company.”
Kaleb grunted as he tipped the big robot slightly and started dragging it into a side room. “I won’t, Farrah. But these animals busted this thing up pretty good. It looks like once they got it to stop moving, they took their aggression out on the poor robot.”
Kaleb kicked open a door and peered in as he huffed under the robot’s weight. The room looked like a small conference area, so Kaleb quickly dragged the robot inside and closed the door. He let the big thing fall to the carpeted floor and immediately went to work. He wrenched the warped chest plate off and looked at the things inside. As he did, he noted the heating pads on the inside of the things armor. He also realized that his spike had struck a major fluid line. It carried some kind of oil or coolant to the other areas of the robot’s body. But he had hit a junction at the center of the robot’s torso that distributed the liquid. Or in other words: he had gotten VERY lucky.
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With no care for the internals of the robot, Kaleb yanked his spike free and reloaded it into his arm’s launcher. As he did, he continued his examination of the robot. It took several long minutes and was hindered by his lack of tools, but managed to find several interesting bits of information. The robot had several processing centers throughout its body, interpreting and disseminating information to its limbs. They were located at the joints and could serve as back-up brains if the main cyberbrain was taken out of commission. Which meant the damn things would still try to carry out their last orders if they were removed. But with the spike crushing their fuel system, he was pretty sure he was okay. He was also made aware that his Cybar would’ve worked better if it was a more concentrated blast. The energy balls the thing shot were too spread out to penetrate the thin metal chassis. Something he’d have to fix later. All told, Kaleb felt the time spent examining the bot was well worth it. He had a few ideas for his weapons and how to take down the next robot he encountered. Although he wasn’t going to rush out and look for one. After his examination was done, Kaleb started crushing and breaking the robot to the best of his ability. He needed the robot to match the story he had told Farrah.
Once he was done, Kaleb collected his things and left the room. The dark hallways stretched in either direction and Kaleb sighed as tried to pick one. That’s when he heard the low hum of an elevator coming from further to his right. With a tap of his finger he turned his ear comm on and asked.
“Is there still power in the building?”
“Emergency generators are supporting some building functions, yes. Why?”
“Because I’ve got incoming and they’re using the elevator. Are the elevators specced for robot occupants?”
“Only the building’s freight elevators in the back. Not the ones used by the everyday employees.”
“Then I’ve got thieves to deal with.”
“Why are they heading back to the lobby? They have to know about the building’s lockdown.”
“I’ll ask them.” Kaleb said dryly as he crept closer to the elevators.
With the building being eerily silent, the low hum of the elevator was practically screaming in his ears. The low-light also seemed to make everything stand out more to his senses. When he spotted the bright white numbers counting down floors, Kaleb backed away from the front of the elevator and hid behind a stone planter. The elevator dinged and the doors slowly opened as three men rushed out, winded and afraid. All three were carrying large blaster rifles and even with their shaking hands and legs were still trying to carrying the baring of soldiers. Two checked down both ends of the hallway, while the third watched the elevator. As if something was going to crash down through it.
Kaleb held his breath as he hid behind the planter, gripping his Cybar. But the thief checking down his side of the hallway quickly spun back to his friends.
“Damn it, Chloe! You said these weapons were military grade!”
“They are, Chuck! We were obviously misled about the standard of security in this building!”
“Hey! Don’t put this on me Chloe! I did my research and nothing in the intel said anything about these damn super-robots.” Said the one by the elevator, still watching it.
“Rudy, calm down. The thing isn’t tossing itself down three stories.”
“You don’t know that, Chuck! And I would rather not get torn in half! You saw what happened to Joseph!”
The one watching Kaleb’s hallway, Chuck, looked over the elevator cautiously, but then shook his head.
“Naw! We’re fine, Rudy. All we have to do is make it to the warehouse and take the-”
“What was that?!” Chloe practically shouted.
A low hum was echoing through the halls and Kaleb, along with the others, tried to find the source of the noise. The three thieves quickly became more spooked and rushed off down the hallway toward the foyer of the building. Kaleb momentarily thought about following, but instead, he rushed to the elevators and pressed a button.
“Professor? What’s happening?”
“Three thieves just took off toward the company’s warehouse.”
“You mean the area where TekNik houses most of its robots?”
“Do they? Well, that’s interesting to know.”
“And what are you doing?”
“Taking the elevator up to the C-suites. I still have a job to do, right?”
“Professor, the warrant is burned, remember? They could blame the results of your investigation on the break-in.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t discount anything I find. I mean, it will with the police, but any information is helpful and maybe we can plan better with what I find.”
Farrah sighed as another burst of static hit their comms. “I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear that. All that I know is that you're going to the upper floors to deal with the thugs, okay?”
Kaleb nodded. “Speaking of thugs, these guys were somehow aware of TekNik’s security measures. I think they grossly underestimated the robotic defenses, but they came prepared.”
“If you can question one near your comm unit, you might get credit for helping the investigation.”
“Won’t that alert TekNik to our investigation?”
“I think we can trust the Austin PD to be discrete. It’s a different department from the one at Blue Bluff.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Kaleb said as he got into an elevator and pressed the top floor button.
The doors shut themselves and the carriage lurched as the elevator rocketed upward. Kaleb was sure he heard the sounds of shouting and fighting as he passed each floor and was afraid that someone would press the elevator button. But his journey went unimpeded until the doors opened onto the fifth floor, which was an utter war zone.
Blast of laser fire crisscrossed in front of the elevator as loud thudding footsteps echoed across tiled floors. Humans and aliens screamed in pain and defiance as they fought the silent robotic guardians of the building. Kaleb gulped as he crouched low and brought his Cybar up. Two giant robots ran past his open door as more laser fire splashed against their body. Smoking holes were left from the shots, but their placement wasn’t near anything damaging. Making a note of the strength of the thieves’ weapons, Kaleb crept out of the elevator and found some cover. The elevators fed into an open reception area between two hallways. The area contained a simple, but expensive-looking, desk along with some comfortable chairs. All of it was shot to hell and the glass windows were broken and bloodied. The security shutters prevented anything from getting out, though. So the bodies that were thrown against the heavy pane glass were squashed between the window and the shutter. A sudden and grim surprise for when the police got the shutters open.
Taking stock of the area, Kaleb found that most of the fighting was taking place down the right corridor, so he went left. The odd blaster shot peppered the surrounding air, but they clearly weren’t aiming at him. His crouched form in the dark would only be visible to the robots… or any alien that had night-vision.
“Hey! Who’s that?!” someone shouted from behind him.
Kaleb swore and looked over his shoulder. A group of thieves in dark armor were juking around a robot as it tried to hit them. But one of the thieves was pointing his way. Bringing him to everyone’s attention, including the robots. The two that weren’t fighting the thieves broke off and turned toward Kaleb, making him get to his feet. He dashed down the hall, heading for the first door he saw.
“Shitshitshitshitshit! C.O.O? Locked! Shit! C.I.O? Locked! Fuck!”
Kaleb kept muttering to himself as the thudding steps of the robots grew closer. At the third door, he didn’t bother with the lock and instead shot the handle off the door. He briefly got a look at the plaque near the door as he rushed inside and slammed the door closed. It was the C.F.O’s office, but he missed the name. Thankfully, the room informed him of it, although in a heart-stopping way.
“Greetings! You have illegally entered Dr. Phinbar Delacey’s office. He is the Chief Financial Officer for the TekNik electronics company, Austin Division. This room will now go into lockdown and a soporific will be introduced into the room! To avoid headaches, please do not fight the effects! Have a great day!”
“Fuck you!” Kaleb shouted at the walls as a heavy door slammed down behind him.
The robots on the other side began trying to punch the door down, and Kaleb wished for their success. Looking around the nice-looking office, Kaleb spotted a pink mist wafting in from vents placed high on the walls.
“Sonofabitch!”