A final fence stood between us and our big payday. It was a bitter sweet moment, our last job before Milo left us in the dust, trading our life of crime for a 9 to 5. But that was future Newt's problem and if future Newt wanted to cry, he could cry into the large pile of money he was about to make from this job.

"The electric fence and cameras should all be down," said Milo to Leo.

Leo gave a nod as he reached into his into his backpack and pulled out his bolt cutters. He snipped through the chain-link fence, making a little doorway for us to sneak through.

One by one, we slipped through the hole. As I straightened up on the other side, I took in the Gilgatech Facility. A maze of bizarrely angled buildings stretched out in front of us, their brightly colored concrete walls were covered in an excessive amount of glass. The tinted windows reflected the other buildings, giving the whole place more of a funhouse vibe rather than a tech company.

Leo led the way as we moved through the facility. As we went in deeper, Leo's fist shot up, warning us to stop. I looked around, unable to see anything, but then I heard it. The sound of some sort of machine moving, the metallic joints whirred, the feet hit the ground with a loud clank. The noise got louder as it headed in our direction.

Leo peaked around the corner, then quickly whipped his head back. His eyes were wide and his face was drained of color.

"There's more robots," was all that he could mutter.

"On it..." Said Milo as he pulled out his tablet, his fingers danced across the screen with his tech magic. Seconds ticked by like minutes as my heart began to beat faster, my adrenalline pumped as the metal clanking got closer.

"Milo?" Leo whispered, his voice tight.

"Give me a second, these ones are harder to crack, I can't get past the..."

"If you can't do it we have to go, now!" Leo said, his body was tense like a coiled spring about to explode.

It was rare to see Leo scared. Angry, well that was he default setting. Stressed, I don't think there has been a day when I hadn't seen him stressed. But, scared, well that was super rare.

"I can do it!" Milo insisted, his brow furrowed in concentration, his fingers were a blur across the screen.

"He needs more time!" I said as my body pumped more adrenaline into my veins. I cracked my knuckles as I stood up, ready to run face first at what ever was heading towards us. But as I moved past Leo, he gripped my shirt, holding me back.

"You've had enough fun for one day," Leo said, trying to keep his voice low.

"What are you doing?" I snapped back at Leo.

"Thinking things through, you should give it a try some time," he replied.

He dipped his free hand into his pocket, pulling out one of the remaining explosives. The machines footsteps thundered through the facility, echoing off the walls as it approached the corner that we hid behind.

With one swift motion, Leo activated the explosive and before it even had a chance to beep, he had launched it through the air. It landed at the end of the building opposite us, and detonated in a blinding flash.

The machine's clanking paused, only a few feet away from us. With a whir of gears, it changed course and sprinted towards the explosion.

"Move!" Leo commanded as he ran in the opposite direction of the explosion.

As Milo and I followed Leo's lead, I took a quick look back, managing to see the reflection of the machine in one of the glass panels, my jaw dropped. It looked like a cat? Not just a cat though, more like a tiger, a robotic tiger. The machine was easily the size of a real tiger, it's large metal claws dug into the pavement as it ran.

Suddenly, two more tigers followed the first around the corner of the building towards the explosion, I turned back to face Milo and Leo, speeding up to join them.

"Were those robotic tigers?" I asked.

"What?" Milo said as he whipped his head up from his tablet. "Did you say tigers?"

"We need to figure out a way to avoid them," Leo said, ignoring my question.

"I think it's too late for that," Milo replied, looking straight past the two of us.

I turned to see what he was looking at, one of the robotic tigers stood at the end of the building, looking straight at us.

I stared into its bright yellow eyes, reaching into my pocket, grabbing an explosive, pressing down on the button to arm it and threw it at the machine. It didn't even flinch, it stood its ground, maintaining eye contact with me. The explosive connected to its body with a magnetic CLINK.

BOOM!

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The explosive detonated in a massive fireball, making the three of us reel back. But as the flames quickly died down I could hear a purring sound coming from the robot, it was fine, only a small dent in its metal remained from the impact.

It let out a roar and ran at us full pelt.

"Oh shit, we're screwed!" I said, looking back at my brothers.

"Get the hell out of here!" Leo barked at us.

But before we had a chance to move the robot pounced toward us. Time slowed as I felt my heart leap into my throat. I watched frozen as Leo tackled the machine, his solid frame slammed into into the metal cat, knocking it off balance. They both crashed to the ground with a thud.

"Leo!" I cried out, watching in horror as the machine's razor sharp claws slashed at my brother.

But before I could help, I heard the galloping sound of metal paws behind me. I quickly turned to see another tiger running right at me.

"Oh, come on!" I said as I frantically searched for an escape from the incoming claws. The buildings felt like they were closing in around me, I looked up, realizing it was my only option. I jumped up, grabbing the gutter above my head. The machine grazed against my feet as it flew past, gnashing at my heels.

I tried to pull myself up, onto the roof of the building. But the gutter buckled under my weight, sending me crashing back down to the ground. I hit the ground hard, as my head connected with the pavement, everything went black.

"Newt!" Milo's voice echoed in my head.

Snap!

Bang!

The world felt like it was spinning beneath me as I felt a hand reach under my back and pull me away from the nice cold ground. I cracked one of my eyes open, as my vision came into focus I saw Milo's face hovering above me like an angel.

"You alright?" Milo asked, concern etched onto his face.

I opened the other eye. "Yeah, course. I was just playing dead, thought it might leave me alone," I lied.

Milo let out a chuckle as he raised me onto my feet. "We need to help Leo."

I followed Milo over to Leo, my brain throbbed by the dizziness slowly calmed as I passed a cat that was now blended with the wall, its head separated from its body.

"Their joints are their weak points!" Milo yelled out to Leo as we got closer.

Leo looked like he had been hurt, bad. His shirt was covered in blood. He grabbed one of the tigers legs and pulled, Leo's face strained as he pulled the limb from the body. Sparks filled the sky as the limb came off with a SNAP! Leo began whacking the tiger across the face with its own limb.

Milo, as soon as he reached Leo, charged at the machine, driving it into the wall. The thud it made when it hit the wall echoed through the facility. Did I mention Milo was a big dude, like a BIG dude. If the coding thing hadn't worked out he definitely could have been a pro footballer, or even better, a pro wrestler! Leo and I had tried to get him to play football when we were younger but he never seemed to care about sports.

The cat blended into the wall, unmoving, just like the one I had seen earlier. Giving Milo his opportunity to get in front of it. He grabbed it by the head, planting his feet against its body and using the leverage of his feet he pulled on the head.

The head came off with a POP!

The sound of galloping metal echoed off the walls, getting louder by the second.

"We need to find a way out," Leo said.

I swallowed hard, like one of those cartoon gulps. I gazed up, looking at the rooftops of the buildings, I wasn't the best with heights. But it seemed like the only option.

"The roof tops," I said hesitantly. "They shouldn't be able to reach us up there, right?"

"It'll do. Milo, keep watch. Newt, I'll boost you up." Leo wasted no time, he laced his fingers together and helped me up and onto the roof.

I reached down, pulling up Leo. He winced as I pulled him onto the roof.

"Show me," I demanded, looking at his blood stained shirt.

I could see the start of an argument about to begin, but then he stopped. I guess he figured it would be useless to argue, plus we really didn't have the time, so he lifted his shirt and showed me the wound. He was covered in cuts, but he had one large gash on his side that looked really bad. I felt my lunch begin to rise in my throat as I looked at the gash.

"Milo!" I yelled, heading over to the edge of the roof. He ignored me and continued looking in the direction of the metal galloping growing louder.

"Milo!" Leo shouted as he walked over to stand beside me.

Milo snapped out of his trance, turning to face us. "Oh, shit."

He ran over as Leo and I reached down and pulled him onto the roof just as the robotic cats reached our locatioN.

"I can't hack these things," Milo said, like he was admitting to a crime. "They're too advanced."

"Forget about it," Leo said in the most comforting way that Leo could.

"Show him," I said to Leo.

Leo lifted his shirt to show Milo the damage.

Milo's eye's widened at the sight. "Shit Leo, that looks awful!"

"Thanks," Leo grunted as he lowered his shirt back down.

"We need to treat that now," Milo said as he pulled out a first aid kit from his satchel.

"We don't have time," Leo said.

"You won't have any time at all if you die from blood loss. We need to take care of it now."

"Fine, but be quick," Leo said, needing to get the last word in.

I walked over to the edge of the building, or as close to the edge as I was willing, to keep an eye on the tigers below. Milo and Leo argued behind me as I counted the tigers.

Eight, there were eight of them circling the building but I could also hear more coming. The menacing machines circled around the building like sharks circling its prey.

"Newt," Milo called over to me after a few minutes. "You should be good for now," he said to Leo.

Leo nodded as he pulled his shirt down over his bandaged torso. "Let's go."

We ran along the roof tops, our feet pounded on the metal as we jumped from building to building, the sound of the tigers followed us below.

I skidded to a halt, my eyes wide with horror as I noticed a paw reach up onto the roof of the building.

"That can't be good."

Leo and Milo stopped, turning to see what I was talking about. The machines had figured out how to scale the walls with their claws. Their mechanical yellow eyes glowed in the night as they joined us on the roof.

"Go!" Leo barked.

Milo took the lead as we began to run again. He pointed to a large building in what seemed to be the middle of the facility.

"There, that's it over there!" Milo said as he pivoted, running in the direction he was pointing.

It was the only building that was multiple stories tall and somehow managed to look even goofier then the other buildings surrounding it. Leo and I followed close behind Milo, dodging the tigers as they came at us from every direction.

Milo charged at one of the tigers that was blocking the path, bringing his shoulder to its head. The machine flew back, losing its grip on the roof and plummeted to the ground below.

"These things just don't quit," I said as I duked one faking going left, but instead rotating around it to the right.

"Just, keep, moving," Leo yelled, pushing forward with heavy breaths.

Suddenly, a tiger lunged at me from the darkness. I tried to dodge it, but I had noticed it too late and I tripped trying to get out of the way. The metal cat tackled me off of the roof and our bodies hurled to the ground.

"Help!" My desperate cry echoed through the facility as I fell through the air.