Vargas snorted. “You were expecting common sense from the people who blew up the world?”
I looked around for a control panel, but Thrasher saw it first.
He pointed toward the wall behind us. “There!”
Ace ran to it, then cursed. “It needs a key. Hang on.”
He whipped out his lockpick kit and tore his power gloves off. “Keep ‘em off me.”
We lined up at the corner just as the spiders started coming around it, their lasers dancing with each twitch of their shiny little heads. We mowed them down as fast as we could, but there were more and more filling the hall, and they were dropping dead closer and closer to us. One got through the barrage and chewed on my leg armor. I kicked it back into the others and kept firing.
“Got it!” said Ace. “Bridge extending!”
He fell in with us and we backed toward it, firing as we went. It was extending, just like he said, but it wasn’t extending very fast. The spider bots were starting to intrude on our personal space, and bigger bots were coming in behind them, with xenon laser cannons. It was getting awful crowded at that edge.
“Keep firing!” shouted Vargas, which was possibly the most unnecessary command ever.
Angie looked back. “Three feet to go.”
One of the robots at the back started firing actual bullets at us, and high caliber at that. Our armor soaked up the damage no problem, but the impacts were knocking us back on our heels. My foot slipped on the lip of the moat. I flailed and caught myself on the railing of the bridge.
“Extended!” Shouted Ace, and the others filed in one at a time and raced across. I pulled myself to my feet and followed.
“Razor,” said Vargas. “Burn that bridge.”
He was digging in his pack as he ran. “Already on it.”
By the time I stumbled off the far end the first of the spider–bots were halfway across. Hell Razor spun, grenade in hand, then waited until some of the heavies started funneling on.
“Come on! Come on!” I said.
“Not yet.” He was giggling like a psychotic school boy. “Now!”
Just as the spiderbots started spilling off our end of the bridge he pulled the pin and lofted the grenade toward the center. It was a perfect shot. It dinked off the face plate of a silicon sniper and dropped in front of its treads.
We all ducked around the corner as the sniper kept rolling, then…
Ka–WHOOM!
The walls all around our hiding place were splashed with radioactive goo and peppered with a rain of robot parts. We looked back around the corner again and saw that the bridge was gone except for two twisted metal stumps on either side, and the robots were flailing and sizzling in the goop. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like even that was going to slow them down long. The spiderbots that were still on the far side started locking themselves together and stepping out onto the heads of their dying comrades — building a new bridge with themselves.
“Fucking hell,” said Angie. “Look at ‘em go.”
“Looks like we got about five minutes,” said Vargas. “Let’s get moving.”
We hurried around the corner, then slowed. The room we’d entered seemed to be some sort of robot fabrication facility. There was a single door on the far wall, and an inert robot on a slab in the middle of the room. We blew past it and ran for the door. It led to a twisting hallway filled with security cameras. Hell–Razor gave each one the finger as we ran past them, looking for a way out.
There was none. The hallway was a dead end. “Goddamn it!” said Angie. “Are you telling me we’ve gotta fight through all those robots?”
“And figure out a way across that moat now that we’ve blown the bridge,” said Vargas.
“Hey,” said Razor. “It was your idea.”
“I know, I know.” Vargas turned back the way we came. “Come on.”
Back in the computer fabrication room I peeked out at the moat again. The damn spiderbots were halfway done with their bridge.
I backed away, then turned to find the others staring at the robot on the slab. It was more humanoid than the ones we’d been fighting, and there were a bunch of articulated tool arms hovering above it like they had just finished assembling it.
“Max!” said Angie. “It’s Max.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but the others did.
Vargas checked it out, nodding. “Same model, but in a hell of a lot better condition.”
We all gathered around it, looking down at it nervously. Only Thrasher stayed away. He crossed to a nearby computer station instead.
“Lemme frag it,” said Hell Razor, taking out another hand grenade. “We don’t need it wakin’ up and joinin’ the others.”
“Yeah,” said Vargas. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Wait a minute,” said Angie. “Max was a pretty good fighter. Maybe we could get this guy to fight for us too. We could sure use the back–up.”
“Don’t be crazy, Angie,” said Vargas. “Every robot in here is Cochise’s slave. He’ll just wake up and kill us.”
“Not necessarily,” said Thrasher. He was clicking through menu pages on the computer. “Programming’s not installed yet. It’s a blank.”
Vargas laughed. “And I suppose there’s a setting for “Not–An–AI–Death–Machine?”
“For custom install, please select Admin,” Thrasher read. “And if we uncouple this station from the local network, Cochise will be locked out.”
“Lemme see that,” said Vargas.
We all gathered around the computer as Vargas and Thrasher scrolled through the options screen.
“Shit,” said Vargas. “Some nice specs.”
Thrasher grunted his agreement.
Angie whistled. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” She elbowed Thrasher out of the way and started checking boxes.
Hell Razor still didn’t like it. “And all those nice specs are gonna cut us to pieces if yer wrong about this.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t I keep the cannon on it when you wake it up? That way, if it pulls any shit I can waste it before it can do much damage.”
“And I’ll give it a remote charge for a bow tie,” said Hell Razor. “Instant decapitation just in case.”
We all looked up as we heard robot feet clattering onto the deck back in the moat room. The tricky bastards had finished their bridge.
“Fine,” said Vargas. “Do it. Quick.”
Thrasher ripped the network cable out of the back of the computer, then stabbed the execute button and a blue bar began to fill on the screen. I did as I’d promised and kept the meson cannon trained on the unfinished robot while Hell Razor wired a remote charge to its neck and everybody else went back to the door to peek out into the moat room. They ducked back a second later as pink fingers of laser fire scorched the walls around them.
“Shit!” said Angie. “So many. They’re gonna give us the bum’s rush.”
“Everybody find cover and get an angle on the door,” called Vargas.
They all backed up, ducking behind other build–slabs and computer stations and training their weapons on the door.
I looked over at Thrasher. “How we coming?”
“Sixty percent,” he said. “Sixty one.”
Just then the tool–arms above the robot jerked awake and started lowering to its body. I jumped and nearly fired the cannon, but then realized the arms were adding the last parts and making their final adjustments. They started dancing over the bot’s metal body, sparks arcing and ratchets whirring.
“Here they come!” shouted Angie, and as I looked up my eyes were seared by the blinding volley of laser fire going both ways.
The spiderbots were pouring through the door at every angle — floor, ceiling and walls. Hell Razor bounced another grenade off the door jam and it disappeared into the moat room, then shook the whole place as it erupted. A hail of metal parts battered the spiderbots from behind, knocking some off the ceiling, and Angie and the others cleared dozens more with sweeping streams of light. But then bigger silhouettes filled the door.