Aurora nodded to herself.  Usually the eager reporter was quick to get back with Aurora, but she hadn’t responded to her call yet, and the reason why she hadn’t was apparent.  Chuntao had investigated a few things on her own and found Mr. Mechanical’s… no… Mechanica’s base.  Aurora was certain that she would resurface at some point, but not knowing how much time she had, the superhero knew that she had to get moving.

 

Slipping back up along the passageway, she looked around the floor, staying just out of sight of the probes.  She worked up a route that would take her a bit further onto the floor and to a vantage point.  Slipping back in after a drone passed, she followed it, working her way along the floor between the machines up to where she was able to clamber up.  She was quick to haul herself up and slide into the deep shadows between its moving parts.  Another drone hovered past and Aurora clambered up the rest of the way to where she could get a good look.  There still wasn’t a single robot in sight with a feminine shape, but there also weren’t any structures that looked like cells in this room.

 

Aurora climbed down, returning to her hiding place so she could consider.  She regretted the idea, but talking to Mr. Mechanibot might be the only way she would find out more about Mechanica and where Chuntao was being held unless she wandered.  If she blew up this clone’s body like she had the last to drag his head out to Utility, maybe he’d be able to hack him and get what she needed, but that would take time that she may not have.  Aurora smiled resolutely.  The time for maneuvering was past.

 

Climbing up again, she let her power erupt after she confirmed the locations of all the sentries. Spinning, she sent a flurry of blasts in every direction to demolish every single robot in sight, filling the room with brilliant light. It looked like small comets were flying all around, hitting one robot after the other, slamming them into the machinery and blowing them apart.  The room was full of the sharp shrieking of torn metal while the sound of tin cups being drawn across iron bars echoed as the production came to a shuddering halt.

 

“WHAT?!” a familiar voice came from up the corridor towards the control room. At the same time Aurora was already zooming through it. Like a super-sized particle in a collider, she lit up the passage and her luminescence illuminated Mr. Mechanical gaping as Aurora formed a drill from her halo power, spinning rapidly as she slammed through.  She felt the effects of deja vu as she came to a stop on the other side and threw her wings out to stop, spinning on her heel to behold her handiwork.

 

He had some time to plan and was able to dodge, but even so, she caught one of his legs.  She lifted a hand towards his shock-stricken face.  False flesh hung from the stump of his destroyed leg, while his other took some glancing damage, causing more of the fake skin to peel off it. His metallic limb glowed dully in her light.  He wobbled on one slightly damaged leg and the balance act came to an end when he fell over after a valiant effort to maintain his balance.

 

“Ugh… so it’s you, Aurora, the Lady Vanguard! I don’t know how you discovered this place, but you won’t stop my plans.  I have already begun the downfall of your city,” he said these words, but his tone betrayed uncertainty.

 

Aurora shook her head. “Uh huh. I assure you that the more you do, the more attention you can’t afford you will get.  That is unless you always intended to draw the interest of the Midnight Avenger.  He’s already very much involved with this case.”  Walking over to the bot, Aurora reached out and surrounded it Mr. Mechanical in a halo bubble.

 

“I want information from you now, so dish.  You’re just another artificial version of Mr. Mechanical, who died a long time ago, aren’t you?  I doubt it’s really hime inside that shell, since the real Harlan would never install his consciousness in a robot.

 

Almost repeating the last Mr. Mechanical’s words, the robot responded, “I am Mr. Mechanical in every way that should matter to you at the moment,” his words were heavily steeped with in-character contempt that was typical of the man it emulated.  “Rest assured that I will carry out his plans.”

 

“Hmmm…” Aurora mused. “That answers my question, thank you.  Next, tell me where your daughter is right now. She’s not in school, I gather.”

 

The robot gasped, frowning. “There… there is no ‘daughter’ of Mr. Mechanical!” it protested. “Your assumption is only wild spectation.”

 

“Maybe Mr. Mechanical is subject to wild fantasies, but not I.  I’ve seen her.” Aurora grinned as she presented her evidence, “Security camera footage was taken from that cell tower you robots hijacked to broadcast energy in your elaborate but very retro attack on San Isidro’s downtown… well your brother’s. It’s not like you’re the only loudmouthed robot who's been sneaking around… well… the fact is that neither of you can walk anymore, so don’t try to lie to me.  Mr. Mechanical wanted a child he could create the traditional way, so he made one.  Don’t try to tell me that I’m wrong.”

 

The robot moved to a sitting position in Aurora’s halo enclosure and crossed its arms as its goggles started flashing momentarily.  Glaring at Aurora it replied, “The great Mr. Mechanical is godlike.  He created life from simple machinery, just as God did from chemicals.  You simple simians have no concept of his superiority!  You don’t deserve to speak his name!” the robot exclaimed in Mr. Mechanical’s angry and outraged voice.

 

“Oh, come now.” Aurora replied, “I’m very impressed by what he’s achieved.  Everything I’ve heard and deduced about Mechanica makes me interested in her too. I’m not a religious girl, but to compare your creator with an all-powerful being, a man who succumbed to the same sad death as Marie and Pierre Curie… well, that’s tragic.  Tell me where his daughter is.”

 

Shocked by her words, Mr. Mechanical ranted, “I assumed that you were an idiot, but I’ll grant you that history might be your best subject, but I will not allow you to corrupt her with your quaint and weak notions of the world!  She is currently attending to the last business of Mr. Mechanical.  She will avenge him against his captors and make the world writhe as it turns to dust in the wake of the fire and devastation she will bring!” his voice was filled with triumph.

 

“What kind of revenge are we talking about here?” Aurora asked, her eyes narrowing. “Revenge against who exactly? The Society of Sentinels? They aren’t here.  Harlan died in Meridian City ages ago and his prison isn’t anywhere near here.  So why San Isidro and Seaside City of all places you could have started?  Is it just where you happened to wake up?”

 

As expected, Mr. Mechanical couldn’t resist talking, “Tampering with Mr. Mechanicals warehouses.  The plundering of his archives! This grave digging brought us all to this place! All his work was assembled.  The tampering activated… the wrong devices.  And when his daughter learned that her father died before her birthday… She was inconsolable! You cannot understand! And in this way, she embraced her heritage and will carry out his plans, granting him the immortality he richly deserved!”

 

“Interesting,” Aurora commented. “It was Extensive Enterprises who poked through Mr. Mechanical’s tech, not the state.  They’re to blame for everything in the end.  It was just a stupid greed-driven mistake on their part.  That explains a lot.” Aurora’s eyes flashed to the monitor where Chuntao’s was held and monitored.  “That girl.  Where is she?” Aurora thrust an arm towards the monitor to point a finger.

 

Mr. Mechanical sneered, “We are keeping that nosy reporter in a cell until we can convince the daughter to eliminate her as her first step towards claiming her destiny,” the robot declared. “She has no determined value as leverage currently, and is simply a liability to be eliminated.”

 

Aurora put on her best the Midnight Avenger impression and stepped close to Mr. Mechanical’s clone, “WHERE?” she growled.

 

“In a holding cell,” it said with no change in its tone, “If you wish us to free this woman, submit to the energy transference device we are building to drain your energy.  Previous models have proven insufficient, but this model will not fail.  This is an exchange of lives. Yours for that woman’s.”

 

Aurora laughed aloud. “I knew you’d try that.  You wanna turn me into some kind of human or alien battery in a matrix of some sort?  Tch.  So answer my next question:  how much of a sense of self do you have?  The thing about living things is that they want to continue.  Do you have an instinct for self-preservation routine?  Tell me, what does your existence mean to you?” She reached out and fit the spheric halo prison to his body like laminate as she reached for his good leg and tightened her fingers around his ankle, lifting him with ease using her gravity-negating aura.  “Let’s see what happens if I was to smash you into a few consoles and machines around here.  I wonder if some of them would discharge some kind of hot fluids, or if something would explode… Would you be maybe electrified? Let’s play good and bad cop, but I assure you that there’s no good cop here looking after you right now, because if I must, I’ll take you apart piece by piece until you answer all my questions and set that girl free.”

 

Mr. Mechanical’s robot stared down at Aurora, scoffing, “Ha! Fool.  I am a robot, and as one, I have no fear of pain or discontinuance. So long as my destruction will work towards Mr. Mechanical’s goal, there is no greater service I could perform!”

 

Aurora nodded while waving him around like a club.  “I thought you might say that, but you were made to be a copy of him in every way so you could do something like carrying on his will. Were you not?  That means that you will want to do what he would have had he not died.  What he would want to do is to continue to influence his daughter and that probably means that you also wish the same to forward his plans.  Are you very sure that your ‘life’ means nothing to you, such as it is?  Once you’re gone, you’re gone right, and there are no second chances, even if you’re a robot.  How many of you are left that could take over your work?  Can you truly afford to lose yet another Harlan emulator?”

 

The robot looked at Aurora with real fear in its eyes.  “If you swear not to interfere with Mr. Mechanical’s plans, I will open the gates leading to her cell,” it said, vanishing its fear with a smirk.

 

Aurora laughed softly. “Cleverbot.  As though I’d let you near the controls.  You’ve already answered my question, didn’t you?  She’s here then.  Thank you.” Aurora smiled sweetly and dropped the robot with a resounding clanking.  He’d betrayed something under pressure as she hoped.

 

Heading over to the computer console, Aurora studied its controls.  With a little effort, she was able to call up a security map of the area, but everything else was password-locked.

 

She tried a few passwords. It was possible that Harlan was a doting father, so Aurora tried Mocha, Haearnn and Mechanica.  After three failed attempts to gain greater access, klaxons went off throughout the facility.  Aurora panicked for a moment, but then when her eyes fell on the screen where Valerie was being monitored, she smiled. Her intuition that Valerie was being held here was correct.  There was a klaxxon going off in Valerie’s as well.  Aurora turned to the Harlan robot when he started ranting again, “Ha ha ha ha! Simpleton! You’ve triggered the security systems, now! You will be crushed by our minions! MINIONS!” it repeated the last word over and over with maniacal laughter. 

 

On another screen a countdown appeared with explanatory text.

 

Warning! Tunnel purge in three minutes.

2:58

 

“A tunnel, huh?” Aurora remembered what the robot had blurted. “That means she’s below.  I’ll go through the walls and floors to reach her if I have to.” Aurora chuckled as she recalled the map and scanned it.  This facility had an underground tunnel as he said that led clear across the bay to the other facility she’d been in. From the map, she recognized the street patterns over in San Isidro where she’d encountered the bug robot. There indeed was a passageway leading down there too.

 

The pressure doors connected to the tunnel were in the process of disengaging, allowing the bay to flood the lower levels of both installations on both sides.  The cells, from what Aurora could tell, were located right where the water would flood, down in the lower levels on both sides.  Aurora nodded thoughtfully and ran, knowing that she hadn’t the time to linger.  

 

When she reached the main floor, she blasted holes through the floor right where she needed to go through.  Since Chuntao was from Seaside, she’d have broken in on this side of the bay, there she should be on this side.  Assuming that they moved her across the bay up their passageway across, they’d have done a lot of needless and inefficient busywork.

 

Aurora pushed her energy to its limits and blasted over and over, opening holes that revealed the shaft underneath.  Dropping down, she rocketed, blasting her way through doors at the bottom.  For a few seconds, she stared at her surroundings. The technology here was ancient and the controls blinked and flashed, looking like they were out from a classic movie-style control room back in the fifties or seventies.

 

Valerie cried out for help and that helped Aurora pinpoint her cell.  Shooting through the half-lit room, Aurora barrelled through a few more doors to find the cells where the reporter was held.

 

“Aurora!” Valerie exclaimed, running over to the bars of her cell to clutch at them.  “Something’s going on! Did you trip these alarms?!”

 

“Yup!” Aurora grinned. “Just a sec, I’ll get you out.  Stand back.  In a minute or two, this tunnel will be flooded with seawater.” Aurora shrugged, since it probably didn’t make much of a difference, since she was going to save Valerie.  If she’d gotten Utility and had him hack the console upstairs, she’d have been a bit less pressured. In her defense, she was reasonably sure that Mr. Mechanical’s password would be something personal and immediate that he was obsessed with. Valerie scrambled away as Aurora warned her, “And brace yourself.”

 

Chuntao nodded and covered her head, crouching when she was far enough away from the bars.  Aurora gathered a great deal of energy and unleashed it on the cell’s bars, directing the beam away from Chuntao so she wouldn’t get hit by shrapnel let alone the energy itself.  

 

The bars wrenched with a screeching from their sockets.  It helped that the cell was old.  Running forward, Aurora wrapped an arm around Chuntao to guide her out while the sound of rushing water grew louder.  It didn’t seem like it had been a full three minutes, considering how quickly the water had reached the shore, but Aurora pulled Valerie into her arms and flew out.  She cradled Chuntao in her arms and flapped her wings and made her way above and up the shaft.

 

When she resurfaced inside the main floor of this factory, many large robots were waiting.  Their guns trained on Aurora and Valerie immediately.  Red laser sights played across their bodies.

 

“HOLD!” a female voice rang from above.