Lab one was… a lot. The large room was lined with cages, enclosures full of all sorts of creatures. Four-winged birds, large mammals with tentacle trunks, large bipedal things that looked like a cross between a dragon and a big tusked nose. But there were familiar creatures: two little furry dinosaurs and even a familiar kind of primate. It was a zoo, or at least a holding area.”

Everyone was in the process of searching the place. Ransacking cupboards, pulling open drawers and sifting through the various small fridges that lined the far wall.

It had been a slow process blowing up all the doors. I couldn’t hear properly anymore, and I doubted I was the only one. Two more working joes had attempted an ambush, but this time, everyone had been prepared. Except for the routine explosions, everything had been straightforward.

Time was still of the essence; surely Matthew was plotting something.

I slid open a refrigerated drawer, pulling out a container full of… embryos? Small and undeveloped in a little cylindrical pan thing. Just what exactly was being done here?

A mechanical whirr began.

“On your left!” McLaren yelled, just enough of a warning for the man to collapse out of the way as the descending pincer crane snapped closed on nothing. The man scrambled to find purchase under him, firing his rifle up into the ceiling.

“Stop shooting!” Tobias snapped. “It’s a mechanical claw, just move.”

But the man was trigger-happy, much faster at pulling a trigger than scrambling out of the way. The claw cramped down around his leg, lifting him up into the air with a shout.

“Shut the damn thing off!” Tobias yelled at Nylund.

“I can’t,” she hissed, “the fucking android is overwriting everything.”

“Everyone out!” yelled Tobias, waving at us. I didn’t need to be told twice.

The last thing I saw before I ran out of the room was the man being tossed into the air, caught by pincers pressing against his chest, and then crushed. A scream accompanied a bone-splitting crack; he slumped mercifully.

I leaned against the wall, trying to calm my pounding heart and my trembling hands. Three, we had lost three now. But we couldn't leave yet.

Antidote, repair pod, escape.

Antidote, repair pod, escape.

“I’m okay,” I told Nicole shakily before she could check in. “I’m okay.”

“Well, that was a bust,” Tobias muttered, keeping his rifle trained on the doorway as everyone hurried into the hall.

“Sir, accessing the central intelligence would allow us to access all of the research indirectly; we could find out what they’ve been up to and what to look for,” Nylund suggested.

Tobias nodded, then shook his head. “An antidote is hardly going to be kept with the artificial intelligence,” he pointed out. “We can’t split up. We’ve only got one demolition expert, and we’re running out of explosives.”

“Lord Barrick,” Nicole piped up, looking at the floor plan. “Perhaps Lieutenant Nylund and I would be able to gain access to the central intelligence. We are both… computer people.”

“I’ll go too,” I chimed in, holding up my rifle. “They’ll need backup.”

Everyone looked at me for a moment. I was fairly sure I did a good job at not shrinking from the attention. I wasn’t going to leave Nicole, and according to the floor plan, robotics was that way; presumably, that's where we could find a repair pod.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Nylund shrugged.

“Fine,” Tobias grimaced. “McLaren, you’re coming with us; you three go with them. That's two even groups of six.”

Our group had less firepower, but they might stumble upon monsters. Hopefully, the injured officer wouldn’t slow us down. But then again, who knew if we could even get any of the doors open?

“Let's move people, daylight wasting, and I will not be hunted by those monsters on the way back!” Tobias rallied.

And then we were off with a tentative plan. We all backtracked before splitting off back in that initial hallway. Tobias’ group got ready to blow the door while Nicole and Nylung fiddled with the door.

“I think you should split up into more groups,” Matthew spoke over the speaker system. “Or better yet, leave. More of you will die otherwise.”

Another damn explosion echoed as Tobias’ team headed towards lab two and the cryo lab.

“Any luck?” I asked anxiously.

“Yup, I think so. It just takes a little time,” Nylund replied, seeming pleasantly surprised as the wires Nicole connected had some effect,

We didn’t have time, but there was no point in stressing it.

After a few minutes, the panel flashed green, and the door slid open.

“Look at that,” Nicole chuckled.

Nylund promptly smashed the panel before it could slide closed. Apparently, that would keep it open? It seemed rather unlikely to me, but she was the tech person.

We entered some kind of service room. Tables cluttered with machinery and mechanical arms. Several working joes were in a standing position, seemingly dormant, plugged into a large machine.

“Nicole,” I pointed. “Repair pods.”

Nicole just subtly shook her head. “Working joe stations not–”

All three working joes woke up, eyes flashing red as they began to disconnect themselves.

I raised my rifle and pulled the trigger. The kick back sent me stumbling slightly. I missed, instead hitting the machine. Something flashed bright before there was a loud bang; all three working joes began twitching uncontrollably before collapsing to the ground. Smoke rose from all three.

“Badass,” Nylund smirked, pulling out her hammer.

Nicole smiled at me.

I just stared at the rifle. How had I done that? What had I even done? I wasn’t going to complain, but that had been… cartoonish. The working joes might be sturdy, but they were cheap; clearly, they had a few weaknesses. I had fucked something important up with that shot. If only we could fry them all so easily.

The room was filled with the sound of android smashing.

Well, the charging station thingy definitely was no good anymore. But there was a bigger problem: we needed to find Matthew because we needed his repair pod.

“Though there should be central intelligence,” Nylund stood, wiping sweat from her brow before she walked to the next door. Nicole quickly joined her, and they began the next hacking thingy.

The second officer walked over and kicked one of the smashed working joes. The other two civilians looked remarkably less scared than I felt. They both were keeping an eye on the door we had come from. We had a working little team here.

Matthew was presumably in the command centre, which was just beyond the central intelligence. Maybe his repair pod was there, too. We had a handle on all this; surely, there would be a reason to go in there, at the very least, just to destroy Matthew after everything he had done.

Except… they were just going to blow this place up once we got the antidote.

Fuck. We had to derail this in just the right way. We couldn’t give up our chase to get one. There literally weren't any others on the whole planet. I couldn’t risk waiting months; so much could happen. No, it had to be today. It had to be now.

I would think of something.

The door led us to a weirdly cramped hallway, carefully continuing, though we stepped out into the catwalk of a weirdly circular room. It was lined with square panels, each blinking with countless small lights. The whole room had a yellow glow, the central intelligence that ran this facility humming as machinery and fans powered the supercomputer. A core was below the very center, a black sphere of technology, the heart of all this. The catwalk met four other branches in the middle, which led to their own doors on all four sides of this place.

“Wow,” I muttered, the air tasted metallic.

Nylund hurried over to the console at the centre of this weird blinking room. She plugged her tablet into it and started working. Nicole gave me a smile and then went to help.

With four of us remaining, we were each forced to guard one door. It was horrible, staring at the sliding panel with the tiniest of windows. On edge for it to happen any moment, to have to shoot at something. But none of them did.

I let out a slow breath, glancing back at Nicole and Nylund, who were discussing something.

With a thunk, all four doors slid open simultaneously.

“Fuckk,” the officer muttered. “Everyone, get ready. Nylund, hurry the hell up.”

“We’re working on it,” Nylund reported. “This place has security.”

“Were gonna–” the officer’s words were drowned out by his rifle as he fired down the hallway he was guarding.

Shittt.

My attention was torn away by other gunfire, only to then realize I was tasked with defending my own hallway. I turned to see a working joe marching towards me.

I let out a trembling breath and fired my rifle. It kicked back painfully into my shoulder, but it hit it. I hit it! The working joe jerked slightly as the bullet hit its centre mass. Yes! I did it!

The working joe continued to march towards me.

Ohhh fuck.

I fired again, and again. One miss, another sunk into the thing's jumpsuit. I tried to fire again, but the trigger wouldn’t pull. Was it jammed? I didn’t know how to use a fucking gun!

“Help!” I squeaked; it was a yell, but a very sad one.

“I got ya,” the officer yelled. “Get down.”

I dropped to the catwalk, my rifle clattering over the side as I scrambled out of the way without a second thought. Fuck.

Gunshots echoed all around me. The working joe stiffly hit the ground just a few feet away.

“We’re clear!” the officer yelled. “But keep an eye on the doors!”

I tried to get up, but my hands were shaking too much. A hand pressed against my cheek, and I looked up into Nicole's eyes.

“You’re okay,” she reassured me. “You’re okay. You did good,” she nodded, helping me up. I clung to the rail.

“She dropped her rifle,” one of the civilians muttered. “What are we gonna do now?”

“Take this,” the officer said, holding out his hammer.

You had to be fucking kidding me.

“Here,” Nicole said instead, pressing her pistol into my palm. “Just point and click. Low recoil, but a low punch. You have 20 rounds. You’ll have to aim for the head. Don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you’re about to shoot? Okay?”

I nodded, gripping the handle tightly. “T-Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Of course, Elsy,” she smiled, reaching down and untucking her pant leg. She pulled out an even smaller gun from a little holster around her ankle. I stared in disbelief. Just how many weapons was she hiding?

“Good,” the officer approved. “Nylund, how's it going?”

“Give me a fucking minute,” she grumbled. “This takes time. I literally can’t rush this shit.”

But no more working joes came, even as painstaking minutes began to tick by. I held Nicole’s gun tightly, aiming at the doorway just in case.

Nicole squeezed my shoulder and returned to helping Nylund. If anyone was curious about how attentive she was with me, no one said anything. We were practically in the midst of a firefight, and I was honestly a little glad they had bigger things to worry about.

“I am running out of working joes,” Matthew crackled over the speaker, sounding a tad frustrated. “As this facility must remain functional, you are leaving me with little choice but to release something more lethal. This is yet another announcement. If you leave, you might live. Otherwise, I will ensure your death to the greatest extent of my abilities.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. We had come this far; I was not turning back now.

“Got it,” Nylund chirped happily. “Let’s see what we're looking for.”