Chapter 43

HELIO

Something was wrong. Meridian had told him as much, but the Hyperbotics premier hadn’t been able to put his massive glowing finger on precisely what it was.

Helio’s mind raced. Something with Omni. AI? Su-Ren and Tol-Ren hijinks?

“Holly,” said Helio. “We need a full-scale defense of the premises. Against…well, I don’t know, but when I figure it out, I’ll tell you.

…Holly?”

No reply. Ugh. Helio mentally cursed. Celeste was still recovering from her ordeal, and he did not wish to disturb her, but he could really have used her help. Where the hell was Holly?

“Emmett?”

No reply. Emmett offline? That was very strange and probably very bad. Even during the rodent crisis, Emmett had been available.

“Hey,” said a gruff voice from behind him. “I’ve been keeping tabs on Omni since Celeste’s out of commission, and thought you should know there’s a mob of energy-charged I-don’t-know-whats coming from their facility.”

At least SOMEONE on his staff was doing their job. “Thanks, Titus” said Helio. “Let me guess: they’re headed our way.”

“Chaos comes for you! And it’s not too far away.”

“Yikes. Do me a favor and check the door locks?” The Helio Corps headquarters had heavy radamantium doors that would not be easily breached. As Titus nodded and disappeared off to the lobby, Helio tapped into the network on a nearby machine to check the other security systems. He let out a puzzled exclamation. Huh?! Everything was down. The building still had power, so clearly it hadn’t affected that, but all security systems, and a number of others, were offline. He would have no idea if the premises were breached, and no advanced defenses. And no alarm system to notify everybody. He could only hope the door locks were working, but he had a sinking feeling they weren’t — at least not the Shield On The Field™ electronic locking systems.

“Holly?!” said Helio irritatedly. Where WAS she?

“Okay, Emmett,” said Helio. “Upgrade this to a full-scale crisis.”

Crap. No Emmett, either, he remembered.

Helio gave Meridian a quick call. To his great relief, (a) the phone systems were working, and (b) the automaton answered.

“Meridian?” said Helio. “Yeah, you were right about the whole Omni thing. They’re here with an army.”

“We’re already on our way,” replied Meridian, sounding as usual like he had swallowed a scarf. Sometimes Helio was really thankful for Meridian’s foresight. No wonder GAIA had liked him so much.

“Well, Emmett,” said Helio to Emmett…by force of habit, again forgetting that the AI was conspicuously absent…“at least we have allies. Good thing, since we’re basically–”

A blow to the back of his head knocked him out.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Chapter 44

ZUKI

A breeze drifted into Zuki’s second-favorite workroom, on the third floor of the Helio Corps facility. Strange, thought Zuki, looking up. What’s the hall window doing open? I didn’t even know the windows on this floor opened at all! She rose from the workbench where she was idly tinkering with some spare parts, and walked into the hall to investigate.

Hmm…a strange trail of what looked like black sludge leading from the window down the hall. Oil, perhaps?

PuP barked.

“Hey there, little guy,” said Zuki. “Wanna sniff a trail?”

PuP nodded and spun in a circle eagerly, then pressed his nose to the ground and began following the trail of sludge.

It led down the stairs, where she saw a giant man in a scary-looking warsuit across the lobby atrium standing over Helio’s prone body. Garrison?! What the heck was he doing there? Was Helio ok?

Before Zuki could act, Garrison (was it Garrison??) dragged Helio from the room through a side door. Something felt wrong. The tomboy mechanic moved to follow and began running across the room, but all of a sudden the heavy radamantium entrance doors flew open and a mob of humans rushed in. Zuki found herself instantly surrounded. PuP activated his Prowl protocol and disappeared off, hopefully to safety.

What kind of attack was this? How had they penetrated the doors? Zuki had no time to think about this. She sprang into action, activating the rocket thrusters on her boots and jumping to a balcony overlooking the atrium. One of the mob looked up at her, though, and she suddenly felt her brain freeze up. What the…?

She collapsed to the ground, paralyzed.

—-

Zuki could still see what was happening below, even though she couldn’t move her body. More humans rushed in through the building entrance, met by what seemed like meager resistance from Helio Corps. She felt a thrill of delight, however, as she saw Lockwood arrive — dashing in like an action hero from a movie, guns spraying left and right and cutting down many of the…psions, is that what these things were? This mob clearly had strange mental powers, and she wanted to scream to Lockwood to be careful, but she couldn’t talk, of course.

Wait…was that…? Zuki saw a flash of purple and white and realized there were some Omni soldiers in the mix, along with the psions. And was that Aurora…? As fast as Lockwood was mowing down psions, the digital sorceress was somehow raising about half of the fallen to rejoin the battle.

Titus was there, too, she realized, locked in single combat with the Omni enforcer, Elle, who was tumbling around the room with great agility and dodging his sword strikes.

She watched as Titus suddenly whipped out a dagger and threw it into Elle’s calf. The Omni shotgunner hadn’t seen that coming, and she began limping, giving Titus a window to attack. But, almost as if on someone’s command, the psions suddenly turned on him. Zuki watched as the tremendous wastelander collapsed to his knees, his hands on his head in agony.

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

PuP unleashed his massive subwoofer in the center of the room. The psions scattered and collapsed, unable to maintain their concentration, and Titus roared back into battle, sweeping away half of them with a single strike and cleaving Elle in two with another flick of his sword. Zuki watched motionlessly as Elle’s body was reclaimed by the Reactor in a flash of light. She’d be back, but not for this fight. Good — that was at least one powerful opponent out of the way.

Damn, thought Zuki. Titus was no slouch! That Elle woman was one of the best in the business.

“That’s enough outta you!” came a loud, sassy and soulful voice. “Every dog needs a leash!”

PuP tried to dash away, but the voice’s owner trapped him with a blast from one of her cannons and he collapsed in a limp heap. Juno slammed her cannons on the ground and knocked PuP and Titus across the room.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-