Through the glass, I saw a group of six battle cyborgs enter the corridor. Their eyes shone red, and each held a long baton, clearly intended for pummeling organics into mincemeat. Their steps eerily even, they headed for me.
“I-I came here by mistake,” I said, my voice high-pitched from fear. “L-let me out! Or I’ll call the police!”
The cool female voice gained a harder edge. “You are currently on corporate premises, and thus subject to corporate law. Please, prepare for an iris scan.”
That was true. Zenkyoza lobbied for that law and won. Once in their building, I was at their mercy, and the police had no jurisdiction here.
This was all a trap designed to catch and probably disappear people like me. I stared with helpless terror at the robots marching toward me, and remembered Zenkyoza had no qualms about trying to get me killed even back in the States. Here on their home turf, they could do anything to me.
“Let me out,” I pleaded, knowing it was pointless.
Suddenly, another voice spoke from the speakers. It was female and almost certainly human.
“Sera Evans. Welcome to Zenkyoza. I’ve waited a long time to get you.”
I shook my head, confused. The speakers burst with static and the AI voice spoke again, “Please, prepare for an iris scan.”
The battle bots were almost to the door. I slammed my eyelids shut and prayed to my dead mother to save me.
I needed a miracle.
“Mom, please. Somebody! I beg you. Don’t let me die!”
Chapter 13
Dean
“Don’t let me die!”
I heard her faint voice through the door, and it was enough to make my core boil. My collar pinged, and I deployed a program I wrote for situations like this, which would continue to block the collar’s alarm every three seconds for the next quarter of an hour.
I had my crush to save, and that required my undivided attention. Now, how to blast open this door without hurting her in the process?
I flipped the protective cap off my middle finger and activated a small energy gun that I aimed at the card reader by the door. It fizzed for a moment, roasted by the charge. The door unlocked. I opened it and grabbed Sera right when the second door opened, revealing an armed Zenkyoza cyborg.
I shot at it with my finger gun, pressing Sera to my chest, and took off down the street.
“Rogue robot alert,” a metallic female voice spoke in Japanese behind me. “Notifying authorities. Rogue robot destroying corporate property.”
“C-Clanker?” Sera asked in a small, shocked voice.
“Stupid human,” I said, running faster as I mapped out possible escape routes.
In my vision field, I maintained six crucial video streams from the surrounding streets in addition to monitoring the progress of the cyborgs pursuing us. There were five, which meant I managed to take one down.
I ducked behind the corner when they started shooting. My notifications pinged. Someone called Amanda, 33, from Colorado, just sent me a DM.
“hey, handsome metal man! how are you doing???”
“Hey, Amanda from Colorado,”I replied.“I’m running from hostile battle cyborgs in Neo Tokyo. How are you?”
One of my hacked camera feeds showed a police car driving down the road I planned to take. I veered sharply left, earning a glancing hit in the shoulder. It was the same type of bullet Sera’s would-be assassin used, a magnetic disruptor trying to upload malicious code to my core.
I blocked it and dumped Sera behind a low wall, grabbing a bigger energy gun from my torso compartment. She gasped.
“Stay low,” I commanded, aiming at the advancing bots while I dialed up the charge to the highest setting. It would fry their circuits until all they could do was beep and go in circles.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
