Hundreds of androids were attempting to pounce on Paine, Daniella, Djanet, and Samantha, yet none of them were able to manage so much as a hand on their quarry, each android who got within reach having its head summarily popped from its body, decapitated with ease by the weapon that Old-timer’s body had become.
Even their leader, Neirbo, was powerless, standing several meters away from the flailing death-bringer that was Old-timer, firing futile shots from his weapon in an attempt to bring the monster down—or at least slow the ease with which it was destroying his forces. One of Old-timer’s tendrils seemed to sense this, reason that the shots were a threat, and consequently circled Neirbo’s arm, easily ripping it from the android’s body and sending the android screaming and stumbling away in retreat.
The weapon slid down the catwalk, eventually finding its way to within Paine’s grasp. He moved from the railing and lunged out for it, grasping it before rolling back against the railing, the bodies still falling around him like trees in the woods, smashing hard against the ground or tumbling over the ledge for what seemed to be an eternity into the darkness below.
“Did you get the gun?” Old-timer called over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Paine responded, realizing that Old-timer had planned it that way.
“Watch my back,” he turned his head slightly to meet Paine’s eye. “Just in case,” he added.
“Okay,” Paine responded, watching to make sure that no androids breached the killing perimeter that Old-timer’s body had formed. Not one of them got close to touching them.
Then, suddenly, everything changed.
The android ship seemed to pitch, its nose pointing upward instantly, the gravity suddenly throwing them all to the side, the limp android bodies falling to Paine’s left instead of downward to the ground so far below.
Paine hooked his arm around the railing, as did Daniella, who was the first person his eyes instinctively went to. The others in their party had managed to react in time as well, the catwalk seeming to have been turned on its side, debris smashing down around them, falling to the new bottom of the scene, which was the back of the Constructor vessel.
Old-timer had latched onto the railing as well, reaching out with his tendrils to catch Djanet and even Jules, the android he’d kidnapped, keeping her from plunging toward the irresistible gravity.
“What’s happening?” Old-timer shouted out as his body re-furled most of his tendrils, his human form retaking its shape. “Did we get hit with something?”
“We weren’t close to a planet!” Jules shouted back. “We were in deep space—nothing could explain a gravity shift like this other than—”
“A black hole,” Samantha realized.
“A black hole?” Djanet reacted. She turned to Old-timer with a hopeful expression. “Like Trans-human! James! The A.I.! They must be fighting back!”
“No,” Old-timer said, his face contorted with dread, “they’d have contacted us if Trans-human was online.”
“It’s not a friend,” Samantha announced. “We have to get out of here. Now!”
“Why? What’s happening?” Daniella shouted.
Paine looked at Old-timer, their eyes locking onto one another in deadly seriousness. “It’s V-SINN,” Paine announced, his voice filled with both hatred and dread. “And anything that hasn’t escaped this ship in the next ninety seconds is going to be dead.”
PART 4
1
“Rich? Rich, do you copy?” James’s voice desperately called out over and over in Rich’s ear. Rich ignored James’s plea for a status update in his mind’s eye, turning the volume down as he led Lieutenant Commander Patrick down the stairs of the command center. Alejandra was at point, her job to detect any sign that Aldous suspected them or could detect their approach. She turned to Rich when they were only a couple of meters away and silently gave him a nod and a thumbs-up before she stepped away, clearing the path for Rich to fire.
Rich held his hands up, the magnetic energy pulsing green on his finger tips before fusing into a ball of light. He knew he had to hit the chief with just the right amount of power—enough to stun him unconscious but not enough to damage the sensitive instruments of the command center or, perhaps even more importantly, the hard drive that carried the sim in which James and the A.I. were still imprisoned. He licked his lips as he prepared to fire, took in a deep breath to muster the courage, and fired.
A second later, Rich was upside down, flying through the air in the opposite direction, headed for a collision with the far, concrete wall of the room. He hit with a thud and grunted when one of his ribs cracked with a sickening snap that he could hear as well as feel.