“We did not despair before this,” Feiluo said, “because Angus knew that the chip that would execute Father’s shutdown program was still in our hands.”
“Foolish,” Heishi replied. “Even if you had both chips, they could only be used once to temporarily turn off its nuclear core for three minutes. You would have nothing to protect against its external defenses and the Iron and Steel Corps’ patrols. Didn’t you find that strange?”
Feiluo forgot their conflict and stared into Heishi’s eyes. “What?”
Something like electricity shot through A-Ka’s body as he understood.
“The previous movements of the troops were just a trap that Father set in place via Macksie,” Heishi said.
In that instant, Feiluo’s blood froze.
Heishi, however, remained unchanged. “Macksie was a puppet of Father, and he obtained these two original chips from the Creator’s laboratory. From this, he learned of the termination codes for the nuclear core and lied to Liber and Angus, telling them that this was the only opportunity to completely destroy Father.”
Feiluo’s voice trembled. “S-so…the strongest forces of the Rebellion, including General Liber, were sent to…the City of Steel.”
“Yes. Everything was as that computer predicted. Liber, believing that he could use the termination command to save this world, initiated that attack. As expected, it failed.”
With a click, the security system outside the exit of the vent unlocked.
A-Ka stood. “It’s done.”
“If General Macksie had all this time to lay the trap,” Feiluo murmured, “then perhaps he has long since destroyed the chips.”
“Not necessarily,” Heishi said, his voice not carrying a hint of emotion. “Father hasn’t yet exterminated you all. Perhaps it was planning to use the original chips to lay the same trap again. This time, Macksie was only halfway through carrying out his plans when I shot him.
“Pray for your futures,” he concluded, then he hunched over and squeezed into the vent.
The three of them crawled through the vent carefully. Intermittently, they reached crosshatched fields of lasers. Each time they approached these areas, A-Ka pulled out a card that he had made himself and pressed it against the pressure-driven security system. After he did that, the lasers blocking the path ahead of them disappeared with a hum.
“When did you gain this power?” Feiluo asked.
“After we left the City of Steel,” A-Ka said.
“No, he’s always been like this,” Heishi said from up ahead, where he was inching forward on his elbows. “Even in the city, he was able to develop his own humanoid mecha.”
From afar came the sound of numerous explosions. They reached a fork in the path, and Feiluo lowered his head to study the fluorescent map in the pipes. “The place where they’re keeping Percy is to the left. I need to save him, otherwise he’ll be disposed of when the sun rises.”
“Let’s go together!” A-Ka said.
“You need to find the codes. The greater good is more important,” Feiluo said.
The three of them fell silent for a moment before a rare smile grew on Feiluo’s face. “I’ll save Percy, don’t worry.”
In the darkness, Heishi reached out a hand, looking into Feiluo’s eyes. Feiluo was still for a bit before he, too, reached out a hand. This brief gesture indicated that the two of them had reconciled once more. Feiluo then opened the cover of the pipe and sneaked into the hallway outside.
As Heishi and A-Ka continued to crawl forward, A-Ka began to smile.
“What’re you happy about?” Heishi seemed to be able to sense all of A-Ka’s movements, even in this pitch-black tunnel where they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.
A-Ka grinned. “Feiluo’s a pretty good friend.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Dawn approached, and A-Ka continued to worry about Percy as the sky slowly lightened outside. With one kick, Heishi removed the iron bars blocking the exit of the vent.
“Head down in a moment,” Heishi warned.
The instant that Heishi leaped down, he spun in the air and flicked out an electric whip. With a sizzling crackle, the whip toppled the robotic guards like felled trees. A-Ka poked his head out of the vent, then stepped onto Heishi’s shoulder before jumping down to an office desk.
“Hurry up,” Heishi said. “The guards are going to come any minute now.”
A-Ka began to crack the code for the table, but Heishi was impatient. He made A-Ka step away before he shot right at the table.
The recoil echoed loudly as A-Ka yelled above it, “You can’t break it open with brute force, or the contents will be destroyed!”
In the meantime, the shot had alerted even more guards.
“It’s too late!” Heishi said. “Find it quick! I’ll hold off the guards!”
Footsteps came from the hall—clone troopers. Heishi ran out, and A-Ka trembled as he searched through the table’s drawers, which were stuffed full of documents.
“Who’s there?!” someone shouted from outside.
Right after that, several successive gunshots rang out, and a bullet tore through the door. Fresh blood came with it, and A-Ka’s heart tightened with worry.
“Heishi!” he called.
“Finish your job!”
Heishi’s voice sounded near at times and far at others—like he was jumping from place to place. A-Ka searched through the cabinet in front of him and didn’t find anything, so he inserted his decoding chip into the second cabinet, undoing the password-protected lock.
Would something as important as the termination command be kept in a place like this? As A-Ka pondered this for a second, his thoughts shifted in another direction. Could the chip be kept where the others were? However, Angus’s office was their only clue; otherwise, finding a miniscule chip in such a large building would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Outside, Heishi was panting for breath. “You have three minutes. The guards here aren’t easy to defeat.”
“Don’t rush me.”
Where exactly could it be? A-Ka’s nervousness seemed to have reached a critical point as more and more guards arrived. If he didn’t find this key item soon, both he and Heishi would die here.
All at once, A-Ka’s blood rushed to his head, turning his limbs to ice, and the gunshots and explosions in the corridor grew distant. All sound disappeared. The structure of the building appeared as clear as day in his mind’s eye, every steel wire and brick defined to the smallest of details. The desk was connected to the floor, where there was an activation switch. The circuitry led toward the wall, where it was linked to a safe embedded in the bricks. An incredibly complicated alarm system was set up in front of the safe.
With a whoosh, his perception of his surroundings returned to its normal state.
“You’re still not done?!” Heishi yelled.
Grasping his decoding chip, A-Ka ran to the wall. There was a bookcase there, and after thinking for a second, recalling the route of the wires, he returned to the desk and turned the knob on the swiveling armchair. The bookcase swung open silently, revealing the safe hidden behind it.
“A-Ka!”
“Found it!” A-Ka shouted in response. “Seriously, don’t rush me!”
His hands waved as he turned the knob of the combination lock on the safe. Heishi crashed into the office, pressed his shoulder against the door, and used his electromagnetic light gun to draw a circle that welded the steel door shut. Behind the door, the clone guards began to shout and shoot their lasers, and the door silently began to glow red and cave inward.
“Hurry up, there’s too many of them!” Heishi said anxiously.
A-Ka held his breath, recalling the internal structure of the safe. Heishi turned his head, watching A-Ka. “You found it?”
A-Ka’s head ached terribly. “Ugh, what was the location of the last gear?”
Heishi moved to try brute force once again, making A-Ka’s face twist with fear. “Stop, there’s a bomb inside!”
The last digit was currently set to 0. Anxious beyond belief, A-Ka turned it to 1 before turning it back to 0. He was unable to sink back into the silent ocean where he forgot everything else and could see the structures of everything around him. The steel door was about to be broken through.
In that moment, Heishi said, “Let’s take a gamble, just this once.”
A-Ka’s back was covered in cold sweat. “No way… It’s too dangerous. There are high explosives in the safe. If the numbers are wrong, then the chip will be destroyed, and so will we.”
As the two of them stood there, the future of mankind was like a roulette wheel marked in red and black that slowly began to spin. The marbles of fate rolled full speed toward a final position too foggy to determine. The fate of everything would be decided in this brief second.
Without giving A-Ka any time to protest, Heishi grasped A-Ka’s hand, rotated the knob to 1, and pressed the button.
“Capture them!” the clone guards cried.