A-Ka was out of time to study the other port, so he connected the chip containing the main program to the data cable. With a somewhat defeated sigh, he said, “I don’t really agree with calling it ‘stolen,’ but all right… Let’s look at what’s inside.”
Right as he finished speaking, the decoder spat out a densely packed encoded volume with 256 faces that formed a huge, glowing ball.
“If you’re sure that’s it, then we must immediately head down to tell Huixiong,” Heishi said.
A-Ka’s pupils expanded slightly as he looked at that encoded ball. He held his breath.
“Is there a problem?” Heishi studied the strange shape.
With a finger, A-Ka moved the encoded ball, turning it in a different direction. The red, glowing ball was only two-thirds complete, and the last third was blank space that now faced Heishi.
“What?” Heishi murmured. “There’s a third piece?!”
“I-I guess this is something else that Father prepared ahead of time,” A-Ka said in an unsteady voice. “At its core, it’s afraid of the termination codes being leaked, so it deleted this section.”
“Impossible. How could General Liber not have found this blank space? If one part has been deleted, then the command code is useless, so why would he have gathered the armies to storm the City of Steel?”
“But this is the original chip. What General Liber had was just the backup. When he copied it, the entire shutdown encoding must have been complete. As for where that last chip went…only the heavens know…”
As Heishi glanced at A-Ka, the two seemed to come to a tacit understanding.
A-Ka frowned. “Wait—what if the last piece is in Angus’s head?!”
“Quick!” Heishi said.
A-Ka stowed the chip away before the two of them sprinted down the stairs.
At twilight, the sun still shone dimly over the black plains that had been scorched by the fires of war. The captured mercenaries were forced to kneel on the ground in a line.
“Hand our people over,” a clone officer called, pressing a gun to the back of one prisoner’s head. “Otherwise, for every minute that passes, we’ll kill one person.”
The mercenaries were gathered behind the defensive line, but though the crowd’s emotions were turbulent, none of them stepped forward.
A moment later, Shahuang pulled Angus forward and pressed a gun to his forehead. “And if you guys kill a hostage, I’ll kill him.”
The clone officer jeered. “Shoot all you want. The clones have never had a leader. Have you not yet understood? We are all one body. If you kill Angus, anyone else can take his place.”
Heishi and A-Ka ran through the rubble toward the mercenary headquarters. As others spotted them, they began to mutter among themselves. When A-Ka looked ahead, he saw Feiluo kneeling on the ground, hugging Percy with one arm while using his body to shield him. Percy’s eyes were closed, and he leaned against Feiluo’s embrace.
“Feiluo! Percy!” A-Ka tried to rush over, but a mercenary grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him back.
The clone officer who was issuing orders said menacingly, “These are our traitors who were colluding with the humans. Since you seem to care about them so much, we’ll kill them first.” Upon saying this, that clone officer walked toward the father and son.
“No!” A-Ka shouted angrily.
“Wait!” Huixiong’s voice suddenly rang out. There was a disturbance within the mercenary base camp. Huixiong exchanged a few words with Heishi, then said, “We accept your terms. Give us a few more minutes.”
The clone officer put his gun away. “Ten minutes. If General Angus isn’t handed over to us then, I will kill ten of you humans.”
A-Ka shot him a vengeful glare before turning and running toward the humans’ base camp. Within it, he saw that the high-level members of the Mercenary Association were gathered, with Angus standing as straight as a pen in the midst, his expression cold and set.
“Even if you guys kill me now, there’s no use,” Angus answered decisively, as if he already knew that he was going to die no matter what.
“Where’s the part that was deleted?” Heishi asked calmly. “I have reason to believe you have a backup.”
Angus fell silent. Shahuang put his gun away and walked up, grabbing Angus’s collar, as if he was about to hit him.
“Hey, hey, don’t be hasty!” Huixiong said. “No one is allowed to attack right now!”
“I suspect that the encoded bit is right here, in this bastard’s head.” Shahuang pressed his gun hard against Angus’s head as he spoke. “How about we saw him open and take a look?”
“It’s not in his head,” Heishi said.
“I also suspect it’s not there,” that red-haired man called Gerb said. “Just hand it over, Angus.”
“I don’t have it,” Angus said measuredly. “This world is fated to be destroyed. There is no hope left.”
As soon as those words were spoken, everyone’s hearts skipped a beat. A strange expression appeared on Huixiong’s face, while A-Ka’s heart beat extremely violently as he suddenly imagined the worst-case scenario.
“You guys can kill me now,” Angus said. “But if you do, you’ll never be able to find the third chip. Input, output, and execution—the three main sequences. We were each in charge of one part. That last part was inserted into Liber’s brain.”
The same thought flashed through everyone’s mind: Damn it.
A-Ka could hardly think. Liber had already been lost during the battle to take the City of Steel, right? Where exactly were they supposed to find the chip now?
Heishi was silent for a moment, then murmured, “Better prepare for your funerals.”
“No!” A-Ka said. “There’s still hope! Let’s think about it a little more…”
Everyone’s faces were as gray as ash, and for a while no one said anything at all.
“There’s still five minutes left,” Huixiong said after glancing at his watch. “Should we give up?”
“There must be a way,” A-Ka said. “Let’s think about it again… Could Liber have survived?”
“He’s dead,” Angus said calmly. “Every time a clone brother dies, a signal is sent through the quorum-sensing system to Phoenix City. Halfway through the battle—the instant the mother ship crashed into Father—General Liber perished.”
“I’m familiar with the City of Steel!” A-Ka said. “I’ll go back to search. I may be able to find the chip.”
The mercenaries maintained their silence. Finally, Huixiong sighed.
Despite his conviction, A-Ka knew that returning to the City of Steel to find a single chip would be almost impossible. That last explosion had been like an energy wave that’d pulverized even the mother ship, so in all likelihood the chip had already long since been destroyed. Even if it had survived the explosion, the city would have been flattened and rebuilt by now by the androids.
“Three minutes,” Huixiong said.
“Let’s surrender.” Shahuang put his gun away as he let out a long sigh. Within it, there was an endless well of reluctance and hopelessness.
Their shadows stretched long under the light of the setting sun, falling over the blackened plaza.
“A-Ka and I will go back,” Heishi said.
“You won’t be able to find the chip,” Angus said. “Don’t lose yourselves in pointless hope, because what comes with that hope is everlasting despair.”
Tears welled up in A-Ka’s eyes as he yearned for a miracle. When he glanced toward Heishi, he thought that he might have some way to deal with this, but even Heishi seemed to be out of options.
“There are only forty seconds left,” the clone officer reminded them from the plaza.
“Go, Angus,” Shahuang said. “Your duty is done.”
Angus walked toward the center of the plaza, but at that moment, a huge boom echoed in the distance—as if something had split open space-time and was now rushing silently toward Phoenix City.
“The Iron and Steel Corps!”
“The Iron and Steel Corps have invaded!”
“No, not the Iron and Steel Corps! Be careful!”
A huge shadow enveloped the entire plaza as a golden airship flew over them. The clones backed up swiftly; they had no time to kill the human hostages as they each pointed their guns toward the sky and fired bullets of light.
“Percy!” A-Ka rushed out despite the danger of being hit with a bullet. With his body hunched over, he activated the hidden rocket propellers in his boots, flying toward Percy and Feiluo.
“Watch out!” Feiluo cried.
In a flash, the golden airship emitted a beam of magnetic light into the hail of lasers, which dissipated with a hum across the field. All of the guns crackled with electricity before they turned into hunks of useless metal.
Heishi grabbed A-Ka with one powerful arm and, with the other, dragged Feiluo and Percy back into the humans’ camp.
As a whole, the clones retreated some distance, and Angus took the opportunity to run back to his own camp. In the space between the two sides, the golden ship lowered until it came to a stop. The door to its cabin opened, and a middle-aged man emerged, observing his surroundings.