Chapter 102: The Stolen Face

Marcus

My breath hitched in my throat. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the three black machines. They had my brother’s height. They had his wide, powerful shoulders. But where Julian’s face used to hold a gentle, human sadness, these things were just blank metal masks with bleeding red eyes.

They stole him, I thought, a wave of sickness washing over my anger. They took my father's beautiful design and turned it into a factory line of monsters.

"Do you like them, Marcus?" Silas asked. He stepped back, letting the three black robots form a wall between us. "No soul. No family loyalty. They just follow the data. Hand over the girl."

"Go to hell," I growled, pulling Maya tighter against my chest. Her skin felt like ice through her torn shirt. The purple light behind her ears was pulsing slower now, dragging the last bit of life from her small body.

"Have it your way," Silas said coldly. He flicked his wrist.

The center robot moved with a terrifying, smooth speed. The three barrels of its arm-gun spun into a blur.

"Get down!" Jax screamed. He threw his body sideways, tackling Sarah and Lily behind the base of the crushed iron cage just as the room exploded into gunfire.

A hail of heavy bullets ripped through the marble floor, throwing up a blinding curtain of white dust and sharp stone splinters. I rolled backward, tucking Maya under my torso as the shots chewed up the ground right where my feet had been a second ago. The noise was like a continuous thunderclap inside the closed lobby.

Sarah

I slammed hard against the cold iron bars of the cage, my hands instantly clamping over Lily’s ears. She was shaking so hard her teeth clicked. Plaster dust fell over us like dirty snow.

"Jax, we can't block that kind of firepower!" I yelled over the deafening roar of the guns. "The cage is going to shred!"

"I have two bullets left!" Jax shouted back. He peeked around the edge of the bent metal bar, his face covered in sweat and white powder. "They aren't moving as Julian did. They're mechanical. They don't take cover!"

Through the thick smoke, I saw Marcus crawling toward us, dragging Maya with one arm. His data lines were completely dead, just dark gray tracks against his bloody skin. He had nothing left to fight with. No spark, no weapon, nothing but his bare hands.

"Sarah, take her," Marcus panted, sliding Maya through a gap in the cage bars. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, filled with a desperate, wild panic. "The chip inside her head... It’s overheating. If the satellite finishes the link, she’s going to die anyway."

I pulled the little girl into my lap. Her forehead was burning hot, completely opposite to her freezing hands. "How do we stop it, Marcus? The master controller is melted!"

"We have to break the antenna," Marcus said, looking up through the shattered glass roof at the sky. His jaw went tight, and the deep, bitter hunger for revenge came back into his eyes. "Silas has the bridge link on his mask. That's how he's routing the satellite signal to her."

"Then we take his face off," Jax said, a hard, ugly smile breaking through the dirt on his face. He slammed his last magazine into the rifle. "I'll draw the line on the left. Marcus, you go for the mask."

Marcus

Before I could answer, the gunfire suddenly stopped. The silence was heavy and terrifying.

The three black robots began to march forward in perfect unison, their heavy steel boots crushing the shattered glass beneath them with a slow, rhythmic crunch. Silas stood behind them, his gold mask reflecting the pale moonlight.

"Thirty seconds until the satellite network goes live, Marcus," Silas called out. His voice was completely flat, devoid of any mercy. "The Board doesn't mind a few broken bones. If I have to drag the girl out from under your dead bodies, the results are the same."

I didn't look at him. I looked at the centre machine. The red eyes stared back at me, empty and dark.

Forgive me, Julian, I thought.

"Now!" I screamed.

Jax rose from behind the cage, letting out a wild, ragged cry as he fired his final two rounds directly into the head of the left robot. The bullets sparked off the heavy armour, denting the metal but failing to stop the march. The machine didn't even slow down; it simply raised its weapon and fired a short burst that caught Jax square in the shoulder.

Jax flew backward, his rifle clattering away as he hit the marble floor with a dull, heavy thud.

"Jax!" Sarah shrieked.

But I was already moving. I didn't run away from the machines; I ran straight at them. I kept my body low to the ground, sliding through the white dust as the centre robot tilted its gun downward to track me.

I scrambled up its metallic leg, using the rough, burnt armour plates as handholds. The machine tried to grab me with its massive silver hand, but my small size made me too fast for its stiff programming. I leaped off its shoulder, throwing my entire body weight through the air straight toward Silas.

Silas didn't expect it. He tried to raise his sniper rifle, but I hit his chest like a rock slide, sending us both crashing hard onto the cracked stone steps of the escalator.

The rifle went flying into the darkness. We rolled down the steps, my fists flying blindly, striking the hard gold plating of his mask.

"You ruined my family!" I screamed, my voice tearing in my throat. I hit him again, my knuckles cracking against the metal. "You stole my brother's face!"

Silas growled, his superior strength taking over. He grabbed my collar and flipped me over, pinning my back against the sharp stone edge of a step. His metal-gloved hand wrapped tightly around my throat, cutting off my air instantly.

"Your brother was a tool, Marcus," Silas whispered, his face just inches from mine. "And you are just a design flaw."

He raised his free hand, a long, silver blade sliding out from his wrist guard, aiming the sharp tip straight down at my throat. But before the metal could pierce my skin, a massive, deafening alarm began to blare from the sky above us.

The pale moonlight through the roof turned a violent, solid purple.

The satellite link has reached one hundred percent, and the sky has turned purple! With Silas holding a knife to Marcus's throat, has the final reaping of the lower sectors already begun?