The windows shattered in an instant.

As a barrage of blasts peppered the room, Scrap flung Morten’s cape into the air. He and Paige rolled off the sofa, dragging Gnat with them. The hunter spotted the cape before his targets – he banked his flight-cycle, blasting a hole through the starry fabric as Scrap and the humans raced across the room.

“Get behind him!” cried Scrap, jabbing a finger in the direction of Morten Prometheus. “Go, go -zk- go!”

“Ruuuuuun!” Gnat added unnecessarily. The trio frantically zigzagged as the hunter’s continuous volley blasted everything in sight. By the time they threw themselves behind the slumbering Morten, almost everything in the room had been smashed, seared or blown to pieces.

“Don’t move!” insisted Scrap as he, Paige and Gnat huddled behind his former case. Shots were already ricocheting off Morten’s case, leaving dark scorch marks.

“Morten!” he yelled, banging on the robot’s back. “Wake up and fight, for cog’s sake!”

Morten did not stir. Scrap checked the display on Morten’s power battery.

“That’s plenty of -zk- power, you lazy gub! Wake up!” Scrap screamed as Morten’s case took more fire.

Finally, the bombardment stopped. Thick smoke and the smell of whatever little remained of Morten Prometheus’s precious things filled the air. The sound of the blasting echoed and faded, leaving only the grating hum of the hunter’s flight-cycle, still hovering outside the shattered window.

“Paige, he shot the Food-O-Copier,” Gnat whispered, pointing to a mangled mess of metal surrounded by crushed cupcakes. Paige slapped her hand over her sister’s mouth.

“Shhhh…” she mouthed silently. “Don’t. Make. A. Sound.”

“Scra-ap… Oh, Scraa-aaap! You and the slimers still alive in there?” said Terry, his voice unnervingly sing-song as he peered through the smoke. “Tell you what, send the humans out and I’ll consider abandoning my plans for your slow and agonizing death…”

The rumble of engines grew suddenly louder. Scrap peeked out from behind Morten’s leg – through the haze of smoke he saw Terry pilot the flight-cycle through the shattered window and into Morten’s flat. It moved slowly through the room, a metre above the floor.

As K1-NG, Scrap thought, he would have faced his enemy regardless of numbers, strength or firepower, rolling his great shoulders with a smirk, ready for whatever they threw at him. Now the very best he could hope to do was buy a little time. He scanned the battery’s readout.

Think,” Scrap muttered to himself.

“Grenade’s in my bag,” whispered Paige, pointing across the room to the smoking remains of Morten’s mountain of books. “If you can reach it—”

“I’m not runnin’ out there just to get -zk- shot! And even if by some slim chance I don’t get shot, I’m not about to blow us all … to … kingdom…” Scrap trailed off as he stared at the ruined Food-O-Copier, then across the floor, strewn with cupcakes and peppered with blast marks. “Wait,” he whispered to himself. “Wait a -zk- minute…”

“I can heeear yooou,” cried Terry over the hum of the flight-cycle’s engines. He edged ever closer to Morten’s case, cannons aimed and ready to fire. “Come out, Scrap! Come out, come out, wherever you—”

“Don’t -zk- shoot!” Scrap cried, limping uneasily out from behind Morten Prometheus. His right arm was held aloft.

“What happened to you, junk case? Just when I didn’t think you could look any more past your upgrade date…” Terry sneered, his flight-cycle pivoting in the air. “Now be a good barely ’bot and send out the humans, or I’ll do us both a favour and junk that case of yours for good.”

“I have a -zk- better idea,” said Scrap defiantly, and raised his hand higher. “Turn tail and run … or I’ll send us all to ’bot heaven.”

The hunter squinted in the fog of smoke. The little robot held something in his hand. Terry bristled.

“What do you have there, junk case…?” he asked.

“A little somethin’ I -zk- stole from your sister,” said Scrap. “May she rest in the Pile.”

“You shut up about my sister!” Terry roared, peering closer at Scrap’s hand. “A grenade?” he scoffed. “What, are you going to blow us up, junk case? And your stink human friends? I don’t think so. You’re bluffing, is what I think.”

“Maybe I am bluffin’,” said Scrap. “Or maybe I’ve been tryin’ to get rid of those humans since they found me. Maybe I’m the one ’bot on Somewhere Five One Three who has nothing to -zk- lose…”

The hunter paused, his flight-cycle hovering.

“…Robots don’t junk robots,” said Terry.

“That’s more of a -zk- suggestion,” Scrap replied. At last, Terry’s flight-cycle backed off, reversing towards the window.

“You – you’ve not seen the last of me, junk case,” the hunter insisted, his voice shaking a little. “I’ll be back to get my trophies, and send you back to your maker. And next time, you won’t even see me—”

Terry stopped in his tracks. Scrap followed his line of sight to the floor. The Food-O-Copier™ lay singed and blasted, and surrounded by charred confectionary.

Terry looked back at Scrap’s hand.

“Wait … is that … a cupcake…?” he hissed, his voice boiling with rage. “You sneaky little junk—”

The hunter did not even see Morten’s fist coming. The giant moved with such speed that he was all but a blur of silver and blue. Before Terry knew what was happening, he’d been struck so hard in the chest that he flew from his flight-cycle, across the room and out of the window. As the cycle crashed into a corner, a panicked cry echoed through the air, growing fainter until they heard a final, tinny clang of robot hitting pavement.

“You took your precious -zk- time,” tutted Scrap.

“Was Morten supposed to hit him?” Morten asked Scrap, nervously tapping his chin with his fingers. “It felt like the right thing to do since he was pointing a gun at you.”

“You did -zk- fine,” Scrap grunted. “But that doesn’t make up for you -zk- lockin’ us up in here! Stinkin’ gub, what’s the big idea, keepin’ us prisoner in your playroom?”

“Morten … wanted you to stay,” said Morten with an awkward shrug. “Sorry if you were—”

Morten interrupted himself with a scream so high and shrill that it shorted out one of Scrap’s ears, as he surveyed his devastated room in horror. “The things…” he burbled. “All of the wonderful, precious things…”

“That wasn’t actually our fault – a lot has happened since you took a nap,” said Gnat, stepping out from behind Morten’s leg with a slightly singed, green-furred teddy bear in her hand. “Can I keep this?”

Morten Prometheus turned and came face to face with his very first human.