“Humans are more complicated than I thought.”
Domo stood over Gnat as she lay, still clamped to the operating table, sedated and sleeping and snoring loudly. “I do not even know how she is making that ghastly noise, Madame Mayor,” added Domo in a fluster. “It’s just all so … organic.”
Harmony Highshine paced her Ivory Tower impatiently. She strode edgily between two cases – one, her gleaming outer shell, open and ready to fold around her at a moment’s notice; the other, the empty K1 case previously occupied by both K1-NG and Morten Prometheus.
“Just think of it as a machine,” she said, not breaking her stride. “You can do it, Domo. I believe in you.”
“Your faith is heartening, Madame Mayor,” said Domo. “But—”
“Buts do not help me fulfil my destiny, Domo. Buts do not help me to evolve,” Highshine hissed. “For hours you’ve dithered, delayed, flapped, flustered and faltered. No more! I need this upgrade.”
“Madame Mayor, I just need more time,” pleaded Domo.
“Time is for stars,” the mayor insisted. “They burn slowly, over billions of years. I do not have time. All I have is impatience.”
“B-but I have never shifted a core into a human body before – no one has,” Domo wittered, his wiry fingers flailing as numerous floating screens hovered around him, displaying detailed X-rays of human anatomy. “All the different elements, all the bones and muscle and blood and such … I confess I’m a little overwhelmed. Should we not wait until I have done a bit more research?”
“I. Need. This. Upgrade,” Highshine said, deliberately enough to shred what was left of Domo’s nerves. She jabbed a finger in the direction of her silvery outer case. “The robots of New Hull get a new case every month – every week – some every few days! Why must I wait to evolve?”
“…Because evolution happens slowly?” Domo nervously suggested.
“Not on Somewhere Five One Three it doesn’t,” replied the mayor. “Either you’re part of the Plan, or you’re not. Now shift my core into that human, or I will find an upgrader who can.”
“Madame Mayor,” Domo began. “I am only suggesting—”
“And I’ll take your precious hands while I’m at it,” Highshine added. “Try upgrading without them.”
“I shall prepare the human at once, Madame Mayor,” he said quickly. The wires on his right hand withdrew into his fingers in an instant, and a laser scalpel slid out from the middle of his palm. A fine beam of white-hot energy extended to form a blade, which Domo aimed between Gnat’s ribs.
“All part of the Plan,” said the mayor. “All part of—”
A screeching noise rattled the windows and shook the walls of her Ivory Tower. Highshine clasped her hands over her ears and spun towards the window.
A flight-cycle rose slowly into view. Highshine narrowed her eyes, to see Paige in the pilot’s seat, her eye gone, a blast scar on her head.
“Alive…?” the mayor hissed. “You had one job, Domo! How could you not realize the human … was … still…”
Highshine trailed off as she peered closer. Perched behind Paige, with core and case miraculously reunited…
“King?” hissed the mayor.
Harmony watched Scrap raise his clawed left hand and aim it at the window. In an instant, the claw launched from his arm on its grappling cable and dug into the glass. Harmony shook a finger at Scrap. She knew it would take far more than a grappling claw to break the tower’s windows. It had barely even cracked them.
But then the mayor noticed something else. Scrap’s claw held something small and dark in its grasp.
“Is that a cupcake?” muttered Highshine.
Then she saw that the object was blinking with a red light.
“No … grenade,” she gasped, reeling backwards. “Domo, grenade! Get back!”
The explosion shattered the window into a thousand shards. Highshine had no time to protect her case from the force of the blast, and was flung backwards across the room.
“Domo!” she screamed in a daze. “Get the human out of here!”
Flames already licked around the penthouse. Highshine turned back to see the flight-cycle sail through the window. Paige hit the brakes as the cycle collided with Highshine’s deputy. Domo was sent flying across the room, the crates of robot parts providing a less than soft landing.
Scrap quickly retracted the grappling cable back into his wrist, to find his left claw had been blown off by the grenade.
“…Cog’s sake,” he huffed, and tied the end of the cable to the flight-cycle. He looked down to see the fire spreading rapidly, dancing swiftly up the walls, and turned to Paige.
“Go!” she cried, steadying the flight-cycle as flames licked higher.
Scrap nodded. “Remember the plan – wait for my -zk- signal!”
And with that, Scrap leaped to the floor.
He hobbled through the flames towards the operating table. For a moment he was spooked by the sight of his old case, looming large in front of him. He paused, remembering how close he’d been to reuniting with it before he fell into Mayor Highshine’s trap. Perhaps, he thought, that case had always been a sort of trap – it had allowed him to convince himself that he was unbeatable … unstoppable. After everything that had happened, that case suddenly seemed cursed.
“Let it -zk- burn,” he said to himself.
“King!” came a cry as Scrap reached the operating table. “Don’t you dare.”
Scrap turned. Behind a wall of fire he saw his maker, Dandelion Brightside, stare back at him. Only a tear in the synthetic “skin” on her cheek revealed her to be Harmony Highshine.
“Stick it in your charge-point, Highshine! You’re out of your -zk- brain-frame!” he cried, over the roar of engines. With the push of a button, he released the clamps around Gnat’s arms and legs.
“Careful with that,” Highshine hissed. “It’s mine.”
“Gnat’s not an ‘it’, she’s a human -zk- being!” Scrap shouted back.
“She’s my human being,” Highshine insisted, edging through the blaze towards him. “She’s my future. Put her down.”
“Your future?” Scrap repeated, struggling to haul Gnat off the operating table. “What are you -zk- talkin’ about?”
“I’m talking about evolution,” Highshine bellowed. “The end of my journey … a human case.”
“Human?” Scrap repeated, finally scooping Gnat up in his arm. “For cog’s— You can’t be -zk- human!”
“So ’bots keep telling me,” Highshine said, her eye cannon extending from inside her head. The barrel glowed as she took aim. “But when you’ve come as far as I have, nothing seems impossi—”
“Paige!” Scrap shouted. “Now!”
Paige instantly spun the flight-cycle round in the air and sped towards the window. Scrap held on to Gnat for dear life as he felt the grappling cable go taut. He was instantly dragged off his feet through a wall of fire and, a moment later, there was nothing between him and the ground but several hundred metres.
“Give it back!” shrieked Highshine. “That’s mine!”
She turned to see her outer case enveloped by flames. Immediately she began racing towards the window at full speed.
“Paige, go!” Scrap cried, spinning in the air. “Go, go -zk- go!”
Highshine had already jumped by the time Paige hit the jet thrusters. The mayor landed with a THUNG on the back of the flight-cycle. Paige cried out, and banked left, then right, hoping to shake her off.
“Paaaaaaige!” Scrap howled, dangling below the flight-cycle. He clung to Gnat so tightly he thought he might break her. Far below, the city of myriad cubes, New Hull, was waiting to break their fall. Scrap began retracting his grappling line, hoping against hope that his cable would hold.
“Hang on!” Paige called back. Behind her, she caught sight of Harmony Highshine, leaning over the side of the flight-cycle.
“No…!” the mayor wailed, leaning further over. “Where are they?”
“Gnat?” Paige cried. “Gnat!”
“…Yeah?” said a voice weakly. Paige looked back to see Scrap clambering up on to the other side of the flight-cycle, carrying her semi-conscious sister.
“Highshine!” Scrap grunted. “Happy landings.”
With a sharp kick, Scrap booted Highshine off the flight-cycle. As she plummeted through the air she instinctively fired her eye cannon. The beam seared through the cycle’s control panel.
“Gah!” Paige yelped, smoke billowing from the screen.
“What’s happenin’?” Scrap shouted, clinging on to Gnat as the flight-cycle nose-dived towards the city.
“We’re crashing is what’s happening!” cried Paige. “Hang on to something!”