The Great Disassembly:
T–Minus Fifteen Minutes
Minutes later, Code, Gary, and Peep sat catching their breaths in a bean-shaped escape pod. The pod careened down the Beamstalk and away from the falling Celestial City. Hundreds of other pods slid down the wildly swinging Beamstalk toward the roof of the Monolith Building below. As it dropped, their escape craft spoke.
“Whew!” it exclaimed. “I thought this day would never come. I’ve been trained and trained, but I never get to do anything. And now here it is, my big moment!”
“That’s nice,” replied Code.
“Yeah,” said the pod. “I’m really jazzed.”
“My grandpa is gone,” said Code. “All of you robots are going to be disassembled in a little less than twenty minutes. And it’s my fault.”
Code couldn’t even look Gary in the battle visor, afraid of what he might see there. This entire world was crumbling around them and he’d done nothing to stop it.
The pod sighed theatrically. “That’s really … yeah … not good. But how am I doing? Is your ride smooth? I recently received an upgrade to help reduce turbulence. It’s awfully exciting. So I really want to know. Is this going well for you?”
Overwhelmed, Code buried his face into the crook of his elbow. Peep nuzzled Code’s neck. Gary glared out the window, cracking his finger cannons one by one.
“You know what?” murmured the pod. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Finally, the escape pod touched down on the wide, flat roof of the Monolith Building. Code and Gary hurried out the door and into total chaos. In the sky, huge shards of the destroyed city were flaming down. Massive chunks of debris smashed into the plains below and sizzled into the Fomorian Sea beyond.
The escape pod called out to them. “On a scale from one to ten—”
Just then, a chunk of fiery rock smashed through the roof of the pod, filling it with smoke and sparks.
“We have to get out of here,” Code whispered to Gary.
In the sky, the Celestial City glowed a fiery orange as it plunged through the upper atmosphere. The wind ripped at Code’s clothes. He covered his ears to dampen the shrieking noise of falling debris. He could feel the reassuring weight of Peep as she burrowed deep into his shirt pocket.
Above, hundreds more escape pods slid down the wavering Beamstalk. As Code watched in horror, the Beamstalk made an awful hissing noise, flickered, and snapped out of existence. As if in slow motion, escape pods scattered across the sky like pearls flung off a broken necklace.
A handful of straggling robots hurried past Code, chattering to each other. “At this rate, we’ll never even make it down to Disassembly Point to be properly disassembled!” one of them exclaimed.
Peep fluttered out of Code’s pocket and shot an angry light beam at the boy’s face. He tore his gaze from the sky and noticed a row of sleek, low slidecars painted in a rainbow of colors. Each slidecar was repeating in a robotic voice: “Emergency! Impact detected. Free-ride mode initiated. Please board and survive. Have a good day!”
Code looked down at the feisty little robot. Certain death had never seemed so certain, but if Peep is still willing to fight, then so am I, he thought.
“Let’s go!” Code called through the wind. He raced to the nearest slidecar and the door automatically popped open. He threw himself inside and hunched forward as Gary crammed his bulky frame into the vehicle. The door snapped shut. Code sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, stunned by the sudden silence. Outside, a hailstorm of wreckage continued to rain down. Then Peep viciously pinched Code on the arm.
“Car! Go!” he commanded.
The slidecar replied, “Welcome to the Monolith Community Slideracer. Please assume control now. Drive and survive! Have a good day!”
A steering wheel popped out of the dash and nudged Code in the rib cage. A five-point harness whipped out and snugly wrapped around Code’s chest, slapping him briskly across the cheek.
“Punch it, Code,” urged Gary.
Rubbing his cheek, Code muttered, “But I don’t even know how to drive yet.”
Peep chirped fearfully and bounced purple light against the roof window of the slidecar. Code looked up just in time to see a chunk of burning infrastructure roar past the Monolith Building. High above, the main body of the castle was breaking up into slowly rotating pieces, and the debris was headed straight for them.
Code stopped thinking. He gunned what he assumed was the accelerator pad and jammed a stick down. The ultralight slidecar sped forward. Gary cheered wildly. But his cheer turned into a shout of fear when the car flew directly over the side of the building. They hung in the air for an agonizing few seconds, and then the gravthrusters kicked in. Instead of falling, the slidecar stuck to the side of the building, pointing straight toward the ground.
The slidecar raced down along the ebony face of the Monolith Building, speeding past plunging exterior elevators, other skidding slidecars, and heaps of falling rubble. Unfortunately, Code failed to notice the plodding approach of a window cleaner with sucker feet attached to legs the size of redwood trees. The cleaner, named Terrance, did spot the oncoming vehicle, but having already made the decision to continue cleaning windows right up until the moment of Disassembly, opted not to change course for something as insignificant as a small, out-of-control slidecar.
They were on an unavoidable crash course with the window cleaner.
At five seconds to impact—well past the point of no return—Gary helpfully mentioned, “We’re on an unavoidable crash course with that window cleaner!”
The slidecar, however, was designed to be not only fast but safe. It was a happy surprise to Code when the slidecar seats automatically ejected into the air a moment before impact and he and his friends parachuted safely to the ground. As Code shouted in joy at being alive, Peep glowed a sad violet and chirped at the poor destroyed slidecar.
Terrance paused, mildly disappointed, and then continued cleaning the soon-to-be-shattered windows.