Demi hunkered down, pressing himself against the side of his own personal makeshift barricade, made out of a single steel table, his fingers flying over his device.


    From his position near the elevator, he had to constantly decline requests for the lift to be brought back up from EduNet to the upper levels, ensuring it remained locked in place on that floor, preventing his team of getting flanked.


    Looking over his shoulder, he saw his team with their larger collective barricade, where his brothers and sisters held the defensive perimeter, weapons raised, their sights trained on the projector lit hallway ahead, blinding anyone trying to make an offensive move. All the dufflebags had been emptied, weapons assembled and ready.


    A voice shrieked through a megaphone, faintly echoing against the concrete walls, more room than actual dry sound.


    "This is the Edu-4 special forces, surrender now! We have you completely surrounded! Come out with your hands up!"


    Silence.


    Then, from behind the barricade, a sharp, defiant voice cut through the air.


    "Go fuck yourself, circuit worm!"


    Laughter rippled through the barricade, a woman’s voice venomously echoed through the hallway a second after.


    "Come and get us, you fucking pussies!"


    They all knew what they’d signed up for. This was a fight to the death. One that they might just be able to win if they just focused and were lucky. They just had to hold the perimeter long enough for Lorien to complete his mission, and then in their minds eye, Edu-4 would be one step closer to experience true freedom, a worthy sacrifice.


    The hallway fell completely silent again for a while, the brotherhood checked their gear one last time, they were as ready as the could be. Then, a quiet staccato rhythm began echoing out, like a horse trotting, followed by the sound of mechanical pistons rising louder and louder down through the hallway. Getting closer and closer, while picking up the pace. A sharp metallic scrape cut through the air, the unmistakable sound of metal raking against stone, faster now, the sound of something running at full speed. Something moved in the shadows ahead, a blur of shifting shapes, slowly coming into view of the mounted projectors. An eerie metallic looking exoskeleton of a creature about the size of a shepherd dog.


    “Robots! Take defensive actions!” The battle-masters’ voice boomed out over the group.


    A dozen members of the brotherhood quickly bolted forward to take cover behind the haphazardly assembled barricade comprised of everything the service level of the central hub had to offer. In the bottom, metal tables, office chairs and planters bound with barbed wire, made a near impenetrable wall. Above, everything wooden from storage cabinets and even a conference table were stacked on top of each other. The barricade extended nearly four meters vertically, and covered the hallway from side to side.


    Each fighter gripped a crude metal spear, the tip glinting in the dim light, trailing a thick, insulated wire that snaked back toward the power unit standing firmly on the ground. The devices were ugly, makeshift things, that looked like someone had ripped a dozen fuse boxes of the walls, and placed them in the middle of the battle-zone. Two oversized cranks folded against their sides, now snapping outward like the unfurling limbs of some predatory insect. The wire and spear formed a deadly proboscis, making the whole thing look like a giant mosquito.


    “Pump!”


    The battle-masters’ voice rang out again and everyone was now either pumping or holding the spear.


    The air crackled around the brotherhood. Excitement, adrenaline and electricity formed an atmospheric soup.


    Demi, was still hunkered down near the elevator, tapping away, denying every request for the elevator to move.


    “Prepare for fighting in 5!” the battle-master cried out. The sound of metal on stone grew louder


    “4!, It’s dogs! Get ready!”


    “3!” The sound of the joints of the robotic creatures became audible over the heavy breathing of people preparing for war.


    “2!” Demi bit his teeth together, focusing on his task ahead, trying not to get distracted at the battle that was beginning less than 10 meters from him.


    “1!”. “For freedom!” The brotherhood yelled, as the first metallic dogs came bolting through the hallway towards the barricade, their servos screaming as they leaped into the air, trying to traverse the barricade. Only to get stabbed with the long metal spears mid air.


    A massive piezoelectric charge surged fourth in an explosion of plasma. An arc of supercharged particles blasted out, frying their circuits instantly.


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    “Get fucking pumping, more is coming!” The Battle-master called out.


    The two dozen soldiers behind the barricades were already pumping all they could, sweat pouring of their skin, while the last dozen stood their ground, counting the seconds, as the rhythmic tramping of metal legs came bolting down the hallway yet again.


    The next wave vaulted the barricade, twisting mid-air to avoid the spears, instantly adapting from the former attack, hydraulic limbs snapping into lethal position, servos shrieking with the force of their momentum. The first three were struck mid-air again as the spears thrusted skywards, while two were cut down the second they touched down inside the perimeter. plasma bolts tearing through synthetic flesh, circuits screaming as overloads detonated inside their frames. But the sixth made it through untouched, landing hard, only a meter or so from Demi, stabilizers kicking in as it unleashed hell.


    A storm of machine-gun fire ripped through the three-man team that had failed to take it down, their bodies jerking violently as rounds punched through armor, muscle, and bone like wet paper. Blood sprayed against the barricade, their screams drowned out by the relentless roar of gunfire, then cut short as their bodies fell in torn, broken heaps.


    A spearman standing nearby roared in fury, launching his weapon with an overhead throw, giving it everything he had. The spear piercing through the air, slamming into the base of the machine’s neck, making the machine stumble and lodging itself in place. But nothing happened.


    "PUMP!" he roared in anger at the two stunned comrades beside him, snapping them back to reality.


    They wrenched the cranks, hands fumbling as their adrenaline surged, barely gripping the sweat-slicked handles as they forced energy into the rod. A violent, uncontrolled arc of plasma leapt from the weapon, drilling into the machine’s spine just as it turned to let out another burst, frying its core in an instant. It spasmed once, legs locking up, then collapsed sideways into the spreading pool of shredded bodies and steaming wounds.


    But the two men didn’t stop pumping. The spear fell from the limp robotic pile of metal as the motors relaxed, into the rapidly expanding iron-rich pool of servo-fluid and blood turning into a conduit.


    The energy surged through it like a living thing, arcs of supercharged piezoelectric discharge dancing through the crimson pool. The water in the blood super-heated instantly, pressure building in milliseconds, vaporizing explosively.


    The room erupted in a burst of gore.


    Super-heated iron plasma and shredded organic matter detonated outward in a violent, chaotic spray, scorching everything in its path. The air filled with the sickening stench of burned flesh, the copper tang of liquefied blood hitting like a physical force.


    The two nearby pumpers turned at the last second, just in time to take face full blast of self-inflicted friendly fire filled with their old friends remains, now turned plasma.


    The iron plasma seared through flesh instantly, boiling eyes inside their sockets, skin peeling away in curling ribbons, nerves obliterated before pain could even register. Their bodies slumped backward, without ever getting the chance to scream, dead before they hit the ground.


    The spearman had taken cover behind a metal desk and had thereby been spared the explosion. He ripped his weapon free from the floor, ending the reaction. The walls no longer white, but covered in crimson gore, slowly sliding down the formerly pristine marble. Breath ragged, chest heaving, staring at the smoldering corpses of the men beside him. His knuckles whitened around the handle. But the sound of mechanical movements no longer existed which gave a second of reprieve.


    “Is that all you got you bureaucratic cock suckers?!” the battle-master bellowed triumphant.


    But both the reprieve and excitement of battle, lasted only a breath.


    The air felt thick, the smell of iron and charred flesh everywhere, blood dripping from the ceiling four meters above them. Yet what got the rest of the brotherhood to widen their eyes in uncontrollable fear was neither the smell, nor the visual input. It was the sound.


    A sound of something whirring up, like a washing machine starting to centrifuge with a fistful of marbles inside it cut through the air like a guillotine.


    “We surrender!” someone tried to cry out over the noise. But their desperate pleas either fell for deaf ears, or maybe they simple couldn’t hear them over the ear-shattering racket.


    Then everything went completely still for a second. The silence deafening to everyone.


    “TAKE COV—”


    An enormous ray of supercharged particles blasted through the barricade, melting the iron and steel like plastic in a bonfire, annihilating everything in its path and drowning out the last words of the battle-master. The soldiers caught in the crossfire, were instantly deleted from reality, if they were lucky. While the unlucky were only strafed with the beam, cutting through them like they didn’t even exist. Limps and torsos removed. The wounds seared shut instantly from the extreme heat.


    Screams rang out over the hallway, as the rain started to fall.


    Not of rain of water and sweet relief, but of molten metallic office furniture blobs, that poured down of the resistance against tyranny, their fortification turned into a new circle of hell, where instant death was preferable to the slow agonizing death of raining metallic substances.


    The blazing droplets came cascading down on them, a white-hot downpour that clung to fabric, armor and flesh. It melted its way through their defenses instantaneously. A few lucky one died immediately, reduced to twisted, blackened husks before they could even scream. Others writhed and convulsed, their skin sloughing away in molten sheets, nerve endings firing until there was nothing left to register the pain. A few and truly desperate turned their weapons on themselves, choosing a bullet through the head, rather than the agonizing death of raining metal.


    “Stop!, STOP!” Demi cried, trying to deafen the sound of his partners in crime screaming out in agony. He had hidden behind the metal table set up to protect him from the fight. He alone was still unscathed behind his small one man fortification, he curled up into a fetal position and started crying. He could hear the screams die out as his friends died off and the footsteps of the armada slowly approaching.


    A hand grabbed his collar, yanking him off the ground and electrocuted him. His world went dark, the last thing he saw was the giant hole in the elevator, the wire seared through. He had done his job, the brotherhood would prevail. He was sure of it.