The silence lasted exactly three seconds.
The moment the feedback loop hit the cyborg guards, their connection to the Tower severed. The white light in their eyes flickered and died, replaced by the dull, confused gray of waking men.
They blinked. They shook their heads. They looked at the crashed gate, the smoking War Rig, and the four strangers standing in their sanctuary.
Then, the rage hit.
VRRRRRRRR.
A chainsaw revved. It was a guttural, mechanical scream that tore through the quiet desert air.
"Contact!" Jason yelled, shoving Amelia behind the heavy tire of the truck.
The lead cyborg—a massive figure of rusted iron and hydraulic pistons—didn't hesitate. He charged. His right arm was a three-foot bar of spinning teeth. He swung it in a wide, clumsy arc, aiming for Jason's head.
Jason dropped.
The blade bit into the fender of the War Rig.
SCREEEEE.
Sparks showered Jason's face. He smelled burning paint and hot ozone.
The cyborg roared, trying to wrench the saw free. He was strong, but he was slow. The "lag" from the severed signal made his movements jerky, like a bad stop-motion film.
"Hit the joints!" Jason shouted, rolling out from under the blade. "They're rebooting!"
Hemingway stepped out of the cab. He didn't have a gun. He had his sledgehammer.
He looked like a Viking god in a flight suit.
"Good morning, sunshine!" Hemingway grunted.
He swung the hammer.
CRACK.
The ten-pound steel head slammed into the cyborg's knee joint. The piston buckled. Hydraulic fluid sprayed black across the sand.
The giant fell, his leg useless.
But five more were coming.
"O'Malley!" Jason screamed. "Wake up!"
Inside the cab, Patrick O'Malley was still tied to the passenger seat. He was blinking rapidly, the "peace" of the Tower fading into a throbbing headache.
"What..." O'Malley mumbled. "Where's the light?"
A cyborg ripped the passenger door off its hinges.
CREAAAK-SNAP.
The metal groaned and twisted. The cyborg tossed the door aside like a piece of cardboard. He leaned in, his chainsaw arm revving inches from O'Malley's nose.
O'Malley's eyes went wide. The smell of exhaust and blood hit him.
The dream was over. The nightmare was here.
"Get away from me!" O'Malley roared.
He didn't wait for Jason to cut him loose. He surged forward, snapping the plastic restraints on his wrists with pure, terrified strength.
He kicked out with both boots.
THUD.
He hit the cyborg square in the chest plate. The machine-man stumbled back, wheezing.
O'Malley scrambled out of the cab. He grabbed a discarded rifle from the floorboard. He didn't check the ammo. He just swung it like a club.
WHACK.
The stock shattered against the cyborg's helmet.
"I was sleeping!" O'Malley screamed, swinging again. "I was having a nice dream about a field! And you woke me up with a power tool!"
"Form up!" Jason ordered. "Fall back to the bunker!"
They were exposed. The War Rig was dead. The open desert offered no cover.
The only way out was in.
"Go! Go!" Jason provided covering fire with his pistol.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The bullets sparked off the cyborgs' armor. Useless.
"Aim for the eyes!" Hemingway yelled, swinging his hammer again.
They retreated toward the massive concrete blast door of the Tower's base.
It was sealed tight. A heavy slab of steel with a digital keypad glowing red.
"Howard!" Jason grabbed Hughes by the collar. "Open it!"
Hughes was shaking. The aftereffects of the sonic weapon had left him nauseous and dizzy. He fumbled with his datapad, trying to connect to the lock.
"I can't!" Hughes stammered, dropping the pad. "My hands... I can't type! The encryption is rolling too fast!"
"We don't have time for encryption!"
The cyborgs were recovering. The lag was fading. They were moving faster now, their movements becoming fluid and deadly.
The lead guard—the one with the broken knee—was dragging himself across the ground. He raised his saw.
VRRR-CHUNK.
He cut through the War Rig's rear tire. The truck sagged.
"They're going to cut us to pieces," Amelia whispered. She was pressed against the cold concrete, eyes wide.
Jason looked around. He needed a key.
He saw the first cyborg—the one O'Malley had bludgeoned. It was lying still, smoke pouring from its neck.
Its arm was still attached. And the engine on the saw was still idling.
"Don't hack it," Jason said.
He ran to the fallen guard. He put his boot on the cyborg's shoulder and pulled.
SQUELCH.
The arm came off with a sickening sound of tearing rubber and leaking oil.
It was heavy. Fifty pounds of steel and hate.
Jason revved the throttle trigger.
VRRRRRRRRR.
The blade spun to a blur.
"Stand back!" Jason yelled.
He jammed the spinning saw into the seam of the blast door.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Sparks erupted in a geyser. The sound was deafening. Molten metal sprayed onto Jason's boots.
The blade chewed through the locking mechanism. The steel glowed cherry red, then white.
"Faster!" Hemingway shouted. He was holding off two guards with his hammer, but he was tiring. "They're flanking us!"
One cyborg lunged, his saw catching Hemingway's sleeve. Blood bloomed on the writer's arm.
"Ernest!" Jason screamed.
He pushed harder. The saw bucked in his hands.
CLUNK.
Something inside the door snapped. The heavy steel slab groaned.
It slid open a few inches.
"Inside!" Jason dropped the saw. "Everybody inside!"
Hughes scrambled through the gap. Amelia followed.
"Pat! Grab Ernest!"
O'Malley grabbed Hemingway by the back of his flight suit and threw him through the opening. He dived in after him.
Jason was last.
A cyborg lunged for the gap. His saw sparked against the doorframe.
Jason pulled his pistol. He didn't aim for the cyborg.
He aimed for the hydraulic ram above the door.
BANG.
He shot the pressure release valve.
HISS.
The door slammed down like a guillotine.
CRUNCH.
It caught the cyborg's arm. The saw blade snapped. The limb was severed, falling onto the concrete floor inside with them.
The cyborg outside screamed in rage, pounding on the steel.
But the door held.
Silence—heavy, suffocating silence—fell over the group.
They were in pitch darkness. The air was cold and smelled of antiseptic and old copper.
"Is everyone alive?" Jason asked. His voice echoed.
"I'm bleeding," Hemingway grunted. "But I still have the arm attached. Barely."
"Light," Jason ordered.
Hughes fumbled in his pocket. He cracked a chemical flare.
HISSS.
Red light flooded the hallway.
They weren't in a military bunker.
"Holy mother of God," O'Malley whispered, crossing himself.
The hallway was lined with tanks. Floor to ceiling.
They were glass cylinders filled with blue gel. Bubbles rose slowly to the top.
And floating in each tank wasn't a specimen.
It was a brain.
Human brains. Hundreds of them. Spinal cords still attached, trailing wires that plugged into the metal walls.
The brains pulsed faintly with light. Thump. Thump.
"The Wetware," Amelia whispered, walking up to a tank. She wiped condensation from the glass.
A small brass plaque was bolted to the base.
UNIT 402. STATUS: PROCESSING. DONOR: VOLUNTARY.
"This is the CPU," Amelia said, her voice trembling. "Ezra didn't build a computer, Jason. He built a choir."
She looked at the row of tanks stretching into the dark.
"This is where the peace comes from," she said. "He uses their idle processing power to broadcast the signal. They're dreaming of a better world, and he's beaming their dream into our heads."
Jason walked up to a tank. The brain inside looked small. Fragile.
He felt a cold, hard knot form in his stomach. This wasn't just efficiency. This was a mass grave with a power switch.
"He calls them volunteers," Jason said. "But look at the stems."
He pointed to the base of the spine. There were scorch marks.
"They were harvested," Jason said. "Forcibly."
He turned to the group.
"We aren't just calling for help," Jason said. "We're burning this place to the ground."
"How?" Hughes asked, staring at the horror around him. "We don't have explosives."
"No," Jason said. "But we have a pilot."
He looked at Amelia.
"Can you fly this thing?"
Amelia looked at the brains. At the wires. At the suffering suspended in gel.
Her fear vanished. Replaced by a cold, pilot's focus.
"Get me to the cockpit," she said. "I'll crash it."