The Undercity was a graveyard of the Old World.
As I followed Jax and her scrap-robot, Tiny, through the winding alleys, I saw the skeletons of skyscrapers that had fallen during the Great Collapse. They leaned against each other like drunk giants. Their Windows were shattered. And their steel bones were rusting in the endless damp.
We walked for twenty minutes. The water on the street was ankle-deep. An oily sludge that swirled around the tires of the Valkyrie.
"Keep up, Tourist," Jax said over her shoulder. "The rats down here are the size of dogs. And they like fresh meat."
"My name is Elias," I muttered, pushing the heavy bike through a deep puddle.
"Didn't ask," she replied, popping her gum.
We stopped in front of a massive stone building. It must have been a cathedral once. The stained glass was long gone, replaced by metal sheets and plastic tarps. A neon sign above the heavy oak doors buzzed with a dying flicker.
SALVATION & SPARE PARTS.
"Home sweet home," Jax said. She banged on the door with the butt of her revolver. "Open up! I got a delivery!"
The door creaked open. A camera lens poked out, whirred, and focused on my face. Then on the robot carrying Sarah.
"Clear," a robotic voice announced.
We stepped inside.
The inside of the church was a mess.
The wooden benches had been ripped out and replaced with workbenches. They were covered in electronics, wires, and chopped-up robot parts. The altar was gone. In its place stood a wall of humming computers, cooled by fans that looked like they were stolen from a jet engine.
And standing in the middle of it all, welding a metal arm onto a screaming man, was a priest.
Well, he wore the collar. But the rest of him was a butcher.
He had on a blood-stained leather apron over his greasy priest robes. He was huge. Bald. And his right arm wasn't flesh—it was a mechanical limb that ended in a multi-tool instead of a hand.
"Hold still, damn you," the priest grumbled. Sparks flew as he connected a wire into the man's shoulder. "You want your speed upgrade, you have to pay the pain tax."
The man on the table passed out.
"Done," the priest said, wiping his hands on a rag.
He turned to look at us. His eyes were kind. Which was terrifying, given the blood on his apron.
"Jax," he rumbled. "You're late. And you brought strays."
"Found 'em in Sector 7, Father," Jax said, hopping onto a workbench. "A corpo bike. Tactical vest. And a girl whose brain is cooking itself."
Father John looked at me. Then he looked at Sarah, shivering in Tiny's arms.
His eyes widened.
He crossed the room in two steps. His mechanical leg clanked on the stone floor. He placed his human hand on Sarah's forehead.
"Mother of Mercy," he whispered. "She's boiling. Get her to the tank! Now!"
"The tank?" Jax asked. "Father, that's for cooling down war machines. It'll freeze her!"
"Do it!"
Tiny lumbered over to a large glass container filled with clear blue liquid. It looked like the sleep pods in the server farm, but rougher. Homemade. He lowered Sarah into it.
Father John rushed to a control panel and started typing with his mechanical hand.
"Her temperature is dropping. Bringing her down. Hooking up the monitors."
He grabbed a cable and plugged it into the port on Sarah's neck.
Screens around the room flickered to life.
WARNING: UNKNOWN DATA SIGNAL.
PROCESSING POWER: INFINITE.
The lights in the church dimmed. The hum of the computers grew to a roar.
"What is she?" Father John whispered, staring at the screens. "This isn't a human brain pattern. This is... this is a Root Directory."
He turned to me. The kindness was gone from his eyes. Now there was fear.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what did you bring into my church?"
"I'm Elias," I said, stepping forward. "She came from Server 9. She was a sleeper."
"A sleeper?" Father John laughed. A harsh, barking sound. "Son, sleepers don't pump out this much data. Sleeper brains are mush. This woman..." He pointed at the screen. Lines of code scrolled so fast they turned into a blur. "She's carrying the master code for an entire sector in her head."
He looked at Sarah floating in the tank.
"She's not just a user," Father John said softly. "She's an Admin."
Suddenly, Sarah gasped. Her eyes flew open. The blue light in the room got brighter.
"Elias," her voice echoed—not from her mouth, but from the speakers around the room.
"I'm here," I said, rushing to the glass.
"They are coming," the voice said. "Malachi. He is tracking the bike."
I froze. "I turned off the tracker!" I said.
"You turned off the GPS," Father John said, looking at the bike. "But that bike has a deep link to the Core. It can't be turned off. It's part of the machine."
BOOM.
The front doors of the church exploded inward.
Debris flew everywhere. Jax rolled off the workbench, her revolver already in her hand. Tiny roared, stepping in front of the tank to shield Sarah.
Through the smoke, figures emerged.
They weren't human. They were Hunters.
Chrome robots with no faces—just smooth black glass where eyes should be. They moved fast. Too fast. Like spiders.
"Surrender the Asset," a robot voice screeched.
"Jax!" Father John yelled, grabbing a massive shotgun from under the altar. "Defend the house!"
"With pleasure," Jax grinned. She cocked the hammer of her revolver.
"Elias!" Father John threw something at me. A heavy metal wrench. "If they get close to the tank, smash them!"
I caught the wrench. My heart was slamming against my ribs.
Yesterday, I was wiping glass. Today, I was fighting killer robots in a church basement.
One of the Hunters lunged, moving like a spider on speed.
Jax fired.
BLAM!
The bullet hit the Hunter in the chest, knocking it back. But it didn't go down. It hissed and leaped at her.
"Tiny! Smash!" Jax yelled.
The giant scrap-robot charged, crashing into the Hunter in a shower of sparks.
"Elias, the back door!" Father John shouted, firing his shotgun at another Hunter. "Get her out! I can't hold them for long!"
"I can't move the tank!" I yelled.
"You don't need the tank," Sarah's voice came from the speakers. "I'm ready."
The liquid in the tank began to boil. The glass cracked.
CRASH.
Sarah stepped out.
She was soaking wet. Shivering. But she wasn't weak anymore.
She stood tall. She raised her hand, and the cables around the room twisted like living snakes.
She pointed at the Hunters.
"Delete," she whispered.
A massive bolt of electricity shot from the ceiling cables, striking the lead Hunter. It didn't just explode.
It turned to dust.
The other Hunters froze. Confused.
"Go!" Sarah grabbed my hand. Her touch was burning hot.
We ran toward the back exit, leaving Jax and Father John to hold the line.
"Where are we going now?" I yelled.
"To the source," Sarah said. Her eyes glowed like twin suns. "We're going to shut down the Power Grid."