“Is he gonna be OK?” Miles asked.
Art3mis shook her head.
“No,” she said. “He needs help. We need to get him to the ambulance.”
Miles and Samantha used their telebots to lift Og up off the bed as gently as they could. I kept my bot’s guns trained on Anorak’s bot. It was still reaching for the sky.
“I’m genuinely sorry,” Anorak said, shaking his head. “I honestly didn’t think Sorrento would still be able to wound Og after I put a bullet through his brain stem! A high-caliber lobotomy always turns the bad guy off like a switch in the movies…”
I heard the sound of a klaxon and glanced down. It was coming from the smartwatch strapped to Sorrento’s right wrist. Its tiny display screen was flashing red.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Very bad news, I’m afraid,” Anorak said. “All of those defense bots and aerial drones require human authorization before they can be used in combat—that was one of the reasons I needed Mr. Sorrento. But it appears he did not trust me completely. Because he programmed all of those bots to engage in full attack mode in the eventuality of his death…”
A split second later, we heard all of the combat telebots in the adjacent room power up and come to life. Then we heard the sound of breaking glass, followed by the approaching rumble of hundreds of rubber-grip-encased metal feet pounding against the marble floor. They were already coming through the door of Og’s office—which also appeared to be the only exit.
We were cornered.
“I really do apolo—”
Before Anorak could finish his sentence, I opened fire on his telebot, aiming for the primary chink in its armor—the display screen mounted in the center of its chest, which was currently unprotected by the armor plating that normally would cover it during combat. As a result, my bullets tore his telebot’s internal power supply in half, causing it to power down.
Then I turned my telebot around and raised my guns, preparing to face the coming onslaught. But instead of joining me, Miles calmly raised his own telebot’s guns and used them to cut a large hole in the wall behind us, creating a new exit out of the house. Samantha and I used our telebots to carry Og’s wounded body through it, while Miles’s bot provided cover fire for our retreat.
We carried Og around to the front of the house, where Samantha’s armored ambulance was parked. Her telebot carried Og up the ramp leading into the back of the ambulance, where Samantha herself was already waiting. I only caught a brief glimpse of her before the armored rear door of the ambulance slammed shut automatically.
Then I turned my attention back to the swarm of telebots now pouring out of the house from every single doorway and window, firing their guns toward the ambulance as they came. Thankfully their bullets bounced harmlessly off of its heavily armored shell.
Miles was still up in the cab. I saw him pull off his visor. Then he took the wheel and began to drive backward, pulling the ambulance away from Og’s house in reverse as fast as it would go while the small army of autonomous telebots that Sorrento had unleashed chased after it. Then Miles whipped the ambulance around 180 degrees as he pulled onto Babbitt Road and peeled out, heading in the direction of my house. I continued to provide cover for them until my telebot was overwhelmed a few seconds later, when Sorrento’s drones converged on it. I let out a fierce battle cry, intent on going down fighting. But they tore my telebot to pieces in a matter of seconds, and the display screen of my control station suddenly went black and the words TELEBOT OFFLINE appeared at its center.
On my HUD, I saw that all two dozen of the telebots we’d brought along with us had been destroyed as well. The enemy drones had annihilated them in a matter of seconds.
Since there were no more bots for me to take control of, I switched to the eye-in-the-sky view provided by one of the aerial drones GSS had circling the area. It provided me with a horrifying view of the swarm of enemy telebots and aerial drones that were closing in on the armored ambulance from every direction. A moment later, several of the bots finally caught up with it and quickly disabled all four of its tires. Miles switched to the emergency backup tank-tread drive, and the ambulance began to move forward again. But a few seconds later, one of Anorak’s aerial drones fired a missile at them and scored a direct hit on it from above, causing the ambulance to flip over onto its side. Then it slid to a halt, smoking in the center of the road as more telebots and drones continued to converge on it.
Miles, Samantha, and Og were all trapped inside.