As soon as he closed the door and turned, the whole place became exceedingly dark. He slid the dagger beside his jeans and held his gun ready. He waited for a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then he took two steps forward.
Suddenly, he could hear scraping of metal and weird, sing-song voices. Then he saw red dots like eyes hovering around the vast room.
Right. He thought. He had to find the switch. And, usually, it was at the far side of the room fixed to a wall.
He crouched down and walked slowly behind what he thought was a pillar. Then he moved slowly to another one. On the way, his foot hit a metal object, making a loud clang, and a pair of red eyes stared in his direction.
He was already behind a pillar before that. He poked his head quickly around the pillar to see if it was safe to move. The robot was no longer staring. He made his way steadily until he saw a white light on a wall. He lightened up and stretched his arm to turn on the switch. It felt like a metallic face, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find the switch. Then he felt the thing speak, vibrating his hand.
‘What the-‘he cried and yanked his arm away. It was a robot.
The robot brought its gun up to shoot James, but James caught the movement. He hit the gun away with his elbow and shot the robot through the head.
The other robots heard the commotion, and, as one, raised their guns up to shoot James. James dived out of the way as about a hundred bullets hit the wall. He saw a beam of light as a door opened. The white eyed robot was the switch!
He got up, running with all his might, and threw himself into the other room. It closed as he landed on the floor. Bullets clanked to it and made bulges in the metallic door.
‘Not today, guys.’ James shouted as he got up, panting. He looked away from the door to his new surroundings. He was on top of four sets of staircases and a tablet lay on a chair in front of him. He picked the tablet up.
Save the hostage and kill the robots,
James looked over the bar rail to the room below.
A ridiculous dummy was tied to a chair as two robots paced up and down the room, with dangerous looking stun guns in their arms James wondered why this was even a challenge. All he had to do was kill the robots right?
No. now he saw the true nature of the challenge. If he killed one robot, the other would immediately kill the hostage. He had to think of a way to kill them both at the same time. He had a sudden idea.
He picked up the chair and threw it with all his might at the first robot. The chair’s leg broke the robot’s head and it spun off, revealing cackling, torn wires. The other robot had just raised his gun to shoot when James emptied a bullet into its skull. It froze for a second and fell rigid to the floor. James hurried downstairs as he heard a door hiss open. He entered through the door and it shut behind him.
Lined up in front of him were rows and rows of robots, standing in front of red big cylinders that looked like petrol cans. As soon as they saw James, they opened fire and James had to dive behind small wall that looked like it had deliberately been set there, to evade the bullets.
He popped his head out and shot a robot, then another, and another, but the living metal just kept on coming, quickly replacing the ones that just fell. He popped his head out again to look at the surroundings. He was looking at tons of angry, armed robots, but was that all?
A Guardian had to look past what he saw sometimes. That was what Commander Josh had said once in class.
“Look beyond what your panic and first instincts will allow you. Relax yourself and be creative, and you will find salvation.”
He focused, shrinking behind the pillar and back again as a bullet came whizzing right above his nose. He sneaked a look at the spacious room again and calmed himself, taking measured breaths.
Bingo. There the answer lay, in thousands of petrol cans behind the robots. Just one shot and they would all be history, but, including James, too. Then his eyes fell on the water, and everything was decided for him. He breathed in and out and counted one to ten then he leaped out of his hiding place and shot one, determined bullet at a petrol can at the very back. Before the explosion erupted, sending sharp shrapnel and flames and robot parts everywhere, James had dived into the pool.
Millions of petrol cans and robots were blown sky high, and all James could feel was a little rippling and violence in the water from the vibrations. Occasionally, a piece of a robot’s head or arm or leg would fall in the water and cool down from the heat, sending bubbles to the surface of the water.
As he could feel his oxygen running low, he found himself allowing small amounts of water to enter his nostrils. He quickly swam to the surface of the water and drew in air, which made him recoil immediately as all he could smell was dangerous smoke and dust.
Feeling pleased with himself, James climbed out of the pool and dragged himself through yet another door. On his left, red boxing gloves hang on a rack for him to pick up. Then, straight forward, a robot walked towards him. But the robot soon made a funny noise and suddenly jerked to a stop, bending down a little.
Then a buff man stepped from behind the robot and waved a tangle of wires in different colours at James, smirking despicably.
James doubled over. “Are you part of the test?’ he asked the man skeptically.
“Oh, no. not at all,” he said. “But my master wants you very much. And I prefer to at least knock you out before sneaking you to him- coz I figure you won’t come quietly, eh?’
He advanced slowly towards James, rubbing his knuckles on him palm.
“Get away from me,” James shouted. “Help! Somebody hel-“
A fist crashed his mouth and blood rushed into his mouth. He swallowed it. Staggering a little, he regained position and stood erect, folding his fingers into a punch.
“That’s it, boyo’,” the man said, circling James like he was some prey, ready to be devoured quite easily.
James rushed toward s the man, throwing a fist at him, but the man dodged it pathetically, laughing, and crashed his foot on James’ chest. James was knocked off his feet, slamming his back into the wall behind him.
He suddenly felt a bit dizzy. In classes, they had been trained to fight hand-to-hand a few of the time, but not close to as much as they had been trained to carry and use a gun. So James thought he was going to die there and then, in the hands of this violence thirsty cell.
The cell slapped him with an elbow and James felt his jaws harden. Something rang in his ears. Whose phone was ringing? Wait, that was him dying.
The man held James’s neck and propped his head up just as the latter was about to slide unto the floor, weakness making his legs buckle over.
The cell raised a final blow, ready to give James the final punch. Still smiling that insane smile, he was just about to bring the fist crashing down when James slipped his dagger out of his back, only remembering it a second almost too late, and stabbed the cell’s knee. Colourles blood gushed out like a small fountain, and the man cried out in pain and let go off James neck, falling unto the ground with a manly scream.
James felt disgusted, even though cells didn’t have real, blood, the scene of his knife in the poor fellow’s knee was still gory to him.
He hung back for a few seconds. “Who sent you? And why? Answer me!” he yelled at the man.
The cell just looked up at James with filthy contempt and said, “Damn you.”
He reached for his knee and pulled the knife out of his wound, wanting to strike James with it, but when he and looked up, there was no boy.
Now he had to make a tough decision; he could either make a run for it and never tell or contact the master or he could face the music and maybe he’d be pardoned- otherwise they would kill him.