Dancer nodded slowly. “That fits. If you think about it, either one of them could’ve killed me anytime—or used me to pin you down. Instead they treated me like I wasn’t there.”
“And they didn’t even double-team me,” Wyatt said.
“Because you’re rare.” Dancer exhaled, a sound that was almost a sigh. “So what do we do now?”
“We get out first.”
“You sure we can?”
A fresh Destroyer tank rolled up in front of them and opened its rear ammunition bay automatically. It was brand-new, never loaded—an empty compartment big enough to fit four or five robots.
They climbed in.
Only then did Wyatt answer, voice low and honest.
“No.”
“Oh,” Dancer said, and then looked around as if the steel walls were closing. Apparently he didn’t like tight spaces any more than he liked darkness.
The tank jolted and began moving toward the factory exit.
From Level -1 to the upper levels, there were four main routes besides the lift platform—one at each corner of the base. Those junctions were choke points. When Wyatt went down to rescue Dancer, he’d split most of his forces to defend them.
Now one of those routes had already fallen. The other three were still fighting.
Through scattered soldier feeds, Wyatt could glimpse flashes of the battle above.
It wasn’t good.
He had to choose quickly.
“Wyatt…” Dancer hesitated, then forced himself to speak. “Can you promise me something?”
“What?”
“I’ve seen what you can do,” Dancer said. “If it comes down to it, you can probably leave alone. If we run into another situation like before… don’t save me. If my shackles really do explode, maybe I can buy you time.”
“Shut up,” Wyatt said.
For once, Dancer didn’t flinch. He shook his head.
“No. You’ve to promise. I don’t want you dying with me.” His voice thinned. “That would… hurt.”
“Request denied,” Wyatt snapped.
Silence.
Then Dancer asked, almost casually, “That girl… she’s human, right?”
Wyatt’s head jerked. “What?”
“The little girl,” Dancer pressed. “Chestnut hair. Pale yellow top. She’s human, isn’t she?”
Wyatt stared at him in disbelief. “How do you know that?”
“I saw her,” Dancer said. “Far away. In a valley with a ship wreck. She was holding Pinecone, standing with Minks. She looked like an angel.”
His gaze dropped for a second, and when he looked up again there was something like respect in it.
“So that’s your mission. I… honestly admired you, in that moment.”
Wyatt blinked hard, then let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Wait—what? You’ve been to the Sunflower valley?”
“I wanted to meet you,” Dancer said. “I ran all the way from St. Nite City to find you. But the timing was wrong. Phantom Forge’s army was already right behind you.”
Pieces clicked into place.
“The signal flare,” Wyatt said. “That was you. And the CBG that escaped—you dealt with it.”
Dancer didn’t answer.
Wyatt’s voice sharpened. “And that’s why you got caught?”
Dancer only shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
He leaned forward slightly, as if he could will Wyatt to understand.
“You can’t die here. That girl still needs you.” After a beat, he added more softly, “What’s her name, anyway?”
“Linneya,” Wyatt said without hesitation. “She likes piano. And she sings. You’d like her.”
Something in Wyatt’s posture shifted—as if he’d made a decision.
“All right,” he said. “You asked me something earlier.”
Dancer’s eyes widened. “My request? So you agree—”
“No. The other question.”
Dancer frowned. “Do you’ve a chance… to escape?”
“Absolutely,” Wyatt said. “One hundred percent.”
The tank roared and accelerated like a beast toward the exit.
***
Near one of the junctions ahead, a small squad of robots had just brought down a Giant. Smoke still hung in the air when a spherical grenade rolled into the middle of them.
It swelled like an inflating balloon—growing to the size of a watermelon—then popped.
The “explosion” was almost a joke. A sound like a ruptured toy.
But every robot in the squad locked in place at once.
As the smoke thinned, a figure stepped into view among them.
C-ST.
The robots didn’t move because they couldn’t. Their optics were dark. They weren’t even stunned.
They were powered off.
Fifteen meters away, clinging to the ceiling in stealth mode, a Raider watched the whole thing and streamed it to Wyatt.
That, too, was part of Wyatt’s new deployment. After losing links again and again, he’d assigned each squad an “observer.”
Through the Raider’s eyes, Wyatt finally caught a clear look at C-ST.
She verified each robot’s status and turned to leave.
Wyatt ordered the Raider to follow.
The Raider crept closer—and immediately the link filled with harsh interference. Its magnetic pads trembled as it fought to keep its grip. The effort kept it from dropping, but the faint scrape of motion was enough.
C-ST looked up.
The Raider barely had time to lift its rifle before a white flash cut cleanly through its neck.
Its body fell.
C-ST caught the severed head in one hand and lifted it, bringing the optics to face her.
“DR-F1209,” she said, voice calm and intimate, “or rebel Wyatt… are you still watching?”
She tilted her head slightly, smiling with that same wrong amusement.
“Poor Wyatt. Failed Wyatt. You showing up tonight excites me. You always surprise me.” Her eyes narrowed. “But what made you dare storm my base to save someone? Confidence? The Origin Key? Or did the rain wash out your brain?”
The Raider’s speaker crackled.
“You should worry about yourself,” it said. “The Father who’s about to fall.”
C-ST chuckled. “This rain?” Her smile widened. “The one about to fall is the free world you’ve been dreaming about.”
She leaned closer to the stolen optics as if she could see Wyatt through them.
“You forgot what you’re. You’ve been the most irritating rebel in all my history,” she said, “but I’ll admit you’ve also been… entertaining. I’m not as angry anymore.”
Her voice softened into something almost coaxing.
“Stop playing hide-and-seek. Come out, child. Let’s talk.”
“Talk to my AU-84,” the Raider spat. “You fake… person.”
C-ST’s smile sharpened. “All right. Then I’m coming to find you.”
She crushed the Raider’s head in her fingers.
The link went dead.
***
Six minutes later, she found them.
C-ST stepped out of a side branch directly in front of the charging Destroyer tank, carrying a Dragonhunter anti-tank rocket launcher across her shoulder.
Boom.
The rocket punched into the seam beneath the turret, where turret met hull. The entire turret tore free and cartwheeled away.
C-ST tossed the launcher aside, drew her long blade, and walked forward.
The tank’s hull still slid past her, smoking, but she didn’t even glance at it.
Instead, she stopped by an unremarkable loading truck, reached down, and flipped it over like a toy.
Dancer lay under it, eyes wide with dread.
C-ST frowned. Under the truck, there was only one robot.
“Bang.”
The shot hit her before she fully processed it. She flew backward several meters.
“Bang. Bang. Bang—”
Wyatt dropped out of the tank’s open ammo bay and advanced, firing as he came. Each step was another shot. Coffee-mug-sized casings clanged to the floor and rolled down the slope.
He emptied the magazine, then calmly started loading explosive-incendiary rounds from his belt.
By the time he finished, C-ST was no longer a body.
She was a burning heap that barely held a shape.
Wyatt didn’t look away.
“I can confirm one more thing,” he said to Dancer. “Those shackles don’t just explode. They also have a tracker.”
“Fine,” Dancer whispered, still staring at the flames. “Then I can confirm one more thing too.”
“What?”
The fire shifted.
It writhed, pulled together, and something human-shaped began to rise from the burning pile—slowly, patiently, as if the flames were simply clothing.
Dancer’s voice came out hollow.
“She really doesn’t fear fire.”