Four hours earlier – Glimmer Caverns.
“What are you doing?! Let me out!”
Liam shoved a young woman – she looked about twenty-five – into the cargo bay of a transport truck. Before she could even react, he jumped back out, slammed the door, and locked it.
“What is this supposed to mean?!” She lunged for the small window and shouted through it. “You said you had something important to tell me! I can’t believe I trusted you!”
“Shh. Honey, keep it down…”
“Help! Somebody help!”
“Don’t yell, for God’s sake…” Liam whipped his head around, scanning the street. “I’m trying to tell you right now.”
“Help!”
“I’m trying to save your life, Laila. Listen to me.”
“Open the door first. Then I’ll listen.”
“I’m not opening it. But I’ll give you the key.”
“Then give it to me.” She held out her hand.
Liam passed in a timer bomb.
“That’s… a bomb! Oh my God – you’re going to blow me up! Help!”
“Quiet!” He practically hissed. “It’s not going to explode. I removed the explosive charge and swapped in the key. It’s just a timed box.”
“Are you out of your mind?! What are you doing?!”
“Hear me out. There’s going to be a riot in Edean. Lots of people will die. I need you to stay in here and keep quiet until it’s over. When it ends, I’ll come back and let you out. If I don’t… this box will pop open on its own in eight hours. The key will be inside.”
“A riot? What riot?” Her expression flickered between fear and fury. “How would you even know that?”
“Because I…”
His comm terminal lit up. By reflex, he tapped accept – and Little White’s voice poured out loud and clear.
“I’m waiting near Gate Y3. How much longer? Still haven’t handled your girl?”
“Aaaah! You liar!” Laila’s eyes went wide with rage. “So you were meeting another woman! Help!”
“No – no, you’ve got it wrong, listen to me!”
***
Little White was still in a Glimmer Guard uniform. For this operation, she’d gone all in: she’d cut her hair short and dyed it a pale gray, and she’d borrowed tactical shades from Teresa – partly for the HUD readouts, partly so she wouldn’t be recognized.
She cradled an FBZ rifle and paced beneath the wall like she was on routine patrol, waiting for Liam to show up. He arrived more than forty minutes late, shoulders slumped.
“Could you two save the sweet talk for after we’re done?” she snapped. “The main assault starts in two hours, and we’re still loitering outside the walls.”
“It wasn’t sweet talk,” Liam sighed. “We had a fight.”
“And now? Is she really going to sit quietly in the truck? Or is she going to scream her head off?”
“Relax. I taped her mouth shut.”
Liam tossed that over his shoulder and strode through the gate.
***
The plaza was crowded with human soldiers checking their Judicator mechs – all handpicked Glimmer Guards under Teresa’s command. Several Bono-S2 drones looped around the tower, patrolling. Beyond them stood hundreds of armed robot soldiers in neat ranks around the octagonal square. Off to one side sat a standalone building: Teresa’s temporary command post.
Little White and Liam headed straight into Teresa’s office.
Teresa was already in armor, face set. He wore tactical shades too. Maybe it was the enhancement serum, but in just a few days his gray-black hair had picked up more than a few white strands, and his cheeks looked a little sharper – more rigid, more severe.
Liam carefully secured the doors and windows. Once Little White was sure the room was private, she asked, “How many people are actually going to join the rebellion?”
“Almost everyone on the plaza.”
“Just those hundred-something?”
“Two hundred and six,” Teresa said. “And they’re all Enhanced.”
“No problems with the mind brand? It hasn’t affected them at all?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve learned it doesn’t hit everyone the same way.” He paused, then his tone hardened. “The real problem is the robots. Soren and Graham control them directly, and there are too many.”
He rattled off the numbers around Edean Tower: hundreds in the plaza, thousands outside the walls, thousands more inside the tower – not counting the hexapod sentries crawling over the exterior.
“With just your people? If we start fighting, you’ll be wiped out in seconds,” Little White said.
“Their job isn’t to win a war,” Teresa replied. “It’s to seal the ground-floor entrance – keep the plaza units and the outside units from flooding in. I’ve acquired heavy weapons. And there’s only one entrance. Fifty people can hold it for a while. Past that, I can’t promise anything.”
His gaze flicked to her. “The pressure inside the tower can be spread out. But taking out Soren and Graham… that’s on you and Bit. Speaking of which – where is Bit? How is he getting in?”
“He’ll come in through a balcony,” Little White said, nodding. “Sounds like you’ve got a plan.”
“I do.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“The second the war alarm goes off, my people at the Glimmer Caverns entrance and the comms station will trigger explosions to create chaos. I’ll claim there’s an urgent incident and insist on reporting directly to General Graham. You and Lih…”
The plan was simple and brutal: get through the tower’s upper security, reach the 502nd floor where Soren and Graham were most likely stationed, and finish it fast.
Little White nodded. “Clean. Better than what I had in mind. Let’s do it.”
Teresa frowned as he remembered something. “Right – Soren made a rule a few days ago. No firearms above floor 500. Where are your blades?”
Little White shrugged. “If I walk in with twin swords, I might as well announce who I’m.”
“Fair.” Teresa scanned her up and down. “Then what are you fighting with?”
Little White glanced around and spotted a tool rack in the corner. She walked over, plucked two short-handled goat-horn hammers from the hooks, and spun them once in her hands. “These will do.”
“W- wow. Terrifying…” Liam blurted – then caught her look and hurriedly amended, “I mean, uh, you looked really cute when you did that.”
***
A whole wall behind Teresa’s desk was nothing but screens: the Glimmer Caverns main gate, the communications station, the skylight entrance, multiple exterior outposts. One feed – the view facing the Five-Color Fortress outpost – showed a massive fleet cruising the sky and a ground army packed thick as ants.
Seconds dragged by. All three of them ended up staring at the monitors.
Then the clouds began to churn. Every turret in the base tilted up at once. Missiles leapt from their bays, dragging dozens of flaming tails into the cloud layer…
At the same time, Edean’s war siren began to wail.
The battle they’d been waiting for had arrived on schedule.
Liam’s breathing turned heavy. Little White and Teresa barely reacted. She lounged on the couch, lazily rolling a hammer in her palm, while Teresa shifted his attention to the screen showing the Glimmer Caverns entrance. He raised his comm and spoke a few quiet words.
Less than fifteen seconds later, an explosion ripped through an ammo bay near the entrance. A dozen robots vanished in the blast. Everyone else – human and machine – hesitated in confusion, and then the shouting and gunfire hit all at once.
“Now,” Teresa said. He pulled his helmet on and stepped out the door.