Technological Syngularity

The robot stopped at the sound of the name SIDOS. The glow dimmed a bit and the laser stopped turning. The "expression" if you can call it that, of the robot did not change. It lifted up a claw and stepped forward, and began to advance slowly toward Roz.


Casey glanced at Roz with a look of worry. All four of them were agile. A51 could fly, Rook and Roz were pretty quick, and Casey was a nimble man. "We can't go at him one at a time." Casey looked hard at Roz to get his attention without attracting the attention of the bot.

"I hope this works..." Nicholas followed Jake, making as little noise as possible. So far, the beast seemed to show little sign of deviating from its mechanical 'meal,' but Nicholas was still reluctant to edge around it.

"Fine... but... We'll need someone to try to keep his attention while everyone is trying to get past." ROZ once again began to slowly move backwards to Rook and Casey. "Well, if we try to all go at once, he's gonna try to get at least one of us, if one of us keeps his attention, the rest will be able to get past. But as I said, if we all go and no one tries to keep his attention, he will go after all of us, and likely kill all of us, instead of only one."

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"Well, if we stay quiet, we won't die..." Dr. Ez whispered and began moving after the other two, never allowing his eyes to leave the beast, watching for the moment when it would finally notice them.

"Okay, lets take it one step at a time shall we? Roz and me can keep its attention while Casey goes first, then we can decide who goes next and so on. What do you think?" Rook said stepping forward to stand besides Roz as she spoke.

((Sorry if you were waiting on me, I wasn't sure what to post..))

Upon getting clear of the creature, who still showed no interest in the trio, Nicholas somehow resisted the urge to run until his companions had followed suite. He stood, awed, observing the thing in its meal - it snapped angry jaws and made irritated, guttural noises, shaking its mane as it consumed metal components.

Once Jake and Dr. Ez had managed to circumnavigate the beast, Nicholas was off like a shot.

"Okay, so Casey, we'll make sure you don't die, is that okay? We'll cover your escape." ROZ nodded, and as Rook stepped up beside him, he nodded. "When he gets past, run as fast as you can. Okay? I'll cover the exit."

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Dr. Ez raced after Nick, trying to be as quiet as he possibly could while being quick.

Jake was far behind the other two, on account of him not wanting to run. Can't run... It'll see me... If I try to run, the thing will stop eating the bots and come after me...

Nicholas ducked into an office at the earliest opportunity, only to find that it was less of an office than a laboratory. Rows of shelves, armed with strange equipment that Nicholas was unfamiliar with, glistened ominously in the dim light, their pure-white counters unnaturally clean. The place unnerved Nicholas for some reason, so rather than scavenge for supplies he immediately exited and kept moving.

"Pssst. Hurry up, that thing's coming for us next..." he whispered back at his companions.

Casey bit his lip. His eyes started to well up a bit in appreciation, that they would do that for him. "Alright," He said. "But try to keep yourselves together. We need all the help we can get, so don't go on dying."

The laser on GS-09 was powered up again, spinning at a deadly velocity, with the inner core of the laser glowing bright blue. It was getting impatient.

"You're not risking yourselves without me!" A51 called to Rook and Roz. He shifted his jets and dashed over to Rook and Roz.

The laser triggered, and a blinding flash of light blue filled the hallway.

((alright, here we go))

Jake nodded, but before leaving the room after Dr. Ez and Nick, he decided to grab a peculiar-looking device. It was shaped a bit like a box, with a hole in one side. Buttons flashed on and off as he stared at it for a moment, then he hustled after the other two.

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"Go!" ROZ blasted forward, putting as much power into his robotic legs as he could, causing him to go at incredible speeds. Racing to the giant robot, he attempted to bring its attention to him, as he ducked in and out, picking at sections of exposed wires, which sadly seemed to do nothing at all the the giant construct. "GO CASEY, GO! WE'LL HANDLE HIM HERE! JUST GO!"

Rook ducked and sprinted forwards underneath the large robot, it seemed much much bigger this close to it. Wires exposed around its underbelly between its large plates and structure. ROZ was pulling some of them out, she went for a more direct tactic.

She grabbed one of the plates sticking out of its front shoulder and pulled herself up onto its back, she looked around for its laster. Once she found it she started bashing the lens with her fists, she could easily move if it went off...Now if she could just destroy it before the robot 'threw' her off.

Once the trio was safely removed from the creature - for the moment at least - Nicholas dared to speak. "So where are we headed now, any ideas?"

Catching a glimpse of Jake's device, he stopped. "What's that you got there?" Leaning forward, he examined it curiously.

"Uh... I'm not sure. I think one of you two would be the best to look at it... As for where we are going, I'm guessing we should just try to keep moving down, SIDOS no doubt is far ahead of us by now..." Jake gave the strange machine over to Dr. Ez, and began inspecting the several branches away from the current, large and metal room that they were situated in.

Dr. Ez looked at the strange metal device. It looked somewhat like a briefcase, excluding the strange hole in the side and the odd buttons and switches that were constantly lighting and un-lighting. As he cautiously shook it, he heard something shaking around inside, and decided he needed to get in.

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As ROZ snatched another wire, a leg of the robot suddenly shot out, smashing him upwards, so close to the inferno that he was sure his wires were about to begin to melt, but they miraculously did not. As he fell, an idea invaded his mind. Bring it into the inferno... He knew this idea, if they tried it, would most likely be a suicide mission, but they would have to try it, or it would just chase Casey after it slaughtered them.

"Agreed. We're safe from SIDOS for the moment, but I won't be comfortable stopping to rest until we put some real distance between us and that bloody... thing back there."

Nicholas observed Dr. Ez's analysis. "Do you think you can get it open?"

Casey bit his lip for a moment and jumped out of the way, avoiding the blast of the laser. He darted around the corner to enter the hallway. He could hardly believe he was doing this, abandoning the robots to run.

A51 came up beside him, flying. "What do I do!" he cried. "I don't have any limbs, all I have is this useless laser!" Casey shook his head slowly in confusion.

Casey looked back for a moment, seeing his friends--Could he call them that? They were only robots, after all. Casey's mechanic background lessened his relationship with robots.--darting at the beast. There was no way for them to survive. They couldn't, not against that.

Casey quickly looked around him. By himself, he would be extremely vulnerable. Think, he told himself. What was this floor? There were seven floors in the robotics level, and they were on the fifth. What was this floor's subtopic?

Microcircuit Artificial Intelligence.

Casey blasted into the room beside him, with A51 following.


~~~

GS-09 felt through his artificial nerve system two things attacking him. In response, he shook his body a bit, and started to stand up. With a roof this small, standing up was a challenge, but he did it, putting a small dent in the ceiling. Dust fluttered down. GS-09 flexed his front claws, putting all his weight on his haunches, the massive legs supporting his full mass. Body armour started to shift, putting a small amount of armour over his chest. Limb armour also shifted to suit his new formation.

((you guys can take control of the robot as well.))

"Yeah... probably..." Dr. Ez began to fiddle around with the many switches that were placed on the metallic box.

"Uh, hey guys... You may wanna check this out..." Jake was standing in front of a digital map of the facility. On the screen, it showed a map, including where they were. Oddly though, it was a large blank area. "This place, it doesn't exist... We are on an unknown level of Genetics..."

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ROZ leaped back when he landed to stay away from the shifting plates. He dipped around the robot, trying to find a chink in the shining armor.

( its 3:oo AM here...yay for me...Crap. I got the sucky laptop right now, sorry for the bad spelling the kayboar don this thing is a real pain to use. But I'mm on and i got this thing in here might as well use it. ))

Rook bashed on the laster's sight but it didn't even dint the thing, the sight had thick glass and she gave up on that plan. The robot began to stand up trying to shake them off, she plated her feet fermly into the curve of one of its back plates as it reared. To keep herself balanced. "Hey Rozy Got any plans for this thing?!" Rook asked adding a Y to his name, but she couldn't understand why she would do that.

"Oh this is SWEET. Nice find, Jake." Nicholas examined the digital display.

He frowned. "So we find a map and the place we're at isn't even on it? That's some luck for ya."

"No... Other than don't die... wait, oh yeah! The flames, I could lead him up there. It is intensively warm up there, and is sure to destroy it." ROZ subconsciously noted the "Y" at the end of his name as Rook had said it, and he right now chose not to say what it would mean if he brought the robot up there. Death, he knew this. His circuitry would fry, even though he was meant to be able to stand to extreme high temperatures, that would be too much.

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Jake laughed, then nodded at one hallway. "I'm gonna look over there, okay? If I start screaming, run. Any questions Nick?" Without letting Nick reply, he nodded and began to move off into the darkened hallway.

"I don't think so ROZ, you see I was made to be quick and agile to do that I have to make the calculations. And the chances of you going up there and coming back are Zero. I..." She suddenly trailed off and pick up again a moment later "I can't let you do that." She said. But why? She didn't understand why, why should she having any motive to not let this robot die rather then her? That wasn't her programming at all, and yet she couldn't imaging seeing ROZ die at a time like this. But then robots couldn't die..Right? They were not alive in the first place.. These thoughts confused her greatly.

((He's gonna do it anyways, besides, I need him to do that so I can do something I want to do.))

"I gotta try! Okay?" ROZ narrowly dodged a blast from the robot as he yelled back. He needed to save everyone that he could. Death seemed miniature compared to anyone else dying. "Just... Don't follow me. Run as fast as you can and catch up to Casey. Don't come back." His mind was already made up, he was going to do it.

"Sounds goo-" Nick frowned as Jake absconded. He scratched his head and turned to Dr. Ez. "He always do that?"

Bending down to peer more closely at the map, Nicholas' expression brightened considerably. "The good news is, if SIDOS is tapped into the same database that spawned this map, we're fresh off his radar. Splitting up shouldn't be too punishing... for now, anyway."

"I don't know. I kind of feel through the ceiling when I met him, so I don't know." He laughed, and continued at his struggles with the box.

At that moment Jake's voice was hear echoing through the hallway, "Guys, come here! I-I found those vines we saw a while earlier!"

"Well there's an interesting story." Nicholas chuckled lightly, then less lightly, for the hysteria of his current situation had just now hit him full-force.

I am trapped in a facility governed by a homicidal AI. Nicholas laughed and laughed until he had to wipe tears from his eyes, sighing. "Sorry. I think I just needed that."

Thus recovered, he responded to Jake's summons. "Oh, bloody brilliant... though I suppose we've nowhere else to go. Shall we, Ez?"

"Sure." Dr. Ez took off to meet up with Jake.

Jake was directly in front of a massive jumble of vines, but these were slightly different from the ones they had seen earlier, a sort of... energy seemed to be flowing through them, increasing their growth at alarming speeds. As he watched, another vine shot out, quickly crawling up the wall and burst into the ceiling.

Nicholas arrived just in time to observe the strange flora in action.

"That... was odd. Two guesses as to whether or not going through here is going to turn out well? I'd conduct some tests if this was an appropriate time, but..."