Technological Syngularity

"Yeah..." Dr. Ez began sprinting blindly to one end of the hallway, followed closely by Jake.

Nicholas stumbled after the two as best he could without opening his eyes, and when he was finally able to do so he found the trio of them to be in yet another dim hallway.

"Hey, Ez, do you still have that map? Let's try and find us a way down. I been thinking, maybe we could shut off SIDOS' power source at the low levels of the facility."

"No, sorry but I don't have it. I kind of rushed over to Jake when he called us..." Dr. Ez looked around for any exit, but none were easily seen.

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In a white room a robot leaned over a fully-repaired ROZ. "You are working for SIDOS now. Be thankful that he spared you. Here are your new orders." The robot passed a sheet of paper to ROZ.

ROZ looked at the paper. It read: Kill all humans and assisting robots. Your first targets are on floor 5, level 1. Two robots are escorting a human. Kill them all. With a nod, he stood up and strode purposefully out of the room, but not until he took a gun from a rack near the door.

"Rats - guess we're on our own, then." Nicholas led the way down the hallway for about fifty yards before it ended in an elevator shaft, the doors to which appeared to have been ripped open.

"Looks like someone was in a bit of a hurry," Nicholas observed, leaning forward to study the dark descent. "Hey - the cable's still here. Any of you boys fancy a little rappelling?"

"I'd rather not, but if it'll save our hides, then sure!" Jake laughed, the laugh echoed all the way down the shaft. "Oh... this guy goes down for a while..."

"Not too far, I hope."

Nicholas leaned out a bit farther and was just able to snag one of the cables, which was taut but movable. "I'm not sure how this elevator works, but I think it's one of the older, pulley-operated cabins... So if we can get ahold of both cables, we can sort of lower ourselves down."

He turned back to the others. "Now who wants to go first. Rock paper scissors...?"

"Nah, it just wastes time." Jake shook his head.

"I AGREE! LET'S GO!" Dr. Ez stuffed the gun in his pocket, grabbed the cables, and began to slide down with his coat pockets covering his hands as to not burn them.

"Good tactic!" Nicholas jumped onto the cables, following Ez's suite with the coat trick, about thirty seconds after Ez had disappeared from view.

A few minutes of sliding (and presumably after Jake had followed) Nicholas called down to Ez. "Any sign of the bottom yet?"

"Uh... OH CRAP!" Dr. Ez let go and fell into a writhing mass of plant matter. "THE PLANTS ARE BACK!" He whipped out the gun to point it at the plants.

Jake heard Dr. Ez and suddenly fully let go, zipping down even quicker and crashed into the vines, ripping through several before coming to a stop. "That kinda hurt..."

((I'm making the gun a robot. If I'm allowed. :P ))

Nicholas, clipped by a falling Jake, tumbled down into the vines alongside his colleague. "Yeesh, it's like that scene from Harry Potter..." He struggled, but the vines were quickly wrapping themselves around his limbs. "Something tells me that relaxing won't help here, though. Go for it, Ez!"

[[Cool cool :3]]

As Dr. Ez began to press the trigger, the gun's voice popped out. "Whoa! Just wait, are you sure ya' wanna do this? Cause y'know... If ya' do this then ya' may fall down a little bit... But I don't really know... Can't see through this tangle of metal plants... Oh, but anyways, state your chosen way to destroy evil little invasive vines, who wish to break into my private sanctum and dismantle me nuclear piece by nuclear piece. And maybe start a nuclear reaction and blow off the top of this miserable lump in the ground... Actually... I don't really hate this place, after all, they DID build me! But then they locked me in a dark room with no supper!"

"Oh... uh... Incinerate?"

"Nope! That won't work on these nasties, they are mostly metal, so nothing that involves heat will work on them... unless you want me to attempt to melt them, but that may be a bit warm... Don't blame me if-"

"JUST SHOOT THE DARN THINGS!" Dr. Ez pulled the trigger, forcing the gun to emit a strange wave. Suddenly the plants began to seem to begin to bubble.

Nicholas, perplexed, confounded, astounded, taken aback, and in general mental disarray at the robotic gun's spiel, began to lose his grip on reality just a tad. A gun with... personality!?

The boiling metallic plants cinched the deal - yup, Nicholas was dreaming. He simply sighed and laid his head back, closing his eyes, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen. Maybe he'd fall if the plants dissolved? That would be fun, falling was always enjoyable in dreams. Or maybe he'd just wake up.

"Uh... Nick, you may not want to fall asleep... Its kind of dangerous..." Jake had noticed Nick laying back.

"Okay... I do not like these liddle' t'ings at all! These vines gonna' tryda' kill us all!" The gun babbled as he continued to melt the metallic vines.

"Okay, okay... Don't go yelling that we're going to die... We are not going to die." Dr. Ez spoke firml to the gun as he continued to press the trigger.

"This is simply too ridiculous. When are we going to wake up, guys?" Nicholas sighed, but nevertheless lifted his head and attempted to at least shrug off the bubbling vines.

"I hope that gun knows what it's doing."

"Course I do! Well... Not really... But I'll say I do to boost confidence! Ooh! The vines bubble nicely! How 'bout I finish them off?" The gun babbled as it continued to fire.

"JUST DO IT!" Dr. Ez yelled at the gun, not realizing he had let go of the trigger, the whole gun in fact, and it was floating, still shooting, but a small jet had flipped out of its back, keeping it aloft.

Nicholas attempted to regain his footing as the gun-robot finally began to dissipate the vines. "Hang on, everyone, I think we've got a bit of a drop coming."

He steadied himself as his right foot plunged through the metallic mass, hanging onto the cable...

((YOu guys go on ahead without me, I really just don't have time right now. I'll be able to pos tlater next week sorry ))

Dr. Ez grabbed the gun as well as hung onto the wire, as did Jake.

"Ooh! I feel it going... going... going... going... going... going... Oops, still there... Wait, I was wrong... Its almost gone. Gone in 3... 2... 1... 0.99... 0.98... 0.97... 0.96... 0.95... 0.94..." The gun continued to count all the way to 0 in this way, waiting for the vines to give.

When the vines finally collapsed, Nicholas yelled as he dropped into empty space - for all of half a second. Impacting the concrete of the bottom of the shaft, Nicholas stumbled before regaining his footing and gazing upwards at the way they'd come.

"Whoooooooo-eee," he observed, wiping his brow. "I'd like to see SIDOS' drones track us this far down."

"SIDOS? You mean that idiotic smart all-knowing new ruler of this building who attempted to take over my systems? If you aren't with him, I'll be with ya... I don't like 'im... Not one bit... Now as for his drones tracking us... I don't know if he controls all the way down here, so we may or may not be in trouble as of yet..." The gun grumbled as he removed himself from the grasp of Dr. Ez.

Jake stood up after landing on the... smashed elevator... "Guys... this wasn't the bottom of the shaft... this was the top of an elevator... There were people in here... SIDOS murdered them... All of them..."

Nicholas jumped. "You... you serious?"

He looked down, examining the platform more closely, and saw that Jake was correct. "Oh my gawd..."

He frowned. "All remorse aside - we can save that until we're safe - the elevator must still be at a floor level if SIDOS was able to kill its inhabitants. If we can get inside, we can pry open the doors... Though... that course of action might not be advisable if the drones are still about."

"Yeah, but as to getting in, its very simple, really. You see this corner here?" Jake motioned to a corner, "There is a weakness there that we'll be able to use on our behalf. It won't be too hard."

"Okay. Want me to melt it? Though of course I may melt through the whole elevator, causing only myself to survive..." The gun babbled on.

"I'll try to get it open." Dr. Ez began attempting to pry the corner open.

"Good thinking," Nicholas replied, though he felt uneasy, unsure of what sick remains would be present in the elevator cabin.

He moved to the other corner so that he would not have to enter first - a bit of a cowardly move, but Nicholas did not allow it to bug him.

Dr. Ez stamped on the corner, and fell in. "Uh... guys... you may want to..." There were retching sounds heard, "May want to close your eyes when you come down here..."

"..."

Nicholas covered his mouth and lifted his head skyward as he clambered down into the chamber. Upon hitting the floor, he began to slip on something - something that he dared not look at - as he squeezed his eyes shut and the stench of the crusted blood on the wall he leaned against for support threatened to overpower his nostrils.