Technological Syngularity

Nicholas fired until the clip was empty - only then did he notice two things.

First, his ears were ringing quite badly. Now he saw why people wore ear protection when they fired guns in closed-off metal hallways. Nicholas had to fight to keep himself focused, biting down so hard on his tongue that he felt warm blood pool into his mouth. That might be a problem later. For now, his main concern was not succumbing into the urge to bash his head into a wall. Everything seemed so quiet behind the ringing...

Secondly, the creature had almost shrugged off the last barrage of bullets. It was almost inside now, and swift action would have to be taken.

Nicholas turned to shout "AIM FOR THE EYES! AIM FOR THE MOUTH!" and retreated further into the room.

Jake nodded, his head and ears ringing from the bullets. He aimed at the foaming maw of the beast. When the mouth next open, he fired. It flew straight at the mouth, and the beast snapped its mouth closed, cutting it off in mid-flight. Jake grumbled under his breath and loaded another dart. He aimed, but just then the tail had woken up again and whipped through the hole it had made, slamming into his arm and knocking him closer to the beast. He shcrambled away, hoping that he could be safe somehow, but it would only be a few seconds before he would be eaten up by the murderous beast.

As for Dr. Ez, he was barely stirring, but he still was, just enough to realize the dire situation of Jake. "Nick... Nick... Get... Jake..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's gonna blow soon! Hurry!" ROZ looked behind at Rook. "If this explodes, it's gonna fry our circuits! And also kill lots of humans! Oh, Casey, there must be a gas leak somewhere, if we had enough time, I would have gone and fixed it, but I didn't so we just have to hurry!"

Nicholas, despite the throbbing pain in his ears, threw himself forward with a curse and a fresh new clip. "DIE, you MUTANT CHUPACABRA! HEADCRAB! CTHULUDOG!"

He fired straight into the monster's left eye, causing it to rear back with pain. A swipe of its paw knocked Nicholas straight across the room, but it dropped Jake and retreated a few paces, unsure of whether or not to continue its attack on the doorway and three morsels beyond it.

Jake stood shakily up, and aimed his tranquillizer what could be the last time. He aimed at the eye, the large, vicious eye, filled with malice and hate, and... locked directly on him... He realized what was about to happen just moments late, and the great beast broke through the metal door and aimed right at him. "RUN!"

Dr. Ez struggled, and achieved the ability to stand once more. He looked in his pocket at the darts he had. One was different from the rest, it seemed more... alive... and deadly... The point of the dart also seemed to be much sharper. "What does this do? I don't have much time... I'll have to try it out..." He aimed at the beast, but at the last second he changed his aim to the high-voltage wires above the creature. "Here goes nothing." He pulled the trigger. The destructive dart flew straight and true and passed right through the wire, ripping it into two. It began to fall quickly towards the monstrosity that had just entered the room. The dart then lodged into the ceiling where it deposited its deadly load. The ceiling began to disintegrate, so much that a section of the upper floor may fall down on them soon if they did not move quickly.

Hopping out of the way of the falling wire, Nicholas watched as it made contact with the creature, giving it a large jolt of electricity.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling as the acidic compound began to take effect. "Ooooooooooooooh sh!t... Ez, I hope you have a plan?"

The beast was still dazed in the doorway as Nicholas backed towards the others...

"Uh... No, not really... Uh... Just... Run?" He scrambled to the hole that the beast had made in the wall earlier on, and attempted to squeeze through. "No, won't work... WAIT! The air ducts!" He scrambled over to one that hadn't been touched by the acid and tore it open. They weren't meant to be pulled on, so they were weak, and came off easily. "C'mon! In!"

Jake nodded and moved towards the opening as quickly as he could, but he was still dazed.

The ceiling began to sink as the acid continued to east away at the supports.

"Good thinking!"

Nick stuffed the gun and ammunition in his pocket and gave Jake a boost up into the air duct. "Hurry now, I think the thing's coming round..."

He only just had enough time to crawl inside after Jake before an uncertain amount of metal and stone crashed down behind him, filling the room and plunging the trio into darkness.

"Just keep on moving, we'll have an easier time moving lower down than up, but we still should hurry." Dr. Ez moving moving along the small, pitch-black corridors.

Jake nodded, even though he knew no one else would be able to see the action and started forwards after him. "But don't talk to loud, that thing could have survived that and may hear us. It could be trying to get to us right now!"

"Good, let's get going!" Casey shouted over the terrifying hiss of the leaking gas. Casey continued to trudge. "A51! You're fast. Find us some stairs! We can't risk an elevator right now." A51 quickly zipped off, flying at top speed around the hallways. Casey looked back at Rook and Roz. Good, they were coming. Now they just needed to find somewhere to go down.



A51 felt the rush of cool air through the air vents on his chest. He loved flying around. It not only cooled his circuits, which allowed for much more fluent action, but it also granted a sense of freedom.

In minutes, A51 had found stairs. A sign above read "floor 1 - floor 2". Perfect, that would work. A51 quickly mapped out a mental picture and started flying back.


((Alright, I posted.))

"The estimate time remanding before explosion is..."
"Low. Very low" Rook said dashing forward to catch up with Roz she was faster then him. It was what she had been built for but she remanded at his speed. She wouldn't leave him, but she couldn't explain why.
>Error
Oh not the stupid error again! She ignored it annoyed. “Are their stairs up ahead?” She asked.

Casey noticed A51 coming towards them. "Yeah, I think so. A51's coming back, he can show us the way." Casey glanced back at the two. "Any damage on you two? There's gotta be a few tools around here somewhere. I can patch you up."

">Error 123223489598239032u459-932804.40398324823 is not vaild
> Error system’s power leaked detected shutdown for repair processes.
>Warning heat levels high, gas detected
> Shutdown intimate"
Rook halted confused as it flooded her with errors and warnings, Wait what? Shutdown? Why? Leaked? Power? She knew the gas part that was a stupid thing to warn about. Duh! The air was full of gas, and fire and heat. Was it warning her she was hit or something? She found herself slowing down
Oh Fudge
Shutdown.
Duh
">Shutdown intimate."
It was the procedure after all.
“ I’m going to kill Procedure programing when this is over” She said before it force shutdown on her and she clasped onto the floor.

"Rook? Rook? You okay? Rook?" ROZ stopped immediately when he noticed Rook slowing down, he sat down near her, watching for any movement. "Casey! We gotta help Rook! Maybe... maybe we'll be able to lift her away? I- I don't know, but we can't just leave her here, we have to bring her with us. Please!" His robotic voice had a odd hint of desperation, it was odd because he wasn't really programmed for that, but he knew that he couldn't just leave her where she could be blown to bits.

Nicholas gulped at Jake's words and gave an "Aye" of acknowledgement. He followed the others through the cramped tube, making as little sound as a grown man can make in an air duct.

They continued this way for some time before Nicholas finally worked up the courage to whisper a question. "Exactly... where are we going? I haven't seen an offshaft for some time now... when will we know when we hit a roo-"

And with that, his knee put a last straw of wait on a camel's back of duct flooring and Nicholas plunged through the thin metal sheet with a yipe.

((Removed))

Casey looked back, wrenching himself between two decisions. No, why bring a robot along when she's just gonna slow us down with these shutdowns? Smaller target with less. But, the more the merrier--and the safer, in this case. She might turn out handy. At the very least, spare parts are never a bad thing. Casey groaned and banged his head against the wall a few times. When he looked at Rook, he was surprised to see Roz... desperately trying to lift Rook. What? That's strange. Robots weren't programmed to carry that level of personality. With a final decision made, Casey started to walk over to Rook and Roz.

"Alright, we'll get her out of here. She probably just overheated or something. We'll get her to the stairs, and take a look at her on the next floor." Casey heaved up the top half of Rook by grabbing underneath her shoulders.


A51 finally reached the group. The excessive gas in the hallway made his air filtering system whir with agony. A51's jets kept catching on patches of more condensed gas, making his jets shoot at irregular speeds. Due to that, flying became increasingly difficult. Seeing Rook, A51 frowned. "Can't we just go? We need to get out of here before we all collapse."

"NICK!" Jake spun around and peered down the hole Nick fell through. "Ez, I'm goin down, 'kay?" He peered down to judge the distance.

Dr. Ez nodded.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Good, let's hurry." When ROZ heard what A51 had said, he snatched up Rook and spoke defiantly, "No! I am not leaving without 'er." He started off once more, moving as swiftly as his failing systems could handle.

Casey decided that Roz didn't look like he wanted any help. He started off at a brisk walk, following A51, who was grumbling something about the limitations of ground movement. Soon the stairs came into view.

A warning full electronic voice spoke from Rook but was not her
“
 > System shut downed
 > Restarting processes enabled
 > Restarting processes failed
 > Error
 > Error 123768293476821943723.34879234723234xna93842jd90q Is not valid

 > Power leakage in sector four
 > Power leakage in sector three
 > Error
 > Power leakage in sector one
 > Warning cannot restart, 123768293476821943723.34879234723234xna93842jd90q is not vaild
 > Warning power leakage
 > Unit Rook is not responding
> Shutting down senators for more power in core three
> Power rector in sector four is not responding
> Core three has shutdown

 “

((lol short post, but I did it anyways ^^))

ROZ continued to move as fast as he possible could, but his systems were becoming extremely heated, if he continued for too long, one of two things would happen, he would shut down, or he would start a fire in the gas that was still in the air. But, that didn't slow him down. A warning voice from his system alerted him of how dangerous his condition was right now. | WARNING, GAS LEAKAGE IS BEGINNING TO DISABLE LEG MOTORS, WARNING, WARNING. SYSTEMS WILL OVERHEAT AND SHUT DOWN IN ONE MINUTE> WARNING, WARNING, WARNING> ||:

"Shut up systems, it won't be long... Please, don't let it be long... please..." ROZ noticed his decreasing in speed and frowned, instead of slowing down as he knew he should, he raced as quickly as he possible could after A51 and Casey, who had gotten far ahead of him by now.

Nicholas groaned and lifted his head, examining his surroundings. He was in another hallway, this one identical to the last except for the darkness about 50 feet in front of him. The lights must have gone out.

He hauled himself to his feet. "I'm fine, guys, just a bit... dropped."

Something that looked like a vine was clinging to the ceiling about where the lights had shorted. Nicholas strode forward to investigate.

((Oh no, the VINES!))

Jake grinned, and hopped down into the hallway, landing a short distance from Nick. "Ez, cm'on, it's okay down here!" He then noticed the vines. "What... what are those?" He began moving forward to investigate the vines.

Dr. Ez nodded and began moving back to where Nick had fallen through. He studied the hole for a bit, and came to a strange conclusion. "Something... something seemed to have been taking out the strength of this metal, cause it is just as old as the others, so it shouldn't have broken like that... Oh well, we'll have to just continue..." He also swung down into the hallway.

A51 looked back to see if they were still following. When he saw Roz, he frowned (mechanically). "Roz!" he called. "You still with us? We have to get to the stairs!"

"I could help you, you know." Casey suggested. "Speed up the pace."

"I..." | ERROR, SYSTEMS FAILING. ERROR, SYste...| ROZ began to falter and crash to the ground, but surprisingly he managed to stay up. "Mu... must not... Crash..." ROZ continued to move.

((He'll survive.))

Nicholas, squinting at the vines suspiciously with a slackened jaw, emitted a faint "Huh." and spun around.

"Well, let's think here. Perfectly normal hallway that way, mysteriously darkened hallway populated by flora that should not be there. I'm thinking option A."

A growling noise from somewhere above set Nicholas twisting his head about wildly.

"R-R... reckon that's our friend looking for us... I suggest we move quickly?"