The broken loader bot deposited the pilot at the control console. He immediately set to work, initiating the ship's descent. Across the bunker, the crew lined up in perfect, silent order, gliding parachutes strapped to their backs. All but four.
Gift, Mr. Williams, and two lead scientists remained seated on a central couch, surrounded by a silent, unmoving wall of robots.
As the ship descended, all exterior doors hissed open. The crew jumped, their figures scattering into the Martian sky like falling rain.
"We should jump with them!" a pilot in the control room yelled, his eyes fixed on the door, expecting Bryce to bust in at any second.
"And who would land the ship? A ghost?" the head pilot snapped, his hands steady on the navigation console.
"But Captain, he's right," the co-pilot stammered, his hands shaking as he struggled to switch the ship's heavy ignition batteries. "By the time we land, we'll be the only ones left to face Bryce's wrath."
"We're doing this for our children," the Captain replied, his voice low and firm. "Let our consequences be ours. Theirs should not be abandonment. And remember, his daughter is in control. She's hacked every bot on board. They'll restrain Bryce long enough for us to get clear. She might even succeed in throwing him off the ship."
The co-pilot finally slammed the battery home. "But won't… won't Charlene be in danger?"
"Bryce doesn't hurt people. The worst he'll do is arrest us for breach of contract. But his daughter never signed one. Now! Turn south, set for automatic landing. It's time."
The head pilot tossed parachutes to his crew. They executed the final sequence, slapped the auto-pilot, and leaped from the western door into the open sky.
*************
Bryce tried to focus on the documents, but his thoughts pulled at his concentration.
"Should I let them go?" he muttered to the empty room. "It would cripple the project… but some sacrifices are necessary to protect humanity." He tapped his forehead in exasperation. "But they're children. They'll die without guardians."
He froze.
His advanced hearing picked up the shriek of wind against the hull and the distant whine of operating engines. He willed a command. His B-Wax interface obediently pulled up the live CCTV feeds into his field of vision. Instead of video, a flat, mocking red error glyph flashed: Connection Failed. Feed Offline.
Charlene. The name was a hiss in his mind.
He strode to the door. It was sealed. He placed his hands against the reinforced steel and pushed. The metal dented under his palms, but the door held.
His body shuddered as the nanites initiated the Replacement Protocol. His skin hardened to a polished, metallic finish, his height increased, and his hands elongated into bladed tools. The world sharpened into a hyper-analytical spectrum of data as his Homo Deus mode fully engaged, a wave of power that came with the conscious cost of another fractional dip in his HDC_ Homo Dues Capacity.
This was the Homo-deus form—the pinnacle of human potential, and a living elegy for the humanity it had left behind.
His head became a smooth, featureless dome, etched with glowing circuits that pulsed in time with his thoughts. His eyes were cold points of light, scanning frequencies beyond the visible spectrum. He grew to nearly seven feet, his hands elongating into tools with retractable, razor-sharp tips.
He walked calmly to the door and simply pressed his elongated fingers against it. The molecular bonds disintegrated, and the metal fell away to dust.
A wave of robots surged toward him, a tide of silent metal, parting only around his face.
And there she was.
Charlene stood facing him, radiant in her own Homo-deus form. Her own transformation complete. Her dreadlocks were now strands of shimmering silver metal, her eyes burned with the same ruthless white light, a mirror of his own power and her body lined with pulsing circuits of white and gold. She was sharper, more defined, a master of biomechanical calisthenics. The air crackled with the dissonant energy of two activated Homo Deus systems.
For a fleeting moment, his fury dissolved. She reminded him of the daughter he'd saved after Diego murdered his family, the one he'd given the Syrup to so she might survive the war. Before she learned the truth and learned to hate him.
The memory was a stab of pain. He forced it down, the brief smile replaced by severe irritation.
"Charlene," he said, his voice a modulator's hum. He willed his body back to its human form. "I've thought about what you said. Humanity is more important than this project. I'll pause it. We can work together—find the source of this virus and destroy it."
"You don't need me for that, Dad. You called me to complete a project. I'm completing it. You go save humanity. They need you."
The library's rear door hissed open. Before Bryce could react, the robots seized him and hurled him into the open air.
He tumbled through the sky, the wind whipping at him. The suppressed memory—the day he lost everything—finally broke through its mental dam and swallowed him whole.
Rage consumed him.
His Homo-deus form reactivated, but this time, it was not a tool. It was a weapon without a pilot. The trauma breached a threshold. His neural board, overwhelmed, triggered a catastrophic, automated activation. This wasn't a conscious choice; it was a system meltdown. A raw, sonic scream tore from him, not from his lungs, but from the nanites themselves, as they began to evaporate the robots in a wave of pure, uncontrolled force.
The wave of uncontrolled force hit the robots crowding him. Their atomic lattices disintegrated, evaporating them into swirling metallic mist.
The shockwave hit the ground. An Earthquake shook the district. Buildings crumbled. The Sewer Roof cracked, sections collapsing into the Yellow Zone below. In the streets, people stumbled, falling to their deaths as their internal organs ruptured from the resonant frequency, blood blooming at their eyes and ears..
He stopped, the scream dying in his throat. The Homo-deus form stood frozen, a statue of wrath, staring at nothing.
The Silicon Canyon Cadets surrounded him, weapons drawn but useless, their faces masks of terror and confusion. Minutes earlier, they'd received a direct order from Bryce's personal hardware: A malfunctioning ship is descending. Let the workers leave. Do not restrain them. They had obeyed. Now, they didn't know what to do.
High above, Charlene was oblivious to the chaos below. A more immediate catastrophe loomed.
The ship, now uncontrolled, was on a collision course with the massive spire of Onyx Technology. People would die.
She sprinted to the console, a silver blur. Slamming her hands onto the interface, she closed her eyes, her mind merging with the ship's systems.
The vessel groaned, its descent reversing. It rose, fighting gravity, and slotted back into its hangar with a final, deafening clang.
All doors sealed shut, locking Charlene, Gift, Mr. Williams, and the two scientists inside.
The bunker was a tomb once more.