The Disparate One

“He got it!” Ony rejoiced when he heard the helmet beeping.

He was in the middle of pushing countless buttons around him when he heard the noise he had been waiting for. He dashed over to the pod and pressed “confirm”. The helmet began to do its job.

He tapped his foot on the steel floor as he anxiously watched the progress bar slowly filled up. It reached 79% when he heard loud gunshots from the door followed by people screaming afterward. The guards had arrived. He gritted his teeth, knowing a first generation would easily lose against the advanced ones, especially since Nite was the only one. He heard the explosion booming in the distance.

He was about to rush back to Nite to lend a hand when he heard Oxford slurred. His head flaccidly rolled around the pod. His eyes fluttered, silently analyzing the environment. He raised his hands on his head, feeling the metal helmet weighing on it. Just like everyone, Oxford couldn’t remember how he got here, although he was not surprised it happened. He had seen people getting shoved into pods before, but not this many!

Slowly, he sat up and removed the helmet. Ony remained silent but eager to know if he was truly speaking to the Oxford he knew. For now, he was not surprised to see Oxford calm waking up in a chilly pod. Oxford gazed around, seeing the all familiar faces in panic under the flashing red lights and alarm.

From memory, this alarm sounded different compared to the ones he frequently heard. It could only mean one thing, someone set off a bomb. He quickly darted his eyes to Ony, glad to see him again alive and well.

“D-did they do it?” he asked.

Ony shook his head.

“They didn’t blow the reactor yet, Ray and Nite triggered explosions on their way here, to save us!”

Another burst of gunshots and screams filled the place. The number of dead bodies had already begun to rise. Oxford quickly hopped out of his pod, he nearly fell to the ground, but Ony caught him.

“W-where’s Ray?” he asked.

Ony explained that Ray had to get to Cal’s office to activate the helmet, alone. Different emotions raced on Oxford’s face.

“Where’s Chap?”

They found Chap nearby who was also looking for Oxford. They continued to duck every time they heard gunshots. People were trying their best to remove themselves from the line of fire, but it didn’t help Nite. He was using his pistol wisely.

“This is it, isn’t it?” Oxford asked calmly.

Chap hid behind a pod as cover. He nodded at him, breathing fast.

“It must be! Should we?” he hugged the pod.

Oxford glanced at everyone’s fearful faces before looking back at Ony, then to Chap. He nodded with determination and courage.

“Shit!” Only two left, Nite thought when he glanced at his pistol.

The door was fully open now. He tried closing it again earlier, but the door must have been overridden to remain that way. He hid on the side, back against the wall, as he watched everyone run away. Bodies already had carpeted the floor. When the guards stopped firing to reload, Nite poke his pistol and obliterated another group in the distance.

One, he thought about the remaining bullet more carefully now.

He closed his eyes as memories of the war flashed before his eyes. The moment when he successfully defended an onslaught with his friends. His colleague’s dying voice echoed in his mind. He glanced at the rifle resting nearby.

“It only takes one.”

He was about to fire another bullet when he heard screams, not the screams of fear but the same scream he heard both from the war and the rebellion, an outcry. It has begun. In front of him, he watched a stampede charged towards and past the doors. A few bodies dropped and rolled across the floor, dead as bullets continued to come.

The flood didn’t stop, it continued as others opened more pods, informing them that now was the perfect time. A once-in-their-lifetime event. The guards at the end of the hall sprayed the entire path but it was no match for the anger that had sparked and grew within everyone that was now outraged.

The guards, for the first time after years of stepping forward with death threats, had now made their first steps backward. Within seconds, the remaining guards were tackled to the ground, stomped, hammered, dismantled into unrepairable pieces. Nite didn’t know what happened, but he knew it would occur.

He remained calm despite the angry faces around him, he found Ony along with Oxford and a few other people walking forth. Ony told his colleagues what he knew about Nite, but he figured it would be better if Nite were the one to introduce himself. Of course, Nite and Oxford knew each other a long time ago.

Oxford was relieved to see him again since the last rebellion.

“Still going with the plan?” Nite asked Oxford after shaking hands with the new faces. Oxford nodded. Everyone in the facility knew about their plan.

“Alright… let’s hope for the best,” said Nite when he followed everyone out of the storage.

The entire group separated into smaller ones; a few moved to other storage rooms to release more people and the others breached numerous armories and other crucial areas scattered throughout the facility. Nite joined the group with Oxford who was heading to the elevators to the dome which was reported to be already conquered by the groups who went there earlier. Oxford wasn’t heading there to catch Cal, he was heading there for Ray.

Ray and Oxford were speed walking through the halls in the infirmary when the lights sparked and absolute darkness came. Now the ticking clock was really slowly getting into Oxford’s nerves. He turned the built-in flashlight on his weapon, resuming their way back to the group. He told Ray that everyone had concentrated at the Manufacturing Section, their meeting place, before commencing their exodus, though a few dozen thousand were already heading to the terminals.

Ray somehow had a strange feeling about everything going so perfectly well. He understood that they had been planning this for decades since the fake last rebellion, but as long as they were in the facility, there was still a chance that everything could turn around.

“I hope you have good endurance,” said Oxford, which made Ray sigh. Stairs.

When they approached the staircase, they heard another long sequence of explosions. Oxford looked up at the ceiling despite nothing happening. It still made Ray glance up as well.

On the ocean floor above the facility, large clouds of dust emerged, the bright dome was easily consumed. Tiny cracks began to form throughout the floor, alerting any sea creatures roaming nearby to swim away. The clouds rose up, thicker and higher as the cracks widened and deepened. Seconds later, numerous small whirlpools appeared in the dust like a tornado.

It grew larger and more powerful as the cracks were now beyond a few dozen meters wide. The whirlpool sucked everything nearby, plunging them into the cracks and through the thick metal layer which was the upper portion of the facility’s shell.

Unbearable quantities of ocean water flattened the dome, flooding the halls and offices nearby. Large streams sprouted anywhere above the facility, showering on the hanging colony. In just a matter of seconds, numerous halls were quickly flooded and soon, the rest of the facility would follow.

Oxford held the door to the staircase when emergency lights switched on. On their first step, a wave of air blew through the gloomy hall, nearly sending both off their feet. They quickly got up, confused and scared. Oxford was more frightened.

“We need to run, now!” he shouted, pushing Ray up the stairs as the air continued to blow.

Ray didn’t hesitate nor question why. But his skin could feel the rising humidity of the air. It could only mean one thing and Oxford was fully aware of it. A minute or so later, they began to hear loud bangs throughout the tall staircase. Ray looked up as they jumped two flights per step.

“Shit!”

The salty water had reached the staircase, barging through every door per floor from up-down. Ray and Oxford pushed forward despite the downpour. Their feet struggled to acquire grip as they fought the powerful current on the stairs as if they were walking up a waterslide.

“Sir?” a blue robot walked over to Cal, handing a clean dry towel to Cal.

Cal wiped his fingers clean as he stared at the wall filled with monitors, giving him all of the necessary eyes around the entire facility. The facility was now out of control. The facility represented his hard work, himself.

The secret passageway he went through led him to the command center of the facility, basically a bunker. No one except the members of the management and necessary workers knew where this was. The command center was the left brain of the facility, the right brain was the servers located miles away.

Ever since he became the head of management, he changed almost all of the systems, removing every humane aspect of it, just as Micro wanted in the first place. Micro desired to have the facility all by himself decades ago, long before the rebellion. It was one of the reasons why the number of human lives working in this place was decreasing over the past years.

You were right all along, Micro, Cal thought, glancing at the nearby table that displayed the world map.

“Shall we declare ‘Zero Hour’, sir?” one of the robots behind him asked.

Cal turned around, seeing the numerous blue eyes locked onto him, awaiting orders, seeing what he was made out of, seeing what the facility could do.

Zero hour. Cal thought about what happened on the other sister facilities, he glanced back at the map, focusing specifically on the three objects on it, each resting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. He forgot to remove the two. They no longer existed. And this facility was already following suit.

Zero hour is too brutal, Cal thought, staring at the monitors, presenting the growing hidden reality within everyone.

“No,” Cal turned back to his men, standing behind their respective modules.

“We just do what we should’ve done a long time ago,” he said nonchalantly. His eyes showed no fear or whatsoever compared to everyone with him.

The blue guards quickly scattered around as they raised the alarm from CAT 1 to CAT 5, the highest level of threat. Their third time declaring it. They stopped all operations within the facility, killing the power, which led to cutting the oxygen generators and other necessary sources for survival.

“They’ve breached all armories, sir,” one of the robots announced, gulping, “They got everything to defend themselves.”

“How about our armories?” Cal raised an ear.

“Untouched.”

“Deploy them,” ordered Cal.

Kilometers away from the command center, numerous hidden sections went online from the orders of the command. Inside these sections were next-generation combat units, designed not only to fight humans but even other robots. They had more robust armor and powerful weapons. Greater agility and versatility. Their white eyes glowed through the darkness as they began to march into enormous groups. All cocked their weapons in perfect sync.

Cal walked over to the table, looking down at the three flags placed on the map. He picked up the ones on the Atlantic and Indian and put them aside. He leaned on the table, glaring at the remaining flag in the middle of the Pacific. His right index finger tapped anxiously and furiously.

Cal regained his composure, breathing deeply and exhaling softly. His ears remained stiff when he walked out of the command center without saying another order. His last order. The guards stationed at the only door didn’t dare to ask.

Cal walked along the concrete hallway alone when he stopped. He glanced in either direction before tapping on a random concrete panel. The panel hissed when it moved inward, revealing another long, secret hall that led to a place which only knew by Cal. It was a large, tall room. At the end of the hall was a catwalk that was connected to a bridge, connected to a larger structure within the room.

Another secret door automatically opened when he got near. Stepping into the structure and standing in the middle of the dark space, he reached the connector from above and gently yanked it to his level. He inserted the connector on the back of his head. Together with deep hums, he let out a soft moan when the cable lit up. Gears began to whir and clank as they turned.

“Hmmm~”, Cal smirked, looking at his hands, waving them in front of him, a larger pair moved in the distance outside of the structure, showing the exact movement.

“I’ll make sure you get what you want, Micro.”