The New Humans

Chapter 36

The entrance gate overlooked a slide. Ash leaned over to see where it led, but the slanting ceiling hid the view. A loud noise of gears and slamming metal startled him.

"Be careful." Crane's hand pulled him back just as a large metal block fell from above and slid down the chute. After a few seconds, another fell.

"What is that?" asked Crane.

"I don't know," Ash said.

Crane pushed Ash down the slide. He screamed and rolled for a few seconds, until he landed on a conveyor belt. He jumped up in fear that one of the metal blocks would hit him. It must have been some kind of assembly line. A conveyor belt carried the metal blocks toward two rows of robotic arms with saws or drills at the ends that shaped the blocks into something resembling stoves.

Crane appeared, followed by a metal cube, and then all the other men. They stood two by two, side by side, between one cube and another

The robots continued to work, oblivious to their presence. Ash watched the machines with some apprehension. If they missed the cubes by mistake, they could tear him apart. Moreover, the noise of drilling and sawing was becoming unbearable. Come on, let's get out of here, he said to himself. But the belt seemed to go slow on purpose, as if it was a giant supermarket checkout.

"I can't stand this," said one of the men.

"Don't move," said Crane.

But he tried to climb a cube anyway. A sawblade buzzed straight into his scalp. The man screamed and tried to detach the blade, but the saw cut through the helmet. A jet of blood shot up to the ceiling and hit the man next to him in the visor.

All the robots began to lash out at them. A drill was headed for Ash's face, but Crane grabbed the robot before it hit him and uprooted it from the floor. The other men dodged lunges and shoved the robots aside.

One of the men climbed onto the steel cube in front of him and started running. An arm hit him in the back just below the neck and pierced him right through, nailing him to the cube. He screamed and tried to get free until another arm with a saw sliced ​​him in half at the waist.

Someone screamed, "Enough!"

The man raised his plasma rifle and shot the robotic arm above him. He directed the plasma jet left and right to destroy as many robots as possible, but he didn't destroy even one and ended up blowing off the man's head in front of him.

"Stop it, you idiot!" Adam yelled.

But he seemed to be in the grip of a furious trance and fired in every direction. Adam aimed his rifle at him and shot him dead.

Crane took Ash by the shoulder and pushed him out of the way just as one of the robotic drill arms pierced his chest. The drill, at least a yard long, kept turning. Crane held it tightly with both hands, the tip consuming the metal of the suit. His hands were smoking. The tip of the drill emerged through Crane's back, and blood trickled out of the hole like a leaking sink.

Crane made a sound like a roar and broke off the tip. Then he yanked the whole thing out of his chest and threw it away. Ash gaped at him. It was nothing whatsoever like keeping a hand on a candle.

The belt was slowly bringing them to the exit. The block of steel in front of them fell into a pit. Ash managed to jump over it just before falling, and so did Crane. Ash placed his foot on the strip of floor between the pit and the outside of the dodecahedron, instinctively leaned forward to walk outward, but straightened himself just in time. The next step was a drop-off into sheer space.

He kept his balance by holding onto the wall. Then a square platform wide enough for two people passed in front of him and Crane, and they jumped on it as if catching a ride. Several platforms arranged in a circle turned like bags at the airport. Two of the others jumped on another platform, and then everyone else followed. The platform passed near a flight of stairs, and Ash and Crane jumped off and descended them.

When all the others had joined them, Adam grabbed Ash by the neck. "What the hell happened back there? Those weren't hallucinations."

"I never said they were all hallucinations. Some are, and some aren't. It's not possible to distinguish between the two."

"He's lying," said one of the survivors. "Six of our men have died so far thanks to his tricks."

"Think what you want but remember that without me you'll never get out of here."

The man took him by the neck and brought his face closer until he almost touched Ash's forehead. "I'll kill you, you disgusting little worm," he said in a crazed voice. "As soon as we finish here, I'll scratch your eyes out and make you swallow them."

"Be quiet," said Crane, pushing him away. Then he motioned for Ash to hurry. "Show us the way."

Ash followed the ball's indications along the corridors and staircases of the city for a further ten minutes. The two hours were passing quickly. They eventually found themselves in a short corridor that ended in a floating dodecahedron with nothing else around. Everywhere he looked, the city was full of pathways, and each one was no more than ten yards from another. But in this case the nearest was a hundred yards away.

Behind him, Adam was whispering something to Crane. Ash leaned in so he could hear them better.

"You can't want to keep him alive," Adam was saying.

"Shut up," said Crane.

Then one of the men said, "What was that?"

They all stood still. Ash could hear crackling in the distance, like burning wood. The noise increased, and with it so did the temperature. After a few seconds, Ash's forehead was covered in sweat.

"What's happening? What is this heat?" The men held their rifles ready to shoot.

Through the opening to the floating sphere Ash glimpsed orange lights that were increasing in intensity.

"It's fire," Adam said. "It's coming closer."

"There is no fire," said Crane. "It's just a hallucination."

Ash searched with his eyes for the closest escape routes. There was a ramp of stairs one hundred and fifty yards above them, unreachable even with an enhancing suit. Crane's right, it must be a hallucination. If there was a fire here, nobody would get out alive. The ball wouldn't have brought me here to certain death. But I might exploit the situation to my advantage.

"It's not a hallucination, it's real," he said. "You have to jump onto that flight of stairs."

"They're too far away," said Crane. "If we jump, we'll fall into the void."

"As soon as the flames arrive, the steps will come closer. I'll jump," said Ash.

"You're lying," said Crane.

Sudden flames came through the gap, then the fire took hold and expanded, devouring the air around it. A blaze of hot wind swept onto Ash with so much force it ruffled his hair. Ash stood still waiting for the fire to hit him. Now that it was in front of him, his legs started to tremble; he prayed with all his heart he wasn't making a mistake.

"That fire is real," someone shouted.

"No, don't move," yelled Crane.

"It's coming at us. I can feel the heat," shouted another.

The two men jumped toward the flight of stairs. The fire attacked Ash, he felt his body burning and cried out, but after a few moments the pain was gone. He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by an intense orange light that distorted the images like gas. He was just in time to see the two men who had jumped, trying unsuccessfully to grab onto the stairs and falling into the abyss.

Before the hallucination disappeared completely, however, someone took his arm and dragged him away. It was Adam. Even before Ash opened his mouth, Adam silenced him with a punch. He took them back to the path they had already traveled, then turned onto a ramp where they had never been. What does he have in mind?

They managed to move far enough away to lose sight of the others. Ash heard Crane behind him shouting in a voice like thunder, "Where has the boy gone? Where's Adam?"