Obelus (ONC 2020)

Chapter 11

"¡Cuidado!" Lopez screamed as Eli sent the mobile table flying through the narrow gap in the sliding glass doors. The man shot Eli an admonishing look over his shoulder.  His short dark hair in disarray, his brown eyes accusatory. "Where the hell are you taking us?"

Eli didn't answer. He needed to get to the room he'd seen on the map, but he couldn't let Genesis know that. The A.I. had infected the network. He was always listening, and the last thing Eli needed was for the malware to shut down all access to his destination.

He pushed the medical table—and the grumbling, swearing man on top of it—down the long concrete hallway. Like a child skating down an aisle with a shopping cart. 

You know, if this were the supermarket of death.

But as soon as he cut the next corner, his stomach bottomed out, and he dug his bare heels into the floor.

At the end of the corridor, their path was blocked by a line of red-eyed, metal machines.  Spines curved. Fists clenched.  Metal skin a bloody carmine in the flashing lights. 

They looked absolutely demonic.

"What the...are those robots?" Lopez cried over the blaring alarms.

"Yeah, about that," Eli muttered, swinging a 180 to avoid the corridor of evil machines.  The table wheels screeched at his sharp and unruly pivot.   "The bots sort of took over.  Then they locked—I don't know—tens of thousands of people up in this place? Each stuck in their own simulation paradise while the rest of humanity dies off on a crime-ridden, uninhabitable earth. I wasn't supposed to wake up and revolt against them.  Hence the murderous robot chase."

Lopez turned to stare at him with a mix of shock and horror and disbelief, struggling to find a sufficient response to this fucked up dystopia. 

"Yeah. Exactly."

With clammy hands and a knot of nervous adrenaline in his gut, Eli swerved into a new hallway that would deliver him and Lopez straight to their terminus. 

But an assembly of medic bots blocked this lane as well.   And they did not look happy.

Dammit.

Releasing the bot from earlier had cost him. They were closing in on him now.  Severing one tentacle at a time.  Cutting him off from the rest of the building and any chance of escape. 

"Teddy?" he murmured, arching forward and pushing off the ground in the direction of the bots. 

"Yeah?"

"I need you to take that crutch beside you and hold it out in front of you like a gun."

"Why?"

"We're going bowling, and I need you to protect your face."

"...Jesus Christ."

Lopez did as he was told and held the crutch out like an assault rifle, like a jousting lance. Opposite them, the bots widened their stances and ordered the duo to stand down, but Eli just kicked harder and harder, gaining speed as they raced down the hellish hallway toward the blockade.

Doors blinked past him.  Numbers blurring.  Lights flashing and flickering around them like the godforsaken Willy Wonka tunnel—and just as nauseating.

A few bots attempted to move out of the way, but the bolt-brains were too slow.  

The charging pair collided with the machines at full speed, the impact sending a violent jolt up Eli's arms.  Eyes closed, he could hear the table crunching aluminum, wheels singing, and of course, Lopez shrieking all the while.