Four hours to impact…


"Dizzy. Hey, Dizzy. Talk to me. I know you're there."

"…Duff?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"You sound bitter. Did something happen?"

"Don't play dumb, you know the score. Would you be contacting me otherwise? You know something has happened."

"So Zero visited you, too?"

"What? What are you talking about? I was attacked by X. Beaten to within an inch of my life, thanks for asking."

"X? I never would have expected that."

"What's this 'too'?"

"Zero's the one who attacked my base."

"I figured something must have happened to get you away from the sea. You couldn't be contacting me unless you'd gotten close enough to use your own transmitter, not with all the mess outside."

"Yes. Dizzy… what did X do when he attacked? What was he after?"

"He swept in, brushed aside my security, blew through our gravity experiments because that was the fastest route, crippled me, and then made off with some containers I didn't even know we had in storage. What were we doing with a hohlraum case, anyway? We don't use anything like that here."

"I couldn't tell you."

"It wasn't done with my knowledge, that's for sure. Apparently it was being held in trust for a Susan Dolores Nymphadora."

"…Su… Do… Nym?"

"Yeah. Some jerk has a sick sense of humor."

"And Zero stole deuterium and tritium from me…"

"Duff, I don't understand anything that's happening. X didn't even speak to me—except to say "Stay down" after he beat the tar out of me. What's going on out there?"

"I don't know, I have no communications. But I think… I think the Hunters are doing something bad. Really bad."

"Define 'bad'."

"I think they're building a thermonuclear weapon."

"That's insanity, Duff! Either you're crazy or they are!"

"I don't know what's going on out there. I agree, it's not exactly a typical play for the Hunters. But I've talked with a few other reploids I know. It looks like someone had a trump card with its pieces hidden all over the place, and now the Hunters are trying to play it."

"I… I don't want anything to do with this, anymore. I want to get away from the Hunters. I'm not a Maverick, I'm not, and I got hunted all the same! What's going on, Duff?"

"I don't know. But I know where I'm going."

"Where?"

"Point 11F5646."

"Point… nothing's out there, Duff. It's in the middle of the savanna in the shadow of a mountain, hours from everywhere. There's not so much as a communications tower out there."

"Maybe, but Zero's going there, so I'm going there."

"Zero? Didn't you say he trashed you and your lab?"

"He did. But he wasn't happy about it. I think he wouldn't have if the choice was up to him. He's going to change the world—that's what he told me. Something's out there, and I want to see what it is."

"Huh."

"Come with me, Dizzy."

"What for?"

"You'll want to see this, too."

"No I won't. There couldn't be anything out there worth seeing. Besides, I still have obligations here."

"You know, that's what I thought at first. But what are the odds that X and Zero both went Maverick at the same time?"

"Low, sure. There is a virus out there, you know."

"Yes, that's true. But again, you're telling me both of them were infected at the same time? I don't buy it, Dizzy."

"What are you getting at?"

"The Hunters are doing this deliberately. And if they are, they're not doing it without orders."

"So you're saying this is a government project."

"I can't be sure. But I'm sure enough that there's no way I'll trust the government anymore. I mean, I executed my lockdown as I was ordered to, and I got attacked for doing it. That's not right. Whatever Zero has in mind can't make our situation worse."

"You have a point."

"So come with me."

"I might."

"I'm headed out there now."

"Why?"

"Why wait?"

"Fair enough."

"Are you coming? You know you want to. You're intrigued, and you've got nothing to lose. I've got a few others coming, too. The more the merrier."

"I don't know. I'll be in big trouble if I abandon my duties at a time like this."

"You really think the government's going to mess with Zero after all of this?"

"I guess you're right. Now that I think about it, there's no guarantee the government will even survive this debacle."

"So come with me."

"...Where do you want to meet?"


Three hours to impact…


When Signas came in, Alia made no reaction. Why should she? She knew what was going to happen. He would advance until he stood about half a meter behind her and to her right. He would ask for a summary of events since last he'd been in the command center. He would ask two or three incisive questions, issue five-to-ten orders, and then leave again. Normal.

As simple an act as walking up on her left side was enough to break the program. She looked over to him with a surprised expression. "Sir?"

In his hands was a small capsule. "Before this all began, you mentioned you were low on energy. I know you haven't had a chance to recharge. This should keep you going for a while."

She blinked rapidly, unaware of any other way to respond. "Thank you," she managed. She took it from him with fumbling fingers. Signas noticed, and wondered. Just how low on power was she? Left alone, she would have worked herself right to the point of involuntary shutdown.

Douglas' harried face appeared on the margin of the main screen. "Alia! Any word from Zero? If I don't get his next shipment soon I won't be able to go any further on the shuttle!"

"Oh, sorry!" she said with a blush. "Zero re-entered communications range half an hour ago. I had meant to tell you. He'll be there in the next two minutes."

"Works for me. Keep me posted."

His face disappeared again. Signas shook his head. "We're all getting ground down. We need to rest."

"I can't rest," she said determinedly. "How can you even think about me resting? There's too much to do and we're too close to catastrophe. You need me and you know it."

"Then I'll send Lifesaver around. Maybe he… now what?"

A layout of Hunter Base appeared on the main screen. In the northeast corner was a baleful red glow. Alia assessed the data flow quickly. "Breach in the defensive perimeter in the northeast. No damage to the Base itself yet. I have video…"

Two feeds appeared, one using visual light and a searchlight, the other infrared. Both showed Dynamo strolling along the inside of the perimeter. He was dragging his saber across the backside of the perimeter wall, leaving a gash in the Hunters' defenses. He noticed the camera. "Hey, silly commander person! Can X come out and play? I'm getting bored!"

Signas growled. "Him again! What a pest." He looked over the Hunter roster. Only one Hunter was even close. Of course it would be him. Of course it would be the one Hunter Signas had hoped to keep confined to the base. It was enough to make you believe in fate.

Alia traced a line on the map. "Sir, Dynamo is going to force our hand. If he continues on his present course, he'll wind up between the hangar and the launch pad."

"In a perfect position to intercept the shuttle." For a brief, insane moment, Signas contemplated going to fight Dynamo himself. He wondered if that would constitute a violation of the Third Law. Reality forced such thoughts from his mind. There was only one option.

"Alia, patch me through to Zero."

"You're going to task Zero with stopping Dynamo?"

"Yes."

"Are you then rescinding the order to keep him on-base?"

"If I had alternatives, I would take them. Sending Zero may end up being a dangerous move, but Dynamo stopping our launch would be calamitous."

Alia swallowed. Signas' brain, hyper enough given the circumstances, noticed the learned gesture. Why, he wondered, did reploids insist on using human gestures? They could have come up with new ones that worked with their physiology. Instead, they mimicked the ones the humans used. Why was that? Was there, somewhere in there, a secret desire to be more human? What would the Mavericks say to that?

Haltingly, Alia worked her console to contact Zero. "Zero, this is Hunter Base, do you read?"

"On-line," was the terse reply.

"We have an intruder just inside the perimeter. Vector north-northeast to intercept."

"Put Signas on the line."

Alia looked miserably at her superior. Signas nodded. "I'll talk to him."

"Signas, I have no intention of killing any more reploids, regardless of what you say their crimes are."

"That's fine," Signas said, to Alia's amazement. "I understand your position. But Dynamo is coming, and he's going to interfere with our shuttle launch. You know what that would mean for the Earth. You're the only one in a position to fight him off."

No answer came. Seconds passed that were long even to robots with internal chronometers.

Alia made a surprised noise. "Zero's breaking off! He's going towards Dynamo!"

Signas nodded. He'd expected that. His mind was already working on what would come next. If he had even a modicum of control over the situation, he would have exerted it. All he could do instead was wait.


Dynamo was bored. This was not a good thing. He got destructive when he was bored.

He amused himself for a time by throwing his saber through the wall before calling it back. When it returned to visibility, there was only a moment for him to react and catch it before it cut him in half. It was fun, briefly. But without a play-mate, it got predictable. It could only stay exciting for so long.

He wasn't in any particular hurry. He knew that his actions would force a response. He just needed to keep his sanity until things got really interesting.

He twirled his saber around without energizing it, tossed it into the air, snatched it before it started falling, juggled it about—no, this definitely was not fun anymore.

The sound of a hover-cycle caught his ears. He turned with delight towards the source. "Alright! Now we can have some—oh. It's you."

Zero dismounted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Dejection was clear on Dynamo's face. "Aww, I was hoping for Mr. X again. He's so much fun. Well, not fun so much as funny. Anyway, my orders were to avoid you if I could."

Zero made no response to this, instead settling into a combat stance.

"Oh, come on! I can't give a stronger hint than that! Don't you know how this is supposed to go? This is where you say, "Whose orders? What's this all about?" You're not following the script!"

"I don't care who gave you your orders. It doesn't matter. If you get any closer to this shuttle, I'll gut you like a fish."

"I don't believe you. I don't have guts, for starters. Sure, you can say, "This part is the equivalent of guts", but when you stretch the comparison that much, analogy loses its punch." When Zero said nothing, Dynamo's exasperation grew. "You know, you're a lot like X. Always so serious. Relax a little! You'll live longer. Well, maybe you won't live longer. But you'll have a better life before you die."

Zero didn't bother any more with words. He dashed for Dynamo.

This wasn't unexpected. Dynamo's saber was at the ready. He met Zero head-on. The sabers clashed and crackled. The weapons were equal, but their users were not. Their goals were different. Dynamo's intent was to test his opponent by gradually increasing his force to see where his limit was. Zero had no such purpose. He took a low step, got his center of gravity under the clinch, and pushed. Dynamo stumbled backwards; Zero pressed in to take advantage.

Panicking, Dynamo dropped a small device from his belt between himself and Zero. Zero decided it was better to stay away. He faded backwards just before the device shot a beam of energy skyward. Zero blasted the Sky-Shooter into oblivion with his Z-buster.

"Come on, now," said Dynamo with distaste. "Do we really need nasty weapons like that between us? I mean, I don't blame X for using his buster, he can't help himself, but you can. Can't we do this sportsmanlike?"

Zero answered with his saber. Even expecting it, Dynamo had trouble keeping up.

The blows rang out as they passed each other again and again. Dynamo was able to keep himself safe and stay out of trouble. His offense, though, was completely ineffective, and he was actually trying this time. With every pass, Zero seemed to get stronger, and Dynamo's margins to safety became smaller. Dynamo was forced to exert more and more effort, and still had to acknowledge something unpleasant: He was losing.

Why? What was the difference? He'd been provided with Zero's statistics and knew that, on paper at least, it was a wash between them, with Dynamo having a slight edge in durability and Zero in speed. Yet that wasn't reflected by the flow of the battle. Whenever they clinched, Zero was able to overpower Dynamo. Whenever they separated, Zero had Dynamo dancing to avoid his buster before the Maverick could think of tossing a weapon. Whenever Dynamo attacked, the parry deflected his blade almost before it was swung. But Dynamo wasn't able to attack often. Zero was relentless. Every moment he was in motion. At every turn Dynamo was under threat from buster or saber.

Dynamo liked pauses in his fights. They allowed for wordplay and re-evaluation. They were genteel. Zero was more interested in the fight's outcome than its progression. He wouldn't let Dynamo pause for more than a second or two. Every action was meant to drive the fight to its conclusion by the most direct route possible. It was like being dance partners with a bulldozer.

Dynamo managed to open up a few steps' distance—an unusual move for him, one he did reluctantly and without skill. All it did was let Zero make a full-force charge with his boosters. Even swinging one-handed he sent Dynamo staggering backwards. Dynamo had enough presence of mind to sprinkle Sky-Shooters between them. This caused Zero to back off enough that Dynamo could regain his balance. By the time he did, though, he heard the whine of Zero's buster. Panicking, he leapt towards safety.

While he was in the air, unable to maneuver, Zero came for him.

Dynamo hit the ground with enough force to rattle his gyros. A river of liquid metal ran across his chest, sizzling as it rapidly cooled into its new shape. Zero had hit Dynamo so hard it had forced Dynamo's own saber back against his chest. Any notion Dynamo might have entertained about a comeback evaporated with the damage assessment. Between the falling damage and the saber blow, the armor protecting Dynamo's all-important power distribution center—his "heart"—was compromised. Even a successful block would likely put so much strain on his chest that the armor would come off in sheets.

The Maverick scrambled to his feet—Zero had taught him that much, at least. Even at a distance of several meters, the Hunter seemed to loom over his quarry. For only the third time, Zero spoke.

"You weren't going to beat me. You lack conviction."

Dynamo huffed. "If you say so. But I know what it takes to keep me alive, and right now, that's getting as far away from you Hunters as possible. I don't want to be at ground zero—no pun intended—when things start getting really exciting."

Dynamo took a step forward and stage-whispered. "I know you said you don't care, but my mission was never to beat you. It was to delay you—to delay whatever it was the Hunters were working on, and to pick on X specifically. I was supposed to avoid you if I could. No, don't bother asking why, I don't know either. Food for thought."

"You talk an awful lot for someone about to die."

"Heh. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You don't want to waste the time you've got left, neh?" Dynamo tossed his last few Sky-Shooters in a spread in front of him. Without waiting for them to fire off, he turned and fled.


"Dynamo's retreating! Zero did it!" Alia exclaimed.

Signas didn't respond. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"This is Zero. I am in pursuit of the Maverick."

Alia started to respond, but made a startled noise instead. "He killed the transmission," she said with puzzlement. "Why would he—oh! I've lost his transponder signal!"

Signas nodded gravely. "About what I expected. Let him go, Alia. He's gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?"

"I mean that maybe he's chasing Dynamo, or maybe that's just a front. Either way, he's not coming back."

"Not coming back? And you expected this? Then why release him to… follow…" She trailed off as she began to understand Signas' position. "He would have followed anyway, wouldn't he have? If he'd already decided to leave, an order from you wouldn't make any difference."

"I wonder, when people look back at this, how they'll judge me," Signas said. "I said at the start I was willing to make sacrifices to stop Eurasia. I've made some hard decisions. The others, though—I understood them, more or less. There's no telling what kind of consequences we'll reap this time."

"The range of possibilities goes from mildly beneficial to downright disastrous," Alia said tentatively. "It's not enough to know that Zero's leaving. To have a decent idea of what might happen, we have to know where he's going."

"I wonder if he knows." Signas caught himself staring at the empty stretch of screen where Zero's transponder had disappeared. "I'll talk to Lifesaver, see what he can do to keep us going. Another couple hours—just a little more and this will be settled, one way or the other."

"And after that?"

"Well… We'll see."

Fatigue kept them from speculating too much in that direction. It was probably just as well.


Two hours until impact…


X's motions were very deliberate. Each of them seemed like they took effort. Even simple things, like dismounting his hover-cycle, needed conscious attention to avoid mistakes. X had fought for long stretches of time before, during previous wars. So why, an observer might wonder, was he struggling so?

It wasn't fatigue alone that burdened him. Guilt can weigh far more.

He walked—slowly—towards Douglas. Douglas was walking furiously to and fro, chasing down individual workers to give directions. His vocal processors were starting to betray the strain. "F-f-finish up that f-f-fuel tank liner! If we don't get it b-b-buttoned up in ten minutes we can't even th-th-think about launching!"

"Douglas," X said gently. The mechanic jumped all the same.

"X! Y-y-you scared me. Don't d-d-do that."

"I've brought you the last items on your list," X said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at a heavy loader that was coming into the hangar. "This should be the end of it."

"P-p-perfect," said Douglas. "Sssorry, I need a t-t-tune-up."

"You're doing better than I could have hoped for without it," X said. "If we didn't have you, this would have been over before it even began. No one's done more to save the world than you. But if you think you need some maintenance, I'll take care of it myself after this is all over."

Douglas gave a tremulous smile in return. Then he turned back to his team. He held a hand to his head to activate comm circuit. "Get the fuel trucks in p-p-position and crank up the crawler. We'll make this happen yet!"

X watched in admiration. It was as if something as simple as a parts delivery and a few kind words had reenergized the mechanic. No, it couldn't have been the delivery—the timing wasn't right for what he'd seen, and he'd made such deliveries before without seeing anything like this. It was the words. My words, X realized with surprise.

For too long, X had been able to get what he needed with silence. More and more he was realizing that changing the world required that he speak.

"X, come in."

X returned the coordinator's transmission. "I'm here, Alia."

"That should have been your last delivery. Was it?"

"Yes."

"Then we have a new mission for you. We need you to clear out two specific long-range towers. We have to get a connection through to the closest observatory."

"Why?"

"Last-minute course correction data for Eurasia. We're still operating on Space Command's projections, and those are 14 hours old and weren't totally accurate to begin with."

"I see." X made for his hover-cycle again. His power levels were less than he'd hoped for, but enough for a mission like this. "Zero was ahead of me in gathering materials. If you send him, too, we can get this done twice as fast."

"Zero is not available."

"What's his mission?"

No answer came. The time stretched on for so long that X had to double-check his communicator to make sure the link was still active.

"Zero was last seen chasing away Dynamo."

X considered the awfully long time it had taken Alia to give him that information. He considered how ambiguously the reply was worded. There's more to this. He knew that implicitly. For a moment he had a vision of what had happened: of Alia questioning, of Signas—who had to be up there—answering, of Alia quibbling, of Signas winning her over, and finally of Alia talking to X even as she gave Signas a steady gaze. It fit perfectly. All that was missing was the words.

He didn't ask. He didn't press. There was a world to save.

As he set out on his cycle, his mind wasn't on saving the world. It lingered on the red robot he used to call partner.


One hour until impact…


Zero had lost some of his usual alertness. Usually, he had enough processing power to spare to keep good tabs on his surroundings. Not this time. Alertness was abandoned in experiencing more fully where he was and where he was going.

It didn't look like much. The terrain was rocky and dusty, with sparse vegetation—a wasteland. Of course it would be. The ancient hadn't wanted to be disturbed. Zero knew he had never consciously been in this place. That didn't change how he felt. He felt a pull, invisible yet inexorable, tugging him in the right direction. It took all his focus to concentrate on it and understand where it was taking him in the darkness of the deep night.

How does a salmon know the stream that birthed it through all the years and miles of its lifetime? How does a hatchling know the great migration routes of its forbears and feel the compulsion that it must follow them? Biologists have vainly attacked such problems with fuzzy terms like "ancestral memory" and speculations about genetics. Those concepts could not possibly have applied to Zero. Yet he moved with the steady assurance of one who knows every step of his journey.

He was coming home.

It was an alien concept to Zero. Hunter Base had always been a place of return, certainly, and he enjoyed the company he found there. It wasn't home. He knew enough to know that 'home' was a loaded term. Humans and their insufferable language again. It always seemed to get in the way, to prevent comprehension rather than enhance it. Zero had been surprised to discover that humans had invented Zen. It didn't impress him, though. Freeing the conscious mind and allowing the subconscious to act? Any robot could do that.

Like Zero was doing now, acting on subroutines buried oh-so-deeply in his labyrinthine brain…

He stopped before a particular rock. It was about half the volume of a shipping container, irregularly shaped, and as dusty-brown as every other rock. He had seen dozens like it in the past few minutes; they were so hard to tell apart in the dim starlight. For all of that, his mind was devoid of doubt. This is it.

He looked over the face of the rock, circled it slowly, and returned to his original position. He glanced to his left, then fixed his gaze on it. "Let me in," he said.

The first sound was a sharp clang. The second was grinding. The third was a combined scraping and rumbling. A line of darkness appeared in the rock's center and spread outwards in both directions. The rock was opening itself to Zero. It had obeyed him, just as he'd expected. It wasn't as if he had used a code word or secret order. It was nothing as subtle as that. It had bent to his will because of the speaker, not the words.

Zero reached to his side to where he'd lashed the flare gun. He drew it, aimed directly up, and fired. His followers would come.

There was much to do, he knew. He had to plumb the depths of this place. He had to set up power to sustain the robots that had followed him on this exodus. He had to suppress the security systems he knew would be here even after a century of languish.

First things first. The top priority was to prepare the message. He had an idea of what it would say, and what he found here would—he suspected—clinch the rest. After that he needed for most communications to be restored. He didn't need all. Most would do. The message would spread from there on its own.

They would come. Just as the first few were coming now.

The Skiver led the way, predictably. The others followed. Once he was sure they saw him, he turned away.

He stepped into the rock and entered a new realm. It was cold and dark and musty-smelling. It was home.


Thirty minutes until impact…


Next time: Largo- Ultimatum