This inner voice Pharaoh was currently listening to over robo-comms didn't have quite the same tone as Rock's natural speech, but the boy was recognizable all the same. With relief and joy filling his heart, Pharaoh answered. Rock, is that really you? I thought you were out of commission!

That was hours ago. Dr. Light woke me up earlier, and I feel great!

Then… you're clean? Pharaoh asked. The REM virus, it's gone?

REM? Is that what they're calling it? Pffff! They shoulda called it NBD, 'cuz it's no big deal! Rock's playful exuberance was as it always had been. That was very encouraging.

Rock, I… I can't tell you how happy I am to hear you. Your safety means a great deal to us all, and when we heard… Oh! The others! I have to tell the others that you're all right! Pharaoh said as the giddiness took over again. Rock meant a lot to all robots, in fact. Those who had any capacity to appreciate what was special about Rock, his bond with humans and his depth of thought, and the grand weight and scope of his responsibilities, admired him. And Pharaoh was no exception, this one-on-one with a personal hero making for a tremendous high. This is going to make their day! Especially Toad Man.

Rock laughed. Aww. Well, how about this - why don't we make it a surprise?

A… surprise?

Yeah! See, I kinda need your help with something, and I was wondering if you could come over.

There were several things he could have questioned there, but one immediately jumped out at him, if only because it made him feel very special. Wait, you're… You're saying you need my help?

Sure! I can trust you, right?

There was that word again. He didn't even think about his answer; this was becoming a very big day for his ego. Absolutely!

Rock wordlessly sent a set of coordinates before continuing. A little unnecessary, since Pharaoh could easily look up the coordinates for LightLabs, but a second saved was a second earned. Great! Come and meet me there and I'll tell you what's going on. Tell the other Cossack-bots to come too, and we can spring the surprise on them.

I, er… suppose. Do you really want all of us- Pharaoh began to question this odd, impromptu plan of his, but was cut off.

Oh, sorry, Pharaoh. The doctor needs something! My head is just full of people today! he said cheerfully. I'll see you soon, right? Talk to you then!

Pharaoh tried to respond in the affirmative, but the line was already disconnected. Today was suddenly moving at a breakneck pace compared to the way things had been going. Either way, he didn't want to keep Rock waiting too long. If Rock was up and about, then Dr. Light had already solved the problem, as he often did, and LightLabs was now a beacon of safety. Perhaps more so than the citadel. He clapped his hands together again, excited to organize this reunion for everyone. He put the call in, eight times over.

Attention all active Cossack numbers. This is Pharaoh Man, and I have an incredible surprise for you. Follow these coordinates and teleport as soon as possible.

Before he could blink (blinking being an aesthetic choice by the doctor, obviously), he received several dubious replies along the lines of, "we're supposed to stay inside," and "huh?" Pharaoh grudgingly sent them all an identical elaboration. Dr. Cossack has entrusted me with directing the laboratory while he sleeps. Mostly true. True enough. Please join me on a short, secure excursion to LightLabs where our American associates have something to present. I am teleporting now - Pharaoh Man, out.

He wanted to be the first to arrive, to be there with Rock when the others came in. This will be fun, was his last thought before he locked onto one of the citadel's outbound teleport bands and dematerialized.

On the trip there, his thoughts became a jumble of electromagnetic signals representing where all his 1s and 0s were meant to be when he reappeared. It took a few seconds for all his billions of transistors to be set back into place as the teleport mesh unfurled into physical form, and so the cloud of reality around him cleared up in what to a robot was a very gradual manner. Likewise, his thoughts were forced to travel a slow road in coming to terms with what he saw.

LightLabs is dimmer than I remember. It's quieter, too; no music today. And the walls have been painted. No, they've been stripped; I can see conduits. Is that a mountain out the window? LightLabs isn't in the mountains, it's in an industrial district of Monsteropolis.

… This isn't LightLabs.

That last thought hit him like a fastball to the head. Once he was finally able to take in his surroundings with his normal array of senses, things came together as much as they fell apart. The room he was in was rectangular, like a wide hallway connected to closed doors on its sides and half-filled with reinforced crates. It was lit only by the high windows, through which he could make out the white-brown peaks of mountains. The walls were covered in bare mechanisms, circuitry and insulation, and the exposed wiring of the electronic doors' input pads. And perhaps just as troubling, Rock was not there. Pharaoh waited for some kind of sign, finally coming down from his high and considering carefully what had transpired.

Come meet me there, Rock had said. There, not here. Rock wasn't on site yet, he realized, wherever that site may have been. He had assumed that he was beaming to LightLabs, where Rock would be there to greet him. But clearly he'd misinterpreted something. He began to review the conversation in full, wondering if he'd missed anything else. Why don't we make it a surprise? I can trust you right? REM is NBD! The doctor needs something!

My head is just full of people today! In the quiet of this room, without the rush of his back-and-forth with Rock, there was something inexplicably disturbing about that phrase. But the place didn't stay quiet for long.

The sound of an inbound teleport pulled him out of his thoughts. Toad Man was the first to join, and from his expression and the worried way he looked around, Pharaoh could tell he was going through a similar series of realizations as Pharaoh had. "Toad Man! You're here! I have great news! … Er, I think."

"You think?" Toad asked, squinting at him. "Hey, um… This isn't LightLabs."

"Yes, I've made that assessment myself, actually."

"What do you mean, you made-" Another teleport, and one more right behind it. Tundra Man and Drill Man.

"Hey, Pharaoh, how're ya now?" Drill asked jovially.

"This isn't LightLabs," Tundra cut in.

Pharaoh nodded. "Yes, I know."

Two more teleports, then three more just after, at last bringing the crowd up to nine. Skull and Ring came to the front of the crowd, and Skull Man took it upon himself to demand an explanation. "All right, what's the big idea?" he asked, getting close to Pharaoh and thumping a finger on his chest. "You call in outta nowhere, throw some numbers at us and go, 'Hey, let's ship off for the States, there's a surprise waiting for us!' Like this is any time to… uhh… to go… Hey, this ain't Light-"

"Yes! I'm aware! This isn't LightLabs!" He pushed Skull away, holding his head, feeling very lost now.

"So where are we?" Ring asked.

"I don't know!"

Skull jumped back in. "Then why'd you call us here?!"

"Rock is functional again!" he blurted out at last, and the crowd took a second to absorb that. Toad Man was the first to speak up again, his whole body tensing with visible happiness at the thought.

"Really?! He's really, really back?"

"Yes!"

"Did Dr. Light eliminate virus from Light-bots?" Dive Man asked, in his archaic caricature of an accent.

"Yes! I think. I mean, of course!" Hitting that speed bump of doubt, Pharaoh Man thought back. Rock had said he was clean. Hadn't he? And surely Dr. Light would never willingly let Rock out of the lab if he was still infected.

"What do you mean, you think?" Ring Man pressed. Everyone waited for a response, but Pharaoh Man was captivated by something else. It was difficult to make out in the dim light and on the other side of the room, but once Pharaoh realized what he was seeing, it was all he could focus on.

Bolted to the wall above one of the steel shutters leading out of the storage room was a moulded metal emblem, hastily airbrushed in harsh colours, whose design most of them were familiar with. As they all followed his gaze one by one, slowly the entire room of robots came to understand exactly where they were. All except for Tundra Man, who had to ask. "What? What are we looking at? Is it the W on the wall? What's that mean?"

"You dumbass!" Skull Man hollered, then lunged forward to put his hands around Pharaoh's neck and shake him like an almond tree. "Wily's fortress?! Are you kidding me?!"

From there, the conversation became a free-for-all of shouted questions and rushed answers, and as the pandemonium grew, no one picked up the sound of one more inbound teleportation coming in behind the crowd.

"Rock will be here soon!" Pharaoh Man insisted, trying to distance himself from his violent cohort. "He'll explain everything - this was all his idea in the first place!"

"Of course it was! He's infected, you coffin-fondling screwhead!" Skull was practically foaming at the mouth, and the others were drawing away from the conflict, knowing what he was capable of when riled. Ring Man was the only one to step forward, and place a hand on each of their shoulders.

"All right, settle down, mate. No point in fighting. Let's just sort this out."

Skull Man threw Ring's hand off him and went on ranting. "Yeah, sure, let's assess! Golden boy here just led us straight into Wily's fortress. There could be guard-bots on their way right now, and six of us here couldn't fight their way out of a Chinese finger trap! So we're doing freakin' spectacular!"

Toad Man, shuddering in the middle of the group, piped up. "And we're probably surrounded by infected robot masters. And some of us still might be infected too," he said, eying the others warily and shrinking away.

"So we leave," Pharaoh said, exasperated. The guilt on his mind was not heavy enough to keep him from resenting Skull Man for making it worse. "We find an outbound relay, and disappear before we're noticed. It won't take that long."

Drill Man nodded, as best as he could without a neck. "Yep. Probably oughta beam out of here quietly while we still can. Doubt things could get much worse."

"Ehh, fellows?" Bright Man called from the back. "I've been looking, and well… I can't find an outbound teleport band that isn't being jammed. We're locked down," he finished fearfully.

"Huh," Drill grunted. "Well, there you have it. Now they really can't get any worse."

"Um." A new voice, from far in back of the group, made itself known with a tiny, unsure sound. Nine sets of eyes all turned on the figure hiding in the shadow by a stack of crates and coils.

"No…" Pharaoh said in an uneasy whisper, feeling his servos freeze up with the dire shock of seeing the young mistress Kalinka reveal her presence to the room.

"Y-yeah," she answered.

"Arright!" Drill Man barked. "Now they definitely can't get any worse." He was met with glares all around, but everyone waited to see if fortune would meet his challenge, and they were grateful when it didn't. He shrugged. "You keep digging and eventually you hit rock bottom."

"How 'bout I dig you six feet down right now?" Skull growled, and punched him in the head.

In another corner of the fortress, the mood was far more positive; at least one person was watching everything go according to plan today.

"Hey, old man." Bass approached the monitoring station from the poorly-lit hall, and made himself known. "I know you sciencey types have pretty bonkers working hours, but is there a reason you're giggling to yourself like a clown in the middle of the night? Is that part of the process, or what?"

"I'm a genius," Wily mused as he flipped carelessly through pages of teleport scans. "I mean, I've always been a genius, but I'm really on the ball this week." He was slouched back in his chair, perusing leisurely, a man who, in his own mind, had much to lose yet nothing to fear.

"Oh, yeah? Why this time?" Bass asked, detached and coolly reclined against a wall, as was his wont.

"Stealing and refurbishing robot masters was never cost-effective, and building my own even less so. And let's be honest - it always escalated things out of control. But it was necessary to buy time and leverage."

"Until you built me. Then it was just a stupid thing you kept doing for no reason while the best robot ever got to sit around doing jack-"

"As I was saying… Roboenza 1 may have failed, but it proved that gambling on subtlety was just as viable as playing quick and dirty with stolen robots. That sitting on my keister with a plan in the oven wouldn't be a waste of time. Naturally; I'm far wiser than I was years ago," he said, preening his moustache. Finally looking away from his computer console again, he tapped his mouse and closed the records window. "Taking the time to play the long game paid off this time. This virus isn't just effective. It's been raking in robots beyond my wildest expectations."

"Yeah, and those tend to be pretty wild," Bass muttered, bored and uninterested in another round of self-congratulation from his overseer. "So, since you didn't make a bunch of worthless battle drones this time around," he said, lifting himself off the wall and whacking his knuckles into his palm, "I'm guessing we're almost at the part where I get out there and do the whole mayhem thing, right?"

"No."

"Aw, come on! Someone has to!"

Wily laced his fingers in a nefarious arch and rested them against his fiendish skeleton necktie. "Phase 1 of my diabolical plan has more or less reached its devilish conclusion. Buying the aforementioned time and leverage has never gone so swimmingly. Not to mention, the successful proof of concept provided by my Roboenza 2 is-"

"Oh, by the way," Bass cut in, "they're calling it REM."

"What?"

"Yeah. Like, RoboEnza-M. Like, Mutation, or something? I guess. Idunno."

"I never called it that!" Wily growled, clutching the arms of his chair like a hissing cat.

"Well, they're calling it that."

"Then they're wrong!"

"Whatever. You were sayin' something stupid?"

Wily seethed audibly for a second, then slumped into his chair and went on. "The promising success of Roboenza 2's core concept," he strained, his fingers curling again momentarily, "is quite heartening. Testing the limits of that concept is the necessary subsequent undertaking. It will demand as much time, and as many viable test subjects, as I can possibly allocate to it. And it would be best for my purposes if the Blue Brat didn't go blowing them up."

"So I blow him up. I getcha," Bass said, pointing a menacing finger-gun at nothing in particular.

"It's like eating soup with a fork, talking to you. No, you trigger-happy yutz! Mega Man may be a 'hero', but Rock is a softhearted sponge of a robot. He puts off violence until the last possible second. And this time, that's exactly what I'm counting on." He put his feet up, and theatrically folded his arms behind his head in smug satisfaction. "It pays to take a few losses, if you may come to know your enemy."

"A few losses, huh?"

"Shut up. The point is, while Rock endlessly begs his daddy to save the poor, helpless robots with his slapdash excuse for coding, I'll be leisurely rolling along with my plans, safe in my impenetrable fortress."

"Impenetrable."

"Shut up."

"No, seriously though. You got more robots beaming in than you can be bothered to keep track of, idiot. What if the twerp's one of 'em?"

"Unlikely. The location of my fortress isn't being broadcast - it's given out by infected robots. He couldn't receive that information without risking infection himself. But on the off chance he stumbles through my doors, then my defenses will deter him."

"Shyeah, right. Because that keeps happening." Wily grabbed a stress ball off his desk and pitched it at Bass' head, which appropriately did alleviate his stress somewhat as it bounced off Bass' cheek and rounded the inside of his fin like a skeeball. "Whatever. Play with your stupid hack robots for losers. Why's that mean I gotta stay inside?"

Wily groaned, massaging his brow. "Let me put it this way. Let's say I were to - oh, I don't know - release ninety-nine red balloons in front of you. What would you do then?"

"Ha! Balloons? I could blast every one of them out of the sky before you could blink, old man!" Bass asserted proudly as he brandished his buster.

"Yes. Yes, you could. Now go fetch my coffee." Bass growled indecipherably. "Well? Go keep yourself busy, if you're so bored. And hurry up. I like my coffee like I like my robots," Wily said, kicking back again.

Bass glanced down at his armour. "... Black?"

"Returning to me without delay. Now shoo!"

"Whatever." Bass stomped off, calling back, "Just so we're clear, if Mega Man shows up here, I'm gonna turn him into shrapnel."

"Oh yes, that keeps happening."

"Shut up."

In the storage room across the building: panic.

Toad Man was a stammering mess. Skull Man remained uselessly livid. Most of the others were paralyzed, not knowing what to do or say. Action had to be taken. None of them could decide what that was.

"Kalinka… Why?" Pharaoh man asked the obvious question.

"You all just disappeared at the same time! I didn't know what was going on!"

"So you followed us?!" he demanded, still in disbelief that this was really happening. "Why would you follow us?!"

Kalinka held her head in her hands, and he realized he was probably pushing her too hard. She was no more happy to be here than they were. Probably a lot less, considering the past. Running her hand roughly through her bangs, she tried to explain. "I read the end of the communication logs. I thought it would be safe."

"Yeah. It would've been," Skull piped up, "if he took two seconds to think about what he was doing." He pointed an accusing finger at Pharaoh Man, narrowing his eyes to slits inside his sockets. "This is all your fault, you know."

"Oh, and I'm sure your wisdom could have saved the day, in my position." Pharaoh turned away from the mistress, taking the confrontation head-on. He felt responsible, yes, but Skull was overstepping. "After all, you're such a critical thinker, Skull Man. Shooting things, not shooting things - your mind is just abuzz with carefully sorted contingencies, isn't it?"

"Well, unlike you, I don't start shooting sparks out of my ears every time a Light-bot acknowledges my existence! Seriously, can you get over the kid already?!" Skull closed the gap and started chesting up. The sloppy circle of robots around them got a little wider.

"Mates," Ring butted in.

"He's a hero! And perhaps the finest robot ever made! We should all be so-"

"Did I ask?!"

"Mates."

"We owe the Light-bots everything. They saved the doctor, and the mistress… and the world! Why shouldn't I admire them? Especially Rock!"

"You are so obsessed with him! Admit it - you wanna be him, don't you?! That's why you're horning in on my racket! You only want to fight because that's what he does!" he shouted, his face an inch from Pharaoh's, who made a point of standing his ground. "That's why you're out here trying to make me obsolete! So you can be like your freakin' hero!"

"Oi! Knock it off!" Before either of them knew it was coming, Ring Man cracked their heads together like rowdy billiard balls. Skull and Pharaoh staggered back and away from each other. Both of them threw a glare in Ring's direction, who only pointed to the corner where their mistress had been forgotten. Kalinka was seated on a spool of steel cable, her skirt gathering brown dust and her head in her hands. In the quiet that followed the robots' little spat, they could hear her breathing shakily and doing her very best not to start crying.

Pharaoh hurried to her side, leaving Skull to fume behind him. "Kalinka. Kalinka, don't worry. We'll protect you," he assured her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She put her own over it, and seemed to calm down just a little.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I came after you…"

"It's not your fault."

"Yeah," Skull grunted. "It's yours."

Doing his best to ignore the chorus, Pharaoh considered his next actions carefully. Then he stooped down a little lower, and put his arms around the young mistress, awkwardly arranging them into something hug-like. Luckily for his steadily diminishing pride, he couldn't see the others look at him like he was pulling up the carpet in a church. Kalinka held him in kind, tugging him down farther. "Please don't pull me off balance. I don't want to fall on you."

"That's the first time you've ever hugged me on your own," she told him, and she was right. He'd returned embraces with gentle pats on the shoulder, or given her a hug goodbye if she'd told him to when she went off to school, but not of his own accord. Not long ago, he wouldn't have considered embracing her to be an appropriate response. But…

"It seemed like the thing to do," he explained. "You needn't worry, Kalinka. All of us will protect you, to our very last. So long as we're standing, I promise you won't come to harm."

"You shouldn't have to protect me…"

"It's what I was made for. More or less. And if worse comes to worst, and any of us must be lost to protect you," he added, feeling her grip on him tighten as he said it, "Dr. Cossack has our backups at the citadel. Losing a few months of memories is infinitely better than losing you. We're only robots, after all."

Kalinka shook her head, and let him go so she could look at him. "Not to me."

He wasn't sure how to process that. So as usual, he turned to duty instead. "Well… Be that as it may, you are our primary concern. Everyone," he said, clasping his hands as he addressed the group again, "we need a plan. If you'll allow me time to assess our-"

"Nope."

"Skull Man, please."

Skull walked heavily toward him. He gave Kalinka as sympathetic a look as he was capable of, and resumed the infighting, much to Pharaoh's displeasure. "You're done making plans for the day."

"Don't order me around. You have no authority with which to do so."

"Oh, and you do? Who died and made you boss?"

"Mates," Ring warned.

Pharaoh held up a placating hand to him, and went on. "I am an expedition robot. It is my exact function to lead others through hazardous, unknown territory. So I hope you don't intend to stand in the way of me doing my job."

"Don't get tough with me. You know what this is about. You knew Rock was infected, and you still followed him here like a dog. And you dragged us all here with you. I don't even know how you could possibly screw up that bad, but you went and did it." He came in close, and jabbed a finger into Pharaoh's chest. "And I'm starting to think maybe you did it on purpose. Maybe you're not as clean as you're acting."

"I'm not infected," Pharaoh insisted, doing his best not to nurture the seeds of doubt Skull was planting.

"Awfully weird time for you to suddenly get so sure of that."

"I am not!"

"Doesn't matter. You're off the committee. We'll figure this out without you. Right, Ring?" He turned away to face his fellow fighter, who could only shrug and look frustrated. "Right? Guys?" Everyone in the room looked just as unsure, even as some muttered halfhearted agreements.

Pharaoh Man wasn't even aware he was moving until his back collided with a pile of crates behind him. He slumped against it, his mind reeling. As much as he wanted Skull to be off the mark, he wasn't. Costly mistakes had been made. He'd been very, very wrong. Was he unfit to serve? Was he malfunctioning? Worse, was he infected? Any of them could have been now, even the ones who had come out clean before. Something inside of him told him that he was all right, and he wanted to believe it. But things were chaos, inside and out.

"Pharaoh." Kalinka put her hand on his arm, drawing his attention away from that. "It's okay. You just made a mistake. We still need you." Her voice drew the attention of every robot in the room as well, with mixed reactions.

"No, I…He's right. I may not be fit for duty. I've shown grievous lapses in judgement. I need time to… to…" To what, he wasn't sure.

"Listen," she told him, and held his hand in both of hers. "A good leader doesn't shut down the second something goes wrong. They keep working until the job is done and everyone is safe. Look at them. Look at me. Do we really look more prepared for this than you are?"

"You are our overseer after the doctor. You should be-"

"Pharaoh, I'm this close to a panic attack. Please don't force me to make decisions right now," Kalinka begged, yanking his arm down like a curtain's drawstring. "I need you to do this. I know you can. I trust you."

The two of them shared a look, and then Kalinka cast her gaze around the room, regarding each robot in passing. They all knew what it meant; the one human in the room had given the one order she was planning to give.

"His mistake put you in danger!" Skull tried to protest.

"No, mine did. His put you in danger. And now he's going to help get us all out." The Three Laws were wrapped up in far more nuance now than they had been when they were first implemented. A great deal of development had been done in pursuit of more rational adherence to the Laws and interpretation of commands. But they still behaved in predictable ways. In the absence of any immediate threat, Kalinka could be sure that if she ordered Pharaoh to the head of the pack, the others would follow despite any doubts.

"Please, just... someone tell me what to do," Toad Man sobbed.

"Drama queen," Tundra scoffed.

Pharaoh Man stood upright again, and crossed his arms while he stared at the metal plating of the floor. He understood his role, and his orders, but wasn't quite ready to face the others eye to eye, with all that had been said.

He considered their situation - the knowns and the unknowns. His team had a wide variety of skills. Applying them all may not have proved necessary, but it was all on the table. It was a greater pool of resources than he was used to working with, but then again there was a greater danger, and a greater set of unknowns. The layout of the fortress was a mystery, but that much he was used to. The presence of unseen active threats roaming the halls, the villain sitting at the head of the compound, and the question of how they were going to escape - all that still daunted him.

Kalinka had her needs as well. He had a rough idea of the assorted biological rhythms of a human body and how they could affect a journey. He was versed in subtle threats to human safety; while even construction robots knew to keep steel beams from falling on heads, he was well aware of things like temperature changes, air quality, and chemical presences. Kalinka's emotional well-being was a factor as well, something he would have to see to - if not to maintain their forward momentum, then at the very least to minimize the psychological harm this excursion inflicted.

He felt another hand, not Kalinka's, land on his shoulder. Ring Man was beside him, his face unreadable as usual. "Say the word, king."

Pharaoh looked around the room. Most of them shrugged. Toad Man continued to fall apart. Dive Man stood at attention. "Awaiting orders, captain!"

Skull Man looked no happier than he'd been a moment ago. But he no longer looked angry - just disappointed. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and Skull threw his arms down and barked, "So get on with it! Give us a plan, already!"

Good enough, Pharaoh thought. It was time to get to work. "I'm still sorting out the details." Skull shook his head and wandered off.

Dust Man crept forward and asked quietly, "Ehh, so… Are we all friends again? Are you three going to continue accosting each other? What happened?"

Ring and Pharaoh shared a look, and then both of them looked at Skull Man, who made several obscene gestures in rapid succession and only stopped after a freezing look from Kalinka. With a subdued chuckle, Ring answered, "We're battle-bots. We play rough." He slugged Pharaoh in the arm. "Right, king?"

Holding his arm, Pharaoh Man just offered a pair of smiling eyes in response, and made himself known to the rest of the room again. "All right. Cossack-bots, your attention for a moment. I have some thoughts." All eyes were on him, and he wasted no time. "Two main issues come to mind. The first is our means of escape. Teleporting out would be safest, if we find a relay we can use."

"So, what? We just keep scanning and hope for the best?" Skull asked. He was at least being a participant; that was heartening.

"No. The opposite, actually. Everyone, turn off all wireless communications now, please."

"Great, so now we're trapped and signal-deaf. Things are lookin' up!"

"No, he's right," Bright Man offered. "A robot master's comm signature would be like a beacon to anyone scanning this area, and nine of us piled up in one spot would get their attention for sure. We have to stay dark. As weird as that may sound coming from me…"

Drill Man raised a drill. "Uh, 'scuse me. How do we find a way out without scanning for one?"

"Simple," Pharaoh said. "Either we find a computer terminal in this fortress that can locate an unlocked outbound teleport band, and escape that way, or we don't and we escape on foot through a more traditional exit."

Drill Man raised another drill. "Does it have to be on foot? What if we find one of Wily's bubble-car floaty things?"

"Look, if you find a bubble-car that can fit ten bodies, let the group know and we'll put it to a vote. Otherwise, we're going to keep it simple. Simple, quiet, and subtle," he finished. "That isn't our best option anyway, teleportation is. We don't know where the exit might be, and even if we did, we don't know how far we are from civilization."

Drill Man raised the first drill again. "I do."

Now it was all eyes on him. Pharaoh asked the obvious question. "How?"

"I just cross-referenced the coordinates you gave us with my own records before we came here." Dumbfounded, the others stared back at him, and he didn't seem to know why. He shrugged. "I guess it's kind of a habit, from that year I spent mining. Mining companies have sites all over the place."

"But… but then, you… you knew we weren't going to LightLabs!"

"Myeah."

"And you didn't think there was something off about that?" Ring asked.

Drill shrugged again, throwing his arms out a bit and letting them thud limply back down. "Everyone else was going," he finally said.

Amidst the sounds of Skull Man hitting his head against the wall, Pharaoh gradually composed himself. "All right. No, that's good. This is good news. We have more information than we thought we did. Drill Man. Please tell us, then, exactly how far we are from human civilization."

"Welp, we're three hundred n' eighty-one kilometers north-westish from the copper prospect site I was drilling two years ago."

Two more unenthused thunks and then Skull Man paused the assault on his own forehead to say, "I can't believe you actually thought he was gonna be helpful."

"I'm doin' my best here, bud."

"Skull Man," Kalinka said, her girlish voice cutting through the electronic bickering. She slid off her makeshift seat and came to his side, stalling his headbanging a little longer. "I know you're frustrated. Every directive you have must feel obstructed by what's going on. You're not a collaborator. You're a fighter. And that's okay."

"Thanks."

She grabbed him by the shoulders, her grip suddenly tense and tenacious. "But right now, I need you to play nice. Because I'm currently reliving the worst experience of my entire life, while the world outside goes utterly crazy and my father is asleep halfway around the world where he can't fix anyone here who breaks. And if things don't start looking up, I may start screaming. And I may not stop screaming for a considerable length of time. Is that what you want?"

Wide-eyed, Skull responded, "No, ma'am."

"Then please - for me - put a happy face on this, and collaborate. Please, please give me a reason to stop panicking," Kalinka said, her grip tightening.

Skull looked at her, then at the others, then at Pharaoh, and at Kalinka again. "Everything's, uhh… Everything is gonna… be okay," he finished weakly, and patted her shoulder.

Looking like she absolutely did not believe him, Kalinka nonetheless gave him a tight, grateful smile, then hung her head. "Pharaoh. What do we do?"

"There is one other thing we should take care of right now," Pharaoh said, quickly taking up the reins again. He paced cautiously away from the group, searching. "Bright Man. Check for cameras."

Kalinka had to squint as Bright set off a series of flashes, turning himself around and systematically inspecting the room. As a light-based search robot, he was capable of using light flashes much like sonar, deriving information on his surroundings based on the reflections. "I'm not catching anything lens-like. There could be pinholes, but this room doesn't seem high-tech enough for that."

"No, it doesn't. So it should be safe to assume our conversation wasn't heard. That's good. As Toad Man said, there are likely many robot masters being called here by REM. If Dr. Wily is aware of our presence, it's best that he assumes we're just more infected arrivals." Pharaoh went to the door furthest from the one with Wily's emblem over it, and placed his hand on it, putting his own toolkit to work. A hallway, long enough that he couldn't see the other end; that was no good. He crossed over to another door in the back corner, and inspected what lay beyond that one as well. Metal wasn't as easy to sense through by any metric as the buried stone walls and floors of old tombs, but in this case, he did the job well enough. "I think I can see all four walls in here. Some clutter, but no other doors. Perfect."

Pharaoh found the door controls and the entire thing slid aside once activated, revealing a dark room full of sealed crates. It was smaller than he'd thought, his impression distorted somewhat, but it was enough. "Bright. Threats?"

Bright Man followed him in, and swept the small room. He shook his head. "Just bare walls and ceiling." Pharaoh Man leaned out and waved the rest of the group inside. By the time all ten were in, it was getting a little cramped, but there was still standing room for all.

Pharaoh took a moment to run his finger over the edge of one of the crates. A thin arc of dust was left on his fingertip. All the crates were sealed, and hadn't been touched in some time, perhaps since the fortress' construction. It was likely they could remain here for a while. He closed the door behind them, and without the light of the larger storage room, the one they were in now went pitch black. Bright rectified that with a warm ivory glow. Hidden away with one more door between them and danger, everyone relaxed somewhat.

"It's cold in here," Kalinka remarked as she tugged her jacket tighter around her.

"I noticed that as well," Pharaoh said, nodding. "It's unlikely that the fortress is thoroughly heated. Small, sealed spaces like this won't benefit from it."

"Yeah. Plus we're on a mountain," Drill added.

"Drill Man, can you tell us where we are, geographically speaking?"

"Ah, well sir, if memory serves… I'm pretty sure that prospect site was somewhere in the east of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska, which'd put us in the west of it."

"Alaska, huh?" Ring shrugged. "Could be worse."

"It could, yes. We'll sort out escape soon," Pharaoh said, quietly addressing the tiny room's occupants. "But for now, there's something else that should be taken care of." He turned to the mistress, who looked at him hopefully. "Kalinka? I think you should take a nap."

"... Come again?"

Skull Man growled. "What is it with you and goofy ideas today?"

"Hear me out," Pharaoh said. "You've been awake for roughly eight hours now, yes?"

Already starting to understand, Kalinka sighed and said, "Ten. I had a restless morning." Kalinka was a habitual early riser, and kept surprisingly well-rested for a student due to her tight scheduling. It wasn't uncommon for her light sleeping to be interrupted - something else Pharaoh had taken into account.

"All the more reason, then. We have no idea how long we may be trapped here before we escape, and this may be your last chance to rest. If exhaustion sets in, it could become a problem." The local time was nearly two in the morning, but given that robots didn't sleep and Wily was a maniac, there was no telling when or if the fortress would be quiet. "That, and I can tell the stress from the situation is… Well…" He tried to express it diplomatically, but she beat him to the punch.

"It's making me crazy. I know. I'm sorry." She heaved out another sigh, and leaned on the wall, shaking her head. "You really want me to try to sleep right now? In this place? In this room?"

"Toad Man," he said, pointing. "You're soft."

"Thanks for noticing."

Pharaoh hefted a couple of crates off the top of the pile, putting them aside and clearing a space. "Sit back here, and allow Kalinka to lie against you." While Toad Man sputtered and clumsily did as he was told, Pharaoh spoke to the others. "The rest of you, try to vent some extra heat, if possible. We should coordinate to keep the temperature of this room at around sixty degrees Fahrenheit to ensure that Kalinka sleeps well."

"Why do you have a figure for that?" Skull asked.

"And why is it in Fahrenheit, you mook?" Tundra demanded.

"When in Rome... Sixteen Celsius, then. Can we accomplish that without any more bickering?"

"Yes. Yes you can," Kalinka forcefully assured them. She climbed up and arranged herself against the back of Toad Man's relatively squishy chassis. The small amount of give in his rubbery hide afforded her precious little comfort, and she had to put her felt cap between her hair and the tacky surface, and her folded jacket between herself and her metal seat. She crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and tried to relax, shivering a little as the others worked on solving the heat issue.

"Righteo. I'll stand guard then," Ring said, and made it way over to stand by the door.

"Uh, yeah. I'll help." Skull moved somewhat awkwardly to stand across from Ring, and shrugged when he received a dubious look for his trouble. Most of the other robots stood aside, clearing the middle of the room. Bright Man turned down the intensity of his light until the room was barely lit. Pharaoh was left standing by himself, considering their situation. Really, all of them were considering it. All of them knew how ridiculous and how dangerous and desperate things were getting, as they watched the mistress settle in for a nap in Wily's storage closet.

"We can no longer communicate silently through networking. Once you are asleep, Kalinka, we will continue coordinating aloud amongst ourselves," Pharaoh explained. "We need to be as prepared as possible. Until then," he said, addressing the group, "we should all remain silent, to allow Kalinka to rest."

"Oh, cool. You're finally gonna shut up." Skull Man didn't get a response of any kind, from anyone, and apparently that was enough to dissuade him from speaking up again. There was a moment of quiet in that dark room, as the robots diligently stood placid and Kalinka did her best to doze off. Then she let out a soft groan and started fidgeting in place.

"I think you're kind of underestimating how hard it is to relax in these conditions," she grumbled.

Toad Man turned his face a little, his semi-elastic torso stretching stiffly to accommodate. "I'm sorry, mistress. Being a pillow isn't really my primary function."

"It's okay," she sighed. "There's more to robots than primary functions, right?"

"I guess so. Is there something else I can do for you?"

Another moment passed with only the sound of her breathing, and the hum of the powered walls, and Kalinka semi-seated against the team gardener with her hands clasped in her lap. She unfolded them for a second to reach back and poke him in the side. "Hey. Can you sing the song?"

"The song?" Toad asked, confused.

"You know," she said playfully. "The frog song? Remember?"

"Oh. Oh, yes, I remember. Singing isn't really my primary function either…"

"Pleeeease?"

After a few seconds, Toad Man began to quietly hum a pleasant little melody, and Kalinka folded her hands and closed her eyes again. The song was sung in the rigid tones of a robot, perfectly in tune almost to a fault. But it was something familiar, and he sang as softly as he could, and by the end of the first few lines, Kalinka felt much better.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows

And what's on the other side?

Rainbows are visions, but only illusions

And rainbows have nothing to hide

So we've been told and some choose to believe it

I know they're wrong, wait and see

Someday we'll find it

The rainbow connection

The lovers, the dreamers, and me

Pharaoh could sense himself smiling in the dark, in spite of everything. It was a terrible situation, he knew. Quite an awful gambit he'd forced them into. But he was a robot; he was made to provide solutions to problems. And in the dim light (which by design he had no problem seeing through), he could see Kalinka beginning to relax as Toad Man's silly little song went on, her face attempting serenity and just about getting there. She could relax because she trusted him. And if she trusted him, he wouldn't let her down. Something inside told him it was all right, that he was doing the right thing.

Stay functional. Follow directives. Protect Kalinka. Protect everyone. Simple. Easy. Follow the Laws, use your best judgement. Everything else will fall into place. For all the trouble he'd had in the past couple of years with his own increasingly complex thoughts and concerns, in the last little while he'd achieved a sort of minor enlightenment. Largely he had Dr. Cossack and Kalinka to thank for that, he knew. The path was clear. Difficult, stressful, but clear. In the back of his mind, beyond the tribulations at hand, was an assurance that things would be fine. That Kalinka would be safe. That he was on the right path.

Have you been half asleep, and have you heard voices?

I've heard them calling my name...

Author's Note: Been a while, I know. Not dead! Just busy. For readers seeing this note in the future, pretend I said something really smart and cool and relevant to you.
Hey look, we're at the part of the story where the main character stops being a spectator and actually starts taking action! And it only took two and a half chapters! It's almost time for action and adventure!
... See you in chapter 4!