'Is this the address?' asked April.
'Yup, eighteen Falstaff Avenue, Brunswick Industrial Park. This is it.'
April pressed the button on the right of the double doors, the glass was frosted. Five seconds later a video camera on a boom swung over and peered at them, the front door opened, it led to a lobby with a couple of easy chairs on the side and a Rembrandt on the wall, a single intercom was mounted on a pole sticking out of the ground. Another set of double doors, solid steel, were set four metres from the last ones. 'Hello,' came a voice from the intercom. 'Can I help you?'
'Yeah,' said April. 'We're here to see Warren Spiller.'
'Really?' came the reply. 'He's a very busy man, there's only one chance you can see him.'
'What's that?'
'If you can pass through the rooms that lead to him. Beware, they're nasty.'
Buffy and April huddled and talked to themselves for a moment, eventually they stopped and faced the intercom. 'Okay, we're coming through,' said April. She pressed the two doors in front of her open, they led to a long, thin room, seven metres long and three metres wide. It appeared just to be a corridor, the two of them set off down it. In an instant the double doors behind them snapped shut, they heard the crunch of an electronic lock. Then the main part of the corridor floor fell away, revealing a six metre drop with sharp spikes at the bottom, a single beam, a few centimetres across was the only way to get to the other side.
'What is this?' questioned Buffy.
'It's a test,' came Warren's reply. 'If you can get across to the other side, without dying, you can progress. Please, don't try the doors, a steel shutter has closed behind it, there's only one way out now. Well two, but death isn't an option, is it.'
'Is this a joke?'
'Dear me, no. Almost everyone gets through here, only a couple didn't.'
'People have died here?' asked April angrily.
'Not many, not in this room, it's easy. By the way, I'll be shooting general knowledge questions at you the whole time. Get one wrong and it's bye-bye bridge, now get moving.'
April took a step onto the beam, it gave slightly under her weight. She took another step and it gave again, not much though, a millimetre or two. April's gyro-stabilizer shifted her weight accordingly, when she reached the middle she was pretty confident.
'What's the speed of light?' asked Warren.
'One hundred and eighty six thousand miles a second,' replied April.
Good. Who led his men into a defeat againt against the Indians at Little Bighorn?'
'Custer, of course,' said April. Then she had reached the other end of the bridge, Buffy began to cross.
'Who was the first man on the moon?'
'Neil Armstrong, in the late nineteen sixties,' replied a confident Buffy. She'd absorbed a hell of a lot of data in the last few days, general knowledge was a sinch to her.
'Who made the first powered flight?'
'The Wright Brothers,' replied Buffy. Then she reached the other end of the room, the white door opened up, it was similar to a hatch on submarines. The pair of robots went through. 'Look, this is rediculous. Let us see you, that's all we want.'
'You can only see me if you survive, okay?'
'This is insane,' said April. 'You're insane, you can't do this.'
'You're inside, I control everything here, you can't leave. And I'm blocking all transmissions if you think a cell phone would work.'
The next room was connected with a small corridor, April and Buffy had to hunch up to pass through. The next room was similar to the last, it's floor had a pattern though.
'Good job you went through on your own,' said the electronic Warren. 'If you hadn't I'd have had to start flooding it with a nerve gas. A real nasty one, heard of VX?'
'How many tried to stop there then?' asked Buffy. 'All of them I'd guess after they saw what a wacko you were.'
'You're funny, you should be a stand-up comic,' replied Warren. His voice came from a speaker embedded in the wall and covered with a layer of plastic. 'Actually a few have died there, they couldn't face what was coming.'
'And what is that?'
'Glad you asked. The floor has several hidden panels, stepping on one with send a five hundred volt charge through the entire floor. If you fail to identify certain piece of music a five hundred volt charge will go through despite your stepping, gottit?'
'Yeah,' said April. 'You sick piece of shit, when I get to you I'm gonna rip your spinal cord our and use it as a banjo.'
'So you have an incentive to win, good. I like those who play, make it more interesting.'
As April took a step forward, a piece of music came up, her aural sensors checked certain notations and patterns against a huge database of music. 'Linkin Park,' she said. 'Crawlin'. They were pretty good until the lead singer killed himself.'
'Hey, he was murdered by the Government and you know it.'
'Why would the Government kill him?'
'They were testing a new weapon, a device which imprints suicidal thought patterns on the brain via a laser paradigm. They used the highest profile person they could find and tested it, those bastards. I should know, I was once part of the Military-Industrial Complex.'
'We know,' said Buffy. 'You worked for Northram, designing a new military application android, deep-cover. Wired with explosives, it could walk right up to Saddam and explode.'
'How'd you know that?' growled Warren.
'We'll tell you when we see you, face to face.' As Buffy stepped forward, another piece of music came through. 'The Who. Who are you.'
A few metres into the room, and a ripple of electricity coursed across their synthetic bodies. 'What're you standing on?' asked April.
Buffy looked down at her feet, 'It looks like a semi-quaver. Over there, its a quaver.'
'Is that is Warren?' said April to the room. 'Is it musical notes? That's so lame.'
Warren gave them several piece of contempary and classical music. Between the pair of them they identified each and everyone. They got to the end of the room with no more fuss. This time there were two submarine hatches, both exactly the same in size and shape. 'Pick one,' said Warren. 'One's easy, the others one hell of a bitch.'
April grabbed the handle of the left one and yanked it open. She heard metal scraping against metal on the side of the right door, probably some kind of device to stop her opening the other one. Warren must've though of everything. How the hell much time did he log in designing and building this killing machine. April pulled her hand against a piece of the wall, it was cold, and most likely as thick as all get out. No chance of tearing through it and ripping that smug bastards head off.
Buffy and April stopped in the next crampt corridor for a moment. 'He hasn't recognised us,' said April.
'Yeah, if you were the first one her built, he should.'
'I bet he's really mentally unstable. Possibly a schizophrenic, two personalities or more in one body.'
'Keep moving ladies, my fingers on the VX trigger.'
The next room was a square, with simple white walls. It was four metres wide and long, and about two point five high. Set in the end of the room was two speakers, and to the right of them two buttons. Warren didn;t explain the setup, as they walked closer the left speaker came on. 'One of us always lies, one of us can't help but to tell the truth. You may ask either of us two yes or no questions.' The voice was an electric construct, a digital speaker, Warren was just an observer here. 'One of the buttons on that panel opens the door, the other sends a spray of hydrochloric acid into this room. You have ninety seconds, then the acid will spray down automatically, starting now.'
'I'm starting to dislike him,' said April.
'This is a simple logic problem,' said Buffy. 'All we have to do is ask the one on the right which button is safe. If he lies it'll be the wrong one, if he tells the truth it'll be the correct one. Then we ask the other one which is safe, he'll say . . .'
'Exactly the opposite one, despite his alliegence,' finished April. 'We'll be at square one, we wouldn't know which to believe.'
'Sixty seconds remaining,' reminded the voice.
'Okay,' started April. 'Left guy, is the Earth a perfect sphere?'
'Of course,' it replied.
'Rightie, which button is safe?'
'The one on your left.'
April went over to the panel and pressed the one on the right, the door slid open.
'Clever,' said Warren. 'Most people get caught in up in overthinking that time runs out.'
'It's just good logic,' replied April. 'The Earth isn't a perfect sphere, its flat at the poles.'
The next room was a dimly lit affair. In the centre was a table, with a puzzle on it. The pieces were scattered about the table, some one the right side, some on the wrong. The box on the table said it was a two hundred piece puzzle with a picture of the Marble Arch on it.
'It can't be that simple,' said Buffy.
'It isn't,' said Warren. 'This room is essentially a large microwave oven. I will raise the temperature two degrees every minute until you finish. I will also ask you questions, they have a ten second time-limit. Get one wrong or if you're timed out, it's an instant three degree raise. Got it?'
April and Buffy got over to the puzzle quickly, they turned over the pieces as fast as possible. But despite their reflexes, they were just as fast as a very fast perosn, so Warren suspected nothing. The two robots glanced at the box and took a snapshot of the image, they then checked every piece they got about it and put it in its correct position.
'What is the third largest continent?'
'North America,' Buffy shot back.
'What is the percentage of land it has?'
'Sixteen point three,' she replied.
'You're good. Right, who was the eight President of the USA?'
'Martin Van Buren.'
Buffy thought that Warren may just get annoyed and crank the temperature up to three hundred anyway. But what he'd said earlier made her believe he'd be fair, in the context of his game. He wouldn't kill them unless they violated a rule or were outrightly incorrect. She checked the air temperature, it was still a mild twenty six degrees. The floor beneath her feet was a roasting thirty. Warren shot questions, and between them they got them right.
In nine minutes the two of them had completed the puzzle. They got all the questions right, the temperature was thirty six degree celsius, a human would begin to faint from heath exhaustion. How any person could get past this room was beyond April.
Buffy's flesh was real, cloned from the original Buffy Summers. It functioned exactly like anyone else's skin. Sweat beads dripped across her body, her clothes were almost soaking in it, especially her blue top, which had huge prints on her armpits and down the front. At sixty degrees both of them would start to go bad, their processors and memory would begin to fry, and Buffy's skin would start burning. They could sustain a maximum of one hundred and twenty, by then April artificial skin would drip off her like wax and they would cease to function. Their backups would keep them ticking over to two hundred, where their processors and memory would burn up. All that would be left would be two steel skeletons.
Buffy felt the temperature drop to a comfortable level. There were two doors in the wall, April swung open the right one and passed through, Buffy followed.
April dropped down half a metre and found herself in ankle deep water. It was clear as crystal. She took a handful to her mouth and swallowed it, it was fresh water. April's internal systems had been modified, she could use the water to cool her computers down. When Warren built her she would've fried herself, another reason Warren didn't suspect what they were.
Buffy dropped down too, she went to her knees and splashed the water across her face to cool her flesh down. Her clothes were soaked with cool liquid and they clung tightly to her sculptured body. She took a mouthful of it and it went down to her biorganic internal organs. Part cloned organ, part machine. She needed it to keep her circulatory system going, to keep her skin alive. She could easily function without it, but she'd grown fond of a covering that could feel, that responded, that was alive.
'This is the water chamber,' said Warren. The room was smaller than the rest, its was a rectangle, about the length and width of a car, but two metres high. Apart from the ankle-deep water on the bottom it was empty. 'It will start to fill with water in a moment, but first I'll explain. You must answer me correctly, when I ask you the capitals of various Countries, or American states. Do you know your geography?'
'Yeah,' said April. 'We're about ten metres from your ass. Population: my foot.'
'Here goes, get ten right to stop the water and leave.' Three panels in the ceiling slid over, the three pipes they covered started to rain heavily. It spat down onto the two figures. The water level began to rise.
'What's the capital of Utah?'
'Easy, it's Salt Lake City,' replied Buffy as she spat a mouthful of water out.
'That was easy, your starter for ten if you like. Capital of Nepal? Remember, one wrong answer and it'll just fill up, no more games.'
'I though as much, said April. 'You're the kind of sick puppy who would do that. The answers Kathmandu.'
The water had reached the tops of their shins. Buffy was standing in a corner, her hands pressed against the walls. April was standing upright, her hands touching the ceiling.
'Capital of Nigeria?'
'Abuja,' answered Buffy. She'd absorbed most of the knowledge about Geography. They also got right South Africa, Niger, Bhutan, Botswana, Alaska and Liberia, then it came to the last one.
'Okay, I have an easy one for you. What's the capital of Florida?'
The water was up to their chins, their bodies floated in the small pool as they searched for an answer. 'What is is?' asked Buffy, trying to hurry her pal along.
'What do you mean, what is it? You're the geography expert, you should know!'
'I don't. I don't know why, but I don't.'
'Shit. Think, what's in Florida?'
Buffy brought up a exact map of Florida, it hung in the air in front of her, a digital display. She took another breath, the air was rapidly getting carbon dioxided, Buffy needed to respirate in order to keep her flesh alive. She had an air tank inside of her, pure oxygen, could last for thirty minutes if necessary. April had nothing like that, she was pure machine. She'd function in water just as well as on land. 'Miami!' Buffy said. 'It has to be Miami.'
'Is that your final answer?' asked Warren. His voice was unclear through the pour of water as it pumped into the chamber.
Buffy wasn't just a machine, if she was she either knew it or didn't. She didn't. But she wasn't a machine, she was alive, so she guessed. 'Tallahassee,' she screamed.
A hatch at the bottom of the water opened. The water level in the chamber was just enough so they could have their heads above it, gasping for oxygen so it seemed. Buffy held her breath and sent under, her hair flipped about in the water, and she grabbed two handles just beneath the hidden door. As she pulled herself down she could see that the whole section was flooded. That was why the water level in the tank didn't change, they were the same pressure. More handles were in the wall and she used them to drag her body through. Eventually, she emerged from the depths, she grabbed another series of handles and hauled herself out of the water. Her hair was plastered across her face, she swept it back. Drops started to drizzle off her onto the steel floor. A moment later April appeared, she swept her hair back and they stopped for a second.
'Why did you guess Tallahassee, Buff? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did, but why not Miami like you said earlier?'
'I've heard something about Florida before. Something about the biggest city not being the capital, that it was in the north. I checked my map, which doesn't even have the capital marked off, and I chose Tallahassee. We were lucky, it was between that and Jacksonville.'
'Move along,' said Warren. 'Nothing to see. Except maybe swirls of green VX gas.'
'Y'know, he's starting to piss me off.' April was angry, she thought about staying put and him watching as he saw the nerve gas had no effect, what would he do then, wet himself?
'C'mon,' said Buffy as she opened the hatch. 'I've ran a position match. The building is only a hundred metres long, and we've gone across eight five of it. He's close, I can feel it.'
Each room was different, thought April. The one they went into had ridges along the floor and ceiling. It was also small, just bigger than the water chamber.
'You're further than anyone's ever been,' said Warren.
'I'm so proud,' joked Buffy.
'You should be. According to my calculations, you two are in the top point one per cent of this nations people. Smart and beautiful, not a bad combination.'
'I won't be so attractive when I'm tearing your throat out with my teeth,' said April.
'If you can get to me. Right I'd better start this one up.' April and Buffy heard hums coming from the floor and ceiling, then they started to close together, slowly, but inexorably. Even the two robots couldn't survive a car press. 'You have to name all seven dwarves in reverse alphabetical order. Anything at all, any utterance will be taken as an answer, so think about it in your head first. I estimated you'll be dead in eighty seconds.'
They both started to recall the data about Snow White. April looked over to Buffy, she was mouthing something. April ran her lip-reading program. 'You do it,' Buffy mouthed.
April stood up, something hard to do when the she could feel the top of it against her head. Was that it, she thought. After the horrible inquisitions he wants seven names form a fairy tale? 'Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc and Bashful.' She paused a moment. 'Now no more games, let us see you. We deserved it, you murdering sadist!' The press kept going down, then it stopped. April and Buffy were on their knees, their strength was pressing against it. But that wouldn't have helped, it was too powerful. Warren had stopped it.
'Yes,' he replied. 'That's the last of my games, the final challenge. It didn't throw you.' The ceiling and floor retracted to their former positions. When a dull thud signifed they were locked in place another hatch opened, it led to another cubic room that was three metres to a side. On the other side was an open doorway, beyond it stood Warren. Older, crazier, he had a beard, but it was him. 'Y'know most people blurted it out to quickly, they got them mixed up.' This time is wasn't through a speaker, he was there, a few metres in front of them.
'You said we got the furthest, further than anyone else,' said Buffy.
'You did. I took a clipboard out into LA one time, asked them to do basically what I asked of you. Only three percent got it right. You really are two remarkable young women, do you know that?'
He went onto the streets to test a question, thought Buffy. What lengths was this psycho willing to go to, to perfect his death machine. When they got into the steel room the door in front of them slammed shut, the one behind did at the same time, they were trapped. 'Look you little shit,' said April. 'You said there were no more games.'
Warren placed his headset back on, 'That's true, this is no game. It's just death, straight up without ice. The vent in the middle of the room is drawing the air away, you'll starve of oxygen soon.'
Buffy surged forward, her shoulder slammed into the steel door in front of her, a small dent appeared. Hwe fingers searched about the rim, trying to find something to get purchase on, but it was slick. April kicked as hard as she could, another dent appeared, it was a centimetre deep at most.
'That's solid steel,' said Warren. 'What are you, you certainly ain't human, and that would explain how you bested my Death Maze.'
'Tell us one thing before we die,' asked Buffy. 'How many have entered and never got out?'
'About three dozen,' Warren said calmly.
'Bastard!' screamed April. She kicked again and again, more dents, but no progress. As an android she didn't need air, but Warren probably had more tricks in this room, it was the final layer between him and reality. Perhaps sulphuric acid would pour down, like a summer rain.
'Let us out and we'll tell you what we are,' said Buffy. 'Kill us and you've got nothing.'
Warren pondered it, the air grew ever thinner. Buffy took a deep breath, half an hour. Then the exit door opened, as Buffy passed under it, she saw it was twenty centimetres thick, a proper, no messing, door. The control room, from where Warren watched and spoke, was a circular room, it had computer panels all around it. Yellow marks ran down the surfaces and words such as water chamber were written on them. A control board.
'What are you?' asked Warren. He was sitting in a comfortable chair, black leather, real nifty.
Water still ran from their clothing, their shoes squelched as they walked. 'I am the first android you built,' said April.
'And I was one constructed for sex,' said Buffy. 'As you can see we've grown over the past few years.'
'Ah, yes,' said Warren. 'Now I remember, you're August?'
'April,' she corrected. 'Why did you built this awful thing?'
'Because I could,' replied Warren. 'Why do you think I built you.'
'You're a sadistic asshole,' said April through gritted teeth. 'Which I am going to enjoy tearing in two. No one else will die here.'
'You came all this way to kill me?'
'No, we came to talk,' said Buffy. 'But you're obviously deranged.'
'I have rights.'
'No you don't. You forfeighted them when you build this piece of shit.'
'Oh, okay. Well then lets see what I do have shall we? Death Maze, check. Millions of dollars from Government grants into my research, check. The latest in robotic bodyguards, check.'
'What was the last one?' asked April.
'Just the most sophisticated robot I've ever designed and built, the next generation from you.' Warren pressed a button on the console in front of him and a panel slid back to reveal a cupboard. Inside was a robotic bodyguard designed to look like a vampire. 'Compared to him, you're toasters with an ego.'
April and Buffy split up, they edged around it, then its eyes lit up, a sunset orange. It walked forward with a masculin stride. It was dressed in bikers leathers. At the end of each finger was a blade a centimetre long. Both androids brought their combat training forward, they were like seasoned professionals. Warren span his chair around to watch the fight like he was at a boxing match. He pressed his hands together. 'Let's get ready to rumble.'
The robotic vampire was one metre ninety, he towered over the two small women. He turned to face Buffy-bot first, his hand shot out and clasped around her neck, his vice grip started to crush her throat. Both of Buffy's arms grabbed the hand strangeling her, she tried to force it apart, to break free, but his grip was total. It was at that point April roundhouse kicked him in the face, he shrugged it off and his face changed. The jaw went down a few centimetres and the cheeks went out, a small nozzle came forward. He turned to face April and a jet of viscous fluid shot out. April ducked under it, she glanced over and saw it eating its way through a keyboard. She would've told Warren vampires didn't spit acid, but I don't think he would care much.
Buffy punched the vampire in the face and kicked him in the breadbasket, she must've hit something vital because he let her go, his hand stayed open. Buffy got in close and landed more punches, bits of him flew over the place, then as she was going to strike him again, his hand came up and closed around her fist. She heard the crackle of electricity and the breaking of metal, blood dripped from the vampires hold, then he let go. Buffy examined the appendage, it was crushed beyond repair.
April jumped onto his back, she brought her elbow down on his shoulder, he didn't flinch, he just stretched one arm back impossibly far and grabbed her dress. He threw her across the room and she crashed into a table which had magazines and coffee on it. He turned his attention back to Buffy-bot, he grabbed her easily, despite her kicking and thrashing and got her in a bear hug. His mighty arms closed around her, they began to crack her skeleton, which was a form of aluminium. Her tactile sensors flicked off one by one as they were overloaded. She hurridly tried to think of something. She saw Aprils hands press against the vampires head. Her servos strained to apply that much force without breaking. His cranial plate began to crack, just as Buffy thought she was going to die, the grip relaxed, the vampire-bot fell to the ground. His head had been crushed. And Warren had put the main processors in there. The body twitched then died down, the two robots faced Warren, who was still sitting there.
'It wasn't my fault,' he sobbed. 'It was the demon, he made me crazy, please, you have to believe me.'
'Sorry, Warren,' said April. 'No tricks.'
He looked up at her, his eyes were crying blood, it ran down his face and off his chin. He turned the chair around, and pulled open a hidden drawer. 'It wasn't my fault,' he said as he pressed the muzzle of a pistol to his temple. 'You can't blame me.' Then he pulled the trigger. His brain splattered across the consoles and he slumped in his chair. His hand went limp and the gun fell to the floor.
'I believe him,' said Buffy.
'You'd like to believe him you mean, it's in your personailty.'
'No, that's not it. As a Scooby Gang member I read several books on demons. Some of them drive their victim insane and feed off the terror they sow.'
'You think one got to Warren?'
'Yes. His genius could built this Death Maze, but a rational, sane Warren would never have done it, probably. But a whacked out Warren would have no compunctions.'
'Let's call the police then go,' said April. They searched for a way out, they found a button that opened another hidden door. It led down into a cellar beneath and maze. There they found a workshop and a whole mess of robots, they duplicated some of LA's best-known people. The Mayor, Police Chief, Civil Servant, the terror he could've sowed with a whole City under his thumb. Buffy and April destroyed the robots, but kept pieces of their hardware for themselves.
'Yup, eighteen Falstaff Avenue, Brunswick Industrial Park. This is it.'
April pressed the button on the right of the double doors, the glass was frosted. Five seconds later a video camera on a boom swung over and peered at them, the front door opened, it led to a lobby with a couple of easy chairs on the side and a Rembrandt on the wall, a single intercom was mounted on a pole sticking out of the ground. Another set of double doors, solid steel, were set four metres from the last ones. 'Hello,' came a voice from the intercom. 'Can I help you?'
'Yeah,' said April. 'We're here to see Warren Spiller.'
'Really?' came the reply. 'He's a very busy man, there's only one chance you can see him.'
'What's that?'
'If you can pass through the rooms that lead to him. Beware, they're nasty.'
Buffy and April huddled and talked to themselves for a moment, eventually they stopped and faced the intercom. 'Okay, we're coming through,' said April. She pressed the two doors in front of her open, they led to a long, thin room, seven metres long and three metres wide. It appeared just to be a corridor, the two of them set off down it. In an instant the double doors behind them snapped shut, they heard the crunch of an electronic lock. Then the main part of the corridor floor fell away, revealing a six metre drop with sharp spikes at the bottom, a single beam, a few centimetres across was the only way to get to the other side.
'What is this?' questioned Buffy.
'It's a test,' came Warren's reply. 'If you can get across to the other side, without dying, you can progress. Please, don't try the doors, a steel shutter has closed behind it, there's only one way out now. Well two, but death isn't an option, is it.'
'Is this a joke?'
'Dear me, no. Almost everyone gets through here, only a couple didn't.'
'People have died here?' asked April angrily.
'Not many, not in this room, it's easy. By the way, I'll be shooting general knowledge questions at you the whole time. Get one wrong and it's bye-bye bridge, now get moving.'
April took a step onto the beam, it gave slightly under her weight. She took another step and it gave again, not much though, a millimetre or two. April's gyro-stabilizer shifted her weight accordingly, when she reached the middle she was pretty confident.
'What's the speed of light?' asked Warren.
'One hundred and eighty six thousand miles a second,' replied April.
Good. Who led his men into a defeat againt against the Indians at Little Bighorn?'
'Custer, of course,' said April. Then she had reached the other end of the bridge, Buffy began to cross.
'Who was the first man on the moon?'
'Neil Armstrong, in the late nineteen sixties,' replied a confident Buffy. She'd absorbed a hell of a lot of data in the last few days, general knowledge was a sinch to her.
'Who made the first powered flight?'
'The Wright Brothers,' replied Buffy. Then she reached the other end of the room, the white door opened up, it was similar to a hatch on submarines. The pair of robots went through. 'Look, this is rediculous. Let us see you, that's all we want.'
'You can only see me if you survive, okay?'
'This is insane,' said April. 'You're insane, you can't do this.'
'You're inside, I control everything here, you can't leave. And I'm blocking all transmissions if you think a cell phone would work.'
The next room was connected with a small corridor, April and Buffy had to hunch up to pass through. The next room was similar to the last, it's floor had a pattern though.
'Good job you went through on your own,' said the electronic Warren. 'If you hadn't I'd have had to start flooding it with a nerve gas. A real nasty one, heard of VX?'
'How many tried to stop there then?' asked Buffy. 'All of them I'd guess after they saw what a wacko you were.'
'You're funny, you should be a stand-up comic,' replied Warren. His voice came from a speaker embedded in the wall and covered with a layer of plastic. 'Actually a few have died there, they couldn't face what was coming.'
'And what is that?'
'Glad you asked. The floor has several hidden panels, stepping on one with send a five hundred volt charge through the entire floor. If you fail to identify certain piece of music a five hundred volt charge will go through despite your stepping, gottit?'
'Yeah,' said April. 'You sick piece of shit, when I get to you I'm gonna rip your spinal cord our and use it as a banjo.'
'So you have an incentive to win, good. I like those who play, make it more interesting.'
As April took a step forward, a piece of music came up, her aural sensors checked certain notations and patterns against a huge database of music. 'Linkin Park,' she said. 'Crawlin'. They were pretty good until the lead singer killed himself.'
'Hey, he was murdered by the Government and you know it.'
'Why would the Government kill him?'
'They were testing a new weapon, a device which imprints suicidal thought patterns on the brain via a laser paradigm. They used the highest profile person they could find and tested it, those bastards. I should know, I was once part of the Military-Industrial Complex.'
'We know,' said Buffy. 'You worked for Northram, designing a new military application android, deep-cover. Wired with explosives, it could walk right up to Saddam and explode.'
'How'd you know that?' growled Warren.
'We'll tell you when we see you, face to face.' As Buffy stepped forward, another piece of music came through. 'The Who. Who are you.'
A few metres into the room, and a ripple of electricity coursed across their synthetic bodies. 'What're you standing on?' asked April.
Buffy looked down at her feet, 'It looks like a semi-quaver. Over there, its a quaver.'
'Is that is Warren?' said April to the room. 'Is it musical notes? That's so lame.'
Warren gave them several piece of contempary and classical music. Between the pair of them they identified each and everyone. They got to the end of the room with no more fuss. This time there were two submarine hatches, both exactly the same in size and shape. 'Pick one,' said Warren. 'One's easy, the others one hell of a bitch.'
April grabbed the handle of the left one and yanked it open. She heard metal scraping against metal on the side of the right door, probably some kind of device to stop her opening the other one. Warren must've though of everything. How the hell much time did he log in designing and building this killing machine. April pulled her hand against a piece of the wall, it was cold, and most likely as thick as all get out. No chance of tearing through it and ripping that smug bastards head off.
Buffy and April stopped in the next crampt corridor for a moment. 'He hasn't recognised us,' said April.
'Yeah, if you were the first one her built, he should.'
'I bet he's really mentally unstable. Possibly a schizophrenic, two personalities or more in one body.'
'Keep moving ladies, my fingers on the VX trigger.'
The next room was a square, with simple white walls. It was four metres wide and long, and about two point five high. Set in the end of the room was two speakers, and to the right of them two buttons. Warren didn;t explain the setup, as they walked closer the left speaker came on. 'One of us always lies, one of us can't help but to tell the truth. You may ask either of us two yes or no questions.' The voice was an electric construct, a digital speaker, Warren was just an observer here. 'One of the buttons on that panel opens the door, the other sends a spray of hydrochloric acid into this room. You have ninety seconds, then the acid will spray down automatically, starting now.'
'I'm starting to dislike him,' said April.
'This is a simple logic problem,' said Buffy. 'All we have to do is ask the one on the right which button is safe. If he lies it'll be the wrong one, if he tells the truth it'll be the correct one. Then we ask the other one which is safe, he'll say . . .'
'Exactly the opposite one, despite his alliegence,' finished April. 'We'll be at square one, we wouldn't know which to believe.'
'Sixty seconds remaining,' reminded the voice.
'Okay,' started April. 'Left guy, is the Earth a perfect sphere?'
'Of course,' it replied.
'Rightie, which button is safe?'
'The one on your left.'
April went over to the panel and pressed the one on the right, the door slid open.
'Clever,' said Warren. 'Most people get caught in up in overthinking that time runs out.'
'It's just good logic,' replied April. 'The Earth isn't a perfect sphere, its flat at the poles.'
The next room was a dimly lit affair. In the centre was a table, with a puzzle on it. The pieces were scattered about the table, some one the right side, some on the wrong. The box on the table said it was a two hundred piece puzzle with a picture of the Marble Arch on it.
'It can't be that simple,' said Buffy.
'It isn't,' said Warren. 'This room is essentially a large microwave oven. I will raise the temperature two degrees every minute until you finish. I will also ask you questions, they have a ten second time-limit. Get one wrong or if you're timed out, it's an instant three degree raise. Got it?'
April and Buffy got over to the puzzle quickly, they turned over the pieces as fast as possible. But despite their reflexes, they were just as fast as a very fast perosn, so Warren suspected nothing. The two robots glanced at the box and took a snapshot of the image, they then checked every piece they got about it and put it in its correct position.
'What is the third largest continent?'
'North America,' Buffy shot back.
'What is the percentage of land it has?'
'Sixteen point three,' she replied.
'You're good. Right, who was the eight President of the USA?'
'Martin Van Buren.'
Buffy thought that Warren may just get annoyed and crank the temperature up to three hundred anyway. But what he'd said earlier made her believe he'd be fair, in the context of his game. He wouldn't kill them unless they violated a rule or were outrightly incorrect. She checked the air temperature, it was still a mild twenty six degrees. The floor beneath her feet was a roasting thirty. Warren shot questions, and between them they got them right.
In nine minutes the two of them had completed the puzzle. They got all the questions right, the temperature was thirty six degree celsius, a human would begin to faint from heath exhaustion. How any person could get past this room was beyond April.
Buffy's flesh was real, cloned from the original Buffy Summers. It functioned exactly like anyone else's skin. Sweat beads dripped across her body, her clothes were almost soaking in it, especially her blue top, which had huge prints on her armpits and down the front. At sixty degrees both of them would start to go bad, their processors and memory would begin to fry, and Buffy's skin would start burning. They could sustain a maximum of one hundred and twenty, by then April artificial skin would drip off her like wax and they would cease to function. Their backups would keep them ticking over to two hundred, where their processors and memory would burn up. All that would be left would be two steel skeletons.
Buffy felt the temperature drop to a comfortable level. There were two doors in the wall, April swung open the right one and passed through, Buffy followed.
April dropped down half a metre and found herself in ankle deep water. It was clear as crystal. She took a handful to her mouth and swallowed it, it was fresh water. April's internal systems had been modified, she could use the water to cool her computers down. When Warren built her she would've fried herself, another reason Warren didn't suspect what they were.
Buffy dropped down too, she went to her knees and splashed the water across her face to cool her flesh down. Her clothes were soaked with cool liquid and they clung tightly to her sculptured body. She took a mouthful of it and it went down to her biorganic internal organs. Part cloned organ, part machine. She needed it to keep her circulatory system going, to keep her skin alive. She could easily function without it, but she'd grown fond of a covering that could feel, that responded, that was alive.
'This is the water chamber,' said Warren. The room was smaller than the rest, its was a rectangle, about the length and width of a car, but two metres high. Apart from the ankle-deep water on the bottom it was empty. 'It will start to fill with water in a moment, but first I'll explain. You must answer me correctly, when I ask you the capitals of various Countries, or American states. Do you know your geography?'
'Yeah,' said April. 'We're about ten metres from your ass. Population: my foot.'
'Here goes, get ten right to stop the water and leave.' Three panels in the ceiling slid over, the three pipes they covered started to rain heavily. It spat down onto the two figures. The water level began to rise.
'What's the capital of Utah?'
'Easy, it's Salt Lake City,' replied Buffy as she spat a mouthful of water out.
'That was easy, your starter for ten if you like. Capital of Nepal? Remember, one wrong answer and it'll just fill up, no more games.'
'I though as much, said April. 'You're the kind of sick puppy who would do that. The answers Kathmandu.'
The water had reached the tops of their shins. Buffy was standing in a corner, her hands pressed against the walls. April was standing upright, her hands touching the ceiling.
'Capital of Nigeria?'
'Abuja,' answered Buffy. She'd absorbed most of the knowledge about Geography. They also got right South Africa, Niger, Bhutan, Botswana, Alaska and Liberia, then it came to the last one.
'Okay, I have an easy one for you. What's the capital of Florida?'
The water was up to their chins, their bodies floated in the small pool as they searched for an answer. 'What is is?' asked Buffy, trying to hurry her pal along.
'What do you mean, what is it? You're the geography expert, you should know!'
'I don't. I don't know why, but I don't.'
'Shit. Think, what's in Florida?'
Buffy brought up a exact map of Florida, it hung in the air in front of her, a digital display. She took another breath, the air was rapidly getting carbon dioxided, Buffy needed to respirate in order to keep her flesh alive. She had an air tank inside of her, pure oxygen, could last for thirty minutes if necessary. April had nothing like that, she was pure machine. She'd function in water just as well as on land. 'Miami!' Buffy said. 'It has to be Miami.'
'Is that your final answer?' asked Warren. His voice was unclear through the pour of water as it pumped into the chamber.
Buffy wasn't just a machine, if she was she either knew it or didn't. She didn't. But she wasn't a machine, she was alive, so she guessed. 'Tallahassee,' she screamed.
A hatch at the bottom of the water opened. The water level in the chamber was just enough so they could have their heads above it, gasping for oxygen so it seemed. Buffy held her breath and sent under, her hair flipped about in the water, and she grabbed two handles just beneath the hidden door. As she pulled herself down she could see that the whole section was flooded. That was why the water level in the tank didn't change, they were the same pressure. More handles were in the wall and she used them to drag her body through. Eventually, she emerged from the depths, she grabbed another series of handles and hauled herself out of the water. Her hair was plastered across her face, she swept it back. Drops started to drizzle off her onto the steel floor. A moment later April appeared, she swept her hair back and they stopped for a second.
'Why did you guess Tallahassee, Buff? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did, but why not Miami like you said earlier?'
'I've heard something about Florida before. Something about the biggest city not being the capital, that it was in the north. I checked my map, which doesn't even have the capital marked off, and I chose Tallahassee. We were lucky, it was between that and Jacksonville.'
'Move along,' said Warren. 'Nothing to see. Except maybe swirls of green VX gas.'
'Y'know, he's starting to piss me off.' April was angry, she thought about staying put and him watching as he saw the nerve gas had no effect, what would he do then, wet himself?
'C'mon,' said Buffy as she opened the hatch. 'I've ran a position match. The building is only a hundred metres long, and we've gone across eight five of it. He's close, I can feel it.'
Each room was different, thought April. The one they went into had ridges along the floor and ceiling. It was also small, just bigger than the water chamber.
'You're further than anyone's ever been,' said Warren.
'I'm so proud,' joked Buffy.
'You should be. According to my calculations, you two are in the top point one per cent of this nations people. Smart and beautiful, not a bad combination.'
'I won't be so attractive when I'm tearing your throat out with my teeth,' said April.
'If you can get to me. Right I'd better start this one up.' April and Buffy heard hums coming from the floor and ceiling, then they started to close together, slowly, but inexorably. Even the two robots couldn't survive a car press. 'You have to name all seven dwarves in reverse alphabetical order. Anything at all, any utterance will be taken as an answer, so think about it in your head first. I estimated you'll be dead in eighty seconds.'
They both started to recall the data about Snow White. April looked over to Buffy, she was mouthing something. April ran her lip-reading program. 'You do it,' Buffy mouthed.
April stood up, something hard to do when the she could feel the top of it against her head. Was that it, she thought. After the horrible inquisitions he wants seven names form a fairy tale? 'Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc and Bashful.' She paused a moment. 'Now no more games, let us see you. We deserved it, you murdering sadist!' The press kept going down, then it stopped. April and Buffy were on their knees, their strength was pressing against it. But that wouldn't have helped, it was too powerful. Warren had stopped it.
'Yes,' he replied. 'That's the last of my games, the final challenge. It didn't throw you.' The ceiling and floor retracted to their former positions. When a dull thud signifed they were locked in place another hatch opened, it led to another cubic room that was three metres to a side. On the other side was an open doorway, beyond it stood Warren. Older, crazier, he had a beard, but it was him. 'Y'know most people blurted it out to quickly, they got them mixed up.' This time is wasn't through a speaker, he was there, a few metres in front of them.
'You said we got the furthest, further than anyone else,' said Buffy.
'You did. I took a clipboard out into LA one time, asked them to do basically what I asked of you. Only three percent got it right. You really are two remarkable young women, do you know that?'
He went onto the streets to test a question, thought Buffy. What lengths was this psycho willing to go to, to perfect his death machine. When they got into the steel room the door in front of them slammed shut, the one behind did at the same time, they were trapped. 'Look you little shit,' said April. 'You said there were no more games.'
Warren placed his headset back on, 'That's true, this is no game. It's just death, straight up without ice. The vent in the middle of the room is drawing the air away, you'll starve of oxygen soon.'
Buffy surged forward, her shoulder slammed into the steel door in front of her, a small dent appeared. Hwe fingers searched about the rim, trying to find something to get purchase on, but it was slick. April kicked as hard as she could, another dent appeared, it was a centimetre deep at most.
'That's solid steel,' said Warren. 'What are you, you certainly ain't human, and that would explain how you bested my Death Maze.'
'Tell us one thing before we die,' asked Buffy. 'How many have entered and never got out?'
'About three dozen,' Warren said calmly.
'Bastard!' screamed April. She kicked again and again, more dents, but no progress. As an android she didn't need air, but Warren probably had more tricks in this room, it was the final layer between him and reality. Perhaps sulphuric acid would pour down, like a summer rain.
'Let us out and we'll tell you what we are,' said Buffy. 'Kill us and you've got nothing.'
Warren pondered it, the air grew ever thinner. Buffy took a deep breath, half an hour. Then the exit door opened, as Buffy passed under it, she saw it was twenty centimetres thick, a proper, no messing, door. The control room, from where Warren watched and spoke, was a circular room, it had computer panels all around it. Yellow marks ran down the surfaces and words such as water chamber were written on them. A control board.
'What are you?' asked Warren. He was sitting in a comfortable chair, black leather, real nifty.
Water still ran from their clothing, their shoes squelched as they walked. 'I am the first android you built,' said April.
'And I was one constructed for sex,' said Buffy. 'As you can see we've grown over the past few years.'
'Ah, yes,' said Warren. 'Now I remember, you're August?'
'April,' she corrected. 'Why did you built this awful thing?'
'Because I could,' replied Warren. 'Why do you think I built you.'
'You're a sadistic asshole,' said April through gritted teeth. 'Which I am going to enjoy tearing in two. No one else will die here.'
'You came all this way to kill me?'
'No, we came to talk,' said Buffy. 'But you're obviously deranged.'
'I have rights.'
'No you don't. You forfeighted them when you build this piece of shit.'
'Oh, okay. Well then lets see what I do have shall we? Death Maze, check. Millions of dollars from Government grants into my research, check. The latest in robotic bodyguards, check.'
'What was the last one?' asked April.
'Just the most sophisticated robot I've ever designed and built, the next generation from you.' Warren pressed a button on the console in front of him and a panel slid back to reveal a cupboard. Inside was a robotic bodyguard designed to look like a vampire. 'Compared to him, you're toasters with an ego.'
April and Buffy split up, they edged around it, then its eyes lit up, a sunset orange. It walked forward with a masculin stride. It was dressed in bikers leathers. At the end of each finger was a blade a centimetre long. Both androids brought their combat training forward, they were like seasoned professionals. Warren span his chair around to watch the fight like he was at a boxing match. He pressed his hands together. 'Let's get ready to rumble.'
The robotic vampire was one metre ninety, he towered over the two small women. He turned to face Buffy-bot first, his hand shot out and clasped around her neck, his vice grip started to crush her throat. Both of Buffy's arms grabbed the hand strangeling her, she tried to force it apart, to break free, but his grip was total. It was at that point April roundhouse kicked him in the face, he shrugged it off and his face changed. The jaw went down a few centimetres and the cheeks went out, a small nozzle came forward. He turned to face April and a jet of viscous fluid shot out. April ducked under it, she glanced over and saw it eating its way through a keyboard. She would've told Warren vampires didn't spit acid, but I don't think he would care much.
Buffy punched the vampire in the face and kicked him in the breadbasket, she must've hit something vital because he let her go, his hand stayed open. Buffy got in close and landed more punches, bits of him flew over the place, then as she was going to strike him again, his hand came up and closed around her fist. She heard the crackle of electricity and the breaking of metal, blood dripped from the vampires hold, then he let go. Buffy examined the appendage, it was crushed beyond repair.
April jumped onto his back, she brought her elbow down on his shoulder, he didn't flinch, he just stretched one arm back impossibly far and grabbed her dress. He threw her across the room and she crashed into a table which had magazines and coffee on it. He turned his attention back to Buffy-bot, he grabbed her easily, despite her kicking and thrashing and got her in a bear hug. His mighty arms closed around her, they began to crack her skeleton, which was a form of aluminium. Her tactile sensors flicked off one by one as they were overloaded. She hurridly tried to think of something. She saw Aprils hands press against the vampires head. Her servos strained to apply that much force without breaking. His cranial plate began to crack, just as Buffy thought she was going to die, the grip relaxed, the vampire-bot fell to the ground. His head had been crushed. And Warren had put the main processors in there. The body twitched then died down, the two robots faced Warren, who was still sitting there.
'It wasn't my fault,' he sobbed. 'It was the demon, he made me crazy, please, you have to believe me.'
'Sorry, Warren,' said April. 'No tricks.'
He looked up at her, his eyes were crying blood, it ran down his face and off his chin. He turned the chair around, and pulled open a hidden drawer. 'It wasn't my fault,' he said as he pressed the muzzle of a pistol to his temple. 'You can't blame me.' Then he pulled the trigger. His brain splattered across the consoles and he slumped in his chair. His hand went limp and the gun fell to the floor.
'I believe him,' said Buffy.
'You'd like to believe him you mean, it's in your personailty.'
'No, that's not it. As a Scooby Gang member I read several books on demons. Some of them drive their victim insane and feed off the terror they sow.'
'You think one got to Warren?'
'Yes. His genius could built this Death Maze, but a rational, sane Warren would never have done it, probably. But a whacked out Warren would have no compunctions.'
'Let's call the police then go,' said April. They searched for a way out, they found a button that opened another hidden door. It led down into a cellar beneath and maze. There they found a workshop and a whole mess of robots, they duplicated some of LA's best-known people. The Mayor, Police Chief, Civil Servant, the terror he could've sowed with a whole City under his thumb. Buffy and April destroyed the robots, but kept pieces of their hardware for themselves.
