Chapter 1. Present

Halo yawned and sat up. It wasn't even near daylight yet but through her window she could still see the gap where the mighty Zigguraut Tower once stood.

After the Tower had blown clean-up groups and people working with the Human Aid and Health Department had been down at the site to clean up bodies and carry out some of the bigger pieces of debris. It was already more than a month later and they still hadn't finished.

"Oy, Halo, you up yet?" came a voice and a knock at her door. A head peeked in to see.

"Yeah, Jack, I'm up."

"Well, hurry and get dressed, we got work to do today, remember?"

"Yeah." Halo stood and Jack left as she got dressed; nothing much to it, just one of the guys' old shirts and a pair of her own shorts. After a few moments she emerged from her room and began to walk down the stairs and to the chamber where the guys would probably be waiting. Sure enough, when she arrived, six men were sitting in chairs around the room, Jack standing by the door.

Jack had been one of Atlas's close friends and also one of the first people Halo had met in Metropolis. Just more than a month ago he had accepted Halo's plea to stay with them in their tower-type hang-out and help organize a few things. Of course, some people didn't approve of Halo because she was a robot-supporter, but things got worked out in the end.

"Okay, people," Jack said loudly, stepping from his post at the door. "We've been slacking for the past week and this isn't good. We got limited amounts o' money and I know you lot are blown' it down in Zone One. That's not a great thing either. But first things first. I got a list of things we need and a little bit of money left. Someone's gonna need to pick some stuff up for us. Also . . . We'll need to go to the Zigguraut. There's some stuff I think we could salvage over there and . . . Atlas."

Halo didn't want to even think about what he had just said, but it was too late. When he had spoken that last word Halo had a horrid picture in her mind of Atlas lying dead on the ground, burned, charred, and cut everywhere by the debris.

"Since there are eight of us, I think two can go to get the stuff we need. Don, Lin, that'll be you. The rest of us go to the wreckage site and find any gun part you can get your hands on. Got it?"

Seconds later Don and Lin were already out the door with specific yet secret orders. The other six of them were heading out the door in the back of the room, loaded with guns and ammunition. Arriving at the site, which wasn't that far away, they split up.

Jack held the gun while Halo followed along behind.

"Why do you have to carry a gun around here?"

"Well, we're not exactly Metropolis's favorite people, are we?"

"Jack, why do you want Atlas?"

"I don't want Atlas, exactly, I just . . . I dunno. It's kind of a mystery to me. I know he died during the Fall, but it's just weird. He never even had anything to do like that."

"But, Jack, he didn't die during the Fall. He died before it. He . . . he was shot."

"What was he doing in the Tower anyway?"

"It was my fault. I asked him for help and he helped me, and then some, and he just went a little too far. Rock of the Marduks shot him." They came near a wall that had been a part of the Tower and Jack grunted and pushed Halo back against it.

"Shh. Someone's coming," he whispered. He looked around the corner, then snapped back quickly. "Damn, I think he saw me." Halo peeked around as well.

"That's the doctor guy!" she breathed in his ear. "What's he doing over here?"

"He's prolly looking for more dead bodies."

"I thought they cleared it out?"

"No. There were more than a hundred scientists in the Zigguraut and more than three hundred machinists and workers. About fifty people were found that couldn't be identified, between twenty and forty who were. The rest . . . Aren't there."

"I take it none of the bodies was Duke Red or Rock? Or Atlas?"

"No. Duke Red was in the Tower?"

"Yes . . . I . . . can't tell you the whole story, though. You wouldn't believe me."

"Tell me later, the doc's comin' over here." Jack and Halo leaned slowly and silently against the wall. Jack's finger was drumming quietly on the side of the rifle. They both tilted their heads to look back around the corner, but snapped back immediately when a voice reached their ears.

"What are you doing here?" said the cheerful voice. Nurse Tina. Annoying woman, she was.

"Umm . . . Helping you look for more dead bodies," Halo said nervously. It sounded more like a question than anything, but of course, dummy here didn't seem to notice.

"Ohh! It's you!"

"Yeh heh," came a slightly sarcastic slur.

"Doctor! Doctor Potter!" The young man that had patched Halo up after the Fall of the Zigguraut came around the corner. He didn't look too pleased.

"Ah, yeah, it's you," he said a little uneasily, referring to Halo.

"What's the problem?" asked Halo, raising a brow.

"Doc wants to say we've been hearing things about you, and they're none too pretty," Tina said, possibly as serious as she could make it go.

"What do you mean?" she questioned further, turning now to Doc.

"Well . . . Just . . . Things."

"Like what?"

"People are getting a little suspicious of you, Miss Kane," Tina chimed in again. "We've been reading some stuff in the paper, and some people seem to be getting the idea that you are the one who made the Tower blow. You were the only one to make it out alive, after all. And you do like robots . . ."

"Hmph."

"It's nothin', really, it just kind of looks a little funny, that's all."

"Looks a little funny? They're practically accusing me of blowing up that Tower! No one knows what went on in there, no one knows Duke Red's plan, no one knows anything about that damned Tower!"

"Well, you're not really telling anyone-"

"Jack, don't be stupid. No one would believe me. Without the recorder . . . Without anybody to back me up . . . There's no evidence. It's my word against theirs, and I can guarantee they would come out on top. Metropolis hates robots, I don't. They want to cage me anyway. They wouldn't even say anything about the massacre or the rebellion. They haven't even seemed to noticed President Boone was shot, they just got him buried as soon as they could. Even though I know . . . who shot him. I know the whole damn thing!"

"Um . . . Maybe we should come and do this a different time," Jack murmured to himself. He turned around, walked a few steps, and began talking into the radio he had taken from his belt.

Halo looked at him for a minute, then looked back at Doc and Tina.

"What are you doing down here anyway?" Doc and Tina looked at each other for a minute.

"Well . . . uh . . ."

"We were supposed to be looking for bodies, but we got caught up in something else."

"Like what?"

"We- uh- It's none of your business!"

"Fine, whatever." Halo walked between them and started over some of the debris. Almost everything from the Zigguraut was still there. "They probably didn't even think that weapon was suspicious . . . Nope, just the little girl who went flying over the top of it because she was sitting on a huge chair at the time," she said aloud, sarcastically.

She kicked some small scraps out of her way. She was just going through some papers that were buried there when she heard noises from behind her. She turned, and Jack, Doc, and Tina were about three yards away, looking at something half- buried in the scraps of metal.

Halo stood straight and walked back toward them, stopping when she could see what they were looking at: Charred remains of what appeared to be a robot. Hardly half of the human-like face was still intact, only the deep silver metal underneath the skin-like layer, and only barely then. The hair had been burned and only a few locks remained. The clothes had been burned away, as had most of the artificial skin, leaving only the skeleton of the robot. Through those flaws Halo still recognized this robot as the replica of Duke Red's daughter Tima.

She inhaled air, her intake shuddering. She took two steps back, not wanting to believe it. Looking at it the way she was, it could be a good thing that that robot had been found, but it could also be a bad thing.

"Halo? Wassamatter?" Jack said, twisting slightly to look up at her.

"N-nothing," Halo said, staring down at the robot. "That's . . . that's Duke Red's daughter . . . replica of . . . Of Tima."

"Duke Red had a daughter?" Doc, too, looked up at Halo, looking slightly surprised. "I didn't even know he was ever married."

"I dunno, he was just talking to me about it . . . Before . . . Before I was . . . saw . . . the Weapon, and . . . and . . ." Halo was stumbling over her own words, frightened. She couldn't talk about it, she couldn't . . . She remembered looking into those empty green eyes, remembered the darkness, then being thrown from the Tower to stare at the scorched, red sky . . . the color of blood. Now, looking down at the burned remnants of the robot, her eyes still intact, it was like then . . . staring at her, her eyes were blank, green, without emotion . . . dead.

"What do you mean by 'weapon'?"

"D-Duke Red's weapon, it was concealed on the top of the Zigguraut. No one was allowed in there because they could find out about it, I sup-suppose. The radiation from the weapon was e-enough to destroy the robots . . . but he kept his replica . . . safe." A light bulb had just turned on inside her head. Tima had to know something about the Tower, enough to back up her story . . . since no one else was alive and the recorder had gone up with the Tower, most likely.

Halo stepped forward again and kneeled between Jack and Tina, intertwining her fingers with the cool, metal ones of the robot Tima.

"Duke Red neglected to remember that Tima was still only a robot and nothing- not even this replica- could replace his daughter. He thought of robots as objects, but since this robot looked liked Tima, he decided it didn't apply to this one."

"Looks can be deceiving," Jack said quietly.

"Exactly."

Author's Notes: Okay, finished chapter two ^_^ You might wanna keep some of the stuff said here in mind in the later chapters ^_~ r/r