Nano Bytes

«It’s a decoy,” Monica shouted back at him, before turning her spider to face him directly, while walking backwards with it, continuing to head them toward the roof. «They’re getting better at setting traps for humans. No, word is, the human prisoners are being taken to the roof.»

Monica didn’t wait for their consent. She rotated her spider yet again to spearhead their ascent, with or without Lawrence and Sasha. Tired dodging the spitballs from the robospider on the roof, she shot one of her own, taking him out. The arachnid sputtered and smoldered before toppling over, hoping to use its mass and girth to take out its attackers in one final stab of revenge. It might have succeeded, but Lawrence and Monica were both too good at controlling the spiders they were seated on.

Lawrence used the pointed tips on two of the arachnid’s legs at his disposal to lance the brainpans of two spiders that had managed to reach them ahead of the others, taking them out in mid–leap, when they were most vulnerable. For whatever reason, they needed to finish a leap before engaging whatever weapons they wished to use. Probably just an oversight in the code writing and a loophole that’d likely be closed sooner or later.

They heard Monica scream from the rooftop, the yell conveying horror, fear, and the fury of hell’s last survivor in one. «You think she’s finally gotten herself into a situation she can’t handle?» Lawrence said.

«Doubtful. All the same, I’d appreciate you getting us there in time to see the show.»

«If the spiders want to imprison us in these towers, I say let them. Lock me in with some TV and running water, and I’ll take the unpaid retirement. A pair of fortysomes, we don’t have the reflexes to last much longer. Monica though and…»

He was about to say Peter, before he stopped himself. He and Monica were about the same age. So, Lawrence had a soft spot after all; it was probably just a tumor in his brain from which the dreams of a better tomorrow originated, one where Monica and Peter were somehow happily married and having the time of their lives turning their endless robo war into one big rodeo for one huge family of grandkids.

At least he was content to entertain these dreams in his sleep, as the daydreaming could well cause Monica her life. Lawrence reached the rim of the roof moments later, using the time Sasha had taken to figure out what’s what to his advantage.

The second they were over the roof it was clear she had no idea at all what was what.

* * *

There was no contingent of spiders to greet Lawrence and Sasha on the rooftop in overwhelming numbers, sort of what they’d come to expect. Instead, Monica was surrounded by the human prisoners, freed now that they had been modified. They were trying to take Monica down. She was fending them off only half–heartedly, slowed as much by the tears in her eyes which blurred her vision, as by the thoughts of killing her own kind.

One of her human opponents came at her on eight robotic legs. Another tried to lase her with his hollow bionic eyes, converted to leaser weapons. She deflected the lasers with the shined–to–a-mirror’s-reflectiveness tips of two of her spider’s legs. She kicked away the human spider on eight legs with another of her spider’s legs each time he tried to climb up her.

The two pregnant looking males, their bellies swollen like women in their ninth month with child, kept squirting fire and acid at her respectively along throats and out mouths that had been modified. Monica fended off the blasts with metal plates yanked off the rooftop air–conditioners, using another two of her spider’s legs.

Lawrence emitted a shriek that startled Sasha out of the trance she’s slipped into, hypnotized by the unfolding horror. He painted the entire scene with a swatch of fire extending from their robospider. Only Monica, perched high up on her spider was spared. The humans on the ground didn’t stand a chance, modified or not.

Monica turned at him with fire of her own, only for now it was just up in her eyes. Sasha thought for certain they were but a heartbeat away from feeling the flames of her robospider.

«Come on!» Lawrence shouted. «There are still others who can be saved.» It was only then that Monica and Sasha even noticed the assembly line in progress against the far walls. Humans laid out on assembly lines. The robospiders popped over the rim of the building just long enough to deposit one of their partially cocooned victims, bound by metal strands that cut into their flesh. The strands were used just sparingly enough to keep the humans from wriggling free.

As the conveyor belt moved along they were modified according to which rolling ramp they were on. There were ramps along each of the four riser walls. The scene was easy to overlook amid the confusion as the ones doing the modifying were themselves human, or at least humanoid. At first glance they looked like little more than captive and cowering humans standing as far back from the conflict as they could get.