Blackout World Chapter 6

“Yeah, thanks,” I shot back. “So, do you think you can do it, D?”
“I should be able to,” D replied.
We waited in silence for a while; the only sound was of D typing. Finally, he said, “This should do it. I will start the power up first, because I know that will work. Then I will implement my programming changes. It is quite amazing how much this control center does. The fact that I was able to change the programming, even only the basics, of all machines in the world….” D started. “It is slightly disturbing.
“Well, you don’t know if it’s going to work yet, do you,” L asked with his usual tact. “The programs might be safer than it appears.”
“Thank you, I guess.” D sounded confused.
“Anyway, get on with it,” L continued.
“I am, I am,” D almost shouted back.
He hit some final buttons, and the lights in the hall outside came on. The doors also slammed shut. Not everything was going according to plan. L and I turned to look at D.
“Was that supposed to happen,” I asked cautiously.
“Yes, it was. I activated anything safety related, and that includes security.”
L jumped to the major issue. “How are we supposed to get out?”
D sighed. “What do you think the programming will do?”
“Oh, right.” L looked rather sheepish.
D hit a few more buttons and sat back. Nothing happened. He hit a few more buttons, and then began flipping switches. Nothing worked. D was getting scared, and that made me scared. L felt the rising panic, and put a damper on it for once.
“You know, we could just shut the power down for a bit and jam the doors, or something.”
That calmed us down a bit, but then our luck took one look into the hall, and ran away screaming. First, we heard footsteps, but they sounded odd. They were perfectly in step and made a slight clanking. Then, L looked through the small window in one of the doors to the hallway. It was the one through which we had come, and he wanted to know if we were making any progress. He tried the door as he looked through the window. It opened with a rush of air, and L dove away from it. Coming through were 7-foot tall robots with four arms and long legs, but otherwise humanoid. D and I looked up at the same time and screamed. L dashed for the other door, and wrenched it open. Thankfully, both doors had been closed, but not locked.
We all sprinted through the open door, and took off down another hall. We came to a ladder, and climbed up it as quickly as we could. We came to a hatch and L-who was the highest up-opened it and sprinted out. We followed close behind. We came to more trees and ran into the grove. Whatever might slow the robots down was good for us. They were definitely chasing us. We ran until we could barely get any air. My legs screamed in protest of going one more step. We found our way into a grove of trees and sat down to rest. We were all bruised and battered, and I had remembered what that strange feeling was. Pain. I was feeling a lot of it now. We couldn’t here the robots following us to the grove, so we relaxed and let our guard down. That was a bad mistake.