We had a mutual understanding. It was then that I realized that our souls were connected. Therehadto be a reason we had met— that our paths had crossed. Call it fate— or maybe it wasn't fate at all. Either way, the universe aligned for us.
I was elated to have her as a part of my life now. Maybe she was right with what she had said earlier.
In life, there were no accidents. It was a great motto to live by, especially when you needed help figuring out why things happened the way they did, orwhythings seemed so fucked up and unfair sometimes. Other times, life could be beautiful and thrilling. It was the contrast that kept life exciting and interesting.
We continued taking out as many robots as we could, disabling them one by one.
"We've finally reached the central region of the ship," I told Silver over the communicator once we had done the job at wiping out all the guards in question.
Silver breathed a long, heavy, sigh of relief. "This is wonderful news." Her voice was fluid, silky, and feminine.
I glanced over at Carmela. "In order to take control of the ships mainframe, it's Operator must be killed."
"Now comes the hard part," Nix said warily as we briefly glanced at each other.
Carmela seemed unphased by all this, including this new information about the Operator. She behaved as if she was ready to take on the next challenge head on.
"Sounds good to me. I'm ready." She cracked her knuckles and put on a face of steely resilience.
I exchanged a cautious glance with Nix, but we said no more— at least for now.
We might as well let her enjoy her innocence about this situation for as long as we could make it last.
Weknew what was coming— and we were prepared to face the difficulties that undoubtedly were waiting ahead of us.
ChapterTwelve
CARMELA
We were a little battered, sore, limping slightly as we trekked along forward, onto the next challenge on the list. At least we were still alive. We had to keep counting our blessings.
We weaved our way down the same corridor in which we just finished the fight with the robot guards.
Cyburn explained that we were now heading toward the mainframe with the assistance of Silver still leading us from the communicator.
Silver sounded like she was on edge, which putallof us on edge, too.
"I'm just worried about you," she said to Cyburn at one point. I could hear her robotic voice through his headpiece.
"We are going to be fine," Cyburn reassured her. "We've made itthisfar, haven't we?"
"Just be cautious, that's all," Silver said.
"We're being extremely cautious," Nix told her.
Right when Silver was getting ready to speak again to give us directions at another fork in the corridor, a bellowing voice boomed through an intercom on the ship and distracted us.
"I know you are there. You might as well give up now. You can't run and hide forever. Wewillfind you. Our robotswilldestroy you. You willnotwin," the voice warned.
Cyburn and Nix stopped dead in their tracks to listen to the ominous voice.
Cyburn's eyes roamed the corridor with suspicion. He raised his ray gun and pointed it in all directions. He put his free hand on my shoulder and gently guided me to stand behind him.
"Who are you?" he asked skeptically, glancing around. "What do you want from us?"
The voice was male, robotic, and sinister. He laughed mockingly.
"I am Imperial Harvester, Jun," the voice said with pride and superiority droning in his voice.