Cassandra opened the door and greeted Suzy with a peevish grin. "Everything's fine. No need to worry. They are both here."
Suzy was shocked by what she saw next. Kevin's artificial skin was shredded in several places, and he looked all slouchy and dazed. Ignoring everyone else, she walked up to Kevin and looked right into his eyes. "I've been trying to reach you all morning. How the hell did this happen?"
Kevin was still recovering from the effects of the anesthetic. His system was also recalibrating all settings after the recent repairs. It took some time for him to come up with a fitting reply.
"I...uh, wanted to check out the R&D lab."
"That's not what I asked!" Suzy knit her eyebrows in frustration.
"Right, I wasn't here all night. I...just came here a few hours ago. I just had an accident. It's nothing too serious."
Suzy ignored his reply and turned to her mom. "What the hell is going on? What are you hiding from me? It's almost noon now. Your interns have been looking for you since morning. And I find you in Dr. Cassandra's room with Kevin looking like this!"
Caught between her promise to her closest friend and her obligations to her daughter, Dr. Stacey found herself in a fix. She wasn't a good liar and didn't know what to say.
Fortunately, Cassandra soon came to her rescue. "Suzy, I think it's best if you take a seat. I'll explain everything."
Suzy somehow controlled her anger and slouched into a cushioned black chair. When all four of them were seated, Cassandra began, "Your mom was helping me repair Kevin's exoskeleton. He was in pretty bad shape."
"I can see that. But how the hell did this happen?"
Cassandra cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "He went to the surface last night. And he had a close encounter with a machine."
"All the surface exits are sealed! He doesn't even know where they're located!"
"I helped him out. I led him to a secret exit located behind the arcade in the Residential District."
Suzy was stunned by her reply. She looked from one face to the other before finally fixing her eyes on Kevin. Instead of being mad at Cassandra, she tore into Kevin. "Why the hell did you go to the surface? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"I wanted to see what's out there. Someone—"
"There are killer robots out there!" Suzy shouted at him. "Do you know how difficult it was to bring you back? Not everyone gets a second chance, and you just want to throw away your life!"
"You didn't bring me back so that I could just stay here and lead a normal life! I was given this cyborg system so that I could fight the machines!" Kevin was furious now.
"We didn't ask you to go out there all alone and commit suicide!" Suzy snapped. "You can't fight the machines without a plan. This is not a video game, Kevin!"
Kevin was about to get back at her when Cassandra cut him off. "Kevin didn't go out there for fun!" she exclaimed. "He received an S.O.S from the surface last night. People out there are in some kind of grave danger."
"Cassy, you know the signals from communication bracelets are extremely weak underground. There's no way it was someone from the surface."
"You're wrong, Stace. The call wasn't made via a bracelet. It came from a military transponder. I checked the code myself."
"It must be a resistance fighter then," Dr. Stacey concluded, leaning closer.
"Yeah, and it can't be the ones living underground. They all use bracelets except Shane. And I know Shane's communication code. This one's different." Cassandra accessed Kevin's communication logs and showed them the code. It started with the letter 'Z', which meant that it was reserved for the army's intelligence division.
Dr. Stacey realized she had made a mistake by not taking Kevin's words more seriously. She should've tried to investigate the matter.
"That's still no reason for him to go out there all alone. He is still learning about his cyborg interface and he doesn't have enough combat experience," Suzy pitched in. "Kevin can't take on all the machines by himself."
"His plan wasn't to fight the machines," Cassandra replied. "He just wanted to explore the surface and look for any clues which might lead us in the right direction. I sent him during the Silent Hours. He wasn't supposed to encounter any killer robots."
The 'Silent Hours' Cassandra was referring to was the short span of time between 00:00hrs and 02:30hrs when robotic activity on the surface was at its lowest. During the early days of the machine mutiny, resistance fighters used to visit the surface every week. They all had confirmed that almost all the machines disappeared during these 150 minutes every night.
Since machines didn't have any human needs, it was strange for them to follow the same routine every night. Some resistance fighters came up with the theory that the robots went into sleep mode during this time. The researchers, however, had come up with a different theory. According to them, the robots spent those one hundred and fifty minutes recharging their batteries. Since the dense layer of smog prevented most of the sunlight from reaching the surface, using solar power for recharging was out of the question. This meant that the robots had to recharge their batteries at special charging stations.
These two and a half hours were a boon for the humans. Whenever the resistance fighters needed to fetch supplies or obtain intel they would visit the surface during the Silent Hours. They had never reported any major machine sightings during this time frame, and that's why these were the safest hours to venture outside.
Kevin's encounter with a killer robot came as a shock to them. It was a clear indication of the fact that things on the surface were changing fast. It had been four months since the resistance fighters had visited the outside world. All the exits had been sealed after an incident involving the Swarmer Drones. To prevent Subcity from being exposed, they had cut all ties with the surface world and shut themselves in this safe haven.
Suzy and the others listened closely as Kevin gave a detailed account of all that he saw on the surface. The more they heard, the more terrified they became. What Kevin described was more horrible than anything they'd ever imagined.
When Kevin had finished, Dr. Stacey was the first to speak. "During the early days of the attack, the robots killed only the military personnel and other armed groups whom they considered to be potential threats. After that, they set up concentration camps for the civilians. The people on the surface had difficult lives, but the machines never attacked them unnecessarily. The Prime Android made several announcements saying that she wanted to govern the humans, not kill them. There should still be people living on the surface."
"You really didn't see anyone? Not a single person?" Suzy asked Kevin.
"Just dead bodies," Kevin answered.
What shocked them even more was Kevin's account of his encounter with that killer scorpion robot. They had never heard of any such machine. His description of the casino ripped in half and the dismembered corpses on the floor was another cause for concern. Whatever did that was far more dangerous than anything they'd encountered so far.
After going over all the details in her head, Cassandra arrived at a disturbing conclusion. "We never heard reports of any such robots during the first two months, which can only mean one thing..."
All eyes in the room turned to Cassandra as she whispered, "The Prime Android is designing new machines."