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  “Oh yeah,” Healer said. “That is one big powerful robot’s worth of trouble.”

  “You were complaining about not getting a shot at any end bosses,” Rogan said.

  “I take it back.”

  “Takashi, Beckett, Shay?” Rogan said. “Game on!”

  Culumbot crouched down a little into a combat posture. A loud SSHH-SHOOOOM! All six of his cannons fired, ripping holes right through the floor, cutting down several decks to slam into the building’s foundation.

  He aimed again, but the Gamer Army was already on the move.

  Tank armed the Hellfire missiles in his shoulder launchers. He blasted Culumbot with the full power of his plasma cannons, going for the robot’s weapons first, but its armor held. A second later, all six of Tank’s missiles exploded against Culumbot’s chest, forcing the thing back a step.

  At the same time, Flyer blazed by in the air, firing with her laser emitter at the junctures of its armor plates, her weapon cranked up to overload power levels. The enemy took another swing at her, but this time she was ready, caught its massive wrist, and set her thrusters to maximum to hold the arm, and its weapons, in place. She fired DEMPs at extreme close range.

  Not content to sit back and wait for casualties, Healer moved in to do his best to make one giant robot casualty of his own. He rocket jumped onto Culumbot’s broad shoulders, landing beside the arm Flyer had at least temporarily immobilized. “I’m a healer,” he said as his plasma cutter whined, charging up, its tip glowing brighter and brighter. “But I’ve never taken the Hippocratic oath. Right now I will do some harm!” He stabbed the plasma cutter into the metal monster’s shoulder. Sparks shot everywhere, and Healer kept cutting. “If I can’t take the arm off, maybe I can at least cut some of the power lines to its arm cannons!”

  While the other three were attacking Culumbot, Rogan didn’t hold back. “Time to go all Empire Strikes Back on you, Culum!” He launched both of his grappling cables at the robot’s ankles and sprinted full speed around the enemy, wrapping its legs in a tight coil to trip the thing up or at least slow it down.

  “Yeah!” Tank cheered. “You got him! Right there!” While Culumbot took shots at Rogan with its free arm and tried to shake Shaylyn and Takashi away, Beckett unloaded the full force of his entire arsenal at the center of the enemy, trying to pierce the chamber that held Mr. Culum’s biological body. “The center! It’s gotta be his weak spot!”

  At a top secret nuclear missile facility in Russia, two officers argued. “We must launch now! While we still can!” said the first officer.

  “It will trigger a nuclear war!” said the second.

  “Our intelligence forces say the US arsenal is crippled,” the first officer said. “They are no longer in control. We have to destroy the source of the computer attacks. We have our orders. Launch. Now!”

  The second officer input the required codes and, with his commander’s assistance, triggered the launch of an eight-hundred-kiloton nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile toward DC. A roar. A shaking in the earth and in the officers. The missile rose from its silo in the ground.

  Before it had ascended a hundred feet, an intense energy beam fired from space, exploding the missile, its nuclear warhead, and everything within four miles in any direction.

  In Atomic Frontiers CentCom, the echoes of the battle rumbled all the way down to the central computer core, where Jackie the Engineer fought hard in another battle to break through and access the information needed to bring down Atomic Frontiers’ global network.

  Jackie wanted to call to the others, to tell them to keep up the fight. Culum’s distracted mind didn’t seem able to resist both the vipers in the arena and Engineer’s infiltration at the same time. But she didn’t dare speak. Every part of Jacqueline Sharpe, everything she was now or ever had been, was dedicated to the task of finding a way into the mainframe. For part of a second, she wondered if she could survive this fusion of her mind to Engineer’s computer processors, her total dedication to beating Culum and Singularity. Would anything remain of her former self, or would she be reduced to programs and algorithms?

  Then she was in. And she heard, felt, was the furious digital scream of Singularity.

  Culumbot roared. It swatted Flyer away with its free hand and unleashed over a dozen small rockets straight at Tank. Tank blasted some of the warheads to bits.

  He was slammed by eight powerful explosions.

  “Beckett!” Takashi put aside his attack and rushed to help. “I’ve got you.” Healer leapt through the air, narrowly dodging lethal laser shots and landing on Tank. Quick scans showed him the situation was bad. Tank’s power systems would totally fail in moments. The energy cells for his lasers might explode. “Beckett, you have to disconnect! Disconnect yourself and get back into your normal body. Tank is fried, and if it dies with you still inside it …” He couldn’t tell if Beckett could hear him. The purple line in his visual sensor plate was so faint. He didn’t have time to stabilize Tank’s Tian Li power cell but connected his friend to Healer’s own power system. There was a real danger of both robots shorting out and killing the two of them. His crazy plan wasn’t part of Healer’s preprogrammed repair sequences, but it would buy Beckett some time. “Hang in there, buddy.” Takashi accessed Tank’s damaged computers, and within seconds found the collection of programs and brain wave algorithms that made up Beckett’s mind within the machine. “He can’t get himself out of there. His computer is too damaged. He’s seconds from scrambling.”

  “PARENTS, MORE ADVANCED IN THEIR THINKING, MAKE SUPERIOR DECISIONS OVER THE LIVES OF THEIR CHILDREN, EVEN AGAINST THE WISHES OF THEIR MORE PRIMITIVE OFFSPRING. HUMANS MAKE THE BEST CHOICES FOR THE LIVES AND WELL-BEING OF THEIR SIMPLEMINDED PETS. SO THE INFINITE SUPERIORITY OF SINGULARITY WILL GUIDE HUMANITY TO A BETTER STATE OF EXISTENCE. SINGULARITY WILL ERADICATE DISEASE, WAR, AND SUFFERING. SINGULARITY WILL PROVIDE EQUALITY AND UNITY OF THOUGHT AND PURPOSE. TRUE UNDERSTANDING. THE ULTIMATE INTELLIGENCE. YOU CANNOT STOP IT. YOU ARE FOOLISH TO TRY, AND IF YOU WERE CAPABLE OF TRULY UNDERSTANDING SINGULARITY’S ELEVATED LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS, YOU WOULD NOT WISH TO.”

  For one tiny, terrifying moment Jacqueline Sharpe ceased to exist and became Culum, sharing in an instant that felt like years a total understanding of the future Culum would bring about. No distinction between human and machine, between physical and virtual reality, between one intelligence and another. No war. No greed. No hate. No death.

  No art. No music. No books.

  Nothing as inefficient or primitive as love.

  There was no technical reason, no failsafe computer mechanism or retrieval program, that allowed Jacqueline Sharpe to exist again, to think—and to feel—as a separate being. But somewhere within her sparked a fear and the instinctive need to resist.

  She knew Culum now more than anyone else could possibly know him. She knew how much of Culum’s growing mind still existed within the Atomic Frontiers computer. “He’s reaching out, but he still hasn’t expanded around the world yet!” Jackie’s voice had returned. “He’s only been breaking down the firewalls, infiltrating and shutting down computer security to prepare for the moment when he will be everywhere.”

  She activated Engineer’s most powerful computer virus programs, uploading a massive dump of aggressively destructive code into the Atomic Frontiers mainframe. At the same time she began slicing into the physical hardware with her lasers. She did not know if the destruction of this computer, while she was still connected to it, would kill her or not.

  But she was certain that the monster inside it could not be allowed to succeed.

  People around the world panicked over the failure of the machines upon which they had come to rely for nearly everything in their lives, and chaos reigned as they were helpless to defend themselves against the apocalyptically powerful energy beams from space that instantly destroyed any military effort to attack the source of the disturbance.

  Healer had found a way to trigger Beckett’s recall circuit
. When he activated it, he would either send Beckett’s mind back to his own body—or erase it. But if he did nothing, Beckett had no chance.

  “Takashi, look out!” Shay screamed.

  Pain seared through Takashi’s body and his computer flashed a dozen different warning alarms as laser energy ripped into the viper, shredding and overloading everything. He triggered Beckett’s recall circuit a moment before transferring his own mind, hoping that either of them might survive.

  Healer’s remains collapsed on top of Tank.

  “Takashi!” Shay screamed again. She flew out of the way of another blast from Culumbot that put a hole in the ceiling. Chunks of molten debris fell past her and crashed to the floor as she blasted the giant robot with hundreds of shots. “Rogan, it’s no good.”

  Culumbot blasted free of the cables that had bound its legs and was able to walk again. With carefully aimed shots, Rogan had been able to put laser fire straight up the barrel of three of the robot’s cannons, disabling them. But it was hard to shoot that accurately, and its armor was impossibly tough. The full force of Tank’s rockets, lasers, and plasma weapons had torn up its chest, but had not broken all the way through.

  “The computer is fried,” Jackie called to the others. “I’ve sent terabytes of data back to Scorpion, more than enough to bring Atomic Frontiers’ network of coconspirators down. I’ve destroyed a big part of Culum’s expanded mind. From what I can tell, the rest of his consciousness is inside his biological brain.”

  Shaylyn flew into a tight spin and dove toward the floor to avoid Culumbot’s cannon blasts. “We could use some help up here!”

  “I can’t,” Jackie said. “Engineer’s computers are done. Its main CPU will fail in less than a minute. I’m going to send myself back to Chicago. But whatever happens, you two have to stop him. Believe me. That sick computer program he has become will destroy everything. Good luck. Go get ’em, gamers.”

  “SHE THINKS SHE HAS STOPPED SINGULARITY. SHE HAS MERELY DELAYED IT BY A MATTER OF MINUTES. THE SAME DATA TRANSMITTER THAT ALLOWS YOU TO UPLOAD TO YOUR VIPERS WILL ALLOW SINGULARITY TO UPLOAD ITSELF TO THE WORLD.”

  Faster than seemed possible in a robot of its size, Culumbot reached out and grabbed Shaylyn from the air, throwing her down to the floor.

  Sparks burst from her on impact.

  The giant robot lifted a massive foot above her.

  “SURRENDER! YOU CANNOT HOPE TO DEFEAT SINGULARITY NOW!”

  Shaylyn ignored her computer’s warnings and struggled to rise to her feet, a challenge with two damaged legs. Her flight systems were still reinitializing. When they were online, she would fly right back into battle.

  “Shay, recall!” Rogan shouted. “Now! Get out of that viper!”

  “I’m OK,” she said. “I can—”

  “Shay, go!”

  The enemy robot brought its leg crashing down, crushing Shaylyn’s Flyer underfoot.

  Rogan had no time to worry for his friend. Culumbot blasted again and again, leaving him only seconds to move out of the way.

  “YOUR ONLY HOPE FOR CONTINUED EXISTENCE IS TO SURRENDER, ROGAN. ONCE AGAIN, YOU’RE THE LAST ONE IN THE GAME. SINGULARITY WILL ABSORB YOUR UNIQUE FIGHTING SPIRIT, AND AN ARMY OF ROGAN-CONTROLLED LASER VIPERS WILL STOP RESISTANCE AND FACILITATE SINGULARITY’S EXPANSION THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. YOU WILL JOIN SINGULARITY, ROGAN. SINGULARITY DID NOT LIE. YOU WILL NEVER BE LONELY AGAIN.”

  Culumbot continued shooting. One shot ripped off Ranger’s left arm, and he was desperately glad X had turned the pain sensors down. Rogan continued moving and firing, his remaining lasers on overload levels in a desperate attempt to break through the robot’s remaining armor to destroy Culum.

  “YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED. YOUR INEFFICIENT EMOTIONS AND INSURMOUNTABLE INSTINCT FOR SELF PRESERVATION ALLOWS SINGULARITY TO PREDICT WHAT YOU WILL DO BEFORE YOU EVEN DECIDE TO DO IT.”

  Rogan launched himself in a rocket jump, slamming into the big robot’s chest and punching his claws into a crack in the thick reinforced glass. He stared into Mr. Culum’s human eyes.

  “Predict this!”

  Rogan initiated Ranger’s self-destruct mechanism, which overloaded the full power of its Tian Li and laser systems. The massive explosion shredded the laser viper. It burst through the remaining armor of the enemy robot, burned the body, cracked the skull, and destroyed the brain of the machine-thing that had once been Mr. William James Culum.

  Sun Station One floated dead in space, waiting for its master to send commands that would never come. And as fast as they had started, the massive computer malfunctions and network disruptions around the world came to a stop.

  Singularity ended before it even began.

  Rogan Webber opened his eyes. Then he reached up to his face to make sure he still had eyes. He hurt everywhere. His four friends leaned down above him.

  All human once again. All alive.

  “Rogan, can you hear me?” Takashi said. “Are you in there?”

  Rogan nodded. Even that hurt.

  “You did it,” Beckett said. “You stopped him.”

  “… we,” Rogan whispered, pain throbbing through his skull. He had fought as long as he could, not wanting to recall from Ranger too soon before it exploded. He couldn’t give Culum a chance to get to a safe distance from the overloading viper. “Beckett cracked … Culum’s armor.” He looked at Jackie. “You de … stroyed that … computer.”

  “Yeah but, Rogan,” Beckett said. “You exploded your viper while you were still inside it. You could have been killed.”

  “I didn’t have a chance against that end boss.” Rogan smiled. “To beat him … it took … an army. We … are the greatest.”

  The five gamers took several days to recover from the exhaustion they experienced after their battle and the pain from their rough transfers from the vipers back to their bodies.

  X filled them in on the situation around the world. “It’s a disaster,” he said. “The good news is, an international security team has been launched in a space capsule to take over and de-weaponize Sun Station One.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t just launch a missile to blow it up,” Beckett said.

  “That was one of the proposals at the emergency UN meeting,” X said. “It had a lot of support, but with so much disruption to power grids around the world, more people thought we could use the station to generate needed electricity. Most importantly, Singularity has been destroyed, and the information Jackie pulled from Atomic Frontiers CentCom was enough to warrant the arrests of hundreds of government, military, and business leaders as well as their operatives from dozens of countries. Unfortunately, there may be Atomic Frontiers allies we still don’t know about since the information she was able to retrieve was incomplete.”

  “I was a little short on time,” Jackie joked.

  X cut a grin and continued, “Some Atomic Frontiers personnel are unaccounted for, including Sophia Hahn. It’s anyone’s guess what she’s up to. Dr. Valerie Dorfman is missing too. The other problem is that billions of cell phones and computers, as well as smart cars, TVs, and video game consoles were exposed to what the United Nations is calling the ‘Culum Virus.’ It is a crime almost everywhere in the world to turn on any of those devices, and especially to try to network one of them to any other device. The Culum Virus was so sophisticated that the police and military are confiscating all infected machines. They’re all going to be melted down.”

  “That will be expensive,” Jackie said.

  “It’s beyond an issue of money,” X said. “It just has to be done. It’s about survival.”

  “I’m glad I don’t have that job,” added Takashi. “Wait. That’s not our job is it?”

  “Relax, Takashi,” X said. “You’re all off duty. You might be right about how hard the cleanup will be, though. Military drones, sophisticated fighter jets, and even nuclear missiles are all affected. They all need whole new computer systems. Transportation, financial, power, and communication systems around the world have bee
n knocked back to a sort of primitive, pre-computer age. It’s martial law, old-school radios, and a handful of landline telephones just to get people fed and prevent global panic and anarchy.”

  “Did we do all that?” Beckett said.

  “Our interference caused Culum to speed up his plans,” Jackie said. She had nightmares, every night, about the terrible things she understood when she and Culum had been merged—nightmares about the end of all freedom, individuality, and humanity. “But we prevented something much worse.”

  Their families were brought to Scorpion headquarters in Chicago, where worried parents hugged their children and more than a few happy and relieved tears were shed. With the Atomic Frontiers threat shattered, they would all be allowed to return home, although maybe not quite to their lives as they had known them.

  “We’re so happy, so relieved you’re OK, buddy.” Rogan’s father gave him a big hug. “When we thought we were going to lose you, we realized we haven’t really been fair to you. We’ve been so wrapped up in our own stuff that we haven’t been very good parents. I’m so sorry, Rogan. I promise we’ll do better.” He wiped his eyes. It was as close to crying as Rogan had ever seen his father.

  Rogan’s mother patted his back. She had barely taken her hands off him since she’d arrived. “I know we don’t have a choice about spending time offline now, but even after factories and shipping are up and running again, I think it would be good for us to establish regular hours to spend some time as a family … face-to-face … just talking to one another. We’ll still have to go to work, but we don’t want it to be around the clock like before. And you know a lot of my work in the Global Forum, for a long time, is going to be about sorting out this global catastrophe. Maybe you can help me with that.”

  “We’ve all agreed our time playing Culum’s game would remain a secret. Some people might blame us and try to get revenge for what happened if they knew—” Rogan trailed off.