Corporate Lobby

[Vogel]

"Don't worry, pal," the man shouted as he swung around and began hacking at the straps, "Just hold on and..."

Hold on? They'd need to do more than that.

"... Hold on tight!"

---

Some state of alert had been set across the entire skyscraper; a torrent of new transmissions, new security measures firing up, all coincided with the appearance of a rather large and undeniably hostile robot outside at ground level, which had all but burst from an adjoining building.

The sentience found it quite grotesque.

However, circumstances had changed; the robot below now represented a direct threat, and there was no telling how much time the ship's pilot would have now that the building's systems were on full alert.

The carefully crafted calculation was immediately discarded, and even as the fighter accelerated to the speed of sound, it was attempting to find another adequate solution, when there was simply no time. But risk was all part of the business.

Clad in a molecular bonded shell, the black ship bolted across the distance between itself and the building. It would cover the distance faster than the robot below could bring any ranged weapons to bear, but on impact...

---

The bound man's first hand came free, just in time for him to look over his shoulder.

"Hold-?"

All at once there was madness; the shrill screaming of metal being torn to pieces, of shattering glass, of horrified screams coming from floors below, of the rush of air, and heat, and most importantly of all the sight of a big, black aerospace fighter literally plowing through the wall.

It came through quicker than the eye could blink, launching ejecta at deadly velocities. The man in the chair had already been dragged to the floor by his rescuer, still partially strapped to it, as the world ended above their heads.

The roars of thrusters and anti-gravity units drowned out all other sounds as the fighter skid sideways for twenty more feet, using every available means to slow itself from sonic speeds.

The spray of debris shot into the encroaching robots like a hail of bullets, cutting down several by sheer weight of impact. Several more were batted into the nearest wall by the skidding fighter's wingtips, and the rest had been showered with a coating of dust and paint chips.

His back and hair virtually white from the building pieces which had been blown over top of him, the so-called Gerald Hayes looked up from the floor at the strobing light on the fighter's nose.

"Now!"

As he got to his feet and began hauling the man, and his chair, after him, the fighter glowed blue for a moment before letting loose an electrical discharge of drastic proportions.

Anything in the immediate area that wasn't shielded in the same fashion as a military space vehicle was instantly overloaded and burst into a hail of sparks and fire.