Night of the Aurora (Salmon Run - Book 1)

Chapter 13

Zach rushed forward and shoved the robot to the side. It took all the strength in his arm, and impacting his hip against it to get it to move. Definitely heavier than it looked.

The robot staggered to the side, hitting the edge of the door. Something orange flashed followed by something sparking and sizzling against the ceiling.

Zach tripped over his boots, nearly falling out the other side of the doorway. "It fired at us?"

Sasha vaulted over him. "Just run!"

Zach scrambled to his feet, following her down the hall. He heard the angry garbled words of the robot as they rounded a corner into a much brighter hallway.

The dark metal of the room changed to off-white panels interspersed with gray-blue doors. All without any handles. How did the doors open?

Zach told the nosy part of his brain to shut up. He didn't have time to figure out how anything worked. He needed to stay out of the way of the thing chasing them.

A blaze of orange flashed by and hit a wall. The impact sizzled with red and white sparks before petering out.

"See, I told you it was a weapon," Zach shouted.

"Shut up and run!" Sasha yelled back.

He grabbed a corner of a wall to help round a corner. What he would give to have his feet in a pair of sneakers.

The lights blinked, for the space of a breath casting them into pitch black. The robot's shouts hiccupped, ending with a high pitched squeal. With the lights back on, Zach chanced a look behind them as they turned another corner. Coming out of a stumble, the robot twitched, trying to bring the weapon arm back up.

Zach preferred the weapon aiming at the floor.

Sasha was well ahead of him, forcing him to high-tail it to catch up. Two more turns and the light blinked a second time. Zach slowed as the darkness lasted longer, putting his hands out in front of him, hoping he wasn't heading straight into a wall.

The noise from the robot sounded even fainter, but not faint enough for Zach's liking.

The light blinked back on. With it Zach picked up speed, flying by doors that slid open and closed, giving him fleeting glimpses into the rooms beyond. The interiors of his head couldn’t figure out. The one part of his brain not dedicated to a frantic terror-induced escape sharply catalogued the sights, demanding more information.

Zach ignored it, following Sasha as she stumbled around another corner. The lights in the corridor flickered out while the hall behind them remained bright. Sasha stopped, looking back before diving into one of the rooms.

Zach followed, whispering fiercely, "What are you doing?"

"We have to lose the robot." She searched along the door. "I can't find a way to close the door."

The room was as dark as the hall except for four dimly glowing tubes coming down from the ceiling to something suspended over two parallel long counters at the back of the room. Not enough light to allow him to see anything on the other side of the door.

His fingers found a raised box at about the height a lights switch should be.  He pressed all along the surface of it, trying to find any button or mechanism. "I think I have, but I don't think it's going to work without any power."

Past the sound of his own heart thudding he heard a clang echo in from the hall.

Sasha grabbed his arm, pulling him further into the room. Zach left the door, searching in the dim light reflecting in from the distant bright hallway for anywhere to hide. Towards the back of the room behind the long counters was the obvious choice. As well as an obvious place for the robot to look for them if it searched the room.