It's the night before we're about to leave for Xiole.
The hallway is empty and the heaters are off. A gust of wind blows through the corridor, causing the lockers to jangle. We're not supposed to be here, of course. But isn't it okay if we spend one last moment together?
We make our way up a set of rickety stairs until we reach the rooftop. It's so windy that we almost topple over, but you grab onto me and help me steady myself as we sit down on the cool concrete.
It's still, but silence is comfortable when it's between us two.
"I'm glad we'll be together in the next life too," you finally say.
"Yeah."
"We won't remember anything, but I know we won't change." You lace your fingers with mine, and give my hand a reassuring squeeze. "My hands will remember the shape, the warmth, and the pressure of yours."
"We're only seventeen," my bottom lip trembles. "We're so young, and we're going to forget everything about each other, and our emotions are so volatile at this age—"
"Are you scared?"
"I am."
"I'm not."
"How?"
"I just know we'll be okay."
"But without our memories, will we even be us?"
"Yes. Don't worry," he puts his forehead to mine. "I'll always find my way back to you."
"How can you say something so cheesy?!" I jump back and swat at him.
He smiles at me, and it's as if time's fleeting footsteps begin to slow.
"I learned from the best, of course."
Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot pierces through my thoughts.
I feel the weight of his body drop onto mine, limp and lifeless. My mind goes blank and I scream, crouching down and holding my knees. My ears ring with the shaky pounding of my heart.
I wake up in cold sweat.
---
2:40 - Z-64 Dorm 462 Cretan Days to LandingKassia Z-64
"Jeez... what the heck," I roll out of my polyfabric blanket and land my bare feet into fuzzy slippers. I trudge over to the bedroom door and sloth into the dark Common Room.
The lights flicker on, temporarily blinding me.
What should I do?
It feels like a thousand bees are swarming inside my stomach and my forehead burns with a nauseous pain. Maybe I should have some green juice, the age-old solution to all problems.
I make my way to the fridge, take out the bottle of green juice, and swing the door closed. The sound is louder than I expected, and I almost drop the bottle.
Wincing, I sit down at the dining table and pour myself a glass. Then I chug it down. Cold and bitter, I think, quietly placing the bottom of the glass back against the tabletop.
I don't want to wake anyone up, so—
"What are you doing?"
"AGH!" I jolt up, and whip my head around to see Kari, leaning against the wall. Her brown eyes inspect my frazzled appearance— from the remnants of green juice on the corners of my mouth to my incessantly shaking hands.
"Jeez, Kari, why are you awake?" I grumble.
"I could ask you the same," she says in her usual disinterested voice, folding her arms. I tap my finger on the empty glass in front of me.
"I had a nightmare."
Kari walks over to me, her arms still crossed. "I've been suspecting this for a few days, but you remember, don't you?" she asks, and her steely gaze meets mine. I have never been so scared of a 14-year-old in my life.
"What do you mean?"
Kari is the only person in Z-64 who I didn't know too well previously. When we were at the Academy, I would occasionally catch glimpses of her, the infamous "child prodigy" Naomi.
Everything about her was different, from the way she wore her hair to the way she wore herself. Naomi was always cheerful and bouncing at her feet, bringing with her an air of childish naivité and tinkling laughter. Everyone doted on her.
Kari, however, is default grumpy. She's eternally indifferent to everyone around her.
At first, I was shocked by her new demeanor, but I quickly realized that she was still a cute kid. Behind her temper, she's so adorable that I can't help but tease her, but—
"You have your memories of before."
Do I trust her?
I want to say that I do, but I know that once I say it out loud, there's no taking it back. If it somehow travels, then I'll lose everything I fought so hard to keep with me.
"Not exactly. I've been having nightmares since the Awakening, but whenever I wake up, I can't remember the details—only the emotions."
"That's too bad."
I notice that she's gripping her arm tightly. "I thought you could tell me something... about how I was like in the past," she mumbles.
"Your past?" I ask, a little shocked. I wasn't expecting something like this. "Why?"
Kari pauses, and tilts her head back against the wall, as if thinking over her answer. Then she smiles sadly, and I feel a pang in my chest. "But don't we all?" she asks me, "Want to know, I mean."
"I-I guess."
"Anyways, I'm going back to sleep. You should too," she turns her back towards me and gives me a half-hearted wave. As soon as she's gone, I let out a long breath I didn't realize I was holding.
She may be 4 inches shorter than me, but you wouldn't believe how scared I was just now.
My stomach releases a bit of tension, and a gurgle resounds in the kitchen. I need to calm down. Our first exam is tomorrow, and I can't afford to screw up.
What to do?
Maybe I should eat something. Food is always a good idea.
I return to the fridge and swing the door open, my voracious eyes scanning the insides. On the top shelf, I see a glass container of little fruit chunks, but pause when I see Xander's name scrawled on the side.
The universal fact of my last two years at the Academy with Xander is that he can not cook to save his life. Unless... the other party ate his cooked meal and he ran away while they experienced its terrible effects.
Xander is an expert botanist who understands all kinds of flavours and how to grow the juiciest, ripest, and most palate-pleasing produce, but as soon as the raw ingredients manifest into cuisine, Xander is completely lost and also takes the loss.
However, the sunset-orange fruit chunks inside the glass container seem to be safe from any signs of cooking, so I take it out of the fridge and pop the container open. The fruit sits illuminated by the fridge light, as if adorned by an artificial halo. Before I drool all over it, I quickly pinch a piece of fruit and toss it in my mouth.
The fruit is like a cross between a mango and a pineapple: the ripe colour and soft texture are those of a mango, but the tangy sweetness is that of a pineapple.
"Sorry Xander," I mutter under my breath as I consume the entirety of it. Then, as fatigue suddenly washes over me again, carrying the scent of the Xander-fruit and the soft glow of the fridge light, I close the fridge doors and stumble over to the sofa wordlessly. Then I sleep.
---
"NO! AGH, WHY?! WHY!? NOOOOOOOOOO!"
A distraught voice I recognize as Xander's quickly snaps my consciousness back to reality, as the lights react to his wailing and flicker on. For a few seconds, my vision is simply blank with a few dancing black dots, but as I sit up from the couch with back aches and arm pains, my eyes focus on the somewhat comical scene before me.
"KASSIA I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THAT FRUIT SINCE THE FIRST DAY. IT WAS MY SUMMATIVE PROJECT," Xander wrings his hands in despair. His hazel eyes are beckoning for tears.
I smirk a little at how adorable he is, then notice that there's a jacket draped over me. It wasn't there before.
I fold it up as I apologize, "I'm really sorry, Xander. I didn't know—"
"It was my magnum opus," he gives me a look of utter pain and the strain in his voice almost makes me tear up. "That fruit was perfect. I wanted to share it with everyone in Z-64 too, but you ate it, and I don't think I'll ever recreate it since I had to modify like eight different—"
I get up and put my right hand on his shoulder. "Xander, I'm really sorry. But worry not, for your Xander-fruit was truly divine. Though I ate it all and I can't bring it back, I think you would be happy to know that your efforts were certainly... fruitful."
Safa, who I didn't notice is in the kitchen preparing breakfast, chuckles. "That was a good one."
Xander gives her a look of pure hurt as Lance strolls out of the refresher with a towel over his head.
"What's going on?" he asks as he walks up to me, smoothly retrieving the jacket from my hands and slinging it over his shoulder. "Xander, why do you look like you're about to cry?"
"I ate the Xander-fruit that Xander made last night," I explain sheepishly, but to be honest I'm not 100% sorry because that fruit was divine, "Then I exacerbated the situation by making a bad pun."
Kari briskly walks out of her dorm, and stands there silently as she analyzes the scene—Safa snickering in the kitchen, Lance failing to prop up his drooping wet hair towel, Xander looking like someone just stabbed him in the side, and me grinning like a lunatic— then walks back into her room.
"Call me when breakfast is ready," her voice trails from inside as her doors slide close.
All four of us break into laughter, but then I feel a pang of loneliness in the familiarity of the scene. In the past two years, the four of us have laughed like this hundreds of times. It's insane how everything is now just—
I slap both of my cheeks mentally and focus back on the people around me.
I shouldn't feel sorry for myself just because they don't remember all the memories we shared. I should feel grateful that I still keep them.
I still get lonely sometimes, though.
"Kari, breakfast is already ready," Safa calls.
The youngest emerges from her room and makes a beeline for the table. The five of us sit down to eat the oatmeal that Safa made, passing around different toppings.
"Xander," I say in-between bites, "the fruit you made would taste so good with this."
"Shut up," he grumbles, stuffing his face and pouting like a child.
Safa passes some dried cranberries to Kari, who dumps an entire fistful into the center of her bowl. Then the youngin wordlessly extends her hand. Safa understands the message and places the container of brown sugar into it. Kari proceeds to pour a cup of sugar into her oatmeal.
Wow.
Suddenly, there's a chime from our door, and a holoscreen pops up at our table, showing live footage of an Egg-0 dropping off a box on the ground. Lance gets up and retrieves the container.
"I guess it's for the first challenge," he surmises.
I can hear my heart beating loudly in my chest as he opens it.
Inside are a pile of clothes and a message:
Wear these jumpsuits and your watches to the exam, and bring nothing else or you will be disqualified. Time left until your challenge begins: 1 Cretan hour.
"It's already 8:00?" I ask, aghast. I can't believe I only just woke up a bit ago.
"Don't worry. We still have time," Safa continues eating calmly.
"I'm getting kind of nervous," Xander fidgets with his spoon. "I don't think I can have another bite, haha."
"Give the rest to me, then. We can't have you suffering from indigestion."
"Thanks, Rina!"
I watch them silently as he slides the bowl towards her with a word of thanks and a sheepish smile. It's still strange seeing how their dynamic has shifted from before.
"These jumpsuits are not flattering," Lance says from the ground. Him and Kari are sitting cross-legged in front of the container, inspecting the contents.
"Neither are you," Kari quips.
"That's so untrue!" I slam the table and jump up. "Kari, take that back."
"Yeah, it's not true. I take it back."
"Uh, okay."
"Lance, you are a very handsome man," I crouch down and take his hands in mine. "Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."
"Uh, thanks..."
His hand flies to his face, a tell-tale sign that he's flustered. I can't help but giggle as I release his hands. "What, you didn't know you were handsome?"
"Well..."
Kari chortles.
"Let's just get changed and go."
---
I've been banished to my room by an embarrassed Lance.
Maybe I went too far poking fun at him.
I quickly change into one of the jumpsuits, which is light and airy. It reminds me of the training outfits we wore back at the Academy, which means that they're probably water-resistant and fire-resistant as well.
My stomach start turning again, suddenly nervous. Back in the day, the exams we did were pretty crazy and somewhat life-threatening.
We all had to sign NDAs.
I tie my hair back into a ponytail and try to give myself a winning smile in the mirror inside my wardrobe, but fail miserably. My hands have started shaking. Then I hear a knock on my door, and I jump up, almost slipping back and falling onto my bed. "Who is it?" I ask.
"Hey, it's Safirina," Safa calls from the other side. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm almost done. Just tying my hair up, but it's kinda rough."
"Want help?"
"Yes please!"
The bedroom door slides open, revealing her smile. "Yeah, it does look rough."
"Golly gee, thanks."
"Can you sit on the bed?" Safa laughs. "Otherwise I can't reach you."
I oblige, plopping down on the synthetic fur cover and bringing one of my pillows into a hug. Safa gets onto the bed behind me, and starts gently brushing through my hair with her fingers.
"Are you nervous?" she asks, taking the hair tie from me and snapping it around her wrist.
"Yeah," I admit, squeezing the pillow tightly. "I thought I wouldn't be, to be honest, but I am. I have no idea what to expect! And I don't want to let any of you down."
Safa is silent for a moment as she twists the hair tie around my bunched-up hair. "I don't really know how to comfort you, since my specialty is healing physical wounds, but I think that as long as the five of us do our best we'll be fine."
Her words, brought out by a soft and calm voice, are akin to magic. "Thanks Saf."
With her job complete, Safa sits next to me and gives me a small smile. "You look so pretty."
"Pretty? You think I'm pretty?"
"Who else?"
"You too," tears start welling in my eyes. "You're the prettiest in the world!"
She scrunches her nose in the exact same way she does every time I compliment her.
"Not sure about that—"
"There's nothing to be unsure of!" I tackle her with a hug instinctively. Oops...
It seems like her muscle memory is still active, though, because she's completely relaxed as she hugs me back. It wasn't always like that, I remember fondly.
"Okay, we're both the prettiest," she relents.
"And Kari too."
"Well, Kari is more cute."
"You think so too?!"
A loud knock on my door interrupts us. Who dares?!
"It's Xander," a shy voice hesitantly drifts from beyond. "Are you two okay? We should probably get going to the Arena Hall."
"Ah! Yeah, we're coming."
---
We look like a boy band as we ride our hoverboards in a line in matching silver jumpsuits. It puts a goofy smile on my face.
"What's so funny?" Xander asks, with an equally goofy smile on his.
"It's nothing."
"Your face." (Kari)
"Kari, why do you always bully me?!"
"It's fun... sorry. I can stop if you want."
"Really?!"
"No... well, I'll try my best."
Safa curls in her lips, trying to hide a smile. "At least she's trying."
"Yeah, Kassia doesn't even try." (Lance)
"Hey, why am I suddenly getting attacked?!"
We arrive at the Arena Hall with mostly no problems, except for almost losing Kari six times around the corners and down the escalators (she accidentally went up to Floor 7 instead of down to Floor 2).
The Arena Hall looks completely different from the rest of the ship, with huge white walls that stretch up so far I can't even measure the distance. There are a pair of dark green doors in front of us, made out of a menacingly scintillating metal, which threaten to slide open at any moment.
Besides us, there are five other groups.
I recognize every single person from our Academy days, but I have no idea what their current names are except for Abigail from W-52 and River from M-49. Everyone in the crowd is extremely competent— of course they are, since the Academy was so competitive.
I take a deep breath and pull my ponytail tighter to snap myself out of it. At this point I'm just psyching myself out, and this is the one time I shouldn't be doing that.
The doors slide open. My breath catches in my throat, but I take the first step inside.
Dione and Milo greet us, their backs aglow from the bright white lights installed into the wall panels. The walls behind them are moving into position. They snap into place, dividing the space into give separate sections.
"C-10, E-07, M-49, W-52, and Z-64?" Milo asks. "Please stand in front of the subdivision with your team name on the screen."
As we start walking forwards, the ceiling lowers a strange black box into each section. It's huge, probably even more spacious than our home base.
"Please proceed into the box," an automated voice says. I feel a little shiver run through my body, but Safa takes my hand and gives me a smile. "We're okay," her eyes seem to say, and I instantly feel better.
There's a hovering platform lift that takes us up to and dumps us into the box.
It's completely pitch black inside.
For a moment, my heart drops. The nightmare from this morning runs rampant inside my mind, slamming against the inside of my skull.
Then, the lights turn on.
I'm struggling to adjust my eyesight when the box begins spinning. Kari yelps and crashes into me, but I manage to find and grab onto a groove in the side of the wall and catch her.
"Guys, there are indents in the walls! Grab them!" I shout.
Once we're out of here, I'd like to give Milo and Dione a moderate thwacking. Why are they whirling us around in a machine that's reminiscent of a carnival ride on steroids?
Suddenly, I feel Kari go limp in my arms.
"Kari, are you okay?!" I ask.
She fainted.
"Oh my god," I mumble under my breath.
This exam is supposed to last an hour. Are they going to spin us around for an hour?!
No, that's ridiculous. Take a deep breath and calm down, Kassia.
As soon as I exhale, the room stops spinning,
I hear Safa scream as she lets go of the wall from the sudden stop. She flies towards Xander, who yelps and kicks his feet in confusion. Luckily, he grabs her wrist in time and they both hang from the wall.
I immediately jump down with Kari still in my arm, and land on the floor. First I place her down and check her vitals. She's fine.
Then I look at the time on my watch, and realize that we've been spinning around for an entire five minutes.
"Is everyone alright?" I hear Safa say worriedly. "If you feel dizzy, lie down on the ground and take slow breaths, focusing on any point in this room. I'm going to try and find some water."
This is when I realize I haven't looked completely at the room yet. I turn my eyes from my watch to in front of me, and do a double-take. Surrounded by the obsidian walls are stacks of transparent boxes, each with assorted plants or clear liquids inside. They're organized like a mini maze.
I notice that Safa has picked a random leaf, and is dipping it into the clear liquids to try and determine what they are.
My heartbeat is still echoing in my eardrums, beating in tune with my shallow breaths, but I have to get up and help. I check Kari's pulse once again before gripping the side of the wall to prop myself up. I instantly feel vertigo causing a panic in my head, but I hold back the pain and try to walk.
Lance catches my arm. "Hey, take a few minutes to recuperate," he scolds me. "Even if you try to help now, you might just pass out, and that would do more harm than good."
I shake my head. "I'm really okay. I just need to get used to not being whirled around, and then I'm good as new!" It would have been convincing if I didn't choke on my words and fall into a fit of coughs. "Okay, just give me a few moments to adjust."
"Good," he smiles at me, then joins the other in the maze, where Xander is inspecting plants with a sparkle in his eye, and Safa is running around dipping leaves into clear liquids. Even though I feel like I'm experiencing the incarnation of death in my head right now, I can't help but feel happy at the scene I'm witnessing.
Safa suddenly brightens up, and looks around excitedly.
"This is water!" she waves at me and the unconscious Kari.
Lance and Xander walk over and scoop some up for themselves to drink, before turning their attention towards Kari and me. They cup some water in their hands, then hop over the maze at lightning speed, mostly preserving the water.
Xander slowly gives the unconscious Kari water.
Lance flings it at my face.
I call him something profane and smack his arm, but even though I won't admit it, the splash of water made me feel refreshed. He laughs at me again, helping me up, when suddenly the walls start shifting and a dense smoke comes floating out of the creases.
"Get down!" Xander yelps. "Cover your face with your jumpsuit and breathe through it."
Xander's quick-thinking saves us all. Even through the material of my jumpsuit I can feel it sting the corners of my eyes. Are Dione and Milo seriously trying to kill us?
Then I realize that Kari's face is still uncovered, and I jump over her to shield her.
"This isn't sustainable," Safa jumps out of the maze and rushes towards us. "This jumpsuit isn't a good enough filter."
"What should we do?" Lance asks.
I look down at Kari's face, then notice that there are little grates dotted along the bottom of the walls. I pull the grate out to see the culprits—coin-sized nozzles dispersing the mysterious gas.
"Safa, Xander! Are there any plants we can place over these nozzles to filter out the gas?" I shout, but accidentally breathe in too much air and start feeling nauseous.
"I'm on it!" Safa and Xander say in unison.
"Here, anything's good for now," I hear Xander tell her as they sprint back into the maze, "Just press some random leaves against the nozzles while I weave some rope out of this schoenoplectus acutus to hold them in place."
"I have no idea what you said near the end, but I'll do that."
She gathers a pile of leaves and passes them to Lance and me. There are four gas nozzles around the room, each on one side of the wall.
"Do you know what kind of gas this is?" I ask her as she's about to leave to another nozzle.
"It's most likely an anaesthetic. They wouldn't kill us, right?" Safa says this, but sounds like after these events she highly doubts that Milo and Dione want us alive.
I temporarily use Kari's foot to keep a leaf over the nozzle in front of me, then run to the other side of the room to press another leaf against that one.
"I'm done!" Xander shouts immediately after, and runs towards me with grassy rope in his hands. I can't believe he did all this in a couple minutes. He helps me tie the leaf around my nozzle and Kari's.
"Okay, I'm going to look for a better filter."
"Good luck!"
We give each other quick nods before I continue around the room and he runs back to the maze to find a thicker leaf.
He runs towards Lance with the stack before fainting. He hits the ground with a thump.
"Xander!" I hear Safa shout, and she rushes towards him, checking his breathing and pulse. I run after her, panting, and when I arrive she tilts her head up to face me. "He's asleep."
Lance comes back from replacing the filters with the thicker leaves. "We should be good now. There's some sort of ventilation system in-place."
"Nice," I walk next to Safa and slump against her shoulder. Then I check my watch. 32 minutes before the challenge ends.
"There's probably another wave of torture when we hit the 30 minute mark," I put my hand up against my forehead like I'm the protagonist of a soap opera.
Just as prophesied, at the 30 minute mark, the walls grumble again, and the nozzles are shifted away. A square in the floor rises to the ceiling, creating some sort of shelf in the center of the room. Then, the shelf opens up, revealing five robots, each about Kari's height, with glassy blue eyes and rectangular bodies.
"Escape the room. If we touch you, you will become paralyzed," the robots chorus.
This is something straight out of a nightmare. I feel a chill run down my spine, but slap my two cheeks to snap myself out of it. Safa next to me flinches at the sound.
"Sorry!"
Lance runs over to us, his eyes glazed over. "Guys, I'm officially done with this challenge. I'm blowing up a wall."
Safa and I laugh together at his joke, but then I realize that it isn't a joke and he's dead serious.
"Wha— huh?! Wait, really?!"
"We just need to capture one of the robots, preferably not getting paralyzed along the way. I'm going to strip it for parts and make a bomb."
"You're a genius!" I shout as Safa screams "You're insane!"
Lance holds up his hands as if surrendering, "Just give me five minutes."
Safa and I exchange looks, just as the robots roll out of their containers.
"You guys get that one!" Lance points to the robot closest to us. "I'll lure the others away," he turns away from us and starts running.
Safa gives me a look of utter frustration and determination.
"If I bring it to the corner, do you think you can jump it?" I ask her, starting to sweat nervously.
She sighs, and the game begins.
I wave my hands wildly in front of the robot, taunting it with some mild profanity, even though it probably doesn't understand me. Though my jeering is pointless, it's very entertaining to Safa and me. I see Lance struggling against the four other robots in the corner of my eye, and we make eye contact just as I'm in the midst of a colourful swear. He gives me the funniest look I have ever seen in my life.
"Watch out!" Safa yells.
She jumps up and slams one of the glass containers from the maze into its robotic skull. It twitches once, then stops moving.
"Oh my god... that was brutal," I comment.
"Yeah..."
I turn away from the scene of carnage and call for Lance.
"You got one?!" he calls from afar.
"Yeah!"
"Okay, Kassia stay there. I'll need your help."
"Safa, can you sub him out?"
"Yeah, for sure!"
She runs towards him and starts throwing things at the other four robots while he ducks away and sprints towards me.
"Alright, time to strip."
"Woah there, buddy—"
"The robot! The robot! Obviously," he cries.
I make a point not to reply as I make an incision in the robot's back using my watch's laser blade. It's funny watching Lance squirm next to me.
"Alright," he refocuses. "We need power, some kind of flammable fluid, and a trigger. Kassia, let's do this."
---
I chuck parts out of the robots for Lance to inspect. His eyes glaze over as he builds out the blueprint for the bomb in his mind. "Kassia, what's 50 divided by 2? Oh no, I'm so dumb—it's obviously 25, my god..."
He's so cute when he's failing at basic math.
"Okay, this should work," he grumbles. "Luckily these robots have, essentially, turbo-charged power source specifications, so the blast should be powerful enough to blow this flimsy wall out."
"Let's try it—oh my god, Safa!"
In the corner of my eye, Safa gets shocked by a robot and tumbles to the ground, paralyzed.
"Is she okay?!" Lance looks up.
"No, let's go!"
The two of us scramble off the ground and towards the wall. I yank at one of the panels on it, where the gas nozzles from earlier are hidden behind. Then, Lance fits the bomb snugly inside.
We jump back, giving enough distance to (probably) keep us safe, and then Lance brings each connector in his hand close together.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Just go!" I shout.
"Three, two—"
Maybe it's because Lance's hands are shaking, but the wall explodes as he's in the middle of saying the last one. My instincts take over, and shove me onto the ground. I feel the ghost of Lance's arms around me.
No, it's not an illusion. He really is shielding me.
"Kassia, we did it!"
His voice sounds murky. The fierce ringing in my ears distorts it.
When I meet his eyes, the pressure in my head drops, and there's a moment of clarity.
"Y-YES!" I pump my fist up. "It's exploded! The wall is gone!"
We both get up and give each other nineteen high tens. I almost start crying out of relief.
Lance slings Xander on his shoulder and starts dragging him to the place where the wall used to be. Outside, I can see the floor, which means the box must have dropped to the ground after it finished spinning us.
While I head towards Kari, I remember that there are, in fact, still four robots in the room, and one of them is heading towards me.
"JEEEEEZ," I roar, running as fast as I can whilst carrying Kari in a princess hold. As soon as she's safely out, I run back inside for Safa, but a robot catches me and grabs me by the ankle, sending a terrible shock through my body.
I instantly drop down, unable to move, before Lance hauls both Safa and me out of the nightmare zone. He's almost to the exit when the robots all power down. Outside, standing and gawking in front of the exploded hole in the wall, are Milo and Dione.