The giant stone monsters marched through the black mud. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.The sound of their heavy footsteps echoed like thunder in the massive, dark cavern. There were hundreds of them. They were fifty feet tall. They had no faces. Their bodies were made of sharp, jagged rocks. Glowing purple magic pumped through their stone joints like evil blood. Commander Oliver stood alone in the dark mud. He stood right in the middle of the ten-foot gap between the massive iron doors. Behind him, his terrified squad and the crying civilians hid inside the safe, clean Stronghold. But the doors were jammed. A huge boulder was stuck in the metal tracks on the floor. Oliver did not step back. His human left eye was cold and gray. His right eye was a burning, glowing red circle of fire. Half of his face was covered in smooth, pitch-black alien metal. He watched the stone giants coming closer. [Variable A: The enemy army is too large for a direct fight.][Variable B: The jammed boulder weighs fo

The giant stone monsters raised their massive fists. Hundreds of fifty-foot-tall Stone Golems surrounded Commander Oliver in the freezing black mud. They had no faces, but their purple magic glowed with pure hatred. They swung their heavy, rocky hands down to crush him into dust. Oliver did not blink. He did not run. He held his tiny titanium combat knife in his human left hand. His black metal right arm sparked with dark energy. He did not use math equations out loud anymore. The cold logic simply lived inside his mind. He knew a knife could not kill a hundred mountains. He knew he could not block a thousand tons of falling rock. But his upgraded Echo Sense felt the ground beneath his boots. The alien coin in his chest beat heavily. The coin told him the mud was deep, but the rock beneath it was hollow. Exactly one second before the giant stone fists smashed into him, Oliver dropped to his knees. He drove his black metal right fist straight down into the black mud. He unleashed a

The metal grate shattered. The floor completely disappeared. Commander Oliver fell into the dark, empty air. Beside him, Captain Iris and Billy the hacker screamed. They plummeted straight down toward the massive, crushing fists of the Stone Golems waiting far below. Oliver did not scream. His cold gray eye stared at the fast-approaching ground. He did not speak his calculations aloud. His brain simply saw the exact solution. He reached out with his black metal right arm. He grabbed Billy tightly by the heavy canvas backpack. He shot his human left hand out and grabbed Iris by her thick white cast. Oliver twisted his body in mid-air. He looked at the giant stone wall of the Stronghold to their right. He kicked his heavy combat boot hard against a falling piece of the metal pipe. The kinetic force pushed them sideways. They flew away from the giant stone fists, swinging directly toward the outer wall of the ancient fortress. But they were still falling too fast. "Brace for impac

Oliver saw Billy and Iris standing ten feet behind him. He saw the massive cracks in the ceiling directly above their heads. He saw the red eyes of the silent clones swarming around the corner behind them. "Move," Oliver commanded. A deafening sound tore through the air. The giant Stone Golems above them smashed their heavy fists down into the earth. The entire ceiling of the tunnel broke apart. Millions of tons of solid black rock began to fall straight down. Oliver did not freeze. He did not panic. He lunged forward. He reached out with his black metal right arm to grab Iris and pull her to safety. But the rocks were too heavy. They were falling too fast. A massive boulder, the size of a small house, crashed into the floor exactly between Oliver and his two friends. KABOOOOOOOM! The impact shook the world. A thick cloud of choking gray dust exploded into the tunnel. Oliver was thrown backward by the powerful blast wave. He hit the stone floor and slid into the darkness. Ol

"Shut up, Davis," Miller said softly. But Miller’s voice was broken too. He looked at Oliver’s back. For the first time, Miller did not feel safe. He felt like he was following a cold, empty machine. Oliver kept walking. His gray human eye looked straight ahead into the dark. His glowing red Wraithborn eye burned brightly. Inside his mind, his supercomputer brain was running the math. [Variable A: Two valuable assets are trapped behind impassable rock.] [Variable B: The enemy forces are overwhelming.] [Conclusion: The assets are lost. Proceed to the next objective.] Oliver told his brain to move on. He told his mind to calculate the path to the Overlord’s core. But suddenly, the math stopped. Oliver’s heavy black metal right foot stopped in the air. He did not take the next step. Oliver froze in the middle of the dark tunnel. "Commander?" Sergeant Miller asked nervously, stopping behind him. "Do you see a trap?"Oliver did not answer. He stared into the empty black space ahe