Shoot it in the head! Now!Idris Cole did not hesitate. The shock of looking into his face went away the second the stasis pod cracked. Survival in the Grey Grid did not allow for thinking about things like that.He raised the -armor sniper rifle and pulled the trigger up close.The loud sound of the high-velocity bullet echoed inside the steel transport truck. The bullet broke the last of the glass in the pod. Hit the clones forehead. It should have removed the clones head completely.Instead a hexagonal blue energy shield appeared on the clones skin.The anti-armor bullet hit the barrier. Fell into the gelatinous fluid on the floor.System Alert, the voice of Garret mocked in his mind. Batch 44 units have kinetic dampeners. Purge protocol started. Terminate anomaly.The naked clone stepped out of the pod stepping on the flattened bullet with its bare foot. Its eyes were completely black no whites or irises swirling with the dark matter energy as the Architects tech. It did not look

They are coming to burn us alive.Idris Cole stood over the melted hyper-steel where Silas, the Envoy of the Spire had been crushed into scrap metal. The synthetic blue blood was already disappearing into the air but the message was clear. He had just declared war on the gods of the Grey Grid.The nineteen Batch 44 clones moved with scary precision. They formed lines unloading the trucks they had taken from the Iron Canyons. Boxes of hyper-steel, special armor and the humming clone machines were stacked neatly in the center of Vanguard Outposts courtyard.Rhea Knox walked up beside Idris Cole kicking a piece of Silass machine across the floor. You know they will send everything they have at us now boss. We just killed their messenger. Kept their stolen money.I am counting on it Idris Cole replied, his voice low and rough. If they send an army we use them for resources. If they send a fleet we shoot it down.The countdown in his view was ticking away. Twenty-nine days, eighteen hours.

Idris Cole yelled at the top of his lungs. He wanted his people to rip the metal from their enemies before they could even pull the trigger. His voice was loud and clear in the bunker. The sound of the Architect Enforcer-Class Juggernaut was getting closer and closer. It was spinning up its plasma cannons outside the blast doors. The water in the transit hub was boiling. The heat from the ordnance was making the subterranean station a very bad place to be.Idris stood over the body of Dr. Aris Thorne. He had the glowing access key to the Spire in his inventory. Idris had a clock in his chest that was always ticking. He had twenty-nine days and seventeen hours left. The Architects had trapped them. They thought Idris and his people would drown like rats.. Idris was not going to let that happen.Rhea Knox did not wait for the enemy to attack. She charged at them. She was very fast and deadly. The first wave of Cyber-Hounds came through the doorway. Their jaws were dripping with acid. Rh

The reinforced -steel doors of the containment unit didn't just open; they exploded outward into a storm of lethal shrapnel.A jagged slab of steel the size of a transport truck spun through the ash-choked air slamming directly into the Vanguard Phalanx line before anyone could blink. The kinetic force was devastating. Three clones encased in Leviathan-Grade exosuits were thrown backward like toys their black armor screeching against the rusted metal of the scrapyard as they crashed into a mountain of discarded engine blocks.From the dust and toxic smoke of the crater the nightmare stepped forward.It was a Category 5 Apex-Strain Behemoth, a fusion of necrotic biological mass and cutting-edge Architect cybernetics. Standing thirty feet tall its muscled arms ended in massive hydraulic crushers and its spine was lined with glowing, superheated plasma vents. The creature had no face, a smooth ultra-dense hyper-steel visor with a single horizontal red optical slit that locked directly on

The rotary cannons roared into life, tearing the manicured lawns and white picket fences of Sector Three to shreds in a storm of lead and plasma.Phalanx, drop them before they lock on! Idris shouted, diving behind a concrete curb as a wall of heavy caliber rounds chewed through the air where his head had been a second prior.The nineteen clones of the Vanguard Phalanx reacted instantly, their Leviathan-Grade exosuits locking together in a broad, overlapping shield wall. Heavy rounds hammered against hyper-steel with deafening impacts, sparks spraying across the pristine green grass as the clones braced their boots against the asphalt.Rhea Knox did not stay behind the shields. She moved like a phantom through the rain of lead, darting from porch to porch. Her Titan-Grade blade hummed with high-frequency energy as she closed the distance on the nearest cyborg host.I hate this place, Rhea snarled through gritted teeth as she sidestepped a burst of rotary fire.She swung her blade in a