But once he’d glanced at the device, he brought it directly to Harley. “This is trouble,” he said. “Bangalore.”

Harley saw a fuzzy image of the other Object, in full daylight, suddenly expanding to two or three times its size. Text on the image said, “20 MINS AGO THEN IT LEFT.”

“It left?” Harley said. “Assuming that’s correct, where did it go?”

“No idea,” Weldon said. “But I think this means we should go—”

Then it was if the whole world suddenly groaned. “What was that?” Sasha said.

The strange sound lasted perhaps three seconds. It was gone now. “It came from the Object,” Harley said.

The Object had stopped spinning.

Rachel said, “Why is it doing that?”

“Doing what?” Weldon said.

Rachel ran to Harley. “It’s growing.”

Harley could see it for himself. The fuzzy white dome and its strange internal components lost definition, becoming almost transparent . . . reminding Harley of what clouds looked like when you punched through them in an F-35. . . .

Then something passed through them all, an electric shock combined with a flash of light. Everyone around him cried out.

And began to rise.

Harley Drake knew the feeling: it was just like being in zero g. Only now he was inside a huge sphere along with several dozen, possibly a couple of hundred, human beings, trees, blocks of earth, birds, and at least one dog.

As he tumbled, separated from his chair, from Sasha, from Rachel, he could see Houston, and soon all of Texas, falling away below them.

I have broken agency rules and risked my job by posting here under a screen name, but to hell with it: this situation is beyond the control of any agency or nation. We are in a game-changer, folks. And there’s no point in hiding. My name is Scott Shawler, and I am JSC Guy.

POSTED AT NEOMISSION.COM, AUGUST 24, 2019

There was a dirt perimeter around the growing “Factory zone” that reminded Zack of the warning track in a baseball stadium. It was smooth enough to show footprints . . . human, barefoot, child-sized.

“I think we’ve found her,” Megan said. Her voice was weak and wheezing, not good at all.

“Someone else has, too.” Zack pointed to another set of tracks, long slashes alternating with splash marks that ran parallel to the footprints, and eventually on top of Camilla’s, obliterating them.

“Got to be a Sentry,” Zack said. “Do you see or hear that thing?”

Megan was scanning their surroundings, too. “No.”

“God, where is she?”

“You aren’t going to call for her, are you?”

“With one of those killing machines out here? Hell, no!” Zack squinted at the structures. The low light and unusual features made it tough to see. “I just hope she’s hiding. . . .”

Out of the welter of tracks that showed Konstantin’s final struggle, he noted the beginnings of another trail. “There.” Camilla’s tracks led directly into the Factory.

Taking Megan by the hand, Zack began to follow them. If he’d had any energy—if he’d thought Megan could keep up—he would have started to run. “If you can offer any insight into why this thing is on the loose, now would be the time to share.”

“They aren’t machines. They’re intelligent beings.”

“Then what did we do to deserve their hostility?”

“They’re no longer responding to commands, that’s all I know.”

Zack listened again. The dominant sound was the steady wind. Far off Zack could hear some kind of pounding, like piles being driven, and a low-cycle buzzing.

But no little girl. “I guess we should keep moving,” he said. Megan made no protest as he tugged her into one of the broad but still shadowed passageways. “Could you ask your Architect friend why he isn’t helping us?”

“Don’t assume he’s benevolent, or on your side. Or even cares.”

“I’ve got to say, none of this would encourage me to ask a couple of thousand humans to sign up for a one-way voyage.”

“I think he’s got troubles of his own. Remember . . . the Architect is a resurrectee, too.”

“And all you resurrectees stick up for each other.” Wait! Farther into the Factory . . . not just a scream, but actual words. In Portuguese?

“I heard her, too,” Megan said.

Tired and hobbled, both of them nevertheless started running. They soon discovered that their passageway ended in a shimmering wall that looked as though it were being assembled by the omnipresent Keanu molecular machines. They backtracked, found a connecting passage, and took it.

“So now we’re rats in a maze,” Zack said.

Camilla shouted again.

“She’s closer... .”

“It sounds as though she’s right next door,” Megan said.

The both heard another voice, this one harsh, guttural. “Is that who I think it was?” Zack said.

“Yes.”

“Tell me again about how intelligent these things are?”

“They were chosen for their size and mobility,” Megan said. “But the ones we’re seeing aren’t necessarily typical of the species. It’s like you hired human mercenaries and then complained that they couldn’t change diapers.” She tapped her fingers on her forehead, as if trying to improve the flow of information. “The big problem is they weren’t optimized for the same atmosphere as humans. It’s preventing them from following orders any longer.”

“You mean, a civilization that can build this vessel, send it across the galaxy on a fishing expedition that lasts ten thousand years . . . can’t manage some nasty-looking alien it picked up?”

“They don’t have total control.” She was shaking her head. “At least, that’s what I think. I’m not getting answers. . . .”

“Now I wish I had a weapon.” He stopped. They had reached a nexus where five different passages intersected.

“Any insights as to which road to take . . . ?” Megan suddenly started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Think about it. All the many choices we’ve made in our lives . . . all those other roads. Look at where they took us! How many roads are left?”

At that moment, Zack Stewart realized that they had, in fact, reached a final destination.

They were in a plaza. Like everything Zack had seen in the Factory, it was freshly formed . . . and already crumbling.

One structure opened into the plaza. Its interior was filled with panels and screens covered with changing figures. But Zack and Megan had no time to examine them . . . there was a more compelling image:

The Architect, all eight meters of him, dead at the base of the open structure . . . sliced and diced like Pogo Downey.

Zack looked at Megan, who was looking away from the body. “No wonder you weren’t getting answers.”

Zack could be clinical and objective about the mangled Architect’s body—it wasn’t sufficiently human to arouse empathy. But the smell made him want to gag . . . and so did the realization that he and Megan were now truly on their own. Not that the Architect had been a very useful guide . . . but he seemed to be in charge of operations, or at least the flow of information.

Now what did they have?

In one of the passages to his left, he saw Camilla, terrified, runny-nosed, a child in a situation no child should ever imagine, much less face.

Directly across from her, in one of the passages on Zack’s right, stood a Sentry. It had an appalling bluish ichor—the Architect’s blood?—on its appendages.

“Zack, darling,” Megan said.

He didn’t answer. He was too fascinated by the Sentry . . . it was actually trembling, as if struggling. It turned its head back and forth, scanning. “I’m going to tackle the bad boy.”

“No, you’re not. I want you to pick up Camilla and go back to the tunnel, back to the Temple, anywhere but here. . . .”

He looked at her and was terrified by what he saw. Megan was pale, shrunken and hunched, as if suffering abdominal pain.

“Hang on—”

“Don’t say that! It’s over for me! Let me distract the Sentry while you get away—”