I also finished the first half of part seven. That and part eight should be up late tonight or tomorrow
“No,” Said Emiray who couldn’t see Gray’s growing frown. “I’ll need to give the report to them myself. I’ve come all this way after all and the head engineer would be upset if I passed my duty off to somebody else. I can’t let something little like this stop me or I would be a disgrace to the engineers.”
“I’m sorry.” Said Gray, there was almost a forlorn sound in his voice. “I didn’t want it to come to this but now I don’t have any other choice.” Emiray looked over her shoulder in confusion and she tensed as she saw what he was holding.
Gray had the gun pointed straight at Emiray. The small weapon didn’t pack very much firepower but against Emiray’s body it could easily kill her if she was hit by it. “What are you doing Professor Gray.” Said Emiray, her voice beginning to tighten as she stared at the muzzle of the gun. If she jumped him then she might be able to stop him from firing. If she could get close to him then she would be able to hurt him before he would be able to kill her, but getting close was the problem.
“I’m afraid that I need to get the Euclidian Key from you and since you insist on taking it to the authorities I’m going to have to take it from you.” There was still a measure of uncertainty in Gray’s voice which kept Emiray talking.
“The Euclidian Key?” Asked Emiray quietly. She was trying to keep him talking and maybe he would be put the gun down and let here leave. “I don’t know what you are talking about, but if it is anyone of the person’s possessions then I will give you all of them if you want.”
“That is no longer good enough. I can’t have anyone find out what has happened which means that I can’t just let you go. If you tell the authorities then I may not have enough time to do what I need with it and I can’t let that happen.” Responded Gray with a tinge of annoyance in his voice.
“Then what are we doing? If you need to get rid of me then why are we standing her talking with each other. You could just shoot me and be done with it. There must be a reason that we are talking.”
“Yes,” Said Gray, “We are standing here and talking because it is giving me time to think of a solution to my problem that doesn’t involve killing you. It is rather tricky because any method I could think of restraining you enough to prevent you from escaping would eventually kill you.”
“I see. How about you leave me locked up some place and then come back to release me after you have done what you need to do with this Euclidian Key. Then you could escape and nobody would be able to follow you.” Suggested Emiray in her meekest voice possible. She was trying to guess her chances of getting the gun from him before he shot and the best she could get was to the chance of messing up his aim enough to only get a life threatening injury instead of a fatal one.
“I thought of that one but the problem is that there is a high probability that I am going to die by the time that the plan if over and even if I tried leaving a message then it might be discovered before it is too late and I can’t risk that.” There doesn’t seem to be any good solution.” He continued to wait and point the gun at her.
She stood there frozen waiting for him to decide her fate when she saw R08 out of the corner of her eye. “No Rob, wait, don’t!” However it was too late. R08 with a clanking gate was rushing at Gray. R08 would walk just fine but with everything that it was carrying it was difficult for it to run without creating a lot of noise.
Gray noticed and moved his gun slightly to the side and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang R08 collapsed with a hole through its placid mask of a face. Oil began to well and the hole and R08 began to slump to the ground. Even as she felt the pain at what could be called death to her friend she needed to move.
One step after another she counted as she sped toward Gray. One second, two. She reached down and grabbed the hilt of her knife as she got closer to Gray. Three seconds. Gray’s gun was beginning to point at her again. Four seconds. She was almost there but she had run out time. She jerked wildly to one side and there was a second controlled explosion. The pain bloomed in her shoulder and she struggled to take the last step that she needed.
She thrusted the knife forward but her aim was slightly off. She barely grazed Gray’s arm before Gray knocked her hand way with his gun and and pressed the gun to her chest. Emiray held her breath for that one last second.
Professor Gray lower his hand and dropped the gun. He didn’t need it any more and it sickened him to keep holding it. He could see the blood seeming out of the body at his feet. He hadn’t wanted to kill her but since it was what happened he had to deal with it. Gray turned his eyes over to the corpse, if it could be called that, of the robot. Gray doubted that Emiray would be carry the Euclidian Key, it has probably been kept on the robot just like most of her other stuff.
A couple of minutes later her had found the bundle and after unwrapping it her pulled out the long and slender key like object. Gray slipped the Euclidian Key into his coat and then turn away from the girl and the robot. As he moved away and began making his way through the building and out into the University District he began muttering to himself. “For the greater good.” He didn’t know if he believed it anymore.
Emiray was cold when she opened her eyes again. The pain was enormous and she could do no more then twitch her fingers. She had been shot once in the arm and a second time in the right side of her chest. The fact that the wounds hadn’t yet killed her was somewhat encouraging although she didn’t know how much that was worth. It was getting difficult to breath and she didn’t know how much blood she had lost, it must have been a lot.
She couldn’t seem Gray and didn’t know how long she had been unconscious for but he must have been long gone by now. Not this is mattered. She would probably die here alone. It wasn’t quite a locked room in the middle of nowhere but It felt the same. She looked over toward where R08 was, at least she wasn’t dying alone. However R08 wasn’t where it had fallen.
She opened her eyes wide and rolled her head, the only part of her that still seemed to work correctly. She searched for R08 desperately, Gray would have any reason to take R08, would he. Then she saw it. R08’s eyes were glowing softly and it was sitting not far from her and opening up one of the bags it had strung about it. A long set of tweezers were in its hand. The hole in the middle of R08 face was still there but it didn’t seem to inconvenience it.
“HOLD STILL, THIS WILL BE PAINFUL. THE BULLET NEEDS TO BE REMOVED.” The warbling that usually annoyed her so much was now comforting. “YOUR WOUNDS ARE VERY BAD BUT I WILL DO WHAT I CAN. TRY NOT TO DIE.” Emiray almost laughed but it was extremely painful to attempt even that so she gave up.
R08 drew closer to her and pressed the tool against her chest. Then her world was consumed again with pain and she collapsed into blissful consciousness again.
June 10th
Academy District, Top of a Building
It has been a colossal waste of time. The Euclidian Key had been stolen and she hadn’t been able to find out anything about the theft. Lynn had even tracked down the Phantom Thief Rose in the Entrainment District in hopes that she would know something about the theft but it was useless, nobody knew anything about it and Lynn was simply stuck with a missing Professor and Key and absolutely no clues to go on. It was disheartening and Ivan kept pestering her to give up on the search and return to her studies.
Lynn had even devoted hours to just reaching out and feeling for any of the spacial disturbances that could have been the result of using the Euclidian Key but that too had been a deadend. Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket and saw that is was Ivan calling her. Since she hadn’t found it by now she realized that she should probably go along more with Ivan, her studies and research were important and she couldn’t just ignore them.
Flipping the phone open she answered, “Yes Ivan, I’ll be there in a moment.” She was about to close the phone when Ivan yelled through it.
“Wait. I found something.” Lynn paused and put the phone back to her head.
“I’m listening.”
Ivan continued, “You mentioned the Euclidian Key to me briefly when I asked you what you were looking for, and I finally found something. One of my friends working at a hospital just called me to ask my opinion on something and I learned something interesting. Apparently there was a Belly Engineer that was shot not far below the city and her robot carried her to the hospital.”