Chapter 13

The tech-built humanoid picked up speed as it advanced towards them. Ellie started to panic, heart hammering in her chest. She’d never seen anything like it; even for the rogue’s gallery of Professor X, this was something new.
The hands of the SPIMS organism consisted of single scanners, able to pivot at varying angles from their invisible connections to the scanners of its arms. Held outstretched, the hands began to rotate like the blades of a wind turbine, and spark with the terrifying crackle of electricity. 
“What do we do?” Ellie yelped. Like the others, she too backed away.
“Find a way to get past it,” said Charles. “It’s between us and the mainframe.”
“As always, Charles, I’m open to any bright ideas,” said Aoife.
“I’ve got a few…” Charles admitted, gulping as the swivelling robotic hands spewed sparks across the floor.
Ellie continued to back away, and no action from the others seemed forthcoming. Her palms were sweaty, and she was beginning to feel faint. There wasn’t much more she could take. “I think we need one now,” she said, as her vision fuzzed over.
“Alright then… run!”
Ellie felt a hand grab hers, and wrench her into motion. Her vision returned to see shelves of BluRays and video games whiz past, as a surge of adrenaline overrode any previous form of survival instinct that had kicked in. 
It was then that she realised it wasn’t Charles holding her hand, as she had expected, but Aoife. 
“Got yer sea legs back yet?” asked Aoife. “Cause I don’t want to be holding that hand any longer than I have to.”
Ellie pulled her hand back like she’d had it caught in a door.
“Jeez, I didn’t realise I was that infectious,” Aoife teased. “Now come on, we’ve got a ScannerBot to stop.”
Ellie looked back to see the robot hot on their tail, its eye red and menacing. Of Charles, there was no sign, leaving Ellie fearing the worst. It didn’t stop her running, however; if it had done something to Charles, she would do everything she could to make sure she saw this through. 
They rounded onto an aisle, their flashlights offering glimpses of various bathroom accessories. Ellie watched as Aoife’s arms reached out in all directions, grabbing towels, bathmats, and anything they could find to throw to the floor. She risked a glance and saw the ScannerBot struggle to maintain its balance, slipping and sliding across the loose fabrics beneath it, allowing them to gain much needed ground. 
“Follow me,” said Ellie, as the foundations of a plan began to form in her mind. 
Aoife didn’t question her, and they turned right at the end of the aisle. Another immediate right took them down the adjacent aisle. 
“How fast can you dismantle the mainframe?” Ellie asked. 
Aoife frowned at her, unsure of what she was getting at.
“If we take the opportunity and head back towards the warehouse, how long will it take you to destroy the mainframe?” Ellie clarified, sucking in breaths to maintain her pace.
Catching her train of thought, Aoife grinned. “If all else fails we can always smash it to bits.”
Ellie felt a rush of excitement. Was this what it was like to be part of SIGNET? An adrenaline rush was quite something, she realised, but was it something she could maintain? 
They took another right, and arrived onto the centre aisle, back towards the warehouse doors, however it didn’t take long for the clank of metal footsteps to sound once more from behind them. 
Ellie’s lungs began to burn. Even if she did make it to the warehouse, she was unsure how far her body would take her once inside. A stitch began to form in her stomach, and her legs slowed as she clutched her side. Aoife looked back at her, horrified to see that she had fallen behind. Though that didn’t stop Aoife from continuing on; Ellie was glad — someone needed to put an end to this. 
As the pain from her stitch intensified with each successive step, her feet failed her: the toe of her trainer snagged on the smooth floor, the resulting friction causing her ankle to buckle. Ellie fell to the floor, landing on her side, and the ScannerBot closed in for the kill. 
Was this it? Would she die here, at work — and not even get paid for it? 
She winced as the ScannerBot grew closer and closer. In the end she couldn’t take it anymore. She closed her eyes, and waited for death to take her. 
Bang!
Ellie’s eyes flashed open. The ScannerBot lay in fragments on the floor in front of her. She scrambled backwards to get out of their reach, only to notice Charles standing over her with a large frying pan in his hand. 
“Come on,” he said, holding out a hand. “I doubt I’ve stopped it for long.”
She looked back to see that he was right: even now, the ScannerBot was in the process of reforming the bonds between its constituent parts. 
Ellie took Charles’ hand and was hoisted into the air. A little further ahead, Aoife was waiting by the warehouse doors. 
“Where do we go from here?” she asked. 
“Not far,” Ellie replied. “Once we get through the storage for the entertainment section, the maintenance room where the mainframe is housed is just around the corner. 
Ellie and Charles headed over as Aoife held the door open and peered inside. “Looks quiet,” she said. “But somehow that just makes me more nervous.”
Ellie knew what she meant. Since entering the store, nothing had gone right, and SPIMS was almost certain to have some form of further danger waiting for them inside. Hearing the scrapes of the ScannerBot start to pick itself up off of the floor tiles, the trio entered, wary of anything that might await them. 
The warehouse was quiet, deathly quiet. The grey, concrete floor was littered with BluRay boxes and TV cables on one side, and kitchenware on the other. The shelves that once carried them were tilted, having been pushed from the other side. Whilst perplexed by this, Ellie couldn’t let it distract her from what they were here to do, and led the way through the scattered piles of stock. Each of them were attentive to what lay in their path, and placed each step carefully. 
Their caution was warranted as, stepping over a delivery crate, Ellie gasped as she saw a discarded scanner mere inches from her foot. On cue, the scanner started to spit sparks at her. Instinctively, Ellie booted the device as hard as she could. Her strength surprised her, as the scanner lifted off of the floor and through the empty, overturned rack of shelves. She was more surprised still when a startled shriek sounded from where it landed. 
“Who’s there?” Charles called out. 
His question was met by silence. This lasted for a few moments, until the familiar face popped out from behind a cage of unopened boxes, wearing a lopsided hairnet.
“Habib?” Ellie frowned, unable to place any rationality to him being there. Her thoughts raced through the possibilities as another voice made itself known, and Ellie had her answer.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” hissed the shrill voice of Carol Baker, from somewhere out of sight. 
Habib looked down at her. “What? I was just—”
“Idiot!” she hissed again. “Shut up!”
When Ellie looked closer, she saw that Habib didn’t seem to be wearing anything on his top half, and was relieved that the stock cage blocked her from seeing anything else. Her mind connected the dots, and she screwed up her eyes in disgust. “Eww, eww — eww!” she squirmed. 
“You have to get out of here,” Charles advised them, “before—”
He was broken off by the crash of the warehouse doors. The ScannerBot had reassembled itself, and panned its head in their direction. 
“Killer robot!” shouted Aoife, and broke into a run. 
Ellie and Charles followed suit, trying their best not to slip on the BluRay cases beneath their feet. From behind the shelves, she heard Carol and Habib panic frantically, and hoped that was the last she would hear of their exploits that evening. 
The ScannerBot lacked the grace of its human prey, and struggled to navigate the plastic cases strewn across the floor, often losing its balance as it tried to progress. It bought Ellie and her friends some much needed time, as they raced towards the finish line, now in sight 
The door to the maintenance room was non-descript: grey and bland, with its only distinctive quality being a ‘Danger: Electrical Shock Risk’ sign stuck upon it. Above the door handle sat a code lock. Ellie knew she had no idea of the code, and regretted not having the foresight to ask Gary for it before they had cast him out of the van. Regardless, she didn’t fancy their chances of inputting the code in time, with the ScannerBot proving unrelenting in its pursuit. Therefore, Ellie settled upon the only option that seemed open to her, and ran full force into the door. 
To her eternal relief, the frame splintered, and the door flung open. Ellie’s shoulder felt like it had suffered the same fate as the door; she cried out in agony, clutching it tight. 
The entry to the mainframe room garnered an immediate response from the SPIMS system. The emergency lighting grew from dim to blindingly bright, and around the warehouse could be heard the crackle and hiss of scanners activating. Ellie spotted one of them atop of a delivery box, hopping in the air like a frog. Soon others like it came into view, leaping into the air with remarkable height, like mouse traps being triggered at regular intervals. Each of the hopping scanners was homing in on her position, and behind them, the ScannerBot waded through the sea of discarded stock, ready to defend its nest at all costs.
As Ellie struggled to push back the pain of her shoulder, Aoife stepped past her, eyes fixed on the mainframe, nestled in a steel box — with its aforementioned control panel — at the back of the room. Aoife reached a rubber-gloved hand into her jeans pocket and produced a screwdriver, and instantly set about removing the casing from the contraption.
“Do your stuff, Aoife,” said Charles, kicking a hopping scanner away like a football. “We’ll keep the heat off of you.”
His words were followed by a mechanical shriek from the ScannerBot. It leapt forward and landed on all fours like a lion, using a similarly animalistic motion to gallop forwards. Charles was the first in its way, and was knocked aside like a bowling pin. Ellie squirmed, knowing she would be next, closing her eyes as the desperate machine bounded straight for her. A blind leap into the unknown landed her on top of a pile of Xbox games, and she narrowly avoided the path of the automaton. 
But the ScannerBot wasn’t after her at all.
It charged into the room with the force of a train and slammed Aoife against the wall. Ellie saw the air be pushed from her lungs, and heard the audible snap of bone under the force of the impact. The ScannerBot’s next action was to snag Aoife’s collar between its two clumsy hands, and swing her back through the doorway, where she collided with a delivery cage and collapsed, unconscious.
“Aoife!” Ellie screeched.
Somewhere behind her fallen friend, Charles unsteadily climbed to his feet.
Ellie turned in terror as the ScannerBot assessed its next move. The answer was plainly obvious: Ellie was the closest to the mainframe, and was undoubtedly next on its hitlist. 
She backed away, catching her arm on the tilted shelving. Shockwaves of pain shot up her arm, so intense that she saw flashes in her vision. Compassionless, the ScannerBot advanced, its red eye merciless and ready to kill. 
Ellie’s heart pounded in her chest. Somewhere behind her she could hear Charles shouting, running towards her, but there was no way he would reach her in time. Frantically, Ellie looked to her surroundings for something to defend herself, and saw far more than she’d bargained for. 
Amongst the rafts of stock by her feet, a lone scanner hopped towards her, sparking with electrical discharge. Ellie gasped in delight, and bent down to pick it up. The rubber of her glove did its job perfectly, and insulated the electrical charge emanating from the device, just long enough for Ellie to draw back her arm, and release. 
The scanner careered through the air like a shot put. Ellie had never had considered pursuing a career in the Olympics, but after tonight, all bets were off. The scanner flew right past the unconscious Aoife, and the oblivious ScannerBot, through the door to the maintenance room, and landed directly on top of the mainframe box, still crackling and spewing electricity. 
The results were instantaneous. 
The charge passed through the metal casing and into the circuitry within, shorting every diode, relay and resistor. The ScannerBot, mere inches from Ellie, collapsed like a house of cards, scanners scattering across the floor like loose change. The emergency lighting dimmed, before shutting off completely. In the resulting darkness, nothing hummed, crackled, nor blinked.
SPIMS was dead.

Next Aisle: Chapter 14