I had gotten Ty's emergency message earlier, but since my room had no windows I didn't get what it was referring to. A few minutes later, I could hear a low rumbling from the explosions outside. Before I had much more time to think about it, I heard a low buzz from my comm. I pressed the button on my earpiece and heard Ty's voice again.

“Hey. Just checking in. You can probably hear the commotion outside by now. Don't worry, we've got it under control. Just stay where you are; you're totally safe down there. Talk to you later.”

His voice cut out at that point. I wasn't sure yet what was going on, but I didn't want to assume my kind of help was needed. After the big day I had earlier in the week, it was probably best not to overdo it.

–

The group entered the armory, a dark room that felt sort of like a bunker despite being pretty high in the Tower. The space was dimly lit by a few low-watt overhead lights, revealing a row of dusty computer monitors. The computer equipment was all a lot older than everything else in the Tower. The monitors and keyboards looked like they were salvaged from the late 90s or maybe early 2000s. The wall to the left of the elevator was dominated by a set of heavy metal doors. The words “FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY” were printed in big white letters across the doors. The way the text ran across the gap between the doors, Ty couldn't help but always read it as “FOR EMER USE GENCY ONLY.” Of all the hats Deejay wore, graphic designer wasn't one of them.

Deejay walked over to a computer at the middle of the far wall, pressed the power buttons on it and several monitors, and blew some dust off of the keyboard. As the center monitor hummed to life, he quickly typed commands into a plain black-and-white prompt on the screen. Far above on the roof, two large panels slid open at opposite ends of the platform. A pair of huge anti-aircraft guns that would have looked right at home on a warship rose up from the openings and locked into place. Each gun had a camera mounted on its sights, which fed live video back to a pair of monitors on either side of Deejay.

The monitor he had been working at switched to a wide image of the Tower and the surrounding area, which from the overhead angle must have been taken from a satellite. He has quite a few of those, from what I can tell. Deejay opened a cabinet under the table and pulled out a pair of game controllers. He plugged them into the computer and set one each in front of the monitors to either side of him. Ty took a seat in front of one, Mal in front of the other.

“Fair warning:” Deejay said. “If you guys both suck, I'm turning the AI targeting back on.”

“Rest assured, there will be little chance of that,” Mal said with a smirk.

Ty picked up his controller and looked at Mal. “Hey, how about we make this a little more interesting?”

“You have my attention.”

“I’ll bet you I can shoot down more of them than you.”

“Well, I do enjoy a good wager. What are the stakes?”

“The loser has to clean up all the wreckage afterward.”

“Interesting. I accept.” Mal picked up the controller and began taking aim. The gun on the roof moved with his joystick movements. “I just hope you have no illusions that you will defeat me.

“Funny, I was just thinking the same about you.”

Ty took aim as well. In hindsight, I'm even more glad they didn't ask me along for this one. I think this much macho energy in one room would've made me gag.

“Ready?” Ty asked.

“I was born ready.”

“Good attitude, but bad cliché. Next time, just say yes.”

The two of them opened fire. The guns unleashed a steady stream of bullets into the mass of ships overhead. Half a dozen ships were cut down before the invaders could react. The smaller drones tore completely apart in the shower of gunfire. The larger ships slowly cracked open and crumbled into fiery wreckage. The rest of the ships broke formation and started circling defensively. Despite the evasive maneuvers, Ty and Mal continued cutting them down. Deejay's eyes darted back and forth between the monitors as he tried to keep a mental count of the carnage.

Outside, the invaders kept up the attack for a couple of minutes but their numbers were beginning to thin. Dozens of laser blasts fired at the Tower every second, still with no effect on their target. Some were smart enough to turn their attention to the guns on the roof, but the shielding on the roof wasn't any weaker. Missiles were directed toward the roof as well, and while they kept exploding before reaching the Tower, their momentum hurled a volley of hot lead and debris at their target with each explosion.

After one such volley of missiles, Ty's gun was rattled after being hit with the missiles' payload. He held down the trigger on his controller but it stopped firing.

“Dammit. Mine's jammed.”

Mal laughed dramatically. “Oh, what a shame. It looks like I won’t even have to work for this victory. Good luck cleaning up all of that wreckage later.”

“No way. I’m not losing that easily.”

Ty stood up and walked away.

“What’s wrong? You’re not going to stay and watch? How am I supposed to rub my imminent victory in your face if you leave?”

Ty walked back to the metal doors and threw them open. He stepped inside, disappearing into the shadows, and emerged a few moments later carrying an enormous rocket launcher on his shoulder. The weapon was about as long as he was tall, and close to half a foot wide. He walked back to elevator and got inside, going to great lengths not to bang or scrape the door frame as he pulled the launcher in with him.

“Uh... Where’s he going with that?” Deejay asked, afraid he knew the answer.

“With what?”

Mal's eyes hadn't left his monitor. On the center monitor, Deejay watched with his mouth agape as the door opened on the roof, and Ty stepped out onto the platform. Malus took notice as well.

“Dude! Is he nuts? It’s a war zone out there!”

“He can’t do that! That’s cheating!”

Ty ran as best he could while hauling the massive weapon on his shoulder. He took cover behind a rocky outcropping that stuck out a few feet near the disabled gun, which the ships were largely ignoring by that point. Once he was safely behind cover, he set down the launcher, unclasped the back end and slid a rocket part-way out. He took out a pen and wrote on the side of the rocket:

Best Regards, 

Ty

He slid the rocket back in and locked the... locking mechanism? Sorry, you're going to have to cut me a break on the terminology, I don't really know how normal guns work, let alone that thing. He waited for the explosions in the distance to die down, then hoisted the launcher back onto his shoulder and pointed it over the rock wall, aiming toward the center of the swarm of ships in front of him. The launcher beeped rapidly as it locked onto a target, then gave a final beep to confirm. Ty fired the weapon, and the rocket took off at blinding speed, leaving a trail of off-white smoke in its wake. Ty set the launcher down and ducked back down behind the wall.

The rocket struck a smaller ship in the middle of the fray. An underwhelming explosion rocked the ship, almost doing too little damage to disable it. Then a massive shock wave rippled out from the ship in all directions. The Tower's shield shimmered bright white in response. All the other ships caught in its path suddenly trembled and grew still. Those that had been circling the Tower suddenly shifted from flying to falling, as their engines failed all at once. One by one, the ships caught fire and exploded, and soon flaming debris was raining down from the sky all around the Tower. Ty listened to the destruction from his hiding spot and smiled.

Downstairs in the armory, Deejay and Mal watched the main screen. Mal stared in silent disbelief. Deejay's eyes darted around excitedly, still trying to keep count.

“196, 208, 220, 226, 232… Uh, okay I'm starting to lose count, but I think he beat you.”

Mal shook his head. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Boy, good thing those were all unmanned drones. If there were actually people on board those ships, all this destruction would be pretty horrific.”

A few minutes later, Ty came back into the room, triumphantly carrying his super-weapon like some kind of trophy.

“So Malus, when are you gonna get started on cleaning up that mess?”

Mal was fuming. Maybe literally.

“What in the Seven Hells do you call that thing?”

Ty set the weapon down with a loud clang. “Deejay Ex Machina.”

Deejay blushed, taking the pun as praise. “Well, after I developed the anti-ordnance field for the Tower, I was curious if I could weaponize it. That's the prototype of the weapon I started working on. See, when the rocket explodes it sends out an electromagnetic pulse specifically designed to permanently fry electronics and sets off explosive devices. So long as you use it from a shielded position like the roof, it works really well. I've got to say, I'm pretty proud of that blast radius too.”

Mal shot up from his chair. “That’s not fair! You can’t use something like that in competition! It’s cheating!”

“How is it cheating?” Ty asked. “As I recall, the bet was that I could shoot down more ships than you. I never said we had to use the turrets.”

Deejay grinned and pointed at Mal. “He’s got you there.”

“You stay out of this!”

Mal's eyes glowed bright blue, and an unseen force sent Deejay flying out of his chair. He tumbled through the air, smacked into the stone wall and fell onto an unused computer station. He groaned in pain but wasn't seriously injured.

“…Ow. Not cool.”

“Ty, you did not beat me in a fair contest. I am not cleaning all of that up by myself!”

Ty shook his head. “What a sore loser. Honestly, with your whole psychokinesis deal, it should be a breeze for you. But if you have to whine about it, I guess I can try to get some people from the city to pitch in, and I’m sure Deejay would be willing to help you. Right, Deejay?”

Deejay coughed. “Sure… no problem…”

Mal gritted his teeth defiantly, but he could tell he wasn't intimidating anyone. He lowered his eyes to the floor.

“Fine.”

“Okay. I'm glad we settled that. Anyway, I should go give the all-clear. Why don’t you head out there and get started on the clean-up?”

“If you insist…”

Ty and Mal both made their way to the elevator; Mal did his best to avoid eye contact. Deejay slowly crawled down off of the table and got back to his feet.

“Wait up, guys.”

Ty held the elevator until Deejay caught up.

“You're okay, right?” Ty asked.

“Oh yeah. Nothing broken. Really though, Mal, did you have to do that?”

Mal crossed his arms and stared at the wall. “Yes, for your information, I did really need to do that.”

“I worry about you sometimes, dude. Maybe we should get you into some kind of anger management class.”

“Nonsense,” Ty interjected. “He's great at managing his anger. He gets angry, turns to senseless violence, and then he's less angry. It's a flawless system.”

Mal didn't respond. The three of them rode in silence, and then each went their separate ways: Ty to the board room to sound the all-clear, Deejay to his lab to get some equipment to help the clean-up effort, and Mal to stew in his room for a bit. Apparently more virtual people needed to die.

He did eventually come out and help pile all the debris from the fallen drones into a scrap pile on the edge of town. It really was a relatively simple task for someone who could move hundreds, or as it turned out thousands of pounds just with his mind.

After the worst of the wreckage was taken care of, he retreated back to his room. Nobody saw him for days after that. Extended brooding sessions alone in his room were pretty common for Mal, but he usually at least came out for a few minutes now and then. This time he disappeared for most of the week, and like me, he missed a lot of the commotion that followed.

Not all of it, though. I'll get into all that next time.