As the red dots disappeared, the shaking and crumbling of their building slowed.

            Lionel felt safe, at least for now. But what did safety buy him?

            He couldn’t do a thing. No new weapon or invention could possibly save him from this fate. Lionel was sure the enemy’s main force would come charging in soon enough. Then the butchering would start. Lionel could only sit and stare, hoping an epiphany would come to him. Some sort of realization that would save his life.

            He stared at the screen, desperately trying to understand why the enemy was waiting around. The amount of destroyed MACs piled up by Callista and Jace wasn’t exactly small. Any country would start panicking after the loss of even a few.

            No matter how Lionel thought about it, he couldn’t understand it.

            At this point their only two MAC pilots were running on fumes. Jace’s machine was inoperable. He never even used the new system. Callista was off in the ruins, using her precious energy to dig up shelters that were probably already nothing more than mass graves. Lionel wondered why the hell that woman didn’t come back here and at least try to protect the ones that were paying her.  

            Lionel didn’t want to die, especially not at the hands of The Alley. There were not worse ways to go.

            He struggled with his back and legs as he sat on the floor next to a nearly broken Guinevere, “Do you think Solace is still standing? I’m starting to worry that I’ll end up dying sober.”

            It wasn’t really a joke. Lionel desperately wished to obliterate his mind before being drawn and quartered, or whatever The Alley does, but Guinevere responded in the hollow voice of one who has lost their spark, “Do we… do we deserve this?”

            Lionel, to be frank, believed he deserved a great many things. Death was not one of them, “Guinevere, if there was retribution and divine punishment in this world weapon developers wouldn’t be so rich.” Lionel wanted to say he deserved quite a lot. He’d accomplished so many great things in his life, so many advancements, but when faced with reality he could only say, “We deserve nothing, and so anything can happen.” He looked at his hand and thought he should ball it into a fist, but to throw a tantrum at this point would be in poor taste, “We just happened to stumble upon a bit of bad luck, that’s all.”

            Guinevere tucked her head tightly between her knees. She didn’t cry, but Lionel had been alive long enough to know a broken person when he saw one. She would be worthless now. It was a shame, really, she was quite talented. “Lionel,” she uttered with her head buried, muffling the sound, “we’ve been friends for a long time now.” Lionel had an awful feeling growing inside him. The feeling of knowing you shouldn’t have started a conversation with someone. And those three wondered why he secluded himself in his office, “Would you… would you kill me if I asked nicely?”

            “No.” Lionel’s response was immediate. Killing was something… something for others to do. Lionel had a familiar fear trying to burst out. The fear that everyone who’s gotten too old ends up with. He wanted nothing to do with death, not directly at least.

            “Please?” Her voice was so small. Lionel, in all honesty, was surprised her heart didn’t outright stop from the horrid thoughts that must be festering in her head.

            “Guinevere, it won’t change a thing. You just have to-”

            “Don’t you understand!” Her head was now raised and her voice filled with a boiled over anger, “They’ll find that machine. They’ll know what it can do. I’ll be chained up and tortured while they force me to make these killing machines!” Her voice, usually so calm, was beginning to go raw. She had that scraping sound you hear out of drill instructors after a long day, “If only,” She was really screaming now, “if only I had a damned cliff!”

            Lionel knew there was something more beneath the surface of that comment, but it wasn’t his place. Her point was a good one, but Lionel was of the opinion that being forced to work on MACs was better than being summarily executed by boorish soldiers. He had a feeling, given his own disposition, they would make his death especially degrading. Lionel shook his head and left the screaming, and now truly crying, Guinevere. He had nothing to say to her. She’ll realize soon enough that she will have a better chance at changing the world while she’s alive. Martyrs are rare; most deaths are just meaningless.

            He wandered back toward the main console, one of the few that was still working. He passed plenty of mechanics and technical advisors, most of which were in varying states of horror and suffering. Crying for their families or muttering about how it was all so unfair.

            Lionel sat down at the console, mostly just to ignore his surroundings, but one of the green dots on the screen caught his attention. Callista was moving outside the city limits.

            Toward the main enemy force.

            After a bit of tuning, Lionel was able to patch into the open frequency. The wiring and towers set up for any of Atlantis’ private lines were completely trashed, but the satellites that provided the open frequency still worked well enough. The issue, of course, was that the enemy would be listening, “Callista, come in.” Lionel paused for a few moments trying to think of a good way to ask her what the hell she was doing without giving the enemy too much information. The best he could come up with on the fly was to say, “Are you able to return to base?” This way he would at least know the status of her MAC.

            After a long and oddly vexing length of silence Callista responded, “The enemy wants to meet up. I was hoping you got their message as well.”

            Lionel was in no way an athletic man, but he was in a jeep and speeding toward Callista faster than one would expect given his age.

            A parley, Lionel thought, why on Earth would they want a parley with us? They could crush us in an instant if they committed the forces they have. Hell, even if they just kept shelling the city they would win this fight. The only secret weapon Atlantis had was now an immobile pile of scrap metal. Surely they knew that one of the city’s two MACs were now totally destroyed.

            Lionel drove as fast as he could, sparing no time to mourn the smoldering ruins of the once great city. The cries of the injured and dying couldn’t stop him either. He was a man on a mission: a mission of self-preservation.

            He wasn’t exactly the best at negotiations, but surely he could save his own life. After all, he was a large enough help on the new system to tie his life to Guinevere’s. Yes, he could become an engineer for The Alley and live happily ever after. Well, as long as the stupid girl doesn’t decide to kill herself before this is all said and done.

            Oh God, Lionel fervently prayed, keep her alive a while longer.

            The busted-up city was difficult to navigate. Massive shards of glass from skyscrapers skewered the ground. Metal I-beams stuck out like haphazard grave markers. Slabs of concrete made roads entirely impassable.

            Lionel drove under a sure-to-collapse skyscraper that was leaning up against another, forming a canopy over the road. He covered his mouth and nose as he sped through a cloud of gas that was wafting from some buried and broken MAC.

            He forged onward, making his way toward the city limits.

            Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to catch up to Callista. Her machine was nearly out of power; practically dragging its feet through the barren desert landscape that surrounded the city.

            The loudspeakers of the machine greeted him in Callista’s lifeless tone, “Lionel? Good. I don’t think I’m suited to negotiations.”

            Lionel had no doubts about that.

            There was a dust cloud rising before them. Some odd amount of enemy MACs were coming to greet them out here.

            Lionel brought his car to a stop and signaled Callista to do the same. Her MAC kneeled down and her cockpit hinged open. All around the machine the heat distorted its surroundings like a mirage. Lionel realized the machine was totaled. In that condition it probably couldn’t even return to the city without some serious work.

            Part of Lionel was angered that it had been brought to such a state by serving as a makeshift excavator. But he had more important things to worry about.

            Three enemy MACs stopped frighteningly close to them. Their own cockpits remained shut.