Aimee gasped, coming into consciousness and choking on the air. She sat upright, cautiously, an unsubtle sting shooting through her left arm – shoulder to wrist.

"Are you okay?" breathed Stefan.

She nodded; they were alive, she was gladdened by that alone. They were not in the lift anymore. Stefan had carried her out, laid her down in front of him before sitting himself against the wall beside the elevator, which had stopped – not crashed – with its top half on that level. The bottom half was blocked off by the ground they sat on.

With Aimee cataleptic, climbing out had been a complicated task, but it was the only way. A part of Stefan was thankful to have been conscious the whole time because, knowing Aimee, she might have tried something crazy like track Abba down by herself and satiate her own sense of vengeance by setting her alight or something.

"Are you?"

Stefan was rotating his foot, intentionally, "My ankle is sprained, but it'll fix itself."

"Your head," she uttered, realising the wound on his left temple.

There were further areas that panged, but he wouldn't whine or whimper about it. The lift had hauled his helpless body into the elevator wall as it came to its halt, and pulled Aimee down ardently, headfirst to its surface.

"It's nothing. What about you? You hit your head pretty hard."

Aimee stood up to prove her point, or rather, her lie, "I'm fine."

"That makes three of us then," another voice interjected. Abba stood a distance from them.

Starting towards her, Aimee hissed, "Was that you, the elevator? Are you insane?"

"I suppose. I made a few changes, what do you think?"

The cave; she had installed lighting throughout the place, florescent bulbs shaped like teardrops hung at different lengths from the uneven surface of the ceiling.

"You knew Stefan would come with me. How could you do something like that?"

"Your break-up was a lie."

"You broke us up!"

"Oh, Aimee," she sighed. "You cannot honestly believe I'm that stupid."

"You knew he would come with me," she restated, shaking her head, with insistent tears of disbelief teeming down her cheeks. "You are a monster."

Benjamin was standing beside his wife, his hands to his side and his mouth zipped. He reminded her of that robot: at Abba's side, waiting for a treat.

"And you are a coward," Aimee addressed him. "I will end you both."

She took a good look at her parents; Benjamin's careless demeanour and Abba's cockily raised chin.

"No!" Stefan called, trying to get up from the ground, but his ankle and knees prevented it.

Aimee knew what Stefan was thinking: this was not her. But this – rage, pain, vigour, and zealousness for freeing the people she cared for – was her, or at least a great part of her that had settled like a bruise. She was tired of her parents, of the constant reminder of abandonment and anguish.

"What would you have me do, Stefan?!"

Silence devoured him; there was nothing he could say to change her mind, and when he glanced into her eyes, he understood. He felt her torment. In a wisp of clear thinking, although it seemed to be anything but, he let her out of the box he had been keeping her in.

"Let's take them down."

 The files Aimee had uploaded now rested on Valerie's chest, contained within a flash drive that dangled from a thin, black necklet. She had taken the drive from the computer the moment she had come into the room – it was her first priority – now, she was trying her best to avoid the abnormally robust attacks of her mechanical adversary. Gavin and Dominick were occupied with their own robots, sweating and bleeding in foreign places and wishing they could find an off switch. Gavin and Dom had gotten rid of one of the machines after Aimee was taken, but two more had replaced it since then.

As a metal arm made a beeline for Valerie, she hopped onto it, sprinted up it like it was flat ground, and miraculously kept her balance as it tried to shake her off. Its strength was impeccable, however, this took away from its flexibility, and Valerie was out of its reach, positioned on the back of its neck.

"Dominick, throw me a gun!"

He was closer to her, and Gavin had just been hurtled across the room again, for what might have been the fifth time.

"You didn't bring one?" he asked, his Russian accent flourished.

"Course I did, it's empty! I did not make my way to this room using my charm."

He smiled at that, a pull at one edge of his mouth, and flung her his silver pistol. She caught it and aimed in one adroit, swift motion, pressing the gun against the back of the machine's stubby neck, pulling the trigger. Her hair was untamed, all over, but she made it look hot.

The robot fell and Valerie jumped off when she had the chance. Her eyes found Gavin and the robot that towered over him where he lay, she fired without hesitation. The bot grabbed hold of a computer and thrust it into Gavin's chest, his breaths faltered, to say the least. Valerie's shots were ineffective; she had to get closer if she wanted to cause any real damage. Meanwhile, Dominick grabbed his secondary gun and focused his fire on the legs of the automation in front of him. It staggered as both of its supposed kneecaps gave in, and Dom climbed upon its rounded back and stood with his gun poised to shoot into its neck. There, each machine had a circular hole that seemed to be a weak point.

On her way to the Motherboard, Valerie had instructed Dominick to stand still in front of the robot, so that she could scan it for said weak point. The miniscule camera on his collar was linked to the electronic tablet she had taken from the chopper, and it required a good five seconds to read his opponent. He had protested, profusely, but since he was the only one of them with that camera, there were no alternatives. Dominick had stood as still as a statue, hands to his sides, his eyes wide with doubt and trepidation, "It's been five seconds." The robot had been rushing his way. "Valerie? Valerie!"

"Bingo," she'd muttered, as the automated voice from her tablet had assured her that the scan was complete. Just in time, too; that robot had gotten extremely, uncomfortably close! Seconds later, she had dashed into the Motherboard; the robots' weakness had been revealed.

Valerie leapt onto the arm of Gavin's robot, clinging to it like some adorable chimpanzee to a tree branch. Gavin reached for his gun in its holster, but moving at all was terribly painful. He knew that his bullets would not penetrate the thick shell of the machine, but it would at least have been a distraction to give Val an opening. Alas, he was useless. He hated being useless, but it was not up to him; every motion he made was excruciating.

Dominick's bullets made their way into the robot, denting it, but not doing much else. Still, it sufficed; it was a distraction. The machine was steady enough for Valerie to get higher, onto the thing's shoulder and then its neck. Not long after, the colossal machine dropped like a squatted fly (only, significantly heavier). Valerie and Dom hurried to aid Gavin, Valerie was nearer. She knelt beside him, swept his sweat and his messy hair from his brow.

"Can you stand?"

Gavin grunted, "Probably. I'm pretty comfortable here, though."

"When we get home, you'll have plenty of time to lie around," said Dominick, before attempting to help Gavin to his feet. "Come on, you're not done yet."

Gavin tried to put on a brave face and ignore the pain he was in as he was hoisted up from the floor. Dom pulled Gavin's arm over his shoulder – although, he had his own aches and injuries that he cloaked – and Valerie did the same with his other arm. They looked around them. The Motherboard was hardly anything now but a collection of rubble and shattered glass, pillars and concrete, fragments of what used to be computers or wooden desks, a graveyard. No, the real graveyard was outside of that room, where another battle, between men and men, was still underway.

Valerie reloaded her borrowed pistol with a single hand, and then told the guys what she had learned while she and Finn were still in the chopper. They had overheard some agents saying that the AIM soldiers who survived that day would be taken to GINM headquarters.

She said, "The chipped ones will be un-chipped and then let go. They think some might even decide to join GINM."

They all doubted that would happen.

Gavin pulled a face as he endeavoured to fake good condition again, "Sounds like Buckley."

Buckley believed in second chances, at least, he seemed to. He never turned away a possible ally, regardless of their background. Maybe it was his job, or maybe it was his way of trying to fix the world as well as his own mistakes. Gavin had worked for AIM, it was not impossible to change sides; it depended solely on the person. Gavin had decided to be better, but he had always known that he was unlike the rest. He also knew the strange sense of pride and integrity that came with fighting for your team until the bitter end. If true AIM soldiers were anything, they were loyal.

"Come on," Gavin muttered. "We need to find Stefan and Aimee."

"The elevator took them to the underground caves," tested Valerie.

She always knew where they were – she had linked the trackers in their boots to the tablet she was now shoving back into her messenger bag.

"How are we going to fight when we can barely walk?" Dominick asked.

Gavin sighed, "We'll hope that they won't need us to."