My systems were beginning to wake themselves up from the reboot. Four thousand, five hundred and twenty three corrupted / damaged files were put into my system’s quarantine to be permanently deleted. After running a diagnostic, most of my speech impediment was repaired and should be functioning normally. A series of program relocations would make my movements more efficient to make up for the time spent walking through radiation. The reboot process was nearly complete.

Harsh noises were erupted around me and I could hear the sounds of shouting, sounded like Lucy. My vision was dialing in and I could see that I was in a poorly lit tunnel, were sparks flew off from the walls. The sparks were from bullets pelted the walls of the tunnel. We were still in the sewer and I was being dragged. Upon looking up, I saw that it was Norman pulling my limp body while Lucy fired back at the unknown enemy at the opposite end of the tunnel.

My hands formed into a fist and I could start to feel the index of my fingers. The reboot was working wonders for my coordination. Above us I could see an exposed manhole cover, where dim light was pouring from its edges. I pointed upwards towards the opening and spoke;

“Manhole.”

Norman’s head shot towards me and then lifted up towards the opening. He yelled for Lucy and pointed up towards the manhole. The ladder for the manhole was being held up by a chain that kept it in place beside the cover. Lucy fired two more rounds at the group of clinks who were trudging through the sewer, missing pieces of themselves which were recently blown off by machine gun fire. When my optical were at full functionality, I could see that there were five that were functional enough to continue pursuing us.

The chain attached to the ladder was far too high for any of us to reach, even if we were lifted. Lucy was frantically looking around for a solution under gunfire.

“Shoot the chain,” I said.

Lucy look stunned at hearing me so clearly, and then she aimed her rifle towards the target and fired twice. The chain let go rather easily from the rust and the bullet, causing the rusty ladder to come sliding down between us. There was no way we could stay exposed long enough to climb the ladder, not without being pelted by a hail of gunfire. The sewer was filled with dust all along the base, where the water should’ve been flowing.

Lucy was waiting behind the corner of a turn-off tunnel for a chance to move, but instead I yelled out to her.

“shoot the dust!”

Lucy met my eyes that were looking at the piles of dust and rubbish. She fired a series of shots into the piles that blew up in a cloud of dust, impairing the clinks from determining where we were. The adjacent gunfire came to a pause.

Norman helped me off from the ground and we both join Lucy at the bottom of the ladder, where she was the first to begin climbing. Norman’s eyes met mine for a moment and I could see that his optical was twitching as if there was something interrupting them from properly adjusting. What was wrong with him, I wondered.

When it came my turn to climb the ladder the cloud of rust was disrupted by five clinks who were charging through the cloud towards us. When I was nearing the manhole opening, they fired at the sewer wall mistakenly thinking it was me. Thankfully I managed to make it out the sewer before it came crumbling down on them similarly to the cathedral.

The quiet, Paris Street seemed undisturbed by the fight which occurred below its street. I kept questioning what the cause of it all was from. My last memory was waiting in the sewer with Lucy while Norman was offline.  They managed to find us that quickly?

Lucy and Norman were waiting at the entrance of the manhole for me, crouching in the middle of the street to regroup.

“Where are we, how did they manage to find us?” I asked.

Norman and Lucy were surprised at my ability to provide clear sentences without the impediment of my damaged programming.

“Henry, your voice!” exclaimed Lucy. She spent years listening to me, and now finally I was speaking clearly.

“The reboot must’ve fixed it, but I can’t remember much else besides escaping the church.”

“Same as I, Norman was dragging us from the sewer entrance before I awoke.”

Norman was turned away from us, trying to look like he was scanning the street from threats. His hand was beginning to twitch like his eyes. Memory corruption, no doubt. I don’t remember him being this bad.

“What happened Norman, how did they find us?”

He only gave us a glance before replying;

“While you two were rebooting, they passed by the sewer entrance and opened fire.”

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