Noor and Jane fled quickly, fearing it would be their turn after this robotic spider. They did not entertain the idea that the golden robot was helping them at all. Escaping was better than taking a risk and waiting for the robot to finish off the spider and welcome them; that was not guaranteed at all, given the circumstances surrounding them. They opted to escape while the robots destroyed each other.
They ran amidst the tall buildings under the bright sunlight, which guided them with its golden lines on the ground. After five minutes of non-stop running, Noor signaled for Jane, who was panting heavily, to stop. He turned right into an alley and motioned for her to follow him, which she did. They entered the narrow alley, which contained some garbage cans and pipes extending between the buildings to supply them with water and gas.
They stopped and leaned against the wall to rest, unable to believe what they had seen. A robot attacking another robot! In all these strange events, the common thread was that the robots were cooperating with each other. But what they saw now proved to them that there were many things they did not yet understand, and that their questions were increasing, with no answers so far. Noor looked at the sky and breathed a sigh of relief, trying to get his heart rate back to normal. He felt like a fish that had been caught and taken out of the water for a few minutes, then thrown back in again.
He looked at Jane, who was also catching her breath, trying to control her heart rate and normal breathing, and the flood of emotions that was flowing within her, her cheeks flushed. Noor sighed. "We miraculously survived."
Jane nodded, exhaustion evident in her eyes. "It... was... the end... was near," she said, catching her breath with difficulty.
"Yes, but it’s thanks to that golden robot. It saved us, but I don’t know why it did that."
"And you probably never will," Jane replied sarcastically.
"You’re such a moving ball of pessimism," Noor said, laughing.
Jane laughed a broken laugh, struggling for breath. "Do you want me to be optimistic in these circumstances? I’ll try to do that, but I can’t promise you."
Noor laughed and motioned for her to continue walking. They began to cross the alley, contemplating the gloomy place with great care. There were cats jumping into garbage cans at times and fighting with each other at other times. They reached the end of the alley and found a wide square in front of them. Noor signaled for Jane to stop, then leaned his head out of the alley, looking in all directions to make sure there was no danger. He got down on his knees, took the binoculars from his backpack, and scanned the entire area. In the middle of the square, he found a beautiful fountain decorated with mosaics, and in the middle of it were two statues of people leaning their bodies toward each other, holding a water jug in their hands, pouring water into the large basin of the fountain. And on the horizon to the right was a university building of exquisite beauty. It consisted of several adjacent buildings with a tiled roof, and in front of it were several gardens, trees, and a large, majestic clock in the air, suspended between two flat columns; its celestial blue color added joy and beauty to it, and next to it was a hospital. The source of this content ɪs 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⚑𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⚑𝕟𝕖𝕥
Noor examined the place well with his binoculars and saw that the place was completely devoid of any sign of life. He signaled for Jane to follow him. She nodded without saying a word and walked behind him. They crossed the square, admiring the breathtaking scenery around them of trees and wonderfully designed buildings. Noor looked around and felt that someone was watching them.
As they walked past the empty shops, the billboards hanging around, and the parked cars covered in dust, Noor stopped for a moment. He felt again that someone was watching them. He didn’t know who, or why, but he always trusted his intuition, and his intuition told him they were being watched. He kept looking in all directions. Jane interrupted his train of thought.
"Why did you stop? Did something happen?"
"Wait a moment," he said, engrossed in contemplating the place around him. "I feel like we’re being watched."
Jane looked around in all directions with tension and apprehension. "You must be imagining things," she said with concern. "There’s no one here but us. I don’t see anyone."
Noor kept looking around, then shouted loudly, "Who are you?! Show yourself!"
Noor noticed a robot jump from the top of the building behind him to ambush him, but he quickly turned, grabbed the robot’s hand as it was descending, and lifted it over his shoulder to throw it on the ground. He reached for the jewel on its head and pulled it out with great difficulty. The robot shut down and did not move. Jane was astonished and terror at this surprise.
"Jane, I think there are more," Noor said, looking around cautiously. "Get ready."
Noor created a white shield one meter long made of bulletproof Kevlar. He gave the shield to Jane, while she drew a pistol from its sheath. Noor also drew his pistol in preparation for the upcoming confrontation and created another shield to protect himself.
Five robots emerged from the top of the buildings and landed on the ground, all of them surrounding Noor and Jane, giving them orders in a strange, incomprehensible language. Then they fired fiercely at them, but the shields protected them well.
Noor raised his pistol and returned fire, trying to hit one of them, but he couldn’t. The robots’ magazines ran out, so they dropped their weapons and turned to hand-to-hand combat to capture them as hostages and take them to their stronghold to make horrible experiments on their bodies.