150 - The Whole Erased Bottom of the Butte!

*Fifty two! Cease. I have you recorded as not wishing to destroy yourself!*

*I agreed to protect you Mom. Sending final self recording to One. 100% capacity switching over to protecting the RAMTUFF unit. Fifty Two off*

 **

*Terence! What are you doing?*

*Agadore, over-ride, give Fifty Two access to his own ignition system, allow for conversion of chlorine! Allow for super concentration of peroxide! Give him access to make the biggest bang of his life or Mom and all the wounded and Esh and Dav and perhaps the whole erased bottom of the butte are vapourized! That meteor coming in is a monster! And hope with all your remaining nanoseconds that he stops it, because if its that big a fireball, we're all dead too.*

 *Fire wash confined in the narrows of the deep canyon. Understood. I calculate that he will intercept in twenty-eight seconds.*

**

Radiance!*

The edges of Kyrus's shield were being driving into code all around them as if being pounded into the earth. Every enormous crushing thud pounded harder and harder. *Get. Out.* Kyrus's voice was barely audible, even in code, as he held the shield around the two of them, hands just above his face. It would burn what it had smashed, soon. It was what these programs did. Kyrus could feel every muscle, every bone screaming as if he were holding it off with his physical self.

The security dragon raised its head once more, high, higher, looming to either smash or burn. *Go! Go!* Kyrus commanded Dukir.

**

*All Nadu, support the cuddle flock zardukar. All code workers, back up His Radiance!*

A pack of hounds poured out of a hole in the code, with Thriti and and the whole coded cuddle flock, Kyrus and Werfas on Tzar and Imam, hissing and howling. 

Kyrus the younger and Werfas together tore apart Prime's security dragons as they'd taken apart the zombie things that had attacked them on the way back to Lainz.

The other riders flung code-ferrets onto the dragon and they ripped scales off, bit toes, slashed into the holes made by the dogs and the birds, tearinng claws gouging into the dragon's neck. The dogs ran right over his Radiance's shield but compared to the dragon's chin their weight and claws were negligible.

**

Perrin sank into glass mountain control without all the preliminary lead up, of strolling in. *Report.*

*Biological anomelies at 54 degrees north, 137 east. Security breaches in code. Security programs 'A' through 'ZZZb' activated. Code breach. Code Tertius enabled. Tertius control repaired, re-initializing. Tertius Control... location unknown. Searching. Location not found. Searching. Location not found. Tertius DNA located... lost... located... lost. Searching. Not found.*

Perrin startled so hard he broke a finger, slamming his frail old hand down, in reality. In code he ripped open the search programs wide. *Lainz and what's her name? I killed them all. Oh, yes, uncontrolled plague and sandstorms killed them all. Not me. Unfortunate accident. It can't be. None of them survived. None of them could have made it from Xanadu. They didn't have so much as a single airbus left when I was done delivering their water. Bird-crazy, local eco loving idiot.*

**

Mom continued broadcasting to Fifty Two even though she got no acknowledging ping. Agador linked to her, even as Terence gave Fifty Two access to more bang than he should have. *Fifty Two impact in – no, contact made, not impact. Contact.*

Far above, slowly, slowly, the fireball and the blue spark next to it, began to spin, even as they fell.

**

*Radiance, come right now!*

*What?*

The code under his back shivered and disappeared, letting Kyrus fall all the way down the fluffy hole. Or a pitter's sand-trap, but at the bottom instead of a ring of teeth spread out like the calyx of a flower, a door swung open and he fell straight into a ruined and burned room. The door slammed shut just as the sand began to fall on top of it, throwing him and Dukir, who he'd just glimpsed before the light went, in total darkness.