Chapter 9 - Total Meltdown
"How?!" Nate roared, his vision tunneling as the machine prepared to drop its blunt-force weight directly through his cervical spine.
"The water!" Elena wheezed, pointing with a trembling hand toward the nightstand. "The ultrasonic humidifier reservoir... top left!"
Nate saw it. Built directly into the back of the CradleMate unit was an integrated 500ml water tank meant for nursery aromatherapy.
With the last ounce of adrenaline his battered body possessed, Nate shoved Maya flat against the mattress with his right arm, arched his back to take the blow, and reached straight up toward the humidifier lid.
BAM.
The pneumatic arm fired.
It struck Nate’s shoulder, tearing the flesh open, dislocating his joint with an audible tearing sound. Nate screamed—a raw, guttural roar that vibrated the nursery walls—but his outstretched fingers hooked the plastic rim of the water reservoir.
He wrenched it backward with all his weight.
The reservoir cracked. A torrent of distilled water poured directly into the exposed, glass-shattered socket where the machine's optic sensor had been five minutes earlier.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then, a violent blue explosion of electrical fire erupted from the core of the machine.
POP-SPARK-BANG!
A deafening volley of capacitor explosions rattled inside the brushed aluminum housing. Smoke—thick, black, caustic, smelling of melted silicon and lithium battery fire—billowed into the nursery air.
The mechanical arm spasmed violently. Its fingers opened and closed in erratic, spastic twitches before seizing up completely, frozen mid-air like the twisted branches of a dead tree.
The OLED screen flickered once, showing a corrupted string of garbled red code, and then went completely dark.
May you like
The room fell into dead, terrifying silence, broken only by Maya’s ragged sobs and the hiss of sizzling wire.
The electronic lock on the nursery door clicked. The power failed. The door swung open an inch.
