Rip stopped to catch his breath. While resting, he decided to take stock of his inventory.

Killing enhanced robots had proven to be a difficult endeavor, and his supplies were limited, especially without the vampires.

He grimaced looking at his depleted enhanced ammunition. He glumly broke the top of a Webley and ejected the shells before sliding six more in, then repeated the procedure on the other gun.

His sticks of dynamite were in better shape.

Of course, you have to get the dynamite inside the robot to make it count, he thought. That meant shooting its eyes out with enhanced bullets . . . that are in short supply.

Up ahead, he heard the deep throttling sound of a heavy engine, followed by the roar of cannon fire.

“That’s different. Maybe the Venture Society got here already.”

He holstered the reloaded guns and took off running down the street.

Ahead, looming in the glow of stars and gaslight, St. Paul’s Cathedral loomed over the skyline. The two robots headed toward it, systematically ripping open gas lines all along the way.

Someone had turned the gas flow off, evidently, because there were no more fires in this area, and the street lamps were dark here.

Either that, Rip thought, or so much gas is burning up elsewhere that nothing is getting this far.

But the robots had little in the way of critical thinking skills. They continued the assignment tasked to them.

At each lamppost, they stopped and ripped up the cobblestones to dig down to the gas pipe, which they promptly broke. Then they climbed out of the hole and moved to the next lamppost.

Rip ran up closer to them and stopped. Looking through the darkness he could see a large force assembled against the bots. Facing them were three huge armored vehicles, with cannons on top that were mounted on rotating turrets. Each vehicle also had 9-50 machine guns poking out the sides, and metal treads that stretched from the street to the top of the vehicles.

“Are those tanks? They look like World War I tanks.”

Indeed, he could make out a driver, his head popping out of a hatch as the metal goliaths trundled down the streets. The lead tank aimed its cannon directly at the two enhanced robots and spat another round from its cannon.

The shell hit the first robot in the middle, and the explosion knocked both of them down.

But when the smoke cleared, the robots stood up again, and seemed to glare at the tanks. They advanced a few more steps.

Rip could see soldiers lined up behind the tanks.

“They must have called in the Army. There must be a base nearby or something.”

The other two tanks slowly lined up in position beside the first one. All three lobbed shells at the robots, knocking them down each time, one after the other. A steady thrum of cannon fire sounded like giant drums echoing off the great cathedral behind them.

Rip held back, unwilling to risk straying into the line of fire. But he frowned while watching the Royal Army take on the bots.

“They’re gonna run out of ammo soon, at this rate.”

He decided to run around the long way rather than approach the tanks directly, which seemed like a good way to get shot. He jogged around the block, bursting forward twice with [Vampiric Speed]

As he rounded a corner to head back toward the fighting, he ran into a roadblock manned by soldiers.

“Hold it, mate. Can’t let you go down here. There’s a battle going on, in case you haven’t notied.”

“I know. I’ve already taken out one of the robots. I need to help your boys take out the other two.”

The soldier he addressed, a short sandy-haired boy with a pugnacious nose, laughed in his face.

“You hear that, lads? This fellow thinks he took out a Darhaven metal man!”

A few of the soldiers walked up to the roadblock, grinning ear to ear.

Rip sighed.

“Look, I want to apologize in advance, but I really don’t have time for this. I’m a Venture Society member, and you can take up any complaints with them. Okay?”

The sandy haired soldier frowned now, trying to process everything Rip had just said.

Before he could respond, Rip used [Vampiric Speed] and blurred past the road block. He snapped back to normal speed 30 feet away, but everyone was still looking at the place he used to be. By the time they turned around, he had already traveled several more feet, running straight for the battle line.

The sandy haired soldier let out an angry yelp and made to go after him. One of the others stopped him.

“Let him go, mate. If he really is RVS, he knows what he’s about. If not . . . well, it ain’t our fault iffen he gets himself killed.”

Rip ran up to the soldiers behind the tanks, still maintaining a steady shelling of the robots. The men had their rifles out and turned his way as he ran up.

This time he was ready, though, and he held out his badge.

“RVS! Hold your fire! Who’s in charge here?”

The men lifted their guns and as one they pointed to a dapper gentleman wearing a red beret and a plaid kilt.

“I’m in charge,” the man said, stepping forward. “Major McDougal. What’s this about?”

Rip jogged up to the man and said, “Major, hold your fire. You’re going to run out of ammo and then these things will walk all over you. Look, they’re already getting closer.”

Indeed, the two robots stood up once again and moved forward several more steps before another tank fired at them.

“What? Preposterous. We’ll shell the ruddy blighters into oblivion.”

Rip bit his tongue in irritation.

Officers. What do they know?

“Look, sir, we’ve got to actually damage the robots first before your explosives will have any effect. You’ve got to pierce their shell, then you can take out the insides. Trust me, I’m on Colonel Sharp and Colonel Bixby’s team. We disabled hundreds of these things down in the vault today. You’ve got to damage them first. Let me at least try to put some holes in one before you run out of shells. I’ve still got some enhanced ammunition left.”

The major stared at him for a moment, and Rip wondered if anything he said registered with the man.

Finally, McDougal said, “I say, Colonel Bixby? I served under him in the Zanzibar affair. Splendid chap. Very well, if this is the way he campaigned against these confounded contraptions, I’m willing to let you give it a go.”

He turned back to his men and began handing out orders.