The solar storms still blazed as fiercely as ever. The enormous factories humanity had built around the sun were like trees swaying in a tempest. Automated drones and spaceships wove through the sunspots. Beneath that ultimate brightness lay even denser shadows. A squad was standing by in the shade of a transfer hold.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Massive explosions rippled through cosmic space, bursting with blinding firelight even before the sun itself. Amid scream after scream, the advancing strike team was wiped out without a trace.
More robots were released from the factory. They quickly locked on to the attackers' aircraft. The robots began their merciless slaughter, and lives vanished into the pitch-black cosmic space. In the distance, the gigantic metal head set within the great steel ring gave off a faint glow from its eyes. Three of the four connecting pillars had already been destroyed.
But when the last attacker slowly stopped breathing, the instant the brainwave connection broke, the fingers of a figure wearing a giant metal Helmet clenched abruptly. He exhaled the breath in his chest and announced through the mental link, "The squad led by Scott in the raid on Orchis Forge has been completely wiped out. Mother Mold is still online. Now, mutants should seek help from the multiverse."
It had snowed heavily in New York for two days, drowning every street. The East Coast had not seen snowfall like this in decades. With ground traffic nearly at a standstill, almost everyone chose to travel by Speeder, which meant lines had started forming at the Speeder stations too.
Schiller got off at the Presbyterian Hospital stop and tightened his clothes. The moment he stepped outside, the howling cold wind hit him, so he had no choice but to wrap his scarf tighter and pull