Being cooped up inside a building of thick concrete and steel buried under tons of earth with no windows at all to the outside makes it hard to keep time straight. Add to that the fact that Dr. Hank Little had been running on less and less sleep as the days had progressed. He was now sustaining himself on hour long cat-naps throughout the day and numerous giant-sized travel mugs full of the most caffeinated, strongest, and disgusting coffee the military could afford to make. Hygiene had become secondary as his teeth were stained with coffee, a slight beard was creeping across his face, and his unkempt hair was standing on end.

As he was returning to the lab from another run to the cafeteria, with a slight stop over to the men's room, Hank noticed a familiar face. He quick darted to the side of the wall and deftly hid behind a sixteen inch long fire extinguisher. He peeked around a corner to notice the man and a soldier turning down a hallway. Once they were out of sight, he began to nervously shuffle down the hallway, back to the lab.

"He's here," Dr. Little blurted out before the guard in the hall could shut the door behind him. "Ketchum. They've brought Ketchum in. I just saw him in the hall. They were taking him to the barracks. Which means we have.... Oh, what time is it? Two thirty. Wait, is that oh-two thrity or fourteen thirty?"

"Hank!" the staticie voice yelled out from the speaker. "Calm down."

"It's just that if Ketchum's here, that means that you were probably right about them... you know."

"We're almost done," Faber said. "The rest is minor work that can be done at any time. If Ketchum's here, then we need to go ahead and transplant."

Hank looked at his hands. They shook uncontrollably. "I need rest. I... I can't do this right now. I'm too jumpy and unfocused."

"There's no time. We have to go now."

"But if I don't connect all the nodes, or connect the wrong ones....."

"You'll do fine." Faber reached up and lifted the top plate off his head to expose the inner workings of the Legionnaire robot. "Time for surgery, Doctor."

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Dr. Oliver Ketchum examined the mass of scrap metal and loose parts strewn about the loading bay. He walked over and looked inside the cabin of a Hummer. The interior had been dismantled and left with exposed wires sticking out of holes in the frame.

"Dr. Little's been acquiring parts from anywhere they can," Pvt. Barrows explained. "After LA, the project received top priority from Washington. He's even requisitioned supplies from other projects, both active and discontinued."

Ketchum walked over to a giant metallic ball laying on the ground. "That," Barrows continued, "came from a NASA project."

"What did they need it for?" Ketchum asked.

"Gyroscopes, I believe. More advanced, or something. Though Dr. Little said they were too large, but I believe he copied the design and miniaturized it."

"I was under the impression that it was Dr. Faber who was doing all the innovating."

Barrows became very serious and sullen. "Dr. Faber has passed, sir."

"I see."