Maphira and Vai returned to the Resistance base having said little on the drive home. There was an obvious tension in the air, and Maphira certainly wasn’t going to be the one to try and clear it. After everything Vai had done, that was her responsibility.
But still, there was more idle chit chat than there had been on the drive toward the hardware store, which had involved a lot of complete silence. Escaping danger seemed to have a way to bring people closer together. Even if Maphira didn’t want to admit it, she knew she trusted Vai more now than she had four hours ago. Still wasn’t much, though.
Surprisingly, Dr Ratroti wasn’t too disappointed that they’d failed to get the electrical supplies. Apparently, the Resistance had a brand new plan to catch Bender, given recent information about the robot’s location.
“It could work,” Vai said, considering the plan. “If Bender really is resting at a cyber security company that uses green energy, this idea has merit. We go in disguised as people there to do some window tinting for businesses or something, sneak up to the roof where Bender is charging, and attempt to capture the robot.”
Rylee and Dr Ratroti looked at Maphira. “Can we trust her?” Rylee asked.
Maphira considered it for a moment. “I think so. Let me keep an eye on her, just to be sure, but I think she’s desperate enough to change allegiances. The Great Mechanist wants her captured badly. He’s worried about the information she could leak.”
“Well, start talking,” said Dr Ratroti. “What do we do with Bender once we have the robot captured?”
Vai cracked her knuckles. “Well, assuming everything goes according to plan and we do manage to get in there with the excuse of completing commercial glass tinting for Melbourne businesses, you’d want to overload Bender with energy. Thankfully, I’m an expert at that.”
“Can confirm,” Maphira chimed in.
Vai groaned. “Get the largest solar power system you can. I’m talking bigger than 500KW. Once Bender’s back here, we’ll hook the robot up and overload it to the point of breaking. Then this will be all over.”