Stuck at the Galleria

Act 3: Tagged! (part 6)

No.

I couldn't stay like this. The Prime was coming-- if not now, then later-- and I needed to find a way to bring it down on my own. I check my tagger right as its third light turns green. The 'bot looms in the distance, its pink metal frame shining bright against the silhouettes of the buildings.

 I took Tre's hand for a sec, then started on my way off. I'll fix this soon, bud.

When I go, I find myself walking, then going a bit faster little by little until I'm breaking into a near sprint through the openings in between the buildings. I knew every nook and cranny of the layout by now; the Crew and I used to go for midnight runs regularly but we stopped after the first time the Prime showed up. I'd gone inside with Tre not only to play, but to see if we could start doing it again.   

I have my doubts that those plans would go well.   

I hop through the alleys with ease until I find a long, open path at the end of one with a faint pink glow to its right. I peek over the corner and find, to absolutely nobody's surprise, a pair of giant feet blocking the path. 

Here's my shot. I'm ready to let it have a taste of the same medicine it gave Tre. I pulled my tagger up.

Bang bang.

I run in front of the Prime and start mashing on the trigger like nobody's business, and a stream of shots opens up ahead and goes in the direction of the 'bot. A few veered off course and fizzled out, but most of them made impact at its legs.  The Prime itself didn't seem to think anything of it, but the legs themselves creak loud enough for the whole mall to hear, and when it tries to get one leg up to move toward me, it freezes.

Was that it? Did I find a way to get at it?

My wishful thoughts get tuned out by a stomp, and soon enough I find myself running yet again. This was annoying. I'm ready to be done with it, to be done with being screwed around by the game. But the doors weren't gonna open up again for 4 minutes, and I had to get this taken care of first.

I turn the tagger out behind me while I run and tap the trigger madly, leaving a trail of shots behind my footsteps. The robot stays persistent, and I still hear the loud crunching of its footplates behind me.

I groan a bit. It wasn't working. None of it. Ugh!

I duck into an alley and pull my phone out. I needed help from the person who knew this thing best, aside from perhaps whoever sent it, of course. There's nothing but the long ring on the other end when I dial the number, and I start to get anxious once I notice the increasing volume of the metallic stomps following me.

Finally, a click. "Hola, Nora," a familiar voice says.  

"Grassy, a question," I say.  

"Shoot."  

"How do you beat that robot thing you said that Tagged had as a hidden feature?"  

"Hmm, let me think back. It's been a while since I checked out that thing..."  

"Focus, Gordon, I don't have time for rambling," I mutter as I run down the alley.   "Well, my notes here say that there's two large circular ports on the upper back that apparently have connections to the rest of the parts. If you can somehow jam those, it would possibly disable the whole machine. It'd go down like King Kong."  

"Alright, great. But what would work to jam them?"  

"I dunno. Maybe the long stick thingies it fires. Might I ask why you need to know this?" I hear whistling behind my head, and in a flash I find myself ducking under a set of "long stick thingies".