"Quit it! Stop!" It wasn't clear whether Atom was talking to Erhart or the attacking robots. The sounds of the droids' bodies shattering beneath the face of Erhart's onslaught sounded deafening to him; he watched with horror as their limbs were rent from them and scattered across the floor of the Vatican. Lifeless, unresponsive, no more sentient now than the metal fragments and gears that had been used to construct them. The screeching of distressed metal, the snicker-snack of Erhart's sword as it cleaved into them with brute, unrelenting force... Unlike a human, he didn't have the luxury of forgetting what he saw; it was etched permanently into his mind in every minute detail, like a pattern into glass -- each horrific detail perfectly preserved for all time.

For a moment, Gesicht's memories were superimposed over his own, memories of rows of prone robot bodies strewn across the barren dirt of Persia, of children firebombed in their orphanages, of a middle-aged man, his face covered in dirt and his eyes reddened with tears, screaming accusations at the peacekeeping forces that had moved into his city.

Then he was back in the present. Atom grabbed a large chunk of the fallen stonework, lifting it over his head as if it were made of cardboard and throwing it directly into the path of several of the oncoming droids. For now, it created a temporary barrier between them and the humans under fire. "Stop fighting!"