With his ears plugged, Nolan didn't notice when the sirens stopped. He didn't even notice when something started whirring and clanking, moving towards the two of them. He was too absorbed in trying to break through the wall, a difficult process. He felt like he was making some very slight headway, but not much. Just enough to convince him that it wasn't a waste of time.<br/><br/>Even if he didn't notice the sound, when something hit the ground hard enough to make everything around him shake,<em>that</em>he noticed. He pulled the ice from his ears and realized that everything was far too quiet. No sound, at least at first. After a moment, he heard Lina cry out, and spun around to look at the same thing she was seeing.<br/><br/>Big. That was his first impression. Metal, was his second impression. A robot, his brain finally managed to piece together. They mentioned them in the books sometimes, but in there, they were almost always small, and usually friendly. Even when he read about the ones that weren't, he'd comforted himself by saying that his powers would be more than enough to handle any robot he ever encountered.<br/><br/>Looking at this one, he'd clearly been wrong about that.