Anika had thought of going to Rubedo, closure order be damned. She really did not want to distill the herbs in her apartment. Still, angry neighbours were better than risking the Protectorate’s wrath. She needed to keep in Lar’s good graces so she could continue assisting in the investigation.
She stuck a piece of cloth soaked in mint oil up each nostril.
“Oh, it burns, it burns.”
She danced around momentarily, chanting about burning and adjusting to the potent scent—but that was far better than smelling the herbs.
She put on a pair of goggles—leather and glass, with a magnification lens attachment, designed by Sabdur—and peered over the lip of a cauldron, watching the viscous liquid inside glup and plop. Anika was brewing an advanced recipe. A formula she recently learned with Theo.
The apartment stank. Even with plugs, her eyes were watering, steaming up her goggles with the heat from the cast iron.
Occasionally, the liquid would move just so that you could see through to a large crystal at the bottom. The liquid simmering around it was a swirl of blue and black. Gold flecks were rotating in the liquid, leaving glittering trails in its wake.
She ducked, trying not to lose her balance, as a bubble burst and some of the mixture flew towards her. She was on a ladder leaning against the side of the cauldron—yes, the rungs did get quite warm at the top, even with the heat-resistant coverings.
“Phew, that would have left a nasty burn.”
The stove required to heat a cauldron of this size was quite large and tall, two-thirds her height. The enormous cauldron on top made the whole thing a few head lengths taller. It was tough to prepare potions in such a large vat, so she had a ladder she used to get above it and mix stuff up.
It was inconvenient, but she was no master alchemist, and charged material was easier to work in larger spaces. She bribed her neighbours with elixirs so they wouldn't complain about smells and noises to the landlord.
Anika collected the distilled essence of the herbs she had had to make in her apartment—the stinky ones. And climbing back up the ladder, she threw the liquid into the cauldron, hurried down the ladder and began pumping the bellows, heating the coals inside the stove even hotter.
Back up, she went.
When the potion bath abruptly stilled from a slow boil, she knew it was complete. The result was a midnight blue with stars. The blue, black and gold flakes culminated into a clear night sky. This was the first time making this on her own, and she was quite proud of it.
She elbowed a bucket off the top of the ladder. Down it fell, the counterweight to another that was attached to a lever to put out the stove immediately.
With a telescoping net, she fished the crystal out of the cauldron and took it back to her workbench, more like a work end table. Anika much preferred doing her potions in the shop.
Before she could inspect the finished product, there was a ding.
“Who could that be?”
Anika opened the door to find a Paige. How odd. Paiges, or Page if the robot appeared male, were an outdated way to send messages.
They came before biomechanical experiments. Pages were entirely artificial beings—beings may be stretching it, though. They were mechanical, with a weird skin suit shell. Everything inside was wires, gears, and bolts. Their ‘brain’ was an AI chip. They were not the most secure form of communication.
“Hello, are you Miss Anika Twile?”
Anika could only describe the Paige’s smile as fake—which made sense.
“Maybe? Yes?”
“Excellent. I have a message for you. Here.”
A sealed piece of paper was held out.
“Thanks.”
Anika felt awkward. Could the Paige even feel emotion? Was it a one-sided awkward?
“A pleasure, Miss Twile. I hope I see you again.”
That was a weird thing to say, right?
She nodded and shut the door quickly, flipping the lock. She knew it wouldn’t do much to stop the Paige if it went hostile, but it made Anika feel better.
“Now what was this about?”
She read the letter as follows:
Here lies their mistakes. BioCorpse holds the answers for the potion.
That was all.
“Odd that someone would misspell BioCorp.”
It was forbidden to trespass on the ruins. The site was an abandoned hospital and research facility just outside the walls of Last Stand. It had been part of the original city before the Corruption.
It was one of those places that edgy teens dared one another to visit. Because it was dangerous or haunted or whatever. Most of the time, the protectors on the wall would catch them before they got themselves killed by the Wilds.
She prepared herself, packing combat potions, her new crystal, and a few clotting powder pouches—and something that looked incredibly similar to a spray gun—to a tactical belt. She braided her emerald hair back and put on an all-black outfit so she wouldn’t stand out in the dark and for optimal stealth effect.
———
It was late afternoon, and Lars was working in his office when his V-MAS (verbal message alert system) beeped. It was used for internal communications. Direction from higher up, reported tips, stuff like that. He selected the message, and a jaunty tune began to play through the speaker.
Are you sick to the stomach or stuck with the flu?
You wanted one child but actually got two
You’re not feeling great—was my bot running late?
When protectors are missing
And you don’t know no more
You’ll find all the answers at BioCorpse.
It was the BioCorp theme song but altered. Not unusual as the song was now a sort of twisted nursery rhyme, with kids constantly changing the words as they pleased. But missing protectors was a pretty pointed clue.
Lars immediately went to his superior. BioCorp—the song used the wrong name, another clue—was in a restricted zone. No one was allowed there without authorization from someone higher up in Protectorate Command.
He knocked on the massive metal door and waited.
“Enter.”
The door slid open, and a bare office was revealed. A large, angry-looking man sat behind a plain desk.
“What is it, Investigator?”
“Got a tip on the missing protector case.”
“Why aren’t you investigating then?”
His boss was no-nonsense and an asshole, like most of the high command.
“I need to request permission to visit BioC—”
“Denied.”
“This is the first lead we’ve had all week!”
“No. Cease asking immediately, Investigator Cercher.”
“But—
“Now Cercher! Get Out.”
If he couldn’t go through the Protectorate, he would just have to figure out another way. He’d go tonight, using darkness as his cover. The facility was close enough to the wall that he should be safe from bots.
He prepared supplies, a wrist bow and knife, a light orb, his note pad and some evidence collection bags and tools.
That night, Lars made his way to the gate. The guards on duty didn’t raise much of a fuss once Lars told them he was on official Protectorate work, and out he went. Night gate guards were almost always rookies. And they rarely remembered to check for paperwork or verify things with the supervising protector.
Of course, he had been outside the walls before. Everyone who worked in the security sector had to during training. But he was alone this time and breaking laws he wasn’t sure he wanted to be breaking. But he couldn’t stop now. He needed to solve this case.
Carefully, Lars made his way to BioCorp, hyper-aware of the dangers from the guards on the wall and the bots in the Wilds. The protectors shoot first and investigate later if they see something moving outside the city at night.
Two huge round eyes swivelled around to look down at Lars as he picked his way through an overgrown path. He froze in his tracks.
There was a hoot, but it wasn’t the sound of an ordinary owl. Its call was more of a hooz. The end of it taking on a whine, like something grating at the end of a rotation. The owl’s metal eye shutters blinked as it watched Lars.
“Freaky.”
He hesitated but continued when he was left undisturbed. The trek was a slow one, but as he pushed a branch out of his way, he saw a fence. Nothing fancy, just plain black steel. Tall enough that it would be challenging to climb. And in surprisingly good condition. Ivy and other plants grew across it, and some bars were bent out of shape. Still, since the facility had been abandoned for well over 150 years, and a war had taken place around it, Lar’s considered it in good condition.
This was his first time seeing the ruins. It was strictly prohibited to be in or around BioCorp. The building was part hospital, part research facility. The exterior, once a creamy white, was now streaked brown. Uniform windows lined all three floors, but most of the glass was long since gone.
The ornately carved double doors—well, only one door now—stood in the centre of the building. The side with the missing door was blocked. The entrance gap was boarded up with planks of wood, as though that would keep someone from climbing through a window, which was incidentally how Lars got in.
If he thought it was dark outside, it was nothing compared to inside BioCorp. A bound voltage orb flared to life. The orb, generally considered weak, was too bright here. The visible portion of the lobby was dusty. There were shards of glass littering the floor. Overgrowth was consuming every surface it could, creeping across floors and up overturned chairs.
A slanted table was off to one side with the word directory written across the bottom. Lars used the arm of his shirt to clear away the dirt and studied a map.
“Hmm. Which way to go. Why did the message have to be in riddles?”
Administration and research wings were both straight through the centre of the building. The best place to start his search. He would begin with admin. Look for research notes or files pertaining to chemistry—not alchemy—since the building was pre-Corruption.
There was little incident on the way to the administration wing. Signs along the way made it easy to find.
It was an odd experience. BioCorp was abandoned. The Protectorate would know if it wasn’t. The wall protectors monitored for any activity. Still, you felt like there should be something. Probably because it was an old hospital. People died in hospitals, so that made empty ones creepy. That sounds right.
Lars chalked off his reluctance to dead people and the risk of running into a bot, which was no joking matter—though unlikely this close to the wall. Regardless, he was just being alert. Extra cautious.
A sign hanging lopsided by a single wire from the ceiling tile marked the entrance to the administration wing. A set of sleek yet heavy-duty doors blocked the way. Or they would have, but a giant root grew around the doors, creating a wedge that forced them ajar.
He thought the hard part was done, but as he drew closer, and thus his bound orb got closer, light started refracting off hair-like strings. A bit closer.
Lars reeled back quickly as a spider went scuttling across the webs. Webs that ran the whole length of the gap in the doorway.
“Damnit! I hate spiders.”
He began looking around for something to clear them away.
———
When Anika received a letter from the Paige, she couldn’t not go sleuthing. She was a private investigator on the case, after all. Okay, maybe not yet. But she was working her way there. More evidence would be just the thing to convince Lars.
Her escape from the city wasn’t as simple as Lars’. Civilians were not allowed to come or go this late at night; it was too dangerous. A distraction was needed.
This time it was a Boomshakalaka—a powder made primarily with dried blast beetle poo and a few things to prevent an actual explosion. The mix recreated the effects of an explosion but without the damage—just an eardrum-bursting boom that caused a small tremor through the ground and a puff of black-tinted smoke.
She fed a fuse from the powder to her hiding spot. A little blue flame raced down the fuse, and Anika took off, running between houses to reach the gatehouse. Some crates stacked near the stairwell provided a good hiding spot as a stream of protectors came down from the walls to investigate the disturbance.
Up the spiral stairs onto the wall, she secured a grappling hook to the edge and repelled down. This may not have been her first time doing something similar. Alchemists did strange, secretive things.
Following a similar path as the investigator, she picked her way to BioCorp.
“Wooz.”
“Wooz, to you too.”
Anika nodded to the owl.
Past the front gate, she was confronted with the blocked-off entrance. It was no match for her. A plank went tumbling down the few concrete steps, then another. When there was a space large enough for her to fit, she maneuvered through into the facility's foyer.
She weighed the same two choices as Lars: admin or research. The alchemist—apprentice alchemist—went straight past the reception desk and through a pair of swinging double doors.
The hallway had rooms running down to a second set of swinging doors. Broken syringes, rolled-over gurneys, and dust covered the floor—all you’d expect in a place like this. An icky greenish-brown sludge coated the walls.
She walked on, then paused. A collection tube and knife came out. A few scraping of the wall sludge later, and she was headed towards the research wing again.
“We should figure out a way to make Eye of the Cat cheaper. This night vision is fantastic.”
It would wear off soon, though, so she had a backup voltage orb with her.
———
Lars was onto something. In the second office he searched, there was a box on the desk. A sticker marked it as confidential. Maybe whoever sent the message was trying to make life simpler.
“If only all evidence was this easy to come by.”
And relatively speaking, this was easy. Someone called in a tip. He followed up and found the evidence the anonymous tip must have been referring to.
“Maybe this is too easy.”
Carefully easing open the lid, he peeked inside, wary of tricks. But there was only a film drive, not even an accompanying report. Damn. He’d need to find somewhere to watch it.
Back in the hallway, squeezing through the now spider-free gap, he went through another set of doors separating the research wing from the rest of the hospital. Surely, there was a player of some sort that way—his portable charger should work as a power supply.
———
This wasn’t right.
She had followed signs until she descended far too many stairs and ended up deep in the research sublevels of BioCorp. Once there, she picked a hall at random and started checking every room she came across. Most were empty except for a mattress on a thin metal frame.
“Are these…cells?”
Each was the same, except the last door on the left.
Through a sterile white door with a single-window set up high, Anika entered an alternate reality.
Not really, but it was offputting enough to feel as such. Whereas the rest of BioCorp had been the ruins of a proper hospital and lab built in the clinical chic style, this room was colourful.
Anika’s light orb glided into the room with her, illuminating a space with two doors. The one she came through and another directly across the room.
She reached out to trace the edge of a red triangle. Many brightly coloured geometric shapes decorated the wall. The carpet was a basic cream colour, but a vivid rainbow rug covered most of it. The rug was so plush that Anika’s foot sank deep into it as she walked across the room.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
A toy box was pushed against one wall, some bookshelves in the corner, and crates installed stylistically on the wall filled with stuffed animals.
She looked through the other door and found a bedroom, a bed neatly made in one corner with princess-pink blankets, and a stuffed rabbit, missing one eye, tucked into the middle. One wall had a large rectangular mirror set in it. Glass. A one-way mirror.
She went back to the playroom, searching the space, the ceiling. Yep, she knew it. She hoped she was wrong. But two of the ceiling corners had cameras.
Anika pulled out one of the coloured plastic chairs and sat at the round, white, child-size table in the centre of the room. Her shins hit the table's edge, but that didn’t matter. She folded her arms across the tops of her knees and put her head down.
She had a sick feeling she knew what had happened here. They must have been studying children, observing them for some sort of research in a controlled environment. That was no way for a child to grow up, Biomech or other.
“Don’t cry; everything will be okay.”
She felt a small hand rub her back, trying to soothe her. There was no conviction behind the words.
“Holy shit!”
Anika backed up right out of the chair and ended up on her back, staring at the ceiling. She had tipped right over, the tiny chair flipping over when she tried to push back.
A face leaned over her, long, straight brown hair hanging down, obscuring the features.
“Miss Brimley says it’s bad to swear. I said a bad bad word once during a session, and she smacked me real hard after.”
The neat, shiny hair swung back and forth as the girl shook her head earnestly.
Anika finally noticed how clean these rooms were. The contrast in style from the rest of the hospital had distracted her from it before. But this room and the bedroom were clean and well maintained.
“I…I th-thought BioCorp was a-a-bandoned?”
“Well, Ms. Brimley and Dr. Kirn said they had to go away for a little bit. But they told me to wait here for them to come back.”
“And you…uh…you just kept wa-wa-waiting.”
“I listened so I wouldn’t get punished when they returned.”
The little girl nodded thoughtfully.
“Get up and have tea with me. Please! Always use your manners Anima.”
The girl quietly scolded herself. She pitched her voice differently, mimicking someone she had heard many times.
The request for tea sounded so desperate, though. How could Anika refuse her? The child was all alone. It reminded Anika of her own sister—a bittersweet memory.
“When did Ms. Brimley leave?”
Anika righted her chair and sat apprehensively as the child collected a tea set from the toy trunk and set the table. She then went back for some stuffies to join the tea party.
“It’s been a little while now.”
She admitted sadly as she poured an imaginary liquid into Anika’s miniature teacup. Then, she did the same for the rest of the guests.
“You know, your name sounds really similar to mine.”
The girl's eyes lit up with excitement, struggling to maintain composure as she took a sip from her cup. Pinky out.
“Really! What is it?”
“Anika.”
She offered the girl a smile she hoped was comforting. But Anika didn’t feel too comfortable herself.
“That is almost the same.”
The seven, maybe eight, year old girl held out a tiny hand.
“I’m Anima Ninetyseven.”
Anika’s hand shook violently as she took the girls. Giving the quickest handshake possible.
“So you’re the only kid here, Anima?”
“Yea. There used to be more. Animus Eightyfive was the funnest to play with.”
“Oh, and where did they go?”
Anima started fidgeting with the edge of her white dress decorated with little pink daisies and looked down at her lap.
“He’s gone now. I shouldn’t talk about it anymore. Ms. Brimley would be mad.”
She needed to get this child to Last Stand. How long had she been alone out here? Were some sickos hiding out here with Anima for the last eight years?
———
Lars pushed past some thick vines blocking an opening into the auditorium. Cheap fold-up chairs were scattered across the linoleum covered floor like an event had been interrupted.
He approached the front of the room, where a projector screen hung on the wall. The film drive clicked into a port on the wall next to the screen. He attached a cord from his charger to the player, and the screen came to life. Dirt obscured the screen in some spots. But it worked. Lars set up one of the dirty fold-up chairs and took a seat to watch.
A man in a lab coat stood before a recording device while voices filtered around him.
“Neuromapping transceiver online.”
“Pain reception sensors have completed calibration.”
“Subject’s blood pressure and heart rate are elevated but within safe levels.”
“Very good. Let’s begin. Project Biomorphosis, log 132. The subject is prepared for the extraction procedure.”
The camera turned to film the main stage. A metal examination table was sitting in the centre of a rotund operating theatre with a thrashing white sheet over the top. Some spectators sat in the gallery, ready to take notes.
“Ninetyseven, stop thrashing about or further restraints will be used.”
The doctor spoke in a stern, detached voice. But the sheet kept moving wildly.
“Rackerson, bring me the headband.”
The sheet went still.
An assistant repositioned the white cloth so that it only covered the lower portion of the figure. She was careful not to catch it on any of the tubes snaking out from beneath the sheet.
Hair was pushed aside, damp with sweat, and a padded band strapped across a small forehead.
Lars’ mouth fell open. Blue veins stood out against nearly transparent skin. Thin, little muscle to fill out the frame. A young child trembled. The anchors on her cuffs clinking gently against the metal beneath her.
“Begin plasma bechlacosion.”
“Four years of age—2000 μL.”
“Introducing 2 cc’s of Sericum intravenously.”
Blood was leaving one side of the tube, entering a machine that mixed it with a saffron-coloured substance. A fiery orange fluid then went down the other tube back into the body.
The child's mouth burst open. A scream tore through her as the first drops disappeared into her vein. Viewers in the gallery were taking notes.
"Do you like the movie?"
A titter from his right. A tickle of soft breath caressed the skin behind his ear. Lars jumped damn near a kilometre out of his seat.
"What the fuck?"
But when he looked right, nothing was there. Nothing to the left, either.
"Who's there?"
The film suddenly fast-forwards, zipping through log after log.
“Liver successfully extracted and ready for storage, Doctor.”
Again, the image jumped in time.
“Transfering organ to short term cryo storage.”
“Don’t fuck it up this time—”
The girl was a bit older now. Log 205.
“Gauze, bandage—turn off those damn pain sensor alarms—and send it to recovery. Alert me when signs of lung failure set in.”
A body on the table was wheeled out of view. Mouth stuck open in a scream, but no air to voice it.
The film played on but did not fade into the background.
"I’m the star."
The voice whispered.
"The star?"
His mind was racing, yet moving so slowly.
"Of the movie, silly."
A childish laugh, further away now. Lars' shuddered.
"Oh, this is my favourite part. Watch!"
The innocent voice made Lars want to oblige, anything to make her sound happier. Less bitter.
A new scene. The girl was a year or two older now. Log 312.
Alarms went silent, but the wailing did not stop. Tears and snot ran down the side of the girl's face. Pain causing her body to sweat profusely.
“Wait, not this part. Hold on… Okay, it's coming up! Are you watching?”
The girl's voice spoke over the noise of the screaming child in the film. And Lars watched. How could he not?
The screaming cut off.
“Finally! Well, at least one useful thing came out of this mess, we have achieved some success in fine motor control and vocal function even in the developmental stages of life.”
“At the cost of everything else. This was a failure Dr. Kirn. Seven years of failure! I expect great strides in the near future; to replenish the financial losses.”
“I’ll begin straight away, Mr. Aslow.”
Mr. Aslow left at a clipped pace as Dr. Kirn turned back to the soundless writhing form on the examination table and sighed.
“Fucking damnit! Rackerson, scrap it.”
He kicked the side of the table, jostling the figure about, and stormed off in an angry flurry.
The individual called Rackerson unhooked the tubes and wires going in and out of the small body. Blood and yellow ichor leaked from the holes. The mouth opened in silent screams.
When the research logs were complete, the screen went black, and Lars threw up.
“What was that?”
He looked around, more thoroughly this time for whoever the youthful voice belonged to, but Lars was all alone.
———
Anika sat at the too-small table, sipping her invisible tea.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“I eat at tea time every day.”
Anika looked at the empty dessert plate Anima gestured to.
“Real food, Anima.”
The girl blinked at her and nodded.
“Mhm. Real food.”
This was going to be more challenging than she thought.
“What was that?”
Anima started. Metal hit metal, a loud clash. It was coming from the main hall.
Anika stood—without falling backward this time—to face the danger. She pulled out an attack tonic slotted into her belt and screwed the bottle upside down into her squirt gun.
There was that noise again, closer this time.
“Okay, when it comes through the door, I will try to draw it to the centre and slow it down. As soon as the path is clear, run for it! I’ll meet you at the front gate if we get separated. Do not go into the Wilds alone!”
When she glanced back to make sure Anima understood, she wasn’t there. The little girl had disappeared.
A final crash. The pristine door in front of Anika swung open into the wall. So hard it left a dent behind it.
She lifted the gun. Finger tightening on the trig—
“Anika?”
She quickly lowered the weapon full of incredibly flammable liquid. It ignited when exposed to oxygen. The squirt gun was specially designed to contain the dangerous mixture until shot.
———
“Cercher?”
“Why are you here?”
They stared at each other momentarily, but Lars broke off to see where he was.
“You scared her off!”
“What is this?”
He spoke over Anika as he took in the playroom.
Colourful geometric shapes painted on the wall—the small form on the metal examination table. Stuffed animals carefully arranged in cubbies—a child’s body slipping around in its own fluids. The short table, with bright plastic chairs, was set for tea and full of guests—an audience looked on as the girl's vocal cords were stolen and reprogrammed, her anguished scream becoming silent. Cameras mounted in the corner of the room—video logs of the experiments performed.
Each sight gave Lars flashbacks to the video.
When Anika’s words finally registered, he recalled the ‘the star’ of the movie. Not that he would ever forget the hollow youthful laugh.
“Wait. Who did I scare off?”
“Anima. I was searching the rooms, and a little girl appeared out of nowhere and scared me shitless.”
Bile was all he could purge now, but it wasn’t enough. So much colour leeched from his face it was moving into shades of anticolour. He wiped a sleeve across his mouth. Lars didn’t have words to explain.
“There’s a child here? What did she look like?”
“Dark brown hair, long. She was wearing a dress with flowers on it and she was no older than eight. She said she was here alone.”
This wasn’t possible. No one could survive what he had witnessed on the video. And it had been 150 years!
“Why are you here, Anika?”
His suspicion of her had not abated in the past week. Lars was sure he was going to learn she was behind the disappearances or involved somehow. What if she led him here into a trap?
“I received a Paige. Why are you here, Lars?”
“No one uses Messenger Page anymore.”
“I don’t know what to tell ya. The Paige gave me a letter. It told me to come here for answers about Theo’s potion.”
Her shrug was half-hearted as she nervously looked around.
“So, you thought going into the Wilds at night, to trespass in a dilapidated building was the best way to do it. You could have reported the letter to me.”
Her eyebrow quirked as some sass leaked through her fear.
“And again, why are you here?”
“Annonymous tip.”
“So, you thought going into the Wilds at night, to—”
“Yeah, I get it. Be quiet. We'll talk about it later. We need to get out of here, follow me.”
He didn’t wait around to see if she listened. Lars exited the room and went left through a door at the end of the hall.
“I think we needed to go right to get out.”
“I know where I’m going.”
Lars plowed on, sacrificing stealth for speed. He just wanted out of this place. They barrelled through another door into the waiting—this wasn’t the waiting area. Anika was right. They did go the wrong way.
Lars recognized the room. It was round. With rows of wooden seats looking down on the room. An operating theatre.
“Anika, we need to leave right the fuck now.”
He tried to backpedal, but it was too late. A lock clicked into place behind them, and his eye was drawn to a small form sitting on the examination table in the centre of the room. Legs swinging off the edge. Humming.
“Anima?”
Anika’s voice trembled.
“This is the little girl you met?”
Lars whispered so only Anika would hear.
She took a step forward, reaching towards the child.
“Don’t!”
He hissed at Anika, but she ignored him.
“We need to leave here, Anima. Come with us.”
The figure, whose face was obscured by dark hair, giggled.
“I am her, and she is I, but we shall not be leaving here.”
It was not the sweet, innocent, yet slightly sad tone of the child Anika had tea with. This was the bitter, cruel voice that Lars had met. Still youthful but jaded by time.
“Who are you?”
Lars forced steadiness into his voice.
“As I just said to the Anika. I am I, and she is me, and we are Anima.”
Her words sounded old for all they came from young lips.
“What do you mean, Anima?”
Anika took another step.
“I care for her and keep her safe. As long as I continue, we continue.”
“Enough fucking riddles! Anika, this child is not what it seems. We need to go!”
Figures were moving in the shadows around them. The voltage orbs area was not wide enough to illuminate the whole room.
“We can’t just leave her here, Lars.”
"Yes, we fucking can."
“It’s alright. You can. Everyone else did. We are a failed attempt at creating the ultimate species. The combination of artificial intelligence and human sentience. A superior being with morals. Instead, under duress we separated, biological from artificial, to preserve ourself. Thus, our minds work individually and whole. As I am the superior mind, I control the vessel.”
Anika stopped her advance towards the child. She glanced back.
"Lars, what does—"
“You mean child?”
Lars corrected Anima.
“No, vessel. We have been alive for over 150 years, you are merely a child to us.”
A form lurched at them from an alcove to their right. It moved unnaturally, like its joints were locked. Not enough to stop it moving entirely. But enough to make the motion clunky and awkward. The shape was humanlike, hunched, and had one arm. It was gripping a giant shard of glass like a knife. The thing ignored the blood dripping from its hand, the glass cutting the skin, but not the metal bones beneath.
"Let me introduce you to Animi Thirtytwo. They came and went long before my time. I found them rusting out back with the rest of the scrapped projects. Oh, and here comes Protectron. They wanted him to replace security dogs in the cities. Another failure."
"Oh this is bad. Cercher, do something."
Anika began backing up towards Lars.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"You're a Protector, get us out of here."
Lars aimed his wrist bow and shot. The bolt bounced off the creature.
“Don’t leave us. Let's finish our tea party, Anika.”
The sweet voice returned but was quickly replaced by a harsh laugh. The two sides of Anima melding for a moment.
Lars saw something resembling a dog creeping through the shadows of the theatre. This one looked more like the bots in the Wilds, though. Its legs were robotic. Loose flaps of fur were hanging from the metal plates that guarded its inner workings. Its head, body, and tail were distinctly wolfish, with metal ears.
The beast growled as it locked eyes with Lars. The teeth shone with a metallic glint. Lars drew his weapon, but it wasn’t meant for this type of thing.
“There’s a set of doors at 10 o’clock. It probably leads to wherever they dumped the rejected experiments. We just need a way to get there.”
“I may have an idea.”
She sighted down her gun, and this time, she didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger and ran for the door, Lars hot on her heels. A trail of flames arced across the room and engulfed the biomech creature.
“Come now. Don’t try to hurt Protectron, you’ll upset Animi.”
Now, a flaming dog was chasing after them. The fire burned away the few remaining patches of fur, leaving a mess of muscles and tendons supported by metal bones and cogs.
“Shit.”
Anika holstered the weapon.
“What was that supposed to do?”
As Lars' light orb followed them to the door, they saw Animi blocking their path with the flaming hound closing in behind them.
“Aha!”
Anika shouted, and hope fluttered in Lars’ chest. She wasn’t useless after all. She had brought—was that a crystal?
“Please tell me you are not one of those people.”
“What people?”
“Crystals can protect with the power of the moons or some shit like that?”
"I'm slightly offended."
“We are about to die, if you—”
She poured something over the midnight blue crystal, and a charge visibly washed over it.
"What is that?"
"You should probably stand closer."
The crystal began to hover just above her palm. It rose higher. And higher. Then it broke.
Alchemists were the most useless good for nothing—
No, wait. It didn't break. It had fractured. Shards of the crystal flew out across the theatre. The room went dark, voltage orbs blinked out, and then the ceiling was filled with a clear night sky. Golden stars twinkling.
"What is this?"
"Just wait."
Anika looked in awe at the stars. Lars noticed the area above their heads was still the regular ceiling. That's odd.
The stars grew brighter. And brighter. Then launched like fireworks. Raining down on the three biomech…things. Shooting stars blasting around them. Knocking the enemy down. But they didn’t touch the area around Anika and Lars.
"Let's go!"
Animi and Protectron had been blown aside by the star's impact. The bombardment keeping them down for now.
Lars and Anika burst through the swinging doors, no longer blocked by the experiments. And they ran up a long slopped tunnel. The other end was chained shut, but Anika squeezed two drops from a dropper onto the chain, and it dissolved.
They ran through the forest back to the gates of Last Stand. Not stopping to catch their breath or look behind them. Lars helped Anika sneak back into the city, both using the grappling hook.
"Don't talk about this to anyone."
She nodded in agreement, then ran off towards her home. At least, that's where he assumed she was headed.