Normally Laura didn’t dream to much, frankly she would have preferred that to what she was currently experiencing. She was floating in… not quite a void more of some limbo full of staticky television screens, all around her all of them showing some form of action. Rows of faceless machines, spider-like robots swarming over burning citylike structures. A titanic metal monster roving in the distance, its steps shaking mountain ranges into gravel, a world of blue-silver metal, and through all of it there was an itch, a buzzing clawing at the back of her mind. As the scenes played out the buzzing got louder and louder, reaching a fever pitch in a mind rending shriek. Laura screamed, jolting upright.
Wide eyed, Laura shook her head trying to clear the phantom pain from her head. “Holy Shit! Laura you OK?” Blinking dumbly in the direction of the voice, Laura’s eyes locked on to Kaylee’s. The slight woman was standing near the far wall, a book lying where it had fallen after she had shot to her feet. Swallowing, Laura nodded, turning her attention to the rest of the room. It was clean, painted a sterile white of a hospital wing her bed one of several empty ones in the long room. Looking down at the gown and bed she had woken up in, Laura released a shuddering breath, “Yeah, just… Just had a really bad dream… w-What happened?” straightening the cardigan she was wearing, Kaylee padded over to the bed side. “What do you remember?" Furrowing her brows, Laura lay back, staring at the white ceiling, “I remember… heat, sound… Something hit us? Then… wars, fire machines.” She trailed off. “Well, I don’t know about the last part, but good news is you now share an injury category exclusively with a dog.” “I got hit by a fucking meteor?” “Well… not a meteorite per se...” “the fuck you mean not quite?” At that there was a zip as the curtain surrounding the bed was yanked open and an utterly exhausted looking doctor stumbled in. Straightening his glasses he glanced at the chart. “Miss… Irons. How are you feeling?” Laura winced. “Well apart from a pounding headache, I’m feeling pretty good.” The doctor nodded, “and how is your arm?” Laura blinked, what about my…” her question trailed off as she looked down, until now she hadn’t noticed but her right arm did not seem to be moving. “Whatthefuckisgoingonwhycantimovemyhand?” For several seconds the doctor and Kaylee simply stared back at her in silence. The later pulling back the covers to reveal what used to be a flesh and blood arm, now replaced by a metallic, biomechanical limb, layers of blue grey armor covering black, synthetic sinews, rotating her forearm she gazed on the blue, ribbed ring that was embedded into her palm. Its surface reminiscent of a brain or some sort of coral. The pads of the four fingers also seemed to be covered in a similar substance, also a glowing shade of blue.
Slightly shaking, Laura slowly ran a thumb up her arm, feeling as the metal and artificial muscle transitioned to skin and bone just past the shoulder. Shaking even harder she ran her hand across her face, only for it to find another chunk of cold metal, now hooked around the edge her left eye socket.
Dropping her hand, she lay back, staring at nothing, the shear shock of the change leaving her reeling, her mind trying to process new, impossible information. “This can’t be real.” The words more of a plea then a statement. The doctor coughed, “well based on about tss, tss, tss… 87 hospital admissions in the last 48 hours for various cases of self-implanting metal fragments. This is very much real.” Kaylee sighed, “Sir if you could give me a minute?” The doctor nodded and slipped out of the room. Turning back to the bed Kaylee leaned over, grabbing Laura’s metallic hand. “Look, I know it sounds like a shit deal, but most of the others who’ve come through got discharged… After a while, until then it was army and hazmat suits and all sorts of shit. Your actually one of the last, and one of the most interesting.” Laura’s head rolled sideways, her eyes, one green, one a chilling icy blue, locked onto Kaylee’s brown eyes. “That does nothing to make me feel better. Also, where’s Garett even at?” Kaylee smiled, focussing on something other than Laura’s new body parts. “Garrett got his leave cancelled, again army and hazmat suits and shit.” “So have you heard from him then?” Kaylee’s smile dipped. “No, phones been straight up disconnected, has been since he was called back. Ahh but don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be callin’ any minute now.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
>New Commander Online… INITIALISING
[GREETINGS COMMANDER]
Laura yelped “Ah Shit what the fuck?” as she jumped up and backwards, tumbling out of the bed. Kaylee jumped as well, shooting to her feet before rushing around the side of the bed to her fallen friend.
[I am the Advanced Logistical Assistant. Compiling HUD]
Laura winced as her vision was assaulted with a barrage of visions as numbers, words and wireframe models of a complexity beyond her understanding swarmed her vision even as she squeezed her eyes shut. The information pilling up like water behind a dam, mere litres from bursting. Until it wasn’t, the pain subsiding. Opening her eyes, Laura found herself staring at the concerned expression of her friend as well as the doctor. She opened her mouth to speak, only for nothing to come out. A message flashed across her face [Operational security must be maintained]
“I uh… (Fuck you stupid disembodied voice) … I think I saw a spider. I kind of overreacted…” The onlookers looked back at her with varied expressions of incredulity. Laura smiled, that Advanced Logistical something was gonna get it.
After being VERY hesitantly allowed to leave, Laura was deposited into the back of a van. A van with the notable presence of quite a few extra holes from the last time she’d ridden in it. Her vision was still filled with various readouts including what was probably supposed to be some sort of mini map, however almost all of it was blank.
Trying to break the somewhat palpable silence, Laura spoke. “So maybe I didn’t see a spider.” Kaylee’s head slowly rotated to look at Laura. “Sure, so what did you see then?” Laura shrugged. “Well not so much see as heard, and also saw.” Kaylee’s eyes rose “Oh?” [ALERT Operational Security Must Be Maintained] “Oh shut up, anyway there is a voice in my head screaming at me about keeping something a secret. [Operational secu..] “Shut it! Anyways I don’t know what it is, I have a pretty good idea where it comes from and there’s two numbers flashing in red in the corner of my vision.” Kaylee at the very least didn’t laugh, call her crazy, or drag her back to the hospital for being crazy. Instead, she hesitantly spoke: “Have you asked the voice what it wants? “No” “Maybe you should ask it?” “Ok, Advanced thingy what do you want?” [Accessing mission directory… ERROR No mission parameters Available. CAUSE: Unscheduled removal of core memory slates.] “Well bloody outstanding, is there anything you remember?” [ACCESSING RECORDS: basic logistical and combat databases are available.] Laura’s eyebrows rose at that, so you can kill things, but you don’t know what to kill!?” that outburst was successful in drawing a very concerned look from Kaylee. Realising what she had said, Laura quickly added. “Apparently the voice knows how to build ‘logistical’ things… whatever that means.” Kaylee’s eyebrows dropped. “And weapons.” Laura nodded. “And Weapons.”
“So you want to build em?” Laura jolted up. “Wha…?” “You want to see if the voice is full of it?” Laura shook her head. “No, I don’t want to ‘build em’ the last thing I need is to start dumping nukes around my house!” [No blueprints for weapons utilising any combination of fusion or fission reactions are available in my database] “Well that’s a relief, yeah sounds great let’s go build bombs then, I’m not up to anything, how about you guys?” [your words indicate an eagerness to begin construction, however current context suggests otherwise] “Congratulations” At this point Kaylee had burst into fits of laughter. Catching sight of the death glare that her friend was giving her she held her breath, stifling the laughter. “I say we should test it out, look it’s going to become a problem eventually so we should figure it out before then.” Laura glared back the proverbial cogs ticking away as she tried to think of a way to counter what Kaylee was saying. [ALERT. MASS and ENERGY reserves are low, build structures to refill reserves.] “Fuckin fine.” Lets go somewhere quiet, the last thing we want is to have to explain why there’s a bloody terminator in the middle of a macca’s parking lot.” Kaylee grinned. “How about the Uni carpark?” “FUCK no, head out mountains way. TOMORROW.”