CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Learning Experiences
Specter
Warm water flowed over the bloody cloth in the sink, swirling the red liquid. Specter’s steel hand squeezed the cloth, wringing out the blood until it was clean. He glanced at the empty bucket on the floor, a reminder of the mess he had just dealt with and the sheer amount of puke it had contained. He left the bathroom, the bucket in one hand and the clean cloth in the other as he entered the bedroom. The dim light there barely illuminated the room, casting long shadows.
Marcus lay motionless on the bed, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. His skin looked ghostly pale, and his nose still bled, staining the pillow. Sweat covered his body, soaking through his clothes and the sheets.
He looked at the two dark grey notches tattooed on Marcus’s right biceps, each a permanent reminder of a Sphere they had destroyed. The skin still looked red and tender from his uncle’s work yesterday, despite the man’s protests. Specter shifted his attention to the young man’s chest, noting the red-stained t-shirt despite the bandages underneath.
‘Still bleeding,’ Specter thought, seeing the red spots where the man had repeatedly stabbed himself with Glass. ‘At least he’s no longer curled up in agony or retching. Luckily, his rate of recovery has improves as well.’ He placed the damp cloth against the man’s nose, wiping away some blood before setting it on the table. He noticed the nine spare Glass pieces next to the cloth, demanding his attention. Specter then activated his HUD, and a series of new pop-ups appeared, highlighting Marcus’s improved stats.
╔ ╗
[Endurance] [+1]
[Agility] [+2]
[Perception] [+1]
[Vigor] [+1]
╚ ╝
“You know you’re mental, right?” he muttered, recalling how Marcus had stabbed himself with 20 Glass pieces, repeating the painful process 14 times and using up 280 pieces and constantly upgrading himself during it. He remembered holding Marcus down with Bastion, a leather belt forced between the man’s teeth as his body convulsed from the unnatural energy violently altering him. ‘Brave idiot.’ He grabbing the cloth to wipe more blood from Marcus’s nose. ‘This is going to get you killed someday,’ he thought, recalling how Marcus had violently vomited, and how blood constantly poured from his nose.
“You should’ve paced yourself... spread the process out over a few days,” he muttered softly, hearing movement behind him.
Bastion stepped into the room, its towering black steel frame covered in matte green plastic plating, contrasting sharply with Specter’s dull grey plates.
“How’s he doing?” Bastion asked, moving closer to the bed. It squatted down, took the cloth from Specter’s hands, and dabbed more blood from Marcus’s nose, as if emphasizing its role as his guardian.
“Well, he’s not howling like a banshee anymore,” Specter said, his three lenses fixed on Marcus as his thermal camera detected a spike in body temperature. “He’s not going to like how he feels in the morning, but he should be fine.”
He watched Bastion gently dab the cloth against Marcus’s nose with surprising grace for its bulky frame. Moments like these made Specter realize just how much Bastion had changed in the last two weeks, acting more like how their sister react with a touch of Luuk sprinkled in there. It came off more like a gentle giant now, despite the violence Specter had seen the robot channel against monsters. ‘Protective... steadfast... caring,’ Specter thought, grinning inwardly, his steel body unable to show it.
“I still say we should’ve stopped him. I mean, 280 pieces of Glass? I think he suffered brain damage from all the smoke he inhaled back then,” Specter pitched.
“Says the robot that nearly got killed trying to grab a third Orb,” Bastion said with an amused tone.
“That’s rich, coming from the bucket of bolts that crumpled like a crouton from a small jump.”
Bastion chuckled, setting the cloth beside the Glass pieces. “I’m with you on Marcus’s overzealous upgrading. It wasn’t smart. But,” it paused, twin lenses focusing on the family photo that was on Marcus’s desk. “We weren’t there... in our old home. We only have his memories. He smelled it, saw the faded bloodstains on the floor where Mom and Dad died. If we had been there, we’d be—”
“Pissed off,” Specter said, nodding. “You’re probably right. I think I would’ve done the same, had I been a fleshy human.”
They watched Marcus for a while longer, his labored breathing slowly calming as he slipped into a deeper sleep. After a while, the robots left the room and headed to the living room, with Specter carrying the family photo. Bastion sat on the couch, facing the 3D printer as it made more protective plates, before picking up the laptop to research shield and spear designs. Specter recalled how the robot had mentioned plans to create its own weapons once it learned how.
He shifted his attention from the robot to his mother’s ceramic mug on the printer, glued back together and now holding the small cactus his sister had given Marcus in the hospital. ‘Seems fitting somehow, broken shards desperately clinging together. Just like our family is.’ He then carefully placed the picture next to it, finding the combination fitting.
“Are you good to go?” Bastion called out, shifting its head to see what Specter was staring at.
“Yeah. It’s only 24 hours. I mean, what could go wrong?” Specter said sarcastically, shifting his gaze from the mug and moving to the door where two bags and a crate sat. One of the bags belonged to Marcus, containing his newly bought steel and cut-resistant armor. It wasn’t even Glass-grade, just basic non-augmented armor, but better than what he had before. Behind it, a sealed crate held a sword Marcus had bought with his uncle. The crate required both Marcus’s ID and a government official’s authorization to open without setting off alarms. Specter then shifted his attention to the other bag, which held two sets of clothes, a cheap disposable cellphone, a smaller backpack, several knives, two axes, rope, and a few rolls of tape for last-minute repairs.
He quickly grabbed one set of clothes and began to put it on, covering his robotic frame in baggy black fabric, while a hoodie hid most of his head. “So, how do I look?”
Bastion stared at him for a moment before speaking up, “Honestly? You look like that weird kid at school that always tagged walls for fun.”
“I’ll take it,” Specter said, zipping up his bag and securing his hoodie before struggling to put on some black sneakers that would hopefully muffle most of the sounds he’d otherwise be making. After testing the sneakers for a few seconds by taking a few paces, he made his way over to the window and opened it slowly.
“Let me know if anything happens to him, alright?” Specter asked as he crawled through the window.
“I’ll handle things here. Don’t worry,” Bastion said, standing up and moving toward him, grabbing the window with one hand and making a fist with the other. “You just worry about not getting killed, alright?”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Specter nodded before double tapping his fist with Bastion, with both of them speaking up, “Blood and iron.”
The large robot closed the window as Specter moved quietly down the fire escape, focusing on the task ahead: scouting their next Sphere.
- - -
A while later, Specter leaped over the fence with ease, landing quietly on the other side. As he made his way through the ruins of his hometown, memories flooded his mind—Marcus’s memories. Familiar spots from their childhood stood in stark contrast to the devastation around him. The schoolyard where he had played was now overgrown with weeds. The park bench where Marcus and his friends had gotten their first scars was now broken and rusted. Each step he took brought a new wave of nostalgia and sorrow, the echoes of a past life mingling with the desolation of the present.
Nearing the Sphere’s barrier, Specter spotted several ruined houses clustered nearby. He wasted a bit of time exploring the scene, looking for signs of activity—looters, Breachers, or the government. Finding nothing, he searched for the nearest house next to the Sphere while still in sight of his father’s gym. ‘This place should do for now,’ he thought, making his way inside the old house.
The structure was in a bad state, with most of it already collapsed. The roof had caved in, and the walls were riddled with cracks and holes. Debris littered the floor, and the air was thick with dust and mildew. Specter grabbed the disposable cellphone from his bag, emailing Bastion to update it on his location and that he’d be entering the Sphere in a few seconds. He then powered down the phone, grabbed his weapons, and donned his tattered raincoat. After tossing the phone in the bag and stuffing it in the nearest cabinet, he stepped outside, wielding both axes as he made his way towards the Sphere.
The barrier, a gel-like wall of crystals, engulfed him as he slowly stepped through, emerging on the other side into a landscape that mirrored the ruins outside but was bathed in a blue hue. ‘It doesn’t look that different from before,’ Specter thought as he quickly made his way into the nearest house, explored it briefly, then crouched down and peered out of a broken window adjacent to the main street. ‘Glad to see the weird mutating effect isn’t that quick.’
He jumped out through the window and entered the next house, repeating the process from house to house. Just as he was about to leave the last one, he spotted movement. Zooming in with his camera, he made out a group of monsters rushing down the street in a tight pack. ‘Seven of them?’ he thought, switching to his main camera after detecting their heat signatures. He observed the wolf-like creatures: brownish fur, six limbs, one eye, and multiple tusks instead of fangs. ‘Sort of like a mixture between a wolf and a boar.’
The monsters split into three smaller groups, one heading toward the building he was in. ‘Is this steel body cursed or something?’ Specter thought, moving away from the window and rushing to the nearest door. He opened it to reveal a small pantry, barely large enough to fit inside. Forcing himself in, he left the door ajar, listening as the creatures crashed through the front door and windows. ‘Two of them,’ he thought, doing his best not to make a sound or knock into anything. In times like these, he was glad to be a robot, seeing as he could lock up the motors and pistons in his body to stay perfectly still.
He could hear the distinct sounds of movement—creatures clawing at the floorboards, growling at one another, or simply running around the room, sniffing the air. Tightening his grip on his axes, Specter prepared to strike in case he was discovered. ‘I should be able to handle two... but I wonder if they’re similar to the monsters I’ve fought before,’ he thought, hesitating because he had no way of knowing if he was inside a light blue Sphere, other than what he could see.
Minutes of tense silence passed, filled with the sounds of destruction and digging. Eventually, he slowly pushed the door open a bit wider, peeking his head out to see that the monsters had made a deep hole in the floor. Suddenly, one of the monsters attacked the other, ripping it apart and tearing chunks from the dead creature. ‘Infighting, what the hell?’ To make it even weirder, the monster vomited on the remains before nudging all the body parts back into the hole. Moments later, it started burying the corpse underneath bits of broken floorboards. ‘Why is it doing this?’ Specter thought, bewildered.
After finishing the burial, the remaining monster started running around the room anxiously, as if waiting for something to happen. It passed the pantry door several times, its tusk gouging lines into the floorboards while smashing up nearby pieces of furniture. On the fifth pass, it skidded to a halt, noticing the door was slightly ajar. The monster slowly moved towards it and began sniffing the door, only for said door to slam right into its nose.
With the creature dazed, Specter buried an axe into the its skull and slammed the second one into its neck. He let go of the axes, grabbed two knives, and frantically punched more holes into the creature, aiming for vital organs and arteries as it dropped dead. He watched it for a few moments before he ripped out the Glass from the back of its skull. ‘Looks like I can kill the buggers just fine,’ he thought as he stored the Glass.
Retrieving his gear, he then made his way to the mound of broken floorboards. Brushing away debris, he uncovered the remains of the other monster, ripped apart and covered in bile. Using his knife, he swirled it around in the gory mess until he found the Monster-Glass with small fleshy tendrils attached to it. ‘That’s weird,’ he thought, pulling out the Glass piece and watching the tendrils wither and die before they crumbled into nothingness. He looked at the piece for a few more seconds, then stuffed it in his backpack. After checking that the coast was clear, he jumped outside and headed toward another house.
Entering through the nearest broken window, Specter saw scratch marks all over the floor, leading to one of the open doors. He carefully followed the trail after having made sure the rest didn’t have any hidden monsters. Peering through the doorway, he saw a basement with scratch marks leading down the wooden steps. ‘Great, another basement fight,’ he thought, recalling his previous experience with monsters and a basement.
He swapped one axe for a knife to have a better advantage in the cramped environment. Slowly, he descended the groaning wooden stairs, mentally wincing at every sound as he alternated between his night and thermal vision. Barely halfway down, he paused. ‘Why am I doing it like this? Dad wouldn’t have walked into an ambush.’ He slowly returned upstairs, secured his knife, and grabbed a nearby lamp from a collapsed cabinet. He looked at it for a moment before he threw it down the stairs.
The sound of it smashing echoed through the basement as he leaned against the wall near the doorway, both hands clutching his axe tightly. Tense seconds passed before he heard hissing and growling, followed by a large creature rushing up the stairs. ‘That’s it, you dumb idiot, follow the sound.’ As the creature shot through the doorway, Specter slammed his axe into the monster’s chest, shattering ribs and puncturing organs before sending it tumbling back down the stairs.
‘Overdrive’
Specter’s body exploded with unnatural speed and strength, consuming a third of his battery reserves as he shot down the stairs, landing feet-first on the dazed creature’s stomach like a steel robotic spear. His weight and impact crushed several of the creature’s ribs, and he followed up with savage swings of his axe, blood splattering everywhere. Specter halted and stepped back when he heard movement, seeing another creature rushing toward him, climbing over its fallen kin.
Specter retreated up the stairs and paused near the doorframe. As the creature closed in, he slammed the door shut at the last second, a wave of satisfaction washing over him as the timing was just right, hearing the monster crash into the door, before falling down the stairs with a yelp. Specter’s cameras were fixed on the door as he listened to the howling from the basement. ‘Any second now,’ he thought as he gripped the axe tighter.
Moments later, he heard the creature charge up the stairs, clawing at the wood before crashing through the door in a burst of splinters and hatred. The creature hit the ground and slid forward with its momentum. Just as it got back up, Specter swung his axe into its back, breaking its lower spine and paralyzing parts of its body. With one arm on the axe handle and the other on its neck, Specter dragged its head across the ruined floorboards. He applied more pressure, shaving bits from the creature’s face with each step he took, leaving a gory red smear across the floor. Its hisses turned into whimpers as Specter reached the doorway leading to the basement. With casual disdain, he threw the creature headfirst down the stairs, hearing a nasty crunch as it hit the wall and went limp.
“I think it’s safe to assume that this Sphere is indeed a light blue,” Specter muttered, making his way down the stairs. He collected his weapons and ripped out the monster’s Glass pieces one by one, dumping them into his backpack.
The old, dusty basement was typical, though warped by thirteen years of decay—cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and a thick layer of dust covered everything. Switching through his camera perspectives, Specter noticed bits of broken concrete in the corner.
‘Another hole?’ he thought, moving the debris to uncover another dead monster, ripped apart and covered in bile, just like before.
‘What the hell,’ he thought, noticing the same veins attached to the Glass but in a much more intricate pattern, nearly encapsulating it in a spherical design. ‘Is this how monster make more Orbs or nests?’ He inspected it further, but couldn’t find a definitive answer, nor grasp how long such a process might take. ‘I’ve read that any piece of Glass can turn into an Orb if the conditions are right or enough time passes, but seeing this up close… this is weird’
His mind flashed back to the Sphere where he and Felix had worked recently, recalling the monsters that had rushed out. Some had survived a few seconds outside, while others had nearly managed a full minute. The motors in his fingers whirred as he made a tight fist, anger surging at the thought that some of these creatures might form a new Orb outside the Sphere if they were fast enough and managed to hide their Glass.
‘I’ll need to learn more about the process,’ he thought, slipping the piece of Glass into his backpack before checking his HUD to see how much time had passed already. He stood up and climbed the stairs.
‘I’m sure there’s detailed information out there about how it all works, but just to be sure...’ He stepped outside, staring at another house in the distance, where the third group of monsters had gone.‘…Let’s not miss out on a practical learning experience.’