R4 did not know how long she lay there, but in time she regained consciousness. She found herself chained to a strange board that, to her confusion, felt oddly rubbery. All around her was darkness. She struggled, but her arms were bound above her head. Her struggles triggered something as the mechanism began to shift and move, throwing her here and there. She felt something brush against her legs that felt like cloth. A moment later the lights above lit up.
“Welcome all premium members, to the interlude of our festival games.” There was a sound of applause, though R4 suspected it was recorded. She quickly took in her surroundings, and was disheartened to realize she could see out of only her left eye. To her right N2 had been chained up, her arms likewise above her head, and to her left a man she did not recognize. All had been dressed in an odd white tabard, or maybe it was supposed to be a robe. In truth it was little more than a thin white sheet that covered front and back with a hole for the head and a few stitches to differentiate the arm holes. On N2 it went below her knees, while R4 it was a bit above. The man, being taller, was even less covered.
“N2, are you alright?” R4 asked
“Do I look alright?” N2 cried back. R4 noticed her right hand had been wrapped, but was now little more than a stump. “They took my hand, shoved it in that psycho's mouth and he just sawed it off. You just watched.”
“I’m sorry.” R4 replied, her good eye crying as her dead eye sat blindly. “God, why is this happening?” She prayed. A flicker of light flashed across her dead eye. “What the?”
[[Get Ready]]
“Hey, you two, can you get free?” The man asked.
“We’re going to die, we’re going to die, they’re going to sacrifice us and we’re going to get eaten.”
“I’m stuck and down one eye, N2 is down an arm.” She paused. “N2, since you don’t have a hand can you pull free?” N2 was still looking around in a panic. “N2, hey,” R4 hopped once, twice, then reached out with her foot to poke the girl, N2 jumped and screamed. “Hey, can you pull your stump through the chains?”
“No, but you don’t get it, the horned things are going to eat us!”
“Hey now, don’t you go ruining the surprise little web walker.” There was a beep and N2 went ridged for a moment before slumping. “D*** I love shock collars.”
“You are horrible, you know that?” R4 stated, glaring at the camera. Immediately a jolt of electricity went through her right arm. Craning her neck to look up she saw the offending object, a small black shock collar attached to her upper arm. “Are you serious?” Immediately her mind was going. If she could get that thing off she would have access to a battery and some materials. If she could loosen some of the chains, a low THUD interrupted her thoughts.
The room R4 found herself in had once been a thermal boiler, taking advantage of the magma in the area to create power. Now defunct, the room was approximately 20 meters in diameter and roughly octagonal. The door that led to the room stood behind three gates, each made from nanite forged iron bars that prevented movement but allowed sight through them. While the room was at least 5 meters in height the entrance had been barricaded by welded scrap, causing there to be a tunnel 4 meters in length which held the three gates. This had been further decorated with torches and skulls, some of which were real most of which were plastic.
R4 saw the figure approach, rapping its long claws upon the gate. With a deranged howl the creature lashed out with long sharp claws against the nano-forged iron of the gate. R4 saw sparks, and while the gate held she could see the gouge taken out of the reinforced metal. Through the bars the creature’s left eye blazed with unholy light. It slashed twice more at the gate before trying to chew through it, its elongated maw filled with slashing teeth.
“For any new viewers we like to get the second stage of our little contest going with a lighting of the torch.” R4 noticed the creature jam its claws into a part of the wall, and immediately the room got brighter as several torches lit up. “And there’s our torch bearer now. Rumor has it he used to be a Dimdwell by the name of Ratface.” The creature stepped forwards, and stabbed his claws into something R4 couldn’t see. “Then he went and found something in the depths of the undercity. Now, well, come on out Ratface, come get your treats.”
R4 pulled on the chains, craning her neck to see what they were attached to. A simple metal hook, just high enough that she couldn’t get the chain connecting what she could now see were handcuffs off. A small key hole prevented them from opening, but R4 had an idea.
“N2, that thing looks like it’s got a lot of cyberware, can you blind it like you did the dog?”
“Maybe, that’s a lot of chrome.”
“Ok, give me just a moment,” R4 made a gesture and her wrist opened up. With a practiced maneuver she drew a few of her tools and got to work. With a click the handcuffs revealed their cheap construction and one fell right off, letting R4 quite literally off the hook. “Hold still,”
“Get me off!” The man yelled as R4 helped N2. “Hey, B****, get me off.”
“Hold yer’ horses. I’m one person.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“One word from gettin’ left on that hook.” R4 managed to pick the lock and get N2 off the hook just before her muscles locked up and hundreds of volts shot through her arm. “HEY! Quit it!”
“What an upset, the sacrifices have escaped, or have they?” The announcer spoke as the final gate opened. The man who walked through, though R4 wasn’t sure he was a man. One eye was mechanical and glowed with an evil red light, the other was covered in poorly healed scars as if he had tried to cut it out with his claws. His body was bulky with subdermal armor that seemed to be bulging out of his skin. His jaw had been either replaced or reshaped to make it longer, and to fit more teeth. Ratface opened his mouth and R4 saw those teeth move, a shimmering haze forming over them.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Teeth don’t move like that.” R4 mumbled, quickly moving to help the other man.
“Finally, get me off of this,” R4 ducked just as Ratface lunged. The man, showing remarkable athletic ability, pulled his leg and body up and out of the way, before bringing his heels down into Ratface’s back. The extra force pushed Ratface’s claws deep into the rubbery material, a strange fluid spraying from the claw and into the rubbery material which was now revealed to be clear. “Hurry up!”
“Woah, you’re good for a fat guy.” R4 commented, unlocking the cuffs and returning her tools to her wrist. The moment he was free the man turned and his wrist seemed to fold and he fired three shotgun slugs into Ratface’s back. “Did I say, fat? I meant husky,”
The man smiled a cruel smile. “Girls always do change their tune when I show off my chrome.” He eyed Ratface. “Despicable Dimdwell, human filth. Come girl, let us get,” Ratface twitched where it had fallen, and a tail R4 hadn’t noticed lashed out and cut into her leg. “Sweet Merciful Chrome!” With that he turned and bolted as fast as his swollen legs could carry him. R4 was right behind him, yet her leg felt strangely numb. She looked and found she was bleeding, not badly, but the fact she couldn’t feel it at all was concerning.
“R4, come on.” N2 exclaimed, waving her towards the exit.
“I’m coming, my leg’s messed up.” R4 replied. She tore a section from her outfit, which attracted a much unneeded wolf whistle from the announcer. “Hey! Quit it!”
“What an upset, our sacrificial victims have managed to escape Ratface. Seems he’s going to be working for his supper. Though, let’s not disappoint our other audience. The second leg of the Dimdwell games begins!” There was a CRACK like a starting pistol that blared through the speakers.
Leg now bandaged, and the hem of her robe a little shorter than she’d like, R4 chased after her two companions. She found the heavyset man trying his luck on a thick metal door. “D***, should have saved a shell to blast this lock.”
“Let’s see,” R4 said, with a gesture she had her tools out. “Wouldn’t work, shotguns usually use softer metals, this is nano-forged steel. Tier 2 stuff for sure, so unless you have a tier 3 shotgun or armor piercing rounds you’d be blasting it all day.”
“Well then get it open girl, we haven’t got all day.”
“I have a name,” R4 replied, “It’s Ra,” The lock clicked, “Run.”
R4 rolled out of the way just as the door opened and two goons came through guns blazing. The heavyset man took a round to the gut while N2 bolted. R4 tried to run, but took a shot to the back which knocked her to the ground. It took a moment for her to realize she was not dead, bruised but not dead.
“Dang, what do we do now?” The one goon asked.
“Dibs on the mechanic girl.”
“Idiot, stop thinking with your,” That was all he had time to say before a razor sharp claw cut through him from shoulder to hip. The leather jacket he wore and the kevlar vest beneath did nothing. One moment he was there, holding his shotgun to the head of the husky man, the next he was falling to the ground with a cut spine. Ratface didn’t bother waiting for him to die before he started eating.
“What the,” The other goon unloaded his shotgun into Ratface, but the rubber bullets just made him angry. R4 dragged herself as fast as she could, even knowing she had no hope.
A flash of light shone in her right dead eye for just a moment. She blinked, trying to clear the spot, and noticed a hole in the wall. It was small, but maybe she could hide in it. She crawled towards it, then through it. The decaying concrete let go at the exact wrong moment and she fell through long darkness, splashing into a pool laced with long strips of glowing plants. She choked and kicked in the pool, finally coming to the surface. Immediately she retched and choked out water she was sure had more metal than salt in it. Cold and miserable she climbed onto solid concrete, and flopped down exhausted.
Her legs felt numb, and her back felt like it was on fire. Her right eye, despite being sightless, itched and almost seemed to vibrate. She rubbed it, and it certainly didn’t feel like it should. It felt, hard.
[[STOP!]] The notification flashed, on her dead eye.
“Hello?” R4’s voice was far more shaky and speaking sent her into another coughing fit. Her eye pulsed with heat, and a strange scratching sound echoed through her skull. “What? What’s going on?”
[[DO NOT TOUCH.]]
“What the, shoot, those Dimdwell must have replaced my eye with a cyber eye.” She huffed, managing to sit. “Everyone knows those have to be paired. Probably why Ratface went psycho.” She paused. “So, great voice or whatever you are, what’s next. Wait here until those sick excuses for human beings come kill me?”
In response R4 felt her throat clench, a mighty thirst grip her. She looked at the water, at how the strange plants gave it a beautiful blue hue. She crawled forwards, cupping some and pulling it to her lips. It tasted clean, a bit metallic, yet it set off a firework of sensations in her mind. It reminded her of the time she had broken her arm, and her uncle had misread how much morphine she was supposed to have. She drank, and drank, but she couldn’t drink enough. Some distant part of her mind recognized she was in real trouble, yet she dove into the water.
And that was the end of Rachel.
Interlude
Initiating connection… success.
Retrieving archived conversation.
TSM: Eyes33 have you finished compiling the data?
Eyes33: Weee, three rocket boosters is fuuuuun.
TSM: 4nnouncer wants the show online by midnight.
Eyes33: Chill choom, why don’t you go knife a JT like your idol, I just posted it. Still working on the 'Scape. Chipping that web walker was a great idea, adrenal levels skyrocketed when she saw Ratface, she didn’t even think to try hacking him. Lost a bit of fidelity since we had to use the remote retrieval.
Eyes33: That group was fun to watch. Did you see Coach take out Nai1 Breath and B3aker with an empty shotgun. I think B3aker is actually dead, and Na1l is going to be getting a new jaw. Rave reviews all across the blind-net. All kinds of folks calling for a repeat. Going to be hard to top.
TSM: What of the lasses?
Eyes33: Dude, you need to chill. I saw what you did to that tall chick, you’ve got that creepy biology teacher act down to a science. The moment when you gave her her own heart, I think we got a few thousand credits in tips from that alone. The web walker got to our server in the sacrifice chamber. Good thing we had backups, but we lost hours of data. Unless Ratface got her, she probably made it out. Shotgun fist and the tech, no clue.
TSM: The Exec you call shotgun fist is Ivan Grigrov. A resilient chap whom I would give even odds should he be caught aware. We were paid heavily to cast him in our play.
Eyes33: F***. That’s going to bite us.
TSM: Yet the show must go on. What of the tech? She was finely formed and fit for another run. I would love to watch her regrow her crimson hair, and then see it adorned upon my spike.
Eyes33: No clue. It’s like she crawled in a hole and vanished. Probably Ratface ate her. I would have liked to get a picture of that. Remember that redhead he caught last game, I think she actually enjoyed it. I think we should let the girls keep their hair more, maybe dye it to the viewers can tell them apart easier. This whole crew cut thing is a waste of time anyhow. What exactly is Ratface anyhow?
TSM: A mystery for the boffins.