It all happened too fast. One moment Amberlee was running alongside the others, and the next, a hulking mining robot lunged from the dust-choked shadows. Its clamp hands were brutal, quick, and far too strong. The first one snapped around her wrist, and her skin peeled away like a glove as it jerked her arm forward. Her scream was more rage than pain as she wrenched back, but the movement only sealed her fate. The robot’s other clamp seized her opposite wrist, and with one brutal twist, it degloved her remaining arm.
A hiss of static filled her ears, the sound of her anti-inertial barrier straining, but the field wasn’t enough to stop the machine. She’d already been touching it when it grabbed her—the barrier couldn’t dislodge what it couldn’t repel. Her blood-slick arms throbbed in the open air as she kicked and twisted in its grip, but the robot dragged her with mechanical indifference, her body scraping through rock dust that stung and burned in the raw flesh.
The room blurred around her as the dust-coated floor gave way beneath her feet. She tumbled into a hopper. With a sharp clang, it deposited her onto a magnetic conveyor. The world around her became static-laden noise, distorted and unnatural, as the electromagnetic field took hold of her body. Helplessness was the first sensation—her muscles twitching involuntarily as the field pressed her into place, locking her in a paralyzing grip. Her chest tightened as fear slithered into her mind, irrational and uncontrollable. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t act. All she could do was feel.
Weightlessness. Limbo. It was like floating in an ocean of dread, with no sense of where the crushing force would come from. The magnetic field distorted her senses. Strange shapes flickered at the edge of her vision, and sounds—inhuman, hollow echoes—slipped through her hearing. Every second in that field felt like a lifetime, each moment stretching out endlessly, leaving her with the crushing awareness that she was completely, utterly alone.
Then came the drop.
The conveyor dumped her roughly into the clutches of another machine. Long, probing arms snatched her up, metallic fingers with surgical precision clamping onto her exposed skin. Amberlee screamed again, a sound of fury that echoed in the cold, industrial space. Pain was there, sharp and undeniable, but it was secondary to the overwhelming humiliation. These things—arms—were skinning her. With every probe, every twist of their arms, they peeled away more of her flesh, exposing nerves and muscle to the open air, leaving her flayed and bleeding.
Was this it? She had endured so much already—riding that hellish conveyor, solving the comet’s mystery only to meet the true horror behind it. And now she was being reduced to raw, skinned flesh by monsters without a shred of mercy. Her body, her mind—everything was coming apart, and yet Amberlee clung to life with a rage that defied the agony.
The probing arms finished their work. She was alive, but barely. Somewhere in her fractured awareness, she felt the cold touch of a cylinder being lowered over her head. It was metallic, heavy, its purpose unclear. A long, hollow beep filled her ears, drowning out the throb of pain and fury.
Amberlee screamed, “Molly-Cat!” The sound of her voice and muffled by the canister encasing her head.
Amberlee’s AVP feed had ended.
Stolen novel; please report.
EPILOGUE TO THE INTERLUDE: A BODY UNKNOWN
Somewhere in the haze, Amberlee felt herself wake. It was strange—everything was off. Her body... it didn’t feel right. She couldn’t piece together what was wrong, but something deep in her core screamed that it was. Her hands gripped her head as a sharp pain tore through her skull. What happened...? Her mind struggled to form thoughts, as if everything was swimming through molasses.
She tried to speak, but the sound that came out was all wrong. A high-pitched screech, foreign and alien. Panic started to creep in. Her body jerked, uncoordinated, as she moved to stand. Something tugged around her waist, a thin cable that fell slack as she hopped down from wherever she had been resting.
Her feet hit the ground, and the room swayed for a moment. She blinked, trying to steady herself, but nothing made sense. She glanced around the room, taking in the white walls, the strange equipment—and then her eyes locked onto something on the floor.
A body. Mike...? The recognition struck her like a lightning bolt. Headless, bloody, his corpse lay sprawled out, the blood still fresh and glistening. The sight sent her stumbling backward, clutching at her head again. Her heart pounded, her breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps. No, no, no...
A flash of memory surged through her disjointed thoughts. The cloner. She had tried to use the cloner. I made a mistake. The realization was sluggish, but horrifying. What did I do?
Her thoughts were fragmented, barely cohesive, but the terror was real. And then she saw them.
The children.
Four small figures crawled from the shadows, their long blonde hair streaked with blood, their faces smeared with it—her blood. Her eyes widened in disbelief, horror clawing at her insides. They were... her. They were... her twin. Identical in every way.
Amberlee felt like her mind was splitting apart. What is this? The creatures moved on all fours, like animals, their little faces upturned as they watched her. And then they smiled.
It was too much. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed to the floor. The last thing she saw was those smiles—innocent, yet drenched in blood—as the world tilted and went black.
When she stirred again, the nightmare continued. Her body lay motionless, but her mind was still present, barely clinging to the fog of consciousness. The children were near, their small hands tugging at the cable around her waist, unwinding it like a toy. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream—trapped in a body that wasn’t hers. Her vision blurred as they pulled the cable closer to something in the room.
Suddenly, the doctor robot sprang to life. One of its long, mechanical arms shot out and seized the cable. The children scattered, leaving her alone with the machine. Her body was dragged across the floor, limbs scraping uselessly as the robot pulled her closer.
In a detached daze, Amberlee watched the silver cylinder emerge from the robot’s back. The NPU gleamed coldly as it was placed over her head. She tried to fight, to resist, but her body barely twitched in response. The sensation of helplessness was overwhelming as the machine completed its task with mechanical precision.
Her vision flickered, and then her consciousness faded.
The recording of her body continued, cold and unfeeling, documenting the sterile efficiency of the robot’s work. In the shadows, the children went back to their play, their strange, blood-smeared faces smiling as though none of it mattered.