I blacked out.

I had tiny flashes of recollection after the crash. Armed people, pulling me from the wreckage. But it was just a flash. The next thing I knew, I woke up on a hospital bed in some kind of infirmary. I had been bandaged up. I was sore and had burn marks.

I tried to get my bearings by looking around. There was no one there. Least of not, Emily. A moment later, the door opened up. A man looking like a doctor or a scientist came in.

He said, “Ah, I see you are awake.”

Immediately, he pulled out a small aerosol can and sprayed me in the face. This put me under once again.

I awoke again, unsure of how much time had passed by. This time, I was in a jail cell. There were a half dozen other cells around me. No walls, just bars. But I was the only one being held there. I didn’t see any guards around. So I went to the door to see if it was possible to get out. That’s when I took a massive shock of electricity that sent my flying back.

Less than a minute later, I heard commotion outside the room with all the cells. About a half dozen individuals were coming into the room.

The first was a man that could be none other than the infamous Kaiser Roboto. He had a

dark brown military style coat on and a Prussian style helmet, minus the point on top. His face looked like that of a gas mask, but I knew better. That was his artificial replacement of a face. According to Emily’s research, he had so much work done that he may not have any living tissue left.

He was flanked by two robotic guards. Steam exhausted from their shoulder blades every few steps. They were armed with shoulder carry rifles.

Behind them was someone who strangely looked familiar to me. But I know we hadn’t met before. She was dressed in an orange and black dress, similarly to the saloon girl outfit Emily had taken. She had strawberry blonde hair, but her face and hands had clearly been converted into mechanical replacements. Her eyes were covered by a silver visor that emitted a red laser dot which tracked back and forth across her face.

Before the other individuals came into the room, Kaiser started in with his questions.

“Who are you and who were you sent by?” he said, with a metallic toned voice.

I gave him no answer except, “where is Emily?”

Just then, the other two individuals made their way into the room. It was Alabaster Creole, the Devil of Murk. He was wearing his signature white suit except this one was more fitting of our environment.

He said, “you mean, Detective Grimwood?”

He was immediately followed by Emily. Who entered the room behind him with her hands clasped right in front of her and a blank look washed over her face. She stopped right next to the other woman and just stared.

“Emily!”

“Again! Who are you and who sent you to spy on us?” Roboto continued.

“Just hang on a moment my friend,” Alabaster said, with his slick cajun accent, “I know you…I know you don’t I? You’re that bodyguard that Detective Grimwood had back during the trial?”

There was a pause for a moment as I refused to answer his questions.

He continued, “Could it be? That that house back in the other world was yours? Are you the one responsible for all this world hoppin?”

“We should dispose of him,” Roboto interrupted, “I only had him nursed back to health for answers.”

“What did you do to Emily?!” I shouted.

“Oh, you mean, my gift from my new business partner, Mr. Roboto?” He placed his hand atop Emily’s head, but she didn’t move at all. She just looked blankly in my direction as Alabaster went on to say, “the mind of Detective Grimwood is a terrible thing to waste. I’ve had it out for her for some time now. But ya see, she’s my puppet now. And I don’t plan on cutting her strings for a long time…I guarantee.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“When we recovered you from the crash,” said Kaiser, “we brought you both in to get you well again. That was two days ago. During that time, I discovered that the young lady had some sort of advanced neural implant in her spine. I took it upon myself to make some modifications to her. Of course, in time, we will consider fully robotizing her, like Miss Italix here.”

Italix? Could it be that this other woman here was Italia, Higgins and my fathers former ally? But she was killed more than two decades ago? It had to be her though. The resemblance to the woman I had seen in Higgins locket hologram was uncanny.

“If it’s any consolation to ya,” Alabaster added, “I didn’t particularly enjoy murdering the young girls back at your house. The idea was just to send a message not to fuck with Alabaster Creole.”

My blood began to boil, but for obvious reasons I wasn’t going to mention anything about Anabel.

“To be honest, I should thank you,” Alabaster continued, “I’ve spent my life building my business empire in Sin City. Another five years and I would’ve owned the city. Another decade and I could’ve been president. Hell, maybe I could’ve been king of the world. But because of you…you have opened my eyes to new possibilities. With the power of the stones, what’s a few miserable streets when I could conquer entire realms?!”

This was really bad.

“Are we killing him or not?” Kaiser pressed.

“No. No, we’re gonna figure something else out for the young man. I have an idea. But I wanna run it by you in private first.”

Before leaving the room, Alabaster walked up close behind Emily and put his hands on her shoulders. He leaned down and took a big whiff of her hair before adding, “you know what Detective Grimwood’s hair smells like? It smells like the victory of trampling over your adversaries.”

Kaiser held up a small rectangular box that looked kinda like one of those radios they used back in WW2 and pressed a button. He then said, “Italix, Grimwood, we’re leaving.”

The girls followed suit as the two villains left me all alone in my cell once again. How could I have let this happen? It would’ve been better if we had died in that crash. Emily fought for her freedom from the last madman that made her his puppet, only to find herself under the control of another. She had done so much for me and the cause that I’m fighting for. But I’ve allowed her to fall into her worst nightmare.

* * *

A couple of hours later, I heard a ruckus down the hall. The door opened and in came Roboto again. This time he had six of his robotic foot soldiers with him, each had a steel rod in hand with a loop on the end. They had apprehended Arduwan! She had two loops around her neck and two others restraining her arms behind her back. The other two walked parallel to her with loops around her waist, forcing her to walk. She was still dressed in her tan explorers outfit but minus the hat. It was clear she had given them a fight.

“Seems your friend here was mounting a rescue attempt,” said the metallic echoing Kaiser, “she destroyed a dozen of my newly minted droid soldiers before we apprehended her. I wanted to execute her on the spot. But Creole thinks that keeping you two alive will serve us. We shall see.”

The soldiers put Arduwan into a cell opposite of mine. The moment they released her bindings she charged the cell door, only to be flung back by a charge of electricity.

Just then, a human minion of Kaiser’s came into the room. Behind him were two more robo soldiers with Wraith in tow.

“Sir! We’ve found another infiltrator,” the man said, “he scaled the outer wall but was caught almost immediately. He was carrying only this.”

The man held out Wraith’s satchel with his daggers. Kaiser reached in and sifted through before pulling Wraith and Arduwan’s hotel key.

“Hmm, a key to a room at The Arliss Hotel in Brasshaven. Just like the one found on the girl. Have a detachment sent into town and investigate the hotel. See what you find in their rooms and bring any more of their cohorts you may find to me.”

“Yessir!”

Wraith was then placed in a separate cell. We refrained from talking until the guards left us. But before I could say anything, Wraith spoke up first…

“Don’t worry, Eric. I learned a lock picking skill from the thieves guild…”

“No, wait, Wraith, stop!”

He was zapped hard in his vain attempt to free us. We were totally at the mercy of these monsters. I walked over and sat on my cot to try and think of something.

“I appreciate you guys coming for us. But I kinda wish you hadn’t. Enough people have died already because of my lackluster preparation.”

“Eric, where’s Emily?” Arduwan asked.

I looked up at her and said, “Creole’s got her. He had Roboto turn her into a mindless slave.”

“How? With some kind of spell?”

“Kinda. There’s something you guys need to know about Emily. It was a secret I was keeping for her. But it doesn’t matter now. You see, in her world, she was in a horrible car wreck when she was younger. A mad scientist recovered her body and gave her this spinal implant that brought her back to life. Roboto found out about that and rewired her. She’s not in there anymore.”

They were quiet for a moment before Wraith, in a rare moment of seriousness, said,

“Aww, man. I’m sorry. There’s gotta be something we can do. Have you tried any magic yet?”

“I haven’t. I can’t think of any spells worth trying. If they found out I could use magic and it didn’t work then they might restrain me even more. I’m gonna wait until a more opportune moment.”