Frelya

PanTech Headquarters

Frelya emerged from the AMSD fully suited up and ready for anything she might encounter. She hoped. The primary plan was to avoid these monsters until she had some idea of how to properly fight them. She’d seen how many soldiers had to be thrown at just one of them in order to take them down, and it was unlikely a commander would fare much better.

She was thankful, at least, that the Explorers League was the closest division to her own. Still, there was no such thing as close when it came to the facilities outside the central tower. There was a large degree of separation to everything, trivialized by the transportations pods that could send you anywhere you wanted to go in moments. One only had to step into the pod, and be blasted through the complex network of transparent tunnels.

Until nearly all of them get destroyed by machines, that is.

There were so many of these machines wandering around everywhere, and a distinct lack of destroyed units. Something about this wasn’t right. She specifically remembered encountering broken units nearby the previous day, on her way back to Adversity Management with Joyce.

Everything was far too quiet. She’d already made it halfway to the Explorers League and hadn’t encountered a single machine yet. Still, she couldn’t take any risks. She continued to move slowly and carefully along cover.

The feeling was beyond eerie. It was like she was the only living thing left in the world. The whizzes and whirs and chatter she’d known every day since arriving at PanTech had now become absolute and unsettling silence.

As she neared the Explorers League, she emerged from cover. A temptation she couldn’t resist. She walked casually through the ruins now and the thought finally occurred to her that this may actually be it. What if there really was no one left? What if the machines had gone outside and wiped out all the survivors? What if Taylor…

She shuddered. She didn’t want to think about that. She wouldn’t.

Taylor was okay and doing… something, right now. Something reckless. But probably something remarkable. Like saving the world.

A machine emerged in the distance, and she dove behind cover. It walked casually, just as she’d been walking. Scanning for survivors? It paused, then continued in a slightly different direction at a quicker pace. It was moving directly toward Explorers League. Had it detected survivors?

Frelya struggled to keep up with something so large, but it was paying her no mind. It was on a mission, it seemed literally. Eventually, it came to a destroyed machine lying on the ground. It rose to its full height, scanning with red light the way she’d seen them do with targets, then ejected a large net that covered the primary structure. It cut with what appeared to be a laser, then began to drag the piece away.

Just as Frelya was debating whether or not she should follow it, spikes sprang up from the ground, impaling the machine from beneath. One shot rang out. A rifle, for sure. The weaker versions Explorers League issued. It struck the machine, doing only minor damage to the glass-like dome at the center. The machine scanned frantically in the direction of the shot.

A dog strolled out from his sniper perch, holding his arms out to his side. Was he… smiling at the thing?

“Come get a piece, rust bucket!” he shouted. She shouted?

Fool was about to get himself killed. Was he suicidal, or just insane?

Frelya moved quickly to position herself behind it as the whirring of the machine guns began to hum and fill the air.

Just before they would’ve fired, two other figures flew into view, landing on opposite sides of the dome. Both had what appeared to be spears, which they slammed into it immediately. The machine thrashed, but they held on, using the spears to anchor themselves in place. Pistons launched outward with a force that should’ve sent them flying, but they stood unhindered. The plates that would’ve launched them away pinned harmlessly against the body by the spears. With practiced ease, they reached down and pulled cables, hoses, and wires, severing them with the precision of a surgeon.

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Frelya was impressed. She’d have probably died if she’d fought this thing, but they made it look easy. Like something you’d do before breakfast each morning.

The machine collapsed to the ground, now lifeless scrap. One of the cats saw her before she could announce herself, and sprinted toward her. Frelya turned, looking to move behind cover in case a firefight was unavoidable, but a shot struck her perfectly in the back of the leg joint of her armor, momentarily dropping her to one knee.

The cat was on her in an instant, reaching a paw out to take her arm. Frelya countered, grabbing the cat by the throat, turning them toward the sniper dog to use as a shield. Before she could do anything else, the other cat popped up between them.

Something in the eyes of these cats felt relatable to Frelya. They looked like they were about to snap at any moment. Like they always wanted to kill you, but didn’t just for the sake of being polite in the presence of their other comrades who didn’t feel the same.

The second cat, now squeezed tightly between her and the other, held a long, thin blade to her neck with her palm on the blunt end. A devious push dagger of sorts, but its purpose was immediately apparent. This could squeeze right into the seal of her armor and skewer her neck.

“Oh ho!” Frelya shouted. “I like Taylor’s pets! Try it and I’ll crush your friend’s throat, then beat you to death with her legs. Your dog buddy can watch from his perch. I bet he’d be too afraid to come down here and help you.”

A bluff. Frelya knew the chances of winning that gamble were slim, and closer to none. She’d seen them in action, dug into their nervous systems a bit when she evaluated Kelin. If they decided to kill her, even at her level, there was probably little she could do about it from this compromised position.

“Wait, are you Frelya?” the second cat asked.

“That’s me,” she said.

She withdrew the weapon, slipping from between them.

“Well, well… a human that might actually be useful for once.”

Frelya let go of the first cat’s throat.

The dog had been watching us through his rifle scope, deciding now was a safe time to join us.

“Why did you shoot it?” Frelya asked as he approached. No, she approached. It was so hard to tell with these animals until they got close, or until you heard them speak.

“I guess to a simpleton it would look like that shot didn’t do anything,” she scoffed, repositioning the rifle on her shoulder.

“Try explaining,” Frelya said.

“There’s an upload link. You can’t destroy it in a single shot, but you can knock it offline for about five minutes. If you destroy it in that amount of time and recover the black box, they can’t upgrade to protect whatever vulnerabilities we exploited.” She pointed over her shoulder at the large pile of scrap. “They’re starting to scavenge themselves, which we exploit by using their cores as bait.”

Frelya nodded along, thoroughly impressed.

“I guess a rescue was unnecessary. How about I offer you access to my science facility instead?”

The three looked at one another, then laughed loudly.

The first cat looked at Frelya, then back to the other cat.

“Wait, Kyro, she’s serious… Okay. Why would we want access to your broken-down facility and useless intel? We’ve seen the remnants of your Adversity Management’s skirmishes with these machines. You fire on them blindly, like you’re out for a day of target practice.”

“We didn’t know where to target, so we just shot them…” Frelya said, sighing in frustration. They weren’t interested, but she saw her moment to give them something that really would interest them.

With impossible speed, she shot her hand forward, grabbing the dog’s rifle, spinning it, flinging her to the ground. With a slight pivot, she shot her arm forward, catching both cats in the stomach, moving the rifle upward and sending both flying onto their backs.

“Do you like my enhancer?” Frelya asked, tossing the rifle back to the dog, who stared dumbfounded. “You’re formidable, but imagine what you could do with one of those.”

The cats sat up.

“I’m Lilith,” the calico cat said, shaking my hand with her paw.

“Kyro,” the smaller black cat with the dagger weapon said, offering her own paw.

“Grinner,” the dog said… grinning. “It’s a nickname.”

“You should’ve just said so in the first place. We have no idea how to install one of those,” Lilith said, putting her paw on my shoulder.

“Say, Grinner… what do you say we give our new best friend here some field training. Another one should be here in… oh… the next twenty minutes, right?”

“Twenty minutes and… around eighteen seconds.”

“Machines are stupid,” Kyro said. “If we stop them from streaming amendments to their programming, they just do the same thing over and over again. By the way, how many soldiers do you have left here at HQ?”

“Zero,” Frelya said, finally feeling the heaviness in the answer. Despite being a loner, she respected many of them. They didn’t deserve this… “Not sure how many are out in the field. We maintain adversity zones, so its possible most of our units are still operating.”

“None here…” Grinner said, sighing. “I’m sorry.”

“Girls’ night?” Kyro said, putting her arm around Lilith.

“Girls’ night!” Grinner shouted, putting her arm around Frelya’s shoulder. “Just us girls and a whole scrapyard to practice on. First up, transmitter jamming. Second, optics. Third, disabling thermal regulatory systems. Fourth, balance disruption. Despite their high level of competence, Frelya couldn’t help but notice they seemed to have the maturity of a group of preteens. This opportunity couldn’t be passed on. It was exactly what she needed.

“Wouldn’t you know it, my schedule’s wide open,” Frelya said. “Girls’ night it is.”