“Damn it’s fast!” Red cursed between heavy pants.
In the cell, the creature had seemed to lumber on rickety metal joints. She’d expected it to do the same out in the open. However, that was simply the opposite of the truth. On its bipedal stilts that served as its legs—the warped metal flexing powerfully with each long stride—she and Oak could barely keep up sprinting.
Her high-visibility jacket was annoying. It pricked her sweating neck as she ran through the corridor. Additionally, she felt the tip of the slag bat poking her back—she’d kept it holstered behind her as a defensive weapon to use in lieu of her missing pistol, and as a replacement for the less effective crowbar. While their workmen disguises lent them some leeway before getting detected, preparing for violence never seemed a bad move to Red.
She considered it fortunate that this section of the research base had been largely devoid of people thus far—two frenetic idiots running after a three metre-tall metal monster would otherwise have drawn copious attention—all as if the guards had gone someplace else in the facility. The muted explosions they’d felt about half an hour ago probably had something to do with it, and all to do with their absent teammate. Knowing Joy, she was probably creating havoc out there. A marked deviation from the original plan, but a welcome diversion opportunity nevertheless.
On the next turn, Red and Oak lost sight of it.
“Which way did it go?!” Her head whipped between the two separate corridors. The whitewashed walls and sterile lighting of the facility didn’t particularly distinguish either path.
50/50. We’re gonna have to split. She didn’t like the only idea she could think of.
Fortunately, it seemed that Oak had a different plan. He approached the intersection and dropped on his knees, inspecting the floor.
“That way!” He stood up, and jammed his thumb to the right. With that, the two of them were off again.
Red looked at him like a farmer would a harvest-bringing shaman. “How’re you sure?”
“Its metal legs! They leave scratches on the floor!” Oak replied.
She was so used to giving him shit, that times like that were helpful in reminding her that Oak was actually pretty sharp, and surprisingly assertive when it came to matters of mission importance.
Thus, they navigated every intersection they came across with ease, following the scratch marks that the creature left behind. They might very well have been catching up, until their path crossed a pair of guards, rushing through the facility as they were.
“Hold it right there! This zone’s on lockdown!” The lead guard commanded. Full-face helmets obscured their expressions. Their hands drifted to their holstered slag bats.
With their faces breathless from running, and the alarms going off around them, it wasn’t a good look for Red and Oak.
“W-We’re… the mechanics y-you called!” Oak stammered.
“Mechanics?”
“Y-Yeah! We’re here to repair the, ummm… (plasmic centrifuge stabiliser)…”
“The what? Speak up!”
“I said, the uh… (plasmic centrifuge stabiliser)…”
Times like that reminded Red that her partner was also an awkward, bumbling oaf that deserved the shit she gave him. You’ve got those thick arms of yours… why don’t you just solve things with violence!
Tired of the charade, she pulled out the slag bat from behind her. Oak’s eyes widened like saucers.
“HEY! Where’d you get that!”
“Dunno, just found it lying around. You guys are lucky it didn’t end up in the wrong hands. Here, take it.” She held it out to the guard.
Just as his hands wrapped around the baton, she activated the stun mode. The effects were as immediate as the crack that pierced the air. His body seized up as a lethal dose of electricity coursed through his armoured body, shutting down his nervous system. Red swatted him aside with the slag bat, then jabbed the weapon at the second guard before even he had time to grab his.
Two twitching, smouldering bodies lay at her feet—unfortunately, the ‘stun’ modes of such weapons were usually catered to persons of the Immortal variety. She slapped each body twice more with the slag bat, then kicked them four times total for good measure.
The speechless Oak looked on, appalled.
Bite me, the scowl she sent back to him said. He swallowed.
“‘Plasmic centrifuge stabiliser’? Really?”
And with the question left hanging in the air, they continued pursuing the creature.
----------------------------------------
The directions in MACHINE FACE’s memories ended at a large, circular hatch. As he approached it, it seemed to respond to his presence, hissing and whirring as internal hydraulics began shifting the heavy mass of the door. With its parting, a cool natural breeze and a vibrant glow escaped, pushing back the sterile, suffocating air of the facility. Caressing MACHINE FACE’s ravaged skin like a gentle touch. A teasing taste of true freedom. He had already spent an eternity trapped in a cage. The hatch’s opening felt like it was taking an eternity more.
When the door finally opened, he took a ginger step through. For an infinitesimal moment, the parts of his body crossing the threshold felt an enveloping pressure that soon vanished completely. On the other side, he was greeted by a realm of cascading green—not the dank mouldy green he knew, but a green that was so vivid, so pristine. A breath sucked through his iron pipe throat. It was like he’d set foot in a different world.
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As far as the eye could see, there were lush trees, flourishing grass and flowers. He could hear singing birds, and spied the skipping tail of a lemur. Everything was brilliantly lit by a temperate sun. It was neither too hot nor too cold here, just a mild, pleasing temperature that was agreeable to all life there.
Walking through the treeline, his steps produced a soft crunching of leaves, while the stretching canopy above him swayed gently in the wind. There was such stunning, beautiful depth here compared to the textureless walls of his cage. He felt like a flat scribble on a sheet of paper, hopping off the page and discovering that there was an entire third dimension. It was all more perfect than everything he’d ever dreamed.
Too perfect.
As if this place was a timeless painting, preserved over centuries.
Artificial.
Constructed.
“Welcome to my garden.” The forest spoke in a finely articulated voice. “Everything that is here, I created in my image…”
“...including you, Subject 6.” At the end of its sentence, the moderated voice picked up slightly in volume. MACHINE FACE could hear it above him, faintly echoing. Bouncing off the domed ceiling, the cerulean panels that created the shining pretence of an open sky. He was still inside a cage.
“Although, let’s just say that in the case of you and the others, some scientific liberties were taken—” The voice sounded close now. No longer projected. Coming from the throat of a real, live person. “—many of which do not do any favours for your hideous appearance.”
MACHINE FACE ploughed through the low-hanging branches. Twigs snapped beneath his feet. In seconds, he burst out of the treeline and into an open glade, where the source of the voice had come from.
At the centre of the glade was an ivory gazebo, inside which were desks lined with computers, books and messied documents. But his eyes didn’t take notice of these meaningless items, as they snapped straight to the person standing among them: an old, grey-haired man in a white lab coat. His voice had been all too familiar. The white coat stared at him with an unmasked, cold smile.
I CAN NEVER LIVE FREELY SO LONG AS THIS WHITE COAT DOES. That understanding gave MACHINE FACE only one primal instinct.
His stilt legs tore through the grass between them and the gazebo. He didn’t use the short steps at the structure’s front, but instead crashed through the side, sending fragments of its metal railing hurtling through the air and sticking in his skin like thorns.
His body contained a surprising strength and celerity, which had been previously locked by the cage’s choking conditions. But now with freedom so close, and revenge closer still, he unleashed all his animosity and might, pent up over lifetimes of torture and suffering. He couldn’t hide his aggression any more than a ravenous, lunging tiger could.
His rebar arms sprang forward, expecting to snap the infirm neck of a frail academic. But they grabbed nothing, only the lightness of air. The white coat had evaded beside him with an impossible grace. At the same time, there was now a sluggish soreness in his leg, like an anchor had been dropped on it. This made him unable to halt his forward momentum, sending the rest of his body crashing onto the floor with a clang.
MACHINE FACE growled—a discordant rumbling, sounding more like a stalled diesel generator—while glaring at the white coat standing a distance away, an empty syringe in his hand, its needle bent and bloody.
His arms uselessly swatted the air in the white coat’s direction. His leg refused to obey him—flesh and metal both. He couldn’t stand. Couldn’t walk. But he could still move. Crawl with his arms and his one good leg. And so they did, commanded by their single-minded purpose to tear the white coat from limb to limb.
“I suppose I should be alarmed that you’ve escaped.” The white coat calmly set the syringe down on the table, his mannerisms not indicating in the slightest that his life had ever been at stake.
“In truth, I’m more surprised that this is the only escape we’ve ever had, given all your potential. Unmanifested, wasted potential, the others would say. Tomorrow would have been the day of your disposal. But I am not as close-minded as my colleagues…” There was a glinting in his hands, which revealed a fresh syringe fully filled with a mercurial fluid.
“My hypothesis, is that your body’s abilities have a lot more to show. Why don’t we have ourselves a round of live testing?”
MACHINE FACE had only crawled half the distance to the white coat, who was already facing him, syringe at the ready. Awaiting him. Inviting him.
Until a sabre of red-hot metal erupted from his chest like molten lava. His internal organs cauterised instantly. He collapsed to the floor with the slag bat left jutting through his body.
Left standing in his place was the red-haired woman from before, breathing heavily (and without puke this time). Behind her was the other man she’d been with. Just minutes ago, the two of them had reached this place and snuck up to the gazebo undetected.
Of course, Red and Oak were just there for MACHINE HEAD, but taking down a mad scientist at the same time was a sweet bonus. In all likelihood, this seemingly high-ranking scientist was an Immortal—few mortals were ever allowed such lofty positions, and regardless, an accumulated wealth of knowledge made long-lived Immortals all the more brilliant researchers, particularly Grey Matter Immortals. Despite that, as long as the melting slag bat stayed cooking in his chest, his regeneration wouldn’t be able to keep up. In fact, going from experience, Red knew that he’d likely die.
That defied what almost all mortals took as truth: Immortals cannot die. Bullshit propaganda, that was. Most Immortals could and did die, sometimes personally by Red’s hands. It just took a lot of work. In the case of this scientist guy, it had been easier because of her element of surprise. Anyway, with that out of the way, they could focus on their actual objective.
“Great, Oak, we got the bio project! How’re we gonna move it?”
“Ahh… we’ll just carry it by hand… or use one of those tables for a stretcher—”
“So you’re the reason behind the incessant alarm buzzing outside.”
The still-activated slag bat clattered down, melting the floor. The person it had stabbed was now standing on his two feet, the tattered remains of his lab coat barely clinging to his torso. His clothing’s singed hole revealed a chest that was intact. There was zero trace of the gaping hole that was supposed to be there, not even a scar or a missing hair. The regrown skin was flawless—the heart underneath, pumping at a regular resting rate.
“Shit, shit, SHIT!” Oak yelled. He felt a subconscious twitching in his feet, twitching in the direction of the door they’d arrived through.
Meanwhile, Red was already backing away, her hands scrambling over the tables looking for a weapon, anything she could use.
This was bad. Really bad. Any other Immortal, they could take care of. But this was the worst-case scenario: they were up against a True Immortal, and without the proper weaponry to slow him down. They had to run, their mission be damned.
From afar, they heard the raucous noises of the entry hatch sliding shut, and locking. Their hearts shrivelled in their throats. They would not be leaving this garden. Not alive, that was.
“Panicking already? Ah, exactly what I’d expect from impure, mortal blood.” The Immortal’s gaze sliced over their skins, as if he could already see the blood vessels and nerve endings running underneath.
“I despise the weeds that grow in my garden. And the two of you’ll find, as my test subject over there has, that I’m an expert at extracting.”