Andy adjusted his slanted shades. The sunlight was almost unbearably bright. “Why am I here?”

Clara appeared from behind a rack of winter jackets. “Because I thought you’d want to pick something out for yourself.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Andy, that vest was white when you got it. Look at it now.”

Andy looked down at his muck and blood stained clothes. He raised an armpit and took a whiff. “Damn.”

“Damn doesn’t cover half of it. I’m the one who has to share a room with you.” An old man holding a pile of socks and underwear looked up at her, then at Andy. “Not like that,” Clara said.

“Like what?” Andy asked.

“Here, try these on.” Clara handed him a pile of assorted clothes.

“They fit,” he said. “I can tell.”

“Try them on.”

“They’ll fit,” he insisted. “Can’t I go shopping for ammo or something instead?”

“Anything like ammo and guns left with the trade caravan this morning,” Clara said. “It was only in town for a couple days, and we just caught the tail end of it. Maybe if you’d gotten up early enough we wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Alright, so what are we going to do for ammo tomorrow?”

“The employer is striking us a deal.”

“Spray and pray it is then.”

Clara scowled at him.

“May as well use everything they give us.”

“Or, save some of it?” Clara took the clothes back off him and paid for them with what was left of Andy’s winnings last night. The rest of the afternoon went like that, Andy followed Clara around bargaining for supplies and odd ends. At first, he was thankful to be out of the inn and have Julie back at his hip, but by nightfall, he was bored and thirsty. Returning to the inn, Andy said goodnight to Julie and ordered a pint from the bar. Three other early birds sat at tables in the common room. Andy picked a corner, and kept to himself.

“Care for the company, stranger?” An old man tapped the chair opposite Andy. The man’s face was half burned, one milky eyeball lolled in its socket. His hair was in tatters, his stained clothes smelled of grime, fermented by weeks without a wash.

“No.”

“Oh, don’t be a curmudgeon.” The man sat down, stroking his enormous beard, a necklace of beads in one hand and a pint of dirty beer in his other. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Andy stared at him.

“I know your future.”

“Oh yeah?” Andy played with his pint glass, rolling the bottom’s rim over the table. “Go on then.”

“You are caked in darkness, like grime, like mud. You are filthy with it.”

“Right.”

“There is a dark spot in your heart.” The man leaned over the table and prodded Andy in the chest. Andy sat up straight and squared his shoulders, ready to punch him if he tried it again. “There is a shadow that wears yours like a gown, hiding in plain sight. You cannot escape it. It knows who you are.” The man leant over the table, spilling his pint in the process. His eyes locked on Andy’s. “It calls to you.”

“What does it say?”

The man grinned, his milky eye twitching in its socket. When he spoke, he dragged the words out like drawing a blade over a sharpening stone. “That’s private information.” The man burst out cackling, spittle touched Andy’s cheek. Andy rose abruptly. The stinky old man shrank back into his seat, trying his best not to laugh, spluttering with the effort.

“Leave me alone,” Andy said.

That set the stranger off. He howled and broke out coughing, then stumbled out of his chair. “Leave me alone, he says! Be careful what you wish for. You are not alone. You are never alone anymore. She’s gone out to play, and he’s left the house to find her.”

The old man ranted to himself as he staggered away. Andy blew the candle out on his table and lounged in the shadows. When Clara entered the common room later that night, Andy had to shout to catch her attention.

“You’re well hid,” she said, relighting the candle. The two of them ate together, then the cocky pool player and his three friends showed up, and Clara discussed a mission with them. Andy put his feet up and wore his shades. He figured, if he blotted the world out, maybe no one else would disturb him. After a while, the patriots–or whatever they were called–put a case of ammunition on the table and left them alone. Andy sat upright and rifled through the ammo. “Enough for two rifle magazines, and plenty for Julie.”

Clara bit her lip. “Not much.”

“You’re forgetting, I’m a sharpshooter. It only takes one bullet.”

“You know, for all your bragging, I never see you actually training your Augmentation’s abilities.”

“I’m always training,” Andy tapped his head. “Up here. Running simulations constantly.”

“Oh yeah, that’s not going to work on me anymore Andy. My AI just informed me that you’ve been telling porcupines.”

“Oh, what’s that AI?” Andy looked up at the ceiling, pretending to chat with his implant. “She’s dead wrong. Calling you a liar is actually really insulting in machine culture?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Yeah right.”

Andy pretended to listen to the voices. “I should kill her? AI, come on now. That’s a bit too far.”

Deee-grraaaa-zzrrriii. The voice buzzed in his mind, layered with static. Andy scowled.

“Fucking try it,” Clara said. “You’re unarmed, and I have magic fingers.” Clara held her hands up in the candlelight, and a faint blue light emanated from her fingertips. “Zap-zap.”

“Huh, I think my robot just spassed out.”

“Because of my fingers?” Clara seemed genuinely excited.

“No” Andy knocked his skull. “Broken model. I told you it was defunct.”

Andy drank just enough that he could fall asleep that night, then Clara cut him off. He laid in bed, thoughts swimming in murky pools of drunken darkness. His sister shook him awake. He couldn’t believe it was morning already. His dreams echoed in his mind, flashing behind his eyes. There was someone’s face, a young girl. The dream had distorted her features. Andy rubbed his eyes, chasing the remnants of the dream, reluctant to start the day.

Locking the inn’s room behind them, they loaded their motorcycle with the necessary supplies and set off, heading back down the road they entered on. Andy sat behind Clara, she still didn’t trust him to drive. At a junction, they veered west, heading uphill into the mouth of the valley. At midday, they took a break in the hills, sitting against a steep roadside verge to eat some biscuit and water. Andy stood and stretched. “I miss my machine gun.”

Clara looked up from her lunch. “Yeah well…”

“Can’t we go back for it?”

“No, not really. Someone’s probably scavenged the area by now after hearing our fight.”

Andy sighed. He took a swig from his hip flask, then poured a drop out onto the road. “It was short but sweet, my friend.”

They rested for a while longer, Clara craning over her wrist terminal, tapping on the screen like a bird trying to break a shell.

“What’s up?” Andy said.

“I picked up a distress signal while we were south-facing on the hill a mile or so back. It’s faint, must be far away.”

“Worth checking out?”

“Not right now,” she sighed. “I hope they’re alright.”

“Who?”

She raised her arm. “Whoever this is.”

Andy shrugged. “Not our problem.”

They mounted the bike and rode into the late afternoon. Directions on Clara’s on wrist terminal led them to a large concrete building set into the foot of a lone mountain. A field of concrete surrounded the building, intruded by weeds poking through the cracks. A large sign with red bubble-font letters above the building read: ‘Moltengarth Lava Corp’. Clara pulled the motorbike up to the entrance. They got off and armed themselves. Andy checked the chamber of his assault rifle. The weapon was freshly cleaned and oiled. “Did you service these?”

“I did, while you were drinking.”

“Cheers.” Andy peered through the cracked windows leading to the building’s lobby. It felt like stretching muscles in his mind, the familiarity of the scene reawakened his mind. The feel of cracking of glass beneath his boot tingled up his spine. He recognised a graffiti tag from elsewhere in the wasteland–a prolific artist, whose crumbling world was a gallery. The smell of rust and damp, collecting in the carcass of a nearby car was like a tonic, clearing his thoughts, sharpening his senses. It had been days since he’d pulled a trigger, days spent sick, or couped up inside without Julie. He’d left Clara to do all of the chores by herself, but now it was his time to pull their weight. “Let’s rock.”

Stepping through the broken glass window, he scanned the lobby. The walls were burned black, the plastic counter top half melted like wax. The fire damage was the worst around a derelict doorway at the back of the room. Two skeletons draped in charred clothes lay outstretched on the ground together. The carpet beneath them was ashen with soot. On the other side of the room, a hole in the ceiling had let the rain in, and a coating of moss covered the wall. Andy pulled off a chunk of moss which obscured a placard beneath it. There seemed to be a cartoon character drawn there–a rocket shaped tube with red bubbles for facial features. It had a cartoonish grin, waving its black spaghetti arms around.

“What we’re looking for is underground.” Clara approached the burned doorway. Above it, in bubble letters, a sign read: ‘Employees Only.’

“What’s that then?”

Clara stopped in the doorway, the torchlight attached to her submachine gun lit up the stairwell beyond. “Were you listening last night?”

“I was not.”

Clara sighed. “A lava lamp. Apparently, they were corrupted by some technology and… erm, they came alive and killed everyone working here.” Clara shrugged. “The New Patricians are using them as batteries to power their AMC. We’re looking for one that’s still active and that will fit in my backpack.”

“Active?”

“One that has its light on.”

“Easy,” Andy said.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

Andy shone his torch into the room, illuminating an escalator which dove into the earth. The beam reflected off the aluminium plated walls, dissipating before reaching the bottom. The mineral charcoal smell saturated as they descended. Cartoon placards decorated the walls at intervals, depicting the corporations’ mascot, a cylindrical tube with black wires for arms and legs named ‘Barry Lava’.

“Why not Larry?”

“What?” Clara asked.

Andy nodded, headlamp bobbing on one of the cartoons. It depicted Barry, a small lava lamp with a dim glow, in bed having a dream. In a bubble, his dream showed an array of smiley faced lava lamps in different colours, shapes and sizes. A caption read: ‘Barry dreams of a lava lamp family.’ The next placard in the sequence depicted Barry wearing a workman’s hat, leading a troupe of technicians into the mountains. ‘Courageous Barry ventures forth.’

“Mind your step,” Clara said ahead of him.

Andy shone his headlamp down the escalator towards the next placard, keen to see how the story progressed. Barry was drawn sitting at a table, scraping a plate of vegetables into an opening at the top of his cylindrical body. The vegetables floated down though his mass, digested by the lava gloop. The caption read: ‘Barry works hard, and must eat his vegetables to stay healthy.’

“Preachy bullshit,” Andy said. “Get to the good stuff.”

“Andy, focus.” Clara’s voice fluttered down the tunnel, swallowed by the earth’s density. Andy could just about see the bottom now. After a few more steps, there was another cartoon on the wall. It depicted a gargantuan drill, poised to penetrate the earth. Barry stood in the foreground. He had grown in size, so that he was slightly taller than the human technicians now. Andy wondered if that was a part of his character development, or a continuity error.

Andy tapped something with his boot. It rolled past Clara and bounced down the elevator shaft, gaining momentum. Each bounce was like the strike of a bell, cutting through the silence, calling into the void beyond.

Clara cursed through gritted teeth. “I told you to watch your step.”

Andy looked down. A headless skeleton lay at his feet. The steps beneath it were charcoal black. The rubber railings had melted away. “My bad.”

Andy searched for the next cartoon placard ahead, but it had been destroyed by a fire so hot that it had caused the aluminium plating to bubble and streak like raindrops on a window. Finally, as they reached the bottom, a banner placard was displayed above the wide entrance. It depicted Barry arm in arm with his lava lamp family. They were all smiling. The caption read: ‘Barry frees his lava family from the earth’s core, ushering forth a brighter future for Moltengarth Lava Corp.’

“Damn, that’s deep.”

Clara turned around, checking her wrist terminal. “About a kilometre underground.”

“What?”

She stared at him blankly. “That’s how deep we are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

Andy pointed at the placard. “Barry rescued his family. He believed in himself. Complex themes.”

Clara shone her headlamp on the archway above. “It isn’t real Andy, keep moving.”

“Oh yeah, I bet Barry’s still down here.”

Clara shone her torch under her chin, grinning evilly. “Yeah, and we’re here to kidnap him.”