The snow crunched softly under Ren’s feet.

She had been walking for around fifteen minutes now, but if any signs of Jacob’s existence were present, they failed to reveal themselves.

Well, that was kind of an exaggeration. She DID find what looked like a splotch of blood and viscera right at the base of the cliff, along with a trail of footprints leading away from the area that were being rapidly covered up by the falling snow, and she had followed it for a good while before it was obscured completely. The trail had led to the side of what looked like a cracked and beaten concrete road that twisted and curved, leading down a hill.

Ren had chosen to go up the road first, only finding a cabin that had a massive hole in the roof that stretched down to the walls, making it seem like a massive blade had cleaved the building in two. It had been overlooking a frozen lake that shimmered brightly in the moonlight, looking oddly picturesque despite the post-apocalyptic surroundings. However, across the lake sat what looked like a large collection of full-metal towers even with their emergency lights still on, a difference from the usual crumbling skyscrapers that the city had to offer.

She didn’t go inside the cabin yet, wanting to save that for the time when she found out all the other locations that Camp 98.7 had to offer.

Going down the road while avoiding any of the branching paths, she had found more assorted cabins, likely for bunking purposes if the stained and dirty spring-cots were taken into account. A small bit further down lay what looked like entrance or exit to the camp, so she elected to postpone leaving for the moment. After all, she still had an investment to cash in on, didn’t she?

Ren continued to explore the camp. She found lots of buildings that were in various states of disrepair, but no Jacob. A few markings here and there might’ve been left by him, but she couldn’t be sure. For all she knew another set of drones had just come on through the place for a field trip or something, what did she know?

However, her burgeoning boredom was cut short by her most recent find. From the outside and untrained eye, her discovery looked little different from all the other nondescript cabins and wooden-plank buildings that dotted the site. But luckily, Ren wasn’t your average drone.

The door had been busted open, with a trail of dried oil and bits of scrap leading away out from the open door and down the steps, disappearing into the snow. She might have been able to follow the trail when it was fresh, but the snow had covered it all up long ago it seemed.

Inside, though, it had been a much darker story. The reason why she had expressed her particular interest in that specific cabin had been due to the . . . waves that it emanated.

You see, Ren had always felt something very odd ever since that fateful day. For her, it was hard to describe, but if she were to try, then she would use the ocean as an analogy.

Supposedly back on Earth and other planets like it, there was this thing called an ocean. Now, this ocean connected everything, from the largest continents to the smallest islands. This ‘ocean’ also had something called ‘waves’. Ren had seen old videos and pictures of this supposed ocean, and she still didn’t know why the humans decided to name a certain behavior off of radio waves, but humans were notoriously dumb and stupid so she wouldn’t really put it past them in the end.

Ren wasn’t sure if the thing that she could feel was present for all drones, but likely not when considering the reactions of the few that she managed to keep alive for long enough to ask. When she did something while utilizing the Absolute Solver, the action sent ‘waves’ through this digital ‘ocean’, marking out her relative position to herself. The ‘waves’ depended on the severity of the action and how long she did it for, so if she was pushing a pen a few inches to the side it wouldn’t really do much, but if she was lifting a boulder and throwing it up into the air fifty feet high, it would require both tremendous amounts of effort while sending off large ‘waves’.

After careful observation, she realized that disassembly drones sent off the same waves as well. Strangely enough, they made the biggest waves while they were transitioning between weapons and healing from wounds, with the more severe wounds making larger waves, though both were fairly small when compared to her more arduous actions undertaken with the help of the Absolute Solver. After she realized this, Ren began to use this pseudo-sonar to track down disassembly drones through the ‘ocean’ for spare parts. It had proven remarkably effective, though the complete deconstruction of the genocide robots created a problem that she didn’t really expect.

It seemed that when disassembly drones suffered too much damage to their hosts, a construct that was nestled within their chest area would activate, along with the adjoining program. Strangely enough, this program was named ‘Absolute Solver’ the same as hers, with her identifying the program by the various error panels that it had burned onto the walls around it during its activation. While her version of Absolute Solver allowed her to interact with code in a unique way while giving her god-like telekinesis powers, the version that the disassembly drones possessed was limited to the rearrangement of available materials that were already present, likely through the use of nanomachines.

The reassembly program, as Ren liked to call it, had turned itself on when she had been sleeping, crawling out of the chest cavity of the first disassembly drone that she had ever managed to capture alive and relatively whole. It utilized the bits and pieces of the countless worker drone corpses that were just laying around to assemble itself a central body, taking the form of an elongated serpent, one that possessed various large mantis-like claws that were razor-sharp. It had sent off massive waves that dwarfed her own, which surprised even Ren. She had been fairly naive at the time, still unprepared for any possible bad outcome.

Luckily, Ren had woken up while it had been preparing to breach the bunker, which would’ve let it out into the world. If that scenario had indeed occurred, the reassembly program might have either been able to come back much stronger and kill her, or reassemble its host that would now know the location of where she had set up shop along with the manner of experiments that she had been undertaking.

Unfortunately for her, all manners of her attempts to implode, bisect, quadrisect, dissolve, crush, light on fire, hack, disassemble, or otherwise destroy the creature proved to be fruitless, as the Absolute Solver refused to directly take any action against the entity. Ren hadn’t been deterred, however, so she put the many objects and explosive canisters around her in an attempt to incapacitate the creature for study. While it was a potentially worst-case-scenario for her if it ever got out, she couldn’t have missed the possibility of boosting her research by years without giving it her best shot.

After she had finally managed to defeat the reassembly program by concentrating all of the photons in the area before letting them loose, the thing had exhibited even stranger behavior than before. Instead of just laying there dead, every single part of the creature had crumpled inwards into a miniature black hole that had formed around the center of gravity of the various disconnected pieces, much to the annoyance of Ren.

Coincidently, that had been when she learned to create a miniature wormhole herself, so it did work out for her in the end. She wouldn’t have to walk for what seemed like days on end, constantly hiding from the sunlight in an attempt to find a worker or disassembly drone to dissect now that she had the ability to teleport.

Of course, it had been much less simple than that. She took meticulous care to calibrate her teleportations to be relative with what remained of the planet’s core in an effort to not suddenly be left in open space when she tried to teleport about fifteen feet to the right.

But of course, Ren was getting off track.

The thing that was so special about the cabin hadn’t necessarily been the clear evidence of a forced entry or the trail of oil, but rather the immense waves that it sent off through the metaphysical ‘ocean’.

It was more than she’d ever seen, even eclipsing herself in its magnitude. It practically vibrated the real-life air around the cabin, and she could’ve sworn that the light bent around the cabin in curves and swoops.

Ren had armed herself with a nearby icicle, treading up the stairs one at a time to minimize her noise output. She wasn’t sure whether or not she could win a battle with the thing that was putting out all those waves so she held to her hope that, whatever it was, it couldn’t defy the seemingly-absolute rule that prevented the Absolute Solver from acting directly on another user of the program.

Inside the cabin, countless fleshy growths coated the walls and floor. It dripped with an oily-black substance that she suspected wasn’t really oil. Two worker drones corpses lay dead on the floor, or at least what was left of them.

The first one consisted of little more than a torso, a head, and the nubs of what might have once been limbs. The head had its face caved in, the black screen shattered to expose the inner electronics. The torso had faced a similar fate, with various chunks taken out of it to reveal what would have been a spine of a human being, with the robotic equivalent serving a similar purpose. Something of note, however, were the many bite marks that could be seen at the edges of the holes and craters.

The second corpse had somehow suffered an even worse fate, with the entire upper half of its body being gone. Ren followed the trail of oil to connect it to the one she had seen leading down the stairs and likely into the wilderness. It seemed that whatever had attacked these two hadn’t killed the second immediately, maybe giving their compatriots time to escape.

It was a virtue that she could respect and empathize with, but that wasn’t the point.

Curiously enough, the second corpse wore what looked like a pencil skirt around what little remained of its hips. Perhaps this had been a student wandering alone with her boyfriend to steal some private time with him?

Or maybe it was a field trip for students.

Ren shuddered at the thought of the creature being led to a full colony of workers. If her experience with things like that was taken into account, then an entire bunker’s worth of fuel would make the creature nigh unstoppable. She had made a mental note to either prepare for the eventuality of facing the thing later in the future, which would be quite difficult to do if it consumed the entire population of the planet, or hunt down the threat after she had found Jacob. If one thing was for sure, it was that that creature couldn’t be left alive.

Ren had concluded her investigation after that, finding little else of note after the first few discoveries. She had then proceeded to do a cursory investigation of the rest of the camp, finding a few things that were definitely important.

First thing she had done was go right back up to the cabin overlooking the lake, entering it for the first time. Inside she had found a set of torn-up floorboards with what appeared to be a deceased worker drone inside wearing either a nightgown or a hospital gown, one of the two. Along with the unknown corpse lay several drawings, notes, documents, and other assorted papers that all had assorted crazed scrawlings and manic ramblings that were written in oil that ranged from, “GOD SAVE US ALL” to “3RR0R” over to “THE FLESH HUNGERS” and “THE LIGHTS BELOW” as well as “MAN’S MISTAKE SHALL INHERIT THE UNIVERSE” and can’t forget “RAWR XD” and that brought her to the present.

Ren was about to reference Anne Frank, but she was sure that the old human classic that she read wasn’t THIS weird.

She pocketed the various papers, making sure to fold them neatly despite the many creases. She didn’t disturb the body, wanting to dissect it for an autopsy once she wasn’t pressed for time, but she did take the band that went around the corpse’s neck, a symbol that portrayed a pine tree with a worker drone icon emblazoned on it. There might have been additional wording on the bottom,

It looked strangely familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

After that, Ren made her exit, searching the rest of the place. Unfortunately, it seemed that her luck had run out for the moment, as she found little else of importance. The only thing that she noted as relatively ‘strange’ was the odd cabin that gave her chills when she went inside. It featured a few broken consoles, a flickering light, and a cool spinny-chair which was a plus, but that was about it.

She rolled her eyes, taking a few spins on the chair for a break. Okay fine, she may have taken upwards of fifty, or forty . . . or exactly two hundred fifty-three, but that was beside the point.

She got up from the chair, stretching her joints. Like a lot of things that were related to her creation, Ren wasn’t sure why her joints could get sore. Maybe it had something to do with her joints locking up if she didn’t move for some time, but who really knows? Then again, that seemed like a really bad design flaw in her design, like she would have to be set into a free-roam mode whenever she went to sleep, just to prevent her joints from locking up again!

Anyway, she sat up from the chair, and after making sure that she had all her belongings she set off once more, exiting the cabin. The sun would rise again in a few hours, so she really needed to get moving-

A loud boom shook the ground beneath her feet, followed by several more pops and explosions in the distance.

Ren froze, her concentration broken for a vital few seconds.

And then her torso disappeared in a burst of oil.

* * *

“Air X1, do you copy?”

X pressed the button on the side of the radio. “I told you to call me Alpha 123.”

“I reckon that you were sayin’ to call you Eagle 69420 last time, Air X1.” A wry voice with a familiar twang came through.

“Waaaait, who is this? What happened to the other guy, also, you sound familiar . . .” X scratched his head, nearly dropping his radio again.

“Names Sterl, and you might know me from the ‘ol tram that you shot up.” Sterl explained.

X’s eyes widened. “Wait, that's you!? I didn’t know I had that good of a memory!”

“Uh, I would’ve been worried if you didn’t happen tuh remember a person that you nearly killed, but then again, I wouldn’t put it past ya’.” Sterl grumbled.

“Eh.” X made an iffy-motion with his hand before realizing that the person on the other side couldn’t see him.

“Anyway, you see anything feller?” Sterl’s voice wasn’t hostile, despite what he had said, it was downright friendly.

A would’ve been instantly suspicious, but X was just happy to make a new friend.

“Not really, except for this absolutely massive plane heading towards that tower.” X giggled slightly.

“Seriously.” Sterl took on a warning tone.

“Jeez, you’re just as bad as K. There’s a big forest down to your right or whatsit.” X shook a hand in the general direction of his left.

What sounded like papers rustling came through the mic before a voice came back on. However, it wasn’t Sterl’s.

“ . . . see!? My GPS is always right!” The voice said triumphantly.

“Drive two hundred and fifty feet, before taking a left down Boulevard Avenue.” A robotic monotone came through the mic.

X froze. He knew that voice, he had heard it several times in his ever-repeating nightmares . . .

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Air X1, were gonna be headin’ over to that forest you marked down, you copy?” Sterl’s voice came back through again.

It was a moment before X lifted the radio back up to his mouth, little beadlets of digital sweat popping up on his visor.

“Y-yeah, I-I copy that, sure.”

The radio crackled. “You alright up there? Anythin’ up there?”

“No.” X didn’t elaborate.

“ . . . if you say so.” Sterl didn’t sound convinced. “I’m gonna be calling you back down to support us down here, just in case.”

“What, do you not trust me or something?” X raised an eyebrow.

“N- I mean, uh, yes?” Sterl answered.

“Oh okay.” X replied, beginning his descent.

It was nice to have a new friend.

* * *

“N- I mean, uh, sure?”

GPS Guy hissed at Sterl. “You idiot! He’s gonna know you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with him!”

Sterl waved him off with his single arm. “Eh, it’ll be fine, I’m even partial to believing the fool already forgot ‘bout me, heh.”

“That doesn’t-” GPS Guy began.

“That checks out.” A feminine voice came from behind the pair.

The two whirled around, with Sterl extending his sole hand towards his firearm. GPS Guy didn’t have the same instinct, instead curling his fingers into fists.

The second hunter drone stood there, eyeing the duo with a bemused expression.

GPS Guy faltered. “Uuuh . . .”

“Really warm welcome, huh?” The hunter drone, K her name was, took a step back.

“Just didn’t notice you there, that's all.” Sterl’s posture relaxed, but he still kept a hand on his pistol just in case.

“That also checks out.” K nodded.

Neither Sterl nor GPS Guy deigned to give that statement a response.

K cleared her throat when the joke fell flat. “Ahem, you were calling X back here?”

Sterl nodded. “Yeah, something got ‘em spooked or other, so I figured it was best to get him back here since he wasn’t spilling. And plus, the trees over yonder will make any air s’port near useless, so might as well keep ‘em on the ground, right?”

K crossed her arms. “I suppose you're right . . .”

“But?” Sterl also tried to cross his arms, only to remember he only had one.

“It's just that I wasn’t expecting anybody other than a disassembly drone to come up with a good idea.” K finished.

“I seem to recall your friend up in the sky wanting ‘Skittles’, whatever that is, in the meeting earlier.” Sterl’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Wha- how’d you-” K stuttered.

“Word gets around, but I suppose that a disassembly drone like you doesn’t have enough friends to compare.” Sterl tapped his foot agitatedly on the ground.

K’s shocked expression turned to a glare. “I’ll have you know-”

Sterl interrupted her again. “I thought you had orders to play nice, missy.”

K didn’t answer, instead she deepened her glare at Sterl before extending her wings and jumping into the air, flying off.

“Now what's it doing . . .” Sterl scratched his chin.

GPS Guy then punched Sterl across that same chin.

Sterl stumbled backwards, crying out in pain. “Ow! What the hell are you doing, boy!?”

“What the hell are YOU doing!?” GPS Guy angrily yelled. “We ALSO have orders to, ‘Play nice’ and you’re over here antagonizing that murder machine! You’re supposed to be leading this expedition, not sabotaging it!”

“I can’t help it! That damned waste of metal hasn’t shut up about her ‘Superiority’ and all that elitist bull, it's driving me insane!” Sterl shot back.

“And!? Be the bigger drone, alright? We're not gonna get revenge if we get killed before the plan is even executed!” GPS Guy hissed.

“I know! Now be quiet, I hear ‘em coming back.” Sterl scolded.

As if on cue, two forms landed onto the snowy ground with a thud. K was holding X by the back of his neck, though not without the latter repeatedly trying to bite his captor in the hand.

“Lemme go! If you don’t get off me right now, I’m gonna eat you! All in one go too, just like that!” X jabbed a finger towards K.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh be quiet, you were trying to sleep on a cloud.”

“I’ll have you know that I was THIS close to being able to lay down on them!” X put his fingers and his thumb about a millimeter apart.

“Uh, ‘scuse me? Can we please focus on the mission? My folks are gonna signal back to us anytime now-” Sterl began.

Also as if on cue, the radio crackled to life.

“SubCom A1, this is Expod A1, the camp entrance is clear and ready for our advance, over.” The radio spat out.

“This is SubCom A1, I read you loud and clear. Moving out with the two temp additionals, over.” Sterl glanced at K, who was currently in a slapfest with X.

“Acknowledged, over.” The radio let out a little bit more static before going quiet.

“Alright then, HEY!” Sterl yelled at the duo who were still fighting.

“Ack- you- stupid motherf- STOP!” X wailed in a childish manner.

Sterl sighed heavily, running a hand down his armored faceplate. He didn’t dare try and physically pull them off of one another, as that might get his other arm chopped off along with the rest of his body, and shooting in the air might have the same effect.

Sterl sighed again. “HEY! LISTEN TO ME!”

Thankfully, the duo managed to use their supposedly superior hearing this time around, both of their heads jerking in his direction with a surprised expression on their faces.

“Oh wassup?” X nodded at Sterl.

Sterl sighed heavily. “Listen, the forward team have cleared the entry point, so y’all better come with us into the for’st since any air s’port would be useless ‘cause the damn trees’ll block any sight from above.”

“I knew that already.” K replied without an ounce of humor.

“I reckon that X here didn’t.” Sterl gestured towards X.

X looked up at Sterl quickly, blinking rapidly “I- uh, I knew what?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout a thing.” Sterl waved X off. “Anyway, we’re moving up towards the front entrance to meet back up with the forward team, since they have already cleared the area.”

“Oh cool.” X got up, dusting himself off. “So uh, where did you say it was?”

Sterl gestured vaguely to the east. “About ‘round there, but don’t go rushing off now-”

With a loud gust of air and a flurry of snow, X took off, heading off into the air.

“Did he just . . .” GPS Guy muttered.

“Go west? Yes, he did.” K spoke up, crossing her arms. “I’m sure he’ll meet back up with us later on, he’s just lucky like that.”

GPS Guy looked at Sterl, who shrugged.

“Might as well get a move on, if yer right that is.” Sterl patted himself down, checking to make sure that his pistol, radio, and various other utilities were still secured to his person. After that was done, he gestured for GPS Guy to follow him. Sterl didn’t signal to K because he knew that she would take the hint, but the reminder that he was in charge of the current operation might spur on another confrontation.

As the trio were walking, GPS Guy pulled up alongside Sterl.

“Are we just gonna let him fly off like that?” GPS Guy asked.

“We can always send K off to go get the feller, and besides, he doesn’t follow half the orders we give ‘em anyways, so if he runs off then that might help us in the long run. This is just a retrieval mission anyway, so there ain’t no need for a powerful force.” Sterl explained.

GPS Guy frowned. “I know, but . . . it just doesn’t feel right.”

Sterl raised a holographic eyebrow. “Whaddya mean by that?”

“I guess . . . while your point does make sense, we still have an obligation to at least try, you know?” GPS Guy tried to explain.

“Is that all? ‘Cause I’m sure that ain’t it.” Sterl stepped over a rock. “Also, if I’m picking up what you're putting down, then you better quiet down before someone hears about what we don’t want them to hear about.”

“I mean-” GPS Guy began.

“He’s got a point, you know.” A voice said from Sterl’s right.

Sterl turned to see K walking alongside the pair.

GPS Guy blinked in surprise. “When did you even get here? How come we didn’t hear you?”

K shrugged. “You might just be bad at hearing things.”

“Get to the damn point, what were you meaning by that?” Sterl interjected.

K narrowed her eyes. “It's just that something isn’t right about this whole ‘operation’ as you call it.”

Sterl simply raised an eyebrow.

K scoffed. “Use what little common sense you have. Why would two disassembly drones and an entire military squad armed with heavy weaponry be sent out for a tiny old retrieval mission?”

“We might encounter the third party, or even a fourth party.” Sterl suggested.

K shook her head. “Maybe, but we would need a lot more bodies to throw at that one to take it down, and the forest doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Well, maybe yer squad leader could be in danger of some sort.” A line furrowed itself on Sterl’s monitor.

“He can take care of himself, or escape if he needed to with ease.” K shot down another possibility.

“Then get to the damn point!” Sterl snapped. “If yer just gonna deny everything I say, then what's the answer!?”

K blinked at the sudden outburst. “Don’t get snappy with me!”

Sterl glared at K the best he could, despite the height difference.

“OK, fine. I uh, don’t know.” K scratched the back of her head.

“What!? Then what in the hell was all that yammering ‘bout!?” Sterl shouted angrily.

“It’s just all suspicious! Your command is the one that suggested this!” K shot back.

“I think you mean ‘ordered’ you to, right?” Sterl narrowed his eyes.

K scoffed. “I only answer to my squad leader and my company, and your little facility drones don’t factor into that at all!”

“Corrupt corpo.” Sterl muttered.

“Filthy fed.” K sniffed haughtily before continuing on silently.

GPS Guy looked between the two of them, sighing. “I have a baaad feeling about this.”

* * *

Keep it down, would you?

Jacob coughed again. “You try to deal with a pool of blood sitting in your lungs.”

Jacob stumbled up the steps of a decrepit cabin, taking a moment to breathe once he got close enough to the doorframe to lean on it. This was yet another indicator of my many suggestions to stop and rest for a moment to let my- I mean Jacob’s- body heal itself from that massive fall.

“I’ve told you before, I wanna investigate this place myself.” Jacob wiped his visor clean of snow again. The blood that had spattered on the inside of the visor stayed there since he couldn’t really reach it.

And plus, I thought you said that you wanted to prank Ren?

“I still do,” Jacob stifled another cough. “It's just that I figured that I might as well take a looky-loo at this joint while I was around, you know?”

I knew that, but isn’t a prank only good when the victim KNOWS they’re being pranked a little bit after the fact? Also, you’re in no shape to be investigating stuff.

“Listen, don’t argue-” Jacob was overcome with another coughing fit, nearly doubling over from it. “-with- ack- me, alright? It’s a losing battle on my part, but I will never surrender.”

Again, I know that. You’re me, remember?

“Of course I remember. Also, I’m not you, YOU are ME.” Jacob corrected.

I’m not getting into this again.

“Good.” Jacob nodded to himself. “Ahem, I think we should get a move on as well, I don’t wanna dwell too long here.”

Yeah, whatever.

Jacob stopped leaning on the doorframe, groaning slightly as he walked down the stairs. He had taken a ‘looky-loo’ into about five cabins at this point, but none of them yielded any results. I mean, what was the guy even thinking? Anyway, the only thing of relative note was the ominous looking cabin that lay on the top of a cliff that was overlooking a large frozen lake, but he hadn’t gone into it on account of the aforementioned ominousness. I mean, I would’ve done the same thing, you think I’m a horror movie protagonist or something? I’m not stupid, just a bit silly.

However, the large lake that he had seen also seemed to feature a large collection towering metal, uh, towers, that seemed a lot more futuristic than the neo-modern skyscrapers that the city was dotted with. Jacob had planned to visit those structures after he had gone down a certain path, but he ended up getting distracted by his ever-decreasing physical state.

It had begun after his bones had mostly grafted themselves back together with a slight heat emanating from his chest. Both me and Jacob had thought nothing of it, agreeing that it was just an organ or something shifting back into place. However, it quickly spread to Jacob’s head and arms, with the legs following soon after. We both began to suffer from severe headaches and heat, despite my lack of an actual body at the time.

Jacob’s, and by proxy my own, vision began to blur, the headaches making it harder for the brain to operate. At this point he had heated up to the point where literal steam began to waft off of his body like an oven, snowflakes evaporating a second after they landed on the plating of the armor he was wearing. Luckily the armor wasn’t melting, nor did it have any change other than becoming hot enough to scramble an egg. It wasn’t like we weren’t suffering the effects of it either. We were practically boiling like a lobster in our shell in the armor ourselves. It had gotten to the point where I told Jacob to take off his armor, however, the majority of the armor plates seemed to have either been stuck in place, or grafted to Jacob’s skin.

Nonetheless, we pushed on. Eventually we got to a cabin where I told Jacob to rest for a moment, he did, refused to rest any longer, kept walking, and refused to elaborate. That brought us to the present, where Jacob was trudging down the hill towards the structures that looked important.

“Just . . . about . . . there . . .” Jacob’s voice sounded strained, yet another clue as to what the right option had been.

“Be . . . quiet . . .” Jacob came across a clearing that led out onto the frozen lake. A few canoes lay abandoned on the side of the path, but little else of note lay near.

As Jacob trudged forward, I noticed something odd. Out on the other side of the lake, weaving in and out of the towering monoliths was something that looked oddly like a little fly at this distance. You know, wings, something glowing, something shiny, the whole insect ensemble!

Then an explosion shook the air.

“The he-” Jacob shouted, only to be overcome with another bout of coughing which only served to startle me more.

Several more explosions followed the first, accompanied by the familiar pops of a gun going off, all coming from across the lake.

“The hell is that!?” Jacob exclaimed in the dumbest way possible, like it's obviously an explosion you dumbass-

A thundering boom sounded through the trees, interrupting me in the process, (like c’mon, what the hell man?) this time coming from behind us.

“OK, that's definitely a problem.” Jacob pointed out.

Obviously, again.

“Don’t hit me with that snark young man!” Jacob harrumphed.

Stop joking around, go check that out.

“Shouldn’t we be running away from the large gunshots and explosions?” Jacob inquired.

As if on cue, several more explosions rang out from the way we came, causing Jacob to turn on his heel and face the sounds. And to answer your question, we only have about two ways to go, and both seem to have a small army duking it out on the streets.

“There aren’t any streets, only paths. Well, not right here I suppose, but there was definitely a concrete road back the way we came.” Jacob interjected.

Yeah cool, whatever. Anyway, we only have two ways to go-

“We could run into the forest like Forrest Gump, like the classic scene where they yelled, ‘Gump, get into the forest!’ and then they Gumped all over the place.” Jacob suggested.

We didn’t watch Forrest Gump, and STOP INTERRUPTING ME! Anyway, you choose.

Jacob blinked, “What?”

You know, choose where to go? Since you wanna make decisions so badly, pick which army you wanna get gunned down by.

Jacob took an unconscious step backward. “Uh, why? Also, those are either the disassembly drones or the facility drones, maybe even both considering the explosions.”

Cool, now decide. We're running out of time.

“We don’t even know what time it is!” Jacob protested.

Decide.

Jacob went back up the path, away from the lake.

“We’re screwed.” Jacob stated.

* * *

“Set up shop there, you two, and watch that cabin.” Sterl pointed towards the two respective spots. “Hail us before you take anything down, got it?”

The first drone looked towards the second drone, who shrugged. “Yes sir, bossman.”

Sterl nodded. “Good, now I’m gonna be moving down towards that lake o’er yonder with the squad, so you two stay safe.”

“Uh, sir?” The second drone raised a hand.

“You don’t need to raise yer hand.” Sterl said.

The second drone sheepishly nodded. “Yeah, but why that cabin?”

“Our scouts said that they saw movement around this area, so we need to make sure no fool tries to play guerrilla with us, poppin’ outta the building while our backs are turned.” Sterl explained.

“Oh, uh, thanks for the information.” The second drone said. But uh, we only have these pistols.”

The pair gestured towards the sidearms that they both had holstered.

Sterl blinked. “Er, yeah.”

Turning back towards the rest of the squad that idled around the center of the path, Sterl called out to them.

“HEY FELIX!”

“YEAH!?”

“I NEED A SNIPER FOR THESE FELLERS!”

“OH YEAH!? WHAT KIND!?”

“UH, HOW ‘BOUT THE 25mm?”

“REALLY? A LITTLE OVERKILL, DON’T YOU THINK?”

“WE’VE BEEN LUGGING THE DAMNED THING AROUND, MIGHT AS WELL USE IT WHILE WE CAN!”

“WELL, ALRIGHT!”

A drone, likely Felix, unslung a large rifle from his back, awkwardly waddling towards the pair the best he could with the weight.

“Here you go.” Felix unceremoniously handed the massive sniper rifle to the pair, who nearly collapsed under its weight.

“What the hell is this thing!?” The first drone asked breathlessly.

Sterl chuckled. “It's a sniper made specifically for drones, a .25mm rifle that weighs near over five-hundred pounds just from the amount of compressed tungsten used in its creation. It needs all that tungsten because the sheer recoil and force produced by the bullet firing would be enough to completely break apart any normal gun ‘ssembly and its materials” Sterl ran a hand down its length. “A single shot from this damned thing would lift a human almost a foot into the air, the recoil so immense that it would push a feller laying down a half a foot back as well. I even heard that soldiers in the human military would wear specially-made power armor just to wield this thing. Its magazine contains ‘bout three shots, which you can fire in the same amount of seconds if yer fast enough, but each one weighs ‘round fifty pounds due to the heaps of a rare variant of depleted nuclear fuel that was compressed into the shape of the bullet, all just to make this. Each bullet costs ‘round two-million dollars to make, and the maintenance costs along after each pull of the trigger amounts to five-million with each magazine. It costs eleven-million bucks to fire this thing for three seconds.”

“I like to call it, ‘The Big One’.” Sterl finished.

The pair of drones stared open-mouthed at Sterl, with even K walking over to hear the monologue.

“What?” K didn’t seem to comprehend what was just said.

“Anyway, off you fellers go.” Sterl patted the first drone on the shoulder before walking off.

The pair stood there without moving.

Sterl turned back. “What’re you two doing, get up there!”

The pair then quickly nodded in unison before scrambling in the direction they were meant to go, a task that was tremendously difficult due to the sheer weight of the force of nature that they were carrying.

Eventually they managed to get to the top of the slope, but it took around five minutes. By that time their squad had wandered off down the path, and both drones were thoroughly tuckered out.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Who *huff* the hell *huff* designed this thing?” The first drone lay on the ground spread-eagled.

“I dunno.” The second drone was slumped over a rock with the sniper.

“Why’re we even out of breath? We don’t have lungs!” The first drone complained.

“Cool.” The second drone replied.

“Yeah . . . c’mon, get up.” The first drone got to his feet.

“What?” The second drone questioned.

“Move over.” The first drone pushed the second drone aside without much protest.

With a great deal of effort, the first drone adjusted the huge gun so that it was propped up by the rock and facing the general direction of the cabin door.

“Oh yeah . . . we have a job to do.” The second drone flipped onto his belly, taking a folded-up triangle of reflective camouflage from his belt pocket.

“Yeah, get that over me.” The first drone positioned himself so that he would be able to peek out from behind the rock and operate the gun without issue, with the second drone draping the shiny foil over his partner.

The second drone then unclipped a box from his back, placing it down onto the ground next to himself. While he was huddled behind the rock, he extended an antenna from its base and pressed a few buttons.

“Man, I wish we had normal radios.” The first drone complained.

“Yeah well, the normal handheld radios aren’t strong enough to penetrate through all these trees, not with snow covering them either.” The second drone patted the top of the box. “These things are the smallest ones that are powerful to pierce through that we were able to scrounge up on short notice.”

“Yeah yeah, I know, I was in the same briefing as you, remember?” The first drone replied.

“I’m just passing the time, alright Jim? It's not like we have a TV or something like we did back at the facility.” The second drone fiddled with the buttons a little more.

“I miss the facility.” Jim stated.

The second drone nodded. “Yeah, me too. Shame that we had to evacuate for some reason.”

You know, speaking of the facility, wanna know a rumor that I heard?” Jim slightly adjusted himself.

“Sure.” The second drone leaned closer to Jim.

“Well, I heard that those hunter drones didn’t actually kill thousands of workers and soldiers.” Jim began.

“Ugh, not more conspiracy theory stuff.” The second drone rolled his eyes.

“Mag, hear me out, alright?” Jim pleaded.

“Fine.” Mag turned towards Jim again.

“Alright, I heard that the hunter drones only killed one or two hundred at most, and the rest of our men were actually left behind in the facility.” Jim explained.

“That's not true.” Mag deadpanned.

“I said hear me out!” Jim hissed. “Anyway, the guy I heard this from said that Command, specifically military, didn’t want the description of the hunter drones getting out, so they took the relatively few that didn’t yet have a first-hand image of the hunters and left the rest behind.”

“What!? That doesn’t make sense on so many levels, why would the military higher-ups even care about the dissemination of the description of the hunter drones to begin with?” Mag questioned.

Jim shrugged. “The guy that told me all this said that our military leaders already knew classified information about the hunters beforehand, so they made sure to eliminate or otherwise silence those who had seen the hunters, since that information was special to them in some way.”

“Did this supposed whistleblower say why it was special?” Mag inquired.

“He said that he was working on it, and that he had a few contacts that were working in conjunction with some people on the inside.” Jim’s eyes then lit up. “Oh wait, get this! You know Felix and Sterl right?”

“Our squad leader and that other guy? Yeah, I know them.” Mag’s eyebrows furrowed. “Where are you going with this?”

Jim’s eyes strayed over to look at Mag. “So basically, they were both on the trains.”

“What!?” Mag exclaimed. “You mean the ones that got ambushed by the hunters?”

“Yeah, and they apparently both caught looks at the hunters as well, good ones too.” Jim explained.

“So why weren’t they left behind or killed then?” Mag questioned.

“That's the thing. Since everything but the front of the train was disconnected, Sterl and Felix were reported dead since they supposedly never reported back in with a higher up before we all left the facility. And since all the files and stuff got scrambled while we were leaving, the higher-ups didn’t even know that they were alive until Sterl and Felix were both chosen to go on this little retrieval expedition. However, since they had already briefed us on our teammates and organized everything, they couldn’t really kill them to keep them quiet. So, they gave Sterl secret orders to enter a secret lab that lay around this area. But if Sterl found out that they were trying to kill him, then that would be game over for them.”

“So, they ordered one of the Operatives-”

“What!? Now this is just unrealistic.” Mag exclaimed.

“Yeah, cool. Anyway, they ordered one of the Operatives to follow along with them and make sure that Sterl and Felix would die on this trip.” Jim finished with an ominous tone.

“ . . . I dunno about that.” Mag finally said after a moment of silence.

“What!? Why!?” Jim exclaimed, still not looking at the cabin.

“It's obviously a crackpot conspiracy theory that was cooked up by one of the sleep deprived boys on permanent patrol.” Mag stated.

Jim scoffed, turning his eyes back to the cabin. “Come on, don’t you- WHAT THE HELL!?”

Mag jumped at the sudden shout. “What!? What is it!?”

“Look!” Jim pointed at the entrance to the cabin. Standing there was what looked like a normal worker drone, if one were to disregard the strange cloak that they were wrapped up in.

Mag dove for the radio, frantically pressing buttons in an attempt to start the device up. After a few positive beeps, a light flickered to life.

Mag put his mouth right next to the mic. “Sir, we have a visual on a potential enemy contact!”

Though the voice that came through wasn’t Sterl, the response was immediate. “What!? Describe it!”

“Long tattered cloak, face mask, bandanna, some sort of glovewear . . .” Mag continued as he heard the voice rattle off the descriptors to somebody else, likely Sterl.

“TAKE THE SHOT, NOW!” The voice yelled, panicked.

Jim heard this, taking aim at the drone’s head.

However, just as he was about to pull the trigger, a massive explosion rang through the forest, followed by several more and what sounded like a few gunshots.

“What the hell is going on!?” Jim yelled, accidently squeezing the trigger too hard while his aim was off.

Another massive boom echoed through the trees, this time coming from the handheld cannon. Jim was knocked onto his back by the sheer recoil, the gun flying off into the woods about five feet away from where it came from.

Mag was hit in the face by the blast coming from the muzzle brake, his head spinning around in the other direction before it came to a stop by hitting the rock.

“Are you okay?” Jim’s shaky voice came through the ringing.

“ . . . yeah.” Mag groaned, rubbing his head. “What about the target?”

Jim looked down, trying to catch a glimpse of the target. He looked back towards Mag, nodding.

Mag leaned back into the radio, which was frantically calling for a status update.

“Target down.”

* * *

Everything hurt.

Ren lay on the ground, unmoving. She couldn’t move her head, arms, or legs, at all. Her memory was fuzzy, too. Last thing she remembered was an explosion off in the distance, and then something obliterated her torso.

Her thoughts had trouble putting together a narrative for her to follow. It was difficult enough trying to remember her own name, why even bother making sense of things? These strange colors, sounds, (smells?) didn’t make sense, so why should she try and change that? Now THAT didn’t make sense at all.

She could feel something trying to pull her back together, but she wasn’t really sure what it was thought it was doing. Hadn’t she just said not to do that? Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t she couldn’t remember-

Wait, what the hell was she doing?

Everything came rushing back to her, her vision returning to sharp clarity. She had gotten shot! Who shot her, what caused those massive explosions, and how could she fix this?

Suddenly, Ren heard the familiar crackling of a pair footsteps on snow, so she quickly played dead. She didn’t want whoever had tried to assassinate her to know that they hadn’t yet finished the job, as that would probably end in her getting killed for real this time.

“Damn, you really did a number on them, huh?” A voice said.

“I was aiming for the head, but I guess this works too.” A second voice replied, chuckling slightly.

The first voice whistled. “Look at that, their torso is pretty much gone, huh?”

“I mean, Sterl DID say that this gun was big.” The second voice appeared around her side this time instead of her feet. Ren took extra care to appear as dead as possible, not wanting to blow her temporary cover.

A radio crackled. “What's the condition, boys?”

“Well Sterl, the torso has a hole blown through it, and they’ve lost what looks like their entire supply of oil, so I’d say that it's a job well done.”

A collection of whooping and cheers came through the radio.

“A job well done, fellers. That’ll definitely qualify you two for a promotion, I reckon.” The third voice chuckled.

“Oh, nice!” The second voice exclaimed.

“We’re gonna be heading back up there though, just to confirm it and bring it back to base once we’ve found A.” The third voice, likely Sterl, said.

“So, you want us to store it in a cabin or something for safekeeping?” The first voice inquired.

“My thoughts exactly, boy.” Sterl said through the radio.

“Got it, sir.” The second voice replied. “Alright Jim, help me move the body.”

Ren, with her eyes closed, felt four hands pick her up and start moving her.

“Huh, much lighter than what I expected.” The first voice pondered aloud.

“Well, maybe the big hole in their chest could explain that.” The second voice suggested.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Ren heard the footsteps turn from crunching snow to the clomp of wooden planks, with the sound of a door being shut being her and the duo. She felt herself being unceremoniously dumped down onto what was probably the aforementioned wooden planks, her arm stuck in an awkward position behind her back.

“You know, this does kinda give credence to what I was saying earlier.” The second voice broke the silence.

The first voice groaned. “Come on, don’t start with that again.”

“Hear me out, alright? It's a little suspicious that a cloaked drone with goggles came right out of the place that Sterl told us to watch, right?” The second voice reasoned.

The first voice tutted. “Listen, Sterl isn’t getting hunted down by the Operatives, there isn’t a big conspiracy to cover up knowledge of the disassembly drones and their dark secrets, you’re just being paranoid.”

“It just makes sense! There are too many variables lining up for nothing to be going on!” The second voice exclaimed.

“Pssh, whatever. I’m gonna go get the Big One, you stay here and watch the body.” The first voice stated.

“Why do I have to watch a dead body? It's not like we have zombie drones or something stupid like that.” The second voice scoffed.

“Just giving you something to do, alright? And plus, knowing you, you would probably think that the dead body is gonna rise again as an undead or something, now stay here.” The sound of a door opening, then shutting, rang through the cabin, signaling the end of the conversation.

For a moment, silence took hold of the small space.

The second voice sighed. “Well, looks like it's just you and me, rapidly-cooling corpse.”

Ren took offense to that. If she was a corpse, then she would’ve made sure that she was someplace warm before she died so that a bunch of bugs could feast and annoy the people trying to retrieve her dead body. One last, “Go to hell” to the world, she supposed.

Ren heard the familiar sound of someone sitting down in a chair before the second voice sighed again.

“Now what, Jim?” The second voice murmured to himself.

The sound of someone tapping their foot filled the relatively quiet air.

“It is suspicious, you know?” Jim said to hopefully nobody in particular. “I see you-

Probably talking to her, actually, considering how he pointed at her with those words.

“-walking out of the same cabin that Sterl told us to watch just in case someone tried to backstab him, we’re armed to the teeth for a simple retrieval mission, and both disassembly drones were sent along as well.”

Ren nearly opened her eyes in surprise. There were murder drones around the camp?

Jim continued on. “You know, maybe I was wrong before. The military command doesn’t just have some shady secrets regarding JCJenson and the disassembly drones, they’ve turned traitor! Yeah, that's it, the military command was working in tandem with JCJenson before the core collapse, probably giving them intel on our asset as well. Hell, JCJenson probably created those hunter drones to kill us off to preserve the secrets!”

As Jim ranted, Ren began to grow her own suspicions. While most of what Jim said was probably nonsense, there were some things that correlated with her own theories and conclusions. JCJenson had probably created the disassembly drones to kill off the worker drone populace, and she had theorized that Camp 98.7 was trading intel with another facility that didn’t actually belong to the company, but she hadn’t believed that at first. After all, what facility other than Cabin Fever Labs would be important to the unknown research being done at Camp 98.7? She knew that Cabin Fever Labs was practically located right on top of the camp, but she hadn’t yet located it.

But now that she knew of the existence of the military drones, she now knew that they seemed to have come from a facility that had likely housed Jacob before they had gone up to the surface for some reason (maybe to get him back?), and Jacob was the same person that survived being stabbed in the head, a pipe getting thrown through his gut, and hopefully a fall off of a tall cliff. If the conspiracy theory of the raving lunatic in front of her was at least somewhat telling the truth, then perhaps the facility that was allegedly trading info with the Cabin Fever Labs and/or Camp 98.7 was the same one that the military drones came out of.

Suddenly, the door banged open, and the sounds of heavy footsteps came through.

“I . . . got . . . this . . .” The first voice sounded oddly strained.

By the squeaking of the chair he was in, Jim probably got up. “Uh, do you need help carrying that?”

“No, I doooo-waaaah!” The sound of a floorboard cracking and a heavy thump sounded right next to Ren’s ear, followed by another thud.

“Hey, be careful with that! You nearly squashed the body Mag!” Jim exclaimed.

‘Mag’ scoffed. “Calm down, it's all fine, see? No pancaked bodies in sight.”

“Hmm, if you say so.” Jim begrudgingly said. “Also, what's a pancake?”

“Uh, I don’t really know.” Mag sounded sheepish.

“Huh, okay.” The chair squeaked again, likely signaling Jim sitting back down.

Ren ignored the rest of the conversation between the two military drones. It seemed that between Jim’s ranting and Mag dropping whatever the hell he was carrying, they hadn’t noticed her wound slowly patching itself back up. Ignoring the many downsides to having the Absolute Solver, Ren thanked Robo-God for giving her the program. Without it, she would’ve been dead several times over from all the injuries she had sustained over her time alone.

She slightly shifted her hand, making it so that the pair of drones couldn’t see the holographic symbol that would pop up over it when she made her move.

A slight and familiar whine filled the air, covered up by the loud talking of the two military drones. They continued on their merry debate about conspiracies, oblivious to the events literally happening right under their noses.

Mag shook his head. “Listen, they aren’t- hey wait a second, you hear that?”

Jim frowned. “Wait, what is that? It sounds like its coming from the-”

Both of the drone’s eyes widened, whirling around to face Ren. However, they weren’t met with a cold corpse on the ground, but rather a drone standing on their own two feet and a massive sniper rifle pointed at the two of them.

Ren smiled. “Hasta la vista, baby.”

With a pull of the trigger, a thunderous roar filled the small cabin. The windows shattered from the blast happening indoors, the door slamming open. The various consoles that lined one of the walls exploded in a spray of sparks from a gust coming from the muzzle brake hitting them.

The bullet smacked into Mag’s head at what was nearly point-blank range, causing his entire head to pop like a balloon. However, from the way that she angled the gun, the bullet ended up going right through Mag and continuing onto Jim

Jim faced a similar fate, and soon both military drones were laying on the ground, oil flowing freely from the now-severed necks.

Ren let the rifle go, letting it crack another floorboard as she winced. That took a lot out of her, holding the rifle up in the air like that. It was a LOT heavier than it looked, and that was saying something when one considered how it was taller than her. The recoil was almost enough for it to shoot out of her grip and out of the cabin, but she managed to hold onto it.

The radio then crackled again. “Answer me now, what in tarnation was that!?”

It was Sterl, the person from earlier.

Ren calmly walked over to the radio, being careful not to expand the hole in her chest any further. Picking it up, she held it close to her mouth as she spoke.

“Hello there, Sterl.” She spoke as calmly and robotically as she could.

“Who in the hell is this!?” The drone barked out.

“Likely somebody important to you.” Ren cryptically answered. “I seem to recall paying you and your compatriots a visit, maybe taking the life of an equally important organic being?”

Sterl was silent for a moment before his voice growled through the speaker. “You . . .”

“Yes, me.” Ren kept her voice flat. “And to note a fact, the two drones that you ordered to terminate me have been terminated themselves.”

No answer.

“One more fact, you shall be next.” With that, Ren smashed the radio into a ball with her powers.

After a moment of silence, Ren couldn’t help herself any longer. She giggled.

She had always wanted to do that. While it was a bit more awkward and cringey in retrospect, it was also funny to her. It also served to both enrage ‘Sterl’ and scare him, hopefully causing him to make an irrational decision, like charging at her to try and kill her without any form of reinforcements.

If disassembly drones were there though, then that would make things a bit more difficult. She believed that she would be able to take both down in the end, but in doing so she might attract unwanted attention. After all, she wasn’t so stupid as to think that she was the only one with Absolute Solver that managed to retain her intelligence and also wasn’t a murder drone. There were bound to be others like her out there, and not all were gonna be friendly.

But, if push came to shove, she would do it anyway. After she managed to wring all the information out of this Sterl character (who she believed was in charge of the squad that had been sent to the camp) she would find Jacob, find out what the camp and the labs were hiding, then GTFO.

Easy peasy.

* * *

“Damnit!” Sterl threw the box-radio into the tree line.

“You probably shouldn’t have done that, now we don’t have a radio.” K’s disapproving voice came from behind him.

“Shut it you!” Sterl shouted.

GPS Guy and a few others walked up.

“Uh, sir? What now?” GPS Guy asked.

Sterl sighed, running a hand down his helmet’s visor. “Let’s go kill that motherfu-”

“Hey, hold it there, ‘soldier’.” K narrowed her eyes. “You know what happened last time that thing went up against a force of fifty military drones and all three of my squad.”

“Of course I know, but if we don’t kill that damned witch, then it's just gonna pick off our entire force, and then go for the TOB next!” Sterl poked a finger into K’s chest, which she grabbed. “I’m sure YOU remember what happened last time too!”

“I have a better memory than you, of course I remember.” K rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying that it's trying to bait you into attacking so it can kill us all with ease.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll show that witch who took on ten military drones with nuthin’ but a mug then.” Sterl gave K one last glare before turning back to the rest of the soldiers. “Alright boys! Rack the rockets and clean yer barrels, ‘cause we’re gonna go witch-hunting.”

A cacophony of whoops, gunshots, and cheering filled the air. A moment afterward the sounds of stereotypical gun noise filled the air around them as the drones slotted bullets into magazines and slammed them into their rifles. One particular soldier unslung an RPG from his back, slotting a rocket into the receptacle.

“Idiots.” K muttered underneath her breath, shaking her head. “We’re screwed.”

* * *

“Uuuuuuggh.” Jacob, stop complaining so goddamn much.

“But my-” Jacob was cut off by another bout of coughing. “-head huuuurts.”

Yeah cool, so do I despite my lack of a head to be in pain, but you don’t see me whining and moaning about it so much, do you?

“You’re literally a figment of my imagination, you can’t talk.” Jacob replied evenly.

Hey! I’m as real as you, you know!

“Seeeeeerrious cap.” Jacob drawled.

🤨

Jacob blinked. “Stop.”

Okay, fine.

Jacob trudged up the path, teetering from side-to-side as if he was about to topple over. I would’ve made a joke about being a zombie, but foreshadowing can be a bit-

“What about foreshadowing?” Jacob interjected.

Shut up, I’m narrating here. Anyway, Jacob was in serious pain at the moment. His head was foggy, his eyes were bloodshot, and his limbs felt like they were both freezing and sloughing off at the same time. A constant jackhammer pounded in his head, cracking open his skull and letting his brains out to dry (not literally, of course). The fever had only gotten worse, with what was hopefully sweat pouring down his cheeks and pooling in the bottom of his helmet. Of course, the liquid had frozen by now, which only added to the discomfort of having dried . . . something . . . on your skin without being able to scratch it.

By this point he had made it up almost to where the various gunshots and explosions were coming from. He still wasn’t really sure about going towards the sounds of violent battle, but he hoped that it would pay off in the end. Who knows, maybe he would find Ren there, and then they could team up again to finally do what he had come here to do.

“Wait, what did I come here to do in the first place again?” Jacob murmured.

Did you seriously forget?

“ . . .yeah.” He said sheepishly.

To an outside observer it would look like Jacob was clinically insane with the way he was talking to himself, but of course I knew better. Jacob wasn’t insane, he was just stupid!

“Not funny, didn’t laugh.” Jacob squinted, trying to see farther ahead of himself.

I know, I’m sorry.

He grinned. “Average AI conversation.”

Shut up.

“You never answered my question.” Jacob said, changing the subject.

You came here to investigate stuff.

“Oh yeah, that, just like Amon-”

Like L.A. Noire, right?

“Uh, sure.”

Ignoring the close-call, Jacob’s mind drifted towards the reason why he came here. After all, he was sure that the underlying mystery that he had been slowly piecing together was at least related to the place where he currently was. Something had been going on here, something linked to him and the strange experiments that were going on with him and the Absolute Solver.

“That IS what was happening, right?” Jacob inquired. “The weird Absolute Solver thing being experimented on in tandem with me?”

It makes the most sense, but I guess you never know.

“Cool. Also, what is that?” Jacob pointed at the scene in front of himself as he crested the hill- what the hell?

* * *

Ren grunted in exertion as she did another acrobatic flip over a rocket.

Things were going poorly for her, at the moment. The fight had started a few minutes ago when she had been sitting comfortably in her spinny-chair, getting continuously dizzy as she spun and spun and spun. Unfortunately, that had all changed when a missile blasted the cabin to shreds, leaving only her and the spinny-chair amidst the flaming wreckage.

Standing outside to meet her was a small army of those military drones wielding assault rifles, machine guns, probably grenades, a few rocket launchers, and a partridge in a pear tree, all surrounding the place where the cabin formerly stood.

To make matters worse, a disassembly drone hovered in the air, confirming her suspicions of an unlikely team-up between the murderous machines and the military drones. Each and every single weapon had been pointed directly at her, all of them drawing perfect beads on all the fragile bits, like her head.

And then the shooting started.

Bullets, rockets, and lasers galore flew at breakneck speeds towards her, forcing her to get serious for the second time in the past couple of days. It was fairly worrying how much she was putting her life on the line, but there wasn’t much she could do about it at the moment.

Kicking off the chair, she had spun a 180° midair, dodging almost every single projectile that had been fired at her with the sole exception of a bullet grazing the side of her facial monitor. She had yanked a jagged floorboard up from the wreckage, sending it hurtling over to impale a military drone into a nearby tree. However, when she attempted to simply pop the heads of every aggressor, save for the single murder drone, that was when a figure flew at her. The disassembly drone had sliced at her midsection, nearly bisecting her before pulling away. It had forced her to dodge and lose her concentration, which was when a storm of bullets were sent her way. Luckily a shield sprung up just in time to block the projectiles, but it was weak and her concentration shattered a moment later when the unnamed disassembly dove at her again.

This cycle continued for longer than she was comfortable with. The murder drone would slash at her, she would dodge, a few bullets or rockets would fly at her, she would block them, but whenever she tried to retaliate or keep up a constant defense, the disassembly drone would attack her to restart the loop again, letting it continue to the present.

Ren knew that she couldn’t keep this up forever. She was only one person with a limited supply of strength and willpower, while the opposing side had much more people than her, along with her worst enemy; a competent leader.

She saw what was likely to be Sterl directing the military drones, telling them when to fire and when to duck for cover. He gave hand signals to the murder drone (though it seemed to be a bit difficult for him considering how he only had a single arm) to tell them when they should dive at her.

Ren was at every disadvantage here. They had more people, good coordination, proper weaponry, and they had caught her by surprise. That last one was something she definitely hadn’t been expecting, by the way. While she had hoped that the soldiers were going to come and attack her, she had thought that they would take a bit longer than just a few minutes. And plus, how could anyone expect the building that she was in to be BLOWN APART!?

Her concentration wavered again, and she took a cut to her leg in consequence. A grimace spread across her face. She didn’t have long before she made a disastrously fatal slip-up that would end her once-and-for-all. If her attackers were paranoid enough, they could make sure that she had nothing large enough to regenerate from after they dumped her remains somewhere. After all, she was virtually immortal, not literally immortal.

Ren couldn’t run, either. The military drones had made sure to surround her from all sides, leaving no room for escape. It was a trap that she had idiotically fallen into, one of her own making in fact. She only saw two possibilities at the moment; one where they got bored, or the one where she was brutally murdered by soldiers.

She dodged another slash from the disassembly drone, panting heavily. She didn’t waste the effort on trying to impale the genocide robot with a sharp plan because she knew that it would be futile in the end, and she wanted to conserve her energy for a potential miracle-

Ren noticed something out of the corner of her eye, a figure just standing at the mouth of the clearing. This was common, of course, as the military drones were scattered all over the place. However, the figure struck a chord at the back of her mind.

The same dented matte-black armor, cracked and bloody visor, slightly hunched over for some reason (he wasn’t always hunched over like that, right?), and . . . wings?

She blinked, making sure that her vision was right. Blocking another flurry of bullets and a rocket, she managed to turn herself around to face the figure.

Yep, it was Jacob. With wings.

WIngs that were notably crooked and bent at several odd angles. She meant, if you were going to have wings, then you should probably make sure that they weren’t broken and stuff, right?

They looked like an odd combo of flesh and metal, conjoined together to make something new. The ‘feathers’ were made out of the same black plating that Jacob’s armor was made out of, with ropes of organic material connecting them to the bone(?) that stretched from his shoulder blades and lay bent on the ground.

Ren dodged another attack from the disassembly drone, nearly getting her head sliced in two. While Jacob’s presence was cool and all, she needed to concentrate on surviving, however, crazy it may seem. After all, she had been looking all over the place for him, and now she was just gonna brush him aside?

Well, what would she do? He probably wasn’t gonna help her, considering how neutral he seemed to be. Even if he did step in, there wasn’t much he could do with the sole pistol that he had against a murder drone and what looked like twenty military drones. That meant no help from him (which wouldn’t have been effective anyway) and her situation continued. She didn’t know when the surprisingly imperceptive soldiers were going to notice the human just standing there, looking awkward, but it was hopefully soon. She wanted to see Jacob get gunned down or captured before she died, damnit. Stupid kid led her on a massive robot-goose chase all around the camp, which got her killed. Of course she wanted petty revenge!

In short, she was screwed.

* * *

Jacob stood there, like do something already man!

“Shut up.” Jacob muttered under his breath.

Somehow, the military drones, K, or Ren hadn’t noticed him yet. Maybe it was because they were all fighting each other, but who even knows these days?

A group of maybe twenty military drones lay scattered all around the smoking remains of what likely used to be a cabin. K flew in the air, patiently waiting for opportune moments to strike. Speaking of, the soldiers were all in a haphazard circle surrounding Ren, opening fire at her whenever a specific drone gave the order, likely the leader of this whole operation.

Even Jacob, who was severely inexperienced in the arts of warfare and tactics, knew that Ren was in a bad spot. He didn’t know how long she could use her weird telekinesis powers and to what extent, but it seemed like she had nearly reached her limit. While she was blocking bullets and the occasional rocket that came her way, she was hardly retaliating at all. She only did impressive acrobatic swirls and flips in the air to dodge (which was probably unnecessarily energy extensive) and avoided getting poked by K.

I bet ten bucks that she only lasts five more minutes, tops.

“Hey, don’t gamble on stuff like that!” Jacob took on a mock-horrified tone. “Bet on fights between diseased orphans, like a normal multi-billionaire.”

Suddenly, Ren turned around midair, landing to face Jacob. She stared right at him for a moment, her goggles and bandanna making her face into an unfeeling visage. However, she went back to dodging and weaving after she nearly got killed, again.

So like, should we help her?

Jacob shrugged. “Uh, I guess?”

You don’t sound too sure.

“Well- wait, I have an idea!” Jacob stood up taller, cupping his hands around his visor in a cylinder. “I NEED MORE BOOLETS!”

Everybody froze.

“Who said that!” The leader looked around, his gaze sweeping the area. “Which one of y’all-”

The military drone cut himself as his eyes landed on Jacob, who gave a meek little wave. A few other soldiers followed their leader’s gaze, also seeing Jacob. A few of them had recognition dawn on their monitors, while most (including their leader) seemingly remained confused.

However, a certain drone had the most notable reaction of them all.

“WHA- WHAT!? HOW!?” K sputtered, taking her full attention off of Ren. “HOW IN THE HELL ARE YOU ALIVE!?”

At that moment it seemed that the rest of the military drones put two and two together, judging by their surprised murmurs.

The leader pointed at Jacob, almost in slow-motion.

“GET HIM!”

Jacob blinked. “Huh, deja-”

* * *

“-vu.” I finish, a grin spreading across my face.

Finally, I was back in control. The switches seemed random, but I didn’t have a big enough data set to go off of to make that assumption fully yet. I needed to find a way to access the interface again fast, or else I was gonna be stuck as a voice in a schizo’s head for . . . half of the rest of my hopefully long life? Was it split half-and-half? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have the time to find out, considering my current situation.

The various military drones had varying reactions to their leader’s proclamation. Some followed through with the order, beginning a fast-paced charge towards me, while a few others just froze due to indecision. A rare couple also completely ignored the order, continuing to fire at Ren with gusto.

I rolled my eyes. Luckily the advancing military drones were moving at what seemed like a snail’s pace, so that meant [DIRECTIVE - OVERCLOCKED PROCESSOR] was still able to be activated when it needed to, despite my current inability to access the interface. I really hoped that I would be able to figure that out soon since I kinda need that to complete my nefarious plans, but I guess we’ll see.

Cracking my neck, I launched myself forwards at the closest drone with as much speed as I could muster. My armor would hopefully deflect at least a few of the bullets that were sure to come once the soldiers realized that they were facing an enemy, but I wasn’t going to put my potential victory on the line for that gamble. Instead, I was gonna rely on good old shock-and-awe tactics, as that would sow confusion among the ranks of the military drones when they realized that a supposed friendly was attacking them.

The military drone likely only saw a blur before he was tossed into two other drones behind him, causing all three to tumble to the ground in a heap. I leapt over the pile, crashing into a fourth military drone. This time I yanked my pistol out of my holster and jammed it under her chin, pulling the trigger and watching the visor of her helmet get caked with oil.

It was at that moment when the soldiers stopped their reckless charge towards him, confusion evident on their holographic displays. I didn’t give them a moment of respite, however, as I grabbed the rifle that the dead military drone had dropped from the ground, lifting it up with one hand.

I pressed down on the trigger, aiming at the body of the farthest soldier. I aimed at the one farthest away because they would be the ones to start sniping at me once they caught onto the fact that I was crashing through them.

With the enhanced strength of the exosuit (though I was sure that the motors had been integrated into my body by the program at this point) I managed to keep the recoil to a minimum, scything down my target and even a bonus one that I emptied the rest of the magazine into.

The leader had fully realized what was going on at this point, considering how the fog of confusion in his eyes was replaced by alertness, surprise, and panic.

“BACKWARDS!” The leader brought his pistol up to bear. “RIFLES UP AND READY!”

The military drones seemed to be jarred out of the fugue state that they had been in by the barking of orders, stumbling backwards and aiming in my general direction.

Of course, I wasn’t done yet. Taking a step backwards myself, I quickly yanked the heads of the two dazed soldiers off of their bodies, holding one in each hand. I also crushed the head of the first drone I had thrown to be thorough.

“Kobe!” I yelled out, sending one shooting towards the one I had labeled in charge.

The ball-like head comically knocked into the drone, who had been preparing to give the order to fire. He toppled backwards, pinwheeling his arms as he fell.

I quickly wound up my other arm, sending the second head hurtling towards the farthest drone yet again. This time it impacted his helmet’s visor with enough force to shatter the glass. Seeing my opportunity, I brought my pistol up again and drew a bead on the drone’s face and pulled the trigger.

That would make about seven down so far, with eleven (and one disassembly drone) left to go.

By now the [DIRECTIVE - OVERCLOCKED PROCESSOR] was starting to run dry, the world getting visibly faster as my perception and thoughts slowed down.

I cursed at myself. It was supposed to last longer than this, but maybe the strain from the events earlier had hindered it a little.

Speaking of, the boiling fever came back with a vengeance and -what the hell?

“Oh hey, I was wondering when you were gonna say something.” I said, because why now of all times! As soon as we’re about to get in a battle you take over! I bet that this was intentional!

“Mind being quiet? I’m trying to sleep over here.” I roll my neck, turning my head towards the person that I had just saved.

Ren had been floating in the air in the middle of dodging an attack from K when I overclocked, so she had been left like that for the duration of it. However, now that it was wearing off, she touched on the ground gracefully, taking a good look at her surroundings. She seemed surprised to see the multiple dead bodies laying around, and what did you expect, lady? That the voice in my head telling me to do bad things would’ve left you to die when you’re so clearly near-and-dear to me?

“Being snarky, are we?” I mutter under my breath.

When her eyes meet mine I nod, seeing her nod back in return after a moment of uncertainty. Hopefully she wouldn’t try and kill me after this was all and over with, but you never know these days.

Ren quickly blocked a missile coming from K (who somehow hadn’t seen the commotion around her yet) and I took that as my cue to act.

The leader had gotten back up by this point, raising his sole hand in the air as he opened his mouth to bark another order. However, that was quickly rendered moot by my next action. Through a tremendous amount of pain and effort, I flexed the muscles of my newfound wings. While they were still broken and dislocated, the right one managed to get into relatively good working shape after I had twisted it enough to relocate it.

I dove towards the squad leader, turning slightly in the air to allow my right wing access to him. The drone’s eyes widened as a sharp spike on the end of the central shaft impaled him in what would’ve been his stomach if he wasn’t robotic. He was lifted up into the air and tossed at a particularly close grouping of about four drones, sending them all tumbling to the ground in a move reminiscent of my opening one.

It was then that the first few bullets were fired, the rapid concussive bangs ringing out through the clearing. Instinctively I dodged, but that didn’t stop three projectiles from slamming into my chest. They managed to pierce my armor but strangely seemed to stop after that, the sensation of them coming to an almost complete stop oddly jarring and distracting.

I shook myself out of the stupor I was in, dashing to the side to avoid the red lasers seeking to draw a bead home on vital areas. I wasn’t going to focus on strange occurrences that helped me in a fight no matter the circumstances, and that was a complete lie you know.

“Shut up! You’re distracting me!” I yelled through gritted teeth as I gripped the closest soldier in my arms and twisted his head all the way around.

Ten to go.

Ren seemed to hear my outburst, her frown seeking me out while she did a triple-somersault uh, I dunno how to describe that, like, she just did about five flips, a spin, kicked off of K’s head, starfished midair, and then-

“What did I just say!?” I hissed, charging towards a drone to my right that was fumbling to slam another magazine into his gun.

However, I myself was slammed into by a figure diving into my midsection. While no breath was forced out of me (wait a second, you aren’t even breathing, Voice-In-My-Head!) I WAS lifted up into the air by none other than K.

“I knew I had a bad feeling about you.” K’s merciless holographic eyes met my hidden ones, before she raised a sword level with my neck to slice through it.

Luckily, a plank knocked into K’s head at the last second.

The disassembly drone blinked, turning her head to the right just in time to see Ren’s foot coming down.

Ren kicked K with so much force that the CRT monitor that displayed her eyes shattered, oil leaking out of the cracks in the display.

Me and Ren land on the ground, along with the limp body of K.

I grin. “Saved by the bell.”

Will you shut up with the cringe Marvel dialogue?

I roll my eyes. “Listen, I’m just trying it out a little, you know?”

Ren frowned. “Uh, are you talking to me?”

“Nah, not you.” I shake my head. “Just the voices in my head.”

Ren’s face clouds with confusion and questions, but she seems to ultimately not address any of them. Instead, she turned towards the remaining military drones, which also included the leader that I had impaled earlier. He must’ve not been too injured by the wound, as he was up and standing when I turned to look.

“So like, do we just . . .” I trailed off.

Ren rolled her eyes. “Of course we’re gonna kill them, they tried to assassinate me for Robo-Christ’s sake!”

“Wait, really?” I blink in surprise. “The new Hitman 4 isn’t really looking so familiar-”

I was interrupted by groaning from behind me and Ren. Turning towards the noise, we both see K shakily rising from the ground, clutching her rapidly-healing face.

I frantically look around for a weapon, checking the rubble beneath my feet. Luckily, what looks like a- hole, what in the actual hell! That’s the biggest sniper rifle I’ve ever seen! But then again, I haven’t really seen too many sniper rifles, but-

“I SAID STOP TALKING!” I shout in frustration, drawing the attention of everybody.

Expressions ranged from confused, to worried, to disgusted, as I looked around. I don’t address it however, instead yanking the gun up from the ground and pointing the business end right at K. Or at least I tried. It was much easier said than done when one considered just how stupidly heavy the damn thing was. It was like lifting a boulder twenty times my size, for Christ’s sake! But, wouldn’t it be Robo-Christ or something, like what the drones say? I mean, you’re just a voice in my head, but- oh yeah, I should probably let you focus.

Her eyes went wide, and her hand retracted into its wrist, being replaced by what I recognized as a rocket launcher of some kind. I glanced at Ren out of the corner of my eye, surprised to see her warily watching the massive rifle in my hands. However, I didn’t let myself get distracted, instead proceeding to aim down the sights so that I had a clear point-blank shot that would hit home no matter what. I began to pull down on the trigger, the world seeming like it was moving in slow-motion, as if time itself was moving through molasses.

But then the ground in front of me shattered.

Like a meteor from the heavens, a humanoid figure slammed down into the earth right between me and K, sending a shockwave through the ice and snow.

I flew backwards about five feet, the big rifle flying out of my hands and landing parallel to me. K experienced a similar fate, getting sent tumbling to the ground about seven or so feet from where she had started.

I rubbed my visor, trying to clear the snow and slush that had become stuck to it from my impromptu meeting with D I R T. Once my vision cleared enough, I looked up to see who had caused the impact.

“Whew, now THAT was an experience.” X brushed off his clothes. “Lemme tell you something, no matter what Master Chief and Loudward may tell you, the moon is NOT made out of cheese, that’s just crazy! And if you don’t believe me, then just know that I spoke with the Space Core and he confirmed it, so suck on that OSHA- oh, what’s going on here?”

The various military drones, having raised their weapons out of shock, lowered them slightly upon seeing X standing there in the middle of a crater.

K sat up. “Where the hell have you been!?”

X shrugged. “Here and there, I’m pretty sure that I got hired by Freddy Fazbear himself too-”

“NO TIME FOR JOKES!” K shouted. “Half the team is dead, that witch is back, and the human is somehow not dead!”

X froze at the mention of the supposed ‘witch’. “What?”

K rolled her eyes. “Yes, you moron! That drone on the ground there, right in front of you!”

X looked between me and Ren, seemingly confused.

“ . . . which one?” X asked, turning back to K.

“Oh for the love of Robo-God!” K collapsed back onto the ground in defeat.

X then turned back towards myself and Ren, his gaze zeroing in on Ren. His expression changed from a goofy and dimwitted smile, to a serious and emotionless visage. However, he seemed to be at conflict with himself, murmuring under his breath an argument that I could only catch snippets of. His fingers curled up into a fist then relaxed, his eyes never leaving Ren’s form, who was currently laying frozen on the ground.

Suddenly, like a hawk, X’s head turned straight to me, leaving me in a similar state of frozen panic. Fight-or-flight warred for dominance while the disassembly drone in front of me deliberated with himself over a topic that only he knew. I wanted to try and subtly reach for the rifle at my side, but X seemed ready to pounce at any sudden movement, so the choice was left unchosen.

The scattered and injured military drones also didn’t seem to know what to do, some lowering their rifles after their guard was also sufficiently lowered to allow such a thing. However, their leader didn’t seem to have the same problem.

“So,” The armless soldier with a southern twang walked up. “Whaddya plan to do with these ne’er-do-wellers?”

X raised his head, a grin spreading across his face. “Why, a cool and totally not cliche team-up of course!”

The soldier seemed caught off-guard by this. “Huh?”

“Yeah, I get it, ‘Oh, but these guys got them fake J’s!’. Well, do I have some news for you!” X pulled a spinny-chair out from behind his back, sitting down on it. “While I was applying for a security role at a certain pizza establishment, I had to come back here to go to the bathroom! Yes, I sadly ate some Space Tacobell on the way to my interview, very sad, boo-womp. However, while I was killing a few of those kids that climbed up the walls of the crusty stall I was in, I just so happened to stumble upon Indiana Jones exploring his new find! I of course had to join in to show how much better I was than him at exploring, but I found something really weird.”

“The underground secret facility, that I also confirmed with the Space Core to not be Area 69, had some really, even WEIRDER, stuff in it! Indiana Jones died that day, but only because I closed the door on him while SCP-049 was chasing him. I ended up dying anyway after MTF spawned, but that’s not the point, because I clearly live! Hooray!” X jumped up in joy around two hundred feet into the air.

“Yeah, some Harry Potter and weird eldritch thingies were down there, so I decided, in my utmost and impeccable intelligence, that we should team up with these two American heroes to take down the Na- I mean, the Harry Potter eldritch abominations!”

X finished with a flourishing bow, his head smacking against the packed dirt beneath him.

Everybody stared at him.

X looked back and forth between all the drones (and one human) present.

“What!? What did I dooooooooo!?”

* * *

E1 was waiting in a nondescript location for his contact.

The drone had been unusually late, but that was likely due to the sudden meeting that the lower officers had called to address some vague concerns that were making the rounds through the men. The Informant had also called for an emergency meet-up right before, which was why E1 was here directly in-person.

“Psst, hey.” A voice whispered from behind.

“Informant.” Turning around, E1 dipped his head in greeting.

“Yeah, I’m here.” The Informant looked back and forth. “Listen, I need to get straight to the point.”

E1 raised a holographic eyebrow. “Then get on with it.”

The Informant shook his head. “I can’t say anything, I’m pretty sure that they have me bugged.”

E1 quickly did a cursory scan of the Informant’s outer armor, hoping to determine the veracity of the drone’s statement.. Sure enough, a tiny mite-sized device lay between the elbow plates on his arm. However, judging by the signals it was throwing off, it was turned on but dormant. That design had an extremely small battery size, so the human engineers had devised a way to keep it operational by making it listen for a specific word. Upon hearing the word or phrase, the bug would become active, listening in on every word and transmitting what it heard back to its controller.

“Don’t worry, I have an info packet, physical hard drive too for extra security.” The Informant assured, taking out a small hard drive from a pouch.

E1 took the drive without saying a word, keeping a solid grip on it.

“I’ll just head off now, if that’s fine.” The Informant began to back away slowly as he said this.

E1 considered killing the man. It was clear that Command knew that at least something suspicious was afoot, and he wasn’t sure if he could let this clear security risk get away. At best, Command had heard an off-hand statement from the Informant and wanted to make sure that he wasn’t spilling any secrets. However, in the worst case, Command completely knew that E1 and his remaining team of Operatives were planning a coup, and they wanted to know what his plans were.

However, if that last scenario WAS the case, then they wouldn’t just slap a bug onto an informant and call it a day. They themselves knew of E1’s capabilities to easily detect any spyware, so if they had known that E1 was involved, then they wouldn’t have done that.

No, the more likely case was the former. Even if it was someplace in between the two, it would only raise suspicions if the whistleblower turned up dead in a random alley.

And so, E1 watched the Informant speed-walk away, sighing slightly. He turned over the hard drive in his hand, noting the serial code on it that designated it as classified information. It was a bit stupid of the Informant to place the information on a hard drive that could so easily be tracked, but it wasn’t like they had any other choices.

Without further ado, E1 plugged the hard drive into the receptacle on the back of his neck. He put his back against the side of a tent as the download began. He wasn’t necessarily sure what the Informant had been so excited about, but it better be worth his time, or else-

E1’s thoughts froze in their tracks. His hand wavered from the things that were flashing in his head at that very moment.

He had known of the facility’s past dealings with JCJenson, but he didn’t know that it went back so far! Months, years, decades, centuries, the sheer records of data exchanges cut off around the 2561 mark. The Asset had been alive for a lot longer than everyone else had previously assumed, likely being the oldest human in existence at this, or at least he was.

The experiments, the properties, what JCJenson had been specifically working towards at the Cabin Fever Labs, it was all here. The previous documents and files that he had gotten from E9 had expanded his knowledge of the Absolute Solver, but the mystery had been practically solved for him.

New articles, government reports, secret investigations, military actions, and so many more. They were all right here. Cyn, a massacre at a gala, by Robo-God, what happened to Earth!?

E1 wasn’t even sure if he had a government to answer to anymore.

For the first time in his life, E1 shook his fear. He had gotten involved in something that transcended systems, that put the very fabric of the universe on the line.

By all means, he was screwed.

* * *

“So, what was that about earlier?”

Jacob looked up from the ground. He had been chilling at the edge of the pit that X had led them all to, waiting for the arguing around the military drones to stop. Ren seemed to have joined him at some point, though she was still standing.

“What was what about?” Jacob asked.

Ren shrugged. “You know, the supposed ‘voices in your head’?”

At some point during the walk to the large towering metal poles, Jacob’s little hitchhiker had been kicked out of office, with Jacob being restored as the ’rightful’ leader, which I still disagree with, you know!

Jacob blinked. “Oh yeah, uh, the tumor-thingy I guess.”

It was Ren’s turn to blink. “What?”

“Yeah, the tumor supposedly spawned a separate person that is basically the same as me, but different, you get it?” Jacob explained. “That’s what he told me, at least. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

Ren frowned. “I’m pretty sure that I should be worried if my investment is hearing voices in his head, especially if he tried to kill himself because of it.”

Jacob waved a hand, leaning backwards. “Pfffft, I didn’t kill myself, that was the other guy! He likes to hijack the controls sometimes, you know? Kinda like somebody from the Middle Eas-”

“Wait wait wait, it can take control of your body!?” Ren exclaimed. “Nevermind, I wanna know more!”

Jacob raised an eyebrow, though he doubted that Ren could see it. “Oh yeah, I forgot that you’re a cringe mad scientist. Doctor Doofenshmirtz did it better, you know?”

“Don’t call me cringe, and besides, it’s for my research! For the betterment of me, myself, and I! Or something like that.” Ren sat down beside Jacob.

Jacob met Ren’s eyes. “I’m pretty sure the Nazis said the same thing.”

Ren frowned. “What’re the Nazis?”

Jacob shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ren looked back out into the dark pit. “So, whaddya think is gonna happen next?”

“If we go down there, or just in general?” Jacob inquired.

“Both, I guess.” Ren answered.

“Well, I don’t really know.” Jacob shrugged. “But considering recent events, I do know at least one thing for sure.”

“And what would that be?” Ren questioned.

Jacob turned back towards Ren.

“We are definitely screwed.”

* * *