“This is insane. Wait, no, YOU’RE insane!”

E1 folded his arms across his chest plate, glaring at Damina. “Well, it's the truth, what else do you want me to say?”

She scoffed, shooting a glance at Felix who was standing awkwardly off to the side.

“Why would I have any reason to lie in the first place?” E1 continued. “It's not like I had to tell you this in the first place.”

Damina suddenly looked up at E1, frowning. “Yeah, actually, why would you tell us this? There’s literally no reason for us to know this- I mean, in the hypothetical scenario where it IS true.”

E1 rolled his eyes. “Well pardon me for wanting to be a bit more considerate to my partners-in-crime, but-”

“Oh, so we’re partners now!?” Damina shot to her feet, fixing E1 with an angry look. “Considering how you basically blackmailed us into accepting your offer, I thought we were just tools!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, it wasn’t like that.” E1 flicked a glance at Felix, who seemed like he wanted to speak up. “You got something to say?”

Felix blinked. “Well, uh . . .”

Damina scoffed, turning to Felix. “Oh come on, just earlier you were acting so high-and-mighty, what's the big deal now!?”

“Behind you.” Felix pointed a finger.

E1’s eyes widened, and he whipped around so fast that some would say they saw an after-image. Damina followed suit, armored fingers grasping for her sidearm.

“Oh good, it's just you.” E1 sighed in relief. “Nearly gave me a heart-”

E4 clutched a hand to both E1’s and Damina’s mouths, preventing any sound from coming out. The latter of the two let out a surprised squeal and tried to dart away, but E1 grabbed her arm to prevent that.

[What's going on?] E1 messaged to E4.

E4 pressed E1 and Damina up against a nearby tent wall, motioning for Felix to do so as well, which he did.

[They know, and they’re looking for us sir. You hear the commotion?]

E1 paused, taking a moment to take in the surroundings. Shouts rang out from unknown areas all around them, and the organized march of boots hitting the ground could be heard everywhere. This was normal, but E1 felt something was off.

E1 turned his eyes back to E4. [You have an escape route?]

E4 nodded. [Just follow me sir. And we can’t message too much, they’re monitoring the bandwidth usage.]

Suddenly, Damina bit the hand of E4. It wasn’t able to hurt him at all, but it startled him enough to let go.

“What the hell are you two doing!? I’ll-” She practically yelled.

“Shut. Up. Now.” E1 growled as quietly as he could. “Unless you want to get caught and quietly executed, you will do as I say, got it?”

E1 saw Damina’s eyes go wide through the tinted ballistics visor.

“What's . . . going on?” She asked in a quiet whisper.

“No time to say. Let's get going.” E1 nodded to E4, who crouched down low and began to move out. Damina soon followed, with Felix taking the last spot in the line.

Due to both E1 and E4 towering above the average drone, they couldn’t blend into whatever crowd might have formed, so E4 began to lead them down a path in between tents. As they approached the mouth of the small alley they had been in, Damina took a peek above one the tent next to them, just for a second.

Dozens of military drones were sweeping across the main pathway, entering tents and turning over boxes. There were even several other facility drones who had been detained, kneeling down and just listening to the orders that were barked at them. The military drones were different, however, as most of them had some sort of pitch-black armband with a white eagle of some kind on their upper-right arm.

Damina quickly crouched back down, her nerves frayed.

As they passed a set of crates, Damina leaned forward and tapped E1 on the shoulder.

“Hey.” She whispered.

E1 didn’t turn back to answer. “What do you want?”

“What's the plan? Do you even have a plan in the first place?” She unintentionally put a pleading tone in her voice.

E1 let out a growl of frustration as he turned to look at her. “Yes I have a plan, and stop talking. Are you trying to get us caught?”

E4 stopped, turning back as well. [What’s the holdup?]

“Are you being serious right now? First you drop that bombshell on me, and now we apparently are about to get caught by the fricking secret police and tortured for information! Oh yeah, you also just expect me to trust this mute friend of yours with my life!” Damina hissed. “Back me up here Felix.”

“I . . . think I’ll just stay out of this right about now.” Felix whispered.

“Oh come on!” Damina complained, much louder than what she had meant to.

Everything went silent, including the commotion around them.

After a moment, the familiar face of an almost-opaque ballistics visor peaked around the corner, taking in the sight of the four fugitives for what seemed like an eternity.

E1 yanked out his fifty-caliber handgun before putting a bullet through the drone’s head as fast as he physically could’ve, but the damage was done. The loud gunshot rang out through the camp, and a moment later the shouts resumed and boots began pounding the ground, approaching their location fast.

“Run.” E1 didn’t need to elaborate.

All four drones shot to their feet. E4 began dashing forwards, with the rest of the drones following suit.

“Right there!” Damina heard a voice shout, but she didn’t turn to confirm. Instead, she just kept running as fast as she could, struggling to keep up with the quick pace of the two operatives.

They rounded a corner, coming out into the main pathway of the camp. One worker drone was in their way, and failed to get out of it in time. To his credit, E4 didn’t stop. Instead, he just bowled right over the poor worker, sending him flailing to the ground about five feet from where he had been standing.

None of the three other fugitives spared a glance at the worker, just following E4. Damina was sorely tempted to catch a look at the sound of boots that seemed like they were right behind her, but her curiosity was quelled when the familiar crack of a rifle sounded, the bullet whizzing right past her face.

Suddenly, E1 perked up.

“Listen, when we get to the outskirts of the camp, you need to be prepared to jump.” He said without explaining.

Damina’s eyes widened for the fifteenth time today. “What!? Jump!?”

E4 kept running, even when the tents started to grow sparse. They began to approach the border of the camp, where several poles had been set up to create a magnetic field to prevent any drone from leaving. However, Damina noticed that the lights on the set of poles in front of them weren’t shining like they always were, being dim and seemingly turned off instead.

Her theory was confirmed when she and the other passed right through the security fence without any trouble whatsoever. She expected their pursuers to keep following them, but she was proven wrong when a trio of loud beeps sounded as the fence reactivated. Their pursuers didn’t stop, though, instead they seemingly kept on going, and suffered for it. Damina heard their inert bodies hit the snow beneath them with a soft whump.

Damina looked back and stopped. The camp had completely stopped there, with the ring of poles signifying its end. They had stopped on the corner of what looked to be some sort of intersection, though the camp seemed to be in what might have once been a large park.

Felix was the first to speak up. “Is that it? Are we good now?”

E1 gestured towards the waving flashlight beams that started to peek out from the road to their right. “Not yet. See that pit?”

The pit that E1 was referring to was about five feet in front of them. A skyscraper had partially collapsed next to it, with an entire right chunk of the building sitting lopsided inside the hole.

Damina then realized what E1 intended to do. “Oh no. Oh hell no, you are NOT convincing me to- AAAAAAAAH-”

E1 shoved her in, with E4 diving in after her.

E1 turned to Felix, who seemed to have regained his composure.

“Well?” E1 gestured towards the gaping pit.

Felix eyed the hole, thought for a second, then shrugged. “This seems easy.”

Without another word, Felix jumped, trying (and failing) to do a backflip on the way down.

E1 looked back at the road where the shouting was becoming increasingly louder, before shaking his head.

“Why can’t any of my plans ever go to . . . well, plan?” He said, diving into the hole a moment after.

* * *

“WAAAAAG-”

Jacob hit the ground with a sickening crunch, groaning as he felt the fragile human bones in his body twist in ways that he was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to go.

“You do know that you have wings, right?” A voice said from above.

Looking up from his spot on the ground, Jacob saw Ren flicker into being, her legs crossed as she sat on a piece of a fallen pillar.

She’s not wrong, you know?

Jacob rolled over, rolling his eyes as well. “Well, I don’t really think that I can learn what birds take thousands of years of evolution to do in under an hour, unless you WANT me to break my neck countless times, so I’m putting that on hold for the time being.”

Ren got up from her ‘seat’, walking over to Jacob and raising an eyebrow as she stood over him.

“Is that why you . . . duct-taped them?” She said with no small amount of amusement.

“Well, what else was I gonna do with the perfectly-preserved roll of duct-tape that was just lying around?” Jacob shrugged as if that was a suitable answer.

“You’re an idiot.” Ren stated.

Again, she isn’t wrong.

“Shut up.” Jacob sat up, holding out a hand for Ren to take.

However, contrary to what the idiot over here expected, Ren didn’t quite understand.

“What? What’re you doing now?” Ren took a step back, seemingly unsure.

Jacob rolled his eyes for a second time. “Whatever.”

As he got to his feet on his own, the flap of a pair of wings above him caught his attention. After a second, the shape of a disassembly drone landed on the ground next to him.

“Hey spooners, what's up? I dunno why you both went down before us, but it's all good.” X cheerfully said while letting down the two military drones that he had clutched in a princess carry, along with a third on his back. “Now, which one of you stole my-”

With a yelp befitting any Southern patriot, Sterl lost his grip on the piece of rebar he had been scooching down and tumbled to the ground, landing on what would’ve been the stomach if he had been a human.

X gasped dramatically, throwing the final military drone that had been struggling to extricate himself from X’s arms aside and sprinting to Sterl.

“My god he’s dead! Gordon, quick! Use Ten PlayCoins™ to revive Sterl before the timer runs out!” X sobbed in despair.

Sterl batted X’s hands away in frustration. “God- dagnabbit, get yer darned hands away from me!”

“You look stupid.” K said without any inflection whatsoever.

Jacob turned to look at K, surprised. He hadn’t even heard her come down, and judging by Ren’s expression, neither had Ren.

Sneak 100.

Jacob looked around the room, counting. “Where’s the rest of the soldier guys?”

X then forgot all about Sterl and shot to his feet. “I’ll go get ‘em, boss!”

The entire room watched X fly upwards into the beam of moonlight.

Well that is some serious awkward silence.

Clearing his throat, Jacob took the opportunity to take a look around the room he was in, if it could even be called that. With what he could barely make out from the near pitch-black darkness, the ‘roof’ had a massive hole in it, debris lay scattered all around the floor, and he could definitely see several corpses dotted around the room. What looked to be some sort of receptionist’s desk sat on one side of the room, with a few hallways branching off here and there.

Ren let out a note of surprise, tapping Jacob on the shoulder.

“Hmm? Whaddya want?” Jacob asked, turning to her.

“Did you not see . . . that?” Ren pointed towards one of the human bodies, using her Solver to point a flashlight in one direction.

I don’t think human bodies have LED lights on them though.

Jacob blinked. What he had previously thought to be the corpses of some sort of human staff were actually something a little bit more robotic in nature.

Countless disassembly drones lay mangled on the ground in one area, oil coating almost every surface. Their visors were cracked and shattered, with the clear and familiar markings of bite marks dotting the bodies.

Jacob knew that K had seen it too, since her very unprofessional shriek of unbridled fear echoed through the empty halls. What surprised him, though, was the responding animalistic growls and cries that followed.

“That . . . doesn’t seem good.” Ren remarked.

Jacob frowned. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Just then, X decided to come back with the rest of the military drones. One was riding on his back, two were being carried like a pair of babies, and the fourth was hurtling down the pit at such a high speed that-

SPLAT

X turned to look at the oil stain on the ground that used to be a drone. “Uh oh. Guys? I don’t think THAT is supposed to happen.”

Sterl looked between the remnants of his former soldier and X, seemingly conflicted. However, in the end, he just settled for ignoring it.

Sterl lifted his visor and whistled. “Alright fellers, now listen up!”

Jacob leaned over and whispered to Ren. “Now this is gonna be good.”

She responded by giving him a confident nod before nudging him to get him to turn his attention back to the one-armed speaker.

“Now, I’m sure all- er, MOST of y’all, knows the orders that we was sent out with. Due to the recent absence of the leader of our new . . .” Sterl looked on with derision towards K and X, who the former of which met with the exact same level of disrespect. “ . . . allies, we have been ordered to find and retrieve him-”

“Oh yeah, he’s dead.” X interrupted.

Sterl erupted in fury. “GODDAMNIT CAN I PLEASE JUST BE ABLE TO FINISH- wait what?”

K blinked. “You- wait, you’re definitely lying. Or joking. Probably both.”

“No no no, not this time.” X shook his head sadly, walking up to K and putting a placating hand on her shoulder. “You see, K, your father is dead, killed by Giovannie Gesipouci in a spaghetti-related shooting. Now, I understand if you want to do a dramatic look in your cracked mirror and vow revenge and go on a big training arc, but we don’t have time for that. What we need to do is-”

K shot X in the head.

Jacob raised an eyebrow, turning to whisper to Ren. “Honestly, I was hooked on the story.”

Ren nodded. “Same, I was on the edge of my seat. Like, what happened to that milkman who delivered the bomb into Prosciutto Esplanati’s car?”

Sterl gestured for his men to put their weapons down, before continuing. “Uh, anyway, y’all understand the orders, which is why we will be splittin’ up to find our missin’ squad leader, got it!?”

“I don’t think this is gonna end well.” Jacob muttered.

“Me neither.” Ren agreed.

“So, each one of y’all will have a buddy you will stay with . . . uh, until we find ‘em I suppose.” Sterl seemed a bit flustered and confused, as if he wasn’t exactly prepared for this. “Now, the pairin’ will be; Adrian and Gabriel, Blake and . . .

You see, this is why we should always have ME in charge, smh

“Jesus, you’re annoying.” Jacob rudely said to me.

Ren blinked in surprise. “What- are you talking to me that way?”

“What? No its- you know.” Jacob gestured in the general direction of himself.

“You- oooh, so . . . it is talking to you right now?” Ren is a bit dumb, so I’ll let it slide just this once.

“I mean, yeah.” Jacob scratched the back of his head, seemingly embarrassed (of what? ME!?). “He kind of always is, its just . . .'' Jacob trailed off.

Ren quirked up a holographic eyebrow. “You know, under any other circumstances, I would be really worried right about now.”

“Shut up, I’m not a schizo.” Jacob claimed, but some would beg to differ.

“ . . . Crazy Robo-Witch and K, the Asset and- what- ME!? Who in the hell made this here pairin’ list!?” Sterl exclaimed loudly.

One of the other drones spoke up. “Uh, you did sir.”

“Hey, private?”

“Yes sir?”

“Shut yer mouth.”

“ . . .”

Sterl glared a bit more at the cowering private before continuing. “Now, any questions?”

The private from before raised a shaking hand.

Sterl groaned. “Yes, private, what is it?”

“Well, my partner you see . . .” The private trailed off.

“Yes, what about ‘em?” Sterl tapped a foot impatiently.

The private pointed a finger to the oil smear on the ground. “He’s dead.”

Sterl facepalmed. “Goddamnit.”

* * *

She screamed as a bullet turned Nathan’s head into mush, falling down onto her back from the shock. Oil sprayed onto her face, obscuring half of her visor.

Scrambling backwards, she picked up her rifle from the ground and began blind-firing into the cloud of dust, not knowing if she was hitting anything. A few more spurts of oil splashed onto her arm from where Nathan’s headless body was lying, but she didn’t notice. She didn’t care much at all, actually, her head feeling oddly fuzzy despite the situation.

Nathan . . . was dead. That couldn’t be real, right? They had the reconstruction station right behind them, he was gonna be fine! Yeah, all she had to do was clear out the rest of the rival warband and-

She felt a hand grab her ballistics chestpiece from the back before dragging her backwards. That didn’t stop her from holding down onto the trigger, but her left arm was getting oddly weak for whatever reason. It didn’t matter though, all she needed to do was this and Nathan would be fine. He would be fine.

The recoil of her gun firing vanished all of a sudden, but it didn’t register, she still saw the menacing cloud of dust and smoke obscuring the hallway, so she still felt she needed to do something. What exactly, she wasn’t sure.

“I’ve got Alana, sir.” A voice came from behind her.

A second voice grunted. “What about her friend?”

“He . . .”

“Dead.” The second voice deadpanned.

“Yes sir.” The first voice sounded defeated.

The sound of a pair of boots stomping on the ground came and stopped behind her, but she didn’t turn to look. She could swear that she saw shapes moving in the cloud. A rifle being raised, a finger pressing down, the muzzle flash of the gunpowder igniting and exiting the only place it could, a bullet flying through the air and hitting Nathan in the-

A hand grabbed her by the chin and turned her head to the side, forcing her to meet the icy-blue eyes of a drone.

Fingers snapped in front of her face, dragging her attention to them.

“Hey, hey. Alana, right?” The voice sounded soothing, with a note of pity and sadness. “Listen, we don’t have much time. I know that your friend . . . isn’t here right now-”

Alana didn’t think that was right. Nathan was always right next to her.

“-but I need you to concentrate, alright? Can you do that for me?” The blue eyes flicked towards the tightly-squeezed trigger.

Alana blinked, and nodded.

“Good, now, we can’t let them know about the contact, so-”

A bang and a cry of pain rang out, causing the blue eyes of her commander to jerk upwards in shock. The first voice- no, Jason- was clutching his shoulder, oil leaking through his armored fingers. Shortly after, a flurry of bullets perforated his body, causing him to flop to the ground like a fish, oil flooding through a dozen holes.

Her commander cursed and yanked out his pistol, firing into the direction where the bullet came from. However, he only got three shots off before it clicked.

Empty.

A figure charged out of the smoke, no rifle in hand. The only item of armament it had was a vibrating knife clutched tightly.

Alana dove to the side, just barely missing the attempted tackle of the enemy. Instead, the enemy slammed straight into her commander, the knife just barely missing his throat.

A scuffle ensued, with her commander gripping the hand that had the knife in it tightly as the enemy slowly pressed it downwards towards her commander’s face. Alana felt like she should do something, but her limbs felt paralyzed with inaction.

“Looks like you got two of ‘em, Smitty.” A gruff voice called out humorously.

Alana turned her attention towards the hallway, finally cleared of smoke. A tall military drone with a completely opaque visor stepped over Nathan’s body, no weapon out. A second drone followed, a machine-gun held loosely in the crook of their elbow.

The one with the machine-gun turned towards the other. “Seems to me that one of them’s open.”

The first, who was seemingly in charge, waved a dismissive hand. “Look at their eyes, clearly shell-shocked. They aren’t doing anything anytime soon.”

The one in charge then put his attention back on Alana’s commander. “Get off of ‘em.”

Smitty obliged without question, rolling off of her commander with a slight grunt. Alana went cold at the sight of the gouged out hole in her commander’s visor and right eye, realizing how close he was to death.

The one in charge whistled at the sight. “Yeesh, you did a number on ‘em Smitty. Maybe lay off the one with the answers next time, huh?”

Smitty groaned in frustration. “How was I supposed to know which one is important? It's not like they have a big flag saying, ‘Come over here and capture me for information, because guess what? I’m the guy in charge of this place, I’m ripe with juicy and thick information!’?”

The one in charge shrugged, ignoring the last part. “That’s not really my problem to deal with. After all, you’re the one always charging in and getting shot full of holes each time in those crazy plays of yours.”

Smitty rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Whatever you’re gonna say, best get on with it, huh?” Alana’s commander finally spoke up.

“Yeah yeah yeah, be patient.” The enemy commander crouched down to his counterpart’s side. “I’m gonna ask you this once, and only once. If you lie to me, you die, got it?”

Alana’s commander simply glared at him.

The enemy commander nodded. “Great. Now, what’re the activation codes for the central production line?”

Just then, Alana noticed the strange symbol on the shoulder of the enemy commander. What looked to be some sort of golden eagle over a crimson red background was scrawled on one side of the strange tassel-pauldrons that the drone wore on his shoulders. The other military drones had the same symbol, though with noticeably less effort.

“How am I supposed to know?” Alana’s commander- Comp, she and Nathan always called him that- replied.

“I don’t hear a yes or no.” The enemy commander said without any inflection in his voice whatsoever.

“No.” Comp replied through gritted teeth

The enemy commander paused for a moment, taking out his gun and placing it under the chin of Comp. He tensed, his remaining eye closing shut in preparation.

Then, the enemy commander shrugged and turned around, pulling his gun away.

“True, it's impossible to know.” He then turned back to Comp, flicking the hammer back.

“Now, how many of your people are left inside the factory?” As he said this, Alana saw something that looked like words flit across the interior of the enemy commander’s visor for a moment before it vanished.

Comp hesitated, stealing a glance at Alana before answering.

“There . . . isn’t anybody left. Aside from Al- your hostage here.” Comp winced as he said so. “I had to station everybody here and at the southside conveyor-belt receptacle.”

The enemy commander nodded in realization. “Ah, you thought we were gonna sneak in through the factory line itself, didn’t you?”

Comp nodded after a moment, staying silent.

The enemy commander nodded again, turning away for a moment. Comp visibly relaxed, his remaining eye unhollowing and filling back up with its normal icy-blue color-

The enemy commander then whipped around and shot a bullet straight through the open hole in Comp’s visor. Due to the proximity to her commander, Alana had even more oil spray against her helmet, drawing a squeak in surprise from the suddenness of the execution.

The enemy commander tutted, holstering his still-smoking gun. “Welp, that's over and done with.”

Smitty frowned. “I thought you wanted the important ones alive?”

“I did say he was gonna die if he lied. I already got informed about the clearing of the factory and a few of our guys found a group holed up in a vehicle chassis, I just wanted to test him.” The enemy commander shrugged. “And plus, what else could he have possibly known?”

Alana started sweating, and her face visibly contorted.

However, this didn’t go unnoticed, as evidenced by Smitty’s sudden interest in her.

“Huh, would you look at that?” Smitty muttered underneath his breath.

The enemy commander turned to his lackey. “What?”

Smitty looked up and shrugged. “Not sure if it’s important, but this nice lady got all nervous when you said that last part.”

“Hmm, interesting.” The enemy commander calmly traversed the few feet between her and him, stopping in front of her.

“So . . .” The enemy commander paused, seemingly for dramatic effect. “You know something, huh?”

Alana’s eyes hollowed in fright, and her pupils darted around frantically.

The enemy commander continued unperturbed. “How about we make a deal, you and me?”

“You will tell me what your boss over here was hiding, and you get off scot-free!”

The enemy commander then crouched down to look her in the eyes, which Alana met with a trembling gaze.

“But, if you don’t-”

Alana suddenly found herself looking down the barrel of a gun.

“-you die.”

Alana gulped, eyes going cross from staring at the pistol that was shoved up in her face.

I’m sorry, Nathan.

* * *

“Do you even know how to drive?”

E1 scoffed. “Of course I do, now stop asking.”

Felix spoke up. “I’m just saying, I’m pretty sure I could drive much better than you do.”

In response, E4 fixed him with a silent glare that shut Felix up faster than you could say, ‘Silent Protagonist with a Monkey Wrench’.

The car suddenly lurched as E1 took a particularly sharp turn, hitting the side of the crumbling curb as he did so.

Damina cursed, leaning over the seat to get a better look at E1.

“Is that a driver’s manual in your hand right now?” She asked incredulously.

“No.” E1 threw the totally-not-a-driver’s-manual out the window.

Damina scoffed. “That doesn’t give me much assurance, if that’s what you were going for.”

E1 rolled his eyes, taking his eyes off the road for a second. “Don’t worry, this is-”

The car nearly flipped over as they ran over a large piece of debris.

“-just like the simulations.” E1 finished, confidently wrenching the steering wheel back-and-forth.

Damina looked like she was going to say something in rebuttal, but she turned to Felix at the last second.

“Can you please stop screaming in my ear?” She pleaded.

Felix was currently screaming at the top of his nonexistent lungs, but he stopped her a second to turn towards Damina.

“Sorry, what’d you say?” He asked politely.

“I asked if you could stop screaming.” Damina deadpanned.

Felix nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He then resumed screaming.

In response, Damina began to hit her head against the seat in front of her, shaking what looked like bits of fluff that bounced out of a hole in E4’s car seat.

“Hey, you two!” E1 didn’t make the mistake of taking his eyes off the road this time. “Knock it off, I’m trying to sleep here!”

Felix stopped. “Wait, what?”

“Nothing, go back to screaming.” E1 said, contradicting himself.

Felix obliged.

Damina groaned, ceasing her abuse of E4’s car seat for the time being. Bored and annoyed, she looked out the window at the darkened sky.

The two moons (planets?) hung perpetually in the sky shone brightly in the night, illuminating the broken expanse of the former human metropolis. Damina wasn’t quite sure how the human’s had died on the planet she was on, but she wasn’t a high enough rank to ask questions like that.

Those types of things, like knowledge, were reserved for the upper-brass only.

Suddenly, Damina noticed that Felix had stopped screaming for some reason. Turning to him, she saw that he had his eyes fixed on the sight in front of them. She followed his gaze, jaw dropping at the sight that lay in front of her.

A massive shadow draped over their car, the moons almost completely obscured by it. Wires connected without any rhyme or reason fastened the towering, monolithic structure to the sides of skyscrapers. As they got closer, Damina could make out with horror the familiar sights of drone corpses embedded into the sides of the spire itself.

No, she realized, they ARE the spire.

Countless [Fatal Error] messages glowed from the spire, making it look like thousands of sets of red eyes were watching them approach from the darkness, ready to jump at the slightest hint of weakness.

The car jostled as it ran over the many pieces of debris that littered the now-nonexistent road, and E1 cursed as he shifted a stick that was set into the armrest to his right.

“Alright, we’re here. Time to get out.” E1 forcefully opened the door of the car, the sound of it echoing through the silent cityscape.

Damina blinked in shock. “Wait, we’re getting out here!?”

E1 looked back over his shoulder. “Yep.”

Damina looked horrified at the sights of Felix and E4 getting out without any hesitation, with even the former of the two whistling at the sight of the spire.

“Oh no, definitely not.” She shook her head furiously. “This is the perfect place for us to get ambushed or something! Are you insane!?”

E1 shrugged. “That’s not really your concern right now, and I’m still not hearing the door open.”

Damina cringed, looking back at the menacing image of the spire.

“F-fine.” She relented, fiddling with the door handle for a moment before she figured out how to open it.

Getting out, she noticed that all three of her companions were already at the mouth of the spire. Suddenly feeling much more vulnerable now that she was left without company, she hurried forward.

Damina caught up to the group after practically sprinting the way there, taking a look at the inside.

Debris was strewn about the mounds of snow that were present inside, all pieces of jagged metal and rebar sticking out of concrete. However, that was second to the centerpiece of the great and terrible theater.

In the center of the clearing lay a large, pod-like structure with a small opening on the side. Spidery legs jutted out from under it, the ends tapering to a lethal point. Stripes of orange coloring were present on several pieces of the craft, accenting the industrial look of the thing. From her current angle, it looked to be somewhat octagonal in nature, with the top being similar in geometric shape.

“Wait here, I’ll go inside and grab what we need.” E1’s voice jarred Damina from her musings.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Alrighty, just remember to call me if you need help!” Felix adopted a cocky grin.

E1 scoffed as he walked towards the entrance. “Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that.”

E1 reached the ladder and began to climb. After he reached the top, he leaned in and vanished into the dark interior of the pod, leaving Damina with only Felix and E4 as company.

Silence.

Felix whistled an off-key tune, kicking a rock into a pile of snow.

Damina shivered, feeling like someone- or something- was watching her.

E4 just had a placid and bored expression on their face, even checking a watch on his wrist (which, for the record, didn’t exist) to express just how cool and unfazeable he was.

Damina jumped when a clang rang out somewhere in the spire. It echoed as she jerked her gaze back and forth to spot what had caused the noise.

Was that shadow there before? Did that piece of metal used to be like that? She felt trapped in her own armor, her breath growing quick and-

“Whaaa-” Damina practically yelped in fear when she heard something hit the ground.

However, it was just E1. Judging by his position on the ground, he had probably tripped and fallen as he tried to climb back down the ladder.

As he got up, Damina made note of the large and bulky device that he held in his hands. It looked like a radio or transmitter of some kind, but she couldn’t quite tell at this distance.

She then noticed that she had jumped up into Felix’s arms, and judging by everyone else’s expressions, they had just seen that too.

Felix dropped her on the ground.

* * *

Ren shined a light using her Solver down onto a darkened corner of the hallway, noticing how K seemed to almost recoil in disgust. She kneeled down to get a better look at some sort of name tag covered in oil, pocketing it after getting a good look.

After a moment, K spoke up. “Do you . . . have to do that?”

Ren looked back up from her spot close to the ground. “And what would ‘that’ BE exactly?”

K narrowed her eyes, adopting an aggressive stance. “You know, the thing.”

Ren shrugged. “Got a problem?”

“Yes.” K replied, glaring at Ren.

Ren rolled her eyes, getting up from the floor and mirroring K’s pose.

“Well, considering how you were the one that chose to come after me, I’d say that is yours to keep to yourself.” Ren made to start walking down the rest of the hallway. “Now, if we can get back on with-”

K rushed ahead, blocking Ren’s path.

“There was a reason we were sent down to take care of you lot, you know.” K cocked her head.

Ren narrowed her eyes, a slight whine filling the air. “And why should I care?”

K scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. “What you’re doing right now is exactly why. I don’t know what X was thinking when he spared you, but I’m certainly not surprised by his decision making.”

“Like I said, if you have a problem with it, then keep it to yourself.” Ren growled. “I’m just as unhappy about this arrangement as you are, but unless you wanna fight and give up for a second time, then you should probably back off.”

“I didn’t- wha-” K spluttered, her composure coming apart. “I was recuperating myself, not giving up, and no matter what you all say, I did NOT lose!”

Ren smirked, and took a page out of Jacob’s book.

“Skill. Issue.”

K harrumphed, her right hand adopting the form of a shining blade. “You say that again, I dare you.”

Ren chuckled inwardly. “How about-”

However, she was cut off by the animalistic shriek of something down the hallway, drawing the attention of both drones.

A flash of light lit up the area around the corner, casting a shadow of some sort of creature, onto the oil-soaked wall behind it. Several more shrieks and cries followed, coming from all around the pair.

K aimed her hand, now a gun, down the hallway, her left doing the same in the opposite direction.

Turning towards Ren, K began to talk. “Hey listen, I know you and I-”

Ren wasn’t there.

K looked around in a panic, seeing no trace of the cloaked worker drone anywhere. The only thing that marked where she had been was a small flickering of a barely visible ball of blackness that vanished from the air shortly after she had seen it.

Only then did K remember that the worker-witch could teleport.

* * *

Jacob whistled a familiar tune, kicking what looked to be some sort of glowing capsule down the small staircase.

The drone ahead of him groaned audibly, almost unknowingly tripping over the rolling vial as he did.

“Will you shut yer darned mouth?” Sterl didn’t seem too entertained by Jacob’s best attempts at music (which, in actuality, weren’t all that good in the first place).

“You’re not funny.” Jacob said to me, which was yet again another dumb move.

Sterl blinked. “What?”

“What?” Jacob met Sterl with a blank gaze.

Sterl squinted at Jacob in confusion for a moment before his CPU caught up.

“Uh, does yer ‘music’-” Sterl made quotation marks with his singular arm. “-have to be present at this time around?”

Jacob shrugged. “If you didn’t want to hear it, then why’d you pair us together?”

Sterl glared at Jacob. “Well- you see- don’t worry about it.”

Jacob rolled his eyes.

Sterl continued. “Just try not to make this here experience any more worse than it already is, my mind is goin’ insane just from you alone.”

He’s not wrong, you know.

Jacob scoffed. “You’ve been saying that for the past twenty minutes, can you say literally anything else?”

You . . . aren’t wrong.

Jacob shook his head, strutting over to what looked to be a keypad with a few glowing buttons set next to a fairly large garage door. What looked to be rust at a first glance later turned out to be dried bloodstains, coating the angled plating of the door like moss.

“Now what’re ya doin’?” Sterl cocked his head in Jacob’s direction.

“Opening this door, obviously.” Jacob said matter-of-factly.

The keypad held the tell-tale symbol of a fingerprint with the small lines pronounced, though it was a bit harder to see due to the age. Looking back and forth (as if we was gonna see anybody other than the Texan), Jacob pressed his thumb down on the center of it.

The keypad lit up red and let out an angry BRRRRRT noise, startling both of the hallway’s occupants.

“Did . . . you not take off yer weird glove thing?” Sterl asked slowly.

Jacob grimaced. “Don’t worry about it.”

Jacob, like an idiot, tugged at the strangely-sensitive exterior of his hand plating. It felt far too bouncy (some would call it flesh-like) to be what he had been wearing earlier, but he didn’t care about that at the moment. Instead, he decided to, just then, realize that he had no idea how to take off the glove . . . thingy.

A lightbulb appeared over Jacob’s head. “New plan.”

Jacob rolled up his pretend-sleeves and ate his pretend-spinach, comically winding up a large right-hook with his left hand. Taking a swing (and missing a few times) he punched the keypad right in the side.

A spray of sparks flew from the top of it, and it began to smoke through a small hole in the bottom, even though smoke is supposed to rise. Luckily, it let out a chirrup and affirmation, and the gears of the garage door began to grind as it rose.

Slowly.

Jacob was reminded of a certain door that took forever to open, and unbridled rage filled every fiber of his being. He had been annoyed, maybe a bit ticked off before, but this was something else.

He pulled back his right leg and kicked the door as hard as he could, making a large dent appear in the metal. However, he failed to do anything else.

After a few moments, the garage door let out a squeal of pain as something that sounded important crunched inside whatever mechanisms worked the door, and it stopped about halfway up.

“Now look at it, you’ve done broke it!” Sterl exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Jacob.

“Wha- ME!?!?” Jacob gasped. “We both know that this is your fault!”

“My fault!?” Sterl had the gall to look shocked. “How in the world did you ever come to THAT conclusion!?”

Jacob scoffed. “Oh, puh-lease! Don’t hit me with that attitude!”

“Alrighty then, what exactly was I doin’ then?” Sterl crossed his arms, despite only having one.

“Oh, well- uh, I’m just gonna crawl underneath the door now, see ya!”

Seeing his opportunity, Jacob dove as fast as he could into the small gap that led into the next room. His duct-tape scraped against the ground as he did, but it thankfully held. He didn’t know how he was gonna manage maneuvering those weird things around, but he sure as hell was gonna take every chance he got not to do it.

After a few seconds, he emerged from the other side with only a few more scratches to add to countless that dotted his armor. Inside the room that he had worked so tirelessly to get inside was- well, more darkness.

Only a few small LED lights shone in the inky black shadows that coated the room, but they were hardly enough to light up the whole place. Jacob found that the light streaming in from underneath the door managed to light up the side of the wall that was next to the door, which revealed a scuffed light switch that was promptly flicked upwards with all the gusto that a thirty-year-old middle-aged man could muster.

With the thud that all industrial-level lights have when they turn on, the room was lit up in bright clarity for all of one second, right before all but two of them crackled and fizzed out, leaving only a little light in the area to work off of.

A sign that was hanging from the roof right in front of where Jacob came from read, “BIOHAZARD CONTAINMENT DUMP” with a smaller sign next to it that read, “(Jerry, we know that you only meant well by trying to make cheeseburgers from the meat that the experiments left behind and we appreciate you for it, but a solid third of the managerial staff turned into Cronenberg abominations and HR is pissed off)

Jacob turned around to see Sterl struggling to get through the smallish gap, but he just ignored him.

“Hey, hey! Come over here and help me with this darned-”

He pretended not to hear him, and instead walked over to one of the only lit up spots in the room. It looked to be some sort of work station, complete with state-of-the-art IBM computers from probably the 90’s or something. Why the hell are these guys using- oh whatever, I’m done trying to figure this stuff out.

Brushing aside a robotic hand that lay stretched across the keyboard, Jacob sat down at the old computer, wondering what to do next.

He pressed E.

Nothing.

He pressed . . . Q?

Nothing. Again.

Jacob cocked his head, and wondered what he was doing wrong. Oh, maybe he had to hit the power button, because that’s what NORMAL people do when they want to TURN SOMETHING ON.

“He he, turn something on.” Jacob snickered.

Shut up.

Reaching out a finger, Jacob poked the button that was labeled with the familiar power symbol that literally everybody knew of, and-

Nothing happened.

Jacob blinked.

I blinked.

Ren blinked

Wait what?

Jacob yelped and fell out of the chair, scared out of his mind by the presence that appeared behind him.

Ren was just standing there like some sort of poltergeist, an eyebrow raised at Jacob’s sudden reaction.

“You look stupid.” She said bluntly.

Jacob rolled his eyes, not dignifying that remark with an answer.

Getting back into the chair, he held down the power button for a solid three seconds to no avail. Frustrated, Jacob slammed his hand down on the keyboard several times.

“C’mon man, this is impossible!” For some reason, he said that with a thick Eastern European accent.

“You broke the keyboard.” Ren pointed out.

Jacob spun backwards, glaring at Ren. “Are we just not gonna talk about it?”

Ren seemed surprised by that. “Talk about . . .?”

“You just popping up here?” Jacob gestured around with his hands. “I’m pretty sure that Sterl over there said that you had to stay with your ‘buddy’ or whatever.”

Ren looked over to where Jacob pointed, noticing Sterl still stuck underneath the door. She smirked before turning back to Jacob.

“You wanna know? Fine. We walked around for a bit, she acted like a total bit-”

DON’T SWEAR

Jacob jumped, cutting Ren off by the action.

She backed away slightly with a strange look on her face before slowly continuing. “-and we argued, a few weird things showed up, so I ran. No big deal, see?”

“You . . . ran?” Jacob asked, confused. “Also, I feel like you just skimmed over that last part.”

Ren scoffed. “Uh, yeah. You think that I’m gonna stay and fight what ripped apart legions of murder drones?”

Jacob shrugged. “Maybe. You could probably take them on.”

She does have plot armor on her side, after all.

“Huh.” Ren seemed slightly touched by that.

“Not as good as me, though.” Jacob grinned evilly underneath his cracked glass visor.

“Aaaand there it is.” Ren rolled her eyes.

Jacob’s grin faded as he looked back to the computer, keyboard still broken and monitor still dark.

Ren seemed to be intrigued by it as well. “Whatcha looking at?”

“This.” Jacob, very helpfully, stated.

“Doesn’t seem too complicated.” Ren shrugged.

“Oh yeah!? Lets see you take a crack at it, smart guy!” Jacob pointed a finger at Ren in anger.

She pulled up a power cord that Jacob previously hadn’t seen.

He blinked. “Oh.”

After Ren reached down and plugged it in, Jacob poked the power button. The screen lit up with a logo that looked familiar to Jacob, but he couldn’t quite place it. After a trio of beeps sounded, two long and one short, the screen flickered and changed to what looked to be your average . . . homepage? Background? Site hub? Jacob wasn’t really too experienced with the terminology, he usually just called it, “That thing you were at” when he wanted to refer to it. Granted, that usually confused his grandma when she asked for help, but you’re getting off-track, and plus, we didn’t have a grandma.

Jacob blinked. Again. “Oh.”

Ren nudged Jacob in the shoulder, gesturing towards the screen when he looked up at her in confusion.

“C’mon.” She said. “Do the thing.”

Jacob spun the chair in Ren’s direction. “And what thing would that be?”

Ren shrugged. “I dunno. You’re the one who wanted to go on this computer, not me.”

Steepling his fingers like a stupid cartoon villain, Jacob sighed. “Well, I-”

* * *

The small hatch slid open, revealing a pair of purple eyes.

“What’s the password?” They said quietly.

“There is no password, idiot.” Alana hissed back. “Open the damn door.”

The hatch slid closed, and Alana became painfully aware of the gun pressed up against the base of her spine.

“I swear to robo-god, if you just screwed us over . . .” Smitty didn’t need to elaborate.

After a moment, the sounds of latches clanking and pieces of metal sliding against each other was heard from the other side of the thick metal door. Three seconds passed, and the sounds stopped.

The enemy commander (who still remained to be named) glanced at the person with a machine-gun that stood at their side, who raised an eyebrow at the noises.

Then, the metal door creaked, and slowly began to open. After a moment, a nondescript worker drone popped his head out from inside the room, glancing at Alana first.

“Oh good, it’s just-” He stopped when his processors took in the sight of the unfamiliar (and very armed) soldiers behind her.

However, before he could shut the door, the enemy commander shot out a hand and gripped the now very-scared drone by the neck.

“Hey there.” The drone grinned slightly, right before flinging the poor drone out from behind the door.

The enemy commander took the opportunity to push the door open the rest of the way, revealing the interior to the rest of his entourage.

Several firearms and other forms of weaponry lay around the room, some in disorganized heaps. However, a few were set up in orderly racks, signitive of a lackadaisical approach to discipline.

On a single plain table rested a boxy device that had an ungodly amount of wires that were attached to it, leading off to several other pieces of blinking electronic equipment. The device itself had a few knobs and switches, along with a number pad and a set of five buttons that lined the bottom. Other than a small and old-fashioned CRT monitor that was set close to the top, it looked no more important than any other gadget that the facility had an overabundance of.

Smitty whistled in appreciation. “A whole lotta guns, I can see myself hiding a stash like this away for myself.”

The drone holding the machine-gun stepped up, having traded their gun for the drone that had been holed up in the back room.

“I don’t think this was worth the trouble, boss.” They said, getting the attention of the taller drone.

The enemy commander shrugged. “This gizmo over here looks important, and I know just the fella who can tell me what it is.”

Striding over to the struggling drone, the enemy commander seemed a bit amused. Leaning down like he did with Alana, he met the drone’s fearful eyes.

“Hey, yeah you.” The snap of fingers drew the scared drone’s attention.

“Yeah, I’ve got a question for you.” The enemy commander pointed a finger behind him. “What, exactly, is that?”

He didn’t answer at first, instead glancing frightfully at Alana.

The enemy commander tutted. “Don’t look at her, look at me, alright? Now, you're gonna answer the question or what?”

After looking down at the holstered pistol that the enemy commander had, he seemingly made up his mind.

“It- it’s a-” The drone stopped, taking a shaky breath before continuing. “It’s a radio.”

Smitty, who was checking one of the heavier firearms, raised an eyebrow. “A radio?”

The enemy commander seemed to be of the same opinion. “So that whole thing is just . . . a radio?”

The drone shook his head quickly. “Nononono! It’s a, ah, long-range one.”

The enemy commander’s holographic eyebrows shot up.

“Not possible.” The other military drone spoke up, having retrieved their machine-gun, looking at their commander. “We both know that every long-range transmission device is either gone or broken beyond repair.”

“Hey!” Smitty called out. “Why didn’t you say all THREE of us!?”

“You don’t know anything.” The machine-gun drone shrugged.

Smitty mirrored the motion. “True.”

The enemy commander ignored the exchange, instead looking back at the worker drone with an expectant look on his face.

“They aren’t wrong.” The enemy commander frowned slightly. “You’re gonna need a better excuse than that.”

The worker cringed. “Well, I didn’t get to finish, you see.”

“Then finish.” The enemy commander deadpanned.

“Yes yes yes, it’s a radio . . .” The worker paused, seemingly for dramatic effect. “That we built.”

The enemy commander put a hand on his gun.

Panicking, the worker waved his hands in the air. “Wait wait wait! We were ordered to make one before High Command left!”

“Do you really expect me to believe that YOU,” The enemy commander gestured at the hapless worker. “Somehow built something that we haven’t been able to do for decades?”

“Don’t YOU find it odd that something as simple as a long-range radio couldn’t be made by several thousand drone’s with virtually infinite supplies?” The worker shot back, gaining a spine for the first time in that interrogation.

That made the enemy commander pause for a moment.

“Yeah, turns out some other drones thought that too, and they got me and my joint unit to get to work on making one.” The worker continued. “Its almost done, but we haven’t been able to find a suitable transmitter that has a strong enough signal to amplify.”

The enemy commander leaned back slightly, seemingly in contemplation.

“He’s probably lying, sir.” The one with the machine-gun stepped forward.

“Hmmm.” The enemy commander glanced back at the worker drone, who’s vitriol and confidence from a second ago had obviously faded.

“I don’t think so.” Getting up, the enemy commander strode over to the device on the table.

He ran a hand over it, not daring to touch any of the controls.

“Soooooo, what now?” Smitty spoke up.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” The enemy commander turned around.

Despite the fact that Alana couldn’t see the drone’s eyes or actual face at all beneath the heavily-tinted visor, she got the feeling that he was grinning wide underneath the helmet.

“We prepare for Command’s eventual return, and-” The enemy commander began.

That was when gravity ceased to exist.

* * *

“Shoop da whoop, shooooop daaaa whoooop, laser time? No, that’s not it . . .” X trailed off.

X glanced at the military drone he had been paired with, who was currently shaking in his boots.

“Oh ma gawd! He so scared, so eepy! Drone need a sleepy!” X gushed over the military drone for no apparent reason, who just let out a small squeak of fear and confusion.

X got down from the ceiling, rolling towards the drone until he was only two feet away from them. X lay on his stomach, his feet swinging in the air while he perched his chin on top of his hands.

“Man, you look super dumb right now.” He said, observing the reaction of the drone. “Not one thought in his little head, huh?”

The drone didn’t reply, instead he decided to keel over at that specific moment. A ‘PROCESSING ERROR - REBOOTING . . .’ message popped up on the drone’s visor, but he lay still.

“Oh come on!” X got to his feet and kicked a can across the room. “This is like, the fifth time this has happened today!”

Then, X looked at the invisible camera that followed his every move. “Ignore the fact that I haven’t been near anybody for most of the day, and that this is the first time I’ve done this.”

“Okay, I’m back from checking the other room, please don’t tell me that you-” X’s other partner froze upon seeing the scene inside the room.

Upon finding out that, due to his unfortunate mishap while transporting a few military drones, he was going to be paired up with a third person, X was overjoyed. More people meant more things happening, which meant a higher probability of something fun happening! Ignoring the fact that he didn’t know what the word ‘probability’ meant, he was positively thrilled at what likely would’ve been the most enjoyable experience in his entire memory.

For context, X has the memory of a goldfish.

But then, disaster struck! It turned out that his friend, his bestie, was a- robo-god, he couldn’t even think of the word- a p-p-p-p-party pooper!

Yes, you heard him right. X had been paired with a no-good boring person! Truly, a crime of the utmost severity. He had tried to fix the drone, but he was too set in his ways! He likely came from the South, he heard that people from there were very conservative and didn’t like to change. For some reason, whenever he asked the guy that told him that, he kept mentioning things like ‘rights’ and ‘African-Americans’ which X knew nothing about.

“This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen.” X said in what he would have called a British accent if he knew what a British ‘person’ was.

“What- are you talking to me?” His third partner spluttered. “Didn’t want what to happen, me to walk in?”

“Oh, pish-posh guv’nor.” X said, purely from his RGAP (Randomly-Generated-Action-Processor).

“You- oh whatever.” The drone- Carl, or maybe GPS Guy, probably the same thing, was his name, X nearly forgot- slumped in defeat. “He isn’t . . . dead, right?”

X turned back to the drone, who was still in the same position as before.

X shrugged.

Carl facepalmed. “Ugh, just help me carry him.”

X watched Carl walk at a pace that slowed considerably the closer he got to him, almost as if he was scared of getting near X. That couldn’t be right, X was the best person ever!

Carl picked up the unconscious drone by the legs, giving X an expectant look.

“Well?” He questioned. “Are you gonna help me out here or what?”

X hopped over and tore the drone out of Carl’s hands, putting the ragdoll-like robot in a princess carry.

Carl looked like he wanted to say something, but he was cut off by something.

That something being the very gravity beneath his feet just . . . going away.

Everything in the room began to float of its own accord, pieces of scrap metal and oil droplets alike rising up into the air and across the room, nudging into things and each other.

To his credit, Carl didn’t scream in terror and curl up into a ball. Instead, he let out a yelp and started trying to swim away, which did absolutely nothing.

“I feel like this would be a good time for the Interstellar theme to start playing.” X remarked, being completely ramrod straight despite the current situation.

“What the hell does that me- WHAAAA-” Carl plummeted straight back down to the ground as gravity reasserted its hold over the planet.

X landed right on his feet.

“I am ALWAYS two steps ahead.” X adopted a snooty and slightly nasally voice as he said that.

“Ow.” Carl replied.

An echoey, animalistic shriek from outside the door sounded its way into the room.

Carl froze.

“Huh, did you remember to check your corners when you were searching?” X glared accusingly at Carl. “Rule 10381983 of the CS:GO handbook, ALWAYS check your corners! Granted, the rule right after that is to always use ESP and only speak in Eastern European languages, but-”

The door slammed open, something that was definitely not a drone dashing into the room.

It walked on two legs and had two arms, but that was where the similarities ended. The feet were long and seemed to be designed to only walk on the toes of the creature, with the rest of what would be the foot on a human pointing diagonally back as if-

“AH!” X yelped, rudely interrupting-our-narration. “Party pooper, save me!”

X gripped the drone he had been carrying by the shoulders, thrusting the poor thing in front of him like it was a shield. A flash of light went in X’s and Carl’s direction, but it was mostly blocked by the impromptu protective device that was currently in place.

However, it was not to be. A moment after, a jaw locked itself around the unconscious drone’s arm, yanking the body out of X’s hands. It then took the opportunity to toss the body into the opposite side of the room, flashing it a couple more times before it dove in to disembowel the still-sleeping drone.

With no time to waste, X quickly grabbed Carl by the leg and dashed forwards, causing him to let out a yelp of surprise. This attracted the attention of the creature, which let out a warbling cry of joy as it gave chase.

X sprinted out of the room and looked upwards. A rusted vent lay inset into the ceiling, the fan inside creaking slightly. While most would see nothing, X saw opportunity.

With a flash of wings, X disappeared into the vent, dragging a screaming Carl behind him as he did so.

* * *

“We’re here.”

Damina woke up from the voice, the ‘SLEEP MODE’ message vanishing from her screen.

She felt the rumble of the car stop, and a door open.

“Out.” E1 said, clearly done with any nonsense.

She begrudgingly obliged, trying to rub some sleep out of her eyes through the ballistic visor of her helmet. Damina would’ve taken it off if she could, but they had been designed as cheap and disposable soldiers, and things such as a removable helmet were for toys only.

After giving her optics a moment to focus on the scene in front of her as she blindly followed the person ahead of her, she stopped in shock.

It was a shattered and broken skyscraper, the exact same one that they passed through when exiting the facility.

The facility.

“Is this . . .?” Damina said, making her thoughts known.

E1 turned towards her. “Yes. Yes it is.”

Felix let out a whoop of joy. “Finally, I get to claim this place for myself now!”

“Nuh uh uh.” E1 waggled a finger in front of Felix’s face. “This place is government property, which, need I remind you, you are as well.”

“Oh.” Felix deflated. “Oh yeah.”

Damina stepped forward, rims still around her eyes.

“Can we, I dunno, maybe get an explanation as to why we’re here?” Damina gestured towards the broken building that housed the only entrance to the facility. “I’m pretty sure that this place is gonna blow up soon.”

E1 glared at Damina in annoyance. “Do you need to question every decision I make?”

She scoffed. “It’s just that I would prefer to not die at this point in time, considering how I haven’t even been alive for two decades yet.”

“Then you shouldn’t have joined up with me in the first place.” E1 simply remarked.

Damina didn’t like that.

“If you could just TELL me what you’re leading me into for once,” Damina growled, taking a step forward. “Then I wouldn’t have any problem whatsoever!”

“But no!” Damina continued, throwing her hands up in the air. “You just have to stay with this whole mysterious narrative that you’ve been holding up, do you!? Just tell me what I’m doing, and I’ll stop! That’s it!”

E4 took a step towards Damina with a hand on his holster, but E1 stuck out a hand to stop him, looking at Damina with a strange look on his face.

“You wanna know? Fine.” E1 began to walk towards the entrance of the former skyscraper, gesturing for the rest of the group to follow.

He talked as he walked. “Short version is, down there are several thousand drones that have been left without orders for a week, mostly armed with military equipment and a nihilistic mentality.”

Damina blinked. “What?”

E1 scoffed, looking over his shoulder to give Damina a look that she didn’t like.

“Do you really think that those reaper drones would be able to kill the vast majority of the drones that were stationed down there in only a few hours?” He asked, mockingly. “Think about what you’ve seen of them, and how they would perform in that labyrinth of a complex.”

A frown spread across Damina’s face, and LED eyebrows creased in thought.

“That’s what I thought.” E1 said with no small amount of triumph in his voice.

“Anyway, since my Plan A was just completely disrupted by a secret police that even I didn’t know about, we’re moving on to Plan B.”

E1 stopped at the mouth of the elevator shaft, making Damina realize that she had just been about to walk straight into a several-hundred feet drop.

“Plan B sounds fun.” Felix interjected.

“If you think that going into a chaotic mess of rogue military units, roving warlords, and radicalized bands of rebels, then I guess.” E1 replied.

Felix grinned. “Sounds easy enough.”

“If you say so.” E1 shrugged, turning back to the mouth of the elevator shaft. “First order of business is to find a group that I managed to convince to build a long-range transmitter. They probably haven’t finished it yet, but it’s important that we have it for-”

Suddenly, the entire building groaned as a feeling of weightlessness came over Damina. She yelped as her feet kicked uselessly in the air, her body being shoved slightly upwards by her motions.

Various other sounds of surprise came from the group, and a few of the corpses (human or otherwise) rose from their frozen moment of death, inciting a panicked cry of fear from Felix.

“Oh shoot oh robo-god, the humans are coming back from the de- WHAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa . . . “

Unfortunately for Felix, gravity came back from its vacation after only a second of its absence. This caused Felix to go from every-so-slightly towards the open gap, to plummeting in a free-fall that would most definitely insure that he turned into a grease stain on some cracked concrete, whenever he hit the ground.

E1 poked his head over the lip, peering down.

“Yep.” He said with a nod. “He’s dead.”

* * *

“-didn’t really- WHOOAAAA!!”

I cried out as my feet left the floor, a flash of static piercing through my head as gravity fled from the scene in fear of something else.

Of course, the only reaction Ren had was- oh, she seemed as surprised as I was, well that’s a plus at least. Looks kinda silly just flailing about in the air like that, should I tell her that doing that will only serve to make the spinning worse?

Just as I thought that, I hit the ground with a clang, my damaged helmet getting a new crack in its visor after it bounced off the edge of the cheap table.

“Agh- oh of COURSE it just had to come back at THAT specific moment.” I grumbled, rubbing my helmet despite the fact that it would do absolutely nothing.

Looking over, I noticed that Ren had managed to land deftly on her own two feet, and was now looking around the room with panicked eyes. Well, serves her right for acting so smart all the time.

I got to my feet, plopping myself back down into my seat like nothing had ever happened, which made you seem like kind of an NPC to be honest.

“I’m gonna be honest, I completely forgot that you existed.” I remark, adjusting the keyboard and mouse slightly.

“Can you maybe . . . not speak out loud?” Ren spoke up, clearly having noticed you talking to yourself like a schizo.

“Shut up, I’m not crazy.” I say before turning to the red-eyed drone to my right. “And you- uh, mind your own business.”

Ren fixed me with a half-glare. “I’m inclined to believe the opposite, considering how you’re constantly muttering to a person living in your head.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I turned away from her before clicking on a folder on the ancient computer.

“Oh, so what happened to not knowing what to do?” Ren walked the short distance to me and leaned over my shoulder. “Didn’t your parents tell you that lying isn’t nice?”

I rolled my eyes. “Well they’ve been dead for a thousand years and I’m still kicking, so who do you think is the more successful of the two?”

“I’m pretty sure that people normally have two parents, so that would make a total of three.” Ren said, absolutely destroying your argument.

“Nerd.” Oh what a comeback.

She didn’t grace that with a reply, instead letting out a frustrated growl before looking back at the monitor, where I was currently scrolling through several pages of documents at lightning speed.

“Can you even see what those say?” Ren asked, clearly a bit doubtful of my abilities. “I don’t think humans process information this fast.

“You guys see stuff at like what, sixty frames per second at most?” She continued.

“You underestimate my power.” I muttered without looking, closing out the file after finding out what I needed to know.

It was Ren’s turn to roll her eyes. “Whatever.”

I clicked on a search engine application, heading to a certain website with the intention to confirm my memories (but mostly to mess with Ren).

She frowned, leaning in further.

“Now what’re you doing?” She seemed more confused than humorous at the moment.

“Just taking a look at an old home.” I breezed my way through a few firewalls before accessing the live footage. It took a hot minute to load because of the sheer distance, but modern technology (ignore the old-ass hardware) pulled through- and what in the actual hell . . .

The buffering screen loaded, and a greenish glow casted its light on mine and Ren’s faces. Several numbers and other useless information lined the edges of the screen, but that wasn’t what I was paying attention to.

The screen occasionally glitched, but it was there. The live footage showed something that was thought impossible in my time, but the blinking label at the bottom of the screen didn’t lie.

The shattered corpse of the planet we once called Earth lay in a storm of sickly bands of something unholy, the center a maelstrom of an inky black void. The fragments still maintained an orbit around the singularity, a delicate dance amongst the ruins. Larger pieces remained impossibly close to the black hole, somehow not being drawn into the gravity well that was surely present.

The moon, for all of its insignificance compared to the former birthplace of humanity, didn’t care all too much about its older sister’s fate. It stayed in its swooping line, something that would probably continue long after the last remnants of intelligent life were dead and gone. Whether it was intentional or just a sick coincidence, probably nobody would ever know.

Crackling forks of energy flashed around the areas that could once be called the Earth’s surface, all amidst stormy clouds of soot and ash that obscured any imagery that could be obtained from there.

“What . . .” Ren trailed off, seemingly not knowing how to react.

“It’s Earth.” I replied, spinning the chair around to face her. “Or, at least, what’s left of it.”

“How do you-” Ren cut herself off, looking into the inky opaqueness of my visor. “You aren’t Jacob, are you?”

I pointed finger guns at her. “Took ya long enough.”

She took a step back before reaching inside her cloak. You know, she’s probably taking out a gun to shoot you. I know I would, considering how you just dropped that bomb on me without any warning. In fact why’re you so calm about that whole thing? Wouldn’t you-

However, instead of yanking out a firearm to turn my head into Swiss cheese (again) she pulled out a clipboard, along with a pencil with a smiley-face sticker wrapped around it.

“Sooooo,” She started. “What’s your name?”

I blinked. “What?”

“You know,” Ren gestured in my direction with the pencil. “How do you refer to yourself? Wait, are you, like, a collective entity or something? Damnit Ren, why do you always gotta mess up the interviews . . .”

Oh ho, you’re in for a big one.

“Wha- no, I’m Jacob.” I shook my head.

“Oh so you’re like, an alter-ego or something?” Ren scribbled something down in her clipboard, which annoyed me.

“No, I AM Jacob, the real one.” I specified, emphasizing my words carefully.

Wait, what?

Ren stopped writing, looking back up at me. “But Jacob said that you said that you’re a product of his . . . weird condition that I can’t really find a name for.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Can we stop this now?”

Ren glared at me. “So you two have basically the same unlikable personality, got it.”

I sprang to my feet. “Wha- EXCUSE ME!?”

“What, did you not hear me?” She taunted, giving me a mocking look.

“I swear to god-” I fumed.

“ROBO-god.” She corrected me.

“I don’t care about whatever weird alterations you people made to it, I’m-” I began, intent on ripping this- this- this- KID- a new one.

However, I was interrupted for the millionth time today by a rather large clang, and then a bang, and then finally an ever-increasing scream coming from above me. Looking up, I just managed to dive out of the way in time for a figure to come plummeting down from the vent, dragging a screaming military drone along with it.

It stood up, a stoic look set on its face. A pair of sunglasses adorned its eyes, making it look like some sort of action hero. The killer robot (some would call it a terminator) shot out a hand towards my fallen form, leaving it out for me to take.

“Come with me, if you want to live.” X said, his-

What a complete fuc-

“DON’T SWEAR!” I screeched, startling everyone in the room.

* * *

E9 tapped a foot against the ground.

They had sadly managed to capture him, but only after he took out a baker’s dozen of their weird secret police drones. He didn’t know how they were finding the drone’s to replace all the ones that kept dying, but it definitely wasn’t a sustainable practice. Hell, even E1 hadn’t known that the damned robot-Gestapo had been invented, and who knew practically everything that happened in the camp, much less the facility.

Looking up for a moment, the same monotonous reinforced steel door lay shut, tightly secured against any sort of damage that he could muster up at the moment. They had taken any form of weapon that he had, leaving him without any sort of tool to do . . well, literally anything with. The High Command, if anything, were thorough in their craft.

Even if they hardly knew what that craft was half the time.

He rolled his eyes, not that anybody could see him doing it. They were doing the classic tactic of letting him stew in his own thoughts for an elongated period of time, at least he knew that.

It wouldn’t work, of course. He and his squad members had practically written the newer version of the textbook, but it was mostly E1 that did most of the brainstorming. Sometimes people asked him if he ever got jealous of the fact that his squad leader could do basically everything that his teammates could do (but better in most ways), but he never knew how to reply to that kind of thing. He usually just stared at them without saying anything for a second and they ran away screaming a moment after.

Good times.

He really missed those times. After the slew of rebellions were squashed a while back, they had basically nothing to do for a few years. Command just . . . let them be, he supposed. As free as you could let an elite death squad be, that is.

It wasn’t like they caused chaos around the facility or anything. No, E1 said that if they ever did that, then High Command would just make something better and sic it on them. E7 had always asked what their superiors would ever do with the supposedly-superior military drones after their purpose had been completed, but his commander never had an answer for that.

So, they kept as quiet as they could be. An excuse here and there to raid a suspicious military unit’s barracks, maybe an armed investigation into some resources being allocated into areas where they weren’t needed, small stuff like that. Despite the few hundred that died over the course of those operations, it was essentially harmless.

Now they were all dead.

A clunk sound came from the direction of the door, and E9 flicked his gaze back up to it to investigate. The small slit that was at eye-level had opened up, revealing a set of piercing blue eyes that stared at him. Fearfully, if the hollowed-centers were to be believed.

“E-e-e-excuse me, step away from the door please.” The frightened drone said, seemingly not realizing that E9 was up against the opposite wall.

He didn’t know how they had gotten a concrete building set up, but he figured that the countless broken buildings had just been repurposed. Yeah, much easier to do that than to lug a few bricks on the backs of hapless workers.

The drone shut the metal slit closed, and the sound of the lock opening made its way into the chamber E9 was in. After a moment, the door swung open, the drone from earlier now paired with an equally nervous drone, this time with eyes of a soft green hew.

Judging by the various symbols that adorned their armor, they WERE part of the weird secret police, but E9 guessed that they were some sort of new recruits that had just been slapped in some armor, given a specialized gun, and called it a day. A secret police was never gonna be effective if its members were too green to keep themselves, you know, secret, but maybe Command had never gotten the memo.

E9 followed the half-hearted order, making sure to take an extra-long moment to stare at each of their eyes. Now they were positively quaking in their boots, timbers shivering in the wind. Not that any wind could make itself into the building, but he digressed.

He followed the drones as they stomped down the decrepit hallway, his path lit only by a few cracked bulbs that shone yellow light into what would’ve been pitch-black. It was clear that only the smallest amount of effort had been put into refurbishing the place enough for general use, which was probably gonna come back to bite them somewhere down the line. If his commander was in charge, they would probably just find a basement or bunker of some sort.

E1 loved bunkers, some would say to the point of oddness.

The trio stopped at a second door, also reinforced. However, this one had rust running up and down the entire plating of the thing, the hinges being the only thing that could be called clean. Again, he really didn’t think that was a sustainable form of operation, but maybe he was just being overly critical. Who knows, maybe rust actually makes metal . . . stronger?

Probably not.

The Gestap-Drone member knocked at the door, and it opened with the pained squeals of stressed steel. Nobody had opened it, it was just unlocked and the fist hitting it had made it open.

E9 wanted to facepalm, but he felt that would be going a bit too far. Instead, he entered the room without fuss, and the door shut behind him.

Inside was your typical interrogation room, complete with a dented table, two chairs (one with a duct-taped together leg) and a one-way mirror that wasn’t quite as one-way as the people in charge probably thought. He could clearly see several drones pressed up against the window, one with a mug that read, “YOU ARE WORTHLESS” and in smaller text read, “but please don’t kill yourself or anything we need an excuse to use tax dollars for no real reason”.

E9 didn’t know what to think about that.

Seated in one of the chairs was a military drone with the same armor as all the others he had seen in this place.

The drone gestured towards the seat opposite him, the one that conveniently had a broken leg.

“Please, take a seat.” The drone attempted to maintain a cool, calm, and collected facade, but judging by the sweat icons that were running down the side of his display, it was all an act.

E9 sighed, taking a seat. This was gonna take awhile.

* * *

“-the hell was that!?” Smitty groaned out as he picked himself up from the floor.

The enemy commander let out a groan of his own, scratching at the ground for his pistol.

“What, you think I know?” He said, getting back on his feet.

Alana tuned out the argument, instead focusing on removing herself from the floor. Thinking back to a few seconds ago, the person that had forced her to open the door had been talking about his plan or whatever, when suddenly things just started . . . floating?

It felt weird to think, for some reason. Shaking off the feeling, she used a nearby chair to bring herself back up to level, watching the other hostage do the same.

She met his eyes, which were darting around in confusion and fear. They came to rest at her hip, which caused Alana to follow his gaze to the empty holster that hung there. The person that the enemy commander had called Smitty had taken the gun, seemingly to repurpose it for his own use. It also served to disarm herself in case she tried anything, which was the reason that the supposed boss of the trio had cited.

However . . .

Alana glanced at one of the several rifles that lay scattered around the room. The loaded rifle, one of many. She wasn’t exactly sure why whoever was in charge of sorting the room out had decided to leave the firearms loaded when in storage (which felt like a supremely bad decision) but it might have been just the thing she needed.

The drone with the machine-gun still hadn’t picked themselves back up yet, as they had more than a few weapons that lay on top of them, but Alana still wasn’t comfortable with her chances if she dove for a gun. She would need a second person.

She looked back up at the other hostage, who she never bothered to learn the name of before, and met his eyes. Then, she tried to look back and forth between a rifle on the ground that was next to him, an attempt to signal her plan.

The drone’s eyes widened even further when he realized her intentions, and he almost imperceptibly shook his head. Alana did it again, moving her head with a slight but forceful motion this time.

“No.” He mouthed, glancing at the enemy commander.

Speaking of . . .

“Whatever that was, it doesn’t matter.” The enemy commander concluded.

Smitty raised an eyebrow at that. “I’m pretty sure it matters if gravity vanishes for absolutely no reason.”

“Then what do you propose we do about it?” The enemy commander (who Alana STILL didn’t know the name of) crossed his arms and stared at Smitty.

Smitty didn’t have a reply to that.

After that, the enemy commander looked out to the group.

“Alright, so-” He began

“Uh, excuse me?” Alana interrupted, raising a hand as she did so.

Everybody stared at her.

“ . . . yes?” The enemy commander didn’t sound happy.

Alana cringed inwardly. “Well, it’s just that . . .”

“Just spit it out already.” The drone rested a mechanical hand on his holstered sidearm.

“I . . . don’t know what your name is?” She answered, shrugging slightly.

Everybody, save for the other hostage, erupted into laughter.

“Seriously?” The enemy commander grumbled amidst the noise. “THAT’S the thing you interrupted me for?”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and tell ‘em, why don’t you?” Smitty quieted down for a moment to spit out.

“Did I say something wrong?” Alana was confused.

The drone with the machine-gun (also with an unknown name) waved a hand at her.

“Nah, I’m Skylar, that’s Smitty, and his name is . . .” ‘Skylar’ snickered as she gestured at the enemy commander. “Augustine Marco Leverius.”

Alana blinked. “What?”

“There was a glitch in the automated network when my serial designation and colloquial tag was being generated, and it created my name in Latin.” The drone in question seemed almost embarrassed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

“ . . . oh.” Alana regretted bringing it up.

“Listen, these guys just call me Lev, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell any of my men.” ‘Lev’ turned around, facing the door. “Now, can we leave already?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m pretty sure the boys are gonna get rowdy if we don’t check back in with them by now.” Skylar stated, before giving Lev an evil grin. “Augustine.”

Lev grumbled. “Shut up.”

* * *

“Yep.” E1 nodded his head as he peered down into the dark elevator shaft. “He’s dead.”

A moment of silence followed, which slightly confused E1. He had thought that the other drone (who was friends with the one that found out just how terminal, ‘terminal-velocity’ was) would be wailing and crying right about now. She had been doing that for most of the trip, but maybe she had chosen to be a little bit more bearable now-

His thoughts were cut off by an elongated wail of visceral emotion.

Yep, there it is.

E1 groaned, jerking his head towards the drone (he forgot their name).

“Will you shut up? I’m kinda tired of you whining all the time and-” E1 began.

“HOW ARE YOU CALM RIGHT NOW!?” The drone- ah yes, Damina, gestured wildly to the endless pit. “WE NEED TO SAVE HIM!”

In response, E1 simply rolled his eyes. Tuning out the rest of Damina’s idealistic rant, he looked back at the darkened shaft. With his night vision, he could make out what seemed to be a rusty maintenance ladder that was attached to the side, the very same ladder that the evacuees had used to make their way up to the top.

He gave E4 a look, which was all the latter needed to figure out E1’s plan. Taking the lead, E1 kneeled down and gripped the first rung.

“Are you even listening to me!?” Damina screeched. “This is a very serious-”

E1 shut off his audio receptors, unable to bear a single second more of the racket. Without further ado, he began to climb down the ladder at a steady pace. Soon after, E4 matched that pace, leaving the noisy drone as the last one still in the decrepit lobby.

Out of curiosity, E1 switched his hearing back on.

“I’m so- wait, what’re you doing? Wha- wait for me!” The sound of metal clanking followed, along with the entire ladder shuddering and concrete powder raining down from the areas where rusty bolts had been embedded into the side.

E1 cursed, looking back up.

“Don’t shake the damn ladder!” He yelled. “This thing is way too old to handle that much weight. I don’t know how it carried everyone earlier, but I sure as hell am NOT gonna put my life on the line to find out.”

The reply that came back sounded startled. “Oh, o-ok.”

E1 took the opportunity to look down at their destination, which . . . couldn’t actually be seen. The bottom was so far down that, even with his superior eyesight, he couldn’t make out anything more than the walls just closing into an illusionary point.

He then grimaced. That was a looooong way to fall, made him almost feel bad for the drone who fell.

Eh, he’s probably dead anyway, so it wasn’t too important.

* * *