>> A Doorway to Death's Domain

Magnetic slugs roar like the rains of Hell as our suicide bombers drop from the the train. Their heads forced low as Zipper's new drones crash into the massed forces of the train-yard. Thousands of cogs blasting in every direction as our humanoid assassins duck through the ruins of equipment.

"LEFT! LEFT!!" Kami screams as stray bullets casually flick past their fake rubber faces. An orb-guardian leaping ahead, flattening its discs to act like a shield. Another dying in the choke of the door, as steel rods hammer them into a twisted mess.

The sheer, screaming, noise of it so intense it vibrates my insides. A slamming beat of steel shot ringing off steel that echoes like the murder of some mad machine.

We ignore it. Our eyes locked on a hundred different feeds, spread across one wall of windows. Glancing, every few moments, at Zipper sat crosslegged on a table.

Eyes flashing with luminescent blue as he wages his own private war.

He barely twitches as impacts and shrieking metal echo down the entire length of the train. Breaking through layer upon layer of noise-cancelling tek. Blowing past us, in a roar that flattens my ears to my skull and jitter Tufty tighter under his table.

Though it barely musses Zipper - our [Drone Tek]'s eyes on nothing as the twitch-fast chaos roils above us.

A blur of impressions. Shadows. Colours, and blades, and severed robot arms.

I turn away from it all as dark clockwork begins to tick in the hills of the rolling painting behind me. A single metallic eye opening, amid in the stones.

I follow it away down the carriage, away from the others. Leaning in, at last, to stare across one of the tables.

"And? I whisper to the mechanistic mountains.

"Confirmed. The new drones respond only to signals from the train, and whoever controls it." Intones the ear-scarring voice of the ancient machine. "Be Warned: This also limits their effective range."

"Shit. Zipper ain't gonna like this.... Can ya hack it?"

"No. This is a hardware issue. Drone uplinks are incapable of communicating with your equipment. This is a security failsafe. It prevents them being stolen."

"Just like the bloody Carrier. Shit." I lean on the table, my back to the clockwork mountains. Heart leaping as a furious Kami yells up at the screen. Both sides cheered on by a worryingly enthusiastic Badger.

It feels like a game. A distant thing we have no steak in.

But it isn't.

I pace the warm floor, fully aware of the fire burning beneath us. Behind us. Ahead. Seconds ticking as our androids make a last mad dash for the guns.

Which, obligingly, snap downwards.

Zipper hurls his droids back into cover. His orbs building a weaponised wall of sharpened cogs and wheels that soak up barely any of the fire.

But they were never meant for war. Not any of them.

The guns blow baseball-sized holes through both waiter and maid. Collapsing them into a heap of broken limbs My eyes widening as I curse my own distraction.

But we planned for this, even so.

"Now!" I yell, swivelling to face Zipper. "Hit em!"

He gives me a pathetic look. "But, like, mate, I only just got-"

"Do it! They're tethered anyway! We don't get to keep em!" I roar, and he screws up his eyes. Fists curling as he forces will against his own resistance. Sending every orb we have blasting from the train in a kamikaze whirl of edges and blades.

Forcing the turrets to prioritise targets.

To prioritise wrong.

"Don't matter how big ya toys are, if they're pointed the wrong way." I grin as the turrets lash out at the new threat, leaving the supposed corpses to moulder on the floor.

And begin to stir.

Erupting into a swarm of small metal bodies.

"Too battle, comrades! To glory!" Squeaks our roboMouse commander, with tiny sabre held high. Carefully remaining exactly where he is as a backpack's worth of his pals charge the guns. Cute lil plasma-cutters burning as they sabotage their way into the ammo-feed, and control systems, dodging the turret's scrawny repair arms.

A few get picked off, but to no avail. It's far too late.

The screen flashes as they detonate with (I assume) glory.

And then, as they say, the guns go silent.

Slowly. With all due bloody caution. We traipse to the beaten-up exit to poke our heads out. "They're cooked. Nice one." I grin as sparks drizzle mournfully from one of the emplacements, its barrel hanging from a thread.

Zip frowns. "Mate. Like, did you gotta blow up the roboMice though?"

"Yes." I state, deadpan. "It was the only way."

"But, like, they could have welded stuff? Or cut-?"

"The only way." I repeat. Mournfully. "C'mon."

"Woo! I'm gonna go on the sliiide-" Badger yelps as Kami's arms jerk him back from the edge. Dangling his waggling toes over the sad, burst, ruins of the emergency exit ramp.

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"Still fancy a ride?" She grins, eyes glinting wickedly in the ember-filled smoke. "I can let got if you like?"

I cough a little, at the back, reseating my breather. "Right. Zip, keep their bots busy. Everyone else, lets go!"

We rappel down the side, onto the squashy rubbery mat that used to be Badger's slide. Demon still guiding a vulnerable-looking Tufty, who won't let go of his tail. Kami still holding tight to Badger's scruff, keeping the two friends apart.

With no autoGun support, the enemy line crumbles before us. Gunned down by SMGs and pistols as we barge our way through the maze of machines. Zipper's cog-bots 'catching' every disc shot their way. Spinning them into a tight orbit, like one of their own cogs, and hurling them back with incredible force.

Something the makers clearly never planned for.

And something the simple, AI driven, enemy bots can't seem to counter.

In less than a minute, we have air supremacy. In two, we're veering toward total victory. Which is just as well because my shoddy neoSoviet SMG picks a critical moment to crap the Hell out. Blaring a warning about 'stolen ammunition', as the counter flashes a bright red '40' at me.

I hurl myself into cover as gears snap down to hover, exactly, above the floor where I was. Popping my mag to stare.

It's empty. Nothing left.

The damned swam mode didn't count its shots, and it nearly killed me. It could have. I relied on my gun firing at that exact moment and-

Never mind. Time to go.

I slam in a new mag in the hole, ignoring my gun's latest attempt to execute me for 'treason'. That resets the counter, giving me the gumph I need to finish our tiny war.

LMG ‘Red Glory’ SMG :: 188/220

Spare Mags :: 2/4

Most of three mags left, but Zipper is down to one.

It's not bad yet. Not with [Shotgun] mode to limit the burn. But that's not just to finish the job. Or get our asses home. That's everything we have until we can restock.

But we're here. Finally. We're at the literal gates.

I check my angles as Kami and Zip fight over to a hermetically sealed airlock built like a blast door. It might have been intimidating, if it wasn't directly beside a stupefying huge warehouse-style shutter built to the same brutal standards.

So huge I can see it spitting out an entire hyperloop train carriage.

I spare a look for the two, dead, autoguns hanging from above it like hunted trophies on a wall. Smoking, darkly, as their insides burn. My eyes sliding up and up to gawp at the solid glass ceiling, arcing above us. Tables and chairs scattered on top, as if the whole thing was the floor for some mad viewing gallery.

"Holy shit....."

I stare up at it for a few scant moments, but then Kami breaks open a sealed security box. Reaching in to yank a big red emergency lever.

The smaller, yet still leg-thick, pedestrian door jerks in its frame. Unsealing with a hiss of faint pressure as it slams backward, into the wall. Giving way to a hideous clang of alarms and whirling red lights. Likely alerting those inside to a gang of railway workers with leaky pressure suits.

Or our enemies to a breach.

I stab my survival knife directly into the speaker, ending its existence as the door fires shut behind us. Air blasting in from all sides, until we're slightly over-pressure. Kami's many hands already at work, shorting out security on the inner door.

It blasts open, faster than we expected, causing all of us to jump as a small-calibre ceiling-turret pips angrily - spinning on its base to hoses us with bullets. Forcing us into the walls, either side of the door, while Zipper's final orbs work in tandem to cut it down.

And then we're in.

Dusty evoSuits with thick visors sit piled in cubbies, as if waiting to clock off. Each one stickered with a faint old names like Claude, or André, or Thomas. Every letter twitching and jittering as our guns track over benches and vertical showers.

"Proxy mines, both doorways. Few inside the suits." Kemi warns, her bionic eyes flicking through the electrical spectrum. "There's a path. We have to stay close."

She flicks a hand, and I glimpse a green line of safety winding between shaded red boxes of death - and then it goes absolutely insane. Scarring my vision with colours no human would ever understand. Ripping my head apart as I hiss and drop to a crouch. Shaking until it goes away.

"Sorry, Spook. I forgot. Is it really-"

I snap vertical. "I'm fine. C'mon. I'll follow you."

We form a conga, and start moving. Around a bench. Into a row of lockers. Then-

Tufty's ears prick, then turn. Wibbling this way and that. "Umm....."

Kami stares at him with disgust. "What? This better not be-"

"It's just- I heard-" He goes rigid, and sharp. Eyes wild, and frozen. "I-"

"TRAP!!!" I scream, shoving them forwards as the airlock detonates in a swarm of burning-bright hummingbirds. Followed by the suits. The benches. Mine after mine ripping apart the tables and lockers as Demon scoops me up, and they hurtle us right at the exit. Bits of ceiling crashing down behind us, as the world is turned to shrapnel and confetti.

And fluttering friends.

The birds die, like someone snapped off a light, and the exoSuit room descends into darkness. Leaving us panting, shuddering, shivering with terror in the heart of an old staffroom - long abandoned. All inky screens, plastic plants, and tek entombed in dust.

At least until the explosion blasts it all up into the air, turning the room into a smog of fine particles that set Badger coughing. Demon scooping up Gremlin to force her into her breather. Cooing at her gently as she struggles in fright and tries to hop away.

Kami stares from me to Tufty. "He knew."

"Um...." Tufty shrinks behind Demon, which causes Kami to half-shriek. Leaping on Badger and pulling him, protectively, away.

"Stop it!" I snarl. "He tried to warn us! He saved us! Again!"

Her eyes glitter with suspicion. "Saved his own hide. At best."

"We ain't doin' this." I breathe. "Remember our deal. Remember what I bloody said."

Her face chills. Her body caught in a shiver. "Fine. You win. He's a hero."

"Damn right." I hiss, reaching to pet him firmly. My hand ripped back at the last second, as if scalded. "He's on the team. We don't kill team."

"Maybe we should." Zipper says, then blinks. "What, like-"

"What?" I blink.

"Mate, I-" His lips fuzz. "-think we should kill him."

"What." I roar through my teeth as Zipper slaps a hand to his mouth. Wide-eyed.

"Zha. Kill him. And zha turd too." Demon snarls, his eyes twisting with confusion.

"Burn him alive. Burn them both alive." Zipper grins, with a cocky glint in his eye.

"This ain't real. This ain't you." I shiver as white-hot static jolting up the back of my neck.

"But I wanna be all burnt to death." Badger whines, in a voice utterly unlike his own. "I wanna! I wanna!"

"Oooh! Oooh!! Me too!" Tufty fluffs and beams. "Gosh, don't you think it would be Lovely and cosy and scrumptious to curl up in an nice warm fire?" He giggles and leaps, and cuddles himself tight. Leaving a shadow of himself, cowering behind. "To be all tucked in! Like a nice warm bed! As the flames all go tickle-tickle-tickle!"

"YEAH!" Badger puffs and smiles in that not-his-voice. "And-"

"THIS! ISN'T! REAL!" I scream as Zipper lips mangle and melt, like one version super-imposed on another. "Its Her." I stare at them. "IT'S OUR STEPMOTHER!"

And with that, I spin to stare up at the three ancient hologram projectors bolted to the high ceiling. Their many lenses whirring and gleaming with malicious intent.

Mocking me, as they bend my friends' lips to say terrible things.

But I've had enough. And I don't gotta live in that world anymore. So I rip my pistol from my side, and put a bullet in each and every one.

Silencing the living nightmare, in a single instant of violence.

Quiet fills the room as it gets very slightly darker.

And then, finally, I hear what Tufty must have in the corridor of death. A trace of soft, sweet, laughter that rings in the almost distance. Childish, and sugary, like the little girl next-door.

Our catboy whimpering. Flattening his ears. "No....." He breathes. Almost chokes, as terror crawling across his face. "Not her...... Not Her......." He shudders, and twists, as claws bite his face. Stringing fine threads of blood down his cheeks. Like tears. "Not her...... God..... Please..... She's supposed to be dead....."

A silent, cold, chill burns its way up my back.

Oh no.

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