>> Simulacrum

A raging storm of metal hurls itself at us. A tsunami of golden rings shining with evil little teeth. Slicing past faces. Gashing armour, and skin, as my gun roars back - thundering out shot after shot. Guardian Orbs flickering as they dodge.

"FORWARD! FORWARD!!" I scream, leaping from table to table. Side to side. Twisting in mid-air to avoid the hail of screaming razors, as I bring my gun to bear. Blasting out roaring torrents of fire and bullets.

LMG ‘Red Glory’ SMG :: 164/220

Zipper darts up beside me in a cheerful blur of violence. Leaping over my head like a cat to shoot freaking discs from the air. Burying a golden gear in the wall by my chin, with smoke and sparks bleeding from the hole in its internals.

Demon kicking off a wall, to hit them from the sides. Fangs clashing down on a gear, with a snarl, as he rips it from the air and breaks it with sheer maniac force. His hands and lips dark with bloody red. His eyes alight with something feral, broken, and insane. Kami's eyes flashing worry from the door behind him. Her rifle hunting a clear shot that won't come-

Stinging pain tugs my right ear, and I hiss in fury. Cursing the insult, and my distraction, as I hurl myself from table to table. In theory, we drive orbs into the wall and break them against it. In practice, they might do it to us - we're losing as much ground as we gain.

But I got a plan.

"Get down! I'll end it!!"

"Mate! Like, I got a grenade!"

"Save it!" I scream. "Swarm Mode!"

Plates jerk back from my SMG as internal systems reconfigure. Micro-scale robotic clamps unfolding to rip bullet after bullet from my mag. Stacking them along the entire length of each barrel. Filling them totally. My muzzle sweeping up, right as the others back off.

Aimed directly between the two orbs.

"Hey! Assholes! Dodge thi-!" I ratchet back on the trigger, and the whole world goes red with flame as forty bullets ignite at the same time. Triggered, simultaneously, by a snap of spark along the rails of my gun. Burning my hand, scouring the wall, and blasting heat in every direction.

It hits the drones as a massive, scattershot, wave of rockets. Bursting through the shielding torrent of discs to utterly perforate one of the drones. Scarring its perfect exterior, and knocking it back in the air.

Slowly, fitfully, it jerks to a stop.

And then Demon hits it like a train. Smashing it, bodily, into the wall. Snarling. Snapping. Ripping. Biting. Swinging it to hurl at the other drone, which dodges at speed. Barely catching a ding across the side.

But it's enough. Finally, enough.

I dive through the suddenly drifting cloud of cogs. Firing off quad-shots as I go. One. Two. Three. It ducks into cover, in the seats. Hit by crossfire from Zipper.

Too late.

I skid along side, take careful aim, and [burst] fire dead centre on the orb. Weakening its armour for the sudden leap that follows. A thousand bladed disks screaming in for the kill as the butt of my gun cracks directly through its internals. Forcing me to roll over the table as they hammer into the corpse.

Everything goes silent and still.

Cogs slowing in mid-air. Whizzing to a stop.

A moment later they tumble, one by one, to tinkle on tables and carpet.

Silence, and I collapse back against the table. Gun leaking rocket-smoke and fits of flame as jammed bullets cook off in two of the tubes. Fizzing. Sputtering. Dying by moments as I stare up at the ornate ceiling. Slipping off my breather for a choking gasp of sterile air and raw smoke.

"Damn, mate...." Zip says, ripping a cog free of his battered suit. "Like, shit, that was intense. My armour is toast."

"Mine too." I growl, pushing claws into a massive rip carved through layers of plastic and ballistic foam. "This is it. We're through. If we don't make bank on this mission....." I trail off as Kami slugs her way into the carriage, scrunching her face to hide the worry.

"You got the bastards?"

"Looks like." I grin.

"Rrggh. Couldn't get a clear shot with your fat ass in the way." She gripes, glaring about. Which, in Kami-speak, means 'I was really worried and wanted to help.'

"Heh. I love ya too."

"Shut up."

"No, you shut-"

"MATE!" Zipper yelps, from further down the row. "Mate! Got company! Humans!"

I slam out a hand, shoving myself upright. "Where??"

"Two along, left. Three along, right." Kami snaps out, staring at a screen.

"Like, just lying there." Zip breathes back.

"Go." I hiss, and we flicker down the line. Guns swinging to focus on a pallid man with slicked black hair and a tiny moustache. His head pressed gently against the surface of a table. Open eyes staring at nothing.

"Got the other one, mate." Zip hisses. "Some kinda maid, looks like?"

"Dead?" I frown. "Pretty bloody well preserved if they are."

"They're breathing." Kami counters. "Old clothes. It's creepy as shit."

"Just lying there....." I mutter, tapping the tip of my knife on his white silk glove.

"Like they're waiting? Or.... gave up?"

"Nobody else, mate. Rest is empty." Zip says as his bees probe the oddly still 'people'. "Reckon they're droids? Maybe?"

"Maybe." I growl as Kami's scanner flickers, and she lets out a low huff.

"Androids. Tethered to the train..... I think."

"Zip." I say, slowly. "Get Polybius in here."

"Right mate! Signal Relay out the door, mate!" He chirps, blasting past me to toss a plastic ball at the wall outside. There, it blooms into a dish and orientates itself toward the one on our tower.

A few seconds later, my gun crackles. The ammo-counter glitching.

"Uplink Established."

"Good." I grin, tugging back the collar and rubber skin of the bot to reveal plastic and wires. "Hey, Zip. Got a present for ya. Can ya handle two humanoids-?"

I yelp as he materialises beside me.

"Mate! Oh wow! Like! Yeah!! I mean-!!" He vibrates with the furiosity of a fully caffeinated Badger. "Heh. Yeah. Uh, just-" He barges past, fingers rattling as he hooks a cable from his skull to the bot to give The Machine Mind a way in. "Man! Like, I've always wanted to try this! Like they say it's not possible to do two humanoids, but like-"

"Yah don't say." I grin,

"Yeah and-" His head jerks back, bionic eyes flickering with lights as the walls start to glitch.

Symbols and odd shapes flicker in the windows of the train as its painted blue skies turn a blasphemous green. Imperceptible figures twitching on blackened hilltops, like some macabre-

The image clears, and both bots snap solidly upright. Poker straight. Their heads turning, very slowly, to face directly forward.

"This is quite spiffing." The man says in a jovial, old-fashioned, voice.

"I do declare." The maid chimes. "Directing two at once is quite the lark."

"Uh huh." I smirk as Gremlin hops up on one of the seats, tilting her lil head to the left. "Tasty~sss?" It tips the other way. "Scaryssss?" She beams, evilly. "Tastyssss scarrysssst!!"

"Don't ya dare." I growl, though my lip flickers a smirk as Zipper shakes himself out of dreamworld. "You got it, drone boi?"

"Yeah mate. Think so." He wanders into a table. "Basically."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Right, well. Have fun. Don't break em." I slap my side-arm onto the table, along with my ammo. "Could sell em later."

"Mate! But....." His lip trembles. Eyes huge. "Like, c'mon....! I just got them....!"

"I have detected multiple other droids onboard." My gun states in that cold, staticky, voice. "What action do you prefer?"

I tap my teeth with a claw. "Can't arm em all. Can't walk em home."

"Can't walk ourselves home, either." Kami sniffs.

"I could!" Badger whoops, popping from under a table. "Coz I got super powers!! Coz I got bitten by-!"

"We'll figure it out we're done." I interrupt, resisting the urge to bop a bobblehead. "Polybius! Do we have eyes on the rest of the train?"

"All systems are now under our control."

I nod. "Good. Shut off the engines. Hand Zipper whatever bots ya can. Grab the rest, n' get em workin' to strip out any tek we can sell. Nothin' too bulky. Might have a job gettin' back in the Pirate Towers as is."

"I am not equipped for drone operation." My gun informs me as I hop on a table to let them past. "However. I will preform this task to full capability."

"Awesome...." I wince as Zipper mentally jerks the 'human man' around in its seat like a shopfront dummy from 'Revenge Of The Living Dolls'. Puppet-hands flapping at the gun like its never had fingers before. "Yeah. Uh..... Try not to make it super creepy, alright?"

"I will endeavour."

"Got it, mate."

"Hope so! Let's move out!" I jerk my head at Zip. "Get ya'self ahead. Catch the bots up when ya can."

"Brutal, mate! Will do!" He flicks me a beaming thumbs-up as he takes lead. Kami stomping and grunting in behind - dragging Badger, as she brings up the rear.

As she passes, a metal hand snakes out. Grabbing my pointy ear, and dragging it in close. "H-hey-"

"The train shifted, and it scared you." She states, very calm. "You thought it would fall. Drag us all into the abyss." Her breath is sharp, and oddly tangy.

"Urk!!!?" I reasonably reply.

"You were going to panic. Charge ahead, into the unknown. Or bolt backwards. Weren't you?"

"Urrk?"

"But you didn't. You stayed firm. You were the leader." She tweaks my ear again. "Good job."

And, with that, she clomps off down the isle - Badger waving at me from under one arm.

I rub my ear, staring after her. "....thanks?"

Zipper's androids totter slowly upright as I blink. Slow, but increasingly steady, as they stumble after - like a zombified rear guard. The man checking his mag while the maid tries to work out skirts and high heels - quickly opting to rip them off. I coil, uncertainly, on my table as they stumble past.

Jerking, twitching. Finding their balance, even as they move.

"Polybius. Just a bloody thought." I say in a very slow voice. "Human bodies are complicated. Right?" I turn to the fathomless machine "In bloody theory, how many d'ya think a plain vanilla human could handle at once? With no extra AI?"

"The current world record is one."

"Yeah." I say in an even fainter voice, as the robots jump about and try to fist-bump - barely missing by microns. "That's kinda what I figured."

"He may be synthetic. A false human." Whispers the maddening thing of triangles and wings pressing itself against the fake window. Its depths far deeper than the image behind it. "The military-grade equivalent of Theo."

That puts the cold spike through me. "We grew up together."

"Irrelevant."

"He doesn't seem-"

"Irrelevant." It repeats.

"He-" I start.

But The Machine Mind is relentless, and spares none of my feelings. "Process of elimination indicates three possibilities. One: he is not human. Two: he has external help. Three: he is aided by unknown and undetected implants."

"External." I mutter, latching onto the word. Dread filling me as I lick my dry lips. "And..... lets say a nine-year-old is knockin' bloody trains off their tracks with precision bombs.....?"

The machine is silent for a moment.

And then images and 3D models of the event flicker in the windows along the carriage. The data extracted and calculated from onboard sensors, then broken down in forensic detail.

I see the wreck play out again, far more clearly this time. Every angle accounted for. Every pathway tracked by tiny arrows, and numbers that indicate speed and angle.

Except, this time, the bomb doesn't go off.

Sections of track darken, one by one, ahead of the train. Receding toward the junction as whatever powers them begins to fail.

The front of the train drops like a rock. Ploughing to a sudden stop that flicks the back of the train like a whip. Sheer, unholy, momentum causing the entire rear of the train so swing into the turn. Scything a cluttered mess of carriages directly through the side of the junction, and out the other side.

Pulverising us and hurling us out into the night.

"Attempts to warn you were unsuccessful in the chaos." Polybius notes, as I shut my eyes. Chills shaking me. "However. Badger intervened."

The train repeats its crash. But, this time, the strap of that tiny satchel catches its rightmost headlight. Pinning it there, with speed and pressure, as the massive engine stabilises on the straight.

For a second the bomb flutters on its strap. Whipping. Rattling.

And then - as if by accident - it slips into the deadly gap between the engine and the wall. Rupturing in a massive ball of flame, which fills the gap and instantly detonates a second time.

"Explosive categorisation: PX-90. Airburst incendiary." Polybius states as the entire, main, engine of the train rips through the left hand wall of the junction. The one right by our freaking faces. "Manufacturer: neoSoviet Empire. Details: Fast burning material emits a flammable gas, causing high-pressure secondary detonations."

"Badger's favourite." I whisper as the train carves itself a brand new tunnel into the storm-haunted nothingness of the QIZ.

And, this time, there is no sudden stop.

No whiplash.

Instead, the force of the train is twisted away from us. Carriage after carriage ploughing through the inner wall of the curve, instead of the outer. Connections exploding as carriage after carriage spews itself into the void.

High-energy breaks screaming. Ripping at nodes on the track as they bring it all to a stop.

Preventing the monstrous thing from lashing out anyway.

From shotgunning carriages through even more of the junction.

"Badger timed and placed both explosions with surgical precision." Polybius concludes.

"Wait. Both?"

"Correct. The first bomb disrupted power to the repulser track." The monstrous thing snicks its new wings like clockwork knives. "Badger predicted the crash in real time. Nudging it away from you at exactly the right moment."

"Saved us...... The little idiot saved us....." I whisper. "Jesus..... What are the odds that weren't a fluke?"

Mile-high gears tick to themselves in the echoing depths of Polybius. Ratcheting teeth of iron and bone to drive systems and functions beyond anything I can know.

Before, the sound was unsteady. Uncertain. But now the systems mesh with a perfection of purpose I've never seen before. An endless harmony, and clarity, that rings with unstoppable force. Like a clock counting down to the end of the universe.

And maybe I don't want to know why it seems bigger than it was....

"Polybius." I say in an ever more quiet voice, when I know it isn't going to answer. Not because it doesn't know.... but because I do. "What if Tufty's the bloody decoy. What if Zip and Badger are the ones who got replaced?"

My eyes slip out across its endless, snapping, knives and blades and wings.

"What if I ain't real, either? Would I even know?" I swallow. "Or I'm the only real one?" Tears tick on the inside of my visor. "....or none of us are. Maybe we're all clones. Fakes. Would we even know?"

There is no comfort in Polybius.

None at all.

There is nothing.

Nothing but the tick of eternity as threads of metal crack and infect an idyllic, painted, village on a hill.

I shake my doubts away. "Shit. It don't matter. Not now...... I just gotta enjoy what I got, while I got it." I force a grim smile onto my face. "C'mon. Let's go. I'm playing 'lone bloody idiot who gets picked off first', and this ain't that kinda movie...."

Soft carpet whirls beneath me as I blur through tilted carriages on all fours. Dodging fallen blades, and broken bots, to slip through the scarred and broken exit. Brassy orbs glimmering above the tables inside. Four of them, this time.

Whirling with blades, and ringed with flickering blue.

I blink, and shake off the chills. Hunting through carriages, filled with more and more shining drones. With androids arm-wrestling, and defender orbs trading blade for blade. Following the curve of the tunnel, all the way to the end.

I catch the others, right at the last door. The two androids locked in a blurring game of rock-paper-scissors that Badger lags five moves behind. His furious focus broken as Gremlin pounces on the battling hands, chewing furiously.

"Pol thinks this is it." Kami says, easing it open for Zipper's swarming bees. Our [Drone Tek]'s eyes blank and empty. Darting with dreamy little lights, yet still somehow fixed on his brand-new toys.

"So he does have bloody limits." I stare at the few drones that don't shine blue. "I'm gonna get to the bottom of this....."

And find out why he gets all the cool stuff. Because bloody-

My vision scours with static. With glitches and mayhem. And for a second, Zipper looks like a corpse. Like a body on a string.

His eyes, and there are so many, sharp and blue as they snap to stare at me. Burning into my heart.

And then it's gone. Leaving only a shiver.

"What....." I breathe. "What the Hell was that...." The world fuzzes again, then sharpens. Fogging with vertical bars that crack and fight the horizontal.

Tufty blinks up at me. "Gosh, are-?"

"Fine. Fine. We just gotta get bloody movin'." I blink through it, slapping my implant. "C'mon. We're givin' them bastards time to hit us again." I clear the jams in my gun as Zipper's orbs bust through into the next carriage. Demon leading the boy behind, like a lost toddler, as we move in and check our angles.

More drones. More identical maids and waiters lying, face down, at the tables. Unmoved, even by the crash. But as we pass, they jerk and rise. An endless army for Zipper and Polybius.

"Spook. You have reached-"

"I know. Let's crack a way out."

I flick a claw to the left, and Kami shoves a trolley filled with crumbling biscuits and muffins to one side. A quick metal elbow through safety-glass, and she yanks the emergency release. All of us diving for cover as the wall unfurls in a rush of billowing smoke and sparking flame.

The fire is spreading. Flickering with eerie colour. Its light projecting metal shapes that loom and dance in the void beyond the door. Giving shadowy life to gantries and pillars. To engines on dollies. And massive fabrication-drones, caked deeply in dust.

And yet, for an moment, all is still.

But only a moment.

Sudden as death, a wall of solid steel bullets roar through the doorway. Murdering the trolley in a rain of puffing packets and dust. Tracking across the wall to rip apart fake wood and veneer, while we shrink back from the chaos.

Zipper's bees painting us with reddish dark and roiling shadow as every false window of the train shift to show us what they see.

"Sir Boris!" Badger yelps, as his new pet wriggles free of his arms. Bolting back up the train in a wild, many-legged, scramble for safety.

"Leave it! We'll get it on the way out!" I yell, fervently hoping we don't. Brassy drones screeching in unison as heavy gauss rounds track across the cabin at body-height. Hammering the tables to shattered bits, and cleaving waiter-bots in half.

"Frightful business." Remarks a broken head.

"Quite." Concludes another.

"Mate! Like, I just g-got these!" Zip slurs, patting at his armour like he might be missing a limb.

"JUST KILL IT! KILL THE GUN!!" I roar back as mayhem and metal scars the cabin again. Carving holes directly through the bulkhead itself, as if they designed it to kill their own trains. I choke as foul, rubbery, smoke floods the cabin - forcing me back into my breather.

"Got a sealed viewing deck up top. Thick glass." Kami traces its outline on a haze of glitches that should be a vScreen. Her face distorting into madness as our augmented reality begins to fail.

Revealing scraps of blank helmet beneath the illusion of face.

Half of the train's fake windows are dead, and shot through. But I focus on the few that remain as Zipper's swarm buzzes high above the train-yard. Massive loading arms hanging on car-thick rails that lead to a vast loading door.

A thing wide enough to spit out trains.

I crick my neck as the guns hammer us again and again. Two bulky turrets, sat right above the door. Magnetic nodes humming as they propel chunks of metal directly at my face.

No sound. Not even a Goddamned flash of rocket ignition.

I hate kinetic guns.

My knuckles crick, one by one, as I eye the shadow-soaked cabin.

"Y'know what?" I whisper, in a deathly tone. "I'm done bein' bloody polite...."

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