>> The Left Hand Of The Devil

Badger's head whirls between me and the False Spook, still casually tipped in their chair. A lazy grin of absolute malice parting toothy lips as their sharp eyes narrow. Tight.

Staring without blinking.

Yet seen only in flickers through Hellish chaos of my broken-down eyes.

The room itself is a jittering mystery, caught only in snatches. A wall here. A fuzzing table there. A thing like maybe a doorway, broken by a hash of rainbow lines.

I kick a skittering fistful of crystal cubes at the imposter's face. Impacting in a flash of light. A tinkle. A halo of rupturing sparks, barely seen through the madness. As if it hit something solid.

The thing in the chair never blinks. Or I never see it.

Android cloaked in holos. A cheap fraud.

"What did you say?" I whisper. Staring at Badger’s naked face.

No helmet. No breather.

"You're both dying. Congratulations!" Fake Spook draws a slow curl through the shattered cubes with a clawed toe. Its hologram tail clipping the chair. Its voice not quite right. "Been bloody tryin' long enough. Haven't ya? And t'think I tricked you into breathing this."

A thrill of panic. "Breathing what?"

It leans in. Those animal eyes never leave mine.

"Megaxx." It breathes. "Biomechanical, brain-eating, nanoTek. Isn't that fun?"

"....what...?" I rattle through my breather. Touching it with a hard-bitten hand.

"One little breath. One little particle. And... pow." It flops back in the chair, lifting its arms. "SURPRISE! Or did ya think she was jokin' about? Princy told your dumb ass a dozen times, and ya still fell for it! How does THAT feel?"

"Like more bloody head games!" I snarl. Stumbling a slow circle around the table. But it's getting harder and harder to walk. To think. My mind burnt by violent and unspeakable visions. By ideas that have no place in the world.

Like how tasty my own arm would be. My leg. My flesh.

The world a whirling mess of colours. Mangling my dying sight as mad things creep in from the edges. Half-seen. Half-dreamed. With faces like-

No! It's ain't real! She's a bloody liar!

It's just the implant. The battleStim.

And The School needs us alive to skin us alive..... Doesn't it?

But I can't be sure.

And there's Badger before me, cocooned in clouds of venomous pink. Breathing it in, like it's made of cotton candy.

I leap, and stumble. I fall. I leap again, crashing right into his chair. Clawed hands ripping the tape off his mouth-

"YAH! SPOO-"

-and slamming his breather back on. Dragging him away, quick as I can.

"You're gonna be okay. Nothin' to it." I shudder, ripping my hand away to rip apart my medical bag. Fighting tears all the way.

Badger tells me it’s okay. He feels fine. I don’t need to stick him with scary needles.

But I yank out precious vials of nanite fluid. Staring at them.

Flesh. Blood. But not one gleaming vial of brainHeal.

Would it even work anyway? What the Hell do I do?

Megaxx is Mother's perfume. Her sweet nightmare. Whispered of in stories, but spoken only as a curse.

I've got no idea how to counter it.

I can't scan him. Or even hug him. Not in front of Princess.

I can't.... I can't do anything.

Fake Me never moves. It simply smiles. Tapping its wrist, and mouthing 'too late!'

I stand. I take a step. But I'm in no bloody condition for a fight - we both know it.

My body half broken. My senses fractured by strange and terrifying images, and smells. By screams that shatter the edges of perception.

I want to go home.

Not home to the flat. Home to family. To Joan. To being small, and held, and protected. A little kid on his knee, pretending it's a horsie. To crayons with Badger. And parties with friends. And-

Real things. True things.

Things Princess and Mother can only mock and pervert and parody.

So easy to just fall. To give up, and die.

But even if I do, I will get the others out.

I hold tight to the idea like a candle, and gird myself to finish this. To make her pay.

Even as my vision flickers like a half-lost signal.

But I've got backup - and it arrives in a roar as Zipper's blue nails hammer into a long, controlled skid on the glass. Shredding gunfire through things that skulk in the shadows, out of my sight.

Demon roars in behind him on clinking gold claws, his tail carving savage loops across the floor. He pounces, in a savage rage as wild as battleStim. Bearing one down, and ripping it apart.

Gremlin a wild red slash of energy and violence, locked in orbit around him.

I step away.

Barely seeing the wall of foes creeping in under my haze of near-blindness. All grasping arms, and distorted faces. Mere looming shapes in the distortions and chaos. Unknowable and wrong. Like broken toys from a bad kid's playbox.

But pride tends my failing heart as the others fight.

Zipper slams the pudgy hands of Mister Tickles slam the monsters with terrifying force. Jumping every cube on the tiles. Its rotted-open face staring down at us all, with blank and guileless cheer.

But still the nightmares flicker on the ceiling.

Unseen things the others can't touch.

"Can ya feel it nibbling away in there? In your yummy, yummy, brains?" The fake grins, teetering happily on its chair. "Wonder how long it'll take? Ya never can tell."

I stare into the cold, dead, eyes of the fake-me. So deep I swear I can see Princess beaming back. Heaving breaths into a mask I can't bring myself to trust.

And, for once, I believe her. Fully. And totally.

With that, the mathematics of desperation lock into place. Setting a single path before me.

I know what I have to do.

And what it's going to cost me.

"POISON GAS!!!" I scream. "IT'S MEGAXX! I THINK IT'S REAL!!!"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Mate-!!"

"BADGER! BADGER BREATHED IT IN! SCAN HIM!!! GET 'IM TO- TO A HOSPTIAL!!!" I choke. "GREMLIN! OH SHIT! SHE NEVER WEARS HERS! SHE-"

"Oh my. Was there one more?" The fraud purrs. "How many, I wonder? It's really quite the game! Ain't it?"

"MATE! SHIT! LIKE- WHAT- DID-"

"JUST GO! GO! I'M FINE!" I point to my breather. "I GOTTA KILL THIS BITCH!"

I'm glad I can't see the terror in the eyes of my crew. But I know that Princess will not correct me.

It's just more fun that way.

Why, Badger? Did you pull the breather off, when I couldn't see?

Or did Princess pull it off for you?

And Gremlin..... poor little Gremlin.....

I might never even know. And I don't want to see them-

I stagger a step, and slam one hand on the table. It's getting hard to think. My blood freezing to sudden threads of ice that crack and spike inside me. Thin as poison needles.

But I force myself forward, directly toward my copy.

Zipper stutters me in what I assume is horror. "SHIT! LIKE, COME ON!!"

A mess of triangles swops Badger away, in a patter of Tufty-sized claws. Green flashes clawing his taped hands from the chair.

In moments they're gone.

Leaving only Tickles, and its great crushing hands.

And the fraud in the chair.

And me.

"Shame. I do love our little Playdates." The figure flicks a clawed hand. Sinuous. Slow. In mirror of my own. The gesture terrifying on a level I never realised. "Guess this is the last of em, though. They're over forever....."

"And ever." Echo the things lost in the abstract mash of lines around me.

"And ever." Howl faceless screaming mouths. Walls melting into existence, then flickering with fire.

"But now I get to watch em suffer. Ain't that excitin'?" The fraud stands, amid the ruin. Flickers of butler-bot shimmering beneath as it clothes itself in Princess.

Flipping open a gleaming brass pocketwatch.

"Goodness!" She tinkles. "Look at the time!" She snaps it shut. "Fancy a Game? Last One, I swear."

"Last one forever." Hiss the things in the shadows.

A provocation. But I just don't care.

I jerk a scratching hand from my breather, and gasp. Slapping my fleeing thoughts into line.

My left eye is stuck in its socket. Unmoving.

But the fury inside me is worse than a tsunami of battleStim - because, this time, it's real.

She might have killed Badger. Gremlin. And me.

I will MAKE HER PAY.

My legs drive me toward her. Staggering. Leaping. Pounding my numbed and bleeding hand into thin metal neck.

I carry her backwards, over the chair, and fake skin meets very real floor. Hololight sparking off cubes of refractive crystal glass.

The illusion blurs, and suddenly we're face to smiling face.

"You can play dollies with me you want." She smiles.

"So many dollies." Says a lollypop head, crawling up the stairs.

"All that you can handle." Hums another version of me.

"No more hacking. I glued the ports shut."

"And it won't be long til you're dead!"

"Isn't than Nice!?"

"I've won! Aren't you going to Clap And Cheer?"

"You're a Good Sport, aren't you?"

I shudder in their midst. Faces crowding in. My team. My friends. Myself. My enemies.

"There there. Precious Spookie." The one beneath me tinkles. "Nothing is going to be alright....."

With a scream I rip the bot's head off, and hurl it at my foes. Staggering. Reeling. Almost blind, and half way deaf. Bashing away at groping hands. At slow fingers, reaching out to take me.

I can still hear. Still feel. I have senses.

And I still have Zipper, patched in remotely. His massive clown slamming fists into the fray. Slapping dolls into walls with incredible force. Shattering more and more of the windows around me.

I stand up. Claws loose. Dangling.

Blood dribbling from the corners of my eyes.

I feel different. I feel strange.

The pressure of The Thing That Watches burning a hungry, laser-point, of agony through my skull.

My only compass in the entire world.

There's only one thing I can do.

"ZIPPER!" I scream. "CLEAR A PATH!!!"

And I run. Directly toward that storm of pain and turmoil as flashes of terror and madness burn through me. Visions of nightmares that have no place in our world, or any other.

Eyes in outer darkness.

Eyes that do not exist.

A maw that cannot be sated.

Though it devours all that is.

I stumble and slam through a door. Turrets dropping from every corner. A bullet smacking my shoulder. Another cracking my wrist as I dive between ancient control consoles.

"Oh Spoookie!! Wherever did you go?" Princess echoes across the forgotten lab. “Are we playing hide and seek?? You know I always win….” A little tinkling laugh. “The trick is poison gasses! And, oh! How sweet does Megaxx smell! So sweet!"

I skid into a slide as gunfire rips through the space where I was. Shots smashing across the back of my armour.

"You aren't going the right way, you know."

A hallway. Another turret. Unseen, but roaring with fire. Gauss slugs smashing off walls.

I raise my SMG, and guess its position. But the trigger clicks. The counter zero.

I curse it, and claw at my armour. Hunting for bombs. EMPs or-

A drone killer disc, locked into my wrist. The last of them all.

Shit. Why not? I'm dead anyway.

It hits the floor, and auto-activates. Targeting... something? ... as it tumbles away. Heard, but never seen.

Whatever it is explodes, and I blur down the hallway on all fours. Almost slamming, face, first, into a heard metal wall.

"Wait. Why are you going down there??"

No. Not a wall. Double doors. Sliding doors. Magnetically sealed. I feel them. I can hear the hum, if that isn't my ears.

"You know there's nothing in there." She doesn't sound paniced.

Shit. Shit. No button? No lock?

"You know. I could help you!" She sings over my head. "You're almost dead anyway! So here's a friendly arrow pointing directly towards ME! Isn't that nice? You can try to-"

Can't even see it. And I know it's a lie.

So I press my face to the cool door as the turret sparks against my back. Leaking smoke, as a storm of disjointed steps thunder closer and closer.

Metal feet and childish calls.

Playthings.

I'm so close. But how do-

Tufty slams into my back, like an over-eager cushion. Latching onto my arm, and stabbing a pin-sharp needle into the back of the hand still pressed to the door. Blasting fresh cold and shock and panic through my system.

My breath shoots out as my knees give way. My arm yanking back, too slowly. Too weak to dislodge him.

"I'm sorrry! I'm sorrry!! I had to! Badger told me to-"

"TRAITOR-"

"YEEEE!! NO! WAIT! SPOOK!!" He squeaks. Latching on with hands and feet alike. Shoving the vial in my face.

I can't read it. I can barely see the shadow of his hand.

"What.... is it!?" I try to breathe.

"Um! Um!" He shakes it. "It's brainHeal! Badger told me-"

"No......" I stare. "Shit! No! No! No! No! He had some!? He could've bloody used it!! But he wasted it on-"

"Spook. He c-cares about-"

"HE BREATHED MEGAXX! HE BREATHED IT MORE!" I roar, and the kid goes totally rigid. "Oh my God, he's....."

My hands hit the floor, and Tufty rolls off. Leaving me to stare at nothing, as loss and terror and chaos saw at my heartstrings.

Cutting me apart, bit by bit, as my claws bleed into the cold tiles.

"What.... has... he.... bloody.... done....." I turn my head, staring down the hall. Unseeing. Unfeeling. Unable to process. "He killed himself. For me?"

"What~? Nya! No!!!" Tufty untangles his legs, and slips off of me in a panic. A stumbling shadow in a sea of digital chaos. Crowded by shambling nightmares only I can see. "He said- He said you were hurt!!!"

He doesn't want to believe it.

Neither do I.

"Tufty." I whisper. Shoving myself up the wall, legs shaking. "It's gonna be okay-"

A little girly giggle. “Liar, liar, pants on fire….”

"IT'S GONNA BE OKAY!" I spin to Tufty's shadow. Catching a flash of his scared little face - of Princess, behind him. Reclined atop a cartoony puff of greenish death, with happy lil skulls a-bubbling inside it.

One hand tracing his neck, to his breather.

And something detonates inside me.

"Alright Princess." I smile like The Night Tyrant. "Y'want death. You got it."

I turn to the shadow of Tufty. Grabbing him by the helmet. A fuzzy little ear twitching against my hand, reminding me how small and-

"Sorry." I whisper, with terrible self-hate in my heart. "Somatic Command Code."

"Spoook! No! No!" The shadow drops to his knees.

"Somatic Command Code." I grip tighter. "'Mummy Says-"

"NO! PLEASE! NO!!" Princess and Tufty scream at the exact same time.

"-You Gotta Play With Me'."

The boy goes utterly rigid. Tail to ears to toes.

Then, quite slowly. I twist his face toward Princess.

"Single Target." I breathe. "One Bad Little Girl."

"Bad Children Need To Be Punished." Tufty says, in a dreamy voice, as I let go of his head. One green claw slipping up to disengage his helmet. Leaving only the breather, adhered to his face.

And then. Very slowly. The shadow of the cat pushes his fringe to the other side.

Cutting a deeper, eerier, shadow across that tiny face.

A hole into void.

Into utter darkness.

In which burns a violent crimson star.

"Go Play." I whisper. And all the lights above us explode.

A flicker of night. And, just like that, Tufty is gone.

"What have you done?" Princess whispers as everything electronic sparks, and flickers, and crackles to darkness.

Taking the last of my vision with it.

So much for my shit being shielded.

"Exactly what you were gonna do to us." I snarl, in self-hate. "Or d'ya think I wouldn't sus why you cornered him?" I can only picture the horror on her face as I step toward the memory of where she was. "You wanted to see if it still worked."

God. I just hope he can bloody forgive me.

Or... maybe I don't.

Maybe it's better if he hates me. Maybe it's easier.

I stab my claws into the gap of the now-dead doors. Levering them open, inch by terrifying inch.

Beyond it, I sense a vast space.

A cavern of crates, known only by touch. Of scrolls, and tins, and sealed metal tubes. Bumpy, and smooth, as I crawl across their backs. Of broken droids. A box of dead faces. And bits of old mek, laid out on long pallets.

I walk along the polished back of, maybe, a boat. Dropping into a world of salvaged machines chanting numbers and symbols. Endlessly whispering into a dark that cannot end.

And there, at the back, I feel it.

I fumble toward it.

A sealed cage, filled with boxes that paint my mind's eye with every unreal colour. Carving themselves from shadow and nothingness in the blindness and void.

Not light. Colour. As if sight had nothing to do with how I see them.

I reach out my claws, and stumble toward them. The echoes of Princess, and her soldiers, slamming at my back. Pushing me forwards. Along with my desperate intent. My guilt.

What have I done to Tufty? Who only tried to help?

What Have I done?

A steel tube falls off its shelf, as if pushed.

Rolling towards me.

Not quickly. Not slowly. But with a force to shatter the door, and its lock.

Rattling along, all the way to my feet.

It goes tink against my claws.

I reach down, and violence coloured Blue burns through the old metal. Melting it away, even as I stand there. As I stare. As my stuttering heart quickens, one last time.

A shard of The Left Hand Of The Devil wraps itself around my finger. Fluid, and yet alive. Stringing itself up my hand, to prick itself into my skin.

And then.... the entire warehouse is....

....no more.

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