>> The Teddybear Apocalypse

A thrum of shuddering life roars through the factory around us. A hammering. A thudding. A shaping of raw iron, and steel, and plastic. A thousand processes awakening after a hundred years of silence.

Gravitational conveyors stream with floating parts. Pumping gears, and wheels, and reams of wire into every machine around us. Which unfold into spider-armed monstrosities. With lasers, and blades, and stamping hammers all jerking to terrible life.

Grids of red and green scan across us. Across everything. Steel fingers snapping up scraps of trash. Flecks of rubble. Broken parts. Forcing me to hop, and dance, and dodge between the darting arms.

In half a breath, they're done.

And then the engines ROAR around me.

A thousand stabbing tools blaze pure, and incandescent, white. Smearing trails across my broken vision as they fire timed globules of vaporised metal. Sucking the heat from the impact-site to print a skeleton at terrifying speed.

Bones and sockets and blades grow from nothing at all, faster than thought.

The shatter-headed clown leaning down upon us. Gripping the edges of the machines, as Princess laughs, and laughs beneath it.

"TUFTY! COME ON!" I scream as factory systems tear past his face. Forcing me to twist, and flip, and dive between blades. Between hammers and nozzles that pump molten-hot plastic.

But what can I do? Grab him?

I can't. I just can't.

But he will never move again, if I don't-

I force open my hand. I yell at him. I beg. But I know. I know the only solution is to-

In a white hot instant of panic, I snatch his wrist and kick off the corner of the wall. Leaping to grab the top of the machine and roll us onto it.

He stares up at me. Toy-sized and terrified.

And guilt rams my heart as I hurl him aside.

The kid twists to lash a instinctive kick-and-jump off an incoming machine. Tail streaming up and away. My own whipping wild as I leap the fat, car-crushing, fist of Mister Tickles. Metal crunching like tinfoil. Forcing me to stagger. To fight for balance.

Blinding flashes of terrible light roaring up from the shattered depths of its blown-open skull. Spitting and literal fireworks. The whole of its head enswarmed by thousands of contraction bots. New eyes growing from the ruins, even as I stare.

Holy shit. It was right in front of me. The Factory has its own, separate, drone system.

That's why she could just blow up her team.

She didn't need them anymore.

I stagger back as the titanic head twitches toward me. Metal things clanging in the depths. Readying themselves to arise. To crush us, and devour us.

But I've got a bloody plan. And so I run. Chasing the cat from engine to engine as the clown snatches at my legs with tender, twitching, fingers. Slamming its hands into machines all around us. Forcing us to duck for cover in the passages beneath, while Princess rises behind us.

Resplendent, and terrible, and mad with maddening colour.

But there is no escape. This entire freaking place is a construction line - with metal walls that unfolding and unravel. Lashing out at us us with beams of incandescent light. Slashing, and hacking away at our very lives.

I catch Tufty again, and hurl him into a cross-hatched area.

Hunkering there, as the world goes wild around us.

"The Hell they making?" I yell. But Tufty is no help. Trapped, as he is, in a shivery little huddle of anxiety. Twitching, and jerking, as echoes of Princess skip across the factory.

She's everywhere. In every screen. Every reflection.

She is the building.

And, ready or not, here she comes.

But I won't give her the breath she needs to build her army. Because that army is gonna be mine.

I rip open a panel with my claws. Revealing a labyrinth of cables and tiny, ticking, drones that seem very surprised to see us.

I ignore it all, and feel along the underside. "No ports. We can't jack in."

"Show me." My gun crackles, tweaking one of my ears up.

"Sure." I shove my pistol's camera into the dark, dusty, void beneath the machines. Tracking it over cables. Junctions. Bundles of wire. Forgotten tools. Scurrying shapes that slip into darkness. "Got it?"

A long instant of silence. And then-

"Scan everything." It states.

"What? Why-?"

But the image vanishes.

I wet hesitant lips inside my breather. The factory a roaring, demonic, force that shakes my insides. Faster. Faster. Building to a brutal climax as we work. My vision fractured by bleeding threads of unholy purple.

No way can I even attempt a scan. My implant is cooked. My HUD is just.... gone.

But I got other options.

"Tufty. Get over here. Quick." I hiss through the filters.

The cat lets out a soft little noise, but nods. His left hand flickering with strange little lights.

I turn to guard him. But no. There's no time for caution.

Not when we could cut off the existence of this army before it ever springs to life.

I rip off another panel, and hammer my arm into its metal guts. Curse, then rip off others. A terrible well of fear boiling inside me. Ticking down to death, like the snip of those sheers.

Shink. Shink.

I can hear them. They're closing in. The entire floor shaking as her malformed 'friends' spring into life. Ripping their way free of the very machines that created them.

And then turning. Clattering. Twisting to face us.

A fingerless, velvet-stitched, hand jerks around the corner. Dragging a flat, pink, circle of a head inflated with thick plushie stuffing. Another, and another! All bodies clothed in table-cloth dresses. In stitched-together seat-covers from a long-ago train.

A mockery of a child's first raggedy doll. With a painted-on smile.

And then. As if by some order.

They speak.

"GOODIE! GOODIE! NEW-NEW FRIENDS!" Scream each and every one, in a metal-torn chorus direct from Hell itself. Tottering, rigidly, on too-stiff legs, as they stare at us with coal-beaded eyes.

"Oh shit no!" I yowl, bounding back and away. The first, and closest, flailing a leap at Tufty. Arms wide. Stitched mouth ripping into a hideous wail.

"HUGS ARE HOW WE SAY 'I CARE'!"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

It tries to loop him with its bendy limbs. My heart jerking. My useless hands snapping forward, as if I can fight my own mind.

But Tufty ain't half as afraid of some freakish puppet as he is of Princess.

He leaps directly up, kicking off its pastel-shaped head into a whipping backflip. The Plaything stumbles. And the cat lands on my back, light as a thrown cushion. Tail a bright green lash behind him.

I panic.

I almost throw him to the damned bots.

But, instead, I flick him off and hammer out a [Burst] fire. Twice. Pummelling their front line, as we back away at a rapid lick. "TIME FOR A TEA PARTY! OH-HO!!" Chortles a fat and horribly flowery pot. Huge glassy eyes rolling toward us as nightmarish smoke and liquid fire bubble from its spout.

We leap across the mayhem of another production line as everything explodes behind us. A rage of torrential fire to rival the Eternal Storms outside. The monsters pissing great burning streams of fire in every direction. Plastering the plate metal machines. The cables. Themselves.

Belching smoke, but never burning, as they march us ever backwards.

Faces melting right off their heads in slick, burning, strips.

I hammer them again, and again. Sending bots tumbling, back, into the own flames.

Crawling toward me, through the flames, as we leap a production-line choked by tube-filled components. Metal arms flicking free from the walls. Twisting to stab us, and snap off our fingers.

I block with my SMG, and roll.

LMG ‘Red Glory’ SMG :: 281/440

"She's bleedin' off our ammo!" I yell. "I got one mag left, but she's got a damn army! We can't fight it!"

"R-right!" Tufty stutters, as if he'd even been trying.

"Fall back! Fall back! Go!"

We bolt through the maze of hammering engines. Left, and right, and left again. Keeping to our yellow-striped sanctuaries as we filter our way through Princess's massive trap.

But massive is almost an understatement.

And we're running out of time.

I skid into an alleyway, and jam my neuroJack cable at a port. Then another.

"It don't bloody fit!" I snarl at the cat. "It don't fit anything!"

"Oh. Having trouble?" He purrs in a girlish mockery of his own real voice. Head ratcheting to one side, like a plaything doll's, to reveal a slatted eye shining with malice and fear. "You don't really think you can Hack my Bestest Bestie? Do you?"

"Piss off, Princess." I sneer. But The word jerks in the air. Turning into "Tufty."

"There! There!" He sobs. "I knew you didn't like me! Wah! Wah! Wah!!" The face snaps suddenly neutral. "Did I ever show you what's under the hair? I really do think Princess should cut it off. Even if I scream and beg."

I don't answer. Storming my way to the next machine, and tearing its control-system apart. But the tek is as alien to me as I am to it. Its designs archaic. Relics of a civilisation long brought to dust.

I cannot connect.

I just can't.

Tufty's head tilts strangely. Leaving a shadowy echo of real behind. "Say. How are you going to hack it, anyway? Didn't our bestist best hacker have a Tewible Accident?" A ghostly hand mimes a trip down the stairs. "So-"

The thing stealing his image stops. Cold.

Princess steps free of him. Her skin greying before my eyes as a nightmare of wings and cogs whirls into being above my weapon.

Flickering, and dark.

As if projected from shadow, not light.

"YOU." She breathes. "No..... No..... NO! YOU AREN'T HERE! YOU CAN'T BE! YOU BELONG TO-"

"No." Polybius states, with the finality of granite.

The girl's lip trembles. Suddenly vulnerable, in a way she never was before. "But-"

"No." It repeats, and I hear springs tighten within its unholy shadows. The image shifting as the many eyes of The Machine Mind flick to me. "Group cohesion has been shattered. All of you are alone."

I glance at the girl peeling herself from Tufty. Her eyes frozen, boggling and huge.

As if all her reality had come crashing down at once.

"And what are you doin'?"

"Guiding. Assessing primary and secondary targets. Running battle simulations."

I nod. "Connection is a no-go. It's plan B and D from here." I flick an eye at Princess. "Tell Kami 'Rule One'. Demon grabs the shorties. Rally the rest on me t's- i time to kill a bitch."

"And what will you do?" The ghost of Princess twists through sneering lips. Batting her lush lids. "Do tell?"

My jaw sets like iron. "What I gotta." I snarl, pushing out a low breath. "Polybius. Time for some extreme prejudice. I'm goin' full out, so prep for entry."

Princess steps around me. Staring at me from every angle. "But you can't get in."

My ears flatten. "Says you. Bitch-queen of bullshit."

But Princess smiles right back. "You do know that isn't Polybius. Don't you?" She says, primly. A psycho smile lighting her oh-so-white teeth. "And, oh dearie me, you forgot about my little warning? Didn't you? Ho hum."

And then she's gone, in a puff of animated confetti.

My stabbing finger falters, but then I gird my teeth. "Bloody lies. C'mon."

And we run.

Ripping through the factory in a blur of claws, and streaming tails, and painted metal. Of cables hooked, and swung from, as we move like only GMOs can. As the things in the metal maze close ever in, and in.

"Projected rally point, thirty metrics ahead."

"Go! Go!" I yell, a flash of blue above as Zipper front-flips out of a very high window. A massive, blue-velvet, bunny crashing out behind him.

For almost a second, he seems to fly. Echoes of broken holo fracturing around his arms, like wings.

And then he falls. Swooping down, and down, on a rappel I can't even see. Vanishing, as I pull even with him. My snarling face tracking the lumbering hulk of Mister Tickles as it turns. Staring at his last position, with a half-built face.

We pour on speed. My gun flicking with arrows that begin to cross as we close on my team.

A sorry replacement for my HUD, now carved by scars of darkness that itch and twitch across my vision. A devil’s hymn of chaos screaming at me from the corners of reality. Eager to consume me.

The clock is accelerating.

Nineteen minutes, ten seconds, until everything fails. My life ticking rapidly to zero, as Mister Tickles expands in my vision. Our steps hunted by monster in a metal maze. Our breath sharp as the painted stripes blur beneath us.

My flare sputtering. Edging on failure.

I slam heels into a skid as something fuzzy and blue hammers in from one side. Impacting the floor like a mortar shell. For half an instant I think it's Zipper. But Zipper isn't two metrics wide.

"Hello children. Did you miss me?" Princess sneers, in the exact tone of Moon. Stepping, lightly, from the paw of a doofy blueberry bear. Its big, stupid, face a mayhem of colours and glitches and darkness. Barely a holo at all.

As if she knows about my implant.

As if she's trying to confuse me. Or get in my head.

Or she's already there.

But I narrow my eyes. Snapping my SMG up to the ready as I blow her left wing apart. Ripping a line of bullets all the way through it, and half up one shoulder.

I guessed bloody right. It's her. The android.

"Saved me a bloody walk!" I roar, leaping high to crash down upon her. The droid twisting to one side, so I land directly ahead. Whipping a clawed kick right at her face.

She's smiling. Why is she-

Wait! Shit!

I leap, straight up, as the bear's heavy fist skates past my nose. Punching a solid, three-foot, hole in the side of a machine. Static screaming along the whole length of its massive, hairy, arm. Shooting me glimpses of the flowing, articulated, metal beneath.

God. It's so hard to focus.

My mind is tearing apart.

The bear turns its flickering, unreal, head. And somewhere inside I hear an old tape-recorder click. Dull speakers rattling their way through the first, tired, bars of The Teddybear's Picnic.

"I made a friend! Do you like him?" Princess beams. Bringing a pretty foot down on my back.

I spin away from it, and her toes crack the floor. The droid's ankle spinning itself into a cork-screw, to bring the other around in a sweep. Snapping it clean past my nose. Spinning her again, like a top, as she brings her heel into the mix. The bear hammering a fist, right at my knee, as she whirls around for the third.

I hop backward, onto the arm.

And Princess smiles, dropping her leg and lifting the other. Snapping her foot back into place.

"Oh what fun we'll have, when I bring you all home!" Princess sings, with a guillotine snap of her scissors. "I'll bake you a cake, and we'll all hold hands! And there'll be fun, and blood, and screaming every day!"

I jink left as she leaps, but the damned bear moves in time with her. An extension of her body. Its fist arcing right past my eyes. Right toward at Tufty, who leaps and flails. Shrieking and crying as a thousand images of Princess swing scissors and wands at his tail.

"And you! Little kitty! I'll make you into such a pretty little doll! With green felty ears, and a great big SMILE!"

"It ain't real! Tufty! Get over with-" I falter, as the flare sputters its last few sparks. The holos drawing in, tight once more.

"Oh my." Princess sings. "And now the REAL fun begins!"

I flip backward, again, as a cartoon paw hammers into the ground, breaking concrete. But there is no impact. None. The real paw is behind me, and I dive forward as it snaps closed - right where my spine was.

“Awwww! Doesn’t ooo want a huggie from Mr Deady-bear?” Princess purrs as that massive, goofy, cartoon thing turns to me. Titanic ‘paws’ multiplying as it swoops to crush my skull.

My gun fixates it, but what the Hell do I even shoot!?

What’s even in there!?

A sudden flicker, and I jerk to attention. "Warning: two of the team are dead." It cracks. "Demon has lost most of his blood. Badger is pursued. He says 'goodbye Spook. I love-'"

"SHUT UP!" I scream. "SHUT UP, YOU LYING WHORE-BITCH!!"

The bear thunders down upon me, and I raise my gun on impulse. Firing at its face.

"YAHH! Stop! Help! SOS!" Badger screams, barrelling through the illusion. Right as the real fake bear slams him from the side. A ‘fuzzy’ elbow knocking him clear across the room - smashing his head into a machine. Forcing a jolt of terror through my legs.

His head. With no helmet.

"FAKE!!!" I scream, leaping to grab at the arms of the 'Deadybear'. "EVERYTHING IS-"

"Badger is unconscious. His skull is fractured. Tufty is in danger."

"NO!" I spit. "NOT REAL!!"

But I'm leaping toward him. Arms outreached.

A wall of cold steel slams into my chest. A massive, metal, claw on a huge articulated arm. All cables wrapped in rings and rings of metal. Wind whistling around me.

"Reaper Protocol." I whisper. A hopeless command to my dead implant.

And it hammers my back into the steel wall of a machine.

"Spook! NO!!" Tufty screams.

"REAPER PROTOCAL!" I roar, again, as the arm draws back. My arms like jelly. My legs hanging loose.

SMASH.

I feel the armour crack along my back. The world tipping as it lifts me high. Intending to end it. To end me. To break me on the concrete floor, and shatter the parts to the wind.

"Reaper....." I breathe, as the air billows up around me.

Slow at first.

Quickening, as my finger hooks the manual release on my battleStim.

Dumping the entire cartage into my bloodstream.

"PROTOCAL!"

My heartrate rockets to infinity. Blood screaming through my veins. My body contorting in agony and rage and fire and hate that could burn away the world.

For a single instant, time simply stops.

And then, inside me, something else is born.

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