>> The Wreckage Of Fate

Silence, and darkness, and shattered bodies litter the hyperloop. Ruby lights blackened, and smoking, as hidden electrical panels drizzle sparks onto the bloodied ruins of the dead. Eviscerated, and steaming, upon the floor.

The eerie slather of colourful fluids slowly draining down the sides of the tunnel. Pooling, quietly, around a boy whose hair was at one point green.

Tufty is an absolute mess in the midst of utter carnage.

His fur, hair, and skin slick with horrific gore. His claws digging, tight, into the severed head of a mangled rat-creature. Its face now slack, and glassy-eyed. Its blood pouring from between his fingers to drench..... everything.... as his tail lashes a slithering 'S' through the gore. His shaking body rocking, gently, as mewls and sobs and shrill little giggles spill from his chest.

"Mummy says I can be as Bad as I want, if I'm a Good Little Boy....." He whispers to it, madly. Almost lovingly. Ripping at the flesh of the torn-off head. His body contracting, until the forehead of the rat-man meets his own. "And Mummy Always Knows Best...... Mummy always-"

"Tufty?" I whisper. And his whole body goes sharp and rigid.

A thrill of terror. Of horror.

"Tufty....?"

The torn-off head slips from his hands, as he stares at them. Touching his face. "No.... No.... no...... nonono....."

I stumble toward him, crouching on the rim of the bloody explosion. Meat and gore plastered all across the flickering, reddish, darkness of the tunnel. Kicking a scaly rat-leg that shimmers in and out of focus. Its surface threaded with wires and nodes. With tiny tubes that that ooze a strange, clear, fluid that isn't quite water.

Slowly the kid's face jerks, and twitches, toward me. A leaking hand pressed tight to the left side. The other a wash of stained fringe, as if he has no eyes at all.

Except for a single spark of terrified green, shining through the strands.

I stare at it, as if across a mile of bloody ocean. Reaching out, as if to touch his face.

But I can no more move than I can fly.

My arm falling as Demon's huge shadow rolls between us. His hand touching Tufty, as if expecting a vicious shock. But when none comes he scoops the boy into a tight, but bloody, hug. Clawed hands cupping the boy's stained mop of malachite hair as he speaks soft reassurance, like a big brother should.

The small cat nods, wearily, plastering his fringe down over the usual eye. And shivering. Shuddering. Sobbing, so gently, as Demon pets his head. "No....... It won't..... I'm okay......" He breathes.

But Demon lifts him free of the staining gore, and carries him away from me.

Slowly, my hand falls. Something bitter in my throat, as dark ink burns the edges of memory. An echo of tinplate rattling on a faraway tower. The heavy thump of boots, on water.... or blood, behind me. The tink of metal arms.

For a moment she stands there.

And then she turns. Leaving me, alone, at the heart of desolation.

Alone, as the others spiral around me.

Zipper, coaxing a sore and unhappy Gremlin from under his cloak. Kami scanning bodies, and frowning, though her eyes never once leave Tufty. And Badger...... staring off into oblivion. His beaming face splattered with strange blood.

"Hey?" I call, but he doesn't move. "Badger?"

I take a step, and he blinks. "Huh....? SPOOK!"

"Right. You ok-" I start, but Kami jerks my arm.

"SHIT! Spook! You need to look at this!"

"Kami, hold-!" I yelp, but she yanks me hard toward the massive corpse of the multi-headed rat. "What is this?"

"Mate!" Zip pops out from behind it, holding the severed pipes. "Shit, like, you seen this?"

"What??" I jerk away from Kami, and snarl.

"Look, mate!" Zipper yells over, jabbing a pair of fingers at the hulking corpse. "Look at them, mate!"

"Look at...." I stare at the ruined hulk of the dead monster. The dead rat. Its body carved by crude cybernetics. With bolts and pins and chips spiked through its skull - all chips and wires and tech where a person should be.

Images of the fight are burnt into my mind, like flash-frozen slices of mayhem. A slideshow of carnage, and bloody claws, and panic. Every instant perfect, and pristine, as a photo.

Yet I never noticed the emblem tattooed into its neck.

A logo shaped like a chaos of woven arrows - pointing in every direction.

Circled by a chain of brassy words.

"Holy shit......" I whisper, as chills go writhing up my back. "Property of Wayman Company....."

And all the pieces begin to lock.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Rats.

Freaking rats. And people trying to kill us.

I drop to my haunches, ripping through electrical guts, and wires. Looking for some clue, or sign or mistake. Because if Wayman are here. If they're right here, right now.....

What the Hell does this mean? And how did they find us?

Kami pokes at the butchered brain with a viciously tooth-edged tactical knife. Its gloopy surface wormed full of wires and strange metal parasites. She sucks breath, and drops the bloodied tip. "Shit, Spook. They're chip slaves. Fully mind-controlled. I think we did them a favour....."

"Wayman.... can do that? They got the Tek for it??" I hiss. "Shit, it looks cobbled enough."

Kami's whole body shivers. "Are doing this to those people they sent at us.....? Those little kids.....?"

Zipper blinks as her eyes flip to Gremlin, chewing furiously at one of his straps. Then Badger, sat alone and quiet and smiling. Then, finally, to Tufty. Her brow furrowing in thought.

"Regardless. This is concerning." Polybius says through the speaker on my gun. "Wayman Company should not have this capability."

"Nobody should." I snarl. Though I'm pretty sure that ain't what Pol meant.

“T-they’re not going to do that to us, a-are they?” Tufty whimpers, blinking shyly from behind Demon.

We all stare at him, then look away. "I won't let em." I state, with force. “Don’t even worry about it.”

He nods. “O-okay then…. Right.”

I beam back, gathering my wits. “Now-” A low wump shudders the floor. An almost imperceptible thrum through my skin. So soft that Kami, in her boots, doesn't even notice.

"What?" She blinks as we turn away from her. Staring deep into the red-shadowed darkness of the hyperloop's distant trainyard. "Spook-"

"Shhh....." I hiss as a merry tinkle of quiet laughter zings through the air. Unnatural, and garish, and far too joyful in the vast void of the tunnel. Echoes carrying it from nowhere and everywhere. Behind us, and in front.

Like a fossil of a sound, echoing forever in the endless tunnels.

Tufty's eye begins to saucer. His body rigid as green ears flick and rotate. Failing to pin down the echo. Zipper behind him, cupping his own - human - ear.

The floor thrums again, and a terrible realisation builds in my chest.

"Run." I hiss

"Spook, what are you-"

Tiny pinprick lights flicker along the endless track, and all of us jerk and stumble into action. A slow, almost imaginary, wave of air billowing against skin. The first gentle breath of a thing, long forgotten, stirring from its eternal sleep. Dusting the fur on my tail, and ears. Coaxing up whispers of dust from the floor.

"RUN!!" I scream as Demon pulls Tufty onto his back - with only a flicker of hesitation. Bits of my armour jerking and stuttering as as if caught in something magnetic.

I turn tail, and hammer down onto all fours. Zipper grabbing an inert Badger as we break back the way we came at full speed. Already, I can feel it. The hyperloop train is a massive weight behind us. Slow, and heavy, and building in relentless and terrible power. A massive plunger, shoving air down the tunnel toward us.

In solid vacuum it's true top speed would be thousands of miles an hour. Out here? It's harder to say. But I know for a Goddamned fact it won't need thousands to mash us.

About forty would do.

But what bursts from the end of the tunnel is no train.

Instead, as if by magic, a million glowing-bright butterflies erupt into a roaring swarm that blazes past us. A billion rainbow wings that spark and streak and flood my vision. Whirling around me. So many their wings hum a wobbling note I've never heard before.

Stumbling us with their chaos of green, and red, and shining blue. Purple, and orange, and every other colour.

"IT'S A TRICK!" I roar as we explode down the hyperloop. "THEY'RE HIDING THE TRAIN!! IT'S COMING!!"

And terror digs its metal claws right into my spine. We're stuck in a tube. We’ve got nowhere to go. My heart banging with a fury. My body shoved along by the pressure and force of displaced air builds into a roar behind me.

"SPOOK! I CAN'T-" Kami screams from behind me. My vision scratchy. My robotic eyes fuzzing as the magnets build their charge. Most of our kit is plastic, or titanium, but every steel screw is suddenly yanking me down. Colours and errors flashing across my visions as emergency lights begin to flash.

The thrum of the butterflies isn't their wings. It's an engine.

An engine of awful power, from a time before all reckoning.

Churning and rumbling. Building with fury as it hammers toward us, out of the tunnel.

Ahead of us, a vacuum seal begins to shimmer. Lights flickering as the ancient track comes fully alive. My mind racing through possibilities at a lightening speed.

Would it stop the train? No. We're meant to think it will.

Will it stop us? Hell yes.

I put hands and toes to the plastic, and blur with speed. Outpacing Zipper's streak of blue, as I aim directly for the service-hatch. Kami, far behind - cursing us all for abandoning her.

But we aren't. We're clearing the way.

Or that's what I tell myself as me and Zipper leap clear through the airShield. Right as it snaps taught and shut. Fumbling for a frag I don't have, as I run for the control hatch. Kami and Demon slamming into the electric wall - locked into a bubble of raging butterflies, with jolts of power sparking off hammering fists.

A little dark thought whispering no more Kami, no more proble-

"QUICK! BLOW THE BLOODY HATCH OR-!" I scream, to drown it.

"REALLY!??!" Badger trills with sparkly eyes, and all the blood in me turns cold.

"NO! WAIT-!" I start, but the boy is already in motion. His real hand a blur as he tosses a chunky little pipe-bomb directly, into the hole.

Detonating it with a fang-rattling WAM that pulps everything inside.

Every lights dies. The airShield fluttering. Failing.

It bursts as Demon's fist punches directly though it. Hauling Kami towards him as golden butterflies thunder around them in fountaining waves. Tiny wings screaming as we turn and race our death around the swooping curve of the hyperloop junction - riding the tsunami, all the way to the join.

And trying, very hard, to ignore the hidious noise of it crushing the corpses into a smear. The sweat already thick on my scalp from the fight before. My body aching for rest I can't afford to give it.

But I see the break in the passage. The wall vanishing to my left as our tunnel pulls a hocky-stick to merge with the main hyperloop track.

And this the moment of truth - I can feel it.

What they want if for us to panic. To not think. To follow the track, like good little idiots, and get ground into fine paste like the corpses behind us.

Actual, literal, paste.

We take that straight, and it'll roll hup behind us. Gather speed. And we'll be smeared across five miles of tunnel.

So there's only one option, and I take it as hard as I can. Grabbing Demon's arm as I kick myself, sideways, over the divider-line. Rolling, with him, onto the main hyperloop track - right before the two routes merge.

Zip grabs Kami's arm, and something soars above them. Trailing a strap.

Badger's satchel.

It tumble through the air behind us, as if caught on a butterfly wing. Spinning. Turning. Surrounded by colour.

And then it's gone in a blurring, blaring, rush as a bajillion tons of hyperloop train skewers past us like a serpentine missile. Jerking and skinning the walls as the track's control-systems fail. Smashing a massive dent as blaring ionic engines carve around the corner. Trailed by an endless river of more and more train.

Until it happens.

A sudden, shaking, BOOM that rattles through the ground. There's a movement of uncertainty as relentless engine barely shakes. As if shrugging off the terrible, but distant, blast ripping the nose off the engine.

But then it gets worse. The snaking carriages slamming from side to side. The motion building into a crashing, flexing, writhing of metal - as if the train had somehow gained a mind of it own.

A mind wracked with pain, and hate, and terror. With mayhem that rattles the bones in our skin.

And then The Grand Quebec Express takes an unscheduled detour through the wall of the junction.

Ripping the hyperloop apart.

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