One-six

They sat on a large couch in a small and moldy room on the eighth floor of the old apartment block. The room is just high enough that the lights from the city can make their way through the small windows, giving everything not lit up by the dim yellow bulb a pale grey color.

“How did you know that we were going to come here?” One-six asked the old lady.

“I’ll get to that in a moment,” she said in a gentle, motherly manner as she poured some hot water into a brown teapot. “Would you like some tea?”

“…Yeah…sure…” One-six stuttered. He had only ever tried tea once in his life, and that was during a meeting with his superiors which he attended a long time ago. During the meeting tea was served, and One-six didn’t enjoy the bitterness of it.

The woman poured some of the reddish liquid into a porcelain cup, then brought it onto the table in front of One-six, setting it down with a slight clink. Her movements seemed to have no haste in them whatsoever as if she was an immortal being who had too much time on their hands. She then poured a cup for herself and sat down in a chair opposite One-six and his team.

She took a small sip from her cup, swallowed the hot liquid, and set it slowly.

“Well then,” she said. “Where would you like me to start.”

One-six didn’t know how to answer so he looked over at his teammates. But they had no clue either as all had the same dumbfounded expression on their faces.

The woman chuckled, took another sip, and began talking. “My name is Alpha, well, not actually, but that’s what everyone calls me and that’s what you can call me. I am the current, first, and most probably, last leader of The Phoenix Bond.”

“The…what?”

“The Phoenix Bond, a secret organization who are actively trying to make the world a better place.”

“Why is it secret?”

“Because while we are righteous, we are still very much breaking the law.”

“How so?”

“You’ll see.”

“So tell us then.”

“Your answers lie there,” Alpha gestured towards a warehouse a few blocks down the road.

One-six looked out the window towards the warehouse, the roof blackened and broken from disrepair. It lay in an industrial area similar to the recycling plant, though the buildings surrounding it seem to be in much better condition.

“I’ll take you there in a moment. But first, let’s enjoy some tea, shall we? It’ll be cold soon,” Alpha spoke calmly, taking a long sip from her cup.

One-six and his crew sipped their tea too, the still-hot liquid warming their hearts. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, but there was a pleasant flavor to it, far different from what he remembered.

“This tea is quite nice,” One-six told Alpha.

She nodded. “Have you had tea before?”

“Yes. During a meeting with my superiors.”

“They don’t brew tea properly,” she chuckled.

Their tea was quickly finished, the cold night breeze making the warm, lightly flavored liquid all the more inviting. As One-six set down his cup after one last sip, Alpha stood up slowly.

“Let’s go then,” she said to the four pilots. “Time is running short.”

*****

The old lock holding the two dusty glass doors closed required some jiggling and tugging to open, the rusty keyway barely able to accept the key.

They watched as Alpha gently slid open the two glass doors, and entered the dark interior.

“What is this place?” Two-six asked as they walked down the hallways, the walls yellow from age.

“A laboratory,” Alpha replied. “My laboratory, to be exact. I worked here for many many years.”

“Why did you stop?” One-five asked.

Alpha looked back. “Because I realized I was misguided.”

An old coffee machine sat on a table in the corner of the room, the plastic cracked and the metal rusty.

“This way,” said Alpha, leading the way.

They entered the main area of the laboratory through a simple door, unlocked and without additional security. The large space was illuminated only by beams of moonlight shining through the cracks in the ceiling.

Alpha opened an electrical box on the wall, flipped a few breakers, and several lights on the ceiling came alive, the rest presumably broken from age.

It was only then that One-six noticed the massive machine sitting at the center of the lab, bundles upon bundles of tubes and wires connected to it.

“What’s that?” Two-six asked, pointing at the machine.

“That,” Alpha said, walking up to the machine. “That is my life’s work. I poured my blood and sweat into making it, yet for all the wrong reasons…”

“What does it do?” Two-six continued asking as they walked up to the machine.

“It prints people.”

There was silence.

“I don’t… understand…” Two-six said after a moment.

“You tap some buttons, and in some hours a person comes out of the machine.”

“And…”

“That’s how Europa makes their soldiers,” Alpha said.

“I don’t understand…”

“I don’t believe you,” One-five stated sternly, taking a step forwards.

Alpha sighed. “It’s your choice.”

“Why are you telling us this?”

“Because it’s my duty.”

“How do you know we aren’t sent here by the Council? Here to expose you for your crimes and take you away?”

“If you are working for the Council, then I will be taken away and executed. Then in a few days, Europa will launch an attack with The Weapon, and the Phoenix Bond would be gone. If you are not working for the government, then the same is still going to happen. You will try your best to stop the attack, but ultimately it will be in vain. Europa will attack, New Asia will be destroyed, and we will fail. But the latter scenario has just that much more probability for us to succeed, and it is for that reason that I am telling you all this.”

“So much for so little, huh?” One-five asked.

“Compared to what I’ve been doing my entire life, tonight’s little talk is nothing,” Alpha answered. “I got the message from Takeshi. I know what you four already know. But I also know much much more. If you thought that your little discovery that night was worth something, what you are going to see next is worth ten times that.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Why can’t you just tell us the answers we want?” One-five asked. “It feels like you are trying to trick us into a trap.”

One-six wanted to object, but he too felt the same way.

“You need to see for yourselves. This factory alone speaks more than I ever can,” Alpha pointed at a door in the corner. “That’s the rest of the facility, that’s where all the secrets are. If what you see in there convinces you to fight against Europa, like it did with me, then you can come back and I’ll tell you all the answers you want.”

“I don’t believe you,” One-five said sternly.

“You don’t have to.”

“We’re leaving,” One-five said, turning towards the door.

One-six was about to reprimand him, but One-five turned his head slightly and met his eyes. That brief moment told One-six enough for him to know exactly what One-five was trying to do.

“Come on, let’s go,” One-six said to Two-six and Two-five.

“But…” Two-six opened her mouth to protest.

“I said we are leaving.”

They walked out of the door, leaving Alpha alone with the machine. She said nothing as they left, simply watched them go and the door close behind them. Then she turned back to the machine, ran her hand along the dusty paneling, and sighed.

“For thirty years I’ve been fighting,” she muttered to herself. “Is it finally going to end?”

*****

One-five

They watched from a crack in the boarded windows as Alpha walked out of the warehouse across the street, locked the door behind her, and slowly made her way back toward her apartment.

“Let’s go,” One-six whispered as Alpha disappeared down the street.

They creaked open the heavy metal door to the abandoned room and darted across the empty street. There was no one out at this time of the night, and the streets were eerily silent.

“What’s the plan?” Two-six asked as they arrived in front of the sliding glass doors.

“We’re going to see what Alpha was talking about, obviously,” One-five answered.

“I thought you didn’t trust her?”

“I don’t. But I still want to find out.”

Their lock picks were getting jammed in the rusty interior of the lock core, and no amount of lubricating oil or jiggling seemed to do the trick.

“It’s not working,” One-five whispered.

“Maybe we can go through another entrance?” Two-five, who had barely talked this entire time, suggested.

“No, it’s fine,” said One-five as he let go of the lock and backed away.

“What are you…” Two-six began to ask but had to quickly turn away when One-five grabbed a brick and slammed it into the glass.

They all turned and shielded their face as the hardened glass exploded into a million pieces, the sharp shattering echoed down the silent street.

“Come on,” One-five beckoned the others, stepping through the broken glass with a crunch.

They hurried through the warehouse, past the massive machine, and to the door that Alpha had told them about. It was unlocked, and a turn of the handle revealed the rest of the factory complex.

The hallways were brightly lit but vacant. Not many still worked this late at night. There were signs on the walls, pointing to various offices and production areas.

“What is this place?” Two-six asked.

“Factory for producing… soldiers?”

“That’s what Alpha said,” Two-six whispered. “Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know…” One-six whispered back. “But we’ll find out soon.”

They wandered around the hallways for a while, sticking close to the walls and moving as silently as possible. A few of the offices still had their lights on, and the sound of rapid typing emanated from some.

Soon their path was blocked by a sliding glass door and a card scanner, which they bypassed with an access card stolen from an empty office.

Now they were in the main production complex of the factory, the high ceiling spanning out above them seemingly indefinitely. A few guards patrolled the large sections of suspended walkways that hung down from above. Instinctively they ducked behind a section of machinery but soon relaxed once they realized the guards didn't mind them being there.

Wearily they stalked past the rows upon rows of humming and bubbling machinery. Some looked like generators, others looked like huge pressure tanks of some sort, and some looked like glass tubes filled with bubbling liquid.

Two-five pulled on One-five's sleeve. “What’s in those tubes?” She asked, pointing to the bubbling glass tubes sitting in rows beside them.

He walked up to one and put his eye up to it. There were small cables inside, connected to what seemed like a little pink ball, suspended in the bubbling liquid.

“I don’t know…”

As they walked further and further along, One-five noticed that the things inside the glass tubes began to change. It went from nothing to a little ball, then to a vaguely humanoid object.

“One-six,” he called out, speeding up his steps a little to catch up. “Look at these tubes. Don’t they look like…little people?”

“Yeah…they do…”

“What Alpha said… bio-robots? I think thats what the New Asian pilots said,” One-five mumbled. “These tubes have the words ‘bio-robot intubation tube’ printed on their control panels.”

“I searched through the military database already, there was not a single use of the word ‘bio-robot’ anywhere,” Two-five said.

“Are you sure?” One-six asked, “If they are used here, it must be a real word, and the database has the definition of every word in existence.”

“Very sure,” Two-five replied. “I wrote the script myself. Every single word in the database. Took a good while to scour everything. There were exactly zero matches.”

“I thought the New Asian pilots were misinformed,” One-six continued. “But even Takeshi mentioned it, and now with what Alpha told us…”

“We’re bio-robots, aren’t we?” Two-six asked, a slight panic in her voice. “We come from those machines don’t we?”

One-six put a finger to his mouth, signaling for Two-six to stay quiet.

They continued walking past the glass tubes until they arrived at another divide within the factory. Once again the stolen card was used to get past the locked door.

This time, instead of glass tubes, there were bodies hung up on conveyor belts by their necks like artillery shells on a production line. One-six could see the empty eyes, the pupils dilated.

“What is…” One-six mumbled to himself, standing in shock just past the doorway.

His teammates were standing still too, looking up at the rows upon rows of not-quite-dead, not-quite-alive bodies.

All of them have differing hair colors, and all seemed to be younger than One-six and his team. They were hung above a raised platform, from which talking could be heard.

“These… look like people…” Two-six whispered. “Bio-robots…”

One-six grabbed onto the edge of the raised platform and lifted his head over. He could see one man in a white lab coat talking to two men dressed in military uniforms. Judging by their uniforms, they don’t seem to be that high-ranking, merely delegates for a captain.

“This batch is ready for shipment tomorrow morning,” the scientist said, tapping a pen against his clipboard. “The next batch should be ready in a week or so’s time.”

“Can you turn all resources to this current batch?” One of the men in uniform asked. “Ship them at a slightly older age so they can take part in the attack.”

“Sir, we are already pushing biology to the extreme here. Any more and we would risk deformities and anomalies,” the scientist argued. “Years ago we’ve already had to raise the retirement age and sacrifice some neural-solidifying time to speed up production. And now you want us to deliver fully grown pilots straight to your squadrons?”

“We need the extra manpower.”

The scientist sighed. “If you say so…” He scribbled some stuff down on his clipboard. “That would take another two days.”

“Make that one.”

The scientist sighed again. “If you say so…”

Then they turned and walked away, accompanied by a guard.

“What were they talking about?” Two-six asked.

“They said…they’re…” One-six stuttered. “These are pilots…before they’ve gone through training…they are us…”

“It’s just as she said. All the soldiers of Europa… Everyone, including us. Are we… ”

“I don’t want to believe that,” said One-five, cutting off Two-six. He dropped down from the ledge and started jogging after the men.

“One-five! Where are you...”

“I’m going to ask these people myself,” One-five replied after taking a deep breath.

A terrible pressure in his chest was growing. This all seemed like a dream. This was all too much. They never should have left their base that night. But they did, and now they’ve come to find the terrible truth.

They caught up to the men as they entered an office, having gone through another divide with their stolen keycard. This area was very deserted, no patrolling guards at all, except a single one that stood outside the office.

“We can take down the guard,” One-five whispered.

“He’s got a gun.”

“We can pretend to be inspectors or something,” One-five explained. “Remember how the guards up there didn’t mind us sneaking around inside here?”

One-six nodded, and together they stepped out from behind the trolley.

The guard looked at them, then looked away and began whistling to himself.

“Sir, we would like to have a word with you,” One-six called out.

The guard turned to look at them again. “Didn’t know there would be inspectors from the air force this late,” he complained.

“Yes…well…” One-six said as he walked up to the man. “We’re not inspectors.”

“You’re not?” the guard began to ask but was silenced by a swift punch to the gut from One-six. Then he stepped in, grabbed the barrel of the guard’s rifle, and put the guard to sleep with a single elbow to the chin.

One-five stepped forward and grabbed the guard’s service pistol out of its holster. Without thinking he pointed it at the guard’s head and fired.

Blood splattered the ground as a sharp bang rang out above the noise of the machines.

“What are you doing!” One-six shouted.

But One-five took no notice. He kicked open the door to the office with the gun still in his hands. His breathing was ragged and his hands were shaking.

The two air force delegates were already getting up from their seats after hearing the gunshot just as the door flew open. They both reached down for their pistols, but One-five fired a bullet into each of them.

Two more bangs, followed by the dull thump of limp bodies collapsing to the floor.

Then he turned the gun to the terrified scientist sitting in his chair behind the desk.

“One-five! Put down the gun! What do you think…”

One-six was shouting in his ear, but he took no notice.

“What is this place?” He asked the scientist. “And what are those bodies?”

“Are…are you spies?” The scientist whimpered, covered in the blood of the two men he was just talking to.

“No. We’re just pilots,” One-five replied, walking up to the desk with the gun still pointed at the scientist’s head. “Now answer my question.”

He heard the rapid footsteps come up the hallway as Two-six and Two-five ran over.

“What happened?” Two-six asked but was ignored.

“Answer me!” He shouted at the frozen scientist.

Slowly the scientist opened his mouth, his face twisting into a wry grin. “Oh…well…I knew a day like this would come,” the scientist laughed. A cold, mocking, almost psychotic laugh. One-five could tell the man was in shock. “This place is where you, you, you, and you are from,” he said, pointing to One-five and his teammates one by one. “And those bodies? To put it bluntly, they are you, and you are them.”