The harpoon was set free with a loud thud to her ears, nothing but a whisper in the sea of machinery she was in. A beeline cruising at impossible speeds, flying above the black smog and dust the big mobile city was raising. Her personal house, a boat-like vehicle she had handcrafted, floated on autopilot next to the gigantic labyrinth of metal.

It had to be a quick job: enter, steal, exit. She had already gone over the plan a few hundred times, yet she couldn’t stop herself from checking once more as the harpoon hit its target and the line tensed.

She placed her weapon on her back, a mask already on her face. Checking the tubes, she made sure the engine on her back was churning at full power. Exhaling with calculated calm, she placed the motor-driven propulsor on the rope. Her finger shook as it firmly pressed on the button. The familiar tingling on her back spread through the tube connecting to the machine, and soon enough she was cruising through the air.

“Let’s do it!” She said to no one in particular, alone in her own demise.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, speaking helped to partly shake off the fear. Undoubtedly, she loved the adrenaline brought by sliding through the line, yet another part of her couldn’t help but shriek in terror. What if she fell to the monstrously big wheels that supported the city? She would be gone in seconds, not even able to process the pain that came from being crushed.

Avalon, the city-state. A fortified collection of skyscrapers, encircled by an equally large metal rampart. Some would say magic was at work to make such a monstrous pile of metal move without disintegrating, and they wouldn’t be completely wrong. Certainly, magic had its role, but not without an equally large, or bigger, contribution of science. The first of its kind, or so they preached to its inhabitants. The first mobile fortress, a beacon of light after the Descent, after the demons came and rampaged free, killing every human they laid sight on.

Did she believe in those tales? Perhaps. She was inclined to believe that even the wildest myths had some truth behind. But it mattered not, for all she cared about was living another day, slaughtering another demon, getting her due revenge. Her fist clenched as she absorbed the impact with her legs, dissipating all the ideas polluting her mind. Whatever noise she made when stopping against the metal surface, lost and unheard.

There were no windows, no doors, nothing. The only way inside, brute force. Her hand moved along her tight, reaching for her shin where the diesel-powered saw rested. She carefully undid the connection to her propulsor, unscrewing its head and connecting it to the saw. A grin appeared on her face as the machine came to life, eating at the wall.

According to her sources, the hole she was creating should lead to an abandoned section of the city. Some kind of maintenance layer that was no longer actively used. Her sources… she grimaced while thinking of them. No, they couldn’t be called sources, just a bunch of low-lifers that thought they could use her. Well, no longer, they had spilled their secrets and died just after.

The sinuating circle, dented beyond recognition thanks to the saw, fell to the ground, crushed by the engines just a second later. Nothing could be seen, darkness filled every corner beyond the small area where the sun reached. Perhaps the information was accurate. Or not, she thought as the weapon on her back was slid to her hands.

A rifle slightly larger than her own arm. Not as heavy as one would think when they saw it. The gun, a mixture of metal and wood, had a large and round cartridge already inserted in front of the trigger. It was loaded with her best ammunition, one she hoped could save for another day. If it came to bullets, the only possible conclusion was that the plan had failed, and her plans do not fail.

Iris—that was her name—placed a foot inside, then the whole leg, and finally, half her body had entered through the hole. She freed herself from the hook on the propulsor, and dashed completely inside. Left, right, left. She quickly scanned her surroundings. She wasn’t looking for people, or at least that wasn’t her only concern. No, she was making sure that no alarms had been triggered. That no camera had been recording her.

She stood there for five seconds, frozen. Nothing. There was no sound out of the ordinary; only the turning and dragging of the gears that moved Avalon. Everything seemed in order. In fact, everything seemed too easy. Unsettling, that’s the word she was looking for.

She started down the alleyway, following the path deeply ingrained in her mind. Reach the end, turn right, then right again, seep through the ventilation system, climb one floor up, then another, and after some more navigation, drop through the exit vent. In front of her should then be nothing more and nothing less than the object of her lust.

Nimbly moving, like a cat sneaking to its prey, she executed each of the movements. Nobody followed her—her steps deadly silent—up until the ventilation system. The ducts not creaking under her weight, uncaring of the human slowly sliding inside. It was eerie quiet; the few times she passed through an opening, there was nothing to be seen nor heard. It’s almost as if it’s a trap… no, it can’t be.

Silencing the restless voice inside her head, she made the last trek until the exit point. After making sure the room below her was devoid of any presence, living or otherwise, she set the grating free one screw at a time. She made sure to take her time with each turn, spending as much as a minute to unscrew one of them. Precision and stealthiness over hastiness, that was her motto.

She took one last peek, this time poking her head through the exit. Indeed, there was nothing there, nothing but her objective. Her eyes went round, threatening to pop out of their sockets, as she caught wind of the stack of papers. Papers, yes, but much more if one understood them. A set of blueprints, state-of-the-art technology, one-of-a-kind research. She had to stop herself from drooling all over the floor, save she slid off it.

With a hushed sight, she lowered herself into the room. Like a statue, she stood there for a good ten seconds, unmoving. It was a novice error to rush to your target after so carefully sneaking to it, one she wasn’t about to commit. There could be pressure plates, hidden cables, or even a device of sorts beneath the pile of papers. She couldn’t risk throwing all the work through the window.

Her own breathing, rhythmic and constant, served to track the seconds. Only after her full weight had rested for ten seconds on the marbled floor, dared she move. One step a time, her arms were already extending, reaching for those pre-

The almost pure white light that illuminated the room was cut, plunging everything into absolute darkness. Before she could process what was happening, perhaps less than a second after the light was cut, a red bulb shone above the door. And not any red bulb, the emergency lighting, the signal that something wrong was going on.

How!? She tightened her punches, hands whitening as the pressure kept the blood out. It makes no sense, they should have discovered me as soon as I stepped in, not now! Have they discovered my house!?

An alarm rang, wailing for every capable soldier to take action, while her thoughts rallied all over the place. If her mind was a mess, though, her body didn’t show a single trace of nervousness. Frozen in place, she was going over each of the possibilities left. Every single scenario played in her head. Every esc-

“Fuck!” The words escaped her mouth, throwing caution to the wind.

If she had already been discovered, there was no need for subtlety anymore. Plucking her feet from the ground and giving them invigorated strength, she jumped towards the papers. Even if half of them were useless, there was no time to examine them. She took the whole stack, rolling them up and tying them with a spare cable she had for her tools.

She was rushing, madly turning her head every few seconds to check if the door was still closed. There were noises outside, and not just any noises; steps, people running and shouting, the alarm sounding at full power. She was convinced it was only a matter of time until they cornered her.

Squeezing the papers against her torso, she went back to the opening. She couldn’t climb with all of that hindering her, there was only one option; she had to throw them first, and then follow behind. No sooner said than done, she was aiming for the hole when the door was swung open.

She froze. He froze. Whose eyes went rounder, that was a mystery left unresolved, for it took her less than him to recover, grunting as she threw the papers up the vent. Perhaps it was the weapon swinging by her side, or perhaps the stress of the situation, but she was already hopping when the man came to his senses.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Help!” The shout came accompanied by the clattering of papers, pencils, and several more tools falling on the floor.

She couldn’t see it, but judging from the uproar coming from below, he was pounding for her. Hell, he might have been pointing his own gun at her. Whichever the case, she would not wait to discover it. Her arms pressed with all her strength, rapidly making the rest of her body enter the duct. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could have sworn something grazed her leather pants.

“Up there! She went up there!” The panicked voice was now saying.

If she had previously been a gracious cat, she was now an elephant in a room full of trinkets. Word of her had not yet spread, and her careless rush was masked by the pandemonium going on outside. Even if she could see people through the openings on her way down to the maintenance layer, they were too busy to notice her.

She had also been too distracted, though, failing to notice the vibrations coming from the same conduct she was traveling through. By the time she heard them, they were close, too close to ignore the danger. Clicking her tongue—not as much as for the effort or risk, but because of the thought of having to spend one of her bullets—she dropped on her belly and rolled, pointing her face towards her feet.

Moving the gun above her and not even trying to aim, she pulled the trigger. It hurt her, not physically but emotionally. Her sight followed the cracking bullet, sending small shocks of electricity through the air. There goes my electrical bullet. Sadness was evident on her face, a tear almost chasing after the bullet.

Iris could have waited for the impact, witnessing the effects come full, but if anything, that would have made her even more heartbroken. She was starting towards the lower floor again, when the static in the air hit her, making her long hair stand on end. Whoever had been following after her was, at the very least, incapacitated.

Electric bullets, although not an Iris original, were spectacularly effective. A direct hit would spread a lethal shock through the body, enough to kill any human, even those large fat-hoarders that can’t even see their own feet. That was not all, though, what made electric bullets truly beautiful was what happened when they missed.

If it missed, the shock would spread through the air at a fraction of its original power. Perhaps it would only tingle at their skin, but that was not the target anymore. Instead, the electricity would mess with their diesel engine, leaving them powerless for a whi—wait, am I far enough?

The thought came late to her mind, the static condensed, spreading further and already caressing her skin. Fizzing, a flare flew off the duct, arching towards the engine on Iris’ back. She held her breath, praying to whatever laid above in the sky that nothing was damaged. A popping sound, like a heart irregularly skipping a beat, confirmed her prayers had been for naught. The faint smell of smoke, product of a failing combustion, rapidly rose. Yes, her engine was fried.

“Shit!” Not losing any more precious seconds lamenting the obvious, she crept away once more, even hastier than before.

Without her engine working the gun wouldn’t fire. And, without a functioning weapon… Well… How do I even get out of here? If she reached the cable to her home, she’d be mostly safe. The propulsor wouldn’t start either, but she could always slide the way down and crash into her vehicle. Worst case, a few broken bones.

There were a few grunts behind, probably whoever was following her was in a worse state. That didn’t mean they left her alone, quite the opposite. The steps redoubled and multiplied as several more people gave her chase. It was hard to estimate how many there were, and she wasn’t about to throw all her advantage away by turning around.

She jumped from the ventilation system back to the maintenance layer. Unlike when she intruded, it was lightened in bright red, the alarm ever-present as she continued on running. Inwardly swearing, she looked at the exit’s direction, wishing she could fire a few more rounds, collapsing everything around her and creating a straight line to safety. Although she knew that wasn’t possible at all, not even her most potent bullets could do that.

Was it a mistake that made her skip the left turn towards the breach in the rampart? Perhaps some kind of intuition or super-senses? Nothing of the sorts. Right as she was about to turn, convinced that she could escape, she saw a shadow lurking at the far end of where her feet were bringing her. Continuing could mean bumping into something she couldn’t fight and dying in the process. Or worse, being captured. No, she wouldn’t be captured. Not again. Death before slavery.

So, instead, she decided to get lost. She knew that wherever she was going was a dark zone in her plan. There was no map, no instructions, and absolutely no path to follow. A click resounded as one of the belts that diagonally held the engine across her torso was freed. Her body twisted, letting the free weight slide until her arm stopped the machinery on top of her breast. It wasn’t designed to lie there, making it very obviously uncomfortable, but getting it in working shape had precedence to being comfy. If running from certain death could ever be described as comfy, that is.

She tried the first, most efficient and fast method to get it to start again. Palm opened, she struck the hell out of the box. There was so much strength put into it, that her palm reflexively moved back, shaking as she blew into it. There were two tense seconds followed by a loud fuck. The thing didn’t want to work.

With the most advanced and automatic restart mechanism having failed, she resorted to more technical means. Letting go of the lock that held the front cover, the metal piece swung open, stopping a hair’s width away from hitting her in the sheens. It wasn’t luck, she had practiced the maneuver more times than she could remember. Somehow, certainly not because of the nature of her job, she found herself in this kind of situation more often than not.

“It can’t be any of the mechanical parts,” she muttered to herself. Obviously, neither of the parts that worked purely from diesel could have been affected by an electrical shock. Still, she was used to reciting what she was doing. Her gaze followed the crank-driven spur belt that connected the pumps with the converter. Her hand moved after it, carefully taking it apart and revealing the myriad of components that served to convert the kinetic energy into gladi.

The first machines humanity created worked off the kinetic energy itself, relying on complex systems of gears, spurs, and belts to transfer the power from the engine to a tool. It was far from usable. Not only the maintenance required was abominal, constantly in need of replacements, but it wasn’t flexible enough. The engine and tool were connected by a mostly immobile part, which often meant the tool came with its own power source.

Research quickly advanced, trying to find an alternate source. Long story short, it failed. Nothing was as effective and portable as a diesel engine. Instead, bright minds decided that another approach had to be followed. A single engine with a unit that translates the kinetic energy into something far more malleable. Something that can be connected to multiple tools. An intangible medium of transport for all the energy that the engine generated.

Gladi was the answer. An element present in the air itself, invisible to the human eye, harmless to life, yet a powerhouse if correctly channeled. Some describe it as magic, as some God’s creation, but the scientists know the truth. It is just another chemical element, it is as magic as helium and oxygen are.

Diesel engines were reconverted to large vacuums that sucked the ambient gladi, compressed, processed, and refined it, eventually pumping it into wherever the exit tube went to. Magic indeed to the eyes of commoners, but not to Iris. Her thin fingers were removing component after component, leaving a green plate exposed on the surface of the engine.

“It’s not the accumulator,” her voice left no trace of doubt. “The central refining unit is unscathed, so neither is it. Perhaps…” her short nail, cut almost to the edge, traced a slightly darkened line. It moved expertly, so precise that no one would believe she was only briefly glancing at it while trying to navigate the maze of rooms she was in. “Here!”

The line itself, although perhaps slightly burned, was not of immediate concern; she would repair it when, and if, she got home and away from there. No, her attention was focused on a hexagonal and two fingers tall piece. A quick look would say that there was nothing wrong with it: the color, shape, position, everything seemed right.

“Yet it shouldn’t be bulging this much!” She was referring to one of its sides. Instead of being a straight line, connecting one of the six faces, it was slightly bloated. Nothing much, so tiny that you could have attributed it to a packaging error from the manufacturer. However, if one were to ask the manufacturer, she would probably kill you over the insinuation. You see, Iris was quite proud of her creations, and she wasn’t precisely open to unrequested criticism.

With time and equipment, she could take it out and weld a replacement, but the situation required something far less subtle. Kids, don’t do this at home. From a side pocket, she took out a thin metal toothpick, sharp beyond possible at one end. There should have been hesitation, a tinge of fear that the component would explode after what she was about to do, but neither of that happened. The pointy end punctured the hexagonal piece and exited in a clean motion, and, like a balloon deflating, the latter shrunk in size.

After barely ten seconds, all that was left was a raisin-looking piece of metal. One that, evidently, would prevent the whole thing from working. “Unless…” a mischievous smile appeared on her face. Out from yet another pocket, this time on her pants, a gummy-looking ball and a thin, malleable filament made their way to the defective piece. Held in place by the gum, apparently a kind of glue, the thread circled the hexagon from one side to the opposite. A loud clank shut the engine, followed by an even more thunderous metallic sound, her palm striking the poor machine again. No third time was needed, as a loud hum emanated from the components starting, soon after followed by the vibrations from the diesel pump.

A bit of guesswork here and there, she turned 180 degrees and made her way to what she hoped was her home. Surely, guarded by a few grumpy soldiers. If her estimations were right, she had about two shoots before the engine would give up. Or, rather than give up, explode in a marvelous cloud of black and Iris. For what she had done could be described as overloading the gladi pump, deactivating any safety mechanisms, and overloading all limits. Ups!

And sure enough, after running for roughly the same time after she skipped the turn, she saw the sun’s light in the distance. The sun’s rays and… only a single figure? No way they deem me so feeble after the electrical shot I discharged in the vents. The weirdness of the situation still lingered on her mind as she made her way towards the hole. No doubt, there was only a man there, and he didn’t look anything like Avalon’s police.

“Oh, hey there! Mind giving me a ride?” The voice of a youngster exited the body of what should have been a 30-years old man.