Pen throws the crystal into her dress. The shard stretches the paper thin fabric outward, as it presses against her skin. The cord, which she uses as a belt, stops it from falling through. Pen reaches up and grabs hold of the thick, dusty wires that hold the armor in mid-air and places bleeding foot after bleeding foot up onto each next one, as she awkwardly, frantically pulls herself up towards the metal hatch. The wires each shake and swing around with every successively quickening mechanical ambulation of the C-class, storming back in a wild rage. Glass pushes itself deeper into her feet as she climbs up onto the cables and grabs hold of the latch.

Twisting it, she pulls it open. She had seen these kinds of mechanisms before. There was one sealing this floor of the ruin, a much larger one attached to a wall, but it was the same principle. A vertical lever that has to be twisted and then pulled.

The dusty metal plate groans as it lifts open, revealing a tiny canopy that she could maybe squeeze inside of. It’s roomier than it seems from the outside, going down a little deeper into the belly of the suit from this part of the chest. Maybe there’s even enough space for a very small adult to fit in here, she with her small malnourished body certainly will.

Frantically, Pen presses herself inside, arms and head first, clawing into the empty space like a rat burrowing into the dirt. Pulling her legs in behind herself, she grabs the hatch and pulls it shut. The inside is mechanical, sleek metal and some of the strangely hard, but pliable materials that the bot’s shells are usually made of line the interior chamber. Cables of all different varieties and colors run along the walls, lining the chamber before vanishing into crevices and holes everywhere around herself. But there is, oddly enough, a single padded seat. Some sort of thick material that feels like an oddly sleek leather.

Adjusting herself, she sits in a position that she won’t fidget around in or hit anything in and waits with slow, bated breaths; taking the crystal out of her dress as it begins to burn her too much to ignore now, even in her state of panic. It’s getting too hot to hold. Sometimes they fluctuate, especially when they are moved a lot. Pen looks around, just before herself, near the foot of the seat is a small, not very deep hole, it’ll do, she thinks and places the glowing crystal inside of the tube. It slides in neatly, a perfect fit that gives her a strange distracting sense of satisfaction as she watches it slide down into a chamber that is just the right size.

The approaching steps grow louder and louder, returning her attention to everything else as the howling bot enters the chamber. Her focus returns to the problem at hand. She had always hated the sound of their howls. It’s like a scream. It’s like a dying animal’s retching cries. Like a dying person’s. They always make that noise, and they always had the same voice, the bots. Some high-strung tone. Her heart beats faster and faster. Will it find her here? There is no way to see outside from here. It’s like when she was in the cage at nighttime and they would throw an old, musty blanket over the top of it. The screaming. The dark. It’s exactly the same.

Pen pulls her legs together. Her feet, which still have glass in them, hang over the edge of the seat. She wraps her arms tightly around her knees; her head tucked down low into her shivering body, as the metal chassis around herself shakes. It shakes with every step of the pursuer, thundering into the great chamber.

It’s exactly the same.

Or is this maybe even worse? She can’t tell. It’s one nightmare set against another. Pen doesn't want to die. Not up there and not down here. Not like this and not like that either. The girl squeezes her legs tighter, her filthy, jaggedly bit nails digging into her skin as she listens to the sound of the steps of the heavy C-class shake the world. The sound of the humming crystal buzzes around the small interior. She listens to the sound of droplets falling from her eyes, striking the seat beneath herself, like the droplets of blood splattering from her feet do against the metal below them.

Who was she? Why did she exist? Just for this? It really was just for this, wasn’t it? Just some final cosmic joke, just because the heavens above wanted to pull the rug out from under her feet one last time. To let her think there was a chance. This was really all there was. People like her shouldn’t dream. She had known that for a while, but she had ignored the advice that someone else had given her.

It was better if they didn’t dream. If the gods wanted things like her to have a real life, then they would have let her be born into one from the start. This creature, this thing that she is, this unwanted wretch; this is her. This is it. This is all that there was and all that would ever be, she thinks, closing her eyes as the metal around her shakes. Filth.

A long, heavy groan of the C-class bellows out shaking the hull with an intensity as it comes to a stop just before them. The familiar sound of its head snapping around as it scans the area makes itself heard, even inside of here. This is it. She’s going to die.

At least it’s warm.

Shrieking metal shines out like the cry of a hunting banshee at night and Pen screams, her vision goes black for only a flash of a second as she feels a lurch; as the impact of the C-class striking the body of the dead bot that she’s inside sends it violently flying back across the room. Cables snap and whip the air as they break free. Pen falls and flies around inside of the cramped cabin, her head and body striking against the walls as she tumbles around inside of it. She is still screaming, as the chassis rolls and then thuds several times, flying some unsurvivable distance from the strike of the machine, before ultimately landing with her on back against the metal side wall. Her head spins and blood pours from her forehead, which she had struck against some wall during one of the falls.

With pain throbbing through her, she instinctively reaches forward trying to find something to grab onto to get back up. Her shaking fingers grab hold of some double hinged lever to her side and it wrenches downward, as her meager weight pulls on it.

The cabin explodes in a flurry of new humming noises and lights, the hum of the bi-refractive-crystal intensifies into an almost numbing drone, as if a swarm of insects were raging inside of her ears.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

*‘Thook’ ‘Thook’*

A series of resounding electronic switches activate one after the other, sounding off in a paced sequence, as if counting down towards doomsday. A series of multicolored lights illuminate a button-lined panel that she hadn’t seen before. It begins flashing. Pen screams again as the suit that she is inside of rumbles, thinking that the C-class has come to finish the job.

There is an odd shift in the soundscape around herself. As if all of the noise from outside of the suit were dampened all at once, as if the universe had flipped a switch and everything had gone quiet. It is as if she had suddenly just been submerged underwater. It’s oddly peaceful.

All that she hears is the humming of the crystal beneath her feet, the throbbing of her own pounding head and the whir of the many flashing systems, filling the small space and the few sparking wires that crepitate, releasing puffs of smoke which vanish into the crevices of the cabin. Everything else is quiet.

The space in front of the seat she lays sideways on, pressed against the wall, shines to life and some large, glowing pane of glass appears on the flat metal, as if by magic.

3RD.S. - T.A.N.G.O - Heavy P. UNIT - BIOS v. - f/09

PRIMARY CHECK

- Unit State: Manned

  ERROR: Unlicensed Pilot

SECONDARY CHECK

  >>>Pinging Facilties 01 - 09

    STATUS:

       No response: 01, 02, 03, 05, 06, 08

       Undetermined: 04, 07

       Success: 09

          Facility 09: NEGATIVE

- Engage Manual Controls?

  Y/N?

    ERROR: Pilot Status: Unsecured !

      >>> Alerting Site Security

- Pilot Status: Indeterminate !

  ~ Unlicensed Operator

  ~ Unsecured Operator

  ~ Operator Biometrics Indeteriminite

    >>> Launching Emergency Systems Shutdown

- Unit Status: Operational

    Hull Integrity: 67 / 100

      Gyrodata indicates strong impact !

        >>> Launching A.R.P MITES

         (Estimated Hull Integrity +1/M)

- Reactor Status: Unstable

  ~ Capacity: 20 - 50%

  ~ Core Temperature: 318K - 348K

  ~ Cabin mRem: 25 !

    >>>Flushing

WARNING: Emergency Shutdown Canceled - Hostile Inbound !

    >>> Activating Serajevo Protocol

Systems Check Complete!

Welcome Operator

Emergency Override Protocols Engaged

  >>> Activating Automata Driver

    >>> Checking Local Pilot Database (A.D.09 - Found)

Warning! File Corrupted !

>>> Ơ̸̹̘͍̱̥̘̲̮̙̊̀̎̾̈̈́̀̆̓͝͠v̵̡̭̩͔͈̩̭͔͓͉̝͚̈̒̏̃̚͘͝͝e̸͖͑͗̌̃̎̅͑̚ṛ̴̨̛̛̫̘̥̑̿̈͂̿̓̀͐͘͘r̷̦̯̟͕̤͍̘̩̻̜͔͎̐̅̓͒̇̾̒̄͊͒͑́͛̕͜͝ͅĭ̸̙̭͎̭͙̝̦̘̰̬̩̩̼̙͌̓͒͐̃̏̋̾ͅd̸̥̭͇̞̫̫̙͖̲̦̤̃͌̈́ỉ̴̢̢͓̭͇͙̲̱̖͍̞̘̗̍̊̿̔̈ń̴̢̖̲̼͓͎̟̞̬̻̓̊́̽͠g̴̛̛̻̃̏̈́̈́̋̃͒́̌̉͆͘͝

>>> Implanting

- TARGETING -

TANGO

REAVER UNIT

Hull Integrity: 68 / 100 (A.R.P+)          Pilot: (A.D.09)

  ~ Capacity: 25 - 40%

  ~ Core Temperature: 303K - 311K

  ~ Cabin mRem: 16

Est. HULL: 90 / 100            Class: Encroacher 

Variant: 5

Style: Heavy Impact

Target: Unknown

Automated Report: Unarmed. Pilot uncertified. Disengaging Encroacher. Attempting to establish contact with Facility 09 Security

Status: Active

Vanishing a few seconds later a hole appears in the front where the pane was. No, a window that looks out through the front of the bot that she is nested inside of. Through it, she can see a dozen shining, cardinal red eyes come closer and closer. The heavy steps are soundless apart from the vibrations that she feels through the construct. She flinches, as a man’s voice rings out in her ears, speaking in a language that she doesn’t understand, in words that she is too panicked to pick up clearly.

Pen falls down again, back on the seat as the bot she is inside rises up to its feet a second before they launch into motion.