Silver and the others rode in a freighter class ship to the surface of Grandiose. They hadn’t been allowed to fly their own ships to the drop location of their mission. Silver assumed his new employer didn’t trust them not to run off in a spaceship with his precious cargo. Still Silver was angry about having to leave his ship on Arkus 12. Although it was only a single passenger spacecraft, that hunk of spaceworthy metal didn’t come cheap on Grandiose, and he had worked many dangerous jobs to afford it. It was hard to trust anyone to keep an eye on the ship, much less a shady employer who was planning to drop them off in the Flood Lands.
Silver stared out the windows of the ship. As he gazed into the deep black of space, he could see just one light, far away. It was the second star of the binary system Constellation, the star known as Veris Major. Although Veris Major was the larger of the two stars in Constellation it was much further away from the three known planets in the system. Due to the distance Grandiose, Verona, and Exigent all orbited Veris Minor. The scientists in the satellite cities believed traveling to Veris Major may be the next step in humanity's search for habitable planets among the stars. Silver wondered what it was that pushed humans to never stop looking for more. Especially when they had already found something so grand.
The ship made a turn and began to approach the atmosphere of Grandiose. Silver never got quite used to seeing the beauty of a massive planet from space. The endless sea of blue water, the white mountaintops and forests of green trees, even the dark swirling clouds of the Flood Lands; it all looked like something out of a dream.
Silver, Gold, and Mercury walked along what little they could see of the path in front of them. Storm clouds loomed overhead and rain obscured their vision. They had been dropped off by their ship about an hour’s walk from their objective.
Most people stayed far away from the Flood Lands. It was an area of the planet plagued by vicious storms unlike any on Earth. Lightning strikes every 20 yards only seconds apart, winds so strong few structures could hold up to them, rains that could flood an island in a day.
Estimates said around ninety percent of the Flood Lands were underwater. On top of the thunder, loud cries could be heard from miles away. These cries came from the only avian species found on the planet, Clamorcaws, the settlers had taken to calling them. Larger than any bird found on earth, sharp talons, and thick gray feathers. They made a loud shrieking caw sound that could make the ears bleed from 100 feet away and make a man deaf from 10 feet away. They were one of the only non-aquatic creatures found on the planet.
The earthlings now colonizing Grandiose had to switch their diets to mostly fish and vegetables. Some livestock was brought to the planet, but it was sparse and expensive. Some tried to hunt and eat the Clamorcaws as a substitute, but they weren’t very tasty to eat, and they were a pain in the ass to kill. The Flood Lands were dangerous even when one wasn’t hunting dangerous prey after all. Even the surrounding areas were often completely vacated which was why the facility they were headed to seemed suspicious at best. That wasn’t the only thing suspicious about their job. Their new employer had given them only the location of the facility, a floor number and a room number within the facility, that number being 0. They weren’t even certain what they were supposed to retrieve from the room. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Mercury, think you can brighten those eye beams a bit more?” Silver asked.
“Unless you want me to walk into that lightning to get me back to one hundred percent, I need to conserve my energy, silly human. Although that does sound pretty fun.”
“You run on electricity? Aren’t you a damn advanced robot from a lost civilization? Shouldn’t you be solar powered or something?”
Mercury looked up into the sky. “You see a lot of sun? Plenty of lightning though, and wind.”
“Ha-ha he’s got ya there.” Said Gold.
“Will you two shut the hell up?” Silver responded.
“You enquired about how my anatomy worked. I was simply providing an answer.” Said Mercury.
“Mercury you really need to learn how to word things differently.” Said Gold.
“Oh, did I accidentally use innuendo again? Oh well. Anyway, my body contains many traces of elements optimized to be able to make the widest variety of substances possible. I can create fuel or battery materials to run my lights, but only if I have enough of the substances required. There are also my motor functions to consider so I’d rather not waste the substances, and instead wait to recharge at an electrical –”
“Shut the hell up Mercury!” Silver demanded again.
Mercury was the only one of Platt’s original seven bounty hunters who did not have a Wretched Treasure. He claimed he wouldn’t be able to utilize one even if he wore it, which lent credence to the hypothesis that the Treasures were meant to be utilized by organic lifeforms.
Although he had no Wretched Treasure, Mercury was still far from an average robot. He was far more advanced. He could change the matter state of chemicals and certain metals, turning them from liquid to gas, solid to liquid, and so on. His work with the alchemists gave him extensive knowledge on how to do this.
Gold had been curious enough to ask who built him. The robot didn’t seem to know. He said the alchemists found him shortly after the earthlings colonized Grandiose, but he was unsure if they created his intelligence or if it was a leftover creation of the planet's previous inhabitants. Still his abilities worked much like a Wretched Treasure as they occasionally caused him to short circuit, just like a consequence of a second edge. He would mess up his reactions or even forget what he was doing. Still he was a valuable asset to any bounty hunter crew. Silver couldn’t deny that. He could easily unleash liquid metal from his arms and harden it to trap people, or create a gas that he could turn to sharp metal when it entered an enemy's lungs. Mercury was a deadly ally indeed.
A creature jumped from a puddle and scampered across the ground in front of them. Gold got so spooked he nearly shot it with his rifle until Silver put a hand up.
“It’s just a Land Fish,” said Silver. Land Fish were common in the Flood Lands. They had gills, scales, and a tail like normal fish, but had four legs and commonly ran across wetland areas.
“How the hell can you see what it was?” Gold asked.
“Bionic eye remember? Thanks to you of course. It adapts to the dark quicker than a normal eye. You never thought of getting one yourself?” Silver asked.
“Pshh I don’t need it. I look cooler with an eye patch anyway. Besides, I always shot with one eye closed. My aim is as good as ever. You’d do well to remember that,’ said Gold.
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Silver ignored the idle threat and continued on walking.
Silver, Gold and Mercury finally saw the facility through the downpour. Men were walking in and out in gray uniforms. They saw a flag flying from the top of the facility that showed a large metallic gray hand reaching towards the sky.
“This is a fucking Outreach facility? Gold asked.
Outreach was one of many splinter groups created from disbanded government organizations that had colonized Grandiose. It didn’t take long after landing on a new planet for people to lose their loyalty towards their old nations and seek to make a fortune of their own. Outreach did so by taking any technology they could find left on Grandiose and finding ways to study them or sell them back to Earth on the yearly return trips.
“You didn't read the Scope of Work on our ride over did you?” Silver asked.
“I skimmed it… These assholes have a big bounty on my head from what I heard. I better get paid extra for this,’ said Gold.
“Yeah, how did you earn that? Rob them a few times with the Black Sunset? Is that how you lost that gig? I was wondering what happened to your crew,” said Silver.
Gold looked forward to the facility. Silver couldn’t see his face but he knew he must have agitated him. “Let’s get a move on. Those guys are going to go back in eventually, and when they do, we’ll need to be there.”
“You want to pop all three of them while the doors open?” Silver asked.
“Three of them, three of us, and I know we should be twice the killers these trained dogs are. I like those odds.” Gold was more serious now. Silver had definitely struck a nerve by mentioning the Black Sunset’s crew. He tried to ignore his bad blood with Gold and focus on the mission. The facility itself looked like they had stolen it. It had strange architecture that Silver had never seen from an Earth architect. The walls were wavy at the top and the corners of the building had strange indentations where some sorts of electrical coils were placed. Silver guessed the coils may have been designed to work as both lighting and a power source for the facility. Outreach had seemingly moved into the abandoned alien structure and made it their own.
As Silver walked, he admired the strange glowing symbols on the walls of the structure. The wavy symbols the people of Grandiose left behind had always seemed so fascinating to Silver. They seemed so foreign yet familiar. He was amazed that researchers and linguists had managed to decipher so much of an alien language in so little time. They claimed to understand about a tenth of the language, and from this they had derived the names of Constellation and the planets within the system. The translations were also how humanity came to find the name of the Wretched Treasures. They were said to appear multiple times throughout the language of the vanished species of Grandiose, but the words around them were still such a mystery that humanity had not come any closer to understanding the strange objects or their origins.
As they approached the facility Gold seemed to want to charge. Silver had no objections as the man made a quick plan, and luckily that plan went off without a hitch. Silver poked a knife through the back of one man’s neck. It went straight through as if the flash was made of butter. One soldier was unfortunate enough to not be wearing his helmet, and Gold brutally shoved his synaptic blade through the back of the man’s head. The electricity along with the stabbing of the blade shut the man’s brain down so quickly he barely made a sound. Mercury poured a metallic liquid around the last soldier’s helmet. It seeped into his head and then he solidified it. It suffocated the man and weighed him down fast. He may have even died before his shiny new metal head could hit the ground with a thud. Silver was not sure which of the three men he felt worse for. He hoped their deaths had all been quick even though they felt so brutal.
Silver held the door while the other two quickly hid the bodies behind a dumpster. There was no reason to hide them too carefully. They planned to be in and out fast. With what they were being paid Silver assumed the Outreach would know they took whatever it was they were going to steal. They just had to be far enough away by the time Outreach realized it was gone. Once the bodies were hidden, they moved forward into the facility.
The facility's doors were oddly marked. It appeared there was some odd text beneath, but new labels had been placed over the writing, “Past 9, Past 8, Past 7…” Gold read aloud.”
“We can see what they say Gold, now quiet before someone hears us,” Silver whispered.
“Yeah, but why Past?” Gold replied. No answer came. Silver was focused and Mercury seemed to be scanning his surroundings.
Eventually they came to Past 1. Just after the door, the hallway split off to the right and also continued on forward. Silver walked forward as the hall to the right seemed to be a dead end. Now the doors started to read Future 1… Future 2… Future 3.
“So, where the hell do we find 0?” He mumbled. “After Past it just counts up to Future.”
“Right in between of course,” Merc answered. He had lit up his eye sensors like a flashlight so the others could see. Hidden in the shadows of the dead-end corridor to the right was a very small door marked Past/Future.
Silver examined the door. Though it looked like old steel, the lock appeared more high tech than the locks he had seen on the other doors.
“It doesn’t say zero on it anywhere… and it doesn’t look very easy to break into.”
Gold scratched his head, “Well say past is negative and future is positive, then in the middle would be zero?” He shrugged.
“It does make logical sense in a stupid human sort of way,” said Merc.
“Fine,” said Silver, “How do we get in then? We had a key for the outside but none here.”
“I can do it,” Mercury replied “Corrosives are one of my specialties after all.” Mercury began to shift his arm around. Silver had seen him do it before to mix his chemicals.
Silver grabbed his arm before he could move towards the lock. “Hold up, even if you can get us in it could trigger an alarm.”
“Well there’s no way around there,” said Gold. We need to get in there so if the alarm goes off, it goes off. Then we shoot our way out just like we shot our way in.”
“Yeah, only this time we will have the whole damn place after us. Oh well, screw it. Do it Merc,” said Silver.
Mercury melted the lock and quickly pushed open the door. To Silver’s surprise no alarm sounded. Inside the room appeared to be several devices that resembled servers. Only a single dim light glowed on each of them.
“They appear to be on standby to conserve power,” Mercury suggested.
Silver and Gold followed Mercury as he approached the devices. As they walked around to the other side of the servers, they noticed a single monitor connected to a larger device. The screen was black.
Mercury motioned forward to push the only lit up button on the device.
“Wait,” Silver objected, “We don’t know what we’re looking for yet. We should look around a bit more before we go pushing any buttons.”
“Our employer said You will know it when you see it. I recorded the conversation. This is the most visibly different thing in the room. Therefore, logic dictates this has a ninety-five percent chance of being the item we’re looking for,” said Mercury.
“Did you actually calculate anything, or pull that out of your ass? I mean was there a formula?” Silver asked.
“Yes, 100 percent minus 5 percent because human bosses are occasionally incompetent according to my data,” said Mercury.
Silver still couldn’t tell if he was joking. Do I actually have a worse sense of humor than a robot?
He gave Mercury an annoyed look, turned around and then turned back. “Screw it,” he said. He pushed the button on the console just below the monitor. A purple shape appeared on the computer screen. At first it appeared almost like a crown. Then more shapes appeared within the crown, two parallel ovals and a crescent shape on its’ side beneath them.
“It’s almost like eyes and a mou –”
“HELLO!”
A voice interrupted Gold. It appeared to come from the shape on the screen as the crescent shaped mouth changed with the voice, almost like a person’s lips moving. The voice startled all three of them. They nearly pulled their guns thinking it was a guard entering the room. Once they realized it came from the console, they all began to stare at it a bit closer.
“Did you just speak?” Silver asked the voice.
“Yes, I did,” said the voice. The mouth changed shapes again as it spoke.
“Who… who or what are you?” Silver inquired. “Some sort of AI?”
“Who am I?... I am Tyrant, the Once and Future!”