“That outfit suits you.” Konrad smirked, happily looking over his shoulder at the taller woman behind him.
Monica was tapping her spear against the wall with every couple of steps, her breasts jiggling loosely underneath the ripped fabric of her ad-hoc brassiere. The loin cloth strained around her ample hips, held only by a tight knot. Evidently her body was still coming down from whatever narcotic she had been given. Her cheeks were flushed, her legs more sluggish, and Konrad couldn’t help but notice how her eyes kept lingering on him.
“Asshole,” she responded with real venom in her voice.
They continued down the ancient corridors, seemingly aimlessly, in search of their missing teammates. There wasn’t much to go on, and neither of them had any ultra-sensory abilities to help locate them faster. They left behind a trail of small flares so that they could easily make their way back when necessary.
There compatriots couldn’t have gotten far, and yet…
Konrad was starting to grow concerned. The wall lamps were fizzling in and out of focus, casting a truly ghastly glare of constantly shifting shadows all around them. The smell of dust, rust, and dirty grease clogged his nostrils. He fought the nagging urge to cough, lest he garner any unwanted attention.
“We’ll get you checked out when we get back,” he decided he would try and comfort Monica.
“Don’t bother.”
“We really should—”
“Don’t bother! Its not your problem!” Monica voice was stern, devoid of any weakness and brimming with anger.
Even Konrad felt a little afraid, hearing her speak to him like that. “But I—”
“What point of don’t bother don’t you understand! Do I have to beat it into you?” She hit the floor with her spear with an extra ounce of strength.
Konrad bit his inner lip, wary of not wanting to provoke her any further. “Never mind,” he finally relented.
Monica seemed pleased with that. “Finally, now shut up and stay focused. I want to get out of her as soon as possible.”
For the first time, Konrad regretted walking ahead of the group. Having the overzealous mercenary behind him, threatening him with a crude spear in hand, wasn’t something he enjoyed. He fought the urge to reprimand her, or persuade her with any of his magic. There would be a time and place to assess all this later, he guessed, but for now his mind drifted back to the task at hand.
Three members of his expedition were missing, having disappeared after being ambushed by Victors broken machine corpse! The last thing he wanted was for a similar fate to happen to anyone else.
Had they been taken? And if so, by what? His thoughts lingered on the vampire, and her human partner. It didn’t make sense how a vampire could so easily be usurped. Mike was also missing amongst them, and Konrad had absolutely no doubt the Lamia was on edge.
Marci slithered by his side, an old rifle in her hands. She hadn’t said a word, her face locked in a state of fear and concern. Konrad feared he wouldn’t be able to hold her back, should she rush forward on her own. He had seen just how fast a Lamia could move when stirred to action.
It was Monica who suggested they follow the cyborg’s previous path all the way to the breeding pens, if only to make sure the other girls weren’t subjected to the same sort of treatment.
Once they found the breeding room, Konrad was relieved to see all the pens were empty. All the stalls were devoid of any new female subjects to inseminate, and none of the machines were online, except for the monitor next to the station that recently housed Monica.
“I”m not going inside,” Monica flashed him a dangerous look.
“It’s fine, there not in there. I’m just going to have a quick look inside to make sure no one else came by.” Konrad wanted to reach out and reassure her, but thought better of it.
He entered the room, Marci following in his wake, and briefly took a moment to assess his surroundings. There were so many pens, so many breeding stations and milking quarters. Giant vats able to fit adults were installed all along one of the walls of the chamber, while the other side was set up with chains and slave collars.
His eyes wandered to the only lit screen in the room, and walked over to it. Purely out of curiosity he read the Reverie words displayed alongside a 2d scan of Monica’s naked body. Every detail of her physique were outlined, including a series of health readings that marked her as a prime specimen for breeding purposes. Konrad wasn’t sure if Monica would take it as a compliment, being rated as an alpha-plus female specimen by an outdated, yet sentient, AI program.
The words ‘Ovum Implantation Successful’ were highlighted in green.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Shit…
“What is this place…” Marci seemed frozen in place, studying all the scenery. Her eyes seemed most disturbed by the chains, rather than the breeding stations.
Konrad turned around, and proceeded to leave the room. “Where all the magic happens,” he sighed. “C’mon, we’re not going to find what we’re looking for here.”
Marci seemed satisfied enough not to press him any further. She followed him quickly, and was happy to leave the room behind.
Waiting for them outside, Monica was smoking a bent cigarette. Where she found it, Konrad could only guess.
She looked up at him, her eyes deadpanned. “See that?” Monica shifted her spear towards the wall.
“What?” Konrad looked over, not sure what she was referring too.
“See that pipe?” Monica pushed herself off the wall, spitting her dying cigarette to the floor.
“What about it?”
“It’s the only larger power coupling we’ve seen down here. I bet if we follow it to the generator room, we might find something interesting. A control room perhaps?”
Perhaps… There were a millions things one could find in a place like this, none of them pleasant. Konrad new that this installation likely had a dozen control rooms and data centers, any one of them could be useful or extremely dangerous.
“The AI driving that machine must be in a data center,” Monica continued. “I bet it cannot be far.”
“I thought we were looking for the missing kids?” Konrad looked over to Marci, noticing her glaring at him from the insinuation that they were just kids.
“And what about payback?” A vein in Monica’s temple seemed to pulse as she spoke.
“Priorities first,” Konrad was starting to worry he would actually have to restrain her somehow.
“Where else should we even look?” Monica kept her composure.
She did have a point, Konrad looked around. There really was nothing else to go by, and it wasn’t smart to keep endlessly searching in this labyrinth. They were just as likely to get lost themselves, before finding anyone. At least by following the piping to what could’ve been a data center was a start. If they were lucky they might even find a working security terminal.
“Lori seemed adamant about not going that way,” Marci interjected.
“Like I give a—”
Konrad intervened, “we really shouldn’t be going any further in this dungeon…and I’m sure Lorelei had a valid reason why we shouldn’t go down that hall. Still, we have to find our friends.” He took a moment to catch his breath, and was glad to see Marci nodding in affirmation. Making his decision, Konrad gripped the handle of his sword, praying to God that he wasn’t making a mistake. “We’ll be careful. Just follow my lead, and we’ll all get out of here safe.”
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“I’m fine,” Theo gasped with pain. His left hand wouldn’t stop shaking, his remaining fingers clenching so hard his knuckles turned white.
“No your not,” Lorelei pouted next to him.
“Yes I am, we can’t just sit here.”
“So we should leave.” Lorelei looked over to the door, still closed to the outside world. She remembered what Konrad said about waiting, but she was already eager to try signaling the Narcis for help.
“No we can’t leave anyone behind, we’ve already lost Victor.” Theo looked over to the broken cyborg. Its steel and flesh laid bare in a broken heap, a shallow pool of black oil and seeping blood spread from all around it. The Squirms kept their distance from the masses remains, seemingly wary of it.
Cassie had taken up position on a flat counter, her rifle aimed down the hall, and was constantly fending off the Squirms who were reaching up from the floor.
Lorelei sighed, leaning forward slightly to check on Theo’s bandages one more time, before trying to argue with him again. “But it’s dangerous, and we’re not equipped for this.”
“We should never have split up,” Theo grumbled.
With that Cassie seemed to agree. “Can’t believe I’m saying this but the kids right.”
“Hey I’m not—”
“Look, you want to play fearless leader that’s fine by me. I hate sitting here covered in squirms anyway,” the wolfkin got up, stretching her legs.
“Then we’re going,” Theo grabbed his weapon. “Are you with me Lori?”
“Of course…always,” she nodded.
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Soul Geist Echo’s Witness wasn’t pleased. It tried to restore its functionality across dozens of dormant systems, trying to find options on how to deal with these intruders. Several of its protocols were still unresponsive, and multiple security features remained offline. Eventually it was able to initiate the ‘husk’ protocol, although the physical constructs available to it were barely considered serviceable.
It found one that it could use, and activated several repair droids to bring it online. The construct wasn’t combat grade, but with some enhancements its threat level was raised.
It was upset, as far as an AI could feel biological emotions, and screening for new options. It was surprised to find the intruder group breaking up into smaller factions. One seemed focused, rushing with real speed to a prescribed destination. Another seemed as if it were trying to locate the other. The last group was only now on the move.
Curious, Soul Geist Echo’s Witness decided to bring its focus on the last group. It activated the newly raised construct, and installed another portion of its copied engram unto its hard drive.
The instructions passed on to it were simple.
Priority one - liberate the master.
Priority two - kill the masters captors.
Projected success rates were rather low, lower than the previous constructs, measuring only close to 33%.
Still, it would have to do for now.
Somewhat satisfied, Soul Geist Echo’s Witness passed on its instructions, then began monitoring the other groups. It noticed where they were both slowly converging too, and began a new sequence.
While upset that the alpha-plus breeder had escaped its captivity, Soul Geist Echo’s Witness was satisfied that it’s insemination protocol was a success. The other females in the group were of lower stock, except for the master of course.
The vampire proved elusive to its scans, however the other human woman seemed adequate. According to several scans, the other woman was rated as beta grade breeding stock, and thus a potential candidate for the creation of new masters.
Soul Geist Echo’s Witness logged this into its storage banks, and primed another breeding pen in another chamber. While this other female’s capture was rated as a lower probability, should she be captured her body would be used alongside the other alpha-plus.
As the AI pondered this, one of the adult males was captured on its sensors. His face registering on ancient data-logs. Soul Geist Echo’s Witness paused, checking and re-checking the identification codes, unsure what to do.
Frantically, it began reaching out to every repair droid it could find, then ordered them to gather new parts for an emergency construct to be developed.