Octavia woke up lightheaded. Her body's mechanical augmentation kept her alive despite her blood loss. Worried workers crowded around her as she pulled herself up, stumbling out of the building. She limped through back alleys, out of sight. Arriving at the hotel where Keith was staying, she collapsed on the doorway, once again slipping out of consciousness.
When she woke up her arm felt strange. It had weight and mass, she could feel its movement as she pulled her hand closed, yet it lacked any sort of texture recognition. She couldn't feel the hot or cold, only a slight quivering tick. Holding her arm up to the light it appeared translucent, bright light passing through reinforced porcelain and steel to reveal an intricate network of gears and cogs attached to the nerves of her arm. She clenched her fist tight and held it to her chest, reflecting on the situations that led her here, the life she had just lost in a flurry of combat. She could never see her mother again. A door on the room's far side opened to reveal a doctor ushering in a new pair. Keith walked in, followed by Guard's four clacking feet.
"Via are you ok? What the hell happened?"
Octavia pulled herself up on the bed, laying down her mechanical arm.
"Keith, did you tell anyone you found me after I fell?"
"No, not yet."
"Good. They killed mother, I don't know who I can trust within the palace."
"The queen is dead? Who is they? Via what are you talking about?"
Keith held his head, muttering stressfully.
"Have you heard of something called the System before?"
"You mentioned it last night, right? What is it?"
"Father and Lex were talking about it last night. Then Zeran mentioned it when he…" Octavia's eyes fell.
"Zeran Tau? Was he the one who killed your mother?"
Octavia gazed at her open hand, focusing on the lack of feeling in her arm.
"Yeah... I don't know what's going on but there is one thing I do know."
"What?"
"The royal palace isn't safe anymore for me, nowhere is."
Keith fiddled with his hair in deep thought.
"I've paid for your medical costs. If what you've said really is true you can come home with me to Blackhall, we can offer you asylum."
"No... even if I run they will surely find me to tie up loose ends. Besides, they killed mother. I won't let them get away with that."
Keith pulled out a sword, shining steel with a maple handle. It wasn't a weapon of beauty and ornament like Octavia's old sword, but instead a sword of duty and strength. Its design was simple, yet its craft was peerless.
"You'll need a sword, and an ally. Thankfully, you have both." said Keith with a small smile.
"Keith..."
Octavia's flesh and blood hand picked up the sword, gaining a feel for its weight and texture, before she tossed it into her robotic grip.
"Thanks, for everything. I'll put this to good use." The two hugged each other, determined.
A week later Octavia was discharged.
She tore off her tie and fastened a new, more practical sheathe to her pants. Her right sleeve covered all but the hand of her mechanical arm.
Guard skittered up to Octavia’s side, his radio code receiver blinking.
"Excuse me princess, but I have a possible source of information."
Octavia looked down at him curiously, leaning close so he could lower his volume.
"You know of the automaton database, correct?"
Guard's monotone voice seemed to let out a slight feeling of discomfort speaking about the servers that controlled him from afar, causing Octavia to speak more sympathetically with her metal friend.
"Since automaton's organic brains report everything they see with radio signals to the Command Center for orders, all of the information they send is logged in the database for future use by the network. Are you saying that the database has information on System?"
Guard beeped lightly, lowering his volume even further.
"I tried to access it remotely, however anything filed under System is classified."
"So it's a dead end?" Octavia said, her voice tinted by disappointment.
"Not necessarily. If we can reach the archives physically and take the data punch card, there's still a chance. The issue is that the archives are one of the most heavily guarded locations in all of Xenon."
Octavia grinned at hearing this, slipping a small metal mask over her nose and mouth.
"Well then, what are we waiting for? A low chance of success and high risk of death, it's perfect."
The interior of the automaton manufacturer's corporate facility was imposing to all who entered it, the pyramid shaped ceiling reaching up for hundreds of meters. Empty automaton shells with dozens of designs were displayed on platforms around the visitor hall.
Octavia wore an army commander's uniform, the brim of a hat drawn down over her eyes. Golden chains at the base of her neck held a short cape to conceal her sword from the roaming security robots.
Guard didn’t want to risk being recognized as a royal protector so he stood outside the facility in wait. He was by Octavia’s side so often she had forgotten what it felt like without his company. She pulled a number ticket from a dispenser, sitting down on a chair and reflecting on her loneliness.
The chair reclined backwards and Octavia placed her hat over her eyes, activating the magical lens in her right eye. She saw through the hat as if it didn’t exist, glancing around at the passerby. Clothes and skin became invisible, revealing their internal organs within glowing white skeletons. Inside the automatons’ metal casings was a complex structure of pipes and wires extending to the machine’s center, a human brain encased in glass. The organic matter floated within a soup of preservation chemicals and nutrients to keep it healthy. Every sword and gun in the area glowed bright white, letting Octavia count each weapon and judge the fighting strength of the room. Partway through counting she gave up, deciding that even with half this many guns pointed at her she would have no hope of victory.
Octavia deactivated the lens, blinking quickly to combat the eye strain. Pulling the hat back onto her head, she sat back up, catching a glimpse of a girl around her age walking past. The girl was dressed in a battered royal guard uniform, the same kind that Octavia usually wore. A blood red katana was strung across her back, glinting darkly in the light. She walked past the front counter as the security automatons stepped out of her way.
“An old royal guard uniform, huh. Who is that girl…” Octavia whispered to herself. The number on her ticket was called over to the front desk, delaying her pondering for later.
“Welcome to Automated Solutions Incorporated, what is the purpose of your visit today?” The man at the front desk asked, emotionless, as he stared blankly into the distance.
“I’m scheduled for a check of the new autonomous units the military ordered.”
Octavia flashed a forged ID card given to her by Keith, praying that his preparations had gone well.
“Let me check… Captain Autumn? You seem to be scheduled for the testing center, 78B6 will escort you. Have a pleasant day."
The doors to the elevator swung open. An automaton trotted over to Octavia’s side, whirring its vocal disks into place.
“Please follow me downstairs into the facility.” It spoke in a crackly voice, motioning for Octavia to step onto the elevator platform.
The doors shut on the two, concealing them from the outside. As soon as they were out of view Octavia pulled out her sword, skewering the brain compartment of the robot. Metal crashed to the floor around Octavia. She pulled a map of the facility from her jacket pocket, selecting the lowest floor on the elevator console. Gears inside the walls creaked to life around her, pulling the elevator deep under the surface.
The platform ground to a halt on floor minus thirteen. Octavia cautiously stepped out and scanned the area for potential threats. Grime covered the cramped hallways this deep down, likely visited very little by actual humans. Clicking noises echoed from a dimly lit room at the end of the hallway, emanating from a punch card computing device. Standing at the device was the girl from earlier. She fed paper cards filled with small square holes into the machine from a stack on a nearby table, winding a gear to begin audio playback.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Clearance requirement: maximum.
Information subject: The Nation of Qutaar.
Status: Subjugated by the Holy Church.
Background information: Qutaar experienced accelerated technological advancement to Civ Level Five, however a possible outbreak of heretical ideology caused the church to invade and bury their inventions forever. Ending playback.”
A warm crackle sounded from the record machine as it finished speaking. A paper card popped out of the central slot. Octavia stood in the corner of the room, just out of sight. She watched intently as the girl pulled the card out, replacing it with another from the stack.
“Clearance requirement: Maximum.
Information subject: The Archibald Dominion.
Status: Annihilated by the Holy Church.
Background information: The Archibald Dominion was an isolated nation in the far west of the Lumian Ocean. They independently developed technology to Civ Level Three before the church declared them as a hostile foriegn threat. The Dominion’s capital was burned to ash and smothered in Cursed Energy with a large-scale Alchemic spell, causing the collapse of the nation. Ending playback.”
Once again the card popped out and was set on the table. The girl looked at the stack of cards, concerned.
“Lex is right… If the church is suppressing nations that develop advanced technology then invasion truly is inevitable…” She whispered to herself.
Octavia walked into the light, coughing politely to make her presence known. The girl spun around to face her, stepping in front of the pile of cards to hide them.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where the archives are?” Octavia asked as she showed her visitor badge.
“Of course. The archives are down to the hall to the left. There’s a vault door past there on the other end of the bridge.”
“Thank you… what’s your name?”
“Anis. My name is Anis.” The girl looked at Octavia strangely, wondering why her name was important.
“Thanks Anis. Have a good day.”
Octavia left the room, making a mental note to ask for information about Anis later. She seemed to have connections with Lex and the old royal guard despite being far too young to have served among them herself.
Anis watched Octavia leave with suspicion, attempting to judge her identity under the face mask. Her right eye flashed red, scanning Octavia’s body.
Octavia stood on a metal grate platform stretching across a cylindrical room. The floor was so far down she couldn’t even see it, the darkness below echoing with the sound of machinery. Streams of punch cards flowed from slots in the walls down into the pit for sorting. She shifted nervously on the suspended walkway that wasn’t even a meter wide, holding onto the railing tight.
A copper keypad beeped with each digit pressed as a code provided by Guard was punched in. Locks within clicked open. Octavia turned a metal wheel on the vault door, pulling it open. Inside was a dusty warehouse of filing cabinets reaching as far as the eye could see. According to Guard the information on System was located in section Eighty Four B, however she couldn’t see it in the maze of shelves.
Automatons stepped around her as she ran down the compact paths of the room. Numbers and letters went past in a blur from the forties to the eighties. The sound of her shoes hitting the ground was the only noise in the silent room besides the occasional clack of automaton’s feet.
Row Eighty Four B consisted of nearly a hundred cabinets sorted in alphabetical order. Octavia ran her eyes down each column of files, landing on S. She grabbed every card that mentioned the term System in the title, shoving them into her coat pocket. Slamming shut the cabinet, she stood up from a crouching position. As she moved towards the exit the stares of the guards seemed to grow more intense, gathering around her in a wide circle.
Octavia ducked behind a wall of cabinets, drawing her sword from her back. Her eye flashed red, giving her a view of the robots without any obstruction. Watching their sight lines, she climbed up a shelf and jumped one from above. It didn’t have time to signal her location, killed instantly when a blade pierced its brain compartment.
Robots around her spun about, trying to catch a glimpse of their target in the shadows. Octavia slipped through the shadows, cornering another automaton. She swung at the back of the metal chassis, cutting the brain. The blade was too slow, causing the automaton to begin ringing an alarm on its location. The robots around her were all signaled to her location, spraying a hail of bullets at the last known location.
Octavia flipped over an automaton, deflecting each bullet with her sword as they sailed through the air. She bound forward, cutting the guard cleanly in half. She kicked the top half across the room. It shot off a rain of sparks as it slid on the floor, smashing into the bottom of another machine. The damaged robot fell to the ground as it fired aimlessly into the air.
Octavia retreated to the entryway of the room as a dozen more guards approached, pulling down a rack of cabinets onto the automatons. One was crushed while the other backed away, giving her time to escape. She ran through the vault door, slamming it shut as bullets ricocheted off the metal. Octavia stumbled forward onto the railing, gaining distance from the door as it dented more and more under the constant fire.
She looked across the room at the other side of the walkway. Directly in her path was Anis, sitting on the railing overlooking a bottomless drop. Anis held her sword out to the light, polishing the blade without even glancing at the commotion across from her. Her royal guard uniform was wrinkled and full of cuts, contrasting the orderly look of her straight black hair.
“I see I was right to follow you down here. I just couldn’t shake this feeling ever since I saw you.” Anis spoke across the chasm, standing up to walk forward. The tip of her katana was held forwards over to Octavia’s face, pulling off the metal mask. “Now let’s see who you are.”
The mask fell off, plummeting down into the chasm below. Seconds later, the sounds of it hitting the ground could be heard from the platform.
“The princess? System declared you dead after Zeran was sent to get you. So you survived? Lex will be suprised.” Anis’s voice was slightly surprised, shocked that even the System could be proven wrong on occasion.
“How dare you wear that uniform as you work against the royal family.” Octavia shouted forward, brandishing her sword to knock the red katana away from her face.
“My mother was a royal guard. This uniform I wear used to belong to her. The royalty saw her as nothing but pawns for political power, sent to fight for meaningless conflicts. In the end she was replaced, sent to die of hunger in the streets." Anis's face grew red, pacing up and down the walkway in anger. "The royal guard’s deaths amounted to nothing. In the end they weren’t even seen with enough respect to exist at all, kicked to the curb for soulless machines to take their place. Tell me, does a royalty who commits these actions deserve loyalty?”
“What about System then? If they're so powerful wouldn't they have been the ones to allow this mechanical takeover?” Octavia argued, slowly approaching with her sword drawn.
“They simply introduced the machines to protect us all when the end comes. The royalty were the ones who decided to use them as a replacement, not a supplement.” Anis gestured forward with her blade. “Everything System does is neccesary. This world straddles on the brink of apocalypse and if System fails to protect us our souls will face a fate worse than death. Xenon's bloodlines are the only chance for our survival. The chance to secure our survival in the face of impossible power. Don't resist System, it'll free us from our fate. I can't think of a cause more worth my devotion.”
Both warriors rushed forward into a clash of swords, bright red against silver steel.
Anis began strong with a flurry of attacks aimed towards Octavia's upper guard, all of which were deflected, yet pushed Octavia into a defensive position. Anis pressed her advantage forward with a series of fast feint strikes mixed with stronger strikes aimed at potential weak points in an attempt to read her opponent's weaknesses. Octavia deflected each strike with ease, showing a flawless stance, yet Anis's attacks were fast enough that Octavia had no time to attempt an attack out of her guard position.
Octavia created a pretend opening in her guard to lure in Anis's blade, and it worked exactly as intended. Octavia swug her arm upwards to deflect the crimson blade to her side, bringing the edge of her own sword down to the nape of Anis's neck. Anis flung herself onto her back to avoid the edge, flipping up several feet away. Octavia swung forward as Anis spun through the air, however Anis had attached her sword to her boot, thrusting out the blade on her foot to deflect Octavia's blow. Kicking the blade into her hands, Anis and Octavia both formed straight stances several feet apart once again.
Each of them lept into a flurry of light, fast strikes, their movements of blocking and attacking synchronized to the millisecond. Sensing that the current engagement would only drain both their stamina, Anis took the initiative in leaping backwards.
"Impressive, but not good enough." Said Anis, backing away from Octavia. Octavia grinned as she brought her sword to eye level.
Anis had backed up almost entirely against the door on her end of the suspended walkway, a position that greatly decreased precious mobility. Knowing that her only route to success was to switch places with Octavia, Anis thrust her hand forward. Her palm burst with magical fire, launching a cascade of flames across the bridge. Ocvtavia dodged to the side as fast as she could, but the limited space of the walkway was too restrictive. The right side of her jacket burst into flames, stunning her. Anis attempted to slide past her opponent while Octavia was unable to retaliate so she could regain the area advantage. Octavia gripped the railing, giving her the stability to transform her stance into a kick.
Octavia's flame covered foot hit Anis squarely in the face, knocking her under the bridge’s railing. Anis tumbled down into the pit, screaming. Metal was crushed under the impact far below. The sounds reverberated up to Octavia who leaned against the wall opposite to the vault. She panted, trying to beat the fire off her coat. She pulled out the stack of punch cards she had taken. All but one had been burned to unusability.
“Fuck!”
She tossed the charred cards into the pit in anger, pocketing the single survivor. At the opposite end of the room the vault door looked moments away from collapsing under constant gunfire. Picking up her sword, Octavia sprinted down the hallway. The door burst open behind her, unleashing a storm of bullets. Alarms all along the walls began to ring. She spun around a wall to avoid her pursuers, coming face to face with another group of machines.
Running across the wall, she jumped onto the first automaton, turning it to face its comrade. She pulled a lever on the metal chassis, forcing the gatling guns to begin firing. The two robots blew each other into chunks. Octavia rolled down behind the third guard, deflecting its gunfire with her blade. She kicked forward into the machine’s eye and smashed the glass around her foot. It stumbled forward, blind. The tip of Octavia’s blade cut through the shell, severing the brain’s life support systems. Without the beat of an artificial heart it fell over dead.
The elevator’s gears screeched to life, propelling Octavia upwards. She pulled out a small radio transceiver, pressing the one visible button. The little radio was held close to her chest as the elevator approached the surface level.
“Please Guard, have something big waiting for me…”
Seconds away from the door opening on surface level, the entire building was rocked by an explosion. Octavia smiled, sliding the transceiver into her pocket. The elevator arrived behind the front desk to a chaotic mess of terrified clients. Worried about being recognized from earlier, she dropped the burnt jacket in the elevator. The frantic crowd provided the perfect cover to mask her escape. A hole in the ceiling rained concrete rubble into the main hall, crushing the machines desperately trying to maintain order.
Octavia pushed her way to the head of the crowd, exiting the building. She slipped away from the throng of people, hiding in the shadows. Guard walked up to her side, beeping with pride.
“How did you enjoy the diversion, princess?”
“It was perfect, thanks!” Octavia said, patting the top of his chassis.
Octavia smiled, leading Guard away from the chaos. As soon as they arrived back at their hotel she crashed onto a couch. Guard stood across the room, checking out the window to see if anyone followed them.
“All but one of the cards got ruined in a fight, sorry.” Octavia pulled out the single card, examining the singed edges.
“Understood. May I see the card you recovered?” Guard walked over to the couch, opening a slot near the base of his chassis.
The paper card slid into him, causing the robot to process the information for a few minutes.
“All I can make out are search commands issued to a variety of units, looking for fragments of a... Nemesis Engine. It seems that System lacks the capability to run at full capacity until it is reconstructed.” Guard beeped in dissapointment. "There's one last thing of note, scraps of communications passed to Military Coordinator Lex that weren't fully disposed of."
"He mentioned System during the party as well, maybe he has information."
"Then we know our next target. However I must admit, I am quite curious about the fragments of information we required. They may require further research."
Octavia held her head, rising up from the couch. “Maybe we’ll find out with time. At the very least we got one thing we can understand."