by Paul Centeno
“Why am I here?”
“Good question,” Vokken said.
Dojin had forgotten to turn off his kinetic link device, which was a mistake, especially because he didn’t want anyone to trace him. Upon hearing the AI’s voice, he scoffed and deactivated it. Just then, the elevator stopped. Glancing ahead, he saw an oval-shaped door. However, it looked as if it were about to disintegrate due to age.
As he approached, its mechanical innards clinked. When the door opened, it rotated out of place and collapsed onto the cracked roof. The renegade cursed aloud. Concerned that the noise could have possibly alerted indigenous life, he entered the building with extreme caution. His observations revealed metal walls and a grated floor with seemingly endless steps of the same material.
With vigilance, Dojin descended the flight of stairs. One of the treads broke as he walked, causing him to stagger. He gripped the rusty rail to steady himself, but it broke off. The renegade cursed again, hanging on to the bending rail as it swooped down to a lower staircase. Releasing himself, he landed on the stairs in front of him, which collapsed, sending him down a few flights in quick succession.
The renegade screamed with a mixture of agitation and fear. By chance, as he flailed, he caught a firm piece of metal and was able to haul himself up. He now found himself in front of a sealed door. Before cursing up a storm, he acknowledged that the adjacent wall had collapsed some time ago, allowing him to bypass the locked entryway. Entering a hallway, he saw a mechanical construct that caused him to take a step back.
“What the fuck?”
Beside him stood a lifeless metal figure whose see-through innards were a collection of cogs and intricate gizmos. To him, its arched spine and skimpy metal limbs made the construct appear even more bizarre. But its faceless, elongated metal bar of a head was what caught him off guard the most.
Relieved that it wasn’t active, he moved on but kept his gun charged and ready. To his surprise, the corridor he walked through remained intact. With the exception of slightly visible corrosion on the framework around him, the floor and walls appeared in decent shape; or, to be more precise, nothing seemed to be on the verge of collapsing.
Another lifeless husk stood at the next corner, prompting the renegade to approach with caution. Shortly after moving past it, he reached a lobby where he found two more mechanical beings. While looking around, he saw many others. An unsettling feeling stirred within him. Dojin moved away from them and ambled toward a corroded platform, examining it.
This shithole seems completely abandoned, he conceded. No people. No aliens. Inactive bots. Never even seen their kind before. Weird ass design. Yet someone or something definitely wanted me here. Those emails I got…this ain’t no freakin’ coincidence. But why?
Advancing, he grabbed the platform’s lever and pulled it. Not only did the contraption fail to respond, but the lever broke off in his hand. Dojin cursed, throwing the switch away. Since the platform didn’t work, he instead slipped through its barred entryway and physically attempted to descend the metal framework.
“Ugh, I should’ve stayed in bed.”
Lowering one foot at a time with caution, he descended an absurdly long flight of stairs before stopping for a breather. Upon reaching the center of the building, he noticed that evening had arrived. Acknowledging the absence of sunlight that once penetrated through the windows, Dojin gave up on getting to the base. Deciding to abandon the platform’s pit-like passage at the nearest exit, he entered a dilapidated lobby filled with even more mechanical beings than the upper level.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me…”
Though they appeared lifeless, Dojin walked by all seven husks with an uneasy feeling. He moved through a deteriorated hallway, passing several sealed rooms. Then he stopped, gazing at one that happened to be open. Though it was dark inside, the renegade noticed a few weak light fixtures in the room.
Activating flashlights built into his armor, he realized that the source of light was coming from lit-up control panels linked to a machine whose network of pipe-shaped wires and cogs led into the walls. Eyes fixed on a blank screen, he pushed a button. Nothing happened, so he pushed the other three. Still, no response.
As he stood with a haggard, impatient expression across his face, he witnessed the lights flicker off. The gentle hum of energy he’d previously heard from them abruptly faded. Clenching his teeth—veins bulging—he kicked the base of a panel. Doing so, however, caused one cog to revolve, at which point all the other interlinked gears spun into life.
Dojin backed away for a moment. “I can’t be that lucky.”
One of the many screens turned on. At last, you made it. Another monitor abruptly activated. Gritu was necessary. Vokken cannot hack this type of technology…yet. Dojin felt nauseous as the next screen turned on. Travel to these coordinates: 41.902783 / 12.496366.
“Who the hell are you?”
The next to last monitor activated. I hated you. But, somehow, I still love you. His heart skipped a beat when reading those words. The last screen displayed another message: Time is running out. Reach the destination for answers. Beware the Crawlers and Pincers.
“Zadoya? Is that you?”
Not receiving a response, he used his visor to take a picture of the coordinates. Just then, he heard gear-like sounds outside the room. The screens in front of him shut down, but the cogs surrounding him continued to rotate with life. Scarcely a minute later, one of the lifeless husks he’d seen earlier motioned into the room. Its single, central wheel was more than enough to give it the mobility it needed to approach Dojin.
The mechanical being’s inner gears spiraled like clockwork. Metal limbs rapidly bending, twisting, and reshaping into elongated blades, the ‘pincer’ extended each apparatus and swiped at the renegade. Dojin rolled back, evading them by a mere meter. Kicking down a table, he used it as a shield while blasting the pincer with his plasma shotgun.
Before he could take a deep breath, three more pincers charged into the room. They promptly confronted Dojin, at which point he replaced his gun with gauss pistols in each hand. He avoided sharp blades and veered to the door while unloading clips of incendiary bullets into their cog-infested chests. Hearing wheels behind him, Dojin ducked while porting back his shotgun, discharging its plasma energy to destroy yet another emerging pincer.
This freaky place and its asshole guards awakened when those monitors turned on, he thought to himself, recharging his plasma gun. Whoever contacted me knew this. Could that have really been Zadoya? But she died in the tournament. Narja even said those Death Ship robots took….
“Fuck!” he said aloud. “It’s either a trap or—”
Seeing two more pincers approach across the hall, Dojin lost his train of thought and used his gauss pistols to dispose of them. Easy to take down but deadly in groups, he conceded. If they get to me while I’m reloading, I’m a dead man. Thinking hard, he frowned. I’ve gotta make this quick. No longer hesitating, he temporarily used his KLD as an emergency to contact Marauder. To his surprise, Jai’ryndar answered.
“Yo, augmented dude.”
“I beg your pardon?” the alien said.
“You, me, and your badass implants: best fucking friends starting now. I’m on a covert mission. No one but Xorvaj, Rah’tera, and Yaro need to know. Get them and your augmented ass over here ASAP.”
After sending his coordinates to the uganda, he deactivated his kinetic link device. He stood still, waiting for his primary weapon to recharge. At that moment, a thunderous sound erupted in his ears as the wall beside him collapsed. A regiment of eight pincers emerged and surrounded the renegade.
“Suck my dick,” he said, shooting them until his plasma shotgun overheated.
In the midst of the gunfire, the renegade leapt back while tossing an enchanted FT-356 grenade. Upon detonation, a dense blast of frost magic enveloped the pincers, causing them to freeze. Seizing the chance, Dojin jumped out of the building, smashing through a pane of glass.
He held his breath as he fell, donned a helmet, and activated the zitrogen tank built into his titanium armor.
“Mother of shit!”
Falling thousands of meters, Dojin could barely grip his KLD, let alone activate it and use its buttons. Enveloped in noxious clouds, his armor revealed signs of deterioration. Aware of his suit corroding, he screamed in frustration. Focusing harder on his kinetic link, Dojin managed to activate it for just a few seconds, allowing him to turn on his sabaton’s thrusters. As they ignited, he fell through the last cloud where the atmosphere cleared.
Even though the renegade no longer needed to worry about his armor disintegrating, he immediately spotted another nightmarish problem that caused him to curse: a steam-enveloped airship approaching from the east. Using his thrusters, he attempted to evade it and veered toward the tower he’d come from; at least until his armor lost energy.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me!”
With nothing else to help him escape, he pointed his left arm at the accelerating airship and released a harpoon linked to his forearm. By chance, it caught on to the rear hydraulics. He reeled himself onto the poop deck where a legion of gear-infused beings stood. Six of them were pincers. The other twelve beings—crawlers—moved in a quadrupedal galumph, their blank faces and permanent pronograde postures intending to deter their prey.
Despite their horrid design, the renegade cocked his gauss pistols. “Come get me, ugly bitches!” They soon encircled him, their blades at his throat. “Okay, um, maybe we can come to an agreement?”
Out of nowhere, it seemed, the air behind Dojin ripped apart, tearing open as if a knife could cut through emptiness. Then, the air screamed. Metal sundered. Cogs spun out of place. Then, a pincer crumbled. Behind it rose Yarasuro whose blade gleamed with flame. Beside him, Xorvaj leapt from the portal, cleaving a crawler in two. Rah’tera followed, hurling laser daggers at a pack of crawlers. Just before the ethereal gateway sealed, Jai’ryndar emerged.
“Perfect timing,” Dojin said, blasting a pincer.
Jai’ryndar stood unarmed, positioning himself in a fighting stance as if he were a martial artist. The renegade gawked at him, wondering if he made a mistake by requesting his presence. When a pincer attacked Jai’ryndar, however, Dojin quickly changed his mind as he watched the uganda dodge the blades and punch its chest with augmented strength. The force of his thrust dented the gears within, causing the being to malfunction.
More machines scuttled toward Jai’ryndar who produced an uppercut so hard on the first to approach that he dismantled its head. Dodging another, he performed a roundhouse kick, smashing its innards. Afterwards, he jumped and kicked one in midair, forcing it off the airship. Gathering more augmented power, he fixed his eyes on a crawler and released dhi-cha—inner energy channeled into kinetic power—that erupted from his palms, blasting the mechanical monstrosity apart.
The others continued to do battle. Yarasuro and Xorvaj cut through them with their blades while Rah’tera, using his black-market cloaking field, struck from the shadows using laser daggers. Dojin, as usual, unleashed a salvo of beams from his plasma shotgun. In less than a minute, the airship was theirs to command.
III
Dark Secrets
Xorvaj sheathed his battered axe, roaring with excitement. “Ah, how I’ve longed for a battle like this!”
Dojin let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks for coming, guys. But who the heck conjured that portal?”
Yarasuro pointed at the engineer.
“One of my many implants allows me to create wormholes,” Jai’ryndar said. “With the coordinates you provided, it made our journey feasible. Now, can you explain what matter of escapade we are embarking on?”
“Not yet. But trust me, Jai, your badass implants and augmenting skills are seriously needed.”
Xorvaj snorted. “As long as I get to kill more, I’m satisfied.”
“I like working with you, Dojin,” the sandstalker began, “but truthfully, none of us should be here. We eliminated the enemy. Yet it wasn’t easy. You need to explain why you abandoned us and came to this wretched world by yourself.”
“I must concur with Rah’tera,” the mutant said.
“First of all, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of these faggots. Second, I myself don’t even know what’s going on. All I know is that whoever contacted me went through a lot of trouble to get my attention without Vokken knowing. In fact, the voice explicitly told me I cannot trust him.”
Yarasuro raised an eyebrow. “Voice?”
“Not even. I kept receiving a bunch of weird emails that freaked me out. The most recent directed me here. It provided me with coordinates and warned me about Vokken. Apparently, he can’t hack into this kind of technology.”
“Who or what does it want?”
“I intend to find out when we reach the coordinates it gave me. Shouldn’t be too far with this ship.”
“One last question,” Yarasuro said. “Why did you ignore Shira?”
Dojin groaned. “She’s got her own problems. I don’t need to dump my shit on her. I’ve gotta do this without her. I’m not even happy with you guys being here.” He gave out a heavy sigh. “But it seems I won’t get far without some help.”
“My axe is yours,” Xorvaj said.
The others agreed.
“Thanks, guys. Well, if you’re truly intending to come along with me, I ask that you keep your KLDs off so Vokken doesn’t track us.”
None of them argued. Taking control of the vessel’s helm, Dojin steered it away from the skyscrapers. Looking at his current position, he maneuvered the ship northwest in an attempt to reach the coordinates he’d been given. Though it was difficult to see ahead due to a sandstorm, Dojin used his visor’s scope technology for assistance.
As they passed some ruins, however, an alert resounded from the vessel’s central mast. Rah’tera climbed up to examine the origin of the sound. Finding only an amplifier linked to the mast, he leapt down via multiple rotating cogs to reach the deck and then searched the inner cabin. Descending to the ship’s engine room, he found himself surrounded by clockwork. By chance, he located a fuel gauge that revealed a near-empty tank.
“Damn,” he said, pulling a lever that stopped the loud alert. Sprinting back outside, the sandstalker yelled out, “We need to land!”
Dojin scowled. “What? Why?”
“We’re low on fuel!”
With the exception of Dojin, who was piloting the aerial steamship, his comrades scouted for a possible clearing—fore and aft. Not seeing anything, Xorvaj growled in extreme frustration. Rah’tera returned to the central mast, checking from high above, but didn’t locate any landing zone. The mutant, however, could see beyond the sandstorm from his vantage point and spotted a region blanketed by sand.
“There!” he shouted, pointing west. “About three kilometers away.”
“Sweet,” Dojin said, changing course as the airship started to descend on its own. “You guys better brace yourselves.”
The mercenaries scrambled for cover as the vessel dipped into burnished dunes. Mounds ripped apart as the airship crashed through sand. The force of the collision was so intense that it caused the masts to tear off, gears raining down. At the helm, Dojin tumbled and slid from fore to aft, falling off the ship and sinking into the sand.
Various sized cogs continued rolling through the curved dunes. With a stiff neck, the renegade struggled to turn his head. Failing to spot any of his companions, he surrendered his body to the scorched desert. He laid his head on the sand, ready to pass out when a noise like a motor rumbled beneath him.
Grains vibrated, as did Dojin’s beat-up body. Though weary, he gathered enough strength to turn sideways and tumble down a mound. Stopping at the base of another knoll, he spotted a metal handle protruding midway from where he’d fallen. Though haggard, he managed to stand. Eyes widening, Dojin realized what it was and shambled toward it.
Hearing various skidding sounds, the renegade realized
that the pincers were advancing. Adrenaline pumping, he gripped the handle he’d found buried in the sand and used the strength of his power suit to pull out what he realized was a steam bike. It must’ve been concealed inside the airship and sank here during the crash, he conceded.
“Pretty dope.”
Swooping onto the bike, Dojin fiddled with its controls. He pulled one lever sideways, causing exhaust to blow from the vehicle’s pipes. Cogs and interconnected gears roared as they rotated. Taking a chance, he used another switch—this time one that moved forward. The steam bike accelerated at a high speed, hovering slightly above the dunes.
One hand steering, the renegade used his free hand to pull out a shotgun. Pincers emerged from all sides, zooming toward him. Pouncing from atop a dune, Xorvaj cleaved one with his axe; its charged plasma energy released, the shockwave disrupting two nearby pincers. Dojin hovered toward the others, blasting them apart.
As one of them turned in an attempt to pursue Dojin, the sandstalker uncloaked himself while shoving his plasma daggers into its chest. He then disappeared, searching for his next prey. Crawlers soon appeared by the ship’s ruins, at which point Yarasuro struck one. Evading their needle-shaped limbs, he pirouetted between two of them, deflecting their thrusts and striking each of them down.
“Piss off!” Dojin blurted, shooting the stragglers.
Jai’ryndar assisted him, conjuring augmented power from his joined palms and releasing a blue sphere of dhi-cha. Upon detonation, the pincer’s metal deteriorated. Six mechanical beings gathered around him, at which point he performed a roundhouse kick that broke one apart. As bladed limbs swiped forward to dice him, he evaded them and produced an uppercut so powerful that the force of his dhi-cha smashed its cogs, deactivating it.