by Prax Venter
When Vale slithered up close enough, the door slid open, and they could see a soft light washing over another, much cleaner hallway. They all carefully exited out into the glossy, sleek area and it reminded Mark of a high-class shopping mall or hospital. There were curved chairs and benches along the walls. Planters with blue, bushy plants he couldn't identify were sprinkled symmetrically around them. Strips emitting a dim white glow ran along the tops of the walls, bouncing their weak light off the curved ceiling. Roo closed her hand, canceling the flame ability.
“Which way do we go?” Vale asked, looking down one way and then another.
They all jumped when a splash of light shot out of a smooth, black sphere along the bottom of the wall. A garbled, holographic woman stood in front of them and held her arms open in what would look like a welcoming gesture if she weren't flickering like a strobe light.
“Erica at
The hologram’s body stood perfectly still as her head jumped to look at each of them in an unsettling repetitive cycle.
“This is an AI?” Vale asked, her shield drawn.
Before he could answer, the holographic woman was replaced with the letters, 'E.R.I.C.A.'
The robotic voice continued. “I am Erica! That s-stands for, Eros Resort-t Informative Concierge Assistant. Book sh-hows and dinner res-reserve.
Ahnix, Vale, and Roo all turned toward Mark, and he shook his head. “I don't think this is a true AI. Erica here reminds me of early voice command assistants and this one seems to be seriously malfunctioning.”
Roo stepped forward and waved a velvet hand at the floating text.
“Hello, Erica. I'm Roo.”
The hologram flipped back to the vague image of a blue and green fluctuating woman.
“Guest, Roo not found. Please register at n-near-r-r
He could feel the faintest wave of disturbed sadness ripple to him from Roo, like a leaf falling into a still pond. The fabric-girl reached out her hand and passed it through Erica. The light from the emitters danced on her velvet arm as dazzling rainbow-hued sparks.
“It's called a hologram,” Mark said.
“Hollow...” he heard Ahnix whisper behind him after a moment.
Mark took a step closer, and the virtual assistant snapped her basic, digital head toward him.
“Erica, what is the current status of Eros Station?”
“Eros Co. Holdings regrets to inform-m-
Mark got a strange twinge from this hologram after that last line. Like she was a real person experiencing a deep sadness over being separated from someone she loved.
“Mark!” Vale called out, her eyes wide and focused on something behind him.
He spun to see a one-wheeled robot rolling toward them at high-speed down the corridor. It looked like a silver bowling pin with a single, glowing blue eye near the top. It was already much closer than he would have preferred.
The eye flashed, and a beam of instant blue light passed completely through Roo's chest- armor and all.
As Mark turned his head back toward the falling velvet girl, afterimages of Vale zipped right past his nose, and tight vibrations in reality trailed behind her, sounding like a shaken beehive.
The giant naga collided with the single-wheeled robot and slammed her shield into its thicker midsection. The robot was larger than Mark had first thought and almost came to the same height as Vale. The clash of metal on metal sent their mechanical attacker skidding backward, but the thing remained upright on its thick-rubbered wheel.
Mark took his attention off the fight and turned to help Roo. He caught sight of Ahnix looking down at her in horror before baring her teeth and vanishing.
When he was at the velvet-girl's side and saw the black, glossy floor through the hole in her chest Mark almost lost his mind. He quickly ripped open the cover on his pool of healing power and surrounded her wound with a thick cloud of brilliant energy. As Mark's will tightened more fiercely on repairing the hole, his eyes began to glow a bright white, and he heard Roo moan on the floor in front of him.
Working on Roo was more like sewing than healing. Mark closed everything else out as he seamlessly closed the hole and replenished her cotton insides. After he was finished, the cloud dissipated, and he saw there was now a large, perfectly circular hole in the center of her black leather corset that exposed a bit of her smooth white chest just under the supportive cups that held her soft breasts.
Mark heard Ahnix yell out, “Doom Kick!” behind him and turned just in time to see her perform a spinning foot-sweep on the shaft connecting the robot to its tire. The black rip in reality trailed behind her foot, and the vile robot fell to the floor in two pieces. The blue eye on its top pulsed once and shot a beam harmlessly into the ceiling. Vale brought her sword down, aiming to sever the 'head'- but instead, her sword shattered on its sleek, metallic body. The giant naga held up her broken sword, dumbfounded, while Ahnix tore her enhanced claws into the robot, ripping its body open and sending sparks everywhere.
Mark felt a small rush of essence collect into only Roo's pool and looked back over to see the masked girl's black eyes blinking up into his. He took her hand and stood up, pulling her to her feet up with him. They both walked over to stand next to Vale and Ahnix looking down at the pile of circuits, wires, and twisted metal. Its deadly blue eye now looked like a burnt-out lamp.
“What was that thing?” Vale asked, tossing her broken hilt onto the ground in disgust.
Mark shrugged “Some kind of security robot.”
“That magic beam was ice cold,” Roo said, hugging her arms over the exposed hole in her leather armor.
Ahnix lowered her head, causing her straight, black hair to swing forward. She turned her large eyes to Roo, then focused on the floor.
“I'm sorry, everyone. I should have detected it sooner. I'm too... distracted.”
He felt frustration ebb out of her, and again, he was happy to feel anything. Until the sour emotional waves instantly changed modulation like a bucket of ice-water to the face. Ahnix tensed and turned her head down the hall to their right, her tail puffing up and flipping around behind her.
“Now that I know what these things sound like, I can hear more coming this way.” The cat-girl turned to face Mark and said, “A lot more. More than we can handle.”
“Let's move!” Vale called out and began weaving herself the other direction. “We need to find a better position than this long hallway.”
They sprinted down the sleek, slightly curved corridor and entered a monstrously vast open area. Rows of tables and chairs that had to be part of a restaurant were arranged on the left. On their right was what looked like an endless casino. Neon lights, holographic games, and a cacophony of competing sounds tried to distract them, and Mark felt Roo's internal struggle to not stop and gawk.
“Behind!” Ahnix yelled as they ran, and he risked a look over his shoulder. Pouring out of the corridor were about two-dozen of the wheeled, bowling pin security bots.
The leading ones fired their blue lasers, and Mark ducked as the cold, blue beam aimed for his head passed over instead. He saw one of the lasers strike Vale in her wide rear end and felt her wince in pain, but her legendary armor seemed to absorb most of the damage.
Mark and his Enthralled were very close to the narrow, curved corridor on the other side of the open space, but the murderous robots were exceptionally fast. Even if they made it around the corner, the metal death machines would be right behind them.
Roo surprised them all by skidding to a halt- her heels sliding on the shiny, black floo
r just as they made it to the corridor. She put her hands out, concentrated, and launched a huge iron ball directly into the tight formation of wheeled robots.
Just like the bowling pins they resembled, the thunderous impact from the kinetic energy knocked the robots into each other, some accidentally blasting holes through their brethren as they spun.
Mark ran back and grabbed Roo's soft arm. He pulled her up from the floor and kept his hand clenched tightly on her wrist as he led her around the bend of the corridor, leaving the chaos behind them.
“How did you make it so big?” he asked as he let go and ran alongside the long-legged velvet-girl.
“Level three,” she said, her big, puffy lips curling into a smile.
Mark had forgotten she leveled up her main Metalmancy Path. He was curious about what she could do if he charged her up now.
“Beautiful tactic, Roo,” Vale said, looking over her shoulder as they came to a split in their path and took a small ramp to another level.
“A few made it through, and many more have recovered,” Ahnix said, her black tail swishing as they followed Vale around a sharp right into a long hallway with a glowing, red sign that read 'Employees Only' on the wall. The sleek white walls were broken up by numerous offshoots to other corridors, and Vale led them into one of the furthest along the right side just as Mark heard the squealing tires of the robots behind them.
This new hallway was a dirty gray, and the grated floor under their feet was marred with scuff marks from heavy use. They came out into another larger industrial-looking area, and its true size was shrouded in darkness. There were two other exits out of the room, and both led to darkness. Stacks of rounded-corner storage cubes blocked the archway to their left, leaving them with only one real way to go. They all froze as Ahnix let out a hiss and spun around to face the way they had come.
“They're right behind us!” the cat-girl called out as three of the blue-eyed bots wheeled into the darkness with them.
Mark raised his crossbow and launched an explosive bolt into the glowing eye in the middle of the three. The massive explosion and shrapnel caught the other two off-guard, and they took a second to right themselves. Ahnix took this second to close the distance to the left one while Roo focused her aim on the right.
As soon as the menacing blue eyes pulsed, signaling they were about to fire, a high-powered three-foot needle blinded the eye of Roo’s target, and Ahnix yelled, “Doom Kick!” splitting hers in half with a destructive backflip.
Vale, Mark, and Roo raced forward over the twisted metal robot corpses to stand by Ahnix and prepared to face more- they could all sense from the alert cat-girl that many were coming very soon.
One of the cargo boxes slid a bit on the floor behind them, and they all spun as one toward the sound.
“Hey! Hurry, over here! Help me move this box so you all can get in,” a gruff female voice called.
Ahnix turned her triangle ears back to the service corridor they had come from, and her tail flipped violently like the crack of a whip.
“No time. To me, now!”
Everyone reached out to hold on to the furry cat-girl and were instantly turned inside out. The universe whooshed past, and they found themselves in a dark room full of cargo boxes.
Mark could make out the shadows of three other people in the darkness with them. The feeling he was getting from Ahnix was a cool, quiet stealth, and he held his breath as the squealing tires of more one-wheeled-bots entered the place they had just been. It sounded like at least a hundred. Other than the rubber of their wheels on the floor, the murder bots made no sound.
After a few minutes, they had all passed. It was perfectly quiet, and the gruff woman let out a deep sigh.
“Are we glad you're finally here,” she said in a raspy voice.
The supple shadow that was Roo held out her hand, and a flame flickered to life in her palm. Mark studied the three new faces illumined by the fire. The woman who spoke had dark red overalls and a yellow, plaid shirt underneath. She had long gray hair tied into two ponytails hanging off the side of her head. Her thick eyebrows were pulled down, and she looked all business. Next was a fat, completely bald man whose worried look seemed mismatched to his friendly, round features. He was wearing a bright orange collared shirt and blue jeans. Mark thought he looked like a hairless mole emerging from a pumpkin. The last person was a tall and scrawny-looking young man with black, curly hair and glasses. He was staring into the flame in Roo's palm with the clear look of disappointment oozing from his half frown. He wore a blue jumpsuit just like the old man that stole their ship, except this tall kid had a name-badge clipped to his chest. It read 'Johnson: Tech Level 3'.
“They sent psionics- wearing leather armor?” the guy called Johnson said. “Useless against rogue robots.”
“It's all possessed!” the old man whispered loudly, his eyes growing big and looking like hard-boiled eggs. “You've heard the voices and seen the blood-”
“Not now,” the woman almost spat. “The why's and the who's don't rotting matter, do they? These folks fucked up three sentry bots like it wasn't nothing. And now they'll get us the hell out of this hell hole.” She turned to Vale, assuming the heavily armored giant naga was the leader. “Where's your ship docked, soldier? Johnson here will route us the best way.”
Ahnix spoke first before Vale could open her mouth.
“We aren't who you think we are, and our ship was stolen by a man wearing a blue uniform, like this one.” She pointed a black-furred finger at Johnson. “We are here to destroy the threats to this place.”
“And to rescue civilians,” Vale said, crossing her arms and looking at Ahnix. The cat-girl's tail flipped behind her in response. Mark was getting a mix of feelings radiating from Ahnix. Primarily frustration, but he could tell she didn't think any of these people were real- or worth risking their lives to save.
The three strangers were looking between the cat-girl and the giant naga, and Mark could tell the tension between his Enthralled did not inspire confidence. He had to step in before their rising panic took hold.
“Let's get a few things straight,” he said. “I'm Mark. The large armored naga is Vale, the black and gold cat-girl is Ahnix, and Roo is the one holding the magic flame. We are not soldiers, but we are a special team sent by someone to clean up the mess here and rescue anyone in trouble.” He looked at Ahnix briefly and said, “It's what we do.”
The cat-girl locked her exotic eyes on his and the negative feelings she was radiating reversed flow, pulling back into her. He felt nothing from her again.
The round old man took a step backward, and it looked like he was losing the battle with his fear.
“With no means... we can't- how are we going to survive?”
“Calm down, Willard.” The gray-haired woman used a soft tone. “We'll figure something out.”
“He's right, though,” the lanky kid chimed in. “I need power to activate the crafters. We have maybe two days of water- less if we share with our saviors.” Johnson said the last word dripping with sarcasm, but Mark and his girls all snapped their attention on him.
Ahnix took a step closer to the tall kid, her tail flipping wildly behind her.
“What did you say?” Her threatening posture wiped the smug look off Johnson's face.
“Ahnix...” Roo whispered. The angry cat-girl spun to face Roo, and after a few breaths, Ahnix's shoulders slumped a little.
“He said we needed power to survive,” Vale said, and turned to the wilting kid. “I don't know what that means, though. How do we increase your power?”
Johnson pushed his glasses up and crossed his arms over his chest defensively, but his jumpsuit was too short to cover his long thin arms.
"Unless you have the Diagnostics Path to level 6, the only way to get power back on in here is to manually adjust solar panel G-9. It's three levels up and a suicide mission.”
Mark felt a blast of surprised shock from his girls, and he noticed they all had that far-
off look they got when accessing their essence management interface. He focused on Vale's colorful irises as they bounced back and forth, reading something only she could see.
“Guys?” Mark said, wondering what they were seeing.
Vale blinked and looked down at him. “We just acquired a handful of new Path options. There is a lot of strange information to absorb. Diagnostics, Hacking, an array of sub-path abilities under laser weapons...” Her violet eyes lost focus as she seemed to find something she liked.
“Hmm. I'm pretty happy with Metalmancy and Fire,” Roo said with a content smile. “I think I'll pass.”
“You all are an odd bunch,” the woman said, addressing Mark and holding out her hand. “I'm Betty, by the way.”
Mark gave her a warm smile, stepped forward and took her offered hand. He was surprised by how strong her callused fingers felt. He felt a shift in the mood in the room now that they seemed to be becoming friends. She had further questions for him though.
“If you aren't from the government- who did you say sent you here again?”
Mark looked up into the dark ceiling far above him and considered how to answer her.
“I can't really say. Just know we travel great distances to help people and restore corrupted places back to peaceful ones. And our first mission is to go get that solar panel back on-line. We'll get through this if we all work together. We've been through worse.”
Mark felt Ahnix's eyes on his back, and tiny waves of adoration washed over him from her direction. It was like feeling the sun through an open window after being underground for a hundred years. He carefully sent her ripples of affection equal in strength, although all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and just breathe her scent.
“Mark.” Vale pulled him back to the moment with seriousness in her voice. He looked up at her, but she still seemed distracted by what she was reading.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Some of my original Hex abilities have... extra information. My charm won't affect robots, apparently.”