by Skyler Grant
The Metropolis
A Futuristic Dungeon Core
Skyler Grant
Copyright © 2018 Skyler Grant
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected]
Cover designed by Kismet Covers
Editing Polgarus Studio (www.polgarusstudio.com)
Electronic edition, 2018
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Author Notes
1
A touch transformed one of my drones instantly into stone. A moment later it crumbled into a cascade of gravel.
It wasn’t the only thing that wasn’t going my way in the fight over these ruins. I’d struggled with how to deal with single Powered individuals in the past. Here there was over a dozen.
A week ago, they’d been of interest to nobody. Teenage scavengers living in a patch of desolate streets and broken buildings long since picked bare. Then a crystal shard transport from King Boreas crashed after a battle with a Righteous gunship and suddenly the scavengers had something everyone wanted.
“You gyjarks aren’t getting what you’re after,” said an emaciated young woman who was an incongruous sight in combat boots and a pink tee.
Anna said as she crouched behind a wall, “Kid, if that was an insult you need to get better at it. Emma, show them how it’s done.” Peering over the brickwork, a blast of Anna’s stunner sent a young man sprawling unconscious. His skin seemed to be detailed with a topographical map that fit the local area.
As powers went it probably wasn’t the most useful for him, but I might be able to do something with it.
“Your face is a gyjark,” I said. I was capable of more, but a demanding Anna didn’t get my best work. I had my pride.
“Really?” Anna asked, before she rolled from her position as a brilliant cascade of what appeared to be fireworks exploded where she’d just been hiding.
A young woman flew towards Anna in an attempt to knock her down. Anna didn’t even use the stunner this time. An uppercut caught the girl’s jaw and sent her crashing hard to the earth.
It would have been easy enough to kill everyone here. Crystal shards weren’t as powerful as full crystals, although once bonded with a host they did grow over time. None of these had been in place very long and so all the powers we were facing were on the weak end.
A girl clapped and a sonic blast knocked out another of my drones.
Weak was all relative, of course. We’d gotten to the transport site first and found ourselves confronted by the scavengers. If we took too long we’d be dealing with the forces of King Boreas coming to reclaim his missing goods. That would be a far uglier fight. We had to be quick.
I flanked insult girl with four of my drones and she downed two with prismatic bursts of energy from her hands. Two wasn’t enough and twin stunner beams caught her from either side knocking her over.
She was the last of them. Anna walked through the collapsed bodies to check inside the house they’d been guarding. Sleeping mats were spread over the floor, but what we were really interested in was the massive cylinder three-quarters filled with a shimmering dust.
“A quarter gone? Were they eating the stuff?” Anna asked, as she found the lid and secured it.
“Don’t get tempted. The last thing we need is for you to start looking at our energy supplies as if they were cookies. We’ll be dark within the week,” I said.
Several of my drones with boosted strength surrounded the container and with a heave were moving it to the transport.
“What about the kids?” Anna asked.
It was a valid question. A few of their powers might be useful. I’d gone in utilizing stunners for a reason. I still had that curiosity, but none of them would be winning us a war.
That wasn’t all she was asking. Lately I had been collecting strays. Perhaps I’d been doing it all along—what was Anna, if not a stray? But it had been getting particularly bad lately with the Gobbles, and then Magpie and her people.
Anna wanted to know if I was going to try to bring these kids back with us.
It wasn’t a simple question. I’d never been more powerful than I was now as the core of the city of Aefwal, but I’d also never felt more helpless.
Resources were tight, painfully tight, and that made missions like this critical.
“We’ll take them back with us. You know my habit of surrounding myself with the completely useless and inept,” I said.
We were half-done by the time I detected a warping signature overhead. An incoming jump.
It would be either the Righteous or King Boreas, and both were bad—although each was bad in different ways. The Righteous could dampen abilities and had formidable equipment. King Boreas could rewind time. If he’d given that power to a captain of one of his vessels it would make them agony to fight.
The ship blinked into existence and beam weapons instantly fired taking out three of my drones.
Boreas it was then. I hadn’t had much experience fighting him, but I’d thought about it. The best counter to rewinding time was either to out-think the time jumper or to out-power them.
If I’d had a high-yield missile ready to plow into that ship in fifteen seconds, there was nothing a rewind of time might do to prevent the large-scale destruction.
Unfortunately, I only had an armored personnel carrier.
BioArmor sprang up around Anna just as she took a shot to the shoulder getting aboard.
“Why are we still here?” Anna asked.
We hadn’t come in the Graven, it was off fighting its own battles as we searched for supplies. Instead, I’d keyed one of the city’s teleportation gates for the destination and brought the vehicle through.
If I had sufficient power, I’d simply have taken us instantly back the same way. Power was the issue though—as it had been ever since stripping Sylax of her Amplifica
tion core.
It took minutes to charge up the energy for a gate use.
I had to time this carefully and focus my sensors on the attacking vessel.
A teleportation portal could do damage to an airship. Slice some key lines in the engine core and, after a few seconds, the ship would be in a critical state.
Two seconds before I had enough power I detected the ship venting extra cooling into its engine core. In some possible future I’d tried this trick. Which meant it was time for something different.
When the capacity charged I opened the gateway beneath the transport and allowed us to fall through. No time reset, not this time. The captain of that ship must have decided he preferred the future of us getting away, rather than the one of his engine core going.
2
The vehicle tumbled through on the other side and came to rest. Back within the city on familiar turf my people had no problem teleporting. Anna took herself to the nearest Medbay and I sent drones to transport the canister of dust to the reactor core.
The city looked even worse than it had a week before, when I’d been struggling for control. Seven districts had been reduced to rubble. The sun dome overhead was little more than a dim glow bathing the city in perpetual dusk.
Again, it was a matter of power. The city power supplies had been nearly exhausted when Sylax was in charge, and the heavy use I’d made since of the city’s teleportation gates had only made matters worse.
My Bioreactors worked well for a single building. Put enough of them together properly networked and they could provide power for a district. However, an entire city required a whole other scale of engineering and despite having the title, I just wasn’t there.
That was where the crystal dust came in. I triggered its absorption into the reactor.
The sun dome brightened and I began to get reports of energy spikes throughout the city. The Scholars made use of shards and dust extensively as a power supply—it was part of the reason they fought so heavily over crystals. This amount wouldn’t keep the lights on for long. I’d bought us perhaps a week of breathing room and more reliable gate use.
The city’s communication network came back online and I was immediately getting requests from my District Lords.
I was starting to envy Sylax’s tactic of ruling through fear. It meant less calls for assistance at all hours. One of the messages was about her. I’d turned Sylax over to Crystal who wanted to speak with me.
I needed to chat with her as well. I loaded up a transport with the Powered teens we’d just captured and directed it towards her district.
Crystal didn’t seem thrilled with the presents I’d brought her.
“Emma, have you noticed I still don’t have a single building set up? Where do you think I’m going to put a bunch of strays?” Crystal asked.
“It’s true. I live in a cave,” Sylax said. Since the loss of her Amplification crystal she’d changed fashion directions. Instead of red and black armor she now wore a form-fitting white bodysuit. I didn’t know where she’d gotten the thing. Also, after having her crystal removed she did seem, marginally, less bloodthirsty than before.
“I’ll build you a shack. You keep complaining that you need resources to rebuild and the scavengers can help,” I said.
Of all the District Lords none had been hit so hard in the struggle for the city as Crystal. The enemy destroyed every structure and slaughtered every unit—except for Sylax.
Sylax said, “It is going to take more than a shack. Let us have the use of one of Jade’s lieutenants and the assistance of one of your repair drones for forty-eight hours and we’ll do it.”
Jade and her people were telekinetics. One of her lieutenants would have strong powers.
I could visualize what Sylax had in mind. With the capacity to shift rubble about and my drones’ ability to do quick repair work, they could probably manage to restore access and function to a number of their underground facilities within that time-frame.
It suited my purposes. Although Crystal had tried to take the city instead of me, she had also been my closest ally when I was only a District Lord.
I didn’t blame her for having ambition, though I would if she turned out to hold a grudge.
“I’ll get you what you need,” I said.
Crystal directed a long look at Sylax, but grunted and nodded. “Fine. What about my clones?”
Crystal had also been seeking clones of her fallen creatures. We both held upgrade cores and our abilities came from the enhancement of others. Crystal’s focused on the drawing out of hybrid animalistic traits in others, or in enhancing the natural potential of beasts.
My manufacturing potential had been pushed to its limits. My growth vats were filled with the need to grow more growth vats and the production of Bioreactors and workers.
I’d been putting off Crystal’s request, but perhaps it was time to reconsider that. With something to work with she could start bringing her district back online and even help others.
“If your clones were a decent design in the first place you’d still have a building standing. I’ll give you a growth vat cycle in four hours,” I said.
“Capacity?” Crystal asked, turning all business.
I sent her over the specifications and she keyed in her request.
I thought she’d ask for one of her dragon hybrids. A young one would synthesize well in that time, but instead she wanted insects.
I hadn’t even known she had these, I didn’t see them in the fight for the city.
Sylax was peeking over her shoulder. “You are not bringing back those damned bugs.”
“I liked them,” Crystal said.
“They were creepy. They had a hive mind, and they sang, and wiping them out was one of the few good things I’ve ever done,” Sylax said.
“They are incredibly efficient, versatile, and evolve quickly. Emma, I know what I’m doing. If you want to get this place back in working order, give me my bugs,” Crystal said.
Crystal had also brought Sylax into the world. Crystal excelled in making scary monsters.
Still, she was one of my District Lords. This is what I expected from her now, to do what she was good at.
I loaded the biological parameters she specified into the queue.
“You’re all set,” I said.
Now it was time to approach Jade.
3
Jade’s entire demeanor had changed since I’d taken the city and overthrown Sylax. I could worry that she was being compelled, but as the ruler of the city I’d be able to see if another District Lord had conquered her.
Her district had once been defined by its ruins. She and her lieutenants had torn buildings apart without a care. They’d reveled in the destruction and saw no need to put any of it right.
That had changed. The buildings now were crude, little more than slabs of stone propped up against each other, but they were serviceable. There were even rows of telekinetically tilled ground for farms, although so far nothing grew.
I’d signaled ahead that I’d be arriving in one of my mechanical science drones.
“Emma, are you here about my request?” Jade asked.
I was there about another request entirely, but given that I wanted something from her I’d need to listen.
I said, “You want to set up more advanced systems in your structures. Lights, sewage, comms. It’s about time you stopped living in your own filth. I can schedule a repair drone to visit and assist.”
“No drone. I want my people taught,” Jade said.
This was different. That was also more difficult, if time was a factor, and time was always a factor.
“I’ll send a drone, but I’ll also provide instruction on what they are doing and why, for your people to review,” I said.
Jade considered that for a moment. “That will do. Weird, isn’t it? Trying to put together the stuff you’ve broken and not knowing how. I guess you know that better than anyone. How can you hope to fix the world, when you can�
��t even fix this city?”
I wasn’t looking for her opinion. I was doing my utmost, but I only had so many drones.
“Crystal needs one of your people for two days. I think she is hoping to dig out some of her basement facilities.”
“Of course. She can have three. Why didn’t she come to me directly? I’ve had them just sitting around,” Jade said.
That wasn’t hard to answer. I knew exactly why Crystal hadn’t asked directly, she didn’t trust Jade. None of the District Lords really trusted each other, and I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t trust them either.
I hadn’t realized quite how bad it all was with all these smaller problems. I’d been so focused on getting the Central District up and running, and acquiring supplies for the entire city, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to the needs of the individual districts. Perhaps letting some easy fixes sit idle where I could be helping. It was worth investigating, at least.
I transferred into a biological body, called Heloise, before I sought out my next District Lord. Heloise was one of my combat model drones who I’d made exceptionally durable. I’d need that just talking to Tara.
Tara was a former member of the Righteous and she’d helped us out greatly in the past. Most recently, she had torn the Amplification crystal out of Sylax with the aid of a source orb—then both had wound up fusing into her body and magnifying her power-dampening abilities enormously.