Then Nyx spotted what was beyond the car.
“What the hell is that?” She pointed at the massive, bright magenta wall that stretched off into the sky, and left and right, for as far as she could see.
“I do not know.” Dax shrugged.
It was a translucent barrier of some kind, created with an unfamiliar technology. And it caused Nyx to wonder what was beyond it. Was that where the machines lived?
“Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No,” Dax replied. “But it is beautiful.”
Nyx turned to inspect the opposite direction of the old interstate. She spotted something that definitively proved that someone was living out here in the wasteland. Perhaps two hundred yards away, stood a single structure completely intact. A square, concrete fortification with no windows and illuminated with floodlights.
“Let’s figure out what that thing is.” Nyx pointed at the structure. “Let’s hope it has the answers we’re looking for. If so, we can head home after this.”
“Okay,” Dax replied. “But... what about Ajax?”
Nyx sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know what to do about him, but I have a sneaky feeling he’s going to be a problem. Somebody’s going to get hurt before this is over.”
Dax’s shoulders slumped and her gaze fell to the ground.
“We’ll get through this.” Nyx patted her back. “I can handle Ajax. For now, let’s just do what we came here to do. Okay?”
When Dax nodded, Nyx walked off, headed for the mysterious building ahead. Dax rushed up, then walked beside her. She pulled two carrots out of her pocket.
“I brought these, too.” She offered one to Nyx. “I thought you might be as hungry as I am.”
Nyx grabbed the carrot and bit off a large bite. “Thanks,” she said with her mouth full. “I was hungry.”
Dax smiled at her then she also took a bite of her carrot.
After a few moments, Nyx glanced back. The manhole opening could no longer be seen. With the snow covering the ground, it shouldn’t be hard to find, even in the dark. Now, she thought she should’ve brought the torch with her. Then again, as long as the structure gave her the answers she was here to find, and they didn’t linger, then they wouldn’t need it.
Finishing her carrot, Nyx tossed the stalk into the snow. “You said your people live in the forest, but do they ever explore places like this?” Nyx swept her arm to take in the entire frozen cityscape.
“No, only bad things happen in places like this. Scary things. So, we stay in the forest where it’s safer.”
“Safer?”
Dax nodded.
“Oh,” Nyx said, realizing she must have meant the Archons. She should’ve already guessed that. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say.
The closer they got to the concrete building, the clearer it became. It now looked like a partially finished bunker of some kind. One antenna had been erected on its roof, while several more, paint buckets, ladders, and an assortment of tools lay nearby. Everything looked new. It was already clear that Scalpel had been telling the truth. Indeed, there was another civilization living nearby. But, the question she still couldn’t answer was if they were machines.
Stopping in front of the non-nondescript structure, Nyx studied it closely. It was perhaps thirty yards wide and long; fifteen feet or so high; the floodlights that surrounded the top of the building brightly illuminated the snow floating down and the surrounding area; a single steel door without a handle. And beside the door was a freshly painted label.
“Tell me what that sign says.” Nyx pointed at the label.
“Relay Station 1619,” Dax replied. She then turned to Nyx with a grimace. “You cannot read?”
“Never had anyone to teach me.” Nyx shrugged.
“I can read for you.” Apparently satisfied with the answer, Dax then asked, “What’s a relay station?”
“Beats me.” Nyx stepped up to the door and it slid aside on its own, revealing an interior too dark to make out any features. She grabbed Dax by the hand and tugged her inside the darkened doorway.
They now found themselves in a hallway entirely painted black with a metal floor. It was dark, but there was a faint strip of light where the walls met the ceilings, keeping the corridor from being pitch black. The air was warm and filled with the soft and continuous thump, thump, thump of machinery in some distant part of the building.
Passing through another doorway, they froze when the black room lit up. From the center of the ceiling, blinding red beams of light swept up and down and across their bodies. Dax tightened her grip on Nyx’s hand. And after a long moment, the beams of light abruptly clipped off. On the black wall to their right, a large display screen scrolled text from bottom to top as it performed some function that Nyx could only guess at.
“Can you read all those words for me?” Nyx asked. “I can’t read that shit.”
In a tiny voice, Dax read everything as it scrolled by...
>> Security scan initiated.
>> Scanning…
>> Scanning…
>> Scanning…
>> Scan complete.
>> Processing…
>> Processing…
>> Processing…
>> No such record exists.
>> No such person.
>> No such device.
>> Security scan complete.
All the text vanished. Once more, everything was dark and silent except for the distant drum of machinery.
“What did all that mean?” Dax asked in her whispered voice.
“I think it means we’d better be careful. Someone knows we’re here.”
This technology was far more advanced than anything the Archons had, and if Nyx had to guess, Scalpel was absolutely correct. There must be machines living out here.
“Nyx?”
She looked at Dax. The girl’s eyes were teary.
“I’m scared of this place.” Dax pinched Nyx’s hand even tighter. “The walls, the doors, the ceiling, they are all alive. This place is haunted and we should not be here.”
Nyx didn’t like this place either, but she still had a job to do.
“It’s not anything supernatural, Dax.”
“This is witchcraft,” the girl pleaded.
“Nonsense.” Nyx patted Dax’s arm. “It’s just a different place then we’re used to.”
“Even if that were true, we still should not be here.”
“Seriously, don’t worry, okay? Now, come.” Nyx tugged on her hand. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I cannot,” Dax said as she pulled Nyx’s hand back. “I am really afraid.”
As they couldn’t stand here and debate it all night, Nyx stepped forward, dragging the reluctant girl with her. Dax stumbled behind.
An overhead light popped on above them and they froze again. A hazy shaft of white light streamed down onto her, Dax, and the metal grate floor beneath them. One by one, more overhead lights continued turning on, starting at the doorway and stretching off down the black hallway until it reached another steel door near a metallic stairway leading downward.
Although Nyx needed a little more evidence to prove the existence of robotic machines inhabiting the wasteland, she also felt like maybe she didn’t really want to know. Perhaps Dax was right to be afraid of this place. Then again, if she didn’t have a definitive answer, Abraxas would be very unhappy. And that was reason enough to keep moving forward. All she really needed was to see one of the machines and she was out of there.
Creeping forward, Nyx pulled the stumbling girl with her. Once they reached the end of the corridor, Nyx paused again and Dax slid up behind her and wrapped her trembling arms around Nyx’s waist. Above the door were blue holographic words that Nyx couldn’t read.
“Tell me what that sign says,” Nyx whispered again.
“Master control room.”
Unsure what to do next, Nyx peered into the stairway that led to a lower level. Although there wasn’t
anything to see but steel grate stairs, the sounds of machinery were definitely coming from downstairs. The control room would obviously be controlling the machinery on the lower level, and someone had to man the controls, so that meant her odds of seeing either humans or robotic machines were greater by going inside the master control room.
“Well,” Nyx sighed as she pointed at the steel door. “I guess we should see what’s in there.”
Nyx pulled Dax’s sweaty hands from her waist and pulled her tonfa sticks from the sheath on her thigh. She spun the sticks by their handles then stopped both to guard her forearms. As she inched toward the door, Dax latched onto the back of Nyx’s black fur parka and trailed behind.
Just like the main door, once Nyx approached the steel door, it slid aside on its own. They walked inside and Nyx paused to inspect the massive room they found themselves in.
The room was two levels separated by four steel grate steps. There were numerous control panels and massive monitors on the higher level, each lit up in blue and green data or schematics. Then she noticed the dozen or so humans dressed in white lab coats sitting at workstations and monitoring systems. None of which seemed to be aware that strangers had entered the room. Nyx’s heart pounded in her chest. She’d never seen anything like this before. She assumed that this was what Earth was like before the cataclysm that destroyed the planet.
A quiet conversation caught her ears, and as she followed the sound, she spotted two more of the humans on the far side of the room. Both were speaking to what looked like a human but definitely wasn’t. It was a six-foot assembly of metal: metallic head, chest plate, steel cylinders, pistons and hydraulics for arms and legs. Painted blue and silver. Instead of eyes, it had been given luminous blue sockets that beamed brightly, even from across the room.
Dax’s trembling arms slipped around Nyx’s waist and hugged a few degrees tighter than Nyx found comfortable. She looked back at the girl. Dax’s eyes were pressed closed and her face was contorted into a grimace.
“You okay?” Nyx asked.
“I told you this place was haunted,” the girl whispered. “I am so scared. I am so scared. I am so scared...” She repeated.
“Relax,” Nyx told her. “We’re leaving, okay?”
“I am so scared. I am so scared. I am so scared...” She continued repeating.
Wondering what triggered this response, Nyx looked up and noticed the conversation had ended. Not only had the small group of people noticed her and Dax, but the entire room was now staring at them.
The robotic sentry began marching toward Nyx.
“Citizens,” it called out in a loud and assertive robotic voice. “You are to surrender yourselves at once. Drop your weapons. Lie face down on the floor.”
Dax began crying, jumping up and down, flailing her arms, violently grasping and clawing, apparently trying to climb Nyx to safety.
“I want to go home!” She screamed. “I want to go home!”
Nyx spun around and tried to push Dax off of her. She couldn’t fight with Dax in hysterics and clinging to her for safety. But, Dax wouldn’t accept anything but being glued to Nyx. She jumped into Nyx’s arms, wrapping her arms around Nyx’s neck and practically strangling the air from her lungs. Still struggling to separate herself from Dax, Nyx did her best to back through the door, but with the panicked girl thrashing and jumping all over her, Nyx stumbled. Her legs gave out. She landed on her back with Dax on top of her, still crying as hard as she could.
“Last warning, citizens,” the sentry called out as it stepped down the metal stairs, steadily closing in on Nyx and Dax. “Cease and desist! Surrender your weapons! Lie face down on the floor!”
“Dax, Please!” Nyx shouted. “Get off me! Let me up!”
“I want to go home!” Dax screamed in Nyx’s face.
The sentry abruptly yanked the girl off of Nyx. She dangled in the air by one arm. The sentry raised its arm and Dax with it. And with one quick swing, it flung her flat on the ground. Dax violently landed on the metal floor with a bounce and the sickening hollow sound of skull on unyielding metal.
Dax cried out a scream.
Nyx was momentarily stunned. She watched in horror as the sentry raised a leg. Then with a mighty stomp, its metallic foot smashed down onto Dax’s back to the sounds of splintering bones and ribs. All the girl’s wailing immediately stopped.
“No!” Nyx gritted her teeth as she thrust herself up off the floor. And with tonfa sticks swinging, she alternated whacks across the sentries face with as much speed, force, and leverage as she could create. Her flurry of blows struck its metal face, but her assault didn’t seem to affect it at all.
One of its metallic hands darted out and snatched Nyx by the throat.
Feeling panic now seeping into her own body, Nyx changed strategies. She dropped her tonfa as the sentry lifted her body off the floor. Nyx raised her leg and slipped the small dagger out of her boot.
The sentry didn’t seem to notice. Its expressionless, blue piercing eyes were only focused on hers. Its grip on her throat tightened and had now cut off her air supply. And shortly after that, her lungs burned from oxygen starvation.
As it raised her higher in the air, she gave the sentry a quick scan, desperately seeking a weakness. It was a machine, but it would still need to operate like a human body. It’s mechanical or computerized brain would surely have a method to communicate and control the entire body so that every system functioned as a single unit. She quickly spotted a target. The machine had several rubber-coated cables that ran from under the metal chest plate, along both sides of its neck, and into its head.
Nyx wasted no more time. She reached up and snipped the cables on one side of its neck. Jets of sparks and green liquid spewed into the air. She quickly moved the dagger to her other hand and snipped the cables on the other side with more sparks and liquids spraying from its neck. Its grip loosened, releasing her throat. Nyx landed on her heels, then fell backward, landing on her backside on the cold steel floor.
The sentry collapsed, crashing to the floor in a heap. Although its eyes were still illuminated, it showed no other signs of life.
Another quick scan of the room revealed that all the humans were frozen in place, staring at her with either wide eyes, mouths hanging open, or both. It seemed like a good time to escape. Before more mechanical sentries showed up.
Returning her attention to Dax, Nyx spotted the blood pooling around her head. Both worry and dread filled her heart.
“Dax!’ she cried out, but the girl didn’t move a muscle.
After sliding the dagger back into her boot, she scrambled over to Dax. She pulled the girl into her arms, then jumped to her feet. And with tears now streaming down her face, she sprinted down the long black hall and didn’t stop until she’d left the building.
VI
Once outside, Nyx immediately ran toward the manhole cover, which was nearly two hundred yards into the snowfall.
“Dax!” Nyx shouted as she ran. “Dax, answer me! Please!”
Looking down at the girl, Nyx slowed when she saw the blood around her mouth, the blood smeared across her face, and the glaze of death in her eyes. Nyx stopped.
“Dax?” She shook the girl. “Please say something!” She shook her again. “Dax! Don’t do this to me!”
Realizing that Dax wasn’t even breathing, sadness filled her heart. Nyx fell to her knees, then gently laid the girl down in front of her. With tears falling from her eyes, she sat back on her heels and screamed.
Nyx felt cursed. She thought she was doing the right thing by protecting Dax, but somehow she managed to get her killed. If she would have left her back at the apartment, would Dax still be alive? Would she still be waiting for Nyx to come home?
After a long moment, the tears ended with the realization that if there were more mechanical sentries in that building, they may be searching for her. Nyx spun back and studied the concrete bunker. At the moment, the building was quiet. Then, Nyx also realized that she
’d left her tonfa sticks inside. They’d have to stay where they were. She couldn’t risk going back for them.
Another moment later, anger began seeping into her core. It burned in her heart, then it began spreading throughout her body. There were only two people to blame for Dax’s death.
One... Diabolique for sending Nyx on this mission. Nyx would never forgive her for this.
Nyx spun back in the direction of the manhole.
Two... Ajax. If he hadn’t been intent on raping the girl, Nyx wouldn’t have had to take Dax to the bunker. She’d still be alive.
Although Nyx was now fuming with hatred, she tried to calm herself. She sat down beside Dax’s lifeless body and studied her fallen friend. A part of Nyx hoped that she was wrong, that Dax wasn’t really dead, that she’d snap out of it. And after a few more long moments, it became increasingly obvious that Dax was gone for good. And placing a hand on the girl’s heart proved it true. No heartbeat. No breathing.
Nyx pulled Dax off the ground. She wrapped her arms around her friend, then gave her the warmest hug she knew. She was going to miss her friend with all her heart.
Nyx had felt comfortable around Dax, even when she refused to speak. For the first time in years, Nyx had thought she’d finally found someone she enjoyed being around, someone she could talk to, someone she could call a friend. Just being around Dax had made her feel a touch of happiness on this otherwise depressing planet. A feeling Nyx hadn’t felt since the Archons murdered her sister.
And now that she was gone, nothing would ever be the same. She felt empty inside, even more than before she’d met the girl. All Nyx had left was a simmering rage and a burning desire for vengeance.
After a soft kiss on the neck, Nyx gently returned Dax to the ground. She removed the canteen from the girl and slipped the strap over her head and settled it across her back. Nyx then stood and peered down at her for another long moment.
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