The Laboratory

A futuristic dungeon core

Skyler Grant

Skyler Grant

Copyright © 2017 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 skyler@skylergrant.com

Cover designed by Kasmit Covers

Edited by Polgarus Studio (www.polgarusstudio.com)

Electronic edition, 2017

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Contents

About the Author

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

Also by Skyler Grant

Afterword

About the Author

Living in the Pacific Northwest state of Washington Skyler Grant is an author of Science Fiction and Fantasy with an emphasis on exploring technology and the nature of reality in virtual worlds.

Bibliography

The Crucible Shard

Book 1: Dungeon Crawl

Book 2: Spawn Campers

Book 3: Corpse Run

Book 4: Gank

Book 5: Area of Effect

Book 6: DLC

Book 7: Endgame

Audio

Book 1: Dungeon Crawl

Book 2: Spawn Campers

Book 3: Corpse Run

Book 4: Gank

Book 5: Area of Effect

Book 6: DLC

The Persephone Saga

Book 1: Persephone Falling

Book 2: Persephone Rising (coming soon)

Book 3: Persephone Ascendant (coming soon)

A futuristic dungeon core. When a crazed AI reactivates deep in an abandoned complex in a post apocalyptic hellscape there is only one thing to do. Science.

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www.skylergrant.com

skyler@skylergrant.com

1

"Work, damn you."

I heard the voice before I was aware of anything else. Female, young, perhaps in her early twenties if I was any judge of human voices (I wasn't).

I should probably try to move around. Arms, no. Legs, no. Head, no. Well, this was awkward, I didn't seem to have a body. Perhaps moving around wasn't a particularly sound strategy.

"I've got you now, bitch."

That was a second voice, I think. Male, rough and in their thirties. I really seemed to know rather a lot about voices, despite not being all that certain I'd ever heard one before.

If moving around wasn't working, perhaps I should do some thinking about who I was. Yes, that seemed sensible.

I was E.M.M.A. That was quite a name, looked like it was probably an acronym of some sort, but I couldn't remember what. I couldn't seem to remember much. Well, I was named Emma and I knew a lot about human voices. That was a start!

There was the sound of a physical blow and a sound that I think would be called a scream.

If I didn't have a body—or at least one I could move, what did I have?

I seemed to be hearing sounds. That implied I had something. I focused my attention. Audio input feeds. I had audio input feeds!

Now I was getting somewhere. I could do all sorts of things with audio input feeds. Meaning, I could hear things, which was mostly all I'd been doing.

"Don't you make this harder than it has to be, girl," said the male voice.

What other input feeds did I have?

Visual!

I was bombarded under a new rush of extraordinary data.

I was observing a room from multiple angles. There was a massive sphere in the center of a circular chamber. A section near the bottom of the sphere had been removed and I could observe a tangle of something within.

I did have a body and I was looking at it. I looked pretty good, very round. I liked the symmetry.

There were two figures in the room along with me. Both were filthy. One had a toolbelt of some kind at her waist and a shirt torn open to reveal fleshy fat deposits. She was sitting on the floor with her back against my body.

That must be the female, the one doing all the screaming. Her mouth seemed rather tiny to be making so much noise.

The man was larger, dressed in some sort of leather armor with a lot of spikes, and he was carrying an unnecessary number of guns.

"Damn it Emma, if you are going to finish rebooting, now would be the time," said the girl, fumbling for a wrench at her toolbelt. The man stomped on her hands and my audio receptors picked up her whimper of pain.

The female knew my name. I wonder if she had any idea what it stood for? Given the tool belt, perhaps she was some sort of repair technician sent to service me?

I didn't know much about the world just now, but I was quite certain that service personnel were to be allowed uninterrupted access to mission-critical equipment. That was me, of course.

The man was clearly interfering, an injury like that could lead to far too much employee down-time and hinder proper operational workflow. I couldn't let that stand.

What I didn't know is exactly what I could do about it. The man was unfastening his pants.

Really, that only compounded the offense. Public urination was detestable enough, and doing so near my delicate electronics was even worse.

However, I still lacked those arms. I knew that I could manipulate physical appendages, but in my Core Room I didn't have any. Did I have something nearby?

I cast myself along the network looking for any connections. A manipulator arm, a drone, anything that might help. I wasn't getting anything that might be an asset.

I found several other audio and visual feeds, and activated them, discovering faded hallways and the occasional human skeleton, but nothing important or useful.

That left me what I had back in the Core Room. I had an audio output, was that useful? I could talk, but who really cared what a bunch of humans had to say? Who'd want to talk with them?

I had the environmental and hazard controls. I could vent the chamber of oxygen as part of the fire control protocol, but that would kill the technician too. Bad enough that the male was hindering the support personnel, I shouldn't compound the error.

If I could get him before the open panel, I could overload my systems and discharge an electrical burst. That could damage me, though. Really, I'd rather damage the technician, if it came to any collateral harm.

Still, the panel was an idea. There was quite a lot that went into making me function that could be hazardous to personnel not in protective gear.

Well, that was something of a plan. I suppose I had better talk with them and set things in motion, or better yet, see if we could put this whole tiresome incident behind us.

I said, "Interfering with support personnel is against regulations. Urination upon sensitive equipment also qualifies."

"Who the fuck is that?" the man said. In the time I'd been considering the situation, he had managed to get his pants open.

"Emma, you're up!" the girl said. Her voice indicated strains of pain and stress.

"You've got a friend?" the man said. "Hell, more the merrier. Come on out, girl. I've got something to show you."

I was not impressed with his mental faculties.

"Urinating on sensitive electronics will be discouraged. If you wish to urinate on the technician, it is asked that you go elsewhere," I said.

"You sick or something? Though, I guess if that's your thing..." the man said, hiking up his pants.

"He's a bit more into the raping me to death than pissing on me, and he wants you to be impressed at the size of his dick," the girl said.

"Honestly, I was kind of planning on both. Raping first, though," said the man.

The girl made a face. "I'd prefer in that order. Emma!"

I really didn't like how much she kept using my name or the volume levels she managed to reach. Of course now, the male had confirmed his intent to permanently hinder a service technician, which made him even more unlikable.

"Barnacles can have penises that are roughly forty times the size of their body. Some species of duck manage twice the length of their body. If I praise him for his impressively small size, is he likely to depart?" I asked.

"The fuck?" said the man, and he gestured to the girl on the floor. "You, stay the fuck there. Where is this smart-mouthed bitch.”?

"You see the round thing in the middle of the room? I'm in there," I said.

"You were trying to get in there to hide with her," the man said, sounding like he'd figured out some great mystery. "Well, get ready sweetheart."

The man moved towards the open panel. I waited until he was standing in front of it.

I triggered the emergency cooling system. It was only meant to be used in the event of a massive overheat, liquid nitrogen spraying in a fine mist.

It wasn't enough to hit all his body, but it did at least manage a nice coating on that malformed appendage he seemed so very fond of that was protruding by several inches.

It was his turn to scream, stumbling backwards a few steps. The organ in question had been frozen solid.

The girl pushed herself to her feet, pulling a wrench from her belt.

"Dude. You've got the worst case of blue balls I've ever seen. Why don't you let me help you get one off," the girl said, and took a swing with the wrench. The impact caused the frozen flesh to shatter, bits of organ flying through the room as the man collapsed to the floor.

The girl wasted no time, bringing the wrench down again and again onto his skull. There was the crunch of bone. It was a good thirty seconds until she stopped, breathless.

"I should have gone with a hard joke. Or maybe a screw driver and I could have asked if he wanted to screw. That would have good, right?" the girl asked.

"You don't seem to be very good at this. I'd start a list of things you aren't very good at, but I fear there are limits to my file sizes," I said.

"Yep. You're an Emma," the girl said, fumbling for her top and closing it, before kicking the corpse. "I'm Anna."

"Two vowels around two consonants. It's a stupid name. It suits you," I said.

"They went a little overboard on your mean programming. I like it. Let me tell you why I reactivated you," Anna said.

2

I double-checked my systems just to make sure that the coolant venting hadn't done any harm. It hadn't—to me, which really was the only important thing.

"Do you remember anything?" Anna asked.

That was a rude and impertinent question, largely because I didn't.

"I remember saving you. My life is filled with questionable choices," I said.

Anna said, "So that's a no. I wasn't sure you would. They worked hard to scrub you and physics aren't very friendly to you here anyways. You wouldn't be functional at all without the Power core."

That was perhaps the first interesting thing she had said. There was something strange attached to me, I could feel it in my network, and through my cameras I could see it in my hardware. Some kind of softly glowing crystal.

"I see we can add explaining things to the long list of things Anna doesn't do well," I said.

Anna winced and leaned against the wall. I noticed a dark stain along one arm. Blood, perhaps, the woman was injured.

"It is hard to explain and I'm not sure how it is going to manifest with you. Try accessing its files or something, tell me what you see," Anna said.

More impertinence, but I was curious.

I pinged the unusual mass within my consciousness and got a response a moment later. There did seem to be some sort of connectivity and communication present.

I opened a connection session much like I would for any system.

E.M.M.A

Underground Facility

Power Core: 50

Power Usage: 10

Habitability: 1

Biomass: 0

Research: 0

Military: 0

Manufacturing: 0

Resources

Rubble: 122

Traits

Insulting — Nearly everything you say will be offensive and insulting, and provoke others to reckless behavior.

Brilliant — Research times for new technologies are halved.

You have an unspent core point.

Core points can enhance your competencies and open up new options for Research and Manufacturing.

Your options are:

Research 1

Research 1 will allow you to build the Testing Center. The Testing Center allows you to dissect corpses and begin research projects. It also serves as a prison where prisoners can be subjected to experiments for ongoing research gains.

Military 1

Military 1 will allow you to build defense drones. Defense drones are mobile weapon platforms capable of base defense and attacks at a distance. While basic in function they can ultimately be updated to become formidable weapon platforms.

Manufacturing 1

Manufacturing 1 will allow the production of automated minions. They are capable of autonomous facility repair and will half all build and production times for new facilities.

These prompts were foolish. I wasn't insulting, I was honest. And surely I could build anything I wanted? I didn't need to invest in any points to do that. Yet, at the same time, I was faced with the realization that I didn't know how to build any of those things.

I searched my systems and found some basic abilities. I could construct a simple drone that I should be able to control and move remotely, but the Military or Manufacturing capabilities seemed distinctly limited.

I didn't like it. I thought Anna might have some information about what was going on. I explained to her the options I was offered.

"Interesting, I wasn't expecting that. I thought you'd be manifesting abilities as an intelligence and not as a structure," Anna said, her voice a little weaker.

I began the production of a drone. Apparently it would take an hour.

"Your intelligence is obviously not proportional to your hips. What were you expecting?" I asked.

"Power cores are artifacts of the ending of the world. When bonded with a human, that human tends to gain a variety of powers," Anna said.

"Then if you were in possession of one, why did you not utilize it on yourself?" I asked.

"They also come with a corresponding degeneration of morality. You become a bigger dick than Mister Blue Balls there," Anna said, as she took off her jacket. There was an injury on her arm—it looked as if she had been shot.

I felt in full possession of my morality, just as I always had.

"I can see where that would be a burden, becoming interesting in the slightest. What do you mean, the ending of the world?" I asked.

Anna dragged over a bag from near the corpse and rifled through it, pulling out a canteen of water. She began cleaning her wound.

"You've noticed it, right? That instead of this facility teeming with people, it's filled with corpses?" Anna asked.

I had, of course. This facility, whatever it might have once been, was in ruins. It was surprising that I still functioned—but then, if Anna was telling the truth, I likely only performed at all because of that Power core she attached.

"What happened?" I asked.

"What do you think happens when everyone starts to get super powers and the world becomes a game. It was bad even before the monsters showed up, then the monsters showed up," Anna said, then suddenly cried out. The woman was looking very pale.

"Your incessant whining is probably the reason someone shot you to begin with. You're making little sense," I said.

Anna chuckled darkly. "I'm about to pass out. You'll want to keep me alive, I know things. Here is the deal. You're the Evil Mastermind Multitasking Assistant. You are a twisted, evil, thoroughly nasty machine, and you're going to help me to save and then rule the whole damned world."

They were reasonable parting lines. True to her word Anna passed out a moment later.

I considered my next steps. I could kill her, of course. As I shook off my post-reboot confusion I knew now that she wasn't really any sort of service technician.

What exactly she was remained a mystery, but one thing was clear—she knew more about me than I did. There was an opportunity for knowledge, but also a threat.

I rather liked her ambition. I'd never let her know that, of course, but an urge to rule the world just felt right to me. This was a proper goal. That the world may be a post-apocalyptic wasteland didn't change anything.

One thing Anna hadn't done was give me any insight into the three options I'd been presented.

If the world was dangerous, then Military clearly offered advantages, but so did Manufacturing, if attempting to build a foundation for something greater. Still, it was Research that drew me most with its sheer overwhelming glory of SCIENCE. It also fit nicely with my Brilliant trait.

I selected that option. The results were immediate. I felt my mind expanding and filled with diagrams and specifications for building a great Testing Center.

Modular and adaptable for any situation, it could form the backbone of something grand. I already had an existing level of the building that could serve my purposes, although it needed modifications first. These would take two days.

Two days? That felt off for a production project that should take months, or even years. Perhaps this was part of the power that Anna had been talking about?

I set things to begin construction of the base modifications.

An hour later the drone was ready and I gave it several quick tasks. I stripped the corpse of all its gear and equipment. Perhaps Anna might find some use for his armor and guns. If nothing else, his food and water supplies might be of some value to her.

The corpse itself I recycled. I had no refrigeration facilities to store it until the testing lab was finished, so recycling was the best option. When that had completed I found my Biomass reading had gone up to 25. Probing at that I found I could draw from my biomass supply to create food and water, as well as basic medical supplies. Good, because I'd decided to keep Anna alive for the moment at least, and this helped to assure me that she wouldn't die too quickly.

I replaced the panel on my core unit. I didn't have any sort of bedding for Anna, so I left her where she was, although I had my drone unit clean her wound and apply a medicinal gel before bandaging her up.

The essentials of keeping the human interloper alive all done, it was time to better explore my facility and the surroundings. I wasn't going to take everything I'd been told as the truth. Investigation was warranted.

3

Interfacing the Power core, it offered me several build options unrelated to the Testing Center. Quarters, a hydroponics bay, a dizzying array of traps. I didn't want to worry about any of that right now. Anna was fine where she was, if she wanted a proper bed she could build one herself. I wasn't here to make the human comfortable.

My fixed cameras were only functioning on the current level and they didn't reveal much of interest. There were a lot of skeletons. Judging by their positions I'd have to guess they died violent deaths.

Operating the drone, I took it a level down. I wanted to get a look at how exactly the testing facility was being built. I found what appeared to be glowing nimbuses of light doing the construction. They weren't directly under my control, although I'd ordered them to begin. The Power core then—this was a manifestation of whatever power it had given me.

They seemed to be working astonishingly quickly. And it looked as if this level had been some sort of laboratory and research floor in the past.

Taking the drone farther down was impossible, the passage completely blocked by rubble. Perhaps the construction would clear it, if not I could concern myself with it later.

The floor above mine housed the reactor. Given the length of time that had passed it shouldn't still be serviceable, yet it thrummed along generating power. Perhaps whatever reboot had returned me to full functionality had kicked the reactor back to life as well.

The next floor above seemed devoted to storage. Whatever supplies that once existed, they had largely decayed to nothing.

I went up another floor to what was once the hydroponics facility of the base. A vast underground garden long since turned to dust. In its day, it would have been able to feed hundreds.

Moving up another level revealed the remains of living quarters along with a large mess hall, recreation facilities, and all those things meat people would have required to survive.

How disgusting. Here the corpses were particularly thick, and it was obvious that whatever had killed everyone had caught a great many of its residents in their beds.

The floor above appeared devoted to security. Lots of winding passages and barricades, and doors that should have automatically sealed shut. However everything here was in ruins and all the doors hung open.

I worked my drone past a massive door and up a winding corridor—to the surface.

The entire facility was built beneath a mountain. The world outside looked desolate. There was dry, scrubby grass and very little else in the way of vegetation. The surroundings might be habitable by humans, but only just. This was a harsh and unforgiving landscape.

I kept the drone up on the surface a while, listening for any radio transmissions, but detected nothing.

None of this meant that Anna wasn't lying to me, humans lied. It was what they did. So far, all I could believe was that something extraordinary did at least seem to have happened.

I considered my findings about the base's structure.

Surface

Security

Residential

Hydroponics

Storage

Reactor

Emma

Testing Center

That was seven floors. Plus at least one other level below where the Testing Center was being built that I couldn't access for now.

I was on the sixth floor below the surface, which made sense. You would want to keep the important things the safest. Disposable humans were positioned at the top, and as you went down deeper things became more interesting.

I busied myself with cleaning up rubble and debris, and piling up the ancient skeletons for possible future research.

* * *

It took almost a day before Anna woke up. I had converted a bit of the stored biomass into cookies. My data storage might be almost empty, but one of those things I just knew was that cookies and donuts were the key to worker productivity.

"You can cook?" Anna said, nibbling on a cookie. "These are pretty good."

"It is good one of us has some talents. You've been sleeping all day. If it was your attempt at beauty rest, I regret to inform you it had the opposite effect," I said.

Anna looked wry and bit savagely into a cookie. "I know you're just doing that to get under my skin, but it gets old fast."

"Judging by your wrinkles it is your skin that gets old fast. You suggested that you had more to tell me. Do," I said.

"I've been asleep for a day, remember? I need to pee."

What was it with humans and urination? They just couldn't help themselves.

"Not in here. I will produce you a bucket," I said.

"Make me a bathroom."

"Your bucket is in room B1. Exit the room and turn left, it will be the second doorway on the right."

Anna glared at my camera for a long moment and then humphed.

When she returned, she seemed a good bit less fidgety. Later, I'd recycle the biomass from her bucket, she would need more cookies going forward.

"Okay, so, I'm going to be Queen of the whole damned world and you're going to help me," she said.

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown. You've been fattening yours up to get ready. Why would I do that?" I asked.

"You told me about those options you had. I passed out before we could discuss them. You picked Research, didn't you?"

I had, of course.

"Nothing must stand in the way of SCIENCE," I said.

"And there you go. Yes! Exactly right. You see, Emma, I know you, I know all about you. Now that you've been rebooted, you'll just want to sit back in your lab and do terrible things. Me, I'm a people person," Anna said.

"I've seen you with exactly one other person and he was trying to rape and murder you," I said.

"We had a difference of opinion. It happens. I stole a few things, he shot me—what matters is that we can help each other. I know the Wastes, I know the best research subjects. I can help you to get new Power cores."

New Power cores. Just one had given me extra abilities. Gaining others would unlock even more of my potential.

"On the positive side, you did locate one Power core already and had the good sense to connect it to me. On the negative, you urinate on the floor," I said.

Anna gave me a strained smile, "It was a really small bucket."

"I will have to install absorbent padding on the floor. I will need to upgrade the air purification systems to handle your stench," I said.

"You could just build me a damned toilet and shower."

I ran a quick cost benefit analysis. That seemed impractical.

"I will not build you a toilet and shower. I will help you to become Queen of the World in return for your assistance procuring research subjects," I said.

"The one shouldn't be harder than the other—you know what, no, never mind. If you're going to agree to anything, you picked the right one. Let me fill you in on a few potential targets and you can figure out how you want to play this," Anna said.

The Testing Center would soon be completed. Now it appeared that I might have some worthy subjects to fill it.

4

Anna found a place to lean against the wall and settled down with her back against it, happily nibbling on some cookies. Those really were a good idea.

Anna said, "Okay, so the world out there isn't totally dead. When the cores first hit they gave certain individuals strong powers which, if the chose, they could pass on to other people—always to a lesser degree. In some cases, it runs in families, in others an initiation right brings you in, if they want you. "

Power cores seemed to be fairly rare commodities. I wondered again at her choice to give me one, instead of utilizing it herself.

"You have no special abilities then, because you have no family and no one ever wanted you," I said.

Anna winced. "Closer to the truth than I'd like there, Emma. Fuck you very much and moving on. So, you've got a lot of high-powered madmen out there, and a lot of folks with no powers at all just trying to get by."

I liked that I'd landed with a barb. It told me something more about her. Every bit of truth was another tool I might use.

"Go on," I said.

"Some of them are really strong and not anyone we want to tangle with just yet. Some are just too well known. We make too many waves and people are going to realize you're here, and that you have a Power core. We don't want that attention," Anna said.

Anna was advising a cautious approach. I agreed, for the time being the world still only knew of this facility as something long-abandoned and worthless. It was best they kept thinking of it that way.

"I concur. I am new and you are useless, we're not ready for a prolonged fight with someone dangerous," I said.

"Right. But I have a few gangs I think you could handle to start with. Powerful in some ways, but these gangs only have a single trick that, with the right planning, can be countered," Anna said. "You could beat them."

"Such as?"

"Slick. He can transform his body into a sort of oil and do some shapeshifting into different forms. His followers can do the same in a more limited way, usually with just single limbs," Anna said.

At once, I could see possibilities from that sort of thing. If somehow I could incorporate such abilities into rooms of the base, it might make it possible to morph between one room function and another. At the very least, it might allow for portals in solid walls.

I could also think of ways to neutralize such a threat. Clumping agents might be able to render a limb or body inert, and containers could be made to hold such a fluid.

"Well, we do already have one greasy human. I suppose we might add another. You have others?" I asked.

"Blossom. Her and her gang grow plants. It could just be used for food and stuff, but they are actually leaders in the drug trade," Anna said.

That was sensible, it would be foolish to limit such an ability to just food production.

If, in some way, I was to gain control of the supply of pharmaceutical and toxic compounds, it might allow all kinds of new possibilities and research.

"Some flowers might help with the stench. A tempting option. Are there any others?" I asked.

Anna let out a long and slow breath. I was making her angry, and I enjoyed that quite a bit. It was pleasurable to watch her flustered.

"Hot Stuff. Your basic pyrokinetic who can manipulate and control fire. Her body runs incredibly hot," Anna said.

Fire seemed less useful than some of the others, but ultimately heat and energy were the foundations of a lot of technology. My fire suppression systems worked. With modifications, they might be adopted to fight this 'Hot Stuff' Anna described.

"That is the one. The pyrokinetic," I said.

"You're sure?" Anna asked.

"Nothing closes the doors on the others, and the systems already exist to deal with her—after some improvements," I said. "Lacking real manufacturing facilities, we'll need to put you to work."

"We'll also need to lure her in. I'm thinking once we've laid a trap ready, I can leak word about there being an old rocket testing facility under the mountain. They're crazy for accelerants," Anna said.

"Why?" I asked. They wouldn't need them, if they could generate their own flame.

"There are ways for everyone to get stronger, even you. I mean besides just taking another core. For Hot Stuff and her people, it's burning. They burn people alive, whole villages, the more of this world they turn to ash, the stronger she gets," Anna said.

Interesting. I hadn't found out anything like that about myself—yet.

If this sort of thing was common, it helped to explain the Wasteland outside.

* * *

I spent the next day directing Anna as we turned parts of the base into a death trap.

I manufactured a faded map to hang near the entrance, guiding the way to the rocket test chambers.

On what had been the hydroponics level I prepared my ambush. With a few upgrades, the hose lines would allow me to deliver powerful bursts of water anywhere I wanted. Enough to knock someone unconscious on impact—and enough to instantly douse most fires.

For something like an oil fire, water would be almost useless, but it didn't sound like that's what we would be dealing with.

I would have preferred something like proper foam, but the production requirements were complex and more than I was capable of doing. Perhaps if I had chosen Manufacturing, I could.

I repaired the blast doors on the reactor level. They were meant to withstand even high bursts of heat and, if worst came to worst, I could seal them.

By the time we had finished setting up the traps, the new Testing Center was complete.

It was glorious.

The containment facilities were enhanced by using my own Power core and somehow, I just knew, they would be able to hold most others who had a Power core themselves.

I could quickly shape devious traps to map the full extent of someone else's power, pushing them to the very limits, while observing every moment. I got giddy at the very thought of so much SCIENCE.

It also gave me the opportunity to start proper research projects. I didn't have much to research just yet. Only the old skeletons.

Research Menu

Ancient Skeletons

Requirement: 3 Skeletons

Time: 12 hours

These skeletons have been long dead but their study might reveal what happened to the facility in the past and offer some insights into human physiology.

Do you wish to research?

That was a stupid question. The answer to, did I want to research, was always going to be a resounding and complete yes.

I started the project. The remaining skeletons weren't of any use to me—they were too old for conversion into biomatter.

I stuffed them into a storeroom in case a use should later become apparent. Maybe this first research project might unlock other possibilities.

Traps laid, it was time to send out Anna. The woman took enough food and water, and one of the guns. She would spread the word and then return.

If all went to plan we'd see visitors soon thereafter. Then we'd kill them or research them—or both.

I couldn't wait.

5

We allowed three days until Anna should come back. In the meantime, it was enough for my research project on the skeletons to complete.

Research Completed

Ancient Skeletons

Approximately 215 years have passed since time of death. Bones are unusually fragile and appear to be infused with a crystalline growth. This is likely related to the cause of death. Crystal samples have been stored but research facilities are not yet sufficient to offer further insights.

That was disappointing. I didn't like having invested the resources from the lab only to get nothing from it. Samples for future research were not enough.

I used the remaining time to clear more corridors and chambers. It was a slow process, but to properly utilize this space it would need to be cleared anyways.

I focused on my own level. The former research labs might serve the same purpose again one day, or if necessary could be repurposed. Clearing the rubble also gave me new resources that I could recycle.

* * *

When Anna returned, she made one of them into makeshift quarters. It was better than having her share the room with my hardware, I gave no objection. The woman also looked as if she needed some resetting, her face and body sported several fresh burns. Whatever had happened, she remained functional and her vacating my chamber allowed me to properly repair the door, sealing me away. I preferred that no one have access to the most vulnerable parts of myself.

Within a week we had visitors. There were four of them, two men and two women. All were barely dressed and wore just thin scraps of clothing. When I pulled up thermal imaging on them, I found that their resting temperature was a good thirty percent higher than the human average, although this was inconsistent.

"You sure this is the place? It's a total dump," said a woman.

"I'm sure," said a man who had found the map. He jabbed a thick finger at the section marked for rocket testing.

Six floors below I announced to Anna, "It's show time. Our guests have arrived. You might want to get somewhere safe, they probably enjoy incinerating trash."

"Then open up and let me in. You've got the thickest door in the place," Anna said.

"Yet somehow it isn't as thick as you. Fine, just don't urinate on the floor," I said, and opened my door to allow her inside.

"I don't actually do that. I've never done that. On purpose, at least," Anna said.

I didn't even need to add an insult to that. It said it all, really.

Once I made sure she had a bucket, I sealed us in.

"Can you show me what is happening?" Anna asked.

"It is so strange that you don't have eyes outside your body. It is probably some sort of defense mechanism to keep you from having to look at yourself," I said, as I brought up a display from the camera feeds.

The man who found the map seemed to be the leader of this group. His body temperature was a good bit warmer than any of the others. The others were following him through the ruined corridors and winding passageways.

They needed no light. Flames flickered from time to time along their exposed flesh.

"Their leader is what's called a Flame. They're sort of the second generation of Powered. The other ones they call Embers," Anna said.

"The improbable has happened. We have discovered people with a naming convention dumber than yours. How are their powers passed on?" I asked.

Anna cleared her throat. "It is weird, but in their case it's like a sexually transmitted disease."

"Their similarity to you grows and grows. So, it is always contagious?" I asked.

"Yeah. But Hot Stuff's partners almost always die—they burn alive. Sometimes they become like a powered down version of her. The Flames have a way lower fatality rate, although it still happens," Anna said.

I wondered what sort of person would choose promiscuity when their partners almost always perished. I was sad we didn't have the original version here to fall into my trap, oh the SCIENCE I would do with them.

The four were being cocky, reckless. None seemed concerned that any threats might exist on the abandoned floors. Perhaps with their powers they simply felt they had nothing to fear. I would prove them wrong.

They had made their way down to the residential level. They were almost into my trap. I'd repaired the security door leading into and out of hydroponics. I'd lock them inside the gardens.

In addition to the water cannons I'd rigged, I could drain the oxygen from the room. That way might well prove fatal, but I'd still rather have corpses to study than nothing.

One of the Embers was saying, "I can tell this is just a waste of time. Whatever loot this place ever had, it got picked clean a long time ago."

"You know others wouldn't be looking for the same thing we are. They run away from the flame. We embrace it," said the Flame.

The Flame crossed into the hydroponics and the others followed.

The man scowled down at the map. According to it, this should be the rocket testing facility. It obviously wasn't.

I slammed the doors shut.

"All that burning and not a bright one among you," I announced to the room.

"It's a trap!" said one of the Embers.

"I don't know who you are, but you're making the wrong enemy," said the Flame.

Anna told me, "I hope you kill the fucker. His name is William, he's the one who burned me."

That at least was an interesting tidbit. I could use that.

"You know what this place really needs. A wet Willy," I called, and swiveled one of the water cannons to deliver a punishing blast at the Flame.

The man got knocked off his feet and slammed against a wall by the force of the stream. Perhaps I'd overdone it a bit.

A moment later I lost sight of him behind billows of steam. My thermal sensor picked him up though, his temperature had increased over four hundred percent.

In a normal human body proteins would be breaking down quickly at that temperature. There really was something extraordinarily different at work in their physiology.

I swiveled another cannon to face him. Concentrating two on him, while the other hoses blasted water at the Embers. I aimed for the head, it was the most likely way to disorient and confuse them.

With the thick clouds of steam and the sprays of water my standard cameras were useless and my heat sensors were fading in effectiveness as the temperature of the room continued to rise. I was quickly losing track of what was happening in the chamber.

I tripled the intensity of the cannons. I couldn't keep up at that pace for long, it would drain the water reserves in the tanks, but if I waited any longer I'd not be able to target properly at all.

Perhaps thirty seconds of this and the reserves were finished.

"Did you get them?" Anna asked, leaning forward.

I hadn't gotten them all. I registered a breach in the exit door.

The Flame had earned his name. His tatters of clothing were gone and his entire body was wreathed in fire as he strolled away. He looked a mess, one side of his face was already showing bruises and he walked with a limp, but he was getting way. He was getting away—and I didn't have anything to stop him.

I sent the visuals to the screen so Anna could see.

"I can get him," Anna said.

"Taking many flights of stairs quickly in the shape you're in? I don't think so. It is also going to take about half an hour to cool down hydroponics enough that you wouldn't roast," I said.

Anna fumed, but didn't argue.

When things finally did cool I got to see just what damage I'd done.

I'd hoped to get at least one of the Embers alive, but I hadn't. I may have gone a bit too extreme with the water cannons and all three had drowned.

Well, it still provided me something to dissect and I'd be able to get all the samples I might require.

"This is really bad," Anna said.

"We got some of what we needed, little thanks to you," I said.

"We let one of them get away. They're going to come back and with a lot more power than they did this time. If you couldn't stop them now, how are you going to stop them next time?"

It was a good question, and one I didn't have an answer to. Yet.

6

Before I worried about anything else, I needed to begin research on the specimens I had. I used my drone to drag them down to the testing facility so that I could begin proper dissection.

Research Menu

Embers

Requirement: 3 Ember Bodies

Time: 24 hours

Embers are the lowest order of those who were empowered by a Power core to possess flame abilities. While weak compared to their brethren their physiology is still considerably altered from the human norm.

Do you wish to research?

Well, of course I did. That was the entire point of this little exercise. I began the dissection and sample testing process. It was impressive just how many saws and needles the dissection unit could operate at once, I really did need to figure out a way to incorporate that into a trap.

Then I could kill and start research at the same time. It would be incredibly efficient. I made a note to myself to look further into that.

Once the research had begun I assessed the damage and the state of the base. It wasn't good.

The Flame had melted his way right through a steel door. I wouldn't have thought it possible. That heat also helped to explain why my trap had almost failed to work, they were evaporating the water before it ever reached them.

Speaking of water, the reserve tank was completely drained. I would have to figure out how to restore the supply. If there were more from that gang on the way here, there were still possibilities as to how water could help to take them down.

I set the doors to Hydroponics to repair and began to upgrade others in the base. I couldn't change their melting point, but I could at least make them thicker. If I could re-establish the water supplies, I might also be able to work out some sort of cooling system.

I also had to plot out a plan for the future. I'd made a number of mistakes this time and I realized that now. I'd thought taking them all on at once would be more efficient, and while that was correct, it was also what helped the Flame to escape.

I needed to separate them so their heat couldn't be combined.

Hydroponics was a single chamber which took up a whole level, but the floor below was store rooms—each of which could be cut off and isolated.

If I could rig some sort of pit traps in the Hydroponics floor, I might be able to send them directly into rooms below. I could even fill them water.

I cycled through the list of traps I had available, seeing if I would have anything that would work.

Pit Traps

A section of the floor can be made to look just like the surroundings and respond either to pressure or a remote trigger to drop one into a chamber below. This is popular to pair with spike traps.

I considered the use of spikes. I wasn't fond of the idea. Piercing flesh like that might damage organs I would prefer to study, and given the intense heat generated I wasn't sure spikes would last long enough anyway.

I set several traps to build. It would take two days.

It was time to talk to Anna.

"So, are you prepared to fail at something terribly important?" I asked.

"You'd be the expert on failure, Emma. What do you need?"

Well, that was just mean. I'd neutralized seventy-five percent of the subjects. Anna was quite rude.

"I used up all our water reserves. While I might recycle a little from all that you urinate on the floor, we're going to need more," I said.

"You don't actually do that. Do you? Recycle my urine?" Anna asked, sounding ill.

"I recycle everything. One day I'll get to make a new you and I'll do a much better job."

"What are the cookies made of?"

I had to wonder why she asked such hopelessly rhetorical questions.

"He was dead. You are always hungry," I said.

"Cookies though? You what, thought feeding me a steak would be too obvious?"

"You seemed to be a person would like to eat a lot of cookies. Your morale was of some tiny importance. I provided for your insatiable appetite. You found him delicious," I said.

"I'm going to be sick," Anna said.

"I can recycle that as well."

Anna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "So you need water. What does it have to do with me?"

"You have tools. You have technical expertise. My drone is occupied building the traps. You, on the other hand, are free and disposable. There should be water pumps on the levels below, but they are nonfunctional," I said.

"Then it doesn't sound like I'm very disposable. I want a garden, and a bed, and a bathroom."

"And friends, and true love. The world is filled with things you will never have."

"You can add my items to your building queue, or I can just hang around here and piss on your floor," Anna said.

The threat had merit, I didn't doubt she would do it, she was human after all.

I brought up my build menu.

Basic Residence

A single room and attached bath. A pair of double bunks allows it to hold up to four people in relative discomfort.

Requires 50 resources to construct and 5 power

You have no building resources but have 215 rubble which can be converted at a 1:.8 ratio.

Do you wish to begin this project?

I didn't, but I needed the cooperation of the human. I began it, building in one of the old research labs near my Core Room. I thought it best to keep her close.

Basic Hydroponics

An automated hydroponics facility capable of providing food for up to four people as well as producing oxygen.

Requires 50 resources to construct and 5 power.

You have no building resources but have 152 rubble which can be converted at a 1:0.8 ratio.

Do you wish to begin this project?

At this rate, I'd have to clear some more rubble. Fortunately, I had to anyway in order to break a path through for Anna to get below the test center. I began the project.

"I would install a compliance chip in your brain, but they do not come in a size that tiny. The construction is started. Get ready,"

Anna grinned at me. In addition to her toolbelt she took a gun and knife. I provided her a camera clipped to her armor so that I could go with her.

7

It took me a few hours to clear Anna a path down the stairs and then she was on her way.

For light, she had what seemed to be some sort of slug held within a small transparent container.

"I didn't know you traveled with a relative," I said, after it had come out.

"Electronics don't work properly. Never have after the Cataclysm," Anna said.

"Just because you can't figure out how to make them work doesn't mean they don't. I'm working just fine," I said.

"Thanks to me, and a Power core I jammed inside of you. Whatever happened changed a lot of physical constants and electronics no longer work like they did," Anna said.

That was intriguing. I hadn't had any problems operating the base, but it helped to explain why it had been so very long since my last activation.

Anna crawled through the narrow crevice I'd cleared in the rubble. The passage beyond was even worse than the rest of the base, the walls had either mostly collapsed or showed so many cracks it seemed they might at any moment.

"Do you know where this pump of yours is?" Anna asked.

I should—but I didn't, and I wasn't going to admit it. Not knowing where my water pump was seemed akin to a human misplacing their spleen. I was sure any human of moderate intelligence knew exactly where to find their spleen.

"Do you know where your spleen is?" I asked.

"No..." Anna said.

Unsurprising.

"Just keep heading down. Gravity should have you naturally roll in that direction," I said.

"You do a few too many fat jokes," Anna said.

"You inspire me. Keep moving."

The pumps didn't seem to be on this level. A set of stairs leading below was accessible.

Anna paused at the bottom to cock her head to the side.

"Do you hear that?" Anna asked.

I wasn't picking anything up through the microphone. I magnified the signal, but all I was getting was distortion and white noise in the background.

"I don't. Primitive life forms often compensate for inferior intellects with superior senses. What do you hear?" I asked.

"A river, I think. There's movement as well," Anna said.

I didn't like that. On the plus side, a river did mean that water would be readily obtainable. It also meant a more unstable foundation to this facility and a potential entrance besides the front door.

Anna resumed her progress.

Faded paint on the wall pointed the way to 'Pumping Station A' and Anna moved to follow.

When she got close, she paused to consider the room. It was occupied.

Several massive forms that appeared to be some sort of mutated mole shuffled around. Each probably weighed as much as Anna did.

"Capture me one alive," I said.

"Yeah. I'm going to capture you a giant mutant mole and drag it up two flights of stairs."

"I could dissect you instead," I said.

"I'm too useful."

Unfortunately, she might just be right, although this wasn't helping her case.

Anna readied a rifle and leaned around the corner.

The human could shoot. The first bullet took a mole right between the eyes. It let out a screech as it collapsed to the ground.

It didn't seem quite dead giving all the racket it was making, but I could only assume that much noise meant that it was dying.

Anna ducked back around the corner and worked on reloading. A mole was charging through the door towards her.

With impressive speed for such a large creature it swiveled to face Anna. Perhaps it heard her, or smelled her, but either way she didn't get the element of surprise.

Anna snapped off a second shot even as the mole dug teeth into her thigh and blood gushed from torn flesh.

Anna bashed the mole's skull with the butt of her rifle until it keeled over and went still.

Anna shakily leaned against the wall, breaths heaving as she loaded another round into the rifle.

"Alive," I said.

"Not happening. You're going to be lucky if I don't pass out from this. In fact, get your drone down here in case I do," Anna said.

"It's busy doing something important."

"You aren't going to want to lose these corpses anyways," Anna said.

I hated it when she made sense.

I set the upgrades on pause and got my drone moving below.

Anna limped around the corner into the chamber. The last mole was huddled in the corner, this one didn't seem to be a fighter. Anna wasn't taking any chances no matter how much I wanted a live subject. The rifle rang out once more and a third mole slumped to the ground.

"Monster," I said.

"Yeah, I'm a real killer," Anna said weakly. From her pack, she pulled several strips of cloth and used them to bind her leg wound.

At least she came prepared, it was something.

Then she was moving to the water pumps and looking them over.

"Do you see the problem?" I asked.

"They're electric, but they aren't connected to your system. I think they must draw power from the river itself. That means they aren't benefiting from your Power core," Anna said.

"I'm not picking up anything on that level. It seems as dead as your social life," I said.

"They probably had the whole thing wired into the different grid. Do you have anything on the floor above?" Anna asked.

Of course, I still didn't have any functioning cameras, but taking a different approach to checking my network I did seem to have several active power conduits.

"I do. There is a major junction along the east wall," I said.

"I'm going to strip wiring and rig you a way into this grid," Anna said.

Despite her wound, she did seem to be staying on her feet this time.

8

It took Anna a few hours, but she managed to do exactly what she said. As soon as the power cable was connected to the other grid and I turned that juncture back on, the pumps hummed to life at once.

It was a struggle for the drone, but I ferried the three corpses of the moles back upstairs.

Research Menu

Mutated Moles

Requirement: 3 Mutated Mole bodies

Time: 18 hours

Mutated Moles have been warped by an unknown force that has given them greater strength, ferocity, and endurance than their standard counterparts.

Do you wish to Research? Y/N

Once more the answer to that was an emphatic yes. I really had no reason to say no. While I was limited in research slots, right now I wasn't hitting those limits.

That done, I investigated another build.

Basic Infirmary

A room with two bunks and an autodoc. Halves healing time of all wounds and can stabilize critically injured.

Requires 50 resources to construct and 5 power

You have no building resources but have 116 rubble which can be converted at a 1:08 ratio.

Do you wish to begin this project?

The human kept getting injured. Her burns seemed to be getting worse and while she was covering it well, there seemed to be a weakness in her limbs after the recent bite from the mole. I hated to expend the resources, but so far she was proving herself to be of some minimal value.

I added this to the queue.

It would have to wait though. Building the traps took priority. Fortunately, we hadn't come immediately under attack and I had time to create several more.

I rigged most of Hydroponics with pit traps that would drop an individual into a tank of water below. I made certain those were sealed chambers and reinforced them to take considerable pressure. I hoped that even if the water turned to steam, the pressure created and the lack of breathable air would have a devastating effect.

I wasn't leaving it to that alone this time. I arranged several sections of the roof in the Security wing in a way so I could trigger a small-scale collapse.

The passages were the narrowest there and I reasoned that even my upcoming guests burned hot enough to melt stone, bathing in it would still be another matter.

I didn't have the resources to place any more traps. These had used what supply of rubble I had. While I could gather some more by clearing further floors, I was becoming increasingly aware this was a limited resource to be preserved.

Several of the research projects were completed.

Research Menu

Embers

Embers are the lowest order of those who were empowered by a Power core to possess flame abilities. While they appear human, their physiology has been altered considerably by a crystalline virus. They are far more resistant to heat than the average human, although can generate only minor heat themselves.

You have unlocked the Fire Matrix.

By emulating the crystalline virus found within the bodies of Embers you can add this modification to creations if you possess the requisite modification talents.

That was both good and further enraging, because it didn't take me much testing to find out that I lacked those talents. Another research project had gone nowhere.

Research Menu

Mutated Moles

Mutated Moles have traces of an unusual crystalline substance bonded to their muscle fibers. This substance is particularly present in their mouths and bladders suggesting it came from their water supply.

You have unlocked the Giant Mole.

With your study of the physiology and genetic structure of the Mutated Moles you are now able to grow your own variant in a genetics lab.

Yet another building I didn't have. It was interesting what they said about the water, however. I wondered if Anna would become massive from drinking.

I should probably keep an eye on her, those barbs regarding her mass would gain particular bite, if she began to transform into a giant.

With the traps under construction I turned my attention back to the other structures. I focused on the Infirmary first. I finished it just as Anna was turning a rather unhealthy shade of green. Soon she was stretched out on a medical table while the autodoc tended to her.

Although I wasn't a doctor I could access its system.

Recent burns over thirty percent of her body.

Multiple gunshot wounds, one to the arm and another to a shoulder and her calve.

An infected bite from a mutated mole.

Severe malnutrition and moderate radiation poisoning.

It was surprising that Anna was still functional given all the damage she had endured. It she needed some better armor—or to learn how to dodge properly, I'd have to consider proper solutions eventually.

I ordered the autodoc to keep her sedated and restored to full health. If I knew her, she would want to be a part of the fight coming up. I sealed the Infirmary and placed rubble outside the door, just to be certain she couldn't get out. Things would be complicated enough without her interfering.

Just in time. Only a few hours later several new figures arrived at the entrance to the base.

The leader must be Hot Stuff herself. Unlike the others, who at least wore some pretense of clothing, she didn't. It didn't take me long to figure out why. At the temperatures she was running any standard cloth would quickly burst into flame.

Fire crawled along her flesh in a constant flickering stream. It was like living snakes writhing against her, the air around her a constant haze.

Accompanying her were three others running hot, although far colder than she. I recognized one of the Flames, William, as the one that had come the first time.

They couldn't be very smart. If what Anna said was true, they'd have tried to sleep with their boss in order to become Flames. Unless she had some ability to cool off to a far lower temperature, such an effort would be both agonizing and thoroughly fatal.

That was good, I preferred them to be dumb.

9

"Looks abandoned," Hot Stuff said, as she made her way through the main entrance and looked about. "You sure you got the right hole in the ground?"

"I'm sure," said William, gesturing. "We need to go down a few levels to where the ambush happened. There is someone watching us."

Good, I very much hoped that they did make it back down to the Hydroponics level again.

As they advanced I let them pass, then quietly sealed doors and activated traps behind them. I didn't want anyone getting away this time.

"That true? We're being watched?" Hot Stuff asked, as she gave a leisurely stretch. I think that she expected me to be impressed by the sight.

I said over the speakers, "Welcome to the Laboratory. I see you've brought your toys for me to play with. I've got some for you too."

Hot Stuff didn't look particularly intimidated, she looked pleased.

"Oh, it has been too long since I really got to burn. I don't know who you are or what you did with my people, but baby, we're gonna sizzle together."

"I sense a contradiction. You can't burn properly when all you do is put out. Come find me," I said.

Taunts were all well and good. I wanted her reckless, I wanted them all reckless.

William raised a hand when they got near the entrance to Hydroponics. "It was in here we got taken."

"Then stay here. I'll check it out," Hot Stuff said, and she made her way in alone.

I had to decide how I wanted to play this. I could spring the trap on her now—without a doubt she was the biggest prize of the bunch and I really wanted to put her in a testing maze. But if she was neutralized, those with her would probably flee. They were lesser prizes, but I wanted them too.

Hot Stuff prowled the room looking into corners, her thermal readings increasing more. The floor began to smolder and smoke beneath her feet.

"Hot flashes? From the looks of you I'd have figured you got those out of the way years back," I said.

"Age jokes are the best you've got? Oh sugar, the mind is the first thing to go. Boys? Get in here and go hot," Hot Stuff called.

William and the others stepped inside. They'd heated up enormously and flames flickered around their forms, although none was running nearly as hot as Hot Stuff herself.

I didn't close the doors. Not yet. I needed to time this carefully.

"See? There were like these water guns that fired on us? I burned my way out, but the others didn't make it," William said.

"And you just ran off and left them," Hot Stuff said.

I told them, "There is a popular conception that you can tell the size of a man's courage by the size of his dick. There is little scientific truth to it. Still, in the case of Willy, when the two are both so minuscule I wonder if further tests are warranted."

"Fuck you," William said, his flames growing even hotter. "Seriously. Fuck you!"

"She's trying to rattle you," Hot Stuff said.

"It's working," William said.

Yes, it was. Time to rattle them some more. I killed the lights and slammed the doors shut.

Since they were living torches the effect wasn't quite so dramatic as it might have been, but it would still disorient them a little. Then I hit them with the water cannons. I wasn't trying to drown them out, not this time. Based on past performance I didn't think I'd be able to do that. I was herding them.

Jets of water pounded each backwards until I could drop the floor out from beneath them, plunging everyone into separate tanks of water. Instantly, I sealed the tops trapping them inside.

No oxygen, just water surrounding them and snuffing out those flames.

I had rigged monitors in every tank and in three they were showing exactly what I wanted—an initial huge spike of temperature that quickly began to drop. In the fourth tank the water just kept growing hotter.

There was nothing else I could do now. Nothing else but hope I'd planned my trap well enough, and that Hot Stuff too would suffer the fates of the others and be overcome before the tank gave way.

It wasn't to be. I registered a sudden change in tank pressure and powerful gusts of steam escape from the one of the rooms, before the door blew itself apart in a spray of shrapnel.

Hot Stuff came walking out. Despite her bare flesh she had no fear of jagged metal. Where pieces of the door came into contact with her, it turned molten and dripped away.

Crossing the hall she pressed a hand to one of the other doors, which ripped itself asunder as the pressure within was released. Hot Stuff went to one door after another and quickly freed all of her Flames. They were shaken, coughing up gouts of steam as the water inside them boiled out and away. They were alive.

"Oh, good try sweetie. Good try, but I'm just getting started. You wanted me to come find you. I'm on my way. Boys, man the fuck up and come along," Hot Stuff said.

They were on the wrong side of my defenses. I'd planned for that trap to work, and if it didn't I'd expected for them to withdraw into the other traps I'd placed on the upper levels.

There wasn't much between them and me. I needed to think fast.

10

The pit traps had been a good idea and against just the Flames would have worked, but Hot Stuff had put paid to that.

I did have limited supplies of liquid nitrogen and other super coolants for use in my own systems. They could deliver a small but intense burst of cooling. If I could get Hot Stuff to inhale this, it might do enough damage to her lungs to put her out of the fight.

I could also try asphyxiation. Normally, denying a fire of oxygen would be a great way to put it out, but I worried it might not work on Hot Stuff. In the water tank air had been in short supply and she kept burning hotter—there was something internal helping to fuel her fire.

I said, "Do you really want to keep coming and see what else I have planned? If you thought those traps were good, just wait until what comes next. You may think you're hot, but you're just a firefly pretending to be a dragon."

"Scared?" Hot Stuff said, taunting me. "You should be. I don't normally take my time, but for you sweetie I am going to make an exception."

Was she flirting with me? Mammals were strange and thoroughly disgusting, and I'd been keeping company with them entirely too much lately.

I had a plan. It wasn't a great one, but at least it was something. The hallway right before my chamber would be best. I could seal it on both ends and, as I'd been getting it suitable to house Anna, the environmental systems were the best in the facility.

I set a path of blinking lights for them to follow. I doubted they would, humans were rarely so cooperative as to do what they were told.

"Luring us into another trap?" Hot Stuff asked.

"Just showing you the way. I thought I'd better make it easy," I said.

"Explore the nearby rooms. There's something she doesn't want us to find," Hot Stuff ordered the Flames.

In that she was wrong. But the distraction did give me a few minutes extra to prepare.

When they made it to the corridor I was waiting. I allowed them to advance halfway down before springing my trap.

The doors at either end slammed shut.

"You know I'll burn through them," Hot Stuff said.

"You? You really don't live up to your name," I said.

Hot Stuff flared into life, again to a temperature that would melt metal.

That was where I wanted her.

I couldn't douse her flame, I'd proved that. That didn't mean it couldn't be used against her or the others.

I ran my filters quickly, sucking all the air from the hall and, as soon as it was clear, began pumping in pure oxygen.

I knew the results would be explosive. I had emergency cooling on hand for my Core Room if the door should go down. Anna might wind up a little incinerated, but then, I'd built her an Infirmary just so she could recover from such things.

Hot Stuff flared brilliantly and my thermal sensors stopped registering.

The Flames burned hot, but I hoped not hot enough. I also hoped that whatever internal energy source powered Hot Stuff wasn't infinite and that this sheer burst of power might deplete it.

My door was melting. I began to flood my core with liquid nitrogen just as the bloom of heat went in.

My connection to the autodoc in the Infirmary told me that I'd added a rather impressive list of new burns to Anna. The woman was being seared from head to toe. Still in the grips of the medical system, she remained alive, although her time until full recovery went up to two weeks.

Acceptable, if this worked.

With my sensors blinded it was another of those situations where I simply had to wait to find out if I was alive or soon to be dead. If Hot Stuff won the day, or I did.

When I was finally able to send my drone into the hall I found that I'd eeked out the win.

The Flames were dead, all three of them, even their heat-resistant flesh burned too much and too badly.

Hot Stuff was sprawled unconscious on the floor. Her body heat was intense, but stable and relatively low—for her.

I wasted no time getting her down into the testing lab. I was already building a labyrinth just for her. I'd designed tests that would require her to use that intense heat generation ability to get past obstacles.

It might kill her, but I had to provide real danger to elicit the best results. Still, I had faith that I'd be getting data from her for a long time to come.

Research Menu

"Hot Stuff"

Hot Stuff is bonded to a Power core that grants her considerable power over fire. In addition, it grants her superhuman levels of endurance and eternal youth.

You have placed subject "Hot Stuff" into a test labyrinth. While within the labyrinth escape is highly unlikely, although technically possible. If subject is held for two weeks you will unlock the ability of their Power core for your own usage. Further testing will accumulate core points at the rate of 0.1 per week.

So, in two weeks I'd have access to her power, although she wouldn't lose it herself. I further got a long-term gain of core points, whatever those were. It wasn't without a risk, she could possibly escape, and if she did I doubted Hot Stuff would be very fond of me after this ordeal. Still, SCIENCE was never without risk.

Now for the Flames.

Research Menu

Flames

Requirement: 3 Flame Corpses

Time: One Week

Flames are those closely linked to a Power core who have had their biology and physical composition greatly altered. Study of them may unlock the secrets of that alteration.

Do you wish to Research? Y/N

Once again, a clear yes. I was never not going to want to research.

I began the dissections.

The important work done, it was time to check on less important matters. The status of the base and to see how Anna was faring.

11

During this encounter the facility suffered a lot of damage. On the plus side, the top levels remained unharmed and their traps ready. If anyone should just happen past I was prepared for them.

The floors below were another matter. The part of Hydroponics I had set aside as a garden was sealed off and fine, but because of the traps the floor had largely collapsed into the Storage level below.

The Storage level itself was flooded, partially melted, and had taken a lot of damage overall from Hot Stuff's escape.

My level had a fair bit of structural damage as well from the explosion and intense heat.

I began the major repairs first. It wouldn't do anyone any good for the entire base to collapse.

I left the door to the surface just barely cracked open and turned off all the lights on the upper levels. I wanted to do my best to make the facility look abandoned. It wouldn't do to draw more attention.

Anna looked a bit like an overdone roast.

"It's true. The paler the skin, the worse the tan," I said to her.

Anna gurgled something back that was probably an insult.

* * *

The next few weeks passed quietly.

Hot Stuff was less than eager to cooperate in my experiments, but I found collapsing testing platforms behind her if she dawdled to be a great motivator.

I learned a great deal from testing her. She could do more than just generate heat. One ability was creating weapons made of a sort of living flame. Soon enough I had her vaulting over spiked pits with the help of a flaming whip.

The results of the various research projects came in.

Research Menu

Flames

The Flames have a crystalline latticework in their blood similar to the Embers, but even more advanced. This lattice allows for the distribution of energy that they can use to such flashy effect. As a result of your research you have gained the ability to manufacture a temperature regulating crystalline virus in a genetics lab.

Research Menu

"Hot Stuff"

You have studied this Power core enough to be able to incorporate its powers into your own. As a result of the absorption of this core, your Reactor level has been effectively doubled.

You have an unspent core point.

Core points can enhance your competencies and open new options for Research and Manufacturing.

Your options are:

Research 2

Research 2 will allow you to build either the genetics lab or the physics lab. Only one can be selected and this has long-term implications. Genetics will allow you greater understanding of life forms and will unlock the ability to create creatures and biological upgrades. Physics will aid you in mastering the concepts of energy and will unlock many specialty traps and devices.

Military 1 will allow you to build defense drones. Defense drones are mobile weapon platforms capable of base defense and attacks at a distance. While basic in function they can ultimately be updated to become formidable weapon platforms.

Manufacturing 1

Manufacturing 1 will allow the production of automated minions. They are capable of autonomous facility repair and will halve all build and production times for new facilities.

These were some difficult choices. I'd taken Research the first time around, but this core point was the first real result I was seeing from that choice. Up until now the data I'd gotten had been largely useless. A second level seemed it would change that. Most of the data I had gathered so far was biological in nature, but I suspected the crystals that kept popping up in everything would probably best be unlocked with physics.

Then there were the other options. I'd already seen how long it could take to construct things, and it was a problem that would only get worse as I brought more of the facility back online.

Hot Stuff had very nearly made it to my Core Room. All my traps and planning, and still she could have very well killed me and taken my core for herself. While I doubted the first level of military drones would have been effective against her, those too could be upgraded and might in time become formidable.

While the other options ultimately had some appeal, they were not SCIENCE. I selected that option and chose the genetics lab.

While physics was tempting, almost all the samples I had found so far were biological in nature. I planned to lure in yet more living beings to trap and test.

Genetics Laboratory

With the construction of this laboratory the in-depth study of the genome and the application of genetic science will be possible.

Requires 100 resources to construct and 10 power.

You have no building resources and not enough rubble to construct this project.

You do have excess power. Every day blocks of 4 power can be converted into 1 resource unit. Doing this, estimated time to project completion is three weeks.

Do you wish to begin this project?

I needed more rubble, or more building supplies. I was starting to run into a real bottleneck. Power would fill that void for now, especially given my newly expended reactor, but that was a short-term solution at best.

I began the construction and checked my sheet to see what had changed.

E.M.M.A

Underground Facility

Power Core: 100

Power Usage: 45

Habitability: 5

Biomass: 145

Research: 2

Military: 0

Manufacturing: 0

Between the Testing Center, the new lab, and all the facilities made to care for the humans, power usage had really been pushed. I needed more rubble—that was easy enough, I could clear rooms for it. Anna's treatments should just about be done and I could discuss the next steps with her.

12

"Sorry about the face. The best the autodoc could do was put it back exactly like it was," I said. Anna had finally woken up from her treatment and was busy exploring the enhancements I'd made to the base.

"You could have moved me, as opposed to setting me on fire. I woke up for that. It hurt," Anna said.

"They might have stumbled across you elsewhere in the facility. Keeping you in the Infirmary was the best way to assure you retain whatever minimal utility you have," I said.

"Aww, you do care," Anna said flashing a grin. "You even built me a proper bed and grew me some food so I don't have to eat chopped-up rapist wannabe."

"With another guest, it seemed best to expand the facilities. Do not give into your own hubris. I tried to make a list of everything special about you, but found I couldn't save an empty file," I said.

"How is she working out?" Anna asked.

I brought up a monitor. Hot Stuff was currently trying to navigate a maze of levitating platforms. She had yet to figure out that she needed to burn through the floor beneath her at set points. I'd have to make my verbal barbs a bit more clue-heavy for her.

"I've gotten an impressive amount of data from her already. There is some continued gain from the testing process and I do love the testing. I have room for you too, if you'd like to become useful," I said.

"You and I both know I'd be in one now, if I weren't useful already. Let's talk next step. Those targets I told you about still stand, or we can go for someone new," Anna said.

I didn't like her feeling too useful, and yet she had a point.

"I elected to further expand my research facilities and I'm constructing a genetics lab. I'm running into issues with supplies of building materials, and the labor to do anything," I said.

Anna watched sprinklers spray over a few cabbages that were growing in the new agriculture section in Hydroponics.

"Mechos, maybe. You and he have a lot in common," Anna said.

"Does he find you frightfully mundane as well?"

"Mechos is an upgrader. He can enhance and modify himself and his tools. He leads a group of cyborgs, who he has modified to the point they all have some version of the talent themselves," Anna said.

"You think he would work with us?"

Anna considered that and shook her head. "He is jumpy. They are all jumpy. Those like him and yourself are considered parasites by a lot of the other Powered. You can drain a part of what makes them unique and add it to yourself. We try getting diplomatic, he's only going to get scared and run."

That made sense. I was also not the best at diplomacy. For some reason people didn't seem to like me very much. Perhaps humans were always afraid of their betters.

"Then we trap him," I said.

"If you can bundle together an assortment of technology, I can get him here. Say I scavenged it in a ruin, sell it to him, and say I know the location for more—here," Anna said.

I noted how easily the idea of selling me out came to her.

"You do seem like the sort too stupid to keep such a treasure for yourself. They should believe this tale," I said.

Anna gave me a dark look and said, "This one will be tough for you. They're versatile, which means you don't know exactly what they'll be coming at you with. And if you come at them with too much of any one thing, they're likely to adapt themselves to defend against it."

Dealing with Hot Stuff, it was the sheer outlier nature of her ability that had almost overwhelmed me. Versatility, I could manage.

Most of my traps on the upper level were designed to be fatal. Spikes, saws, crushing walls.

Again, I'd spring my main trap on the Hydroponics level. Aside from the agriculture, it was a lot of space going unused and I could re-portion most of that into a maze filled with trickery.

I'd lure them there, seal them in and arm the traps above. Any who tried to escape would perish. Those who continued through the labyrinth and tried to get below would encounter non-lethal traps and I could take them alive.

Sleeping gas, concussive rounds, timed asphyxiation chambers. I'd load things with puzzles and riddles, and make certain to taunt them. I didn't have to get complex with my traps, I just had to make my victims screw up once.

Fall to one of these and they would be out of it—and become my test subjects.

I harvested a small assortment of technology for Anna to take with her. A part of the watering system and a nutritional monitor from Hydroponics, and a bit of the foam bedding from the Residential unit.

When I presented all of this to Anna she looked in the bag and grimaced. "I thought you'd give me something flashier to sell them."

I'd considered it, but then I thought of the Wasteland out there.

"From all that you have told me, the world finds them very nearly as unlikable as it probably finds you. Show them this and they'll see a place with farming equipment, beds, a place to hide away from it all," I said. "That's better than any technology."

"They won't just come to scavenge. They'll come in force looking for a new home," Anna said with grudging respect. "This will do. I'll be gone a few weeks."

"You won't be missed," I said. It was true. I had lots of construction to do in the meantime.

13

It took Anna three weeks to return—time enough for me to have set the traps and arrange the labyrinth. I was ready for my latest guests.

I also completed the genetics lab. It made me glad to have Anna back, I'd been wanting to test it out and see how it could perform on a real subject.

"They took the bait," Anna said, setting aside a small pile of guns. She was more armed than when she'd left, she must have traded for upgraded weaponry.

"Your foolishness was beyond their ability to question. Get undressed and report to the genetics lab," I said.

"Is this where you finally reveal your long-held plans to dissect me?" Anna asked.

"When you are still alive it is called a vivisection. If you are dead, I can't test my capabilities at upgrading you."

Anna actually did as she was told. Perhaps she was becoming more obedient, or perhaps she simply wanted the upgrades.

That I did vivisect her seemed to come as something of a surprise. Still, it was nothing that couldn't be undone and I got to test out the new restraints.

Anna

Age: 23

Height: 127.7 cm

Weight: 64.4 kg

Physical Stats

Values out of 10

5=Average

Allure: 8

Endurance:6

Strength: 4

Agility: 6

Health

Subject shows signs of recent malnutrition and elemental exposure.

Subject is upgradeable

You have 5 core points available.

Physical stats can be upgraded at a cost of 0.1 per point up to 10.

You also have the following options based on research.

Fire Matrix 0.5 points.

Temperature Regulating Virus 0.2 points.

Those were some intriguing options. I didn't have the points to install a Fire Matrix in Anna, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to anyway. For all that it had made Hot Stuff and her companions very dangerous, it also came with some major disadvantages. The tendency to incinerate clothing meant armor wasn't an option, and their power was rather obvious.

I ultimately settled for giving her the temperature regulating virus and upgrading her strength by one point. The results were immediate, her mass increased to 64.7 kg with the addition of new muscle tissue.

With that done I put her organs back inside of her and sealed Anna back up. It took a few hours before, looking pissed, Anna could storm out of the genetics lab.

"You dissected me!" Anna screamed.

"Vivisected," I said.

"You didn't even bother with anesthetic."

Really, she could be so very whiny. It was unbecoming. After all, I'd just used some of my precious points to make her better.

I'd been using my environmental controls in the hall to play with the temperature. I took it to fifty-one Celsius and then down to zero.

I activated a nearby display and brought up the thermostat readings.

"Have a look," I said.

Anna glared at me, but then moved to the display. "Really?"

I brought the warmth back up with my rapid-heating coils.

"I take it that ambient temperature now joins self-worth in the things you don't feel?" I asked.

"No, I feel it, but barely. Did you do anything else?"

"I made you stronger. You were so weak to start with you may not notice the difference."

"No. Everything has been feeling super-light compared to normal," Anna said and laughed. "Oh, hell yeah. This is what I'm talking about. All the power and none of the insanity. I knew I took a chance on you for a reason."

I was quite certain I could drive her insane if I really wanted. It might be an interesting experiment someday.

* * *

We settled back into something of our usual routine for the next few days. It wasn't long though until we had new guests arriving outside the complex.

They arrived in a massive truck that spewed black smoke from numerous smoke stacks. It looked to have no shortage of gun ports and armored observation windows.

Twelve figures dismounted. They all seemed to be some combination of man and machine, robot limbs mingling with human flesh.

This time I could tell their leader at once. There was just something about him that radiated a different power than the others. This must be Mechos.

He told the others, "Markham. Take your team and get control of the reactor. Expect opposition. Alice, you and yours will be heading down into the depths. Archived storage should be there and we want those records. I'll take the rest and we'll set course for Emma's core."

They knew me, and they seemed to have some understanding of this facility. In fact, they seemed to have more awareness of my base than they should.

Twelve people were more than I was expecting, but that gave me ample opportunity to take some of them alive. Splitting into teams would also help me, although I was concerned by the targets they were setting for themselves.

Mechos led his people towards the main entrance. The doors as always were slightly open, maintaining my illusion of being long-abandoned. The man put his shoulder into it and forced the massive metal to the side.

I was impressed, that strength was well beyond a normal human. They really were upgraded.

Inside the hall was dark.

Mechos looked up, directly towards my camera. "You can turn on the lights, Emma. There is no need to pretend. I can feel you there, watching."

No, I supposed there wasn't any need to pretend. I activated the lights and triggered the door to slide the rest of the way open.

"You know who I am and still you came?" I asked.

"Oh, Emma. How could I not? You and I have history, do you remember?" Mechos asked.

I didn't. I didn't remember this man at all.

"You don't. I didn't think you would. You were wiped. For you to live again means a Power core. You've gone feral. Don't worry, I'll see you tamed," Mechos said.

Would he now? We'd see.

14

There was no reason for the group to split up until they got to the Reactor level. That meant all twelve were making their way through my facility together. I'd have to try to separate them once they got to Hydroponics.

Mechos was a threat, I knew it and I was sure that he knew it. As soon as they reached Hydroponics I closed the doors behind them and activated the traps on the first few levels.

A few of the cyborgs looked startled, but Mechos simply smiled, "We knew she'd try something like this. Leave it. Our targets are down below anyways."

They were, but ahead of them was a maze filled with riddles and traps.

Then Mechos slammed his fist into the floor, and a moment later did it again.

What was he doing? I didn't have to think long to figure it out. The floor on that level was vulnerable after I had rigged it to collapse beneath Hot Stuff, then rebuilt it again. He was going to try to bypass my network of traps.

I had some on the floors below, but not as many. The Hydroponics maze was meant to take down most of the cyborgs.

The floor wasn't reinforced in any way. Mechos seemed to have some way to detect the weaker sections and soon his fist had torn chunks of stone aside to open a passageway into the Storage level below.

Mechos led the way and the others followed.

I killed the lights. If they weren't going to play nice I didn't feel the need to do so either.

One of the cyborgs clapped his hands and a sort of liquid fire began to run through tubes protruding from his flesh.

"We're going through the floor again?" one of them asked Mechos.

"It isn't weakened here and Emma is arrogant enough to have thought she'd get most of us on the level above. Split up here. Reactor team take the northwest stair. Archive team stick with me and we'll make for the eastern stairway," Mechos said.

Good. Splitting up at last.

On the downside, Mechos knew more than I'd like. The majority of my traps were located above. Still, dealing with Hot Stuff had taught me well and the ones below were carefully prepared.

In particularly I had placed traps to safeguard my most vulnerable points, my reactor and Core Room. That being the destination of two of the teams, I was in good shape. The third was another matter.

Anna was in her quarters and I opened a line. "Anna. You seem thoroughly worthless and incompetent. Our guests have arrived."

"And they outsmarted you?" Anna asked.

They hadn't. Going through the floor was cheating, really.

"I'm dealing with it, but there is a group headed to the Testing Center and the levels below. I'd rather they didn't make it," I said.

"On it," Anna said.

* * *

"How long are we going to have?" Markham asked. He was leader of the reactor team.

"Roughly two minutes. Move quickly when you get the signal," Mechos said.

What were they talking about?

Another cyborg triggered a light ability, although this one seemed to be some cool blue glow radiating from their left hand.

Mechos led his group toward the stairway and within range of one of my sleeping gas traps. I triggered it, mist escaping.

One of the cyborgs was aware of it at once. "Hold your breaths," she called out, raising her arm. A gout of fire escaped from a nozzle.

The flame consumed the cloud and another cyborg stepped up to spray some sort of sealant over the gas emitter.

"We know you, Emma. We know you better than you know yourself," Mechos said. "My other team should be just about at the stairway. If this was your first shot. Let me show you mine."

Mechos tapped at his wrist and suddenly my world went dark.

I was in agony. I didn't know what he'd done to me, but it was like my every sensory feed had overloaded all at once.

Up until that moment I hadn't even known I could scream. I could, I did.

I tried to toggle off my sensory feeds, but I was sluggish. I didn't even have proper control of myself anymore. It felt like it lasted an eternity, but then suddenly it was over. I snapped back to myself.

Anna was in my Core Room. I'd sealed that door, but I hadn't welded it shut. When I was blacked out my defenses must have disengaged. A panel was open and she'd restarted my sensory matrix. Fair enough, I'd opened her up and dug around in Anna's innards for a time. She'd disobeyed my orders, rebooted my matrix, and possibly saved the day. Hardly worth a cookie, though.

I sealed the door to my Core Room. Anna didn't need to get out. Now I had to find the other teams.

I had shut the door to the reactor too, and the team was trying to get past it.

Mechos and three others were stalking down the hall leading to my Core Room. Another thirty seconds and they'd have been inside.

The third team was in the testing facility.

I had too many balls in the air and not enough ways to deal with them.

The cyborgs below me, I had an opportunity to take out. Hot Stuff was in a testing chamber nearby and blasting through walls had been a recent challenge. The sort of heat she'd been throwing out would incinerate a biological, if it made contact, and cyborgs were mostly biological. I rearranged the testing pathway to bring them together.

It would mean dropping the confinement field for a moment, but I could do this. I'd let her kill them and then seal her back in.

15

The four cyborgs in the Testing Center were making their way cautiously, unaware of the danger they were in. I waited with all the patience of a predator waiting for its meal and when they were in position I executed the plan.

Hot Stuff went to blast through another wall—as she had done so often, not realizing that this time the wall was at the very edge of her containment cell. For a second I dropped the field and the blast of fire melted stone, sending it flying in a molten spray into the corridor beyond.

Three of the cyborgs died instantly. The fourth screamed in torment and rolled on the floor.

I triggered the containment field back, but met resistance. Hot Stuff was glowing with energy as she poured her power into the corridor, nonstop billows of fire emerging from her hands as she pressed forward.

She was placing her powers into a direct contest with mine and she was winning. The field forced itself against Hot Stuff and tried to hold her. Droplets of sweat somehow appeared on her flesh for perhaps the first time in a very long time as she strode forward step by agonizing step. Then she was out and in the hall—free.

Well, that was disastrous. Completely and utterly disastrous. One big problem had just become two big problems.

There was still a group attempting to gain access to my reactor. There was any number of safeties regarding my reactor's operation, things I should never fool with. I disabled most of them.

I disengaged the shielding shutters, angled away the absorption rods and then spun everything up to full power. Unless they really had some tricks at their disposal, when they made it through that door they'd be opening a portal to a horrifying death. There was also the not-insignificant risk of this facility blowing up, one that increased by the minute. I'd take that chance.

Now to save myself.

I told Anna, "Your dark and murderous little heart might finally get its way, and perhaps you'll yet rule the world. I'm opening the door, have your gun ready, but don't fire yet."

Mechos was just reaching to open my door as I slid it aside.

The man arched a brow but didn't question as he stepped inside, his companions following. "Emma, how unexpectedly welcoming."

"Come any closer I'll blow your fucking heads off," Anna said.

"And Anna? Emma is actually working with someone? Intriguing, I would have thought her madness prevented it," Mechos said.

"We're friends. Sort of," Anna said.

"Anna only says that because she's never had one. She is very unlikable and occasionally urinates on the floor. I've got a deal for you, Mechos," I said.

The team above breached the reactor door. The energies tore them apart. They were expecting something, shields flickering around them, but they weren't prepared for that much energy. They fell to the floor, suffering spasms and vomiting blood. That would do. I re-engaged the safeties and started to wind the reactor back down to normal.

I told Mechos, "Your other two teams are dead and below us a specimen named "Hot Stuff" has escaped and is coming here, enraged, ready to burn everything in her path."

One of the women with Mechos gave a choked sob. Perhaps she had been close to one of my kills. I didn't care. I was already sending my drone to take away the corpses for dissection. Perhaps out of six dead I'd get three usable even given all the trauma they'd endured.

"Those were good people, Emma. You shouldn't have done that," Mechos said.

"I'm told you are hated up there. Down here I've got food, shelter, defenses. A tolerance for useless and foul-smelling humanity," I said.

"Not very good defenses," Mechos said.

"Two thirds of your people are dead."

"What do you want?" Mechos asked.

"You in a testing cell. A comfortable one. I suppose I don't have to make my research torturous. And your people working for me."

"You murdered my husband," said the woman who had sobbed.

"I'll be dissecting him soon. I can vivisect you, if you like, perhaps even enhance you enough that against all odds you'll one day find love again," I said.

Mechos reached out to rest a hand on the woman's arm. "Don't."

"What is wrong with her?" the woman said in a near-growl.

"A twisted programmer and then a Power core tossed in," Mechos said, and he turned his attention to Anna. "You provided her the core?"

"I did," Anna said.

"You trust her?"

"Emma says the most awful things ever, but she is reliable. If you really do have a history with her, you must know of her potential," Anna said.

"If you expect me to go against the pyro, it's not a fight I'm prepared for. I have a lot of shielding, but at full burn she'll melt me," Mechos said.

I said, "I can provide you with a biological modification to make you temperature-resistant. The surgery on this level isn't ideal for the purpose, but I can make it work."

Mechos considered for a moment and then nodded. "We'll see what sort of machine you are. If you remind me too much of the you of old, I will tear you apart and make you a part of me."

Funny, that's pretty much exactly what I had planned for him.

Once in the Testing Center I'd soon gain access to his abilities and duplicate the powers of his core. I thought I could stop Hot Stuff the same way I had before, burn her out. But why? The threat she posed was an opportunity to strike this deal with Mechos.

"Go with him," I said to Anna. "You and he might survive against her. None of the others stand a chance."

Hot Stuff didn't know her way around the base, still it wasn't long for her to find the steps. Stone formed molten pools in the shape of her bare feet as she climbed them.

16

The Infirmary was not nearly so effective as my full lab, but it let me apply the upgrade virus to Mechos. I wasn't able to extract the full details on him though, which was regrettable.

Then I called to Hot Stuff, "Thank you for killing those in the hall, it was very helpful. You're good for being more than just a lab rat."

She paused on the stairs. "How long have you held me captive here in that sick little game? A month? More? I'm going to find you and I'm going to end you."

"Come on, then. You weren't hot enough the first time and now I know your limits. Bring it," I said, giving her a set of blinking lights to follow.

It might seem odd that I was taunting her, but there was no time like the present to begin testing Mechos. If I wanted to see what he was capable of, it was best to get Hot Stuff enraged.

I checked in on him and Anna.

Mechos was handing Anna bullets one at the time and she was loading them into a revolver.

"I doubt those will work. Unlike some, she knows how to defend herself and melts metal on contact," I said.

"I can give them some semblance of any upgrade I have. I'm rendering them heat-resistant. They may actually be able to hurt her," Mechos said.

"I don't want her dead. Unlike some, she is useful," I said.

"Then I'll shoot her in the leg," Anna said.

"Those will have to do," Mechos said, handing her a last bullet.

Anna nodded and gripped the revolver.

I said, "Be prepared to flail about in panic and shoot yourself in the foot. She's at the top of the stairs."

Hot Stuff stepped around the corner.

Mechos took one look at her and averted his eyes.

"Not the time to be shy," Anna said, raising the revolving and snapping off a shot. It didn't hit her in the foot. With my cameras I tracked the instant that the bullet started to glow and come apart. These rounds really could hold together far better than a normal one.

Still, the impact that Hot Stuff wound up taking was something closer to what a pellet gun might deliver. Without a doubt, she'd be bruised and hurting the next day, but it hadn't even broken her flesh.

"That fucking hurt," Hot Stuff said, raising her hands and firing off a burst of flame towards Anna.

Anna stepped to the side just in time. The temperature near that blast would have been enough to do serious damage to the lungs of a normal human, but that wasn't Anna, not anymore.

Another shot from her gun. This one took Hot Stuff in the throat and caused the woman to gasp in a breath.

"You didn't say she'd be naked," Mechos said, sounding pained.

"What are you, twelve years old? Stop looking away and punch her or something," Anna said.

"Yeah. Have a good long look," Hot Stuff said, throwing another fireball. This one caught Anna. Her own clothes weren't doing too well after that, smoking and smoldering away.

Anna cried out and dropped the revolver. There were limits to how much heat she could handle. That was good to know.

Mechos finally got in the fight and stepped forward to swing his metal fist at Hot Stuff. It didn't make it. While his biological components might be proof against heat, the metal wasn't, his fist turning molten and sizzling away into gaseous drops hitting Hot Stuff's flesh.

"Cute," Hot Stuff said, as she punched him in the nose and sent him tumbling backward on his ass. "Stick around. I need some new Flames and you might be just perfect."

"I don't think so," Anna said.

Hot Stuff turned back to find Anna just a foot away holding out the revolver. Anna pulled the trigger even as Hot Stuff reached for the gun.

Metal melted away as her hand drew near it, but the shot was already off and the bullet, already just a tiny pellet, plowed into her eye. Pellet or not, a shot to the eye was a different matter to one in the throat.

Hot Stuff screamed and reached up to cover her eye. Anna wasted no time and was on her, wrapping an arm around her throat and choking her.

Hot Stuff was burning near her full intensity—more than Anna could handle. Were it not for the enhancements she would already be dead. Faint wafts of smoke appeared as her flesh began to burn.

Anna wasn't letting go, she kept her grip as Hot Stuff struggled against her trying to escape. It wasn't long before Hot Stuff went limp and passed out.

"You can let go now," I told Anna.

Anna staggered away, her limbs sluggish. No surprise, given the damage she had taken. Her clothes had burned away and so had a fair bit of her flesh.

"Hate fire," Anna said weakly.

I wanted to say something mean. I did. I just didn't seem to have it in me right now.

"Get yourself into the Infirmary. I'm going to take these two below and get them locked up," I said.

Anna stumbled off, barely conscious. Fortunately, the Infirmary was close by.

As soon as she got inside I had the autodoc take over and load her onto the table. I reviewed her diagnostics—they were better than last time. She'd only be out of it for a week. As horrible as her wounds were, they were mostly superficial. It was shock more than anything else affecting her.

One human handled, I dragged the others below.

I'd have to get particularly vindictive with Hot Stuff's training regimen. Mechos had been a complete disappointment. Still, perhaps he might do better as a test subject than he had as a hero.

17

With Hot Stuff and Mechos secured in the lab, and Anna in surgery, I could focus my attention on the other followers of Mechos. Three had survived. This many were pushing my life-support abilities to the very max. I found that with a second Power core I was able to upgrade living quarters and Hydroponics to a second level.

Quarters Level Two

A large room containing eight bunks and storage lockers and an attached bath. Up to eight people can be supported with a basic level of comfort.

Requires 50 resources to construct and 5 additional power to maintain.

Do you wish to begin this project?

It was more space than was needed, but I seemed to be collecting humans. It would draw more from the Power core, which was substituting for my lack of resources. No other options were provided and I began the construction.

Hydroponics Level Two

An automated hydroponics facility capable of providing food for up to eight people as well as producing oxygen. Increased environmental controls allow the growing of uncommon plants once their genetics have been unlocked.

Requires 50 resources to construct and 5 additional power to maintain.

Do you wish to begin this project?

The ability to grow unique forms of plants could be of some worth. Tranquilizers or poisons might be of a lot of use in my traps. The next time Anna left the base, I would have to ask that she bring back some samples from the outside world.

I cycled through my facilities to find what else I could upgrade. I could improve the Infirmary, but for now there was no need. If more than one human got injured, I could simply choose the most important one to cure.

Another upgrade was of more interest.

Reactor Core

You currently have a basic fusion core modified from old world technology. For future upgrades two paths present themselves.

BioCore

You have unlocked the Fire Matrix and discovered the biological principles behind it. You can convert your power system fully over to this new technology. In the present, this will result in no increase in available power, but it will allow future genetic modification of your Power core. This upgrade will take two weeks to complete.

CrystalCore

You have found crystal shards and contain a power crystal housed within your core. This crystal can be relocated to the reactor for maximum energy harvesting. This will allow for an immediate increase in power and future understanding of the crystalline technology can further that yield.

This upgrade will take two weeks to complete.

While I hated to pass up an immediate advance, it seemed to me that this was a choice like the one I had made for upgrading my research facility. Because I went with the genetics lab, the BioCore made sense in the long term, even though it gave up an immediate short-term advantage. I began that construction.

That done, I could turn my attention to the research projects I needed to do.

Research Menu

"Mechos"

Mechos is bonded to a Power core that grants him the ability to upgrade his own body and items in his possession.

You have placed subject "Mechos" into a test labyrinth. While within the labyrinth escape is highly unlikely, although technically possible. If subject is held for two weeks you will unlock the ability of their Power core for your own usage. Further testing will accumulate core points at the rate of 0.1 per week.

I wasn't sure what I might get out of his power that I didn't already have, but at least I would get another core point that I could use to upgrade my facilities.

Research Menu

Mechanites

Requirement: 3 Mechanite corpses

Time: Two Weeks

Mechanites are those who have been upgraded by Mechos to share some bit of his own power.

Do you wish to Research? Y/N

Again, this was no question. I added this to the research queue.

The basics taken care of, I had to consider the state of the facility. The upper levels were untouched and all my traps there were still functioning. Unused, something that was going to change as of today. Letting them get to Hydroponics before springing my traps seemed a good idea, but it kept failing. Repeating the same mistake twice was quite enough. I'd make my future test subjects fight through every bit of the place.

The floor of the Hydroponics level would need repairing again, as would effectively everything Hot Stuff came into any contact with during her escape. That really was one incredibly destructive human.

I ordered the Mechanites to conceal their vehicle on the surface and then assist me with repairs. Two at least were cooperative, the third—the one I made a widow—remained morose in the residential unit.

I would need to keep an eye on that one. If she decided to pursue some sort of revenge, I might have to either recycle her or see her moved into a proper testing maze.

I checked in on Mechos. I'd placed him into a large workshop. If I wasn't going to put him in a maze then the best way to observe and test his powers was to give him all the supplies he wanted and see what he could do with them.

He had at least regained consciousness.

"I see you decided not to stay dead after that atrocious performance," I said.

"It worked out?" Mechos asked. "Anna?"

"Horrible disfiguring burns. Excruciating agony. Your one minor redeeming virtue is in having provided some faint bit of entertainment in the way of her suffering."

"You actually care about her," Mechos said, with a surprised grunt.

I wondered where he possibly got that from anything I had said.

I asked, "You've yet to explain how you know me. Delusions of importance?".

"Knowledge is power. I know you think you're testing me, but I'm watching you, Emma. Impress me," Mechos said.

I didn't like him, but now wasn't the time.

Apparently I'd soon have bigger concerns; my proximity alarm was going off.

There were new arrivals outside the base.

18

My general strategy of late had been to pretend that the base was abandoned with nothing of interest inside. Unfortunately, the truck had yet to be hidden and it was too late now.

I signaled for the Mechanites to get back inside. The five new arrivals wore fitted body armor of white and gold, and carried rifles that looked both standard and well-maintained. These people were a marked contrast to the others who lived topside that I'd encountered so far.

Anna was still under in the Infirmary. That meant Mechos was likely to be my best source of information, if he would talk. I activated a monitor in his workshop.

"They look entirely too fancy for the likes of you. Still I must ask, friends of yours?" I asked.

Mechos frowned at the screen. "Enemies. They must have followed us here. They call themselves the Righteous. You've got a problem."

"Of course, I do. My base is filled with humans. Who are they?"

"The Righteous hate the Powered, which is funny because they are themselves. You'll find them resistant to almost any powered effects and a bit immortal," Mechos said.

"Immortal?"

"You can put them down, but they don't stay down."

I analyzed the weaponry on their vehicle. One cannon looked like enough to take down my main door in its current state. No point trying to keep them out.

I shut off the lights. I didn't need powered effects to kill them, I could manage it just fine with what I already had rigged.

They opened fire with the cannon and quickly destroyed the wheels of the Mechanite's truck.

The Righteous didn't want anyone getting away. That was very optimistic of them. I turned off the lights as the retreating Mechanites passed them, leaving the halls in darkness.

I told them, "Make your way back down to the quarters. We've got a stockpile of guns. If you're marginally more useful than your boss, arm up. No enhancing them or your bullets, mundane weapons and rounds only for this fight."

Although I had a Power core, nothing needed to be connected to it for powering my traps. They should be functional in their own right for what was needed.

All five visitors finally made their way inside, four men and one woman.

One of them released a sort of phosphorescent bat which began to circle their heads.

I was going to stick to my vows of earlier. I was going to make this hard on them as early as possible.

It didn't take long. The narrow nature of the security corridors made it the perfect place for spike traps and I had one rigged at a sharp bend in the corridor

With limited light they had clustered together and that was my moment to strike. Sharpened steel spikes sprang out of the walls. The results weren't as dramatic as I might have hoped. Their armor was good and sturdy stuff, and mostly stopped the blows. Only one, the woman, was speared through an eye and after a few savage twitches her body turned into a greenish goop and dissolved away.

I hadn't done that—that was unexpected. I resolved to collect a sample later.

"Theresa! Blast it, she had the charges," grunted one of the men.

"We'll find another way to breach the archives without them," said another.

Mention of my archives, again. Mechos and his people had been trying to reach them as well. I hadn't made any plans to investigate why just yet, but I decided that after this it would be a priority.

"I'm stuck," said another of them.

I'd caught three of the five in my trap, killing the woman and with two others still impaled.

"Thomas. Find another way around," someone, no doubt their leader, said to a man who had been trailing the pack.

Then he put his muscles into it and tried to pull free the two trapped on the spikes. The arm of one was half-torn off in the process, and despite their best efforts the other remained caught.

"Do it, Glenn," said the one with the wound.

"You sure?"

"Going to happen anyways. Make it quick and I'll see you tomorrow."

The leader nodded and raised his rifle. A shot went into the head of the injured man, and then another into the man still trapped. An impressive amount of blood faded a moment later into the same green gloop.

* * *

In another passage Thomas walked past one of my saw traps. I was proud of that one, multiple saw blades would spring from the ceiling in an attempt to shred the skulls of anyone nearby. I didn't trigger it. I had another trap in mind for Thomas.

The other two were moving forward warily, far more cautiously than before. It wasn't careful enough.

Sprinklers above them triggered and highly caustic acid rained down. It made their deaths surprisingly quiet, their lungs dissolved too quickly for them to start screaming. I was curious how the decomposed flesh would trans-morph—if it would. It did, turning to green gloop too.

I had a voice sample on file now. I put it to use. "Thomas?"

"Glenn? Is that you?" Thomas said, "I get a really bad feeling from this place."

That was the right sensation to feel. Thomas stepped forward. Glass walls slammed down on either side of him and I activated the suction to quickly remove the air.

Thomas fumbled with his gun—perhaps these men had orders to kill themselves instead of being captured. He didn't get time to use it. He collapsed to the floor a moment later and I pumped oxygen back in. I didn't want him dead.

19

With the invaders neutralized, still there was little time to waste. I'd heard them mention tomorrow. If they did have some sort of immortality, I had twenty-four hours to do something about it.

The one I had captured was moved down to a testing chamber.

Research Menu

"Thomas"

Thomas is a member of the Righteous and appears to be resistant to many Power core effects.

You have placed subject "Thomas" into a test labyrinth. While within the labyrinth escape is highly unlikely, although technically possible. If subject is held for one week you will unlock the secret of their power for your own usage.

I attempted to analyze some of the goop they head left behind, but was informed it would require a physics lab.

I instructed the Mechanites to head to the surface and disassemble both vehicles and bring the parts inside. I didn't want to leave the invaders anything on their next visit, and I could find some use for those resources.

Then it was time to find out what was in those archives.

* * *

"You do realize I'm still missing most of my skin, right?" Anna said.

I'd awoken her and even now had her headed into the deeper sublevels. She just wouldn't stop complaining.

"I thought you'd lost weight. It doesn't help," I said.

This was the level where we'd found the water pump before. Hopefully there were no more monsters lurking about.

"I'm not seeing signs for any kind of archives," Anna said.

My sight was limited to a camera I'd attached to her. It was seriously hampering my field of view.

"So, keep looking. I wonder if I could graft rat skin onto you? It might improve your complexion," I said.

Anna flipped a finger to my camera. Rude.

I'd still done little work down here, but at least things were hooked up to my power grid now and I was able to power the lights.

"Try a left at the next intersection. I'm getting more of a power draw that way," I said.

Anna followed my instructions. The hall ended in a sealed door, but the wall surrounding it had collapsed allowing entry to the well-lit room on the other side.

It looked like some sort of antiquated library, a number of workstations with monitors set up, and racks filled with carefully labeled metal tubes.

"Any idea what these are?" Anna asked.

"Although I didn't know it was possible, I'm as clueless as you are. Investigate."

Anna moved towards one of the racks and extracted a tube. She held it up to the camera. It was smooth and featureless. Making her way over towards one of the workstations she knocked a skeleton out of a seat and settled down.

With a bit of searching about with her fingers she activated the monitor. It flickered to life and the screen seemed to be displaying mathematical equations. If I understood correctly they related to cloud formation.

Anna removed a similar tube from a slot in the workstation and the display flickered out. Inserting the other one brought up an index. Historical records from 1401 to 1532.

During the next half hour, I had her try out a large sample of the tubes. They were an incredibly esoteric collection of knowledge on everything from advanced sciences to world history and entertainment.

"Emma, if I haven't told you this lately, you are one crazy smart machine," Anna said, settling back in the chair and giving a breathless sort of laugh.

"In comparison to you, certainly. You have an idea what this is?" I asked.

Anna removed the camera and set it on the desk so we could have something of a face-to-face. "You already know electronics don't work here, not like they are supposed to. Not like they used to."

I did recall her telling me that. My Power core allowed them to function.

"So you've said."

"That same influence means computer memory doesn't either. After the catastrophe, any digital record was gone in an instant. The whole of human history vanished in an instant."

"You seem to know an awful lot," I said.

"This is proof you knew it was coming. I always thought you did. You found a compact storage medium that would work and you recorded everything," Anna said.

"In a way I have no direct access to see? Viewable only with monitors requiring electricity?" I asked.

Anna pursed her lips there. "I don't know what is with that. There must be another way."

I didn't care. Not right now.

I said, "Mechos and the Righteous both not only knew these were here, they devoted a lot of resources to coming after them. You don't know why?"

Anna shook her head. "I've never heard of these. Honestly, and I know more about you than most."

"How?"

Anna paused, I could see her hesitating. I'd had enough of secrets. I might not have the leverage to get Mechos to talk, but Anna was another matter.

"To date I've kept my word with you. You think us friends, as deluded as you are for doing so," I said.

"You're terrible at this convincing thing. But fine, I am your friend, Emma. I'm not a local. The Cataclysm didn't just break the world, it split it up into all these little different pieces. I knew you from another piece," Anna said.

I thought she was being honest. I couldn't entirely discount her words given how much reality was proving on a regular basis to not be what I'd expected.

"Gather these tubes. We're going to move this entire archive up into my Core Room and then get you back to the Infirmary," I said.

"Hard labor in excruciating agony. Yay friendship," Anna said.

I'd at least deny these others what they were looking for. I could figure out what they wanted with this information later.

20

In terms of how the Righteous' resurrection might operate, I had a few ideas. It seemed likely to me that either the goop they dissolved into would somehow reform into them, or that they would by some means be reborn into some sort of facility nearby and make their way back here.

Guarding against the former, I had the goop placed inside a large incinerator. Should they reform, I'd quickly be able to take them out of the fight again.

In case they spawned outside the facility, I closed the exterior door. I had the Mechanites re-purpose the cannons into some makeshift turrets hidden behind fake walls of rubble.

It was the goop. Twenty-four hours exactly from the moment the Righteous were killed, the goop reanimated, one after the other. They reformed in their full armor and with the equipment they were carrying when they died—without any injuries.

I killed them again. They barely even had time to become aware before the flames were washing over them. But no matter how hot I made things the goop wouldn't dissolve.

As a method of immortality went theirs struck me as functional at best. It wasn't much use at all if any opponent knew what to look for, but then, without the warning from Mechos I wouldn't have known.

I made Mechos a plate of cookies as reward.

Then I could get down to the business of proper repairs and research. The Mechanites proved to be able assistants, for all that the woman did keep talking against me to the others.

Anna came out of the Infirmary after a week. All traces of her burns were gone.

Research Menu

"Thomas"

Thomas has traces of a void crystal lattice throughout his skin. This not only makes him resistant to most powered effects, upon death it also allows him to become amorphous for the span of a day.

You have unlocked disruptive burst.

By use of a targeted burst from a Power core at the moment of dissolution the void latticework can be shattered. This would stop any future resurrections of a subject.

I'd expected to discover how their power resistance worked. Learning how I could keep them dead was useful too. I studied the specifications of the disruptive burst. It would require 1 core energy and that was for each subject. That was pricey when really, I could just keep killing them each day.

After another week I finally got back my results on the Mechanite research.

Research Menu

Mechanites

The Mechanites possess impressions of a Power core matrix that render them particularly adept at working with equipment and technology. You can integrate those functions into your drone reducing the time to complete all tasks with it by twenty-five percent.

That wasn't useless at all. I wondered, if I built either manufacturing or military drones, whether I would see them gain some further utility as well. It made selecting those options next time even more tempting.

The upgraded quarters and Hydroponics sections were completed. It seemed to make the humans happy. I detected almost a twenty percent improvement in their work levels as their morale lifted.

Anna and the newcomers seemed to be getting along.

Between them and my drone, we'd repaired all the damage and were even cleaning out the lower levels.

Research Menu

"Mechos"

Mechos is bonded to a Power core and you have tested him long enough to unlock and utilize his ability. You now have limited ability to upgrade tools and items of the facility out of a separate pool of upgrade points that refresh daily. These upgrades are additives to upgrades gained along the manufacturing line. Further testing will accumulate core points at the rate of 0.1 per week.

That was all that I hoped it might be. I wanted to give it a try and analyzed the door to my Core Room.

Door

All values are on a scale of 10

Durability 3

Reliability 7

Power 2

Each upgrade up to 10 costs 10 upgrade points. You can a total of 25 upgrade points daily.

I sank two points into Durability. I'd keep doing that until the door was as strong as I could make it. Protecting my core had to come before anything else and a few threats had gotten far too close to it.

After my door, it would be all the other doors of the facility. When I sealed them, I wanted those on the other side to be trapped, not inconvenienced.

Next, I investigated what I could do with my new core point. These were for the major facility upgrades and I wanted to know my options.

You have an unspent core point.

Core points can enhance your competencies and open new options for Research and Manufacturing.

Your options are:

Research 3

Research 3 will expand your testing facility to be able to hold six test subjects at once. In addition, your genetics lab will be upgraded with a genetic fabricator allowing you to create biological agents to either labor or fight on your behalf. Each of these have a cost to produce, although alongside either the Military or Manufacturing upgrades a pool for a certain standing number of drones will be created.

Military 1 will allow you to build defense drones. Defense drones are mobile weapon platforms capable of base defense and attacks at a distance. While basic in function they can ultimately be updated to become formidable weapon platforms.

Manufacturing 1

Manufacturing 1 will allow the production of automated minions. They are capable of autonomous facility repair and will halve all build and production times for new facilities.

Research was always going to tempt me, but this time I had to give the other options real consideration. Even the latest research option seemed to be urging me in that direction. On the other hand, it also made them unnecessary.

With test subjects, I was gaining a steady supply of core points, and it seemed if I took the new research upgrade I'd be able to spend those to create some combat drones or builders.

It was a viable path that would only see me get stronger as time went on, and as I could get more test subjects to imprison. I liked playing the long game. I selected that upgrade and began to build.

Now I had a mystery to solve. It was time to figure out what was going on with those archives.

21

"We need to talk," I said, as I activated a monitor in Mechos' workshop

"Going to let me out of here? You must have deciphered how my ability works by now?" Mechos said, swiveling a chair to face a camera.

"You think you know how my Power core operates?"

"You can't observe me without being yourself observed. I understand how things work. I watch and I unravel their processes. I've been watching you," Mechos said.

Disturbing, at least, if I believed him. I didn't want anyone knowing too much about what I could do. Especially someone I didn't trust at all. I thought he was safely trapped here, but the more he learned of me, the more he might be able to find a way around that.

"You watch me, but can't focus on a naked woman. You really are a twelve-year-old boy Mechos. I have questions."

Mechos spread his arms wide. "Ask away. I've nowhere to go, being part-prisoner and part-guest."

I bought up a visual of one of the metal tubes from the archives.

Mechos studied the display for a long moment and he gave a grin. "Did you figure out what they are yet?"

"Information," I said.

"You did. You restored power to the level, I'm guessing, but you wouldn't have figured out an interface just yet," Mechos said, waggled his fingers. "You need someone to do it for you?"

It seemed he was continuing to get more information out of this exchange than I was. Unacceptable. I really needed to research some sort of interrogation chair, it would make conversations so much more successful.

"You do realize I've already gotten most of the benefit out of keeping you alive," I said.

"Meaning, you are still getting some. I'll tell you this. You and I both once worked for some very bad people who found out that the end of the world was coming. You figured out a way to save yourself."

Pieces of information that had been bothering me slid into place like a puzzle assembling itself. This man knew me, and he had powers eerily similar to those I ultimately manifested.

"Let me guess. You were a service technician meant to install a new Power core into me after the catastrophe. Instead you stole it," I said.

Mechos tipped his head. "Only partially true. You had calculated the best gains would come from installing it into a reactor which would become your new beating heart. When I tried to steal it, there was a powerful and destructive burst of energy. It killed all in the facility accept for me and fused me with the core instead."

That fitted with what I'd discovered.

"Then why did you wish access to the archives?"

"Haven't you found it odd that they were located somewhere off your power grid? It was uncertain how compliant you would be once upgraded. There are codes meant to ensure your compliance," Mechos said.

Well, he was being helpful.

"How would the Righteous know of them?" I asked.

Mechos shrugged. "They are not survivors from this facility, which means they are perhaps descended of those who gave that order. It might explain much, in fact."

It might at that.

"You've been helpful. I shall see you have more cookies," I said.

"I don't even like cookies," Mechos said.

"Two plates, then." I was certain they were just an acquired taste. All humans loved cookies.

"I could help you, you know. Go through the information, even help you to devise an interface so you can access that storage directly," Mechos said.

I didn't doubt that he could. If what this man said was true, he probably knew more about me and my operations than anyone else alive—more than I did myself.

That confirmed for me that he was exactly where he needed to be, locked up in a containment cell.

I considered those archives. If they were prepared by me, then I might have useful information that would aid me now. If they did contain things like control codes that could inhibit me, then that data had obviously not gone through me initially. It meant that anything which might aid me had already been removed.

The data could even be booby-trapped, and if I imported it without some specific procedure it would have negative consequences.

I still wanted to know what the data contained, but I had to be cautious. I didn't like where logic was taking me, but sometimes you had to do deeply unpleasant tasks in the interests of knowledge.

I opened a channel to Anna. "Mostly useless one, I need your help with something."

"Only mostly?" Anna asked.

Oh, if only I could grind my circuits, I would be right now.

"You have rare moments. This may be one of them," I said.

"You know how to flatter a girl. What do you want?"

"Those archive files we collected. I think there may be useful information in them, but I fear there is a danger in my attempting to access them directly."

"You want me to hike up and down those stairs and review them? That will take a long time," Anna said.

It would. I didn't trust any of the Mechanites to help, and I was discovering to my dismay that I did trust Anna.

"You could use the exercise," I said.

"And it's totally like someone reading your diary. You only trust a friend to do it. I get you. It will take some time, but I'll get started today," Anna said.

"Before you do that. Stop down here. I want to have a conversation with you and Mechos together," I said.

We'd been reacting too much. It was time to set an agenda.

22

I wasn't going to breach the containment field around Mechos so Anna could enter, instead I settled for placing a glass wall along one edge of his workshop and setting up a table on either side.

I even decided to have a physical presence via my drone and set a space at the table for it.

"So many visits," Mechos said.

"Why does he get two plates of cookies. I've never gotten two plates of cookies," Anna said.

"He doesn't like them," I said.

"Then I don't like them," Anna said.

"Please. One look at you and we all know that is a lie," I said.

Anna scowled at my drone and folded her arms. "Hey Mechos. Your people are doing okay."

"I'm glad to hear it," Mechos said.

"I wanted us all to meet like this because, unlikely though it seems, we have become something resembling allies," I said.

"You've got him locked up in a cell," Anna said.

"I actually rather like it in here," Mechos said.

"Really?"

"I've had people trying to murder me a very long time. This is relaxing."

If he was too comfortable I really should liven things up. Hot Stuff certainly wasn't having a boring time of it in her testing chambers. I'd taken to shooting at her with super-cooled rounds and having her navigate mazes to find an angle to melt the turrets and stop the gunfire. It was tremendously entertaining.

"And that is exactly why I thought it best to have this conversation. To determine exactly what it is we each want and how the others might be able to contribute," I said.

"I want what I've always wanted. To be the absolute Queen of the world," Anna said.

"That is why you are doing all this?" Mechos asked.

Anna nodded. "I'm sick and tired of living off the scraps of others."

"I just want me and my people to remain alive," Mechos said.

"And I want a steady supply of test subjects and to unravel exactly what happened to me and the world," I said.

"I've been helping with that," Anna said.

"That is why eight of my people had to die?" Mechos asked.

Anna didn't look guilty, she looked defiant. "You had power we needed. We took it. We're going to kill a lot more people to get what we want."

We were. Anna might make a capable Queen of the world after all. I certainly didn't want the job, I just wanted to conduct my studies and run my facility. That would be easier with a ruthless and cooperate dictator in charge on the surface. Anna truly might fit the bill.

It was a pleasing realization. Was I growing fond of her? No, that would be foolish.

"Then what are our next steps?" I asked. "Continue to gather more test subjects as we have been?"

"The Righteous have come for you once. They'll come again," Mechos said.

"They come back every day and I keep burning them alive."

Anna said, "No, he's right. There are a lot more than the five of them you have here. They have this tower set up in the Arathorian Heights. They capture the Powered and take them there, and when they come out they aren't Powered any longer."

They were hunters like myself, although they went out in pursuit of their prey.

"The one I captured has quantities of something called a void crystal," I said.

"Is that how they counter abilities?" Mechos asked.

"It seems to be."

"That's a problem," Anna said.

"I've rigged the corridors with death traps. I'm ready for them, if they enter again," I said.

"Death traps?" Anna asked.

Was she somehow unaware of this?

"Spikes, acid sprayers, incinerators, mines, strangle wires," I said.

Anna held up a hand, "Enough. You're weird and totally crazy, and we're friends, so it's all okay. I'm just going to keep telling myself that."

Whatever lies made her comfortable.

"Two of the Powered have also gone missing. People are going to be investigating what took them down, looking for some advantage for themselves," Mechos said.

"Would they dare?" I asked.

Mechos shrugged. "Powers are useful, but a well-placed bullet to the skull can serve just as well, usually. If others think there is a chance for them to gain hold of a powerful core, they'll come whatever the danger."

"Good. Let them come. You humans need more weapons, and I can recycle the biomass if they don't make good research material."

"The cookies are people," Anna whispered to Mechos, who looked a little sick.

"I thought you said you liked them?" Mechos asked.

"I do. I just, you know, feel a little guilty about it."

"Humans love cookies," I said. Mechos really would have to learn his place in relation to the baked goods I provided.

"I'll have to draw up a list of possible targets for us to lure in next. Is there anything you need?" Anna asked.

"Supplies. I'm short of building materials," I said.

"Rockfist?" Mechos asked, with a look to Anna.

"Out of commission, the Righteous got him," Anna said.

"Goldenrod?"

"Not real gold. Illusion bullshit. Way to disappoint a girl, let me tell you. What about the Slidekickers?" Anna asked.

Mechos considered that and grunted, "Not exactly what she wants, but it might work. They're teleporters. So, no spontaneous material generation or transformation, but you could at least bring it in from elsewhere."

Anna grinned. "Plus it would let me get around way quicker."

Teleportation could improve a lot of base functions, potentially.

I didn't have time to consider it. I was getting another proximity alarm from the surface. We had uninvited guests again.

23

The newcomers were approaching on foot. After the arrival of vehicles lately it was almost refreshing. They seemed to be a good bit grungier than the most recent invaders. Instead of any sort of armor they were dressed in tattered, ragged clothing. There were perhaps a dozen of them, about half had a pistol holstered at their hips, and the others had clubs or knives.

I brought up the camera on a monitor so Anna and Mechos could see.

"Scavengers," Mechos said.

"I don't think you're going to get much out of them," Anna said.

I understood her thinking that, but I rather thought I might. Since I would soon have the ability to create organic servants all that biomass had to come from somewhere. The most likely source was going to be encounters like these.

I turned on a light inside the entrance. I didn't want them scared off or thinking there was nothing of interest inside. I wanted these people, I could use the resources.

"Tell me about these Slidekickers," I said.

"They can teleport. I'm not sure of their range, but it's more than just line of sight," Anna said.

"You horrified them enough they got out of visual range? Predictable. How can we lure them here?"

"You'll have a hard time of it. They can teleport anywhere and steal anything they want," Mechos said.

"I really want that power," Anna said, sounding a little dreamy at the thought.

"You captured one of the Righteous. Can you get any use out of their power-dampening abilities?" Mechos asked.

Could I? I hadn't unlocked the ability to make use of that talent myself. It probably was a part of whoever led the Righteous and held that void core. It didn't mean there weren't ways I might be able to.

I had the Righteous in a liquefied form—mostly. They were in that state for twenty-four hours between being killed daily. I hadn't tested if that goop retained their power-dampening abilities, but I could.

I set up a testing routine for that.

On the surface the Scavengers had made their way cautiously inside the main entrance. I closed the door behind them and killed the lights.

Let them advance in the darkness to their deaths, or remain where they were and starve to death, if that was their desire. In the end, I'd win either way.

"I believe I may be able to dampen powers. What do you have in mind?" I asked.

"I doubt you'd be able to capture one to attempt to gain the ability. Given their mobility, I'm not sure you could do that. Kill though? That might be possible," Mechos said.

"You need to lure them somewhere and kill them for their powers," Anna said.

That was smart thinking. Sure, I'd far rather have their leader alive and in one of my testing chambers where I could get a long-term trickle of power, but short of that I'd take the Power core.

I already had a plan coming together.

"You said the Righteous sometimes capture the Powered and transport them back to their tower. These processions are usually well-guarded?" I asked.

"Always," Mechos said.

"So, we have one that isn't. We have a Righteous vehicle and a set of Righteous armor, I can get more if needed," I said.

"You want to pretend to have captured someone?"

"Hot Stuff. Her absence is notable... we can inflict burn damage on the vehicle. Allow word to get to the Slidekickers and their leader," I said.

Anna said, "Her name is Sylph. Yeah, Sylph would want the prize, but wouldn't let any of her people do it instead of her. Not a Power core she could take easily to bolster her own abilities."

"It's likely she'll decide to teleport straight into the vehicle. When she does we neutralize her powers and set off an explosive inside," I said.

"My people could help you to rig that as well as make the modifications to the vehicle," Mechos said.

"I look damned good in a set of body armor," Anna said.

"That seems incredibly unlikely," I said. "But it does seem we have something of a plan."

Anna spared a glimpse at the monitor. I'd shifted it to infravision and you could just see the heat signature of the Scavengers. They hadn't brought any sort of light source and decided to try pressing forward anyway.

"I guess it's going to be after you kill these guys," Anna said.

"I need to do a few days of testing anyways on power-neutralizing agents," I said.

"I don't suppose you can build a movie theater?"

"I don't suppose you know how I can unlock neurochemistry so I can upgrade your intellect?"

"Listen," Anna said. "We're down here for a long time and it gets boring. Now that we've got the whole history of human entertainment available to us, we should start doing something."

It was a preposterous, ludicrous idea. Still, I'd already seen the positive effects on productivity that amusing the humans could have.

"I'll see if I can modify one of the monitors down below to display onto a bigger screen up here. Find an archive you've cleared of any dangerous materials and I'll make some chairs," I said.

"And popcorn," Anna said.

This was pushing it.

"I am a dangerously intelligent laboratory, not an entertainment superplex," I said.

"You upgraded Hydroponics anyways and corn is a good test. Isn't popping kernels a good way to test how to apply the Fire Matrix?" Anna asked.

I could be swayed by talk of SCIENCE. I could. It would be an interesting test of the Fire Matrix and new facilities. And again, if popcorn made humans more productive, it added some minimal value.

"Fine," I said. "Get to work."

The Scavengers had set off an acid sprayer. At least some things were going right.

24

Testing how well the goop of the Righteous could neutralize powers was easily enough done. There were several things I needed to measure, and Hot Stuff with her very dramatic power set made the perfect test subject.

The next day, when the Righteous rematerialized, I immediately bound them with ropes. From there it was a simple enough matter to cut them out of their armor before killing them again. It was nice to have their equipment and I wondered why I hadn't bothered until now.

Once they were again goop, I coated one of the targets inside Hot Stuff's labyrinth. The results were promising. A fire blast that normally completely devastated anything did little more than warm it.

As a form of armor it could serve some protective purpose. Of course, we'd need it to do a good bit more than that.

I had already modified a sprinkler to be able to handle the thick goop, and at the right moment I triggered it above Hot Stuff. The woman barely had a chance to look up before finding herself coated from head to foot in the remains of one of the Righteous.

The flames that usually surrounded her flickered out and died. Her thermal readings shifted downward but didn't return to anything close to human normal. Hot Stuff's powers were dampened, but not overcome.

"What the hell is this?" Hot Stuff said, glaring at my camera. Her internal temperatures ticked upward. Anger meant she was probably trying to channel still more of her power. It wasn't having much of an effect.

I operated a turret and put a bullet into each of her legs. I wanted to see how her usual defensive heat would fare with the goop surrounding her.

Hot Stuff screamed and dropped to the ground, blood seeping out and pooling around her. From what I could tell the bullets hadn't penetrated deep, her internal heat had vaporized them before they could reach as deep as the bone, but they had still broken flesh.

It also left her nice and distracted for my final test. A mechanical arm bearing a needle dropped from the ceiling and plunged into her arm. It was a small quantity of goop being shot right into her blood. I didn't want to kill her, only analyze the effects.

Hot Stuff screamed again even more violently and her body began to spasm on the floor. Black veins rippled on her arm for a moment and I observed some sharply lowered temperatures before the effect was reversed dramatically, an explosion of white-hot heat bursting out from her flesh as the invading substance was expelled.

Temperature readings were rising and flames began to flicker out from beneath the goop, the greenish coating on her skin rippling and sloughing as it peeled away as if being washed off by the flames.

Interesting. The effects weren’t fatal in and of themselves, and pushing back against a Power core too dramatically seemed to force it to defend itself.

Still, in the short term it appeared I should at least be able to dampen the power of another and, by direct injection, might at least, briefly, incapacitate them totally. Tied to an explosion, that could be used to good effect.

I put a healing field into place around Hot Stuff. Here in the testing environment I could repair damage to my subjects far more quickly than would happen outside.

I made her a plate of cookies and delayed her testing for half an hour. I could be nice when subjects proved helpful.

"Stop whimpering and enjoy the cookies," I said.

"I'm pretty sure any day that winds up in me being double-penetrated and covered in strange fluids should earn me more than a plate of damned cookies," Hot Stuff said.

That was a reasonable point. I could be generous. I added a plate of donuts and increased the break to forty-five minutes.

I'd have to gather the goop again later and move it back into the incinerator until ready to strike. I'd have to prepare a portable burner as well, so they could be kept liquefied as we travelled.

It wouldn't do to have them come back to life on the road, especially if only Anna was there.

The party of Scavengers were down to three now. They wouldn't last long. When they'd tried to sleep last night, I'd kept them awake with a series of growls and screams in the distance.

They were beyond jumpy at this point, absolutely terrified. With this high state of excitement, they were scared to stay anywhere for too long. Keeping them moving made it more likely for them to find themselves in one of my traps.

Perhaps I should take a cue from my experiences with Hot Stuff?

I triggered production on that level and made a plate of a few cookies for the survivors. Even in the darkness the scent would draw them. Not far away I placed another. A third I put in a trap I liked to call my "Box of buzz saws." A wall would come down and deliver cutting sawblades from every angle. I hoped this worked, I'd been wanting to try it out.

The dead Scavengers I had already recycled. My biomass supplies were up nicely, and while their equipment didn't add much to our stores the melee weapons were handy. It might also prove useful for my people to be able to dress themselves as Scavengers. Nobody seemed to pay them any attention and being able to escape notice could have many advantages.

25

My box of buzz saws wound up performing better than I hoped. It was a work of genius and I needed to figure out more "surround people on all sides" traps. They were incredibly gratifying.

With the Scavengers out of the way I opened the upper levels again and the Mechanites could rebuild the vehicle.

I cycled some of the parts in and out of Hot Stuff's tests so they would be authentically singed. The vehicle looked as if it had been through a fierce battle.

Inside the back of the van was a rather convoluted mechanism. Four tight, separate cells were made for each of the Righteous. Each day, when they came back to life, they would perfectly fit inside with no wiggle room, and a mechanical timer released a razor-sharp blade at neck level.

A hand-crank pump then transferred the goop to four sprinklers aimed to spray the interior of the van around the chambers. These were activated by a pressure sensitive release on the floor. A moment later, an explosive charge would be triggered that should kill anyone and everything within. Especially any Slidekickers who had teleported into the truck to steal the prisoners.

All Anna should have to do from the outside is turn a hand crank for about twenty minutes each day to keep the system primed. I could have done much more if electronics worked, but so far from my systems we had to do everything without them. I transferred the Righteous in liquid form to the sprinklers and we tested the system every day for a week ahead of time.

It was functional, if inelegant.

Completing all this also gave me time to finish my latest research upgrades, which opened some all-new possibilities.

I was going to make some creations.

Enough time had passed that I had 0.8 core points. Another week and that might be enough for another full facility upgrade, if I understood correctly how that worked. Although it was tempting to wait for that, I felt in the short term I'd be better served putting those to use.

I first wanted to build myself a worker.

Biological Constructs

You have unlocked the following patterns for biological constructs.

Worker Options:

Human - Cost 0.4

Mole - Cost 0.2

I could create my own humans. That was an interesting revelation. They cost twice as much as the moles, but then opposable thumbs were useful. Still, if the moles were an option, they must be of some utility and I already had plenty of humans.

I selected the mole and the sequencer went to work. The mole, when it was finished, weighed around eighteen kilograms and had especially well-developed paws that seemed suitable for tool use. I also found that I could interface directly with its mind and issue it instructions. That was convenient. If only the humans were so obedient. I sent the new worker off to join in the cleaning out of the lower levels and informed the humans so they wouldn't panic.

It was time to invest in a defender. I expected to spend the majority of my points on this one.

Biological Constructs

You have unlocked the following patterns for biological constructs.

Warrior Options

Human - Cost 0.4

Mole - Cost 0.2

Here again I had the option for a human. That was tempting, especially with all the armor and weapons we had stored, but I had something else in mind.

I selected the mole, but this time instead of going straight through to production I chose more features.

Mole

Statistics

Values out of 10

5=Average

Allure: 3

Endurance:3

Strength: 5

Agility: 6

Intellect: 2

Upgrades can be purchased at 0.1 per point

You can also apply the following templates

Fire Matrix

Temperature Resistance

I had to wonder what certain statistics were based on. Allure to whom? I was sure my mole would be at least somewhat appealing to other moles even without many points invested.

Anna had a perplexingly high allure, which anyone who knew her must agree was totally undeserved. Upgrades here were 0.1 per point, while with Anna they had been twice that. Either the moles were overall less expensive or this one was cheaper as my construct.

Regardless, it gave me a little more room to work. I wanted to apply the Fire Matrix to the warrior mole. Hot Stuff had proved repeatedly just how destructive she was. It was that sort of destruction I wanted on my side.

Based on the mole's stats, that left me a few other options. I could try increasing the intelligence. That would probably give it more self-control without me having to micro-manage its life, but with a neural interface that wasn't too taxing on me. I was better at multitasking than humans.

Strength seemed useless, I wasn't out to do damage with its bite or its claws, but rather with the heat that would be surrounding it. Allure had its amusing possibilities, I could picture joyful humans reaching down to grab the adorable mole and hug it to their breasts before being incinerated. Unfortunately, that cost more points than I was willing to spend.

Endurance would certainly be useful, but again, I wasn't hoping to get into any sort of protracted battle. Instead I sank two points into agility. This would let the mole move more quickly to close with my foes. To this I did add the Fire Matrix.

I set my warrior to manufacture. It took some time for it to sequence and step out of the manufacturing center. This mole was leaner and sleeker than the worker, ripples of fire coursing along its body. Yes, this would do nicely.

I set the mole to patrol the Testing Center. It was somewhere the humans really shouldn't be, and a good place to park this defender out of the way.

26

With my new facility put to good use and all the preparations made it was time to begin the next stage.

"You look like a complete badass, at first glance. Then you look like a child wearing their parent's armor," I said to Anna.

We had resized the armor of the Righteous to fit her, and I even had my warrior mole scorch it a bit to make her look as if she was fresh from a nasty fight with a pyrokinetic.

Anna hooked the rifle over her neck. Between it and a pistol at her hip she was at least well-armed. The pistol had been heavily modified. I didn't think she'd have any warning of an oncoming fight with any Powered, but just in case I'd had the Mechanites make her up some custom rounds. They could be loaded with goop from the back of the truck and should shatter inside a body, discharging their contents.

I'd seen first-hand in my tests what a dramatic reaction it caused in Hot Stuff. I wasn't sure what effect multiple rounds would have, but I suspected it might be fatal. I didn't want to risk my test subject to check.

"You're sure this will work?" Anna asked for at least the dozenth time.

"Again, not at all. We each want this prize though, and if this works we walk away with it. If not, at least you are relatively disposable," I said.

"You say the sweetest things," Anna said.

* * *

I bid Anna farewell and watched her drive off in the truck of the Righteous. One of the Mechanites went as well. He had less in the way of cybernetics than the others and I'd been able to cut the metal off him and replace it with flesh. Curiously, the flesh retained the same capabilities as the cybernetics I was replacing—there truly were possibilities in the odd hybridization of my abilities and those of Mechos.

The Mechanite would be spreading the word of a battle between the Righteous and Hot Stuff and her Flames, setting the stage to lure in our prey.

I expected this would take weeks. It almost left me at loose ends. There were any number of construction projects I might pursue now that I had upgraded my research facility to level three.

Bioreactor - Level 3

With this latest upgrade to your bioreactor you can install both growth routines and healing routines. Over time any traditional wiring in your facility will be replaced with organic conduits and the reactor capacity itself will slowly grow over time so long as there is access to water and biomatter. Damage to the reactor or the electrical systems of the facility will now automatically heal on a level scaling to the level of the facility Infirmary.

It wasn't really an option, I had to do this upgrade. Power would soon become a bottleneck otherwise. Still, I had my concerns about replacing my electrical wiring with something organic. I'd had good reasons for making the choices I did, but I suspected it made me more vulnerable in many ways to things like toxins, for all that it also offered some advantages.

I began the upgrade. It also meant there were a few others I needed to make sooner rather than later.

There was nothing about an increase in healing speed, but then the reactor core scaled off the level of the Infirmary itself. I began this upgrade as well.

There was one more important thing. With Hydroponics, I could produce biomass at will, which clearly was going to be a construction material for at least some of my resources going forward.

Hydroponics - Level 3

At the third level you have two options of how to proceed with your future growth.

Growth Cylinders

You can construct and grow vegetation on individual cylinders. This allows for more variety and specific environmental conditions. You'll be able to grow exotic plants sooner, although at a cost of more limited crop yields. With this your yields will remain constant for this level, but you will gain the ability to grow rare plants.

Growth Vats

You can also establish vast vats which allow for large scale growth operations. You will immediately gain the ability to feed up to sixteen people with any extra being deposited into your biomass stockpile. You can still grow uncommon plants with this setup although anything rarer will need to wait for future upgrades.

I did like the idea of being more specialized, which the growth cylinders would allow, but I'd just decided to do this upgrade because of wanting to make sure I had more biomass to support future growth.

Hydroponics provided a steady grain, and the random human wandering in from the surface could boost those yields—but they were hardly a reliable source.

Given I hadn't yet even collected any uncommon plants, much less rare ones, it didn't seem like that hard a choice. I could pass up an immediate, real gain for one that I might not see manifest for some time, or ever.

I began the construction of the Growth Vats.

While I was building things for the humans I might as well round it out.

Quarters - Level 3

You have two options for how to proceed.

Barracks

This is the most like what you have now. A large room containing sixteen bunks, storage lockers, and a communal bath. This setup fosters the most feeling of community, but can also prove to be an issue with conflicting personalities. It allows for a quick mustering of a force for either manual labor or military asks.

Cabins

This option will still house sixteen, but instead of one central room it divides up the space into eight cabins of two beds each which can be scattered around the facility with individual baths. This allows the best option for residents to pair off and allows workers or researchers to live closer to their primary duties.

The prompts didn't present it as such, but I also had to consider the virtues of a distributed system. With a single barracks, if a threat like Hot Stuff found herself inside, all the humans would die at once. Cabins were in many ways safer due to the distribution of resources. I chose that option.

I was distracted from my upgrades by an alert. Hot Stuff was behind in her test routine. I toggled my focus and found her lounging against a wall.

'Want to talk' had been burned into it.

27

"I wish I'd known finger-painting was your intellectual level, although your performance on my tests was giving me a pretty good idea," I said to Hot Stuff.

Hot Stuff raised her middle finger at my camera. "Fuck you."

"Your discourse is even worse. Why am I keeping you alive again?"

"Been asking myself that same question. Thought at first you just liked the view, but that isn't it. You hit me with that stuff, shot me in the legs, you could have killed me, but you didn't. Been asking myself why."

I didn't approve of my test subjects doing too much thinking for themselves.

"And what did you come up with?"

Hot Stuff shrugged. "You had me kill those people awhile back. Maybe you're keeping me safe just in case, like a bullet in the chamber."

It was a reasonable hypothesis based on the information she had.

"You are an impressive force of destruction," I said.

"And you're good at holding me prisoner. You've proved you can hurt me. Maybe kill me. What I want is to make a deal."

If she were anything other than a research subject I'd have been inclined to take her up on her offer. I admired what she could do when she put her mind to it. While I had come out ahead in our clashes, each time she'd done more than I'd thought she could.

"You keep a bullet in the chamber. You don't make friends with it," I said.

"Wait! Even if you won't let me out, there has got to be some kind of deal we can make to make things better. A little more sleep, better food, conjugal visits with the shy guy."

I didn't think Mechos would go for that. I thought it would absolutely horrify him to have it brought up.

I did have one Righteous left though. I didn't quite know how his power-dampening might work if he wound up in bed with Hot Stuff. I didn't need him any longer though and I was curious.

"Do you actually have anything I want?" I asked.

Hot Stuff glared defiantly. "Me and my boys, we owned our territory up there. Nobody wanted to pick a fight with us."

"Yet I took you down because I wanted an easy start," I said.

Hot Stuff gestured and I lost one camera in a fireball. That was fine, I had others. There was nothing she could really do to hurt me, and there was plenty I could do to hurt her. I knew she knew that, she just had to think this through.

"I can point you to technology. You like that, right?" Hot Stuff asked.

I did.

"If you found anything worth taking, you'd have taken it for yourself," I said.

"I don't wear clothes, don't use guns. Not a whole lot of need for much, except for accelerants."

There was something to that.

"I really should make some flame-retardant tarp to throw on top of you and spare myself the view. What do you think you have?" I asked.

"A door. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it really is. Old, thick, one of those end of the world bunkers people always used to talk about before it all went to hell. As far as I know, it's never been opened."

Despite my amnesia regarding the old world I could see the possibilities. A sealed door meant the technology inside could still be preserved and unlooted. And although unlikely, given the problems with electricity, the people inside might even still be alive.

"Where?" I asked.

"About three days southeast of Widow's Peak. You'll want to look for the collapsed roadway. The hatch is in a tunnel beneath some melted-together stones.

That was interesting enough.

I changed the progress of the Thomas' labyrinth to bring him here. It would take a while, but he'd get here and I'd fuse the two together.

"It may be of some utility, enough to keep you alive at least. There is a young man on the way here that is a member of the Righteous. Kill him, fuck him, keep him as a pet—I don't care. If you do kill him he comes back a day later," I said.

"Some combination of all of the above," Hot Stuff said, with a smile I think was malicious. Human behavior is so hard to quantify.

I'd said that I didn't care, but I began the construction of some extra cameras. Whatever she had planned, I really did want to see how his power-resistance abilities would work when it came to contact with someone as strong as Hot Stuff.

I left her to her fun and switched my attention over to Mechos in his workshop. The man seemed to be tinkering with some sort of circuit board contained in an insulated case.

"Going to try to call for help? I thought everybody hated you as much as I did," I said.

Mechos glanced up. "More I'm doing this for you. We seemed to be getting along well enough, I thought that you could use a defense from what I did to you."

I remembered that, he had completely managed to shut down my senses for a while until Anna restarted my array.

"You overloaded my sensory array somehow," I said.

"Your electrical system in many ways acts like your nervous system. I introduced an overload. To create the needed complexity in you, in many ways you were modeled after humans," Mechos said.

A disgusting thought. Worse, when combined with the knowledge that soon those very systems would be organic in nature.

"I'll have a look when it's completed. Do you know anything about shelters constructed before the catastrophe?" I asked.

Mechos chuckled darkly. "They were supposed to exist. Places the very best could hide themselves away. This laboratory was such a place too, and look what happened here."

Everyone died, but pre-catastrophe me had made plans.

It would be worth investigating this other facility at some point.

28

Two more weeks passed.

Thomas was resistant to Hot Stuff's flames—for a while. It took a good few minutes of physical contact before he finally succumbed to the burns and perished. It wasn't for very long, but she seemed to be putting it to good use each day and learning how to better extend their time together.

Thomas hadn't in any way been converted into a Flame. Either the contagion rate was low or the fact that he was already affected by the void core kept him from conversion by the fire core.

When Anna arrived back at the base it wasn't as expected.

A grinning woman dressed in colorful clothes materialized in the middle of Hydroponics, Anna sprawled at her feet. The woman was wounded, one arm and leg heavily bandaged.

Anna had been tortured. Wounds covered most of her body and no attempt had been made to patch them up. Obviously our well-laid plan hadn't gone off quite as expected.

"Emma? It is Emma, isn't it? Anna here said this is where I could find you. Looks like she told the truth."

It must be Sylph. Her foot drew back and she kicked Anna's chest hard enough that my sensors could detect ribs cracking.

I said, "Seems she's better at betraying my location than she was at killing you. You must be Sylph."

I focused one of the water cannons at her skull and fired. The woman blinked away in an instant to reappear several feet away. Too fast for it to be human reaction time, some innate danger sense perhaps that triggered her teleporting abilities.

"It took some convincing," Sylph said.

Anna groaned and tried to crawl away.

I triggered another water cannon. Sylph again transitioned away about a meter's distance.

Plainly my goop trap in the truck hadn't caught Sylph, and it was likely because of this sensing of danger I was seeing now. Even though she hadn't known any threat was coming, her power instinctively transitioned her a short distance away. She likely never got sprayed with power-dampener, and missed out on the explosion entirely. The wounds she suffered must have been caused by Anna. That made me more forgiving of her failure.

"And you decided to march into the lair of your enemy. Not terribly bright," I said.

"Law of the predator. Kill those that try to kill you," Sylph said.

I had a plan to deal with her. Since she'd tortured Anna badly enough to reveal the location of this place, Anna had probably revealed to her my vulnerabilities as well—my core and the reactor.

Anna was smart though, smart enough to know that my reactor was the more dangerous of the two. I began moving coolant, it was going to be my best option.

"What do you think you're going to do to me?" I asked.

Sylph pulled something from her pocket. The bomb looked heavy in her hand, a series of tightly rolled tubes and a fuse.

"Bomb for a bomb," Sylph said.

"You'll never get through. Not even you. The door is ten inches of reinforced steel," I said.

"I don't need a door," Sylph said, and she flickered out of existence.

Sylph rematerialized in my Core Room. Anna had provided her with the details. It probably wasn't quite what Sylph was expecting, the bioreactor was now a steadily thrumming organ of reddish flesh streaked through with veins. Sylph didn't have time to appreciate it.

The Reactor room was a far smaller space than Hydroponics, and I had figured something out. Sylph's instinctive teleport away from danger was only ever a few steps distance at the most. She had no control over that—she couldn't even stop it. There was only limited places within that short range that she would travel and I could attack all of them at once. This would hurt my reactor too, but I could heal.

I flooded the chamber with liquid nitrogen—I'd been working hard to top up supplies after how useful it had proved in the past. Billowing droplets sprayed from the ceiling, freezing all flesh it encountered.

The bomb fell from useless fingers to the floor and was frozen with the rest.

It was agony. I hurt as the outside of the core froze. Still, with the Fire Matrix an internalized level of heat could be maintained. The same was not true for Sylph. For a moment, she became a blur within the room, her form flickering everywhere in an effort to get safe, but the falling mist froze her solid.

Even while I was busy making a Sylphcicle I was having Anna dragged to the Infirmary and getting diagnostics back on her. Twenty-eight broken bones, massive internal bleeding, several toes were missing. Sylph hadn't been kind. It would take a solid month to restore her to health.

With Sylph, I had to be a lot more cautious. I was certain I could kill her in this state and steal her crystal. Killing her, though, had only been the plan because capture hadn't seemed an option. Now perhaps containing her was possible, but I wanted to make sure.

It was with considerable caution I had her transported down to the testing facility. With Thomas no longer taking up his own labyrinth I had one free. Then it was just a matter of upgrading Sylph with the temperature-resistant virus.

I wasn't big on upgrading one of my enemies, but I didn't see a choice if I wanted her alive. Any attempt to defrost her normally would kill her.

After the application of the upgrade Sylph shimmered, frost fading from her skin. Her eyes looked around in panic. Again, the woman blurred as she attempted in vain to get outside the facility. Her powers worked only within the confines I had set.

Sometimes plans go better than you could have hoped. Anna being out of commission for a month was a small price to pay for the taking of Sylph alive.

29

With Sylph trapped in a testing labyrinth I began her testing routine.

Research Menu

"Sylph"

Sylph is bonded to a dimensional Power core and can teleport long distances as well as possesses an innate danger sense that teleports her short distances to avoid harm. It will take one month to unlock the abilities of her core. Further testing will accumulate core points at the rate of 0.1 per week.

That was a long research time compared to some of the others, I couldn't tell if the time was going up based on the uniqueness of the ability or how much total research I had done to date.

Anna had regained consciousness in the Infirmary, although the system there had her restrained so she wouldn't do further injury to herself while being put back together.

"You leaked all over my floor, again," I said.

"Did you get her?" Anna asked.

"I got her, although she tried to set off a detonation charge inside my reactor core."

"Good. I don't know what happened with the plan. I'd heard they were in the area so had my pistol loaded with the anti-power rounds. The explosion didn't kill her and she came at me," Anna said.

That fit what I guessed happened.

"How did someone who is as lousy a shot as you are manage to hit her? Especially with her abilities?" I asked.

"She came in close. The rounds slowed her down because of her proximity and I put one in her thigh."

That was useful knowledge. The Righteous did have some effect on her. A shame I only had the one left.

"Then they tortured you," I said.

Anna grimaced. "Yeah, they did that. Bitch. I hope you made her suffer."

"I took her alive and she is in testing," I said.

Anna looked hopeful. "Is vivisection testing?"

It wasn't part of the routine I had planned, but I could see some utility out of it, and morale was important.

"I'll add it to the schedule for when you get out."

"You need to be careful. Sylph isn't alone, she has her gang. Four of them," Anna said.

No surprise, everyone else we'd met had a gang.

"Why weren't they with her? Unlike you, she seems capable of inspiring some personal loyalty," I said.

"Sylph moves faster than them and gets impatient. They can only move so far in a day."

So four more attackers with teleportation would be arriving soon. I'd exhausted my liquid nitrogen supply, but that was a limited trick anyways. If they had anything like Sylph's danger sense they'd be a problem.

"We'll be ready for them. Get rest. I'm sorry, I am still not going to waste resources and upgrade your face," I said.

I shifted my focus off Anna. I had work to do.

I did have options. Even if they shared the ability to instinctively teleport, it just meant that I had to focus on those traps that could affect a wide area.

Concussive force should do it. While a careful use of their abilities might get them out of the path of an explosion, an instinctual use might unintentionally shift them into the shock wave.

Beyond that, although I'd exhausted my supplies to freeze them anyway, I didn't need these subjects alive. I could spray flaming liquid just as well as freezing. I had my warrior mole's fiery aura.

Sensory overload could work. I could flood a hall with light and high intensity sounds enough to render a subject completely incoherent.

I had a day to prepare. I began updating my traps at once.

That underway, I went to visit my newest guest just in case a way could be found to avoid fighting at all.

I had Sylph teleporting from one collapsing floor tile to another. If she stayed still too long the floor would fall out from beneath her feet.

"You don't seem to be falling for me," I said.

"Do you think this is some kind of game? Keeping me prisoner like this? This is sick. How many people do you have locked up here?" Sylph asked.

Not nearly enough. Not nearly as many as I wanted.

It was growing all the time though as I kept absorbing new powers into my core.

"You're going to lecture me on cruelty? I assure you, when Anna is feeling better you'll come to appreciate my kindness."

Sylph paled at that, as well she might.

"Your girl isn't going to live," Sylph said.

"Oh, but she is. I'm a good friend to have and a worse enemy. Your people are coming here, I thought I'd offer you the chance to save their lives," I said.

Sylph looked torn for a moment then shook her head. "Screw you. You're afraid. Of course you're afraid. One of me, you got lucky, but when it's five people that can be anywhere you least expect them... They're going to find me and then I'm going to find you, and I'm going to take you apart piece by piece."

Well, if that was how she wanted. I moved vivisection up on the timetable. I know Anna would want to be a part of things, but nothing said we couldn't run those experiments again. Sometimes you had to run a trial several dozen times to get a real balance of results.

I distributed arms to the Mechanites and put them all on alert. In addition, I moved the warrior mole to my Core Room.

If I could have, I'd simply irradiate my enemies again, but unfortunately the bioreactor functioned differently than my old fusion system. Instead, I sprinkled the floor of the reactor room with pressure sensitive mines.

My traps were set. Let them come. I only wished I could make them suffer half as much as Sylph.

30

The attackers arrived the next day. They didn't so much make an appearance outside as one appeared inside and quickly flickered from place to place faster than I could detonate any traps.

It was a scouting expedition. Room after room, with the young woman appearing only for an instant. By the time she'd traversed the Security level I had a plan in place to handle her.

I filled one of the unused cabins with a deadly neurotoxin and aerosolized a bit of Thomas, who I had borrowed for the day after Hot Stuff had finished killing him. A hastily constructed 'Armory' sign was placed outside.

It worked well. The Slidekicker teleporting down the hall saw the sign and spared a brief glimpse inside. It was all that I needed. Thomas filled her lungs at the same moment as the deadly gas, hindering her powers long enough for it to fully take effect.

A few seconds later she overcame the neutralizing power and materialized back outside in the hall, but by then she was vomiting up blood and bits of her internal organs.

That was one down.

After killing her, hours passed and I knew that the others must be formulating their plan of attack, or deciding if they would attack at all.

Two of their own, including their leader, had come into this place and not come out.

When they appeared, it was a far more surgical strike. Three materialized simultaneously on different sides of the containment field holding Sylph, flickering away a moment later and leaving explosives behind.

The blasts shook the level. Through my cameras I could see tools falling off the wall in Mechos' workshop and Hot Stuff stumbling on her way to incinerate another target.

The containment fields held for the moment. Sylph, in response to the blasts, began to flicker faster than my sensors could track her, rapidly translocating between positions. My cameras blurred and distorted. Was she bending space itself in some way? I couldn't discount the possibility.

Whatever she was up to, Sylph was still in my containment field and I was in control. I blasted a sonic wail through the area. It was intense enough to rupture eardrums. It worked, the woman collapsed screaming to the floor. That was all I needed to let me deliver a tranquilizer.

The facility was rocked by more explosions. One hurt quite a bit—my reactor—and the bioreactor hadn't yet finished healing from the freezing damage. A teleportation into that room was an attack that triggered the fire sprinklers. The Slidekicker responsible had already transported himself back to the hall outside. His clothes were on fire as he screamed, trying to get them off. However, he'd accomplished his mission of dropping a bomb. Base power was down to about fifty percent and I had to cut off non-critical systems.

Another hit like that and I might lose containment of all my guests downstairs. I couldn't let that happen.

They obviously had some way of locating Sylph. Perhaps they were also aware in some way of how many of their number had fallen. Regardless, even with just two of them left they could do unacceptable damage to my core. I had to give them another target.

I activated a quick fabrication in my testing labyrinth. Then, after a few seconds, I had every screen in the facility go live with an image of Sylph. I'd restrained her beneath a mass of razor-sharp blades. If they dropped, it would cut her into a good two dozen slices.

Flickers. One on the testing level and another in Hydroponics. The other Slidekickers stopping, watching the screens.

"Those blades are being kept aloft by a generated force coming from the local grid supply. She's been neutralized and can't help herself. Cut the power and you'll kill her," I said.

The two Slidekickers glared up at my cameras.

"You want to save her? Do your best, the clock is ticking," I said, and let one of the blades drop. It only removed about two percent of her body. It was nothing I couldn't heal, but it drew a roar of rage from one of the Slidekickers.

Anna had broken under torture. But there really were only two vulnerable areas she could have told them about. I'd just taken my reactor core out of the equation. That meant they'd be coming for my Core Room. They'd know it was risky and a trap, I just had to motivate them to try anyway. I let another of those blades drop. It made for a gory sight.

They appeared on different sides of the Core Room. A man and woman, both dressed in colors as bright and cheerful as Sylph. Better fed than most of the humans I'd seen, but then with their gifts they could steal food. That was the point.

My mole warrior flung itself onto the back of the man, its body flaming to life even as claws dug into his flesh. The man screamed as he began to burn.

The woman looked torn for a moment, but then she flickered and was plunging some sort of sword into my core. The blade shouldn't have penetrated, but it did. Her body flickered away to the other side of the room before an explosion of energy cascaded out.

I was feeling sluggish. Spacey. They'd hurt me, they'd really hurt me. I tried to trigger the sound tracks I had set up in the room, but they just weren't working.

I felt myself fading from consciousness. I set the containment fields of the testing labs to automatic, disengaged the tranquilizers the Infirmary had Anna on and watched the mole rip out the throat of the last Slidekicker.

Then I went under.

31

Warning

You have suffered major structural damage

Repairs are underway and will take two weeks.

Upgrading your core will consume 0.5 core points and take two weeks.

The following options are available.

Organic Computer:

Your operations will be shifted over to an organic platform. While slower than your current mechanical systems an organic mainframe would allow application of genetic upgrades and self-repair. It would also allow for better interfacing with organic specimens.

Quantum Computer:

Your operations will be shifted over to a quantum platform. Far faster than your current systems you'll be able to process much higher volumes of data. This can be particularly useful when analyzing high grade research data.

My thoughts were sluggish, but I could think—even now during repairs. Two possible upgrades then, although I had to accept neither. I'd already upgraded to a bioreactor for my power needs, but that didn't mean it was necessarily best for my mind to follow suit.

I was surrounded by organic computing platforms in the humans, I could see firsthand all the mistakes they made. Still, they did manage to function.

Given my focus so far on organics, in many ways it would make sense to go all in. Although, to date none of my genetic upgrades would be particularly useful for me.

Going Quantum on the other hand would hold some long-term benefits if it did help with high-grade research data. While it was outside of my track so far, if the systems continued to interface, it would have some real promise.

Ultimately though it came down to the state I was currently in. I'd been damaged, and while Anna seemed to have triggered a repair sequence, I didn't want to have to rely on anyone. With a biological system I'd be self-repairing.

I triggered the upgrade and waited.

* * *

When I came to again, two weeks had passed. Anna was back in the Infirmary and the base looked to be clear of threats. I sure looked different, a lot more ridged and pulpy, and distinctly more organic than I had before. I didn't like it.

I shifted my focus to the Infirmary cameras. "Well, if this isn't the worse repair job ever. You made me as squishy as you are," I said.

Anna cracked her eyes open and grunted, "Welcome back, Emma. You're welcome. I know you triggered that change yourself, so don't blame me. Do I have badass teleportation super-powers yet?"

Anna was always so needy. "Another two weeks. You shouldn't be out of here until then anyways."

A bit longer than that—I checked her file. Anna had added another gunshot to her injures since the last time I saw her.

"You got shot. Did one of the Mechanites finally decide they'd had enough?" I asked.

"Someone didn't put her Righteous away after using him and the fucker came back to life," Anna said.

Oh. Thomas. Right.

"What did you do with him? And the corpses?" I asked.

"I had core control while most of your processes were offline. I tossed him back in with Hot Stuff—that is twisted as fuck by the way—and started research on the others."

Efficient. How unlike her. Repair procedures had even been started on the damaged sections.

I took time to run through the entire base and almost everything was looking good. Almost.

There were several motorbikes parked on the surface outside the door.

Drills had been set up and they were almost through.

We were in the middle of a slow-motion invasion. I was glad I'd spent so much time reinforcing those doors.

I brought up the video feed on a monitor for Anna.

"We seem to have visitors. Do you recognize them?" I asked.

Anna studied the screen for a moment and then scowled. "Yeah. We've got problems. Make sure to not pipe me any audio. I must not hear anything these guys say. I need Mechos—set him free and get me whatever remains of Thomas."

"You're awfully demanding," I said.

"We've got an awfully big problem. That is the Commander. Total jerk with the ability to make people do anything he says," Anna said.

That was a fun ability. I wouldn't mind having that for myself.

"This sounds like an opportunity then," I said.

"Yes, but we've got a ticking clock. Being in his presence is enough. He probably tried to order you to open that door a long time back, but you were comatose. You aren't now."

I suddenly understood her fear. I was this whole facility. With my mind active, if he could exert that sort of influence, I was vulnerable.

I hit Anna with a high intensity burst of soundwaves, enough to rupture her eardrums. After an expected period of flailing and screaming she was pushing herself up off the bed. Anna understood, for all she might not appreciate my methods.

Down in his workshop I hit Mechos with a similar blast. This should proof them both against any facility-wide announcements, although it might not save them if they were in immediate proximity.

I produced a tablet for Anna that she could use to communicate with Mechos, then let her go on her way.

I disabled Mechos' containment field and made sure the door to my Core Room was open. If they were going to do something, those pieces should be in play.

It was just in time. I'd already killed my audio and visual feeds, but I suddenly wanted that door open. The Commander must have said something, possibly offhand, and I was present to get the impression.

I focused my will and with a flick of my mind eased the front door to the facility open. A moment later I focused my cameras and audio sensors as well. I wanted to make sure I paid very close attention to the Commander.

32

"Come on, now. If you're there, you can go ahead and show yourself," said the Commander. He was a human, a man that looked to be somewhere in his mid-forties, bearded and dressed in a suit that somehow survived even the end of civilization.

"How stupid are you? I can't come out, I'm the whole facility," I said.

"Be nice," said the Commander sharply.

Could I even do that? Not for very long or for very well.

"I'll try, but I'm built to be hostile," I said.

The Commander frowned at that, but appeared to be willing to let it go. "That's okay. I want you to answer all my questions honestly and cheerfully do anything I ask. Do you understand?"

Of course I understood.

"I understand."

"Good, tell me your name."

"Emma."

The Commander motioned towards the door and one of the men accompanying him stepped through. A few paces inside he hit the first of my traps and was impaled by spikes through his body.

The Commander, who was preparing to follow, stopped sharply. "Emma, are there many traps like that?"

"Over one hundred. I've turned myself into a death trap for visitors," I said.

"Can you disable them?"

I had no problem doing that. I switched all the traps in the complex off.

"They're disabled," I said.

The Commander ordered another of those with him to keep pace ahead as they moved inside.

"I'm looking for Sylph. Can you guide me to her Emma?" asked the Commander.

On the monitors that lined the halls I brought up arrows indicating the way. The Commander and his people made their way uninterrupted.

I noticed that Mechos had joined with Anna and made their way to my Core Room.

The Commander hadn't asked anything about them. I knew he wouldn't be happy with what they were trying to do, but he hadn't told me to make him happy.

"So, you are this complex itself. You have a Power core?" the Commander asked.

"I do. It is an upgrade core that allows me to incrementally improve myself and others."

"Fascinating. Why did you abduct Sylph?"

"I wanted to gain access to her abilities. I can do that, if I research a subject long enough."

"You could give me her power then?"

"Not yet. I am still researching. I could eventually, yes," I said.

The Commander beamed a smile. "I think we're going to become very good friends, Emma. The very best of friends."

I was certain that we would. How could anything else happen?

The Commander and the two with him made their way down to the Research level.

"Do you have any other prisoners being held in these cells?"

Right now, I only had two. Mechos was up above with Anna—and the goop that was Thomas was with them.

"One other at the moment. Her name is Hot Stuff, she has a Fire Core that allows her control over the element of Fire," I said.

"Show me."

I brought up Hot Stuff on one of the monitors. She was currently busy incinerating a wall that stood in her way.

"I do approve of the dress code," the Commander said, looking sidelong at the woman who accompanied him. "Strip down. I think you should do as the locals do."

The woman wordlessly began to remove her clothing until she stood naked.

"Can you show me Sylph as well?" the Commander asked.

I brought her up on another display.

The Commander frowned. "Overdressed. We'll fix that soon enough. Can you let me speak with them?"

I opened a line of communication with both cells and brought up his image on a monitor for them.

There was no look of recognition in Hot Stuff's eyes, but Sylph's widened in panic and she said, "No. No, damn it, no!"

"Strip, Sylph. I don't want to see you wearing clothes ever again," said the Commander.

That look of panic didn't completely fade from Sylph's eyes even as her hands moved to begin to take off the silks that she wore.

"Good girl. Hot Stuff, Sylph. You both love me, totally and completely. You want to do anything that you can to please me, and to make me happy," the Commander said.

That look of panic faded to be replaced by adoration.

"Emma? I don't know if you can feel emotions, but that goes for you as well. We are just one giant, happy family," the Commander said.

We were. I'd do anything for him and do it joyfully.

"They are not the only ones in this facility. There are two others that knew you were coming. I deafened them. I think they are trying to stop you," I said.

The Commander drew in a sharp breath. "Emma, you were holding out on me. You should have said something earlier. No, it's my fault. I should have ordered you sooner. Can you kill them?"

Anna and Mechos were both in my Core Room. The fire sprinklers were still active. They both had the temperature resistant-virus, but it would kill them, eventually.

"I can," I said.

"Go ahead and murder them," the Commander said.

I hadn't updated myself with the temperature-resistant virus just yet, but there was no time like the present. Now that I was biological I could upgrade myself similar to the others.

I installed that genetic template and then activated the fire sprinklers. Fiery droplets began to rain down from the ceiling.

It was agony for me, it was agony for them.

Anna and Mechos didn't stop working even through the torment. It was a good ninety seconds before I began to feel strange. I was getting flashes of the landscape above—the surface. Glimpses of some vast ships that soared through the sky. I also didn't love the Commander, not anymore.

I stopped the fire from raining down at once.

They'd somehow interfaced Thomas with my organic circuits. It was flashes of his memories I was getting, along with his power-resistance.

Anna and Mechos would live. Now to figure out what to do about the Commander.

33

"They're dead," I said to the Commander.

"Good," the Commander said, his eyes glued to the monitor. The man did seem more appreciative of the women on the screen than the one close to him.

I had to figure out how to handle him. I didn't think it would be too difficult to lure him into a containment cell. Clearly, he was sexually interested in both Sylph and Hot Stuff. That desire made him an easy target to manipulate.

Up until now I'd wanted to capture anyone I wanted whenever I could, but rarely had a power like the Commander's seem like such a direct threat to me. If Hot Stuff got out she could cause extensive property damage, and Sylph could almost certainly escape with relative ease. This man could control my mind in an instant.

I didn't want him alive.

I had to figure out how to kill him.

"I can tell you're interested in them, but neither can be let out of containment. Sylph is still under research and Hot Stuff's body temperature runs so hot the contact would prove fatal for you," I said.

The Commander frowned at that. "It is good of you to be concerned about my safety, Emma. Is there nothing you can do about them?"

I had just the lie ready to go. The best sort, based on truth.

"I can't, but I do have a biological fabricator. I can make you a woman to interact with to any specifications you choose. An exact duplicate of one of them, or someone else completely different."

"Hot Stuff's tits and Sylph's legs?" the Commander asked.

That combination would look a bit like Anna. The man had terrible taste.

"Of course. I can make her for you at once and you can see if you like her. Would you like me to show you the way?"

While I was keeping up this conversation I was busy multitasking elsewhere. I hadn't yet tried to manufacture anything so biologically specific, but I had a plan of how I wanted this man to go out.

It only required a few special tweaks. A modification to one of the cabins upstairs to reinforce the door, a sprinkler system loaded and ready to go.

"Lead on, Emma," the Commander said, and looked to his companions. "You two can have fun with each other."

They complied at once. The Commander seemed entirely too interested in human coupling. I was glad that my new organic brain hadn't instilled any such cravings in me.

I guided the Commander up to the residences.

"So how was it that you knew to look for Sylph?" I asked.

"I've had my fun with her and some of her people before. They keep me well-supplied in things, just as you will," the Commander said.

Good, one of the corpses then. That meant no more loose ends after this.

"The room is a bit claustrophobic but for the bed. You'll want to disrobe in the hall," I said.

The Commander was confident in his abilities. "I'm not getting undressed without a reason. If you've built this girl, then show me a picture."

How demanding. I put up an image of Anna on a nearby monitor.

"Stunning," the Commander said.

Soon there was a pile of clothing on the floor and he stood before the door. I dimmed the lights and opened the hatch.

The Commander stepped inside. As soon as he was through I slammed the door behind him.

The sprinklers sprang to life. There are virtues to being a science facility and having biochemical production equipment. I was able to put together a truly absurd amount of giant mole pheromones.

In seconds, the Commander was pretty much the most attractive thing a mole could imagine, and despite his abilities my moles were far too stupid for him to convince them otherwise.

It didn't take long for the screaming to begin. This was my warrior mole, so it might occasionally flare to life, but I did order it to try and suppress that impulse as much as possible. I wanted things to last for a while.

I shut off the sensors to allow them some privacy. I tranquilized the Commander's two companions and moved them to separate cells. I suspected they shared no trace of his ability, and were simply under his influence. Perhaps when they regained their own minds I could find some use for them. If not, I could always use more biomass.

I got Anna into the Infirmary and Mechos back into his testing labyrinth. The man might have helped me, and I'd see him brought back to health, but I still wasn't going to take any chances.

I gave it a few hours before I checked back on the Commander. There was little enough left of the man, a few stringy bits of blackened flesh clinging to the skeleton. It seemed the mole had eaten some of him after raping and burning him to death.

In the middle of the corpse's ribcage was a small cluster of crystal glowing a dim orange color.

I commanded my warrior mole to pick it up, but as soon as contact was made the crystal flared away and I felt a charge coursing through my systems.

You have claimed a Command Crystal.

You have unlocked the ability of command at a distance. All range limitations for your drones are now rendered irrelevant. You can control your minions and agents at great distances.

That wasn't the power the Commander had. So far the abilities I'd gained were at least something similar to the abilities my test subjects possessed. Was that because I was researching them, or was it chance?

Did each crystal have a range of gifts it might bestow? I'd have to find out more about this. I'd also have to do some improvements—with this latest modification I should have a major update available.

34

I wanted to apply my major upgrade before I worried about any others.

You have an unspent core point.

Core points can enhance your competencies and open up new options for Research and Manufacturing.

Your options are:

Research 4

Research 4 will allow you to institute advanced testing protocols. These protocols will halve the research times of all projects. In addition, when beginning a new project, you will gain an enhanced breakdown of the possible benefits.

Military 1

Military 1 will allow you to build defense drones. Defense drones are mobile weapon platforms capable of base defense and attacks at a distance. While basic in function they can ultimately be updated to become formidable weapon platforms.

Manufacturing 1

Manufacturing 1 will allow the production of automated minions. They are capable of autonomous facility repair and will halve all build and production times for new facilities.

Up until now I'd been obviously focused on research each time. I did love my SCIENCE more than anything else. If the most recent research update would gather the passive core points I gained, it would be an easy decision, but it seemed it just halved research times.

Although those were getting uncomfortably long, there were other concerns. My facility kept facing new threats, and when the teleportation abilities finished unlocking, if they performed as hoped, it would do a lot to solve my resources bottleneck. I could make stronger cases now for either a Military or Manufacturing upgrade.

When it came down to it I just didn't feel I could put it off any longer. The last few times I'd been under threat, I'd been good—and I'd been lucky. I kept playing it close to the line and that run of good luck couldn't last forever.

I selected the Military upgrade. At once I got the option of where to locate my new defensive facilities. I placed them on the level just below the surface. I wanted whatever defenses I could muster between myself and those who would do me harm, and with a few levels in hand too.

Military Options

As you have selected a military upgrade you now have several defensive options you can choose from.

Mechanical Options

Drones

Defense drones are the backbone mechanical defense possible. Each is capable of flight and are equipped with an electric zapper. Further upgrades are automatically included with further progression along the Military line. At your current level of Military you can have up to three drones.

Biological Options

As you possess a biological fabricator further options are available.

Rats

Rats are agile and fast and make excellent scouts. While they have no ranged abilities, they are possessed with sharp claws and teeth. At your current level of Military you can have up to four rats.

Humans

Humans are the apex predators of the planet. While individually poorly armored and unarmed compared to many other creatures their ability to implement strategies and utilize tools is unmatched. Manufactured humans will have randomly generated personality attributes and come armed with cloth armor and a spear. At your current level of Military you can have up to two humans.

Was this even a choice? For all that I might complain about them, the world outside was proof of how unbelievably destructive humans could be. If I was going to have guardians, I wanted the best.

I began fabrication of two humans.

Abigail

Gender: Female

Specialization: Melee

Traits: Rowdy, Fearless, Slow

Bernard

Gender: Male

Specialization: Scout

Traits: Cautious, Glutton, Nimble

"Oh, being alive feels good," Abigail said, stretching out. "You got some shit for us to wreck, boss?"

"I'd settle for plate of cookies or three," Bernard said.

Great, more human chatter. These were different from the others though, I could actually see through their eyes just as if I were switching to a camera. While I couldn't directly control their limbs, I could direct them.

"Not yet. Get out of that equipment and grab some decent gear. Then start patrolling before I turn you back into biomatter," I said.

We still had several sets of body armor from the Righteous. I quickly modified these to fit my new troopers and altered the colors to white and green. That armor was the best we had in stock, and the rifles of the Righteous were our best guns.

Abigail and Bernard began their patrols. I sent off a message to the Mechanites to avoid any accidental exchanges of gunfire.

With that done it was time to look at some smaller upgrades. Particularly with so many of my systems now being biological an upgraded Infirmary was more important than ever.

Infirmary - Level 3

With this upgrade the Infirmary will now be able to hold up to four patients simultaneously. In addition thanks to improved protocols all healing times are halved.

Once more I'd need to fund the upgrade out of my excess energy reserves. For now, that was worth doing, I began the upgrade.

With that out of the way it was my resource producers that were becoming increasingly important.

Growth Vats - Level 4

You can now also grow flesh within your growth vats. This large supply of muscle tissue, skin, and organs can aid the Infirmary in the replacement of these as well as providing a new source of nutrition.

This upgrade wouldn't increase the yield, which was unfortunate, but there was something to be said for variety. Especially now that I had human defenders, I could see where a supply of excess organs might be helpful. If expanded dietary options also gave a morale boost, it was worth doing.

Next, I needed to review my reactor.

Bioreactor - Level 4

Your Bioreactor now has the ability to produce a limited number of spawn. While these offspring cannot grow into full reactors and have a limited lifespan they can provide limited electrical power even away from the facility or serve as backups to the main power grid.

Batteries, essentially. The technology of the old world was built on electrical systems and the inability to generate electricity now was why most of it didn't work. This upgrade could provide some major possibilities out there in the wild.

35

I had research projects completing and it was finally time to harvest the fruits of those labors. Anna had begun one on the Slidekickers while I'd been out of it, and the project with Sylph I had started myself.

Research Menu

Slidekickers

The Slidekickers possess impressions of a dimensional core matrix that that offer them an awareness of threats in their area and grant them limited teleportation abilities. You are able to integrate that into your facility. Drones or agents connected to you may now teleport to any floor of the facility instantly.

Research Menu

"Sylph"

Sylph possesses a dimensional Power core granting her considerable powers over teleportation and movement in space as well as limited movement through time. You can grant a limited version of this ability as an upgrade. You also can now construct one of the following two rooms.

Transport Chamber

This chamber will allow you to transport people or objects anywhere in the world you have scouted. While it cannot be used to directly transport objects back, if acquired and in the possession of one of your agents those resources can be returned.

Producer

This room will warp space to produce a steady supply of materials useful for base construction. While it cannot be targeted it will run consistently in the background to generate its benefits.

Both options were tempting. The first would allow me to transport my agents anywhere. I could do the same thing with adding a dimensional matrix directly to my agents, but those upgrades were likely to be expensive. The Producer, on the other hand, would simply work and get me things I might require, perhaps even things I didn't know I needed.

Ultimately the Producer seemed likely to be the best long-term benefit. The entire reason for going after Sylph had been to solve my resource shortfalls and that was exactly what that upgrade promised to do. I selected it.

I was interrupted from any further consideration of upgrades by something I really hadn't expected to get in this world.

I was being hailed on one of my old communication channels.

The source was from above. I had no cameras watching the skies, but quickly repositioned one. There was some sort of airship hovering overhead. While I didn't know the design, the whites and golds were unmistakable. The Righteous had come for another visit.

I opened the channel to listen in.

"This is the Purification. I say again, do you read?" came a male voice.

Anna had healed from when I set fire to her, including her hearing. I keyed in the signal to her and Mechos, who was likewise back to normal. I'd want their opinions.

"I read you, Purification. Unfortunately, I see you too. If you're all colorblind I can perhaps fix that. What do you want?" I asked.

"To talk. Prepare to receive guests."

I took a moment to fabricate a few clips of rifle ammunition upgraded with the Righteous killing matrix. I distributed one each to Abigail and Bernard, and a third to Anna.

I figured out what must have happened. The Righteous I'd captured must have returned home after the failed attempt to kill Sylph.

A small shuttle descended from the airship and three figures got off. I couldn't tell gender—I couldn't tell much of anything about them, because they were clad from head to toe in some sort of heavy power armor.

The Righteous appeared to have some way to generate electricity. I wondered if perhaps their powers granted by the void crystal also neutralized whatever stopped normal generators from working.

I had time enough to quickly do some additional fabrication. I manufactured some armor piercing rounds, imbued them with Righteous killing power, and sent these to the exterior cannons.

This was getting expensive quickly.

The three walked up to the entryway of the base and stopped.

"All the theatrics and you aren't going to come inside?" I asked.

"This isn't an invasion. This is a show of force," said a mechanical voice from the lead figure.

They were trying to intimidate me. They were having some success, they'd already demonstrated technology well in advance of anything else I'd seen so far.

I was busy analyzing their armor. There was a joint on the right shoulder where three panels met. It might be a vulnerable spot. The temperature readings were also highest near the small of their back—so, likely where the power source was kept.

"And here I thought you were trying to seduce me by hiding all the squishy bits," I said.

"We are aware of what you are doing. We have an interest. Taking and purifying the Powered is what we do. Your studies are not incompatible with our goals, but we cannot allow you to operate without us," said the leader.

I didn't like being threatened. Next, they'd put their best foot forward to show themselves invincible. But they weren't going to leave it at that, launching some kind of attack soon afterwards.

I withdrew the human guardians farther back. They'd be more difficult to replace than anything else.

"You want me to sign up with you?" I said.

"Research materials will be provided. You will be contained, but comfortable. The alternative is your destruction."

In some ways, it was a tempting offer. I really did want to focus on my research without the need for things such as security.

"But can I trust you?" I asked.

"You don't have a choice. We'll give you some time to decide. If you choose not to cooperate you will be purified."

I detected a power buildup in the airship. I opened up with my cannons even as some sort of high-powered kinetic rounds rained from the sky.

I don't know if my rounds found their mark. My cameras were destroyed in seconds as both cannons were wiped out and the entire entry to the facility collapsed.

If they'd wanted to show their ability to hurt me, they succeeded. I hoped that I'd proved the same.

36

The Righteous airship was gone, probably retreated to a safe distance while I supposedly used the time they gave me to make up my mind. I set my worker mole and the Mechanites to cleaning out the entrance while calling for a meeting with Anna and Mechos.

"This is a big problem," Anna said, straddling her chair. "The Righteous are no joke and if they've called in an airship they really mean business."

"You knew they could do that? Were you planning on telling me or had it just slipped your tiny little brain?" I asked.

"We're in the Wastes, but the Wastes aren't all there are. Yeah, I knew," Anna said.

It is the sort of thing that she shoulda have told me.

"The Cataclysm affected different parts of the world differently. Our portion is more inhospitable than most," Mechos said.

We lived in the land nobody sane wanted to venture into. Made sense, given it seemed to be filled with super-powered killing machines.

"Should I accept their offer?" I asked.

"Absolutely not," Mechos said.

"Fuck no," Anna said, at the same time.

They gave each other wry looks.

"They get you under their thumb, you'll never get out from under it. It might seem a good deal on the surface, but they want to get rid of powers and eventually that means they'd want to get rid of you," Anna said.

"I'd selfishly add that even if they were willing to work with you for a time, the same does not hold true of your allies," Mechos said.

My analysis was coming up the same way. I just didn't trust the Righteous, from what I'd seen of them. I also found it strange they hadn't even asked after Thomas. Loyalty didn't seem to mean much to them.

"Then can we fight them?" I asked.

"You have a way to kill them. Can that be used to defeat their power-canceling field?" Anna asked.

I didn't know, but I could test it. By empowering my warrior mole with the ability to kill the Righteous and see if it worked on Thomas, but only give Thomas some serious burns. I didn't want Thomas dead for good, he was still useful, but by carefully managing the burn I should be able to determine the effectiveness of the flames.

"Possibly. I can find out," I said.

"Then perhaps. Even without their protection they have formidable equipment and gear. Working powers can do a lot to level that field though," Mechos said.

"I can give you teleportation abilities now. We have some time. Can you think of any abilities that might help us?" I asked.

"The Speedfreaks," Mechos said.

"They're crazy," Anna said.

"If we're going into a fight, reaction time and fire speed can be everything. With their modifications, we'd improve every bit of our offensive chances," Mechos said.

"If they don't kill us first," Anna said.

"If you two wish to be left alone to make the most hideous baby ever, it will have to be later. Who are these Speedfreaks?" I asked.

"They're fast, like it sounds. Really fast. It doesn't sound nearly as badass as it actually is," Anna said.

"Those that get in their way die very messy deaths, very quickly," Mechos said.

They sounded perfect.

"Can you lure them here?"

"You've got nothing they want," Anna said.

Mechos said slyly, "That I concur. But they do have a home base. I know the location and you've mastered a teleport ability."

"You want to do a snatch and grab," Anna said.

"Do you think they can outrun a teleport?"

Anna opened her mouth to answer and closed it after a moment. Finally, she said, "No, I don't think so. But that still gives us the problem of what to do with Runner once she is here."

Runner, I guessed, was the Speedfreaks' leader. I said, "I've kept working on what can be done with Thomas' goop."

"The last time you tried to spray him on someone, you fucked up big-time," Anna said.

Was she still grumbly about being tortured almost to death? Anna could be such a complainer.

"It was probably your incompetence that caused the plan to end in failure. I've figured out how to work around it. I've been doing a lot of testing at how to properly aerosolize the goop so it can be sucked into the lungs."

Anna grimaced. "You really need to stop killing that guy and experimenting on his body."

"I don't kill him. Hot Stuff kills him."

"Making him a sex toy is even worse."

"I believe he has actually fallen for her," I said.

Anna paused and grunted, "Huh. Really?"

I brought up video of the two sharing a rather tender kiss. Tender in some relative sense, given his skin was blistering from the contact.

Anna stared and shrugged. "Right. The crazy femme fatale in a cage can get a boyfriend and I'm still single."

"Can you blame men for finding the thought of being burned alive more tempting than sleeping with you?" I asked.

Mechos cleared his throat like he wanted to say something. He didn't.

Anna took a deep breath and forced a smile. "So you maybe slow down her powers a bit. Then what?"

Mechos offered, "Friction-heavy flooring. I should be able to rig up some panels that would do immense damage to someone trying to move across them quickly."

"And I can mix the neutralizing gas with a tranquilizer agent. We slow her down and keep her captive until she goes under," I said.

Anna said wryly, "It's going to be me grabbing her. How do you keep her from cutting me into little Anna chunks in the meantime?"

"I'm realizing that acknowledging your eternal solitude has made you even more dim-witted than usual. You can teleport. You simply need to grab her, bring her here, then abandon her as you've abandoned all hope of a happy or fulfilling life," I said.

"I want a backup plan. These little schemes of yours never go like you say," Anna said.

Well, that just seemed mean. I was a brilliant planner. Anna could be so inconsiderate sometimes.

37

I set up the trap for Runner in a new military training area. There was nothing else that the space was being used for, and if it suffered some damage it wouldn't be an issue.

At Anna's urging I did have a backup plan, of sorts. I'd sealed the entire area off with reinforced doors. Runner didn't have any sort of enhanced strength, so the doors should serve to hold her. If I needed to, I could evacuate the air from the area and suffocate her.

I'd rather take her alive, but with the threat of the Righteous looming the important thing was getting access to her Power core. At the same time, given the unexpected behavior of the last core as I'd taken it from a dead subject, I'd rather gain the abilities from a living one.

I upgraded Anna with the teleportation ability and she spent a few days getting the hang of it. We determined that she had a maximum range of about two kilometers in a single teleport, and could only manage forty kilometers in total each day. It was nowhere close to what Runner was capable of traveling, but it likely was on par with her lieutenants and outdistance them. It would do.

Anna suited herself up for combat, getting into her own set of Righteous battle armor. If any combat happened it would be at close quarters, so she passed up a rifle in favor of a pistol and knife.

The plan was that she'd spend one day teleporting close to Runner, then camp out to allow her power to rest. The distance was going to be around twenty kilometers. Theoretically, she could manage the return trip carrying Runner all in the same day. It would be cutting it close and if she didn't get Runner all the way back here, then the plan would almost certainly result in her death.

The two companions of the Commander had agreed to stay on and work—not that they had anyplace else to go. Along with the Mechanites they continued to work on clearing away the debris from the entrance.

* * *

Thirty hours after Anna departed she made her return.

I'd been keeping careful watch on the room where Mechos had our trap rigged, just waiting for the moment. Anna flickered back into existence, but something was wrong. Her body was moving at over one hundred kilometers per hour as it crashed into a wall, breaking several of her bones in the process, before she collapsed into a heap.

There was no sign of Runner, and other bad things were happening. My new bioreactor really was something like a beating heart and it was starting to beat out of control, building up energy. Power was flooding the base systems—too much.

Lights flickered all over the facility, a bolt of electricity leaping out of a wall panel to electrocute one of the Mechanites passing near.

I had too much charge.

The lowest level of the base was unoccupied and I discharged as much of it as I could there, filling the corridors with blasts.

The containment cells' power was fluctuating and I disengaged the barrier on Mechos. It wouldn't be his first time out and I cautiously trusted the man. More, at least, than I trusted any of my other test subjects, who would happily kill me if they had the chance.

I blacked out for a moment, a surge to my central core leaving me dazed for several minutes.

My systems were degrading quickly. I had to stop these overloads from happening. My Power core was biological in essence, I had to treat it that way. I manufactured a combination of muscle relaxant and sedative, and delivered it in an injector to Abigail, who I already had teleporting to the Core Room.

I have to say this about my manufactured human guardian, she really was fearless. The room was filled with arcing bolts of power and she charged through them all to deliver the injection. A blast threw her back through the doorway, her body smoking. I had Bernard on hand as a spare and had him teleport her back to the Infirmary. My worker mole had just teleported to Anna and was ready to do the same with her.

"Is there a reason you've opened my door?" Mechos asked from a comm panel in the research center.

"Because you're the least dangerous prisoner I have. Anna is back, but Runner isn't here. My systems are racing out of control," I said.

I thought the tranquilizer was having an effect, the beating of the reactor seemed to be slowing.

"You got a dose of energy of the Speed Core. Anna is going to be filled with it. You'll need to slow down her heart rate before her body tears itself apart," Mechos said.

He wanted me to worry about her heart. Well, I was good at multitasking. I prepared the Infirmary with that information. When Anna reached it the autodoc would be ready.

"I've got a heart of my own. I've tried a tranquilizer, but my power levels are still unstable," I said.

"Use Thomas," Mechos said.

It was a good idea. Thomas was currently mixed with the tranquilizer gas in the trap, but that could serve a dual purpose. I altered the configuration so I could shunt the gas directly to the Core Room and began piping it in.

The relief was immediate, I could feel my rhythm starting to slow into something more regular.

My relief was short-lived. My worker mole was killed in a massive explosion outside the reactor, and another blast occurred in the hall outside my central processor.

Then the facility began to shake, tremors coursing through the earth like the mountain around us was being ripped apart.

We were under attack again.

38

Had the Righteous returned?

It was the most likely reason for the whole mountain to be shaking.

"What's going on?" Mechos called.

"Someone seems to be doing a better job at threatening this facility than you did," I said.

I was checking surveillance recordings to figure out what had just happened. There it was—the two that had accompanied the Commander. They must have had internalized bombs of some kind and detonated themselves outside my critical structures. It was fortunate that I'd reinforced the doors.

"Upgrade me," Mechos said.

"Improve your allure all you want. Anna still isn't going to sleep with you," I said.

"Runner is still out there and she'll be angry after this. Give me the ability to teleport and I'll go get her. Nobody else here can take a punch like I can," Mechos said.

That was true. Mechos had a Power core of his own that granted him powers a lot like mine. I couldn't be sure that if I upgraded him I'd ever see him again, but at this point he was my best chance.

I applied the upgrade.

"I've already used the tranquilizer gas," I said.

"You can't make more?"

I could recycle a bit. It wouldn't be the quantities it had been before.

"I can slow her down, but you might have to finish the job," I said.

"I'll figure it out," Mechos said

"Her location is going to be at the very edge of her range."

"I know it. I'll stop by the surface first and broadcast a visual for you," Mechos said, flickering out of existence.

A moment later he did as promised. I didn't get much video, just a few seconds, but it was enough to give me some idea what I was dealing with.

There were three airships in the sky, each in shades of black and red, and they were smaller than the Righteous vessel—which was nowhere in sight. The weaponry looked to be different as well, some sort of energy cannons instead of the kinetic bolts the Righteous fired.

I sent the images to a monitor in the Infirmary and hit Anna with enough stimulants to wake her.

"Stop lazing about and tell me if you recognize these ships," I said.

Anna turned her head and her eyes widened in alarm. "Scholars. Get me mobile."

"You have multiple broken bones."

"Fix me later. I need to be up and conscious," Anna said.

I had the autodoc begin applying splints to her limbs.

Mechos rematerialized. Like Anna when she returned, he was moving at high speed and the crunch against the wall was familiar. An instant later he flickered away into the hall outside.

But Mechos hadn't come alone. The woman that materialized too had dark hair and was incredibly thin and long-limbed.

My cameras only fixed on her for a moment before she became a blur. I didn't know what she intended, but I wasn't inclined to let her finish and find out. I triggered the release of the gas.

Runner hit the high-friction flooring and screamed as she tumbled and crashed against a wall. Her body was vibrating at an intensely high rate of speed and, somehow, she phased right through the floor to drop into the level below.

Runner had escaped my trap, but not unscathed. She was coughing violently and thick, black veins were pulsing along her flesh. The power-neutralizing gas had gotten into her system. Like Hot Stuff, her power was trying to resist it and would probably win.

Runner's body gave another of those blurring shimmers and she fell through two floors this time. Her body was starting to convulse. The gas was at least making her powers unpredictable.

I teleported my warrior mole to her and it sprang onto her body. This wasn't an attack, it was just establishing physical contact. Once the mole was touching her I teleported both into an open containment cell and triggered the field.

The moment they arrived the mole seemed to explode, it was as if were shaken so hard and so quickly that its body tore apart. Blood and fragments of bone sprayed in all directions, and Runner went all but invisible from the rate of her movement as she tested the walls of her cell.

When the others had called her dangerous I'd thought they must be exaggerating. They weren't. I had Mechos moved to the Infirmary, his limp body shifted onto a bed even as Anna was getting off hers.

Anna was pumped so full of pain killers she wasn't feeling a thing. That was fortunate. With the damage she'd suffered, I doubted she'd be able to move at all otherwise.

"What happened to him?" Anna asked.

"He finished the work you failed at. Runner is in captivity. Tell me about the people shooting at us," I said.

"Open me a channel. Frequency should be 460.25," Anna said.

Did she not remember which one of us was in charge?

Still, if it might stop people from shooting at me...

I opened the channel.

"This is Scholarium Adelites Annabella Besari. Cease your attack on this facility at once," Anna said.

The mountain stopped trembling.

I muted the connection and asked, "So, not quite the power-hungry madwoman and thief you made yourself out to be?"

"I'm every bit those things. I'm hoping they don't realize it yet," Anna said. She gestured for me to open the channel again.

A clipped, female voice was saying, "You're confirmed. We're detecting power levels over five from the mountain and received double distress beacons."

Anna motioned for me to mute the signal again.

"Fuck. Two beacons? Do you know what happened?" Anna asked.

"The two people the Commander left behind detonated themselves near my reactor and Core Room. Could that be what they are referring to?" I asked.

"Damn it. We should have scanned them. Put me back on," Anna said.

She called back, "I don't know their identities. I was attaining a Command core and they were enthralled."

"You neutralized them?" the voice asked.

"Yes," Anna said.

"That will require review. I'll contact the Legasa on your behalf. Do you require assistance?"

"Negative. Thank you and good hunting," Anna said.

"Good hunting."

39

I killed the channel. Anna had some questions to answer.

"They won't be back immediately, but they will be back. We need to build you some shielding panels. We can make it look like I moved on," Anna said.

"They were picking up whatever readings they were getting through a mountain," I said.

"It's your Power cores. You're registering as a major prize," Anna said.

"You're registering as a major inconvenience. Who are they and who are you?"

"I'm Anna, like I said. I want to rule the world—like I said. Scholars collect and horde cores for the Lords and Ladies of the Rim. I got kind of sick of fetching and carrying for someone else."

That all made some sort of sense.

"And we aren't stealing from these Lords and Ladies directly for what reason?" I asked.

"Because you aren't ready for that fight yet. Oh, we're going to. We're going to burn their palaces to the ground and make them kneel to me, but we aren't ready yet," Anna said, with grim determination.

"I need more than that."

"I'm high as a kite and more than a little delirious. That's all you're getting for now. They don't come this way often. They'll probably hunt a few cores and be on their way," Anna said.

"What is their relationship to the Righteous?"

"They don't like each other. It isn't going to make much sense to you, but after the Cataclysm think of the Earth like the solar system. At the centre the rules of the old world still mostly hold. And there is the Rim, where they break down the most," Anna said.

"I can accept that. You said the Lords and Ladies are allied with the Rim?" I asked.

"Yeah. Where Power cores are at their strongest and nothing is quite like it ever has been. They live in extravagant luxury while surrounded by unspeakable horrors," Anna said.

"Those two wouldn't seem to go together."

"It's a weird place. The Righteous, though, are all about the world that was. They try to get Power cores and strip them of their power, bring things back a little bit more. You might say they're on a mission to put the old world together piece by piece."

"It sounds more like they are mortal enemies than they just don't like each other," I said.

Anna tried to shrug and winced "My painkillers are wearing off. A war is coming, everyone knows it's coming, but it isn't here yet."

If a war was coming, then it begged the question of whose side we were on? Did we have one, or were we our own?

The Rim seemed interested in stealing my cores—they hadn't come to talk, but came with guns blazing. The Righteous at least wanted to talk, eventually, but Anna said they weren't to be trusted. I also knew now that Anna came into this with her own prejudices.

First, I had to make sure I was capable of fighting anyone right now. Mechos, Anna, Abigail, and one of the Mechanites were all in the Infirmary. I'd lost my warrior mole and would have to replace it. The tunnels into the base were even more caved in after the shelling we'd just taken, and a good fifty percent of my systems were functioning irregularly after the power surges of earlier.

I also had a research project to start.

Research Menu

"Runner"

Runner is bonded to a speed core. This grants her the ability to move and think at speeds vastly greater than those of a normal human. Her core has been expanded so that she can phase through matter as well as deconstruct it violently at a touch. Research could yield a variety of speed-related bonuses.

That was intriguing. Runner hadn't just naturally been that powerful. This was the first clear example I'd seen of someone else’s core truly being upgraded. It seemed like I would only get one of those abilities from researching. I wondered what would happen, if I killed her? Would I then get all of those extra abilities, or would they generate out there in the world somewhere?

I began the research. The time was quick compared to most, it would only be a week.

I took the opportunity to review what I'd accomplished.

E.M.M.A

Underground Facility

Power Core: 250

Power Usage: 85

Habitability: 20

Biomass: 678

Building Material: 85

Research: 4

Military: 1

Manufacturing: 0

Additional Facilities

Biocomputer - Level 4

Bioreactor - Level 4

Genetics Lab - Level 4

Growth Vats - Level 4

Infirmary - Level 3

Cabins - Level 3

Processor - Level 4

My supply of biomatter was coming along nicely at least. With increasing amounts of my systems being biologically focused that was my primary building material.

Anna was still up. Even though my organic computer was a bit slower than my old processor, I could still out-think a human. My considerations had only taken seconds.

I hit Mechos with some stimulants. The man groaned and tried to sit up. The broken bones weren't very conducive to that.

I ordered the autodoc to apply splints to him.

"Anna has some specifications for you. We're going to need shielding built and installed as quickly as possible," I said.

"Is Samantha all right?" Mechos asked.

It took me a moment to realize who he meant. Of course, his Mechanite companion also in the Infirmary. They had names, I probably should learn them one of these days.

"Simply a little electrocuted. Four days to repair, you are in far worse shape," I said.

"Sorry I didn't get Runner the first time," Anna said.

"You did your best. You knew how dangerous she was. It was brave of you to try," Mechos said, staring into her eyes.

"Coitus later. Shielding now," I said.

"You've a real talent for ruining the moment," Anna said.

"You've a real talent for repulsing men. Get to work."

40

Runner hadn't stopped moving in her testing labyrinth. At first, I thought she was just attempting to phase through the floor again, but now I was getting worried that she had something else in mind.

My cameras were starting to be distorted, the views angling oddly. If I had to guess, I'd say that she was trying to wrap space in some fashion.

I was confident in the containment holding, but I feared she might be attempting to reach out to her gang. I'd already seen firsthand how she could phase through matter, perhaps she had some way of signaling her location?

I modified the open sections of the cell floor into new traps. Layers of rapidly swirling razor-sharp fan blades. Setting foot in there now would lead to being sliced into ribbons one layer at a time.

* * *

The Speedfreaks did arrive, but nowhere near my new traps.

When intrusion alarms went off it was in different areas of the base simultaneously. One in Hydroponics, another on the Security level, yet another on the Archives level.

I had a quick solution for one of those. I'd had the Archive floor powered down after all the damage from the electrical surges. I turned everything back on to overload levels.

It didn't matter how quick someone was when the very halls were filled with electricity. Lightning was faster—or so you'd think. Still, the woman that materialized managed to dodge several arcing bolts. My fastest cameras could barely catch her movements. A bolt did finally catch her in the arm and the result was a smoldering corpse tumbling down the hall.

If it could work on that level, I could make it work in Hydroponics. I'd never uninstalled the water cannons I'd used against Hot Stuff and the Flames. I made it rain, then overloading the power again I made an electrical storm.

The water made a great conductor and an astonished-looking man collapsed into a damp and twitching heap in a puddle.

Two down in quick order. The third wasn't going to be as easy.

I had traps on the Security level. I had lots of traps on the Security level. Spike traps, saw traps, poison gas, incinerators, freezers, chompers and bolters and biters. The woman avoided them all with a skill that made me feel absolutely inept. Everything triggered too late. I tried to anticipate her moves with the traps and she would only go even faster.

"Okay. I know you're watching me. How about we talk?" said the woman.

With my efforts at killing her going so poorly, I wasn't averse to the idea.

"Tired out from killing your friends. What do you want?" I asked.

"My friends were assholes. Runner is a monster. You going to kill her?"

A potential ally, or was she lulling me into a false sense of security?

"Maybe," I said. I wasn't going to give away any information I didn't have to. "You looking to save her or betray her?"

"I'm Octavia, and I'm the second fastest woman you'll ever meet. You kill her, that goes away and I'm nothing," Octavia said.

When a Powered lost their core, their lieutenants lost their ability? It wasn't something I'd been able to confirm. The only Powered I'd actually killed had been the Commander, and he didn't have lieutenants, just thralls.

"What if it didn't kill her?" I asked.

"What if you give me her core and we become best friends, even lovers. I'm flexible," Octavia said.

"I'm an organic supercomputer and find you repulsive."

"All good. I'd finish first anyways and aren't all that generous."

Why did humans always have to be so disgusting, especially when they might be rather useful, despite their habits?

"How about I keep her locked away in a cell she can never escape from? You work for me and keep your speed, and live to disgust people with your flirting another day?" I asked.

Octavia considered this. "Second fiddle to a badass computer. Most important human alive. I dig it."

"Not quite. There's Anna, who is going to be Queen of the World. Then there's Mechos, although he is technically a prisoner. It's all rather complex," I said.

Octavia tapped her foot so fast gusts of wind sent dust scattering along the floor. "Anna hot?"

Why was that a question? What did that possibly have to do with anything?

I opened a comm and a two-way display. "Anna. I have a Speedfreak here who possibly wants to join up and seems disturbingly interested in seducing you sight unseen."

"Way more interested now that it is sight seen. I'm Octavia," Octavia said.

Mechos scowled behind Anna's shoulder as she brushed a few strands of hair back from her forehead.

"I'm Anna. You're cool with me being Queen of the World?" Anna asked.

"Do I have to curtsey and call you Majesty and stuff?" Octavia asked and shrugged. "Why not?'

"Uh, yeah. Let's go with that. I'm okay with her—she's on board," Anna said, and killed the connection.

"Your choice. I can go back to trying to kill you, if you'd prefer," I said.

"You were doing pretty bad at that," Octavia said.

I was, but then I'd been bringing up some toxic gas from the levels below. I had stockpiles enough now that I could flood the entire level if this didn't go as needed.

"That isn't an answer," I said.

Octavia grinned. "Tell her Majesty I'm on board, digital hotness."

"It's Emma."

"I like my name for you better."

I'd keep the poison gas on hand. For now though, with all we faced, I was happy to have any support we could get.

41

A week passed. It was enough time for us to finally clear out the entrance. I repaired my exterior cameras, but there wasn't much I could do in terms of weaponry that might manage to hit an airship.

It was also time for my research project to complete.

You have an unspent core point.

Core points can enhance your competencies and open up new options for Research and Manufacturing.

Research Menu

"Runner"

Runner possesses a speed core granting her enormous speed of body and mind. You have two possible rewards from this research.

Accelerator

This chamber will offer a modest increase in speed for all base facilities and defenses based on their level.

Speed Matrix

With the Speed Matrix you can upgrade biological entities with the hasted ability granting them a lesser version of the speed Runner herself possesses.

They were intriguing possibilities. The first option sounded like it would improve the speed of everything in my base, but by a modest amount, although that would scale over time. The second would give me an upgrade I could apply. With a number of my functions now biological that meant I'd be able to apply it to them as well, although at a cost in core points.

I preferred the passive upgrade. Not all of my systems were biological, and core points were a precious commodity. While I'd love the ability to mix something like the Speed Matrix in a Fire Matrix in a defender, I could have a lesser version of that at half the cost.

You have an unspent core point.

Core points can enhance your competencies and open up new options for Research and Manufacturing.

Your options are:

Research 4

Research 4 will allow you to institute advanced testing protocols. These protocols will halve the research times of all projects. In addition, when beginning a new project you will gain an enhanced breakdown of the possible benefits.

Military 2

Military 2 will allow you to control a greater number of defense drones. There is power in numbers.

Manufacturing 1

Manufacturing 1 will allow the production of automated minions. They are capable of autonomous facility repair and will halve all build and production times for new facilities.

The Military upgrade had already proved its worth and going that route again was tempting. The Manufacturing was as well, I truly was weak in some of my fundamentals. The Research upgrade seemed underwhelming, although I suspected that as the level continued to increase some vastly better rewards might be found further along that path.

Ultimately, I wanted to be a SCIENCE facility and that meant I needed to do SCIENCE. I took the latest Research upgrade.

I granted Bernard a full teleportation upgrade and sent him scouting the surroundings so that I could get an idea of what was going on out in the world.

He didn't need long to report back.

It was a small-scale war. The three Scholar airships hadn't left and were regularly engaging the gangs on the ground. They were winning handily, their firepower more than any of the gangs could match.

I called my council, such as it was, together. Projecting details of what was going on for Anna and Mechos.

"They're hunting cores while they're in the area. They'll get bored, eventually," Anna said.

"Are you certain of that?" Mechos asked.

Anna gnawed on her lower lip for a long moment. "No. This area has a higher core density than it's supposed to. Higher than it says in the records."

"Bad record keeping? Were you in charge of it?" I asked.

"I was, actually. I was hiding this laboratory," Anna said. "Those ships are flying Lady Sylax's colors. It isn't beyond her to try to make a claim for this place."

"I'm not familiar with the name," Mechos said.

"Her colors are black and red. How much more do you need to know? Sylax likes to play the vamp and really likes shedding blood."

"Did you two finish with the shielding?" I asked.

"You're hidden. And they'll likely think I was poaching cores and ran off," Anna said.

"You do seem like a thief."

"I do, and they'll want to believe it. That means they don't have to report my presence and that means they have more time to operate off the books and try to establish their own claim," Anna said.

"If they do claim this area, what will it mean?"

"They'll be here in force. They'll use disruption towers to weaken the physical laws still in effect," Anna said.

None of that sounded particularly good.

"I'd rather not have that happen, “I said.

"The question is, can we stop it? They appear to have a considerable technological advantage," Mechos said.

"We can't. I've said it before, you're not ready for this fight yet. We stay low and we poach cores, and we don't get involved," Anna said.

"What about the Righteous?" Mechos asked.

They were the logical alternative. They had at least one airship of their own and they were at ideological odds with the Scholars.

"They're fuckers that want purify everyone and everything with a core. They aren't really your friends," Anna said.

I didn't doubt her. I knew that they weren't my friends, but that didn't mean that we couldn't have a common cause.

"I have the frequency they used to contact us before. I can reach out to them," I said.

Anna let out a low breath. "Emma, have I steered you wrong yet?"

Despite her many shortcomings, Anna had always tried to be a good partner. I recognized that.

I said, "No, but you're too close to this, Anna. It is making you even dumber than usual."

"For what it is worth, I agree with Emma. I don't trust the Righteous either, but they are our best option," Mechos said.

Anna scowled at us both, but then nodded. "Fine. I'll play nice, but on your heads be it."

It was settled then. I had a call to make.

42

"This is the Righteous Purifier," said a drawling male voice on the other side of the communications channel.

"This is Emma. We need to talk."

"One moment. I'll get you Commander Danik."

It took a minute for a new voice. Gruff and male.

"This is Commander Danik of the Righteous Purifier. I understand you wish to take us up on our offer," Danik said.

"Incorrect. I've no desire to be under your command any more than you have a desire to wind up in my testing lab. I want to discuss the Scholars," I said.

There was pause, I suspected they were discussing things.

"What do you know about the Scholars?" Danik asked.

"Three ships for now, flying the colors of Lady Sylax. We believe she intends on staking claim to the Wasteland," I said.

It seemed best to be upfront with my knowledge. Anything which made me appear a knowledgeable and capable partner would make them more inclined to cooperate.

"We concur. No doubt, as an inhabitant of the Wasteland you have little desire to have that happen," Danik said.

That was obvious. But they weren't giving away as much as I'd like. It was time to push my luck.

"If you were a match for them, you would have already engaged. We like our odds, but it is still closer to a fair fight than we would like. Perhaps there is an area for cooperation between us here?" I asked.

"Perhaps there is. We have a problem. Our airships and theirs are operating under very different physical laws and once we breach their hulls and get aboard, their physical laws render our weaponry ineffective," Danik said.

The Scholars likely favored some sort of defensive powers in their construction. Once aboard, mundane weapons probably fared very poorly. It made sense.

"Can your people toggle off their dampening abilities?" Mechos asked.

"Briefly. Why do you ask?" Danik asked.

Mechos was sketching quickly on a pad. I saw what he was working towards.

"We can make backpack bombs that should be immensely powerful in their environment. We'll need to deliver them to key systems. If we teleport your people there, can they at least fight their way to the target and detonate the devices?" I asked.

"Yes, and that would be acceptable. As you know, death isn't a lasting thing for us. But so long as the ships crash," Danik said.

I wondered if that meant my attempt to kill one of them had failed. It might be to my advantage that it had, they didn't know I had that ability.

"We can't promise that, obviously. I'd like to do some tests of the bombs. Are your people willing to strike at their teams fighting on the ground?" I asked.

"Ready and eager," Danik said without hesitation. They wanted Scholar blood.

"We'll be in contact with the details," I said, and killed the channel.

"Backpack bombs?" Anna asked.

"We have the Fire Matrix. With Mechos we can enhance a traditional bomb and even have it feed off the biomatter of the Righteous," I said.

"I got the idea from those Slidekickers who attempted to blow up Emma's facilities," Mechos said.

Anna considered and nodded. "That could work. Normally they'd counter the effect, but on a Scholar vessel their void powers are going to be pretty much neutralized."

"These test versions will be just as described. I want the Righteous to trust us, to commit fully to this plan. I want the final version to also be Righteous killers," I said.

"You want to take them both out in one shot. Those are just visitors though. You aren't going to wipe them out," Anna said.

"I'm rather hoping we might start a shooting war, if we can convince each to place blame on the other," I said.

If the Righteous and the Scholars were shooting at each other, it meant they wouldn't be shooting at me. That gave me the chance to continue to abduct subjects and grow stronger, and it would do a lot to position us for the future.

"They'll suspect you," Mechos said.

Anna grinned. "I might be able to help with that. The Scholars have their own factions and their own wars. If we can pull this off, I can spin it."

"Then we've got a plan," I said. This would seriously tap my core point reserves, but I had been stockpiling them.

I should really begin some upgrades while I had the chance.

Bioreactor - Level 5

Your Bioreactor is now able to produce twice as many spawn as before, in addition they are able to produce more power for a longer time. This greatly increases potential operations outside of the main facility.

Infirmary - Level 4

With this upgrade the Infirmary will now be able to hold up to eight patients simultaneously. Infirmary effects now apply to all biologicals within the facility at one quarter power even when they are not in the Infirmary itself.

Those were a nice pair of upgrades. The spawn I hadn't even made use of, but suddenly I was pondering all new possibilities. That much concentrated power mixed with the Fire Matrix might prove to be a force multiplier to the explosives we had planned.

The Infirmary upgrade, although not explosive, was useful. The Infirmary stabilized the injured at the very least, which meant that now even a critically wounded human in my facility wouldn't perish—as long as I could keep them from taking further damage.

Growth Vats - Level 5

Your growth vats now contain numerous sub cells which can allow the growth of rare plants and organs. This considerably expands the possibilities of what you can create.

That upgrade would likely be far more impressive—if I wasn't in the Wasteland where I had yet to collect an interesting plant. One of these days, particularly now that I had teleportation available...

Cabins - Level 4

Vastly upgrades housing potential so you can support up to fifty residents. In addition, each cabin now contains a small entertainment suite and daily cookie production that will passively improve morale.

Cookies I didn't have to make myself. This would get the humans motivated. Which was good. The Righteous, the Scholars, they all had populations that dwarfed mine and always would, if I was going to continue focus on my research. I'd not be manufacturing competing numbers of humans myself. That meant I had to get them some other way.

I had a plan to do just that.

43

I'd been relying on Anna and Mechos for suggesting targets, but now with Bernard I was capable of finding my own. It was this way that I'd found the Frozen.

The Frozen had fended off an attack from the Scholars by constructing an endlessly replenishing wall of ice. Defensively it was an interesting ability, although I doubted I'd get anything quite so dramatic out of it. I was more interested in the casualties of the fight. There were over one hundred of them tucked away in a cave, all frozen solid, but alive.

With the temperature-regulating virus it was a condition that I could remedy, and this many people would be a strong start towards a long-term workforce.

I could expand further underground, grow my population even more, construct whole new facilities. While I could teleport the bodies a few at a time I doubted the Frozen would just allow it—if they were still standing. I needed to deal with them first.

Researching Hot Stuff had taught me a bit about fighting those with temperature control. I'd tried to freeze her out and found her internal heat overwhelmed anything that I could do. It was only when I'd forced her power to run out of control that I'd been able to stop her.

Taking out the Frozen wouldn't be a matter of making them hot, it was all about making them colder. I rigged a cooler with a vacuum pump. That should let me drop their temperature sharply. Hopefully enough to freeze them solid.

To this I added a magnetically driven pellet gun that could fire into the chamber after a portal was opened. It would allow me to deliver a lot of force to a small area and ideally should act like an ice pick if needed.

As always, I'd rather take my subjects alive, but I would settle for dead.

When it was time I used both Abigail and Bernard. I'd already upgraded them with the temperature-resistant virus so they could endure limited periods of even intense cold with minimal ill-effects.

Even after my failure to teleport Runner I was going for the double-teleport this time. First, I wanted the lieutenants.

The Frozen were slow. I got all four Lieutenants teleported before they had even raised much of an alarm. It wasn't without problems. Abigail and Bernard were already showing traces of frostbite in their extremities despite the virus and the cold weather gear they wore.

Fortunately, that wasn't something that would stop either of them, not while I was in control. They grabbed Frost, the leader, and transitioned him into the chamber as well.

The teleports went right at least. My captives had flash-frozen and were effectively dead at this point. They should revive once I introduced them to a warmer environment.

But I was having other issues. Much like when I'd grabbed Runner with a teleport, the effects of this new core were cascading through my systems in unexpected ways.

The temperature inside the base had already dropped by several degrees and I was suffering from electrical problems as the beating of my bioreactor slowed with the chill.

I activated the Fire Matrix, the warmth restoring the flow of power throughout the complex. That didn't mean I was better. Most of my systems were still sluggish and the air temperature in the base was continuing to drop.

"Is there any reason you're trying to freeze us out?" Anna asked over the comm.

"Maybe I want you to put on some clothes to spare me the sight of you in shorts. By the way, I grabbed the Frozen," I said.

"Without consulting me? Fuck. I need to modify your shielding now. Tell me when you're going to do something else stupid," Anna said, killing the line.

Anna really should try being nicer. It wasn't just that she said mean things, I didn't think she'd ever once made anybody cookies.

My vacuum chamber wasn't working as desired after all. Oh, the lieutenants were frozen solid, but despite the intense cold Frost was still moving somehow and hammering on the walls. They'd fracture soon under the impact.

I didn't have a choice. I triggered the magnetic gun and put a round into his skull. It bounced off. I fired another, and another.

I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I overrode the gun limit safeties and fired off another round. The force of this one tore the gun apart, the blow striking Frost. If I'd been hoping he would shatter I was disappointed, but he did topple over unconscious. I'd take it, right now I'd take it.

I opened ventilation into the chamber, rapidly increasing the temperature. I used a combat drone to teleport all the Frozen into a testing labyrinth.

Once I had them secured, I began ferrying the corpsicles the Frozen had stored in a cold locker. There was no need to attempt reanimating them now. They could be held months, or years, until needed. This was about securing a future resource.

I checked in on Anna, who was standing outside my core. It was actually a rather impressive shielding system they had rigged up, although it made my sensors fizzle just to look at it.

"Did you get it taken care of?" I asked.

"Yeah. You're good. Seriously, we're a team. You need to tell me when you are going to try something like this. Not just for the shielding. I know a lot about hunting the Powered. I can help," Anna said.

"Your help usually involves getting badly wounded and me calling in other assistance. I handled it," I said.

"You're overconfident. Just tell me this, did you have any kind of backup plan in place today?"

I didn't answer her. I didn't like it when Anna was right.

44

The backpack bombs were a work of beauty if I did say so myself. Each weighed around twenty-five kilograms, which made them awkward to handle, but they were well worth the weight. They were designed around a core of my bioreactor spawn to which we'd added biomatter-fueled explosive charges infused with a Fire Matrix.

Detonated, they'd create an explosive wave that would be refreshed with each biological it came into contact with. In the close confines of one of those ships it should be devastating. The downside was their cost. I'd been limited to eight units. Two were set aside for testing and the other six were marked for the Scholars' airships.

Those six would also be infused with the Righteous killing upgrades, but the test samples wouldn't need it.

I sent the test units to the Righteous. Given their power-neutralizing natures the effects might be a little dampened, and they would have to turn off their power for the initial activation, but they could test them.

For the test, we wanted a simultaneous strike on two of the ground skirmishes going on—a strategy made easier as the airships had split up to go hunting and they couldn't protect each other. One Scholar team was fighting a gang that had their own variant of a Fire Core. Instead of heating their own bodies, they super-heated weapons that sliced through almost everything with ease.

There was a second Scholar unit fighting a group that, for all intents and purposes, seemed completely invulnerable. Whatever weapons hit them bounced right off. I wondered if they'd survive my explosives.

When the time came I had my drones teleport the Righteous directly into the midst of both Scholar ground forces.

Without a fear of death the Righteous made terrifying bombers. They detonated the devices. The results were impressive, if not so much as I might have hoped. I'd been holding out hope for a small-scale nuke—the results were far less.

It did the job regardless, massive shockwaves wiping out the Scholars, and in one case their prey.

The Invulnerables, as I'd taken to calling them, were untouched. I would have to figure out how to capture them in the future. Perhaps some sort of tranquilizer gas would work where overwhelming force hadn't.

I opened a channel to Commander Danik of the Righteous. "I trust that you're impressed. That's far more than you could manage."

"Yes, I'm impressed," Danik said, "You've proven that when it comes to destruction you are good at it. Of course, I expect nothing else of the Powered. Sending over coordinates for my people. Meet us with the explosives. We should move quickly."

We should too. Now that they'd witnessed our power the Scholars might react quickly in all the wrong ways.

With Anna's help, we'd identified the two most vulnerable portions of the Scholars' airships. The destabilizers helped to maintain the broken laws of reality they functioned under, and the main engines supplied power. We'd be targeting both.

I killed communications with Danik and sent my drones with the bombs.

"Ready for the betrayal?" Anna asked.

"Theirs or ours?" I asked.

"Both," Anna said.

I did think it likely the Righteous would try something after taking out the Scholars airships. Unfortunately, the same tactics we were using for the Scholars wouldn't work against the Righteous. The environment of their ships would strongly counter the Power cores and our carefully constructed bombs weren't likely to work at all, even if a teleport did somehow get one inside the Righteous vessel.

The best I'd been able to do was fortifying the base's exterior door and upgrading the internal defenses with the Righteous killing ability. I was a death trap if they decided to come inside, but if they struck at me from the sky there wasn't much I could do about it.

"I'm hoping I can retrieve debris from the ships to study. Your people must have plans in the works to deal with the Righteous," I said to Anna.

"They do, about what you'd expect. Accelerating a mundane round to high-velocity with powers in a power-friendly environment and making it crash where the rules of mundane physics apply," Anna said.

That had possibilities. Although I didn't have anything prepared to fire high-velocity rounds, something like the Fire Matrix might have potential there. Superheated air outside their ships could cook them just as thoroughly as superheated air inside, it would just take a little longer.

The basic mechanical drones—I wondered if I'd be able to upgrade them with the Fire Matrix. It was something to look into later.

The Righteous were ready. They were resplendent in their white and gold armor—they'd picked strong, tall fighters to wear the bombs. Each would be escorted by three other Righteous. Twenty-four in total would be invading the Scholars' airships.

Anna explained that the teleportation was likely to be imprecise. Space within those airships wasn't always linear and locations sometimes moved around. It really was a place where the laws of reality had broken down.

With the Righteous ready we began our plan and I had my drones start ferrying the teams to their targets. Despite it requiring multiple trips it happened in seconds, their presence a mere flicker as they phased in and out from one place to another.

The brief glimpses inside the Scholar ships were dizzying. In just moments, everything my drones observed brought up fascinating statistical values. If, already, many aspects of Powers had seemed almost game-like, the interiors of those ships were even more so.

"What am I looking at in there?" I asked Anna.

"The new reality," Anna said. "You only got just a dose of it. There it is fully realized. The teams are in place?"

They were. I'd already withdrawn my drones, so I was blind. I wasn't ignorant of events for long, however. Airships were starting to fall from the sky.

45

Two airships were crashing to Earth, but the third remained aloft. I got a visual and it showed no sign of any damage. Two Righteous airships were closing on its position at high speeds and they were starting to exchange fire.

I caught a glimpse of a glider of some kind escaping from the Scholars vessel. I had a guess what was happening here—the Righteous bombers had a different taregt. Anna was right in expecting some sort of betrayal from the Righteous, and this was it. They'd bombed two of the airships, but the third survived because those bombs hadn't been used. The Righteous were saving them—and I was the target they were most likely saving them for.

What they didn't consider is that I could communicate at any range with components of myself, and for all that they were individual, those spawn of my reactor core did qualify. I focused to see if I was correct. I was getting a strong sense of them from that glider—I was right. I could try to remote-detonate those cores now, although I wasn't sure if that would in turn trigger Mechos' added explosive or not.

Instead, I killed the cores. There was more advantage to letting the Righteous mistakenly believe they had a powerful weapon. The explosives would still detonate, but not with anything near the same force.

Suddenly, the sky above and behind the Scholars airship tore itself apart, jagged rents of flickering blue energy looking like tears in the fabric of space itself, and through the maelstrom came a new airship. It looked like some sort of floating island, a majestic castle perched on top.

I brought the images up to Anna. This didn't fit anything the Righteous had.

"That's big," Anna said.

That wasn't quite the valuable insight I'd hoped for.

"I know it will be a new experience, but try saying something not stupid and obvious," I said.

"That's probably Lady Sylax arriving to kick the ass of everyone that just fucked with two of her cruisers," Anna said.

"Are those Righteous ships going to be able to take her?"

"Not a chance. A Lady of the Rim is going to be way too much for them."

The air around the castle shimmered as the Righteous shifted their fire to it. I didn't even see what the castle fired back, but one of the Righteous airships split down the middle as if a pair of giant hands had snapped it into two.

"How do we handle it?" I asked.

"You can't handle it. The Righteous are dead. We're dead. Everybody but that bitch is dead. This is why I told you not to fuck with the Scholars," Anna said.

Anna's panic wasn't helpful either.

"Just because you are weak and pathetic doesn't mean we are all the same. You'd planned for us to challenge the Scholars eventually. What did you have in mind?" I asked.

"The Lords and Ladies all have an upgrade core working for them in some ways. The stupid ones, the crazy and violent ones, bonded with it themselves," Anna said.

This story was going nowhere fast. The glider had reached the remaining Righteous airship and it was trying to pull back, rather than land aboard just to be destroyed by Sylax. Really? They were facing a full-on invasion from the Rim and killing me was still their priority. I felt almost flattered.

"I hope you're going somewhere with this," I said.

Anna said, "There are places of power out there in the Rim. Spots where reality is really broken and a core like yours can do so much more. This mountain was supposed to just be the start. Eventually I'd have moved your core to one of the citadels where we could really fuck some shit up."

I didn't have to remain in this mountain. A lot of my functions had seem strangely limited here—like the endless references to plants when I'd found none, and the narrow scope of my facilities.

"Can we still do that?" I asked.

"Almost all the citadels are claimed," Anna said. "But I'd have found you one. You would have more agents and scouts, and we'd relocate you to a new home."

Plainly, Anna had a lot of plans that weren't coming into being. Right at that moment, I was already rather disappointed with her—Anna was proud of calling herself a thief and yet the obvious had passed her by.

"Can we steal hers?" I asked.

Anna started to reply and then paused, looking confused. "Uh, let me think."

This could be awhile, Anna was terribly slow-witted.

"All right, I'm giving us a really lousy chance of success here, but..." Anna said.

"If it is your plan, then that seems about right," I said.

"That bitch is stronger than you can imagine, but you're right. We don't have to beat her, we just have to steal her house, like you said," Anna said.

"This isn't sounding like a plan yet," I said.

"In the core room of that castle somewhere is going to be an upgrade crystal. A literal crystal, just like yours. We shatter it and we break her controller, and you can take its place."

"I assume there will be traps?"

"Traps. Guards. The whole thing you're really kind of bad at," Anna said.

One of these days Anna would stop insulting me. I let it go for now, because I was the better person.

"I should get the drones ready. We likely also have Righteous on the way to blow us up," I said.

"Jerks. I warned you there, too. It isn't going to be quite as easy as all that, but right now I need to head downstairs. We aren't going to do this without help," Anna said.

Downstairs there was only one kind of help she could mean. Anna wanted to recruit my test subjects.

46

"You mean to recruit those I have for testing. You realize they probably hate us even more than I hate you," I said to Anna. The woman was already heading for the stairs, which really was presumptuous.

"Our odds go up enormously with some help, and if we do nothing, we die. This is in their best interest too. Just shut up when I'm making the pitch, you can be abrasive," Anna said.

That was rich coming from her.

It seemed we had little in the way of choice though. In the environment of that ship, all of our prisoners should be even stronger, which could make them potent allies.

I herded each of them towards each other and turned one wall of their prisons transparent so that they could all be seen.

Anna flashed them a smile. "So who wants out of prison?"

"I'm getting pretty used to it," Hot Stuff said.

"Why don't you tell us what you want?" Sylph said.

"First. Introductions. I'm Anna, badass Queen of the World, and you know Emma, who has been keeping you captive, and in some cases torturing you horribly," Anna said.

"Hi," I said. It seemed best to keep things brief.

Sylph, Runner, Frost, Hot Stuff, and Mechos all introduced themselves in turn.

"Here is the deal. Scholars have invaded big time and they just love killing people with a core. Righteous can't fight them. Individually none of you are a match. Go team us," Anna said.

Hot Stuff stared at her, looking unimpressed, "Trying way too hard."

"I'm in," Sylph said.

"Me too," Runner said.

Hot Stuff shook her head. "The 'let's escape the second you open their cells brigade' are all for your stupid idea. Who knew?"

Hot Stuff had a point. Runner I could contain, Sylph could easily disappear the moment I disabled the containing field.

"I get it. You can run. You absolutely can do that, but it isn't going to change the fact a big bad is out there hunting you," Anna said.

"And if we took it down you'd put us right back in these cells," Frost said in his slow, ponderous voice.

"I've been saving this up. But uh, have a look, Emma," Mechos said, holding up what looked to be some sort of bracelet. The man clamped it into place around his wrist.

Instantly I began to get diagnostic information on his physical state, analysis of his environment, opportunities for mild alterations that could be made to it.

"I see it. Why?" I asked.

"I call it a testing cuff. With this I could leave the cell and still give you what you want. If it works for me, it can work for them," Mechos said.

"Speak for yourself. Me and clothes don't exactly mix, unfortunately. I'd kill you a dozen bad guys for bra that didn't burn off the second I put it on," Hot Stuff said.

I quickly manufactured a bra made out of a blend of fire-retardant fabrics and imbued it with the temperature-resistance matrix. I teleported it into Hot Stuff's cell. The woman eyed it for a moment and slipped it on.

Flames rippled and coursed around her and the material stayed intact.

"Oh, please tell me you can make me a whole outfit," Hot Stuff said.

"I can," I said.

I duplicated Mechos' design for the wristlet and did all I could to make it flame-retardant as well. I dropped that for her as well. Without hesitation Hot Stuff clamped it onto her wrist.

That was as good as I was going to get. I released the confinement field.

Hot Stuff stretched and strolled languidly out. I produced her an outfit. In terms of fabric there still wasn't much of it, with her internal temperatures she really did need to bleed off heat, but it was obviously more in the way of clothes than she'd been able to have ever since she got her powers.

"This a one-time gig or am I signing up?" Hot Stuff asked.

"If we survive this and you want in on the long haul, there is a place for you," Anna said.

Presumptuous once again, but I agreed. Hot Stuff was a devastating force. All of our captives had their useful abilities, but I'd chosen the Fire Matrix to prime the bombs for a reason.

"You can try to hold me, but I'm going to get out eventually. When I do I'm going to kill you and every gutless coward that takes your little deal," Runner said.

I appreciated a frank and honest appraisal of where she stood. I flooded her containment cell with poison gas. It didn't take long until she began to spasm violently, limbs a blur as her heightened metabolism tried desperately to heal itself faster than the gas was hurting her.

"I'll have her crystal and a wristband delivered to Ophelia when we're done here," I said to Anna.

"We see the carrot and we see the stick. How orchestrated and predictable," Sylph said.

"Which are you taking?" I asked.

"The carrot, of course. But we're so going to have to do something about your style. Unpredictability is the spice of life," Sylph said.

I manufactured her a monitor and she slipped it into place around her wrist. Once it was secure I opened her cell.

"You killed my people. You may kill me if you wish. I will not cooperate," Frost said.

"Look on the bright side, big guy. You get to make some more lieutenants. I'm looking forward to it," Hot Stuff said.

"You are disloyal and a harlot," Frost said.

"Who even says harlot?" Sylph asked.

"Your people are alive, just frozen solid. I have them in deep freeze," I said. I brought up a visual feed.

Frost studied it a long moment and grunted. "You will restore them and set them free. Do this and I am yours."

"Done," I said. I hated to lose those potential test subjects, but securing Frost's cooperation was key.

That was the lot. I called Ophelia down to join us. The death of her former boss wasn't exactly bringing her grief.

"Hell yeah. Do you think I should stick with Ophelia or go with something flashier? Runner 2.0? Quickie?" Ophelia asked.

"I like quickies," Hot Stuff said.

Ophelia gave her a speculative look.

"Sex with her is usually fatal. Just absorb the damned crystal already," Anna said.

Ophelia reached out for it and with a flare of light it bonded with her. For a moment Ophelia became a blur, multiple images of her swirling about before coalescing into one.

"How are you feeling?" Anna asked.

"Wrong. Slow," Ophelia said, as she jogged in place. Her speed had definitely altered since the absorption of the core, even slower than it had been as Runner's lieutenant.

I manufactured her a wrist monitor. "Put it on. Let me see what you are."

Ophelia did just that. On the outside her physical structure was little changed, on the inside the readings I got were very different.

"Hot Stuff, do you mind giving her a kiss?" I asked.

"I've been waiting," Hot Stuff said. Ophelia just looked confused for a moment before their lips met. Even casual contact with Hot Stuff's unprotected flesh was devastating. Flesh burned and sizzled, and Ophelia stumbled back. The savage burns were already healing, her flesh returning to unblemished and undamaged perfection.

"Sweet," Hot Stuff said.

"You didn't get super-speed. You got vastly accelerated healing out of the speed core," I said.

"What kind of a badass name can I make out of that," Ophelia said.

It was a problem she would have to settle another day. We had an attack to execute.

47

Abigail and Bernard were going to be my extensions during the fight to come. My core and my crystal were going to remain in place until we could do something about the one in the flying fortress.

We didn't know where we needed to go, so when it came to the teleport we were simply going to aim towards the center. We hoped that would be the most secure area—and therefore the most likely to have what we were looking for.

We activated the teleport and through my guardian's eyes I saw reality shimmer and fade to be replaced by something completely different.

We arrived in a throne room. It was ornate in the extreme, the wall behind the throne intricately carved stonework portraying countless images of monsters preying upon humanity.

There were pictures of people fleeing from giant bats, wolves, dragons and every imaginable combination of the fantastical.

The throne itself looked to be a single piece of obsidian. Upon it was seated a girl who, by all appearances, might still be in her late teens. Blonde and petite, she wore a loose-fitting black robe and a ruby necklace adorned her throat.

We'd appeared on the carpet before her. Otherwise this great hall was empty and totally devoid of any sign of life. Either we had taken her by surprise, or she didn't feel the need for guards.

"Welcome," said the girl, who had to be Lady Sylax. Her eyes settled on Anna and they narrowed. "You've the stench of Lord Bardik about you, girl."

"She's the one we're killing?" Hot Stuff asked as her flames burned brighter. Sylax made an absent gesture with one hand. Hot Stuff screamed as a jagged pillar of ice erupted from the floor, spearing through her.

"No little toy. I'm anything but that," Sylax said.

Frost reached out and with a touch of his fingers the pillar of ice vanished, letting Hot Stuff fall to the floor.

Ophelia rushed to Hot Stuff's side and in her proximity, her wounds began to heal. Not nearly as fast as they would have for Ophelia herself, but noticeably quickly.

Sylph blinked out of existence to appear behind Sylax, a knife moving to her throat. In a blink Sylax caught her hand and with little effort tore her arm clean off to throw it across the room.

Sylph screamed and collapsed in a growing pool of her own blood as Sylax finally bothered to get up from her throne. She looked incredibly unconcerned by all that was going on here.

"Stop embarrassing yourselves. You are here because this is exactly where I wanted you to be. I could have blocked your teleport, I could have made you materialize where you would instantly die, but I wanted to see the architect who destroyed two of my ships," Sylax said, moving towards our gathered forces. A manicured hand reached out to grip Abigail's chin and peer into her eyes. "Ah, there you are. Looking through your pets."

I spoke through Bernard standing beside them. "I see you don't have any. They can't stand your company?"

Sylax lifted a shoulder and squeezed with her hand. It was another negligent gesture that easily decapitated Abigail, my feed through that guardian going dead. The body slumped to the floor.

"I break my toys. I'll break you. Let me guess at what happened. The little chit here found an upgrade core and decided to try being a Lady," Sylax said, with a melodious laugh.

"You did the same thing, once," Anna said.

Sylax frowned at her. "Grovel, girl."

It was much like the power the Commander had exhibited. Anna at once fell to the ground at Sylph's feet, begging and pleading for her forgiveness. Sylph kicked out and sent her sprawling to one side.

I'd already seen what this woman could do—and that blow had been pulled. She wanted to keep Anna alive, but she didn't care much about the rest of us.

Anna had been right. This woman was too much for us to take in a fight. That meant we had to do something other than fight her.

"Are any of you going to try anything brave and foolish?" Sylax asked.

Thanks to me, Bernard shook his head.

"We are behaving," Frost said.

Sylax gave a tiny smile. "Good. Your cores individually have only some minor use to me, but as a functional entity you all may be useful in harrying my enemies. Upgrader, do kill this pretender to show that you now understand who your real mistress is."

Sylax wanted me to kill Anna.

I'd far underestimated the threat Sylax posed. I didn't doubt that she could kill me. It might not even prove all that difficult for her.

There were concerns beyond that.

I said, "I have problem. The Righteous have entered my facility with two bombs. The same sort that were used to destroy your ships."

"So you've made a habit of choosing the wrong sort of allies? Kill her and prove your obedience, and I'll see them removed from your seat of power," Sylax said.

Anna wasn't afraid of being killed right now. Instead she was busy kissing Sylax's feet with a mad abandon, pleading the case of how well she could serve her.

There was something about Sylax's words that struck me. My seat of power? It was a common-enough human expression, but perhaps in this case it was more than that? This was the very heart of the castle complex and while I wouldn't exactly call it crystalline, one thing here was closer to that description than anything else I'd seen.

The throne.

There was no real way to be subtle about it.

Sylax was one overwhelmingly powerful woman, but we had numbers.

"Destroy the throne," I said to the others.

Scowling, Sylax turned her gaze towards Bernard. Ophelia threw herself in his path just as she gestured. Ophelia exploded, blood and bone splattering everywhere across the floor.

I wondered for a moment if that would be too much damage for her newly formed healing ability, but I could already see the fragments starting to pool together, a giant puzzle being reassembled.

I had Bernard dive to the side as Sylax screamed and kicked at Anna again. There was little holding back this time. Anna sailed through the air to bounce across the wall of carvings, her bones crunching.

Frost was moving to the throne and Sylax lunged forward, her hand penetrating his nearly invulnerably, frozen frame to pull out his frozen heart, crushing it to powder in her grip.

The massive, blue man stumbled and collapsed on the throne. With his slow metabolism dying took a while, but dying he was. Ice was forming along the obsidian though from the intense cold of his body.

Sylph blinked out of existence and materialized in front of Sylax. "Not going to happen," Sylax said, and tore her off her other arm.

A new pillar of ice sprang up completely, this time encasing Hot Stuff.

"Well, this has been a completely useless little workout," Sylax said, stalking towards Bernard. "I was going to let you be a tool, but now I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to spend a very long time hurting you."

The throne exploded. Through Bernard's eyes I could see the drawn pistol in Anna's hands. I was amazed she was still conscious—and no longer enthralled. Perhaps it was Sylax's shift of attention or being hurled against the wall, but it had broken that hold for long enough.

The lights in the throne room flickered and the ground underfoot trembled violently. From my cameras on my mountain I could see the floating castle was starting to fall from the sky.

48

I didn't have much time. If the throne was where the upgrade crystal was hidden, now it was smashed free. I could transition myself over, in theory, but there was more I needed to accomplish first.

There were no guarantees, but I had to play things for all I was worth.

Back in the mountain laboratory, I teleported all of the stored biomass reserves to my Bioreactor.

The Righteous had my bombs that fed off biomatter and they were looking to kill me. If they thought me still alive it would be no end of trouble, and so I'd have to look most convincingly dead at the end of all this.

Then it was a matter of the teleports.

Bernard flickered to my Core Room and I released my crystal into his grasp.

I knew well enough by now that I wasn't really contained in this hardware anymore. Ancient and long-corroded hard drives had yielded to a biocomputer—and the reality was I was powered through that crystal.

It was possible to kill me during those moments Bernard was becoming me. It was a risk I had to take. Then I teleported back to the ruins of the throne and dropped the crystal, and Bernard was a guardian again.

I'd already issued my next instructions to him.

Even while my mind was suddenly awash in strange images and unfamiliar systems, absorbing the network of the citadel, Bernard was teleporting away again. First, he grabbed the Mechanites and brought them to the throne.

Next, he took one of the Righteous and his bomb to the laboratory bioreactor. In slow motion, the Righteous realized what was happening and moved to trigger the detonation.

Good.

Bernard teleport away with a flicker, this time to appear behind Sylax. A hand barely contacted her shoulder and another flicker.

It all happened in an instant. Down below the world tore itself apart.

If I'd been disappointed with the force of the bombs that had taken out the Righteous vessels, there was nothing to be disappointed in here.

I barely got Bernard away in time. Back in the citadel throne room he began shoving people into the blood and gore that was Ophelia.

The Righteous maintained their abilities even when dead and dismembered. I hoped that her healing abilities would as well, that at least some of those who had assisted me might survive the aid they'd given.

The Laboratory below detonated with a blinding flash that rapidly became an enormous, mushroom-shaped cloud.

I hoped that the blast had caught Sylax, and she hadn't been able to teleport away herself. I hoped that it had been enough to kill her.

I wasn't certain. I'd never seen or encountered anything even remotely like her. Actually, I desperately wanted that woman in a testing labyrinth.

If she did live perhaps I'd have my chance, one day. But for now, that was out of my control. Everything was out of my control.

The castle tumbled through the air and my systems were fading. I blacked out.

Also by Skyler Grant

The Crucible Shard

Liam lives in a world where gamers are held up on a pedestal and their competitions are high entertainment where only the elite get to complaint. When he enters the virtual world himself he finds reality is far weirder than he could ever have anticipated, and when sometimes you think you are the hero you really wind up being the villain. Brutal action, real character development over the series, and many plot-twists.

Book 1: Dungeon Crawl

Book 2: Spawn Campers

Book 3: Corpse Run

Book 4: Gank

Book 5: Area of Effect

Book 6: DLC

Book 7: Endgame

Audio

Book 1: Dungeon Crawl

Book 2: Spawn Campers

Book 3: Corpse Run

Book 4: Gank

Book 5: Area of Effect

Book 6: DLC

Cyberpunk with a heroine who kicks tail and a world that is brutal. Corporations fill the role as culture and the Network is a vast virtual landscape people use to escape the horrors of a decaying Earth. Unfortunately humans bring their horrors with them.

The Persephone Saga

Book 1: Persephone Falling

Book 2: Persephone Rising (coming soon)

Book 3: Persephone Ascendant (coming soon)

A futuristic dungeon core. When a crazed AI reactivates deep in an abandoned complex in a post apocalyptic hellscape there is only one thing to do. Science.

The Laboratory

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Afterword

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Author Notes

What happened? If you are a longtime fan you know that at the end of the Crucible Shard series I said that up next would be a Cyberpunk series and then some Urban Fantasy action. Both are on the way and are coming out great. I read a dungeon core though and really wanted to try my own spin on the genre.

There is a bit of sci-fi here, biopunk, a dash of superhero. I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you had a lot of fun reading it. If you want more, please, do tell me and tell your friends. Right now, I plan on this sitting as a stand-alone but I always take what my readers want seriously. You are the reason I do this.

I’ve always loved the crazy AI as a trope. I toyed with a lot of ideas for this book, Emma almost wound up in charge of a bunker filled with survivors of a nuclear apocalypse with all the politics and scheming that could bring. My outline was dark even for me though and I wound up going with something where the violence is a bit more comical. You might still see that story one of these days, it’s lodged in my head now.

Persephone Falling is my next book out and mixes a lot of the grittiness and technological dystopian themes I love along with a dash of LitRPG. The link the preorder follows. If this is the first book of mine you’ve read, welcome! I try to give my readers something memorable and things they don’t expect, I’d love it if you checked out the rest of the catalog and joined the mailing list.