Chapter 15: Reaper

Everyone froze as if their brain stopped. The burnt corpse of Walt on the ground greatly confused them.

“What is going on?”

They all thought.

Gin was paralyzed by shock as well. Zin kept screaming in his ear to flee but he didn’t respond.

“God damn it, I’ll do it instead.”

Gin fell backward as Exceed mode was activated.

Zin slowly backed off from the shocked group. Gordon still had his attention focused on the second vice leader.

“Where are you going little one?”

“Shit.”

Zin immediately took off. He strained Gin’s muscles as he dashed further into the mine.

“He positioned himself at the hill leading upwards, trapping us in this Area. We need to find an alternative.”

Zin said to Gin who had recovered from the shock.

“None of the drones are operational yet so we cannot use those to fight back.”

“What do we do then?”

“Hide for now. We have to assume there is either another ventilation shaft somewhere or that the other personnel of the mine will find it suspicious we were down here so long and check on us.”

Zin suddenly stopped as a figure approached from the front.

“My oh my, you sure are a fast little kid, aren’t you?” Gordon walked out of the shadows with a sadistic grin. “Don’t expect any rescue, Sinclair made sure no one would check for the next four days.”

Zin frowned. Gordon had conspirators. The situation was not looking bright for him.

“Let me tell ya, kid, this job isn’t easy. There’s always a bunch of fools who try to resist or beg. It just makes my job harder.”

Gordon complained as he slowly approached.

“Some idiots were kind enough to throw themselves at me. Those jobs were the easiest since they delivery themselves on a silver platter.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Zin asked.

“Why you say?” Gordon smirked. “Because you have outlived your usefulness.”

Zin frowned.

“It will cost the company more to rehabilitate your team after the loss of your old boss than to just train a new squad.”

“But isn’t every life precious?”

“Ha! Don’t make me laugh. Those are just some words the company put out to please the working peasants. You guys are as worthless and plentiful as rocks in the ground. Do you know what is the population of the company right now? 100 Million. One hundred fucken million lives to feed and to watch over. The company’s hands are full.”

Zin dodged as Gordon pulled out a gun. He got behind the cover of some rocks and kept the reaper talking.

“People will know about this and revolt.”

“And what? Lose the benefits of the company? People are willing to accept the losses as long as it has nothing to do with them. You are just casualties required to keep business operations running.”

“Human lives are that expendable?”

“You have no idea, kid.”

Gordon took aim and pulled the trigger. The rock shattered upon impact from the bullet. Zin covered Gin’s ears as the sound echoed in the cave.

“Come out kid, I’ll make sure to finish it quickly.”

“Not painless?”

“Death by gun is never painless, kid.”

Zin observed his surroundings as he tried to find a diversion.

“What happened to the others?”

“They just stood still as I finished all off, like a bunch of lemmings.”

“So, they are all dead?”

“Not exactly. Some of them can be recycled.”

“What do you mean recycled?”

“Oops, wasn’t supposed to say that. Oh well, you will be dead soon anyway.”

Gordon laughed as he fired off a few more rounds. He slowly approached the rock, slowly savoring the fear of his prey.

Zin looked around at his corn cob and hoped he could find something to use. Something that could hopefully penetrate the bubble around Gordon. He took out Gin’s trusty bolter and shot a bullet at the bubble. The bolt veered off course and stabbed into the wall of the cave.

“Oh, a prey that fights back. Not bad kid.”

Zin frowned. He started to run away as he fired more shots at Gordon. Every one of the bolts veered drastically when they got close to the bubble, but it kept Gordon at bay while Zin ran.

Zin turned the corner into a tunnel and put away the bolter. He had used an entire clip of bolts and it did absolutely nothing to the bubble.

“Crap, what now?”

There was an option that Zin could use, but it was the last resort. Something he hasn’t tell Gin yet.

The only thing that could save him other than his last resort was an intervention by the gods themselves.

Suddenly, the ground began to rumble.

“Hmm?”

Gordon stopped and looked around.

“What was that?”

A low gurgling sound came from the walls.

Gordon walked up to the walls to get a closer look.

Suddenly, the rock broke apart and several large monsters immediately latched onto Gordon’s bubble shield.

They started to gnaw and claw at the bubble, slowly engulfing him in a tide of vermin.

“Vermin tide!”

Zin scrambled away as fast as he could. The outbreak of a vermin tide can kill an entire area.

An ocean of rodents that can and will eat just about anything can sweep through an area, consuming all including humans. For one to occur during this time was both a lucky break and a hellish coincidence.

A loud roar echoed throughout the caverns.

“Crap, there’s a rat king too.”

When a vermin tide reached a certain size, a rat king often appears.

As Zin ran down the tunnels, the walls started to break apart and fill up with vermin. They flooded in like a wave of black water.

“I have to get somewhere safe.”

The path back to the hill leading upwards has been blocked by the vermin tide. Zin didn’t know the current status of his teammates or Gordon. They could have already ended up as rat food by now.

Zin ran past several pieces of equipment. Push took what he could, including some drill-shovels and portable floodlights. They were heavy and slowed him down, but once the vermin tide swallows up the entire place, Zin may need to dig his way out. Rats were crawling out of the vents, broken electrical ports, even the water pipes. Soggy rodents made a moist plop sounds as they fell down from the water pipes.

Zin kept running without looking back. He could hear the countless squeaking and the scratching of claw on rocks and metal. The vermin tide was exploding to a full-scale tsunami.

“Did Gordon plan this? No, he couldn’t have. Then it must be…Sinclair.”

Zin frowned. Sinclair must have pretended to help Gordon deal with Gin’s team but at the same time, he wanted to get rid of Gordon. The vermin tide would swallow and devour everyone including the reaper with the thin mustache.

Loud sounds of crashing shook the cavern as the rodents ate away the support beams of several unstable caverns.

“This area is done for soon. I have to find somewhere safe.”

Zin repeated in his mind for himself and Gin to remember.

The drones here had tough armor, but it cannot survive a cave in. Due to the depth, they would be crushed into a pancake easily. Zin didn’t know why or how a vermin tide started so deep into the earth’s crust. There was nothing to eat this deep in the earth. There was nothing that could sustain the hunger of such a large horde of rats. Unless…

“There’s something down here. Perhaps it’s something the company is keeping secret from everyone else.”

Zin made a bunch of wild assumptions. There had to be a secret, there must!

He quickly did a general scan of the cave using radar. The high-frequency waves bounded around and mapped out a general outline of the cave. Most of the area was fuzzy and blind due to the rat’s fur absorbing the sound. But finally, Zin found something. He compared what he found with the blueprints of the mine that was updated a month ago.

“A hatch. It looks like it was added recently since it isn’t on the blueprint.”

Zin quickly changed direction and ran towards it. The rat wave was right on his ankle. He had to stomp and kick away several smaller rodents.

Behind him, he dropped several traps in order to stall the tide. Timed bombs, sticky traps, proximity mines, nearly half of the corn cob’s arsenal had been tossed down on the ground. The rats triggered every single one of them. Various explosions and sprays slowed the tide down but the rats were still coming out of the walls, pipes, and vents.

Zin took the drill-shovel and swatted several rats that aimed for his jugular. Thankfully, his boots provided enough cover for his ankles and gave him enough time to shake the rats off. If they had gotten through to his Achilles tendon, it might have crippled him. These damn rodents were smarter than they look.

Finally, after several twists and turns through the labyrinth-like caverns, Zin found the hatch. It was made out of a dark metal. Zin gave it a few good whacks with the drill-shovel and found that it didn’t even leave a scratch.

“This is some sturdy stuff. I wonder what’s behind it.”

Zin looked around the hatch, trying to find a way to open it. There were no wires or machinery so the hatch must be manual. But it also looked extremely heavy. No normal human can open it without machinery.

Thankfully, Zin brought some tools with him as he ran.

A small handheld pneumatic lift was one of them. It provided far more lift than a normal human can, but it cannot lift things very high.

Zin shoved the thing between the ground and the side of the hatch. He pressed the button as the lift started to rise centimeter by centimeter. Slowly, the heavy metal hatch lifted.

A stale and moist scent escaped the hatch, nearly making Zin vomit. He quickly turned on the bubble helmet’s filtration system. The rats were getting closer. Zin could almost hear the violent shrieking. When the hatch finally opened enough for Zin to slide in, he quickly crawled on all fours and shimmied in. With a put of a button, the pneumatic lift dropped down and the hatch closed.

Just in time too, the furious scratching of vermin rats could be heard against the metal hatch. Zin climbed down the metal ladder in the darkness. He was surrounded by metal on all sides. This was a man-made area for sure.

“The rats won’t be able to dig through that. Let’s hope the rat king can’t either.”

Corporate would have a way to deal with a vermin tide once it has been reported to the security team. Perhaps they are already on their way. Sinclair just delayed them while he waited for Gordon and the rest to die. Maybe this bunker was built by Sinclair as well.

Once Zin’s foot finally touched the bottom, he turned on the floodlight he brought with him. The pitch-black tunnel was revealed. The walls were made out of crude but sturdy metal. There was no electricity or wiring, let alone lights. It was a solid metal tunnel. Thankfully, it was one way so Zin just followed the path.

Eventually, the tunnel led to an open area. A spherical room made out of the same metal. But there were some lights hanging from the ceiling. A portable generator hummed along in the corner, powering the sparse pieces of machinery around the room.

“What is this place?”

Zin found some notes and paper. They looked like research notes.

“This…”

He soon realized it was all related. The secret he found one Jeral’s ship, the notes in this dark bunker, they were connected.

“Just what is going on. Coincidences cannot exist like this. Someone or something is guiding it all. A puppet master beyond our understanding.”

Zin pondered.

With a groan, Gin finally woke up.

“Hey kid, we are safe now.”

“Where are we?”

“A bunker under area 150.”

“A what?”

“Kid, you might want to listen carefully to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There is a resistance.”

“What?”

“A group of people who are going against the capitalist ways of the company. Your boss was part of it.”

“B-boss?”

“Gordon was sent to clean up the traces. Corporate must have suspected that your entire team must have been recruited.”

Gin frowned.

“The resistance knew they cannot beat the powerful company. They created an escape plan. To bring their members out of this place to start their own little utopia on another planet.”

“This is insane.”

“We haven’t even gotten to the best parts.”

Gin was lost now. His world was crashing down. The company had labeled him a corporate spy and was sentenced to death. His entire team was now dead, either from Gordon or the vermin tide. There was nothing left for him.

“W-what do we do now?”

“There is only one path left, join the resistance.”

Gin frowned.

“From the looks of the notes I found here, and the data collected from Jeral’s ship, they have an ultimate weapon. Something to deter the company’s purge forces.”

“What is it?”

“An enormous mech using tech from the pre-war era.”

“A what?”

“A mech, a giant robot. A weapon of war made for mankind to dominate the entire planet and beyond. The ultimate weapon left behind for our ancestors.”

“What were they fighting?”

“We don’t know. The records have been tightly kept secret by corporate. They only way it led to a nuclear war that contaminated most of Earth.”

Gin was confused but excited after Zin showed him images of mechs that he collected. Enormous humanoid weapons of mass destruction that towered over everything, these tools were the symbol of human’s thirst for violence and their pride in technology. A monument of humanity before they were nearly wiped out.

“Where is this mech?”

“The notes said it was broken up into parts.”

“W-what? Broken up?”

“This monstrosity of a machine cannot remain in one piece. It requires too much energy to move it. Thus, in order to keep maintenance easy and fuel consumption down, it was separated into three parts. The first parts just happen to be the ship Jeral left you.

“I-I own a part of a mech?”

“Yes, you do kid. Both the resistance and corporate must be looking for you now. Thankfully, your old boss disguised the piece as a broken ship. He probably was fixing the part up before his untimely death.”

“Then boss was…”

“Yes, it would seem Jeral was a major figure in the resistance.”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You didn’t know anything to start with.”

“Shut up.”

“Ha, come on kid, this is exciting. What you have on your hands is a weapon that can conquer the world. Well, a part of it that is.”

“W-what should I do?”

“The company deemed you an enemy. It is time to cut ties. The resistance may be your old hope. But their will covet the mech part. The third option is the find the other two pieces and pilot the mech out of here. Leave the planet.”

“L-leave?”

“Yes, see the starts like Jeral wanted to. Visit the vast cosmos. Bring along some friends so the trip isn’t boring.”

“Zin, why are you goading me?”

“Kid, you are wising up! Let me tell you then, the mech cannot be piloted by a single person. There is a reason it's three parts. It requires three pilots. You need someone to help you pilot it, and I am that someone.”

“You…want to pilot the mech?”

“Of course! I can feel it is my destiny!”

“Destiny?”

Gin frowned. Zin was acting strange, but he didn’t want to point it out right now. What he didn’t notice, is that both he and Zin are simultaneously controlling his body right now. His left arm waved in glee as Zin explained the benefits, but his right arm was rubbing his chin as Gin pondered.

Finally, Gin made a decision.

“I want to bring Rakia with me.”

Zin frowned.

“The girl has many secrets; she may not agree.”

“I will convince her.”

“How will you get back to her shop? Corporate probably blacklisted you and drones will hunt you down on sight.”

“…”

Zin sighed.

“Fine, I’ll help you set up a date with your little girlfriend. But we have to be secretive. Thankfully, we know her schedule as she will be in Area 82 next week. We will head up then and meet her there. The company has less monitoring in lower areas.”

Gin sat down in the chair.

“You know what? This bunker isn’t half bad. Who owns it?”

“It would seem it used to be someone from the resistance, but who could build such a thing right under Sinclair’s nose.”

“W-wait, maybe Sinclair is…”

“…A part of the resistance?!”

Zin finished Gin’s sentence. That’s when they suddenly realized they had been sharing the body.

“W-what is happening?”

“We are still in exceed mode.”

“B-but we both have control?”

“Something went wrong?”

Gin’s left and right arm both went to rub his chin as Zin and Gin pondered on the current situation. The sight was hilarious as it just looked like he was washing his chin with both hands.

“H-how do we stop this?”

“Let me turn off exceed mode.”

Zin terminated the connection and Gin gained back full control.

“That was weird.”

“Too many problems suddenly just popping up. What is happening exactly?”

Zin couldn’t help but wonder if there was a puppet master controlling the whole ordeal.

With the food supplies Zin brought with him along the way, Gin could stay in the bunker for a week.

“We will wait for the vermin tide to end here.”

“OK.”