《The Juveniles - Segment 2》Chapter 3.5 - Sincerely Yours
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INT. CAVE SYSTEM
Tatiana walks with a sense of alertness around the rather fitting cave system. "So how can a hologram lose its memories? Is it the same as the movies? - ", ;she's cut off by Richard unknowingly floats to a stalagmite, stumbling back an inch. His head wobbles back and forth comically, which made Tatiana stifle a giggle. "Ow. It messed up my vision. Great, give me a sec'. ", he shakes the head attachment hastily and bangs it with the baton to knock some sense.
Richard: sighs in relief, "That's better. For that question, I can clearly say it's similar to movies. However, its the code of this system is badly written. Sure, I can ask Johan to reprogram it, but she mentioned 'reformatting', which made me very uncomfortable. Something about wiping entire files and cleaning it up wholly.", he shudders in distraction only to be smacked dab to another stalagmite. However, Tatiana couldn't contain it, and lets out a quick cackle before getting back to her senses.
"Uh-huh. I guess Ate(Sister) Johan really knows what she's doing.", she half-nods before continue focusing on treading the rough terrain, albeit she said 'Ate' because it's tradition (or a Filipino habit) that they see someone older but younger like them, that someone would be addressed as 'Kuya (brother)' or 'Ate (sister)'. Richard didn't quite understood that random bit, but he admits to himself he isn't a man of culture (not that 'other' culture, mind you).
They continue the trail, looking at the cave system as it were some tourist attraction with the attributes of it being spacious and quite bright in spite the evening skies. There aren't any lost items littered everywhere, just normal land formations and hollow pathways filled with stalagmites, big and small. Based on her travels in the Philippines, there was one cave in Palawan that is way bigger and need to be explored via a kayak or a small fishing boat, she vaguely remembers it, but looking at those stalagmites reminded her of a source of water located either above or below their position.
She fixes the light of the helmet upon the liquid that is dripping on the closest stalagmite to her, with the robot hovers near and also inspects the liquid, but backs away and nods like an intellectual. "Those are limestone stalagmites. made of calcium bicarbonate."
If only Tatiana could ever figure out what that means, but Richard saw her confused face which prompts him to clear his throat inside the robot, "In short, there is a huge source of water within our proximity, so let's try not to make any sound here or there will be a cave-in."
Tatiana unwraps her lower lip and nods accordingly, "Okay. Try not to shout aaaaand - IS THAT A LANDMINE?!", Richard facepalms with the shock baton and lets out a glitchy grunt, then lowers the hand weapon and takes a closer look where Tatiana's referring to, however, Richard is also in surprise and troubling to their path.
In front of them is a US military M18A1 Claymore a directional anti-personnel mine. Its inventor, Norman MacLeod, named the mine after a large medieval Scottish sword. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote-control and shoots a pattern of metal balls into the kill zone like a shotgun. The Claymore can also be victim-activated by booby-trapping it with a tripwire firing system for use in area denial operations. It's rusted metal texture makes good camflauge for the cave's overall colors and very threatening to unsuspecting trespassers.
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Fortunately, it's tied to a tripwire to which Richard scans more hidden in the darkness. The robot founds several lines of thick tripwires blocking a hallway, with the claymores buried into the walls to prevent from being picked off by gunfire or other projectiles that can trigger the trap without the victim running into it's 60 degree arc.
"Tch. I knew there'd be traps around here. Hold on. Maybe this will help.", Richard aims the arm-blaster close to the ground to avoid hitting the tripwires yet there's no electric charge. Instead, it fires a burst of large green glowsticks, rolling across the dirt. The chemical contents have already taken effect, thus instantly lighting the way and revealing the shadows of the tripwires. The robot sighs in relief looking at the glowsticks' bright colors. "There, now all you have to do is take off any unnecessary - WHAAAAAT THE FAAAAACK ARE YOU DOING NOW?!", the robot turns to Tatiana in shock, using the adze/pickaxe to dig some dirt below. The hole is sizable for a person to fit, but it's going to be bigger if Tatiana's nonchalant attitude will press on. On the down side, he, too, is screaming.
"Hmm? I'm playing Mojang right now, if I continue to dig down, maybe we can find what you're looking for and maybe I can find some diamonds along the way!", Tatiana with glee spoke while digging.
"THAT'S BULL! I FOUND NO TRACES OF DIAMONDS IN THIS SECTOR! GIVE IT UP!", he retorts. Tatiana glares at him, the hole has already gone chest-level deep.
"Huh, seriously? You're just impatient like my brother. - ", Tatiana keeps digging casually.
" - YOU'RE LITERALLY TALKING TO A DEAD GUY WHO'S CONSCIOUSNESS IS STRAPPED INSIDE A HOLOGRAM WHO CAN CONTROL AN ADVANCED ROBOT MADE DECADES AGO! AND SCREW IMPATIENCE, I'M WORRIED ABOUT YOUR SANITY RATHER THAN - than.", suddenly his retorts stopped, and replaced with an idea. "Actually, you're more smarter than I thought!", the robot hovers in the hole with Tatiana with a clever smirk.
"I'll borrow that, thank you! - ", he takes Tatiana's adze/pickaxe as she was about to raise it once more. She turns back to the droid, "HEY! I WAS BEGINNING TO FIND COPPER! - "
The robot hovers out of the hole and its systems begin to boost its phyiscal strength capabilities. It's servors pumping with electricty, before exerting it with a barrage of flawless digging across the dirt hall of claymores. " - IT'S IRON, YOU FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!", now Richard doesn't care if he doesn't live inside the robot's chassis, all he wanted was to vent out his worthless anger into doing hardwork thanks to Tatiana's...uhm...creativity. She deadpans at the robot, efficiently working up till the end of the trap because of the glowsticks that helped Richard see.
Richard, covered in dirt and damp grime, rests the adze/pickaxe at the back of the chassis. "Alright, now just crawl down there and I'll scout ahead.", as soon as Richard turns around, he got smacked by a hanging stalagmite the THIRD TIME. The force detached the head and the thicc body, with the former falling on the ground safely, but the latter triggers one of the claymores.
"Ah shit.", its what she could say, before going back down on her personal hole and covers her ears from the claymore blast. The bullets spewed from the first landmine manage to 'chain-react' to the nearby claymores, triggering the other traps.
The resulting blasts has caused vibrations from the ground above, emitting a cave-in. Tatiana, while inside the hole she dug, quickly scrambled through the now safe area and grabs the badly damaged body along with the severed head, still flickering with power. She never look back as giant mounds of dirt crushes the way she came, shrouding her in darkness in a flash. Tatiana takes a breath for a moment, and switches her headlamp on.
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She's now on the next section of the cave system. But this is slightly different. For the first was a normal structure littered with some mines; what lies before her eyes are three long, hallow hallways, presumably interconnected to each other and walls stretching to a humungous scale with many possibities: a maze, of all things. She barely hears anything except for her breaths and the small prickly sparks among from the robot's severed head and chassis. Tatiana keeps her heavy breathing to a regulated condition and inspects the fat, broken robot. Her prior knowledge of repairing these dumb robots with Richard for the past months have led her to things: doing things on her own, to improvise in the midst of a dangerous or inescapable situation.
With a little resourcefulness, Tatiana made a makeshift brain stem made with the carabiners and adequate amounts of ropes like an ordinary human body then connects it between the head and the body, powering it up back online.
There's static between the connection. "Tati...Tatiana, are you hurt?!", Richard speaks through the robot like a police giving a sit-rep. Tatiana huffs in a false comfort. "Yeah, bad news. Our entrance is now under. We have to find another way out once this is all over. Does your blaster still works?".
The robot waves both of its arms around, expecting to power something but the outcome wasn't favorable. Richard shakes his head. "No can do. The blaster is kaput, I can only establish communications.", Richard replied with disappointment, not being able to help anybody is a big responsibility to burden for him.
"Ugh. Fantastic. Any leads about this place?", she motions at the robot's faceless features, not reading any emotions besides dull and monotonous. "Sad to say, no. But - ", the robot does a series of beeps before finishing with a long one, stopping now. " - there's a metal plaque over your left, pick it up."Tatiana does so, and wipes the dirt away.
The plaque is made of metal, its outer shell is corroded because of the dampness in this cave, save for the contents inside, containing a small piece of paper. "So what did you see?", she tries to make it out inside and lets out one name.
"Konami.", she cluelessly turns to Richard, "What's the Konami?".
The. WHAT?!
Richard has mixed feelings about this topic, Konami? What's Konami doing in a place like this? More importantly, how did she not know Konami?, "Possibly one of the most recognized gaming companies ever! Though I believe Nintendo begs to differ. If you don't know what Konami is, have you heard of Contra?",
Tatiana shakes her head dismissively, "Uh, Castlevania?", she shakes in rejection. Oh, boy, if this woman has never tasted old school gaming, Richard can never see her again as a potential apprentice for appreciating his time. "Silent Hill? Metal Gear? The Dance Dance Revolution!?!? It's an arcade game, I'm sure you've played that!", Tatiana just gives up and massages her temples disdainfully. "Nope.", all she remembers is she's a Mobile Legends kind of girl, she never played anything besides Mobile Legends and pretty sure she doesn't have a PC nor a console. Quite possibly, the most neutral of neutral.
"Aww ~ ." the robot also whirrs in disappointment, going along with Richard's emotions. "Anyway, Konami used to have a cheat code, The Konami Code. It goes like this; Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.", Tatiana stares at Richard with unconcern and focuses on making a pair of backpack straps using but carabiners, ropes, and hooks. "Really? You won't say anything?", The director asks, assuming Tatiana didn't believe him.
"Nope. It makes sense, but are you sure we're going to find our way out thanks to some old cheat code? ", Tatiana bites the rope in her teeth, attaching the hook carefully into the robot's body. Richard hums, thinking about it. "I'm not technically sure, but what choice do we have? Let's just pretend this maze is a game, who knows what will happen?",
"Uh-huh.", the little sister replied with skepticism, finally made the robot like a backpack, with Richard's vision facing backwards. She huffs accomplished. "All done. Remember, you watch my back, then we go home. Copy?".
Richard grins beneath the robot's systems, "Solid. Okaaay, if I recall, there were three entrances, head to the center, that'll be our 'up' ", she nods and treks along the massive hallway. While traversing, Richard dreams under the robot about the memories about the Konami code and the time he started to play video games with the professionals.
INT. HEADQUARTERS - SEPTEMBER 2, 1945 - FLASHBACK
In a first-person view, he looks around him, seeing a group of young teenagers celebrating their victories within the wooden walls of the old headquarters' living room, and in good timing, they celebrated just as the newspaper, from an undisclosed location, arrived and delivered with such relief. Albeit, these teenagers are quite hard to picture who they are; their faces are blurry to no facial features, what can he only make of is their uniforms are labcoats and the US military, their voices are vague like hearing underwater.
Abruptly, someone calls his name at a distance continuosly, he groggily motions to the source to see one of the soldiers squat down on the floor, holding a controller similar to one of the real old consoles from Nintendo. He holds it with joy, like it's early Christmas. The technology from the world was different compared to theirs so he would understand as to how it was being made without the. Richard wants to get up, but can't move any of his body parts, let alone have the will to do so. He continues to yell his name, until the visions become distorted and fading, his hearing became worse, until feminine scream snaps him out.
"RICHARD!", Tatiana's yell went straight to him, immediately snapping back to reality.
"Oh GOD, wha - what?!"
"Do you hear that?", she takes a moment of silence. She looks around, glancing from above and checking on her feet.
They hear faint echoes of heavy objects being shifted around from far across the maze, something's not right here. This cave is meant for Juveniles only, is there somebody guarding the maze? Are they alone? Tatiana and Richard continue to listen until the echoes stopped.
Tatiana stares above her, holding her pickaxe for self-defense. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know...It might be far away though, keep going."
Although Richard is right, Tatiana assures herself that they're not alone here. A guard is patrolling around this maze without showing itself for the past few minutes. It's just like one of those tales of the minotaur inside Daedulus' Labyrinth, a monstrosity full of testosterones and pure bloodlust. However, this is all about technology, which means it's not an organic living being, but maybe, a towering robot who's functions are waaaay outdated and just stick to two simple instruction; guard the maze and kill the trespassers. Tatiana stiffens her grip on the pickaxe/adze and finally arrives at the end of the hallway, getting ready for an unsuspecting ambush
But what she prepared for never happened and instead of a typical confrontation, the maze decides to become smarter and psychological. Tatiana rubs her eyes with her right hand's knuckles, trying to clear up what she's looking at. Three entrances with the same position appear with the same dark hallways. "Okay, I think the dust is getting to my eyes.", Richard tilts his head to the left, glancing her at the corner of his optics.
"Why? We just passed that hallway.", Tatiana could no longer tolerate talking to a secretive, amnesiac hologram and aggressively turns around to let Richard see it for himself, the spot to which where they arrived. "B-B-But I don't understand, are we looping right now? This can't be it. We - ", the robot cheers himself up by concocting a logical hypothesis. However, that cheer is short-lived as Tatiana sees the rocks at the cave-in, thus proving that they really are in a never-ending loop. It didn't take long for Richard to see the rocks, thus shifting back to his troubled state.
" - shit...Welp, there goes my idea. I give up.", Tatiana looks down on the ground and grunts, she hates it when she's right. But it's her time to take the lead, so she face the hallways with a little bit of resolve in her mind, but tired of being filled with information that doesn't benefits her. If she doesn't make it out here alive, then she'll become a ghost and haunt that Richard forever. Ghosts are more badass than holograms.
The walls are different...There are no hallways in front, only a dirt wall ranging to the top, though she can't quite see the edge from her standpoint. She looks both her sides, to see two dark hallways. It pleases her to see a change rather than going back to their starting area. But there is something else that catches her eyes, she glances over at a skeleton of an adult size, leaning against the dirt wall. The bones slowly crumble to dust and there are no maggots or worms feasting on it. Mayhaps it's been picked clean, who knows how much ages this has been. Tatiana feels no sense of anxiety, since skeletons aren't that scary.
"Thank God, a change for once.", he waits for a response. "Tati?". Tatiana walks up to the skeleton, beside it is a 12 gauge Norinco trench gun with a missing bayonet leaning vertically backwards against the dirt wall and opened box of shotgun shells, some rolled outside of the box. This gun has been used, famously for trench warfare and close-quarters combat. It has the complete parts; the wooden authentic stock, the barrel, the heat shield, the bayonet lug and the leather swing swivels. Yet the barrel glows faintly from the inside, the light keeps pulsing like a heartbeat with a cerulean hue, which is very curious to see a glowing gun right beside a corpse, if this was another experimental gun, then things would get more interesting.
"We got a skelly. Here, take a look.", she unequips the robot from her back and places it down ahead. At first glance, Richard identifies it as a male soldier, but quickly second guesses to a female soldier basing on the jawline and the overall body size. "Search her.", his voice becomes stoic, intriguied by the skeletal remains.
Tatiana nods in response and scooches beside the skeleton, finding a glistening sliver box with a small panel on top of it, two large circular wheels adjacent to each other and other electronic wires and dials she can't comprehend. "I found a...recorder?", but before Richard could answer, Tatiana presses the PLAY button labeled, between PAUSE and REWIND.
The sound of a tape reel comes first from the silver box, the background noise is full of white noise and water...Heavy amounts of water gushing and flowing, but where? Then a series of cough roughly greets them, accompanied by a pained sigh.
"This one's for the trespassers.", the threatening yet physically weak feminine voice booms from the skeleton's hand, flinching Tatiana with a small fright. Richard recognizes the voice, despite it's alterations with the volume and static waves. Unable to see, Tatiana pictures Richard right now as awestruck by the voice. He knew this woman. "This is Kacy Tan, former Strategic Services specialist of the U.S Armed Forces and recently former chief technological officer of Area 51. If you're listening to this in front of my rotting corpse, then consider yourself lucky I didn't blow your brains out. But in this recording I want to be fair, because I am tired of bringing clueless intruders on the next station. Assuming you've cracked the code, which admittedly isn't my idea in the first place, there are thousands of robots, all heavily armed with tesla cannons, heavy machineguns, land mines and a little program dead-set on killing any biological matter along with my greatest creation; the Broodmothers. Giant mechanized tarantulas that rival even the super-tanks, installed with a self-reproducing station that selects a variety of robots, from the petty ComBots to the versatile Avatars, each Broodmother has a sustained production of 12 units per minute, the same rate of a semi-automatic rifle, so the longer you persist, the quicker you die. So please, for your sake, turn around, do the code in reverse then leave. Never come back.", the recording stops.
Tatiana couldn't imagine if she's met with that kind of firepower. It would take an army to bust this cave down to bits, but that would also ruin the intelligence and the goods hidden underneath. She swallows her resolve with terror and drops the recorder beside the skeleton. "U-Umm, I think we should take our chances and go back the way we came. I can dig another hole for us to get - "
" - Rewind it.", Richard spoke with no emotion. Tatiana does an "are you serious?" look. The robot slightly turns its head to her direction, meeting her feaful eyes.
"Please. ", he simply begged. She couldn't leave him hanging, after all, she owes him a ton of gratitude after what happened back at Greece. She was taught by a professional nonetheless, and she's declining his only solution to uncover his forgotten past. The little sister approaches the recorder once again, and press the REWIND button. There was a big pause, Richard waiting for something, even one sentence of response would be of great help.
"Fancy seeing you here, Goodman. Yeah, we're not on the first name basis like you always do. But you must be oozing with questions right now. You might be thinking to yourself, why is the body of the most infamous roboticist laying on the dirt, armed with a pitiful laser shotgun.", Laser shotgun? Tatiana tilts her head, questioning what makes that old shotgun so high-tech that it is able to shoot lasers from it. She listens to Kacy further,
"And who puts a Konami Code for a clue in a maze? Well to answer the second question; blame Cedric for that, imbecile was the first one to suggest it to Ralph. And second, Ralph gave me orders to guard this sanctum for the rest of my days. I know it's not like me to accept this kind of task, but ever since we've accomplished what the priestess told us, I wanted to retire in a more...unorthodox way. So I took it, to protect where it all began. On a side note, I have cancer. Ouch. But I still have my bots to do the hard work. You know those Broodmothers are just prototypes, right? It's a bluff. Just take the laser shotgun, and blow up any of my bots, they've served their purpose. Anyway, be safe out there. Ii'll just...lay down for a bit.", Kacy sighs longly, prompting the cancer to kick in, seemingly ending the recording.
Tatiana drops the recording device right next to Kacy's skeleton and takes the 'laser shotgun' she mentioned. It hardly looks like one due to the worn-out design, but the glowing texture inside prompts to fire t somewhere. But the ammo should be saved.
She glances at Richard, remaining silent throughout the recording, the core inside the ComBot hums stagnant. The faceless head staring at the skeleton, "Should we go on, or you wanna stay for a while?".
The director never spoke for a second, before tilting it's head towards her. "Yeah. I'm - ", clears his throat. "I'm good. It's just nice to see Kacy doing her duties, sophisticated as ever."
"Were you guys close?", she asks cautiously.
The robots shakes its head on both sides. "Close? Hah, on the contrary, I was close to one of them. Kerli. Her twin sister. However, the memories are still faded and quite static-y. We need to go deeper and, prepare for any threats. Be sure to grab that ammo box, you'll need it.
Tatiana grabs the box and studies the loading mechanism of the shotgun, then by common sense, loads some shells inside the gun and cocks it, ready for action. She heads to the robot and wears it back on her, then continues to finish the maze.
The walls rotate around her, watching over as she triggers all of the motion sensors. The movement vibrates across the entire maze, her feet tremble every time the maze made its move, implying she's getting nearer towards the end.
As she is about to do another right before B, A, Start. Tatiana sees a small child's silhouette, across the hallway and backed up by a bright yellow fluorescent lantern behind her, albeit the face is screened by the darkness. It stands upright, not moving an inch. Can't trust anything in this maze, Tatiana prones on the ground and squints her eyes, trying to get a good look at the child. Tatiana half-glances behind her. "We got contact.", she whipsers.
Richard minimizes the humming inside the bot to prevent detection. "How many?", he replies. Tatiana looks in front again, seeing the silhouette, nothing changed. Yet. "One. I don't know who, but it looks like...a little girl?", her brief description made Richard tenses up behind her, feeling a bad omen is about to happen anytime, "What should I do?".
"Uhh...try inching close to her without getting noticed.", Tatiana nods and slugglishly crawls to the unmoving form, still facing behind her. Once Tatiana is within visible proximity, she slowly gets up to a crouching position, and see the proper outfit of the little girl; short plain black with a white collar a golden necklace around her neck, shimmering faintly thanks to the light source behind her or it. On the other hand, her lower is a fitting black skirt, covering her knees and grey school shoes. Then lastly, her short wavy hair with spilt-ends, which added to her simplicity.
Tatiana stops for a moment, takes a deep breath, and reaches out to the inconspicious girl, her fingertips almost touches her shoudler. If this is another trick, then she would rather blow this one to bits with the laser shotgun, which honestly, didn't even bother to test if it really works or not.
But the little girl perks up and immediately turns around, her face now plastered with shock, finally meeting face to face. A second passes, the girl immediately gasps in fear and takes several steps back, panicking from the stranger before her.
"Hey! Hey! It's alright!", Tatiana tries to get herself in a good situation. Discovered, she stands up properly while also slowly taking steps backward to get some safe distance and raises both of her hands, The little girl purses her lips, her scared eyes keep staring at Tatiana, clutching a diary of some sort around her arms but the book seems to be withered, looking like Dr. Jose Rizal's books from the 1800s.
"Who - Who are you?", the girl replies with a scared whimper. Seeing the girl all alone, Tatiana refuses to be a dick and be like Johan; albeit fanactical, she knows what to do in a situation like this.
Tatiana swallows her fear and gently straightens her back, standing properly. "I'm Tati. Nice to meet you?", that last part was completely unnecessary. Nonetheless, the girl calmed down. "Now tell me yours, kid.".
"I...I can't remember, but my first name; Anne. I'm Anne.", the girl lowers her head in uncertainty, clearly she's been down here for too long. But something feels off about her figure, her clothes, even the way she just remembers her first name was odd. Does she know this cave system? Is this 'Anne' kid hiding something from her? Tatiana shakes off these unlikely circumstances and looks at the hallway ahead of her.
"Wh - What are you doing here, Tati?". The girl mentions her name ominously, glancing at the shotgun for one single second before facing her. Tatiana turns to Anne, her shotgun pointing the hallway. "There's something I need to get for somebody. It's...important...but you seem to be safe here. Why don't you stay here - "
" - No", she cuts her off. "I - I know where it is. It's just up ahead, behind the big sleeping robot.", she points to the dark abyss, but at least Tatiana knows what's in there. One big robot? Must be deactivated considering the years of unused technology belonged to the owner. "I can come with you, just in case something happens.", Anne suggests accompanied with a meager smile. Well, Tati have no choice, does she?
Tatiana sighs despondently. "Fine, but stay close behind me. I've already seen too much stuff already.", Anne slightly bowed then two then traversed the final hallway. Though as of now, Tatiana notices Richard never uttered a word until now, might be his "shut-up" protocol is still running.
The pair is the greeted by a large plain metal wall, matching the size of the Berlin Wall or any large cement wall you can find anywhere along the city or suburbs. The rough, rusty texture tells it must have been constructed carefully to bury the sides beneath the dirt walls, but not expecting corrosion due to a nearby water source seeping around the cave.
Tatiana looks to her right, away from the tall wall, "Huh...a panel?", she moves closer to the panel, observing it's hefty metal frame with a large camera popping out on top. On the left side of the panel is a dandelion-colored button which has a symbol of a face outlined with thin white lines. Honestly, she's confused. Tatiana turns to Anne, glancing at her diary back and forth, eventually catching Tatiana's gaze.
"Something the matter?",she asks. Tatiana steps aside for Anne to inspect the panel, which she then smiles at it. "It's a facial recognition lock. Just press the yellow button while facing the camera, but with how ugly it looks, I don't think it will - ", Anne hears a series of clanking sounds, echoing in the distance before staring at Tatiana, letting of the button of the facial recognition lock, which was a success. " - work."
While the metal wall slowly splits in half, Tatiana grips her shotgun and aims in front of her, ready to blast anything that comes out of that wall-door. But to her dismay, lights coming from above snaps on, giving Tatiana the unexpected flash of light. "Ah! The hell?!", Anne cowers behind the panel in fear, watching as the fluorescent lights turn on the same fashion as Alo and Johan discovering the Command Center, however instead of rows of server blocks, what stands before her are heaps of scrap metals, surrounding a lone giant robot, lying on the plain ground. Thanks to the sudden lighting, the design and color scheme (I forgot to add; it's white and blue) is similar to the ComBot, but more mechanoid. Fortunately, the legs seems to have been damaged because of the corrosion, at least it's a silver lining it can't move.
If the ComBot is similar to the RoboBrain, then this new robot is akin to the Avatar Mk.I from the Brotherhood of Nod, in the Command and Conquer series. Both share two of it's characteristics; it's size, and it's signature one-arm cannon. Yet there are changes to this, first off, the Avatar's main weapon was the laser cannon, the robot she's seeing was the typical shock blaster used by every ComBot and second, it's size. Normally, if she saw the original Avatar she'd pee herself and collapse, but in here, she feels uneasy anxious because it's structure is easily comparable to a coach bus. Nonetheless, both are large in their own way.
Tatiana lets out a huff, before taking a step inside the new area, but as soon as her foot pressed against the ground. The robot twitched erratically like a mannequin brought back to life, before standing "upright", it's blue, cold eyes staring blankly at her.
"SHIT! ANNE, HELP ME OU - ANNE?!", she turns to the girl who was way behind her, tearing up with regret, her fingers touching a new button, next below the one Tatiana pressed earlier. "I'm sorry...intruder.", before closing the exit door before her. Tatiana mentally screamed in her head, too late to realize the suspicious behavior of that kid.
She grits her teeth in frustration, "GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!", The large mechanoid raises the arm cannon, aims at her direction. The cannon glows intense and feels a surge of heat around Tatiana, despite the distance between them are far.
The robot creaks its arm cannon at Tatiana's new position and fires another blast. Tatiana snaps back and dodges the projectile again, rolling on the dirt, before colliding her body in a dirt wall. But one of the hard rocks managed to do a number on the left side of her head.
"Ngh...shit.", she curses as she quickly rips a piece of her clothing and wraps it around her wound, wincing from the pain. It'll have to do, but she needs medical attention. She gets up and hides in a nearby scrap heap, hearing the noise of rattling metal trying to inch closer to her spot. She takes off the ComBot from her back and smacks it with the back of her hand. "HEY! WAKE UP!", she kept repeating this until the robot comes to life.
"Wha - What's going on?! And what happened to you?! Are you okay?!", the robot panicked at her current state. Tatiana groans in annoyance, "I'm fine! Look, it's a long story. But a giant robot-thing is trying to kill ME! Can you deactivate it from there?!",
"Hold on, give me a sec.", the ComBot does a series of beeps before going back to Richard's transmission. "Uhh...there's no 'giant robot' within the roster! It must have been a glitch. I guess the only way to disable it is knowing the designation number. - ",
" - Designation number?! Seriously?! No weakspots?! Nothing?!", She bellows her voice out as the metal rattling slowly creeps behind her.
"Do you have a better idea?", Richard retorted. He's right. Only Richard has the "knowledge" about these robots, and if he can deactivate and activate thousands of robots at the same time, then why not this big-ass robot. Tatiana lets out a grunt before putting the ComBot on, getting out of cover, pointing the laser shotgun at the giant bot, point-blank range.
"Fuck off, big can.", before firing streams of green lights piercing the giant bot's central chassis, recoiling from pain. And luckily for her, she has the time to move to a nearby scrap heap, getting a good view of the designation number. "No number?!", she exclaimed in her head, yet the bot has regained it's posture, ready to fire its cannon again.
She ducks down behind the pile half-glances over the ComBot behind her. "Richard, there's no number! It's 'BOSUN' ", she replies the name of the threat.
"BOSUN?! Bosun, Bosun, Bosun...Oh, THAT BOSUN! Look there's no time to explain. Just shoot the core, it's located in his head.", Finally, something she could use against that thing. Instead of bringing the bot with her, she left it behind the scrap heap, then reloads the shotgun while running suicidally towards the robot now known as the BOSUN, charging it's weapon.
Once the gun is almost full charge, she jumps as high as she could, and just as she was going to land, the BOSUN fires it gun, missing the girl that was on the ground then unknowningly used the full force of the blast as propulsion towards the bot's head.
In a slow-mo cut, Tatiana unleashes all of the laser shotgun's cells, unto the BOSUN's face, critically damaging the core and eventually driving itself to shut down. The next thing she feels is the ground hitting against her entire body, along the BOSUN'S body atop of her.
Within the rubble of the rogue robot, a human hand erupts from the pile of steel, followed by another. Tatiana lifts herself up slowly. Her body aches in pain, her head spinning from that collision from the wall with the BOSUN's body and her legs quiver from fatigue. She clutches her bandaged head, still bleeding moderately. Her concentration gradually goes down, walking like a drunkard on the street. Suddenly, she sees a clean looking door, in contrast to the dirty cave around her. She woozily approaches the door then presses the button, not even caring what did she just do. Not soon after, her senses dwindle, until her eyes finally close.
DING!
The doors open in front of the passed out Tatiana, greeted by a yellow light along with another silhouette of an older woman.
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Fateful
Edgar Vogel was a 30 year old underemployed veteran who dropped out of college. His life was comfortable but all ambition was lost. His plans, born of depression and anxiety, were to simply live out his life of mediocrity and enjoy what little he could. That all changed, all it takes is something small to change fate, in his case ice. Reborn into a primitive but fantastical world, full of magic and monsters, he may make something of himself. Oh and there's a massive war against werewolf hordes on the mainland. Edgar, now Jon, has a second chance at life. His previous life was reduced to fragments of technical knowledge that come to him in the form of visions. His new home, the Northern Isles, is far removed from the conflict of the mainland for now as he lives in the quiet frontier village of Terra. His new family believes that fate can be changed and destiny overruled but he has no idea. Whether that's true or not, being told by a crazy old lady that his fate starts with him sitting by a rock in the middle of a field seems wrong, but who knows? Maybe she's right but what's the bit about 'await the bite' supposed to mean? Jon soon learns and his life changes forever. What can a young boy who's gained wolven-blood do? Will he be a monster or will he find salvation? Jon was bitten. ********************************************************************************** Welcome to the Northern Isles. My first story posted on here! I already have the outline of the first couple of books planned out and will be posting a new chapter every Tuesday and Friday. The story will be dark at times but I intend to keep things fairly light when I can. I'm aiming for a world that isn't full of sunshine and rainbows but isn't as bleak as it could be. Focusing on friendship, camaraderie, sh*t talking, and adventure.
8 125Transformed into a vampire Loli
The girl in the mirror is so perfect. She looks like a doll, her complexion is pale, her delicate nose is small and fluffy and her mouth is slightly bent to see her sharp teeth. A pair of beautiful red eyes are crystal clear, combined with short, fluffy silver white hair, is even more impressive. "Luna, I am so beautiful" The girl said extremely narcissistic words in a melancholic tone. Yuri story. (*๓´╰╯`๓)❤❤(๓´╰╯`๓*)
8 205Alit
What is luck? Is it something you're born with? Is it obtainable? Can something give luck? This short story follows a high school boy named Steven and the events that follow a fateful encounter.
8 147Versatile Mage Rewritten (((Discontinued)))
(((HAS SINCE BEEN DISCONTINUED))) Y'know how sometimes when you criticize a story someone asks you, "If you're so good at writing stories, make your own or rewrite it!"Well, I am. DISCLAIMER:Versatile Mage is a novel, anime, and manhua (comic) I do not own and am rewriting simply to practice writing. I have not read the novel, nor watched the anime. I am only rewriting the story of the manhua adaptation with as minimal changes as possible in an attempt to close the massive plot holes, inconsistencies, and unrealistic scenarios which bothered me. Please do not claim I am plagiarizing the original. Think of this as a fan fiction if you need to.Oh yeah, if you want to read the original novel or the manhua, they're both on Webnovel. Just search "Versatile Mage" over there.
8 141Sky World
Sky world online the first ever VR MMO that has been released. Join Leon on his quest to have fun and fight monsters.(This fiction will have a bit of swearing and a lot of violence with a little bit of gore you have been warned)This is my first try at a fiction i hope you enjoy it please comment if i have any errors in my grammar.
8 253Neon in the Dark - Morgan Wallen
"He stole my songs!" "Who!?""Morgan Wallen!"OrIn which Maggie Wilson and Morgan Wallen cross paths again through their careers. [7 Summers inspired]I own my own characters and none of the songs are mine.4/5/21 - 5/26/21
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