The whirl of the impact driver in Madsen's hand did a lot to keep her mind from slipping into a ditch. The tool gyrated within her fingers and she had to apply pressure to make sure it stayed aligned with the screw she was trying to spin back in. Surely enough, this final bolt sunk into place and securely fixed the front roll cage back onto the rest of the structural skeleton.

Madsen curled her fingers through the bars of the roll cage and tugged on it. It didn't budge.

The engineer lowered the driver onto a locker she had detached from the wall to use as a worktable, dusted off her hands, then planted them onto her hips. It was no time to be proud of her work, but she was never one for managing her time properly. Why start? There were still a couple things left to do and she still didn't know if she actually fixed the problem, so she wasn't exactly eager to power it back on.

Whatever pierced the platform's outer layers tore straight into one of two air bladders (presumably artificial lungs) that were mounted inside the chest cavity. Madsen had just drained the excess E-Gel from the compromised sack, patched the holes with self-healing polymer strips, and reattached the roll cage. For her to be able to do any of that, first she had to make a big incision down the front of the machine's synth-meat layers and peel them open so all of its insides were exposed. It didn’t lose an excessive amount of E-Gel when she did this because since Madsen shut down all processes, the E-Gel plant wasn’t producing any more of the stuff. She was hoping she would be able to fix this aforementioned gigantic incision as well, but hey, one thing at a time.

While she was in there, she saw signs of previous repair. Someone had used nanos to mend the tiny E-Gel delivery pathways in several places throughout the chassis, as well as some skeletal frame cracks. They left tiny print lines in the matter they fixed up. It gave her the idea to use the same stuff to reconnect the pathways severed by the giant slice she made in its torso.

Like it was a jacket, Madsen folded the machine's synth-meat back over its roll cage then turned to the open maintenance kit, which sat on her makeshift workbench. She snatched a device that looked like the handle of a spray gun with a screen on it, and one of the ten tiny vials of clear liquid lined up in the case. This Flow nano-repair injector was a convenient way to quickly apply nanos to hard to reach places or to mend systems that were way too sensitive to repair by hand. Using impressive microscale 3D printing technology, they could temporarily band-aid issues, or outright mend microscopic damage. Madsen was hoping that the E-Gel pathways would be classified as microscopic damage…but there was no way of knowing until she tried.

Madsen thumbed the vial of liquid into the Flow’s payload receptacle. Its display lit up, reading:

HIGH DENSITY SOLUTION

D-121 ‘Cellus’ x500

CAUTION- CONNECT TO DIAG SUITE BEFORE APPLICATION

It took a moment for Madsen to pair the Flow with the robot’s onboard diagnostics suite using her DIAG-R console; that way, they’ll directly liaise with the suite and automatically know what to target without Madsen having to manually send commands.

She ran the Flow down the incisions she made on the platform’s body, generously spraying the delivery fluid. Then, she injected the rest into the wound in its armpit, the most severe damage. The Flow beeped and displayed the message:

PAYLOAD DELIVERED

CURRENT OPERATION: REPAIRING LAYER ‘E-Gel delivery pathways’

PROGRESS

[-][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 5%

Madsen stowed it back into the kit and brandished the roll of self-healing polymer tape. After giving the nanos enough time to navigate their way into the subsystem, she stuck a long strip onto the platform’s chest, then patched the holes in his armpit with other smaller lengths of it. This area required multiple layers of tape to build up the thick tissue that had been sliced away. After it was all applied, Madsen pressed firmly against the strips to help them bond with the machine’s existing layer of polymer.

With all of that finally done, the only thing left to do was wait for the nanos to reconnect the E-Gel veins. Madsen sat herself onto her locker/table and exhaled sharply. She was trying with all of her strength not to think about the crew. The work gave her heaps to concentrate on. Right then, she had nothing to do but to just sit there… It was sudenly a lot harder. Every person who set foot into space, especially those in Madsen’s line of work, were trained for when bad shit happened. It was the only reason she wasn’t a writhing mess. That said, she was pretty damn close to it.

Vuong…John was dead. What was Madsen going to say to Greg? Hey, sorry, your husband's dead but surprise, I'm still alive for some reason. Yeah, not quite. She started bouncing her foot up and down. She couldn’t afford to stay still for too long. For her sake and for the sake of her crew. Their families deserved answers.

Slapping her out of her session of looking thoughtfully at the wall, the Flow chirped. Madsen fumbled for it and whistled in relief when it said that the repairs were complete. Coming shortly was the moment of truth. She swapped the Flow for the DIAG-R and hopped to her feet.

Here goes.

Madsen tapped the ‘STARTUP’ command on the robot’s SSD.

What happened was extremely anticlimactic. Its eyes lit back up and it blinked rapidly for a second or two. It looked at Madsen and swallowed. She could see its face warp as it felt that something was different. It peered down at where its wound was and saw a new layer of tissue covering it. It took a handful of deep breaths, clearly noticing that it could breathe properly. “Thou hath performed a miracle,” it muttered, amazed.

Madsen squinted. Instead of saying anything, she kinda just opened her mouth and a long, confused “Uh…” trailed out of it.

“Art thou an angel?”

“What?”

“An angel,” it repeated, voice light and bewildered.

Madsen rubbed the bridge of her nose and raised a hand as she interjected, “No, no, I heard you. Just didn’t really…want to.” She shook her head and changed the subject, planting her hands onto her hips. “Look, who built you?”

The robot, after slipping back into his dirty shirt and lacing it back up, stood straighter and answered, “God. Surely thou know this.”

Madsen sighed as she packed all of the tools back into the maintenance kit. “Sure. Can you take me to…God?” She said the last word with a heavy eye roll.

“…He reigns over us in the eternal realm of Heaven,” it answered, donning its chain armour and reattaching the arm pieces.

She pulled off her work gloves and shoved them back into the pocket of her flight suit. “I need to talk to 'him', okay? There are a few…just a few questions about your design I want answered and just in case you forgot, we’re standing in a room full of my dead colleagues.” As she spoke, the platform strapped itself into its breastplate. “I need to get word to J.A.C. administration.”

The platform stared at her, like it all went over its head. Its eyes suddenly darted down to the left breast of Madsen’s flight suit. “M…Madsen. Is that thy name?”

She was dangerously close to picking up the DIAG-R and shutting this thing down again. I thought it was annoying before…but now it just won’t shut up. But instead, Madsen took a deep breath, put on a very fake smile, and replied, “Yes.”

The robot anxiously wrung its hands. “Madsen, thou art in mortal danger. We must take our leave in case the Clthics still remain in the Under.” The knight insisted. It leapt onto the ladder and slid down the shaft and out of sight. Okay.

Madsen, with the maintenance kit in one hand, came down the ladder and stepped onto the crew deck. There were bodies tossed around the place, all brutally shanked and/or shot. The fact that they were the same kind of platforms as the knight only confused the engineer even more.

The knight picked a couple things up off the floor; a really long knife, a sword…and a gun. It stuffed the two blades into holster things that hung on its belt. Madsen had never seen one in real life before, but she recognised the firearm as a Type 1B Directed Energy Weapon. Osei worked for Hackman-Zarb, the defence company that made those things. She never let anyone forget that she was the project lead on the T1Bs. For centuries, humans had finally stopped trying to screw itself over. Hard to believe, even for Madsen, but it was true. There were some occasions where weapons were needed; even in times of widespread peace, there were still groups that wanted to shake things up. They were still so rare that Madsen had only seen non-lethal sidearms worn by cops up until then.

"Woah, woah, woah," Madsen started. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

The knight glanced down at the plasma rifle. "I know the true nature of magic."

Madsen stared at its face in speechless disbelief. Her left brow and cheek twitched.

"Okay, just for saying stupid shit like that, you don't get to have it anymore. Give it to me," she commanded, sticking a hand out. She wasn't about to let a goddamn robot that wasn’t licensed and approved by SysCon wave a weapon around like that.

Without hesitation, it nodded. "Thy will be done."

It knelt, lowered its head, and raised the rifle up to Madsen cupped in both hands, like it was a goddamn magic wand or something. She accepted it with a sigh.

The knight promptly stood. It glanced over at the wall and suddenly its eyes glowed brighter. "May I ask thee a question?"

"Uh, sure."

"Why are there articles of furniture affixed to the walls?"

Madsen, using the leather strap on the rifle, slung it onto her back. "These rooms spin when we're in orbit. The centrifugal forces simulate gravity."

The knight shrugged. "I…am afraid I do not understand."

"Well, that's your fault," Madsen quipped. "So what's with these guys?" she abruptly asked, practically cutting herself off. As she spoke, she urgently pointed at the disabled platforms on the floor. Madsen realised that a few of them, the ones with plasma rifles by their sides, wore very familiar clothing. They looked like stitched-together patches of military fatigues or even flight suits.

The robot's eyes fluttered for a moment. "The sorcerers…they turned on us. They wished to kill thee in thy sleep. We, the knights of the Church, laid down our lives to protect what we thought to be brought to us by God."

Madsen finally started to feel a little scared. They wanted…to kill me? Surely he's just making this up. Part of this whole Disneyland gimmick. Right?

The knight lowered himself to one of the deactivated robots, female in appearance, then laid a hand onto its forehead.

“Uh…what are you doing?”

“I am praying for her. She deserved better,” whispered the knight. Madsen watched as he exhaled a very rickety breath. The engineer then puffed up her cheeks and looked away. God this is awkward.

She was drawn over to the airlock. As she approached, she felt a chilling breeze wash over her. There were few things that she expected to see. Sunlight or moonlight, streetlights, lit windows on the buildings, and people. What mattered was that she didn’t see any of that. Apart from the old gantry that was hugging the Hera XII Launch System, everything else was in complete darkness. She couldn’t even see any stars.

Suddenly, after squinting upward, she realised that she was inside an atmo-dome. Technically speaking, it would’ve been obsolete tech for this world…used only in Phase 1 of Planetary Acclimation to establish outposts on planets before terraformation took place. The domes would maintain a breathable atmosphere and act as bases for the first people to set foot on the world. Madsen knew for a fact that this place was beyond Phase 1. Her flight was coming in to make sure Phase 4 machinery was operating on spec. Why would someone move the Hera XII into this antiquated launch site…and prime it for launch? We just got here. And…did they get the memo that they need to open the dome for a rocket to not crash into it?

Madsen’s eyes drifted to the surrounding J.A.C. complex. The buildings were just as dark. Scarred by explosions. Some fires were sputtering in the streets. She could see more bodies out there. Still, she wasn’t sure which notion scared her more; that they could be people, or that they were all more machines. Whatever was going on, there was definitely no one left.

Madsen snapped as she came back into the ship, “What the hell happened out there?”

The knight had arranged the other platforms in the room into a neat row. They all had their hands clasped over their chests. “We fought a fierce battle against the Clthics in order to reach thee. All of my brothers in arms lost their lives.”

Madsen sighed. It was clear that it couldn’t help her. It was designed to act like it was a knight, so anything outside of that was impossible for it to respond to. It couldn’t give her real answers. “Well, fuck me,” Madsen muttered to herself as she walked back over to the ladder.

“Where art thou going?” asked the platform, confused.

She replied as she mounted the ladder, “Cargo hold.”

“Cargo hold…? Thou speak as if this is a vessel.”

Without bothering to reply, Madsen slid down.

The cargo hold was freezing and dimly lit. It wasn’t a centrifugal chamber like the crew deck or the cryo deck; it wasn’t really designed for use during transit. You just packed all the shit in there, sealed it up, then opened it when the ship docked with an orbital station or landed. It was a whole lot uglier than the upper decks too; no effort was made to cover up the gunmetal mechanical parts and structural braces of the Hera XII Launch System’s inner-frame. Stacks upon stacks of crates were fixed to the walls with heavy duty magnetic clamps. They contained anything from personal belongings, maintenance gear, prototype hardware, to emergency food and water. It was basically a massive cylindrical warehouse about three storeys tall. Yeah, she had to climb down all the way from the crew deck. Usually, ground control would just unload using the cargo elevator straight onto the launchpad but apparently they were too busy sticking their thumbs up their asses.

Madsen stepped off the ladder and approached a control panel. Before she had a chance to concentrate on it, she heard the very loud clacking of metal on metal. She peered upward and saw the knight climbing down the ladder, its armour clacking steadily with every move it made. Now that it was repaired, it moved with a great deal of control and organic fluidity. The pathfinding software on it had to be incredibly powerful for it to climb without making critical errors. Hell, just the other week Madsen watched a state-of-the-art AA-TQ with the latest pathfinding firmware slip and fall down a flight of stairs on a worksite. Four legs and it still fell over like a dumbass.

With a shake of her head, Madsen focused on the controls. Her fingers danced across the panel thoughtlessly like she’d done this a million times before. She both heard and felt the knight’s footsteps as it came closer. With a final tap on the screen, the magnetic braces shuddered and squeaked.

The knight jumped in terror, its hand tight on the handle of its sword. “It’s okay,” she said reflexively.

As soon as the two words left her mouth, she cursed herself. Why did you do that? It’s a goddamn walking computer, it’s not going to give a–

She watched as its shoulders eased and the fingers of its right hand relaxed. Its lip quivered, then it stood a little straighter. God, I don’t have time to figure this shit out right now.

A robotic arm, folded against the wall, unfurled itself and straightened out. Fixed to an omnidirectional armature that travelled via a network of rails along the walls, the crane executed a specific set of commands that saw it fixing itself to a crate, disengaging the mag-clamps, setting the container down onto a heavy duty load lifting cart, then repeating. The knight stared with its mouth open as the arm slid side to side, up and down, and handled the cargo with cold efficiency. Madsen watched the expressions on its face, a strange sensation of fear distilling in the pit of her stomach.

Before long, the cart was stacked to capacity with ten crates, each about the size of a washing machine. Most of it was everyone’s personal belongings, then food, and some equipment that Madsen thought might be useful if something serious really did happen on this planet.

The cart was bright yellow with a few black hazard labels along its side. It was also plastered with the Anvil Heavy Fabrication logo. Madsen affectionately slapped the side of the machine, a PLL-HD02 unit. She and most people that worked at Anvil just called them Phils.

She powered it on then grabbed the handles on the back of the cart. Then she pushed. As she applied pressure, the Phil's electric engine whirred to life. It was actuated by her pressure, but it drove itself in order to lift the near-1 tonne of cargo. Madsen pushed it over to a specific spot on the ground, denoted by a plethora of warning labels and stuff. The knight stopped at her side, eyes pinned on the Phil. They both stood there for a bit.

“Hey,” said Madsen.

The knight shook and turned to face her. She pointed at the floor, where his feet were directly overlapping a panel line that was coated in bright yellow and matte black hazard stripes. Clumsily, he stepped within the perimeter of the shape. Finally, Madsen groaned and slammed a button on the wall.

Warning klaxons wailed, joined by flashing yellow lights. The knight hunched over, shielding its eyes from the lights. Madsen ran a hand down her face as the cargo elevator shifted and began its journey down onto the launchpad.

The knight peered over the edge of the descending platform, muttering things to itself as it made weird gestures with its hands. Madsen did her best to ignore it.

When the elevator grinded to a halt at the foot of the Hera XII, Madsen got a closer look at the bodies she saw from the crew deck airlock. They were all robots. Just like the knight. Some of them wore nothing but creepy masks, others wore knight armour, and others had those stitched up fatigues. They killed each other…shot themselves to bits. And this wasn’t just a few of them like onboard the Hera XII. There had to be hundreds of totalled platforms out there.

She stepped away from the elevator platform and the Phil, approaching a cluster of deactivated machines. These were the masked ones, so Madsen had an opportunity to have a look at their entire uncovered bodies. Every inch of them was designed to be human. Not exactly human, but extremely close. Their skin tones ranged from deep maroon, baby blue, to sunflower yellow. The women, like the men, were also anatomically correct. Why? When Madsen seized the shoulders of one of them and tried to lift them, she expected it to be impossible. But instead, the female robot had to weigh around 50-60 kilos. Why? More importantly to Madsen though, was how? An incredibly complex machine, way more complicated than anything Madsen had ever seen…very purposely designed to be as complex as the human body…and it weighed less than a fridge.

She shook her head and stood. Addressing the unseen makers of these machines, she thought to herself, what the hell is this place? Some kind of…arena? You set these things against each other and watch them kill each other instead of making real people do it? What kind of lunatic would want to even try this?