Chapter 13
PRIMAL FEAR
SRC: Request Timed Out
The silence that followed was total.
No one moved.
The girl didn't breathe.
Xu's heart had already stopped.
But it was in the air. The tension was pulled so tight it felt like it would snap.
…
The helmet deployed.
Xu charged through the locker door, rushing for the door with everything he had. His foot pressed off the ground and… his view completely changed. He was unsure just how much stronger he had become from his recent advancement. It became clear almost instantly that it was far more than he had guessed.
He shot over the ground like an arrow.
He reached the end of the corridor. He barely turned his head before a glowing blue, circuit-traced fist entered his vision.
CRACK.
Xu dodged the strike by a millimeter. The wall to his right wasn't so lucky.
It crumbled like it had been made of styrofoam.
Plates slid up over the man’s head with expensive precision.
A plate that formed the visor detached and shot down his arm, then flew off, latching straight onto Xu’s shoulder.
CLICK.
Six holes opened throughout, wires shooting in every direction, as they dug into the surroundings.
"Headed somewhere?" the man spoke. His phase-pistol was drawn at eye level. "I’ll answer that for you. No. You weren't."
Xu said nothing.
The man tilted his head slightly. "You know what she is. You know what I'm doing, and you knew where to find her. Which means you're either incredibly stupid or a very talented tracker."
"I am incredibly stupid," Xu said.
Nothing flashed.
"I'm lost. Very lost. I was looking for a place to maybe… die quietly?" he explained.
The man's visor tilted. "...What?"
"You're a Prime Zero, right?" the man interrupted.
"Fourth stage Zero, yet have physically impossible readings."
Xu's blood went cold.
"How do you—"
"National Cultivation Database. Public record. You set off every flag in the system a few days ago, buddy. Besides. Did you forget? I just watched the speed at which you just moved." The man's tone didn't change. "Every merc and researcher in the city got a notification. Anomalous development subjects are Val-uab-le.” He drew out every syllable.
"So here's what happens next," the man continued. "You sit down. And twiddle your—”
“What’s that?”
His eyes landed on a steel maroon box pocking out of Xu’s bag.
“You know what they say about walking a thousand miles. Well, I’ll BE DAMNED.”
Xu’s hand twitched towards his nanosaber.
"Suit's reaction time is three milliseconds. I’ve got some pretty nice combat prediction algorithms. You'll be dead before your fingers touch the hilt."
Xu believed him.
The girl made a sound.
Xu glanced down the hall at her.
She was staring at him. Her eyes were desperate. Pleading.
they said.
Xu's mind raced.
The girl's eyes bored into him. It really is what I was looking for… Well, I won’t be needing this.”
He reached up to the side of his visor and clicked a button.
The woman at the end of the hall splattered over the walls.
Xu’s jaw clenched.
His hand dropped to the nanosword.
The man's arm moved before he seemed to even understand what was happening.
Xu drew.
BANG.The pistol fired.
Xu threw himself left as plasma seared past his face.
His nanosword swung wildly.
It cleaved air, then bit into the barrel of his pistol.
VZZZZZT.
The blade screamed as its energy sawed through the pistol.
Sparks exploded. The pistol completely split as its power cell erupted in a flash of blue light.
KA-CHA.
The man stumbled back, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes. "What the—"
Xu lunged forward, cleaving down with his blade.
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The nanosuit's plating shifted to reinforce itself.
Reactive armor.
The man impossibly slid to the right. Xu pushed his entire strength through his strike.
The cables restraining him groaned like a zip tie.
PENG.
Xu's swing hitched, the sheer force tore the wires clean out of the wall, but gave the man just enough time to glide out of range.
His blade split the ground beneath him.
The man's fist.
Xu saw it.
It burrowed into his ribs anyway.
The world tilted.
Xu shot backward and crashed through the wall. His vision pulsed white. Pain shattered across his left side where broken concrete spiked through his skin.
He tried to breathe, but couldn't. His ribs were broken. Maybe his lung was pierced, too.
COUGH.
Xu's blood painted the floor.
The man walked toward him slowly. Calmly. Like he had all the time in the world, as he unsheathed a knife from his belt.
The vibrating blade warped the light around it as he stepped over Xu and drove it straight down at his chest.
Xu's arms shot forward, shakily wrapping both of his hands around the man’s wrist.
The nanosuit groaned and clicked.
His arms were giving.
Clunk.
Click.
The pressure intensified.
Click.
Click.
The ground dissolved, swallowing them whole.
Stone was flying. Electricity was sparking. Green lights flashed his vision as they plummeted lower.
Xu felt a pain crush into his stomach. He ripped the man’s knee away.
A hand grabbed a fistful of his hair. Xu swung blindly.
CREEEEEAAAAK.
He felt metal bending underneath his knuckles as he heard a warning alert from the suit.
Then everything stopped falling.
WHAM.
Xu's body ricocheted off stone.
Plink. Plink. Crack.
More rained from the ceiling, pelting him with heavy bowling balls of rebar and rock as he curled to protect his head.
Whirl.
Xu fell parallel to gravity. Went through the stairs. Rolled down the rest of them as he creaked into a railing.
His ribs screamed.
Xu got up anyway.
He dove down the stairs.
He threw up blood onto the ground.
Six more floors down.
Xu rounded a corner—and stopped.
A door. Hanging open.
Inside: cables and old Server equipment.
He looked back. Mechanical footsteps pulverized stone.
He grasped the purple crystal in his pocket. Relief seeped through his body.
He turned back towards the elevator, but suddenly a silhouette blocked his path.
He reached for his pocket. His hand wasn't there.
Panic spiked. He looked right. Ten feet away, his arm floated in mid-air, perfectly sleeved, executing his exact motion. To his left, a section of a ribcage hovered in the dark. He touched his chest—it sank into overly squishy skin.
A nanosuit burst into the room, charging forward with a wound-up fist.
The suit blurred. A sweeping kick forced Xu left, instantly followed by an arcing heel that tore towards his jaw. Xu threw himself back, but his hand hadn't returned. He slammed hard into the concrete.
THUD.
Xu looked down past his feet and saw the upper half of a nanosuit flush with the floor.
He heard panic echo from the insides of the suit.
A figure stumbled out of the darkness.
Xu scooted back towards the maroon box incrementally.
The figure shambled up to what was now only a torso. His head had been displaced.
But then Xu stopped.
It turned the torso over, and revealed it's organs. None of them bled. It was as if they had never been any other way.
His eyes clung to the figure.
It cupped its hand, then dug into the bottom of the torso like it was a cookie jar.
A scream rang out from the darkness, echoing around the walls.
Xu's blood coursed through his veins like sap.
His chest tightened.
Another figure stumbled out from the darkness, walking toward a small slab of meat that lay on the floor.
Xu made a sprint to the elevator and pressed the—
He felt his body slam into the elevator. But his vision didn't move.
He tried to look down, but nothing changed. Stone sat just inches beneath his nose. His head had also been displaced..
The screaming echoes bubbled, then faded.
Xu's eyes scanned wildly, he could just make out the outline of his body in the elevator.
He flailed, trying to hit the button.
If I can just get that elevator to get me far enough away from here, then—
Step.
No.
Step.
What he had seen earler replayed in his mind.
Step.
Xu flailed even harder. He heard something whirl to life in the distance.
Step.
His ears felt something cold. His vision rose, then suddenly swung to the floor. A chest and two arms extending from the sides of his face filled his vision.
The world was upside down.
More and more of the figure bled into view as he was raised higher and higher.
He saw its arms bending. He saw it hunch.
He saw a chin and the bottom of a wide-open mouth before he felt them bite into the base of his neck.
He was blinded.
Xu was heaving for breath.
He was sprawled out in the elevator. Staring at the ceiling as lights flashed in from the floors, it was passing. He grabbed his neck and pulled his hand back to find it covered in blood. He white-knuckled the crystal and tried to steady his breathing.
>>> POST-OP_TRANSACTION_LOG <<<
Mark-III Reactive Nano suit:
5,000,000 CR
3ms Combat Prediction Algorithm:
2,500,000 CR
Organ removal (Cookie Jar Style):
COMPLIMENTARY
TOTAL COST:
7.5 MILLION CR
"If we take away anything, let it be: If something is free, it just means money wasn't the cost."
Request Pending: Lethal Resonance
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[ RECENT_COMMENTS ]
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