You reach the Hypertrain Station and catch the midnight train.
​
You ride with Cyan in silence out of the suburbs and across miles of sleeping city until the neon thins into fields, then into the black ribs of forest outside the city.
By the time the train eases into the maintenance yard and the doors hiss, it’s almost dawn.
“Now!” Cyan whispers, almost shouting
You run through an open door and off the train while it’s stopped. You follow Cyan into a maze of Hypertrain maintenance infrastructure, through a chainlink fence and into the forest.
The air feels mild, and a bit cooler now.
Dew covers the leaves and slicks the dense rainforest terrain.
“Still heading in the right direction?” you ask.
Cyan’s eyes glow with the reflection of her GPS holo-display.
“Yup. East by northeast.” She tucks the display away and points.
“Cut through there.”
You reach a path, overgrown with giant ferns
and massive other-worldly plants.
Eventually you reach a moonlit clearing
where you both come to an abrupt stop.
​
The observatory rises out of the trees
like an ancient monument from a bygone era.
The satellite dish is enormous, sagging on its mount,
a white bowl painted with vines and graffiti.
A rectangle shaped building huddles beneath it,
windows scabbed by plywood.
​
A single bird calls out in the distance.
​
“Romantic” Cyan says, as she forces open the rusted doorway.
​
​
It’s dark except for a faint electronic pulse somewhere deep within the maze of rooms. The air smells like dust and burnt electronics.
Cyan clicks on her light.
The beam cuts through a control room fossilized in place: dead monitors, petri-dishes, coffee cups, a chair on its side.
Your shoes crunch through desiccated leaves.
“Holy shit” she whispers.
At the far end, where the satellite dish would feed into the instruments, something stands in a cradle of cables and steel.
A Security MECH.
Ten feet of industrial armor with limbs like excavator arms, shoulders belt-fed with tubing and wire. Its chest plate is open, and in that cavity, nestled like a heart, a stone glows aquamarine.
“The fragment,” you breathe.
You take one step. Two.
The room snaps to life.
A deep internal whirr. A flash. Red lines sweep the floor.
“ＷＡＲＮＩＮＧ,” a digitized voice booms, slightly off in pitch.
“ＬＡＳＥＲ… ＴＡＲＧＥＴＩＮＧ…
ＳＹＳＴＥ％ ＡＣＴＩＶＡＴＥＤ.”
The MECH’s optics flare. Plates slide into place.
The cradle detaches.
It stands.
A Flash.
​
Cyan yelps and drops to a knee, clutching her shoulder.
A shallow burn scorches her jacket where the beam grazed her.
“That was close”
“Your knife!” you shout.
She fumbles; the knife skitters across the floor.
You dive, spin and scoop it up.
​
The MECH tracks you.
On its shoulder, a logo stares: XENOS INDUSTRIAL
Its torso pitches, servos whining.
​
You run straight at it.
At the last second you drop to a slide and thrust the
blade up into the cavity where the fragment sits.
The knife sinks into the exoskeleton.
For a heartbeat nothing happens.
Then everything happens at once.
The MECH shrieks in a voice made of metal.
Gears seize. White sparks fan out in a sheet.
The red targeting lines stutter and go out.
The machine slumps against its cables, hissing.
You wrench the fragment free.
It’s smaller than yours but brighter,
and its melody jumps across your skin like static.
“Come on!” you grab Cyan “These things self-repair!”
You guide her down the corridor.
​
Behind you, something clanks.
You make a run for it.
​
Just as you reach daylight Engines thunder overhead.
Wind slaps your face.
A hovercraft drops through the trees like it’s been here a hundred times. XENOS INDUSTRIAL is stencilled along the hull in white letters.
The ramp lowers. A figure jogs down - grease-stained jacket,
messy dark brown hair, eyes bright.
“Need a lift?” Xeno says.
You exhale so hard it’s almost a laugh. “How did you-“
“No time to explain!” He interrupts, gesturing toward the craft
