Breaking The News
Michael and I had stolen the nearest snowmobile and bolted out of there. Thank god there were a few left. We soon arrived at the helicopter, but we saw a body. It seemed to be the girl that Captain Elaine was with. I felt her pulse. Damn. It seems she died right at the finish line. Michael dragged her body into the helicopter. I lay down flat, exhausted. My eyes closed. I was excited to go back home.
The Builder and I agreed that if I survived this battle, he'd show me a project that he'd been working on for a while. Both of us had been quite busy since we knew that the botfight was coming up soon. The fight took place in a small 5x5 arena. The walls resembled what you might see in a boxing ring. 5 human-controlled bots would stay at the center while surrounded by 20 regular bots. The last one standing would be the winner.
However, there were some constraints. The first one was that you couldn't attach any firearms because that would make the fight too short. Nobody wants to see that. Secondly, it's remote-control only. Who wins is dependent on your skills with coding its attacks and your hand-eye coordination. If you failed this test, then you wouldn't be fit to work in security; they sometimes used drones to scout faraway places. The 3rd constraint was that you couldn't sabotage the other person's bot. If you did, then you'd be disqualified. The point of a bot fight was not to see how good you were at sabotaging, but to see how good you were at controlling weapons from far away. This was with the assumption that you were evenly matched. The 4th and final constraint was that you could only attack each other once the regular bots were out.
I awoke to Michael shaking me, and we got off. I wasn't feeling completely refreshed, but my head was in a much better place. We carried the body to the graveyard and dug a small hole near a blank gravestone. I burned Mer's body with my firestick. Within minutes, she was just ash. Michael pulled a cacao bean out of his pocket and buried it with her ashes. Michael then carved on the gravestone, "Here lies our most beloved friend, Mer Avalanche, Jan 12th, 5454 to May 14th, 5473, One of the strictest and most disciplined people, but also the one with the biggest heart out of all of us. She should've made it to Captain today, so we'll celebrate on her behalf."Michael lit a candle for her, and we got on our knees and prayed. I hoped she passed away peacefully.
We went back into the main Fortress, and guards saluted us. Some even congratulated us for passing. Only kids under 20 went through this experience. Everyone else was automatically sent somewhere else. Whether they got training or not was up to the fortress commander. Here, that was the Leader, but not everyone was as 'generous' as him.
We headed back to my dorms after ordering food, and I called the Builder to join us as well. A few moments later, I heard a knock on the door. It was the Builder holding food. I guess the bot just gave it to him and left. We set boxes on the table and washed up. Soon, I was eating a warm chicken sandwich, served with a cookie crumble milkshake. That hit the spot. The battle felt like an eternity, so I couldn't remember the last time I ate a good meal. Normally, on training days, I couldn't eat food, but there were holidays in between, so I could eat with them then.
"Oh, chomp, yeah. I remember something. I was with Captain Elaine on this mission."
"Oh damn! Really?! You're so lucky!"
"Bro, what?! She acted like an absolute bitch toward me."
"Are you still sleepy or something? Dude, we're like best buds."
"Nah, like when I said 'aw dang, I wish Michael were here, she screamed at me and told me not to say your name with my dirty tongue. Like I was pretending to know you, my childhood friend?"
"What?! I'm pretty sure I told her I had a best friend."
"Come on, man! Did you even tell her my name?"
"I did... oh wait, that day she was working kinda hard. She's kind of a workaholic."
"Dude, you need to teach her some better habits."
"Where is she anyway?"
"I don't know, we kind of split up on this mission."
"Oh, she did that plan, huh? I bet you were quite annoyed when she left more people on the outside than on the inside."
"Yeah. I was."
"I'll get her to apologize when I see her. But I'm starting to get kind of worried. She normally texts me."
"If that's the case, then I think I know what happened to your girlfriend. I warned her earlier, but I don't think she quite acknowledged what I said."
"She's not my girlfriend! She's my teacher!"
"Yeah, say that to her face. Anyway, if what I think happened, and I think it did, we can go ahead and do that later."
The Builder, who had been gleefully watching this play out, finally spoke, "I agree. We can talk to Captain Titan later and-"
"No!" I yelled way too loudly. He looked at me, a surprised look plastered on his face.
"What?"
"Michael, I think it's time we told him the truth." He looked at me solemnly and nodded.
"What truth?"
"The thing is," I gulped, but continued, "We plan to betray the Leader and defect."
"WHY?!" The Builder's face was beet red. I had never seen him this way before.
"Because! He hurt me in a way that I can never recover from!"
He paused for a few seconds. He was angry, but his next words were, "What did he do?"
"When Michael and I were getting abducted, I escaped. But then Captain Titan blew up my house and shot my grandfather right in front of me. It wasn't even an order from the Leader. He just felt like it!"
The color drained from his face, and the Builder's once angry eyes turned sorrowful. "I see. Then I have no right to judge you. But what do you plan to do?"
"I plan to escape tonight. Michael and I. He wants to take his girlfriend, I bet-"
"Not my girlfriend," Michael interjected.
"And I want to take you... my teacher, my brother, and my friend."
The Builder looked down, clearly conflicted. Could he really betray the Leader? After all this time? Not now! NO! He didn't like a change of pace! But... he'd grown quite fond of Veris. His humor, heck, even his presence, was just enough to make him happy. He decided, there was always day one for change.
"Al..Alright then. I will accompany you."
The tension in the air had now been significantly reduced. We all sighed.
The Builder lifted the awkwardness, "Alright. Then here's the plan. First, I'll show you what I've been working on, and you all finish your bots. Then, after that, we need some kind of distraction so we can escape. As we're escaping, we'll take a trip down to the detention block, and then we'll be home free."
"Actually, your plan will need a few fixes," I said. " You show me what you built. Michael and I check the files on promotion day since our permissions will have been updated by then. They need to have all permissions updated by that day, and EOs to Captains are the first ones that they update. I need to find more information on my grandfather. After that, we can use Damon's robot as a distraction. She's not participating in the bot fight, which means that her bot is in public storage. If one of us can sneak a bomb onto her bot, we can essentially make it explode, prematurely starting the promotion ceremony's fireworks. After that, Michael can use his newfound Captain's badge to break in and get Elaine during the botfight since you can't participate. Builder, you are going to pack up your stuff and get us a ride. Meanwhile, I'll kill Captain Titan. I'm bringing Bucket along, too, by the way. He'll be of help to me.
"Shouldn't you take me as well with you?" asked Michael.
"The Builder doesn't have access rights to release prisoners as he wishes, and this might take a while as well, in case they catch on. Besides, you're the one she'll want to see the most."
Michael scoffed and said, "I mean, if you insist."
"Don't act like you're doing me a favor."
"Alright, you two, stop fighting, let's go to my workshop," chuckled the Builder, patting both of us on the head.
We headed downstairs, out of the dormitory, and into the working district. The smell of sweet smoke wafted from the grills, and colorful lanterns were hung up everywhere. Today was technically the anniversary of what would've been when our normal school ended. After today, you'll be allowed to go anywhere you want on campus. The regimen was still the same, but you had a little bit more freedom to actually go and eat out.
Of course, this ended when "school" started again, and you would be inserted into a harder training course based on your level of understanding. The best part of my classes was that we actually learned something. There was no need to study up ahead of time because they taught you exactly what you needed to know. Most classes didn't even have textbooks. You still had to take your own notes or ask the teachers for help when needed, but it was the only thing I was going to miss about this place.
Finally, we were at the Builder's workshop. He pressed the button, and the small garage door opened. He went to this coffin-like thing that was near the back wall, put it on a dollie, and then he rolled it to the center of the room. Michael and I looked at each other, then back at the coffin, wondering what kind of contraption he might have inside it.
He pressed the button on the side of the coffin, and it hissed as it opened, gases pouring outside. Suddenly, the coffin was crumpled, and in its place stood some armor. Well, it's an endoskeleton at least.
"I present to you... Spirit Armor!" exclaimed the Builder, with a proud look on his face.
"Right... Spirit Armor. The thing that just crumpled the coffin like a piece of paper."
"Yeah, it likes to do that sometimes. It's never tried to escape, though; it just likes to give me more work."
I inspected it, then I pushed the small diamond button that was at the center of the chest. As my finger touched it, the button disappeared and the rib cage split in two, opening outwards. I got inside and closed it, when suddenly, spikes stuck the inside of my back and pierced my insides. I felt electricity spreading throughout my entire body. I couldn't get out. HAD THE BUILDER BETRAYED ME?!
"BUILDER! WHAT THE HELL!" exclaimed Michael, desperately trying to pry me out.
"Relax, it's just identifying him and extracting his blood. Nothing will happen. Don't worry!"
Suddenly, the spikes retracted. I felt dizzy immediately. The Builder took out a cookie and sprinkled it over the machine. It began to do something else. It shook, and then it turned into a wristband. Inconspicuous and stylish. Nice!
"That armor has bonded to you now. It just needs some of your blood, and it's fully functional; It's a feature that I've just created with my newfound power, synthesis."
"What's synthesis?"
"It just lets me combine two objects as long as they have magic circuits on them. No biggy."
"And also... What's so special about Spirit Armor?"
"Well, let's say you killed someone with it, you can talk to them, you'll hear voices if you barely knew them, and you can see them if you knew them well. You can also perform a soul exchange as well. If you have already killed people, but then you got another item with a soul bound to it, then you can temporarily switch the souls within the item and the armor, and you can talk to the person who used to be in the item for a little while. I'm just saying this, but just cause you killed a person, doesn't mean their soul will be bound to your armor. If they died, but they didn't feel like they missed out on anything, then their soul will just pass on. This is true for any artifact. It also makes your presence disappear, which is how you can escape the Leader's watch."
"How'd you do that?"
"Oh, it was just 1 of 3 items that the Leader gave me. I mean, I've already used one," he said as he pointed to his bandana,"and I don't think I can really use the other. But, I wanted to give you a special gift for graduating."
"What about me?" asked Michael.
"What about you?" asked the Builder, "You already have a girlfriend."
"Not you too!"
"Heh heh. Anyway, we'll spend 3 weeks working on this. We can save the other stuff for later."
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Captain Elaine was rather depressed. She'd woken up in a dingy cell with none of her belongings on her. In fact, she recognized this cell. This was where all the deserters went. She saw a bunch of other soldiers she recognized, as well as some she put in there herself. They all had a look of hysteria on their faces. One of the most prominent figures in this fortress, now reduced to a lowly deserter. How fun.
She had to figure out how to escape. Could she even escape? Right under the Leader's nose, even? She knew how powerful a man he was. He was not someone to make a joke out of. Captain Titan... he wasn't exactly the most powerful man. He was stronger than her by all means, but he didn't seem unreachable like the Leader. She wanted to kill him. She wanted him dead! Where was Michael? Shouldn't he have found her by now? Had he left her as well? Well... thinking these thoughts now would be useless.
She couldn't hope for much either. Apparently, loyalty was not one of this Fortress's strong suits. All she had to do... was wait.
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