Chapter 93: The Other Side
The instant they breached the dimensional fissure, Maine's crew experienced the most bizarre, indescribable sensation of their lives.
It was as if an irresistible force had tossed them into an industrial centrifuge spinning at maximum velocity. Their sense of orientation was annihilated.
Then, something worse. It felt as if their bodies were being physically torn apart, atomized by an unseen hand, every cell, every neural signal dismantled into base particles and blended into chaos.
Consciousness floated in pure, chaotic void, threatening to dissipate entirely.
And just at the breaking point, the force reversed, violently kneading their "shredded" existence back into shape.
"Ugh...!"
"Scrap..."
"Damn it..."
Consciousness returned with a chorus of suppressed groans and curses. Everyone, without exception, had lost their balance.
Maine slammed one knee hard onto the cold, unforgiving floor with a heavy thud, bracing himself with his augmented left arm to keep from collapsing completely. Dorio was also on one knee, the muscles in her bronzed face tight, her enhanced frame trembling. Falco was on all fours, shades askew, gasping for air. Pilar was sprawled flat, his long augmetic limbs splayed uselessly. Rebecca was on her back, staring blankly, chest heaving, feeling like her organs had been rearranged.
Only Moiré remained upright. Her body, subjected to Joric's deep, specific optimization, possessed a tolerance for spatial distortion far exceeding her peers. She stumbled only two steps, her form flickering as she instantly regained her balance.
In the same instant she stabilized, her enhanced sensory-suite went live. Her cold, compound-optical lenses swept the alien environment with razor sharpness. The armor plates on her forearms slid open silently, revealing the faint blue glow of pre-charged Transonic Razors. She was a drawn bow, radiating a lethal, do-not-approach aura.
Joric's briefing had given them a very high threat-estimate for the "other side." Having just clawed their way back from that near-death transit experience, their survival instincts were screaming for immediate threat assessment.
"Everyone intact?" Maine's voice was a suppressed rasp. He was the first to look up, scanning their surroundings while bringing his right arm—housing the powerful shield generator—into a defensive guard.
"Sort... sort of..." Rebecca struggled to sit up, limbs weak. Dorio reached out and hauled her to her feet.
"Feels like I was disassembled and put back together wrong..." Pilar muttered, checking the joints of his signature long arms.
Falco adjusted his shades, scanning environmental data through the lenses. Sasha and Kiwi stood back-to-back, their Electronic Warfare suites silently activating, erecting a localized passive defense screen, tasting the electromagnetic waves and data-currents.
But the attack, the extreme danger they expected... did not come.
Instead, the sight that greeted them made their wire-taut nerves twang with confusion.
They were inside a massive cavern, clearly hewn by artificial means. The ceiling was lost in shadow, only a few star-like, distant lights hinting at its immense height.
The primary illumination came from tubular lumens embedded in the walls, casting a cold, even, white light that made the space feel like a sacred temple or a severe factory.
They stood on a circular platform raised about thirty centimeters from the floor. Its surface was not smooth but intricately etched with complex, alien geometric patterns and nested rings. These grooves were deep and precise, as if melted by high-energy tools in an instant, forming a structure of unknown purpose—perhaps an altar, or an energy-focusing pedestal.
Around them stood machines and devices they could not comprehend.
At first glance, the equipment looked crude, primitive, even clumsy.
Massive brass and dark-steel gears, over a meter in diameter, meshed tightly with thick transmission rods, turning slowly with a heavy, rhythmic grinding sound...
Thick cables, wrapped in heavy black insulation like dormant metal pythons, coiled on sturdy racks or snaked along floor-channels, exposed junctions sparking with faint arcs...
Glass cylinders half the height of a man contained slow-flowing liquids or gases glowing with eerie green or dark blue light, pulsing rhythmically like breath...
But this "crudeness" was an illusion, a stylistic choice.
Closer inspection revealed exquisite craftsmanship hidden beneath. Every tooth on those massive gears was machined to perfection, the mesh-tolerance invisible to the naked eye, the metal gleaming with a cold luster born of advanced heat-treatment, certainly not common brass or steel.
The insulation on the cables was tough and high-grade, hinting at conductors beneath made not of copper, but of a dark-silver, hyper-conductive wire-weave.
The hum from the machines was steady and deep, devoid of static or fluctuation, betraying power cores and control systems far more reliable and precise than anything common in Night City.
The atmosphere was strangely similar to Joric's manufactorum back in the desert.
It was an aesthetic of pure functionalism, utterly rejecting ergonomics or unnecessary beauty. Every bolt, every pipe existed solely to achieve a specific purpose with maximum efficiency.
Yet, this place felt older, heavier than Joric's relatively "modern" workshop. The exposed gears, levers, and steam-elements carried a solemnity born of ages, a silent testament to an ancient, almost fanatical worship of mechanical strength.
"This... this is the 'other side'?" Rebecca shook her head, her green eye taking in the surroundings. "Looks like some kind of ancient tech-ruin... but sturdy?"
"Stay sharp," Maine ordered, his voice low. Despite the calm, he wouldn't relax. The energy coils in his plasma-cannon arm glowed faintly, in low-power standby.
Just then, a rhythmic, metallic clank-clank-clank echoed from a side tunnel.
The footsteps were heavy, deliberate, and authoritative.
Every eye snapped to the source of the sound. Nerves tightened again. Weapons were subtly shifted to firing positions. Dorio stepped half a pace forward, shielding the less armored Rebecca and Pilar.
Moiré lowered her stance, the hum of her Transonic Razors rising just above the threshold of hearing.
(End of Chapter)