by Ramy Vance
Suzuki stared through the glass as the Beth and Stew looked on with him. “Hm, guess they weren’t happy just working outside. Must have thought bringing it in was a good idea.”
Beth’s face was tight with worry as she tongued her gums. “Suzy, how’ve you been feeling?” she asked.
Suzuki did a double-take.
He had forgotten he had come into direct contact with the sprouts, but so had Stew, and there didn’t seem to be any effect on him. It didn’t make sense to start worrying about something he didn’t understand. The only real option was to keep moving forward and hope they found something that would help clear up the mystery of what had happened. “I’m fine. We need to keep moving. Come on.”
They followed the hall until they arrived at a large steel door. It whooshed open once the Mundanes stood in front of it. They crossed the threshold into a room that made the tech they had seen throughout the facility pale in comparison. The entire room looked to have been made from surgical steel. The surfaces were all stainless and gleamed in a way Suzuki had only ever seen once, in the research facilities of the Dark One’s defense rings.
There were multiple desks with computers that were light-years ahead of anything that Suzuki had ever seen on earth. It was impossible to see where the computers began and the desks ended. Next to each computer was a small, cylindrical vat that held a black and purple sprout, but many of the vats had something more than just the sprouts. Looking closely, Suzuki could see what looked like a small squid swimming in the liquid. They were oblong creatures with a row of eyes running down their backs and a mouth that was all tentacles, the water occasionally causing the tentacles to stretch out violently and snag the glass that held the small thing.
Stew knelt in front of one of the vats and tapped the glass. “What the fuck is that thing?” Stew asked. “Looks like calamari.”
Suzuki crouched beside Stew and exhaled his irritation. “Calamari is what it’s called when squid is prepared, dude,” Suzuki lectured. “What you mean is that it looks like a squid.”
“Okay, but you understood exactly what I meant.”
The swimming creature in the vat spread its tentacles out toward Suzuki. In the middle of the tentacles was something like a mouth, a large open circle rimmed with razor-sharp teeth. At the top of the hole was a hard beak the creature tapped against the glass vat.
Suzuki felt the tapping deep in his chest, and it suddenly became hard to breathe. He tried to catch his breath, but his heart was beating at the same tempo the creature was tapping.
Suzuki clutched his chest and said, “I need to go sit down.” He walked away from the vats surrounding the computers, looking for a place to sit down that was not near any of the creatures. As he went farther into the room, his heart stopped racing, and it became easier to breathe. He finally found a seat in front of one of the larger computers, one that looked like something out of a time capsule-a hulking beast of machinery that was operated by punch cards and knobs.
Beside the antiquated piece of technology was a small datapad. Suzuki took a seat and grabbed the datapad.
The datapad had no password, and Suzuki started scrolling through the different options. Apparently, it was a collection of research materials tied to the facility. “Hey, dudes, get over here,” Suzuki shouted. “I found something.”
Stew and Beth came over to where Suzuki was sitting, and he showed them the pad. Beth scrolled through a few of the folders and options, then passed the pad to Stew, who was less than interested. Stew gave it back to Suzuki. “Looks like it’s just a bunch of nerd shit,” Stew said.
Suzuki snatched the pad from Stew. “If you haven’t noticed, this whole place is a bunch of nerd shit,” Suzuki snapped. “If we don’t figure this out, we’re not going to figure out what happened. Did you guys find anything interesting?”
Beth pointed toward the other side of the room. “Okay, before any of that, let Chip and Diana know they need to come check this shit out,” Beth suggested. “Maybe Chip could interface with some of the shit here and we could find out more answers. I’m not going to lie, everything in that pad looked like bullshit to me. Didn’t make any sense.”
“All right. Now show me what you guys found.”
Beth and Stew led Suzuki across the room to a series of large tables akin to the metallic operating tables Suzuki had seen in the Dark One’s defense rings. The difference being instead of the bodies of elves, dwarves, and humans, there was a large collection of tech. None of it looked like anything Suzuki had seen before. The tech on the tables was leagues more advanced than anything Suzuki had seen in the facility so far.
Suzuki picked up one of the pieces of tech. It looked like it was a plasma cannon, not that different from the ones Chip used. There was a connecting piece that looked as if it were meant for shoulder mounting. The cannon itself was not much larger than Suzuki’s fist. It looked to be built from the most mercurial metal Suzuki had ever seen. He turned it over in his hand, trying to see how to activate the weapon. There was whirring, and the cannon heated up, firing a hot bolt of plasma at the ground, narrowing missing Suzuki’s foot.
Suzuki placed the cannon back on the table as gently as he could.
Stew’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he reached for the cannon. “Okay, I call dibs on this shit!” Stew shouted. “That is so fucking sick. Can you imagine me chopping through an orc while that shit is firing off?”
Beth grabbed the cannon from Stew and put it back on the table. “First off, what makes you think you get first dibs on any of the gear?” Beth asked. “Secondly, we shouldn’t be touching any of this shit until Chip and Diana get here. We don’t know anything about this tech. We don’t know how it works, what it does, or what it could do to us. So, how ‘bout you put your fucking boner away and we just see what else we can find.”
Stew’s face contorted as he pouted strongly enough to give a baby a run for its money. “Whatever, dude,” Stew muttered.
It took nearly two hours for Chip and Diana to find the Mundanes.
Suzuki had broadcast a distress signal with his HUD and had been certain there wasn’t a strong enough signal for anyone other than Chip and Diana to have seen it. While the Mundanes waited for Chip and Diana, they shared stories from old games they had played back in VR and tales of what they had experienced both in the military and the MERC program.
Many of the tales Beth told were horrifying. The military didn’t have any say over the kind of missions they were given.
Unlike MERCs, the military did what they were told.
Most of Beth’s missions were some form of search and rescue. Her platoon very rarely found survivors.
Neither Suzuki nor Stew had experienced anything like Beth had. The few times they had come in contact with the ramifications of the Dark One’s tyrannical madness, it had shaken them to their core. The most either of them had interacted with the bloody mess of the Dark One’s campaign was their attempt at rescuing Beth.
Beth picked at the skin on her arm as she spoke. “I don’t want to keep thinking about it,” she murmured. “I mean, I’m here with you guys for the first time in forever. And it feels just like back when we were kids. Sounds stupid to say, ‘When we were kids,’ since that was less than a year ago, but everything feels like so long ago. Some days, I feel so fucking old.”
Stew sat in one of the wheeled chairs in front of a computer, bobbing back and forth before spinning around. “Makes sense,” Stew said. “I wouldn’t want to talk about it either. There’s a lot of easier things to talk about. But if you got shit you want to get off your chest, you know we’re here for you. All of us are.”
There was a loud crackle and a pop, and it felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room for a brief second. When everything returned to normal, Sandy was standing behind Stew, her hand resting on the back of his neck.
Stew whipped around and jumped out of his seat, picking Sandy up in his arms and hugging her so hard she started to cough through her gig
gling. “Babe!” Stew shouted. “You’re back! And you’re all in one piece, too!”
Sandy kissed Stew’s forehead and pried herself out of his vicelike grip. “Of course, I’m in one piece. Did you think an alternate dimension was going to be enough to stop me?”
“How the hell did you know we were here?”
“I could bore you with all the information about scanning dimensions and signature auras and shit, or I could just let you know I could find you guys. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I? Unfortunately, not for very long, though. I felt you three and thought this would be a cool time to check in and let you know I’m not dead. Not even close to it.”
Suzuki and Beth stood, and each of them gave Sandy a hug. “I get you back for a minute, and you already bounce out.” Beth laughed. “What about all that ‘never split the party’ bullshit?”
Sandy pushed her hair out of her face. “It still stands. I didn’t split the party. I’m still here with you guys, just in a different sense.”
Suzuki was glad to see Sandy, but he knew her mission was draining her. Even if she was putting on a brave front for everyone else, Suzuki had seen what the place between realms was doing to her. “How much longer do you think you’re going to be out?” Suzuki asked.
Sandy turned her attention to Suzuki and her face became serious, nearly as worn and tired as it had seemed in the place between realms. “Hopefully not too much longer. Things made more sense when I was in the place, but now everything is a little bit fuzzy,” Sandy admitted. “Diana told me that would happen. She said it would take a little bit of time to figure out everything I had experienced. But hopefully, once I figure out what I’m looking for, it won’t take too long to decipher it back home. But that’s all I came here to say. Just wanted to say hi to you guys while I got a chance.”
Sandy leaned over and kissed Stew’s forehead. “Okay, I love you, Babe, be safe, all right?”
Stew nodded and hugged Sandy again before the air crackled and sizzled and Sandy disappeared before their eyes.
Suzuki hadn’t seen Fred and wished he’d had a chance to ask about the imp… but it all happened too fast.
Beth sat down in one of the chairs and pushed herself back so she glided across the room and smashed into Suzuki. “Convenient little meetup, right?” Beth asked.
Suzuki pushed Beth away, but she just pushed her chair back into Suzuki. “Yeah,” Suzuki said. “Nice of her to check in. I was pretty fucking worried about her.”
“Yeah, I think all of us are.”
There was a crash outside of the room and the Mundanes jumped up, weapons drawn, ready to fight whatever was causing the commotion.
Chip stumbled into the room, practically tripping over her own feet as Diana followed behind her, moving with her signature grace and poise. “Sorry,” Chip muttered as she walked farther into the room toward the tech that was laying on the table.
Suzuki stood up and walked over to the table as well. “Did you guys find anything?” he asked.
“Other than a bunch of dead bodies? Nope. Nothing. Found some corpses reminiscent of the big ol’ angel we found hanging round out in the wilds.”
“Yeah, we found some of those as well. Looks like something ripped its way out of their back.”
“That would be Diana’s theory as well, but we can talk science and junk after we take a look at the nice new shiny things. Any of it fun?”
Suzuki picked up what looked like an SD upgrade. “Don’t know yet,” Suzuki said. “We were waiting for you. Figured you could give a better idea of what any of this is before we start grabbing on stuff. Never know what might blow up in our faces.”
Chip leaned over the table. “Aye aye,” she murmured. “Well, might as well get cracking.” She grabbed the shoulder mount Stew had been trying to claim earlier. “This one looks pretty much on the nose, but let’s find out a little bit more.”
Chip’s fingers broke apart, and the tips converted to cables and wires that snaked across the shoulder cannon, finding a port to dock with. Chip’s eyes rolled back and turned white as binary code flashed across them. Then her eyes popped back to normal, and she handed it to Stew. “Okay, so here’s some good news and some utterly trash news,” she started. “This is beyond a shadow of a doubt Dark One tech. His little grubby prints are all over it, which means this facility was his. Buuuuuuut, looks like the tech is coded differently than what we’ve seen before. It’s just simple shit—plug and wear. Doesn’t have any of the odd techno crap like what’s going on in me body.”
Stew grabbed the shoulder cannon. “Wait, which one of those is good news and which is bad news?”
Stew struggled to wrap the shoulder cannon on, and Beth walked behind him to help. She grabbed the strap and adjusted it so the cannon didn’t wiggle back and forth. “God, I miss when Sandy was here to shut you up.” She groaned. “Maybe we should take you back to the lake and get more leeches.”
As Beth walked away, Stew stuck his tongue out at her. Then he yelped. The cannon had grown what looked like six legs. They stretched out and clamped hard into Stew’s skin. “What the fuck is this?” Stew shouted as the cannon adjusted its height and then scanned the room.
Chip tapped the cannon with one of Beth’s arrows and then pretended to hide behind Beth. “Neural uplink,” she replied. “You know, so you can think and shoot.”
Beth was looking at the different items on the table. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. Let Stew shoot at things he’s thinking about. If he’s even thinking.”
Chip pushed past Beth and grabbed one of the simple SD cards. She tossed it in the air and pulled down her HUD. “All right, looks like we got something pretty simple here,” she said as she tossed it to Diana. “Light spectrum upgrade. I believe you could get creative with this.”
Diana turned the card over in her hand. “Huh. I could probably find a use for it. Thanks.”
“Figured the kids could have the fun stuff. Like you need any more upgrades. Fucking overpowered god. If this was a book, both you and Sandy would be getting nerfed real soon.”
“I’d prefer to take upgrades you perceive as being useless over having my powers reduced.”
Chip picked up what looked like two box cutters and an SD card lying next to them. She tossed them to Beth. “I’m pretty sure you’ll like the card, but I don’t know about the little metal things.”
Beth held the box-cutter-shaped objects. Two small cable tendrils stretched out and pierced her wrists. “Fuck, that shit hurts,” Beth gasped. Beth held out the box cutters and two energy beams shot out, vibrating loudly as they took the shape of daggers. The energy beam pulsed bright red and looked unstable from extending, but regardless, they maintained their shape. “Oh, fuck yeah, lightsaber daggers. That’s so fucking sick. What about the SD?”
Chip motioned for Beth to pull down her HUD, which Beth did. Chip pulled out her soldering iron, her hands breaking apart into a variety of other tools, grabbed the SD card, and got to work. After a few seconds, she closed Beth’s HUD and said, “All right, give it a go.”
“What does it do?”
“Just access your ‘new upgrade’ menu. Don’t want to wank on the surprise.”
Beth did as she was told and found the menu. She hit new upgrade and shimmered out of existence. Where she stood emitted an odd light spectrum distortion. If Suzuki stared closely enough, he could see what looked like ripples in the air. “Holy fucking shit, am I invisible?” Beth shouted.
“Works top-notch with the new class, don’t it?”
“You’re damn fucking right, it does.”
Beth shimmered back into sight. “I am going to be such a sick assassin,” she exclaimed.
Suzuki looked on the table. “Too many choices, too many choices,” he said. “What are you gonna pick, Chip?”
Chip waved away Suzuki’s question as she hopped up on the table. “Oh, I’m done with upgrades like this,” Chip said. “Been rolling what you said around in my skull for a bit. Figure you’re right
about interacting with Dark Tech, so I got a proposition for ya. We hook me up to one of these computers, we figure out what happened here, and I give myself a booming upgrade?”
Suzuki liked that Chip was ready to take a risk. More than that, he was happy to see Chip excited to take the risk, and looking forward to pushing herself a little further and seeing what she was capable of. “I think it’s a good idea. We’ll be on call to shut you down if anything happens,” Suzuki said. “Do you have a kill switch or something?”
“From what I’ve been told, there’s a few. Only one I’m comfortable with you fuckers knowing about is in the middle of my throat. Gotta chop my head off, but you hit that, and I go dead.”
“Chopping your head off won’t kill you.”
“Convenient, ain’t it? Now show me them computers.”
“All right, let’s get you hooked up.”
The Mundanes went back to where Suzuki found the datapad and the supercomputer. Suzuki handed the datapad to Chip and said, “All right, this is all we’ve been able to find. None of the computers seem to work, and I have no idea how to do a punch card system or what they would even have on there that was relevant. But there’s some info on the datapad. I figured that would be a good place to start, right?”
Chip took the datapad and looked at it for a moment before turning her attention to the supercomputer. “You know, they used these back in the day, at the military bases. The old tech makes it easier to store secrets. You don’t have people trying to hack them as much because, you know, they’re not fun. There’s probably some really choice shit in there. All right, stand back fleshy mortals, I’m going to get deep in there.”
Chip raised her arms, and her skin started to separate as if she were built of multiple sheets. From underneath, dozens of tendril-like cables came shooting out, some of them connecting with the datapad Chip held in her hands and then others connecting with the supercomputer, pulling panels away, inserting themselves into punch cards as Chip leaned back, forming a seat out of the cables coming from her back. “And now we get all that sweet knowledge juice,” Chip murmured as her eyes rolled back and displayed binary code.
