Executor Rising: A GameLit/LitRPG Adventure (Magnus Book 2)

by Vowron Prime

  “Something’s wrong. That wasn’t me—the compound should be under total lockdown.”

  They proceeded cautiously into the giant airlock-style entrance to be greeted with another identical door in front. Bright LED lights shone upon them from the rocky ceiling high above.

  The bay door behind them—large enough to allow aircraft through—slowly shut. After a long pause, an identical set of doors to their front hummed open.

  MC stepped forward, shielding Nova from whatever-the-hell was occupying his base. Apart from him, nobody had access to the place. He could only think that some faction had overrun the base during his absence. The New D.R.C. perhaps, or maybe one of the Cerulean gangs?

  As the doors continued to retract, a familiar sight showed itself on the other side. The X42—his X42 walking tank rig. The one he’d given Nina all those ages ago when he’d rescued her from Liberación. Its dual back-mounted Vulcan cannons’ sinister barrels were pointed right at him, and to make matters worse, two Gatling drones accompanied the suit on either side. Diminutive, yet deadly.

  He of course had the energy dampener active already, but it wouldn’t do jack shit against that onslaught of firepower. MC raised his hands in a show of peace, but just then, a voice boomed out over the suit’s intercom. A voice that sounded all too familiar.

  “You have a lot of balls to just waltz back here like that.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh shit? That’s the first thing you say after being gone for so long? Oh shit is right! Brother.”

  Fifteen

  “Nina! How?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” she said from within the suit, retracting its faceplate. “Where the hell were you? We searched everywhere for you, but you disappeared without a trace, and… wait, what’s wrong?”

  MC wailed in horror. He grabbed Nova’s shoulder and shook her violently. “Get this fucking thing out of my head! Right now! Do you hear me? GET IT OUT!” he roared in the Dyn tongue, sinking to his knees.

  For in place of his sister was a greenish gelatinous humanoid amoeba.

  “Magnus, what’s wrong? What language are you speaking? What’s going on?” Nina asked as she exited the suit.

  Comprehension dawned on Nova. She crouched down to pat his shoulders gently, looking deep into his eyes. “I swear I will do everything within my power to help you however I can. Please believe me. For now, please be strong. She needs you.”

  “Guys, um, can someone fill me in here? I’m fluent in eight languages and I have never heard anything sound like that.”

  Cursing under his breath, MC slowly rose and hugged Nina as hard as he could with his one functional arm, tears streaming down his face in spades.

  “I’m sorry, Nina, it’s just… I’m happy to see you. This isn’t like me,” he responded in English.

  Nina smiled and patted his back, tears now streaming down her face as well. “Well, at least you’re back now. That’s... incredible. I missed you. I thought you were...”

  The two broke their embrace only after several long, heartfelt moments.

  “So, you going to introduce me to your new girlfriend? I gotta say, I never thought you were into the cosplaying type. The hell’s up with those crazy wings? Let me guess, she’s role-playing some kind of angel, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, my bad. Nina, meet Nova. Nova, meet my sister.”

  “Nova!” she snorted. “What is this, some kind of joke sci-fi movie or something?”

  Nova frowned. “My name was bestowed upon me by your brother, and I am quite fond of it.”

  “Seriously? Oh.” Silence reigned for a moment before Nina backpedaled. “I… er, my apologies. That was incredibly rude of me. It’s nice to meet you, Nova. Your accent is… really unique!” she exclaimed, desperately trying to salvage the conversation. “How, uh, how did you two meet?”

  “It’s a long-ass story, and I think you’re misunderstanding a few things. We’re not a couple. Also, she’s an alien and those wings are real.”

  Nina doubled over laughing, stopping only several seconds later when she finally realized she was the only one amused.

  “Nina, what happened after I disappeared from Liberación HQ? I lost contact with the rescue squad and I couldn’t dial your suit.”

  “Nothing happened. Everything went off without a hitch. I met up with your buddies just fine. They wanted to evac me right away, but I protested, saying we should wait for you. It scared the shit out of them when we couldn’t get in touch with you, so they just ignored me and took off anyway. They said that if you couldn’t handle whatever was out there, there was no way in hell that they’d be able to.”

  “Well, they were right about that one.”

  “The teleporter interferes with communications,” Nova interjected. “I imagine that was why you were not able to establish contact.”

  “But why are you here? At Sanctuary?”

  “I kinda moved in after we couldn’t find you. I figured if you ever turned up, this would be the first place you’d visit. I was right, wasn’t I?”

  She paused before bringing up the elephant in the room.

  “More importantly, where the hell have you been? And what happened to your arm? And… those veins. You look like a walking corpse. Please, tell me?”

  “You owe her an explanation, Magnus. It is not right to keep her in the dark.”

  He wanted to, of course, but how exactly was he supposed to break the news to her? Then again, they did say that honesty is the best policy, so he took a deep breath and went for it.

  “Right, so… It was aliens. Aliens teleported me to another planet, but I fell into a mutagenic lake that gave me superpowers, and those aliens have been trying to kill me ever since. Oh, and you’re misunderstanding something fundamental. I didn’t exactly come back to Sanctuary. We teleported the entire bunker from Earth to that alien planet. Surprise!”

  Nina stared at him unblinking, clearly expecting a punch line.

  Things got awkward when none came.

  “Magnus, I get it. You think it’s funny to bully your panicking little sister, but please don’t fuck around. I’m genuinely worried here, can’t you unders—!”

  Her voice seized as MC disappeared from in front of her, reappearing off to her left.

  “I figured you wouldn’t believe me, but how about now?”

  Grinning, he teleported again and stood atop an energy dampening plate.

  “Your brother has become a comic book antihero!” he called out from above, grandly reaching out with his arms in his best Magneto impression.

  Yet Nina’s reaction was far beyond anything he’d expected. Instead of the “Oh my god!” or “That’s so amazing!” he’d been expecting, her eyes simply rolled up into their sockets and she fainted.

  MC teleported over before she could collapse onto the hard asphalt. Holding her gently, he checked her condition, but everything from her breathing to her heart rate seemed to be fine. She’d just passed out.

  “Magnus… you and I need to discuss some of the finer aspects of interpersonal relations. How could you do that to her?”

  MC scratched his neck nervously. “Guess I got a little carried away, didn’t I? She’s going to be so pissed when she wakes up. Damn.”

  He scooped up his sister, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “C’mon,” he told Nova. “Let me show you around the place so you can get settled.” He walked over to a control panel near the bay doors. He’d expected the console to grant him access, but his biometrics were firmly rejected.

  “Guess I’ll have to get the systems reprogrammed to deal with all my mutations,” MC said, punching in the manual override code. Seconds later, the gargantuan hangar’s inner door rumbled closed.

  Nova followed him across the length of the spacious hangar, curiously eyeing the various vehicles that sat neatly under dark canvas covers.

  “This is your home? It is quite impressive, though somewhat unusual,” she said wit
h some incredulity.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly the original owner.”

  He narrated the tale of how he’d ended up acquiring it on a contract mission for the UFN. During World War Four, word came of an imminent nuclear attack. The Federation decided to destroy anything that might be used against them, including the nuclear bunker. Yet the irradiated surroundings, the hostile political climate, and the sheer remoteness of Sanctuary’s location made that more effort than it was worth. Until MC had come along.

  Leveraging his ex-UFN military background, connections, and reputation, he secured a contract to come in and destroy any sensitive equipment for them. After some shrewd negotiation, he was able to obtain administrator-level privileges to the entire base. Of course, the UFN simply assumed he’d enter, destroy everything, and then exit, but he never made good on that last part. Not when he’d finally found the ultimate home.

  He’d completed the mission, of course, rendering the long-range missiles and the scarier bombs completely inert. It satiated the UFN. They weren’t altogether pleased about him taking up residence afterward, but they must’ve figured it was better to have a friendly presence occupying the base rather than a hostile one, given that they left him alone after that.

  Still carrying his sister, Magnus and Nova climbed the solid metal stairs up to the habitation deck. While he’d put his own touches on the place, the overall structure was largely unaltered—it’d take a massive amount of effort to remodel a bunker, after all.

  “Can you get the door for me?” MC asked, gesturing to the massive wheel on the blast door.

  Nova gave him a hesitant glance but nonetheless laid down both her laptop-sized terminal and the handheld one she’d been carrying around to give it a crack. Much to her surprise, it rotated without much effort at all.

  “I keep the doors well oiled. The only thing that could use a little help is the fusion generator that powers the place.” He gave Nova a sidelong glance. “Don’t suppose you could help out with that, could you?”

  “I cannot promise anything until I see it, but nuclear fusion is quite primitive, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to, short of replacing parts. We would need a Dyn matter fabricator for that.”

  The door swiveled open to reveal a chamber devoid of any furniture, an identical blast door on the other side.

  She moved forward and opened that too before retrieving her laptop.

  “By the way, I never did ask how you got to be so fluent with English,” MC said.

  “A curiosity, nothing more. After overseeing the parasitic implant surgeries on several hundred humans, I began to grow curious about your culture. While the Legatus restricts access to information, I did manage to convince my overseer that learning your tongue would help me perform my duties. Truthfully, it was just a hobby.”

  “Well, I’m thankful. It’ll be good for Nina to have someone else to talk to.”

  Nova followed MC through the low concrete tunnel, lit by ancient warm incandescent lights that hung from the ceiling. A door automatically slid open as they approached, and a couple of turns later put them in a small bedroom where MC laid Nina down to rest.

  “Magnus, have you tried using Midar on a Zevan?” Nova suddenly inquired.

  “Why would I… Oh.”

  “Indeed. I would expect your ability to see the Zevan as they truly are, without the mutations that your parasite projects. That applies to your sister, as well. The only question is whether your ping density is sufficient to resolve the minutiae of facial features.”

  “At range? No way, but at this distance, it’s worth a shot,” he exclaimed, genuinely excited at the prospect.

  Focusing Midar into a tiny sliver of an arc just enough to cover Nina’s face, he fired the ability at its maximal density. The image that came back to him completely disagreed with what the parasite was doing to his vision. Closing his eyes, he saw her exactly as she truly was. As he’d remembered her to be, with her short hair and her mousy nose.

  “It’s working!”

  Incredulous, he continued to send pings for several moments before finally killing the ability and opening his eyes.

  “I don’t know how long it’d have taken me to think of that, Nova. I really owe you one.”

  She just shook her head, smiling gently, truly living up to her angelic image. “Let us not think in terms of favors and debts. I am just happy to help.”

  “Well, I’m truly grateful. Anyway, she ought to be up soon, but in the meantime, how about I show you around the place?” He dropped his rucksack and the Dyn microwave emitter he’d picked up. “You can take any of the open room guest rooms. Not like anyone else is staying there.”

  Nova nodded, similarly leaving her laptop inside the room before following him back out into a tunnel.

  “This facility was built to sustain small explosions from within, as well as a nuclear blast from outside, so no two rooms share a common wall,” he narrated as they made their way around. “That way any blast is contained to a single room, and there’s usually at least two ways to get to every room in the bunker, in case one goes down.”

  He showed her the converted mess hall, the CIC and its array of comms equipment, as well as the rec room he’d turned into a den, before leading her to hydroponics.

  “You grow all of your own food?” she asked.

  “Sure do. There’s enough space here to grow enough to feed at least a dozen, though I used to supplement that with trade runs to civilization every once in a while. Guessing we’ll do the same here as the base expands.”

  “How do you obtain your water?”

  “Good question—the facility has a forty-thousand-gallon tank that’s being continuously scrubbed, but its source was an underground aquifer. Now that that’s gone, we’ll have to figure something out. The reserve should be enough to last us for some time, though.”

  They made their way to the last stop, which happened to be the one MC was most interested in getting Nova to look at—the fusion generator control room. Here again, they navigated a set of blast doors that put them into a narrow room overlooking the massive power plant two stories below.

  “This is the lifeblood of the compound. There’s a diesel backup generator, but I have no idea how we’re going to source diesel fuel here. The Zevan aren’t nearly advanced enough, and your people seem like they’re well past burning fossil fuels. Even if we could, it can’t output even a fraction of the power of the big guy.”

  Nova moved over to one of the consoles and, in what was turning out to be a regular occurrence, immediately intuited how to use the user interface. Within minutes, she had scans, error codes, and diagnostics showing on the large LED displays.

  “This generator is at the end of its life. In fact, I am amazed it has lasted as long as it has. Your designers certainly built it well for it to survive this long.”

  That was exactly what he’d feared.

  “How much longer until it fails?”

  “It is already operating at twenty percent of its intended capacity. There is still a plentiful core of mass for the fusion reaction, just that the peripheral systems are all in disrepair. At this rate, I’d say that the reactor will cease entirely within the next year, at best.”

  “Anything you can do?”

  She turned to look at him. “Please do not get your hopes up, but I can attempt to fix the reactor, so long as you have the requisite replacement parts.”

  “No worries there. From what I understand, there are enough spare parts to damn near rebuild the entire thing.”

  Nova’s eyes lit up like a kid who’d just discovered a new toy.

  “Then I foresee no issues! But there is a more pressing matter at hand. You,” she said, pointing at him. “Show me to your medical facilities. I want to understand how far the parasite has progressed. I’ll need a full scan of your body, if possible. Your overconsumption of the mutagenic water concerns me greatly. Besides, we have to fix your cybernetic arm.”

  MC narrowed
his eyes and nodded, leading her back out. He knew full well that his body was a biological disaster by this point. He’d just been trying not to think about it.

  “Nina’s the only family I have left,” he said as they walked back to the hangar. “I don’t really care if others look like hideous monsters, I just don’t know if I can deal with this fucking parasite doing that to my sister. Midar definitely helps, but if there’s anything you can do…”

  Nova patted his arm. “I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for you. Let’s see how things are. I do not mean to boast, but if there is anyone on this planet who can help you, it is I,” she said, smiling, and perhaps blushing a bit.

  “Then I guess I’m in your hands, doc.”

  Sixteen

  “Well, doc, what’s the prognosis?” MC asked as they wrapped up the scans. He lay atop one of the facility’s four highly advanced surgical beds. From minor stitches to bullet wounds, autodocs had largely replaced the need for error-prone human doctors for all but the most complex of surgeries. In fact, it’d already gone to town on him, its array of needles and mechanical appendages having restored the use of his cybernetic arm by healing the seared nerve endings at his shoulder socket.

  “Please don’t call me that! And, well, this machine is quite primitive, so I cannot give you as detailed of a report as I would like. But would you like the good news first, or the bad?”

  “The bad,” he replied, grimacing. “Always the bad.”

  “The parasite has made tremendous progress into your mind. At this stage, I am sorry, Magnus, but there is absolutely no way to remove it without killing you. Its tendrils are too interconnected with your neural pathways. We would have to lobotomize large portions of your brain, turning you into a vegetable. That’s if you survive.”

  No surprise there. And even if it could be removed, would he really want that? He had no intention of becoming a slave to the Dyn, but it was also true that the parasite enabled his powers. Powers he had come to rely so much on lately. Even with Sanctuary, could he survive without them at this point?