Chapter 17: Stargazing in the Basement

  Usually things scream before they try to kill you, these things just clicked.

  I had just paused to admire a particularly shiny heap of industrial scrap, what looked like a heavy-duty hydraulic actuator when the pile shifted.

  "Kaelen," Vrex’s voice was a low rumble like a subwoofer testing its bass. "Step back."

  "Just looking," I said reaching out. "This actuator is in mint condi—"

  The actuator hissed. A single red optic flared to life in the center of the metal heap. Then all around us the shadows woke up.

  The piles of refuse lining the corridor looked like trash but they were dormant Logistics Crawlers. Six-legged, crab-like machines made of heavy steel and bad attitudes. They unfolded with the screech of dry joints, their manipulator arms swapping out gripping claws for spinning saw-blades.

  [Entity: Logistics Crawler Model-9]

  [Magnitude: 28]

  [Density: Inert]

  "Kaelen move out!" Vrex roared.

  Not waiting for them to swarm. He stepped forward, his warhammer materializing in his grip and he swung.

  CRUNCH.

  The impact was visceral. The lead Crawler broke then it crumpled. Vrex’s hammer driven by his massive Horizon and Strength turned the machine into a hockey puck, sending it skidding backwards into its friends.

  But there were dozens of them, they poured from the vents and the ceiling like a tide of clicking metal.

  "Clear the flank!" Vrex ordered swinging again and shattering two crawlers at once.

  "On it!"

  I engaged my Egress. The world slowed down just a fraction.

  I sprinted at the wall, ran three steps up the vertical surface and backflipped over a lunging Crawler. As I passed over it I drew the Void-Knife.

  I slashed downward.

  There was no resistance. The knife parted steel chassis. The metal groaned and split as if it were terrified of the blade, I severed the Crawler's central power coupling in one stroke. The machine died instantly collapsing into a heap of dead weight.

  "Okay," I breathed landing in a crouch. "I love this knife."

  A Crawler lunged from my blind spot. I did not have the angle to dodge.

  Ping.

  My Horizon flared. The saw-blade hit my shoulder shredding the synth-leather of my coat but stopping dead against my skin. It hurt, a sharp stinging bruise but my soul’s density treated the industrial tool like a toy. I was not squishy anymore.

  "Rude," I grunted.

  I grabbed the Crawler by one of its legs. I didn't use a spell I just used Kinetic Grasp, pouring a tiny drop of Lumen to amplify my throw.

  "Get. Off."

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  I whipped the hundred-pound robot into the wall, it exploded in a shower of sparks and oil.

  The Astrolabe chimed in the back of my mind, a sharp satisfying note of progress amidst the chaos.

  [Remembrance Ability Improved: Kinetic Grasp]

  [Proficiency Increased: Level 2 -> Level 3]

  [Insight: The Fulcrum. Momentum redirection efficiency increased.]

  "Nice," I muttered feeling the mental grip of the ability tighten and refine. It changed from feeling less like pushing a block to pushing the block with a bit more force.

  The fight became a rhythm. Vrex was the anvil standing in the center of the corridor smashing anything that got too close. I was the hammer, darting around the edges using the Void-Knife to disable the ones trying to flank him.

  It was a brawl. Metal screeched and oil sprayed and the smell of grease grew thick enough to taste.

  Finally with a sound like a dying engine the last Crawler twitched and went still, its optic fading to black.

  I stood amidst the wreckage chest heaving. My coat was ruined again and I had a nasty cut on my cheek from a piece of shrapnel.

  "Status?" Vrex asked leaning on his hammer. He looked untouched save for some oil stains on his granite skin.

  "Alive," I wheezed wiping blood from my face. "Lumen is at... 6.8. Physical stamina is a bit drained. I feel like I just ran a marathon in steel-toed boots."

  "The gravity takes its toll," Vrex noted tapping his Mana-Lung. The blue aura around his head was flickering slightly. "And the combat accelerates the atmospheric atrophy, we need to lower our heart rates. Recovery is slower here."

  "Agreed," I said looking down the hall. "Let's find a place that is not covered in robot guts."

  We found a large circular atrium a few hundred meters further down. It looked like an old break area or a park. Synthetic grass now grey and brittle covered the floor. Benches surrounded a dry fountain.

  I collapsed onto a bench groaning as my back popped.

  "Physics is exhausting," I muttered digging a ration bar out of my belt. It tasted like chalk and vitamins. "I miss magical stamina regeneration."

  Vrex sat on the edge of the fountain, the stone structure groaning under his weight. He did not eat; he just closed his eyes slowing his breathing, minimizing his energy expenditure.

  "You fought well," he rumbled his eyes still closed. "You utilize your Egress efficiently. Most rookies waste movement. You flow."

  "Parkour," I said around a mouthful of dry ration. "It’s all about flow, if you stop you drop."

  I leaned back looking up at the high domed ceiling of the atrium. It was dark, covered in soot and grime.

  Suddenly with a low electronic hum the ceiling flickered.

  "Whoa," I whispered.

  The grime didn't vanish but light pierced through it. The dome was a massive holographic screen. As the facility’s combat mode disengaged the ambient systems were rebooting.

  A sky appeared above us.

  It was not the sky of Cygnus-7 as it likely was now, a ruined smog-choked wasteland. It was a simulation of what the sky used to look like.

  It was breathtaking. A velvet black void dusted with millions of cold hard stars. A massive gas giant ringed in purple and gold hung low on the horizon, casting a soft impossible light over the dead atrium.

  "It is a Circadian Dome," I realized. "To keep the workers sane underground. It simulates the night cycle."

  Vrex opened his eyes. He looked up at the fake stars.

  "It is a lie," he said his voice flat. "Beautiful, but a lie. Those stars are just pixels, they have no Lumen."

  "That's what makes them nice," I countered staring up at the purple rings. "They're quiet."

  I pointed to a cluster of bright dots. "See that? That looks like the constellation Orion back home. It’s not obviously but it’s close. It feels... normal."

  Vrex looked at me then back at the sky. "You find comfort in the emptiness."

  "I find comfort in things that make sense," I said softly. "This world... these people... they built this. They built a sky in a basement because they missed the view. That’s just... human. Or whatever they were."

  For a long time we just sat there. A stone gargoyle and a guy in a tattered coat resting in a graveyard of machines, watching a recording of a sky that probably hadn't existed for a thousand years.

  "The distress signal," Vrex said eventually breaking the spell. "It is close. Just below this level."

  "Yeah," I said sitting up and stretching my sore limbs. "The Core. The thing the robots were protecting."

  I looked at the fake stars one last time.

  "You know Vrex," I said checking the charge on my Void-Knife. "If they went to all this trouble to make the waiting room pretty, I’m really worried about what they locked in the basement."

  Vrex stood up hefting his hammer.

  "Then let us go and ask it," he said. "Before the sky turns off."