Breachers

Breachers – Path of Steel

5

I

Recycled

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Pressure pressed into his stomach, legs and arms, rocking him from side to side. Moments of slipping and the sensation of Marcus’s feet scraping across an uneven surface punctuated the journey. Time drifted by in this bizarre fashion, leaving him uncertain of how many days had slipped through his grasp. He then suddenly felt a sharp object pierce and cut into his flesh, gradually prying him apart before inserting something within. ‘Oscar! Felix!’ Marcus’s mental cry reverberated in his mind, reliving his last desperate moments with his friends, recalling the desperation in their eyes. His body convulsed, overwhelmed by searing pain until he abruptly regained consciousness again.

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[System activation: 100%]

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Darkness enveloped him, reducing his visibility to near nothingness, save for a tiny blue glow coming from a hole in his torso. Amidst the darkness, his HUD flickered to life, echoing the same flawed feedback as before. Despite the error messages, a momentary strange relief washed over him, confirming that he was still inside the metallic frame and not somewhere even worse. ‘Where am I?’ Marcus pondered, attempting to move arms and legs, only to find himself ensnared on all sides. He sought out Oscar, but his search proved fruitless. Each attempt to move his limbs met with resistance, as well as increasing the strange sensation of him running out of something.

‘Oscar!’ he screamed inwardly, yet no sound escaped his lips. His fists collided with the nearest object, his legs lashing out in a flurry of kicks. The things around him refused to budge, resulting only in the harsh clang of metal meeting metal. ‘I’m still trapped inside this robot!’ Overwhelmed by a torrent of emotions, Marcus pounded with more force, venting fears, sorrows, and anger upon the unfeeling objects. Each strike became a desperate attempt to feel something, even the sting of pain. Minutes passed like this as he lost himself in a frenzied rage, only stopping his assault when he was mentally spent. Then, he just stayed there, motionless, save for his metallic form trembling as he silently wept, robbed of the ability to cry and properly mourn his friends.

Giving in to the overwhelming weight of his emotions, he allowed himself to shatter for a moment, his metallic form a reflection of the emptiness that consumed him. ‘It all happened so swiftly.’ he thought, the memories of his fun moments with his friend abruptly giving way to the harrowing chaos that had followed. In mere minutes, he had witnessed the merciless rain of meteors, the crushing impact of debris upon unsuspecting people. ‘They didn’t deserve this... Oscar... Fuck… Why did he have to die!’ he thought, the image of his friend’s mangled and bloodied remains on top of his steel frame was forever seared into his mind. The revulsion swelled within him, threatening to engulf him, but his steel body denied him this, not even allowing him to find solace in the act of retching.

Eventually, after quite some time, he stopped shaking as parts of his broken mind sought an anchor amidst the pain and loss. Striving to regain composure, he recalled some of his uncle’s words about the power of collecting your thoughts. ‘Stay calm, block out the world... fixate on a single point,’ he reminded himself as he tried to push aside the jumble of thoughts, forcing himself to focus on a task, but it was hard to keep his focus. ‘I don’t know why I got those pain sensations when I woke up,’ he thought, recalling how something similar had happened previously, back at the Tech Expo. ‘Were those dreams? A side effect of this form? Some sort of malfunction?’ He spent a few minutes pondering it further before deciding to set it aside for the moment.

He then shifted his attention to Felix and Oscar, realizing that grief and frantic thoughts would not aid him in the present moment. ‘Oscar… Oscar is dead,’ he thought, repeating the words until they etched themselves into his soul but didn’t break his concentration anymore. ‘Oscar is dead, but Felix isn’t. I watched him on the floor, still breathing. He could... No! He IS alright. I just need to focus on finding him and getting him out.’ A fire surged within him as he focused on the immediate task at hand: securing Felix's safety. Amidst the tempest of emotions swirling in his mind, the urgency of finding his friend drowned out most of his other thoughts, though some still managed to seep through. ‘Perhaps I’m still alive as well?’ he mused, stretching the truth within his mind, grasping for even a sliver of hope.

‘Let’s focus on getting out of here first,’ Marcus’s thought as he cautiously extended his limbs, each movement a deliberate test of the surrounding stability. He didn’t have any feeling in his limbs, which made finding loose debris harder. Instead, he had to pay attention to how far he thought he was extending his fingers or limbs, or the sound he was hearing. Slowly, he began to shift parts of scrap metal to the side, careful not to cause a cave in. ‘Up would be wise… I think,’ he mused, grappling with the problem of orientation. Figuring it out was hard at first, until he could almost imagine seeing his little brother shaking his head at him, reminding him of a thing called gravity. Finding small bits of metal such as screws that weren’t lodged in place indicated where down was. Just to be sure he occasionally picked up bits and dropped them, hearing them land underneath him as he crawled further upwards, using what little blue light came out from a hole in his torso.

Shifting aside another piece of metal, a glimmer of red light seeped in, illuminating more of his surroundings, and making it easier to make his way upwards. ‘Emergency lights are red, right?’ An occasional self-reprimand reminded him not to rush, cautioning against hasty movements that might cause a collapse and entomb him fully, or worse. At times, he froze, startled by the distant clamor of screams and the discharge of weapons. ‘Police or the military?’ he wondered each time as a surge of hope would bubble up inside him. Still, even in his current mental state, he understood that where firearms were present, people were nearby. Just the sound alone was enough to keep his hopes up.

The sensation of time running out intensified as whatever kept his mind tethered to this robot was being drained. ‘Just a little bit,’ he thought as more and more red light poured in until he smashed apart an old sink, creating an opening to the outside. As he crawled through, he noticed the strange red hue around him. He could vaguely make out the sun in the sky, yet everything around him was reddish, as if looking through colored glass.

When he finally was out, he realized that he was on a massive towering heap of scrap metal. His gaze swept across the expanse, revealing several other large mounds. Some neatly formed stacks of objects such as cars or washing-machines, while others resembled chaotic jumbles, much like the pile he found himself on. ‘I’m in a junkyard?’ His mind whirred with recognition, a disheartening reality that he was no longer at the Tech Expo, or close to Felix. It took him a few seconds to collect himself again and look around, his camera spotting the encompassing fence and the numerous paths that led to a building near a gate. Despite having heard gunfire and shouting previously, he couldn’t see any people around. ‘There’s got to be someone out there, right?’ he thought as he watched the building for a few more seconds before mustering the courage to rise to his feet, his unsteady form swaying hesitantly as he grappled with the unfamiliar sensation. Instead of muscles and sinew, he had pistons and motors to balance with. Every movement felt like a puzzle to solve, a symphony of mechanical parts working in unison, a stark contrast to the fluidity of his human limbs. ‘This feels so weird.’

As he took his first hesitant step, his legs gave way beneath him, his steel knees slamming into the garbage underneath him. Forced to look downward, he caught a glimpse of his distorted reflection in a shiny piece of metal. A wave of unease washed over him as he stared into his robotic form, his camera lens staring back at him. The protective plastic encasing his frame exhibited signs of wear and tear, with fragments of shattered pieces scattered here and there.

He flexed his robotic hand, once again experiencing how different it all was. Back at the tech expo with his friends, he had felt his own body move, with the robot simply mimicking his actions in a way that felt like synergy. But now, it was just him inside the machine—a direct connection. Now that he was finally free from being trapped under rubble or garbage, he had a chance to actually examine his new body. He noticed the damage on his torso where the meteor had struck him and Oscar. Grabbing the reflective metal, he held it sideways and peered inside the hole. He spotted a round, blue rock-like object emitting a soft, continuous glow, with peculiar tendril-like strands extending from it. The surface of the rock appeared unusually smooth and spherical, almost unnaturally so. It seemed to cause the air around it to distort in a subtle blue hue before gradually dissipating. ‘What the hell is that? Is that some sort of meteor clump?’ he wondered, sliding a metal finger through the hole to tap the round object, but nothing happened.

He examined the rest of his body, noticing the fractured electrical wires in his limbs. However, when he moved the hand, it functioned flawlessly. Similar to his chest, he observed peculiar bluish strands connected to important mechanical components slithering along his arm underneath the protective plastic barrier before disappearing into his torso and connecting to the strange round and blue thing. ‘All of this isn’t weird at all,’ he remarked, lightly touching a section of the strands but sensing no response. ‘They almost have an organic quality... like metallic veins or roots.’ He then checked his other limbs and found a similar situation there.

‘Alright, enough with all the messing around,’ he decided before crawling closer to the ledge of the garbage pile in search of a clear route down. ‘Clearly, walking down is out of the question. Maybe sliding would work?’ Marcus pondered as he turned around and pressed his chest against the debris before slowly pushing himself backward, descending legs first. As he moved, he dislodged various objects, their clattering echoes punctuating his descent. He proceeded cautiously, testing his grip each time, ensuring stability before letting it carry his weight.

As time passed, he found his trust in his limbs growing. Still, not even midway through, the feeling of him running out of this strange energy became more pressing, like how he had felt back when he had held onto Oscar. Realizing he was on the brink of losing consciousness again, he began to panic, resulting in him picking up the pace. In his haste, he clutched a rusted steel pipe, which snapped under his weight, causing him to slip and careen downward, colliding with metallic debris as he tried desperately to curl himself into a protective ball.

Down the heap of garbage Marcus went, his steel body colliding with rusted metal objects that either shattered under the impact or caused him to bounce off, further damaging the protective plastic casing around his frame. ‘Oh shit... shit... shit…’ Marcus’s thoughts raced as he was slammed upwards, experiencing a fleeting moment of weightlessness before reconnecting with the refuse below with a loud crash. Eventually, he slid to a halt at the bottom amidst a pool of filth and mud, gradually sinking deeper into the repulsive mixture as the energy that tethered him to his metal frame ran out.

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Copyright: OsiriumWrites