Aethel: Part I

Part 1

Between the dark smog that burned my eyes, the run-down factories that leaked ever since they were abandoned, and the need to hide from passing patrols, our planet was truly ruined. The Malevolents took my home, forcing the Altruists to flee to ruined, camouflaged bases. And to make it worse, I couldn’t find Stig anywhere.

“Xandra to Stig, do you copy?” I asked, reaching for my com-link.

“Stig here. Where?” Stig asked, his crisp voice soft in my ear.

“Behind the old flyar factory. Think you can find it?”

“Meh. That depends. Which direction are you?”

I chuckled. “Stig, you couldn’t find my location or the direction I’m in even if your life depended on it.” I pressed up against a wall and turned my wrists upright, then flicked my finger to summon a holographic map that had the locations of all Altruists and Malevolents as tiny dots. I zoomed in on Stig’s white dot and saw three purple dots behind him. My eyes widened.

I heard a whoosh muffled with static in my ear, then Stig crying out in pain.

“Oh, scrap! Xandra, I’ve been spotted by a Malevolent patrol. I need backup immediately, code three-three-six! Send backup! Repeat, code three-three-six!” I could hear running footsteps and blasters shooting. Cries of pain as he shot his weapon at them.

I looked at my screen, pressed the red emergency button and yelled, “We got an Altruist being chased by a Malevolent patrol two klicks Northwest of the flyar factory! Request immediate backup! Martha, can you hear me? Request immediate backup! Code three-three-six!” I summoned my motorbike and drove off in Stig’s direction.

I turned on the small radio on the front of my bike and adjusted to Stig’s channel. “Stig, you gotta keep talking to me, I need to know if you’re okay. Stig, can you hear me? Stig!” The radio was silent, and my bike’s wheels were the only thing I heard.

I stopped my bike and listened. Wind softly blowing, the quiet hum of the bike’s engine, and the distant shouts of fighting in Stig’s direction. I kept driving until I approached an alleyway that sounded like where the voices were coming from. De-summoning my bike, I snuck into the alleyway, and peeked around the corner where the voices were strongest.

Looking around the corner I saw Stig on the ground, his blaster far away from him, and three Malevolents in a circle softly talking to each other and looking at Stig.

I made a motion with my right hand, one wrist flick, two bends of the index finger, while waving a screen in front of me that was pointed in the direction of the Malevolents. Then I could suddenly hear what they were saying and see them at the same time.

My tripium heart was pounding, being this close to three Malevolents was literally a death wish. If they noticed any kind of holographic tech, I would also be in their clutches.

“I don’t like this plan,” the first bot said, he had a ragged voice that I didn’t like. “Must we sit and wait for the Altruist he was talking to show up and kill us?”

“I don’t like it either, Vorin.” the second one said. “But the Warden has ordered us to capture Altruists. Not kill them. So we can use them for Project End.”

My eyes went wide. Scanning my memory database for anything like that. Project End? What was that? The end of the Altruists? The end of the war? The end of something else?

“La, de, da, de, da!” the third one sang, attracting the attention of the other two. “You both don’t realize that I’m here too, right? We need to keep quiet or we give away our location!”

“Wow, thanks a lot Ms. Sing.” the one named Vorin said, rolling his eyes. “Can you yodel while you’re at it? Maybe recite a ballad about how we will win the war? That’ll sure be quiet.”

An engine roared in my ear, and I had to turn off my listening tech to stop it.

“Thought that would get your attention.” a voice said into my com-link.

I turned on my tech again and moved the screen around until I saw a bot laying on the building behind Stig. “Maybe you could have gotten it in a way that didn’t fry my ears?”

“Meh. Wouldn’t have been as fun.” Martha said. “Anyway, I’m in sniper mode and I see three Malevolents, and… is that Stig? What happened?”

“What happened is that they paralyzed me.” Stig said in our ears. “So, I can’t move for another hour. Stupid toxin.”

“Hey! You know we can see you up there right? Get down here and fight like a Malevolent! Not a cowardly Altruist!” Vorin said, waving his arms at Martha.

She stood up and aimed her blaster. “Alright, you asked for it!” Then she jumped off the roof of the building and fired her blaster once, twice, three times and all three of the Malevolents fell to the ground.

“Whoo!” Martha rolled on the ground into a perfect pose. “I love taking down some Malevolents!”

“Stig? Are you okay?” I asked, running up and giving him a paralysis antidote.

“I will be in a minute.” Stig sat up as he looked at me with kind eyes that widened a second later. “Um, Xandra. They aren't an Altruist right?” he pointed behind me just as a net enveloped us.

“Argh! What the heck? What just happened?” Martha changed to her knife and started hacking at the rope.

“What happened is that you were caught in a trap-net.” a voice said from the top of the building that Martha had just been on.

I looked up and recognized that the bot on the roof was using a voice changer to conceal their identity, so no one could track if they were a Malevolent or an Altruist.

The bot dropped from the building and I could finally get a clear visual of them. First of all, they had this contraption on their back that held many long sticks folded in on each other, at least eight of them I saw. They carried a blaster, but one that had heavy duty defense mechanisms and large ammo. A rocket launcher I guess, probably what they used to trap us in the net.

“Oh. I see, you three are Altruists.” they said, holstering the launcher. “So, did you kill those Malevolents?” they pointed at Martha.

“Yes I did. Now let us out of here! Who are you anyway? Malevolent or Altruist?” Martha demanded.

“You can call me Deinopidae. And I’m neither.”

I was confused for a moment. How could this bot not be an Altruist or a Malevolent? Was there a third side in the war? A secret one?

Deinopidae looked at us with a confused expression behind their mask, as far as I could tell, then raised their arm and pressed a button on the holographic screen that appeared.

*

I woke up in a room, lying down on a bed. Sitting up slowly, I rubbed my forehead, then checked for my gear. It was all gone, stashed in a bag next to the bed. I instantly jumped up, then sat back down woozily. I quickly grabbed the bag and frantically searched through it, then pulled out a tripium injector. Shaking, I raised it to my neck, inserted the needle, and pressed the inject button.

The relief that I had as the silver liquid ran through my veins was indescribable, but at least I had more in me. Tripium is the life force of all Aetheans on our planet, Aethel.

…At least that’s what we called our planet before the war. We now call it Dualis. But all Altruists believe that once we win, Aethel will be our home again, but for now, I needed to know where the heck I was.

Looking around for the first time I saw that Stig and Martha were lying in beds at the opposite side of the room, which was at least nine equal steps in width, length, and height to make a cube. They both had IV bags and tubes flowing with tripium attached to their arms. They didn’t look as well as me, both had scars on their bodies, and there were a few subtle but visible burn marks on Martha’s left side.

“...What?” I whispered, walking over to check on them.

I checked the medical records that all Altruists were sent just in case our medic wasn’t there, and it was worse than I had originally thought. Martha had second-degree burns, and the scars were from knife wounds, Malevolent Watcher knives to be exact.

I pressed a few buttons and tried a comms call to base, most likely that Reina was there now, she was always there.

The screen flickered, and the faint outline of Reina came into view, but the connection wasn’t going to last long.

“Reina! Can you hear me? I need you to lock onto my coordinates now!”

“...Xandra? ...Hear you…are you?...Coordinate supply…”

“Reina? Reina!” The screen flickered then went dead.

“No!” I tapped some buttons to try and pick the call up again, but it seemed like the connection was severed.

“Ugh!” I groaned, then sat down back on my bed and buried my face in my hands.

If I couldn’t contact base, how could I get us out of here? Wherever on Dualis here is.

“Hello?” someone said from behind me.

I recognized the voice as Deinopidae and turned around and saw them, standing in front of a door that I hadn’t noticed before.

“Hey, Deinopidae. What are you doing?” I asked.

“I heard you trying to talk to someone. Who was it?”

“Oh, I was just trying to call the Altruist base. Why didn’t the connection work?”

“A safety precaution. So, the Malevolents do not find us.”

“Wise. By the way, are you a he or a she?”

“Neither. Due to the Malevolents, I am neither masculine or feminine. I am just Deinopidae. Why do you ask?”

“Your name just sounded like you were male. Also, what is this secret third side of the war that no Altruist knows about? And where are we?”

Deinopidae’s sticks on their back unfolded, and I realized they were actually legs. The tip of each leg formed into a tool, then they walked over to where Martha and Stig were lying and talked as the arms adjusted the tubes and checked the two of them.

“The third side in the war, as you say, are called the Amoralists. We are survivors from the Great Dark, and joined together to fight against the Malevolents. We did not know that a stronger group had formed to fight against the Malevolents until we found a faint Altruist emergency beacon and rescued them. We found out all about the Altruists, how they work and command, and their classes. Warrior, sniper, archer, mechanic, medic, and ranger. You are a mechanic. Stig is a warrior. Martha is a sniper. We brought you here because you are all badly injured.”

“What? How did you know all that? Besides from the Altruist beacon. Who was that anyway?”

“By studying your weapons and tactics. Also, the Altruist from the emergency beacon is named Ullr. A skilled archer. Do you want to meet him?”

“Sure. I’d like to know where he went during the war.”

Deinopidae led me out of the room and to a series of corridors with other Amoralists working on something in the windows. Gathered around a map at a table, sorting weapons, drinking tripium, battle planning, and many other things. As we passed, a few of them looked up and stared in wonder at me. I guessed that they had never seen an Altruist mechanic before. I also noticed that Deinopidae was the only Amoralist with red eyes, and everyone else had blue. Weird.

Deinopidae opened one last door that revealed an Altruist sitting on a bed, fiddling with his arm, and a tall Amoralist looking over his shoulder.

The Amoralist looked up and set a tripium injector on the table next to him. “‘Ello, Deinopidae. Who’s the ‘truist?”

Deinopidae walked up to the table and picked up the tripium injector. “Hello, Chirurgeon. This is Xandra. A skilled mechanic. She wanted to meet Ullr.” They looked at the Altruist messing with his arm.

It looked like the gun mode had been damaged and Ullr couldn’t change it, so I walked up and took a closer look.

“Do you mind?” I asked him.

He shook his head encased in a helmet. “Not at all. See what’s wrong with it.”

“Your gun mode seems to be damaged. The main problem looks to be your versif. With a few parts, I could rewire the connection and make your gun anew. May I?” I said to Chirurgeon.

He handed me a toolbox and some arm parts, then I got to work. Opening a panel with a laser, taking out the damaged versif and digging around till I found a cut wire, sealing it up with copper, and rewiring a replacement versif. Within a minute his arm looked brand new, mostly because of the clean panels I used to replace the cutting.

When I was done, Ullr raised his arm and inspected it in the light.

“Wow. Thanks. I didn’t know a mechanic could do something like that.”

“Well, when you’re one for thirteen years, you tend to pick up a few things. By the way, what made you send out an emergency beacon?”

Something changed in Ullr’s face. It was hard to tell because of his helmet, but I was pretty sure that a flash of panic rose in his eyes, then was smoothed over in a weird way.

“When the war started, I was sent out on a mission to retrieve a stash of tripium, but when I got there, Malevolents attacked me, and I was forced to flee into a stasis pod. I don’t know how long it revolved around Dualis, but when I woke, the planet was in ruins. I sent out the beacon, waiting for a few months, and the Amoralists found me. So here I am now.”

I was shocked. Ullr had been in stasis for over fifteen years. The war had been going on for sixteen years. All that time, he was in stasis, while the war raged on down here.

“Is there a way to call somewhere outside the base?” I asked Deinopidae.

They nodded. “Yes. I will show you.”

Deinopidae led me down another series of corridors that emerged outside. The smog was thick here, but at least I was able to get a better signal.

I brought up the comms call again to contact Reina, but it wasn’t Reina this time, it was Sprocket, our medic.

“Xandra? Where are you? Supply your coordinates.” she said.

“Sprocket? Why are you at comms?”

“Did you not hear what I said, Xandra? Supply your coordinates.”

“Did you not hear what I said, Sprocket? Why are you at comms?”

Sprocket sighed, then said, “If I tell you why, will you supply coordinates?”

I looked over at Deinopidae and they nodded.

“Yes.” I said to the screen.

“Alright, Reina was sent on a mission to find your last location and track you down from there.”

“What? Why? Why didn’t Alastair send Phorien?”

“I’ll answer that after you supply coordinates.”

I groaned, then supplied them.

“Alright, happy now medic?”

“Yes. Very. Anyway, Phorien isn’t here.”

“Well where did he go?”

“Why do you always expect me to know everything? I’m not Phylax. He’s the one who knows everything… somehow…”

Her face fell, and I knew why. Phylax was the Malevolent leader, but all Malevolents called him The Warden, prior to him being more powerful than all the Altruists. He also killed one of our most skilled warriors, Agapios, who was Sprocket’s best friend.

“I know, I miss him, too. But you can’t dwell on the past, Sprocket. Focus on the present.”

“I know. But just wait until I get my hands on Phylax, if he dares to lay even a single finger on another Altruist I swear I’ll –” she cut herself off and hung her head. “Never mind. Anyway, your coordinates say that you’re on the far east of Malevolent territory. How did you get there?”

I looked over at Deinopidae again, then back to Sprocket.

“Well, Sprocket you see… There's a third side in the war, and they call themselves the Amoralists. It's a long story, but you should come see for yourself.”

“Wait, what? A third side in the war? How? Who are they? Can I meet the leader?”

“We do not have a leader.” Deinopidae said as they came up from behind me. “We call ourselves Amoralists. We are survivors from the Great Dark and formed a resistance against the Malevolents. We did not know about the Altruists until recently, when one named Ullr sent out an emergency beacon and we rescued him.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Deinopidae. Can you search for someone named Ullr, please?”

Sprocket nodded then typed on a holo-table. “Hm… That’s weird. The database says there’s no Altruist named Ullr. What class is he?”

“Archer.” I stated.

Sprocket typed a little more, then her eyes went wide.

“Xandra! Get everyone out of there immediately! Ullr is a Malevo–” then the screen went dead, and the last thing I saw was Deinopidae’s worried face when something slammed into my head, and everything went black.

*

I woke up to a searing light shining in my eyes.

“Stable,” a faraway voice said. “But she’s waking up.”

“Put her back under, then. You have a job, do it right.” another voice said.

“I can’t. We used up all the tranq darts on her and the other one.”

“Which?”

“Uh… the one with the sticks on their back? I don’t know. What, just because I’m a medic you expect me to know everything?”

“Uh, yeah! That’s your job, idiot!”

“I know it’s my job! Why aren't you doing yours?!”

“I am! My job is to supervise you!”

“Supervise me?! I thought you were supposed to be training the new recruits! You know, the ones that actually need a general as experienced as you right now?”

A general. And a medic. Fighting about keeping me unconscious, then about some new recruits. Most likely Malevolents. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and I felt that I was low on tripium.

My eyes opened slowly, and I saw two Malevolents standing in front of me, one holding a tool that I didn’t recognize, and the other had his arms crossed.

I struggled, then saw that my arms and legs were in restraints and I was sitting in a holding cell, kept up by a metal ring around my waist. A purple barrier wall was separating me from the Malevolents.

The one holding the tool pointed the spiky tip of it at me. “Who are you?”

I pulled at the cuffs on my wrists, then angled my wrists down and pulled them in opposite directions, but the cuffs still didn’t break. Suddenly, an electric shock ran through me and I cried out in pain.

“I asked you a question, Altruist. Who are you?” the first one asked again.

“My name… is Xandra.” I stated breathlessly.

I wouldn’t give them much information, no passwords or anything. I swore an oath to our leader that I would protect our secrets with my life, and I will keep that oath.

“Okay, that’s a start,” the other one said. He approached the barrier. “What is the other one’s name? The one with the sticks on their back.”

“They’re named Deinopidae.”

“Why is there an entire base of Aetheans that aren’t Altruists? On the far east side of Malevolent territory?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me rephrase,” he pulled up a holographic screen on his arm, pressed a button and the barrier went down, then pressed another button and the restraints fell away, leaving me sitting there.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” the other Malevolent asked.

The general shot him a glare. “I am the general, Seryn. You are just a medic. Do as you’re told.”

“Yes sir.” Seryn said, placing the tool in a bag he was carrying.

The Malevolent general brought his attention back to me. “As I was saying, let me rephrase the question. What is the name of the ‘supposed’ third side of the war whose base you were hiding in?”

“They call themselves the Amoralists. Deinopidae is one.”

“Ah, so that’s what they are. The Amoralists. Interesting name, and as I recall, your friend Deinopidae is a survivor from the Great Dark, am I right?”

He must’ve seen the look on my face because then he walked back to Seryn and faced me.

“Just what I thought. You see, the Great Dark, it’s not what you think it is. During that time, The Warden told all the Malevolent engineers to try and create Malevolents that would be more powerful than all the Altruists. But the tripium power outage that is famous for earning the name the Great Dark was caused by the failed experiments they were working on, and I remember the one Malevolent that never woke up. Our engineers ran tests on it, and after a while, they discarded the thing. Since it never woke up, we found no use for it. But I suppose the one failed experiment who was supposed to be a Malevolent, turned out to be a supposed Amoralist.” he smiled.

“And we can just as easily make them back into what they were supposed to be. But first, I believe that Lord Phylax wants to see you.”

The barrier closed again, and they both left, leaving me alone. I was shocked. Deinopidae was originally a failed science experiment? That would explain what they said about not having a gender due to the Malevolents… and maybe that’s why they have red eyes. The other Amoralists woke up on time, but Deinopidae never did. A failed experiment. And Phylax wanting to see me? What was that about? Using me as leverage? Interrogation?

Suddenly, a Malevolent appeared at the barrier. He was taller than me and had a mysterious vibe around him that was sinister and creepy. In addition, with grey plating and a huge cannon on his right arm.

“So,” he started, his voice deep and low. “Are you the one Altruist who is brave enough to take on my top general?”

“Yes, and I assume you must be Phylax. Leader of the Malevolents.”

“Exactly. I assume Alastair Protos doesn’t skip the introduction for you all.”

“No. He doesn’t. Why did you want to see me?”

“I wanted to offer you a proposal. If you want to see the failed experiment again, you’ll join the Malevolents and sabotage the Altruists. If you do, the failed experiment lives, and we’ll let you go. If not, my scientists will easily extinguish theirs and your life. As well as everyone else we captured in the attack. So? What’ll it be?”

Casting my gaze down, I thought. This was an easy choice, to live or die, anybody would choose to join the Malevolents and live and try to save everybody else. But the Amoralists, Deinopidae, Chirurgeon, and everyone else… I couldn’t risk their lives.

“Well?” Phylax pressed, seemingly bored.

I looked up into his red eyes. “Alright. But I’m a mechanic, nothing else, Phylax.”

“That's Lord Phylax to you, and from what I’ve heard, before the war, you were one of the most skilled fighters on our planet. With knowledge of engineering, technology, and science. Is that not so?”

I managed to suppress the shock on my face. Scrap. What am I, stupid? I have a very clear memory of shaking Phylax’s hand after an arena fight, before the war. The Phylax that I once knew, supportive, funny, uplifting. He died sixteen years ago, and the one that stood before me, he was not the same bot.

“Fine, you’re… you're smart,” was it just me, or were the walls really blurry? That was funny. “I was a fighter, but… now I’m a mechanic. Sure, I still remember how to operate a mine-driller, but I haven’t handled one in… in years…”

I squinted, that helped a little. Were walls supposed to bend? Why would the Malevolents make their walls so bendy? Phylax said something, but it sounded like he was underwater. My face hit something hard, the world tilted sideways, my eyes closed… then something pricked my arm. Ow.

I opened my eyes. There was another bot standing over me, smiling smugly.

“Oh, good. You’re awake.” she said, stepping back to allow me to sit up. “I was beginning to wonder whether you’d ever wake up.”

“What? What happened?” I rubbed my forehead. Still in the cell, but it looked like this bot was also a Malevolent medic.

“Oh, you passed out right in front of our leader, not very respectful, but I got more tripium in your system.” she said.

“How… How long was I out?”

“Oh, three days.”

“Three days?!”

She started to laugh.

“Ha! You actually fell for it! Ha ha! Heh, no, it was just a few minutes.” She put the injector she was holding in a bag next to her. “You should have seen your face. It was like you had slept for three years instead of three days. I’m Eryx, by the way.” she held out her hand and I shook it.

“Wha… are you another medic?”

“Yes. That should’ve been very obvious.” she rolled her eyes. “By the way, you should get to work.” she nudged a weird looking contraption over to me and stood up.

I picked it up. “What? What is this?”

“It’s a robot. A SRB. Stealth-Recorder Bot. One of our newest inventions, courtesy of our top engineer, Vex. She wants you to figure out what's wrong with it.”

She walked toward the frame of the cell barrier, stopped, and said, “We’re leaving the barrier open. Stay here. Hope you can complete a task as simple as that.” she walked away.

I looked at the SRB. It was small, very small, about the size of my palm, with four arms, and at the end of each arm was a little claw with three fingers. On top it had a propeller with two rotors, multiple cameras, and a little slot that held a chip. I took it out and inspected it in the light. It seemed to be a DRAM chip, long and thin with eight little square boxes raised up to store data. DRAM chips could hold up to 80 square bits of memory. Seems useful, if you need to record about five hours of data or audio.

I put the chip back in and inspected the little robot some more, turning it over and over in my hands, then, I noticed a little etching on the underside of one of its legs, hard to notice, but if you looked close enough, you would find it.

D-V UNIT 589 read the etching. D-V? What does that stand for? I rolled the letters around in my mouth. D-V… oh! Data-Vail! Gathering data behind a covering, like a veil. Spelled with an ‘a’ for ‘availability’. That’s weird. I looked at the bot, inspecting more. There was no problem with it at all. But that was on the hull. I didn’t have any tools to open up the robot.

I looked around the room. “Is there any chance I can get some–”

A panel slid open next to me and a big bag that clanked was thrown in.

“Tools.” I finished. “O-kay.”

I rummaged around and used some of the tools inside to open the little robot, and inside there was a mixture of circuits, wires, chips, and a motherboard. Great Protos. This was way more complicated than fixing the coolant of a car. I checked around. Nothing out of place. The wires were all a deep shade of green, and some of the circuits had little traces of tripium on them. I carefully used a slide tab to scoop some of the tripium off and inspect it under a microscope.

Based back on my days as a scientist, I saw nothing out of the ordinary with the tripium. It had regular activity, colored silver as always, the elements looked normal, and everything was fine with the tripium.

Maybe the circuits needed tripium to operate? Maybe Vex used those types of chips that needed tripium to flow electricity through the robot. But when tripium comes into contact with electricity, it explodes because the electrolytes can’t mix with the complex mix of elements that produce tripium. Taking the sample and putting it in a container, I took out a few circuits to see what they were, and it turned out they were the type that can mix electricity with tripium. They do it by taking out all the dangerous elements out of the tripium that would cause the explosion and then combine the two together, that way it wouldn’t be able to explode.

I flipped the SRB upside-down, took off the bottom panel, and moved some wires to see what was underneath. Beneath the wires, there was a motherboard that took up only a quarter of the space, centered in the middle, with a small pulse of silver tripium light coming from the middle data square on the motherboard. To simplify it, in a way, I was looking at ‘liquid data’. The tripium was cleansed and purified by the wires, then it was condensed, stored in the data square, and then the audio or video was inserted into the liquid for safekeeping.

I then spotted a cut wire, with drops of tripium dripping down slowly.

Aha. So that was the problem. The repair was quite easy, assuming the fact that I had many different tools and all the repair parts that one could need. When I was done, I packed up all the tools and closed up the SRB, then looked up to find Eryx suddenly standing at the entrance frame again.

“Wow. You actually fixed it.” She said, picking it up and inspecting the little robot.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Well, you are just a mechanic. Buuuuut, I have seen your work before the war. Great job inventing the cubicle fill. It works great for filling holes in roads.”

“Um. Thanks? I guess?”

She looked at me with a stern face that'd me wish I was invisible. “Don't make me take it back. I loved your inventions. You inspired me before the war. And now? Now you're just a lowly mechanic. Why did you choose the losing side, huh? Why did you throw away the great future you could've had on Dualis if you had become a Malevolent? Why aren't you on the winning side? Ugh!”

Eryx staggered to the side as I side-kicked her face, clutching it with one hand. A small drop of tripium flowed down from the injury to the floor.

“Why did I choose to be an Altruist? A lowly Altruist you mean!? Well, I'll tell you why. Because I knew that from the moment the war started, the Malevolents were evil! And from the moment the war started, Alastair Protos would try to make sure that Dualis didn't become broken and unrepairable. That is not what Phylax is trying to accomplish, you piece of scrap!” I yelled at her, resisting the urge to hit her again.

Eryx pulled her hand away from her face and stared at the tripium flowing down it. Then I heard another voice from outside the cell.

“Wow. You have no idea who just witnessed all this, or what the Malevolents are trying to accomplish, do you?”

Suddenly, I was shoved up against the wall by a strong bot. He had his hand on my neck and was choking me. Warnings about the lack of air blared in my mind, but I was too focused on trying to get this bot's hand off me.

“Ugh, let… me go!” I gasped.

I recognized him as the general I first saw in my cell.

“Well, Altruist.” the general spoke slowly. “I think Lord Phylax will want to hear about this little… incident, don't you think?”

Part 2 coming soon!