Clay was still screaming when they hit the floor.
It was high. Raw. The kind of sound Colt had never heard come out of his brother’s mouth. Clay’s boots scrambled on the smooth surface. His arms flailed. His eyes went wide.
“Clay.” Colt grabbed his shoulder. “Clay! We’re here. We made it.”
Clay stopped screaming. He stood there with his chest heaving, looking around the small room. White walls. The platform under their feet. The post with the red button.
“What…” Clay’s voice came out rough. “What the hell was that?”
Colt grinned. “Never heard you scream like that before.”
“Shut up.”
“Sounded like a little girl, Clay.”
“I said shut up.” Clay wiped his face with his sleeve. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking.
Pa’s body lay between them on the platform, still wrapped in the blanket.
Colt bent down and grabbed Pa under the arms. “Help me.”
Clay took his legs. They carried him out of the teleportation room and into the main area.
Clay stopped in the doorway.
His mouth hung open. His eyes moved across the room. The smooth pale walls. The metal shelves. The black cords running across the floor. The cold light overhead that didn’t flicker. The hum that sat in the air like it lived there.
“What is this place,” Clay said. His voice was barely there.
“This is it.” Colt walked backward, guiding them toward the bed. “The HUB.”
They set Pa down gentle. Colt straightened up and looked at his brother.
Clay was still staring. His head turned slow. His jaw hung loose. He looked like someone had knocked the sense clean out of him.
“That’s my table,” Colt said, pointing. “See how it’s metal? Look at this.” He pulled a drawer open and shut it. “Little drawers.”
He walked to the desk. “And this. This is a, um.” He tapped the screen. “It’s like a picture. But it has words on it. And they change.”
He pointed to the bigger screen up on the wall. “Another one right there.”
Clay didn’t say anything. He looked like he’d been hit between the eyes with a fence post.
“Oh, oh.” Colt waved him over toward the smaller door. “Over here’s the armory.”
They turned.
Kevin stood there.
“Oh, hey.” Colt stopped. “This is Kevin.”
Kevin’s head tilted. His single eye moved from Colt to Clay, then to the bed where Pa lay.
“Kevin, this is Clay,” Colt said.
Kevin didn’t acknowledge it. His body started moving in short jerky steps around the room. When he spoke, the words came fast.
“No no no. This is not part of protocol. You have introduced outside organisms into the HUB. You have brought a deceased human body into a sterile environment.” He circled the bed. “This is not part of protocol.”
“Whoa, Kev—”
“You are not to bring contaminants into the HUB.”
“His name is Clay.” Colt’s voice went flat. “Not contaminant.”
He walked to the bed. Looked down at the blanket. At the shape underneath it.
“And this is Pa.” Quieter now. “The ninjas got him.”
Kevin stopped moving. “You must leave now. And take the deceased human body with you.”
Colt turned. He walked to Kevin and stopped right in front of him.
“Clay ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“The organism designated Clay is a contamination risk. He must be removed.”
“He’s my brother, Kev.”
“That designation is irrelevant to protocol.”
Colt’s jaw tightened. “And Pa?”
“The deceased human body poses biological hazard. Decomposition will begin within—”
“Stop.” Colt held up a hand. His voice cracked a little. “Just stop.”
Kevin’s eye held on him.
“I ain’t leavin’ him out there,” Colt said. “I ain’t buryin’ him in dirt while ninjas crawl all over the place. He deserves better than that.”
“Protocol does not account for—”
Colt stepped closer. Got right in Kevin’s face. Poked a finger into his metal chest.
“Clay ain’t goin’ nowhere.” He poked again, harder. “And Pa sure as hell ain’t goin’ nowhere. You understand me?”
Kevin’s head tilted. His eye flickered once.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then Kevin stepped back.
“So be it,” he said. “But this is against protocol. I am logging this violation.”
“Log whatever you want, Kev.”
Colt turned to Clay. “Sorry about that. He was really nice last time I was here.” He paused. “Well, there was the time he flashed my eyes, couldn’t see a damn thing… But I was tryin’ to kick his little metal ass.”
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Clay stared at Kevin like he was looking at a snake coiled up in the corner. “I don’t trust that thing. Little metal man. Creepy as hell.”
Colt turned back to Kevin. “Hey Kev. Can you tell me more about this shinki?”
“Shinki is a power source. It is a cosmic energy.”
Colt frowned. “Cosmic?”
“The Big Bang,” Kevin said. “The explosion that created the universe. All matter. All energy. All existence originated from a single point approximately thirteen point eight billion years ago. Shinki is the residual energy from that event. It permeates all living things.”
Colt looked at Clay. “See? He’s smart. He’s the one that told me about mole-cues.”
Clay’s face scrunched up. “What’s a big bang?”
Kevin’s head turned toward Clay. The light in his eye dimmed for a moment, like he was deciding whether to bother answering. Then he looked back at Colt.
“Shinki has multiple applications. You may use it to power your skills. It serves as currency for trade or purchase of goods. It can power your modules. It can be used in the construction of weapons. And it is required to upgrade your software.”
Colt remembered the bar on the bottom last time Kevin upgraded his software. He remembered the scan. The three lineages. The third one had been corrupted.
He was afraid to ask about that.
“Skills?” he asked instead.
“Open your menu.”
Colt focused on the words in the corner of his vision. The menu dropped down.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.01
Stats
Status
Map
Armory
Module Bay: LOCKED
Skills: LOCKED
Help
?????
?????
?????
“It says they’re locked.”
Clay rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m sorry, Colt.” He glanced at Kevin and his nose wrinkled, upper lip curling back like he’d caught a whiff of something rotten. “This shit is crazy, okay? What the hell is goin’ on here? Please. Someone explain this shit to me.”
Colt closed the menu.
Kevin walked toward the desk with the screen on it. “Colt. Sit by the computer.”
Colt frowned. “The what?”
Kevin stopped beside the desk and pointed at the chair. “Sit.”
Colt sat down. Clay followed and stood next to him with his arms crossed tight against his chest.
The plug beside the computer emerged.
“You are able to display your user interface on the screen.”
Colt pulled his sleeve up. He found the edge of the flap on his wrist and peeled it back. The metal port gleamed under the light.
Clay staggered back a step. His face went pale. “Oh my God, Colt. That is just—” He put a hand over his mouth. “What is that, for fuck’s sake?”
Colt looked at Kevin. He wanted to know too.
Kevin’s head turned toward Clay. The light in his eye dimmed again, that same look, like he was side-eyeing him without having eyes to do it with. “That is Colt’s system port.”
Colt grabbed the plug and lined it up with the hole in his wrist. He pushed it in. It made a wet sound, like pulling a boot out of mud, then clicked into place.
Clay gagged and turned away. “Nah. Nah, that ain’t right. That ain’t right at all.”
The screen on the desk flickered once, then lit up.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.01 appeared in the corner.
“See? That’s it. Right there.” Colt pointed at the text on the screen.
Clay leaned closer, squinting. “It’s what? I see that, but what is it?”
“It’s what I see.” Colt tapped the side of his head. “Up here in the corner. All the time. In my vision. Now you can see it too.”
He looked at the menu and opened it.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.01
Stats
Status
Map
Armory
Module Bay: LOCKED
Skills: LOCKED
Help
?????
?????
?????
The screen showed the same thing now.
“Check this out.” Colt looked at Map.
The map opened.
EARTH 145 sat at the top. Below it, the layout of the HUB. On the map was a flashing dot where Colt sat. A small icon that looked like Kevin stood near the desk. And two little green X’s, one where Clay stood, one where Pa was laying on the bed.
“Look, that’s me.” Colt pointed at the flashing dot. “That there’s Kevin.”
He squinted at the green X’s. “Kev. What are those little green X’s?”
Kevin’s voice came out quieter than before. “The contaminants.”
“Little bastard,” Clay whispered to Colt.
Colt sighed and shook his head.
He looked at 145, thought about 265, and the map flickered and changed to his Earth. The familiar shapes appeared. The river bending where it should. The spread of land he knew. A little star marking the cabin.
Clay leaned in closer. “Ha. I know that map.” His voice lifted a little. “Look. Even got a little star at the cabin.” He laughed, but there wasn’t much behind it.
Colt exited to the main menu.
“Kevin. How do I unlock this stuff?”
“Software upgrades. Version one-point-one-zero will unlock the Skills tab. Along with the Moduler Bay.”
“How many shinki for that?”
“Check your Status tab.”
Colt opened the menu. Looked at Status. It lit up and opened.
Status:
Shinki Reserves: 0
Power Bank: 0
Software: v1.01
Class: Frontier Operative
Lineage: 3 (1 Primary, 1 Secondary, 1 Corrupted)
Next Upgrade: v1.02 — 50 shinki
Effects
Hmm. It says next upgrade is fifty shinki. One-point-oh-two. You said I need one-point-one-oh.
“Affirmative. The cost will rise by five percent with each upgrade.”
Colt looked at Clay. Clay shrugged.
Colt turned back to Kevin. “So how much total? To get to one-point-one-oh?”
“Approximately five hundred fifty-one shinki.”
Colt’s stomach dropped. “Five hundred fifty-one?”
“Affirmative.”
“We just spent all damn day gettin’ fifty.”
Clay let out a low whistle. “That’s gonna take a while.”
Colt stared at the screen. “Shit.”
He turned to Kevin. “That’s five hundred fifty-one ninjas we gotta kill?”
Clay shook his head slow. “That’s a lotta buckshot.”
“You’re tellin’ me that if I get these shinki I can upgrade my “software”, he said that word like it wasn’t a real thing. “I’ll be strong enough to fight these ninja?”
“Every version upgrade increases your ability to accomplish the mission.”
Colt turned his head, “mission? Right now, my mission is to go out there and kill ever single last one of those bastard ninjas.”
“Affirmative.”
Colt took a step forward and looked towards Pa.
“They’re gonna pay for what they did to you,” he looked toward Kevin.
“How the hell are we suppose to get that much shinki, Kev? It’s not possible.”
“There is more than one way to acquire shinki,” Kevin said. “There are other forms of shinki. We use the word shinki by default. I believe the natives to your Earth call it Puha. I would suggest looking there.”
Colt froze.
He saw the black wolf in his mind. Its eyes. Old eyes. Human eyes. And the Shoshone man underneath, kneeling in the dirt with paint on his skin, hands pressing light into Clay’s chest.
He’d heard tales from Pa. Stories about the tribes. Men who could change their shape. Walk in animal skins. Pa called them skin walkers. Colt had thought he was just telling tales to scare him before bed.
Guess not.
“It’s settled then,” Colt said. “We need to find the Shoshone. They gotta know somethin’.”
He looked at Clay. “You ready?”
Clay let out a long breath. “We just got here, Colt. I’m hungry as hell. I’m tired.”
Colt turned to Kevin. “Yeah, Kev, I’m kinda hungry too. I suppose you wouldn’t have any food here, would you?”
“I have sustenance for human life.”
Kevin’s eye started to flash. Light bled out from his chest, glowing through the seams in his metal plating. A small door clicked open in his torso. Kevin reached inside and pulled out two gray spheres, each about the size of an apple.
He handed one to Colt. One to Clay.
Clay held it up to his nose and sniffed. His face twisted. “Nope.” He shoved it back toward Kevin. “Let’s go, Colt. Ain’t no damn way.”
Colt sniffed his. Took a small bite. Chewed once.
He set it down on the desk.
“Kev, that’s gross.”
“That contains all the necessary nutrients to efficiently run the human body.”
“I think I’ll just bring somethin’ next time.” Colt stood up and looked at the bed where Pa lay. His chest tightened. “Take care of Pa for me.”
Colt pulled the plug from his wrist and pressed the flap back down.
He started toward the teleportation room, then stopped.
“Wait. Don’t I need shinki to get home?”
“To leave the HUB requires zero shinki.”
“Alright.” Colt looked at Clay. “Well. You ready?”
Clay was rocking back and forth on his heels, hands shoved in his pockets. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Colt opened the map. Earth 265. Travel.
The portal tore open in front of them, swirling blue and white, pulling at the air.
Clay’s face went pale again.
Colt looked at Clay with a cocky smile. “Count yer mole-cues.”
He grabbed Clay’s arm and stepped through.
