I stood on the reinforced concrete gun-deck. Before me stood no primitive ballista jury-rigged from truck leaf springs; this was the Sentry Gun Mk.I—a dual-mount 20mm rotary autocannon.
Its hydraulic servo-mount glinted with a cold, industrial sheen. The twin barrels were dark voids, exhaling the sharp, solvent scent of fresh gun oil. The massive ammunition drum was mounted like a heavy backpack at the rear, its brass-linked belt gleaming with a dull, lethal promise in the first light of morning.
The seat once reserved for a gunner was conspicuously empty. In its place sat a black iron chassis the size of a shoebox. On the surface of that chassis, the 99.9999% pure silver plate Mykra had engraved pulsed with a rhythmic, stroboscopic violet light. It was the machine’s Central Processing Unit.
“This is your new toy?”
Zayla walked up, her hand resting habitually on the pommel of her blade. Her golden pupils narrowed in blatant suspicion. “No iron sights, no manual cranks, and no gunner in the seat. Just a thick bundle of copper wires trailing into the shadows.” She rapped her knuckles against the cold receiver. “Alex, is this meant to scare birds? Or do you expect it to grow its own eyes?”
“It doesn't need a gunner in the seat. The operator is the processor.”
I glanced toward the shadow cast by the ammo drum. Mykra was huddled there, a crude crown of woven copper and shadow-runes resting on his head. His hands gripped a set of heavy dual joysticks wired directly to the Absolute Silver plate inside the black iron chassis.
“Ready, Mykra?”
“...Neural link... stable,” Mykra’s voice was a raspy, strained whisper. “...Hydraulic feedback... online.”
“Good. Brad! Initiate dynamic entry simulation!”
“Catch these!” Fifty meters away, Brad stood holding a stack of discarded ceramic roofing tiles. He laughed, his S-grade strength exploding as he whipped three plates into the air simultaneously. They flew in different directions—left, center, and right—carving jagged, non-linear arcs simulating griffin dives.
In the shadows, Mykra’s eyes widened violently. The runes on his copper crown flared.
There was no grinding of manual gears. Driven by Mykra's shadow-perception and translated instantly by the silver plate, the heavy turret whipped around with terrifying, inhuman speed.
BRRT! BRRT!
Two short, violent bursts. The first two ceramic plates hit an invisible wall of kinetic energy and disintegrated into white dust.
But as the turret snapped toward the third plate, the barrels jerked erratically.
Click. The gun hesitated.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
CRASH! The third plate missed the barrage entirely, shattering harmlessly against the concrete wall behind us.
“Ghk...!” Mykra tore the copper crown from his head, collapsing to his knees. A thick stream of dark blood leaked from his nose. He gasped for air, his brain overloaded. “...Too fast. Three trajectories... spatial calculation... exceeds my synaptic limit.”
“Damn...” Sarak dropped her wrench. “It hit two targets in less than a second! But... the biological bandwidth bottlenecked it.”
“Exactly,” I said, stepping forward to hand Mykra a rag. “This is a Neural-Hydraulic Link. It uses shadow-mana to translate the operator's spatial awareness directly into mechanical torque, bypassing the physical delay of human hands cranking gears. But it is not autonomous. It is entirely limited by the operator's biological reflexes and multi-tasking limit.”
I pushed up my glasses, looking at the smoking barrels. “Until we find an ancient 'Machine Brain' from the Pre-Civilization era capable of autonomous predictive logic, we have to act as the radar ourselves.”
I turned to Zayla. The Cat-kin Queen was staring at the machine, her pupils shrunk to pinpoints. But this time, she didn't see the end of her usefulness. She saw a terrifying extension of her own lethality.
I picked up the copper crown and the joysticks, holding them out to her.
“Mykra's brain is sharp, but his physical reflexes are too slow for an anti-air matrix,” I looked deeply into her amber eyes. “But you... You possess the absolute highest kinetic vision and reflex speed in this entire city.”
I placed the control terminal into her calloused hands.
“With this link, your reflexes are no longer limited by the strength of your muscles or the length of your blade. Your 'Shadow Step' just gained a two-kilometer effective range. From today on, you are the Fire Control System. You are the Sky-Shield.”
Zayla took the heavy joysticks. The cold weight of the hardware snapped into her grip perfectly. The sense of being replaced by machines vanished, replaced by the electric thrill of holding thunder in her palms. A fierce, predatory smile finally broke through her regal mask.
“...Load the next belt,” Zayla commanded, her golden eyes burning as she looked at Brad. “Let’s see if this iron beast can keep up with my eyes.”
In the shadows, Mykra didn't cheer. He simply watched the black box and its flowing purple light. It was the ultimate retort from an Umbra discarded by history. He reached out and traced two words into the dust on the floor. It wasn't a spell. It was the greeting every programmer on Earth issues when they first light up a screen.
“Hello, World.”
I adjusted my glasses as the dawn light hit the turret, reflecting a blinding flare off the chrome barrel. “Sarak.”
“Yes, Builder!”
“Mass production. I want these towers covering every centimeter of the perimeter. If it flies, I want it grounded.”
Question of the Day: Where should Alex deploy the first batch of 10 Sentry Guns?
?? A) Perimeter Walls: Standard defensive layout.
(Result: Fortification. The city becomes an iron fortress, but the industrial district remains vulnerable to high-altitude drops.)
?? B) The Industrial Core: Protect the "Brain."
(Result: Internal Security. If an elite squad of assassins or flyers manages to sneak in, they will be shredded before they can sabotage the generator.)
?? C) Hidden "Kill Zones" in the Barrens.
(Result: The Engineer's Choice. Don't wait for them to reach the walls. Ambush the Storm Clan scouts miles away, keeping the city’s location a lethal mystery.)
Follow and Rate for more industrial madness!