Chapter 15 Fabrication Plant

Chapter 15 Fabrication Plant


The server room was silent once more, but the air was heavier. Like it was holding something it shouldn't.

The corpse of Unit 03, Kalu, was frozen in the elevator shaft, with his back to the wall, and those dead green-text eyes staring at nothing. Efe slept, or was pretending to sleep, huddled close to the heat that was leaking out of the generator.

Alex was sitting at the terminal, rolling the black Server Root Key between his fingers.

Safe. For now. The Iron Vanguard had withdrawn, shaken by the presence of their undead leader pacing about once more. The Termites were put on hold. The Sentinel was reloading.

But none of it seemed to be enough. Alex stared at the Void Daggers lying on the console. S-Rank weapons. Kalu had been walking with them as though they were a part of his body. As water seeking holes in rock. Alex had swung them like a child with a stick and had almost killed himself.

I have the cheat codes, he said to the room that was empty. But I do not know how to play the game.

He stood. His joints cracked. He passed the sleeping dragon-girl and the zombie soldier, and entered the freight elevator by himself.

He jammed the Root Key into the panel.

ACCESS GRANTED: LEVEL -4
DESIGNATION: FABRICATION PLANT

The elevator fell below the server farm. The air grew colder. The odor changed--less ozone, more old grease and standing water.

Ding.

Doors were open to black.

Alex put up his hand. "System. Lights."

Floodlights in the industry flicked on in a row, and he could feel them buzzing his teeth.

Level -4 was no clean lab. It was a factory floor. Dark oil-stained concrete walls. Frozen conveyor belts. Robotic arms hanging like dead spiders, with the joints fixed, heads hanging.

At the heart of it was a machine that was as big as a shipping container. Reinforced glass housing. Tubes and hoppers pouring into it on all sides.

NAME: INDUSTRIAL 3D BIO-PRINTER.
STATUS: OFFLINE
ERROR: FEEDER JAMS. NO MATERIAL.

"This is it." The words were a sigh that he had been holding hours.

This is the way Nexus Tech developed their security bots. And in case Alex could crack it, this was the way he would create his army.

He hobbled to the control panel. Dust coated everything. He wiped it off with his sleeve and typed in his administration password.

DIAGNOSTIC RUNNING...
HOPPERS: EMPTY.
NOZZLES: CLOGGED.
CALIBRATION: REQUIRED.

"Of course." He rubbed his face. "Nothing is ever easy."

Three hours. That was all it took, and none of it was pretty. He was no Admin down here. He was a mechanic. He got into the machine on his hands and knees, scraping hardened plastic off the nozzles with a flathead screwdriver. He brought up buckets of dead Termite shells--silicon-rich, good material feed--up the elevator and poured them into the hopper, load after load. His shoulders burned. His back was aching.

He labored till his hands were sore and his shirt was wet.

Then the machine hummed. At first, low, construction. A green light blinked on the console.

STATUS: STANDBY.
AVAILABLE BLUEPRINTS: NONE.

"I don't need blueprints," Alex said, tapping his temple. "I have the code."

He was able to print bodies now. Skeletons. Shells. Frames. But he could not print ability. That part was on him.

He glanced at the Void Daggers at his belt.

A row of crash test dummies were lined up against the wall in a distant part of the factory floor. Durability testing mannequins were made of heavy synthetic. Thick torsos. Dead weight.

Alex came and pulled out the daggers. Light. Almost weightless. The purple energy on the edges vibrated on his palms.

Kalu nearly killed me in two seconds, he said to himself. Because I was afraid. Because I flinched.

He went to the first dummy.

Slashed.

Sloppy. The blade got hold of the shoulder of the dummy at an inopportune angle and slid off the surface. Barely a scratch.

"Bad form."

Reset. He closed his eyes. Pictured how Kalu moved. The Shadow Step. That rolling, rolling blow, in which the entire body had given impulse to the wrist in the last moment.

He slashed again.

Thwack. The dagger bit in. Better.

Alex continued to go on the next six hours.

He cut until his arms were hollow, until the muscles ceased to burn and merely numbed. He stabbed until his palms were torn open on the leather grips. He drilled the footwork of Kalu--the sliding, the pivots, the forward thrusts that made defense offensive in half a heartbeat.

Each failure he made himself pay. Faster.

Each fall he pulled himself up. Stronger.

He was no longer fighting the dummy. He was struggling with himself. Every hesitation. Every flinch. That was the frozen moment when the smoke grenade had detonated and his legs had not moved.

I am the Admin, he grunted through his teeth, and turned the dagger low and thrust it up into the neck of the dummy. "I don't get scared."

Slash. Stab. Pivot. Slash.

Sweat poured into his eyes and he winked. His breathing was harsh, ripped, in short jerks that pained his ribs. His blisters on his hands had burst some time ago. The hilts were greasy with blood. He held on tighter.

The dummy was wrecked. It had deep gouges on its chest and sides, synthetic material suspended in strips.

One more. Alex lunged. He no longer thought. His body just moved. A sharp, upward, sliding blow, under the ribs and through.

SYSTEM ALERT

A golden box came in his sight.

SKILL UNLOCKED: DAGGER MASTERY (LVL 1)
EFFECT: +10% DAGGERS ATTACK SPEED.
PASSIVE: MUScle MEMORY ESTABLIS.

The daggers fell out of his hands and struck the concrete with a clang.

Alex fell on his knees. His chest heaved. He could feel his own heart beat in his head. He raised his hands and gazed at them. Shaking. Bloody. At every knuckle swollen.

But they were unsafe.

"Level 1," he whispered. An exhausted smile penetrated the dirt that covered his face.

He looked over at the Bio-Printer, still humming on standby. Then back to the elevator that led up to his Kingdom.

He had the factory. He had the weapon. He had the skill now.

"Time to open up shop," Alex said, and pushed himself to his feet. "The world needs potions. And I'm the only supplier."

ARC 1: THE SILICON TOMB - COMPLETE