Chapter 1 The Attack
“Eat. Now.”
The voice carried no pressure, no warmth—just flat and emotionless. Still, it felt like an order no one could refuse.
“Red, come on,” the voice added, still in that same monotone.
Red stared miserably at the porridge in front of her. The same thing she had eaten for nineteen years.
“I’m tired of this, Ingo,” she muttered weakly.
“You have nineteen minutes left to finish your dinner,” Ingo responded.
Red—Aegea Harts—sighed. Her nickname had nothing to do with her hair, which was chin-length, straight, and black as ink. It came from her mechanical left eye—bright red, artificial since birth because she had been born with one eye that simply didn’t work.
“You’re not gonna win against Ingo,” said the figure sitting across from her.
Red shifted her gaze to Aelea, who was humming softly as she ate, her attention split between her food and the glowing tablet in her hand. The knowledge tablet was a device loaded with post–Great War information. Aelea wasn’t the type who usually cared about these things, which made it even weirder.
“You look… off,” Red commented. “Happy about something?”
Aelea, two years younger, immediately covered her chest as if Red had just read her secret diary. “Red, stop. Dad told you, it’s impolite.”
Red’s left eye could pull up internal data, like an X-ray, if she wanted to. But her late father had warned her countless times never to use it unless absolutely necessary. And reading Aelea’s oddly fast heartbeat? Yeah, that would definitely count as a crime.
“I didn’t do anything,” Red shrugged.
Aelea just rolled her eyes dramatically.
“What did we have last night?” Aelea asked, trying to change the topic. She flipped her chest-length, wavy brown hair over her shoulder, something that always managed to annoy Red.
“Beef Wellington,” Ingo replied in her usual confident tone, as if the dish truly existed in its original form.
“You ever tasted it, Ing?” Red asked.
Ingo dipped a metal finger into the pot, tasted the porridge, then stared between the two girls with a blank expression.
“Would you like me to describe the ingredients?”
“No!” they both answered at once.
Ingo disappeared into the kitchen, rinsing the pot and wiping down the counters with her usual robotic precision. They’d had this routine for the last ten years. Ingo was a third-generation AI maid, manufactured fifty years after the Great War.
“Put the knowledge tablet away, Aelea. You’re eating,” Ingo called from the kitchen.
“Okay…” Aelea slid the tablet to the edge of the table.
Boom.
A dull thud echoed from outside. Dust drifted from the ceiling and fell softly into Red’s bowl. The floor trembled.
Both girls froze, eyes locking.
Red’s robotic eye immediately scanned the wall, but nothing seemed off. Ingo turned too, her head shifting left and right, scanning the room—her gaze also able to pierce through solid surfaces just like Red’s.
Then another sound hit.
Boom. Boom. BOOM.
They came one after another, heavy and growing louder.
Aelea shot to her feet, face draining of color. “Ingo… what was that?” Her voice cracked.
“I don’t know. I’m not programmed to identify… whatever that is.” Ingo glanced at Aelea, then at Red. “Go to your rooms. I’ll check outside.”
But instead of running, both girls trailed behind Ingo, huddling behind her metal frame as she approached the front door. Their home had no windows, and sandstorms and harsh sunlight made it impossible to maintain.
The house fell silent. Unnaturally silent.
“Maybe it’s an earthquake?” Red whispered.
“My sensors detect no underground movement,” Ingo replied calmly. “Whatever it is… It’s coming from aboveground.”
“Another war? After fifty years of peace?” Aelea’s voice trembled.
“That’s impossible,” Red insisted.
They waited. And waited. Nothing happened. But Red still felt uneasy, like something was slipping past her robotic eye.
Ingo tapped Red lightly on the shoulder. “Dinner first, then.”
“Yeah, finish your dust-seasoned porridge,” Aelea teased.
Red opened her mouth to retort, but stopped. Her left eye suddenly burned, tightening painfully. She gasped, clutching her face as she sank to a squat.
Ingo moved toward her, but froze, turning sharply to the front door.
“What is that—”
Her sentence was sliced in half by a deafening shriek of metal.
The door exploded inward.
Jagged steel claws tore through the entrance, ripping it apart like paper. Aelea screamed—paralyzed—before one of the claws snatched her and dragged her outside in a blink.
“Ingooo!!!” Aelea’s scream faded into the chaos.
Another claw lunged for Ingo.
“Red, RUN!!” Ingo shouted, fighting back with all her strength.
Red, half-blinded by pain, saw the next claw reaching for her. Ingo broke free long enough to shove Red aside. One of Ingo’s palms opened—
“Ghníomhact!” she hissed.
Chairs flew across the room as Ingo threw anything she could grab. She leaped onto the bookshelf and smashed it down onto the claws, but they barely slowed.
One claw shot upward, aiming straight for Red.
Ingo moved instantly, shoving Red so hard she crashed into the side of the dining table.
Without mercy, both claws seized Ingo. Her metal frame twisted violently as she struggled, punching with mechanical force, but the claws held tight.
And then, right in front of Red—
They tore Ingo in half.
Blue, translucent fluid sprayed everywhere.
“No—NO! INGO!!!”
“R… run…” Ingo managed before her system shut down forever.
Red scrambled backward, sobbing uncontrollably, as the claws scanned the room. One of them found her under the table.
She shut her eyes.
This was it.
Another explosion of metal behind her, air rushed in, cold and sharp. Something grabbed her waist and yanked her upward. Red opened her eyes to see a massive robot holding her tightly against its chest.
The claws lunged again, but the giant robot met them head-on, one punch sending the metal beasts flying. Its palm opened, crackling with blue light. A sphere of plasma blasted out, hitting the claws and melting them instantly.
“What… what are you?” Red whispered, shaking.
“Eitílt,” a woman’s robotic voice responded from inside the giant machine.
Then they shot into the air, flying fast—too fast. Red watched her burning home shrink behind them.
Flames swallowed everything she had ever known.
Shock hit her like a wave.
And then everything went dark.