Chapter 109 The Fused Monster
Chapter 109 The Fused Monster
Marcus
The darkness was absolute, split only by the two burning red eyes of the machine. But it wasn't the robot’s cold face that made my breath catch in my throat. It was Mason.
He had literally wired himself into the machine's chest. Thick, black cables tore out from the robot's interior, burrowing straight into his bloody torso to replace his missing lower half. His expensive suit was shredded, soaked in oil, and dark blood. He looked like a spider growing out of a steel nightmare.
He gave up his own humanity, I thought, a wave of pure horror hitting me. Just to kill us. Just for the power.
"You can't run from your own blood, Marcus." Mason’s voice rasped through the machine’s metal speakers. It didn't sound human anymore. Every word was backed by a heavy, mechanical hum. "Your father built the framework. I perfected it. Now, give me the child's core, or I will crush your friends one by one."
The robot took a heavy step forward. The concrete floor shivered under its massive weight.
"Get back!" I shouted, scrambling on my knees to put myself between the monster and Maya. My hands searched the wet dirt until my fingers wrapped around a sharp piece of shattered brick. It was a useless weapon against a steel war machine, but I couldn't just stand there.
"Marcus, your lines!" Sarah yelled from the dark corner.
I looked down at my arms. The tracks on my skin were completely dead. No blue glow. No white static. I had drained every single drop of my bio-electricity to block the satellite signal earlier. I was just a regular boy now, bleeding and exhausted, facing a multi-tonne engine of death.
"I don't need the lines to finish this," I growled, glare hitting Mason's single open eye. The deep, burning hunger for revenge took over my pain. He had stolen everything from me. My father, Julian, is my safety. I wanted to rip those cables out of his chest with my bare hands.
Sarah
The flame of the match was gone, but the red glare from the robot's eyes gave me just enough light to see the danger. The monster was raising its heavy steel arm. The three barrels of its mini-gun began to rotate with a high-pitched, metallic hiss.
'We have nowhere to run,' my mind screamed. This stone chamber was a dead end. The entrance was blocked by tonnes of thick rubble, and the only other opening was a narrow drainage pipe filled with rushing, dirty water.
"Jax, can you move?" I whispered desperately, my hand gripping his uninjured arm.
Jax let out a ragged, painful gasp. His shoulder was completely soaked in dark blood, and his face was white as a ghost. "No... my legs are totally numb, Sarah. Take Lily. You have to jump into the pipe."
"I'm not leaving you!" I sobbed, my fingers tightening on his jacket.
"Sarah, look out!" Lily shrieked.
The robot fired.
A brutal line of heavy bullets chewed into the brick wall above our heads, showering us in sharp stone chunks and thick, blinding dust. I threw my body over Lily and Jax, my back burning as sharp splinters cut through my shirt. The noise inside the closed chamber was deafening, a solid wall of sound that threatened to pop my eardrums.
Marcus
The moment the machine started firing at Sarah and Jax, the distraction gave me my only opening.
I didn't run away. I lunged forward, sliding through the wet mud on my stomach. I slammed my body straight into the robot’s lower leg joint, driving the sharp piece of brick into the exposed hydraulic seals behind its knee.
The brick shattered into dust, but the sharp edge managed to slice a thick rubber hose. A bright spray of hot oil shot out, hitting my face and blinding my right eye.
The machine roared through its speaker, its balance faltering as the leg gave way. It tilted sideways, the gunfire cutting off instantly as its heavy metal arm smashed into the stone floor.
"You little rat!" Mason screamed from the chest plate. His face twisted in pure, unhinged madness. He didn't use the machine's guns this time. He reached down with the robot’s massive, five-fingered claw and grabbed me by the waist.
The metal fingers clamped down like an iron vice. I let out a sharp, strangled cry as the pressure squeezed the air straight out of my lungs. I could hear my own ribs groaning.
threatening to snap under the weight. He lifted me off the floor, holding my face just inches from his ruined, bloody eyes.
"Your father died begging for mercy, Marcus," Mason whispered, the smell of burning oil and copper hot against my skin. "And you will die just like him. Empty. Broken. Forgotten."
"My father... never begged," I choked out, blood bubbling at the corner of my lips. I couldn't breathe, but the rage inside me was still a roaring furnace. I reached out with both hands, my fingers clawing at the thick black cables connecting his neck to the robot’s main battery line.
"Die!" Mason shrieked.
He didn't squeeze harder. Instead, he activated the override core inside the machine’s chest. A sudden, massive wave of bright purple electricity erupted from the robot’s body, shooting straight into my chest.
The shock rattled through my bones, making my vision explode into a sea of white pain. But as the current flooded my skin, something impossible happened.
The dead gray tracks on my arms didn't stay dark. The external energy from Mason's machine didn't kill me; it began to feed the empty circuit inside my own body. The blue lines snapped back to life, turning a violent, blinding white that illuminated the entire dark chamber.
My father hadn't built my body to just generate power. He had built it to absorb it.
"What?" Mason's single eye went wide with a sudden, icy terror as the purple light from his machine began to drain rapidly into my skin. "No! Disconnect! Disconnect the link!"
"Too late, Uncle," I roared, the white light bursting from my eyes.
Before I could unleash the stolen energy, a massive explosion shook the far side of the chamber. The heavy mountain of rubble blocking the entrance didn't just move; it completely blew inward in a wall of bright orange fire.
Through the smoke, a line of twelve soldiers dressed in pure white armour stepped into the room, their heavy laser rifles already raised and locked onto my chest.
And leading them wasn't Silas. It was a tall man in a gold military uniform, his face completely hidden behind a solid white glass mask.
"Target secured," the man in gold stated through a cold speaker. "Kill the monster. Capture the boy alive. The Prime Sector wants his brain immediately."
The Prime Sector military has arrived, and they want Marcus alive! Surrounded by laser rifles and holding a failing monster, how will Marcus survive the new army?