He couldn’t help but sigh a heavy breathe of relief once he was free of the beacon. Now all he had to do was make his escape. With a grin, he turned from the facility and started to make his way back to the maintenance tunnel.
Before he was even a stone’s throw from the beacon, the ground around him started to shake. He froze; his heart grew cold in his chest. This wasn’t an explosion, he realized, but the footfalls of some enormous creature. He turned around just in time to see the grotesque monster emerge from the building on its eight robotic legs.
Ethan’s eyes grew wide as the horrible hulk uttered an animal-like roar. Reverend Nidus appeared from behind the creature.
The human tried to duck out of sight once he could motivate his muscles to respond, but it was too late. The monster’s dead eyes locked onto Ethan before he could hide. A terrible smile stretched across the behemoth’s face as it started to sprint after him.
Blood pounded to the rhythm of the hulk’s footsteps as Ethan ran as fast as he could. He could see the hatch to the maintenance tunnel, still open wide and waiting for him. He was only a short dash from salvation. All he had to do was outrun the monster.
You’re going to make it, he chanted to himself. You’re almost there!
He coiled up to leap into the opening when the hulk closed in on him. He was no match for the creature’s mechanical legs, even if there weren’t eight of them. Just before he jumped, Ethan saw the monster swing its huge sword-arm at him. He turned to the tunnel, locking onto it like a torpedo.
The wind was snatched from his lungs. He was swatted down as if he were a fly. There was a hot pinch that rushed through his left arm as he fell to the ground. Instinctively, he raised the appendage and clutched onto it, only to notice a bloody stump where his hand had been. It wasn’t a perfect cut; his hand hung by a thin strip of flesh as blood squirted from his open veins.
Ethan tried to scream, but his throat was incapable of sound. He just lay on the metal floor clutching onto his mutilated arm as blood poured all over him. He felt the monster move away from him, roaring as it rushed to join the rest of the battle. He looked around himself helplessly as his body grew numb, hoping to see anyone he might know. His mind was filled with a sudden desire to be back in the simulation, safe and sound with his digital friends.
He saw Shedder cultists running past him, pouring out from the facility he just marked. They ignored him as they followed the hulk into the fight. He looked down at his feet and saw the distant form of Reverend Nidus standing by the storage bunker. Then everything went dark.
Tides
Tera stopped fighting for a moment and frowned as she gazed to the north. Through the thick line of white bodyshells and the rebel soldiers who clashed with them, the I.I. woman could see the familiar form of the Shedder hulk scuttling towards the battle. With it, a dense line of cultists followed.
Her heart sunk for a moment. Was Ethan successful? she found herself wondering. Is he even still alive?
Her confusion only managed to increase when she saw the cultists stop just on the northern side of the battle. They didn’t seem frightened or perturbed, but the Shedders all halted just outside the fight and watched. If any of the rebels pushed too far north, they would cut them down with precision and haste, but they made no effort to join the melee. To Tera, they looked like police officers observing a riot. It was too messy to jump into the fray, but they had to be there to contain the violence. Any attempt to move closer to the storage facility was met with swift and terrible force.
She only managed to watch the Shedders for a moment before she had to duck under another barrage of blaster fire. The beams of light zipped over her mechanical head, crashing into some of the Pavilion buildings behind her.
The holographic projection of Councilman Harring watched the battle with a sour look on his digital face. Reverend Nidus stood just beside him, watching the combat with unblinking eyes.
“What are you doing, Nidus?” Harring asked. His tone was indignant. “Why aren’t your people joining the fight?”
“Because we need to hold the storage facility,” Nidus replied. “That is our top priority.”
“Then get out there and kill those sons-of-bitches!” Harring barked. If he were real, a bit of phlegm might have flown from his frantic lips. “You could help us crush them in a moment.”
“That makes us vulnerable, councilman,” the cult leader replied.
“I don’t care, dammit!” the hologram shouted. “Attack! Now!”
“No.”
Councilman Harring was taken aback. “No?” he echoed. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean exactly what I say,” Nidus said. “Now shut up, will you?”
Even though he was a digital projection, Harring’s face grew red with anger. If he could free himself from the building’s premises, he would fly over the Shedders and demand they push into the fight. He realized, however, that they’d never obey him. They were Nidus’s people, not his.
All he could do was close his mouth and watch the battle, hoping that Nidus was right.
Ethan felt movement. He couldn’t quite make out the shapes or any of the
