“Out,” Kalli.. or Iris orders.
I reluctantly obey.
She slams the door down and races off, abandoning me without instruction.
From under the neon glow of the Mug, I spot Tal on the other side of the front window. He’s working some dishes behind the bar.
“Tal?” I ask, barging into the stained, wooden doors like I own the place. “What in the hell is going on? What are you doing here?”
“You need to hide. They’ll be here any minute,” says Tal, emotionless.
“What’s happening!?”
“Hide in the bathroom now.” No expression on his face.
Woman’s bathroom. First stall. I pull my legs to my chest and position myself to be here for a while. Miraculously, the holes in my abdomen and arm have healed. I’m beginning to feel normal again. Even the scrapes from the crash have already disappeared under the dry blood they left behind. Whatever was in those pills worked. This must be how Athan feels.
Just as Tal prophesied the front door of the Mug swings open.
Footsteps.
The faintly muffled voices of two men. Suits.
“Have you seen this man?” one of them asks, undoubtedly holding an image of me.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything right now,” replies Tal honestly. His voice robotic, but I can sense sarcasm, or perhaps defiance buried beneath his words.
“You don’t know?” ask the deeper voice.
“Let me make this easy for you. We both know you are programmed to tell Lethe officials the truth at all times. Anything other than the truth must mean you’ve malfunctioned. Not gonna lie to you, Machina. Your model is old. What are you like Gen-1, Gen-2? No point in repair or reassembly that far out, if you know what I mean, and I know you do. At approximately 8:21 PM this man departed a ground vehicle in front of this building. Simple question. Where did he go?”
A long pause.
My legs start to numb trying to keep them off the ground. It’s becoming more difficult to take a quiet breath.
“I don’t know,” replies Tal.
“Wrong answer.”
The loud, unmistakable bang of a firearm.
The sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
The patter of footsteps on hardwood for several minutes, followed by the creak of a door opening.
“And remember, if you see something, say something.”
The door slams closed.
Silence.
I wait about ten minutes to be sure they were gone before confirming what I didn’t want to be true.
My heart breaks when I see him.
“Dammit Tal, you stubborn son of a bitch.”
His silicone face ripped to unrecognition. An oily black substance leaks from the bullet wound where wires from his shattered transmitter spark.
A Machina turned out to be a better man than Poth.
Like magic, the jukebox illuminates to life from behind, scaring the fucking shit out of me. A reggae track from the old world drifts through the still room.
The ground from under the jukebox rises. Expanding rapidly. Transforming.
Burnin' and a-fightin’ tonight
Say we gonna burn and fight
Burnin' and a-fightin’ tonight
Exposed motorized machinery spins quickly as multiple bolts lock into position. The jukebox face swings open revealing a hidden mechanical staircase. The music still drifting from it.
Burnin' all pollution tonight
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fightin’ all illusion tonight
Cautiously, I peek into the unlit stairway leading into some type of secret basement under the Ugly Mug. How long has all of this been here?
My curiosity drags me down. The jukebox snaps closed behind me, activating the machinery again in reverse. The stairs collapse upon themselves as the tiny metal room at the bottom moves horizontally in the manner of mine shaft elevator, carrying me with it away from the Mug, too dark to see anything, unsure of what awaits.
The room shrieks to a stop, rocking from the cable it’s suspended from. Metallic echoes hunt the empty space around me. Then, the sudden sensation of falling is followed by another abrupt stop. The caged elevator room I’m trapped in locks into position as
the front wall splits, opening into a bigger room. This one’s partially lit.
The room’s vastness takes me by surprise. Through the cage I spot a metal catwalk, bridging over a dark borehole, big enough to fit a shuttle into. Darkness swallows all but a few meters around the narrow walkway. No telling how far down the hole is. I’m not trying to find out.
Using the rusted rails to inch over to the solid ground on the other side, I find myself in the crosshairs of two automatic sentries. Giant, three times as large as a Lethe droid. Hidden behind iron plates buried in the concrete, they wield .50 caliber machine guns. Behind them, the massive chamber door of an airlock.
“Hello?” my voice echoes.
Stream ejects from the airlock thrusters. It rumbles open, just enough for a person to step through. The silhouette of a man takes shape in the bright light behind the airlock.
“Welcome, Eros,” he pronounces sternly, as he walks into view. An older man, eerily resembling Archer Lethe with the same grandfather beard but braided. His white hair, long, also braided down his back. He pulls from his trench coat a golden pocket watch, checks it, and raises an empty hand towards me.
His handshake’s firm, but warm. His demeanor is edging dangerous, but an easiness surrounds him like I’ve known him my entire life. With crystalline brown eyes, the color of honey, he looks right into my soul and speaks. “I see you received my invitation. Welcome to Kronos,” he announces, arms raised to his sides, showing off the magnificence of this place he’s undoubtedly proud of.
A tiny voice in the back of my head begs me to turn back, but there is no chance now. There’s nothing left to go back to.
He checks his watch again. “You are right on time. That’s nice of you. I have a great appreciation for the punctual.”
“Sir, I’m going to be extremely honest with you. I have no idea what’s going on right now. One second I’m being chased and shot, the next I’m crashing, then there was this gir-”
“This way,” he says, stowing the watch.
Into the light of the vault, I follow. The
