Chapter Eleven: Ghost Town

As the hangar car’s door recedes upwards once again, revealing a starkly empty looking train depot, the sight of the setting sun on a pinkish-orange horizon throws me completely off. Has it really been that long already? Time is a fucking lie.

Standing up the Mecha, I step out of the now stationary train car and wince at the sound of bending metal beneath its feet. I reluctantly lift up a foot to show a bent track beneath it, slightly puffing out my cheeks in frustration. Hopefully that doesn’t cause problems for someone in the future…

Abruptly, the Doberman’s SAI chimes up. {“Engine, incoming call from a registered ally.”}

“Answer it please?” I pause, then add. “Also, remind me to give you a nickname later.”

{“Understood.”}

There’s a click before Brianna’s voice nearly deafens me.

{“Hey newbie! Feelin’ better? I know how intense your first combat scenario can be.”}

“Ah…” I hesitate. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

A second person who I hadn’t realized was in the call, Marcus, responds with a rather flippant tone, {“That’s a blatant lie, but keep telling yourself that. Better than the alternative at least.”}

Brianna huffs. {“Hey, don’t be mean Marcus!”}

{“Just stating the facts… I suppose it’s sort of beyond the point of this call though.”} Marcus sighs. {“Quiz time newbie, what do we do during a patrol?”}

Uhm.

“We cover the general area around our base camp, looking to find any anomalies within it to ensure the safety of the caravan?”

{“You’re operating on limited information so I suppose that will do for now.”} A detailed map pops up on the Mecha's main screen. {“This isn’t the first time we’ve made camp here, so we’ve got a better lay of the land than we otherwise would. That map is the one that we’ve made of the area during previous stops, and we’re each going to cover about a third of the space around us, checking previously marked spots that may be home to nasties that we need to get rid of.”}

“That’s nice, better than I would have hoped for. If I encounter hostiles, do I fight or run to get you two?”

Marcus chuckles. {“That’s a surprising question, I would have expected you to be more cocky about your abilities. To keep it simple, unless they’re coming for the train and you’re the only one that can intercept in time, call for us and keep a safe distance. Would rather not lose you on your first day.”}

I nod to myself. “Makes sense. When we’re done with the first sweep, do we double-check each other’s areas?”

Brianna chipperly answers, {“Up to whoever's in charge! Usually, I say no, because my alarms should catch hostile intent towards the train early enough that we can respond before there’s any damage.”}

I tilt my head a bit. “What the hell kind of alarms are these? How does that even work?”

You can hear the preening in Brianna’s words as she explains, {“It’s my first power! I’ve gotten two upgrades to it and a second power since I’m V4.”}

{“To note,”} Marcus cuts in, {I’m also V4. My singular power is something you’ll see soon enough, I’m sort of proud of it to be honest.”}

I sigh. “I’m still only V1, I’m really not looking forward to my first power potentially getting upgrades that might make it even harder to deal with.”

It takes a second for either of them to respond to that, when Brianna mutters, {“Wow, that’s weird to hear, usually people in your situation are antsy for it to happen.”}

“I mean…” I shrug, though no one can see it. “I want the increased abilities, being able to effectively fight V2 and V3 enemies is highly desirable in particular, but…”

{“I getcha.”} Marcus gently says. {“The two times I’ve felt your fear thing have been really disconcerting. Kind of hard to imagine it getting more intense.”}

Brianna yawns. {“Eh, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Let’s get moving so I can take a nap.”}

Tilting my head, I tap my foot against the ground. “Uh, what do I do when I finish the area I’m assigned?”

Marcus is the one that answers this time. {“Come visit me at the cafe, I want to talk a bit”}

Raising an eyebrow, I pause. “About what?”

{“I dunno, you? I know you’re power is an issue, but if we want to be friends I gotta get used to it y’know.”}

“I…” I gulp. “Yeah, okay. I’m going to get to work.”

{“Remember, comms off while we’re moving,”} Brianna chimes in, {“safer in case an ED shows up and wants to literally eat our words. If you start running low on energy, return to the train and rest. I would rather not have to carry you back.”}

“Understood. See you at the cafe, I guess.”

I flick through the menu, then exit the call. With a sigh, I sit back in my chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose. There’s probably no way that encounter is going to go well, but it’s been so long since I’ve even got the chance to talk to someone new face to face… Honestly though, it’s probably still worth a try. Maybe I can make Maribelle proud when we talk next.

Being careful to not step on any more rails, I step out of the depot and onto the cracked asphalt streets of Oklahoma City. My destination, the edge of my patrol area, is a few miles out and more than achievable with the energy that I have left. It’s a somewhat rough estimate, but not taking into account the amount that I’d spend in the case that I end up in combat, I should have about two or three hours to complete my round. Worst case scenario I make a beeline for the train to reduce the amount of distance they might have to carry me.

With that in mind, my eyes turn to examine the surroundings as I walk. The once thriving settlement of OKC, abandoned in the aftermath of an huge ED attack thirty years ago, now sits dead and still. A thin haze about a foot deep covers the ground everywhere around here, residue of the part of the dimensional barrier that was shattered when the monster arrived in our reality. I know that the large wound has naturally healed by now, but it still makes me uneasy seeing that constant reminder of the danger that we’re in.

This place had been undergoing the first steps of what DFW went through when it was devastated, namely the beginnings of it becoming a mega-city. The bare skeletons of what were supposed to be super structures loom over everything around them, the engineering prowess used to construct them not something that just a few decades can overcome. In the same vein, smaller decrepit buildings that were once homes, shops, offices, all the spaces where humans do what humans do, crowd together to create dense edifice blocks that I have no hope of getting into. Well, while in the giant robot at least, but there’s no chance I risk going in there without at least this much armor.

Still, one thing that strikes me as I walk is that nature sure is trying its best to reclaim this place. Greenery, still somewhat disconcerting to me despite my coworkers reassurance of its relative safety, pops up nearly everywhere you look. It’s not exactly abundant by any means but it’s enough to tell a distinct story about this place. We’re in a liminal period for what used to be Oklahoma City, stuck between the time where it once thrived and the inevitable future where the earth takes control once more.

As I look at a vine wrapping around a lone steel beam sticking out of the ground though, I notice how eerily silent it is. I hadn’t thought about it before, but there’s a constant background noise in DFW that simply isn’t present here. Its absence here is more than a bit disconcerting for me, and I bite my lip as I speed up a bit. The sooner I get my patrol over with so I can get back to my fellow humans, the better.

I soon reach the first marked spot, near the edge of my area, and find ruins of what I think was once a shopping mall or similar building. It wouldn’t be a problem for us if it wasn’t for the huge hole, two or three times the size of my Mecha, smashed right into its center. There aren’t that many things that can do this much damage, which leads me to believe that they might have encountered something nasty here once that warranted future inspection just to be safe. The Doberman’s headlights come on as I cautiously near the hole, though I’m unsure if it’s because I need to look into a confined space or just automatic as the sun sets over the horizon.

Pretty quickly I confirm that I can’t actually get into the mall with the size of the Mecha and I sure ain’t getting out to check deeper. The little that I can see convinces me that this place is thoroughly empty though, the remnants of whatever half destroyed this place having left an ashy scorch mark along the edges of the hole. Considering it seems to be nearly entirely unblemished, I quickly decide that anything I would need to take care of would have disturbed it in some way, so it should be fine for me to move on.

The patrol route takes me through a couple of these kinds of places, each of which turning up empty. An old private airport, hangars left open to the elements. What I think once was a U.S Military base, no personnel left to bother me as I speed walk through it. Even an old amusement park is on the list, its empty grounds no longer home to joy and fun.

This would be so boring if I wasn’t so goddamn on edge. The silence is killing me, every unusual noise in the distance, even ones that are easily explained, make me freeze up for a fraction of a moment. My hands are clammy on the controls, the dry heat and dense tension making me sweat more than I usually would in situations like this.

I’m starting to flag a bit on energy as I reach the final mark on my map, an old car dealership, lots filled with practically ancient oil guzzlers. Combustion engines, once the darling of the industrialized world, now sit as uncomfortable relics of the past. These machines have fallen to rust and neglect more than others I’ve seen though, but that’s simply the fate of most cars in the long run.

But, I mean seriously! The damage that humanity did to the atmosphere with these things is ridiculous, but it’s already thirteen years past the deadline the U.N gave North American countries for getting rid of all combustion and it’s still fucking legal . The elder shitheads in Texas refuse to get rid of their rusty carriages and somehow have the gall to push for them as potential cheaper alternatives to us DE Engines. It’s ridiculous!

I sigh and close my eyes as I shake my head. “Fucking idiots…”

Squish.

I freeze as the Mecha lurches, whatever I stepped on moving away and causing it to have to regain it’s footing.

Um.

What was that?

Slowly, I open my eyes and barely catch a glimpse of some organic thing, long and sinuous, slithering out of sight into what should be an empty garage.

Three times in the instant I see it, a migraine shoots through my head from the back to the front. The pain is enough to make me lose consciousness for a split second, a dull ache remaining when I come back afterwards. Much too late, the Mecha’s camera feet swaps to a thermal view, revealing that whatever is in that building is sapping the heat away from whatever is around it.

Slowly but surely, the creature emerges from within, and I get my first good look at it. Even through the thermal camera the thing’s form hurts to look at, something that should be impossible in our reality, alien to the utmost degree. A comprehensive description is impossible, with any details shifting from what they were a moment before the second you look away. Roughly though, in the middle of a mass of tentacles is something attempting to be humanoid yet failing at every point, creating a false facsimile that no trained Engine would ever mistake as anything else.

{“Extradimensional detected. Recommended course of action: Run.”}

Before I can think otherwise, I mutter: “Oh shit .”

My words, my perhaps fatal mistake, vanishes as they leave my lips, turning into something else as it flies towards the creature in the garage. It stirs as it consumes the speech, growing just a tad as it does. The building around it collapses as it begins to rise, my heart trembling as the monster locks its focus upon it.

The feeling of hunger dominates the world as it begins to pursue me.

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