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Chapter 1
Carrion
Illuminated in the green glow which shone from the skyscraper’s peak like a moonlight tower, the desolate cityscape laid silent. Monuments and statues, storefronts and homes, all which once held clear pride, warmth, and heart—all were indistinguishable from rubble.
Except the skyscraper. Its exterior brutalized, cracked and maimed by decades of bombardment and wear, rebar poking out of its concrete like exposed bone. It still stood, even with all its scars.
Frost stopped Free right in front of the entrance, “Remember where we parked.”
Free sighed, “Right side of the fountain on the ground floor of the mall, in that weird utility store with the blue mold. Covered with a plastic sheet and tumbleweeds.”
“Mm-hmm.”
The skyscraper’s lobby reflected its outside, cracked marble floors, trashed chandeliers, graffitied walls. But if one put aside the cruelty of time—and the smell of rot—it was the masterwork of a multitude of professions.
Decorated in angular statues of fabric covered figures carved into the walls, corners adorned with paintings and small figures of stone, and across its walls a great mural comprised of only simple geometric shapes; The mural showing thirteen figures venturing to a secluded swamp, finding a shining trove, then two of the thirteen returning home.
Perhaps most impressive of them all was the lobby’s centerpiece, a diorama of the building and its surroundings that left no detail left unreplicated. It took up over half of the lobby’s floor and was shielded by a dome of thick glass, seemly the only thing that had remained untouched.
“What a trash heap,” Free picked up a rock and walked over to the diorama. First checking under it for any wires that may have been rigged to it, finding them severed, then warming his arm up. He struck the glass—the rock bounced out of his hand, and he fell onto his back. Free recovered quickly, cursing at the diorama for its fortitude.
Before he could try a different approach, Free felt a cold presence looming behind him.
“Hey,” Frost said. “I found something you might like.”
Frost presented a palm-sized circuit board with four differently colored bulbs on each corner—in clockwise order: yellow, green, red, orange—with a button next to each of them and one large button with a coin-sized battery below it.
Free turned around and took the device, “Hmm.”
He briefly examined it before pressing the button next to the red bulb, nothing seemed to happen. Pressing the middle button next, the yellow bulb flashed and made a
bee-di-boop
sound. Then he pressed the button next to the green bulb, causing all bulbs to flash for a moment and beep harshly.
As Free wandered around the lobby—still pressing random buttons—he passed by an elevator. Its door was angular, made up of layers of thick metal sheets which inscribed a cube in its center. To its side was a panel without any buttons.
“Do you know what it is?” Frost trailed behind Free, picking up whatever scrap he ignored.
“Definitely a remote, just needs to be in proximity to somethin’,” Free said.
However, no matter where he went, the “remote” did do nothing, at most, sometimes it would flash two presses after the one before, instead of just after one.
“Nothin’ that special about it, so this planet’s RM’s either boring or this thing doesn’t rely on it. Not Universal either—couldn’t be,” Free pondered as he and Frost walked back to the elevator door. “Also, scratch what I said earlier. Maybe it’s some kind of password-based access key.”
“Will it work as scrap for the Camper?”
“Probably… but I’d like to know what this is. Somethin’ so simple standing the test of time—unlike all the overdesigned garbage around here—is worth its weight in platinum.”
With the elevator’s panel lacking buttons, Free tried opening it by force with random button presses. Just like before, it had no effect.
“Hmm,” Frost attempted to open the elevator with a long piece of rusted metal, although their literal attempt at opening the door by force was as successful as Free’s.
Free sighed while pocketing the device, “Floor’s cleared?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How many floors this place got total?”
“Thirty-five.” Frost gestured towards a stairwell, “Let us be quick, before the sun dawns.”
***
The duo went in and out of each floor, scavenging whatever they could find. Most floors were like one another, large expanses of cubicles, chairs, and coolers, and they held a similar amount of loot—practically none. Other than some scrap and a bag of charcoal, this section of the
scav-enture
was about as fruitful as the last.
Now on the eighteenth floor, they hoped the eighteenth time was the charm.
Free kicked open a paper-thin door and entered a circular room filled with faded paintings and other broken works of art. In its center was a long rectangular table, several desk chairs scattered around it.
None of that caught his eye, what did was the set of exposed copper pipes poking out of the walls.
“Finally,” Free transformed his arm into a saw and approached a pipe, ready to salvage it. Then, when he was just about to cut into it, he heard water rushing from within. “Why is this still—bah, whatever. Frost, I need some help over here!”
“Hmm?” Frost peeked into the room.
“Can you freeze this?”
“Mm-hmm,” Frost walked over and brushed their hand against the top and bottom of the pipe. Miraculously, the water stopped flowing and both ends puffed outwards.
“Thank you,” Free sawed off the isolated part of the piping, leaving only two ice-corked holes. “…Say how come the copper—or you know the water pressure—doesn't melt your ice?” Free moved to the next pipe.
“I will repeat what I have before, it is simply an ability I possess which has its own logic. Like yours, like all D.ALLs to my knowledge,” Frost said.
The duo repeated the same actions as before, freezing the ends then sawing off what was in-between.
“Yeah, but you said it had a name, ‘RB,’ like it was somethin’ else—somethin’ bigger. Sure, I never heard of it before meetin’ you, but there has to be more too it. Is it an offshoot of RM, or Abstract tech, or…?”
“I have told you all I am privy to.”
“Aw, man…”
After salvaging the pipes, Free suggested they take a break—Frost agreed.
Free plopped onto a chair and scooted over to an open wall, looking out at the night sky as the cool wind hit him. He couldn’t see any moons or stars thanks to the bright green light above.
Meanwhile, Frost’s “break” consisted of looking through more rubble and junk in hopes of finding hidden loot. All they found were a few, mostly intact, paintings that depicted a humanoid figure covered in silver embroidered strips of fabric, most likely a form of satin.
“I expected more corpses,” Frost said.
“Maybe somethin’ ate them—probably not,” Free yawned, stretching his arms and spinning his chair to face Frost. “Because that would mean somethin’ actually wanted to lurk here.”
“Or they left no bones.”
Free quietly chucked to himself, “Then you should be careful…” Free slowly rolled over to Frost, “They may have a bone to pick
from
you.”
“…”
“What? Did I scare you? Did that rattle your—”
Free saw something strange on the top edge of the window behind Frost, a bright orange-yellow light fading in and out.
“Dude, turn around, you see that orange light?” Free whispered.
Frost turned around, “The yellow light?”
“The
orange
light, yeah.” Free got up and sneaked closer to it, leaning out of the window for a better look. He saw the tip of a spiky, metal tail—then, without a sound, it disappeared in a blink.
“Did you scare it off?” Frost walked over to Free.
“Didn’t mean to, but yeah. Wonder what it was."
Suddenly, creaks and whirrs echoed from inside the walls around them, speakers emerging at every corner. Each emitted a short but sharp series of screeches, disrupting all the dust and sand in the room and creating a thick cloud.
Unable to see, Free tripped over a chair—but before he could hit the ground, Frost grabbed him. Dragging him out of the room as the speakers blared, “744-6-F24-SQ:Del-ST:Silk,” on repeat.
Frost kicked opened the door to the stairwell then dashed down its steps. However, when they rounded the corner to the seventeenth floor, they saw a horde of armored guards covered in black cloth, whose eyes glowed a sickly green and helmets oozed with muck.
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