Prologue
Three and a Half Years
Ago
Kyle sat on the cold wet floor of the
locker room. He hated this room. All of his inadequacies were laid
bare here. At least when compared to the other boys. His height was
the worst. He was at least six inches shorter than everyone in his
class, whether they were male or female. At 13 most of the girls
were beating the boys in height, but with him it was even worse. The
nicer girls treated him like he was a child compared to them, like a
little brother or cousin. He was the same age as them, but he was
never viewed in that way, except by one. The only one that mattered
to him right now. The floor wasn't wet from someone who didn't dry
off enough from the shower (if at all). The liquid on the floor was
thick and red. The locker room floor was wet with his blood.
Kyle looked down and the knife stuck in
his stomach reminded him of how he got here. There was a slow but
steady steam of blood flowing down his lower body. The stream
traveled along the tile and mixed with a water puddle near his feet.
The puddle that put him in the dire situation he found himself in.
He couldn't think about how he got here anymore. He had been leaning
up against the stone bench that connected to the lockers for several
minutes. It was clear that no one was coming to help him. The ones
responsible for stabbing him had left him to die. They left him to
bleed to death alone.
Kyle shook his head trying to focus.
His head was getting fuzzy from the loss of blood. He forced
himself to a standing position. He thought about pulling the knife
out. He wasn't sure if that would increase the bleeding or do more
damage than leaving it in. Kyle found it really hard to move with it
in. He didn't intend to live through this, not at this point. He
knew what was coming was inescapable. Kyle pulled the knife out.
Blood starting to run down his shirt and pants even quicker.
Surprisingly, it didn't hurt all that much. Was this what going into
shock is like, he wondered. If so, he may not be able to walk much
longer, but he didn't have that far to go. Kyle put one foot in
front of the other.
He needed to see her. As he hobbled
out of the locker room, Kyle knew this could be his last chance to
say goodbye. Kyle made his way past the wooden doors that connected
to a vending machine area outside of the two gyms. The left one is
where the girls typically had their classes. Kyle's left foot slid
along the floor a little bit. He could see drops and smears of blood
down the hall, "Shit... is all of that mine? I don't have
much," he coughed up a little blood, "..time left."
Kyle leaned up against the door to the
left gym. He used all of his weight to force the heavy door open; or
at least it felt heavy to him at this moment. Kyle looked around the
gym of long blond, brown and red hair. In this small of a rural,
mostly white bred town, Irene wouldn't be hard to spot. He knew her
gym class was the period after his. Kyle saw several faces that were
like his in tone, pale or reddened from the exercise. Then he saw
Irene, dark skinned and full of energy. One of the preppy
cheerleaders spotted the bloody Kyle staggering into the gym. She
screamed at the top of her lungs. Kyle thought that this was only
slightly more negative of a response than he normally got from her.
Irene turned to see what 'cheerleader' was screaming about. Kyle
smiled slightly, because he knew he had made it. He saw Irene
before... then he lost whatever strength he mustered up.
Kyle dropped to the floor and started
to convulse. Irene ran to him and bent over him to see how bad the
wound was, "Oh no...no no no no."
Kyle couldn't hear what she was saying
at this point. His body was shutting down. His vision was cutting in
and out, but he knew Irene was holding him in her lap. He thought
she shouldn't, because she was going to get her clothes all bloody.
He could tell that she was yelling at somebody, maybe the teacher?
She was just
standing there looking like a store mannequin, but not after Irene
yelled at her. The teacher ran off pulling her cell phone out on the
way to... where ever. Maybe the nurse's office. Lot of good that
would do. Maybe she could get a couple of gauze pads for him or
something. Maybe a few for the floor. Kyle chuckled.
Irene looked at him. Kyle's eyes
focused right at this moment. Irene's eyes were filled with tears
and she was breathing hard, like she was having a panic attack. Kyle
squeaked out, "Hey, Irene," he raised his hand up. She
grabbed his bloody hand with her bloody hand, "I'm sorry. I
didn't want to make... you cry. " Irene said something Kyle
couldn't make out, "It's selfish, but I... wanted to see you.
One last time... I wanted to be with you when the end came..."
Unsure of what to do until the
ambulance came, the other girls surrounded the two without doing
anything. The nurse did her best, but Kyle used his last breath to
say those words to Irene. She squeezed him tight, tears streaming
out of her eyes. She screamed in sorrow. Kyle Richard was dead.
Trials of Prototype 005
Now
1
Cybernetic Prototype 005 blocked the
swipe from his enemy's glowing blue blade. The blade that was
attached to his left wrist met the attack with a bright energy
reaction. The clash of two blades pushed CP 005 back along the
ground, leaving ripped up grass and trails where his feet dragged the
ground. The Kinetic Energy that emanated from the blades push
against each other, but if the blade had hit any part of Five's body,
it would slice right through it. This is despite the extremely
resilient armor he donned. His enemy's blade jutted out of its
elbow. One of two equipped on each arm.
The black eyed man watched the battle
from a safe distance. His head moved back and forth, following the
path of the fight. He held his hands, as well as his circular
tablet, behind his back. The black eyed man patiently awaited the
outcome of the conflict.
Synthetic Prototype 003 or a Synth, as
Five has already nicknamed it, was a completely artificial being. It
wasn't self aware and was only working off of programming. It wasn't
really alive.
The room they battled in was called an
Enviroom. The walls were silver and metallic with energy conduits
running horizontally. The conduits fluxed with white light. The wall
had vegetation growing up it for ten or so feet. This particular
room was meant to replicate a forest setting. There were trees,
grass and small bodies of water strewn throughout.
Five was darting around trees as he
moved about. He dodged kinetic blasts that were being shot out of
the Synth's palms. One hit a tree, sending wood splinters hurdling
across the forest. Five was starting to feel the strain of the
ongoing fight. The Synth caught up to him through the simulated
forest. It reached for Five, but ended up putting its hand through a
tree.
The trials were conditioning Five to
kill without granting mercy. He couldn't feel remorse, not that this
was a problem in this fight. He had promised to do far worse things
if he passed these trials.
Five used his kinetic boosters, that
were on the bottoms of his feet. The boosters allowed him to float,
soaring above the ground to return his foe's attack in kind. Five
swiped with his blade, once, twice and three times, missing in all
instances. The agile Synth had dodged his attacks. The Synth swiped
up, slicing Five's chest armor as well as the flesh underneath. This
resulted in a nasty, bleeding wound.
Five glided backward to get some
distance in between him and the Synth. The Synth tried to follow,
but retracted his wrist blade while popping an apparatus out of the
side of the same arm. The hole emanated an orange glow. Five aimed
it at the ground. A ball of light shot out of his Energy blaster.
The explosive blast scattered debris in all directions and brought
down a nearby tree. The chaos allowed Five to move away from the
Synth without being directly followed.
The organic portion of his chest was
almost completely healed. He saw it had bled quite a bit, but the
nanites in his system that enhanced his healing were working
perfectly. His Energy Source was a self perpetuating reaction that
powered the tiny machines as well as the rest of his systems. If
strained, his repairs would slow or stop. His body could heal
moderate organic wounds, but since his synthetic components had no
natural healing ability to heighten, only minor damage could be
repaired. His armor had to be repaired manually, no matter the
circumstance.
Five knew that the Synth had infrared,
radar and several other ways of seeing him through the dust, but it
would buy him a few seconds. Five aimed his blaster through the
debris cloud.
Five saw the Synth's distorted
silhouette speeding towards him. Five boosted up into the air,
taking full on flight. The Synth had blasters in its palms, both of
them. Five dodged blue kinetic blasts as he cut his boosters off
completely. He used his stabilizers to push him downward faster,
kicking Synth 3 in the face as hard as he could. His foot connected
with the side of its 'head'.
Both warriors landed on the ground.
Five had fought in two trials before this one. His damage and energy
expended was starting to catch up with him. He needed to end this.
For all he knew, there was yet another trial after this. He intended
to survive this. He wasn't going to die again.
His kick has knocked one of the plates
off the side of the Synth's head. The bare side had conduits and
circuits exposed to the air. Its singular red eye in the middle of
its head was still intact.
The Synth flew at Five and swiped with
its elbow blades. It missed once as Five dodged. The second swipe
hit Five's organic arm. The third was blocked by his extended wrist
blade, keeping him from being decapitated. Five grabbed the other
arm to keep it from cutting him from the opposite side. His right
arm, the organic one, was weak from the cut, but he held strong.
The two were in a stalemate, neither
able to break the others defense. The Synth head butted Five. The
attack shattered his right eye lens. Blood was running into Five's
white pupil-less eye. A red laser shot out of the Synth's one eye.
Five turned his head, expecting this and the beam only grazed his
helmet, causing minor searing. The Synth knew that if it landed the
shot in Five's ocular implant, the beam would penetrate his brain.
Five saw the beam charging up again.
He quickly angled their blades as the beam shot out at its eye. The
beam impacted the blades, splitting it into dozens of streams. One
went directly back into the eye it came out of. The Synth backed up,
confused by the lack of visual data. Five used the opportunity to
deliver the final blow, slicing through the Synth's neck. He impaled
the head on his depowered blade before it hit the ground.
Five looked over at the black eyed man
in the room, "So, Creator William, how did I do?" Five
flicked the severed head with his hand, making it spin around on his
blade.
William smirked, "Better than the
others, Prototype Five," he stopped smirking, "The others
failed."
Copyright 2014
