The second spore explosion climbed high up into the sky like a firework.

  “The Progenitor Spores…” Johnson whispered.

  She didn’t stop it in time.

  Of course she didn’t.

  I was there.

  “Everyone okay?” Dave’s voice crackled through his voice modulator.

  “I think so.” Kayleigh rubbed her arms.

  Oliver hugged his side. “Can’t complain.” He coughed a mixture of dust and bile. The trio trudged up the crater.

  “That shit is all over the town.” Johnson peered out over Ravensbrook village.

  The crowd was growing every second. Men, women and children alike drank in the majesty of the facility’s explosion.

  Caleb couldn't quite make out the details.

  Are they clapping?

  The air outside was hot as hell, but the sky had clouded over from the pollutants.

  “He did this on purpose, remember?” Johnson said.

  He bent one knee and unclipped a bulky satellite phone. “This is Sergeant Johnson, requesting urgent back-up. I report complete failure of the mission. I believe Belker is still at-large. My squad has been annihilated. Three human hostages have been saved, largely unharmed. One experimental subject, its origins human in nature.”

  One experimental subject. Dave winced when he heard the words. He settled down at the epicenter of the crater.

  Caleb lurched back down the dirt cliff to get him. “Hey man. Are you okay? You hurt?”

  “This should hurt, right?” Dave curled a robotic hand into a fist and pounded it into the wall of the crater, burying it utterly.

  “Well, not before your upgrade.” Caleb tried to chuckle. “Wish I could do that. C’mon, let’s get back to civilization. I’m sure we’ve got teams of doctors who can help you get a human body back. If that’s what you want.”

  Dave looked up at him with glassy eyes. Vulnerable, human eyes. “Do you think they’re going to want to help me now? You heard Johnson. One experimental subject.”

  Caleb touched Dave’s cheek. It was freezing cold. “Look, they just haven’t met you yet. I was scared as fuck when I meet you the first time. In the meat chiller. you were big as hell.”

  Caleb’s eyes widened in admiration.

  “Well, look at me now.” Dave said, rolling his eyes into the back of your head.

  “Exactly.” Caleb said. “You know how celebrities always get way more popular after they get on steroids to play superheroes?”

  Dave nodded. “Well imagine how famous you’re going to be with this body.”

  Dave thought about it for a moment. “Maybe I should get outta this crater.”

  Caleb smiled. “Thanks, man. We really need you out there.”

  He inspected Dave’s robotic carapace as he lumbered out of the crater. It was easier for Caleb to climb back up using the handholds Dave punched into the wall.

  Servos sparked and gears faltered as the robo-human hybrid scaled the wall. They’d all be dead without him, but the escape certainly took its toll.

  What happens if one of his legs fails? He’s too big to carry. Maybe I can pop that big head off and put it in my inventory…

  “They’re headed this way.” Johnson said. Caleb watched as a trail of men rapidly wound its way towards them. Bearded and armed with scythes, pitchforks and machetes, the roving band chanted something with a boisterous fervor.

  “They’re not looking to peacefully introduce us to society…” Oliver said.

  “Wait, wait, wait…” Johnson held his hands up. “You people aren’t locals?”

  “No.” Caleb said.

  “Goddamnit,” Johnson unsheathed his pistol and aimed it square at Caleb. “I knew you were Children of Belker.”

  “We don’t know how we got here!” Kayleigh said. She inched towards the gun.

  “It’s true.” Oliver chipped in.

  “To tell you the truth, we teleported here.” Caleb held his hands up in surrender.

  Johnson spat Caleb’s words back at him, rejecting them utterly. “Well,” he said, a smile plastered under his mustache. “We’ll see what the town council thinks of that.”

  “Let’s not get too hasty now,” Dave smiled meekly. It was clear that his evolution had taken a toll that he was only now paying. “We don’t want to have to fight our way out of here.” Pneumatic pistons in his arms hissed, underlining his point.

  Johnson kept looking over his shoulder at the encroaching village. Children stood on their mothers’ shoulders at the edge of the village itself, excited to see whatever was about to happen unfold.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You’re a local,” Caleb said. “But you don’t want the villagers to get too close.”

  “I left.” He kicked a clod of grass. “They don’t take kindly to deserters. They try to keep themselves pure, and everyone around them is happy for the distinction. But they make one thing very clear: you’re either in Ravensbrook or you’re not.”

  “Come on,” he said. “We can hide out in the trees. I’ll deal with where you came from when we exfiltrate.”

  Oliver pointed to the satellite phone at his breast. “Did you reach someone?”

  He shook his head. “Radiation must be mucking up the transmitters. We’ll get some further away from the ruins.”

  That silver cloud rained over everything. Caleb thought. God knows how far you’d have to go to get out from under it.

  “If they can see us, we can see them. So like I said, let’s get behind some cover.”

  Dave stomped a path behind Johnson, giving the trio a modicum of privacy in the shade.

  Kayleigh murmured in Caleb’s ear as they took off behind Johnson. They had gotten somewhat used to the sluggish sensation of this world - it was like walking under water.

  “The man’s more scared of those mountain people than he was of the monsters…”

  “I know. I don’t like it. Especially considering he used to be one of them.”

  Oliver stumbled over a small rock. “Ahh, didn’t see that there. Still, if he’s scared, he’s motivated. At least he’ll do his best to keep us safe. If they were evil, and he was in league with them, he simply would have said…”

  Oliver brushed his imaginary mustache and launched into his best drill sergeant impression. “Eyes forward when you meet my father. Do not worry - they are friendly. Just place your head in the hole here…” He mimed cutting his own head off.

  The scent of pine was thick in the thick woods that cradled Ravensbrook village. Caleb welcomed the natural world - he wasn’t the type to go hiking, but immediately felt like he was at home. It was true what his mom had always said - the fresh air healed.

  Dave stopped dead.

  “What’s the matter?” Oliver asked, peering past him to see Johnson - eyes wide, with his index finger firmly against his lips.

  Oliver relayed the animation to his crew, and Dave slowly turned with a great mechanical whirr of his servos and the hiss of the pistons. “Shhh,” he whispered, as loudly as anyone could ever whisper.

  Johnson headed to a nearby pine tree and pulled out his serrated combat knife. He plunged it deep into the tree’s bark and began his ascent. He covered metres in seconds, then from his perch on a branch about 20 metres or so up, relayed his findings. “They’re close.” He muttered. “Get somewhere high. All of you.”

  They didn’t have to ask again. Caleb wrapped his arms around the nearest tree and desperately tried to claw his way upwards.

  “Found one.” A vaguely nordic accent heralded a buck-toothed hillbilly in stinking and stained denim overalls.

  Caleb loped back and stumbled into Oliver.

  Damn this control system.

  “They’re over here!”

  Caleb pawed at Oliver to pick himself back up.

  “Run!” Caleb said, staring down the business end of the hillbilly’s pitchfork.

  In a blur, Johnson landed on the stinking hillbilly with a lightning crack. The forest floor remained undisturbed - the kill as swift as a boot on a broken twig. He pulled the blade from the top of the man’s skull, releasing a fountain of blood that covered the already-filthy crew.

  He placed a gore-slicked finger over his lips. “Shhh.”

  Caleb nodded, the sweat pouring from his brow. The man’s sudden dispatch was cleaner, but somehow more visceral than the combat situations he’d been in so far. This was man on man. Pure war.

  Johnson signalled to hide. Oliver crept behind the nearest tree and Kayleigh hit the floor and buried herself in leaves.

  Dave had simply sat down on the ground and covered his head in his hands. By now, he was so dirt and blood-stained he looked like an abandoned car. It was a long shot, but it kind of worked.

  At least you’ll be able to catch them unawares, Caleb thought. Dave could slaughter the entire village, but nobody wanted things to come to that. Not yet anyway.

  Johnson followed Kayleigh’s example and covered the body in a thin layer of crisped leaves.

  It must be autumn here. He could barely remember the world he’d left behind, but he remembered the fresh chill of spring - not the decomposition of crisped leaves.

  Another hillbilly peered through the thickets. This one struggled to see through one watery eye. The other socket contained a marble that rolled around wildly at the slightest hint of motion.

  “You say something, Sven?”

  He felt his way through the forest with the mould-speckled handle of a rusty and blunted pickaxe and whistled through the few teeth left in his head. “I know you’re all here, intruders. And I know where you all came from. You’re infecting our pureblooded society with the stench of science. If mother earth wanted us to grow wings and drink blood, she woulda made us that way.”

  Working himself into a frenzy, the one-eyed hillbilly plunged his pickaxe into the tree that concealed Oliver. The shockwave ran through Oliver’s head. He plastered his hand over his mouth to suppress the scream. “And now all your blasted experiments have blown up on ya. We saw you escape with that metal man,”

  He accidentally kicked Dave. “Ow!” He leapt back. “Blasted wreckage! Wait…”

  Dave reached out, enveloping the hillbilly’s head with his gorilla-like paw. Before the man could react, Dave crushed his head and gingerly laid the remains of the man down on the forest floor. The combination of incredible violence and gentle compassion ran down Caleb’s spine like ice.

  Dave mimicked Johnson with a brain-flecked finger. “Shhhh…”

  Johnson took point and listened intently for a few minutes. A couple squirrels bounded past, kicking up dead leaves as they searched for fallen nuts.

  “I think we’re safe for a few moments.” Johnson said.

  “Have they got anything on them?” Kayleigh swooped down over the bodies, gagging when she saw Dave’s headless handiwork.

  “Fuckin hell, Dave…”

  “I apologise,” he said, his robot-half bubbling to the fore. “It was the quickest way to stop him from announcing that he’d found me. I want to minimize casualties. Really.”

  Kayleigh tried to smile, but her poker face wasn’t that great.

  “Let’s see what this guy had in his pockets…” she turned away as she rooted through the front pouch of the headless hillbilly’s overalls.

  “Yuck,” she said. “Something wet. Some kind of vegetable. Or weed maybe?” She pulled her hand out to reveal a handful of green and bright red powder.

  “Herbs.” Caleb announced, the survivor identifying them for him. “Combine the two types for a health replenishing poultice. More effective than bandages, but not as effective as health spray.”

  “Oh!” She sniffed the herbs. “Smells good. It’s all-natural, at least.” She inspected the bright red ground leaves. “Or at least, natural to this crazy place.” She pocked what she’d recovered, then went back to rake out the rest. Some of the herbs were laced with lint from the hillbilly’s pockets, but Caleb figured it would still be good.

  “There’s something else here at the bottom.” She plunged her arm deeper into the pouch and removed it to reveal a ragged wheel made of twigs and bound together with twine.

  “It’s like a samsara wheel. Reincarnation.”

  Johnson shifted uncomfortably on the spot. “Leave that.” He said. “Besides, I think I hear more of them coming. We’ve got to go.”

  Kayleigh went to drop the wheel of rebirth to the floor, but Caleb stopped her.

  “Put it in your inventory. I have a feeling Johnson doesn’t want us digging into Ravenswood too much for a reason…”