Every so often, a burst of manic giggling crackled over R/CO’s comm line.
Not R/CO.
Dollface.
That little bastard knew exactly how to push his buttons—where to press, where to twist.
Tex descended further, boots landing near the spot where Sarge's body still slumped. The memory flashed—jaw slack, dogtags in hand, pistol taken.
He was about to move past—then stopped cold.
A voice buzzed through his speakers. Familiar. Wrong.
"Hey, kiddo!"
Bandstand’s voice.
His heart—or whatever passed for it—lurched hard in his chest.
Slowly, warily, he turned his gaze to the corpse.
And there it was.
A tiny speaker, tucked under Sarge’s collar, blinking softly. Still warm. Recently activated.
Tex crouched, stared it down like it might move.
"You always were a slow learner, Tex."
He reached out, yanked the thing free, and crushed it in his hand.
The plastic casing cracked with a satisfying snap, but it didn’t matter.
The damage was already done.
He breathed a heavy sigh, boots dragging slightly as he made his way down the stairwell.
The radio preset had been changed. New channel. New code.
No difference.
The giggling continued—high, manic, and getting louder.
It wasn’t ambient. It was following him. Crawling along the commline like a virus.
He flicked to another preset. Then another. Then another.
No escape.
And then—
His own voice, warped and flayed by distortion, screamed through the headset:
"YoU cAn'T hIdE fRoM mE!"
He froze mid-step, the words echoing into the metal around him like a curse.
"Yes I can!" he snapped, voice tight with panic.
He put a finger to his temple and double tapped it, deactivating his comms.
Silence.
Blessed, choking silence.
Tex staggered slightly, one hand bracing against the cold wall as the quiet wrapped around him. No laughter. No voices. No static ghosts wearing Bandstand’s face.
Just the hum of dead machinery... and the faint sound of his own servos whining.
So that was it.
He was fully cut off.
No uplink. No R/CO. No backup.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Just him.
Alone.
And a psychopath who’d turned his circuitry into a playground.
Great.
Now.... one landing toe in front of the other... As freaky as this shit is.... I've got a job to do.
A door hissed open a few feet ahead—slow, deliberate.
Tex sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose under his helmet.
"Hey, narrator..." he muttered, voice dry.
"You wanna lay off for a second? Like... lemme get a coffee or something?"
Silence.
The door stayed open.
Mocking him.
"Giving me the silent treatment, huh?" Tex muttered, eyes narrowing as the door stayed open—just wide enough to swallow him.
"Real funny... you’ll hear from my agent later."
He stepped forward, one foot crossing the threshold.
The lights inside flickered once. Buzzed.
Then stilled.
Tex rolled his shoulders, exhaled through gritted teeth, and walked in.
And there he was.
Bandstand.
Standing in front of him—clipboard in hand, expression calm, neutral.
Same old posture. Same tired eyes behind those thick-rimmed glasses.
He didn’t need them, of course. His optics were perfect.
But he always said, “Felt right to wear ‘em.”
Tex stared at him. Silent. Breath caught.
“Hey... this your idea of a joke, Dollface?” he finally called out, voice raw.
Bandstand’s mouth twitched.
Then opened.
"You’re a joke. YOU’RE A JOKE. yOuR A jOkE! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The voice wasn’t Bandstand’s.
It was his own. Warped. Echoing. Twisted.
The image shimmered—began to melt.
The jaw unlatched beneath the nosecone, split wide—
—teeth. So many teeth.
Too many.
All grinning.
Tex turned—slammed into the door behind him. It had sealed shut, silent and merciless.
He spun back, breath hitching in his throat, fingers clawing at the bulkhead behind him.
The thing that wore Bandstand’s face stepped closer.
Smiling wider.
Tex let out a panicked burst, the muzzle flashes lighting up the dark.
The image of Bandstand spasmed—flickered—and died.
A projector embedded in the wall sparked violently, its lens shattered by the lucky spray. Smoke curled from the tiny slot, acrid and faintly glowing.
Tex stood there, reactor humming hot in his chest, vision pulsing at the edges. He tried to breathe. Tried to bring the heat back under control.
Then—
“Very good, Tex.”
The voice came in chopped-up fragments. Bandstand’s voice, butchered.
“But / let’s see if / YOU / last to / see / me.”
And then it came.
That sound.
A canned explosion through the speaker—generic, but perfect.
He knew that sound.
The exact moment the shell hit. The exact pitch of the implosion. The last thing he heard before Bandstand went silent.
Tex froze, circuits locking, his CPU dragged backward in time like a prisoner.
The moment played again.
And again.
And again.
He could see it. Bandstand burning up as his voice crackled out. The silence that followed. The long fall.
Tex screamed—and drove his palm into the side of his helmet with a deafening clang.
The sound jolted him out of the loop. The memory hissed and curled like steam, forced back into its vault.
He stood there, shaking.
And then, through clenched teeth, voice like a rusted blade—
“You’re gonna pay for that.”
“You know / where / to find / me. Your favorite / place!”
The voice lilted across the comm like broken music—Bandstand’s voice, chopped and spliced.
Tex’s eyes widened.
No.
He didn’t mean—
He wouldn’t.
The realization hit like a power surge.
That place.
Their place.
A red haze overtook him.
His reactor roared.
With a scream of metal and fury, Tex slammed his fist straight through the bulkhead, servos shrieking. Gripping the torn edges, he ripped the door apart like paper, hurling it down the corridor.
That was sacred.
That was Bandstand’s.
And he would not let Dollface desecrate it.
He didn’t need a map. His feet knew the way.
That was the place he always ran to when everything went wrong.
When Helga cornered him.
When missions fell apart.
When it all became too much.
That room was a sanctuary.
It didn’t take long.
Anything that stood in his way was dismembered—violently, without hesitation. His chaingun was dry. Didn’t matter.
That was far too kind for Dollface.
Finally—Bandstand’s quarters.
The door slid open the moment he approached.
As if invited.
Tex drew his sidearm.
Slow.
Controlled.
Cautious.
He stepped inside.
The room still smelled faintly of solder, cheap polish, and synthetic lemon oil—the kind Bandstand insisted on using even when nobody else cared.
A mug sat upside down on the corner desk, dusty but untouched.
Pinned to the wall: an old mission report, annotated with Bandstand’s tight, clinical handwriting.
Underneath it, a crumpled photo. Tex knew that photo. They both hated it—Bandstand always said his optics glared in it. But he never threw it out.
None of this had been disturbed.
Not by time.
But something else had been here.
Still was, maybe.
A memory surfaced unbidden—his first meltdown.
It hit like a data spike. That first mission gone sideways. The screaming. The way he’d nearly ripped out his own voice box just to shut himself up.
Bandstand had wordlessly ushered him into this room, muttering something about "not making a scene."
Tex had cried until his vocals went off-key.
Bandstand handed him a blanket. Sat nearby. Never said a word.
Didn’t judge.
Just… shared the space.
Just like something else was sharing it now.
Something very not Bandstand.
Watching his every move.