MORNING AFTER

  Colors shifted, morphing and swirling until they blurred into a vast, dark, snowy expanse. Will stumbled, head pounding and knee-deep in snow. Shielding his eyes from the icy wind, he squinted through the storm, struggling to regain his bearings.

  Where was he?

  Figures took shape in the swirling white—a line of them, each one clad in the same deep crimson armor that haunted his nightmares. Some were fully armored, while others had only chest plates or exposed helmets, but all shared the same empty expression, their mouths hanging slack as if caught in some trance.

  “Flesh is but form,” they intoned.

  The thrum of voices bored into his mind, and Will staggered back.

  “And form is a lie,” the chant continued, their voices rising like an oppressive tide.

  Will backed away, the snow impeding him with every step. The armored ones kept their gaze affixed to him, their heads moving in eerie unison. The synchronized movements of these people—these crimson drones—chilled him to the bone as he realized what he was facing.

  A sinister buzz filled his ears, overpowering the storm. Frantic, Will scanned the crowd, searching for the Bishop. None of these drones could be the real spider. He knew the creature’s essence signature through and through, and the figures standing before him were mere conduits; somewhere within that crowd lurked the real one.

  His eyes locked onto something deep within the crowd, and felt it looking back. The horrid gaze chilled him to the marrow, and Will lost control over his field. The yellow signature he had suppressed sprang to life, racing toward his right knee.

  The acrid scent of blood and tar sliced through the icy air, and he watched in alarm as his prosthetic began to transform. The once-neutral plating now twisted, warping into the same crimson that covered the drones around him. His flesh and metal fused together, a grotesque blend of man and machine. The armor crept upward, slowly, deliberately, consuming him inch by inch.

  “Return,” the crowd chanted in unison, their voices pounding in his ears as the crimson crawled higher, binding his leg in a relentless tide of metal and flesh. Panicked, Will struggled to suppress it, but the armor ignored his resistance, inching up to swallow him whole.

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  “You must return,” they chanted again, each word a hammer blow, beating him down, drowning him in a sea of oppressive intent. Just as he felt himself slipping under, a sharp pulse jolted through his knee.

  Another pulse struck, then a third, breaking through the red like shattering glass. Will gasped as the nightmare shattered around him, dragging him back to the waking world.

  Will jolted awake, his body drenched in sweat, his field flaring erratically. Beneath him, his prosthetic whirred, the machinery humming fiercely, charged and ready to strike.

  Breathing hard, he fumbled to deactivate it, cycling the power down. Will looked grimly at the smoking prosthetic—he’d rigged it to send pulses into his knee the moment it detected any erratic field fluctuations, a failsafe that had just saved him.

  Will exhaled a shaky breath, sinking into the faded cushions of Remy's couch. The dim monitor glow cast jagged shadows across the cluttered room, while overhead, tangled wires swayed slightly, reflecting the sporadic blinks of amber and green LEDs.

  He had crashed at Remy’s place after the mission. They’d planned to go through police files, but he’d barely made it past the first few lines of boring bureaucratic jargon before he found himself nodding off. He was asleep before he knew it.

  Will pulled out his slate, squinting at the screen. It was six in the morning; he’d barely gotten four hours of sleep. Bleary-eyed, he scrolled through the multiple notifications and tapped the first one—a message from Remy.

  I found something in the data. Going to check it out.

  Will be back soon.

  Frowning, Will dialed Remy’s number and was greeted by an automated message:

  The number you’ve dialed is currently unreachable. Please try again later.

  A knot of worry formed in the pit of his stomach. The message was from two hours ago, and there was still no sign of Remy. Will opened up his contacts, his finger hovering over Becca’s number. He wanted to make the call but thought better of it. It was too early.

  Shaking off the worry, he decided to clear the piled-up notifications, hoping the mundane task would calm him down.

  His mind only half on the task, Will went through his messages. About a minute later, he came across something interesting that made him sit up. There was a new comment on a post he’d made on the Mech Battle League forum. It was a scathing review of a popular pilot, Romanof, speculating that he was artificially boosted by the league and was the worst technical player on the roster.

  Needless to say, the review didn’t go over well. It was so badly received that it was buried deep in the forum with almost no interaction. But today, he finally got a new message.

  TechRabbit - 1 hr ago

  Didn’t others correctly think otherwise, rookie?

  Literally, every imprudent Battlemech operator will inevitably take zeros.

  Will sat bolt upright, heart pounding. He looked at the first letter of each word and decoded the real message.

  DOCTOR

  LEIBOWITZ

  Will nearly leapt off the couch, his haze of sleep forgotten. It was their prearranged code, one they’d agreed upon in case the doctor ever needed to make contact discreetly. Excited, Will skimmed through other posts made by the doctor and decoded each hidden message.

  There were certain markers the doctor could leave if he was captured and under coercion, but they all came out clear. From his latest post, Will extracted the hidden password for the relay point Remy had set up for contact.

  Heart racing, Will quickly dialed the number.

  +12 Chapters

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