Come on, come on, wake up! This is no time to sleep!

BOOOMMMMMMM!!!

In an instant, the wall of the building exploded, sending shards of concrete flying through the air: flames surged up wildly from the point of impact, burning together in a fiery red mass, as thick black clouds of smoke billowed up heavily into the sky. All around the vicinity dust from the explosion filled the trembling air. It diffused slowly, obscuring the demolished building from view, and rose up steadily into the darkened night…

… down the surface of the wall, fragments of rubble crumbled…

In another minute the dust from the explosion began to settle. Behind it, something crouched.

Huh… Huh… Huh…… they only get closer… Huh… Huh… Huh…… Each day that passes by, they only get closer…

Beneath the sinking cloud of dust, two large metallic shoulders hung low. At their center, a hard round head stared grimly forward…

For the second time that night, Rei heard the short sharp click rising in the gun’s chamber.

Time to move.

The missile blasted into the air, racing furiously towards the ravaged building. From atop its surface the metallic giant leaped, its thick bronze armor gleaming brightly against the flames of the explosion raging behind. It flew into the sky, soaring high over the building from which it sprang, its large, ponderous body being swallowed up by the darkness of the night. On the level of the street below, the tops of the ruined city hovered by, one abandoned building passing after another, lying wasted along its dimly lit surface. Ravaged and deserted, the street stretched on for miles, each corner being littered with the ruins of a once bustling metropolis. All that was gone now though, and in its place only the remnants of an intractable, warring district remained… along with those few resistors who still refused to submit…

With a loud, trembling crash, the metallic giant landed on the roof of the building. At its sides dust lifted, and rubble scattered, and beneath this rising cloud of smoke its body stood crouched and still to hold its balance. It was dark on the rooftop, for there were no streetlamps nearby lighting the street, and from the level of the street below only a small black mass could be seen projecting from that height. The metallic giant rose to its feet.

POH! POH! POH! POH! POH!

Numerous bright searchlights beamed down on Rei, the hard outer shell of her mecha suit being glaringly exposed. She stood still and didn’t move, for everywhere she looked the lights were beaming down on her, blinding her vision. It was a costly mistake.

Hails of gunfire barreled down on Rei!

They crashed! and crashed! and crashed!—blasting from somewhere behind the broad glaring lights—and she, stumbled, turned around quickly, and ran!—a million shards of concrete shattering around her flittering feet—to the only place that she could think to run to at that moment—behind her—there was a wall—fractured down the side, yes, but still enough for cover—her body dashing through the heavy raining fire and towards it—its protection rapidly approaching, its protection lying just a few feet away—BLAMMMMM!—the remaining bulk destroyed—debris and flames erupting into the air—dust obscuring the grounds—hands reaching out, reaching out—grabbing onto a mass of rubble—the fingers clinching in—legs not slowing down but racing on ahead—and ahead—and ahead—and ahead—to the metal generator jutting from the roof—racing past its front—turning the corner—dropping down behind it—quickly punching in the munitions code on the keys to the command deck—111-34-24-BB1235—and activating the pulse rifle at her side—which she took—long, jagged and compact—and held across her chest—hearing the sound of gunfire hammering thunderously from behind—watching the lights creep up and grow larger at her feet—her fingers held tense and moist around the curve of the rifle’s trigger—waiting—waiting—waiting—and then leaping out!—leaping out with a dash and a sudden volley of rockets—bursting onto the pavement, onto the structures nearby—a flurry of Heli-bots scattering frantically round—the pulse rifle drawn—aimed—cocked—marked—and shooting the confounded stragglers down—and down—and down—and down—one—two—three—four search beacons destroyed—their glass casings shattering over the floor—the ruptured metallic shells whirling dizzily away—and in their place—flying up from the depths of the enshrouding momentary darkness—more Heli-bots arose—one, two, three four five sixseven eightnineteneleventwleve—blinding Rei with their bright search lights—and she—her heart gasping—ran—hurling a grenade at her enemies to draw her cover—racing over to the edge of the building and away from her pursuers—and leaped—with one swift motion—over the low-lying street and toward the adjacent building—and landed there, running on still faster—punching more combinations into her command deck for weapons that would slow her enemies’ advance—reaching the edge of the building once again—and leaping—to another building and another—and to more and more after that—until, having finally made it down the long stretch of buildings, she looked around and could see that she was in the clear at last—In front of her—Behind her—the guns firing futilely into the night—To her left side—To her right side—the search lights failing to hold their target—In front of her—the abandoned metropolis she once called home lying in silent ruins—Behind her—her enemies in wild pursuit of their ravishing prey—To her left side—the flitter of lights exposing her bare, smoothly curving outer form—And to her right side—the missile.

It exploded on impact, hurling her body through a crumbling outer wall. She smashed through it, shattering it to pieces, and brought the floor of the room above tumbling down with it. It pounded over her fallen weight, and beneath her, buckling under its pressure, the floor suddenly collapsed, sending heavy blocks of concrete and metal plunging helplessly with her into the depths below…

Dust filled the darkened room. In its center, under a heap of fallen rubble, the metallic shell of the mecha lay lifeless. Inside, Rei’s breath drew slowly.

The sweat from her body trailed down her face, down her neck. It glistened over the curve of her chest, which opened bare at the neck, heaving out forcefully. Everywhere the jumpsuit was wet. It clung moistly to her skin, hugging tightly around the curves of her heated body, as she lay down on her back exhausted. She looked up into the darkness that spread out before her, but she had no words. There was only the taste of salty sweat upon her lips, and the bitterness of blood dripping from the flesh.

Outside the walls of the silent building, Rei could hear the sounds of the assault raging on. Her eyes dropped down, turning away from the long dark chasm ascending endlessly before her, and she let out a sigh…

…uhhh… again……

…it has happened again……

How long has this been going on?

Another dark, deserted room. Another unknown ceiling.

They come at night—the attackers. They always come at night. And always in the same way. Right when one thinks one is safe, emptied out of all the suspicion one has carried throughout the day, the day finally over and the new one waiting just ahead, they find one… How do they do it!

One feels them weighing upon one’s heart like a judgment…

Spuhhh!… and so what if they won’t leave you alone? And so what if they try to crush down everything with their weight? My body lies here ravaged on the floor, tired, sweaty, soiled, stripped of all that would hold it up in the light of day… but that is why I love it. It still hungers; it still knows how to risk itself.

And what about my enemies? What is it that they are after? They band together and hunt us down, the free ones, those still unassimilated into the structure of the reigning order. They are so many, greatly outnumbering the remains of our scattered few, and they only seem to grow larger by the day. They do not rest, scouring the Outlands for those of us they would find hiding away in isolation, ambushing us, striking us down, and carrying us off to their distant lairs. What do they want with us there? I don’t know. I still haven’t been captured by them. I still haven’t let myself fall under their grip.

They come out at night. Huddled together. Flocking toward the lights. In the vanguard the commanders flare their beacons, leading the march. Their advance is sure and steady, fearing nothing in each other’s midst, for although the faces of their compatriots may be those of strangers, they still see, reflected in the gleam of each other’s eyes their purpose unified as one. This is a familiar scene, this is a scene they already know—these ruins, this wasteland—and the closer they get to it, watching the distant landscape take form from out of the depths of the surrounding darkness, the closer they feel they are to seizing their longed-for moment of triumph… they see me moving helplessly ahead and they chase after me.

The bulk of them just hang back and watch, taking pleasure in the scene unfolding before them. The images play spectacularly before their eyes, yet none of their equipment can succeed in capturing the intensity of that moment. On the ground, alone, scrambling for the preservation of one’s life, it’s a different story. Here, on the surface of the streets, there is fear, there is suffering. One equips oneself for battle, shielding one’s body with armor in preparation for the violence that awaits. Every morning blood is shed, running grimly in the gutters of the streets—blood that bleeds slowly from the hands, running cruelly from the heart. It is a slow death, it is a lonely death. A death that is suffered without witnesses. A death behind drawn shutters and hard walls… but it is also a life. It is the very struggle for one’s self-preservation that gives one strength, and with it, the will to fight for one’s ideal. The battles one fights are painful and one suffers many defeats, and even when one is fortunate enough in prevailing over one’s enemies, one is not always proud to do so. In the daytime one avoids the light, slinking around backstreets and alley corners, to conceal from all those who would look upon them the wretchedness of one’s soiled hands. There, under the cover of shadows, one anxiously waits. And when night falls, one walks the streets. In the morning, one feels renewed in one’s strength, having risked the night once again and liberated oneself from the evermounting fear of day. One steps outside now, upon the barren street, under the glare of the blazing sun, and is ready, and throughout the other parts of the city, from behind the cover of their own secret strongholds, though one doesn’t see them, the others stand with one, too. We are the last line of resistance left standing against the forces of the Machinery of the Multitude, and we will not surrender. We fight for Sector 19.

The war began a long time ago, at a time when many of us were just beginning to find our way into the order of our society… and at first, none of us even realized that one had begun. In those days, the city was bustling and full of life—thousands of bright lights could be seen beaming throughout its crowded streets—and we, the city’s ardent inhabitants, young and restless. For us, each day brought with it something new, some still unknown possibility to tempt our yearning, adventurous hearts, and we, shying away from nothing, would chase heedlessly after it. Our band was strong in those days, the strongest it would ever be, and nothing in all the world could come between us. We would look at each other from across the crowded street and see a fellow brother-in-arms standing there, thinking the whole time that we would always stand together for the ends of one common cause. We were the boldest, the most reckless, the freest the city had to offer, and nothing in all the world could dissuade us from this truth. We took from life everything that we desired, never doubting for a moment our bodies’ right to its enjoyment of itself, feeling the justice of this very law written into and speaking out of the firmness of our limbs, out of the suppleness of our thoughtless, curving muscles, and all that life asked of us in return was that we did not turn away from Fear. This is what Sector 19 was for us in those early days—days whose memory still burns grievously in our hearts whenever we think back to them and to how great our lives were within its lavish, nurturing bounds. We were happy, truly happy at that time, for it really seemed to us as though things would remain this way forever… but then the war began. The more vigilant of us were the first to heed the signs of its approach. One day a number of strange disturbances were reported coming from the outskirts of town, and news of their happenings gradually spread. At first they were thought to be only rumors, casual remarks being passed from mouth to mouth in the form of gossip and crude jokes, and so most of us just dismissed the things that we were told. We thought that our immediate concerns were more important, that they would never diminish in their urgency, and thus that the possibility that such strange occurrences were actually happening, even if it were true, was something too far off in the distance from us to bother worrying ourselves about. But then, later, no one could deny what was going on… One night, at a guard station lying along the city’s border, where a troop of sentries was stationed to keep watch over the city’s frontier, an unexpected incident occurred. No incomers were expected at that late hour, as such a thing was rare to see happen so late at night. Yet there must have been some confusion about this at the station, for the Access-Terrain Field leading into the city had been shut down for some reason. We know this because of what happened next. A bandit on a speeding motorcycle came rushing through the city gates, barreling down the outer regions of our still waking metropolis. He was an outsider, for only an outsider would have thought to have fitted himself out in such dark apparel, so to conceal from all others the true identity of the person lying underneath. Like a raging bullet, the motorcycle gunned through the city’s backstreets, racing towards the intersection that led to its main avenue. On its way there, a crowd of people heading towards a night club spotted it. It was a shady dive, notorious among the city’s underground for the rough types that it attracted, so it was no surprise when the crowd had suddenly turned their heads and ignored it, though the motorcycle had not slowed down but kept racing on ahead. Most of them jumped out of the way as it charged through the street, falling to the floor with curses howling from their mouths—but some were not so lucky. Friends of the victims phoned the police, demanding medical assistance for their injured companions, while also notifying them of the offender, and the city’s forces were immediately put on alert. It wasn’t long before they were deployed into action: they spotted the fugitive cycle speeding through the suburbs, and they rushed after it. On the main road, which led into the center of the city, the Access-Terrain Field was activated and all incoming traffic blocked off. The motorcyclist saw this, halted, and wheeled away, heading back in the direction from which he came. The police shot at the speeding motorcycle, but it just charged through them, racing down the street that led toward the city gates. By this time, the troops stationed at the gate through which the cyclist had entered had regrouped and had joined in the pursuit of the offender, blocking the road that led towards its border. Seeing this, the motorcyclist swerved out of the way, heading down the other fork of the road. The police rushed after him. Ahead, at the guard station lying along the city’s border, the Access-Terrain Field pulsed bright violet. The motorcyclist saw it, but did not slow down. He raced towards it, and, from a cannon extending from the motorcycle’s side, fired a missile at the field. The missile exploded, bursting tremulously against it: the field cracked, and then faded away, clearing out the path lying before it, and the motorcycle sped faster, only seconds away from making its escape—and it would have made it, too, if it weren’t for the fact that, just as the Access-Terrain Field had been brought down and the gate to the city laid open, two armored soldiers from the station’s armory had made it out onto the street. They shot furiously at the motorcycle, and the explosions, though they didn’t make a direct hit on it, jolted its course. The motorcyclist veered out of the road to avoid the soldiers, but, as it turned, it was hit in the side with a shot from the pulse rifle, jarring its motion, which caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle, skidding helplessly forward, and crash headlong into a building in one great big fiery explosion… The police gathered around the demolished motorcycle, but the body of the driver was too disfigured to be identified. From behind, the troops from the station at the other border ran up to check upon the scene, and when they were spotted a nasty quarrel ensued. The troops at the present station blamed them for the incident, asking how the cyclist managed to get through the A. T. Field at their gate. The others scoffed at this, claiming it wasn’t their fault, that the cyclist must have gotten in with the field scrambler, in just the same way that it almost escaped from their own border, and that, if it wasn’t for the fact that their station was underfunded and undermanned, not even being equipped with a single mecha suit for the defense of its personnel, the incident would have been avoided. Accusations were made, and curses flung, and the presiding officer on duty had to step in and restrain the troops in order to prevent the fight from escalating any further. After this night, things were never the same. Allegiances were broken, factions were formed, and the security on the borders suffered. Reports of violence occurring on the outskirts of town increased, and eventually this violence found its way into the heart of the city. On the whole our populace was strong, though, the majority of our people still working together to achieve our common goals; but slowly our numbers began to split. Many of us could no longer see eye to eye on even the simplest of matters, on things that we had once found so much agreement in, and the more divisive of our numbers flocked to the outskirts of the city. They stayed there, forming their own enclaves in the deserted regions of the suburbs, staying away from the activities of the community at large, and being hostile to all those who didn’t agree with their insistent and unwavering views. It all happened so fast, so fast that we couldn’t believe the things that we had seen. And then, one day, the invaders came… At one of the entry gates lying along the city’s border, the A. T. Field leading into the city had been deactivated. The station had fallen into disrepair for some time, as the community living around it had long been plagued by power shortages. No one suspected it at the time—everyone still believing that our city’s integrity was of the greatest importance to all its citizens, even if we didn’t always agree on how best to achieve this goal—but these burdens must have greatly unnerved our neighbors, for it was they who were the first to make allegiance with the forces from outside. The outsiders were allowed entry into our city and from this base staged numerous attacks against our people. At first we held strong against them, banding our separate numbers together in a coordinated counterattack and resisting the influx of their pernicious forces; but, slowly, they began to take over the city. First the outlying regions surrendered, then parts of the interior. Promises were made to those who resisted, and defections in our ranks mounted. In time, the loyal among us began to yield, giving in to the new order that was being erected outside our city walls. Less and less of us remained, and eventually the ones that did were forced into hiding, for any sense in a direct struggle had long been lost. In the end, even these last remaining stalwarts broke down, finding common cause with our oppressors and freeing themselves from the uncertainty of our daily struggle, leaving one regrettably alone to face life forsaken in the ruins of our past…

The war is over now. The city has been destroyed. Everywhere one looks there is destruction. Nothing remains of its former glory except for piles of rubble and pallid scattered lights—and in some places there’s even less. The outsiders still scour the wreckage from time to time, in hopes of finding some unlikely survivor to seize away as their prize, but even these attempts have become less frequent. There is no hope of triumph in remaining here, hidden in the shadows of these barren walls, for the oppressors have won. And yet here I am… Maybe there are others: I wouldn’t know—it’s been so long since I’ve seen another person in this city. Sometimes, when I’ve gained the courage to venture out from my hidden den, I search for survivors; but I’m no longer as hopeful of finding them as I once was, even if at times I wished differently. So, then, the question naturally raises itself: Why am I still here? What is it that keeps me behind?

There’s no question of surrender—it’s much too late for that. Any hope there might still have been of submitting to their rule had long passed. I had made my decision a long time ago—to uphold these crumbling walls until the day they can no longer stand—and now only resistance remains. I live out what days I can, always on guard for the first sign of approaching danger and ready at a moment’s notice to take up arms in my defense… but with each day that passes by, one gets older, and it gets harder to fight. Inside the chamber of this silent, stolid, hard metallic shell, my body lies bruised and weary, and, for the first time, although the thought frightens me a little, I begin to wonder: How much longer can it hold itself up? How much longer can I keep up this fight?…

At that moment, just outside the building, the whirl of a Heli-bot droned overhead. It passed its search beacon over the darkened area, over the rubble covering Rei’s fallen body, searching for any signs of suspicious activity… but, after a minute, it found nothing. So, having failed in its search, it raised its beacon, turned from the building, and hovered slowly away.

Having seen this, Rei lowered her eyes from the vast chasm of darkness stretching endlessly before her, and she exhaled.

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