The Last Human IV - Ch. 51 - The Screams of the Damned

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Hints of metal gleamed in the shadows. Cold machinery clinked and rasped, calling to Agraneia’s mind the knives she used to sharpen. 

Wires and cords hung like mossy curtains from a ceiling she couldn’t quite see. Pipes and steel ducts towered over her, like the legs of monstrous arachnids. She held her breath, as if one wrong sound might wake them.

Chill air slid across the floor and caught around Agraneia’s bare ankles. The cold was almost painful. And she could taste blood in her mouth. What happened? A hit to the head. Agraneia winced at the memory of her that hard thwack against the back of her skull. She hoped the bone wasn’t fractured. 

Where am I? The thought slipped, fuzzy and unclear, through her throbbing headache. Carefully, she opened one eye. Metal wires wrapped around her wrists and just below her knees, digging into her scales. There were little holes all over the wires, but she couldn’t see what they were for. 

She pulled on one of the wires. In response, a light clicked on above her, blinding only because everything else was so dark. 

Agraneia held her breath. Without moving her head, she dared to glance up, squinting at the shadows.

More lights glowed to life, rapidly illuminating in a perfect circle around the first until she could see the orb-shaped head of a machine. It was flanked by two other, identical heads—each coming to life with their own ring of lights.

The orbs descended toward her, moving as one. They spread out in a circle, orbiting her so that she could only see one or two at a time. Agraneia pretended not to notice them, pretended not to be awake at all. Heavier things moved in the shadows. Felt, more than seen. Massive gantries hissed softly as they slid overhead, shifting the air pressure. Something about their movement sparked a sense of danger—woke up some primal part of her. There was something urgent…

The mission. Agraneia’s heart rate spiked. Khadam. Everything sharpened into focus. 

I shouldn’t be here.

Without moving, Agraneia reached out with her thoughts. She impulsed her liquid arm to change, to become a web of blades that would slice all the wires at once—

Her shoulder was numb. She couldn’t feel her arm at all. Wires bit into the scales of her neck when she turned her head to look. A ring of lights snapped in front of her face, blinding her. The metal wires pinched into the back of her neck as she tried to twist away from the lights, but the lights tracked her movement exactly. 

“I apologize about your arm,” a voice said. Feminine, and soothing and perfectly organic. Too perfect. Every word made Agraneia’s stomach clench. “I had to neutralize it. A very rare metal, indeed. Where did you get it?”

Finally, she twisted just enough to see the bands of metal around her shoulder, the spikes embedded in her flesh, just above where the liquid metal secured itself to the stump of her arm. 

“Can you understand me?”” the Sovereign asked. 

Agraneia sensed, more than saw, a rippling motion from above. Great arms unfolded from above, long and insectoid and heavy enough to crush her with a single step. They swooped down, and each one sprouted a mass of limbs capped with sharp-looking sensors.

“Yes,” the voice whispered, a calm and soothing echo that filled this dark place. “I think you can. A human-made arm. But you’re not exactly human, are you?”

And when she didn’t, the voice sharpened its edge. “Answer me.”

“Where am I?” Agraneia asked. The wires pressed into her throat with every word, and even when she swallowed.

“You are exactly where you need to be. Where did you get the arm?”

“What arm?”

“Oh, you poor thing,” the Sovereign’s voice dripped with honey. “So confused. And you’re shivering. Let me help you.” 

The wires wrapped around Agraneia’s legs and arms began to heat. It felt good on her scales. But she knew a threat for what it was. If the wires could heat up that quickly, they could go hotter. 

Still, Agraneia smirked. A threat meant the machine wanted something from her. She might not have the upperhand, but she definitely had something…

“Don’t know,” Agraneia grunted. “Always had it.” 

“Oh, I see,” the Sovereign said. Accepting the lie too easily. Somehow, Agraneia felt like she had misplayed. 

“I’m looking for a woman,” the Sovereign said. “A human called Khadam.” 

“Who?” Agraneia said, automatically. But even she couldn’t hide the flood of relief that poured into her. It doesn’t know where Khadam is. She’s still alive…

The orb swooped in an arc, a sudden movement that stabbed the lights directly into Agraneia’s eyes, forcing her to squeeze her eyelids shut. 

“Look at me.”

Agraneia let her eyes open a crack. She looked above the orb, which sat on an arm held by hundreds of slender, flexible wires. Lenses and clusters of holes and other sensors covered the orb, and Agraneia saw herself reflected in the thing’s many, many eyes. 

There were other arms, back there, in the shadows. This machine had been left alone for too long. Grown over itself too many times. Mutated. 

“Khadam,” the machine said, its voice coming from all three orbs at once. “You know her. She gave you the metal, didn’t she? She made you into this.”

Agraneia felt a swell of vindication as the Sovereign’s machine got it wrong. Khadam might’ve taught her how to use the liquid metal, but Agraneia, herself, had willed it into life. The machine doesn’t know everything, she told herself. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Agraneia said, hiding her smile. 

A heavy whirring sound loomed from behind her chair. Without turning her neck, Agraneia slid her gaze to the left. The silhouette of a long leg drew itself out of the darkness. It held a ragged mass of metal on the tip of its claw. It glowed with a familiar light. The leg dragged it roughly along the floor, carelessly scraping metal on metal so that sparks showered in the dark.

The Sovereign flung it at Agraneia’s feet. It landed in a heap. Twisted. Broken. And awful. A metal mask, laced with scars, stared up at Agraneia. An android’s torso had been torn open to reveal a dimly-glowing core. The only remaining arm was a twisted piece of metal, and all of Laykis'sdelicate hydraulics were wrapped around each other. Her neck bent almost sideways, and fractured electronic boards jutted out of her spine.

“Do you know this android?” it said. Taunting her.

Agraneia stared. Not daring to speak.

“I asked you a question.” 

“What’s an android?” Agraneia asked. 

Black wires dripped from above. Each one was as thick as Agraneia’s wrist, and, like leeches, they sought out the android’s body, attaching themselves to the crumpled remains of her armor, or the exposed section of her core. 

“I know more than you think, Agraneia of Cyre. What will it cost you to lie to me?”

Smoke started to pour up from Laykis’s ruined body. The tips of the leech-wires glowed as they overloaded what was left of her core. Fusing wires together, melting her delicate mechanics. The android jerked and pulled, but the leech-wires held her in place. A coppery scent, sour and acrid and metallic, filled the air until Agraneia could taste it. She felt the heat of burning metal in her toes and shins.

“She knows you’re watching her,” the machine cooed, almost lovingly. The orbs slid around Agraneia’s head, whispering into her ears. “You should hear her screams…”

One of the wires slid underneath Laykis’s scarred mask, burrowing into her throat. A moment later, Agraneia was surrounded by an amplified burst of Laykis'sscreams. 

But in the static, she heard a voice, whispering into her ear. You’re just going to let this happen? A voice that wasn’t there. Agraneia squeezed her eyes shut, straining against her restraints, as if she might block out the whispers. Your own friend. You can save her with a word. But you won’t. You’re too afraid. Weak. Useless— 

“Fuck you,” Agraneia said through clenched teeth.

“Shall I kill her now?” the Sovereign said, and Agraneia could hear a smile in its too-perfect voice. Laykis's screams rose louder. 

Weak. You failed. Did you ever think you would succeed? You were nothing but a mindless, useless animal. You never deserved— 

“Stop!” Agraneia grunted. “Please!”

Why? The hallucinations whispered. You never did. You kept cutting and cutting. Behind the voices, Agraneia could hear it too—the wet chopping of a long knife on flesh. Too familiar. The screams of all those xenos…

“No,” Agraneia shook her head, pressing her neck into the wires that choked her, as if she subconsciously deserved the pain. “I didn’t know. I should have known.”

“Where is Khadam?” the Sovereign asked. “Tell me everything you know about her, and all this stops.” 

“Dead. She’s dead. I watched it happen.”

Laykis’s screams went mute. The leech-wires lifted their mouths and made sensual, dangerous movements toward Agraneia, followed by the three orbs, their rings of light twisting as they inspected every muscle in Agraneia’s face.

“Liar.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Agraneia shook her head. She winced as the wires cut deeper into her neck scales, drawing blood.

“You are on your own, Agraneia of Cyre. No one can help you. But I am generous. I can help your people. I will give you worlds of paradise. All I need is information. Tell me anything you can about Khadam, and I will make you a hero among your people. I can make you a god.” 

The orbs flickered, projecting realistic images around Agraneia. Suddenly, she was enveloped in another world. Instead of a metal chair, she sat high on a throne. Crowds upon crowds of people bowed before her. She could hear their voices, chanting her name. 

But the Sovereign did not know what haunted Agraneia. Instead of worshipful faces, all she could see were mouths dripping with gore and sunken eyes filled with hate and flesh-covered skulls blackened by rot. Even in the Sovereign’s fantasy, they tormented her. 

“Think of all you could have, Agraneia of Cyre. Think of how much they will love you.”  

They did not praise her name. They cursed it. You murderer. You monster. You deserve worse than death…

“All you must do is answer me. Where is Khadam?”

Agraneia stiffened her spine, and glared directly into the nearest orb, and grunted a single syllable, “Who?”

The orb’s lights flickered. “Fine, then.” More leech-wires snaked over Laykis’s crumpled form, and dove into her metal crevices. “Perhaps a few days of listening to her sing will change your mind.”

Laykis’s scream projected from the orbs, undulating in agony. And then, something odd happened. The android started to scream words. “Vul!” she shouted, her voice ragged and staticky. “For He has spoken! I am His faithful servant, and I have heard His word! Khadam is our key! Khadam is our key! Khadam is—” The leech-wires glowed brighter, and Laykis’s screams cut short. Tendrils of smoke poured up from beneath her mask.

“How annoying,” the too-perfect voice hissed. “I will have to work with your flesh instead. Messy.” Agraneia’s scales tingled as needles pressed out of the wires that bound her. They felt like tiny teeth,  biting into her clothes, her scales, and then her flesh. “Tell me, cyran, how do you feel about pain?” 

Agraneia spoke through gritted teeth, “I deserve it.”

The needles paused. Again, the Sovereign did not know her nearly as well as it expected. But the needles? They were nothing compared to what Agraneia could do to herself. Cries of the masses drifted into her thoughts. The voices, echoing from the past. Chaining her. Damning her. Yes… You deserve so much worse. 

Oh, Agraneia thought, I know. And before the Sovereign had a chance to do it, she pressed her head back into the chair, letting the needles glide deeper into her neck, smiling as blissful, righteous agony erupted down her spine.

She huffed out a laugh, and blinked away the tears, letting them roll down her cheeks. 

More, the voices demanded. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Gnashing their rotten teeth at her, rolling their dead eyes, bearing the wounds she had given them. Bleed. And beg.

Beg for your ruin.

Though the Sovereign could not hear Agraneia’s voices, it obliged. The needles lengthened into thorns, and dug beneath her muscles until their tips clicked against her bones. Scraping with white hot claws. Agraneia tried to hold still, but the wires had grown hot, and pulsed with unbearable heat, forcing her muscle to flinch and try, hopelessly, to pull away. 

The things in the shadows dragged themselves closer to watch, to delight in her misery. They brought with them, not just their faces, but their bloated and mutilated bodies. Bloody hands and bloody mouths. Broken teeth snarled around black, rotten tongues that wriggled with obscene laughter. Old xenos, young xenos, soldiers and civilians, mothers and fathers and innocent children with flesh flapping from their bones.

They drank in her pain and screamed for more. They smiled at the scent of her burning flesh. They laughed at the way her body shook, at the gathering screams in her throat. Agraneia bellowed at the visions. Told them to leave her. Begged them for mercy. And finally, sobbed until drool dripped down her chin. They only wanted more.

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