The table shook back and forth in the second floor office of the workshop. Garry was an owner of this small time establishment in the slums, the whole place surrounded by garbage, garbage that could often be used as spare parts. But he was a useless drunk, could barely go a single day without getting drunk, leaving his only employee to work. And employee that was currently bent over his desk, pants pulled down. Caleb wasn’t happy about this, he was used to this but not happy. He needed this job, even if he had to take Garry up his ass more times than he cared to count in a week. The foul smelling old timer really saw him as nothing more....well he wasn’t sure how he saw him but that didn’t matter. He was paid even if only a little. Garry gave a final grunts and released his fluid inside Caleb. After a few seconds of catching his breath he sat down on his chair and closed up his pants that he had outgrown from weight gain years ago. ‘Get out.’ that’s what he always said once he was done with him. Caleb pulled his pants back up and went down to continue working.

Perhaps now he could finish up the motorbike that the client had spent months waiting for.

The place had no organization, tools and junk littered the floor, the shelves and everywhere really. The toilet wasn’t usable anymore as Garry never cleaned it in years, leaving Caleb to go out and “borrow” others. His gray pants stained with oils and other things, his darker shirt the same while being mostly covered by a messy, torn brown coat reaching down to his knees, the brown gloves having no fingers.

He put his protective mask and returned to welding the last piece of the motor back in place before attaching it.

This was his life now. Using his engineer skills to repair, build or do pretty much anything related to technology, all the while being his drunk ass bosses toy. As he inspected the final touches of the bike remembered the days when he got to enjoy sex...unfortunately his, now dead, fuck buddy Dan was a naive idiot, getting involved with some dangerous people for some quick bucks....

He managed to finish up the bike and now it was just a matter of waiting for the client to come pick it up. Looking at the time he was pretty much done for the day and went out the shop to the local bar. A small shady place named the Rusty Corner. A small rundown building in a sea of similar houses. Not similar in shape or size but in how rusted and trash it was. Like it was all built from trash.

A city that was little more than a sea of metal buildings, surrounded by a series of gigantic walls connected by even larger towers. The towers had giant devastator artillery, very long range and devastator shells capable of shredding at least 15 tanks in total. The walls had cannon built into the very steel walls and large spot lights scoured the sky and grounds as drones patrolled the closeup of the walls in case of stealth enemies. This was the Capital. The heart of the Empire, the largest, most well armed and meanest faction of the wasteland. They had the numbers, the guns and the resources. Some still tried to foolishly stand against them but news of their demise always reached the Capital sooner or later.

Caleb entered the small, cramped and smelly bar. The air reeked of booze, vomit and urine in the toilets as drunkards never knew how to aim properly.

He ordered his usual, watered down beer. So watered down it was mostly just colored water. Gross but it was the best he could get in this shithole. As he was stomaching his relaxing time a familiar face sat down in front of him.

‘You’re not looking to well my boy.’ the old woman with the cybernetic eye lit up in red spoke to him. ‘Regina, what do you want this time?’

‘Its always business with you! Can’t I check up on a friend?’

‘You only come to me when you want something. So what is it?’

‘A job. A much better one than with that old drunk.’

‘Again? I told you I’m not getting involved with the Syndicate.’

‘So you’d rather waste your skill on a drunk useless tub of lard instead of using them to make some real money? I thought you hated the old man.’

‘I do. But I’m not stupid enough to get involved with the Syndicate when the Empire is cracking down on them every month or so.’

‘I have already been assured that it can’t be traced back to you.’

‘How can I trust you on that?’

‘Javelin has power, lots of power and you know that. Even the Empire has trouble tracking down them. He, or she, could make you disappear, send you somewhere far away from here, out of the city. And with the money they’re offering for this job you’d be able to settle down in a nice settlement somewhere. Maybe even in the highlands?’

‘Why me tough? If Javelin really is so powerful, even from within the Syndicate, why not find a more willing engineer?’ Javelin...that name was pretty much a wasteland legend. A mysterious someone or some people that caused the Empire a great deal of annoyance. No one knew if it was one or several people or Javelin even was a person as opposed to a old world AI that survived this long. Javelin had a great deal of power tough, one of the greatest forces in the entire criminal underworld. Even the most savage, psychotic and bloodthirsty didn’t dare to move again them.. And here one of “their” henchmen was trying to pull him in...

‘We aren’t taking any chances with this one, we only recruit the best. And you’re the best tech boy within miles. You’re a total wizard with machines and that’s why we need you. Common..’

‘I’m just some guy working in a workshop fixing tools and vehicles’ ‘Don’t bullshit me Caleb. You single handedly fixed that plasma generator before it exploded, saving this entire quarter from loosing power. And you don’t have to be a tech wizard to know that any gizmo involving plasma is pretty fucking complicated. You’re the best this shithole has ever seen and your talents are wasted on that useless drunk. Come and work with us. The ones who can appreciate your talents.’

He knew this was a really fucking dumb idea but...he really hated the old man...

‘How much?’

‘Lets just put it like this.’ she said as she pulled out a pouch and gave it to him. To his surprise it must have been at least five hundred creds in there!!

‘That’s just a small taste. So, you in?’

With that kind of money...he could probably weasel his way to getting the old mans workshop and make himself the owner...

‘Fine..I’m probably going to regret it but I’m in.’

‘Good to see you’re finally using that amazing brain of yours. We’ll pick you up tomorrow, bring all the tools you can carry. We’ll head out for an expedition and be gone for least a week.’

And with that Regina vanished, leaving the pouch full of creds behind. This was a really stupid idea...

*

After he got home he hid the pouch and started packing tools for an expedition. Welder, laser cutter, wrenches, normal cutters. So many tools and so little time. Especially when he needed to keep this secret from that old drunk. It was easy but he preferred to leave nothing to chance. After he hid them all he pretended to just keep working despite having nothing to do.

After a few hours of wasting time by randomly tinker with scrap pieces his boss Garry came downstairs, still stinking of booze.

He didn’t say a word by just but just stood a few centimeters from Caleb’s face, undoing his pants. So it was one of those nights again? This was the worst of all, he’d rather he used the ass instead. That way he didn’t get the foul taste when he shoved it in his mouth. Caleb’s gagging didn’t bother him at all as he just kept doing what he always did. What he did for the past three years he had worked there..

*

Sun arose over the gray sky, lighting up the rust colored labyrinth, large chunks of it still in in the shadow of the imperial walls.

Caleb woke up the next day feeling foul. The mouth washing yesterday didn’t help at all. After he was forced to swallow it was always difficult to get that disgusting taste out of his mouth. So according to Regina they would pick him up today...

He only hoped the old man wouldn’t cause him to much trouble. He was working in the morning by repairing a broken light and cleaning the lost cause of a workshop table that they mostly used for storing crap on.

After about two hours the old man came down for yet another round. He knew the routine, dropping pants and bending over the table until they heard the door open. He grunted in annoyance but they both knew the customers had to come first. Especially since business was awful.

Regina stood there with three mean looking guys clearly packing. ‘Alright Caleb grab your stuff, we’re leaving now.’

‘What?! the fuck you on about??’ Garry questioned her.

‘Your boy toy agreed to join us for a expedition. He’ll be gone for quite some time.’

‘Fuck no he’s not! I’m his boss so I own him! He’s not joining some travelling fuckfest till I say so!’ the men pointed their guns at him, instantly shutting him up.

Caleb got the toolbox he had assembled and left with them on a truck waiting right outside. They drove on the muddy, narrow street between the roughly assembled houses. They stood wall to wall leaving only far narrower alleyways. Many roofs connected to each other forming larger, single roofs. Pipes occasionally went from house to house, fans spun on some walls bringing in air trough improvised air conditioning for the more cut off houses. Chimneys rose out from some roofs, spewing smoke into the air.   

People were packed tightly along the walls, avoiding being run over the large incoming truck. ‘Ok so here’s the mission. We’re retrieving some old world tech. Not just the ordinary battery or copper wire but some pretty valuable, high tech stuff. Your job is to keep our engines running as well as get us past any tech hindrance that comes in our way, doors, automatic defenses, anything that can run itself.’

‘What kind of high tech are we looking for? What does it even look like?’ ‘We’re not sure yet. But we know where it is and that’s all we got from Javelin. We’ll know it when we see it though. High tech always stands out.’

They reached one of the gates on the wall. The only ways outside was straight trough the different, heavily armored and well guarded gates. The soldiers were dressed in thick metal armor covering every inch of the bodies. Colored typical steel gray, the helmets build in with gas masks, shoulder pads large and rounded with the Empires insignia drawn on the right side, showing a red fist striking downwards symbolizing them crushing their enemies. The left shoulder showed their company number. Like 1^st company, 2^st and so on. They carried large assault rifles, a hand gun on their belts, grenades also on the belt and a combat knife strapped to their legs.

‘Passport!’ one of the soldiers asked, his voice coming out from the sounding system in their helmets so to prevent them from not being heard while covered up. The driver handed him a small metal card they put in a scanner while another scanner drone flew overhead, the blue light going over the truck. ‘Ok you’re clear.’ the noise of metal grinding against each other was loud as the gate slowly descended into the ground. The truck drove out into the much worse ruins outside the gates. As large as the Capital was it was still built within the ruins of a much, much larger city. Its buildings rose as high as the wall, some even much higher. Piles of broken buildings and scrap metal was often as large as houses, hiding many things underneath its mountains of scrap. This was called the City of the dead, or just Dead city for short. It was by far the largest known city by anyone in the known world and was therefore mostly accepted as being the former capital of the old world. Its giant ruins showing a glimpse into the old world utopia, a time when the world was a much different place, a place with endless food cooked to perfection. A time where technology reached new heights constantly and common transportation was changed from grounded wheels to flying amongst the rooftops. Or that was everyone kept saying it was like. Now however it was mostly populated by raiders and mutants. Anyone foolish enough to enter it would find a struggle to survive as all the rusted steel, metal and concrete made proper earth almost unbelievably rare and therefore farms didn’t exist here. It was just a farming place for scavengers looking for pieces to sell off. Pretty much all material Caleb used was brought in by scavengers from this very place.

The truck drew trough the mass ruins for hours on end. Caleb and his escort had to sleep in the truck overnight before they reached the expedition camp the next day.

Trucks, tents and grills making food for the people. Some were engineers, around seven of them. The rest were either drivers or guards. All sorts of weapons laid out over the camp. Shotguns, rifles, guns, grenades and other explosives.

‘Ok we rest for a few hours here before we drive to the dig site.

Meet your teammates, eat, drink, take a piss. Do whatever you you need to do before we leave.’

The air smelled of grilled meat of many different kinds, smoke from the fires blew across the camp and sounds of people casually talking was in every direction. Caleb was happy to just stand up for once and stretch his legs. As he took a few gulps of water he decided to ask around with his fellow engineers about this high tech. They were just as lost as he was. No one knew exactly what they were digging out, only that Javelin wanted whatever was in there. And based on the amount they were all paid it must be something incredibly valuable.

After a few hours Regina made the announcement. ‘Ok people pack up! We’re leaving!’

This time Caleb rode with the other engineers, sitting in mostly silence for the journey as the others theorized on whatever they would find.

‘Maybe its a blueprint for a old world weapon?’

‘Could be a prototype to! Like some laser canon!’

‘Wouldn’t that technically be a laser blasting gun?’

‘Shut up Meg!’

Only when the sky turned red, did they reach their destination. In front of them stood a massive skyscraper rising high into the air. From the ground in front of it, it looked like it vanished above the clouds, looming over them.

It had many holes as well as other signs of damage. Both inflicted by explosions long ago and corroding over centuries.

‘The target is somewhere below this giant of a building. Dig team, get to it!’ the rubble were first cleared with explosions till the street became visible.

For several hours the digging machines dug beneath the concrete. They had to stop when nightfall truly came over them and the guards had finished putting up defenses. Already this seemed like a terrible idea. The city looked far worse in the dark of night. The buildings rose like giant shadows, almost looking alive in a way. The inside of his tent provided little comfort but they assured everyone that the guards were professional and had done this many times. They had sensors, turrets and even a few mines further away from the camp. Every direction was being watched and they had night patrols keeping an eye on things. The risk was something would come to them but usually mutants and raiders stayed away from larger parties. Raiders especially when they were heavily armed ones. After some turning in his sleeping bag he finally managed to fall asleep.

*

The digging started up again at dawn. When the machines switched on there was no hope for anyone to get any rest. Well anyone except for the night patrol who brought sleeping pills for this exact reason. For almost ten hours it would be near impossible to wake them up. The operation mostly proceeded smoothly, the machines did their work with no trouble and so far nothing had attacked or snuck into their camp yet.

Caleb was mostly bored trough the day and spent it chatting with engineers or guards. Despite being criminal they were mostly pleasant folk. But then again, in his experience the nastiest and most prone to violence was Empire soldiers. Like they were looking for an excuse to fire off those fancy guns of theirs. When dusk started getting close again they finally made progress. The digging machines hit a metal object that looked nothing like a sewer. ‘Finally. Get the giant laser cutter!’

As the normal diggers moved away another machine rolled to the hole. Its metal arm reached over the hole, pointing two steel sticks looking things downwards. It lowered a bit and a bright red light erupted from the hole as the sound of the laser working and metal being burned trough echoed all around them. It didn’t take it long before a large metal thumb was heard and the laser stopped. It had cut a perfect round hole into whatever underground facility awaited them. The edges of the hole was still glowing hot. Before sending any human down there the engineers opened a large metal box, revealing a spider drone. Remote controlled from a small portable terminal it climbed down and on its roof. The controller looked trough its inbuilt camera with night vision, checking the tunnel for anything that could pose a threat. ‘We’ll scan it for today. We have no idea what’s down there or how big it is so we’re heading down tomorrow morning.’ Regina ordered, her experience clearly showing.

For the remaining hours of their workday nothing was detected in the tunnels. Except for one thing..

‘Captain, look at this.’

‘Oh boy...Well no surprise those fuckers got in. We’ll just bring in some flamethrowers, flares and incendiary grenades.’ Caleb looked at the screen in curiosity. The mangled, half rotted corpse of a creature laid there in a broken, torn up mess. ‘That Caleb, my boy, is something you’ll never see in the Capital. That’s a tunneler. Some mutant living in the old tunnel networks below us. Dangerous and high in numbers but scared shitless of light and heat so they stay underground.’

‘And yet you wanna send us down there.’

‘We’re prepared for them. Just point a flashlight at them and they’ll stop dead in their tracks. You’re not chickening out on us yet are you?’ she teased as she walked off. Yup...this got worse and worse already...

*

The next morning the tunnel was inspected much more greatly. No threats had been found so far inside the tunnel but flame and bright light weapons/gear was brought along none the less.

The team headed down via rope and into the dark tunnel where the air was obviously so damp and low on oxygen they needed breathing masks once they got to far in.

Dust floating in the air was made clear by their flashlights. The doors, having lost power long ago had to be opened by smaller laser cutters they brought down. Eventually they reached the broken body of the tunneler. It was clear it was an old corpse. The stains of dried blood was hardly visible anymore, the body looked like it had began to harden. It was shaped like a humanoid creature, its eye sockets ripped along every side with no sign of any eyeballs left, its skin dark gray. It was generally smaller than a full grown human, about the size of a preteen but horribly skinny. Almost like a skeleton with skin, a wide mouth with many small teeth. It almost seemed to be...smiling? Or did its mouth just spread that wide? They moved past it and continued for hours with minimal rest, occasionally finding a room but having nothing of value in them. Eventually they reached a large titanium vault door, the only way to open it was the scanner next to it. ‘Well..now what? No way our small cutters can get trough all that.’

‘Maybe if we find the power generator we can switch it back on?’

‘After like what? Hundreds of years? How can it possibly still work?’

‘Do you have any better idea?’ no one did so they turned around and walked back. After a few minutes they eventually found a door covered in rust,a sign hung above it with the words power and generator. Thankfully they actually could cut trough it, revealing a large chamber with the the large power generator. It was round, dark blue with four pillars evenly placed around it. Wires from the pillars reached the roof while larger ones on the floor, going into smaller machines and into large sockets in the walls. A typical old world style power generator, ancient but still capable of more power than anything the Empire could build.

‘Find a way to switch it back on.’ Regina ordered the engineers.

Everyone inspected it from every side, turning levers and checking cables. For all intents and purposes it seemed intact, like it was supposed to work. Yet not a single spark was made from their efforts.

Caleb understood it’s design. The problem had to come from somewhere within it. He aimed his arm up to it and pressed a button near his wrist. A magnetic wire fired from his sleeve and attached to one of the pillars, allowing him to climb up. It was something he designed in his spare time to help climb up walls and such for repairs.

‘What are you doing?’ one of the other engineers asked.

He walked to the middle of the machine and began to cut open the metal, revealing a series of wires, chips, processors and all sorts of gear. He climbed in personally to have a closer look and, hopefully, fix the problem. ‘Make sure the lever on the outside is turned to off.’

‘What are you doing in there?!’

‘Just do what he says.’ Regina told them off.

‘Ok its off.’ He carefully maneuvered trough the extremely tight space of electronics and countless wires until he saw the problem. A busted power converter. As advanced at old world tech was even it had it limits. He probably could get it working again..

He put his flashlight on the side and started to slowly open it up to check the inside. Yup, the inside was fried. Centuries of creating power overloaded this thing and the processor chip was burned. ‘I need a type E3 power processing chip to get this working again.’

‘Did we bring any of those with us?’

‘Actually ya! We guessed that we would run into something like this so we packed a bunch of this stuff.’ one of the other engineers handed it to Caleb trough the hole and he got to replacing it. He also blew some dust of around it, particularity the cooling fluid containers, just to buy them a bit of extra time.  

After he finished and climbed out he turned the lever and the machine immediately fired up. With a loud rumble and vibrations inside the generator, the pillars lit up blue and all the lights in the facility suddenly switched on. They heard rumbling in the distance, as if there was movement inside the walls.

‘That...didn’t sound like any electronics being turned on that I’m familiar with...’

‘Guess we just pissed off the tunnelers... Stay in the lit areas and we’ll be fine.’ Even Caleb could hear the hesitation in Regina’s voice there. If they were actually inside the walls then who knew how many of them they where? It could be hundreds, thousands, and they could strike from any direction! The whole team moved fast to the large titanium doors and went to hack the console. Inserting a fake card with some wires attached, a few pushes of some buttons on the console it attached to and the doors suddenly opened up although slowly and agonizingly loud. Like the entire facility knew they were there now..

Inside was some kind lab. Computers, machines, large screens with numbers and calculations far more advanced than anything Caleb had seen. ‘Ok looks like we’re on the right track. Grab anything that isn’t nailed to the floor or walls.’

They checked every last object and checked every terminal.

‘This is some advanced shit. Those old world humans knew what they were doing.’

‘Amazing how humans that lived so long before us was so much more advanced. Who knows how many hidden labs like this are out there?’

Caleb stared at a large, glass looking screen with advanced calculations displayed. His mind failing yet obsessing to figure out what they meant. ‘Well Caleb, any idea what this all means?’ Regina broke his trance, snapping him back to reality.

‘I dunno...this is so advanced. I think....this is for some kind of machine or...device..’

‘Uh huh....What kind of “device”?’

‘I dunno...I never seen anything even remotely this complicated before..’

‘Maybe we’ll figure it out when we find it.’

‘If we find it. It says nothing that its actually in here.’

‘Considering this is where Javelin sent us then I have no reason to not believe its here.’

They kept looking, door to door, computer by computer. Every desk, box, cleaning closet. So far all they could get was data that they copied down to data storage cards. Caleb found a room next to the lab. It was wide, dark and the only light was a small blue one in the middle surrounding a square pillar.

This looked way to precise... This had to be it. The thing that the calculations spoke of. As he approached it a strange sound was heard from it and the pillar started to open. The top half went into the ceiling, revealing something there. The light illuminated the object after a few seconds.

And it was...a cube.. Just a copper colored cube with some strange markings on it..

It was small enough to hold in his hand! All this for one cube??

What kind of device was this??

It had to be something special to store it all the way down here. But should Javelin really have it? If he tried to hide it they would know eventually and kill him!

So he supposed he had no choice but to turn it over to them. He removed the cube from its resting place and put it in his backpack before joining the others. For hours they scoured the lab, grabbing anything they could. ‘Ok sun is going down soon so lets wrap it up people!’ they finished as soon as they could and left the same way they got in. Everyone started feeling a bit safer once they climbed out of the hole and saw the surface sky again. ‘Anything good down there cap?’

‘Some interesting stuff. We’ll go down again tomorrow to look some more.’

*

The hole was lit up bright in the dark of night now that the power was back on. As the others slept the night guards kept their watchful eye on the camp. The night shift was almost eerily quiet, the only sounds were the wind and their footsteps. As creepy as it was at least the alarm system would warn them of any incoming threat. Not to mention raiders were cowards, never attacking large groups with lots of guns. During patrol one of them started to notice the light from the hole flickering. As he got closer it flickered more wildly and eventually shut down, returning the lab to its pitch black state. Then sounds of clawing were heard, followed by steel ripping. Then out of the blue gunshots thundered over the camp as the darkness lit up in many bright flashes. The night guards were all cut down suddenly and Empire soldiers rushed the camp. Everyone woke up in shock, flying out of their beds, not able to flee in their initial shock and was shot on sight. Tents were torn apart and workers died barely standing up. Caleb, awakening on the far side of the camp away from the fighting, tore up his tent from the inside, gabbed his toolbox and ran. Soon everyone was thought of dead, bodies littered the campsite. ‘That seems to be all of them. Search the camp! Grab everything that fits in bags!’ the lieutenant ordered.

But they didn’t have time to search for long. Out of the ground, both the dug hole and ones of their own, tunnelers jumped up, charging at the soldiers. Guns blazed in the dark and both the screeches of the mutants being shot and the scream of soldiers being ripped apart sounded across the ruins.

*

Caleb managed to get away, the sounds of gunfire died down in the distance and the city returned to its eerie silence. How the fuck did they know?? how did the Empire know they were there!? Someone had to sell them out. The only one he could think of was Garry. He was pissed by seeing him leave. But again he was a stupid drunk that couldn’t hardly screw anything that wasn’t alive and made of flesh and bone, not to mention he had no idea where they would go...but maybe he told the guards pretty quick and they were tracked somehow? Or was it an insider? A double agent in the expedition? But with no way to find out he only had one goal in mind. He had to get back to the Capital somehow.. He was currently stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no food or water, no gun to defend himself, no transport and no direction whatsoever.

He just kept walking along the road, stepping over holes and scrap metal everywhere. For endless hours it was just him, the city and that eerie silence. His every footstep sounded like a roar in comparison to everything else. As much as he tried to stick to the roads he eventually somehow ended up walking on piles of ruins, ending up somewhere he knew he hadn’t been before. Everywhere looked the same. Giant broken buildings rising in the distance all around him, the piles of broken concrete and rusted metal changed in sizes. Everywhere was the exact same! The feeling of complete dread filled him as he realized. He was going to die out here...

He knew he shouldn’t have taken her job! He knew it was useless to break the law! He knew these things always ended badly!! YET HE WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO DO IT ANYWAY!!

And now he was going to die out here... He should have just stayed in camp and let the soldiers have him. That way it would at least been quick and painless... *Thump*

Caleb stopped dead in his tracks. It was still quiet around him, was he loosing his mind? He was about to move again when that weird thump sound came again. And again but a little louder, then a little louder still...something was coming his way! Quickly he looked for a hiding place, anything at all!!

Out of the nearest pile he saw a concrete wall sticking up and he almost threw himself behind it. The thumping became louder and louder. It sounded almost like...footsteps?

Giant footsteps?? he felt the vibrations of each thump now, going trough every piece of scrap he sat on. It was footsteps! Something big enough to actually move the scrap around him! A piece of glass fell off onto the street from a broken window.

In his panic he dared himself to peek around the corner.

He suddenly wished he hadn’t looked... for over in the distance, peeking out between the ruined buildings was by far the largest thing he had ever seen! An absolute giant of the creature walking slowly on its four legs, each step shaking the ground, the sounds of metal pieces scraping along each other and pieces falling down from the piles with each step it took. Its skin were dark gray and scaly, its mouth giant with its rock looking teeth in place instead of lips, four jet black eyes staring endlessly onwards. As it walked slowly over the junk land its side crashed into a rusted tower. The creature didn’t even seem to notice as the tower collapsed, the top breaking off and falling down on the ground. The creature let out a deep noise, like a giant stomach growling. Caleb leaned on the wall feeling so...so... he didn’t know a single word for it. It was like he was so small and insignificant. Like he just escaped the corrupted safety of the Capital and just witnessed the true face of the world. And that is that in comparison to everything else he, and all other humans, are just bugs on a giants play field.

He sat there for what seemed forever, letting it get far away, vanishing in between the skyscrapers. By the Empress secret name he really was going to die out there...