Bastion - Chapter 1
Activating, hollow eyes lit blue;
dimming intermittently before continuing to flicker. Hesitating, Amma’s core steadily awoke from its slumber. Warming up, processing units began to access files. Swapping memory, records blazed a trail of data through her mind.
Blinking, the hue of her iris’ pulsated through the darkness. Reflecting off the floor, a hard ground of steel and ceramic shifted. Cracked and chipped, tiny wires laid flat from her severed neck. They’d been there a while, waiting to rebuild; waiting to rise.
Jets of hot steam sprayed from crevices. Hissing as the old world continued to move.
Mountains of rusted metal creaked and collapsed, spilling over themselves as creatures consumed the stacks below the bridge. Little teeth munched, chipping against copper in their attempts to feed.
Staring out, Amma could hear them. Before long, a fight broke out. Snatching a metal barb from a fellow sentient, the two ran into the shadows.
She couldn’t hear their struggle any longer, for they’d moved too far away.
Shifting the tiny wires imbedded within her neck, Amma’s mouth opened. Stretching thin jaws, synthetic tendons came into view. Grey chipped teeth, a carbon tongue, and black greenish fluid rested lazily over her gums.
Tapping the floor, the cables wiggled. Extending from her corroded neck, they started to move. Thicker than the rest, the center most of the three began to build, stretching across the ground. Sliding like a serpent, it slithered past scattered debris. Slipping through fluids and waste, it searched for a body. Something maimed or partially destroyed. Even biomass would suffice.
Stopping at the edge of a bridge, a wall presented itself. Confused, the tiny camera protruding from the end of the worm like appendage, narrowed it’s lens. Arching, it leaned back before looking up. Searching for a way to scale the smooth graphite structure.
Giving up, the tendril decided to turn around. Heading back over the bridge, it stopped for a moment before swiftly moving towards the railing. Leaning at an angle, it peered into the pit. Dark mounds of metal were somewhat visible against the ultraviolet light.
Turning away, the worm continued wiggling across. Keeping close to the edge, it absorbed dirt and grime. Transmuting the substance, the nanobots expanded. Extending the appendage in Amma’s pursuit of a new host.
Exiting the bridge, she creeped into a hole. An open crevice within a collapsed structure. Beyond it, bodies filled a compressed space. There’d been a scuffle years before. Yet the corpses hadn’t decomposed. Instead, they rested in piles. Heaps of silicone, bio components, synthetic flesh, and metallic appendages.
Sliding past a few, the little camera inspected them. One by one, they held severed limbs, torn abdomen’s, and smashed cores. The red fluid was gone, but the stains remained. Marking concrete and steel with the remnants of the onslaught.
Face smashed into the side of a wall, the cobblestone had cracked. Shattering most of the jaw and skull in the process. The rest however, was salvageable.
Covered in galaxy armor, it held an axillary power unit. Marking the suit as a relic of the past.
Getting closer, the camera zoomed in. Dust and muck covered the serial number, but the date read clear against the smothered light.
Manufacturing Date: 11|07|4085
“What year is it?” Amma wondered, continuing to inspect the gear.
There were a few other markings. The size, the manufacturers name, the model, and it’s weapon load out.
“SPC BR-F4.” The label read. The rifle was covered in grime, as were the other weapons in the alleyway.
Moving up towards the crushed skull of the corpse, the two axillary cables attached to the camera pierced beneath the skin of the neck. The arteries were hard, almost solid from decades of atrophy. Injecting nanites into the stiff flesh, blue fluid seeped in. Consuming the dead cells and deconstructing corrupted nanobots, the body steadily came back to life.
Day upon day, thousands of cells were erased and replaced. A process that took years to complete at any rate. Staring off, Amma’s eyes went dim. Forever awaiting the construction of her new body.
Hello! We’re D.J. Hoskins
We are Davena and Jason Hoskins, co-authors of 30+ books and siblings who write under the pseudonym D.J. Hoskins. Three years apart and in our twenties, we have been fascinated by stories from a young age. Davena is a student attending Princeton University, and Jason attends Georgetown University.
