Breaking Point

Chapter 14: I Will Not Submit

Zaid tried to act casual as he returned to the production facility.  The blue tendrils coming up from the floor at the entrance seemed to be a bit longer.  Maybe just my imagination, he thought.  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the red light.  It seemed a little dimmer than he remembered.  Definitely just my imagination, or how my eyes adjusted to the other room.

Thunk.  Slip.  Thunk.  Slip.  His feet once again echoed across the floor as he looked down every alleyway looking for something familiar.  It really does feel like a little city, he thought as he continued.  There seemed to be main routes for larger things and more people, next to alleyways and side routes between everything else.  The structures varied in height and layout, all according to different functions.  It looked like there were separate entrances for small vehicles and people.  Some of them looked like they weren't even for manufacturing, but like they had been trading posts and bazaars.

There was no indication of where the woman had gone.  Maybe there was a residential sector somewhere?  Maybe there's some kind of map.  Maybe a terminal I can plug into?  Zaid tried the handle of what looked like a storefront.  Locked.  Really?  Not for long.  He pushed in with his shoulder, the deadbolts ripping through the jamb with not much effort.  It seemed like everything was constructed with relatively thin sheets of steel, including the walls.  The raw steel was decorated with painted images of the various nuts and bolts and fasteners it looked like this little store seemed to stock.  He couldn't read any of the writing but he could tell some of it looked like posters he had seen in the more permanent places he'd been.  Advertisements?  Advisements?  Decoration for entertainment?  Some of them had numbers but not enough context to tell what they were for.  There was a counter there.  If there was a place to plug in, it was probably behind the counter.

He checked.  As expected he found a data port to plug into, but no computer.  Huh.  Maybe everyone just brought their own computers with them and this is just the network?  He tried it anyway, fumbling a bit as he had to stoop at an awkward angle to reach it.  The plug from his wrist compartment fit.

Suddenly he felt a tickling jolt in his brain, especially toward his eye.  His vision in his synthetic eye went blank for a moment before being overwhelmed with imagery he didn't know how to process.  There was no focusing it, just blurring and rapidly shifting.  It gave him a migraine just trying to keep up with it and he groaned with the sharp squeezing pain behind his eyes.  He couldn't take it anymore, and unplugged himself from the terminal.

It barely helped.  After a few seconds the image faded, but what replaced it was nothing.  Not even black.  His synthetic eye was dead, with not even the persistent Z41-D in the corner.  And the excruciating headache wasn't gone either.  Silverish swirls took over the corners and center of his vision.  He clutched at his face and head as if that could help.  It couldn't.  There was only the headache.

Pain.

Dizziness.

Blindness.

And then sleep.

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Colors swirled and the world came back into focus.  He tried to stand himself back up but couldn't because of the pain -- his left elbow had been dislocated by hyperextension, along with his right leg at the knee.  It all seemed familiar somehow.  He looked at himself, spotting dents and fractures in his blue armor.

Blue.

Not reality.  Another damn memory.  Not this again.  And please not this one.

Draygon stood over Zaid, having humiliated him in combat.  "Do you submit?"

Zaid tried again to sit up, this time avoiding use of his left arm.  Deep bruises and possibly impact-related organ damage in his abdomen made this difficult.  Draygon rushed him, stepping down on his shoulder and forcing him back to the ground.

"Submit!"

Gurgling, wheezing sounds rose from Zaid's chest.  He coughed involuntarily, expelling something sticky and metallic tasting from his lungs into his mouth.  Obviously blood.  Almost certainly organ damage.

Draygon reached toward Zaid's face with his fingers.

Zaid felt his elbow pull back into place as he crawled his fingers around the floor, finding a broken metal chair leg.  He clasped it into his fist.

With a burst of new strength and fury, he was able to make a sudden move Draygon didn't predict.  He rolled himself to the side, Draygon's foot missing its hold and his ankle starting to twist.  At the same time, Zaid's stabilized fist met the side of Draygon's knee with a sickening crack and Draygon collapsed to the floor.  Finally Zaid was at advantage as he started getting up and his opponent had collapsed.  With all his might he drove the chair leg into Draygon's stomach.

Zaid couldn't hold back the coughing anymore, hot sticky blood coming from his mouth.  In contempt he spat this blood on his floored opponent's face.  "I never submit!" he crowed in between heavy breaths.  "Told you I'd kill you."

After what felt like minutes, Draygon's eyes popped open and directed themselves at Zaid.  As quickly as he had collapsed, he pulled the chair leg from his stomach and kicked himself up.

"You will submit," he said, his voice much more ominous than before.

Where Zaid had felt humiliation earlier, he now felt dread.

Come on, let me wake up from this!  I already know this part.

No such luck.  The memory continued.  Draygon's figure seemed to be larger than his already imposing self, an unnatural shadow and black flaming aura surrounding him, hiding all his surroundings.  There was no room, no dead Apollos, no rubble anymore, only Draygon.  Though a fair deal larger, Zaid felt paralyzed, prone on the ground.  His oppressor's hand rested across the side of Zaid's head.  Hissing words rushed through his mind as his eyes saccaded back and forth as if to buck away the images burrowing themselves into his soul.

There was darkness for a moment.

And then there was red.

The strength in Zaid's limbs gathered, tension winding up within him, preparing to spring forth beginning with his voice, which gradually rose to cry out to culminate in a deafening roar.  "I DON'T BELONG TO ANYONE!" he finally shouted, his voice visibly shaking the dust around him.

"Then I have no use for you," the hissing spectre voice replied as Zaid felt something puncture his chest.  It was the chair leg, which was still dripping with Draygon's blood.

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Zaid was suddenly conscious again, but not where he remembered being.

And, given the feeling in his brain, also definitely upside-down.

And there stood his new acquaintance not far from his face.

"Had a nice nap?" She said with a scowl.