Rejectoids

Chapter 5

 "Always knew you were a fraud," BattleAxe grunts as he jabs his curved blade into my back. ZI's brother nudges me down a twisting flight of stairs that lead to the Armament's shadowy dungeons, a place Alternators call the Bowels.

"And to think I was almost family with a human lover," he adds with another excruciating jab.

When I spin around to tell him to quit poking me, Choke Hold grabs me around the neck with his vice-like fist and then hurls me headfirst down the long flight of steps. I land in a scraped-up, twisted heap at the bottom, my face planting into a puddle of rancid oil. Choke Hold is kind enough to help me up by the throat, dangling me above the ground to grin in my face.

"I usually leave when I drop off Rejectoids with Reaper, but I think I'll stay to watch this one," Choke Hold laughs, his breath like burned rubber.

"Walk," BattleAxe growls and pushes me deeper into the foul recesses of the Bowels. Father used to take me down here when I was an Altling to scare me into good behavior. We would walk past the holding cells and the stockades and punishment chambers, the arms of imprisoned Alternators reaching out to me from the shadows. They were Alternators who had broken our code, refused to fight in our wars, or worst of all, failed to Shift. Rejectoids, all of them.

Those same desperate fingers reach for me now. Except this time, I am no longer a horrified spectator. I am one of them. A Rejectoid marching my way toward—if the screaming and pleading are any indication—a cruel and painful Disassembly.

We come to a dank atrium with window slits set high into the cobblestone walls. Shafts of pink light pour in from Calico, Arctyrex's moon, and fall upon the shoulders of the tallest Alternator I've ever seen. He hulks in the middle of the chamber wearing a long black cloak that drapes over his narrow shoulders and falls to the floor like a gushing shadow. A hood covers his head. The only part of the towering figure I can see is the metal skeleton-like hand that grips his weapon; a steel staff with a curved sickle gleaming from the top. The monstrous figure turns to me revealing a hollow body, just a cage of metal ribs connected to a steel spine. His name is written across one of the ribs: REAPER.

"Put him in holding," the executioner breathes. "I'm not finished with this one yet."

Reaper stands aside to reveal an Alternator hanging from chains from the ceiling. When a cloud moves from the moon, brightening the torture chamber for a moment, I can see it's not an Alternator, it's half of one. There's a pile of parts laying in a heap on the floor under him, wires and leaking tubes dangling from the weeping prisoner's torso.

"Help me," the mutilated Rejectoid begs, reaching a shaking hand out to me. Reaper swings his sickle in a gleaming arc and the Rejectoid's reaching hand falls to the floor with a clang, joining the mound of other severed body parts collecting below.

I am shoved into a holding cell set into the execution chamber's back wall, so I can watch the gruesome proceedings while I wait. Lucky me. Best seats in the house. I curl into a ball in the corner and close my eyes. The Wonderbuds play me a soothing melody by Wilson Phillips called Hold On. But even with the inspirational tune blasting in my ear, I can hear the prisoner wailing above it, begging me to do something. To help him. But help is no longer an option for either of us.

Now it's just a matter of time before I'm the one falling to pieces before Reaper.

• • •

I jolt awake as my cell doors creak open. BattleAxe and Choke Hold rattle the bars to wake me up. I don't know how long I've been powered-down. Long enough for the moon to vacate its position in the sky. The half-mutilated prisoner is long gone, too. All that's left of him is a single rusty spring on the ground where Reaper tore him apart.