Indebted - Adventure In Action

II - The Search [Mystery]

II — The Search [Mystery]

"Bro, are you sure this is the place?" Khumo asked into his earpiece as he stared at the large metal door that stood in front of him. It appeared to have accumulated a bit of rust, but was otherwise I'm decent condition. "Yes, you're at the right place." A voice answered from the earpiece and Khumo raised an eyebrow in slight confusion. "I don't know man, it looks a little too fresh to be an abandoned Crescere base." He replied eventually and he heard a sigh on the other end. "There was an automated system we created to keep the place under lockdown because there's still tools there that people may want."

"Then why don't you just take the shit and move it to the new base? Sounds kinda stupid to me." Khumo commented, further drawing the ire of the woman he was speaking to. "We would've done that if YOU didn't choose to escape and throw everything into chaos, so all this shit is your fault." She responded and Khumo rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Look, you need that tool for the next mission, and you've got some nasty security AND plenty of crates to search through, so if I were you, I'd talk less and start looking."

The link to the earpiece cut off and Khumo took out his burner phone to take a look at the emblem once more. It was an odd one and all he hoped was that the crate was the first thing he laid his eyes on when the door opened. As he stepped closer to the door, it opened to reveal a dark hallway with only one door towards the end. Khumo put his phone away and grabbed his pistol instead.

Khumo stepped into the base and was immediately met by a barrage of laser beams that descended from above. Khumo noticed a second too late and leapt backwards, but he had been caught by a few in the process. He landed outside of the base and winced at his burns that soon began to close up. "Well, I should've seen that coming..." He mumbled as he looked into the hallway once more. It had stopped firing at that point, but he was sure that it would resume if he stepped into the hallway again.

For a while, Khumo was deep in thought, unsure of the best possible way to survive the laser fire. He was not particularly confident in his powers but at this point, running as fast as he could to the other side seemed like the best option available. Khumo put his gun back in its holster and got into position. A few seconds later, he took off into the hallway, moving as fast as his legs could carry him while the lasers shot at him.

He was quite fast, and was getting hit far less than he expected, and in seconds he was at the door. The door opened and Khumo wasted no time in entering as it closed behind him. A part of him had wondered why the door was not locked in some way, but he was not one to complain. "I... hate it here." Khumo mumbled in between light breaths. His wounds had already begun to heal as he looked around, finally realizing where he was. There were plenty of crates, each with unique emblems and placed on different platforms. The sheer number of them was astounding, and Khumo knew that he would be here for a while.

He looked around and did not see the emblem within the immediate vicinity. "For the love of..." Khumo trailed off as he got to searching, looking for the crates with the emblem that had been burned into his memory at this point. It took him quite a while until he felt that he was getting closer, where he came across crates with emblems similar to the one he knew.

Soon enough, the crate that he had been searching for made itself known. "Finally!" Khumo grinned and grabbed the item and brought it towards the open space, but that seemed to be a mistake. As he put it down, the lights in the room turned red and a few of the other crates began to change shape to form androids. Khumo's eyes widened at the sight for a moment before he regained his composure, running towards the door with the crates, but the door would not open this time around.

"Suddenly, this feels like the most secure place in world." He commented as he leapt upwards to avoid a blast from one of the androids, disappearing into the sea of crates. Khumo felt that he was safe, until the  surrounding crates began to morph as well, adding to his panic. He was not the best equipped to fight machines, even with his powers it would be a tough battle and in this case, his enemies had a significant numbers advantage.

Khumo continued to run through the crates, avoiding blasts as best as he could before he stared at the crate in his hands for a moment. "There better be a damn rocket launcher in here!" He shouted as he tapped the emblem, allowing it to open up at the top. A small, disk-shaped item hovered out and it released a white light that engulfed everything in the vicinity.

A while later, the light died down and the disk fell back into the crate. What was different was that he was engulfed in darkness, but with not a single android active. Khumo grabbed the disk from the crate and dropped the crate on the floor, turning on his flashlight to examine it. Physically, there was nothing necessarily special about, but it had potentially saved his life. He shine the light behind him to reveal the androids that stood completely still and thus far, he had only come to one conclusion.

"I can't believe these niggas had me get a glorified EMP."