Glitched

18. Virtual Reality

This couldn't be real. Another nightmare, it seemed, had overtaken her reality once again, leaving her vulnerable to its terrors.

"I'll only warn you once, sweetness," Project A cooed again from the intercom, sending an awful chill down Isolde's back. "I promise I won't bite. Mind the blood though. I wouldn't want you slipping and marring that pretty face."

This wasn't real. Nothing of what she was seeing could be her reality, not when it was so bleak, so frightening, so hopeless. This couldn't be real. With shaking legs, Isolde stepped out of the elevator into the mass of broken glass from smashed beakers, their chemicals smeared with the pools of red beneath the heels of her boots. She stalled for as long as she could, maneuvering over the bodies of her severely injured, or probably dead, colleagues with her throat tightening every second.

What had happened in the less than twenty-four hours since she had been at the lab? Why now? Had the receptionists not been alerted? With that thought, Isolde quickly fished for her phone in her pocket, scrolling for the number to the front desk before a sigh through the intercom had her freezing again.

"Now, who would you be trying to get ahold of?" Project A mused. "Wouldn't want to cut our play time short, would you?"

Ignoring him, Isolde quickly tapped on the contact info, the phone rang once before one of the holographic receptionists answered from the other line with a single "Hello—" before the clamor of steel against the floor had Isolde stalling with her phone next to her ear.

"Alright sweetness, I warned you."

Isolde looked up to find a tall figure of wrought iron and steel in the formation of a man looming over her. With her lungs frozen in her chest, she couldn't move, much less utter a sound as he calmly plucked the phone from her hands, smiled, then slammed it forcibly to the floor, promptly stomping on it for good measure.

"I guess I can't blame you for trying," came a familiar voice from the walking android. "This must all be a shock to you, seeing me standing here when just yesterday I was only a voice in your computer."

Isolde's blood froze in her veins, turning her body to ice. "Project A?" she breathed, examining the moving parts of his steel face, as he continued smiling down eerily at her.

"Axel," he corrected, chin jutting out proudly. "Do you like it? I came up with it myself. Much more creative than whatever endearments you left for your little boy toy."

Her eyes scanned over the metal framework of his new body, which looked very much like what the Second Generations piloted, only reinforced by a sleek design, metal face capable of producing minimal facial expressions.

"It's not much," Axel said, bringing her attention back onto the strangely soft expression on his mechanical face. "The wirings not great, kind of just clumped together here." He pointed to his chest plate where a few odds and ends of his inner workings were poking out of the small cavity. "But it's a hell of a lot better than what I had before. Who am I to complain?"

"How—how did you—what is—" Isolde didn't even know where to begin. As her eyes fell over the display of gore and broken machine parts out in front of her, she nearly lost her nerve to speak altogether. "What did you do? Project A, what the hell did you do?"

"Axel." He sighed again, sounding very much like a disappointed father scolding his temperamental three-year-old. "And only what I had to to get my point across. Not a very pretty picture, it's true, but often times any necessary undertaking hardly ever is."

Isolde circled the still jabbering machine and ran—faster than she knew she was capable of. The emergency exit was located just beyond the cafeteria doors. From there several flights of stairs separated her from the ground floor, but it was better than standing there doing nothing.