The Six: Genesis | A Reverse Harem Novel

One Hundred & Eight

Hey, y'all! Hope your day is going well.

I promise I'm not trying to go radio silent with the updates, but I wrote this chapter before and hated it. So, this is the rewrite. Hope you love it. 

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Vance

There's a distinct thud when the sledgehammer strikes.

A dull, throbbing clang echoes around us. The noise is a cacophony, making my ears ring. Vibrations lead up the metal handle and my fingers and wrist tremble terribly.

Shit. That'll hurt later.

Still, I can't let it gain an inch. If it does, we're both dead. And I don't intend to die anytime soon.

Ruefully, I clutch the metal in my hands and take a second swing. The machine crumples, but the metal exterior doesn't even dent. Bent backward, its head rests between its splayed legs.

The emptying smile it wears is haunting.

Hayden scrambled backward, a curse on his lips. The sweet smile he offered when he recognized me was gone. Two perfect rows of ultra-white teeth gleamed between a pair of full, kissable lips. Luckily, the memory is etched in my brain and I can run it back anytime I want.

I'm in no place to act, but I can look. He's more handsome than I remember, especially in the sun. Too bad the only word out of his mouth was my name before everything went sideways.

As a shadow blocks the direct light of the sun, an organism lands before me in a cloud of ash and fury. It drags a punch of wind with it. I plant my feet apart and crouch, covering my face with my hands to weather the blast as it tears through my hair and grabs at my clothes with invisible fingers.

My system seals away my next breath, keeping my lungs clear of debris. Iris catalogues the event in my head and sounds the alarm, but it's too late. The damn thing has passed any safety barriers in place.

This is bad.

Slowly, the organism straightens. Its gaze settles on me and my skin crawls. A pair of foreboding ruby eyes sit on a humanoid face built from darkened metal—probably tungsten—and sports sharpened teeth. Is the damn thing going to eat me?

It reminds me of an old movie with a skeleton king and his ghostly dog. However, there is no childish wonder in his voice or the bored chasm of the mundane. Sadly, there won't be a happy ending with this is all over.

It's either me or it.

It has to be me. I'll make damn sure it's me. I have no choice.

Still, the chilling manner of its appraisal sends a torrent of shivers up my spine. They don't feel. They can't. That's the one secret to the organisms and a singular rule I instituted the moment I started the programs.

Don't let them feel. It makes things messy and the last thing we want is a machine believing the lies it'll tell itself. They're not like us. They're a means to an end. Nothing else.

I wish there was an emptiness in this organism, but no, there is anger within this machine. And the emotion festering in it is wholly directed at me. I welcome it. Relish it.

Finally, something I can hit amongst the senseless destruction and death.

When the cloud clears, Hayden is three meters to my right. His broad-shouldered form lies in a heap, tossed and forgotten, near the shattered remains of a bed. He stirs, and the alarmed worry in my mind stops.

If he's breathing, he's alive. If he's alive, the others can get to him. My focus has to be on the threat before us, and I can't risk going to him.

The doctors, nurses, and patients in the infirmary are in a similar state. Most were blown out of the building and lay unmoving on the sand. Medical equipment peppers the landscape—most broken and beyond repair—what remains steadily shrieks in a terribly high pitch.