Chapter 7: Dr Blakk
The silence in the transit tunnel was a thick, winding thing, broken only by the low hum of their mecha-beasts’ engines and the distant, rhythmic drip of mineral-rich water. Fred guided his ride a few meters ahead of the main group, Trixie matching his pace on his right flank. Eli’s instructions to scout the approach hung in the air, but the path here was a single, well-worn tube of basalt, smooth and uneventful.
For twenty minutes, they saw nothing but rock and the occasional phosphorescent lichen. Trixie hadn’t spoken once. She scanned left and right with professional diligence, but her posture was rigid, her jaw set in a way that spoke of profound boredom rather than alertness. Fred watched her out of the corner of his eye. Voltage, perched on his shoulder, emitted a soft, questioning buzz.
“So,” Fred said, the word cutting through the hum. His voice was casual, but it felt too loud in the confined space. “Back at the hideout. That thing you did.”
Trixie didn’t turn her head. Her eyes continued to trace the wall seams. “Which thing? I do a lot of things.”
“The kiss-on-the-cheek thing.”
“Ah. That thing.” She finally glanced at him, a flicker of something assessing in her brown eyes. Her mecha drifted a fraction closer, its side panel almost grazing his. “I was curious. It was an experiment. A data point.”
“An experiment.” Fred kept his gaze forward, his hands loose on the controls.
“Mmhmm. You were radiating a pretty significant distress signal. I administered a controlled stimulus to observe the reaction.” A slight, almost imperceptible smile played on her lips. “The guilt-to-relief transition was efficient. Positive result.”
Fred snorted. “Glad I could be your lab rat.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re more of a field test.” Her tone was light, dismissive, but her mecha drifted another inch closer. Now their shoulders were nearly touching as they rode, the gap between them charged with a different kind of potential. “I’m figuring stuff out. One step at a time. No grand plan. Just… seeing what happens.”
“And what’s happening now?” he asked, nodding at the shrinking space between them.
“Now,” she said, her voice dropping to a murmur meant only for him, “I’m tired of holding my neck up.”
Without further explanation, she let her head tilt sideways. It came to rest against the firm muscle of his upper arm, her temple pressed against the worn leather of his jacket. She didn’t relax entirely—her eyes stayed open, scanning—but the contact was deliberate, unapologetic.
Fred didn’t move. He didn’t dare breathe too deeply. He could feel the warmth of her through the layers, the slight weight of her head. A strand of her vibrant red hair caught on his sleeve. He looked straight ahead, every sense hyper-focused on that single point of contact.
The tunnel walls began to change. The grim basalt gave way to a porous, brighter stone, and then they coasted into a vast ancillary cavern. It was a hidden grotto, untouched by mining or war. Giant, softly glowing mushroom caps in lavender and cream towered like ancient trees. Bioluminescent flowers pulsed gently from crevices, casting a dreamlike, shifting light. The air smelled sweet and loamy.
It was beautiful, and for a hundred heartbeats, they moved through it in a shared, wordless quiet. The hum of the engines seemed to fade into the background harmony of the cavern.
Fred forced himself to look back over his left shoulder, through the canopy of giant fungi, toward the rest of the gang. Kord was laughing at something, his big head thrown back. Pronto was gesturing wildly, likely recounting a "Pronto-only" path. And Eli rode at the front of their group, his profile intent and forward-focused, scanning for threats ahead. He hadn’t noticed. The distance and the foliage provided a perfect, accidental privacy.
When Fred faced forward again, he found Trixie looking up at him, her head still resting on his arm. “See?” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “No grand drama. Just a step.”
He found his voice, rough but steady. “It’s a good step.”
They rode like that until the lush cavern began to narrow, the sweet air gradually replaced by a sharper, acrid tang. The walls closed in, turning back to scorched and angry rock. Trixie straightened up, the moment slipping away as naturally as it had arrived, replaced by her professional mask. She powered up her camera, the lens whirring softly as it extended.
“Heads up,” she said, all business. “We’re close. Atmosphere’s changing.”
Fred missed the weight immediately, but he nodded, flexing his fingers on the controls. Voltage crackled, a static charge lifting the fine hairs on Fred’s neck. “I smell ozone. And burnt metal.”
“Scorched Sparks,” Trixie confirmed, peering at her scanner. “Residual energy signatures are spiking. This is it.”
The tunnel emptied into a monstrous gallery. The Scorched Sparks Cavern lived up to its name. It was a cathedral of industrial ruin. The walls were blackened and glazed, as if dipped in glass, reflecting the faint, sickly light from deep fissures in the floor. Skeletons of massive forging rigs, their metal twisted by ancient, incredible heat, thrust from the ground like the ribs of a dead god. The air wavered with thermals, and a deep, sub-auditory hum vibrated in their teeth.
Pronto brought his mecha to a halt beside them, his earlier bravado shriveling. “By the Great White Whale… Pronto’s guidebooks did not adequately convey the… pungency.”
Eli and Kord pulled up, forming a loose line. “Spread out,” Eli ordered, his eyes narrowed. “But stay in visual range. Trixie, get as many scans as you can. Fred, with me. Let’s check the perimeter of that central chasm.”
The team dismounted, the crunch of their boots on the crystalline slag echoing unnervingly. Trixie moved toward a cluster of dead control consoles, her camera flashing. Kord and Pronto began investigating a collapsed ore conveyer.
Eli led Fred toward the ragged edge of the cavern’s great central pit. The flickering glow from below painted his face in unstable shades of orange and green. “Something’s down there,” Eli muttered, crouching. He picked up a fresh shell casing, still warm to the touch. “Blakk’s goons used these. Recent.”
Fred crouched beside him, his senses straining. The hum was louder here, buzzing in his molars. He peered over the edge. The chasm plummeted into darkness, but maybe sixty feet down, a network of metal gantries and platforms was bolted to the rock face, lit by harsh, portable work lamps. Figures moved down there—four, maybe five of them, clad in the grey-and-red armor of Blakk’s Patrol.
“Bingo,” Fred whispered. “What are they guarding?”
Before Eli could answer, a sharp, high whistle pierced the air. It was a signal.
From behind a towering slag heap to their left, two more patrolmen emerged, their blasters already raised. They must have been a rear guard, silent and waiting. The one in front, a hulking man with a welded scar across his respirator, grinned. “Looks like the Shane Gang’s doing our reconnaissance for us. The Doctor will be pleased.”
“Scatter!” Eli yelled, firing a warning shot from his blaster that sparked against the scarred man’s pauldron.
Chaos erupted. Blaster fire lit up the cavern in staccato flashes. Kord bellowed, unleashing a Rammstone from his blaster that sent a patrolman flying into a brittle crystal formation. Pronto yelped and dove behind their parked mechas.
Fred rolled behind the cover of a massive anvil base, Voltage leaping into his waiting palm. He didn’t need to give the command. The Tazerling buzzed with eager energy. He loaded the chamber, aimed not at the patrolmen, but at the cluster of portable lamps on the gantry below.
“Light ‘em up, Volts.”
The shot was a streak of brilliant blue. Voltage hit his velocity mid-air, transforming into the sleek, crackling Velocimorph. He didn’t strike the men. He arced through the lamps like a living taser. Pop. Pop. Pop. Each one exploded in a shower of sparks and glass, plunging the lower platforms into near darkness.
Shouts of confusion erupted from below.
“Nice thinking!” Trixie called out, sprinting to join him behind the anvil. She was breathing hard, but her eyes were alight with adrenaline. She’d slung her camera and had her Tormato ready in hand.
“They’re flanking!” Eli shouted, darting from cover to cover as blaster fire chewed the ground at his feet.
The two patrolmen who had revealed themselves were advancing, using the forge skeletons for cover. The one with the scarred respirator locked eyes with Fred. “The new kid. Heard about you.” He raised a custom, triple-barreled blaster. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
Fred’s world narrowed. The cavern’s hum, the distant shouts, the smell of ozone—it all funneled into the space between him and the muzzle of that gun. This was it. The first real test since the Quiet Lawn. Not a scuffle, but a fight.
He felt Trixie’s presence at his shoulder, a solid point in the chaos. He felt the perfect, buttery balance of Kord’s tweaked blaster in his left hand. He remembered the weight of her head resting on his arm, a quiet step in a quiet place.
He rose from cover, a surgical calm settling over him. “You’ll see,” Fred said, his voice cutting clean through the din.
And he fired.
Bulk flew from the barrel of his blaster, transforming mid-flight and slamming his armoured form into the henchman, sending him flying into a rusted crane assembly with a metallic crunch that echoed through the cavern.
He turned, loaded Voltage into the chamber, and fired at the second henchman who was raising his own weapon. The Tazerling became a living bolt, zigzagging through the charged air and connecting with the man’s chest plate. A network of blue energy cascaded over the armor, and the man stiffened, shaking violently before collapsing in a heap, unconscious.
He ducked behind a boulder to dodge a couple of ghouls from the other men while he waited for Voltage and Bulk to get back to him. They both hopped up onto his shoulder, their small bodies warm and buzzing against his neck. Fred made a mental note to recruit more slugs when they got home. Two was a start, but in a fight this spread out, he felt dangerously limited.
The other members of the Shane Gang weren’t having much trouble. They drove the henchmen back with a few well-placed shots. Kord’s Rammstone pulverized a slag formation a patrolman was using for cover, forcing a surrender. Pronto, emboldened, pinned one man’s boot to the ground with a well-aimed Crystalid.
Trixie fired a Flaringo into an oil drum and it exploded, creating a wall of fire that cut off the last two retreating grunts. The sudden, roaring heat washed over them, and the cavern fell into a tense, crackling silence. The gang began to celebrate, thinking the fight was over. Kord let out a booming laugh, clapping Eli on the back. Pronto did a little jig.
“See? Pronto’s brilliance once again paves the way to—"
And then, Dr. Blakk stepped through the flames.
The fire seemed to part for him. He emerged unscathed, a smile playing on his thin lips. The celebration died instantly.
“You children,” he said, his voice a smooth, condescending baritone that carried over the popping embers. “You really think a few scattered patrols and a pretty firework mean you have any chance of beating me? This is a corporation. I am a system. You’re throwing pebbles at a dam.”
Eli stepped forward, his face pale with a anger that went deeper than the present fight. “What do you want, Blakk?”
“Why, I wanted to see you, Eli. I heard you were poking around my new acquisition site.” Blakk’s eyes glinted in the firelight. “I was the last man to see your father, you know. Before he… vanished into the depths.”
The words landed like a physical blow. Eli staggered back a half-step.
“He was looking for something,” Blakk continued, spreading his hands. “Something precious. He and I, we had a… disagreement on methodology. But the goal? The goal was the same.” He took a step closer, his gaze intent. “I can help you find him. The things I’ve learned, the maps I’ve acquired. It would be so much simpler if you joined me.”
“Never,” Eli spat, the word raw and immediate. He didn’t hesitate. He fired Burpy at Blakk.
The Infurnus rocketed forth, a comet of pure heat. Blakk didn’t even flinch. He sidestepped with unnatural, liquid grace, the fireball screaming past him to explode harmlessly against the far wall. He laughed, a dry, hollow sound.
“Still all heart, no strategy.”
The others began shooting too. A barrage of slugs—Crystallids, Frostcrawlers, a fresh Rammstone from Kord—streaked toward the doctor. Blakk moved like smoke, weaving between the shots, his coat flaring. He didn’t fire a single slug of his own. He just dodged, his smile never faltering, as if they were performing a tedious dance for his amusement.
Fred watched the pattern, the arrogant rhythm of Blakk’s movements, and released Voltage not where Blakk was, but where he would be. The electrical blast crackled at the doctor’s heels, forcing him to leap aside ungracefully.
For a moment, he just stood there, the smile gone, replaced by a cold appraisal as he looked directly at Fred. Then, with a final, dismissive glance at the whole group, he took a step back into the lingering wall of fire. The flames seemed to swallow him whole, and he was gone.
The team stood there, panting, the acrid smell of ozone, burnt oil, and defeat hanging thick in the air. The crackle of the dying fire was the only sound.
Trixie lowered her blaster, her knuckles white. Kord stared at the spot where Blakk had vanished, his massive shoulders slumped. Pronto had stopped dancing.
Eli was statue-still, staring into the embers. The hope and the horror in his eyes warred, leaving him looking hollowed out.
Fred felt the weight of the silence, heavier than any anvil in the cavern. His shoulder ached where Voltage and Bulk had returned. He looked at Eli’s shattered expression, then at Trixie’s calculating, worried face. Dr. Blakk hadn’t just thrown a threat. He’d thrown a grenade into the center of their team, and they were all standing in the shrapnel cloud, wondering what the hell they just got themselves into.
The silence was brittle, a thin shell over the turmoil churning inside each of them. Eli stared at the spot where the flames had swallowed Blakk, his jaw working, his hands clenched so tight the leather of his gloves creaked. Kord’s usual joviality had vanished, replaced by a stony, watchful stillness. Pronto fidgeted, his earlier boasting swallowed by the cavern’s oppressive hum.
“Eli,” Trixie said, her voice soft but cutting through the quiet. “He’s manipulating you. You know that, right?”
“He knew my dad,” Eli murmured, not looking at her. The words sounded hollow, unconvinced.
“He’s a monster who collects facts to use as weapons,” Fred said, his own voice tighter than he intended. He was watching Trixie, the way she was watching Eli, and a fresh, protective anger burned in his gut. “That was no offer. It was a trap door.”
Before Eli could formulate a response, the smoldering firewall between them and Blakk’s retreat path flickered violently. It didn’t just die down; it was sucked inward, as if a vacuum had opened behind it. The last of the flames guttered out with a hiss, revealing not an empty tunnel, but a reconstituted line of grey-and-red armor. Twice as many men as before stood there, their blasters already leveled.
“Oh, slugs,” Kord muttered, hefting his own weapon.
The fresh onslaught was immediate and deafening. A hail of energy slugs and physical projectiles tore into their cover, shattering the brittle slag formations into dangerous shrapnel. The gang returned fire, but they were pinned, their positions already known. A Crystalli slug from Pronto’s blaster deflected harmlessly off a reinforced patrolman’s shield.
“We’re sitting ducks!” Trixie yelled, ducking as a Ghoul slug—a twisted, pulsating thing of sickly green energy—sizzled past her head and corroded a chunk of the anvil behind her.
Fred focused, his mind clearing into a tactical space. He fired Bulk at a cluster of three advancing goons. The Armashelt morphed and landed with a ground-shaking crunch, its massive claws swatting two aside. But a third dodged, firing a net-like slug that wrapped around Bulk’s thick leg, anchoring him. Voltage zipped from Fred’s shoulder, a blue streak, delivering a paralyzing jolt to the net-wielder’s neck. It was clean, surgical. But for every one they downed, two more seemed to appear from the maze of machinery.
Eli was a whirlwind of motion, Burpy’s fiery blasts creating a temporary no-man’s-land. But the patrolmen were adapting, using extinguisher slugs that vomited cold foam to smother the flames. They were being methodically outflanked, their ammunition dwindling.
“Fred!” Kord bellowed, wrestling with a goon in hand-to-hand combat before throwing him into a deep fissure. “This ain’t sustainable!”
Fred knew it. He saw Eli’s frantic glances toward a blocked exit, saw Pronto cowering behind a melted gearbox. He felt the weight of only two slugs on his shoulder, his options evaporating. He made a decision.
“Eli!” Fred screamed, his voice raw against the blaster-fire cacophony. “We need to go! Now!”
Eli’s eyes met his, a war between fury and reason raging there for a split second. Reason won. He gave a sharp, single nod. “Fall back! To the mechas!”
The five of them broke from cover in a desperate sprint, zigzagging through the skeletal ruins. Fred covered their rear, sending Voltage on precise, delaying arcs that crackled at the feet of the closest pursuers. They were almost there, their mecha-beasts gleaming under a stalactite hangar thirty yards away.
Then the air changed.
A path cleared through the advancing troops with a terrifying, disciplined silence. Dr. Blakk walked through the gap, his demeanor unhurried, his blaster already loaded with a slug that glowed with a sick, internal light. It wasn’t like the others. Its skin was a deep, bruised blue instead of earthy red, and its horns and fists burned with a violent neon green.
Blakk took aim, not at Fred, not at Eli. At the space between them.
Fred saw it happen in horrifying slow motion. The ghoul slug rocketed from the barrel. It wasn’t a standard projectile; it was a Rammstone, but corrupted, its energy malignant. It screamed through the air toward Fred. He threw himself sideways, the heat of its passage searing his cheek.
It missed him. It kept going.
Trixie was a step ahead, reaching for her mecha’s handlebar. The ghoul Rammstone struck her squarely between the shoulder blades.
The impact wasn’t loud. It was a wet, dense thud. A corona of that vile green energy flashed over her body, spider-webbing across her gear before dissolving. She didn’t cry out. She just went rigid, her eyes flying wide for an instant of pure, surprised shock before they fluttered closed. She collapsed forward, limp, her face hitting the coarse grit of the cavern floor.
Fred’s world didn’t just slow. It froze. The sound of the battle drained away into a high-pitched silence. He saw the red of her hair against the grey stone. He saw her fingers, still curled as if reaching for her camera. A cool, detached clarity washed over him, bathing the white-hot panic in an icy, focused stream. It whispered a single, simple word inside his skull: Revenge.
He looked at Voltage, still perched on his shoulder. The Tazerling was trembling, not with fear, but with a crackling, incandescent rage. His yellow eyes were fixed on Blakk. He nodded once, a sharp, deliberate dip of his tiny head.
Time snapped back.
Fred didn’t think. His hand moved, a fluid extension of his will. He loaded Voltage into the blaster. He didn’t aim for a limb, for a weapon. He aimed for the center of that full-body grey suit, for the heart beating beneath it.
He fired.
Voltage became not a slug, but an avenging spear of pure, white-blue lightning. The air screamed, ionizing a path straight to Blakk. The doctor’s arrogant smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of genuine shock as he saw the rage-made-manifest coming for him. He had time to widen his eyes, to start a flinch, before it hit.
The impact lifted him off his feet. Electricity cascaded over his body, a cage of agonizing light. He convulsed in mid-air, a strangled gasp torn from his throat, before collapsing in a twitching heap. The air smelled of ozone and burnt wool and something meaty.
Fred was already moving, holstering his blaster as he ran to Trixie. He dropped to his knees, his fingers going to her neck. A pulse. Thready, but there. The only reason Blakk wasn’t dead on his feet was because Trixie was still breathing. That thin thread of life was the only tether holding back the totality of Fred’s fury.
“Kord! Get Eli!” Fred yelled, his voice a guttural command he didn’t recognize.
The Cave Troll didn’t hesitate. He bodily hauled a stunned, resisting Eli toward the mechas. Pronto was already scrambling onto his own ride, whimpering.
Fred slid his arms under Trixie. She was a dead weight, horrifyingly limp. He lifted her with a grunt, her head lolling against his chest. He carried her to his mecha, bundling her in front of him, holding her upright against his body with one arm while he gunned the engine with the other.
“Go! Go! Go!” Kord roared, firing a final, covering blast from his own mount.
The five mecha-beasts rocketed out of the Scorched Sparks Cavern, leaving the smoldering ruins, the twitching form of their enemy, and a piece of their innocence behind in the choking, electric dark. Fred held Trixie tight, the wind whipping at them, and he didn’t look back.