Time had become meaningless as he walked the dark corridors, fleeing mutated beasts and twisted humans. He never expected to find himself in a place like this whether he was trapped in some science-fiction story he'd never read or something far worse, he didn't know. What he did know was that he had been running like this for days. Now his stomach growled from hunger; his hands shook from cold and fear. Then, from somewhere down the tunnel, a sound began to speak.
"…zzrrt… Cognitio… Errata… …Ave… Machina…"
The voice sounded mechanical. It was not English, but neither was it entirely unfamiliar like German, Latin, English and other tongues smashed together until they warped into a chant with a metallic rhythm.
He froze and turned toward the source. At the end of the dim passage a dull orange light flashed in time with sparks, and what he saw nearly buckled his knees.
The figure was tall and thin, cloaked in soot-streaked crimson. The robe gaped to reveal metal arms wrapped with wiring and small tubes; its face was hidden behind a half-mask of metal with round green lenses that glowed. Two extra mechanical legs jutted from its torso like a spider's. The man looked like something out of a gruesome science-fiction tale.
Most chilling of all was the emblem on its shoulder the same mark he'd seen on the crushed metal box before, and the same symbol in Martin's models. The situation was getting stranger by the minute. Had he somehow slipped into one of Martin's favorite sci-fi stories? It seemed impossible.
"Binharic… signal… corrupted…" a metallic voice rasped intermittently, like a machine attempting speech.
"Don't come any closer!" Eric called, his voice trembling as he backed away and snatched up a length of pipe to defend himself.
"Non-hostilis… vox… femina… curious." The figure paused and cocked its head as if analyzing, then spoke again in a lower tone.
Eric picked out fragments Latin-laced, mechanical speech: vox (voice), femina (woman), curious. He wasn't sure he'd understood correctly.
"I .... I don't understand! I don't know what you're saying!" he shouted back.
The half-mechanical man was still for a moment, then raised his metal hand. Motors whirred softly; a pale blue light swept from his optical lenses and scanned Eric's body. A continuous stream of processing sounds hummed.
"…Biological signature… Human… Unknown classification… Non-registered… anomaly detected…"
It sounded like a report to itself. Then, after a pause, the words came that made Eric's heart pound.
"Lost… in the dark… little one?"
For the first time, Eric understood a full sentence. The voice was cold but not overtly hostile. The figure looked human enough to speak to him, and yet disturbingly other.
"If you can understand me, please — can you tell me where this place is?" Eric asked, swallowing. The man did not answer immediately; he inclined his head, some mechanism creaked, and then he spoke slowly.
"…The Underhive… Child of ignorance." He made a motion that was half-gesture, half-invitation.
Eric steeled himself and followed the person part man, part machine down a narrow, fetid passage where the smell of oil and incense had fused into something indistinguishable, like a ritual warped by grease and heat. Thick dust dried his skin and stung his eyes as lasers from the priest's lenses scanned through the suspended particles.
An old iron door opened onto a cramped room. One corner contained a cluttered workbench full of servitor parts: rounded heads missing cables, rings of gears, a carved skull-cog mounted on a small plinth. A soot-stained red cloth hung nearby. Bundles of wire, metal fasteners and tools were laid out with the sort of orderliness that felt more liturgical than mechanical.
The servitors made him queasy grotesque fusions of human remains and machinery, complete with two tracked feet and heavy manipulator arms. Eric's mind recoiled at the thought: Would he be turned into one of those things?
The dim filament lamp threw dust into sharp lines. The floor was slick with grease and grime. A servitor's faint mechanical clicks kept time as it moved a lever. The tech-priest's hand moved slowly to pull out a metal chair; it collapsed with a resonant clang in the narrow room.
"Sit," the voice half machine, half human said again, clearer this time. The spider-like feet clicked across the iron floor; the lens-eyes hummed as they examined the room.
Eric, remembering the scraps of Latin he'd learned long ago, realized at least this one used a language with Latin roots. He hesitated at the threshold, but hunger and cold pushed him forward. He sat on a wired stone stool and reached for a cloth bundle the tech-priest placed on the table. When he untied it, the contents were a hard, misshapen slab of stale bread dark-stained and smelling faintly of fish and a gray metal pail with a rust-ringed cup.
"Eat. It may hold you a little longer," the tech-priest said, the mechanical voice rendering and translating the phrase.
He looked at the other. The metal face which Eric did not yet know was more than a mask betrayed no emotion, and its manner was not friendly, though not openly aggressive either. Eric took a cautious bite. The bread was bland, dry and carried the sour tang of spoiled yeast; the water tasted faintly of metal. He swallowed and let a dull fullness spread in his gut.
His wariness remained, but hunger had won out over suspicion.
"Thank you…" he uttered in a clumsy mix of Latin and broken speech, then stopped as the sound felt wrong in his own ears the tone still anchored in the female register.
The tech-priest bowed slightly, as if answering a prayer. Its manipulator hand touched the skull-cog emblem on the plinth. Gears in its torso clicked in a slow rhythm, and it spoke a string of Latin fragments that sounded oddly familiar to Eric:
"Ave Omnissiah… benedictio… machina…"
The words Ave and machina stirred something in him echoes of old liturgical readings or books he'd seen. A small connection formed in his mind: an elementary Latin class his mother had tried to drill into him, the names he'd seen in a game manual. He began to piece together a faint meaning the tech-priest was intoning a blessing or liturgy for machines and the use of such words in this cluttered room warmed and unnerved him at the same time.
"Are you… a mechanic?" Eric asked, trying to keep his language simple.
"Cult-expel," the tech-priest replied curtly, then switched to Low Gothic. Eric caught the tone it was more like "exiled" than a detailed explanation. "…expelled from… the Forge." Eric thought it likely meant the machine priest had been cast out from some faction or workshop.
The priest moved slowly, pulling the soot-stained red cloth over the sacred plinth and producing a small metal plate stamped with the half-skull, half-cog symbol. He offered it to Eric with a gesture that tested trust as much as it extended it. Eric took it hesitantly, unsure what the man intended.
"What is this?" he asked.
"The sigil of the Omnissiah," the tech-priest said, nodding and saying the name with something like reverence. The tone was ambiguous half worship, half warning and Eric couldn't be sure which it was. He did not know who or what the Omnissiah was; it might be a god to this man.
A pause followed. Eric finished the stale lump of bread and drank half the metal cup of water; a thin warmth spread through him. As he rose to thank the stranger, the tech-priest spoke in short fragments that Eric could only half-understand.
"Novus… anomalus… registrare…" the word novus (new) made Eric flinch. Did the priest mean he was a "new" or "unknown" entity the system had not recorded?
He stared at the lens-eyes that reflected weak light like damaged but functional instruments. He managed a dry smile.
"I… my name is Erica. Thank you again… for helping me." The reflex to speak as he always had made the first syllable stumble out awkwardly; he felt uneasy using it now.
The tech-priest did not smile, but its stillness shifted a tiny concession. It nodded and pointed to a folded cloth in the corner: a narrow place to sleep.
"You look like you need rest," it said.
Eric didn't know how to feel. He was frightened, relieved, and cautious all at once. A voice in his head warned, Don't trust. But hunger and the warmth of the blanket led him to lie down on the narrow pallet.
Before closing his eyes he whispered the Latin phrase that had lodged in his mind.
"Thank you…" Then he slept, surrounded by the smell of incense and oil and the ceaseless hum of the servitors. He had no certainty how long he would survive in this place, but for now he had food and a bed from a stranger he could not fully trust and that was enough.
______________________________________________
About five hours later.
When Eric opened his eyes again the room was pitch dark. He fumbled for the flashlight beside him and swept its beam around. The narrow circle of light fell across the workbench and revealed the tech-priest slumped against it, motionless.
Fear rose in Eric at once.
The priest's head lolled to one side, resting on the table. Dried blood streaked the robe and seeped along a few metal joints. The half-mask was cocked, one lens spiderwebbed with a crack, and a few cables hung loose from the neck.
Eric stepped forward slowly, moving through dust motes that drifted in the flashlight beam. His small, careful eyes searched for any sign of movement, but there was none.
"No… no he's dead, isn't he?" he whispered, voice small and threaded with a strange sadness. He'd only just met the man, but the priest had fed him, given him shelter. It was a grim thought that the man had died alone, but at least Eric would not be turned into some machine thing or be dragged away while unconscious.
On the bench lay thin metal plates covered in inscriptions sigils and fragments of Latin he recognized only in pieces. Short notes about something illicit repeated the phrase novus anomalus. Eric picked up one plate and read a few scrap phrases: "registrare… probe… not within canonical…" He did not understand everything, but the gist was clear: this man had been investigating something forbidden, something anomalous.
Then he remembered he could hardly read properly in this world.
Confusion crashed against his survival instincts, which proved quicker. He knew he couldn't stay here: not in an unfamiliar body, not beside a corpse that might attract attention. He searched the room in a hurry, careful not to touch the priest's body, prying open drawers, checking cupboards, even levering a loose floorboard with a crowbar he found.
After a while he gathered what he could carry. The haul included:
• A small, old-fashioned handgun resembling an M1911 — rugged, with the same skull-cog symbol engraved on the grip — and about twenty rounds.
• An assault rifle that looked AK-like: a battered metal frame, patched and repaired many times. Eric had never used a gun, but he guessed it worked like any firearm.
• A box with nearly a hundred rounds of ammunition; he loaded some magazines and tucked them into his pack.
• A sturdy flashlight with about half its battery left.
• A metal water bottle and two or three hard rations — stale, compact cakes of food.
• Small pouches of medicine with faded labels containing a clear liquid and a powder — possibly basic stimulants or antiseptics, and, at worst, simply flour.
• A handful of small parts: screws, tiny gears, and the half-skull/half-cog sigil the man had given him. Eric put the sigil in his pocket; if the priest had entrusted it to him, it had to matter.
When he finished packing, Eric stood for a minute and looked at the tech-priest's lifeless form. Something about the death felt wrong — traces of a struggle or an unrecoverable mechanical failure where none should have occurred — but he had no time to investigate further. Questions crowded his head, but the immediate priority was to leave.
He closed the door tight behind him, switched on the flashlight, and walked away without looking back
______________________________________________
About eight hours later.
Eric moved down the dark corridor with the assault rifle slung across his shoulder and a flashlight taped to it. He stepped slowly, eyes scanning every shadow. Distant echoes told him the area wasn't empty — some sounds were distorted laughter, others short, harsh commands. He gripped the rifle tightly even though he wasn't confident about firing it or aiming properly. At least he couldn't see any monsters nearby.
The rifle was unbearably heavy. He finally took the flashlight off the weapon, slung the rifle on his back, and drew the pistol.
When he reached the main passage a wide tunnel where weak lights turned dust into streaks he probed ahead with the flashlight, trying to avoid exposing himself. He followed a route that looked like it might lead upward.
He wasn't sure whether it would take him out of this place, but it was worth a try.
He pulled a ration from his pack now and then and chewed at the hard cake of food. It tasted awful, but it gave him something to keep going. He drank water from the metal bottle to steady himself.
Before moving on, he paused and looked toward an exit farther down. Light shimmered from above like the promise of different air, but he could hear voices and motors in the distance patrols, or gangs, or something else.
"God, why does this happen to me?" he muttered aloud in frustration, glancing down at his chest. "I should be sitting at my office, eating lunch, drinking coffee, listening to Martin rant about those stupid toys. Instead I'm stuck somewhere with nothing to eat but these awful rations, worse pollution than Berlin, and of course trapped in a woman's body!"
He closed the flashlight and shouldered the rifle with awkward care. He still didn't know how to use guns, but he forced himself to look like he could or to try if he had to. He didn't want to die here.
Turning into a side passage, Eric crept forward. His footsteps echoed off heaps of scrap metal and crisscrossing pipes like the strands of a giant spiderweb. The smell of oil and rot clung to the air, and the old overhead bulbs flickered, making everything feel more menacing.
He passed an abandoned room where a body lay against a wall stained brown with old blood. He didn't stop to look. He quickened his pace until other footsteps came from the other side of a junction.
"Hey, look at that…"
"Score fell into our laps, ha ha!"
Rough laughter mixed with a Low Gothic accent and slang he barely understood, but the tone was obvious.
His heart hammered. Eric turned slowly and saw three figures step out of the shadows. They wore scrap armor and rags and carried improvised weapons: knives, a short shotgun, and a small makeshift machine gun.
"Nice little lady… walking alone. Let's see if she's the real thing," one of them said, leering in a language Eric didn't fully catch but understood well enough by the look in his eyes.
"Where you going, sweetheart~"
Eric stepped back automatically. His hands shook, but he didn't drop his grip on the pistol. He'd never killed anyone before, but the situation left him no choice.
"Don't come any closer!" he shouted, trying to sound threatening. His voice, still higher and softer than before, earned them only laughter.
"She's cute when she's mad."
"Don't scare her — she might start shaking, haha!" One of them stepped too close.
Eric didn't think twice. He raised the pistol and pulled the trigger. The report cracked through the tunnel. The man staggered and fell; the sound of the shot echoed against the metal walls.
The other two hesitated then the shotgun barked back. Eric ducked behind a pipe column; a hot gust from a passing round scorched his arm. He gritted his teeth, hands trembling, and fired back when he found an opening. He squeezed off two bursts.
The first volley hit the wall and shrapneled metal; the next found a target, striking one of them in the leg. That man screamed and collapsed. Eric used the moment to fumble through a magazine change, fingers clumsy and shaking.
An empty magazine hit the floor with a metallic clatter. One of the men lunged, and Eric fired again this time the shot hit the chest. He fell heavily.
Breathing hard, Eric moved to the man who'd been shot in the leg and trained the pistol at his head without hesitation.
"Please… spare me, beautiful lady," the man pleaded in a pitiful voice. Eric didn't understand his words fully, and even if he had, he felt no inclination to spare him.
Bang!!!
Afterward there was nothing but the smell of gunpowder, smoke, and the ragged sound of his own breathing.
He didn't say anything except, "God…" His hands shook all over. He had just killed people or whatever had been human enough to fire back at him. He had never done this before, and guilt hit him like ice. There was no time to dwell. He had to run before the noise drew others.
He stripped the bodies for anything useful: a short shotgun and rounds, then stuffed them into his pack. He shouldered the rifle and ran down a narrow, flickering passage, the dying lights above marking his path.
"Dammit… can't run properly," he muttered when the rifle strap and his shirt rubbed painfully against his chest with every step. The weight threw him off balance; the stolen gear was heavy and awkward.
"This is such a mess…" he complained under his breath as he struggled to tie things down so they wouldn't swing. Then he vanished into the dark.
Eric ran down the corridor, his heart still pounding from what had just happened. The flashlight in his hand was set to power-save mode, its narrow beam only wide enough to show the path ahead. Every second he burned the light at full power was a risk of the battery dying mid-route.
The damp, oily smell hit his nostrils. He wiped sweat from his brow with the heel of his hand and forced himself to slow—his old shoes were a little loose, and his heels kept slipping, making every step awkward and unsteady. The new chest bounced with each movement, heavy and cumbersome. It wasn't a problem for many women, but for Eric, who wasn't used to it, it felt like an alien load. He tried to flatten his shirt and tuck the hem tighter to hold things down, but it only helped a little.
When he judged it safe, he slowed to drink and catch his breath, inhaling deeply to calm himself. What he'd done back there had been self-defense he told himself that—yet something ahead caught his eye: a human-shaped form lying on the floor.
"What the ....?" he muttered. The corpse looked like a cross between a mummy and a zombie, its body covered in strange sigils and tattoos, including an eight-pointed star. Looking at it gave him an uneasy feeling. Maybe he should go back the way he came, but that risked running straight into them again. Either choice seemed terrible.
"See that one? Think the others' tracks led it this way—those three are dumber than I thought!" someone shouted. A gang of thugs came running toward him from the junction.
"Oh shit, what do I do… I'm dead if I don't—" Eric decided instantly. He leapt over the body and ran for his life, not knowing that the men behind him were about to suffer a horrific fate the moment one of them touched the corpse.