Rage walked past the defeated robots with the sun shining brightly on his face. He looked around his surroundings to make sure no robot was going to attack him.
"No ones coming," said Rage.
"I suspect that Agent is preparing defensive measures," responded Chat. Defensive measures? He's sending all his robots to protect the observatory? Is it really that important to him? But if that's the case why doesn't he send out the rest of the robots here away from the observatory and beat me here? No, he must be protecting something in there… he did sound quite panicked when I broke through the door… could he be?
He paused and took a look at his arm which were no longer glowing in blue and then his legs.
"You want to explain to me what just happened in there?" asked Rage looking back at the busted property.
"I got you to plug in your arm with the cable. The cable acted as a funnel to safely transport the energy to your arm and then the rest of your body. Without the cable, all that energy rushed into your body at once. Luckily for you, I was here to safely dissipate the energy with minimal harm to your body," answered Chat.
"Minimal harm? That hurt a lot!"
"I said it would hurt a lot."
"Am I good though? Have I taken any damage?"
"No, as a matter of fact, you are stronger than ever, that kick you did was spectacular!"
"Yeah, too good. How much power do I have left? It can't be much after that kick."
"I would say ninety-five percent and rising."
"And rising?"
"Yeah – strange, is it not?"
"Very."
"I tried to analyse the chemical and physical composition of the material but I could not find anything remotely close to its properties in my zettabytes of training data on chemistry and physics."
"That's comforting to know…"
"Honestly, I would not be too concerned. While I could not analyse the energy properly, I am able to analyse the cells impacted by the energy – your cells. The biological data I gathered on you show that you are in pristine condition. There is no sign of stress or apoptosis. You also have incredibly low amounts of oxidative stress and free radicals in your body."
"Is that supposed to be a good thing?"
"It is like the fountain of youth is coursing through your veins."
"Mhm," Rage said sarcastically. He did not completely understand the specific details of his body's condition but could feel that his body felt stronger and healthier than ever. From that he knew that Chat was right. He decided to move the conversation forward. "Do you care to explain what I just did with my feet?"
"In the same fashion that your right arm can be used for combat purposes, so too your feet can be used for fighting. The database also states that you can expel energy through your right hand, and feet. That charger on your arm can also be used as a weapon to fire energy blasts. With proper control you can even use your feet as thrusters."
"Aight, let's try it out then. You said my powers work through intention right? Let's fly."
Two energy blasts from Rage's feet, he hovered in the air, barely keeping balance, and then his face planted on the ground.
"Are you okay?" innocently asked Chat.
"Mfphm," Rage muffled with his face on top of the ground.
"Flying is a completely new skill so you will need to get used to it first before my micro-action corrections could make any significant difference."
"Oh…" said Rage, still face planted on the ground.
Agent sat patiently in front of his computer screen, overlooking all of the facility through different cameras, his fingers closed together and having his two pointing fingers on each hand extended upwards. He smiled; Rage appeared on the monitor, standing at the entrance of the observatory.
Rage walked into the observatory. The doors were unlocked. The interior looked like a normal building but he was already equipped with the knowledge that nefarious machinations lurk beneath the building. Hesitantly and on guard he made his way further into the building holding up his right arm, palm outwards, to shoot an energy blast. Checking in each room to see if he could find anything of use. Nothing – nobody was around.
"Hey Chat. Where is everybody?"
"I do not know."
"How do you not know?"
"My training data, albeit large and extensive, is limited. The data I have in storage has been fed to me by an outsider."
"Agent…"
"Or the company. Nevertheless, I was primarily trained on data from scientific journals, textbooks, and my conversational dialogue was trained from notable literary works. The only knowledge I have about this place is rudimentary stuff like locations within the observatory and whatever uncensored info I could read from the database. Either way, I was in an isolated computer system in that workshop so I had no connections to the other systems in the observatory so even if I wanted to learn more I was unable to – that is until you rescued me."
"So the company was able to control the flow of information – they kept you in the dark on some things while shedding some light on other things."
"That is one way of putting it."
Rage reached the centre of the observatory. In the middle of the room was a giant telescope. He cautiously looked around the room before heading to inspect the telescope.
"Welcome to the main attraction – Broward Observatory!" announced Chat.
"The scientists working here really know how to come up with totally not the most boring name possible," Rage said sarcastically, as he put his right eye through the eyepiece. "It's blank."
"Judging from the settings of the telescope and the direction it is facing, it seems that we are viewing the edge of the observable universe."
"But it's blank."
"Most of outer space is empty."
"Ah, that makes sense. Cool."
"Is that all you can muster? You bear witness to the grand cosmos and are using one of humanity's greatest feats of engineering and all you can say is 'cool?'"
"Yeah, do you have a problem with that?" Rage said.
"No," responded Chat, its tone indicated otherwise.
"Good, let's get going. We have a meeting with Agent to attend to."
Rage and Chat explored the building until they came across a broken elevator. Rage peered down the shaft. "Give me an estimate, what would happen if I dropped down there?"
"You will crush the elevator beneath your feet but you will be in one piece."
Rage calmly took one foot out and stepped into the shaft and dropped down; Chat's estimation was proven correct. Upon landing at the bottom level, Rage encountered several robots staring back at him.
"I would like to advise you to not use your energy blasts in such a tight place. Would not want to risk a cave in," said Chat.
"Understood," said Rage.
The fight was on. He charged in and beat up two robots using both his powerful arms and skills.
"Agent's chambers should be really close. Just take a left down the hallway and go down a set of stairs and we are there," said Chat.
Rage followed and repeated Chat's instructions as he ran, "Take a left and down the hall are some stairs–"
He paused as the hallway was packed with robots, the most he's ever seen, more than even at the reactor. Their heads turned to Rage, and they charged at him as they all started grunting.
Rage charged back and pushed all the robots backwards, activating his leg thrusters. A pushing contest commenced. "Is that all you guys can do?" shouted Rage. He continued pushing all the robots down the hallway and he even made his way down the circular descending stairs to Agent's lair with the robots being crushed against each other. Rage's feet or his body crushed the robots against the wall.
Agent's underground lair was massive and was built in a cave. At the end of the lair was a gigantic, probably the biggest, monitor with many cameras observing the laboratory. The floor was made of metal and resembled a helipad without the markings. The sides of the lair were rocky and were surrounded by stalagmite and stalactite.
Agent stood confidently with both his arms behind his back, watching the metal door to his room shake and vibrate from Rage's battle with the robots, he turned around and sat on his chair. He pressed one of the five big green buttons, as he looked at Rage once more before talking. He made sure the fighting could be heard in the background.
"Help! This is Agent. Look this isn't gonna make any sense but I don't have time to properly explain. I took pity on a dying man and saved him with my neural implants and prosthetics. I've given him too much – he let the power go to his head and he thinks he is invincible! I trusted him. I even saved his girlfriend way back! He hacked into the servers, and he destroyed everything – he might even initiate the self-destruct sequence. Hurry, please. You are the closest one to me–," Agent said with a fearful voice, acting, and purposefully cutting his call short.
The metal door burst and flew into the room. Rage entered the room.
Ha! I was right! The robots were protecting something important and who else would it be but Agent. "I want answers," Rage said with a deep and intimidating voice.
"Ah, for a second I thought you ran away after you broke my toy, Rage," said Agent, referring to the destroyed tokamak reactor.
"Like I would ever let you go unscathed after what you did to Creed," retorted Rage, marching towards his foe.
"I trust my service bots took good care of you?" smirked Agent.
Rage got into a fighting stance. "First I am gonna beat you to a bloody pulp then I'm gonna get my answers, got it?" Rage threatened.
"No I don't quite follow… if you are going to beat me to a pulp then how am I going to answer your questions?" Agent asked mockingly.
"I'll make sure to avoid the mouth," said Rage, as the artificial limbs of his body started to glow brighter.
"I am no fighter…" Agent said calmly thinking to himself with his head looking up facing away from Rage. "I guess I would just have to call in a substitute to stand in for me!" exclaimed Agent, a robo-knight leaped from behind and it swung its axe at Rage.
Luckily for Rage, he rolled out of the axe's range to dodge the attack.
It's huge but it's too big to move fas-
Out of nowhere, the robo-knight accelerated at Rage with a quick burst of speed using its own thrusters – seemingly operating from the same equipment as Rage. The robot hit him with its heavy axe, Rage only being able to cross his arms in defence, flew and crashed against the rocky wall. He spit up blood for the first time.
"I am using some of the power for regenerative healing," said Chat, as Rage's chest began to glow, his nerves slightly illuminated from what was the healing process – the energy being spread to the place of impact.
Rage managed to pull himself from the cracked wall. "Chat, that bot is too big and it's fast on top of that. Do you think we can take him?"
"Rage, it is in my estimation that you have sufficient strength to beat this machine. All you need is a plan of a–" said Chat.
"Attack," Rage said, finishing Chat's sentence as he closed his right eye. "Bet."
Rage ran straight towards the robot-knight, and the machine took an overhand swing in response. He stepped back using his foot thrusters to give him a boost, narrowly dodging the swing. The axe was stuck to the ground, Rage took the opportunity and stepped on the axe to launch himself in the air face to face with the knight. He then pulled out his right arm as it retracted into a connector – only this time it functioned as a canon.
"T up," said Rage, as an energy blast emanated from the arm cannon and directly hit the robo-knight in the face – completely vaporising its head. It fell to the ground with a great thud. He stood triumphantly over the giant bot. He looked up at Agent.
"Bravo!" said Agent as he clapped his hands. "But what are you going to do about the others?" A bunch of robo-knights jumped into the battleground; standing before were 11 robo-knights. One of the robo-knights stayed beside Agent acting as a personal guard.
"Chat, is it time to–" said Rage.
"Run away?" finished Chat.
"No! To tactically retreat. That blast sapped way too much energy."
"True, you do not have that many blast to take out all of those substitutes."
"Then we–"
"But, you do not have to use that move to win. Instead, we can time our attacks and use bursts of energy from the thrusters and send some of the energy to your right hand just before impact. It would require precision and on my end it would require–"
"Calculation," Rage said confidently. His left eye began to glow and it analysed all the opponents and determined a plan of attack. He got his confidence back and tossed himself into the centre of the room.
Rage, getting more accustomed to his thrusters, appeared to be sliding and skating in the air. He swiftly dodged all the attacks of the robo-knight and had many close calls. As Chat advised, he conserved his energy, only sparingly using it to throw a punch or a kick at the robo-knights. He somersaulted in the air. He glided across the floor. He flipped between axe strikes and more. One by one, Rage took down five of the robo-knights. Despite depleting his energy reserves faster than it could recover, his body got stronger and his manoeuvres got more sophisticated.
The five remaining robo-knights paused the fight and began to emit weird beeping and glitching sounds, and their blue eyes glowed brighter.
"Something is not right," said Chat.
Rage, perplexed, but not wanting to miss the opportunity, charged at one of the robo-knights for an attack.
"Wait, do not–" but Chat's warning was too late. The robo-knight with increased speed and brutality parried Rage's punch with its axe and reacted with an incredible punch to Rage's stomach. He rolled over on the floor, getting up quickly, and coughing up saliva from the force of the impact. He barely had time to collect himself as the robo-knights began their second offensive. The momentum is on the robo-knights side.
"These substitutes are adapting to your fighting style," observed Chat.
Rage was on the defensive, clutching his stomach, as it glowed which indicated it was healing itself and getting stronger but not fast enough.
"I sense another energy signature, down below," declared Chat.
"Couldn't you have told me that before?" Rage barely able to speak, flying around and dodging the attacks from the remaining robo-knights.
"I did not detect it at the start of the fight. This signature could be linked to the sudden improvement in the substitutes."
Rage nodded his head to Chat's suggestion. He jumped off the ledge and fell down allowing the force of gravity to increase his speed before slowing down, he stuck his metal arm into the rocky terrain beside him, searching the vicinity. He found it. Floating idly by was what looked like a metal shield. There were two thrusters at the bottom at each side of the upright shield-looking robot allowing the robot to levitate in midair.
"That must be it. My guess is that its purpose is to be the brains of the operation; acting as some sort of moderator between the substitutes, processing and improving their performance," said Chat.
"Like us," responded Rage.
He ran down the rocky cliff to destroy the moderator, however, just before he could jump-boost his way over to the moderator, came three substitutes. The next round of fighting commenced as Rage fell down the side of the rocky cliff.
One of the robo-knights aimed at Rage's head. Rage dodged the attack by blasting a small burst of energy from his metal arm cannon, changing his downward momentum causing him to spin and evade the slice. As quickly as he reacted to the slice attack, Rage grabbed the right leg of the attacking robo-knight and hoisted himself on top of it. Using the same attack he did in the reactor building, he blasted off the robo-knight with his metal feet. The robo-knight crashed to the ground – it lay there as its eyes turned off.
The force from the blast kick propelled Rage upwards just below the second of three pursuing robo-knights. The second robo-knight in response, pulled back its axe overhead for a downward strike. Rage, unfazed, headed straight to the robot, his metal arm started to glow a bright blue colour and the energy moved from his forearm to his hand, he punched the robot as it exploded from the force.
Rage fell across the canyon to the other side.
"Warning: Remaining power below 35 percent."
Just one more. After that, I can take out the moderator. This will weaken the last two substitutes plus Agent's personal guard.
Rage noticed the axe from the robo-knight he just destroyed. He jumped against the wall with a small burst to catch the falling axe. He took aim midair, in a crouched pose, at the remaining robo-knight that followed him down the canyon as it charged at him – flying with its thrusters. He closed his right eye again, and focused on the assailant with his left. He waited for a few still seconds that felt like centuries as if time stopped. Then with a burst of energy out of his right metal arm from his elbow thrusters, he launched the axe, spinning with speed, and it severed the robot-knights head from the rest of its body.
Rage used his thrusters to fly up to the defeated substitute and he quickly grabbed the axe from the recently defeated robo-knight. He turned his body to face the ground floor, diving right down to the hovering moderator, holding the axe above his head – preparing to emulate the robo-knight's signature move.
"My turn," stated Rage and he screamed his way down.
Mere inches away from slashing the moderator, the moderator blasted itself off the ground at Mach 10, tackling Rage, with his eyes bulging as he lost his wind. The moderator flew like a jet right back to the level where Agent and the rest of the robo-knights stood.
Rage, with the last bit of strength in his glowing arm, punched the moderator as both of them fell to the floor. The light from the moderator turned off, and Rage lay curled up on the floor exhausted.
"You certainly took your time," scoffed Agent. "Impressed Rage? The aerodynamic calculations and shape of that robot took quite a while to derive; however unlike you it's seeds have grown into ripe fruit. It can achieve a speed of Mach 10 without making sonic booms by dispersing shockwaves around its body. I'm thinking of patenting the technology and selling it to the military. It's a good idea, don't you think?"
Rage got up slowly with his legs trembling, he coughed up blood. He was beginning to lose hope and he felt his power deplete, ever so close to reaching zero. He slowly picked up his fists, holding his shaking body into a boxing stance as he tried to get back on his feet.
"Pathetic. Really you are so pathetic but it is to be expected from a deadbeat alcoholic like you."
Rage stared off into space. He was beginning to lose consciousness.
"Yes, your body reeked of alcohol. I could smell it from miles away. Unlike your lover, she smelled nice…" said Agent.
This caught Rage's attention snapping him back wide awake.
"Her fragrance was quite pleasant. Do you know what perfume she used?" as Agent asked the innocent question with a hint of a sinister undertone.
"Y-y, you- you-" Rage muttered.
"Yes, it was me," answered Agent.
The weakness disappeared from Rage and his anger grew. "You bastard! What did you do to her?" screamed Rage.
"Oh nothing yet. She has been sent to my other headquarters far from here. Don't you worry I made sure to preserve her body. I don't want it to rot and be a useless pile of biohazardous waste," Agent chuckled.
"I'll beat you! I'll crush you! I'll–"
"You and what army? I have all the resources and connections I could ever need," Agent said with pleasure. "And if it is a fight you want just know my AMP brothers are stronger than you could ever be. In fact, one of them is headed right now to make sure you stay put down."
Rage's anger kept growing and a flash of red sparked in his left eye.
"Energy levels are increasing drastically," informed Chat.
Rage, not averting his eyes away from Agent, rushed forward with renewed strength but two of the robo-knights blocked his path. He destroyed them effortlessly punching gaping holes into each robo-knight.
He charged at Agent and his personal robo-knight at his side, but he got grabbed by a bunch of silver tentacles from behind. It was the moderator; it faked its defeat. The moderator ensnared Rage with its wiggling appendages holding him in place. The tentacles were electrified. The moderator shocked Rage and he knelt on the floor in pain.
"Good thing I implemented a taser, it seems to work as an adequate power dampener. This was fun but the party is over," Agent said with a sigh. "This place has run its course. I am going to initiate the self-destruct sequence," Rage looked up with surprise. "I bet you're wondering 'How could he blow up the observatory without alerting the authorities?' If you would have paid attention on your trip here you would have seen the signs that said the area was scheduled for demolition, but you were busy napping on your way here, fool," insulted Agent as he looked down at Rage writhing in pain with his head faced down to the floor. "Or maybe not."
"Why… Agent… why are you doing this?" Rage desperately called out looking for some semblance of enlightenment for his confusion and to distract himself from the pain of electricity pinning him to the ground. "What do you hope to achieve that you don't already have? You already have power, fame, wealth – everything! What more could you want?!"
"What do I want?" Agent asked calmly. "I want world peace. To see a world united under one banner as we hold each other's hands together as family. Look to your neighbour and then look to your own soul and see the dark reflections of yourself buried deep within take control and spread itself and destroy and rot and create artificiality that creates a vapid existence of the mundane. Mankind has enslaved itself to the digital no longer able to survive on its own, being drip fed a saline solution of stimuli that hijack their senses and yanks them away from their true primal selves. The inconsistencies piling up within the mind. A fight between the rational and the primal causes aberrations and pain that will not let up turning man, woman, and child against each other silently whilst keeping a smiling face on the outside. Day after day you have seeked the protection of concrete edifices going back and forth in a rush in a depressing miasma of crowds shuffling to places to get things done. When things are done the ecstasy awaits in hyperreality. The primal fights back however this too is used to hurt and destroy each other. Empathy and sympathy discarded, rejected, and even mocked replaced with pride and ego fueling hedonism and sadism. The laughter of the masses is maniacal and wretched – corrupt. Man is selfish and isolated, his nature selfless and social. Could you call such an existence life? The lies and tricks take us away from the truth and most importantly our true free selves will have never materialised. A phantom of what could have been the greatest version of oneself. Humanity will enter a new age of enlightenment. A new evolution. A new metamorphosis. I will make it happen."
"You're – you're crazy."
"It is most frustrating educating an imbecile for the fool does not see his own hypocrisy and mistakes. A fraud with fraudulent love crouches beneath me," Agent motioned for the moderator to stop shocking Rage.
"What!" said Rage. He was still on his knees, his forehead touching the ground. He was exhausted and broke out into a sweat.
"It is your 'love' which drove her to me. If you hadn't done what you did I wouldn't have gotten to her. If you truly loved her, and love being the source of strength and driving force of humanity as they say, why is it that you still kneel before me? Aren't you willing to be the hero and smite me out with due vengeance for taking her? You grovel. Don't you care? Where is your anger? Where is your power? Where is your rage?" said Agent as he pulled Rage's head up by his hair to look directly into his eyes. He let go of his hair and stood above him.
"Funny. I won this fight and I didn't even throw a punch," said Agent as he faced his back to Rage. He walked to his personal robo-knight and he pressed the self-destruct button. "Oh yeah, one more thing. I rigged the explosives such that all the levels collapse at this spot on top of you. Good luck," Agent said as his personal robo-knight picked him up and lifted him to the upper levels to escape.
The bombs exploded and the levels fell to the ground one by one on top of each other. Rage, still angry, thought about his girlfriend, images of her sweet self flashed through his mind ending off with Agent smiling and taunting him. He looked up and opened his eyes as the levels fell upon him.
"Energy levels are increasing," proclaimed Chat. He got up with the moderator still attached to him. He put his hands up and he caught the collapsing building while being shocked by the moderator. A blue plasma-like fluid oozed from Rage's feet, spreading itself across the entire room.
It's over. No it's not! I failed! No I haven't! It's the end! No, we are just getting started!
The moderator, unable to handle the extreme conditions of the environment and the substance, collapsed – this time for good, freeing Rage from his restraint. He launched himself off the floor in a big blue burst, destroying the foundation he stood on. Blue plasma and energy burst out of the bottom floors and then moved its way to the upper floor as he punched through the entire building, bursting out of the dome-shaped ceiling at the top.
Realising that he was several feet in the air and falling to the land below, he screamed "Chat!"
"On it," dutifully answered Chat, as Rage's feet thrusters activated, slowly down his descent. He crashed onto the ground, cracking his surroundings but he was in one piece.
Coming out of the dusty shadows was Rage. "I made it," he said in disbelief.
The robo-knight carrying Agent landed on the ground.
"Password: 12482091" stated Agent to the robo-knight.
"Password accepted," said the robo-knight. Sparks flew out of the robo-knight and it fell to the ground.
Agent walked to a nearby road with his arms behind his back. On the road a parked black limousine leading to York City with a welcome billboard on the left to greet incoming visitors. Agent stopped himself and he searched in the inside pockets of his suit and pulled out eye lubricant. He applied some drops to each eye and took out a case, another item inside his pocket, and opened the case. Inside the case was a pair of contacts. He placed the contact lenses on his eyes and opened the door to the back seat of the limo. He turned back to look in the direction of the observatory before getting inside the limo for one final comment to himself.
"The Narra surrounds him."