Free Metal Deep: Infinite - Metal Wing: Episode 5 by GX Knight Page B

this…

    They were armored, but not armored enough. They turned themselves into a barrel of fish as my devastating pistols made short work of anyone that got in the way. After another wave went down and bodies started piling up, guards from outside of the room began hurling gas through the door. I whipped out my mask and goggles, ditched the coats I was wearing, and watched as Sabra continued circling Wyld’s forces with her vicious chaingun still firing. I had to get out of that room. Reinforcements kept pouring into the area, so getting Sabra for curbside service was out of the question. There was only one thing left: down and out.

    I tapped the cuff, “Sabra. Our clearing. Five minutes.”

    “Affirmative.” She replied.

    I was regretting not having my warsuit, but I gripped the hilts of my pistols. I thought about what the scientist had said to me. “Closer than a lover,” I said repeating his mantra. I had to make them a part of me.

    I warred my way through the building. The men kept coming, and they kept falling. There was no armor or safe cover that could hide them from the destruction of my pistols. I tried to give them a chance to surrender and walk away, but they persisted, and so did I. Down in the lobby after carving my way through floors of countless enemies, I stood in the wake of having caused the greatest combat devastation I had ever heard of. I was not proud of myself, but I was not ashamed either. I felt nothing. That was, until I realized that the smell of the building had gone from something clean, to the same as I had experienced when I lost my friends. The superheated plasma had charred every target they hit to near-vaporization. What made me sick? –The fact that it no longer made me sick. I found my healing by becoming an instrument of death.

    It was no longer a game. My actions had not been for points. They had been for life. I thought about the families I had destroyed, and the sorrow I would cause. Then I thought about my own life, and how it had been nothing to everyone. Nobody cared about me. I was just the experiment, the soldier, or the player. I had been a thing they thought they could play with, and now that thing had come back to bite them all in the ass.

    I told myself I didn’t care about what I had done. It could have been the truth. It could have been a lie. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I had to get out of there before more soldiers came or I’d be forced to kill them too.

    I arrived to the clearing just as Sabra was setting down. I still held the pistols as I climbed up the extended chassis ladder. I stopped and looked at that two elegant weapons. The barrels were still cool to the touch. The clips would fire forever. They had wiped out so many, and they were ready for as many as would come. Part of me wanted to throw them on the ground and leave them there so that I could never do harm with them again, but as I felt my fingers tighten around the grips, I knew it was too late. I made my choice, and I was going to have to live with it. Whatever that made me, it would be a “me” forged from my own choices. I would not be some faceless shadow’s manipulation anymore. I stuck them back in the holsters and jumped into Sabra’s cockpit.

    We climbed high into the upper atmosphere, “Thanks for the warning,” I said sarcastically in regards to the entire army that snuck up on me.

    “I am sorry Rayce. I had detected Wyld’s VTOL just after you switched off your cuff. I had to go into a silent mode so as not to be detected. It was unclear as to whether they knew of your presence, and I did not want to risk my signal prematurely warning them.”

    “You made up for it with your timing later. You saved my life with that distraction. Thank you.”

    “We are partners. You would do the same.” Sabra said.

    So, I wasn’t alone after all. It was strange to be comforted by the thought of this computerized companion, but I was nevertheless.

    Considering I knew