Chapter 24 – Zulu 4 [Part 3]

Breathing rapidly and sweating steam, “How am I meant to stop you?!” he yells sliding under the robot Zag operates.

“Oh!” she exclaims, halting her robotic suit and pressing a button that makes a siren ring, “Sorry about that,” she apologizes, not sounding sorry as a large rectangular box dislodges from the ceiling and slams next to her.

Using two arms she rips it open and brings out a Katana, its blade length being 1.4 metres, twice the average length. It would have shined and glistened, if there was a proper light source. Had they been in the sun, the blade would have looked like a mirror, it would have reflected the image of anything without error. However had the blade been in the sun it would not have glowed an almost flame like orange in the dark.

“Don’t you just adore this blade?” Zag says as she swings it around, creating an orange line and whistling sound as she does, “It took me a long time to get the blade perfect,” throwing it at him blade first, it lodges itself in the ground next to him.

Grabbing the hilt of the blade, he finds that it is unadorned, surprisingly plain when compared to the blade and has no marks upon it except for an engraved Z at the bottom of the hilt.

Holding it with both hands, he finds that it balances well despite its long length. Letting it go the blade easily pierces itself into the ground, “Why is it so hot?!” he shouts in anger looking at the burn marks on his hands, “And why a Katana?!”

“A Katana,” Zag responds, “Is the strongest blade ever forged, well to be more specific a Katana’s design is the best blade designed ever created. Light, strong, sharp and flexible. You can’t ask for a better blade.”

“But why a blade!” Blowing his hands, “And why does it burn?!”

Another siren rings and another rectangular box dislodges itself from the ceiling to slam next to the previous location. Again using two arms Zag rips it open to bring out a rifle with no scope and an extremely long barrel.

Pulling out a bullet from the case, whose length was half the size of the average male forearm. “This,” she says reloading it, “is a completed operatable prototype rifle. You need to reload it after each shot and it takes about ten seconds to reload” throwing it to him with four extra rounds, “You can use that or the katana. Only two things I have that are able to damage these arms” She waves the three limbs not keeping her stable.

Grabbing the handle and barrel he immediately drops it, “Why do they burn!” he shouts again, waving his hand to try and cool it.

“Stop whining!” she shouts slamming a fist next to him and making him stumble.

Gritting his teeth he grabs the rifle by the handle and lets the barrel rest/burn his right shoulder. Taking an extra round and leaving the other three, as it was impossible to carry them all, he runs a good 100 metres away; leaving the katana with the remaining ammo.

The open area they are both in is a good 400m squared platform, with walls at two sides, a slope leading up and the conveyer belts at the other. Large boxes hang off the ceiling a good 50 metres high.

Continuous Healing Commencing

“We can start now yes?” Zag asks starting her chase before even finishing her sentence.

Turning around and running backwards, he can see clearly now despite the fact that he was moving extremely fast. After running and dodging for over an hour, he was use to moving at such high speeds, though his muscles ached each time he moved.

“You’re still going to just run!?” Zag shouts with annoyance swinging two of its 4metre arms to crush him.

Kicking himself of an arm, he soars higher into the air and aims the rifle with the help of his leg at the centre of the robot, the place Zag operated it from, “It’s not fair that you’re in there” he mumbles firing it and immediately flying into a wall as the rifle does a vertical 180 flip to dig itself into it.

“Woah,” Zag smiles as the robotic suit shakes but does not break, “Good try there,” using one of the arms she pulls out the bullet hindering her view and throws it back, “But It can’t damage me.”

Holding the rifles handle and its reload bullet in the other, he instantly pulls himself up above and balances himself on top of it, barely dodging the return fire from Zag. Pressing a button and pulling a latch the casing for the previous bullet falls out clangs on the ground a good 20metres down.

“That’s four seconds!” Zag shouts stabbing an arm into the wall to climb, “Six seconds left!”

Pushing the other bullet into the rifle and pushing the latch that burns his hand back into place, he drops below it and uses his legs to kick against the wall to try and get the barrel out.

“8 seconds!” Zag says now within arm range, “That’s faster than my quickest time.”

Seeing an arm reaching up to grab him, “Shit!” he curses giving up on the rifle and jumping away.

Landing he forces himself to roll forward, mitigating as much shock from the fall as possible, but still breaking an ankle. He grabs the burning katana with both hands and stands back on his feet, despite the pain, to see Zag launch herself at him.

Damn it he thinks rolling like a log to barely avoid it.

Weaknesses Located

Red lines and dots begin to appear upon the glass on his right eye. The limbs are practically coloured in red, whilst there is only a single dot at its body, the dot appearing where the shot from the rifle had landed.

“I’ve never used this before,” he shouts pushing himself back to avoid arm coming from above.

“It’s a sword,” Zag replies, “Just swing it and cut! You’ve seen Zig do it.”

Bringing the blade up, cutting the ground as he does, he holds it in front of himself like Zig would have, “Zig is a close range, martial arts, hands on specialist!” he yells swinging it like a person imitating a movie star.

Hearing laughter he holds the hilt tighter, no longer feeling the pain from the burn. Distracted at the laugh he fails to see an arm grab his broken ankle, lifting him into the air.

Feeling the pain from his ankle, and thus feeling the burn on his hands he drops the blade without meaning to. Accidently slicing the mechanical arm and being released.

“Well.” Zag speaks up, annoyed, “That was lucky for you.” She pauses for a second, “Why aren’t you getting up?”

Lying face down, “My ankles broken,” he winces rolling on his back

“Your point?”

“I…Can’t run?” he questionably answers

“BUT YOU CAN DODGE!” she laughs sending an arm at him.

Wide eyed at the reply he uses his three unbroken limbs and jumps out of the way. Grabbing the sword he mutters, “Crazy Bitch” before throwing the katana like a spinning knife at her and jumping to remain behind as it flies forward.

The edge of the sword being so sharp, it slices the arms that try to grab and deflect it, making its way to hit the red dot on the body.

With a quarter of the katana in the body and his hands on the hilt, “Stop.” Zag states as the edge of the blade is less than a metre away from her.

Holding the hilt, “No.” he replies stoically pushing it in with all his force but finds that is doesn’t budge.

“Stop.” Zag says again holding the sides of the blade with one hand. Sighing at being ignored she pushes the blade up whilst pressing a button on her consoles.

Bursting out of the robotics body, “I did tell you to stop,” she sighs at seeing where he ended up, “You’re in shock.” She states grabbing both his shoulders, “Don’t worry about the arm,” she continues to say grabbing the katana and carefully sliding it out of reach, “It’ll grow back.”

Priority Accelerated Healing Commencing

Muscle, Bone Re-enforcement

Clutching his left should to try and stop as much blood as possible, his face is ghostly white, a symptom of shock, “Cr…Crazy…Bi…Bitch.” He mumbles not really realizing what he is saying.

“You’ll be fine.” She replies casually, not sounding the least bit worried or sorry, “With the correct amount of Calcium, Sodium, Protein and so on, it will regrow.” Holding his face as he shakes, “I think it’ll be easier if you're unconscious though.” She states giving him another concussion.

36 hours

Waking up and immediately jerking forward he hits his head against the glass lid before falling back down to lie down in the chamber he is in. Raising his left arm, he finds that it is actually real. Racked with confusion Was I dreaming? He questions himself

Negative

Then that bitch really is crazy he thinks before placing both his hands on the glass to see it register his finger prints and push it open. Checking his surroundings he finds a set of uniform hanging up next to the chamber.

Putting it on and ensuring that each crease is perfect, he stretches his arms and legs. Where am I?

Workshop Floor B3

Creasing his forehead, Do you answer everything I question?

Negative

“Zag,” he calls out looking around to see that the room he is in was completely different to the place he was in before.

The room is brightly lit but it is not neat, nor is it tidy. The ground is littered with gears, screws and what seems to be broken pieces of equipment. Walking through the workshop, multiple tables with no logical organised system surround him with unfinished gear on top of them.

“Zag” he calls out again upon finding her at one of these messy tables.

“Zag” he calls again approaching her but gaining no response.

“ZAG!” he shouts this time taking a step right behind her to feel the ground sink just a centimetre and get crushed by a punching bag.

“Oh,” Zag finally turns around to see him under the bag, “Sorry” she apologizes, actually sounding sorry for once, “I tend to get distracted when I’m concentrating on something.” She kicks the punching bag of him and pulls up a chair.

Taking the seat, “Thank you,” he says, “For attaching my arm back.”

“I didn’t” she replies shining a small torch down his left eye, “When you first wore the I.G.S you felt like bugs were crawling, that were the nano-bots replacing your red and white blood cells as well as mapping out your whole body network for reference.”

Taking the torch back and pulling some wires from her head gear, “This is going to feel weird,” taking wires from his headgear.

“What are you doing?” he asks a bit worried.

Holding the two sets of wires and seeming incredibly serious, “These wires allows us to connect to anything directly, it also enables us to connect to each other mentally.”

“Wait, what?”

“I will only be able to see what you have seen and thought about since you’ve had it,” still holding the wires but not connected, “I need to connect to you to see if everything is working correctly, to see if there is no problems with the merging of machine and tissue.”

Grabbing his own set of wires back, “No” he says back instantly without even thinking.

“It goes both ways,” she says still holding her set of wires out, “If I connect to you I will be able to see what you’ve done for the past four days, and you will be able to see what I’ve done for the past few years.” Holding her hand out for his wires, “this is something I will not force out of you, but if something is wrong and I do not find it now there will be problems.”

Seeing that he is still not willing, “You don’t trust me?” she questions.

“You’re crazy” he replies without even thinking, “What you just did beforehand had no purpose, I am not your play thing.”

Smiling, “Had no purpose” she repeats, “Do you find it difficult to move? Have you realized your old limits no longer matter, that you can survive tougher hits.”

“You could have made me realize it in a safer environment. You were trying to kill me.”

“I pursue to maximize my time,” she continues to smile, “the way zig taught me took about a fort night, everything she taught me in that time I’ve taught you in less than a day. You weren’t going to die. We’re both Zulu now, Family in a sense.”

“You made me play with your experiential robot!”

“I had to test it out, nobody wanted to help me, and you needed to be taught. I simply made the best of the situation.” She purses her lips, “You weren’t in any real danger, I stopped before it got deadly.”

“BEFORE IT GOT DEADLY!” he shouts standing up

Grabbing a hold of his arm and pulling him back into his seat with what seems to be apparent ease, “I got too excited okay” she states, “It’s hard to stop when things get going. But we need to connect,” she says firmly, no joke or laughter in her voice, “It is imperative that we do.”

Seeing her deadly serious, he stays silent and places his set of wires in her empty hands.

“This is going to feel weird,” she says again as the wires touch that whirl around and merge with each other.

Direct Connection Established

Involuntarily shivering at the experience, a huge amount of images start flooding his eye-piece.

“How do you feel?” she asks with both her eyes shut, seemingly concentrating.

“You destroyed the robot?” he asks making out the first of many images, grabbing his head with one hand.

“Yeah, there were too many faults in it, I may make a new one in the future…if we live long enough”

Data Packs Unlocked

“You haven’t answered my question.” She says

“I feel…weird” looking at her to see that she was wanting him to explain, “hot, cold, pain and pleasure. My head feels like it going to explode.”

Smiling an embarrassing smile upon seeing his face heat up, “Please don’t talk about what you see to anyone else.” She asks.

“Ye…Yeah, I won’t” he replies nodding slowly, looking away from her.

Scrunching her brows, “You haven’t sorted out your real memories from your altered ones yet.”

“I have.”

“You’ve skipped your childhood memories,” she states, “8 whole years of them”

“8 years I do not need to sort out.” He states still not looking at her.

“Sort them out,” she demands, then smiles, “You can’t look at me right now can you.”

“You know why,” he replies looking away and at the two cubes on the table they are at, with both his hands on his cheeks, “Do you really believe that you can put that larger cube into that smaller one?”

“You’re more adept then I have been lead to believe,” giggling, “Yes, I do believe that it I possible, you see why I think so.”

“I see,” he says confused, “I don’t understand.”

“It works,” she says, “It will work…How do you find the A.I?”

“Its useful, did you make it?”

“Part of it,” she replies proudly, “It’s not a full A.I though, we’ve deemed it too dangerous to create one, the one you have, we have is partial A.I. It works in conjunction with the brain, without the brain it cannot operate.”

“What we see on our glass,” she taps her glass on her left eye, “Are all different, we all notice and want to see different things. Yours,” she continues to say, “Seems to be the most simplistic and straight to the point.”

“And yours is a jumbled with blueprints and ideas.” He replies.

“I wasn’t insulting you,” she says, “Yours is efficient and straight to the point.”

“The I.G.S has a reference of my whole body?” he asks adjusting his position on his seat, but finds that Zag wasn’t letting him move freely, as she still held him down.

“The nano-bots mapped out your whole body in order to use it as a point to revert back to. It will strive to keep your body in that state when you are not in the red eyed state. Anyway,” she grabs his face so that she can see him directly in the eyes, “I’m going to update your I.G.S now, your brain will feel like its exploding then assembling and such, it will hurt, but not at the same time.”

Nodding and looking up, away from her face.

“You still can’t look at me can you?” she laughs as his cheeks heat up.

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A/N

I think i've covered all the information i needed to say in this flashback.

Funny how i originally thought this flashback was only going to be 1 chapter long, but now is 3 ~

Thanks for reading, and as always. Hope you enjoyed it ^.^