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The Lab Directors Gun

He was wearing a conspicuously red robe, the receptionist at the facility. Didn’t look like he had seen sunlight for a while either. 420 was bored, and while those two headed for an argument, he kept scanning the area. On the edge, on the prowl. Ready to pounce like an animal. Nothing happens.

At some point moderate profanities, politics were called into question, feigned gasping, well I’ve nevers. Bawk bawk bawk. Finally things got quiet, and the two of them were reluctantly let into the facility.

Almost every single guard they encountered asked them their business. Clearly something was going on, security was absolutely paranoid. They could hardly walk 30 paces without someone going “Hey, you two…” And as they got deeper. Things got a lot weirder, and murderier.

It was stepping into another world, sneaking around the lower levels. A tiny scream muted by the free hand, while the other emptied a clip into a rodent the size of a considerate pony. Also, please note, seemingly half-developed translucent people, just walking around. Not all of them friendly either. Shry had been uneasy, these weren’t people, they were something new.

They had to dispose of a few, and the robot obliged. “Oh...” she quickly turned to be sick. The initial shock from the gore had taken her by surprise. The android had literally taken their heads off. At least she finally saw the truth of the situation. This was war. “We will do this. We will do this and we will succeed because our robot is quite, quite mad. Right? He has convinced himself he’s some kind of robot ninja, right? Good, OK, mad is good. Mad is good.”

So they ran further down into the lower levels, fighting their way through the by-products of a dystopian corporation gone mad with power. It’s a cliche how predictable we are if anything; Omni-Tek making lifeforms again.

Lacking only perhaps a marching band for tempo, the dynamic duo slaughtered their way through the lower levels. Shadow people, bloated spindly-legged blobs of filth, something that Shry later referred to as “That thing that was mainly teeth.” An eye-mutant. Do you know what an eye-mutant is? Trust me, it’s not good.

Our heroes persisted, onwards and downwards. All the blood and tissue from their mutant genocide caked around 420′s metal feet. Finally, they reached the door. The door marked “Lab Director.”

Two particularly keen specimen of the species Atrox stood guard outside. “Hey, who are you?” The closest of the two pointed at her. “What is your business here?” She smiled, “Oh, calm down dear. I’m here to see the boss. It’s scheduled.” She was met with a blank stare. “I don’t think--” Dead quiet, his left eye was drooping. The other guard roared and charged 420, that did not work out well for him. The reason his colleague had met his untimely demise so promptly, was that the AI, had made his own sword. There were body parts. “At least there was no vomiting this time,” she thought as they swung open the massive metal doors.

“Come in, come in!” An empoweringly warm smell of urine came over them. Shry gagged. “Jesus fucking christ, man... Fuck... So you’re completely mad. Huh? Showering is out of the question, eh? Well, that makes things eas--” He interrupted her, “You do know it’s war right? War? What do you mean by mad? What does mad mean in a war? Calling me mad. Petulant cockroach. Do you think that anyone cares? I am doing my job, and my job is to win. For the sake of all mankind, you ignorant maggot. Look at this girl-child educating me. It is quite enough.“ He leered at her. “You vanish.” The by-now sweating man, pulled out his gun and aimed for her, Shryjun beamed at him. Time had slowed down as she had peaked up. It was a fantastic gun. It was a custom job. “Oh thank you... Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She side-stepped, and her armor shifted to absorb the impact of his first salvo. The shogun quickly nodded to her samurai.

420 leapt at the director, grabbed his shoulder with one arm, and started punching. It was relentless. The director had no choice but to focus on the android. The robot had decided armaments included, bashing his skull in through his shields and armor, would be the optimal approach.

An idea shot across the panicked man’s face as he took aim, and shot his own shoulder to pieces, taking his writing arm with it. He started running. There was only running now. This lunatic machine chasing behind him, thundering and cracking the floor beneath him on every leap. He slid behind his desk. Suddenly an alarm went off, and these two silver spheres, with what looked like massive torches on each axis, started spinning alarmingly fast towards Shry.

420 immediately flung himself around and tackled one of them, slamming furiously into the concrete floor. The samurai climbed to his knees, his fists molting from the speed of the punches as the assault pounded his adversary into the ground. Both spheres charged the robot. It was a battlefield now, but Shry had a job to do. She ran towards the desk as a piece of shrapnel grazed her face, searing and ultimately scarring her cheek. Her head spun to avoid it, and she saw 420 carving his name into one of the sentinels using the other one. She let go a sigh of release. “He will be OK. We are OK..”

The fat, repulsive, wretch of a man lied face-down on the floor. She kneeled next to him to check his pulse, when his last hand suddenly shot up and grabbed her by the neck. Air was escaping her lungs, rapidly. Gasping, tearing, thinking. Until there was no more air. Her lips go blue. The director, half his face a bloody pulp, starts laughing. Blood pouring out his mouth he manages a guttural “Yes...”

To his shock, Shryjun opens her eyes and beams at him devilishly. There is an audible gurgle as the director pisses himself. She raises her briefcase and pauses for a moment, before bringing it straight down his face, splitting his skull in two. Leaving what little there is left, of what little there was, now on display to the world. 

A pop went off in the background. The room shook. Then another one. She giggled to herself. “Now, let’s see about this gun.” She grabbed it from the dead man’s hand and examined it. “Oh, wow… You are custom. Oh, yes you are. You are so very, very custom.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as 420 walked towards her; Lit up with the scars of a hundred torches.

Prelude

“There is a lab director in the middle of nowhere. Some place called The Longest Road. He’s a nobody, but he has been getting a lot of strange requests filled by Omni-Tek. Some of it is really bad stuff. You know, a lot of end of the world/looney tunes-kind of stuff.” He stopped for a moment. “Nobody needs the kind of chemicals we’re talking about here.”

The android swelled as he was hit with an impossible cloud of nanobots. Millions upon millions of little balls of light, moving rapidly around the outer hull of the robot, hitting him with little jabs of colored lightning as he morphed in front of her. He practically doubled in size. His armor tripled. His visor was substantially upgraded. But in the end, after the light-show was over, and the nano cloud had long since vaporized. To the robot, most important out of all the enhancements, of course, the paint job.

“Master, you honor me with a great gift. I am black as the ninja.” He bowed, his eyes burning turquoise.

Last of the Samurai

420: So...

Shryjun: So?

420: About that sword.

Shryjun: Not this again...

420: Yes, this again! And again and again until I get my god damn sword! How can I be expected to walk the path of the warrior without it?

Shryjun: You're not Samurai, you're not Japanese. For crying out loud 420, you're not even human!

420: You know nothing of my people.

Shryjun: What people?! Do you see any people?! Look... Me! I am your people! And I am telling you to stop with this Katana nonsense.

420: I need to honor my shogun with superior bushido.

Shryjun: Are those even words?

420: And only her own ignorance was revealed.

Shryjun: Ok that's it, we're through here. Come on, we have work to do, Mother wants an update.

420: I will follow you, for now... But this is not over! This is not even close to being over. The shogunate will hear about this injustice. I will have my blade, and all those who oppose me will kiss the cold steel of my Immortal Kata--

Shryjun: Wait... Who will hear what? Have you been talking to strangers on the grid again? Please, we have to be careful on this planet. You have no idea who might be listening.

420: It's the suspicious mind that conjures its own demons.

Shryjun: Shut up.