The voice called herself death and aimed to destroy all of humanity.

“I’m open to negotiations." Atius calmly said. "Assuming there is a return on that investment.”

He spoke to that horrible machine as if it were the most mundane topic of issue he’d come across. Politics as usual.

Kidra headlights shot up as she turned, focusing on the clan lord, bewildered that he'd consider betraying the fucking goddess herself. I was thinking the same exact thing, stuck frozen by sheer shock.

The lord didn’t return her gaze; he remained focused on the capsule ahead with an intensity reaching his eye that wasn’t present in his tone.

“Negotiate?” The voice on the other end seemed more confused. “My poor dear, you are mistaking a demand for a request." The voice over the comms spoke almost as if the whole subject was a side-venture that she didn’t care to spend time on. If she had hands, she'd be more interested in her nails. "You will tell me, or I will rip it from your armor myself. I would think this a simple choice."

Atius smiled like a wolf with a plan. “All records have been deleted by her hand already. It’s only left in my head, and that’s not something you can connect to. What Tsuya didn’t expect was that I’d be willing to betray her. If offered the right incentive, of course.”

Kidra raised her rifle and leveled it at the clan lord. Her hand didn’t shake. It was her stance that gave away her confusion and hesitation. More telling was that she hadn’t shot him already. She wasn’t the kind of person to raise a weapon without already planning on using it. Atius turned an eye to watch her, flicking a quick hand gesture that I couldn’t quite make out from my view. His body obscured it.

My sister saw it.

Her rifle lowered.

All put together, I had a good idea of what Atius was doing: Lying through his teeth like a pipe weasel.

If Relinquished had noticed, she didn’t make a note of it. It’s possible the machine AI had no camera feed into this bunker, audio only. “How interesting.” She said. “Tsuya’s little pet biting the hand that feeds? Your name was Atius?”

“Atius is fine. Make me an offer, I don't have all day.”

The voice hummed. "What is it you wish, little Deathless? Power? Wealth? Mercy?”

“Information for information. What are the new deathless to you?” Atius asked. “Tsuya spoke about them in large, I want to know how much of it was truth, and how much was omission. She didn’t tell me everything, likely to avoid this very situation.”

… Atius, you gods damned single-minded monster. He didn’t get his answer from the goddess, so he goes right over to ask the enemy goddess instead. If we make it out alive, I need to remind myself never to play cards with this man.

“A weak attempt to recreate the original pair, as usual. This time she seemed to have traded sanity for quantity. They’re a thorn in my side, but one that I’ve already countered. My Chosen will do nicely to match those pests. Now then, tell me of my dear sister.”

"That's all? It's not enough." Atius answered.

"You forget yourself, lordling. I am a god. You are a footnote. Know your place. I am not someone you wish to anger."

Atius slowly nodded. “Fine. Your sister told me she was losing. That you’ve uncovered and destroyed too many of her plans and she’s become desperate. The new Deathless was an accident that she has no control over, and it terrifies her.”

Tsuya, of course, had said nothing of that sort. And Relinquished ate up his beautiful lies without so much a pause. The machine AI almost purred into the comms, as if deeply satisfied. “Tell me in detail.”

“She gave me orders to dive deeper into the underground, past the layers and uncover something. Told me I would meet up with other Deathless and they would give me more information on this covert attack. What is it she’s after?”

Relinquished laughed. The voice felt like ice grinding against each other. “She thinks sending Deathless would--” her voice cut out.

Three seconds later, she was back.

And furious.

“You.” Relinquished spat out, the word dripping in hatred. “One of my children knows your name, Atius. He told me all abo--”

“Continued discussion with you serves no purpose. Journey, cut channel.” Atius ordered, already turning to leave.

The armor complied and the channel cut. I turned to speak, but Atius lifted one hand, signaling enemy and then the hand signal for operational security.

I got the message - don’t talk. We’re not sure she’s completely gone.

He stalked through the bunker, away from its now dead center. Kidra and I followed behind him, water sloshing at the knees. The rest of the fireteam had remained outside where we’d left them, ready. Journey clicked on my HUD settings, showing we’d recovered comms contact with the group.

“Fire team, prepare to switch to encrypted channel. Scout party, return immediately. All units be alert, possible hostile contact expected. Go no contact until encryption is set-up.” The clan lord ordered out.

If they had any questions about what happened, none of the fireteam made any mention or question. They simply bolted to their tasks, drawing out weapons and preparing to hold off.

Shadowsong Two and Ironreach both returned from their scouting within minutes, sprinting as fast as their relic armors could move them.

Once they reached visual distance, he flashed a two and a six on his hands in rapid succession. I knew the signal and flicked through my HUD for the comms options. Journey had imported my scavenger’s more primitive headset settings, so I found all my old setup intact.

Shifting over to channel two, I engaged the sixth encryption preset. In moments, I’d joined the chat group.

“Contact!” One scout reported, almost out of breath.

Ironreach finished for his partner. “Machines are gathering up, a mix of screamers, drakes, serpents, and one behemoth. Enough to overrun us in open ground. I’d estimate they’ll have grouped up and ready to storm us in about ten minutes.”

“Possible pre-emptive attack on our part?” Atius asked.

Shadowsong two shook his head. “Negative. There are too many amassed. It’s an army, m’lord.”

The clan lord nodded. “We’ve got what we came for. If they capture any of you, prepare a full purge of logs, esspecially video.” Then he turned to me and handed me the glowing sphere, motioning to my backpack.

I took the sphere, still lazily glowing. Not to be asked twice over, I stuffed it into my scavenger backpack. Atius continued to explain a plan, while signaling a completely different one with his hands. “Fireteam, we’ve recovered an encrypted hard drive that needs to be returned to the undersiders. Shadowsong Three is going to sneak the hard drive data out of the installation, he’s the only one who has stealth equipment.”

His hand slammed slightly near his wrist, signalling mission objective as he spoke. He'd also raised a hand in the signal of protection, and pointed at my backpack.

“He will make his way to beachhead three, further underground. We’ll regroup and make our way to the nearest underside city from there.”

South blast door, protect, go tosurface.

“Our job is to execute a fighting retreat to the south blast door as a distraction from Shadowsong three and then trigger the door and fall back west and make the machines believe we’ve gone through the door. We’ll cut a path into the floor and make our way in the underside. Are we clear?”

His hand signs continued to paint conflicting orders.

All knights saluted and responded affirmative over the comms, while also flashing the orders understood signal on their hands.

I think I could piece together the actual plan. He’d given me the orb since the enemy would likely focus him down first and then go after the other elites before spending time going for me.

That gave me the best chance of making a breakout. From there, the real mission was to carry the sphere back up to the surface.

I gave him a solemn nod. Atius returned it, signing a quick motion for luck, and knocking on his breastplate to follow through with it. “Winterscars, for now, go back into the bunker and work on repairing the entry door."

Stay. Safe.

"Use scrap or whatever you can find to replace the deadbolt I sliced off. I trust you both can do that, aye?”

We both saluted and stalked back to the bunker.

Atius had ordered us back into the bunker because I was holding onto the 'hard drive'. Fixing up the doorway was likely something he did want done - but not the critical part. There were doorways to seal in all parts of the bunker. The big door out here would be a bonus.

Still a bonus I planned to collect on.

For the most part, the deadbolt had been modular. It was easy to drag the large slab out of both ends of the fortified doorway. The issue came in replacing it. We didn’t find a spare deadbolt, but we did find plenty of possible steel scraps that could serve as such.

We’d need to weld them together, which required a welder. I came prepared with many tools in my scavenger kit, however a gods damned welder was way too specific. Not to mention the versions that worked outside in the surface were far more involved than just a handheld tool.

I’d bet a bunker this far from all civilization was self-sufficient, which would include a lot of these maintenance tools, so I still went digging around. The good news is that we did end up finding them. Most of the tools were above the waterline, so other than humidity and rust, we found them in fairly good working condition. The bad news is that the single tool we needed had been stored under a table. Which was submerged halfway already.

Completely ruined. And so were the other backups of it, all stored under the water level. “Going to need to glue these pieces of steel together, or something.” I muttered. Gods, even strings would do in a pinch. Maybe I can rip up some of those wires and reuse them for that. Really stretching the definition of a rush job here.

“I’m no engineer, however glue does not sound like a particularly strong binding agent.” Kidra mentioned behind me, reaching around for scrap.

“It doesn’t need to bind hard, we could probably manage with nothing and shove a bunch of metal bars into the deadlock port. All that matters is that there's enough metal shoved into the deadbolt chamber to prevent it from opening.”

She came back, piling up more steel scrap that could fit into the deadbolt, and drew out her knife. “Tell me how you want these cut. And let me know if there is more that you need.”

“Have you got three weeks of rest and relaxation in your bag by chance?” I asked.

“Fresh out.” She said. “How bad is it?”

“Eh. Technically, I don’t need the deadbolt to hold together well like I said. The surrounding doorframe does that. I just need thick individual pieces that can combine their total force and resist being sheared. So glue will do fine. Pass me your field repair kit.” I asked, hand outstretched. “My own kits are spent.”

And also broken on some wall a good distance away.

Scrapshit, I’m just piling up regrets here left and right. My other hand reached out to my boot, drawing out the knife there. It had gotten waterlogged while I’d been stomping around this bunker, but the occult didn’t seem to care about water exposure. These knives could work underwater.

We got working on the steel bar together. Our blades would slice into the metal, letting us get them into shape. The goal was to keep them as chunky as possible. The glue worked pretty well on metal, or at least well enough to keep this whole insult to all good engineering in one piece. Pretty soon the ‘deadbolt’ was done and the door would just have to deal with it.

Kidra and I lifted the heavy thing together and walked it back to the doorframe right when things started to look bad.

“Enemy contact, approaching.” One of the knights reported. I couldn’t quite see, since I was still too busy sliding in the deadbolt and making sure it was properly oiled. They had their job, and I had mine.

“All units, open fire at will. Prepare for bounding retreat.” Atius ordered. A few seconds later, the sounds of rifle shots ricocheted through the bunker walls.

I heard the sound of a drake’s laser flash across, the sound cutting off a few feet away. Frantic running and shouts.

The clan lord growled, likely leaping to the side to intercept another beam. “Winterscars, door repairs ETA?”

“Just about done with the door repairs!” I said over the comms, lining up the last piston and locking it into position. It wouldn’t hold as strong as the original deadbolt, but in a pinch it’ll do. Hopefully.

I drew out my rifle and turned to the fight. Kidra snapped hers up as well, and we both rushed over to take our places by the firing slits on the bunker interior, opening fire on the approaching horde.

And 'horde' would be an apt comparison. There were too many screamers to count, along with two drakes in the back.

Snake-like white automatons floated above, gliding through the air, firing out dozens of arcing pods at us. When they hit the ground, the pods would break into small splashes of clear liquid, quickly dissolving metal and causing black smoke to rise from the destruction. The relic knights were aiming for those snakes above all, taking them down methodically before they could get into range.

Another drake opened fire, the light blinding the world in violet for a moment. I saw Atius sprint and hold that hand-held shield out, breaking the fire against his hand. “Fireteam, fall back to the bunker, trigger the traps and seal the door. Standard retreat formation!”

Pairs of relic knights mowed out against the approaching horde, skulls cracking ahead as now the screamers were closing in on us. A pair would shoot while another would fall back. They alternated quickly and efficiently, reloading as they ran.

The screamers jumped over the deserted first barricade and as a wave they crashed against a detonation of grenades pre-readied on the ground. Atius hadn’t been idle while we were working. The blast impact was close enough that even our relic armors required shielding to trigger. It’s a good thing Ankah and Calem had been near the rear. That explosion would have surely hurt the pair.

I could already tell it had done a number to their hearing from how dazed they moved, stumbling to the flooded bunker doors and stopping right by the water's edge.

“Clan lord! Permission to carry the two?” The shadowsong prime called out as he rushed to them, a note of panic in his voice.

Atius gave him a hard stare. “Denied. You’ll need both hands for weapons fire eventually, they’ll end up in the water either now or later. We’ll need to be fast.”

The prime grimly nodded, continuing his retreat. Ankah on the other hand, had a different idea. She pulled the hoversled of power cells and clambered on board, throwing a rope forward to her father. The prime shot Atius a glance, which the Deathless returned with a nod. “That’ll do. Tie to your belt.”

She and Calem both strapped themselves in as her father dragged the hoversled over the freezing water. It worked as hoped for, dipping down slightly and causing a wide imprint of the sled to dig into the water surface.

The relic knights had all filed into the bunker and began opening fire from the weapon slits on the sides. We’d made it inside, save for the clan lord who remained at the doorway, long sword drawn.

He took a step forward, raising the long sword high in the air. It glowed brighter blue, streaming from his gauntleted hand. A moment later, he swung it in a massive horizontal arc through the air.

An electric arc of occult blue expanded from the blade, flowing out in a semicircle with him at the center, a shock-wave of power. It struck at the approaching screamers, ripping into the mass and flinging them all back.

Damage hadn’t been the aim, I realized. He’d done that to give us time to force the heavy door shut. The size of which still took him and the other knights some time even in relic armor to seal.

“Seal the door!” He yelled out, sprinting into the bunker. “Now!”

I flipped the manual door lock levers, watching as the old mechanism triggered and clamped shut onto the door, praying the whole while that the modified deadbolt would slide right into the doorframe as expected.

It got stuck just near the end of the swing, which made my blood feel like it had frozen over. Technically, it was good enough, the majority of the deadbolt would be in place. Still, I tried to put my relic armor’s full strength into the lever. It dipped down a few more inches before Journey chimed in my ear. “Maximum power reached.”

With one last idea, I back off, then kicked the rest of the lever shut. Another few inches closed, and then the rest of the handle bent in place. Deformed and out of commission now. The changed deadbolt showed it was mostly in place and definitely snug inside the doorframe. No one’s opening this door now, from either direction.

Good timing too. The wave of screamers surged forward and impacted the bunker, hard. Clawed hands attempted to shove themselves through the weapon slits, while sounds of clanking feet and hands reverberated all across the bunker as the wave had started to climb over.

“The other side of the bunker has an opening that should lead to the blast door.” Atius said, making his way through the water. Ankah and Calem hovered behind on the sled, using scavenged scraps as makeshift poles to keep themselves steady as the Shadowsong prime did the main legwork through the water. I hoped they wouldn’t need to abandon this strategy anytime soon. The water was likely freezing cold and only kept from actually freezing over due to not being completely water - if I had to guess.

It would be absolute torture for the two, or possibly frostbite in their feet in less than an hour if we didn’t address it.

The real danger was if we hit pockets of air that wasn’t human friendly. Not much we could do about that right now other than forge ahead and hope to the gods things worked out. So far, neither of their rebreathers had pinged an issue.

“The front door will give us at least another ten minutes. Assuming the material is drake-proof. That still won’t last forever. The real barrier to entry will be the bulkhead doors inside the bunker, drakes are too large to fit inside and melt those down, only Screamers will be able to fit in here. There’s a good dozen of these doors. Spread out, seal them all shut as we go deeper into the site.” Atius ordered. “With those locked, our real danger is the machine wave making it around the bunker before we can storm our way through.”

We sealed every bulkhead door we walked through, twisting it tight and making sure to bar them up. They had built the bunker specifically for an invasion of this scale, making the doors remarkably easy to seal shut and secure, despite the age.

“These doors will only hold to the center point. After that, the rest of the doors are locked on the other side, as the structure is mirrored to the other exit.” Atius said. “If we’re unlucky, they’ll bring their behemoth to break through the wall of mite buildings rather than try to crack the bunker.”

“Behemoth?” Kidra asked. I had the same question on my lips but she’d been faster on the draw.

“Massive twelve foot giant.” Ironreach said to our side. “Nasty thing. The machine version of a siege engine. Uses different weapons depending on the situation. Always difficult to kill and strong enough to rip open that front door if it gets enough time.”

And here I thought the spider was the scariest enemy machine I'd face down here.

We kept going through the bunker at speed, rushing through the doors now, relying on our internal maps to guide us correctly. In minutes we had made it to the other side.

It hadn’t been fast enough.

Already screamers had either climbed over, or had come from this side in the first place and were trying to pry open the sealed door here. We turned the last corner and saw their hands trying to slip through the weapon slits, to reach where they expected the door controls could have been.

They would not make any progress on that front. The bunker was too well defended. And this door still had the original deadbolt intact, making it particularly impervious.

If we opened the door here to get out, we'd be swarmed with a small army of machines.

We were trapped like rats.