Skyframe

CHAPTER 1: Awake

I woke up on top of a skyscraper in a hyper-advanced city. Birds were soaring through the air. If you still call those things birds at any rate. I gazed into the distance, there seemed to be no end to the massive metropolis. I looked down. There were hundreds, no, thousands of people below me. Although, each one looked eerily alike. I doubted they were even human.

I would have sat there for hours, taking it all in, however fate had other plans. A man kicked open a door behind me saying something. He was armed with some sort of plasma pistol. He had light brown hair, pale skin, and a thick black suit. He looked me up and down. “Hey! You’re that wanted person!” He exclaimed. He had light brown hair, pale skin, and a thick black suit. His voice sounded odd… almost… robotic.

Suddenly, he began taking potshots at me with his plasma pistol. I narrowly dodged a vibrant green ray of pure plasma. I hid behind a massive glass pipe with some kind of green liquid inside it. The glass seemed to be of some sort of glass-metal alien alloy. I barely had a few seconds to formulate a plan. Suddenly, the man shot the pipe. The pipe crumpled like paper to the plasma ray. The green liquid burst out of the broken pipe, scorching everything it hit. Without thinking, I jumped inside the pipe.

I landed a few floors down. I tried to get up, but my ankle must have been twisted in the fall. I heard the man’s voice echoing down the pipe. “You won’t last forever! I am going to find you!” He screeched, but nevertheless, he was too big to squeeze down the pipe. I finally got up, and checked my new surroundings.

This room was definitely a lot more lo-tech. Likely, a room you were not supposed to see. There was a door, a desk, and a couple of blank monitors. I attempted to open the door, but like I thought it would, it was locked. The lock was an electronic lock, making brute force ineffective.

I decided to go with a different tactic to escape. I searched the desk for anything useful. All I found was a few paperclips, and a dead battery. Suddenly the door burst open, and the same man from before had his pistol at the ready. He immediately started blasting me with his plasma gun. I quickly jumped behind cover, but was unfortunately grazed on my elbow. The plasma burned through my skin, I quite possibly could have been killed, right there and then! Fortunately, because I was only grazed, the plasma burn did not last long.

“Why are you after me?” I shouted, while dodging lasers. (AKA hiding behind a desk) “Come out and I won’t hurt you!” The man replied. Unlikely. Although, It was my only option. I stepped out. He shot me in the head with three plasma blasts. I was dead in seconds.

Chapter 2: Raid

“OH COME ON!” I screamed as I took off my VR headset. I was standing in a cluttered up room, computer parts on the floor. This room was part of the First Fight, the biggest resistance base out there, that was left standing, of course. It was hidden deep underground, in what used to be the Amazon rainforest in America. Now it only had little trees, only appearing in small patches, near rivers and lakes. There were less trees in other parts of the world. Because of the vastly limited amounts of trees, the amount of oxygen was short. We needed to build O2 producers in our various hideouts to even survive. I was a major here, one of the highest ranking officers.

Suddenly, a man wearing a tattered up and ashy engineer outfit burst through the door. He had burnt blond hair, and blue eyes hiding behind his broken glasses. His name was Ash (fitting for his appearance). “HELP!” He screamed. Nothing came. Except an 8-foot-tall quantum zombie. The zombie was humanoid, and vibrant, milky, purple. It had glowing purple eyes, and looked as if it were about to kill me. Oh yeah, it is!

I quickly grabbed a prototype plasma rifle. The gun had a rich chrome shell, with vibrant, blue plasma inside. I quickly shot a few rounds. All it did was slow it down. Suddenly alarms started ringing throughout the building. “WARNING: HOSTILE ENTITIES HAVE INFILTRATED THE BUILDING, CODE RED, 1 QUANTUM ZOMBIE, AND A WHOLE ASSAULT SQUAD OF MECHS. SIEGE MODE HAS ACTIVATED”

I dropped my gun, and made a mad dash to the door that leads to the R&D testing chamber. I speedily typed in my passcode. 1213, no that’s for the fridge, 1587, no that is for the executive bathroom, ah finally 5681. The door inched open with a remarkably fast pace, possible to outrun even the fastest snails. I quickly jumped inside and closed the door. The door closed incredibly quickly. Why couldn’t it do that earlier. I ranted inside my head.

The room I entered was massive, big enough to fit 3 elephants, or actually maybe 2.5 now that I think of it. It had beautiful monochrome plaster walls, and a rich concrete floor. Every corner was jam-packed with cool stuff. In one corner of the room, there was a firing range, a teleporter, and even a food printer. What? It makes good french fries!

I quickly ran over to a holoscreen. I diverted all power in the room to the teleporter and deactivated all safety procedures with a password I’m probably not supposed to have. Suddenly, the teleporter sparked to life, with it’s familiar shining, blue light coming from inside. I hastily dashed to a control panel beside the teleporter and pressed the big “Open Teleporter” button.

Inside the teleporter there was a large screen with a single button sprawled across it. “Activate.” I pressed it. Suddenly a loud humming noise started emanating from the machine. Before the teleporting process could start, a full assault squad of MECH (Mega Evil Cranky Humanoids) soldiers burst into the room. They immediately opened fire on the teleporter. But, before any of the bullets were able to hit me, I was whisked away into the dark abyss of the void.

Chapter 3: Lost

Being teleported is a lot like falling off a massive skyscraper. The ground just comes hurtling towards you, as you fall at the speed of a bullet. However, instead of seeing buildings fly past you, you see rips in the fabric of time, giving you insight about the future, and the past. It was a sight to behold. Before I could speak even one word of amazement, I was suddenly on top of a massive skyscraper, the Skyblade, the same place I was in when I was using VR.

I landed in the middle of a small garden on the roof of the Skyblade. There were many flowers, all in full bloom. They must have been genetically modified as it was the middle of winter. Suddenly, a shimmer in the air appeared, and I quickly backed up. Guess those robots decided to send me a little surprise. A massive portal opened up above the flower field. Then out came a cluster missile.

Cluster missiles were developed around the time the robots took over. When they detonate, six tiny homing mini-missiles launch from the explosion to take care of anyone left alive. Including me. I knew from experience that you were not able to outrun the mini-missiles so I had to apply some cleverness. I picked up a flower, and threw it. A loud explosion boomed out from where the flower had once been. Like I had hoped, the flower detonated the missiles, as being mini-missiles, they did not have advanced touch detectors.

There was a large hole in the floor created from the missile blast. I quickly jumped down into it. I ended up in the same exact room as in the simulation, the one with all the monitors. Just like before, there was an electro-lock guarding the door, however this time, it was broken, no doubt hit by the shrapnel of the explosion.

Behind the door was a room with many servers. Each server had about a hundred different blinking lights, and some had a few USB sticks inserted into them. A started walking through the room, when suddenly I saw a robot’s back. I quickly went the other way before it could turn around. If I could sabotage this server room, it would certainly make this a lot easier. However, before I could get to crashing some servers, I had to make sure I had a good exit. I crouched down and started moving towards a door on the other end of the room.

Before I could reach the door, a robot came out of it. The robot had dark grey skin, and red glowing eyes. He wore a black US-B suit (a popular robot clothing store,) and dark brown pants. I quickly hopped behind a server and ducked as low as possible.

Suddenly, a noise from an intercom blared. “WARNING: HOSTILE INDIVIDUAL HAS ESCAPED FROM A REBEL CAMP. TARGET HAS BREACHED THE SKYSHIELD AND IS LIKELY HIDING SOMEWHERE IN THIS BUILDING. CODE:47, HIGH ALERT.” The robot immediately stopped in its tracks, and started to scan the area for thermals. Thankfully, because we were in the server room, all of the servers were hot, and this confused the robot. The robot then continued to patrol.

After the robot had rounded the corner, I sneakily snuck through the door. Inside, there was a massive library, beautifully decorated, with row upon row of leatherbound volumes . I was on the second floor balcony. There was a stairway leading down to the first floor. The first floor had a few tables and chairs, and a few robots conferencing. Victor! I realized as I recognized one of the robots.

Victor Skyboard, is the founder of this entire city. He used to be human, however he transferred his consciousness into a robot once he had thought to have secured every single region of humans. He was greatly mistaken.

The robots conferencing were at a large table, Victor being at the head. There was one seat without a robot occupying it.

I listened in on the conversation. “I don’t know what you mean! We just defeated the last rebel camp, there are none left!” sSaid a robot. “We cannot expand yet, we don’t know how many rebel groups are operating out there in secrecy. They could infiltrate us!” said another.

“SHUSH,” Victor screamed, which was ironic because he was the one telling everyone to be quiet. “As said earlier, one of the rebels managed to escape in some sort of teleporter,.” he explained. “He has already infiltrated the facility, as one of our men decided to send a bomb through the teleporter, and there was a loud explosion on top of the building. It is unlikely that he survived, but we still need to be on the lookout.”

Suddenly a robot came through the door behind me. “Ah-Ha!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Sometimes it pays to be late.”

“I found the escaped rebel!” he shouted. Before any other robots could come up to apprehend me, I made a bee-line towards the nearest door not blocked by an evil robot. Then, the robot pulled out a plasma pistol and started blasting. Fortunately, the robot was about as good at aiming as me trying to hold off on eating those delicious printed fries. I got through the door, I shut it, and then locked it behind me.

Chapter 4: Run

Before I could catch my breath, a robot had the bright idea to break down the door. This was a better idea than one might think, even though the door was made out of combinum alloys, one of the strongest materials found on earth. The robot in question however, was M_D01, known as one of the strongest robots ever created. He had once smashed a 3-foot-thick strainum piller (the strongest material known to robot) in just under one minute, so the 1ft thick combinum door was absolutely no problem.

Before the robots could bust through, I ran around the corner and into some sort of armoury. There were weapons cluttered around the room, poised on top of pedestals, hanging from the ceiling, or lining racks on the walls. Everywhere I looked, there was top- o-f the- line equipment. Unfortunately, all of the fancy technology was RIC (robot identification code) protected, and thus, unable to be used by anyone except its owner. The only weapon here not RIC coded, was a simple plasma pistol. I grabbed the pistol and loaded a fresh power cell that I found on the floor, into it.

I hid behind a pedestal and aimed my shot. If a robot would appear in my line of sight, I would shoot it. Simple as that. Unfortunately, the robots had an advanced level of AI, so it was much more difficult than that. The plan the robots decided to go with was to lob a grenade into the room, instead of going in guns blazing.

The robots deemed this to be intelligent. However, what they didn’t know was that the weapon on the podium I was hiding behind had a secret function, being a grenade auto-targeter. Normally, this would not have worked, as the gun was deactivated, but the specific grenade leaked radiation, due to the fact that some idiot thought that the radiation would be extra effective on humans, which would be the case, if humans had not built up a tolerance for radiation due to the nuclear war of the 2030’s.

But anyway, back on topic, the radiation coming from the grenade triggered the anti-grenade system, and thus the gun activated an GDMP (Grenade Disabler Magnetic Pulse.) This had the effect of short circuiting the grenade, as well as detonating all nearby grenades (Other than the leaky,) as the weapon had been affected otherwise by the radiation. Anyways, the robot who threw the first grenade, also had two others, and thus, blew up. I stepped outside. The grenade explosion seemed to have destroyed the robot, as well as the entrance from the library. It also left a giant hole that led into another hallway.

I hopped down, and to my surprise there were three guns pointed at me. Ambush! I barely had time to scream before I was saved by a bullet barrier. To explain: The room I landed in was part of the robot miltary’s barracks. Some of the more competitive robots liked to have fights around here, so anti-bullet barriers were set up to stop people from killing each other. What they did not consider, was if a resistance member teleported inside their base and found their way into this hallway. Due to the barriers, I was given enough time to hop inside an air duct. There was no reason to have ventilation in a building solely inhabited by robots, but when the facility was built, Victor had not yet transferred his consciousness into a robot. Due to budget cuts, they were never removed. After a while I popped out of a vent. I ended up in some kind of security room. Working at the desk was something I vaguely remembered.

Chapter 5: Friend

Josh was a security officer for the mechs. You may be thinking, “How is he working for the Mechs if he is human?” Well, it’s a long story, so let me give you the fast version. He secretly works for the resistance to give them inside information on the Mech’s plans. He uses a robot suit to trick the robots that he is one of them. You could say, he is an imposter. Currently he was monitoring the cameras, and the cryptoball game currently going on in binary stadium.

“And he scores!” The announcer of the cryptoball exclaims! “Six points for the Bitwolfs! Let’s see if they can score the extra point!”

“Dang it” Josh screamed. In his fit, Josh did not see someone sneak up behind him…

“Boo!” I exclaimed. Josh was obviously startled, as he fell out of his chair. “Good to see you, too, captain.” “Major now, actually” I replied. Josh was my best friend back in the day. It was sad to see him go, but now, he has returned. “How’s coms?” I hastily asked. “Let’s see, Victor has doubled the security, and has rapidly increased the production of military robots by redirecting materials used for various hardware products.” “Classic Victor, always panicking.” I replied. “Actually, no, at the moment, his paranoia is justified. He already underestimated the resistance once, back in the 3030’s” It’s not great to be with a know-it-all, but he was helping, and that’s what matters.

Josh took off his robot disguise, and we headed out of the room. He went down a long corridor lined with doors leading to various workspaces and meeting rooms. Once we saw a meeting for a new prototype superbot, so we had to sneakily sneak past the glass window so we were not revealed. At the end of the large hallway, there was a single massive door. We hastily opened it using Josh’s level 5 access card. Inside there were massive pillars, and two separate passages. When we stepped inside of the room, the doors all slammed shut. I had barely enough time to scream “AMBUSH!!!” before six combat mechs dropped in.

I dove behind cover and started blasting. Josh brought out his pistol too. I took one down with a few shots to the head. The next one coming my way didn’t go down as easily as the first. It hid behind cover and started firing a few shots at me. Luckily, one of my shots happened to hit the grenade on it’s belt, and it blew up in a violent blaze. The next one was even more difficult. While I was battling the other two robots, this one snuck up behind me and attempted to load a full power cell’s worth of plasma-bolts into my cranium. I say try to, because he was such a bad shot, that not one of his bullets hit me. While he was reloading his gun, I eliminated him with a few shots to the head. Josh took care of the other 3 robots.

“Well that was surprising.” Josh said, panting. From the looks of it, he tried to kite the robots. “Too bad we are trapped here.” As soon as he said it, the metal doors opened up. “We should go to the left.” Josh proclaimed. “I feel like we should go to the right,” I countered. We decided to split up, and then we wished each other best, and took off.

Chapter 6: Sabotage

The passageway opened into a large factory. Machines were being built at astonishing speeds. Conveyor belts full of combat mechs, ready to be deployed in the field. There were septic tanks filled to the brim with liquidated plasma. There was probably enough combat equipment here to be able to storm through multiple different planets filled with aliens, all bringing them to their knees, in less than a week. I strolled through what seemed like an observation deck, a long bridge connecting one side to the other. I noticed there was a massive war robot being built. It had a massive plasma cannon, and a deadly plasma blade attached to its arms. This must be stopped. I looked around, and saw a massive power generator. I just need to get over there and disable it. I searched through a ton of equipment and found 3 items of value: A plasma rifle, a belt of plasma grenades, and an EMP bomb.

I loaded up, then trekked over to the generator. Before I was able to get there, I was stopped by three combat robots. “Stop right there!” one of them exclaimed. “You’re coming with us, whether you like it or not. Now come quickly, and we will make your dea-” before he could finish his sentence, I shot him with my plasma rifle. This did not kill the bot, but it was definitely enough to make it shut up, I ducked behind cover, and began shooting. One of the robots had the bright idea to throw a grenade at me. I threw it right back. This explosion was enough to blow up the floor under the robot, causing it to fall straight into a crusher. It was also enough to trigger a complete lockdown of the factory. Doors slammed shut as water came, sprinkling in from the ceiling. This also meant that more powerful mechs were brought out of storage to petrol.

I was about to get up when a shot sailed right over my head, and I remembered about the two other robots I was fighting. I switched my gun to rapid fire mode, and quickly unloaded an entire power cell into one of the robots. It obviously was not getting up after that. Unfortunately, I only had one power cell so I would have to take on the other robot with my pistol. I began taking potshots at the remaining robot. Miraculously, one of my shots just so happened to hit the robot’s one weak spot: It’s left shoulder. To explain: The average robot has microchips and wires running throughout its entire body. The left shoulder just so happens to be the place where the central nervous system is placed. Victor added it to make the bots seem more human. To accommodate this, the robots are programmed to shut down when they experience an extreme amount of pain. If it were, say, shot in it’s elbow, where the central nervous chip is placed, it would register as every single nerve experiencing pain, thus making it shut down.

After I collected myself after the fight, I pressed forward, towards the generator. Just as I got there, a squad of 5 advanced combat mechs, or ACMs dropped down from the ceiling to defend the generator. I was probably going to die.

Chapter 7: Fight

Without thinking, I drew out my rifle. If you remember from before, it was out. I jammed the trigger, but it wouldn't fire. Shoot. I leaped behind cover, and formulated a plan: throw grenades like crazy. I threw 7 grenades at the ACMs, to no avail. One of the ACMs spoke up. “Ha Ha Ha, human. We are not like our predecessors. We have blast proof armor.” Then they opened fire. It was a hail of bullets. Their targeting systems were almost perfect. My cover would not hold for long. I was dead meat.

Suddenly, an Idea came to mind: The EMP. I drew it out and activated it. Before I knew it, 5 ACMs were down, smoking on the floor. The EMP had the double effect of neutralizing the robots, and destroying the power generator. Before I could celebrate, a vent case fell down. Something was here… it was Josh.

“Hello again!” Josh said, obviously excited. “I hacked into one of the computers. I managed to download 60 video games top secret files!” “Look see, this one shows the diagram for a super mech, and this shows the lockdown override code.” “I already destroyed the robot.” I replied. “Now how do we dismiss the lockdown?” “Oh it’s simple. We just need to say this. LOCKDOWN OVERRIDE NOW PLEASE SECURITY CODE 11838394” Suddenly, the lockdown was lifted, and everything returned to normal. We walked to an elevator, and headed down to the first floor.

As soon as the door opened, we immediately opened fire. This proved to be a good decision as there was an ELITE mech guarding the door. As soon as he was hit, he quickly jumped back into the main room. We shuffled out, and went behind cover. The ELITE mech wasted no time and began to hammer down on us. We were like lambs to a slaughter. Our cover was hastily destroyed, and so were we. Well, we would have been dead if not had Josh also equipped us with shields. Handy. I began to sink shots into this beast, to no avail. It’s armor was too tough. So, I devised a better plan. We started shooting at the support pillars, and sure enough, the ceiling came crashing down on us. Due to the extreme size of the elite mech, it held up the weight of the ceiling. It did not however live to tell the tale. The ELITE mech was dead.

We explored the ground level a bit, until Josh finally said “Ok, so we are looking for a secret hatch disguised as an entrance to the sewers.” Suddenly, something caught my eye. “Is that it?” I said, pointing to a hatch in another room separated by glass. “Yep, that’s it.” Josh replied “Breaking and entering tip #1: throw a rock into a window.” I was about to say we don’t have any rocks when he threw a grenade through the window. “That works too.”

I entered the room, careful not to step on any glass, and opened the hatch. I climbed down the ladder, and to my amazement, there was… a brick wall. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” I screamed as I hit the brick wall. Surprisingly, one of the bricks I hit turned out to be a secret trigger, and the bricks retracted to reveal a large hallway. “Have you figured out the puzzle yet?” asked Josh as he finished climbing to the bottom.

We walked down the hallway at a good pace, until we reached the last door. We opened it. “DEATH TRAP!!!” Shreaked Victor as he shot Josh in the chest with a plasma gun. We quickly ran inside and dived for cover. This was going to be one of the greatest battles in all of history! It’s going to be so dramatic, and is going to be the climax of the many movies spawned by this adventure! Josh shot the chandler over Victor’s head, and it fell, and crushed him. Really. I’m not joking. We deactivated the skyshield, and got ready to leave.

Chapter 8: ESCape

Suddenly, before we could celebrate, the alarm started blaring. “SELF DESTRUCT IN 10 MINUTES!!! EVACUATE THE PREMISES IMMEDIATELY” We started running, as fast as we could. 10 Elite mechs dropped down behind us, and began to shoot. We doged, ducked, and weaved, but we were being hit by too many bullets. Our time has come. The tunnel seemed to be 10 times as long compared to the trip there, and it was infinitely more deadly. Traps started activating. Sawblades, check. Turrets, check. Lasers, check. It was too much. Then, just like that, we made it. We climbed out of the cellar, and dashed onto the street. However, before we could get out of here, the giant robot from the factory had arrived. To explain: the EMP bomb had the effect of overcharging the power generator. If the EMP had not been planted, the robot would not have been ready in time.

We dashed behind cover for one final time. The end was here. I began shooting the outer shell. Nothing, not a scratch. I threw grenades. Still nothing. Then it was the robot’s turn to attack. He launched 15 heat-seeking missiles from it’s hand. I shot down most of them, but the other 5 of them hit me. Joshed received similar treatment, but instead of 15 missiles, he got 150 bullets. He was gone. Josh, was dead.

With a renewed anger, I unloaded everything I had. I emptied clip after clip, but all to no avail. This bot was more protected than anything else in the universe. Nothing had any effect. I began to lose hope, when suddenly I had an idea. Back, a long time ago, it was found that people who use a teleporter are left with some celestial energy that drains over time. It was found that if the energy was released, by the person being destroyed it would have enough power to topple a small city. My plan was to sacrifice myself. Just to be sure the chain reaction would be set off, I would detonate a large explosion with it.

I tossed an explosive device on to the robot, confidently walked towards it, and I pulled the trigger. The robot exploded. It, and half the city was destroyed by the celestial blast. It was over. It was done. After this day, the resistance continued to live on, I was memorialized for my bravery, and due to my sacrifices, the resistance finally took down the mechs.