I posted about this when my patreon launched, but just to remind you all since today is a very important day, the Transpose Operator light novel prologue launched!!!
This is a patreon exclusive project that is available to those pledging $5+
This is a project that has been in the making for literally years, starting out as a webcomic before becoming what it is today. Since it's a light novel that means I'll be doing interstitial illustrations and comics too. The Patreon sections will be mostly prose-only, and are considered to be polished first drafts. That means there will be errors and typos occasionally. The ultimate goal is to eventually revamp the webcomic website to accommodate this new format--however it's going to be quite some time before this happens.
If you would like to support me and read a story very dear to me that I've put a lot of work into, please head over to my patreon to check it out!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/transpose-light-22033293
Below is an excerpt to get you started, enjoy!
-content warning for violence/gore-
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I reached a forked area with four diverging paths, picked
the one on my left and kept going. A short way down the hallway I saw the door
labeled “secondary storage” and made my way towards it. If everyone around me wasn’t
so hurried this would have looked strange. I was clad in a lab coat and uniform
for the nanomachines R&D department within the capitol, during a crisis
there would be no reason for me to be running around getting in the way of
others, let alone going into a seldom used storage room. I opened the plain
metal door quietly and quickly, closing it behind me in the same manner.
I scanned the room, and upon seeing no one inside I
internally sighed in relief. I had no time to waste. I quickly walked past the
crowded towering shelves that reached toward the cieling and to the designated
drop off spot—a shelf facing the back wall. I crouched down and pushed a tall
flat box aside, it had was hiding my true objective which was small crate
directly behind it. I opened the crate with little effort as it wasn’t sealed,
and began to dig through the padding, my hands finding the cool metal of the
bottom of the box, and tracing it until I met one of the corners and my hands
hit a rough metal device.
My heart skipped a beat, and then my stomach sank as I
curled my fingers around the object and drew it out of the crate.
It looked inconspicuous, a small metal cylinder with a dull
jagged edge on one end and a cap on the other. It seemed absurd that this small
object could simultaneously end or save many lives--in my case, I would be
using it to do both. The gravity of taking this object out of Its hiding place
and what that meant finally hit me in this moment. I thought I had been
prepared for it. It was like all of my muscles had tensed up from the stress of
my body catching up to my brain and I held my breath for a second…
It’s already started, I can’t stop here.
I have to keep going.
I let out the captured breath I had been holding in as the
tenseness of my muscles subsided.
I pocketed the small object and quickly made my way out of
the storage room. Before I knew it I was running down the hallway towards the
entrance. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears as my heart beat faster and
I avoided the others in the hallway who passed me. I had to get out of here. I
had to make it to the drop off point no matter what.
It happened in an instance--a loud explosion deafened all
sound as it overtook and dominated everything within range. Accompanying that
eruption of noise was smoke and a blast of debris as the foundations of the
very floor I was standing on were rocked. The lights flickered and dimmed above
me. I heard smaller pops within that din as the screams of those around me
became engulfed and a piercing ringing overtook me until it was all I could
hear.
I was suddenly thrown against the far wall and the wind was
knocked out of me. The whole right side of my body then my head hit the wall
and for a moment everything was white as my eyes couldn’t sense what was in
front of them. My body felt both numb and heavy all over, it didn’t make sense
but there was no other way to describe it. Some parts of my body felt heavier
than others like something was on top of them but I couldn’t see. I felt a
piercing pain in my left arm.
There were muffled voices, they sounded far away… but I
think they were beside me? I couldn’t be sure until I groggily opened my eyes,
I blinked quickly, trying to get the world back into focus. I squinted. It was
like I was willing myself to see and hear my surroundings instead of it coming
back to it naturally—I needed to force it to know what had happened. How badly
was I injured? Could I still get out of the building?
Eventually the scene in front of me swam into view.
Was there always a window here?
No… not a window… but a hole…
Weaponry had blasted a hole in the hallway in front of me.
From the opening in the wall smoke and debris fell haphazardly, I had been
lucky to have been caught at the edge of the explosion, any further and I would
have been…
As my gaze drifted to the other side of the hallway, I saw
those who had been in front of me just seconds ago… The explosion had torn them
apart, painting the walls around them with blood and viscera. Others were just
red smears on the debris of the hallway that gave no indication that they had
ever been human.
My eyes widened. My breath caught in my throat.
My hands started to shake, and that caused sharp pain to
shoot through my left arm. I looked away from the dead bodies and down at my
arm right below my shoulder, it was just a surface wound luckily, but it was
enough to dye my white coat red, it had torn right through it, severing the
fabric and flesh beneath the coat.
I focused on ripping the rest of the fabric, and tying it
around my arm in an improvised bandage.
It was better than nothing.
Focusing on my arm had caused my hands to stop shaking. I
moved some debris that had fallen on my legs, luckily it hadn’t injured them it
had just trapped me. I could not believe how narrowly I not only escaped death,
but lasting injury. If I had been any faster… if I had been even a few inches
further into the hall than I was right now… my body would have told a
completely different story. The debris was heavy and it took a lot of strain
and ignoring the pain shooting through my left arm until I was able to remove
it all. My arms felt weak from all the effort. Considering the alternative, I
was more than happy to have to deal with my limbs feeling like jelly and being
able to feel the pain from the superficial injury my arm had suffered. I could
have easily ended up as red stain in the white of the hallway like those who
had been in font of me. As I weakly stood up, the dust and smoke had begun to clear,
giving me a view out upon the city and hitting home just how damaging the scale
of this attack was at this moment.
Sprawled out into the distance was the capitol of the
Regency Federation. This place had been my home for years, but it was a home
only in the sense that I had lived here for many years of my life exclusively.
The research building I was in was right in the heart of the city and surround but
other building just as tall or taller than this one. We were in the science
district, an area that focused on developing new technologies or refining
existing ones. Smoke and explosions wracked the previously serene landscape of
the towering city buildings, it poured in-between them and into the dome
covered sky. The sound of gunfire and artillery shells in the distance resounded
again, but louder this time as there was no longer a wall in the way to muffle
the noise. I could hear yelling and screaming accompanying the instruments of
death and destruction and was left to imagine what was happening to those whose
voices I was hearing. From my current position I couldn’t see the street level
below me so I wasn’t able to ascertain if the immediate fighting had made it
this far. Additionally there was no way to tell who the tide of this fight was
in favor of… but it had seemed like the others had made it far into the city
already. However the action looked like it was concentrated towards the city
gates. I hadn’t thought they’d be using heavy artillery like this that could
hit from so far away, but it must have been a rogue shell… either that or the
city defense system had malfunctioned after Isaiah and his team had put their
plan into motion to disarm it. If that was the case then the city’s defenses might
be turning against itself… that wasn’t part of the plan.
Although I found it oddly fitting, based on the true nature
of this place.
Death and war had always been the business of the capitol.
The people here made all the decisions from their quiet meeting rooms, and
somewhere in the world far away from here, people died. This place is where it
all started and yet this was the first-time actual violence had graced the
insides of these walls. I swallowed hard and told myself…
You did this.
You wanted this.
You have to keep going.
Yes, I had to keep going, I couldn’t stop and feel sorry for
how things had come to this point. I took a deep breath.
“Keep going, Karin.” I said aloud to myself. It was quiet
but my voice didn’t waver. I clenched my fists and turned my gaze away from the
gaping hole in the wall. The hallway had gotten damaged but it wasn’t
destroyed. I could still cross it, but I would have to be careful. There was a
little over a foot of floor left at the thickest part, as long as I kept
against the wall and kept my balance I could make it across. I had to make it
across.
I pressed my back flat against the wall and began to slowly
shuffle sideways, making slow methodical progress across the damaged hallway floor.
Instead of looking at the two story drop below me, I focused on my feet, where
I had to put them next, if the floor was still stable as I moved to the next
section—focusing on my movements instead of the fact that my footing could
crumble at a moments notice. Even with my focus being drawn away from a drop
that could easily kill me, my palms were sweaty, and my nerves cried out that
what I was doing was going to result in me becoming a red stain on the concrete
below me. I was scared, but I kept going. Edging slowly, eventually I made it
to the other side without incident, but my heart was going a mile a minute even
though I was safe, for now. I scaled some debris that blocked my path and I was
met with the sight I had seen after the blast.
These people had been my co-workers. Luckily I didn’t
recognize any of them by their faces, or any other identifiers that were on
what was left of their bodies… but I recognized their uniforms. Had these
people also been forced into the same indentured servitude that I had? Had they
been ripped from their homes and forced to be a cog in the system like me? It
was at least a 50/50 chance… but regardless, none of them had asked for this. Being
caught up in death and destruction in the place that was supposed to be the safest
city in the world. Defying the capitol wasn’t something that an individual was
capable of, I knew that. If these people had ever held ideas of rebellion or
freedom in their hearts, I had no way of knowing. Maybe there had been a way to
save them or avoid this… but I couldn’t think about that now that it was
happening and they were already gone.
“I’m sorry…” I said quietly as I stepped around their
bodies. The fact that this hadn’t made me sick to my stomach or pass out was
almost sad. I thought on it briefly… I guess I had gotten used to the sight of
dead bodies long ago. That certainly wasn’t normal for someone who worked in
this research department far from the front lines. All I could do was apologize
and move on. What a callous person I am.
There were less people to run past on this side of the
hallway and I made it to the stairwell easily. As I descended I heard a scream
of terror and then a brief gurgling noise. There was a quieter muffled voice
but I couldn’t make it out from this distance.
Danger.
I stopped in my tracks midway down the stairwell and
crouched down behind the solid railing that hid me from view entirely. The
lights above me flickered briefly, most likely a result from the explosion
earlier, it bathed the area in an unsettling half-darkness as one of the lights
popped and went out. From my position I could peek over and see the hallway
entrance I had been heading towards. I needed to get out of the building and
that hallway would lead me to the entrance. But there was something out there
that was giving me pause. The noise I had heard earlier made it clear there was
something wrong, more wrong than what I could reasonably expect from this
situation. At this distance from the city gates there should have just been
artillery fire, and even ground forces would be using guns instead of close
quarters combat weapons. But I hadn’t heard gunfire. I hadn’t heard artillery. I
hadn’t even heard any energy weapons. What was it?
The brief silence was broken by screams and running. I could
make out some words.
“Wh-why are they-!?”
“Use the kill code!”
“Why aren’t they stopping!? I thought these were security-!”
Security? The only security stationed in this building was
android security units. This didn’t make sense to me based on my current
information. Security systems should have been disabled, that meant the
androids too as they were connected to that same system.
And then I saw someone—a man in a lab coat similar to mine,
he ran past the doorway and tripped, he turned back and looked terrified at
whatever had been chasing him. The man scrambled to his feet but he wasn’t fast
enough to even stand up completely. He screamed as a security android leap upon
him, pinning to the ground and straddling his chest. It had been effective at
immobilizing him by using its knees to pin the man’s arms to the ground so he
couldn’t move them while the main weight of the thing kept the man’s chest
pinned with his back flat on the stone floor. The man’s legs flailed
powerlessly as he screamed and struggled to free himself.
“S-stop! Why!? What is-“
It had all happened in a split second before I could even
register it fully. The man had fallen, been pinned, cried out, and then the
android had gripped his head with both hands on either side of his face. It
wrenched it’s arms up slightly, then down into the ground with enough force to
crack the polished stone of the floor. A spurt of blood erupted from the back
of the man’s head, and the sickening thump that had accompanied the horrifying
sight was like nothing I had ever heard. The man was no longer making noise or
struggling, but the android on top of him didn’t seem to register that—or more
likely it just didn’t care, it continued its grim task by wrenching the man’s
head up once again only a few inches this time, then wrenched it down with such
force that it drove his head through the floor, and it’s arms went with it,
burying them both in about a foot of dismantled stone floor. More blood
accompanied the savagery, coating the surroundings crimson. The android itself
was now dripping blood from the man it had just obliterated and it streamed
down in red rivets. I had hoped the man had died quickly and hadn’t been alive
for the second attack… it was the only thing I could consciously think of as my
mind had gone blank for the split second that this all took place. The force
had seemed to cause the androids arms to become stuck in the floor along with
the remains of the man’s head, but judging by what I knew about the strength of
security androids, I doubted it would stay trapped for long.
What the hell was happening!? Why was this android suddenly
going berserk!?
I quickly took stock of its appearance, hoping there would
be some kind of clue or reason that I could deduce. It was a male security
android dressed in the same uniform as every other security android. The white
porcelain skin that every android had was now stained with the blood of his
victim, but otherwise it looked normal. It’s head had been turned away just
enough that I couldn’t see its eyes before, but now as it struggled to free
itself from the floor, it moved erratically, it’s head turning to the side and
revealing it’s face. Normally androids all had flat blank expressions, they
needed to feel different enough from humans that they didn’t have an uncanny valley
effect, but needed to look similar enough to make people comfortable. They were
meant to fade into the background of society, integrated as everyday tools.
They weren’t meant to show complex emotions as that would be too unnerving,
they were supposed to be polite and efficient. Yet the expression I now saw
spread across the face of the security android was the stuff of nightmares: its
teeth were bared, its mouth was open to the extent that it split the white skin
casing in order to contort its mouth in a silent scream that it’s casing was
unable to facilitate. The tear exposed circuitry and the black ichor substance
that kept them all running leaked from it as something internally had obviously
burst with the force that it was using to open a mouth not capable of the task.
One of its ears was just gone and exposed the bright glow of circuitry underneath.
And its eyes… the eyes which should have been a flat unremarkable color were
now glowing in an unnatural red light. Those eyes that were supposed to look
emotionless were now open wide, and the red glow seemed to stand out even more
with the whites of its eyes fully exposed. Black Ichor oozed out of one of the
eyes as the bottom lid had been torn. It began to make strained grunting noises
as it moved, like it was a trapped beast, a guttural scream tore through its
throat as it finally wrenched it’s arms out of the floor, cloth and casing
shredding in the process, exposing more raw circuitry and spilling more of that
black ichor from the internal damage it had suffered. It slowly stood up in a
staggering jerky motion. It was then that I noticed it’s back rising and
falling as if it were trying to breath with lungs that didn’t exist. It hunched
over as one of its arms spasmed slightly and it’s head twitched as it faced a
different direction.
Whatever this thing was… it was no longer an android… it had
obviously become something else entirely. I quickly ducked down behind the
railing partition. Luckily I was shielded from view, but as it was a security
android, it would have the ability to see me if any of its searching systems
besides optical verification were working. According to how things should have
gone, the security system should have been disabled… I could no longer trust
that was the case, I had to assume those… androids… could find me if they
looked in this direction.
What should I do?
Its blocking the exit.
I had precious few seconds to make a decision. I could go
back upstairs and find another stairway, or I could try and make it to a lower
floor and hope that the tunnel systems were still accessible—but then I’d have
to go past that entryway and risk being seen and torn apart just like that poor
man had been only seconds ago.
Another bestial yet mechanical shriek tore through my
thoughts and as I braced myself to run. However it was followed by footsteps
running away from me as it followed a human woman’s terrified scream further
into the lobby. I chanced a look over the railing again and saw that the figure
was no longer standing there. I saw another corrupted android similar to the
first streak past and follow towards the lobby entrance.
There was more than one of them.
This wasn’t isolated to a single android.
It was possible that only this building had been affected by
whatever was happening, but based on the artillery shell that had blown a hole
in this building, I doubted that. The shell had come from a different building
mounted gun on a neighboring building based on the trajectory needed to hit
that part of the building. Also if the attempt to disabled the entire security
system for the city had gone wrong and caused this, it was likely that this was
happening everywhere.
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And there you go! This is just a very small excerpt mind you, so if you wanna find out the rest then head on over to my patreon and become a supporter!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/transpose-light-22033293
