Cale opened the book and immediately found that he couldn’t read a single word.

  “Mom, I can’t read this.” He said

  “Skip the first bit, I have yet to figured that part out.” She said with a wave of her hand, “Jump to the green tab. That is where my predecessors notes started.”

  He flipped to the section his mom mentioned and started to read.

  Lawreece’s Journal

  I have copied over the line of text I was able to get from the crystal before it cracked. It seems that though a crystal can store data for potentially forever, reading the information will eventually leave due to the crystal cracking, corrupting the information.

  He re-read the passage again capturing a core memory of his. It seems that though a crystal can store data for potentially forever… He was right not to have his baby butt captured on those crystals! They would have lasted forever! Feeling justified, he continued.

  I am unsure how, but the writings I have come across say that something in this text will unlock the ancient piece of technology I have put in the back of this book. I will keep all I know about the ancients, and the interface in this book in hopes that I eventually uncover the secrets that are so close. I find it partially maddening that the knowledge I seek is a mere breadth’s width away from my fingertips, yet remains a million miles away. All that I record in here is done in hopes that the knowledge lost to the past can be regained.

  Cale flipped to the back of the book and sure enough, in the center of the pages there was a hole cut out and in it was stored a black box with no markings. He tried to pull it from the back of the book, but when he tried to touch it, he was hit with a small static shock. Not wanting to mess with it more when his mom was around watching him intently, he scanned the pages and waited for her to step out of her office before filling Maggy in.

  “Nooo idea what that is.” She told him, “Can you connect to it?”

  “Uh, how would I do that?”

  “Simple, just touch it, and think about wanting to access what is inside. The interface should do the rest.” She said as if he should already know.

  Cale took his finger and placed it on the center of the cube and thought about accessing what was inside. Within seconds, a new window popped up in the center of his screen asking for authorization.

  “It’s wants me to authorize it,” he told Maggy.

  “I can see that! You should see what it looks like from in here!” She exclaimed.

  He moved over to the window that showed Maggy in the lounge, she had moved his soul lounge so he could see the part on his soul where the local connection was being made. A long, black rod had dropped down from outside his vision and sat a ways away from his soul.

  Another rod, this one glowing with a slight silver sheen, had risen up from his soul and met the other rod in the middle. Maggy zoomed in on the connection, and in between the two rods, keeping them from touching, was a very large version of an orb. It was wearing metal combat armor with a round yellow badge stenciled on it and was holding out a long piece of paper that was as long as the bot was tall.

  “What is that bot doing there in the middle?” Cale asked, “Why isn’t it being crushed?”

  “It’s a licensing bot, extremely dangerous.” Maggy whispered.

  “Dangerous?” He looked at the giant rods. “Why can’t we just... Crush it?”

  “Licensing bots are a lot stronger than they look, they are very strong. Much stronger than me, Cale. I don’t even know if I could dent the armor its wearing.” She seemed almost frightened.

  Licensing, Cale thought to himself. Why does this civilization love licenses so much?!

  Frustrated, but not wanting to give up, Cale had an idea. The authorization he needed to get into that unit was only one single text box. Is it possible… no, he thought, it couldn’t be that easy. He flipped to the front of the book where the first few pages were just jumbled text…

  “Maggy, I’m going to say these letters out, can you transcribe them for me into my notepad?" He requested.

  "On it! Do you think this jumbled mess will let you sweet talk the licensing bot?”

  “I hope so, but I am just guessing here. What is it doing now?” He asked.

  “Just standing there, doing nothing. It’s very menacing, Cale.” A quiver in her voice.

  “Keep an eye on it and let me know if it does anything else. I will disconnect the second it does something threatening.” He reassured her.

  For the next few minutes, Cale struggled through telling Maggy all the letters in the front of the book. After triple checking, and having to do it secretly behind his mom’s back, he finally got the multi-page-long piece of text put into his interface, where he was able to grab the text from his notes and did a good ol’ fashion ‘copy and paste,’ into the authorization window.

  The window closed with zero fanfare, and up popped a new window with many, many folders and files in it.

  “Maggy, I think it worked, what does it look like from your end?” He asked.

  “The licensing bot left, but before it disappeared, it put the piece of paper it was holding in some glow-y case with a giant lock and then it was absorbed

  by the connection coming from your soul.”

  “Ok. I’m going to start grabbing the information from this cube. It works a lot like my older interface, so I don’t think I’ll need any help.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on it...” She trailed off. “Cale! Something is happening! Oh... no, no, no!”

  He swiped over to Maggy’s screen to see what was going on only to find that Maggy was nowhere to be found. Concerned, he slid his consciousness into his soul view only to find Maggy was fully covered in the armor she wore during his installation and even had some extra pieces. Her helmet was no longer open in the front, a visor had slid down covering her face and the horns that used to point straight up, were now angled up and behind her.

  In one of her hands she held a hammer as she stood in front of the silver doorway that he had only seen used by Maggy. He could see something pressing on the other side of the door, trying to get in.

  “Maggy, what is that?” He shouted.

  “Some sort of kill bot, two of them came through the connection as soon as you started moving files!” She replied, steeling herself for the attack.

  “Can they hurt me?”

  “Yes. We cannot let them get behind the bar.”

  A long fingered hand, with claws on the end puuuushed against the entrance. With a slight “pop,” it pushed through, revealing an arm made of both flesh and metal.

  “Oh, that’s gross looking. Maggy, hit it!” He exclaimed.

  “It won’t do anything unless the whole body is through the doorway.” She said calmly. “The bots core needs to be destroyed, thoroughly, otherwise it works just like the training bot you fought earlier and will keep repairing itself the moment it is through the door.”

  “Shit... Ok. Can you kill it?”

  “Yes,” She said, seeming far less nervous than he thought she should be. “My hammer has many uses. Killing scum like these is one of them.”

  A bell that sounded like the ones they put in classrooms, rang out behind them loudly and suddenly Maggy was on edge. “No, no, no, no! Not good! Cale, the other bot! When I last checked, it was outside the door, but it moved! It is trying to activate your connection to the greater network!” She ran up to the bar, kicked it hard and pop! Up came a big red button that she immediately smashed.

  I’ve overrode it for now, but it’s only a matter of time until they get it working again.”

  “How?! Nothing has come through the door right?” Cale asked, his head swiveling back and forth between Maggy and the silver door.

  “The door only leads into this room, once it escaped the local connection, it can travel freely anywhere out there.” She explained as she motioned towards his soul.

  Cale’s eyes were wide as he imagined some random bots out doing damage to his soul. “Can you kill it in time?” He asked her.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  She looked over at the Soal Rider and nodded her head. “I can kill it in time. The override I put in place is not easy to bypass, but Cale, you can’t kill the one coming through the door. You will have to distract it until I can get back.”

  He looked over at the door, the face of the beast was now pressed against it, making it look like demonic spawn. Maggy took her hammer and slammed it into the face pressing against the surface, resetting the invader’s progress, but not stopping it.

  “Go, Maggy. This is my soul. I will protect it.” He said, determination in his voice.

  Cale had to give it to her, she didn’t hesitate, she didn’t argue. Maggy just moved. Within seconds, she had mounted her ride and was nothing but a spec in Cale’s view.

  Putting his trust in her, he turned his attention back to the doorway. While he had looked away, and with Maggy not here to help, the head had fully pushed through the door. He tried to push the face backward, like Maggy had done with her hammer, but his efforts were in vain and it looked like the rest of it would be in the room with him soon.

  Cale backed away, as the face fully pushed itself through the doorway. Slirr…Pop!

  The doorway made a gross noise as the invading bot forcefully pulled its entire being through the door using the hole it had created. The cybernetic flesh and metal combination was peppered across the entire bot. Its head had no skin or metal covering its cheeks, which revealed sharp metallic teeth. It’s eyes... its eyes were very familiar, very purple, without a hint of emotion behind them. It stood up and it towered over Cale as its head almost touched the top of Cale’s soul lounge.

  Not wasting any time, and refusing to be held by fear, Cale grabbed one of the lamps in the room and rushed the invader. The beast opened its mouth and gnashed its teeth, swiping at Cale at he approached. He ducked underneath and slammed the lamp against the beast’s body. To his dismay, the lamp shattered in his hands, turning into little motes of light, not even leaving a scratch on his opponent.

  “Aaah!” he screamed as the beast swiped its claws against his back, throwing him partially across the room.

  Cale stood up and shook it off. The pain hurt, but it was nothing like when he fought the Red Terror. The invader rushed him, the purple eyes moving about creepily as they focused on him, its opponent. Cale barely had time to react after he recovered, he leaned backward as claws swiped a hair’s width away from him, time seemed to slow down as his eyes focused on the metallic claws swinging past his face.

  He swung his body to the left and rolled underneath the other arm, slamming his fists into one of the creatures leg joints. The beast screamed, and Cale found himself smiling. He rolled backward, dodging another slash. He turned and grabbed a chair from behind him and threw it directly into the beast’s face. It shattered to pieces and didn’t do any damage, but it blocked Cale from the beast’s view long enough that he was able to rush up and get in a few more punches before pulling back.

  To his dismay, he noticed that any damage he did, the beast was fixing immediately. Seeing that he may be in over his head, he glanced at the empty hanger where the Soul Rider resided and hoped Maggy was doing better than he was.

  That’s when the beast suddenly lost interest in Cale, and seemed to realize that Cale couldn’t hurt it. To his horror, he watched the beast turn his attention away, and started to head toward the center of his lounge.

  “No!” Cale yelled, but it was too late, the beast reached the center counter and raked a claw along its side. Cale watched in horror as a long crack appeared on the outer windows of his lounge and a high screeching sound came in from all sides. He had to do something!

  With no other choice, he sprinted toward the beast, who didn’t even bother to stop him. It left itself wide open as Cale rammed his shoulder into it, in an attempt to get it away. Only the beast didn’t budge. Pain shot through Cale’s back as the invader pierced his body with its fingers and held Cale up like a bowling ball. It threw him across the room, causing arcs of agony to shoot through his body.

  The pain hurt, it really did, but it did something important. It reminded Cale of his final battle with the Red Terror. He had felt something that day, a resonance within him, and he wondered if he could do that again. After all, he didn’t know how long he had, but something was holding Maggy up and it was up to him to get rid of this invader. He took a deep breath, calming himself as he thought about the last moments of his fight. He replayed what he could remember in his head, and brought forth the feeling he knew was hidden down within him.

  He picked himself up and walked over to the beast, who gave him a half hazard swipe with one hand while it used the other to beat on the bar, causing more cracks to appear on his lounge. He ducked, and exhaled as he threw a punch into the hip of the creature.

  Crack! He heard.

  He smiled as he saw crooked lines appear on the skin of the beast. After a few more times bouncing in and out, getting a hit in here and there, he could tell that his strikes seemed to have a weight to them. Like something was under the surface and needed to be pulled out. He envisioned his fists being heavy, like they were made of solid steel, and he punched again. A crack, larger than before, suddenly appeared on the invader.

  The beast gave him more attention this time, but Cale could feel himself getting in the zone, and he dodged retaliation swipes with ease. A few more punches in and Cale could tell that he was on to something. The beast had turned its full attention back to Cale, which required a lot of focus, but more importantly it was finally no longer doing damage to his soul lounge.

  Snap! Snap!

  He heard the noise come from behind him as he ducked under the head of the beast while it snapped its jaws at him. It was trying to grab him, but its size was working against it as Cale was able to move under its legs and throw his fists into the beast’s crotch.

  After a few rounds, Cale suddenly recalled why this feeling was so familiar. Yes, it felt a lot like what was happening when he fought the Red Terror, but it also reminded him of what he felt when he had synchronized with his wind script.

  He thought about the weight he could feel in his hands and wondered if maybe that was an incorrect feeling, maybe it wasn’t a weight he was feeling, but pressure. He crouched below another swipe as he considered this. Could he use a script inside his own soul? Did he even need an interface if he did it here? Cale wasn’t sure, but it felt like he was on the edge of a breakthrough and he wanted to see it through.

  Another swipe came at him from his side, this time when he ducked, he used his arm to push underneath the creature’s own and forced it out of position. He let the feeling rush through him, his memories of him training with his script replaying in his mind like he was there all over again.

  “Willpower, Focus, Intent,” he whispered to himself as he imagined a blade attached to his arm from his wrist to his elbow. The weight behind his hands moved, and spread out along his entire arm. He remembered how it felt when a script flowed through his body, and he swung his arm outward in a slashing motion, his forearm slamming into the beast causing it to stager for the first time in this battle.

  Cale jumped back and eyed up the area he had hit. The beast was still intact, but this time, a large cut appeared on its side, and it wasn’t going away. Cale smiled a predatory smile, he knew he could win now.

  Maggy

  She pushed the Soul Rider as fast it would go back toward Cale’s Soul Lounge. It had been foolish to let Cale fight that thing alone, especially when he couldn’t actually kill it. But they didn’t have many options, and Cale had given her a command, one she was compelled to follow.

  The foreign entity had been a lot stronger than what she had originally calculated. She easily distracted it from activating the connection to the Greater Network, but killing it was a whole other matter. The foreign invader was actually a two part piece of malware, with two merged cores, acting as one individual and she needed to destroy both cores at the same time before she could kill it. Her battle had been vicious and she had new scars on her armor to prove it, as well as a notch in her hammer to mark her kill.

  She flew into the lounge, barely slowing down enough to stick the landing and she rushed into the room with her hammer raised, ready to finish the job. But she rushed into a room of nothing. There was no Cale and there was nothing trying to kill her.

  She could see that fighting had definitely occurred, furniture was spread all over the place and cracks on the walls revealed that the battle had been a hard one and Cale had not succeeded in keeping the intruder away from bar.

  “Cale?” she yelled out warily, feeling like she was walking into a trap. “Are you there?”

  “Maggy, you finally made it back!” She heard a familiar voice from behind the counter.

  “Cale, what happened here?”

  He stood up from behind the bar with a large smile on his face. “Oh, well turns out I am able to damage things in here if I act like I am using a script. Who knew!?” he said to her, as he put his hands up in the air. “Anyways, I’ve been hanging out behind the bar, I wanted to wait until you got back to make sure nothing else tries to break in.”

  Maggy just stared at him, she didn’t know what to say. Nothing he said should have been possible.

  “Hey, I am pretty sure my mom is back and I need to go say hi. Can you double check the stuff we transferred over? I would feel better knowing if there are any more of those things hiding in there, you know?”

  “Yeah. No problem. I’ll handle it.” She said as she watched him disappear moments later, leaving her alone, and very confused.

  When he left, the bartender bot came out of its little cubby behind the bar and warily peeked over the counter.

  “It’s safe now. You can come out.” She coaxed it as it warily rose from under the counter. “Did you see what happened in here?” she asked.

  It bobbed and rotated itself up and down to signify yes and held out a tiny digital pad. She grabbed it from him and the bot zoomed away, back to its hidey hole.

  She transferred the video to her own memory and then left the room to go check on the rest of the files as Cale had asked. It took her about an hour to thoroughly check everything and she ended up finding three other trapped files and folders that contained the foreign invaders.

  After turning her opponents to scrap, she ended up earning six more marks on her hammer which gave her a bonus function where she could now see weak points in this type of enemy. A benefit of her hammers ability to dismantle and repair things.

  When she finished up, she sat on her Soul Rider, hovering near the file storage units, not quite ready to go back to the Soul Lounge. She didn’t think there were any more of those invaders left, but she wanted to keep a close eye on this sector while Cale was actively perusing through some of the files just in case she missed something.

  Finally, having a calm moment, she pulled out the video she had gotten from the bartender bot and played it in her helmet’s visor. The video the bot gave her started at the point where she had left the soul lounge to stop the other invader, leaving Cale alone. She clenched her hammer with worry as she watched Cale fight the beast and gasped as she saw him being thrown across the room like cheap furniture.

  But when Cale stood back up, she noticed the video footage seemed fuzzy around him. She quickly ran a diagnostics on the video to see if something was corrupted or damaged, but the results came back clean. The video had no corruption or modifications.

  Confused, she continued to watch Cale fight, and the longer he fought the blurrier he became. Soon she noticed that Cale’s strikes were causing a decent amount of damage, and the invading bot’s restoring ability became slower and slower.

  Somehow Cale was damaging his opponent and the code that made it, something that should be impossible, but she remembered that it wasn’t the first time she had seen this. The Red Terror had taken a beating from Cale and she had still yet to fully repair it. Parts of it had been damaged so badly that entire sections of the Red Terror’s code had been erased.

  She continued to watch as Cale’s strikes suddenly turned into slashes and with wide eyes she watched as the tide of the battle completely changed. Now Cale’s strikes were completely destroying limbs, causing the creature to cut off its own appendages to get them to regenerate.

  She noticed the smile on Cale’s face appear as he hit another limb, causing the beast to stumble, and its jaws gnash up in the air as if in pain. She couldn’t peel her eyes away as she watched Cale turn a nasty piece of malware, cores and all, into a chopped pile of trash.

  With the battle over she saw Cale’s shoulders relax and with no warning, the video flashed pure white, hiding everything from view before dissipating slowly. When the video came back into focus, Cale was no longer blurry and it looked like he hadn’t seen the white light.

  The flash of light was something new to her, but it looked familiar… She had seen it many times when she was installing his interface, albeit never like this. She loaded in the schematic of her original build of Cale’s interface, and then compared it to how it looked now.

  “By Helioni’s lower beard…” she said as she stared at both images, comparing the differences. Cale had a new script.