Virgil
Log. 00.000.01
A sliver; A small crack in the air that made a vertical horizon amidst the walls of solid steel and broken machinery. Deserted catwalks and carbon eating insects lined the walls to the top. There was a stagnant air, a mix of loneliness and blood yet there were no corpses, there was nothing. Artificial rays climbed over the opening in the chasm and they slowly crept down the walls and spread over a catwalk that sketched from one side of the giant metal chasm to the other.
A pair of violet eyes looked up at the vertical horizon. "The orb has arrived, we move …" said a teenager in a monotonous voice. She started to walk toward the other end of the catwalk and paused, looking over the edge at the miles and miles of darkness below. Her mind wondered. What exactly was down there? "Raven!" a voice from behind her called out. She regained her focus and turned around to look at a tall lanky boy with wild blonde hair and blue eyes. "Yes?" she asked, staring him down.
"If we don't get moving the silicon creatures will find us." He said. Raven said nothing and continued down the catwalk, a hollow clank accompanying her every footstep. There was a young teen behind Alex. His skin was a deep brown, and his eyes red like a rose. His hair was black and tied into a ponytail that fell just short of his thigh. "When are we going to eat?" he complained, holding his stomach and cringing as it growled. "You're going to have to wait Sarx." Alex was tired of hearing him ask the same question over and over.
Raven took a left at the end of the catwalk, revealing a large corridor lined with giant machines that looked similar a pair of skinny legs jogging. Above each of the "legs" was a giant clear canister filled with green liquid. There were eight of their giant monstrosities on each side of a large bridge with was suspended over a eight thousand foot sheer fall into darkness. The bridge itself was a cobalt blue and about a hundred feet across and had railings stretching about twenty feet to keep organisms from touching the giant machines.
The group continued their walk, managing to transverse the bridge in three hours. The leader, Raven, made another left turn which revealed another long corridor. This time there was nothing to occupy the walls, just a narrow hallway, walls made of a mixture of steel, concrete and some bioluminescent substance. Alex spoke up. "Where exactly are we" he said looking around at the black walls that surrounded him, Sarxous, and Raven. "Assuming we left that human village fifty years ago, I'd assume we're close to the megastructure." Sarxous frowned. "You said that two months ago." He sighed deeply.
The corridor opened up about five miles later and revealed another large chasm that led to darkness and a high cliff made of mechanical components in the distance. A narrow, oddly shaped bridge composed of wires and thin copper plating. Raven looked off toward the bridge. She started to walk in that direction. "Stop." Sarxous was looking straight up. "There is a builder traveling downwards at 699 mph and increasing, it will crash in the vicinity of the bridge," he said. "Estimated impact time, two minutes" Raven sucked her teeth annoyingly. "What type is it?" "An active area version, 2 miles wide, 2 miles long" responded Sarxous. "….What could that be doing here?" Raven said under her breath. "Quickly, destroy it."
Sarxous stepped in front of Raven and closed his eyes, falling into deep concentration. A upside down cross with the inside ends of the horizontal line cut off burned deep into his forehead. His entire skeletal structure was instantaneously deleted and reconstructed so he was four feet taller than his normal 5'3, covered in a skin tight organic substance and both his arms turned to long rectangles, each with circular openings at the ends. His vision changed, displaying information about his surroundings, and instantly began searching for eye retinas.
Sarxous looked up upward, adjusting the resolution of his view to focus through the mist and onto the eye of the falling builder. He aimed one of his arms ahead of the builder but still in it's trajectory and fired a thin beam if light. The builder, looking like a blur on it's way down connected with the beam and exploded several times. Smoke rose hundreds of stories before sending a rain of oil and metal shards downward. The beam however continued until it made it's way through several layers of the "city" wall and finally generated a mass explosion, destroying a large portion of the wall and created a hole thirty nine miles deep.
Sarxous lowered his weapon. There was an awkward silence. "Let's get moving" Raven said, starting her walk toward the bridge. The bridge was old. Some of the copper plating had fallen off, exposing the fiber wires inside which were badly burned. In some places the bridge had buckled at a forty-five degree angle and at others it sloped downwards into a white mist. The end of it was far off, but the group trudged on, saying not a word. Through corridors and climbing sheer mechanized cliffs, their only partner; the everlasting silence.
Another hallway, at the end it opened up to a vast open staircase and a small cavity in the left wall. Alex approached the wall. A Humanoid torso lye inside, nothing but bone and a long cylinder necklace in front of it. Alex picked it up. It started to glow and spoke. "What are you doing?" it said in a smooth voice. "An old OS?" he placed the prism between his index finger and thumb and examined it more. "I am not old!" Alex glared at the prism, sighing and attaching it to a piece a string and throwing it over his neck.
"I've been waiting for someone to come along" the prism said. "What happened to your body?" Alex asked bluntly. "Silicon creature got me good…" it trailed off. "What was it after" Alex asked, starting to walk toward his now distance group. He made it to the base of the stairs and leapt ten flights up, landing on a railing next to Raven. He slipped down and started walking behind her at his normal pace. "Just a couple of hostiles that all…" The group returned to silence…..
Hours later their journey ended when they emerged from a steel cavern to look out at a immense city. The city was surrounded by enormous walls that made it look like it was buried in the center of a crater. Raven's eye swirled, focusing on the other side of the "cater". "Estimated traveling time….12, 504 hours." She said. "Look like a port society…" Alex said. "Which one of you will go down there and investigate?"