Circuit Breaker

Chapter One: The Note That Isolation Plays

Jade Harley was not one to stay up late. This fact oftentimes baffled some of her friends—after all, she lived alone on an island with her dog and didn't exactly have to get up and go to school. She didn't have any early morning obligations, really, aside from feeding Bec. The truth was that she had little to do late at night. Her friends lived in time zones much different than hers, so they were usually all asleep when it might only be a little late for her. It was better, in her opinion, to sleep when they were gone and wake up when they came back, even if it meant getting up at a time her friends might deem to be ridiculously early.

It was for that reason that she was startled when she glanced at the time and found that it was eight-o-clock. To her, that was exceptionally late, especially since she woke up at 2 to talk to John before he went to school. She'd only missed the time because she was talking to Dave. Her lunchtop's projection of their conversation hung in red and green above her head. She frowned at it before she began typing again.

GG: dave do you realize what time it is?

TG: what isnt it like 8 over on devilbeast island

GG: exactly! and thats 2 your time!

TG: point being

GG: daaaave you have school tomorrow D:

TG: nothing important going on

TG: seriously it sounds like youre trying to be my mom

TG: youre only two days older than me that does not grant you a mothering license

GG: im just trying to look out for you! jeez

TG: seriously harley dont worry about it

GG: okay! if you say so

GG: whoa what?

Jade paused in her conversation again when she heard a strange noise from outside. It had stopped almost as quickly as it started, but as she listened, she heard it start up again. She could only describe it as the sound of machinery, and even that recognition was only from videos and cartoons she had watched growing up. She lived on a deserted island. There was nothing like work crews repairing a street here. There weren't even any other humans.

That was what worried her.

TG: whoa wait what

TG: is your dog doing some kind of bizarre ass trick again

TG: teleporting or whatever

TG: i swear to god jade that thing should be dead by now

TG: dogs dont fucking live that long and they dont teleport

GG: dave! dont say that about bec :(

GG: and anyway this has nothing to do with him

GG: ill be right back

Jade closed her Squiddle lunchtop before Dave could reply again, but as soon as she did, she heard Pesterchum alerting her of a new message, several times. She'd get back to him as soon as she found out what was going on.

The truth was that the noise made Jade really, really nervous. The sounds of machinery like that could only come from humans, and if humans were on the island… It was a change she wasn't expecting. For a while when she was younger, just after her grandpa died, she had been worried that someone would appear and take her away from the island and away from Bec. She hadn't been sure she could stand all that, especially after dealing with the grief of her grandfather's death. Now, she viewed the idea differently. She was sixteen, after all. She was considered an adult in many societies. She could, conceivably, take care of herself. She had been for ten years.

What scared her was who those humans might be. She wasn't completely naïve. She knew that not all people were nice. She just didn't have the social experience to be able to tell a nice person from a person pretending to be nice. If someone had found the island and was suddenly doing some kind of weird excavation project on it, she had a feeling they weren't going to be very nice. They might even want anyone living on the island silenced. Not that Jade couldn't take care of herself if she had to. She had more guns than she knew what to do with, as a sort of heirloom from her grandfather, and she was very good at using most of them. The problem was that she'd never shot a living thing before.

Humans, aside from her three best friends, just brought into play all kinds of complications she didn't want to deal with. Unfortunately, it didn't look like Jade would have much choice. After a long moment of hesitation, and a chorus of alerts from Pesterchum, she finally took a look out the window.

Jade immediately knew something was different. The island was usually pitch black at night, illuminated only by the stars and the moon. Tonight was different. Near the ruins in the lake not too far from her house, she saw lights. That, she thought, was where the noise was coming from. Even more disturbing was the fact that the stars above seemed to be blackened out by something huge looming over her island. A long tube descended from its bottom side, landing on the ground near the site with the lights. She certainly saw movement out there.

Jade bit her lip. That shadow had to be some kind of ship. Her grandpa had had a similar one, but she didn't know whether or not that was normal. Grandpa Jake wasn't normal in a lot of ways, after all. She'd never thought to ask where he'd gotten it. The only other explanation she could come up with was aliens, and that was a bit too bizarre for her to even try to believe.

Her mind was settled before she had even fully thought about it. She had to go out and see what was going on and try to find out if whoever was making all this noise planned on bothering her. She couldn't sleep or relax until she was sure. She hesitated only for a moment to wonder whether or not to tell Dave what was going on, since she had been talking to him, but she opted against it. Better he didn't know or worry about her. He'd ever admit he was worrying, but Jade liked to think that she knew him a little better than that.

Jade grabbed her shotgun, slung it over one shoulder, and headed downstairs. It was easier than she was expecting to sneak out, in spite of the time. Bec was nowhere to be found, which worried her almost as much as the sounds and figures from outside. He could take care of himself, but the fact that he was gone suggested to her that he felt the need to protect her. She hoped he didn't hurt anyone.

The island was very different late at night. Jade wasn't used to it—she rarely went out after nightfall, and when she did, it wasn't for very long. It was only at night that she felt truly afraid and alone on her island, and that night was no different. After the sun had set, a chill wind had picked up. It tousled her long black hair and tugged at her white shirt and skirt, making her shiver from nerves and the cold. Jade pushed her round glasses a little farther up her nose in a vain attempt to see better in the dark. Her heart in her throat, she made her way towards the lights.

As she drew closer, the sound of machinery grew louder. Jade was sure that they weren't even trying to muffle the sound, either. If they had noticed her house, they didn't care about alerting her. What was more, she could see now that the lighted area was a huge excavation site. They had accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. The hole they were working in was already deeper than she was tall, and it looked huge. It almost made Jade wonder if they had been working much longer than she had realized, and she simply hadn't noticed the noise until she'd had the presence of mind to check the time. Forms worked in it, digging for something, and they were illuminated by artificial lights. When she saw what the forms were, she immediately took cover behind a bunch of bushes, though it didn't make her feel any safer.

The workers were, for lack of a better term, giant robots that looked like they had been taken straight from one of her animes. They were mostly purple, with dark gray joints. Some, she noted, were bulkier, with wheels on their shoulders, while others were slimmer, with what almost reminded her of jet wings protruding from their backs. They all, however, had a red crooked line on their faces in place of eyes. The sight of them made Jade feel even more nervous. She supposed they could be made by humans, but something told her that the case was otherwise. She wasn't sure what these robots were doing here, but the sight of them seemed to confirm her fears. Something was going on, and she was about to be thrust into the middle of it.

Her thoughts were disrupted when she heard a commotion from outside the halo of artificial lights. She followed the noise until she finally saw sparks of green briefly illuminating parts of one of the strange robots. She caught a flash of white as well, just before it disappeared and reappeared shortly after. Bec had taken it upon himself to try to subdue the robots.

For all his abnormal abilities, Jade could tell that Bec was getting nowhere. He was doing little more than disorienting the robot, but Jade could see now that some of the ones in the pit were dropping their tools and beginning to make their way to the scene of the fight. He was going to be overwhelmed if she didn't do something. Ignoring that part of common sense that told her there wasn't anything she could do against giant robots anyway, not with just a shotgun, she left her hiding spot and ran towards Bec.

It was sheer luck that the robot stumbled into the light. If it hadn't, Jade might not have seen the opening she was looking for. As it was, the robot fell to one knee, and she could easily see its torso and head, including the fact that what looked like wires connected its head and the rest of its body. The gap in its external armor was small, but if she could get a bullet into it…

Once she was close enough, Jade stopped and aimed. It only took a moment, but to Jade, it seemed to take an hour before she could finally decide on a good spot. She pulled the trigger.

The robot didn't know what hit it. The bullet struck its neck straight on, and it gurgled once before falling backwards. Jade wasn't sure if she had "injured" it or simply killed it, but she wasn't going to stick around and find out. The noise the gun made when it fired was not quiet. The other robots were staring straight at her, and she wasn't sure she could hit all of them in the same spot. Instead, she did the only thing she could think of.

She turned and ran.

As it turned out, running was pretty pointless. The robots had much longer strides, and it didn't help that their combined footsteps actually made the ground shake, nearly knocking her off balance a few times. She wasn't even halfway back to her house when she glanced backwards and saw one of the robots looming above her. She gasped in panic as its foot rose over her, apparently intending to smash her with it, when a flash of green and white appeared on its face. Both disappeared a moment later.

Bec had gotten a new idea, or a semi new idea. He had teleported her back to her room before, after all. She gasped with relief, but she knew she wasn't ready to celebrate yet. Three more of the robots were still after her.

That was when, just a few yards away, a green portal opened up. She had no idea how, or why, but in the situation she was in, she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Putting on an extra burst of steam, she ran all out towards it.

She didn't even pause when more robots appeared out of it. She ran between them, barely dodging their feet and only distantly acknowledging the fact that they looked nothing like the ones she had just seen. All she had on her mind was the portal and the safety she hoped it would provide.

Just as she slipped past, it closed behind her.