-Prisoners-

K knew where they'd be, that part was easy. The twins were managed with a ruthlessly immaculate schedule, and K suspected that the higher-ups did not trust their intellectual capacity with any agency over their time. She was fairly certain that their allotted periods as her test pilots were marked as 'playtime'.

Equally simple would be her excuse to meet with them; there were some questions regarding adjustments to the bio-series hardware, and she would need to interview them about their experiences to make more accurate modifications. It was not the first time K had needed to make follow-up inquiries, and likely none would think anything of her intrusion. Her main concern was still ensuring that those running the Soup remained unaware of her schemes, and that meant choosing her instructions and her words carefully.

The last thing K wanted was the two idiots letting something slip without realizing it.

Striding down the hall, K approached the sealed doors and flashed her card, permitting her entry to see that Gem and Gemma had finished their physical conditioning. The Trainer turned their head, a simple man who certainly seemed to have more outer muscle than inner. His cracked voice suggested that more than a few brain cells were missing, likely from some repeated infant trauma to the cranium. And he was always just so damn happy! It was as if he took some sickening pleasure in watching his wards exert themselves to their absolute limit.

"Doctor!" he always seemed delighted to see her, despite her neither expressing a desire for physical exercise nor having it required by her schedule. "Here to question your illustrious trial pilots?"

"Yes," K said flatly, "I require the usage of Ranger Operators Gold and Silver, I need to test if there are any delayed impacts on their cognitive functions following yesterday's exposure to the Biofield. Given the physical nature of the operations, I believe post-exercise is the optimal time for these calibrations."

The Trainer merely cocked his head, pushing his body's asymmetry to extremes. There was always something about that man that unnerved her, more than merely the fact that his purview was an activity she detested. His back was hunched, his head reaching forward with his right eye bulging slightly larger than the other. It was as if he'd been taken from his skin and put back in a sheath that was too small. But after a moment, he smiled, bringing his misshapen and squashed teeth on full display.

"Well," he said. "Those words sure didn't mean a lot to me. But sure thing; you can borrow them!"

As K nodded and turned her attention to the twin operators, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity. It made her wonder what had happened to the man to make him so, and a chill ran along her spine as she realized that the Soup itself was likely responsible. K pushed the churning idea aside, refocusing on her mission to deal with Gem and Gemma.

The twins were winding down, both in the metallic trimmed jumpsuits that helped their bodies stay warm after training. Gem was still bouncing, bleeding off remaining energy with an almost frightening grin, whilst beside him, Gema was pulling her arm across her chest in an effort to further stretch the shoulder. Both of them lit up as they watched her approach.

Gem was the first to speak, "Hiya…"

"…K!" finished Gemma. "What can we…"

"… do for you?"

K would have thought she'd have gotten used to it by now, the way the two bodies spoke as one. And yet, while their rhythm was something she easily fell into, K still had no idea which one to look at as she addressed them. May as well give up on eye contact altogether.

"Gem, Gemma," she said to them. "I require your assistance with my calibrations. I will need you to conduct a series of exercises for me. I have calculated the route required to properly assess your exertion and will be asking you to conduct a series of mental tasks while you move. Do you understand?

Both nodded enthusiastically with their big dopey grins, eager to please and way too excited. But K supposed that was why no one would question what she was about to do.

"All right," K told them, pulling up the clipboard from under her arm. "I need each of you to run laps around the complex, following the specific route I've calculated. While you are exerting yourselves, I will be testing your cognitive recall. Which means I want you to take note of the following specific things…"

-2 Hours to Judgement Day-

Kyle, Wes, and Dana descended into the darkness, moving swiftly but determined to keep up their façade. It may not have been much, but the stolen outer skins of the Cyclobots could well buy them precious moments if they were captured. Nevertheless, they kept their weapons drawn, primed, and ready for if they were discovered. What unnerved Kyle the most was the length of their descent, more and more stairs spiraling down into an ever-growing abyss. Wherever this place was, it was far from a standard regulation army base.

At last, they reached the bottom, greeted only by a singular bulkhead. Watching to make sure his teammates were covering, Wes reached out and tried it, and it pushed open with eery ease. What met them was a long, metal hallway, dimly lit and lined with doors. Doors that each had only a single window with bars lining the gap.

"Think this is the place?" Dana asked dryly, although her tone was only partially sarcastic. They sure looked like cells, but the ensuring realization still chilled them. If Eric wasn't here, then his holdings were likely far worse.

"Move quick and quiet," Wes instructed. "If Eric's not here, then we don't want anyone alerted."

Both of them nodded as they began to creep, neither inclined to disagree as Wes moved behind to cover them. With such a narrow corridor and only one avenue of retreat, they'd be fish in a barrel if they were caught. Pistol raised high, Kyle moved along the right as he peered into the first cell. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

While human in shape, half its face had been replaced, a conforming sheet of metal encasing the right of the skull from scalp to jaw, their eye replaced with a blinking red light. The head whipped around as Kyle's cyclopean helmet peered through bars, the remaining human side trembling with fear and horror as they recoiled.

Behind him, Dana stifled a scream. It was the same thing in the cell she'd looked into.

"What did they do them?" she gasped. "How… why…?"

"Looks like it's more than just their soldiers being converted to machines," Wes realized, nodding for the two to keep moving.

"You don't seem as surprised," Kyle noted. "Were you expecting this?"

"No," said Wes. "But I know the kind of people who could imagine doing this. Or at least, I used to."

"Used to?"

Wes nodded. "They were destroyed when Jen and the others came back for me. They're the same person that made those giant mechs we saw in the depot, the same person that helped concoct the chemical that converted humans into Cyclobots."

"But if they're dead, does that mean someone else is carrying on with their work?"

Wes half-shrugged, half-nodded in admittance of his uncertainty. "Anyone that worked with Ranisk was taken back to the Year 3000," he explained. "But if Frax hid his research anywhere and it was found by the wrong people, well… I guess he's no longer around to warn us. And he and Ranisk weren't exactly on sharing terms by the end of it."

"This looks way more advanced than what you described of Frax though," Dana noted, continuing to peer into the cells. The revulsion still sludged through every syllable, but her tone carried an air of morbid, professional curiosity. "The chemical you described converted human bodies into machinery, and Frax was a human mind transferred into a robot body. But this looks like the parts have been physically grafted onto the flesh. It's like they're trying to integrate the hardware directly."

"But why do that?" Wes asked. "Why bother with partial integration if you can already perform a full conversion or transfer?"

Although as Wes sounded question, a thought emerged from the depths of Kyle's mind. A chilling tale he'd been told when he'd raced to follow the Data Squad Rangers into the future. Of a strategy that Venjix employed to bring down Corinth; human-machine hybrids.

Sleeper agents.

It seemed they had their origin in the base too.

"I think we better pick up the pace and find Eric," Kyle decided. "Fast."

His companions were inclined to agree, swiftly looking through the last few cells before making it to the door at the very end. It was when they reached it that a voice sounded behind them, making them jump as it ricocheted off the walls and echoed in all directions.

"Wait! Come back!"

The three of them froze, the sharp voice piercing the silence as they whipped around their blasters on reflex.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" the voice cried, panic rising as it heard the cocking pistols. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Kyle looked to Wes, whose helm was fixed on the cell window the voice had come from. Stay or go, it was Wes' call. Whoever this was, they could possibly offer something useful. But staying any longer would also only put them at further risk. Wes must have thought it worth it, his robotic helm nodding toward the cell in agreement. Creeping carefully, Kyle pulled his off for a closer look and stepped to peer through the window.

"Hello?"

The occupant popped up to the bars, and it took all Kyle's training to stop him from shrieking and leaping back. It wasn't the surprise that had made him jump, it was what greeted him. Their face was orange and scaled, flowing back into a hardened mane of muted thorns. Their face was flattened into a strange, beak-like snout and their eyes peered back at Kyle with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

"Oh my God!" Dana gasped behind him. "What do they do to him?"

"Hey!" the creature snapped. "I don't go around telling you humans about how disgusting you look. I've been living in a cell, give me a break!"

Kyle shot a look to his companions, both of whom were also removing their helms to take a closer, unimpeded look.

"I know, I know," the creature replied, stepping back at the window and seeming to lap up the sudden attention. "The time in these confines has not done wonders to my beauty, but I can assure you that in better light you too would appreciate the Adonis before you."

"You… always look like this?" Wes asked cautiously.

"Do you always talk to people not from around here like that?" the prisoner scoffed before stepping back with a flourish. "The name's Piggy. Now, let's talk about getting me out of here."

Kyle shot a look to the door; looked like keycard access. They could try blasting it to see if the fried circuits would trigger a lock shutdown, but it could just as easily seal him in. If Doc were with them, he'd probably have the creature out in seconds. But without the keycard or the means to bypass it, Piggy was stuck for the time being.

"If they didn't do anything to you," Dana asked. "Why are you here?"

"Beats me," Piggy admitted. "One minute, I'm diving for delicacies in the dumpsters of Briarwood, next I know some weirdos in those helmets jump out of a van and throw me in. Suddenly, I'm sitting here, not so much as a rotting peel to give me comfort. The least they could have done was put me near the disposal unit."

All three shared nervous glances, uncertain of what to make of him. At the very least, they knew one thing; taking him with them would only slow them down. But this was still an opportunity…

Kyle stepped back, leaning to Wes and Dana in a hushed whisper.

"What're you thinking?" Dana asked in a hushed whisper. "Mutant?"

"I was going to ask if he was a demon," Wes admitted. "I'm pretty sure all mutants that came with Ransik were accounted for when we sent them back to the future."

"He said he came from Briarwood," Kyle pointed out. "Maybe he's one of their weird forest creatures?"

"Whatever he is," said Dana. "It doesn't tell us why they've got him here in the first place."

"Or if he's friend or foe," agreed Wes.

"He-llo?" Piggy called out from his cell. "I'm still waiting for you to get me out here!"

"It's locked," Kyle explained, turning back to the door. "But we might able to find a way to get it open…"

"Well, what're you waiting for?" Piggy demanded. "Go find it!"

"…if you help us out."

Piggy took a step back, face dropping from a demanding scowl to one of serious consideration. "Ah, a man of business," he mused. "I can respect that. I too have grand dreams of success in commerce. I can agree to a trade for my freedom."

"A man was taken down here," said Wes. "But he's not in the cells. Do you have any idea where he was taken?"

"Hmm," Piggy mused, nodding toward the far-end doors. "I remember them dragging someone down here not too long ago. They took him out that way."

"We put that much together ourselves," Kyle pressed. "Where would they have taken him?"

"Hmmm," Piggy pondered. "Whenever they took me out, it was always through to the labs."

"They took you to a lab?" Dana inquired. "What did they do to you there?"

"Not much," admitted Piggy. "Not compared to everyone else. Just scanned me and took my blood. You'd think they'd never have seen an alien before."

Still, as he said it, Kyle noted a shudder in his voice, like Piggy was all too aware of the fate that he had, until now, avoided. That being in the room had still given him a front-row seat to the fate of others.

"Do you think you could show us where they took you?" asked Wes.

"Of course!" Piggy replied, tapping the side of his head. "My mind is like a steel trap; once something's in there, it's there for good!"

The trio shared one last look of uncertainty before Wes gave the affirming order. "All right," he decided. "Bust him out of there."

If they could bust him out. Kyle had to hope the old-fashioned trick would do it, or else they were about to make a lot of noise for little payoff.

"Might want to stand back," he warned, more for his teammates than the captive. Piggy stood back nonetheless as Kyle leveled the pistol at the control panel and squeezed the trigger. Light flashed from the barrel, the lock shattering in a rain of sparks as the fragments scattered smoking to the floor. The sharp shrill of the pistol echoed outwards, jolting him as pieced the waiting silence. Then the door slid open, and Piggy danced out into the corridor with glee.

"Now," Kyle warned, eyes flicking down the smoking barrel. "Your end of things."

"Of course," Piggy replied, almost bowing as he gestured to the doorway. "Step this way."

"Hang on," Dana warned. "Let me take a look first."

As Wes and Kyle watched like hawks, the Lightspeed Ranger quickly examined their new companion.

"So, what's the verdict, doctor?" Piggy asked. "Have I come down with a terminal case of irresistible?"

Dana almost gagged in disgust before recomposing and turning to her squad mates. "Kyle?" she decided. "How hard would it be to put him back in the cell?"

"My blaster would probably be part of the solution," he admitted. "Or you could do the honors."

"Whoa whoa whoa, let's not be hasty!" Piggy backtracked. "I'm sure there's no need for any of that."

"Then you might want to keep your thoughts to yourself," Dana warned. "Or else my examination might become a post-mortem."

That one shut him right up, and moments later Dana had finished checking him for marks and scratches before turning to the others.

"What's the verdict?" Wes asked her.

"Hard to tell," Dana conceded, "I'm a Doctor, not a xenobiologist. I don't see too many signs of physical trauma, but given the nature of his scales, I'm not quite sure what I'd be looking for. But he seems well enough to move, and at least from my brief overview he's not showing any signs of internal damage."

"It'll do," Wes conceded, before nodding back at the alien. "Lead the way."

With a scaled orange alien taking point, their disguises were now worthless, and they left the helmets where they'd dropped them as they followed. Their blasters were raised and ready, fingers resting on the triggers.

For all of Piggy's squirming personality, Kyle was thankful they'd sprung him. The entire complex was a maze, and with no hope of navigating it themselves, they'd likely have wasted the rest of the clock just finding their way around. That was assuming Piggy was taking them the right way, and Kyle could only hope that the blaster barrels pointed in the alien's general direction were enough incentive to stay on the level.

Piggy took them down another hall and through a pair of doors, and with every turn Kyle was beginning to be more and more unnerved at how quiet it was.

"I don't like this," he warned the others. "We should have hit a patrol by now."

"No one comes down here," Piggy said over his shoulder. "They just bring us food and collect the prisoners when they're needed."

The trio shared another look, a silent question between them, an uncertain answer that sent chills crawling up Kyle's spine. If the base's personnel weren't here, where were they? Had they all really been converted into Cyclobots?

It couldn't be true; they'd seen that man up top. There had to be more of them, human minds still calling the shots. But as they walked the halls, hearing the dampened clanking of their boots against the metal floors, Kyle's doubts continued creeping deeper and deeper. It was like the entire facility was a ghost site. As if the only people present were the bare minimum needed to operate it.

They turned another corner, past an open doorway as Piggy carried them onwards. Kyle was about to follow, but some part of him stopped, a faintly illuminated opening that called out to his attention. Turning, Kyle peered past the ignored threshold at the contents of the room.

It was a lab, and on the tables were what looked like bodies covered in sheets.

"Wait," he said curtly but quietly. "We should check this out."

Kyle moved without waiting for confirmation, carefully strafing inside as Wes and Dana hurried back to cover him. As they vanished behind the doorway, he heard Piggy's hushed protests, equally scampering to catch up with his only protection. Kyle knew it was probably a bad idea, the likely cost of curiosity. Their time was short as it was, and every second they spent was longer Eric could be in peril. But they needed to know what their enemy was doing; on this base, in these labs. They needed to stop wandering in the dark.

Kyle reached the closest table, eying toward Wes and Dana to make sure they were covering. Then, with a consenting nod from Wes, he reached for the sheet and reefed it back.

It was an enormous, human automaton. Large in frame, with blocky, golden armor that jutted out the shoulders, covering some sort of protective weave that sat beneath the chunky breastplate. Its face, stocky with a heavyset jaw, was completely gold save for the two, dull red bulbs in place of its eyes.

And Kyle knew him.

When he'd followed the Data Squad team after they'd been thrown into the future, Kyle was shown the enemies threatening Corinth. While the Rangers had tangled with Venjix's infiltrator, Tenaya 7, the Gold and Silver RPM rangers had warned him of other threats. The oozing Kilobyte, the insane General Crunch. And General Shifter, the one most likely to one day challenge Venjix itself.

And here his body lay on the table before him.

"I've seen him before," Kyle told the others. "In the future. He's one of Venjix's Generals."

"That doesn't make sense," Wes reasoned, "you told us that the attack bots were all created by Venjix after it was unleashed. How could one of his Generals be here already if Venjix hasn't been activated?'

"I don't know," Kyle admitted, leaning closer to examine the robot. At the back of the head was a long, thick cable that went all the way into the floor. "But I'd bet it has something to do with this."

"Let's check the others," Dana suggested. "Maybe they can help shed some light on what they're up to."

"And better make it snappy," Piggy added, huddled by the door. "Don't want to be sniffing around if anyone important shows up."

With Dana covering, Kyle and Wes moved to the other tables and removed the sheets, revealing two more robotic forms. Crunch and Kilobyte.

"What the hell's going on here?" Dana cursed. "It's like they're already prepared for the future to happen."

"Uh… guys?"

Wes had made his way to the far end of the room, to where the long back cables had stretched to. Jaw clenching, he'd leveled the flashlight and blaster barrel at the figure on the wall as Kyle caught up. Strapped vertically to the strange device was a discarded robot body, mostly just the empty remains of armor save for the mess of wires protruding from severed limbs.

Its plating painting was black, save for a dull, red hexagon at the center of the chest, its broken helmet looking almost beetle-like with its cracked visor-eyes staring blankly at the floor.

"I know him," Wes said coldly. "He led the remnants of the Machine Empire, the ones that went to the moon to revive Serpenterra."

The very same robotic monstrosity whose lifeless corpse hung suspended from the ceiling in the depot, right next to the dug-up machinery from Silver Hills.

"I remember Carter telling me about him," Dana noted, only for her eyes to slowly widen with realization. "The General, what was he called?"

"Venjix," Wes replied, turning to the two of them with fresh horror in his eyes. "His name was General Venjix."

And now he was here, lying in pieces in a facility that would birth a new monster bearing its name, right on the eve of its rising. Even before they'd found the cells, all they'd seen was too much to dismiss as coincidence. Now, the correlations were piling up, far too numerous to ignore. But they were still missing something, something to explain what tied it all together.

They'd come looking for answers and instead only found more questions. Every inch they dug deeper, the more unsetting conclusion they'd draw from what they unearthed. First, the connections to Silver Hills, and then the moon mission, and now the appearance of robots that they'd have thought were yet to be created. They were here to stop an apocalypse, and somehow the rabbit hole was even deeper. Even weirder.

"Just what the hell is going on here?" Kyle breathed, turning from the splayed robot to take one final sweep before leaving it behind. But they'd spent enough time here, any further answers they could get once they'd found Eric. And yet, an enthralling curiosity compelled Kyle to look deeper.

Moving from the tables, Kyle approached the bench, seeing the computer terminal was still active. Whoever had been down here recently, clearly had no concern for others peeking at their work, and Kyle moved the mouse and began clicking through the files. He had no idea what he was looking for, nor how he'd find it if he did. But they needed something, anything to go off. As Kyle clicked through the files, a name caught his eyes, a name that stopped his heart as if ice had frozen his veins.

PROJECT CYRAX.

Gideon's control program, the very system that had made him a prisoner in his own body. And here was its coding, rolling right in front of him. They'd always wondered, where it was that Gideon had obtained a program as sophisticated as Cyrax, one that could be integrated into a prototype Ranger suit and take control of another's body. It had certainly not been a part of Project Digitizer, and they'd highly doubted Gideon was up to the task of building it himself. And they were right, he wasn't.

Because it had come from here. It was a product of Alphabet Soup.

It was like the ground had given way beneath him, the whole world spinning as Kyle staggered back and his hand slapped the table to stop him from stumbling further. No breath seemed enough, his vision narrowing to a tunnel-visioned blur as every limb ceased to do more than keep him upright.

Every night he relived it, the feeling of that thing crawling around in his mind. Feeling it puppet him, speak vile with his tongue. Rain destruction with his hands. He thought he could escape it by escaping Gideon, but that hadn't been enough. Then he'd decided that defeating his replacement, Mileena, would help him sleep. He'd hoped that destroying her for good would quell the restless nights, and when that failed, he'd hoped that bringing Gideon's rampage to an end would finally quell them.

But the dreams never stopped; they never would. His time as Cyrax was something that he would always carry, always haunt him. All because at one time, Project Digitizer shared a base with Alphabet Soup.

"Kyle?" Dana had moved to his side, her approach so calm and cautious that he hadn't even noticed. Her voice was soft, querying, but unexpectant. "Kyle, what're you thinking?"

"It was them…" was all he could bring himself to say, the words on the screen so consuming that was all his vision could process. The red letters, staring back, blinking.

"What was them?"

"Cyrax," he said, again the only words his brain could process and voice. "They made Cyrax. They gave it to Gideon. They… they did that to me…"

Dana asked him a question, and while his brain was too muffled to comprehend, Kyle still nodded in consent. A moment later, his registered what he'd agreed to as a comforting hand touched his shoulder; a soft grip of solidarity.

"Kyle," Dana said warmly. "I can't even begin to imagine what's going through your head, and I know that what Gideon put you through was beyond horrific. But I also know that we can't work through that right now. At the very least, we need to get you somewhere better. So, I'm going to give you some instructions, okay?"

He wanted to agree, but it was like his body had stopped listening; like the words blinking in front of him had shut it all down and entrapped him in a hypnotic trance. And yet, Kyle somehow must have managed a quivering nod, as Dana gave her first instruction.

"All I want you to do is take a deep breath in, as much as you can. Can you do that?"

Again, Kyle gave a quivering shake, feeling his lungs give shrieking protest as he gave a deep inhale, feeling the cold air pull inside, coolly sticking to the walls of his lungs, as last the panic gave a quiet relent. Then he let it out, every heartbeat a shudder as the wind expelled.

"Good job," said Dana. "Just keep doing that. Now, I'm going to get you to count backward from twenty, can you do that for me?"

Again, he nodded, now a feeling more conscious and purposeful.

"What comes before twenty, Kyle?"

"Nineteen…"

"And then?"

"Eighteen…

And so Kyle continued, feeling the fog begin to part like it had been blown by a gust of wind, a fresh breeze with every count. He didn't even need to make it past twelve. As the last of the weight lifted, Kyle felt his thoughts return and slowly rose his to see Dana's softly smiling face.

"How're you doing in there?" she asked him.

The fog was still there, his heart was still pounding. But he could breathe again, move again. Think again. Clear enough to know what he needed to do.

"Better," he admitted, "Thank you, Doctor."

"Any time, soldier."

Then Kyle turned around to see Wes standing by the door, looking back with an affirming look of understanding, Piggy's flighty shoulder firmly in his grasp.

"You good?" Wes asked. Underlying the words was another meaning, a note of solidarity. If Kyle wasn't, then that would be okay, they'd find a way to make it work. But he was, as good as he could be, and they still had a job to do. When they were done, Kyle could take all the time he needed to work through it. But now, he knew exactly what they needed to do.

"Yeah," Kyle affirmed, rising to his full height and locking the pistol into its holster. "I'm good. Let's go find the people running this joint. Then let's take them down."