Ch 43: Decision

Akranos. I’m either hacking into you or taking you with me. There’s no other option.

Sirens blared as Hiro ran into the server room.

SYSTEM INTRUDER ALERT! ENFORCEMENTS INBOUND!

Shit. Already?

“HIRO!”

The name echoed off the fractured walls, accompanied by the crackling of static.

“T-They’re onto us!” Scrambling through the metal doorway, Ace’s eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Wires hung down from the ceiling, flowing, splintering. Split into two parts, the near side of the room was mainly comprised of cables, while the far side was lined with servers, metal racks, routers, and various other machines with blue diodes. In the middle, a raised platform loomed over.

Hiro remained still, looking upward at the silhouette on the platform.

Zeron the Will of Akranos. The defender of the mainframe, a machine imbued with an artifact that creates an area of instant death. Being caught in its radius meant it was game over, yet there was only one way to go, and that was past him.

A ghastly chassis of steel, an uncanny exoskeleton of a human that had been malformed. Nuts and bolts protruded from its stretching limbs, juddering erratically. Wires from the ceiling flowed down, converging into a port at the back of its head.

Wait. Where have I seen that before?

Nightmarish red eyes pierced through the hollow sockets of the animatronic, causing Ace’s hair to stand on end. He was washed with a strange sense of déjà vu. 

“Wait.” Hiro raised his arm, signalling to stop moving. Picking up a small sheet of scrap metal, he tossed it forward, landing on the cold metal panels with a hollow clank.

Then, after five seconds, the animatronic twitched ever so slightly, and the sheet was shredded into strips.

If you blinked, you would’ve missed it. There was no visible projectile or any sound to be heard. It was deadly, both quick and silent.

Five seconds.

Hiro stared at the metal shreds with a defeated look. The ego was beginning to wear off, and now he was facing the truth. Filling the room with a mellow sense of purpose, he breathed a heavy sigh.

Not enough time to reach the far side.

SYSTEM INTRUDER ALERT! ENFORCEMENTS INBOUND!

Yeah, yeah, I know.

BANG!

The bullet ricocheted from the metal chassis.

“The runes along it. There’s nothing you can do to get through that armour. Nothing less than echelon seven would be able to pierce that. You're wasting your time.”

Ace’s eyes flickered with hope as he lowered his pistol, hearing Hiro’s resigned voice.

“T-Then what are we gonna do?”

The words left the room in silence, other than the persistent crackling of static.

Reaching into the right-side pocket of his trench coat, Hiro pulled out a cigarette. Forming a struggling flame in his finger, he set it alight.

“H-Hiro? Quick. We’re running out of time.”

Hiro inhaled slowly, the warm, blissful toxins seeping into his lungs. Savouring the seconds, he exhaled even slower, puffing a ring, which was slightly more oval than a ring. He tried again; this time it distorted to the right.

“Tsk.” Hiro shook his head.

On the third attempt, it was a perfectly symmetric ring.

SYSTEM INTRUDER ALERT! ENFORCEMENTS INBOUND!

The aether around the animatronic was stagnant. There were no clues, and the seconds were marching. All abilities had their drawbacks; there was always something hidden between the lines, but Hiro knew in his heart that today, they didn’t have the time to solve it. And that was okay. Sometimes that’s just how it goes.

I thought it would come to this. Why do I feel disappointed? I expected it to turn out like this. The world wouldn’t have it any other way.

Like the end of his cigarette, Hiro’s eyes burned. Burned with the resolve to right what was wrong. His final verdict was his first.

“What if we're missing something? What if-“

“Ace.”

SYSTEM INTRUDER ALERT! ENFORCEMENTS INBOUND!

Ace lasered his focus, scanning everything in the room: wires, blue lights, metal scraps, and panels. With nothing to work with but the pistol in his hand, he continued firing.

The drumming of gunshots echoed through the lonely darkness.

“Ace.” Hiros' voice was drowned out in the gunfire.

BAM!

Stumbling back, Ace raised his hand to the dull pain in his temple where he’d just been struck.

“Ace.” Hiro’s head was dipped, hiding in the shadow. “It’s no use.”

SYSTEM INTRUDER ALERT! ENFORCEMENTS INBOUND!

Once again, Ace could feel the relentless pull of the cruel world. Just when he thought he could fight back against it, it crept up on him, consuming him.

“I-I…”

Like glass shards, the words were caught in his throat. He grit his teeth in anger, to the world and himself.

Why? Why is it that I'm helpless? That I can’t do anything.

“Here. Don’t smoke them all in one go.”

A light box landed in Ace’s palms. He opened the top, only to see that it was already empty.

Then, for a second, Ace saw the friend he knew—the egotistical Hiro with a wide, playful grin.

Watching Hiro make his decision, every memory flooded back, all the way back to the hollow concrete tower in the Barrens under the hammering rain, where he made that same decision.

But this time, they had switched places. And not only that, but despite all the lows, it was a carousel of memories he looked at fondly. Knowing that this time around, he tried his best. Even against the relentless tides of the cruel world.

“What are you sitting there waiting for, huh? Go. Quick. If the blast doesn’t catch you, the Nexus will.”

SYSTEM INTRUDER ALERT! ENFORCEMENTS INBOUND!

“This…this is it for me. My road ends here. But you? You wanted to search for answers, right? To find Cecilia and the guy who dragged you here. Go.  Make something of yourself in this world. While you might not find the answers you want, you might find other things worth living for.”

Leaving Ace with his parting words, Hiro turned away.

Now the time had finally come. The moment he’d waited all his life for.

As Hiro ran toward certain death, Ace wasn’t sure what expression he had on his face. But in his mind, he pictured his trademark wide and playful grin. He wouldn’t imagine it any other way.