Prologue

  There was little for Mucus to say. There were even fewer words in his mind than the number of fingers on each of his pale hands. He was almost one hundred percent sure his position as Chief Gallium Medical Operator was granted to him due to his strikingly similar appearance to Jacqson Aischenweld. Damn the Japanese the short man thought. Exterminating them was a goal shared by him and his Emperor as well. That would be an afterthought, however. There was already an opposing nation that needed to be dealt with first. The Union. Aischenweld’s Armada was not as plentiful as the Union’s Army, Navy, or even Space Forces, yet a man as smart as Jacqson could work a way around that. He often did for most obstacles in his path. The Generals were the key to overcoming the nuisance that had long locked him in his desolate cage. The Generals would not, could not fail. It was unthinkable. However, it was absolutely possible all the same. Aischenweld’s expression remained unchanged on the screen. An image that didn’t represent Aischenweld with his pure dark eyes in contrast with his sickly pale skin, where his face wielded a neutral manner apparent in his lips and flat nose, would be worth even more than his paintings, which no one could comprehend the messages behind them. Yet no matter how peculiar the Armada Shogun was, Mucus was an entirely stranger entity. It was unfortunate that today was one that didn’t involve the Operator’s usual tasks. He had already finished all of his required chores for the month and resorted to simply packing boxes of gallium. He had strange tools that filled the empty space where his hands should’ve been. It was hard to believe anyone could relieve themselves of both of their precious hands, but it was even more difficult to deny the reality when you were staring right at Mucus. There was a Plenisher for each hand. It had a tall stick of aluminum, which bent downwards at the peak, with a support cord in order to maximize accuracy. The cord was a deep shade of gray, purposely done to contrast with the light hue belonging to the aluminum piece. Where there should’ve been the operator’s palm was a bulky, cylindrical tube forged to contain a large volume of semi-solid substances. Today, both of the operator’s tubes were filled to the brim with gallium, ready to escape their containers via the bent piece and contribute to the perfectly parallel cube and hopefully be used to aid in the efforts against the Union’s Army and Navy forces. If it were the first day of the week for Mucus, usually Sunday, he would likely be reapplying titanium alloy on either a Motorblade or one of Aischenweld’s personal projects. Machines that looked scarily human. In a way, they were. In fact, it probably even made Annihilus and Eradicus more horrifying. Aischenweld justified the presence of organic brains operating the anatomy of metallic monsters while everyone under his control refrained from asking questions. After all, who was going to stop him physically or legally? It was truly his country to rule. Mucus wasn’t the type to ask questions. While he was working, he only pondered the viability of the two machines Aischenweld had developed. He knew better than to doubt his master from experience, but he couldn’t help his thoughts as they planted those ideas in his head. He was the only one trusted by Zekanor, Aischenweld’s second in command, to replenish the titanium alloy that made up most of the machines at the beginning of the week. Mucus made sure to ask Aischenweld a question after he was done constructing gallium cubes before they fell into can-shaped containers, where they would be transported into planes by smaller carts with tiny wheels. It was a simple process. However, the materials that filled the carts were far more interesting to produce. One could study the gallium for hours if one were dedicated enough. Unfortunately, the only individuals who could effectively look at how Aischenweld used gallium cubes and who weren’t medical operators, such as Mucus, were probably never going to tell another soul about what they found out. They would likely be descending at an extremely intense rate when the pints of the liquid element dissolve the airborne vehicles they were piloting. The Union never had a clue regarding whatever happened to their greatest pilots and infiltrators, since the gallium cubes were only reserved for lone targets and never spotted in a battlefield where multiple hostile battalions could observe one of Aischenweld’s proudest inventions. He wasn’t delusional, of course. He never underestimated how the Union’s machines rested underground, waiting for an opportunity to strike at blinding speeds with a shiny kukri blade in each dense hand. It was easy for the ghostly pale innovator to keep his country’s morale as still and stable as a robot. Worshippers never care about logic. There was no need to write an informational essay on the reasoning behind the abundance of materials and time spent solely on creating two machines. The responsibility was eventually put on Mucus due to his abilities and familiarity with anything machine-related. The short man usually cursed his own capabilities at times. Especially when he was unsure what his next assignment would be. Once a week, there would be a day at exactly 9:00 A.M. when the medical scientist would have Aischenweld give him a task without any prior notice. The only knowledge he would have about the request would be a small letter that was transported by the same type of carts that transported the gallium cubes to their locations. As the green vehicle approached him, a particularly tall man greeted him. It was like the world was relentlessly trying to remind Mucus of his tiny stature. His gait didn’t help at all. He could very easily pass for a younger pre-teen boy who just so happened to have an extremely high level of intellect. Luckily, the general in front of him didn’t say anything about the subject, though if he were a General of Aischenweld, a smirk would probably be painted across his face. His olive-skinned face was an array of contrasting features. His soft nose clashed with his experienced eyes, while his firm face actually paired nicely with his head’s shape. His body, however, was nothing special. It was exactly how a standard Armada general should’ve looked. Heart-healthy, lean, with a touch of moderately impressive muscles that would look quite attractive if he were topless, not like Mucus was capable of feeling attraction to a fellow human being. If Mucus was pondering anything about the man, it would be of his mind, not body. “The boss has requested your services yet again, it’s in here,” said the masculine figure before handing Mucus a letter the same color as Aischenweld’s skin with his surprisingly thin fingers for his size. It had a seal that looked even more fragile than the letter it was supposed to protect. Despite his lack of abilities in terms of being attractive or being attracted to anyone, the man armed with a surgical mask could at least appreciate some irony and humor once in a while. He couldn’t help it. He quickly cleansed his brain from the useless thoughts just before using his own thin fingers to open the small piece of paper, caring very little about the fact that anyone could see him right about now. The font was horrendous to Mucus, meaning it was absolutely gorgeous and perfectly elegant to anyone who was classy themselves. He hated cursive handwriting. Though very few people knew, the best possible theory behind his vitriol against the letter’s font was due to Mucus and his lack of education. He was barely able to read, which should’ve made him chuckle since it was painfully ironic considering his role as a respectable scientist and medical professional, but this was no laughing matter for him. It took him several minutes to read a note that he could’ve comprehended if it were written a little bit messier and without as much effort. It was only a single page long, but the man felt like he was reading for an hour and a half. Worse was the fact that he had skimmed the page and realized, as he processed the last sentence of the letter, that he barely comprehended the meaning of the message. Therefore, he had to not just read the tiny piece of paper, but also understand it, and that ultimately meant having to read it slowly. He hated having to read. He preferred an experimental way of learning, or at least a visual one. In the end, he had finally managed to understand what Aischenweld was trying to tell him in a very convoluted form of writing, Mucus thought. “Room 56: Laboratory- Dear medic, an assignment is awaiting your presence.” That was what would remain of the letter if all of the unnecessary details were left out. The request was even vaguer than the usual short orders Aischenweld gave out. Mucus sighed as he walked to the laboratory room, which was a very long distance away for the unfit man. On the way, he managed to barely escape the paths of automated carts that would’ve surely destroyed his equipment if the gallium cubes had landed on him. He walked towards a door that was wider and taller than he was, entering the lab through the automatic and transparent door. The main course was on display. Just by looking at its setup, one can see that it was not just a machine. No, even the human skin wasn’t unheard of. Annihilus and Eradicus, and the rest of the machines, had some significant amount of reused thin flesh extruding from their armatures and joints, with the former outdoing the rest of the robots in the particular department. It was not a machine playing the role of an organic being, but rather the other way around. Mucus was flabbergasted at his master’s abilities. Aischenweld could be cruel, as any man in a war could be, yet this act was almost sadistic in a sense. It was strange at best. What benefit could be achieved with this project? There were plenty of realistic-enough-looking machines that could pose as humans. Mucus knew firsthand that he was a designer of a respectable number of machines, so he could scratch off infiltration from his checkbox. He approached the being in the tube, its feet grounded, equipped with shoes that shouldn’t have been relevant, had it been belonging to a truly human being. The thought of a machine armed with footwear almost made Mucus zone out of his thoughts for a moment. He gained an immunity to humor when he was deep in thought, which was most of his waking time. The body in the container was absolutely massive. He would be terrifying if he weren’t sleeping without moving as much as a single muscle. He was clothed, which was strange considering the fact that the tube looked like a display case, like its purpose was to show people any injuries the subject inside might’ve sustained after being deployed or something of the like. Mucus was very intrigued, to say the least. So, without a second thought, he started thinking about experimenting on the creature inside the tube, the one that was once named Delta.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.