Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

"No, don't leave me!" Olin cried.

Betelgeuse and Douglas maneuvered themselves into the confines of the APC, squeezing beside Entuban's girthy thighs.

There was probably space for one more, if they pushed it, But Betelgeuse still needed to leave a spot for Edith—assuming they managed to find her in all the chaos.

"Sakar! You are leaving your friend?!" Entuban yelled, his broad face splitting into an expression that indicated his grave discomfort.

"He's not with us," Betelgeuse said, fitting himself between several jerry cans and sitting tight. "Raise the hull-door and make for the Detention Barracks ASAP!"

"N-no! You can't!" Olin pleaded, stumbling after them as the APC picked up speed, his eyes wide with fear.

"B.T., we can fit him in the front," Voke's muffled voice came from somewhere further in.

The hull-door were juddering upwards now, and Olin was slowly lagging their acceleration.

Betelgeuse rolled his eyes. He supposed he'd have to put on a show.

Calling out through the closing hull-door, Betelgeuse said: "Get to the Nook. Western Quadrant. We'll take you with us... if you're there."

"Wait!" Olin cried, raising a hand.

"Remember! Nook, Western Quadrant!"

And then the hull doors slammed close.

"That's pretty cold," Voke said, after several seconds of silence.

"We coulda fit him in front," Douglas said, his voice muffled by his gas mask.

"I told him to go to the Nook. We'll take him if he manages to get there. Best we can do in the circumstances," Betelgeuse shrugged, shifting himself but unable to get even a little bit comfortable amongst the jerry cans. There was hardly any space to move his legs.

"Entuban, did you notify Tenzhian?"

"... Yes," Entuban returned. "The Captain is knowing to keep the holo-craft ready for our return."

A deep and resonant boom rumbled in the distance, causing Betelgeuse to raise his helmeted head reflexively.

It sounded like more of Saltilla's ceiling collapsing.

"What's happening in front?" Betelgeuse called.

"Bad things," Von returned. "Ceiling's looking like honeycomb. Look sharp—Detention Barracks up ahead."

***

The APC sped on down the northwesterly street, coming up beside the Detention Barracks' wire fences.

Several figures were running down the street in gas masks fitted with oxygen canisters, running with such abandon that Von only narrowly missed grinding them into the asphalt. He swerved, tearing up a whole section of wire-fencing and raising tufts of gravel into the air.

Von grunted, regaining control of the vehicle and forcing it back onto the street.

"Are they evacuating or AWOL-ing?" Voke asked, coming to the aperture shutters and squinting.

Nobody answered him.

The triple-sectioned Detention Barracks now loomed before them, an immense structure of brutalist proportions. The tall minaret-spire that pierced up from its middle-section was blinking with a bright red light, the light mixing in with the shuttles of Corydon's rays that now made island-sized patches upon the Saltillan floor.

"Holy shit, Betelgeuse!" Thete called from the front, "the place is kakking massive! No way we're gonna find Edith in time!"

"If you didn't notice," Betelgeuse said, pointing to the rank insignia threaded into his shoulder, "I'm a Lieutenant Colonel now."

"Fucking snarky," Douglas chortled.

"Minor change of plans," Betelgeuse continued, "Thete, you're the fastest runner here so you're with me. Rest of you clear up some space and wait for our return."

"Roger," Thete replied, shouting into the compartment from the v-com's seat.

"Opening hull-doors," Von sounded.

The hull-door began juddering open. Explosions sounded in the distance. Betelgeuse saw the people they were passing by turn and stare confusedly into the back of the APC.

Betelgeuse hefted his carbine and turned his opaque visor to Douglas. "Keep a look out for any emergency ceiver-message."

"Aye-aye, Lieutenant Colonel Ballsman," Douglas saluted.

The APC reached the main entrance that was located in the middle of the middle-section of the Detention Barracks. The hull-door slammed down upon the ground as they reached, and Betelgeuse burst out running.

As he reached the short flight of stairs to the front of the Detention Barracks, he saw Thete leave the v-com seat by the APC's front-door. She was wearing a gas mask.

They shared a brief nod before speeding into the entrance-lobby of the Detention Barracks.

The place was in disarray. Chairs and collapsed stacks of paper were strewn about. Only half of the lights were still on, and the only person they could see was a large man wearing another of those gas masks, jogging down through the narrow corridor toward the entrance.

The heavily muscled man bore the green uniform of the PDF and wore the rank of Corporal. He was most likely a prison guard.

"Lieutenant Colonel sir!" the man said, saluting Betelgeuse. "Corporal Collins, sir!"

"Corporal, where are you headed?" Betelgeuse asked, snapping off a sloppy return salute and stepping forward to meet the man halfway.

"W-what? Sir, we're heading to the muster point! Commander Mzeeka has ordered the decoy strike to be brought forward... We only have thirty minutes!"

"And the prisoners?"

"We're to leave them!" Corporal Collins responded. Leave them to their deaths, he meant.

Wasting no more time on conversation, Betelgeuse raised his hand to compel Corporal Collins, bending the man's anxiety-laden intentionality to his will.

As he felt out Corporal Collins' Incunabulum, he sensed that this was a White grade.

Given the fact that Betelgeuse now had the power of two grafted-Incunabula—and because Corporal Collins believed he was a Lieutenant Colonel—even a White grade like Corporal Collins failed to put up any semblance of resistance.

"We must find TAF-Private Edith Pavlov ASAP. Take us to her," Betelgeuse commanded.

Corporal Collins' body seized up and straightened. His eyes glazed over.

"I… I'll have to check the manifest," Corporal Collins said, looking around uneasily and wondering why he wasn't exiting the Detention Barracks.

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Betelgeuse sensed Thete shift her feet nervously behind him. His' power had become something terrifying to witness.

"Hurry up!" Betelgeuse snapped, and Corporal Collins sprinted to the reception desk and launched himself over, his large body snagging on wires and other paraphernalia and tumbling over in a loud crash. He regained his feet quickly and then started rifling through a bunch of papers.

"Betelgeuse," Thete whispered, nudging Betelgeuse in his side, "how are we going to get back to the Nook? If we can't take the Underground…"

"We go by the surface," Betelgeuse replied, turning to regard Thete. He could see her charcoal-pupil through the round lens of the gas mask and observed that it was filling with anxiety.

He knew what she was thinking. It was impossible to tell how well the fight against the Chimerae was going. How did they know if the ceiling would not collapse on them in the next hour or so?

But it was useless to worry about things they couldn't control. Betelgeuse placed a dark-gloved palm on her slender shoulder and squeezed.

"We'll take the military roads into the Western Quadrant. They should be less crowded," Betelgeuse said, lacing his words with a small amount of compulsion.

Almost at once, he felt Thete's deltoids relax underneath her uniform.

Betelgeuse pressed his lips into a hard line. A long time ago—maybe not so long ago, but it felt like a lifetime, given the circumstances—Thete had shared her fear that he had been "fucking around with my mind".

Here he was, indeed, fucking around with her mind.

It couldn't be helped. On Desert, survival had to take priority.

"I found it!" Corporal Collins called from behind the reception desk.

"Where is she?" Betelgeuse said, striding up to the desk, to which Corporal Collins slammed a crumpled piece of laminated paper down on the surface before him, then pointed to a section of the illustration.

"East Block. Cell #424," Corporal Collins said.

The three of them wasted no time entering through the corridor access.

As they slipped into the dimness, none of them noticed the slow movements of a high-def camera turning to track their movements, its lenses focusing and unfocusing upon their receding backs.

***

It was a long and mazelike corridor they navigated through. They forked so many times Betelgeuse was left in no doubt that he would have gotten lost without the help of Corporal Collins.

Along the way, they passed several prison guards running in the opposite direction; and every time Betelgeuse used the compulsion to head off any questions as to their reason for going further into the Detention Barracks, instead of making for Commander Mzeeka's designated muster point.

After several minutes of walking, Betelgeuse decided they were taking too long.

"Corporal Collins, urgency, please," Betelgeuse said, urging the prison guard to start running.

"Sir!" Corporal Collins replied. He immediately started sprinting down the hallway at a speed only White or Hollow grades could muster.

Betelgeuse and Thete were right behind him.

No sooner had they started running than a dull noise reverberated from somewhere in the building. The lights flickered. Dust drizzled from the false ceiling.

It was coming from above them.

"W-what was that?" Thete asked, the anxiety once again creeping into her voice.

It sounded like an explosion.

Betelgeuse assumed that the walls of the Detention Barracks had been built extra-thick to prevent escape attempts (among other things). So the fact that they could even hear an explosion meant that it was very large indeed.

"Faster, faster!" Betelgeuse said, urging Corporal Collins onward with ever greater doses of compulsion.

As he did so, he could feel Corporal Collins' mind start to soften—to weaken. It was hard for Betelgeuse to describe… but it was almost like Corporal Collins' psychic structure of will was starting to collapse under Betelgeuse' oppressive ministrations.

No time to think about it. We need to hurry, Betelgeuse thought, gritting his teeth and focusing on running.

They came shortly to a lobby-like space that was covered at the other end with a door fashioned entirely of blacksteel. A sign was affixed to the lintel, reading: EAST CELL BLOCK.

"Get it open!" Betelgeuse commanded.

Corporal Collins sprinted wordlessly to the door, and attempted to swipe his access card on the terminal.

No good. The terminal wasn't responding.

"Something's kakked up the power lines!" Thete yelled. Betelgeuse didn't know if that was really what had happened, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

He came to the door and rapped on it. Unlike the steel and aluminum door at the MDES-skote, this door was blacksteel, meaning that even his augmented strength wouldn't be able force it open.

It made sense. This was the Detention Barracks, after all.

Ripping one of Tenzhian's nitroglycerin canisters from his pouch, he said: "Thete, take out all your Nitro-canisters. We gotta blast it."

"A-all? Okay, okay," Thete mumbled, fumbling with her pouch and retrieving four.

Betelgeuse indicated the blacksteel jambs, and they arranged a total of seven cylindrical canisters standing against the door. Then, they rushed backward, hiding behind the bend in the corridor.

It took Betelgeuse a moment to realize that Corporal Collins hadn't followed them into cover.

"Shit! Get back here, Corporal!"

Corporal Collins' head snapped to his direction, his eyes deeply glazed, his expression blank. He promptly sprinted over took cover beside Betelgeuse and Thete.

Raising his carbine, Betelgeuse aimed at the canisters and fired.

His carbine bucked, sending a hollow-point 7.62mm round into the canisters, causing them to ignite. The entire space reverberated with the sound of the explosion.

The door burst open violently, denting outward and nearly tearing off its hinges.

"Follow!" Betelgeuse commanded, rushing out through the door and into the spacious, two-story cell block.

The ceiling was high. Almost 90% of the place was unlit, and long shadows were cast onto the gray-tiled ground. The lights flickered, and ghostly shadow-apparitions flitted in and out of existence before his eyes.

The place was filled with yelling and screaming. So much noise and cacophony that his mind was momentarily blasted off-kilter.

There must have been a thousand cells, all of them still filled with prisoners, all of the prisoners clamoring and roaring at them to—

"Release me! Release me!"

"They're coming to fucking kill me! Murder! Murder!"

"Get me out of—"

"Kakking shit! Get us all out of here no—"

Betelgeuse ignored them. Shutting out the noise as best he could, he raced down the middle of the cell block, Thete and Corporal Collins on his heels.

"In't that Collinzo Martinus Fuckface?"

"Shit! Fuck you, Collins!"

"Get me out! Get me out!"

Cell Number 424, Betelgeuse thought. He counted up as they ran through the space. Face after face glared at them with accusatory expressions. They heckled, yelled, insulted, screamed every insanity they could muster into the air—

They came almost to the middle of that long and wide hallway, when Betelgeuse saw her.

It was Edith, lying in her bunk, unresponsive. Betelgeuse confirmed the cell number and observed that the bars were made of dull steel. Not blacksteel.

Betelgeuse sprang forward and slammed his shoulder into the vertical bars, crumpling them inward and smashing the cell-gate open with a tremendous force.

"Edith!"

She didn't respond.

Betelgeuse stepped forward and raised a hand toward her face. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears.

Edith turned her head slowly, groggily.

"W-wha?" she mumbled, opening her eyes with some effort to reveal dark and bloodshot eyes. Her skin was sallow, and he could observe a large, lumpy growth upon her neck.

But it was still the same Edith. The Edith Pavlov he knew, with her upturned nose and her nervous eyes.

"Edith it's me," Betelgeuse said, wondering if she would recognize him under the helmet.

"Voice... familiar... Betel…geuse?" she murmured. "Dat… you?"

Bloaming. She's been separated from her Incunabulum for too long! Betelgeuse cursed. He'd forgotten that the TAF kept away the Incunabula of prisoners in a separate storage locker.

"Thete," Betelgeuse called. "Carry her, we gotta find her Inc."

"Ah, dammit," Thete mumbled. It had also slipped her mind, the fact that Incunabula were kept separately.

Thete hefted Edith's thin form, and the three of them had just exited back out into the middle of the noisy cell block when Edith started struggling.

"Betel… the other guy…" Edith rasped, raising her head with some difficulty, her messy hair framing her head like a lion's mane.

"What?" Betelgeuse asked coming closer to her so that he could hear her.

"Next… to me… friend," Edith said, pointing to Cell Number 423.

It was another prisoner, this one alert and looking at them with curious eyes. He looked like an older man of maybe thirty or thirty-five years of age, and his neck was swelling with a lump that was a little smaller in size than the growth on Edith's neck.

He was thin and emaciated, but not more so than Edith. His eyes were dark and slitted, and his face sported prominent tear troughs.

But he wasn't shouting, wasn't doing anything at all.

Just looking. Silently.

"We don't have the space," Betelgeuse hissed.

"No… he will be… a help," Edith managed. "Trust me… Betelgeuse…"

Sighing to himself, Betelgeuse motioned for the man to step back. Then he ran at the cell bars and bashed it open, the steel bars bending outward with a savage screech.

"Keep up," Betelgeuse instructed, stepping backward and admiring his handiwork. The man smiled weirdly and nodded.

At that moment, a loud crash blasted across the space, eclipsing the voices of all the clamoring prisoners.

Betelgeuse jerked reflexively, turning from the man to see rubble fall to the ground several meters away. He raised his head to see that a hole had opened up in the ceiling.

Before he could do anything—before he could yell at the others to run—an immense creature spewed from the hole as if it were a demonic entity stepping over from the hellfire world into this flimsy, temporal reality.

That geometric thing fell several meters to crash upon the ground, its tungsten feet smashing a deep imprint through tile and concrete.

The prisoners were screaming madly. The lights flickered in sporadic bursts, sending cliffs of shadow across the sleek surfaces of that entity.

It was a metal monstrosity, with four long, thin and multi-jointed arms, each of them tipped with multitudinous phalanges. Its torso was a blocky mass plated over with curved and angular alloys, and its scalp was a cap of gleaming chrome that blinked with the erratic strobe of the overhead OLEDs. Somewhere just above its clavicle, a red laser shone from the end of a thin appendage that was not unlike Mr. Killian's churgeon-arms.

Its mask of glossy plastic caught the overhead flickers in rorschach patterns, and its eyes—its human eyes—were trained upon Betelgeuse.

It raised itself to its full height. It must have been almost three meters tall, for it towered like a colossus over Betelgeuse and the others.

"Finally," the thing said in its metallic voice.