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Perfect Machine

Chapter 11

Voices and bright lights pulled Conner from the unconscious plane, squinting his eyes he attempted to rub them but found his arms to be bound to the armrests of a chair he was sitting in. He heard someone call out in a heavy Russian accent and a few voices responded.

Once Conner's eyes finally adjusted to the bright lights he realized he was in some sort of interrogation room you'd see in a police station or military base. He looked around to see three men in military gear, Russian military gear to be specific.

“You are finally awake…" one of the three men said in heavy Russian accented English. “Lets hope you are more willing to talk than your friends were," the man sneered while walking over to a table with many different tools that could be used for torture.

Conner watched as the man picked up a large knife before slowly walking towards him. Conner attempted to break free from the restraints but they were strong. “Ah, this one's a fighter too," the Russian said with a sadistic smile.

“You seriously expect me to give you intel on my fellow soldier's movements, our plans!?" Conner barked out through barely restrained anger.

“A squad full of high ranking soldiers… partner units even, must know a lot…" Conner's interrogator said coldly before turning to his comrade closest to the door, he gave the man orders in Russian. The man closest to the door spoke into his radio before handing it to the interrogator.

“Maybe this will do more to help encourage you…" the man who Conner assumed was the one in charge sneered as he held the radio close to Conner's face.

“That's a shame you won't give us any information, all we want to know is where your fellow soldiers are right now and what they plan on doing…" A voice in Russian accented English came through the radio. “You have been unhelpful giving us information directly, but maybe your screams will encourage your human partner to speak…" the voice through the radio said with a cold tone.

“I won't tell you anything you filthy fucking worm!" A female draconic voice responded defiantly.

“That's a shame,"

Conner's vision went blurry at the sound of screams of agony, the corners of his vision began turning red as the screams and howls got louder.

“Are you going to start talking or what!?" the man holding the radio shouted before punching Conner in the left side of his jaw.

Recovering from the blow, Conner turned his head to stare at the man, his vision turned red, he heard the sounds of restraints breaking before everything faded to black.

“GAH!!!" Conner awoke with a start, sitting up rapidly on his living room couch, Daniella practically jumped out of her scales in freight as she fell out of his lap and onto the floor with a thud.

“What!? What!? What happened!?" Daniella questioned in mild panic.

“Sorry, just another really vivid dream…" Conner sighed before glancing down at his phone on his arm.

“Dream Archive: Updated," displayed across his phone screen. He didn't quite understand these dreams, they were too vivid to be nothing and that dragon in his dream had a voice so unbelievably similar to Daniella's he wasn't sure what to think. Everything was so vivid, but it was the Russian soldier's faces, he couldn't recall what they looked like but he could recall their facial expressions. Conner wasn't sure if these dreams were glimpses into the future, into an alternate reality or nothing.

“Alright, I'm going to go have a shower and then I'll cook us breakfast," Conner said before sitting up from the couch. Daniella turned to follow after Conner, causing him to frown. “Don't get any funny ideas…" he sighed while locking eyes with the dragon.

Daniella whined in frustration before stamping her right forepaw.

“Daniella…" Conner groaned in frustration. “I- fine, you know what, we'll talk on Friday, alright?" He said with narrowed eyes, making sure Daniella knew this wasn't up for debate.

Daniella gritted her teeth, her dominant and stubborn nature screaming at her, a little voice in her head telling her this lesser being had no right to tell her what to do. “He is not a lesser being," Daniella argued back, she ignored the voice in her head, sitting on her haunches and dropping her head.

“Ai yai yai… must you make this more difficult than it already is?" Conner sighed.

“'Ai yai yai'...? Good skies above, you're white!" Daniella laughed.

“Oh fuck off! Leave my snow camouflaging abilities alone," Conner shot back, barely able to hide his smirk.

“Ha! You call that camouflage…" Daniella smirked before Conner watched as her entire body became transparent in a matter of seconds, only a barely visible dragon outline remained.

“Yeesh, I always forget you can do that, also…. I always knew you had a big heart!" Conner laughed as Daniella slowly began reappearing.

“What?" the dragon asked with a cock of her head.

“When you do that, I can briefly see your skeleton and internal organs before they also become transparent."

“Oh… I never noticed that."

“Before I run to the shower, can you still see if you close your eyes when you do that?" Conner asked, genuinely curious about Daniella's almost perfect camouflaging ability.

“Yes, I can see through them, I actually have to not think about where I am putting my feet, I can barely see myself."

“Alright I'm going to shower," Conner said quickly before making his way into the basement. Daniella thought about following him into the basement but decided against it.

…

After getting out of the shower and eating breakfast with Daniella, she had mentioned how she had plans with friends and needed a ride. Conner had explained that he needed to work on some things in the lab but the AI could easily give her a ride. Thankfully Daniella had said it was a girls thing with some human and dragon friends and Conner would have hated it anyways, she had left in the Dodge Charger and Conner was now in his lab.

“Good lord this has been long overdue," Conner sighed as he picked up what was supposed to be a piece of tech intended for his armour as a replacement for the Element Ion battery. The Element battery was absolutely fantastic as a powersource, a typical car battery could output around 420 - 900 watt-hours, but this battery, less than a sixteenth the size, could output sixty times more than the most efficient lithium-ion batteries or more.

What Conner wanted to do with his armour would require something so much more powerful.

“Computer, has the plasma formed yet?" Conner asked from inside his armour, the geiger counter ticking away rapidly was making him very nervous.

“The antimatter is refusing to bond with the liquid Element."

“Christ," Conner sighed, “What if we gave it a jumpstart of energy? Could you tap into the electrical grid?" he asked, almost desperate.

“Uhmm, maybe, hold on…"

“Synthesizing possible Jumpstart device,"

“I'm going to plug that into the supercharged socket you set up in front of your desk, this could either end badly, cause the power grid to fail and not work at all or overload the grid and work."

Conner sighed as this very thick cord was plugged into the wall by countless nanites, the nanites connected the cord to the currently inert Fusioncore.

“Ok… three… two… one…" the AI seemed to make a noise like it was gritting it's non-existent teeth before opening the circuit for the supercharged socket. An electrical humming sound filled the room before electricity seemed to arc across the surface of the Fusioncore.

“Charging to two hundred thousand watts in three… two… one…"

Conner jumped back as a surge of electricity blasted through the Fusioncore, the cord connecting the core to the wall literally exploded.

“That was a lot higher than two hundred thousand watts…" the AI said nervously. “I- what the fuck? I made sure to limit it to two hundred grand but it went past a few million or more…"

Conner shook his head before his face dropped when the lights in his house went dark.

“Backup Elemental Generator: Online," Conner heard as the lights in his house flickered back on.

“Oh no… that's bad!" Conner said nervously as his head up display gave him an alert that the grid in his local area just lost power.

“Uhhh, yeah… might be pretty bad, all of Ontario just experienced an unexpected outage."

“Pffffffffff, fuck!" Conner said with a guilty laugh.

“Detecting huge energy source nearby…"

Conner looked up at the desk to see an otherworldly blueish purple glow illuminating the wall and ceiling. “Sir, the plasma formed… scanning energy output."

“How much are we looking at?" Conner asked as he stood up, keeping his distance because his geiger counter was now absolutely screaming at him.

“Uhmm, I- Error… reattempting calculation."

Conner waited for the AI to finish trying to calculate before it replied simply. “It will do for the Mark Two."

…

“I don't see how going into the biggest city in Canada is a good idea," the AI sighed from the speakers inside Conner's Dodge Viper.

“Well I wanted to come check on Daniella, but she responded to my text that she was fine and there was no need to worry… after I got into this shit hole of a city," Conner grumbled.

“I do have to ask, what do you plan on doing with the Mark One armour?" the AI asked as he weaved through traffic in his track demon.

“Put it on display in my garage behind my bike's parking spot," he stated as he rolled his windows down and activated his new armour's mask, the mask didn't seem to have any differences from the first version besides having more visible break lines in its surface.

“Advanced Police Scanner: Online… detecting four light units and one heavy unit in your vicinity."

“Fucking heavy??" Conner said in disbelief. “I have only been in Toronto for like- ohh… thirty minutes might be enough time," he added with a sigh.

“The entire power grid for all of Ontario just cut out like an hour ago…what do you expect!?"

“I- fucking… can't argue with that!" Conner laughed as he zipped through a red light to avoid a police cruiser that had been getting close on his scanner.

The powerful beast spat flames and roared as Conner downshifted, the engine roar echoing through the streets, causing people to turn their heads. All of Conner's vehicles turned heads wherever he went, each vehicle was also very loud due to how powerful they were.

“Sir, dusk is approaching rapidly, you might want to get to a rooftop to watch this sunset…" the AI said urgently.

Nearby police sirens made Conner let out a long sigh of annoyance. “So much for a casual drive…"

“Casual…. Are you fucking kidding me? Casual is going like seven hundred down the four-oh-one?" The AI scoffed.

“Oh fuck off!" Conner shot back as he jumped from the moving Viper, the car closing its own door before taking off under the AI's control.

Conner turned to look at the approaching police cruiser before stepping into the shadow of one of the many large buildings.

“So does Blackout have a secondary driver?" A random pedestrian with a subtle Canadian accent asked.

“Nope, all the dumb shit was me… that," Conner pointed to his Viper as it drove away, “is my AI," Conner chuckled before morphing into the shadows and zipping up the side of a building.

The two police officers attempting to chase Conner watched in horror as two red orbs appeared in the shadow before seemingly turning away.

“You seriously just Shadow Walked in front of Ungifteds?" the AI asked incredulously.

“Oh God, I forgot that's what we used to call them," Conner chuckled as he stepped from the shadows and onto the rooftop of one of the tallest buildings in Toronto. He stared out at the horizon, clear of any light pollution, taking a deep breath of filtered air through his mask before looking down at his phone.

Turning around, Conner groaned at the sight of a police helicopter approaching. He knew he was surrounded and there was now only one way to get out of this situation as the helicopter's spotlight hit him.

“Systems ready, Sir… the Tek Suit Mark Two is ready when you are."

Conner took a deep breath to steady his nerves before stepping to the edge of the building and looking at the busy streets below. Over two hundred meters between him and the ground, he closed his eyes and took another deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to do.

“This has got to be your most reckless stunt yet," the AI said with a sigh.

“Don't ruin my fucking Spider-Man moment," Conner chuckled, looking out at the horizon as the sun began to dip below it. The sky became alive with vibrant reds, oranges and purples while the sky directly overhead began to darken, revealing the billions of stars that made up the Milky Way.

“I'd say this is more of a mix between a Spider-Man and Iron Man moment mixed together," the AI said, Conner could almost see the smirk through the AI's tone causing him to roll his eyes.

“Leap of faith," Conner muttered before jumping from the rooftop. He felt his heart leap into his throat as time slowed down for him.

The sight of individual plates of metal moving and shifting across his body was surreal, straight out of an Iron Man movie, he watched as his visor formed before slamming over his face with a clang.

“Systems: Online, Engaging thrusters," Conner snapped out of his daze as he read the message across his heads up display. He felt his fall come to a halt as the suit's failsafe for an unconscious pilot triggered.

Conner shook his head before all of the time spent learning to fly this thing in simulations came back to him. He used his arms and legs to steer himself between the city buildings, Conner began following his Dodge Viper, using the GPS locator inside the car.

As he closed the distance on his HUD map, he could hear the V10 roaring over his armour's thrusters. The cloud of tire smoke became visible as he zipped around a building.

“You really are testing out those new tires, eh?" Conner chuckled, spotting the Dodge Viper doing donuts in front of a crowd of officers, preventing them from getting closer. Conner watched the car spin rapidly in a tight circle, it would be obvious to an observer with general automotive knowledge that this Viper had a front differential and driveline.

“The tires are fantastic and you are really good at making an all wheel drive system work in vehicles that were not designed for them," the AI chuckled through his helmet.

“Alright, I had only planned to fuck around in Toronto for a bit but this has gotten out of hand,"

“Agreed, Rocky Mountains in British Columbia?"

“Yes," Conner said flatly, the Dodge Viper immediately took off, bright whitish blue flames spat out of the exhaust pipes as the car did a wheelie.

Rolling his eyes as he spotted a police helicopter in pursuit of his Viper. Conner looked around, spotting a helipad on one of the highrise buildings in the city, causing him to smirk. He flew towards the helicopter before getting underneath it, grabbing the skids, he began pulling the helicopter towards the building. Once Conner was above the helipad, he used the armour's short range EMP, completely disabling the helicopter, as he got directly beneath it and slowly touched down on the rooftop.

Two of the officers got out of the helicopter to watch a man in a suit of armour straight out of ARK: Survival Evolved scramble out from underneath the helicopter. Just like his Mark One armour, this suit looked almost identical to the Tek Suit MkII except black with red lighting and the jetpack seen on the back in the video game was not present. Although, unlike the Mark One, the Mark Two armour had holes in a uniform pattern on the chest, back, arms, and legs as well as the bottom of the boots for the thrusters.

The two officers watched in shock as this armoured person got to his feet and leapt off the roof of the building, the armour's thrusters quickly catching his fall.

“Alright, Computer, you start heading West, I'll catch up"

“Be careful!" the AI warned sternly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah," Conner said dismissively as he began climbing higher and higher. Once the advanced altimeter inside his armour read over thirty thousand feet, he punched it, shattering the sound barrier and almost making him pass out from the g-forces.

“Ok… not nice," Conner grunted, having experienced the force of more than thirty Gs.

“Elemental Human Biology Archive: Updated. Elemental Human: Conner, is capable of handling a maximum of thirty two Gs of force for five seconds before a blackout."

“That's useful to know," Conner chuckled after reading the message from his HUD.

“Maximum G-force limit, possibly sixty to seventy Gs for one second before blackout, fatal Gs… at over seventy for one second. G-force Dampeners: Calibrated… max G-load now at one hundred for one second."

“Noted…" Conner chuckled, ripping across the sky at mach forty.

…

After a few minutes Conner had descended below the clouds and spotted his Dodge Viper, he landed softly on the roof before climbing in the window, opting for a more “chill" journey the rest of the way to the mountains.

“I'm so tired of screaming when no one is listening. Why do I keep pretending the world is more than empty?" Conner quietly sang before groaning at the song stuck in his head. “Damnit! Computer, play Echoes by From Ashes to New before I go nuts."

“You do really have a thing for modern metal, don't you?" the AI chuckled as the line he had just sung played through the car's advanced sound system.

Conner, ignoring the AI, stomped the accelerator when the music picked up. “Why's the world I'm living in so fucked up beyond recognition?" he muttered along as he weaved through traffic on the road.

The AI sighed, realizing Conner was no longer in the mood to respond while one of his favourite songs played, Conner further proved it's point by turning up the volume. The AI found some irony in the lyrics in this song, it might be why Conner liked this song so much. The instrumental music was good, but Conner clearly related with the actual lyrics. The AI knew of one song that Conner had in his playlist that he only had for the music itself, Carnivore by STARSET always made Conner grimace at that specific line and the AI always found it humorous.

“I know why you like that song so much…" the AI finally said after the sound system went silent.

“Because I like the instrumentals,"

“Mmhmm, sure," the AI said, unconvinced before sighing when Conner threw up a mental block to prevent it from seeing his brain activity. “Curse your damn magic," the AI grumbled as Conner resumed his Spotify playlist.

…

“Welp, this is about as far as the Viper can go," Conner grumbled as he got out and pushed the car back slightly, the car had gotten stuck for the fifth time on this uneven dirt road. He let out a sigh of annoyance before remotely shutting the car off as he walked around to the rear of the car.

The trunk of the Viper opened and Conner smirked as he spotted an interesting looking and sizable black case with a handle on the top. Conner grunted as he picked this case that weighed a little more than him with one hand. He held it to the side before lifting it up slightly before dropping it down rapidly. Two wheels sprung out from each end as the case turned into a black dirt bike.

Conner chuckled as he mounted the dirt bike and fired it up, the bike let out a roar as it started, sounding like a four-stroke on steroids. He cracked the throttle, taking off towards that location he had dreamed about nearly four years ago.

…

“Oh you're fucking kidding me!" Conner groaned as the dirt bike sputtered before shutting off. He coasted to a stop, glaring at the fuel gauge as he dismounted the bike. “This is what I get for not refueling it before leaving and not adding a battery engine…" he grumbled before making the bike collapse into its carry case. Grabbing the carry case, Conner felt energy flow through his right arm and into his fingertips as he let go of the handle. The case vanished with a flash of purplish blue light.

Grumbling to himself, Conner took a look around him, he had been riding for thirty minutes and was nearly to his destination. The dirt road had gradually narrowed out until it became wide enough for only an ATV, the trees were thick and he could no longer see the mountains as easily, catching glimpses between tree branches when the canopy wasn't so thick.

The animals and insects would grow silent when in his immediate vicinity but he could still hear birds and bugs in the distance. The wind was fairly calm, but still strong enough to blow the leaves that had just begun to die, summer was coming to a close and some trees were already starting to change colour.

Conner let out an irritated huff as he looked back at were he'd come from before advancing forward, the thump of his armoured boots hitting the ground, whirring of power assistance as he moved and the otherworldly humm of his armour's Fusioncore making him feel safe and confident, even in grizzly bear, grey wolf and mountain lion country.

After about twenty minutes of walking, his long legs and fast walking speed allowed him to cover rather impressive distances in such short time for walking, the hairs on the back of his neck tried to stand on end. With his armour being a perfect fit, his hairs couldn't move but Conner still felt it nonetheless, he also felt the intense feeling of unease that caused his hair to attempt to stand.

Deja vu, Conner was getting a strong sense of Deja vu, very strong sense of it even, the trees, the look of the dirt path. His heart sank as he stumbled over a protruding tree root, he tried to rationalize in his mind that it was just coincidence as he continued walking.

*clang!*

Conner turned to look behind him as he kept walking to see the exact same rock in the dirt he had seen in his dream. A bit more swirling thoughts of poor attempts at rationalizing the absurdity of the situation raced through his mind as he turned his head to look straight once more.

Once the trees began thinning out and he got a view of the mountain in front of him, his instincts were on high alert and he was on edge. He retrieved his Scar-17 from one of the slots in his armour, he held the rifle in a death grip as he advanced towards the base of the mountain.

He let go of the foregrip once he reached the foot of the mountain, looking up, he saw a cave about fifty feet up. He glanced around him before raising his right arm before firing the grappling hook into the rocks just above the cave entrance.

Conner swung his rifle over his back, hearing a satisfying click, he glanced over his shoulder after letting go of his rifle. He let out a long sigh after confirming his rifle was securely locked to his back. Climbing up the rock face he was completely beside himself, his dream all those years ago was playing out in real time… again. As he hoisted himself into the mouth of the cave, he detached the grapple from the rocks above.

Conner stumbled back in surprise as his minimap spread across his vision, he was directly over the exact coordinates he had muttered aloud in his sleep.

Shaking himself from his daze as the map vanished, Conner took stock of his surroundings. The cave entrance was much larger than he had realized, it was huge even, big enough for an absolutely massive creature to come and go. Turning to the depths of the cave, Conner began his trek, that was until he stumbled over something.

Conner's eyes became the size of dinner plates when he noticed the ground was marred with MASSIVE claw marks, some gouges in the rock seemed to be easily three or four feet long and a few inches deep.

Walking deeper into the mouth of the cave, he found a wall blocking his path. “This can't be it…" he thought to himself, disappointed. His right glove pulled into the right vambrace as he raised his hand, he brushed his hand against the cold rock with an irritated sigh. Once his bare skin made contact with the rock surface, the entire wall seemed to come to light, runic carvings and text became visible with an otherworldly red glow. The rock wall began to shift and move aside, it was as if his fingers caressing the stone somehow unlocked the passageway.

“Now hold on a minute…" Conner muttered in disbelief as one runic carving stood out to him just before it went out of view. He had noticed a unique carving in ancient Draconic that he recognized, a Soul Lock, and only two souls could open this cave, his being one.

Things began falling into place for him, this had been his old home and he had noticed two distinct sets of claw markings in the rock.

“You will remember in time… what you once were…" a very deep, masculine draconic voice thundered in his mind.

Conner whipped his head around to find no one and nothing besides a very dark cave, not even his armour was picking up another presence. He couldn't shake how familiar that voice sounded, he felt as if that voice had been his own voice at one point in the past.

“Sir, that voice you just heard, I managed to pick it up through your brain activity, that was you… at least it was an almost perfect match to your voice when you get exceptionally angry, although that voice sounded much older."

“Strange…" Conner muttered as he walked through the doorway. The rock that had blocked his path previously slowly moved back into place, his metallic footfalls echoing through the dark passage as he made his way deeper.