Ch.3 - Chaos Mode Engaged
*Buzzing noises*
A high-pitched, glitching voice of a boy screamed through the static:
"FASTER ULTS FASTER FASTER FASTER, GIVE IT TO ME FAST!!!"
Steven's vision swam as he jolted upright—or tried to. His limbs felt wrong. Heavy. Uncoordinated. He looked down.
Metal.
His hands were smooth, segmented metal. His torso was like the logo of android but in matte gray casing.
"Steven! Wake up! Ain't no way you fucking sleep when this happened to all of us!" Miles' voice, but distorted, like a bad voice-over in a cheap arcade game.
Steven's head snapped up. The world resolved into jagged polygons:
They were crammed in the back of a rusted delivery truck, its walls lined with flickering CRT screens showing garbled footage of city streets.
Miles, Mark, and Raf—all trapped in the same cheap android bodies, their faces frozen in permanent, slightly-off expressions.
A countdown timer on the largest screen:
00:14:32
Quota: $0 / $15,345
Extractions: 0 / 1
"Where are we? Wait! No! No! Noooooooooo!" Steven scrambled backward, his metal joints screeching. "Why am I back?! Why?!?!?! There was a boy's voice screaming for me to go—to go faster and give it to him. But what was I supposed to give?"
Mark's android face somehow conveyed sarcasm despite its rigid features. "Stop sharing your wet dreams with us, Steven."
"Good thing we don't have dicks in these new bodies," Miles added, tapping his smooth crotch plate. "For sure we'd all be in a fucking mess again cause of your fantasies."
"PEDO 😂" Mark chimed in, triggering a burst of canned laughter from somewhere in the truck's ceiling.
Raf suddenly spasmed, his optical sensors flashing red. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT! Ain't no way I'm stuck in this body! How can I goooooooooooon?! What if time flows faster here and I miss the expo?! MY FIGURIIIIIIIIIIINESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"
He bolted for the truck's closed rear door, limbs flailing like a newborn deer. Steven reacted on instinct—years of R.E.P.O. muscle memory kicking in. He lunged, tackling Raf mid-sprint. Both androids crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs, their systems blaring:
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"You have to calm down!" Steven hissed as their bodies twitched through the forced reset. "I've played these games before!"
Miles' head rotated 15 degrees too far to the left. "Wait. What do you mean you've played these games before? We've all played R.E.P.O. except for Mark of course"
"Not like this," Steven said quietly. The truck's screens flickered, showing brief flashes of four children, the same ones from the library photo, running through a burning building. "I... I think I escaped this game three weeks ago. But I don't remember how. Or who I was with."
A new message scrolled across every screen:
WELCOME BACK, ULTS.
TUTORIAL SKIPPED.
DIFFICULTY: NIGHTMARE.
The truck's back door slammed open, revealing a neon-drenched city street under a glitching sky. A child's voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere:
"Time's ticking, ULTS. Better run."
Steven's map pinged with three possible rooms to go to. "Alright, listen up—we've got eleven minutes to find this shit. Miles, you take left room. Mark, go straight. Raf, you stick with me."
CRASH.
Miles had already shoulder-checked a nearby table, sending a pyramid of glass bottles shattering to the ground.
"What the hell, man?!" Steven's voice modulator crackled with static.
Miles shrugged, his joints whirring. "Relaxxxx. I grief most of the time in R.E.P.O. Never play objectives." He kicked a bottle for emphasis. "It's called chaos mode."
-$500
"Oh, you've gotta be—" Steven's complaint was cut off by another crash.
Mark had somehow lodged his arm through a chain-link fence, his arm spasming as he tried to grab the $2750 HDD on the other side. "I don't even play R.E.P.O.! How was I supposed to know there's no fucking climb button?!"
Raf, meanwhile, had faceplanted into a stack of crates while reaching for the $7000 hourglass. His legs kicked uselessly in the air. "I swear my depth perception wasn't this ass before!"
Steven's optical sensors flickered. "Okay. New plan. We stick together. And no one touches anything unless I—"
THUD.
A small, glitching figure materialized in front of them—a child with a distorted face, holding the toy car. It tilted its head, voice layered with static:
"Too slow, ULTS."
Then it twisted out of existence, leaving only the faint smell of burnt copper.
Miles froze. "Okay, what the actual fuck was..."
"No time!" Steven grabbed his arm. "They're taunting us."
The screens around the rooms suddenly lit up, showing a live feed of their panicked faces. The child's voice echoed from every speaker:
"Four items left. Eight minutes. Run, run, run."
Raf's optics dilated. "Four? But the screen said..."
Somewhere in the distance, heavy footsteps could be heard, and a red beam went off.