Wrath Of The Cyclops

Part Of The Brain Dead Saga

Hovering cargo containers follow an underground magnetic rail system between facilities on Alcatraz 72, a prison on an artificial planet with no atmosphere. In the light of a light blue sun, the surface of the barren rock planet only has light from the sun and the underground facility that spirals the entire planet. 

Built within layers of rock and titanium alloys, the prison was made to isolate prisoners of a unique ability that don’t fit within the boundaries of law and order. Within the Terrace Republic, those who cannot render service to the people are euthanized, and those that cannot be euthanized are banished to penal planets. 

One such unkillable prisoner was Arges, a renegade of the school of a Hundred Hands. Failing to obey the hierarchy he was apprehended with extreme prejudice, disarmed, and sent to live out his existence on Alcatraz 72. 

The planet had a prisoner population of 20,572 and was falling rapidly. In order to keep them preoccupied with survival, the prisoners were forced to fight for rations and certain privileges, often to the death. Since only a brainer can successfully kill another, it was the only way to control those who cannot fit into service or who rebel against the system. 

Arges was covered in blood after participating in the labyrinth, a telecommunicated series that televiewer providers bid for the contract rights on a monthly basis. Octillion chipz are spent to gain these rights, as the descrambling codes to watch it are sold to restaurants, theaters, and upper crust residencies for millions of chipz. 

Arges was the biggest pull for the event the producers call Survive the Minotaur. A grueling royale, that has hundreds of participants, and only one victor, as they attempt to survive other brainers, as they avoid mutants and traps. The largest obstacle is the minotaur, which is a brainer who has been genetically spliced with a bull to create the approximation of the mythical beast. 

In the history of the spectacles existence there have been over 3,000 events, and about that many minotaurs. Since Arges was imprisoned he has managed to win every game, and kill every minotaur, cementing his reputation as a champion, and ultra powerful brainer has made him a fan favorite. Even contrarians admit there has yet to be a brainer to match his skills, and even when the prison warden intentionally handicaps him, he survives. 

Every dirty trick from giving the other brainers weapons, mech suits, augmenting mutations, and even drugging and starving him beforehand does little to hamper his abilities in the events. On transit to and from the colosseum where the labyrinth is housed, he is kept under layers of magnetized metals and lead to prevent him from using his powers. 

Even with his powers hampered his body is resilient to damage, he has more endurance, and can withstand devastating damage from hazards like being submerged in lava. The decades of trying to kill him has left his skin bright red, and despite surviving his body was mauled by the various methods his captors employ. 

Primarily his largest handicap is his right arm being torn off by another brainer during the labyrinth way back, when he was still new to the games—and his right eye being gouged out when he was arrested by republic soldiers backed by loyal brainers. 

For this he is often nicknamed by the producers as Cyclops, in order to better profit off his merchandise. Figurines, virtual games, and apparel all have depictions of his one silver eye, gleaming with his grand powers. 

However his greatest strength was taken from him, making him unable to escape the planet, even if he killed everyone on Alcatraz 72, he couldn’t get off the planet. The whole facility would go into permanent lockdown, and he’d suffer from dehydration and starvation. Without his powers keeping him alive, he’d allow himself to die rather than face an eternity of no food, water, light, or any kind of stimulation in his prison. 

Such a thing makes him withhold his wrath upon the prison and all those inside, till he can find one breach in their hampering protocols. Just one time where he isn’t surrounded by magnetized metal or lead, then he could summon the means of his escape. 

Fools kept it sealed away on an adjacent planet, along with other brainers’ mechmatons, but he only wanted his Atlas Mök, the greatest of all others of his time. True advancement in mechmaton’s designs have made more advanced weapons systems and mechanisms—but no brainer matched Arges’s power. 

Psychically he could control Atlas as easily as a healthy man can move his own body, it was his true skin—and the reason he was imprisoned. Inside it he was too powerful, even when he did as the Republic wanted, the ministers feared his strength. If he was so naïve he wouldn’t have parted with his second skin, and wouldn’t have been ambushed. Led into an ambush by his former team the Brain Deads, he was so dismayed by the betrayal he couldn’t fight back effectively. 

The look in Jason’s eyes as he managed to apply enough force to force him into that prisoner transport, even if it resulted in it crushing his eye, he knew Jason held back. Jason that day couldn’t kill him, but his foolish sentimentality had spared  Arges’s life—but made him even more bitter. Just like an executioner who only cuts part way through the condemned’s neck, so too did Arges live life a cripple because of strength sapping venom of mercy. 

If it were Arges he would’ve done a clean job, that was the true mercy, not living in prison, half a man, not because of his wounds, but because he was parted with his second skin— Atlas Mök. Even through the layers of lead and metal he could feel it reaching for him, but he couldn’t reach out to touch that outstretched hand—all he needed to do was confirm the call to rescue. 

But that would require a momentary slip in the guards, a slip in procedure and his mechmaton would come to his aid. Fortunately he may have had a golden opportunity, the warden lax from success, receiving a large bonus from the recent broadcast, had only assigned one guard. 

“Don’t worry, Arges knows how to behave.” Those taunting words served to prove his ploy was succeeding. Making the prison believe he was craving more privileges like a damned lion at a zoo, he cut back on security. Where there was an army of guards to see every procedure was in place, over the many years it had dwindled to one. 

Clovis the warden’s nephew, a slow young man, who he had endeared to him, by playing up his role as the proud champion of the labyrinth. Signing merchandise, retelling stories of glory, and giving a smug smile of sportsman pride, head fooled all his guardians. Not enough for them to willingly breach procedures, but enough to make them think he wasn’t planning and bidding his limitless time. 

One gap between the cargo shuttle and the gateway to the main facility was all he needed, just one second, one moment of the briefest amount of time. The message of response to Atlas Mök was prewritten, all he needed to do was send it off—once sent there was no turning back. 

“You really did well this time around, honestly it seems too easy.” Clovis smiled at his charge who he idolized for his celebrity. 

“Well I try not to go too hard on them, but what do you expect, the republic doesn’t recruit the caliber of participants that they used to.” Arges kept up the façade of humble smugness. 

“My uncle says the brainers are dying out, he says that scientists figure whatever gave them those psychic powers is fading, and there won’t be anymore after you guys…well—” the half-idiot nephew didn’t want to betray his uncle's words he overheard him say in private. 

Despite the immediate cutting off the conclusion, Clovis revealed too much, and as such Arges realized his kind were being phased out of existence. A genocide against the accidental evolution of the human race, a truly disgraceful turn in events. 

During the Purge Wars, brainers had kept the Confederation and the Black Eyes out of their spheres of space. However the censored news, privileged prisoners are allowed to watch on the telescreens, it was said that the Republic was normalizing relations with the Black Eyes, to concentrate on defeating the Confederation. 

A war, Arges predicted once finished would result in mankind's evolutionary cousins going extinct, and thus freeing them solely to expend their planet destroying arsenal on the completely alien Black Eyes. 

Complete domination of the known universe for that much more breathing room, a idiotic ploy that didn’t account for the danger in the Great Void, that held threats only truly powerful brainers could see—but that was a matter for another day. 

Despite the profits Arges supplied his captors, he deduced that eventually they’ll seal him away on this planet and wait for him to kill himself from the suffering and loneliness. Perhaps his days were already numbered, and this was the last broadcast of Survive The Minotaur. He had to pull his escape soon, during that transport, all he needed to do was district Clovis as he opened the cargo doors, but before the gateway hampering field was turned on. 

Despite his limited intelligence, his guard was loyal to his uncle, and would require finesse to fracture his preprogrammed routine. A feat that despite his lack of higher brain functions, Clovis was able to perform as well as any trained chimp. 

“No sweat.” Arges broadened his smile to relax Clovis. “I understand you guys have your secrets.” His playful tone made his guard smile. 

“I hope you understand that I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.” a sincerity in Clovis’s tone was undercut by his naivety and stupidity. 

“Don’t worry about me, I am sure the producers will find a way to keep the show going.” Arges preyed on the other’s adoration for the labyrinth, to him it was a sport, but for an actual participant it was grueling torture. Something the prisoner intended to inflict on the entire Republic, that just sat by and watched as he was subjected to years of torment, just for existing with powers. “So tell me Clovis, and memorabilia you wanted me to autograph?”

  Again Clovis was oblivious to the plots of his captive, as the cargo shuttle was reaching the platform for the next facility, he was fumbling with his jacket to produce the keepsake he wanted signed. 

Finally after resting his taser rifle against the wall, he pulled out a novelty brainer orb, the kind used by brainer’s in battle and in the labyrinth to conduct electricity and power their mechmatons. Handing the polished silver orb to Arges smiled broadly, as he counted in his head the time left till they reached the platform. 

“Can I have something to write with?” Arges saw Clovis hurriedly search his pockets as the shuttle came to a complete stop, the doors were still sealed shut, but they reached the platform, and the damping field wasn’t activated. 

“Here you go.” Clovis found the pen and handed it to Arges, who slowly maneuvered his one arm to both hold and sign the polished surface of the orb. 

Then as he was writing, Clovis disengaged the shuttle lock on the control panel by the doors. As a sharp hissing sound game, so did the temporary field of atmosphere that was meant to keep the guard alive from the lack of oxygen. Computer controlled turrets pointed at the cargo doors, ready for any unauthorized leaving of the cargo bay. The guns provided enough stun shots to cease all psychic signals a brainer might project, before the damping field is engaged. 

Arges had to get the doors opened before his clueless captor could open those doors, but he had already begun the process of depressurizing the cargo bay—it was now or never. 

Just as Clovis primed the doors to open, but before he engaged the field, Arges with all the power he had in his one arm, threw the orb with enough force to break through Clovis’s guard helmet. 

Fragments of alloy of the protective headgear flew about, as brain matter was spewing out the concave skull. Stunned from the blow, the lethality of the wound was certain but the process of death was slow and painful, as the orb kept much of the vital brain matter and blood from expelling itself from what remained of his skull. 

Not able to think about what happened, Clovis only experienced pain, as his vision became a pure crimson, as the last thing he saw was Arges opening the doors of the transport. 

An emergency opening that left the depressurizing process half finished, and as the doors opened, Clovis’s insides were ruptured and torn from his body as air blew out of the hold. 

The force was strong enough to send what remained of the warden’s nephew floating aimlessly into space, as Arges was flung upwards barely missing the stunning shots of the turrets. The time he was free was not even a second, as the dampening field was turned on, and he plummeted to the hard metallic floors of the platform.

As he was brought to his knees a blue light tore through the particles of matter, ripping open a wormhole known as the gateway that led into the prison. Instead of it opening into the prison block he was kept, instead it opened to the core of Alcatraz 72. Filled with antimatter, prisoners would float aimlessly in utter darkness without even gravity to give them a firm hold on the ground. 

No food, water, light, or sound—it was the ultimate place of punishment, and standing before this abyss was the warden Archie Kirkmart, along with his personal guard. 

“You really had to do it, didn’t you?” Warden Kirkmart walked through the gateway to look down at the paralyzed brainer who was made powerless by the damping field—then up at his nephew. Not even a sign of pity was in his eyes. “My sister kept pestering me to give that retard a job, well now he’s dead.”

Boots of hard leather locked the Arges’s face, as he tried to smash the Cyclops’s one eye. 

“Was this a spur of the moment?” the warden asked with an incredulous tone. “Do you really plan this for all these days, months, years, decades? Honestly it was all for nothing—” the warden’s eyes lifted to the planet above. “—we didn’t tell you this because we wanted you to keep performing at the labyrinth but we completely dismantled your mechmaton.” 

There was not even a look of shock on the brainer’s face, as he glared at the warden with his one eye. 

“Yes.” the warden feigned a cold reserved nature as he spoke. “You see we broke through  Atlas Mök down a week after you arrived here, we scrapped his body, so now only his skeleton remains. He doesn’t even have his psycho-core anymore.” There was a callous coldness seeping into the warden’s tone, as he sneered at the former decorated officer in the Republic’s military, an honor he was denied due to his lack of willingness to take on dangerous campaigns. 

“What made you do this now?—” the warden, as if he answered his own question, looked up at the body of his nephew, as it floated further away into space. “—that idiot told you what we planned to do, didn’t he?” Then he started to laugh sadistically at his still silent prisoner. “I guess those powers of yours aren’t so weak, you could see the future. The time of the brainers is almost done, as well as all the rest of you genetic freaks. The Republic will keep ourselves pure, for when we claim the rest of this pitiful existence.” 

Gesturing for his guards to take custody of Arges, he gestured to them to the blackness that lay beyond the gateway. “Goodbye.” was all the warden could say to his prisoner, as he watched him being dragged away. 

Just then light years away, the adjacent world erupted in an expanding chasm of molten rock and crimson flames. 

“What in Hell?” The warden’s skin turned a pale gray as he witnessed the planet they kept the discarded mechmatons, collapsed on itself, as if the gravity core of the planet was destroyed. 

An orb of fire grew larger in the widening chasm that sundered the planet, as the radioactive furnaces of the world got aflame. Falling into the fire, or floating apart into the emptiness of space, the entire world was subsumed by a growing orb of radioactive flame. 

The warden could see Hell within the sphere of blood red flames. 

“What have you done? What have you done!?” The warden panicked as he pressed the command console on his wrist, to change the gateway to a more secure location—but the digital screen on his wrist band was frozen. 

Error flashed in bright red letters, signifying that the prison’s computer system was malfunctioning. Then as he was going to command his guards to get him out of there, a great shadow came over him, as he looked up towards the light of the Hell Sphere. A colossus of cast covered up the raging ball of fire, as its rapid speed was caused by being propelled by the massive eruption that involved the neighboring planet. 

A humongous figure with a singular eye glowing with the passions of its master, soon the dampening field went dead, as the facility began to lose power. Its functions ceased, due to the power the cyclopean mechmaton had on their computer systems. 

Brainer can also share their psychic powers to their mechs—but it is written as a coder types instructions into an artificial intelligence, to be adhered to in strict commands, that Arges had prewritten in his mind. Decades of imprisonment he spent focused on imprinting those mental commands into a message he would send to his mechmaton, the Atlas Mök. Always some part of his brain was dedicated to preserving and continuing these psychic codes, which once delivered caused the inevitable doom of the scrap planet, and would soon arrive on Alcatraz 72.

Despite being light years away, Atlas had awakened from its nearly crippled state, having reassembled itself, had made sure to upgrade certain parts so that it may compete in the modern battleground. 

“You Republic bureaucrats!” spat Arges as he looked the frightened men in their eyes. Out of pure malevolence he kept them alive purely so he could savör their despair, maintaining a protective barrier around them, so they wouldn’t be sucked into the vacuum of space. Clovis allowed a merciful death, in comparison to the suffering he would inflict on the rest. Already those non-brainers inside the prisoner were dying of suffocation and declining temperatures, due to the power systems failing. “Did you think taking out the core would stop the mighty Atlas!” 

Arges pointed to the sky at the incoming colossus, as it propelled itself on thruster jets and gravity propulsion engines. “Do you not see?” his face distorted into a monstrous visage, as his one eye gleamed in the crimson light of the nearby sphere of flame. “I put a part of myself into my mechmaton, he is me and I am him, we are one in the same, and we’ll be joined forever once he comes here.” 

The guards tried fighting back, but their weapons exploded in their hands before firing them, their faces were melted with molten metals, down to the bone. 

Eyes bloodshot and lidless were livid with shock and agony, as they wondered why they didn’t die. Arges in his cruelty was keeping them alive with his power, he didn’t want them spared one second longer of what he believed was their just punishment for how they treated him in prison. 

Unable to die, fight back, or flee as they were trapped in a psychic created barrier, as they watched paralyzed in fear as the one cyclopean colossus descended upon them, and reaped a devastating vengeance, a thousand times more than was ever inflicted on Arges. 

As he bore witness to their never ending torment, he trapped their agonized mind in the core of his one eye, so he can inflict torment on their trapped psyches for all time. 

Once Atlas Mök had finished with the torture, it kneels before Arges who levitated himself to its chest plate, where it opened to allow the brainer to enter its cockpit. Inside the metallic womb once again, Arges started to intertwine his body and mind into the colossus. 

Flying away from the prison planet, Arges looked upon it from orbit, and with his power compacted it to one-billionth its size. Trapping the surviving brainers in a cramped prison, where the only mercy they could have was ending their own lives. Speeding off into the cosmos, Arges prepared a terrible vengeance upon the Republic and all other sentient life in the universe, for what they had done to him for all those years. 

***

Jason was crouching as he perched on top of an outstretch of rock. The smoldering battlefield was littered with the charred bodies of rebels who Military Command ordered exterminated. 

Brittle, blackened flesh broke apart in the rising winds on the rocky landscape. Smells of charred carnage were quickly fading along with the heat, as the sky darkened, and the storm clouds began to form. Lightning flashed and it was time for him and his team to leave. 

On his headset he contacted the members of the Brain Deads. “Okay guys, time we evac to the ship.” 

“Yeah, we’ve done enough damage for the day.” The hardhearted sarcasm of Pix was a disgusting view of their actions that day. They indiscriminately killed both innocents and guilty, true the innocents didn’t fight them with guns, but they fought them by offering refuge to the rebels. Terrorists like it more, but can they honestly be seen in a more sympathetic light? 

Jason felt the chill rain drop touch his arm, and he knew it was time to leave. Mentally he commanded his mechmaton to open its chest cavity, so he could climb inside, and be sealed up in the dark cavity of its chest. 

Waiting for the rest of his team to sync up, he flew off the desolate planet, with the rest of the members of the Brain Deads. Somehow as he sat back in the shadows of the cockpit, he saw the display screens light up, showing various information from direction, star charts, and vital statistics for his mech the Argonaut. 

Sighing depressingly, he took a can of carbonized fruit vitamins, and started to drink it slowly. Its over-sweetened taste made him less sleepy, but more miserable. A crimson notification flashed on his screens, all demanding his attention for the incoming message from Military Command. Without needing to accept it, the flushed face of the bloated Commissioner Gar was on screen, and he looked more pissed than a pig without mud to wallow in. 

“Jason! Where are you, are you still dealing with your rebels?” the Commissioner barked through his telescreen. 

“Check your sensors, we finished that job some time ago, and are heading back to the ship.” Jason didn’t like being talked to that way, even by his superiors so he had a defiant tone to his voice. 

“Don’t talk back! This is an emergency, Arges has proven out of prison and is piloting Atlas Mök again.” The Commissioner's words sent a blood chilling sensation throughout Jason’s body. 

“Are you sure?” he didn’t want to accept that his mentor, and former friend who he betrayed was out there wrecking his vengeance on the universe. 

When they fought he had to deploy much of his psychic power, but knew he held back to prevent him from dying, believing the Republic would treat him fairly for his service—how wrong he was. 

He should’ve killed him, he knew that, better to die while being taken into custody than made into a tormented slave till you die. Mercy was Jason’s biggest weakness, and that is what he had to overcome—what he did to Arges was for the good of the team, a numbers game he was a fool to accept. 

If one of you doesn’t go down, you all do.

Jason spared the Dead Brainers mandatory mental castration if they turned over Arges, a decision he regretted every day since then. Now he had to finish the evil deed he did before, unless he doomed the entirety of their civilization to the vengeance of the most powerful Brainer, Jason had ever encountered. 

“Can’t the Galaxy Brains help in this?” Jason remembered the elite Brainer team that incorporated almost all lesser Brainer groups to their numbers. 

“Already sent but Arges wiped nearly all of them all out. He is currently headed to Gaia Major, we fear he is going to ignite the Sun there to create a black hole. That is where the heart of the Republic rests, hurry there pronto and eliminate Arges…and this time, don’t hold back.”

The screen turned off, and Jason was left to order his team back to the ship in haste to beat Arges to Gaia Major to avert major catastrophe. 

***

Standing in the briefing room of the ship, the Argo, Jason turned on the hologram projector that formed a downscaled version of the Atlas Mök. What the Republic's computers could record of it before they were utterly destroyed in its wake, the mechmatron had been refitted with a mesh of parts from other scrapped mechs. 

“As you can see he is fitted with a new laser cannon that he rewired to be six times more devastating than that on an Armada Warship. Also since his layers of protective alloy have been stripped, so if we break his mental barriers we should be able to completely destroy it with our long range ballistics.” Jason zoomed in on the hologram, different parts of the mech, showing the strengths and weaknesses they knew about the Atlas. 

“Are we not going to address the elephant on the ship?” Pix said, as his juvenile glee turned sullen, as he turned away from the hologram. “We’re going to fight Arges again…he was a leader before you.” The young Brain Dead member was almost a teenager when he served under Arges, and thought of him as a father figure. 

“What he was then, he isn’t now, he is killing millions of people—look!” pressing a button he shows dozens of worlds he imploded or vaporized from the map, due to his destructive psychic powers. “He has gone crazy in captivity, he can’t control his strength.” 

“I don’t care!” Pix could sense the thoughts of the other Brain Deaders, none of them, including Jason wanted Arges dead, but they were doing it to save their own skin. 

The Brain Deads have been up for review for some time, always it was pushed back, but soon they may all be lobotomized to fit into the Galaxy Brains. That outfit wasn’t elite because of their powers which were muted because of the procedures, they were ideal because they always obeyed, because free will and thought were removed from their skulls. 

Life, love, pleasure, was all torn from their minds, leaving them empty vessels for whatever the Republic demanded. 

“He was one of us, and we all betrayed him so the bosses wouldn’t…” Pix couldn’t speak further; he was too emotional.

“Doc, take the kid to his room, sedate him, he doesn’t need to be conscious for this.” Pix went along with the ship's Doctor, who would put him into a coma like sleep, so the psychic waves wouldn’t further damage his emotional state. 

Jason sighed, he sensed all their apprehension, and knew he couldn’t be needing them. “Look, you guys hang back, keep us in sensor range, but don’t interfere, I’ll go in alone.” 

Despite protests, he knew they were half-hearted and was able to get them to submit to his firm command. Secretly, they all wanted to not be there, they couldn’t stand seeing Arges taken away the first time, and Jason knew that, he didn’t want them burdened further because of his choices. 

Many haven’t fully forgiven him the first time around, and he doubts they ever will. 

Going to the hangar, he intended to fly the rest of the way on the Argonaut, ahead of the ship. There be there soon enough, and he dreaded every elapsing second till the final time he’ll ever meet his friend and mentor. 

***

Atlas Mök had vaporized the West Galaxy Armada, every last War Cruiser was nothing but floating space debris. Letting out a silent roar, the mechmaton continued towards the heart of the Republic's power, till it sensed something in the depths of space, coming at great speed. 

Bracing itself, Atlas saw a glimmer of thruster fire burn in the void of space, before it seemed to span a distance of five light years in a few seconds. A teleportation technique that Arges taught Jason, a tactic that saw resulted in a multi-ton fist smashing into Atlas’s cyclopean eye. 

Cracking the diamond, the one eyed mech tried to fire a directed laser beam, but the crack in the lens split the beam in two, firing in opposite directions, failing to blast through the middle the Argonaut. 

“You came all this way…I knew you would…but I hoped you’d come prepared to kill, as I am.” the radio message said, just before the Atlas slammed its pike weapon into the chest of the Argonaut, which it caught and with tremendous effort on its pilot snapped in two, pushing off the other Atlas Mök. 

“This has gone far enough Arges…surrender, and I am sure you can be made to join—” Jason wouldn’t finish his radio transmission, he realized how cruel it sounded. 

“Join those brain wiped fools.” Arges finished, as a grim tone came to his voice. “I have been out for a partial cycle Jason, but I know this universe has barely changed. You’ll see, we are a fleeting irregularity in the Republic's schemes.” 

Jason was overtaken by the opening of Arges’s mind, it was in the depths he sealed away for so long that he didn’t escape just for vengeance, he wanted something greater—finality. He was suicidal, but didn’t want the Republic stooges to get the satisfaction of him being killed by their lesser or him succumbing to their tortures and ending his own life, he wanted Jason to end his life. 

“I…can’t.” Jason’s words escaped his mouth and his mind before he thought better. 

Arges was inflamed with fury, at not only the weakness of his former friend, but at the weakness in his heart to do the only right thing left in their engagement. 

Furious he aimed Atlas Mök towards the distant Argo, which remained still far behind the Argonaut to avoid sustaining collateral damage. However now it seemed as if Arges was going to force Jason’s hand—either he killed him or he would destroy the other Brain Deads. 

Engaging the thrusters in a suicidal high degree, the one eyed brainer wasn’t going to allow Jason to take him alive again. Even if he wanted to kill him, Arges knew Jason wouldn’t have the cold heartedness to kill a friend. There had to be an element of threat or he had to be disassociated with those he kills. 

Jason was a poet born in savage times, and Arges was going to make certain he learned to be the kind of leader his crew needed to survive. Propelling through space, the Atlas Mök was piercing through warps in time and space, to bridge the gap between him and the Argo. 

Jason knowing what Arges was going to do, he pushed his mental capabilities to the limit and followed at the Atlas. Flying side by side there were seconds left to avoid the obliterating impact of the mechmaton and the ship. 

Temples above his eye throbbed and what happened next he could remember—but during that lapse in memory Jason thrusted the arm cannon of his mech into the side of the Atlas. Aimed just over the cockpit of the Atlas, Arges didn’t struggle, his hatred was melted by a sense of futility in his vengeance and accepted the feeling of utter annihilation as he became space dust. 

The blast to the center of the mech, caused the bindings of the Atlas Mök and without a brainers mental capabilities the mechmaton faded into rusty shards of metal. The psychic ghost that kept the Atlas whole this entire time was gone, and now there was never left of the one eye's brainer. His revenge was only partially fulfilled, but he left something in Jason’s mind. A premonition that would make him and the other Brain Deads live a ruinous existence, if he didn’t take a more rebellious route. 

***

The Argo was docked in space port 99, the frigid, recirculated air was bitter to smell, it was as if something crawled into the vents and died. 

A panel opened in the entryway of the port, and standing there was Commissioner Gar, his chubby face smiling in an attempt to remain kindly. Jason was on alert, immediately he noticed tampening fields were up, so he couldn’t read the thoughts of the Commissioner. 

“Why were we called here?” Jason took a stiff posture as he saw two assistants take to his flank. 

“To congratulate you.” the Commissioner beamed. “We thought you didn’t have it in you, but you proved us all wrong. You have just been promoted, and with the elevation of rank we want to lavish you and the rest of your men to a luxurious spa vacation…where are the rest of your crew?” 

Jason carefully chose his words. “I told them to remain on the ship till I said otherwise.”

“Expecting an ambush?” the Commissioner chuckled as he tried to hide his treasonous eyes with layers of folding fat. 

“Is there?” Jason felt his airs prick on his neck. 

“Of course not. In fact, why not come inside, you’ll be treated to the best of accommodations.” Commissioner Gar gestured to the open doorway he came through. 

It was dark inside, and even in the shadows he saw the unmistakable outline of medical equipment. Jason felt a tension in his chest, as he started to understand why Arges did what he did.