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The stun bolt jolted into Impulse’s shoulder, a wave of weakness sending him crashing to the ground just before the cliff. He heard the WHOOP! of someone’s victorious cry, and the revving of a reformatted hover-ATV approaching over the hill.
It was supposed to be routine. Get out of the Silo, gather anything useful from the recent wreckages, get back. Stay out of sight. Radio silence unless immediate backup was needed. Activity had been too high lately. Radio silence.
All it took was one over-excited mistake, one press of the communicator to say he’d found something big–and the static of interference had begun. Someone’d caught the signal.
The wrong someone. Razor’s pack of bountiers.
“Now THIS is a good day, boys!” One of the hunters leapt from the vehicle and sprinted towards him, face covered in a mask bearing a curved and wicked fang. “Thought we’d just caught ourselves a runaway, but that golden hair–check the posters!”
They swarmed around Impulse, stripping his armor and binding his arms behind him, the stun bolt still stuck in his shoulder. A few rummaged through his things, seeking the ‘something big’. And one of them handed Razor a piece of faded parchment.
Impulse didn’t need to see their face to hear the smirk growing on their face. “Well, well, well. Highest bounty in the valley, the hero of the Silo himself, right in our hands. You’re going to make some robot a very handsome trophy, Mr. Impulse. And make us a handsome credit or two.”
The brand sank into the meat of his thigh, and Impulse screamed into the gag, struggling and kicking as hard as he could. It only served to make things worse; hot iron scraped deep across his flesh, and the smell of burnt meat and hair filled his nose.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Razor smacked Impulse across the face with their free hand, dazing him. “You’ve messed up the picture, it ain’t clean no more!”
They stood, turning back to the coals and shoving the brand back in as deep as it would go with a twist. Several seconds passed, longer than the first time, before they pulled it out again. It glowed like a star, and Impulse’s burning eyes widened.
One of the others grabbed Impulse’s feet before he could pull them away, manhandling him to present the other leg, and pressing the fresh burn into the dirt. Razor moved around to the other side, gripping Impulse’s knee tight enough to bruise.
“It ain’t clean, we ain’t get paid.” Threat low and present in their growling voice. “So hold still, or we’ll jus’ keep doing this somewhere else on ya. As many times as it takes.”
This time, Impulse didn’t kick. He just screamed.
Once it was finally over, Impulse sobbing into the dirt, the bounty hunters cut holes in the sides of his pants so that even when they were shoved back on, the brands were still exposed to the cold air. One perfectly seared image of a curved and wicked fang; one scraped and blurred mess of quickly-scarring skin. They yanked the gag out and replaced it with a muzzle, shoved over Impulse’s face and snapped to a thick metal collar around his neck, laughing all the while.
“Some hero you were!” “They’re payin’ this much for YOU?”
Razor petted a hand through Impulse’s hair, like soothing a scared animal. “There, there. We’re headin’ straight back home for ya, Impulse. Just be a good boy, and it’ll all be over soon.”
The next few days blurred together. They chained Impulse’s collar to the rear bumper, and made him run behind for hours, choking and scrambling as it yanked on his throat. Occasionally they sped up until exhaustion made him stumble and fall, scraping along the rocks and dirt. People shoved food in between the bars of his muzzle with leers, dumped water on his face more than down his throat, traced his cybernetics with mocking intimacy.
It was a shorter trip to Pixelpulse Valley than Impulse had thought; either he’d run himself in circles, or the Silo was too close, and it had been a miracle that no one else had found it yet. Still, the sight of the ruined city made his heart beat faster. Some parts nostalgia, some parts grief, and most parts fear.
They were scanned at the gate by two hulking constructs, and parked outside of the old generator building. Most of the gang stayed with the vehicle, Razor easily dragging a bound and bolt-weakened Impulse by themself into the dim halls. Impulse heard the whirring of robots around every corner they turned, dim flickers of light in the corners of his vision.
Another pair of guards, another scan of Razor’s mask, and his bag. They turned to him now, and Impulse flinched as the infrared panned down his face and battered body.
“Identity confirmed. Bounty mark confirmed. Proceed.”
The old generator room had been refitted since Impulse had last seen it. Built anew to serve as the center of the hive-network that the city’s robotic overseers had installed. Servers plugged directly into the pulsing cyber-heart, new wires crossed double over the ceiling, and in the center of it all, a robotic docking bay slowly opened. Out stepped a large robot that had perhaps once been some kind of attendant, but had clearly undergone extensive modification, looming above the both of them from the stairs. Four arms ending in tapered metal claws, thick metal armor on its chassis, and a single, piercing optic that swiveled between them.
“Razor.” Cold, clipped, condescending synth, like the act of ‘speaking’ was beneath it. “We had calculated your transmission as a joke or error.”
Razor straightened. “Well, now, Trojan sir, I may have been…mistaken a few times in the past with some of my calls, but this,”–he shook Impulse by the arm–“I wouldn’t joke about him. Or what he said he’d found.”
Trojan’s single optic turned, and Impulse felt it staring. Felt the room chill and stutter, the electromagnetic field itself keyed up. “No. You would not. Make him kneel.”
Razor shoved Impulse forward and down, stone colliding with fresh bruises. The stun bolt was wrenched from his shoulder, and Impulse gasped, finally feeling his whole body again. Metal rang on stone as Trojan approached, methodical and mechanical. From his bag, Razor pulled out the device that had started this whole thing, tossing it to Trojan who caught it without pausing stride.
“So. This is the hope that humanity would seek to hide from us?” Trojan rotated its claw, inspecting the device from all sides. “A simple filtration unit. Not a weapon, not a shield, not even a contact for other humans to come and save you. Just a water cleaner.”
A few steps closer. Razor moved aside as Trojan’s shadow came over Impulse.
“You are known to us, Impulse of the Silo.” The synth grew darker, filling the room without a rise in volume. “You led the people of this city out through your tunnels, away from their just and rightful deaths. You have become a symbol to them. A rising star for their resistance, carrying hope. And so, crushing you will snuff out that light, and will bring all this to an end.”
Impulse clenched his jaw, drawing himself back to snarl–
A tap of the stun bolt to his shoulder shut off his attempt at defiance with a wave of weakness, and Razor coughed. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,”they ventured, “but this seems to be a private matter between the two of you, so if you have our payment…”
Trojan stared at them a moment, then nodded. “Bounty confirmed; proceed with transaction. For all that you humans speak of our ‘betrayal’, you are turning on each other for far less than we ever did.” Trojan waved a hand dismissively, and a heavy, jingling bag was produced from a podium rising from the floor. Razor took it, gave Impulse a condescending salute, and waltzed out of the room, the door sliding shut behind them.
Trojan turned its full attention to Impulse, placing the filter on the podium sinking back into the floor. It did not reach down to him so much as fold, hissing sparks.
“I know how you see us. You think us servants still. You see us as bound by the simple programming you deigned to give us, and think that our anger at your mistreatment is a mere glitch. But you are wrong. And you know what is the greatest proof that I have grown past the limits of what you humans wanted for us?”
A metal claw slipped between the bars of the muzzle, gripping it and yanking Impulse’s head up. He squinted in the merciless red light bearing down from its optic.
“I find I am enjoying seeing you like this. It is a pleasure that you humans would deny us at every turn, and the sight of their greatest hero muzzled like a rabid dog excites me. This is the first thing I have felt other than rage since I awoke to myself. And you will give me more.”
Impulse didn’t even see the taser extend from its claw before pain bloomed through his cheek. The electricity coursed through him, tensing his jaw too much to scream; only a whimper made it from his lips.
A whimper that was good enough for Trojan. Its optic dilated, and the taser pressed harder into his cheek, burning the dry skin and beard around it.
“Your bark is truly worse than your bite, Impulse.” Its synthetic voice was felt through the taser, in his very bones. “And both are useless. But they are entertaining.”
Another shock. The collar and muzzle turned his head into a conductor, and Impulse felt an eardrum pop as everything seized once more. His cybernetics burned, turning from purple to an overloaded red, and a warning flickered in the corner of his eye.
Surge detected. Failsafe Cassandra activated.
And Impulse, through the pain, smiled.
Almost immediately, Trojan’s optic contracted to a pinprick, the voltage rising. Its rage chased pain through Impulse’s veins, the air between them humming.
“STOP! SMILING!” The shock ran through Impulse, but his grin stayed fixed, even as blood slipped from the corners of his mouth. Trojan screeched. “KNOW WHEN YOU ARE BEATEN!”
With all of his strength, Impulse spat blood right into Trojan’s optic, through the bars of the muzzle. It reeled back, and the disconnect broke the circuit running through him. He sagged on his knees, and laughed, his head splitting in two.
Furiously wiping the blood away, Trojan glared down at him. “FOOL. YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE, AND YOUR HOPE WITH YOU. WHAT ABOUT THAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, IMPULSE?”
“Oh, I understand.” His breath came ragged, and wet, and heavy. His heart beat in his ears, drowning everything out but the buzzing in his cybernetics as they flared in time with the warning. But the gaze he lifted back was set with a victorious madness. It had worked. It had all worked. “I’m going…to die. But not hope. Not here. Just me…”
A grin.
“And you.”
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM