Broken Worlds: A Sea Of Tears

“I said, move your fucking ass, or I’ll hit you with the stun stick again!” a guard screamed in my face, and I felt his spit spatter on my nose and forehead. He was trying to get me to push this big, horizontal wheel so the machines in the factory I was imprisoned in could get power, and so BlackTech could get more parts for their weapons.

I rolled my eyes; I can out-scary-face anyone at the best of times. I gave the guard my most intimidating death glare. “And I said, go fuck yourself; I’m not moving,” I growled with coldness that could freeze hell.

The guard looked taken aback for a moment, and then he held up his cattle prod so the stick was inches from my face. “I’ve never hit someone in the head with one of these before; do you think it’ll give you brain damage, or will it just knock you out and give you a nasty burn?” he asked, smiling confidently.

I heard Gentle Blade gasp; the tan earth pony was on the same wheel as I was. I felt the handles budge a bit as she struggled to get the machinery moving. “Wayne, please, get moving,” she pleaded softly.

The guard continued to stare me down, and I could feel the heat radiating from the tip of his stun stick. “You’d better listen to your horsey girlfriend,” he said teasingly, “you’re gonna regret your tough-guy act once this thing hits you.”

I glanced down at the spoke that my hands were shackled to; since I had nothing better to do while I pushed this thing around for the past couple of days, I had studied the machinery and its components. This particular spoke was already pretty loose when I arrived, and as I ran the machine, I would regularly twist and jerk the handle, loosening it more and more until I could pop it out of place freely.

I sighed heavily and wrapped my hands around the handle, discreetly sliding the steel shaft from its slot. “Alright, I’ll get back to work,” I mumbled.

The guard nodded satisfactorily. “Good. Don’t get gutsy like that again, or I won’t be so nice next time,” he said, and started to walk away.

The moment his back was turned, I yanked the shaft completely from the wheel and rushed the guard with it, striking the base of his skull with the steel rod. The man dropped like a ton of lead, and I grabbed his cattle prod.

“Wayne, what are you doing?” Gentle Blade hissed as I marched for the doors, holding the handle I was shackled to in one hand, and the stun stick in the other.

“What does it look like?” I asked over my shoulder, ducking as a guard swung his stun stick at me, and then jabbed him in the side with my own, “I’m getting out of here. BlackTech did a shitty job making these wheels; jiggle the spokes, and they’ll come loose in no time,” I called to the other prisoners as I sprinted out of the work room, right into a hallway filled with BlackTech guards, each outfitted in standard-issue exoskeletons and armed with high-tech energy rifles.

“Back to work, kid,” one of them growled through his helmet’s speaker. “We’d gun you down, but we’re short on workers; it’d be a shame to lose another.”

I glared defiantly at the soldiers, but I knew I was beat; I dropped the stun stick and marched back to my wheel, where Gentle Blade was glaring at me sternly.

“You might want to get a welder to look at this,” I called nonchalantly as I began to march in a circle, pushing the heavy wheel, “The handles on these things are a little loose; someone could just walk away whenever they wanted to.”

~-~-~-~-~

When it was time for the prisoners to go to bed, the guards escorted us at gunpoint to the bunk rooms. The “beds” were literally just elevated slabs of concrete, all lined up with very little space between them, and obviously sized for a pony; I could barely lie straight on them without half of my legs hanging over the edge.

“Wayne, what were you thinking back there?” Gentle Blade hissed. Not only did she work next to me, but she slept next to me, too. “We all hate working here, but we don’t have much of a choice; if any of us try to break out, we’ll be dead before we can reach the treeline.”

I sighed heavily. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be!” I growled angrily. “I can’t believe I just let them take me prisoner like that. I should have fought back. I should have done something!”

In the moonlight that filtered in through the skylights, I could see Gentle Blade smile softly. “Sometimes you need to learn when to fight, and when to wait,” she said comfortingly. “There are others back at the base, and when they see that we haven’t returned, Cadence will send out a rescue party to find us.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you really think they’re going to make a difference?” I asked rhetorically, “with Drayke dead, there’s no way they’ll risk getting captured just to save a bunch of rookies.” I turned over in my “bed”. “Face it, G.B; we’re a lost cause.”

I heard the earth pony shuffle a bit, and I assumed she was sitting upright. “What did you just call me?” she asked with a slight laugh.

I looked back at her over my shoulder. “‘G.B.’” I repeated. “‘Gentle Blade’ is a mouthful, and just ‘Blade’ or ‘Gentle’ sounds ridiculous. So, I’m calling you G.B. from now on.”

I heard her chuckle softly and yawned. “I like it,” she murmured tiredly. “Goodnight, Wayne.”

And with that, I was alone. Joseph and Tess, the only other living things in this place who might willing to interact with me, were on the other side of the room, and trying to talk to them would just piss off the guards. So I laid on the uncomfortable stone slab and closed my eyes, trying to get what precious hours of sleep I could.

~-~-~-~-~

“Wake up…”

I snapped my eyes open to find myself lying in a brightly lit, white hallway. The walls were so garish that it hurt my eyes to look at them as I stood up. I felt like I was swimming in my own body; my movements were slow and erratic, and my vision refused to focus on the world around me.

Am I dreaming? I wondered as I staggered over to the wall and started making my way down the hallway.

“That’s it… You’re almost here…”

An ethereal, whispery voice was guiding me as I took shaky, forceful steps towards my destination. I saw a doctor walking in my direction, and I waved to get his attention. I tried speaking, but my mouth made no sound as my lips moved. I tried shouting, but he still couldn’t hear me.

“Don’t bother… Even if they could hear you, they wouldn’t be of any help to you… Keep going… you’re so close…”

I took a few more steps, until I felt my guiding hand touch a door handle. “There…” The voice said, sounding relieved. “Hurry… come inside…” I twisted the handle and pulled open the door, suddenly losing my balance as I fell inside the newly-opened room. I felt a little more focused, and my head wasn’t swimming as much as it was in the hallway. I rose to my feet and took a careful look around; I was in a laboratory of some sort, with all sorts of monitors and instruments on top of tables and desks that filled the room. In the center, there was a glass case with a creature lying inside of it. As I drew closer, I could see that it was an alicorn, like Drayke’s wife Cadence, except this one was a dark blue with a light purple mane. She must have sensed me getting closer, because her eyes snapped open in a flash, the blue-green orbs staring at me intensely.

“You must seek… the Crystal Prince…” she rasped. “Tell the other human boy you saw me… I don’t have much time… and I will not be able to contact you again…”

I looked around wildly as an alarm sounded, and a group of scientists flooded the room. They ignored me, instead focusing their attention on the pony as they began furiously typing on the computers. I heard one of them mention something about “stronger sedatives”, and the whole world went black.

~-~-~-~-~

I was awakened by a sharp pain in my side as I was pushed onto the floor. “You and me got a score to settle, kid!” I recognized the voice of the guard I had knocked out the previous day. “Surprised to see me?” he asked teasingly as he grabbed the collar of my prison jumpsuit and dragged me to the door, “BlackTech has some great medical equipment; that little bump you gave me the other day? Might as well have been a scratch,” he said with a laugh.

Keep laughing, jackass, I thought as he brought me out to the yard, where the others prisoners were waiting.

“As you all know, this little piece of shit tried starting a breakout yesterday. I’m here to make an example out of him, and show you all a much more tame version of what will happen to you if you try to follow his act!” With that, he struck me in the back of the knee, forcing me to the ground, and then slammed his kneecap into my chin, knocking me onto my back.

“Stop!” I heard Tess’s voice cry out. I glanced up to see the guard staring at her eagerly.

“Would you take his place?” he suggested sarcastically, and delivered a strong kick to my stomach. The guards had haphazardly stitched my abdomen after being stabbed during our raid on the factory, and that kick opened the wound up. I could feel the stinging sensation of my jumpsuit rubbing against the raw flesh of the cut, and I grinned as I felt my primal “fight-or-flight” instinct well up inside me. He tried to kick again, but I quickly grabbed his leg and wrapped myself around it as I went limp, my dead weight dragging him onto the ground next to me. I grabbed the guard’s head and pressed my thumbs into his eye sockets as hard as I could, and he screamed and thrashed in agony.

“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF HELL I’VE BEEN THROUGH!” I shouted as I grabbed his cattle prod from his belt. The other guards looked like they were about to interfere, but a stern whistle made them back down. I looked over and recognized Victor Lars standing behind the soldiers, eyeing me expectantly.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked impatiently. “He chose to fight you, and now he’s lost. Don’t you want to get even with him?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

I glared at the british-accented man, and glanced back at the guard I had just thrashed. He was looking up at me with one fearful eye; the other one was concealed by his hand, but I could see blood dripping down the side of his face. I turned back to Victor defiantly. “I’m not a murderer, like you,” I said clearly as I let the stun stick slip from my fingers, and it hit the ground with a light thud. I turned and walked away as a pair of guards escorted their wounded comrade inside the factory for medical attention.

“You. Boy,” I heard Victor call as he approached. I turned to face him as he smirked. “I know you’re upset at me for killing your leader, but I assure you it was nothing personal; BlackTech hired me to take him out. I’d also like to point out that we were engaged in combat, and he had the advantage with his sword,” he added smugly. “One could say I was acting in self-defense.”

I let out a single, empty laugh. “Self-defense,” I repeated sarcastically. “I know what self-defense looks like; you’re a coward that executes defenseless people in front of their friends.”

Victor’s eye twitched slightly, the same way it did before he shot Drayke, but he said nothing more as he turned and stalked back to the factory. I sighed and stood with my back against a wall, staring out into the horizon.

I’ll get out of here, I thought darkly. I’ll escape, I’ll get back to Earth, and no force from Earth or Equus will be able to stop me from having my revenge against BlackTech.