Robert moved with the disciplined, low-profile gait of a scout. He reached the console of the tilted relay station and began flipping switches, but the only sound was the hollow hiss of static. He adjusted the frequency, his fingers steady despite the eerie silence.
"This is Commander Robert White, USMC. Does anyone copy? Over."
Nothing but the wind.
"Drop it! Don't even breathe!"
The voice was jagged and filled with malice. Robert froze. From the shadows of the rusted server racks, four men emerged. These weren't soldiers; they were Bandits, clad in mismatched gear and reinforced scrap metal. Their eyes were cold and predatory.
"Nice uniform, 'Soldier,'" the Bandit leader sneered, leveling a rugged submachine gun at Robert's chest. "You're a long way from home. Hand over that rifle and the cells, and maybe we won't gut you."
Robert's mind shifted into combat mode. He didn't reach for the strange rifle slung over his shoulder; his hands were already lethal weapons. "I'm United States Marine Corps. You're interfering with a mission. Lower your weapons."
The Bandits laughed, a dry, cruel sound. "Marine Corps? What planet are you from? Hand it over!"
Robert moved before the laughter died. He was a blur of lethal, close-quarters combat. He stepped inside the leader's reach, his palm striking the man's chin with the force of a piston. In the same motion, he seized the second bandit's wrist, twisting it until the bone popped, and drove a knee into the man's solar plexus.
The third bandit swung a jagged pipe, but Robert parried the blow with his forearm and delivered a lightning-fast throat strike. The fourth turned to draw a sidearm, but Robert was already there, delivering a spinning heel kick that sent the man crashing into a server rack.
Silence returned to the room. Robert stood in the center of the carnage, his breathing steady.
"Well done, kid. You're faster than you look."
The voice came from a dark ventilation shaft. Robert spun, but he was a fraction of a second too slow.
BANG.
A shotgun blast at point-blank range caught Robert squarely in the back. As the buckshot shredded his uniform and slammed into his body, a sharp, resonant clashing of metal rang out—the sound of lead pellets flattening against heavy armor-plate instead of tearing through flesh.
The fifth Bandit stepped out, racking another shell into his smoking weapon. The bandits, fueled by adrenaline and greed, did not notice the metallic ring of the impact. The leader, clutching his broken jaw, looked at his man with a bloody grin.
"Well done," the leader wheezed to his man. "That's how you put down a 'soldier.' Now strip him. Take that rifle."
But then, the floor groaned as Robert began to move.
Robert White didn't stay down. Much to the shock of the Bandits, he pushed himself up. His movements were stiff, powerful, and utterly relentless. He looked down at his new uniform—the back was shredded, peppered with holes from the buckshot.
But as he touched the impact site, his fingers didn't find blood. He felt a dull, fading ache that vanished in seconds. There were no holes in his skin. Beneath the torn fabric, his body felt as unyielding as the metal skeletons he had seen earlier.
Robert stood fully upright, staring at his hands in the dim light. Why didn't that kill me? Why did the pain stop?
The Bandits backed away, their faces pale with a new kind of terror. "What... what the hell are you?" the leader whispered, his voice trembling as he realized he wasn't looking at a man.
******
The silence in the room was shattered by the leader's desperation. Panicked and wounded, he raised his submachine gun and squeezed the trigger.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
A stream of high-velocity rounds chewed through the air, striking Robert squarely in the chest. Robert braced for the impact, expecting his lungs to collapse and his life to finally end. Instead, he felt a rhythmic, dull thumping—like a hail of pebbles hitting a steel drum.
Each bullet sparked against his torso. They didn't sink into flesh; they flattened and repelled, zipping off into the shadows of the server racks with high-pitched whistles. The air was filled with a sharp, repetitive clashing of metal on metal, a sound that should have been impossible coming from a human chest.
The color drained from the bandits' faces, leaving them a sickly, translucent grey. The leader's weapon clicked empty, the barrel smoking. He stared at Robert's shredded uniform, where the fabric had been blown away to reveal… skin. Smooth, unblemished skin that showed no holes, no blood, and not even a bruise.
Robert stood frozen, his own mind reeling. Why did they repel? Why do I sound like an armored humvee? He looked down at his chest, his hands trembling. He felt his ribs—they weren't bone. They were an unyielding, cold lattice that felt like solid iron.
The fifth bandit dropped his shotgun, his legs giving out as he fell onto his butt, scrambling backward in the ash. "No... no way," he whimpered, his voice cracking into a scream of pure, primal fear.
"TERMINATOR!" the leader shrieked, his voice hitting a frantic, hysterical note. "It's a damn Terminator!"
The other bandits collapsed where they stood, paralyzed by the name. They didn't try to fight; they wept and pleaded, their eyes fixed on Robert as if he were death itself made manifest.
Robert looked from the cowering men to his own hands. The word echoed in his head, cold and alien.
Terminator?
The confusion was a physical ache. He was a Marine. He was a Commander. He was a man who loved a girl named Emily. But as he listened to the metallic hum vibrating in his own chest, he realized the bandits weren't just afraid of a soldier. They were afraid of what he had become.