Chapter 5: Double Trouble
The halls of the old data farm hummed with the ghosts of dead servers. Rows of silent, blinking racks stretched into the gloom, the air thick with the smell of dust and ozone. Punch Up and Waterboy moved cautiously, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space.
"So... Visi said the stolen gear was in here somewhere, right?" Waterboy whispered, his hands already clammy and leaving damp prints on the metal racks.
"That's the intel," Punch Up murmured, his eyes scanning the shadows. "Stay sharp. The only thing worse than a fight is a surprise fight."
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from a nearby aisle, followed by the metallic screech of a server rack being torn from its moorings.
"Speak of the devil," Punch Up muttered.
They rounded the corner to find a chaotic scene. Invisigal, danced around a hulking figure of what looked like scrap metal, concrete, and exposed wiring. It was a clumsy brute, but a strong one, swinging a twisted I-beam like a club. Golem stood solidly in front of her, his earthen body absorbing the blows that got past her guard, chips of concrete and dust flying with each impact. "well at least it isn't a surprise fight" Waterboy said trying to lighten the mood. As if it was waiting for a cue, the moment Waterboy got the words out of his mouth a second hulking scrap figure appeared behind them, with the grace of a falling refrigerator, it swung its massive arm, catching Punch Up square in the chest and sending him flying into a rack of servers with a resounding crash of metal and glass.
“Sir!” Waterboy shrieked, stumbling backward. The creature turned its glowing red optical sensors toward him, and let out a distorted, grinding roar.
Punch Up groaned, shaking his head to clear the spots from his vision. "Herm! The floor! Now! And “don’t call me sir! It makes me feel old!”
Waterboy didn't hesitate. He slammed his hands down, and a geyser of water erupted from the linoleum, hitting the mechanical brute square in the chest, sending it crashing outside the building
"Nice one, Herm!" Punch Up yelled, pushing himself to his feet.
The creature roared in frustration, as it flew through the air.
"Hopefully that takes care of it..." Waterboy whimpered, backing away.
Across the room, Invisigal had finally gotten a clear shot. She reappeared, aiming the scraps of a high-tech rifle she had found, at the head of the first figure. "Golem! Cover your ears!" she shouted. Golem raised two massive, stone hands to the sides of his head just as Invisigal fired. The round hit the scrap-heap's head and detonated in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. The thing staggered, twitched, and then collapsed into a heap of inert metal.
"One down," Invisigal panted, lowering the rifle. "Where's the other one?"
"Outside!" Punch Up called back, running to join them. "Hermy sent it flying."
As Punch Up reached them, the ground trembled. "Oh, you have got to be fucking me," Invisigal muttered.
The wall of the data farm exploded inward, showering the room in debris. The second brute stood in the newly made doorway, its body now reinforced with a chunk of the building's wall and its arm now ending in a massive concrete crusher... it also had a banana peel on it's head, from apparently landing in a dumpster when Waterboy sent it flying
"Well, that's not good," Golem rumbled, lowering his hands.
"Plan B?" Punch Up suggested, already bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.
"Plan B is you hit it really hard and I try not to die" Invisigal snapped, already vanishing again.
The brute charged. Golem met it head-on, the impact echoing like a demolition. The two titans grappled, mud scraping against metal, a struggle of pure, unadulterated force. Invisigal reappeared behind the creature, firing the rifle into its exposed wiring, but the shots only seemed to make it angrier.
"Any weak spots?" Punch Up asked, circling the fray.
"It's a walking pile of shit! Everything's a weak spot! Well it should be at least" Invisigal shouted back.
The brute finally managed to shove Golem back, swinging its arm in a wide arc. Golem raised his arms to block, but the force was too much. He skidded backward, his feet gouging deep trenches in the floor. The brute pressed its advantage, raising its crusher-arm for a final blow.
"Now, Herm!" Punch Up yelled.
Waterboy, who had been cowering behind a server rack, scrambled to obey. He slammed his hands down again, but this time, instead of a geyser, he focused the stream, a high-pressure jet of water aimed squarely at the banana peel. The peel shot off the brute's head, flying through the air.
The brute paused, its glowing red optics flickering in confusion. It seemed to have forgotten why it was angry.
"That's... That's something" Punch Up said, blinking.
"The fuck was that?" Invisigal's demanded briefly reappearing before vanishing.
"It's... distracted?" Waterboy offered weakly.
"Distraction is good! Hit it!" Golem commanded.
Taking advantage of the creature's momentary stupor, Punch Up launched himself into the air. He landed a solid punch on the brute's chest, but was lodged in the brute's chest cavity, He struggled to get free "a little help here?" he called out, the robot started to stumble and fall over.
"He's falling on me!" Punch Up yelled "get me out of here!"
Golem, charged forward and caught the falling brute, the sheer weight of it causing cracks to appear across his earthen body. "Hurry!"
Punch up finally managed to free himself just before the brute crashed to the ground with a deafening thud. Waterboy, seeing an opportunity, unleashed a torrent of water, flooding the area and shorting out the creature's remaining systems. Sparks flew, and with one last, shuddering groan, the second brute was defeated.
The room fell silent, save for the dripping of water and the heavy breathing of the four heroes. Invisigal reappeared, leaning against a server rack for support. "Well," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "That was fun. Let's find out who made these fuckers."
"Agreed" Golem rumbled, as the two began tearing apart the metal corpses. This went on for around 30 minutes until Waterboy announced "I found something!" "it was in the second one, it's a... a... memory card?"
Golem and Invisigal stopped their disassembly to see the small, black, waterlogged card in Waterboy's hand.
"well that's a dead end," Invisigal said, snatching the card from him "this is fried, we can't get anything from this... no one can" The group stood in silence for a moment, the exhaustion of the fight settling in. Punch Up, who had been nursing a sore shoulder, finally spoke. "So... now what?" he asked. "We go home. And we try to figure out who the hell is building scrap monsters in abandoned data farms" Invisigal said, "Let's go."
The walk back to the Z-Team's usual meeting spot, a greasy spoon bar that was surprisingly tolerant of their various states of disrepair, was quiet. Invisigal was already on her phone, her fingers flying across the screen as she tried to trace any digital footprints left by the memory card's manufacturer. Golem was trying to patch a crack in his arm with some mud he'd scraped off the floor, and Punch Up was just trying to ignore the growing ache in his joints, "you know you should really rebrand after what happened today, how bout 'Floodgate', got a nice ring to it" he told Waterboy who nervously chuckled "Y- yeah maybe I should" "that a boy" Punch up said as he slapped Waterboy's back, causing Waterboy to lurch forward.
The bell on of the bar's door started to ring, as everyones favourite half-man, half-bat strutted in, wearing his usual suit that was at least two sizes too small, and a red tie that he refused to take off, ever. "What's up, my fellow night stalkers?" he chirped, his voice a high-pitched, grating whine. "Heard you had a little scrap with some tin cans. Did you save me any souvenirs?"
Sonar stopped in his tracks, his head tilting as he noticed the state of the group. "Whoa. You guys look like shit"
"Very astute observation, Sonar" Invisigal said without looking up from her phone. "We're fine. Go bother someone else."
Sonar ignored her, his gaze landing on Punch Up. "And you! You're all banged up. Where's the boss lady? Usually she's the one who comes back looking like she went ten rounds with a freight train." "she's taking the day off" Punch up said, Sonar's grin widened. "Ah, I see. 'Taking the day off.' Is that the slang for it nowadays. You guys must have had a wild night. Did you finally get her to try that thing with the-" Golem slapped Sonar in the back of the head, knocking him forward and messing up his hair. As he went to fix it Sonar noticed the memory card Invisigal was holding, and like a kid seeing his new favourite toy in the store window, his eyes widened and lit up "Yoooo, Is that a SanDisk X-9 micro?” he finished, already halfway across the room.
Invisigal pulled it back instinctively. “Don’t touch it. It’s fried.”
Sonar scoffed, offended on a spiritual level. “Fried? Please. That thing isn’t fried, it’s marinated. There’s a difference.” He snatched it anyway, ignoring her glare, holding it up to the bar’s flickering neon light. “You four drown one little memory card and suddenly it’s a cold case.”
Waterboy perked up. “Y-you can fix it?”
Sonar grinned, all sharp teeth and ego. “Fix it? No. Recover it, yes. Track who formatted it, absolutely. Figure out what sad, talentless loser welded those scrap idiots together?” He tapped the card against his forehead. “Child’s play.”
Punch Up blinked. “You’re telling me you can pull data off a waterlogged card that got stomped by a pair of robots?”
“I once reconstructed a hard drive that had been shot, set on fire, and used as a coaster in a dive bar in Reno,” Sonar said breezily. “This is foreplay.”
Golem rumbled approvingly. “He is… effective.”
Invisigal narrowed her eyes. “If you somehow fuck this up I’ll-
“you’ll what?” Sonar cut in already pulling a small, overly sleek device from inside his jacket. “Scold me? Hurt my feelings? Please. I’ll have a name, a location, and probably their Netflix password in three hour.” He paused, smirk widening. “Two, if they used military-grade obfuscation. One if they were stupid enough to think that meant ‘safe.’”
Punch Up let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “Alright,” he said, nodding. “Good. That’s… good.”
Sonar plugged in the memory card, already tapping away at his device. “I’ll crack this thing tonight. You’ll get answers. Probably unpleasant ones.”
“That’s kind of our brand,” Invisigal muttered.
Punch Up checked his phone. His smile softened, just a little.
“Alright,” he said. “I’m heading back.”
Waterboy tilted his head. “Back… back where?”
“Home,” Punch Up said simply. He hesitated, then added, “Before she thinks I forgot her food.”
Sonar snorted. “You? Forget food? Unlikely.”
Punch Up held up his phone, scrolling through a painfully long note titled: COOP – DON’T SCREW THIS UP.
“Extra spicy jalapeños,” he read aloud.
“Milkshake… not vanilla.”
“Onion rings.”
“And—” He paused, smiling despite himself. “Something deep-fried”
Waterboy smiled, watery-eyed. “That’s… really sweet, sir.”
“Again, don’t call me sir,” Punch Up said automatically, already heading for the door. He paused, hand on the handle. “Sonar?”
“If whatever you find on that card points back to something big,”
Sonar’s grin was sharp, knowing. “Oh, it will.”
Punch Up nodded once. “Don’t try to sell it”
As Punch Up stepped out into the night, Sonar glanced down at his device as the first fragments of corrupted data began to unscramble themselves.
A familiar logo flickered across the screen.
Sonar’s grin slowly faded.
“…Huh,” he murmured. “That’s… odd”
