The Secret of the Solver (Canon ending)

Chapter 18

(989 words)

     Z, N, V, E, and Uzi fly down to the bottom of the cave. N carries Tessa so she doesn't fall while V and E fly down gracefully. Z and Uzi on the other hand flew down a bit clumsily and Uzi landed on her feet but Z landed directly on top of E with a thud. "OW!" E shouts. At the bottom, they can see a dark and damp cavern. The group begins to look around after they land.

"Is the secret elevator like... labeled?" Z asked as she started looking around.

"It wouldn't be a secret then genius." E said and Z just rolled her eyes at him.

Everyone was split up looking around the cave in different directions. Tessa walked forward and accidentally kicked the severed arm of a drone. She slowly pointed her flashlight up to reveal dozens of drone corpses ripped apart. 'Almost like back at the dump...' Z thought to herself. Everyone else turns to look as well, a bit disturbed. N looks like he's going to be sick and V just rolls her eyes and looks at Tessa. E looks a little traumatised and Z stands next to him just in case. She realized that he could've been thinking about the dump too, and the day that she found him.

"Rightttt... so there might be some... uhh security against... you guys." Tessa said as she walked forward.

"Wouldn't that be more helpful to mention EARLIER?!" Z asked Tessa, annoyed.

Uzi looks to her left and sees writing in oil on the wall. It read 'DON'T LOOK AT THE LIGHT' And then had a handprint leading down to another disassembled drone.

Z is a bit scared so she tries to make a move on V by holding her hand but V moves away, oblivious to Z's actions. E spotted this and moved closer to Z, realizing her feelings toward V.

Before E can speak, Tessa starts. "Human-made security that this human can control!" She laughed while feeling some sense of victory. Suddenly as she swiped a keycard the words 'ACCESS DENIED' Showed up on the control panel. "...Maybe." She sighed.

"Anything to screw with Cyn's plan," V said with her arms crossed.

N turned to Uzi, "And for Mom backstory. Right, dude?"

"...Yeah..." Uzi answered.

They continue walking past the bodies and into a room with a sign showing directions. It shows that the secret elevator is north of where they are currently. Z elbows E in the shoulder, "See, I was right." E just looks away. N looks over at Uzi who gives a supportive nod.

"Righty-ho! Sources say that way-" Tessa spins around and signals to the area north of them. Before she can finish she is grabbed by the ankle and dragged away. "Except I'm going this way so if you can save me that would be great! THANKS!" She says rapidly as she's dragged behind the corner.

"I say we leave her," Z says.

"Even if we did want to, she knows things that we don't about the elevator," E responded. Z groaned and the group went off to find Tessa.

They got to the end of a long hallway and saw a robot baby giggling and lying on the floor. They all look at each other suspiciously. "Shoot the baby immediately-?" Uzi said but was cut off.

"THAT'S NOT SOON ENOUGH!" N yelled as he and E started to rapidly fire at the baby. The baby suddenly grows spider-like limbs and crawls away before N or E can hit it. Suddenly there was a long arm in front of them.

E looked at the arm and gagged, oil coming off of it, "Oh that's so fucking gross." E covered his mouth and held onto Z for support.

"Well, you know from experience..." Z held her friend up as she recalled his broken arm when they first met. The arm switches to a denominator device and they all turn around to see a random drone behind them.

"Hey, surface slickers." The drone says in a Southern accent while laughing. Before they know it, the device goes off and they all black out.

***

Uzi wakes up to the sound of axe-chopping and looks over to see the weird drone sitting over another's body and chopping at the neck with an oil-covered axe. The head comes off and lands in a bucket filled with sticky black oil labelled, 'HEADS'. Uzi looks around her only to see a magnet on her head. She tries to get up but is held down to the bed with ties around her wrists and ankles. She struggles for a minute before giving up. The drone has a name tag that reads, "Alice'. She had all sorts of parts and electronics that hung off of what looked like antlers made out of metal on her head. They had been reused... but where was she getting the parts?

"Sentinels picked at this one. I try not to damage the good parts. Of course, some parts are more valuable than others, ain't they?" Alice pulls back a curtain to show V tied up as well.

V smirks at Uzi, "More valuable." Alice stands above V with the axe in her hand and is about to chop off V's head but is interrupted by Uzi.

"Woah! Hey! Cut that thing up and you're gonna get a big creepy worm. An improvement." Uzi tries to intervene.

"Nah, heat keeps 'em sluggish," Alice says as she crawls on top of an oven, opening the door to reveal Absolute Solver creatures inside of glass containers, in a non-hostile form. "Ain't our first rodeo." She closes the oven door.

"Okay. That's enough of this." Uzi said, beginning to get grossed out. She pulls out her hand to use her Absolute Solver but it doesn't work. She tries again but nothing.

Alice crawls over to Uzi. "Dealt with witches 'fore too." She chuckles a bit and brings her face close to Uzi's, "Though I ain't seen 02 since she left us to die...!" She widens her eyes again at Uzi.