The Esoteric Design: Disbanding Hope Read online

  The Esoteric Design

  Disbanding Hope

  Written & Illustrated by

  A. R. Crebs

  The Esoteric Design

  Copyright © 2014 A. R. Crebs

  The Esoteric Design: Disbanding Hope

  Copyright © 2015 A. R. Crebs

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1508512981

  ISBN-10: 1508512981

  DEDICATION

  I'd like to dedicate this book to all of my fans. You continue to inspire me every day. Thank you for your support, and thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy this work and the many others to come in the future. Enjoy!

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Biographies

  Bestiary

  Armor

  Weapons

  World Info

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  "Scarlet Warrior"

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thanks to Michelle for being my guinea pig and reading a proof of the book. Your feedback is extremely helpful. Thank you to those who pushed, motivated, and cheered me on. Thank you to my friends and fans on the internet; you continue to inspire me to follow my dreams. Thanks to Richard. I'm pretty sure you're my biggest fan. And thanks to Marcus for once again listening to me as I read, pointing out all the flaws in my art and forcing me to fix them, and for helping me with some of the weapon designs. And a shout-out to my buddies at Nerd Barrage. Why? Cuz I can!

  Thank you to Jade Macalla for allowing me the use of your amazing stock for reference. You’re an extreme help to those in the art community. www.jademacalla.deviantart.com

  The following are links to sites that I used for stock reference for some of the artwork within this book.

  www.fotolia.com

  www.dreamstime.com

  www.freerangestock.com

  www.texturez.com

  Visit my websites for updates, more artwork, and to participate in some contests!

  www.ARCrebs.com

  www.ARCrebs.deviantart.com

  www.facebook.com/ARCrebs

  Prologue

  4 months earlier….

  CRACK!

  “Stop the drill! Stop the drill!” A man covered in grey dust and mud waved his arms in the air as he shouted. The orange of his mining uniform was barely seen by the drill operator. Crystalline particles covered his middle-aged face, blending in with his chin stubble.

  “I said to stop the drill!” he yelled into his DNAIS.

  Abruptly, the machine droned in a low tone from its previous high-pitched whine. The massive ridges that each stood two meters high spiraled from an unrecognizable blur to a steady spin, clanking against the thick barrier of the rocky mantle the miners had been drilling against the past few months. They were now at the lowest point of the mines, had cleared an entirely new level, created four tunnel offshoots, and were now beginning their fifth. The miner wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for, but the eerie glow that emanated from the front of the drill was a good indication that he had met his goal. Wiping his hands over his uniform, smudging the dirt across his Walten Mining name patch, the worker walked toward the colossal wheels of the ten meter wide drill. The ridges slowly crunched against the rock beside him.

  “Did we finally find it?” the operator asked, pushing his helmeted head through the small window of the cab.

  Looking up with a hand shielding his eyes to see his fellow miner, the older man shouted, “I think so. Back up the drill and come down here! There’s some strange light coming through.”

  The driver followed orders, backing away from the newly created hole. A harsh light beamed from the opening that gave an odd hum. Stopping the drill, the driver excitedly opened the door and leaned out, his mouth hanging open. The peculiar gap gave him an uneasy feeling.

  “Shouldn’t we call Walten?” he questioned, climbing down the ladder of the vast machine. He dropped from the bottom rung, landing roughly on the ground, a hand pressing against his helmet.

  “Gotta make sure it’s the right thing first,” the other man said. He strolled to the front of the borer, leaning over the edge of the hole, eyes narrowing against the harsh orange glow far beneath.

  “Think we hit a molten patch?” the driver asked.

  Giving a sharp intake of breath, the older man replied, “I want you to get Walten and his team on the line ASAP.”

  “What is it?” The young man watched as the glow flickered increasingly brighter, the low hum resonating within the enormous hollow cavern of the underground mining facility. The blaring rose in volume, eventually vibrating and echoing against the walls, threatening to shatter the very pillars above that held up the City of Fountains.

  “Git! Call the team!” the worker shouted at the driver, his voice cutting short as his body began to tremor and all his limbs were pulled in separate directions.

  “Shit! Shit!” the driver screamed, watching in horror as his coworker slowly pulled apart. With a sickening pop, his uniform was smothered in red. Swiftly, the driver turned and ran up the incline back to the main base of operations. “Driver 25 to base! Driver 25 to base! We’ve cracked it! We’ve cracked it!” he shouted through his DNAIS radio. His boots stomped wildly on wobbly ankles through shimmering dust over misshapen rocks.

  “Roger, we hear you. Walten and team are already headed your way,” the receptionist called back.

  “No! Not safe! Not safe! Worker 263 is dead!” Driver 25 barked. “I repeat, Worker 263 is dead!”

  “Acknowledged. Walten and team are on their way.”

  “No! No, you don’t understand….” Driver 25 gasped as a couple of speeding trucks neared his position. He waved his arms, shouting and jumping frantically, his coworker’s blood sprinkling from his uniform. A small whimper slipped through his quaking lips as the vehicles passed him by, heading straight for the hole in the Earth’s mantle.

  Dust clouded the tunnel as the trucks slammed into an emergency stop, the thick tires grinding against the hard floor. The headlights rested upon the glowing opening at the base of the drill’s point. One by one the doors of the trucks opened. Walten’s crew–his secret service, those with no name, not even identification numbers–was dressed in high-class military uniforms. They stepped from the vehicles, their boots crunching softly against the pebbled ground, the sound loud within the chamber. A second later, Walten’s door was opened. The young, clean-shaven man, dressed in his fashion of charcoal-grey and amber, stepped out with his shined leather shoes. Slowly, with a trembling hand, he ran his fingers through his chestnut hair. He looked at the glowing pathway with anxious eyes.

  “Sir?” one man asked, looking over the expanse of the drilled hole.

  “This is it, right?” Walten asked with a shuddering breath, his eyes dropping to the splattered stain of whatever was left of Worker 263.

  “It appears so,” another answered, looking over a display map on his DNAIS. The familiar blue glow radiated against his stony features.

  Clearin
g his throat and adjusting his ornate tie around his neck, Walten neared the flickering anomaly. He stopped a meter ahead, matching eyes with General Jeron Feyette, who insisted on coming with the young CEO.

  “Would you like for me to do it, sir?” Feyette questioned.

  “No, no. I, uh…I will do it,” Walten stated apprehensively.

  Reaching into his coat pocket, Walten pulled out a small device, one with notches that fit in his palm–an ancient frequency tuner. He eyed the gleaming hole, another rumbling hum beginning to drum noisily from its unknown origins. Walten clicked the mechanism, turning it up to maximum strength. It vibrated in his hand. Giving one last look at Feyette, he chucked the item directly into the cavity. The pulsating resonance abruptly stopped. Silence consumed the cavern. Cringing, Walten waited and waited…and waited. Nothing happened.

  “Sir?” Feyette’s deep voice alerted the CEO.

  Slowly opening one eye and then another, Walten gaped at the fluctuating, sparkling opening. It crackled and sizzled, a strange disturbance taking place. Something faint and dark darted back and forth, growing in size. A towering silhouette neared him and his men. The shadow jostled from side to side, disappearing and reappearing before clouding over the whole expanse of the glowing gap. Terrible shrieks and screams sounded, rising in volume until it was at an ear-splitting level that caused tremors to vibrate within the men’s bodies.

  “WHO ARE YOU?” a deep voice, dual-toned and quaking with malice, barked through the entry.

  “I, I am just a man,” Walten stammered.

  “FOR WHAT REASON DO I HAVE TO DEAL WITH A HUMAN?” the voice returned. The sound was unnatural, almost mechanical as it warbled in warm, piping tones.

  Trying to make eye contact with the nearly nonexistent eyes of the oscillating shadow on the other side, Walten rolled his shoulders. Gripping the front of his dress coat in a snobbish manner, he daringly called out, “I believe I could be of good use to you. You see, I have a plan.”

  The figure remained unmoving, silent.

  “I believe it is something you’d be interested in,” Walten called out again. “I think it would benefit the both of us.”

  A thunderous crash erupted, light exploding from all sides of the cavern. The shrieking screams quickly re-tuned to a different sound, one that was eerily out of place–the giggling of a thousand children, flowing into one single pitch. With the light quickly fading back to normalcy, the giggle sounded in one voice–that of a little girl. Walten pressed his mouth shut in a firm line as he uneasily gaped at the small child. Pale skin, pale hair, grey-blue eyes. She smiled at him.

  “So, you have a deal you’d like to make with me?” she curiously asked.

  "The Deal"

  Chapter 1

  A harsh rumble shook the cave system, alerting the semi-unconscious Aria. The woman groaned as her senses slowly came to. Turning her head and trying her best to ignore the stiffness and dull pain coursing through her body, she looked through glassy eyes toward her partner, Troy. He was sprawled similarly on the rock floor, unmoving.

  “Troy,” she whispered, her shaking hand grasping his shoulder.

  The man awoke with a start, tightly gripping her hand. A moan then erupted from him at the sudden movement he had made.

  “Aria,” he groaned, “are we dead?”

  “I don’t think so. At least, not yet,” she grumbled, slowly pushing herself into a sitting position. She felt heavier than usual. Probably due to the amount of body armor she had on.

  “What the hell just happened?” Troy whined.

  “We got our asses kicked; that’s what happened.” Aria noisily exhaled.

  She still felt groggy and lightheaded from the morphine shot she kicked into her system only moments before she and Troy were carelessly shoved out of the chamber by a transforming Ivory. Never in her life would she have guessed Ivory to be a biomechanical android. From Bio-Tech Military Corporation no less. There was no doubt about it. Camery was directly involved. But how had he become caught up in the first place and why?

  “Dovian…where’s Dovian?” Troy asked, his helmeted head hitting the rock wall behind him. He gave a short grunt upon impact.

  “He’s still inside. Probably crystallized in Ivory’s Amasser Particle Beam.”

  “Hope she got that little bitch, too,” Troy hissed, trying to stand. The thought of the little girl called Sapphire sent shivers down his spine. “What in the hell is she, anyway?”

  “I’m not sure. Whatever she is, Dovian was scared of her. That means we should be scared, too.”

  Aria slowly rose to her feet, her knees buckling beneath her weight. Luckily, the meds were still doing the job; she barely felt a thing, but judging by the creaking in her ankle, something may have been broken. She didn’t want to imagine how her body would look if she hadn't worn her armor.

  ‘Most likely in pieces….’ She cringed at the idea.

  “Um, Aria,” Troy’s voice interrupted the woman’s thoughts. “Ivory is an android, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Camery’s cloning and biomechanics operation was closed down a few months ago, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well…I don’t think the bodies were actually disposed of.”

  Pointing a finger ahead of him, the man looked over his shoulder at the woman. She stumbled to his side, looking into a crevice in the wall. Inside the cavern on the opposite side was a frightening sight. Suspended by cables inside thick tubes were full-grown humans. The bodies floated weightlessly within placental containers, appearing lifeless. There had to be dozens of them just from what the soldiers could see. Marked on the sides of all the tanks were the metallic insignia for Bio-Tech.

  “That damn bastard gave up his clones. Why would he do this?” Aria asked through gritted teeth.

  “I think they are preparing an army.” Troy gaped through the crack.

  A low growl sounded from inside the room. The two continued watching as a tall, thin creature with abnormally long arms–the one Aria affectionately dubbed Stilt-Man–neared the tubes. It watched, staring upward at the hovering bodies. The creature howled quietly, running a long, clawed hand over the surface of one glass container. It tilted its head, looking at the clone’s messy hair, his sharp nose, his closed eyes, his toned chest, and proportionate floating arms with normal-looking hands. Giving another growl, this time angry, the monster smacked the surface of the glass noisily as it threw a small fit.

  Another rumble shook the cave, threatening to tear down the corridor Aria and Troy were occupying. The crevice before them splintered more, cracking wide enough to cause part of the wall to fall. Troy and Aria stumbled back. Both reached for their weapons and, to their horror, found that they were missing. The Stilt-Man turned, its dark eyes locking onto the two intruders. Opening its large, toothy mouth, it howled with a tremendous ferocity. The sound echoed within the chamber, bouncing down the tunnels in repeating waves. Drool funneling past the creature’s lips, it screamed again, throwing down its arms as it broke out into a sprint toward the two, its fiery-red mane flowing behind it.

  “Run!” Aria shouted, pulling Troy with her.

  They spun together, heading the only way they could down the tunnel. From behind, they could hear the howling monster. In seconds, the channels were full of similar sounds as the creature alerted all the others of their location. Troy and Aria kept running in a straight line, passing a couple small passageways where the noises grew louder in volume. Eventually, they came to a fork of equally-sized tunnels. They skidded to a halt; both tugged each other to go one way and then the other.

  “Which way?” Aria shouted.

  “Straight! Just go straight!” Troy pushed her along.

  The cave was full of howls and shrieks and the clicking of talon on rock. One beast lunged out from another fissure, chomping at Troy. The man dodged to the side, narrowly escaping the rabid creature. It slammed into the wall behind him and continued without pause after the humans.

/>   “I see light!” Aria shouted.

  Troy glanced over his shoulder and gave a cry of surprise. “Good! Cuz all I see are monsters on our asses!”

  The boisterous howling continued, causing the loose rubble of the walls to crash down. It didn’t help that Ivory had blasted the inner chamber with her particle beam, weakening the cave system. Perhaps she was still fighting. Perhaps she annihilated the entire center, and now the whole place was caving in on itself. If that was the case, Aria hoped Dovian was able to save Ivory from destroying herself.

  “Dovian where are you?” Aria asked through her mental chip, hoping the Sorcēarian would pick up on it. The woman frowned when she heard no response. Maybe she was too far away.

  The vibration of destruction neared her and Troy’s position. The angry cries from the monsters were beginning to sound frantic, panicked, and a bit frightened. Next, a horrendous crackle and crash erupted. The floor beneath the soldiers’ feet quaked as the roof over their heads dropped in large chunks in single file from the back of the tunnel up toward their position. With each thunderous boom, there came a high-pitched shriek from the demons that were smashed into oblivion, the screams only worsening as the thunder neared.

  Aria cried out as she was shoved harshly forward by Troy, her body shooting out the exit of the tunnel into the bright sunlight of the outside world. Clattering and rolling rather ungracefully on the rocky ground, the woman spun onto her belly, lifting her head to look back at the cave’s entrance. A large cloud of dust covered her view, making it impossible to see where her partner was.

  “Troy!” she shouted, trying to scramble to her feet. After a couple of tries, she gave up and dropped to her knees. Catching her breath, her eyes never left the dusty passageway. “Troy!” she called out again in a hoarse voice.

  “What?!” the man finally replied.

  Aria let out a shuddering sigh as her pounding heart finally slowed within her chest.