Journey To Transhuman: Chp 10 (Patreon)

I slammed through the back door of the house with my metal arm raised, expecting the worst.

Devola’s voice reached me before anything else. “Oh, where were you?” she asked, hurrying over, worry written all over her face as she immediately began fussing over me. I let her. Her presence was oddly grounding, even as my eyes shifted past her to the living room.

What greeted me looked like a nightmare in the shape of industrial scrap. A tangle of twisted silvery metal and cables shaped like a squid, complete with writhing tentacles and mismatched eyes. A few of those tendrils even had mouths—jagged, half-formed things like broken shredders.

I gently pushed Devola back, just enough to get her to ease off. “I’m fine. I just saw someone suspicious outside and went after them. What happened to you guys?”

Popola stood on the other side of the room, her sword tapping the mass of metal with a frown. “I was in the kitchen when this thing appeared out of nowhere. Just popped into existence. Is this one of those ‘superpower’ things you told us about?”

“Sort of,” I said, waving a hand vaguely. “Tinkertech’s basically a form of weird superscience. This specific thing? Nanomachine-based. I just found out it’s probably what wiped out everyone in this town.”

Their expressions shifted instantly. Devola’s hands froze mid-motion. Popola’s grip on her sword tightened. Both their faces darkened in a way I didn’t like. Understandable, really—machines massacring humans probably hit a little too close to home for androids who revered humans.

Best to steer them away from that spiral before they turn into full-blown android avengers.

“Popola, did you gather the food?”

“Yes!” She perked up a little at the change of subject. “I didn’t know what everything was, but I grabbed whatever was canned or dried. And every single bottle of water I could find.” She hoisted the bag slightly, proud and a little breathless.

I gave her a thumbs up. It seemed to help—she straightened with a little more confidence.

“There wasn’t much in terms of tools,” Devola added, her tone more subdued. “But I did find an old computer. I also picked up a few books and some odds and ends, just in case.”

She hesitated then, lips twitching like she was bracing for disapproval.

I reached over and patted her head. Her whole face brightened like someone flipped a switch.

“Alright, we need to get the fuck out of here.”

I motioned for the twins to follow. The town remained oppressively silent, with only our steps echoing out, making noise. I kept glancing at shadows and narrow gaps between yards, half-expecting something to leap out and devour me.

The door was about thirty minutes away on foot, give or take. I wasn’t planning to stick around long enough for something worse to show up, so we broke into a steady jog without another word.

“How strong was that machine you killed?” Devola asked, her voice calm but alert.

Popola tilted her head, brows furrowed in thought. “They weren’t as durable as I expected—at least, not compared to the machines we’re used to. And those tentacles... they were odd. It was basic? It felt more instinctive. Almost animalistic. ”

“Good.” Devola’s grip tightened on her sword as her gaze scanned the rooftops and intersections ahead.

I hadn’t noticed when it happened, but the twins had shifted to my sides. They moved in perfect sync with me, like bodyguards flanking a head of state. It was a little surreal. Not that I was complaining.

Having two androids built to slaughter machines definitely helped my nerves stay intact.

At this pace, we’d reach the door in ten minutes. Avoid the weird tinkertech, slip out clean.

“Easy peasy…” I muttered

——

I should’ve kept my damn mouth shut.

A metal tentacle whipped toward me. I swatted it aside on instinct. All around us, the quiet suburb had erupted into a twisted hellscape. Metal creatures poured from alleys, garages, and windows—screeching, scraping, flailing. It looked like a horror movie crossed with a scrapyard gone rabid.

The twins were already in motion. They danced around me like wind and steel, blades flashing in coordinated arcs. The machines had started subtle ambushes and careful probes, but after repeated failure, they’d switched to brute force. 

That seemed to be the extent of their tactical intelligence.

A particularly massive blob of metal was writhing nearby. I fired a long, focused beam of golden light straight through its center. The thing burst apart, spraying oily nanomachine fluid across the street. Before it could even begin to recover, another metal creature crashed into it, tearing through the remains.

Devola was in full berserker mode. She hurled one of the squid-like machines through a fence and cleaved another in half mid-air. She didn’t slow down.

Popola stayed close to me, calmly unleashing glowing orbs of magic. Each time one struck a machine, it dissolved into bubbling sludge. No resistance, no delay—just instant liquefaction. It was rather satisfying to watch.

We figured it out fast—machines really didn’t like magic. The second the twins touched them with the Maso they were slinging, it was like pouring acid on a circuit board. The machines exploded or melted. Came apart in grotesque, twitching piles of slag.

Which, thankfully, made escaping a hell of a lot easier than it should’ve been, considering we were outnumbered ten to one.

I just really, really hoped this wasn’t about to become a recurring theme. Running for my life from murder machines wasn’t how I pictured my second shot at life going.

At least this didn’t feel like a life-or-death situation. The twins’ ability to instantly reduce machines to sludge with their strange android magic was really tipping the scales. Despite the chaos of the battle raging around me, a flicker of excitement stirred in my chest.

Nanomachines.

A classic sci-fi trope, and one I had always loved. The real deal—right in front of me. Sure, these ones were a little underwhelming. Their only tricks seemed to be basic shapeshifting and squeezing into tight spaces. No clever tricks or other bullshit nanomachine usages.

Honestly, Senator Armstrong would be disappointed.

It felt like a waste. Part of me wanted to scoop them up and tinker with them, but I shut that idea down fast. I’d seen enough movies to know how “harmless tech analysis” ends—usually with an explosion or possession. No thanks.

Devola, mid-leap, slammed a glowing fist straight into one of the squids. The machine exploded into silver pulp, scattering across the pavement in a wet metallic splat.

And just like that, I had a brilliantly stupid idea.

I trusted the twins to keep me safe. So while they carved through the swarm, I crouched beside the nearest corpse and pressed my hand into the shimmering pool of nanomachine goo.

There was a second aspect to my cybernetic power I hadn’t explored yet. The power labeled Type Indigo didn’t just enhance my body with a metal arm—it made me the perfect conduit between human and machine. A natural compatibility for becoming a cyborg, resistant to rejection of all kinds of tech.

I didn’t know if it was some survival protocol in the nanotech or if my subconscious had reached for it, but as my hand sank into the liquified remnants, the goo responded.

Silver tendrils curled upward, flowing into my flesh like water down a drain.

Cuts and scrapes I’d picked up throughout the day tingled as they drank it in. Tiny rivulets of metal sealed them, forming thin, glimmering patches like silver scabs. I could feel it—in the back of my mind, a buzzing awareness, thousands of microstructures crawling beneath the surface of my skin.

I focused.

Just like the squids, I willed the material into form. Silver pulsed over my hand, assembling into a claw. Not large, not yet. I tried shaping it further, but the effort stalled—there simply wasn’t enough material.

Didn’t matter.

It worked.

And there was no shortage of raw resources.

Laughing under my breath, I moved to the next ruined machine and repeated the process. The twins didn’t say a word. They simply adjusted formation and protected me as I hopped from corpse to corpse, hand-first into metallic sludge, harvesting nanotech like some demented prospector.

From their expressions, they clearly didn’t approve. But they also didn’t stop me.

It was almost a shame that their magic left so little behind. I could feel it—whatever energy they used interfered with the nanotech on a fundamental level. The damage wasn’t just physical. It twisted something deep inside the machines, leaving only scraps functional. Still, scraps were enough.

By the time Devola decapitated the final squid-thing, my entire forearm gleamed with an ever-shifting silver gauntlet.

“Did you just… eat the machines?” Popola asked, her face caught between horror and awe.

Devola looked like she was about to rupture a blood vessel, but held her tongue.

“It’s part of my power,” I said, lifting the arm for emphasis. “It’s not just the arm. My body’s… basically a tech sponge. I don’t know the full limits yet, but I can adapt to all kinds of technology.”

“And you decided now was a good time to test that?” Devola’s voice came tight, strangled with restrained fury.

“…No,” I admitted, finally feeling a sliver of guilt. “Okay, yeah, my bad. I just—come on, nanomachines are so damn useful—”

She opened her mouth, but Popola jabbed a sharp finger into her back.

“Later,” Popola said, not even pretending to be subtle.

I exhaled in relief.

“We can rip him a new one when we’re not stranded in another universe.”

Yeah, that was fair.

“…Maybe we could stay just a little longer? Kill a few more?” I offered.

The looks they gave me could’ve curdled steel.

I was about to try justifying it when the ground began to quake.

A sound like grinding metal echoed from the distance. I turned and froze.

Something massive was rising at the edge of the ruined neighborhood. A towering mass of silver and mouths and writhing tentacles—ten stories tall, at least. Its form was so twisted and organic that only the shimmer of liquid metal betrayed it as a machine at all.

“On second thought…”

The twins didn’t wait for me to finish. They each grabbed an arm and took off sprinting.