A Visitor to the Future - 107 - Fleeting Contact
The maze was getting significantly more difficult to navigate the closer I got to the centre. Corridors which had been long with the occasional bend or junction were now giving way to frequent twists, turns, and dead ends. The walls were closer together, too, making me feel almost a little claustrophobic. I kept pressing on, though, my progress frustratingly slow.
"I've got company!" said Gatecrash suddenly, "A Proxy. Red colour scheme - almost half my size! Simplistic humanoid frame. Seems nimble enough. One second."
I listened patiently for an update, wary of interrupting Gatecrash's concentration. In the interim I kept making my way through the maze. I gritted my teeth as I reached yet another dead end, and turned to backtrack.
Just in time to see a blur of red pass the junction in front of me - a Proxy.
I began to sprint forward but slowed as I realized what must be in hot pursuit after it. I could now hear Gatecrash's Proxy thundering at full sprint, and cautiously poked my head around the corner to see it heading towards me. If I hadn't thought about it, we could easily have collided.
"There you are!" said Gatecrash, skidding to a halt, "I knew we had to be close. Did you see it? Did they see you?"
"Yes, and not sure," I said in response, "Small but fast? What's the plan here?"
Gatecrash's Proxy shrugged, an oddly human expression for its armoured and scuffed frame, "I'm not sure. They're faster than us, that's for sure. If I'd been a bit quicker to react, I might have been able to grab it when I first ran into it, but now we're on the back foot. Suppose they know where their teammates are? They could be running for help."
"Or just running away," I said, "I only saw a blur as they ran by - do you have any more details you can share? Any jump-jets or anything like that?"
Gatecrash shook their head, "Nothing like the Poindexters if that's what you mean. Unless they've got something really sneaky up their sleeves, I'm not sure how a Proxy like that could stand up to us in a fair fight. How did they get through the previous rounds, given that most Proxies are of similar size and strength to ourselves?"
It was a good question, and not one I had the answer to, "I have no idea," I said, "But maybe that's only one of them? They could be using a faster Proxy to scout areas of the arena, and the other two are heavy hitters?"
"That's a good point," replied Gatecrash, "In any event, we should stick together if our opponents are potentially close by. I have to say, I'm not too thrilled about fighting in such close quarters, either. If these corridors get much tighter I'm going to have issues turning around. Tungsten, did you hear all that?"
"Yes," came his reply, "I'll keep it in mind, thank you. The question is, do you go in the direction that the opposing Proxy fled in, or continue down your own path? If it truly was fleeing, that route would lead you out of the maze. I suppose if the opposite is true, and it is returning to it's team, you wouldn't want to follow it either - that could lead to a potential two against three situation. I say that you continue to head further in a separate direction. Hopefully I can find you soon."
"Agreed. I'll take point, you watch my back?" said Gatecrash. I nodded my agreement.
Working our way through the maze in a pair helped to relieve some of the stresses of the unknown and hazardous maze - and I was very glad to have the benefit of Gatecrash's enhanced audio nearby to tell us of any potential danger ahead. My own gimmick was a lot more niche - and would be of no use here. Come to think of it, I hadn't found a good opportunity to use it at all yet.
There was an S-bend in the maze that opened up into an L-shaped room filled with sand, easily thirty metres on each side. We both entered carefully and quietly, cautious of more potential beetle-beasts lurking around us. But as we rounded the corner, our expectations were crushed.
Much like the thing in front of us.
The first thing I thought of was how dinosaur-like it looked. Two large legs supported an elongated body which stood almost as tall as my Proxy. Its head was a gnashing jaw reminiscent of the beetle-beast. I had no doubt that, if it were active, it would pose a significant threat.
It wasn't active, though. It was broken, beaten, and half-way impaled into the wall of the room. Scattered metal parts littered the floor, and the layered armour plates had been torn aside to permit access to the components within, which had been smashed to smithereens. I cocked my head to one side, the change in perspective making me realize that it had probably been designed to resemble a T-Rex.
"Uh..." I said, momentarily lost for words.
"Yeah," said Gatecrash, kneeling in front of the wreckage to take a closer look, "That about sums up my thoughts too. On the plus side, look here, no obvious signs of cuts - all this damage was done using blunt force and prying. It means that this probably wasn't done with a sword. It must have taken their whole team to take this thing down."
I looked around the room, "If that's the case, I'm not seeing any red armour plates or parts among this wreckage. Their team colour was red, right?"
"Oh. Ohhhhh! Yeah, that's worrying," said Gatecrash, clearly astonished, "They took this thing out without collateral damage? That's worrying and impressive. This team really knows what they're doing."
"We need to get that sword, and quickly," I said. With renewed determination we took off deeper into the maze.