Rusty Spurs Bar
1307 Words
Jax drove through the warped desert toward the smoke on the horizon. The landscape felt off. The colors were too sharp, and the air carried a faint metallic tang that hadn’t been there before the green tear ripped open the sky. Every few miles he spotted faint pulsing green veins in the cracked earth, like the ground itself was alive with circuitry.
Dry Wells finally appeared: a cluster of buildings hugging the main street. In the middle, the Rusty Spur Bar still stood, but its windows were shattered and doors hung crooked. Smoke curled from the chimney, but the usual quiet of the outpost was gone. Screams and wet tearing sounds echoed from inside.
Jax killed the engine a hundred yards out and grabbed his rifle. The itch in his left arm had settled into a dull burn. He moved low along the side of the street, boots silent on the hard-packed dirt.
He kicked the swinging doors open, to a scene of chaos: tables overturned, bottles shattered. Six people, folks Jax recognized from previous runs were in various stages of horrifying mutation. One woman’s spine had elongated into a whipping tendril that lashed out and smashed a mirror. Another man’s arms had split into four jagged bone blades he swung wildly at anything that moved.
Behind the bar, old man Harlan the bartender lay thrashing in a pool of congealing blood, with a shotgun in his left hand. His body was already turning gray and crystalline, transforming into whatever these creatures were. Jax put two quick head shots to his head. He'd have wanted me to. He died fighting, and now he's at peace, with no worries or cares.Jax thought to himself.
In the middle of the room stood a tall woman in a duster coat, calm amid the violence. She looked to be in her early thirties, with sharp features. Her hair was pulled back tight. She held a revolver in one hand and a jury-rigged tablet in the other. Blue light flickered across her face as she tapped commands.
She glanced at Jax. Her eyes narrowed.
“New arrival?” she called over the screams. “You patched yet?”
“Enough to still be breathing,” Jax answered, rifle trained on the blade-armed man charging toward her.
He fired. The shot clipped the mutant’s shoulder, but the thing barely slowed.
The woman moved like liquid. She sidestepped, pressed her palm against the creature’s chest. Blue light flared.
“Neural Jack engaged,” she said coolly.
The mutant froze, then convulsed as its own blades turned inward and tore into its torso. It dropped with a gurgle.
Jax whistled low. “Neat trick.”
“Temporary. Costs slots.” She reloaded without looking. “Name’s Reyes. You got a handle on that arm plating I smell on you?”
Before Jax could answer, the ceiling cracked. Something heavy landed on the roof with a thud that shook the ceiling.
A roar followed — deep, layered, like multiple voices screaming at once.
The remaining mutants went berserk.
Reyes cursed. “Nexus breach. Alpha strain. We need to clear the floor or it’ll absorb every mutation here and get stronger.”
Jax felt pressure building in his skull again. A new notification appeared only for him:
[High-threat entity detected nearby.]
[Recommend immediate Shard integration for survival.]
[Available Upgrades: Venom Rewrite v0.5 — Integration time: 8 seconds. Glitch risk: 62%. Potential output: Contact toxin delivery via claws or saliva.]
No time to hesitate.
Jax slammed the glowing shard against the raw skin of his left forearm. Heat exploded up his arm.
His fingernails thickened and curved into short, blackened claws. Saliva flooded his mouth with a bitter metallic taste.
[Venom Rewrite v0.5 Active]
[Mutation Capacity: 4 out of 5]
[Warning: Toxin glands forming. Overuse may cause self-envenomation or jaw lock.]
The thing on the roof smashed through.
It dropped into the center of the saloon — eight feet tall, torso split open to reveal pulsing organic processors glowing with the same green light as the rift. Its arms ended in massive cable-wrapped fists. Legs bent backward like a grasshopper’s. A helmet-like growth covered its face.
[Alpha Assimilator – Nexus Enforcer**
Level: 7]
It roared, and two smaller mutants nearby dissolved, their biomass flowing into the Alpha. Its size swelled.
Reyes fired three rapid shots into its chest. Sparks flew, but the wounds sealed almost instantly.
“Focus fire on the core!” she shouted. “I’ll try to jack the secondary nodes!”
Jax charged in low. The Alpha swung a massive arm. He ducked under it and slashed upward across its exposed midsection with his new claws. Black ichor sprayed. Where it hit the floor, it sizzled.
[Venom effect applied. Enemy Reflexes reduced by 35% for 45 seconds.]
The Alpha staggered. Reyes slapped her palm against one of its pulsing nodes.
“Jacking now — buy me ten seconds!”
The Alpha backhanded her across the room. She crashed into the bar, but her connection held. Green error codes flickered across the creature’s body.
Jax leaped onto a table and drove both clawed hands into the main chest cavity, digging toward the glowing core. The heat inside burned his forearms, but he kept pushing.
One of the Alpha’s tendrils whipped around his waist and squeezed. Ribs creaked. His vision tunneled.
“Come on,” Jax snarled. He triggered the Basic Debug Tool.
Cold focus hit. He mentally rerouted the conflicting code lines inside the wound, sending the venom straight into the core processors.
The Alpha convulsed violently. Its grip loosened.
Reyes slammed a final command.
“Full purge!”
Blue lightning arced from her tablet. Combined with Jax’s venom, the creature ruptured from the inside, spraying greenish blood across the saloon.
It collapsed.
[Major victory. Experience awarded.]
[Level up! Scavenger Patchwork Level 4]
[Mutation Capacity: 5 out of 5]
[New Script unlocked: Reinforced Tendons v1.1 Increases strength and durability of tendons and muscles.]
[Bonus: Alpha Core Fragment acquired — High compatibility with your current build.]**
Jax dropped to one knee, breathing hard. His claws were retracting, but the glands in his jaw ached. Green-tinged saliva dripped from his lip and ate a small hole in the wood.
Reyes limped over, wiping blood from her face. “Not bad for a fresh arrival. Most people who come through the big rift die in their first real fight.” She offered a hand. “You got a name, or should I just call you Claws?”
“Jax Harlan.” He took the hand and let her pull him up. “I’m looking for someone. Riley Harlan. Supply runner. He was two towns over when the green tear hit. No word since.”
Reyes’s expression tightened. “A lot of people got pulled in at different times. Some through smaller tears weeks ago. Others in the big one two days ago. If your brother came through earlier, he might have been here longer than you think. Assimilation cases are rising fast.”
Jax’s stomach twisted. “He’s still out there. I know it.”
Reyes studied him for a long second, then nodded toward the back room. “We’ve got a medic who can stabilize fresh arrivals. And maps of active Nexus Zones. Stick around, help clear the rest of this mess, and I’ll share what we know. But fair warning — this isn’t the world you knew anymore. This is the BioForge Domain. And it’s hungry.”
Jax racked a fresh round into his rifle, the new reinforced tendons making the motion feel smoother, stronger.
“Lead the way.”
Outside, the wind howled louder across the warped desert, carrying the distant roar of another rift waking up somewhere in this strange new world.
The BioForge wasn’t done with Dry Wells yet.
And neither was Jax.
- Writer
