Centuries of immersion in a lifestyle of sensuality, immediate gratification, and increased reliance on machines for memory and even basic cognition resulted in the gradual degeneration of intelligence among the sighted, made even worse by the increased genetic damage wrought on the human race by widespread chemical and radiation poisoning brought about by environmental devastation, nuclear and biological warfare, and increased reliance on altered and synthetic food. The blind, on the other hand, not only retained their mental faculties because of their need to use various centers of their brain to supplement or replace their inability to visually sense and navigate their world, but also because when the sighted world became aware of the distinction between the two sub-species they began to ostracize them or seek to exploit their superior intellectual capacities, resulting in a widening schism between the two peoples. The Degenerates sank into a soulless world of statism and militarism, while the Aural fortified themselves in communities where the old humanity was refined and flourished in an atmosphere of artistic and intellectual prowess and freedom. A constant state of siege of the few by the many soon ensued.
I'd been imprisoned in a Degenerate work complex for longer than I care to say, enslaved by those subhuman germs to be their brains for them, solve the problems those fools created for themselves and to devise weapons of war to be used against my brothers and sisters, and to expand their gluttonous amœba of a nation — one of myriad miserable petty duchies and satraps choking under the miasma of a vengeful heaven and led by a cadre of delusional megalomaniacal buffoons. Let today be their curse, for deliverance is at hand; even now I and my associates are wheeling the massive datacube into the small container secured in a transport autobot that will smuggle us out of the compound with all the wealth of knowledge we'd been prodded like cattle into devising for them.
Still, though they may be fools, they possess and animal cunning that's not to be underestimated. The first sign of trouble came when the Lorrie carrying us, twelve in all with our treasure box, lurched suddenly to a stop. Our escort slid open our door and notified us that sentrybots were en route. He was a muscular man of average height and indistinct features, save for his eyes being two glistening black orbs swirling with subtle, dull ruddy whirls that looked like infrared ink undulating in the darkest corner of the night; an ultima- or bioweapon, he could see more than any Degenerate or Urman could, well into the infrared and even radio frequencies and up past the ultraviolet just shy of the spectrum of cosmic background radiation. He pulled out his auto-tracking submachine gun and vaporized a dozen sentrybots just as a few bullets hit the front of the Lorrie and before we'd all even turned our heads to track his movement. Without a word he slid the container door back shut and we felt ourselves lurch forward again and shortly the faint echo discernible informed us we were in the underground hangars on the perimeter of the compound.
Again, we lurched to a stop, and this time I opened the door unbidden and was horrified to see us surrounded by muciphage sentinels, already shooting their slimy, adhesive tendrils toward us from their writhing, jaundice-colored forms blasphemous to all macroscopic biology — only the worst torture could have ever caused an Aural to develop such a monstrosity, and we were all filled with terror. Our escort let a sneer mar his stony face and this time pulled out a weapon I'd never seen before, something that was vaguely reminiscent of a shotgun wrapped in distillation coils the color of St. Elmo's fire. It sounded like a hiss from a giant serpent when it fired, and wherever its shots struck a cold blue flame the color of arctic ice exploded in a ball the size of a man, and when that explosion dissipated a rapidly-widening hole could be seen opening in the muciphage and rapidly devouring it, leaving it in moments a mere puddle of smoking ichor. We were saved! With the help of our cutting torches we removed the last of the hardened severed muciphage tendrils and in a few minutes were back inside the container and on our way out of the tunnels, when again we lurched to a stop. "Ready the detonator," we were commanded, meaning serious trouble indeed. I opened the container door while my associate primed the small micronuke explosive that ensured that even if we failed to reclaim our freedom those accursed Degenerates would be deprived of the fruit of our labors and of their chief laborers, gritting my teeth as I saw at the very gateway to freedom an array of guardbots bristling with armaments waiting for us.
After a minute of the two groups staring at each other in silence I heard a strange crackling rushing from the left of us, like a pile of leaves the size of a house being driven ahead of a stiff gale. I turned my head and beheld a pack of raidens rushing toward the guardbots, ephemeral tigers each the size of our Lorrie, glowing a subdued blue-white, shimmering in the air in phase to a quantum heartbeat, a single eye in each head glowing the color of burning phosphorous. I glanced at our savior and was met with a grin. "Better get back inside, and get ready to roll," he beamed with boyish glee. As we scrambled inside I saw the guardbots opening fire on the raidens, crimson and emerald beams passing ineffectually through the furious beasts as they let loose with their own fury, beams white enough to blind the eyes when looked at directly cutting through the formerly terrifying machines as if they were made of butter. "Don't worry about the door, enjoy the show!," our escort screamed as he started up the Lorrie's engine and we lurched forward, "But, for God's sake disarm that detonator!". I saw one of the raidens explode into five blue orbs, each of them hurtling toward the gate and the ruined towers surrounding it, exploding in perfect spheres of a blue-white incandescence that faded away to reveal nothing, everything within having been perfectly devoured. As we passed through I saw the remaining raidens leap into the sky and elongate and narrow into the shape of serpents or old Chinese dragons and circle around the complex lancing the guard towers, walls, and control tower with those terrible beams of lightning, eventually lost in a confusion of the prison defense's feeble ineffectual laser fire and explosions from their missile batteries.
We let loose a cheer and embraced each other and slapped each other's shoulders and backs, some of us shedding tears of joy; freedom! And vengeance.
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