Warden 1

by Isaac Hooke

  She swung the pistol toward the incoming smear of energy as if intending to bat it away. Her forearm moved painfully slowly compared to the fast approaching bolt, and for a moment she thought she wouldn’t raise it in time. But her wrist continued steadfastly upward, millimeter by millimeter, so that when the energy bolt arrived the weapon was in place to block it. The question was, would it be enough?

  The bolt struck the tip of the pistol and time snapped back to normal. The weapon became too hot to hold, and she was forced to release it lest she damage her robotic hand; the barrel glowed a bright white, and the pistol melted to half its size before hitting the cavern floor. The deadly energy had otherwise been absorbed, sparing her body from damage. But now she was defenseless.

  Thankfully, Sebastian had been forced to use his rifle as a shield to protect himself as well: her energy bolt had slammed into the base of the barrel, melting it inward. Apparently, that was enough to render the weapon useless, because the cyborg promptly tossed it aside.

  “Bitch.” Sebastian approached at a crouch.

  The flare continued to provide dim light from its position next to the pool, though because his back was to it, Sebastian’s face remained in shadow. She imagined him snarling.

  As he got closer, Rhea crouched as well, and the two began circling one another. His movements seemed slow and methodical, and a tad overly cautious: the behavior felt almost comical to her, given she was nearly half his size and likely possessed half his strength to boot. Then again, it was probably a wise move on his part. Having a healthy respect for what might appear to be a lesser foe had probably saved his life on numerous occasions.

  It did mean she was going to have a harder time catching him off guard, however.

  As he circled, the cyborg’s tail slowly moved forward and backward, slightly curling and uncurling each time as if preparing to strike. The blades that tipped it began spinning as well, the swirling metal gleaming wickedly beneath the light of the flare.

  “If you were sent to kill me, why didn’t you do it sooner?” she asked as she circled her foe. “Why wait so long?” She kept an eye on that deadly tail as she spoke. The whir made by the spinning blades was strangely sinister.

  In answer, that tail lunged at her. Rhea leaped aside, and the bladed tips smashed into the cave floor beside her, sending up rock chips.

  The cyborg withdrew the tail and circled anew. A probing strike. “I needed you to get out of that forest alive. The Werangs and Kargs weren’t supposed to be there. You got lucky. But that wasn’t the only reason I delayed. The fear I saw in your eyes held me back: these were not the eyes of the Dagger of Khrusos, but of a child. A deadly child, but a child, nonetheless. Killing you would have been little different than killing my own daughter. So I stayed my hand. But I knew I was merely delaying the inevitable. When the bioweapons attacked, I knew I could dally no longer. I had to kill you and be done with it.”

  “Why do you call me the Dagger of Khrusos?” she asked.

  “I wish I didn’t have to do this,” he answered, ignoring the question. “It’s obvious that your mind has been wiped, and you are no longer the threat that my master perceives you to be. I truly wish the two of us could walk away from this fight. But you see, if I return without your head, my master will take mine in your stead. And perhaps my daughter’s. So unfortunately, one of us will not leave this cave today. I thought to slay you while you slept, but there is no honor in that, not for someone who has risked their own life for me. I considered destroying your friends, too, but there is no price on their heads. I hoped it would be you who would follow me when I left that cave. You who would come to face your doom alone. And so here we are.”

  Once again that tail reared, and Rhea leaped aside, but it was a feint. She prepared for the follow-up strike, but it didn’t come. The pair merely circled one another.

  “Why turn on me now?” she pressed. “You say you needed me earlier, but the fact is, you still do. Bioweapons are camped outside the mountain, with some of them probably penetrating these very caves as we speak. We still have to fight.”

  “Doubtful,” he said. “The tunnels are too cramped. Some of the bioweapons might crawl for a few hundred meters into the mountain, maybe even a kilometer, but eventually they’ll give up and retreat. The rest will linger outside, this is true, but they, too, will depart due course. Whether it takes six days, or six months. I’m prepared to wait. Thus, I don’t in fact need you. And I will end you, here. Now. And your friends, if I have to.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Sebastian,” Rhea told him.

  “The Scorpion,” he corrected. “My name is The Scorpion.”

  Those spinning blades came in once again. It might have been a feint, but she wasn’t going to risk it.

  She dove forward, tilting her body to the horizontal as that tail sliced past below her. The blades narrowly missed her underside and were a millimeter from touching her outfit.

  She rolled to her knees when she landed, having successfully closed the distance with her target. Sebastian—The Scorpion—towered over her. She slammed one elbow into the side of his knee, but the blow caused barely a vibration. She stood up, swinging her fist at the same time, targeting a region on his lower torso—

  But, moving faster than she thought him capable, the Scorpion reached down with one hand and scooped her up before she could strike. Her punch missed its mark and she landed only a glancing hit against his side.

  The Scorpion held onto her by the neck; she reached up and wrapped her hands around that arm in an attempt to wrench herself free, but he spun her around with help from his other hand and slammed her chest and face into the rock floor three times, hard, causing her hood to fall. After the third strike, he tossed her toward his tail and the spinning blades.

  But after he released her, Rhea got lucky: her foot caught on his opposite arm in midair, and the impact altered her trajectory just enough to avoid the deadly metal. She landed on the floor beneath the tail, which stabbed downward repeatedly, trying to cut her in half with the blades.

  She dodged the deadly metal for several tense seconds, then rolled toward the pool, passing beyond the cyborg’s range.

  She came to a stop right next to the stagnant liquid, then stood up, switching to a low crouch. The flare was beside her on the cave floor, along with the damaged rifle The Scorpion had abandoned.

  She picked up both, one in each hand, then spun to face her enemy.

  The Scorpion was approaching. Though he still crouched, there was a barely perceptible swagger to his walk. He had clashed with his opponent, and apparently already judged her unworthy of the respect deserved by a dangerous foe.

  As he got closer and stepped into the more intense light closer to the source Rhea held, she could see his face beneath that hood. His mouth was twisted into a smirk, while his eyes shone with arrogance, confirming that he had indeed lost his former respect for her. And thus, his caution.

  She could use that.

  Underestimate me at your peril!

  When he was within striking distance of the tail, Rhea grinned.

  “You called me a bitch?” she asked.

  Before he could answer, she darted diagonally in front of him, forcing him to rotate to keep his tail within the necessary striking angle.

  Then she veered directly toward him, moving at right angles to her former course, and before he could react, she tossed the flare into his face, momentarily blinding him.

  That tail was already swinging toward her, but she dodged it with relative ease, and rapidly moved to within two meters of him. He had only just swatted aside the flare, restoring his vision, so that when she leaped toward his upper body, he raised his arms to intercept.

  He was too late.

  She swung past his right shoulder and at the same time twisted her torso to slide the rifle down toward him. She held it in both hands, pulling the barrel horizontally over his face, and when it reached the throat area, she spun sideways, wrenching her body to
ward the floor, causing the two sides of the rifle to bend into a V-shaped wedge.

  The Scorpion let out a gasp as that wedge crushed his throat; Rhea was already yanking herself upward once more, rotating the wedge as she did so, as the ends of the long rifle remained firmly in her grasp. When her feet landed on his shoulders, she promptly crossed the two loose ends of the rifle and dropped behind his back once more, keeping her grip firmly on the metal, so that the two loops tightened around his throat like a noose. She remained hanging there behind his back, applying constant pressure to the twisted rifle, further tightening it.

  Like most cyborgs, The Scorpion needed to supply his brain with oxygen. By constricting his throat like that, she cut off the oxygen supply to his artificial lungs, which would eventually cause him to fall unconscious, and die.

  That was the theory anyway.

  The Scorpion’s fingers wrapped around the metal at his throat, and he yanked hard, trying to tear both loops of the twisted rifle free. At the same time, his tail came in, forcing her to swing left and right to dodge the blades while she hung on. The Scorpion was desperate and didn’t seem to care that the blades were cutting into his own backside each time he missed. He simply wanted to get her off his back as quickly as possible so that he could breathe again.

  And then she heard a loud clang; at the same time, the leftmost portion of the rifle she clung to drooped lower. Glancing up, she saw that The Scorpion had crushed one of the loops next to his throat with his fingers.

  She kept glancing back at that tail, but for now The Scorpion was concentrating on tearing away the rifle with those big hands. The Scorpion grabbed the rifle loop on either side of the big dent he’d formed, and pulled, breaking the metal away entirely. Her left arm dropped, still holding the rifle piece like a cudgel.

  That tail came in again, and Rhea was forced to release the remaining rifle section she hung from. She dropped to the cavern floor and watched those metal blades reverberate from The Scorpion’s upper back with a satisfying clang.

  The Scorpion tore away the remaining rifle piece and shucked it aside, shedding the noose. He spun around and batted her aside with a powerful arm. She went flying across the cavern, the rifle piece falling from her grasp. She landed in the shallows of the pool.

  She scrambled to her feet, and did her best to get to shore, but then something hard rammed into her chest and she was thrown backward. When she recovered, she realized The Scorpion had tossed the other rifle piece at her. She turned toward shore once more, only to find those blades bearing down on her.

  She took a deep breath and dove into the liquid; she swam sideways, her extremities scraping against the rocky bottom. Not much light from the still-burning flare reached here, and she struggled to see in the thick murk. She switched to LIDAR. Better.

  And then something slammed into the small of her back, crushing her into the bottom. She struggled but couldn’t break free. She was thoroughly pinned in the pool.

  She gazed toward the surface. She was in a relatively shallow area: to surface, she need only rise less than half a meter. She tried to push herself up once more, but the force pressing her down proved relentless.

  So near, yet so far.

  She managed to twist enough to look over her shoulders and saw the polygonal outline of The Scorpion’s leg on her HUD, courtesy of the LIDAR. It was planted firmly in the small of her back.

  The urge to breathe was growing stronger by the moment. She was going to suffer the same fate she had planned for The Scorpion.

  Please, let me go, she broadcast on a common band, knowing he’d hear.

  He didn’t answer.

  You don’t have to do this! she tried.

  Dead silence.

  Her LIDAR outlined the curled, broken piece of rifle that The Scorpion had thrown at her. It had sunk to the bottom nearby. She reached out, and her fingertips brushed it, pushing it further away.

  Careful.

  She tried again, stretching as far as she could go, and managed to slide a finger around the tube. She pulled it toward her, then scooped it up.

  There was only a small chance this would work. But she had to try.

  Her vision was growing dim.

  This particular piece was all barrel, which made it perfect for her needs. But it was still looped, so she wrapped both hands around the metal and straightened it as well as she was able, maximizing its length.

  Then she held the metal tube above her head, pressing her lips around one end. It wasn’t long enough to reach the surface.

  She raised her head and upper body as far as she was able. There. She zoomed in on the LIDAR, and confirmed the far end had surfaced, if only by a few centimeters.

  She had the presence of mind to blow first to clear the tube of liquid before trying to inhale. She blew a few times, but still met resistance. Her artificial lungs were powerful enough to compensate for the added width and length of the tube, so she should have been able to expel all the water by now. That she hadn’t meant there must be leaks.

  Her vision grew darker as she searched the surface with her fingers. She was growing frantic but forced herself to remain calm.

  She found various holes and plugged them with the fingers of her right hand. One particular gap required her to press her entire index finger it from the side. She searched further with her other hand, but didn’t find anything else, and hoped she’d gotten all of them—she didn’t have much air left to expel from her artificial lungs.

  She blew.

  There was still resistance.

  She blew again. Again. Less resistance that last time.

  Again.

  Barely any resistance. That final time, she also felt cool air on the fingertips serving as plugs.

  Breathe!

  And breathe she did, using the rifle barrel like a glorified straw. Her vision quickly returned to normal.

  The Scorpion must have noticed when she expunged the air, because she received a broadcast. You deceiving bitch!

  The foot stepped away, and no longer pinned her. Rhea immediately tried to push herself to the surface, but as she did so, a hand wrapped around her throat, and hoisted her forcibly from the pool. It lifted her into the air and spun her around, so that she hung directly in front of The Scorpion. His big fingers reached all the way around her neck, which was relatively tiny in comparison.

  “I’ll choke the life out of you myself, then,” The Scorpion said, and squeezed.

  Rhea slid her lips off the metal tube, and lowered it with one arm, letting it dangle beside her. She almost dropped it entirely as she struggled to breathe. But no air would pass through her constricted throat.

  The flare yet burned, so that colors and textures filled out her LIDAR feed. Yet those colors were quickly growing dim once more, courtesy of her brain’s lack of oxygen.

  Her gaze dropped to the rifle piece she held. The tip was jagged. Sharp. Something that could be used to penetrate.

  She glanced at The Scorpion’s face, into that smug expression, and then her eyes dropped to his torso.

  Then she rammed the metal piece into the lower right of his chest, using all her strength.

  The tip penetrated his body, and then The Scorpion shuddered. He released her.

  Rhea waded to shore, coughing and struggling for breath. Behind her The Scorpion continued to spasm beneath the light of the flare. His tail slapped the surface repeatedly, and at random. He walked toward shore, each step slower than the last, until finally he collapsed, his head smashing onto the rock right next to the pool. The rest of his body remained submerged. Well, except for his tail, which continued to randomly twitch. Otherwise, he didn’t get up.

  The metal rifle protruded from his left side, where it had curled upward upon impact.

  Rhea realized she had stabbed his power cell. That was the only way. Luck? No. She knew where it was, somehow.

  The question was, how did I know that?

  The placement of the power cell was different in all models of c
yborgs. She knew that much from her Net browsing. Her particular power supply was located close to her heart, for example. It was usually well-armored, too, so some luck had been involved here.

  Either way, the effect of damaging such a cell was deadly to a cyborg. Without power, the artificial lungs would cease to operate, and the human brain would soon die.

  She sat down on the shore nearby and wrapped her arms around her knees so that she hugged her legs to her chest. She absently dismissed the LIDAR feed so that she was relying on the illumination from the flare alone, and then she stared at The Scorpion. His tail continued to occasionally spasm, though the intervals between each convulsion became longer and longer, with the intensity also less each time, until the tail, too, ceased all motion.

  Rhea rested her head on her knees and wept in relief.

  21

  Rhea heard the comforting susurrations of a small drone’s rotors, followed by quick footsteps. She looked up.

  Will and Horatio arrived running.

  With a sigh, she stood.

  Horatio slowed down while passing the fallen cyborg; Will meanwhile continued toward Rhea.

  “Are you all right?” Will said when he reached her side.

  He checked her face, no doubt noticing the freshly abraded artificial skin.

  “A bit shaken up, but I’ll live,” she said, breaking free of his grasp.

  “What happened here?” Will glanced at the fallen cyborg.

  Horatio arrived. “It looks like she perforated his power cell. Though how she managed to know where that cell was stored in this model, I don’t know.”

  “Luck,” Rhea said.

  Though the doubt must have been obvious in her voice, neither Will nor Horatio said anything to refute her.

  “That looks like his rifle,” Will said, nodding at the piece of metal protruding from the dead cyborg. “You took it from him, and did that?”

  “Yeah, it was a… messy… fight,” she said.

  Will was still gazing at the body. “So, you can do it, after all.”

  “Do what?” she asked suspiciously.