The Eighth Excalibur

by Luke Mitchell

  Are you? Check again, little hobbit.

  Frowning, Nate bent down and slid his right pant leg up a few inches.

  The bruises were gone. And come to think of it…

  He pulled up the front camera on his phone, and watched his own dark eyes widen as he realized his Todd-induced black eye had magically cleared up sometime in the past hour, since he’d sat there downing his cereal and wondering at the wisdom of trying to come work out on an injured leg. But now there was nothing there but pale white skin above, and thin, wispy leg hair below. It was…

  Impossible? You have no idea what we could accomplish together were you to relinquish your hold on such thoughts and rise to the challenge.

  “Fine,” Nate said, studying the array of plates suspended on either side of the rack. “You want me to rise to the challenge?”

  He moved to the outside of the rack, his gaze drifting to the 25 pound plates. But he knew what the Excalibur would have to say about that: Are YOU a sad meat sack, Nathaniel Arturi?

  Are you? the Excalibur asked.

  Nate wasn’t sure what he was, aside from maybe a scrawny little hobbit with delusions of grandeur and a magic sword in his head. But he reached for the big 45 pound plates anyway. He loaded one on each side of the bar, the weight feeling a little too much like that of ego and bad decisions in his hands.

  Better.

  Nate tried it again and was surprised to find that he didn’t die. Not that it felt great. The bar dug into his back with an outrageously uncomfortable vengeance, and he almost lost his balance on the first three repetitions. But he didn’t. And by the time he settled the bar back into the rack, he actually felt kind of good.

  You can do more.

  Seriously? Nate glanced at the plates on his bar. This is already triple what the plan was.

  And the troglodans will be here a thousand times sooner than your sniveling carcass will be ready for them. Perhaps you should consider these words of eternal human wisdom, which I just located on the internet: If the bar ain’t bending, you’re just pretending.

  Don’t tell me, Nate thought, rolling his eyes. That was Jesus, right?

  Just load the barbell, Nathaniel.

  Nate sighed. I thought the plan was to find the Beacon before all hell broke loose on Earth, anyway.

  Which will only happen if you actually manage to bond with me quickly enough to do so.

  Kindly refer to the aforementioned ‘I’m trying,’ Nate thought, with all the mental acid he could muster. Unless you wanna actually tell me something useful about how this bonding process works, outside of me needing to be less pathetic.

  Was it his imagination, or could he feel the Excalibur searching for the right words?

  Curious.

  What’s curious? Nate wondered.

  Never mind that. You have observed this movie titled, ‘Thor,’ correct?

  Nate arched an eyebrow at the air, not really sure where this was going. Yeah… why?

  I believe this bit of pop culture provides a relevant analogy. Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor, and so forth… Do you understand?

  I don’t know… Nate frowned. But what do you mean, you BELIEVE it’s relevant? You don’t know?

  Was that frustration radiating from the Excalibur?

  You are holding the hammer, Nathaniel. Try not to snivel about it.

  Nate realized he’d been absentmindedly staring toward the girl squatting two racks down from him, and she was starting to notice. He turned his frown safely back to the weights, thinking about the Excalibur’s metaphors. First the Gandalf quote, and now this comparison to Thor and his Mjölnir, yet for both analogies, he couldn’t help but think there was some critical disconnect, and that the sword-that-wasn’t-a-sword seemed to have missed the entire point of both legends.

  Perhaps it is you who missed the point, Nathaniel, the Excalibur shot back, and this time there was no mistaking the frustration. I am merely attempting to establish a common ground upon which we might build this shoddy farce of an alliance.

  I understand, Nate thought back quickly, meaning it even if he was a little unclear as to exactly which part of this was frustrating his companion. Maybe that didn’t matter so much though.

  I… Even thinking the words was difficult. Thank you, Excalibur. I appreciate the effort. But… what about the Lady’s test? The sword in the stone? Why wasn’t that part enough?

  The Excalibur rippled with something like amusement, or maybe reverence. Why, indeed. Though I am fairly certain the fact that you even think to ask that question is, in itself, part of the answer. Now, are you going to prove your worth, or aren’t you?

  Nate pursed his lips, kind of wishing he could take that thank you back. As if to highlight his daily shortcomings thus far, the real thunder god in the corner chose that moment to start up with another set of floor-shaking deadlifts.

  This is bullshit, for the record, Nate thought, as he stepped over to slide more weights free from the rack. Total Todd-level, Alpha-dog bullshit. But there was nothing for it. It might be stupid, and unsafe, and a thousand other things. But as vague as the Merlin’s directions had been, the Excalibur probably had a point. If there was any version of reality where he was actually ready when this alleged armada arrived, it probably didn’t involve moderation and holding back.

  Not that that softened his embarrassment as he clumsily added a pair of 35 pound plates to the bar and felt the dubious stares multiplying around him.

  There. That’s… He counted. That’s 205 pounds. That’s more than I weigh. Are you happy with that?

  That is a semantically confusing question. But I am satisfied, yes. For the moment.

  Nate took his place under the bar, noticing a few more guys frowning his way while they pretended to be busy with their phones. Like freaking sharks sensing blood in the water, just waiting for him to bite it.

  Perhaps we should move this endeavor to the ship next time, if you are going to be this sensitive.

  Nate paused under the bar. The ship? There’s a… a ship? Like a…?

  A spacefaring vessel, yes, Nathaniel. Of course there is a ship. Did you expect a Knight would traverse the cosmos via intragalactic pedicab?

  Nate wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Hadn’t really thought that far ahead, if he was being honest, mostly for the simple fact that he still had no idea what the hell an Excalibur Knight actually did. His head was already on the verge of exploding from his single earthbound objective as it was.

  Continue your exercise. We will discuss the ship once I’ve… found it.

  Nate might’ve insisted on a few hundred more questions then—what the hell the Excalibur meant, once he found it, for instance—but the sight of the Shark People still watching him brought him back to the gym, where he was still awkwardly standing in position beneath the barbell.

  It said something about his mental state that his brain seemed content to simply file this bombshell away for the moment. Nothing but a few voyeurs and a rogue spaceship to worry about? Not like he hadn’t seen weirder. Might as well squat two-hundred pounds. Screw it.

  That’s the spirit.

  This time, taking the weight on his back felt less like a localized discomfort and more like a full body trampled-by-troglodans experience. By the time he managed to walk the bar out from the rack hooks, his body was shaking with the effort of even stabilizing the weight. There was no way, his indignant brain informed him. No freaking way. No—

  Squat, little hobbit.

  Nate tried to take a breath—it was like sucking against vacuum through a straw—and unlocked his knees. Hips back. Body trembling. Chest up. Full on shaking now. Body whipping like the freaking Tacoma Narrows Bridge, moments before collapse.

  In a panic, Nate tried to reverse direction, only to find that he couldn’t. His hips were locked in place. He strained with everything he had. Stuck. Hips beginning to sink. Strength bleeding away.

  Are you a sad meat sack, Nathanie
l Arturi? Or are you a Knight?

  A flicker of fire in his heart. Nate clenched his teeth, head on the verge of exploding, and heaved. He wasn’t sure where the strength came from, only that he needed to live long enough to tell the Excalibur to kiss his ass. But the bar was moving. Inch by trembling inch, it was moving.

  He was freaking doing it.

  Then something smacked into the side of the squat rack, and Todd Mackleroy’s sneering face appeared out of nowhere a mere foot in front of him. “Yo, Arturi! What the shit is up with—Oh damn, bro! Looks like you’re about to blow a—”

  Nate didn’t hear whatever else Todd said. His magical drive had stalled. His balance was off kilter. Something gave way, and before he could even say what, everything was collapsing in a rapid fire explosion of jarring impacts and loud crashes.

  When it was over, Nate’s tail bone was aching, his legs and back burning, and he was looking up at Todd’s gleeful face from a crumpled heap at the bottom of the squat rack.

  “Oh my god,” Todd said loudly, touching his hands to the sides of his head in dramatized concern. “Are you okay, bro?”

  Nate looked blearily around and realized half the gym seemed to be watching—alerted, no doubt, by the crashing weights. Half of them had their damned phones out.

  Not again.

  “Maybe the IT Guy got confused,” said one of Todd’s pack members. “Maybe he hit his head too hard in that fall yesterday.” He stepped away from the other three followers to point through the windows of the gym’s front wall, over toward the IT Bridge. “Your building’s over there, little guy.”

  Head still spinning, Nate tried to get an arm under himself to sit up, and felt hard resistance behind his shoulder blades. The bar. He’d fallen on the bar. Better than under the bar, some dazed part of his brain pointed out. The rest was busy just trying to focus on those three words: that fall yesterday.

  The accident. How did they know about the accident? Unless—

  Nathaniel, I have located five skulls ripe for the crushing.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Nate murmured.

  “What’d he say?” growled Henchman Number One, puffing his chest in the universal sign for come at me, bro. Todd, like a good bro pack leader, held his man back with a hand to the chest, watching Nate with a suspicious look all the while.

  Kick their rectums!

  The Excalibur was so giddy with excitement that, for a split second, some crazy part of Nate even wanted to listen to the damn thing—delusions of badass grandeur dancing in his head. Then Todd stepped forward and shoved his phone in Nate’s face, and Nate could only stare in astonishment as a tiny version of himself leapt across the screen, plowed into Emily Atherton, hit the pavement rolling, and came up to stiff arm a speeding black bike to a dead halt, moving entirely quicker than Nate had ever moved in his life.

  He winced as the rear tire kicked up, and the hoodied biker went flying.

  “What the hell gives, Arturi?” Todd asked, watching him closely as Video Nate pulled Emily Atherton to her feet and held her for a few breathless moments, only to turn and run off when the videographers started closing in.

  Nate could only gape at Todd as he paused the video and leaned closer.

  “What are you hiding?” he asked in a quiet voice, looking more serious than Nate had ever seen. His expression only darkened as he glanced at Nate’s left eye socket, probably noting the lack of the bruising that’d been evident even in the shaky video.

  “Look at him, bro,” one of the I.N.N. henchmen broke in, waving at the mess of Nate’s spilled weights as if to point out how pathetic he was. “I told you it was just a bout of retard strength.”

  “Dude!” another chided, shaking his head and smacking his fellow bro’s shoulder as if to tell him off. “It’s the pills, bro. Those computer jockeys eat ‘em like candy.”

  Nate couldn’t find words. Couldn’t even seem to find thoughts. Todd was still staring at him. Nate didn’t understand what he wanted—why he was doing this at all. How he’d even found out.

  Or why he looked so deadly angry behind that stare.

  It was only when Nate heard someone in the next row over hissing something about bath salts and pointing emphatically to their phone that his brain caught up, and he properly realized what was happening. Rattled as he’d been by the Merlin’s visit, and Roger the loyal DHA lackey, and pretty much everything else under the freaking sun, he’d forgotten to scour the web this morning.

  And that shit had snuck right in and bit him in the ass.

  “—see that bike, though?” one of their nearby spectators asked his friend, tapping his phone.

  “—shit was badass,” came another voice.

  He hadn’t imagined the strange looks, he realized.

  “—ust be some kind of freak—”

  “—sure that’s him?”

  “—obviously just CGI, dude—”

  CGI. For a second, Nate’s brain latched onto that pearl, thinking to corroborate it. Just special effects. That was it. Just a nerd trying to get attention. It might even work, he thought—right up until he took another look around and saw that half of the gym had given themselves permission to openly stare, phones at the ready.

  Even Todd was looking around like he was just then realizing this might not have been the smartest place to make a scene.

  He had to get out of here.

  You’re doing it, again. Calm yourself.

  But Nate was already rocking to his feet, too mortified by what was happening to even think twice about his potential injuries, or the fact that he practically slammed Todd off his feet and into the rack as he skirted by.

  Apparently Todd hadn’t been ready either.

  The bronze god and his gang of dudebros flared up like an Italian deli at the insult, but Nate was already hurrying off, crashed weights forgotten, every single goddamn eye in the place riveted to the unfolding of Freak Show #2.

  “Nate?” someone called, but he didn’t look back—couldn’t look back. Had to get away from all these phones. Had to resist the urge to run. Couldn’t run. Not again. Not—

  You are overreacting, Nathaniel.

  The Excalibur’s voice only added urgency to his already bouncing walk-run. He only barely managed to avoid hissing shut up out loud.

  For a second, he wondered if the Excalibur was right, and if maybe he should just smile and shrug it off, and chock it all up to hand wavy excuses about adrenaline rushes and soccer moms lifting mini vans to save their kids. But then he saw the way two girls at the water fountain were recoiling from his path, and the way the curly-haired desk attendant was talking quickly into the phone up ahead, eyes fixed straight on him, and any thought of shrugging it all off fled with the remainder of his self-control.

  He needed to get out of here.

  He passed the front desk at a jog, hurrying through the atrium doors, sweating in a way that had little to do with physical exertion. He plowed through the outer doors, felt cool autumn air pour into his lungs. Hard asphalt beneath his feet. Todd Mackleroy’s deadly serious face stuck in his mind’s eye ahead, and gods knew how many chattering Penn Staters behind. He’d forgotten his water bottle back by the squat rack, some distant corner of his mind noted.

  He threw up his hood and ran.

  17

  S.A.S

  The black SUV didn’t belong on Irvin Street.

  That was the first factoid Nate’s tingling Spidey Senses announced as he drew up beside the bushes outside the house and noted the dark vehicle parked curbside a few houses down. The second factoid, peering up at the paneled living room windows, was that he couldn’t remotely tell if his roommates were awake in there yet. Hell, he could barely even tell whether he wanted them to be.

  His lungs burned. If the cross country coaches had had the decency to tell him during his brief stint that all it took to crack the five minute mile was an alien weapon in the head and the end of life as he knew it, Nate would’ve liked to think he’d have had
the wisdom to tell them to go and shove it.

  Give me something to work with here, and we’ll be cracking four minutes by the end of the week.

  Not really the point, Ex, Nate thought, prowling past the bushes to begin the front stoop climb.

  Ah. And now we are doing nicknames. Charming.

  Nate ignored his companion, taking the world one heavy stoop step at a time. He paused at the door, Spidey Sense paranoia morphing into a malignant serpent, coiling around his insides.

  If they were awake… If they’d already seen…

  Quick as the frantic run home had been, Nate couldn’t count how many passing stares he’d drawn. Of course, of those numerous stares, he had no idea how many might’ve been staring because they’d already seen that damned video, and how many had simply been born of natural curiosity at the guy running bloody murder down the street.

  He was probably being paranoid, he told himself. Even rampantly viral videos didn’t spread so fast that half the town would’ve already seen—much less would’ve recognized him on the street. He looked back down their quiet stretch of Irvin Ave anyway, just to reassure himself there was no rabid pack of drooling, phone-pointing voyeurs in pursuit.

  Nothing but calm street, and the usual amount of parked cars. Somewhere down the block, there was the cough-cough-roar of someone starting up a push mower. Just another quiet Sunday on pre-invasion Earth.

  His frown settled on the black SUV that decidedly didn’t belong here, with its severely tinted windows and its up to no good vibes. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the vehicle around before, but if that set his Spidey Senses tingling a bit, then that admittedly only landed it in the same bag as pretty much every other stray glance and passing car he’d seen in the past five minutes. He was just being paranoid.

  Though there IS an unusual level of mobile data streaming to and from that vehicle.