Science and Sorcery Box Set

by Ryan Tang

  The Peacetime model rose.

  ____

  "Run! Run! Everyone get out of here! Run!"

  He shouted as loud as he could.

  The pilot of the black Paragon let out a squeal of delight and turned towards him.

  For just a moment, the gunfire mercifully stopped.

  Then, the black Paragon hopped awkwardly forwards, landing right on top of two people who'd been trying to flee. The blood spurted into the air and dyed his feet.

  Jared screamed, but he also saw.

  Alex was always explaining to him how important it was to see everything that happened in a battle. It was the first thing she taught him when he started playing seriously on the simulator.

  Right when the machine leaped, the plates of the Paragon shifted in an unmistakable manner.

  Stock was back to his usual tricks.

  The machine's surface armor was Eternium, but this wasn't actually a true Paragon, which was crafted from the legendary metal all the way through. This was just a cheap imitation. If he struck the machine where it was vulnerable, he'd cut straight through the thin wire frame hiding beneath the intimidating armor.

  "I used to be a security officer, you know. I served with good old Scott before the scum dragged him down and killed him. All that crying and whining about how he shouldn't have shot. Well nobody can tell us what to do now, can they? Nobody can tell me anything when I've got this!"

  He was so excited he sent a spray of red gunfire high into the air.

  Jared remembered the fight outside the governor's mansion.

  It'd only been a small affair, but the chief of Security had died. He'd been sad to hear about it. Scott seemed like a good guy. But he thought everything had been neatly resolved. He remembered reading about Southern Robotics capturing the perpetrators.

  Perhaps it was worse than he thought.

  It didn't matter really.

  His parents were dead.

  Everything that'd happened before seemed like it was behind an opaque veil.

  They were just things that happened but didn't matter.

  The Executioner's jet black machine shifted a little. The machine groaned under the weight of all its weapons.

  "I'm Executioner Henry. The first member of Southern Robotics's new Hero Force! You see that guy up there? The weird one with the long hair? He's a Forum moderator. He was happy to tell us where the messages were coming from."

  He chuckled.

  "Tracking you was a cinch."

  All the guns cocked at once, an array of discordant clicks that created a sound Jared had never heard before.

  A quick end.

  A quick end to this is all I need.

  He needed to charge with full force, one single battle that decided whether he lived or died. It would most likely be the latter. But he could dance and twirl around, not while every missed shot would hit an innocent bystander.

  Jared extended a massive hand outwards, feigning like he was only trying to block the attacks. His other hand reached back and palmed a thick metal wall that'd broken off from one of the homes Henry had blown apart. His machine's hand was so massive it could comfortably palm the entire thing.

  To Henry, it'd look like nothing more than a fist.

  The Grizzly model's cockpit was built in the crotch instead of the head or chest. If all went well, that would be the Executioner's undoing.

  There was a gap in the armor where the legs met, and the gap widened a little further with every strained step.

  Jared charged.

  The guns fired and fired.

  His hand couldn't sustain the blows for long, and his machine had no other armor.

  He leaped towards his opponent, jumping awkwardly with his hand still outstretched. He was trying to maximize the space he blocked behind him.

  Time seemed to slow down.

  There was a loud splash as he jumped off of the puddle.

  The Executioner let out a cry of surprise.

  "What the hell are you doing? You think you can fight?"

  His massive hand caught almost all the shots, shifting from side to side.

  He did not allow a single one to go past him. He remembered how confident Alex became whenever she was shooting. His normally shy friend always said that in a battle, she and her machine were one.

  This was the same.

  Jared had lived in the Peacetime model since the night of the quakes.

  At first, the only sound he heard was the bullets smashing against the gel, a weird little wub-wub noise that echoed in his ears. Other shots glanced off his shoulder and legs, shredding them to pieces. An Eternium bullet blew off a wing. The Hands Paragon swerved badly, but his father's miraculous programming quickly corrected his course.

  The machine flew onwards, flying nearly as straight as it did before.

  As soon as the gel was broken, the screeching from his hand grew far worse.

  His machine screamed in beautiful pain. It was ordinary metal against Eternium bullets. There was no chance.

  A forever red bullet pierced clean through the palm and thudded into the cockpit.

  The shot nearly killed him.

  There was a massive bulge in the roof.

  Bloodstained metal jabbed inches away from his head, staring back at him like the void.

  The screens of his Paragon sparked.

  But then he was there.

  Jared screamed as his ruined hand lashed out and locked the unwieldy Grizzly in place. The guns were firing right at point-blank range, shredding his machine to bits. His cockpit tore open.

  Jared whirled his hidden hand out from behind his back, deftly shifting the sheet of metal so it emerged from the very bottom of the fist. He aimed low and swung.

  Just as he hoped, the Executioner didn't even try to block.

  "A punch? You think a punch will work?"

  He must have thought it was only a fist, but the thin sheet of metal was a different story.

  First came the flick, quick as could be.

  A slight jerk of his hand was all it took.

  Then he hammered forwards for the stab.

  He plunged it in so quickly that the Executioner didn't even have time to scream.

  A sad note echoed through the air.

  Sparks flew as Jared gouged the makeshift blade up and down, up and down, digging it deep into the machine.

  He could peek a little through the exposed cockpit.

  The throne-like pilot chair was split in half, the pilot skewered and dead at the end of Jared's sword. He couldn't even see what Henry had looked like. He was just a bloody messy smear now.

  The black machine teetered for a moment then collapsed with such force that the sheet of metal was wrenched out of his machine's hand. It hung obscenely in the air as the machine lay flat on its back.

  Some of the survivors cheered, echoing the chant from the library.

  "Hands! Hands! Hands! Hands!"

  But their voices were uneasily and filled with fear, and most of the people peeking out of the ruins were crying or silent. The terrible machine had inflicted even more damage than the quakes.

  It was almost eerily similar. Fire and smoke in the air. Horrible cracks in the ground. Homes blown to pieces. Water gushing through leaks on the floor. And worst of all, the people lying dead on the ground.

  It was his fault. He'd hidden here on a whim, thinking that nothing could go wrong, thinking that they'd never find him among the debris. And then this had happened.

  He broke down, falling over the dashboard of his machine.

  "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

  His words echoed through the courtyard, which was silent for only a moment. Then a man Jared vaguely recognized started shouting at the top of his voice.

  "Sorry? What do you mean you're sorry? You saved us!"

  "He only came because I was here."

  "No. He came because he could."

  The loud man was big and bald, with muscles that bulged out from beneath his
long-sleeved shirt.

  "I know you! You're the kid who told them to wait for me to bring my mom inside the hospital! You saved us the night of the quakes. You came back here and ferried us to the hospitals all night."

  A murmur went through the crowd.

  "Yes. Yes. He saved us."

  "Yes. The Hands Paragon saved us!"

  The bald man turned around.

  "You think he came here just because you were here? He came because he wanted to shoot up some homes! If he were actually looking for you, he wouldn't have done that shit. He would have just said he'd shoot us if we didn't tell. I would have helped him find you! We all would have! I'm not ashamed of it! We would have had a gun to our head! But he didn't listen. He wasn't trying to listen!"

  A short woman with long and curly hair cried out.

  "It was a test! A Southern Robotics test! They just wanted to test out a Paragon!"

  The bald man turned and waved a fist back and forth.

  "Yes! Yes! That's what it was!"

  The muscular cursed.

  "I've had it with Stock. Who the hell does he think we are? The quakes were probably a test too! It only blew up our homes. His were fine! Ten homes - all fine! I saw it on the news!"

  The short woman quickly agreed.

  "Remember the Governor's mansion? Even if the Hands Paragon weren't here, Stock would do whatever he wants. He said it was a minor incident! He shot up everyone on my Block - and a lot of people on yours too!"

  Other voices joined the outcry.

  "They'll shoot and kill us, then get away scot-free! This would have been a minor incident too!"

  "Yes! Remember what happened to the people they caught? What about Matthew? Remember what happened to him? Not even Luke would go with him! What about Donald? They came back, freaks!"

  A boy joined in, and this time, Jared finally knew who these people were. The big man was the one who'd carried his mom into the hospital. And the boy. He was the spitting image of the man in the busted cockpit.

  "My dad! The Hands Paragon will get back my dad! I saw his message! I saw my dad in those pictures! They brainwashed my dad!"

  A thin man with a broken nose pointed up at the sky.

  "You too, right Hands? They killed your dad too, didn't they?"

  The short woman pushed herself to the front. She pointed at the massive smoking corpse on the ground.

  "Take the scrap metal! We'll take the scrap and show everyone what Southern Robotics has done! The whole colony will be there! They'll all be at the tournament."

  And then the whole crowd joined in.

  "He already beat one Paragon, why not another? They can't hurt us when Hands is here!"

  "No cover-ups! No cover-ups this time!"

  "We'll tell them to remember Block 12! If Stock could do it to those rich kids, he could do it to anyone!"

  The boy pointed at him.

  "Show them the pictures! Show them the pictures, Hands!"

  The massive crowd began to march, and almost without thinking, Jared started marching alongside them.

  His broken machine staggered momentarily in the air, but eventually, his father's programming shone through. The Hands Paragon flew straight and true.

  They were right.

  Southern Robotics killed his father for discovering the truth, and now with their new Paragons, they could kill anyone they wanted.

  They had to be stopped.

  He knew the people of the early Blocks.

  His neighbors were good people at heart. With the evidence right in front of them, they could not possibly deny the truth.

  Together, the voices around Jared swelled and swelled until they completely overwhelmed the noise screeching down from the false sky.

  CHAPTER 26: BROTHER

  "They'll kill us! Southern Robotics will kill us as soon as the Gate opens. We all know this! They can't let their secret get out! You have to be cra -"

  Mr. Chen caught himself and shook his head.

  "Sorry. I didn't mean to say that. Look, Jon. I'm just as sad as anyone that Fred is gone."

  There was no lie there.

  When his brother went missing, Mr. Chen searched just as hard as Jon himself. By the end of it, the older man was so tired he was crawling on the floor. Jon's mom had to force him to go home.

  Mr. Chen didn't even know Fred very well, but it didn't matter. The elderly gentleman was one of the leaders of The Wastes, and he acted accordingly.

  But now they were sure Fred couldn't be found inside, and Mr. Chen was pleading caution.

  Or rather, he was adapting.

  The people in The Wastes always adapted, and if Mr. Chen and his many supporters had their way, they'd adapt again. Everyone in the Wastes - even Jon himself - took a perverse pride in how they'd adapted to their pitch-black prison.

  Even their bodies changed. They took on a pale glow that allowed them to see each other in a world without light. Their limbs and stomachs grew thin and tight so that they could survive without much food.

  They told each other that they could adapt to anything.

  It was part of the legend of The Wastes and part of Mr. Chen's legend as well.

  Mr. Chen was one of the oldest men in their community. He was old enough that he remembered when The Wastes had been free, back when they'd been Block 12, one of the most prosperous areas on the entire colony. Back then, Mr. Chen had worked directly under the elder Stock as a senior engineer for Southern Robotics. But his closeness to the family hadn't saved Mr. Chen, nor had it saved anyone else on Block 12.

  After his son's mistake, Stock Sr. locked the Block into eternal darkness, ignoring their pleas.

  It didn't take long for Mr. Chen to discover how to open the Gate from the inside. But he chose not to, and he warned the others not to as well. Jon learned about the danger of Southern Robotics restitution when he was just a baby. The company had locked them into forever darkness. They'd turned the entire Block into a single massive cell. Anyone ruthless enough to do that wouldn't hesitate to kill.

  Jon shook his head.

  Why couldn't they see?

  This was different.

  There was no adjusting to the quakes. If another one came again, people would die, just like they'd died last time.

  "If we stay here, we're all going to die anyway!"

  He stammered badly with every word.

  Jon wasn't Fred. His brother was always good at speaking in front of people. Sometimes Jon even heard him practicing it late at night or even in his sleep, saying things that didn't entirely make sense.

  Jon wasn't even good at talking when he was by himself. He had even less of a clue with so many people standing in front of him.

  But he had to make them see.

  "Look at how many people died last time!"

  A full tenth of their numbers had died since the quakes started, and Jon only counted himself lucky that his friends and family hadn't been among them.

  It hadn't even been the shaking.

  It'd been the darkness.

  People hurt themselves crashing into debris. Some fell into cracks in the ground. When they were so used to relying on their knowledge of the world around them, a sudden shift was the most terrifying thing possible.

  And few in The Wastes knew medical techniques. People had died just waiting in line for help.

  "What if the next ones worse? What then? What if someone's house falls on them? What about the walls?"

  If something fell on you when you were outside, you wouldn't even be able to see it coming.

  And there was an even worse possibility, one that everyone in The Wastes had already thought about. The walls around them were built into the Eternium core. What would happen if the core shifted, and they fell?

  "We'll all die if the walls fall on us. And what can we do when the ground collapses beneath our feet? And everyone knows it's going to happen again!"

  That was one thing they all agreed on. The quake could be nothing but a Southern Robotics ex
periment. What else could cause the ground to tremble? Southern Robotics had already destroyed their Block. They wouldn't hesitate to destroy the colony.

  And there was little chance the company wouldn't try again.

  Mr. Chen bit his lip. He didn't know either. Reflexively, he took both his feet off the ground and crossed them in his chair.

  Seeing the elderly and uniformly respected man do something so ridiculous made Jon feel sad. There were others in the hall doing the same thing, nonsensical as it was.

  Taking their feet off of the ground was worse than useless.

  If the ground shook, they'd fall over anyway.

  They might even fall over faster since they didn't have their legs to balance themselves.

  Jon's mom said that's what people did when they had no idea what to do.

  They just made things up and hoped for the best.

  "We've adapted to so much before. But we can't adapt to this. We're just stalling things out until it all falls apart!"

  Mr. Chen grimaced.

  He knew there was some truth in Jon's words, but he still had a quick retort.

  "This is worse, but we can make it through. Look at how much we've already survived. Can you honestly say that we won't make it through this, either?"

  The elderly man cast a sweeping glance not just at Jon, but at all the people behind Jon.

  The young boy shuddered.

  The people sitting behind him were even more daunting than the people he was arguing against.

  It was still hard to believe he had so many people by his side.

  "The Wastes aren't just our flawed home. They are also an unfortunate sanctuary. We need to remember. There are Southern Robotics guns on the other side.

  Now it was Jon's turn to bite his lip.

  .

  "But this is different. This is..."

  He trailed off.

  Fred would know what to say.

  His brother had always been good with words.

  Jon wished his brother was here now.

  He wasn't angry at Fred for leaving.

  Fred had his own life apart from Jon and his parents. His own life apart from all their friends.

  Jon often wondered why he left. His brother was probably looking for his family, other people with strange golden skin, people who were kinder than Fred's insane father had been.