Nomad

by Jamie Nash

  Shaft grabs Hero’s right arm. Crazytown takes the left. They drag him into the medical lab. Hero wails, trailing his dangling inner leg bits as he goes. The bottom half of his legs are left behind, sticking out of the bulkhead like some tasteless Halloween decoration. Not that we could wrestle them out from under the steel door anyway.

  I follow into the operating room, barely feeling my feet beneath me, still tightly clutching the bloody saw. The blade is covered in blood, dripping. I hurl it away.

  The guys dump Hero onto the operating table. He shrieks and rises, getting his first glimpse at the two tourniqueted meat stumps that were once his legs. There are all kinds of horrible things going on down there—a blood-drenched confetti of veins and muscle and nerves that dangle out like wiggly worms. Hero howls in pure terror. This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. The worst thing anyone has ever seen. Faces of Death ain’t got shit on this.

  “It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” Shaft says, but his greenish skin betrays the lie. Hero claws at Shaft, screaming. He wants off the table. Shaft wrestles his arms back. “Hold him down!”

  “He’s mad!” Crazytown starts punching Hero in his face.

  Shaft turns to me. “Start the autopilot.”

  I rush to the Commodore 64 that controls the surgery bot. It still displays a screen of text related to Shaft’s surgery—debug dumps, status messages, and wound care instructions. Beneath all that, the cursor blinks, daring me to make the next move.

  Hero eyes the mechanical squid that hangs over him. “No! No machine. No machine!”

  The boys flail and fight. Blood flies and squirts out of Hero. He needs to be fixed. Fast. I type “AUTO” and hit “Enter.” The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor quivers then rumbles. The three articulated metal braces latch over Hero’s arms and chest, then cinch into place. He’s immobilized. Crazytown and Shaft ease away, breathing heavy, giving the robot space.

  The lights dim, and the rig lurches forward. Its shadow darkens Hero as it halts directly above him. Hero glares at the large green eye that shines down on him. The grid of lasers project onto his torso. Its tentacles swivel to the walls. Their extremities attach to the medieval-looking surgical implements.

  “Where’s the medicine?” Shaft turns to me. “Why isn’t it killing his pain?”

  I don’t know. What do I look like, a robotic surgeon expert? I spin back to the computer monitor. Text is rattling out. But this isn’t a data dump. It’s typing speed—like before.

  Mr. Turn-off-the-life-support is back. We’re being hacked. We’re getting War Gamed. His sneak attack plays out onscreen.

  ABORT AUTO.

  MANUAL MODE ENGAGED.

  ORGAN HARVEST ENGAGED.

  “Oh no.” My words are almost reflex.

  Everyone glances back, reacting to the panic of my voice. Even Hero.

  “Organ harvest?” Shaft spies over my shoulder. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t,” I whisper. “It’s him. He’s back.”

  We’re frozen in horror, just watching, each of us doing the math—the grisly, grim math.

  “Get him off the table.” Shaft hurries back to Hero. “Now!”

  Crazytown rushes over. The guys dig their hands into the latches and start pulling. I don’t move. I can’t. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to watch. I want to go home. The boys can’t free him. He’s shackled in tight. There’s only one thing that can release him, and right now it’s in the hands of a madman.

  The robotic arms lash out. A buzz saw buries itself into Hero’s sternum. His every muscle snaps taught. His eyes practically bulge out of his face. He yells—boy does he yell. His screams are like someone hammering spikes into my eardrums.

  The guys don’t give up. They wrestle with the bulky arms, trying to hold them back. It’s no use. It’s like two Boy Scouts trying to push a bulldozer. Nothing moves or budges.

  A long scalpel carves a smiley face of blood beneath Hero’s stomach. A weird calling card. Zorro leaving his Z. The saw drops and chews through soft flesh. It whines as it hits bone. Hero cries himself hoarse, then just whimpers. Another robotic arm carves away his lower body, another uses a drill to burrow into his skull. He’s being dissected.

  I try to hit a few keys, attempting a couple of commands.

  ABORT.

  STOP.

  QUIT.

  Nothing works, just like before. I pummel the computer with my fists. I grab the first heavy thing from the wall—a drill—and hammer the thing with it. The monitor cracks but doesn’t shatter. I turn to the keyboard and computer combo and aim for the backend where I know the guts are.

  “Stop!” Shaft grabs my arm and pulls me away. “We might need this to fix him.”

  That’s bullshit. Humpty Dumpty is not going back together again this time. But even though Hero is too far gone to help, I suspect this isn’t the last time one of us will need medical attention. The damaged monitor spouts away text, ticking off organs it has harvested—muscles, pancreas, kidneys. Another arm drops the precious organs into plastic bags. Vacuum seals them. It’s all so efficient. So programmed.

  Somehow, Hero is still alive. Or at least his eyes are open. They’re not looking at us anymore. They gaze into the green eye like someone staring into oblivion.

  I stumble past the robot arms and glare right down the barrel of the ever-watching camera. “Whoever you are, you win.” I can barely get my wavering lips to say the words. “Stop this! Please.”

  But nothing stops. The maniac is having too much fun playing Jack the Ripper. The machine breaks out the rib-splitter and goes to work.

  I mentally note a new entry to top my ‘worst things I’ve ever seen’ list.

  It takes a full five minutes, the butcher-bot continuing to do its dirty work. The machine removes every organ and bone. It peels off Hero’s skin, folds it, and packs it away inside a vacuumed sealed pouch.

  It saves his ever-staring eyes for last.

  The vents in the floor turn on, and the W.I.T.C.H. Doctor finally returns to its perch in the ceiling. There’s nothing left except the torn, bloody fabric of his once white wetsuit.

  Hero is gone. In every sense of the word.

  I stagger back into the main chamber, bawling like a six-year-old, snot pouring out of my nose, lips blubbering. I don’t even try to hide it. No one comforts me. Doesn’t matter. I’ll never recover from this one. Hero pulled me from that glass coffin for this bullshit? Just cut off the damn life support already. Carve me up with your robot. Dissect my guts. Put my pancreas in a jar if you want. Just. Make. This. Stop.

  The other two guys shuffle back to the control room, heads down, speechless.

  I dry my tears with quivering hands. There’s blood on them and my suit. I wipe my palms against my sides trying to clean them. It only rubs it in, staining my skin red. It triggers a memory. A woman with a bloody nose. She’s crying, lying on the floor. The blood pours from her nostrils.

  Another puzzle piece. A fragment. My life, my past, is as ripped apart as Hero’s bones.

  A whirring sound breaks me from my thoughts. From the surgical room, that damn camera is watching me. I’m through being this maniac’s HBO. If he wants drama, he can flip on General Hospital like a normal weirdo. I storm back into the medical lab, my feet slipping on the slick vents, and plant myself right in front of its camera.

  “You!” I yell through a corded neck. “Whoever you are, wherever you are, I’m going to hunt you down. I’m going to put you on this table and rip every organ from your sick, pathetic disgrace of a body! But I’m not gonna let some machine do the dirty work.” I rip a large scalpel from the wall. “Come on, asshole! Right here. Right now. We can both get on with it like adults.”

  Behind me, the slumbering W.I.T.C.H. Doctor jolts. The machinery blocks my path to the door. It twists focusing its single laser eye on me. My knees buckle. I’m Bambi and it’s Godzilla. My next move will be my last.

  Crazytown stares in but doesn’t dare move to help. “Uh … maybe yo
u shouldn’t anger the big scary robot.”

  From the corner of my eye, I spy the computer. It’s spewing letters and numbers. A data dump. Recording this thing’s every move for posterity. I will my foot to move, shuffling to my left. The thing lurches in response.

  I stop. It stops.

  Right. Followed by right.

  “Get out,” Shaft whispers. “Slowly.”

  Shit, dude. I’d love to comply. I’d love to be anywhere but here. Problem is my only way out is straight through the Robo-Ripper.

  Then comes the whistling. A spinning bone saw lowers, stops, and hovers inches from my face. A whizzing blur of jagged teeth slice the air at a thousand revolutions a second. I hunch down, battle ready. There’s no karate class that teaches self-defense against a twelve-armed killing machine. But I have a speed advantage. This motherfucker is slow and clunky. I’m quick and agile. I’m pretty sure I can land a good cartwheel or handstand. All those preschool gymnastics classes are about to be put to the test.

  The saw lashes out. Its blade whips past my retreating face. A wave of wind flutters against my cheek in its wake. I dive under the medical table. Breathe. Something wet runs over my lip. Blood. I lick it away. It tastes like lead. The robot got me. Just a nick—skin, no meat. I’ll live.

  Well … maybe. Don’t wanna get ahead of myself.

  The blade hammers into the table above me. Sparks spew all around. I cover my ears, trying to block the scratching chalkboard screech. The death device grinds down. The cry of the saw screaming out against the titanium table—two immovable forces. The table wins.

  This is my chance. I roll out and scamper back into the control room. Shaft and Crazytown are there to greet me. Patting my back. Holding me up. I’m safe.

  The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor swivels to face us. We watch, lumps in our throats. My fists clench tight. A line of blood runs down my cheek, drips off my chin. I don’t touch it. This is no time to let my guard down. The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor glides ahead. Then stops. It lingers at the threshold of the medical room. It’s stuck. It can’t come out here. Even if it extends its arms to the fullest it can only reach a few feet into the chamber.

  “We’re okay,” I say. “So long as we’re out here it can’t hurt us.”

  It’s nice to get a win. Nicer to be alive.

  The machine lurches forward with a loud thump and barrels through the doorway and into the control room.

  Shit. That’s cheating.

  Its magnetic ball bearings rumble along the ceiling like gravity-defying boulders. The mechanism barrels toward us. We scramble backward, but it has the jump. Its buzzing saw whistles and whisks through the air. We duck beneath it, barely avoiding decapitation.

  The boys go one way, I go another. My feet tangle beneath me. I fall, slamming down on my shoulder. The air shooting out of me. The thing stalks over me, allowing the guys to escape to the far end of the room, pinning themselves against the large, rectangular space-window. I’m caught in No Man’s Land. The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor again rolls over me again. This is the end.

  I pray it’s quick. I don’t want it to be slow like Hero.

  The thing’s saws and drills slam down around me—missing. I skitter away, race to the window, and slide beside my doomed friends. We’re cornered. I flatten myself against the chill glass.

  “You idiot!” Crazytown squeals. “You’re bringing it to us!”

  Tough titties, dude. One for all, and all for one, and crap.

  The killer tentacles lash out. I press the back of my skull into the window. The spinning saws swipe past my left cheek, almost hacking my nose off. They slash back and forth—swiping, probing, clawing to get at me. It suddenly lurches to a stop. The steel rollers bump up against a thick pipe that runs across the ceiling. It’s blocked.

  The three of us squish against the window. We’re just barely out of reach, but if we so much as sneeze that thing will chisel our faces off. “What do we do?” I ask.

  “We don’t move,” Shaft says.

  Sounds like a plan. Our only plan. Maybe he’ll get bored. Maybe help will come. Maybe … I lean slightly to my left, allowing my gaze to wander past the murderous machine. That security camera inside the medical lab is still trained on us. “Please!” I call out to it. “We give up. We’ll do what you want.”

  The whirling saw spins to a stop. The thing’s long arms slacken and droop. I breathe deep—it’s been a good while, gotta sneak them in while I can. The three of us stare out. Is it baiting us? Is it surrendering? Is it going to make some sociopathic demands? We wait. My nerves are eating at me. I need to understand its motivation, what it’s after. “Say something,” I yell out.

  But our standoff continues.

  Suddenly, the W.I.T.C.H. Doctor lurches and thunders backward into the medical lab. The guys relax. They scan the room, calculating the next move. But there is no next move. At least not an obvious one. There is nowhere to run and this appears to be the only safe spot in the chamber.

  “Maybe it bought your speech,” Crazytown says. “Maybe he’s parking the murder machine back in the garage.”

  The robot slides around the lab and pushes its tentacles against the wall, changing up its tools, its weapons. “It’s reloading,” I whisper. “It’s finding something it can reach us with.”

  Shaft’s face drains of color. I’m guessing Crazytown’s does the same, but his face bandages prevent me from confirming it. One of the tentacles attaches the large bone saw. It’s about four feet wide. It doesn’t look as scary as the circular one—but it’s much longer. It’ll be able to carve up the furthest reaches of this room.

  So much for safe.

  Before it can turn, I sprint for the open door of the medical lab.

  “What are you doing?” Shaft yells out.

  No time to discuss. I punch in the passcode. 3-2-3.

  Nothing happens. Crap. Was that even it? I suck with numbers, and my memory isn’t exactly aces at the moment. I try again. Nothing. Whoever said, “Fortune favors the bold” is a complete asshole. And probably died doing something bold.

  I start punching in random numbers. 2-3-2. 1-2-3. 3-2-1. The deep rumble of gears rattles the walls. The machine spins back toward the door—toward us.

  “Hurry,” Shaft says. Pure panic.

  I spin around. Too late. I’m face to face with it. I stare past it though, locking on to the camera at the back of the lab. Our biggest fan is still there, enjoying the show, watching. That’s it. He’s watching. But what if he’s not?

  I run for it. The hulking machine bursts from the medical lab and charges at me. It’s right on me, running me down, but I don’t head for the window with my buds. Instead, I hang a sharp left and dive toward the unopened Red Door. The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor stops, waits—stumped.

  I grin. The camera is out of my view, and I’m out of its view. He can’t kill what he can’t see.

  “What are you doing?” Shaft yells to me. “Get over here.”

  Nah. I’m good.

  The machine just hangs there. I’m safe. This is sanctuary.

  With a squeal, the robot pivots back toward Shaft and Crazytown. I can still see them. Now they are the ones in danger. I shout, “He’s using the camera!” I grab the locked, metal box set in the frame beside the Red Door and pull myself to my feet. “This is a blind spot.”

  They stand there, processing, as the machine roars toward them. There’s no time to work it out. They run. They have a head start on the machine. Just when it’s about to catch them, they duck out of view of the medical lab. They’re invisible to it. They tuck beside me. The machine stops again. We catch our breath. Waiting. Watching.

  Again, it’s his move.

  It’s like Battleship. He can only guess where we are. But guess he does. The robot glides toward us. It swipes the air with a large saw. They’re lethal and terrifying but completely random. Shots in the dark. They miss us by a country mile. “Stay near the door,” I whisper. “Don't let the camera in the lab see you.”

 
We huddle inside the frame of the bulkhead. The robot begins to work a pattern. It inches side to side and swipes in all directions. Inches again, more swipes. They're wild, deadly guesses. It moves. We move. It goes right. We go left. The machine stills. It hums with the angry purr of a lion. Our nemesis hasn’t given up—he’s thinking, plotting.

  The robot jolts back to life. It tries a new technique, turning one way and lashing out in the opposite direction. One slash almost takes Crazytown’s head off, but he seems okay, and I don’t see any new blood on him. “Stay down.” I motion with my hands. “Stay low.”

  Then with a whir, the tentacles sink lower, about two feet off the ground. It swings and swipes, aiming for our legs. Its blades whizz around our ankles. It heard me, and it adjusted.

  The killer is listening too.

  There’s enough room to maneuver away, but it’s tight. All it’ll take is one lucky shot and we’re dead. The light on the Red Door’s panel blinks again. My guardian angel has returned.

  I know the pattern—Three. Two. Three.

  It doesn’t do any good this time. The Red Door’s keypad is locked away inside the metal box. Getting inside would take some power tools … or surgical ones.

  My eyes wash over the wrecked control room. The robot has trashed the place like an angry tornado. Sparking wires are torn. Circuits are crushed. Metal is dented. It can get through the box. I just need to get there. To trick it. “We all have to get to the door,” I call out. The guys shoot me a confused look. My words aren’t for them. I hold my hands up, crossing my fingers,” and shake my head emphatically. “We can open this lockbox, together.” I continue the ruse. “It’ll take all of us.”

  I hold my arms out in a mother’s seatbelt making sure neither of them step anywhere near the box. They’re starting to get it. At least enough not to move past my arms. “Okay,” I say almost theatrically. “On the count of three, pull the box.”

  All eyes go to the robot.

  “One.”

  Nothing happens for a second.