by Jon Skovron
“How’s the eye working?” Henri shouted over the stutter of the helicopter blades.
“Great,” I said.
“How about the arm and leg?” my mother asked.
I held up the robotic arm and flexed my fingers.
“I still can’t get a delicate grip,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m going to crush anything I try to pick up.”
“That will get better with practice,” she said.
Both my arm and leg had been constructed from parts of the helicopter. We had stripped it of everything that wasn’t essential to flight. The rest of the material had come from phones and laptops.
“You should probably have Vi run one more full diagnostic before we land,” said Henri.
“Probably right,” I said. “Vi, can you run a systems check?”
“Yes, Boy!” her voice rang inside my head.
“Ouch,” I said. “You do realize that you’re vibrating my entire skull at that volume level.”
“Sorry.” Her avatar appeared as an overlay on my bionic eye, looking sheepish.
“It’s okay. We’re both still getting used to this,” I said.
It was a little weird to have Vi basically living in my head. But some of the functionality, like the guidance and targeting systems, just didn’t have a direct neurological parallel. Having her on board was key to getting those more complex operations to work effectively. She was like JARVIS to my Tony Stark.
I turned back to the window and looked out over the land, but it was just more of the same. I wondered how much of it had been done by the Sphinx. They hadn’t managed to capture any of the other creatures from The Commune, so some of it could have been them, too.
“Vi, pull up some international news feeds,” I said. “I want to see what else is going on.”
A couple of windows popped up in my eye. In Cairo, a frightened old mummy was begging local monsters not to antagonize the government. In Berlin, a small group of gnomes were being attacked by a gang of humans. In Beijing, monsters were simply disappearing in the middle of the night. The whole world was watching what was happening to America and nobody wanted to be next. And maybe they were right to be frightened. If Moreau had his way, we’d all burn.
“Boy.”
I turned to Claire. She looked worried.
“I know this has to look kind of creepy,” I said, touching my bionic eye.
“It’s not that,” she said. “I can feel the anger rolling off you.”
“Claire. He has killed so many people. My father, Mozart, even Kemp didn’t deserve that. And who knows how many humans.”
“You’re right,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I get it. You know I do, right?”
I nodded.
“Just promise me that, when we get out there, you’ll remember what we talked about. Don’t become like them. Don’t give up your integrity.”
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to end this,” I said.
She reached up and touched her cool fingertips on my cheek. Then she bit her lip and nodded.
“I think you look incredibly formidable,” said La Perricholi from where she sat cleaning her guns. “I would not want to face you in combat.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“What was it Shaun and those guys used to call you when we were kids?” asked Liel. “Robot Junior?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my metal hand.
“They’d be eating those words if they saw you now. Not to mention shitting their pants in terror.”
“It’s quite impressive,” said Ruthven.
“Madame la Mariée’s construction of the arm and leg was masterful,” said Henri.
“You did a good job on the eye, Henri,” said my mother.
“You really think so?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Madame, I . . .” He hesitated. “I know you hate me and my family, and with good reason. I only hope—”
“No.” She put her long-fingered hand over his mouth. “No. I am sorry I treated you so poorly. It all seems so small to me now. So . . . trivial is the word. We . . .” Her smooth, unmoving face vibrated with tension as she put her hands on his shoulders. “We are family. Okay? Okay.” Then she pulled him into a rough embrace.
“Boy.” Vi sounded in my ear. “Be careful. We didn’t have time to properly insulate all your wiring. Too much moisture could short something out.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, wiping my eye.
HENRI AND THE dryads retreated to a corner of the helicopter with a case of wine while the rest of us quietly prepared ourselves. It was about ten minutes later that Vi sounded in my head again.
“Boy, they’ve spotted the Sphinx. You should be able to see him from the cockpit.”
I nudged Claire. “You want to see the Dragon Lady take on the Sphinx?”
“Do you even need to ask?” she said.
We made our way up to the cockpit where Holmes was piloting.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Still on the ground,” she said, pointing.
We were flying over the mountains now. He was still a mile or more ahead of us, crouched low in a valley, his head rising just above the peaks. I couldn’t quite make out what he was doing, so I zoomed in a little. He was snarling at something.
“I think he’s about to attack a mountaintop,” I said.
“Moreau really did fry his brain,” said Claire.
“Tragic,” said Maria from the copilot seat. “To think how much knowledge has been lost. And that one of the world’s most magnificent creations should be brought to such an ignoble end.”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t become our ignoble end, too,” said Holmes. “Looks like he’s spotted us.”
Sure enough, his head was craned up toward us. Our massive cargo helicopter was hard to miss, especially with Montgomery’s entire squad of combat choppers escorting us. The Sphinx’s lips peeled back to show his massive lion teeth as he unfurled his wings and launched himself into the air.
“He’s moving really fast,” I said.
“Approximately five hundred miles per hour,” said Vi.
“I hope that dragon of yours comes through,” said Holmes.
“Of course she will,” I said. Although no one had seen her since we’d departed from the cave entrance.
We watched as the Sphinx grew closer and closer. He pumped his massive wings, his wild eyes focused on us.
“Getting really close,” said Claire.
“Yeah,” said Holmes.
The Sphinx gnashed his teeth and stretched out his lion body, his front paws extended so that the claws appeared.
Then a blast of fire shot up from the mountains, hitting him full in the stomach. I could see now that the Dragon Lady had been shadowing us from below this whole time, weaving between the mountaintops, just out of view. Now she launched herself up into the sky. The Sphinx roared with pain, pounding his belly with his paws to put out the burning fur.
The Dragon Lady blew past him, clipping one of his wings and tearing out a sizable chunk of feathers. She circled around to make a pass at the other wing, but right before she hit, he spun himself and nailed her with one gigantic paw right in the face. Blood sprayed as the Dragon Lady flipped backward.
The Sphinx went in for the kill, but Knossos streaked past, slicing his face with razor talons. The Sphinx roared so loud the helicopter shook. It looked like Knossos had managed to get out of range, but then the Sphinx whipped his long lion tail around and the sheer size of it was enough to send the gryphon spinning.
The Sphinx turned back toward the Dragon Lady, but the back of his head bloomed with explosions as Montgomery’s choppers advanced on him with short-range missiles. He turned and swatted at them, hooking one chopper by its landing skids and smashing it int
o the one next to it. By then the Dragon Lady had latched on to his back with her claws, right between his shoulder blades. He spun around and around, trying to reach her as she coiled herself around his neck and bit into his spine. Blood fell like rain over the mountains as the helicopters continued to hammer him with machine-gun fire. His roars began to sound more like animal howls of pain as he tried desperately to remove the Dragon Lady from his neck.
They spiraled lower and lower until at last they crashed into the mountains below. The earth visibly shook and the trees shuddered as they wrestled on the ground. The Sphinx tried to scrape the Dragon Lady off him with the sides of mountains, but she suddenly released him and shot up into the sky. A moment later the helicopters dropped a payload of napalm on top of him. His shrieks of pain echoed through the valley as the wisest and most majestic creature on earth was burned alive.
Moreau had turned him into a savage beast that had killed my father. And then he made us destroy him. I could almost hear him laughing about it now. It was all part of his sick, twisted machinations. But that would all stop today.
“We’re past them,” said Holmes tersely. “We have to keep moving.”
“I know,” I said. “What’s our ETA?”
“Five minutes,” she said.
“Good. I hope the maenads are about ready.”
THE MAENADS WERE more than ready. After demolishing the case of wine, they’d shredded their own clothes and it looked like they’d poured wine over their heads so that their hair was in sticky clumps.
“Ladies, please,” Henri said, lurching to one side to block Meadow from diving at Bakru. “Just a few more minutes!”
“Now!” hissed Iris.
“Tired of waiting!” snarled Sequoia.
“Boy?” said Henri. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep them back.”
“I’ll talk to Holmes,” I said, and headed back to the cockpit.
“The maenads are about to blow,” I said to Holmes. “How soon can we land in an area with lots of beast people for them to attack?”
“We can set down right now if you want,” she said, “but that’ll mean farther for us to go on foot.”
“All right. Let’s hold off a bit longer, but maybe get closer to the ground so we can land fast if they completely lose it.”
“Okay, I’m dropping altitude and—wait, we’ve got incoming.”
“Who?” I asked, looking out the windows.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “Are those . . .”
In front of us was a flock of brown-and-tan capuchin monkeys with broad, feathered wings.
“Of course Moreau would make winged monkeys,” I said. “But what can they do? They don’t even look armed.”
Then they started to dive-bomb us.
“They can do that, for one thing,” said Holmes as she hiked the stick to dodge the monkeys. “I am not trained for kamikaze flying monkeys.”
She managed to avoid them on their first pass, but then they came up underneath and flew directly into the rotor blades. Suddenly, there were bloody chunks of winged monkeys everywhere, spattering the windshield, making it impossible to see. One or two monkeys wouldn’t have been a problem but now they all converged on the rotors. The engine screamed under the strain and every gauge on the dashboard suddenly lit up red.
“We’re screwed,” said Holmes. “Tell everyone to prepare for a crash landing.”
I ran back to the cargo area but everyone was already strapping into the seats that lined the sides. Except the maenads, who pressed their faces hungrily against the windows drenched in winged-monkey blood.
“See, ladies?” Henri was saying as he clung to a handlebar next to them. “I told you it would be worth the wait. And winged-monkey guts are just the appetizer.”
I strapped in next to Claire just in time. A moment later, my stomach lurched as the helicopter dropped out of the sky. For a moment, I almost felt weightless, like if I hadn’t been strapped in I would have floated away. But then we slammed into the ground so hard my head snapped back into the padded backing of the seat. We bounced a few times as we skidded along but then finally came to a stop.
“Do it again!” yelled Meadow.
The helicopter started to rock back and forth. I looked out the window. Beast people were swarming over the helicopter, trying to tip it over.
“Everybody ready?” I asked as we all unstrapped ourselves.
“As we’ll ever be,” said Ruthven.
“Bring it,” said Liel, flexing her clawed hands, her trowe den at her back.
The bay door slowly began to drop open.
“Ladies, I think that’s your cue,” said Henri.
The three maenads shot through the still-opening door. A moment later the air was filled with the sounds of pain and fear.
“Good luck,” said Claire, and gave me quick kiss.
We moved out of the helicopter in a tight group. We’d crashed in the middle of a large intersection in downtown Denver. Beast people were coming at us from all directions. Henri was herding the maenads down the street in the general direction of where Moreau held the hostages. We followed the path of carnage that they cut through the beast people.
“Oh, god,” Claire said under her breath.
The ground was strewn with bodies, some limbless, some headless, some still alive and struggling weakly to escape. The maenads laughed and capered around as they went from one victim to the next, their naked bodies smeared with blood.
There was a moment when I thought, I did this. The empty chasm was suddenly there before me again, trying to swallow me up.
“Boy! Are you hurt?” It was La Perricholi next to me.
I shook my head, pushing all those feelings of grief aside. We had to get to Moreau. This had to end.
We kept moving forward. Even with the maenads taking the lead, there were still huge clusters of beast people coming at us. Rhoecus and Javier barreled down the middle, trampling everyone who got in their way. Liel and the trowe darted in and out, their jewel eyes sparkling as they slashed at arms and legs with their long, curved claws. Ruthven was little more than a streak of darkness as he snaked through their ranks, leaving some unconscious, others clutching at their bleeding throats. La Perricholi and Maria ran side by side, their guns blazing, dropping almost as many beast people as the maenads. Holmes covered their rear, picking off the few who’d got past them. And my mother . . . I’d never really thought about it before, but she was just as strong as my father had been. I realized that now, as I watched her easily pick up a beast person with one hand and slam him into another one nearby, letting them both fall to the ground in an unconscious heap. Claire had continued her hand-to-hand combat training with La Perricholi, and it showed. It almost looked effortless, the way she hit them in just the right place with just the right amount of force to knock them out.
I caught all of this in little flashes here and there as I smashed my way through packs of beast people. I’d always been strong, but this was different. This was a whole new level. The world felt like paper to me, and the people in it like cotton balls that I could knock aside without really even trying.
Then I heard a shriek from above. I looked up and saw one of those bird people that had attacked Claire and me at The Commune.
“Vi, time to try out that targeting system,” I said.
“Okeydokey,” she said.
I lifted my robot arm and detached my hand. I pointed the stump at one of the bird people. In my bionic eye I saw a green circle.
“It’s all yours,” I said.
Vi took over movement of my arm, calculating distance, velocity, and wind resistance as she made slight adjustments to the position.
“Target locked,” she said.
“Fire.”
A small pellet shot from the stump. As soon as it came in contact with the
air, it began to expand into a glob of foam. It slammed into the bird person, sticking to him. The more he struggled with it, the more he stretched out the foam; the more air contact, the thicker and stickier it got. A moment later his wings were caught up in it and he dropped from the sky, landing on a parked car so hard the roof caved in and the windows blew out glass in all directions.
“It worked!” I said.
“You mean you weren’t sure it would?” asked Vi.
“Well, we didn’t have the exact ingredients for the compound that Holmes told us about, so I had to make a few substitutions.”
I only had two more shots of that stuff, so I reattached my hand and went back to slowly bashing my way through the crowd of beast people.
IT SEEMED LIKE hours, but it was probably only about twenty minutes later that we got close enough to see the building where Moreau was holed up. It was a massive cathedral of gray stone that spanned an entire city block, with twin spires rising high above the other buildings.
“Of course he picked a church,” I muttered as I smashed my metal fist into a creature that looked part pig, part hyena.
“Boy, there’s a whole new group of them coming!” shouted Claire. “We’ll hold them. You go after Moreau.”
I nodded and broke away from the group. A few followed me, and I quickly took care of them. But most of the beast people hadn’t even noticed as I slipped away. This group seemed much less disciplined. I wasn’t complaining.
A few moments later, I was at the cathedral entrance. The door opened, and the Siren stepped out.
“Forgot about you,” I muttered.
She opened her mouth and I had just enough time to take my metal hand off before she started to sing.
“Vi, take over,” I said, and then I was lost in the music.
A moment later, I came out of it. The Siren lay on the ground, a blob of sticky foam covering her mouth.
“Nice shot,” I said.
“The hard part was making sure her nose wasn’t covered,” Vi said. “I knew you wouldn’t want her to suffocate.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, let’s get in there and hope Moreau hasn’t killed those hostages.” I pushed open the doors and stepped into the cathedral.