by Darr, Brian
Suddenly, a hand wrapped around the back of his neck. It didn’t squeeze, but the touch was cold and sent shocks into The Guide’s body which started at the touch, but slowly spread, paralyzing him. In that moment, he realized that The Mortician had a weapon. He was a man obsessed with death, and was wired to rot whatever he touched. The Guide could feel his skin and muscles numbing under his touch and could feel the spread of whatever poison was inside him.
The Coach gasped for air as he came up from under the water and standing between them, his legs about to give way, The Guide closed his eyes, feeling defeat.
Then, The Mortician deliberately let go. The Guide fell into the water and the numbness of his body slowly dissipated.
As The Coach was still catching his breath, he grabbed The Guide by the collar and tossed him over the stone foundation. The Guide crashed into the ground, sending pain through his midsection, and rolled away. As his rolling slowed, he forced himself to keep going anyway, putting as much distance between himself and the bounty hunters as he could. Finally, he rolled and pushed off the ground with his hand, jumping to his feet in one swift motion. He turned, where he found himself facing both men at a distance.
The Coach stepped forward. “You’re in over your head Guide. That was real dumb what your friend did. I was going to make it easy on you.”
“You have the disadvantage,” The Guide said. “Iris and Troll are long gone.”
“If that were even true, we’d catch them. This game was never designed to be won.”
“Then how about we keep this between us?” The Guide said, motioning for them to come at him. “I’ll take you both.”
“I’m afraid not,” The Coach said, walking forward and reaching into his jacket. He came out with a gray pouch which looked like a high tech water balloon. “I’m not a player. I’m a Coach. So catch!”
He tossed the pouch, which arched in the air quickly and came down toward The Guide. If The Guide had more time to think about it, he might have dodged it, but it looked harmless—like something he could throw right back at him. Instead, just as a water balloon would, it burst open on impact and the liquid inside spattered all over The Guide’s chest and arms.
He stared at the liquid, which was thicker than water and had a metallic glow to it. “What the hell is this?” he asked, noting it didn’t hurt or sting, or have any effect.
“That is what my players use to track.”
“Players,” The Guide said, slowly.
Suddenly, The Coach’s duffel bag opened and scraps of metal emerged and fell together, forming larger and larger masses, bouncing off each other and clinking as the scrap assembled into shapes that were clearly forming the resemblance of a human torso and arms, but no more. Six bodies were brought together and as the finishing touches united on their large metallic torsos, they began to turn and move toward The Guide.
“You’ve got the ball,” The Coach said. “A liquid magnetic gel that serves as a guidance system for my players. They will not stop moving until they’ve consumed it and anything attached to it.”
The players continued to move toward The Guide, picking up pace and readying their long arms. If they caught him, he didn’t know what they could possibly do, other than batter him with their large frames. There was no way he could escape, other than to get the gel off his body. He turned and ran and felt the pace of the players pick up on his tail. The Mortician and Coach followed at a slower pace, confident that the players would put him down so they could finish him off.
One of the players hit the back of The Guide’s shoulder and spun, tearing a sharp edge across his skin and causing a spurt of blood to trickle down his back. He ran faster, running to the side and edging his way to where it wasn’t so open—somewhere he could find something to use against them. Even if that happened, he still had two bounty hunters on his tail.
From a distance, he spotted a scrap-yard and headed for the factory beyond it.
The heat of the fire burned The Troll’s eyes as he stepped around the plane, carefully placing his steps to stay upright and balanced. He circled the wreckage slowly as The Pilot followed at a steady walk, as if he didn’t feel any urgency. In The Pilot’s head, The Troll had no chance, and The Troll knew his only chance was to use that confidence to allow himself to be underestimated.
To beat The Pilot, it would take a little more courage on his part. He evaluated the situation. The Pilot would inevitably catch and kill him unless he caught The Pilot off guard first. All around him, the pavement was cracking and the fire from the plane was melting the asphalt. If they stood in one place, the whole bridge would eventually collapse and kill them both. At the very least, The Troll would take that over his own death and The Pilot walking away a victor.
The Pilot’s features didn’t move. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were fixated on his target. The Troll wasn’t a fighter. If he did happen to throw a punch or two, they would be weak and not enough to catch The Pilot off guard. He certainly couldn’t beat him to death like The Pilot clearly could to him. There was one end to this and it ended with The Pilot in the river below.
The Troll searched the ground for an opening and spotted one that was uncomfortably close to the plane. Under the left wing, a crevice had formed and the ground was continually crumbling with bits of cement and rock breaking away and hitting the steel beams that held up the bridge before tumbling into the water below. The opening was enough to fit through, as long as The Troll could move quickly before the whole area was covered with heat and flames.
He looked up to see The Pilot coming at him faster.
“How about you give me another shot?” The Troll said. “I wasn’t really playing the game before, but I will now. What fun is this for you if I’m just caught and killed like this?”
The Troll kept moving toward the broken ground and The Pilot kept walking without response.
“Isn’t the thrill of the hunt supposed to be more of a…thrill? Don’t you want an opponent who genuinely wants to beat you? I needed some time to get on board. I’m there now. Let’s start over.”
The Pilot kept coming. The Troll stood against the wing, the broken propeller at his back. He could feel the ground below him where the cement was busted.
“Alright,” The Troll said. “If you want to finish this now, we’ll finish this now.”
The Troll quickly fell to his stomach and rolled under the plane and slipped through the opening.
The Pilot stopped, his expression never changing, and stared at the opening. After a moment, he followed.
Fifty yards to her left, The Troll disappeared from Iris’s view. Far up the street to her right, The Guide was long gone as well. She was only left to contend with The Poet, and deep down, she knew that was what she was supposed to do. Rainbow had been her obsession ever since she learned of it’s existence. She would never have believed that she’d ever be so close and that the only thing that stood between her and it would be The Poet. It was…actually quite poetic.
He was the weaker of the bounty hunters in her eyes. Usually, they carried some kind of strange gadget or built in super-power, but The Poet seemed to just be a hateful man who owned a persona.
She once again turned both ways, but her friends were gone; maybe defeated. She hoped not, but if they were, she still had a mission and if The Poet were gone, the coast would be clear. She could cross the river and start a new journey with the end of Psi in hand.
The Poet was built well. He stood six foot two inches with curly blond locks that were well tended to. His smile was fake, but well-practiced and pleasant to someone who didn’t know any better. He wore what looked like blue Victorian-style garments and usually stood in some kind of pose: akimbo or with a hand on his hip and an index finger on his chin. He was the personification of his name, and though he seemed harmless upon appearance, what really scared Iris was just how confidently he approached.
“My flower,” he said. “You are far too delicate to fight. What say you and I come to
a truce?”
“Okay,” she said, her back turned to The Poet. “How about we…” In a flash, she spun and shot out her heel, kicking him square on the arm. Rainbow flipped over his shoulder and landed on the ground behind him. He was already surprised, and further hesitated as he struggled between going after Rainbow or Iris. In those moments, Iris took the opportunity and moved in on him, throwing punches, all landing on The Poet and catching him off guard. He stepped away, trying to gain some footing, but every punch sent him further off balance until he landed on the ground and winced in pain.
Iris reached out and grabbed Rainbow but The Poet recovered fast and hurried toward her, grabbing around her body and diving to the ground with her in his arms. They landed on top of Rainbow and Iris could feel it under her leg.
She realized her arms were wrapped tightly in his and he held her there, flexing to tighten the grip. She tried to move but realized she was losing feeling. “Let. Me. Go!” she yelled through deep breaths, but he held tighter, expertly squeezing the wind out of her. She tried to head-butt him but couldn’t find the energy. She realized that they had escaped an impossible situation only to be defeated moments later. This couldn’t be the end.
She couldn’t allow it, but she couldn’t overpower him. All she could do was fake dead or…
She suddenly leaned in and kissed him, hard and deep. It threw him off guard and his grip loosened but not enough. He pulled back. “I’m not falling for…”
She leaned in and kissed him again and though he would never fall for the trick, it was enough to loosen the grip further. She had a split second before he would regain his grip. Instead of pulling away as he’d expect from her, she moved her body upward, shot her knee between his legs and hit him with everything she had.
His grip let up completely and the look on his face told her that he wouldn’t be on his feet anytime soon. She rolled away but quickly turned back to grab Rainbow. Though The Poet wouldn’t be able to fight, he knew there was one thing he could do. With one hand, he covered his privies to protect them from further harm, but the other fell over Rainbow and he wrapped his fingers around it protectively.
“Let it go or I’ll do it again,” she said.
His eyes went wide at the suggestion and he backed away from her, toward the edge of the bridge. She tried to find an angle of attack but he was a toss away from sending the memory stick over the edge and ending their quest forever. Though she’d crippled the man, he owned the advantage.
She came to a halt and froze, hoping he would do the same. She wished she’d moved faster, or hit him twice.
“If you throw that over, I will kill you,” she said.
He held his hand at the edge and looked back at her with fear and pain in his eyes. “Stand back,” he said.
She stepped backward slowly, keeping her eye on his hand as he allowed himself to recover. “You don’t want to drop that,” she said.
“And you want to stand back!” he shouted. His pain had warped into anger. “Walk to the opposite side of the bridge!”
She reluctantly complied and found herself facing him from the other end of the street. He repositioned himself and held his hand farther off the bridge. She almost stepped forward, but he shot her a look as if to say ‘don’t you dare’.
“What do we do about this?” she asked, afraid he’d give the answer she thought he might.
“You’re going to jump,” The Poet said. “Or this is gone forever.”
The Guide entered the warehouse with the robots on his tail. Each player was full of sharp edges and blunt surfaces. If they descended on him at once, he’d be a goner, but The Guide had only one ray of hope left: They were trying to thrill kill him. They were hunting because they didn’t want him to be killed by the players. They wanted The Mortician to put his hands on him and suck the life out of him slowly.
The bots were exhausting though. With each nudge, they cut or bruised him and he hadn’t even gotten a chance to fight yet. He was limping and sweating and outrageously outnumbered. As badly as he wanted to go after The Coach and Mortician, he had to lose the bots first. He tried to wipe away the metallic gel but only succeeded in smearing it into his skin and clothes. He’d ripped off his shirt and tossed it aside, which distracted a few of the bots, but the remainder followed the scent stuck to him.
The factory was a clutter mess of cages, chains, metal stairs, and a caged elevator in the center, which was suspended by chains and pulleys. He searched the walls for a fire alarm, but the building was long abandoned and not even close to being up to code. He could see the sprinkler system attached to pipes that ran the length of the brick walls and up across the ceiling, which was four stories up. If he were on the fourth floor, he could bust a pipe and wash the gel off his body. He started for the elevator, but from the opposite end of the building, The Mortician entered and began walking toward him, putting himself between the elevator and The Guide.
Instead, he ran for a spiral staircase, only making it a few feet before one of the bots put a sharp edge through his shin. Blood began to stream as he pushed himself up with his arms and began running with most of the weight on his other foot.
The Mortician was in the elevator, pushing a button at a time to follow the floor that The Guide was on.
“Dammit,” he muttered. He ascended the stairs, and watched the elevator, seeing The Mortician’s eyes glued to him as he worked his way to the top of the factory. Below, at the foot of the steps, The Coach began climbing, two bots orbiting his body as he moved.
A third bot suddenly hovered past The Guide’s feet below and up around the stairs, and suddenly zooming by at The Guide’s feet, it’s full weight hitting his hip and knocking him to his side. He caught a look at The Coach’s face as he fell to the nearest platform and wincing as his body hit the metal links that made up the surface. Somehow, the bots were programmed to move like a team, following formations and working in sync of each other.
“Why not a fair fight!?” he yelled, but his voice only echoed in the factory without response.
He pulled himself to his feet and watched as bots hovered at either side, but sat waiting, inviting him to keep moving so they could tease him later with an unexpected strike. He knew he wouldn’t make it to the top. He tried to swipe some gel to the ground to throw them off, but there was nothing remaining. He tried to use his sweat to rid himself of the gel, but it did very little for his cause. Every time he smeared a mixture of sweat and gel on a railing, the bots would stop for just a second before moving toward him again.
He carried on, hurrying to the stairs again, but a floor above, the elevator was stopped and The Mortician stepped outside the doors and began walking in his direction. He picked up his pace until he was on the same floor and began sprinting. Mind over matter, he told himself as he made a wide circle around The Mortician to dodge his touch. The Mortician only walked, following his direction. The Guide wanted to be in the elevator, but The Mortician guarded the door with his body, keeping close to it but following The Guide as he tried to maneuver around him. He was finally back at the stairs and welcome to move up, but as The Mortician got into the elevator, he quickly switched his plan and stayed on that floor. He had little time before The Mortician would switch the direction of the elevator. He ran for it, grabbing a metal rod on the way and just as the elevator stopped on that floor, he wedged the rod between both doors. In that moment, The Mortician reached out and their hands touched, but The Guide pulled away and fell to the ground, rattling the metal below him.
The Mortician reached for the rod but it was out of his grasp. The Guide ran for the stairs again, ducking as one of the bots came close to hitting him in the side of the head. It spun past and stopped in mid air and began to follow him slowly again. He made an inventory of the warehouse, searching for bots, and discovered they were all hovering near him—any one of them could suddenly move in his direction and batter him.
The Coach was nearing his floor as he began moving to the next. Without
The Mortician to stop him, he could burst a pipe and get the bots off his tail, but he would still have the bounty hunters to contend with and his energy was low.
A bot was suddenly in his face, blocking his entry to the fourth floor. Instead of ducking or dodging, he wrapped his arms around the metal and ran forward with it in his arms, sharp edges of the bot digging into his skin as he hugged it tightly. He reached the fourth floor just as the elevator was almost to the top. He tossed the bot above the elevator and watched with satisfaction as it was crushed between the wheels and elevator as it reached the top.
The Guide was on the top floor, facing The Mortician, who started to work his hands through the elevator again for the rod. If he couldn’t pry it out, The Coach would. He tried to develop a plan, but barely had the energy to move. He dragged his feet to the wall where a pipe and faucet hung, five feet away. He gasped for breath as he tried to move forward, but his body was caught on bots—bots that held him in place. They surrounded his feet and two placed themselves in front of his chest. The Guide prepared himself for death, traumatized that he’d gotten so close to ridding himself of the bots. The bots slowly turned him as The Coach reached the top, seemingly winded from the stairs himself. It was no wonder The Coach was part of the group. He didn’t have to fight. He had his team do it for him.
He faced The Coach, bots holding him in place. Behind his back, The Mortician stood in the elevator, waiting for The Guide to be delivered.
The Coach wore a smug smile. “You’re dead Guide. You get that, right?”
“Yeah, I get it,” The Guide said. “This is the peace you boys at Circular Prime are always bragging about. This is your non-violent world.”
“Oh no,” The Coach said. “You’ve got it all wrong. We reserve violence only for those who don’t comply. You shouldn’t have stirred the pot.”
“Then just finish this.”
The Coach said nothing. He just nodded in agreement and activated his bots again. They slowly directed The Guide backwards, right to where The Mortician’s arms were reaching out of the elevator.