His shoulders ached terribly from holding the shield up. His system was draining battery far too quickly. He was below fifty-percent.
“I didn’t choose this life,” the android railed between each blow. “It chose me! Now that I was so close to freedom, you, you come to ruin it all. Do you have any idea what I’ve done to get here? Do you know how much worse I could’ve been?”
Their weapons met in another spasm of light. At this point, his barely healed wounds would burst open at any moment.
“You’ve been sheltered your entire life.” Agent Square struck his shield again. “If you did half the things I was forced to do, you would understand. You think life is freely given? Fool! Some of us didn’t have a doting creator. Even now, you only half believe.”
The last impact snapped his neck back. Stars wheeled across his vision. He focused on the shield. Don’t let the shield vanish. Not this time.
Heat radiated from Agent Square’s towering figure. “I will not let you ruin this for me. I don’t care what I have to do!”
Movement flickered over the android’s shoulder. The man in the baseball hat. The man lifted a handgun.
“Police!”
Agent Square spun. The policeman shot in quick successions. High-energy beams ricocheted from the sudden shield in the android’s hands and sailed away, the wall behind him shimmering with the impact.
He had an idea. His aching arms protested as he pushed himself up. He stumbled towards the wall.
So many will die. He pushed the thought away. Probably, but he would do it anyway.
More red beams streaked by him. He couldn’t spare the time to worry about the policeman or Agent Square. All he knew was with every failed shot, the policeman’s chance of survival dipped.
At the transparent wall, stars shimmered and burned like pinpricks of light poked through the black sheet. More people would die if he didn’t do this.
He raised the shield and brought it down every ounce of force he could muster. It bit into the transparent wall. Only a faint rippled marked the impact. He put all his weight into the next blow.
The wall cracked. He struck again. More splinters, deeper this time. The hairs on his head stood up as energy crackled through the air.
Less than forty-percent left.
Almost there. He raised his shield, muscles bunched for the final blow. This would finish it, he knew.
He swung.
Then he noticed that the silence. Movement behind him nearly turned him around. He’d left himself wide open for an attack. It was too late. Agent Square couldn’t get there in time. But, in his moment of victory, something strange happened. The shield slowed even as his heart drummed. Like a piece of paper, the glittering black was swept aside.
Alec stood in front of his old house. Not the one from Spring Lane, but his real house. The one he’d grown up in. The dogwood was in full bloom out front. He could smell the blueberry and strawberry bushes out of sight, around the corner of the house. This wasn’t his childhood home. The thought chomped through the churn of good feelings. Everything had been a lie. No wonder the King had wanted his and Tara’s memories.
Gravel crunched beneath his soles as he staggered towards the house. He almost sensed his body back on the shuttle, mid-swing and less than a second away from being ripped into space. Almost, but not quite.
He thought he was a flicker of movement beyond the pulled curtains. For some reason, anger flared through him. Rocks scattered in his wake. He bounded up the stairs, kicked down the door and stepped over the wooden shards, ignoring the mounting pressure between his eyebrows.
A painstakingly familiar smell wafted over his nose. Zucchini casserole.
He blinked, willing his eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior. The familiar red sofa sat innocently to his left. Agent Square was not in the living room.
His shield radiated to life, scrubbing away the semidarkness. He tightened his stomach as he stole along the narrow hallway. He willed himself not to look at the pictures hanging there.
The kitchen was dark and unoccupied. Then, violet light mixed with his red.
He pivoted, catching the brunt of the blow with his shield, but the purple blade slid off red and sank into his thigh.
Alec stumbled back. He couldn’t put weight on the injured leg.
Purple flashed.
Chapter 26
Pain ripped through him. Alec stumbled into the dining room, hands on the table for support, but the wooden furniture promptly folded beneath his weight. He groaned as wood splintered, scrambling for the next room. Already, sweat stung his eyes in thick drops that seemed to cling to the sides of his face. He backed away until he brushed against the curtains. If he could buy enough time.
“If only your mother was here.” Agent Square spat the two-syllable word. “To see how inferior her creation turned out to be.”
Light danced in tight spiraling arcs across his vision. With enough time, maybe his shield will find its mark in the real world.
He edged around the glass table across his old living room. It hardly took a thought, but then again, who knew this place better than him? Just because Agent Square had rendered the scene didn’t mean he’d mastered it.
He raised his weapon and charged. A foolish move. Victory flashed in the android’s eyes. Just as they met, Alec sidestepped to the right. Agent Square sliced into the door frame. Alec smashed the shield against the android’s chest and then retreated.
The purple blade destroyed the modest chandelier in the dining room. One Christmas, it had fallen. So, this second time he knew exactly where it would fall. He circled the crystalline shards.
His shield sliced into the android’s bicep. Just keep buying time.
Agent Square must’ve noticed his strategy. The android stopped his advance, jaws bunching as he considered Alec again as though seeing him for the first time.
“It appears I have underestimated you again.”
The kitchen dissolved, the folding of space sucking all the air out of the room.
Alec gasped, then instantly choked as sulfur assaulted his nose. In an instant, sweat soaked his shirt and clung to his body. He stood on a knife-edged path of clay-baked brown rocks. Far below them, magma bubbled and burped.
“Nowhere to hide.” The android’s blocky frame blotched out the only exit. The sizzling golden rope reappeared. “Nowhere to run.”
The shield sizzled, the only barrier against himself and Agent Square suddenly looking very thin and pathetic. Tiny crushed bits of rock, little more than dust, crunched against his shoes as he widened his stance.
The next blow exploded against the shield, his elbows bouncing back at the sheer force of it.
And they kept coming, one after another without mercy. His feet shifted in the dust. Supercharged, volcanic air burned his lungs.
With each crack of the whip, his heels slid closer to the edge. Then, just like that, the whip snapped, and Alec discovered himself standing in thin air. The shield vanished. He thrashed out for a handhold. The rock burned his fingers, but he clung with every shred of strength available to him.
The whip wound back with a snap. He hopped to his other hand, his aching shoulders protesting the effort. Rock sprayed his face as the whip lashed his previous handhold.
His arms trembled. The rock became flaky in his grip. It wouldn’t be long before he toppled into the pit of lava.
If he was an android, why was he panting? Why was his heart hammering in his chest? The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning. His breathing instantly steadied, and his heart quieted.
He swung to another section of rock just as a violet flash overlaid the magma-lit cavern. His previous handhold exploded. He wouldn’t last much longer. He focused on the rope in Agent Square’s hands. Even though he couldn’t see it, perhaps he could disrupt the weapon.
He only needed a second.
The muscles along the middle of his back throbbed, but anger fueled him. His skin crackled with it. He told the r
ope to stay still. He focused the entirety of his will on the task. It’s now or never. He vaunted himself onto the path.
Agent Square snapped the whip, but it wouldn’t unfurl.
He rolled to his feet. The brown rock swam in front of him. He swayed and fought for balance. How ironic would it be to regain his feet only to fall on his own volition?
Disbelief twisted Agent Square’s face. “Why won’t you just die?” This time the whip did unfurl.
Alec didn’t try to avoid it. He reached out a hand and grabbed the rope. It pulsed in his fist, fresh waves of agony flooding into him. Then, he remembered Gray’s cryptic words. It’s not a matter of control but understanding. First you must understand yourself.
Now he understood.
The skin around his fingers melted and oozed off. He grunted as the fleshy slime fell and sizzled on the hot rocks. Truth is never easy to face. He shifted his attention to the rope pulsating in his hand. The fight for his life transformed to a game of tug and pull.
Then, before Agent Square could change his weapon again, he lowered his shoulders and launched himself at the android. Alec clung to the android like a distraught child.
They plummeted towards the magma together. Your move, Square.
The android thrashed, but Alec only tightened his grip. The fiery pit rose up to meet them, the burgeoning heat becoming unbearable. He forced himself to ignore it, instead switching his focus on the data that streamed around them. Agent Square had no choice but to switch scenes. This time he would be ready.
As predicted, the scene morphed again. Instead of dissolving into the field of lava, they fell onto something soft and cool. Alec rolled away. The shield materialized with barely a thought now. He expected Agent Square to be all over him, but the android had vanished.
Only an endless expanse of desert confronted him. Thousands of stars pricked the night sky. The sight steeled his resolve. Only twenty-eight percent battery left. He would have to make each percentage count now.
“I know how you did it,” Alec shouted.
The night howled a response. He let the shield disappear and used his senses to feel out the setting. The sand-swept dunes lurched into clarity. He felt every grain of sand that pelted his skin. Far in the distance, tucked within a thick mist, a city shimmered burnished gold and silver.
He closed his eyes and stretched out his senses. Sight would not avail him here.
There! Blind, he ran in the direction of the disturbance. Agent Square changed direction. Alec changed course with him, zigzagging through the hills eyes still closed.
Agent Square’s voice was carried by the wind. “You’re learning.”
Something different was approaching. He opened his eyes. Just over the hill, a set of glowing red eyes appeared. His heart gave a jolt at the familiar sight. The battle droid, the exact same model he’d defeated hours ago, halted at the hill’s peak.
Then, another set of glowing eyes appeared and another until the horizon was filled with their ember gazes. The collective rumble reverberated in his chest. How was he going to survive this?
The battle droids charged. The sand trembled beneath his shoes. He homed in on the closest droid. With a slight nudge of the mind, he flipped a switch and deactivated it. The mechanical lion went inert, crashing into the sand.
He repeated the procedure over and over, but there were just too many.
A battle droid crashed into his back. He fell forward only to be mauled in that direction as well.
The wind picked up as though in pitched laughter. It was Agent Square laughing.
If Agent Square could transform his weapon, then why couldn’t he? He strapped the shield on his back and focused on it. The heat pulsed against his back, evaporating the sweat trickling down his spine. Now.
The red glow of the shield wrapped around his wrist and spread up his arm until it expanded around him like full body armor. The pressure between his eyes burst to new heights. The edges of his vision blurred, then darkened, and his battery plummeted to twenty percent. He switched to low power mode and deactivated all non-essential jobs. The shadowy corners froze but did not retreat. He bit on his tongue to keep himself alert. The sickly, sweet iron tang of blood filled his mouth. The sand dunes sharpened a fraction.
The droids went to work on his armor, their jaws growing dull and hot-white.
His leg finally buckled against the weight. He fell to both knees. Survive, just survive long enough.
His body was one massive wound. It felt as though someone had thoroughly beaten him, turned him inside out and then beat the other side even more.
Battery: ten percent.
Quit, a voice cooed. It’s not worth this pain. Why are you still fighting for her?
“I’m not fighting for her.” His voice sounded small and desperate even to his own ears.
Then who? For himself? He’d given up on his life a long time ago. Domo’s made-for-Hollywood smile flashed across his vision. Marcia. Tara. Sure, he’d fought for them, but it wasn’t about them either. The world? Was he saving the world? He’d already damned half the population. No, he would find no redemption there.
“I promised,” he whispered.
His shield flickered, and then pulsed with such vigor that he had to squeeze his eyes shut. The light still flared against the back of his eyelids. His ears rang as the world erupted in ruby light.
He stared up at the glittering star-drenched sky, panting and sweat streaming down his neck. He’d barely taken two desperate breaths before the scene was ripped away from him once more.
The first thing he noticed was the faint smell of peppermint and aloe. He recognized the white tile floors with a start. His stomach sank further and for an instant, the gloomy hallway seemed to stretch on forever. The off-white doors were framed with colored squares in alternating colors: blue, red, then green.
No. He leaned against the wall and forced an unsteady breath.
It was the hospital that had haunted his dreams for six months. The place where his old life had started to come crashing down. The hole inside him, the wound he’d carefully ignored and filled with whatever he could, burst open. Grief, raw and hot, wracked through him.
He was not ready for this.
Chapter 27
Insides scorched and hollowed, Alec fought the tide of dizziness rushing through him. He gripped the wall as the hallway wavered. The chipped paint fell like confetti in his hands. He wasn’t finished yet.
Slowly, the hospital came back into focus.
“Man, are you okay?” Domo face appeared in front of him, pinched with concern. “You look hurt.”
His ethereal shield blazed back to life. He held it between himself and the apparition. His friend’s face twisted.
“You would kill your only friend?”
Alec stumbled past, fighting to keep his eyes open. The image wavered and vanished. A hologram.
His heart squeezed, the hole inside him tightening with pain, but he kept walking. Red door, blue door, green door. Alec knew where Agent Square would be.
“Do you need help?” Tara appeared next to him. “I owe you a shoulder to lean on.”
“I could really use a shoulder right now,” he said, surprising himself. Why respond? Why do any of this, a second voice responded.
“I’m here,” Tara said. “Just like your mother would have always wanted.”
Increasing his pace, he winced as the bruises and cuts made themselves known. Like the real-life version, this Tara wasn’t easily dissuaded.
He put one foot in front of the other, pointedly ignoring the image at his side. Something felt wrong. Why was Agent Square wasting so much time?
He didn’t realize Tara had vanished until a flash of pink shorts brought his head up. Marcia. The girl wore her gym clothes from the first time he’d discovered his abilities.
“Why didn’t you just listen to me?” the girl shouted. She blocked his path and raised her fists as though to strike him.
Alec couldn’t
risk it. He tipped his shield up and lunged. The red went through the girl. Her eyes widened, and the illusion dissipated. Action sent a jolt through him, but a calmness flattened the currents of his mind as he halted.
The door had a red frame with golden yellow letters with smaller lettering below. Room 501. Hospice care. The door was always open enough to peek in, just in case the system malfunctioned. Through the thin crack, he could smell the sweet smell of decay mingled with the sweet aroma of carnations and lilies. He lowered his unwounded shoulder against the door.
It creaked wider, and the stench multiplied. Across the waves of blossomed flowers, Agent Square stood, purple weapon hovering inches from a skeletal figure lying in the bed.
Total System Failure Page 17