by Dusks, Rydre
Click zipped out of the tent the moment the honking horn of the shipment truck was heard. That was my cue. I left the tent with a fast walk, enjoying every moment of walking in my street boots and Iasona-crafted clothing. Jules stood outside the tents today. He spotted me and immediately drew his gun.
"Anli, get back into ya--where did you get that?" he demanded the moment I drew my Jux and pointed it at him.
"Get out of my way, Jules. I ain’t wantin’ to shoot ya," I mocked. Seeing what type of gun I wielded, Jules stood frozen until I passed. I heard him speaking into his radio, but I ignored it, now breaking into a run as the hum of the electric fence suddenly faded out around the camp. That was the signal that Click had successfully killed the power.
Seeing a couple of guards stopped by Blank, I skirted around the shipment truck and kept out of sight. Several guards near the warden's cabin spotted Rook closer by the gates. Acting quickly, I tugged out the premade incendiary from an outside pocket and lit it up. With a keen throw, I landed the fireball just in front of the men. The sudden blaze and choking black smoke forced them to leap backward in shock.
"Crow, c'mon, man!" Rook shouted, already racing for the exit.
"Wait!" I called. I moved faster than I could process what was going on around me, drawing my gun on two more guards who'd maneuvered around the flames. One of them raised a gun and took a shot, but the bullet simply cut the air near my collar. I didn't want to kill. Sol... I didn't want to kill anyone else, but I had nothing to stop them with but my Jux, and there was no avoiding serious damage from a gun like this. Sucking in a breath and biting back my conscience, I shot one of them squarely between the eyes and looked away as a wet, smattering sound emitted from the bullet erupting inside the officer's head. The other guard's exploding companion was enough to knock him backward in astonishment, his gun tumbling to the sand. My aim had not wavered in almost two years.
Blank met up with me behind the truck, the only spot where she couldn't be seen. It was fortunate that the truck had parked just close enough to the open gates to hide us behind it. I pulled her into a swift, fervent kiss, despising the feeling of letting go, but knowing that it had to happen now. She kissed back just as eagerly, holding onto me tightly. When I broke away from her lips I stroked her cheek once. "I'll see you," I promised, kissing her once more.
She nodded. "Go find your son, Crow, and then come get me."
I forced myself to turn away, following Rook toward the exit. Stone had rushed out from his cabin to see where the shots had come from, and I looked him directly in the eyes. There was a sight of fury and frustration in his face. He turned and ran straight back into his cabin as if he were going to fetch something... and with Roavo dissipating like a bad nightmare, I strode out of the gates. At first I found myself walking, but then I set into a sprint. Rook was swift to follow my lead as I made a wide circle around the powered-off fence and headed north. It wasn't too hot yet, making the escape a little easier on our bodies.
Rook laughed heartily as he tried catching up to me. "Crow! With the power killed, they haven't released the dogs! We're safe!"
...Then there was a sound.
There was the buzz of the power turning back on, but that wasn't the sound that Rook and I heard. It was a mechanical howl.
"I hope you're hungry, because now's a good time to start eating your words, Rook," I uttered.
I clutched my gun tightly. The metal tang tatang tatang of machine feet on sand came closer and closer, and I finally had to twist my neck to see the monstrosities chasing us.
"Oh gods... Run faster, blackie! Go, go!" Rook exclaimed.
There were five of them. They were much, much larger than I'd imagined. Having pictured in my head a pack of Earth-descended dogs no bigger than the size of hunting hounds, I had to remember to keep breathing when I saw these. They were about five and a half feet high from toe to head and were built heavily with the industrial, rusty metals and corded wires of Souloroh. Their heads were nothing but unlidded eyeballs attached to thin bars crudely shaped like canine skulls. Their teeth, however, looked real--as if they'd been taken from real predators. They had no tails and were clunky and hideous. There was nothing graceful about these dogs. They had been hastily built to simply rip escapees to shreds.
"Crow!" Rook shouted to me as he sped up his run. "Shoot 'em! Shoot 'em crazy quick!"
I shook myself out of my shock and did as Rook bid, slowing just for a moment to aim at the closest hound. I let a bullet loose and struck it in the face. The bullet exploded and ripped the head clean off, but it seemed that the workings of the hound were not centered in the head but in the actual body. I shot again, this time managing a good slam into the target spot and watching the bullet tear the body frame apart. It sent the dog down into a shredded crumple in the sand, but the bots behind it simply jumped over its mass and continued.
They were fast. Much too fast. Although Rook and I worked our legs to the swiftest sprints possible there was no out-running four quadrupedal robots. I felt my own frantic breath grow hot and wild as I aimed for another dog and pulled the trigger. I hit it just well enough to cause its entire side to explode and send shrapnel into the dog next to it. It destroyed the first, but only slowed the other. These hounds were almost too durable even for my Jux.
"Crow!" Rook shouted again. I wasn't sure why he was calling my name, but it may have been because I was the only one with weapons. I dug deep into my pocket and found my foldout knife, which I tossed to Rook.
"That’ll cut through metal!" I called, already fumbling for ammunition. My pockets were empty of bullets, and both Rook and I had slowed almost to the point of stopping now. There was no use running as the machines were twice as fast as us. I didn't know how many bullets I had left, so I planned my next shot carefully. My heart pounded hard and fast, racing my pulse to the point of clouding my mind with an inescapable fear. Rook and I weren't going to get out of this. Not unscathed, anyway. And perhaps not even alive. I rarely found myself afraid of robots, but I was running out of ideas, and the prisoner-hungry beasts closed in on us swiftly.
Breathing hard but steady to level my aim, I squeezed the trigger once again, this time striking another of the hounds and exploding it right from the middle of its broad chest.
"Oh shit! Oh hell!" Rook screamed, in a state of wild panic.
"Calm down!" I cried, although I was far from calm myself. I pulled the trigger again. There was only a click--I was out. I dropped the gun back into my pocket and felt for something else to defend myself with, but I didn't have the time.
One of the two remaining hounds caught up to me and slammed into my body. I dropped back into the sand and fought to get away, but a metallic claw three fingers wide slid into my knee like a pin through fabric. The swelling heat of pain lanced up from my kneecap into my thigh, and I wailed. It had me pinned to the ground. The beast seized my shoulder with its jaws, forcing the blunt bone fangs into the fabric of my coat with immense force. It didn't break through the durable coat, and it didn't break my skin, but the pain was still there. I wasn't sure what to do to get it off me, feeling as though I were about to have my lower leg torn completely off as the thing whipped its head left to right. It was attempting to rip me in two. The pull of the machine's claw combined with its teeth on my shoulder had me screaming in frantic pain. I felt my knee shredding from its already mutilated hinge.
Through the agony, I gripped onto the only part I could find that wasn't metal and yanked. I snapped several of the hound's wires. It jerked to one side, releasing my shoulder and stepping upward. My knee, still skewered on the claw, bent at an odd angle as the beast moved its foot and pressed it back down, and I heard a pop, followed by a new rush of agony up to my hip. My eyes brimmed with tears as my brain fogged. With one last burst of urgency, I dug my fingers back inside the monster's workings and tore out another fistful of wiring.
This time the hound had been fatally damaged. A fountain of lubricant oil and battery fluids project
ed from the broken tubes and wires. I retracted my hand before I could get splashed with the acid and kicked its leg off mine. The dog twitched violently and convulsed, folding in on itself until it dropped into the sand in an awkward, tangled mess.
I collapsed back onto the ground covered in blood and oil, breathing in sharp, harbored gasps. I turned my watery gaze over to see Rook, who'd also been barreled into by the last hound, but found that he was virtually unscathed and was on his feet. The hound narrowly missed him as it lunged. Rook scampered out of the way, then managed a neat throw with the knife, lodging it into the middle of the dog's chest. The robot slowed, then turned to one side and then the other, as if it'd suddenly lost sight of its prey. It turned in circles, then remained stationary like it was waiting for a new command.
Rook's eyes were wide as if he had no idea what he'd just done, but he turned them to me before I could call to him for help. He paused before taking note of the blood around me and shouted in alarm.
"Crow, don't move!" He left the confused dog there and rushed over to me, looking me over. "Shit, I don't know what to do, I can't carry you--"
"Forget it," I managed between heavy gasps of pain. "P-Please j-just help me up."
Rook stooped and took me by the arm, hauling it over his. There was no way I was walking on my leg--I could barely feel it, and I still hadn't pulled together enough courage to look at it. I focused hard on using my unharmed leg to support me as Rook acted as my crutch.
"What did I do to the dog?" Rook questioned as he looked back at the machine.
"Y-You hit it in its sensors. It lost sight of you," I explained.
"How far are we from Agastay?"
"We're b-barely out of Roavo, R-Rook," I breathed, startling myself with how weak my voice was. It was barely a whisper. My body trembled head to toe.
"Right... Can we call someone on your phone?" His voice sounded far away at this point, muffled as if I had cotton in my ears. The edges of my vision had gone grey.
"...There's no s-signal in the desert," I answered him after a moment.
Rook swore, looking behind him at Roavo. I wanted to reassure him that we were through the worst of it, but I didn't remember passing out.
"Crow, wake up."
I didn't want to wake up. The pain was there when I was conscious.
"Crow."
Remembering Rook, I snapped awake, groaning when the feeling swelled back into my knee, like the coldest ice and the hottest iron rod had been placed there at the same time. I wanted to whimper in agony and fall back asleep.
"C'mon, man, there's a town just up ahead. Please, for Sol's sake, tell me that's Agastay."
I opened my eyes, discovering that Rook sat behind me, and I sat on the back of something clunky and metal. I straightened as much as I could, using his lap for support. We rode on the back of the hound that Rook had damaged. Rook leaned inward, his right arm over my shoulder and his fingers on the snout of the robot. It seemed to follow wherever he moved its head. I looked to where he'd mentioned there was a town and was relieved to see that he'd been right. That was most definitely Agastay. The Gasaidiatt covered the mountains just a distance away.
"That's Agastay," I confirmed.
I was deeply surprised that Rook had managed to pull me onto the back of the hound. Rook the Lucky, I thought with bitter humor. I, however, had not been so lucky. I knew I would live, but I wasn't so sure about my leg.
As Rook took the dog to the start of town, passersby took note of us immediately. A middle-aged woman busily walking into a small gift shop stopped dead in her tracks when she saw us, immediately exclaiming, "Oh my goodness, someone call the doctor!"
"You don't have a phone?" Rook asked her, sounding a bit breathless as he helped me off the back of the robot.
I limped over and leaned against the wall of the shop before fumbling for my own phone, but someone else who'd seen us was on it already, dialing a number and talking in swift New Soul. I dropped down into a sit as the store owner came out, having been informed of the commotion outside, and offered both Rook and I glasses of water.
"The doctor will have everything you two need," said the shopkeeper. "I'm sorry this is all I can give you right now."
"It's fine," I gasped, wiping my brow before finally getting a good look at my leg.
Most of it was shredded pant leg and gore. I saw a bit of off-white bone hanging loose in fragments though, dispersed among cloth and flesh. My shoulder wasn't nearly as bad, and barely hurt by now. But my knee looked beyond repair and felt attacked by the slightest sensation. From the pain of torture and poison just a few months ago, to a damaged leg and blood loss, I wasn't sure I'd survive much more of this treatment.
A couple of minutes later a single blue car drove up and stopped beside the store. The driver was quick to get out and address the situation, and his appearance shocked me.
He was in a printed tee and a pair of jeans, nothing signifying a doctor's appearance. But it wasn't his lack of professional attire that truly struck me. He was dark-skinned, black-haired, tall, and uncannily similar in facial structure like mine. I hadn't seen this man for almost eleven years, and I still recognized that face.
"A-Atta?" I stuttered, too weak to do much more.
The man, labeled the doctor by the townspeople, took off a pair of sunglasses.
"...Innio bat, Kro?" he wondered in Anli.
"Yes, it's me," I answered him in the language of the Gasaidiatt. Rook gave me a funny look from the dialect switch. "Please, brother, we can talk later. I need help. I can't walk."
"Of course," Atta replied, immediately jumping into action and helping me toward the car. Rook followed as Atta thanked the pedestrians and moved in front of the two of us to open one of the doors to the back-passenger seats. I crawled in and lay down, feeling relieved to finally be on my back to rest a little. The car was spacious on the inside and smelled foreign, but it was comfortable. For not being in a suburban car for almost two years, it felt heavenly.
"You're wearing a Rove prison uniform," Atta mentioned to Rook in the front seat, Rook sitting across from him.
"Yeah, we're escapees," Rook bluntly stated. "Crow got attacked by the Roavo dogs after we got out."
"Rook..." I uttered. Why did he have to be so blatant at times?
"...I'm not going to judge, and I'm not going to ask," Atta stated. "What I'm first going to do is help my little brother. Then I'm going to ask."
Atta pulled into a large garage and parked the car. I didn't move until he opened the door to help me out. Rook opened the door to the house and waited for us to enter before he did. Atta's TV was on in the living room, and a young girl sat on the couch. She may have been eight or nine, and she looked up and over at us as Atta led me toward some stairs.
"What's going on, Dad?" she called.
"Nothing, sweetie--I'll be down in a few minutes." Atta grunted as he hauled me into a bedroom toward the end of a hallway and let me go. I dropped against the mattress on my back, dangling my ruined leg off the side. I listened vaguely as Atta instructed Rook to go fetch some water in a bowl and as many rags as possible from the linen closet in the hallway.
"You have a daughter," I muttered in Anli as Atta carefully hoisted my leg upon the bed under several towels.
"Yes," Atta responded as he checked me over. "Her name is Akri." He switched subjects quickly. "Kro... I don't know if I can save any of this."
"Please just don't chop it off," I begged. "I need that."
He sighed heavily, rubbing at his scruffy chin. "I'll see what I can do."
Although Atta was twelve years older, we looked very much alike. He carried a bit more resemblance of our father, though, and I of our mother. I'd always looked up to Atta as a child. He'd been one of the only siblings of mine that had acted like he truly cared. When I turned twelve Atta had been banished from the Gasaidiatt for becoming transfixed with life outside the forest. Most ostracized Anli left to go up into the cold mountains and perish, but Atta took a
dvantage of the separation and packed what he could before saying goodbye to the family.
As Rook came back in carrying what Atta asked, he took a seat next to me. I switched back to New Soul so that my friend wouldn't feel excluded. I needed to focus my mind elsewhere after watching Atta pull out several metallic tools, a surgical knife, and an entire unopened kit of additional medical supplies.
"Does Akri have a mother?" I wondered, hissing a little when my brother touched one of his tools to my knee.
"Yes, she does. Her mother's name is Lorna, and she is also my wife."
I smiled a little. "Must be nice. Do you and Lorna get along?"
He peered at me for a second, frowning in thought, before going back to his work. "Yes. We're good to each other." I heard him dropping small fragments of bone on a tray. My stomach churned, but I turned my gaze to Rook before I was ill enough to throw up.
"Do you have any kids, Kro?"
"I have a four-year-old named Stelliot," I answered. It felt strange to think that he was four now. "His mother isn't in the picture, and right now he's..." I paused, wondering if I should get into the weight of my situation now or not. "...Being watched over by a friend."
"Ah," Atta stated as he picked up a small bone saw. "I sometimes miss having Akri that young."
I watched him now, widening my eyes. "Wh-What are you doing?"
"Don't panic, Kro, I'm not taking off your leg. You have so much decimation to your bone that I have to cut off a few pieces to work in my substitute."
"Substitute?"
"I'm going to replace your knee if I can," Atta explained. He looked at Rook. "You've been so helpful so far--do you think you can go to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom up here and find some tuhasat?"
Rook blinked. "Uh, what?"
I knew what it was. It was a Gasaidiatt herb that was used often by the tribe's medicine man for killing pain. It also induced severe hallucinations and internal bleeding if too much was taken.