by Joel Ohman
The guard shot up and sprinted toward a large cadre of blue-coated guards.
Charley felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down to see the little sandy-haired boy still standing there. “What about me? What should I do?”
Charley gritted his teeth and then pointed behind him and away from the action. “Run.”
The boy backed away a few paces, then spun on his heel and raced off in the direction of some nearby alleyways. He stumbled as he dodged into the nearest one, but quickly righted himself and disappeared into the shadows.
Charley turned back toward the fast-approaching warriors. He said softly to himself, “Run for your life. Maybe you’ll survive longer than I will.”
“Oh, it isn’t all that bad. You’re always so serious.”
Charley whirled to see Commander Orson striding up beside him, eyebrows arched and a supercilious smile on his face. Charley paused for the faintest second, his face frozen. Then he lunged.
Orson pivoted neatly, turning his hips and ducking his shoulder as if executing an expert dance move. Charley stumbled red-faced past the spot where Commander Orson had stood.
“Stop! Just stop.” Commander Orson held up his hand, palm out. Charley hesitated, feeling foolish. He realized Orson hadn’t even drawn his sword. He looked at Charley and spoke in his condescending way. “You can fight me, but you won’t win.” He nodded toward the closely approaching warriors. “And all of Meritropolis will die. Is that what you want?”
“You tried to kill everyone with a Score under 100 anyway. That is practically all of Meritropolis.”
Orson shrugged. “It is what it is. Survival is survival. If I didn’t, then my father would have.”
“He’s coming?”
“Yes.”
“Those are his men?”
“No.”
“So, where is he?”
Orson shrugged again. “Time to make a decision.”
Charley felt a large bear paw clap him on the back. Chappy’s arms engulfed Charley’s smaller frame, conveniently pinning Charley’s blades against his body as he drew him in close to his great bulk. Chappy was many things, but he was no idiot. “Why, of course, Commander. We accept your gracious offer of an alliance against these foreign invaders. Anything for the good of Meritropolis, right?”
“Yes, anything for the good of Meritropolis …” Commander Orson responded dryly.
Sandy, Jibs, Hank, and a large cluster of Chappy’s men massed behind Charley.
“What are our orders, sir?” Jibs called out.
Charley turned toward the men upon his release from Chappy’s bear hug, but before he could speak, Chappy cut in. “Why, let us defer to our esteemed Commander Orson, shall we?”
Commander Orson regarded Chappy steadily for a moment and then said, “Thank you. It’s simple enough what our strategy should be.” He looked over at Charley under half-lidded eyes and gave a wry smirk. “CHARGE!”
The men roared in response.
Charley ignored Orson’s mockery and bounced lightly on his toes, rocking front to back and side to side while he rolled his neck in slow circles. His shoulder was throbbing and he was exhausted; his focus was slipping, he was likely still in shock from the explosions, but he had to prepare for battle. He looked straight ahead. The barbarian horde was making their way over and around the burning remains of the imploded gates. They were getting tangled up in the rubble and being forced to circle around all of the billowing smoke and flames, but they would soon be upon them. In spite of this, Charley longed to zero Orson once and for all, and not go to battle against these rampaging mystery marauders.
Just then he saw the sandy-haired boy. For some reason he had left the safety of the alley and was running fast—directly at the group of warriors.
Charley walked forward slowly, as if in a daze.
The little boy had a rock in his hand. He ran directly at the bearded warrior with the mace.
“No, no, no …” Charley mouthed the words silently, beginning to pick up speed as he stumbled toward the boy. He knew he wouldn’t make it in time. The boy was too far away.
The little boy threw the rock, his small arm rocketing forward and almost unbalancing him as he hop-hopped to stop himself from toppling over.
Charley couldn’t look away.
It was a good throw. But it didn’t hit its intended mark; it whistled right by the head of the enormous charging warrior. The warrior didn’t slow, didn’t even change his expression, he just adjusted his already swinging mace slightly to the left and let its ugly black steel crash into the boy—once, twice, and then it was over.
The little sandy-haired boy lay dead on the cobblestones.
Charley reached up over his shoulders and drew both of his blades.
Orson could wait.
The familiar warmth crawled up the back of his neck, slowly expanding and blooming, reaching long spidery tentacles of fury deep into his mind, poking and prodding old memories and visions. Alec’s innocent face grinning in the sunshine, but then contorting in terror, all alone in the dark outside of the gates. The little girl’s tiny slippered feet trying to run, but not fast enough. Now this freckle-faced boy was dead, too.
Charley sprinted directly at the blond-bearded warrior. His fury compelled him forward.
Charley outpaced Orson, Chappy, Sandy, and the others in seconds. He didn’t like having Orson at his back, but he cast the thought from his mind. All that mattered right now was the warrior. Charley’s fingertips crackled with the rage animating his body.
The mace swung a brutal arc at Charley’s head, and he ducked. The warrior was a large, powerful brute of a man, but Charley slid inside the range of his mace, now too close for the warrior to do anything but attempt a feeble half-swing.
Charley flipped his blade down into an overhand grip and torqued his body left to right, snapping out viciously with his elbow. But he missed the warrior’s cheekbone and instead made contact with a strip of black metal that ran down the side of the warrior’s helmet, protecting his ear.
Charley jolted backward with the force of the impact, pain splintering down his elbow and forearm. The warrior bared his teeth beneath his blond beard and rammed the tip of his mace handle into Charley’s side. Charley grunted in pain; he felt his ribs crunch and feared he had punctured a lung. He stumbled backward a step before catching his weight. He couldn’t let himself step back into range of the mace.
Charley stepped in closer, so close he could smell a greasy, tallow smell emanating off the warrior’s gnarled and knotted beard. The warrior stomped on Charley’s foot and drew his mace back further away from his body to gain some room for a swing. He swung once, twice, and then Charley reared back and kicked the warrior as hard as he could in the exposed, armor-free area around his crotch.
Charley kicked so hard, he felt the enormous man lift slightly off the ground. The warrior stood frozen for a moment, eyes bulging. A high-pitched keening sound slipped incongruently from his lips.
The moment of delay was all Charley needed. He picked an unprotected slit where the metal plating gaped over the warrior’s great bulk and buried his blade up to the hilt in the warrior’s enormous midsection. It took almost all his strength to pull the blade out. While backing away, the warrior’s dead weight slumped over in front of him.
“And that’s why you have the highest Score in Meritropolis. Served that bastard right!” Sven nimbly scuttled past Charley and glanced appreciatively at the fallen warrior; a strange smirk curling the corner of his lip. Something about the wild gleam in Sven’s eye stayed with Charley long after his friend had hurried past him.
Unexpectedly, Charley’s stomach churned. What kind of violent monster had he become? In order to zero the System, had he become something even more evil than the System? Was it even worth it? Killing a man was nothing like killing an animal. Going to war was nothing like reading about war in a book. Chappy’s men, blue-coated guards, and others from Meritropolis continued to rush past him and dash thems
elves against the onslaught of the invading warriors.
The smell of blood in the air was horrific: a metallic odor combined with a nauseatingly salty-sticky warmth.
Charley bent over and vomited what little he had left in his stomach. He looked up, feeling slightly better, until he heard the howling.
Some kind of animals were coming. And it sounded like a lot of them.
Sandy bounded over and gently placed her hand on his shoulder “You can hear them, too?”
He nodded.
“What do you think it is? They don’t sound like rotthogs.”
“No clue, but they’ll be heading right for us. The smell of blood is everywhere.” Charley’s eyes searched the edges of the forest just beyond the still-burning remnants of the gates.
Sandy followed Charley’s gaze then looked up, frowning. “And it’s almost dark.” She studied the chaotic battle spread out in front of them. “We’re losing,” she said simply.
She was right. The people of Meritropolis far outnumbered the invaders, but they were outclassed. The invaders were warriors, not underfed, under-armed, and undertrained civilians who were confused and scared. Charley shook his head to clear his thoughts and tried to force the bile from rising again in his throat. He took a step forward toward the thick of the action.
Sandy reached out and grasped his upper arm. “Wait, you’re not in any condition to fight.” She tightened her grip. “Besides, look who’s here.” She gestured toward the forest.
Grigor burst through a cloud of gray smoke like a phantasm morphing from the supernatural world to the natural one. He was carrying a large staff, practically a small tree, and he rampaged onto the battlefield with a bellowed challenge. Large, heavily muscled men fell before Grigor’s sustained bursts of explosive attacks. They looked like small children trying and failing to play an adult game.
Grigor hit one man so hard the warrior was thrown over into a backflip. His sheer size and brute strength overwhelmed all in range. Grigor fought his way to Commander Orson’s side, and they quickly began to fall into a rhythm. Watching the two fight was a study in contrasts: they each had technical mastery over their weapons but if Orson was a warhorse—tall, dark hair streaming in the wind, long-necked, veins straining—then Grigor was a grizzly bear: massive, muscles bulging, and supremely powerful.
“They smell the blood!” Hector exclaimed, sidling up beside Charley and Sandy, Lila close behind him. The twins’ eyes shone with excitement.
“What are you taking about?” Charley looked at them. He was furious that the twins had only now come bounding out of the Tower, after the fighting had progressed yards away from where they stood.
“You’ll see.” Hector didn’t even look at Charley, so intense was his gaze toward the western edge of the forest. He was practically shivering with anticipation.
“Let me guess: more animal combinations are coming?” Sandy said. Her face was streaked with soot.
“Lots of them,” Lila said almost reverently. “We were watching from up in the Tower, but we couldn’t really get a good view. Look, they should be here any second now.”
Charley squinted his eyes, craned his neck, and looked intently at the edge of the forest. He didn’t see anything.
Then, in a blink, the forest gave birth to an eruption of jarring noises, pungent smells, and a plethora of hard-charging wild beasts. They looked as if they’d been constructed solely of mismatched body parts from Frankenstein’s tool shop: a tail here, a hoof there, horns protruding at odd angles from soft downy fur.
Charley took a step back. “What … are they?”
“What aren’t they?” Sandy exclaimed softly, wonder in her voice.
“Whatever they are, they’re hungry,” Charley said, tensing to run.
“They’re wonderful!” Hector moaned. “Look! There’s a herd of muffalo, mule–buffalo combinations, and—right behind them—a rama, a ram–puma! Wait, no, there are at least three, no, four, no, lots more rama over there, too!”
Lila pressed forward, chattering excitedly. “The rama must have been chasing the herd of muffalo. I wonder if that is what Grigor was hunting. And look over there!” She gestured at a scaly-looking winged creature gyring across the smoky purple sky in lazy loops. “I think it’s a gulture: a gecko–vulture, looking for dead flesh to feast on …”
“Would you look at that!” Sandy exclaimed. “The animal combinations are tearing into the invaders. They don’t stand a chance.”
Charley’s stomach lurched and he turned away. “They will be tearing into us soon too, if we don’t get out of here. Even Grigor and Orson are running for the Tower. Let’s go!”
He set off at a dead sprint for the Tower, forgetting his throbbing shoulder and cracked ribs as he maneuvered in and out of the fallen bodies and rubble that littered the courtyard and darted in and out of gray puffs of smoke. It was an obstacle course set against the Boschian landscape of bizarrely discordant animal parts, charred human flesh, and burning trash. He spat out a piece of char that had floated into his mouth as he ran. It tasted like singed paper, but he smelled something very much like burning hair on the wind, and his stomach lurched again.
“Charley! Come in, quickly!” a voice called out from the Tower. Charley could see the scarecrow-like figure of Jibs leaning outward and bolstered by a solid wall of Chappy’s men, who appeared to be shoving their way into the Tower while beating away the masses of low-Score Meritropolis residents from trying to enter. Jibs motioned frantically to Charley, Sandy, Hector, and Lila.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Jibs turned toward Chappy’s men and shouted, “Make way for Charley and the other High Scores! Clear the way, clear the way! High Scores only! Chappy’s orders!”
Charley pulled up short, panting heavily. Hector and Lila darted ahead and ran into the Tower door past Jibs and his men.
Sandy slowed, looking at Charley with concern. “What is it? Is it your shoulder?”
“No.”
The realization hit Charley harder than any blow to his shoulder. He looked at Sandy, and his face fell. “They’re only letting High Scores in. If Chappy is in control of the Tower, then we just effectively helped overthrow Commander Orson, only for Chappy to institute his own System.”
Charley’s shoulders hunched, the tips of his bloody blades scraping the ground. He turned away from Sandy to see the masses of Low Scores clamoring to get past Chappy’s men and into the safety of the Tower. Night was almost here, the invaders had been all but decimated by Grigor, Orson, and the animal combinations, but several animal combinations were still on the rampage, and Chappy had just effectively zeroed most of the population, accomplishing what Commander Orson couldn’t.
And Charley had helped him do it.
“We can go in and fight Chappy, convince him that …” Sandy trailed off lamely. She knew it would be too late.
“Charley, last chance. You have to come in now. We’re shutting the door!” Jibs called out.
“We should at least save ourselves, right? Charley?” Sandy touched his arm hesitantly.
“Yeah, Charley. Go on and save yourself and your little high-Score girlfriend.” Sven sauntered up, his eyes narrowing. Charley looked up in shock; he had never heard venom like that in anything Sven had said. And especially not directed toward him.
Charley smiled sadly. “You may have changed, but you know that’s not who I am. Do you really think I would just go in the Tower and leave you out here, leave everyone out here?”
“You never really cared about me, or any of the other Low Scores. You don’t really care about taking down the System. You just want revenge for Alec.” Sven’s eyes flashed, his voice rising.
Charley looked toward the open door to the Tower, Jibs beckoning furiously.
Charley felt sick. What had happened to him and Sven? Even worse than the words now coming from Sven’s mouth had been the glint in Sven’s eye as he had gleefully reveled in Charley’s killing of the bearded warrior. Charley couldn’t bear th
e thought: What had they become? They were each so consumed with revenge, Sven for what he had seen in the Tower, and Charley for what had been done to Alec, they had each become unrecognizable from the System itself. Charley looked at the dead bodies littering the courtyard. The thought struck him painfully: Maybe they were worse than the System. Maybe in trying to zero the System, they had zeroed a part of themselves.
He turned toward Sandy and motioned toward the open door. “You better go in,” he said softly.
Her eyes flashed. “Please, don’t pull that gentlemanly crap with me. I’m with you.”
Charley smiled sadly. He was too tired to argue with her. He looked at Jibs, exhaled, and shook his head slowly.
Jibs shrugged and shut the Tower door.
Sandy squeezed Charley’s hand, resigned to whatever fate he chose, right along with him.
“I’m not the one you want revenge on, you know.”
Charley jerked his head back around. Orson had once again managed to sneak up behind him like a cat. “Well, maybe you do,” he added. “But, if you really want to put an end to the System—” he glanced at Grigor, who was slicked in blood and lumbering up behind him—“then come with Grigor and me.”
“What?” Charley asked. His eyes widened and his fingers tightened around his blades.
Orson smoothed his eyebrows with a long, ringed index finger, seemingly indifferent to Charley’s aggressive stance. “Sure, go ahead and try to get your petty revenge on me now. You’ll lose. Even if Grigor wasn’t here. But, more importantly, you’ll never know who zeroed your brother.”
Charley restrained himself from lunging at Orson; he was walking along a thin icicle of self-control. He spoke softly. “Who did it?”
“Why, my father, of course. He put many people out of the gates when the System was first implemented.” A shadow of something dark twisted across Orson’s face and then was gone. “And that just happens to be who we are heading to see.” Orson looked around at the burning city. “Grigor and I are not welcome in this hellhole any longer, and so off we go.”