Beast Machine

by Brad McKinniss

  “Ja wohl!” Owlbert cheeped loudly.

  “Quiet!” said Hitbear. He raised a metal finger to his mouth.

  “Oops,” said Owlbert. In a much quieter tone, “I am ready for flight, Frau Gora!”

  “Good, you remember what to look for, correct?” said Gora. “We can’t have any mess ups, again.”

  “Ja,” replied Owlbert. “Look for zee main controls, open zee front door und we kill Silva! In und out.”

  “Be careful and quiet too,” added Tubman. “I know how you get excited easily.”

  “Ja, ja,” said Owlbert. “Mein mind ist focused on zee plan. Do not fret.” He smiled and began to stretch out his body.

  Tubman was still looking through the binoculars. She saw something that caught her eye. “Looks like there are several options for you to enter from above, Owlbert. But I’d advise you to take the short, silver tube. It doesn’t appear to have any chemicals or smoke shooting out of it like the others.”

  “Ja, okay!” replied Owlbert, still stretching and flapping his wings.

  “What do you know about smoke stacks or tubes like that?” asked Hitbear. He was trying to eye the silver tube she was speaking about but his eyesight wasn’t the best.

  “I know a thing or two about chimneys, bear,” she said gruffly. “Saving my people took much planning and tenacity – we didn’t just enter the front door, you know.”

  “Intriguing,” said Hitbear. “My previous self may have hated your kind, but I find the resilience you emit remarkable.”

  Tubman swallowed awkwardly, “Well, uh, thanks.” She handed the binoculars to Gora. “Do you have your knife ready? We’ll give you all the space you need to take down Silva.”

  Gora took the binoculars and placed them in her back left-pocket. “I do.” Gora sighed. “I’m ready to end Silva and to end all of the pain he has caused me. This one will feel good the moment I cut into him.”

  “Will you be ready to do it?” asked Hitbear. “Tubman or I can always step in to do it.”

  Gora brushed him off, “No. I’m ready. His life ends tonight.” Gora turned to Owlbert. “Start flying toward the facility now, Owlbert.”

  Owlbert nodded at Gora and after one last stretch he rose from the Earth with several mighty flaps. Floop, flup, thwack went his wings loudly. He quickly made his way to the facility and dropped down the silver tube Tubman had suggested.

  The silver tube was no more than two feet across, so Owlbert had difficulty holding his body up in the tube. Any little slip from his new wings against the tube could send him spiraling downward into the unknown, not to mention the likelihood of a broken body part would be high. Nevertheless, Owlbert shimmied his way down the long tube and fell into an incredibly bright and humid room.

  “Vas ist this place?” said Owlbert as he looked around. There were plants scattered all about the room. The room was exceptionally tight due to the sheer amount of plants that inhabited it. “Intriguing, but I am not here for ein plants!” Owlbert did his best to wade through the plants.

  A few tomato plants were jostled causing several tomatoes to hit the floor. Ploomp. Owlbert turned around to inspect that sound caused by the falling tomatoes. He looked down and noticed the tomatoes were of a large stature – almost the size of a cantaloupe. “So plump.” He gingerly tapped the fallen tomatoes under a nearby plant. One of the tomatoes had split open. The seeds were bluish and the size of an American dime.

  Owlbert made it through the mini-greenhouse and didn’t give the blue tomato seeds any thought.

  He was now in a hallway. It was a clean and horribly sleek looking hallway. Steel walls and stiff concrete floors could be seen down the hall. Owlbert thought this might be part of an office created within the facility. He scurried down the hall, hugging the wall, looking for a way to open the front door, or any door, to let his friends in.

  At the end of the hallway, a large sign on the wall stated ‘FRONT’ and had an arrow pointing to the left. There wasn’t a sign indicating what was to the right, but Owlbert decided to stick with going left as he wanted to prove to Gora he could abide by the original plan.

  There were few doors in any of the hallways leading to the front of the facility. Of those few doors, there were no signs indicating their purpose. There were no numbers. No pictures. Nothing – just plain doors with generic round door handles. Owlbert found it peculiar but still trudged forward, hugging the wall the best he could with his body. The artificial wings often clung to the wall and wouldn’t slide properly, causing the owl beast to readjust his position.

  Once at the front, or at least what was deemed the front, Owlbert found an open door into a room. The room was apparently for security guards; there were several monitors displaying live feeds from differing angles from around the mining facility, bright red buttons that sat behind an open glass case on the nearby wall, and an intercom.

  Owlbert walked up to the monitors in search of a way to open any door, preferably the one in front. He examined the monitors first. There didn’t appear to be much happening on them or they were malfunctioning because the screens were full of static or were blue. Owlbert didn’t understand why nor did he care – he just wanted to open the front door. His eyes veered across the room. There was a chair right under the monitors, a large panel of buttons, knobs, and sliders were positioned on a desk under the monitors as well.

  He walked over and somehow pulled himself onto the chair. His eyes skittered across the large panel full of buttons, knobs, and sliders looking for any word above a button, knob, or slider that would indicate it would open the front gates. ‘Volume’, ‘aspect’, ‘lighting’, and ‘power’ were found all over the panel. Some knobs had ‘volume’ above them, as did some sliders. It left Owlbert bewildered and anxious. He needed to get a door open pronto, but none of these buttons, knobs, or sliders appeared to be helpful to his cause.

  His eyes veered across the room again. There was a desk with a small amount of paper resting atop it. A stapler, three-hole punch, and scissors accompanied the paper. An outdated wired phone sat next to the papers and other office supplies. Two average paintings of blue flowers and green flowers hung on the wall behind the desk. It looked like every office in the world. Owlbert’s eyes shifted to the left.

  It was the open glass case, but, more importantly, it was the bright red buttons that caught the eye of Owlbert. He made his way to the open glass case and red buttons. The desk, which sat close to the wall of the glass case, was used by Owlbert as a way to reach the buttons.

  There were seven buttons in total. Each the same shade of bright fire red. From left to right the buttons read: ‘Security Off’, ‘Fire Emergency’, ‘Machine Shutdown’, ‘Trapped Miners’, ‘Open Front Gates’, ‘Airborne Contamination’, and ‘Clogged Toilets.’ The ‘Security Off’ button was curiously pushed already, but Owlbert used his beak to press the ‘Open Front Gates’ button. A loud KA-CHUNK could be heard, a noise from the locks of the front gates. More ka-chunks could be heard, albeit quieter.

  “Ja,” said Owlbert, “I did it! Gora vill be proud of mein job here!” He glided gently off the table and into the hallway. Then he briskly walked in the direction of the sound of every lock unlocking on the front gate. He waited near the opening, but cautiously sat near the wall by some broken equipment. There was no signal to be made from Owlbert to the group, as the door opening should be signal enough, but Owlbert sat near the wall for what felt like an eternity before Gora, Tubman, and Hitbear quietly entered the facility.

  “Vas took so long?” asked Owlbert, coming out from hiding.

  “Hitbear passed out again,” said Tubman. She patted Hitbear on the back of his thigh. Hitbear grabbed his head woozily. “He’ll be okay, though.”

  “What about all these cameras,” said Gora. She pointed at three just in the front of the facility. “They know we’re here, don’t they?”

  “Nein!” said Owlbert. “I saw ein monitors for zee cameras – all broke. All the screens ein blue or scratch
y looking. Nein alarms activated either!”

  Gora breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, now let’s make our way around this place.”

  The group made their way down a large corridor instead of travelling down the side hallways Owlbert had used. The large corridor was the throughway used by the miners every day to enter and exit the mine. Six elevators were found at the end of the large corridor.

  “Does it matter which we take?” Gora asked.

  “I don’t even know what these things do,” said Tubman. “I don’t think these two know either.” She pointed at Hitbear and Owlbert.

  “Screw it, let’s just get on this one,” Gora ran up to the elevator second from the left. She pushed a button to the left of the elevator. Bee-oop. “It better have enough room for all of us.”

  The elevator arrived immediately and opened to an elongated room only a few feet across, yet fifteen feet long. The group piled in quickly. Gora, Owlbert, and Tubman made it into the elevator without issue, but Hitbear needed to turn himself sideways to fit into the elevator.

  “Hmm,” said Gora, scratching her face. “Which do we want? There’s buttons for several floors on this panel. Where would Silva be?”

  Owlbert and Tubman huddled around the panel with Gora, as Hitbear tried to get comfortable in the strangely shaped elevator. His burly shoulders and massive furbody kept hitting the sides of the elevator. He pushed, twisted, and bent all over the place as his friends pored over the panel of buttons.

  -----

  “Did you hear that?” asked Silva.

  “Hear what? I don’t really have ears you know,” replied Chelsey, though she did have ears by way of the many speakers in the facility. She was still invested heavily in her tablet game. It entertained her how she could actually be in the game! “At least not ears like yours… What do you think it was?”

  “It was a loud pounding,” said Silva, he was in the midst of returning the deceased miner’s corpse back in cold storage. “Thane is doing maintenance, but I’ve never heard a noise like that before.”

  “Hmm, interesting,” replied Chelsey lazily.

  Silva shook his head and pushed the gurney out of the surgical room to the storage room freezer. The lights flickered but Silva paid no mind as he shoved the gurney into the freezer and shut the door. He removed his gloves, tossed them aside then brushed his hands.

  “Nearly time to go home, dear!” chimed Silva. He began to hum happily as he reentered the surgical room.

  “Hmm, interesting,” replied Chelsey.

  “Come on, you can’t be consumed by some video game!” He shook his head and then put his hands behind his head. “You get too obsessive of things! Just like with working out and that muscle contraption!”

  “Oh, shush,” replied Chelsey, still playing her game. “It’s not like there’s much else I can do! You haven’t created a new body for me. I’m electricity, or light, or whatever bullshit you said I am. Just some complicated programming.”

  “I’m trying my best to get to that!” yelled Silva. He rubbed his nose briskly. “I have to finish work on all the new applications for the Carda Implant then I can begin making you a new body.” He sat next to his blue-lighted lover. Half her body was in the middle of the tablet screen smacking fruit back at an okapi, while the other half was projected onto a chair. Silva’s arm instinctively went around her shoulder but fell through her body. His hands moved to his lap.

  “Listen,” he said quietly. “I’ll begin working on your new body on the side tomorrow. I can’t really do much, anyhow, until I know what’s wrong with that big-dicked miner’s Carda Implant.”

  Chelsey sighed and then left the fruit throwing game to give her a full body once again. “I know you’re trying,” she said sadly. “It’s just aggravating not being able to touch you. Not being able to feel your skin against my skin. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since I was brought back to this world.” The pair looked at each other in the eyes. “I want to kiss you so bad.”

  “I will allocate my time better in an effort to making you a body,” said Silva, lost in Chelsey’s blue-lit eyes. “I swear it.” They both leaned in close.

  BA-DUSH.

  A door leading to one of the hallways was knocked open.

  “What the fuck?” said Silva. He stood up quickly and stepped toward the door.

  A hairy pair of large feet entered the room. “Am I interrupting something?” asked Hitbear. He made a fist with his natural paw and slammed it into his metal paw.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Silva backing away from the door. “How are you talking?”

  “What’s the deal with your shitty haircut?” asked Chelsey, sitting still in her chair knowing she couldn’t be hurt.

  Hitbear frowned, “Hey! That’s just the way I was created! Lay off.” He then bellowed out a large growl. Ahhh-ruuuuuu! “I hope you two didn’t have any plans for tonight!”

  Gora, Owlbert and Tubman entered the room. They filed behind Hitbear, using him as a shield incase of any projectiles. It was an inane endeavor by the three.

  “Gora?” said Silva. “Is that you? I haven’t seen you in years!”

  “Oh fuck off, Takeo,” said Gora poking her head around Hitbear’s massive body. “Don’t act like you’ve always been nice to me!”

  Silva’s face scrunched up, “What in the hell are you talking about?” He raised his hands and looked around. “We were the closest of friends! Then you started to slander my name…” He scratched his hand. “Something about me stealing an invention from you?”

  Gora stepped out from behind Hitbear, “You stole the credit for my tree regeneration serum!” Her face grew red, this time for the rage building inside of her instead of her embarrassment or anxiety. “The company told me another person had sent them it – which was impossible because I was miles ahead of anyone else working on that! The only other person that could have stolen it would be you, Takeo!” Gora’s voice shook but remained strong.

  “What are you talking about Gora?” said Silva loudly. “I sent the package like you asked me! I didn’t tamper with your invention, why would I steal something from a friend? Especially something that was not in my area of expertise!” He scoffed.

  “Lies!” screeched Gora. “Damned lies!” She removed her knife and charged at Silva.

  She lunged toward his throat but missed as she was moving far too wildly.

  Silva stepped to the side with ease. “You’re really going to try to kill me over rumors? Bah!” He laughed as he stepped out of the way from another attack from Gora. The portly Silva was rather agile for his size. “You can keep swinging that tiny blade at me all night.” He laughed. “Why don’t you explain to me what these… these ugly creatures are, instead?”

  Gora stopped her flailing of her knife and backed up toward her beasts. “Leave them out of this, you monster!” Her hair had unfurled from her typical messy bun and was strewn across her face.

  Owlbert and Tubman gave Silva a look of great contempt while Hitbear snorted loudly. Hitbear spat a monstrous loogie at the unsuspecting Silva. The loogie as it hit Silva right in the face.

  “Ack!” squealed Silva.

  “Accept your death, fat man,” growled Hitbear.

  Gora lurched forward and caught Silva on the cheek. He backed away clutching his cheek as blood dripped through his fingers.

  “Blast, you got me,” said Silva. “Chelsey!”

  “Yes?” replied Chelsey. She had been sitting, bored, in her chair as Silva defended himself.

  “Alert Thane, damn it!” commanded Silva. The gash in his cheek grew larger. “What the hell was on that blade? It burns!”

  “I already alerted Thane,” said Chelsey calmly. “He should be here any moment now.” Her face couldn’t show a full range of emotions but if it did her face would be fully apathetic. She knew she was in no danger.

  “Wonderful!” said Silva. He calmly walked to a drawer and grabbed gauze. “Why are you all just standing there looking at me? Shouldn’
t you be trying to attack me, Gora?”

  “Ja, Gora finish him!” screamed Owlbert.

  “Get that asshole!” cheered on Tubman.

  “Fuck him up!” shouted Hitbear. “Show him your mean side!”

  Gora shook her head wildly, “Erm, sorry.”

  “Why are you saying sorry, now?” Silva was almost finished wrapping the gauze around his head, stopping the bleeding from the gash on his cheek. His chubby face became chubbier as the gauze was wrapped vertically around his noggin. He struggled to speak but forced out, “You have become so pathetic. What happened to the strong innovator I knew?”

  “You stole her from me!” screamed Gora as she charged at Silva again.

  Gora swung her knife at Silva’s chest. He moved just in time, and countered with throwing the excess gauze in Gora’s face. The gauze wrapped around her shoulders and down her body causing her to stop charging at Silva.

  Hitbear wanted to help untangle her but was stopped by Tubman. Tubman looked at Hitbear and merely shook her head. Hitbear sighed and stood back as he watched his creator struggle to fight off Silva.

  As Gora untangled herself from the gauze, Silva said, “I didn’t steal anything from you!” He grabbed a nearby scalpel. “You’re just misremembering it all!” He tossed the scalpel at Gora with a miserable attempt of a throw. “Damn it!”

  Gora finally removed the gauze from around her, “You’re in denial.” She spit out additional gauze that had been in her mouth. “I’ll just finish this now; I’ve taken far too long.” She made another charge at Silva. He had nowhere to hide or anything to protect him, so he cowered as Gora powered toward him.

  “Oh please, no!” he squeaked out.

  KA-CHUNK, THWOMP!

  A door from the opposite side of the room shot open and off its hinges. It caused Gora to stop her assault on Silva and look at what was entering the room.

  It was Thane.

  “Oh goody!” said Chelsey excitedly. She motioned her hands to clap but no sound was emitted. “I was wondering when you’d get here!”