Head Space

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  Mindy frowned. “Hope it was worth dying for.” Her blade hummed and Paulie’s head fell away from his body. “Pig,” she added, though Paulie could not hear her anymore.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Bob hit Roland at nearly fifty miles per hour.

  Only half Roland’s mass, Bob’s four hundred and fifty pounds was still sufficient to send the larger Golem into the door with enough energy to dent the thick metal. Lucia leapt away at the sound, rolling clear of the fight and coming to her feet with pistol blazing. Her flechettes bounced from the target with no ill effect, and the woman immediately elected to withdraw and let Roland do what he did best. This gave her an instant to really look at Bob, and what she saw startled her.

  Bob’s shirt had been torn away by the constant fighting. His bare chest was wide, each muscle chiseled in perfect three-dimensional proportion. His arms were large and the shoulders square and powerful. None of this put her aback; rather, it was the color that had her gasping. Bob was the same flat black that Roland was. The same waxy sheen, the same hyper-muscularity, the same texture. It was like looking at Roland’s younger brother. This illusion was made worse by the fact that Bob wore a helmet identical to Roland’s. The lipless skull face stared up into its twin as the two Golems met in a pitched battle.

  Roland had gone down under Bob’s blow though he rose quickly to his feet. Right away, Lucia knew something was wrong. Roland was bleeding. Not human blood, thankfully, but viscous silver goo oozed from a long gash across the top of his right pectoral. It was the look on Lucia’s face that slowed Roland’s counterattack and had the big cyborg assessing his situation with extra care. With his safeties still disengaged, Roland had not noticed the wound nor had he caught sight of the long black dagger in Bob’s fist. Bob’s hand darted forward again, flicking like a snake’s tongue. Three lightning thrusts sent the humming tip of a lethal sasori blade questing for Roland’s chest and the vulnerable organics beneath the surface. Roland threw himself backward and answered with a full-auto burst of beads from Durendal. The pistol chattered indignantly and smashed projectiles against Bob’s chest at a range of less than five feet.

  The gunfire did not bring Bob down. His armor, while not as thick as Roland’s, had been birthed in the same forges. Relatively undamaged by the barrage, the smaller Golem was nonetheless staggered by the not-inconsiderable kinetic energy dump from the shattering beads. This bought Roland the time he needed to find his footing and mount a more measured offense. Roland’s giant mitt snapped toward Bob’s knife hand. The android was faster, dodging the grasping hand with a smooth sidestep and crossing the intervening distance in a graceful lunge. With much less grace Roland evaded the worst of the stab, letting the crackling edge of the black blade slide along his side. His armored skin split with a hiss, leaving a shallow gash. Roland tried to make the most of the exchange but had to settle for a straight left that grazed Bob’s chin.

  Bob spun to the side and turned his fall into a flanking maneuver, the white-hot edge of his dagger tracing another silver slash along Roland’s ribs. The big fixer slapped the arm aside and kicked at Bob’s legs, forcing the smaller fighter to leap backward. Weeping copious quantities of precious fluids, Roland precluded another exchange at close quarters with his gun. He again opened fire on his foe, switching to armor piercing rounds now that his head was more securely in the fight. Bob writhed like an eel, presenting a minuscule profile to the oncoming flechettes and suffering only grazing hits as a result. The tungsten-tipped darts sliced across his torso, giving the smaller Golem a wound across the chest that mirrored Roland’s own seeping injury. Bob ignored the insult and slashed at Roland with a singular fury. The knife drew on the air in patterns of light, the movement of atmosphere across the super-heated edge cooling its color from white to orange as the fledgling AI whirled the blade in complex patterns. Roland swayed within the burning arcs of each slice, parrying where he had to and dodging when he could. The quarters were close, and Durendal was sacrificed to direct the blade away from his neck. Roland dropped the ruined remains of his gun without a second thought. This emboldened Bob, who threw himself into his attacks with even more fervor.

  Undaunted, Roland met Bob’s frenzy with his own furious assault. Bob’s speed, when coupled with the lethality of his weapon, put the bigger fighter on his heels within the first pass. Roland’s longer reach kept his vitals away from the certain death of a forceful thrust, but not without cost. In mere seconds, Roland’s arms were striped with oozing slashes. Every step forward earned the big man another cut, every attack met by the merciless edge of the unstoppable black blade.

  It was an impasse that favored the smaller fighter, and Roland knew he needed to change tactics. Tired of dancing around the dangerous weapon, Roland decided to simplify the battle in his own perverse style. He stepped forward, arms wide, begging Bob to strike down the middle and pierce his chest. The blade was long enough, and Bob strong enough, to drive the weapon through all that armored muscle, through the armored carapace around his organs, and deep into the soft fleshy remains of Corporal Roland M. Tankowicz. There would be no healing from such a strike, no heroic rally. Only a gasping death awaited.

  It was Bob’s immaturity as a fighter that made the ploy work. The target was simply too tempting, the ultimate victory so tantalizingly close, that Bob’s fear-driven zeal for victory overrode all critical thinking on his part. He lunged, the deadly tip of his knife leaping forward like a bolt from a crossbow. Roland shifted only slightly, just enough to take his vitals out of the attack line and putting his shoulder between the questing point and the rest of his body. Teeth clenched, the big man made no attempt to stop the subtly glowing blade from punching straight through his deltoid. With the safeties disengaged, he felt little more than a sharp poke and some uncomfortable pressure as the white-hot blade drove into his body nearly to the hilt. He roared like a mad bull when the tip erupted from the back of his shoulder with a spray of boiling silver gel. Roland snarled at his victory, and this seemed to confuse the enemy.

  “Rookie mistake, Bob!” Roland crowed as he wrapped a giant mitt around Bob’s knife hand, trapping both his foe’s arm and weapon with one move. “Now I have the knife!” Roland used the eighth-of-a-second pause Bob’s confusion garnered to wrench his arm upward while clubbing Bob’s wrist toward the deck with a maul of a right hand. The dagger snapped in half with a shower of white sparks and a pop that rivaled a gunshot. Roland extracted the piece of the blade still lodged in his arm with a smooth motion and drove it point-first against Bob’s chest. The dense armored skin resisted the shard for an instant. Without a plasma conduit to heat it, the piece of blade was little more than a very sharp piece of exotic metal. Roland enhanced its capabilities with a hammer fist that pushed the tip through the black dermal mesh of the enemy and deep into the techno-organic meat beneath.

  Bob wailed and rocketed a left hook against Roland’s faceplate. With both hands occupied, Roland had no defense, and the blow spun him off-balance to the side. The two armored titans staggered back, Bob tugging at the blade in his chest and Roland finding his balance. Roland took the opportunity to goad Bob.

  “Finally fighting like you mean it, I see.”

  Bob drew the six-inches of black dagger from his flesh with a spurt of silver liquid. He dropped it to the deck and replied. “I do mean it.”

  “Still scared?”

  Bob charged. With speed every bit the equal of his opponent, the smaller Golem was upon the larger in fractions of a second. Punches and kicks rained upon Roland faster than the human eye could follow. Most missed or were blocked. Some landed. Roland weathered the storm without complaint under a high boxer’s guard. With his feet planted firmly and his more sensitive areas well-guarded, Roland endured savage kicks, heavy punches, several knee strikes and at least one head butt before responding. The big fixer dropped his guard, took an overhand left to the face, and booted Bob in the guts.

  Bob rocketed away from Roland like he had been h
it by a truck. He struck the far bulkhead so hard he left an indentation in the shape of his body stamped into the metal.

  “Nope. Not scared,” Roland grumbled. “Now you’re just angry. That’s real progress, Bob. Your fighting is much improved.”

  Bob leapt from the floor and caught Roland under the chin with a right hand. The blow rocked Roland back on his heels and Bob followed it with a kick to the knee that brought the bigger man to the ground. Bob was atop the fallen giant and raining blows down in an instant.

  “Angry?” the android sneered. “You think I’m angry? What do you know about it?”

  One of Bob’s descending punches disappeared into one of Roland’s massive paws. The big fixer twisted and yanked Bob to the side, sweeping him off and rolling himself on top of the smaller Golem. Bob flailed at Roland’s ribs with his free hand, driving a dozen punches into the big man’s flank in barely two seconds. Far too experienced to let the distraction of some body shots compromise his superior position, Roland ignored the strikes and pinned Bob’s captured arm to the deck. When he was confident his prey was secure, Roland grabbed the pinned wrist in both hands, wrapping the whole forearm in a figure-four grip. This brought his face within inches of Bob’s, and Roland snarled down at the pinned android. “Angry is good, Bob. I like you better when you are angry. Feels more human.”

  Bob head-butted Roland’s faceplate, and Roland growled.

  “Problem is Bob, angry people fight like idiots.”

  Then Roland leaned back and wrenched on the arm. It bent away from Bob’s body, twisting viciously at the shoulder. Bob’s muscles resisted, the powerful techno-organic sinews holding the limb at an awkward angle just shy of dislocation. Roland pulled more, torqueing the arm further and further until the humerus pulled free of the scapula with the sound of steel cable tearing. Bob flailed against the injury, bashing at Roland with his free arm like a child having a temper tantrum. His heels banged against the deck, scrabbling for purchase and trying to unseat the massive thing pinning him down. Roland rode his thrashing body like a rodeo cowboy, never releasing the arm.

  “Do you feel pain, Bob?” Roland asked the thing. “I think you do. Did daddy ever teach you about pain? About how pain cuts right through your mind?” Roland yanked the ruined arm straight and snapped the elbow backward over his thigh. Bob made strange vocalizations, not exactly screams, but evocative of them. “Pain makes a man into an animal, Bob. Goes right to the hypothalamus. It takes years of training and experience to stop that from happening.” Roland shifted and swept Bob’s good arm up and trapped it against the wide expanse of his chest. “I’m guessing he didn’t cover that.” Roland broke this arm as well. First at the elbow, then dislocating the wrist. Bob did not cry or scream; he did not know how. He flailed and flopped his useless arms, his mouth clicking open and closed in wordless confusion.

  Satisfied, Roland stood. “I told you, Bob, if you want to keep that armature, you will have to earn it the way Rook did.”

  Bob heaved to his belly and managed to force himself to a standing position. He spun to face Roland, lurching forward to kick at the big man’s groin. Roland checked the kick with his shin and seized Bob by the throat. “Story time,” he announced dryly. He drove the android into the bulkhead hard, then he pulled it free and did it again. “Charlie Rooker was leading a rescue operation on Wayfair.” Roland slammed his prey once more. “He had to escort a diplomat and her family out of a conflict zone.” Another slam. “His APC got hit by a missile and went off a ravine. Now, Rook and his principals survived, but he had broken most of the bones in his limbs, and had thirty-one pieces of shrapnel stuck in his body.” Roland hoisted Bob aloft, and smashed a wrecking ball left hook into the android’s flank. There was a satisfying crunch as techno-organic ribs buckled under the superior might of the bigger machine. “Oh yeah, most of his ribs were busted, too.” Roland brought Bob back to the floor, where he stomped hard on the android’s right knee. The joint held, but Roland kept his foot on it, pinning the leg to the quivering deck plate. He reached down, got a firm grip, and broke the tibia like a piece of kindling. “Busted his leg cutting the diplomat free of the wreckage.” Still standing on Bob’s knee, Roland continued. “Rook crawled from that wreck. Broken just like you are now, bleeding, and in the kind of pain you are only just now beginning to understand. He could have died right there, Bob. Instead, he gave first aid to his principals, then held the wreckage against all comers for three hours before help arrived.”

  Roland stepped away from the broken mess of Bob the android. Frowning, he moved back to the flopping body and grabbed it by the faceplate. With an ugly yank, he snapped the mag-locks holding the helmet on and pulled it clear. Bob’s eyes, angry, terrified, and confused, met Roland’s. For a moment something like pity may have moved in Roland’s chest, though it was fleeting and easily disregarded.

  “Your principal is behind that door, Bob.” A thick black finger pointed to the room holding Arthur Inskip. “Go save him. Go earn your body the way Rook did.”

  Inside Bob’s head, the highly complex matrix of competing electrical signals that comprised the sophisticated techno-organic AI was in complete disarray. He was processing all varieties of fury, sadness, confusion, and despair. He had no context for these; they simply existed as crippling feedback, obstacles to objectives that could not even be defined let alone categorized and compensated for. He could make no decisions, there was no priority command structure anymore. Whole sections of his programming were inaccessible, such was the collapse of what he had thought was a highly ordered intelligence. Even this realization was lost to Bob. Once his higher-order command classes became inaccessible, the chain reaction within his programming was swift and merciless.

  The need to protect his creator was a child’s cry from the bottom of a well. Distant, faint, and weak. He could hear it, he knew it was important, knew he was supposed to do something. He could do nothing. His broken body sang in a heavy metal dirge of damage signals. Desire, a thing so new and wonderful when he first recognized it, was now a prison. He wanted to save Inskip. He wanted to kill Breach. Yet he wanted neither of these things as much as he wanted to live.

  “You want to save him? You gotta be willing to endure pain. You have to do things you don’t want to do. You have to be ready to die, Bob. Rook was ready to die for a bunch of mid-level diplomats he never even met before. Three hours of fighting with a body broken worse than you are now. Thirty-six confirmed kills that day, Bob. No principals lost. They were zipping him up in a body bag at the end. He had to spit blood in the medic’s eye to let them know he wasn’t dead. That’s the kind of man Rook was. You like walking around in his body? All you have to do is get up and keep fighting, Bob. Rook would.”

  Bob could not do it. He learned about despair in this moment. He learned about the thousand deaths of the coward. He learned about self-loathing and shame. So many new and horrible feelings were born in this instant, only to die when his fear swept them all aside like straw huts in a tsunami. He tried to crawl away, and Roland stopped him easily with a hand to the neck. He raised the android from the floor and held the twisted body aloft. Bob twitched like a man having a seizure, eyes fixed on the uncaring faceplate of his tormentor.

  “You can’t run from this, Bob. That body is a weapon, and it should only be wielded by a hero. You are no goddamn hero, Bob. Charlie was.”

  Then Roland said the thing that Bob was feeling. “And you are no Charlie Rooker.”

  “I want... to... live,” Bob heard himself say.

  “Everybody does, Bob. That’s the problem. You and your creator never figured that out.”

  Bob was well past the point where he could even understand. He simply repeated, “I... want... to... live...”

  “So did we,” Roland answered, his voice heavy with resignation. “But we never got the chance.”

  Roland was tired of this dance. He did not know what he had expected from confronting Bob and all that he represented, or why he had exp
ected anything different. Whatever he thought the final reckoning would be like, the reality was so much less than his imagination had made it feel it should have been. Bob was not Charlie Rooker, and this was not Charlie’s body in his hands. It was just another armature. Worse, it was a powerful piece of military ordnance meant for one of earth’s greatest soldiers. It was a killing tool, just like Roland. The only thing Bob had done is reinforce a small and persistent terror inside Roland. A niggling anxiety that things like him did not belong in the universe. He had allowed himself to believe there was a place for him, and he still hoped that there was. Yet staring back at him were the hollow eyes of what might have happened, what he could have been. Roland could not say if he belonged anywhere with certainty, but he knew with warrior’s conviction that there was no room in the universe for things like Bob.

  Roland killed the thing called Bob quickly. It brought him much less satisfaction than he thought it was going to.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Roland looked into the darkness and found Manuel Richardson sitting on the floor.

  The young Venusian was peering into the screen of his handheld while banks of computers hissed and stank around him. He looked up when Roland forced the door open and came stomping in. Lucia followed, her pistol in-hand and eyes peeled for trouble.

  “All-clear, Boss,” he called out. “Has Mindy checked in?”

  “Not yet,” Lucia called back, holstering her pistol. “Are you all right?”

  “Just a little frazzled. It got real weird in here.”

  “We know,” Roland affirmed. “We can debrief later. We’ve got the missing armature. It’s time to bug out.”

  “You figured out it was Bob?” Manny said as he trotted up to the pair.