Metal

by Thomas Hall

  “You want some company?”

  He stopped at the top of the escalator but didn’t turn around to look at Dina. He should have sent her back, but he didn’t. “Sure,” he said.

  They walked down the escalator together, their boots making the loose metal clang.

  They walked through the menswear section. All the good winter clothing was gone. There were shorts and t-shirts and sun hats. When the cold weather came people would take them as well, adding layers to keep themselves warm.

  He shook his head.

  “What is it?” Dina said.

  “Nothing,” he lied. In truth, he’d allowed himself to fall victim to the survivor myth. The myth was that there were survivors left. Groups of people who were still evading the Machines and seeking out warmth and shelter. The myth was that there were still enough humans left to survive, if they defeated the Machines.

  No one would be coming back for the t-shirts and shorts, because they were all dead.

  They walked to the doors at the back of the store. They led to an alleyway. Brett pressed his face against the glass and saw the green outline of a restaurant. There were tables and chairs turned on their side but otherwise still usable. There was no sign of Droids or Buzzards.

  “Looks clear,” Dina said.

  He nodded and felt her take his left hand, turning him towards her and then taking his right. He didn’t protest.

  “Take off your goggles,” she said.

  She let go of his hands and they both slid the goggles off their faces, plunging them into absolute darkness. He was more aware of her body close to his, of the warmth that seemed to radiate from her.

  He felt her hands on his face and he leaned towards her, opening his lips to meet hers. For a moment, he could only wonder why he protested so hard, why he didn’t succumb to the desire to make her his. No one in the squad would question it and if they did, there was no one left to report the infraction to.

  The explosion made the ground shake and the glass displays to his right shattered.

  In a split-second they were no longer lovers, they were soldiers. They separated as if the kiss had never begun, put their goggles back on and pulled out their Blasters.

  He saw and heard nothing.

  “We need to get back to the others,” he said.

  “You go, I’ll stay here and see if I can find them,” she said.

  He hesitated to leave her alone. As if something might happen without him there to protect her. But that was exactly why it was a mistake to become involved; he was thinking of her as a lover, not a soldier. Brett nodded. “Be eyes not hands,” he said. “Don’t engage.”

  Dina nodded he took one last look at her green shades. Then he turned and ran back towards the escalators to let the rest of the troop know what was going down.

  He met them barrelling down the escalator towards him and they almost crashed. They had heard the explosion and jumped into action. It was a well-rehearsed routine.

  “Dina’s still down there,” Brett said. “Let’s go!”

  Sudden bursts of automatic weapon blasts punctuated their footsteps.

  “Are we all accounted for?” he called back.

  “Isaac and Emily took the back stairs,” Seth said.

  He cursed them for engaging the Machines, but he knew they wouldn’t have done so without good reason. He started running as they turned the corner and continued down the next set of escalators.

  The buzzing was almost unbearable by the time they reached the ground floor. Brett could see the ghostly shape of Buzzards in the distance. They moved slowly and scanned the area for organic matter, which they would vaporise before the Droids arrived.

  The makeup of the Machine army was difficult to comprehend, as were a lot of things about them. They were a devastating enemy but no one seemed to know what their motivations for fighting were. They had already wiped out most of humanity and they kept coming.

  They found Dina in the sports section, crouched behind a display stand.

  “Have you seen anything?” he said, ducking down beside her.

  “Not yet, I can hear them though.”

  It would have been impossible not to hear them. The buzzing, the clunking steps, the creaking wheels. They sounded close, but with no other sound, it was difficult to be sure.

  Brett stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Dina said.

  “To get a closer look. We need to find out where they are.”

  “Send someone else,” she said. Even with the mask obscuring half her face he could still see the fear in her expression.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Keep an eye on this lot.”

  He crept away from the sports section. The buzzing grew louder, until it seemed to fill the whole universe. He checked his Blaster for the dozenth time and then turned the corner.

  There were hundreds of Droids standing between him and the store exit. Their long mechanical bodies looked like skeletons with glowing red eyes. Above them the air was thick with Buzzards.

  Brett swore under his breath.

  He started to back away. If they couldn’t fight, then they would have to run. It wasn’t something he liked doing, but he didn’t see any other option.

  He saw Dina stand as he approached. After that things became difficult to keep track of.

  There was a deep, booming explosion.

  Everything became too bright for his night vision goggles to handle.

  He pulled them off his eyes.

  Everything was on fire.

  Brett heard buzzing and looked behind to see the drones drifting through the air like smoke. They were coming to kill him.

  He ran towards the door at the back of the store. He would have blasted his way through the glass and out into the street, if he hadn’t heard her calling him.

  “Brett?” she said. Her voice was weak.

  He stopped running but didn’t immediately go to her.

  “Brett are you there?”

  He couldn’t leave her. If she needed his help, if there was any way he could save her, then he would have to try.

  “Brett?” she said again, her voice hitting him somewhere around the heart.

  He turned back and trudged towards the sound of her voice. The Buzzards and the Droids got closer and closer.

  Dina was in a bad way. The explosion had reached the ceiling and a support beam had fallen across her. There was a pool of blood beneath her and her eyes seemed unable to focus when she looked at him.

  He took her hand. She tried to squeeze his back but she had the strength of a new-born foal.

  “You came back for me,” she said.

  Brett nodded and bit his lip to stop himself crying. He could see at once that there was no way to save her. If they were both lucky she wouldn’t take long to die. “Of course I did.”

  He touched her head and brushed a strand of hair off her brow. She tried to smile but there was no joy in it. “We need a holiday,” she said.

  “Sounds good. Where will we go?”

  “I always wanted to see Paris.”

  “You’ve never been?” he said.

  She shook her head. “Do you think the Eifel Tower is still there?”

  He told her that he was sure it was. “I’ll carry you to the top.”

  She coughed and it sounded like her lungs were collapsing. When she spoke again her voice had changed. “I’ll be carrying you old man.”

  He laughed.

  They lapsed into silence.

  The buzzing and stomping filled the space and he watched her face become still. For a moment, he thought she had gone.

  “You have to go,” she said.

  “Go?” he said, pretending that he couldn’t hear the Machines getting closer.

  “Yes, go. There’s nothing you can do for me.”

  “I’m not leaving you here Dina.”

  “Then you’re a fool. I’m already dead, you can save yourself. Don’t die for me Brett, it won’t help.”

  He
didn’t see how he could live with himself if he went. She was still alive, she was still talking, breathing, bleeding.

  “Please Brett,” she said. “I don’t want you to die for me.”

  “You can’t make me go,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “You have to.”

  She told him that she loved him, he told her that he loved her. She looked as if she expected him to go after that, but he remained by her side until the Droids began to appear.

  “Give me my Blaster,” she said.

  “What are you going to do?” Brett said.

  “I’m going to cover you,” she said.

  He handed her the Blaster. She took it and managed to get into a sitting position with her back against a fallen piece of ceiling. He saw where the blast had hit her; the body armour had peeled away down one side and the skin burned to nothing. He could see black char around her exposed rib cage.

  The mechanical red eyes of the first Droid scanned the area. Instinctively, Brett ducked.

  “You have to go,” she said. She sounded so weak and in so much pain. He wanted to comfort her. “Go Brett!”

  He looked at her for what he knew would be the last time. Their farewell was brief, but he would never forget the way she looked. Her face was set and determined, her brow furrowed, her lips pinched. She knew she was going to die and she was using her final breaths to save him.

  He ran through what remained of the sports section. He heard her start shooting and the Droids returned fire. Brett didn’t look back, he didn’t need to. He saw the door ahead of him and threw himself into the escape.

  Brett ran and ran. He ran until the department store was a mile behind him and then he kept running. There was protocol for what to do if you found yourself the only survivor of an entire squad. He ignored it.

  He ran through the streets and the Machines shot at him. He realised he could no longer fight. They had taken everything that was worth fighting for. Now all he had left was his own worthless life. He would have walked away from that too, if Dina hadn’t given it to him.

  There were days when he couldn’t do much more than survive. He slept wherever he happened to be, drank whatever he found and ate whatever he could get his hands on. There were days when even surviving felt like too much effort.

  Most days he walked, except when he didn’t. He saw other soldiers fighting Machines but he didn’t go to them. The idea of fighting again was alien to him.

  He arrived in London and spent time hiding in abandoned buildings. He stayed until the Machines attacked, or until they collapsed around him. Somehow he found his way to the underground. He thought he would live out whatever time he had left there, without ever fighting again.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE LIGHTS WERE STILL OFF WHEN HE WOKE up. He could hear other people around him, but had no idea what they were doing. Brett remained in the alcove and listened until he felt himself drifting back to sleep.

  He sat up. He needed food and water, once he had that he could sleep as much as he wanted, until then he needed to be alert.

  The fact that they were still there suggested that the Machines hadn’t been looking for them. If they had breached the underground at all. It might have been a false alarm, or a deliberate lie.

  He shook his head and stood up. The ceiling was lower here than in the station they had come from. He took a step forwards and almost collided with someone coming towards him. They muttered an apology and kept going.

  A woman was crying somewhere to his left and he guessed that meant the track was to his right. He took tentative steps but a growing sense that he was wasting his time was gnawing at him. If he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, how was he supposed to find food and water?

  He might die down there.

  It had been months since he’d been to the surface. He’d grown used to the claustrophobia that infused every moment of his life. He wasn’t afraid of tight spaces and low ceilings, but he seemed to be afraid of the dark.

  He shook his head and tried to clear the cobwebs; he was being ridiculous. There was no reason to give up because it was dark. If there was food and water out there, then he would find it.

  The woman continued to cry as he got further away. He kept going until he reached another wall and then started feeling around for a door.

  Somebody screamed.

  He turned in the direction of the noise and was almost blinded by the sudden appearance of lights. He put a hand over his eyes to shield them and then cursed himself for not thinking to bring a torch.

  People rushed past him towards the lights and the sobbing woman. He could hear voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  He watched them gather around the woman and found himself taking a step towards her as well. There were too many people for him to see what was going on. He guessed, from the sounds she was making, that something wasn’t right.

  Nobody paid him any attention. Some people were still sleeping along the wall. They pulled pillows over their heads to block out the noise.

  He saw Samuel and his clique in the middle of it all. They made snap decisions about what to be do and told people what to run and fetch. Brett knew that Samuel didn’t have a medical background, but that didn’t seem to be holding him back.

  If he was the sort of person to get involved, Brett thought, he could take charge. The Resistance trained everyone in first aid and he’d taken to it well. If Dina’s injuries had been anything less serious than missing the side of her body, he could have saved her.

  When he was closer Brett made out a middle-aged woman lying on the ground. Her skin was pale and sweat was plastering hair to her forehead. He didn’t need to examine her to know how sick she was.

  “She’s dying!” a man said, he was clutching the woman’s hand and looked a similar age, her husband or partner. “Somebody help her.”

  “She isn’t dying,” Samuel said.

  Brett wasn’t so sure. Whatever sickness the woman had looked bad.

  “Stand back and give us some space,” Samuel said.

  No one followed his instructions. If anything they got closer, crowding around to see what was happening.

  The woman groaned and clutched her stomach. There was no sign of distension, but now he saw red marks running up her arms as if she’d been scratching herself.

  “It’s okay,” Samuel said, taking her other hand. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  The woman screwed her eyes shut as her body shook with pain. She screamed through gritted teeth. Samuel flinched.

  Two people arrived with cloths and bottles of water. The crowd parted to let them through. Brett fell away, drifting into the darkness where he wouldn’t need to get involved.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help people. It was that when he helped, people they got hurt. They were all better off if he stayed away.

  Brett returned to his alcove. He listened to the woman until she calmed down. People started to go back to their beds and the lights went off.

  CHAPTER 6

  BRETT OPENED HIS EYES AND SAW SAMUEL STANDING above him. Brett wondered how long he had been standing there.

  “Can I help you with something?” Brett said. He rolled onto his side and stood up. He was half a foot taller than Samuel and much broader.

  Samuel looked up at him but said nothing.

  “Is something the matter?” Brett said. He wasn’t sure what was happening.

  “We need to talk,” Samuel said.

  “Sure,” Brett replied, rubbing the back of his neck and stretching. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Not here, you won’t want to be overheard.”

  That didn’t sound good. Brett nodded. “Lead the way old man.”

  Samuel turned and walked back across the station. Brett followed.

  Most of the people who they passed were either asleep or pretending to be. A few of them were talking. Brett couldn’t see
the sick woman and guessed that she had died. Or they had moved somewhere more quiet. He didn’t have any strong feelings either way.

  Samuel led him to a locked door at the other end of the platform. He knocked three times and it swung open.

  “In here,” Samuel said.

  Brett stepped into the room and Samuel closed the door behind them.

  The room had a desk, three chairs, a few shelves with mouldy paperwork on them and an ancient computer.

  “Take a seat,” Samuel said.

  Brett selected the least stained chair and sat down.

  Samuel manipulated his mechanical leg into position and sat down opposite him.

  “You heard that Melanie is sick?” Samuel said.

  “I heard,” Brett said.

  “She’s got an infection.”

  That explained the red marks on her arms. It didn’t explain what Brett was doing in the little office with a man who he didn’t even consider a friend.

  “We don’t have a doctor Brett, there’s no one here who knows how to treat her.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “But we can guess.”

  “Guess?” Brett said.

  “And if we’re guessing then it makes sense to edge on the side of caution, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose,” Brett said.

  Samuel’s smile was not reassuring. He looked like a lizard who had snapped a particularly tasty fly.

  “You don’t take part in the group much, do you Brett?”

  “It’s not compulsory.”

  “No, of course not. No one’s going to make anyone do anything they don’t want to. But sometimes it’s like you’re not even here.”

  “So?”

  Samuel shook his head. “It’s not important. I wanted you to know that we’re happy to help you with anything you need, as soon as you start helping us.”

  Brett shifted under the other man’s gaze.

  “We need to get antibiotics for Melanie,” Samuel said.

  Brett wasn’t sure that would do any good at this stage, she had been sick for a while.