Metal

by Thomas Hall

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Mary said. “They had an interesting relationship. When they were little, you couldn’t separate them. He was younger than her, of course, and he thought she was the greatest thing in the world. Then as they grew up, he started to realise that she was different. When he started bringing friends home, he realised that she was also an embarrassment.

  “They had some arguments,” she continued. “She didn’t understand. She couldn’t tell how angry he was.”

  “Frustrated,” Frank said to her. He turned to Brett. “He was only a kid himself. He didn’t understand and that doesn’t make it all right, but it makes it easier to forgive him. You know?”

  Brett nodded.

  “He was starting to come around,” Mary said. “Whenever he came home he asked about her. If she’d survived they would have made up. He still loved her.”

  Mary shook her head and Brett thought that was as much as he was going to find out about Richard. Then Frank finished it for her. “It was a seizure.” He shook his head. “She’d had them when she was a baby, but they were easy to treat because there were doctors then. After the Machines came...” he shrugged.

  “I’m sorry,” Brett said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Frank said.

  “No,” agreed Mary. “And it’s not Richard’s either, but it doesn’t stop him blaming himself.” She turned back to Brett. “That’s why he left us again, if you were wondering.”

  Brett said nothing.

  “Drink your coffee before it gets cold,” Mary said. She pushed her chair back and got up. “We’ve got work to do in the garden.”

  Mary and Frank got up and left. Brett couldn’t help but feel responsible. And if not responsible, then guilty. They had shared Richards story with him, but he hadn’t been able to repay it. He didn’t deserve to be the only one who knew about what had happened, but it wasn’t his place to tell anyone else.

  He sat at the table while the rest of his group slept. After a while he gave up on the coffee and went to see if he could join them.

  CHAPTER 15

  THERE WERE PEOPLE ON THE STREET, WATCHING THEM as they walked through. Brett kept his eyes on the road, still finding it difficult to believe they were safe. He couldn’t hear the Buzzards anymore, but didn’t believe they were gone.

  Two young children came running out of a building, laughing and shouting. They skidded to a stop when they looked up and saw the group walking past.

  “Keep going,” Sam said.

  Brett caught up with him so that they were walking side-by-side. “Did you know about this place?” he said.

  “No,” Sam said.

  “You could move everyone here,” Brett said.

  “I could,” Sam said.

  “Are you going to?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I said, are you going to?”

  “I heard you,” Sam said.

  “And?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you?”

  He shrugged.

  They kept moving.

  It took the better part of an hour to reach the outskirts of the slum. Brett began to wonder how far the area of protection extended. What specific region of space did the node cover? The buildings seemed less permanent. Which suggested the people living in them weren’t quite sure either.

  Beyond the final rickety building there seemed to be nothing except darkness. Without discussion, they slowed as they approached it. They stopped on what Brett guessed was the last piece of land protected by the stolen node.

  He looked at the others and they didn’t seem rested. He looked at Richard and tried not to feel differently, now that he knew about his sister.

  “What?” Richard said.

  Brett turned away.

  “Everyone ready?” Samuel said.

  No one replied.

  Brett wondered if any of them would stay if they had the choice. He didn’t think so. They were loyal to Samuel and wouldn’t think about the possibility unless he offered it to them.

  “Okay then,” Samuel said, nodding to himself. “Let’s do this.”

  He stepped over the line and the others followed. It was disappointing when nothing happened. They looked at one another and shrugged.

  Samuel sighed with relief and smiled. Then he started walking and the rest of them followed.

  They kept a much tighter group than they had done before. As if they could all sense that they held each other’s lives in their hands.

  “When we get back,” Brett said to Samuel, “I could teach them how to shoot.”

  Samuel shook his head. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I want to,” Brett said.

  “It’s fine.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “No thank you,” Samuel said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so,” Samuel said.

  “They need to learn how to shoot,” Brett said. “You’ve seen them, they’re awful.”

  “I don’t want them using weapons,” Samuel said.

  Brett frowned and they walked along in silence for a short distance.

  The rest of the group fell behind. The only thing Brett could hear was the irregular beat of their boots on the ground. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one who had learned something along the way.

  Samuel turned towards him. “Look Brett, I’m glad you want to help out. But we don’t need to know how to use these…” he held up the Blaster that he’d been carrying and shook it. “…these things. We’re not soldiers and we’re safe in the tunnels.”

  “We could fight them,” Brett said, unsure where his own blood lust had come from. He had thought that life was behind him. “Look at what we’ve done already. We could make a difference.”

  “We are making a difference,” Samuel said. “We’re looking after people who need help, people who can’t fend for themselves. It’s important work.”

  “But not as important as fighting the Machines?” Brett said.

  “More important,” Samuel said.

  He didn’t know what to say. It was not the response he had expected. “Didn’t you want to join the Resistance?” Brett said.

  Samuel shrugged. He knocked his metal leg with the end of his Blaster and it made a dead clanking sound. “This didn’t only keep me out of the war. It’s not always a disability...” he trailed off.

  He might never have thought this out before Brett realised. He was forcing him to put words to something he’d only ever felt.

  “It helped me realise that there’s more than fighting. If everyone who could was fighting, then who was to look after the ones who couldn’t?”

  “I never thought about it like that before,” Brett said. And he hadn’t. When he’d lost the will to fight he’d thought his life was over. That there was nothing left for him to do except hide in shame.

  “What we do is important,” Samuel continued. “We’re keeping people safe and alive. We’re guarding humanity.”

  Brett wondered how this revelation might effect his own life.

  Neither of them saw the flash of metal up ahead. The first they knew about it was when Lisa called out.

  “Take cover!”

  Brett had his Blaster in his hand before he knew what he was doing. He looked up the street but couldn’t see anything there.

  Samuel grabbed his arm and pulled him aside.

  The others caught up with them a moment later.

  “What was it?” Brett said.

  “Droid,” she said.

  “Just one?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “How far away?”

  “About twenty-metres, give or take.”

  Brett nodded, checked and re-checked his Blaster, then stepped away from the wall.

  “Where are you going?” Joanna said.

  “To check it out. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m coming too,” Richard said.

  Brett co
nsidered telling him to stay put, instead he shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  They stepped onto the street. Brett looked up the road, scanned for movement, but saw none. Lisa may have been mistaken, she was far from experienced in the field, but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.

  “This way,” he said and started to walk.

  Richard didn’t follow.

  Brett looked back and wondered whether they were going to argue about who was giving orders. “You can stay here if you want, no one’s forcing you to do anything.”

  Richard didn’t answer but, when Brett started to walk again, he followed.

  They walked past tightly packed buildings, kicking up dust and dirt. It was better not to know what, or who, he might be walking through.

  He couldn’t hear anything but that didn’t mean the Droid wasn’t there. The later models had been almost silent when he’d fought them. There might have been five or six generations of progress since then.

  “There!” Richard said.

  Brett turned and saw where Richard was pointing. He squinted and saw a flash of metal.

  He put a finger to his lips and then gestured for Richard to follow him.

  They kept a slow and steady pace and before long they reached the object.

  “It’s scrap,” Richard said, kicking the metal chest plate with the toe of his boot.

  “It’s not much,” Brett admitted.

  Brett heard movement and held out an arm, hoping that Richard understood that he needed to be quiet.

  “What is it?” Richard whispered.

  Brett didn’t answer. They needed to be as close to silent as possible.

  They waited to see if whatever was out there revealed itself. If they tried to go to it, then they would be at a disadvantage. There were no Buzzards in the sky, so there was a chance they could catch the Machine by surprise. A very small chance, but it was more than they’d have if they did something rash.

  The waiting seemed to go on forever.

  Brett heard the Blasters going off, back in the direction they’d come from.

  “Come on!” he said to Richard, no longer bothering to keep his voice down. When it seemed as if the other man wasn’t going to move, Brett grabbed his wrist and yanked him onwards. There was no time to waste convincing him.

  They ran through the dust and the debris, back towards the building where the others were hiding. At first he couldn’t see anything except the occasional flash of light from a Blaster.

  He let go of Richard’s arm when they were halfway to the building. With a glance, he checked the power on his Blaster and, out the corner of his eye, saw Richard doing the same thing.

  Some of the doors were still upright, but they weren’t much more than mush at this point. Brett lifted his leg and kicked one with the heel of his boot. He expected it to swing inwards, but, instead, it fell to the ground in a pile of moist wood.

  “Where are you?” Brett shouted, praying that he would get an answer.

  There was nothing for minutes, and then a tiny voice called out from a long way away. “We’re in the front room. Please, hurry.”

  Brett didn’t wait for Richard to catch up. He hurried through the kitchen and into the narrow corridor between the front and the back of the house. He could see the flashes of warfare lighting up the rooms and creating shadows on the ground. He could see the spindly arms and legs of a Droid, but it was too late to back out now.

  He raised his gun before the Droid came into view. It turned towards him but had nothing to add.

  “Is everyone okay?” Brett said.

  “Fine,” Samuel said. “Are you going to help us or not?”

  Brett didn’t like the sound of Samuel’s voice. Instead of worrying about it, he did the only thing he could. He charged at the Droid and hoped to catch it off guard.

  He slammed his shoulder into the Machine and in, the same instant, realised what a terrible idea it had been. The Droid looked as if it weighed next to nothing, but it felt like it weighed a ton. Something cracked and Brett wasn’t sure whether it was him or it.

  The Droid was at least knocked off balance. It spun as he Brett flew past it. As he started to fall he glanced up and saw that it was the same model as the individual that had attacked them before. It even had the same black char effect around its head which, from a distance, looked like a beard. It was a coincidence, he thought, it had to be a coincidence.

  Brett hit the floor and rolled into a wall. He managed to squeeze off a couple more shots from his Blaster and the Droid recoiled..

  Richard joined in a moment later and the Droid jerked back and forth as if it was dancing.

  “Get out here!” Brett shouted, not taking his eyes off the Machine, to see which of them would do so.

  A third Blaster joined and then a fourth. At such a close range the Droid could do nothing except continue its herky-jerky dance. Its insides melted and soon it was nothing more than a chunk of useless metal.

  Smoke began to fill the corridor. Brett glanced at the readout on his gun and saw that he had plenty of energy left.

  He stopped shooting.

  After a moment the others did the same. The Machine stood in front of them for a moment, swaying back and forth as smoke billowed from its guts. Then its knees buckled and it fell face first onto the ground.

  No one spoke.

  Brett looked at the Droid and wished that Dina was there. She would have been able to examine it and tell him whether it was a new model, or a corruption of an old one. Were they facing a new kind of threat, solo hunting Droids, or had they destroyed the only one of its kind?

  “We need to go,” Richard said.

  He didn’t move.

  “Brett,” Joanna said and he finally looked over. “There’s more of them, we need to go.”

  He snapped back to reality. There would be time to consider what the Droid meant later, now it was only important to get everyone to safety.

  CHAPTER 16

  BRETT STOOD AT THE WINDOW AND LOOKED OUT. It was still dark but there was enough light from the full moon for him to see what they were up against.

  Three Droids stood in the road outside the building. They weren’t the same model as the one they had destroyed, but they had similar customisations. One had spikes, which looked like horns, welded to its bald head. Another had scored crude symbols into its chest plate and coloured them black so it looked like a tattoo. The third was built from a dozen different models and turned into a six-limbed freak.

  He stepped away from the window and found the others looking at him.

  “We’ll go out the back,” he said.

  They turned and started to move.

  “Quietly,” he added.

  He followed at the back of the group, Samuel at the front. Brett wanted to go back to the window and study the Droids in more detail, but he knew that would be a mistake. Better to get out of there, better to stay alive.

  They walked through the break room and found a fire escape that led to a concrete garden. The few plants around the perimeter had died long ago. Now there was nothing on the ground except ash and cigarette butts.

  At the back of the garden there was a gate and he expected to find it locked, but they were not the first ones to come this way. The Chubb lock lay broken on the ground, the gate squeaked as he pushed it.

  He led them into a dark alleyway. They hurried to put distance between themselves and the building.

  They didn’t hear it when the Droids broke in. None of them spoke. Brett saw each of them turn back and burn their eyes on the bright fire that scorched the night sky.

  “Quickly,” he urged.

  At the end of the alleyway the reached a crossroads. There were walls on either side of them, but they hadn’t done a good job of protecting the buildings beyond.

  “Where are we going?” Joanna said. She was out of breath, but Brett didn’t have the strength to carry her this time.

  “Away from here,” he said. Although he knew that they couldn’
t get far enough to escape the Machines. His best hope was that they would be able to lose them and return to the tunnels without leading the Droids there.

  Even that seemed like a long shot.

  They turned left and right and ran as fast as they could. From time to time, Brett looked back but he couldn’t see the Droids. Were there corrupted Drones as well? He wondered, and if so, how much danger might they pose?

  “We need to stop,” Samuel gasped.

  “What is it?” Brett said without slowing down.

  “Sun’s rising,” Samuel said. “We need to find somewhere to stop.”

  Brett nodded.

  They passed a few buildings which still had roofs. They kept going. Every few metres he heard another person complaining about not being able to keep going.

  Without discussing it, they slowed to a walk. None of them spoke, each dealing with their own dread and exhaustion.

  This part of the city was in ruins. Amongst the rubble he saw pieces of metal and robotic limbs. At that least meant the people here hadn’t gone down without a fight.

  He guessed it was midday by the time they found somewhere to stop.

  The building was unremarkable. They had reached it by following two sets of train tracks for more than a mile. Due to his exhaustion, it had taken him longer than it should have done to realise where they were.

  They stopped outside but none of them showed any desire to stay there for long. Finally, they were somewhere familiar, a place that wasn’t home, but was close to it. Tracks meant safety and a chance to get some rest.

  “I’ll check it out,” Brett said.

  “It’s fine,” Samuel said. He glared at Brett as if trying to pass a secret message. “I’ll go.”

  Brett nodded and fell back to wait with the others.

  They sat on the curb and watched Samuel go in.

  None of them spoke.

  Joanna leaned her head-on Victoria’s shoulder. Richard started to pace.

  He didn’t know how much time passed. The next thing he was aware of was Samuel standing at the door, waving them in.

  They groaned as they got up and walked to the door, each of them grateful that they would finally have a chance to rest.

  CHAPTER 17