by Drew Hayes
With little other choice, she headed off in the direction no one else had, which she estimated to be south based on the sun’s position overhead. Night would be coming within the next few hours, so she’d need a place to hole up and maybe some supplies to tide her over. Tori’s form flickered as her flesh turned to flames, and soon she was racing across the landscape. Fire-form was faster and weighed less, not to mention kept her less vulnerable, so for the moment, it was her best option to explore with. Once night fell and she’d stick out like a burning beacon, Tori would have to switch to other tactics.
She just hoped she’d come up with some by the time the sun dipped below the horizon.
* * *
“Not the strongest of starts,” Johnny noted. He, Thuggernaut, Xelas, and Gork were holed up in Xelas’s quarters, watching the apprentices scatter to the four points of the compass toward dangerous robotic adversaries. Xelas had a screen that comprised an entire wall of her living room, one that could show a single picture or multiple feeds, making it the perfect place to monitor the various cameras showing the rookies as they trudged through the desert.
“I thought Thuggernaut’s girl was going to get wise and join up for a minute there,” Xelas said. “Would have given those two a big damn advantage right off the bat.”
“Sadly, Beverly is not yet confident in either her control or in another’s ability to withstand her power,” Thuggernaut said. “Against Tori, I doubt she could do much, but until she gains confidence, she’ll keep separating herself and trying to work alone.”
“She will get there in time, as we all did.” Gork patted Thuggernaut with a wide, stony hand, and smiled at him in a way that made people run in terror. He knew the showing of all her teeth was meant as a sign of empathy, however, and returned her kindness with a grin of his own.
“She has a strong heart and a good mind. Nearly trampling her family on the night she changed left a deep scar, but I believe she can work past it as her experience grows. Truthfully, I’m hopeful that losing to some of Doctor Mechaniacal’s creations will show Beverly that her power does have limits.”
“Personally, I’m hoping at least two of them get knocked out,” Johnny said. “Almost no one bet on complete drops, which means I’ll make a tidy sum if they go down.”
“You are all heart,” Xelas said.
“So says the Tin Woman. Can you really blame me for looking on the bright side, though? As it stands, those kids might make it through some coppers, perhaps even a silver or two, but the minute the golds come into play, they’re all toast. At least in my perspective, someone is making a little money off of it.”
“Don’t count your coins yet, Johnny,” Gork cautioned. “This is an interesting crop. I would be careful about assuming any outcomes until they actually happen.”
Johnny reached over to the table and grabbed a handful of popcorn from a bowl. “Look, no one is hoping for a turnaround more than me. The better a show they put on, the more bets I’ll get for the next event. I hope they all make it to the end, or at least go down fighting a platinum core.”
Xelas let out a trilling, unpleasant sound. “A platinum? We want them to learn, not die.”
With a shrug, Johnny downed his fistful of popcorn in a single bite. “Guess they’d better learn quick, then.”
* * *
A high-pitched whine filled the air as Tori’s flames melted the hovering robot’s rear rotors and singed its already-exposed circuitry. It managed to squeeze off a few more bolts of concentrated electricity, spraying the rocks to Tori’s north with small, crackling white blasts before it finally gave out and crashed to the ground.
For good measure, Tori blasted the thing with a torrent of flame until it was little more than a melted hunk of scrap. Only then did she walk over and dig into the exposed shell, working her fingers around until she produced a small orb roughly twice the size of a marble.
“More copper.” She hadn’t expected anything different—after all, this was the third of the drones Tori had taken down, and the other two had also carried copper cores in them. As far as opponents went, they were quick and annoying, but not much of a threat to someone who could render themselves functionally intangible. There was some amount of danger—the electricity made her feel weird when it shot through her, and she assumed enough of it would cause serious problems—but overall, she could easily survive the weekend if all she had to do was pick off copper enemies.
Moving carefully, Tori headed back into the small alcove she’d found along a cliff’s edge. It wasn’t great cover, but it did come with the oh-so-homey touch of having a cache of supplies hidden inside. It had contained meal replacement bars and bottles of water, which Tori recognized for the treasures they were immediately. There was also a scroll sealed with some strange symbol she couldn’t recognize. After carefully trying to break the wax and open it, Tori decided to let the scroll be when it resisted. Ivan hadn’t taught her much about magic, but one of his key lessons was not to mess with it unless she knew what she was doing. Given the context clues around the scroll, it was an aid clearly not meant for her, so she left it in the bottom of the metal box that held her discovered supplies.
With the patrolling robot gone, she turned her attention to the project it had stolen her away from: digging through the weak spots in the sand to deepen her alcove. One thing living as a criminal had imparted to Tori was the importance of having a home base. She would need somewhere to stash her supplies, to hide out if things got bad, and to recover if she became injured. It would take a lot of effort, but she estimated it would be possible to build up enough dirt to cover her entrance and get some much needed rest. There were two more days of this to go, and Tori assumed the first afternoon had only been a warm-up.
Idly, she wondered how the others were doing. Warren was probably set; the versatility of his power almost certainly lent itself to creating a shelter. She wasn’t sure he’d fare as well on offense; though, without seeing all he could do, there was no way to tell. Lance was a toss-up, as she wasn’t exactly sure how his power worked. With enough insects, Tori supposed he might surround himself in a giant swarm that could serve as a shield. Beverly was the one that Tori most worried about. That dragon-form of hers might be tough enough to fight Thuggernaut and therefore resilient enough to shrug off tiny blasts from the copper drone bots, but there was no way it would lend itself to a restful night of sleep.
“Idiots should have listened to me,” Tori grumbled as her hands tore deeper into the sandy dirt pressed against the cliff. “Warren could have given us shelter, Lance’s bugs could have been an early warning system, and then Beverly and I could have handled anything that broke through.” It was an optimistic dream, both in terms of what people could do and in assessing their willingness to work together. Still, it was a nice image to cling to as her hands shoveled the dirt.
Deep down, Tori knew that her worries were also based in fear. What if she was the only one having any trouble with this stuff? What if each of the others had torn apart heaps of robots and built a shelter from their scraps? She pictured them sitting on thrones of hidden caches. The realist in her knew this was unlikely, but without a firm grasp of what each of them could do, it was impossible to rule anything out. Tori might not have cared about being the only apprentice in the guild or even the expectations set on her because Ivan was her teacher. What she did care about was the idea of losing, of slipping into last place, of failing.
The dirt around her wavered. For an instant she was back in that hospital room, the endless beeping of the monitors like a drill boring through her skull. Both of them were lying there, staring at her with what little willpower over their bodies they still possessed. Then the vision was gone, and Tori realized she’d accidently heated up her alcove by twenty degrees.
She stepped out into the air. The evening was a cool contrast from the now scorching hideout, even if it did put her at higher risk of being seen by a patrolling bot. She could use a break from being alone with her t
houghts, and violence didn’t seem like such a bad way to clear her head. Besides, sooner or later she would have to go on the offensive. The world was a hard place; Tori Rivas knew she had to rise through it by her own force of will. She’d learned that lesson long before she was assigned to learn under Ivan.
Her eyes wandered to the starry sky, a gorgeous tapestry of twinkling lights perfectly visible through the clear air. No city lights to obscure the view. Tori enjoyed the stars; not as much as when she was a child, but they still filled her with a sense of wonder to look up at them and sense her small place in the cosmos.
Small for the moment, anyway. Tori was nothing if not ambitious. She turned away from the comfort of the night sky and plunged back into the alcove, determined to fortify her defense as quickly as possible. Once her home base was secure, she could turn her attention to the next step in her plan.
Come sunrise, Tori was going hunting.
Chapter 20
Ivan tapped his finger against the center of the mouse, not hard enough to click anything, just loud enough to cause an annoying rattle of plastic. He was on his laptop in the kitchen while his children still slumbered upstairs. If Wade ever found a way to convert teenage sleeping abilities into an energy source, he’d be able to power North America for centuries with just this generation. Glancing at the clock, Ivan decided to give them another half hour before forcibly dragging them into consciousness.
The news items on his feed scrolled by, headlines that Ivan looked at without seeing. His own sleep the prior night had been restless, and as the morning sun streamed through his blinds, there was no denying the cause: Tori. He was worried about his apprentice. Guild training wasn’t often intentionally deadly, but accidents had been known to happen. Wade liked to test people thoroughly, to see how they reacted in the most pressure-filled situations. True, it was a good way to see how well people kept their heads when the world was burning down around them, but it carried the sincere risk of them being caught up in the flames.
Shutting his laptop firmly, Ivan got up from the table and went to his fridge to pull out some eggs and bacon. Cooking would take his mind off Tori and would hopefully help wake up his children. It wasn’t as though he needed to worry about her, really. Tori was smart, strong, and had a solid ability, even if it was one she seemed dead set on letting stagnate. Pride aside, so long as she used her head, she could avoid whatever big threats Wade had put into play. Assuming she didn’t get stubborn and try to pull out a win for no reason, of course.
The pan sizzled as Ivan dropped the first few eggs into its burning embrace. He was trying to make himself not worry about Tori by working from the assumption that she wouldn’t act prideful or stubborn… this was, to put it mildly, completely ridiculous.
Turning the day’s schedule over in his head, Ivan remembered that Beth was going to the pool with her friend. Rick would certainly end up walking aimlessly around the mall. There might be time to slip over to the base and check on his apprentice. Just the thought made Ivan’s tension ease. He would pop over, reassure himself that his apprentice was fine, and then enjoy the rest of his weekend unconcerned.
Mind made up, Ivan pulled the bacon from its package and laid it carefully in a pan before sending it to roast in the oven.
* * *
Tori was thankful she had heat-based powers as the morning sun bore down on her. The others were probably sweltering by this point, unless they had an ability to block out the endless rays. An image of Lance with a cloud of flies acting as a living umbrella popped into Tori’s head and she choked back a snort. The copper cores in her pocket were already making enough noise as it was; she didn’t need to draw any more robots before she was ready.
Her morning’s hunt had gone well, netting four more cores to add to her collection. She’d been keeping them on her person, which was a pain given how they would fall away during her phase shifts, but she wasn’t quite ready to drop off her winnings at the alcove she’d renovated into a near-proper cave. After dispatching so many copper-cored robots, Tori’s confidence was beginning to grow. She wasn’t certain she was ready to take on a silver yet, but she’d like to at least find one. Research was as much a part of hunting as actual engagement.
A loud explosion from one of the nearby mesas sent Tori spinning into a crouch, a fireball conjured in each hand as she readied for attack. When none immediately came, her posture relaxed. She stared in the direction of the explosion, near the top of the mesa. Someone else must be fighting, and she’d never heard one of the copper-cored drones make a noise like that. Tori surveyed her surroundings quickly, wondering if there was a way she might be able to scale the cliff face quickly enough to catch the show. It was only about thirty feet high, but she wasn’t exactly a practiced climber.
Before she could figure out if it was worth the risk, a big, scaly green figure came into view near the mesa’s edge. It didn’t look like any dragon Tori had ever seen, but by process of elimination, that was all it could be. The thing certainly seemed built for damage: sharp claws, powerful limbs, and a hide armored with hundreds of scales. Tori found herself thankful she didn’t actually have to fight Beverly to win the contest.
As quickly as the thought entered her brain, Tori saw the dragon jerked backward—flung through the air, in fact—toward the center of the mesa, out of Tori’s line of sight. Even without the somehow panicked expression on Beverly’s now snout-wearing face, Tori could have put the clues together.
Her fellow apprentice was getting her green ass kicked. Badly, from the sounds of the scuffle that reached Tori’s ears. It was very, very tempting to turn around and pretend she hadn’t seen anything out of sorts, but Tori immediately dismissed the idea. Aside from the facts—that Beverly had almost definitely seen her and that almost every guild member she’d met had warned her to avoid grudges— Tori just honestly didn’t want to leave the woman in harm’s way. This place was dangerous, and it just as easily could be her in over her head if she went the wrong way. She’d tried telling them there was merit in working together; now it was time to try showing.
All of which was a good thought, but as Tori pulled out her copper cores and stashed them under a nearby rock, she realized her initial hurdle had yet to be dealt with: how the hell was she going to get up the cliff in time? She could practically hear Ivan’s voice, telling her over and over again that exploring her power would pay endless dividends when she found herself in tough situations.
“Come on, there’s a way up there,” she muttered, staring at the sheer rock face as her physical eyes vanished in a burning wave that cascaded across her body. In fire-form, she had less mass, so it was possible she could take the cliff in a series of jumps. The trouble was that she also lost almost all the strength she’d need to launch herself. Aside from burning and rolling across, Tori had limited capacity to interact with physical objects. Ivan would have told her to find a new way to go at the problem, just as he’d told her to try new tactics when attacking him. He wasn’t even here and he was nagging her, which made it all the worse. Tori would have blasted his face with a fire beam if he’d actually shown up at that moment.
In fire-form, Tori could not blink, but she gave it her best shot as a rogue idea entered her head. It would be risky, no question about that, and her control would be imprecise at best. Still, there was no reason it couldn’t work, as long as she kept her focus. Besides, at this point a maybe was better than nothing.
Leaning forward, Tori pointed both of her arms toward the ground and began to blast the sand with twin streams of steady fire. As the dirt heated up below her, Tori focused on tightening the streams, increasing the heat while decreasing the surface area of each beam. They grew smaller and fiercer until at last Tori felt her flame feet lift up slowly from the ground. Tilting her arms slightly, she angled her rise so that it put her on course with the looming cliff where the sounds of battle still filled the air.
It wasn’t the fastest way to fly, but Tori still felt exhilarated as she rose
higher into the air. Before, her concern had been with keeping a low profile, not letting people know what she could do. Never in her life would she have imagined soaring through Ridge City, let alone actually tried it. Yet now she was lifting off the ground, moving through the sky on no power but her own. It was thrilling, scary, and firmly confirmed what Tori had hitherto been wavering on: her meta-suit would definitely have flight capabilities.
As she crested the top of the mesa, Tori finally saw the conflict she’d been listening to for the last several minutes. Beverly was lumbering about, moving as fast as her sizable body would allow while a giant silver orb on four thick legs tracked her every step. Metal tendrils snaked out from its right side, whipping at her thick hide and trying to wind themselves around her limbs. Beverly leapt back, clawing and snapping as they came near, then tried to turn the tables by charging her attacker. The orb’s left side opened up, a whole section swiveling freely, connected by a single large arm. Though Tori couldn’t see exactly what happened, she did notice the air between Beverly and the robot ripple for the span of several seconds. Beverly crashed to the ground, aborting her charge and letting out a roar of pain. She backpedaled quickly as the metal tendrils tried to capitalize on her injury.
“Fuck me,” she muttered. “Sonic attacks on one side, big metal whips on the other.” It was a good system, perfect in both a melee or ranged context while also dealing with problematic people like Tori. She wasn’t sure how a concentrated blast of sound would affect her fire-form, but she had a hunch it wouldn’t be pleasant. On the other hand, judging by the gashes Beverly left in the robot’s tendrils when they came near enough to strike, she’d probably tear it apart if she could get close enough.