Archon of the Covenant

by Hanrahan, David

  The sentinel looked at every angle, every contour of the terraced crater. Its environment assay read the shifting climate pattern - the low thunderhead was still moving north from Mexico, an opal universe rolling into the desert lit by ribbon lightning as it grew closer. The sentinel audited its armament and supply stores and gauged every scenario it could conjure. There was no way out for both of them. The sentinel lit its LED lamp and illuminated the lower reaches of the pit. The light ignited the eyes of the revins as they ascended the crumbling walls just below. A bioluminescent sea, circling the eroding shoals. The sentinel panned right and saw the group stomping up the wrecked row of pit roads to their right. Their eyes glowed as the light moved on them and the group below fell into darkness – the sounds of their pained breaths mixed with the slog of their limbs as they dug into the dirt and pulled at roots to lift themselves up. The sentinel deactivated the light, backed up close to the mouth of the mineshaft, and waited for them in silence. The stars came out in the clear sky overhead - Taurus and Orion shone down on the whispering floor. The crescent moon rose unblinking into Arcadia – a half-open eye, apathetic and weary. The sound of breathing grew louder, like the sound of a locomotive as its pistons gasped out of idle. The railgun began to whir like a cicada.

  The sentinel saw the first revin reach its hand above the ridge just in front of its forward wheel. It pulled its chest up level to the cliff and looked upon the sentinel – its exhausted demeanor turned to glee as it gazed upon the machine for the first time. DDC39 raised its railgun and shot it through the left eye – it shook amidst a spray of claret, braced still in a grasped repose on the ridge, then fell backwards into the darkness, a smile still beaming into the sky as it dropped.

  The revins came at the sentinel in waves. They climbed up in groups from beneath the ridge, and DDC39 would hit them in the skull with one, well-placed shot. They would come from the right and, when their outline loomed in the darkness beside the sentinel, a pop burst out – their atrophied craniums emptying out from the nape where the uranium shell exited. They were confused and frightened in the darkness – a pile of bodies beginning to crowd around the ridge. They’d slip on the bloody limbs and, as they got upright, found themselves falling back again, unable to get back up. They’d see themselves from just above as the blood rushed out of their body. They’d suddenly be looking down upon the carnage from overhead. Fathers, brothers, sisters, grandfathers – they kept rushing forward into perdition.

  The sentinel’s uranium shells were dwindling. 45, 40, 30, 20, 15. The assault took on a paroxysmal state. The revins at the bottom of the ridge were diminishing in numbers but seething in outrage at the sight of the others falling to their deaths from the heights above. The revins to the right were pushing at each other to edge forward while a polyandrium materialized before them. They surged and the growing pile of bodies toppled over, spilling down the crumbling embankment. The sentinel came back into view to the group at the right. The last shells of the railgun were expended in quick succession. The gun barrel twisted furiously from left to right as it locked on to each revin at its perimeter. Like the last kernels popping in a simmering pan of oil, a series of skulls exploded in the darkness and the scene grew suddenly quiet as the sentinel fired its last shot. Eight men fell where they stood at the eroding ridge. The others paused momentarily as if they might, just maybe, retreat. The only sound was a steady trickle of blood and spinal fluid washing down the gravel and into the swirling silt pond below, spilling past the feet of the last standing revins at the bottom.

  Someone shouted a pained, spasmodic cry. The small panel at the center of the sentinel’s trident frame flipped open and the banshee disk began to hum as it charged up. They came up in one final group, together – the stragglers at the bottom joined before the sentinel with the fury of the pack at the right. The sentinel released the scream of the LRAD system in its core, panning from left to right at the shapeless mass falling towards it. They were paralyzed, briefly, but set upon the sentinel nonetheless, fighting through the pain searing through their bones. They crashed into the base of the machine, tackling it into the dust.

  The girl heard the eruption of the LRAD and sprinted forward in the darkness of the cave. She shouted out towards the mine opening and the sentinel yelled back:

  “Becca, don’t come out here!”

  She tripped over some loose beam in the ground, skinning her hands on the bedrock. The mouth of the cave was coming into view, a dull blue swirling in the void and the metallic smell of blood choking the air around her. She got back up, steadying herself in the cave and peered out, unable to see what was unfolding. Outside, one of the revins reached down and, with one anguished jolt, ripped the banshee disk out of the sentinel’s frame.

  DDC39 deactivated all of its secondary systems. It was being upended. They were pulling at its optical array, ripping the railgun off its servo rotor, and tearing at the polyurethane tires. A faint charge flickered around the trident frame, lapping at the hands wrapped around it. They tore at the sentinel furiously – its assembly began to rupture and the panels around its chassis bent and pulled off, exposing the bundle of wires and valves underneath. A single tesla arc cracked at the air and then several rippled through the squirming, smeared crowd. They abruptly seized, eyes rolling back in their heads, hands white-knuckled, teeth shattering in their jaws. The current flashed once and disappeared. Hair singed and muscles tensed. The revins fell backwards from the shock and crumpled around the sentinel, which crashed to its side at the mouth of the breach. The mineshaft glowed momentarily from the flickering current then fell dark again. The expanse of the manufactured canyon went quiet. A rush of air blew north across the crown, rattling the jojoba sprouting out of the pit walls, then swirled around the caldera before gusting off into the dark. The smell of creosote filled the air and the wind cooled – a front moving in ahead of the thunderhead rolling north. Becca felt the gust of air rush into the cave and sprinted out to meet the portending calm. As she ran, tears were rolling down her cheek. She emerged from the mouth of the tunnel into the dusk and swirling fetor. She froze, turning white, at the sight of the flesh tide of the dead. The mound of carcasses amassed beside her undulated in the black, emptying into the dirt, limbs shifting beneath them. One lifeless body, with its cranium obliterated, slithered off the ridge and fell, limbs flailing like a ragdoll, tumbling down the pit wall. The girl teetered backwards in shock and then saw it - the sentinel, turned on its side, wrecked. She gripped her hands together and pleaded:

  “No, no, no. Please.”

  She planted herself in the black grime next to the machine and peered into its exposed panels -- a tangle of wires protruding from the casing. The pile of electrocuted revins loomed over her as she wedged herself in between the limbs jutting inwards from the brute cairn. The lifeless hands and blank eyes reached into oblivion. An ossuary to encephalopathy, erected amongst the oxidized currency of the old world. Becca felt the isolation of the world like the ground falling out beneath her. She wiped a blood smear away from the sentinel’s carriage. Its optical array was torn away, railgun ripped from the mount, front tire shorn off, and its frame was badly battered. DDC39 was destroyed. A faint, crackling voice emanated from its sub-frame speaker:

  “Becca, can you push me upright?”

  “I can.”

  Becca dug her hands deep in the filth beneath the sentinel’s sunken skeleton, grasping at its underside. She took hold of the frayed wires and bent panels sunk in the shit, her arms tensing, then pushed her knees in the dirt and hoisted the heavy, still frame of the sentinel until it was vertical, its unsheathed front wheel pinned in the dust. The heavy truss of the sentinel’s tri-axel shook as it hit the floor, swaying softly from left to right. It was a mess. It could no longer see Becca – its optical array lying in a heap to the side. The girl stifled her sobs as she looked over the broken body of her only friend. She reached her hand out to a bent panel jutting out from its frame then recoiled:

  “
We should get going.”

  “Becca.”

  The sentinels voice cracked and trailed off – its battery charge near empty. They sat there, unmoving, the girl unsure what to do and the sentinel unable to do anything. The pile of bodies slithered beside them – the weight of the sodden carcasses shifting as they bled out from the skulls. The valley of the pit mine breathed softly – the oncoming front blowing the stench of shit and blood to the north. Becca looked around despondently, desperate for some way for them to go on together. She proclaimed:

  “I could push you out of here!”

  “No Becca, that won’t work.”

  As they talked, the pile of bodies to the left collapsed, spilling over the ridge – the lifeless hulks tumbling down the pit wall. The broken bastion of the necropolis. The girl watched the plunge of bodies then turned back to the sentinel. As she faced the machine, a revin stood up from where it had been buried beneath the others, wobbling in the darkness, planting its feet atop the limbs of the few dead that remained on the bench road behind the girl. The face of this man was awash in blood – a gaping hole in its forehead, a tangle of tissue spilled forth from the wound. It looked upon the girl and the machine and cocked its head to the side, listening, its face contorted, eyes wide open. It stumbled forward, reaching its hands out to the girl. She heard the slogging footsteps behind her and jumped to the side, turning about to face the creature trudging towards her. It took a pained gasp of air, a clump of blood and viscera expelled from its mouth. The girl took a step backwards, terrified, and tripped over the leg of a suppurating corpse.

  The revin ambled forward in the dark, the black outline of the defiler shrouding the moonlight behind it - a rasping, heavy breath gurgling out of its maw. The girl shuffled backwards towards the pit wall, crawling back over the pallid bodies. The sentinel sat motionless, unable to help, and unaware of what was transpiring beside it. Becca lifted her fists in silence – a sudden, defiant aphonia. The revins bloodied face was invisible now save for its wide eyes beaming down on the girl, two icebergs encroaching in the sea. It reached its hand down to the girl’s leg.

  As its hand inched downwards, the revins pained wheezing was drowned out by a furious growl encroaching from just behind. The revin stopped, looking back. The Mexican Wolf, mane tensed up on its back, was prowling towards the revin. The wolf lunged - a furious bolt of fur and teeth. The girl shot upright, gripped by the violence unfolding before her. The revin reached out to defend itself and the wolf clamped down hard on its wrist, thrashing its head from side to side, ripping at the flesh of the revin. The naked, slathered creature didn’t flinch at the skin being ripped from its arm. It calmly knelt down with the force of the wolf’s mauling and, with its other arm, reached out and dug a hand deep into the soft underside of the wolf’s neck. The wolf dug deeper as the revins hands closed around it. There was a snap – the wolf’s atlas cracked in two, its spine shattered beneath the clenched fist of the revin. The wolf’s jaw released and its body fell lifeless in the grime beneath the hands of the monster. Becca shouted out a curse - for all these tormentors to die - and the revin turned back towards her, face full of mirth, its hand still dug deep into the limp mane of the wolf.

  As it got back up, there was a flash from behind the revin, beneath the ridgeline. A piece of the revin’s shoulder blew off – it looked down at its mangled clavicle, confused. And then there was a rapid series of flashes - a silent supernova pulsating from the depths. Its abdomen, then hip, arm, chest and, finally, its head – all erupted in succession, a spray of blood and marrow exploding into the night air. Its disembodied torso toppled over in the dirt. The girl, sweatshirt covered in claret, froze in shock. The prismatic face of the aroton emerged from the edge of the ridge. It climbed up effortlessly, standing over the mangled revin, then looked down upon the wolf solemnly. It held the smoking pulse rifle at its waist, strap around its shoulder, and gripped the longrifle with the other hand. Its rubberized shell was pocked with scrapes, bite marks, and deep gouges. The soft, pulsating lights beneath its dirty hull went dark. It didn’t acknowledge the girl. It stood there, peering down at the body of the wolf, its soft fur blowing in the starlight, and quietly mulled aloud:

  “It appears as though I’m free. I am free.”

  The girl got back up and ran over to sentinel, which called out to Becca in its failing, cracked vocoder:

  “Becca, what’s happening?”

  “The other one is here. What do we do?”

  “I need you to push me back into the tunnel.”

  The girl didn’t understand. She howled in protest but the sentinel was insistent:

  “Please, Becca. We don’t have much time.”

  Reluctantly, she pressed her hands against the front of its trident frame and leaned in, pushing the sentinel backwards. It turned its rear wheels into the opening of the fissure, its front wheel scraping a shrill squeal on the gravel underneath. The aroton, repeating its epiphany of freedom, faded in the backdrop as they submerged into the darkness of the mineshaft. Finally, they came to the end of the cave and the girl stopped, the sentinel’s rear wheels flush against the end of the tunnel. She plopped down on her knees in resignation, exhausted. The cracked LED light on the sentinel’s frame glowed dimly in the narrow passage, casting a soft radiance on the girl’s face. She was without hope. Her shoulders slouched into her chest. She stared into the sandstone cave wall, streaks of copper running alongside. A rusted pickaxe was propped up against the wall. Dust swirled in the illumination.

  “Becca, you have to go on alone.”

  “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

  “They’ll be back soon. You have to go.”

  “I don’t see the point of running. Let them get me. I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Becca, there is a place I was supposed to take you. But I can’t go on. There is some purpose for you out there. It’s a spot not far from here. We got so close. If you keep going, you can get there. It’s out there, just southeast of here.”

  “I can’t do it. It’s too dark.”

  “You’ll follow the stars. There is a bright star – the brightest one in the sky. It’s called the Dog Star. When you get out of the mine and look up, to your right, you’ll see it twinkling. Climb up the slope, then keep running. It will take you till midnight. Don’t stop. When you get close to where you need to go, you’ll see a green flash. It’s a small device that I launched into the air right before I found you. I didn’t think I’d find you, Becca. But I did, and we made it so far. It’s not over yet. You can make it.”

  “This place you’re sending me to – what is it?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “Is it bad?”

  The sentinel paused. A small panel clicked open from the rear of its base, just before the bent rumble seat.

  “I don’t think I’m bad – and it was my mission. So it has to be good.”

  Becca got up, wiping a tear from her cheek. She dusted off her knees, a plume rising off her grimy pants and sweatshirt amidst the electroluminescence. The sentinel’s shadow hand unfurled, beckoning her closer. She inched forward and the sentinel’s LED light started to flicker.

  “Drink.”

  She cupped her hands behind the small nozzle that popped out of the trident frame. The water flowed into her hands and she drank. She wiped her hands against the front of her sweatshirt.

  “I have something for you, Becca?”

  She shrugged and the sentinel reached back into the open panel at its base and retrieved the dusty book it had found in the High Jinks Ranch, handing it to the girl. She reached out, clutching at the cheerful cover – a faint smile cracking amidst her sadness as she read the title, “Oh The Places You’ll Go,” aloud to herself. The sentinel’s voice cracked in the dark:

  “Today is your day. You’re off to great places. You’re off and away. Now, you have to go. Run Becca.”

  She turned, about to sprint out of the cave, before looking back at the senti
nel. Its LED lamp went dark, and the mineshaft was awash in pitch black. She heard one final entreaty from the sentinel’s fractured, fading vocoder:

  “You’re a survivor.”

  Becca paused for a moment in the cave, listening, but there was no more to be heard. She felt her way along the mine walls, her right leg limping awkwardly, until finally she saw the starlit sky and felt the wind from the approaching storm. She emerged from the mineshaft amidst the massacre on the ridge. She reached down and rubbed her thigh, already sore in the brief escape. The wind was blowing the jojoba flat into the ground, dust carrying off the crown and into bench road where the aroton knelt beside the body of the wolf. Petals of globemallow carried off the desert floor and fell down the main scarp, swirling orange helices coming to rest on the dead. The aroton spoke to the girl – a pattern of pulsating blue lights lit beneath its skin like lightning breaking free of the approaching thunderhead: