The DX Chronicles (Book 1): Not Against Flesh and Blood

by Brian Cody

  Shawn clasped the machine’s side with his left and punched with his right, hammering without remittance; yet, with a swat of its left, the machine deflected the ninth of Shawn’s blows, angled while still being held, and gored its right several inches into Shawn’s right forearm. Shawn wheezed as he beheld the damage dealt to his armor, but then grunted as clanks and smacks echoed from the top of the machine’s embedded limb. As the machine extracted its blade, Shawn yanked his right arm from his armor’s sleeve, leaving only that pale shell to be gored.

  Unfettered from their pressurized lattice, documents spewed from the puncture wound and flurried around the machine’s eyes. Shawn ripped his arm free from the outstretched blade, wound it to his side, and tensed, and the fist and forearm bulleted from the armor and for the machine’s head. In retort, the machine fired another hook that splintered Shawn’s projectile. With the cascade of papers around him, Shawn squinted and loosened his left’s grip. The machine rocketed out of Shawn’s hand, spiraled over his shoulder, and stood atop his back.

  Before Shawn could turn, the machine hammered its left into the center of his back and halfway through his armor. Then, it armed another rocket which ignited and speared into the gape, inching through the layers of paper and propelling Shawn towards the ground. The machine jumped away, and Shawn plunged, with the rocket’s flames augmenting his descent. Shawn kicked and flailed, trying to turn or to brace himself but incapable of effective motion while weighted by his armor. He looked to the ground, a moment away, and blinked.

  He smacked into the field with an obstreperous beat, and he grimaced as he deformed the surrounding earth and bounced by the off-kilter thrust of the still-spearing rocket. He rose twenty feet and plunged a second time. Upon that impact, he bounced in a haphazard turn, and, in the midst of those dizzying spirals, he slammed the backs of his arms into his armor. In a blast of spewed papers, Shawn ejected from his armor’s fore and slapped onto the ground thirty feet below, but he, with immediate speed, stumbled to his feet and fled, while the rocket’s exhaust sounded overhead. He leapt.

  As he leapt, the rocket erupted. Shawn turned and was engulfed by lashing flames, blinding light, and scorching heat. He reappeared, still airborne, as that blast dissipated; yet, he slapped onto the ground and rolled for fifty feet. Though awake, he lay stunned, perceiving only the malodor of incinerated cloth and burning ceramic.

  He heard not the familiar stomp as the machine landed twenty feet across from him, and as he faced the sky, he detected not the increasing glow as the machine aimed its laser and fired. A howl—of Bryen’s trench coat—and accompanied gasps rang in Shawn’s ears as Bryen landed in front of him and thrust his arms to raise his shadow into a curving wall. The laser impacted but was held back; yet, in a gradual gnawing, it gored into Bryen’s shadow and burned it away in a gust of red-hot chunks. “Shawn!” Bryen called as he found his shield, after only thirty seconds, nearing half of its original density. “Shawn, I know you’re awake! I can’t cover you and counter at the same time!” Bryen exclaimed as he spread his legs. Behind him, Shawn sat upright and raised his mask. “No, seriously, you need to do something now!”

  “Okay, give me a minute”, Shawn grunted as he rolled to his knees.

  “You have twenty seconds!” Bryen replied, the laser’s light along his shield strengthening from a slight glimmer to a radiant gleam. “I don’t have enough time to reform my shield; the laser’s eating through it too_”—Bryen shook as the ground rumbled, drove him to spin rightward, and drove the machine to look leftward, towards a projectile. Before the machine could counter against the top half of Sterling Blue’s house, it was struck by the point of the gabled roof and heaved to its right for one hundred feet. Then, gyrated by the vigor of that impact, its laser sundered and ignited the structure, loosing an avalanche of burning debris upon it.

  Bryen lowered his shadow and gaped as he looked to the bottom two floors of Sterling Blue’s home, from which the projectile had been rent. Bryen then looked to David’s bruised form hovering into view and touching down in a kneel, his arms slack as he focused on that distant pyre. “Did you really have to throw the house?” Bryen inquired.

  “Half of a house if we’re going to be technical; and you’re welcome”, David replied as he reared up. “B”, David called, his eyes still locked onto the machine’s resting place.

  “Hi”, Bryen replied as he looked to Shawn, then standing.

  “That thing killed Sterling Blue”, David replied as he turned to them.

  “Wait, what?” Shawn coughed as he stumbled, “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah”, David replied, “a small fragment of its sword is missing; I recognized that fragment in Sterling Blue’s hand when he died. I bet it stabbed him—I bet that’s how it was able to best him.”

  “And the explosion on the bridge?” Bryen inquired. “Do you think it had something to do with that too?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t the laser that I saw after they impacted. It was…different, I guess”, David reasoned.

  “What was it doing here, then?” Shawn asked.

  “Trying to keep us from something. I’m sure of it. There’s something going on. B”, David called.

  “Hi”, Bryen replied.

  “Did you hear anything on those voice-_?”—the clamor of unsettled debris directed David to his shattered projectile. Bryen and Shawn also turned, at first expecting and hoping that they heard only a slight implosion; yet, as they waited, holding their breaths and crossing their arms, wood and cement were spewed from the pile’s side. Stepping out behind those launched portions was the machine, its chassis, though littered in scuffs, bearing no further damage other than the same, unchanging crack on its chest. In unison, David, Shawn, and Bryen stepped back, expecting the machine to charge or to loose its armaments. However, it straightened its posture and let its arms hang. Then, a crimson ring shined along the surface of its chest, and, in a flicker, the marking of upper-case pi—arranged in three outspread, six-inch lines—appeared in the ring’s center.

  “What now?” Shawn muttered as he glanced to David. David faced forward as he wavered between attacking and evading.

  Next to David, silent with chest locked, Bryen glared at that symbol. It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be… With a chirp, the leftmost vertical line flashed once, then, a second later, a second time, and then a third, with those tweeting flares continuing for twelve seconds before that line returned to a steady radiance and the horizontal line flashed in its place. Crap! Bryen jumped backwards, driving Shawn and David to turn to him. “We need to move!”

  “What?” David replied as he and Shawn glanced to each other.

  “We need to get really far from here!” Bryen replied as he watched the second line flash a tenth time.

  “Why? What’s it doing?” David asked as he looked back.

  “Let’s see:” Bryen replied as he glanced past David and watched the second symbol end, and the third commence, “Flashing lights on attacking machine of doom equa-a-als…?”

  “Bomb”, Shawn gasped.

  “Either that or an airplane beacon”, Bryen finished as the third line flashed a fourth time.

  “Okay, let’s go!” David replied. He grabbed Bryen by the arm, and, with Shawn beside him, rushed skyward in time with the sixth flash. They passed one hundred feet during the tenth flash and one hundred and fifty feet during the eleventh. They passed two hundred feet as the symbol flashed for a twelfth time, steadied, and then chimed with a hum voluble enough to resound in their ears. David, Shawn, and Bryen looked down as the blue light surrounding the machine—once a faint glimmer—brightened into a radiant aura. The hum then resounded as a stentorious cry and erupted as a cascade of azure which uprooted the ground, levelled the remnants of Sterling Blue’s home, and felled twenty feet of the surrounding forest.

  After twenty seconds, the trio landed on the outskirts of what was once a level field, but what had been reduced to a thirty-foot-deep crater of blacke
ned earth. There remained neither spare parts nor signifiers marking that Sterling Blue’s house had existed, but, there too were no signs of the alabaster machine. David scanned the field, scanned the destruction, and then replayed that blue light. “That was it”, he called while spinning to Bryen and Shawn. “That was the explosion—that was what severed the bridge, except…what I saw on the bridge was only…maybe half as powerful as this. But then_” David looked to the center of the crater, to where the machine had stood. “How was that thing able to survive the first one, but not this one?”

  “Up”, Bryen muttered.

  “What?” David spun to Bryen looking skyward and towards a line of white smoke ascending westward, past the stratosphere, and out of view.

  “It wasn’t a self-destruct”, Bryen suggested as he looked down. “It was a distraction—an escape maneuver; probably a last-ditch assault.”

  “It hits its opponents with its strongest weapon”, David added, “then leaves the scene, erasing just about all signs of its presence and, more than likely, killing whoever it wanted dead.”

  “But that doesn’t answer why it attacked us in the first place”, Shawn began, “or, even before that, why it attacked Sterling Blue in the first place. Do you think it had something to do with those murders he was tracking?”

  “I don’t know”, David sighed before glancing to the previous location of the hero’s home. “I don’t know what do. Coming here didn’t help…at all. It made things more confusing; even a little frightening… I guess we should leave before the cops show up…but, other than that, I don’t know what to do from here.”

  “I do”, Bryen stated as he pulled out his phone, “And…it’s about to get more confusing.”

  Chapter Twelve: Sunday, 21 February [Part One]

  “It would make sense”, Lamback began as the elevator door opened. He stepped onto a marble floor while still dressed in his black shirt and khakis and still bearing scuffs and cuts along his face. “He’d want to be nearby to monitor you guys. He’s just an hour away so if he has sensitive information, he could deliver it to me in person.”

  “Aren’t there federal buildings in Lynchburg?” Turrisi asked as he stepped off of the elevator, his plaid shirt bulging with his bulletproof vest, and his faded jeans bearing smaller knobs along his side-pockets. Walking behind him were David, Shawn, Nate, Bryen, and then Erik. They were all dressed, to an extent, in their vigilante garb; Bryen wore his black jeans and black button-up shirt, didn’t have his trench coat, and had his hair dyed and matted down, but his contacts had been removed; Shawn wore his own all-black outfit, but lacked both his catcher’s armor or his large cape, while his face was covered in bruises, scuffs, and first degree burns—the visible signs of several other minor scars and wounds from his mechanized bout forty-four hours prior.

  “Well, no, not technically. He could’ve still rented out an office undercover, but he’s well known since he caught Richie the Worm. It would’ve been harder to remain beyond detection. The Poff Building’s not a far drive; not as far as Richmond or Quantico”, Lamback explained as the group circled around him. David stopped by his side while dressed in a half-zipped, grey sweatshirt, blue jeans, his black basketball sneakers, and his winter gloves, which, bearing holes and tears along their lengths, also clasped his dry umbrella. Along David’s left, Nate stood, once more in his hoodie and jeans. Next to Nate and alongside of the elevator was Erik, whose arms and shoulders were layered in bandage-wrap, while additional strips crisscrossed his face and neck, and while his remaining katana hung on the left side of his scraped and torn cargo pants.

  “Should we have done this so soon?” David asked as he glanced down both ends of the hall and towards office arrangements cordoned by glass doors.

  “It’s kind of urgent”, Lamback replied as he started to the left, his hands steadying the bulge on the left side of his jeans. “These kinds of attacks are unprecedented. It’s the kind of thing we see when someone is targeted by professional assassins, and the similarities between your stories”—Lamback looked over his shoulder—”kind of unnerving. Let’s just get this over with.”

  “Well, not that”, David replied as he turned to Erik. “Garcia still looks pretty banged up.”

  “Nah, Piekarsky, I told, you I’m good”, Erik replied. “I haven’t been in a worse situation, but I know when I’ve reached my limits—I haven’t gotten there yet.”

  “Should we have deliberated on this a little more?” Nate asked as he trailed the group.

  “Probably not”, Lamback replied as he stopped in front of the corner office on the left side of that hall—numbered 1316—where a tinted pane sat to his left and looked out to downtown Roanoke, while the muffled claps of a nighttime downpour trembled its surface. “Like I said”, he began as he glanced to the plaque on the door’s center and lifted his right to knock, “it’s kind of urgent.” He knocked as the group stood around him, and he pulled back to knock a second time, but the handle was turned, and, as he stepped back, the door was opened.

  After stepping from the entrance in a maroon sweater and dark grey pants, and with a small mason jar filled halfway with honey-colored Scotch and thick ice cubes in his grasp, Director Grant huffed. “I’m curious as to how you found my office so easily”, he began as he lowered the glass to his side. “No, forget that question; throw it to the wind”, he groaned as Lamback raised his hand. “I’m more curious as to whether any of you are aware of why the home of a deceased American hero was turned into a smoldering crater. No, don’t bother”, Director Grant moaned as David raised his hand but then let it slide back. “I know you were there. I crosschecked the sightings of your license plate with someone logging onto Mr. Turrisi’s CORGI account in order to view said American hero’s page, which I hope wasn’t accessed by Mr. Turrisi himself or his prospects of the FBI might decrease…”—he glanced to Turrisi—”substantially.”

  “Director, we can explain”, Lamback sighed as he crossed his arms.

  “I d*** sure hope you can!” Director Grant roared. “Sterling Blue’s house was supposed to be turned into a memorial for him and other heroes after your team was made public in twenty-thirteen. It was going to be a monument and a sign of good things to come. Now, when I look at the satellite map, all I see is a f***ing hole in the ground!”

  “No, sir, it wasn’t us”, David began as he stepped forward, “but…a few of us were there.”

  “And might I ask why?” Director Grant inquired as he tilted his head, “but, even more so, how did you succeed in levelling his home—one; and, two—what was so urgent that you had to locate my office through what I’m assuming were legally dubious means, and then gather together to come here!? Mr. Garcia, last I checked, you were being examined in a Veterans’ hospital. I know—I’ve been filling out the paper work and trying to explain to several high-ranking bureaucrats why one member of our soon-to-be-glorious law enforcement team was ambushed on his way to Quantico, and why three others went off and annihilated their predecessor’s home!”

  “It was about Sterling Blue”, David explained as he lifted his hands, “About his death; now, I’m sorry that I went off without your permission, but I wanted to know what happened to him. I wanted to know why that bridge fell, and I think…at the very least, we might have some answers; not definitive—not yet, but it’s a start.”

  Director Grant swallowed, closed his eyes, and nodded. “What do you have?” he asked, his tone, though still groaning, sounding with calmer air.

  “We found some stuff on his computer”, David replied. “Then, we were attacked. I’ll fill you in on the attack once you’ve seen the evidence we got, but I think whatever was attacking us did so to keep us from this information, or more, to keep us from letting others know about it.”

  “Come in”, Director Grant finished as he turned. The group filed through the doorway and moved down a short hallway with dark tan walls, before coming to a space holding a black, thirty-foot table with fifteen leather chairs, a
corded, grey-and-black, landline phone on its center, and a projector hanging from the ceiling above the phone. Behind the table was an office space, walled off, with a glass door covered with blinds, and containing a rectangular desk and an open laptop surrounded by reams of printed documents. Director Grant took his seat at the head of the table, five feet from the office space. To the director’s left sat Erik, who unbuckled his katana and placed it in his lap, to Erik’s left, Bryen, then, two chairs down, Lamback. At the foot of the table sat David, to David’s left, Shawn; Nate was two seats after Shawn, and Turrisi sat halfway down the table and on Director Grant’s right.

  “B?” David called. Director Grant looked to Bryen, who stood with his phone in hand, slid it along the table, and adjusted his BlackBerry’s volume.

  “I was able to email them to me right before we were attacked”, Bryen explained as he fidgeted with the track-ball.

  “Email what?” Director Grant asked, the crack of thunder sounding behind him and the light smack of ice cubes sounding within his glass.

  “Voicemails”, David replied. “Sterling Blue saved his voicemails; maybe he thought they were important”, he explained as Bryen clicked the trackball once, “maybe he thought someone would need them.”

  “Need them?” Director Grant asked as he crossed his arms and tilted his head, “but_”

  Aye, Scott—it’s Arthur—it wasn’t him…it was another lug-head named ‘Charles the Ironclad’. He’s wanted for a dozen murders including his wife and maybe his daughter. They never found her… I got clues to Richie’s whereabouts, though. Call me when you get the chance; and, Scott, I’m being serious: stop going out on patrols. Radar keeps picking you up movin’ up and down the eastern seaboard. You’re not an official hero anymore, and I can only cover you so often…