by Brian Cody
“That means I have, like, thirty”, Nate replied.
“No, guy, that’s not how it works”, Bryen replied.
“Head’s up!”
“Well”—Nate humphed as he looked to Bryen squinting, and Nate then pondered the call and realized it had come from another. He looked over his shoulder to search for the speaker. “What_?” his gaze, however, was obscured by the machine flailing towards him. “Whoa!” With a leftward spin, Nate bowed, maintaining his tilting posture as the machine spun past and landed in front of him. Feeling his legs give after his evasion, Nate rolled, turning and jouncing off of his elbows before gyrating upright. Nate then looked to the automaton which Bryen had twice attempted to repel, and he watched as that iron shape, adorning more visible signs of denting than the condition in which Bryen had left it, stood, lifted its left, and exposed a rocket. “Oh shoot!” Nate roared as that rocket blustered towards him. He lifted his arms and squeezed his fists, with a hurried current rushing and meeting the rocket a foot in front of him. Instead of detonating the rocket, the current diverted it to Nate’s left and towards Bryen.
The instant Bryen could verify that the projectile’s nose had been diverted towards him, he flailed his arms. The rocket shot for him in the same moment, but was intercepted by a curving mass of his shadow. The ink-like material, instead of detonating the rocket, curved it upward and to Bryen’s back-right, where it ascended on a spiraling, parabolic arc before diving, speeding between Shawn and Turrisi, and detonating alongside of a building behind them.
As the explosion sounded while tearing across the structure, Shawn and Turrisi wailed, and, as their wail erupted with the clods of debris raining around them, Nate and Bryen squinted. However, before either could give in to their urges for inquiry or complaint over the indirect manner in which Shawn or Turrisi had launched a rocket at them, the stomps of rushing machines and the fiery evulsions of other rockets directed them frontward. The mechanized numbers were then increasing, diving from the sky, out of adjoining alleys, or through the walls lining adjacent buildings.
Nate glanced to his right as he fired a surge from his left which deactivated the rocket-launching machine. He then magnetized a pick-up truck before dragging it into the road. He jogged for the vehicle’s underside and slid beside its front tires, while Bryen jumped and landed beside the back, and while Shawn and Turrisi ran between them and knelt behind its center.
“What are you guys doing here? You’re supposed to be keeping them from continuing south!” Nate exclaimed as he squeezed his fists, jumped, and fired a blast before dropping.
“We did”, Shawn yelled, while Turrisi fired over the vehicle’s side. “After about ten minutes, they started pulling back and retreating to connecting streets. We thought they were trying to sneak past us, but it turns out they were moving towards this direction.”
“They were trying to flank you guys”, Turrisi furthered as he lowered his weapon and shifted his hat, “so we figured_”
“Move!” Bryen exclaimed as he bolted from the vehicle. Nate and Turrisi did the same, and Shawn rushed skyward as a bombardment speared through the pickup’s side. Shawn reached to his side as he dove from twenty feet and pitched a dozen paper shuriken. Six of the stars drilled into the chest of one machine, striking with such force that the automaton was thrown from its feet while one other lost its right arm. Shawn landed while glaring at the automatons in view, and he flailed his left, expelling two dozen paper squares from his uniform which shaped into a rectangular shield large enough to cover his torso.
“Mine!” Turrisi called as he aimed at the damaged machine stumbling along the roadside. He squeezed the moment the shoulder-held gape of that automaton came into view. However, a piercing shriek and a pale-yellow flash erupted alongside of him and, as he jumped and lowered his weapon, an electric burst drove into the machine and fragmented it while throwing two more machines from their feet. “Dang it, Nate!” Turrisi roared as Nate rushed past.
“I didn’t hear you call it!” Nate replied as he outstretched his arms to magnetize another four-door, and hoisted it into the air where it hovered.
“Whoa, Nate, that’s someone’s car!” Shawn exclaimed as he tore off an edge of his shield, with the portion reorganizing into a yard-length javelin as he pitched.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Nate asked as he spread his legs. He flung his right as he locked onto three machines rushing past a cleaved robot brought down by Bryen’s shadow and another machine plunging with a paper spear jabbing from its chest. He squeezed his fist. The vehicle sped towards the trio but was intercepted before it could strike—contorted into a right-angled mass which slammed onto the ground by another mechanized form which, being consumed by flames, erupted in a short flash that destroyed Nate’s weapon but left his three targets untouched.
“Mine!” Turrisi called as he aimed at the three machines, spread his legs, and coddled the trigger. A column of flames obscured his view, and that same chute devoured and detonated two of those machines, while the third machine stumbled backwards, lifted its arm, and seized as a paper spear jabbed into its gut. “Shawn!” Turrisi roared as he turned to Shawn reforming the remainder of his shield into a bow and arrow, pulling back, and firing the last dart.
“Don’t look at me; I’m just finishing the job!” Shawn replied as he watched that smaller length impact alongside of his first spear and send the machine to its knees. “You got to keep up, bud”, Shawn finished as he clapped his hands, causing the bow to disperse and reshape into a longer javelin. He pitched that last projectile for the robot’s head, but, an instant before it could strike, another column of flames engulfed that machine and detonated it. “What!?” Shawn roared as Erik landed in the center of the road, his katana drawn, and his armor bleeding smoke.
“Erik, what the crap was that!?” Nate roared as he rushed forward.
“It’s called getting the job done!” Erik replied as he spun to the two separate fires before him, lifted his hands, and pushed to drive the blazes at two more machines.
“Nate, you can’t keep throwing people’s cars, so stop complaining!” Shawn roared as he hovered over to and landed beside Erik. “Erik, what was that? That robot was clearly in his death throes by my attack!”
“Guys, it was never about the kill-count, it was only motivation for blowing up human-shaped things; got it?” Erik replied.
“So what are you doing here?” Bryen asked as he stopped next to Erik.
“They all started landing around this area and rushing for your position, so I figured that I’d drop by and see what’s going on”, Erik replied as he jogged on, “let’s not worry over details so we can get this done and then get some food!” he exclaimed as he lifted his katana, leapt, and swung upon a machine. That same machine, before Erik could contact, seized from armor-piercing rounds. Erik’s katana scraped off of the toppling machine and slapped onto the ground. “Uh, whoa!” Erik called as he looked to Turrisi jogging past him. “Turrisi, I had that!”
“I didn’t hear you call it!” Turrisi wailed.
“I was swinging down on it!”
“Nope, you didn’t call it!” Turrisi harrumphed as he fixed an explosive round and lifted his rifle. “And now I call that one taking off one hundred yards down the street!” he exclaimed as he squeezed the trigger.
“Wait, which one?” Shawn asked as he punched a machine, looked beyond the throng of attackers, and looked to the metallic form that was engulfed in a small blast and sent spiraling onto the road.
“Uh, Turrisi, I don’t think you killed it”, Bryen called as he stepped past a collapsing machine and lifted his glasses.
“Of course I killed it!” Turrisi exclaimed as he fired three shots into that charging horde and then lifted his cupped, soot-covered hand over his eyes. He looked to the plume of smoke which marked that machine’s crash site, and he watched as that automaton, though limping, returned to its feet and hobbled into the road. “Are you kidding me!? You know what? I�
�m preemptively re-calling that one. No one else touch it!”
“I don’t know; that one looks like it should be first-come, first-serve”, Nate reasoned. “I’m pretty sure I can hit it from here.” He strengthened the charge outlining his hands. He then locked onto that hobbling machine. His formulations, however, were halted as he sighted a metal beam, slender and pointed, that jabbed some fifteen feet from the ground. “B-money, what’s that giant beam near my future robot-kill?” he asked as he formed a shield and turned to Bryen.
“Helicopter blade; I noticed it a few minutes back”, Bryen replied as he stopped in front of a deflagrating machine.
“All right; let me know when we get close”, Nate replied as he ejected his shield against a wall of machines.
“Why?” Bryen asked as he ducked to let a rocket speed overhead.
“Just in case”, Nate replied.
“And that makes thirty!” Erik called as he roundhouse kicked a burning machine and leaned away as it exploded.
“What? Thirty? And you’re complaining about me taking one of your kills?” Turrisi inquired.
“Every kill is precious!” Erik replied as he reared up, “why; what are you at?”
“Twenty-five!” Turrisi replied.
“Twenty-four”, Bryen called.
“Twenty-four? I’m still at twenty-two!” Shawn exclaimed.
“…Forty”, Nate replied.
“Yeah, okay, Nate!” Erik barked as he flailed his arms. “I bet you didn’t keep count! Did he keep count, B-money?”
“Well what about you, guy!?” Nate replied. “You’ve got the skies all to yourself; I’d have a crap-load of kills if I had one endless playground to do my business in!”
“If it’s any consolation, we’re all better off than Piekarsky right now”, Bryen called as he stopped and looked to the buildings on his left.
“Wait, why would you say that?” Shawn asked across the road. He turned to Bryen, but, before he could speak, a reverberation sounded in front of the group as a mass of debris spewed from a building and toppled into the road. Had those five not been engaged in battles of their own, they would have, one by one, looked to the blur which shot across the road in the wake of the explosion—the rearward-moving form of their eldest teammate who, with equal stridence, hammered into a parallel building before moving out of view. David, slow enough for four of them to perceive from only the corners of their gazes, was then succeeded—before the plumes of dust could rush from the building’s gape—by the alabaster form.
***
David exploded through the building’s opposite side, his upper body contorted to the left, and his face stretched into a grimace. He looked back to the white machine which, then, was rushing from the gape with its right extended and its left pulled back. David lifted his arms and squeezed his fists, but seized at the feeling of crashing into a building on the opposite side of the road, not penetrating but caving the surrounding material. Feeling the strain, David slammed his teeth shut and started to squint, but gaped as the machine accelerated at him. David back-flipped in a rising lunge and then kicked to propel himself up the building’s side. In front of and below him, the machine impacted, rose up as it bounded up that vertical surface, lifted its left, and armed a rocket. “Nope!” David exclaimed as he bounded aside. The rocket was launched. David knelt and dove, and the machine, in retort, rushed to meet him, its left arm lowering, and its right winding back.
They impacted. Their forms, speeding in the hundreds of miles, latched onto one another and diverted their flights into a horizontal blur across the road and through an alley. The white machine, by angling its legs, augmented the speed of their turns into a more dizzying series, and David, despite his reaction, felt the strain on his form as the revolutions increased to hundreds per second while his gaze diminished into an enveloping haze. He released the machine’s neck, but as he found his gyrations slowing to a more perceivable speed, he felt a tug on his right leg. He looked to the white machine, then clasping him by the calf and pulling him in an elongated turn. David then looked to the corner of the alley at which he had been launched, and he tensed an instant before he plowed through five feet of concrete. The machine release, and David floundered and flailed through the connecting street, bouncing and slapping across the road and past the burning remnants of lesser automatons. He reared in and then hammered his feet into the ground to stop himself, and, with a hurried bow into a sprinter’s kneel, locked onto the white machine at the edge of the alleyway. He charged.
He wound back as he passed the center of the road, and he balled his fist as he reared up and crossed three-quarters. Before he could swing, however, his arm locked, and, with his eyes glistened by released flames, David looked on as the alabaster form launched a rocket from ten feet off. Too close! He pulled his arm towards his head, and the rocket detonated against his chest. A second after the eruption, his suit covered in smoke and partly aflame, and his eyes squinted as he held his breath, David bounced across one building, along the bottom of a second, and plunged to the road. He turned to his landing point and outstretched his arms, but, before he could brace himself, his silhouette frothed into a foggy mass that cushioned his impact before dissipating. David pushed himself to his knees and then turned to a red and black shape sprinting towards one of the lesser machines. He gasped, as Erik cut down that form, and he looked to his right to Nate, then Shawn, and then Turrisi following. They, unlike David, appeared nigh-unscathed, only slightly bruised, and only covered in soot, while his armor was discolored and his face and hands layered in scrapes.
“Maybe we should’ve saved that one for last.”
David spun to his left and lunged as he found Bryen crouching beside a two-door. “Dude, I almost punched your head off”, David replied as he stumbled back and looked over his shoulder, to the white machine which then, stared at him, as if waiting for him to charge. “And, ‘I wish’”, David replied as he turned to Bryen. “Dude, I don’t get it”, he began while rubbing his forehead. “I’ve barely scuffed that thing; we’ve thrown each other through buildings, and I smashed someone’s Hummer over its head, but it did nothing.”
“Was it a full-sized Hummer?” Bryen asked.
“Yeah, and I even think the trunk was full”, David replied. “The more I fight it, the more tired I get, but this thing, it just remains constant in output, like its incapable of being exhausted, and, each time I think of something new, it’s already thought up a way to counter.”
“If it’s any consolation, we’re almost done here”, Bryen noted. “Their attacks are becoming more organized, and they’re more privy to charging and taking cover, but, if you wait another five minutes, we’ll be able to back you up.”
“No, no”, David replied. “It singled me out. If I look away for too long, it’ll do anything to get my attention. If I go into another fight, chances are high that it’ll follow me again, maybe pull another stupid sneak-attack. Seriously, I don’t get it. How’d he do it? How’d Sterling Blue beat that thing?”
“Well_”
“Well right, it’s probably not the same one, and Sterling Blue didn’t win, but how’d he crack its chest? How’d he drive it into a corner?” David asked. “I’ve hit it in the chest dozens of times now, one after another, but still…”
“Two words: ‘Sterling’—‘Blue’”, Bryen interjected. “You said it yourself, he was the hero of the twentieth century. If he was as great as everyone thought, even at eighty-something, he’d be formidable and, plus, that’s six more decades of experience that you don’t have. You might be related to him, but as far a real-world testing and physical buffering are concerned, there’s no comparison…no offense.”
“None taken”, David replied. “It’s just that if I’m in the prime of my life, it’s feasible that I’m at least a little stronger than he was when he passed. I mean, I’ve never hit the ground at Mach two before, but I think that if I did, the act wouldn’t be as incapacitating as_”—David seized. He spun to the m
achine and turned to Bryen with his mouth ajar and his eyes glowing. He then recalled the collision at the bridge, then tried to imagine what had befallen immediately after, and then what had befallen beforehand. “Got it”, he proclaimed as he stood.
“Wait, what?” Bryen grunted, “You zoned out for thirty seconds and started drooling; how many times has it hit_?”
“Down!” David grabbed Bryen and flung him aside, a rocket shooting a foot over his head, spiraling and slamming into a building. As an avalanche of debris was launched towards the center of the battlefield, David spun to the machine, while the words ‘Oh shoot!’ were blasted from an evading Shawn. “Stay here!” David exclaimed as he shoved Bryen into the car’s windshield.
He shot into the air on a forty-degree angle, and the machine rocketed to meet him. David grinned and doubled his speed, and the machine levelled off and did the same. They, once again, impacted over the road, but, even as the machine wound back, David latched his hands on its side and drove it skyward. He released as the machine kneed his gut and spun him away with a sharp roundhouse. The alabaster machine then aimed its left to assemble its beam weapon. David looked up and, with a leftward spiral, dodged as that scarlet surge loosed from the machine and gored into a building. David darted as the machine turned after him, and he recommenced his ascension as the laser carved a molten streak behind him. He cleared the roof and then straightened his rush to a near–ninety-degree angle, with the laser blasting behind him and the machine rushing to pursue. David zoomed past four thousand feet, and the machine followed; he rushed past five thousand feet, and the machine deactivated its laser and accelerated after him. David then looked down. As that searing light dissipated, and, with a decelerating back-flip, he slowed to a halt a mile in altitude. He dove. As the machine lifted its arms, David slammed into it. Then, while spiraling, David clasped the machine by its waist and punched its chest three more times before swinging it over his side, and, with it still in his grasp, pointing it groundward.