by Phil Wrede
He swung Excalibur over to point at Hnid. “Do you know who I am? Tell me who I am,” he demanded.
Hnid wouldn't respond.
“You know that I wield Excalibur,” Cyber-Knife said, waving the sword, “and I bet you know exactly how closely I hold it to your face. Now, tell me who I am.”
“Cyber-Knife,” Hnid replied.
“Absolutely right,” Cyber-Knife said, swinging Excalibur around over to Pkar. “The ultimate fucking killing machine. Your love for your people now resides in my mind, burning with exactly the same intensity. I will save the world. We just have to ask ourselves, how large of a world will I save?”
“I do not like this, Cyber-Knife,” Hnid said. “You do not know what you say.”
“Yes, I do,” Cyber-Knife replied. “I make this decision myself.”
“Do I have a vote?” Excalibur asked. “I don't like it, either.”
Hnid looked like a parent who'd finally realized she couldn't save her child from his mistakes anymore. “Very well. Keep my wisdom ever present in your mind, and remember, just because you can choose to do something stupid, nothing says you must.”
“Words to live by.” Cyber-Knife clapped Hnid on the shoulder. “Let's go, Excalibur!” he yelled as they tore off down the tunnel, ready to face the enemy far away from their friends.
CHAPTER 5
Cyber-Knife had found a cavern not unlike the one where the Taykinh lived; it stretched out in a direction he hadn't expected. A single narrow tunnel fed it, and his now-comprehensive knowledge of the system told him that anyone who wanted to get to the town would have to go through this area. Of course, that presumed the enemy wouldn't just drop hundreds of tons of rocks on them, which they wouldn't. It might demonstrate their ruthless efficiency, but it would not illustrate their nature. The alien robot ninjas had their own sense of honor; it precluded impersonal killing, or cruelty, of that sort.
It had not even taken him two hours to make his way here, and he'd spent much of the rest of the time in meditation, marshaling his internal energies in concert with his technological gifts. He had explored the treasure trove that had previously been locked away inside his mind, discovering the infinite-capacity hard drive carried inside it not just tales of fighting and death, but the works of great thinkers, men and women passionate for peace and community. Plenty, too, he discovered, could not be easily categorized, as they'd lived their entire lives holding matched sets of contradictory ideas in their heads. Cyber-Knife felt as if he could spend his entire lifetime right here, in this cave, relishing in the depth of what he knew.
A breeze wafted through the cave, carrying with it an odd scent, the smell of hot angry metal. Cyber-Knife knew the time had come. He could hear their footsteps; they stepped through the tunnel and into the cave faster than he'd expected. Before he could only see the Class Ones, but now, he could feel them. They pulsed with dark energy in his mind's eye, these inhuman, improper, evil things that had invaded his planet. He knew that he could kill them all - he had no doubt about that - but he believed with equal certainty that he wouldn't survive the fight. He didn't care all that much - his programming wouldn't allow him to die until he completed his mission, but in his heart, he felt that death wouldn't be so bad, if he met it protecting his friends. In the final analysis, wouldn't it be funny if the greatest killer humanity had ever known simply accepted his own end?
The Class Ones resumed their advance, marching up the cave's steep incline, emboldened by Cyber-Knife's inaction. They looked like barely dots now, but that would not stay true for long. “Do something, you bloody fucking idiot!” Excalibur screamed. “Do anything!”
Before Cyber-Knife could raise his arm, though, he heard another sound ring out over the furious marching of the Class Ones' feet: Hnid's voice. “Halt!” It echoed all up and through the cavern.
Cyber-Knife didn't need to turn, for he'd seen what approached, but he did anyway. Hnid and all her people, a force several hundred strong, stormed up from the city. Cyber-Knife felt his heart sing and sink in equal measure; he wondered if he could ever feel a new, overwhelming feeling again once he and the Taykinh parted ways. He knew that time had come, and could tell just by looking at his friend that she knew it, too.
“What are you doing?” Cyber-Knife yelled.
As Hnid's pace slowed to a saunter, and she approached Cyber-Knife, she replied, “We've made our choice: no more hiding.”
Cyber-Knife turned back to the encroaching enemy force; Excalibur's blade sang in the air as he lifted the sword above his head, “The Arns will rue this day, my friend.”
“Eminently,” added Pkar, bringing the rest of the Taykinh to a stop. “But you must go, so that we can ensure they do for the proper reasons.”
“What?”
“We will distract them while you escape, and make your way to their fortress. If we stop them here, we will only do so temporarily, but if you stop them at the spire, you shall do it for all time,” Hnid said.
“I will not leave you to fight this battle alone,” Cyber-Knife said, his voice shaken in surprise.
“I have looked into the future,” Pkar said, “and we will make the brightest one if we fight here, now.”
“But -” Cyber-Knife wanted to repay the Taykinh for their kindness, not lead the enemy to their front door and abandon them. They had already suffered so much, and he felt hollow at the thought of piling more misery atop what they'd already experienced.
Hnid placed her hand on Cyber-Knife's shoulder. “What are we, children in need of your protection? We have our mission. You have yours.”
The Class Ones had marched far enough into the cave that the rear echelon began to lock itself in place, preparing to fire, artillery-style-bursts of plasma as the vanguard continued to close the distance. Cyber-Knife could hear the clicking sounds of their securing joints echo towards him and past. Only a moment or two passed before the balls of green energy started to arc towards them.
“Pkar, go and lead our people,” Hnid said. “Give me one more moment with our friend.”
Pkar turned towards their army, which somehow looked even smaller than it had a moment ago, shouting, “Now, as one!” In a fluid movement that only those who knew each other's minds intimately could perform, the Taykinh stomped on the ground and swung their arms over their heads, interrupting the plasma fire in midair as an invisible wall of energy rippled forth. The plasma splashed futilely against it, and the material dripped down to the ground, melting whole lines through the advancing Class Ones. Their numbers thinned, but they didn't stop.
“You see?” Hnid said. “We can fight just fine. Now, go.”
Possessed by a terrified instinct, Cyber-Knife pulled Hnid into a quick, firm hug.
“Remember us,” Hnid said. Another wave of plasma crashed against the people's energy shield, and the next looked like it approached even faster.
Cyber-Knife turned and began to run back up the cavern and into the tunnel, the way he'd come, but as he passed the last of the people, climbed up and approached the tunnel's lip, he stopped to get one last look at the first fight from which he'd voluntarily run away. The Taykinh had begun to almost dance in place, no longer interrupting the waves of plasma fire, but actually reflecting them, angling the angry green energy into the cave's upper crest, or even back at the robots. The Class Ones attacking at long range looked like they'd fallen into a rhythm, though, and his heart sank to think that their ruthless mechanical efficiency might win them the day.
Before he knew it, the advancing Class Ones were upon the people. He could hear their plasma swords snap into life, saw them leave energy traces in the air as they swung their arms with brutal purpose. Just like Cyber-Knife himself when first in the presence of the Taykinh, the alien robot ninjas couldn't connect with any of their strikes; their attacks could only ever find air.
“Why don't they fight back?” Cyber-Knife wondered aloud, until he saw the true choreography of their plan unfold. So
aware were the Taykinh of one another, so attuned to the minds and bodies of their fellows, that they could redirect the attacking wave of Class Ones back into each other, and soon, the plasma swords no longer found empty air, but the bodies of other robots. Seemingly without realizing it, the Class Ones began to decapitate one another, sever each other’s' limbs, even cleave the bodies of their counterparts wholly in half.
They managed to blunt the advance, but could not stop it; the Class Ones outnumbered the Taykinh more than ten to one. As more and more buried their way into the heart of the Taykinhs' force, fewer and fewer of the people could focus their energy on stopping the artillery fire. Bolts of plasma started to find their way to their true targets, and Cyber-Knife shuddered as he saw the first green wave crash into robot and living bodies alike. No matter who felt the impact, no one cried out.
Hnid raised her arms in the air, forming a small dome of focused energy above herself and those nearest to her. The plasma shots bounced off of it at first - a small, powerful umbrella sheltering the few remaining Taykinh - but the alien robot ninjas adjusted their artillery with an exactingly mechanical precision. A torrent of plasma fire sailed down atop Hnid's mental shield, and as it cracked, she cried out for about as long as it takes an eye to blink. The Class Ones washed away the Taykinh in a fast-rushing flood of plasma.
The overwhelmingly, crushingly dark turn of the battle shook Cyber-Knife, and he turned away to run down the tunnel. The noise Excalibur made as it cut through the air sounded like a soft weeping.
CHAPTER 6
The jungle had undergone two traumas within a hideously short span of time: first, the nuclear attacks that had rendered much of the surface unlivable, and not too long after, the invasion of the alien robot ninjas, which had overtaken the untainted ground that remained and twisted it to their own ends. In spite of all that, the ecosystem had found a way to adapt, to bite back against the circumstances that had so viciously attacked it. The plants that could survive in the poisoned soil thrived, the animals that fed on those plants found a tenuous toehold on life, and the occasional predator still stalked its prey, visible only when it pounced. The enemy had torn a wound open on the world, but even the most egregious of them can heal in time. The natural order had begun to reassert itself.
A clutch of little scavenger creatures skittered across the jungle floor as a sound thrummed up from underneath them. They didn't know what was making the noise, but long experience had taught them to avoid unfamiliar noises whenever possible. They weren't wrong to run.
A tremendous beam of plasma energy - akin to a blade - tore up through the ground and charred a few of the nearby plants, which shrank away in an approximation of pain. Shortly after the beam cut off, Cyber-Knife pulled himself up through the ground, covered in dirt and ash. He looked at the emitter installed in his palm; black smoke rose from his wrist, and the joints in his fingers.
“Shit,” he said. “I think that's all she wrote for the blaster.”
“Did it only fry a component,” Excalibur asked, “or the entire mechanism?”
“The diagnostics say I only melted one piece,” Cyber-Knife said, “but to repair it requires two things we might not have in abundance: a severed robot arm, and time enough to actually perform the labor.”
“That bright green flash probably caught somebody's attention,” Excalibur said. “Spare parts could arrive in a moment.”
“We can't afford to wait to find out. Once they realize they didn't count our number among the dead with Hnid and her people, they'll know where we headed, and call in every available reinforcement. We have ourselves a real deadline.”
Excalibur let Cyber-Knife's comment hang in the air for a little bit. “I think I liked you better before you developed a sense of humor. Better no jokes at all than bad ones, Merlin used to say.”
Cyber-Knife brushed the remaining soil off his uniform. “Shut up and come on. We've got a world to save.”
“He speaks as though I haven't said that this whole time,” Excalibur grumbled as Cyber-Knife made his way to the tallest nearby tree, to get a bead on their distance to the spire. After shimmying up it, it turned out they didn't have that far to go at all, but when they saw black, skull-shaped observation drones crisscrossing the sky just above, cutting it into dozens of tiny squares with their contrails, they had to immediately duck back under the canopy.
“I suppose we should stay in the company of nature a little longer,” Excalibur said.
As Cyber-Knife stared through the web of branches before them, he found a strange sort of certainty wash over him, like serenity. He could see a path through the overgrown plant life, a way to travel through the jungle without having to struggle across the ground and all the dangers that resided on it. That kinship he'd felt with the world, he knew it wasn't just a feeling.
Cyber-Knife leapt forward, his arms outstretched, and grabbed ahold of a particularly bulky branch. He rolled with the impact and pumped his legs like a gymnast, flinging himself ahead and landing, crouched, on the trunk of another tree. He moved off like a shot from there, and soon, he'd found his own rhythm, swinging from branch to branch and tree to tree.
It took some practice, but as he found that rhythm, he learned how to move quietly in this environment, not breaking off bark or snapping branches in his wake. The animals whose attention he drew as a matter of course at first soon disregarded him. None who had tussled with the apex predator had come out ahead, and he had far more pressing issues of concern than another fight to establish dominance.
In much less time than either Cyber-Knife or Excalibur had anticipated, they reached the edge of the jungle, and had their fear confirmed: it didn't reach all the way to the spire. Aggressive growth management on the part of the enemy kept a long, desolate field between the plant life and the spire. Even as he peeked his head out, Cyber-Knife could see squads of Class Ones hacking away at the trees with their plasma swords, and scorching the ground wherever they managed to beat back the growth. Pillars of black smoke rose up from where they fought their skirmishes against the jungle.
“I suppose we need an actual plan now,” Excalibur whispered.
“I would appreciate any suggestions,” Cyber-Knife replied.
“I expect tunneling would be out of the question,” Excalibur continued, “as they would have defensive measures set up to repel any of the local fauna that might try to dig into the base.”
“That's reasonable,” Cyber-Knife said.
“I have no desire to relive our last attempt at air travel.”
“I agree wholeheartedly with you there, too.”
“So,” Excalibur was building to a point here, clearly, “if we cannot travel underneath the ground, nor fly above it, then we have to travel on its surface.”
“Unless you know of a way to magically teleport us inside.”
“Even Merlin had a horse to ride.”
“All right,” Cyber-Knife said, “so how do we get from here to there, without anybody noticing?” He pointed towards the spire through the trees; a pop-up reading on his HUD told him that it stood 7.77 kilometers away. He ran a quick calculation in his head and smiled, saying “Actually, I think I have it.”
“Praise the saints. How?”
Cyber-Knife's lips peeled back across his teeth. “Run.”
“I'm afraid I will need you to elaborate,” Excalibur said.
“I think I'd just need to get a couple good, sustained breaths of the smoke those slash-and-burn sites throw off. If I'm right, I can bank enough chemical energy to run at twice my normal speed across the kill zone.”
“I say we need a plan, and you come up with this?”
“We'll move too fast for any of them to draw a bead on us. Travel time would be, well, brief,” Cyber-Knife said.
“So, you intend to run, fast. And then kill, a lot,” Excalibur said.
Cyber-Knife was definitive when he said, “I've considered and discarded a couple dozen other pote
ntial approaches. This one may not have the most flash, but it's the least likely to get us killed.”
“Very well,” Excalibur said. “Fortune does seem to favor simplicity when you're around.”
Fortunately for Cyber-Knife and Excalibur, the tree branches intertwined with each other alarmingly close near the jungle's edge, so they could easily and swiftly creep just below the canopy and approach one of the burning areas. Cyber-Knife wrapped one of his legs about a tree trunk and leaned forward, sniffing at the smoke, waiting for his olfactory sensors to tell him if the nasty black plume could help him execute his plan.
A moment later, Cyber-Knife received both good and bad news. Yes, his cybernetics could take the toxins in the smoke and translate them into the sort of energy he could use, but the volume of poisons in the smoke wasn't concentrated enough for him to take a couple of quick whiffs and rush off to wage war again. He'd need a long, sustained breath - the sort most likely to attract attention.
He considered this development for a second, and decided he'd take this risk for the reward. Cyber-Knife shifted his weight a bit and leaned the whole tree forward, until he'd angled his head right in the path of the rising smoke. He took an inhumanly long breath, sucking all the smoke into his lungs through his nose, ears, and mouth; instantaneously, the mechanical components in his chest and throat pulled the energy-rich particles into his microscopic internal batteries. The toxins vanished from the air before it even hit his lungs, and an energy indicator on his HUD told him that he had filled his storage cells to capacity, and a little bit more.
The three Class Ones that had chopped away at the plant life stopped their work and turned their gaze up towards Cyber-Knife, who, when he'd gulped down as much smoke as he could stand, snapped his jaw shut and gave them a wide, full-mouthed grin. He dropped out of the tree directly onto one of the robots, turning its chest to scrap, slashed the other two apart with a single swipe of Excalibur's blade, and tore one of their arms off at the elbow. Tucking it beneath his own arm, Cyber-Knife lit out at top speed.