21st Century Orc

by Gregory Loui

  “A broken spear,” deadpanned Debbie as Gore continued to search for a wrench.

  As her claws continued to find only concrete, Gore rolled her eyes and growled, “A broken spear who?”

  “Never mind. There’s not much a point!” cackled Debbie, pressing something long and hard into Gore’s grip.

  “Ha. Ha. Ha. You are absolutely hilarious.” Gore blinked and looked down. Huh. Gore raised an eyebrow. The right wrench. Even though Debbie had no way of knowing… Gore shook her head and mumbled, “Thank you.”

  “What was that? I didn’t quite believe my own ears,” smirked Debbie, bending low next to Gore’s face under the Magnum Orcus. “Could you say that again?”

  “I said thank you, damn it, no need to get jagding emotional,” scowled Gore as she made the last fraction of a degree turn on one of the bolts. Her eyes flashed gold with excitement scanning the belly of the Magnum Orcus, listening to the hum of the car’s soul.

  Not much more she could do to upgrade. Not unless she got a hold of the blood gem…

  Her head buzzing, Gore sighed and slid out from under the Magnum Orcus. Wiping the oil from her hands on her jumpsuit, she rubbed her sore eyes and examined the Magnum Orcus, admiring the new lines.

  Sleek silver gleamed in the garage light, free of dents and scratches. At full speed, the Magnum Orcus would skim across the earth like a Gold Gryphon across a lake. Thick elchite plates lined the chassis, spikes jutting out like fins on a sea serpent, hungry to bite into enemy cars. Chain covered wheels provided exceptional grip on the road. The upgraded supercharger growled, embers swirling through the air, burning the leftover scraps from countless forgotten cars.

  Her eyes feasting on the sight, Gore smiled.

  “Damn. Nice car. You orcs really know how to accessorize. I’m not even mad you guys stole our technology,” whistled Debbie.

  “Like how we also stole the elves’ immortality?” quipped Gore.

  “Not quite…” Rolling her eyes, Debbie said, “Damn, if the Dwarven Forge Lords could see their inventions now…”

  Eyes never leaving the Magnum Orcus, Gore chuckled, “Thanks for not having magic, Debbie.”

  Debbie snorted.

  “No.” Gore said, “Seriously, thanks for being forced to use glint. Otherwise we wouldn’t have such fancy toys.”

  “You’re very welcome,” laughed Debbie as she ran a hand over the Magnum Orcus. “Quite the beauty, isn’t she?”

  New and improved. Even without the blood gem, the Magnum Orcus could take on even the toughest cars.

  Then Gore turned to her new teammate.

  Debbie had given up her college dancer look and exchanged it for an almost military style wardrobe. Dressed in a dark jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest, the dwarf swapped out dangling jewelry for knives and a plasma torch and other useful tools. Gore’s gaze traveled up to focus on Debbie’s face. Instead of a swirling mass of colored hair, the dwarf had tied up her hair into a tight, practical bun. Quite the makeover. Still cute.

  “You sure you’re ready for this race?” asked Gore, admiring Debbie. “I’m sure Aunt Iron Tusk would be willing to take your place if you’re too scared.”

  “And leave you alone with Bones?” countered Debbie, stepping up to the Magnum Orcus, running her hands over the polished elchite. “I told you. You can’t do everything by yourself. I’m your friend. I’ll see you through this mess. And what would be the point of all those practices if we just stopped midway?”

  Gore chuckled. The image of Debbie leaping from the Magnum Orcus onto a bale of hay while Gore screamed down the street remained strong in Gore’s mind. She also winced and touched the bruises Iron Tusk had left both of them in the sparring sessions.

  “Thank you,” murmured Gore with as much emotion as she had ever put into two words, patting Debbie on the shoulder.

  “Ha! That almost sounded sincere. You’re getting soft on me, Gore,” laughed Debbie though her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She glanced around the garage. “Huh… you know, I don’t think you ever invited me over to your house before we started working together.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Mind if I take a look around? We’ve been so busy, I didn’t get a chance to explore.”

  “Not at all. Just don’t touch anything. Some of the materials I store here are quite… volatile. Plus I don’t know what Bones left around. Probably drugs.”

  “Yep. Definitely drugs. Woo, I can smell Blight bug all over this place. Damn, I can almost see soundwaves just from a sniff.” Then Debbie’s smile faded. Grimacing, flinching from the elchite, the dwarf turned to look around Gore’s garage. Her eyes caught on something on the nearby work station.

  Gore’s project.

  Surrounded by mounds of glint circuits and discarded parts, a small black box sat in the middle of the mess. At Debbie’s approach, the box sparked to life. Red mist spilled out of the Magnum Orcus’s supercharger. A deep growl echoed through the garage.

  “What is this?” muttered Debbie as she stumbled back. “This the invention you plan on entering in the magic fair?”

  “Yeah,” murmured Gore, snapping forward and unplugging the device.

  The growling stopped as the Magnum Orcus stilled. Gore narrowed her eyes. The faint rumble of a heart beat in tune with Gore’s pulse.

  “You didn’t answer my first question,” growled Debbie, raising one eyebrow. “The Dean seemed pretty excited about it. Thought you could win the magic fair with it.”

  “I could,” boasted Gore, her lips twisting into a smile as she checked the black box. Good. No leakage.

  “What is it?”

  “A demon box,” deadpanned Gore as she shoved the black box away, pulling cloth over the gleaming steel.

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.” Gore chuckled and glanced at the multiple blueprints surrounding the box. She pointed to one. Her latest iteration of the Demonic Presence. “This is something I’ve been working on for a while. Did you know that traditional orc smiths used to instill a part of their soul into their creations? That they grew this soul within the steel and made a demon?”

  “Um… I think they skipped that lesson in school. But you said used to. I assume that orc smiths no longer do this soul-forging or whatever. Right?”

  “The techniques were supposedly lost during the Great War. But…” Sighing, Gore showed Debbie her mom’s blueprints, pointing at the burnt scraps where ancient orc runes had once swirled across the parchment. Now only ash and half-finished scraps remained. “My mother knew how. The first one in centuries to rediscover the secret of soul-forging and even then, she only got halfway before she… well, she knew how to grow a demon inside the engine of a car. So she created the Magnum Orcus.”

  “Your car is literally alive?” asked Debbie, raising an eyebrow. “And it has a portion of your mother’s soul?”

  The Magnum Orcus rumbled to life in response. Gore smiled, though the tips of her lips drooped with melancholy. Only a portion of her mother’s soul.

  Debbie backed away as she muttered, “That’s good to know.”

  “Well, not really,” acquiesced Gore, shrugging as she walked over to the Magnum Orcus and ran her fingers over the elchite. Then she raised her hands, envisioning the blood gem in her claws. “She’s still missing her heart. Her core. So I decided to make it myself.”

  “Make a heart?” asked Debbie.

  “That’s what the black box is. A central intelligence matrix, essentially. It will grant the Magnum Orcus limited cognitive abilities comparable to a stunted drake or intelligent orc.”

  “And what would that do? Aside from creating a car that can back-talk.”

  “It will allow the Magnum Orcus a plethora of new abilities. Including but not limited to being able to drive herself, detect incoming cars and other objects, a limited ability to self-heal herself after injuries. I still need to explore the full extent of a soul-forged object. So much of the ancients’ knowledge is lost,” murmured Gore,
her tone wistful as she glared into her reflection in the Magnum Orcus’s chassis. For a moment, her mother stared back at her. “I just need to…”

  How could such a genius give birth to such broken children?

  “I’m worried about you, you know?” asked Debbie as she sidled up to Gore, putting her hand on Gore’s.

  “I kinda figured.” Gore slipped her hand out from the dwarf’s grasp.

  Debbie followed her to the Magnum Orcus’s back, muttering, “It’s kinda scary. Whenever I watch you, you lose yourself somehow. Through the rage of a race or through obsession with machines. Like you’re trying to submerge yourself in something else, anything else other than yourself.”

  “Ding ding ding! We got a winner here,” growled Gore, her eyes steeling dark grey as she tried to deflect Debbie’s attacks. The dwarf was getting dangerously close to hitting the truth. “What else can you see, super sleuth? Trying to piece together a profile for your thesis?”

  “No. Well, kinda. I am going to be using your unique psychology for a study though,” laughed Debbie, “You are kind of a unique case.”

  “Glad I can help you,” deadpanned Gore. Then she blinked and murmured, “Though why are you so obsessed with helping me? Even with friends, the few that I’ve had, fewer would risk life and limb for me.”

  “Well, it’s not entirely for you,” said Debbie before bursting into a fake giggle.

  Gore raised an eyebrow and asked, “You an adrenaline junkie now?”

  “No. I think of it as facing my fear,” murmured Debbie, rubbing her hands. “Kinda like if you had a bad experience with peas and so you decided to eat peas again.”

  “You equate nearly getting killed to peas?” asked Gore.

  “Mhm… Peas suck. Actually, most vegetables suck gigantic turds,” scowled Debbie as she looked away, holding her arms together, rubbing her hands across her arms.

  The Magnum Orcus rumbled.

  Gore blinked and reexamined her friend. Despite the smile plastered across her face, Debbie shook like a leaf. Blood had drained from the dwarf’s face.

  Looking within herself, seeing another girl standing before her in Debbie’s place, Gore sighed and realized the storm behind Debbie’s behavior. Gore knew. She knew what it was like from inside Debbie’s mind, from someone who had been in the same position of absolute vulnerability. She knew what it was like to have everything, even her free will, stripped from her.

  But Debbie had not lost herself in the rage and despair. She stood ready to face her fear.

  Face your fears… A wise orc had once told Gore that if one didn’t know fear, then one couldn’t be courageous. Though the orc had also been a homeless druggie. Gore almost stepped away, left Debbie to deal with her own demons.

  But she could not leave her friend alone.

  That was not who Gore was.

  Gulping down her fears, Gore stepped forward. Then she stopped, her feet all of a sudden made from concrete, glued to the earth. Gore breathed in deep, trying to draw upon ideals of loyalty and compassion. The ideals of a more “civilized” species.

  Who was she to comfort someone? Who was she to think she could help? How could an orc do anything but destroy?

  After all, it was orcs who had done this to Debbie. What right did Gore have to undo what her kind had done?

  No, Gore shook her head. She needed to help her friend. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Clenching her teeth, Gore’s eyes turned black as she slid up to Debbie and placed her hand on the dwarf’s shoulder.

  The dwarf looked up to meet Gore’s gaze.

  Forcing her eyes into grey, Gore smiled.

  Debbie nodded and pressed her forehead into Gore’s waist.

  They stood there for a long time.

  “You want to talk about it?” asked Gore after the silence had gnawed away at her patience. “I won’t pressure you. Just… it’s your own words. It’s not good to let something fester inside you. Not good to let something gnaw at you when someone can help. Or something like that.”

  “Hypocrite,” chuckled Debbie, jabbing one hand into Gore’s stomach. Then the dwarf sighed and growled, “Do I have to?”

  “No. You don’t. You never have to do anything,” murmured Gore as she looked away. “No one’s gonna force you to do a thing you don’t want. I’m just offering help. If you want.”

  Debbie smiled, patting Gore on the shoulder. Then she turned her gaze at her feet and took a deep breath.

  Gore waited.

  “It’s just… I can’t stop thinking about that night. Those memories are stuck in my head,” hissed Debbie, clutching her ears as if she could block out what echoed within her own skull. “Over and over and over again, I can see the night again, feel it. The shadows… the hands… the bars… being completely helpless. Even for one night…”

  “I know, I was in the same position,” murmured Gore as she wrapped her arms around Debbie. “I was also a captive… just let it out. Just let all your rage, all your anger, all your frustration into the air… it’s fine. I’ll listen to it all.”

  Debbie shivered and murmured, “I always knew there was something terrible going on in the world. You know what I mean right? With the news always reporting on some fire or catastrophe or terrorist attack in the distance… just I always thought it was someone else’s problem. I mean, we’re in Valerian, the greatest and most powerful country in the world. How could there be such rampant crime right under our noses? How could I have been so blind? Even when my parents made me complete those self-defense courses, I still didn’t really believe it…”

  “Sometimes we blind ourselves to what we cannot understand,” murmured Gore, lips twisting. She had attempted to ask for help many times when she was younger. All the elves she had asked gave her blank stares, then just shrugged and moved on with their lives. “Or sometimes… We just don’t know how to help… often, we assume it’s someone else’s problem. Often, we assume it’s too big for one person. Often… we just don’t even care…”

  “By the Forge Master, I don’t think I could possibly live like that. Not now, not after seeing what I saw. After seeing dozens of other girls in the same position as me, I cannot live the same way,” growled Debbie, her voice fiercer than an elemental’s flame.

  “It sucks, I know that more than anyone. But you need to focus on the important stuff. Even if you got saved and the girls at Roomenya got saved, the gangs are going to find more drunk girls at parties or nightclubs ready to be scooped up and shipped off to Blight knows where. There’s nothing we can do about it.” Gore shuddered and closed her eyes. The girls in the cages stared back at her. Then she steeled her thoughts and shut them away in the deepest, darkest place within her mind. “You can’t change the world.”

  Debbie shook her head and hissed, “No. I can’t, won’t just let it go. I know I got lucky but there are hundreds of girls who didn’t. I’ll do something. Anything to stop such horrendous violence.”

  “So what do you plan to do?” asked Gore, lips twisting as she held her breath. She smiled, admiring Debbie’s strength, her conviction. Somehow, despite everything, Debbie had kept a strong face throughout the entire week without cracking. And even when she did crack, Debbie came back stronger.

  There were some who were created better than others, who were meant for greater things, to guide lesser beings into the light. Gore knew Debbie was one of those people. Those special individuals who fought the pain and agony of this world instead of succumbing.

  Raising her eyes to meet Gore, Debbie murmured, “Well, small steps at first. I’m approaching this very logically. Planning for once.”

  “Shocker.”

  “I know, right? Surprising, especially from me.” Debbie coughed and rubbed her hands together. “Well… First, I will infiltrate the underground racing scheme with you to obtain footage that I can upload onto the cloud and give to activist slash rights groups. Awareness. That’s always a good place to start.”

  Debbie gestured to her
front, where a small camera blinked at Gore from within the bulletproof vest. Gore smiled and examined the camera. One of the small Lore Go’s.

  “As long as you follow up with it,” growled Gore, shaking her head. There were countless clubs on campus that always talked and talked and talked about raising awareness on social issues but never did a goddamn thing.

  “Yeah. I have to come up with a way to ensure that not only do people realize this is a problem in our society but that they have the ability to help fight it…” Debbie nodded her agreement. “Hm… perhaps a fundraiser. My dance team has a recital coming up in a few days. I’m reallocate some of the fundings and profits to go to charities in the area. Oh, yeah. You should totally come. It’ll be great.”

  Gore, shaking her head and rubbing her temples, chuckled, “You’re thinking like an elf. All the money in the world can’t save a single person if there aren’t people fighting the bad guys. I know this. You know this. We all know this. The best thing either of us can do is to crack some skulls and save some girls ourselves.”

  “Yeah but that saves what? A dozen girls? Twenty girls if we get lucky?” scoffed Debbie. “And that assumes we can save the girls in the first place with the gangs surrounding us…”

  “Heh… I’ve dealt with the gangs before,” muttered Gore, even though she shook on the inside. She couldn’t afford to help other people. She couldn’t afford to take that risk.

  “I thought we said we’d be open with each other, Gore? I know about your debt situation. The gangs have a hold on you just like they almost got a hold of me. So we gotta try and break that hold. Trust me, I’m coming up with a plan.”

  Gore laughed, “How can a Psych-Major slash dancer slash dwarf fight against the gangs of Tao Ein? What makes you think that you can succeed where the police failed?”

  “Someone’s gotta try,” muttered Debbie, blushing as she looked away. “Hey, I know it sounds crazy but someone’s gotta take a stand. And I know I probably won’t make much of a difference but it’s the least I could do after what I saw in there…”

  “Well said, dwarf,” chuckled Bones. “Momma G could use someone like you in her gang.”