by Jadah McCoy
“Do you know who you have to thank for all of this?” With one long, slim finger, he touches the bottom edge of Bastion’s smiling mask and pushes it off his face. The expression beneath is not nearly as friendly as the mask on top. “You can thank your dear friend Bastion. And so can I for making this so easy.”
“Stop it,” Bastion growls under his breath.
I look at Bastion, the hate in his eyes, in his body. I know the hatred he holds for the things in this building. He’s told me. I’ve seen it. He would never. But the way the other PICs passed us, not even sparing us a glance like they expected us… it must have been dumb luck. There’s no way it could have been anything else.
“You’re lying,” I say.
“Oh, you poor, stupid creature. He sold you out in less than fifteen minutes.”
Back in the elevator, what he said… Do you trust me? He didn’t look at me, didn’t take off the mask, his face angled toward the floor. I need you to know that if anything happens… Like what? What was the rest of that sentence? What was he going to say?
I glance at him, knees pressed to the ground, sagging under the weight of the two androids above him. He doesn’t meet my eyes, and his face is hard, harder than I’ve ever seen it, his mouth in a scowl to rival my own. Why won’t he look at me?
“And she’s seen the light.” Lexion throws his head back and laughs. “You Organics, I will never understand you. Someone says ‘trust me,’ and what do you do? You trust them!”
I stare at Bastion, urging him to look at me. Just look at me. Just tell me it isn’t true. Finally, his gaze slides from the floor and meets mine. It’s not innocence I see there—it’s a confession.
He sold me out.
He told me I would live, I would be okay, and then he fucking sold me out.
Lexion walks closer to me, his steps clanging against the metal grates, and crouches so that we’re eye to eye. He grasps the hollows of my cheeks with his hand and squeezes. I can smell the copper on him, the blood and gore and death. I try to jerk my face away, but he grips tighter.
“Well, you can trust me, little one. Me and my friends are going to take good care of you. Oh, the plans we have.”
He snaps the fingers of his other hand in front of me and across the room, Bastion yells. He curls into himself, his face nearly touching the floor. The orange light from below shines off his pained expression, and the mask on his head scrapes against the ground. He shakes his head once, and three thin arms protrude from his ear. They grasp the lobe and shell, pressing until a bloated little body pops out, covered in slimy goo.
It lands on the floor, settling in the space of a grate. With a fizzle and a high-pitched whine, the thing seems to die. Black drips from Bastion’s ear where it came out.
“Get him out of my sight,” Lexion says with a dismissive wave of his hand. He slices his gaze toward Bastion. “I promised I wouldn’t kill him, not yet.”
The PICs lift him from his knees, dragging him out of the room and toward the hall. He pulls against their grip with the force of his weight.
“Syl!” he yells.
I don’t turn around, don’t look at him; I just listen to the sound of his shoes scraping against the floor. I am the same as I’ve always been—standing alone against the monsters in my way. And if I’m to die, then I’ll try my best to take Lexion and whoever else I must with me.
“Syl, please! Sylvia!”
And then the doors squeak as they slide closed. The telltale rumble reverberates as the cabin moves down. There’s just me and Lexion in the room, and the two PICs holding me. I inch backward, closer to the gun strapped to the PIC’s side. I can almost reach it…
Lexion smiles, showing teeth that seem too sharp, like the teeth of a predator.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
He paces in front of me. “My dear, you are an investment, and one that I can’t afford to lose track of again.”
“An investment?”
He laughs, the dark sound rumbling through my bones.
“The Culling. How very clever of my predecessors to use the Organics’ own science against them.” He stops pacing in front of the window. He looks out, hands crossed behind his back. The city lights shine in, breaking up the miles of darkness outside. “But it was crude, vengeful, and inefficient.”
I glare up at him as he paces.
He turns to me. “That’s where you come in, my fleshy little Organic peach. All that land out there, that filthy, old city, ripe for the taking. Infested with all you brainless termites, Cull and Organic alike. What good is a place if it’s infested? We need an exterminator. Someone like you.”
Dread makes my chest burn. He’s going to destroy Elite and every living thing in it.
He runs a hand through my hair, so softly. His touch makes my stomach turn.
“What did you do to me?” I yell, jerking away from him.
“How does it feel? Has the hemorrhaging started yet? The hair loss?”
“Fuck you.” I spit on his shoes. “I’ll die before I let you turn me into one of them.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “Funny, because that’s exactly what I need you to do!”
His guard is down which is unlucky for him. In one fluid motion, I rip the PIC’s guns from their holsters and unleash the full force of them onto their masked faces. The cannons in my hands warm, and then several shots of blue plasma light explode from the guns, melting the PICs’ faces. They collapse against the ground with a thud.
I point the two plasma cannons at Lexion’s head. “Don’t make me blow your head off again, you sick fuck.”
He laughs again as he jumps up and down and claps his hands together with delight.
Behind me, the familiar sound of the metal room rumbles to our floor. More PICs. My finger is on the trigger, and I’m ready for them, however many there are, one gun on Lexion and the other aimed at the sliding doors. I won’t go down without a fight.
The metal doors down the hall glow yellow, then orange, then red. They morph and bubble, and then finally balloon out, exploding in a spray of molten metal. A spray of sparks and black, acrid smoke follows the explosion. The elevator cabin shudders as it tries to descend once more, but the liquid metal has cooled and sealed it into place.
As the mess dissipates, a figure steps out of the thick smoke. Torn suit, missing dress shoe, and big fucking gun in hand—Bastion.
“I was going to say back there, that if anything happens I need you to know that I will always come back for you.” He cocks the gun in his hand.
I nod once. “And I was going to say that I trust you. So I guess we’re even.”
“I suppose we are.” Bastion steps by my side, leveling his gaze against Lexion. “This tosser’s too cocky to even give me a proper PIC escort. It was a little too small to get anything done.”
He winks, and together we aim our weapons and prepare to end this, one way or another.
Syl
h my! Now this is a party,” Lexion says, swaying in place with a toothy grin on his face. Standing by the computer at the wall, he presses a blinking button. “I hope you won’t mind if I invite a friend of my own. Perhaps you’ve even met before. In fact, I dare say I believe you have!”
The floor beneath my feet shifts, and I stumble to the side. Bastion grasps my shoulder and rights my balance. The grates beneath us split, and with a groan the floor begins to separate and fold into itself, creating a wider space between the two of us. Heat and steam blast up from below, and the pipes and cogs shiver and turn in the open space beneath us.
I glance over the edge. It’s a long way down, and there are plenty of obstacles on which to crack your skull open before you make it to the bottom. A lift makes its way out of the darkness and into the orange glow. The humming gears get louder and louder as it approaches. I can see a figure on it, just barely, but I’m not waiting around to see who it is.
Bastion points his weapon at Lexion, taking a step toward him
“You don’t want to hurt this pretty face, do you?” he asks, batting long lashes over his colorless eyes.
“Not until I get some answers. Put your hands above your head and maybe I won’t blow it off again,” says Bastion. “Syl.”
Just one answer, that’s all we need: how do I undo what was done to me?
Bastion tosses the restraints to me. With one gun tucked into my waistband, I catch them and jog toward Lexion. Nothing would give me more pleasure than seeing him cringe when I secure these on his wrists as tight as they’ll go. A small victory.
“Be gentle with me,” Lexion says with a melodramatic pout.
Bastion reaches for his hands to secure them behind his back. Behind me, a loud, metallic clang echoes as the lift locks into place. The floor vibrates beneath our feet again, and I turn to see what’s behind us as I slap the cuffs around Lexion. The lift hums as it lowers again.
I gasp. The cuffs hang limp in my hand, Lexion’s left wrist restrained but his right one free.
“Syl!” I barely hear Bastion call my name.
I’m frozen in place. “Lucca?”
“How unlucky for you,” whispers Lexion.
His words are dull buzzing in my ears.
Bastion takes a hit to the face, which keeps him off guard long enough for Lexion to kick him in the chest. He flies backward, skidding against the grates. The gun in his hands sparks as it drags against the metal.
Lexion saunters forward until he’s beside me. His lips press against my ear, and he brushes my hair aside as he whispers to me, “You see, I thought you might know someone at this party.”
Standing, rather towering, on the platform is Lucca, but it’s not really him. This isn’t the friend I know, the boy I grew up with. He’s parts of a whole. Bolted metal, wires, tubes, and patches of green and red rotting flesh hold his body, or what’s left of it, together. His long, dark hair is patchy, and a jagged scar mars his neck—a scar from when his body was relieved of his head.
I fall to my knees and empty my stomach, threading my fingers between the grates. What did they do to him?
“He’s working for them!” Bastion yells from across the room.
“Sylvia, help me,” Lucca says, his own soft voice coming out of that terrible body. He takes hulking steps toward me with his giant metal feet.
He’s working for them.
The way he looked at me that last day in the Sanctuary. The things he said when I was still tethered to that goddamned tube. He wanted to put me out of my misery.
Lucca’s pale face splits in a smile as he laughs, the sound echoing through the cavernous room and solidifying my distrust.
With a cry, I lift my guns and fire at our attackers. Lexion dodges the plasma cannons, flipping backward on one hand while twisting in the air. Lucca covers his face with a great metal hand, and the plasma ricochets. The monster quickens his lumbering pace and smashes into me, and I fly backward and crash into a test tube. I gasp for breath as I press a hand to my chest, the wind knocked out of me. Behind me, the glass creaks and cracks, the liquid inside gushing out in small streams. It hits the pipes below and they hiss and steam, obscuring my view.
I groan and shuffle to my feet, but I’m not quick enough. That giant metal hand grips me around my waist, pinching my arms, and drags me off the ground. He pulls me in so close that I can smell the rot seeping through his flesh. Bitterness rises in the back of my throat.
I struggle in his grasp. My hand is free, and I can almost get a clear shot at the wires in the crease of his knee. “Why are you doing this?”
“Sylvia can do no wrong.” He squeezes me tighter, until I can barely breathe, and presses me into the wall of glass tubes behind me. They creak under the pressure. I don’t have to look behind me to know that I don’t want to wake up whatever’s in them.
“That’s why you betrayed your race? Your friends? Sanders? Jealousy?” I glare at him in disbelief. My hand shakes as I stretch my arm in a desperate attempt to aim. Just a bit farther. “Your father loved you!”
He slams me into the glass again. “My father loved you!” A scowl covers his gray face. “And look where that got him. I’ve seen what happens to people who love you. Well… no more.” His metal grip pinches my skin. “I’ll betray whoever I must to avenge the man you killed.”
“So be it.” With a deafening whir, the plasma cannon in my hand goes off.
The blue ball of energy smacks into the metal and wires at Lucca’s knee and implodes. Lucca growls, and his legs collapse, his grip on me loosening. I wiggle from the tightness of his grasp and shoot again, higher this time, more toward his throat.
“Bitch!” Lucca lifts me again and tosses me in the opposite direction. My stomach flips as I fly across the room and with a jolt and clack of teeth, land against the grates on the other side. The momentum sends me sliding even farther.
I groan. Everything hurts. The plasma cannon is still cold against my palm, so at least there’s that. My muscles burn as I roll over and push myself up.
But a hand grabs my throat, choking me, and drags me off the ground. The cannon rips from my grip, and it clangs against the metal grates several feet away. Laughter echoes in my ear—Lexion. I fight against his strong grip at my throat.
Across from us, Bastion stands eerily still, gun aimed in the direction of Lexion and me. His face is carved from determination, brow hard and jaw tense. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Lucca just beginning to right himself.
“What ever will you do now, Glitch?” Lexion’s voice lilts with amusement. I cough and gasp against his grip. “Kill me, kill the human. How does that make you feel?”
The laughter that ekes out of him makes my skin crawl. I claw at his hand with my nails, desperate for air.
“It makes me feel like you’ve underestimated me.” Bastion’s smile is sweet as the gun in his hands goes off.
Heat and the smell of ozone whiz past me before I even realize what’s happened. The hand at my throat loosens, and then there’s a thud behind me. I collapse, hands at my bruised neck as I cough and gasp for air. The smell of singed hair—my own—fills my lungs. On my knees, I see Lexion on the ground behind me, a chunk missing from the left side of his face—just enough to miss my head but for him to be out of commission. It’s a familiar scene, the metal and wires protruding from him.
A glance to the left tells me that Lucca’s knee isn’t as screwed up as I had hoped.
“Sylvia!”
Suddenly Bastion is beside me, his hands on my shoulders and elbows as he lifts my aching body from the ground. The gun is still in his hand, and a light on the side of it flashes bright red.
Lucca’s steps shake the floor beneath us as he looms closer. His pace is sluggish, but I know not to trust that—he has a long reach in that metal suit.
“Listen to me. Syl, listen.” Bastion cups my cheeks and forces me to look at him. “My plasma ray is warming up from that shot. I have this.” He pulls a small, circular object from his pocket. “It’ll wipe the drives of the main computer, store the information, and render it useless. No more experiments.” He glances at the body on the ground. “No more Lexion. All I need you to do is keep that thing distracted until I can get the information on to this drive and warm up another shot.”
No more experiments. No more Lexion. I nod frantically, my hands shaking.
“You’re so strong. You can do this.” Lucca is almost within arm’s reach now. Bastion pushes me away. “Go!”
I sprint toward the other side of the room, Lucca’s hand crashing down in the place where I was just standing a few seconds before.
Just distract him. Just distract him. You’ll be fine.
Across the room, Bastion is pressing buttons on the computer. I can see his gun. It blinks red, red, red.
Please hurry. Please hurry.
Lucca lumbers toward me in his heavy suit.
“Still can’t hit a fucking target, I see,” I yell across the room. “No wonder Sanders thought you we
re such a disappointment.”
He picks up his pace, face distorted with anger and hatred. I glance over at the hole in the floor where the lift was. He’s blind in his anger. If I can just get him mad enough, blinded enough, and line him up with that opening… he’s too stupid to not fall through. I judge the distance from one side to the other. It’s a long way. But I have long legs and I’m fast.
I can do this. I can make that fucking jump. I have to.
“You’re a robot and you’re still slow and useless!” I yell.
With a sharp metallic sound, two blades slide out of the metal encasing his arms. That gives him at least another four feet on his reach. Shit. Maybe taunting him wasn’t such an awesome idea.
He swipes left and then right, and I crouch low and roll between his legs as he crashes into the tubes on the wall. They crack even more, and the liquid pours out as pieces of glass fall away. Steam fills the room as water cascades over the hot pipes and gears below. I can barely make out his hulking silhouette in front of me.
I run closer to the square hole in the floor and stop about fifteen feet away from it. I glance over at Bastion. He’s still typing, the gun still blinking red. Damnit. Useless gun. How long does it take?
As I look up, Lucca turns toward me. His body heaves and shudders.
“Do you want to know what Sanders really said to me the day he died?” I ask. Lucca’s face fills with even more hatred, the blackness of it showing through his eyes and the grit of his teeth. “He said”—Tell Lucca that I will always love… have always loved him. He is everything…—“he hated you the moment you were born. You’ve always been a puny nuisance.”
With a snarl, Lucca charges me. I run, my legs and arms pumping as fast as they can. The ledge appears through the fog, and I push off with all of my strength. Lucca leaps behind me, throwing out his arms in a wild display, the swords grazing my legs.
I soar through the air, arms swinging wildly as I reach out to grasp the other side. With a yell, Lucca reaches out, too. Just barely, my fingers grasp the metal on the other side. Sweat pours down my face and soaks my hands, making them slippery. But my grasp is true, and I don’t fall. Lucca’s grip is faulty, his large metal hands on either side of me. I kick at his face, and his fingers slip off the metal ledge, his weight pulling against and bending the metal grate flooring around us.