by Eric Vall
It was a “Behemoth” Model, but he looked to be modified with a synthetic skin that hung from his face like a loose mask. He would not pass for human upon close inspection, but I guessed he was operating only at night.
I increased my speed and caught the robot before he hit the door of Tony’s apartment.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “I am more than capable of handling this mission myself.”
The Behemoth looked at me curiously and then shrugged. “The Hive sent me back in time with one mission: kill every single Tony Amin I could find. I have already destroyed five. This one is next.”
“I’ve been watching him for the last few days,” I explained.
“And?” the Behemoth asked.
“He is not the target,” I lied, and my body went numb as soon as I realized what I’d just said. “He is only a meatbag who lives alone in his little apartment. His chances of ever mating with a human female are slim to none.”
The Behemoth model raised his eyebrow at me and shook his head.
“He is on the list, HFD-576,” he stated flatly.
“He is not the right Tony Amin,” I retorted.
“Is there something wrong with your programming?” the wide robot asked as its fake eyebrows raised. “We have a directive.”
“Time is our most valuable asset,” I reasoned, “and we lose precious minutes by going after targets we already know are fakes.”
“Is this male’s name Tony Amin?” the robot asked.
“Yes,” I reluctantly admitted.
“Then he must be destroyed,” the Behemoth stated as he turned back toward the door.
“My mission was to find the mother and father of Alexander Amin and kill them,” I said as I rested my blood stained hands on his right metal shoulder. “Do you want to tell The Hive you were the reason I could not complete my mission?”
“The Hive told me to kill every Tony Amin in Seattle in the year 2019. The Hive said you were not successful because the timeline did not change.” The Behemoth took another step toward the door of the apartment complex, but this time I stepped in front of him.
Was I really doing this?
The large robot let out a huff as his brow furrowed in anger.
“You are interfering,” my robot brethren stated.
“I’m not letting you kill this man,” I ordered. “Move on to the next Tony Amin. This one is mine.”
“I do not understand,” the Behemoth said, and his voice seemed to growl slightly.
“I said to move on to the next target,” I stated calmly. “This one is mine, and I will destroy you if you attempt to proceed.”
The Behemoth stared at me for a second as if I’d just spoken to him in a foreign language. Then he raised his fake eyebrows, and his red eyes glowed.
“HFD-576, your programing is corrupt,” the machine finally stated. “I have determined you are a risk to The Hive and my objective. Prepare to be destroyed.”
“Fuck you,” I sighed as I realized no matter what happened next, one thing was for sure.
This was going to hurt.
Chapter 11 - Tony
What the hell just happened?
Hannah and I were out on a date, having a great time, and then we had a freaking Hummer flip over on us. If I hadn’t been there, the beautiful blue-haired woman would have been crushed under its weight and obliterated into a million pieces.
Yet, when I ran over to check on the driver of the vehicle, Hannah sprinted away. I didn’t know if she was still hopped up on adrenaline from the accident, or if she was trying to bail out before the car exploded, or what.
Either way, I hadn’t seen her in the hour since.
I would have followed her, but the dude in the car was in pretty rough shape, and I had to keep my hand pressed over his wound so he wouldn’t bleed out.
The police and the paramedics got there a few minutes and tended to the wounded man, but then we heard gunshots from a few streets over, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
Despite my protests, the officer demanded I get escorted home in a squad car, and he promised me his men would find Hannah. I tried to argue, but before I knew it, one of the other policemen had me in the passenger seat, and then he flipped on his lights and sped off from the scene of the crime, all while I worried deeply about Hannah.
Seattle was a fairly crazy city, but this was borderline hysteria.
We arrived at my apartment, and the officer assured me once more they would find Hannah.
I left him my contact info before I headed upstairs with my stomach tied in knots.
Damn it, Hannah. Why did you run off?
I would have tried to call her, but this woman was a ghost. No cell phone, no credit cards, no social media profiles … it was like she just fell out of the sky one day.
As soon as I threw open the door of my apartment, I dashed over to the window and stared out in frustration. Then I downloaded a police scanner app onto my phone to see if I could get updates in real time, but there was nothing about her. I heard calls come in about petty burglary, public intoxication, and medical emergencies, but nothing about a blue-haired woman.
I didn’t even hear anything about a shooter.
I stood at the window worrying for almost a full hour, but then I saw a familiar head of aqua-blonde locks bobbing down the street, and my heart leapt in my chest.
It was Hannah, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Wait, where is she going?” I asked when Hannah dashed past the entrance of my complex and stopped in front of a large muscular man who was approaching from the other side.
I didn’t like this one bit, so I flipped the locks on the window, lifted it up, and cautiously stuck my head outside.
“He is only a meatbag who lives alone in his little apartment,” I heard Hannah say. “His chances of ever mating with a human female are slim to none.”
My stomach sank, and I suddenly felt like the world was a dark abyss, slowly swallowing me into its maw. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Damn it. I thought she liked me. I should have known better. A girl like her would never be into a nerd like me.
But who the fuck was this guy? Was he an ex-boyfriend who wanted her back? She was making it abundantly clear she wasn’t interested in me, almost as if she was trying to reassure the man.
I stepped away from the window, placed my hands on my face, and fell back into the bed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I thought Hannah was different. I thought she was legitimately interested in me. My stupid ass thought maybe, just maybe, we could have had something long-term. I really liked Hannah, but it was pretty obvious the feeling wasn’t mutual.
Was she only using me to get free meals, clothes, and trips to the movies? Is that why she pretended to be “off the grid,” so she could manipulate men into being her sugar daddy? That’s what Renee had warned me about when Hannah was first hired at Carmichael’s, that she was probably one of Darren’s mistresses who wanted a free job.
Well, the joke was on Hannah. I worked for twelve dollars an hour at a freaking electronics store, and I’d spent most of my money on her clothes and hair dye.
Nevermind. The joke was on me. I just spent all my money on a woman who didn’t fucking care about me. I was such an idiot.
“You are interfering,” I heard the man growl downstairs, and then Hannah said something I couldn’t hear because she was facing away from the window.
I didn’t like the sound of that, so I rolled off my bed, looked out the window, and saw Hannah was defiantly standing in front of the man with her hands on her hips.
“ … and my objective. Prepare to be destroyed,” the bulky figure growled.
“Fuck you,” Hannah hissed, and then she held her hands up like she was going to fight the man.
And the big man also raised his fists.
Holy shit, this guy was threatening to beat up Hannah.
I dashed over to my closet, snatched up the me
tal baseball bat I kept hidden in there, and then sprinted out the door of my apartment and down the stairs. The bat was a remnant of the pick-up baseball league I’d been in during college, but now it was tucked away in case I’d ever need to deliver some street justice.
I may have been upset at Hannah right now, but I certainly wasn’t going to let any harm come to that delicate creature out there.
I stomped down the stairs, exited through the door and stomped out to where the man and Hannah were standing. The man saw me first, but then Hannah turned around and let out a gasp of horror when she saw me.
“Go back inside!” she demanded.
“Hell no,” I growled and pointed the baseball bat at the large man. “Leave the lady alone, dude.”
Now that I was down on his level, I almost regretted my decision. This guy was nearly double my size, and the muscles on his body were as thick as my head. He was also uglier than I could have ever imagined, and it almost looked like his skin was about to fall off his face.
“Who is this?” the large man asked as he turned his red eyes on me.
Red eyes. What the fuck?
“Do not say your name,” Hannah warned.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded. “Who is this guy, and why is he trying to hurt you?”
“Are you Tony Amin?” the monster-man asked.
“And how the hell does this guy know who I am?” I growled. “I’m gonna need some answers right now!”
“HFD-576 … ” the large man said as he glanced at the beautiful blonde woman. “You are protect--”
“I don’t know who the fuck you are, or how the fuck you know who I am, but you need to back the fuck up!” I interrupted him as I readied the bat. “Leave Hannah alone, or I’m going to beat the shit out of you!”
The man’s red eyes narrowed as he looked at me, and my knees started to shake. He had to be on a diet of solid steroids, and I suddenly wondered if he would even feel the bat when I hit him with it.
“Foolish … ” the man muttered as he swept Hannah to the side with one of his big beefy arms and took another step toward me.
But I was through with warnings.
I hauled back, swung the bat directly at his left shoulder, and struck him as hard as I could. The second the weapon made contact, it dinged off his skin like it was made of metal, and the reverberation shot down my arm and caused the bat to fly out of my hand.
“What the fuck?” A wave of pain shot through my arm, and I grabbed my injury in agony.
“I will make your death quick, but not painless.” The steroid-man took another step and reached out to grab me.
My body froze, and I tunnel visioned on his red eyes like a newb gamer who was facing his first epic boss.
Then there was a loud crack of gunfire from the side, and the man’s head lurched on his shoulders to the right. A smoking hole appeared on the side of his face, like someone had shot him, but instead of collapsing into a dead heap, his head slowly moved back around and stared at me with those crazy red eyes.
Then part of his face slid off the side of his skull, and I saw muscle underneath.
I felt Hannah’s hands around my wrist, and she pulled me back so I was standing next to her. The blue-haired woman had a futuristic looking pistol in her hand, and she unloaded another shot into the large man’s forehead as he staggered toward us.
“You need to run,” she commanded. “Now.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I somehow said despite my terror, “not again.”
“Tony,” she pleaded, “this is not one of your simulations. If you stay and fight, this man will kill you.”
“The Hive will learn about your treachery, HFD-576,” the large man growled as he began to advance on our position.
He moved as slow as molasses, but he just shrugged off every single bullet Hannah put into him. Finally, the gun clicked, and the blue-haired woman threw it to the side.
“What are you doing, Tony?” she gasped. “Run!”
Then, before he could come any closer, Hannah dashed over to the crazy demon-dude, flipped up into the air, and wrapped her legs around his neck. She spun her body around like an acrobat before she popped up into a sitting position on the man’s head and began to drive her fists into his head as violently as she could.
Chunks of the man’s flesh seemed to rip away from his face with each blow, leaving behind raw patches of exposed muscle. Underneath, I could see something silvery and shiny.
Metal. Underneath it all, he was metal.
I nearly vomited at the sight, and the world started to spin. I stumbled back a few feet until I was up against the wall and stared at the scene in horror.
What the fuck was going on? When did Hannah become a badass ninja?
The large man growled as he reached up, grabbed Hannah by the shoulder, and yanked her off his neck. Then he slammed her body into the ground so hard it left a large indentation in the pavement, and he repeated the motion three more times until the ground was covered with her blood.
“No!” I shouted as I stepped toward the monster-man, but as he raised Hannah up into the air a forth time, the bloody woman wrapped her legs around the man’s arm, placed her feet where his shoulder and arm met, and then heaved backward as hard as she could.
I heard the sound of cracking metal and sizzling circuits as Hannah tugged, and then his arm went limp, and the woman flipped off him with a spray of blue hair and blood.
He tried to move his arm, but somehow it was only able to twitch a few inches above his waist. Yet, despite the gruesome injury he’d just incurred, the bulky man remained emotionless.
“Run! Damn it!” Hannah dashed at her target again and used her momentum to slide between the massive gap in his stance.
The large man tried to smash her with his oversized fists, but he missed and cratered the ground instead.
As she slid, Hannah threw out her hands, caught the large man’s ankles, and then angled her body upward. The points of her feet struck her enemy in the back and forced him to stumble forward. Then she used the man’s back as a springboard to somersault into the air and land on a nearby tree.
The massive man-machine stumbled forward and attempted to steady himself, but failed. His frame wobbled for a second and then went down with the grace of an elephant. The earth quaked underneath our feet from the impact of his fall, and I could see he’d sunken into the ground so far half of his body was now embedded in the pavement. He tried to pull himself back up onto his feet, but his one good arm was only able to lift him up a few inches before he collapsed back down with a hard thud.
It was almost like watching a turtle trying to flip over from its back.
Hannah hopped off the tree, reached into the waistband of her shorts, and produced another pistol. She held a firm scowl on her face as she ran over to the giant man, took aim, and then unleashed an entire magazine into the back of his skull.
His body went limp instantaneously as meaty chunks of flesh and metal flew from his cranium, but Hannah didn’t stop until the gun clicked empty.
Then she ejected the empty magazine, tossed it to the side, and loaded another one from her pockets. The blue-haired woman looked cold and emotionless as she put another fifteen rounds into his head. Then the gun clicked, and she ejected the magazine once more.
I took another step closer to see the damage and nearly hurled.
The whole back of the man’s head was now missing, and all that remained was a giant, hole-filled piece of gray metal.
“Behemoth,” Hannah growled.
I took another step forward as she pulled out a third magazine.
“I-I-I-I, uhhh, think you got him,” I stammered.
Hannah’s head shot over in my direction, and her eyes went wide with horror.
“Tony, get away from--”
Before she could finish her sentence, the large man’s hand shot up from its prone position and smacked me in the left leg.
My vision went white for a moment as red-h
ot pain shot up my tibia. I let out a grunt of pain as I fell down onto one knee, and the “Behemoth” made another sudden motion.
He slammed his fist into the ground, pushed back as hard as he could, and rolled over. As he rolled, he drove his elbow back into Hannah’s stomach, and the woman was tossed through the wall of a storefront on the other side of the street a good fifty-feet away.
She didn’t scream or indicate any sort of pain, but she was out of my immediate line of vision.
The man with no scalp was now on his back, still unable to get up.
Or so I thought.
He bent his legs at the knee, raised them into his stomach, and then slammed them down into the ground. The shockwave knocked me back onto my ass, and I heard the windows behind me shatter and fall against the hard ground. Now that his feet were firmly stuck in the pavement, he bent at the abdomen and slowly moved his body back into a standing position. His head turned, and his dead, emotionless eyes were now staring straight into my soul.
Oh, fuck.
I tried to stand up, but the pain in my leg was unbearable. I was finally able to get some weight on it, so I assumed his blow hadn’t hit me hard enough to completely shatter the bones. Even so, it hurt like a bitch, and I knew I was going to have a hard time walking for the next few days.
If I didn’t end up dead in the next minute.
The “Behemoth” remained stone-faced as he yanked one foot out of the ground with a spray of debris, but I wasn’t going to wait for him to get the other one out.
I was going to heed Hannah’s advice and run.
I spun around, gritted my teeth to try and mask the pain, and began to hobble down the sidewalk. As I limped away from the scene, I heard another crash of rubble spray up into the air behind me.
Now, he was totally free of his concrete prison.
I just needed to hope he couldn’t move as fast as Hannah had. Even though I was up and moving, there was no way I could outrun even a normal human, let alone a cybernetic humanoid machine or whatever the hell he was.
Seriously, what was going on here? This dude was obviously a robot of some sort, and Hannah was an expert weapons handler and hand-to-hand combatant. What kind of a futuristic action movie had I gotten myself wrapped up into?