Fiasco Heights

by Zack Archer

  With something that resembled pleasure, the machine’s gold-flecked eyes tracked her every movement.

  It swung at her again, the claws grazing her hair.

  Without thinking, she wormed between its legs.

  The construct snorted and heaved, and snapped out an arm that caught Liberty in the side.

  Her feet left the ground and she sailed sideways, smacking the ground hard, rolling over, all the air loosed from her lungs.

  The construct reacted.

  So did Liberty.

  Muscles clenched, nerves quickening, she pulled her sword around, holding it over her head like an oversized dagger.

  She spotted an exposed hydraulic cable on the construct’s hamstring and bisected it with a flick of the wrist.

  Machine oil spurted, the enfeebled construct sputtering, eventually faceplanting in the debris.

  Liberty hopped up onto the twitching machine and dispatched it with a single sword thrust.

  “Thanks for the help!” she shouted, looking over at the rest of us.

  We were all busy with our attackers, however, including the robotic devil that was squaring up on me.

  I fired a series of plasma balls that ricocheted off the beast’s metal arms, which were criss-crossed over its chest. I couldn’t believe how powerful the machine was. It reared up, arms outflung, ready to do serious damage to me, when there was a silver blur.

  Liberty’s sword.

  She’d flung it at the construct, and I watched the blade fly through the air, end-over-end, nearly decapitating Splinter and Kaptain Khaos before—

  Slamming into the construct’s chest in a shower of friction sparks.

  The machine clutched at the blade, moving its arms away from its chest, giving me just enough time to summon up another, larger ball of plasma which I threw.

  The energy slammed center-mass into it, eviscerating its core.

  The machine collapsed, its body wracked with a series of paroxysms.

  “GET BACK!” shouted Atlas. “MOVE YOUR ASSES!”

  Aurora whistled for us to run and we did, staggering over a nearby hill of refuse, sliding down the other side.

  We could hear the cries of the remaining guards in the background as they gave chase.

  We zigzagged between additional outcroppings of debris, Aurora leading the way forward.

  Glancing back, I could see the constructs, their numbers swelling, chasing us like thousand-pound linebackers. The machines rushed at us from all quadrants, uttering cries that sounded like knives rubbing together.

  Lyric tossed her remaining Chernips explosives, buying us some time as I spun to see that we’d come to an end.

  We were standing at the edge of what looked like an ocean of lava.

  “What’s the good word?!” I shouted.

  Aurora looked back, the muscles along her jawline clenching.

  “We’ve got an obstacle in front of us.”

  “No fucking shit,” said Splinter. “When were you gonna tell us about this?!”

  “I didn’t know!” she answered. “The map the Polymath gave me ended on the outside of the Keep!”

  I stepped between them, trying to defuse the situation.

  “Guys, it’s a little late to be arguing.” Everyone grumbled and traded nasty looks, and I smiled at them. “Who’s up for a chorus of Kumbaya? C’mon, you know you want to.”

  Splinter was not amused. He cursed under his breath, and our collective eyes ranged down to the liquid which was an orange and reddish color, bubbling, wisps of steam rising up from it. I squinted, my eyes burning. The area reeked of torched trash.

  “Can we swim across it?” asked Lyric.

  Kaptain Khaos grabbed a piece of metal and dipped it into the liquid. The metal melted almost instantly.

  “Fuck me sideways,” said Splinter. “That’s a goddamn lake of fire.”

  “Let’s go around it then,” said Liberty.

  “Not enough time,” muttered Aurora. “Besides, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

  “So what then?” I asked, turning to see the small army of constructs approaching.

  Aurora pointed to the lake of fire. “We go across it.”

  I looked up to see that there were tiny islands of debris scattered over the entirety of the lake.

  Close enough to potentially jump onto to.

  I read Aurora’s look as she surveyed the path ahead. She nodded, her face a mask of solemn purpose.

  It was the only way.

  We’d have to go across.

  Damn!

  “I’ll go first,” she said, crabbing back and then setting off on a running start.

  Her boots kissed the edge of the lake, and she shot forward and landed on an “island” of debris maybe seven feet away. She tested the island’s weight and it held so she signaled for the rest of us.

  “It holds! Let’s go!”

  We followed, leapfrogging across the lake of lava.

  Liberty, who was just ahead of me, stared back and pointed. “We’ve got company!”

  I turned to see several of the constructs leap forward at us. Hand up, I repulsed the machines with balls of plasma, knocking them back into the lava where they sank out of sight.

  The other constructs remained just beyond the lake of lava, pacing, searching for any

  avenues in which to pursue us. Several of the more enterprising machines hurtled onto their own islands, but were either too large or clumsy and fell off into the lava, vanishing from sight.

  We moved methodically from island to island, Aurora and Atlas out front, me following after Lyric.

  “Thank gods,” Lyric said. “That could’ve been disastrous.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m glad we’re not scrunched up in the middle of a lake of flesh-dissolving lava or anything. Oh, wait…”

  She flashed a smile, and we hurried across the fiery lake.

  Ten minutes later, we exited the lake of lava and clambered up a winding metal staircase that led to the still-intact upper floor of the Keep.

  We flashed down corridors and under forgotten pipelines and conduits, running across a hall and down a stairwell.

  Aurora suddenly stopped and thrust up a hand.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” Aurora said softly.

  “What’s the good?” Liberty asked.

  “I can sense it. We’re close to the Light Breaker. Maybe five hundred paces away.”

  Lyric blinked. “And the bad?”

  “I’ve got a feeling we’re being watched.”

  “From where?” I asked.

  “All over,” she whispered.

  We crept forward, weapons raised, ready for anything.

  The hallway spooled to a tremendous open space, an entire floor with a raised dais on the other end near a staircase that appeared to lead down to the first floor.

  “Where are they?” Splinter asked, fingering the trigger on his Pez Dispenser. “Where are the bastards?”

  Nobody responded, we just branched out, with Lyric bringing up the rear.

  I was about to tell her to hurry when I heard something.

  A popping sound.

  Coming from the very edge of the room, the location where the floor met one of the walls.

  I closed my eyes.

  There it was again.

  The same popping sound.

  It was more distinct this time, however. Less a pop than the kind of groaning sound a ship might make while listing in the water.

  “You hear that?” I asked.

  Lyric shook her head.

  The note sounded again.

  “I heard that,” Liberty said.

  Liberty held up a hand, and that’s when it happened.

  The floor lurched.

  Splinter pointed to the other side of the room. “Check that—”

  Before he could finish his thought, the floor fell away beneath us.

  38

  We rode the wreckage of the floor straight down
, collapsing in a heap in a great, blinding cloud of dust and debris. The air was thick with dust-flurries that fluttered down, obscuring visibility.

  Splinter rolled over, white as a ghost because of all the dust in the air. “Who wants to go again?” he said with a weary smile.

  I searched the granular light and spotted Aurora.

  She was standing in front of a structure within a structure. A stark and majestic containment device, an old school chamber, maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet, constructed from ribbed metal. There was a circular door on the front of the chamber made of thick glass and on the other side of the glass was a fathomless blackness.

  A hush fell over us.

  Nobody uttered another word.

  Nobody needed to.

  We could all feel it.

  An energy emanating from the chamber.

  We moved silently toward Aurora and with every inch we progressed, the quality of the air seemed to change until, eight feet from the chamber, it seemed to roil.

  I knew at that moment that we were in the presence of the Light Breaker.

  “We’re here,” Aurora whispered.

  I looked over her shoulder to see a pinpoint of light inside the chamber, like a flashlight being filtered through a keyhole. What looked like smoke was swirling around inside the chamber and for a moment, I caught sight of what looked like a swarm of fireflies.

  “The Light Breaker is purportedly contained within an electromagnetic trap that confines the antimatter within a magnetic field,” Aurora said.

  “Translate,” I said.

  “Have you ever heard of a fail-safe, Quincy?”

  “Is that the old boy band?”

  She shook her head. “It’s a concept in engineering design. It’s a design feature of a system or an object that prevents or mitigates the unsafe consequences of the system’s or object’s failure.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not what we have here,” she said.

  “What do we have here?”

  “The opposite of that.”

  My face fell. “That sounds bad. That sounds very, very bad.”

  “Once we break through the outer chamber, we will have a minute, maybe two before the electromagnetic trap shatters, releasing the antimatter. This was done intentionally to dissuade anyone from breaking in.”

  “Sounds like the universe’s greatest booby-trap,” Splinter said.

  “You shatter all of the glass and the galaxy shatters with it,” Kaptain Khaos added.

  “Are you saying we’re fucked here?” I asked.

  A ghost of a smile curled up Aurora’s lips. “We would be if we didn’t have you. You have the ability to create your own electromagnetic field, Quincy. You’re the only one who can contain the antimatter and compress it into the trap bottle.”

  “What happens if I mess things up?” I asked.

  “Oh, not much,” Atlas said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Just … the end of Creation.”

  I gulped and looked over at Splinter, who arched his eyebrows and grinned. “No pressure or anything.”

  Aurora motioned for Atlas to assist, and the two of them pried the circular door from the front of the chamber.

  A buzzing sound, like the world’s largest beehive, echoed from the other side of the opening, what I assumed was some kind of timer.

  “Any advice?” I asked, my hands shaking. “I’ve never captured antimatter before.”

  “What does your instinct say to do?” Atlas asked.

  “Turn around and run out of here.”

  I offered a smile to Atlas and Aurora that wasn’t returned. “Create a magnetic field, break the trap, and capture what comes out,” she whispered. “You’ve got two minutes, maybe less.”

  Easier said than done.

  I traded one final look at the others. Kaptain Khaos held up a balled first. “It was nice knowing you, Night Moves.”

  “That’s Night Fire.”

  Sliding on the heels of my boots, I crouched and stuck my head through the opening in the chamber. I was greeted by a small vibrative burst of air that waved my hair, along with the odor of copper and stagnant water.

  I waited for my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness and then I saw the object at the center of the chamber.

  It looked like an old-fashioned hourglass set on its side, held in place by two metal halos.

  The hourglass was five feet long and four feet wide, silver on the ends, but translucent in the middle.

  A faint beam, a spiral of golden light, radiated from the center, rotating counter-clockwise inside the hourglass, circling what looked like a small dark cloud. The cloud was two feet by two feet and resembled what you might see if you dropped a bottle of ink in a bathtub.

  The cloud’s tiny black tendrils pulsed like the oral arms on a jellyfish, snapping out, then withdrawing into the center mass.

  I could tell that whatever lay at the center of the cloud was being contained by the spiral of golden light.

  “Bring forth your magnetic field and touch the glass,” Aurora whispered from over my shoulder. “You’re running out of time.”

  Sweat roped my forehead, stinging my eyes. That’s why they wear the eye masks, I thought to myself. It’s not only for the cool heads-up display but for situations just like this. To block the sweat from getting in their eyes.

  I smiled, engineering some much-needed courage.

  Focusing, I closed my eyes.

  Pins and needles were what I felt for several seconds, and then a surge of power began down at the soles of my feet and continued up my spine toward my outer extremities.

  I felt different.

  As if, instead of reflecting a power that was already there, I was the one creating the energy.

  “You’re doing it, Quincy,” Aurora whispered.

  Blue fire appeared at my fingertips, enveloping my hands.

  I pinched my fingers, grabbing the ends of the blue fire, pulling them back like a sheet, expanding the energy’s mass.

  Then I eased my hands down, intent on covering the hourglass.

  As soon the energy touched the hourglass it exploded in my face.

  Shards of translucent material flew past my cheeks in super slow-motion, followed by its contents.

  The inky black cloud rocketed toward me like a gaseous freight-train and then—

  It stopped.

  In mid-air.

  Captured in the middle of my magnetic field.

  Holy shit, I’d done it!

  I’d done the fucking impossible!

  I’d trapped the antimatter.

  “Bring it out, Quincy,” Aurora said. “Slowly.”

  I held my hands out, but something had changed.

  The antimatter, whatever had been contained within it was powerful, nearly pushing my arms away. The protons were like a living thing that wanted desperately to escape from my magnetic field.

  “Don’t let it touch the edges of the chamber,” she said.

  “I know, I know,” I said, tasting the pearls of sweat that were dripping down my face. “Do that and we all go boom,” I muttered to myself.

  Slowly I dropped down into a zone and blocked out all extraneous sound.

  I was able to pull the magnetic field back through the chamber as Aurora unthreaded the end of the trap bottle.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “You have to put the antimatter inside of the bottle.”

  “How the fuck do I do that?”

  The color drained from her face. “I was hoping you’d be able to figure that out.”

  I cursed, my arms growing fatigued from the tension caused by the antimatter. I had to think of something fast!

  Gritting my teeth, I harnessed the pain, the anger, and every last ounce of strength. Screaming, I pushed the magnetic field together, compressing it to an area twelve inches in circumference.

  Grunting, I maneuvered the field up and Aurora brought the bottle down. Then, in one swift and sudden
movement, I slotted the field inside the bottle as Aurora capped it shut.

  I fell back on the floor, utterly spent, but raising my hands in victory.

  We’d done it.

  We’d ventured across the fucking Empty Quarter and done what nobody else had ever done.

  We’d captured the Light Breaker!

  Splinter and the others cheered. Kaptain Khaos lifted me to my feet, bear-hugging me, slapping me on the back.

  My eyes found Aurora and she was cradling the trap bottle like a baby. Even she smiled, the first real smile I’d seen from her in a long time.

  There was a moment there in which anything seemed possible. I had come to a distant world, kicked some ass, met some ladies (including Liberty and Lyric, who were eye-fucking me btw), and found a way to save the galaxy, and do the impossible.

  I wasn’t only on top of the world, I was on top of the fucking universe!

  And then, wouldn’t you know it, it happened.

  That bell around Aurora’s waist? It began chiming.

  Sound leeched from the room.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I said.

  The bell chimed again, this time louder.

  We all knew what that meant.

  The bastards had done it.

  The Morningstars had tracked us down.

  39

  “Why can’t they let me have my moment,” I said. “Just five minutes. That’s all I wanted. Five minutes to savor the win.”

  “It ain’t a win unless we get out of here with that thing in one piece,” Splinter said, pointing to the trap bottle.

  “How far off are the Morningstars?”

  “Impossible to tell,” Aurora said.

  “Let’s go!” Atlas shouted.

  “Back the way we came in?” I asked.

  Liberty and Lyric shook their heads. “We’re finding a new way out.”

  Atlas pointed to the other side of the room. There was a thick door that looked like it was sealed shut. Atlas grunted and threw a punch that dented the door. He punched it again and again, and finally it buckled.

  Splinter and Kaptain Khaos grabbed the edge of the door and tugged it free to reveal a rear corridor.

  Aurora and Atlas led the way as we proceeded down the corridor that ended at an archway in the side of the canyon wall.