Metal Angels - Part One: (A Supernatural Thriller Serial)

by D K Girl

  ‘He’s warm and soft, Blake. I know you probably don’t know it, but that’s how humans feel. What kind of fucking shit are you doing down here, anyway? Human experimentation is so not cool.’

  It had been long enough since she’d spent any reasonable time with Kira that she’d forgotten how much her sister’s sarcasm affected her. Like nails on chalkboard. ‘I’ve told you, it is not human.’

  Kira snapped her flesh fingers. ‘Pretty robot, nailed it the first time. And, I have to say, I would nail this. He is fine. B, you’ve outdone yourself. I totally get why you wanted to show this off. So cute, seeing you all proud and stuff. Don’t you think, Eron?’

  She beamed at smile at the alien, but Eron had eyes only for Azrael.

  ‘Technician, the gallu appears to be active. Is that wise?’ Eron drew in closer but, Blake noted, kept distance between himself and the prone carapace.

  ‘He’s contained. There’s no need for concern.’ Blake’s stomach made an unpleasant gurgling sound, as though resoundingly disagreeing. ‘And you are here. Added security, in the highly unlikely event we might need it.’

  Spoken with confidence she didn’t truly feel. She hadn’t slept since the Meld, her mind churning over and over what she’d witnessed. A mind she was beginning to doubt. Blake’s gaze darted to Azrael’s fingertips. There was some movement beginning there as well. Sculpted, slender fingers. Genuine keratin made up the fingernails. But they would never grow. The humanness of Azrael was a mirage. But it was what lay at the core that she wanted so badly to see again. Wanted her sister to witness. Kira was the most human person Blake knew. And she called things completely as she saw them. If Blake doubted her own mind, she did not doubt Kira’s.

  Azrael’s movements grew more pronounced.

  ‘Step back, Kira,’ Blake said. The alien metal, Telteriun, was dense, and the carapaces were easily half a tonne in weight. Eron was keeping too great a distance to shield her if anything untoward happened. Blake cursed her decision not to cuff Azrael’s ankles. These kind of oversights were growing more pronounced.

  Kira actually did as she was told and moved a few steps back, while Eron edged to the foot of the bench. Azrael’s mouth opened. Then closed again, hard, with an audible crack of teeth. Blake frowned at the thought of what that pressure might do to the ceramic teeth installed in his jaw. His right leg jerked, bending slightly at the knee. His arms stiffened straight, and his fingers splayed, as though a mild seizure were making its way through his limbs. But his eyes did not open.

  ‘Come on,’ Blake breathed. ‘Let us see you.’

  Before last night, when Tamas had stepped into those dark waters out in the chamber, Blake had been certain of herself and her purpose. This was all just tech, incredibly advanced and stupefying perhaps, but artificial nonetheless. Ultimately understandable.

  Azrael opened his eyes. A vibrant mix of green and rusty brown, just as she had made them. But they were still, fixed on one point. Not really seeing.

  ‘And the boy has pretty eyes, too.’ Kira’s voice wavered. ‘B, is your little friend supposed to be doing this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was. Just technically not yet. Not without the captain and the full contingent of Syranians present. Blake took Azrael’s chin between her fingers, moving his head side to side, trying to get the eyes to focus. She did not realise that Kira had stepped up to the table until Eron cautioned her.

  ‘I believe that is close enough, Kira. Please keep your distance,’ he said.

  ‘You keep yours,’ Kira sniffed.

  Azrael wrenched his left arm free of the restraint, snapping the cuff as though it were made of candy, and grabbed Kira’s jacket. She made a strangled sound as he wrenched her forward.

  ‘Fuck me!’ Kira cried, falling across Azrael’s chest, face buried in his shoulder.

  Eron dove forward, grabbing Kira’s waist. ‘Blake, immobilise the gallu!’ he shouted.

  But she didn’t need any instruction. Blake raced back to the control panel, her hip catching the corner of the bench and the impact making her wince.

  ‘Christ almighty, Blake. Do something.’ Kira struggled against the arm pressing her down, managing to lift her head, which put her almost cheek to cheek with Azrael, who had, so far, thankfully not utilised his unbound legs. ‘Let me go, robot. Lemme go. This is fucking rude –’

  Kira fell silent. Blake’s head jerked up, her heart thumping a mad beat against her chest. For a terrible second, she thought Kira had been silenced.

  She had, but not in the way Blake feared.

  Kira held up her metal hand to ward back Eron, whose face was creased with angry concern. Azrael still held her, but the embrace was no longer oppressive, allowing Kira to edge back enough so that she leaned over him, her face just above his. A sound came from Azrael’s mouth. A strangled push of air that might have been a groan. His gaze zigzagged through the air around Kira’s face. Beginning to focus. Blake’s fingers rested on the control panel. One press and she would render the carapace immovable. But she hesitated.

  ‘Hey, buddy. Wanna let me go?’ Kira’s voice dipped low in the silent room. Gentle. Intimate. Blake glanced at the keys beneath her fingers, oddly uncomfortable.

  A louder, more urgent groan escaped Azrael, and in an instant the quiet moment was shattered. He jerked his body, hips lifting and the waistband of his pants slipping down low over his pelvis. He pushed Kira away, and his strength saw her catapult across the room. She let the world know what she thought of Blake’s creation as she went, crashing into the far wall.

  ‘Kira!’ Blake cried.

  But Azrael wasn’t done. He swung his legs off the table, throwing his full body weight against the last remaining cuff. It might as well have been made of tinfoil.

  In just a few seconds chaos had taken over the room.

  ‘The inhibitors!’ Eron threw himself against Azrael, forcing him back down to the table.

  ‘Kira?’ Blake couldn’t see her sister over the struggling pair, but there was no answer. Her body shook, her legs barely able to hold her as her fingers flew over the keypad. Christ, what had she done? Familiar warning signals blasted her. Inhibitor levels were too high, but she wanted them higher. They needed to be higher. She looked up. Eron had Azrael face down against the stainless-steel tabletop, bending Azrael’s free arm up behind his back like a highway cop making an arrest. Azrael lifted his head, strands of his dark hair across his face.

  Forest-green eyes met hers. Actually zeroed in on her, with no hint of the blinded panic of earlier. Blake’s breath caught in her throat. She scanned his eyes, searching for a hint of what lay inside the carapace. Azrael stared at her until the inhibitors made it impossible. His body slumped against the table. Eron waited a few seconds before releasing him. The Syranian’s topknot had come loose in the fray, rendering his silver-white hair uncharacteristically messy around his face. His breathing quickened by the effort it took to restrain Azrael.

  The electronic beeps from the machine made Blake’s ears ring. Her fingers shook even harder than they had earlier, and her feet refused to allow her to move to where she could see her sister. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force back the images that flickered. The blood, the grey hue of Kira’s face as they’d rushed her into the medical ward. The flashbacks had gotten so much worse since the Waters. At times she heard her father’s voice. So clear she expected to see him standing over her. Hallucinations. Nothing more. But they were growing so strong that she’d found herself answering questions no one had asked her. Called out to people who were not there.

  ‘Holy crapping Jesus, Blake. What was that?’

  Blake’s eyes flew open. Eron was helping Kira to her feet.

  ‘Are you all right, Kira?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good.’

  But the Syranian seemed unconvinced. He brushed back her hair, and his hand cupped her cheek. A hint of their intimacy evident in the way he pressed his body towards her, placing a barrier between her and t
hings that might harm her. Blake looked away. Had harmed her. If ever there was a reason to suspect one’s own mental instability, then surely the moment Blake had made the decision to bring Kira down here, was it.

  Blake turned her gaze to Azrael. Now still. Lying as Eron had left him, on his side on the table. The two marks between Azrael’s shoulder blades, ten-centimetre incisions that radiated at diagonal angles from his spine, were further evidence that Blake’s state of mind was not as it should be. What lay beneath the marks were fanciful additions, showpieces that served no real purpose except to give Blake opportunity to act like some overindulged toy-maker.

  ‘Blake?’ Kira stood right beside her now, and the proximity, as it always did, sent flutters of unease through Blake. ‘Stop shitting me. This dude is human, isn’t he? B, look at me.’

  But Blake didn’t wish to. Not because of what she’d see on Kira’s face, but because of what her sister might see on hers.

  ‘He was so fucking scared, Blake. I mean, did you see his eyes? Shit-scared. If he’s not human, then why would you program a robot to act so damn freaked out?’

  She hadn’t. It was that level of code enhancement Blake expected to be working on after Tamas and the Syranians were done at the First Meld. She’d believed it would take weeks of work to get the reactions and reaction times right. Enable Azrael to act human. Blake folded her arms and pushed unsteady hands against a far-too-prenounced ribcage, considering her answer.

  Eron had not followed Kira. He stood alone on the opposite side of the room. ‘Kira, what you have witnessed here is not –’

  ‘Fear is a human emotion,’ Blake interjected. ‘A powerful one, and he needs to pass for human.’

  There was actually a layer of truth to the lie. As per Tamas’s instructions, the carapaces had to be convincingly human. They had to breathe at rates matching physical output, cry real tears, blush, shiver. Tremble.

  ‘You’re telling me he’s just a robot?’ Kira demanded.

  Eron shifted but stayed silent, and Blake finally looked at her sister. She held Kira’s gaze.

  ‘Yes. It’s just a robot.’

  Tamas - 7

  Tamas had sat in on each daily training session for a week now, watching the Syranians hone their command of the mea stones. Nari ensured he had an adequate seat each time, but his discomfort had deepened into something beyond physical. Tamas uncrossed his legs, shaking a foot that tingled with pins and needles.

  ‘Do you wish to leave, sir?’ Nari stood nearby, arms behind her back, shoulders locked back.

  He shook his head. ‘No, not yet.’

  The guard nodded, opening her mouth to speak, just as another agonised screech erupted from the pit at the centre of the room. Tamas jumped, and gritted his teeth at his inability to act nonplussed. It was hardly the first time he’d heard Azrael cry out in pain, but today’s session appeared particularly brutal. Captain Nex pushed his god-soldiers with a fervour Tamas didn’t recognise from the past few days. Everyone was getting restless, impatient to move on. So far as Nex was concerned, the Syranians had mastered control of their mea stones. Each day he watched Tamas more intently, searching for any sign that Ereshkigal deemed them ready to handle what would come next. Who would come next. The Four, the most formidable of all the gallu in her realm.

  Tamas approached the railing that ran the perimeter of the training area, a wide space several feet below: one entranceway in, one entranceway out. An unfinished elevator shaft originally, accessed via level ten, widened and deepened to accommodate Captain Nex’s requirements. Apparently, he required something akin to an ancient Roman fighting pit. Leaning over the rail, Tamas fixed his eyes on the group below. Azrael kneeling, surrounded by the Syranians. So much beauty amidst such cruelty. Not just Blake’s ridiculously sculpture-perfect design for Azrael, but the Syranians themselves, moving with the grace of deadly dancers. Their curious mix of muscle and refinement, solid frames encasing delicate features, was certainly mesmerising, alluring he supposed, when he had the strength and freedom to think about it.

  ‘Parator, again.’ Captain Nex strode around the space like a flippant matador. ‘You hesitate too long. Strike hard. Always. You are master.’

  The Syranian soldier, the youngest in the group, saluted his leader, curling his hand into a fist and pressing the side of his upturned palm against his chest. The mark of respect always reminded Tamas of someone driving a dagger into their own heart.

  ‘Yes, Captain.’ Parator’s voice echoed off the concrete walls. ‘The gallu is tiring, I believe.’

  The aliens’ voices were as wistful as their features, their native tongue a weird mix of the roughness of a language like Russian and a softer twang like Danish. Difficult to get a human tongue around, but with Cym and Gren’s assistance, Tamas had managed. One benefit to the aliens’ lack of irises – stark-white eyeballs with a bare smudge of colour beneath – was that Tamas could imagine himself speaking to blind people. If he deluded himself into thinking he was not being scrutinised visually, the anxiety stayed buried.

  ‘It is you who are tiring, Parator. And if you commanded one of the Four right now, and not this pathetic creature, then you would have already lost control. You would have failed your Lord Lahar. Now, you will continue until there is no strength remaining, in either you or the gallu.’ Nex’s ever-present annoyance deepened his pitch. ‘Continue until that mea stone burns your very flesh.’

  Parator glanced down at the sand-coloured stone embedded in his forearm, as if he expected to see the skin already glowing with embers. His eyes lifted towards Bel and Gren, but his fellow soldiers offered only cool, detached stares.

  ‘Seder!’ the captain roared. ‘Commence attack.’

  Seder raised a weapon, a sword for all intents and purposes, with three peaks running the length of the blade. His movement shifted his gleaming silver hair, gathered in a ponytail against his back, its tip sweeping against the base of his spine. Of all the aliens, Seder was the least likeable. Vain and sullen. Treating his precious hair better than he ever did Tamas.

  Seder thrust the weapon at Azrael, and the gallu’s natural instinct to defend itself was, yet again, used against it. Azrael pushed to his feet, letting loose with another of his strangled, animalistic cries, and launched at Seder. The god-soldier pirouetted out of reach, and Parator stepped forward. Directly into the path of the raging, flailing gallu.

  The hollow-cheeked Syranian didn’t so much as flinch as a tonne of Telteriun metal hurtled at him. He lifted his left arm every so slightly, and Azrael jerked as though he’d hit a wall. Tamas cringed at the ear-shattering sound that flew from the embattled gallu. He quickly cleared his expression. If any of the Syranians happened to glance up, they must see a Messenger who was steady, focused. One who was taking in every inch of the scene so that the goddess had a front-row seat when he took his memories to the shrine for her viewing.

  Parator took a step towards Azrael, who was clawing at the air in front of him as though trying to shred the molecules themselves. The gallu did not shift from his position. He could not. Parator used the stone adeptly, exercising utter control over the hapless Azrael. Blake had been incessant with her questions about the workings of the ancient stones, but had been unhappy with Tamas’s explanation. Surgically embedded into each Syranian before they had left their homeworld, the mea stones enhanced telepathic and telekinetic ability. They were relics, like the Tier Waters, from a distant past when the Syranian universe contained multiple gods. With further pieces worked into the structure of each carapace as Blake had constructed them, the pieces of stone – innocuous as rubble – became powerful remote-control units, enabling the Syranians to exercise utter control over the metal, and in turn, the beings within.

  Seder danced forward and sliced the sword across the gallu’s bare chest. This time there was impact, the tip of the blade making a great slice in the faux flesh. Tamas shuddered. Despite knowing that the skin was artificial, and the flowing blood man-made, the sight was no
less disconcerting. Added to that was the knowledge that Azrael was being stripped of his ability to defend himself. Parator, through sheer, brutal will, forced the gallu’s arms wide, dragged him to his knees, and arched his back at an angle that looked fit to crack any calcium-based spine.

  Parator was bullying Azrael into submission, overpowering a creature whose natural strength was ten times Parator’s own. Treating him little better than a rag doll he’d grown tired of. Tamas crossed his arms, stifling his empathy for the enraged creature and digging his fingernails through the thin fabric of his faded blue shirt.

  ‘I’ve seen enough today.’ Tamas strode past Nari, who fell into line alongside. They made quick progress out of the training area. He could not close the door fast enough on the scene behind him. Once in the elevator, Nari paused with her hand over the buttons.

  ‘Where to, sir?’

  Tamas took a deep breath, finally loosening his fingers and letting his arms fall to his sides. ‘Orientation Room. I’ll do the memory transfer now.’ Get it over with, he stopped himself from saying.

  ‘Very well,’ Nari said, entering the code for the floor. ‘I’ll remain with you.’

  It wasn’t a question; and Tamas had no intention of protesting. He raised his hand to his mouth, covering his smile with a cough.

  ‘Are you unwell?’ Nari’s face gave nothing away, dark eyes steely, mouth set in a hard line, as if she were daring him to be anything but perfect. But at least she’d asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  That would change in about half an hour. The transfer at the shrine made him bone tired; five days straight of it would be a record. One he wasn’t keen to set, but the goddess had better things to do than be present at day after day of Syranian training. The goddess had attended the very first of these training sessions, but for the past week had been occupied with her own affairs. She was in the midst of a divine war, after all. What was going on here, on Earth, was a footnote in her battle plans. Tamas understood that. The goddess was in his head, and all her irritation and impatience and distraction with it. As self-important as Captain Nex believed himself and his little god Lahar to be, truth was his whole mission was the proverbial Hail Mary. A long shot in an epic, long-running battle taking place worlds away.