by Ryan Tang
He signed without even reading, then handed the page back.
Sarah stepped back. She flicked the pen against her wrist.
Flick.
Flick.
Flick.
After Zach counted out ten beats, she spoke again.
"Jump up and down on one leg, first with your left, then with your right."
What?
It took Zach a moment to understand what she was saying, and then longer to process it.
Was this some sort of test?
"Pull out your front teeth."
What was she saying?
"Sorry?"
Sarah winced.
She pointed at the crowd behind her.
"Did you consider them a threat?"
Of course he did. There were hundreds of them! They'd torn down a door with their bare hands!
"So your perception matters too..."
There was a slight edge of sadness in her voice, but then she shrugged.
She pointed at him with a finely manicured finger.
"Kill!"
There was a horrifying clatter of footsteps - thousands of feet hitting the floor all at once, running as fast as they could.
Zach had no time to respond.
A hard foot kicked him between the legs. Zach screamed. It felt like his balls had been kicked back into his body.
But even that pain only lasted a moment before it was replaced by something else. A hand whirled him around and smashed him face-first onto the floor.
There was a tremendous crack.
His head pounded, and his vision blurred as blood flew everywhere. A faint voice in the back of his mind told him that his nose was broken.
Another hand grabbed him and flung him against the wall. His back slammed hard against a shelf. He felt a brief tingling and then nothing at all. He tried to turn but couldn't.
For the briefest of moments, they stared down at him.
The faces he knew and the faces he didn't. Paul and Gail, Susan and Louise, the looks of distant concentration were gone. Inhuman intensity was etched on their faces, all of it directed straight towards him.
Duncan stepped forward, his mind gone forever from his soulless body.
It was like a robot was standing in front of him.
His son's best friend pounced forwards and landed hard on top of him, knocking the wind clear out of his chest. Zach let out a gasp as he stared at the dead face.
A thumb jammed towards Zach's face.
He felt a jolting flare of pain and then a dizzyingly dullness. Half of his vision abruptly vanished.
Zach thought about Jared and let out a haymaker.
He could still fight.
Duncan viciously jammed his elbow. The pain was sharp and instant. Zach's strength vanished at once.
His fist barely even tapped the boy's face.
Gail crept past Duncan's body, slithering underneath his elbow like a snake. She wrapped both hands tightly around his neck. Her nails dug into his flesh, ten painful jolts all under his chin. Someone's boot whirled towards the half of his head that could still see.
Jared. Oh, Jared. Oh, my son.
CHAPTER 24: THE GIRL FROM THE CHEAP ARCADE, PART 2
Stock giggled, a high-pitched and shrieky sound that echoed freakishly in her cockpit. His every sentence was a gleeful exclamation.
"No chance! No chance! I'm god! You should have begged for mercy! You shouldn't have had an attitude!"
He abruptly went from a giggle to a roar.
"Die! Die! Time to die!"
A monstrous fist hurtled towards her, and Alex instinctively jerked back in disgust and confusion.
The fist whirled closer and closer, but time always slowed down when she was inside the simulator. In less than a second, she observed every detail.
The fist was a horror.
Countless fingers had sprouted out of the Eternium hand, wriggling so violently Alex initially thought they were animals. Each finger had hundreds, if not thousands of joints. The thick hair wiggled back and forth. The crackled and yellowed nails oozed puss.
Her battle-mind flooded through her body, more potent than it'd even been. The heat of her heart and the heat of the Eternium shards at her feet burned and mixed in her mind.
A warm sheen of sweat erupted across her body all at once.
Too close.
The fist was too close for her to block it with her sword.
She did the only thing she could. The mosaic blue arms jerked up and crossed right in front of her cockpit.
The fist landed with a terrible clackety crunch.
Blood flew all over her screen, so copious that the simulator couldn't display it all. The liquid fizzed and dissolved into pixilated patches of fuzzy red.
She saw a spongy mass of broken fingers writhing horribly in the background. The countless fingers were broken and torn, jutting out at all sorts of awkward and painful angles.
Her pod jerked so badly that she would have banged her head against the ceiling if she hadn't thrown her hands up to catch herself. The seat restraints cut painfully into her shoulders. Her stomach swooped not down, but forward, as if it would burst out of her belly. Alex winced and coughed.
Her machine's systems flashed red before thankfully settling back to yellow. The force of the blow continued reverberating long after it ended. Her pod trembled from side to side.
"I bet that hurt! That hurt, didn't it? You should've just given up! You shouldn't have shown an attitude! I'm god!"
The spongy mess on her screen was so disgusting that she couldn't look away. She felt the feeling drain for her fingers and toes as she stared. Stock's fist looked like mashed hamburger – mashed hamburger with a mess of bones and nails sticking out of it.
He raised the broken fist and pointed it towards her. The dead and writhing flesh sloughed off his hand. The fingers went from peach to red and then to gray before rotting away completely. Neat little piles of decaying meat lay on the ground. For a brief moment, only bones remained. Then they too dissolved into dust.
The fist reformed before her eyes.
Dozens of tiny flesh-colored grafts sprouted out of each Eternium finger. Massive thumbs shot out from both corners of his wrist. Bony joints crept out of his palm.
What the hell was happening?
Were they still in the simulator?
This was like something out of a horror game.
The fist swung again, but this time Alex was ready.
She didn't know what kind of cheat Stock was using, but this was a battle between Paragons, and the rules were simple.
She had to avoid getting hit while destroying any enemy that flew against her.
The controls sang in her hands. The fist whistled to her left. Instead of the usual heat that accompanied a narrowly avoided attack, she felt a blast of frigid air.
The fist collided with the Pirate Hat Rock, and once again, she heard the noise of hundreds of fingers snapping at the same time. The rock was dented and cracked all over, but the fist was ruined entirely.
"Stop showing an attitude! It will be worse if you show an attitude! You won't find a job anywhere on Plenty! No! On none of the colonies! You'll starve! You'll starve! I'll kill you! I'll make sure you'll starve, and then I'll kill you! I'm god!"
The flesh rotted off and then returned.
This time fists formed in both hands.
Alex raised her rifle and fired. The pair of half-triggered shots evaporated the fingers at once, but it was no good.
Stock's left hand swung in. The fingers reformed mid-punch.
Alex jerked a little to the right and then fell back a step. The freezing fist flew by her. She twisted back and spun to get a better angle with her missile launchers. She thought she had him right where she wanted him, but before she could fire, he was swinging again.
The fist was ridiculously fast.
Enormous muscles - red and raw without even a hint of skin – suddenly bulged out of his monstrous machine's shoulders and
forearms.
She didn't even have time to respond.
The devastating punch broke through her guard, accompanied by an even more powerful follow-through.
The pod rattled her back and forth. This time, she was too slow to throw her hands into the air. Alex felt a sharp spike of pain as she finally slammed head-first into the roof. The dazed pilot dropped her hands from the controls.
Stock cackled.
The beatdown continued.
It was a fight just to stay in her chair. The restraints sliced into her sides.
"Just give up! Just give up! This is what you get for your attitude! I am a god!"
As the endless fists pounded her loyal machine, the fingers snapped and broke, snapped and broke, only to wilt and return again and again. A repulsive storm of blood, bones, and nails whirled around her. There were so many effects the pod couldn't show them all at once. The screen froze and even sparked as her punishment went on and on.
Alex reached out for the controls, only to be yanked back.
The simulator pod shook and shook.
It spiraled in its stand, spinning up and down over and over. Alex was sent bouncing wildly against her chair.
The seatbelt cut so hard into her shoulders that they started to bleed.
Her shirt was suddenly wet and sticky.
She sputtered and coughed.
Waves of nausea roared violently through her body, compounded by the swooping feeling of blood rushing in and out of her head.
"Die! Die! Who do you think you are! Die! You'll be sorry now! You'll be sorry you went against god!"
Fist after fist rained down upon her, and she couldn't even make it to her controls to block. The lights on her machine flashed and flashed, first yellow, then orange, then red. Soon they began fading to black.
But Alex kept her courage.
She stared at Stock's monstrous cyborg. It was no true Paragon.
She saw past it, imagining the Spire and the books that lined its walls.
She thought of the mysteriously bloodstained pods and the book that she'd read.
No matter what the simulator was projecting, they were inside the Spire, and its tall walls would always protect her.
She was fighting inside her home.
She was fighting for her home.
She couldn't just lose to this jackass inside her home.
She reached out. She pushed past the savage rattling. She dove for the controls like a diver entering a pool, like a fish jumping desperately back into the water.
Fire danced on the cheap plastic knobs beneath her fingers.
She gripped tightly, putting all her strength into her hands and fingers.
"Admit you've lost! Admit you've lost! Admit you've lost! Give up! Give up!"
And then, in between the endless blows, Alex saw her chance.
She fired all her missiles at once, even the ones still inside their silos.
The close-ranged explosion destroyed her flight pack and buried her in the ground.
Her hidden pistol exploded as well.
Her entire screen was filled with blood and red fire.
Her machine was buried in the ground, making it impossible to escape, but she did what she needed to be done. Both of Stock's fists were caught in the fiery explosion. Every single one of the fingers burned to bits. They immediately began to regrow, but for just a moment, Stock was undefended.
She clasped both hands on her sword and swung upwards, a winding full strength slash directed straight for the cockpit.
Stock only laughed.
Nails sprouted all over his chest.
Disgusting yellow pus spurted all over her screen.
A messy gashed zig-zagged across the front of Stock's Eternium cockpit, but it just wasn't enough.
A new layer of disgusting nails immediately regrew over the weak point. The tightly packed scale-like armor was the most repulsive thing Alex had ever seen.
"Who do you think you are? You thought you could catch god by surprise?"
There was a loud crack as he snapped off her arms.
Then he picked up her broken cockpit and started shaking her violently up and down. Alex was sent hurtling towards the roof as the pod emulated the torment. She let go of the controls and ducked for cover, holding both hands protectively over her pounding head.
He rattled her up and down, up and down.
The pod shook uncontrollably.
"This is what happens when someone shows me an attitude! I make things very hard for them! Oh yes, I do!"
His voice grew higher and shriller.
"How do you feel? Does it hurt? Are you sad? Well, too bad! Winners can do whatever they want!"
Could this be it?
Were they going to lose the Spire?
Was she going to spend the rest of her life working for Stock?
She thought of how his eyes bulged when he said "forever." Alex shuddered. He would try to make that happen.
But there was nothing she could do.
"No mercy! No mercy! I'm a merciless god!"
"You should have just given up! You should have just gone to your knees! I'm going to make things so much harder when you're my thrall!"
The librarian struck out in sheer desperation.
Her machine could barely move, but her loyal friend still tried.
Her Paragon's remains bravely - but futilely - moved forward.
There was a single dull and useless clang.
Stock sneered.
"Why are you even trying! Just give up! Just give up! Every time you try is a hundred more punishments!"
Then all of a sudden, his shout turned into a cry of panic.
"Wait! Wait! No! No! What are you doing? What did you...Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! No! Cheater! You cheat god!"
The director let out a high-pitched shriek that abruptly terminated.
"God! God! God! No! No -"
Stock's creature-machine dissipated into powder, molding and crumbling to pieces just like the destroyed fingers did.
On the screen, her Paragon climbed on top of the stubs that remained of its arms. The crescent moon shaped arc was battered and torn, damaged so severely that her machine couldn't even prop itself up on it. Her Paragon was in worse shape than she'd ever seen it - dented, scratched, and torn to bits, completely disarmed without a weapon to its name. The beautiful blue color extinguished by countless red and black bloodstains. One eye was completely torn out. The faithful machine didn't have a single functioning limb to speak of.
Stock wailed and screamed.
"She cheated! I was just about to win! Oh my god! Let me go! Let me go! What is this! Let me go!"
Her blue Paragon raised a mangled and battered fist into the air.
Victory!
____
The screaming outside grew louder, and now it seemed like it was coming from the Scholars too.
What was happening?
How had she won?
She stood up to leave but found that she couldn't.
The controls had melted entirely into her hands. The twin plastic joysticks came up with her as she stood. The cheap plastic was all lumpy and distended, congealed around her hands like a glove.
More and more of the controls came out in her hand as she stretched her hands back. The Eternium coating from outside had melted into the plastic, twinkling brightly in the strands between the molten white.
The Eternium dripping from the roof was mosaic blue, the same as the pattern on her machine, the book-corridors when she touched them, and the cube beneath her feet.
She moved her right arm, which was decorated from top to bottom with animals from Old Earth's sea, and poked at the Eternium strands. There was a slight singing noise. The Eternium was soft, warm, and gentle.
She tugged at the controls again to try and shake her hands free, but that only made them come out of the pod entirely, leaving behind gooey blue strands with the consistency of jelly. Wires and levers went out as well, keeping their shap
e for only a moment before melting in the heat of the Eternium coating.
The strands hung in the air for a moment before falling, then clinging tightly on her arms.
The metal kissed her skin then immediately gravitated towards her drawings.
She saw her twin-horned narwhal rendered back at her in an ever-shifting blue. The color twisted endlessly before her very eyes. She would catch a particular shade only for it to dart away later again. Here she saw the blue of sapphires fading away into the light color of Earth's sky. There she saw the blue of the ocean before it dove and vanished away into precisely the same shade of her favorite pen. A streaking slash of sky blue zagged from the top of her shark's hind fin before morphing brightly into the comforting glow of neon blue lights.
Alex pushed the door again.
The screaming outside grew louder and louder.
The pod shook but did not open. There was a sudden pitter-patter that she recognized at once as the sound of rain, something she had only ever heard in movies before.
The Eternium around the roof of her pod was melting and dripping through the cheap plastic ceiling.
Infused with the sound of Eternium, it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard in her life.
A loose puddle of blue formed at her feet, a swirling pond of blue in every shade and tone. The cube dissolved and joined it. The puddle became a lake.
A periwinkle strand of Eternium rain landed on her thumb, then slid off and hit the ground. Soon the molten Eternium was almost up to her ankles. Cobalt stars danced her feet before their color transformed yet again. For the first time in her life, Alex saw the color of the sun striking a lake. It was so much prettier than what it looked like in the pictures.
The Eternium continued dripping down over her, covering her body like a robe. It fell and tangled into her hair, forming together into long and warm strands.
Alex reached down, grabbed a fistful of the molten metal, and swung at the door as hard as she could, putting the full weight of her body behind the blow.
The plastic door shattered into pieces. Her fist was a swirling nexus of blue. When she rubbed her hands together, the Eternium sang, and the shades shifted, but the metal still stubbornly refused to leave her palms.
Alex gaped at the scene outside.
"It means the Spire loves you."
____
Stock's pod lay in a broken and shattered heap.
